nobody asked…

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves… — Abraham Lincoln

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. — Edward Abbey

What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and where ever it may lead. — Dostoevsky

Yet we can maintain a free society only if we recognize that in a free society no one can win all the time. No one can have his own way all the time, and no one is right all the time.
— Richard M. Nixon

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. — Charles Evans Hughes

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Since my teen-years in the ’60s and continuing still, I have sought out people, books, and now websites and blogs that offer brain-fodder for issues important to me. While I had seen references to and comments from Amba on several sites, it was only this morning through a link from Tamar that I finally visited AmbivaBlog. Self-described as being in the “radical-middle” politically, Amba excels in providing balanced, objective, and non-controversial (to the extent these subjects can be!) discourse on issues ranging from Intelligent Design to Abortion to the lighter side of life.

Much of Amba’s writing is to be neither agreed with or rejected, rather used as additional clay for adding to the potter’s wheel of your mind. Extremely well articulated, as we might expect from a professional author and writer, this is probably the only site I have ever linked to on the first visit - sort of like kissing on first date - and one that I will return to often for guidance in the ongoing quest for locating my moral and ethical benchmarks.

About an hour and a half ago, Bill Frist parted ways with Bush on stem cell research! Read the details on CNN.

Not the first Republican to distance him/herself from The Shrub, and won’t be the last. Billy Boy must have decided his political future was already history if he didn’t do something. As far as this Tennessee voter is concerned, Frist’s political future is already history with no chance of redemption. His nose is far too brown for me. All words, no substance.

The July 27 issue of The Tennessean had an article by Staff Writer Bryan Mullen on the exhausting rigors of off-season for one SEC football coach, Urban Meyer, new ball-meister of the Florida Gators. Seems Urban (what a cool name!) is burned out even before he coaches his first game for Florida. The sidebar to the article gives some details about Meyer’s recent schedule:

First-year Florida Coach Urban Meyer has been a busy man. He spoke to 20 Gator Clubs in May, June and July. Here’s how he spent one of those months, according to Florida’s sports information department: In May, Meyer took 36 flights (covering 14,615 miles), stayed in 12 hotels, spent 14 nights away from Gainesville, visited 99 high schools, was in 10 states, rented 33 cars, spoke to 10 Gator Clubs, signed 3,000 autographs and spent only three days in his office. — BRYAN MULLEN (Emphasis added)

Wears me out just reading it! Think I’ll stick to my cushy 70 hour per week network-support-dude gig.

ZDNet reports that Christian gaming may be the next big thang. Reading the report leads you to wonder if Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, and other religious groups can be far behind in this exciting new trend. Maybe, just maybe, some of the more radical and militant groups could be persuaded to use this forum to squash the competition in a rousing game of End of Days 3, or some such. Makes more sense than blowing each other to smithereens. ESPN and FoxSports will be lining up to pay millions for the rights to live coverage. Hmmmm… wonder where could we find the score for the last time something like this was tried? Was it Lions 3 - Christians 0? Or maybe I’ve got that reversed…

Speaking of Barney Google got me thinking and wondering if our favorite ubiquitoous search engine was somehow related. It would seem not since Google says right on their site:

“Googol” is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Kasner and James Newman. Google’s play on the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

OK, another major mystery of life solved!

According to “The Word Origin Calendar” this strange yet familiar word was made up by Billy DeBeck for his comic strip “Barney Google” which debuted in 1919. Dictionary.com defines heebie-jeebies as “a feeling of uneasiness or nervousness; the jitters”. They do not have an entry for a singular heebie-jeebie, but there is a synonym listed as screaming meemies. OK, that clarifies it completely!

World Wide Words states that the original spelling by DeBeck was heeby-jeeby. They also have other interesting information about DeBeck and some of his curious and colorful contributions to our etymological development.

With my right hand on my Funk & Wagnalls I swear I did not cheat! Makes me so proud!

You Are 70% Weird

You’re so weird, you think you’re *totally* normal. Right? But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

Thanks to The Snarks.

It sez here there are 38 synonyms for synonym, but only 35 synonyms for antonym. However, there are 3 antonyms for antonym and only 1 antonym for synonym. What does it all mean? Means I’m bored to death being stuck inside with the 100 deg. heat-wave out there. The word homonym was not found at thesaurus.com. Do they discriminate on the basis of sounding alike? I mean it’s July fergawdssake, and we’re supposed to be outside doing fun things like … pulling weeds, trimming trees, and waging the annual war with ants, mosquitoes, and ticks.

OK, let’s check heteronym…

It’s hot as hell around Nashville! Been close to 100 with heat-index OVER 100 for several days and no relief in sight. It’s almost impossible to do anything meaningful outside, at least for more than a few minutes at a time. But it is never too hot, or cold, to think about football.

According to the countdown ticker, it is now precisely 41 days 05 hours 51 minutes 44.137 seconds till kickoff at UT’s first game this season. UAB will play the role of sacrificial lamb at the altar of Most Venerable Priest, His Higness Phillip Fulmer at the Temple of Neyland in the Land of Rocky Top. And am I ready! Season tickets have been ordered and lodging reservations made. GO VOLS!

This coming week our Tennessee Titans get it cranking with training camp in preparation for the first preseason pretend game on August 12 when Gruden brings his Tampa Bay badboyz to the Coliseum. The Titans start playing for keeps in Pittsburgh on 9/11. Until I moved to Nashville from Pittsburgh, the Steelers were my team. I still have my black and gold “Terrible Towel”. The Titans will be in their first game of a rebuilding/reloading/redesigning year. Given the ominous 9/11 date, the swirling winds of Heinz Field (I still want to call it Three Rivers Stadium!) and a Steelers squad that is more seasoned than the Titans, and the outcome could be ugly. We will keep the faith for now and hope for the best, but it may not be too soon to start saying “Wait till next year!” GO TITANS!

Sick and tired of seeing those black “W” stickers on cars? Then this is for you! Get ‘em while they’re hot!

What type of mentality would voluntarily or even passively have an RFID tag implanted? Today it may contain only essential medical history, tomorrow…who knows? Yet here is Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush’s first term and a former Governor, getting tagged. Is his former boss impressed? How long before we see legislation to mandate tags for all citizens? It will probably be poorly disguised as yet another plan to lower health care costs, and how could anyone possibly vote against that? Let’s hope our legislators attend and stay awake for that debate.

An improbable coalition is hinted at in the following excerpt from the article:

Civil libertarians theorize that the chips will allow governments or corporations to track people’s movement and behavior. Some Christians have said the chips are so evil they fulfill a biblical prophesy about satanic influences.

Used and managed properly RFID technology has tremendous positive potential that could benefit us as individuals as well as society at large. However, with the decline of our political and cultural mores, the probability of misuse is very high. This is very dangerous! Resist with everything you have for as long as you’re allowed to have it!

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. — Robert Heinlein

Could he have been referring to the Bush abomination? Naaaahhh … couldn’t be … Heinlein wrote science fiction, but the disastrous mess we’re in as a country, as a culture, and as a people is unfortunately all too real.

Previously I posted a link to John Kerry’s petition urging Bush to do the right thing. Now that Bush has chosen to do the wrong thing by recanting his previous commitment, Kerry has initiated another petition demanding Bush fire Karl Rove.

If Bush will not, then it is time for the American people to do the right thing! If you are in agreement, please add your voice to the millions being raised around the country.