Move Your Money

Hmmm...is Amegy Bank one of "Potters" pricks?

Gardening Trends

The Best Gardening Trends of the 2000s Decade

Gardening Ideas that Changed the Way we Garden

By Marie Iannotti, About.com Guide

All gardens are a work in progress, constantly evolving and, hopefully, growing. As gardeners, we're very influenced by gardening trends, whether we mean to be or not. Gardening trends effect the plants the nurseries sell and products we're permitted to use on them. Gardening bloomed as a hobby in the 1990s. In the 2000s, we started to refine our tastes and techniques. Here are my choices for the Top 10 Gardening Trends of the past decade. I hope you'll share your thoughts about what your choices would be.

1. Shrub Explosion

Photo courtesy of Proven Winners.

There’s no excuse for a foundation of yews any longer. If you’re looking for curb appeal, garden bones or a lower maintenance garden, take a look at today’s offering of shrubs. They bloom and bloom, they have purple, golden or striped foliage, they weep, they contort and they don’t take over. There are repeat blooming hydrangeas and lilacs, a rainbow of Nine Barks (Physocarpus) Black Lace™ Elderberry, Sterile, Dwarf Buddleia ‘Lo and Behold Blue Chip’ and evergreens that aren’t green.

More on Sambucus 'Black Lace"

2. Foliage Plants

I guess it started with the sun tolerant coleus plants, but my goodness, look what’s happened. You don’t even need flowers any more. We went from a handful of white variegated hosta to a rainbow of sweet potato vines, New Zealand flax (Phormium), topical cannas, Alternanthera and Persian Shield (Strobilanthus). Plus there’s all that wonderful breeding going on with old standards like Coral Bells (Heuchera) and ornamental grasses. The Princess series of pennisetum goes from red to gold.

Purple Foliage Plants

3. Disease Resistant Roses

Disease resistant plants, in general, have been good news for gardeners. But when the prima donas of the garden, roses, start to flaunt their ease of growing, you know things have changed.

If you still think roses are fussy and time consuming, you’re growing the wrong roses. Series like Flower Carpet® and the Knock Out® are pretty much fail safe, but many recent landscape roses have been bred in answer to our despair. Don’t overlook the luscious, scented David Austin roses. These look much more high maintenance than they are.

Growing Roses Organically

4. Walk-On Plants

Photo Courtesy of STEPABLES®.

Planting low growing, creeping plants between and around pavers is not a new concept, but having plant lines that specialize in them - taking the work out of finding suitable plants - deserves a shout out. The art of great gardens is often in the details and walk-on plants add a lovely sense of age and welcoming to a garden. Companies like STEPABLES® and Jeepers Creepers filled a much loved niche. http://gardening.about.com/od/gardendesign/ig/Plants-to-Walk-On/

Read Review

5. Front Yard Gardens

Americans don’t spend much time in the front yards anymore, so it’s understandable we haven’t focused our gardening attention there. But like low mow lawns, a well thought out garden, especially one with drought tolerant, native shrubs adds curb appeal and eco-friendliness while cutting down on maintenance. Just think, no mowing, no pruning the yews, minimal watering... It’s especially nice to see front yard gardens in areas where people walk about.

Design Ideas for Front Yards

6. Heirloom Tomatoes

Photo: stock.xchng / JohnMason.

It’s hard to remember when heirloom tomatoes were a trendy luxury. It’s wonderful that just about every garden has an heirloom or two in it. Heirloom tomatoes are the vegetable that jolted us back into demanding flavor from our vegetables, whether we grow them or buy them. They also deserve some credit for getting people back into vegetable gardening, because we all craved the taste of a vine warm Brandywine. And they led the way for a renewed interest in other heirloom vegetables, like Chioggia beets and Cinderella pumpkins.

Top Heirloom Vegetable Varieties

7. Container Vegetables

As if the renewed interest in vegetable gardening weren’t wonderful enough, we’re also growing them in previously underused spaces, like the front steps, the driveway and windowboxes. It’s just so nice to see vegetables out in the open, rather than relegated to a fenced in area of the backyard. Hopefully this means we’ve come to appreciate the beauty of vegetable plants and we’ll be seeing more front yard veggie gardens and edible landscaping.

More on Growing Vegetables in Containers

8. Low Mow Lawns

I’m on record defending having some lawn. I like the look of a lawn and I enjoy using mine, but I’m not so keen on mowing it every week, especially in August. Kudos to all the researchers out there looking for grasses that not only require minimal mowing, they are also drought and pest resistant. The type of grass will vary with locations and climate, but fine fescues and buffalo grass have been getting the most positive press. This is a trend that’s just catching on, but it looks like it’s growing.

9. Rain Gardens

The prior decade brought us xeriscape gardens and this decade introduced us to rain gardens. Rain gardens are slightly depressed gardens planted near impervious surfaces like driveways and parking lots. They catch run off water and allow it to slowly soak into the ground and filter, reducing the amount of pollution that goes into nearby bodies of water and our water supply. Rain gardens take a bit of planning, but they’re very easy to install and maintain and they function quite well while looking good.

10. Anything Goes

Photo Courtesy of Magpie

We’ve broken free of garden design rules and dictates on good taste and we’ve embraced personalizing our gardens. We may still love English and Tuscan gardens, but we’re not trying to please anyone other than ourselves. We’re willing to take chances and have some fun with our gardens, even if it means throwing in the kitchen sink. I think this is one of the most positive gardening trends, if it can be called a trend. We’ve finally learned to trust ourselves as gardeners.

How One Gardener Decorated Her Garden with Whimsy.

You can find the original story here. We're practicing half of the trends noted above. 2010 will be better than 2009.

Blue Moon

I remember the Blue Moon, that two-story structure on Banks Street close to the Museum District that used to house a jazz venue. Now in it's ninth or tenth incarnation, it's just a bar (again). There was some great music at the Blue Moon, and I got "lucky" there more than once. Before I got married, that is. Oh, wait, this post is about the giant rock orbiting Earth...

The full Moon casts its glow across the end-of-year sky the next couple of nights. And it's a special one: a Blue Moon -- the second full Moon in a calendar month.

There are actually lots of definitions for Blue Moon. The most common is just "a long time;" something that happens "once in a blue moon" is a rare event.

Another definition -- one that dates to the 19th century or earlier -- is the fourth full Moon in a three-month period. And another is more literal -- when the Moon actually looks blue. That can happen under certain atmospheric conditions, like when there's a lot of ash from fires or volcanic eruptions in the air.

The "second-full-moon-in-a-month" definition is more recent -- it's only been around since the 1980s, and in common usage since the '90s.

Like all the others, this type of Blue Moon is rare. The Moon's cycle of phases lasts about 29 and a half days. That means that most months have just one full Moon. In a 31-day month like December, a Blue Moon occurs if you have a full Moon on the 1st or 2nd, and another on the 30th or 31st. This month the Moon was full on the 2nd, and it'll be full again tomorrow at 1:13 p.m. Central Time.

And for skywatchers in Alaska, there'll be a partial lunar eclipse early tomorrow, as part of the lunar disk just dips into Earth's shadow. The rest of the United States will miss out on the eclipse. We'll just have to settle for another astronomical rarity: a Blue Moon.

Go here.

Freethought of the Day

Freethought of the Day

December 29, 2009

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”

-- As attributed to Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), Portuguese navigator, by Robert G. Ingersoll. Source: The Great Quotations edited by George Seldes.

More here.

Corporal Peters

Time for a little mindless humor. The weather is cold dreary outside, but it's warm and toasty inside.

Have you ever wondered who first uttered the phrase..."You Gotta Be Shittin' Me''?

Well, it just so happens to have originated through the Father of Our Country, way back when George Washington was crossing the Delaware River with his troops.

There were 33 (remember this number) in Washington 's boat. It was extremely dark and storming furiously and the water was tossing them about.

Finally, Washington grabbed Corporal Peters (remember this name) and stationed him at the front of the boat with a lantern. He ordered him to keep swinging it, so they could see where they were heading.

Corporal Peters, through driving rain and cold, continued swinging the lantern back and forth, back and forth. Then a big gust of wind and a wave hit and threw Corporal Peters and his lantern into the Delaware. Washington and his troops searched for nearly an hour trying to find Corporal Peters, but to no avail. All of them felt terrible, for the Corporal had been one of their good friends.

Sometime later, Washington and his troops landed on the other side, wet and totally exhausted. He rallied the troops and told them that they must go on.

Another hour later, one of his men said, "General, I see lights ahead." They trudged toward the lights and came upon a huge house.

What they didn't know was that this was a house of ill repute, hidden in the forest to serve all who came. General Washington pounded on the door, his men crowding around him. The door swung open, and much to his surprise stood a beautiful woman. A huge smile came across her face, to see so many men standing there.

Washington was the first to speak, "Madam, I am General George Washington and these are my men. We are tired, wet, exhausted, and desperately need warmth and comfort."

Again, the Madam looked at all the men standing there, and with a broad smile on her face, said, "Well, General, you have come to the right place. We can surely give you warmth and comfort ...How many men do you have?"

Washington replied, "Well, Madam, there are 32 of us without Peters."

And the Madam said, "You Gotta Be Shittin Me."

StumbleUpon

The first in a series of posts highlighting some cool websites...

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 8 million+ other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

You can spend HOURS stumbling upon websites you never knew existed.

Uh, two rules, however....

Don't believe everything you read, and

Everything in moderation, mm'kay?

Ladies and germs, start your stumbling.

Hermann Goering

If the text below is too small to read, click it and it should open in a new window. Why do I think "Bush" when I read this?...

Newt? Again?!

Here's a snippet from Political Animal, in yet another example of our somewhat absurd "news media."

THE MOST POPULAR 'MTP' GUEST OF THE YEAR.... In the previous post, I mentioned what disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on "Meet the Press" yesterday. I neglected to ask a relevant question: why on earth was Newt Gingrich on "Meet the Press" yesterday?

Yesterday was Gingrich's fifth appearance on "MTP" just this year. In fact, Newt Gingrich, despite not having held any position in government for over a decade, was the single most frequent guest on "Meet the Press" in 2009 of any political figure in the United States. Literally.

From March to December, Gingrich appeared on "MTP," on average, every other month. No one else in American politics was on the show this often.

I'm reminded of something Eric Boehlert wrote recently:

[A]s often happens when I read breaking, this-is-what-Newt-said dispatches, I couldn't help thinking, 'Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?' And I don't mean that in the partisan sense. I mean it in the journalistic sense: How do Gingrich's daily pronouncements about the fundamental dishonesty of Democrats (Newt's favorite phrase) translate into news? Why does the press, 10 years after Gingrich was forced out of office, still treat his every partisan utterance as a newsworthy occurrence? In other words, why does the press still treat him like he's speaker of the House? It's unprecedented.

Eric wrote that seven months ago. It's still true.

Keep in mind, "Meet the Press" didn't have the actual Speaker of the House on at all this year. It also featured zero appearances from all of the other living former House Speakers (Hastert, Wright, Foley) combined.

There's just no reasonable explanation for this. Gingrich was forced from office in disgrace -- by his own caucus -- 11 years ago. What's more, he's kind of a nut -- we're talking about a former office holder who speculated, just last week, about hidden messages from God in snowstorms.

And yet, no other political figure was on "Meet the Press" more this year than crazy ol' Newt Gingrich. If someone can explain why, I'm all ears.

P.U. Litzer Awards

Announcing the 2009 P.U.-Litzer Prizes

FAIR. Posted December 28, 2009.

WASHINGTON - December 22 - For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.

--The Remembering Reagan Award WINNER: Joe Klein, Time

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09), not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a troop escalation in Afghanistan, wrote that a president "must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

He described the better way to do this:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks...and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

Ah, Reagan--now there was a president who could inspire people to fight and die based on lies.

--The Cheney 2012 Award WINNER: Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared (12/7/09) that Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 would be "good for the Republicans and good for the country." He explained that "Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.... A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way."

While the 2008 election might have seemed a sufficient judgment of the Bush years, it's worth pointing out that at beginning of the year (1/19/09), Meacham was adamantly opposed to re-hashing Cheney's record, calling it "the rough equivalent of pornography--briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive." The difference? That was in response to the idea that Cheney should be held accountable for lawbreaking. Apparently a few months later, the same record is grounds for a White House run.

--The Them Not Us Award WINNER: Martin Fackler, New York Times

The New York Times (11/21/09) describes the severe problems with Japan's elite media--a horror show where "reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced a relatively spineless press that feels more accountable to its official sources than to the public. In their apparent reluctance to criticize the government, the critics say, the news media fail to serve as an effective check on authority."

The mind reels.

--Thin-Skinned Pundits Award WINNER: Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza got into trouble when, in an episode of their "Mouthpiece Theater" web video series, they suggested brands of beer that would be appropriate for various politicians. What would Hillary Clinton drink? Apparently something called "Mad Bitch." The video, unsurprisingly, was roundly criticized, and was pulled from the Post site. So what lesson was learned? Milbank complained (8/6/09) that "it's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere.... I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."

--The Sheer O'Reillyness Award WINNER: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel--TWICE!

1) Asked by a Canadian viewer, "Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?," Fox's O'Reilly (7/27/09) responded: "Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line."

2) Drumming up fear of Democrats' tax plans: "Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That's not capitalism. That's Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn."

Perhaps Castro was president of the United States in 1982-86, when the top rate was 50 percent. Or maybe all of the 1970s, when it was 70 percent. Or from 1950-63, when it was 91 percent.

--The Less Talk, More Bombs Award WINNER: David Broder, Washington Post

Post columnist Broder expressed the conventional wisdom on Barack Obama's deliberations on the Afghanistan War, writing under the headline "Enough Afghan Debate" (11/15/09):

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision--whether or not it is right.

--The Racism Is Dead Award WINNER: Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote (5/5/09): "The justification for affirmative action gets weaker and weaker. Maybe once it was possible to argue that some innocent people had to suffer in the name of progress, but a glance at the White House strongly suggests that things have changed. For most Americans, race has become supremely irrelevant. Everyone knows this. Every poll shows this."

For the record, "every poll" does not actually show this; the vast majority of Americans continues to recognize that racism is still a problem. Cohen went on to write months later--still presumably living in his racism-free world--that he did not believe Iran's claims about its nuclear program, because "these Persians lie like a rug."

--The When in Doubt, Talk to the Boss Award WINNER: Matt Lauer, NBC News

Today show host Lauer announced a special guest on April 15: "If you really want to know how the economy is affecting the average American, he's the guy to talk to." Who was Lauer talking about? Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. The ensuing interview touched on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Lauer noted was supported by many unions but opposed by some large corporations--leading him to ask Duke, "What's the truth?" Yes, look for "the truth" about a proposed pro-labor bill from the new CEO of an adamantly anti-labor corporation.

--The Socialist Menace Award WINNER: Michael Freedman, Newsweek

Newsweek's "We Are All Socialists Now" cover (2/16/09) certainly turned heads, but one of the stories inside explained in more detail the real threat. As senior editor Michael Freedman asked: "Have you noticed that Barack Obama sounds more like the president of France every day?"

The real problem, though, is what that's going to do to us Americans, says Freedman: "If job numbers continue to look dismal, or get even worse, an ever-greater number of people will start looking to the government for support.... It's very easy to imagine a chorus of former American individualists demanding cushy French-style pensions and free British-style healthcare if their private stock funds fail to recover and unemployment inches upward toward 10 percent and remains there."

Pensions and healthcare for all--this is worse than we thought!

--The Iraq All Over Again Award WINNER: Too Many to Name

After the invasion of Iraq, countless journalists who had treated allegations about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as facts were embarrassed when there were no such weapons to be found. So you'd think they'd be more careful about thinly sourced claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. But in 2009, many journalists are still willing to treat such allegations as facts.

-NBC's Chris Matthews (10/4/09): "As if Afghanistan were not enough, now there's Iran's move to get nuclear weapons."

-NBC's David Gregory (10/4/09). "Iran--will talks push that country to give up its nuclear weapons program?"

-Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (9/25/09): "All hell breaking loose as a new nuclear weapons facility is discovered in Iran, proving the mullahs have been lying for years.... Iran's nuclear weapons program has now reached critical mass. And worldwide conflict is very possible. Friday, President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy revealed a secret nuclear weapons facility located inside Iran."

Some even went further, turning allegations of a nuclear weapons program into the discovery of actual nuclear weapons:

-ABC's Good Morning America host Bill Weir (9/26/09): "President Obama and a united front of world leaders charge Iran with secretly building nuclear weapons."

--The Talking Like a Terrorist Award WINNER: Thomas Friedman, New York Times

In a January 14 column, New York Times superstar pundit Tom Friedman explained Israel's war on Lebanon as an attempt to "educate" the enemy by killing civilians: The Israeli strategy was to "inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical." Friedman added, "The only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians--the families and employers of the militants--to restrain Hezbollah in the future." That strategy of targeting civilians to advance a political agenda is usually known as terrorism; Osama bin Laden couldn't have explained it much better.

--The It Only Bothers Us Now Award WINNER: Wall Street Journal editorial page

When Barack Obama only called on journalists from a list during a press conference, the Wall Street Journal did not like the new protocol (2/12/09):"We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors."

Actually, Bush was famous for calling only on reporters on an approved list; as he joked at a press conference on the eve of the Iraq War (3/6/03), "This is scripted."

--The No Comment Award WINNERS: MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Rush Limbaugh

When asked by Politico (10/16/09) to name her favorite guest, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski named arch-conservative Pat Buchanan "because he says what we are all thinking."

Rush Limbaugh on Obama (Fox News Channel, 1/21/09): "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles...because his father was black."

FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.

What a media. What a country. What a joke. The original is here.

Made in the U.S.A.

I took a sampling of the country-of-origin for several gifts exchanged this Christmas. People always say that the United States doesn't produce anything anymore, but a glance at the list below refutes that.

France (2) - cologne and perfume

Bangladesh (1) - flannel pajamas

Vietnam (3) - mens wool dress pants; mens polyester dress pants; underwear

Mexico (1) - blue jeans

Pakistan (2) - white socks; dress socks

Honduras (2) - mens dress shirt; (different maker) mens dress shirt

Lesotho (1) - denim jeans (yes, Lesotho)

China (3) - flannel shirt; art sketch book; griddle

USA (5) - cologne; perfume; book; book; personal lube (say what?)

What? The USA produces more products than any other country on the list?! Yes, indeed. Granted, this is just an informal product listing, and most of the products listed above are clothing, but I thought it was interesting.

We will go to any corner of the planet to make products as cheaply as possible. It's a little bit disgusting, even if I, as an American, am the beneficiary of all of this outsourcing, in the form of cheaper prices of goods. In one example, my wife bought me a couple of dress shirts for less money than she paid for similar shirts over 20 years ago! Is that a success of capitalism? Globalization? Is it the same thing?

Funniest Vids of 2009

Political videos, that is.

Go here.

Happy Holidays to all

Get One At - Friendster Comments

Landover Baptist

You owe it to yourself to visit the Landover Baptist website if you are not religious. And if you are, I would advise against it.


Recent stories like:

The Most Dangerous Christmas Toys!

Tiger Woods: Philanderer and Christian Basher!

Jesus is Going to Kill My Son if You Don't Help Me!

The Devil Is In Your Chimney! Is Santa Claus, Satan?

Go see for yourself by clicking here.

Morford: Why Men Cheat

101 reasons why men cheat

(Tiger Woods Edition). The timeless question comes round again. Can you answer?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Plethoric are the theories, the pop psychoanalysis, the dime store hypothesis. In the wake of Tiger's epic fail, we hereby present a quick rundown of the real reasons many men cheat, as compiled by the whims and vagaries of the baffled, needy male ego for the past, oh, about two million years.

Ready?

Basically, men cheat* because:

1. Their penis told them to.
2. The penis is always right.
3. Unless it's not. Unless it's totally, blindingly wrong. But that's really not possible. Just ask it. Wait a sec, it's busy with that Vegas waitress. OK, go ahead. See?
4. The man's marriage is sexless and loveless and boring, and he has needs that must -- nay MUST -- be met. Just ask the penis.
5. The wife has low/no libido, whereas the man has enough for nine teenagers and a box of rabbits.

6. 

   No, really. The male libido, generally speaking, far outpaces the female libido and is never really satisfied for more than a day or two, tops. This is why so many men choose to be gay. Gay sex is like, off the hook! It's true! I read that somewhere. Lesbians, on the other hand, often suffer a terrible fate known as "lesbian bed death." You can Google it.
7. #6 is a totally unfair cliché that doesn't always hold true, and, by the way, all men are pigs. I mean, duh.
8. The kids steal all the love/attention/energy from wife, leaving man with noth ing but XTube, golf and vodka.
9. One word: Ego. Three more: ego, ego, ego. Nothing like nailing a beautiful female acolyte to boost self-image, over and over again, as she coos your name adoringly and feigns surprise that you just bought her a Mercedes.
10. Or is it the other way around, and many women are shockingly predatory, often hunting for rich, powerful men who will buy them stuff and give them a shred of self worth by association, because the truth is, they have no identity of their own, and all they have is sex, which they wield like an ax made of lip gloss and open hip flexors and Cosa Bella thongs?
11. Man is a rock star/golfer/politician/televangelist and women -- or gay prostitutes -- are knocking on his hotel-room door day an d night, and the penis is like, are you going to answer that?
12. Man's marriage is basically a sham, held together only for the sake of kids and media and multimillion-dollar Nike endorsement deals, and to pay for mansions, guitar-shaped swimming pools and giant chrome rims for the Escalade.
13. Se x is tasty and delicious and should not be denied to mere mortals like weak and meager little men.
14. Man is insecure, and sex makes him feel wanted and powerful.
15. Man is very secure, and sex makes him feel even more wanted and powerful.
16. Man is impervious. He cannot possibly get caught.
17. Man is impervious. He does not care if he gets caught.
18. Wife won't do various kinky/perverted things man has taken a liking to from scouring Interweb at 3 a.m. whilst moderately drunk and naked. Wife has zero sex skills. Wife hates sex. Wife only grudgingly has it when she has to to shut up his whining. Wife is disgusted by his dirty suggestions for the new video camera. Wife has let herself go. Wife will only have sex if it leads to mo re babies. Wife is Sarah Palin. Mix and match.
19. Sex is not love. Cheating is not really "cheating," per se, given how most men consider casual sex romps to be just slightly above "meatball sandwich and an ice cold beer" and just below "hitting 210 mph in Porsche Carrera Turbo while tripping on acid in a lake of fire" in the Male Desirables Index.

20. 

    Man has become convinced the human animal is not meant to really be monogamous, that fidelity is for Hallmark cards and Mormons and has no bearing on real life. Man is simply not wired to mate for life. Hey, it was on the Discovery Channel!
21. Wife actually gave man permission that one time when she was really drunk after being handed keys to new Bentley and a house.
22. Except she wasn't drunk at all and knew exactly what she was doing.
23. And so did he.
24. Quit making excuses. Man is a pathetic, sexist jackass and always has been, basically.
25. Which makes you wonder why she married him at all.
26. Maybe she thought she could fix him. That's pretty common.
27. Or maybe he was very, very convincing when he said he'd changed, that his playa days were over, that he loved her and needed her and never wanted to have sex with anyone else, ever -- no really, I mean it this time.
28. Which was probably true.
29. When he said it.
30. And she wanted to believe it so badly. "Maybe marriage would change him? Or a couple kids? He's ready to settle down, I can feel it."
31. Even though everyone around them was like, "Oh my God, that's a disaster waiting to happen, right there. He's such a letch. Why doesn't she see it? Should someone tell her? Is she just not very bright?
32. "I mean, he just totally hit on me at their Christmas party. And she was like, 10 feet away! Of course, I slept with him. But never mind that now!"
33. Let's flip it over. Maybe wife is a ruthless, nightmare harridan, relentlessly negative and mean. He can do no right. He is lonely and starved for attention. But they have kids, a home. Divorce is ugly, expensive, public. So...
34. Oh, stop it. There is never any valid reason for cheating, even if she's an abusive monster. There are only excuses.
35. Thank you, Elle magazine. You are childish and wrong and do not live in the real world. Go back to your pink pedi and "Twilight."
36. Bite me.
37. Man is entitled. "I deserve lots of casual sex. After all, I didn't work this hard on my business/golf game/these abs not to have them licked by a wide variety of giggly TGI Friday's hostesses. Wait, did I? No. No I did not."
38. Porn made him do it.
39. Sex addiction. He's a victim.
40. And a sinner! We are all sinners. Who are you to judge? Sinner! You! Now take off your pants and get in the goddamn hot tub already.
41. Man fears mortality.
42. Man fears erectile dysfunction.
43. Man fears fear.
44. Man fears deranged fan will beat him/kill herself/post photos on Facebook if he doesn't have more sex with her. What's he supposed to do?
45. Man is getting back at his mother.
46. Father.
47. Priest.
48. Invisible friend.
49. Invisible friend's priest's mother.
50. Wife has tacitly agreed to don't-ask, don't-tell policy WRT his fooling around, and is not at all unhappy with having $20 million in her checking account while she never has to have sex with her husband. Hello, American dream!
51. Organized religions and entire conservative platform essentially say that women are lesser, lower, should be kept in their place, and that place usually involves denial and alcoholism and blind acceptance of your man's wanton indiscretions, because he's the man and that's all there is to it, so shut up and take another Zoloft and keep your crying to yourself. Yay, GOP!
52. Didn't Jesus fool around? Is that written somewhere? The lost Gospel of Hey Baby, Nice Rack? All those prostitutes and magic and hocus-pocus? I bet he did. Dude could walk on water. Chicks love that.
53. And by the way, isn't cheating sort of God's will? I mean, He's omniscient and everything, right? That means He knows it all before it happens, it's all predetermined and fated and a priori, and therefore he knows we're gonna cheat, right? So it must be OK.
54. Hey, temptation is irresistible. Who can say no to a secret illicit romp on the office conference-room table?
55. ... or on the boss's desk?
56. ... or in the principal's office?
57. ... Wal-Mart parking lot?
58. ... iHop walk-in freezer?
59. ... 1995 Chevy Caravan third row fold-down seating?
60. Men don't cheat, actually, at least not nearly as much as the culture/feminist theory thinks.
61. They actually value and cherish emotional connection just as much as women. It's true. Media blows it all out of proportion. So not fair.
62. So essentially, we're talking about the classic, time-honored breakdown in communication and gender understanding, exacerbated by horrible sex education and Dr. Phil's BS and endless lies from fashion magazines and Oprah and porn.
63. Actually, the headline of this column is sort of misleading. Men don't cheat. Some men do, and some women do, for all sort of reasons, some of which are actually sort of valid, if you will, and to insist on some ironclad universal rule of absolute unquestioning fidelity is to presume a ridiculous, impossible level of perfection in the human animal and to dismiss the million messy, complicated variants a human love relationship can take.
64. Oh, just shut the hell up, #63. No one wants to hear your tepid, permissive psychoanalysis. Cheating is wrong. Always and forever. Now let's talk more about drunk jerks and skanks!
65. Hey, I'm just trying to provide a little perspective, rein it all back in. This is getting out of hand.
66. Whatevs. This entire column is built around a totally ludicrous and unanswerable question, anyway. Sure, there are as many reasons for infidelity as there are human emotions. Life is messy. Love is messier. But mostly it's about the penis.
67. Yes, but ...
68. Just stop it.

69-100. Something to do with monkeys.

101. Love is not your bitch.

* NOTE: Many of these also apply to women who cheat. So don't kid yourself, sister.

The original is here. Go and see the ads.

Submarine volcano

Very cool, and boiling hot.

Deepest volcano caught on Pacific Ocean video

Amazing video has been obtained in the Pacific Ocean of the deepest undersea eruption ever recorded.

The pictures show lavas bursting into the water at the West Mata submarine volcano, which is sited about 200km (125 miles) south-west of the Samoas.

The West Mata expedition was funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Go here. Imagine. The US doing science! Hallelujah!

2009 - Good year for Science

2009 was a good year for science. Could it have helped any to finally have Bush and his faith-based fanatics out of the way? Sound science, indeed.

Human-like fossil find is breakthrough of the year
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

The team slowly reconstructed what "Ardi" would have looked like

The discovery of a fossilised skeleton that has become a "central character in the story of human evolution" has been named the science breakthrough of 2009.

The 4.4 million year old creature, that may be a human ancestor, was first described in a series of papers in the journal Science in October.

It has now been recognised by the journal's editors as the most important scientific accomplishment of this year.

It is part of a scientific top 10 that ranges from space science to genetics.

The first fossils of the species, Ardipithecus ramidus, were unearthed in 1994. Scientists recognised their importance immediately.

But the very poor condition of the ancient bones meant that it took researchers 15 years to excavate and analyse them.

An artist's impression of Ardipithecus ramidus. Scientists say the creature is a central character in the story of human evolution

The most important thing to emerge from that excavation was the partial skeleton of a female creature, which has now been nicknamed "Ardi".

An international team of scientists unveiled the skeleton in a series of scientific papers published in Science in October.

Their careful examination of its skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet revealed that Ardi shared a mixture of "primitive" traits shared with its predecessors, and "derived" features, which it shared with later hominids, or human-like creatures.

It shared some of these derived features with humans.

Professor Tim White from the University of California, Berkeley in the US, was one of the lead scientists working on the project.

"This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," he told Science Magazine at the time the research was published.

One of his team's key conclusions was that Ardi walked upright. This was based on the painstaking reassembly of its very badly crushed pelvis, which the scientists said had a shape that would have allowed Ardi to balance on one leg at a time.

Evolution debate

Professor White said that some researchers had been sceptical about these conclusions.

"Some people have looked at the pelvis and said, 'my gosh, that's fairly squashed. Are you sure you knew how to put it together correctly?' So we're responding to that," he told Science magazine.

Ardipithecus was even more primitive than the famous "Lucy" fossil - a 3.2 million year old Australopithecus skeleton that was discovered in 1974.

Professor Chris Stringer, a palaeontologist from the Natural History Museum in London said that Ardi was likely "a remnant of a more ancient stage of human evolution" than Lucy.

"[It was] closer in many ways to the ancestor we shared with our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, more than six million years ago," he said.

Earlier this year, Nasa deliberately crashed a rocket into its surface and discovered water vapour in the debris
Nasa's discovery of water on the Moon was one of the runners up

The editor-in-chief of Science said that the Ardipithecus research represented a "culmination of 15 years of painstaking, highly collaborative research by 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations."

The nine runners up in Science's list of this year's most important breakthroughs were published in a number of scientific journals, including Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The first runner up was Nasa's discovery of magnetised, rapidly rotating neutron stars called pulsars.

Others included the discovery that a compound called rapamycin boosted longevity in mice - the first time any drug has stretched a mammal's life span - and advances in gene therapy that could help treat a fatal brain disease.

The nine runners up were:

* Pulsar mystery: Nasa's Fermi gamma-Ray Space Telescope helped identify previously unknown pulsars - highly magnetised and rapidly rotating neutron stars.

* Extending life: Researchers found the compound rapamycin extends the life span of mice. The discovery was particularly remarkable because the treatment did not start until the mice were middle-aged.

* Supreme conduction: Materials scientists probed the properties of graphene - highly conductive single-layer sheets of carbon atoms - and started fashioning the material into experimental electronic devices.

* Plant survival: Scientists discovered the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. This could help in the design of new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods.

* Laser tool: The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California unveiled the world's first X-ray laser, a powerful research tool capable of taking snapshots of chemical reactions as they happen and studying materials in unprecedented detail.

* Gene Therapy: European and US researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder by developing new strategies involving gene therapy.

* Magnetic monopoly: Physicists working with strange crystalline materials called spin ices created magnetic ripples that behaved like "magnetic monopoles" - fundamental particles with only one magnetic pole.

* Watery Moon: Nasa discovered water vapour in the debris when it deliberately crashed a rocket near the south pole of the Moon. The experiment was part of the space agency's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission.

* Hubble Repair: A final repair mission by space shuttle astronauts gave the Hubble telescope sharper vision, enabling it to produce some of its most spectacular images yet.

The original story is here.

Lieberman socks

CompromiseCare

From the Borowitz Report...

Senate Unveils CompromiseCare™

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - The United States Senate today unveiled details of its health care plan, tentatively called CompromiseCare™:

• Under CompromiseCare™, people with no coverage will be allowed to keep their current plan.
• Medicare will be extended to 55-year-olds as soon as they turn 65.
• You will have access to cheap Canadian drugs if you live in Canada.
• States whose names contain vowels will be allowed to opt out of the plan.
• You get to choose which doctor you cannot afford to see.
• You will not have to be pre-certified to qualify for cremation.
• A patient will be considered "pre-existing" if he or she already exists.
• You'll be free to choose between medications and heating fuel.
• Patients can access quality health care if they can prove their name is "Lieberman."
• You will be entitled to natural remedies, such as death. More here.

Go here or here.

Toon Time XMAS

Ho ho ho

Free shipping day! 12/17/09

Free Shipping Day is Thursday, December 17, 2009

713 participating merchants will be offering free shipping with delivery by Christmas Eve.

The Free Shipping Day promotions for participating merchants will be revealed on Thursday, December 17 at 12:00AM EST. Some merchants may have minimum order restrictions. More than half will have free shipping on all orders.

Click here to see a list of the retailers that will offer free shipping.

Flu? Food poisoning?

The wife me another scare today....The latest in a long line of scares...

Last night, we attended her company holiday party at a local Mexican food restaurant. As we were walking up to the restaurant, I groaned, because I could see inside the restaurant to where our party was going to be (the Party Room), and there most everyone was, standing around chatting. So, what's the big deal about that? My feet. Thanks to my two foot surgeries, my new and improved f&2!ng! neuroma in my right foot, tarsal tunnel in both feet and the osteoarthritis in my left foot, I simply cannot stand in one place very long. I have to sit. A lot.

Fortunately, my job allows me to sit quite frequently. So, I knew my feet were not going to be happy, and sure enough, after just a few minutes of visiting, they - my feet - began screaming me at and I had to sit down. The only one to sit. I tried to explain that I was not being socially aloof or anything, that it was my feet that caused me to sit, and they believe me, but it still sucks.

And so, oh wait, oh yeah, this post isn't about ME, it's about my wonderful wife.

The food was served buffet-style, with several warming trays full of rice and beans, fajita meat and sliced chicken, tortillas, shish-ka-bobs, and a fish dish. It all seemed fine at the time...

After one margarita, the wife was feeling no pain and spread her social butterfly wings, flitting about the room chatting up her co-workers. Meanwhile, I sat, practically in a corner. Poor pitiful me.

She was feeling quite frisky and fine when we got home and eventually hit the sack before 10:00pm.

About 4:00am, she awoke with severe stomach pain, stumbled to the bathroom and got sick (ok - vomited). Back to bed, fell asleep, awoke to more pain, more vomiting. This went on for a few hours. In no time, she was having the dry heaves. Nothing left in her stomach, but her stomach insists on violently convulsing just the same. You've probably been there. It's hell. And it's scary for a caregiver to watch. You're just powerless to do anything to relieve the pain and suffering.

She told me she had some violent chills, the type where your body just shivers out of control and you can't stop it. That's a symptom of the flu.

I called my job to explain my absence from work. It's rather hard for me to just go to work and leave her to her own devices. I just can't do it.

She told me she had a splitting headache, another flu symptom.

Her temperature measured 97.1. Hmmm...the H1N1 is hitting but without the fever.

So, at this point, we thought maybe she was getting the flu. Or, at best, a severe case of food poisoning. She could not hold down any liquids. Didn't want to even THINK about eating. Even a tiny sip of water would be violently rejected within minutes. No doubt she was getting dehydrated.

I called up our General Practitioner about her symptoms and they phoned me in a Rx of promethegan in suppository form, at least to stop the vomiting. It's a bit harder to throw those up. We gave her that medicine about 9:30am and she was able to go to sleep. She hasn't thrown up since that time. No more chills. No fever - it vacillates between 97 and 99, pretty normal.

One of the main missing symptoms is chest pain, so that was good. With the flu, it can feel like you've been hit in your chest by a bowling ball traveling at a high rate of speed.

When she woke around 11am, she tells me she is aching all over. This is new and not good. That's a major symptom of flu, so I call up the doc again and ask for a Tamiflu Rx. His assistant says that the doc will call me back soon, and he will probably want to see her. (Take her to the doc in this condition? If we must...)

Fortunately, she's sleeping pretty well, perhaps thanks to the Rx. I brought her a little soup and crackers for lunch, just to put something in her stomach, and she has kept it down.

Thank goodness the vomiting has stopped. She has had a mild case of asthma for awhile, and vomiting of any kind can kick that asthma into overdrive. The flu has been known to kill a lot of asthma patients. It was scary as hell to hear her vomiting and gasping for breath at the same time. Fortunately she hasn't hurled in a few hours now.

Eventually, about 2pm, the doc calls back and talks to her on the phone for several minutes. We love this doctor, even if he is "out of the network." By this time, no more aching. No fever. No chills. No headache. No chest pain. Just very tired, and a sore stomach, from the multiple vomits, most likely.

He's leaning towards either a stomach bug or food poisoning. No need to come in at this time, unless the symptoms get worse. We'll give her her next suppository soon, and we'll call the doc Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, I missed my company's holiday lunch and White Elephant gift exchange today. It would have been a little hard to be sociable and have a good time when I was worried about how my sweetie was doing, so I had to skip it. Sorry, friends.

Believe me, I tossed out all the leftovers we brought home from the restaurant last night.

This seems like a good time to list Flu vs Cold symptoms again. Woulda been handy to have a third column for food poisoning.

Symptom	Cold	Flu
Fever	Fever is rare with a cold.	Fever is usually present with the flu in up to 80% of all flu cases. A temperature of 100°F or higher for 3 to 4 days is associated with the flu.
Coughing	A hacking, productive (mucus- producing) cough is often present with a cold.	A non-productive (non-mucus producing) cough is usually present with the flu (sometimes referred to as dry cough).
Aches	Slight body aches and pains can be part of a cold.	Severe aches and pains are common with the flu.
Stuffy Nose	Stuffy nose is commonly present with a cold and typically resolves spontaneously within a week.	Stuffy nose is not commonly present with the flu.
Chills	Chills are uncommon with a cold.	60% of people who have the flu experience chills.
Tiredness	Tiredness is fairly mild with a cold.	Tiredness is moderate to severe with the flu.
Sneezing	Sneezing is commonly present with a cold.	Sneezing is not common with the flu.
Sudden Symptoms	Cold symptoms tend to develop over a few days.	The flu has a rapid onset within 3-6 hours. The flu hits hard and includes sudden symptoms like high fever, aches and pains.
Headache	A headache is fairly uncommon with a cold.	A headache is very common with the flu, present in 80% of flu cases.
Sore Throat	Sore throat is commonly present with a cold.	Sore throat is not commonly present with the flu.
Chest Discomfort	Chest discomfort is mild to moderate with a cold.	Chest discomfort is often severe with the flu.