Quick Hits

There is so much going on these days, and I've got job and a family to take care of, so I jsut plain ol' don't have time to vent or comment on everything that strikes my fancy. If you haven't noticed, I'm a little long winded on my posts, so until someone is willing to pay me for my stupid opinions, I'll have to be choosey....but there's a bunch of stuff I'd like to mention:

1. Tiger Woods and the US Open: This has to be one of the toughest S.O.B.s out there. To walk 91 holes (thats 6 or 7 miles per day for 5 days) on a torn ACL and two stress fractures is a huge feat. To do that, and win the US Open, is beyond my ability to come up with superlatives. Even with such a huge handicap he's still better than everyone else out there. I'm glad he's taking the time off to heal so we can keep watching him in the future. I just hope he doesn't get so comfy that he decidees to retire with his gagillions of dollars and beautiful family.
2. Gay Marriage in California: Good for them! I've never understood the aversion to this. If it's against religion, then that religion should be able to say "no, you can't marry in our church". But we're not talking about religion. This is about the government recognizing that people of the same sex can have fall in love and be legally tied together. This goes to giving the spouse certain rights over healthcare decisions, estate rights, etc. Not to mention, we heterosexual folks haven't done really well with the whole sanctity of marriage thing anyway. And I speak from experience.
3. Flooding in the Mid-West: You folks that are going through this are in my thoughts and I hope everything works out in the end and you can rebuild your lives. Please, do not expect the government to be wholley responsible for your well being. I haven't heard the cries about the government not doing enough, and for that I applaud you. I imagine it's more of a common-sense and self-reliant approach to life that seems to be prevalent in middle america.
4. Al Gore's Power: And by this I mean, the amount of power his big honkin Tennessee house is using. Looks like after spending a shload of money on greening up the house, he's increased his overall usage by 10%. In one month he consumes nearly twice the power that we regular shmoes use in a year. Doctor, heal thy self and quit telling me what to do.
5. The Politicization of Science and the effort to dismantle the first amendment: The opening paragraph to this story says it all "James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer." Uh, what? Since when was an opposing position to a scientific theory a bad thing? This guys is pretty self important as he celebrates the 20th anniversary of his speech. Feh.
6. Obama calls for oil crackdown? Looks like the heir apparent to the US throne is already preparing to jump in and fiddle around with free markets and capiltalism. Pay attention to this and expect more of it in the coming years. The answer, of course, is that we need to drill, drill, build some nuclear Plants, and then drill some more.
7. I'm halfway through a book by Neal Boortz called Somebody's Gotta Say It. Not only is Mr Boortz really funny he lays bare some of the countries biggest problems AND offers his ideas for fixing it. The best part is that Liberals think he's a Neo-Con and Conservatives think he's a bleeding heart liberal. When in reality he's a libertarian.