This is on the header over at The Truth Laid Bear:

"But I want to remind you, information about hijackings in the pre-9/11 world is totally different from information about hijackings in the post-9/11 world... Never did we imagine what would take place on September 11th, where people used those airplanes as missiles and as weapons."

- White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, 5/16/02

"Tom Clancy goes to the White House in this thriller of political terror and global disaster. The American political situation takes a disturbing turn as the President, Congress, and Supreme Court are obliterated when a Japanese terrorist lands a 747 on the Capitol."

- Amazon.com summary of Tom Clancy's novel Executive Orders, published 1996

• • • • •

 
More fun in the "Catholic Family:"

While he resisted compensation for an alleged victim of a disgraced priest, Bridgeport's then-Bishop Edward M. Egan gave the accused clergyman as much as $17,000 to settle bank debts and pay for a criminal-defense lawyer, court documents show.

The unusual payment - made in 1989 after the Rev. Gavin O'Connor had been accused of molesting boys for years and was in the process of leaving the priesthood - was later condemned by the plaintiff's attorney in court as "a payoff" intended to buy O'Connor's silence in the case pending against him and the diocese.

• • • • •

 
One of my fave cable news shows is The O'Reilly Factor. Not because of his accuracy and balance, but because of gems like this:

That quiz program, The Weakest Link has been cancelled by NBC in primetime. And its host, Ann Robinson is heading back to England. But before she's out of here, she expressed her opinion that many Americans are not very smart. Only 5 percent of them have passports, she sniffed. Well, Ann, that may be true, but we the people are smart enough to know one thing, we don't like you. Goodbye.

• • • • •

 
From the ISN"T THAT YOUR JOB department?

[Ari] Fleischer yesterday called New York Post Editor Col Allen to complain about the tabloid's headline: "9/11 bombshell: BUSH KNEW." Smaller type below says: "Prez was warned of possible hijackings before terror attacks." Fleischer called the headline "irresponsible" and "a poster child for bad journalism."

Well, Ari, if someone had told us eight months ago, the headline never would have made the paper. Oh, yeah, and that little "misunderstanding" in Manhattan last fall might have been avoided. Lives may have been spared. I don't care how politically damaging this headline may have been, if the administration was doing its job, which you can get a picture of for a $150 donation to the RNC, thousands of people might be alive today. We also might not be at war. Our economy might be a bit more stable. So to heck with your "damage control."

• • • • •

 
From Andrew Sullivan comes another story of a bishop who tries to keep himself above the law:

Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch seemed unfazed as a lawyer questioned him in 1995 about bringing in a priest who had been convicted of molesting an altar boy in Michigan.

"If you had a child," the lawyer recalled asking the bishop during the deposition for a civil suit, "wouldn't you be concerned that the priest they were saying mass with had been convicted of sexually molesting children?"

Replied Imesch, "I don't have any children."

• • • • •

 
Another accused priest commits suicide.

Don't bother listening to the Vatican, though:

"From a canon law perspective, the bishop and the superior are neither morally nor judicially responsible for the acts committed by one of their clergy," said [Rev. Gianfranco] Ghirlanda, dean of canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

He is claiming that the church is above the law! Maybe where you come from, but not in the United States. That's not how we operate here. This is not a theocracy, and canon law and judicial law are not equivalent. The Vatican needs to revise its outdated canon laws to provide for modern times.

• • • • •

 
Washington Post:


Comic books used to be serious contraband in America's public schools, covert reading that students would sneak under their textbooks and peruse during math lessons.

They were irksome distractions that teachers would swoop in and banish the way they now outlaw compact disc players and hand-held video games.

Teachers today have a different philosophy. Comic books, no longer such a staple of youth, are now thought of as an old-fashioned way to encourage actual reading, drawing and writing in an age of passive, bottomless satellite-TV watching and Internet surfing.

And we wonder why today's kids can't find the United States on a globe.

• • • • •

 
UPDATE:

They found the truck.

• • • • •

 
By the headline, it sounded like the Vatican was finally going to take a stand on this scandal, however, I read the article further:

[Rev. Gianfranco] Ghirlanda, in an apparent reference to victims' civil suits against dioceses, also wrote that the relationship between senior church officials and their priests is not comparable to that of an employer and employee.

"The cleric doesn't 'work' for the bishop or for the superior, but is at the service of God," Ghirlanda wrote.

Oh, really! Then, Father Ghirlanda, you may want to explain this one to me. Did God also tell Paul Shanley to molest boys and once the behavior was known, did God also move him to another parish where he could continue to molest children? Is that how God, the benevolent employer, operates? Because, Father Ghirlanda, in your own words, men like Paul Shanley and John Geoghan were also "at the service of God" - molesting young boys.

• • • • •

 
The world according to Mullah Omar:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is alive and the future of the United States in Afghanistan (news - web sites) is "fire, hell and total defeat," fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was quoted as saying by a pan-Arab newspaper Friday.

"We don't consider the battle has ended in Afghanistan ... The battle has begun and its fires are picking up. These fires will reach the White House, because it is the center of injustice and tyranny," Omar was quoted as saying by the London-based Asharq al-Awsat.

"As for the United States' future in Afghanistan, it will be fire and hell and total defeat, God willing, as it was for their predecessors — the Soviets and, before them, the British," Omar reportedly said.

(He's saying this to a London-based paper. Real swift guy if you ask me.)

"The sheik (bin Laden) is, thank God, still alive and this hurts (President) Bush who promised to his people to kill Osama," Omar reportedly asserted.

When is the press going to stop listening to this bozo? He's only trying to incite people by spewing anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric. May as well read Arab News or a similar rag if we want to hear that drivel. On a side note, Omar refers to the Palestinians as their "brothers." The Palestinians would do best to stay as far away from Omar and bin Laden if they want to get the support they need on the global front.

• • • • •

 
New York Times:

Hackers posing as employees of the Ford Motor Credit Company have in recent months harvested a trove of 13,000 credit reports — a virtual one-stop shop for fraud and identity theft — with data on consumers in affluent neighborhoods across the country.

If there's one type of criminal activity that ticks me off, it's identity theft.

• • • • •

 
If this guy isn't a conspiracy fanatic, I don't know who is. Link courtesy of Cruel Site of the Day.

• • • • •

 
"America's Toughest Sheriff" is also the most wasteful:

Questions are swirling around Sheriff Joe Arpaio's decision to dispatch a police helicopter to San Diego to pick up a suicidal doctor, a trip that saved deputies at most five hours of road time in a non-emergency case in which criminal charges weren't even filed.

An attorney for Dr. Mark Salerno denounced the trip as a "moronic" publicity stunt and said the family would refuse to pay the expected $1,677 bill for the unwanted ride home.

Of course, it doesn't stop there:

Two Maricopa County sheriff's deputies have testified they were ordered to conduct surveillance on a political opponent of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 1997.

Seems like that should have come out of Arpaio's pocket, not the taxpayers of Maricopa County.

• • • • •

 
So they're finally going to build a stadium in L.A. Wonder how long it will be whatever team they draw packs up and leaves? Face it - no NFL team can thrive in L.A. - but maybe the Cardinals will pack up and move out of here.

• • • • •

 
UPDATE:

Apparently Zbigniew Brzezinski agrees with me:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, announced on US television that 'the Israelis are becoming increasingly like the white supremacist South Africans, viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life' (2). Such a statement from a respected Washington figure would have been unthinkable even in the recent past.

• • • • •

 
According to the gang over at Best of the Web, if you want to subscribe to the New York Sun, you have to live in a certain ZIP code. Unfortunately, whoever designed the online form wasn't paying attention.

Just out of curiosity, we also punched ZIP code 10048 into the site, and it accepted that too. You've gotta love editor Seth Lipsky's optimism; 10048 was the ZIP code of the World Trade Center.

Ouch.

• • • • •

 
A post that we'll all enjoy, courtesy of Eric Olsen over at Tres Producers. He may have been a bit delusional when he wrote it, but who cares!

• • • • •

 
In further immigration news, Daily Pundit also sends over this bulletin:

Federal authorities detained 21 workers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Tuesday after they couldn't produce proper immigration documents.

• • • • •

 
Bill Quick, the Daily Pundit reports on the following crackdown on illegal documentation in the Bay Area. He has the same idea as I have about the opposition to this and other such programs:

One 35-year-old San Jose supermarket worker who has been in the United States without legal documentation for 12 years said he just lost a good $12.20-per-hour job. The letter from his employer gave him two weeks to get an official letter from the Social Security Administration with his Social Security number on it, or be suspended and then fired. The man, who asked not to be identified, said he couldn't do it and quit.

Couldn't, or wouldn't? If he couldn't do it, that meant the guy was here illegally, and there was no way he could have obtained documentation legally in the first place. He had 12 YEARS TO DO IT. If he's simply refusing to do it, he's simply holding something back, and is risking deportation. The Mercury News article didn't say where he was from, but most illegals in California are from Mexico or Asia.

• • • • •

 
The Washington Post reports the following:

President Bush on Thursday bestowed the highest civilian honor from Congress on former President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, and praised the nation's 40th chief executive as a man whose life has been "a tribute to the power of great ideas."

"President Reagan believed deeply in American character and destiny. He believed deeply in the power of freedom to improve the lives of average men and women," Bush said at a Capitol ceremony.

"These ideas changed America and they changed the world, not only because he eloquently explained them, because they were right."

"Ronald Reagan is one of the largest figures of our time. His name will always stand for courage and consistency, for patriotism and resolve, and for humor and optimism," Bush said. "He's a man of great talent and great character. His entire career is a tribute to the power of great ideas."

Okay, Mr. President, why haven't you attempted to follow in his footsteps? Surely harsher rhetoric as well as action (inaction?) against the Israeli incursion into the West Bank may have saved lives on both sides. However, by carefully making Powell's trip take longer so it allowed the Israelis to buy some time seals your place in history not as the Great Communicator, as Reagan was known, but the Great Weasel.

• • • • •

 
AP

NEW YORK - How come everyone's been referring to Ozzy Osbourne lately as an "aging rocker"? That's what his wife, Sharon Osbourne, wants to know.

Um... because he is one?

• • • • •

 
I wonder if John Ashcroft approves of this action:

A Sacramento private school has expelled a kindergarten student three weeks before the end of the school year, saying her mother's work as a nude dancer clashes with its Christian philosophy.

"If you choose to do the wrong thing willfully, then God's word instructs me as to what my responsibility is," said Rick Cole, the head pastor of Capital Christian Center who made the decision to expel the girl. "I need to be faithful to my calling."

Puh-leeze. And God was responsible for the September 11 attacks, as Jerry Falwell publicly stated. We're talking about a 5-year old girl. Maybe her mother doesn't want her daughter to turn out like she did, so she's giving her a strict church upbringing. These Bible thumpers make me ill sometimes.

• • • • •

 
This might be the only way to clean up this mess. We have to play by their rules. The Catholic Church hierarchy is well-connected, and makes sure that it is protected in case it does get in trouble. Another organization well known for such practices is the Mafia, if you believe such an organization does exist. Lower-level criminals do the "dirty work" while the person in charge collects the money. Watch any of the Godfather movies, and you will notice something about the Corleone family - they're Catholic. Coincidence?

• • • • •

 
This fire is about 60 miles north of where I live. It's the only thing on TV, and it looks pretty nasty. As of the latest reports, they predict it to get worse.

• • • • •

 
L.A. TIMES:

Seeking to quell a lingering and complex dispute, President Vicente Fox promised Wednesday to pay off a huge Mexican water debt to the United States that is causing economic hardship among Texas farmers.

Right. Next thing he'll be telling us that he'll start reimbursing us for the debt that the United States has incurred for providing free services care for years of illegal Mexican immigration.

• • • • •

 
I wondered what it was I didn't like about John Ashcroft. Then I remembered:

US Attorney General John Ashcroft still refuses to issue a forthright apology or disavow anti-Islamic comments he made last fall. In an interview with syndicated columnist and radio commentator Cal Thomas, Ashcroft declared, “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.”

Ashcroft is himself a member of the Assemblies of God Church, the largest US Pentecostal denomination. It practices faith healing and believes that the Holy Spirit gives the baptized the ability to speak in tongues.

Okay, so the man has a right to his beliefs. However, he's also the Attorney General of the United States - and I don't want a guy that believes in faith healing responsible for the direction of the laws of this country. Also, his comments above show total ignorance of the Koran. Islam is a peaceful religion, and only the most radical followers of it practice terrorism.

• • • • •

 
Jack Shafer, in a Slate article, reacts to Andrew Sullivan's firing from the New York Times.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus thinks Sullivan is winning the battle with the Times.

• • • • •

 
I'm as curious as the next person about the Rilya Wilson case, but is anyone else starting to get tired of hearing about it? I don't mean to sound insensitive, but every time I turn on the news, that seems to be the topic. I've stopped watching "Talk Back Live" on CNN because I know that Arthel Neville is going to talk about the case for the umpteenth time. O'Reilly's talking about it as I type this.
I really do hope they find her alive, though, but they seem to be rehashing the same leads and the State of Florida sounds really incompetent.

• • • • •

 
I've always thought this was a great idea.

IRV is not a person or a possum--it's an electoral process with the wonkish full name of Instant Runoff Voting. Its biggest appeal is that IRV literally makes every vote count. Voters indicate both their favorite candidate and their runoff choices, in order of preference, all on one ballot. If four people are in a race, instead of marking only one of the four boxes (as now) you put a "1" by your first choice, a "2" by your second... and so on. When the votes are counted, if no candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters, an "instant runoff" takes place. Here's how it works: The vote tabulators drop the candidate who came in fourth. But--and a beautiful "but" it is--they add the second choice votes of that candidate's supporters to the tallies of the top three. If this still doesn't produce a majority winner, they drop the third-place finisher and the next choices of these voters are allocated to the top two...until one candidate accumulates enough votes to add up to a majority.

Now all we have to do is get people to vote in the first place.

• • • • •

 
Andrew Sullivan points out something I've been wondering all along:

Imagine if a bunch of Jewish soldiers, in a tense street-battle, had used a mosque as a sanctuary. Now, imagine that they had boozed it up, wrecked the joint, and left to enjoy a safe international exile. Do you think we would have heard the last of it? But the same is done by Palestinian terrorists in one of the holiest shrines in Christianity and the world media barely bats an eyelid. Where's the outrage? Or has it all been used up on the Jews?

Andrew, I'm sure you're incensed at the Palestinans, however, the Israelis are equally to blame. They fired on the Church of the Nativity. I watched it on television. They also surrounded it with soldiers and tanks, and wouldn't let the Palestinians out for over a month. I'm not a Muslim, nor am I Jewish. I'm a Christian, and once the Israelis cornered the Palestians in the Church of the Nativity, I thought that it was time that the United States put its foot down.

• • • • •

 
TERROR ALERT. Bob Owen informs me that there has been a truck full of cyanide stolen from Mexico heading for the U.S. border:

FBI agents are looking for a white Kenworth semi-trailer out of Mexico that is carrying 96 barrels of sodium cyanide. It was hijacked on May 10 by four armed men along a route in Mexico near the Arizona border, WDIV-TV in Detroit reported. Investigators are concerned about the safety of officers coming into contact with the truck.

Since I live in Arizona, and hadn't heard anything about it, I decided to look further into it (not that I don't believe you, Bob). Here's what CNN had to say:

The cyanide was being transported to a metals processing plant in Pachuca. The highway where the robbery occurred leads to Nuevo Laredo on the Mexico-Texas border.

So it's either going to Arizona or Texas. Makes me feel safe.

• • • • •

 
By the way, if you're opposed to the corporate trend of moving to post offices in the Caribbean, write your congressman. Ask him/her about the bill quoted below - the bill number is H.R. 3884. I'm writing my congressman and both my senators today.

• • • • •

 
Here's the language for the bill that was written to stop U.S. corporations from moving offshore:

A BILL

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prevent corporations from avoiding the United States income tax by reincorporating in a foreign country.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act of 2002'.

SEC. 2. PREVENTION OF CORPORATE EXPATRIATION TO AVOID UNITED STATES INCOME TAX.

(a) IN GENERAL- Paragraph (4) of section 7701(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (defining domestic) is amended to read as follows:

`(4) DOMESTIC-

`(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in subparagraph (B), the term `domestic' when applied to a corporation or partnership means created or organized in the United States or under the law of the United States or of any State unless, in the case of a partnership, the Secretary provides otherwise by regulations.

`(B) CERTAIN CORPORATIONS TREATED AS DOMESTIC-

`(i) IN GENERAL- The acquiring corporation in a corporate expatriation transaction shall be treated as a domestic corporation.

`(ii) CORPORATE EXPATRIATION TRANSACTION- For purposes of this subparagraph, the term `corporate expatriation transaction' means any transaction if--

`(I) a nominally foreign corporation (referred to in this subparagraph as the `acquiring corporation') acquires, as a result of such transaction, directly or indirectly substantially all of the properties held directly or indirectly by a domestic corporation, and

`(II) immediately after the transaction, more than 80 percent of the stock (by vote or value) of the acquiring corporation is held by former shareholders of the domestic corporation by reason of holding stock in the domestic corporation.

`(iii) LOWER STOCK OWNERSHIP REQUIREMENT IN CERTAIN CASES- Subclause (II) of clause (ii) shall be applied by substituting `50 percent' for `80 percent' with respect to any nominally foreign corporation if--

`(I) such corporation does not have substantial business activities (when compared to the total business activities of the expanded affiliated group) in the foreign country in which or under the law of which the corporation is created or organized, and

`(II) the stock of the corporation is publicly traded and the principal market for the public trading of such stock is in the United States.

`(iv) PARTNERSHIP TRANSACTIONS- The term `corporate expatriation transaction' includes any transaction if--

`(I) a nominally foreign corporation (referred to in this subparagraph as the `acquiring corporation') acquires, as a result of such transaction, directly or indirectly properties constituting a trade or business of a domestic partnership,

`(II) immediately after the transaction, more than 80 percent of the stock (by vote or value) of the acquiring corporation is held by former partners of the domestic partnership (determined without regard to stock of the acquiring corporation which is sold in a public offering related to the transaction), and

`(III) the acquiring corporation meets the requirements of subclauses (I) and (II) of clause (iii).

`(v) SPECIAL RULES- For purposes of this subparagraph--

`(I) a series of related transactions shall be treated as 1 transaction, and

`(II) stock held by members of the expanded affiliated group which includes the acquiring corporation shall not be taken into account in determining ownership.

`(vi) OTHER DEFINITIONS- For purposes of this subparagraph--

`(I) NOMINALLY FOREIGN CORPORATION- The term `nominally foreign corporation' means any corporation which would (but for this subparagraph) be treated as a foreign corporation.

`(II) EXPANDED AFFILIATED GROUP- The term `expanded affiliated group' means an affiliated group (as defined in section 1504(a) without regard to section 1504(b)).'

(b) EFFECTIVE DATES-

(1) IN GENERAL- The amendment made by this section shall apply to corporate expatriation transactions completed after September 11, 2001.

(2) SPECIAL RULE- The amendment made by this section shall also apply to corporate expatriation transactions completed on or before September 11, 2001, but only with respect to taxable years of the acquiring corporation beginning after December 31, 2003.

HUH? No wonder there are so many tax loopholes. The darn code itself is so confusing to begin with.

• • • • •

 
Considering we're talking about D.C., this law must have been written by the same idiots who wrote the U.S. tax code.

• • • • •

 
I was interested to read this.

There is precedence for presidents tapping those who held the office before, particularly for ceremonial functions such as the East Timor event.

When Clinton was president, he included Bush's father in the delegation that attended the funerals of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein.

However, isn't the atmosphere a tad more savage over in East Timor? How kind of Dubya to send his pal Bill over there.

• • • • •

 
I knew I lived in the Wild West when I read this.

We want our politicians to listen to organizations like the NRA, Handgun Control Inc., Planned Parenthood or National Right to Life Committee, then make their decisions based on what's best for the state rather than the special interests.

"That's a perfectly valid argument for you to make," said Senate President Randall Gnant, R-Scottsdale, who opposed the gun-tracing bill.

Then he added, "I can only tell you from my legislative experience here that oftentimes as you judge a book by its cover you judge a bill by who it is that's promoting it."

Among the groups supporting the gun-tracing bill was the liberal Americans for Gun Safety. Gnant told me that was enough to keep it from being approved. It didn't matter if the bill made sense or would serve the public good.

So if the NRA was behind this bill, it would have passed? I asked.

"There's no question about that," Gnant said. "And, if some way could be worked out to get them (the NRA) on board with it, my guess is that it would sail through."

NOTE: Senator Gnant was running for governor of this state until he ran out of money - guess the NRA stopped funding his campaign.

• • • • •

 
New York Times:

If a White House photographer took the photo, why are the Republicans claiming that they can sell them? That picture was taken with tax dollars. Period. It is public property on that grounds, and cannot be sold for campaign purposes. The RNC is full of crap and are simply playing politics. It should be in the National Archives for all Americans to enjoy - since we paid for it to begin with - regardless of party affiliation, and whether we donate to the RNC.

• • • • •

 
Posts may be a bit thin for the next few days. I just got notice that my unemployment benefits ran out. For good.

• • • • •

 
From Reuters:

A St. Louis jewelry salesman who sold Penthouse Magazine a video of a topless sunbather misidentified as Anna Kournikova testified on Tuesday he mistook the woman for the tennis star because of the diameter of her nipples.

Okie-dokie.

• • • • •

 
Israel is going in the direction of the apartheid policy of South Africa, if you believe this report.

Personally, I don't think it's quite that radical, but it's kind of heading in that direction. However, most of you out there in the blogosphere will disagree with me, and defend Israel's actions to the hilt. What the Israelis are doing really doesn't remind me as much of what went on in South Africa, since I didn't see it with my own two eyes. However, parallels can probably be drawn to the "Jim Crow" laws that we had right here in the United States. Notice that the Palestinians living in Jewish-controlled Israel are content, however, those in the Occupied Territories are not? Just drawing a parallel...

• • • • •

 
Apologies for the lack of posts today. I was away from my computer all day. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring something more substantial.

• • • • •

 
In this article, the actions of the Saudis are defended by one of their own. However, Eristic will have none of it, and writes a lengthy commentary on it. The NRO article is full of the same Arab drivel that we've become accustomed to, no matter what side of the fence we're on in this debate, however, the Eristic commentary fills in a lot of gaps.

• • • • •

 
What else is new? Another entertainer caught with drugs.

• • • • •

 
Ben Sheriff does a nice job of analyzing the Israeli and Palestinian anthems. I suggest you go over to his page and take a look. However, Ben, I have one little nudge for you, and it's not just because this site seems to be taking a pro-Palestinian slant in the Middle East conflict. Before you are so quick to condemn the Palestinians on the basis of their anthem, perhaps you may want to analyze this one.

• • • • •

 
Hopes for a Palestinian state are all but dead, as the Israeli ruling party voted aginst it, despite Prime Minister Sharon's objections. That came from Little Green Footballs, a well-designed site that I stumbled across.

• • • • •

 
From Joanne Jacobs - Talk about an offer of a lifetime! Saddam Hussein has offered Yasir Arafat "safe haven" in Baghdad if he is exiled by Israel. Scary thing is, he may end up having to take the deal. I doubt anyone else will want him. Maybe Syria.

• • • • •

 
Via InstaPundit comes this article on the alleged Saudi terror subsidy.



A couple of things bother me about this argument. First, David Tell, author of the article, assumes that these documents are authentic. If they are, why hasn't there been an immediate American response? Second, Tell fails to mention that the United States sends billions of dollars to Israel to support its state of the art armed forces. Finally, you and I may not like the war that the Palestinians are fighting this war, but the factions that are allegedly paying families money are not truly "sponsing terrorism" as we know it. They are helping families rebuild their lives after the devastation of war. Now if they were supplying them with arms, that would be a different story.

If Tell is right, and the documents are authentic, who's to say we aren't paying for both sides of this war? The United States buys a lot of oil from Saudi Arabia. All the Arab nations are dependent on U.S. foriegn aid. They may have taken what we gave them and invested wisely over the years. As we've seen lately, our leaders aren't really good at keeping track of what gets done with our money.
Meanwhile, Osama is over there somewhere laughing his butt off...

• • • • •

 
Guess I shouldn't have discarded that old cache of computer parts. I could have sold it to NASA, who is now shopping on EBay for obsolete parts that are still in use on the space shuttle.



Today, more than two decades later, booster testing still uses 8086 chips, which are increasingly scarce. NASA plans to create a $20 million automated checking system, with all new hardware and software. In the meantime, it is hoarding 8086's so that a failed one does not ground the nation's fleet of aging spaceships.



As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating."

• • • • •

 
FAST FOOD ALERT! I have discovered an extraordinary burger at a fast food restaurant. You may have seen the television commercials, and you may have already tried one, but for those of you who haven't, try The Six Dollar Burger at Carl's Jr., which can be found in Western states, elsewhere, the restaurant is known as Hardees. The menus are identical. By the way, the burger doesn't cost six dollars, a whole value meal costs about six bucks - and it's worth it.

• • • • •