Word of the Day

undulant \UN-juh-lunt; UN-dyuh-\, adjective:
Resembling waves in form, motion, or occurrence.

Quote of the Day

I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.

An English Professor, Ohio University

Comic of the Day

Herman by Jim Unger

Word of the Day

excursus \ik-SKUR-sus\, noun:
1. A dissertation that is appended to a work and that contains a more extended exposition of some important point or topic.
2. A digression.

Quote of the Day

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Comic of the Day

Andy Capp by Reg Smythe

Word of the Day

presentiment \prih-ZEN-tuh-muhnt\, noun:
A sense that something will or is about to happen; a premonition.

Quote of the Day

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.

Wilson Mizner (1876 - 1933)

Comic of the Day

 

Marmaduke by Brad Anderson

That got your attention, eh?

CNN.

A Texas legislator has proposed that pregnant women considering abortion be offered $500 not to end their pregnancies.

Apparently the going rate for an infant is $500. I would’ve expected more…

This is a lame sad pathetic attempt to pre-empt abortion. If you want to criminalize abortion, then do it. Do not come up with a scheme that will only make everything much worse.

“If this incentive would give pause and change the mind of 5 percent of those women, that’s 3,000 lives. That’s almost as many people as we’ve lost in Iraq,” Patrick said.

3,000 lives. Indeed, it is almost as many as we’ve lost in Iraq. But, with an adoption system already holding thousands of children waiting for adoption, why would you want to double that number? Who would care for these children? Who would pay for their care? The state i.e. the taxpayer?

This is a bad idea. It’s a pathetic scheme that (hopefully) has less than a zero percent chance for passage.

Heather Paffe, political director of Planned Parenthood of Texas, said Patrick’s proposal “is very cynical and insulting to women and their families.”

“It’s insulting to think women would make that kind of decision so easily,” she said.

Yes…Insulting. And that’s more polite than what I’m thinking…

Interpretive dance.

I’m not a tremendous fan of Natalie Imbruglia or her music, but, as my best friend says…

She’s got the look I like…Cheap!

Iran kidnapped/apprehended/captured several British Sailors and Marines and haven’t given them back…

British Prime Minister Blair isn’t too happy with that…

Reuters.

“What we are trying to do … is to pursue this through the diplomatic channels and make the Iranian government understand these people have to be released and that there is absolutely no justification whatever for holding them,” Blair said.

“They have to release them. If not, then this will move into a different phase,” he told Britain’s GMTV television.

What’s that next step, I wonder?

According to a Blair aide quoted in the article, it means publishing evidence that the captured British were not in Iranian waters. The U.K. has some GPS records that can prove it.

As if the occupation of Iraq and now this capture of the British doesn’t make things tense enough, the U.S. is showing a tremendous amount of force in the Persian Gulf by holding combined arms exercises.

Two Navy aircraft carrier groups and associated aircraft are performing simulated attacks. The force is massive.

Overall, the exercises involve more than 10,000 U.S. personnel on warships and aircraft making simulated attacks on enemy shipping with aircraft and ships, hunting enemy submarines and finding mines.

Hopefully, they’ll get their exercise and leave without having to perform combat strikes.

Added on update:

U.S. exercise in Persian Gulf is “no coincidence.”

U.S. naval officials in Bahrain told ABC News that the operation was hastily planned after the 15 Britons were seized Friday, yet the Bush administration would not say publicly that this is the case.

I guess the cat’s out of the bag on that one?

Technorati tags: Fox News, Reuters, Iran, United Kingdom, Prime Minister Tony Blair, navy aircraft carrier groups

del.icio.us tags: Fox News, Reuters, Iran, United Kingdom, Prime Minister Tony Blair, navy aircraft carrier groups

Word of the Day

roborant \ROB-uh-ruhnt\, adjective:
1. Strengthening; restoring vigor.

noun:
1. A strengthening medicine; a tonic; a restorative.

Quote of the Day

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Comic of the Day

Brevity by guy & rodd

The Washington Post.

Witnesses have told congressional investigators that the chief of the General Services Administration and a deputy in Karl Rove’s political affairs office at the White House joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, who discussed ways to help Republican candidates.

Ok. Doesn’t seem so bad, right? Except that the Hatch Act prohibits Federal Employees from doing some political stuff.

When Jennings concluded his presentation to the GSA political appointees, Doan allegedly asked them how they could “help ‘our candidates’ in the next elections,” according to a March 6 letter to Doan from Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Waxman said in the letter that one method suggested was using “targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country.”

That’s one of those prohibited acts, in case you were curious.

The committee is also expected to question Doan about her attempt to give a no-bid job to a friend and professional associate last summer. In addition, the committee plans to look at Waxman’s charge that Doan “intervened” in a troubled technology contract with Sun Microsystems that could cost taxpayers millions more than necessary.

That doesn’t violate the Hatch Act, it’s just plain illegal.

Word of the Day

autochthonous \aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs\, adjective:
1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native.
2. Formed or originating in the place where found.

Quote of the Day

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Comic of the Day

Soup to Nutz by Rick Stromoski

My overall emotional response from the Young Democrats of North Carolina convention is “Wow.”

My intellectual response is “Other young Democrats have the same problems as I and if we work together, we can overcome the obstacles.”

Why the two reactions? Why those particular reactions? Follow the jump.

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