Random Thoughts From Marybeth

Dmitri and Will, This is for You

Ant City, another time waster. (Found thanks to LeeAnn.)

What She Said

Girl's slurs on Web log teach students lesson in free speech

A student at Walter Payton College Prep in Chicago, Illinois made comments on her weblog that upset and angered other students.

The post has been removed from her blog, all that is there now is an apology.

First, I would like to apologize to everyone whom I offended or upset. I believe I was not clear in the way I worded my thoughts. This all has been one big misunderstanding. I am sorry for even leaving room for these misunderstandings to occur.

I would like to start out saying that I am not racist. I do not hate any race. I, in fact, have many friends of all the different races. Let me explain the phrase "I support slavery." Some American companies use sweatshops and child labor overseas as means of getting cheap labor and big profits. The workers in those poor countries are underpaid and overworked. That is what slavery means - "a condition of hard work and subjection." (American Heritage Dictionary. Fourth Edition) By purchasing clothes from companies like that and not being able to doing anything about it, I am unintentionally supporting them in what they are doing, i.e. slavery.

I also have nothing against gay people. I do have gay friends. I only do not support gay marriage.

I admit that my wording was wrong. I did not actually think about it while I was writing it. And I apologize for that. Many people have already forgiven me, and I hope that everyone else will too.

I did find excerpts of the post on two other blogs. According to them, this is what she wrote.

umm...i'm totally straight...and i will marry a person of the opposite gender. not a paper or dog or whatever. i am just saying that gay marriage sounds as ridiculous as marrying an inanimate object or marrying outside the species.

what i also don't understand is why straight people are sticking up for gay people. shouldn't gay people be the ones who are trying to lobby this? don't the straight people realize that if they stick up for gay people we will have a repeat of 1863? i mean, come on people, just think...do you really want your straight grandchildren to suffer through what white people are suffering right now? no, you don't...

and yes, i support slavery...

don't get me wrong though, i'm not racist. if the white people have to be the ones being the slaves, that's ok too... we're practically slaves to blacks right now anyways...

See here, here, here, and here.

There may be more here, but reading blogs by high school students is making my brain melt.

News, Editorials, and Opinions

A few more sources for news and opinion:

Feedster - another way to organize blog feeds.

Findory - personalized news service. Chooses news articles based on what you have read there before. It also has a link to a list of articles you've read. If you've ever had to try and backtrack to find an article you read earlier, you can see why this might be useful.

Opinion-Pages - serach for opinion articles and letters to the editor by topic. There are also categorized columnists' pages. You can also browse by location (all indexed newspapers and magazines are in English though.)

Choices

Worries About Suitability Knock '1776' From Curriculum

The film version of "1776," based on the Broadway musical about the crafting of the Declaration of Independence, has been banned in Fairfax County middle schools because of sexual innuendo in a conversation between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson is balking at staying in Philadelphia to write the declaration and protests to Adams: "I've not seen my wife in six months."

Adams responds, "You write 10 times better than any man in Congress, including me. For a man of only 33 years, you possess a happy talent for composition and a remarkable felicity of expression. Now, will you be a patriot . . . or a lover?"

Jefferson, clearly preferring the latter, says he "burns" for his wife, at home in Virginia.

As everyone knows, Jefferson gave in and penned the nation's divorce decree from the British. But some Fairfax students won't see the fictional account of that history, now that the county's social studies coordinator has reviewed the film at the request of a middle school principal and deemed it inappropriate.

I've never seen the film so I can't really judge how appropriate I think it would be but I would like to think that high school students would understand that the movie is a fictional interpretation of an historical event.

We wouldn't want students to pick up any wrong ideas...like thinking that sometimes other obligations take precedence over lust.

John Kerry Spendomter

Find out how much John Kerry's campaign promises would cost, his tax plan, the tax gap, and a list of plans he has promised where the cost is unknown.

Pokemon

This site talks about the dangers of role-playing games like Pokemon and Magic.

According to this, role-playing blurs the line between fantasy and reality. I guess that's true. It's been a few years since my kids wanted Pokemon cards but there are still many nights at bedtime that I wish I had a Jigglypuff. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with that Pokemon, its song puts everyone to sleep instantly.)

Link to site found via The Presurfer.

Which Famous Poet Are You?

You are Emily Dickinson! Not all that much is
known about Emily Dickinson, probably because
she holed herself up in her room and wrote
poetry. She didn't have very many connections
with the world outside her house, and her
poetry is very introspective and
compartmentalized. You need to get out more.


Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
brought to you by Quizilla

Introspective and compartmentalized, sure, but all the poems rhyme and you can sing them to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas". What more could you ask for?

Quiz found via John at the Castle Argghhh!

Euro-quiz

You are a Dubliner.


What's your Inner European?
brought to you by Quizilla

Found via Miller's Time.

My First Computer(s)

We went by my dad's house today and I was looking through some of my old stuff. I found this Sinclair ZX80 from about one million 25 years ago. My father had gotten it as a gift for me but I think it was just an excuse for him to get one to play with. I think I played with it a bit but I don't really remember doing that much with it.

My father really became interested in computing and within a couple of years I was using one of these (a hand-me-down from him).

I used this to write my college papers (Scripsit) and store recipes (ProfileII). (I also used it to read some of the smutty chat on CompuServe. Then it was novel, a kind of "can you believe these people?" thing. Compared to what shows up as spam in my email inbox now, that chat was tame.)

Twenty-something years later and most of what I still do with my computer is write stuff and store recipes.

Winter Soldier

C-SPAN Road to the White House covers the 1971 testimony of John Kerry before the U.S. Senate.

(Tipped off to broadcast by Florida Cracker.)

Found Under Some Cheese

Classic rock! Without you the other genres
wouldn't exist! You are the raw and original
sound of rock! Other genres may try to imitate
your rawness, but they can never be like you!


What genre of rock are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Biohazards

Shopping for something different? How about ebola, anthrax, TB, cholera, and other diseases.

Who Gives?

Campaign donations:

U.S. map
Search by address or name

Doodling

Trevor is having one of those teenage moody days weeks months years decades and being a general pain in the ass to everyone around him. Conor (as usual) found something to complain about (mostly about Trevor). Emma just wanted to talk. Constantly.

She didn't want to have conversations, she just likes to chatter. I feel perfectly comfortable with long silences. She doesn't. I hope it's just a seven-going-on-eight-year-old-girl-thing.

All of this, along with my having to run a bunch of errands, was starting to cause imput overload. Imagination let me doodle and zone out for a while.

My Inner Cat

You are a tabby cat. The total home-body. You'd be
content just to stay at home all day and not
get up from the couch. You lazy sloth! Try and
make a movement every now and then, or someone
might decide to bury you in the back yard!


What color of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Lazy? Me? I would argue about that but it's time for a nap.

Blogging From Iraq

On Road of a Nation I was reading about how things have changed in Iraq during the last year. The whole post is worth reading but one comment that I found interesting was:

Our teams are training. They won their first match against Oman, 4 –0 . We were very happy. Our next match is against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The amazing thing in this report was when Mr. Bremer appeared in the field, playing with the players, and supporting them!!

Pretty different view from yesterday, when our team would be preparing to go a match, and they were threatened to be punished, if they didn't win... Even if they couldn't give more than they had...

Now go read the rest.

Wictory Wednesday

Bush-Cheney '04 released a new television ad entitled “Troops” that began running in West Virginia yesterday. The theme is that Kerry voted for war, then voted against funding it. Read the script of the ad and the supporting facts on the Bush/Cheney Website.

Help to keep getting the message out. Volunteer or donate to the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My blog's wearing green today to celebrate.

I also want to wish a happy anniversary to Jerry and Tonya.

It's a Sign!

It was sunny and 60 degrees yesterday. Earlier this morning we had a thunderstorm. Now it's snowing. Okay, so it's not exactly a sign of the Apocalypse but I do think it's a sign that I need to go snuggle down with a warm blanket, a cat or two, and a book.

Super Heroine

(Quiz found via OmniPrime.)

Kill the Terrorists!

My husband told me about this one. Bush Shoot Out at Addicting Games.com.

Call Me Ed

Edward


Which Cowboy Bebop character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

A child and a computer genius. I am neither but considering what the other characters are like, I'm happy with this one.

Girls and Grossology

Last night my Brownie troop went on a camp-in at the Louisville Science Center. The current non-permanent exhibit is Grossology.

Did you know you swallow about a quart of snot a day? Do you feel that your life has been enhanced in any way by knowing that? Me neither.

The exhibit was interesting and not really that gross...but my tolerence for ick is probably pretty high, I do have two sons. Along with Grossology, we learned about brains, made fake blood, and saw real body parts (heart, spinal cord, bones). We also went on a scavenger hunt in the dark (we brought flashlights) and saw "To the Limit" in the IMAX theater.

Wisdom of Hans Blix

Blix questions terror intelligence

Speaking on Sunday (March 7), the former United Nations chief weapons inspector warned against reacting to fears rather than sound intelligence.

His comments come just days after Tony Blair warned of the "mortal danger" of not understanding the threat posed by a new breed of religious fundamentalist terrorists.

"I think we still over-estimate the danger of terror," Blix told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost programme.

"There are other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the environmental global risks.

On March 9 Blix was in Barcelona, Spain where he received a peace prize, recognizing his efforts in trying to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq conflict from the United Nations Association of Spain. While there he commented on the U.S. and British governments.

"The governments were like the witch hunters of past centuries. They were so convinced that there were witches in Iraq that every black cat became proof of it."

"The tendency was to view any evidence in a more serious light than was the reality. It's clear that the Sept. 11 attack on the United States drove the analysis," he added.

One wonders what it will take before he thinks terrorism is a serious threat.

Euskadi Ta Askatasuna

I had a couple of problems with the article Implications of bombings depend on who's to blame by Steven Komarow in USA TODAY. The first is that it gives false information.

The bombings of commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday prove at least one of two nightmare scenarios:

* Al-Qaeda has pulled off its first big attacks on the West since 9/11.

* Basque terrorists in Spain, and maybe terrorists everywhere, are learning the tactics of al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

Investigators in the next few days will try to determine which is true. Most Spanish government officials believe the bombings are the work of ETA, a radical group fighting for an independent Basque state. Spanish authorities say that in the weeks before Thursday's attacks, several ETA plots were foiled. Police discovered two backpack bombs in a train station on Christmas Eve. A van was found recently containing explosives similar to those used in the backpack bombs Thursday.

But Thursday's well-coordinated attacks also have the hallmarks of al-Qaeda. The bombers targeted civilians -- something ETA has avoided. An Arabic-language newspaper in London received a letter claiming credit from an al-Qaeda offshoot organization. And after the bombings, police discovered a van near a train station with bomb detonators and an Arabic tape inside, fueling speculation that the bombings were the work of Muslim extremists. (Italics mine.)

From 1969 to 2003, out of 817 victims of ETA, 339 were civilians. According to Amnesty International, since January 2000 "the majority of the targets have been civilian." The same article has this quotation:

In a recent apperance before Spain's National Court ETA's former ''number one'', Francisco Mugica Garmendia (''Pakito'') was reported to have told the court: ''As an ETA activist, I would like to say that ETA, in its actions, takes special care not to incur civilian victims, although unfortunately this happens''

Of course he is lying, regardless of the evidence, he's not going to admit to targeting civilians. Terrorists are evil, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are stupid.

The other part of the article that bothered me was:

Regardless of who is responsible, Europeans, who have been battling terrorism longer than the United States has, are unlikely to react as the United States did after 9/11, Gordon (Phil Gordon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution) said. ''They see it as something that needs to be managed and cannot be defeated, at least not easily.''

I don't think there is anyone who thinks that defeating terrorism will be easy but that is the only way to "manage" it.

GeoURL

Just over a year ago, I added the ICBM tag to my blog and submitted the URL to GeoURL. At that time there were only 100 cities listed and the closest city to me was Chicago. The results showed blogs within 500 miles.

There was a post asking for submissions of the names of large cities that were missing from the database (so, of course, I requested Louisville.) By May, there were 7000 cities listed. In October, LocalFeeds.com was using GeoURL to aggregate RSS feeds near cities. Louisville isn't on the list on their site, but there was a feed for it too. The feeds are down right now but promises they will be back up soon.

What I want to know is, doesn't anyone in Prospect or Goshen have weblogs? The only ones listed that are north of me are across the river in Indiana.

Earth to Kerry

Kerry said Republicans were "going to start attack ads tonight" that ignored important matters facing the nation, such as jobs, education, the environment and "making America safer." Kerry added, "They can't talk about those things, because George Bush doesn't have a record to run on. He has a record to run away from."

I really shouldn't be surprised by now by what Kerry says, he seems to live in a world of his own creation. It's the Just-For-Kerry-world where he can attack others but no one should be allowed to respond. He can talk about what he thinks others are doing wrong without offering a plan of his own. When pressed, he can't say what he would do in a given situation, we just have to trust him that if he were president he would become omniscient and would know what to do.

If you watch or listen to the ads, you might notice one difference between them and Kerry's statements. The ads attack Kerry's proposals and campaign promises. While Kerry hasn't been shy about attacking decisions and policies of the current administration, he goes further and makes personal attacks.

The ads are available for preview on the Bush/Cheney site.

Wictory Wednesday

"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that.' " - John Kerry

Senator Kerry, just when did you meet with these leaders? At what time since you announced your candidacy did they look at you and say this? I couldn't find anything about a meeting between you and any foreign leader. (CNN couldn't find anything and your own staff were unable to provide the names of any foreign leaders who have met with you during the last 12 months.) When Gerhard Schroder came to Washington last month, he deliberately avoided meeting with you. He has also denied that he was one of the "foreign leaders" who communicated with you. "A French foreign ministry official, who asked not to be identified,concurred: 'Things might feel better, but they might not be better.'"

Not that I doubt you do have support from several leaders, I'm sure it means nothing that most of them seem to be oppresive, terrorism-supporting regimes.

The newspaper says John Kerry will be the U.S. Democratic Party's candidate for President in 2004. Kim Jong Il gets on the phone to Kerry's campaign headquarters to ask, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Below is a list of bloggers who support the re-election of President Bush. I doubt if there's a single "foreign leader" among them, just a group of people who know that Bush's support comes from the ones who matter in a Presidential election, Americans.

Read what they have to say and take some time today to volunteer for or donate to the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign.

Sic Faciunt Omnes

In an effort to make LeeAnn and Susie appear to be ahead of the curve, I've taken the quiz too.

Furnulum pani nolo.
"I don't want a toaster."
Generally, things (like this quiz) tend to tick you
off. You have contemplated doing grievous
bodily harm to door-to-door salesmen.


Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Jeff!

Today's my husband's birthday. I got him a new laptop for his birthday because he complained so much about the old one. He complains about the new one too. Last year I gave him a trip to the Chip Collectors Convention in Las Vegas. The only complaints I got about that present was from the kids, dad got to take a trip and they had to stay home.

Barbie also has a birthday today. (Don't try and tell me she isn't real. With a young daughter, I spend so much on Barbie, her friends, clothes, and accessories that I should be able to claim her as a dependent on my taxes.)

Others with birthdays today include: Mickey Spillane, Yuri Gagarin, Mark Lindsay (Paul Revere and the Raiders), Bobby Fischer, Robin Trower (Procol Harum), and Charles Gibson.

Today is also National Crabmeat Day and Panic Day (for crabs, anyway.)

Dave Barry

Dave Barry has moved his blog from the BlogSpot location to the Miami Herald's Web site: http://weblog.herald.com/column/davebarry/. Comments and trackback are both active on the new site. XML/RSS feed is available.

Feeling Spacey

It's too cloudy to see any stars tonight but thanks to Your Sky, I can see what I'm missing. Enter your latitude and longitude, check the radio button for the correct hemisphere, and click to see a sky map. You can also select horizon views.

By changing the date, you can see what the sky would have looked like at any time from 4713 B.C. to 8000 A.D. You can also download Home Planet, free software to track the sun, planets, stars, earth satellites, asteroids and comets.

The Nose

Zelda likes to sleep with her nose tucked into her tail. When she wants attention she comes and pokes me and her nose is cold. This doesn't make sense.

I have no doubt that it's all part of some evil cat plot.

Spring Has Sprung

This is a picture of the crocuses that were blooming under one of our trees last week. I love when the crosuses come up, it makes me think that spring might really be on its way. I've planted them all over our yard, by the time the grass needs to be cut, the crocuses have died back.

I say that they "were blooming" because the day after I took this picture my daughter and some of her friends decided to pick flowers. Lots of flowers. I wasn't happy...they don't live long once they've been picked, but I can't really blame them. I'm sure the kids were as happy to see a sign of spring as I was.

Send a Message

Encourage people to throw more crud into oceans or rivers. Message in a Bottle has a list of sites run by people who will put your message into a bottle or other container and set it adrift.

After that, you can visit KEO and leave a message for future generations. KEO is a satellite that will be launched in 2006 and will return in 50,000 years. You have until the end of 2004 to leave a message which will be stored on a CD ROM. Your message can have up to 6000 characters and spaces. That should be enough to explain why you cluttered up the waters with messages in bottles.

More Penguin Whacking

The Gory Version plays the same way as the original except that the penguin's head comes off (gushing a trail of blood on the snow) and may bounce down on land mines, making it go even farther.

Meet the Press

James Carville was on Meet the Press this morning. The subject of Bush's television ads and the use of the image from 9/11 came up. Carville said that Clinton didn't use the Oklahoma bombing (in ads) when he was running for re-election.

No kidding. It was an attack by an American citizen whose motive was apparently retaliation over Waco. Despite his faults, Clinton is politically savvy and any mention of Oklahoma would have been stupid if it could have brought up questions about the handling of Waco. Why use it in an ad when you have press coverage of a speech in Oklahoma City in April, a proclamation ordering a moment of silence on April 19 at 9:02 a.m, and support of an anti-terrorism bill that was passed on the anniversary of the bombing?

Carville also tried to spin Kerry's flip-flopping as being flexible. I would have called it wishy-washy, but maybe Carville has a point here.

Capable of being bent or flexed; pliable. Capable of being bent repeatedly without injury or damage. Susceptible to influence or persuasion; tractable. Responsive to change; adaptable: a flexible schedule

Quizzes From The Guardian

The Guardian has several quizzes on topics from popular culture to science. If you like quizzes, there are enough here to keep you busy for a while.

Is your computer your friend?
You and your computer are, in the street vernacular, 'going steady'. You love the way it makes you feel, excuse its little annoyances and prefer to spend more time with it than anything (or anyone) else. Games, chatrooms and emailing your holiday snaps - is there anything else you could ask for?

I thought our relationship had progressed further than that....

Are you getting the right amount of sleep?
You scored 0 out of a possible 8
Sleep's for wimps yeah? Plenty of time for that when you're dead. Still, you should try and get some rest now and then - no sleep is the same as too much when it comes to living longer

I get sleep, the quiz is biased against people who are up all night and nap during the day!

There's a quiz asking if we're dumbing down. I didn't know "British prime ministers between 1900 and 1945" but I did get "Characters from Big Brother". That right answer was just luck, I haven't watched any Big Brother show (and I really don't know anything about the UK version) but I did remember seeing the name of one of the people in another question in a pop culture quiz. I also didn't know the current (UK) Poet Laureate although I should have. His poem, Causa Belli, made the news last year. (See the extended entry for the text of the poem.) I did know the opposing sides in the English Civil War but didn't know who played in the Euro 2000 final.

I think I did fairly well on that one but I only got two out of eight on the quiz about slang words.

They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
elections, money, empire, oil and Dad.

Andrew Motion

What's Your Cowboy Bebop Theme Song?

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

Bush/Cheney TV Ads

Three new TV ads for the Bush campaign can be viewed from the Bush/Cheney '04 Website. The ads begin airing today but there are already complaints about them.

Some families of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack are angered at President Bush for using campaign commercials that showed images of ground zero, accusing him of using the attack for his own political gain.

"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin towers, told the Daily News in Thursday editions. "It is unconscionable."

Two of the three ads (Tested and Safer, Stronger) show a very brief image of an American flag flying at the scene of the World Trade Center destruction. None of the ads dwell on this image and in each of the two ads, the image is one of many. Still, it is the one image that is most likely to evoke an emotional response.

The horror of September 11 can not be ignored or forgotten and the leadership Bush has shown in fighting terrorism is a key part of his Presidency. The ads are upbeat, focusing on Bush and the accomplishments of this administration. Kerry had anti-Bush ads from the beginning of the primaries yet he warns of an upcoming Republican smear campaign. I don't expect Bush to refrain from attack ads throughout the campaign but making this accusation before any ads like that are aired sounds like projection.

In psychoanalytic theory, a mechanism of defense in which various forbidden thoughts and impulses are attributed to another person rather than the self, thus warding off some anxiety.

MMR

Controversial MMR and autism study retracted

Ten of the original 13 authors of a controversial 1998 medical report which implied a link between autism and the combined MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella, have retracted the paper's interpretations.

The retraction will be printed in the 6 March issue of The Lancet, which published the original paper. One author could not be reached and two others, Peter Harvey and lead author Andrew Wakefield, refused to join the retraction.

"We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient," write the 10 authors in their retraction. "However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health."

The original paper was based on a study of twelve children eight years after their vaccinations so information was based on what the parents remembered. The main author of the paper was being paid by lawyers who claimed their children had been harmed by the vaccines and four of the children from the lawsuit were part of the study.

Although the main author, Andrew Wakefield, suggested at the time that children receive three vaccinations instead of the combined one, many parents decided not to have their children vaccinated at all. On one side of the issue was a flawed study, on the other are known complications from measles, mumps, and rubella.

Measles causes ear infections in nearly one out of every 10 children who get it. As many as one out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, and about one child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it. Measles can also make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage, give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby.

Complications of mumps include:

Meningitis, inflammation of the testicles or ovaries, inflammation of the pancreas and deafness (usually permanent).

Complications of rubella include:

Birth defects if acquired by a pregnant woman: deafness, cataracts, heart defects, mental retardation, and liver and spleen damage (at least a 20% chance of damage to the fetus if a woman is infected early in pregnancy).

Worldwide over 500 million MMR vaccinations have been given since 1970. Out of that many people there will be children who develop other illnesses. There will also be children who turn out to be prodogies in music, arts, sports, literature, science, or other areas. Neither result has been shown to have any relationship to the vaccine although I would argue that children who excel are able to do so, in part, because they were given an immunity to these diseases.

A Star is Born

Amateur Astronomer in Ky. Discovers Nebula

While poking around the night sky with a telescope at home, amateur astronomer Jay McNeil discovered a nebula.

In what astronomy groups believe is the first such discovery by an amateur in 65 years, McNeil photographed the illuminated cloud of gas and dust lit by what astronomers believe is a newborn star.

Such a discovery is exceedingly rare, said Bo Reipurth, who confirmed the find at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, home to one of the world's largest telescopes.

This is so cool I'm sure there are amateur (and professional) astronomers around the world who share a vicarious thrill (with a bit of envy) at this discovery.

Wictory Wednesday

From the GOP Team Leader site:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie will hold a news conference to kick off National Voter Registration Week from the helm of a 56-foot 18-wheeler that will be parked out in front of RNC headquarters on Wednesday, March 3 at 11:30 a.m. The 18-wheeler, designed expressly for registering voters, is fully equipped with interactive multimedia capabilities, Xbox systems, a sound stage and much more. With a goal of registering 1 million voters across America from March 6 - March 13, this innovative grassroots effort is the largest voter registration drive in the history of Republican Party. National Voter Registration Week is part of the RNC’s unprecedented commitment to registering 3 million voters by Election Day 2004.

Today is Wictory Wednesday when bloggers (see the list below) ask readers to do something to support the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign. Sometimes people want to volunteer to help but aren't sure what they can do or their schedules may not allow them to commit a lot of time to a new project. This week, ask friends, family, and co-workers if they are registered to vote. This won't take much time and you will be doing a favor for those who have forgotten to register or weren't sure how to do it. You can print out a registration form (.pdf) that also has each state's registration laws, address, and deadlines. (You can also use a search engine to find registration forms for your state.) This along with other information about the electoral college and elections can be found on the Teacher's Tools page of the Reggie Website.

You can find more ways to help through the GOP Team Leader site or the George W. Bush volunteer sign up. You can also donate by visiting the Bush/Cheney site or through Amazon.com.

No Gerbils or Dogs, Just an Ass

John Kerry has the nomination, chosen, I presume, because he is considered electable. (Considered electable by people who would vote for a gerbil or a dog.)

Miller's Time has parsed Kerry's speech. Read it for a translation of what Kerry said and what he really means.

What Goes Around...

French Trade Minister Francois Loos said the U.S. measure taken over hygiene standards would be discussed at a meeting of the WTO's expert committee on health issues on March 18.

"The United States will be asked to explain the circumstances which led to this measure," Loos said in a statement.

Paris has called the import ban unjustified.

"A WTO agreement limits the circumstances in which exports can be blocked for hygiene reasons. There must be scientific proof of the existence of hygiene risks and it must be shown that the decision is not of a disproportionate nature," he said.

Like the proof the EU had for banning GMOs?

New Ringers

I changed the ringers on my cell phone this weekend. I liked the ones I had but I've been using them for about a year now. The song that I had for when my husband called was Thank You by Led Zeppelin. It was the first song he sang for me and is one of the few songs that I can get him to sing now. (I can't carry a tune, he sang competitively and got a scholarship for it. I love to sing, it would be easier to get him to give me a kidney than to get him to sing.) Anyway, the song starts out softly and unless I had the phone next to me, it frequently went to voicemail by the time I heard it and found it.

Sprint has some that I could have downloaded but I decided to find my own. First I searched for MIDIs and saved them to my computer. Then I used Anvil Studio to shorten the music. You only need about 30 seconds of sound, anything longer won't be heard because the phone will go to voicemail by then and it just wastes memory space. With that program you can cut out the extra music you don't need, this is especially good if you want music from the middle or end of the song.

After that, I uploaded the music to my locker at mbuzzy. They are stored there and I can send them to my phone whenever I want to change ringers. I added Whiter Shade of Pale, Purple Haze, In the Mood, the theme from the XFiles, and Kashmir (I had to have at least one Zeppelin song.) I also saved some to send to my son's new phone.

I'm still looking for more songs. I can assign a specific song/ringer to incoming calls from people in my phone list. Right now I have the XFiles one for any call but I'm thinking of assigning it to calls from my kids' school. I had Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah for calls from home because the only time I get calls from my home phone is when I'm out without my kids and they are feeling a need to pester me. I had the U of L Cardinals Fight Song for text messages but I'm ready to change that one too (not because of how they've been playing lately, I'm just ready for something new.) Now I have to think of something appropriate for those...deciding what songs to search for is the hardest part of the whole process.

Tiny Knits

I used to knit. I don't do it much anymore because: 1. I'm lazy and 2. I have too many feline "helpers". When I did knit, I think I was fairly good at it. I won a ribbon at the Kentucky State Fair once for a shawl that I made. My biggest problem was (and still is) that I lacked patience. The shawl was probably the most complicated pattern I ever did. Most of the time when I looked for patterns the ones that caught my eye included the words "quick" and "easy". The next thing I checked was needle size. For me, bigger was better.

Althea Merback in Bloomington, Indiana has gone in the opposite direction. She creates one of a kind miniature knits. Her creations are in scales as small as 1:144. Here are some pictured next to a dime. One of the most interesting is a cardigan (1:12) with Picasso's Woman in a Yellow Hat on the back. The sweater "was knit with 32 different colors of silk and 3 variegated cottons and all in all it took about 400 hours to make. It measures 1 3/4 inches across the chest and is 2 1/2 inches long. There are 45 stitches to the inch."

I don't know whether to be more impressed by the attention to detail she shows or by the fact that, according to her "about me" page, she is the mother of a nine-year-old boy and five-year-old triplets and still has the patience to do this kind of work.

News Sources and Feeds

Finding and organizing news sources:

Google News - frequently my first choice for searching for news because it's handy to use from my toolbar but it can be annoying when there are multiple copies of the same news article from different sources. I like being able to sort by relevance or date, I just wonder what determines relevance. The advanced news search does help finding a specific article since you can select a source or location along with your keyword(s).

Google Alert - will send email notifications when selected keywords are mentioned on news or websites. Notifications are sent out when Google updates its index. This service is good for tracking information that you won't find from news services...sites that mention your name, website, business, or hobbies. There are better ways to track regular news, but this is useful for finding information and references from sites and discussion forums. This service is not affiliated with Google.

Topix - sources for local, national, or world news. You can search for news by topic and it will save a list of your most recent searches. There are also lists for hot topics, people, industries, and companies. I added this one to the list of links next to my IE address field and it may become my favorite souce.

Yahoo - now includes the ability to add RSS headline feeds to your personalized page along with the headline news from their regular sources. Many of the RSS feeds that I've found in my searches here come from Topix.net. I don't use this as a homepage and I seldom use the email address that comes with it (I use MyWay.com for a homepage because I registered early enough to get the email address marybeth@... no numbers after my name!). If I did, I might find this one more useful than I do.

Bloglines - you can subscribe to standard news sources, weblog feeds and comic strips. You can find blogs by browsing the directory or by adding the URI from your page of listings. Click a link and Bloglines will recommend other feeds based on your current subscription list. You can see other subscribers to the blogs if they have selected to share their user lists (this is opt in, if you don't select it, no one will see you listed as a subscriber and they won't see your list). Seeing the lists of people with the same interests can help you find new blogs to read. You can also see how many subscribers you have for your blog. I like the features it offers but not the layout (frames) and the blog directory can be difficult to use since it sorts them by title and you can only begin with the first letter of the title and have go through it page by page.

My Wire Service - subscribe to news and weblogs, sort subscriptions by topic, and clip headlines to save for later. This is a nice service but has always been slow to load. (I have DSL, I would hate to see how slow this is on dial-up.) The weblogs are sorted A-E, F-K...but are not alphabetized within these divisions.

News is Free - another web-based feed aggregator. You can select news sources to add to personalized pages and also add RSS feed for blogs or news sources that aren't listed in the directory. If you get the premium service (you get one month free when you register), you can set it up so that you can post to your blog from this site. You also get news alerts and archiving. None of these extras appeal to me and although I like the look of the layout of the site, I'm still not sure how often I'll use it.

I know there are many more sources out there. If there's one that you have found useful, please leave a comment and tell me what you like about it (include the URI).

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Opinion

Kerry's conundrum: Big office, small mind

John Kerry paints himself as a dimwit and hypocrite, but Democrats voting in their party's primaries are taking to it like flies. He voted for the war in Iraq but was hoodwinked by the Bush administration; it actually went to war. He voted for NAFTA and is shocked that it has sped the evolution of international trade. He rails against special privilege, married as he is to ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz.

Kerry's latest: American companies planning to ship jobs overseas must first inform the government and the affected workers. OK, then what?

He says this provides a level playing field. How?

The best we can figure is it gives time to the politicians and public opinion to work mischief against a business decision to cut costs, which would free up capital to create new and better jobs at home.

Folks, it is crunch time. If we are to be a nation of innovators and entrepreneurs, then we must lead and not follow.

But leadership is expensive, perhaps the most expensive of all human endeavors. There are titanic economic forces loose in the world. We can ride the wave, or sink to the bottom.

That's why this newspaper rails incessantly against public schools that shortchange future workers. But they're part of the Kerry prescription.

Isn't it clear by now? Success will demand a commitment to competitive excellence that John Kerry's small mind cannot grasp.