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Bionic Mother-in-Law moved

Cathy and I helped move her mother from rehab to home. One mocha later she was very happy to be back in the real world but wishes the laundry lady would have come with her. New knees, less pain. We returned home heavy one skeleton and one dracula both of which remain buckled into our backseat.

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Lower the bar!

I have to quit taking on the impossible projects.

What am I doing now? My current contract is to allow a user to enter a single product id or a list of product ids then go out to a government website and download the 17 or so pages of pdfs for each product. Then I combine the multiple pages of pdf documents into a single pdf document and present it to the user for download to their local machine. I may end up inserting footer information into each page of the pdf. I have to do this for 4 different countries. Then I have to convert the code from php 4.4.4 to php 4.0.0.

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Today’s Irony – Let’s Burn Fahrenheit 451

A Houston parent wants Ray Bradbury’s 1953 classic "Fahrenheit 451" banned from his daughter’s high school. Here is the best sentence from the article:

"It’s just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." [Source]

Uh, hello?! Don’t you have to read a book to pass judgement upon it? These are the same people that are making it illegal for you to buy sex toys. His rationale for the reconsideration of curriculum:

He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain. He said the book’s material goes against their religions beliefs. [Source]

Incase you have not read it or have forgotten, Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper burns. Firemen no longer fight fires but burn books.

"Fahrenheit 451" is a science fiction piece that poses a warning to society about the preservation and passing on of knowledge as well as asks the question about whether the government should do the thinking for the people… Other themes include conformity vs. individuality, freedom of speech and the consequences of losing it, the importance of remembering and understanding history and technology as help to humans and as hindrances to humans… [Source]

Coincidentally, we just passed banned book week which is celebrated the last week of September of every year.

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Why consider impeachment?

Personnally, I am not certain impeachment would lead to any better situation than we have now. I think Foley and friends are doing a better job than impeachment. I just can’t wait until 2008 but my fear is that this administration will have done such damage that whoever wins in 2008 will have a doomed 4 years. Their job will be to clean up the mess and this mess is going to take decades to correct. So, Bush Co. will create a law that will allow presidents to serve 16 years instead of 8; perhaps it will come in the form of "an ex-president can return to office for a maximum of another 2 four year terms." (I saw a reference that a senator has quietly started just such a bill but now I can’t find it) After the citizentry has a great disappointment in the 2008-2012 term since the expectations of that president will be totally unachievable, GW Bush will return to office from 2012-2020 or longer.

The reasons for impeachment given by impeachforpeace.org:

  • Illegal war
  • Illegal spying
  • Illegal breaking of Geneva Conventions
  • Illegal detention
  • Illegal release of classified information

Looks like the revolution begins on October 5th.