Well, I haven't made any effort to keep Ellie quiet or anything. I just wondered if the parent in me was making me unusually unsympathetic.

(Joe got up at 3am to go pick them up. I never would have but he knows their parents. One of the four went off with some guy and didn't come home until 8am. Joe was not happy - not because she hooked up with a guy but because she went off with him, alone, in a strange city, while he sat in the car waiting for her while Ellie had a fever at home.)

ION, it's been five years since the invasion of Iraq. Why do people still call it a "war" instead of an "occupation"?

I'll take a guess, at least from my POV. I think of an "occupation" as relatively peaceful. The locals may or may not like it very much, but they live with it. I think of the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan.

If there's shootin', it's a "war." Or at the very least, not an "occupation."

2 hours of sleep interrupted by a wake-up call from a highly sugared child sounds about right in that case, Stephanie. Break out the Fruity Pebbles.

I wouldn't hold anything back from my normal morning routine wrt noise. I'm not sure I would not have been banging on pots and pans at 6am letting them know that morning was upon them.

you all are making me feel good...I thought I was the crabby old person, but apparently, I'm just right.

time to pack...

I'd totally be making extra noise.

Aaack! [link] (there is a video embedded, so I'm guessing there is sound, but my speakers don't work.) Scary food.

Stephanie, when I was 19 and drank heavily the night before my mother was supposed to take us shopping for some dorm room necessities, she dragged my hung over ass off the sofa at 7 a.m. and took me shopping regardless of how badly I felt. I barfed in every big box bulk store in Ft. Wayne, IN that day.

I barfed in every big box bulk store in Ft. Wayne, IN that day.

Funnier out of context....

This is pretty amazing: Early Science Fiction Fanzines: A Cover Gallery Mostly from the '70s. Trek, Dr. Who, Star Wars, Logan's Run, Dark Shadows, etc...

Yee. I didn't need see Leia & C3P0 in bed. On the other hand, "Carbonite Maneuver" made me laugh.

I'm thinking the Woody Allen part was just a minute of him doing a USO show -- not interacting with the cast. Is that right?

Excellent editorial in the LA Times: Wiretapping's true danger

History says we should worry less about privacy and more about political spying.

...

But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters.

Answers the question, "But why would the average citizen need to worry about warrantless wiretapping?"