Hair on fire

After a week of soggy weather, it was an ideal day for a walk to the park.

More severe weather

Non political blogs

I recently stumbled across a couple of non-political blogs. I decided that I don't need any more anxiety about politics, so I'm trying to diversify my blog obsession a little bit.

Blog Maverick - Mark Cuban blogs about basketball and technology.
PVRblog - A blog devoted to TiVo and similar technologies.

Any others that I should know about?

Preschool: Day One

Kindergarten: Day One

The Iowa State Fair

Oh, the anticipation!!

For a place that was rated the second best place America goes to have fun, the Iowa State Fair--the 150th edition, no less--was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe they ranked it second because it smelled like number two?

Actually, even if it didn't live up to the hype, we had a good time. We couldn't leave Iowa without experiencing the state fair in all its Midwest wholesomeness, a quality only slightly diminished by a thirsty male water buffalo assaulting a male goat in the petting zoo. (You think I'm kidding. Ask Brook.)

Here are a few pictures from the day.


One of many food items sold on a stick


My personal favorite


The famous butter cow (and an astonished Simon)


Drew would only go on this admittedly rickety coaster after Olivia showed that it could be done safely


Olivia driving the big rig (with a tattoo fit for the occasion)

A trip to the park

We had another perfect day today, weather wise. July was 5 degrees cooler on average and August has been almost 10 degrees cooler on average. Today was sunny with temperatures in the low 70s. We've only had a couple of days that were really hot and humid. I think this place would be a lot more crowded if summers were always this nice. Anyway, we took a nice walk to the park and took some fun pictures. Enjoy.


One sock, no pants, and a dog. What more could a kid want?








Kirby finally stopped sprinting for a second so I could get an in-focus picture.


Simon pushed his brother and sister home while Drew steered. He could actually get them moving pretty fast.

John Kerry is Satan, say fellow churchgoers

In case you have been following the sensational accusations against John Kerry regarding his heroism in Vietnam, Digby writes an excellent post on what it would take for any of these accusations to be true.

What these people are saying is that the US Navy awarded some of its highest medals for bravery to a coward. The many officers who signed those glowing fitness reports and awarded those citations are either liars or they are incompetent. The word of his shipmates, even the man whose life he saved, are worth nothing. You can't believe military documentary evidence.

[snip]

For puny, partisan reasons they are accusing the military of widespread corruption --- merely to excuse the behavior of their less than stellar candidate. In order to save that worthless little child-man, they are basically telling the American people that the US Navy rewards cowards and covers it up.

Is there any lie that won't be told to keep Bush in office? They haven't pulled out the John Kerry as Manchurian Candidate idea like they did with John McCain during the 2000 primaries. Maybe they're holding something back for an October surprise.

From the "Did I say that out loud?" department

Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

From the Hampton Roads (Virginia) Daily Press. (Yeah, I know you all probably subscribe.)

Boluy nokow!!

Got this email today. It looks like some variant of Pig Latin spoken in Calanada. Here is the message:

Good Morning,

Oradder from Calanada and sabeve moloney

*p**We are running holot spekocials*ol**
Metods stalerts at only $g3p9-$69

- Mexeridleia, Xaponax, Cshipbalis h, and so mulch mocore
- Melods are 70b% lesose than regopular pricoce
- No docteror visits or hassles
- Qupoick diposcrezet delivemory to your front dolror

I bet this guy is raking in the bucks.

Hoover Days

The car show is a part of Hoover Days, a celebration held in West Branch, Iowa, Herbert Hoover's birthplace and home of the Hoover presidential library. (Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi.)

No caption needed

Happy Birthday, Lu-Belle

The Vicious Blur

All pictures of Kirby are out of focus because he doesn't stop moving. (As you can see, he is vicious.)

Yellow sky at morning...

The sunrises here are consistently as colorful as the sunsets. Maybe this particular color has something to do with the coming storm (below). (Not as scary as a green sky.)

"Nothing could be more further from the truth"

A public service announcement from our good friend, Will Ferrell.

At long last, tax relief for professional team owners

The proposed change affecting sports team owners, which has been passed without hearings or debate, would allow the owners to write off the full value of their franchises over 15 years. Existing law generally limits teams to writing off only the value of player contracts over three to five years. The biggest items subject to the expanded write-offs would be television and radio contracts.

The benefits would apply to newly acquired assets, so current owners would not actually pocket more money, but they could command higher prices when they sell.

See the New York Times for details.

And the legislation is buried in an export tax bill. I'm sure that money will trickle down to the poorest professional athletes, it seems like a sensible plan.

Part of the McDonald's coffee story I hadn't heard

Again from Daily Kos, we find another reason punitive damages (and sometimes "outrageous" awards) are important.

Over the previous decade McDonald's had received over 700 complaints about its coffee scalding people, including babies. They had settled all lawsuits out of court, with some payments as high as $500,000. But McDonald's continued to serve its coffee 20 degrees hotter than any other major restaurant chain.

Stella Liebeck hadn't originally planned on going to a jury trial. She had asked for compensatory damages to pay for her skin grafts, but McDonald's offered only $800. By the end of the trial, however, the jury was convinced that she was entitled $200,000 compensatory damages for her medical costs, which they reduced by $40,000 because she was partially to blame for having spilled the coffee.

What got the attention, however, was the punitive damages of $2.7 million, equal at the time to 2 days worth of McDonalds's coffee sales. Remember, this decision was made in light of the fact that McDonald's had long known that its coffee, served 20 degrees hotter than the industry standard, had resulted in hundreds of presumably avoidable second and third degree burns. But even after all of that, the judge still reduced the punitive award to $480,000--a sizeable sum, but one awarded to an 81 year old plaintiff only because McDonald's was partially to blame for her suffering third degree burns throughout her groin because McDonalds persisted, despite knowing it had caused hundreds of scaldings, in serving coffee that it knew was extremely dangerous.

Businesses, by nature, only understand the language of money. Without an executive that has the power to do right at the expense of a little profit (and against the will of the shareholders), the only way to get big business to change is through large punitive awards.

Amazing energy technology

Via Daily Kos:

Ever heard of marine turbines?

Our technology represents a novel method for generating electricity from a huge energy resource in the sea. It is rare enough for an entirely new energy resource to be developed but even rarer if the technology, as in this case:-

• produces no pollution and has negligible environmental impact

• delivers energy to a predictable timetable

• has the potential to make a major contribution to future energy needs

You should also read the Washington Post editorial that belittles people who believe in this stuff. I wonder if they were there to belittle John Kennedy for setting a goal to reach the moon in a decade...