The Tedder P. Schoenhopfer Policy Exchange

It is Maggie ’s 21st birthday today. Happy birthday Maggie!!

Tedder’s father is a Danish import from a Labrador kennel in New Jersey!

Danish Skydiver

With only 3 or 4 nails left for mom and dad to clip, they are nearing the end of the unpleasant task of clipping mr. tedder’s nails! Hopefully they’ll be done by the end of the night and can report back to us about how happy mr. tedder is!

Susan is 24! More than half Dad’s and my ages. I hope you have a fun birthday and your presents are in the mail!

Last night I went to see the movie “V for Vendetta.” I think everyone in the Crumiller family should see it, as it’s a completely blatant Bush-administration-bashing movie. Anyone who misses the connections must be crazy:

• -References to the administration using a virus to instill fear about the outside
• -References to governmental abuse of prisoners
• -References to high administration officials making millions because of big governmental investments in projects that earn them $$.
• -The plot–about a government who strips people of their freedom in the name of national security, and a “superhero” like figure who uses terrorist tactics (for good? this was a theme) to quell the country’s fear of their own government, because as he states, “People should not be afraid of their government; the government should be afraid of its people.”

Anyway I thought it was at least an interesting movie. The end somewhat spiraled into an ending that’s a little implausible, but the plot was simply used as a vehicle to get the message across. The character who plays the “terrorist” guy is really cool–he’s super smart and has almost superhuman skillz at beating people up, kind of like a batman. There’s a tiny bit of blood at the end but overall it’s not very gory, it’s entertaining, and has an interesting message.

I hope everyone had a good Pi day.

I added a new link on the right to this neat webcam that shows snow monkeys in Japan. But the funniest is this translated article telling about the monkeys.

At 5am tomorrow, I’m leaving to go down to New Orleans and clear debris. We’ll be living in a tent city, and working 9-3 every day, wearing full body suits and masks provided by the organization. I’ll post about it when I get back. For now, a funny story:

Mom got all of the kids sleeping bags for Christmas with our first names monogrammed on them. She got one for Arastu too, and brought it to my apartment along with all my other stuff. Arastu was coming over to help move stuff, but then Mom got embarrassed about the sleeping bag and made me hide it in the bathtub until after she left.

Anyway, Arastu’s bringing the “Arastu” sleeping bag to New Orleans.

As reported by Nina Totenberg on NPR today, Sandra Day O’Connor spoke at Georgetown University recently. Here is Nina Totenberg’s report:

O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.

I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

There was a news article today about Uncle Mike’s uncle. There was a memorial service for him at Rutgers yesterday.

Richard P. McCormick was remembered yesterday as a riveting professor, a monumental historian, a behind-the-scenes activist, a champion for New Jersey, a beloved family man and “Mr. Rutgers.”

Speaker after speaker stood at the pulpit at Rutgers University’s Kirkpatrick Chapel in New Brunswick and tried to sum up the life of a professor and historian who spent more than 60 years at the state university.

Did anyone hear about this? It’s on the White House website — it seems like an initiative to help manage and coordinate emergency operations by faith-based organizations, but why is it under “homeland security?” Shouldn’t it be under FEMA or something?

Executive Order: Responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security with Respect to Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

I just learned a new handy thing. You can change the font size of anything you are reading on-line by holding down control,right clicking on the mouse and turning that wheel up or down making the font bigger or smaller. I think it is great.