monkey nonsense

for wayne, though this is somewhat nasty…….

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report.

Passers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.

They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.

A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.

The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in the Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people.

A “big” stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.

“They literally gutted the dog,” local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

“When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them.”

Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack.

While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds’ nests, he said, the idea of them chewing a dog to death was “absurd”.

“If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests,” he added.

Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory.

A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been “no pine cones at all” in the local forests this year.

“The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat,” he added.

thanks ann for finding the article! from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm

i just paid off the remaining balance on one of my student loans entirely. yay! (damn variable interest rates rose to 6.57% on me!)

yay!! only a couple more loans to go!

Here are some of my favorite Christmas songs:

• Beach Boys – Little Saint Nick: I love oldies.
• Drifters – White Christmas: This is my favorite rendition of White Christmas.
• NSync – O Holy Night: What list would be complete without a song by NSync! Really any song NSync sings is awesome! I put this one on because they sing it a cappella and I’m a sucker for a cappella.
• Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas: This one is for my dad. Elvis has a cool voice.
• Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree: I remember listening to this song when I was a kid. So jolly, happy, upbeat!

I’m sure there are other favorites out there that I’ve left off this list. Man, I need to find my Christmas CD with all of them.

Here are some “interesting” Christmas songs:

• Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen: This is what happens when you let Canadians sing Christmas carols jk!! It’s an interesting version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. There really is no way to accurately describe this song, you just have to hear it.
• Regis Philbin (feat. Donald Trump) – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: first off… Regis Philbin singing? Hilarious. Then getting the Donald to join in?! With lines like: “Then one foggy Christmas Eve, the Trumpster came to say- ‘You know Rudolph, I’ve been on a worldwide search and I hear your qualifications are just right to guide my sleigh tonight.’” and “Rudolph, you’re hired. Blitzen, you’re fired.” Truly awesome.
• The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron: This song is awesome because it tells the story of Snoopy and the Red Baron, from the Peanuts comics. I didn’t realize this was a real song! The best part is when the Red Baron says “Merry Christmas my friend” with some weird accent- it certainly wasn’t German. British? Irish? … even though the Red Baron can’t be British if he’s fighting Snoopy… anyhoo, GREAT song, actually kind of catchy and great story!
• William Hung – Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: “Rixen”… I think Willy renamed one of the reindeers, do you remember a reindeer named Rixen? Like all the songs on his album, “Hung for the Holidays,” this song is awesome! I highly recommend ANY of the songs – Deck the Halls, O Come All Ye Faithful, Silver Bells, Little Drummer Boy, and Winter Wonderland. Plus, those personal greetings from Willy in between songs – that’s what makes it really worth it. It’s pretty amusing to compare the different artistic interpretations of the same songs between Regis and Willy.

Any Christmas song suggestions? What are your favorites?

on the way to work…

the costco tire guy had previously told me i apparently got the cheap tires on the toyota camry (basically cheaper than usual camrys, he said he just assumed that all camrys got upgraded tires automatically now-in-days). so while driving on the small roads that were unplowed this morning, i was driving around in 2nd gear. while still in 2nd gear, i actually spun my wheels AND skidded at the intersection of reston parkway and glade drive. crappy tires, i need new ones. so i was being extra cautious while driving to work today, even though reston parkway appeared to be clear.

i was driving 40-45 in the right lane (UNLIKE some people in the DC area, I UNDERSTAND THAT THE RIGHT LANE IS FOR SLOW CARS and the left lane for passing/faster speed cars). so i’m driving, not too many cars in the street. there’s one car to the left of me in the left lane, going maybe 45-50, around the same speed as me but a little faster.

then the left car decides to switch to the right lane. he switches and while he doesn’t cut me off, he does cut close enough that water is being spewed from his wheels onto my windshield. somewhat annoying. it puzzles me a bit because there were no cars in the left lane before OR after him (as there were no cars in the right lane before or after me, we were the only cars for a good stretch of the road). but whatever, i guess he wanted to go slower in the right lane.

my windshield was getting spewed on so i decide to move to the left lane. i drove in the left lane for a good while, not passing him and actually staying behind him. at some point, the left lane has to merge into the right lane. so i decided i’d try to pass him and move to the right lane. i decided to do this fairly early because i knew my tires sucked.

we were both going around 45 at the time, i sped up to pass him, he sped up, i sped up some more, he sped up some more… until we’re both going around SEVENTY. (note: i know going 70 is insane… i didn’t even realize i was going 70 until i decided whoa, going kind of fast and i checked my speedometer. though on a good day, i do go at least 55 on this road since it is fairly straight… but yea, 70… insane) at that point i decided that i was going to die if i tried to pass him so i slowed down and ended up merging behind him.

at one of the lights after all this, i notice that he wags his finger at me. ‘CUSE ME?! YOU, who was going 70 just as much as i was, wagged your finger at me?! without better judgement, i flashed my high beams at him. i also gestured to let him know that i was upset he wagged his finger at me. i am pretty sure that it was clear what upset me and it wasn’t as if i was flicking him off or something else. my gestures were basically: point at him, point to my finger wagging, point at me, exaggerated shrug. that’s not offensive is it? he then mouths off at me. of course i don’t know what he said. but i repeat my gestures and another exaggerated shrug. he shakes his head. WHAT THE HECK!? YOU DRIVE LIKE A MANIAC AND YOU LECTURE ME? YOU’RE THE ONE WHO INITIALLY PASSED ME. while it was annoying to get my windshield spewed on, i didn’t honk, i didn’t flash my high beams, i didn’t speed up and tail you, i SLOWED down to give you space, i didn’t do ANYTHING offensive in my opinion. (shoot, on one of my more reckless days, i would’ve done a heck of a lot more!!) after you acted like a jerk and didn’t let me pass you, what did i do? i didn’t honk, i didn’t flash my high beams, i slowed down, i got behind you, i didn’t tail you, again i didn’t do ANYTHING offensive in my opinion. AND YOU WAG YOUR FINGER AT ME?!?!

JJZ 8284… you better HOPE you never run into me on one of those days where there’s no snow and i’m a crazy driver (which given the chances of me being a crazy driver… you just better hope you never run into me)

… yes i know i have road rage issues… BUT c’mon! who can blame me?!?! i keep running into drivers like these!!!

on a happy note: thanks tim for clearing off my car this morning! at first i thought i was because i was parked behind a tall truck which provided me protection from all the snow?, but no… that makes no sense

So jason posted about windows live local with pictures of his house and wootton. i decided to also take a look to see my parents’ house in MD… so i typed in the address and this is what i got:

butttt….. that “2″, supposedly marking the house with my parents’ address…. is on my NEIGHBOR’s house!! that’s not 10720! that’s 107..er… 16? get it right microsoft!!!! our house has the COOL front walkway that my parents took forever deciding on! if you ever visited my house ANYtime during the fall 2002 semester (yeah, they took the entire semester…), you would’ve seen bricks strewn all over the place as my parents tried to decide on the design of our walkway. it’s what makes our house stand out in all of suburbia.

kind of think of it, it’s actually kinda creepy that they could’ve gotten such a clear picture of it…

here’s a picture of our old house in herndon, va… for some strange reason, the picture of it is from much farther out.

I was torn… is this regular news? Or amusing news? I cracked up when I read this, but then I realized it wasn’t a joke

The Inalienable Right to a Remote

By George F. Will

Thursday, December 8, 2005; Page A33

Feeling, evidently, flush with (other people’s) cash, the Senate has concocted a novel way to spend $3 billion: create a new entitlement. The Senate has passed — and so has the House, with differences — an entitlement to digital television.

If this filigree on the welfare state becomes law, everyone who owns old analog television sets — everyone from your Aunt Emma in her wee apartment to the millionaire in the neighborhood McMansion who has such sets in the maid’s room and the guest house — will get subsidies to pay for making those sets capable of receiving digital signals.

If you think America is suffering an entitlement glut, you may have just hurled the newspaper across the room. Pick it up and read on, because this story illustrates the timeless truth that no matter how deeply you distrust the government’s judgment, you are too trusting. Here, as explained by James L. Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation, is the crisis du jour: The nation is making a slow transition from analog to digital television broadcasting.

Why is this a crisis? Because, although programming currently is broadcast in both modes, by April 2009 broadcasters must end analog transmissions and the government will have auctioned the analog frequencies for various telecommunications purposes. For the vast majority of Americans, April 2009 will mean . . . absolutely nothing. Nationwide, 85 percent of all television households (and 63 percent of households below the poverty line) already have cable or satellite service.

What will become of households that do not? Leaving aside such eccentric alternative pastimes as conversation and reading, the digitally deprived could pursue happiness by buying a new television set, all of which will be digital-capable by March 2007. Today a digital-capable set with a flat-screen display can be purchased from — liberals, please pardon the mention of your Great Satan — Wal-Mart for less than $460. But compassionate conservatism has a government response to the crisis.

Remember, although it is difficult to do so, that Republicans control Congress. And today’s up-to-date conservatism does not stand idly by expecting people to actually pursue happiness on their own. Hence the new entitlement from Congress to help all Americans acquire converter boxes to put on top of old analog sets, making the sets able to receive digital programming. All Americans — rich and poor; it is uncompassionate to discriminate on the basis of money when dispersing money — will be equally entitled to the help.

The $990 million House version of this entitlement — call it No Couch Potato Left Behind — is (relatively) parsimonious: Consumers would get vouchers worth only $40 and would be restricted to a measly two vouchers per household. The Senate’s more spacious entitlement would pay for most of the cost — $50 to $60 — of the converter boxes. But there is Republican rigor in this: Consumers would be required to pay $10. That is the conservatism in compassionate conservatism.

Now, the hardhearted will, in their cheeseparing small-mindedness, ask: Given that the transition to digital has been underway for almost a decade, why should those who have adjusted be compelled to pay money to those who have chosen not to adjust? And conservatives who have not yet attended compassion reeducation camps will ask: Why does the legislation make even homes with cable or digital services eligible for subsidies to pay for converter boxes for old analog sets — which may be worth less than the government’s cost for the boxes?

Gattuso says defenders of this entitlement argue that taxpayers will not be burdened by its costs because the government’s sale of the analog frequencies will yield perhaps $10 billion. Think about that: Because the government may get $10 billion from one transaction, taxpayers are unburdened by government’s giving away $3 billion with another transaction. Such denial that money is fungible fuels the welfare state’s expansion.

What oil is to Saudi Arabia — a defining abundance — cognitive dissonance is to America. Americans are currently in a Founding Fathers literary festival. They are making bestsellers out of many biographies of the statesmen who formulated America’s philosophy of individualism and self-reliance and who embodied that philosophy — or thought they did — in a constitutional architecture of limited government. Yet Americans have such an entitlement mentality, they seem to think that every pleasure — e.g., digital television — should be a collective right, meaning a federally funded entitlement. Clearly, Americans’ civic religion of reverence for the Founders is, like most religions, more avowed than constraining.

georgewill@washpost.com

from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701891.html

tina told me to post this. she was all excited, saying “do it!!” perhaps she was confused on what video i had… anyways, she’s bigger than me and i’m scared to upset her so i’ll post it.

Tina, May, and Julie’s choreographed dance
(ignore the fact they’re all staring at the TV offscreen)

if anyone knows how to post the videos so that they’re playable without clicking a link and downloading the file to your computer, let me know! also… if you know how to rotate videos 90 degrees? ’cause when i took the videos of tina’s climbing escapades, i rotated the camera thinking it would be better, not realizing the images would all be sideways. oops.

WashingtonPost.com had the following article (reproduced below):

‘Holiday’ Cards Ring Hollow for Some on Bushes’ List

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A01

What’s missing from the White House Christmas card? Christmas.

This month, as in every December since he took office, President Bush sent out cards with a generic end-of-the-year message, wishing 1.4 million of his close friends and supporters a happy “holiday season.”

Many people are thrilled to get a White House Christmas card, no matter what the greeting inside. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings.

“This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture,” said William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Bush “claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn’t act like one,” said Joseph Farah, editor of the conservative Web site WorldNetDaily.com. “I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it.”

Religious conservatives are miffed because they have been pressuring stores to advertise Christmas sales rather than “holiday specials” and urging schools to let students out for Christmas vacation rather than for “winter break.” They celebrated when House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insisted that the sparkling spectacle on the Capitol lawn should be called the Capitol Christmas Tree, not a holiday spruce.

Then along comes a generic season’s greeting from the White House, paid for by the Republican National Committee. The cover art is also secular, if not humanist: It shows the presidential pets — two dogs and a cat — frolicking on a snowy White House lawn.

“Certainly President and Mrs. Bush, because of their faith, celebrate Christmas,” said Susan Whitson, Laura Bush’s press secretary. “Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths.”

That is the same rationale offered by major retailers for generic holiday catalogues, and it is accepted by groups such as the National Council of Churches. “I think it’s more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards,” said the council’s general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman.

But the White House’s explanation does not satisfy the groups — which have grown in number in recent years — that believe there is, in the words of the Heritage Foundation, a “war on Christmas” involving an “ever-stronger push toward a neutered ‘holiday’ season so that non-Christians won’t be even the slightest bit offended.”

One of the generals on the pro-Christmas side is Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Miss. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether this is sinister — it’s the purging of Christ from Christmas — or whether it’s just political correctness run amok,” he said. “I think in the case of the White House, it’s just political correctness.”

Wildmon does not give retailers the same benefit of the doubt. This year, he has called for a consumer boycott of Target stores because the chain issued a holiday advertising circular that did not mention Christmas. Last year, he aimed a similar boycott at Macy’s Inc., which averted a repeat this December by proclaiming “Merry Christmas” in its advertising and in-store displays.

“It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we’ve got Ramadan celebrations in the White House,” Wildmon said. “What’s going on there?”

At the Catholic League, Donohue had just announced a boycott of the Lands’ End catalogue when he received his White House holiday card. True, he said, the Bushes included a verse from Psalm 28, but Psalms are in the Old Testament and do not mention Jesus’ birth.

“They’d better address this, because they’re no better than the retailers who have lost the will to say ‘Merry Christmas,’ ” he said.

Donohue said that Wal-Mart, facing a threatened boycott, added a Christmas page to its Web site and fired a customer relations employee who wrote a letter linking Christmas to “Siberian shamanism.” He was not mollified by a letter from Lands’ End saying it “adopted the ‘holiday’ terminology as a way to comply with one of the basic freedoms granted to all Americans: freedom of religion.”

“Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate Christmas,” Donohue said. “Spare me the diversity lecture.”

Diversity has been a hallmark of White House greeting cards for some time, according to Mary Evans Seeley of Tampa, Fla., author of “Season’s Greetings From the White House.” The last presidential Christmas card that mentioned Christmas was in 1992. It was sent by George H.W. and Barbara Bush, parents of the current president.

Seeley said the first president to send out true Christmas cards, as opposed to signed photographs or handwritten letters, was Franklin D. Roosevelt. “Merry Christmas From the President and Mrs. Roosevelt,” said his first annual card, in 1933.

Like many modern touches, the generic New Year’s card was introduced to the White House by John and Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1962, they had Hallmark print 2,000 cards, of which 1,800 cards said “The President and Mrs. Kennedy Wish You a Blessed Christmas” and 200 said “With Best Wishes for a Happy New Year.”

Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson continued that tradition for a couple of years, but it required keeping track of Christian and non-Christian recipients. Beginning in 1966, they wished everyone a “Joyous Christmas,” and no president has attempted the two-card trick since.

Seeley dates the politicization of the White House Christmas card to Richard M. Nixon, who increased the number of recipients tenfold, to 40,000, in his first year. The numbers since have snowballed, hitting 125,000 under Jimmy Carter, topping 400,000 under Bill Clinton and rising to more than a million under the current Bushes, with each president’s political party paying the bill.

The wording, meanwhile, has often flip-flopped. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter put “Merry Christmas” in their 1977 card and then switched to “Holiday Season” for the next three years. Ronald and Nancy Reagan, similarly, began with a “Joyous Christmas” in 1981 and 1982 but doled out generic holiday wishes from 1983 to 1988. The elder President Bush stayed in the “Merry Christmas” spirit all four years, and the Clintons opted for inclusive greetings for all of their eight years.

The current Bush has straddled the divide, offering generic greetings along with an Old Testament verse. To some religious conservatives, that makes all the difference.

“There’s a verse from Scripture in it. I don’t mind that at all, as long as we don’t try to pretend we’re not a nation under God,” said the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

—————————————————————————————-
what do you think? did they “take the Christ out of Christmas”? i don’t know what to make of it. part of me thinks it’s stupid to complain about “winter breaks” not being called “Christmas breaks” … the break is for more than Christmas, it includes New Years! AND all the days in between those two holidays. people use the break for more than just Christmas.

“holiday” sales… or “Christmas” sales… i think we’re being too picky here. do we really want Christmas to become so commercialized? i rather prefer holiday sales over Christmas sales.

but then, is it bad that we’re trying to keep everything generic to avoid offending people? like the whole pledge issue… i dont mind saying “one nation under God” … though that might just be b/c i’m used to saying it from when i was a kid.

“Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate Christmas,” Donohue said. “Spare me the diversity lecture.” … quotes like that just seem kind of stupid to me. why say things like that?

a friend sends an email out to a bunch of her friends, nothing wrong with that. she doesn’t bcc everyone, nothing wrong with that. some times, when i mass email people and i KNOW there are some people who just can’t resist the urge to hit that reply-all button (*cough*ren-yi*cough*) and i think there might be other people who may not appreciate the amusing replies, i’ll bcc. but isn’t that sort of sad? that i don’t trust my friends’ judgements on when to reply-all and when to just reply to me. (since i picked on ren-yi, i will say that she has gotten a lot better. if she does find the need to reply-all, she usually will reply to me only, add the names of other people she wants to see her witty remark, and then send it off- a nice compromise)

so the replies start coming in from my friend’s initial email. and these replies are the best ones… simple one-liners saying “yes” or “no” or something of that sort, not even witty!! worse, personal responses like “aww shmoopie [or some personal nickname], i won’t be able to make it, i’m going to antartica!! i haven’t see you in foorrrever, we must do lunch! love ya! XXOOOXOOXOOXOXOXOXOOX [more cutsey-ness]“… WHY?!?!!

unfortunately, my friend sent this email to some of her friends’ work email (maybe she only has that contact email, who knows) so finally some brave soul reply-alls with a simple request that we don’t all reply-all, that this is being sent to her work email.

… after which, more reply-alls come in.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Posted: 10:27 a.m. EST (15:27 GMT)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) — Officials in the northern Idaho town of Santa, Idaho, have voted to rename the 115-person hamlet Secretsanta.com to hype an online gift exchange management service.

Last-minute legal wrangling left unclear whether the water board for Santa, the town’s only official body, had the authority to approve a new moniker. Even so, the board voted in favor of becoming Secretsanta.com in exchange for an undisclosed sum from a planned documentary on the name change.

Santa is the latest in a lengthening list of rural communities to agree to bear the brand of a company or service. Clark, Texas last week changed its name to Dish to promote EchoStar Communications Corp.’s Dish Network.

In 2000, Halfway, Oregon agreed to call itself Half.com after an Internet retailer later purchased by eBay Inc.

The towns are following a tradition established in 1950 when Hot Springs, New Mexico changed its name to Truth or Consequences after a radio program that became a TV game show.

Gidget McQueen, the Santa official spearheading the re-christening, said the deal with Secretsanta.com — a Web site that group gift exchange planning — is too good to pass up for a village that is otherwise not on the map.

The expected re-dubbing of Santa with ceremonies planned for December 9 is the brainchild of marketing guru Mark Hughes, chief executive of Buzzmarketing and the architect behind Halfway, Oregon’s name change.

Halfway, Oregon officials say being known for one year as Half.com brought the city $75,000 and 20 computers for its schools. “Even to this day, we still have people come through and talk about Half.com,” said Ralph Smead, member of the area’s chamber of commerce.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/23/idahotown.santa.reut/index.html