June 04, 2007
I've got one of my colleagues at school who absolutely babies his car -- a silver sports car that flies down the road on his daily commute. I'll have to point him this direction to find him a brand new automotive toy with which to pamper that vehicle.
Yeah, that's right -- we're talking car covers here, to protect that paint job and the metal beneath it from the ravages of sun, rain, and other weather-related concerns -- not to mention the little issues of tree sap and bird droppings.
And these are not merely off the rack car covers -- each one is custom made to fit your car, to the specifications you set forth, if you so desire.
And there are not just car covers, but seat covers as well. I'm really rather impressed with the range of products and the reasonableness of the prices that they offer to the buying public.
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Columnist and author Eric Alterman has been released after being arrested Sunday night inside the debate spin room. He was charged with criminal trespass after police say he refused repeated orders to leave.Goffstown, N.H. police said Alterman was in the spin room as a guest of the Creative Coalition and went to an area reserved for a private reception for WMUR-TV. Police said he was asked by an executive at the party if he was invited to the private area and was asked to leave. A police officer was called after a verbal altercation ensued. According to police, Alterman was asked seven times to leave and became increasingly loud as he refused. After ignoring a final request, police said he was handcuffed and taken from the building.
Alterman spoke with CNN after being released. He called the arrest a “misunderstanding” and claimed he did not refuse orders to leave.
Alterman justifies his unruly behavior by claiming to have been treated brusquely and that his exalted position as a journalist didn't impress the cops enough to make them back down from evicting him from a place he had no right to be.
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June 03, 2007
Oh my!
That was my reaction when I got pointed to this site that bills itself as an online single dating site for nerds.
And when I actually dropped in to see what such a site would be like? I had a similar reaction.
Oh dear!
I guess the best comparison I can come up with is that box we used to have in the laundry room in my college dorm. You now, the one where folks tossed all those mis-matched and odd socks that came out of the dryer, in the hopes that someone would be able to make a match with a mate.
And I can only hope that the box serves such a purpose. There are some really ... unusual folks hanging out there. Some seem sort of interesting, a few seem amusingly different, others just look weird. But the nice thing about it is that it is a site that doesn't take itself too seriously, and doesn't play the meat market or soulmate game. Rather, it seems to be just a chance for folks to get together and meet -- and if something comes of it, so much the better. And as a free site, the pressure to find "the one" before the next billing cycle is not there.
So if you are that sock with a missing mate, into the box with you. After all, Its Just Coffee!
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Here are the full tallies of all votes cast:
| Votes | Council link |
|---|---|
| 2 2/3 | A Cure for “Anti-Zionism” Joshuapundit |
| 2 1/3 | No Friend Left Behind (Update) Done With Mirrors |
| 1 2/3 | Mitt the Mormon Bookworm Room |
| 1 | Reflecting On 230 Years Of Blood and Sacrifice Right Wing Nut House |
| 1 | Talking With the Bad Guys Soccer Dad |
| 2/3 | "But Isn't the Real Issue ...?" The Colossus of Rhodey |
| 2/3 | Living on $1 a Meal The Glittering Eye |
| 2/3 | Let Their Victims Come Big Lizards |
| 1/3 | Bush Defies Warming Autocrats At G8 Cheat Seeking Missiles |
| Votes | Non-council link |
|---|---|
| 4 1/3 | Sticking To What I Know Best Dr. Sanity |
| 1 1/3 | From the Mouths of Babes: Climate Analysis That Actually Works Kobayashi Maru |
| 1 1/3 | Brave Men and Demons Michael Yon |
| 1 | Why Can't a Zionist Be More Like Iran? Judeopundit |
| 2/3 | On Memorial Day Hugh Hewitt |
| 2/3 | In Response to the WaPo: What Really Matters The Moderate Voice |
| 2/3 | US Muslims and Suicide Bombings The Huffington Post |
| 1/3 | Death to Pedophiles La Shawn Barber's Corner |
| 1/3 | Changeable News Network Rite Wing TechnoPagan |
| 1/3 | Teachers Pay Raise: $430. Governors Pay Raise: $32,000. Bay Area Houston |
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Now here is a service I can really go for -- one that offers free use of video news stories AND pays you for it! That is the premise behind The News Room, which has a rather comprehensive set of video news reports available for you to mash into your website. All of them are licensed, and you make money when they are viewed -- and make more when someone else picks them up from your site and inserts it into their own. Really, think of this as a viral payment scheme.
What can you get? Well, I noticed stories on last night's Democratic debate, the latest terrorist atrocities in Iraq, Paris Hilton, and dozens of other stories that you would encounter online, on television or radio, or in your local paper. They end up looking something like this on your site.
Sort of neat -- a news brief from AP, embedded in my site with no difficulty at all! And much of the other content comes from major content providers such as Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and Agence France-Press (AFP). Think about it. You get reports from some of the best sources around, and you get paid when your readers take a look at it -- and we are talking dollars, not pennies. Cool!
Now other than money, there are some other advantages to The News Room. There are regular opportunities to receive rewards and prizes for hosting this content. You know, little things like electronics, vacations, and cars that you can earn by placing such material on your site. Imagine that -- improving the content on your website, get paid for it, and possibly get some of these little bonuses. Again, very cool!
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From his second-floor apartment at the counterculture crossing of Haight and Ashbury streets, Arthur Evans watches a new generation of wayward youth invade his free-spirited neighborhood.The former flower child was among the legions of idealistic wanderers who migrated here during the Vietnam War to "tune in, turn on and drop out."
But Evans, who has lived at the same address for 34 years, says he has never seen anything like this crowd, who use his flower bed as a bathroom and sell pot outside his window.
They're known as gutter punks, these homeless kids with dirty dreadlocks and nose rings, lime-green mohawks and orange spray-painted faces, who panhandle with cardboard signs that riff on their lifestyles. "Please Help Us Get Un-Sober," one reads. Another: "Please Give Us Weed, Beer or Money."
Sometimes aggressive, they block sidewalks as they strum guitars or bang on bongos. Gangs of them skateboard down the middle of Haight Street. Some throw used hypodermic needles into a nearby pond they call Hep-C Lake.
Evans, 64, says they should get help, clean up or go home.
"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior."
Panhandler Jonah Lawrence, 25, insists it is residents who need civilizing. "They say, 'Get a job!' " he said. "And I say, 'You got clothes for me? Or a place I can take a shower so I can look for work?' It's so bogus to tell me to get a job if I have nothing."
I'd think that an aging liberal hippie would want to help such folks out by giving them clothes and opening his home to them to shower. Instead he wants them to move on.
After all, long-haired, dope smoking, dirty, smelly ne'er-do-wells are part of the hippie tradition.
H/T Malkin
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,
Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.Ahmadinejad said last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah showed for the first time that the ''hegemony of the occupier regime (Israel) had collapsed, and the Lebanese nation pushed the button to begin counting the days until the destruction of the Zionist regime,'' IRNA quoted him as saying.
''God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a speech to foreign guests mostly from African, Arab and neighboring countries who attended ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is known as the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
This man has repeatedly said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map" and is developing the nuclear weapons to do so. Seems to me that the time has long-since passed to move beyond sanctions ad diplomacy to deal with the problem -- especially given Iranian support of terrorist cells in Ira.
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Congress is taking the lead in prodding the Bush administration, which shamefully underestimated the cost of treating the wounded. The House is sensibly budgeting $6.6 billion more than last year for veterans health care and processing claims. A series of other measures approved by the House tackle only some of the problems but point in the right direction. The Senate should act quickly on these proposals, which include:¶Creation of up to five new brain trauma research centers to create comprehensive treatment programs. This is a whole new field of intensive care prompted by the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, inflicted in roadside bomb attacks.
¶Extending open-ended care for combat veterans to the first five years after their return, from the current two years. This is needed not only because of the backlog in claims and appeals but also because of the slower-evolving nature of postwar stress trauma and other illnesses.
¶A more intensive program to contact veterans who need to know about their rights.
Nothing to disagree with here. Too bad the paper's editors are unwilling to support the troops where they most need it now -- on the field of battle.
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A high school that had warned against undignified behavior at its graduation ceremony denied diplomas to five students after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during the commencement program.On May 27, Galesburg High School students and their parents were asked to sign a contract promising to act in dignified way. Violators were warned they could be denied their diplomas and barred from an after-graduation party.
Many schools ask spectators to hold applause and cheers until the ceremonies end but few rigidly enforce the policy.
“It was like one of the worst days of my life,” said Caisha Gayles, one of the five students, who officially graduated, but does not have her diploma to frame and hang on her wall. “You walk across the stage and then you can’t get your diploma because of other people cheering for you. It was devastating.”
The school said the five students can still get their diplomas by completing eight hours of public service, answering phones, sorting books or doing other work for the district.
Uhhhh -- wrong. These kids have already earned their diplomas. They met all requirements established by the state and by the district. Indeed, you even announced as much at graduation that day when some district official announced that the graduates had met all those requirements and you called them across the stage. To impose an additional requirement after the fact -- especially based upon the behavior of other individuals rather than the students themselves -- is hardly reasonable. The actions of other school districts in removing the actual disruptive parties is much more reasonable and defenable.
And there is an additional question -- how far can a district go in denying diplomas? My district had to face that issue eight or nine years ago when a young man decided to moon the graduation crowd. Now he didn't drop trou -- he just raised his gown and shook his butt around at the crowd -- but the district tried to withhold his diploma, only to find itself open to some serious legal issues (especially since that action would have cost the young idiot an full-ride athletic scholarship). And that was for actions committed by the graduate himself, not some family member, friend, or (as one student suggested) enemy looking to cause trouble.
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June 02, 2007
It is what's wrong with this story, however, that makes it so irresponsible. The fact is that, contrary to so many predictions, Iraq has not descended into civil war. Political bargaining continues. Signs of life are returning to Baghdad and elsewhere. Many Sunnis are fighting al-Qaeda terrorist groups, not their Shiite neighbors. And sectarian violence is down by about 50 percent since December.By far the biggest problem, and the source of most of the violence reported every day, has been al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Qaeda's strategy is to foment sectarian violence by killing both Shiites and Sunnis. How come? If sectarian violence were out of control already, why would al-Qaeda have to stir it up? In fact, it is precisely fear that things will calm down in Iraq that has al-Qaeda working overtime to blow things and people up.
Al-Qaeda's penetration in Iraq is not the fault of the Iraqis, some of whom are mustering the extraordinary courage to fight back. Nor are the Iraqi people to blame for al-Qaeda-manufactured car bombs that go off in markets where Sunnis and Shiites are shopping together. According to Gen. David Petraeus, upward of 80 percent of the suicide bombers are not Iraqis. Al-Qaeda's inhuman violence, including the use of small children as "suicide" bombs, cannot be written off as just part of that whole Iraqi cultural thing, however convenient that might be for the American conscience. As for the United States, if we are driven out of Iraq, it will be by al-Qaeda, not by the flaws of the Iraqi people.
And, of course, an al-Qaeda victory in Iraq does not merely implicate the future and security of the Iraqi people -- who will then in fact be facing a foreign occupying power intent upon controlling their destiny in perpetuity.
There is another problem with the cover story. We didn't intervene in Iraq primarily to save the Iraqi people. We went in mostly for reasons of our own, to protect our interests and our allies from the menace of a serial aggressor whose domestic repression was of a piece with his desire for regional domination. And now that we are in Iraq, the United States, not just the Iraqi people, will suffer the consequences of our failure. If Iraq implodes, if the region explodes, if al-Qaeda gains a victory and a foothold in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, it will be our interests that have suffered.
In other words, getting out of Iraq without a clear and substantive victory not only allows for an al-Qaeda victoey that harms the Iraqi people, it also causes a substantive American loss that undermines the entire Middle East and, ultimately, American interests and security. Regardless of he war's popularity, America will suffer much more greatly as a nation if we accept anything less than the crushing of al-Qaeda there.
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A Christian was sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammed, and a human rights activist Friday urged Pakistan's president to spare his life.Younis Masih, 29, was arrested in September 2005 on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore after residents told police he made derogatory remarks against Islam and Muhammad.
On Wednesday, a court sentenced Masih to death under Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, which rights groups say have been misused against Christians since former President Gen. Zia ul-Haq enacted them in 1980s to win the support of hard-line religious groups.
So, my Muslim readers -- is this acceptable? And if it is, would you find it equally acceptable for a majority Christian country to create a similar law that punished blasphemy against Christianity and Jesus Christ -- say by denying that Jesus is the Son of God and declaring him to be a mere prophet inferior to Muhammad -- with death?
Somehow I didn't think so.
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I know you'd have to have a great relationship with your wife to tell this story to the whole world.
The campaign trail is not all about policy and meetings, however. We have had quite a few good laughs. Last week, my finance director Spencer Zwick and I wanted to make some phone calls to several potential donors. We were going to call from my hotel room, but Ann was in her bathrobe getting ready for an event. So, we went down the hall to call from the lobby. Well, Ann figured that she'd just need a minute to slip on her dress and that we could come back to the room to make the calls. So she opened the door, poked her head out and said: "Hey, do you want to come in here?" But we were now out of sight. And right next to the room in the hallway was a hotel maintenance worker. He looked at Ann, got a big grin, pointed to himself and said: "Who, me?" We're still laughing about that one.
Tell me, could you imagine this scenario happening with any of our recent presidents and first ladies -- Republican or Democrat? Could you imagine them telling this story -- and could you find it believable if they did?
H/T Race42008
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Well, Potry over at The Nose On Your Face has come up with an updated version.
One night Al Gore had a dream. He dreamed
he was walking along the beach with the LORD.This dream interrupted his dream about the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden,
so he was quite agitated as he tried to keep pace with the LORD on the beach.Anyway, across the sky flashed scenes from AlÂ’s life.
For each scene he noticed two sets of
footprints in the sand: one belonging
to him, and the other to the LORD.When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
a massive heart attack while giving a speech at a DennyÂ’s
to the six remaining believers in global warming in 2017,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
The rest is absolutely priceless -- and I encourage you to visit that fantastic site for political satire.
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Three people were arrested and one other was being sought Saturday in connection to a plan to set off explosives in a fuel line that feeds John F. Kennedy International Airport and runs through residential neighborhoods, officials close to the investigation said.The plot, which never got past the planning stages, did not involve airplanes or passenger terminals, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the arrests had not yet been announced.
Law enforcement officials said the plot may have involved a former airport worker, as well as a former Guyanese goverment official, according to WNBC-TV NewsChannel4Â’s Jonathan Dienst, who first reported the story.
Details were to be given out at a 1 p.m. news conference.
The pipeline takes fuel from a facility in Linden, N.J., to the airport. Other lines service LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
The arrests mark the latest in a series of homegrown terrorism plots that targeted high-profile Amerian landmarks.
Say what you will about the Bush Administration, it has certainly done a successful job of stopping terrorist attacks in this country by taking them seriously and running down every lead. Too bad the Clinton Administration didn't do the same following the 1993 WTC bombing -- if they had, 9/11 would never have happened.
Question -- how long until we start hearing Dems tell us this was not a serious plot, that this unfairly stigmatizes Muslims, and that the plot is all Bush's fault anyway?
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President Bush took on opponents of immigration legislation again today, accusing some of them of fear-mongering and prodding members of Congress to act despite their worries of a backlash at home.While not saying so explicitly, some people “certainly allege or hint that probably the best way to deal with 11 to 12 million people is to get them to leave the country,” Mr. Bush said, referring to estimates of the number of illegal aliens in the United States.
“That’s impossible,” Mr. Bush went on. “That’s the kind of statement that sometimes happens in the political process aimed to inflame passion. But it’s completely unrealistic. It’s not going to happen.”
The president said the time for comprehensive immigration reform is at hand, with a sweeping bill emerging in the Senate, and with the House expected to take up a bill next month. “This is a good piece of legislation,” he said of the Senate work in progress.
Mr. Bush favors immigration reform that calls for more secure borders, allows for a guest worker program and offers illegal aliens an eventual path to citizenship.
Unfortunately, what most of the GOP base wants is the promised fence, border enforcement, and a road back to their home country for the border-jumping immigration criminals. I talk to Democrats all the time who want the same thing -- but we all seem to be ignored by the Kennedy-Bush axis in favor of amnesty.
Maybe that has a lot to do with the need to lay off the staff of the GOP fundraising call center.
Or posts like this one on blogs that generally favor the GOP.
But sometimes I'm just an old softie at heart. Like, for example, earlier today, I went over to GOP.com to give the Party a quarter, because I figured they might need it to call someone who cared. There's a saying, "even a whore has her pride," and so it is with the GOP. They wouldn't take my quarter. The minimum donation they would accept was four quarters. Being the old softie I am, I went ahead and gave them four quarters, so now they can call four people who care.And now they know that, whatever the reason they're not getting any real money from me, it's not because I forgot about them, or because I'm just too lazy to make a donation. Now they know that I've put some thought into just how much I value their efforts out in Washington, and I went out of my way to contribute accordingly.
Michelle Malkin offers this option for disaffected GOP supporters to send in instead.
And Peggy Noonan offers this little gem in explaining why the GOP needs to start moving beyond George W. Bush immediately.
I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill—one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible.
The 2008 election is not that far away -- maybe it is time to find a leader to represent what the GOP base really believes.
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White House counselor Dan Bartlett, one of President Bush's closest and most trusted aides, said yesterday that he will resign his post in July, leaving a void in an administration that has seen a string of departures as it struggles with sagging public approval ratings.Bartlett, the father of three young children, said he will seek work in the private sector so he can spend more time with his family. The announcement came on his 36th birthday. "I've had competing families. And, unfortunately, the Bush family has prevailed too many times, and it's high time for the Bartlett family to prevail," he told reporters.
With twin three-year-olds and a six-month-old, it is not unreasonable for a guy who has worked for Bush since he was a 22-year-old fresh out of college to decide that the time had come to move on so that he doesn't lose any more time with his family. Besides, this is a time period when many two-term administrations have seen folks move on in a different direction -- why should this administration be any different?
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Hillary Clinton's campaign might want to keep a dictionary handy when their candidate's out trolling for support.The Democratic presidential hopeful pitched a technology plan to Silicon Valley executives in California Thursday, with the misspelled message, "New Jobs for Tommorrow," plastered in large white letters on a banner behind her podium.
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be spell check -- and firings.
It's a good thing the sign didn't include a misspelling of potato -- it might have derailed her entire presidential campaign.
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June 01, 2007
The man with a dangerous form of tuberculosis who flew to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon was identified yesterday as a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer. Department of Homeland Security officials said he re-entered the country from Canada when a customs agent let him pass despite knowing that the man was being sought by health authorities.Congressional investigators, who will be holding hearings on the way the case of the man, Andrew Speaker, has been handled, say that the border agent at the Plattsburgh, N.Y., border crossing with Canada decided that Mr. Speaker did not look sick and so let him go.
Russ Knocke, press secretary for the Homeland Security Department, would not confirm the agentÂ’s rationale for releasing the man, saying only that the case was under investigation by its internal affairs and inspector generalÂ’s offices.
Who else is being admitted to the country by low-level employees who decide that the watch-listees don't seem dangerous? It is enough to make one question our entire border security system -- oh, that's right, we don't have one anymore.
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Something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch.
The Loch Ness monster is back — and there's video. A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland's most mysterious lake."I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water," said Gordon Holmes, the 55-year-old a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.
Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.
"I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen," said Shine, of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake.
Holmes said whatever it was moved at about 6 mph and kept a fairly straight course.
"My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years."
How long will it take to debunk this one?
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A woman who lost a court battle to change her religion from Islam to Christianity suggested she might leave Malaysia rather than stay without the right to practice the religion of her choice, her lawyer said Thursday.Malaysia's highest civil court on Wednesday rejected Lina Joy's appeal to have the word "Islam" stricken from her national identity card. The verdict was seen as a blow to religious freedom in this ethnically diverse country made up of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs.
"I am disappointed that the Federal Court is not able to vindicate a simple but important fundamental right that exists in all persons: Namely, the right to believe in the religion of one's choice," Joy said in a statement released through her lawyer, Benjamin Dawson.
"The Federal Court has not only denied me that right but (denied it) to all Malaysians who value fundamental freedoms," she said.
Sadly, the international community has remained silent on this case. There has been no statement from the United States government, nor has the UN spoken out against this violation of human rights. Have we, as a planet, become so dhimmified that our leaders will not speak out in support of a fundamental human right for fear of inciting the Muslims?
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Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would--
(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or
(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States; and
(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United States which would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or other agreement.
This was adopted unanimously by the US Senate -- 95-0. Ands as I look at the text, I find 65 co-sponsors -- including Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, among other liberal Democrats.
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My wife and I have had the same furniture since around the time we got married. I mean just about all of it -- dining room, living room, bedroom. It is getting a little worse for wear in some cases, though we have done our best to keep up with it. Still, we talk sometimes about what we would like our next house full of furniture to look like.
I mean, let's talk about the living room furniture for a moment. We definitely need a new sofa -- and my wife has her heart set on a sectional sofa this time around, preferably one with a chaise. We are unlikely to go for leather furniture, though, both due to aesthetics and the fact that we have an indoor dog who could damage the leather with her claws.
The bedroom furniture? Well, she really would like a sleigh bed, though perhaps that isn't as practical as it was when she was more mobile. Me? I'd like to get us a couple of twin or full beds so that my tossing and turning does not disrupt her sleep by setting off her ache and pains but still allows us to share the same bedroom.
And, of course, there is the home office furniture. One piece has to stay -- Dad's old marble roll-top desk that he and mom bought in Asia 20 years ago. However, a new computer desk that harmonizes with it, and some comfortable desk chairs would certainly be appreciated by both my darling wife and I.
Of course, I am talking about a pipe dream right now -- but someday, maybe sooner than I expect, we will make the change.
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May 31, 2007
The government cut in half its estimate of economic growth in the first quarter, reporting the slowest rate of expansion since the end of 2002.Before todayÂ’s numbers were released by the Commerce Department, it was clear the economy was downshifting from the rapid 5.6 percent expansion of the first quarter last year. But the new data reinforced how significant the slowdown has been.
Growth advanced just 0.6 percent, compared with an initial estimate of 1.3 percent. IThe chief reasons for the revisions were adjustments to the estimates of imports and business inventories. Imports, which subtract from the gross domestic product, were stronger than the government first thought. At the same time, businesses cut production and accumulated smaller inventory stockpiles.
Despite the adjustments to the growth figures, inflation in the first quarter was essentially unrevised. Prices excluding food and energy, a measure preferred by the Federal Reserve, advanced by 2.2 percent in the first quarter, still above what the central bank has said it considers acceptable.
While there is still optimism among economists, I'm sure that continued bad-talking of the American economy can produce a recession in no time --and will certainly do so if the policies proposed by the current crop of Democrats running for the White House get adopted.
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11:55 PM
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No, I want to write a novel. Science fiction, in particular. yeah, that's right -- I'm one of those geeky guys. And no, I'm not talking about the sort of thing written by Heinlein or L. Neil Smith, weighted down with political meaning and philosophy backed up with good story-telling. No, I just want to write something fun and pleasurable to read. I think the best word for such a book might be "escapist literature."
The problem is that I don't know where to begin. Heck, it is a lot different than writing this blog, with its relatively short component pieces. I'd need to plot out a story develop some good characters, and then actually get around to writing the darn thing!. That sounds like a heck of a lot of work to me.
Now I just came across a website that claims to be able to teach me how to write a book in just 28 days. What's more, it claims that I can do this while writing only one single hour a day -- and in bursts of no more than five minutes. Frankly, I find such a claim intriguing. I'm also intrigued by the money-back guarantee if you don't have a publishing contract within three months.
Why don't you drop by WriteQuickly.com and take a look -- and then tell me what you think.
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11:50 PM
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U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.
The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.
Will we abandon the Iraqi people right as those most opposed to us are coming over to our side -- and as we are seeing more and more operational success against the enemy?
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11:43 PM
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DD, Well, I still flash back to that speech nearly a quarter century ago when i see stuff about this site for hypnosis downloads And what's more, the folks at Instant-Hypnosis.com really want you to try their material. Their offer? Two free hypnosis sessions for you! And since all sessions come with a money-back guarantee, you do not pay a thing for any session with which you are not completely satisfied. That, my friends, is a sign of confidence in one's product, being prepared to give up every penny with the assurance that one's customers will be happy enough enough to stay with the program in the future!
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Now, the genocidal Sudanese government has an entry in this category. Let's call him Khartoum Karl.Karl -- a.k.a. John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington -- held a news conference at the National Press Club yesterday to respond to President Bush's new sanctions against his regime. In his hour-long presentation, he described a situation in his land that bore no relation to reality.
Genocide in the Darfur region? "The United States is the only country saying that what is happening in Darfur is a genocide," Ukec shouted, gesticulating wildly and perspiring from his bald crown. "I think this is a pretext."
Ah. So what about the more than 400,000 dead? "See how many people are dying in Darfur: None," he said.
And the 2 million displaced? "I am not a statistician."
Khartoum Karl went on to say that, all evidence to the contrary, his government does not support the murderous Janjaweed militia. "It cannot happen," he said, "so rule it out." As for the Sudanese regime itself: "We are the agents of peace, people like me, my colleagues who are in the central government of Sudan."
What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.
"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.
A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world."
"I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way."
Personally, I'm willing to give up my soda fix -- it isn't particularly good for me. i wonder, though, how my Coca-Cola swilling spouse would respond to this development? I suspect she would be in the streets demanding massive retaliation.
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04:34 AM
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, 
),
A man who may have exposed passengers and crew members on two trans-Atlantic flights earlier this month to a highly drug-resistant form of tuberculosis knew he was infected, and had been advised by health officials not to travel overseas.The man flew to Paris from his home in Atlanta on May 12 for his wedding and honeymoon, even though health officials told him they “preferred” that he not get on the flight, he said in an interview published today in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Days later, while he was in Italy, he was contacted by officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and was told that he had a rare and potentially virulent form of the disease and should turn himself over to Italian health authorities immediately.
Officials of the centers said at a news conference today that they had begun to make arrangements with the Italian authorities to isolate and treat the man in Rome. But instead of cooperating with the plans, the man traveled to the Czech Republic and took a flight from Prague to Montreal.
He said in the published interview that he did that in the belief that he had been put on a no-fly list and would not be allowed to board a flight bound for the United States.
From Canada, he drove to the United States, and then turned himself in at a tuberculosis isolation hospital in New York City.
This is precisely the sort of entitlement-fueled arrogance that allowed the AIDS epidemic to spread -- the idea that the public does not have the right to be protected against highly communicable diseases because of the purported right of the plague carrier to be free of limitations on their freedom, the rest of society be damned. Knowing that he was ill and carrying the disease, we have a guy knowingly and intentionally exposing hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people to a didease that is drug-resistant and can kill its victims.
And the ACLU wants to make such a self-indulgent "license to ill" the law of the land in America. Just look at this suit.
A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union alleges that Maricopa County officials have violated the rights of a quarantined tuberculosis patient for months by treating him as a criminal.The U.S. District Court complaint on behalf of Robert Daniels alleges health officials and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have violated numerous constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The suit asks that Daniels be housed in appropriate accommodations, rather than the severe and "inhumane" jail conditions.
"It's good news for me," Daniels said Wednesday evening. "I finally have a chance to get out of this black hole."
Robert England, the county's tuberculosis control officer, declined comment. Other county health officials were not immediately available.
Daniels, 27, has been isolated in a jail ward at Maricopa Medical Center for 10 months under court order, although he was not convicted or charged with any crime.
Linda Cosme, an attorney for Daniels, said her client has been victimized by constitutional violations. "Robert is helpless," she added. "And he's at the mercy of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He needs as much support as possible, and the ACLU is supplying that support."
Arpaio said Daniels is confined under court order, and must abide by security measures. "I run a safe jail, and he's going to be treated like anyone else," he said.
The problem is that the only facility equipped to handle such a severe health issue in that county is the secure ward. And while Daniels thinks it is good news for him that someone is trying to spring him from the most appropriate medical facility in the region, it is bad news for every person that Daniels will come in contact with in a less secure setting -- those who may die due to the disease that Daniels passes on to them.
If terrorists ever want to do a biological attack on the US, all they have to do is send in a dozen guys with Ebola. The ACLU will quickly file suit to ensure the attack is a success. After all, public health and public safety can't trump the freedom to pass on deadly diseases.
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Guess what? Earmarks are the hallmark of Democrat pork-barrel spending. Not only that, but they want to hide it from you.
Sailing into majority status by running against the GOP “culture of corruption,” which included charges of widespread abuse of earmarks, Democrats have since turned their backs on promised reforms and instead have adopted rules that guarantee a continuation of the practice.In the House Appropriations Committee, Chairman Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., has made it clear that anonymous earmarking will continue, as will the practice of including the extra spending in the House-Senate conference report — behind closed doors with no debate whatsoever on the efficacy of the earmark while the bill is under consideration on the floor.
Obey’s arrogant response to questions about abandoning a major campaign pledge of the Democrats? “I don’t give a damn if people criticize me or not.”
Guess what, America -- they didn't mend it, they didn't end it. Obey and the rest have said "Screw you" to the American people. There's no better example of that than the refusal to condemn Jack Murtha's threats against a GOP colleague for exposing his earmarks to the public.
Turn them out in 2008 -- and elect real conservatives who have been acting to end earmarks.
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On May 25, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney participated in a 23-minute interview on Radio Station WBAI. The hosts asked her about the possibility that she may seek the Green Party presidential nomination in 2008. She said, “With the failure of the Democratic Congress to repeal the Patriot Act, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Tribunals Act, I have to seriously question my relationship with the Democratic Party. The idea has not been ruled out. All the current Democrats running for president support the principle of potential military action against Iran; none of them is for impeachment of the President. They can’t speak for me. I am open to a lot of ideas in 2008.”
The Hit & Run blog over at Reason.com offers these questions.
Remaining questions:1: Would McKinney get more or fewer votes than Nader did in 2004?
1a: Would the Libertarian candidate actually win fewer votes than her? Her? Really?
2: Would a McKinney candidacy make the LP look, by the mainstream media's lights, like the serious third party?
My answers?
1. More.
1a. Probably -- she takes all the right positions for the netroots, and the LP voters can't stuff a real ballot box like they do for Ron Paul in online polls.
2. No -- because the MSM actually likes McKinney, while they find the Libertarians insufficiently socialist -- though they do like the stuff about legalizing pot and prostitution.
Perhaps we can get a Cynthia/Cindy ticket in 2008 -- I doubt that Cindy Sheehan can keep herself out of the limelight more than two or three weeks and this would get her a platform.
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i guess I've gotten a little more interested in the whole topic of cyber-bullying in the last few weeks, since a couple of my colleagues had MySpace accounts opened in their names -- one rather funny, one pornographic, and one accusing a respected educator of pedophilia. The sites have all been wiped out, but it got me to thinking in a new way about how my students can be bullied on-line.
It is therefore somewhat fortuitous that this evening I was asked to take a look at material on cyber-bullying from the Kamaron Institute. I had not realized how widespread the problem really is -- 18-49% of students in grades 4-12 may have been the victims of online contact designed to deliberately and repeatedly hurt, taunt, ridicule, threaten or intimidate them.
The Kamaron Institute has created a webpage designed to help parents, educators, and others deal with cyber-bullying. In it, there are links to all sorts of good resources, including lesson plans for teachers like me. There is also a glossary of terms related to cyber-bullying, so that responsible adults have the vocabulary to begin talking about the problem.
And in what I consider to be the most important feature, and one that I wish they played-up a little bit more, they also offer ways of tracing the cyber-bullying to its source, which will greatly enable victims and their families to put a stop to the victimization of the innocent.
Overall, I'm pleased by what I see -- I just wish there was more of it, given the problem that bullying of all sorts creates for young people.
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As the demographics of America have changed, so too has the nature of pet ownership. It used to be that most pets were bought by families. Now, the majority of pet owners, 61 percent, are childless—singles, unmarried couples waiting to have kids, gay couples, empty-nesters. Invariably, these owners tend to treat their pets like surrogate babies, and they spoil them accordingly. To help these childless pet-parents spend their disposable income, the pet products industry has mushroomed in the past decade. This year we’ll shell out more than $40 billion to keep our furry friends fed, adorned, amused and healthy—the latter a huge growth category, with more and more owners paying top dollar for elaborate medical treatments to forestall that inevitable last visit to the vet. By the end of the decade, we’ll be spending $50 billion on pet products, according to the APPMA. Walk the aisles of Petco or PetSmart, past the Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses for your dog and the $140 Catnip Chaise Lounge for your cat, and you’ll discover just how well-trained we Americans have become. “I don’t know who’s been domesticated: the animals, or the humans?” says Jeff Corwin, Animal Planet’s globetrotting wildlife biologist.
Let's be honest here -- the adorable ball of fur pictured above is our child -- to the point that folks are surprised to find that my wife and I don't really have any kids (unfortunately). And my students are amused by the (small) framed picture of our pampered pooch on my desk. However, we are nto quite this goofy.
Some 56 percent of dog owners and 42 percent of cat owners buy their pets Christmas presents. Pets can listen to their own Internet radio station (Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” is one of the more popular songs on DogCatRadio.com), post their pictures and make play dates on dogster.com and catster.com, and earn frequent flier miles on United. They even have cell phones now: PetsCell is a bone-shaped telephone that attaches to your dog’s collar and allows you to ring him up (sorry, incoming calls only). And there’s a new beer for dogs (from Amsterdam, no less), called Kwispelbier, which is Dutch for “waggy tail” brew. The recent scare over tainted pet food has made feeding your animal a pricey proposition: I’ve switched Samantha to “holistic” kibble and wet food, hormone-free chicken strips and handmade cookies from a local dog bakery, along with the occasional whole-roasted chicken that we share for dinner. She also gets dried pig hearts, which cost $5 apiece (those, we don’t share).
Still, we do get Carmie the best of vet care, and ensure that she has good food and plenty of treats. And if she is getting a bit chubby, what can I say -- she is 11 years old, which would put her somewhere in her mid-70s if she were a person. It's OK that she has lost her girlish figure.
And the adoration of the canine is certainly preferable to this sort of disgusting display.
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For all I complain about blocked websites at school, I can't argue that some sort of internet filter and/or firewall is necessary when you are dealing with kids. Let's be honest -- even the most innocent end up places they shouldn't, so parental control of what is accessible is a must.
That is where FilterGuide.com comes into the picture. The provide parental control software reviews for you, so that you can learn which of the many services out there is the right one for you and your family. There are so many choices out there – some with definite “point-of-view†biases – so you need to make sure you get the right one.
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The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday it is suing Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Co., claiming it secretly flew three of the CIA's terrorism suspects overseas, where they were tortured.The cases involve allegations of mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian citizen, in July 2002 and January 2004; Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen, in May 2002; and Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian citizen, in December 2001.
Mohamed is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Britel in Morocco; and Agiza in Egypt, the ACLU said in a news release.
Mike Pound, a spokesman for Englewood, Colo.-based Jeppesen, said company officials had not seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment. He said Jeppesen, a subsidiary of Boeing Commercial Aviation Services, provides support services, rather than the flights themselves.
"We don't know the purpose of the trip for which we do a flight plan," Pound said. "We don't need to know specific details. It's the customer's business, and we do the business that we are contracted for. It's not our practice to ever inquire about the purpose of a trip."
What next -- lawsuits against the companies that fueled the planes? How about against any company that manufactured a part for the plane? Or better yet -- lawsuits imposing individual personal liability against each and every employee of the companies in question?
Dismiss the suit, disbar the lawyers -- and by the way, lock their terrorists clients away forever if not longer.
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12:59 AM
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I love my wife's perfume, almost as much as I love her. It is called Crush, and I have to tell you -- in the couple of years she has used it I have come to understand how a cat responds to catnip. Meeeee-oooowwwww!
You can get it and more over at SendMeScent.com. Their selection is unbelievable -- and they have something to bring out the feline in everyone.
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John Kerry spent $1.4 million more than federal rules allowed during his 2004 presidential bid, primarily on customizing two campaign planes, according to a draft audit by the Federal Election Commission.If the commissioners approve the staff findings at a meeting Thursday, KerryÂ’s campaign could have to repay the overspending to the U.S. Treasury, since his unsuccessful general election campaign was funded by tax dollars.
In order to receive the public funds, Kerry, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, and his running mate, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, agreed to spend $74.6 million or less on their general election campaign against President Bush.
Of course, Kerry aides object.
Marc Elias, a lawyer for Kerry-Edwards, says the campaign stayed within the limits and accused the commission’s auditors of taking “an unsupportably aggressive view of the law.”
Yeah -- we wouldn't want to aggressively enforce teh law against a Democrat, would we.
By the way, when it comes right down to it, he either over-spent or he didn't. What do the numbers say? Exactly what the auditors claim. Maybe Kerry just wants them to use fuzzy math.
But then again, he's just a gigolo, everybody knows...
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May 30, 2007
Looking for online backup? The check out IDrive-E. They have a phenomenal deal there on Online Backup services -- 2 Gigabytes free, $4.95 a month for unlimited online storage. Good grief, if only I had known and availed myself of the service before my hard drive crash last spring! I wouldn't have lost all of my materials for my college course, or my wife's extensive collection of graphics that she uses for her crafting projects. Indeed, I still regularly get asked if I've backed up her stuff -- because she has a fear of losing so many graphics that she had spent years collecting.
Imagine if you were running a business, and lost everything. Say goodbye to your accounts receivable spreadsheets, your other financial records, and your crucial correspondence that you've been keeping an eye on. Imagine the lost good will with customers as orders went unfilled and leads went unanswered. It would be enough to put the small businessman out of business -- or worse. So seriously, you have got to take a look at getting some Online Backup now. And now, you can even create and manage multiple accounts for small business -- making IDrive-E an even better service for you.
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The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such cases. The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at the same management level, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.
The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.
And you know what -- the dissenters were correct -- the ruling ignores workplace realities. however, so does the statute in question, and judges are supposed to be bound by the statutes they examine. They are not a super-legislature which corrects the bad judgement and faulty craftsmanship of the lawmakers.
Captain Ed puts it very well -- and I wish i had written these words.
And the response to that for the Court should be: Write better laws. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to rewrite poorly-constructed legislation. Congress obviously intended for a short window of opportunity for these complaints, for whatever reason they had. The Supreme Court follows the law, unless the law is expressly unconstitutional. Fine-tuning dumb laws and badly-written legislation isn't the purview of the Court, but rather the responsibility of Congress.Obviously, Congress needs to revisit this piece of legislation. Thankfully, we now have a Court which forces America's elected representatives to do their job, primarily by refusing to legislate from the bench. This gives hope that the last fifty years of judicial legislation have come to an end.
I hope Congress revisits this statute quickly and corrects the flaw in it. That will allow justice in the future, though it cannot undo the injustice caused by their previous sloppy work.
UPDATE: Why am I not surprised that the New York Times wants the court to serve as a super-legislature?
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Malaysia's top civil court Wednesday rejected a woman's appeal to be recognized as a Christian, in a landmark case that tested the limits of religious freedom in this moderate Islamic country.Lina Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, had applied for a name change on her government identity card. The National Registration Department obliged but refused to drop Muslim from the religion column.
She appealed the decision to a civil court but was told she must take it to Islamic Shariah courts. Joy, 43, argued that she should not be bound by Shariah law because she is a Christian.
A three-judge Federal Court panel ruled by a 2-1 majority that only the Islamic Shariah Court has the power to allow her to remove the word "Islam" from the religion category on her government identity card.
In other words, in order to exercise her human rights, Lina Joy must get permission from religious authorities whose own religious legal code forbids leaving the faith -- and imposes the death penalty on those who try. Incredible!
And here is what Lina Joy faces when she approaches that religious court.
In practice, Mr. Teoh said, Ms. Joy, who was born Azlina Jailani, will have a very difficult time getting the Islamic authorities to allow her to leave Islam. No one in recent years has done it in the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, where Ms. Joy is registered, he said. Those who have tried have been “threatened and cajoled,” Mr. Teoh said.
Indeed, part of what has happened to those who try is that they are imprisoned in religious prisons where they are subjected to great pressure to renounce their new faith as a condition of release. But maybe -- after several years of imprisonment for her faith -- the court will let her go. But we know what the public demands of apostates in the Muslim world -- we've sen it too many times.
Perhaps most distressing is this quote from the judge who wrote this abominable decision.
"You can't at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another," Federal Court Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim said in delivering judgment in the case, which has stirred religious tensions in the mainly Muslim nation.
A pity that this pathetic excuse for a jurist is not familiar with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 18.Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
This principle is a fundamental, essential human right. Will the international community speak out against this atrocity against religious freedom? Will the American government act in defense of this fundamental human right? Or will the world, once again, kow-tow to the barbarism that is Islam?
H/T Jawa Report, Michelle Malkin, Sundries Shack, 7.62mm Justice, Absinthe & Cookies
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Interested in living in Miami Beach or South Beach? Those are some hot places to live, no doubt about it, surrounded by beautiful people and a beautiful environment. But how to find new home in one of the hippest places in America today?
You need a good information. And if you are after South Beach Miami real estate, the best way to find it is to start accessing the MLS listings for the area. Oh, and you need a good real estate agency -- which is where South Beach Investment Realty can be a great help to you. With the help of SBIR, you can find the place you want -- whether we are talking condos, houses, or even places in luxury retirement communities. SBIR has agents with expertise in all of these areas, and so they can get you settled in the just the right place, because there really is no place like home.
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