Thursday, June 02, 2005
Happy Birthdays!
To Kathy, Suman, Pejman, and Bill. Did I miss anyone?
Funny how they seem to cluster like this. The next blogger birthday cluster I know of is the middle of July.
Also coming up, my father’s birthday is Sunday. I think we’re going to offer to take him to breakfast or something, as he’ll be down from Vermont. Plus it’ll be especially fun to take Sadie out now that she eats primarily “people food.” My brother’s ex and daughter have birthdays on the 7th and 10th, and of course my grandniece was yesterday.
Why Not To Bag The Big Game
Before I even started reading this article giving 10 reasons not to kill Bush, I remarked to Deb, “if Bush were killed, Cheney would become President, he’d have to pick a VP, and let’s see them filibuster that nomination, then that VP would have a chance to make a name for himself and might actually be able to win in 2008.” (Which I don’t believe any likely Republican candidate can do as things stand.)
She was a bit puzzled in a revolted sort of way, having no idea what inspired me to mention a scenario involving Bush being killed, but amused.
Anyway, the author has a point, even if some of the listed items sound silly. If a moonbat were to try to make a name for herself, it could backfire.
Maybe there is such a thing as too much Star Wars.
Why the hell doesn’t he make the sequels instead, if he can’t quit messing with it?
Sigh.
No more amnio?
This is absolutely fascinating. The idea of being able to test for genetic problems without any risk to a healthy pregnancy is a terribly attractive one. The issues that get raised by genetic testing are very complex, however, and I can imagine that having it become common will lead to some very strange politics.
Via doulicia, who is wondering about the impact this could have on individual women and their pregnancies.
In keeping with the spirit of the prior post, let me say this:
Of course, we knew that already, especially after his recent sniping at Brooke Shields (who, by the way, fired right back. You go, girl! ).
Y’all know I’m not one much for any sort of bloggy pledge…
But this isn’t a pledge, it’s a declaration. Heh.
Seriously, I just couldn’t resist the temptation to declare that Accidental Verbosity is also an Asterisk-Free Zone.
Thanks, Paul!
Hey, at least Gray wanted to cripple the economy directly.
Arnie, on the other hand, wants to destroy it indirectly.
Can we quit calling him a Republican now? Pretty please?
Oh, right. In California, he’s a right-wing wacko.
But Are They Really Irrational?
Jay Tea is collecting your fears over at Wizbang.
What grabbed me about this is his fear of lumber trucks. Yes! I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else express it, but I have always hated them, even though I’ve never known of accidents involving them.
Luckily we don’t really have those around here. I merely saw enough of them up north at a formative age to be scared for life. They always look outrageously overloaded and top-heavy, so I expect the chains and side rails to snap and let the load go flying off.
Other fears? Heights and bridges, to some degree. I especially hate being on a bridge or elevated roadway that is vibrating like crazy from all the traffic sitting on it. Related to heights, I have a fairly irrational fear, or at least tendency for vertigo to set in, next to railings overlooking floors of a building below. For instance, looking down from the mezzanine floor to the lobby of the Park Plaza hotel in Boston. Or looking down from the second floor of my building, where my office is, to the lobby of the first floor. The hotel is worse, because the barrier is taller and solid at the office. Also in my doctor’s building, where a light well runs up the middle of all three floors. That one is bad because the barrier is transparent.
Related to that, I have a chronic fear that I will drop the baby over the side in one of these places. That could be called irrational, in that I can’t see how I would let myself get into a position to do so. I trip. She squirms out of my arms. Someone bumps into us. I don’t go near the edge of any of those precipices with the baby! The fear is palpable and, well, scary.
Toil and Trouble
Chan has written my post on the housing bubble so I don’t have to.
Seriously. The other day I saw this housing bubble post at Coyote Blog, which led me to this much-linked post by Will at Vodkapundit. I also checked his other links.
Plunging in, I searched Technorati and read a bunch of recent posts on the topic. Trouble was, by the time I was done with them and the things that took me away from them, hours later, I had lost my enthusiasm for writing a linky thinky speculation piece. Figured I’d go back to it.
Last night I played around with numbers. I figured out that I can afford a $114,000 mortgage, based on traditional standards, adjusted for debt and the fact I pay extra taxes due to self-employment. The payment sounded right and was lower than my rent. In fact, it was more like what I still think of as maximally acceptable rent. Using another online calculator, I let the thing determine size of mortgage based on income, again adjusted for the extra taxes, and various payments. That said I can afford $88,000 and the payment would be less than half my rent. No wonder the rent feels so high! And it’s not. It’s normal to low for the area and specs.
We pretty much have to hope for this to be a bubble, and for it to burst or deflate substantially without taking the whole economy with it. If it doesn’t, we’re priced out, unless I move into a six figure income.
I have to wonder… does all the bubble buzz, which was a whisper when I first started writing about the topic, actually help make a pop inevitable? Or does it help bring it down gently? Or does it have no impact at all?
Your Daily Sadie
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Spectrum of Waiting
How long do you mind waiting in your doctor’s office?
I think this idea of a spectrum of waiting is an interesting way to look at it.
Personally, I don’t mind waiting as long as I need to so long as once I get my turn, it’s unhurried. I know it has to be the hardest thing in the world to look like you aren’t hurried when you really are, but it goes such a long way. I may be one of those patients that you’re counting on making up time on, and hell, I’m more than happy to let you make up time on me if you can, since I’d be just as happy to be done and go on with my day, but it would be really nice if I could ask a question or two without feeling like I’m imposing, if you know what I mean. I’ll try to be quick if you’ll try not to make me feel like I’m an inconvenience.
Deal?
Honestly, this makes me feel smart.
Bush said he did not have a favorite candidate for the Republican nomination to succeed his son, President Bush. Barbara Bush said she believed Senator and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the Democratic nominee in the 2008 presidential race. “I’m not going to vote for her, but I’m betting on her,” she said.
One seldom goes wrong trusting Barbara Bush (the Elder)’s political instincts.
Yep.
Mother nature’s a bitch.
Big landside in Laguna Beach, and Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest is liveblogging it, since he lives just a few hundred yards from the site.
Presented without comment.
I can’t even comment on this one, since I can’t quit giggling long enough to think of any lyrical references myself. So I’ll just have to leave it at a big hat tip for those who have.
Would he have been as famous if his name was Shallow Navel?
It looks like Dean pretty much wrote my Deep Throat post for me, which is awfully nice of him. 
I’d probably be just a bit stronger, in that I often wonder whether Woodward and Bernstein did more damage to the nation that Nixon ever did in that the press seems sometimes to think that they exist as an additional branch of government that’s there to boss the other three around. I’d give at least even odds that my take is a bit overwrought and you should stick with Dean’s more reasonable language. Their error is, after all, one of degree rather than kind, methinks.
Happy Birthday
Happy eighth birthday to Emily, the oldest of my three adorable grandnieces, who are all closer to Sadie’s age than most of her cousins. (Grandniece Julia is closest; just a couple months older.)
It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long!
Dating Antics
This has to be the funniest dating post ever. You’d almost think he’s a screenwriter, stand up comic, or that sort of thing…
This is why meeting another blogger is helpful, though I understand that eHarmony is superior, as online services go.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Your Daily Sadie
