Bush and Obama have a common ancestor.
Cheney and Obama have a common ancestor.
Bush and Cheney have a common ancestor.
Each of the common ancestors is a different person -- none is common to all three.
So far, though, no sign of any of the three being related to any of the Clintons…
Go figure.
The Westchester Tornado was an F2 tornado that touched down in central Westchester County, New York at around 4:00 p.m. EST on July 12, 2006 with winds that at times exceeded 150 miles per hour. The tornado may have began on the Rockland County shore of the Hudson River, moving at 25 mph across the river toward Sleepy Hollow, just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. It began to cut a 200 to 300 yard wide path straight across Westchester and into Fairfield County, Connecticut. While no deaths were reported, it is very rare for F2 or greater tornadoes to strike the New York Metropolitan Area, due to tornadoes being rare on the Eastern Seaboard. Enough damage occurred to cause an appeal for FEMA funding.
On July 12, 2006 a strong south westerly wind on the surface acted in conjunction with a strong upper level jet to cause conditions to become ripe. The tornado spawned as a waterspout over the Hudson River in the southwest quadrant of the storm and traveled in the northeast direction, something that is distinctive with most tornado causing thunderstorms. Once it reached the Westchester side of the river it became a tornado and roared up Beekman Ave., one of the main streets of Sleepy Hollow. The tornado reached F-2 status as it crossed over the Sleepy Hollow village line into Hawthorne. From there it tore across Hawthorne, New York, destroying a California Closets office and warehouse. It then proceeded up Stevens Ave. and crossed into Valhalla, New York inflicting much damage. It finally crossed the Kensico Reservoir and caused slight damage in Greenwich, CT before going out to the Long Island Sound.
The tornado left much of Hawthorne and Valhalla without power and many streets were covered with trees for much of the next few days. Power was restored to most of the area within the next two or three days, with some areas regaining power within the next week.
The article says the tornado "may have begun" in Rockland County, but there was documented damage in Grandview, on the Rockland side of the Hudson River, before the waterspout crossed the Hudson and became a tornado again in Sleepy Hollow. It picked up a New York State trooper’s car while he was driving along the Sprain Brook Parkway, dropped it, picked it up again, and dropped it a second time. The trooper was bruised a bit and spent a couple days in the hospital; the car, though, was totaled, since the first drop was nose-first.
But before it reached the area of the Sprain Brook, it tore through the area of Tarrytown Lakes, near the former Rockefeller estate. There are new houses that were recently built in wooded areas that had for decades, maybe centuries, been natural growth. I have to admit wanting to see that some damage had been done (without hurting anyone) to send a message that it's better to leave nature alone, that not all "progress" is actually progress. But, alas, though there were downed trees all around the area, none of the houses appeared to be damaged.
EVER WONDER ....
Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having
trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota
of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It
takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram"
for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing.
Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate
mammogram in exchange for advertising. Here's the website! Pass it
along to people you know: http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
I subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article of the Day by mail, and today’s article is Intelligent Design. This is basically a way for religious-minded individuals to frame “creation” in a way to hopefully get around the objections of those who reject creation accounts on “scientific” grounds.
Personally, I don’t see the supposed disconnect between religion and science. After all, the root meaning of the English word “science” is “knowledge.” Wikipedia’s article on science defines it as follows:
“Science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge'), in the broadest sense, refers to any systematic knowledge or practice.[1] In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.”
In other words, science is what is known. The fact that a particular group of scientists don’t know, for example, how the earth was created, doesn’t make the method used any less scientific. It just means that they don’t know or cannot reproduce the method. Many times arguments against creation accounts are no more than the egos of the objectors acting out.
World Trade Bomber has a change of faith
According to reports in today’s edition of the New York Daily News, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who detonated the truck bomb that destroyed a basement garage in the World Trade Center in 1993, has abandoned Islam and is now a Christian convert.
The report states that he has stopped reading the Koran, shaved his beard, and even eats pork.
I’m sure that there are conspiracy theorists claiming that he’s putting on a show in hopes of getting some kind of early release from prison (which could never happen in a post 9/11 world, especially since he’s serving a life sentence). But, in fact, even a discussion of changing religions could get someone killed by fundamentalist Muslims, to say nothing of eating pork. So I’d have to say this is real. And if it is real, he’d best hope that he never gets out of prison. Because if he did, he could never be at ease – besides those who would be willing to hunt him down over the bombing, there would be people who consider his “conversion” as blasphemy.
Kid Singers in NYC? OK. But Baby Races?
A ten-month-old baby was just crowned “fastest crawler” at a “Baby Derby” in Union Square, in New York City. He competed against seven other babies in crawling along a ten-foot-long course, sponsored by Babies “R” Us as a trial run for races to be held this weekend at the American Baby Faire (?!) in Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.
Maybe I’m overreacting, but this seems just a little bit exploitive… but then somebody thought the same thing about 17-year-old American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and fellow contestant Sanjaya Malakar, who turned 18 just after the performing the New York shows on this years American Idol tour. The organizers got hit with fines after a clerk at the NYS Labor Department took note of the fact that Jordin and Sanjaya, both featured performers, were under 18. She did some digging, and turned the info over to investigators who then found that the company that organized the tour didn’t have the correct permits filed for using underage performers.
I know that laws and standards exist for a reason, but there is a huge difference between teen performers who have parents, managers, and so on with them to monitor them and make sure they’re not being exploited or overworked, and kids enslaved in some sweatshop making sneakers or pocketbooks for pennies an hour. It was “only” a $5,000 fine, though, so they didn’t get too carried away, but I still think it probably should have been let go.
NY Daily News article: Charlize winner of battle of the babes
-- I saw it in Barnes & Noble last night -- called "Keep Chewing Until It Stops Moving."
Reposted responses:
T-Mc, Sep 21 2007, 03:03 PM
Are you saying Atlanta is filled with Blacks and Gays?Me, 9/24, 02:36 AM
Well, Atlanta has been a Black American Mecca for a long time now. And it has gained a reputation, maybe unfairly I don't know, of being a haven for closeted gays. At least this is what Wendy Williams would have us believe, but an old friend of mine down there has me wondering if there's something to it after all. And on the commercials the cavemen do seem rather... genteel...(Not that being genteel is a bad thing.)
They could easily have put the cavemen in NYC or LA. Remember that the Men In Black series put the aliens in NYC because they said it would be the easiest place to blend in
and in LA, the cavemen could pass themselves off as "practicing for a part."
But the show's synopsis says the cavemen are supposed to be trying to make their way in the face of prejudice and stereotypes.
The moderator at the Jazzyville forum where I had originally posted this thought it should be posted in a blog so more people could see it, and maybe comment... ?
(reposted from my soon-to-be-defunct blog on the Jazzyville message board)
I've been in Indiana for the past few days for a funeral, and seeing the conditions my uncle is living in (and with), and hearing about his past from him and from my parents, some thoughts come to mind:
I can't help wondering how Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and the others have avoided ending up on one of those videos all these years. Lohan, in particular, seems to be in a bottomless pit, and it's gonna be really ugly when she hits bottom.
Reposted comments
From T-Mc, 7/26/07 11:30am: I am getting tired of Blonde Bimbos.
From Me, 7/26/07 12:07pm: You and me both. Lohan needs to go back to her natural color...
I recall a photo contest at Worth1000.com that featured "cloned" pix of stars, and one featured Lohan with rather dark (tanned?) skin and red hair, and standing next to her was another, almost-albino Lindsey with bottle-blond hair, and the caption "Yeah, they're really both her. Scary."
Maybe somebody needs to have Robert Downey Jr. to sit down and have a talk with the bunch of them, and let them hear the details of his long, strange trip. (That is, of course, if he's dedicated to staying clean.) In fact, since Lohan and Spears were willing to pay megabucks for those country-club rehab programs, maybe Downey should charge them something...
From T-Mc, 7/26/07 1:15pm: People don't know what they will miss, until it is gone.
Two years ago, on June 23, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first “ethnic” drug. Called BiDil (pronounced “bye-dill”), it was intended to treat congestive heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart muscle to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently—in African-Americans only. The approval was widely declared to be a significant step toward a new era of personalized medicine, an era in which pharmaceuticals would be specifically designed to work with an individual’s particular genetic makeup. Known as pharmacogenomics, this approach to drug development promises to reduce the cost and increase the safety and efficacy of new therapies. BiDil was also hailed as a means to improve the health of African-Americans, a community woefully underserved by the U.S. medical establishment. Organizations such as the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supported the drug’s approval.
A close inspection of BiDil’s history, however, shows that the drug is ethnic in name only...
Click here to read the rest of the article
I've known some smelly-feet people but I don't think I've ever come across someone whose feet inspired a call to the local police station!
The Internet Patrol |
The Latest News at the Internet Patrol Here is today's news from the Internet Patrol! |
Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often 2007-07-08 03:04:17-04 If you have a Sprint cellular phone and Sprint cell phone service, or are considering getting a cell phone from Sprint, you'll want to know just how the Sprint phone company treats customers of their Sprint wireless phone service when they call Sprint PCS customer service. Because customers calling the Sprint customer service phone number too often are being terminated by the Sprint/Nextel service! Read more... |
Night Shift Nightmare (Reader's Digest)
I can vouch for the differences in the level of care, not only between the day and night shifts, but also between the intensive care unit staff and the "regular" nursing staff. I was in ICU and, well, constipated for the whole time I was there. On the evening of the fifth day, I was transferred to a regular room, and when I told the duty nurse that I was consipated and had been since I got there, she gave me this stuff that looked like chocolate milk and smelled (and probably tasted) like nail polish remover. It did the trick, though, but not until the next morning. Unfortunately, that was when someone was going around taking patients' temperature and blood pressure. The nurse came around, found I was still in the bathroom, and went ballistic! Like my whole reason for being in there was less important than their need to follow procedure. (Granted, blood pressure problems was part of the reason I was there, but still...)
The woman taking the readings, for her part, was quite understanding, but I'd expect a nurse to have been a bit more understanding. After all, she has had medical training and is supposed to play a part in putting the patient at ease.
Though it turned out that the stuff they gave me to get me "moving" again (they called it a "black and white"; I have no idea what was in it) was NOT supposed to be given to me because of the nature of my particular problem. The nurse had reacted to my complaint, but without checking into what my medical issue was. And again, this was a night-shift nurse.
Not to put down the night shift -- I know they're called on to do more work, since there are fewer people on hand after dark. But, still, it's not too much to expect them to do a thorough job no matter what. And my story isn't anything like the one in the Reader's Digest article...
The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (posted at www.CSEA9200.com; article originally published in Fast Company, December 2003, page 68
Excerpt: "The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"The CSEA Unit 9200 site includes much more info about Wal-Mart and how it's bullying vendors and costing American workers their jobs and/or fair wages: Wal-Mart Awareness
Tom Joyner, are you reading this? You're all about supporting causes benefiting African-Americans, but who (among others) do you think is hurting when your favorite retailer is causing jobs to be sent overseas and driving companies out of business? Or have you been paid to NOT mention certain kinds of things that would point a finger at them?
