Credibility, Confusion, Courtesy.

Today's Tids Issue 2,176
Opening Stuff:
This foggy dawn is one of your basic limp waffle mornings.

Speaking of limp, I think I’m getting a little soft on the politicians. At times in order to maintain credibility and avoid unfounded, factually incorrect rants, I find my self trying to understand the opposition. But, the more I research current events the more I find evidence that we are under assault by the “Nanny State” advocates and others who would take away freedom after freedom over time. Unctuous little people who hide behind contrived theories based on exploiting the emotions of loving people. People who advocate replacing personal responsibility with government controls and mandates. Yesterday we get Financial Reform law where the biggest benefit is to those people advocating bigger Government and more big government intrusion. A law that even supporters deem “Imperfect” but “a necessary compromise”. Everything these days that comes out of DC is imperfect. This is not a time to be lulled. This is a time to start looking to November. To begin ending the madness.

A reader reminds me that “Both politicians and diapers need to be changed often; And for the same reason.”

The Question:
Today is Friday, so it must be a double bonus Q! How great is that? 1. The British Open is underway (You can watch it on ESPN starting at 4:00AM – That’s AM) so lets ask a little historical BO Golf question. Name five golfers who have had the most rounds under 70. 2. A survey group was given 4 choices and they had to pick one – Save $50/ week; Have more sex; Gain an hour a day; Drop a clothing size. Which one do you think came out on top?

The Headlines:
--All Eyes On Well Tests.
--0-Man Continues To Campaign Against Bush.
--Minor Earthquake Rattles DC Residents; Resident Says, “Tremors Nothing Compared To What Congress Does To Us Every Day.”
--Habitual High Heel Wearers Could be Finding A Lot Of Leg Pain In Older Years.
--Authorities Trying To Unravel Mystery Of July 7 UFO Sighting Over China Airport.
--CitiGroup reports 10% Profit Drop; GE Reports Higher Earnings On Cost Cutting, Down Revenues.

Back to More Stuff:

Yesterday in our continuing effort to report the truth, I wrote the words of the Prez in his speech to the Muslim world. As I read the speech before I write the paragraph, I became aware of the conciliatory, apologetic tone inferring once more from President Wimpy a condemnation of the US past. A reader wrote to inform me that, Yes, while he may have been a Christian, his Christian mentor was the intolerable, white hating Reverend Wright. That the intellectual, enlightened Muslims were devoured 1,000 years ago by the religious zealot factions thus ending Islam’s contributions to science.

On the other hand, I condemned ABC news yesterday for selective reporting of anecdotes from a bitter few to emphasize the inadequacies of BP. A day later, the news org reached out further and actually showed the BP efforts to compensate as very effective. Many LA residents said that compared to the Government’s handling of Katrina payouts, BP was amazingly efficient and their hope was that the Government would stay away and out of the way. Other parts of the report told us that seaside restaurants were have a great year, maybe one of their best in a decade as clean-up workers filled the seats. There is always more to the stories as reported, and occasionally we get it. But not often enough.

Apparently, a lot of the uglier scenes of tar balls flying around the internet are photographically altered or from older oil spills around d the country.

Through the Same Eyes: Chapter 83. –Paul answered my call quickly. He said he was still in a meeting and it may take an hour or so. But he was in an up beat mood and told me that it must have been because he saw me earlier. I responded that I felt the same way too. But, I didn’t know how I felt.
Paul went on to tell me more than I wanted to know at the moment about how critical his equipment had become to everything that was being accomplished at BIEm research. Then he said, “Maybe it isn’t you at all, but just that I am needed by these poor scientists.” He laughed at his little jest.
I laughed along with him. I always laughed along with him. It was part of what we have always done. From the first time I saw him. The connection. Our connection. “Maybe you don’t need me at all, now that you are so successful.” But, this time he didn’t respond with one of his quips.” It was just silent. Did I hit a nerve that I was unaware of? Have I been feeling all along that he didn’t really need me?
“Sarah,” he started slowly, softly, “You are everything to me. You are my life. I would sell my company and become your house mom in Fosterville if you asked. All I want is you and your happiness.” I listened silently. He was crying. I could tell.
“You will always have me,” I answered sincerely. Then I wondered about who I really was. This person who actually has everything. Was becoming…what? My hand started to shake. Then I added. “Thank you Paul.” He didn’t say anything. Maybe he couldn’t.
“Call me when you are finished. I’ll be at Henry’s” Am I that cold? “Love you,” I added. I hung up.

I think a good name for a restaurant would be “No Trendiness Here”. A lot of perfectly good menus are spoiled by some misinformed restaurant owner jumping upon trend bandwagons.

Of course there are exceptions. The current “Lobster Mac n’ Cheese trend at restaurants around here has definite merits.

Every day I seem to see or hear about another example of inconsideration. There are just too many people, it seems to me, who don’t understand the simple facts about commons courtesy. It can be simple littering, or parking cars on somebody’s lawn because a party had grown too big. The over crowding of animals in neighborhoods. There is just a little too much “I’m for me” going on around towns and villages these days.

Reading Between the Lines Movie Reviews –Confusion Friday:
--Remembering that Leonard’s last big film Shutter Island was totally not what it appeared, it is easy to understand why The DeCap would venture into the confusing Inception. Which is totally not what it appears to be “squared”. The big difference here is that the audience will be confused from the beginning in Inception while it was only confused at the end in Shutter. DeCaprio heads a Mission Impossible style team that invades minds, reads dreams and plants seeds. The particular target is a business rival who has plans in his mind that would grievously injure the operations of the business man who hired DeCap. The promos say you may want to see it twice to figure it out. This is the same Director who gave us the mindboggling “Momento”. Personally, I like to boggle my mind. And this sounds like a winner to me.
--The Sorcerers Apprentice is about a man Balthazar Blake in current times seeking to be come the long sought after replacement for the magical Merlin. He and his young associate find magic in an old antique shop. The young boy associate (The sorcerer’s apprentice) takes a nesting doll that has imprisoned the nasty Morgana for ten centuries. If released, Morgana would destroy the world. Ten years later Balthazar seeks to find the apprentice before his evil rival Horvath does. Horvath wants to release Morgana to do her evil deeds. Lots of special magical effects. Would be fun if you could figure it out. It’s a giant “Who cares?” movie.
--The Girl who Played with Fire could be confusing too, if you hadn’t seen the first in the series…The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Lisbeth finds her self a suspect in a case revolving around a sex trafficking ring and three murders. She goes on the run. It’s a pretty good yarn but it hasn’t the same depth of character as Dragon tattoo. It plays like a standard TV cop show. But it serves a purpose as a reasonable interim between Dragon and the next in the series The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s nest. If you liked Dragon, you may be a little disappointed, but it will still be enjoyable.

The Answer:
1. The golfers with the most under 70 rounds in the British Open history are jack Nicklaus (35), Nick Faldo (35), Tom Watson(27), Greg Norman(23), Lee Trevino(21), Seve Ballesteros(20) and Nick Price(20). They are remembering Seve at this years event as he had to stay home in Spain because of his illness. 2. 57% chose to save $50/week. Figures factored into the #2 answer with 31% going for a drop in clothing size. 6% said they’d like an extra hour while only 6% are sex starved. Personally, I can’t understand why anyone would want an extra hour. And also. Maybe those who voted fro a drop in size figured they’d get a little more sex after that.

The biggest danger to the effectiveness of the loyal opposition is destroying credibility by stretching the truth beyond belief.