Knowledge Rocks!

Reading links

2010-10-07T15:47:00.000-07:00

Lisa's weekly reading picks

White America has lost its mind
Inside a Divided Upper East Side Public School
Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party
science daily

Links for class

2010-09-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

pronouns
A talk to the incoming international students at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
The Huffington Post
Reddit

Linguistics stuff-

Dr. Lisa's linguistics resource page
Ebonics Translators Wanted

articles

2008-03-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

Obama responds to Clinton-This one made me smile.
Guantanamo prisoner allowed to speak-This one made me sick.
US vs. Czechoslovakia in 1975-This one made me disgusted.
Socialism for the rich-This one made me mad.
FBI abuses-This one made me scared.
Piggy Americans-This one made me say "oh snap!"
Feds knew about contaminated FEMA Trailers-This one made me say "Those Bastards!"
Dead little girl.-This one made me say "Enough!"
Dead little soldiers-This one made me think "There's a pattern here."

weird and wonderful

2007-11-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

foreign phrases

English is a rich and wonderful language - but sometimes it's just not good enough.

For example, have you ever searched around in vain for a word to describe someone who gets excited by eating garlic?

Or wondered why there isn't a nice pithy term for a person who is only attractive if they're standing quite far away?

Other languages do have such words. The extraordinary variety of international speech is captured in Toujours Tingo, a new book which draws on more than 300 languages exploring the areas where English fails us.

Advertisement
So try these words for size...

Kaelling - Danish: a woman who stands on her doorstep yelling obscenities at her kids.

Pesamenteiro - Portuguese: one who joins groups of mourners at the home of a dead person, apparently to offer condolences but in reality is just there for the refreshments.

Okuri-OKAMI - Japanese: literally a "see-you-home-wolf". A man who feigns thoughtfulness by offering to see a girl home only to try to molest her once he gets in the door.

Jayus - Indonesian: someone who tells a joke so unfunny you can't help laughing.

Spesenritter - German: a person who shows off by paying the bill on the firm's money, literally "an expense knight".

Kamaki - Greek: the young local guys strolling up and down beaches hunting for female tourists, literally "harpoons".

Kanjus Makkhicus - Hindi: a person so miserly that if a fly falls into his cup of tea, he'll fish it out and suck it dry before throwing it away.

Giri-GIRI - Hawaiian pidgin: the place where two or three hairs stick up, no matter what.

Pelinti - Buli, Ghana: to move very hot food around inside one's mouth.

Dii-KOYNA - Ndebele, South Africa: to destroy one's property in anger.

Hanyauku - Rukwangali, Namibia: walking on tiptoes across warm sand.

Tartle - Scottish: to hesitate when you are introducing someone whose name you can't quite remember.

Vovohe Tahtsenaotse - Cheyenne, US: to prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one's lips.

Prozvonit - Czech and Slovak: to call someone's mobile from your own to leave your number in their memory without them picking it up.

Hira Hira - Japanese: the feeling you get when you walk into a dark and decrepit old house in the middle of the night.

Koi No Yokan - Japanese: a sense on first meeting someone that it is going to evolve into love.

Cafune - Brazilian Portuguese: the tender running of one's fingers through the hair of one's mate.

Shnourkovat Sya - Russian: when drivers change lanes frequently and unreasonably.

Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu - Tibetan: giving an answer that is unrelated to the question, literally "to give a green answer to a blue question".

Biritululo - Kiriwani, Papua New Guinea: comparing yams to settle a dispute.

Poronkusema - Finnish: the distance equal to how far a reindeer can travel without a comfort break.

Gamadj - Obibway, North America: dancing with a scalp in one's hands, in order to receive presents.

Baling - Manobo, Philippines: the action of a woman who, when she wants to marry a man, goes to his house and refuses to leave until marriage is agreed upon.

Dona - Yamana, Chile: to take lice from a person's head and squash between one's teeth.

Oka/SHETE - Ndonga, Nigeria: urination difficulties caused by eating frogs before the rain has duly fallen.

Pisan Zapra - Malay: the time needed to eat a banana.

Physiggoomai - Ancient Greek: excited by eating garlic.

Baffona - Italian: an attractive moustachioed woman.

Layogenic - Tagalog, Philippines: a person who is only goodlooking from a distance.

Rhwe - South Africa: to sleep on the floor without a mat while drunk and naked.

Shvitzer - Yiddish: someone who sweats a lot, especially a nervous seducer.

Gattara - Italian: a woman, often old and lonely, who devotes herself to stray cats.

Creerse La Ultima Coca-COLA EN EL DESIERTO - Central American Spanish: to have a very high opinion of oneself, literally to "think one is the last Coca-Cola in the desert".

Vrane Su Mu Popile Mozak - Croatian: crazy, literally "cows have drunk his brain".

Du Kannst Mir Gern Den Buckel Runterrutschen Und Mit Der Zunge Bremsen - Austrian German: abusive insult, literally "you can slide down my hunchback using your tongue as a brake".

Tener Una Cara De Telefono Ocupado - Puerto Rican Spanish: to be angry, literally "to have a face like a busy telephone".

Bablat - Hebrew: baloney, but is an acronym of "beelbool beytseem le-lo takhleet" which means "bothering someone's testicles for no reason".

Vai A Fava - Portuguese: get lost, literally "go to the fava bean".

Rombhoru - Bengali: a woman having thighs as shapely as banana trees.

Tako-NYODU - Japanese: a baldy, literally an "octopus monk".

Snyavshi Shtany, PO VOLOSAM NE GLADYAT - Russian: once you've taken off your pants it's too late to look at your hair.

Mariteddu Tamant'e Un Ditu Ieddu Voli Essa Rivaritu - Corsican: a husband must be respected even if he is very short.

Bayram Degil (SEYRAN DEGIL ENISTE BENI NIYE OPTU? - Turkish: there must be something behind this. Literally "it's not festival time, it's not a pleasure trip, so why did my brother-in-law kiss me"?

Linguists: "Moist" makes women cringe

2007-10-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Moist? The word "moist" has never bothered me. People are crazy!

Moist. Does it get your panties in a twist? Inspire a cornucopia of unpleasant feelings? Give you goose pimples? Does my very line of questioning strike you as repugnant?

As someone who has long enjoyed torturing my brother by describing chocolate cakes as deliciously moist and fudgy (another one of his retch-inducing words), I never considered that lexical disgust might divide along gender lines. I'd always imagined that it was an individual idiosyncrasy -- the full manifestation of my brother's highly developed disgust response. But according to the word-spotters at Language Log, not only is there a widespread aversion to the word "moist" (and a host of other nontaboo words like panties, cornucopia and goose pimples), but word aversion seems to be more prevalent among women.

The Language Log has compiled an impressive archive of the various online discussions and mentions of the anti-moist phenomenon, many of which question why women would be more likely to be grossed out by the notion of moistness. There's even a Facebook club devoted to the idea. What does the aversion really mean? No doubt Freud would have had a field day with the idea of people -- be they men or women -- deeply and unconsciously repelled by the word's association with female desire, fecundity and ripeness. Indeed, a lot of the words that gross people out seem to be ones that suggest women's bodies. Add the word "panties" to the mix and we're not talking about the unconscious so much as bad porn. But other words that are equally suggestive don't set off alarm bells. Why moist and not wet?

One possibility: The word "moist" straddles the same cultural polarities of shame and openness that still haunt modern female sexuality. After all, moist is now mostly used with positive connotations to describe baked goods and soil, but it still harbors its less than appealing root meanings. First cited in the English language in 1374, the word came from the French word "moiste," for damp, which came from the Latin words for moldy, slimy and musty.

Last week the moist conversation took on a new dimension when Charles Doyle at the University of Georgia posted to an academic language list-serve that his use of the word in a Shakespeare class had prompted several of his female college students to inform him (in an amused, not outraged way) that the M-word was offensive to women. According to professor Doyle, the women offered no explanation for the word's bad juju, but one male student suggested that it might have something to do with female sexual arousal. To which I offer the following comment: No, duh.

Since then some posts have suggested that the moist embargo is yet another feminist absurdity (a theory too absurd to dignify with a response). But maybe the college students were not talking about the word per se, but about the professor's use of it. Doyle says he used the word to describe Egypt in "Antony and Cleopatra" -- and the association with women's sexual arousal "is not at all beside the point." So are these women squeamish about Shakespeare's (or Doyle's) bawdy vision, or do they actually believe the word that has sold Betty Crocker cake mixes for decades is now an obscenity? Either way, it's weird to imagine that in this era of happy-go-lucky explicitness, we could suddenly start getting offended in a college Shakespeare seminar and turning ordinary words into taboos. Is there a growing Victorianism lurking in our verbal closet? Or is it that since an open revulsion with the female body is no longer kosher, our disgust searches out substitute targets?

Fun links for summer 07

2007-07-12T15:52:00.001-07:00

japanese commercial
Dr. Suess
drunk employee
orbit gum commercial
alabama medical center
Race study-who do you prefer?
facial expressions survey
language survey

Language links

2007-03-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

IPA charts and Ladefoged's site

Center of Human Origin and Cultural Diversity

North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad

Bush's atomic blunder

2006-11-06T09:33:00.000-08:00

sensitve documents released.

Good lord!

Racism by Politicians and Katrina Timeline

2006-08-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Racial Problems Flourish

Katrina Timeline!

Poor Palestinians...

2006-07-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

Peace, propaganda, & the promised land

Fighting the good fight

2006-07-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Saluting some unknown and unheralded patriots from dailykos

American Patriots

The new issue of The Nation has a short but powerful article entitled American Patriots, which gives much needed thanks to librarians, the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, states, localities, Code Pink and many other people, organizations and agencies which are fighting the good fight every day in order to protect our rights and freedoms. Not only are these people and organizations fighting to protect the freedoms that are actively being taken away or eroded, but they are also fighting to get back some of those freedoms which have already been stripped by the PATRIOT Act, or by other legislation and strong-arm tactics by what used to be a government Of the People, By the People and For the People.

Hello summer!

2006-06-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, It's been over a month since I have linked to anything. I've just been enjoying the summer.. I love summer. All work and no play makes Lisa a dull girl. I saw this proposal from Fox news for an office of censorship. Too funny.

Maps of world languages

2006-05-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool!

Chicken Boy

2006-05-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

of New Zealand

FIJI - The misshapen and quiet figure of Sujit Kumar is not a likely poster boy for international co-operation.

But Sujit, the "chicken boy" of Fiji whose discovery captured headlines around the world in 2003, is about to move into a beautiful colonial home in Suva restored last month by an international working-bee including New Zealanders.

He will join 19 other boys, abandoned, orphaned or abused, in a new boys home, a joint project between Suva Rotary and the Fiji Government.

Sujit is now spending his days in the grand old house immersed in a pre-school type of developmental programme, which the Herald was invited to observe.

The "toddler man", as his foster mother, Elizabeth Clayton, refers to him, turned 34 on October 4 last year.

"Thirty-four going on four," she says.

The woman who rescued him from an old people's home in Suva where he was tied to a bed for 22 years oozes affection for him and excitement at his progress. Sujit had been tied to a bed because he was considered unmanageable. As a boy he had been forced to live in a chicken coop, deprived of human care, from age 1 to 8.

His parents dead, his grandfather had left him to fend for himself with the chooks. Welfare officers took him to the old folks home.

The superintendent of the old people's home told Ms Clayton that when he was found, he would hop around like a chicken, peck at his food on the ground, perch and make a noise like the calling of a chicken. He preferred to roost than sleep in a bed.

When we arrive at the home, Sujit is sitting at a table playing with blocks. His face is actually almost completely unexpressive. Then Ms Clayton arrives and he breaks out in a big toothless smile. He lunges at her for a hug. There is affectionate touching of his cheek and joshing of him by her.

He began therapy in July 2003 and Ms Clayton, a former behavioural psychologist, lists his advances.

He laughs and cries now and never used to. He walks up steps when he used to crawl. He didn't used to have favourite foods and now he does.

"He likes eggs but he doesn't like carrots, which is great because he is deciding between things.

"One thing I love is he is starting to experience pain and touch. You can tickle the bottom of his feet now and he responds whereas before he never responded. His sensitivity is coming back whereas before there was so much pain in his early life he probably didn't recognise what pain is."

He doesn't talk but sometimes he makes the sound "oy, oy".

He loves the new house, a sprawling residence with mahogany floors and double-doors opening to the outdoors. Formerly dilapidated, it is a Government-owned property that was the residence of the widow of a stately Ratu, Sir Lala Sukuna.

"The work done there by New Zealanders was just overwhelming," Ms Clayton says.

About 300 or 400 volunteers took part in the "extreme makeover" of the house, including the tactical police force, the military and the Fiji sevens team.

Ms Clayton, an expat Australian who moved to Fiji in 1989, is moving Sujit into the home because "I'm getting older and there's got to be a time when someone beyond me takes him."

Ms Clayton, a former Suva Rotary president, credits New Zealand Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier as being one of the driving forces behind the new home. While working in Fiji two years ago, he and the local chief magistrate, Balram, alerted Rotary to the poor condition of the Government boys centre.

Suva Rotary, which runs the Sujit Foundation to help to rehabilitate Sujit, last year took up the project for a new boys home. New Zealanders and companies such as Laminex, Pak'N Save, Ezibuy, Wet'N Forget and Sunshine Books became involved through Auckland Rotary.

"I know you've got your problems in New Zealand," Ms Clayton says, "but it's just wonderful that your colleagues are willing to look at an international project as well."

Evolution of Dance

2006-05-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

very entertaining dance video!

Stepan Kezirian

2006-05-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

moves home!
Good Luck-Step!

Bar-owners will bring Soulard to Belleville

A group of guys with links to a pair of Soulard bars plan to follow in the footsteps of Big Daddy's 618 and set up shop in downtown Belleville.

They see the city as the next entertainment hot spot.

Luke Reynolds, who owns Molly's in the popular south St. Louis bar district, Brian Besse and Stephan Kezirian, who own Lafayette's, along with real estate investor Ted Quinn have bought the former Good Times bar and restaurant at 7 S. High St.

"Brian and I had been talking about doing something in the Belleville area for a while," Reynolds said. "We went to the auction when Good Times went up for sale and we were lucky enough to get it. Literally, an hour after we laid eyes on the place, we owned it."

Reynolds said the group plans to turn the place into a "high-end lounge" where professionals can relax and have a drink in the evening. They also hope to continue the successful lunch business Good Times built up over the years.

"We really liked the location," Reynolds said. "We think it's going to take off. It has been a huge influence to see how well Big Daddy's has done."

Big Daddy's 618 co-owner Scott Schmelzel said people laughed at him when he told them a couple of years ago that he hoped to open a bar in downtown Belleville.

"They said it would never work here," Schmelzel said. "But I knew that this area was going to become the place to be. I think there are going to be even more people coming over here."

Schmelzel predicted downtown Belleville will soon be an entertainment destination like Soulard and the Central West End.

"The only thing that surprises me is that this didn't happen faster," Schmelzel said.

During the remodeling process at Good Times, the new owners found a trio of art deco lamps above a pair of drop ceilings that were installed over the years. They pulled the cords and the lamps still worked.

Quinn said he hoped to polish them up and hang them over the bar.

"We also found a menu from back when the place was called the Hob-Nobber, probably back in the 1950s," Reynolds said. "You could get a T-bone with salad and a baked potato for $3 or French toast for a quarter."

They also found a coupon book from the IGA grocery store that offered 7 cents off vegetable oil. Even if the grocery store were still in existence, the coupons wouldn't have done them much good. They expired Feb. 21, 1966.

The owners haven't decided what to call the place, although they kicked around either reviving the Hob-Nobber name or the bar's previous moniker, the Clover Club. They also are considering a new name based on the establishment's location, the 7 High Lounge.

Reynolds said he hopes to have the name pinned down by the end of July, his target date for opening.

27 reasons for war

2006-05-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

By the US administration
Read the thesis here.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — If it seems that there have been quite a few rationales for going to war in Iraq, that’s because there have been quite a few – 27, in fact, all floated between Sept. 12, 2001, and Oct. 11, 2002, according to a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All but four of the rationales originated with the administration of President George W. Bush.

The study also finds that the Bush administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein early on – only five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In addition to what it says about the shifting sands of rationales and the unsteady path to war in Iraq, what is remarkable about the 212-page study is that its author is a student.

The study, “Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq: The Words of the Bush Administration, Congress and the Media from September 12, 2001, to October 11, 2002,” is the senior honors thesis of Devon Largio. She and her professor, Scott Althaus, believe the study is the first of its kind.

For her analysis of all available public statements the Bush administration and selected members of Congress made pertaining to war with Iraq, Largio not only identified the rationales offered for going to war, but also established when they emerged and who promoted them. She also charted the appearance of critical keywords such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraq to trace the administration’s shift in interest from the al Qaeda leader to the Iraqi despot, and the news media’s response to that shift.

“The rationales that were used to justify the war with Iraq have been a major issue in the news since last year, and Devon’s study provides an especially thorough and wide-ranging analysis of it,” Althaus, a professor of political science, said.

“It is not the last word on the subject, but I believe it is the first to document systematically the case that the administration made for going to war during critical periods of the public debate.

“It is first-rate research,” Althaus said, “the best senior thesis I have ever seen – thoroughly documented and elaborately detailed. Her methodology is first-rate.”

Largio mapped the road to war over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.

She drew from statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Policy Board member and long-time adviser Richard Perle; by U.S. senators Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott and John McCain; and from stories in the Congressional Record, the New York Times and The Associated Press. She logged 1,500 statements and stories.

The rationales Largio identified include everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,” and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.”

With regard to the administration’s shift from bin Laden to Saddam, Largio found that Iraq was “part of the plan for the war on terror early in the game.”

For example, in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 29, 2002, President Bush declared that Iraq was part of the war against terrorism because it supported terrorists and continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America.” He also claimed that Iraq allowed weapons inspectors into the country and then threw them out, “fueling the belief that the nation did in fact plan to develop weapons of mass destruction,” Largio wrote.

In the same speech, the president called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an “axis of evil,” a phrase that would “ignite much criticism” and add “to the sense that the U.S. would embark on a war with the Hussein state,” Largio wrote.

“So, from February of 2002 on,” Largio said, “Iraq gets more hits than Osama bin Laden. For President Bush the switch occurs there and the gap grows over time.”

Largio also discovered that it was the media that initiated discussions about Iraq, introducing ideas before the administration and congressional leaders did about the intentions of that country and its leader. The media also “brought the idea that Iraq may be connected to the 9-11 incident to the forefront, asking questions of the officials on the topic and printing articles about the possibility.”

The media “seemed to offer a lot of opinion and speculation, as there had been no formal indication that Iraq would be a target in the war on terror,” Largio wrote. Oddly, though, the media didn’t switch its focus to Iraq and Saddam until July of 2002.

Yet, “Overall, the media was in tune with the major arguments of the administration and Congress, but not with every detail that emerged from the official sources.”

“As always, hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Largio wrote in the conclusion to her thesis. “However, there are questions surrounding nearly every major rationale for the war.

“People may wonder, why are our men and women over there? Why did we go to war? Were we misled? In this election year, these questions deserve answers. And though this paper cannot answer these questions definitively, it can provide some insight into the thinking of the powers-that-be during the earliest stages of war preparation and give the American people a chance to answer these questions for themselves.”

Children 'gain weight...

2006-04-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

as they watch TV'

Children consume nearly as many calories as are in a packet of crisps with every hour they spend watching television, according to US research.
Watching TV also encourages children to eat more junk foods, particularly soft drinks and takeaway fast food, the researchers found.

The study is the first to demonstrate that watching television directly influences intake of calories. Its main author, Jean Wiecha, said the survey showed that excessive TV viewing was in itself a health risk.

"The food industry spends billions of dollars on advertising because they know it is effective," she told Guardian Unlimited.
"They talk about fighting for your child's dollars, and the result is additional food going in your child's mouth. The intensity of the viewing looks like it's really driving up intake of the foods being advertised."

The study followed 550 children aged 11 to 13 over a period of 20 months. For each hour they spent watching television, their food intake was found at the end of the period to have increased by 167 calories a day. (A packet of crisps contains around 180 calories, while a can of Coke has 140).

Figures from the communications regulator, Ofcom, show that British children watch 10,000 TV commercials every year, including nearly 3,000 ads for soft drinks, foods and fast food chains.

Ofcom found that British advertisers spend £522m a year on commercials targeted specifically at children, who watch commercial TV for 588 hours each year - the equivalent of 24 days.

Numerous scientific studies have shown that children who watch more TV have a higher calorie intake, but advertisers argue that this is a result of their more sofa-bound lifestyle rather than of the adverts they are watching.

Dr Wiecha, however, said her work contradicted this. "Although children and youth are encouraged to watch what they eat, many youth seem to eat what they watch," the report's authors wrote.

"We've shown that as kids watch more television, they eat fewer fruits and vegetables. Television viewing influences children's diets."

The Guardian reported last week that government manifesto plans to restrict children's food advertising had been watered down after sustained lobbying of Ofcom by advertisers and broadcasters.

TV commercials aimed at children younger than 12 have been banned in Sweden and Quebec, and similar restrictions apply in Belgium, Denmark and Greece.

But a range of proposals Ofcom published last month failed to recommend any restrictions on food advertising to children older than nine, and campaigners said the restrictions for younger children were minimal.

Dr Wiecha's report was published in this month's issue of the medical journal the Archives of Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

A study in the same issue found that children exposed to more than two hours of television per day were more likely to be overweight than those who were not.

-My Poor Children are doomed to be 700 lbs.

Don Knotts is...

2006-04-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

Dubya!

-So cute!

Machiavelli personality test

2006-04-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

Are you a cutthroat or a pussycat? Find out, if you dare.

Funny Bush Parody

2006-04-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Decider

The Worst President in History?

2006-04-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

Historians rate Bush
-and it ain't good!

Funny comics

2006-04-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

My favorites from xkcd.com:
My Hobby
Super bowl
Curse Levels
Velociraptors

Using DNA to Plumb Human Ancestry

2006-04-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Fresh air
-Take a listen to this interseting tale of human origins.

Coming home

2006-04-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

disillusioned

Three years ago, I was a Marine Corps captain on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border, participating in the invasion of Iraq. Awestruck, I heard our howitzers thunder and watched artillery rockets rise into the night sky and streak toward Iraq — their light bathing the desert moonscape like giant arc welders.

As I watched the Iraq war begin, I completely trusted the Bush administration. I thought we were going to prove all of the left-wing antiwar protesters and dissenters wrong. I thought we were going to make America safer. Regrettably, I acknowledge that it was I who was wrong.

I believed the Bush administration when it said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I believed its assertion that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Africa and refine it into weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb. I believed its claim Iraq had vast quantities of biological and chemical agents. After years of thorough inspections, all of these claims have been disproved.

I believed the administration when it claimed there was overwhelming evidence Iraq was in cahoots with al-Qaida. In January 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that there was no concrete evidence linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

I believed the administration when it grandly proclaimed we were going to bring a stable, Western-style liberal democracy to Iraq, complete with religious tolerance and the rule of law. We never had enough troops in Iraq to restore civil order and the rule of law. The Iraqi elections have produced a ruling majority of Shiite fundamentalists and marginalized the seething Sunni minority. Iraq dangerously teeters on the brink of civil war. We have emboldened Iran and destabilized the entire Middle East.

I believed the administration when it claimed the war could be done quickly and cheaply. It said the war would cost only between $50 billion and $60 billion. It said that Iraqi oil revenue would fund the country's reconstruction. I believed President Bush when he landed on the USS Lincoln and said "major combat operations have ended."

The war has cost the American taxpayers $250 billion and counting. The vast majority — 94 percent — of the more than 2,300 United States service members killed in Iraq have occurred since Bush's "Top Gun" proclamation. The cost in men and materiel has been far beyond what we were led to believe.

I volunteered to go back to Iraq for the fall and winter of 2004-2005. I went back out of frustration and guilt; frustration from watching Iraq unravel on the news and guilt that I wasn't there trying to stop it. Many fine Marines from my reserve battalion felt the same and volunteered to go back. I buried my mounting suspicions and mustered enough trust and faith in my civilian leadership to go back.

I returned disillusioned by what I saw. I participated in the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004. We crushed the insurgents in the city, but we only ended up scattering them throughout the province. The dumb ones stayed and died. The smart ones left town before the battle, to garner more recruits and fight another day. We were simply the little Dutch boy with our finger in the dike. In retrospect, we never had enough troops to firmly control the region; we had just enough to maintain a tenuous equilibrium.

I now know I wrongfully placed my faith and trust in a presidential administration hopelessly mired in incompetence, hubris and a lack of accountability. It planned a war based on false intelligence and unrealistic assumptions. It has strategically surrendered the condition of victory in Iraq to people who do not share our vision, values or interests. The Bush administration has proven successful at only one thing in Iraq — painting us into a corner with no feasible exit.

I will never trust any of them again.

Christopher H. Sheppard is a former Marine captain who served two tours of duty in Iraq as a combat engineer. He currently is finishing his master's degree in mass communication and lives in Marysville.

Bush song

2006-04-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

idiot

Japanese Commercial

2006-04-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

Crazy!

Belleville.com

2006-04-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

forum
I think it's funny to see what people say on this hometown forum. Of course, this week it's all about the tornado. Since I live right next to the Mall, I was in the tornado too! We lost power for a few days and it was cold and sucky to be without power. Me no likey!

This snippet from a recent post on this forum describes the funny ways of people. This person had just witnessed explosions, a tornado, and prayed to Jesus. Then, just like that went to go check to see if his glasses were done. I have never laughed so hard. I should also mention that I just absolutely love it when people write in all caps-I'm kidding.

WHEN I GOT TO THE FRONT OF THE DOORS I STOPPED TO LOOK UPWARD AGAIN AND LOOKED STRAIGHT AHEAD TO SEE AN EXPLOSION SOMEWHERE BEYOND K-MART. I COULD NOT HEAR ANY WEATHER WARNING SIRENS. I SAW BRIGHT FLASHES OF LIGHT AS IF SOMETHING HAD HIT A LIVE WIRE AND IT WAS PRETTY BIG FROM WHERE I WAS STANDING. RIGHT BEHIND THAT EXPLOSION THERE WAS ANOTHER EXPLOSION THAT DID NOT APPEAR TO BE AS BIG. I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I WAS SEEING. I SAW TRASH OR DEBRIS FLYING IN THE AIR WHERE THE EXPLOSION WAS AND THOSE BLACK CLOUDS WERE MOVING FAST MY WAY. I IMMEDIATELY WENT INSIDE THE STORE AND THE LIGHTS WERE ALREADY OUT IN SEARS. THERE WAS ANOTHER OLDER LADY ON HER WAY OUT THE DOOR AND I WAS TELLING HER A TORNADO WAS HEADED OUR WAY AND TO GET AWAY FROM THE GLASS DOORS SHE TOLD ME NOT TO GET SO EXCITED. I HEADED TO THE BACK OF THE STORE ON THE FIRST LEVEL AND I HEARD SOMEONE SAY GO TO THE BASEMENT AND A STORE CLERK TOLD US TO MOVE BACK TO THE EAST WALL AWAY FROME THE GLASS. EVERYBODY WAS USING THEIR CELL PHONES AND MANY COULD NOT GET THROUGH. I WAS CALLING ON "JESUS" TO MYSELF. I WALKED UP TO SOME PEOPLE AND ASKED WERE THEY CHRISTIANS AND THEY SAID YES AND I SAID LET'S PRAY. AND SO WE DID. IT WAS VERY COMFORTING FOR ME. I THINK WE STAYED IN THE LOWER LEVEL OF SEARS FOR ABOUT 30 MINUTES. I EXPLAINED TO THE PEOPLE I PRAYED WITH WHAT I HAD JUST WITNESSED WHEN THEY CALLED "ALL CLEAR" I WENT TO D.O.C.'S TO STILL GETTING MY GLASSES ADJUSTED BUT THEY COULD NOT DO MUCH BECAUSE THERE WERE NO LIGHTS. I THEN WALKED UP THE ESCALATORS AND WENT TO MY CAR.

Off to Nuke Iran

2006-04-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yikes! I hope this is hogwash!

Bush is planning to attack Iran with a massive massive attack. He's afraid Iran is developing nukes, so the idea is to launch a devastating attack against Iran so that - get this - the Iranians rise up against their own government. Sound familiar?

From the New Yorker:
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”
Sound like Iraq yet? Try this quote:
A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said.

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.
Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

Sounds lovely.

I think Fitzgerald...

2006-04-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

is my new hero. You keep prosecuting! Great job!

Fitzgerald said Libby's disclosure took place as the result of "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate" claims made in a July 2003 newspaper article by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was hired by the CIA to evaluate whether Iraq sought nuclear material in Niger. Wilson wrote that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Those "people in the White House" that good ol' Fitzy is talking about were none other than Bush and Cheney. Ok, where's the angry mob to run these bastards out of town?

Kent Hovind's alma mater

2006-03-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Patriot University

From what I understand, Kent Hovind is Dr. Dino who is dedicated to speading the word about Creation Science Evangelism. According to CSE, dinosaurs walked along side man and Noah's arc explains everything. It is very clever writing and worth a look for sure! :)

Bugging you

2006-03-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

cute web cartoon

Iraq Reporters Hit Back at Claims

2006-03-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

They Are Biased on War

The media helped Bush gets this far in his little adventure by failing to report all sorts wonderfull things about him. I find that very few people realized in 2000 just what weasels Bush and Cheney were and are. So I guess it IS the media's fault! :)

After the latest round of blaming the media for distorted coverage in Iraq, which emerged this week from top Bush administraton officials, war reporters and editors strongly defended their coverage this weekend in a variety of venues, as violence in the country reached new levels.

Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru, who recently completed a 14-month stint in Iraq, commented: "Everyone wants to read their view of the war in your story. To me the only issue is whether our stories are real or not. I never got complaints from the people who were involved in the subject matter of the stories.

"The job of soldiering over there is incredibly difficult. I have tremendous respect for those guys. The criticism completely misses the point. Iraq is on the verge of civil war. Where's the good news?"

Writing in The New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman traced the recent upsurge in sadistic killings, then commented: "If this all sounds depressing, it is. That's how people here feel. I've been looking hard, but in two weeks I haven't found an Iraqi optimist.

"In the summer of 2004, I profiled a band of young artists who braved dangerous roads to get away from Baghdad and paint pretty pictures of the Tigris River. Now, they're homebound. There is a similar sense of newfound hopelessness in the faces of the Iraqis I work with....It is difficult to communicate just how violent Baghdad has become."

Clark Hoyt, Washington editor for Knight Ridder, in a commentary piece, wrote, “Our reporting tells us that it's true that there are areas of Iraq -- in the Shiite south and the Kurdish north -- where people walk the streets in relative peace. But Baghdad, Iraq's capital and most populous city, and the Sunni Triangle to its northwest are hellishly dangerous. And that lack of security has overshadowed everything else as Iraqis struggle to build a democratic future.”

Appearing on NBC, its Baghdad correspondent Richard Engel said, “Most Iraqis I speak to say, ‘Actually most reporters get it wrong--it’s the situation on the ground is actually worse than the images we project on television.’"

He added: “We’ll see more and more reports coming out by the media explaining how they are covering the war and I think the Bush administration overplayed their hand in trying to blame their problems on the media.”

Numerous other stories or opinion pieces appeared tackling the question: Is the media missing the “good news” from Iraq?

A lengthy column on the subject today by Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell (where the Fainaru quote appeared) closes with a quote from the paper's military correspondent Thomas Ricks: "Blaming the media is like blaming the rain."

Actually, horrific events in Iraq pretty much provided all the defense the journalists needed. Dozens of Iraqs were killed in violence on Sunday, including a 13-year-old boy killed by a bomb as he walked to school in the southern city of Basra. Police also found 11 handcuffed and bullet-riddled bodies dumped in Baghdad and two in the city of Baqouba. The Iraqi army said it also had dispatched troops to investigate a report of 30 beheaded corpses in a village north of Baghdad.

This and more led Gettleman in The New York Times late Sunday to make this startling observation: "American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 security problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents." And he added: "Security in Baghdad seems to be deteriorating by the hour, and it is increasingly unclear who is in control."

The most detailed exchange on the good news/bad news debate took place on Howard Kurtz’s “Reliable Sources” on CNN Sunday morning. Here is a lengthy quote from the transcript, featuring CBS correspondent Lara Logan and Pamela Hess of UPI.

I'm sorry.

2006-03-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

I am having a hard time keeping up on all the great news coming out of our "elected" government. Here is another memo that states once more that Bush was planning to invade whether he found WMD or not. It includes many failed and curious predictions from Blair and Bush. More like Dumb and Dumber. Below are the hightlights.

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's plan.

The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank, almost casual, conversation by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar Iraqi government. "As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another dictator," the prime minister is quoted as saying.

By late January 2003, United Nations inspectors had spent six weeks in Iraq hunting for weapons under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized "serious consequences" if Iraq voluntarily failed to disarm. Led by Hans Blix, the inspectors had reported little cooperation from Mr. Hussein, and no success finding any unconventional weapons.

At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if an invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the war, details of the military campaign and plans for the aftermath of the war.

Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. Since they were first reported last month, neither the White House nor the British government has discussed them.

"The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

It also described the president as saying, "The U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's W.M.D," referring to weapons of mass destruction.

A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Mr. Bush, a proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.

Mr. Bush agreed that the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was paraphrased in the memo as saying.

The document added, "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military action would follow anyway."

The leaders agreed that three weeks remained to obtain a second United Nations Security Council resolution before military commanders would need to begin preparing for an invasion.

Summarizing statements by the president, the memo says: "The air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500 targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Bush thought the impact of the air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Saddam's regime. Given this military timetable, we needed to go for a second resolution as soon as possible. This probably meant after Blix's next report to the Security Council in mid-February."

Mr. Bush devoted much of the meeting to outlining the military strategy. The president, the memo says, said the planned air campaign "would destroy Saddam's command and control quickly." It also said that he expected Iraq's army to "fold very quickly." He also is reported as telling the prime minister that the Republican Guard would be "decimated by the bombing."

Despite intense lobbying by the United States and Britain, a second United Nations resolution was not obtained. The American-led military coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, nine days after the target date set by the president on that late January day at the White House.

Former first lady's donation aids son

2006-03-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

Katrina funds earmarked to pay for Neil Bush's software program
---Wow I wish my mom could arrange Katrina funds for my educational software.

So cold and low!!! As opposed to this family’s usual low plus deathy and hurty ways:
ruthless executions-Texas style, various wars, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo among many others. No, this one is more "coldhearted" but less "creepy" than say the whole Terry Shiavo-creepfest.

You got to give it to 'em. It takes guts to try to take advatage of the Katrina thing. And they sure do seem to exhibit many types of perversion I hadn't thought of before. I guess you could say that's interesting. That's me trying to look on the bright side. :)

Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.

Since then, the Ignite Learning program has been given to eight area schools that took in substantial numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

"Mrs. Bush wanted to do something specifically for education and specifically for the thousands of students flooding into the Houston schools," said Jean Becker, former President Bush's chief of staff. "She knew that HISD was using this software program, and she's very excited about this program, so she wanted to make it possible for them to expand the use of this program."

The former first lady plans to visit a Houston Independent School District campus using the Ignite program today to call on local business leaders to support schools and education.

The trip to Fleming Middle School is intended to showcase Bush's commitment to education for both Houston-area and New Orleans evacuee students, according to a press release issued Wednesday by Ignite.

Fleming, which has more than 170 New Orleans students, was one of eight area schools chosen by the Harris County Department of Education to receive a donated COW, or Curriculum on Wheels, multimedia program after Hurricane Katrina.

Neil Bush founded Austin-based Ignite Learning, which produces the COW program, in 1999.

Becker said she wasn't at liberty to divulge how much money the Bush family gave to the hurricane funds, but said the "rest of their donation was not earmarked for anything."

Nationally, some other donors also specified how they wanted their donations spent, Becker said.

For example, one man wanted his money to go to Habitat for Humanity but via the former presidents' fund. Nearly $1 million has been raised for the local fund and more than $120 million for the national.

Regarding the fact that Bush's earmarked donation also benefited her son's company, Becker said, "Mrs. Bush is obviously an enthusiastic supporter of her son. She is genuinely supportive of his program," and has received many letters from educators who support it. Bush "honestly felt this would be a great way to help the (evacuee) students."

Barbara and Neil Bush presented the donated programs to Houston-area schools this winter.

Districts that received the free curriculum include Houston, Alvin, Katy, Pearland and Spring and the New Orleans West charter school.

There are 40 Ignite programs being used in the Houston area, and 15 in the Houston school district, said Ken Leonard, president of Ignite.

Information about the effectiveness of the program, through district-generated reports, was not readily available Wednesday, according to an HISD spokeswoman.

Two years ago, the school district raised eyebrows when it expanded the program by relying heavily on private donations.

In February 2004, the Houston school board unanimously agreed to accept $115,000 in charitable donations from businesses and individuals who insisted the money be spent on Ignite. The money covered half the bill for the software, which cost $10,000 per school.

The deal raised conflict of interest concerns because Neil Bush and company officials helped solicit the donations for the HISD Foundation, a philanthropic group that raises money for the district.

HISD school principals decide for themselves whether to spend their budgeted money on Ignite.

Leonard said that in the past six to eight months, the company has hired national sales representatives across the country — in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — in hopes of expanding beyond Texas. Currently, about 80 percent of the company's customers are from Texas.

Last year, Neil Bush reportedly toured former Soviet Union countries promoting Ignite with Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

According to the Times of London, Berezovsky, a former Kremlin insider now living in Britain, is wanted on criminal charges in Moscow accusing him of seeking to stage a coup against President Vladimir Putin.

The purpose of today's event is to showcase everyone's efforts in helping the hurricane evacuee students who ended up in Houston, Leonard said.

"We have a role, but we're not the leader in this," Leonard said. He also acknowledged that his company will benefit from the former first lady's visit.

Barbara Bush is expected to observe both teachers and students using the Ignite Learning program while touring classrooms, according to the Ignite press release.

During a short reception, teachers and students will give testimonials about the program and Bush will "encourage community business leaders to have a stronger presence in supporting schools and education," the press release said.

The free-standing instructional tools that are not dependent on the Internet. They include a built-in computer, projector and speakers and come pre-loaded with science and social studies courses.

Kimi's Work

2006-03-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

My favorite is Viola's boys based on a true story.

Talk about Language Mavens

2006-03-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

Love, adverbially

Daniel Handler, better known to kids everywhere as Lemony Snicket, apparently doesn't agree with adverb-haters Elmore Leonard and Stephen King ("The road to hell is paved with adverbs," King once wrote). Mark Mr. Handler down as an authorial adverbophile. In fact, he's gone so far as to write a work of (adult) fiction called, simply, Adverbs: A Novel.

Naming a novel after a part of speech is just asking for trouble, since it inevitably will lead to metalinguistic confusion among reviewers who should know better. Here's a muddled passage from the Booklist review posted on Amazon (hat tip to yendi, aka Adam Lipkin, and his fellow Livejournalers):

The 16 intersecting stories (each headed by an adverb modifying the noun love) display a cadre of couplings: gay, straight, platonic, perverse.

On first read, the reviewer seems to imply that the intersecting stories are titled with adjectives modifying the noun "love": "gay," "straight," "platonic," "perverse." This would be bad news for Handler, since it would mean he should have called his work Adjectives: A Novel. But that's just a use-mention ambiguity, as those adjectives are simply describing the "cadre of couplings" in the book. The Booklist reviewer goes on to give some of the actual story headings, and they are indeed adverbs: "Obviously," "Symbolically," "Soundly," and "Frigidly." Publishers Weekly also mentions "Briefly" and "Truly," and a review of 4 Adverbs (a stage play derived from the book) adds four more: "Arguably," "Particularly," "Naturally," and "Wrongly."

So how could the reviewer think that these adverbs are "modifying the noun 'love'"? As we all learned in grammar classes, adverbs modify adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs, while adjectives modify nouns. But that's not the whole story. First of all, an adverb can modify a phrase, a clause, or even a whole sentence. And secondly, we often encounter adverbs used in an elliptical fashion as in Handler's headings, where it's unclear what exactly is being modified. Consider the Tennessee Williams play (and Joseph Mankiewicz movie) Suddenly, Last Summer. The title alludes to something happening "suddenly, last summer," but the suddenly-occurring event is left slyly unstated. (The tagline for the movie spoiled the allusivity: "Suddenly, last summer, Cathy knew she was being used for something evil!")

rodent 'missing' for 11 million years

2006-03-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

discovered in Laos

A bizarre rodent that was discovered last year in a remote region of south-east Asia has turned out to belong to a family of mammals that was thought to have gone extinct more than 11 million years ago, a study has found.

A new analysis of the rodent's remains indicates that it is a striking example of the "Lazarus effect", when members of a species thought to be extinct are found living in an isolated part of the world.

The animal, called Laonastes aenigmamus, was identified last year by scientists who recognised it as a new species from dead specimens trapped in the wild and sold as food in the markets of Laos.

Laonastes was so unusual - not quite a rat or squirrel but not a guinea pig - that it was classified as the only living member of an entirely new mammal family, a rare honour in zoology.

However, Mary Dawson and Chris Beard at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have looked deep into the mouth of Laonastes and found that its teeth are remarkably similar to those belonging to a family of Asian mammals called Diatomyidae which went extinct 11 million years ago.

"We knew exactly what we were looking at. The teeth were the most telling sign. We were sure we were looking at living Diatomyidae," Dr Beard said.

It is unusual for scientists to identify a living member of an extinct group of animals. The most famous example of the Lazarus effect was the capture of a live prehistoric fish called a coelacanth by fishermen off the east coast of South Africa in 1938.

Dr Dawson said that placing Laonastes in the Diatomyidae family of rodents is just as unusual given that the Lazarus effect in mammals only usually extends back no more than a few thousand years.

"It is an amazing discovery and it's the coelacanth of rodents. It's the first time in the study of mammals that scientists have found a living fossil of a group that's thought to be extinct for roughly 11 million years," Dr Dawson said. "That's quite a gap. Previous mammals had a gap of only a few thousand to just over a million years," she said.

The study, published in the journal Science, found that Laonastes and Diatomyidae share dental features such as molars with four roots and incisors with unusual microscopic structures etched into the enamel.

Maldita Vecindad

2006-03-09T17:58:00.000-08:00

mentioned on NPR Maldita Vecindad is my cousin's band! My cousin is the drummer-Pepe Paredes Pacho :)

He fled a hostile political climate in Argentina for Los Angeles in 1978 and began producing other musicians such as the Mexican band Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio. Santaolalla is often referred to as the fifth member of another seminal Latin Alternative band, Cafe Tacuba.

Bill Napoli's SD virgin rant

2006-03-07T07:58:00.000-08:00

"
video from crooks and liars" These are criteria for being elligible for an abortion according to this nasty man:

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Erick brought up the question "How do you get pregnant by sodomy?" I think this man is just plain nasty "as you could possibly make it."

Warning!

2006-03-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

"
Financial responsibility can lead to terrorism"

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.

"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.

"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."

Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.

But the experience has been a reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to others," he said.

Veterans May Face Health Care Cuts in 2008

2006-02-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

As Gomer always said "Surprise, surprise, surprise"

WASHINGTON - At least tens of thousands of veterans with non-critical medical issues could suffer delayed or even denied care in coming years to enable President Bush to meet his promise of cutting the deficit in half — if the White House is serious about its proposed budget.

After an increase for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing by leaps and bounds, White House budget documents assume a cutback in 2008 and further cuts thereafter.

In fact, the proposed cuts are so draconian that it seems to some that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better. More realistic numbers, however, would raise doubts as to whether Bush can keep his promise to wrestle the deficit under control by the time he leaves office.

"Either the administration is proposing gutting VA health care over the next five years or it is not serious about its own budget," said Rep. Chet Edwards (news, bio, voting record) of Texas, top Democrat on the panel overseeing the VA's budget. "If the proposals aren't serious, then that would undermine the administration's argument that they intend to reduce the deficit in half over the next several years."

Reverse Evolution?

2006-02-27T16:38:00.000-08:00

Strange affliction A hoax?

Iraq’s Prime Minister

2006-02-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

partial to Chomsky
Why won’t Chomsky come to Iraq? he asks.
-Too funny!

ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message

2006-02-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

50/50 chance of interpreting it correctly.

According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time.

The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers.

Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time.

"People often think the tone or emotion in their messages is obvious because they 'hear' the tone they intend in their head as they write," Epley explains.

At the same time, those reading messages unconsciously interpret them based on their current mood, stereotypes and expectations. Despite this, the research subjects thought they accurately interpreted the messages nine out of 10 times.

The reason for this is egocentrism, or the difficulty some people have detaching themselves from their own perspective, says Epley. In other words, people aren't that good at imagining how a message might be understood from another person's perspective.

-Assertaining the tone of an e-amil is without a doubt a tricky business. The reader has no visual cues and to make matters worse often times email composers write "like they speak" adding to the complexity. Nevertheless, even educational psychology professors believe they are so skilled that they can interpret email tone wtihout a problem. The researchers in this study call it "egocentricism." This researcher calls is "assholism."

If You're Nervous and Hungover,

2006-02-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Do Not Go on Live TV Funny!

Insults to the Mahatma,

2006-02-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

ignored by India

George W Bush's protocol handlers have notified South Block that the American President's deep belief in his born again faith precludes his visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at New Delhi's Raj Ghat -- during his forthcoming visit to India.

When asked -- by reporters on a recent trip aboard Air Force One -- if he will be breaking a decades long tradition of foreign dignitaries visiting India paying respect to the Father of India, Mr Bush, as is his wont, was caught off guard and mumbled something about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ views cremation as a pagan practice.

Not visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi-Indeed! Well, I know I'm thoroughly insulted.

Take...

2006-02-23T08:38:00.000-08:00

A second look

Japanese Cat Feeder

2006-02-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

I'm all for breast feeding but this is even too far for me. OUCH!

Scott serviceman kills wife, self

2006-02-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

in Edwardsville Yikes!

EDWARDSVILLE - A Scott Air Force Base serviceman apparently shot his wife and himself in front of their 9-year-old son early Monday morning.

Police said the female victim had been living with her mother for some time with her 9-year-old son, as her husband had been stationed overseas in Iraq. The couple had remained separated upon his return.

'Adversity can be good for you'

2006-02-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Interview with Boy George

VA Nurse Investigated for 'Sedition'

2006-02-18T17:18:00.000-08:00

for Criticizing Bush. Interesting link sent to me by Jackie.

What happens when...

2006-02-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Johnny comes marching home, again. Again is the operative word. I've said this before but I'm going to say it over-Here come the next generation of men who will be coming home to become our next wave of homeless and mentally ill. Just wait until the head injured and amputee population soars and becomes visible in society. We will start hearing about Mcdonalds being shot up and post-men going postal once more. An even worse prediction is there will be a need for "Rambo the next generation" movies to come back.

An 18-day-old baby girl is in St. Louis Children's Hospital in critical condition and police have charged her father with two counts of aggravated battery. George W. Norris of 2561A Cumberland at Scott Air Force Base was charged Friday and was being held at the St. Clair County Jail with bail set at $500,000.

Norris, who works in the transportation division at Scott Air Force Base, returned from Iraq in late 2004, Eversman said.

Authentic Bush Ad

2006-02-07T12:02:00.001-08:00

Great ideas back to back from the Republican party. Erick found this on michelle malkin's blog. It was a flash commercial. There were several other great ideas in the commercial but the 'stoppping wasting spending by contributing money' suggestion is a classic.

Sapir-Whorf

2006-02-07T11:54:00.000-08:00

revisited

In each experimental trial of the present study, participants saw a ring of colored squares. All the squares were of exactly the same color, except for an “odd-man-out” of a different color. The odd-man-out appeared in either the right or the left half of the circle, and participants were asked to indicate which side of the circle the odd-man-out was on, by making a keyboard response. Critically, the color of this odd-man-out had either the same name as the other squares (e.g. a shade of “green”, while the others were all a different shade of “green”), or a different name (e.g. a shade of “blue”, while the others were all a shade of “green”). The researchers found that participants responded more quickly when the color of the odd-man-out had a different name than the color of the other squares — as if the linguistic difference had heightened the perceptual difference — but this only occurred if the odd-man-out was in the right half of the visual field, and not when it was in the left half. This was the predicted pattern.

RIP: tortilla chip tech pioneer Rebecca Webb Carranza

2006-02-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

interesting story

Out of jail

2006-02-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

into the army

You will have to watch a free day pass comercial before given access to this article. Frankly, I think it is just fine that the military is letting in people who have committed these minor offenses:

After his parents filed a domestic-abuse complaint against him in 2000, a recruit in Rhode Island was sentenced to one year of probation, ordered to have "no contact" with his parents, and required to undergo counseling and to pay court costs. Air National Guard rules say domestic violence convictions make recruits ineligible -- no exceptions granted. But the records show that the recruiter in this case brought the issue to an Air Guard staff judge advocate, who reviewed the file and determined that the offense did not "meet the domestic violence crime criteria." As a result of this waiver, the recruit was admitted to his state's Air Guard on May 3, 2005.

A recruit with DWI violations in June 2001 and April 2002 received a waiver to enter the Iowa Air National Guard on July 15, 2005. The waiver request from the Iowa Guard to the Pentagon declares that the recruit "realizes that he made the wrong decision to drink and drive."

Another recruit for the Rhode Island Air National Guard finished five years of probation in 2002 for breaking and entering, apparently into his girlfriend's house. A waiver got him into the Guard in June 2005.

A recruit convicted in January 2004 for possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and stolen license-plate tags got into the Hawaii Air National Guard with a waiver little more than a year later, on March 3, 2005.

What's the point in keeping them out?

Did JFK visit Belleville?

2006-02-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

Local Urban Legend?
Did JFK kiss a bride in Belleville?

Q. I believe that John F. Kennedy visited Belleville during his run for the presidency, speaking from the steps of the old courthouse on Public Square. I seem to recall hearing somewhere that, while traveling to or from the square, Kennedy's motorcade stopped in front of St. Mary's Church on West Main Street. A wedding was taking place there, and Kennedy left his limousine to kiss the bride. Can you please verify whether this happened?

-- Dave A. of Belleville

A. JFK may have kissed a lot of babies during that memorable campaign in 1960, but I can tell you with almost absolute certainty that he did not plant a smooch on any blushing bride in Belleville.

I say "almost" because I can't find anyone who can tell me flatly that they know it didn't happen. But, like Ivory soap, it's a 99 and 44/100 percent likelihood that you've been told some obscure local urban legend that my sources have never heard.

For starters, JFK made his whirlwind tour of the state on Oct. 3 -- a Monday. Now there may be exceptions, but if people are going to tie the knot on Mondays, they do it in the county courthouse, not in fancy weddings in a Catholic church.

The timeline also works against your story. Because of heavy rain early that day, JFK left much later than planned from the Chase Hotel in St. Louis. By the time he made numerous appearances in Alton, Granite City, East St. Louis and other towns along the way, he was two hours behind schedule.

So, it would have been unbelievably serendipitous had he just happened to be passing by St. Mary's when a wedding was going on. And, the 20 cars and two press buses in the motorcade would have had to pull over and find parking as well, stealing many precious minutes.

As it was, he canceled a rest break so he could hit the Belleville square at 1 p.m. -- only 75 minutes late. From there, he went immediately to the old Augustine's restaurant for a brief lunch with area politicos before traveling on to Carbondale and Springfield.

"No, I would have known about it, because we'd have covered it," said News-Democrat photographer emeritus Bill DeMestri, who has been taking pictures of Belleville events almost since George Blair donated an acre of land for the Public Square.

"We never heard anything about it, and we would have heard about that. I'd take that with a grain of salt."

Father John Myler, the pastor of St. Mary's, says he knows of no such event at the church. And, while noting unexpected stops by Kennedy at a filling station and café to grab a soda, an account in the old East St. Louis Journal makes no mention of it, either.

Instead, JFK stayed on topic, blasting his opponent, Richard Nixon, for voting against public housing and health bills, while, in Alton, comparing the Communist menace to the evils of slavery a century earlier.

Interestingly, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was visiting New York the same day, calling for major changes in the United Nations. He complained that the New York weather was not as invigorating as Moscow's, but said he might stick around to watch a pro football game that weekend.

Too bad the Cincinnati Reds' season was over.

Not at all!

BELLEVILLE - The morning was rainy, the photographer was late, and the traffic was horrendous.

But those memories pale in comparison to the moment presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy kissed Carol Schlosser on her wedding day 46 years ago in Belleville.

"He had these bright green eyes," the Swansea woman said of her unexpected close encounter with the nation's soon-to-be 35th chief executive on Oct. 3, 1960.

"He must have been wearing green contacts. That's the only thing I can think of. They were really green-green. I don't think anybody could have that color eyes."

Her e-mail and subsequent phone call Monday set the record straight on the memorable event that occurred during Kennedy's one-day campaign sweep through Southern Illinois.

Based on information provided, an Answer Man column had concluded Monday that the smooch probably was an urban legend. But even without seeing The Associated Press photos in her wedding album, you only have to hear the emotion in her voice to know this was no hoax.

Her wedding day started on a frustrating note. It was a dreary, stormy morning, and her photographer missed taking pictures before the ceremony at St. Teresa's Church. A post-wedding celebration at the old Bismarck cafe did not improve her mood.

"My boss gave me a meal -- my wedding breakfast," said the former Carol Starms, who was 18 and working at the Bismarck when she married Robert Appel. "But I was upset because there was so much traffic. It was really hard to get to the restaurant."

As it turned out, fate was conspiring in the young bride's favor. After the meal, the couple had to drive to the old Academy of Notre Dame for the photos missed earlier. And, because of the bad weather and crowds, Kennedy was more than an hour behind schedule.

As a result, the newlyweds were at Schlosser's in-laws at 60th and West Main for still more photos when they heard sirens in the distance. Still dressed in their wedding finery, the couple saw the approaching motorcade and made their way onto the grassy median that once divided West Main Street.

The odd entourage in the middle of Main prompted Kennedy to make another unexpected campaign stop.

"He was very nice. He said, 'Where did you get married?'" said Schlosser, trying to mimic Kennedy's distinctive Bah-stonian accent. "After he shook hands with us, my husband said, 'Hey, Jack, you want to kiss the bride?' So, he picked me up and then they got the pictures. He was sitting on the back of the front seat, and he just leaned over.

"It was fun. The front of my dress got all kind of wet from the car. I wasn't happy about that, and I wasn't happy about the crowd, but other than that it was exciting."

Soon, she was receiving published pictures of her brush with celebrity from all over the country. One person even told her of seeing it tacked up in the White House amid a collection of campaign pictures.

"It's just too bad it didn't last," she said of the marriage, which ended in 1969.

Still, Schlosser, who works at Cedarleaf Photography and does senior outreach ministry for Faith Family Church, tells the story with fondness at least once a year, said her son, David Appel, a history teacher at Belleville East High School.

Appel shows off the photos himself each year when he lectures students about the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race. And, this summer, Schlosser, 63, can start telling the story to a brand new generation when her first great-grandchild joins her family of five children and 10 grandchildren.

But the next Democratic presidential candidate shouldn't think that Kennedy's kiss changed her voting habits.

"I'm a staunch Republican girl," she said, "and my dad was a Republican and everybody was Republican."

See the amazing photo

Study Ties Political Leanings to Hidden Biases

2006-01-30T13:48:00.000-08:00

Interesting bias study

Real-life 'Professor Higgins' dies

2006-01-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Peter Ladefoged
Sad News. ):

Bush comedy

2006-01-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

imitation of Bush

Hominids

2006-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

revisions to scientific naming

Oh Snap!

2006-01-24T12:49:00.000-08:00

Pictures of Abramoff and Bush
Bush's Monica?!

Bush Videos

2006-01-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

Bush being asked some questions by audience members

A woeful blog about...

2006-01-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

credit card debt

Old ads

2006-01-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

Oh glorious jet pack! sent by e

Very cute ads from the past. You have to click on each image to go to the next ad. I like the 'one-man 'copters"- the best. If they had invented jet packs or something similar, everyone would want to join the military-as long as everyone were requisitioned one along with their gun.

cosmic thinkers on camera

2006-01-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

meaningoflife.tv cool philosophy site.

My favorite:

Is consciousness a mystery--so mysterious as to suggest some higher purpose in the universe? Yes and no, says psychologist Steven Pinker (who more definitively solves the mystery of his hair).

I can think of no better place to go...

2006-01-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

if you are bird flu than Turkey! :)

Wal-Mart Web Site Makes Racial Connections

2006-01-06T17:35:00.000-08:00

They can't win!

Lip Service Review

2006-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

in Spanish

a message from...

2006-01-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

the Dalai Lama and a message to Walmart

miners, miracles, and the media

2006-01-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

this modern world

reviews for Erick's latest Book

2006-01-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

macnn reviews
about.com

Earthquake

2006-01-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

in Southern Illinois
Erick and I think we felt it yesterday at about 3:45pm.

A message for teens

2006-01-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

I found this link on the Focus on the Family web site. My favorite part:

“I understand that part. God fashioned her and brought her to Adam because it wasn’t good for him to be alone,” she said.

“Adam needed a helper,” I continued. We both smiled because Tanya told us that men need help, and we’re the helpers. “The important part, for me, is when God brought Eve to Adam and she was, well, you know . . .”

Stacie mouthed, “Naked.”

“Yeah, and Adam really liked that because God knew men would, and they still do.”

Stacie nodded. “So?”

“Guys are connected to what they see.”

“Very visual,” Stacie said, making quote marks in the air to show she was using Tanya’s exact words.

“Right. So, we need to be careful with what we wear because it might make them want us in a way they shouldn’t.”

-----------------------------

Short version:

Women are helpers and are responsible for the a man's inabilities to control his thoughts.-great message for young girls.

Archaeology and biology

2005-12-27T11:16:00.000-08:00

Dwarfs assimilated in ancient Egypt

Estimated Median Age at First Marriage, by Sex:

2005-12-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

1890 to Present

Conifers and their root systems

2005-12-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

Why Christmas Trees Are Not Extinct

News of the weird...

2005-12-26T14:14:00.000-08:00

best of 2005
My favorites:

THE LAWS OF IRONY ARE STRICTLY ENFORCED When CNN/USA Today/Gallup pollsters asked in a telephone survey whether President Bush is a "uniter" or a "divider," 49 percent said a uniter and 49 percent said a divider.

--CNN, Jan. 19

That's funny.

DO I LOSE MY PLACE IN LINE? As a registered sex offender in California, James Andrew Crawford was required to notify authorities if he adopted a new "domicile" for more than five days. He was arrested in May for noncompliance after he camped out for two weeks in a theater line waiting for "Star Wars: Episode III" to open.

--North County (Escondido, Calif.) Times, May 19

That's terrible. Poor Pervert. Life sucks wearing the Scarlett letter.

THE REALITY SHOW IS NEXT At a new theme park in El Alberto, Mexico (near Mexico City), wannabe migrants to the United States can test their survival skills at an obstacle course that replicates the rigors migrants must endure while sneaking across the border. Admission price: about $13.50.

--Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Feb. 20

Go Mexico!

blasphemy on Christmas

2005-12-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

Jesus sings-I will survive
Blame my husband-He sent it to me today.

Introducing...

2005-12-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Noodle flix
Read about it.
See the reviews
Check out the other products by sonic amigos

another year end quote thing

2005-12-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

media matters

UMass Mao library book story...

2005-12-24T09:36:00.000-08:00

is a hoax.

Oh Canada!

2005-12-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

Sex in Clubs OK says court

Other conspiracy theory sites

2005-12-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

Conspiracy Planet
Wayne Madsen Report

Dave Chappelle conspiracy theory?

2005-12-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

It happened and here's the link to read all about it. If you happened to catch the Dave Chappelle interview after his "breakdown," he did express concern that his material was crossing the minstrel show line and he did not want to do material like that. This article was either in Rolling Stone or Time, I can't remember which- but according to this article, friends did view his behavior as growing more and more paranoid. Intriguing.

Whatever the case it makes for a good tale. It is very long though so get ready to devote some time. I have been trying to get through it all day but the kids are keeping me busy. It's a page turner.:)

Update: I just finished, I think this is a set up by Dave. Some kind of a promotion for a TV special. That's my guess. Really cute, though. You can watch the trailer to the upcoming movie and see "interviews" that supposedly confirm some of the "facts" in the web reading here.

Conservative opinions about spying

2005-12-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

William Kristol
Wall Street Journal
GOP

Holiday messages from the White House

2005-12-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

from Salon's war room You may have to sign up for a free day pass to read this article.

Intelligent Design

2005-12-20T13:06:00.000-08:00

unconstitutional
Intelligent design is clearly a religious idea that advances "a particular version of Christianity."

Best soap opera ever!

2005-12-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

Bush's Snoopgate It just keeps getting better and better. What will happen next?

Worm love

2005-12-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

Learning About Sex From an Elegant Worm

Imbalance of power?

2005-12-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

great summary of spying on Americans story

jib jab

2005-12-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

year end round up very cute! You have to watch the stupidest commercial ever by Sprint but then the fun begins!

History of the alphabet

2005-12-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

really cool

Spying on our own citizens-the urban legends series

2005-12-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

Last spring 05 semester, I took a class at SCUMSL with this lady who was at some administrative level at a community college. I think the school was near Rolla, Mo. This lady was a very conservative looking woman maybe in her late forties or early fifties. You know the type, she kinda of looked like Alice from the Brady Bunch or a nun.

On our last day of class, she told us a scary story about a trip she had just gotten back from. Her college sent her down to Texas for some sort of conference. Education people are always going to conferences and having meetings. For some reason, she was able to fly there but had to take the train back to Missouri. I had drifted during this part of the story so I can't remember why this arrangement happened. I tuned back in when she said she was boarding the train when she noticed some men in suits looking at her. She thought they were security and found her seat. Soon one of the men in suits appeared in the seat next to her. The man said, "You weren't what we were expecting." She was confused and rather startled by this statement. She didn't know if the guy was crazy or what was going on. The man proceeded to tell her everything and everywhere she had been in the last several days. He told her how she had boarded flight such and such for Dallas, stayed and such and such hotel, right up to her finding her seat on the train. She was, of course, very disturbed that the man knew everything about her whereabouts. She explained about the education conference that she had attended and the circumstances by which she came to take the plane, then the train and her explanation seemed to lighten the guy's mood. He went on to say that due to the type travel she had taken (first a plane, then a train) she had been profiled as a drug smuggler. Oh, what a good laugh all the men in suits had! "You don't look like a typical drug dealer, silly us," they joked as they left her on the train.

It could have been worse if she had looked differently she might have had some trouble. I suppose the moral of the story is when you travel dress like Alice from the Brady Bunch and you'll be fine.

Oh Condi!

2005-12-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

law breakers

Wire taps on citizens

2005-12-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

King Bush Not looking too good for the King at the moment.

abortion riot in Granite City

2005-12-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

County prosecutors decline charges in Santa parade scuffle

More good news for Bush

2005-12-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

Bush Had More Prewar Intelligence Than Congress

The 25 Dumbest Quotes of 2005

2005-12-16T12:01:00.000-08:00

Funny!
My favorites:
23) "Get some devastation in the back." --Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to a staff photographer as he posed for a photo op while visiting tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka, Jan. 6, 2005

8) "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." --Bill Bennett, former Education Secretary and author of "The Book of Virtues," Sept. 28, 2005

17) "You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war." --Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Aug. 22, 2005

9) "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

15) "I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli." --Sen. Bill Frist, diagnosing Terri Schiavo's condition during a speech on the Senate floor, March 17, 2005

6) "You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --President Bush, to a divorced mother of three in Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

21) "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." --Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked to estimate the number of Iraqi insurgents while testifying before Congress, Feb. 16, 2005

1) "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." --Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005