I dropped into Jungle Jim's today between Football games and I found the Holy Grail. The search is over. After eight years in Ohio I have found Stella Artois. Of course I only have less than two months left here, but what can you do?
The Washington Post may not have great investigative reporters anymore, but their editorials are still spot on. This one by E.J. Dionne Jr called "Where's the Apology?" gets to the crux of he fallout from the Terri Schiavo case in a page and a half.
I'd quote from it, but really it would be just as simple to copy the whole thing and paste it here. Instead I'll just put some quotes from politicians at the time that just sound laughable since the autopsy results.
"I close this evening speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. senator,"
"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office. She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."
"Terri's brother told me Terri laughs, smiles, and tries to speak. That doesn't sound like a woman in a persistent vegetative state."Senator Bill Frist (R-TN)
"Mrs. Schiavo's condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media,"
"Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life-support."Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX)
It's probably not a good idea to call the second most powerful member of a religious fundamentalist terrorist group a moron. So I retract the post below and offer my humble apologies.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi however is a tool in the first degree though and cheats at Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit.
TOOL
Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has released a videotape calling for a Jihad on the United States and Israel.
What a waste of time. I mean who out there doesn't know that Al-Qaeda is not exactly on friendly terms with the infidels in the U.S. and Israel? Is there someone sitting at home in Riyadh, Baghdad or Damascus watching the tape saying to themselves:
"Hmmm, the Jews and the American Crusaders are the enemies of Osama bin Laden. Who knew? I should get out there and help fight them right now"
No, my guess is they are aware of this fact.
Moron
Top 20 US Senators
The blog has been up and running again for about a month now and I think it looks really good. Though I may be biased. In my opinion this is down to three things, all themed around variety:
One more thing, for members of the blog. Sometimes I will alter formating on posts to make them fit with the theme of the blog, or to make pictures fit. But I will never alter text within a post.
In a recent comment Hilary Clinton complained about the lack of proper investigative journalism being practiced today. She said:
The press is missing in action, with all due respect. Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart. I mean, come on, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake. Let's get some spine.'"Tim Russert asked David Broder of the Washington Post about this on Sunday's Meet The Press:
MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, the press corps--was it more tenacious during Watergate, more tenacious against Bill Clinton, or is it people seeing things through their ideological prism--that when you're going after Clinton it's good, going against Bush bad, and vice versa?MR. BRODER: The shortsightedness of Mrs. Clinton's complaint is illustrated by this morning's Washington Post. The front-page story on another memo, this one to Tony Blair's government, about the lack of planning in our government for the postwar period in Iraq. Who does she think is doing this work if not investigative reporters? Give us a break.
Since the children spend most of their days playing with books and soaking up everything I teach them, I've decided to start working with them on a more formal level as pre-schoolers. Ilsa is 18 months old tomorrow and Juliette will be 32 months old on the 25th. The formality is really for me rather than them. They bombard me with questions from their books and play, so I decided that I should just go with their enthusiasm and consider myself their teacher, not just their wrangler. If ignore their demands for knowledge in favor of chores, they do not relent! We'll work in little bursts of interest, following their cues and spacing the instruction throughout the day.
Until now, I hadn't really considered what I would do for pre-school. I had only really considered that offical "school" would begin with Kindergarten. To decide on our subjects, I took the K schedule I had already created, cut out things such as handwriting, and altered the subjects to their current level. Here are the goals we will be working on for the first six months.
Art
Ilsa: learn colors
Both: weekly structured drawing or crafts
English
Ilsa: learn the alphabet; increase general vocabulary and verbal skills w/ books and picture cards
Juliette: continue to expand understanding of phonics and early spelling
Español
Juliette: learn the alphabet; increase general vocabulary and verbal skills w/ books and picture cards
Both: daily language CDs or story tapes; daily read aloud (me) 10-20 mins; weekly movie
Mathematics
Ilsa: memorize numbers to 10; shapes
Juliette: non-sequential numbers through 20 in Español and through 50 in English; quantity evaluation
Music
Both: listen to two composers' CDs daily
Physical Education
Both: at least one hour of outdoor play daily
Reading
Both: daily read aloud (me) two chapters from the illustrated classics
Science
Both: weekly nature walk to look at bugs, trees, clouds etc. for vocabulary in action
Social/Extra
(For now, this is based on our Cincinnati schedule; will be altered and hopefully increased upon our move to Madison)
Both: Tuesday morning Toddler Storytime at the library
I will revisit their progress after the winter holidays to determine our goals for the second half of the school year. This is the first and only time I will post on this blog about our homeschool adventures. For updates, visit Salome's Corner.
SurveyUSA has approval ratings posted for each and every U.S. Senator. Good to see Barack Obama sitting pretty at the top. What I thought was interesting though was that even though several senators have below 50% approval rating (step forward Rick Santorum, Mike DeWine, Ken Bunning, and Tom Coburn) not one has a higher disapproval rating than their approval rating.
Despite this in a recent poll by AP/Ipsos 64% of those asked disapproved of the way Congress is handling its job. Must be all those other Senators/Representatives that are screwing it up.
Of all the sections of my business school application process the one that went the best by far was my GMAT so it's the one part that I actually feel I can give advice on.
In the mail this morning we received the floor plan of our new apartment in Madison so now we're trying to figure out how to fit the stuff in a 1,050 sq ft house into a 600 sq ft apartment. The futon will have to go.
Since my arrival in the United States in July of 1997 I have moved around extensively... within the states of Indiana and Ohio. Despite all this moving around we have only been represented in the House by Republicans. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course. Republicans are people, just like you and me, but usually richer and with a closer working relationship with God.
In 1997 we were represented in Goshen, IN by Mark Souder (R).
Between 1997 and 1998 in Bowling Green, OH by Paul Gillmor (R).
1998 to 2000 in Columbus, OH by Pat Tiberi (R).
2000 to 2002 in Fairfield, OH by John Boehner (R).
and then from 2002 to 2005 in Cincinnati, OH by Steve Chabot (R)
In August we will be represented by Tammy Baldwin (D), the first openly gay person to be elected to the House of Representatives. It's gonna be strange.
On Thursday a house appropriations subcommittee voted to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting 25% in the next year and then eliminating it by the end of the year after.
So Republicans watch your tax cuts in action. Your children will now get their educational programming from Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel.
The Count was last seen working on a spreadsheet trying to discover a way to stretch the Children's Television Workshop funds to cover a full season. $100, ah, ah, ah, ah, $200, ah, ah, ah, ah, $300....
This is wrong on so many levels.
The mother of a 12-year-old boy killed in his own home by one of the family's two pit bulls says she had been so concerned about one of the dogs that she shut her son in the basement to protect him.
Maureen Faibish said she ordered Nicholas to stay in the basement while she did errands on June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs. She said she was worried about the male dog, Rex, who was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.
"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," Faibish said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "And I told him: `Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."
Nicholas apparently found a way to open the basement door.
Despite her concerns about Rex that day, Faibish told the newspaper: "My kids got along great with (the dogs). We were never seeing any kind of violent tendencies."
Faibish found her son's body in a bedroom. He was covered in blood from several wounds, including a major head injury. No charges have been filed.
"It's Nicky's time to go," she said in the interview. "When you're born you're destined to go and this was his time."
Ella was shot to death by a police officer the day of the attack. Rex was taken to a shelter, but Faibish said she wanted him put down.
When I was at University my beer of choice was Stella Artois. This was primarily because it wasn't cheap crap, but it was available in cans from the Union Bars.
Despite being a major brand in the U.K. though, and being owned by the multinational Heineken Company I have yet to find it in the United States. I'm hoping that I might find it in the beer loving state of Wisconsin but I doubt it.
If I do find it however I'll be able to carry the huge number of bottles I will buy in the Stella Artois bags Jeff and Jess found for me. Thanks!
