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Beer and brownies and birthdays oh my

2006-01-10 - 9:37 a.m.

Birthdays, beer, brownies and bird photos. Not bad.

So I did wind up finding cool birthday presents for both folks that were personal and good, but I did have to keep in check that instinct for extravagance. Good thing I did, too, as the list of things demanding my financial attention these days continues to grow. My ibook freaked out and needs to go in for repair. Argh. SOOOO glad I was able to back it up last week before it went kaput.

Wild blur at work as we just got approval for a new therapy yesterday. I already had my plate full for the day and then had to drop everything to attend to the news. It's fun to have good news to share and I even get to buy booze on the company dime.

Two political issues stirring me up today:

- Alito torpedo being so adamant that judges just follow what the law says and can't have any opinion or agenda. Get )#@(* real!! If it were that simple, there wouldn't need to be a court at the Supreme Court level. The cases would all have been black & white, open & shut cases in previous trials. The whole need for Supreme Court judges is that they have to JUDGE and interpret the law. If you're doing that and are pretending that you don't have any biases you're clearly not dealing with them appropriately. Everyone has biases and you have to acknowledge them in order to consciously determine whether they're swaying your decisions. Absolutely ridiculous. But so glad to hear our laws are so clear that there's not any real need for interpretation. Sweet! News to me. grumble grumble

- Second, New Jersey wants to up the age for being able to buy cigarettes from 18 to 19. WHAT?! I'm against smoking as much as the next person and am eagerly awaiting the day Philly gets its act together for a good smoking ban, but WHAT? We say that 18-year-olds are adults, are responsible for their actions, their crimes, can go into the military and are legally responsible for the consequences of their choices. But we don't think they can choose whether or not to buy a pack of cigs or a bottle of beer? Paternalistic inconsistency. Either we think 18 is it and you are ready to make your own decisions or we don't. From so many issues these days, it sounds like we don't think 18-year-olds are responsible for themselves. If that's so, then we ought to just 'fess up and make 21 the age of majority. Have 18 to 20-year-olds get a parent's signed consent to go into the military, try them as minors, the whole deal. I don't get the inconsistency.

Harumph. Back to work. Rant off.

Pretend it's 10th grade. Leave me a note.

previous - next

eager for some spring fever - 2007-02-20
skyrockets in flight valentine delight - 2007-02-15
tacky Easter to you - 2007-02-12
So Monday - 2007-02-12
iBoxed into a technology corner - 2007-02-06

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