If you don't watch The O.C., you ought to. It's the most consistently well written show on television, and each hour long episode of this "drama" has at least 10 laugh out loud moments, more than you get on most hit sitcoms. The characters are great, the dialogue witty and snappy, and the scenery beautiful. Each week I wait with baited breath for a new episode, the anticipation like nothing I have felt for another show with the possible exceptions of Buffy and Twin Peaks. Many like to compare The O.C. to Beverly Hills 90210, but the comparison falls apart five minutes into watching an episode. The O.C., you must understand, is aware of itself, and a willing participant in self-mocking if the situation deems it neccesary. Just when you think a storyline is getting to serious or melodramatic, you'll get a comment like "Travolta is your bitch," or "I guess it was a booty call," and you'll wish all TV was this good.

More on the U.N. This is a downright scary compendium of the U.N.'s flirtation with outright anti-semitism, and their reluctance to do anything but stand by and let it happen. Their passive responses to any humans rights crimes except those supposedly committed by Israel shows their bias. If you even need another reason to dislike the U.N., here it is.


http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=11702044_1

I read a letter from the editor to the AJC today regarding the NEA. I don't know the background, but I know it has to do with teh No Child Left Behind Act. The writer said that teachers will be subject to having to meet certain goals, I assume on standardized tests? I'll have to do a bit of reading on the subject, but it definitely got me thinking. I know that in my job if I mess up beyond a certain degree, there are going to be bad consequences for me. I'm just dealing with money. Aren't children more important than money, and shouldn't educating them be a priority? If some teachers are failing to properly educate their charges, isn't that a bad thing? The NEA wants us to ignore it. Many people consider the NEA a de facto arm of the Democratic Party, the group of people most likelyto start talking about "the children." Doesn't this make for quite an interesting contradiction.

Actually I don't think standardized tests are a good way to measure a teacher's performance. In fact that's a horrible way. I don't know what would be proper, and perhaps in many places there are some sort of standards in place. These are questions I should research before I posit further.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/cRosett/?id=110004734

More talk of how the U.N. isn't exactly the honest, peace-loving, world leader in doing the right thing that many people (including John Kerry) seem to think they are.

All G.W. Bush has tried to do is the right thing. Many, including myself at times, disagree with him, but as yet there is no evidence of him lying or taking bribes or stealing money or any of that sort of bad behavior that suddenly seems so rampant among the left's "angels" like the U.N., the French government, and John "the flip-flop man" Kerry.

At first, when I heard of Bush's supposed Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, I was outraged. But then I looked a bit further and realized that left-biased news agencies were reporting with serious slant. The real story is that Bush wants an amendment defending marriage, but wants to leave it up to individual states whether to recognize same-sex civil unions with all the same legal rights that married couples get. Personally I thinkt he right thign to do at this point is to take out all mention of the institution of marriage from government and make it a religious thing. Then have government sponsered civil unions that give you legal rights as couples. In other words you get married in a church if you want, but if you want tax breaks, get a civil union, no matter your sex or your partners. Without actually knowing or doing any research, I think that marriage was initially a religious institution, and thus we ought not recognize from a legal sense because of that whole separation of church and state deal. Call it a divorce.

Apparantely what is now all the rage is getting cell phone blockers. The same kind of people who feel they have the right to tell you how to live your life in the privacy of your own home are now mad that people talk on cell phones in public places. They buy these blockers which block signals within 50 ft or some such radius. If I want to talk on my phone in a public place, what's the problem? I could talk to myself instead, or to the person next to me. You can't block that. Luckily these blockers are illegal, so if you ever find yourself being jammed and see someone glancing at you with a sly smile, find a police officer and tell him that the dude has an illegal electronic device which is interfering with your ability to conduct your legal affairs.

The war in Iraq is long over. Now we're cleaning up insurgents that the average Iraqi wish would just go away. Upwards of 100 innocent Iraqi citizens are being each week, yet one wonders where the human shields are? When Saddam was in danger being toppled they all wanted to go help, but now that Saddam is gone and innocent people who deserve to live are being killed, no one seems to care.

I guess you get a lot more publicity defending a tyrant than a cabbie who just wants to do his job and go home to his family.

Day one of the new job is over. The benefits are great, I get a pretty large cubicle, and I get to deal with a lot of money. Plus the cafeteria is good and cheap. I think I'm gonna do pretty good there.

Smoking bans make no sense. It's just another way politicians try to control us. They get people to jump on their bandwagon by saying things like, "Now you can go out and have a good time and not worry about your clothes smelling like smoke." If your problemw ith epople smoking in bars is that your clothes smell like smoke, then go to bars that don't have smoking sections. Take strip clubs for example. If naked women offend you, it's really easy. Don't go to strip clubs. Just because one person decides they don't like naked women doesn't mean we should ban all public establishments from having naked women. If I'm a business owner and I want to open a bar where people can smoke, the government shouldn't have anything to do with it. Drinking is bad for your health, and when people drink they do stupid things that affect the people around them, so maybe we should ban drinking from public places?

I think they ought to make a rule that you an have either a smoking or non-smoking establishment. If you decide to allow smoking you put a sign on the door saying so, you advise potential employess that the job has some health hazards and if they don't liek smoke, they don't have to work there. Maybe even give the non-smoking places a bit of a tax break to make up for all the money they'll lose to the places that allow smoking. Be honest here, if you want to go out and have a good time, are you going to go to place where people can do what they want and have a good time, or go to a quasi facist establishment where they force everyone to act the same?

Don't punish smokers.

I don't understand this whole outsourcing thing. Everyone to the left of center is attacking the Bush administration because jobs have been shipped overseas. I seriously doubt that Bush had anything to do with this. In fact I'm willing to bet the culprits are the business owners that shipped those jobs away. And really they aren't at fault either. If people would buy more expensive goods because they were made and serviced in America, and ignore those products that create jobs in other countries, then these jobs would stay in America. But you can't have it both ways. If you are only going to buy the cheapest items available, then you have to expect that other countries are going to be selling those goods cheaper than the U.S. We have this thing called minimum wage, which means that you can pay people in India to answer your customer service calls for $1.00/hr, and in the U.S. you would have to pay $5+. That's a big difference. Outsourcing problems are caused by a consumer economy that demands the lowest price possible and has nothing to do with Bush's economic policies. Anyone that thinks so has yet to open their eyes and examine the situation deeper than whatever democratic talking points they saw on CNN the night before. Oh yeah, and minimum wage.... A democratic invention.

In the last two weeks I have gotten a new job, roommate #1 has gotten a new job (one that pays more than his previous part-time gig), and roommate #2 got his first post-college job. It's like we're all adults.

All I want to do is fingerpaint.

How can anyone look at what that guy did to that little girl in Sarasota and still be against the death penalty? I have thought, at time in the past, that life is such a great gift that perhaps it's something that we have no right to take away from people. But then I hear about someone doing something so dispicable that I want to find them and remvoe them from this plane of existence myself. Then I believe wholeheartedly in the death penalty.

I am leaving the company I have been working for since April of last year to take a position with the Federal Reserve Bank. I like where I work now, but the Fed made me an offer I couldn't refuse. In return for working what will probably be a boring job, I get to go to grad school for free. Actually I turned them down at first, but then they called back with 12% more money, and I couldn't say no. My last day at G Squared is February 16 and I start at the Fed on February 17. Another bonus; the Fed is within easy biking distance from where I live, so I will save a lot of money on gas.

So I was reading this site where this guy as laying out a defense of Bush. Basically what he said is that, while some may not agree with what the President has done, be it Medicare drug bill, drug testing in schools, etc., just about everything he has done is something he said he was going to do when campaigning. Except anti-terrorism stuff. So that’s kind of interesting. Obviously it won’t change your mind, but if some of those republicans that are turned off by his spending ways realized that he’s doing exactly what he said he would do if they voted for him, it may raise some eyebrows.