Protect my marriage! Eliminate Daylight Savings Time

My boys have been insomniac freaks ever since the time change. Even with blackout lining on their bedroom curtains, they resist going to sleep while there's even a sliver of sunlight. It's ten 'til nine and both of them are still awake. Rocketboy's doing the "one last thing" bit from the top of the stairs, and Hurricanehead just asked to go play in the backyard.

Meanwhile, there's a half-gallon of a new Blue Bell flavor, chocolate-covered strawberries, taunting Hombre and me. Also taunting us is the fact that we have not had a single non-kid moment together since dawn, which now that I think about it is actually the norm.

I know there are worse problems to have, but we blog with the problems we have, not the ones we're thankful we don't have. And I realize the days are getting longer, but just about every parent I've asked has told me the time change makes their kids goofy and wakeful. So that, my fellow Americans, is what constitutes the real threat to our nation's marriages. Not gays, but the lack of quiet time, sex, and ice cream brought about by innocent children whose circadian rhythms have been shattered by random shifts in timekeeping. I think Congress is focused on the wrong issue.

Ken Lay's next incarnation

Are squirrels Republican corporati? Based on one afternoon of haphazard wildlife study at my window, the answer is yes. Witness this fatcat cramming himself into a window feeder designed for songbirds, as if the sight of all that sunflower seed in one place was just too much to resist.

Meanwhile, the little guy lost out.

The squirrel loaded up, not caring that I was twelve inches away on the other side of the glass documenting his moves. Dude, it's a bird feeder. A tiny bird feeder. With a tiny bird waiting nearby. What's your excuse for this shameful plunder and gluttony? How could you not know it's a bird feeder?

"It was not part of my consciousness at the time."

"I fix yer car. You live alone?"

Amanda and Jill have discussed this LA Times piece on women and home remodeling. I’m glad DIY stores are acknowledging women as customers, but it’s sad that women working on their homes is still considered newsworthy. One of Amanda’s commentors said some folks would probably be stunned to learn that some women work on their cars, too. I agree. One such stunnee used to be my downstairs neighbor.

I was living in my first college apartment by myself and loving it. I had what passed for a car, a most ancient Mercedes diesel sedan that needed constant, proactive work to keep it going. One afternoon I had the hood up while I scoured corroded crud from the battery terminals with a brush.

Apparently the sight of a skinny blonde doing her own auto maintenance brought out the chevalier in my redneck neighbor. I looked up to see a short, shirtless, sweaty man in Wranglers walking toward me. He had a beer in one hand, a claw hammer in the other, and a shit-eating grin on his face. I was ready for trouble.

He stood by the front bumper of my car, beaming with pride. “I fix yer car,” he announced. “You live alone?”

I assured him I had the situation under control. I wondered what the hell he was about.

There was some movement on his front porch, and I saw his very pregnant girlfriend glaring death rays at me. Why? I’d been minding my own business, after all.

Then it clicked. I had “lured” her man into the parking lot by virtue of not having a man of my own to scrub my terminals. A temptress, I was, brazenly lifting my own hood. Good lord.

What really rankled was that this half-drunk fool with the wrong tool for the job seemed to assume he was my savior by virtue of being male. After I let him know I didn’t need any help, he stood there supervising. Where was this fellow when I hauled my laundry to the washroom? Apparently I was competent to do some things by myself.

You may be waiting for his comeuppance. There wasn’t one. I have a smart mouth and a bad attitude, but I didn’t know how much Hammer Guy had been drinking or what he and his girlfriend were like. I finished cleaning the terminals, shut the hood, and drove off to clear my head.

The fact that my neighbor felt compelled to “help” and supervise me going about my business, and the fact that he’d made note of my single status, offended and unnerved me. I was relieved when he and his still-pregnant girlfriend moved out at the end of the month and two motorcycle mamas moved in. For all I know, they may have thought I was mechanically impaired, too, but they were too busy taking care of their choppers to piddle with me and my car.

None of your bizness

Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with what's-his-name turns three today. Which means it's now old enough to stop picking its nose in public and use a tissue like a big boy. Go over and offer your congratulations, why don't you?

They can have this teen comedy when they pry it from my cold, dead hands

Hombre sent me this. It's almost entirely safe for work and children; just ride your volume control on the burning bush.

How dumb is Tom DeLay?

This dumb.

Thanks, Blondesense.

Red meat, blue barbecue

Central Texas Dems, take note: Karen Felthauser's campaign will host a brisket and homemade dessert fundraiser at Brightwater Park near Round Rock, Friday starting at 5 p.m.

Felthauser is challenging Mike Krusee for the State Rep seat in District 52, in which your blogger has resided for some ten years. Felthauser's goal is to improve Texas' public health and to properly finance our public-schools, something that's never been done here. Plus I have yet to hear Felthauser use the term "magic" to describe the many toll roads now under construction in our district.

So if you're in the mood for homecooked food and politics, check out the event flyer and RSVP asap.

They couldn't pay me enough

See ya. Wouldn't want to be ya.

Longtime readers know I share no love with Hummers and other enormous SUVs. So I was pleased to read recently that the biggest Hummer of them all, the 5-ton H1, is out of production come June due to flagging sales.

Not that the brand is inherently impractical and unappealing, mind you.

[Hummer general manager Martin] Walsh said Hummer plans to focus on models with broader appeal instead of the niche-market H1. Since taking over the Hummer name in 2000, GM has introduced the still hefty H2 and a midsize H3 sport utility vehicle.

The H1 gets about 10 miles per gallon, but Walsh said rising gas prices didn't factor into GM's decision. He noted that H1 buyers typically have been less sensitive about gas prices than most other drivers.

Auto analyst Erich Merkle with the Grand Rapids consulting company IRN Inc. said the decision fits with steps GM has taken to bring the Hummer brand to more mainstream drivers with the H2 and H3.

"They're going to continue moving Hummer in that direction," Merkle said. "It's a great brand. There is a lot that can be done with that in terms of leveraging its ruggedness and toughness."

Less than two weeks later, not that gas prices are a factor, mind you, GM is leveraging that Hummer ruggedness and toughness by offering to buy gas for the silly things:

Problem-hit carmaker General Motors has offered to subsidise petrol prices for drivers of its vehicles in California and Florida in order to boost sales. [...]

GM said it would pay drivers the difference between the average price per gallon of premium fuel and the $1.99 for the miles they drove.

Because nothing says rough, tough and macho like a gas-money handout. [Feel free to insert your own petroleum-industry snark here.] The offer is also good on hulks like the Tahoe, which was the subject of a much-punk'’d make-your-own-commercial campaign, and Suburban. But buyers have to sign up for OnStar in order to get the refund, and it'’s only good through the end of 2007.

By then who knows what gas will cost? It'’s wise for GM not to overcommit, although perhaps it'’s not much of a commitment to begin with. According to SFGate, "the entire Hummer group has been outsold this year by the Toyota Prius, a gas-electric hybrid."”

Bag O' Glass really is the perfect toy

Hours of fun, no kidding.



We discovered the tactile joys of old glass on our last trip to the Wildflower Center. A couple of flower beds were mulched with smooth chunks of glass, like seaglass but shinier, and the boys could not keep their hands off of it. Rocketboy dragged his fingers through it over and over. Hurricanehead, with his toddler's grasp of private property, tried to fill his pockets with the stuff. On the way out, we had to go play with the glass again. I don't think they remember a single plant we saw that day, but they remember the glass mulch.

Rocketboy wanted to recreate the effect at home by smashing glass with a hammer and then feeding it into a rock tumbler. My veto was extremely unpopular and met with a variety of epithets. But perhaps I can be the hero instead of the goat/poophead.

Austin now offers the shiny stuff, processed glass aggregate, as part of its glass recycling program. You know I already have a message in seeking an appointment to get some. Once I do, there will be photos, along with hours of playtime fun.

I can't believe it's not Friday

Pardon my sloth. Rocketboy had a rehearsal this evening which naturally led to dinner out with fellow cast members. It was a typical theater-geek melee, little-kid version.

It ended when Hurricanehead poured Equal on his chicken, then removed his smelly sandals at the table and clutched them to his bosom. I plucked him from his high chair only to find moisture wicking from his shorts to my shirt.

"Did you spill your lemonade?" I asked, blotting at his pants with my chip-eating hand.

"No," he said. "Pee."

Sigh.

Sometimes it's worse than you think. Might be piss instead of lemonade, and it might be the entire internet instead of just millions of phone calls.

Pre-Friday photo roundup

My Friday gift to you, a day early because I expect to be darn busy tomorrow:

This wine cup (Callirhoe involucrata) lives in my backyard with several of its friends. Wine cup has been my favorite wildflower since I was a small child. They don't smell like much, but the color is cartoonishly intense and the petals have a silky, glossy feel to them. Plus, you know, wine.

The best wild stands of wine cup I've seen were in DeWitt County several years ago. DeWitt County is well-known for, and promotes itself as, a wildflower destination. The peak of the spring bloom is now past, but if you're in the area next spring and like that sort of thing, it's worth a drive. There's also a display in the local museum in April, with fresh cuttings from the roadsides gathered and labeled by volunteers. For a garden geek, it's a lovely day out.

Happy weekend!

There's also this to consider

Ann at Feminist Law Professors links to this reaction at Scheherazade in Blue Jeans to the "Forever Pregnant" article. Whatever the intent of the CDC guidelines and the WaPo spin, this is unconscionable:

[T]he words "federal guidelines" and "pre-pregnant" are not just sending up red flags, they're sending out a fireworks show and a marching band.

I have been unable to obtain adequate medical care for my epilepsy because I am what they'd call pre-pregnant. As my neurologist puts it, I am a woman of child-bearing age. As such, they flat-out refuse to try me on any medicines other than the ones proven least likely to affect a fetus (read: the ones that are paying off my neurologist). Despite the fact that I have declared my belly a no-fetus zone.

My neurologist does not trust me to not get pregnant. My neurologist puts a potential fetus's potential health over my health.

And now the government wants to officially sanction that.

Oh HELL no.

I should not have to get my fucking tubes tied in order to not have seizures and/or get medication that at least doesn't have me dropping weight. (90.5 on the Craftsman's bathroom scale; even taking into account that it's a different scale from my doctor's, it's a significant enough difference that I have to look at it. I'm 89 on my scale right now. Which slips, but - still.) To get off a medication that's caused what's essentially a whole-body crash.

Her doctor doesn't trust her to manage her own body properly, so he (I'm assuming it's a he) won't manage her health properly, either. For her own good, of course.

Punk'd by the Post

I got all het up over the WaPo piece on pre-pregnancy this morning and wordlashed the feds with my cranky ire. Having read Amanda and the actual CDC guidelines, rather than viewing them through the apparently smudged and dirty lens of the Post, I see that the problem is not so much with the guidelines themselves but with the Post reporter's spin on them.

And for those who are fixing to smugly say that feminists should have read the report before getting angry, think about what you'’re saying. It'’s sad that we'’ve come to a point where even a medical article has to be assumed to be 90% propaganda, 10% information. Instead of clucking and condescending, get mad! The WaPo won'’t do their damn jobs right. (Amanda)

When I was a reporter many thousands of years ago, I was given to understand that part of my job was to relay information from primary sources so that my audience could understand a particular event or topic. But in this case, I had to go read the primary source in order to understand not only the subject under discussion but also how badly the WaPo article twisted it. Guess who can get bent now?

Fem Carn XV up now

At Self-Portait As. Go!

Memo to Feds: Kindly remove your nose from my uterus

Reader Brea sent along this piece from WaPo. I would get upset about it, but as I still have a working uterus and stress is bad for gestation, the government would say I should remain calm:

Forever Pregnant

Guidelines: Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-Pregnant

By January W. Payne

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006; Page HE01

New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.

Got that? I always thought sperm were involved somehow in pregnancy, but I see no corresponding guidelines for men on maintaining the health of their seedlets to prevent possible birth defects. (Hombre suggests the Eli Lilly Bill, urging men to maintain a "constant state of readiness.") But men are people. Women, per these rules, are just chattel to be maintained as breeding stock:

Women should also make sure all vaccinations are up-to-date and avoid contact with lead-based paints and cat feces [bolds mine]

There goes my next art project. And what of all the single women with cats in our society? Are they supposed to hire someone to change the cat box? Or is this a plot to drive them into breeding relationships with men who can handle the poo? (Evil subtext: Ladies, Pussy belongs under a man's supervision!)

Seriously, these guidelines (also remarked upon at Blondesense and Echidne's place) are bullshit of the most invasive sort. They posit that nearly all women should curtail their lifestyles on the chance that they might accidentally conceive and choose to carry to term. In other words, potential life is more important than the actual lives of women, which is the same old crap anti-choicers have been spewing since the dawn of time.

The feds assume that following these guidelines will improve our nation's crappy infant mortality rate. Telling women to step away from the catshit in order to fix a massive, structural, cultural problem with our nation's healthcare is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Let me tell you something: You can do everything right and still have an embryo, fetus, or infant that doesn't make it, and about half the time the doctors won't know why. There's not enough research on prenatal health and development. And the guidelines fail in the most blithe, blind-to-privilege way, to address the real issue, access to healthcare:

Preconception care should be delivered by any doctor a patient sees -- from her primary care physician to her gynecologist. It involves developing a "reproductive health plan" that details if and when children are planned, said Janis Biermann, a report co-author and vice president for education and health promotion at the March of Dimes.

Because all pregnant women in America have easy access to a panoply of doctors, right? Not at all. And that's the real problem. Women who are pregnant may not have insurance coverage, or may have piss-ant coverage that does not cover pregnancy. Let's get good medical care to the women who want to be pregnant first and see if that solves at least some of the problem.

Of course, that will cost money, and bossing women around is free. Until the feds are willing to put their money where their mouth is, they should treat themselves as pre-told to get bent.

Amen, plus a victory garden update

"You know, mothers should be liberated, not sentimentalized. It lasts longer."

-- Twisty Faster, I Blame the Patriarchy


You know I've had a busy couple of days when one of the least obnoxious happenings was Hurricanehead's attempt to vacuum-seal a wooden maraca in the new Food Saver. Yes, I bought one. I am using it to jealously protect my Texas 1015 and red onions from freezer burn after they're cleaned and chopped. I've eaten too many old-ice-cube-tasting onions in my time.

Anyway, shorter last couple of days:

1. Can we impeach Bush now? How about now? Now?
2. Never put a new appliance where children can reach it.
3. I wasn't one of the lucky utility customers who got picked in the wind-power drawing. I got a Dear Redneck letter today letting me know that I will be able to subscribe after they double their supply of green power, due to happen at the end of '07. Until then, whatever we draw from the grid will arrive courtesy of coal.

And now, because albuterol makes me jittery and I am typing too fast to stop and do another post, here's a victory garden update:

Our cucurbits -- yellow straightneck squash, pumpkins, watermelons and cukes -- are all doing surprisingly well. Most folks around here lose these crops to squash bugs in short order, but we've managed to get several yellow squash and these fine cukes already:

Yes, those are snap peas in the bottom of the colander, trying to catch some of that cucurbit magic.

Jon, the friend who lent us the chickens of yore, has pumpkins coming up at his place, too. Maybe the warm winter did something to the squash bugs. If so, that would make up for the fact that it screwed us out of our peaches. That's right. Three trees, lovingly tended through the winter and spring = not one peach. Not enough chill hours.

Quinoa? Never saw it. I'll try again in the fall. Bell, cayenne and chile petin peppers: good. Tomatoes, poking along but blooming and a few have set fruit. Strawberry corn is not quite as high as an elephant's eye but is taller than Rocketboy's head (he resents this), and this round of snap peas is just about done. Dewberries are providing Hurricanehead with the occasional snack. The blackberries and grapes are taking their sweet time blossoming, but they've got a lot of leaves.

And you?

Time to invest in homing pigeons

As BushCo uses the divine right of kings to tap the phones of investigative reporters to unmask their sources. Osama, my ass:

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

(via ThinkProgress)

I think this sort of chilling effect might explain some of Congress' lapdoggery even as Bush heaps more scorn on the Constitution. The threat of being revealed as a source (or a philanderer, or any number of things a person might wish to keep secret) would be a powerful tool in the hands of corrupt and petty leaders. Blackmail is one of the executive powers, right?

Or maybe it's just burnt toast in bed

As Mother's Day Weekend kicks off with all the attendant debauchery, overblown sporting events, public speeches, tree-lighting ceremonies, precision flyovers, lurid parades, egg rolls, green beer, carols, hymns, free candy, ritualistic sex and rampant consumerism, I offer a few fun facts:

1. I missed my chance. I should've spent the past few weeks bloviating about the "War on Mother's Day" perpetuated by the Christianist Right. (Yes, I got that term from Andrew Sullivan's new Time essay. Goes to show you just never know.)

2. My ActBlue page is up.

3. It's been nine days since we turned on our PV system, and we've fed 54 kilowatt-hours of electricity back into the grid and saved 200 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions so far.

Play nice this weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

And here I thought H was for Haggard

At MomsRising, a grassroots parenting and family policy group, the H in mother stands for Healthcare for All Kids. It's well past time for something like this to get going. Our great nation bests only Latvia in infant mortality scores in the developed world, a great many women find the workplace dysfunctional and hostile, and our public spaces are sometimes run by the itty-bitty-no-lactating-titty committee to the detriment of nursing mothers and babies. And goddess help the single and child-free women among us, who are being shoehorned by conservative forces into the stock, played-out roles of virgin or whore.

Is it any wonder that so many women I know are on meds? This is purely anecdotal, of course, and I know quite a few men who benefit from mood stabilizers and antidepressants. But shit, as they say, rolls downhill, and women as a class are not at the peak. All those stresses and inconveniences and injustices add up, and little by little the message of otherness and inferiority seeps in. That's depressing.

I'm tired of it. Daddy Dialectic (from whence I got the MomsRising link) also mentions a great post at Playground Revolution on the notion of a daily political practice. I like that idea. I'm going to try to set up an ActBlue page for my state rep and US rep candidates either tonight or tomorrow.

If you were going to do one small political act today or tomorrow, what would it be? Did you do it, and if so, what happened?

Don't poke the hive mind with a stick

A friend of the nursing mother who was hassled at the ballpark put the word out on her homeschooling and church email lists Monday. The reaction began, with parents calling the park office to complain and to educate the staff about Texas law, which states that a woman may nurse anyplace she is authorized to be. One savvy mama suggested contacting the local business who advertise at the ballpark. I was ready to call in the ACLU.

By yesterday afternoon, the message got through. The park honcho who'd made the initial bad call announced that he had been "enlightened" and that nursing mothers are welcome at Express games. Those who complain about nursing mothers will be asked to move to another seat away from mom and baby. And the mom in question received an apology.

That was fast. But the fact that the hive mind even had to swarm shows that we have a long, long way to go.

Apart from the fact that anyone would feel entitled to bother a nursing mother, of all the instances of harassment I've heard of, not one of them involved a woman who had her husband or another man with her at the time. (In the case of that loathsome restaurant to which RJ alludes in the comments to Monday's post, the mom was with another mother.) I don't know if this is just happenstance, but I suspect not. I think prudes and busybodies are less likely to mess with a strange man than with a sweet, presumably harmless and possibly distracted mom. Also, I think prudes are set off not just by the sight of a woman nursing but by the sight of a lone woman using her breasts for their intended purpose without a man around to supervise things.

There is another sticking point with regard to the episodes in Round Rock, but I'll have to do a little research before I get into it.

At any rate, baseball in Round Rock is now safe for motherhood. Apple pie sold separately.

Speechless

Yes, it happens. But only when I've had a weekend of houseguests, four and a half inches of rain in four days, an ailing husband, and a crash course (thank you!) in remote-control airplane usage courtesy of Rocketboy.

Also, when this sort of misogynist crap is in the news. And when word on my email lists is that a woman was harassed at a local sporting event for (wait for it) nursing her infant. Because that's just not decent. But a bunch of people sitting in a publicly funded arena watching grown men scratch their balls is a wholesome way to spend the afternoon.

Friday mail bag

If you're a feminist blogger in the American South, you may want to get on the list Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors is compiling:

Southern feminist bloggers can leave their names [or pseudonyms] and the URLs of their blogs in comments at Feminist Law Professors, or e-mail same to me at this e-mail address: feministlawprof@yahoo.com

I'm eager to see the complete list. It'll give me a good reason to update the blogroll.

I also got some other mail recently, addressed to "Dear Sir or Madam," asking if I am the "fun mom" on the block.* A certain television network is casting "fun, outdoorsy families" for one of those mom-switch programs.

I am loathe to participate in such shenanigans, especially as they are seeking women who avoid all "prissy, girly" activities. I menstruate, knit and breastfeed so I guess I'm out of the running. But if you are interested in having your family laundry aired on national television, then email me. I am not above passing along the contact information in hopes of collecting a finder's fee.

*No.

We're on!

A thing of beauty (net meter on the left, PV meter center)


Our solar-PV system recently passed its city inspection, and we' ve been waiting on the final final step before switch-on: the city's installation of our new net meter.

The doorbell rang just before noon. The net meter and its little pal, the PV meter, were in place in less than five minutes.

The solar contractors had given me detailed verbal instructions about the order in which I should flip the switches once the meters were installed. They even offered to talk me through it over the phone or to come back out and do it for me. I had imagined this moment as me taking our energy-conservation efforts very carefully in hand.

The meters were in. I braced myself. And then one of the installers reached out and flipped all three switches, casually, as if he does it daily. My disappointment was short-lived, as I realized the system has a readout that not only tells us what wattage the PV panels are producing at any given time, but also keeps a total of how many pounds of greenhouse gases our system has saved.

The installers showed us how the digital meters track usage and pointed out the simulated meter dials along the bottom of each screen. As soon as they were out the gate, I looked at Rocketboy and asked, "Want to see if we can get the net meter to run backwards?'

"Oh, yes!"

We ran into the house and turned off or unplugged everything but the fridge, freezer and aquarium. When we went back outside, we were feeding electricity into the grid. When we got back from a couple hours' outing, we'd sent the city 4 kWh. Not bad, especially since there were lots of big, fluffy, obnoxious clouds today.

As of this writing, even with the a/c on (set at 80) and normal computer and appliance use, the city owes us one kWh. Our rooftop array also has spared you twenty pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. You're welcome.

Stickin' it to the man, now with recipes!

Hombre has graciously granted me permission to reprint his tried-and-true, uber-frugal, anti-establishment microwave popcorn method.

1. Take 1/2 cup of popcorn kernels, preferably generic, so as to sharpen the nail of the thumb you are about to stick in the eye of Big Popcorn.
2. Pour those kernels into the bottom of a brown paper bag of the lunch -- not grocery -- variety.
3. With those kernels contained in the rectangular bottom of the bag, begin folding the open end of the bag. Fold it over about 3/4" at a time until there's just enough to tuck under the bottom of the bag.
4. Look over your shoulder, just to make sure nobody's onto you.
5. Place the bag folded-part down in the microwave. If the folded-under part comes untucked, don't worry about it. Just shut the microwave door.
6. Don't stand with your face so close to the microwave -- not because the popcorn is dangerous, but just because it's generally a good idea, what with the radiation and all.
7. Set the microwave to cook for 3:30. You will not need all that time. You might need only 2:45, maybe much less. But setting the microwave to cook for longer than is needed will force you to stand watch rather than walk off and possibly become distracted in another room, thus allowing the popcorn to burn. Allowing popcorn to burn is a sin, especially if you work in an office, where it should also be a offense punishable by dismissal.
8. But I digress.
9. Stop the microwave when the popping has slowed to 4 seconds between pops. You should have a densely packed paper bag that resembles a popcorn-stuffed football.
10. Eat it as you wish. Salted, unsalted, buttered*, unbuttered, I do not care. It does not matter so long as you eat it while reveling in having given the shaft to Orville Redenbacher and his ilk.
11. For a cheap-ass bonus, reuse the bag next time, if it survived the popping without tearing.

*Ed. note: Hombre also found compelling evidence for using real butter instead of the faux stuff, in case the taste isn't a deciding factor. Ever hear of "popcorn lung?"

It seemed like a great idea

1. Rocketboy's announcement that today he will use our barbecue grill in order to smelt a surplus, galvanized-aluminum turbine vent.

2. Hurricanehead's heartbroken request to play with a plastic food-storage box in which I'd trapped a hornet's nest along with three furious hornets.

3. The idea (held, I presume, by whoever booked him) that having Stephen Colbert address the White House correspondents' dinner would be an exercise in fawning flattery and easygoing jabs. Colbert turned up the heat from "roast" to "char." His pointed remarks were funny, but for me the real laughs came from watching the stunned faces of the media and politicians who had to sit there and take it as Colbert turned the ballroom into a virtual woodshed:

On Bush's approval rating: "Now I know there's some polls out there that say this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.'

Pay no attention to people who say the glass is half empty...Because 32 percent means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash."

Colbert didn't spare the Washington press corps, either. Plenty more here, here, and the entire video here.