Before leaving the computer-access for the weekend, I wanted to post that tomorrow, the 11th will be Penny B's birthday (even though I hadn't seen her post in forever), and Saturday, the 12th will be Jessica's birthday. Early wishes to both!

Have good rest-of-the-week and great weekends, everybody!

I hope whoever wrote that policy signed his or her name so all the people who miss a pay period will know whom to go see about it.

The thing that's double-plus shitty is that I KNOW who is responsible, but she made her assistant send out the email. I just walked by the assistant, and she was like "don't shoot the messenger!" We all know who the actual bitch is.

Bitchy.

Most places I have worked - always reminding people that time sheets are due. Unless it happens weekly - and doesn't ever change.

I have to remind two of the three people whose time sheets I collect that they are due every single pay period. Which is every two weeks, and doesn't generally change (I don't mind reminding them when it does). Yesterday I forgot to remind one of them and so today I had to call him at home so he could dictate me the hours and I could forge his signature.

News bits gleaned from Slate's science column:

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• Washington's Supreme Court extended parental rights to a non-biological, non-adoptive lesbian "mom." For six years, the plaintiff helped her partner raise a child (conceived with donated sperm), staying home while the biological mom worked outside the home. The biological mom then married the sperm donor and cut off the plaintiff's access to the child. The court said the plaintiff can qualify as a "de-facto or psychological parent" if she 1) lived with the child, 2) helped raise the child without expectation of compensation, 3) formed a bond with the child, and 4) was encouraged by the legal parent to form this bond.

• The mayor of Las Vegas proposed to amputate the thumbs of freeway graffitists. He said he was "dead serious" and added that some troublemaking kids should be whipped or caned.

• Four new findings on whether day care is good or bad for kids: 1) The cognitive benefits of day care persist, while the relatively high rate of behavioral problems diminishes. 2) The cognitive benefits are twice as great for poor kids as for rich ones. 3) Kids from higher-income families ended up with the worst social problems. 4) Kids in day care were 16 times less likely to die than kids at home.

• The Kansas Board of Education adopted science standards that allow supernatural explanations. The standards 1) recommend the teaching of shortcomings in evolution and 2) eliminate a definition of science as "a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena."

Yay day care! Yay lesbian moms! Boo thumb amputation.

I have to remind two of the three people whose time sheets I collect that they are due every single pay period. Which is every two weeks, and doesn't generally change (I don't mind reminding them when it does). Yesterday I forgot to remind one of them and so today I had to call him at home so he could dictate me the hours and I could forge his signature.

You are a kind person.

Not that kind; I was internally cursing the man.

Not that kind; I was internally cursing the man.

But you did it! One time here, I missed the internal deadline by 10 minutes, and didn't get paid that pay period. Note that I could have easily met the real deadline by getting the signature and walking my timesheet next door to the U payroll office, except for the fact that the internal person refused to sign it, due to my aforementioned lateness.

Its prisoners have 'disappeared,' like the victims of some dictatorships."

A particular dictatorship, she means, right? Not that I especially enjoy Pinochet. Weirdly, it's sort of a compliment to say, of a dictator, "he tortured people in secret," because doing it in secret is an admission that it could not bear the light of day.

Who wants to break this news to Dick Cheney? Dude, even the CIA does it in secret. Get with the program!

The mayor of Las Vegas proposed to amputate the thumbs of freeway graffitists. He said he was "dead serious" and added that some troublemaking kids should be whipped or caned.

The mayor of Las Vegas better pray he doesn't have any kids, and moreover that they never get caught messing around some day. This sounds like the perfect "pride goeth before a fall" type of deal. (Not even addressing the part where any supreme court in the land would laugh at him.)

You guys are familiar with the mayor of Las Vegas, right? He's not seriously proposing this, he's just a grandstander. He was a lawyer for the mob, for goodness sake.