If you like Ken Burns' documentaries on The Civil War, Jazz and Baseball, and who doesn't? This little known documentary is a must see.
Crow: I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.There you have it, the meridian of liberal theory and innovation.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra was performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In the piece, there's a long passage, about 20 minutes, during which the bass violinists have nothing to do. Rather than sit around that whole time looking stupid, some bassists decided to sneak offstage and go to the tavern next door for a drink. After slamming several beers in quick succession, one of them looked at his watch. "Hey! We need to get back!" he cried. "No need to panic," said a fellow bassist. "I thought we might need some extra time, so I tied the last few pages of the conductor's score together with string. It'll take him a few minutes to get it untangled." A few moments later, the drunk musicians staggered back into the concert hall and took their places in the orchestra. About this time, a member of the audience noticed the conductor seemed a bit edgy. She pointed this out to her date. "Well, of course," said her companion. "Don't you see? It's the bottom of the Ninth, the score is tied, and the bassists are loaded."
What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose,
are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such
as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today’s supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.
On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: "You need to get out of the building."Here's the rest of the article.
Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn.
It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself...
I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out...
Rosie O’ Donnell making such a claim on a major network is a national disgrace. The fact that much of the audience cheered and applauded is nothing less than a national catastrophe...(link via Glenn Reynolds)
"This is the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel," she said. This is a statement of such pristine and perfect idiocy that it surely must be emblazoned in stone across the entrance to the Physics Imbecile wing of the Moron Museum of Natural History. But mastery of physics and engineering requires some intelligence, some perseverance and some discipline: none of which are in evidence in this buffoon. Everything is a conspiracy to a mind this far gone. The 15 British sailors kidnapped at sea? All a plan by our evil (but incompetent!) government to get the next war it so desperately needs. “Gulf of Tonkin! Google It, people!” she said on national TV.
And I will, Rosie. I promise. As soon as I finish googling MAD COW DISEASE.
I will make the point yet again because I believe it is the crux of the issue: what kind of moral universe do you have to inhabit to be able to believe that your own people... are capable of such a thing? How much hate for your own society do you have to carry in order to live in such a desolate and ridiculous mental hell? What psychoses must a mind be riddled with in order to negate what was perfectly obvious and instead believe a theory of such monumental fantasy? How much pure constant hatred does that take?
What, in short, is the miserable black hole of self-loathing that drives a person like Rosie O’Donnell and millions like her?
The accident occured when a waiter topped up a flaming chorizo sausage dish with rum. A woman diner was left with horrific burns after a Portuguese sausage dish exploded in her face. The victim was eating with friends when the accident took place at the Sporting Clube de Londres in west London.
Restaurant owner Rui Daniel Faria Velosa was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs for breaching safety rules. Witnesses described how the flaming chorizo sausage dish burnt out of control when a waiter topped it up with rum at a table packed with people.
The woman, who spent two weeks in hospital and has since undergone two skin graft operations, said it was like being hit by a "flame-thrower".
To be scarred for life by a stupid comment by some buffoon who doesn't even know you, is absurd. I think these ladies will find it's better to wear slippers than to carpet the world.During the entire four years of his Academy term Davis was shunned by his classmates, few of whom spoke to him outside the line of duty. He never had a roommate. He ate by himself. His classmates hoped that this would drive him out of the academy. The "silent treatment" had the opposite effect. It made Davis more determined to graduate.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Three Yale University students, including a Briton and a Greek national, have been charged in a case involving the burning of a U.S. flag outside a Connecticut house, a court official said on Wednesday.
Said Hyder Akbar, 23, Nikolaos Angelopoulos, 19, and Farhad Anklesaria, 19, were arrested on Tuesday and charged in New Haven Superior Court with reckless
endangerment, arson, breach of peace, criminal mischief and other offenses
BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Argentina clung to its claim of sovereignty over Britain's Falkland Islands Monday as the two countries marked the 25th anniversary of their war over the small Atlantic islands.
Vice President Daniel Scioli reaffirmed the government's goal of winning control of the Falklands, which Argentina calls the Malvinas, in a speech before war veterans in Ushuaia, the world's southernmost city.
"The war has not changed the reality: the Malvinas are Argentine, they have always been and they always will be," Scioli said in the capital of Tierra del Fuego province, which would oversee the Malvinas.
"We will recover what is ours," he said at the main ceremony marking the anniversary, attended by hundreds of people. Scioli also urged Britain to sit down for negotiations on the islands.
Law enforcement has the legal and moral obligation to use every tool available to solve and prevent crime. Let's ask the next victim of a serial rapist if we should tip toe around the alleged privacy concerns of incarcerated felons and their blood relatives.There's a new saying in law enforcement circles these days: don't do the crime if your brother's doing time. And the reason for that is the power of DNA.
As 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, every state in this country collects DNA from convicted felons and loads it into computer databases, all linked together by the FBI. When detectives find DNA at a crime scene, they run it through that database looking for a perfect match. You see this on crime shows all the time.
But sometimes a search yields a not so perfect match – a partial match, in which case it's clear that the felon in the database did not commit the crime. But the DNA is so similar, maybe their father, mother, or brother did.
Which raises a dilemma: should police start investigating those family members, or is that going too far?
ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek tavern owner who tried to break up a fight between customers watching a Greece-Turkey soccer match had both ears bitten off, police said on Wednesday.
