News - August 29, 2005

What boneheaded design guides Dubya's moves? - "How does one explain all the misguided, unwise, sometimes outright boneheaded things the Bush administration has done since taking over nearly five years ago, and continues to do on a pretty much daily basis? How is it possible for a group of supposedly intelligent, experienced individuals to take this many wrong turns? Wouldn't you think that once in a while, even by accident, that George W. Bush and his advisers would make a decision that made sense? Can this much mismanagement happen totally at random? Would the occupants of the Bush White House have us believe that all these things, these missteps, these miscalculations, these attempts to deceive, that they all, you know, just kind of happened? I'm not so sure. And I'm not the only one starting to ask questions. More and more, it seems unlikely that mere human beings could make this many mistakes without some sort of misguiding force, a kind of supernatural entity that has trouble remembering where it put its car keys.
That's where unintelligent design comes in. Once one embraces the concept of unintelligent design — a kind of doofus-like cosmic force — it becomes much easier to get your head around the operations of the Bush administration."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar%2FLayout%2FArticle_Type1&c=Article&cid=1124661009669

"All terrorists are Muslims" - "Progress Party leader Carl I. Hagen sees the fight against terrorism as a fight against Islam. "I know that not all Muslims are terrorists, but we have seen that all terrorists are Muslims," Hagen told Aftenposten after an appearance on TV 2 on Thursday, referring to the attacks in London and New York."
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1103526.ece

A National Emergency - "Well, we are being invaded, and the president of the United States is not doing his duty to protect the states against that invasion. Some courageous Republican, to get the attention of this White House, should drop into the hopper a bill of impeachment, charging George W. Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against "invasion.""
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46019

BUSH UNBALANCED AS POLLS PLUMMET - "I get it. Here's what's wrong with America these days: freedom of speech, the freedom to peaceably assemble, and the right of people to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Those items found in the Bill of Rights are the scourges of our nation. Get rid of those damn freedoms at home and the Iraqis will start tossing rose petals at our troops."
http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher228.html

Equity Is Altering Spending Habits and View of Debt - "As they happily watch their houses swell in value, Americans are changing their attitudes toward mortgage debt. Increasingly, a home is no longer a nest egg whose equity should never be touched, but a seemingly magical ATM enabling the owner to live it up or just live. " There is no longer an incentive to paying off your mortgage," said Levy. "The only way I'll ever pay mine off is if I win the lottery."That's probably the only way he'll ever be able to stop working, too. "I'm never going to be able to retire, because I'll never have enough money in the bank."" -- Ah, now there's something to be proud of.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-homedebt28aug28,0,6044251.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Strategizing a Christian Coup d'Etat - "A group of believers wants to establish Scriptures-based government one city and county at a time. ... Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff’s offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state. “We’re going to force a constitutional crisis,” said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003. “If necessary,” he said, “we will secede from the union.""
http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/4557/Strategizing_a_Christian_Coup_d_Etat

In TV tirade, Rangel calls Cheney a 'sick man' - ""Sometimes I don't think Cheney is awake enough to know what's going on," Rangel said. "He's a sick man, you know. He's got heart disease but the disease is not restricted to that part of his body. He grunts a lot so you never really know what he's thinking.""
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/ny-nyrang274400219aug27,0,355414,print.story

Retired Sen. Jesse Helms Publishes Memoir - "Jesse Helms, writing with the same passion that made him the archconservative of the U.S. Senate for 30 years, renews his criticism of abortion in a memoir being published this week, comparing it to both the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 attacks."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050829/ap_on_go_co/helms_memoir_1

Now we can live to 130! - "AUSTRALIANS now aged in their 20s and 30s could live to be up to 130 years old, an anti-ageing expert has predicted."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16407363-13762,00.html

Japanese Robot Knows Words, Can House-Sit - "The "Wakamaru" robot can recognize the faces of up to 10 people and talk to them. When linked to mobile phones, it can also work as a monitor to check situations at home, such as a burglary or someone falling ill, Mitsubishi-Heavy Industries Ltd. said in a statement Monday. Mitsubishi-Heavy said it would be the first time a robot with communication ability for home use has been sold. "This is the opening of an era in which human beings and robots can coexist," it said."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/29/D8C9J6881.html

Camera Phone Has Life After Theft - "A New York stock clerk who had his camera phone swiped from his car this month says he was able to peer into the life of the gadget's new owner. The thief evidently didn't realize the copious photos and videos he was taking with the hot phone were accessible through a web account."
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68668,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

You can use the f-word in class (but only five times) - "A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=360685&in_page_id=1770

Comic of the Day
http://www.comics.com/editoons/holbert/archive/holbert-20050826.html




Quote of the Day
"Liberties are not given; they are taken."
~ Aldous Huxley