And because I don't think I've ever told you and Wallybee: You both have created a beautiful child.

We did! Watch this space for photos of his 1st birthday. Coming soon to a Beep Me near you. (Tomorrow is his first day in day care. He's had a couple of dry runs, I think he'll do well there.

I love looking at his smiling, happy face, and I'm so pleased you found what you'd been looking for, in spades.

Hee. I like to think I found it in hearts.

So I was listening to the npr story on the case going through the courts about whether petition lists should be made public, and all I could think about the argument that they remain closed was the lurkers support me in email!

Coming soon to a Beep Me near you. (Tomorrow is his first day in day care. He's had a couple of dry runs, I think he'll do well there.)

Somehow my eye skipped over the "Tomorrow is his first day in day care," so I thought you meant he would do well in Beep Me. Which I was going to hasten to assure you is definitely the case.

I like to think I found it in hearts.

Awwww!

Oh, you guys, I totally used cheese as an analogy in defending my love of crappy music last night. Just because I like plastic-wrapped cheese product slices doesn't mean I would try to convince anyone that they are good! Ditto much of my music collection. On the flip side, I like excellent examples of both things as well. Good times.

On the flip side, I like excellent examples of both things as well. Good times.

Exactly! Brie and Velveeta both have their place. As do Mozart and Madonna.

Sophia, even if you send back either questionnaire, you may get a visit anyway, because they'll want to have somebody verifying that there isn't a second apartment at that address.

However, don't worry about your odd hours. If a Census enumerator calls when you're not home, they'll leave a phone number, so call them and explain you won't be able to be home between those hours on a weekday. Then they can either choose to phone interview you (not preferred by the Census but acceptable if there's no other way), set up so that someone will come early or very late (hey, they're PAID for travel time, too, so they may not mind), or arrange for a weekend interview.

Mostly though, it should be at your convenience.

Gah, I'm so angry. This morning, NPR had a commentary by Frank Deford about Ben Roethlisberger, and how ridiculous it is to hold athletes to "higher standards" than the rest of society.

Um, asking him to NOT SEXUALLY ASSAULT women isn't actually a "higher standard." It's pretty much the bare minimum of human decency.

I'm seriously going to write them a letter. That's bullshit, man.

Um, asking him to NOT SEXUALLY ASSAULT women isn't actually a "higher standard." It's pretty much the bare minimum of human decency.

Yeah, seriously.

Shari, Britain and France are both dealing with the consequences of once being colonizers. The chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak.

So that makes rioting okay?

Okay, javachick has already responded, but her comment about Britain and France was in the context of your assertion that the situations there were analogous to immigration problems here. I know you may feel that negative responses to this statement reflect political differences, but Buffistas tend to come down hard on ad hominem arguments on any topic.

Shall we just give back Texas and California back then?

This is again a false analogy. California, Nevada, Utah, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and part of Colorado were ceded to the U.S. as a result of the Mexican-American War, a war justified by a lie ("Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil.") and pushed by the South as a way to expand territory for slavery. There was no colonization; people who had lived in Mexico for, in some cases, centuries, suddenly lived in the U.S.

The Mexican war is kind of a hot button for me. It's what I think of every time someone tries to claim the high moral ground for the U.S.