A Timely Un-demise.

Last week I had a bout with an infection of the ear. For those of you with medical degrees, it was diagnosed as cellulitis inside the ear. Suffice it to say my ear swelled up to twice it’s normal size, I couldn’t close my jaw all the way, and I hurt a lot. So much so I had trouble sleeping even with Vicodin. Finally an abcess formed and was drained and tried to form again. It was not good times in Bradley Manor.

On balance though I could imagine much worse. My wife has gone through much worse with her knee. I just couldn’t help thinking as I started to feel better… If I had lived 100 years ago, or even living today in an “third world” nation… I would likely be dead from this. The infection would go unchecked without the mighty Keflex anti-biotic at my side, it would spread through my head until it would finally eat my brain. Or something like that. Anyway, my point is I often take this sort of thing for granted and I wanted to give a shout out to science and thank it for saving my life this week.

My doctor was pretty cool too, though he seemed suprised about the pus.

An Illegal War

From the “Humans? Here-in-Narnia? That’s-a-valuable-bit-of-information, don’t-you-think?” Department
Here is the End from the Beginning:
The Talking points you need to take from this are:

• The War in Narnia was an illegal and unjust war
• Our Current situation in Narnia is at best a Quagmire
• Several key members of the Pevensie Oligarchy need to step-down or resign

It has been 140 days since the United States was informed of this immoral war that occured in the Kingdom of Narnia.

Snow Day

[I know, another lame play on the name “snow”]

So, Tony Snow got the gig as the White House Press Secretary. Ok. Big Deal. Here’s what bothered me:

“He’s not afraid to express his own opinions,” Bush said. “For those of you who’ve read his columns and listened to his radio show, he sometimes has disagreed with me. I asked him about those comments, and he said, ‘You should have heard what I said about the other guy,’ ” Bush said.

This is there stated or alluded to several things:

1) Bush said this in his usual joking style. But Bush is not funny. I appreciate his attempts to lighten the mood of an otherwise boring, catty press conference, but to be funny you have to be able to say things that a president just can’t say. Stop it Bush. You just sound silly.

2) It’s not part of this quote, but I can’t believe some democrats are criticizing Bush’s selection of press secretary as too much of a “right wing stooge”. What else would you expect? The job is to speak for the president when the president is too busy or there is nothing important enough to have him do the press conference himself. He’s not there to think. He’s there to parrot talking points and restate what the president has already said or written. Stooge or no, what difference does it make? But if I were the president I would hire a stooge.

3) Are conservatives really concerned that Snow may have been critical of the president in the past? Come on. First look at his track record. Second, do they expect him to have agreed with the president on EVERY SINGLE thing he’s ever done or said? Can the conservatives in congress say that?

4) Does Bush expect us to believe that in the middle of a White House press conference, Snow may stand up and say “you know the president really screwed the pooch on this one”? Snow is not going to express his own opinions anymore. He is the stunt double for the president. He doesn’t get to improvise his scenes.

Tax Freedom Day – 2006

From the “Death-and What-was-the-second-thing?” Department
Well, its been 10 days since the deadline to file Federal Income Taxes, I hope that the stress is far behind you. But now that we have cooler heads, its time for Two-Headed-Monster to enflame your anger again.

I first learned of the idea of Tax Fredom Day back in 1994, after the Republicans won back the Congress, and the Contract for America. It was back in the day when Republicans were the renegades and were the opposition party to the establishment. (Today, I feel that Republicans have become the Establishment, but that is a Different Post.) Anyways, the idea of “Tax Freedom Day” was something that appealed to me as a young working American, disgruntled with the way things were. It was an illustration on how much money, I personally was wasting with the Federal Government.

For those of you who came in late, Tax Freedom Day is an analogy to describe the ammount of money the average United Statesian pays in taxes each year, in relation to their Yearly Wage. If you paid all your taxes, up front, as you earned your yearly wage, Tax Freedom Day would be the first day of the year you would keep your money.

In its simplest definition, its the first day of the year in which you Stop working for the Government, and begin to earn money for yourself.

Today, my friends, is Tax Freedom Day.

Foresight Or Hindsight?

First read this article. Or skim it… you probably already know the story.

Now read this one.

Now my question: What’s the difference between these two women? Who is a hero and who is a snitch? If you were in the position where you had information about or were involved in what you thought were illegal or immoral acts that your employer was carrying out, what would you do?