Monday, August 31, 2009

Fruit Smothie In 60 Seconds!



Author: LegitWealthBuilders Keywords: build a web page site marketing strategy work at home no fee opportunity ilearningglobal.tv ilg ilg.tv ilearningglobal.biz brian tracy Don Hutsen Added: August 31, 2009...
View the entire post by clicking here

Affordable Ifrogz Noise Canceling Earphones And Mic For Iphone Owners



With so many different iPhone accessories alone, it is great to see some reasonably priced and efficient noise canceling earphones for the iPhone owners that also include a practical mic. This set of EarPollution Plugz with Mic from iFrogz are a few of the many alternatives they provide hip and trendy music lovers that are also geeky. The earphone set is compact and practical as we would hope from good iPhone accessories and also come in a variety fo different colors: Black, Silver, Pink, Or...
View the entire post by clicking here

Getting Wii Games For Less



Te;re are currently three e;d;ing gaming consoe;s that are considered to be next generation. Those three gaming consoe;s are te; Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and te; Microsoft Xbox 360. Gamers looking to buy Nintendo Wii online will hae; litte; difficulty finding hundreds of sele;rs offering new and refurbised; Wii consoe;s on te; Internet. To buy Wii online, all you hae; to do is simply surf on te; internet searching for great deals of Nintendo Wii. Hundreds of online store and auction l...
View the entire post by clicking here

Two-mic System Detects Fetal Heart Rate Anomalies, Prenatal Beat Sampling



Patel Institute of Engineering and Technology’s A.K. Mittra and associates have devised a clever and inexpensive early warning detection system for monitoring the fetal heart rate of that bun months-long in the oven. With two microphones — one placed on the pregnant soon-to-be mother’s abdomen and one… Original post:  Two-mic system detects fetal heart rate anomalies, prenatal beat sampling Related posts: Scribnia Helps You Discover and Rate Bloggers This post is part of Masha...
View the entire post by clicking here

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Five Unique Home Based Business Opportunities You Can Create Yourself



Author : Daegan Smith Tired of the same old same old? When everybody's in on a good thing, it's sometimes difficult to squeeze in to find a foothold Take home based businesses, for example There are guides, websites dispensing tips and advice, even gurus and coaches ready to jump in to save you from making a first-time home business owner's mistakes But what you truly want is to find a home-based business that offers something different, something that will make all others go, 'Now why d...
View the entire post by clicking here

Walking With Heart Rate Monitors



by Henry CalhounA very beneficial way of exercising is walking and if you are a walker then there is a good chance that you will take along a pedometer. A heart rate monitor is a great partner and it helps you to get the full benefits of your walk.For those who don’t know how heart rate monitors work, it is really not complicated. Generally, strapped around the chest are transmitters which act in much the same way as an ECG, or electrocardiograph. To adjust it to the point you want there are ela...
View the entire post by clicking here

Amazon Kindle Dx Review: Weighing In On Its $489 Price Tag



by Travis Van Slooten Anyone who owns or is considering buying a Kindle 2 has no doubt heard of the recent launch of the Kindle DX. If you are the former, this could be a great time to upgrade and if you are the latter, it could be a tough decision you have to make. When you are looking to spend the kind of money the Kindle costs, you don’t want to leap without looking. But if you do your research beforehand, you can be assured you will get the model that works best for you. The Kindle 2 is...
View the entire post by clicking here

Par 20 Bulbs



PAR20 LED bulb has the capability that it uses just 4.6 watts and generates up to 300 lumens of light. This is an improved output as compared to the previously used bulbs. With a certain beam angle and E26 base, this family of LED bulbs is available in different   white color temperatures, two of them are 2800k and 6000k cool white. Other colors for PAR 20 bulbs are also available in the market.  With special research and engineering the PAR 20 bulbs are designed to last 50,000 hours.  As a resu...
View the entire post by clicking here

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Coby Mp565 1 Gb Mp3 Player With Clip And Lcd Screen (black)



Amazon.com Product Description The Coby MP-565 Clip MP3 player with LCD is a compact and convenient way to take your music with you on-the-go. With 1 GB of memory, you’ll have a host of music to choose from. Just clip it and go! A compact and convenient way to take your music with you on-the-go. Click to enlarge. Attach the clip to your bag, jacket, or belt and go. Also available in silver. The MP-565’s high-contrast LCD...
View the entire post by clicking here

The Death Toll From Avoidable Medical Errors



Quickly now, which causes more deaths in the US every year: avoidable medical errors or auto accidents? I guessed auto accidents too, probably because vehicle carnage is in the headlines each day. But a new study reports that it’s medical errors. They’re responsible for more than 200,000 deaths annually, the study states. And these are all preventable deaths. More widespread technology for linking medical records, which is supposed to be part of that health insurance reform legislation curre...
View the entire post by clicking here

Le Petit Prince Roving Greenhouse Robot Is Overwhelmingly Cute, Useful



Something about Le Petit Prince, the mobile, plant-loving greenhouse robot makes us indescribably sad. Is it his one, massive adorable eye? Or merely the fact that he’s named after one of the most depressing books ever written? Either way, we can’t really argue with his usefulness — the concept can carry about plants and care for them, all the while ravaging the terrain for further specimens. He’s also designed to learn about the optimal growing conditions of the plants he collects, which re...
View the entire post by clicking here

Introducing Gadgetsforblogger.com - A Searchable Directory Of Gadgets For Blogger



Since Blogger launched the Gadget directory , I've been keeping track of new submissions and developing several gadgets of my own . While Blogger's directory is searchable, I realised that many bloggers would find descriptive reviews, screenshots, developer details and installation instructions a useful addition to the brief descriptions offered in the directory listings. So I decided to create Gadgets for Blogger - a searchable directory of gadgets which have been developed specifically...
View the entire post by clicking here

Friday, August 28, 2009

Apple Ipod Mobile Speakers Look Like Bags But Aren’t



We’re always keeping our eyes open for crazy contraptions, or gadgets as we like to call them, and usually that means we have to point our eyes across the ponds, to really find something of interest. This time around, we’ve struck gold. These speakers look like bags, and are even just as mobile as a bag, but we assure you: they aren’t. It’s a pretty simple design, with a speaker placed right in the middle of one side, and the iPod (and presumably an iPhone and iPod Touch) sits right on i...
View the entire post by clicking here

Last Week’s Coolest Gadget Winner Is…



The winner of last week’s coolest gadget competition is the Go commando with Night Vision Goggles . Using infra red, these night vision goggles allow you to see up to fifteen meters in absolute darkness and even at full power, the light emitted is barely visible to the naked eye. Perfect for playing hide and seek in the garden, or watching owls and bats of an evening. And yes, you do get to pretend your stalking the bad guy (although I believe it is a prerequisite to hum the ‘Mission Impo...
View the entire post by clicking here

Three Dimensional Holographic Head By Ict Graphics Lab



Every once in a while, you have to ask yourself how close we are to an age of Star Wars technology. Today, I found that the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) graphics lab has figured out a way to make holographic communication. As you can see, there is a holographic head in a box there, very reminiscent of Laddy the genie from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse . Unlike Laddy, the person can view the floating head in three-dimensions. What you don’t see is what is happening to the “head-guy” o...
View the entire post by clicking here

Minimalistic Leaf Phone Is Eco-friendly And Makes Up For Missing Jewelry!



Technology may once have been called the greatest enemy to ecology but that is no longer how it is viewed as today. Now we have hi tech gadgets that only reinforce our belief that technology and nature go hand in hand. The abundant presence of green gadgets is proof of this new view. The Leaf is a cool phone that is simplistic and would garner the interest of those who adhere to a lifestyle of minimalism. The flexible cell phone can be worn as a bracelet around your wrist, which makes it part-...
View the entire post by clicking here

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Sendstation Pocketdock



SendStation’s PocketDock is a godsend for those who carry proprietary adapters for their iPod; it provides a Mini USB that’ll work with standard chargers plus an extra 3.5 mm jack. Link: http://www.theawesomer.com/c/click.php?id=6425 Price: $30 Hat Tip: http://gizmodo.com/5345616/sendstation-pocketdock-lets-ipods-embrace-miniusb Related posts: TuneBase Direct/FM iLuv iEA15 Adapter Sirius XM Skydock...
View the entire post by clicking here

Is Wireless Really Even Necessary In An Ebook Reader?



August 27th, 2009 Posted by Matthew Miller @ 3:30 amCategories:Gadgets, Kindle, On the road, Sony, ebooksTags:Sony Corp., Sony Reader, Wireless, Ebook Reader, E-books, Personal Technology, Matthew MillerThe has been a lot of ebook news this week with the new Daily Edition Reader added to the latest Sony Reader trio, the launch of the Sony eBook Store on the Mac, and the roll out of over a million free public domain books in EPUB format from Google. It is nice to see Sony go head-to-head with...
View the entire post by clicking here

What’s The Idea Ikea



I hate shopping at Ikea, it’s like a giant catalog warehouse. You have to go through the store like a rodent in a maze. I expect to meet with the Minotaur at any corner when I shop there. It’s so frustrating at times. It turns out that the giant corporate company is actually registered as a non-profit company and only pays 3.5% tax on annual profits. I guess the taxman gave up going through the maze before reaching the offices at the store. The Berne Declaration, a non-profit watch dog organizat...
View the entire post by clicking here

Steam Car Breaks World Speed Record At 140mph [steam Car]



They did it. A whooping 139.843mph. That's 225.06km/h in the right speed units. The UK team lead by Charles Burnett III broke the world record for steam cars , as you can see in the video. The record—which was untouched since American Fred Marriot set it in 1906—was shattered at Edwards Air Force Base, in the Mojave Desert, California. According to the rules set by the Federation International Automobile, the car had to do two runs in opposite directions, with a maximum one hour interval between...
View the entire post by clicking here

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

How Can I Protect My Pc From Dirty Power?



Dear Sir, I live in a rural area and our power supply isn’t too great. Is there any way I can protect my computer from surges and power cuts? Hi there, and thanks for your email. Yeah, power is a pretty critical thing that your computer needs and it needs it to be stable. Luckily there is something you can do to help. There’s a class of devices called UPS or Uninterruptible Power Supplies which give you a few minutes to turn off your machine when there’s a power cut. They also do somethin...
View the entire post by clicking here

Nokia Releasing Arm Based Smartbook In 2010



Earlier this week we saw the Nokia Booklet 3G , now Digitimes is reporting that Nokia is set to launch a Smartbook  next year. According to DigitTimes, the Nokia Smartbook will be ARM based, and Nokia are soon to settle orders with Taiwan based handset makers for this new Smartbook. At the moment it looks like it is just a rumor, but this would tie in with Nokia recent released of the Nokia Booklet 3G. If Nokia do release a Smartbook it could use Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processo...
View the entire post by clicking here

Invest In A Good Digital Recorder For Your Needs



by Ramez Blibel The Olympus DS-30 Digital Voice Recorder helps you to record stereo sounds from business meetings, vital speeches, and interviews, and even permits you to download as well as make podcasts for later listening. You can sign up with your favorite podcast installments in the DSS player, which makes it simple for you to automatically download the most up-to-date broadcast pieces. You can move the new files to your recorder by just linking it with your laptop. The 256-MB internal...
View the entire post by clicking here

Svartling (2009-08-25 15:03)



08:19 Steve Jobs, back at Apple, focusing on every small detail of upcoming tablet: tinyurl.com/m44ank (via @zho… – post.ly/2qT0 # 12:54 Cindy: Yes it looks great. I wish I had a Mac post.ly/2faa # 13:27 Sony Ericsson Xperia X5 (Nadine) Android Concept #gadgets #svpt post.ly/2rlU # 13:32 I don’t believe Sony Ericsson will release something that looks like this #svpt #gadgets post.ly/2rlU # 13:56 Good to see you here on Posterous too Scoble Let Posterous au...
View the entire post by clicking here

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

What’s A Good Alternative For My Touchpad?



I love my laptop, but I just can’t get to grips with the touchpad it comes with. I also don’t like the idea of carrying a mouse around with me, it’s bulky and the cable keeps getting tangled. Is there anything you can suggest? Laptops are great aren’t they? You can carry them around wherever you go and you can get to use them anywhere you like. Combined with a Wifi or 3G connection, you have the flexibility of working or playing any place you wish. However, working with a smaller or more cr...
View the entire post by clicking here

Pingwi-fi Joins Mile-high Club … Of Wi-fi On American Flight



Finally! I have boarded many a plane since the introduction of Wi-Fi in the sky … but apparently I have been leaving and landing in the wrong cities — no Wi-Fi to be had. Until Sunday, traveling from Winston-Salem … to Atlanta … to Dallas. But first, have you ever been stuck on a plane next to a network marketer — those artists previously known as pyramid scheme fanatics? Ha! I have. Actually, it was a civil, interesting conversation, with a subtle sales pitch mixed in. Well played, Ms...
View the entire post by clicking here

Msi X-slim X600 Hits Amazon With 799.99 Usd On The Tag



Related tweets from Twitter: battlefield1943 : Playstation 3 Slim sells out at Amazon: It looks like the Playstation 3 is temporarily out of stock at Amazon.com. http://bit.ly/2JyK2 2009-08-25T10:51:33Z - Reply - View Tweet lilhangout : #10: Still Life 2: Image: http://bit.ly/gZN2K (http://www.amazon.. http://bit.ly/4mMYjv 2009-08-25T10:51:16Z - Reply - View Tweet ElectronicNews_ : [N4G] Playstation 3 Slim sells out at Amazon: It looks like the Playstation 3 is temporarily out of st...
View the entire post by clicking here

This Is What A Helicopter Firing High-speed Rockets Looks Like [image Cache]



Related tweets from Twitter: ElectricMetal : ran 5.03 mi on 8/24/2009 at 5:56 AM with a pace of 9'30"/mi http://bit.ly/KME89 2009-08-24T22:54:20Z - Reply - View Tweet JuanaticafromEC : @zilbeth no puede ser! es el 24 d marzo! hay alguien en chile q tambiรฉn cumple! conozco a full gente q cumple n marzo empezando por mi pa 2009-08-24T22:53:26Z - Reply - View Tweet hulklogan1 : ran 28.72 km @ 5'20"/km (17.85 mi @ 8'35"/mi) on Aug.24 16:01, 2436 cal. http://slowgeek.com/r2013966994...
View the entire post by clicking here

Monday, August 24, 2009

Sydney Airport Transfers



Sydney Airport Transfers Sydney is solitary of the a good number broad-based cities stylish the Southern Hemisphere, and a well-planned itinerary is very crucial especially if it?s your primary measure to visit the city. With this, the primary object to you have got to be there concerned of is your airport ferry truck. If refusal solitary is vacant to fetch you on your arrival, you have got to start looking on behalf of a trivial airport truck company to can bring you to your inn or else target...
View the entire post by clicking here

Microsoft Responds To Xbox 360 54.2 Percent Failure Rate Report, Doesn’t Dispute The Data



Admittedly, when we saw Game Informer’s survey that pegged Xbox 360’s failure rate at 54.2 percent, we were thinking that was a bit steep of a number, possibly bumped up a few digits from some possible sampling errors. So when we were gearing up to read Microsoft’s statement responding to the data, we fully expected [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Xbox 360 Pro 60gb For $230 During Woot Sellout



While it’s no guarantee that a retail price drop is coming, seeing an Xbox 360 Pro selling for just $230 (plus $5 shipping) during a Woot Sellout certainly piles-on the evidence. The Woot model is your typical 60GB Pro (rumored to have reached end-of-life) with HDMI-out, wireless controller, headset, and component AV cable. However, instead [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Samsung Instinct Hd Pops Up On Best Buy’s Website With 5 Megapixel Camera, Tv Out



As it turns out, Instinct HD really was the final name that Samsung decided for its Sprint-bound S50 / m850 Dash, at least as far as Best Buy is concerned. The “Weekly Ad Specials” listing confirms that the smartphone really does handle HD video, both recording and playback, with a 5 megapixel camera and a [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Cool Window Phone Simulates The Weather.



(taken from CNET) A better predictor might be this innovative  Window Phone (not to be confused with the  Windows phone ). The translucent touch-screen device by designer Seunghan Song promises accurate weather predictions. But especially excellent is that it would simulate the current climate on its display with, say, a clear screen on a sunny day, virtual drops on a rainy day, and a frosty veneer when it snows. You’ll note from the photos that the concept phone doesn’t have any keys; imag...
View the entire post by clicking here

Kansas Homeowner Insurance — Have Elite Fire And Security Gadgets



There are many ways to pay less on your Kansas homeowner insurance  policy. But while many of them might reduce your cost, they could leave you with insufficient coverage. I don’t usually recommend such options as they rubbish the main purpose of insurance in the first place. Bearing this in mind, I will only show you a step that will as well leave you adequately covered in spite of saving you much: Install special fire and security systems that alert fire stations, police stations or other mon...
View the entire post by clicking here

Pci Express 3.0 Specification Formally Delayed, Products Pushed To 2011



We’ve been enjoying (or just dealing with, depending on perspective) PCI Express 2.0 since early 2007, and it now looks as if we may still be utilizing said protocol come early 2011. Way back in June of ‘08, we began to hear whispers that the next iteration of the technology would be finalized by the [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Northern Michigan University Teams With Motorola For Campus-wide Wimax



Northern Michigan University was fairly early to the game in offering laptops and campus-wide WiFi to its students, and it looks like it’s now stepping things up even further with a little help from Motorola, which is providing the backend for NMU’s new campus-wide WiMAX network (a first in the US). Better still, the university [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Enhanced Gmail Plug-in For Blackberrys Arrives, But Only Syncs One Way



Lackluster Gmail support has been a real pain point for BlackBerry users, and we’ve really been hoping that this new “Enhanced Gmail Plug-in” would solve all that. It’s out as of today, and we’ve certainly gotten some improvements, like support for archiving messages, marking spam and managing labels / stars. Unfortunately, these new management features [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Add A Comment



Picking the Right Groomsmen GiftsPosted by LisaM on August 22, 2009Are you having a hard time picking groomsmen gifts? You may find it difficult because you wonder if the guys will appreciate your gifts for them, so selecting the right gift for your guys might take a long time. But here are some ideas that will help you choose the best gift for your guys without consuming a lot of time.For sure the guys in your wedding entourage are your friends or relatives, so you might have some ideas what th...
View the entire post by clicking here

Great Quality Compatible Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink Color Sticks



Yellow 8550 solid ink Substitute Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink ColorStix for the Xerox Phaser 8550 color printer provide vivid, professional colorful output. The Compatible Xerox Phaser 8550 Solid Ink Sticks are remarkably consistent on almost any printer paper. Generic Solid ink colorstix for your Xerox Phaser 8550 printer are discount priced to give you the competitive edge of color for approximately the price of a black only laser printer. Full page color and high print speeds guarantees...
View the entire post by clicking here

Msi Wind 210 With Amd Athlon Neo Announced For Europe



We see what MSI is doing. First, they released a followup to the Intel-packin’ X-Slim X600 with an otherwise-identical AMD-based machine called the X610. And now they’re making the MSI Wind U200 available with an AMD processor as well. And what do you think they’re calling it? the U210, of course. Starting at €399, the [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Friday, August 21, 2009

At&t, Apple And Google Respond To The Fcc Over Google Voice And The Iphone App Store



Whoa — we were just sent AT&T response to the FCC’s investigation into the rejection of Google Voice apps from the iPhone app store, and Ma Bell isn’t pulling any punches: according to the letter, AT&T “had no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application.” That puts [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Video: Htc Click Gets A 6-finger ‘donut’ Salute



Looks like Vietnam is the new place to be for early device leaks. A place where gadget-nerds are rapidly evolving extra digits to master their surplus of hi-tech gear — lucky bastages. As followup to its GSM-flavored Palm Pre scoop, site Tinh Te is once again showing off the HTC Click only this time, it’s [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Pink World Travel Adapter – Perfect Pink Power



If you’ve got to travel, you may as well do it in style. This Pink World Travel Adapter gives you [...] 76 words | permalink | No comments | digg this...
View the entire post by clicking here

PA Divorce Lawyers Buzz



A site about PA Divorce Lawyers has been recieving a fair amount of buzz lately. It seems as though Charlie Pace is hard at work submitting articles left and right. Here's a rundown of where we've seen his articles popping up:

http://builder-report.org/articles/legal/pa-divorce-lawyers.html
http://connecticut.lawsuitattorneyblog.info/pa-divorce-attorneys
http://ferdlinks.com/law/pa-divorce-lawyers.html
http://www.personalinjuryattorneysin.us/pa-divorce-attorneys
http://getfitandhealthytips.com/?p=2436
http://www.bigarticledirectory.info/2009/08/08/pa-divorce-lawyers/
http://theworldwidenews.info/2009/08/pa-divorce-attorneys-25658/
http://habitatforhealth.ca/articles/legal/pa-divorce-attorneys.html
http://articles.bankqu.com/legal/pennsylvania-divorce-lawyers.html
http://berdie.ox.am/?p=3918 http://blog-your-article.com/?p=1188
http://articleplugin.com/?p=7061

Technorait Keywords: , , , ,
Delicious Keywords: , , , ,

Back Home…



After a few busy weeks work-honeymoon-reunion-holiday in Belgium, I made it back to this country, which has managed to not have a government yet in the time Belgium got five of them together. Meanwhile, Irael is upping the threats of another war, which is being taken seriously by nobody but the most paranod (on the grounds that barking dogs don’t bite, and on the grounds that it will mean the virtual end of ‘Israel’). Some titbits that did happen and characterise this of this wonderful country...
View the entire post by clicking here

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Brookstone Coupon - $20 Off Orders Over $300



Brookstone coupon - $20 off orders over $300 From instant wine chillers to tower cooling fans to supersonic high-tech earphones, Brookstone has all the latest gadgets to make your life easier & more fun! Save $20 on orders over $200 with coupon code AF8SEPT . Coupon expires 09/30/2009. Visit The Bargainist for more....
View the entire post by clicking here

Arduino Binary Clock Doesn't Care To Be Useful, Just Wants To Be Admired



If there's one thing we love about DIY projects , it's the feeling that the outcome is more than the mere sum of its parts . This here binary clock is a prime example, being composed of scrap plastic, some dirt-cheap parts and a homemade Arduino board. And yet, after a few licks of polish and the inevitable LEDs, it looks like a true monument to geekdom , which is only amplified by the fact you can't even use the thing without being familiar with binary code. But then again, if utility was...
View the entire post by clicking here

Windows Vista Nvidia Evolution Sp2 V2009



Finally the Nvidia evolution SP2 is out!!! Neuropass made again a wonderful job here. Windows Vista Nvidia Evolution SP2 ———————– Windows Version ———- 6.0.6002.18005 (SP2 090410-1830) UntouchedMSDN Vista Edition ————– Ultimate Architecture ————– x64 Install Type ————– Unattended Eng US Product Key ————– N/A Activation —————- Crack ProvIded ISO File Size ————– 3.59 GB Install Time ————— About 23 Minutes Nvidia evolution has been tweaked for a best performance and stability with particular...
View the entire post by clicking here

The Daily Roundup: Here’s What You Might’ve Missed



PlayStation 3 Slim unboxing and hands-on!We’ve also lined it up against our standard, fatty PS3, and we gotta say, it’s noticeably lighter. Sony unveils slimmer PS3: $300, lands in September Existing PS3 SKUs have their prices dropped a hundie apiece tomorrow in anticipation. Dell’s 11.6-inch Inspiron 11z thin-and-light now on sale for $399Dell may have ditched [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Nine Hdtvs Form 3d Visualization Rig, But Only In The Name Of Science



If you’re the kind of person who happens to have a number of LCD HDTV’s lying around, we suggest you give University of California, San Diego’s Calit2 Visualization Team a ring. Researchers from the group have constructed a three-column, nine-panel 3D display using flat screens from JVC, stereoscopic glasses, and “game PCs with high end [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Fujitsu Unleashes Celsius Ultra Specs, Offers Test Drives At Gamescom



And now we know what the “world’s fastest” air-cooled gaming rig is made of — a 3.33GHz Intel Core i7-975 and a pair of souped-up GeForce GTX 295s running in SLI. They’re backed up by 12GB of DDR3 memory, a 150GB WD Raptor as an OS drive and two 1TB storage hangars, but you must [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Infectious Retro Stuff Is Better Iphone Skin



We have seen some of the cool iPhone skins from Infectious before on geeky gadgets, like the fun Monochrome Game Boy iPhone Skin , here is another cool one designed by Tony Aguero, the Retro Stuff Is Better iPhone Skin. If you want to give your iPhone a cool retro look, then the Infectious Retro Stuff Is Better iPhone Skin is available for $14.99 from Infectious . via Holy Cool This is a post from Geeky Gadgets , who bring you the latest cool Gadgets. Infectious Retro...
View the entire post by clicking here

Transcend Jetflash V70 Anti-shock Usb Flash Drive



Aug18 GadGetTranscend’s latest Anti-Shock USB Flash Drive comes in the form of the JetFlash V70, where it relies on a durable, eco-friendly rubber casing that allows it to survive most shocks, splashes and dust with impunity. After all, the JetFlash V70 is more than capable of meeting rigorous U.S. military drop-test standards (MIL-STD-810F 516.5—Transit Drop), making it one of the toughest cookies in its class where consumers are concerned. A unique feature would be its special tethered cap hol...
View the entire post by clicking here

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Android V. Iphone Religious Battle Rages Within Techcrunch



iPhone. We spend hours debating it internally on Yammer, although mostly we devolve into personal attacks. Comments like the...
View the entire post by clicking here

Steamy Suggestions



Alias Mother – a way cool chick in her own blog -  asked for some Steampunk suggestions.  There’s always my book – Chenda and the Airship Brofman (click tab above). But so many folks find only getting one chapter SO dissatisfying. So, let me clarify. I will now attempt to make some sense as to what this aesthetic is: Steampunk is a sub-genra similar to Cyberpunk, itself a sub-genra of science fiction. The basic elements are the look and feel of Victorian Europe, steam power, cogs, brass...
View the entire post by clicking here

What If? The Reverse Transition From Digital To Print



While many bemoan the changes that are occurring as our culture moves from print to digital media creation and consumption, I wanted to consider the value of digital media if we were experiencing the opposite transition: What if we were moving from a digital media world to a print media world? What if digital media was invented first, back in the 1400’s , and then in the 1990’s, print burst onto the scene? What if thousands of startups began developing print-centric business mo...
View the entire post by clicking here

Republican On House Oversight Committee Wants Answers On White House E-mails



House Republican wants answers on WH messages WASHINGTON ? The top Republican on the House’s oversight committee asked the White House on Monday about an e-mail from a top political adviser urging support for a health care overhaul and whether officials are collecting names of President Barack Obama’s critics. In a letter to White House counsel Greg [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Monday, August 17, 2009

Mass. Sen. Kerry, Daughter Sporting Crutches In Boston After Leg Surgeries



Sen. Kerry has hip surgery to address chronic pain BOSTON ? Sen. John Kerry and his daughter Vanessa are sporting his-and-her crutches. The 65-year-old Massachusetts Democrat had hip surgery last week to address chronic pain and flexibility problems. His daughter also had surgery to repair nerve damage in a foot. Kerry spokeswoman Brigid O’Rourke says Vanessa, a medical [...]...
View the entire post by clicking here

Teabaggers



Henry Jackson ‘75 is a proponent of traditional marriage. (Previous discussion here .) I am in favor of a robust discussion of different views among the community of Ephs, but this goes too far. There’s a lot of negative energy out there, with faggots disrupting town halls, activists targeting citizens, and a the growing frenzy that seems to be engulfing politics in this country. If this is how the fight for traditional marriage is going to be won, and we feel like we have the people and...
View the entire post by clicking here

Politics Is Not A Sport



This is pretty poor stuff from the normally astute James Forsyth. In fact, his remarks about Dan Hannan's recent blunt comment about the UK's Soviet-model healthcare system smacks of cowardice: The last week has been one of the worst the Tories have had in a while. As Pete said on Friday, a bad week in August is unlikely to do lasting damage. But the Tories should learn from the events of then past few days:......
View the entire post by clicking here

Zimbabwe Business Watch : Week 34



A mood of optimism prevails despite the frustrating and sometimes negative news from the political arena. Economics and politics are more intertwined here in Zimbabwe than just about anywhere else in the world at present, as so much depends on stability arising from progress achieved in the GPA. Many factories operate short weeks or alternate weeks in order to survive. Forex liquidity remains the single biggest factor preventing sustained economic growth. The retail sector continues its up...
View the entire post by clicking here

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Big Brother 11: Chima Evicted By Cbs, Wanted To Sleep With Russell - Nimbrung.net



KIDK Big Brother 11: Chima evicted by CBS, longed for to nap with Russell Examiner.com For some-more upon Big Brother 11: Check out Reid's mainstay upon Chima removing tossed out of the Big Brother house, as well as the many sparkling eviction rite ever. … Producers exude Chima Simone from 'Big Brother 11' The Associated Press Big Brother 11's Chima Kicked Out of the House Seattle Post Intelligencer 'Big Brother 11' Spoilers: Producers Evict the Houseguest! BuddyTV Examiner.com posted in W...
View the entire post by clicking here

The Twenty-third List



Here we go again folks… but no need to worry about these rather boring lists because we are done. Well…  almost. When I check the batches, they were all filled up to the last one. But when I did my batch maintenance, I saw that some sites listed no longer had the needed requirements active. These are: 1. An active entrecard widget .  Which by the way is the most important one because the whole purpose of this FREE credit generator system is for you to drop your cards on someone else’s...
View the entire post by clicking here

5 Selection Criteria For The Automated Forex Trading System



by Richard U. Olson After many heretofore unsuccessful attempts to create a software system that takes the guesswork out of trading, finally there is the Forex Autopilot System. However take care not to look this supposed gift horse in the mouth. The Fibonacci formula is the brainchild behind the automated Forex trading system. In simple terms, predicting market trends and trade fluctuations is at its core, providing traders with a glimpse into the future before making essential investments....
View the entire post by clicking here

Prince Of Darkness Shows A Lighter Side



Lord Mandelson continued his attempt to distance himself from his “prince of darkness” tag last week, musing that he was really a “kindly pussycat” who enjoyed nothing more than mentoring junior colleagues who appreciated his age, experience and “sense of fun”. Examples of this humour were in evidence when the business secretary… more...
View the entire post by clicking here

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Just An Observation, For Those Who Don't See It.



Some wiseass named Davebo, in the comments to this post : It's nice to see some are so anxious to prove Perlstien correct. Keep up the good work! My reply: Considering the fact that Rick Perlstein painted an innocent victim of a drug raid executed on the basis of shitty intel as the bad guy in this situation rat-cheer , he and every stinking one who agrees with him can KISS. MY. ASS....
View the entire post by clicking here

Peter Gibbons Begins To Wonder If He Thinks Too Much About Question Time



As correctly predicted by several people who commented on my last post, the decision I believe which led to a degradation of Question Time and a decline in respect for the institution of Parliament was Speaker Wilson’s ruling that Ministers only had to ‘address’ a question rather than ‘answer’ it. Let me start by making one thing perfectly clear.  There never was a golden age of Question Times where the opposition asked respectful, factual and logical questions and Ministers gave full, honest...
View the entire post by clicking here

Zollfrei Und Ohne Mehrwertsteuer Fotoequipment Auf Helgoland Shoppen



Gestern haben wir mit ein paar Freunden eine schรถne Butterfahrt nach Helgoland unternommen. Mit dem Halunder Jet sind wir bei allerbestem Wetter von den Landungsbrรผcken die Elbe runter geshippert. Anfangs war ich vollkommen ahnungslos bis ich dann in dem kleinen Helgolandblรคttchen an Board eine winzige Anzeige von einem Fotoladen auf Helgoland gelesen habe. Ohne Mehrwertsteuer und Zollfrei Fotoequipment einkaufen stand dort. Goil! Der Fotoladen im Lung Wai war dann auch schnell gefunden und dort...
View the entire post by clicking here

Iphone 3g S Distrutto Con Un Revolver 9mm E Millimetri



Tanti sono gli appassionati del telefono della Mela. C’e’ anche chi odia Apple e i suoi gadget come il protagonista di questo video Nel video un ragazzo utilizza un iPhone 3G S come bersaglio per il suo revolver 9mm. (more…)...
View the entire post by clicking here

Friday, August 14, 2009

Save Up To 75% Off Cookware, Flatware, & More At Pfaltzgraff



Save Up to 75% off Cookware, Flatware, and More during the ongoing Back to School Sale at Pfaltzgraff. Save on a wide selection of dining items, flatware, kitchen items, serveware, drinkware and other cutlery. There are plenty of options to choose from in terms of colors, patterns, and sets. Browse the sale by clicking through the six different categories on the promotion banner including Back To Basics, Boys Life, Life Of The Party, Healthy Living, In The Pink, and Budget Chef. For example,...
View the entire post by clicking here

C’รจ Una Gatta Su Youtube Che Suona Il Piano E Si Chiama Nora The Piano Cat



image from Ravenswingstudio.com E per la serie “c’รจ una gatta su YouTube”, emozionato come un pisquano FratelMaghetto vi vuol far conoscere la storia di Nora. Una bella gatta di cinque anni che vive a Philadelphia, piace come il Crodino e spopola sul Web. Dopo “ la bella storia di Casper “, il gatto che a Londra prende l’autobus, ora รจ il momento di Nora! Pensate che Billy Joel รจ un suo fan e le ha spedito una partitura e una foto autografata. I video di questa gatta pianista sono sup...
View the entire post by clicking here

Starbucks Launches Covert Operation



There's some filthy marketing going on, even for Starbucks.

As a business ploy, it isn’t a bad idea. The big beef some people have with the chain is that they’re (a) the Wal-Mart of coffee, and (b) you can’t walk down a block without seeing three of them. This “stealth” approach aims to solve both issues.

My concern, their coffee tasting like shit, has yet to be addressed.

However, despite the aims of what I like to call “Operation Main Street”, it has one simple flaw: it hinges on consumer ignorance. Now, granted – lots of business plans do. From diet pills to fast food, big money is made by either omitting facts like calorie counts, or by making fairly radical false claims. The claim Starbucks is trying to make, that these stores are just like a mom and pop shop, is just as radical and false as the claim Acai Berries will help you lose weight.



Read more about the Starbucks fake neighborhood coffee shops here.

Fermi Kills All Lorentz-violating Theories



This clip comes from the first episode of The Big Bang Theory that your humble has ever seen: It's virtually certain that this exchange was inspired by your humble correspondents with various advocates of loop quantum gravity whose attacks on string theory and the very Lorentz invariance of the laws of physics have been persistent and bloody, and so had to be my response. If you go to 0:45 of the video, Leslie Winkler says that Loop quantum gravity clearly offers more testable prediction...
View the entire post by clicking here

DFAIT’s ‘Secret Story’ About Suaad Hagi Mohamud



A

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

61% say Town Hall protests are appropriate



a href="http://people-press.org/report/535/"Pew:/abr /br /blockquote...br /br /Of those who had heard at least a little about the meetings, 61% say they think the way people have been protesting is appropriate; 34% say they see the protests as inappropriate. Not surprisingly, there is a large partisan divide: 80% of Republicans see the protests as appropriate, compared with 40% of Democrats and 64% of independents. A majority of Democrats (56%) say the way people have been protesting is inappropriate, compared with 15% of Republicans and 30% of independents.br /br /...br //blockquoteThe Democrats are having trouble carrying their own party on this issue. They have lost the Independents and never really had the Republicans. Independents are deficit hawks and they do not take kindly to being insulted about their positions.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5051247-4638800190703987907?l=prairiepundit.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Beyond MLB



I like a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/opinion/13glanville.html?pagewanted=2_r=1"Doug Glanville's op-ed/a on the options open to professional athletes after their careers end; it helps to clarify (which is more important than to "dispel") the "set for life" perception of how retired athletes live. It's obviously more complicated than the two poles we're most commonly treated to; on the one hand, the incredibly wealthy athlete who declares bankruptcy shortly after retirement, and on the other hand the retiree who spends his time appearing at celebrity golf courses and endorsing local car dealerships. Glanville also makes explicit the idea that so much of what is available in economic life is only available if you know how to take advantage of it, and you only know how to do that if you're fortunate enough to have picked up appropriate tools of analysis and to have enough time to analyze all your options. It reminds me a touch of some of the debates about health care coverage; in many situations, decent coverage is available, but it often takes a very long time to figure out what can be had, what the best options are, and so forth.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-2724508840489088716?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Where did the 'death panel' idea come from?



a href="http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/08/there-he-goes-again.html/"JustOneMinute:/abr /br /blockquotepSomebody call a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/facts-are-stubborn-things/"White House flack Linda Douglass at Fishy-1-1/a - a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/08/11/a-debate-we-didn-t-have-to-have.aspx"Mickey Kaus is circulating/a discouraging arguments suggesting Obama's risky health reform scheme might actually lead to "death panels", and yet again he is relying on Obama's own words:/pdiv class="blockquote" style="margin-left: 40px;"If, as a href="http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_treatment/archive/2009/08/08/have-you-no-decency.aspx"Harold Pollack argues/a, "rationing of life-saving or life-extending care" would not really be a priority for the "effectiveness" panels--such as the a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/blog/09/08/04/AnotherlookatIMAC/"Obama-endorsed IMAC/a--then it was strongall the more stupid/strong to a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=04amp;year=2009amp;base_name=why_american_health_care_costs_1"bring the topic up/a, no? Here's the first graf from a a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070amp;sid=aGrKbfWkzTqc"Bloomberg account/a of an early Obama health care foray back in April:/div blockquote pApril 29 (Bloomberg) -- President a href="http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Barack+Obamaamp;site=wnewsamp;client=wnewsamp;proxystylesheet=wnewsamp;output=xml_no_dtdamp;ie=UTF-8amp;oe=UTF-8amp;filter=pamp;getfields=wnnisamp;sort=date:D:S:d1"Barack Obama/a said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care. /p/blockquote p class="blockquote" style="margin-left: 40px;"Gee, where could the misinformed town hall crazies have gotten the idea that Obama was thinking about saving money by denying expensive procedures toward the end of life? ... [via ema href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/today-eugene-robinson-argues-that-obama-aided-and-abetted-the-now-hysterical-fears-of-health-care-rationing-reform-is.html"Dish/a/em] ... span style="color:#cc0000;"1:49 P.M./span/pHa! Folks who really want to stick it to Obama and sow hysteria about "death panels" will extract this from Obama's same a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03Obama-t.html?partner=rssamp;emc=rssamp;pagewanted=all"fateful interview/a with David Leonhardt of the Times....br /br /...br //blockquoteIt is worth reading in full. Obama is much too glib in dismissing this issue as are many Democrats who use it for disingenuous attacks on Sarah Palin. How about an honest discussion of what he means with these comments? Nah. That might not be a discussion that would move the Democrats' agenda.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5051247-1054970789174344441?l=prairiepundit.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

A Few Thoughts on Preaching



1. Preaching is serious, serious business. James says that not many should be teachers (which includes preaching), since we they be judged more strictly and can lead many astray. Therefore, the air of jocularity, entertainment, and silliness is entirely inapt. Yet many preachers breath the span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"poluted/span air of popular culture and model themselves after entertainers. The church needs something different and far better: truth through an earnest and well-studied personality. That doesn't exclude all humor, but it should put sober things up considerably. The presumption should be to use humor sparingly. See A.W. span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Tozer's/span classic essay, "The Use and Abuse of Humor."br /br /2. One should read the text in question aloud many times before preaching it, since this familiarizes you with the sound of the text. Besides hard study of the text (or topic), one span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"should/span emmeditate/em on the material at length. I did this recently on Acts 17:24-34 and was amazed at what I found, even though I had preached it several times in the past five years.br /br /3. Pray over every aspect of the message: preparation, execution, and how it will be received. Ask others to pray for you. span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"Spurgeon/span, the great preacher, said his secret was that "my people pray for me." Americans do not pray. They are too busy doing "important things." Thus, there is little power or holiness in the pulpits of the land.br /br /4. Try to find as much silence as possible on the way to preaching the sermon. If driving, do not listen to the radio or music, unless it is godly worship music. The best thing for me has been to drive in silence while thinking and praying through the message.br /br /5. Try not to be distracted if people leave during the message. You may not know why they are leaving. Moreover, the truth often offends people who cannot take it. It is not necessarily a judgment on the value of your preaching. People called the Apostle Paul a "babbler," but he did not give up (Acts 17).br /br /6. Pray before and after the message. Mean it. Call out to God to bless the message and to edify and convict you and your congregation. Don't preach in the prayer, but beseech God span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"according/span to the truth you preach.br /br /7. It often settles people down to take a moment of silence at the beginning and/or end of the service. Sadly, some churches throw so much clutter at the congregation--skits, bad music, pointless announcements, film clips--that silence is required to enter the proper frame of mind to preach and listen to the preaching.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/14410967-4989656953060595198?l=theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

A Technical Question: Anybody noticed anything funny about Technorati ratings?



Just curious, because this is what I see on a daily basis.br /br /In the mornings, when I first log onto this site I generally see a Technorati rating of 57.br /br /But in the afternoon or evening when I drop by, the Technorati rating has mysteriously dropped to 40.br /br /If it happened once, it would be theoretically possible. Back when we were all arguing about a bunch of militia and DHS report stuff, I picked up a lot of links to some of those stories which, if the linking sites never found anything else they liked, would have all evaporated at about the same time.br /br /But for the past two weeks I have been noticing this fluctuation every single day.br /br /To drive me even crazier, Alexa insists that there are 68 blogs linking to this site.br /br /Anybody know why this is happening?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7893272060787897238-6559634768887466764?l=delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Self parody watch



From the Wall Street Journal:br /br /blockquotea target="_self" class="usg-AFQjCNFRG9II93JWCMlp7xvebYmCK6BEjA " href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090812-718658.html"Magnitude 6.5 Quake Jolts Japan, Unlikely To Affect Stocks/a/blockquotebr /Perhaps the market may fluctuate.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5051247-3920100231804361561?l=prairiepundit.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Welcome to the New Dark Ages.



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvInB8NzjWHdwGdbppn4u-3CobH6Ez9aqnQ6PfH1j2O3EJ9-rAOVbDC0GE2t9UidIqHlKdgWzN9byPDFub-sJAmArm8teux1DVuiy0uObDSOeAUufIkrnJ-i5hBmO3_OGJliEelSUMMv7P/s1600-h/mike_heath_10_commandments.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 288px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvInB8NzjWHdwGdbppn4u-3CobH6Ez9aqnQ6PfH1j2O3EJ9-rAOVbDC0GE2t9UidIqHlKdgWzN9byPDFub-sJAmArm8teux1DVuiy0uObDSOeAUufIkrnJ-i5hBmO3_OGJliEelSUMMv7P/s320/mike_heath_10_commandments.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368873718418512658" border="0" //aIt was the Fall of 1977; hard to believe so much time has passed. But I remember the event well. I was working for a newspaper at the time and was sent to Indianapolis to cover a so-called “Right to Decency Rally” that was sponsored by members of the lunatic Religious Right. Rev. Greg Dixon, a bigoted fundamentalist of the worst kind, organized the rally. Keynote speakers were Jerry Falwell and Anita Bryant.br /br /The rally was called to push legislation that would allow the state of Indiana to arrest people for being gay and put them in prison. The bill in question specifically called for making homosexuality into a felony. And that means a serious offense against the law, even though no rights are violated.br /br /Prior to the Rally the Falwellians rallied their troops of religious Neanderthals and had them march through the streets of Indianapolis. I marched with them, tape recorder in hand, and interviewed participants, writing notes and taking photographs. I remember one of the photos I took. It was a cherubic young girl, perhaps six-years-old at most. She was standing holding a sign calling for the execution of gay people. In fundamentalist circles they call that “family values.” I guess it is along the line of: “The family that preys together, stays together.”br /br /That year California, and I guess much of the West, was in a drought. No surprises there. California and the West have experienced droughts for as long as history has been recorded. I mention this because of one couple I interviewed. The woman was standing there in her very long dress (anything above the knees was immodest to them). She had a Bible clutched in her hand and pressed up against her breast. Any one in public, with a Bible clutched in full view, is almost always bad news. And, in a sense, so was she. But she was far more amusing that deadly, though I have no doubt she would have happily joined in a stoning of a homosexual or, in times past, happily provided some wood to burn a witch or two.br /br /I asked her why she was participating in this march. She explained that God hates homosexuals and God wants homosexuals punished. If man won’t punish homosexuals then God will punish man. In the deep theology of fundamentalism if you don’t hate the people they hates then their God will beat up your God and hurt you. She then went on to explain that the drought in California was the result of the state being more tolerant of homosexuals than other places in the country. Apparently the drought had nothing to do with the typical climate of the region; it is all based on the whims of her deity.br /br /I asked her: “Are you saying that the presence of homosexuals causes droughts?”br /br /Without hesitation she said: “Yes.”br /br /I couldn’t resist a follow-up question. “Then, if a region is experiencing floods, would it be possible to stop the rain by busing in a lot of homosexuals?”br /br /All right, I knew the question was absolutely ludicrous. Who in their right mind would think you could control the weather by moving gay people around the country? She paused momentarily and then said, “Yes, that would work.” To say the least, I was gobsmacked. I simply didn’t know how to respond to such explicit, utter and total stupidity. But, as I’ve said, when there is no reasonable explanation for what someone does or thinks, then there usually is an unreasonable explanation, and it is usually religious.br /br /That was thirty years ago and society has evolved. But fundamentalist Christians don’t believe in evolution, so they stagnate.br /br /Let us move to modern day Maine. By all standards Maine is relatively civilized place. Of course, there are still some mental antiques wandering around, stuck in some previous, dark age. One of them is Michael Heath, of an outfit called the Christian Civic League. As might be surmised Mr. Heath is a committed religionist who believes that supernatural powers are at work in the world. That would include, not just a deity, but devils and spirits—the sort of images that small children have about existence until they become more intelligent about the reality of life.br /br /Heath is in a panic because Maine allows same-sex marriage. Add to that a spell of bad weather and you have 1977 all over again. In the jungles of the most primitive parts of the world there are people who blame every unfortunate turn of events on some scapegoat. They believe, that if you find the scapegoat, and if you kill it, or drive it out, then you will end the problems you experience. Mr. Heath is a mentally sophisticated as these savages.br /br /In a newspaper a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.timesrecord.com/articles/2009/08/07/opinion/commentaries/doc4a7c5f23ccbf5201259148.txt"column/a he laments the fact that Maine has had a rather wet summer. As he, rather badly, writes:br /blockquoteOur gardens droop low as if worn out and saddened. Bird and beast stay close to home, and when they do venture out, they too, seem peevish and sullen.br /br /What is missing is the sun. God’s emblem of cheerfulness and benevolence.br /br /Our crops are faring like our moods. The potato crop is blighted, and corn and fruit fields wither. In one historic building in Augusta, rain flood the basement…/blockquotebr /And what is the cause of this rain:br /blockquote…Maine voted in homosexual ‘marriage.’br /br /In May, our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid honor to evil and unnatural practices. Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide the light of reason, and then the rain began. How fitting that this eclipse of human reason is mirrored by the disappearance of the sun!/blockquoteHeath admits” “Few people would be bold enough to suggest the cause of the endless rain and gloom, that the moral climate of Maine has caused the sun to hide its face in shame.” He is bold enough. It is raining too much in Maine because gay people were granted equal marriage rights.br /br /Heath says that he doesn’t blame gay people per se, for the rain. “Far from it. The fault lies with a refractory governor and Legislature who imposed an immoral law on our people.” Instead he says the weather is lousy because the state gave gay people equal rights before the law. And he tells his readers, most of whom I suspect were rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter, that worse is to come: “America has seen nothing comparable to Stalin’s show trials… yet. But we are experiencing one long, interminable dark and dreary summer.”br /br /So, even though three decades have passed, the morons that make up Christian fundamentalism have not improved one iota. Notice the conflict between these two cases. When there was too little rain in California, it was God withholding the life-giving rain to punish the sin of homosexuality—a punishment God ended shortly after when he allowed it to rain again, thus sending conflicting messages. Today, in Maine, there is too much rain. So another Village Idiot from Bibleland wanders out to blame the surplus of rain on homosexuality, or at least on the tolerance of homosexuality. Too much rain, blame the homosexuals. Too little rain, blame the homosexuals. Hell, all this time I thought we were supposed to blame global warming for all the unpleastantries of weather.br /br /I don’t get this Christian deity at all. Am I to understand that he sends rain to punish homosexuality and he also withholds rain for the same reason? Jehovah appears a tad bit schizophrenic. He can’t make up his holy mind. Or, is does the impact homosexuals have on the weather different depending on the region in question? If gay marriage is ruining the summer in Maine thwn what happened to the summer in Iowa, which has gay marriage as well. Unfortunately for Mr. Heath the weather in Iowa as been pretty good, with it raining only 9 days out of the month, and three of those days with just trace amounts. There is enough rain to water the crops and enough sun to nourish them, all in all a pretty good balance.br /br /Just think, for a second, how primitive the level of reasoning that is necessary for Heath to draw the conclusions that he does. One has to be practically lobotomized to think this way.br /br /When the Catholics of the Dark Ages faced bad crops, or disease, they routinely blamed Jews and “witches” for the situation. But they were illiterate and uneducated, living in a world where the fundamentals of science had yet to be discovered. Mr. Heath has no such excuse. His ignorance is self-induced. It may well be that he is not a particularly bright man, after all the dumb of the world flock to fundamentalism pretty much the way flies flock to shit. But, neither is there a shortage of people who use religion to close down their critical thinking faculties.br /br /To repeat: when there is no rational explanation for what people think or do, there is probably an irrational one. And when there is, the likelihood is that religion will be involved.br /br /Photo: The grinning moron in the photo is Mr. Heath.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23782041-7597866335581930227?l=freestudents.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Choices



I want whatever a href="http://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/08/13/coolidgecare/"magical health insurance plan/a wingnut columnists get.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/26747494-4454707757100588543?l=instaputz.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Obama as the Joker? OK But the Prez as a "caged hamster"?



This was one of the lines today in a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090813/OPINION12/908130330/1004/OPINION/Obama+has+to+alter+his+plan+for+sweeping+reform"Rhonda Graham's column in the WNJ/a that almost made me spit Mountain Dew through my nose [and many of you know just how painful that can be]:br /br /blockquotespan style="font-style:italic;"You have to wonder if team Obama has gotten so blinded by the historical significance of his election, that like a caged hamster, the administration can't seem to get off the spin wheel of creating historic moments./span/blockquotebr /br /It wasn't until I actually pulled up a hamster-related Barack Obama picture that I got really worried:br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://skreened.com/product-image/w160h220f3z101/ajlwfqzxmhexazmbglkz/barack-obama-the-american-president-marching-hamster-for-barack-obama-animal-election-08-t-shirt.png"img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 220px;" src="http://skreened.com/product-image/w160h220f3z101/ajlwfqzxmhexazmbglkz/barack-obama-the-american-president-marching-hamster-for-barack-obama-animal-election-08-t-shirt.png" border="0" alt="" //abr /br /It is true: you can find banything/b on the internet.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7893272060787897238-4336642199578683193?l=delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Bush staffer asked why Iglesias didn't go after Madrid



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3P21hqI_VgQfVdagUdZ7uYDspWVBGU2IC47AXsgZqu-yrHAyErzl9TQ2pdx9quLb2quXOEX9TIpEN2fVVpng-fmDk5R1V7VAoTARl1pH-_QcQohMNqC3VqC9Edi-Hw3ncKS4jJfb4Vc/s1600-h/Iglesias,+David.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3P21hqI_VgQfVdagUdZ7uYDspWVBGU2IC47AXsgZqu-yrHAyErzl9TQ2pdx9quLb2quXOEX9TIpEN2fVVpng-fmDk5R1V7VAoTARl1pH-_QcQohMNqC3VqC9Edi-Hw3ncKS4jJfb4Vc/s200/Iglesias,+David.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368861737242533298" border="0" //ap style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"/pp style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"E-mail questioning why Iglesias was ‘shy about doing his job on Madrid’ was about an FBI probe of Madrid, not the 2006 election, Wilson says/span/p p/p p/p p class="MsoNormal"E-mails released today may appear to indicate that someone in the White House had the race between former U.S. Rep. a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Wilson" target="_blank"Heather Wilson/a, R-N.M., and Democratic challenger a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_A._Madrid" target="_blank"Patricia Madrid/a in mind when discussing former U.S. Attorney a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Iglesias_%28attorney%29" target="_blank"David Iglesias’/a job performance in the weeks before he was fired./p p class="MsoNormal"But if Wilson is to be believed, the FBI was investigating Madrid at the time, and a reference to Madrid in the e-mails had to do with that probe, not the election./p p class="MsoNormal"The e-mail in question was sent from White House staffer a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Scott_Jennings" target="_blank"Scott Jennings/a to White House Political Director a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove" target="_blank"Karl Rove/a on Oct. 15, 2006./p p class="MsoNormal"“… The US Attorney in PA has no trouble going after (former Rep. Curt) Weldon, so why should the US Attorney in New Mexico be shy about doing his job on Madrid,” it states./p p class="MsoNormal"The e-mail was among thousands of pages of documents a href="http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-documents-on-us-attorney-firings.html"released to the public today/a by the House Judiciary Committee following its investigation into the 2006 firings of Iglesias and several other U.S. attorneys. The committee’s chairman, a href="http://conyers.house.gov/" target="_blank"John Conyers/a, D-Mich., said the documents, which include e-mails and transcripts of testimony from Rove and a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Miers" target="_blank"Harriet Miers/a, prove that “Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons.”/p p class="MsoNormal"“When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a a href="http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2007/02/outgoing-us-attorney-iglesias-says-he.html"‘political fragging,’/a he was right,” Conyers said in a news release./p p class="MsoNormal"In an interview, Iglesias agreed, saying Jennings’ e-mail and others in a chain started by Wilson “confirm my worst fear, that Heather wanted me to disregard my role as a law-enforcement officer and act as a political operative.”/p p class="MsoNormal"“Heather wanted me to file a politically advantageous prosecution to help her out, but we had to stay out of politics, and they never understood that,” he said./p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"E-mail came the day before phone call to Iglesias/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Wilson and former U.S. Sen. a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Domenici" target="_blank"Pete Domenici/a, R.N.M, separately called Iglesias in October 2006 to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation into the stealing of $4.2 million in taxpayer money in the metro court scandal, which involved a high-ranking Democrat. At the time, Wilson was in a tough re-election battle against Madrid that she won weeks later by fewer than 1,000 votes out of about 211,000 cast./p p class="MsoNormal"Iglesias alleges that Domenici and Wilson pressured him to speed indictments against former state Senate President Manny Aragon and others involved in the case in an attempt to sway voters, a charge both deny. Days after the election, Iglesias was fired./p p class="MsoNormal"A special prosecutor a href="http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2008/10/iglesias-opines-on-report-appointment.html"is currently investigating/a whether obstruction of justice or other charges should be filed against anyone involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the congressional investigations into the firings./p p class="MsoNormal"Wilson’s phone call, Iglesias said in the interview, came a day after she started the e-mail chain that involved Jennings on the morning of Oct. 15. Wilson’s e-mail, sent to two of her staffers and then-Domenici Chief of Staff Steve Bell, included an Associated Press article about an FBI investigation into allegations against Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania./p p class="MsoNormal"“FBI or those close to them are talking about public corruption cases opngoing (sic) in other states,” Wilson wrote in the e-mail./p p class="MsoNormal"The e-mail was forwarded to Jennings by Bell, who wrote, “Seems like other USAttorneys can do their work even in election season… And FBI has already admitted they have turned over their evidence to the USA in NM and are merely awaiting his action.”/p p class="MsoNormal"Jennings forwarded the e-mail to Rove, along with his own message about Madrid. (To read the e-mails, click a href="http://www.haussamen.com/USAttorney_e-mails.pdf" target="_blank"here/a and scroll to page 15.)/p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"Madrid under investigation/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Wilson, who is considering running for governor next year, did not immediately respond to a message sent via Facebook. But she provided a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/inside-the-beltway-mainmenu-40/14500-heather-wilson-comments-on-us-attorney-documents.html" target="_blank"a statement to the Albuquerque Journal/a indicating that the documents released today “confirm that I did not have any communication with the Administration concerning anything related to Mr. Iglesias’ performance before the final decision was apparently made to dismiss him.”/p p class="MsoNormal"Wilson pointed to a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/inside-the-beltway-mainmenu-40/8845-rep-heather-wilson-comments-on-us-attorneys-investigation.html" target="_blank"a letter/a she released in September 2008. The letter, written in response to an inquiry from James Meade in the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), states that her Oct. 15, 2006 e-mail was not related to the U.S. House race but was related to “an FBI inquiry concerning my opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, which occurred while she was running for Congress in 2006.”/p p class="MsoNormal"The letter states that the FBI asked in June 2006 for information about Madrid’s connection to the political action committee Justice for America. Earlier, Wilson, Domenici and former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce filed a related complaint with the Federal Election Commission, the letter states./p p class="MsoNormal"The letter contains no other details about the probe./p p class="MsoNormal"From Wilson’s letter to Meade:/p p class="MsoNormal"/pblockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"p class="MsoNormal"“The AP story on October 15, 2006 caught my eye because the FBI, or someone close to the FBI, had leaked information about an investigation of Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania to the media. I believed it was possible we would see a similar leak from law enforcement concerning Mrs. Madrid and that we could be asked by the media to comment on it./p p class="MsoNormal"“My staff had contingency press guidance that, if asked, we would confirm that we had received an inquiry from the FBI about Attorney General Madrid and we were cooperating with law enforcement. The recipients of my (Oct. 15, 2006) e-mail knew about the FBI inquiry and the contingency press guidance. This e-mail was intended to be a ‘heads up’ to them. “/p/blockquotep class="MsoNormal"/p p class="MsoNormal"The probe of Madrid was not revealed publicly until Wilson’s 2008 letter to Meade was released to the media, but even then the Meade letter was not widely covered by journalists./p p class="MsoNormal"In an interview, Madrid said she heard in 2006 from “a number of sources… that the FBI was threatening me.”/p p class="MsoNormal"“If there was an investigation of me, I’m sure that they were put up to it by Karl Rove, Domenici and Heather Wilson. They instigated all of that,” Madrid said, adding that any allegations made against her were baseless./p p class="MsoNormal"“I guarantee you, if the FBI and Iglesias and Karl Rove had had anything on me, they would have used it. They didn’t. They had nothing,” she said./pp class="MsoNormal"span style="font-style: italic;"A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Wilson’s call to Iglesias came 2-3 days before the e-mail./spanbr //pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23370090-3006583577328528027?l=haussamen.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Fast Food Chefs Like



Even though I generally make an annual sojurn to Vegas with some co-bloggers without current or imminent parental responsibilities, I've never tried In-N-Out. But an unscientific survey of chefs -- including Thomas Keller! -- a href="http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/fast-food-reviews-0909"ranks it as America's best fast food chain./a I'm sure some commenters will be willing to weigh in on the topic...div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-7167105280958081494?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

Public option and the free market (Part III)



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1jhJbEGyW0Fv7Mhbut-Mc2pzL9zuIyYvNjySn7t9tsV0aP0RnskhkuTZyKYJoqVQ1qea-kN8QaLNYr3UpDvFp7Pud1QS9QQ9YmreFHpHIWpynzbl9R934c5tYq0zqdtb8XrU14DzaFU/s1600-h/BundyLogo1.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1jhJbEGyW0Fv7Mhbut-Mc2pzL9zuIyYvNjySn7t9tsV0aP0RnskhkuTZyKYJoqVQ1qea-kN8QaLNYr3UpDvFp7Pud1QS9QQ9YmreFHpHIWpynzbl9R934c5tYq0zqdtb8XrU14DzaFU/s200/BundyLogo1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369466138632342178" border="0" //ap style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"By Carter Bundy/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"The central argument over health care reform is whether free market solutions can solve American health care’s massive access and cost problems./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Over the last few columns, I’ve tried to make the case that normal free market principles and assumptions simply don’t work in the field of health care. The first four assumptions that fail are:/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"• Assuming consumers know what products and services they’ll need./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"• Assuming consumers know anything about the products and services they buy./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"• Assuming that consumers have a choice./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"• Assuming that private insurers have a motivation to provide good services./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There are literally dozens of other necessary assumptions for market forces to work in any given market, but in the interest of moving on to discussing what market failure means, I’ll limit my list to only a few more./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"Assumption No. 5: lowering costs will result in higher consumption/span/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"For the most part, this is as simple a truism as there is in economics, at least with regard to commodities. You lower costs, people will buy more. The flip side of this assumption is that if you raise costs (by taxing health premiums, for example) you’ll reduce consumption./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"But health care isn’t a commodity -- it’s a unique, vital, literally life-saving service for which normal rules of economics and markets don’t apply. No matter what the cost, if it will save my life, I’ll ask for it. No matter how cheap, if it’s health care I don’t need, I won’t ask for it./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"For example, if the cost of chemotherapy dropped dramatically tomorrow, even if there’s a chance of my getting skin cancer in the future, I’m sure as heck not going to start undergoing chemo./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"If the cost of surgery for a torn Achilles tendon is lower, am I going to intentionally snap my Achilles again to use the product? Of course not./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"This is an important concept because much of the opposition to a public choice is based on the idea that if a public option is less expensive, use of health care will skyrocket and we’ll all be waiting years for that crucial operation. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"My guess is that most people’s experiences fit with friends of mine who are doctors. They say that the uninsured are the ones who often “over-use” the system, using more emergency room care than insured people./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Well, of course they do. They don’t have the less expensive, easier-to-access coverage that most of us do./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Want to end over-use of scarce health resources? The solution has more to do with giving the uninsured and underinsured access to primary care than with “encouraging overconsumption” by making health care affordable./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Finally, who thinks that the insured, sick person is even capable of changing his or her consumption patterns? The vast majority of us, including myself, trust our doctor and will get, or not get, tests based on his or her advice. So how will a less expensive public option result in overutilization of health care again?/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"Assumption No. 6: parties have bargaining power/span/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"In the field of health care, another basic assumption of markets fails: that users of the product or service being purchased have any kind of ability to bargain over the terms of the product or service being offered./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"The practical reality is that end users have almost no ability to bargain. First, because most people purchase insurance through their employer, there literally is no point at which they can influence the terms of the deal. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Second, even employers don’t have much clout. As noted previously, in most metro areas of America -- and in many rural areas -- insurance is effectively offered by one or two companies. Monopolies and duopolies give insurers all the power. They have hundreds of lawyers, accountants and clever claims folks who write the policy. /p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"The two or three people at each employer who get to review the options being offered have no realistic chance of changing the terms being offered./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Third, policies are so incredibly complex that only the people who design them -- those hundreds of lawyers and accountants employed using your premium dollars -- really know how many loopholes the insurance company is giving itself. Those loopholes allow them to reject people who have ever been sick, to deny claims, or to shift costs back to the employer, employee or taxpayer./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"Conclusion/span/p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"There is simply no way to say with a straight face that the solution to health care access, cost and quality problems is to put health care in the hands of the free market. There are far too many ways in which the inherent nature of health care guarantees that normal market principles and assumptions don’t work./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"Brilliant Albuquerque Journal business and health columnist Win Quigley a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/upfront/212236390852upfront07-21-09.htm" target="_blank"recently wrote/a that reform advocates should focus on the moral issue rather than the economics. But understanding that market forces don’t apply to health care is critical not just for a cost analysis, but for understanding why so many people can’t get care at all, even if they have insurance./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p class="MsoNormal"The normally beautiful checks and balances of free markets don’t -- and can’t -- work in the world of health care./p p class="MsoNormal"o:p /o:p/p p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"Bundy is the political and legislative director for a href="http://www.afscme.org/" target="_blank"AFSCME/a in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking a href="http://haussamen2.blogspot.com/2007/06/about-carter-bundy.html"here/a. Contact him at a href="mailto:carterbundy@yahoo.com"carterbundy@yahoo.com/a./pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23370090-5050220513860800128?l=haussamen.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley

It's really about the children, really it is.



a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JqSZm6dItjm3wKQ65VtT4aICYb9SSKevALEfNsIOESwtsgOGmmvH7oLOIJIG5TtgzeM_0y0d389fdZqoaJDlz53zGyNzJajBTEsFv7qZl0elVQIvOWiUXKw3UpnNRQj8T6wacAwCurg_/s1600-h/Picture+4.png"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JqSZm6dItjm3wKQ65VtT4aICYb9SSKevALEfNsIOESwtsgOGmmvH7oLOIJIG5TtgzeM_0y0d389fdZqoaJDlz53zGyNzJajBTEsFv7qZl0elVQIvOWiUXKw3UpnNRQj8T6wacAwCurg_/s320/Picture+4.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362876307587882818" border="0" //aThey say it’s for the children. Is it? Is it really the children they love, or the adults they hate?br /br /The span style="font-style: italic;"New York Times/span a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26lesbian-t.html?th=amp;emc=thamp;pagewanted=all"tells/a the story of what happened in West Virginia when a newborn girl, TiCasey had to be put into foster care. She was born to an addict, her father was a mystery and the child was born addicted to various drugs. The State decided to put her into the home of one of the best sets of foster parents they had: Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess.br /br /Since becoming a couple, and becoming foster parents, the two women had care for 18 children in total. When TiCasey joined their home they were caring for five other children who had no one else. The infant had to be held constantly as the withdrawal caused her to cry endless. But after three weeks of constant care, from the two women, and her new brothers and sisters, TiCasey was finally coming through.br /br /The infant’s court-appointed attorney showed up one day. He was cold and unpleasant. He refused to hold the infant whose interests he was alleged to be looking out for. He wouldn’t take off his coat and left minutes after arriving. He went to court and filed a motion to have the infant taken from he deemed a “homosexual home” because, he claimed, “children reared by homosexuals were more likely to be sexually or otherwise abused and to become homosexual themselves.” (The evidence does not support any of those myths.) Fast had actually asked the courts to ban “placing foster children in homosexual homes” entirely. He wasn’t worried about TiCasey in particular, he was on a crusade.br /br /Kutil and Hess had already planned to adopt the infant and give her a permanent home. After the two meet and formed a relationship they decided they wanted to help children. In West Viriginia there are 4,200 in state care and one-third of them are in institutions or group homes. A few years ago Kutil had worked for the foster care system, so she knew how daunting was the job they were undertaking. Three years ago they expanded their home to five bedrooms and welcomed their first child, who proved to be violent to their pets and who need more than they were able to provide. She had to be moved.br /br /But over the next few years they handled numerous requests to provide short-term, and sometimes long-term, care to children. It was hard for the women as the children in short-term care had to leave, some doing so in tears and begging the women to let them stay. But the choices were not theirs to make. Last year Kutil adopted the first child who had been living with them. A brother and sister were placed in the home as well and Kutil became their legal guardian. The 14-year-old boy didn’t want actual adoption, feeling it was a betrayal of his birth mother. Kutil listened to his concerns and took formal guardianship instead.br /br /TiCasey’s mother lost all parental rights to the infant because of her continued addiction. And under state regulations it was now appropriate for the couple to seek adoption. At about this time another situation arose. The State begged the women to take in another child, a young girl found wandering around by herself. But according to state regulations the pair had the maximum number of children allowed and the couple pointed that out. They were told that a special exemption would be obtained and told how much this child needed care, so they accepted her.br /br /Just days later they were called into a hearing about the plan to care for TiCasey permanently. The attorney, Thomas Fast, told the court that they must make a decision to remove children from gay families. He told the judge: “Let’s duke it out here, Your Honor, this whole issue of the homosexuality.”br /br /The Department of Health and Human Resources had been supporting the couple. They said they were among the best foster parents in the system. They had found a child psychiatrist who would happily testify on behalf of the couple. And then politics came into play and the Department decided it best not to be seen supporting a gay couple. They dismissed the psychiatrist from testimony and switched sides, suddenly supporting the motion to take the infant from the only home, and love, she had known. The excuse given was that the family was over the state limit for child care, because of the sixth child which the Department had begged the couple to take.br /br /The couple was shocked. The newest child had been with them less than a month, but the State wanted to strip them of a child who knew no other home, a child who had bonded with these woman shortly after arrival. The Judge in the case argued that an infant won’t remember so it was fine to remove the baby from care. And he ordered the infant taken from the women and placed in a “more appropriate” home. And that is what happened. Hess found the separation difficult: blockquotespan style="font-style: italic;"“TiCasey has always been with me. She was with me all day long while the kids were at school. You wake up one day, and all her toys, clothes, crib are still there, but no baby. It’s just you. I couldn’t get out of my head how she must be wondering, Why had we left her? Where were the other kids?”/span/blockquoteAfter just five days the other foster family decided it was too much work caring for an infant and didn’t want her. So the State moved the infant again. It was that day that the Supreme Court of West Virginia granted an emergency stay allowing TiCasey to return to her home with Kutil and Hess.br /br /The couple had to appear in court. It was hardest on Kutil who started crying, telling the court: “We just wanted a child or children and a family. And here we sit today in front of judge and jury. For what? What have we done? We took this baby in that stayed up for three weeks, all night long, and we did without sleep. We’ve done nothing wrong but love this baby and love her with everything we had.”br /br /The state Supreme Court agreed and unanimously overturned the previous ruling which stripped the couple of the infant they had loved. The court said adoption proceedings could begin immediately and that the couple “had to be considered if not favored in the selection of the prospective adoptive home.” The couple has begun the adoption process but they have also stopped taking in other children. They are fearful. Hess explained: “You sit and wait for somebody else to decide if you get to keep her. You’re at the mercy of other people deciding your life.” For now they just want to concentrate on giving TiCasey a permanent home.br /br /So far, the story is holding well for the couple. But the powerful Christian-Righta style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/557335.aspx" has allied /athemselves to strip TiCasey of her home, for the sake of the children, of course. The Christian Alliance Defense Fund had filed briefs against the couple as had the Family Policy Council, another religious front group. And the Christian Broadcasting Network warned viewers that: “An adverse decision in this case could also undermine the state’s Defense of Marriage Act…” which protects marriage from people who want to get married.br /br /The Alliance Defense Fund amazingly a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.alliancealert.org/2009/03/10/wv-same-sex-adoption-case-adf-attorneys-argue-children-should-not-be-intentionally-deprived-of-a-mom-or-dad/"argues/a that in giving TiCasey a home with Kutil and Hess, that the State “knowingly deprives a child of a mom and a dad.” Of course, TiCasey had a mom, who was a drug addict. She had a dad but no one knows who it is. She had nothing. But in the name of their religiously-inspired disdain for gay people they prefer to keep TiCasey in the foster care system instead of letting her stay with the couple who cared for her through the toughest few weeks of the child’s life.br /br /Alliance Defence Fund a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.telladf.org/UserDocs/BlakeFactSheet.pdf"claims/a to be “a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith.” Really? What bullshit! Their faith ends where the nose of other people begins. Apparently “freely live out their faith” means using State power to wreck the lives of other people in the name of God. Apparently living out their faith requires them to strip an infant of the only home she knew and place her back into the state care system because their God tells them to hate homosexuals. What total assholes.br /br /You can read the full ruling here. Also watch for God’s Own Party (GOP) to make efforts to change state law in West Virginia to strip children from same-sex homes and place them back into a system that can’t find homes for a large percentage of the children under its care. Apparently the Christian conservative thing to do is force children into group homes instead of allowing loving same-sex couples to adopt them. But it’s all for the children, really it is. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale, cheap.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23782041-633585945326368306?l=freestudents.blogspot.com'//div

technorati tags:
| |
More at: News 2 Cromley