Always leave 'em yearning for more

Last night I finished reading "The Road to McCarthy" by Pete McCarthy.  It's a book that recounts the author's journeys to several places around the globe that have been heavily influenced both by the Irish and people named "McCarthy."  I was fascinated to see how the Irish have made a mark for themselves in parts of Montana, Alaska, Morocco and Montserrat.  It's highly entertaining, and if you like travel writing, I recommend it.

Or read his first book, "McCarthy's Bar", his travelogue about places in Ireland that actually have a pub named "McCarthy's Bar."  Having been to Ireland recently, I can verify that there are indeed a lot of them in Eire.  The first rule of travel: never pass a bar with your name on it without going inside to check it out. 

Before I began his second book, I went to Pete McCarthy's web site in anticipation of seeing a list of twelve more books he has written, or maybe the date of a new release later this year.

Alas, I saw this instead.  Pete's traveling days are tragically over, and there will be no more books to follow.

Knowing this, I waited a while to read his last book since I knew that I would not have the opportunity to acquire anything new by him.  It's odd when you read a work of non-fiction which heavily features the actions of the author when you know he is no longer living, that everything contained on the pages is past, and is essentially his last literary will and testament.

Pete and I share the same last name, and his family originated from the west of County Cork, same where mine hailed from as well.  I have no clue if we might be distantly related, and I really don't care.  I'm just glad I had the opportunity to experience his writing while he is still relevant.

Icon war of the worlds

What's really going on while your computer is "hibernating."

Oddly brilliant, and just a tad disturbing.

No title necessary

1. What is the most inexpensive, non-valuable thing you tend to collect and hoard?  Why do you do it?  Magazines.  For some reason I am completely incapable of getting rid of one until I have made sure I have read it.  When you hear one of those stories about a place burning down because it was full of old magazines?  That's me in 30 years or so.

2. What is the highest price you've paid per gallon for gasoline where you live?  Do you use regular, mid-grade or premium?  I think it got as high as $2.40 a few months ago.  I always fill up with regular.

3. What is your favorite Bible verse and why?  If you don't have a verse from the Bible that holds meaning to you, what's your favorite saying and why? "Judge not, lest ye be judged."  More people need to read that one.

4. What was your favorite movie from the 1970s?  When did you last view it?  Do you have it in your movie collection? Geez, I don't know.  "The Stuntman" maybe, if it came out in the 70's, though I don't think it did.  Whatever it is, I don't have it.

5. Do you weigh more, less, or the same as you did one year ago?  Six months ago?  Three months ago? One year ago: more, six months ago: same, three months ago: less

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #54 from Jennie: What one lyric sums up your current love life? "A place that has to be believed to be seen." Your view on life? "Somewhere I can taste the salt to the sea/there's a kite flying out of contol on me."  Your past? "I am safe hidden here" Your hopes/dreams/fears? "And I think to myself, what a wonderful world"

You can't destroy reasoning if you don't have any

President Bush has been in office now for more than four years.  In that time, he has never vetoed a bill, which is amazing when you consider that the average president vetoes a lot of bills in just one term.

Now, Bush is talking up the fact that there is a bill out there that he will veto if Congress sends it to him for his signature.  I should be happy about this, because it should be a sign that he is finally exercising some restraint when it comes to fiscal responsibility. 

The bill Bush is threatening to veto has to do with appropriating more federal funds, but increased spending has nothing to do with the reason Bush has promised to veto it.

The Republican majority House passed a bill this week that calls for allowing federal funds to be used in the research of embryonic stem cells.  Currently, due to an executive order Bush made shortly after taking office in 2001, no federal money can be used to create new embryos for the purpose of scientific research into the prevention and treatment of disease.

Bush is against using embryonic stem cells for research.  It violates what he calls the "culture of life" that he wants our society to be.  Discussion after discussion about this issue seems to always come back to a single fact-while no one knows for sure if embryonic stem cell research will lead to cures for serious disease, there do appear to be gains that can be made by this.

Bush says that he will "not destroy life to save life."  From this statement, I assume he believes that life begins at conception.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.  However, he appears to either not realize or not worry about the number of embryos that already exist in labs and clinics across the nation that will never actually become a full term baby.  There are simply too many.

Perhaps I could better grasp the president's feeling on this issue if I didn't find his direct words, "I will not destroy life to save life," hypocritical.  I do respect the fact that this is a so called "moral issue," but because an issue is deemed moral does not mean it can't be treated logically.

Remember, please, that while he was governor of Texas, no state executed more criminals than Texas.  Some of those executed may actually have been innocent or mentally retarded, though Bush has never admitted that.  In his adamant defense of the death penalty, Bushhas said that his main reason for supporting it is because it prevents future crimes.  In other words, a person who might commit murder won't because he/she sees that in Texas, those who do commit murder are executed.

One could say that when a criminal is executed, a life is destroyed.  It may not have been much of a life, but it still was one.  However, according to Bush, the execution saved the life(s) of other potential victim(s).

So it would seem to me, that when he was governor of Texas, George W. Bush certainly did not mind "destroying life to save life."  Remember that those are his words, not mine. 

There is something else to ponder here.  Although he has never commented on it himself, a large portion of the so called "religious right" that Bush and his fellow Republicans depend greatly upon do not believe in evolution.  Instead, they believe in the biblical description of creationism.  In some areas of this country, evolution is indeed a "four letter word."  There has even been public debate about eliminating it from school curiculums.

Think for a moment about what you have heard about stem cell research, whether you support it or not.  Think about the types of disease that many scientists believe could be controlled one day because of stem cell possibilities.  It's diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's that are usually talked about, along with diabetes and cancer.  There are a potential unlimited amount of ailments that could be better treated through stem cell research. 

The is no way of knowing what benefits are possible without having the opportunity to do the research.  Enough Republican members of Congress understood this to even get the bill this far.  Who could possibly not be in favor of seeing those paralyzed walk again, or avoiding a scenario such as Nancy Reagan's, where she spent the last decade of her life watching her husband waste away from a degenerative brain disease?

It appears that the president doesn't believe that it is important enough to perhaps end the pain and suffering of people inflicted with such diseases.  As such, it appears that he is telling the nation that unfortunately, if you get sick or hurt, there is only so much that medicine and science can do for you. 

I can only imagine what it must feel like for someone in a wheelchair to hear the leader of this country effectively say "sorry, but I can't help you."

People afflicted with disease grow weaker as their ailments progress, and as a general rule those who are not affected by disease live longer than those who do.

Charles Darwin created a theory about this type of event.  He called it "Survival of the Fittest."  It is his primary theory of evolution, that the stronger survive, while the weaker pass away.

By saying that he "refuses to destroy life to save it" is Bush also implicitly agreeing with Darwin, that these situations are truly a case of survival of the fittest?

Wonder what his religious right friends think about that.

Wednesday, Saturday, whatever

1. What is the last product or service you tried just because you saw a commercial that impressed or amused you about the product?  Did you like the product or service after you tried it?

I am normally not affected by commercials, but I did buy the new diet pepsi w/ lime after seeing the lime cannibal commercial.  I would have bought it eventually, I guess

2. How old is the oldest photograph in your home?  Are you in it? It's from 1967 and it is a picture of me with my sister when I was a few months old and she was 4.

3. What is the most supernatural event you have experienced?  Did you feel there was a specific reason that it happened to you? This is a long story.  When I was a kid my father hated all the music his kids listened to, except he loved the song "Kung Fu Fighting."  Shortly after he died in 2002 I had a dream where we were playing golf and there was a radio in the golf cart.  That song came on, and he went nuts, dancing in the fairway and singing.  And whenever I hit a shot he would say "nice shot, grasshopper."  I woke up from the dream in the middle of the night, and I could hear a soft buzzing sound.  I turned a light on and there was a huge grasshopper on the wall above me.  I don't really live in a place where we get a lot of grasshoppers, and this one was huge and dark green.  I got an empty coffee can, trapped the gasshopper in it, and let it go in my backyard.  I have felt a certain and definite calmness about where my father is ever since.

4. Do you usually consider the glass half-empty or half-full?  I just drink the damn thing.  I used to be a half-empty guy, but I am most definitely a half-full one now.

5. What part or parts of your body do you shave regularly? Just my face. I have the strangest beard in history I think.  The hair that grows from my sideburns down to my chin never seems to come in the same way twice.

6. What day is typically your busiest of the week?  What day are you usually the happiest?  What day are you usually the saddest?  All are about the same, though I try to make Sunday a little less hectic than the others.  No complaints, though.  Whether I am happy or sad does not depend on what day it is.

I am definitely watching "Lost" next fall.

I have seen the light

I'm finding it abhorrent that the media seems thrilled that this woman married the kid she raped ten years ago.

Where is the outcry over this?  Why is so much energy being wasted on things like this (GOD BLESS TEXAS!!!) yet no one says anything about what went on outside Seattle this weekend?

We must keep marriage sacred!

Only acceptable between and a man and a woman, even if she is his rapist.

Seriously, please, somebody, wake me up!

For amusement purposes only

I suppose this will be the first of a billion Star Wars parodies that come along in the next month or so.

It gets a little too preachy towards the end, but I thought it was damn funny.