“The Missouri House of Representatives has approved a bill, the main feature of which, would create the crime of coercing a woman to have an abortion. It also would require abortion clinics to offer women information about alternatives to abortion and about the fetus. The bill now goes to the Senate.” [The Missourinet]
I tell people I’m from Bulgaria.
The War in 2020 is a terrific read. I’ll bet I’ve read it every 4 or 5 years since it was published in 1991. Wikipedia classifies the novel as “military-adventure.”
“The novel begins in the year 2005, when the South African Defense Force, equipped and trained by Japan, seizes mineral-rich areas of Shaba Province in Zaire. The United States sends the XVIII Airborne Corps along with associated air and naval assets to repel the aggression. The American expeditionary force is defeated due to a combination of technological inferiority (the South Africans’ Japanese equipment has such innovations as onboard battle lasers,) lax security (a squadron of USAF B-2 Spirit bombers is destroyed on the ground by South Africans and local guerillas) and poor intelligence.
The American collapse is so swift that the XVIII Airborne Corps attempts to surrender. When the surrender offer is ignored, the American President orders a nuclear strike on Pretoria, forcing a cease-fire and a South African withdrawal from Zaire. The political cost paid by the United States is very high; post-war epidemics, and economic and political conflict with Japan reduces American power and influence. These events are summarized by a newspaper headline that reads: “THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY”.
Author Ralph Peters tells a great story. If you’re digging Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ll love The War in 2020.
WASHINGTON — “Calling it the most effective tool to date in the War on Terror, the Pentagon announced Monday that it had developed a new chemical weapon called “ennui gas,” a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life and a sinking sense that everything they have ever accomplished ultimately amounts to dust.”
The Onion
“If a person is relatively certain that going to war will end his ability to enjoy the rest of his life, one way or another, and the war does not present a plausible threat to the homeland, is such a person unpatriotic for dodging the draft to save himself?
The obvious answer is yes, he is unpatriotic. If your country calls on you, you need to go. End of story.
On the other hand, what is the point of a being patriotic to a country that intends to kill you for its own marginal benefit? Such a country would be your natural enemy, not your friend, so any question of patriotism would be nonsense in this particular situation.”
Like most of Mr. Adam’s posts, this one is well written and thought provoking. You need to read the full post before answering the (for the time being) hypothetical question.
A less-hypothetical quesion: Are you willing to sacrifice your son or daughter because George W. Bush wanted to prove something to his daddy?
The J-Walk Blog is very popular. For all the usual reasons. He writes well about interesting stuff and he posts every day. Usually several times a day. John Walkenbach (Mr. J-Walk) was called away to a meeting and didn’t post for a week. Upon his return, he checked his stats and did a little trending to determine he would lose all of his many readers in 17 days if he stopped posting altogether. One assumes it would take less time for blogs with fewer readers. I wonder how long –if at all- it would take for visitors to return. And why would they?
“My cologne is distilled from the bilge water of Rupert Murdoch’s yacht.”
“When I find something I want, I don’t let go. Like a Killer Whale going nuts on his trainer at Sea World.”
“A stripper offered to give me a squeezer last night. A white stripper!”
“Save it for your iVillage blog.”
“If reality TV has taught us anything, it’s you can’t keep people with no values down.”
Photo stolen from my friend Chuck. And David shares this disturbing video.
From Out & About: “Local Nashvillian and host of The Remix, a popular Christian youth show, Azariah Southworth, announced today that he has come out.
“This has been a long time coming. I’m in a place where I’m at peace with my faith, friends, family and more importantly myself. I know this will end my career in Christian television, but I must now live my life openly and honestly with everyone. This is my reason for doing this,” Southworth says.
Southworth has been hosting and producing the popular Christian TV show, The Remix for a year and a half. It is in syndication and can be seen in more than 128 million homes worldwide. It averages more than 200,000 viewers weekly on one of three networks.”
As I read this I recalled my recent exchanges with anonymous (ok, pseudonymous) political bloggers who justified blogging from behind the curtain with concerns for their jobs. Props to Mr. Southworth. That takes courage.
From a speech by NAB President-CEO David Rehr at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference:
“Rehr then turned to radio, first talking about a widely reported BusinessWeek column by Jon Fine, headed “Requiem for Old-Time Radio.” Though Fine believes radio isn’t well-suited to moving its business model online, he wrote that he remembers radio with “ridiculous fondness” and recalled “huddling with it long past bedtime, the volume set low, hoping to hear something I loved.”
“Rehr said, “Ladies and gentlemen, that is romance, that’s longing, that is a connection. Listeners still want what they’ve always wanted. Technology hasn’t changed that — it has just changed the devices of delivery.”
According to Mr. Fine, Mr. Rehr missed the point of his article:
“You don’t need to huddle with a radio long after dark to hear new music; you can form that romance or connection with a hundred other things.”
I’ve had my MacBook Pro for two years and I’m still discovering cool new features. Today I was putting it way when my hand brushed a tiny button on the bottom of the laptop and a row of tiny green lights came on. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was and then I got it. A battery strength indicator.
Wanna check the charge on a PC laptop? Turn it on, wait for it to boot up, and check the charge. Mac users? Just touch the little button. I’m telling you…