More anti-immigrant legislation. This time it's in Egypt.

 
No date with the blond-mom tonight. We'd had a tentative date scheduled but she had to stay home w/ the kids as the ex had something he had to do. No big deal. I figured I'd come home and work out. Did I do that? No, I surfed the internet.

However, I did find a pretty funny blog by some guy who is a lawyer in NYC. He admits to being a jerk (e.g. posts about fat people) but in a way that's what makes him funny. His blog lacks permalinks so i can't link directly but I thought this was pretty funny....

I was talking to the girlfriend last night:
Me: "Hey, how's that girlfriend of yours who just got married?"
She: "Good, but her husband has erectile dysfuntion and pops Viagra like crazy."
Me: "I had a friend who had ED. They prescribed Slim-Fast for his girlfriend."
She: "You're such an asshole."

 
Hypocricy by politicians isn't surprising. Still, this post at Powerline makes a good point.

 
Yes, that is an odd fact.

 
Erin O'Connor has another post demonstrating what university administrators really believe the primary role of a university education to be.

That diversity programming, training, and hiring is not one of the first things to go when colleges and universities are feeling economically pinched--that, indeed, they seem to have a higher priority on campus than offering enough classes and keeping those classes small, should lay to rest any doubt about whether education or social engineering matters more on campus today.

See this and this as well.

 
Third Date. My date with the blond-mom went well. There still seems to be more awkwardness than I'd like, but I think that may be a product of our three dates being spread out over such a long time period. If we keep seeing each other (and I think we will) the frequency will have to increase or we'll never get anywhere. More details later.....

 
"The terrorist Woodstock in Iraq." Yes, we're losing soldiers in Iraq but it's either fight them in Iraq or wait for them to hit New York again. Tim Blair points out (as have others) that Iraq has become a central meeting place for our enemies. That works to our advantage.

 
Affirmative Action at College. One of the best arguments against lowering academic standards for blacks' entry into colleges is that logically you'll end up with black students being, on average, the worst performers at every college. That's a terrible outcome for the individuals who may fail out of elite colleges when they may have been top performers at middle-of-the road colleges. It's also terrible for blacks as a group because when other students notice that the weakest students at their colleges tend to be the black students that reinforces negative stereotype about black students' academic abilities. Some evidence from another John McWhorter article in City Journal .....

As University of California at San Diego law professor Gail Heriot notes, before the preferences ban, 15 percent of the college’s black freshmen undergraduates, compared with just 4 percent of whites, had GPAs below 2.0, which put them in academic jeopardy; only one black student had a GPA of 3.5 or better, compared with 20 percent of whites. The next year, after the outlawing of campus affirmative action, 20 percent of black freshmen reached the 3.5 or higher GPA level (compared with 22 percent of their white classmates), while black frosh with GPAs below 2.0 fell to 6 percent (about the same as all other racial groups). High freshmen dropout rates fell precipitously.

 
There's a nice John McWhorter article in City Journal on how hip-hop/rap music holds back blacks. Unfortunately the people who read CityJournal aren't the ones who most need to hear his message. It's an interesting read and he makes several good points...

For those who insist that even the invisible structures of society reinforce racism, the burden of proof should rest with them to explain just why hip-hop’s bloody and sexist lyrics and videos and the criminal behavior of many rappers wouldn’t have a powerfully negative effect upon whites’ conception of black people.

Sadly, some black leaders just don’t seem to care what lesson rap conveys. Consider Savannah’s black high schools, which hosted the local rapper Camoflauge as a guest speaker several times before his murder earlier this year. Here’s a representative lyric:

Gimme tha keys to tha car, I’m ready for war.
When we ride on these niggas smoke that ass like a ’gar.
Hit your block with a Glock, clear the set with a Tech . . . .
You think I’m jokin, see if you laughing when tha pistol be smokin—
Leave you head split wide open
And you bones get broken. . . .

More than a few of the Concerned Black People inviting this “artist” to speak to the impressionable youth of Savannah would presumably be the first to cry out about “how whites portray blacks in the media.”

 
The Weekend. Sorry for the lack of posts lately but there hasn't really been much to write about. Friday night I went with Cindy to see Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty. I can't remember how this movie did at the box office but I thought it was very entertaining. I like movies where the director keeps Carrey from being too zany and that seems to be what happened here.

My office building was without air conditioning all weekend so I caught up on home projects as well as getting in a fairly long bike ride every day. [Big Hill: 7 minutes 49 seconds].

I talked to the blond-mom last Thursday for about 20 minutes. I told her I'd call early this week to talk about getting together.

 
Dating Update. Nothing's happening. I think I saw a tumbleweed roll through my dating life last night.

1. Blond-mom. No contact this week since she's busy all this weekend. I'll call her cell phone tonight though and leave a short message so that she knows I'm still interested.
2. Abby - As you've probably guessed, I've given up. We still email a few times a week but neither of us mention getting together. I think I spoke to her on the phone a couple of Sundays ago. She'll always remain an enigma.
3. Jane - Fizzled out. We had a couple of good dates and a couple of so-so dates. There just wasn't enough there to sustain a dating relationship.
4. Cindy - We get together once a week or so. She stopped by last night while I was lounging on my deck and hinted at some indoor activities but I declined. We're going to go out Friday night.
5. ??? - That's it I think.

 
I think this is funny because there's a good dose of truth in it.

 
The Downside of Covered Options. About six months ago I sold an option on my 100 shares of DELL that gave the buyer the right to purchase my shares for $27.50 per share anytime before August 16, 2003. The option sold for $200 at a time when DELL was stuck at $24-$25. It turns out that the option's buyer got a good deal because DELL now trades at $31.50 yet I'm still holding the stock in my account.

The timing is good though because I need the cash from the automatic sale to pay the closing costs on my refinanced mortgage. I got in just before the rates jumped back over 6%. My new rate is 5.25% for a 30-year fixed! They're almost giving it away! A friend in Florida just got a 4.5% rate on a 15-year fixedrate mortgage. What's going to happen to housing prices if rates go back to 7 to 8% ?

 
Saturday's Date. I had a date with blond-mom Saturday night. I took her to a cool small restaurant in a historic part of the city that neither of us had been to before. A lot of restaurants have opened lately and I think the market is saturated. The restaurant we went to had great atmosphere, good service and good food. The one thing they lacked was customers. Saturday night at 7:30 and only half the tables were in use.

It turned out to be an excellent choice for our date. After dinner we went to a small jazz bar that has an outdoor deck with views of downtown. I was surprised that this place also seemed to be fairly empty for a nice Saturday night. Maybe something was going on in the city that I don't know about.
I thought things were going pretty well but then she asked if we could go after we finished our drinks. It was only about 9:30 so I was surprised that she wanted to pack it in so early. She said she'd had a tough week at work and was exhausted. So we left.

During the drive home she made a point of apologizing about going home early. She said she'd had a great time and that this was simply due to being so tired. She implied that with everything that had gone on the past week (travel/work/kids and probably other stuff I don't know about) that going out was difficult but that she'd wanted to have a second date so that I wouldn't think she was blowing me off.

Earlier that night we'd met in a parking lot so I had to drop her off at her car. I screwed up the 'goodnight' part and before I'd made any kind of move towards kissing her she leaned over and hugged me. Dammit. I think my body language had been (unintentionally) cold to her so the fault is all mine. Probably won't see her for a couple of weeks as she has some family stuff next weekend. She said that things should slow down after that.

Do I like this woman? I think so. Will I ask her out again? Definately. However, I'm reluctant to get involved with someone who has so little free time. I don't need to see the person every day but how can you develop a real relationship unless you spend time together?

 
I saw the movie Swimming Pool last night at one of the city's artsy theaters. I enjoyed it but it's definately not for everyone. And, the ending was disappointing.

Riding: Big Hill: 7 min 51 seconds - first time this year to break the 8 minute mark!

 
Saturdays and Goodbyes. I received another email from the blond-mom. Clearly she is not a fan of the telephone. Her email was short and to the point---Saturday is a GO.

While waiting to get my hair cut this morning I saw a picture of Jewel and realized that she and biker chick look a lot alike. Goodbye BikerChick, the bike club won't be the same without you.

 
These rules should be printed and bound with a leather cover and a copy provided to every male freshman on college campuses. They would have helped me avoid learning things the hard way.[via TowerofHubris]

 
Some Good News. I received an email from the blond-mom saying she was free for a date Saturday night. One door closes and another one opens. Or something like that.

 
Terrible News. The past two weeks I've gone riding with the local bike club and both weeks biker chick has failed to appear. I shook off the disappointment last night and rode with the 2nd fastest group. I did great for the first 20 miles or so but when our group split into two I made the mistake of going with the faster group. Basically, I got dropped and had to ride the last few miles solo. That sucks because with the group I can cruise along at 23-30 mph. Alone, I'm lucky to hold 20 mph. I thought the slower group would eventually catch me but they didn't.

Ok, that's not the bad news. The terrible news is that biker chick has gotten engaged! My friend Kelly saw biker chick at a meeting and noticed the engagement ring on her finger. Kelly wasn't able to find out any details but really, is there any detail that would matter? She's taken herself out of circulation and that's the bottom line. My prediction - an unsatisfying marriage for biker chick because she's marrying the wrong man.

BTW, I love having women friends. Kelly gave me the news and then immediately started pointing out biker chick's flaws and saying that she wasn't good enough for me etc. I'm not 100% sure that Kelly realizes that the whole "biker chick" thing was primarily a joke.

 
Update. I had a date with Jane Friday night---sort of. We started things off by going to a happy hour with some of her friends. Two of the friends were people I'd met at the previous Jane-happy-hour last month. The happy hour extended into a meal and by the time everyone rolled out of the restaurant it was too late to catch an early movie. Neither of us wanted to go to a late movie as we were both fairly sleepy from the happy hour eating & drinking.

So, we drove to a nearby video store and spent 20 minutes trying to select a movie that neither of us had seen and that both of us thought wouldn't be too awful to sit through. We finally found a movie that we were both luke-warm about and went to the check-out counter. They couldn't find either of our names in their database. Neither of us thought the movie was worth filling out paperwork for so we left.

We drove to Jane's place and watched tv and talked and sat close etc. About the time I was thinking of starting up the physical stuff Jane yawned and hinted that she was about ready to go to sleep. I think that I waited too long and she'd given up on me making any moves. Also, I think she was a little bothered by my going to the wedding on Saturday with some other woman. But the wedding was setup long ago and I couldn't back out.

As it turned out, however, I didn't go to the wedding. The woman who'd asked me to be her "date" got sick on Friday and left me a message saying that she wasn't going to be able to attend the ceremony. Great! That gave me all of Saturday to relax and get some work done around the house. But of course that's not what happened because I woke up Saturday morning with an awful pain in my lower back that lasted the entire day. It feels a little better today but I think a visit to a chiropracter is in my future. This getting old stuff kind of sucks.

 
If you're a frequent or sometime reader of Instapundit, take a look at the comments to this post at CalPundit. Envy is rarely pretty.