April 3, 2006
Gettysburg
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Do You Have Unclaimed Money/Property?
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/120707
Test the strength of your computer passwords
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/password_checker.mspx
Tiger on the loose in Northern Alabama
"A 300-pound Bengal tiger has been seen roaming near homes in northern Alabama. Animal control officers believe the animal first seen last week may be an escaped or discarded pet. Animal control officers said residents should consider the animal dangerous and back away slowly."
According to the Birmingham News, you can identify the tiger because it's wearing "a 3-inch-wide red collar." But if you live in northern Alabama and come across a 300-pound Bengal tiger, like the Bengal seen at right, you can probably assume this tiger is the tiger in question.
"The worst thing anyone can do if they see it is to turn around and run away," an official at an Alabama animal rescue sanctuary says. "You never turn your back on a big cat because its instincts will kick in." In a Associated Press report, a local animal control official urges hollering and acting as you would if you encountered a bear.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/03/across_the_usa__12.html
Boy Suspended For Turning In Knife
A school principal in Indianapolis suspended an eighth-grader for 10 days and recommended he be expelled for carrying a pocket knife, even though the boy said he had forgotten the weapon was in his coat pocket and turned it over to school officials as soon as he entered the building.
Elliot Voge, 14, told Stoneybrook Middle School principal Jimmy Meadows he forgot that he had left the Swiss Army knife in his pocket after using it to whittle wood last month. The next day, just after he was dropped off at school by a classmate's mother, he said he discovered the knife in his coat and immediately went to the office.
Nevertheless, Meadows suspended him and recommended expulsion. The action stunned the boy's parents, who hired a lawyer to represent him at the hearing next week.
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/8435421/detail.html
why not start by snuffing out these nuts first...
Texas academy honors professor who wants 90% of human race exterminated
April 2, 2006What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus?
Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an award.
That's the story being told by Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy of Science, chairman of its environmental science section and editor of the Citizen Scientist...
"We're no better than bacteria," Mims quoted Pianka as saying in his condemnation of the human race, which, he claimed, is overpopulating the Earth.
The only way to save the planet for the rest of the species is to reduce the human population to 10 percent of its current number.
"He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," writes Mims. "War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved. ...AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola (Ebola reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs."
...Mims notes that when Pianka finished his remarks, the audience of fellow scientists and students burst out in sustained applause.
During a question-and-answer sessions, the audience laughed approvingly when Pianka offered the bird flu as another vehicle toward achieving his goal. They also chuckled when he suggested it was time to sterilize everyone on Earth.
...Following the question-and-answer session, Mims says "almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions."
Mims notes five hours later, the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.
"When the banquet hall filled with more than 400 people responded with enthusiastic applause, I walked out in protest," he writes...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49555
A little perspective (cartoon)
http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/nowakimages/2006/15th-Year.jpg
Afghan convert sheds Muslim name
Man threatened with death for becoming Christian now known as 'Joel'
April 2, 2006- The exiled Afghan convert, Abdul Rahman, now reportedly wants to be identified as Joel – his baptism name – and has expressed his thanks to people of Italy for their efforts to secure his release.
He was charged with death sentence since Afghanistan's Sharia law interprets a Muslim's conversion from Islam to any other religion as crime.
…Italy granted asylum to 41-year old convert following his appeal for sanctuary in the west. He made to Italy on March 30.
Almost all Afghan parliamentarians have reportedly flayed the government's decision to allow the convert to fly to Italy. Voicing their displeasure they said the trial should have continued against Joel in Afghanistan…
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49551
Married lawyer sues dating service
(This guy must be a big looser if he can't meet chicks any other way. Oh yeah, he's a lawyer, he knows this is a way to make some big bucks. It's not like it's the only on-line dating service available)
Mar 28, 2006 - A California man in the process of getting a divorce said on Monday he was suing a popular online dating service that barred him from joining until his marriage is officially over.
John Claassen, a 36-year-old lawyer, said he was ready to resume dating but maintains that Pasadena, California-based agency eHarmony is violating his civil rights by not letting him use its service before his divorce is official.
The Oakland, California-based lawyer said he is asking a state judge to end eHarmony's policy of only admitting unmarried people to its dating service. "There are a lot of people out there in my situation who would like to move on but under these policies can't," Claassen said.
The company, which advertises it is "dedicated to helping serious singles build lasting relationships," did not return calls for comment.
Claassen said his lawsuit is based on a state law requiring businesses to disregard a person's marital status in the provision of services.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-03-28T155252Z_01_N27315827_RTRUKOC_0_US-DATING.xml&rpc=22
FISA Judge: Bush Wiretapping Broke No Law
March 30, 2006 - In a significant vindication for President Bush, a judge who co-authored the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act said Tuesday that the president was duly authorized under the Constitution to order the wiretapping of suspected terrorists - without getting a warrant from the FISA Court.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, former FISA Court Judge Allan Kornblum said that president's Constitutional powers supersede the FISA law, which critics claim the Bush program violated.
"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Kornblum, in quotes picked up by the Washington Times.
Kornblum, who supervised Justice Department wiretap applications to the FISA court for years, is now a magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Testifying along with four other former FISA Court judges, Judge Kornblum suggested that it would have been irresponsible for Bush to have deferred to the FISA Court.
"I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute," the FISA author said.
While the Washington Times said Kornblum's testimony indicated that the Bush surveillance program did not violate the law, other media outlets interpreted the judges' comments differently.
On the same concept of inherent constitutional authority, the Associated Press quoted Kornblum as saying: "I am very wary of inherent authority . . . It sounds very much like King George."
The AP didn't mention the FISA author's other remarks about Bush having the power to "act unilaterally."
The New York Times also failed to find vindication for Bush in Kornblum's words, reporting instead that the FISA judges "voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order."
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/30/00303.shtml?s=ic
Justice Scalia Chastises Boston Newspaper
Mar 29 -Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a scathing letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, accused the newspaper's staff of watching "too many episodes of the Sopranos" for interpreting a hand gesture he made at a cathedral as obscene.
The Boston Herald reported Monday the justice made "an obscene gesture, flicking his hand under his chin" in response to a question about whether lawyers might question his impartiality in matters of church and state. The incident occurred after he attended Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
But Scalia said in his letter the gesture is not obscene at all, but dismissive. Scalia said he had explained the gesture's meaning to no avail to the reporter, whom he referred to as "an up-and-coming 'gotcha' star."
To back his interpretation of the gesture, Scalia in his letter quoted from Luigi Barzini's book, "The Italians:" "The extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin means 'I couldn't care less. It's no business of mine. Count me out.'"
Scalia said in the letter, written to Executive Editor Kenneth Chandler, that the reporter leapt to conclusions that it was offensive because he initially explained his gesture by saying, 'That's Sicilian.'"
"From watching too many episodes of the Sopranos, your staff seems to have acquired the belief that any Sicilian gesture is obscene _ especially when made by an 'Italian jurist.' (I am, by the way, an American jurist.)," he wrote.
The Herald had referred to him as an "Italian-American jurist."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/29/D8GLAQ702.html
Stockbridge insists on land from florist shop
03/28/06 - ...Mark and Regina Meeks, have battled officials in the Henry County municipality for three years over its plan to buy their florist shop, tear it down and combine it with other properties to revitalize its struggling downtown with a new City Hall, homes, shops and offices on about 22 acres.
Earlier this month...Mayor R.G. "Rudy" Kelley suggested during that meeting that the city let the Meekses keep their business. On Monday, after an hourlong closed session, Kelley made the recommendation to his fellow council members. They voted 3-1 against the idea.
Councilman Fred Evans, explaining his vote, argued that the Meekses have been unreasonable in their negotiations with the city.
"We have truly tried to work it out," Evans told reporters after the meeting. "We've made our decision. It's time for the courts to make theirs."
...A special master ruled last year that the city should pay the couple $325,000, plus moving expenses for the property. The Meekses say the land is worth much more.
The Meekses say they were near a deal in 2003 to sell the property to a developer who wanted to build a drugstore on the land for $743,000. The deal fell through, the couple says, when the city passed guidelines limiting the size of drugstores.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/0328metstockbridge.html
Fox: Mexico has own immigration woes
CANCUN, Mexico, April 2 (UPI) -- While assuring the United States he is trying to stem the flow of Mexicans into the country, President Vicente Fox says Mexico has its own border problems.
"We are working in the inner part and in the southern part of the country to stop migration flows that come from Central America that are crossing illegally the southern border of Mexico," Fox said.
Mexico has caught and sent home some 240,000 illegal immigrants in the past year, The Washington Times reported Sunday.
In two days of meetings with U.S. President George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week, Fox also pledged to reduce border violence and illegal-alien smuggling, and to work to boost jobs so that fewer Mexicans feel the need to leave the country and look for work in the United States.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate Judiciary immigration, border security and citizenship subcommittee, told the newspaper he's heard his Mexican counterparts lament towns devoid of young men and say privately they want those workers to return home, rather than remain in the United States permanently.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060402-063858-6346r
Some Marines Declining Extra Body Armor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060326/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_unused_armor
Stop Lying About Tax Cuts
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/HermanCain/2006/03/29/191794.html
David<><
http://freewill-predestination.com/
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove/
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Do You Have Unclaimed Money/Property?
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/120707
Test the strength of your computer passwords
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/password_checker.mspx
Tiger on the loose in Northern Alabama
"A 300-pound Bengal tiger has been seen roaming near homes in northern Alabama. Animal control officers believe the animal first seen last week may be an escaped or discarded pet. Animal control officers said residents should consider the animal dangerous and back away slowly."
According to the Birmingham News, you can identify the tiger because it's wearing "a 3-inch-wide red collar." But if you live in northern Alabama and come across a 300-pound Bengal tiger, like the Bengal seen at right, you can probably assume this tiger is the tiger in question.
"The worst thing anyone can do if they see it is to turn around and run away," an official at an Alabama animal rescue sanctuary says. "You never turn your back on a big cat because its instincts will kick in." In a Associated Press report, a local animal control official urges hollering and acting as you would if you encountered a bear.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/03/across_the_usa__12.html
Boy Suspended For Turning In Knife
A school principal in Indianapolis suspended an eighth-grader for 10 days and recommended he be expelled for carrying a pocket knife, even though the boy said he had forgotten the weapon was in his coat pocket and turned it over to school officials as soon as he entered the building.
Elliot Voge, 14, told Stoneybrook Middle School principal Jimmy Meadows he forgot that he had left the Swiss Army knife in his pocket after using it to whittle wood last month. The next day, just after he was dropped off at school by a classmate's mother, he said he discovered the knife in his coat and immediately went to the office.
Nevertheless, Meadows suspended him and recommended expulsion. The action stunned the boy's parents, who hired a lawyer to represent him at the hearing next week.
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/8435421/detail.html
why not start by snuffing out these nuts first...
Texas academy honors professor who wants 90% of human race exterminated
April 2, 2006What would happen if a world-renowned scientist and evolutionary ecologist told hundreds of his colleagues that 90 percent of the human race needed to be wiped out by exposure to Ebola or some other deadly virus?
Apparently, according to a scientist who claims to have witnessed such a remarkable event one month ago, the fiend would get a standing ovation and an award.
That's the story being told by Forrest Mims III, a member of the Texas Academy of Science, chairman of its environmental science section and editor of the Citizen Scientist...
"We're no better than bacteria," Mims quoted Pianka as saying in his condemnation of the human race, which, he claimed, is overpopulating the Earth.
The only way to save the planet for the rest of the species is to reduce the human population to 10 percent of its current number.
"He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," writes Mims. "War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved. ...AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola (Ebola reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs."
...Mims notes that when Pianka finished his remarks, the audience of fellow scientists and students burst out in sustained applause.
During a question-and-answer sessions, the audience laughed approvingly when Pianka offered the bird flu as another vehicle toward achieving his goal. They also chuckled when he suggested it was time to sterilize everyone on Earth.
...Following the question-and-answer session, Mims says "almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions."
Mims notes five hours later, the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.
"When the banquet hall filled with more than 400 people responded with enthusiastic applause, I walked out in protest," he writes...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49555
A little perspective (cartoon)
http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/nowakimages/2006/15th-Year.jpg
Afghan convert sheds Muslim name
Man threatened with death for becoming Christian now known as 'Joel'
April 2, 2006- The exiled Afghan convert, Abdul Rahman, now reportedly wants to be identified as Joel – his baptism name – and has expressed his thanks to people of Italy for their efforts to secure his release.
He was charged with death sentence since Afghanistan's Sharia law interprets a Muslim's conversion from Islam to any other religion as crime.
…Italy granted asylum to 41-year old convert following his appeal for sanctuary in the west. He made to Italy on March 30.
Almost all Afghan parliamentarians have reportedly flayed the government's decision to allow the convert to fly to Italy. Voicing their displeasure they said the trial should have continued against Joel in Afghanistan…
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49551
Married lawyer sues dating service
(This guy must be a big looser if he can't meet chicks any other way. Oh yeah, he's a lawyer, he knows this is a way to make some big bucks. It's not like it's the only on-line dating service available)
Mar 28, 2006 - A California man in the process of getting a divorce said on Monday he was suing a popular online dating service that barred him from joining until his marriage is officially over.
John Claassen, a 36-year-old lawyer, said he was ready to resume dating but maintains that Pasadena, California-based agency eHarmony is violating his civil rights by not letting him use its service before his divorce is official.
The Oakland, California-based lawyer said he is asking a state judge to end eHarmony's policy of only admitting unmarried people to its dating service. "There are a lot of people out there in my situation who would like to move on but under these policies can't," Claassen said.
The company, which advertises it is "dedicated to helping serious singles build lasting relationships," did not return calls for comment.
Claassen said his lawsuit is based on a state law requiring businesses to disregard a person's marital status in the provision of services.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-03-28T155252Z_01_N27315827_RTRUKOC_0_US-DATING.xml&rpc=22
FISA Judge: Bush Wiretapping Broke No Law
March 30, 2006 - In a significant vindication for President Bush, a judge who co-authored the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act said Tuesday that the president was duly authorized under the Constitution to order the wiretapping of suspected terrorists - without getting a warrant from the FISA Court.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, former FISA Court Judge Allan Kornblum said that president's Constitutional powers supersede the FISA law, which critics claim the Bush program violated.
"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Kornblum, in quotes picked up by the Washington Times.
Kornblum, who supervised Justice Department wiretap applications to the FISA court for years, is now a magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Testifying along with four other former FISA Court judges, Judge Kornblum suggested that it would have been irresponsible for Bush to have deferred to the FISA Court.
"I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute," the FISA author said.
While the Washington Times said Kornblum's testimony indicated that the Bush surveillance program did not violate the law, other media outlets interpreted the judges' comments differently.
On the same concept of inherent constitutional authority, the Associated Press quoted Kornblum as saying: "I am very wary of inherent authority . . . It sounds very much like King George."
The AP didn't mention the FISA author's other remarks about Bush having the power to "act unilaterally."
The New York Times also failed to find vindication for Bush in Kornblum's words, reporting instead that the FISA judges "voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order."
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/30/00303.shtml?s=ic
Justice Scalia Chastises Boston Newspaper
Mar 29 -Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a scathing letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, accused the newspaper's staff of watching "too many episodes of the Sopranos" for interpreting a hand gesture he made at a cathedral as obscene.
The Boston Herald reported Monday the justice made "an obscene gesture, flicking his hand under his chin" in response to a question about whether lawyers might question his impartiality in matters of church and state. The incident occurred after he attended Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
But Scalia said in his letter the gesture is not obscene at all, but dismissive. Scalia said he had explained the gesture's meaning to no avail to the reporter, whom he referred to as "an up-and-coming 'gotcha' star."
To back his interpretation of the gesture, Scalia in his letter quoted from Luigi Barzini's book, "The Italians:" "The extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin means 'I couldn't care less. It's no business of mine. Count me out.'"
Scalia said in the letter, written to Executive Editor Kenneth Chandler, that the reporter leapt to conclusions that it was offensive because he initially explained his gesture by saying, 'That's Sicilian.'"
"From watching too many episodes of the Sopranos, your staff seems to have acquired the belief that any Sicilian gesture is obscene _ especially when made by an 'Italian jurist.' (I am, by the way, an American jurist.)," he wrote.
The Herald had referred to him as an "Italian-American jurist."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/29/D8GLAQ702.html
Stockbridge insists on land from florist shop
03/28/06 - ...Mark and Regina Meeks, have battled officials in the Henry County municipality for three years over its plan to buy their florist shop, tear it down and combine it with other properties to revitalize its struggling downtown with a new City Hall, homes, shops and offices on about 22 acres.
Earlier this month...Mayor R.G. "Rudy" Kelley suggested during that meeting that the city let the Meekses keep their business. On Monday, after an hourlong closed session, Kelley made the recommendation to his fellow council members. They voted 3-1 against the idea.
Councilman Fred Evans, explaining his vote, argued that the Meekses have been unreasonable in their negotiations with the city.
"We have truly tried to work it out," Evans told reporters after the meeting. "We've made our decision. It's time for the courts to make theirs."
...A special master ruled last year that the city should pay the couple $325,000, plus moving expenses for the property. The Meekses say the land is worth much more.
The Meekses say they were near a deal in 2003 to sell the property to a developer who wanted to build a drugstore on the land for $743,000. The deal fell through, the couple says, when the city passed guidelines limiting the size of drugstores.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/clayton/stories/0328metstockbridge.html
Fox: Mexico has own immigration woes
CANCUN, Mexico, April 2 (UPI) -- While assuring the United States he is trying to stem the flow of Mexicans into the country, President Vicente Fox says Mexico has its own border problems.
"We are working in the inner part and in the southern part of the country to stop migration flows that come from Central America that are crossing illegally the southern border of Mexico," Fox said.
Mexico has caught and sent home some 240,000 illegal immigrants in the past year, The Washington Times reported Sunday.
In two days of meetings with U.S. President George Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week, Fox also pledged to reduce border violence and illegal-alien smuggling, and to work to boost jobs so that fewer Mexicans feel the need to leave the country and look for work in the United States.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate Judiciary immigration, border security and citizenship subcommittee, told the newspaper he's heard his Mexican counterparts lament towns devoid of young men and say privately they want those workers to return home, rather than remain in the United States permanently.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060402-063858-6346r
Some Marines Declining Extra Body Armor
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060326/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_unused_armor
Stop Lying About Tax Cuts
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/HermanCain/2006/03/29/191794.html
David<><
http://freewill-predestination.com/
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove/
posted by David Bennett | 2:39 PM
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