Saturday, January 12, 2008

2008 Presidential Candidates: Snapshots From Their Past

We brought out the old family photo albums, when our 2008 Presidential hopefuls were young, earnest, and the Oval Office just a glint in their eye...



Dennis Kucinich, Mayor of Cleveland
1978 Recall Election
Source - The Inscription


Ron Paul & Ronnie Reagan
Source - Of Noble Character



Mitt Romney & Ann Davies March 21st, 1969
Source - peteykins




Mike Huckabee 1973
Hope High School
Source - Chicago Tribune






John (Johnny?) Edwards
North Moore High School
Source - First Friday




Fred Thompson and 1st wife, Sarah Lindsey
Source - Daily Mail




Barack (Barry) Obama 1979
Source - The Stranger




Midshipman McCain, with his father in 1956,
carried on a family tradition of Navy service
Source - Time, Inc.




Rudy Giuliani Hair Montage
Source - voteforbreakfast




Fresh faced Hillary Rodham (Clinton)
Source - 2x4misc.





By LBG


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Bush Questions FDR Decision Not to Bomb "Auschwitz"



President Bush, during a visit to Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, purportedly made statements that questioned the United States' decision to not bomb Auschwitz or the nearby "rail lines" which brought millions of Jews to their awaited fate, of torture, then extermination, during the latter part of WWII. Source - AP


Nazi Camps in Occupied Europe 1943-1944


Throughout German-occupied Europe, the Germans arrested those who resisted their domination and those they judged to be racially inferior or politically unacceptable. People arrested for resisting German rule were mostly sent to forced-labor or concentration camps. The Germans deported Jews from all over occupied Europe to extermination camps in Poland, where they were systematically killed, and also to concentration camps, where they were used for forced labor. Transit camps such as Westerbork, Gurs, Mechelen, and Drancy in western Europe and concentration camps like Bolzano and Fossoli di Carpi in Italy were used as collection centers for Jews, who were then deported by rail to the extermination camps. According to SS reports, there were more than 700,000 prisoners registered in the concentration camps in January 1945. Source - Jewish Virtual Library

Tom Segev, a leading Israeli Holocaust scholar, said the remarks by Bush appeared "spontaneous" and that this was "the first time a U. S. President had made this acknowledgment."

Bush twice had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of the museum, said Shalev, who guided Bush through the exhibits.

Upon viewing an aerial shot of Auschwitz, taken during the war by U.S. forces, he said Bush called the decision not to bomb it "complex." He then called over Rice to discuss President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision, clearly pondering the options before rendering an opinion of his own, Shalev said.

Shalev quoted Bush as asking Rice, "Why didn't Roosevelt bomb it?" He said Rice and Bush discussed the matter further and then the president delivered his verdict.

"We should have bombed it," Shalev, speaking in Hebrew, quoted Bush as saying.




Briefing reporters later on Air Force One, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Bush was referring to the rail lines and not the nearby Nazi-German death camp where an estimated 1.1 to 1.5 million men, women, and children perished.
"It is clear now that the U.S. knew a lot about it," Segev said. "It's possible that bombing at least the railway to the camps may have saved the lives of the Jews of Hungary. They were the very last ones who were sent to Auschwitz at a time when everybody knew what was going on."

At the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel famously asked, "Why weren't the railways leading to Birkenau bombed by allied bombers? As long as I live I will not understand that."
The Chairman of the museum, Avner Shalev, remarked later that evening that Bush was "not specific about what the Allies should have bombed."

In 1944, Roosevelt's assistant secretary of war wrote about the United States' decision to not take any action during the latter part of WWII when the "evidence" of Nazi death camps was now "clear." And yet, the first Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, opened its gates in March of 1933.
"Such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not be warrant use of our resources," he wrote in an Aug. 14, 1944, letter.
Reactions to Bush's statement varied:

A professor of Jewish Thought at Israel's Hebrew University, Eliezer Schweid, said the bombing was "irrelevant in retrospect".

The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington:
"The refusal to bomb Auschwitz was part of a broader policy by the Roosevelt administration to refrain from taking action to rescue or shelter Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Tragically, the United States turned away from one of history's most compelling moral challenges," said Rafael Medoff, the institute's director.
Whether the Allies should have bombed Auschwitz has been a long standing controversy from WWII, according to Mitchell Bard of the Jewish Virtual Library.

David Wyman's The Abandonment Of The Jews argues that the failure of the Allies to take action against Auschwitz was "longstanding indifference to the fate of the Jews rather than the practicality impossibility of the operation."

Other arguments were that the Allies were unaware of the Nazis systematically "relocating" entire populations of Jews from newly occupied territories until late in the war.
One argument is that the Allies did not know about the Final Solution early enough to make plans to bomb the camps and they didn't have reliable intelligence about their location. In fact, the Allies began had information about the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews by 1942. As early as June 1944, the United States had detailed information about the layout of Auschwitz from Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wexler, who had escaped that April. In fact, he cites Richard Breitman, who concluded that prior to 1994 “there was enough generally accurate information about Auschwitz-Birkenau to preclude the argument that the Allies did not bomb the camp because they got the necessary information too late.” Source - Jewish Virtual Library
The Jews were not relocated to other cities, instead they were loaded on cattle cars, shipped to concentration camps located next to quaint little towns such as Dachau in Germany and Auschwitz in Poland.
Both the British Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, and the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, John McCloy, concluded Auschwitz could not be bombed. Erdheim notes, however, that this determination was made without following normal procedures to make such a decision. “The 'could not' assessment, in short,” Erdheim says, “appeared the most expedient way to implement the already established policy of not using the military to aid 'refugees.'” Source - Jewish Virtual Library
The argument that bombing the train lines would have been impossible was countered by the view of former Senator George McGovern, the pilot of a B-24 mission in 1944 that bombed Nazi oil facilities a mere five miles from Auschwitz:
In 2005, he said “There is no question we should have attempted...to go after Auschwitz. There was a pretty good chance we could have blasted those rail lines off the face of the Earth, which would have interrupted the flow of people to thos death chambers, and we had a pretty good chance of knocking out those gas ovens." Source - Jewish Virtual Library
This was the second trip Bush has made to the memorial, the first time in 1998, while he was Governor of Texas. During this trip he spoke about the "horror" and "evil" of the Holocaust.
"I was most impressed that people in the face of horror and evil would not forsake their God. In the face of unspeakable crimes against humanity, brave souls — young and old — stood strong for what they believe," Bush said.

"I wish as many people as possible would come to this place. It is a sobering reminder that evil exists, and a call that when evil exists we must resist it," he said.
The debate over whether the Allies should have bombed Auschwitz or the rail lines that led to it will continue. But in the words of noted Roosevelt historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin, who believed bombing Auschwitz would have been worthwhile:
“If it had saved only one Jew. FDR somehow missed seeing how big an issue it was.” With the kind of political will and moral courage the Allies exhibited in other missions throughout the war, it is plain that the failure to bomb Birkenau, the site of mankind's greatest abomination, was a missed opportunity of monumental proportions.

By LBG
Image - Artfiles
Image - Auschwitz Railroad Lines
Source - AP - Bush indicates bombing at Auschwitz might have saved lives
Source - Jewish Virtual Library - Could The Allies Have
Bombed Auschwitz-Birkenau?



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Save the Earth: Eat Chocolate


Whole Foods, whose website brags about their green policies, has a new scam: Chocolate Change Chocolate Bars.

From the website:

Our Climate Change Chocolate bar is meant to educate while tasting great. It comes in a wrapper with 15 tips for lightening your environmental impact. These helpful hints teach you how to save energy by making small changes to your daily habits. And of course, thanks to Bloomsberry & Co., you can be sure the finest chocolate is attached to these green lifestyle lessons.

Ah, but that’s not all:

Climate Change Chocolate comes with a verified TerraPass offset of 133 pounds of carbon dioxide reductions, the average American’s daily carbon impact. We hope this small offset will be the first taste of a lower-carbon lifestyle for Whole Foods shoppers who decide to take responsibility for their climate change impact.

So what do you buy with your carbon offsets credits?

Windmills…that kill birds that belong to endangered species.Oh well, can’t win them all.

Of course, I shouldn’t be too hard on them, since Whole Foods doesn’t use slave chocolate. (The poor treatment of people working on cocoa plantations in certain African countries is notorious LINK… Whole Foods gets theirs from the Dominican Republic).

All this nonsense about a Massachusetts company insisting it should be canonized for it’s green policies is pretty nonsensical to those of us living in the third world, where food is covered with flies, not plastic, and where most of our food is grown or fished nearby.

And anyway, if one is really “green”, shouldn’t one only eat local foods in season, not imported processed fatty cholesterol raising food like Chocolate? And there just aren’t a lot of Cacao trees in New England.

So if you want to be green in New England, be green:

YUM! Rutabaga Chips !

by Boinky
(cross posted Bloggernewsnet)

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Today in History: January 12, 2008

WAR!, TERRORISM, DISASTERS, JEWS, CONGRESS, PROGRESS, DECREES, UNION, EXPELLED, FAUX COMPUTER, MARRIAGE, MEDICINE, REBELLION, SPORTS, FINANCE, WOMEN, PATENTS, VICTORY!, SCIENCE, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, SUPERMARKETS, DEATH PENALTY, CIVIL RIGHTS, DIPLOMACY, SERIAL KILLERS. CLIMATE, BANS, PLOTS, EXPELLED, RODENTS, MUSIC, BORN, DEATH, RESIGNATION



1995 Murder trial against OJ Simpson, begins in Los Angeles

WAR!

1809 British take Cayenne (French Guiana) from the French (until 1814)

1836 Battle of Wetumka

1861 FL state troops demand surrender of Fort Pickens

1863 President Davis delivers his "State of the Confederacy" address

1865 Union fleet bombs Fort Fisher NC

1879 British Zulu War begins Lieutenant-General Chelmsford invades Zululand

1942 National War Labor Board created

1942 British troops reconquer Sollum

1942 Dutch troops on Tarakan surrender

1944 Churchill & de Gaulle begin a 2-day wartime conference in Marrakesh

1944 Failed resistance raid on distribution office of Borgerstraat Amsterdam

1945 German forces in Belgium retreat in Battle of the Bulge

1945 US Task Force 38 destroys 41 Japanese ships in Battle of South China Sea

1970 Biafran War ends, Biafra surrenders to Nigeria

1991 US Congress gives George Bush authority to wage war against Iraq

1996 Russian troops arrived in Bosnia (joint operation with US)

TERRORISM

1971 Fed grand jury indicts Reverand Philip Berrigan & 5 others, including a nun & 2 priests, on charges of plotting to kidnap Henry Kissinger

1977 Anti-French demonstrations takes place in Israel after Paris released Abu Daoud, responsible 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli athletes

JEWS

1493 Last day for all Jews to leave Sicily

1953 9 "Jewish" physicians arrested for "terrorist activities" in Moscow

CONGRESS

1933 US Congress recognize independence Philippines

DISASTERS

1552 Dutch west coast hit by heavy storm, 100s killed

1807 Gunpowder-ship explodes in Leiden Netherlands, 150 die

1903 Rhodes Opera House burns in Boyertown PA, killing 170

1950 Swedish tanker rams British submarine Truculent in Thames, 64 die

1954 Austria's worst avalanche-kills 200; 9hours later 2nd one-kills 115

1989 6 claim to survive in rubble, 35 days after Armenian quake (hoax)

1995 Major earthquake kills 5,092 in Kobe Japan

PROGRESS

1812 1st cargo arrives in New Orleans by steam, from Natchez

1839 Anthracite coal 1st used to smelt iron, Mauch Chunk PA

1929 Seatrain (RR cars on ships) service begins, New Orleans-Havana

1970 Boeing 747 makes its maiden voyage

DECREES

1816 France decrees Bonaparte family excluded from the country forever

UNION

1974 Libya & Tunisia announces they are merging as "Islamic Arab Republic"

EXPELLED

1989 Idi Amin expelled from Zaire

FAUX COMPUTERS

1997 HAL becomes operational (2001: A Space Odyssey); this date was given as January 12, 1992 on screen, but 1997 is the date used in both the novel and screenplay

SCIENCE

1820 Royal Astronomical Society founded in England

1836 HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reach Sydney Australia

1986 24th space shuttle (61-C) mission-Columbia 7-launched

MEDICINE

1896 1st X-ray photo in US (Dr Henry Smith, Davidson NC)

REBELLION

1904 Southwest-Africa uprising under Samuel Maherero against German garrison

1933 Uprising of Guardia Civil in Spain, 25 dies

1964 Revolution overthrows Sultan of Zanzibar, 1 month after independence

SPORTS

1906 Football rules committee legalizes the forward pass

1921 Kenesaw Mountain Landis becomes 1st commissioner of baseball

1958 NCAA adds 2 point conversion to football scoring

1960 Syracuse National Dolph Schayes is 1st NBA'er to score 15,000 points

1966 Red Auerbach wins his 1,000th game as coach of NBA Boston Celtics

1969 Super Bowl III New York Jets beat Baltimore Colts, 16-7 in Miami; Super Bowl MVP Joe Namath, New York Jets, Quarterback

1975 Super Bowl IX Pittsburgh Steelers beat Minnesota Vikings, 16-6 in New Orleans; Super Bowl MVP Franco Harris, Pittsburgh, Running Back

1988 Willie Stargell (Pittsburgh Pirate), elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

1993 Doctors announce Pittsburgh Penguin Mario Limeux has Hodgkin's disease

FINANCE

1906 1st time Dow Jones closes above 100 (100.26)

1975 Chrysler Corp offers 1st car rebates

WOMEN

1915 House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote

PATENTS

1937 Plow for laying submarine cable patented

FASTS

1948 Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi begins his final fast

VICTORY!

1943 Frankfurters replaced by Victory Sausages (mix of meat & soy meal)

SUPERMARKETS

1948 1st Supermarket in UK opens

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1949 "Arthur Godfrey & His Friends" premieres on CBS TV

1965 "Hullabaloo" premieres on NBC-TV

1968 Nighttime version of "Hollywood Squares" premieres on NBC TV

1971 "All in the Family" premieres on CBS featuring 1st toilet flush on TV

1981 "Dynasty", a prime time soap opera inspired by Dallas, starring Joan Collins, premieres on ABC-TV

DEATH PENALTY

1949 Dutch court affirms death sentence against SS chief Hanns Rauter

1928 Ruth Snyder 1st woman to die in electric chair

1950 USSR re-introduces death penalty for treason, espionage & sabotage

CIVIL RIGHTS

1952 University of Tennessee admits its 1st black student

1957 Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) founded

1971 Congressional Black Caucus organizes



MARRIAGE

1993 MTV hostess Martha Quinn marries longtime boyfriend Jordan Tarlow

DIPLOMACY

1961 UN genocide pact goes into effect

1976 UN Security Council votes 11-1 to seat Palestine Liberation Organization

MUSIC

1963 "Go Away Little Girl" by Steve Lawrence peaks at #1

1974 "Joker" by Steve Miller Band peaks at #1

SERIAL KILLERS

1979 Los Angeles's Hillside Strangler, Kenneth Bianchi, arrested in Bellingham

CLIMATE

1979 Record blizzard struck midwest killing over 100

RESIGNATION

1987 Britain's Prince Edward resigns from his Royal Marines training

BANS

1990 Romania bans Communist party (1st Warsaw Pact member to do so)

PLOTS

1994 Malcolm X's daughter arrested for plotting Louis Farrakhan's murder

POPES

1995 Pope John Paul II begins visit to Southeast Asia

RODENTS

1965 Porcupine in Washington DC zoo, dies at 27; oldest known rodent

BORN

1580 Jean Baptiste van Helmont Belgian chemist, (found boiling point temperature)
1588 John Winthrop 1st Governor (Massachusetts Bay Colony)
1588 Jose Ribera [Lo Spagnoletto] Spanish painter
1599 Adrian van Utrecht Flemish painter
1729 Edmund Burke British author (Philosophy & Inquiry)
1737 John Hancock patriot (1st to sign Declaration of Independence)
1852 Joseph J C Joffre French field marshal (Indo-China, Marne)
1863 Vivekananda Calcutta, Hindu religious leader/reformer
1876 Jack London writer/socialist (Call of the Wild)
1893 Hermann Goering Reichsmarshall/propoganda minister (Nazi Germany)
1902 Ibn Abdul-Aziz Saud Kuwait, king (Saudi Arabia)
1906 Henny Youngman England, comedian (Take my wife please...)
1906 Tex Ritter Texas, country singer (5 Star Jubilee, The Wayward Wind)
1916 A P(ieter) W Botha Orange Free State, President of South Africa
1917 Walter Hendl West New York NJ, conductor
1920 James Farmer Marshall TX, civil rights leader
1921 John Henry Davis Jr Smithtown NY, light-super-heavyweight (Olympics-gold-1948, 52)
1921 Leo Smit Philadelphia PA, pianist/composer
1926 Ray Price country singer (For The Good Times)
1930 Glenn Yarborough singer (Limeliters-Honey & Wine, Jubilee)
1935 "The Amazing" Kreskin Montclair NJ, mentalist/telepath
1943 Ray Manzarek rock pianist (Doors-Light my Fire, People are Strange)
1944 Vlastimil Hort Czechoslovakian/German chess player
1947 Tom Dempsey NFL record-holder (longest field goal, 63 yards)
1951 Kirstie Alley Wichita KS, actress (Star Trek II, Cheers-Rebecca)
1951 Rush Hudson Limbaugh III Cape Girardeau MO, conservative radio & television host
1951 Bill Madlock 4X NL batting champ (Chicago Cubs)
1951 Chris Bell Memphis TN, rock guitarist (Big Star)
1952 Ricky Van Shelton Danville VA, country musician (Somebody Lied, From a Jack to a King, Rockin' Years)
1954 Howard Stern Roosevelt NY, "Radio's Bad Boy" (WKRK, WYSP, WJFK)
1960 Dominique Wilkins NBA forward (Atlanta Hawks)
1968 Heather Mills Aldershot England, model/writer (Out on a Limb)
1996 Sarah Morales Mexico, Siamese twin (survived)
1996 Sarahi Morales Mexico, Siamese twin (died on Jan 27, 1996)

DEATH

1517 Vasco Núñez de Balboa Spanish conquistador/admiral, beheaded at 41
1829 Friedrich von Schlegel German cultural philosopher/poet, dies at 56
1962 Ernie Kovacs comedian (Ernie Kovacs Show), killed in auto crash at 42
1976 Agatha Christie mystery writer (10 Little Indians), dies at 85
1978 Nancy Spungen stabbed to death by boyfriend Sid Vicious
1981 Beulah Bondi Chicago IL, actress (It's a Wonderful Life), dies at 89

January 12, the 12th day of the year. There are 354 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
[image:
Source: Today in History

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Friday, January 11, 2008

Buddy Holly's Widow Threatens To Muzzle Peggy Sue


Widow of the late great rock n roll star, Buddy Holly, has threatened to sue "Peggy Sue".

According to the AP, Holly's widow, Maria Elena Holly, is incensed over a memoir written by Peggy Sue Gerron, subject of the famous Holly song, "Peggy Sue".

The book is based on the friendship between Holly and Gerron. Maria Holly contends Holly never considered Peggy Sue a friend even though he wrote two songs about Ms. Gerron, "Peggy Sue" and "Peggy Sue Got Married."
"I wanted to give him his voice. It's my book, my memoirs," she said from Tyler where her publishing company held a news conference Friday defending Gerron's right to write her biography. "We were very, very good friends. He was probably one of the best friends I ever had." Source - AP
Buddy and Maria were married in August of 1958. Holly died Feb. 3rd, 1959. Maria "owns" her husband's name, image, and related trademarks. In short, a cash cow that keeps on giving.

Maria's attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter last week to Peggy Sue.
The letter demands the ceasing of promotion and sale of the book, removal of the subtitle and cancellation of all book orders. It also asks for refunds on any deposits for the book and for an accounting of revenues from any sales.
We're not sure how that works, "owning" someone's name. Does this preclude Peggy Sue from writing her own memoirs, memoirs that include someone whose name and image are "owned" by someone else?

Buddy Holly sang "Peggy Sue, I love you," but his widow is singing a different tune.

Peggy Sue, we love you too.

By LBG
Image - UK-Geocities

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I Married My Sibling: Horror For One UK Couple


The last thing on one's mind, when they meet and fall is love, is whether their new love could be a biological sibling.

One couple in the UK discovered, much to their horror, they were twins, conceived by In Vitro Fertilization, then separated at birth. The privacy of the "anonymous" sperm or egg donor superseded their right to know the circumstances of their birth. The couple discovered that they were twins born after Invitro treatment and then separated at birth.

Current laws in Britain protect the identity of the biological donor parents, putting the children in a bewildering maze of Never Never Land. Never knowing who donated the sperm or the egg that led to their conception or the possibility that they may have multiple half-brothers and sisters.

David Alton, member of the Lords, said the couple were granted an annulment after a High Court Judge ruled their marriage had never "validly existed".

An annulment will not erase the trauma of breaking one of society's taboos, that of incest, even if it happened unknowingly or the myriad of other issues facing this couple.

Alton, a Catholic pro-life politician, is using the couple's plight to highlight the "deficiencies" of a new piece of legislation working its way through Parliament, the Human Embryology and Tissues Bill.
The bill is designed to make it easier for lesbian and gay couples to have children through assisted reproduction, recognising same-sex partners as legal parents of babies conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos.
Alton points out that there's no provision for the identity of the donor to be disclosed which protects the donor but keeps the child in the dark. Legally, the child will not be allowed to access any information leading to the identity of the donors involved with their conception nor genetic information.

From Testicare:
Around 8,500 of the 640,000 babies born in the UK each year are ART-conceived and it is estimated that every primary school now has at least one "test-tube baby".
From the Times Online: The Multimillion-Pound Sperm Industry
The global market for sperm exports has been estimated at between £25 million and £50 million a year. The US market is worth £5 million and £10 million and the European market is of similar size.

Import of Cryos sperm is restricted or banned in the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia — in most cases because the donors cannot be anonymous.

Cryos is still selling to the UK in “exceptional circumstances”, for instance, if a couple want siblings for a child already conceived by a Danish donor.
The largest buyers of Cryos sperm are clinics in Denmark, Ireland, Belgium and Finland. The couples being treated in these countries are often from nations where laws against the use of anonymous sperm are the most stringent.

US customers can pay $25 to browse extended profiles of donors, which contain details of the donor’s heart rate, skin tone, propensity to allergies or myopia, and where donors discuss their education, their career goals, their love life, their favourite food/colour/animal/car, and reminisce about their upbringing and family holidays. A photo of the donor costs $20.

While the rest of Europe looks to Denmark for donor sperm, Spain is becoming the place for couples requiring donor eggs. Though Spanish egg donors may not be paid, they may receive “compensation”. In Barcelona women can be paid £600. One clinic in the city gets five new British couples each week.
How many "sperm" donor kids are out there?

From Spermcenter:
What about the children? How many sperm donor babies are born in a year?
The short answer is, nobody knows because nobody's counting. There are several
reasons. Many women don't report their births. Some are so happy to have a child that reporting doesn't cross their minds. Others prefer to keep the method of pregnancy private, even from their doctors. But the root reason there are no records is there's no law that requires them, and no agency keeping track. The Center for Disease Control keeps detailed records on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), but not Donor Insemination (DI). ART involves the removal of an egg. It's considered high-tech, medically difficult and deserving of accurate statistics to measure success. DI is performed with the medical equivalent of a turkey-baster. It's considered low-tech, brainless and unworthy of keeping score.

Most news media report 30,000 sperm donor babies born in the US each year. But that number is 20 years old. At least one sperm bank claims on their web site the current number is 50,000. Table 1 shows the average number of children per donor under various assumptions about the number of donors and children. The average ranges from 19 kids per donor at the low end, to 54 on the high. With conservative
assumptions—say, 90,000 babies and 3500 donors—the average donor has 26 kids.


Will governments have enough gumption to address the issue of rights of invitro-babies?

Time and the sheer numbers of these babies being born will tell.


By LBG
Source - AFP - Separated-at-birth twins get married
Image [Inmagine]

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John McCain: Is the Presidency Written in His Stars?



We've been looking at what the planet and stars predict for the 2008 Presidential candidates. Today we're going to look at what several astrologers predict for Senator McCain's chances of getting elected our next President.






In a report written on April 23, 2006, by Astro Future Trends, astrologer Phillip Brown, M.A., notes that the last Virgo to occupy the Whitehouse was Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The last Virgo to occupy the White House was Lyndon Johnson, a former senator who made his reputation as a very down-to-earth and real-world politician. LBJ knew how to pull the levers of power but became lost in micro-managing the Vietnam War.
Brown takes note of McCain's 11th House, which he refers to as a "political house", and at Mercury, the planet of communication.
McCain's Virgo Sun is in the 11th house, a political house associated with the air sign Aquarius. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, a communication planet. McCain's rising sign is Libra, an air sign. However, both his Sun and Moon are in earth signs (his Moon's in Capricorn), so in a lot of ways McCain is more into what works than what's open. He's very grounded and smart about political strategy. Mercury is his only planet in an air sign (Libra). Mercury being a singleton in an air sign would ordinarily indicate difficulty in getting perspective with communication, but McCain has a Libra rising sign to support his Mercury. He does seem to enjoy communicating in an open give-and-take forum much more than Bush (Bush's Mercury is in Leo) and this came out in his speech to union members, despite the natural antagonism of his audience.
Brown's prediction for November 4th, the 2008 Election Day:
On election day 2008, McCain will experience an interesting confluence of astrological factors. His Saturn-Neptune opposition will be conjuncted by the Saturn-Uranus election opposition. His natal Moon is at the same position (27° Capricorn) as the U.S. horoscope Pluto. The next President will lead the nation as Pluto enters Capricorn, a perilous time. McCain’s lunar north node—karmic destiny—is at 1°of Capricorn, and Pluto will also be at exactly 1°of Capricorn when the new president is sworn in to office in January, 2009.
Brown's prediction, made in 2006, refers to a Saturn-Neptune opposition "conjuncted by the Saturn-Uranus election opposition". We're not astrologers so we're not sure what this means other than it sounds ominous.

From The Strange House:





Saturday, August 29th, 1936
Birth Time 8:37 AM
Birth Location 9° N 04' / 80° W 19'
Locality
Moon Sign Capricorn
Rising Sign (Ascendant) Lib

John McCain's 2008 Election Day Forecast from The Strange House:


Saturn Opposite Saturn applying (effort confronts effort)
Your life now reaches one of its built-in check points. You are "graded" by reality. Past efforts and plans culminate. Prior diligence rewards you with recognition and responsibility; past negligence brings restriction or disgrace.

Uranus Opposite Neptune applying (freedom confronts impression)
Delusions and eccentricity may make you your own worst enemy. Travel may offer unexpected trouble. Using drugs and alcohol may create problems.

From Nancy's Blog:
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 1:45 pm.

McCain’s birth chart (8/29/36; Balboa Heights, Panama; 9 AM) suggests that his immense popularity of recent years may soon be on the wane. In 2005, transiting Pluto was square to his Venus, giving him an intense emotional appeal and charisma. In 2006, converse Mars was conjunct converse Venus, another aspect likely to confer a strong appeal and attractiveness. As of late January 2007, however, the Mars/Venus aspect begins to wane, while progressed Venus begins to move into a square with natal Saturn through October 2007. In his natal chart, McCain has a rather close Venus/Saturn opposition, and any progressed aspect between them will be felt quite strongly. It seems quite likely that this 2007 Venus/Saturn square will greatly diminish McCain’s popularity, as well as limit his political options significantly.

By late October 2007, transiting Saturn will move into the first of three conjunctions to McCain’s natal Sun (6Virgo02). The second will be in February 2008, and the third will be in July 2008. The addition of progressed Moon opposite natal Saturn from January 7 through February 7, 2008, suggests quite strongly that McCain will be unlikely to win his party’s nomination for president. Moreover, the transits of Uranus on his natal 6th house Saturn and Saturn opposite his natal Saturn (20Pisces09) at the end of 2008 and in early 2009 suggest he will not be happy with the results of the 2008 election and that he may be dealing with health problems (6th house) around that time as well.

Astro Future Trends doesn’t come out with a prediction on whether McCain will or will not succeed but warns about the placement of McCain’s planets on Nov. 4th.

On Election Day 2008, McCain will experience an interesting confluence of astrological factors. His Saturn-Neptune opposition will be conjuncted by the Saturn-Uranus election opposition. His natal Moon is at the same position (27° Capricorn) as the U.S. horoscope Pluto.
The Strange House’s prediction for John McCain on Nov. 4th refers to “ominous” planet shenanigans:

Saturn Opposite Saturn applying (effort confronts effort)
Your life now reaches one of its built-in check points. You are "graded" by reality. Past efforts and plans culminate. Prior diligence rewards you with recognition and responsibility; past negligence brings restriction or disgrace.

Uranus Opposite Neptune applying (freedom confronts impression). Delusions and eccentricity may make you your own worst enemy. Travel may offer unexpected trouble. Using drugs and alcohol may create problems.
Nancy’s Blog writes that Saturn, the bummer planet, (our definition of Saturn), will move into conjunction with Virgo, McCain’s natal Sun. This will occur in Feb. and also in July. Nancy’s Blog writes that a “progressed Moon opposite natal Saturn” from January 7th through February 7th suggests McCain will be “unlikely to win his party’s nomination”.

McCain’s New Hampshire Primary win came on January 8th. Nancy’s Blog predicts a waning of support for McCain beginning January 7th through February 7th. We’ll see if this prediction holds true on Super Tuesday, February 5th, where 24 states hold caucuses or primaries.

As always, these are predictions based on astrology.

Time will tell if the stars and planets hold John McCain’s dream of becoming our next President.

By LBG

Please note: Due to Political Astrology-Newscope-Neptune Café’s request, all quotes, graphs, and links have been removed from this article.

(1-18-08)


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Today in History: January 11, 2008

Uncategorized "Today in History" Madness!
138 Historical Events that Happened on January 11.




VOLCANO

1693 Mt Etna erupts, Sicily

1569 1st recorded lottery in England is drawn at St Paul's Cathedral
1571 Emperor Maximilian II grants Austrian adel freedom of religion
1599 Jacob van Necks fleet leaves Bantam Java with pepper, clove & muskaat
1672 Isaac Newton is elected a member of Royal Society

1709 Colley Cibber's "Rival Fools" premieres in London
1753 Ferdinand VI of Spain & Pope Benedictus XIV sign concord
1758 Russian troops occupy Königsberg, East-Prussia
1759 1st American life insurance company incorporated, Philadelphia
1765 Frisia bans Voltaires "Traité sur la tolérance"

1774 Messier adds M51 (spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici) to his catalog
1775 Francis Salvador becomes 1st Jew elected to office in America (SC)
1785 Continental Congress convenes in New York City NY
1787 Titania & Oberon, moons of Uranus, discovered by William Herschel
1790 Statisten & Vonckisten unite as Belgium

1803 Monroe & Livingston sail for Paris to buy New Orleans; they buy Louisiana
1805 Michigan Territory is organized
1813 1st pineapples planted in Hawaii
1839 Earthquake at Martinique destroys half of Port Royal-700 die
1861 Alabama becomes 4th state to secede

1861 Mexico City captured by Juárez (Liberal) in War of the Reform
1863 Naval engagement near Galveston between CSS Alabama & USS Hatteras
1863 Union forces capture Arkansas Post, or Fort Hindman AR
1864 Charing Cross Station opens in London
1865 Battle of Beverly WV

1866 Steamship London sinks in storm off Land's End England, kills 220
1873 1st livestock market newspaper published, Drover's Journal, Chicago
1879 Zulu war against British colonial rule in South Africa begins
1885 Henrik Ibsen's "Vildauden" premieres in Oslo
1892 Hawaiian Historical Society founded

1892 William D McCoy of Indiana appointed US minister to Liberia
1892 Paul Gauguin marries a 13-year-old Tahitian girl
1893 Jaap Eden skates world record 1500m (2 35)
1897 M H Cannon becomes 1st woman state senator in US (Utah)
1904 Herero people of South West Africa, now Namibia, begin uprising

1913 1st sedan-type car (Hudson) goes on display at 13th Auto Show (New York City NY)
1913 Bread & Roses Strike begins
1915 Colonel Jacob Ruppert & Colonel Tillinghast Huston purchase Yankees for $460,000
1916 French troops capture/Serbian army flees to Corfu
1917 Guy Bolton & PG Wodehouse's "Have a Heart" premieres in New York City NY

1919 3 year old German communist party (Spartacus) crushed
1919 Romania annexes Transylvania
1920 French passenger ship Afrique sinks near La Rochelle; 553 die
1922 Insulin 1st used to treat diabetes (Leonard Thompson, 14, of Canada)
1923 French & Belgian troops occupy Ruhr to collect reparations

1923 1st Dutch Dada-evening (Theo Van Doesburg & Kurt Schwitters)
1925 Franc B Kellogg replaces Charles Hughes on as US Secretary of State
1927 Royale Theater (Golden, CBS Radio Playhouse) opens at 242 W 45th New York City NY
1935 Amelia Earhart flies from Honolulu HI to Oakland CA (non-stop, of course)
1936 Charles Anderson enters Kentucky House of Representatives

1938 Frances Moulton elected 1st woman president of a US national bank
1938 Bradman scores a second inning 113 vs Queensland after a ton in the 1st
1940 Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo & Juliet premieres in Leningrad
1941 Princess Irene Brigade established in Congleton
1942 -23ºF (-31ºC), Kingston RI (state record)
1942 Japan conquers Kuala Lumpur, Malaya

1943 US & Britain relinquish extraterritorial rights in China
1944 Crakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp established
1946 Bert Bell becomes 2nd NFL commissioner, moves Chicago IL headquarters to Philadelphia PA
1946 People's Republic of Albania established
1946 Enver Hoxha declares People's Republic of Albania with himself dictator

1949 Snowfall 1st recorded in Los Angeles
1952 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Marianne Moore
1953 J Edgar Hoover declines 6 figure offer to become president of the International Boxing Club
1954 2 ton locomotive swept into ravine by avalanche - 10 die (Austria)
1959 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Theodore Roethke

1959 Hanif Mohammad completes 499 for Karachi, then 1st class world record
1959 Marlene Hagge wins LPGA Mayfair Golf Open
1959 NFL Pro Bowl East beats West 28-21
1960 Chad declares independence from France
1960 Lamar Clark sets pro boxing record of 44 consecutive knockouts

1961 Racial riot at University of Georgia
1962 Mandela leaves South Africa, travels to Ethiopia, Algeria & England
1962 Volcano Huascaran in Peru, erupts; 4,000 die
1963 Beatles release "Please Please Me" & "Ask Me Why"
1963 1st discotheque opens, The Whiskey-a-go-go in Los Angeles CA

1964 Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is #80 in US (Cashbox)
1964 US Surgeon General Luther Terry reports that smoking may be hazardous
1964 "She Loves Me" closes at Eugene O'Neill Theater New York City NY after 302 performances
1964 Panamá ends diplomatic relations with US
1966 "Daktari" African adventure series premieres on CBS TV

1966 550 die in landslides in mountains behind Rio de Janeiro after rain
1967 Romeinse Curie installs Council for Pontifical Study commission
1968 Explorer 36 (GEOS-B) launched into earth orbit (1080/1570 km)
1969 Jethro Tull's This Was Jethro Tull album debuts
1969 "Hooked on a Feeling" by BJ Thomas peaks at #5

1970 Super Bowl IV Kansas City Chiefs beat Minnesota Vikings, 23-7 in New Orleans; Super Bowl MVP Len Dawson, Kansas City, Quarterback
1971 Tigers ace reliever John Hiller, 27, suffers a heart attack, misses the 1971 season, but later makes a remarkable comeback to record 38 saves
1971 1st "Quickie" Divorce granted in UK
1972 Abu Sayeed Chudhury becomes president & sheik Mujib ur-Rahman premier
1972 East-Pakistan becomes independent state of Bangladesh

1973 American League adopts designated hitter rule
1973 Trial of the Watergate burglars begins in Washington DC
1973 Famous victory at the SCG Pakistan chasing 158 all out 106
1974 ABC airs final episode of "Love, American Style"
1975 Soyuz 17 carries 2 cosmonauts to space station Salyut 4

1976 Dorothy Hamill wins her 3rd consecutive national figure skating championship
1976 "Pacific Overtures" opens at Winter Garden Theater New York City NY for 193 performances
1976 Military coup in Ecuador, President Guillermo Lara leaves
1976 Stephen Sondheim's musical "Pacific Overtures" premieres in New York City NY
1976 US female Figure Skating championship won by Dorothy Hamill

1976 US male Figure Skating championship won by Terry Kubicka
1977 France releases Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics
1977 Bollingen Prize awarded to David Ignatow
1977 Cubs trade outfielder Rick Monday to Dodgers for Bill Buckner
1978 Governor Askew dedicates the RCUC solar office building

1978 Soyuz 27 links with Salyut 6 & Soyuz 26 (1st time 3 spacecraft link)
1979 "Grand Tour" opens at Palace Theater New York City NY for 61 performances
1980 Debut of the Pretenders
1981 "Tintypes" closes at John Golden Theater New York City NY after 93 performances
1981 British team led by Ranulph Fiennes completes longest & fastest crossing of Antarctica, reaching Scott base after 75 days (2,500 miles)

1981 Palau adopts constitution
1982 Atlanta GA's temperature goes below zeroº F
1982 Honduras adopts constitution
1983 Billy Martin named New York Yankee manager for 3rd time
1984 Denver Nuggets 163, San Antonio Spurs 155-highest-scoring NBA game

1984 STS 41-B vehicle moves to launch pad
1984 Supreme Court reinstated $10M award to Karen Silkwood's family
1986 1st black Lieutenant-Governor since reconstruction sworn in (Douglas Wilder of Virginia)
1987 Largest crowd (76,633) at NFL New York Giant Stadium (beat Washington 17-0)
1988 USSR announces it will participate in the Seoul Summer Olympics

1988 Test debut of Phil Simmons, West Indies vs India, Madras
1989 140 nations agree to ban chemical weapons (poison gas, etc)
1989 Kindergarten student caught with loaded handgun at Bronx school
1989 Denver Nuggets' rookie Jerome Lane misses 7 free throws in a game against Milwaukee, one missed by 2 feet
1990 Actor Joseph Cotten undergoes vocal-chord cancer operation at 84

1990 Bobby Knight becomes basketball's Big 10 winningest coach (229)
1990 Pat Lafontaine sets New York Islander record of scoring goals in 11 straight
1990 200,000 demand return of Lithuania's independence
1991 Congress empowers Bush to order attack on Iraq
1991 Ben Johnson 1st race after being stripped of his 1988 Olympic Gold medal for steroid use, he finished 2nd

1991 Ric Flair wins NWA/WCW wrestling title
1991 Soviets storm buildings in Vilnius to block Lithuania independence
1992 Paul Simon opens a tour in South Africa
1992 Algeria's President Chadli announces his resignation
1992 US female Figure Skating championship won by Kristi Yamaguchi

1993 Howard Stern's radio show begins transmitting to Buffalo NY (WKBW)
1993 Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot publicly returns to politics
1994 Hyderabad score 6 for 944 against Andhra Pradesh in Ranji Trophy
1994 Irish government announces end of a 20-year broadcasting ban on IRA
1995 5th TV network (WB) Warner Brothers begins (WPIX-TV in New York City NY)

1995 Birmingham Barracudas granted CFL franchise
1995 DC-9 crashes near Maria La Baya, Colombia 51 die, 9 yr old girl lives
1995 NHLPA & owners agree to end NHL strike
1996 Space Shuttle STS 72 (Endeavour 10), launches into space
1997 23rd People's Choice Awards Bill Cosby wins

1997 Martina Hingis beats Jennifer Capriati at Sydney Tennis International
1997 Telstar 401 Satellite Fails
1998 "Proposals" closes at Broadhurst Theater New York City NY after 76 performances
1998 24th Annual People's Choice Awards - Seinfeld, Tim Allen win
1998 AFC Championship Denver Broncos beat Pitt Steelers 24-21

1998 NFC Championship Green Bay Packers beat San Francisco 49'ers 23-10
1998 US female Figure Skating championship won by Michelle Kwan
1998 US male Figure Skating championship won by Todd Eldredge


FATAL ROBBERIES
1991 Jason Christmas dies of gunshot wound during robbery in New York at 49

BORN

1757 Alexander Hamilton West Indies, 1st US Secretary of Treasury ($10 face)
1815 Sir John A MacDonald (C) 1st PM of Canada (1867-73)
1926 Grant Tinker broadcasting executive (NBC-TV)
1927 Wilton "Bogey" Gaynair saxophonist
1928 David L Wolper producer (Devil's Brigade)
1929 Rod Taylor Sydney Australia, actor (Bearcats, Time Machine)
1942 Clarence Clemons rock saxophonist (Bruce Springsteen's E St Band)
1946 Naomi Judd [Diana Ellen], Ashland KY, singer (Judds-Why Not Me)
1947 Anna Calder-Marshall Kensington England, actress (Zulu Dawn)
1952 Lee Ritenour Los Angeles CA, jazz musician
1957 Darryl Dawkins NBA center (Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets)
1958 Lourdes Ann Kananimanu Estores Honolulu HI, playmate (June 1982)
1959 Brett Bodine auto racer
1962 Julie Moran TV hostess (Entertainment Tonight, Independence Day)
1963 Tracy Caulkins Winona MN, swimmer (Olympics-3 gold-1984)
1967 Jeff Bankett Pittsburgh PA, actor (Tyler-1 Life to Live)
1971 Mary J Blige singer
1974 Rosenkowitz sextuplets Cape Town South Africa (1st known to survive infancy)
1988 Alexandria L'Esperance quintuplet
1988 Danielle L'Esperance quintuplet
1988 Erica L'Esperance quintuplet
1988 Raymond L'Esperance quintuplet
1988 Veronica L'Esperance quintuplet

DEATH

0705 John VI Catholic Pope (701-05), dies
1797 Francis Lightfoot Lee US farmer (signer Declaration of Independence), dies at 62
1843 Francis Scott Key composer (Star Spangled Banner), dies at 63
1893 Benjamin F Butler US General /presidential candidate (anti-monopoly), dies at 74
1914 Ambrose Bierce writer, dies at 71 (No actual date known. Bierce disappeared while in Mexico reporting.)
1928 Thomas Hardy novelist (Maddening Crowd), dies at his home near Dorchester at 87
1954 Oscar Straus Austrian composer (Brave Soldier), dies at 83
1963 Arthur D Nock English/Americans historian (St Paul), dies at 60
1966 Lal Bahadur Shastri Indian premier (1964-66), dies at 61
1979 Jack Soo actor (Nick Yemana-Barney Miller, Green Berets), dies at 63
1984 Jack La Rue TV narrator (Lights Out), dies at 84
1988 Gregory (Pappy) Boyington ace WWII pilot, dies at 75 of cancer
1994 John Bradley raised US flag at Iwo Jima, dies at 70
1994 Roger "Ram" Ramirez jazz piano player/composer, dies at 80
1997 Sheldon Leonard producer/director (Dick Van Dyke), dies at 89

January 11, the 11th day of 2008. There are 355 days left in the year.


compiled by Mondoreb
[image: nasa
Source: Today in History


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Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Eighth Annual Bloggies: A Last Hour Appeal

Is there any other kind?



Like Jerry Lewis on his Labor Day telethon, DBKP is issuing a last hour appeal.

For your good will.

For your help.

For your vote.



The Eighth Annual Bloggies closes their nominations at 10 PM today (Friday).

We're nominated in three catagories: Best Humorous Blog, Best Political Blog and Best New Blog.

You can only nominate (vote) once; if you've already done that, well--accept our heartfelt thanks!

That'll have to do: we already lost our firstborn during a bad streak in a poker game.

IF YOU HAVEN'T, take a few minutes (it will take you 2-3 minutes) to help our cause.

Namely, us.

But remember the good feeling you get when you help someone out? You'll get that same feeling here (maybe) and let THAT be your reward.

Handy instructions are below. If you're like most of us here, you won't read them. But, it will make it so much easier and simpler if you do.

Unless you enjoy swearing.


Here's the low-down:

1 Go over the the 2008 Eighth Annual Bloggies nomination webpage.

This nomination thing is open until this Friday, January 11 at 10 am. If you're like us, you might want to do it now. Or you'll forget. Or something more important will come up, like paying a bill or fixing something to go with the last two Oreos.

2 Scroll down to the categories. DBKP is nominated in three categories, as best we can tell. They are, in order going down the page:
a - Best Weblog about Politics
b - Most Humorous Weblog
c - Best New Weblog

3 You have to enter our name:

[Death By 1000 Papercuts] and the URL

[http://deathby1000papercuts.blogspot.com].

We have thoughtfully put them in #3 here for your cut-and-paste convenience. Ours too.



NOTE: You have to nominate 3 different blogs while you are there for the nomination to count. Think of 2 other blogs to nominate.
Your friends, our friends. Hopefully, not in our categories, but what the heck.

4 You have to type in the 2 CAPTCHA words. Those are those annoying letters and numbers that insure that you are a human, although most humans frequently get them as wrong as any spambot.

5 You then have to enter your email address.

6 Hit the "Submit Your Nominations!" button.

7 You will then get an email and you have to click on the address in your email to verify your nominations.




Time is short.

Time flies.

Time marches on.

10 am. Just a few more hours and nominations will be closed.

You'll forever lose your chance to say, "You know, back in '08, I helped that there weird bunch at MDBS or KMFDM or whatever they call themselves."

So take a moment of your most precious time.


"You Can Make the World a Better Place"


[Hello. My name is Mondoreb and I approved this message.]

by Mondoreb

People upon whose shoulders I stand: Little Baby Ginn, RidesAPaleHorse, Luscious P, Trench Reynolds, Blanca DeBree, Babba Zee and all our readers.
[images: campaign last-ditch appeal dept.]

[NOTE: Ok, we also might take a moment to tell you that the following blogs always show us great love and affection and you should consider them too.

Besides, they'll all really keen.

* BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS
* Blanca DeBree Blog
* Crime ne.ws
* Cripes Suzette!
* Doug Ross @Journal
* Little Green Footballs
* My Crime Space
* Wake Up America
* Any or all of the Trench Network on the left sidebar.
--I know we left people out. I apologize in advance. The time just passed so quickly.


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Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

Big Brother is Watching You Eat

Offering evidence of a chilling future--it's what we do



Need more proof that the Government is not only over-regulating people's everyday lives today, but is likely to be even more intrusive in the future?

DBKP has assembled unassailable evidence that the Government might one day tell you how much to weigh.

To wit.

Ever looked at one of the height/weight charts and rolled your eyes?

Or the more recent "body mass index"?

Even during the flower of youth, while competing in three sports, those weight chart numbers never added up to the coveted "ideal weight". About our senior year in high school, the following conclusion was reached.

Most people--who after checking those neat rows of intersecting numbers and uttering the words, "I'm at my ideal weight"--are either:

a-suffering from a dread disease;
b-suffering from sort of chemical imbalance which, while not technically a dread disease, will make them wish for the sweet caress of Death's icy fingers;
c-holding the chart upside down;
d-twisted into the throes of a nasty crack habit; or,
e-the perfect specimen of humanity.

Since perfect specimens of homo sapiens are rare, it was assumed that everyone else fit into the first four categories.

We could never figure out how the only time we were ever at our "ideal weight" was during the middle of wrestling season.

And we knew we didn't want to spend the rest of our life enjoying a Life Saver and a glass of water for lunch.

It wasn't until later, after reading of the different densities of muscle, fat and tissue that we understood one of the main reasons for our weight "problem"--at least as the charts saw it.

Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other mammals, is increased to a point where it is associated with certain health conditions or increased mortality.




Which brings us to today.

Obesity is in the news.

While browsing over at the friendly confines of Jammie Wearing Fool, we noticed the following.
A CANADIAN tribunal has ordered domestic airlines to charge clinically obese or disabled passengers accompanied by an attendant only one ticket to fly, even if they take up two or more seats.

As JWF observes, "I'm sorry, but when you're running a business and charge a certain price for a seat, it's fundamentally unfair to expect the company to have up to three people fly for the price of one."

"If you're so obese you needs two seats, pony up or find another means of transportation."

Seemed sensible to us.

Which started us to thinking (thinking tangentially being, we assume, one of the results of a gloriously-mispent youth) about who has the title of "World's Fattest Man".

As of July 2007, it appears Manuel, pictured below, takes honors.


Manuel Uribe Garza, 41, of Monterrey, thought to be the world's fattest man, could soon undergo weight-loss surgery in Italy, according to a report from the Italian news service Ansa.A mechanic from northern Mexico (state of Nuevo Leon), Garza has weighed as much as 561 Kilograms (1,235 pounds) but recently lost weight with the help of doctors.


Poor Manuel.

That got us thinking about the old Weekly World News, home of the Bat Boy and the candidate-endorsing Space Alien.

WWN always ran a regularly photoshopped picture of their "World's Fattest Man" and the various twists and turns his life took.

Eventually, the WWN's WFM met the World's Fattest Woman and, in true faux tabloid fashion, they married.

Happiness for the masses.

Two of them anyway.

But marriage doesn't solve all of one's problems, either in real life or in the pages of the Weekly World News: the World's Fattest Couple ran into at least one problem, detailed below.



It was never learned how the ensuing legal fisticuffs between the WWN WFC and the Sex Club turned out.

And, though the WWN is no more, we pondered the many tiny snapshots of life chronicled by the former Florida supermarket check-out line staple.

Every week, the Weekly World News managed to make up stories that, for us at any rate, proved that fiction is stranger than truth.

One of the more touching ones we remembered was the one involving the tale of former First Lady and current presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, and a homeless baby.



Which got us thinking about Clinton's chances for success. Would she be able to, in the words Maureen Dowd, "Cry Herself Back to the White House?

If Clinton wins, the ensnaring tentacles of the nanny state will gather strength as HillaryCare, either in one bold leap or incrementally, is attempted.

Since HillaryCare will be paying the freight on all health care costs, the Government won't want their charges smoking or eating excessively.

Obesity will then cease to become a personal problem and, in that Orwellian/Clintonian near-nanny-state-future, will become a problem with which the government will concern itself.

Like we said, DBKP has assembled unassailable evidence that the Government might one day tell you how much to weigh.

by Mondoreb
[images: tinypic;wwn]

Sources:
* AIO Forum
* Wikipedia - Obesity
* Fare deal for obese air travelers
* News for the Corpulent

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Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.

For Sale: 300 Sq. Ft. House in Toronto



Our intrepid Go-To-Guy, RAPH, found this tiny gem of a house for sale in Toronto. At three hundred square feet and 7.25' wide, NBA Center, Yao Ming wouldn't be able to stretch out his 7.6' frame.



This house, located near the intersection of Dufferin Street and Rogers Road is believed to be Toronto's smallest house. Occupying what used to be a driveway, it's a one bedroom, one bathroom home that sits on a parcel of land 7.25 feet (2.2 metres) wide and 113.67 feet (34.6 metres)long and has an interior area of just under 300 metres).


Here's the living room, looking towards the front of the house


Here's the living room again, looking towards the back ...


Here's the kitchen. Note that despite the small space,
they've managed to fit a washer and dryer into the place.



Here's the bedroom. It comes with a Murphy bed,
which is a necessity in such a space. This is what it
looks like with the Murphy Bed down


You also get some patio space out back.
Here it is, looking towards the front of the house:




Perfect for parking that cute little Vespa!



Image - Alibaba

Here are the home's 'Listed Features':

* Completely re-done top-to-bottom, front-to-back!
* Tumbled stone entrance walk
* Renovated Bath
* Renovated Kitchen with newer stove, new cabinets and new stacked washer/dryer
* Bedroom with Murphy Bedd + 'Built-Ins' .... (doubles as a den)!
* Walk-out to fenced patio
* 100 Amp service
* 2 Satellite Dishes and Receiver
* Window Air Conditioner Available
Fabulous!

Just fork over the $179, 900.00 asking price and you've got yourself a neat little nest egg.

Literally.

By LBG and RAPH


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