Hi, Cassandra. How's the radio program? Hi, Martooni. Take good care.

Three weeks till February 5? I hope to live that long, and get it over with. Of course, NC's primary isn't until May.

Hi daiwanlan! *waving*

Lived in Lawrence Township for 2nd through 7th grade.

All I know is the Super Duper Bowl is on February 3rd!!!!

Lordy, Joel's on fire again.
In the Southeast the shoes are called flip-flops. The beverage is spelled coke but pronounced co-cola. Just so you know.

Strangely enough, an employee of the Coca-Cola Co. once told me that the drink that always beat Coke and Pepsi in "taste tests" was RC. That's Royal Crown Cola.

Actually it was 3rd through 6th. Forget the town names for 2nd and 7th, but was still in Marion.

Ah! I was in Indianapolis, so far as I know, not one of those "Excluded Cities" (according to Wikipedia). We moved to Maryland between 3rd and 4th grade, leaving behind the hated Mrs. Fox and her toady: Sheila. *Sheila* got to read the 6th-grade books, but me? No way. Might be "bad" for me. Might be "above my level." Arrggghhhh. Sheila nibbled the ends of her own hair.

Probably a very nice girl, but I never saw her after mid-1972.

Joel writes:
He's [Rudy Giuliani] vanished into the swamps of Florida, like a boa or a Nile monitor lizard.

At least Rudy hasn't fallen off the limb of a Florida tree like a frozen iguana!

What's this with Tony Romo&Jessica? Strahan and Umenyiora of the Giants had a lot more to do with Romo's problems than Jess. Losing his cool and screaming at his front four wasn't very classy though, but there you go he is a young QB on his first playoff game... He should be allowed some breathing room for bringing America's team (just teasing Mudge!) in the playoffs.

I love the word "toady."

Is anyone commenting on the Kit? The comments over at The Trail are the typical "Joel is a big idiot" although he's defended by a JakeD.

JakeD... are you here, too? Speak up if you are. We'd love to hear form you.

And we're depending on our Florida folks here, known and unknown, to let us know what's happening in your part of the state. Where's Shiloh been lately, anyway? Hope he's OK.

And Michiganers, too. And South Carolinians. Give us the pre-Super Duper Tuesday Boodler on the Street reports.

JakeD.. we'd like to hear FROM you, not form you. Sorry.

I believe those would be Michiganders, which fall into the subspecies Yooper (on the Upper Peninsula, the U.P.) and Troll (living below the bridge, I am told).

Actually, Science Tim, my tax professor in law school told me that, even though I'm originally from Michigan, I was *not* a Michigander, but instead, a Michigoose.

There you have it.

Oh.. and yeah.. just to go on the record here.. Joel is NOT a big idiot. But you knew that.

Carry on...

Reposted from previous:

"Posted something quick about a surprise Campaign stop for some of the major Candidates today:

http://www.10thcircle.com/10/?p=225

On the planet Mercury, so they can get in front of the NASA cameras...

Enjoy.

bc

Posted by: bc | January 14, 2008 12:10 PM"

TBG,

Idiots come in various sizes? Who knew? I just thought that one size, you know, worked for everybody.

Wow, the US Football season is starting to look like hockey. Soon it will be all football, all the time, with only a 3 week period where they are not playing or in training camp.

If it was all curling all the time, then you'd have something.

Romo played in the Dallas loss to Seattle in the first round of the playoffs last year, it's not his first big game.

The playoffs now offer several interesting possibilities-

Imagine if much maligned and perennially mediocre Norv Turner beats "coaching genius" coach of the year and documented cheater Bill Belichick, ruining the perfect season for NE and that the NY G-men beat geriatric jeans salesman Brett Favre and the Cheetos. This sets up the Super Bowl confrontation between little brother deer in the headlights Eli "The Other" Manning and the San Diego Charger team he so publicly spurned because he had no wish to play anywhere that wasn't "bright lights, big city" enough. That's my dream scenario and Chargers win 28-17 with Billy Volek named SBMVP amidst the gnashing of advertisers' teeth since Volek has no endorsement potential.

Joel, you ever been down in the desert by Palm Springs? If so, you would know that "celebrities, luxury homes, fine art and dining, fashion, golf and society" are what it is all about. Altho
"golf" should be in uppercase. And bold.

Here to report an undercurrent of Rudy Resentment among military types. Soldiers don't like it when a leader appears to be taking a lot of credit for rising to the challenge of happenstance and not standing aside to always and forever credit subordinates first.

Reporting on my own petty Rudy thoughts-he looks like one of those frozen iguanas.

At Chez Frostbitten South, one military household, the dott is firmly in Obama's camp (dare I say an "Obama Girl?") and Mr. F will not declare and thus can't join in either the Dem or Rep fun.

DotC and Kb, thanks for the perspectives on the property tax issue. Mr. F will decide just before casting his ballot, and I'll never know how he voted. As he says, "I've spent almost 30 years in the army defending the concept of secret ballots."

Off to boodle skim and hit round 2 of work. Toodles boodle!

In upstate New York (Lake Ontario version) lingo, it was:

fizzy beverage: pop (which I quickly jettisoned after leaving the area)

rubber casual sandal: thong

Frostdaddy, who grew up in PA, called the rubber casual sandals "thongs" until the grandkids started to titter about Grandpa talking about butt floss. Flip flops they were until we moved to Hawaii and they've been "slippers" ever after. Also, flip flops were "shower shoes" in the military and in the Frostclan we still use that term to differentiate the cheaper varieties from the overpriced "fashion" flops.

Can't believe I missed a whole kit and boodle, but must submit that I love the old terminal at WASHINGTON National and loved it a tad more before the new terminal was finished. There was always an air of excitement picking up Mr. F with all his military gear with taxi horns blaring and people quintuple parked and shouting in a dozen languages. The new terminal is one of the finer examples of airport architecture, but the old one just says travel (and all that stuff JA said about it).

As visible as JD Salinger. Good one!

Visitors have commented to me about the "cell phone waiting areas" at National and Dulles airports, what a great idea, etc. Is this the only place that has them?

Fort Lauderdale has the cell phone waiting area. It was created by members of the public, who collectively refused to stop using the shoulder of the approach road for that purpose, even when threatened with tickets, public flogging, etc. Finally the authorities caved and made it an officially sanctioned area and practice. Score one for civil disobedience.

Intrepid. That's what Joel is, intrepid. And I'm grateful for it. I feel that I'm vicariously living the whole campaign, getting the good parts and clever bon mots (bons mot? motes?) while idling at my desk with coffee and bon bons. The only thing that prevents me from truly enjoying the mental image of Giuliani as a lizard is my natural fondness for reptiles.

Nice work, bc.

Hi, Gomer!

Frostbitten, my dad was in the Army in the Pacific during WWII. He never said a good thing about MacArthur.

Growing up: coke (generic) and thongs. Now: soda ("coke" was too difficult to explain in Boston, since I never wanted Coke. I wanted iced tea, but it was seldom "in season". Those wacky Easterners.)

crc... the Cell Phone Waiting Areas are great. You can wait for the call and then slip right in and pick up your party at the door.

I remember years ago a friend saying how modern Dulles must be. "They have satellite parking!" he exclaimed... facetiously.

bon motes are the happy, friendly GOOD dust motes....

Frosti,
Your comments about the old terminal building at Reagan (i.e., Washington National) reminds me: did you know that there is a college buried in there, now? My daughter goes the satellite campus of UDC there. They use the old hangars next to the passenger terminal area to learn 'bout aircraft maintenance. She also attends our local community college. They did a profile piece about her in their school rag, which goes online. See page 4.

Not that I'm bursting with pride or anything......

http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/news/mctodayarchive/mctodayfall2007.pdf

The cell phone lot is a big hit at our local commercial airport...fairly easy to get to and quite easy to get out and into the line of traffic to pick someone up. Mr. T travels enough that we have learned to expedite by picking him up at departure instead of arrivals, depending on the crowds.

This isn't on topic, but it is about food, and also really funny:
http://davenetics.com/2008/01/the-best-peanut-butter-in-the-world/

Is this your next ride?

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/LAM05614012008-1.htm

Seems to me that naming a car "Karma" is tempting fate. OK, there are opportunities for cute ad copy- "Come in and drive away in your new car today at our Instant Karma Sale!" "Get your certified preowned Karma from KarmaMax" and so on, but there are too many expressions like "bad karma" "s**t for karma" etc. that just beg to be used the first time the thing fails to perform.

Slyness said, "...picking him up at departure instead of arrivals..."

A memorable quote from Raysdad's mom when being delivered to the airport to catch her flight, "Shouldn't we be going to Arrivals, because I *am* arriving at the airport?"

Explains a lot about Raysdad's patience *and* sense of humor.

LOL, Raysmom.

Yikes, ya go to the doctor and then to the dentist and still get to work by noon only to discover I'm two, two, two kits behind. *sound of Certs* click*

Joel got off some excellent lines above. I especially liked the J.D. Salinger line.

Shriek, you just hadda mention "America's team," dincha?

Speaking of waving, when I bought my first MG in 1970, I soon discovered that fellow MG drivers waved at each other, but the did it so subtly and "so cool" as to be almost unnoticeable (bc is undoubtedly aware of this, and will verify): normally in an MG one tends to drive with the left hand at the 10 o'clock position. Upon seeing another MG approaching, the hip, cool, suave MG driver (that'd be me), casually raises the index and middle fingers above the wheel in the classic "V for victory" sign. But of course, it would just be tremendously unhip and uncool, to, you know, actually wave or anything gouache like that. (MG drivers also occasionaly flash their headlights at each other.) I assume that fellow Jag drivers and fellow Lamborghini drivers, etc., do the same. (On the other hand, if I ever found out that, say, fellow Dodge Dart drivers waved at each other, I'd have to cut my fingers off my left hand.)

Loomis, I'm absolutely certain Bill and Hillary are and were totally aware of the Civil Rights movement. You, me, and anyone else who lived thriough that era can't NOT have been aware of it; it was our daily bread in those days. And I think the Obama objection about her remark is silly. Everybody (from back then) *knows* that LBJ railroaded (I mean that in a good way) the Civil Rights Act through Congress as a kind of memorial to the slain JFK. (And if there happens to be a great deal of irony in that, for both men, so be it.)

To my mind, both JFK and RFK get a bad rap on the civil rights thing, with the theory being that they came "late" to the cause, or "didn't do enough," etc. But I think the "proper" answer is, when it came to the crunch, they *did* respond properly (even in RFK's case the night King was shot, heroically). It was JFK who sent John Siegenthaler to Alabama to protect the Freedom Riders, and he sent Nick Katzenbach (later atty. gen.) along with federal marshalls to remove George Wallace from "the Schoolhouse Door" in a famous incident I'll never forget. I think the point with JFK and RFK is not the place they started from (not very good, CR-wise), but the place they both ended up--much better. RFK, in particular made a heckuva transition from April, when King was shot, to June, when he was.

Don... great article! You *should* be proud--as you are! It also speaks so highly of the folks at Montgomery College.

(And what a beautiful picture, too!).

You've just been waiting for some way to get that article on topic. Nice segue from talk of National Airport...

Hey Don, seeing your kid succeed at what she wants to do is the greatest kick in the whole world, isn't it?

Oh, and my leg is finally getting much better, thans to the Wound Center that is agressively treating it. Turns out among other things I had a fungal infection going on, and which I was about to blame on Boko and Yoki and SofC and our other friends from Hautre Maine. I asked the nurse if they knew which particular fungus infection I had, and they said it might just be ordinary ol' *Canada albicans,* [ahem, if I had italics, I could put that in its proper font, ahem, ahem] a very common type of infection. So I thought, "Just like those wily Canadians and their invasion plans to come up with a bio-attack like that." But when I looked it up it turned out to be *Candida albicans." So the Canucks are blameless, and Voltaire is the guilty party.

Alors.

TBG,

You just see right through me.

MESSENGER closest approach to Mercury, in the first flyby, was just 2 hours ago. Two more flybys of Mercury before the orbit insertion burn 1158.5 days from now (3.17 years). The mission is a little more than halfway from launch to orbit insertion, after which the actual mission starts -- two full Mercury years = 176 Earth days (one Mercury day (I can explain, but do you really want me to?)) in orbit around Mercury, to see what's what and what's where.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

And nobody has yet commented on the lede hed: "Poll: McCain Vaults Into GOP Lead..."

Poll, pole, poll vaults...get it?

OK, never mind. Anyway I liked it. But then, I never saw a pun so awful I didn't love its little puny head.

Ya know, Tim, I thought I felt a breeze there for a few minutes.

Mudge, I think that you should be suspicious of Albanians as well. It may be Voltaire's fault, but what language did Voltaire speak? And what language do many Canadians speak? I think the facts speak for themselves.

Mudge... one of the first headlines I wrote for my late, pun-loving boss was something like: Poll Vaulting: Looking Beyond the Election.

One of my first... and one of my faves.

"MG drivers also occasionaly (sic) flash their headlights at each other." The reason that MG drivers are not able to flash their headlights every time is that their cars are electrified by Lucas, Prince of Darkness.

Voltaire and the Albanians? Now you've gone and put that darned tune cootie beloved of French diplomatic historians everywhere in my head. Oh, don't go pretending you don't know the tune I mean. Every astronomer person should be familiar with it; it was featured in that movie starring Michael Keaton, "Betelguese":

(Sung, IIRC, by Dick Cavett and Jeffrey Pervert whatshisname):

"Day-o

Day-o

Day-o

Daylight come and me wan' go home.

Come Mistah Talleyrand, tally me Albanians.
(Daylight come and me wan' go home.)
Come Mistah Talleyrand, tally me Albanians.
(Daylight come and me wan' go home.)

I used to flash my lights when I owned me MGB. But it was risky. You never knew when a surge like that would fry the electrical system.

When dealing with Florida politics, does one still use the term "Condo Commandos"? Or is that, like, so 2000.

SciTim,
I went to that MESSANGER website and watched that odometer click around for a minuet. Whoa, that puppy is racking up the miles. On just one tank of gas, no less. Don'tcha wish you could get kind of mileage on your old jelopy? What's it burnin', that new-fangled, bio-corn-pone-stuff?

I never heard the phrase "condo commandos." What is that, like, some giant Peruvian bird that doesn't wear underwear?

Bio-corn-pone? Not to be confused with the X-rated version of "Bladerunner," which featured bio-clone-p0rn.

Hey, I gotta cram a whole day's worth of lousy jokes into just a few more minutes here, so gimme a break.

The term "Condo Commando" is used by some to describe the hyper-motivated retirees who try to turn their retirement communities into hotbeds of political activism.

http://www.wordspy.com/words/condocommando.asp

The phrase may very well have been banned.

Would somebody *please* check Mudges' meds? He said himself that he was hittin' the oxy - sumptin' today. Was that oxy-moron?

"Oh.. and yeah.. just to go on the record here.. Joel is NOT a big idiot. But you knew that."

Well, here's a quote from the first year of the Achenblog, from a famous lurker:

"The Achenblog is an idiot."

My my, but our 'mudgie is in fine form this afternoon.

Watch out though, buddy. I hear that the tuna in those albicans can be toxic, and lord knows that is the last thing you need.

No, no, CowTown, the quote is:

"This blog STINKS!"

*sigh* I kinda miss the Lone Mule.

Oh, but Slyness, the "The Achenblog is an idiot," comment was from WAY back, way before even Curmudgeon entered the scene. *Looking smug while hitching thumbs behind the suspenders of my coveralls* Why we used even have people called "lurkers," some of whom stole the "handles" of regular commenters. It was WILD back in those days.

Yessir, that's a fact. AND, we had a resident editor, who went by the handle of Tom Fan, and Achenfan, and Dreamer, depending on her mood.

Um, umm. Yessir *spits*

Yes, I hear that albicans tuna has a lot of Mercurial flybys in it, which somehow get stuck in the food chain. (Which is what happens when little tiny plankards eat Mercurians, and then bigger phylums and phyllo eat the plankards, then tiny little fish like gloppies eat the phyllo, then bigger fish like pilchards and sardinians eat the gloppies, and sooner or later the albicans eat the Mercury-crusted smaller fishes. It's, like, that whole Elton John harpoona mutata circle of life thing.)

One learns so much good information here on the Boodle. And I like to contribute my share.

Hey, RD, how was class?

Where is Dreamer Et Al anyway? There was a surfacing a while back but she's (?) since submerged.

>Candida Albicans

Well, I'm sure it was the best possible fungal infection in the circumstances.

We're still working on Canada Albicans. You'll know when it's ready.

I had a Boodle moment on the weekend. I was looking for Dutch news on their take on their mission in Afghanistan, and came across a very interesting story about a Dutch diplomat that made me think, "Oh, I have GOT to tell Mudge about this". Let's just say if you knew this was an option you would have had an additional source of leverage over your kids.

I see the story is getting wider press now; found this link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3048747.ece

Why, I bet if somebody had a mind to, they could write a steady column about how things like that circle of life thing works and other scientraffic stuff like that (and call it...um... "Why Things Am"), and maybe even comflate them into a book or two.

Just a thought. (I get so many good ideas like this I just amaze my own self.)

I bow to your superior knowledge and seniority, CowTown. I didn't find Achenblog till around the time of Hurricane Katrina.

SofC, I didn't know about this, but in a way I'm not surprised (which I'll get to in a minute). But what did astound me were the stats at the end of the story:

"The rate of adoption failure in the United Kingdom is estimated at 10 per cent for children placed under the age of 10, and 20 per cent to 40 per cent for those placed at an older age;"

"-- Of all finalised adoptions in the United States in 2000, 1.43 per cent of children returned to foster care within the same year. It is extremely rare for this to happen when children are adopted as babies."

What astounds me is that the figure is so astoundingly high in the UK and so pleasingly low here; good for us!

But this is just a terrible story.

The reason I'm not surprised is that we got two out of three of our adopted kids pretty much that way. Our first adoption came about after a couple in the Baltimore area had adopted a girl, age 4, from Korea; after three days in their home they returned her to the agency (Associated Catholic Charities) because (they said) she was "fat." Yes. And the even greater outrage was the fact that she was NOT, in fact, overweight. Granted, she had a moon face, and was wearing enough clothes for three people. Undressed, she was perfectly normal height and weight. So the agency, in a panic, called us up and asked, "So you want her?" She as you can imagine, we said, "He11, yes!"

We got our son the same way; he was adopted at age 1 1/2 by a couple up near Towson. The mother in that family had a nervous breakdown over a period of several months, and when David had been with them seven months the social worker discovered what was going on and took him out of that home. Same story: the agency called up and asked, "Do you want him?"

Our first adoption therefore took 3 days; the third one, Dave, was 24 hours. (The middle adoption was "normal" and took nearly two years.)

SonofCarl, I was sympathetic to the Dutch couple till I read the babysitter's comment that the wife didn't treat the girl as her child.

I hope the kid will be readopted and okay.

My niece, who was adopted in Russia at 26 months, is in therapy to overcome a bonding disorder. Their mother abandoned her and her twin brother when they were 6 months old, so the problem is certainly understandable.

Person-in-the-street report for TBG:

On my way home from work I saw three dead iguanas and a RUDY yard sign.

How's that..?

Thanks for the sciency explanation of our Mercurial aquatic albicans. You know those fungi are confusing.

One problem with Florida politics is that various cohorts of retirees lose interest in politics, move back home, or move on to the next world. I think the old Roosevelt fans are pretty much gone. My own retiree/heavy county will probaby vote Republican in the general election. Since Military Stuff seems to be big, I suspect McCain will do well in the primary. Not enough democrats to matter, even if there were a primary.

The cycads are doing nicely. How can you dislike a South African species named Encephalartos horridus? Or Central American palms whose leaves seem to be mimicked by the local palms. Peesumably, cycad leaves are so toxic that herbivores avoid them, so it's beneficial for palms to be mistaken for cycads. Of course that modest hypothesis was developed by a commerical fisherman from Kauai. Oliver Sacks should be here.

And of course don't let my glib comment make anyone think that I think the circumstances for the child involved are funny.

Speaking of adoptions, there was another UK story recently about (separately) adopted twins that were, um, reunited:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7182817.stm

kbert,
Is it because nobody has come around to scoop up the dead iguanas after the big freeze in the Sunshine State--that you saw them? Or are they continuing to die--say from natural causes? Just how bad really is the iguana invasion in Florida? I've heard news bits about the dropping lizards--one almost hitting or hitting a tourist, I don't recall the specifics..., but when were they first introduced into the state and how prolific have they been as far as learning their multiplication tables, so to speak--and how much of a nuisance?

Day one of class was surprisingly entertaining, given that the topic was statistical analysis of experimental data. The bit about appropriate applications of the Poisson distribution was my favorite.

And I resisted the donuts.

But not the scones.

Good evening, all.

Tim, it's fair to say I noticed the Mercurial flyby today... [I wonder if MESSENGER drivers wave at each other?]

Mudge, if two Dodge Dart drivers passed each other on the road today, I'm sure they *would* wave to each other. Particularly if they were driving a 340 4-spd Swinger, a GTS with the 340 or 383, or one of the factory Dart race car specials with plastic windows fiberglass and aluminum body parts, powered by a mighty 440 Magnum or mind-blowing 426 Hemi.

CowTown, I, too remember the days of the SAO-15. And I, too, wonder where Dreamer/Achenfan/Tomfan is these days...

Speaking of Mercurial, I can feel my mood swinging, and need some dinner.

Ciao for now.

bc

It is okay, RD. Scones are MUCH healthier. I believe this because they are not as cute and round as donuts, and don't glisten as well. In fact, scones may be part of an essential food group.

Speaking of which, time to go fleetingly to a late meeting.

I'm looking forward to seeing those Mercurial happy snaps. Yet another stunning achievement.

Those rocket-science types are pretty slick folks.

And they were blueberry scones. Blueberries have those antioxidants in them. Which everybody knows is just about the healthiest stuff out there.

Heck, I woulda had two, but who wants to live forever?

But no clotted cream or butter, RD? That would lower the healthiness index.

I haven't had any soda pop for a month...

I'm all in. No energy to search for Huckster's tax policy and pick it to pieces. Any volunteers?

Two new kits!!!

RD, I've been covering my blueberries with ketchup and raw tomatoes, and I don't *feel* like I'm going to live forever.

But I'll be completely antioxidized.
Which is better than having my indsides Simonized, I suppose.
Come to think of it, maybe it's the same thing.

bc

RD:
The term "Condo Commando" is used by some to describe the hyper-motivated retirees who try to turn their retirement communities into [italics]police states[/italics].

Fixed it for you. I don't know whether the term is still used, but the behavior is still prevalent.

Not only does Palm Beach County have more people than Iowa, it's physically bigger than Rhode Island. It's so big they ran out of unique street names.

Interesting. I've seen some of the horror stories about bonding disorder, it always tends to be accomplained by stories of neglect and abuse as well as permanent change of caretakers. I've been impressed by my friends who have endured nightmarish childhoods, including being at risk for bonding disorder.

I would think the abuse and neglect itself makes it difficult for disruption in bonding to be repaired.

I know a deaf guy who doesn't want to adopt because he felt like he never truly belonged and speaks most favorably of a single sibling who signs fluently. The rest of the family does not sign, so the sense of alienation is directly related to communication.

Does he have bonding disorder because he was adopted, or because he was deaf in a family that was kind, but never let him fully engage back and forth in conversation by their inability to learn the languages he could use? There's certainly room for both to contribute.

http://www.attachmentdisordermaryland.com/intro.htm

I guess it's hard to believe that it could be so serious that doctors told them to just dump the child.

An infant adopted at 4 months just doesn't seem likely for bonding disorder unless there was much more chaos in her first year than thus reported, but Asian and western childrearing practices do vary, and that culture shock could hit a child hard. And the time difference, too, come to think of it. Who's ever studied jet lag in infants and their caretakers?

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Human_Development_Center/Roundtable/Harkness.pdf

http://www.larkfarm.com/books/our_babies.htm

Mudge, good of you to report you have 2 kids who seem none the worse for wear after a bungled first adoption.

Mudge and Mrs. Mudge
Everyday heroes; need more of you

Love. Plus good food and baseball. Your children hit the brass ring!

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