Wednesday is wondering where it put its socks

Things are still crazy. Wish I could get back to writing and making more coherent posts than just links. But I'm also damn far behind in studying and I have a test on Monday. Do you know all the bones and their related joints or sutures? Neither do I.

Hey, you too can be a part of solving the deficit crisis. (that's a link to the NY Times interactive article where you select options and see how they play out). As Eric says on twitter, "Gee whiz, most of the deficit can be reduced by going back to Clinton-era taxes. Who'd'a thunk it?" (link is his solution) That's crazy talk, Eric. Crazy talk.

Catherine talks about why we write. What she said. (With the understanding I'm experiencing the "what happens when I don't write" right now, ugh. It's like I have constipation, but mentally and emotionally).

Shawn gives us some eating tips. At the doctor's appointment last week I had gained back everything I had lost in the past year. For me, 300lbs is my nemesis. I had been as low at 288 (my lowest recorded weight, but now I'm back to 306. Sucks. Sucks. Sucks. Then again, I haven't been able to WiiFit in five months (see earlier threads with just how much I'm doing these days).

And now for the politics.

I guess that whole, "we gotta work faster to help people" thing was all an election verbal fart. Dear Sen. McConnell, you're not getting it. You're first priority should be JOBS (not "make sure Obama is a 1 term president"). And work faster, damnit.

And no, Rep. Rangel, you can say the Ethics Committee process was "unfair" all you want, but the findings are pretty sound given the evidence.

And here I'll just repost a comment I've made elsewhere about the TSA "groping your junk or be irradiated" treatment.

If we adjust for every “possible” threat, 1) it can’t happen (unless we just go the whole 9 yards and just allow body cavity searches right now, because, really, you can hide a bomb in there - you know where-, and these new procedures won’t detect it) and 2) if I were the terrorist, I would game the system (I don’t need to blow up an airplane to gain my goals, because my goals are to make these rules overbearing to you the populace so you hate your own government). So as a terrorist, what I would do is make attacks that really weren’t intended to succeed, but had the possibility to do so, but the main thrust would be to adjust TSAs rules and screening procedures to make traveling a horrendous experience (like having officers “grab your junk”).

However, I’m solidly a bastard when it comes to cointel. If it were me, I’d increase “chatter” to phantom agents right before Thanksgiving (like this weekend) and Christmas (the two holidays that have the highest rate of air travel). I’d plant ideas in the heads of those likely to be captured to seed the paranoia of the US. But, like I said, I’m solidly a bastard. Good thing our opposition doesn’t have those ideas.

I'll also just point out here that many people in the 50s and 60s are having melanomas develop on their faces (really bad ones, and that's saying something for melanoma) because in their youth, they had a standard treatment for acne. That treatment was low-dose x-rays. Sure, it dried up those pores quickly (required several treatments). And at the time it was "perfectly safe." Feel better now?