Politics.NET

Read this article for background: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073004030.html I think drunk driving should be punished thusly: 1st offense, no fatality: permanent revoking of the offender's driving privileges 2nd offense, no fatality: mandatory installation of breathlyzer for offender's cars (and all cars to which the offender has access) 3rd offense, no fatality: 10 year prison sentence fatality (regardless of # of offense): charged with murder 1 To me anyone who drinks and drives is essentially saying: "everybody's live isn't worth the inconvenience of me taking a cab". The person is saying: "hmm, who can I find to kill tonight". I really don't care if you took 1 or 2 drinks. Why should everybody have to pay a hefty price for your inability to watch what you drink? Take the care of this f**king bastard. He rang up tab of $107 (17 bottles of Corona, 2 Lemon Drops and 1 Cuervo Gold) and proceeded to get on...

If you are eating or have a sensitive stomach, you might want to skip this post entirely. You've been warned. It's 3am on Tuesday morning and my wife wakes me up to help feed the babies. Our overnight plan is that she gets the babies and food ready and wakes me up to help feed them. Each parent takes a baby. I feed, burp and go back to sleep for another couple of hours until the next feeding. At least that's the plan until she goes back to work. So there I was trying to change Dara and like a well-trained new dad, I inserted the new diaper under the old, lifted up her legs, wiped her butt and what do I see? A little bit of poop dribbles out. Now this has happened before where she waited until I started changing her. So I say "Come on, Dara, how come you always poop when I change you?" I proceeded to grab another wipe ('cos by now the first one is ...use your imagination). The next thing thing that happened is a loud sound followed by projectile pooping. It wa...

First, let's take inexperience. I have written before about President Obama's inexperience . He showed it again when he was asked about the Harvard professor case. Why call the police dept's actions "stupid" when you yourself admitted to not having all the facts in the case. Add that to being a friend of the professor, Obama should have just punted that question. Now he's gotten himself into an avoidable PR mess when he wants people focused on his health care plans. A seasoned politician of the likes of Clinton (male and female) wouldn't have made such an elementary mistake. You don't answer questions like that in such definite terms. Second, race. Accusing someone of racism simply doesn't end well. Especially if that person is in a position of authority, then it really really doesn't end well. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility for a police officer, responding to a burglary, to ask and expect your cooperation. Sure sure...

So we survived the first 2 weeks . Here's what I learnt in 4 weeks of fatherhood: Everybody has an advice on how to care for babies. Literally everybody! And everyone thinks their advice is the best. After all, they've raised x number of babies. Last week, we had 2 guests, one after the other. The first said we ought to cover the babies heads even in the house. So we did. As soon as he left, the next guest promptly said remove the hats! So what's a new dad to do? Initially, I would try to argue the small stuff (like babies don't really need hats in the house; that our pediatrician has said 72-75 degrees is fine for the babies and our thermostat reads 80). But then I realized, what's the use? Best case, the advice giver will simply not agree, after all she/he has raised x amount of babies. Worst case, the advice giver will think one is being an ITK after all this is our first babies. So if you come visit and say "put ski boots on those babies or they'll catc...

So I wrote about how HCGH charges $240 per month for basic cable and local phone services last week. Today, I returned their call and here's their justification for putting the burden of cancellation on the (sick) patient : the charges for the phone and cable is spelled out in the consent form that new patients fill out upon admission to the hospital. This is the same consent form that grants the hospital the right to treat you. So if you don't consent to cable+phone charges and treatment, the doctors can't treat you. How nice! I asked why not make it two forms: one for cable tv and one for treatment. God knows patients have to sign enough forms during the admission process. Their answer: "Our patients have requested that the admission process be streamlined". Oh yeah, streamlined my foot. Wouldn't it make more sense to not turn on the service until a patient requests it? Instead, they waste their employees' time reversing silly charges. Or perhaps, not ...

Did you know Google now has an operating system? You didn't? Well I didn't either. But, like the classic definition of vaporware, Google announced their OS last week to widespread acclaim from the google fanboys. People are talking about Google OS having stuff Windows doesn't have. Nevermind that not a single code of Google OS has been publicly released (alpha, beta or RC). So when Microsoft releases vaporware, it's bad. But when Google does it, it's the dawn of a new day. I seem to remember the same acclaim when Google Chrome came out. Several months later, it's stuck way behind IE and Firefox (except of course amongst the fan boys). Also, if Microsoft got into hot water for bundling IE with Windows, how will Google circumvent the same legal trapdoor? I suppose it's more likely the presiding judge would be a google lover (or perhaps Google will impress upon him the need to rule their way or have his search data be public knowledge....I kid). Currently ...

Blockbuster sucks! I know that's not news but one would think a company facing strong competition (and losing btw) from Hulu, Netflix and even from public libraries would try to not suck as much. But they don't even try. So it's the saturday morning after we came home with the twins and I get a call from one of those automated systems. What was the reason for the call? Apparently, blockbuster thinks I owe them $38. What's the bill for? The automated system doesn't know and can't say. But it does provide an easy way for me to pay the bill with a credit card over the phone. What? At the very least I would expect the system to know what the bill was for. Anyway, I waited till the local BB store opened. Called them and got the manager on the phone. She claimed they couldn't find some movies that I had returned (one of which was 7 Pounds by Will Smith. A total crapfest if I must say). Thus they have charged the movies to my account. Well I know I returned the mo...

Why do men get a bad rap for leaving the toilet seat up? It's all over pop culture that men are inconsiderate pigs that don't put the toilet seat down after peeing. Well...women are just as guilty. Sure men don't put the seat down after peeing but women also don't put the toilet lid down. Just as you hate seating on a cold toilet, men hate peeing in a toilet when the seat is down ('cos then you'll have to clean up the inevitable spill). Personally, I think the toilet lid should be put down every time! Not only does that solve the argument, it's more esthetically pleasing. And might be healthier. Enough about toilets. How do you park? Are you one of those people that insist on backing into a parking spot (even when there are no rules requiring it)? I don't get why people do this. Unless you are robbing a bank, and thus anticipating an hasty getaway, there's no reason to back into a parking spot. You have better control going in front-first into a tig...

I got this from Hotmail today. 10 years, wow. That's a long relationship.

How do you pay $240 per month for cable and phone? Simple, you spend 5 days at Howard County General Hospital . As you may know, my wife delivered our twins at HCGH. Overall, the people there (nurses, techs, doctors) were extremely nice and helpful. In fact, I would give them a 9 out of 10. However, the hospital itself is the provider of what has to be the most expensive basic cable + phone service ever! Why? Today I got a bill for television and phone services that was provided to us while my wife was admitted at HCGH. The bill was for $40 for a 5 day stay (which works out to be $8 per day or $240 per month). For basic cable and local only phone service! Sure that's way way expensive but that's not the worst. The hospital doesn't provide a clear way for patients to opt out of this service. It is automatically turned on once you're admitted and nobody in the hospital (at least not all the people I asked) knows how to turn it off. In fact, one nurse we asked said tv was ...

First day back at work and my mouse travelled just over 1 mile today. What? Read this