Or leeches.

What else can you call such folks, who could work but don't want to settle for anything less than their previous job and level of earnings? I can accept living off your assets, but this is intolerable.

But the fastest growing source of help is a patchwork system of government support, the main one being federal disability insurance, which is financed by Social Security payroll taxes. The disability stipends range up to $1,000 a month and, after the first two years, Medicare kicks in, giving access to health insurance that for many missing men no longer comes with the low-wage jobs available to them.

No federal entitlement program is growing as quickly, with more than 6.5 million men and women now receiving monthly disability payments, up from 3 million in 1990. About 25 percent of the missing men are collecting this insurance.

The ailments that qualify them are usually real, like back pain, heart trouble or mental illness. But in some cases, the illnesses are not so serious that they would prevent people from working if a well-paying job with benefits were an option.

The disability program, in turn, is an obstacle to working again. Taking a job holds the risk of demonstrating that one can earn a living and is thus no longer entitled to the monthly payments. But staying out of work has consequences. Skills deteriorate, along with the desire for a paying job and the habits that it requires.

“The longer you stay on disability benefits,” said Martin H. Gerry, deputy commissioner for disability and income security at the Social Security Administration, “the longer you’re out of the work force, the less likely you are to go back to work.”

Not only that, but it becomes harder for those who really are disabled to gain benefits.

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Kudos to Hube for pointing to this.

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Because I'm not about to drive 45 minutes to the Whole Foods nearest to us.

Homeowners, real estate brokers and builders see the natural foods powerhouse not just as a grocery but also as an engine for development. In Pittsburgh's East Liberty neighborhood, a Whole Foods is credited with triggering a revival. In Sarasota, Fla., developers say they pre-sold all 95 apartments in a condominium tower because a Whole Foods opened on the first floor. And in Washington, many trace the revival of Logan Circle and the 14th Street corridor to the opening in 2000 of a Whole Foods on P Street NW.

What makes the Columbia Heights quest pronounced -- and controversial -- is that a glistening Giant opened less than a year ago a cucumber's toss from where the Whole Foods would go. Giant's all right in a pinch, Cooper and others say, but it's no Whole Foods.

The hunger of some residents for the cachet of Whole Foods is stirring unease among working-class residents who worry they will be forced out by new affluence and among longtime retailers who are struggling with rising rents and sagging sales.

* * *

Whole Foods has received about 500 e-mails from people in Columbia Heights. Some bear messages as simple as "We beg you!" Others contain sophisticated references to the company's stock price, corporate strategy and the neighborhood's demographics. Many of the writers said they admired the company's social conscience and employment practices.

Whole Foods gets similar requests every day, said Kate Lowery, spokeswoman for the 184-store chain, which was founded 27 years ago as a natural foods store in Austin and had $4.7 billion in sales last year. "We even get e-mails from people who say 'I'm thinking of moving to a certain city but before I leave, do you have any plans to move there?' " she said.

Listen to the Clear Lake area -- build it and we will come.

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Andrea Yates and Clara Harris both did their killings within a short distance of my home. The Railway Killer took out a couple of victims near my old home in Illinois, and one not too far from my night job. So if there is one person responsible for these killings, I'm glad they are on the other side of town from where I live.

Still, I can't help but feel a chill as I read about six deaths that appear to be connected. Add to that the sexual assaults, and I fear for the safety of women I know who live in that part of town.

Houston police said this afternoon they are looking into whether a serial killer is responsible for the deaths of six women and the sexual assaults of six others in north Houston this year.

"We clearly believe that these cases are related," said Capt. Dale Brown of the Houston Police Department's homicide division.

"We are very concerned about this series of deaths that have occurred, and we have assigned a lot of resources to this investigation," added Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

The slayings occurred primarily in and around the Acres Homes area. Police said some of the victims had a history of being involved in prostitution.

A woman found stabbed to death behind a northwest Houston bar Wednesday may be the latest victim.

I hope HPD solves this case quickly, before others are violated or killed.

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A sad loss of a decent man.

Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, the unassuming billionaire who last year abandoned a race for Arkansas governor a post once held by his father died Sunday after unsuccessful treatments for a blood disorder, his office said. He was 57.

Rockefeller died Sunday morning at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences with his family present, said Steve Brawner, the lieutenant governor's spokesman.

Bone marrow transplants Oct. 7 and March 29 at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center failed to cure an unclassified myeloproliferative disorder. He returned to Arkansas on July 8 and immediately entered the hospital. The next day, Rockefeller notified Gov. Mike Huckabee that he could not continue his duties, at least temporarily.

May those who knew and loved him be comforted in this time of loss.

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Just a few more IP addresses have been made available for all of us to use.

TO THE lay observer it seems like an infinite network of computers, servers and cables stretching around the globe.

But the worldwide web is filling up. So quickly, it turns out, that programmers have had to devise a new one.

Of the internet addresses available, more than three quarters are already in use, and the remainder are expected to be assigned by 2009. So, what will happen as more people in developing countries come online? The answer is IPv6, a new internet protocol that has more spaces than the old one: 340,282,366,920,938,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000 spaces, in fact. “Currently there’s four billion addresses available and there are six billion humans on Earth, so there’s obviously an issue there,” said David Kessens, chairman of the IPv6 working group at RIPE, one of five regional internet registries in charge of rolling it out.

Every device that is connected to the internet — websites, computers and mobile phones — needs an “internet address” to locate it on the network.

When the internet was developed in the 1980s, programmers had no idea how big it would become. They gave each address a “16-bit” number, which meant that the total number of available addresses worked out at about four billion (2 to the power of 32).

But as use grew, it became clear that the old protocol, IPv4, wasn’t big enough, so a new one was written based on “32-bit numbers”. That increased the number of available addresses to 340 undecillion, 282 decillion, 366 nonillion, 920 octillion, 938 septillion — enough for the foreseeable future, Mr Kessens said.

I guess this means we can all have multiple IP addresses without putting a strain on the system.

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I'm hoping my darling wife doesn't see this story. The last thing I need is for her to start hearing sounds in the attic.

Almost immediately after Rebecca Peña moved into her house in Old East Dallas last month, strange things began to happen.

The chandelier would rattle. Once, when she was playing dominoes, she saw water begin to slosh – Jurassic Park-like – in a glass. She heard footsteps at night.

A family member suggested it was ghosts, but Ms. Peña was skeptical.

"I said, 'No, man, the footsteps are too heavy for ghosts,' " said Ms. Peña , 25, manager of a dry-cleaning business.

She thought it was more likely to be an animal.

But when she and her boyfriend took a flashlight and finally investigated the attic earlier this week, they discovered that they could definitely rule out mice.

She said the attic had been cordoned off with cloth. Beer and water bottles, a blanket and old shirts were littered about.

In short, someone had been living there, apparently sneaking out when Ms. Peña went to work and sneaking back before she returned.

She believes the intruder would jimmy the front door, walk through her living room and up the stairs.

"I work 12 hours a day, and nobody's there. My kids are in day-care," she said. "Somebody could do it and not get caught."

Could someone really get away with something like this? It looks like they may have, if the rest of the story is correct. Peñafrightened the guy out of the house, but he seems to have gotten back in. What happened when teh police came is even stranger.

When she went back in her house, she said, she thought she heard more noises coming from the attic – either the man had not really left, or someone else was up there.

According to the police report, Ms. Peña went into the attic and saw the man. She told him to leave, but he refused. She locked the door leading to the attic until police arrived, the report says.

Police said they searched the attic and found signs someone had been living there but were unable to find anyone.

Ms. Peña said that when they came back downstairs, she and the police heard more noises coming from upstairs, but a second search also came up empty.

On the advice of police, Ms. Peña had the attic door boarded up. When she left for work on Friday, she kept the television turned on.

I'm sure that there is some "public interest lawyer" preparing a suit right now, accusing Ms. Peña of violating the civil rights of the former resident of her attic. I mean, he isn't really an intruder who has been breaking and entering her house in violation of the law -- he is merely an undocumented resident willing to live in place Americans don't want to live.

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Rooting for the home team wasn't the only thing on this mascot's agenda.

A man who played the mascot for a minor league baseball team was arrested after a woman said she was fondled at a game in April.

Cecil McLaurin Amick III, 37, of Boiling Springs, portrays Reedy Rip'It, a giant frog for the Greenville Drive of the Class A South Atlantic League. He faces a misdemeanor charge of molesting.

According to an incident report from the Greenville Police Department, the woman said she and a friend were leaving their seats at West End Field when the mascot grabbed her breast in a stairwell.

Dude -- should have stuck with the peanuts and Cracker Jacks.

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Hatred of the late Ken Lay runs deep in this country -- especially here in Houston. No surprise, given his role in the Enron collapse.

One man I know said he would not believe that Lay hadn't paid everyone off and faked his death unless a stake was driven through his heart during the funeral. A woman I know said she wanted to go to the viewing and knock on his forehead shouting "Kenny -boy, are you still in there!" And I've seen outrageous internet suggestions, such as that he be strung up by his heels in front of his old office building, like Mussolini was by the Italian peasants after his death.

As a result, I think this family decision will only feed conspiracy theories.

The body of Enron Corp. founder Ken Lay will be cremated and his ashes buried in Aspen, Colo., where he died this week of an apparent heart attack, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Houston Chronicle, quoting a source close to Lay's family, said the cremation and Aspen burial had been Lay's wish because the mountain town, where he once owned several properties, was his favorite place in the world.

The Lay family will hold a private service in Aspen on Sunday for the one-time corporate titan who became a convicted felon, followed by another service in Houston on Wednesday, the newspaper said.

We're sure to hear -- was there really a body? Did he really die? Or is he living in the islands with Tupac?

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Some things transcend politics -- and whatever I think of Jimmy Carter as a political figure, I cannot help but be gratified by the example of marital love and faithfulness he and his beautiful wife have given to America.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, fresh off of a trip to Nicaragua to monitor preparations for November's elections, plan to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary Friday with a quiet day in their Georgia hometown.

In the long line of American presidents and first ladies, the Carters have the second longest marriage. George and Barbara Bush have been married for 61 years.

Jimmy Carter is 81. Rosalynn Carter is 78. They have four children and 11 grandchildren, and are expecting their first great-grandchild in September.

Friends and associates say the Carters remain as active as ever two and a half decades after leaving the White House.

"They continue to be full partners in the post-presidency to this day," said Deanna Congileo, spokeswoman for the couple. "They're continuing the work of the Carter Center, strengthening democracy, advancing human rights and ending suffering around the world."

Congileo said the Carters have no fancy plans to celebrate the anniversary _ "a quiet day in Plains," she said.

And may you share many more years of love and devotion together.

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Traditional marriage won two victories today in state courts in the United States.

First, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that the state's marriage laws were constitutional.

New York's highest court today turned back a broad attempt by gay and lesbian couples across the state to win the right to marry and raise children under New York State's marriage law, saying that denying marriage to same-sex couples does not violate the state constitution.

In a 4-2 decision, the Court of Appeals found that the state's definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, enacted more than a century ago, could have a rational basis, and that it was up to the State Legislature, not the courts, to decide whether it should be changed.

The majority decision, written by Judge Robert S. Smith, who was appointed by Gov. George Pataki, found that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples could be based on rational social goals, primarily the protection and welfare of children.

"Plaintiffs have not persuaded us that this long-accepted restriction is a wholly irrational one, based solely on ignorance and prejudice against homosexuals," Judge Smith wrote in his 22-page opinion. For example, he wrote, it could be argued that children benefit from being raised by two natural parents, a mother and a father, rather than by gay or lesbian couples.

In other words, absent a clear and convincing showing that a law violates a right, the decision on what is proper policy is in the hands of the people and their elected legislators, not the courts. This decision is important in that it does recognize that there is no constitutional bar to or requirement of homosexual marriage -- and that like ages of consent, consanguinity and other issues, the state may set reasonable limits on what marriage will be recognized. This upholds a fundamental principle of American government which is oft overlooked by those who seek social change against the will of the people.

The Georgia decision likewise is a triumph for the right of the people to control the direction of government.

In Georgia, where three-quarters of voters approved a ban on gay marriage when it was on the ballot in 2004, the top court reinstated the ban Thursday, ruling unanimously that it did not violate the state's single-subject rule for ballot measures. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the ballot language was misleading, asking voters to decide on same-sex marriage and civil unions, separate issues about which many people had different opinions.

The Georgia court saw through the semantic game which was being played by the plaintiffs in this case -- and indeed rejected an argument that amounted to "the voters of Georgia are too stupid to know what they are voting on." The clear will of three out of every four voters was to ban homosexual marriage and civil unions -- and to argue that they wee two different issues was specious.

The simple fact of the matter, ignored by the supporters of homosexual marriage (or dismissed as irrelevant) is that the people of the United States support traditional marriage and oppose homosexual marriage. The statistics make the case for me.

Forty-five states have specifically barred same-sex marriage through statutes or constitutional amendments. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay marriage, although Vermont and Connecticut allow same-sex civil unions that confer the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.

In two of those cases, Vermont and Massachusetts, the institutions as they now exist were imposed by judges who interpreted eighteenth century documents to confer rights that neither the majority of those who adopted them nor the majority of those alive at the time accepted as being contained in them.

It is important to note why these cases are in court.

With little hope of getting a gay marriage bill signed into law in Albany, advocates from the ACLU, Lambda Legal and other advocacy groups marshaled forces for a court fight.

Yes, you read that correctly -- this was a deliberate act intended to defy the will of the people as expresssed by the elected government. These groups and individuals decided that what they could not win through persuasion they would have imposed upon the people of their respective states. Dare I suggest that this should be unacceptable to Americans of all political persuasion?

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More good news from yesterday's launch of Shuttle Discovery.

Early inspections have revealed no damage to the space shuttle Discovery, NASA said Wednesday after a day of checking out the spacecraft with on-board cameras. That means that when the shuttle meets up with the international space station Thursday morning it likely won't need emergency repairs while hooked up with the orbital outpost - unlike last year's daring spacewalk fixes.

Discovery's delicate heat shield and everything else appear at first glance to be in near perfect shape, NASA officials said, although it's still very early in the analysis.

Engineers are nowhere near finished poring over 70 minutes of video that astronauts shot using an extended boom armed with a laser and cameras to inspect Discovery's delicate reinforced carbon wing and nosecone.

It took Discovery's crew more than six hours to get 70 minutes of video because they had to move the boom slowly so not to bump the fragile shuttle skin.

Looks like we may have a perfect mission -- although there is one humorous bit in all this.

The first video of the right wing of Discovery showed whitish splotches on the black coating. When Ceccacci saw that in Mission Control, he said he laughed. That's because three weeks earlier he had noticed the same splotches on Discovery as it sat awaiting launch. He said they looked like bird droppings from a distance of about 10 feet.

"We didn't touch anything if that's what you're asking," Ceccacci told reporters, drawing a big laugh.

Ceccacci said the imagery experts will study the splotches to be sure they're harmless. If that's what they are, "it'll burn up," during the return from space, he said. There wasn't enough heat during launch to get rid of the residue.

Well as they say -- shit happens.

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Enron founder and former CEO Ken Lay died early this morning of a heart attack. Lay, convicted of fraud on May 25, was facing life in pison.

The recently convicted former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay, 64, died early today near Aspen, Colo., a family spokeswoman said. Lay, convicted of fraud and conspiracy for his part in the Houston-based energy company's collapse, faced the possibility of life in prison at his sentencing scheduled for September.

Family spokeswoman Kelly Kimberly said Lay died of a heart attack.

"The Lays have a very large family with whom they need to communicate, and out of respect for the family we will release further details at a later time," a statement from the Lay family said.

Lay's pastor, Rev. Steve Wende of Houston's First Methodist Church, had this to say in a memo to the church staff.

"He and his wife, Linda, were in Colorado for the week, and his death was totally unexpected. Apparently, his heart simply gave out," Steve Wende, of First Methodist Houston said in a memo today to church staff.

Lay was the public face of Enron, a major player in the corporate world and the Houston business scene until the collapse of the company in 2001.

At Enron, Mr. Skilling was the visionary from the world of management consulting who spearheaded the company's rapid ascent by fastening on new ways to turn commodities, like natural gas and electricity, into lucrative financial instruments.

Mr. Lay, the company's founder, was the public face of Enron. Known for his close ties to President Bush's family, he built Enron into a symbol of civic pride and envy here in its hometown of Houston and throughout the financial

Yet while the media liked to focus on the friendship between Lay and the Bush family, it is often overlooked that both lay and his company were large donors to politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Ann Richards, Jack Brooks, and Bill Clinton. It is often overlooked that while the collapse of Enron came during the Bush administration, the bulk of the financial shenanigans came during the Clinton Administration and should have been caught by the SEC.

UPDATE: Jeff Skilling has no comment on his co-defendant's death.

My wife raised the uestion of whether or not Lay's family will keep the millions of dollars he still had at the time of his death. CNN's article briefly examined this issue.

Lay's family may still face the music when it comes to the barrage of civil lawsuits filed against him.

Jacob Zamansky, principle at Zamansky & Associates, a law firm that represents shareholders, said Lay's estate is still liable for damages.

"Lay's passing isn't going to have any material effect on the civil suits," Zamansky said. "His testimony is still out there."

Still, how much of the pot will be available to claimants is uncertain. Lay testified that he had lost millions after Enron's collapse and most of his estate was depleted in order to pay legal costs and living expenses.

In addition, last week prosecutors filed a motion for the forfeiture of over $180 million in assets owned by Lay and Skilling. The government is not commenting on how Lay's death will impact that move.

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Project Guttenberg and other organizations have joined together to offer hundreds of thousands of ebooks for free between July 4 and August 4 as part of their World eBook Fair. I mentioned this last month, but wanted to highlight it again since it started today.

You are encouraged to participate in The World eBook Fair, by downloading any of the 1/3 million eBooks provided here for personal use. The World eBook fair is currently scheduled for the next few July and August periods as follows:

2007 1/2 Million eBooks
2008 3/4 Million eBooks
2009 One Million eBooks

The World eBook Fair, Project Gutenberg, and World eBook Library, along with our other participants, join together to encourage you to assist in bringing many entire libraries to the general public and to encourage ever increasing levels of literacy and reading.

We hope the invention of eBooks will advance the world as much as did the invention of The Gutenberg Press, and look forward to the Neo-Industrial Revolution following the advent of eBooks, just as the invention of The Gutenberg Press undoubtedly led to the first Industrial Revolution, and your participation can help bring this new revolution in reading and libraries to the world.

We heartily thank you for visiting The World eBook Fair.

We hope you and yours will find lifetimes of reading materials to expand your horizons over the years.

I've already picked up a few offerings from Baen Books, and will be downloading some classics over the next few days. The books come in a variety of formats, and cover a wide range of fields.

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A picture perfect launch for Shuttle Discovery and the crew of STS-121.

The rain may put the damper on fireworks in Houston tonight, but the only firecracker that mattered to folks in this part of town went off around 2:38 PM local time in Florida.

With a rocket's red glare, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in a spectacular display of sound and light befitting of Independence Day.

Commanded by Steven Lindsey, Discovery and its crew of seven astronauts roared from Launch Pad 39B to begin a 15,000-mph chase to rendezvous with the International Space Station.

As Discovery raced into the bright blue sky, cheers and applause erupted across Kennedy and along the nearby beaches of Florida's Space Coast. Today's successful launch came on the third try after the first two attempts to launch were dashed by poor weather.

Now under way, Discovery and its crew set their sights on a mission to deliver equipment, supplies and an additional crewmember to the station. While docked, the STS-121 crew will test new equipment and procedures to improve shuttle safety, as well as make repairs to the station.

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Despite my earlier post looking forward to tomorrow's launch of Discovery, there may be another delay, for a more serious reason.

NASA officials delayed until this evening a decision on whether to go forward with the Fourth of July launch of the space shuttle Discovery after a 5-inch crack was found in the insulating foam on the external fuel tank.

NASA managers said they needed more time to evaluate the crack -- about 5 inches by 1/2 inch -- and will meet again at 6:30 p.m. EDT to decide whether to push ahead with the launch or delay it once again.

John Shannon, deputy manager of the space shuttle program, told reporters gathered at Cape Canaveral, Fla., that there were three considerations scientists needed to investigate further. They were: whether the underlying structure is at risk of over-heating, whether ice will form because of the crack in the foam, and whether other foam is in danger of coming off.

Shannon said ice build-up on the tank caused the crack.

"What we think happened yesterday, when we had all of that rain, we had condensation," Shannon said. "It's very cold. It froze.

Not only did the foam crack, but a piece actually fell off the flexible joint and tumbled to the base of the launch pad. While the piece is not large and is less than half the size that NASA considers dangerous if lost during launch, I have to wonder if this raises questions of she integrity of the foam on the entire assembly.

Depending on the decision, we may se a launch tomorrow -- or we could be in for a long delay.

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It looks like a July 4 launch for the space shuttle, after a second day of rain delays.

Flight controllers for the second day in a row Sunday scrubbed the launch of space shuttle Discovery, poised for liftoff beneath murky gray skies as lightning crackled and thunderstorms rumbled. NASA officials said they will try again Tuesday.

"We have scrubbed for the day," shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach told mission control at 1:14 p.m., only a few minutes after mission Commander Steven Lindsey and Discovery's six other crew members had been strapped into their seats. Launch had been scheduled for 3:26 p.m.

Leinbach said he and flight director Steve Stich conferred about noon Sunday after a clearing trend in the weather suddenly reversed, and decided two hours early to scrub the mission to provide extra time for refueling, a difficult and painstaking process. A full load of hydrogen should give the shuttle enough electricity to add a day to its 12-day mission.

Leinbach said the team will attempt to launch Tuesday, at 2:38 p.m., and Wednesday, if necessary. Bad weather is predicted for Monday, but some improvement is expected Tuesday. At no time Sunday were launch chances rated any better than 30 percent.

Should Tuesday bring a successful launch, it will mark the first time in the shuttle's 25-year history that the craft -- in effect an enormous rocket -- launched on Independence Day. John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team, called it "a great gift NASA can give to the nation."

Good luck, Discovery -- Houston is waiting for you.

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You have to love the confused thinking of San Francisco Chronicle columnist John Carroll. To his way of thinking, condemnations of the New York Times by President Bush are really appeals to anti-Semitism!

Also, the name of the New York Times contains the word "New York." Many members of the president's base consider "New York" to be a nifty code word for "Jewish." It is very nice for the president to be able to campaign against the Jews without (a) actually saying the word "Jew" and (b) without irritating the Israelis. A number of prominent Zionist groups think the New York Times is insufficiently anti-Palestinian, so they think the New York Times isn't Jewish enough.

So let me get this straight -- refering to the New York Times as the New York Times is really an act of bigotry even though the name of the paper is the New York Times. And at the same time, this appeal to hatred also scores points with members of the disfavored group because they don't believe the New York Times hews sufficiently to their beliefs. Incredible! Anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism all in a simple mention of the name of a newspaper.

Maybe he could have appealed to liberal black Democrats like Jesse Jackson by calling it the Hymietown Times once or twice.

And by the way -- my mention of Carroll's newspaper is in no way an accusation of homosexuality -- merely an accurate statement of his place of employment.

(H/T Colossus of Rhodey and The New Editor)

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