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We had a fire in our fireplace for the first time this weekend.  Before doing that, of course, we had to repair the firebox and remove some extraneous hardware from the fireplace, but once that work was done, it was nice to have a fire.  The only downside to our fireplace is that the ash pit clean-out door is in the basement, and when we have a fire, we get a campfire smell in the basement via the ash pit door.

Why does our dishwasher have a "Low-Energy" cycle?  Who doesn’t use the low-energy cycle on their dishwasher?  In my whole life, I’ve never chosen any cycle on a dishwasher other than low-energy.  If "Low-Energy" gets the job done, why do I need all the other cycles?  Why not relabel the dishwasher’s "Low-Energy" button "Wash" or "Regular" and make the "Regular" button "Waste Energy"?  Then, we can start relabing the other buttons.  "Power Dry" could become "Enrich Local Utility".  "Pots and Pans" could become "Shameful Waste of Energy and Water"  "Rinse Hold" could become "Button of Mysterious Purpose".

"Life rolls on in George W. Bush’s America, forcing us to invent a new word — greeed, with three E’s in the middle — to cover cases like that of Richard A. Grasso, who recently resigned as chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange."

Now is the time to jump on the 4-0 Minnesota Vikings bandwagon.  You’ll want to get on board before it gets too crowded later in the season.

Our wedding weekend seems to have been a success.  Everyone claims to have had a good time, and we certainly did as well.  Of course, we got married, too, which is the whole point of the affair.  That seems to get lost in the noise sometimes, but for us it was the reson d’etre.  We’ve gotten a few pictures back, but are still waiting for the pictures from the photographer.

Mike, some of the pictures you took are classics.  Your thank you gift is in the mail.  You’ll know it when you see it.

We got holes cut in our ceiling and walls today.  We had people over to cut holes in the ceiling so that we could actually see the skylights we had installed in the roof a month ago.  We also got the windows in our house, which were only windows in the barest sense of the word, replaced with custom-built vinyl replacement windows.  What a difference double-paned glass and functional screens make.

Molly Ivins:  political columnist and a damned fine writer.  She doesn’t even have to write whole articles to get her point across sometimes.  Sometimes just a sentence or two is just as effective:

• "In 1999, EPA’s director tried a novel approach: enforcing the law."
• "Of course, John ‘Lost to a Dead Guy’ Ashcroft is too busy to check it out because he’s now out on a ‘charm offensive’ to convince us all that the USA Patriot Act is good for us. I always think of Ashcroft and charm in the same sentence. Sex, too."
• "The administration is now in The Full Ostrich on Iraq…"
• "Uh, that would sound better if he hadn’t just informed us that he is borrowing another $87 billion, on top of the $79 billion we have already spent, to continue this famously successful policy that has no flaws and does not need to be changed."
• "All this right-wing propaganda about how the government is The Enemy, the government needs to be strangled, needs to be starved, needs to be hocked off, as though schools and hospitals were horrible things — it’s all nuts."
• "I am tired of being asked to swallow lies by this administration. For $87 billion bucks, the least we deserve is some candor."
• "And why do we have such dumb, damaging, self-destructive energy policies? Do you think it has anything to do with corporate campaign contributions? Do you think it has any connection to the fact that Dick Cheney wrote the National Energy Plan?"
• "The incompetence of the INS was underlined when it issued a visa to Mohammad Atta, the lead hijacker, six months after 9/11. In the wake of the attacks, the Bush administration promised to increase funding for the INS, to get the agency fully computerized with modern computers and generally up to speed. All that has happened since is that INS funding has been cut."

John Ashcroft is touring the nation, reminding us all why he lost an election to a dead man, and why we all should be afraid, very afraid of the USA PATRIOT Act.  Supposedly, the Act was ramrodded through Congress to fight terrorism in the United States.  And yet, when Ashcroft gives his little speech to law-enforcement groups (strangely enough, he never gives his speech to an open audience.  He only gives his speed to law-enforcement groups or carefully selected and screened citizens.  What is he afraid of?  If the PATRIOT Act is such a great thing, shouldn’t it be able to withstand criticism; shouldn’t Ashcroft be able to defend it against all comers?), Ashcroft only mentions how the USA PATRIOT Act is affecting how law enforcement affects criminals.  Oh, and there is no way he means "terrorists" when he says "criminals."  He means criminals in the ordinary breaking and entering, burglary, armed robbery, assault sense.

We bought a banana tree over the weekend.  Now we just have to figure out where and how to keep it.

Why is parallel parking a dying art?  People who know how to parallel park consider the task done when their car is fully contained by a parking spot.  People who do not know how to parallel park consider the task done when any part of their car is contained by a parking spot.  I’ve seen guys walk away from their cars, satisfied with their parking skills, while there is over four feet from the curb to their rear tire.  Backing into the spot apparently works too well, so many people tossed that technique in favor of the front-end-in-first technique (which we all know doesn’t work at all).

Wisconsin’s legislature is currently debating a so-called concealed carry law.  There are only six states that forbid citizens from carrying concealed firearms and WI is one of the six.  Moronic proponents of the bill argue that repealing the ban will lower crime.  "Why will it lower crime," the astute observer who has read numerous studies demonstrating that concealed carry laws actually caused crime to increase in many states asks.  "Because criminals won’t know who is carrying guns and who isn’t and they will be less likely to commit crime as a result," say some proponents.  Others claim that having ordinary citizens pull guns during the comission of the crime will stop the crime without having to wait for the police.  Of course, all of this is just so much smoke and mirrors.  If you want to deter criminals from robbing you, wear a hand cannon on your hip in plain sight.  Imagine me, standing there with hundred dollar bills hanging out of my pockets, with a Glock dangling on my hip.  Imagine a concealed carry pusher, with a short-barrel, pistol-grip, 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun in a gym bag and hundred dollars bills sticking out of his pocket.  Imagine someone
bound and determined to take someone else’s hundred dollar bills.  The thought process has to be, "Guy with belt-mounted howitzer, or guy with gym bag.  Hmm…I think it’s going to be guy with gym bag."  If you want to deter crime, wear that piece of hot iron where everyone can see it.  Don’t hide it in your suit jacket or purse.  Proponents of the bill also claim that criminals won’t be able to benefit from the law because they will be denied concealed-carry licenses.  Whee.  Thanks for nothing.  It’s already against the law for felons to possess firearms.  Does anyone honestly think a felon is going to apply for a license to carry a concealed weapon that they aren’t supposed to have in the first place?  Doesn’t it seem logical to assume that felons in possession of firearms would just carry the weapon concealed without a permit anyway?  Oh, and how does one become a criminal?  That’s right, by committing crimes.  So, what’s to keep someone, with no previous criminal record, from committing a crime with their concealed carry permit (that was legally obtained)?  What’s to stop someone who has a concealed carry permit from using the weapon in a crime of passion (which is still a crime, of course)?  Who is against the law?  The Milwaukee County District Attorney (most populous county in the state).  Who is for the law?  A representative from Eau Claire (much smaller town in NW WI; city slogan:  "We’re Always Up to Something Funn"[sic]).  Argument used by schmuck from Eau Claire, "You need to have a concealed firearm to feel safe in the big city."  Argument used by Milwaukee County DA and representatives from various law enforcement bodies, "WI already has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.  The big city doesn’t want a bunch of trigger-happy yahoos walking around, packing heat, looking for trouble."  We can only hope that sanity prevails and this bill dies on the Governor’s desk.

We’re sitting at home on Sunday night, enjoying some good music on the radio.  The radio station breaks into the show for Bush’s latest national address.  "Good evening. I have asked for this time to keep you informed of America’s actions in the war on terror."  Off went the radio.  He couldn’t even go three sentences before he started to lie.  The war on terrorism essentially ended months ago when we started the "War to Enlarge Administration Egos" in Iraq.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Bush Administration’s "Leave No Child Behind" program has been so poorly funded it has become "Leave Children Standing in Line Behind Halliburton and Bechtel" program.

I had golden raspberries for the first time yesterday.  A woman was selling them at the Farmer’s Market and we bought some.  They taste something like regular raspberries, but sweeter.

It is now obvious that our skylights will not be installed before the wedding.  We need to have the wells cut into the ceiling, and framed.  Then, the electricians have to come out and remove armored cabling that currently runs through the space between the skylight and the ceiling.  Once that is done, the wells can be drywalled  Once all of that is done, Sarah and I can paint the ceilings and install some track lighting.  All of this will not happen after the wedding.  We’re also getting new windows installed after the wedding, which will be a very large improvement on our current windows.

We’ve now had a new roof for the better part of a month.  Still haven’t had rain to test it.  I haven’t mowed the lawn for the better part of eight weeks because the whole thing is brown and dead.  The sado-masochists who like to create work for themselves are easily spotted when I’m out walking Dalla.  Their lawns are green and freshly cut.  Everyone else is cursing the drought but enjoying the lack of lawn mowing in their lives.

Sarah and I took Dalla to the dog park yesterday and the day before.  Said Sarah about the park’s patrons’ transportation:  "Every car has a tail."  I hadn’t thought about it, but she was right.  Every car that came and went had at least one dog tail visible from the outside.

From our "Nation of Newspapers Without Proofreaders" Department:  Saturday, the following statistic was printed on the front page Saturday’s Wisconsin State Journal:

There are 204 million personal vehicles and 191 licensed drivers

Those 191 drivers must be really busy to justify owning 204 million vehicles.  That means each one of the 191 drivers would need to own, on average, 1,068,062 vehicles.  If a vehicle owner lived to be 72 years old, and if and started driving at 16 years of age, that vehicle owner would have approximately 20440 days to drive cars.  Each vehicle owner would have to drive 52 vehicles a day just to drive each car once.

We had a very busy weekend.  We put up three different light fixtures (two ceiling lights and one ceiling fan/light combination), three different window coverings, a flag pole, and some yard art.  We also weeded the garden, watered much of our landscaping, and transplanted a plant.  We took Dalla to the dog park once each day, ate at Brat Fest, cleaned out part of the attic, did some laundry, watched movie, and raked the lawn.

Sarah starts school again tomorrow.

E.O. Wilson writes in The Future of Lifethat one would have to be “delusional” to ignore the facts of global warning and “criminally negligent” to do nothing about the same.  This from one of the greatest living scientists.  What is the Bush administration position on global warning?  We need more information.  We don’t necessarily believe that global warming is real.  What about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which has hundreds of the brightest scientific minds associated with it?  One of their most recent reports uses the following section headlines:

An increasing body of observations gives a collective picture of a warming world and other changes in the climate system.

Emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climate.

There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activites.

Human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century.

Global average temperature and sea level are projected to rise under all IPCC SRES scenarios.

Yes, delusional and criminally negligent sums up the Bush administration pretty well.