Christmas visits

Our Christmas visiting is now done. My parents came by Christams eve and stayed through Christmas afternoon on thier way to Hilton Head and we headed up Williamsburg the following day. Up there we visited with Jason and Katherine, Pam and Erik, and Heather's Dad, Margeret and her kids. We had a great visit with all. Although the weather threatened our travels to Williamsburg on Monday it was quite nice the rest of the time. In fact yesterday it was warm enough to take the kids to the park for a couple of hours.

We're now back home and ready to get back to our routine.

Here's to wishing everyone a great 2005!

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing all a peaceful and spiritual Christmas day. Our prays are with all those who for what ever reason are not able to spend this day of joy with thier family.

God Bless

(If you're inclinded visit our Christmas page.)

Joshua doing great now that his cast is off

Well it only took three hours to get Joshua's cast off. About 5 minutes to cut the cast off, 2 minutes to pull out the pins, and 2 hours 53 minutes of waiting.

He did very well through it all. He is supposed to keep is arm in a sling for about another week and will have a follow-up apointment in mid January.

Here's hoping you have a safe holiday...

Joshua gets his cast off

Tomorrow Joshua gets his cast off. Considering that he's already back to running around and pounding his sister just about whenever he feels like it he'll be back to his old self basically immediately. Poor Hannah, not that she's had a three week reprieve from the tyranny of her baby brother, it may take her a while to adjust to his new mobility.

Wish her luck!

Christmas Page is up

Visit our Christmas page for a sampling of family photos from throughout 2004. Don't worry it's the highlights only! ;)

Happy birthday, Hannah!

Hannah’s 6th birthday was this weekend. I’ll try to get a couple of pictures up on-line in the next couple of days. I drove her and a van full or her friends to Frye’s skating rink Saturday for the party. We came through with only one major accident, a forearm buckle fracture. Otherwise I think all the kids had a great time. The grandparents were here to see her in the Christmas Cantata Sunday and drop of a singing Christmas toy (Thanks Mom).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pink presents in my life. One of the standout gifts was “Pete the repeating Parrot”. And Josh loves the Pony Castle, so apparently there is something other than cars and trains he finds interesting!

Change in direction

OK, call me chicken but I've decided to change the tone of this particular blog. It's going to focus more on everyday stuff having to do with me and my family. I've set up a second blog which will continue to be overtly political which I won't necessarily have linked directly to my home page. Why this change you may ask? I do a lot of volunteer web development and while I don't mind people knowing what my political views I'd rather not be in their face about it, if you know what I mean. Additionally if it's a just cause I don't really care whether the entity consists of liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans, I figure the bottom line is it's a worthy cause. So from now on this space is probably only going to be of interest to me, my family, and the closest of friends.

It's been fun.

Best regards,

Jwmullis

Who should be stepping down?

I heard Norm Coleman calling for Kofi Annan to step down today over recent developments in the U.N. Iraqi oil for food scandal. Aside from the fact that the U.S. itself had a fair amount of involvement in this program (if not more than Anon himself) it’s ironic that a Republican senator would call for Annan’s resignation when there hasn’t even been an indictment yet they are willing to change their own rules to keep indicted members of their own party in leadership positions.

License to Kill

“Tort reform” is all fine a good but the debate as posed by conservatives assumes that only plaintiffs and their lawyers are capable of greed. Unfortunately greed is also possible in the companies they are trying to protect.

The basic problem with limiting rewards is it places a fixed price on human life and suffering. This gives corporations in effect a “License to kill” in that they have a clear picture of the maximum retribution they stand to receive for issuing deadly fatal products. Not only does limiting potential damages reduce a company’s incentive to recall and remedy known faulty products it encourages cutting corners in respect to the safety of new products. For instance if a $5 part will statistically prevent 1,000 deaths corporations now can look at a known maximum legal cost for 1,000 potential deaths. If the cost of the $5 part comes close to or exceeds the legal cost a company motivated more by profit than safety will leave out the part. The company know that most likely 1,000 people will die due to this decision, but due to fixed damage limits the company has a license to kills these individuals in pursuit of greater profits.