Journal Entries
Justice
Posted Mar 26, 2004
Been musing on the subject. A couple of things are happening/have happened recently.
Thing 1: Bishop O'Brien gets sentenced today and there is a lot of fuss over whether the Bishop will get jail time.
For those who don't know, Bishop Thomas O'Brien hit a man with his car and then left the scene of the accident. He didn't stop, check to see what had made a bowling-ball sized dent in his windscreen, call the police or even report the accident.
The guy he his had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, so it's not like the Bishop aimed for him - he wandered out into the path of the oncoming car.
People in Arizona are worried about two things: Will the Bish get a harsher sentence because he's a high profile defendant? Will the Bish get jail because he admitted covering up the child molesting activities of certain Priests, transferring them to other parishes, knowing that they were paedophiles and not reporting it? Is this more about revenge and less about justice?
Thing 2: Yesterday, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano spared the life of a mountain lion. The mountain lion had attacked a four year old child. Many people believe that the lion should have been hunted down and killed.
Here's the story: A family had taken their two kids out to the wilderness on a camping trip. While Ma and Pa and Sprog 1 were inside the tent, the 4 year old girl was left to run around outside and 'chase bugs'. The mountain lion clearly thought she was food.
However, on hearing his daughter's screams Dad rushed out of the tent and beat the mountain lion off. The kid survived.
Should the lion have been killed?
Thing 3: Tom Hanks. "The Lady Killers'. Wasn't that an Alec Guiness pic, originally, with Peter Sellers in an early supporting role? And wasn't it marvellous? Odd, then, that no mention has been made of this classic British black&white comedy.
Poor Alec. Forever known as Obi Wan Kenobi.
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Latest reply: Mar 26, 2004
SOmething very odd just happened
Posted Mar 23, 2004
Hootoo Googled itself.
Sounds obscene when you put it like that.
Here's the thing. I'm over on Gosho's Journal reading the Marxist humor thread (Oi Gosho! If all proper 
is theft, is all theft proper ? and if so, does that mean a hardline commie can get a brew any time and anywhere?).
I clicked on Reply and, much to my amazement, ended up in Google.
The URL for the reply space copied itself, somehow, into the Google toolbar which I have tacked onto IE.
I have no idea how this happened.
I have no idea why.
I wonder if it will happen again?
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Latest reply: Mar 23, 2004
Holy War?
Posted Mar 19, 2004
I was listening to the radio last night - K-FYI, to be exact - and therein they were repeating a section of an interview between Sean Hannerty (think I called him John in another post) who is a republican talking head and author of the book 'Deliver Us from Evil' and a senior christian type.
Senior Christian type, some kinda southern minister blokey, was of the opinion that the situation in the middle east is a holy war.
I will paraphrase what he said, because it horrified me.
"There are camps in the United States where Muslims are being taught to hate and kill Christians and Jews. There are camps in middle east countries, funded by the Saudis, where this is going on. It is not about poor folks in the ghetto. One of the men who flew the aircraft into the WTC was a trained architect. He was not poor or disadvantaged. This is also not a war against Islam, because the vast majority of Muslims are true to their faith and people of peace, but there is a minority who want a Muslim dictatorship in place in the USA, they hate Americans, they hate freedom and they will not stop fighting until they get it."
Another commentator said that the American military had been told to prepare for a 'twenty year effort'.
This scares the bejeesus out of me for several reasons.
1: Muslims are already insecure enough. It is unlikely that fundamental Christian groups (hi Justin!) need much reason to hate Islam, but this kind of thing is fuel for the fire.
2: The USA is becoming paranoid. One commentator said 'If we have a problem we need to solve it, to face up to it, instead of pretending it won't happen to us like the Clinton administration did'.
3: The USA has more guns and bombs than anyone else. Heck, the population is better armed than some small nations. They aren't shy about using them either.
4: What happens if this blows up into a full-on Jyhad? Are we going to see the deportation of muslims from the USA as 'security risks'? Are there going to be Internment Camps?
There's more, but I suppose what really bothers me right now is the possibility, no matter how remote, that this perversion of Islam (in the self same way that White Supremacist groups who claim to be Christian are perverting Christianity) is going to drag the civilised world screaming into a war in the middle east. It's a major fear. Given that the US has a love for putting troops into nations which won't cooperate, how long before they have a less than quiet word with the Saudis? Sheesh...this situation sucks.
I'm hoping that it's all Republican scaremongering. I'm hoping that all this is being hyped to keep George in the White House by making people afraid of having a 'weak' or Liberal President.
Whereas, of course, what they really need is a President who understands foreign policy.
Did I say they?
I mean we.
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Latest reply: Mar 19, 2004
Puppies and Presidents
Posted Mar 15, 2004
We have a new addition to the family - a small puppy named 'Bear'. He's a black, white and brown bundle of teeth and curiosity at the moment. We have no idea what breed he is, though. We've been told he's got some Australian Shepherd and he's got the tenacity of a Jack Russell, which makes for an interesting combination.
Thus far, he chews things and sleeps in the laundry (which is a great excuse for not doing it).
He's called Bear because he looks like one - he doesn't have a tail (born without one as far as we can tell).
We're begining to see the shape of the 2004 Presidential race now, and John Kerry has been caught with a live microphone telling collegues that the Republicans are a bunch of crooks.
Not only has he refused to withdraw the comment, it appears he cannot back it up. The first rule of any good debate is when you make a comment like this you have to have evidence. Clearly Senator Kerry feels that George W's less than stellar performance at displaying evidence frees him from this burden. Senator Kerry is wrong. So far, he looks like an ill-prepared candidate in a year when the Democrats desperately need a good one.
It's an interesting time to be in America - I'm under no obligation to have a political opinion, because I'm not allowed to vote, so I can sit back and watch the race and debate the sides as I wish.
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Latest reply: Mar 15, 2004
Quite a lot of work, really
Posted Feb 25, 2004
Buying a house in the USA is very different to buying a house in England.
I tried that once. I remember the feeling of elation as I was able to put an offer in for what might have been an ideal home. I remember the joy of my IFA telling me all was well. I remember feeling completely and utterly gutted when I got turned down after keeping the sellers waiting for weeks and weeks, having been assured that all was well many times.
Well, it's not like that here. Here, people seem intent on helping you buy a house. It makes a nice change.
But in order to buy a new house, we have to sell the old one and that's going to take some work.
Mrs Gradient is one of those people who will, with boundless and childlike enthusiasm, take on any project. Even ones that seem daunting or impossible. I am the person who ends up doing the bits that require heavy lifting, being tall, brute strength or duct tape.
Two weekends ago, we washed the exterior of the house.
We hired a power washer to do it with. Fascinating device. It came with a petrol engine and a variety of nozzles, one of which compressed the stream of water to such an extent that I could have used it to sign my name in concrete. We were warned not to use that one. We didn't.
We proceeded to have fun blasting dirt and grime off the walls of the house for about an hour. Then we washed the car. Then the concrete. Then parts of the street outside. This we did on Valentine's Day. I believe my wife understand that part of a man's soul that cries out to play with power tools, even if I don't know what they are for.
The following day, we painted the house. We went around very carefully taping over all of the windows, and anything else we didn't want painting. The cat refused to stay still, as did the Gradientlings, so we locked them in the house. Why?
A power-sprayer! Spraying the house with paint took slightly over an hour, burned through five gallons of paint and was an unseemly amount of fun. At the end of the day, the house was a pale, fresh looking green. Then, with the more traditional rollers and brushes, we set about the trim with a much darker green. By the end of the weekend, we were done!
The weekend after that, we attacked some plumbing (along with one of the nicest professional plumbers I have ever met) and last weekend we replaced some doors and measured everything else.
Now...this is all something of a surprise to me. I loathe DIY (or 'home improvement' as it's known here) because it usually ends up in failure and humiliation. But not so! Not so. Not only have we met with success, and had fun doing it, but it would appear that while all this work is going on I seem to be learning things.
Things like:
- there really isn't anything that duct tape can't help with.
- sometimes, small children do not understand what is meant by 'we have turned the water off'
- cats hate the smell of wet paint
- when you aren't looking, screwdrivers run away and emigrate.
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Latest reply: Feb 25, 2004
Dark Side of the Goon
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