Friday, January 27, 2006

Weekend Plans

This weekend, Jan 27 - 29, I plan to do the following things:

Here are my chores:
I am going to clean the garage. I want to get all our tax stuff together. I want to burn some of the fallen branches and wood in the back yard. I need to repair two small floor boards on the second floor. Go to gym.

Fun stuff:
Play with Fiona. Work on my cigarbox ukulele. Blow through a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. Watch some movies (Hotel Rwanda, National Treasure). Do a calendar drawing or two.

Holler.

Peace,
MPH

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Springsteen & Alito

Alito Likes Springsteen. I like Springsteen. Therefore, by the awe-inspiring power of the transitive property, I like Alito.

Actually, I am indifferent to Alito. I am pro-life and I think the president's powers should be kept in check. So I am split with Alito.

But you all know the real reason you check in with scrapple dog - you want to hear about Bruce.

Dick Durbin invoked Bruce's name during the confirmation hearing and then when Alito made a quick comment on the boss and the New Jersey senate's decision to try and make Born To Run the state song. I think the senate actually tried to make it the official "Youth Anthem" of New Jersey. I always found that amusing - trying to make Born To Run the anthem of the youth. Born To Run is about trying your hardest to escape where you are from. So the best New Jersey can do is let the rest of the U.S. know that it whole-heartedly supports is youth trying to escape.

Dick Durbin comes off as kind of a jerk. I can understand if he and his Democratic comrades don't like Alito and/or his views, but can't they have just a little bit of class when they ask questions?? Why is it all about berating and asking pointed questions and talking down to him? Why can't it be a civilized exchange of ideas?

I hate when they ask him to defend something he said 20 years ago. 20 years is a long long time. Has Dick Durbin changed his mind on anything in the last 20 years?

NOW- before you all point too fine a point on my words, I do know that we are talking about a sensitive issue like abortion here and people's opinions don't usually change on a topic such as that. So let me say this: 20 years ago I would have said that abortion is murder. 10 years ago I would have said that abortion should be a woman's right. Now I say that abortion is murder.

I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm not an idiot either. My world views are shaped and changed over time. Is it possible that something Alito wrote 20 years ago isn't exactly how he feels now??? Is it at all possible that he does, perhaps, have the ability to change.

This crap aggravates me.

20 yeas from now, Fiona is going to read old issues of smokin' dog and she is going to read in there a whole bunch of junk that a young mis-guided idiot wrote. That won't make her father a mis-guided idiot, will it?

I don't think anyone should ever be held accountable for things they said and wrote 20 years ago.

A lot of the left-wing groups who are makings sure that Alito's feet are held to the fire on the abortion thing he wrote 20 years ago fought like hell to try to keep Stan Tookie Williams alive. Tookie killed people. If the person who started the most notorious street gang in the world, a gang that is responsible for literally thousands of deaths, can change in less than 20 years, can't Samuel Alito? Oh hell no, Alito is pure evil and will be forever because 20 years ago he thought it was wrong to kill babies. What a freaking lunatic. What kind of screwed-up society do we live in where the convicted murder is the good guy and the Princeton-educated, father and husband, never been arrested or in trouble with the law for anything Supreme-Court nominee is the bad guy??

Anyway, I am not for or against Alito.

I am whole-heartedly against abortion. And I am whole-heartedly against the death penalty. And I do think people can change in 20 years.

peace
mph