it's wednesday.

have you seen that commershal that says, basically, some people want to change the medical system in our country by allowing the govt [you, me, etc] to get involved and some people want to «do nothing». i posit that this is a false dichotomy. we don't need to choose between two polar opposites. there are myriad options along the scale from nothing to socialized medicine. we need to explore options & make a careful decision. we don't need to polarize the decision points.

just heard on the news that more fireworks are set off on the 4th of july than any other day of the year. would it be unpatriotic to say «no shit»?

in the smartest-thing-he-ever-said category: bill o'reilly had barney franks on and o'reilly said something to franks about "you said that? i never heard you say that." and ol' barney goes "i am not responsible for everything you don't know." hah! gotcha o'reilly! smartest thing ol' barney ever said.

in the stupid-things-said-in-the-news category: some official from washington dc talking about that train wreck from the other day said «because the driver was killed in the wreck we will have difficulty determining what happened» -- uh... how about «because the driver was killed her family will be missing her forever after». sheesh. okay, i realize these people are trying to solve the mystery, but jeezum, seems a little cold to me.

did you catch hawthoRNe on tnt? i meant to & didn't and fairly certain it's not getting tivo'd either. not the end of the world, but sort of wanted to watch it. did catch the very last scene, which was hawthorne sending up a little japanese paper hot air balloon with a small fire in the shallow bucket dish providing the lift. turns out she'd put some of her hubby's ashes in the bucket and was sending them off into the night. it looked cool, but i don't think that balloon was going to get too far.

started the next kale allerion title - dragon knight. fascinating how you can get drawn into some worlds and not others. it's nice to be back with the o'rant girl. there's a new septimus heap book coming out soon. yay!