First, I may not be able to post entries until Sunday evening, since Robert will be here and I expect to be, um, distracted.
Since about all I did today was go to one meeting and write a lengthy email about another meeting, I figured it was a good day to write about current events in the world at large.
So, let's see. The only two senators who voted against confirming Gates as SecDef were two republicans who were upset that he said Iraq isn't working. And one of those two is Rick Santorum, who not only lost his seat in the recent election but who will always be linked in my mind with Dan Savage's creation of a slang term using his name. (The other is former baseball pitcher Jim Bunning, who our legislative liason at work noted will always be "fondly remembered for his role in replacing all the locks in the Pentagon.")
On the international front, there was a coup in Fiji. Since that happens at least every few years, it hardly qualifies as news. The only less newsworthy place for a coup would be Comoros, which has even been nicknamed coup-coup land.
I saved an item from Colorado that seems to me to be a fine example of the law of unintended consequences. An Air Force facility tested a communications system for homeland security. Unfortunately, because of the frequency they used, this disabled over 400 automatic garage door openers in the area. Changing the garage door openers is said to have a cost of roughly 250 dollars. What I want to note is that a lot of people are, apparently, blaming the Air Force for this, but the fault is really that of the people who made the garage door openers using a frequency that the Air Force has the rights to. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, so I smell lawsuit in the future.
Finally, I read today that cats can get Alzheimer's. What I want to know is exactly how one is supposed to be able to tell that their cat has dementia. It's not as if cats are known for good memories or sane behavior.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel