Truth comes out

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name - wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.

Bethany: Having beliefs isn't good?

Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.

out of the mouths of Kevin Smith characters.

Grocery Store Clerks Are Teh Awesome

Kid and I hiked up to the local Death Apple (our fond pet name for the local grocery store) this morning. We've been shopping there so long that even the produce guy knows us.

First lucky news of the day- I found 5 bucks on the ground. I asked the guy standing closest to it if it was his, then asked the deli people if they saw someone drop it. Nope. Since claiming a random 5 bucks is really hard to do, I kept it. Hey, at least I tried to give it back.

Then for about $35 bucks plus the dregs of my fridge, I think I managed to come up with about 6 days worth of dinners. Not bad. Not bad at all. Of course this means nearly another week straight of eating pork roast, leftover porkroast, and fried rice made with leftover pork roast. But wevs. It's food.

And my favorite clerk, June, was working. I love her. She's been there forever and she probably knows more about my family life than anyone else. She's watched the Kid grow up and tells me how his sweetness reminds her of her own grown up son.

Today we were talking about the mayor's new 20 cent grocery bag charge. Starting in January, people who don't bring their own bags will have to pay for each plastic bag they use. Now I am pretty good about bringing my own bags, mostly because I have fancy nylon bags I got for a buck each in Paris that stuff into tiny packs. I can carry 3 in my purse easy. But Kid never remembers to bring a bag. Those 20 cent charges are going to kick our ass.

The thing is, the bag plan was rushed (and I mean RUSHED- like 2 months or less) into law. Meanwhile, there is no work, homelessness is rising, food and fuel costs are crippling, food banks and shelters are stretched way beyond their normal overburdened capacity. No one is rushing through any programs for that though. The mayor is spending all his time getting restaurants to eliminate transfats, busting nightclubs for being nightclubby, and finding ways to make buying groceries more painful.

Sweet.

This is what comes from having fauxgressives in power. A whole lot of hot air blown into places that won't keep the people sleeping on the street warm at night.

To make her majesty feel better

Pink shoes

This is a pink boot shaped money box :) I would SO wear those fucking boots :D

In An Effort to Cheer Her Royal Highness

I bring you My Other Boyfriend and his breast pump.

So that's where Gatorade comes from!

Because even depressed people need a bit of fun

From Ouyangdan comes this little meme.

Who are the famous people you would put on your free pass list if you have a significant other (or if you are a confirmed singleton- who make for fantasy drool fodder)?

We've become excessive Doctor Who fans in the Royal compound, so the first two should come as no surprise.

1) David Tennant (aka The Doctor) cause he's known around the set as "David 10 inch" uhm and he is absolutely filthy minded. Video is short but prolly not work safe.



2) Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper. She fights aliens and keeps Capt. Jack from becoming a complete blow hard.

3) Clive Owen- nuff said. (And this ends our lovely tour of the UK. Sorry to leave you out, Ireland)

4) Joe Wilson AND Valerie Plame. A diplomat and a spy. Both super smart and super hot. Get me to the fainting couch!


5) Javier Bardem, who has the best facial profile in the history of the world. Even as a scary murderer with a really bad haircut in No Country For Old men, I loved him.



6) Lisa Ray and John Abraham (separately). Both took major risks to appear in Deepa Mehta's film Water and both are so insanely beautiful to look at on screen that I found it hard to blink.

Oh there are many many more and the list changes all the time (though Javier and Clive have been rocking it for a very very long time.) But this will have to do for now.

I've shown you mine, now you have to show me yours.

Children are precious

The Kid and I have gotten hooked on the Sarah Jane Adventures after running through all of Doctor Who.

When I told (13 year old male) Kid the Sarah Jane started out as a feminist (and still is) he whooped and hollered like I just told him summer vacation had been extended till Christmas.

That's my kid.

(BTW- the Sarah Jane Adventures are very much a kids show- but as far as kids shows go, this is the only one that hasn't made me want to tear out my eyeballs and puncture my eardrums. )

Parenting a Nation

I'm in the donut hole of a major depressive episode. Sorry kids, but writing through this kind of fog is difficult. So posting will be sporadic at best.

In the mean time- Glen Greenwald is talking about Blue Dog Dems (or DINOs) and how for the first time ever congress is less popular with the party that elected it than it is with the minority party.

Huhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I wonder why that is (No, actually I don't).

In 2000, Naderites warned about the two parties becoming so alike as to eliminate any real choice between them. I think they were wrong in 2000, but I think they are dead right now. I look at my current available choices for president and I don't see either McCain or Obama as people who will do a single damn thing to improve my life, my child's life, or the lives of my friends and neighbors. I look at my choices for governor and I see the same thing.

I don't know what it will take to wake the Dems up from this Republican-lite zombie state. But I am a parent, and I know that rewarding bad behavior encourages bad behavior. Voting for either McCain or Obama would be like giving my kid a video game for not cleaning his room because at least he didn't make it more messy.

We voters are the parents of this country. It is our responsibility to set it back on the right path when it has gone wrong and to reward it when it has gone right. We forget that sometimes. We get so caught up in the competition and the arguing between each other (like moms and dads on the verge of divorce) that our neglected child goes off and does things like break the constitution or steal candy from all the other kids in the UN sandbox.

It is time for some tough love for our politicians. No money, no votes until they get back in line and do what they are told. Both the major parties are acting like spoilt children who know their overworked, overstressed, underpaid parents haven't got the willpower to deal with their screaming fits at the end of the day. Little Georgie has been bullying everyone. Little Barry want to spy on everyone and has been picking on all the girls. Little Johnie obviously hasn't been studying his geography.

While I am generally not one for corporal punishment, the entire government needs a solid spanking and a time out, and November is the only time any of us overburdened parents will have the chance to do something about these belligerent children.

Perhaps what we really need is the Supernanny

Goddamn

The ruined remains of Chernobyl have become a source of several
environmental mysteries. Rapid adaptation of rodents, the swift return of nature
and now extremely happy fungi that seem to be feeding on waste
radiation.

According to the research of some folks at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, Cryptococcus neoformans is converting radiation into fuel. This could
mean that fungus is the solution to two of our greatest environmental problems,
lack of fuel and too much radioactive waste.

All we need to do is surround our nuclear waste with this radiation-eating
fungus and then harvest it every once in a while to produce some kind of
bio-fuel. I doubt we have enough radioactive waste to feed enough fungus to run
America's automobile fleet, but that's hardly something to complain about. It
looks like melanin (the same melanin found in human skin) plays the roll of
chlorophyl in this 'radiosynthesis.' After taking in the radio waves, the
melanin starts off a reaction that allows the fungus to grow.

The scientists speculate that the fungus could be used for bio-fuel farms in
high-altitude areas with low-light and high-radiation. Or they could be food for
astronauts on long-haul, nuclear-powered missions. In any case, now we know that
life will continue even if the light of the sun disappeared, because fungi in
Chernobyl will continue to eat left-over radiation for centuries. And isn't that
just the beginning of a wonderful sci-fi novel

.

Hat tip

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/677/

I probably don't need to explain why this is incredible. The question that follows is:

"yeah, but are they sentient?"

ON a serious note, please consider the idea of mushrooms that eat nuclear waste. Petrol dependency? What petrol dependency?