Just an idea What if terrorists had to comply with ISO 9000. Wouldn't that end their effectiveness more than anything the military could do?

Milestone This morning me and the boy, clad in feety pajamas had some disagreements about the need to change his diaper, so I left him in his room to cool off a little. After a while he came into our room, but wearing only a diaper. So he had managed to take off his pajamas all by himself. He wants to do everything himself now, and "me" is his favorite word.

Have some respect So we read that FBI agents and even Donald Rumsfeld have souveniers from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And of course Bush is using clips of the disaster in his ads. I really don't think it is too much to ask to want to keep the memory of those who died there out of politics and out of the souvenir shop. Rumsfeld's people say he regards his piece of the plane that hit the Pentagon as government property. Maybe so, but still it doesn't sit right with me. Having worked in New York City (for a while just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center), the idea of FBI agents carrying around pieces of the building and showing them off really turns my stomach. I usually don't like to call objects sacred. But these items really were part of the tombs of those who died; they should be treated with more respect. We owe it to their friends and relatives, to the firefighters, police and others who risked their lives, and to all the people of New York. PS: One of those stupid weblog spammers left their dirty footprints on one of my entries about 9/11. That really pissed me off. It is one thing to leave trash attached to some of my stupid ramblings about Boston weather or cats, but please don't attach sex URLs to entries like that.

Bah! I've gotten really tired of de-spamming this blog -- even though MT-Blacklist makes it pretty easy, I still have to worry too much about keeping up with the junk. For now, I'm getting rid of URLs in the comments. If that doesn't work, in the short term I'm going to turn comments off. Longer-term I think I want some kind of protected system -- but I do hate to discourage comments, it is a great way to meet new people.