Yabutt

Jim mentioned the other day that I say, "Yeah, but..." a lot. As in this type of exchange:

"I'll be so glad when I don't have to practice cello every day."
"Yeah, but you'll have to practice every WEEK."

"Movie prices are going up."
"Yeah, but I don't mind that as much as the concession prices."

He has proceeded to tell me, every day since, how many times he, himself, has said it. And I realized just about any topic can lead to a yabutt.

So here are some Yabutts for today.

Main News Story: Family sits by bedside of daughter in coma, only to discover it isn't their daughter after all.

It's easy to understand how this happened. The coroner's office accepted the identification of acquaintances of the two girls who got mixed up. No tests were done to confirm identity, and the parents of the girl who died didn't want to see her battered body.

Yeah, but how can parent sit by the bedside of this girl, touch her, look at her, and then watch and hear her for several days after she wakes up, without knowing it's not their child? She'd been in the coma for several weeks, so most of her external wounds should have healed enough that once her eyes were opened, once she started struggling to communicate, they should have figured it out sooner.

Of course, it's always easy to say something like that from way over here. I mean, I joke that when my daughter is playing soccer, the only way to distinguish her from three other players on the field are her pink shoes and the number on her back.

Yeah, but that's at a distance with them moving. Close up, even battered, there's NO WAY I'd mistake them. Even at 10 years old, my kid has scars and moles that make her unique.

TIME magazine reports this week that the personal savings rate in 2005 was -.04%, the first time since 1933 that the average American's spending exceeded disposable income.

Yeah, but it's not that "the average American's spending" etc. It's that "the average of all Americans' spending." Half the people made more than they spent. I hate misleading statistics.

TIME also reports that there were 726 gay and lesbian members of the military discharged in 2005 for breaching the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Yeah, but it's estimated the U.S. spent $200 million to recruit and train replacements for those discharged members.

*Crickets*

I just don't know what to say about that. Its stupidity seems outrageously obvious. Our soldiers don't have armor or enough bodies to fight this war in Iraq, but hey, at least no one is staring at their asses!