Please join me today in wishing my good friend James a happy birthday! James is 38 today, I think.
I met him in college approximately 20 years ago and I've been all the luckier for it ever since.
So head on over to Aces Full of Links and wish him a happy day! 
Gotta love them Republicans. The minimum wage (despite the cost of living) hasn't seen a single increase since 1997. Since 1997, senate salaries have been raised seven times. So when Senator Edward Kennedy put forth a proposal to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.25 per hour, what do you suppose happened?
The measure was defeated in the Senate–49 for, 51 against. In the for-column, 45 Democrats and 4 Republicans. In the against-column, 51 Republicans.
Bastards.
From Rich Senators Defeat Minimum-Wage Hike (WESH Channel 2 News):
…Statements by President George W. Bush since the Gulf Coast hurricane disasters indicate he has a new awareness of the plight of the poor in this country. Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans have made the more affluent realize the hardships suffered by poor families.
When asked about the Kennedy measure, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush “believes that we should look at having a reasonable increase in the minimum wage … But we need to make sure that, as we do that, that it is not a step that hurts small business or prices people out of the job market.”
Bush has not weighed in with his own proposal for a pay hike.
The Senate's action comes at a worrisome time when motorists are paying much more for gasoline and heating bills are expected to rise by 56 percent this winter, according to Kennedy.
As a result, families will have to tighten their belts to pay for the basic necessities.
“It is shameful that in America today, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, nearly a fifth of all children go to bed hungry at night because their parents, many of whom are working full time at the minimum wage, still can't make ends meet,” Kennedy said…
Let's hear it for those “activist judges” in Alaska who have ruled that the state must offer the same benefits to the partners of gay state employees that it does to the spouses of hetero state employees…
From Alaska court orders equality for gay couples (Advocate.com):
In a unanimous decision, the Alaska supreme court ruled on Friday that it is unconstitutional for the state to continue to deny equal benefits to the domestic partners of lesbian and gay state employees and retirees. The court wrote that the state's policy of denying lesbian and gay couples equal employee benefits violates the state constitution's equal protection guarantees…
…”We are so pleased that the Alaska supreme court has recognized that same-sex couples form families and make lasting commitments just like different-sex couples and that it's unfair to deny lesbian and gay state employees the compensation their straight colleagues receive,” said Michael W. Macleod-Ball, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, in the press release…
…The state had argued that denying gay employees domestic-partner benefits furthered the state's interest in promoting marriage. But on Friday the court firmly rejected that argument, stating that “denying benefits to the same-sex domestic partners who are absolutely ineligible to become spouses has no demonstrated relationship to the interest of promoting marriage.”…
No duh. It was never about promoting marriage in the first place.
I absolutely adore the logical knot the gay marriage ban has created there. If you deny them marriage, then you can't require they be married to get the benefits.
Emile Goguen, representative from Fitchburg, MA, being a Democrat, has received my vote in the past. Never again. Emile Goguen does not represent my values, or values I consider democratic ones. I never thought I'd be quoting Dick Cheney in a favorable light, but when he said (in reference to gay marriage) “Freedom means freedom for everyone not just some” he espoused an ideal that forms part of the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Why am I on about Emile Goguen? Witness…
From Emile Goguen Begins Campaign to Remove Gay Marriage (MassNews.com):
…I’m Rep Emile Goguen, Democrat, Fitchburg.
We can end gay marriage immediately. My Resolution will Remove the four unelected lawyers who voted to impose gay marriage. With them gone, gay marriage will be banished forever…
…Judge Marshall is blamed by most national Democrats for the loss of the Presidential election, but she remains in office. She and her three allies must be removed.
It would be tragic to fracture the state with a divisive vote in the legislature. Instead, let’s encourage Judge Marshall and friends to resign now. Then their million-dollar pensions will not be at risk. It’s time to begin the healing process. Help encourage those four judges to voluntarily leave…
How more disgusting can this possibly get? Let's not fracture the state, let's not be divisive, oh yeah, and fuck all you gay people. The 'news' site is a mishmash painfully biased right-wing shlock, but the words are Goguen's and have been appearing in radio ads for weeks now.
Mr. Goguen, you disgust me, and you betray the ideals of the Democratic party when you go up against freedom. You are on the wrong side sir. This is western Massachusetts, not west Texas… we're not all evangelicals out this way. Why don't you just switch parties now and get it over with? We'll be better off without you.
If anyone should resign it's you. The Democratic party doesn't need to be split right now. Thanks a bunch for starting one.
IMNSHO you cannot call yourself a Democrat and be against granting two consenting adults who are in love the right to marry. Shame on you sir. Shame on you for turning this into western mass versus Boston issue, shame on you for trying to turn this into election issue. Shame on me for not having a better understanding of who you are and what you represent when I was last in the voting booth.
This is one democrat who's vote you will never receive again. You want to make war on gay marriage? Not in my name!
I went to Home Depot the other day. I was trying to make a siphon to drain off the lake at the end of my driveway and I didn't want to use lung power to draw filthy water into the hose. I wanted a simple hand pump that I could use to draw water up into the hose until the hose was full, and then simply remove the pump and let it drain. Apparently they've never heard of hand pumps at Home Depot…
 Rollstone Lake Next year we'll have ducks! |
They kept offering me sump pumps and shop vacs despite the fact that I said I was trying to make a siphon. A siphon requires an artificial vacuum just long enough to fill the hose. Once this is done the action of the water draining out of the hose will be enough to create a self-maintaining vacuum that will draw water at the other end. All I wanted was a hand held suction bulb or crank powered pump to draw water into the hose.
The closest they could come was a pump adapter for a drill which might have worked but really wasn't what I wanted. I ended up buying 20 feet of vinyl tubing and tried priming the siphon by filling the tube at the sink (tricky business). But the siphon didn't work well and crapped out easily because the tubing was all coily and I couldn't get it to lay flat. I really need a short section of garden-hose-like tubing. Very flexible stuff that will mold to whatever surface I lay it down on.
I'll have to go back and get a different type of tubing and try again.
Speaking of Home Depot, they've got a little flooding issue of their own…
 Depot Pond No Swimming |
This huge puddle looked to be about 6 to 8 inches deep in its deepest spots. Everybody was driving around it instead of through because it would gush up into the engine compartment if you moved at anything other than a crawl. 
I found this today while tooling about the 'net. It's a list of common fallacious arguing tactics with explanations. Neat!
Ya I know, you've heard me bitch about this stuff before, and I realize a college degree is (sadly) not a requisite to work at D'Angelos, but the mind numbing stupidity of the service there drives me up the effing wall with alarming regularity. Witness my dinner tonight…
| HER: | D'Angelos Twin City, can I help you? |
| Okay, so far so good… | |
| ME: | Yes, I'd like to place a take out order? |
| HER: | Okay. |
| ME: | I'd like a medium steak tip. |
| HER: | Okay. |
| ME: | Can I get that without steak sauce? |
| I have to say that, because otherwise I'll get a sandwich positively swimming in steak sauce that drips all over everything. Real fun to eat in the car. I get this even if I make a point to say “Only a teensy little bit of steak sauce, please.” So I have to ask for it without steak sauce, which is okay, because they marinade the tips in steak sauce anyway. | |
| HER: | Umm, no. It's marinaded… |
| ME: | Erm. I get it without steak sauce all the time? |
| HER: | Can you hang on please? [in the background I hear her answering another phone... several seconds pass before she returns] Yes, you can get it without sauce. |
| ME: | Great. |
| HER: | Do you want cheese on it? |
| Who the hell puts cheese on a steak tip sub? | |
| ME: | No, no cheese, thanks. |
| HER: | Ok. Your name? |
| ME: | Chuck. |
| HER: | Okay see you in 15 minutes. |
Here's the sub I got:
 |
No. I'm not kidding. Typically, when I call D'Angelos and ask for a medium steak tip, here's what comes on it:
I get this stuff without having to ask for it. This is what you would call the “baseline” steak tip sub at D'Angelos. I don't need to tell the person taking the order that I want, for example, grilled onions, because that's in the baseline sandwich. If I don't want grilled onions I have to specifically request that they exclude them. One thing that I have never gotten is cheese, and nobody has ever asked me for it either. Why? Because cheese isn't a baseline ingredient for a steak tip sub.
Problems arise when the server is unaware of the baseline ingredients and leaves out something that the average potted plant would not, or worse yet, puts a non-baseline ingredient. Like, for example, the time I asked for a Chicken Teriyaki Stir-Fry and found when I got back home with it that it had melted provolone cheese on it.
Teriyaki sauce. And cheese.
Fucking Moron.
So anyway, today for dinner I'm eating a piece of bread with chunks of meat. I didn't get lettuce, grilled onions, or tomatoes because I didn't ask for them.
The thing I had trouble figuring out is why she gave me bread. I mean, I didn't ask for it. The only thing I've come up with is that if she didn't give me bread, what would I carry my meat home in?
Last night my dumb dog Tina discovered a bag of saltwater taffy that my daughter left on the coffee table. The mutt managed to get the bag open and downed one piece of taffy before she got caught. Guess what was waiting for me in her crate when I came downstairs this morning! 
The irony in all this? Just yesterday I was telling a friend that dogs won't crap where they sleep. 
South Newton High School is putting on a school play this year about the murder of Matthew Sheppard, the 21 year old University of Wyoming student who in 1998 was tied to a fence, beaten, and left to die because he was gay. Pretty edgy stuff, but it is high school, and I think it's appropriate that people at that age understand how utterly despicable intolerance and the acts comitted because of it are. Fortunately, intolerance plans to show up in person and make it that much clearer…
The Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS plans to come to Newton on Saturday with a dozen followers to form a pickett line and protest the play. If you're not aware of Fred Phelps, you probably should be. He's the neanderthal who coined the phrase “God hates fags.”
In 1998, Fred Phelps staged a protest at Matthew Sheppard's funeral, as if there is something wrong with a family mourning their dead son even though their dead son was gay. Clearly, Phelps and those who swim in the same sewer as he have no shame. What has Phelps got to say about the upcoming play at South Newton High?
From Kansas church plans to protest Newton school play on gay victim (boston.com):
…”It's a tacky bit of banal fag melodrama without any artistic or literary merit or redeeming value,” said Phelps in a telephone interview yesterday … “Its only purpose is to promote the homosexual lifestyle or at least sanitize it in the eyes of straight America.”
A press release from the church echoed Phelps's standard picket slogan “God hates fags,” stating, “God hates Newton South High and the school district.”…
I, as a former Catholic, am well aware of the teachings of Jesus that God's love is infinite, as is his forgiveness. The God that Phelps supposedly speaks for hates nobody. It is Mr. Phelps and his followers that hate homosexuals, not God.
I'm disgusted.
This is a cute story, a 12-year-old girl with the prophetic name Molly Fischer showed just what a fisher she is this year by winning the Martha's Vineyard striped bass fishing tournament with a 5 foot 1 inch, 49.2 pound bass she caught …
From Catch her if you can: Real men can't beat reel girl (Boston Herald):
…”I thought it was an alligator,” Molly Fischer said last night.
“I was scared of it when we brought it in the boat,” she added. “But it only took me 20 minutes to bring it in.”…
…Molly said she caught her trophy in Vineyard Sound just off Menemsha. She fought 10-foot waves and swirling waves while bringing in her catch.
As for all the celebrity catching on, she giggled and called it all “amazing.”
Check the article for a great picture of Molly holding her monster fish. Go Molly! 