New Look and the Fearless Afraid

How you like the new look? I thought that since I was updating the looks of my other blogs and company websites I thought I would do some sprucing up around here ... man does it take time!
Still have a few friends to put back on the list and several new ones to add, whew.

Speaking of the fearless being afraid ... our (the Mrs., dog actually) Jack Russell Mac Duff took off at a full run outside today on his regular pattern of the neighborhood, when he can get out past one of us going out, where he usually dares all the labs and retrievers (of which there are several including my two monster-sized labs) to a 'fight' and plays with them until such time as I can catch him or he tires out which ever comes first ... and it is usually me tiring out first anyway.

Today however we had to go meet a friend so I could not give chase so I let him run free. When we returned from our meeting there was a note on the door from a neighbor saying she had let him in the back door after her very overweight fat cat chased Mac Duff right into her arms with his tail between his legs - I wish I had seen that ... that dog isn't afraid of anything except thunderstorms, in fact the bigger they are the better he likes it - until now that is. So we can all mark it down ... Mac Duff is afraid of overweight cats.

Top 10%: It runs in the family.

Just got the grandparents copy of the book and certificate listing my grandson as one of the top 10% of students in the United States - not too shabby for a boy who passed the SAT with a perfect score at 13 years old.

Now he is eligible for over 254 scholarships of $10,000 each on his academics alone, not to mention the athletic scholarship offers he has already gotten from several major universities - he won't be 14 until September.

He said as a tiny tot his wanted to be like his Papa and he has been determined to be just so that he has excelled in academics and athletics with no push to do so by either his grandparents or his parents ... something too many children have happen to them by failed dreams of their parents.

So he has his certificate to hang on his wall next to his copy of my certificate from the time I was among the top 10% of students in the United States.

Of course his being eligible for all those scholarships doesn't hurt because if anyone is tighter with their money than I am it is he ... he still has every penny of the trust fund I set up for him at birth plus every cent of interest - there are six zeros after the numerals by the way, so paying for any college in the world from his on funds is not an issue.

Excuses Needed

It's Memorial Day weekend.
Do you know what that is?
For a lot of folks, it’s just an excuse to drink beer and get onto a boat.

Essentially Eclectic

Essentially Eclectic is off and running.
The new store is carrying several designer lines of of clothing from small labels to big labels, leather goods, Celtic gifts, teas and coffees, gourmet cooking oils and mixes and body care products.

(with all edible goods from organic and natural ingredients)

Response has been great. I even had another artisan approach me at a party the other day inquiring about having her sister's line of bead-work pieces in the shop, so the eclectic mix is growing.

Here I thought being retired meant I didn't have to work!

Thought of the Day

Isn't it funny how those with no credibility are always questioning those with credibility.

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids

A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.

Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.

The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

*****

And round and round it goes. While the sect may have been a place of questionable ethics the state of Texas had no business doing as they did. Being different is not a cause for such abuse by those supposedly in authority. I say supposedly because the people are the authority and not those claiming to be their representatives something that is very confused in the minds of some.

Something akin to a third of the children taken were victims of some type of abuse and two thirds were not according to the official transcripts of the proceedings thus far.

The question is why were cases of those third not thoroughly investigated and those found responsible arrested and prosecuted as the individual cases they are in lieu of a 'cattle round-up' corralling everyone on the basis of innuendo, false allegations and fear of differences?!

I am not trying to defend the guilty nor the innocent here ... I think it is none of my business what adults do in the religion until it affects me directly - if they want to marry multiple times while still married to all others before it is fine by me, I do not have to do that nor am I frightened by others doing that.

Raising their children is also not any concern of mine until it actually harms the children or affects me directly (something which it will never do but the harming of a child does ... under any circumstances). Which is why I question the total lack of investigation by Texas authorities. Traumatizing a child as they have done (over 400 times no less), is just as harmful as any abuse at home and more so to a child who has not been abused at home.

There was a case locally about twenty years ago where a young child of four would scream bloody murder whenever his was around his grandfather ... who turned out was molesting the child. had the authorities then, reacted as have the Texas authorities have now, it would have not come out that the child's mother (the grandfather's daughter) was molesting her own child as well. The child would have been left with his mother, who would have continued to molest the child had the authorities 'jumped' on the first suspicion without investigating the case.

Now in his early twenties the child is a happy individual who has nothing to do with his grandfather and mother. Both of whom are in the last years of their prison terms for the abuse of the child.

How many of the sect's children will be happy individuals twenty years from now?

Petty People, Small Minds

Have you ever had it to here with some petty small mind?

Well, I have.

The most recent is on a forum that I used to frequent and participate in but since the petty small minded individual that is currently causing an itch came onto the scene I have not frequented nor participated there as much.

This self proclaimed tyrant insists on reading meaning into things that are not there nor were even thought of until he interprets it as fact ... which has garnered so many complaints I have lost count yet he persists in his claim that it is myself and one other who are generating the complaints.

First, as I am not even there a lot nor do I post attacking or ridiculing posts willy-nilly when I am there so that is not be true.
Second, I have received in excess of 200 e-mails from over 175 individuals (and only two repeat senders) saying exactly the opposite.

His claims as to being fair are a bad joke as he has allowed the wing-nuts and lunatic fringe to rant and rave unabated, attacking a ridiculing everything and everyone with impunity ... something that had been all but stopped by a few members unafraid of the howling monkeys and the previous individual to function are the forum's chief moderator from the early days of the forum when the wing-nuts ran amok and no one wanted to be on the forum and membership was declining ... the same thing is happening again with the allowance of the bile spewing from the lunatic fringe.
Mature posters of all stripes are leaving the forum and all state the two reasons are the renewed wing-nut ranting and the new chief moderator's allowance of such while censoring of any that oppose such.

Things such as this are not allowed on this blog and my readers appreciate that.
Opinions vary and those presented in a mature civil manner are accepted as what they are.
Ranting, spewing bile and hatred will never be tolerated here - that is about the only intolerance you will find here (other subjects and topics may be added as time goes on. For example certain types of porn will most likely be on the taboo list, so you get the idea).

Over 9000 regular readers read this blog, thank you.

There is a new forum linked to the right that is just up and hopefully will be running with people of those varying opinions posting on virtually any subject - the forum is set up as an ultra forum in which all groups and interests can have a say except the haters and the fear mongers.
Check them out.

Sage Wisdom

Don't get so busy fighting alligators that you lose sight of your objective.

Say it ain't so, Teddy!

Sen. Edward Kennedy has cancerous brain tumor

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor Tuesday in what could be the grim final chapter in a life marked by exhilarating triumph and shattering tragedy. Some experts gave the liberal lion less than a year to live.

Doctors discovered the tumor after the 76-year-old senator and sole surviving son of America's most storied political family suffered a seizure over the weekend. The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962, and came as a shock to a family all too accustomed to sudden, calamitous news.

"Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy family have faced adversity more times in more instances with more courage and more determination and more grace than most families have to," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "Every one of us knows what a big heart this fellow has. He's helped millions and millions of people - from the biggest of legislation on the floor to the most personal."

Kerry added: "This guy is one unbelievable fighter."

Kennedy's doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said he had a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe, a region of the brain that helps govern sensation, movement and language.

Seizures can be caused by a wide variety of things, some of them relatively minor. The finding of a brain tumor - and specifically a glioma, an especially lethal type - was about the worst possible news.

Kennedy's doctors said he will remain in the hospital for the next couple of days as they consider chemotherapy and radiation. They did not mention surgery, a possible indication the tumor is inoperable.

Outside experts gave him no more than three years - and perhaps far less.

"As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year," said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

In a statement, Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of neurology at Massachusetts General, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy's primary physician, said the senator "has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition, and is up and walking around the hospital."

"He remains in good spirits and full of energy," the physicians said.

An Associated Press photographer who was given access to the senator on Tuesday captured Kennedy, dressed in a gray sweater and dark slacks, joking and laughing with family members as he sat at a table in a family room at the hospital.

Kennedy's wife since 1992, Vicki, and his five children and stepchildren have been at his bedside.

"Obviously it's tough news for any son to hear," said Robin Costello, a spokeswoman for one of Kennedy's sons, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I. "He's comforted by the fact that his dad is such a fighter, and if anyone can get through something as challenging as this, it would be his father."

Kennedy, the Senate's second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat 145 to 160 days afterward.

Among the potential Democratic candidates: Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general; Rep. Edward J. Markey; former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, Kennedy's nephew; and Kennedy's wife. The Republican contenders could include former Gov. Mitt Romney or former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey.

Kennedy has left his stamp on a raft of health care, pension and immigration legislation during four decades in the Senate.

Senators of both parties heard about Kennedy's condition during their weekly, closed-door policy lunches, and some looked drawn or misty-eyed.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving member of the Senate, wept as he prayed for "my dear, dear friend, dear friend, Ted Kennedy" during a speech on the Senate floor.

"Keep Ted here for us and for America," said the 90-year-old Byrd, who is in a wheelchair. He added: "Ted, Ted, Ted. My dear friend. I love you and miss you."

"I'm really sad. He's the one politician who brings tears to my eyes when he speaks," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who happened to be in the Capitol.

In a statement, President Bush saluted Kennedy as "a man of tremendous courage, remarkable strength and powerful spirit." He added: "We join our fellow Americans in praying for his full recovery."

Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year. In general, half of all patients die within a year.

"It's treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it's not a curable tumor," said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The Kennedy family has been struck by tragedy over and over. Kennedy's eldest brother, Joseph, died in a World War II plane crash; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The tragedies thrust "Uncle Teddy" into the role of surrogate parent to his brothers' children. He walked Caroline Kennedy down the aisle.

A high point in his life came in 1980, when Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination. He eventually bowed out with a stirring speech in which he declared, "The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." His eulogy for his brother Robert was equally stirring.

The low point was 1969, when Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha's Vineyard. The accident killed aide Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy at the time was married to his first wife, Joan, whom he later divorced. His failure to promptly report the accident, and questions about his relationship with the young woman, may well have cost him the presidency.

Kennedy has been active for his age, maintaining an aggressive schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Sen. Barack Obama.

"He fights for what he thinks is right. And we want to make sure that he's fighting this illness," Obama said Tuesday. "And it's our job now to support him in the way that he has supported us for so many years."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said: "Ted Kennedy's courage and resolve are unmatched, and they have made him one of the greatest legislators in Senate history. Our thoughts are with him and Vicki and we are praying for a quick and full recovery."

Last summer, Kennedy announced a deal with a publisher to write a memoir, scheduled to come out in 2010.

Court News

Authorities find investigator's body near Charlotte, N.C.

Authorities searching a wooded area on Tuesday found the body of a North Carolina insurance investigator who prosecutors believe was killed by the owner of an agency she was auditing.

Police had been looking for 44-year-old Sallie Rohrbach since she was reported missing Friday. Michael Howell, 40, has been charged with first-degree murder in her death.

Charlotte Police and Chrissy Pearson, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Insurance, confirmed the body's identity.

"We are devastated that all hope is lost, but we also find a sense of closure in knowing that we can lay to rest our dear friend and colleague with the dignity and respect she deserves," Pearson said.

Her body was found near Fort Mill, S.C., about 25 miles away from Howell's Dilworth Insurance Agency in Charlotte.

Rohrbach traveled nearly 170 miles from Raleigh last week and planned to spend several days auditing the agency. When family and co-workers didn't hear from her by late last week, they called police.

Authorities said Rohrbach's slaying was connected to her duties as an auditor, and that evidence was found in both her car and Howell's vehicle. They have released little other information, including a suspected cause of death.

Earlier Tuesday, Howell made an initial court appearance, where a judge denied his request for a public defender.

Public defender Susan Weigand appeared with Howell and argued he cannot afford to pay for two attorneys, as he would be entitled as a defendant in a capital murder case.

The request was denied. District Court Judge Bill Constangy - citing Howell's $6,000 monthly income and $7,200 in expenses - ruled he has enough income to pay for his own defense.

Gas Prices

And to think some idiots are still clamoring for four mores year of this!

Angel Oak

Angel Oak

Angel Oak is a Southern live oak tree located in Angel Oak Park, in Charleston, South Carolina, on Johns Island, one of South Carolina's Sea Islands. It is estimated to be over 1500 years old, standing 65 feet tall, 9 feet in diameter, and the crown covers an area of 17,000 square feet. Its longest limb is 89 feet in length.

The Angel Oak is thought to be one of the oldest living things east of the Mississippi River. Acorns from the Angel Oak have grown to produce authentic direct-offspring trees. Its limbs, the size of tree trunks themselves, are so large and heavy that some of them rest on the ground (some even drop underground for a few feet and then come back up), a feature common to only the very oldest live oaks.

It has survived countless hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and human interference. Angel Oak was damaged severely during Hurricane Hugo but has since recovered.

In the spring and summer there are numerous artistic events, including the "Evening Under the Angel Oak" series, which feature music, dramatic presentations, and various other activities, especially during the Spoleto Festival in May/June

Calling'em On Their Nonsense

Man's rare ability may unlock secret of memory

Give Brad Williams a date, and he can usually tell you not only what he was doing but what world events happened that day. He can do this for almost every day of his life.

Williams is one of only three people in the world identified with this off-the-charts autobiographical memory, according to researchers at the University of California-Irvine who gave the condition its name: hyperthymestic syndrome, from the Greek words for excessive (hyper) and remembering (thymesis).

Unlike most people whose memories fade with time, much of Williams' life is etched indelibly in his mind.

"It's just there," said Williams, 51, who reports the news for a family of radio stations in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

The California researchers are studying Williams and the two others with hyperthymestic syndrome, a man in Ohio and woman in California, hoping to gain new insights into how a superior memory works.

The goal of the study is to find a way to help people with failing memory.

Williams didn't realize how exceptional his memory was until his brother Eric told him about an article published two years ago in the journal Neurocase, describing a woman referred to by the initials, A.J.

"My brother in California saw this and said, 'She sounds like you. Why don't we talk to the folks at Irvine?'" Williams said.

At Irvine, researchers quizzed Williams, as they have the two other hyperthymestics, about a series of dates, asking for the corresponding event, and vice-versa.

"The speed with which they do this is part of why I find this so amazing because it seems to indicate there's no -- or not much -- intentional calculation going on. It's boom, boom, boom, there's the answer," said Larry Cahill, a fellow at the university's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. "Remember, these are questions they had no idea what we're going to ask them."

Now researchers are using an MRI to create three-dimensional pictures of the hyperthymestic brain. They want to see whether any brain structures differ in size, compared with the average brain.

Cahill and his colleagues are still going over the results but it appears some structures in the prefrontal cortex are substantially larger in hyperthymestics. The prefrontal cortex sits at the front of the brain and has been associated with complex thinking, not learning or memory.

Cahill said he hoped others with this extraordinary ability will come forward.

"I hope that we can identify as many of these people as possible because the more we identify and the more we study the greater the likelihood that we are going to really figure out fundamental new things about brains and memory that we would have never figured out without them," Cahill said.

Flipping through a family photo album with him it was astonishing how much Williams recalled, going back decades.

Asked about one black and white picture taken in the Badlands of South Dakota, he remembered exactly when it was taken: Tuesday, July 28, 1964, the same day as a trip to Mount Rushmore. He also remembered that the temperature reached 100 degrees and that they tried to keep Funny Face drinks cool in a Thermos in the back of the car.

Cahill said Williams and the other hyperthymestics don't do any better than average on standard memory tests, nor are they savants, a condition where one extraordinary mental ability is accompanied by deficits in other areas.

In this age of instant information, what can you do with phenomenal recall?

"I don't really know. I've thought about it for years," said Williams, the 1969 Wisconsin Spelling Bee champion. Williams appeared on "Jeopardy!" but finished second.

For now, Williams said he is content knowing research into his memory might help others. "That would be the ultimate goal."

Even now this is more

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 15 May 2008 at 04:01:25 PM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 303,993,809
so each citizen's share of this debt is $30,834.60. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.59 billion per day since September 28, 2007!
Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!

If

If you can keep your head when all about
you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself
when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you
can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in
lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too
good, nor talk too wise:
,

If you can dream - and not make dreams your
master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can
meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the
same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves
to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to,
broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your
winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and
start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your
loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn
long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in
you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your
virtue,
Or walk with kings
and run with the poorest of the poor,
then you can be as I
and not before.

Baby Boomer Fun

Baby Boomers 1946 - 1964 click here to find out what happened in the world when you were born

Familial Coat of Arms

Life on Mars?

Fingerprints for ID demanded from a woman without arms

News of the Stupid

From the Johannesburg , South Africa, office:

The department of home affairs has failed to put in place a system that will help people with disabilities to get identity documents, the SA Human Rights Commission said.

Spokesman Vincent Moaga said the commission was concerned the department had requested that a woman with no arms could not get an ID unless she was fingerprinted.

Victoria Modise, 37, of Diepkloof Zone, Soweto, who lost her ID last year, applied for a replacement but was told she needed to be fingerprinted.

Moaga said the commission was deeply concerned by this incident.

He said the department should refer to international practice and follow suit.

“Home Affairs should look at international practices and see what system can be put in place to assist people with disabilities to get their IDs.”

Moaga said despite the commission meeting the department of home affairs last year to discuss these issues, not much had been done.

*****

And to think incidents such as these are actually commonplace everywhere. That is scary.