The year was 1994. (Or around there. It was a long time ago!) As usual, I was watching MTV. The program was Beavis and Butthead, in which two animated adolescents watch and comment on music videos.

It was then that I first heard the song that I would often refer to as “the worst song I’ve ever heard”.

Fast forward to summer 2006. I still can’t get the song out of my head. That’s right. After hearing this song once, it’s been periodically playing in my head for 12 years.

I found the CD on Ebay and purchased it, hoping that hearing the song again would act as some kind of antidote. But I’ve only made things worse.

The group: Midi, Maxi, and Efti. According to this web site (I don’t read Swedish, so I’m guessing), they are a Swedish group, originally from Ethiopia.

The song: Bad Bad Boys. A dancy number, sung in slightly slurred accented English.

The lyrics: moronic.

Hi. It’s me, if you know what I mean.
I said it’s me. My name is Efti and I want you to see
That positive people live longer.
Don’t be negative. Just be positive.

Yeah, uh-huh
Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh
Yeah, uh-huh
Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh

And now, for your enjoyment, Bad Bad Boys.

Why won’t this song leave me alone?

Andrew Sullivan nails Bush for being Clintonesque, here.

I think what you have to do is think of George W. Bush’s [”the United States does not torture”] statement in the same light as Bill Clinton’s famous declaration that he had not had “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky.

The irony piles up when you consider the political climate at the time of the Clinton statement.  Seven months after his declaration in January of 1998, he ordered the launch of cruise missiles on a location in Afghanistan in an attempt to kill Osama bin Laden.  He was accused by many of his political opponents of attempting to distract the American people from his own scandal.

And really, how dare he?  Why should the public have been concerned about bin Laden when we needed to find out just what the President did with that intern?

Also, check out Sullivan’s article in the Sunday Times for his take on election season strategy.

Sadly, Sleater-Kinney played their final show last month. I’ve only been a fan for a few years, but for me, this band was the standard-bearer of pure rock. With their final album, The Woods, they had evolved from a late-Riot Grrrl act into something much more expansive. Dare I say, the Led Zeppelin of their time?

Here’s a clip of their performance of “Jumpers” on Letterman.

Over Labor Day weekend I was able to spend a lot of time working on the shed project. As you can see in this photo I’ve poured the concrete for the front four footings for the deck. Admittedly, I didn’t get as much accomplished over the weekend as I wanted to. I would have liked to have completed all the footings, but there were a few mishaps.

By late Sunday afternoon, I had spent most of my time lining up the fiber forms for my footings and getting them level. I was just about to tear open a bag of concrete when I noticed it wasn’t concrete at all, but sand mix. Now sand mix is fine for holding a couple of rocks together on a small rock wall, but it won’t support a deck. Why did I buy sand mix? Well, the bag is about the same color as the bags of concrete, except the sand mix is 40 pounds whereas the concrete bags weigh 60 pounds. I guess I was looking at the 40 on the bag instead of the contents; I thought I would spare my back an extra 20 pounds. Well, no such luck. Having realized my mistake before I made it much worse, I loaded my six bags of sand mix into the car and called it a day. I would have to wait until Monday to exchange them at Home Depot.

Speaking of Home Depot, what’s up with those flat carts there? It seems like every cart I choose has a square wheel. I always sound like a drum corps coming down the aisle. People stare, but it’s happened to me so many times that at this point I take pride in making my cart bang as loud and rapidly as possible.

My second mishap was that I may have slightly sprained my ankle. Fortunately, Sharyl was there to fix me up with an ice pack and an Ace bandage. Those Ace bandages are amazing. I don’t understand how wrapping my ankle up could prevent it from aching, but it worked. I was able to get out there Monday and work anyway.

The plan now is to have the other footings installed by Friday or Saturday. Once the footings are dry, I’ll work on building the frame for the deck. It may take some time to get the frame square and level, but afterwards, the pace of this project should pick up dramatically.

One of my favorite classes back in high school was Logic with everyone’s favorite teacher, Mr Barber.  What could you possibly learn about in a year long class about logic?  Well, when he told us lengthy and fascinating stories about how the universe was collapsing on itself (not true) and about little boys who were eaten by their pet ponies (not true, either), he taught us to be skeptical and to be wary of people who might try to deceive us. 

We also learned about logical fallacies.  Things like ad hominem attacks, correlation implies causation, and a very popular one with politicians, the straw man.

To use a straw man argument a person presents a deliberately distorted interpretation of their opponent’s position.  They refute this bogus position.  And then pretend that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.

Let’s look at an example:  This misdirection is very popular with the White House these days.  Here’s Vice President Cheney in a speech given Monday:

I realize, as well, that some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. But the exact opposite is true.

Now does anyone really claim that?  I’ve never heard that, and I follow this Iraq thing pretty closely.  In fact, it seems like a downright silly suggestion since terrorists didn’t leave us alone before we invaded Iraq.  It’s true that quite a few people have said we should withdraw from Iraq. But I’ve never heard anyone suggest that withdrawing would put and end to terrorism against Americans.  It sounds like we’ve found a straw man argument.  Here’s another: 

I realize that some in our country claim that Vice President Cheney is a mechanized-hearted zombie who walks the earth feasting on the souls of innocents killed in war in order to maintain his life force.  But I just think he has a misguided foreign policy.