Dick Dawkins In the House

I don't know whether any of you have been following the madness surrounding the wacko Expelled movie. If not, you're probably better off. Still, I thought this video was downright hilarious.

Penn was robbed.

That is all.

Vote for Penn!

Vote for Penn! Vote for Penn! Vote for Penn!

Why I won't vote for John McCain

A selection of some of the reasons why I won't vote for John McCain, in no particular order:

1. That loan:

At issue is the fine print in the loan agreement between McCain and Fidelity Bank & Trust. McCain secured the loan using his list of contributors, his promise to use that list to raise money to pay off the loan and by taking out a life insurance policy.

But the agreement also said that if McCain were to withdraw from the public financing system before the end of 2007 and then were to lose the New Hampshire primary by more than 10 percentage points, he would have had to reapply to the FEC for public matching funds and provide the bank additional collateral for the loan.

Let me see if I get this straight: John McCain promised his lenders that he'd stay in the race so he could qualify for federal matching funds, which he could then use to pay off his loan, even if it became clear that he couldn't win the nomination. And this was before he surprised the nation with a string of primary wins.

So John McCain, desperate to revitalize his ailing campaign, was willing to pledge to use your taxes and mine to pay off his debts. This from a man who championed campaign finance reform? This from the man who supposedly saw the error of his ways after being caught up in the Keating Five scandal?

2. Waterboarding flip-flop:

So much for Sen. John McCain being a man of principle who stood up to the Bush Administration and fellow Republicans. Turns out, he too is just another politician hungry for votes.

. . . McCain voted against a Senate bill that would ban waterboarding and all forms of physical interrogation methods used by the CIA against terror suspects. The Senate passed the bill 51 to 45.

But McCain was singing a different tune only a few months ago.

I don't even know what to say about this. That a man who was a prisoner of war, who was tortured by his captors, can change his stance on waterboarding after years of calling it torture and saying it shouldn't be allowed -- what does this say about him? That he's willing to say anything to woo the base and win an election?

3. Karl Rove: Aside from the fact that Karl Rove is pure evil, I'm stunned that John McCain would be willing to work with the man who used vicious lies to destroy his bid for the presidency in the 2000 primaries.

4. John Hagee: John McCain actively sought and received an endorsement from the man who said this: "Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews."

And this: "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

And this: "As millions of people anticipate the release of the latest Harry Potter book and film, we're reminded once again of Satan's ongoing attempt to deceive and destroy. The whole purpose of the Potter books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult."

Uh, what??

I have plenty of other problems with John McCain, but those are a few of the biggies. Friends, John McCain is George W. Bush 2.0, and we all know where the last seven years of that kind of leadership has landed us. More of the same? No, thanks.

National Grammar Day

Happy National Grammar Day!

UPDATE: Thanks to Jill for this link: Is It Wrong to Correct Someone's Grammar?

My Leap Day Resolution

I will stop drinking soda.

I've been trying to break the habit, or at least get it under control, for some time. But lately, I've been off the wagon in a big way, chugging glass after glass of Dr Pepper or Cherry Coke all day long. At last, I think I've managed to convince myself that it's time to stop, with a little help from this article:

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr Pepper and other dark-colored soft drinks contain phosphoric acid, which has been linked to brittle bones and osteoporosis. Phosphoric acid leeches the calcium from bones.

I knew that already, of course. We all know that. But the recent revelation that as few as four sodas a week can cause serious damage was eye-opening, to say the least. It's not uncommon for me to consume four a day, let alone four a week.

So it's time to stop. Who's with me?

Eclipsing

I engaged in a little amateur astrophotography tonight -- stress the amateur. Hope you saw the totally awesome eclipse yourself!

Twinspeak

You hear talk about twins developing their own language, communicating with each other in a secret code that the rest of us can't break. I was skeptical about twinspeak, until now.

As babies, the girls would often babble at each other with tones and cadences that closely mimicked conversation, as if they were practicing the sounds they heard adults make. I don't believe any actual information was communicated during these sessions -- they just liked the way it sounded.

These days, however, the girls really do seem to have, if not an entire language, a collection of words that are a complete mystery to me. Comboling, poimbing, wending -- the words sound like they're straight out of a Dr. Seuss book, or perhaps as if the girls picked them up from Jabberwocky. (And why do they all sounds like gerunds? What's up with that?)

I most often hear these words when someone is complaining or upset. I think most of Evie and Sophie's twinspeak vocabulary is meant to describe things that annoy them. (Ah, so like their mother.)

An example: A few mornings ago, during breakfast, Evie dripped some syrup on her pajamas and cried out, "Look, Mommy! My shirt! It's very wending and toymbing!"

Before I could formulate a response, Sophie piped up with, "That's not wending. Look at my wending!" while pointing to her own syrup-covered jammies.

As near as I can tell, wending can be defined thusly:

wending \ˈwend-iŋ\ (adj): splattered with syrup; an unpleasant, syrupy state

Evie has an entire lexicon to describe uncomfortable socks. (Much to her dismay and mine, I'm never quite able to figure out exactly what's wrong with the offending socks.) Sophie's invented words generally focus on injustices perpetrated by her sister, and are often sobbed out through tears of sorrow and rage. While the girls don't always use the same words in the same ways, they don't seem to have any trouble understanding each other.

Is this twinspeak? Or just a couple of preschoolers making up words to fill in the gaps in their vocabulary? Whatever it is, it's entertaining and inventive, and I hope to record as much as possible for posterity. I don't think these twinspeak words will last long.

Canterbury Dreams

After a bit of sleuthing on one of those ancestry sites, my mom discovered that we are direct descendants of Geoffrey Chaucer. To be specific, he was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. (That's 17 greats, FYI.)

So here's what I'm saying: Public domain be damned! I should be getting royalties for every copy of The Canterbury Tales out there. Pay up, people!

Happy Valentine's Day