So lets say you have 90 million gallons of high-level liquid nuclear waste in your house. You probably don't but the government does. They are in concrete-covered tanks at old weapons facilities in Idaho (among other states). And suppose the law says you have to move that radioactive waste to a deep-burial repository. What would you do? Move it, right? Especially if the tanks are leaking, as some of the government's are. Seems obvious to me, I mean we are talking leaking radioactive waste here, local groundwater, etc. You know, stuff of nightmares.
Well our government decided to re-classify it as incidental so they would not have to move it. Problem solved. "Honey, I don't want to take out the litter box, because it is a... a... rock garden!"
But what if your wife said, "no, that is still waste no matter what you call it and you still have to take it out." That's what an Idaho judge ruled: Renaming nuclear waste violates the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Aw sucks. I guess you'd just have to take out the trash then.
Not if you are Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Tell your former co-workers in Congress (he lost his MI Senate seat in 2000), to re-write the law! Leaking radioactive tanks can stay put. Problem finally solved. Well, unless you live in Idaho.
On three separate occasions prior to becoming the Energy Secretary, he proposed eliminating the department. His words were that it had "no core mission."
Mr. Abraham really doesn't want to do his job.
I am a computer geek. Always have been. I've only been willing to admit it since the late eighties though.
My friends at work are computer geeks too. At least where I work, there seem to be two sub-cultures of geeks: The web geeks and the game geeks.
The web geeks plunk down a few bucks a month for their own domain name and web space. They spend their limited spare time updating their personal home page and a posting at 2am to a weblog that nobody really reads. It is their feeble attempt at being social.
The game geeks plunk down bucks a few bucks a month for the latest computer game and have subscriptions to an online game server. They spend their limited spare time playing with each other online until 2am. It is their feeble attempt at being social.
The sub-cultures speak different languages. Game geeks speak of "power leveling" and "realms" and web geeks speak of "rss feeds" and "style sheets". What one group finds engrossing, bores the other camp.
Every single one of my co-workers is a game geek. I am the lone web geek. When I go to lunch with them, I go all Goodall and try to figure out what makes them tick. It is a lost cause. They don't seem to care that I created a syndication icon. They were so disappointed to find out a downgraded my PC's video card to save a couple hundred dollars.
I tried to keep up with them. I bought Warcraft 2 so I could play with them. Of course they memorized all the shortcuts so it was as if I was playing in slo-mo compared to them. When they abandoned that old game, I bought Starcraft and tried again to catch up. No dice. They simply played it more and were better players. Warcraft 3? Ditto. After swearing I'd never get suckered into buying another game I bought Battlefield 1942. Of course I had to get the expansion Road to Rome pack to be compatible with them.
They abandoned me when they went onto Desert Combat. They got special joysticks to optimize their playing experience. Small system units so they can easily transport their computers to LAN party nights. Gotta have lightweight LCD displays with low refresh rates too.
The current object of their affection is Dark Age of Camelot which requires an online account (more than $100 a year) to play. Several players have paid for multiple accounts and play two different characters at the same time (in two different windows). Yowsa.
I am washed up. Dumbfounded. Hopelessly lost. At least I am a more sophisticated gamer than my 5-year-old daughter! Well, at least I was.
For Christmas she got a Disney game. As the game is from this century, it cannot run on their 7-year-old Windows 98 machine. It had to be installed on my two-year-old Windows XP box. I had to upgrade the DirectX drivers to get to handle the game's way cool 3-D graphics. Aside from Marissa competing for time on my computer, the game works great. She loves it.
As she can't read yet, I'll have to someday show her how to exit the game and logout out of her XP session. Right now she just turns off the monitor and the speakers. But perhaps she can explain "power leveling" to me. I just don't get it.
I apologize in advance for this off-color posting, but I could not resist.
A Texas housewife was arrested for selling a vibrator to an undercover cop. Ms. Webb is a "Passion Parties" sales consultant and she sells lotions and "personal appliances" out of her home.
You see it is a felony in the state of Texas to possess six or more vibrators. If you have five or fewer, you are only considered a hobbyist. I am not kidding: that's in section 43.23(f) of the state code. (Search the statues for "dildo"!)
So if you are tempted to give an intimate gift this Christmas, make sure she doesn't have five others already. Of course your loved one can possess six or more in the state of Texas if (among other exemptions) she is using them for "law enforcement purpose[s]." That's section 43.23(g). I guess this adds a meaning to the phrase felonious assault.
I believe it is still safe to sell Tupperware in Texas, as they haven't passed anti-burping laws yet.
I have mentioned this before: my oldest daughter does not like her glasses. She got her first pair in February. They were gold. Although they are nice, she always looks for reasons to take them off: can't go to gymnastics with them on, can't eat with them on, etc.
One day, while she was in "time out", she got so upset about having glasses that she broke the metal frames in two.
Her second pair were silver. And, again, she would look for all opportunities to take them off: can't play "animal" with them on. A few months ago she took them off so she could play and forgot where she put them. She went to school without glasses because we could not find them. Several days went by before Chris noticed, while vaccuuming, that they were under the quilt rack in the living room.
Again, about a month ago, Marissa took off her glasses and forgot where she laid them. We searched high and low, but after three weeks we finally gave up. Onto the optometrist for another eye appointment and her third pair of glasses of 2003. She was not cooperative until she spotted purple frames and indicated that she would wear them. They will be ready in a few days. Hallelujah!
Our one solace was that eventually we would find the silver pair and we'd finally be able to sleep nights knowing where they were hidden.
Well even that is not going to happen. I am going to my grave never knowing where they were. Why? Because today my 19-month-old daughter, Claire, handed Marissa's glasses to mommy. She had been in the living room. They must have been in plain sight (as she cannot operate a doorknob yet), but when my wife asked her where she found them, Claire babbled incoherently.
Obviously Marissa has been putting pressure on her not to talk.
For those who didn't get receive the Huffman 2003 holiday letter in the mail, it is here.
Rush Limbaugh is in a heap of trouble. I wish him a clean recovery, which I think is pretty probable. I also wish that would give him pause in the future when attacking others, which I think is pretty doubtful.
Here is a quote from a statement he read on his radio program (Note that he is referring to himself in the third person):
“What these records show is that Mr. Limbaugh suffered extreme pain and had legitimate reasons for taking pain medication. Unfortunately, because of Mr. Limbaugh’s prominence and well-known political opinions, he is being subjected to an invasion of privacy no citizen of this republic should endure.”
Let's not nitpick about the drugs being illegal, but let's rather fully appreciate the last part of his comment. Rush is saying it is bad to invade a person's privacy because you disagree with their opinions. Hmm. I cannot disagree with his point.
Of course this from the guy who has referred to Chelsea Clinton as the "White House Dog" and picks on people in front a national audience on a daily basis.
Go to Google.com.
Input the words miserable failure in the search box then click [I'm Feeling Lucky].