The Tyranny of the Majority Party, By Fred Barnes, includes some interesting history.

Sure hope William Daley is right.

Article of the Day

Serfdom vs. liberty in 2010, by Colin McNickle, is a very fun dream, but I'm pretty sure that's all it is. Americans are a long way from the zeal required of revolutionaries.

Kindergarden Christmas Work

This morning I took the pleasure of religious expression during my kindergarten English class. Each week I try to add something new, though it's mostly repetition. By the eighth week we have Hello, Good morning, My name is _____, Have a nice day, and Good bye under our belts, as well as counting to ten, naming some colors, and answering the questions How are you (the answer is I'm fine), how old are you, and which color do you like under our belts. By under our belts I mean some of the kids remember these phrases sometimes, but regularly when I ask some her age she tells me her age, for instance.

I also have the problem of asking any question, what's your name in particular, and getting responses like Šukšlė, Susiukas, or Kakū. (Garbage, pee-pee, poop) Misbehavior abounds too, but whatever.

This morning we had a decent class, though. And we had a fun new phrase, Merry Christmas. I brought my kid's stuffed Christmas begarbed reindeer to kindergarten and each kid got a chance to tell it Merry Christmas (although some kids said their age bųy accident instead). As I was prepping for the class, I thought, this lesson is probably forbidden in America. Stupid PC culture.

Article of the Day

Yes, there is Santa, He’s no liberal myth, by Michael Graham, is a quite a nice piece on BS. The objective research evidence on liberals believing BS (...About 50 percent more Democrats than Republicans say they have spoken to the dead...) is amusing indeed. The rest is agreeable and fun to read as well.

Is There a Doctor in the House? By Howard Fineman

Ron Paul was my favorite 2008 candidate for president.

Article of the Day

In Steven Greenhut: We're increasingly ruled by rules, Greenhut gives several examples of things in America banned by the government. This reminded me of an argument I had with Gedas, because Lithuania has the same problem: "It's a lot easier...for authorities to target law-abiding citizens...than it is to target the real bad guys."

The result? I have to have people bring me ammonia from America in the form of After Bite. This stuff costs like two bucks, it's just plain ammonia, but I can't get it. Housewives in Lithuania can't use it as a cleaning agent. Why? Because somebody drank it once and died. So fuck it, this multi-use, convenient product will not be available for anybody.

How about Krupnikas, the Lithuanian spiced honey liqueur? Nope, can't have that in Lithuania. Well, you can have the shitty factory version from Maxima which is disgusting and gross. But can you make your own, delicious Krupnikas? No, brewing this traditional Lithuanian liqueur is restricted to emigres. This form of patriotism is restricted to Lithuanians abroad. Why? Because some bums drank too much grain alcohol and died once. Good luck finding it for sale now; as in Greenhut's examples, getting it now is part of the underworld economy.

Thanks Be To Good Times

Thanksgiving was a tremendous success this year. The preparation and cooking lasted several days as usual, but for the first time we had so much fun the festivities lasted into the night, the next day, and the next night too, almost until midnight: a thirty hour Thanksgiving!

The menu included:
Perfect Turkey
Gravy made from Awesome Turkey Giblet Stock
Sausage Stuffing
Awesome Sausage, Apple and Cranberry Stuffing
Sweet Potato Casserole I
Stir Fried Broccoli
Cheese Garlic Biscuits II
Fetaki Mushroom Noodle Casserole*
Roasted Carrots with Whiskey Glaze
Cranberry Sauce
Chutney (Ed's delicious home made chutney)
Wild Mushroom Sauce
Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Graham Cracker Crust

*One item that had to be scrapped was the Zucchini Alfredo. The zucchini was over ripe and did not tenderize while cooking. Thank God I tasted it before pouring it over the fantastic noodles that special lady brought me back from Italy. I redid the sauce as a fetaki mushroom sauce.

And the morning after I made beer bread with the left overs.

Aidas won the food eating competition as usual, but may have overeaten. He and Kristina had to leave more than 24 hours earlier than the others without much drinking to blame.

The first evening we hit the sauna, the man cave, and played a beirut tournament. After several rounds of play while Gintaras and I were still in the sauna we decided we needed some breweries to rehydrate. We beat my special lady and Linas, then we beat Ed and Donatas, and no challengers arose: Eglė and Giedrė either pussed or were too drunk. We won! Luckily the games were close enough that we got to quench our thirst anyway. And just in case we didn't, back to the man cave!

Next day we did the sauna again after being party to the shampoo effect. We had a terrific afternoon playing Alias and Cranium, but then made the mistake of playing Žodžių Bokštas (Up-Words). That took forever; towards the end it was high time to say labanaktis! I was really glad they stayed because it's nearly impossible to get a game of Cranium going, it's only the second time I've been able to play it in Lietuva since getting it for Christmas. You need four people with a decent knowledge of American pop culture, and it always seems more appropriate to play something like Beirut during the party proper. The stragglers left on the day after the party turned out to be perfect cranium players.

A good time was had by all!

Flustered? What a bone head.

Yesterday I was a bit flustered after work, apparently. I walked out as usual to Kalvarijų Street. Usually I just flag down a micro bus, but this time I had a bunch of bus tickets burning a hole in my pocket. I began crossing the street to walk to the bus stop, when I immediately noticed a great micro bus: I usually take the five, which runs more often, but when I get a fifteen it's better, it brings me closer to home. So I dashed through the intersection just in the nick of time. Actually I wasn't in the nick of time, the micro had to wait for me during a green light, but I made it. Awesome.

I had no money. Not awesome. I told the driver crap, I don't have any cash, I'll have to get out and go to an ATM. The kind man told me just to sit down this time and forget it. Awesome. As we drive by Kalvarijų Market I reach for my phone. I have to call my special lady to ocme pick me up at the end of the bus route, because the bus doesn't take me all the way home, and it might not be safe to walk home at night. As I did this what do I find but my keys? Oh, yeah, I took the car myself today. Not awesome. I tell the driver to let me out, it seems that I've forgotten something else as well and have to go back.

Here is my walk back. Before I even got the car my wife had already called me to ask why I'm not home yet. I hadn't even left work properly yet.

I had to walk

Article of the Day

What an asshole Obama is! I don't know how he can look himself in the mirror after bowing so low...Why is this man bowing?

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm a mathematician.

Gedas was visiting Vilnius to register the birth of his second child. We went out for beers with Auriukas and Bronius. After a few beers somebody asked, for no reason in particular, "what's the sum of the internal angles of a hexagon?" The question wasn't addressed to anybody in particular but sort of as a rhetorical question, such as "Who is John Galt?" or maybe sort of as a general challenge. Irregardless of the meaning of the question, which was lost somewhere in a number of beers already drunk, I piped in with "720."

Nobody was expecting an answer, at least not one instantly. If the point of the question was a challenge than it was assumed that if would be a difficult challenge requiring four heads to be put together. But that's not how it went down. I just answered it and three surprised faces turned to me and two of them proceeded to call me a fool while the other demonstrated on paper that, in deed, I was right.

As the beer flow continued and the pipe smoking began, a new question was quickly put forth, two questions really: why is it 720º, and what is the formula for the internal angles of a polygon? I couldn't answer either. I just knew! Gedas was especially insistent that the meaning behind the knowledge is more important than the knowledge itself--why oh why is it 720º??? I didn't know how I knew it.

I asked the bartender for some paper. We spent the next 45 minutes or so working out the internal angles of all polygons up to an octagon, trying to work out the formula, and drinking several more beers. By the end of this period, which everybody else in the bar spent chatting about sports and women, or else shopping and men, the rest of my company gave up. I couldn't give up, though, I knew I was so close. Finally five minutes later I got it: 180(n-2) where n is the number of angles, happiest moment of my life excluding love life. Hooray!

Article of the Day

This piece puts such an interesting spin on the whole health care thing that I'll have to put some of it into practice at work: Want to Reform Health Care? Improve the Workplace, by Jeffrey Pfeffer.

Article of the Day

I had an enjoyable little read today with It's Barack Obama's first anniversary - but there's precious little to celebrate, by Simon Heffer. I wonder what the chatter is like now in America. I wonder what people are saying about all the Nothing getting done.

Professionalism

I had a 40º temperature yesterday (104º Fahrenheit), and I had the shakes, so I called into work sick. I was in real pain. Do you think they told me to stay home and get well soon? No, instead they told me they won’t “tolerate” sick leave, reminded me that I'm still on my trial period, and said it wouldn’t look "professional" to cancel classes—apparently they think it looks more professional to have contagious teachers moaning and shaking throughout class between squirts of Orofar® into their throats. Can you believe that?

p.s. one really great thing about the American heath care system is that they give you pills for everything. Here they give you huge doses of disgusting tea (well, at least there's booze in it)

p.p.s. my special lady was my lady-in-waiting (but for a nobleman). she spent half the day keeping me tucked in, souped up, and forcing me to drink disguisting tea...which did make me better. Unless it was my huge sperm count.

UPDATE: Because I succumbed to the pressure and went to work on Tuesday, I now have complications and am sequestered from the world, including my two special children, for the next five days.

Groupthink

Man, kids are stupid. I suppose we learned in IR about the same thing happening among adults, but I've yet to witness it.

It all started when I began volunteering at my kid's kindergarten. I teach English there twice a week. After a month the kids "know" how to say:

Hello, my name is _______
Bye bye
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
White
I like _________
One
Two
Three
Four
Five

By "know" I mean some of them remember the words sometimes, there’re a few bright ones, but mostly they repeat after me. I demonstrate the colors to them by showing them bowling pins; each pin is a different color. I've counted by counting off balls in the past. Today I decided to make things simpler by just counting off the pins instead of balls. Think that worked?

"How many pins am I holding up?"
One kid shouts "Blue!"
Then the rest chime in "BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"No no, how many pins am I holding?"
One kid shouts "Holding!"
Then the rest chime in "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Enough of that, time for a new game. I put three of the pins on top of book cases in three corners of the room. I said, "let's go to the blue pin!" and jogged over to the blue pin. They got the hang of that pretty quickly. Problem was, sometimes they went to the wrong pin. As soon as one kid started running, they all followed him, irregardless of who the kid was (not the same leader every time). And you might say the rest figure he knows which color is which so they follow. You'd be sorely mistaken if you thought that, because get this: my daughter followed the group to the wrong pin as well! She knows very bloody well which color is which! Can you believe that?

Applause is in order for the Hero of this Article of the Day

This man accused his ex-wife and sister-in-law of pimping out his 4 year old daughter and niece to a judge and parliament aide who raped them on several occasions. After a year of his accusations falling on deaf ears at the Lithuanian Child Welfare Office, despite three independent expert psychological reports confirming the girls' honesty, he allegedly shot one of the rapists and one of the pimps himself. How tragic that he couldn't get to the others.

This article in English doesn't have all the details, but it has the general picture.

Article of the Day

Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care, by Sarah Palin.

Article of the Day

Listening to a Liar, by Thomas Sowell. I like Sowell more and more each time I read him.

Heart Attack

I had a mild heart attack yesterday, I think. It felt pretty severe, but I didn't collapse or anything. I was teaching class, and we were talking about what makes people attractive. The students were supposed to think of the most attractive person in the world. They were having trouble, so I told them that other quality besides physical appearance make people, honesty or bravery or intelligence. There are three students in the class that know me already and there is one girl who is new. It was her first day, and at this moment she shouted "Barack Obama!" I shuddered violently and grabbed the left side of my chest--ouch, real pain! I told her she wouldn't think so if she'd been to my classes for the past three weeks. I managed to teach all my other students the truth.

Article of the Day

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare: Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit, by JOHN MACKEY.

Clear and wise.

Godfried Daniel, Picasa is a Fuckface!

For reasons I'll go into on my other blog, I've chosen to start saying Godfried Daniel around my children instead of God Fucking Damn It! I can't put into words how frustrating it is to download Picasa over and over again from different sites claiming to offer it in English and never get it in English. What's the fuckin deal, can somebody please enlighten me? Does google think that nobody in Lithuania speaks English, and that everybody does speak Lithuanian? Both assertions would be dead wrong. But no, that's not even the problem: I tried turning on a privacy program that hides my IP address, and I still can't get the English version! So please, what is the fucking deal already? I had it at work in English, I had it on my laptop in English, is Picasa simply no longer offered in English?

Unfortunately, I haven't decided on a clean version of "fuckface" yet, so I hope my kids were around this afternoon. I'll take suggestions on that too.