Patrick’s Rants

This had me rolling. The first exchange is on attrition.org
with the follow up news story:
Congressional aide admits trying to hire hackers — to boost his college GPA

And then he gets fired.

All right. I’ve let this slide without comment long enough. If a third-rate burglary and a blow job are enough to start impeachment hearings then lying to the country about the involvment of Iraq in 9/11, the existance of WMDs and being an accessory to murder (’cause that’s what it is… grow a fuggin pair OK?) to thousands of US troops in a country that you destabilized into a civil war - and that’s what it is too - listening in on all of our phone conversations without warrants, condoning torture of innocent (or even not so innocent) Iraqi’s and others, (no reliable information is ever gained through torture, didn’t we learn that from the Salem Witch Trials?) and no-bid contracts for Bush and Co. and his cronies are all certainly worthy of impeachment hearings.

Nancy Pelosi is pulling a Rodney King on us. Can’t we all just get along? Hell no! We didn’t do anything wrong. We weren’t even “running from the cops” - except the ones who are reading your library lists. If you get beat down for no reason and it’s the government doing it you call the most expensive lawyer around. Instead of a “burning bed”, she’s like the battered woman saying, “he really does love me.” No he doesn’t. Wake up. Bush is a war criminal. Except most of the crimes he’s committed are against his own citizens. It’s time that we set aside our oily gin look into the eyes of Big Brother, and take him down.

I’ve been in so many men’s rooms lately that I think it’s time to make some observations.

I like the automatic sinks. You know, the ones you stick your hands under and the water turns on because a sensor “sees” your hands? I also like the auto dryers and the auto towel dispensers, and heck even the auto flush urinals aren’t bad. They aren’t always done right though. The Outlet Shops at Anthem, for instance failed to get it right. The faucets are too short; the sensors only detect your hands once they are right up against the end of the spout and the pressure of the water causes it to deflect from your hands onto the sink and the mirror. There is always water on the counter there. Sometimes it even gets on the floor and your clothes. The Grand Canyon National Park got it right. The faucets are longer and the water cascades more onto your hands there. The sensor is down around counter top level while the water flows from about four inches higher. They also have those waterless urinals. There’s no flushing involved, saving 1.5 gallons (or thereabouts) per “non-flush”.

The public schools also seem to have an array of different bathroom styles. Up here in Flagstaff, where things are green (and we have water restrictions, odd-even watering, etc.) most of the urinals are the waterless type. In the greater Phoenix area, though all the urinals are flush… at least the ones I have visited. There was warm water in the locker room style sink in one school, something I’ve only found the one time. Living in Flagstaff creates other spoiled-ness that one might not realize right away, we have porta potties everywhere. At every school that I have visited there seems to be at least one porta potty. Most of our parks have traditional and port potties and even the NAU campus has them scattered around. No need being full of piss around here. But leave our mountain top and it’s as if port potties are a high altitude plant. They just don’t grow well anywhere else. I’m guessing it’s not due to lack of “fertilizer”.

I’m flying out tomorrow to help mom move. I’ll be gone for about a week or so, have to get a couple of blog things out of the system before I go.
I think I’m just about ready. I have my one quart bag with all my liquid stuff ready to set aside at security. I’m planning on wearing sandals that I can just flop into the x-ray bus tub and bare foot it through the metal detector.. just hoping the metal plate in my head is not enough to set off the machines. Oh, and nobody better be calling the airline encouraging full searches on men in their 30s travelling on a one-way ticket

This comes from the overheard conversations department (note, no catagory as of yet).

In a discussion that started out with a critique of the fast food industry with liberal mentions of the book Fast Food Nation (which I have not read, and I’m not sure that I will read) and then went on to why one of the individuals didn’t eat fish*. Well eventually it swung around to one person saying she didn’t use shampoo or whatever that was tested on animals. I’m assuming that this would include medical testing as well - she just seemed like that kind of person. I mean nothing good comes from animal testing and research. I just hope this young (vegetarian) lady never gets diabetes or anything like that.

Back to testing shampoo. I know that sometimes the testing for shampoo can get a little carried away… at least that’s what I’m told. I’m proposing that those baby shampoos never be tested on animals again, I mean aren’t there already enough babies to use for testing?

*In case you were wondering it’s because of the “ghost fishing nets” NPR
Bellona.org

I overhead the man say to another man, “I don’t like profane language. It shows your ignorance and the inability to communicate intelligently.” Or something like that, I’m paraphrasing, of course.

Sometimes the best word is the profane one. For instance, “I don’t give a fornication,” is not nearly as effective as the profane version. Short, sharp words can sometimes give the absolute best meaning to what you want to say.

I once let slip the word, “shit” in front of Maureen (who could tell stories that would have you rolling on the floor) and immediately apologized, “pardon my French.”

I was promptly corrected. Noted Maureen, “don’t apologize for that. But even more so, don’t give the French credit for such a fabulous word as ’shit’. Merd doesn’t come anywhere near, shit. And we have the Anglo-Saxons to thank for such a good word.”

Of course, I’m paraphrasing Maureen too as it’s been several years since we had that exchange. Oh, and pardon my Anglo-Saxon.