My sister just told me that it’s snowing in Salem, OR. Salem rarely gets snow during winter,usually it just rains from Sept thru May. I don’t think it’s snowed there in spring in the past century. Must be Global Warming.

You think it might just be the usual Gore snow job?

Important New Legislation!

WASHINGTON , DC–Congress is considering sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for many Americans. The Americans with No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

“Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society,” said California Senator Barbara Boxer. “We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing.”

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons of Inability.

Private-sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement “warehouse” stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has a great record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%)

Under the Americans with No Abilities Act, more than 25 million “middle man” positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance. Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees.

The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle- management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium- sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNAA Act contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Non-abled–banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as “Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?” “As a Non-abled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,” said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, due to her lack of any discernible job skills. “This new law should really help people like me.” With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Ted Kennedy: “As a Senator with No Abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation.”

Colt’s grip on military rifle market called bad deal

Coburn is the M4’s harshest and most vocal critic. But his concern is shared by others, who point to the “SCAR,” made by Belgian armorer FN Herstal, and the HK416, produced by Germany’s Heckler & Koch, as possible contenders. Both weapons cost about the same as the M4, their manufacturers say.

Just what we need foreign contractors supplying our basic weapons. What next give a Russian company the contract for our comm gear?

Senile or idiot? You be the judge.

In his case, both with a certain amount of evil duplicity on top.

Senile or idiot? You be the judge.

In his case, both with a certain amount of evil duplicity on top.

Good ol’ Jimmuh, Billy’s older-but-dimmer brother, continues to mildly amaze with his dedication to the principle of “Ah Nevah Met A Dictatuh Ah Didn’t Like, Nor A Terrorist Ah Won’t Kiss On Both Cheeks”…

…Carter said he would write a report on his trip and send it to the Bush administration.

Should be useful - they can likely always use some free toilet paper at the White House.

(Sorry if this double posts)

The Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed space official as saying that the capsule entered the atmosphere improperly, with the hatch first, instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage.

This isn’t getting much attention but, if it’s true, this was nearly a loss of crew event. The first reports only indicated that the capsule entered on a ballistic trajectory possibly due to a failure of the automatic re-entry guidance system. While this is serious enough, it is not considered a life threatening situation.

However, if the Soyuz came in bass ackwards, it is likely that the service module did not jettison properly preventing a proper orientation of the capsule until the heat of re-entry burned through what ever was keeping the service module attached. This isn’t the first time this has happened but, to my knowledge, it is the first time since Soyuz began returning American astronauts from the ISS.

American Election 2008 – View from Denmark

I’m sorry that I cannot give the link or proper attribution to this comment. It appears as a comment on this website attributed to ‘Paul’ - http://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/04/and-hillary-gets-her-10-point-margin.html. The article is about H. Clinton’s victory in PA.

‘We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a b*tch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a b*tch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?’

Going blind but staying healthy.

Heh.

I guess I’d better close down DP, then. Given that it’s going on seven years of proof of my retardation.

If it saves one eye, Alfred….

hey bill,
i just finished reading “the utility of force” by retired british general rupert smith. he is being hailed as a modern day clausewitz. i’m not sure if i would go that far but he certainly updated clausewitz for modern day war to include COIN. if you have time, you should pick up a copy. it will give you some perspective on the fighting in iraq that is quite different from codevilla.

Hey Bob, check with marketing - did we promise this in the brochure???

Some Patients Say Life After Lasik Not Perfect

…about 5 percent of patients are not satisfied with their results. Some have minor, temporary complaints, while others report long-term complications.

Alfred, as long as I live, I will never understand the mind-set of some people sheeple.

I’ve worn eyeglasses just about all of my life, since age 7 or thereabouts. Early-on, I tried contacts - briefly - and found I wasn’t comfortable with them; tried them a couple of times since, same result - and now, age-related astigmatism plus a couple of other minor things have made the issue moot.

As soon as it was announced, I looked into laser eye surgery for correction. Essentially, same story - not a good idea for me. I simply decided, in this case, that the highly-likely result was not worth taking the amount of risk involved that I might end up with the less-likely but irreversible poorer results instead. There are no guarantees, no sure-thing, can’t-miss, works-every-time surgical correction techniques for eyes.

If it was a matter of surgery being the alternative to losing sight - yeah, o.k., doc, bring it on. But, simply to avoid the inconveniences inherent in eyeglasses? I don’t think so - not if the very real possibility is there for “halo” or “starburst” effects for the rest of my life (or some even worse possibilities). Thanks all the same, but I’ll live with glasses.

Given the amount of available information on the subject (and the published, clear-cut warnings that are inherent in the info), I can’t begin to fathom how someone would put the only set of eyes they’ve got at risk without a full understanding, all questions answered and affirmative acceptance of the risks involved. Yet, some will still (apparently) do it - then whine to anyone who will listen about “not being told.”

Amazing - and annoying.

The Silent Scream of Asparagus

And down the slippery slope we go.

This is an example of the serious debate mentioned in the article. Read the abstract and be afraid…

…Every single time I go to an eye doctor, he recommends Lasik. Every time. I’m a “perfect” candidate…

My take is, there are three possibilities: 1) You’re seeing the wrong doctor; 2) The doc wants to sell you some Lasik surgery (lotta gold in them thar laserbeams); 3) both of the above.

YMMV, but…

My former ophthalmologist (MD, specialist in eyecare) in MI was/is an ex-engineer, definitely on the conservative side - I saw him at least annually for around 15 years - I asked him for his take on correctional eye surgery several times over the years. The answer was always the same: “Your decision to make - just remember, there’s no going back or “do-overs”, and you’ve only got one set of eyes. Read the literature carefully, then decide.”

For me, a doctor (of any kind) is not really good for me, if he actively advocates doing something that has serious consequences if things go south. “First of all, do no harm…”, and all that, y’know?

I’ve never been real fond of “cosmetic” surgery (and I think any flavor of corrective eye surgery primarily to avoid wearing eyeglasses qualifies); I have precious little patience with sheeple who indulge in same, then moan when the results come out on the down-side of the demographics.

I’ve no patience to lose on someone who advocates for Lasik (or any of the other flavors) in the face of the odds involved.

Pushback?

Can’t they take no for an answer?

I don’t think they know what no means. They probably think it’s short for New Orleans.

I bought an iBook about a year ago, and decided that my inner Mac fanboy needed to be set free; that with this machine, I would, finally, have at least one of my decks free from anything remotely Redmond, so I went OpenOffice instead of that bloated, buggy BS that Billy Boy sells.

Have never looked back.

Andrew, I’ve had the same problem with Quicken and Linux - a real barrier, because both Quicken and Telechart (a subscription stock-charting program I use) are essential to me.

I fiinally found a solution: A free Windows emulator called “VirtualBox” works like a charm on Ubuntu, and runs every Windows program I’ve thrown at it without a hitch - specifically Quicken and Telechart.

Virtual Box finally made Linux completely usable for me.

The problem with OOo is that it doesn’t support a lot of entrerprisy things. Where I work now, Office has been hacked at with a rusty axe until it provides all the document management we need. That’s not really possible with OOo yet.

However, I’ve been writing my masters thesis for the last year or so on OOo writer, and it works just fine. The only problem is that there is no good visio analog for Linux. I’ve tried everything, and they all fail for one reason or another. This is kind of a big deal for me.

I haven’t tried v3 yet, but I think it just went to public beta, and I’ve heard good things.

Bill, you should look into Jungle Disk. It’s cheap to buy, storage uses Amazon E3, which is about 1-3 orders of magnitude cheaper than most other data storage plans, and has a more reputable name/history than other companies I can think of. It’s how I’ve been protecting my thesis for a about 2 months, and it’s cost me less than a buck for the storage.

Muslims can more easily support Obama if being an apostate is less of a sin? I know it’s a reach.

But then, after acknowledging that most Palestinians do not support peaceful coexistence with Israel, Rice argued that Israel must give them more land, more guns and more money because as she sees it, now is the time for a Palestinian state and…

WTF? Land, guns and money were given to them once already, and what is there to show for it?

Now is not the time for a Palestinian state, because at this point in time the Palestinians haven’t proven by their actions that they deserve one.

Nor is the expulsion of Germans from Sudetenland about to be reversed. In view of this well-established international custom, the Arabs are illegal occupiers and merit expulsion.

Indeed, UN Security Council Resolution 248 sought to counter that normal result: expulsion of agressor nationals from territory captured in a defensive war.

the encouraging part of this article is that the Saudi paymasters want it to happen… so maybe it will.

Looks to me as if you got at least $100 worth of wood, regardless of whether the speakers work (and they look to be in good shape at that!)

…did I do good or did I waste money?

Tell you what - if you feel like you wasted your $20, I’ll double it for the pair, as-is, and you can ship them to me in NC - plus, I’ll pay the UPS shipping…

And I don’t even know where you live.