Month: May 2006

From down under Down Under, this wonderful news:

Two Australian miners trapped a kilometer underground for 14 days walked out of the mine on Tuesday defiantly thrusting their arms into the air after rescuers reached them shortly before dawn.

Miners Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, wearing mining helmets with their lamps shining brightly and yellow jackets walked confidently to a large board and removed their name cards — declaring they had ended their shift underground.

Their wives quickly rushed to hug them before scores of rescuers descended on them hugging and shaking hands.

“This is the great escape. This is the biggest escape from the biggest prison we have, the planet,” said Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten.

Hurrah for the rescuers!

Hurrah for the resilience of the rescued ones!

And praise God!

I call this a huge step in the wrong direction — Israel reveals plan to divide Jerusalem:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party is drafting a plan to divide Jerusalem by unilaterally withdrawing from some of the city’s neighborhoods and making special arrangements for key holy sites, a top party official announced in an interview yesterday.

“We will not divide Jerusalem, we will share it,” Kadima lawmaker Otniel Schneller told the Associated Press.

Most Jerusalem neighborhoods with large Arab populations would be given to the Palestinians, he said.

From Reuters via Yahoo! News: Study: US mothers deserve $134,121 in salary — but I agree with Kristen:

“You can’t put a dollar value on it. It’s worth a lot more,” said Kristen Krauss, 35, as she hurriedly packed her four children, all aged under 8, into a minivan in New York while searching frantically for her keys. “Just look at me.”

Employed mothers reported spending on average 44 hours a week at their outside job and 49.8 hours at their home job, while the stay-at-home mother worked 91.6 hours a week, it showed.

An estimated 5.6 million women in the United States are stay-at-home mothers with children under age 15, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

God bless them all!

And may their children and husbands honor, bless, respect, love, and help them all.

What kind of normal sense does this make?

Washington usually allows Taiwan leaders to enter the United States in transit, but refuses official visits so as not to offend China, which claims sovereignty over the island.

This time, however, he would not even be allowed to stay overnight, making it the worst treatment a Taiwan leader has received during a transit stop in 12 years.

The apparent snub was a blow for Chen, whose stopover plan China had warned Washington not to approve. It raised questions about the self-ruled island’s ties with its most important ally and chief arms supplier.

Somehow, this seems petty. Rude. Silly. Dumb. Spineless.

Yeah, that. Spineless.

Obviously I don’t know about global diplomacy stuff.

“China rules, dude. China rocks. Mock Taiwan.”

(Or something like that.)

Hangs up, shaking his head.