Random Thoughts 11/9/06

Sorry I didn't post this yesterday, but I had a funeral to attend to.

• Tanner is learning to read. Though just in Pre-school, he listens in on the phonics that Brennan is learning and is picking up quite a bit. I administered a test this morning (at the kindergarten level – reading single words and matching pictures to first letters) and Tanner passed it with flying colors! We weren't even hoping for him to do so well so soon.
• Jericho, the CBS drama about a Kansas town after a nuclear attack, is driving me crazy. Why do I even watch it? I don't think the acting is any good and I feel the plots are unrealistic and sappy. And the details, oh the details! Arggggh! (check my previous post, "You Can't See Mountains From Kansas") These writers have not only never been to Kansas, they have no common sense. How does fallout from Lawrence affect an area 300 miles to the west? Wouldn't the radiation go east with the weather? Next week the townsfolk are going to blow up a bridge to keep people out of their town. That's right, one bridge connects Jericho to the rest of Western Kansas. You've got to be kidding. Twenty culverts, maybe, but one bridge? Over what river? I have to stop watching this dreck.
  
• How about the Golden State 49ers. San Francisco is probably going to lose the 49ers to Santa Clara, just 30 miles away. The name probably won't change at all (both the Jets and the Giants play in New Jersey) but I think it should change. Let them be the California 49ers and move to LA or Anaheim. If the city of San Francisco is more concerned about an Olympics 10 years from now then a legendary football franchise, then let's move the 49ers to Southern California.
  
• With 51 seats in the Senate going to the Democrats, you can say goodbye to constitutional originalists. And I'll bet that 9 out of 10 people who don't know what a "constitutional originalist" is voted Democrat.
• Rumsfeld has decided to leave after six years of being the main stream media's whipping boy. I thought that, all things considered, no one else could have done better. And he handled the press conferences with an intelligent wit that was easy to enjoy. After being demonized like he has, it may take several years of historical perspective for the country to appreciate him. It's also been said that you can't judge a secretary of defense until a decade later anyway. So long, Rummy.