How Cool Would THIS Be?!

National Air and Space Summer Internship Program.

Ah, if only I were twenty years old again, unimpeded by financial concerns and not tied to a place. If only I were twenty years old again, riddled by self doubt and insecurity, obsessing over a doomed relationship, wandering through an ideological maze of stupidity; inexperienced, emotional, loud, and embarrassing.

On second thought...

The internship would be cool, though.

Ethical Chili

I just returned from my workplace's "13th Annual Chili-off." I came, I tasted, I voted. It was hard to choose and surprising how quickly one can fill up on what one thought was a small amount of food. Turns out, when you take that spoonful or two and multiply by 25, you get a couple of bowls of chili. Math, applied in daily life.

I didn't enter a chili, though a coworker and my husband thought I should. My reason? I don't really have a chili recipe that I made up all by myself and would feel free to enter into a contest and thereby possibly gain rewards and benefits through no ingenuity of my own. Reading a list, assembling ingredients, and applying heat does not equal "my chili."

During the competition, I asked one person which chili they voted for, and she responded "Well, I entered one, so I voted for mine." Which brought up another interesting character quirk of mine: had I indeed concocted my own chili recipe and entered the brew into the competition, would I have voted for myself? Most likely, no. I am in no doubt that I would have come across a chili I liked better, or differently, and I would have voted for it. Had I not come across a better chili, I still would have chosen what I felt was the best, barring my own.

I think about crap like this way too much.

Congratulations!

"Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's first lap on the national fund raising circuit drew nearly $1.3 million in contributions, giving his new political action committee a healthy stockpile to spread around in this year's elections."

Great! Now he only needs to raise $1,198,700,000 to plug the state budget hole he facilitated with his excellent leadership skills.

I've been sitting on this one for a long time

Do what you want. Have a million babies. But don't parade your premature daughter on the cover of people alongside Heidi Montag's freakish face. And don't expect not to be judged for your 19 children on some level, be it resource consumption, arrogance, or flaunting your fertility in the face of millions of reproductively challenged people.

They pushed me over the edge with this. I don't want to risk having another child because my first and only was a preemie, I'm almost 40, and those two things together elevate my risk of having another preemie. I feel that foreknowledge of that possibility makes it an ethical choice: I refuse to subject my family, my child, and the system to another premature baby. I love the one I have; I don't want to do it again.

Heck, I don't have 19 friends that I could call close. How well can you even know your own children at this point?

But that's just snark, isn't it...

My Amurican Name

Mr. Beck, I was just wondering what you were thinking when you said that President Obama chose his name to identify with his heritage.

Isn't Glenn a gaelic name?

Maybe you should change your name to "Chetan" which comes from a Sioux word meaning "hawk."

Um...

What could this possibly involve?

Any guesses?

Homeopathy Acute Care Workshop

ETA: Professor Myers weighs in.

I'm not sure how I feel about this

Here's one way to say it:
Focus on the Family is airing an ad during the Superbowl.

Reaction: well crap. This is a hateful organization, but if they have the money, who's to say they can't?

Here's another way to say it:
CBS is airing a Focus on the Family ad during the Superbowl.

Reaction: basically the same as above, with the added bonus that I can feel superior for watching almost no network television.

And yet another way to say it:
CBS is airing a Focus on the Family ad during the Superbowl, but refused to air an ad by Moveon.org in 2004.

Reaction: that totally blows, and shows a clear bias. They should have standards. But then again, they are a business and can make their own business decisions.

Clearly, Focus on the Family is doing it for publicity. Meaning, not the publicity it will get from the 30-second ad, but the publicity it is getting due to the protests about the ad. If everyone had ignored it, what would FotF really get out of it? But if everyone ignored it, would that be giving it tacit approval?

If the ad gets pulled, they win. They get even more publicity and also get to whine about how conservatives and Christians are persecuted. Also, they get more donations.

If the ad airs, they win.
They still get all the publicity from the hype, more people see the ad, they feel vindicated, they get more donations, they feel that they have triumphed over godless liberals.

If the ad gets pulled, we win...
We show that enough people care enough to loudly disagree with them. Small consolation.

Basically, they win. They have already won. No one is going to care that many who oppose CBS's airing of this ad are simply calling for standards. No one is going to care that they would not air Moveon.org's ad. Those pesky little facts don't matter to a large section of Americans (see: President Obama's birth certificate, death panels, H1N1 vaccine conspiracy, etc.).

Basically, God got all up in the NFL's business sometime during the late '80's/early '90's, and there's nothing we can do about it. He's on both sides of every game, and he clearly cares deeply about touchdowns and extra points. Though he's not so hip on safetys.

Apparently, this ad contains the same cloying nonsense that we always hear, basically, what if (insert famous person's name here)'s mother had chosen abortion?

What if? What if nothing. We would not know the difference. It's not an argument; it's something that didn't happen. This argument never gets used as "What if (insert name pulled from obscurity here)'s mother had chosen abortion?" or "What if your mom had chosen abortion?" (answer: she didn't, and if she had, I would not be here, and I would not know the difference, nor would anyone else) or, as these people like to bring up Hitler so much, "What if Hitler's mother had chosen abortion?"

We still would not know the difference because we would not know that the thing that would have happened would have happened if not for X, but it's the flip side of "What if football player's mom had chosen abortion?"

In fact, it makes that question sound incredibly shallow and petty.