Veteran's Day

Hey. Google put up a Veteran's Day thingy. Way to go.

Thurpy dogs.

So I'm standing in line at the grocery store and I looked around, hoping to find a shorter line. I saw a woman standing in line holding a leash and on the other end of the leash was one of those little, furry-all-over dogs with the juvenile facial features so beloved by little old ladies, adolescent princesses and spiritless husbands. It was jumping and running a few steps back and forth on the leash, wagging its dustmop of a tail to spread dog dander, allergens, and its scent all around -- and slobbering on the floor with doggy happiness. With an advanced canine sense of smell, for dogs probably all the odors and scents in a grocery store might be kind of like a hallucinogen drugs for people. (Oh, the colors! The colors!)

Anyhow, I was moved to make a polite comment, "HEY! THERE'S A DAMN DOG IN HERE!"

I forgot I was in Portland, Oregon. People can and do ride bicycles naked in Portland. Seldom are any of the naked bike riders people one would relish seeing naked, but we nevertheless must indulge them in their need to benude themselves. They have the right. The law won't touch them. (Nor would I.) People in Oregon can and do persuade doctors and pharmacists to give them life-ending drugs. The law teaches how to do it. They have a right. (I wonder what would happen if a terminally ill patient got suicide drugs legally, and then gave them to her husband instead of herself. Would she get the death penalty?)

So this being Portland, when I mentioned the dog in the grocery store I was informed that nobody much likes it but not much can be done about it because the definition of "therapy animal" is a unclear. Evidently, a therapy animal may be equivalent to a trained service dog, in Oregon law. So self-indulgent people can drag their pets into the grocery store. I was told there's a some kind of bill being considered in Salem on the subject. So, the store felt it had to look the other way, because it sure didn't want to deal with a novel civil-rights claim by some settlement hungry sue-monkey. And his client. This being Portland, and all.

Having a pet close by is thought to be necessary to the emotional well-being of emotionally broken people.

Okay. But all my life I've seen dogs tied outside the door of stores, waiting for owners to return. I've seen some stores have watering bowls for the comfort of pets who must wait outside. It isn't a problem for the pet, because nearly everybody walking by will speak to the animal. Outdoors. Not indoors.

Maybe we can get a test case going. We need to get a bearded Progressive to drag a dead, flea-encrusted possum on a stick all around Walgreen's, claiming the right based on his so-called great emotional needs, to chase customers out of the store in revulsion. He can claim the need to do so based on the sound advice offered by his emotional counselor, a Native American shaman known as Wah-Wah-Tippito, which means Solitary Coyote in his native language (and whose birth name was Donald Scheisskopf when first born in New Jersey.) That should do it.

Hey. If you don't have a specially trained animal to guide you through the dark, or to alert to the onset of an epileptic fit, or to bring things to you in your wheelchair, or some such, you don't have a service animal. You have a pet. And if you claim the right to bring your pet into the grocery store, you have an atitude.

And if you are given a legal right to bring a dog into the grocery store because it is a comfort to you, despite it being an annoyance to others, then I should be given the legal right to smoke a cigarette after coffee in a restaurant, if I want to.

(Oh, Walt. It isn't the same thing.) Yes. It is. It is exactly the same thing.

The Nobel prize? Really?

When the French, yeah, the French, can see it, maybe there could be a chance for San Francisco after all.

Remember, it was the French president, of all people, who described our president as naive and narcisstic, when it comes to his approach to atomic threats from Iran. Yeah, the French president. (I may be wrong about this, but my impression is that the last time the French were seriously warlike was with Napoleon. Or maybe back in 1066.)

I don't think it's that the French have decided to "cowboy up." (I'm in Arizona right now, and I heard somebody say that.) I think it's that the French are thinking that they are closer to Iran than we are, and they are seeing Putin "cowboy up."

Could it be that the French are rightly concerned whether or not we could be trusted to come to the rescue, for a third time?

And that's a fair question, the answer to which I'm not at all certain I'm comfortable that I know how it should be answered, let alone how it would be answered when the time comes.

I'm back

I"m back, but not in a big way. I haven't been blogging on either of my blogs. Politics. Bleagh!

I hear you knocking . . .

Looking for me? Try here.

Memorial Day good bye to Google. . .

Has anybody noticed that I've been mad at Google all day? Well, I still am.

Memorial Day Bye Bye to Google.

Have we all noticed how Google likes to add little artistic changes to the Google logo to commemorate various days of note on the calendar? Just a cute little acknowledgement, a snowman, or something. They even commemorated something as pedestrian as Sherlock Holmes. So, what did Google do for Memorial Day?

Not a damn thing.

Hey, it wouldn't take much and the those sorry sacks at Google wouldn't even have to be sincere. They could just make some little gesture to acknowledge that today is the day set aside on the calendar to remember that many Americans have died in service to their country. Betcha they remembered to stay home from work today.

So, as of today I'm going to disengage from Google. There are other search engines. I can start using my other e-mail addresses other than Gmail. I can take my blog elsewhere.

This isn't about politics. This is about arrogance, and a flat, self-important inability to consider all those Americans who knew, or were related to, or were friends with, or loved somebody who died in their country's uniform -- those Americans who may take comfort in the thought that perhaps for a few moments this day, other Americans will remember and honor their dead.

So --Screwgle.

And I only wish I advertised, or paid for services or owned stock with Google, so I could register my disapproval a mite more effectively.

Bye-bye, Google Memorial Day

Google may be one of the best search engines there is, but it isn't the only one and it isn't the only one I use.

As of now, I'm no longer using Google to search the web. As of now, I'm looking for another way to blog. As of now, I'm going to start favoring my non-Gmail e-mail addresses.

Here's why.

Google regularly puts up all sorts of little decorative devices on the opening page -- all sorts of little artistic variations on the Google logo to mark special days on the calendar. They can remember to do it for something as relatively trivial as Sherlock Holmes. So what do we have for Memorial Day?

Not a damn thing.

Hey, it's not as if the happy band of Googlers even had to be sincere in acknowledging that many Americans have died in uniform and today is marked down as a day to remember the sacrifices of friends and relatives who died in service of their country. This isn't about politics; it's about rude, self-centered arrogance. But I'll bet the whole sorry pack of Googlers took the day off as a holiday while nevertheless ignoring those for whom Memorial Day is meaningful.

I feel bad that I don't pay Google for their services, or run advertisements on Google or own stock in Google. If I did, I could communicate to Google in a more meaningful way.

Can this be right?

Google it. The population of Mexico is a little over a hundred million. Is that right? And we have a reported twelve million illegals in the country, most of whom, I'm told, are Mexican. So, roughly ten percent of Mexico is in the United States?

Telephone tax refund ...

The IRS is going to pay back some taxes collected. A long time ago, like about 1898, the government imposed a 3% tax on long distance telephone calls. This was a temporary tax, of course. And it was okay because only rich people had telephones, and taxing the rich and not the poor is thought to be a virtue. Of course with the passage of time, we see the error of imposing a temporary tax, or permitting a tax because it is only imposed on those who can afford it. You and I have been paying the 3% tax on our long distance phone calls.

Anyway, since the government has lost lawsuits about collecting this tax, and lost more than once, it has decided it won't collect the tax anymore. And it is going to give some money back. There will be an opportunity on the 2006 tax forms to claim 3 years worth of federal taxes on your long distance calls. Oh, the other 105 years of taxes? Gone.

Boy, we sure showed IRS they can't mess around with the American public.