catbirdseat

I have said this before and I'll say it again. People can't afford to have an efficient car for commuting because insurance rates are based on the car and not the driver. You'd like to have a big SUV for the weekend and an efficent car for getting to work. Each car sucks up a huge premium whether it get's used or not so people minimize the number of cars they own and drive the one car that does everything, even though it doesn't do it well. They drive the humongous SUV to work five days a week so they can have it for one or two days on the weekend, even if they only go camping once or twice a year. What I don't understand is that some people actually LIKE commuting in those monsters.

You don't see all the women all up in arms about it. Only the men seem to care.

Windward Direct is a very fine route. Good recommendation.

This isn't really on topic and yet it is. There was a time when life was slower and guys would gather around the water cooler at work, or maybe the pub on the way home each day, or perhaps at the coffee shop in the way to work. They would talk politics. People would digest the news they read that morning, work it over and make up their minds about how they felt about it. It gave them a basis to decide how they wanted to vote at election time. People used to vote in larger numbers than today. At some point people got busier and busier and there was less time to talk. People only get out to the Pub occasionally nowadays. And something called political correctness was introduced. People decided they didn't want to risk offending coworkers in the office, so politics became off limits. So it came about that people only found it safe to talk about fashion and music and entertainment. Politics and governance got shoved aside, and simultaneously people started forgetting to vote. People started saying things like, "well they are all alike", and "what difference does it make if I vote, anyway". But then along came something called the Internet and CC.com. This pent up demand to talk about politics and law and the interaction among nations is resulting in what we call "spray", but which to one way of thinking is actually MORE important that the climbing talk. It serves a very valuable purpose. I have seen in the two short years that I have been here how people have evolved in their ability to advance a reasoned argument. Look at Muffy. Her early posts were what I would call "fluff". In the last year, she has shown much more confidence and a willingness to jump into the middle of serious arguments. While her spelling hasn't really improved much, her ability to express ideas has blossomed. I am starting to ramble, but I just wanted to say that all these pages of blah, blah, blah, are really good for our country and shouldn't just be discounted as "worthless" spray.

My daughter's boss called her mother's house and left a message on the answering machine to call Myra Mains. The number she left was for a local mortuary. When her mother called the number, and said, "Is Myra Mains there?", the man who answered said, "well, I should hope not".

That was certainly interesting. The guy sounds pretty smart for someone working in a slaughterhouse.

Even if true, and it probably is, it could never be proven, so don't worry about it.

You are quite selfish today.

So you never read Funky Winkerbean?

He's not kidding. It IS safer. At least rock climbing is safer than driving a car.

I don't think that the expense of backing up PMs can be justified. Anything of high importance should be sent via e-mail. If you don't provide an e-mail address then it's just too bad. If you dont' want to get spammed create a special e-mail address for cc.com related e-mail. Use the format myname at provider dot com, or some other device to foil the spambots.

People need to remember that in Falluja, those people were Saddam's chosen ones. They were the ones who enjoyed all the privilege at the expense of other clans and ethnic groups. They are the ones who lost the most. They lost businesses and government positions. Somehow they figure that they have nothing more to lose, which is totally untrue. They stand to lose their lives. They will never return to their former hegemony over the majority shiites, but obviously believe they can. If they succeed in driving out the Americans, if they decide to take on the Shiites, they will likely get wiped out in a civil war unless another Sunni country supports them. The best they could hope for would be a partitioning of the country, a la Yugoslavia.

An oldie, but a goodie.

My PM's are all messed up too. That sucks.

I managed to get the telescoping shaft stuck while playing with it in the shop. What would happen out in the mountains where there is dirt and ice? The fastening mechanism is VERY poorly designed.

Longer than you think.

Mr. Doolittle is waiting for someone to come to the conclusion that we should cut and run, but he doesn't want to come out and say it himself.

So Canada has no copy right laws? Does that mean you only need one copy of Microsoft Word for the entire country?

Build a fence around it, remove its occupants one by one until it is completely empty. Question them and determine who the insurgents are. Then remove every weapon and bomb material from every square inch. Imprison the troublemakers and let the innocent return to their homes.

With Daylight Savings Time comes Exit 32 Pub Club. Yeah!

I was thinking more of a blockade.

I remember it like it was yesterday, and it didn't seem like a joke at the time. Scott, you are not standing on firm ground.

Rather than cutting and running the way we did in Somalia, we should make them pay in spades.

The catbird will attempt to translate JayBese to cc.com-ese: It's Bush's fault because he is buying up oil for the Reserve. It's Bush's fault for promoting monopoly in oil refining by allowing rampant consolidation. It's Bush's fault for fostering terrorism by invading Iraq.

Dryad told me that Nepal is 15 minutes off from the time zone in which it belongs.