It's back

And what happened? Very little. Let's see... Locke is nuts, Hurley's in a mental institution, Kate ping-pongs between Jack and Sawyer, Claire's annoying. New season, same ole shite. Why are the critics raving?

Plastic bag makers sue Oakland

For the sake of our oceans, please, judge, do the right thing....

Sublime. Or subliminal

On Sunday afternoon, my last on a Hawaiian cruise ship, I got on an exercise bike, flipped through the channels, and the movie I found on TNT at that moment was Titanic.

Probably not the year

"A fairly large body of evidence exists that suggests this isn't going to be the year. In fact, the body of evidence overwhelmingly suggests that something bad will happen, with the very distinct possibility that it will be spectacularly bad."

There is, indeed, no reason to believe the Cubs will do anything of note this year. Morissey knows what he's talking about.

Larry Ellison

Around noon we were driving down Woodside Road and saw a convertible Bentley (Nathan noticed it because it had a soft top and not a folding hardtop, which apparently is the new way to go in luxury convertibles). The guy driving it looked a lot like Larry Ellison. Was it him? Well, I thought, surely not. Why would the richest guy in the US be driving himself around? But Nathan said he heard that Larry does, in fact, drive himself. So since he was on his way from Woodside, where he lives, toward 101 North (Oracle is about 10 minutes north), it seems like it very well could be Larry.

So I would put the odds that it was Larry at slightly less than half.

But on the issue of Larry driving to work in his Bentley: why? If I had even a fraction of his money, I would have a driver. Driving around is such a waste of time! I could see if he was driving his fancy car up on Skyline or over to the coast, but on Woodside (traffic light hell) to 101
(ugly billboard hell)?!?

7-year-old defied redneck dad, sources say

Just your run-of-the-mill dumb Cheesehead story. Then, I saw the headline on the video.

"Child tied up for allegedly not wearing Packers jersey"

Donut experiment, part I

Monday I pulled a donut at random out of the freezer. Yesterday (Wednesday) I let it get to room temperature before eating it. Turns out it was the chocolate frosted cake. It tasted like a good donut, but not the "unmmyow!" of the fresh Dunkin.

My first-ever missed connections post

To the woman driving a Mercedes on Campus Drive this morning ...

around 11:30 who told me “I really think you should be on the sidewalk":

a) That’s just, like, your opinion, man.
b) According to the Vehicle Code, cyclists are allowed on the street, no matter how slow they are going, no matter how narrow the lane, no matter how many pounds of kid they are towing in a trailer behind them.
c) I didn’t know the construction was going to end the damn bike lane and trap me between a concrete wall and big old median.
d) It’s Sunday, for Pete’s sake. Will you just, ah, take it easy, man??

State parks on the chopping block

Apparently California is broke. And somebody decided shutting down a bunch of state parks was the answer?

An actual leadoff man?

This would be quite something. I can't remember the last time they actually made a bold trade. And I think the last real leadoff man they had was Bobby Dernier.

Andre Dawson not heading to Cooperstown

Let's just set the record straight on Andre Dawson. He is a choker. But, you might say, he won the MVP when he was with the Cubs in '87! Yes, but the Cubs finished in LAST PLACE that year. Once again bringing up the point that it really isn't for the mpostVALUABLE player, but the one with the best stats, and they should just call it that. In the '89 playoffs, he choked so hard that CPR instructors use footage of his performance in their classes.

So I don't want to hear anyone going around lamenting the fact that Andre *%!?ing Dawson isn't in the Hall of Fame.

Shopdropping

"Otherwise known as reverse shoplifting, shopdropping involves surreptitiously putting things in stores, rather than illegally taking them out, and the motivations vary.

Anti-consumerist artists slip replica products packaged with political messages onto shelves while religious proselytizers insert pamphlets between the pages of gay-and-lesbian readings at book stores.

Self-published authors sneak their works into the “new releases” section, while personal trainers put their business cards into weight-loss books, and aspiring professional photographers make homemade cards — their Web site address included, of course — and covertly plant them into stationery-store racks."

What a cool concept. Now I just have to figure out something I can shopdrop. Any suggestions?

More on outsourcing birth

I say “feels like” and “look like” because I can’t quite bring myself to the point of saying “is.” And in this, I think, I am right in the mainstream of American thought on the topic of surrogate motherhood.

As one of the 150 commenters pointed out, it's not up to Judith Warner to decide what Indian women do with their bodies. Besides, who cares what her shrill, sanctimonious self thinks?

All that aside, I still can't get over the intense irony of teens getting pregnant "accidentally" while millions of women will do anything to have a baby. I wonder if there could be some program where these women could "adopt" pregnant teens or young mothers while they're waiting for IVF to work or for their adoption paperwork to go through.

Childbirth outsourced to India

This story is another case of the reporter feeling obligated to look for some dissenting voice in order to have a "balanced" story -- in this case, this Lantos joker from Kansas City (red flag, hah hah). The whole deal really sounds like a win-win to me.

After spending about $20,000 -- more than many couples because it took the surrogate mother several cycles to conceive -- Sodhi and her husband are now back home with their 4-month-old baby, Neel. They plan to return to Anand for a second child.

...

Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she will buy a house with the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she's carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid's monthly salary of $25.

Dodia's own three children were delivered at home and she said she never visited a doctor during those pregnancies.

"It's very different with medicine," Dodia said, resting her hands on her hugely pregnant belly. "I'm being more careful now than I was with my own pregnancy."

Patel said she carefully chooses which couples to help and which women to hire as surrogates. She only accepts couples with serious fertility issues, like survivors of uterine cancer. The surrogate mothers have to be between 18 and 45, have at least one child of their own, and be in good medical shape.

...

if commercial surrogacy keeps growing, some fear it could change from a medical necessity for infertile women to a convenience for the rich.

"You can picture the wealthy couples of the West deciding that pregnancy is just not worth the trouble anymore and the whole industry will be farmed out," said Lantos.

Oops, she did...oh, forget it, too easy

"The Spears news was actually a welcome development. It's generated a lot of hand-wringing, heartfelt but ultimately misplaced, over what message the fallen role model sends to tween fans. Sorry, but I don't imagine a lot of 16-year-olds, in the grip of hormonal urges, thinking: Gee, Jamie Lynn did, why not go for it? But they might think: Whoa, birth control."

I'm not quite so confident in the intelligence of the average 16-year-old, nor their ability to reason that this is a lesson they can learn from. Unless Jamie Lynn does the right thing, coming out intentionally, publicly and saying something to the tweens and teens of the world like: "I messed up. I made a bad decision and it's going to affect me for the rest of my life. Please learn from my mistake. You're better off not having sex -- it's the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy -- but if you must have sex, use condoms, the pill, or both!"