Saturday, October 20

Polls. Cats. DSL

What I just don't seem to understand is if we live in a Democracy (albeit a broken one IMO), and the opinion of "The People" are what laws are supposed to be based on, then why aren't we heard? For example, if "Eighty percent of Americans support the legal use of medicinal marijuana by patients, and 72 percent (emphasis mine) say that adults who use marijuana recreationally should be fined, but not jailed, according to a nationwide poll conducted last week (2002) by Time Magazine and CNN. Only 19 percent of respondents favored jailing recreational pot smokers.", then why ISN'T at least medical MJ legalized/decriminalized? And then you supposedly have 70% of Americans against the Iraq war according to another poll. So, are "we" the people just an insignificant populace? If those who are in a position to make what the people want happen, why aren't they?

trippy_rocky.jpgAnd here you have a very comfortable Trippy sleeping on Rocky, who is also taking a nap. By the way, they're both boys, so you see, not all male cats are combative with each other. In fact, all but one of our 8 males get along fabulously with each other. The one who doesn't (Scribbles), does most of the time. When he's feeling particularly ornery he will snip at the alpha (Celebi), but that doesn't last long.

Today we drove into town and got more lottery tickets, crackers, lunch meat, cookies, milk, and generic cola. After we got home my wife and daughter layed down for a nap. I then started a load of laundry, which is now hanging on the line. Will probably do one more load, but haven't fully decided. *grin*

And lastly, we still don't have DSL. Two technicians worked all afternoon yesterday (Friday) trying to figure-out why we weren't getting a signal from the CO where the repeater was installed. At first they didn't even show a signal coming out of the repeater, but once they verified (through the manufacturer) that it was working, but there was a 'polarity reversal' in their line between the main office and the CO, fixed that and now they've got a signal at the output side. Unfortunately, they can't seem to figure-out why that signal isn't coming all the way to our house. IMO - there's something blocking it between the repeater/CO and us, but they're going to have to check each box starting at the CO and see just how far the signal does go. The analog signal (dial-tone/phone) works fine, but the digital is wonky somewhere (obviously). *sigh* I have an e-friend in Montana who has a friend there who is 28,000 feet from his CO and gets DSL just fine. Then again, he was getting it, albeit slower, before, now he's getting 1.5Mbps, so we should be able to get it as well, yes? He didn't have any idea what repeater/anything was installed in his line though, so I have nothing other than hearsay to tell the technicians in my area of Missouri. However, the head guy told me yesterday that they aren't quitters and will keep working on it (we're the new new technology testers in our area). So, with any luck at all, next week will be our week. Meanwhile we have to suffer with dial-up speed around 26.4Kbps, but at least we're not having connection-longevity problems, so that's something. *smile*

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