No on Amendment 36

That's it. Just no.

Make way for another poster

Barbaloot amazes me. She texted me last week: "I want you to help me set up my own blog."

She's been listening to Dennis Prager, some Hugh Hewitt, some Glenn Beck. Her dander is up, dogs. She's gonna do something rash unless she gets to post.

FWIW, she's been following the story of how Dan Rather is imploding, and she now "gets" what web logs can do. She looks at my blogs differently now; she no longer regards the time I spend at them the same way she views playing Harry Potter or Diablo. Blogs have crossed the line from interesting geeky diversion to, well, something deeper, more important, engaged with the world. Those who dismiss arguments that blogging has had its watershed in Ra^therGate should interview Barbaloot about it.

We discussed it some, and she chose to post here for a while, taking the pseudonym I have always used for her. If she wants, we'll launch her on her own blog later.

I'm hunting antelope this weekend, and plan to have her set up before I go, so watch this space.

Did I mention that she's the best thing that ever happened to me, and that I don't deserve her? And that if she finds out I got that MP3 player she'll kick my ass?

Buy only the amount of electronics you must have to survive to your next paycheck

Consumer electronics prices continue a weird downward spiral. I posted recently about my beloved iRiver iHP120. I scored an open-box special from BestBuy at just under $300---new ones went for $339. When I was choosing a new LeapPad book for Boy's birthday, I glanced at the MP3 players again and got one of the nastiest buyer's remorses of my life.

They had put their existing stocks of iHP120's on clearance for $269. Making room for the 40GB model? Maybe. Or maybe they're making way for a player with a screen that shows JPEGs and BMPs too. Same MSRP as the audio-only player.

That remorseful incident was last Friday. Today, browsing at a CompUSA, I saw they still had their iHP120's at $329.

Toad tries to stand

He's cutting a tooth, and he wants to stand like his brother and sisters do.

Roxaaaannne

More men than women have failed to reproduce in each generation.

This item from FuturePundit is not news, it's merely repeatable objective proof of something geeky men have always known:

"There are men around who aren't able to have children, because they are being outcompeted by more successful males."

Any bearer of a Y chromosome who's seen Roxanne can tell you this, though in less charitable terms: "You wanted it all. All the romance and emotion, all wrapped up in a cute little nose and a cute little ass!"

[FuturePundit's] guess is that the legalization and increasing use of divorce has increased the gap between what percentage of women and what percentage of men manage to reproduce in each generation.

Think of the thousand Princes in Sa'udi Arabia, and how they came to be. Then think of the millions of poor schmucks in such countries, who will never get laid in their lives, let alone sire children, because of a paternal religious/political system that treats women as property and allows men to hoard them under polygamy. Liberalized divorce simply means shifting the balance of power over procreation from man toward woman. Clearly, having all of the power rest with the man has not been beneficial there.

A shortage of females will very likely select for genes carried by males who become more successful.

Check out the quote from Roxanne above. Shifting the balance completely over to the woman will result in attractive, hunky guys who know how to talk women out of their clothes. Is that how brutal Mother Nature would define success?

I don't deserve her

Barbaloot and I celebrated eleven years of marriage this weekend. I chose Moroccan, and suggested to her to invite Firstborn. Like a shot Firstborn agreed.

I am lucky to have this woman. I don't deserve her, but she's mine.