Insignifica

A couple political links and thoughts

A couple political links and thoughts:

Cat Stevens on terrorist watch list - Folk artist Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, was denied entry to the United States after appearing on a terrorist watch list. Officially, he was detained for reported associations and financial support for Muslim charities with terrorist connections, not for actually being a terrorist or planning to bomb anything. And in the national security, the government won't give out details.

I'm all for keeping bombers off planes, and keeping terrorists out of the country. But the dude doesn't seem to be either of these things - at most, he gave money to charities that might give money to groups that might support terror. While that's enough for some people, I find it amazingly frightening that who I support financially may someday be used to affect my status as a citizen or resident of the United States. What if the government decides it doesn't like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, or the ACLU, or any other group I may give money to?

House bill would block Supreme Court on Pledge - A bill passed by the US House of Representatives today would prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on whether the words "under God" should be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance. In a move surpassing the drive to make gay marriage constitutionally illegal, conservative forces are trying to use 200 year old documents and procedures to make a very specific and topical issue untouchable. In this case, the underhandedness is two-fold: One, it limits all federal courts from ruling on something conservatives find very important, and two, it may force the issue to state courts, where local democrats would suddenly be forced to take a stand in what should be a federal matter.

This is a sick travesty of justice, and needs to be stopped. The House is pitting itself against another branch of government and attempting to limit not only a potential ruling, but the process of judging itself. It furthers the Right's nasty fallacy of "activist judges", which flies in the face of 200 years of case law and judicial review. It's an uneducated view of how the court system works, done to exploit a fearful populous who has no memory of their high school civics class.

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As an aside, people may be wondering why I link almost exclusively to CNN for my news. It's not out of any great love for Ted Turner's network, but because their stories tend to stick around at the same URL for a long time, where most other news service links change or disappear in a few weeks, making blogging about them less effective. Usually it's the same wire story, anyway.

fall, atheists, moving, geeeeek

I actually have an excuse for not posting lately - we've been spending most evenings moving, installing dishwashers, or sorting through things in the house. Carpet should be installed tomorrow or Thursday, then we can start moving in earnest, and lay down the wood flooring.

As Wil points out (in a great post, for other reasons), "Mother Nature thinks it's October". We've had our big puffy (but rainless) clouds the last few days, with cool breezes and earlier evenings. Very refreshing after a few weeks of heat. The Santa Ana winds have developed, however, warming it up a bit and disturbing the atmosphere. But they too are a normal, expected part of our autumn celebration.

Tonight's my Atheist meetup, and tomorrow I get to go to my first Home Owners Association meeting. That's both exciting and scary, and I expect it to also be fairly boring. I want representation, though; I'd like where I'm living to be somewhere I want to live, for as long as I'm here.

The Geeeeek license plates have finally arrived, though I've had just one comment on them so far. I still smile every time I see them, though. It very truly is vanity, and I like it.

another friday in september

Another week, another Friday. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I'm beginning to wonder why I don't post on the weekends. It's not like I don't have my computer handy. I just don't. It's strange. Maybe I'll try harder, and maybe I won't.

Happy birthday to Marek, who joins the 26 club today. Gary's the last of the group still in 25, he's still got a month to go.

We've got a busy weekend, with wedding planning, strat-o-matic baseball, and plenty of moving-related activities. Even though we've got 13 days left in the apartment before we have to be out, we're quickly running low on weekend moving days, especially since carpet won't be in this weekend, meaning we can't move a lot of stuff except into the kitchen, garage, and cabinets. If that puts a dent in the workload, however, next weekend should go more smoothly.

OC Metroblogging is coming along quite nicely, if I do say so myself. Lots of good posts, relevant Orange County information, and good comments. Check it out.

A little more about my house

A little more about my house...

I've been purposefully leaving out details until everything was finalized, you never know when something will screw up in escrow, especially with all the horror stories I've heard. Luckily for us, everything went smoothly. Escrow closed on the day we wanted it to, without much stress or worry. A couple issues needed to be cleared up, but it was a fairly easy experience, made easier by our realtor, bank and escrow company.

Interesting side note about our escrow company. You know in a sci-fi story, when for whatever reason there aren't any adults left (plague, rebellion by children, whatever), and everything is run by teens and 20-somethings (where there are usually 40 and 50-somethings)? That's what our escrow company was like. The office was just about all women in their 20s, with cute nicknames like "Ash" (Ashley), "Am" (Ami) and "Rach" (Rachel). It was almost disturbing.

The house itself is a condo, which in Orange County is not unusual, especially for your first home. It's 2 stories, just over 1100 square feet, with two bedrooms and 1.5 baths. Neat features include a spiral staircase and a fireplace. It's got a lot of room, and the association doesn't seem to mind much if you remodel extensively inside your unit. The back patio is a good size for a condo, and if we had the money and inclination, we could put a hot tub back there. The carpeting is going to be replaced this week, with new carpet upstairs and wood laminate flooring downstairs.

There are a lot of little things we'd like to do to it - The breakfast bar in the kitchen is a weird height, the countertops could use some work, and other units have put in washer/dryer hookups. But none of that is pressing - we have a great place to live.

home owners!

Escrow is closed, the documents are all where they need to be. My girlfriend and I (and our bank) now own our home!

sequoia weekend, escrow closing

Wow, another eventful weekend. The girlfriend and I took a trip to Sequoia National Park/Kings Canyon this weekend, my first time there. Amazing sites (them trees is tall!) and very nice to have a relaxing weekend.

We returned Sunday afternoon and spent Monday doing house-related things: shopping for a dishwasher, buying carpet, checking out laminate flooring, and signing what I hope is the end of the house-related paperwork. We're on track to close escrow today or tomorrow - very exciting stuff.

OC Metroblogging goes live!

Here's that exciting announcement I was promising you...

The Metroblogging Orange County, featuring news, photos and happenings about OC by OC bloggers (including me), went live today. It follows in the footsteps of blogging.la and the 11 other metroblogs, all of which are gaining steadily in popularity. Look for posts by me, as well as 9 other talented writers. You'll also see me talking about it a lot here, so enjoy!

The weekends just keep getting busier here. Three parties this weekend (more along the lines of "friendly get-togethers" than keggers, though), plus shopping for house-related things like furniture and flooring. Have any of you, gentle readers, installed laminate flooring (like Pergo)? My sister and brother-in-law say it's not that hard, and the guy at Home Depot says it's an afternoon project for the size place we have. I'm interested in other takes on it.

Escrow is scheduled to close in 7 days. I have a feeling it'll be delayed at least until the end of next week, because escrows tend to be late, and because American Express says they won't send notification of me paying off my account there until 10 business days after the last payment (which was 8 business days ago). That's the stupidist policy I've heard today. We have the apartment until the end of September, so hopefully we won't run into many problems.

There's an announcement coming very shortly about another project I'm working on - exciting stuff.

weird day and marriage

What a crazy day yesterday. I get woken up at 6am with a call from my credit card company, wondering about a balance transfer I'd done the week before. Somehow (even though my credit card did the transfer for me), they ended up charging someone else's card with it instead of mine. Appearently it's been fixed.

In the middle of a pretty normal day at work, I get a call from Chris (not Chris Clark, another Chris) wondering if I'm free for dinner with him and his girlfriend. Last time he asked this, it was because they wanted me to perform their wedding, but those plans fell through that time. However, this time they were on their way down, and would be that evening.

After a very nice dinner at Maggiano's, we returned to my place, watched the marriage scene from "Spaceballs", then I performed a quick but very nice civil marriage ceremony for my friends. Little did I know when I woke up this morning I'd be ending the day performing my third wedding. A good time was had by all, and I wish all the best to the happy couple (whose names remain fairly anonymous until I get thier permission to post them). Congrats!