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Showing posts from August 7, 2005
WTC audio . I still cannot listen to this without tears in my eyes. The desparate calls from dispatch to Field Com is heartbreaking. You can hear the desparation and fear in the dispatchers voice as he tries to will them to respond. They were all gone by then.
The Redemption of Shane Paul O'Doherty A remarkable story. Is any man beyond redemption? How do you go from one extreme to the other? Was his conversion genuine? How would you feel if he were your pastor?
Quote of the day: "M is the letter of the day because you're mommy and you're the birthday man." - Mr C. (age 3) to my wife
Quote of the day: "M is the letter of the day because you're mommy and you're the birthday man." - Mr C. (age 3) to my wife
eBay: HAUNTED GHOST APPARATEN ON MY WALL!! SCARY!!!!!!!! Either that or a water stain. You decide.
One Hand Clapping has much more on the bombings of Hirsoshima and Nagasaki. He has some quotes I've never heard before in support of the bombings by contemporary Japanese officials.
Microsoft in $7m spam settlement Score one for the good guys! (In this scenario MSFT is actually the good guy.) I'm not one of those tech-guys who must rail against Microsoft at every turn. I generally think they make a decent product. Sure there are some problems and they make some dumb decisions but overall not bad. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that a giant like Microsoft is bringing its considerable weight to bear on spammers. More please.
This guy makes me nuts. I've listened to two podcasts and my God, I've never heard such an endless stream of leftist nitwittery. Worst of all, he's indoctrinating foriegn students about the evils of the West, America and Capitalism. He uses the ACLU for source material. The last presidential election showed that the plurality of Americans affirmatively voted to destroy the environment. He rails against "sweatshops" used by McDonald's et al. seconds after telling us he has no facts to back that up He tells his students that wealth in the US is "distributed" He says we need a "maximum wage". I don't think he means "wage" he means "income". Rich people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump are "hoarding" money which is no different than hoarding food. People in other countries don't have money or food because people like Gates and Trump are hoarding it all. A few bright spots: He won't vote Democra
Hitchens at his merciless best: Losing the Iraq War - Can the left really want us to? By Christopher Hitchens : "For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic 'Live 8' enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn't there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable 'communities' have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable. And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame."
Sticking Up for Thimerosal . Thimerosal is the bete noire of a good portion of the autism community. Many parents blame the drug companies for recklessly endangering our children by using a mercury based perservative in vaccines that they believe causes autism. These same parents often point to chelation (cleansing the body of toxins) as a cure for autism. I don't know where I come down on this one. I don't think Thimerosal is the great evil that they propose but I don't think it's a good idea and probably not too safe either. I absolutely believe the explosion in the number of cases is due to awareness and a change in DSM-IV which includes PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developemental Delay - Not Otherwise Specified). Essentially, any kid who has developmental delays can end up in this catch-all category. It is useful in that, it allows parents of said kids to receive services from the state (or others) to help them. This is known as "early intervention". My so
The New York Times has an article about autism and it's probably cause. The author is head of autism research at *ahem* Cambridge. He postulates that the cause is likely the union of two people with highly systemic brains. That is, people who tend to favor systemization over empathy. Oddly, this does not describe me or my wife yet we have an autistic child. If this is the case, why then, has there been a massive explosion in the number of autistic children worldwide? To be sure we don't know anything yet but every avenue of research should be persued. Faster please.
Zero Tolerance Makes Zero Sense . I wholeheartedly agree. Our insane view of alcohol (and drugs but that's another post altogether) has led us down a very strange path. In the cited examples, MADD tips its hand. It is not an anti-DUI organization, it is a temperance organization. They do not advocate safety but rather, they are anti-alcohol. When I was a teenager, my parents kept an eye on us but we were (ok I was) crafty enough to avoid detection most of the time. My brothers were not so crafty. I was at one party that was packed to the rafters with my classmates. The police came and kicked everybody out. The result: Now we have 100 kids getting behind the wheel after they've been drinking. I will qualify that not all those driving had been drinking and vice versa but there were a good many who should not have been driving. The height of hypocrisy was the son of chief of police who would turn his stereo up loud and drive down the main street in town while openly
Joi Ito talks about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think forgetting is not necessarily a good thing but it should be kept in perspective. History becomes most controversial (IMNHO) when the people that lived it first hand, are gone. The Shoa Foundation has made it's mission the documentation of the horrors of the holocost. Much to their credit. Kim DuToit told his son when they went to a concentration camp that someday, this will be gone and someone will tell you it never happened. I want you to look and remember so you can say you saw it. I think the Japanese (and Americans) are right to remember that we dropped the bomb but also, why we dropped it. Trivia Question: How many Japanese units surrendered in all of World War II? Answer: Zero. None. They literally fought to the death. They would have fought to the last man.
Sticking Up for Thimerosal - Read the studies—it's safe. Sorry Arthur. The jury is still out on this one. I think there are too many success stories with chelation for this to be anecdotal.
This post is fascinating. I had no idea we were scaling back our futures and contracts with Saudi oil producers. This has all been done very quietly and it started in 1991 . The trend continued unabated during both of Clinton's terms and, I suspect, will continue even further now that Iraq is producing oil for US consumption. The author does not point to any other market forces that may account for the decrease in US consumption of oil. I know China has been consuming massive amounts of oil (along with everything else) for the past 5 years. A trend that will doubtless continue for the forseeable future. What I don't know is where they get most of their oil. I imagine most of it is from the Former Soviet Union. They are also ramping up production of pebble bed reactors in hopes of reducing oil consumption in favor of domestic energy production. If they do, it's a boon for the US because the world price will drop accordingly. If, however, pebble bed reactors do p