Way to go, Reuters!

The United Methodist Church signed a contract through an agency to run a series of ads during the Thanksgiving season on the giant Times Square video billboard belonging to the Reuters news service. Reuters quickly nixed the deal, citing its long-standing policy against accepting religious or political advertising, but, when faced with withering criticism from religious liberty and free-speech groups, Reuters flip-flopped and will now permit the ads.

A statement by the National Council of Churches read, in part, "To imply that religious and political speech might be in the same class with messages that are ‘pornographic… libelous, misleading or deceptive in nature,’ as Reuters did in explaining its refusal to carry the United Methodist ad, is a frightening use of the power of media ownership."

Now, Reuters said that perhaps the company should accept any ads, as long as they aren’t confused with Reuters’ news coverage. If that happens, and if Reuters accepts messages that are pornographic, then, I predict, legitimate advertisers like the United Methodist Church will pull their ads, and Reuters will be left with nothing but ads that are "pornographic… libelous, misleading or deceptive in nature."

An Increase in the Number of Beggers?

This is getting ridiculous! I was panhandled out in the front yard, this morning! I went out to the car to put Mother's library books in the trunk, and a man came across the street from the store with a "sob story" about his car breaking down. He asked me for a ride. I told him that I couldn't give him a ride, because my eighty-two year old Mother lived with me, and I couldn't leave her. So he asked for some gas money, five dollars worth, to be exact. I didn't have a five, so I gave him two one-dollar bills, after getting him to agree not to replay me.

That's not too bad, but it comes on the heels of the man that panhandled me yesterday. It was at the Burger King restaurant on High Street. When he asked for help, I suggested that I buy him something to eat. Instead of saying, "Thank you," he wanted to know what I was going to buy him. I asked him what he needed. He replied that he was hungry enough to eat three sausage biscuits. I told him that was two too many and walked into the store. I bought my breakfast and got another to go. When I finished eating and went outside, the guy was nowhere to be seen. I took the breakfast back to the office and gave it to the company secretary, who was glad to get it!

The day before that, which was Thursday, I was panhandled in the parking lot of the Shell convenience store on High Street. I could go on. My point is that there seem to be more people asking for a handout than there used to be. If that is the case, I wonder why?

Trick or Treat!

Woman dressed as clown robs bank

Think of the Children

Chicago teachers take first step toward strike

Hatch proposal angers activists

"Conservatives are furious over a Republican proposal to create two new Michigan-based judicial seats in exchange for getting Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, to lift his blockade on four of President Bush's nominees from that state."

Huge fires continue to burn in California.

Officials said that as of Wednesday night there were 18 confirmed deaths in Southern California, two in adjoining areas in Mexico and that a total of 2,427 homes were destroyed along with 634,000 acres.

Horrors! New study reveals that "more than a third of kids under 6 have a TV in their bedroom." Is it just me, or are children younger than six years of age probably not very discerning judges of what would be good, and what would be harmful, for them to watch on television?

Years ago, the then-Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Newton Minnow, proclaimed television to be "a vast wasteland." In my opinion, it hasn't changed for the better.

From an Associated Press article on MSNBC.com

The international Red Cross said Monday it is considering cutting back its operations in Iraq after a bomb attack on its Baghdad headquarters that shook the neutral Swiss-run organization.

Maybe it is self-evident; even so, it bears repeating: That's exactly what the terrorists want! That is why the Red Cross absolutely, positively must not cut back its operations.

After the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations was bombed, that organization cut their staff back to a skeleton crew, and, sadly, I wouldn't be suprised if the International Red Cross did the same, which would, once again, leave the United States of America to do to do the work of others, with scant appreciation.

From the BBC, by way of Drudge Report, comes this story about how a Muslim in Italy succeeded in getting the courts there to ban crucifixes from classrooms in a state kindergarten, a move which has "shocked" the Roman Catholic Church.

"You cannot remove a symbol of the religious and cultural values of a people just because it can offend someone," said a leading prelate, Cardinal Ersilio Tonini.

A number of government ministers were similarly outraged.

"It is unacceptable that one judge should cancel out millennia of history," said Labour Minister Roberto Maroni.

Why didn't the Roman Catholic Church take such a stand in the United States of America were making the same types of rulings?

The number of arrests made by agents of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, under the leadership of Frank Melton, continues to mount.

Eric Stringfellow writes in The Clarion-Ledger newspaper about the lack of cooperation and the incompetance between and among criminal "justice" agencies and personnel in Jackson, Hinds County, and Mississippi.

UFO seen by several people in Colorado.

I followed a link on the Drudge Report to the following story. I never cease to be amazed at how the Democrats continue to side with law breakers. It is really quite disgusting, in my opinion. As you can see from the article below, Pelosi attacks employers and takes up for the illegal aliens. Also, she reiterates the Democrat desire to grant legal status to aliens who are in this country illegally.

Rep. Pelosi Says Wal-Mart Arrests 'Terrorizing'

Fri Oct 24, 6:43 PM ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Friday police raids on dozens of U.S. Wal-Mart stores in the search for illegal immigrants this week amounted to "terrorizing" workers.

"It instills a great deal of fear in people who are only trying to earn a living and put food on the table for their family," Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters on a Congressional visit to Mexico.

Hundreds of workers at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. locations across the United States were arrested on immigration charges on Thursday in an investigation into contractor cleaning crews.

"We think there might be a better way to go about this because the fact is that it is against the law for the employer to hire these people so there should be more focus on the employer and less in these terrorizing raids," Pelosi said.

She was speaking after meeting Mexican President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) for talks on immigration and border security.

Pelosi said the Wal-Mart raids showed the need to legalize undocumented workers in parts of the economy other than just the agricultural sector.

Several bills to grant legal status to illegal immigrants working in U.S. agriculture are before Congress, including the Berman-Cannon bill which would let an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants earn legal residency.

Car accidents claim four lives in Jackson area, in less than twenty-four hours!

Four Jackson men held in separate carjackings

I wonder if the Chief of Police still maintains that Jackson doesn't have a crime problem, just a crime "perception" problem?

Four allegedly bilk government out of $11.2 million, face combined jail time of 1,415 years!

"I don't want people that have criminal records dealing with children."

Well, duh!

" ... another sad day in Jackson."

" ... another sad day in Jackson."

Two street thugs tried to rob a local jeweler, but he fought back, and they fled.

Saudis: Non-Actions Speak Louder Than Words

With "friends" like the Saudis, who needs enemies?

Man known as Mr. Fix-it Jackson's 31st homicide

A man known to his neighbors as Mr. Fix-it was fatally attacked in his northwest Jackson home, police said Thursday.

Gregory Acker, 49, of 471 E. Ridgeway St., suffered a blow to the head and two stab wounds in his neck, Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said.

Police are searching for Acker's missing blue-grayish handyman's van. "No job too small" is written on the van.

Acker is Jackson's 31st homicide of 2003 and the second since Wednesday, when a homeowner fatally shot a man police say was trying to break into his house.

Order not to arrest illegals overturned

" ... we should all be disgusted; however, we should not be surprised."

It's not fair, but Jackson is defined too often by Stokes' histrionics. Not only does he undermine the council, but also he sabotages the city. Stokes should go.

After doing all that they could to obstruct the United States from deposing Saddam Hussein and freeing the people of Iraq from his cruel oppression, the French now want to suspend the sanctions that were imposed against his regime. Why? You can bet that it is not out of the goodness of their hearts. "Follow the money," is a phrase that probably applies here.

This is the fourth full day of military action by the United States of America, and others, most notably Britain, to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of the sadistic, murderous dictator Saddam Hussein and to enforce United Nations Security Council resolution 1441.

War is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and, yet, some fairly certain information is coming out of Iraq, even as military action continues. Several thousand Iraqi troops have either capitulated or surrendered; many times that number are thought to have simply left their posts and returned to their homes. A smaller number are resisting, some fiercely. There have been some coalition casualties; some coalition troops have been captured by the enemy.

The regime of Saddam Hussein has already violated the Geneva Conventions, according to United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield.

So-called "anti-war" protests continue throughout the world, although to a lesser degree in the United States since the actual onset of hostilities, but the protests are increasingly seen as "anti-American" or "anti-Bush," rather than actually "anti-war."

In the middle of the afternoon, I was sitting at my computer, when, suddenly--crash, bang, crack-em-up! The computer monitor flickered and died. I looked outside and saw a candy apple red Chrysler PT Cruiser sitting in the front yard.

The utility pole was cracked. I telephoned to the electric company, to report the outage. Soon, there was a crowd of people in the front yard, some of them erstwhile passengers in the PT Cruiser, some merely onlookers. The other car involved in the accident, a black Pontiac Grand Am, was across the street, in the parking lot of the convenience store. Presently, there were three police cars, an ambulance, a fire truck, and two wreckers on the scene. I went across to the convenience store, ostensibly to get a soda pop, but, in reality, to talk to the clerk and to look at the other car to see what kind of condition it was in. The front of it was messed up pretty badly.

The emergency medical technicians put the driver of the Pontiac on a stretcher and took him away in the ambulance. I don't know how badly he was injured. Someone from the electric company came in a truck that had one of those devices consisting of a bucket on the end of an arm, designed to lift a person up to the power lines. He surveyed the situation, told me that some of the wires were shorted out, and that a crew would have to come to restore the power. Then he left.

One of the wreckers backed up to the curb, in front of the house, and removed the car from the front yard. I had been concerned that the car might have damaged the house, but it didn't touch it. Now, the lights are back on, and the only evidence of a wreck, other than the cracked utility pole, are a few shallow ruts in the front lawn, which I will fill with dirt in a day or two.

There was a car crash in front of the house on Friday evening, about 5:30. A small car turned in front of a sport utility vehicle, sending the sport utility vehicle skidding. When it slammed up against the curb, it flipped over. There were lots of emergency vehicles, including three police cars, a big fire truck, and two tow trucks, but, amazingly, no one was seriously injured.

Today, I got up at 4:50 a.m. News of the space shuttle disaster filled the headlines.

Mother saw a bird in her bedroom. She said that it perched on top of the door to her bedroom, before zooming off in the direction of the kitchen. We looked and looked for it, but couldn't find it. I turned off the computer, and sat very quietly, trying to hear it. I heard chirping coming from the direction of the back bedroom. Also, I heard what seemed to be rustling inside the computer room, from some boxes that are behind the computer table, and, therefore, very difficult to get to--so difficult, in fact, that I didn't make the effort.

It has been quite a while since I have heard the rustling. From where I sit, at my computer, I can see a gap between the top of the door leading to the back bedroom and the door frame--a gap which looks big enough for a small bird to go through. Since we haven't been able to locate the bird, I suppose that it is possible that it went through that gap, into the back bedroom. Still, I can't figure out what caused the rustling noise that I heard.

10:40 a.m. - Just finished helping Mother to wash her hair, which involves filling several pots and pans with water and pouring the water over her head, while she leans over the kitchen sink. We ate a lunch of Campbell's Chicken and Dumplings soup, before washing her hair.

I plan to take our dirty clothes to the coin-operated laundry, this afternoon, but I told Mother that I would wait as long as possible to see if the bird showed itself. I do want to leave early enough so that I can be back before nightfall.

All your base are belong to us.

Today, being the first day of the new year, I have an unhealthy desire to resolve to post to this weblog every. single. day. of 2003 (but I won't--promise, that is).

Traditionally, we have black eyed peas, greens, and cornbread on New Year's Day. Since we didn't have any of those things, I went to the grocery store today to get them. Actually, I went twice, because the delicatessan didn't have the cornbread ready the first time I went. Mom brought out some of the sliced, smoked turkey from our Christmas feast. We spooned the liquid from the peas and turnip greens over the warm cornbread and had milk to drink. Since today is a holiday, I said what was always called, in our family, the "special" blessing, because my Dad only used it on special occasions.

Hey, there goes what we used to call the "air raid" siren, but which, now, is activated to alert to severe weather. It is also cranked up at noon on the first of every month, supposedly to test it.

Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, has announced that he will resign as Majority Leader of the United States Senate and will serve out the remaining four years of his six-year term.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations says that the inspections for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are proceeding well. The President of the United States says that they are not. Iraq is expected to provide their "declaration" of weapons systems on Saturday. We should be able to get a pretty good idea from it if the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, is serious about avoiding war.

Yesterday, Tom Daschle, the soon-to-be minority "leader" of the Senate of the United States of America, spoke out against talk show hosts that disagree with him and with the ideology of the Democrat party. Basically, he is setting the stage for his party's assault on the talk show hosts of America, the vast majority of whom are critical, and rightly so, of the objectives of the Democrat party.

They will do so with a so-called "campaign finance reform" measure and/or an attempt to revive the discredited, so-called "Fairness" in Broadcasting Act of 1993, which is, in truth, another way that they think that they can silence their critics.

Talk radio shows that espouse the principles of the "nanny state" generally fail. They fail because the argument for the nanny state cannot stand up to scrutiny. Implicit in this argument is a disdain for "the people," who, it is assumed, do not have enough sense to know what is in their best interests; therefore, the poor, misguided citizens need a "nanny state" to take care of them and prop them up. Since talk shows favorable to their ideas generally fail, it it only "fair" to the Democrats that talk shows critical of their ideas be censored!

The Democrats in the United States House of Representatives elected Nancy Pelosi to be their leader today. This is a good thing for the Republicans. Pelosi is such a radical liberal that she will further marginalize her party.

The Associated Press has a story by Sarah el Deeb. She writes, in part:

Egypt's foreign minister said Saturday that he expected Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution to disarm but that Baghdad had not yet made a formal decision.

"I think we can expect a positive position by the Iraqis," Ahmed Maher told reporters after Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri explained Iraq's position to the foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League.

I think that we can be fairly sure that Saddam Hussein will say that he will accept the resolution to disarm, but that will only be a delaying tactic. That's my prediction. We'll have to wait and see what actually happens. However, we do know this for a fact: Saddam Hussein has defied the United Nations, in the past.

Also, it seems fairly certain that, if Saddam Hussein defies the United Nations this time, he will not defy it again.

Many Republicans are hoping that Representative Nancy Pelosi will replace Dick Gephardt as House Minority Leader. They feel that her election would signal that the Democrat party will position itself even farther to the left, a move which, Repuplicans feel, will marginalize it even more.

The Washington Times newspaper reports on the results of yesterday's election.

Jesse Ventura, the Governor of Minnesota, appointed an Independent to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the death of Senator Paul Wellstone. Ventura had stated that he was leaning toward appointing a Democrat, because Wellstone was a Democrat, until he was outraged by the Democrats shamelessly turning an event billed as a "memorial service" for Wellstone into an unabashedly political rally.

In 1991, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia allowed troops of the United States of American into their country to defend it against Iraq. Now, when the United States of America considers it essential that it defend itself against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's ability to distribute weapons of mass destruction to terrorists targeting their country, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the Kingdom will not allow bases on its soil to be used for an attack on Iraq even if the United Nations authorizes military action.

Time magazine has called Foreign Affairs "the most influential periodical in print." In the November/December 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, Barry Rubin, Director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and Editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs, writes:

Arab and Muslim hatred of the United States is not just, or even mainly, a response to actual U.S. policies -- policies that, if anything, have been remarkably pro-Arab and pro-Muslim over the years. Rather, such animus is largely the product of self-interested manipulation by various groups within Arab society, groups that use anti-Americanism as a foil to distract public attention from other, far more serious problems within those societies.

CNN.com reports some good news: there are a few programs throughout the country that are mobilizing physicians to make house calls, a practice which once was common.

This is just too awesome! I just updated w.bloggar to v3.0. It is an excellent tool to use to update one or more weblogs, and it has some great, new features.

Yesterday, I bought a copy of FranklinCovey Planning Software from CompUSA. I had previously downloaded a trial edition from the FranklinCovey web site and liked it so much that I decided to go ahead and make it legal. We'll see where this goes.

IMHO it is unconscionable that the major television networks chose not to air the President's speech about the danger of Saddam Hussein.

Update on the amazing, disappearing web site content: it is back!

It is not a good thing when you try to visit your web site and find out that it no longer exists. That is what happened to me this morning. I was maintaining three weblogs at 0catch. My sites appear to no longer exist. Judging from the comments in the user forum, quite a few other people have experienced the same problem. There is a possibility that the lost content may be restored, if the situation is due to some glitch that the host techies can fix. Here's hoping!

This being a typical Saturday, I took my Mom to (1) the grocery store, (2) the pharmacy, and (3) the library. In other news, it seems as if tropical storm Hanna may be bringing some rain our way. I don't mind--I mowed the lawn last weekend, and the grass is still fairly short; the only thing that I have to go out for tomorrow is to wash the clothes at the coin-operated laundry (it has been three weeks), so I can't complain.

What the Supreme Court of the United States has done with religion makes me angry. The founding fathers would be appalled that the government they created now forbids prayer in its schools. The idea was to establish freedom of religion, not a ban on religion. Banishing prayer, and any reference to religion, from the government schools amounts to a tacit repudiation of religion and, by extension, a repudiation of the morals that religions are, in part, designed to convey to the younger generation in their formative years. In my opinion, unless, and until, we, as a country, are able to come to grips with this reality, the much-commented-upon breakdown of morals in this country will continue, and even accelerate, which will necessitate the building of ever more prisons. However, to judge from past experience, and from the rate of recidivism of paroled and discharged prisoners, prisons, which are far from being "correctional institutions," are definitely not the answer.

It is difficult to believe that it is already September. This year seems to be passing so quickly, and I don't know why, unless it is because I am getting older. Yes, it is September, but the high temperatures are still in the nineties! Lows are in the lower seventies and the upper sixties. Today, I took my eighty-one year old Mom to a local mall, to walk. We didn't go very far, but it was a lot farther than she has been walking. Most days, she doesn't even get out of the house at all. I have told her that I would be glad to take her to walk every day, after work. We'll see.

Sheesh! There were not one, but two, bank robberies in my home town yesterday. In the first one, two robbers herded customers and employees into the bank vault and then cleaned out the tellers' cages. The local news reported that, in terms of the amount of money stolen, it might have been the most successful in the city's history. The second robbery occured at a branch bank that I use. Somehow, the money was recovered, shortly after the robbery.

The weather was actually rather pleasant this afternoon when I got off work. A "cold front" passed through the area, and the humidity is lower, compared to the past few days, so, instead of feeling like a blast furnace, it felt nice. When I say that a "cold front" passed through the area, I mean that in a (very) relative sense. The temperature, right now, is eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit, and the humidity is fifty-nine percent, which makes it feel as if it is ninety degrees. Some "cold front!"

Our delivery personnel had some time on their hands this afternoon, and the lead furniture installer asked me if one of my customers was ready for a desk that they had ordered from me. We had originally scheduled it for delivery tomorrow, because the customer was returning a desk that she had bought from a competitor of ours, and the competitor was supposed to pick it up today. I telephoned her anyway, but the competitor had yet to pick up their desk. My customer said that our people could go ahead and deliver her new desk today, but they would have to move the competitor's desk into another office. Knowing how the boss dislikes our delivery personnel doing anything for free, I told her that we'd probably have it delivered tomorrow, as originally planned, thereby giving the competitor time to pick their desk up. However, my customer said that the competitor is giving her the run around about when they are going to pick up their desk.

Update on the story of the two missing girls in Oregon: Two sets of remains have been found at the home of a suspect. One set has been identified as that of Miranda Gaddis, one of two girls who disappeared from the apartment complex early this year.

Typo3 is a free, full-featured content management system that rivals commercial programs costing thousands of dollars. I do not have any experience with installing it (yet), but I understand that the installation is not as simple as some.

STAY AWAY FROM 'SKEETERS!

For free blogger templates, check out BlogSkins! Hey, that's where the global industries template came from.

The following is the text of an op/ed piece entitled "The Anthrax Files," by Nicholas D. Kristof, from the August 13, 2002 issue of "The New York Times:"

"It's time for me to come clean on "Mr. Z."

Since May, I've written periodically about a former U.S. Army scientist who, authorities say privately, has become the overwhelming focus of the investigation into the anthrax attacks last fall. I didn't name him.

But over the weekend, Mr. Z named himself: He is Steven J. Hatfill, 48, a prominent germ warfare specialist who formerly worked in the Army labs at Fort Detrick, Md. Dr. Hatfill made a televised statement on Sunday, describing himself as "a loyal American" and attacking the authorities and the media for trying "to smear me and gratuitously make a wasteland of my life."

The first thing to say is that the presumption of innocence has already been maimed since 9/11 for foreign Muslims, and it should not be similarly cheapened with respect to Dr. Hatfill. It must be a genuine assumption that he is an innocent man caught in a nightmare. There is not a shred of traditional physical evidence linking him to the attacks.

Still, Dr. Hatfill is wrong to suggest that the F.B.I. has casually designated him the anthrax "fall guy." The authorities' interest in Dr. Hatfill arises from a range of factors, including his expertise in dry biological warfare agents, his access to Fort Detrick labs where anthrax spores were kept (although he did not work with anthrax there) and the animus to some federal agencies that shows up in his private writings. He has also failed three successive polygraph examinations since January, and canceled plans for another polygraph exam two weeks ago.

So far, the only physical evidence is obscure: smell. Specially trained bloodhounds were given scent packets preserved from the anthrax letters and were introduced to a variety of people and locations. This month, they responded strongly to Dr. Hatfill, to his apartment, to his girlfriend's apartment and even to his former girlfriend's apartment, as well as to restaurants that he had recently entered (he is under constant surveillance). The dogs did not respond to other people, apartments or restaurants.

Putting aside the question of Dr. Hatfill and the anthrax, there are two larger issues.

First is the F.B.I.'s initial slowness in carrying out the anthrax investigation. Why did it take nine months to call in the bloodhounds, or to read Dr. Hatfill's unpublished novel, "Emergence," which has been sitting in the copyright office since 1998 and draws on his experiences in South Africa and Antarctica to recount a biological warfare attack on Congress?

Second is the need for much greater care within the U.S. biodefense program. Dr. Hatfill's résumé made claims (a Ph.D. degree, work with the U.S. Special Forces, membership in Britain's Royal Society of Medicine) that appear false, but these were never checked.

Moreover, what was a man like Dr. Hatfill who had served in the armed forces of two white racist governments (Rhodesia and South Africa) doing in a U.S. Army lab working with Ebola? With a new wave of funding for smallpox and anthrax research, we must be doubly careful that the spread of pathogens to new labs solves problems rather than creates them.

The White House is putting strong pressure on the F.B.I. to solve the anthrax murders. Top administration officials would love to find an Iraqi connection, but would settle for solving the case. The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, is pushing back, saying that nothing would be worse for the bureau than a premature prosecution that would fizzle in court.

To its credit, in the last few months, the bureau has finally picked up its pace. Its experts in Quantico are belatedly examining anthrax hoax letters sent in 1997 and 1999 that bear fascinating resemblance to the real anthrax letters. Investigators are looking at another hoax letter with intriguing parallels to the real one; that hoax was sent to Senator Tom Daschle from London in mid-November, when Dr. Hatfill was visiting a biodefense center in England.

Partly because of the newfound energy, the F.B.I. has lately been enjoying genuine progress in its anthrax investigation. People very close to Dr. Hatfill are now cooperating with the authorities, information has been presented to a grand jury, and there is reason to hope that the bureau may soon be able to end this unseemly limbo by either exculpating Dr. Hatfill or arresting him."

U. S. to begin fingerprinting aliens--The Justice Department has chosen Sept. 11 as the starting date for a new program that will require tens of thousands of foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed at the border, U.S. officials announced Monday.

There has been a new development in the investigation of last Fall's anthrax attacks. A field swab test on a mail collection box from Princeton, New Jersey, returned a positive result. Since late last year, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has been checking every mail collection box ? the blue boxes on the street ? that feed into the central mail processing center in Trenton, where the anthrax letters were postmarked. This is the first such box to test positive.

This program, w.bloggar, is great! I've just learned how to use it to post to multiple blogger blogs!

Small-town police think it's funny to give a man with a learning disability a fake lie detector test; are sobered up by one million dollar lawsuit man slaps on them.

The two teenage girls that were abducted this morning in California have been found unharmed. The man who snatched them was shot to death by a sherrif's deputy.

In yet another example of a problem endemic to our society, a fat man sues four fast food restaurants, claiming that they made him fat, as if he bore no responsibility for having made the personal choice to eat their food, even though they have been publishing nutritional information for years.

From "The Government Can Take Anything and Mess It Up" department: The Transportation Security Commission is way behind in hiring employees. According to an article in USAToday, "At three New York airports, 61% of applicants [for the position of airport screener] failed a test of English proficiency and overall aptitude skills [emphasis added]." Incredibly, officials estimate that one-third of the applicants are no-shows for meetings with recruiters!

Further, the government wanted fifty percent of the screeners to be female. So far, they've only managed to entice enough women to reach twenty-five percent of the total. Duh! Do you suppose that the problem is that few women even want the job?

All this, and the real problem wasn't even the airport screeners at all. It was the Immigration and Naturalization Service that dropped the ball. But instead of reforming it, which might hurt the feelings of some foreigners who want to come here, the government federalized the airport screeners! Just what we need: more big government!

String of hamburger joints sold for $2.26 billion.

msnbc.com reports a story in The Wall Street Journal, which reveals that "[f]ederal prosecutors in New York plan to seek indictments against two former top financial officers of WorldCom Inc. [Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan] as early as next week for their roles in the company?s accounting scandal."

The city commission of Chiefland, Florida put their police force's seven officers on indefinate leave, with pay, after someone discovered that the city's charter didn't give them the right to make arrests or issue tickets.

The Rev. Al Sharpton places the value of his reputation at $500 million.

Apparently, it is a vast right- and left-wing conspiracy that brought Traficant down.

Seven year old kidnapped Philadelphia girl chews through her bonds and escapes. The Nando Times has the story.

Intresting: A woman has a flat tire, catches a ride with a trucker, disappears. Turns out she just liked the trucker and was riding with him for two weeks. The Clarion-Ledger has the story.

"The Devil made me do it," says convicted killer.

Apparently, Def Leppard has finally found their audience. The band is scheduled to perform a free concert at the new Fayetteville, Arkansas Wal-Mart Supercenter at 6:00 p.m. on July 31.

It seems that WorldCom's financial misdeeds have been an open secret for over a year, since it has been that long ago that a class action lawsuit, brought by former WorldCom employees, sought to bring the wrongdoing to light.

A Wall Street Journal article, reported on msnbc.com, says that WorldCom filed for bancruptcy protection and that the actiion "will almost certainly wipe out common shareholders."

An ABCNEWS story reveals that WorldCom will file for bankruptcy protection.

In Maryland, the battle against a carnivorous Chinese fish continues. For the time being, at least, a twelve-member panel thinks that the most effective method of control would be to asphyxiate the fish with a non-toxic chemical that would dissipate within two to six days.

Global Industries is hosted, for free, on Tripod. Another, good, free host is 0catch. They have one, non-intrusive banner ad at the top of each page. It is easy to sign up, and their serving up of web pages has been fast, for me.

There's a new button at the bottom of the page that signifies that I'm using w.bloggar, a free blog interface tool by Marcelo Cabral. w.bloggar has some really nice features, such as bold, italic, and underline. One of the neatest features is the ability to preview your post before uploading it to your blog host. Thanks, Marcelo!!

In the United States, at least, the first day of the "work" week for most of us is Monday, yet most, if not all, of our calendars start the week on Sunday. Why is that? A quick search on Google turned up "Calendars Through the Ages," which gives the following explanation:

The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current 'Saturday.' Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days). However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.

In international standard ISO-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week.

Governor says he won't stop cop killer's execution.

I am learning CityDesk by Fog Creek Software. It is Content Management Software (CMS) for web sites. It has gotten some really good reviews, and the sites which I have seen that use it look good.

Twenty-seven year old woman goes hiking in Alaska. Sees black bear. Tries to shoo bear away. Instead of leaving, bear attacks. Woman whips bear's ass.

Another unusual twist in the WorldCom scandal is reported by Financial Times.

I've added Bottin, an address book, to my page of outstanding freeware.

My home town records thirty-first murder of the year. A thirty-six year old wife and Mother of three, who worked at a check cashing company, was shot once, execution-style, in the back of the head.

Latest WorldCom accounting scandal "news:" at Congressional committee meeting, former CEO Bernie Ebbers announces that he is innocent, then repeatedly asserts his fifth amendment right not to answer questions, so as not to incriminate himself.

Something happened to my computer at work. I installed PGPfreeware. I decided that it was too complicated for my purposes, so I uninstalled it. Then I couldn't get on the Internet, nor could I use my email. Our ISP sent a technician, who worked on the problem for two hours, with no success. So, I reinstalled the OS, and everything was fine.

I had a dream, the other night. A co-worker and I were making a sales call on a federal government agency. We had to show a photo ID, but, for some inexplicable reason, there was a photograph of a house on my driver license, not a picture of me. I tried to telephone someone who could help me by either vouching for me or by furnishing a photo ID of me; however, the battery in my cellular telephone was dead. Then, I tried my co-worker's cellular telephone, but its battery was dead, too. By this time, the people who we were supposed to make the sales presentation to were very suspicious of me. I don't know how the dream turned out.

In other crime news, a local man threatened to set off a pipe bomb. He didn't, and, now, he's in jail.

There has been another murder in the city that I live in. It is the second of the Fourth of July weekend and the thirtieth this year. An argument between a woman's boyfriend and ex-husband resulted in one of them being shot once in the back with a large caliber weapon. Police are not yet sure which man was the victim and which the shooter.

Four men allegedly gang-raped an eighteen-year-old Pakistani girl to punish her family. Why? Because her younger brother had an affair with a woman, considered to be higher caste, from another tribe. Local police stood by and did nothing. cnn.com has the story.

In Mexico, a student tries to use a subway pass he found on the floor of the terminal, because he doesn't have twenty cents for the fare. He spends two months in jail, before paying an exorbitant fine to get out. In other news, in Mexico, a man steals forty-five million dollars. He doesn't go to jail. Can you spell C - O - R - R- U - P - T - I - O - N ? Story at msnbc.com.

The city that I live in (population 184,256) has just recorded the twenty-ninth homicide of 2002. A wife and mother of five was shot multiple times as she sat in her car outside the family home. Her husband is being held without bond in the local lock-up. Sad.

I have been fascinated by Nietzsche, ever since I read in Durant (The Story of Philosophy), "His inexpungable merits dwarf all criticism." The online edition of "The New Statesman" has an article about Nietzsche, which includes a review of two books about him.

"[T]he Islamic world, far from catching up with the West, is going backwards," writes Peter Watson in "How the East didn't win" on The Times website.

Here is a follow up to my entry of 5/30/2002, about the murder that occurred across the street from where I live. Under the headline "2 sought in fatal shooting," this is how the local newspaper reported what happened:

A 19-year-old man shot to death Thursday morning was [name of town]'s sixth killing in a week [emphasis added], raising the city's homicide total to 23 so far this year.

Michael Banks, of 137 Taylor St., was pronounced dead on the scene at 1:55 a.m. by Sharon Grisham-Stewart, the . . . county coroner.

Murder warrants have been issued for Chad Harris and Anthony James, occupants of a gray Chevrolet seen parked at a Conoco station in the 3700 block of North West Street, where the shooting took place.

The motive is still unclear, but drugs may be involved [emphasis added], said Robert Graham, a . . . [police] spokesman.

"Both individuals wanted in connection with this murder should be considered armed and dangerous [emphasis added]," Graham said.

The incident began around 1 a.m. after Harris and James allegedly flagged down Banks as he drove south on North West Street in a brown Chevrolet. The three got out of their vehicles and spoke for a while. They got back in their vehicles and Banks allegedly rammed Harris and James' car. They, in turn, allegedly backed up and smashed into Banks' vehicle. Harris and James got out and opened fire on Banks, Graham said.

Banks was struck in the arm, leg, shoulder, groin and head, said Grisham-Stewart.

Banks was raised by his grandmother in . . . [a nearby town], but his mother and sister live in . . . [the town where the killing happened], the coroner said.

Today was a typical Saturday: I took my Mother to the grocery store and the post office. After lunch, I took her to the pharmacy and the library. Later, my Mother telephoned my brother. His wife is recuperating from an operation.

There was a murder, right across the street from my house. Not across the street and down the block. Right across from my house. I woke up at 1:00 am. I heard the sound of a car crashing into something. At the time, I didn't know what it hit. Then, I heard several gun shots, in rapid succession. I looked outside and saw what looked like an abandoned car in the parking lot of the convenience store. The hood was crumpled. I went back to sleep and woke up again at 3:00 am. This time, when I looked out the window, I saw four police cruisers, an ambulance, and a car belonging to a private security company. I still didn't know that there had been a killing. This afternoon, when I got home from work, it was on the news: a nineteen year old male had an argument with two other men, he rammed his car into their car, and they shot him multiple times, killing him.

Once again, a suicide-homicide bomber has targeted innocent civilians. This is barbaric.

On the fifteenth of this month, I wrote that I was going to work on fixing the archives feature on this site. I lied.