She bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband. A few days later, her grown daughter was ill and asked her to pick up something. So she got a box of Mucinex-D for her daughter. Oops. Those two purchases put her in violation of Indiana law 35-48-4-14.7, which restricts the sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or PSE, products to no more than 3.0 grams within any seven-day period. Police got a warrant, came to her house, and arrested her.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Granny arrested for buying cold medicine
Yet another innocent victim in the government's misguided War On (some) Drugs:
A wordsmith leaves us
RIP to William Safire, the language maven of the New York Times. One of his books is always on my bedside table.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Does getting spanked make kids stupid?
On the CBS Early Show just now, they were talking about this study.
OK, everyone take a deep breath and repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation
One possible hypothesis is that spanking a child somehow lowers that child's IQ. That's the idea that the news people seem to be taking away from this study. I haven't read the actual study, that may even be what the authors think. But it's never safe to assume that the mass media are accurately reporting the results of a scientific study.
Please take a moment and consider this alternate hypothesis: IQ is largely hereditary, and less intelligent parents are more likely to resort to corporal punishment.
OK, everyone take a deep breath and repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation
One possible hypothesis is that spanking a child somehow lowers that child's IQ. That's the idea that the news people seem to be taking away from this study. I haven't read the actual study, that may even be what the authors think. But it's never safe to assume that the mass media are accurately reporting the results of a scientific study.
Please take a moment and consider this alternate hypothesis: IQ is largely hereditary, and less intelligent parents are more likely to resort to corporal punishment.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wisdom from Dilbert
My new favorite quote: "When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it." Sounds almost like an al-anon slogan, doesn't it?
Monday, September 21, 2009
President Obama: Baseball Commentator?
President Obama was on five different talk shows this weekend... something no other president has ever done. Maybe he did it because he had something important to say. But I wouldn't know, because I watch WRAL's news. And apparently, based on WRAL's coverage, the most important thing he had to say concerned the Yankee's chances of winning the World Series.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
First harvest
First harvest
Originally uploaded by gerald_belton
We moved in to the new house in June, and one of the first things I did was start a garden. Today the first produce from that garden was ready -- cowpeas, aka blackeye peas. I got a little over a pound (after shelling) from 20 square feet of garden. There are still a bunch left that aren't ready yet. If they ripen before the frost hits, there will probably be another pound.
An afternoon of geocaching and benchmark hunting
Saturday afternoon I wanted to do some caching, but I also needed to get my car inspected and the oil changed. It turns out that Jiffy Lube has free WiFi, so I fired up GSAK and loaded some waypoints into my laptop. When my car was done, I started with the nearest waypoint:
FY1903 WITCH
An easy benchmark to get started. It's at the edge of the parking lot of a restaurant supply company. Someone has painted a big arrow on the pavement, making it hard to miss. (Incidentally, I realized at this point that I had forgotten my digital camera. I was stuck making photographs with my Blackberry.)
The datasheet says it's flush with the surface... but I had to clean a half-inch of dirt off it. The datasheet also says it's marked "WITCH," but it actually says "WITCHY."
Next on the list were a couple of geocaches. Two quick park n' grabs in the same parking lot.
GC14A06 Pole Position
GCIW18T At the Crossing
After signing those two logs, it was on to search for a benchmark. FY1904 FRASIER. The last recovery for this one was in 1977, and the NC Geodetic Survey reported it as DNF in 1994. The coordinates are "Adjusted" so they should be spot on. And they place it right in the right-turn lane of N. Duke St. All of the reference points mentioned in the description are gone. I can only conclude that the mark was destroyed when Duke Street was widened, sometime between 1977 and 1994.
FY1905 CARVER was a pleasant surprise...I was looking at the NGS datasheet, and not the logs on geocaching.com. The 1994 recovery note says "mark is now recessed 8 inches below the ground." I was expecting to log a DNF because I wasn't equipped to dig, but I found it at the bottom of a hole in the ground.
After a couple of benchmarks and a couple of microcaches, I was ready for a bigger geocache. One where I could leave a trade item and take a souvenier. On to GCTYX4, named in honor of one of my favorite ex-Presidents. The container was big enough to leave something, but I didn't... everythig inside was a soggy mess and smelled of mildew. But it was a nice spot to visit, and a good hiding spot.
I looked for two more benchmarks, FY1906 and FY1907, both of which seem to have been lost to the widening of North Duke Street.
My final geocache of the day was part of the Caches for Wolves series: GC18QP6. This was yet another log-only microcache, but it was fun finding it. It was hidden in a way I had not seen before.
It was nearly time to head for home, but I had one more stop to make on the way home: FY2936 CASH. I had attempted this one once before, but using the GPS built in to my Blackberry. The description says it's "flush with the surface of the ground" but I couldn't find it. Armed with a better GPSr, and a long screwdriver for probing in the ground, I was hopeful of making a recovery.
Most of the reference points listed in the description are gone. There is no fence and no house. But the mark on the utility pole is still there.
And another mark has been painted on the road:
FY1903 WITCH
An easy benchmark to get started. It's at the edge of the parking lot of a restaurant supply company. Someone has painted a big arrow on the pavement, making it hard to miss. (Incidentally, I realized at this point that I had forgotten my digital camera. I was stuck making photographs with my Blackberry.)
The datasheet says it's flush with the surface... but I had to clean a half-inch of dirt off it. The datasheet also says it's marked "WITCH," but it actually says "WITCHY."
Next on the list were a couple of geocaches. Two quick park n' grabs in the same parking lot.
GC14A06 Pole Position
GCIW18T At the Crossing
After signing those two logs, it was on to search for a benchmark. FY1904 FRASIER. The last recovery for this one was in 1977, and the NC Geodetic Survey reported it as DNF in 1994. The coordinates are "Adjusted" so they should be spot on. And they place it right in the right-turn lane of N. Duke St. All of the reference points mentioned in the description are gone. I can only conclude that the mark was destroyed when Duke Street was widened, sometime between 1977 and 1994.
FY1905 CARVER was a pleasant surprise...I was looking at the NGS datasheet, and not the logs on geocaching.com. The 1994 recovery note says "mark is now recessed 8 inches below the ground." I was expecting to log a DNF because I wasn't equipped to dig, but I found it at the bottom of a hole in the ground.
After a couple of benchmarks and a couple of microcaches, I was ready for a bigger geocache. One where I could leave a trade item and take a souvenier. On to GCTYX4, named in honor of one of my favorite ex-Presidents. The container was big enough to leave something, but I didn't... everythig inside was a soggy mess and smelled of mildew. But it was a nice spot to visit, and a good hiding spot.
I looked for two more benchmarks, FY1906 and FY1907, both of which seem to have been lost to the widening of North Duke Street.
My final geocache of the day was part of the Caches for Wolves series: GC18QP6. This was yet another log-only microcache, but it was fun finding it. It was hidden in a way I had not seen before.
It was nearly time to head for home, but I had one more stop to make on the way home: FY2936 CASH. I had attempted this one once before, but using the GPS built in to my Blackberry. The description says it's "flush with the surface of the ground" but I couldn't find it. Armed with a better GPSr, and a long screwdriver for probing in the ground, I was hopeful of making a recovery.
Most of the reference points listed in the description are gone. There is no fence and no house. But the mark on the utility pole is still there.
And another mark has been painted on the road:
The datasheet mentions a dirt driveway... it appears to have been paved but not moved. Given all of this data, I have a pretty good idea of where this mark should be. But lots of probing with the screwdriver failed to locate it. It's either been destroyed or buried. If I ever get a metal detector this is going to be one of the first places I use it.
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