Our Best Export Yet

They said American education was circulating the porcelain bowl of defecation. They said American children were falling behind the world and would soon serve others rather than be served themselves. They said America was growing soft and lazy. They were all wrong. For Japan, mighty Japan--the country burgeoning with genius children of mad intellectual skillz--is undergoing a cultural change more amenable to an American model of education with much "success":

For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents."

For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role.

How dare a play cast a lead role. How dare one individual shine above others, casting the rest in dreary gray mediocre tones. The horror! The INHUMANITY!

What a sad commentary on culture, values, and self-worth.

Public Educators make us proud /s

Randy Castro, who attends school in Woodbridge, Va. Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom.

Yeah, hang the guy for harassing a girl, make him register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Oh yeah, here are a few more details:

Randy Castro is in the first grade.

In another incident:

vice principal, Kerry Wilson, "acting on a tip," discovered a fellow student to have a handful of ibuprofen tablets in her pocket. The other girl said she got them from Savana, who denied it. She had no tablets in her own pockets or in her backpack. Vice Principal Wilson, whose mind works in interesting ways, then decided that Savana might be hiding the ibuprofen in her cleavage or her crotch.

So, without contacting the girl's parents, he ordered a school official to strip-search Savana. She was obliged to expose her breasts and "her pelvic area."

So who should be written up as a sex offender? The boy in first grade who slapped a classmates butt or the vice principal who had an 8th grader stripped searched (he wasn't observing the search) for ibuprofen?

Are you sure you want your kids to go to public schools?

This happened at UCI????

My niece is a freshman at University of California, Irvine and is staying in the dorms there. This weekend there was an armed robbery at her dorm. 3 guys broke in and tied up two students and took all their stuff (cell phones, etc, probably left the test books). The police have not caught the guys. One of the victims had lost his key to the dorm and police think that is how they got in. Only stuff was taken and no one was hurt, so it is a recoverable incident. However, how will these kids be able to protect themselves? The police (city and campus) can't be everywhere at all times. My niece is a little frightened (as are her parents), but she will be going back today (Monday is a holiday).

Oct 30th and all is NOT well

Well at work anyway.

My group of 6 workers and 1 manager has seen two people let go in the last month and tomorrow another worker is leaving. So we are down to 3 workers and 1 manager. None of the positions will be back filled. So a little busy here.

On the plus side, this weekend will see the marriage of a very good friend and I will be heading up North to witness the happy event. I've known Kalvin since UCLA, good grief that was like 18 years ago and am very happy for him and Karen.

In the news:

Zero Tolerance is something that sounds good in theory but doesn't seem to work in practice (kind of like communism). If ZT was around when I was in school, I would have been expelled and arrested for all the war pictures I drew on paper in school.

Saddam built a dam, he had it built on gypsum, the dam is now in danger of collapse, the price to fix $10 billion. The loss of life if the dam collapse 500,000. What will the US do? Fix the dam. The cost of the war in Iraq just went up because of course we (US Taxpayer) will pay for it. Hat tip Hugh Hewitt.

No Academic Freedom for You!

The UC Regents declined to have dinner with President of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, under pressure from liberal professors. Summers apparently served a controversial term, but if Columbia University can provide a forum for those who deny the Holocaust and sponsor state run terrorism, certainly the Regents of the University of California could share a meal conversation with "a former treasury secretary, university administrator, and respected economist". As the Harvard Crimson pointed out:

...the unrestricted marketplace of ideas that must form the heart of any university worth the name is being poisoned by a perverse pressure to conform truth to political agenda and stifle any speaker who espouses uncomfortable or invonveneint (sic) opinions.

It would seem that academic freedom only extends to the political left.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

The state of education

Over at American Civic Literacy, they have a 60 question quiz on US civics.

How well can you do?

I took the test and got 59 out of 60. The only question I missed was:

"The question of why democracy leads to well-ordered government in America when disorder prevails in Europe is central to: "

The test is here: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

The sad part is how poorly many folks do.

Change is difficult

I've been out of school for over a week now and I'm not sure I really believe it. I find I'm still wasting a lot of time watching TV, playing on the Wii and PC computer games. Its like I'm determined to keep the graduation party going for as long as possible.

There are things I need to get working on and time is passing by. But going from hard core study to freedom has been a bit of a jolt, maybe I'm afraid of how to fill the hours or as one of my classmates said yesterday when we had lunch its the fear of spontaneity, having to manage everything and everyone, even when it doesn't matter. It comes down to letting go of the highly planned schedule and letting things flow. I'm learning to adjust, partly by setting goals for things I need to get done every night so I don't end up watching TV all night. Also need to make sure I get to bed on time so can get the sleep I need. The only constant in life is change it seems.

I'm reading (well listening to) a book by Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812. I don't know that much about the war and the more I listen to the causes of the war, why it was fought and how poorly the Americans were prepared, I'm beginning to understand why it isn't taught in schools. The politicians were SO bad, the military so unprepared and the reasons so petty it can make one weep. The government had disarmed the country and then tried to increase the army with political cronies. It suppressed the speech of those who opposed the war and acquiesced when mobs burned down newspapers and killed people who disagreed with the war. I was skeptical when reading Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking People" and he said the War of 1812 was totally unnecessary and Britain never wanted to fight the US. I'm starting to come around to his view point. The US was at fault for starting the war and we were very lucky to get out of the war without losing any territory or becoming subject to British rule again.

Have a good day.

New Chapter of Life

Well, the most stressful quarter of my grad school life is over and the program is done. I have my MBA (and the school loans to prove it) and can think about life other then work and school.

However, the goal didn't come without costs. Last week I went to the ER with chest pressure and was in the hospital until Friday evening. Everything is ok, and the symptoms I was feeling were most likely stress related but it is a reminder that everything we do has a cost. Now, I get to recover again from all the tests and start to figure out the next phase of my life. Same company or not, etc. etc.

I think I may have to find a way for the boss to start writing again or his cats may end up like the horse in the movie godfather (jk, i think).

I don't really know what I'll be writing about in the future, the news and politics for some of it, but that will only go so far. I'm losing interest in politics as both sides are bad, although the left seems to take all the wrongs of the right and go farther. I'm tired of having to vote for the lesser fool or idiot.

I don't know if anyone who has visited here has heard about Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his story in The New Republic magazine. Basically he claimed that he and his fellow soldiers were behaving very poorly due to the stress of combat. At first, no one was sure if Beauchamp was a real person. So the Mil Blogs started to dig and they found out Beauchamp was real, he is a soldier and has or is serving in Iraq. However, the truth seems to have ended there. The things he wrote about he and is fellow soldiers were doing were "fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth"" as reported by the Weekly Standard. Beauchamp's claim has been investigated by the military and he has signed a sworn affidavit say the stories in TNR are false. He said he joined the military to help his goal of becoming a writer. Well he has a lot of publicity, wonder if it is of the type he wants. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and will hopefully be here daily, on weekdays from now on.

The silence is deafening

Wow, no update since July 6.

Well school is going absolutely nuts and won't have much time between now and August 2 when classes end.

I have 2 short paper and 2 long papers to write, one group paper to write, one individual presentation to prepare and one group presentation plus a final all due between now and August 2.

Hope your having a enjoyable summer, mine will start in August and then will only have work and "normal" life to deal with.

See you in August.

End of another week

Well its been a strange week work wise. A holiday on Wednesday, took a vacation day on Tuesday and most of the office seems to be empty as well. At least the parking lot is empty and traffic has been lighter this week then prior weeks which has been nice.

Wife is leaving today for San Diego with two nieces. Her sister from Washington State is down there as her boys have a competition and wife and nieces are going to watch. After today, they will stay down there and go to Lego Land and maybe Sea World.

I have to stay home so can work on the two individual papers, two group presentations, one group paper and one negotiation sim I have left. I also have one or two short papers, two quizzes and one final to do before the semester ends. All of this will be done in the next 4 weeks and hope to get first drafts of two papers done this weekend.

The only news I want to share with you is the latest dispatch from Michael Yon in Iraq. Its worth reading and supporting him in his work.

Have a good weekend and hope to see you on Monday, Tuesday for sure.

The week goes on

Happy belated 4th of July.

It was wonderful to see the news this morning and find the only thing that happened on the fourth was lots of planned noise, smoke and light. The terrorists would have wanted to have something go off yesterday but failed again.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE POLICE, INTELLIGENCE, MILITARY FOLKS WHO KEPT US SAFE YESTERDAY.

Last Friday and Saturday had my business sim. The sim is a business game used in my Strategy class as a learning tool. We run a manufacturing business making small durable goods that cost about $10 each and sell them to wholesalers. We have to decide how much to produce, how much to advertise (Coca Cola and Black & Decker advertise even though they do not sell directly to the public), how much to spend on R&D for new models and how much to put into worker training to generate savings (getting more output per labor and material input) among others. Each team had 6 people on it and there are 5 teams in my class. We started out making one or two decisions a week which gave us time to evaluate our reports and figure out our strategy (be the BMW or Chevy of widgets) and to start to implement it.

The weekend sim was different in that decisions were required every 40 to 45 minutes, which isn't a lot of time to figure out what we needed to do next. It was a lot of stress and put a lot of pressure on the teams. My team worked well together and we were in first for all of Friday and most of Saturday. In the end, sadly, we made some mistakes on our production numbers so we kept running out of inventory and therefore left a lot of money on the table. This caused us to drop to second place. The mistakes were made primarily due to fatigue on our part and the other teams were able to capitalize on it. It was fun but very draining and am glad its over.

On the 4th, we had a party at my sister in law's place. We were celebrating the birthdays of 2 nieces, one brother in law and the high school graduation of another niece. Fun time by all, but I could only stay for a little while and had to miss the fireworks entirely because had to do paperwork at home and homework for today. Oh well, August 4th is coming, 29 days and counting. Oh, August 4th is my graduation day from grad school and yes, I'm looking forward to it.

Have a few news items to share with you:

Ethanol, the wonder cure to our dependence on imported oil and global warming is now becoming a villain. Before, it would help the poor farmers now it will take food from the mouths of the poor and horror upon horror, raise the price of beer. Hat tip Lucianne.

World War 1 vet is now 106. I do hope someone has taken his oral history about the war and life in the US back then. Very few of these men and women are left. Hat tip Lucianne.

Finally, some summer reading on economics and how it can help you in the stock market. I may just have to buy this book.

Hope you had a wonderful 4th and thanks for stopping by.

TGIF

Yes, thank goodness its Friday. It's been a long week and will be a longer weekend.

Had class last night, the students are becoming less motivated then before and their respect for the Prof has declined. I think the Prof senses this and understands we are not hanging on his every word. He spent more time on topic last night, but still only covered one point out of 3 and that took almost 4 hours, instead of going off into philosophical naval gazing so guess its getting better. No class next week, prof is out of town and the week after that will have two negotiation simulations. It will be interesting to see who has prepared and who is just winging it. It should be easy to tell.

This weekend have to finish reading one book, finish one paper and make a decision for our next quarter.

Finally, talked with several folks from the other Strategy class, the class we were told to get into if at all possible. Boy am I glad I'm not in that class. The Prof does not allow computers in class (afraid the students will surf or IM each other instead of hanging on her every word) and they are only doing the simulation on the SIM weekend. My class has already done 8 quarters of the SIM. Its hard to have a good SIM if you never have time to think or reflect on your decisions, otherwise its just a game, like 670B was. That was a weekend SIM using the same software, the difference between 670B and Strategy is an international component and Strat is supposed to be more realistic.

Spouse is at a conference Thur - Sun, has to leave at 6am to get there and doesn't get home till after 7pm. She took my car today, a Prius so she can use the HOV lanes and save time on her commute.

On to the news.

The coming global cooling. By 2020 we won't care about warming but cooling per the folks that study the sun and it is the cause of weather change on earth.

Giuliani will cut the spending in Washington? We can only hope that and some major surgery to the tax code.

What to do about Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Seal the border is a good start, but I would not allow any aid through, if we accept that people are responsible for their actions, the people elected Hamas so they should be the ones to remove them and no food until then, they can always grow their own, if they hadn't spent so much time shooting up the greenhouses or building bombs etc. Oh and Israel should say publicly, for every rocket fired from Gaza into Israel, 20 155mm shells will be fired back, the shells being fragmentation shells and will be fired randomly over Gaza because every person in Gaza is their brother's keeper. No, I'm not too sympathetic to the folks in Gaza, they made a dog's breakfast out of a fair opportunity and should now suffer the consequences of their actions.

And finally Bloomberg doesn't like democracy because it is a very inefficient form of government because every group is fighting all the time and we don't automatically do what the leaders say to do without much debate and discussion.

Have a good weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Airplanes, simulations and stuff

Stayed at home yesterday, throat was inflamed. Its still tender today but manageable. Did make it to class last night, basically, as long as I can stand 2 out of 3 tries, I will make class. Our simulation went well for Year 4 Quarters 3 & 4. We are just at the point we can start making serious money and taking on the competition. The only bad news is out stock price has increased so buying back shares has become much more expensive.

Airplanes in the news:

Russia is selling MIGs to Iran and Syria so they will be able to defend their airspace. Its a good deal all around. Russia gets paid for the aircraft, pilot training and maintenance, Iran and Syria get some shiny new toys to gloat over and the US and Israel have their target drones for the next two years. Its a win, win, win situation. Ok, the Iranian and Syrian pilots may not think so. Remember the last time Syria and Israel tangled in the air it was Israel 82 kills to Syria 0 kills. Hat tip Lucianne.

Airbus has announced sales of its aircraft totaling $45 billion at the Paris Air Show. That is 10 times what Boeing announced. Airbus is having a good week, which they need after the last year with all the problems they have had with the 380 and the 350. It is still to be seen if Airbus can get the 380 program back on track and if its design for the 350 will work as advertised. Hat tip Lucianne.

I generally do not have too many nice things to say about University Presidents in the US, they seem to mostly be about keeping the faculty happy, even when the faculty needs to be reprimanded (think the professors at Duke who slandered the lacrosse players and never bothered to apologize) and raise money. Even Larry Summers got fired for stating the obvious, men and women are different and one aspect of that difference is that people tend to gravitate towards different areas of study. Its not that woman CAN'T make it in the hard sciences, but that on the whole, many prefer not to. Anyway I fear the rest of this post may be lost because any visitor may stop reading and Harvard isn't what I'm writing about.
Columbia University has said publicly, that if the UK university faculty decide to boycott Israel universities, to boycott Columbia as well. Good for him. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by.

I thought weekends were for fun

Well, it shows what I (don't) know. Tonight have to meet with my class team for 3 hours, Sunday meeting with them from 9 to 11am and Saturday will be my time to write. Sigh. 7 weeks to go and then freedom. Saturday I also HAVE to get to the gym or my doctor will be very upset with me (ok more then usual). So it will be a busy weekend.

On to the news:

The OTC diet pill Alli has been approved by the FDA. Before then it was only sold by prescription and it will block about 25% of the fat eaten being absorbed by the body. Of course the side effects can be embarrassing. As the displays warn, wear dark color pants and bring a change of clothes with you to the office.

What should be done at ground zero in New York City? Alica Colon thinks the twin towers should be rebuilt. While I emotionally agree with this, I'm not sure it will make economic sense. I don't know if I would want to work up high in a high target building. Hat tip Lucianne.

The civil war in Gaza continues. However, you don't hear much about it in the press nor about the civilian casualties. After all, any civilians killed in Iraq (especially if killed by US forces) or Lebanon (especially if killed by Israel) make front page news. Are the Palestinian civilians not worth the same coverage even if Israel is not to blame? Hat tip Lucianne.

Finally, a jet engine was tested that was able to reach 10 times the speed of sound. When they can put that on an airplane, then trips to Asia will be fun and not pure yuck instead. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a fun weekend and enjoy it, you could be doing homework like me.

What a night

In my Strategy class, we had the opportunity in our business simulation to buy or rather negotiate an exclusive marketing agreement for our product (toy boats) with a major media company (the mouse). Which ever company won the contract would see the effectiveness of its advertising increase at a minimum of 12%. We didn't expect to win it and put in what we thought would be the minimum bid. We also structured it to make fixed payments over time and inflation in the game is running at 11% PER QUARTER. You can do the math, any fixed contract price signed now will cost much less in the future because we will be paying for it with inflated dollars. It came down to two teams and the professor said if we would prepay 3 quarters, pay for quarters 1, 2 & 3 in quarter 1 we would win the contract. Of course we said YES. So we have been able to take a variable cost, advertising and make it a partially fixed cost which will save $$$ in the future. Two other teams were extremely unhappy which is a good thing, to make your competition unhappy.

On to the news:

The double standard of torture continues. For the US, torture is when we make bad guys feel bad about themselves. For the insurgents, its not bad when they mutilate our soldiers before and after killing them. Hat tip Lucianne.

At the moment, illegal immigrants are counted in the census which is used to determine the number of seats each State has in the House of Representatives. The State of Michigan says that is not fair, only citizens should be counted. This is a repeat of when the country was founded and the North did not want to count slaves for representation purposes and the South did (of course the situation was just the opposite for tax purposes). Hat tip Lucianne.

Does capital punishment save lives? IBD says it does. Hat tip Lucianne.

What happens when government opposes the wish of the people? Government will back down or will find itself replaced by recall or election. I just wish the government would learn the lesson and it would stay learned. Hat tip Lucianne.

Have a good day and will see you tomorrow.

Monday

Was off on Friday but instead of taking the day to lay around, was in the library doing research for one of my papers this term. Got a fair amount done but of course still have more to do. Sunday spent 3 hours with my class team for Strategy. We got most of our work done but now have to meet this coming Friday for 3 hours and another 2 hours on Sunday morning. We can't meet in the afternoon because its fathers day and two of the guys on the team, being fathers, are busy with family obligations. 7 more weeks till freedom.

Went house looking on Saturday, I know something is wrong with me when I see a 1544 square foot house that was built in 1954 being sold for $639,000 and thinking its a good deal. Actually the original price was $699,000 so they have lowered the price by $60,000 so it might be a good deal but that is still so much money.

A couple of stories I found interesting.

Will Cuba be able to move past the Bay of Pigs and see what their leader has done to them? Hat tip Lucianne.

A case where one can only wish both sides would lose. Suing a friend over football tickets. Hat tip Lucianne.

As much as I like roller coasters, I would not want to have been on this one, yikes. Glad no one was hurt. Hat tip Lucianne.

Coal to Oil. Germany did it in World War 2 and since they weren't worried about cost it was effective. The US has tried it in 1948, 1960s and the late 1970s. In each case, the cost of turning coal into oil was much more expensive then the cost of oil on the open market. Now politicians are starting to promote the technology again as a way for the US to end its dependence on foreign oil. We have the technology. Germany had the technology over 60 years ago. Its just that I can't see the people in the US willing to pay $7 to $10 a GALLON for gasoline which is what it would cost, unless we use lots of taxpayer money to subsidise our gasoline purchases.

The immigration bill. Not everyone who opposes it is a racist or a bad person.

Have a good day, busy one for me with class tonight as well. See you tomorrow.

What's important, news or life?

I usually start out talking about life, school, work etc and then go to the news. But shouldn't the news be first, after all, the stuff in the news is more likely to be important to you then what is happening in my life. But then I think with all the online news sources out there, you have probably gotten all the news you want so the stories I highlight you've already read or are just not interested. But since the blog will be here for a while, putting in these news stories here is a way to be able to come back to them at a later date.

Last night saw my niece in her middle school's production of Guys and Dolls. The production was very good and I was even more impressed when the teacher at the end made a few comments:
7 weeks ago the class had received an award in a competition and THEN started working on this musical. 6th, 7th and 8th graders putting a good production on in 7 weeks is amazing.
Next the teacher told us (for those of us who didn't already know) that the class was a CHOIR and not a DRAMA class. Ok, so Guys and Dolls is a musical, there is still acting and and dancing and set changes, which is different from traditional choir performances.
Bottom line I was very impressed. And yes, as is typical of these types of classes, it was made up of 90% girls so the girls played a lot of guys parts.

Lots of news today so will try to keep this part short and with links.

The NY Sun talks about a PBS documentary on the 1967 six day war, worth reading.

Palestinians are fed up with gunman. If true, then peace will have a chance.

Conservative professors face discrimination when applying for tenure, who would have thought.

Paris Hilton (I know this has been a Paris Hilton free zone until now and beg your indulgence) has been released from jail to home detention for "medical reasons". What a role model she is, be rich and you can do anything you want.

Turks are looking at a possible war with Iraq over the Kurdish area, this isn't good.

Finally, Lawmakers are looking to dock members who miss votes. Its nice that they sometimes remember they work for us and we expect them to be at work. If they can't be there they shouldn't get paid unless they take medical leave. Campaigning for a new job isn't a valid excuse in my book because they are reneging on the people who hired them in the last election.

Finally, euthanasia is becoming politically correct to mention again. There are too many humans so we need to "cull" the herd just like we do to kangaroos (this article was written in Australia). Once people start looking at which people groups are increasing the most (hint, it isn't folks of European decent) I hope these advocate are shamed to silence.

That's it and will see you tomorrow.

June Gloom has arrived

Well, actually it arrived over a week ago, but since we are now in June we have June Gloom instead of overcast days in May. In So Cal, every June, its usually cloudy in the morning and hazy to sunny in the afternoon. We also normally have bright and warm days in May but it was overcast for much of the month.

Class yesterday was interesting. For our Year 3 Qt 3 simulation, we had a nasty surprise. We expected to make about 1.70 per unit sold, but due to an error in our spreadsheet model our profit was less then 0.70 per unit. Our pricing was also aggressive so our total sales units went down. We had been slow at raising our prices so we tried to catch up to the competition and we overshot our mark. At least we still made money and it turned out to be a good thing because it depressed our stock price making it cheaper to buy back. We also ran Year 4 Qt 4, had only about 45 minutes to make our decisions and we nailed it. Our pricing was right where we wanted it to be and we went from the lowest net income to the highest net income. I understand that anyone else reading the above will likely wonder what am I talking about. Short answer is my Monday class is playing a business simulation and we make our decisions for a quarter. We make our decisions or choices for price, production number, advertising, R/D etc. It all goes into a computer and it spits out the results. We then have to make our next decision based on our last quarters results. There are 6 people on a team and 5 teams in class and the teams are in competition with each other. So in the off chance anyone from class reads this, can't give specifics because I don't want to give anything away.

So on to the news.

Is a fence between the US and Mexico too expensive? Hat tip Lucianne.

The politics of immigration, how did each side assume their roles. Hat tip Lucianne.

Another reminder of the fact there is evil in the world and we have to fight it to prevent is spread or to insure it doesn't return. Hat tip Lucianne.

Another politician says we must sacrifice for the environment. Haven't any of them heard of leading by example instead of staying safely in the rear telling us what to do?

An Iraq update.

Have a good day and will hope to see you tomorrow.

End of another week

Had class last night. The professor asked us what we thought of the movie we saw last week. My opinion of the movie was not good but didn't want to put it too bluntly because there were people who thought it was interesting. I said I had a hard time seeing how it added value to our class, business negotiation and how we as students were paying about $80 an hour each to sit there and watch it. A number of other students said they had similar opinions to me, some privately some in class so glad to see I'm not alone. The professor said it was interesting to see the class reaction to the movie. At the other campus, the students were much more positive and animated about the movie and what they learned. We were much more subdued. In prior semesters, students tended to either love or hate the movie as well.

I guess one indication of how people felt about the movie was there were a at least 6 people missing from class last night. I don't know if they dropped or were out of town. We've already lost another 3 or 4 people from the first week so we are down to less then 20 students. If the people missing last night did drop, our class has lost over 1/3 of the students in 5 weeks. I don't think its because the class has been too hard, but because of a lack of perceived value. If I could, I would think about dropping the class, but I can't get into another class this semester and that would delay my graduation so I'm stuck here.

Having said that, last night's class was MUCH better, we were learning about negotiations, the theory and practice of it. If the rest of the semester is like last night, the class will be good.

Ok, enough about my class, on to the news and what is going on.

Jonah Goldberg has a good article on Fred Thompson and asks if Thompson is the Republicans version of Wesley Clark. Meaning will Thompson's polling number be highest the day before he declares his candidacy for President and fall once people start paying attention to the man rather then the press release.

Scientists are trying to marry animals and computers again. This time its putting a micro chip into a moth so the moth can become a surveillance platform. Times Online has the story, the comments are worth reading too. Hat tip Lucanne.

Have a good weekend and see you Monday.

Its FRIDAY

Yep, last workday of the week and a 3 day weekend to boot.

Remember those who gave their lives so we can live free this weekend. They paid the highest price doing their duty and deserve to be honored and remembered.

Class was "interesting" last night, watched a movie which I couldn't see the point or the point could have been made in a simple paragraph instead of 90 minutes of stuff. If the scientists really believe what they were saying in the movie, I do pity them because they see nothing after this life which begs the question, why be good if this is all there is? Maybe I'm just too dense to understand the deeper meaning of the movie, but what in the heck did it have to do with Business Negotiations I just don't get.

In the news today:

There has been a Christian community in Iraq since the Church started all those years ago. They have been the special target of the terrorists because they are not Muslim. Hat tip Lucianne.

I do hope these folks have considered all the costs to their decision to be Australia's nuclear waste site. Hat tip Lucianne and Lucianne, the comments are interesting in both posts.

This sounds like a potential Darwin Award. Woman run over by her own SUV. She put it in neutral, set the parking brake and the brake failed, when she tried to get back in the car, fell under the front tires and was run over. The story doesn't say if the engine was running or if the keys were in the ignition. Most newer cars will not allow you to get the keys out of the car unless the car is in PARK. Leaving a car to run into a store is stupid. If a car starts rolling, trying to jump in it is stupid. If she had just followed what was taught in drivers training she would be safe and not being ridiculed on the net. Hat tip Lucianne, and some of the comments are harsh.

Will Al Gore run for President in 2008? Peter Coster of the Herald Sun [Melbourne, AU] says yes, but his sources say no. They say Al is too fat to run and no one that fat could ever be elected president. While Al has put on a few pounds since 2000 (most people do as they get older), he is not nearly as fat as Taft was back in 1912 when he weighed over 300 pounds. We've had fat presidents before and even in this age of television, its not a given that only the pretty face will win (or we will be learning to say President Edwards).

Finally, Victor David Hanson has comments on surviving another month of war.

Sorry for the length of this, lots in the news today. Have a fun and safe weekend and holiday, I'll be doing homework. Remember our fallen heroes.

See you Monday.