An elderly couple had dinner at another couple's house, and after eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The two gentlemen were talking, and one said, 'Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great. I would recommend it very highly.' The other man said, 'What is the name of the restaurant?' The first man thought and thought and finally said, 'What’s the name of that flower you give to someone you love? You know, the one that's red and has thorns.' 'Do you mean a rose?' 'Yes, that's the one,' replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled, 'Rose, what's the name of that restaurant we went to last night?'

A Crook in Business

I got robbed by my truck driving school. Pennyless and without friends or family, I am without any power. But the guy decided to change the arrangement whereby I funded my training. I called him on it. He was enraged. He wanted to charge me for any and all make-up time I had. I reminded him that he was the source of my needing make-up time. Now he hates my guts because I pointed out to him just how crappy a human being he was. He kept griping about the money even as he raged at me about money. You gotta love people like that. But I believe I have no recourse.

Life sucks.

Oh,and I would like to thank my family for abandoning me. Robert F. Wiest, Avery
Bennet, Evan Sakamoto, and Wistan Bennet-Sakamoto, thank you all for dumping me. I never ever ever would have done the same to you.

Royally Mad

Wonderful. A "reality show" about idiots. Why is there such an appeal among both Brits and Americans to pay so much attention to idiots?

Who cares that there are three women who shriek and bounce around at the very mention of "the royal wedding"?

Are you watching this crap? Then you are a moron. You're wasting your time on garbage, when you could be investing your time on something good, and it takes just as much energy. Go Read a decent book. Put down the Twilight shit. Step away from the Avatar trash. Pick up the Iliad. Try reading The Inferno. See what good there is in Gulliver. You might even read the Bible. Open your mind and fill it with meaning instead of CRAP.

You come home tired after work? I'm so sorry. But your solution to getting a little rest is to watch this shit? I could slap you.

Widen your horizons. Stop drooling over someone else's life. Get one yourself.

The holodeck

WHY IS THE HOLODECK OPEN FOR PUBLIC SCRUTINY?

Barkley is easing his tensions and making himself happy with a few images of women from the ship adoring him and stroking his hair and holding his head in their laps. This is supposed to be his tension-release moment and he has to let everyone in the ship see him at it?

Who the hell could release their tension this way?

There should be a lock on the door. There should be an emergency override for that lock and anyone who overrides it would have to answer for it to an inquiry, but other than that, people should have some privacy in their fantasies.

Geordie got into a helluva lot of trouble once because he fantasized a famous scientist (yes, a woman) falling in love with him. He was using her program to solve problems and maybe it helped him to think of her assisting his thoughts. He could have thought the same thoughts without the holodeck, so why invade his privacy this way?

Stupid writers, that's all.

"The Good Book"

This is a new publication written by A.C. Grayling, UK philosopher.

The Good Book: The Humanist Bible

My understanding of humanism is that everyone is free to be human and to make up their own values and to change those values at will. They often brag about not needing anyone or any institution that will tell them what to think. The younger humanists sneer at people who believe in God and refer to their object of worship as the Flying Spaghetti Monster or other pejoratives like "space fairies".

Introducing a book to "tell other people what to think" roundly violates this philosophy.

Of course, Grayling is telling the rest of the world what humanists believe, not ordering humanists to think or to behave in a certain way. The same is true of the Bible; it isn't telling you what to think. It's putting forth its worldview and either you agree or disagree, the same as Grayling's "The Good Book".

The humanist church (a Unitarian-Universalist church) I attended was intensely focused on "We're too smart to need to be told [by the Bible] what to think." If they took that criticism seriously, they now have to apply the same criticism to this book as well.

That is, if they want to be consistent.

Police under fire for pepper spraying 8-year-old boy

A little kid age 8, who actually presents as a pretty nice, well-meaning kid, who knows he has problems controlling himself, exploded at his teachers and besides hitting and spitting and raging at them, also told them, "I'm going to kill you." Thus, when the police arrived, the teachers were hiding, in fear for their lives, and the police, also afraid of whatever might have happened or might be ready to happen, hit him with pepper spray.

The mother and grandmother assure us they want to help the boy with his behavior problem, just can't understand what makes him act like this, checked him into a behavior modification program, and remain baffled that he hasn't been able to improve himself and get the problem under control. And their response to his problems don't seem to include any attempt to make excuses for him. No "his father teased him" or "He's the victim of an oppressive society;" none of that.

Aidan tells us, "I want to be a marine, that's why I'm trying to handle it. But sometimes my body just forces me."

Okay, I think these well-meaning, good-hearted people have a problem. They do not intend at all to make flimsy excuses for this boy's bad behavior, but they don't know how they're covering for him.

Let me present an example from Dr Laura. The caller has a problem, it's his temper and he's tired of losing his. She comes back at him with, "Sir, have you ever hit a cop?" "No, of course not." "So you DO have self-control when the consequences are serious enough." The caller cannot disagree.

Remembering this, I looked at my own children. They fought constantly and all three of them got violent pretty often. For years I tried to terrify them by screaming at them. Occasionally either I or their father would get out a fairly stout yardstick and hit them with it. We gave them times-outs, we did everything everyone else ever recommended. None of it ever worked.

Finally I had an idea: a punishment that was immediate, and so disgustingly distasteful they'd know they were being punished. "From now on, whoever hits his brother, no matter how mean the other one has been, you're cleaning the bathroom."

The eldest one was most prone to hitting. It didn't take long for him to lose control and slug one of his brothers. I had already shown all of them how to clean the bathroom, so I only had to march him to the doorway and snarl.

He did it again a few days later, and a few more times, but by the end of one month, he had learnt to control his temper

The punishment was obviously meaningful, and so thoughts of how bad it would be to hit came to rule the actions of this boy.

I'd strongly recommend all parents to consider this. Or make them pick up dog poop in the back yard. But skip the "you're grounded" junk. Or the "black marks" or "taking away one of your gold stars." They're either not immediate enough, or they're not icky enough.

Frisians?!

The draft horse was invented not to pull heavy wagons or ploughs, but to carry a fully armored knight into battle and not tire during the fight. Thus you'd see Percherons or Belgians or Frisians under their knights during the eras of mail and plate. But knights had gave up on plate when it couldn't stop a bullet and they then went light, with cloth, and that meant their horses could be bred for speed.

England saw horses imported bearing names like "barb" and "turk" and "Arabian", sleek, light, and fast, and the Thoroughbred breed was founded.

Mr Darcy never would have sat on a thick, heavy-set, large-hoofed mount, no matter how deliciously thick its mane and forelock were. He would have ridden a Thoroughbred. Everyone rode Thoroughbreds. The mane and forelock were often trimmed anyway, and the thick tails would have caught in the traces and trappings of a carriage; thus the tails would have been docked to 8" at most. And the skinny little legs of the thoroughbred, if they ever had extra hair on them, would have been shaved away.

Hollywood has fallen in love with the Frisian breed. They are quite beautiful. They're all dark, therefore easy to match. They have these lush manes and tails and their lower legs are covered with a great deal of hair. Yet while they are large and built very powerfully, they are still lighter than the draft breeds we usually see, which makes it easy for Hollywood to pretend that they're not. And that's why they're putting these black and near-black beauties everywhere they can. But they're completely out of place. Lord Nelson's coachman never would have hitched Frisians to his carriage. Mr Darcy wouldn't have had a Frisian to ride around the grounds of Pemberly.

Put Mr. Darcy on the only breed he would ever have ridden--the Thoroughbred. And to pull his coach--more Thoroughbreds, most likely "matched greys" which were pretty popular.