Another busy weekend. Thursday on the way home I got a flat tire. I was able to air it up enough to get home, but that meant I would at least be late to work if I made it at all. I needed an oil change anyway, so I had Nestina follow me into Kalkaska so I could dump the truck at the garage, then spent all day just running errands. We didn't get home until around 5pm. Nestina went to Traverse City for a couple hours with a friend and I called the soccer team about a scrimmage in August. That was pretty much the day.

Saturday, I hauled old lumber out of the garage and set it on fire. I managed to clear a decent-sized hole in the garage and got rid of most of the wood. There is still a pile left out by the fire ring, but I should be able to make that go away the next time I burn. It started raining just before dark, which always makes me feel better when there is a pile of hot coals in the fire ring.

Sunday, it rained most of the day, so Debbie and I stayed home in the morning and worked on indoor stuff. I think I have finally found and put covers on all the outlets in the basement. That doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment until you consider that the boxes are recessed into the cement block wall. Most are crooked, recessed too far for the screws to reach, have blobs of mortar blocking the screw holes, etc., etc. It usually takes about an hour or so to get each one situated. Also, several have gotten buried behind bookcases or file cabinets that have to be emptied and moved. But in any case, we are done. Sunday evening we did church and hung out with the teens at the pastor's house. We got home around 9:30 and everyone just chilled out until bedtime.

Random things from today's internet browsing:

Vox Day has an interesting proposal after the London police shot a Brazilian tourist on suspicion of terrorism. First, a few thoughts on the shooting. Were the police a little fast on the trigger? Under ordinary circumstances, yes. A couple days after the second bombing attack in as many weeks? The answer isn't so clear. I only know what I read, and much of what I read is contradictory, and most of the authors I have read show more concern for agenda over facts. But as a male, I have no issue with Vox's proposed policy. Unlike women, men have no problem deluding themselves into believing women want to see them naked when they are hairy, fat, forty, and bald.

And Bob Thompson offers his take on the terrorist/tourist shooting. There is great logic in the thought that two days after a bombing attack is not the time to run from the police. Maybe we just write this off as evolution in action. He is spot on with regards to our own anti-terrorism efforts. No matter what, no law enforcement officer must ever search young, Middle Eastern males carrying suspicious packages. Instead we strip search 80-year-old Catholic women.

And another one for the stupid file. Monty Python would never do a skit like this because satire has to be at least plausible to be funny. The best line: "One sympathizes with the reader from a non-legal point of view, but property rights often trump civil liberties. There is no human right to read." Only a lawyer could say something so stupid with a straight face, and only a modern J-school graduate could report it as serious news.

This article outlines the importance of basic research. Bell Labs used to be the R&D department for the human race, but we decided that .03/minute long distance was more important. De-regulation has certainly been an economic boom in the short term, but what are the long-term costs? Understand that I am libertarian enough to support the Bell break-up, but I also understand that the drive for short-term profit pretty much eliminates much of the answer-seeking described here. One of my co-workers once said that we could accomplish so much more for our organization if the ten biggest problems were posted on a wall. Everyone would be allowed to work on them individually, in small groups, on campus, off campus, at midnight, on Sunday, whatever. The problem is that management is about budgets and schedules and efficiency, and this route is sure to create a lot of dead ends and false starts that look very inefficient. But it can also offer brilliant solutions by bringing unique perspectives to the problem. Motorola used to be famous for allowing this sort of ad-hoc work, but I'm sure the shareholders have killed that. Microsoft and Apple also used to encourage it, and Apple still shows signs that such activity is allowed to some extent. As far as I can tell, it has been completely beaten out of Microsoft. Any my employer doesn't even allow us to work from home because we might not be really working. We could be doing all kinds of other things, like surfing the web or blogging.

(Doh!)

Ah well. In ten years, the Chinese will be have a permanent habitat on the moon. But I'm sure that will have no effect whatsoever on the US GDP.