New Comics

I've re-ordered and added two comics to my list on the side.  They are still in order of favorite.

Garfield and Over the Hedge were the two that were demoted.  I think Garfield is simply funnier in my memory than it is in reality.  As for Over the Hedge, I've just been disappointed for the last couple of months, so I had to knock it down.

I've also added two.  One is the Pajama Diaries, which is another one about families with young kids (like Baby Blues), but this one is more mother focused than family focused.  I discovered it while I was in my Women's Pysch class, which made it all the funnier. I've wanted to have it on the daily list, but I never found a place that updates it daily until this last week.  I've also added Gill, which is a new webstrip by Norm Feuti.  It has only run a couple of weeks, but as far as I'm concerned any strip of Norm's is bound to be gold.  Gill is last on the list right now because it's new, but it'll be moving up after a chance to prove itself.

How stupid do you think I am

I heard the following quote yesterday on a Degree Clinical Protection commercial:

1 out of 4 people think they sweat more than the average person.

I'm sorry, but this is one of the lamest statistics I have ever heard, and I follow political news. First off, there's the whole "think" aspect to this study.  There's no diagnostic tool applied, just a personal survey.  Then on top of that there is a statistical fallacy.  This statistic implies that the average person is a median, not a mean.  When using a median for an average by definition 50% of people are above and 50% of people are below.  Therefore, 2 out of 4 people sweat more than the average person by definition.

All in all, a totally lame and insulting technique of hocking your wares.

Sorry it has been so long since I posted anything. Haven't had much to say I guess. Here is something I'm working on for my father-in-law. I figured I'd use my own blog to see how well it worked.

Trying out a Hulu embed

I've become a big fan of Hulu (after all, they have the full collection of Arrested Development for free), and for no reason other than the fact that I can, I am embedding this:

value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/O7keIO3wHnahN_qJHeQI2Q/94/116">

Fa-reekin' Ridiculous

Found this article today:

Quebec girl goes on class trip after taking father to court

 By Matt Reeder

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Quebec father has decided to appeal a decision by a judge who ruled he had no right to stop his 12-year-old daughter from going on a school trip, even though the girl has already gone on the outing.

The dispute began in May when the girl had a disagreement with her stepmother. That prompted the father to forbid the girl to go on a three-day outing with her classmates to celebrate their last year in elementary school. The girl then moved to her mother's house.

The parents, who live in the Gatineau region of Quebec, are divorced, and the father has legal custody.

Last week, Quebec Superior Court Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier ruled the girl could attend the outing despite her father's wishes. She went on the trip this week.

Kim Beaudoin, a lawyer handling the father's case, said the judge's ruling raises unsettling questions for families.

"It's dangerous to let kids play their parents. They have to learn to respect rules," Beaudoin said in an interview on Thursday.

Beaudoin said her client feels the judge had undermined his authority over his daughter.

"He doesn't think a judge should be allowed to take away a punishment," she said. "And he doesn't think another parent should be allowed to say 'Well, come live at my house, and you won't have to live that punishment."'

Miriam Grassby, a family law attorney in Montreal, said it's not that simple.

"In Quebec, even if a parent has legal custody, both parents retain parental authority," she said. "If one parent has custody, the parents still have to make the decisions jointly."

The girl's lawyer, Lucie Fortin, maintained on Thursday that she exhausted all other avenues - including negotiating with Ms. Beaudoin - before presenting the petition to the court.

"This trip will not be possible next year," said Ms. Fortin. "It's the end of elementary school. It'll never come back. It's once in her life."

She also said it is an isolated case, and disagreed that the ruling would open the door for other children to rush to court whenever parents try to punish them.

"It's very, very rare," she said, adding that she finally decided to present the petition to the court last Friday because the girl's trip was planned for Monday

Ms. Beaudoin is preparing to file a formal appeal.

(Editing by Frank McGurty)

Despite how rare this situation might be to have any judge remove the punishment of a parent that is not abuse is outrageous.  It doesn't matter if kids  can't do this in our legal system, it builds on the message that the government is better at raising our kids then we are.  Which is the most dangerous ideology that exists in the world today.

I'm way overdue

After the flurry of comments I received over the weekend (thanks Dad and Kendra), I realized that I ought to finally post some thoughts over here.

Here's something funny, I actually cited myself from this blog for a paper I handed in this last semester.  I'm not sure how wise that was, but I got an A in the class so I figured it was fine.  I did the story about Spencer wearing a tiara in from of the A/C repairman.  I wanted to use the story for a paper, and I liked the way that I wrote it for the blog, so rather than put it in word for word and risk having it get picked up by one of those online plagiarism checkers, I just cited myself.  An idea to any college students out there.

Also, yesterday I gave my first lecture (of what I hope will be many throughout my life) on marriage relations to a church group.  I was invited in as a guest lecturer for the Elder's Quorum.  I based my discussion on the four predictors of divorce identified by Dr. John Gottman.  For anyone wondering the four predictors are:

1. Criticism: Turning complaints about a thing or situation into an personal attack.

2. Defensiveness: Denying your own problems when they're raised by bringing up unrelated problems

3. Contempt: The conscious decision that you are better than your partner, and disregarding all opinions he/she holds.

4. Stonewalling: Unwilling to engage in any discussion about problems though any means of communication (verbal or nonverbal), or disengaging from an argument using the same technique.

I took conference talks and Ensign articles to show that the Brethren have been saying the same thing for decades.  I think that it went well.

Soapbox Moment

On Friday morning I parking in the Institute parking lot at UNT and found various empty beer bottles and cans strewn all over our parking lot.  The Institute is surrounded by a bunch of old crappy town-homes that are filled with guys, so it isn't really a surprise. 

Of course I cleaned them all up, after all, you never outgrow your Aaronic Priesthood responsibilities.  I just have to ask whatever happened to teaching people respect.  We teach that we're supposed to be tolerant and open-minded, but somewhere along the way we missed the lesson on not dumping your trash into the church parking lot next door?