The Noble Pundit

Perspective, Perspecive, Perspective

My dad was passing along some good emails today. Here's another that I though was interesting:

The next time you hear a politician use the words "billion" casually, think about whether you want that politician spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:

A billion seconds ago, it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

And also:

The politicians are complaining about how long the war is taking but consider
this:

It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.

It took less time to find Saddam's sons in Iraq than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Teddy Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sunk at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!

That last one is a bit of an embarassment, I must confess. But I'll just go along happily blaming it on the folks in Palm Beach County (Look! A common theme for tonight! Palm Beach County!)

Pictures From Mars

My dad sent me this in an email today. Apparently, it is the first picture to be sent back from The Red Planet.

The Depravity Of Some People

Hey! I'm still alive! Or at least I think I am. Been working myself to death the last few weeks and spending what free time I have with the family which is the reasoning for the minimal posting, but this one this morning really got me going.

I was supposed to have an appointment early this afternoon, but it was changed to Monday, so I was sitting home this morning thinking that I would have a nice relaxing free day, maybe even updating the site. But then I got a phone call. Not just any phone call. This one was from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department (for reference I live in Seminole County about 150 miles to north) asking questions about a friend of our oldest child.

As it turns out, the moron (I've thrown him out of the house a couple of times already) was one of the two perpetrators in the beating of a homeless deaf-mute in Jupiter.

What possesses a person to do something like this? As a point of irony, CSI: Miami Monday night had as part of the storyline the beating (to death in that case) of a mentally handicapped person.

Now I'll admit that I am not the best person in the world when it comes to the mentally handicapped. More often than not, I find myself at a loss for how to act properly. There are times when I have very liitle patience and I generally feel very awkward and tried when trying to work with a mentally handicapped person (not always true, but more often than not unfortunately). But never, even in my greatest fits of frustration would I even consider hitting, much less beating to critical condition, someone - not even a person completely in command of faculties. Yet that is exactly what was done here.

For the record, the jerk in question tried to tell the cops that he lived here and that our oldest would bail his sorry butt out of jail. I told the cops that as far as I was concerned, if he was trying to use our address, he was homeless because he most certainly does not live here and that our daughter would be in now way, shape, or form coming down to bail his sorry excuse out.

One of these days, I'm going to make my fortune by figuring out what possesses people to be such idiots. God only knows I've got enough study subjects around me.