We were all together to celebrate her 100th birthday. It's amazing to think of what hadn't happened/didn't exist/came to be in her lifetime.

Aimee, that's so great that you could be with her for such a milestone! The "five generations" picture is fantastic. I've got a picture on my wall of four generations in my mother's family. The youngest is my grandmother. I very much hope that my grandmothers both live until after I acquire children (my grandfathers have both passed away now).

Re: Poppy Z. Brite, how awful that she had to leave her animals behind. I wonder if they had any chance at survival.

Gas was $3.09 this morning, at the station that's usually on the cheap end. GAH. But I have no choice. I live an hour away from where I work, and there is no public transportation between the two. So, I suck it up and pay the exorbitant prices.

I don't believe there's no price at which behavior starts to change on gas consumption. IMHO, we haven't reached that point yet, and prices need to rise further. Yeah, it sucks, but so does unchecked sprawl and no funding for public transportation.

Totally, totally agree.

I don't believe there's no price at which behavior starts to change on gas consumption. IMHO, we haven't reached that point yet, and prices need to rise further. Yeah, it sucks, but so does unchecked sprawl and no funding for public transportation.

bno bon, the original tough-love legislator. Sadly, tough-love doesn't tend to get legislators reelected, which is how it got to this point in the first place.

I assume he meant South Korea unless there's been a unification in the last few days I didn't hear about. So why did he only say "Korea?"

Total wild guess: because to the Koreans/him, there's really only one Korea, it's just having personality issues?

An interesting poll: Most in poll want creationism taught. [link]

Most of my education was in religious institutions. From nursery school through high-school, my day was always split between Judaic studies, and what we would refer to as secular studies. Over the years I had many different science teachers teach us about biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, earth sciences, and yes, evolution. Never, not once, did a science teacher attempt to teach us creationism. Why? Because that's what the religious half of the day was for.

The "five generations" picture is fantastic.

I have one on an end table in the living room. I'm the only male in the picture.

When Hubs' siblings started becoming grandparents, I was a big taker of 4-generation pictures.

I have one on an end table in the living room. I'm the only male in the picture.

You and my grandfather have that in common.

Kathy, it was only a matter of time before those Dominionist creeps claimed the disaster of NO to be God punishing a wicked - not to mention mostly black - city. I apologize for the sheer evil of the following sentence, but I wish Colorado Springs had suffered instead of New Orleans, just to spite those fuckers.

My grandmother died about seven months after her first great-great granddaughter was born. We don't have a five generations shot though, because my grandmother's son (great-grandfather of the baby) died about 3 years before the baby was born.

Well, at least that's what the Columbia Christians for Life were saying yesterday. We've just received another email from the group, and now it seems to be saying that God sent Katrina after Louisiana to prevent Southern Decadence, an annual gay-themed bash that was scheduled for Labor Day weekend in New Orleans.

The Columbia Christians for Life forwarded to us a press release from a Philadelphia-based outfit called Repent America. In it, Repent American director Michael Marcavage explains: "Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."

I read this to my co-worker, and we had a brief conversation about the fact that Jesus -- the dude this group allegedly worships -- loved the sinners, the whores and depraved sort. He didn't kick the shit out of them, and he certainly didn't destroy their homes.

I'm confused by this. I was under the impression that most ID people are part of the Religious Right, and that most of the Religious Right wants ID taught.

The problem is that Intellegent Design isn't very well-formed and isn't, in its current state, something that can be "taught." It's a group of suppositions that are supposed to illustrate holes in Darwinian evolutionary theory and at the same time demonstrate "irreducable complexity" that can only be explained as the "signature of a creator."

I mean, how do you teach all that to a seventh grader in a science class? You can't. It's just a bunch of random quasi-scientific pieces, and none of it is useful in biological study. (Not to mention the problem of it being wholly incompatible with the scientific method.)

The Discovery Institute, the people who bring you Intellegent Design, has been adamant about schools not trying to teach this stuff.