CDC Plans Largest-Ever Study on Autism

Associated Press
October 7, 2006 12:13 a.m.

ATLANTA -- The largest federal study to date into the causes of autism was
announced Friday -- a multi-state investigation that will involve 2,700
young children.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and five other research
centers will study the youngsters over five years. The research is designed
to ferret out any genetic and environmental factors that may contribute to
autism.



"The CDC hasn't funded a study like this [before]," said Diana Schendel, the
CDC lead health scientist who is overseeing the Georgia research.

But some parents of autistic children say the CDC -- which promotes
childhood vaccinations -- is not interested in fully exploring vaccinations
as a potential cause.

"We don't want the CDC to do anything. We don't trust them," said Wendy
Fournier, president of the National Autism Association.

Autism is a complex disorder usually not diagnosed in children until after
age 3. Symptoms can include repetitive behaviors such as head-banging,
avoiding physical or eye contact with others, and communicating with
gestures rather than words.

In 2000, Congress directed federal health officials to increase research
into autism. The law prompted a series of CDC studies, including prevalence
research released in May that found 300,000 U.S. children have been
diagnosed with autism.

The new study will recruit 900 children diagnosed with autism, 900 with
undefined or other developmental problems, and 900 randomly selected
youngsters.

Those studied will be ages 2 to 5, in part because health records and
memories will be more complete, Dr. Schendel said.

That decision will limit the study's ability to assess the past impact of
vaccinations that contain the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, she
acknowledged. Since 2001, thimerosal has been removed from shots recommended
for young children.

Ms. Fournier's group suspects that ingredient is a leading cause of the
disorder, although past research suggests it is not.

Researchers will examine the medical records of the children and their
parents, and will take cheek swabs and blood and hair samples, Dr. Schendel
said.

The CDC awarded the other participating institutions $5.9 million for the
study. They are the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in California, the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Johns Hopkins
University in Maryland, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and
the University of Pennsylvania.

Until Friday's announcement, the largest federal study to focus specifically
on autism's causes was research sponsored by the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, looking at 1,000 California children ages 2
to 5. That study is still in progress.

Sciatic nerve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sciatic nerve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The sciatic nerve is a large nerve that runs down the lower limb. It is the longest single nerve in the body. Pain caused by a compressed or damaged sciatic nerve is called sciatica."

I went to visit my orthopod today and had x-rays taken. When I was recovering from my broken pelvis some 32 years ago they told me that I might have some residual pain when I got older. Since I didn't really expect to age back when I was in my 20s I didn't pay much attention. Now that I am half way through my 50s I realize that time marches on for all of us.

Anyhow, I have been in pretty severe pain the last several weeks. My doctor thinks I may being having problem with my Sciatic nerve. Who knew?

Me and Baby Harris

Nice surprise to see this pic, haven't seen it before. Such a gorgeous grandson even then. Even then he had more hair than his grandpa.

This picture was taken a couple of months after Harris was born. My first visit with my first grandchild. I do wish I could see my grandsons more often though.

Can't win for losing

Click the link to visit Tom Tomorrow's blog.

I relate - bald moments

Funniest Video Ever

Every parent (my dad will be quick to point out I was the kid in that video also) has been there.

Is the Bush administration manipulating oil prices to win elections? By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine

I am not much on conspiracy theories but I thought this was interesting. I was in the break room at work and overheard something on Fox News saying that there was absolutely no relationship between gas prices and the upcoming election. So, there might be something to the theory after all.

Is the Bush administration manipulating oil prices to win elections? By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine: "The 2006 theories are more subtle. The administration has taken steps recently to remove a marginal, but important, buyer from the marketplace. After having delayed the summer's deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the fall, the Wall Street Journal Monday reported that, 'The Energy Department will hold off purchases of oil for the government's emergency reserve through the upcoming winter.'

And then there's the strange case of how Goldman Sachs, the investment firm formerly run by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, this summer shifted the weighting of gasoline in the Goldman Sachs Commodities Index in such a way that forced investors to dump speculative positions in gasoline, hence pushing down prices. It's a convoluted story, but this article from last Friday's New York Times lays it out pretty well. (Blogger Tim Iacono makes the case here, and University of California, San Diego, economist James Hamilton provides his own description and debunking here.)"

Miracle drug of anger | Salon.com

Thank you Garrison.

Miracle drug of anger | Salon.com: "Five vexations. There are others. Pick up a newspaper and read about Congress and you will find yourself yelling at walls and terrifying the cat. Last week, Congress moved to suspend habeas corpus, one thing that distinguishes a civil society from a police state. Reaction was muted.

Then the Party of Family Values was revealed to have protected a sexual predator in its midst until finally a reporter asked some pointed questions and the honorable gentleman resigned and ran off to recovery camp: This level of hypocrisy takes a person's breath away. You thought that Abramoff, Norquist, Reed & DeLay had established new lows, but the elevator is still descending.

The power of righteous vexation is what keeps so many old Democrats hanging on in nursing homes long past the time they should have kicked off. Ancient crones from FDR's time are still walking the halls, kept alive by anger at what has been done to our country. Old conservationists, feminists, grizzled veterans of the civil rights era fight off melanoma, emphysema, Montezuma, thanks to the miracle drug of anger. Slackers and cynics abound, not to mention nihilists in golf pants and utter idiots. Time to clean some clocks. As Frost might have written, 'The woods are lovely, dark and thick. But I have many butts to kick and some to poke and just one stick.'"

This Mom Wants Tony Snow Fired

As Spock from Star Trek would say, fascinating. I am sure the demos will manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again, but it is nice on the warm October evening to at least hope for a big change next month.

By my mother calculations...Foley's investigation, prosecution, etc. should cost this country at least triple. I mean...we're talking about kids here. We're talking about protecting our kids, right? If you spent millions on the Lewinsky/Clinton affair, surely you'll spend millions MORE on something involving participants that are UNDER age. Because I know, in my heart, you moral Republicans will take care of my family, right? You'll make sure that MY family and this country's children are taken care of...at least more than some consenting tryst between adults, right? You've certainly been protecting my family and me like crazy against that gay marriage thing. Lord knows if the gays marry, my family will fall apart. So certainly, you'll protect my wee little offspring from predator Congressmen with a knack for inappropriate behavior around pages, right?

Murdocks And Sons: General Conference

Murdocks And Sons: General Conference: "You will often hear people talking about how they play for God or implying that God wanted their team to win or something along those lines and Elder Eyring played off of that in his talk. He said that in 20 years you won't remember the score of a Teacher's quorum game but if you include someone who wouldn't otherwise have been they will remember that and you will all remember whose team it was."

I wrote a comment but it didn't take so I will post it here.

And no one will care about this but me, but one of the reasons I took a vacation from church when I was a teenager was because of church basketball. Back in my day a good youth team could make it to all church playoffs. Basketball was taken very seriously, so me and my less athletic friends would spend the evening watching Star Trek.

I still think that Eyring missed the point. Not every kid aspires to play on the teacher's quorum basketball team, whether or not they play well. For a lot of men of my aquaintance, that was the first clue that they did not fit and there was no place in the church for them. Apparently to make it to the celestial kingdom one needs to have a love and talent for basketball. Otherwise, why would all of the chapels come equiped with basketball courts.

Feel free to delete this comment if you like James.

Me and John

Barbara is off to Salt Lake City for a long weekend of General Conference and family. On Saturday she and her sisters are throwing a baby shower for one her nieces between sessions of conference. Should be a busy day at the Walkers.

John and I are on our regular routine during her absence. We have already been to the mall today and made purchases at the regular stores. I like shopping with John, we go into the store, he finds what he likes, and is ready to go. For instance, at the GAP today he found two new shirts that were on sale. We were in and out in less than five minutes.



I doubt if anyone actually reads my blog, and if they do if they click on the read more link.

I think a lot of people feel sorry for me when I am alone with John, but I actually enjoy the experience. For some reason he is much easier to handle when the two of us are alone. No head banging, crying fits or public displays. We had dinner last night at IHOP and had an enjoyable dinner. It helps that our favorite server has switched over to evenings on the weekend, we might end up there again tonight.

We are totally accepting of each other, faults and all. Plus we never have to worry about keeping our end of a conversation, so we both are alone in our thoughts a lot.

It hasn't always been this way. I don't if it was because of the times I was raised, or the influence of the church where you always had to look good and in control, but the first several years with John were a real challenge. I still have nightmares of trying to keep John quiet at church. I would take him out during services and walk him up and down the hall. Invariably someone from another ward would come out and tell us to be quiet. I would then end up taking him for rides until church was over. As time went on, it was just easier to stay home from church.

One year Christmas fell on a Sunday and I thought it would be nice for the entire family to go to church. I figured that we could keep John under control for an hour service. We sat down, and John started getting noisy. A man a few rows in front of us turned around and gave us the evil eye. Barbara took John out and they tried to get the nursery open so he could play during church. Being Christmas, the classroom doors were locked, so I ended up driving John around in the van looking for something that was open while he screamed. We went back to church when services were supposed to be over. We ended up waiting in the van in the cold for another 30 minutes because the speaker decided that the best way to spend Christmas for was for him to talk. It didn't occur to anyone in my family to leave even though we were waiting outside.

I guess I sound bitter. The last straw was when Barbara was called to be the Relief Society president in our ward. The bishopric called me in to get permission. I told them that they could call her but that meant I would not longer be able to attend church. They said they could live with that.

The bishop was later excommunicated and one of the counsels a few years later shot himself in the head when he had been stopped by police. It turns out that he was a collector of child porn.

I belonged to a men's therapy group, and among other issues I worked on dealing with being the parent of a child with autism. One week I brought John in, thinking that one session with John present would be worth many hours of explanation. It was a turning point for me. First, the group told me how much they liked John. Second, they told me that they thought I was doing a great job with him.  That was a very big contradiction from what I had been hearing from people at church, and from family members. To be fair, it was what I was hearing, not necessarily what was being said.

Another turning point was when I started taking John to church at University Baptist Church here in Austin. For decades they have had a mission of reaching out to everyone. I had mentioned to the associate pastor that John and I were not comfortable attending services in our own church, and she insisted that we bring him to services there. Over the next couple of weeks, countless members of the congregation and all of the ministers made a point of welcoming us to the services. The funny thing is that for the most part John was, for lack of a better phrase, very reverent in the services.

If anyone is actually reading this, especially members of the church, I hope I haven't offended you.  But these are my experiences.  I suppose a better person would have found a way to stay active in the church.

According to LDS thelogy, when we are all gone John will be among those in the celestial kingdom.  I guess my mission in life is to take care of him while I can and hope that he visits me in one of the lesser kingdoms from time to time.

With the Party of Dobson

Another example of the wit and wisdom of Dr. James Dobson.

With the Party of Dobson: "But as Allen sought to dampen the public controversy over his mishandling of his Jewish heritage, his association with these 'Four Horsemen' simply called attention to Dobson's and Perkins's problematic utterances. Dobson's Focus on the Family, for example, published an article in its Citizen magazine last February attacking the parents of federal judge Stephen Reinhardt (whose step-grandfather was a Holocaust survivor) for telling their son 'tales of horrific violence' about the Holocaust 'that lacked the redemptive power of Christ's atonement.' The Anti-Defamation League has repeatedly condemned Wildmon for his conspiratorial diatribes against 'secular Jews.' And Perkins, for his part, paid $82,500 to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for his phone-bank list and then spoke at a 2001 fundraiser for the Council of Conservative Citizens, America's largest white supremacist organization. (When I asked Perkins about his links to Duke and the CCC, he replied tersely, 'There are no links.')"

Picture show | Salon.com

Picture show | Salon.com:

Another great column from Garrison Keeler.

But the camera can be fearfully truthful. Look at the picture of the Current Occupant, reading a speech to the troops at Camp Pendleton, wearing a zip-up jacket with little epaulets on the shoulders, a presidential seal sewn on the right breast, and on the left breast the words "George W. Bush, Commander in Chief." Is this for his benefit or that of the troops? No president ever needed to wear a name tag before. He is the first. Insecurity is written all over him. Look at Dick Cheney. No need for a name tag there.

Clinton vs. Bush: A foolish fight for the GOP to pick

There is a disturbingly strong willingness on the part of many Bush supporters to refuse to recognize even indisputable facts if those facts undermine their desire to believe that something is true. That is how, to cite just a few examples, they continue to believe that things are going well in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein really did have WMD, and that their unpopular views on war and terrorism are shared by a majority of Americans. But it is difficult to recall anything that more vividly illustrates this fact-denying dynamic than the reaction of Bush supporters to Bill Clinton's now-famous interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace.

One right-w festivals, Snowdown in the ...


Dodge - Durango
Explains how this vehicle attempts to balance size and power based on the specifications and images presented. Find a dealer or obtain a quote.


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Dodge - Durango
Explains how this vehicle attempts to balance size and power based on the specifications and images presented. Find a dealer or obtain a quote.

The terrorists have won

This American Life - Autism story

A difficult segment for me to listen to. See act two below.

Stories of unconditional love between parents and children, and how hard love can be sometimes in daily practice.
Prologue. Hard as it is to believe, during the early twentieth century, a whole school of mental health professionals decided that unconditional love was a terrible thing to give a child. The government printed pamphlets warning mothers against the dangers of holding their kids. The head of the American Psychological Association and even a mothers' organization endorsed the position that mothers were dangerous – until psychologist Harry Harlow set out to prove them wrong, with a series of experiments with monkeys. Ira talks with Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park, a biography of Harlow. (10 minutes)

Act One. Love is a Battlefield. Alix Spiegel tells the story of a couple, Heidi and Rick Solomon, who adopt a son who was raised in terrible circumstances in a Romanian orphanage, unable to feel attachments to anyone, and what they do about it. (27 minutes)
Song: "Loveless Town," Sarah Blust

Act Two. Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Dave Royko talks about the decision he and his wife faced recently about his autistic son's future, and whether he should continue to live with the family. (19 minutes)

Five years later, Richards' reflections ring true

Interesting article from today's Austin American Statesman.

"It's the first thing I thought of. The very first thing," Richards told "Eklektikos" host John Aielli that day. "This thing, (this attack), is so awful, so anxious-making, it's going to be used to (do) some things people would have liked to have gotten done a long time ago. That is: to be able to do wiretaps at will, to be able to interfere with immigration. They're going to be questioning a lot of people because of the color of their skin, or their national origin.

"Yeah, that worries me to death. I think we need to be super vigilant that we do not destroy the very tenants that this country was created for."

Just eight weeks after the attacks, Richards was thinking about what many Americans are discussing today — a governmental wiretap policy, the longterm effects of the Patriot Act, the right of Americans to speak freely in dissent.

Ann Richards and guns

One of the points in the earlier post didn't ring true so I did some research and found the following article. I clearly remember seeing pictures of Ann Richards going dove hunting.

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003539.html

I learned something new about the late Gov Richards...

Then came the anti-gun stuff. Of course, the smear machine contended, what else would this drug-addicted, feminist do, if elected, but take away Bubba's guns. So, on Labor Day 1990, capital press corps in tow, Ann Richards trekked into East Texas to a lease rented by a state senator to put everyone's mind at ease by killing some birds.

It was a charade, and everyone including Ann knew it. But she never complained. She was in the race to win, and she embraced it every day, one day at a time. Whatever came her way, she did what she had to do.

I wasn't along on that trip, but it has been recounted hundreds of times. Celia Morris gives a great recap of it in her book, "Storming the Statehouse: Running for Governor with Ann Richards and Dianne Feinstein."

The hunt was successful, meaning Ann actually fired the gun and didn't shoot anyone; she wore the appropriate clothes and refrained from doing anything too feminine like giggling. The Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston television stations showed film of the trip, and the statewide papers wrote it up dutifully.

Later in the day, something much more important happened. Something that told many of us much more about how tough Ann Richards was than whether she could fire a gun. A woman who later became a judge in Dallas County told me about this much later in casual conversation.

The last stop Richards made that day was at a mega flea market near the tiny town of Canton. Ann and the group were drawing a crowd that kept growing as they walked though the cars and tables shaking hands with voters.

As always, young girls flocked to see her. At one point she stopped to talk to them. Ann told the girls – about a dozen of them, all grade school age - that she had been Dove hunting; and that afterward, she had cleaned a few birds. One of the girls asked, "Cleaned the birds?"

Ann said something like, "Yeah, after you kill the birds, you have to pluck out all the feathers. Then, you cut them under their rib cage and stick your hand in there and pull out all the guts, so you can cook them."

The girls let out a near simultaneous cry of "EWWWWWWWWWWWWW. EWWWWW. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW."

Then came the Richards magic, as always at the most unexpected moment. Dropping to one knee, looking them in the eye, Ann responded. "EWWWWWWWW???!?! EWWWWWW?????!?"

She paused. Then, the silver-haired, bee-hived grandmother in hunting fatigues told these girls something she wanted them to remember all their lives. Ann wasn't sure if she was going to win that race, so she wanted every moment to count.

"Well," she said slowly, lovingly, "if you can't put your hand in the EWWWWWW, you can't be governor."

And she stood up, put her arms behind two of the girls and kept walking. Right into the history books.

Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican:

From Rosie O'Donnell's blog. Remember when she used to be nice? I like her better this way.
No telling if Ann Richards actually ever said this though. I do remember that she was someone who would go hunting for instance.

1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault.

2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.

3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.

4. You have to believe that AIDS victims deserve their disease, but smokers with lung cancer and overweight individuals with heart disease don't deserve theirs.

5. You have to appreciate the power rush that comes with sporting a gun.

6. You have to believe…everything Rush Limbaugh says.

7. You have to believe that the agricultural, restaurant, housing and hotel industries can survive without immigrant labor.

8. You have to believe God hates homosexuality, but loves the death penalty.

9. You have to believe society is color-blind and growing up black in America doesn't diminish your opportunities, but you still won't vote for Alan Keyes.

10. You have to believe that pollution is OK as long as it makes a profit.

11. You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.

12. You have to believe Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde were really faithful husbands.

13. You have to believe speaking a few Spanish phrases makes you instantly popular in the barrio.

14. You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.

15. You have to be against government interference in business, until your oil company, corporation or Savings and Loan is about to go broke and you beg for a government bail out.

16. You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred for AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.

17. You have to believe government has nothing to do with providing police protection, national defense, and building roads.

18. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher.

Great expectations | Salon.com

Great expectations | Salon.com: "But the deeper truth is that Clinton's tireless worldwide outreach to the business, nonprofit and government sectors -- many of whose most important players showed up for the second CGI gathering this week -- represents a profound rebuke to the policies and priorities of the Bush administration. That became obvious on the morning after the first lady's appearance, when Clinton introduced Richard Branson to make an extraordinary promise. Over the next 10 years, Virgin Airlines and Virgin Rail will devote all corporate profits, estimated at $3 billion, to research and investment in technologies that have the potential to mitigate global warming"

War Room - Salon.com

War Room - Salon.com: "Clinton on Clinton, the war and Karl Rove

David Remnick profiles Bill Clinton in this week's New Yorker. You'll have to kill a tree or two to read the entire 23-page production, but a press release from the magazine offers up some of the choicest bits from the former president:

On his role in his wife's presidential campaign: 'If she decides that's what she wants to do, I'll be for it, and I'll work for it, and I know what the deal is.'

On whether he'll be a negative factor: 'Only if people thought she wouldn't be her own person, and I don't think that will be a problem.'

On upstaging Hillary at the funeral of Coretta Scott King: 'I read about that, and I said, 'Hillary, if we both spoke at the Wellesley reunion, you'd probably get a better reception.' I said, 'You can't pay any attention to this.' I said, 'This is my life. I grew up in these churches ... You don't have to be better at this than me. You got to be better than whoever.''

On Democrats, like Hillary, who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq: 'This deal with Iraq makes me want to throw up. I'm sick and tired of being told that if you voted for authorization you voted for the war. It was a mistake, and I would have made it, too.'

On the Bush administration's plan for 'postwar' Iraq: 'The sort of thing two students of international relations could have thrown together in forty-five minutes. They were arrogant. They thought it would be easy, and they thought there would be no terrorism, that everyone would be on their side.'

On Democratic losses in 2000 and 2004: 'I'm sick of Karl Rove's bullshit.'"

Fine dining at IHOP

Had a milestone of sorts tonight. I had dinner with a friend and took advantage of the senior citizen early bird special tonight, I got my entree for free. I felt funny about it so I tipped the server the difference.

I saw the son of one of the servers I have know for years. The kid is cute, around 3, and is a failure to thrive kid. The server told his wife that I am an inspiration because of the way I handle John. Nice to be an inspiration to someone. For me it is the opposite, I am not a waiter making minimum wage and tips so it is much easier to provide for John and the rest of my family than it is for him.

I guess we all have our own challenges, some of which are self inflicted.

No Spinach

I eat a lot of fresh spinach so I am having trouble with the current embargo. Don't want to get sick of course.

AlterNet: Remembering Ann Richards

I am really going to miss Ann Richards. I saw her in person twice, once flying in coach a few rows ahead of me on a flight from Phoniex to Austin (you could not miss her white hair), and another time standing behind her at the concession stand at a local movie theater.
AlterNet: Remembering Ann Richards:

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic."

From my dad

Montana Cowboy

Montana Cowboy A Montana cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy,

"If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored.

He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy.

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give my back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says the cowboy.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep.

Now give me back my dog

Murdocks Blog Across America: John's school picture

Murdocks Blog Across America: John's school picture

Ten reasons we already miss Ann Richards

Was sad to hear this morning that Gov Richards had passed away.

Ann Richards, the famously silver-tongued and silver-haired former governor of Texas, died Wednesday from complications of esophageal cancer. She was 73. Here's just some of what we'll remember and miss about her:

1. Richards used her wit not only to disarm her political opponents but to encourage other women to get into politics: "Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics," she said.

2. As a homemaker raising four kids, Richards became politically involved by volunteering on campaigns, including helping elect Sarah Weddington, the 25-year-old lawyer who had successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court, to the Texas House. Richards called Weddington the first "out-and-out feminist activist" she'd ever met, according to the Washington Post.

3. Two years after undergoing rehab for alcoholism in 1982, Richards was elected state treasurer, making her the first woman elected to a statewide post in Texas in 50 years. Of her return from addiction, she said: "I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it."

4. When Richards gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1988 -- where she zinged the elder George Bush -- "Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth" -- she also reminded the audience that she was only the second woman to give the keynote address at the convention in 160 years. The first was Barbara Jordan.

5. Richards may have lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush in 1994, but she beat another rich Texas oilman in her first governor's race: Clayton "Claytie" Williams, who during the campaign compared rape to the weather: "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." That race was dubbed a match between "Claytie and the Lady," in which "the Lady" prevailed by a narrow margin. Sixty-one percent of women voters supported her, and she became the second woman ever to be governor of Texas.

6. As a feminist, Richards championed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Texas. She led workshops for women campaign managers and political candidates before being elected to office herself. When she became the first woman in half a century to serve as governor, she celebrated by holding up a T-shirt that showed the State Capitol and read: "A woman's place is in the dome."

7. As governor, Richards made it a priority to appoint more women, African-Americans and Hispanics to state boards than any previous Texas governor. Before she left office in 1995, she said: "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'" According to KWTX-TV she appointed "the first black University of Texas regent; the first crime victim to join the state Criminal Justice Board; the first disabled person to serve on the human services board; and the first teacher to lead the State Board of Education."

8. For her 60th birthday, Richards got a license to ride a motorcycle.

9. Late in life, Richards continued her advocacy for reproductive freedom. Appearing at a pro-choice rally in Austin in 2003, she denounced the influence of "a small group of religious right-wingers" on the Bush administration's policies and on Texas' abstinence-only sex education programs. One of her daughters, Cecile Richards, is now president of Planned Parenthood.

10. In her later years, Richards established the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, which will open in 2007. Her family requests that memorial gifts be made to the school, through the Austin Community Foundation.

There'll never be another Ann Richards, but here's hoping her school graduates generations of her successors.

-- Katharine Mieszkowski

Quote of the day

I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

Salon: Allen: My heart is pure (and sorry about that Confederate flag thing)

Gee, how could anyone take offense about the Confederate flag? This guy wants to be president, and hey, if GWB can do it, why not Allen?

Fresh off his "Ethnic Rally," Virginia Sen. George Allen told an audience of educators from historically black colleges Tuesday that he's sorry for his "macaca" moment and that he understands now -- he didn't before -- why his embrace of the Confederate flag might be a problem in the minds of African-Americans and others.

Allen used to keep Confederate flags in his home and in his office. He sported one on his lapel in college, and he included one in his first TV campaign ad. But as the Virginian-Pilot reports, Allen says now that he should have realized long ago that his embrace of the flag sent a message -- even if he didn't mean it to. "The point is, symbols matter, they should matter, and this is something that I wish I learned a lot earlier," Allen said. "Even if your heart is pure, the things you say and do and the symbols you use do matter because of the way others may take them."

Among the things that Allen has said and done? Aside from hanging a noose in this office and buddying up with the modern-day equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, he opposed both the 1991 Civil Rights Act and the idea of a holiday commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It seems that Allen didn't mention any of that in his speech Tuesday. What he did say: Calling S.R. Sidarth "macaca" came in a "careless moment" when "I fell short of my own standards, of my own positive way of living and what I strive and aspire to be."

Coming soon for the senator: "George Allen's 11th Annual Hoe Down," where $5,000 will make you a "Ranch Boss" and get you and your guests into a private reception with Allen and talk-show host Laura Ingraham, who plugs the event in an interview with Allen over what sounds like the first few notes of "Dueling Banjos."

Guns on a plane | Salon.com

Another gem from Garrison Keillor.

Guns on a plane | Salon.com: "The way to stop terrorists on planes is to encourage passengers to bring loaded firearms aboard: guys in orange vests sitting in exit rows with deer rifles on their laps, ladies with Mr. Colt in their purses, kids with peashooters. Somebody wake up the NRA. Does the Second Amendment say 'The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed except on commercial airliners'? Where is the right wing when you really need them?"

How bad is he? | Salon News

How bad is he? | Salon News: "Bush ran as a moderate, tacked right and governed ineffectually -- before 9/11. Since then he's become the most radical American president in history -- and arguably the worst."

Widow's Pique

Sometimes I wonder if she makes this stuff up. With friends like this, who need enemies?

Widow's Pique: "Dear Miss Manners:

A woman I thought was my friend lost her husband about two months ago. They had tickets to an event I was dying to see, but we just didn't have the connections she did, I guess.

Then after Tony died I figured she wouldn't be going. I called her and told her I knew it wouldn't be the same going by herself so, rather than waste the tickets, my George has a tuxedo. She seemed to appreciate my offer and said, 'And you are volunteering George?'

I went to a lot of trouble to get ready. I had my hair, nails and everything done. George rented a tux. When we went by her place to pick up the tickets, there she was in an evening dress. She thought I was going to let her date my husband!

Instead of saying she was sorry for the mix-up, she said that since she was going to be putting the extra ticket at the box office in case somebody needed it, she'd better leave. Then she put us out the door.

George says the polite thing would have been to let him just escort her. HA! I know how widows are. Inasmuch as she didn't have the good grace to let us use the tickets after we went to so much trouble, don't you think she owes us for all the preparations we made? I was so disappointed that I didn't get to attend this event.

Somebody here should be saying, 'And I thought she was my friend!' Miss Manners is only surprised to hear that it is you.

Ah, but you say that you know how widows are. They are reclusive, so that you can safely assume that they want to be left out of things, and so befuddled that it should be easy to pluck what you want from them. At the same time, they are so predatory that husbands cannot be trusted in their company.

Even words do not deter you. Any sensible person would interpret what you said as a kind offer to have your husband escort your friend to the event and your answer to her question as a confirmation. But then you also stated that your husband owns evening clothewhen he does not.

Now your idea is to dun the lady for money to assuage your suffering. Miss Manners would not advise this. Not all widows are helpless."

The Ethicist - New York Times

Interesting. This is one of the columns I read every week.

The Ethicist - New York Times: "Once a week I pick up donated bakery items and deliver them to the food bank to be distributed to needy families. One morning I helped myself to a box of doughnuts. The following week I took some cookies for my grandson; then it was a pecan pie, etc. Is this wrong? There seems to be plenty of food for the needy. Marjorie S. Desimone, Lansdowne, VA.

I see where this is going: first you swipe a few doughnuts, then it’s a whole pie and before you know it you’re shooting it out with the cops at a Sara Lee factory. It’s an old, old story. Here’s one way to think about it. Suppose you were collecting cash for this same charity: would you help yourself to a few bucks if there were still “plenty” for the needy? If it’s wrong to take a wad of $10 bills, why is it right to take a wad of doughnuts? (Do they come by the wad?) I admire your work for the food bank, but you should stop skimming pastry.

Here’s another way to think about it: If you didn’t know the answer, you wouldn’t have asked the question. It is often said that if you feel uneasy about your conduct, you’re probably doing wrong. But is that so? The proddings of the conscience are unreliable. Some people have a hypersensitive conscience and feel guilty about nearly everything. (Hence all those jokes that, in different versions, Jews and Catholics tell about themselves.) Other people do appalling things and sleep through the night untroubled. There’s no consistent calibration of the conscience; feelings are not a reliable substitute for thought. That’s why therapists flourish. And columnists proffering ethical advice."

Some facts about hybrid automobiles

Saw this in the local paper today. I didn't know the second item, about the airconditioning being different.

• The gas engines shut down when the vehicle stops to conserve fuel and restart when the driver's foot leaves the brake.
• They use electric instead of gas engine-driven air conditioning compressors to save fuel and maintain cooling when the engine shuts off at traffic lights.
• The feel of the brakes is like driving into a deep puddle of water. That's because activating the brakes also engages an electric generator in which magnets provide resistance when the brake pedal is depressed or the vehicle coasts.
• The nickel-metal hydride battery packs and their cooling systems steal space from the trunks of hybrid cars. The Camry Hybrid has a 30 percent smaller trunk than the conventional Camry, and the Civic has a 33 percent smaller trunk.

War Room - Salon.com: This just in: No evidence of Saddam-al-Qaida ties

War Room - Salon.com: "This just in: No evidence of Saddam-al-Qaida ties

It's old news to those who've been paying attention, and it will probably never sink in for those who haven't: The Senate Intelligence Committee announced today that there's no evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaida or to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi before the United States invaded Iraq.

The revelation, such as it is, comes in a nearly 400-page report on a portion of the Intelligence Committee's investigation into prewar intelligence and the manipulation thereof. As the length of the report suggests, there is a good deal of new detail here. Among other things, the report reveals for the first time that a CIA assessment in October 2005 concluded that Saddam 'did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.'"

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"Rumor once was spread by word of mouth. Now, it's done on the Internet, much faster and more damaging. It's a shame that we have come to the point that before we can believe the best or the worst of anyone we have to go to Google or Yahoo to see if there's a grain of truth in the report. Too many people don't go to the trouble to separate lies from legends before passing them on." -- A.C. Snow, columnist

Salon quote of the day

Quote of the Day

"Did you tell her I intend to kick his sorry mother fucking ass all over the Mideast?" -- George W. Bush, when told in May 2002 that Helen Thomas was questioning the need to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The quote comes from "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," whose authors note that it reveals Bush's plan for Iraq nearly a year before he invaded and even as he was saying publicly that he hoped to avoid war.

-- Tim Grieve

Dancing Grandma on YouTube

Good for her!

Our magnificent isolation | Salon.com

Smart man that Garrison Keillor.

Our magnificent isolation | Salon.com: "I don't get much hope from Democrats these days, a timid and skittish bunch, slow to learn, unable to sing the hymns and express the steady optimism that is at the heart of the heart of the country. I get no hope at all from Republicans, whose policies seem predicated on the Second Coming occurring in the very near future. If Jesus does not descend through the clouds to take them directly to paradise, and do it now, they are going to have to answer to the rest of us."

From my dad: *Raise Refusal*

For many years I worked as a receptionist and switchboard operator at
a busy company. After a good annual review, my supervisor told me I
was up for a raise, pending approval of the vice president.

A month later, my supervisor called me into his office and told me
the VP had refused to approve the raise. His reason? I clearly wasn't
doing my job.

Every time he saw me, I was either chatting with someone in the lobby
or talking on the phone.

This will make you smile

Are you too wired?

Loved this. I think I flunked the test?

Are you too wired? Eight sure signs you need to disconnect! by ZDNet's Donna Bogatin -- I recently noted that being always-on is not always a good thing, especially when it comes to your sex life! Take my quick test to see if it is time for you to turn-off the always-on button, just in time for a holiday weekend!

Podcast of the Week - Daily Giz Wiz

This is my number one don't miss podcast of the day. Dick DeBartolo is one of the long lived writers from MAD magazine. He is also a gadget freak, so what is there not to like?

---

Mad's maddest writer and The Giz Wiz, Dick DeBartolo, digs into his massive gadget collection for the gadget of the day. Released every weekday. This program is co-hosted by Leo Laporte.

DailyTech - RadioShack Employees Get the Boot Via Email

Cold man, this is very cold. Think I will take my business elsewhere.

DailyTech - RadioShack Employees Get the Boot Via Email: "It's bad enough getting fired from a job, but to get your pink slip in an email? That seems to be business as usual at RadioShack these days. The Boston Globe is reporting that 400 RadioShack employees were fired via email on Tuesday morning. The message was short and to the point:

The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

America eats its young | Salon.com

A different Garrison Keillor than you hear on"A Prairie Home Companion."

America eats its young | Salon.com: "Cutting out healthcare for one-third of the population -- the folks with Bush-Cheney bumper stickers, who still believe the man is doing a heckuva job -- will save enough money to pay off the national debt, not a bad legacy for Republicans. As Scrooge said, let them die and reduce the surplus population. In return, we can offer them a reduction in the estate tax. All in favor, blow your nose."

Bush to widow: "No point" in talking about the war

On his way to vacation at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, George W. Bush stopped at a local elementary school Thursday to meet with family members of U.S. troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. After the meetings ended, Hildi Halley, whose husband died in Afghanistan in June, said she told the president that it's "time to stop the bleeding" and "swallow our pride and find a solution."
Bush's response? Halley said the president told her that "there was no point in us having a philosophical discussion about the pros and cons of the war."

Quote for the day

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
- Dr. Seuss

True Majority: Enough JonBenet!

Last week, guess which story topped the national evening news on ABC, CBS, and NBC? JonBenet Ramsey1. Who was the big guest on Nightline and the Today Show? JonBenet Ramsey’s father. What story made front-pages of America’s newspapers, including the New York Times? You got it.

It wasn’t the war in Iraq or the tenuous truce in Lebanon, or even 10 million kids here at home who lack health insurance. It was JonBenet.

Sure, it’s an interesting mystery and a terrible murder, but under what criteria of professional journalism could it possibly merit being the top story in America last week? We’re so disgusted with “journalism” in America that we’re suggesting an action today that we’ve never suggested before.

Contact the News Anchors at ABC, CBS, and NBC, and tell them we’ve had enough JonBenet.

To sign the petition Click here.

Bush on Global Warming - Kind of

Will Ferrell - Bush on Global Warming on Transbuddha

Katherine Harris in heaven? It's more likely than the U.S. Senate

Truly crazy people in the U.S. right now.

"But the real issue is why should Baptists care, why should people care? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is all right. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take Western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God, and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong."

Harris' standing in the polls would suggest that the world is in a whole heap o' trouble: She trails Nelson by 35 points. But Harris? She's covered no matter what happens. She says there's "no question" but that she'll be spending eternity in heaven. If God ever asks her why she deserves the trip up, Harris says she'd say: "Because I loved your son and because I know he died for my sins. I know he was resurrected at your right hand and I served him. You know, we're covered with, our sins are covered with his blood and so we are blameless before him. We are as white as snow."

The Blog | Bill Maher: Why Not Impeachment? | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Bill Maher: Why Not Impeachment? | The Huffington Post: "So a judge has ruled that not only is Bush's warrantless wiretapping program illegal, it's also unconstitutional. And not just unconstitutional, but doubly unconstitutional; it violates both the 1st and 4th amendments. We're talking a smackdown of Judge Judy-esque proportions."

Videora iPod Converter - iPod Video Converter

Videora iPod Converter - iPod Video Converter

Videora iPod Converter is a free video conversion application developed by the creators of Videora. It allows you to convert your regular PC video files (avi, mpeg, etc) into the proper video format that your iPod understands.

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth: "Someone give George Bush a God damn civics lesson "

Fat Factors

Intereseting article in the NY TImes on Sunday. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/magazine/13obesity.html?ex=1313121600&en=f843a5b06faa63f8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

One thing that popped out at me, and I know it from all too personal experience, is that once you lose weight you can't go back to eating like a regular person.

This is typical of people who have lost weight — not only a lot of weight, as Janet has, but even a little weight. According to Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University who was involved in the discovery of the first human gene implicated in obesity, if you take two nonobese people of the same weight, they will require different amounts of food depending on whether or not they were once obese. It goes in precisely the maddening direction you might expect: formerly fat people need to eat less than never-fat people to maintain exactly the same weight. In other words, a 150-pound woman who has always weighed 150 might be able to get away with eating, say, 2,500 calories a day, but a 150-pound woman who once weighed more — 20 pounds more, 200 pounds more, the exact amount doesn’t matter — would have to consume about 15 percent fewer calories to keep from regaining the weight. The change occurs as soon as the person starts reducing, Leibel said, and it “is not proportional to amount of weight lost, and persists over time.”

ABC News: Film Documents Families Coping With Autism

ABC News: Film Documents Families Coping With Autism: "Aug. 8, 2006 — Autism can isolate a child from loved ones and friends.

It takes a toll on not just the child who suffers from it, but also his or her family.

Although the condition is extremely prevalent — according to Autismspeaks.org, one in 166 children is diagnosed with autism and more children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes and cancer combined — many people do not understand what it is.

'Autism Every Day' is a new documentary about the everyday life of families with an autistic child, focusing on Alison Singer, whose daughter Jodie suffers from autism."

Faith Promoting Story

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air

The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day. Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him...



Probably wasn't the same elephant.

Joke

Herr Professor Doktor Weiss' reputation was made when he conclusively proved the fraudulency of the Mayan codex that claimed to show that that ancient people knew the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter to an exactitude unknown until modern times, in his article, "Bye, Bye, Mesoamerican Pi."

Kim Komando: Getting a grip on flash drives

I have recently been hearing about flash drives. I know they are portable devices, but I was wondering how they work. And how do they differ from thumb drives and hard drives?

I'll bet you're not the only one confused by this. We have thumb and hard drives. We won't even talk about floppy and optical drives. The makers should publish scorecards.

Flash drives are also known as thumb, jump and USB drives, among others. They are all the same thing. These drives use a type of memory known as flash.

Flash has no moving parts. Instead, it is made of rows and columns. Each juncture of row and column has two transistors. One of these is known as the floating gate. The amount of charge passing through it determines whether it is a 1 or 0.

Flash has a number of advantages. For one, it's tiny. So flash is easy to slip into small places.

Flash drives can hold as much as 8 gigabytes of data. But you can easily put them in your pocket. They make transferring data between widely separated computers easy.

Flash also runs cool. So you can comfortably hold a flash drive in your hand.

Although the largest flash drives are expensive, smaller ones are not. These drives are following the same trajectory as hard drives. Capacity is growing rapidly as prices plummet.

Flash memory is much newer technology than hard drives. Most hard drives have platters that spin at 5,400 or 7,200 RPM. More expensive ones spin at up to 15,000 RPM.

Hard drives are descended from drives developed by IBM in the 1950s. So they've been around a long time. They have gotten new life in devices such as the iPod. However, flash memory could supplant them in some applications, such as laptops.

Hard drives have read-write heads that move very quickly above the platters. They occasionally hit the platters, an event known as a head crash. That destroys the drive. Even a speck of dust can cause a head crash. So all this movement has its downside.

However, hard drives can hold vastly more data than flash drives. Currently, the largest consumer hard drive holds 750GB. Compare that to flash drives, which top out at 8GB. The hard drive is not that much more expensive, either.

So, to answer your question, flash drives and hard drives don't have much in common. They both hold data. Neither is volatile, so they don't lose data when shut down. Both are relatively inexpensive. And both are small, considering their capacity.

Flash is solid state, which means it won't break. But hard drives hold a lot more information. If you're editing video, for instance, that's really important.

Life in the 1500's

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence: the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying: Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof when it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying: It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying: dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the word: threshold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence: the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone -house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a ...dead ringer.

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring!!

Educate someone. Share these facts with a friend

The Pastors Ass

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again.

The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read: BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS. This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read: NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.

The next day the headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE

The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . . . . being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery . . . and even shorten your life. So be yourself and enjoy life . . . Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

Interesting take on flag burning

What if the troops were as important as the flag?



The mathematics of pandering politics.

GIZ WIZ BIZ - all about Gizmos & Gadgets!

My new favorite podcast. I have always loved Mad Magazine and gadgets. Can't beat the combination.

GIZ WIZ BIZ - all about Gizmos & Gadgets!: "It's true, Leo Laporte, the founder of TWiT and Dick DeBartolo, The Giz Wiz, are together again!

On Monday, February 20th, we started a daily gadget podcast called THE DAILY GIZWIZ! We're on on iTunes, AOL Radio and lots of other places! We have thousands of daily subscribers already, but now we're power crazy and we want more! Monday through Thursday we talk about one new gadget each day, and on Friday's we go to the Giz Wiz Warehouse and talk about a strange or break-through gadget of the past! Join us please. I think you'll find it good fun! And each podcast is under ten minutes, so you don't have to pay that much attention! Follow this link to learn all the places were you can subscribe to the Daily GizWiz: http://twit.tv/dgw1"

SPECIAL CHILDREN WILL NEED SPECIAL DADS AND MOMS

DEAR ABBY: Years ago you printed a poem that said God sends children with special needs to special parents because he knows that they will be well cared for. (These were children with various disabilities.) I wish you would print that poem once again. I am sure it would help many parents who have a disabled child. -- FAITHFUL ILLINOIS READER

DEAR FAITHFUL READER: The poem is very moving, and I'm pleased to reprint it. It was written 50 years ago by Edna Massimilla of Hatboro, Pa., the widow of a pastor, when their daughter, a child with Down syndrome, was born. (She is now with the Lord.) When I spoke with Edna -- who is 90 -- she explained that she wrote the poem to emphasize that every creation is for a purpose, and she's still writing poems and songs especially for children with disabilities. Read on:

HEAVEN'S VERY SPECIAL CHILD

A meeting was held quite far from Earth

It was time again for another birth.

Said the Angels to the Lord above --

"This special child will need much love.

"Her progress may be very slow

"Accomplishment she may not show.

"And she'll require extra care

"From the folks she meets down there.

"She may not run or laugh or play

"Her thoughts may seem quite far away

"So many times she will be labeled

"'different,' 'helpless' and disabled.

"So, let's be careful where she's sent.

"We want her life to be content.

"Please, Lord, find the parents who

"Will do a special job for you.

"The leading role they are asked to play.

"But with this child sent from above

"Comes stronger faith, and richer love.

"And soon they'll know the privilege given

"In caring for their gift from heaven.

"Their precious charge, so meek and mild

"Is heaven's very special child."

Memorial Day Joke (Kim Komando)

ARE YOU COOKING THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND?

David, a chef, liked to relax at the zoo. In particular, he found the
sloth fascinating. He would watch it hang for hours. When a co-worker
complained of stress, David suggested he watch the sloth. Other chefs
joined in. Eventually, David arranged for all the chefs to go together.
But as they watched, the sloth fell and rolled into a moat. To the
chefs' horror, the water boiled furiously, roasting the sloth! David
quickly realized what had happened. "We should have known better!" he
shouted. "Too many cooks boil the sloth!"

Australia!: My Weekend Alone (in pictures)

Australia!: My Weekend Alone (in pictures)

Can't wait to visit Australia in June. I have always wanted to go there and it will be doubly fun to be there with Rachel and her brother Russell!

Australia!: I'm Scared of Animals

Australia!: I'm Scared of Animals

Rachel goes to the zoo and meets a kangaroo!

Me

Only adding this so I can reference the picture in my Blogger profile....

Could be Worse?

Bush Joke

President Bush recently went to a primary school in Macon, Georgia, to talk
about the world. After his talk, he asked if the children had any questions.
One little boy put up his hand, and the president asked him his name.

"Kenneth."

"And what is your question, Kenneth?"

"I have three questions:
1 ... Whatever happened to the weapons of mass destruction?
2 ... Why did you give a tax break to the super wealthy?
3 ... Did you steal votes to win both elections?"

Just then the bell rang for recess. President Bush informed the kiddies that
they would continue after recess. When they resumed, the President said "OK,
where were we? Oh, that's right, question time. Who has a question?"

A different little boy put his hand up. Bush pointed him out and asked him
his name.

"Larry."

"And what is your question, Larry?"

"I have five questions:
1 ...Whatever happened to the weapons of mass destruction?
2 ...Why did you give a tax break to the super wealthy?
3 ...Did you steal votes to win both elections?
4 ...Why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
5 ...What happened to Kenneth?"

ANNUAL NEOLOGISM CONTEST

From my dad.

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to
its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings
for common words. The winners are:

1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.) impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly
answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run
over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with
Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.) (back by popular demand): The belief that,
when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by
Jewish men.

---

The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to
take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or
changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's
winners:

1. Bozone (n.) The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign
of breaking down in the near future.

2. Cashtration (n.) The act of buying a house, which renders the subject
financially impotent for an indefinite period.

3. Giraffiti (n) Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

4. Sarchasm (n) The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the
person who doesn't get it.

5. Inoculatte (v) To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

6. Hipatitis (n) Terminal coolness.

7. Osteopornosis (n) A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

8. Karmageddon (n) It's like, when everybody is sending off all these
really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's
like, a serious bummer.

9. Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.

10. Glibido (v) All talk and no action.

11. Dopeler effect (n) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter
when they come at you rapidly.

12. Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

13. Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

14. Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the
fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:


Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an a__hole.

"Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism"

Now if this doesn't scare you....

Salon.com Books | "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism": "Still, it's worth noting that thousands of Americans nationwide have flocked to rallies at which military men don uniforms and pledge to seize the reins of power in America on behalf of Christianity. In many places, local religious leaders and politicians lend their support to AVIDD's cause. And at least some of the people at these rallies speak with seething resentment about the tyranny of Jews over America's Christian majority.

'People who call themselves Jews represent maybe 2 or 3 percent of our people,' Cabaniss told me after a January 2005 rally in Austin. 'Christians represent a huge percent, and we don't believe that a small percentage should destroy the values of the larger percentage.'"

Australia!

Australia!

Rachel goes to Australia.

Church News

"Dear Lord," the preacher began with arms extended and a rapturous look on his upturned face, "without you we are but dust..."



He would have continued, but at that moment one very obedient little girl (who was listening carefully) leaned over to her mother and asked quite audibly in her shrill little girl voice, "Mommy, WHAT is butt dust?"



Church was pretty much over at that point...

Voting Republican

 

Subject: Voting Republican

 

What You Need To Believe To Be A RepublicanWhat You Need To Believe To Be A Republican*
 

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton
 
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
 

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
 
 The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
 
  A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions                                    affecting all mankind without regulation.
 
  The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and
 combat pay.
 
  If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
 
  A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
 
  Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
 
  Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
 
  A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
 
  Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
 

  The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
 
  Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and
 you need our prayers for your recovery.

  Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born (in perpetuity.)
 
  What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
 
  Support for hunters who shoot their friends and blame them for wearing orange vests similar to those worn by the quail.
 
  Feel free to pass this on. If you don't send it to at least 10 other people, we're likely to be stuck with more Republicans in '06 and '08.
 
  Friends don't let friends vote Republican.Powered By Qumana

Which Superhero are you?

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 80% Spider-Man 75% Hulk 65% Robin 60% Iron Man 60% Batman 60% The Flash 60% Green Lantern 60% Supergirl 55% Wonder Woman 40% Catwoman 35%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

QUOTE

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible
and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn't place your hand on the
Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." -- Constitutional law professor
Jamie Raskin, to a Maryland Senate committee on marriage equality

Movie theaters may ask to jam cell phones - Yahoo! News

Movie theaters may ask to jam cell phones - Yahoo! News: "AS VEGAS (Reuters) - Movie theater owners faced with falling attendance are considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam cell phone reception in an attempt to stop annoying conversations during films, the head of the industry's trade group said on Tuesday.
ADVERTISEMENT

Industry leaders at the ShoWest conference for theater owners want to find ways to win back crowds."

Russell and Jack

Jack was very happy to have anyone hold him. Seemed to find Uncle Russell especially comfortable. 

Rachel on Christmas

Looking especially beautiful. Was wonderful having all my kids at home. 

Liked his snack

 

Harry in a Box

I guess it is true. Harry loved playing in the box with styrofoam peanuts as much as he liked any of his toys on Christmas morning. Unfortunately, he also like to eat them so the playtime was short lived.

 

Me and Baby Jack

Finally got around to moving pictures from my camera to my PC. 

TheDenverChannel.com - Local News - Strange-Looking Car Leads To Explosives Charges

TheDenverChannel.com - Local News - Strange-Looking Car Leads To Explosives Charges: "A man from Sheridan is facing explosives charges after he accidentally blew up his own car with a gas-filled balloon he was taking to a Super Bowl party."