The Tedder P. Schoenhopfer Policy Exchange

It’s that time again.  I’m working on my resolutions, and by “working on” I mean vaguely thinking now and then about something I might like to try for.  My resolutions don’t involve resolve nearly as much as fuzzy intent.

So far I have my old standby, which I call The Five Points of Virtue.  I try every day to:  floss, take vitamins & supplements,  exercise, and something else that varies from year to year.  This year it might be to spend more time reading books and less time playing stupid computer games.

How about you?

Cats keep Lost Boy Warm

I have sort of mixed feelings about Will Smith.  Mostly positive: I think he is a good actor, and his TV show was great, just feel sort of “eh” about a lot of his movies.  But I was still disappointed to hear that Will Smith has given $122,500 to Scientology in the past year.

Mostly, it’s been awhile since we discussed this cherished Crumiller topic: Scientology and how insane it and its followers are. It’s such a fascinating mix of hilarious and disturbing. For example: one of the projects Will Smith gave to is the “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund”. It is sort of heartbreaking to think of injured 9/11 workers enduring this nonsense, although it seems like there are some legitimate aspects to the operation (like providing massages). There’s always more to learn about Scientology! Hopefully others will add some new info as well.

I know penguins are passe these days but Ricky was an early adopter, and he still keeps up.  You might enjoy this short (1:30)  video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4

We are not really celebrating until this weekend (or at least not that I’m in on), but today is Dad’s 50th birthday!!!  Insert dumb joke about “over the hill” here. 

I found this awesome webpage where you can just fill in a person or company’s name, say how many paragraphs you want, and it’ll automatically generate a fake complaint about them. It’s pretty funny:

http://www.pakin.org/complaint

Here’s a sample complaint about Dad:

My original goal for this letter was to scrutinize Jon Crumiller’s remarks point by licentious point. Unfortunately, Jon’s focus wanders so wildly that he never actually finishes any of his points. I think you will notice this in the ensuing discussion. To get immediately to the point, Jon can’t fool me. I’ve met atrabilious scum before, so I know that there are lots of weepy, wimpy flower children out there who are always whining that I’m being too harsh in my criticisms of Jon. I wish such people would wake up and realize that Jon wants all of us to believe that he is the one who will lead us to our great shining future. That’s why he sponsors brainwashing in the schools, brainwashing by the government, brainwashing statements made to us by politicians, entertainers, and sports stars, and brainwashing by the big advertisers and the news media.

Why is Jon really so backwards? Is it because his utterances are incompatible with the proclivities of instrumental reason? Or because I’m sick of Jon sticking his proboscis into everyone else’s business? Before you answer, let me point out that Jon believes that we should derive moral guidance from his glitzy, multi-culti, hip-hop, consumption-oriented projects. Sorry, but I have to call foul on that one. In closing, we must do everything in our power to expand people’s understanding of Jon Crumiller’s uncouth precepts. The fight must go on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_-jO4o5Xo

Dan Preston sent me this.

Real props to Jon Stewart in this one. I hate it how he’s just preaching to the choir, but he makes great points about the gay marriage issue–definitely worth a watch.

http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/6936/24527

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/08/1703037.aspx

Cousin Randy made msnbc.

I hope I never get this way — here’s another forwarded email full of resentment for the next generation - this guy wants his grandchild to suffer by, among other things, getting a black eye, burning a hand and getting a tongue stuck on a flagpole. Marshall’s response, at the end, is perfect. (more…)

I created a new category for kitties!

This Thanksgiving was very special because of all the visitors to the Crumiller house: Arastu, his brother Tatha, his mom Arati, G&G Miller, and… Dexie and Tash!!  Dexie and Tash met Benko and Benoni with mixed results.  OK, not great results, but better than I expected.  There was no physical fighting but there was a lot of hissing, territorialism, and Dexie and Tash being little scaredy-kitties.  I do think that maybe eventually they would become friends but it did not happen on this trip.  When we got back home, the kitties were obviously very happy to be back.  They’ve been eating and sleeping a lot - I think the trip was very stressful for them.

Of course the main excitement when we returned was that Dexie caught a mouse!  Eeek!  He was of course parading it around the house, dropping it then running after it when it scampered away, multiple times.  We had no idea what to do.  I immediately shut the bedroom door figuring as long as mouse didn’t get on the bed it wasn’t too bad.  We knew the humane thing to do would be to kill the mouse but I couldn’t bring myself to go near it.  Finally Dexie was defeated by his own hubris and the mouse scampered away while he was playing with it, back behind the fridge.  It seems like finally the mouse escaped via whatever route it came in originally.

Is there is secret blog that I am not a part of? Because if there is, I just want everyone to know that I don’t care, except I do wonder how Dexie, Tash, Benko, Benoni and Wonderbra are.

A lot of the websites I visit every day are based around political news, which has slowed to a trickle post-election.

I thought maybe if i asked you guys I could get some creative new websites to visit! Here are the ones I visit every day:

Politico, Drudge, Digg, NYTimes, WashPost, Inside Carolina, CNN, MSNBC, RealClearPolitics, ESPN, CNNSI

Here are some secondary sites that I visit regularly but less often:

Time, Newsweek, The Onion, The Nation, Slate, FiveThirtyEight, The Smoking Gun.

What about YOU?! I am very interested!

From Boston.com,  these pictures are really nice.  My favorites:  18, Obama and the storm clouds; 20, Will Smith from Men in Black; and 34, the family taking the stage on election night.