Okay,


(Rain last 24h, trace)
(previous 24h, .6 inches)

Bob just came buy with lunch that I grilled some of while he chopped and warmed the other 2/3rds. I got to point 3-ear, my local squirrel out to him. This year, I moved my bird feeder from a porch hang down to a pole in the front yard, thus making it squirrel resistant and taking away my motivation to capture and release the beasts like I did last summer (2 males and 5 females). Since they breed in September and February, they quickly repopulate and last summer's quick-fix was just impractical in the long run. Plus I got too much grief from my tree huggin' friends, who fretted that the squirrels were possibly being harmed by being moved 5 miles south. They weren't of course, cuz they ain't territorial and adapt very easily.

Anyway, Three-ear enjoys the corn, peanuts and S-flower seeds in the bird feed mix, and he's content to eat them off the ground and not molest the feeder, so everything is cool. I get to see my cardinals, bluejays, house sparrows and white winged doves come and feed and he/she gets to eat too. I have other squirrel visitors, but I haven't identified them like 3-ear, cuz they don't make it easy with a deformed right ear that looks like 2. He also is not skittish and lets me come within 3 feet of him most days. Interesting little beast.

Bob didn't seem that impressed. Instead he make the dogs sit and feed them Alpo Snaps. Peachy and Elvis loooooove Bob.

Vice President Dick gave a speech today saying the President doesn't believe we need a permission slip from particular nations to defend our national interests, a dig at Democrats lament that we went it alone and are no paying the price for it. Note that permission slip is their latest clever quip they are going to overuse like they did "not on a war footing," "would have moved heaven and earth had we known," "gathering threat," and so on. Problem is, those nations he suggests he didn't need a permission slip from were right. Iraq had no WMD, no delivery system, no nothing. What's more, after scolding the UN for being namby pamby towards Iraq for letting SH thumb his nose and lie and drag his feet, it turned out, ironically, not only had UNSCOM, the original inspection regime, destroyed his WMD and WMD programs, the oft belittled embargo made it impossible to restart them.

Given those facts, going into Iraq had nothing to do with "protecting our national interests." How embarrassing that Dick and Dubya have proved the poodle-walking surrender monkeys right!

Lastly Supreme Antonin Scalia is flapping his jowls again. I ain't talkin' about his claim that ruling on a procedural matter involving his good friend and hunting pal VP Dick wouldn't be a conflict of interest. He may have a point, since the issue isn't personal, but a matter of what the office of VP can and cannot decide to reveal or not. I refer instead to his public grousing that the full court let stand a ruling that Virginia Military Institute cannot compel cadets to say a noon meal non-sectarian prayer. He said it was too important to VMI to leave it unresolved. Huh? Refusing to review, resolves it. It means the ruling stands. End of story. Funnily enough, initially, all the cadets who brought the suit wanted permission to do was ignore the prayer. They were not allowed to ignore a prayer in a State funded school. Now, because the goofs in charge wouldn't allow them to, the school can't say the prayer at all.

When will the religious right get it? Those who don't want to worship your way are simply asking to be left alone and not compelled to do so. They don't want to take away your right, and not compelling them doesn't affect your practice at all. What part of that don't they get?