My baby has a new consenent. It is "D". Oh, it's very exciting because it means that she says, "dada". This as we all know, means that I won the time honored tradition of rooting for the baby to make sounds that indicate the parent of your gender. Moms are supposed to root for "mama" and fathers root for "dada".
This would be even more exciting if I weren't trying to get her to call me "Papa".
We went to a baby sign language class tonight. It was free and at the library. There we found out that babies are not born knowing how to do America Sign. It turns out that BOTH the baby and the parents need to learn to sign.
Oddly enough, that reminds me. My girl is shaping up to be a great wrestler. Hopefully by the time she is in high school girls will be common place because she has some moves right now.
When I'm changing her diaper she is a master at escaping. I start her on her back and before you know it she has flipped herself over, avoiding the pin.
mwz
216
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Sunday, March 06, 2005
My Baby
Just a little baby blogging. Francis can now say "Babababababa". She seems to enjoy saying it and I enjoy hearing consonants.
She also made a mad dash to one of our cats and managed to touch her before the cat ran away. By mad dash, I mean relatively quick crawl while the kitty was distracted.
The last time we played the drums together, Francis held both sticks the whole time and didn't try to chew on them. She hit the drum on her own several times and only hit my face a few times.
mwz
217
She also made a mad dash to one of our cats and managed to touch her before the cat ran away. By mad dash, I mean relatively quick crawl while the kitty was distracted.
The last time we played the drums together, Francis held both sticks the whole time and didn't try to chew on them. She hit the drum on her own several times and only hit my face a few times.
mwz
217
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Law of Unintended Consequences
Note: I tried to post this using email but it has been 12 hours since I sent it and it hasn't posted. So, I'm sorry if it double posts.
The Washington Monthly has a nice, little, well-rounded article about the "Cedar Revolution" (ie. Lebanon) and other middle East shifts and whether or not the Bush administration had anything to do with it. It is a nice piece but I only want to pick on a little piece because I have seen the same sentiment elsewhere.
"For starters, despite a fair amount of breast beating in the conservative blogosphere, the Bush administration itself didn't consider democratization a primary reason for the Iraq invasion."
The theory is that since the administration didn't 'call it', they shouldn't get credit for any involvement that they had in bringing democracy to the middle east. Now, I'm a big fan of the Law of Unintended Consequences (well not so much a fan but a believer). QandO was where I first had the Idea placed in my head. They like to bring it up.
The gist is that when you take some action (such as regulation), there are bound to be unintended consequences. Now if the those consequences are bad, everyone (including me) blames the action taker for messing things up. For instance, when it looked like the Iraqi invasion was going to bread more hate towards America (which it might still do, who knows), the Dems were quick to blame Bush.
But now that there are good, unforseen things coming out of it, I think you have to place the praise in the same place you would place the blame. This is government not pool. You don't have to call all the balls that will fall, you just do what you think is right and hope for the best.
On a completely different note, FOX News has taught me that all the important events that the rest of the world has to offer can be covered in 80 seconds.
mwz
217
The Washington Monthly has a nice, little, well-rounded article about the "Cedar Revolution" (ie. Lebanon) and other middle East shifts and whether or not the Bush administration had anything to do with it. It is a nice piece but I only want to pick on a little piece because I have seen the same sentiment elsewhere.
"For starters, despite a fair amount of breast beating in the conservative blogosphere, the Bush administration itself didn't consider democratization a primary reason for the Iraq invasion."
The theory is that since the administration didn't 'call it', they shouldn't get credit for any involvement that they had in bringing democracy to the middle east. Now, I'm a big fan of the Law of Unintended Consequences (well not so much a fan but a believer). QandO was where I first had the Idea placed in my head. They like to bring it up.
The gist is that when you take some action (such as regulation), there are bound to be unintended consequences. Now if the those consequences are bad, everyone (including me) blames the action taker for messing things up. For instance, when it looked like the Iraqi invasion was going to bread more hate towards America (which it might still do, who knows), the Dems were quick to blame Bush.
But now that there are good, unforseen things coming out of it, I think you have to place the praise in the same place you would place the blame. This is government not pool. You don't have to call all the balls that will fall, you just do what you think is right and hope for the best.
On a completely different note, FOX News has taught me that all the important events that the rest of the world has to offer can be covered in 80 seconds.
mwz
217
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
New Liberal Blog
Okay, it's not new but it is new to me. Well, that's not entirely true. I was directed to it about a month ago but couldn't find the RSS feed. Now, I've found it.
What is this new miracle blog? Okay, it's not a miracle blog but it is a liberal blog that is well written and civil and not completely about one topic. It is The Washington Monthly (aka Political Animal but I think that name is stupid). It's written by Kevin Drum who seems like a nice guy.
Anyway, I like it a lot, to the point that I look forward to reading it. I don't agree with what he thinks a lot of the time but he is at least interesting. I have given it about a week before adding it here because I didn't want to go through what I did with Talking Points Memo (not related to Bill O'reilly) where I liked it initially then got really bored by it.
On a side note, Right Wing Duck has started posting on IMAO, so I don't have to read his blog specifically anymore.
On another side note, I occationally look at the site meter results to see who is looking at the page and I saw one reference was from Yahoo. Apparently, if you search for "nudity in GTA", a post of mine is the top spot. I thought that was pretty interesting.
mwz
What is this new miracle blog? Okay, it's not a miracle blog but it is a liberal blog that is well written and civil and not completely about one topic. It is The Washington Monthly (aka Political Animal but I think that name is stupid). It's written by Kevin Drum who seems like a nice guy.
Anyway, I like it a lot, to the point that I look forward to reading it. I don't agree with what he thinks a lot of the time but he is at least interesting. I have given it about a week before adding it here because I didn't want to go through what I did with Talking Points Memo (not related to Bill O'reilly) where I liked it initially then got really bored by it.
On a side note, Right Wing Duck has started posting on IMAO, so I don't have to read his blog specifically anymore.
On another side note, I occationally look at the site meter results to see who is looking at the page and I saw one reference was from Yahoo. Apparently, if you search for "nudity in GTA", a post of mine is the top spot. I thought that was pretty interesting.
mwz
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Non-political
What are three foods that make better pretty much anything that you add them to? Butter, corn and hot dogs.
Frances (our baby) is so cool. She can stand up while holding onto tables or the couch and move along it. Not very far but enough for her to grab what ever it is that she wants.
I'm getting good at pulling things out of her mouth.
I finished all the missions in GTA-SA. I'm still playing. I don't know why though. A lot of the drive has left me, now that the missions are done. But it is still fun to run around and do things. I don't think I have exhausted the fun yet.
I stopped the diet/exercise thing for a little while and have gained some weight back. That sucks. I'm going to have to not do that again.
Now, if I could only combine the powers of butter, corn and hot dogs...
mwz
218
Frances (our baby) is so cool. She can stand up while holding onto tables or the couch and move along it. Not very far but enough for her to grab what ever it is that she wants.
I'm getting good at pulling things out of her mouth.
I finished all the missions in GTA-SA. I'm still playing. I don't know why though. A lot of the drive has left me, now that the missions are done. But it is still fun to run around and do things. I don't think I have exhausted the fun yet.
I stopped the diet/exercise thing for a little while and have gained some weight back. That sucks. I'm going to have to not do that again.
Now, if I could only combine the powers of butter, corn and hot dogs...
mwz
218
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Bunch of Things
So I haven't written in a while and some things have been gnawing at my mind to get out into print.
Eason Jordon:
He made some pretty terrible accusations that the military targets jounalists. No one really beleives this to be true but he has made similar claims several times. After a big hubbub, he resigned from CNN. Michelle Malkin has a nice round-up in case your interested (or just google Easongate). I don't care go into it but I have this to say:
It sucks that people lose their jobs over random little things that they say. What I think probably happened was that this guy was used to talking to his liberal leaning friends. When they say things like the military targets journalists, everyone just takes it as grim fact that the US military is evil. But then he slipped and said it in some moderately public forum and he really couldn't back it up.
I think a lot of people have had similar experiences. At least I have. That's 100% of my sample size. So this is my tale. I have listened to my share of fringe radio. I'm not talking about Rush or Air America. I'm talking about college radio stations that let community people host shows. I've listened to both far, far left and far, far right shows (although the radio program I occationally catch where I live now is far right). They're a lot of fun. Anyway, if you're not paying attention, it can be confusing which side they are because the fringe people have the same distrust for government and penchance for conspiracy theories. I like to say that when you go far enough left or far enough right they eventually meet.
So, one day I was having dinner with some co-workers. A co-workers child was there. We were talking politics and I made my far left equals far right type statement. And the kid questioned me on it. There was nothing mean spirited, he just really wanted to know what I meant. That flustered me though and I really couldn't explain myself. I had just said something that I thought was understood but I couldn't defend the thought when questioned.
I think that the Eason Jordon thing might be like that. And it sucks that he had to lose his job over it. Everyone knows CNN is left leaning and besides you can't expect the people working there to be politically neutral.
It sort of reminds me of what happened at the college that I went to. The facts may be slightly off but this is what I remember. There was a spree of annonymous, racist threats on some minorities. It was kinda scary thinking that there were people like that (violent and stupid) out around campus somewhere. When they caught the person, it turned out to be an african american woman who was trying to have an excuse to give to her family for leaving grad school. She wanted to say that she was scared rather than she was failing.
So that's the background. When she was caught, a senior administrator said something like she (the administrator) thought it was going to be a white male. Within a month she was forced to resign even though most people thought the same thing. She had had a pretty decent career ended just because of one little thing that she said.
I just think that it's harsh.
John Gannon / Jim Guckert:
This is the guy who used to be a gay prostitute who reported for a conservative paper and was able to get into the white house press room. Apparently, he asked easy questions for the administration spokespeople to answer. Instead of praising him for turning his life around, the liberal blogs have hounded him into quiting his job. (example from the only lib blog left that I read, another bit from a blog I don't read regularly).
No one had ever heard of this guy or the news org that he worked for but now his personal life and his past is being tossed about and he is out of a job. That sucks.
Powerline:
In a related bit, I want to talk about powerline. I read powerline and it is normaly a fine blog. But then I happened apon this post (warning, bad language) . The gist is that this guy sent powerline a polite message about the Gannon story and Hindrocket from powerline wrote him a barely coherent response with lots of swearing.
At first I didn't believe it. I just figured it was a hoax but I couldn't let go of it. So I broke one of my rules, the "Never interact with your entertainment" rule. (I am not a fan of crowd participation.) I had to email him and find out if it was true. Apparently, a lot of people did because he wrote this response, basically saying that he got a bunch of hate mail and he finally snapped, but at the wrong person.
I just find that inexcusable. I don't care how mad you are about the Dems taking your money and blaming you for whatever they can think of, you should never fall into swearing at them. Hate mail comes with the turf of having a popular blog (I think, I don't have any first hand knowledge of that though).
This whole thing has allowed them to say "These are not nice people." and have something to back that claim up with. The left can now feel self rightious for a time because one of ours slipped.
Inexcusable (but he shouldn't lose his job over it).
mwz
218
Update: Fixing some crazy html problems.
Eason Jordon:
He made some pretty terrible accusations that the military targets jounalists. No one really beleives this to be true but he has made similar claims several times. After a big hubbub, he resigned from CNN. Michelle Malkin has a nice round-up in case your interested (or just google Easongate). I don't care go into it but I have this to say:
It sucks that people lose their jobs over random little things that they say. What I think probably happened was that this guy was used to talking to his liberal leaning friends. When they say things like the military targets journalists, everyone just takes it as grim fact that the US military is evil. But then he slipped and said it in some moderately public forum and he really couldn't back it up.
I think a lot of people have had similar experiences. At least I have. That's 100% of my sample size. So this is my tale. I have listened to my share of fringe radio. I'm not talking about Rush or Air America. I'm talking about college radio stations that let community people host shows. I've listened to both far, far left and far, far right shows (although the radio program I occationally catch where I live now is far right). They're a lot of fun. Anyway, if you're not paying attention, it can be confusing which side they are because the fringe people have the same distrust for government and penchance for conspiracy theories. I like to say that when you go far enough left or far enough right they eventually meet.
So, one day I was having dinner with some co-workers. A co-workers child was there. We were talking politics and I made my far left equals far right type statement. And the kid questioned me on it. There was nothing mean spirited, he just really wanted to know what I meant. That flustered me though and I really couldn't explain myself. I had just said something that I thought was understood but I couldn't defend the thought when questioned.
I think that the Eason Jordon thing might be like that. And it sucks that he had to lose his job over it. Everyone knows CNN is left leaning and besides you can't expect the people working there to be politically neutral.
It sort of reminds me of what happened at the college that I went to. The facts may be slightly off but this is what I remember. There was a spree of annonymous, racist threats on some minorities. It was kinda scary thinking that there were people like that (violent and stupid) out around campus somewhere. When they caught the person, it turned out to be an african american woman who was trying to have an excuse to give to her family for leaving grad school. She wanted to say that she was scared rather than she was failing.
So that's the background. When she was caught, a senior administrator said something like she (the administrator) thought it was going to be a white male. Within a month she was forced to resign even though most people thought the same thing. She had had a pretty decent career ended just because of one little thing that she said.
I just think that it's harsh.
John Gannon / Jim Guckert:
This is the guy who used to be a gay prostitute who reported for a conservative paper and was able to get into the white house press room. Apparently, he asked easy questions for the administration spokespeople to answer. Instead of praising him for turning his life around, the liberal blogs have hounded him into quiting his job. (example from the only lib blog left that I read, another bit from a blog I don't read regularly).
No one had ever heard of this guy or the news org that he worked for but now his personal life and his past is being tossed about and he is out of a job. That sucks.
Powerline:
In a related bit, I want to talk about powerline. I read powerline and it is normaly a fine blog. But then I happened apon this post (warning, bad language) . The gist is that this guy sent powerline a polite message about the Gannon story and Hindrocket from powerline wrote him a barely coherent response with lots of swearing.
At first I didn't believe it. I just figured it was a hoax but I couldn't let go of it. So I broke one of my rules, the "Never interact with your entertainment" rule. (I am not a fan of crowd participation.) I had to email him and find out if it was true. Apparently, a lot of people did because he wrote this response, basically saying that he got a bunch of hate mail and he finally snapped, but at the wrong person.
I just find that inexcusable. I don't care how mad you are about the Dems taking your money and blaming you for whatever they can think of, you should never fall into swearing at them. Hate mail comes with the turf of having a popular blog (I think, I don't have any first hand knowledge of that though).
This whole thing has allowed them to say "These are not nice people." and have something to back that claim up with. The left can now feel self rightious for a time because one of ours slipped.
Inexcusable (but he shouldn't lose his job over it).
mwz
218
Update: Fixing some crazy html problems.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Dropping Some Blogs
Alright, I've just gotten very tired of hearing about Social Security. I'm dropping Talking Points Memo (not affiliated with Bill O'reilly). It's just a waste of time to hear all the minutia of the politics of SS. I can't take it anymore.
Also, I'm dropping Skor Grim. While it is still amusing, it's not nearly as funny as IMAO. I'm adding Powerline because they are pretty well thought out.
I am interested in finding a new liberal blogs. All I have left is Eschaton (Atrios). It's okay but you have to read through a lot of juvenile name calling to get to what they are trying to say. I'm getting better at that. The comments section is pathetic though. I'm kind of used to Slashdot where the comments are self moderating and people say interesting things (usually more interesting than the article itself). But with Eschaton, it's nearly incoherent.
Well, it's gotten late now. Good night.
mwz
Also, I'm dropping Skor Grim. While it is still amusing, it's not nearly as funny as IMAO. I'm adding Powerline because they are pretty well thought out.
I am interested in finding a new liberal blogs. All I have left is Eschaton (Atrios). It's okay but you have to read through a lot of juvenile name calling to get to what they are trying to say. I'm getting better at that. The comments section is pathetic though. I'm kind of used to Slashdot where the comments are self moderating and people say interesting things (usually more interesting than the article itself). But with Eschaton, it's nearly incoherent.
Well, it's gotten late now. Good night.
mwz
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