Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
| “What a privilege to meet someone to whom God has entrusted such grief.” |
I read that on WorldMagBlog toward the end of Andrée Seu’s Roses in December.
Believing that sure requires a change in perspective.
And a declaraction of faith in and acceptance of the wisdom and love and grace of God.
1980 — Ruby Yoder married me and thus became the Mrs. Roth she still is.
1988 — The national Rush Limbaugh Show starts.
2006 — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejects a UN Security Council resolution that gives his nation until August 31 (2006, of course) to suspend uranium enrichment. 🙄
2007 — An Interstate bridge collapses into the Mississippi.
2008 — Thousands of people gather across Arctic regions, Siberia and China to see a total eclipse of the sun, despite Chinese warnings that it could augur bad luck.
2008 — The United States reaffirms a weekend deadline for Iran to answer an international offer to freeze its nuclear drive. 😯
2008 — A German medical team announces it had performed (on July 25-26) what it called the world’s first transplant of two full arms, on a farmer who (six years ago) had lost both his limbs in an accident.
I meant to post this yesterday, but I’ve been too busy with Anabaptist Bookstore and Reaching Out Magazine:
| Obama energy policy: ‘Inflate your tires’
"There are things you can do individually, though, to save energy," Obama said. "Making sure your tires are properly inflated – simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling – if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You'd actually save just as much!" |
This is stunning.
No wonder Congress shut down yesterday for their five-week break without doing whatever it was they were supposed to do about the “energy crisis.”
They just inflated their tires and away they went, saving oil so no more drilling would have to be done.
Somehow, that sounds like a perpetual motion machine.
PS: What if Dan Quayle had said that?
Maybe I should. But I don’t.
Here, though, are some people that do:
And here is some of what WorldNetDaily has to say about the matter:
| “McDonald’s says they ‘stand by and support our people to live and work in a society free of discrimination and harassment,'” the AFA said. However, “Here is what they won’t tell you. McDonald’s helped sponsor the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.”
The American Family Association asked McDonald’s to remain neutral in the culture war. The company refused, “stating they will continue to support the gay agenda including same-sex marriage,” the AFA said. McDonald’s spokesman Bill Whitman even told the Washington Post people, including Christians, who oppose homosexual marriage are motivated by “hate.” “The boycott is not about hiring homosexuals or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald’s choosing to put the full resources of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda,” AFA said. The issue erupted after McDonald’s paid $20,000 and installed one of its executives on the board of the National “Gay” and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. The AFA now is asking consumers to sign a boycott petition and contact their local restaurant managers to raise objections over the company’s activism. […] AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said, “It’s a shame that McDonald’s would tarnish their family-friendly image. But the company has ramped up its support of the gay agenda and it leaves us no option but to call for a boycott.” |
I don’t agree with McDonald’s on this one.
And I imagine I wouldn’t agree with AIT, WalMart, Safeway, ARCO, Burger King, Taco Bell, BiMart, True Value, Circuit City, Quill, Yoder Store, UPS, USAirways, Honda, Chevrolet, Dell, Verizon, Canby TelCom, and Portland International Airport on some things either. Perhaps even on some very important things.
Shall I boycott them all?
Then with whom shall I do business?
Black U.S. AIDS rates rival some African nations
| The AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in some parts of the United States is as severe as in parts of Africa, according to a report out Tuesday.
[…] “AIDS in America today is a black disease,” says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute and himself HIV-positive for 20 years. […] Although black people represent only about one in eight Americans, one in every two people living with HIV in the United States is black, the report notes. […] AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between ages 25 and 34. It’s the second-leading cause of death in black men 35-44. […] “Five percent of the entire population (in DC) is infected… that’s comparable to countries like Uganda or South Africa,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN for the recent “Black in America” documentary. According to this report, if black Americans made up their own country, it would rank above Ethiopia (420,000 to 1,300,000) and below Ivory Coast (750,000) in HIV population. |
This is amazing!
Why has this segment of the population become so infected?
I remember the pre-Google days when AltaVista was The Best Search Engine.
Is this the dawn of post-Google days?
| Cuil Press Release
MENLO PARK, Calif.—July 28, 2008—Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil (www.Cuil.com) has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine. Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category. Cuil gives users a richer display of results and offers organizing features, such as tabs to clarify subjects, images to identify topics and search refining suggestions to help guide users to the results they seek. “The Web continues to grow at a fantastic rate and other search engines are unable to keep up with it,” said Tom Costello, CEO and co-founder of Cuil. “Our significant breakthroughs in search technology have enabled us to index much more of the Internet, placing nearly the entire Web at the fingertips of every user. In addition, Cuil presents searchers with content-based results, not just popular ones, providing different and more insightful answers that illustrate the vastness and the variety of the Web.” |
So Cuil has some “significant breakthroughs,” eh?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
And test and see.
I suspect must of his fellow-Senators don’t think so, but I think Mr. Coburn is a hero in this regard:
| Senate’s ‘Dr. No’ Spurs Showdown Over Spending
Instead of a keepsake photo of a political hero or his family, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has a large framed picture next to his desk that serves as a constant reminder of his political ideology. Inside the black frame and matting is a single word, in large white letters: "No." Coburn has become best known as the lawmaker who says no — no to increased funding for unsolved civil rights crimes, no to creation of a national registry for victims of the disease ALS, no to more money for child pornography prosecutions. Using every parliamentary tactic at his disposal, Coburn has tied the Senate in so many knots that Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has decided on an extraordinary tactic: He will devote most of the Senate's time this week to breaking the one-man stranglehold. Rolling 35 bills into one omnibus package, Reid will try to leap all of Coburn's parliamentary hurdles at once and win approval for dozens of programs worth more than $10 billion. "For those of you who may not know this," Reid told reporters recently, "you cannot negotiate with Coburn. It's just something that you learn over the years . . . is a waste of time." Most of the bills, including a child pornography law that passed the House 409 to 0 in November, are so noncontroversial that they would normally sail through on voice votes, with no roll call taken. But not while "Dr. No" is in the Senate. […] Coburn said his colleagues have lost appreciation for the broad national interest and instead hope to pass legislation in their names so they can win reelection. "When you take that oath, it doesn't say anything about your state," he said. "The parochialism needs to die." |
Why does the whole article kind tickle me? 😀
Cheers for Senator Coburn!