As if the internet didn’t have enough rough neighborhoods for web surfers to negotiate, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is once again revisiting the notion of creating a virtual red-light district on the internet. Ostensibly, this tactic will separate web pornographers from the rest of the internet, making it easier to filter out (or in) pornographic websites.
The domains that are available today including .com, .net, .gov, .edu, .us, etc., represent certain areas of societal value. The proposed revisions do nothing to address the fact that granting a niche business its own top-level domain name would be unique to pornographers, who would gain a status currently only available to groups like schools, governments, and nations.
The Associated Press has reported that William Haynes, William Myers, and Terrance Boyle have asked that their names be withdrawn from future consideration as candidates for judicial office. Further consideration would extend the unprecedented long wait these well-qualified candidates have been forced to endure in order to receive a fair up-or-down vote by the U.S. Senate. These distinguished public servants add their names to a growing list of nominees who have withdrawn from the confirmation process, a list which includes Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl, Michael Wallace and Charles Pickering.
The AP cites several of the reasons why certain members of the Senate opposed their confirmation yet fails to mention any facts which strongly support the several nominees. Other media outlets have reported this as a concession to the Democrats. While it is deeply unfortunate that the nation will not benefit from their service on the federal bench, one surely cannot blame the nominees from exiting a confirmation process where extreme liberal interest groups rule the day, with decency and fairness being shut out.
On this day in 1935 two twins were born, one of whom would become a king. In Tupelo, MS Elvis Aaron and Jesse Garon Presley are born. Jesse unfortunately died in childbirth. Elvis ultimately grew up to be the King of rock and roll, and some pretty significant things happened on his birthday both during and after his life. In 1954 Elvis paid $4 to a Memphis studio and recorded his 1st two songs, “Casual Love” and “I’ll Never Stand in Your Way.” A mere two years later his singles “Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog” go to #1 and stays #1 for a record 11 weeks. Finally, years after his death in 1993 the Elvis Presley Commemorative Postage Stamp went on sale. Also in 1993 NBC offered the “Tonight Show” to David Letterman. Mr. Letterman apparently declined and signed on with CBS and ended up broadcasting out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, the same theater where Elvis first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956 (ironically without Ed there.)
The welfare of our country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed, and I shall derive great satisfaction from a cooperation with you in the pleasing though arduous task of insuring to our fellow citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient, and equal government. President George Washington delivering his first State of the union address on this day in 1790.
Council’s curriculum on Bible study was not deemed unconstitutional in 4 states, director says.
Valerie Olander / The Detroit News
HOWELL — The leader of an atheists’ group opposing a proposal to bring a Bible study curriculum into Howell schools acknowledged Friday that she spread misinformation about the legality of the plan.
The leader, whose legal name is Arlene-Marie, state director of the Michigan Atheists, said she erred when she claimed in a letter to Howell schools that the curriculum of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools had been found to be unconstitutional in four states. The council’s curriculum has never been found to be unconstitutional.
“I misspoke. I should have been more careful,” Arlene-Marie said.
The admission comes as the Howell Board of Education is to discuss using a course designed by the council as an elective. It would focus on the Bible as literature and from an historical perspective. The board meets at 7 p.m. Monday at Latson Elementary School. “We have never received one complaint from one school district in our 13 years,” said Elizabeth Ridenour, president and founder of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Greensboro, N.C.“We don’t pick the districts that want the curriculum, they come to us.” She said the Bible course curriculum has been voted into 373 school districts in 37 states, including Michigan.
I guess as an atheist she wasnt familiar with the 8th Commandment or Proverbs 25:18: A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor is a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.
Do we really need taxpayer funding to find out if you dont eat you become hungry?
Study: Brain triggers hunger during fasts
NEWHAVEN, Conn., Jan. 4 (UPI) — A series of events in the human brain apparently stimulate hunger during periods of fasting, researchers at the Yale University School of Medicine said.
The study, published in the January issue of Cell Metabolism, found the events in the brain make sure a person stays hungry when food is scarce, HealthDay News said. Researchers said thyroid hormone in the brain is linked to increases in the protein UCP2, setting off a chain reaction that ultimately boosts the neurons that drive hunger.
The researchers studied mice on a 24-hour fast. Researchers found there was an increase in the enzyme that stimulates thyroid hormone production in concert with increased UCP2 protein activity.
The study examined the protein and its effects on the activity of neurons, lead researcher Sabrinia Diano said. “It’s how neurons ‘learn’ that food is missing and it keeps them ready to eat when food is introduced.”
Copyright 2007 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
On this day in 1643 was the first record of a legal divorce in the American colonies, Anne Clarke of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (any surprise the first destructive element against marriage in the States originated in Massachusetts?) is granted a divorce from her absent and adulterous husband, Denis Clarke, by the Quarter Court of Boston, Massachusetts. In a signed and sealed affidavit presented to John Winthrop Jr., the son of the colony’s founder, Denis Clarke admitted to abandoning his wife, with whom he had two children, for another woman, with whom he had another two children. He also stated his refusal to return to his original wife, thus giving the Puritan court no option but to punish Clarke and grant a divorce to his wife, Anne. The Quarter Court’s final decision read: “Anne Clarke, beeing deserted by Denis Clarke hir husband, and hee refusing to accompany with hir, she is graunted to bee divorced.”
QoD: “A colleague of mine once noted, there is very little difference between men and women. But, VIVELEDIFFERENCE!!” Warner Brothers romantic skunk, Pepe le Pew, who debuted today in 1945 in the cartoon short Odor-able Kitty.
A new study by Consumer Reports finds that most of the infant car seats tested “failed disastrously” in crashes at speeds as low as 35 mph. To be sold in the United States, an infant seat must perform adequately in tests performed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In response to the report, NHTSA Administrator Nicole Nason issued a statement saying:
We are always interested in making car seats better and safer but not more complicated and difficult for parents. … We don’t want consumers misled into thinking holding a child is better than putting it into a car seat.”
Cmon, Ms. Nason, lets be real. What sort of dumb parent would you have to be to find a car seat too complicated and difficult? And who would be so reckless that they would hold a child instead of putting them into a car seat? No parent is that incompetent.
“The haters… and negative nabobs…the people who spoke against [Rep. William Jefferson] couldn’t prevail against the people who spoke for him.”
— Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, master of ceremonies for the Congressional Black Caucus’s celebratory event. The FBI is currently conducting an investigation that alleges Jefferson accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman ($90,000 of which was later recovered in the congressman’s freezer). The caucus members—part of the “most ethical congress ever”—gave Jefferson a standing ovation.
During the elections, Democrats warned about the increasing inequality in incomes. But a statistical test performed by the Census Bureau yesterday confirms that no statistically significant change in the inequality measure occurred between 2001 and 2005, the last year for which data are available.
The Census Bureau relied on the Gini coefficient, a standard gauge of income inequality, to make the determination. Perhaps they should use the Nancy coefficient the salary for the Speaker of the House ($215,700) is 4.7 times more than the median household income ($46,326).
Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) says that President Bush’s policy toward Katrina victims represents a policy of “ethnic cleansing by inaction.”
And, what I believe is, at this point youre not talking about [inaudible], but what youre talking about is, I think, a [inaudible], what youre talking about is when you simply, in a calculated way, refuse to do anything for well over a year … [inaudible] … and [stuttering] I, I, the policy I think here is ethnic cleansing by inaction.
Its not ethnic cleansing in the sense that theyre killing people or [driving] people out, but what we need to recognize here is that, theyre in this happy position for them, where the federal government does nothing, as they become richer and richer, because well not only black people needed housing assistance,…”