I just discovered tonight that this site has been buggered in Firefox for about a month. Apparently it occurred when I made a small change in my stylesheet. I’ll try to remember to test in both Firefox and IE7 when I make even the slightest change. It seems to be fixed now.

In a column on Townhall.com Debra Saunders discusses a survey that found that liberals read more books than conservatives. “The poll found that among people polled who read at least one book in the last year, liberals read nine books and conservatives read eight.” Some moonbat and former Democrat congresswoman named Pat Schroeder crowed that this proves that liberals are smarter than conservatives. However, the pollster said that the one-book difference “is within the margin of error, it’s not a statistically significant difference.”

Saunders also mentions that George Bush and Karl Rove compete to see which one can read the most books. Last year the score was: Rove, 110 books; Bush, 94. I’m not real comfortable with the fact that the leader of the free world and one of his (former) top advisers is each spending his time reading about a hundred books a year. That seems a bit like a surgeon reviewing the latest medical journals while performing critical surgery.

I’m thinking about legally changing my name to Your Name Here. Then if I lose my credit cards the finder will think they are invalid promotional cards and discard them.
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It’s easy to form the impression that athletes and entertainers are more prone to destroying their bright futures by doing something stupid than are others. This might be true but do you really expect to hear about it if the life of some math or science wizard goes off the rails?
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I hadn’t really noticed until now that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton have essentially the same nickname: Sly Penis. Nixon was called Tricky Dick and Clinton is called Slick Willie. Both tricky and slick can mean sly, and both dick and willie are slang terms for penis.
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Have you noticed how the victims of fatal accidents and crimes are always wonderful people? It kind of makes me want to dirty up my act. I never hear about a really rotten person being killed in an accident or crime.
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To me nothing is more ridiculous than the utterances of radical feminists. They seem to be guided solely by the belief that, no matter what they say, if they speak loudly and rapidly enough they can change ground truth.
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Politicians are missing a great opportunity by not hiring Jimmy Carter to advise them on their campaigns. Think about it. Each of you can probably name at least a half dozen people in your hometown who are more impressive than Jimmy Carter. He seems to never miss an opportunity to demonstrate his ordinariness through his statements and actions. Most political observers think of him as the worst President in recent history. Yet he somehow managed to get himself elected as governor of Georgia and president of the United States. The man has to be a political genius.

The federal government and most every state engages in a practice they call “wildlife management.” Yet the term ‘wildlife management’ is an oxymoron. If animal life is managed it’s not wild. The American Heritage Dictionary defines wildlife as “wild animals and vegetation, especially animals living in a natural, undomesticated state.” The emphasis should be on the natural. If people help to provide food sources for animals and control their population by inserting new breeding pairs, among other things, these animals are hardly more wild than cattle on a ranch.
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If there is as much racism in this country as Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson like to claim there is, how did they manage to build their powerful organizations and achieve their present level of celebrity? Do they think they were given some kind of special pass? The truth is that some racism does exist in America and always will, but it is nowhere near the problem that these hustlers make it out to be. While many people, black and white, start at a huge disadvantage relative to some, anyone in this country with the will to do the hard work can better themselves.
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The Associated Press reports that a sea water desalination plant has been built at Brownsville, Texas. They say that removing the salt from sea water is expensive mostly because of the energy required. Current cost estimates run at about $650 per acre foot as opposed to $200 to purify the same amount of fresh water. At more than three times the cost of purifying fresh water it is certainly more expensive. But is it really that expensive?

An acre foot of water is about 326,000 gallons; so the cost of desalinating five gallons of water is about one cent. Considering how critical water is to our survival, that doesn’t seem very expensive to me. And if the glowarm alarmists are right we should have plenty of sea water to desalinate.
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The Associated Press reports that the 7-Eleven chain is converting eleven of its stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience store from the Simpsons television series. This is to promote the upcoming Simpsons movie — and to boost sales at the stores. It has been suggested that this may have a downside for 7-Eleven because the television series depicts the Kwik-E-Mart proprietor as a man named Apu who speaks with a heavy Indian accent. It turns out that one of the converted stores is operated by Kumar Assandas whose parents immigrated from India. Here’s what Kumar had to say:

I know it’s a stereotype, but it doesn’t bother me. Everybody knows it’s a joke,” Assandas said. “I’m a big Simpsons fan myself, and maybe subconsciously it even inspired me to become a 7-Eleven owner.

Hey legal immigrants! Take a clue from Kumar. We might occasionally have some fun at your expense, but we don’t really care if you look different, you talk funny and your name is unpronounceable. What we want is for you to just become an American. What we don’t want is for you to try to turn America into the place you couldn’t wait to leave.

On the way back from South Florida yesterday I was surfing Sirius Satellite Radio and found Edith Bunker on channel 146. No sign of Archie though. If they are going to let Edith spout off they should also let Archie speak his mind.

Actually it turned out to be a woman named Lynn Samuels. I could have sworn it was Edith.  Samuels doesn’t appear to be much brighter than Edith.

Rosie O’Donnell has quit The View and now Cindy Sheehan has quit her role as a peace activist.  She said, “Good-bye America … you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it. It’s up to you now.”

Sharpton?  Gore?  What are your plans?

Rosie O’Donnell is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Most of us have known that for some time now. It’s about time that Rosie accepted it and returned to comedy where playing fast and loose with facts is more acceptable. How anyone could think Rosie’s views on important issues are worth broadcasting to millions of people is a mystery to me. Well, on second thought it’s not that much of a mystery. I’ve always thought that Barbara Walters is a bit dopey too.

Rosie’s greatest strength in debate is a strong voice and imposing figure. She is never deterred by actual facts in asserting her view of the issues. A few weeks ago on The View she was stating her opinion that some kind of conspiracy was involved in the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01. She said that it was the first time in history that fire had melted steel, that it was physically impossible. One would think that it should have been inconvenient for Rosie that just a couple of weeks later a fuel tanker truck burned on a freeway exchange in California and melted the steel girders of an overhead span, causing the span to collapse. But not a word from Rosie on that. Of course, anyone with half a brain knows that fire melts steel every day, but apparently not Rosie.

On another episode of The View the hosts were discussing the firing of United States Attorneys by the Bush Administration. Rosie repeatedly referred to the attorneys as judges. It was clear that she didn’t understand the difference between a federal judge and a federal prosecutor. If she understood the difference she might have also known that federal judges can’t be fired by the president; they have to be impeached. It was also quite clear that she didn’t know much about the whole firing issue. In fact, there is no evidence that Rosie ever spends any time preparing for her appearances on the show.

I’m glad that this soap box has been yanked from under Rosie, but she will probably find another one.

It has long been a pet peeve of mine that so many people call public toilets ‘bathrooms’. What brought this to mind this morning is an article at FoxNews.com about confusing signage on the bathrooms at McGuire’s Irish Pub in Destin FL (this just happens to be very near where I live). The title of the article referred to the toilets as bathrooms. Even Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation called them bathrooms.

I don’t remember ever seeing either a shower or a bathtub in the men’s room at McGuire’s. Even if they had one I don’t think I would ever consider taking a bath there. Do you suppose the writer of the article and the Florida bureaucrat often bathe in public toilets?

Of course people get into the habit of calling toilets bathrooms because homes generally combine the two functions. But let’s call a toilet a toilet, or at least use the more polite ‘restroom’.

It’s all over the news.  Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger are locked in a custody battle over their eleven year-old daughter, Ireland. Daddy said some really bad things to Ireland through her voicemail when she wouldn’t answer his calls.  Mommy released the message to the media — apparently in violation of a court order.  Daddy says Mommy is a bad parent.  Mommy says Daddy is a bad parent.  It seems to me that the judge should consider granting custody of both parents to Ireland.

I just read about a new robotic parking garage that is to open in New York. You just drive the car onto a pallet, get out of the car and walk away, and then the computerized system automatically transports the car into the garage and deposits the pallet and car into a slot. The machinery is obviously quite expensive but it takes less space per car than a conventional parking garage. We won’t be needing one in our town in the foreseeable future though.

It occurred to me that, if they can automatically put cars in slots in a garage, then why not put them in your hotel room? Well, not actually in your room, but in a parking slot next to your room. It could be just like at home; just open a door and step into your garage. You wouldn’t have to unload your luggage and pay a bellhop to take it to your room. You wouldn’t have to decide what you are going to need before going up to your room; it’s all right there a few steps away. You don’t have to worry if your car and belongings are safe. On second thought, if the system put it there I suppose it could take it away while you are sleeping. Actually you might not do that much sleeping with that machinery delivering and picking up cars at all hours.

Sounds convenient but I’m sure I would never want to pay what such a room would cost.  And if I snore my wife might make me sleep in the car.