Please join me today in wishing my good friend James a happy birthday!  James is 38 today, I think.

I met him in college approximately 20 years ago and I've been all the luckier for it ever since.

So head on over to Aces Full of Links and wish him a happy day!

Gotta love them Republicans. The minimum wage (despite the cost of living) hasn't seen a single increase since 1997. Since 1997, senate salaries have been raised seven times. So when Senator Edward Kennedy put forth a proposal to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.25 per hour, what do you suppose happened? ...   more »

Let's hear it for those "activist judges" in Alaska who have ruled that the state must offer the same benefits to the partners of gay state employees that it does to the spouses of hetero state employees...   more »

Emile Goguen, representative from Fitchburg, MA, being a Democrat, has received my vote in the past. Never again. Emile Goguen does not represent my values, or values I consider democratic ones. I never thought I'd be quoting Dick Cheney in a favorable light, but when he said (in reference to gay marriage) "Freedom means freedom for everyone not just some." he espoused an ideal that forms part of the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Why am I on about Emile Goguen? Witness...   more »

I went to Home Depot the other day. I was trying to make a siphon to drain off the lake at the end of my driveway and I didn't want to use lung power to draw filthy water into the hose. I wanted a simple hand pump that I could use to draw water up into the hose until the hose was full, and then simply remove the pump and let it drain. Apparently they've never heard of hand pumps at Home Depot...   more »

I found this today while tooling about the 'net.  It's a list of common fallacious arguing tactics with explanations.  Neat!

Ya I know, you've heard me bitch about this stuff before, and I realize a college degree is (sadly) not a requisite to work at D'Angelos, but the mind numbing stupidity of the service there drives me up the effing wall with alarming regularity. Witness my dinner tonight...   more »

Last night my dumb dog Tina discovered a bag of saltwater taffy that my daughter left on the coffee table.  The mutt managed to get the bag open and downed one piece of taffy before she got caught.  Guess what was waiting for me in her crate when I came downstairs this morning!

The irony in all this? Just yesterday I was telling a friend that dogs won't crap where they sleep.

South Newton High School is putting on a school play this year about the murder of Matthew Sheppard, the 21 year old University of Wyoming student who was tied to a fence, beaten, and left to die because he was gay. Pretty edgy stuff, but it is high school, and I think it's appropriate that people at that age understand how utterly despicable intolerance and the acts comitted because of it are. Fortunately, intolerance plans to show up in person and make it that much clearer...   more »