How very apropos

when you think about what the words semiotic pirate would refer to if you really thought about it.

semiotic_pirate will have to write:

I will not be an inspiration to the Bush Administration

'What will you have to write on the chalk board?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I thought I was going to get something cute like skathic... Something about not being distracted by passing butterflies. Damn.

Great Newsweek Satire

Cheney Alert
The government plans to establish a color-coded system to warn of future veep attacks



By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Updated: 2:32 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2006

Feb. 13, 2006 - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced today that his department would immediately implement a “Cheney Alert” system to warn Americans if an attack by the vice president is imminent.

The Department of Homeland Security has been under pressure to respond to the widespread panic and anxiety that have gripped the nation since Cheney shot and wounded a fellow quail hunter while on a hunting trip in Texas over the weekend.

Across the country, people have holed up in their homes and hoarded food and water, fearing another senseless attack by the gun-toting vice president.

“What we have learned, the hard way, is that Dick Cheney can attack without warning,” Chertoff said. “It is our hope that with this Cheney Alert system we will be able to give the American people some warning before he strikes again.”

The alert system, with five color-coded levels indicating the likelihood of another brutal pellet attack by the Vice President, was derided by some in Congress such as Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del), who likened it to “closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.”

“The fact is, the White House already had ample warning that Dick Cheney was going to strike, and they sat on their hands and did nothing,” Biden said, referring to a Presidential Daily Brief dated February 4 with the title, “Dick Cheney Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Elsewhere, former Education Secretary William Bennett said that he was “outraged” that an NHL gambling ring has been in operation for five years and he was never invited to participate in it.

Evolution and Survival of Relationships

I thought this article could speak to those of us who aren't boomers but are still in the relationship building and nurturing business.

Marriage: Act II
For the millions of baby boomers who decide to stick it out, survival depends on 'flexibility, humor and affection.'
By Claudia Kalb
Newsweek

Feb. 20, 2006 issue - Cheryl Jernigan still talks excitedly about the night she met her husband, Jeff. It was Friday, the 13th of August, 1971—the summer of the Pentagon Papers—and the "lust," says Cheryl, "was immediate." Within two years, Cheryl and Jeff, then 21, were married. Over the years they worked hard—she in health care, he in banking—and played hard, taking biking vacations around the country and entertaining their 12 nieces and nephews. Then the double whammy hit: first, Cheryl was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 44, and last year Jeff learned he had prostate cancer. The diagnoses rocked their lives, but the couple, now both 54, has soldiered through. "We're soulmates," says Cheryl. "This has only deepened our relationship."

Baby boomers, it turns out, are not invincible. Now that their youthful rock-and- roll romances are over and the kids have grown up and taken the SAT, it's time for Marriage, Act II—and it's not always a pretty picture. The stressors that strike, from health crises to layoffs to infidelity, are emotionally and financially painful, and plenty of relationships have crumbled because of them. Boomers grew up as divorce rates surged, making the exit door more of a right than a taboo. Today, 43 percent of first marriages will break up within 15 years, according to the CDC. For those couples who do stay together, the rough times will test every ounce of commitment. Some will make peace with a new kind of relationship, where a spouse is no longer expected to be everything—best friend, lover, financial partner—and where friends and interests outside marriage provide sustenance. Others will forgive even the most egregious flaws. The key to those who succeed? "They have flexibility and humor and affection," says marriage researcher John Gottman, cofounder of the Gottman Institute in Seattle.
( Read more... )

damn you jandriel! *shaking fist*

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
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