A pi day record!

Congratulations to all the students involved!

Hi there,

My name is Veronica Han-G Benes and I am a MS Math teacher at Westlake Christian School, in Palm Harbor, Florida. I am sending you this email as I have emailed Gene Potter. He gave me your email address and suggested that I email you in regards to what our MS math class has done for National Pi Day, last Tuesday.

My students participated in several various events, which I received various ideas from mathwithmrherte.com. Some of them included citing as many circular objects in the world, circular songs, memorizing digits of Pi, measuring various objects for circumference and area as well as, making a Pi chain.

I understand that North Clayton High, (in an article written by Jeffrey Whitfield) stated they made a 5,000 link Pi chain.

Well, after some research I had seen on Mr. Herte's website that a school in Ohio had made a chain back in 2002 of 5201 links! I am so happy to say that my math students made a Pi chain of 7,095 digits!! It was so impressive that I had our local paper, St. Petersburg Times have a photographer sent over so they could take a pictuer. I am happy to say that we were photographed on Wednesday, March 15th in our Pinellas Times Section of the paper.

I was hoping you could help me so that I could have my students listed somehow, on a record list. In addition, I have a 7th grade student who has memorized 254 digits of Pi!!

I am so happy my students were able to participate in this experience and have a great time...

Please advise me how I can get my students noticed...

Thank you so much!

Veronica Han-G BenesMS Math Teacher
Westlake Christian School
1551 Belcher Road
Palm Harbor, FL 34683

Pi Day is here!

TUESDAY MARCH 14 (03.14) IS PI DAY -- When Math Geeks, Students & Quants Can Have Their Pi and Eat It Too
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2006--It's Pi Day because the date is 3/14 -- the first three digits of Pi.
It's celebrated across the United States by Math nerds, students, teachers and professors, from elementary school to university, and even die-hard Quants.
Contrary to the pundits, there is a groundswell of enthusiasm and interest in Math and Sciences across the spectrum. Pi Day is the most visible demonstration.
The annual ritual Drop of The Giant Pi, viewed live across the United States, takes place in cyberspace at Pi Day Ground Zero -- the Pi Department at MathematiciansPictures.com -- on March 14 at precisely 1:59 pm (3.14.1:59 -- the first six digits of Pi). The Countdown is already running live.
PI DAY COUNTDOWN, & GIANT PI DROP at:
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI_DAY_CENTRAL_Giant_Pi_Drop_MARCH_14.htm
Pi lovers don Pi Day shirts, display Pi Day posters and Pi scrolls, drink from Pi Day mugs, and serve pie in Pi Day aprons, as the Giant Pi descends majestically for its annual 'touch down.'
MEDIA "INTERVIEW WITH THE PI" (Visual & Voice):
Media interviews with the Pi (visual and voice) are available Monday March 13th and Tuesday March 14th as the Pi prepares for its Pi Day drop from the Giant Crane.
PI DAY GEAR: http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI-DAY.htm
EVERYDAY PI: (American Pi, Strawberry Pi, Pi-in-the-Sky, Apple Pi, Pizza Pi, etc)
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/sp_Pi_Variations.htm#PI_SHIRTS_POSTERS_MUGS
WORLD'S LARGEST PI POSTER (4 feet x 8 feet: One Million Digits):
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/Pi_One_Million_Decimal_Places_Pi_1_Million_Decimal_Places_poster.htm#PI_ONE_MILLION_DIGITS
Pi Scrolls:
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI-PANEL_scroll.htm#PI_SCROLLS
Please let us know if you are interested in order that minor technical details for Drop of the Giant Pi coverage, and the Interview with the Pi can be coordinated in advance.

I used to live near these cities.....never thought about the names

Well, at least we don't live in Il-in-WAH
JAY RATH For the State Journal
The Bible tells us that God looked at the Tower of Babel, scattered its builders and confounded their tongues. This must be the earliest known literary reference to Wisconsin.
How else to explain our welter of impossible city and town pronunciations?
"I think my first week, it was Wau-POON. That was a lot of fun," says Christine Bellport, WMTV (Ch. 15) morning anchor. The California native arrived in Madison in August 2004, only to be ambushed by, of course, Waupun. There's an Associated Press guide to place name pronunciation, "Except - I'm not kidding you - a third of the time they're incorrect," says Bellport.
At northern Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet U.S. National Forest, public affairs specialist Cathy Fox has heard it all. Just looking at the name terrifies. "I had some poor guy call from California once," Fox recalls, laughing. "He said, 'I need to update some information on Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch' - I said, 'Go ahead. Try it!'• "
Only Wisconsinese features a silent "Q." The correct pronunciation is SHAW-em-gun. The strangest she's heard was check-wa-ME-gun. "That was the phonetically correct person," Fox says, coining a new meaning for P.C.
Our maps seem designed to embarrass. Take Rio and Theresa, two Wisconsin villages. You would think that no names could be easier to pronounce. You would be wrong.
Rio rhymes with EYE-Oh, and it's tuh-RESS-uh. Following this logic, the capital should be MADE-ice-own.
Similarly, there is the Strange Case of Muscoda, which you might expect to be mus-KOE- duh. There is hope that the emerging science of quantum mechanics and string theory may yet account for pronouncing it, instead, as MUSS-kuh- day.
We're not as dumb as we think when we bump into unfamiliar place names. We take for granted how much we do know. For example, which "ough" sound should one mimic when pronouncing the city 20 miles southwest of Madison? Looking to "rough," "through" and "thought," it could be called Stuffton, Stewton or Stawton. But somewhere long ago we learned that Stoughton is "STOW-tun."
Then there's the siren's song of familiar, look-alike words that lure us toward the shores of mispronunciation and public embarrassment. Oregon the state is ends with an "un" sound, but in Wisconsin the town is definitely "on." On the back of most nickels you see that Jefferson lived at mont-uh- CHELL-oh, but our Monitcello is mont-uh-SELL-oh. The city of Tomahawk presents no problem, but the city of Tomah does. It's TOE-muh. And you're welcome to take your bow and play the viola in Viola, so long as you pronounce the community's first syllable with an "eye" sound, and not the musical instrument's "vee."
Speaking of music, different meters playing at the same time is called a hemiola; think of a polka played as a waltz. The off-balance effect is as if the instruments are speaking on the wrong syllables. In Wisconsin, we make music of a different sort when we show preference to unexpected syllables. Take, for example, Gillett, which is JILL-it. Boaz is not "boze," but BO-az. And there's New BER-lin. Struggle as we might to be phonetically correct, how can we follow rules when there aren't any? It's not Bos-KOE-buhl, WAW-puk- aw and Muh-ZAHM-uh-nee. First second and third syllables are each favored, in order, in Boscobel, Waupaca and Mazomanie: BOSS-kuh-bell, Wah- PACK-uh and may-zoh-MAY- nee.
Against all reason we speak Vienna with an "eye" sound. But it's not Germanic tongues that tangle most. The French may have ceded the Wisconsin territory to the British in 1763, but they left behind the city whose name should be pronounced "bell-WAH." If you call it that when asking for directions, you'll never find your way to Beloit.
The "sheen" that ends Prairie du Chien would, to a French speaker, be "shee-EN," with a nasalized "n" on the end. Word pairs that are otherwise simple can set up illogical hurdles to pronunciation. Sportscasters who call it GREEN Bay make us snort. But why do we call it Green BAY, as if there are other green things nearby and we mean to refer only to the water? Still, green is GREEN in Spring GREEN. Why? Why, for that matter, is it Sauk CITY but never BEAVER Dam?
Many of us no doubt mangle names drawn from Native American languages, without even knowing it. Look how even the tribal name of the Ojibwa was so long mangled as "Chippewa." Oshkosh is named for the chief whose name was spelled that way, but it's also spelled as the Brooklyn- sounding "Oiscoss." Both spellings turn up in the 1827 Treaty of Little Butte des Morts, a pronunciation challenge in itself. It's no mystery why, history tells us, the chief was also called "Clam."
But we're led astray even within the context of probably- garbled Indian names, especially in the matter of our "aukees." If it's Mil-WAH-kee, Peh- WAH-kee and Oh-ZAW-kee, then why is Waunakee not Wah-NAH-kee, instead of Wah- nuh-KEE?
And then there's . . . Oconomowoc.
It could be a childhood phonics test, with its perfectly alternating hard and soft "O"s. The Wisconsin Historical Society says it's a corruption of "Coo-no-mo-wauk," a Pottawatomie term referring to a nearby waterfall, and that tired pioneers punned it as "I can no mo' walk."
Even the original pronunciation and meaning of "Wisconsin" are lost to us. Its listed translations range from "gathering of waters" and "river of red stone" to "river of the great rock" which, though picturesque, could hardly fit on license plates. The Historical Society says it's the English spelling of a French version of a Native American word. French explorer Jacques Marquette garbled it immediately in 1673, spelling it both "Meskousing" and "Miskous."
Be thankful, then, for failed translations and mispronunciations. Otherwise, instead of "On, Wisconsin!" we'd all be singing "On, Miskous!" But that's better than singing another translation of our state name: "On, Holes in the Bank of a Stream in Which Birds Nest!"
It would be easy to pronounce, though.

good news for geezers?

The next few decades will see an explosion in the percentage of Americans over the age of 65, but the economic and social impact of this baby boomer sunset may be gentler than had been feared because of a significant drop in the percentage of older people with disabilities, a new federal study has concluded.
Released yesterday, the United States Census Bureau's 243-page report on the aging population, among the largest and most comprehensive on the subject that the bureau has ever compiled, showed that today's older Americans are markedly different from previous generations. They are more prosperous, better educated and healthier, and those differences will only accelerate as the first boomers hit retirement age in 2011.
"Older Americans, when compared to older Americans even 20 years ago, are showing substantially less disability, and that benefit applies to men and to women," said Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, on whose behalf the study was conducted. "All of this speaks to an improved quality of life."
What this suggests, Dr. Hodes said, is that while many of these older Americans will eventually become disabled, it will happen later with more of the years beyond 65 free of disability — an increase in what scientists call health expectancy.
And while, as baby boomers age, the growing ranks of the infirm will become a substantial drain on government coffers and devour health care resources, the total impact may not be as devastating as once feared, Dr. Hodes said.
The study showed that the percentage of those over 65 who had a disability that the report described as "a substantial limitation in a major life activity" fell to 19.7 percent in 1999 from 26.2 percent in 1982. There were signs the trend would continue.
Richard Suzman, head of the Behavioral and Social Research Program for the National Institute on Aging, said there was disagreement among those analyzing the results about why this drop occurred. But they assumed, he said, that it was at least partly a result of today's older Americans' being better educated and more prosperous than previous generations.
"People today have a better health expectancy than did their predecessors," Mr. Suzman said. "Education, in particular, is a particularly powerful factor in both life expectancy and health expectancy, though truthfully, we're not quite sure why."
Dr. Hodes cautioned that the growing obesity rate in America may neutralize the positive trend.
The new study, "65+ in the United States: 2005," involved no fresh research but was an effort to draw together all of the relevant information on America's aging population from nearly a dozen federal agencies, said Charles Louis Kincannon, director of the Census Bureau.
"The report tells us that the face of America is changing," he said.
In 1900, Mr. Kincannon said, there were 120,000 Americans over age 85, about 0.1 percent of the population. Today there are more than four million, about 1 percent. Indeed, Mr. Kincannon said, it is the nation's fastest-growing age group.
In July 2003, there were 35.9 million Americans over the age of 65, about 12 percent of the population. By 2030, federal officials predict, there will be 72 million older people, about 20 percent of Americans.
And they will be a substantially different class of people than previous generations. In 1959, 35 percent of people over 65 lived in poverty. By 2003, that figure had dropped to 10 percent. The proportion of older Americans with a high school diploma rose to 71.5 percent in 2003 from 17 percent in 1950.
All of these trends are expected to accelerate, and soon. "The future older population is likely to be better educated than the current older population, especially when baby boomers start reaching age 65," the report concluded. "Their increased levels of education may accompany better health, higher incomes and more wealth, and consequently higher standards of living in retirement."
And as younger workers become scarcer, many companies will have to find ways to convince their older workers to stay on the job longer, Mr. Kincannon said.
The report was not all good news.
Divorce is on the rise among older Americans, the study found, leading to concerns that broken families combined with low birth rates among baby boomers may create a situation where fewer people are available or willing to help care for their aging relatives, pushing even more of the burden onto government.
Also, the drop in poverty has not happened across all population groups. "There are subgroups among the old who still have fairly high levels of poverty, including older women, and especially those who live alone," said Victoria A. Velkoff, chief of the aging studies branch at the Census Bureau.
Ms. Velkoff said that while the aging population was more diverse than previous generations, poverty hit blacks and Hispanics, especially women, harder than whites. While 10 percent of older white women lived in poverty in 2003, 21.4 percent of older Hispanic women and 27.4 percent of older black women did.

Not even a geezer

This is sad. He was such a good player in a small ball town. Really, the star of Minneapolis for a number of years. Probably could not live a life after baseball....

MINNEAPOLIS Mar 6, 2006 (AP)— Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44.

sad waste of a car....

The Plot Thickens in Ferrari CrashA gun's magazine found near the wreckage may be connected to the accident, and a Scottish bank says it might own the destroyed car.By Richard Winton and David PiersonTimes Staff WritersPublished February 28, 2006The mystery deepened Monday in the case of the puzzling crash last week of a $1-million Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.Sheriff's detectives said Monday that they believe a gun's magazine discovered near the wreckage is connected to the crash, and they plan to interview an unnamed person who they believe was in the car with Swedish game machine entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson.The crash has also garnered the attention of a leading Scottish bank, which has informed sheriff's investigators that it may own the destroyed car. At the same time, detectives are trying to figure out why another exotic car in Eriksson's extensive collection, a Mercedes SLR, was listed as stolen by Scotland Yard in London, said Sheriff's Sgt. Phil Brooks.The totaled Ferrari was one of two Enzos that Eriksson brought into the United States from England along with the Mercedes SLR, Brooks said. But detectives concluded that the totaled vehicle did not have appropriate papers and was not "street legal" for driving in California, he said.Detectives have been trying for nearly a week to sort out what exactly happened last Tuesday morning when Eriksson's Enzo — one of only 400 ever made — smashed into a telephone pole, totaling the car. Eriksson told deputies that he was the passenger and that a man he knew only as "Dietrich" was behind the wheel. But detectives have been openly skeptical of the story, noting that Eriksson had a bloody lip and that the only blood they found in the car was on the driver's-side air bag.Brooks said detectives have called in Eriksson for another interview. Eriksson has declined through the security guard at his gated Bel-Air estate to comment. An attorney who has previously represented Eriksson in civil matters, Ashley Posner, also declined to comment Monday.But some city leaders in Malibu, where the crash has been the talk of the town, were less circumspect."The guy should have had an IQ test," said Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Ken Kearsley, who has been following the coverage of the crash with a half-grin. The driver's IQ "couldn't come up above 60 if he was doing 120 on PCH," Kearsley said.But in fact, Brooks said Monday, the car was traveling 162 mph when it crashed, far faster than the 120 mph originally believed. The Ferrari, with just a few inches of undercarriage clearance, hit a bump at a crest in the road, sending the vehicle airborne and into the power pole, Brooks said.Brooks said they are investigating whether someone else may have been present and are trying to determine whether the recovered gun component is connected to the case. He declined to say more about the find or elaborate on the status of the Scottish bank and Scotland Yard in the case.The question of whether Eriksson was the driver is key to the case, Brooks said. Eriksson's blood-alcohol level was 0.09%, higher than the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle.Sheriff's officials are still trying to confirm witness reports that the Ferrari might have been drag racing with another car, and officials aren't sure if that's what happened.Sheriff's officials said Eriksson was an executive with a game company that attempted to take on Sony and Nintendo, but the firm collapsed last year.In Malibu, officials said they are not sure what to make of the accident.Kearsley said the stretch of road was not known for drag racing, but for run-of-the-mill speeders. He said the Sheriff's Department has had success for the last year and a half using radar and lasers to catch overzealous drivers. The lasers are not detectable to drivers, he said."It's straight as an arrow where the accident was," he said. "You really have to go out of your way to hit a telephone pole."Carol Moss, a longtime Malibu resident, activist and meditation group leader, said the accident came as no surprise."It was horrendous, but Malibu is full of idiots," she said. "There are a lot of wild cars and irresponsible people. The roads are dangerous. You always see people with those sorts of cars. You see some wild behavior."But, in keeping with her Zen frame of mind, Moss extended an olive branch. "Everyone is welcome to attend the meditation group. Even the drag racer."

The clumsy geezer

London - The police report described him as a "falling object" who lost control of his bicycle after being overwhelmed by the challenge of pedalling and waving at the same time.So ended the mystery of how President Bush collided with - and injured - a police officer while cycling at Gleneagles Hotel in Edinburgh on the first day of the G8 summit.The police report read: "The president approached the junction at speed on the bicycle. The road was damp. As the president passed at speed, he raised his left arm from the handlebars to wave to the police officers present while shouting: 'Thanks, you guys, for coming.'

"As he did, he lost control, falling to the ground, causing both himself and his bicycle to strike [the officer] on the lower legs. [The officer] fell to the ground, striking his head."The report went on to divulge how the president skidded 5m after knocking down the police constable, who was off duty for 14 weeks after the accident.The injured officer received a phone call of apology while on his way to the infirmary.

another geezer gone....

Hope Kolchak finds the strange creatures....

Darren McGavin, 83, a film and television actor who appeared on an almost limitless number of television series and shows and set a standard for cynical and hard-boiled gruffness as a reporter in "The Night Stalker" and a detective in "Mike Hammer," died yesterday in California.
A son told the Associated Press that he died in a hospital in the Los Angeles area. No cause of death was specified.

Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak on "The Night Stalker."

Few actors of his generation remained active longer. Mr. McGavin's acting career has been traced back to a 1941 stage appearance in "Lady Windermere's Fan." There were reports that he worked on a TV pilot last year. He won an Emmy for a role on the TV series "Murphy Brown."
But the 20 episodes of the "Night Stalker" series, in which he played a rumpled, grumpy Chicago news reporter whose determination to follow every lead allows him to save society from the dangers of the supernatural, seemed to define his career.
The episodes in which he played Carl Kolchak on ABC in 1974 and 1975 were distinguished by his portrayal of the dogged shoe-leather reporter and combined the appeal of the newsroom drama with the attractions of fantasy and the occult.
Before that, he played Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer in the late 1950s, staying just this side of farce in his demonstration of the ultimate toughness of the private eye.
Documentation of his early life seemed sparse last night. In some accounts, he was born in Spokane, in others in the San Joaquin Valley area of California. Delano is listed for his father's middle name, Bogart for his mother's.
Mr. McGavin had a year of college in California, then went east to the Actors Studio.
Survivors include four children.

another geezer gone....

LOS ANGELES - Don Knotts, the skinny, lovable nerd who kept generations of television audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," has died. He was 81.
died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs "The Andy Griffith Show," and another Knotts hit, "Three's Company."Unspecified health problems had forced him to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August 2005.The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmies.The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing."I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."Knotts appeared on six other television shows. In 1979, Knotts replaced Norman Fell on "Three's Company," playing the would-be swinger landlord to John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt.Early in his TV career, he was one of the original cast members of "The Steve Allen Show," the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956-61. He was one of a group of memorable comics backing Allen that included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana.Knotts' G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl - a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.In the part-animated 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.When it was announced in 1998 that Jim Carrey would star in a "Limpet" remake, Knotts responded: "I'm just flattered that someone of Carrey's caliber is remaking something I did. Now, if someone else did Barney Fife, THAT would be different."In the 1967 film "The Reluctant Astronaut," co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son - operator of a Kiddieland rocket ride - in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut to the joy of his parents and hometown but is eventually exposed for what he really is, a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride an airplane.In the 1969 film "The Love God?," he was a geeky bird-watcher who is duped into becoming publisher of a naughty men's magazine and then becomes a national sex symbol. Eventually, he comes to his senses, leaves the big city and marries the sweet girl next door.He was among an army of comedians from Buster Keaton to Jonathan Winters to liven up the 1963 megacomedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Other films include "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966); "The Shakiest Gun in the West," (1968); and a few Disney films such as "The Apple Dumpling Gang," (1974); "Gus," (1976); and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo," (1977).In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie "Pleasantville," playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.Knotts began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city."I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride," he recalled in a visit to his hometown of Morgantown, where city officials renamed a street for him in 1998.Within six months, Knotts had taken a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders," playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years, then came his series TV debut on "The Steve Allen Show."He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.In recent years, he said he had no plans to retire, traveling with theater productions and appearing in print and TV ads for Kodiak pressure treated wood.The world laughed at Knotts, but it also laughed with him.He treasured his comedic roles and could point to only one role that wasn't funny, a brief stint on the daytime drama "Search for Tomorrow.""That's the only serious thing I've done. I don't miss that," Knotts said.

death of the 60's

CALGARY, Alberta - William Cowsill, lead singer of the 1960s singing family band The Cowsills, which inspired the TV series "The Partridge Family," has died. He was 58.Cowsill, who was suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis, and other ailments, died in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday, according to the family and Canadian record producer Neil MacGonigill. He had been in deteriorating health.The Cowsills, inspiration for the "The Partridge Family," recorded a series of top hits between 1967 and 1970, including "The Rain, The Park and Other Things" and "Hair."Four Cowsill brothers played in the band: Barry on bass, William on guitar, Bob on guitar and organ, and John on drums. Their mother, Barbara, and little sister, Susan, eventually joined the group.Barry disappeared after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans on Aug. 29. His body was recovered Dec. 28 from the Chartres Street Wharf.The band's career began in Newport, R.I. They were spotted by a producer for NBC's "Today" show which booked them for an appearance that led to a record deal.The band broke up in the 1970s. William, the oldest brother, moved to Canada about 35 years ago, where he continued his music career with Blue Northern, The Blue Shadows and the Co-Dependents.Cowsill is survived by two sons.

Hemp should be legal....

North Dakota, three other states make pitch to allow hemp cultivation
Ag Commission Johnson says Drug Enforcement Agency ‘cordial,’ but cautioned about fed law complications
Grand Forks Herald
GRAND FORKS, ND -- North Dakota and three other states made their case today with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to allow the cultivation of industrial hemp, according to the state Department of Agriculture.
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson and counterparts from West Virginia, Massachusetts and Wisconsin met with several DEA officials.
In a news release, Johnson said his department is drafting new rules to control the production of industrial hemp, and that he wanted to solicit input from DEA. The new rules would implement state laws, passed by the Legislature in 1999 through 2005.
DEA officials were “very cordial” but cautioned that the process of legalizing industrial hemp production would be extremely complicated under existing federal law, Johnson said in a statement.
“DEA has never responded to our earlier inquiries,” Johnson said, “but today, we were able to present our case and learn from them what may be required in terms of regulations and safeguards.”
According to the state Department of Agriculture, industrial hemp (cannabis sativa) is widely grown around the world and is used in the manufacture of textiles, papers and rope. Its seed is also used for food and feed. Oil derived from the plant is used in cosmetics, paints and medicinal compounds. The industrial form of hemp contains only trace amounts of the psychoactive drug delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) found in marijuana, although DEA currently does not recognize industrial hemp apart from marijuana.
The United States is alone among industrialized countries in banning cultivation of industrial hemp, Johnson said, adding that Canada lifted their band in 1998.
He said industrial hemp could do well in North Dakota as a valuable rotational crop and another income source.

poem

don't kiss your honey
when your nose is runny
you may think it's funny
but it's not.....


say it out loud....

riding in comfort

Recumbent bicycle devotees sing praises of the low riders Comfort factor biggest reason cyclists make switch
Sunday, February 12, 2006
News Staff Reporter
The reclining cyclists on their low-riding bicycles may look a little strange. But those who've switched from the upright to the recumbent bicycle say they'll never go back.
"With some people, it's like they've rediscovered the bicycle,'' said Bob Krzewinski, coordinator of the Wolver-Bent Recumbent Cyclists. "All of a sudden they get on one of these things and start riding it, and they get a smile on their face and say, 'Wow! This is fun and comfortable. I didn't know bikes could be so comfortable.'''
Comfortable bikers will ride more, said Krzewinski, an airline pilot who lives in Ypsilanti. That will improve their health and make them less susceptible to obesity, too.''
On Saturday, the 25-year-old Michigan Human-Powered Vehicle Association met with the 10-year-old Wolver-Bent Recumbent Cyclists at the University of Michigan for their joint annual meeting.
As the owner of Ann Arbor Cyclery, 1200 Packard St., Jon Kieft has tested every kind of bike out there.
His hands-down favorite? The recumbent.
"I love it,'' he said. "I wouldn't ride any other bike after riding that. I'm not out to race, or ride hard off road. I ride recreationally with my family ... It's the comfort factor.''
He said recumbent bikes make up about 14 percent of his total bike sales, up from about 5 percent five years ago. Most customers are 40 to 65 years old and looking for a more comfortable ride, he said. The bikes range in price from $700 to $5,000, with the average bike around $1,600, compared to $700 for the average mountain bike, he said.
"They're becoming more and more popular, but a lot of people still haven't seen them,'' Kieft said. "They're not quite sure what they are, or why people are riding them. So they stare at you as you go past.''
Recumbent bicycles have been around since the late 1800s, but it was not until about 1990 that they started catching on in the United States. Enthusiasts claim they reduce the sore necks, shoulders, backs, hands, and bottoms that can result from riding a traditional bike.
John Vaughan of Ann Arbor bought his recumbent bike nearly three years ago. He now rides 1,200 miles a year during afternoon rides on local trails and streets.
He made the switch because his old bike made his hands hurt or numb.
"I have no discomfort at all now,'' said Vaughan, 51. "When I go on vacation, I take two- and three-hour rides without getting off the bike.''
The Michigan Human Powered Vehicle Association sponsors an annual race of recumbent cyclists, said president Wally Kiehler of Grosse Pointe Woods, noting that cyclists can exceed 40 mph.
"With the recumbent, there is no pain,'' he said. "If you work on the correct muscles with the recumbent and have a better bike, you can go faster, also.''
Robert Kay of York Township, a dealer of Greenspeed recumbent bikes, sells his bikes at crank-it.com. He switches between his recumbent bikes and mountain bike depending on his mood.
"Sometimes people think you're riding a wheelchair; they think you might be disabled,'' he said. "And we have a lot of disabled customers; people who don't have balance, or have ridden a bike in the past and gotten injured.''
He said his three-wheeler bike is particularly good for those with balance problems.
Krzewinski still keeps his old Schwinn road bike in the basement, but hasn't ridden it in years.
"I was getting aches and pains on a regular bike, and thought, 'There's got to be a better way,' '' he recalled. "Now I can ride all day without a bunch of pain.''
For more information on Michigan Wolver-Bent Recumbent Bicyclists, which sponsors monthly rides in southeast Michigan, visit wolverbents.org.

a sad way to go....

An 88-year-old Evanston man was killed Wednesday after a refuse container truck struck him while he was riding a bicycle, said Deputy Chief Brian King of the Wilmette Police Department.
The truck hit Edward K. Meyer, of 2518 Jackson Ave., at about noon at the intersection of Isabella and Poplar streets, King said. The intersection lies on the border between Evanston and Wilmette. Meyer was riding in the lane of traffic when the truck backed up over him.
The truck carried a large refuse container often used at construction sites and was coming from a site in Elmhurst, Ill., King said.
Witnesses contacted the police department when the bicycle was seen under the truck, King said. The driver did not immediately realize the truck struck Meyer.
Meyer was killed instantly, King said.
Evanston police responded to the incident and assisted Wilmette officers in handling the accident.
A team from the Wilmette Police Department will investigate, King said. No charges had been filed as of Thursday evening.
The names of the company and of the truck driver had not been released Thursday evening.

a great bike idea

A modest proposal



Contributed by Greg Gordon/For the Kaimin
Tuesday, 07 February 2006
This column is dedicated to the memory of environmental studies professor Bert Pfeiffer, who never failed to stand up for his beliefs and put his words into his everyday actions without dogma. Bert actively opposed the Vietnam War, and exposed the use of Agent Orange, a risky and unpopular position in the 1960s. A committed activist, Bert rode his bicycle to campus every day rain or shine well into his 70s, when he finally retired. Trusting in the goodness of the campus community, Bert never locked his bike, but simply left it standing outside Rankin Hall. When my head was filled with despair of global warming, nuclear proliferation and postmodern angst, nothing lifted my spirit so much as seeing 75-year-old Bert wobbling across campus on his rickety, one-speed bike.
Let me see if I have this straight:
1. Global climate change is drastically affecting our weather patterns, creating droughts and hurricanes, melting ice caps, raising sea levels and causing the proliferation of exotic species and tropical diseases. It is wreaking potential havoc on agriculture and ecosystem resilience, not to mention totally messing with the skiing. Cars are a major source of global warming.
2. Missoula suffers from some of the worst air pollution in the country. Cars are a major source of air pollution.
3. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death and injury in this country.
4. We are currently embroiled in a terrible war over access to oil.
5. Parking lots require an enormous amount of space.
6. Bicycles are the most efficient means of transportation on earth.
7. Bicycles are non-polluting, quiet and healthy.
8. The Office of Public Safety reports a grand total of ZERO pedestrian/bicycle accidents.
9. ASUM is considering banning BICYCLES????
The reasons for such drastic action according to Kaimin guest columnist Christopher Lilly and ASUM Senator Jake Pipinich are, as near as I can tell:
1. Bicyclists are rude and wantonly mow down pedestrians. Umm, not too sure about this, so I called the Office of Public Safety and they have no record of any pedestrian/bicycle accidents. I can say that I’ve had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting someone yakking on a cell phone who stepsed out in front of me, totally oblivious to the world around her. Both parties apologized and went on their way. I’ve also been hit twice this year by cars, the drivers yakking on cell phones. Solution: BAN CARS AND CELL PHONES, and issue tickets for rude behavior.
2. Bicyclists have beards, don’t shower and wear wool hats. Solution: Enforced dress code on campus.
3. Bicyclists are immature. Acting in accordance with your principles so as to make the world a better place for ourselves, others on the planet and our children is immature, but driving your SUV 10 blocks, circling three times for a parking space, and then rushing across campus yakking on a cell phone and wearing pajama bottoms to class is maturity?
I propose ASUM consider the following:
1. Ban cars on campus. (Mobility-impaired excepted). There is more than adequate public transportation from anywhere in Missoula to UM. We can put all those parking lots to far better uses. Like a new business school or perhaps the George Bush Institute of Democracy where Pipinich and Lilly could find justification for inflicting their notions upon the majority.
2. Issue free bicycles to all incoming students. Those Ivy League schools give students laptops; UM has to compete. How can we compete with Harvard? We have a bicycle-friendly campus filled with healthy, vigorous students and faculty that trot up a mountain between classes. Note to Lilly: chicks dig hard bodies.
3. Issue free ski passes with registration. Hey, while we’re at it, why not?
4. Ban cell phones and immaturity and rudeness.
5. Ban pedestrians. You don’t hear bicyclists complaining, do you?
6. OK, here’s a real solution: Why not just make bike lanes? A couple of guys with a can of paint can solve the whole thing by painting bike lanes on those wide sidewalks.
Seriously, what worries me about this issue is how instead of seeking input to a perceived problem (did I mention zero record of any reported encounter?) Lilly and Pipinich wish to impose their will upon others by manufacturing a problem and instituting Draconian measures. This seems to be reflective of current political discourse since Dubya took office. We miss ya, Bert.
—Greg Gordon, graduate,
history

state of the union

I guess in this administration, if you don't agree, you don't get to go to the meeting.....oh, that's right, that is how he ran his campaign stops. Also, he never talks to people that disagree. Isn't it scary that he never gets to talk to real people.....


What Really HappenedBy Cindy Sheehant r u t h o u t PerspectiveWednesday 01 February 2006As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address last night.I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the underground tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shirt that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.There have already been many wild stories out there.I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred of protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

NOT a recommended trade....

SAN DIEGO - A man apparently tired of pedaling his bicycle ordered a woman out of her car Sunday then side-swiped a pole as he screeched away in the stolen Honda, San Diego police said.The 61-year-old woman was sitting in her car with the door open in an alley in Hillcrest when the man pedaled his bike over.
The carjacking -- which happened in the 3800 block of Seventh Avenue -- was reported at 12:35 p.m., SDPD Sgt. Rodney Vandiver said.
The man dropped his bicycle and ordered the woman out, Vandiver said, adding that the car swiped a pole on the way out of the alley.

A sucky way to end the day!

Michigan man bowls third 300 game of life, then dies
Associated PressDec. 30, 2005 12:00 AM
PORTAGE, Mich. - A bowler collapsed and died at a bowling alley shortly after rolling the third perfect game of his life.Ed Lorenz, 69, bowled a 300 on Wednesday in his first league game of the night at Airway Lanes. When the retiree got up to bowl in the fifth frame of his second game, he clutched his chest and fell over, and efforts to revive him failed."If he could have written a way to go out, this would be it," said Johnny D Masters, who was bowling with Lorenz.Friends said Lorenz started bowling in 1957 and ended last season with a 223 average. He rolled his first two 300 games over a one-week period in 2004.In May, Lorenz was inducted into the Kalamazoo Metro Bowling Association Hall of Fame.

Us geezers just like cool stuff too!

Boomers like cars geared to younger setCross between Hummer, minivan misses mark.
It wasn't until Jim Tudor got his new Honda Element that he noticed a quirk in its design. Why was the boxy vehicle's sunroof over the empty back seat instead of his spot up front?"I found out that it's supposed to be for my surfboard," says Tudor, who's 56, the grandfather of two and never surfs anywhere but the Internet. "It was really only after the fact, when I started doing a little reading on the car, that I found out I wasn't supposed to be the one driving it."It turns out many of the people buying the Element -- which looks like a cross between a minivan and a Hummer -- aren't the young surfers and mountain bikers Honda expected. It's the same for many buyers of Toyota's Scion models.
Those vehicles were designed and pitched by automakers to capture the hearts and dollars of consumers in their 20s or even younger.But a funny thing happened on the cars' way to the youth market -- people in their 40s, 50s, or 60s found the vehicles suited their lifestyles, too. Honda was "hoping to get parents to buy it for their kids. It didn't work out that way," says Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research, which tracks consumer spending. "The parents who bought it decided they wanted it. The whole car got hijacked by the baby boomers."The demand for these cars from older buyers has thrown a small curve to Honda, Toyota and others trying to broaden their appeal and build allegiance with consumers who will be key to their future business. Automakers are hardly upset that boomers are buying their youth-themed cars. On the contrary, they're happy to sell cars to whoever wants one, manufacturers say.But the embrace of the Element, Scion's xB, Pontiac's Vibe and other cars by drivers across the age spectrum reveals some of the unpredictabilities of the marketplace. Mainly, that in this age of highly targeted marketing and myriad product choices, consumers will often make purchases that fit their lifestyles and self-image, even if it's not exactly what manufacturer had in mind.Take Tudor, who lives in Newborn, Ga., and drives 40,000 miles a year for his job running a state trade association. He never opens the sunroof on his Element. He has no intention of sleeping in the vehicle, although the seats are designed to fold back for exactly that purpose.But he loves the car because it has loads of room to fit all the stuff he carts around for work. Tudor, who frequently drinks coffee or eats french fries while behind the wheel, also likes the upholstery and flooring that's easy to clean. "It just met my needs," he says.Those are very different needs than the ones Honda created the Element to fit.The automaker designed the vehicle for college-age men who participate in lots of active, outdoor sports, said Chris Naughton, a Honda spokesman."We also had a name for it during its creation -- that it was a dorm room on wheels," he said.Toyota had similar thoughts when it created its Scion brand. "There are 142 million people in the U.S. who are less than 30 years old," said Mark Templin, vice president of Scion. "They grew up in a different era. There are things going on around them that we didn't grow up with. It's important for Toyota's future to understand those people."The cars are also marketed at younger consumers. The Web site for Scion thumps out a rap beat. Element's site offers a link to an online mountain-biking game.The strategy has, in many ways, succeeded. Toyota and its sister Lexus brand traditionally sell to older consumers. But Scion's average age is the youngest of any brand, analysts say.Not as young as Toyota expected. By one calculation, the average Scion buyer is about 39, according to the Power Information Network, a subsidiary of automotive market research firm J.D. Power & Associates. For the Element, it's 43.Many older buyers of the vehicles were likely drawn to them by their price. Others were probably buying for their children. Still others buy because they think the cars make them look or feel younger, said Tom Libby, a PIN analyst. Other automakers are looking to follow suit with their own stylish compact cars, as a way to bring in new buyers regardless of age, he said.Jack Dear, of San Antonio, long a Ford owner, bought an Element this year, partly to save on gas. But Dear, 55, also was attracted to the vehicle because it reminds him of the VW Microbus he and friend piloted to California in 1971. They drove it right on to the beach and slept in the back until a police officer chased them away. The Element taps into a self-image that hasn't change all that much since then, he says."I think a lot of us never grew up," Dear says. "We cut our hair, but we never grew up."Tudor has already moved on to his second Element, this one bright red. Driving cars whose shape makes it stand out in traffic, he and other Element owners have been quick to spot one another, exchanging honks and friendly waves of solidarity."Then I noticed that everybody I was waving at was my own age," Tudor says. "That's why my kids call it the Elder-ment."

I guess Richland County did not vote overwhelmingly Bush....

Washington, DC - U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) issued the following statement today after receiving news that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has denied the state of Wisconsin's appeal for federal assistance following a string of severe storms and tornados that tore through Vernon and Richland Counties in late August: "I believe today's news that Wisconsin will not receive disaster relief aid has been made in error and at the expense of communities truly in need of federal assistance. The decision is extremely disappointing, especially in light of reports that FEMA has mismanaged relief funds, sending millions intended for disaster victims to areas where there was little to no damage in the wake of severe weather. Despite this news, I remain moved by the unrelenting optimism and resilience of the people of Viola as well as the way people throughout the area came together to roll up their sleeves and help their neighbors in need."

How santa gets his presents....

Santas go on rampage in New Zealand
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus costumes, many of them drunk, rampaged through New Zealand's largest city, robbing stores and assaulting security guards, police said Sunday.
The rampage, dubbed "Santarchy" by local newspapers, began early Saturday afternoon when the men, wearing ill-fitting Santa costumes, threw beer bottles and urinated on cars from an Auckland overpass, said Auckland Central Police spokeswoman Noreen Hegarty.
She said the men then rushed through a central city park, overturning garbage containers, throwing bottles at passing cars and spraying graffiti on buildings.
One man climbed the mooring line of a cruise ship before being ordered down by the captain. Other Santas, objecting when the man was arrested, attacked security staff, Hegarty said.

The remaining Santas entered a downtown convenience store and carried off beer and soft drinks.
"They came in, said 'Merry Christmas' and then helped themselves," store owner Changa Manakynda said.
Alex Dyer, a spokesman for the group, said Santarchy was a worldwide movement designed to protest the commercialization of Christmas.
Three people were arrested and charged with drunkenness and disorderly behavior.

His hair plugs are buried

I always enjoyed shaking his hand at the Wisconsin State Fair. That was one of his main campaign efforts, to shake the hand of fairgoers as they entered the flower exhibit.

One year, he got hair plugs inserted before the fair since he was going bald. It was the talk of the fair. They were literally hair plugs, plugged into his scalp. It looked painful...

rest in peace....

Maverick Sen. Proxmire dies at 90
Associated PressDec. 15, 2005 07:40 AM
WASHINGTON - Former Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire, a political maverick who became Congress' leading scourge of big spending and government waste, has died, a congressional official said Thursday.The 90-year-old Proxmire, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, had been living at a convalescent home near Baltimore. The official who told The Associated Press of his death insisted on anonymity because no formal announcement had yet been made on behalf of the family.Over the years, the rebel Democrat developed an image of penny-pinching populism that played well with his homestate voters. But his support of the expensive system of dairy price supports - widely criticized by others as symbolic of government largess gone amuck - won him strong backing from his state's dairy farmers.
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The senator's monthly "Golden Fleece" awards, which he began in 1975 to point out what he thought were frivolous expenditures of taxpayers' money, became a Washington tradition.Proxmire, who also became a familiar face on the television network Sunday news shows, was elected to the Senate in 1957 in a special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.He was re-elected in 1958 to his first six-year term and was returned to the same post in 1964, 1970, 1976 and 1982.Long before the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law was a twinkle in the eye of lawmakers, and at a time when millions were spent campaigning for Senate seats, Proxmire made a point of accepting no contributions. In 1982 he registered only $145.10 in campaign costs, yet gleaned 64 percent of the vote.The son of a wealthy physician in Lake Forest, Ill., Proxmire graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School. He served with military intelligence in World War II and later moved to Wisconsin to begin a career in politics.After three unsuccessful attempts at winning the governorship, Proxmire won McCarthy's vacant seat.Soon he carved out an independent streak on Capitol Hill by introducing amendments without consulting the party heads, filibustering, and even criticizing the dictates of then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson.In that respect, he resembled to a certain degree the style of a latter-day maverick and government spending critic, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.Proxmire remained dogged in his determination to represent his constituents as best he might. Despite his attacks against waste in the Pentagon and elsewhere in government, he remained tireless in his defense of milk price supports.But he did vote in 1975 to kill the $50 million Kickapoo Dam in his own state, which he contended was a waste of taxpyers' money.In more than two decades, Proxmire did not travel abroad on Senate business and he returned more than $900,000 from his office allowances to the Treasury.He repeatedly sparked his colleagues' ire by staunchly opposing salary increases, fighting against such Senate 'perks' as a new gym in the Hart office building and keeping the Senate open all night long - at a cost of thousands of dollars - so he alone could argue against increasing the national debt limit.Even so, his reputation was that of a workaholic and even his strongest critics found him to be one the the chamber's most disciplined, intelligent and persistent members.

sad day, he was a nice guy

I got to meet him in Wisconsin during his campaign. He was very nice....we should have elected him President.....

Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, dies


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.
McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.
Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race.
The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said.
When Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1992, he explained his decision to leave the seclusion of his home in rural Woodville, Va., for the campaign trail by quoting Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian: "They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view."
McCarthy got less than 1 percent of the vote in 1992 in New Hampshire, the state where he helped change history 24 years earlier.
Helped by his legion of idealistic young volunteers known as "clean-for-Gene kids," McCarthy got 42 percent of the vote in the state's 1968 Democratic primary. That showing embarrassed Johnson into withdrawing from the race and throwing his support to his vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey.

Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York also decided to seek the nomination, but was assassinated in June 1968. McCarthy and his followers went to the party convention in Chicago, where fellow Minnesotan Humphrey won the nomination amid bitter strife both on the convention floor and in the streets.
Humphrey went on to narrowly lose the general election to Richard Nixon. The racial, social and political tensions within the Democratic Party in 1968 have continued to affect presidential politics ever since.
"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview.
"There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway - the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation.
"But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others."
Although he supported the Korean War, McCarthy said he opposed the Vietnam War because "as it went on, you could tell the people running it didn't know what was going on."
Former Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., said McCarthy's presidential run in 1968 dramatically changed the antiwar movement.
"It was no longer a movement of concerned citizens, but became a national political movement," McGovern said Saturday. "He was an inspiration to me in all of my life in politics." McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, when McCarthy ran a second time.
Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who ran for vice president in 2004, said McCarthy "was a remarkable American, a man who spoke his conscience, and he was a great leader for my party."
In recent years, McCarthy was critical of campaign finance reform, winning him an unlikely award from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2000.
In an interview when he got the award, McCarthy said money helped him in the 1968 race. "We had a few big contributors," he said. "And that's true of any liberal movement. In the American Revolution, they didn't get matching funds from George III."
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McCarthy said the United States was partly to blame for ignoring the plight of Palestinians.
"You let a thing like that fester for 45 years, you have to expect something like this to happen," he said in an interview at the time. "No one at the White House has shown any concern for the Palestinians."
In a 2004 biography, "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism," British historian Dominic Sandbrook painted an unflattering portrait of McCarthy, calling him lazy and jealous, among other things. McCarthy, Sandbrook wrote, "willfully courted the reputation of frivolous maverick."
In McCarthy's 1998 book, "No-Fault Politics," editor Keith C. Burris described McCarthy in the introduction as "a Catholic committed to social justice but a skeptic about reform, about do-gooders, about the power of the state and the competence of government, and about the liberal reliance upon material cures for social problems."
McCarthy was born March 29, 1916, in Watkins, a central Minnesota town of about 750. He earned degrees from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., and the University of Minnesota.
He was a teacher, a civilian War Department employee and college economics and sociology instructor before turning to politics. He once spent a year in a monastery.
He was elected to the House in 1948. Ten years later he was elected to the Senate and re-elected in 1964. McCarthy left the Senate in 1970 and devoted much of his time to writing poetry, essays and books.
With a sardonic sense of humor, McCarthy needled whatever establishment was in power. In 1980 he endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan with the argument that anyone was better than incumbent Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.
On his 85th birthday in 2001, McCarthy told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that President Bush was an amateur and said he could not even bear to watch his inauguration.
In an interview a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McCarthy compared the Bush administration with the characters in the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," in which a group of boys stranded on an island turn to savagery.
"The bullies are running it," McCarthy said. "Bush is bullying everything."
McCarthy was an advocate for a third-party movement, arguing there was no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.
In 2000, he wrote a political satire called "An American Bestiary," illustrated by Chris Millis, in which high-level advisers are portrayed as park pigeons - "they strut and waddle" - and reporters are compared with black birds who flock together.
He blamed the media for deciding who is and is not a serious candidate and suggested he should have kept his 1992 candidacy a secret, since announcing it publicly did no good.
McCarthy also ran for president in 1972, 1976 and 1988.
For McCarthy, the 1950s and 1960s were the Democratic Party's high points because it pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and championed national health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
"I think he probably would consider his work in civil rights legislation in the 1960s to be his greatest contribution," his son said Saturday.
The bad times, Eugene McCarthy said, began with America's increased involvement in the Vietnam War and the simultaneous failure of some of Johnson's Great Society social programs.
Instead of giving people a chance to earn a living, McCarthy said, the Great Society "became affirmative action and more welfare. It was an admission the New Deal had failed or fallen."
In recent years McCarthy had lived at Georgetown Retirement Residence, an assisted living center in Washington. He and his wife, Abigail, separated after the 1968 election. She died in 2001.
Survivors include daughters Ellen and Margaret and six grandchildren, Michael McCarthy said.
A private burial is planned for next week and a memorial service in Washington will be scheduled, Michael McCarthy said.

sad day, he was a nice guy

I got to meet him in Wisconsin during his campaign. He was very nice....we should have elected him President.....

Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, dies


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.
McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.
Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race.
The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said.
When Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1992, he explained his decision to leave the seclusion of his home in rural Woodville, Va., for the campaign trail by quoting Plutarch, the ancient Greek historian: "They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view."
McCarthy got less than 1 percent of the vote in 1992 in New Hampshire, the state where he helped change history 24 years earlier.
Helped by his legion of idealistic young volunteers known as "clean-for-Gene kids," McCarthy got 42 percent of the vote in the state's 1968 Democratic primary. That showing embarrassed Johnson into withdrawing from the race and throwing his support to his vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey.

Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York also decided to seek the nomination, but was assassinated in June 1968. McCarthy and his followers went to the party convention in Chicago, where fellow Minnesotan Humphrey won the nomination amid bitter strife both on the convention floor and in the streets.
Humphrey went on to narrowly lose the general election to Richard Nixon. The racial, social and political tensions within the Democratic Party in 1968 have continued to affect presidential politics ever since.
"It was a tragic year for the Democratic Party and for responsible politics, in a way," McCarthy said in a 1988 interview.
"There were already forces at work that might have torn the party apart anyway - the growing women's movement, the growing demands for greater racial equality, an inability to incorporate all the demands of a new generation.
"But in 1968, the party became a kind of unrelated bloc of factions ... each refusing accommodation with another, each wanting control at the expense of all the others."
Although he supported the Korean War, McCarthy said he opposed the Vietnam War because "as it went on, you could tell the people running it didn't know what was going on."
Former Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., said McCarthy's presidential run in 1968 dramatically changed the antiwar movement.
"It was no longer a movement of concerned citizens, but became a national political movement," McGovern said Saturday. "He was an inspiration to me in all of my life in politics." McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, when McCarthy ran a second time.
Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who ran for vice president in 2004, said McCarthy "was a remarkable American, a man who spoke his conscience, and he was a great leader for my party."
In recent years, McCarthy was critical of campaign finance reform, winning him an unlikely award from the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2000.
In an interview when he got the award, McCarthy said money helped him in the 1968 race. "We had a few big contributors," he said. "And that's true of any liberal movement. In the American Revolution, they didn't get matching funds from George III."
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McCarthy said the United States was partly to blame for ignoring the plight of Palestinians.
"You let a thing like that fester for 45 years, you have to expect something like this to happen," he said in an interview at the time. "No one at the White House has shown any concern for the Palestinians."
In a 2004 biography, "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism," British historian Dominic Sandbrook painted an unflattering portrait of McCarthy, calling him lazy and jealous, among other things. McCarthy, Sandbrook wrote, "willfully courted the reputation of frivolous maverick."
In McCarthy's 1998 book, "No-Fault Politics," editor Keith C. Burris described McCarthy in the introduction as "a Catholic committed to social justice but a skeptic about reform, about do-gooders, about the power of the state and the competence of government, and about the liberal reliance upon material cures for social problems."
McCarthy was born March 29, 1916, in Watkins, a central Minnesota town of about 750. He earned degrees from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., and the University of Minnesota.
He was a teacher, a civilian War Department employee and college economics and sociology instructor before turning to politics. He once spent a year in a monastery.
He was elected to the House in 1948. Ten years later he was elected to the Senate and re-elected in 1964. McCarthy left the Senate in 1970 and devoted much of his time to writing poetry, essays and books.
With a sardonic sense of humor, McCarthy needled whatever establishment was in power. In 1980 he endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan with the argument that anyone was better than incumbent Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.
On his 85th birthday in 2001, McCarthy told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that President Bush was an amateur and said he could not even bear to watch his inauguration.
In an interview a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McCarthy compared the Bush administration with the characters in the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies," in which a group of boys stranded on an island turn to savagery.
"The bullies are running it," McCarthy said. "Bush is bullying everything."
McCarthy was an advocate for a third-party movement, arguing there was no real difference between Republicans and Democrats.
In 2000, he wrote a political satire called "An American Bestiary," illustrated by Chris Millis, in which high-level advisers are portrayed as park pigeons - "they strut and waddle" - and reporters are compared with black birds who flock together.
He blamed the media for deciding who is and is not a serious candidate and suggested he should have kept his 1992 candidacy a secret, since announcing it publicly did no good.
McCarthy also ran for president in 1972, 1976 and 1988.
For McCarthy, the 1950s and 1960s were the Democratic Party's high points because it pushed the Civil Rights Act through Congress and championed national health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
"I think he probably would consider his work in civil rights legislation in the 1960s to be his greatest contribution," his son said Saturday.
The bad times, Eugene McCarthy said, began with America's increased involvement in the Vietnam War and the simultaneous failure of some of Johnson's Great Society social programs.
Instead of giving people a chance to earn a living, McCarthy said, the Great Society "became affirmative action and more welfare. It was an admission the New Deal had failed or fallen."
In recent years McCarthy had lived at Georgetown Retirement Residence, an assisted living center in Washington. He and his wife, Abigail, separated after the 1968 election. She died in 2001.
Survivors include daughters Ellen and Margaret and six grandchildren, Michael McCarthy said.
A private burial is planned for next week and a memorial service in Washington will be scheduled, Michael McCarthy said.

Hey, I am not a near-elderly

This article is an INSULT to geezers everywhere. Our 95 year old neighbor thinks we are merely children. Certainly, boomers are not NEAR-ELDERLY. Maybe we ain't kids anymore, but give us a break!

Turn up the music, burn some cars, riot! Be in bed by nine.....

Don't mess with my social security!

Many boomers facing health woes
Associated PressDec. 9, 2005 12:00 AM
U.S. life expectancy has hit another all-time high, 77.6 years, and deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke continue to drop, the government reported Thursday.Nonetheless, the march of medical progress has taken a worrisome turn: Half of Americans in the 55-to-64 age group, including the oldest of the baby boomers, have high blood pressure, and two in five are obese. That means they are in worse shape in some respects than Americans born a decade earlier were when they were that age.The health of this large group of the near-elderly is of major concern to American taxpayers because they are now becoming eligible for Medicare and Social Security.

The report presents data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics and dozens of other health agencies and organizations.Among the new data: Deaths from heart disease, cancer and stroke, the nation's three leading killers, dropped in 2003 between 2 percent and 5 percent.Also, Americans' life expectancy increased again in 2003. According to the government's calculations, a child born in 2003 can expect to live 77.6 years on average, up from 77.3 the year before. In 1990, life expectancy was 75.4.For men, life expectancy in 2003 was 74.8, for women 80.1.Life expectancy in the U.S. has been rising almost without interruption since 1900. Those trends may allow life expectancy to continue to inch up despite the increases in obesity and high blood pressure.

God says Pi is 3, period

Evolution start of intelligent crusade
By Josh Steichmann / Rhetoric ninja of great renown MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2005
As you may have heard, the Kansas State Board of Education finally rendered their verdict on teaching Intelligent Design, a hypothesis that promotes the idea that the universe and life specifically is "too complex" to have arisen through evolution. With a resounding six-to-four vote, Kansans will no longer have to suffer under the tyranny of observable evidence, testable hypotheses, or repeatable data. Rejoice! This is a victory against the Godless, who insist on forcing their rational empiricism down the throats of wayward students. They even redefined the word "science," away from a definition of "seeking observable explanations for natural phenomena." But, like many of the decisions in this so-called Christian Nation, it did not go far enough. While students here at Eastern were no doubt heartened by the Kansan victory, they must redouble their efforts to change the curricula at our university. And they must not stop at the relatively minor accomplishment of Intelligent Design being democratically voted in as a possible argument for the origins of life. No, for if that is the end of teaching based on what we don't know, we will have achieved less than half of the necessary changes for a true religious republic. Intelligent Design is well and good, a perfectly cromulent approach to scientific learning. But what of the other disciplines? Should we falter in applying the strenuous logic of Intelligent Design to other areas of study? We would be remiss and hell-bound should our only accomplishments come on this narrow front. What of Intelligent Mathematics? If anything, this is an area that strikes at the true heart of the dogmatic atheocrats and their enforced rationality. Even more than biology, which acknowledges that different theories may simply be the best representation of current knowledge, mathematics insists that there is one right answer to every problem, even when that right answer directly contradicts the Bible. Take, for example, 1st Kings 7:21: "And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." Even a brief mathematical examination can show us that in the Bible, pi is clearly exactly three. For years, mathematicians, a study commonly associated with paganism and licentiousness, have been deluding us with the story that not only is pi slightly higher than three, but that we cannot know it in its entirety. If, by following the rubric of Intelligent Design, we cannot know pi, then it must have been designed. And, if it must have been designed and the Bible was dictated directly from that designer, then it clearly shows that pi is exactly three. The fine state of Indiana tried to espouse this clear and inerrant logic not too long ago, only to be beaten back by the Godless hordes of sodomites who demanded that their perverted interpretation of pi be recognized, lest they bar students of Indiana from higher education and well-paying jobs. This aggression cannot stand, students of Eastern. Demand in your math classes that pi be presented to the Biblical standard of exactly three. No doubt many of the faithful have noticed another discipline long under assault by the liberal idolaters: linguistics. Nowhere has their influence been more pervasive than in the spelling and grammar of our language, and their attempts to wrest the common bond of all pious men from the true root of the King James Bible. If given even a glancing examination, we will find that the English language is too complex to have arisen through random acts of phonemes and glottal stops. Why, if language arose spontaneously, as some of the loony left would have you believe, does "I" come before "E" except after "C?" Why isn't "wife" spelled "wyf"? If one looks back at pre-Biblical spelling, such as the Canterbury Tales, it can be clearly seen that the language was nearly incomprehensible. And if you listen to the pagan moon-worshipers, they'll even posit Beowulf as an example of "Old English," the supposed roots of our modern tongue! Have you ever tried to read Beowulf? It's clearly not in English, despite the secular lies of those who wish to bring us back to Gomorrah. I shouldn't be surprised if these aren't the same liberal "environmentalists" that have killed off the behemoth and leviathan. Be happy for Intelligent Design in Kansas, but don't forget to demand your right to a pi of exactly three and the right to use "ye" and "thou" as pronouns in your English classes. To do any less would fail God, and that wouldn't be "intelligent," would it?

Think about it....

If everything the administration does is correct, it cannot be torture.....no moral problem on his part....it is not his fault if Dick directs the torture....



Our country is at war and our government has the obligation to protect the American people," Bush said. "Any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture."

Bush and ethics

Too late, he abandoned those after he was elected. Just make his friends rich, the ethical refrain of the Republicans in power.....

Resignation would work, though.....

WASHINGTO -- President Bush, reacting to the indictment of a high-level White House aide in the CIA leak case, has ordered his staff to get a refresher on ethics rules.
In a memo sent to all White House aides on Friday, the counsel's office said it will hold briefings next week on ethics, with a particular focus on the rules governing the handling of classified information. Attendance is mandatory for anyone holding any level of security clearance.
"There will be no exceptions," the memo said.
The week after, the counsel's office is holding sessions on general ethical conduct for the rest of the staff.

"The president has made clear his expectation that each member of his Executive Office of the President (EOP) Staff adhere to the spirit as well as the letter of all rules governing ethical conduct for EOP Staff," the memo said.
After a two-year investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted last week, charged with lying to investigators and the grand jury about leaking the CIA status of Valerie Plame, who was a covert officer. Plame's CIA status was exposed in July 2003 after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting intelligence before the war to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is said to be still considering whether Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, illegally misled investigators. Libby has resigned and Rove remains on the job.
The case has had some Republicans inside and outside the White House grumbling that Bush needs to take more aggressive steps to confront the fallout, which has included a drop in the public's confidence in the president's credibility.

Feds being mean to Wisconsin

If Wisconsin had voted for Bush, I bet help would have been there instantly. This will teach them a lesson, says the neocons.....

Where do we go from here?
Already reeling from August tornadoes, victims were hit again: no federal aid.
By MEG JONES
Posted: Nov. 3, 2005
Town of Dunn - The 27 twisters that tore through Wisconsin Aug. 18 flattened subdivisions, leveled farms and left municipal budgets in tatters, but, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it wasn't enough to warrant federal aid.
Wisconsin Tornadoes


Stripped trees remain Wednesday as a reminder to Cindy and Jim Ace of the destruction tornadoes caused to their Dane County home and farm more than two months ago. The Aces have been trying to sort out how to rebuild their lives and business after federal aid for storm victims was denied.


Nearly 25 years of work on Jim and Cindy Ace’s farm was wiped out when tornadoes hit Aug. 18. The couple’s farm machinery was damaged and they lost 13 of 17 buildings. The couple figure they’re underinsured by $150,000 to $175,000. "We’re not looking for a handout," said Cindy Ace. "But a low-interest loan...that would be a godsend to us."
Wisconsin's History of Federal Aid

Don't tell that to Cindy Ace. Driving up to their Dane County farm just hours after the storm, she and her husband, Jim, found farm machinery tossed like toys, trees snapped like matchsticks and a brand new shed picked up and dumped on a pickup truck. Of the 17 buildings on their farm, just four were still standing.
The tornado that devastated the Ace farm plowed through the towns of Dunn and Pleasant Springs, north of Stoughton, killing a man, destroying 69 homes and damaging 304 others, causing almost $34 million in damage in Dane County alone. It was just one of 27 tornadoes that whipped through Wisconsin that day. Damage estimates statewide topped $40 million.
In the past five years, FEMA had approved Wisconsin aid for storms that caused quite a bit less damage than that, and the agency has recently come under fire for approving millions in aid in other states for people who weren't directly affected by disasters.
Given all of that, many Wisconsin officials expected that FEMA would declare a disaster here and open the federal spigot for reimbursement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cleanup costs and offer low-interest loans.
Then, almost two weeks after the tornadoes, Hurricane Katrina hit. A few weeks later, Wisconsin's disaster request was denied.
Hurricane influence denied
FEMA said the mounting costs of Katrina had nothing to do with Wisconsin being shut out. The tornado damage, the agency said, "was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments."
Officials in the Town of Dunn disagree. The community of 5,300 is facing a cleanup bill of $273,000. The Town of Pleasant Springs rang up cleanup costs of $945,000. Same thing in Viola in southwestern Wisconsin, where the cleanup cost $1.3 million. The village of 700 has an annual tax levy of about $57,000.
Those communities cannot pass the bill on to property-tax payers. Because state law limits how much communities can raise the tax levy, local leaders are hamstrung, said Rick Stadelman, executive director of the Wisconsin Towns Association.
If they cannot get other aid, such as Small Business Administration disaster funding, communities will have to borrow. But if they're nearing their debt limits, that's another problem.
"I don't know that there's a lesson to be learned. I think those towns did what they had to do," Stadelman said. "It may show that we can't rely on FEMA."
A FEMA spokeswoman said the agency used a number of criteria to determine whether Wisconsin was eligible for federal aid. Among them: state and local response to the disaster, available assistance from charities and other federal agencies and whether most victims had insurance.
"The fact that there were hurricanes in the Gulf states had nothing to do with the decisions made in our district," said Gay Ruby, public information officer for FEMA Region No. 5, which includes Wisconsin. "We look at each disaster totally on their own merits, and we did so in the Wisconsin tornadoes."
For uninsured losses, FEMA looks at the per capita cost for the entire state. At the time of the tornadoes, the threshold was $1.14 in uninsured damages per person in Wisconsin. FEMA inspectors determined that the tornadoes caused only 58 cents per person in uninsured losses.
"It's not that we begrudge the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Rita or Wilma, those are truly disasters as well," said Kathleen Falk, executive of Dane County. "For the same reasons we think the federal government should help those citizens, so should they help ours."
Gov. Jim Doyle immediately appealed the denial Sept. 23, and a FEMA team was in Wisconsin this week to gather more information before ruling on Doyle's appeal. Few past appeals by Wisconsin governors have been granted, however.
Little to appeal
Not that Wisconsin has had much to appeal in the past.
In the five years before the tornadoes, the state requested nine federal disaster declarations and was denied just once.
"We don't apply every time there's a storm for federal disaster aid," said Lori Getter, Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman. "With the magnitude, the number of homes damaged and destroyed, the fatality, the economic impact and agriculture loss, we really believe we were eligible for federal disaster assistance."
The toll of the Aug. 18 tornadoes is more than $40 million statewide - easily dwarfing other bad weather damage that in previous years quickly earned federal disaster aid for the state:
• In 2002, victims of tornadoes and storms in 19 counties that caused $27.7 million in damage got federal assistance.
• Victims of flooding and storms in June 2002 that caused $14.3 million in damage in eight counties received federal aid.
• Heavy rains and flooding that caused $8 million in damage in 10 northern counties in July 1999 earned a federal disaster declaration.
Ruby said it's possible the uninsured losses in the flooding incidents were higher than they were for the Aug. 18 tornadoes.
Elsewhere, FEMA has come under fire for being overly generous. An investigation this year by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that the federal agency had paid millions to people who had been virtually untouched by major disasters, including $32 million to Miami-Dade County for Hurricane Frances, even though the storm came ashore 100 miles to the north of Miami.
News like that makes FEMA's denial that much harder to swallow in towns such as Pleasant Springs, where much of a subdivision full of two-story homes was wiped away. The town will probably lose as much as 15% of its equalized value because of all of the vacant lots, said Donna Vogel, the town's clerk/treasurer.
While a disaster declaration often means municipalities will get help to rebuild, it also often paves the way for low interest loans for people such as Cindy and Jim Ace.
The couple figure they're underinsured by $150,000 to $175,000.
"We're not looking for a handout," said Cindy Ace. "But a low-interest loan, if that would be available - that would be a godsend to us."
Though the Aces are staying, they won't build new tobacco sheds and won't rebuild two greenhouses that Cindy Ace used to grow flowers for a side business. When the tornado swept away their farm, it also destroyed the business and life they had worked so hard to achieve.
"Jim and I have been married almost 25 years. It has taken all of that to get where we are," Cindy Ace said. "We're back to square one."

Maybe W is drinking again.....

Would you blame him? Nasty way for God to treat him....


Nora Ephron Mon Oct 31,11:09 PM ET
I'm sorry to have to return to what continues to be, for me, the Rosebud event of the second Bush term, but since I live in New York and am free from the kind of facts and "inside information" that burden most people who write about politics, I keep thinking about the day the plane flew into the airspace while the President rode his bicycle.

As you may recall, on May 11, 2005, a small plane made an unauthorized detour into the air space over the nation's Capitol, setting off a red alert. The
Secret Service' Laura Bush to a bunker in the White House. The President was not there. He was off riding his bicycle in Beltsville, Maryland, and the Secret Service didn't notify him about the incident until it was over. At the time they claimed they didn't want to disturb his bicycle ride. It's my theory that this incident was one of the reasons for the rift between Bush and Cheney -- a rift, I'm proud to say, that I was one of the first to point out (on the Huffington Post), on the basis of no information whatsoever, and which now turns out (according to this week's Newsweek) to be absolutely true.
Emboldened by the success of this deduction, I would like to ask another question that I've been wondering about for some time: What's wrong with the president? Is he fighting depression? Is he being medicated in some way that isn't quite working? What's up? I even bought a copy of one of the supermarket tabloids that alleged he'd started drinking again, but the article (like all articles in supermarket tabloids) was extremely disappointing; even the over-exciting picture of the President on the front page, holding a glass of wine, turned out to be an old irrelevant photograph of him making a toast at some banquet; there was no real evidence in the article that he was back on the sauce.
But I've been wondering about what's going on with W ever since he emerged from his bizarre groundhog-like vacation and responded to Hurricane Katrina as if he were under water. He had no affect at all. He was almost robotic. His meager vocabulary seemed to have shrunk even further. He conveyed no feeling for the victims -- and this was early on, way before anyone realized how many poor people were involved. It was strange. What's so hard about cranking yourself up for hurricane victims, especially when you think they're mostly white people who have lost their second homes on the Gulf Coast?
At the time I wondered if Bush was on Paxil or Lexapro, drugs that several of my friends are taking and that seem to have turned them into strangely muted versions of themselves. I asked my friend Rita, who's a shrink, but Rita is very careful about committing on subjects of this sort. She did point out, though, that sometimes, when the President talks, his mouth has a strange sideways twitch, which is apparently common in people who are on antidepressants. Actually it might have been my husband who said this, I can't remember.
But I started thinking about all this again on Sunday. On the Chris Matthews Show, there was some old footage of the president from last year's presidential campaign. He was outdoors, talking to a group of people in hard hats; he was energetic, focused, confident, on top of the world. Now you could easily counter: of course he was, it was a lovely day, he was surrounded by supporters, things were going well. But the President we're seeing these days is a completely different man.
He has, of course, a lot of reasons to be depressed -- no point in enumerating them, you know what they are. But most of all, I think he's depressed because the job has turned out to be so much more onerous than he expected -- he said as much to a friend of mine in September. "You have no idea," he said, "how hard these five years have been." This is a fairly breathtaking remark given the number of people who, thanks to this president, are now dead as a result of his five years in the Oval Office, but never mind.
The point is that it seems possible to me that when
George Bush gave up alcohol in 1986, he dealt with the depression that often accompanies sobriety by becoming an obsessive exerciser. And that's what he's essentially done ever since. He's never held anything that could be confused with a job. Owning a football team is not a job. Even being governor of Texas takes only a couple of months a year, it turns out. So he was free to exercise.
But at some point this year, something happened and the exercise regimen stopped working. Bush started becoming depressed. My theory is that a certain amount of panic ensued, and more exercise was prescribed: hence, the afternoon on the bicycle in Maryland, and the reluctance to disturb an already disturbed, irritable man. (Interestingly, the incident happened just after the President returned from a four-day trip to Europe, which had not only required him to work several hours each day but undoubtedly interrupted his exercise routine.) Then came the vacation in August, the odd, sequestered vacation, a perfect time for the President's doctor to try medication, or change medication, or adjust medication. Then Katrina and the emergence in the fall of an unenergetic, irritable, muted, unfocussed President, the man you see today.
Look it up: depression + symptoms. You'll read it for yourself: loss of energy, irritability, feeling "slowed down," inability to concentrate.
Not that I'm an expert on any of this, of course. But it's possible, isn't it? Just asking.