Exador's Guide to not being an idiot

We all assume that the young are idiots, so we're not surprised when they act like it. You see the 17-year old swerve all over the road, navigating a cellphone and the radio, and it's bothersome, but you think, 'dumb kid' and accept it.
Not when the idiot is in their 70's.

For God's sake, you should know better.

I'm in line at Publix to get a sub for lunch. There's one sub counter with two women behind it. This is a perfect application of the "bank" model for lining up. AKA the "Next available teller" model. Most people know this. We are all standing in our one line.
Sure enough, some old doofus comes up next to me, backing up to where the single line has fanned out into two people at the counter.
Since I go there several times a week, I know that the ladies run it like an assembly line, so I'm not too concerned. The first woman takes your order and halfway prepares it, then hands it over to the next lady to finish with toppings and wrap it up.
So woman #1 looks across "Old Doofus" and takes my order. I can see that Doofy is miffed, as he thinks he was next up in his "me-only" line. As woman #1 finishes her job, woman #2 is free, awaiting the handoff. Doofy goes around behind me and starts to give his order to woman #2, who then tells him that woman #1 will take his order.
Now he's all upset and huffing and puffing.

Doofy, your generation fought off the nazis. Get your head out of your ass.

The Sanctity of Marriage

Do you take this Hepatitis-Addled hunk of Plastic...

For God's sake, don't let the gays marry!

Jousting Saturday Night

I made up my mind that I was going to buy into every cheesy aspect of Medieval Times, and let me tell you, I'm glad I did.
If you're willing to drop about $150, you could do a lot worse. It was a ball.
First of all, kudos for them formenting the rivalry. As soon as you get your seating, they all tell you, "You're in the Red Knight section. That's who you'll be cheering for." They set it up so that your section has red seats, red pennets and red spotlights on it. It makes it very WWF. We were cheering like hell for our knight and booing all the rest.
The food was good. The show was great.
There's nothing like young chicks calling you "ma-Lord" all night.
Yes, the fighting was more like a dance, but what the hell. You accept it as a show.
The horses are fantastic.

If you're going to do it, spend the extra $10 and get the "royalty" deal. You get seated in the first or second row, and you get a dvd.

They sell HUGE souvenir chalises. I went to get Mrs Shwartz a glass of wine, and asked the guy if I could get one of them. I asked him if he could fill it to the brim. He said he would, but he'd have to charge me for five drinks.
I would have done it, if it wasn't for the fact that I knew the chardonnay would get warm, and Mrs S would end up on the jousting stage, clamoring onto a horse, probably one that already had a knight on it.

Afterwards, we stopped at Zaxby's and got chicken fingers to go. I went in while Mrs S waited in the car. When I came back, she said some teenage girl had said something to her about her red pennet being gang colors. The Mrs was pretty drunk, so one can't be sure how the exchange actually went.

Big Dog Day Out

Zachary hasn't been to the dog park since long before Montgomery died. We've held off because of his bum leg.
Well, he seems to be doing pretty well, so we drove into Atlanta at 8AM to get to the park before the heat got too bad.
There is a short walk from the parking lot to the dog park. Invariably, the excitement gets to Zachary and he has to poop along this walk. To combat this, we cut through the woods, so he can anonomously go in the brush. The freaky part is that this section of woods is also called home by much of Atlanta's homeless population. In addition to keeping an eye out for the urban outdoorsmen, one has to keep clear of areas with toilet paper or any other remnants of the responsibility-free lifestyle. Ahhh, city-living!

Zachary does his pit-stop and we are on our way. As we approach the double gate, there is a mid-50's woman in the gate with her doberman.
"I need to make him sit, or he runs me down.", she says apologetically.
Take a guess at how hard it is to make any dog sit quietly while there are three strange dogs a foot away, on the other side of a chain-link fence.
We waited while this moron told her dog, "SIT", which the dog did for a second, then stood up to sniff at the other dogs. After three groups of dogs/people lined up behind us, she finally let the poor dog into the yard.
Idiot.
Zachary and a [different] doberman got into a tussle. Zachary went to sniff him. The doberman bit Zachary's face. Zachary backed off with a look like, "What the fuck?"
But then the doberman came back in and bit his face again. Then again! That was too much. Zachary came back with some snarling and biting of his own. I've never seen him do that. I can't blame him. The doberman had it coming. Zachary must have had 40 lbs on him. It's amazing how quickly stupid dog owners respond, when they realize their dog is outmatched.
After the dog park, we went to a diner for brunch. We sat in a booth adjacent to two late 50's, gray-haired guys. The one guy had his arm over the back of my seat and didn't move it, which immediately made me dislike him.
After making a point of leaning back on this dope's arm, until he moved it, I had to listen to these two aging, hippie professors at Georgia State discuss, far too loudly, their state government benefits, followed by how our "CowBoy President" "lied to America" to get us in this "War over Oil". That was bad enough. Then they started in about how the trade towers didn't fall like a building should fall.
Ugh. Those of you who know me, feel free to compliment me on my restraint and composure.

Right now, Mrs Schwartz is napping with Zachery [he's bushed] on the couch. We are resting up for the big event tonight: Medieval Times.

It turns out Liberals ARE Nuts!

OpinionJournal points to a poll in democratic underground that asks:
"How many are dealing with severe mental illness in your home?"
71% answered that they do.

I guess it's all Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Live blogging America's got Talent

Regis was talking with Rappin granny. She said that no one else in her family raps. He responded that "All your people do that rap thing".
Smooth, Regis.

Wow, a magician from Vegas. How rare. I guess enough hot chicks in skimpy outfits will carry any cheesy act.

This Bianca girl has some voice. She's quite a performer. She's selling Janis Joplin. That's a feat for anybody. I agree with Moesha and the Hoff that her last song was better suited. She'll be famous no matter how this goofy show turns out. She's also the most mature of all the perfomers. She definitely takes criticism better than anyone.

Oh Jeebus, a juggler from New Jersey in a tacky shirt. Kill him,or me.
This act is older than fire.
Anybody could pass these three judges. Morons.
Mrs S: Shmutz! I can't explain it any better.

The final act is made up of the gays that were thrown out of Mad Max, on stilts.
The guy studied [figure] skating physics?
So the black guy is the gayest one?
The hot chick would be the tamberine player in a real band; no talent, no skill. She looks like Chloe Sevigny with torches.
WOMAN DOWN!
The chick from Til Tuesday went down hard!
OH MAN! The brit put all the blame for losing on the chick that fell.
The guy mentioned skaterphysics again!? Dude,everybodyknows it was a useless major. Stop trying to justify it.
I think the Til Tuesday chick is hurt and can't get up.

Why do they even have the judges if the whole thing depends on the suckers calling in?

Exador: Caitlin Taylor Love? Is that a porn name?
Mrs S: It will be.

My Sissy Dog

A friend of mine got married last weekend. She invited us to stay with her for the weekend. We drove up for the wedding. Prior to our leaving, she was kind enough to invite us to bring Zachary with us.
She and her husband just bought a new house. (This plays in later)
I was pretty concerned about all this. I hate the idea of boarding Zachary because he's old and his leg is bad and he has separation anxiety, but on the other hand, he gets sick easier than any dog I know.
I took off work on friday and Mrs Schwartz and I headed out. We spent Friday afternoon finishing up wedding details, before going through the rehearsal and actually getting to bed early.

On Saturday, I was trying to figure out how I could make it back to the house as frequently as possible, but you know how weddings go; there's just no way.
So here it is, the day of the wedding. Mrs Schwartz and the bride are off getting hair and makeup done. The groom and I are packing up the car.
We had planned on relaxing by the pool for a couple of hours before the big ceremony. I go to grab my suit from the closet...here's the jacket....here's the shirt....where the hell are my pants?

Sure enough, the pants were hanging on their own hanger back in Atlanta.

So now it's a mad run around town with credit card in hand. In record time, I had a new suit and new matching shoes. The only loss was that we only had time to hang around the pool for an hour, then off to the church.

We'd been gone from the house from about noon until midnight.

Sure enough, dog diarrhea in the upstairs (thankfully) office.

Like a SEAL team, the five of us snap into action with some mad steamcleaning before the remaining guests arrive from the reception. We quickly make it to "good enough".
We have a wonderful party at the house.

Sunday was a recovery day. There were still plenty of bodies lying around. All was right with the world.
I wisely chose to take Monday off of work. There's nothing worse than dragging yourself to the car for a four-hour drive, where you lose an hour. I had planned on waking up first thing in the morning and getting on the road, so that I'd be able to get a ton of stuff done around the house.

Sometime after midnight, Zachary's sqeaking noises woke us up to discover that he had left more diarrhea on the carpet in the guest room. What could we do? Our hosts had to wake up for work, so we couldn't drag out the steamcleaner and wake up the whole house. We, as quietly as possible, did the best clean up job we could do with paper towels, then opened the window and turned on the ceiling fan.

After that, there was no sleep. Zachary was really feeling sick. He was sqeaking and fussing the whole time. Every time he got upset, we had to let him outside. I think I let him out four times. I don't know how many times Mrs Schwartz got duty. A little before dawn, I considered laying down on the front porch and sleeping there. If we had put him out alone, he would have started barking like mad. The last couple of hours, I was just waiting for our hosts to wake up, so I could start cleaning.

Somehow, the little bastard was able to drop some more dribbles in the hallway and the livingroom, and SOMEHOW in the hosts' master bedroom. I think he must have run in there while she was showering and I was upstairs, scrubbing. That was about the time I was seriously thinking of putting a bullet in his thick head.

The new bride left for work. Mrs Schwartz had forwarded her work phone to her cell phone. She had not gotten the day off of work, so she was on the computer.
I spent the morning on my hands and knees, scrubbing.
Thank God they had good stain remover. We got on the road a little after noon. Since driving straight home would have put us in Atlanta's rush hour traffic, we stopped in Chattanooga for some lunch at the Pickle Barrel, but they had just finished putting out a fire on the grill. Besides, they had no wireless internet.
Since Mrs S had to put up the facade of being at the office, we had to frequently stop and leech off some hotel, or truck stop, or coffee shop. She'd exchange a few emails, and we'd be back on the road.
We drove around and found Big River had access, so we rewarded their investment by having lupper there.
At least he had the ability to not mess up the Jeep on the road.
His sleepover days are behind him.

Beware Election-Year Laws!

Politicians on all levels LOVE to pass stupid laws to pander to some interest group. They never think through the ramifications of their actions. They are only interested in getting that soundbite, that headline.

Georgia is passing a draconian law against sex offenders. The law is being held up in court, but the problems have already started.
The law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or other place where children congregate. The law includes bus stops. This makes it illegal for 10,600 Georgians to live just about anywhere in the state.
Stupid voters love it because it's for the children and sex offenders are the worst scum on earth. Right?

Yes, some of the registered sex offenders are real scum, but some aren't, and the law doesn't make any distinction.

I knew a woman once. She was about 40. Beautiful. She had screwed around with a 17 year old boy. Everything was fine until the boy started demanding money from her. If she didn't pay, he'd go to the cops. She didn't pay. He turned her in. Now she's a registered sex offender. Who's the victim and who's the predator here?

Another woman is on the list because she gave her boyfriend a blowjob when she was 17 and he was 15.

A man convicted of statutory rape several years ago in Indiana was told to move from his home, where he lives with his wife and their children. Like many offenders, he was found guilty of consensual sex with an underage teen. The former teenage victim is now his wife.

Thousands of others are on the registry for having consensual sex when they were teenagers, or for lesser crimes such as flashing, peeping through windows and sexual battery, which often translates into inappropriate touching. One of Whitaker's co-plaintiffs, a 23-year-old Georgia State student, got on the list for drunkenly groping a co-ed at a keg party.

One of the results of the law is that it often breaks up the only support the offenders have; family. For those that are married, it may mean separating a husband and wife.

Another result is that the only place that these people can live is often way out in the middle of nowhere. Great, right? Not if the only counseling is available near cities.

Another result is that hundreds of offenders have decided to go underground. They have stopped reporting into their parole officers and have disappeared. That is, until they get picked up for speeding. Then they will be imprisoned for years. If not, how much more dangerous to society are they now?

One size fits all government never works well.

Biblical battle of Atlanta

This week Atlanta will be holding :

The National Black Arts Festival

as well as

Megafest , the four-day Christian Festival.

Bet on Jesus. Lucifer will take a dive.

The middle east

"...the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."
-Machiavelli

It's good to see the Israelis finally doing something about Hezbollah. I think Israel pussyfoots around with terrorists too much. Let me explain. Whenever Israel responds to attacks, they do things like blow up the PA ministry of this or that at 1:30 AM, when nobody is in the building. When terrorists launch Qassam rockets, Israel shells empty fields. All this does is piss off your enemies without providing a deterrant, or preventing revenge. They're on the right track in their airstrikes targeting terrorist leaders. They need to step that up. They also need to infiltrate terrorist neighborhoods with snipers and spotters. The drones are also good.
Now, thanks to Lebanon, and probably Iran, Hezbollah is firing russian Katyusha rockets. Those babies are a far cry from the home-made Qassam rockets that Hamas has been firing.

I can sort of understand, since "the world community" crucifies them when they respond in any way, much like they are getting crucified right now. Imagine if mexicans fired rockets every day into San Diego. How long do you suppose we'd put up with that?
Israel's only option is to utterly crush its enemies. They are not going to be able to do that without killing a few innocents, especially with the masterful way that terrorists use them as cover.
Israel needs to develop an aggressive, long term plan for either changing the palestinian people or wiping them off the planet. They need to convince both the arabs and the world that the suffering that they dole out is the fault of the terrorists.
There's no other way.

Zachary

Dinosaur Killin'

Mrs Schwartz and I headed to our local mall. She got new nails and a pedicure, for medicinal purposes.
After that, we went to Jillian's. There's a game there where you hold boxing gloves with cables attached and you fight the boxer on the screen. There are sensors that tell if you duck and weave. The "gloves" are a little heavy. Mrs Schwartz tried it. She did really well with the first two guys. I don't think we've ever laughed so hard. She was exhausted. After killing zombies and terrorists (Silent Scope is MY GAME. I should've been a sniper), we settled into Jurassic Park for some dino-killin'. After you're dead, you have ten seconds to swipe your money-card to keep playing where you left off. We just kept going until we had exhausted our two $20 cards. We were in there for something like two and a half hours.

Frivolous Lawsuits

The town of Hazelton, PA has enacted anti-immigration laws that do the following:

Deny a business permit to anyone hiring illegals.
Impose a $1000 fine to any landlords who rent to illegals.
Establish english as the town's official language.

Right on cue, the usual dopes have filed a lawsuit. The left is all for democracy, except when things don't go their way. Then, they have no problem using the courts to overturn the will of the people.

What bugs me is the basis for their lawsuit. Get this:

Lee Llambelis, legal director of the Fund, said the suit will argue that the ordinance erodes the federal government's power to regulate immigration.

Are you serious? That's the best you can come up with?

Chores

I've had a soaker hose buried under my hedge for a while, but I only rarely hooked it up and ran water through it, as I was focusing on the lawn.
Now I tried to hook it up and discovered that there's an ant colony in it.
Flushing the ants out wasn't difficult, but the little bastards chewed holes though it, all at one end. So one end gets 90% of the water. I have to buy a new one. Damn.

Mrs Schwartz is completely laid up with Aunt Flo. She takes Seasonal, so she shouldn't be getting anything, but for some reason, she got nailed, hard. She talked with her doctor, and he said if she has "this" symptom or "that", she needs to call him.
So far, so good, but she's still a mess. She asked me to wake her up when I got back from Home Depot, but she's been up since 4AM, so I'm letting her sleep.

Exador's financial tips

I've recently discovered the benefits of CDs and money market accounts. My savings account has a 0.25% interest rate; pathetic.
I just discovered that 11 month CDs have a rate 5.50%! I also discovered that money market accounts have a rate of 2.25%. Still a hell of a lot better than a savings account. The difference?
You can only electronically withdraw six times per month from a money market account. That's it! You can still go into the bank, or use the ATM and withdraw as often as you like.
So I transferred about half my savings into a CD and the other half into a money market account.

Do likewise.

I must always have something

I went running last week, in preparation for the summer purge. Apparently my sneaker didn't fit right, or folded wierd, because the second toe of my left foot is all red and swollen and tender, like it's infected, but there's no cut.
I expected it to go away, but it's been a week now.
I'm taking some time off soon, so I guess I'll schedule an appointment. If it hasn't gone away by then, something is definitely wrong.

I hate Mother Nature

I think it's a sign of character for a man to know his limitations. There are some things I'm good at; landscaping is not one of them.
Yes, the grass started to grow. Then the weeds, that have been unseen for weeks, grew through the new grass.
Then Gwinnett County outlawed lawn watering. They allow it before 10AM, so the apartment complexes, office parks, and people rich enough to afford an automated system, can still water. Us regular slobs, just watched as our new lawns browned and died.
With the exception of the weeds. They're apparently hardy enough to survive without water.
My lawn is pretty much back to where it was. All the time and money was a waste.

So lawn, I've given you a chance at life. No more. Tonight, I mowed it as short as my mower would go. I'm going to keep it low and thirsty until the sun burns it all an even, golden brown, like a nice tan.

I'm retreating and focussing my attention on my hedge. I'm going to buy a soaker hose and bury it under woodships along my hedge. Then I'm going to water it and nurture it and call it George.

I hate Wednesdays

We have our weekly meeting. I spent yesterday tracking down a problem with a backplane I designed. The problem is that I was informed that the slot speed is supposed to be configured "thusly", which I did. The backplane was tested by our test engineer, and all the slot speeds were confirmed.
In a round about way, I have discovered that the slot speed is MUCH slower, and the test engineer probably didn't test it, and lied that he did in his test report.

But I still feel responsible because it's MY board. I should have known.

Now I have to go to this meeting and tell everybody in the company that it's screwed up. Our inventory has to be re-worked. The board has to be respun. I don't even know what they're going to do about boards in the field. The test engineer doesn't go to this meeting. I can't throw all the blame on him, because I'd come off looking shitty.

CRAP

Update 12:00 :
As I said, the test engineer isn't in the meeting, but his immediate superior, "Ben", IS.
So I explain to everybody what's screwed up on the backplane, and without missing a beat, the drector of engineering turns to Ben and says, "You have to improve the way you are testing that slot speed. That should have never made it out of test."

VICTORY IS MINE!

Wild Cows

Over the weekend, the local radio had a guy call in and ask, "Where did cows come from?". This started a discussion of what cows were like before they became the domesticated kind we're familiar with.

I don't have an answer.

I assume they were some feral version, kind of like wild horses. I imagine they are scruffier, and they probably didn't have that black/white look to them, since they weren't bred into "dairy cows" vs "beef cows".

But I don't know.

Mmmmm.....

Neal Boortz' great line of the day

I'm so tired of today's permissive parenting ---- all these mindless breeders who somehow have become conditioned to believe that the rest of the world thinks that their children are every bit as smart and charming as they do.

Amen, brother.

The Nutty Professor

I spent a good part of Sunday evening following a blog, called Protein Wisdom. It's written by Jeff Goldstein.
What held my attention is the nutty attacks on Jeff by a woman named Deborah Frisch, who is, or was, a professor of psychology at some university. Here's a taste:

I’d like to hear more about your “tyke” by the way. Girl? Boy? Toddler? Teen? Are you still married to the woman you ephed to give birth to the tyke?

Tell all, bro!

[...] as I said elsewhere, if I woke up tomorrow and learned that someone else had shot you and your “tyke” it wouldn’t slow me down one iota. You aren’t “human” to me.

So if you could just tell me the AGE and SEX of your “tyke,” I’d be stoked!

Thanx!

Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.

I reiterate: If some nutcase kidnapped your child tomorrow and did to her what was done to your fellow Coloradan, Jon-Benet Ramsey, I wouldn’t give a damn.

Give your pathetic progeny (I sure hope that mofo got good genes from his mama!) a big fat tongue-filled kiss from me! LOTS AND LOTS OF SALIVA from Auntie MOONBAT, if you don’t mind!

Just my two cents: The pathetic jeffy boy goldstein plays the jew card 24/7. Didn’t you notice?

THIS IS A CESSPOOL!!! GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN!!!!

I am SHAKING, I tell you, SHAKING!!! in my boots at the prosect at an FBI and/or state police trooper tromping down my driveway to see if I was a threat to the progeny of the pissant name of Jeff “pissant” Goldstein of the pathetic, neutered, sissified, state of Colorado.

As you might expect, a bunch of bloggers pounced on this and emailed the university where she works, as well as the FBI.
She has since "resigned" from her teaching position.

Purge Update I

The purge is going well. Yesterday, I had a granola bar for breakfast, a skinless chicken breast for lunch, and some stirfry for dinner. Today, I did the same for breakfast and lunch.

I also went back to the gym for the first time since hurting my back. Aside from a slight loss in strength, all is going well.

I'm considering joining NASA's space program.

Summer Purge

Mrs Schwartz and I are generally bad influences on each other. Now that we are living together again, we have been eating and drinking too much.

So in the spirit of cooperation, we are both going to quit drinking and improve our diets. It shouldn't be too difficult for me, since I generally don't drink during the week anyway. Mrs S, however, likes to have a couple of glasses of wine every day. That'll be a tough habit to break.

We're going to shoot for one month as a goal, and see where we go from there. It starts tomorrow.

Sarcastro's big chance

Stan Lee has found a new way to whore himself out. It was bad enough when he insisted on a cameo in the Spiderman movie. Then there was The Hulk. Ughh.
Now, he is doing a show on SciFi, called Who Wants to be a SuperHero.

Each contestant begins with an original idea for a superhero, a self-made costume, and their best superhero mojo. From thousands of hopefuls, Stan Lee chooses the lucky finalists who move together into a secret lair. There they will begin their transformations — and their competition for the opportunity to become real-life superheroes. Over the course of the series, they will test their mettle, try to overcome their limitations, and do what it takes to prove that they truly are super.

Fans of The Tick are familiar with this plotline, as it was already done in episode 36.

Holiday Update

We went to Athens, GA for the day yesterday. I love the college-town feel of downtown Athens. It also holds a place in my heart because it was the first place I went to in GA, back when I was about 19. My friend, Eric, was going to school in Virginia, but he had transferred to SUNY Cortland, in Cortland, NY. My friends and I went for a roadtrip for Christmas break, to help him move his stuff from his apartment in Virginia. In a testament to poor geographical education, we decided that 'since we were already practically in GA' (in Virginia) we might as well pop down and visit (a mutual friend) in Athens.
We left several feet of snow in NY, and it was gradually getting warmer, but the day we arrived in Athens, the weather had suddenly turned freakishly warm, like in the 70s, in December. The natives loved it too. We came into town and drove up sorority row. All the sorority girls were tanning in their front yards or jogging in spandex. We all decided that Athens, GA was the gateway to heaven.
That was the first time I saw the GA state flag, although I didn't know it was the state flag at the time. I just remember being shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that they were flying the Confederate flag over a state school.
The drinking began soon after. We befriended a gorgeous blond coed that lived in a former slave cabin.
Details are sketchy, but I remember looking down the street and seeing my friend stumble into barrier chain that was about two feet off the ground and marked the perimeter of a parking lot. He tripped over the chain and fell face-first into the front bumper of a parked car. We went to retrieve him. As we pulled him off the concrete, he said, "You guys! I just got hit by a car!"

After Mrs Schwartz and I did some drinking and some shopping, we wandered onto the campus, and laid down beneath the big oaks and magnolias. She claims that she stayed up while I slept for 45 minutes. This is, as yet, unconfirmed. All I know is that I woke up before she did.
I bought her a charm bracelet. She picked out some cool charms, and seems to really like it.

Operator, I'll have another

Cell Phone Flask

In honor of the holiday weekend, I bring you a University of Utah study that says that drivers who talk on cellphones are just as dangerous as those who drink. Drivers using hands-free phones are no better.

Cellular industry officials say it's unfair to single out phones, "I think there are just a multitude of distractions that are out there," John Walls said. "And by focusing on just one, you're creating a false sense of security among people."

Right you are, John! So why do we single out drinking?

Georgia has a little marketing jihad they break out every year. They do a blitz of ads, where they say they have "ZERO TOLERANCE" for drinking and driving. "IF YOU DRINK, YOU WILL GO TO JAIL".
I hate these ads. For one, they make no distinction between getting blind drunk and having a beer or two with dinner.

It's a wonderful example of how DUI, or rather ANTI-DUI, has become a religion.

I remember talking to a girl, who was maybe 18. She told me how if she had "even one drink" she "wouldn't even think about driving". This is stupid. It shows that the propaganda is working, especially in the schools. No, you shouldn't get loaded, or even a little buzzed, and go for a drive; however, it's silly to freak out about one drink, especially if it takes ten drinks for you to feel any effects.

My biggest problem with this new religion is the demonization of alcohol over other distractions.

If you plow into a family, and it's found that you have a BAC of 0.005, you are a murderer and will go to jail forever. If you kill the same family because you were dialing your phone, or applying mascara, or reading the newspaper, well, accidents happen. Here's your ticket. You have the option of mailing it in.

That's just stupid.

One of the best propaganda campaigns for this is the multitude of "Police Chase", "COPS", type shows. They always show the dui perps as being so-blind-drunk-I-can't-see-or-stand. Of course these guys should go to jail. What they don't show is the guy who goes through a roadblock, speaks without slurring, and generally handles himself, despite having a couple of drinks. These guys get arrested too, especially during the big holiday crack downs.

Remember, Zero Tolerance.