Mater Magistra: Library Day

re: tips for getting kids and library books - choosing a wider selection, not letting the books get overdue or lost, etc...

hat tip: Rocks in My Dryer

Braille Institute of America | Home

re: "Braille Institute is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate blindness and severe sight loss as a barrier to a fulfilling life."...

open book: Your read of the day

re: link to (UK) Times article by Simon Barnes on being a father of a boy with Down Syndrome...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: another parent, a father this time, writes in defense of raising a child with Down Syndrome...

abc13.com: Fight brewing between mosque and pigs

re: man in Texas being shoved by people planning to build a mosque shoves back by scheduling Friday night pig races on his property...

hat tip: Rush Limbaugh

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: more responses to Rangel's disrespect for people serving in the military (see halfway down post). Also has links to earlier responses...

The Common Room: Good Stewardship Does Not Mean What She Thinks it Means

re: more on Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori's ideas of stewardship (in which she tries to explain away the declining membership of her denomination by noting that Episcopalians are 'better educated' and are encouraged to not use up the Earth's resources by having children). Includes Mark Steyn commentary...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: cast list, etc., for the movie starring Spencer Tracy, based (loosely, to all appearances) on the Ernest Gebler novel. The movie's lead romance storyline is manufactured out of thin air, but it is a Spencer Tracy movie...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: Elsie W. Hamel, Graduate Student at Lehigh University, briefly compares Ernest Gebler's book The Plymouth Adventure and the movie based on it. Includes this short note about the novel: "This, it seems to me, is the truest picture that we could have of the Plymouth adventure, the more remarkable in that it was written by a man of mixed Czech and Irish ancestry who has never been in this country." Chicago Sun Tribune (April 30,1950): 3

The Gift of Language by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: attacking the silly (and harmful) notion that language skills don't have to be - or in some cases shouldn't be - taught...

hat tip: Bookworm

Mesohippus 1

re: Florida Museum of Natural History page on the "middle horse" in horse evolution...

NASA - Historic Volcanic Eruption Shrunk the Mighty Nile River

re: major eruptions in Iceland in 1783-84 might have contributed to record low water levels in the Nile, plus other examples of how high latitude volcanic eruptions might have significantly affected monsoons, droughts, etc...

NASA - CALIPSO

re: "...one of NASA's newest satellite missions. CALIPSO, or Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, seeks to reveal the secrets of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air, enabling scientists to study how they form, evolve and interact and how they affect our air quality, weather and climate..."...

How the media loses the war « Bookworm Room

re: the media passing along false stories spun by America's enemies...

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: New York, New York

re: a series of books on New York City's architecture and history, by architect and historian Robert A.M. Stern...

Robin Hood

re: information on the 1950s television show The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene...

The Scotsman - Business - At 30% cheaper, self-build is on the rise

re: more people are buying land and building homes in Scotland. Also notes that a lot of the cheap housing from the 1960s and 1970s is being bought and demolished by people who want to start from scratch rather than renovate...

Fossil research suggests 'mass dying' triggered teeming oceans | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

re: discovering the obvious, scientists 'discover' that the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian not only caused - but made possible - the rise of new and vastly different ecosystems...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Wheat's lost gene helps nutrition

re: after research pointing to which crosses to try, plant scientists are crossing domesticated wheat with wild wheat to boost nutrition...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Funny Money

re: Preston Sturge's romantic comedies of the 1940s are now available in a DVD boxed set, and provide a nice contrast with most of today's romantic comedies...

I’m not the only grammatical voice in the wilderness « Bookworm Room

re: fighting the notion that people don't need to be (or shouldn't be) taught to communicate well...

The Point: Sage words

re: ..."Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you yourself shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God. -- Phillips Brooks"

The Blessing of a Father's Grace - washingtonpost.com

re: Sally Quinn on saying grace, even if you're an atheist...

hat tip: Gina Dalfonzo (The Point)

Minnesota Mom: Happy Anniversary! (I think)

re: a nice essay on how blogging has changed her life, etc....

hat tip: Here in the Bonny Glen

The first remarkable close-up pictures of animals in the womb | the Daily Mail

re: elephant, dog and dolphin babies in the womb...

hat tip: Best of the Web

OpinionJournal - The Desolate Wilderness

re: annual reprinting of Nathaniel Morton's descriptions of what the Pilgrim's saw in 1620...

OpinionJournal - Extra: The Stuff of Democratic Life

re: Allen Guelzo writes about Lincoln, Gettysburg, Thanksgiving, and the fundamental challenges of democracy...

Gardeners cultivate hope in battered New Orleans | In Depth | Reuters.com

re: thousands of people living in FEMA trailers after Katrina have planted gardens...

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Arts & Entertainment

re: AP story on cancellation of OJ project. Some Fox affiliates had refused to carry show, Borders had announced it would donate profits to charity, etc...

Captain's Quarters : Hydrogen Isn't Green

re: BMW's new hydrogen-gasoline car, the Hydrogen 7 or H-7, gets poor mileage and its fuel goes bad in a matter of days... The first one hundred are reportedly going to be sold to "celebrities"...

Captain's Quarters: Read Between The Lines (Updated and Bumped)

re: the hurricane season disappointed the global warming folks, bigtime (plus info on the global cooling scares of a couple/three decades ago, plus scientists who are currently predicting a little ice age soon)...

Joust The Facts: Milton Friedman Passes At 94

re: more on Milton Friedman (and his wife Rose)...

BrothersJudd Blog: O HOLY NIGHT, INJUNCTIONS FLY THROUGHOUT YOU

re: Muslim leaders in UK stump for public Christmas celebrations, and somebody else noticing that PC drives not just religion but history and heritage from the British public sphere...

CNS STORY: Peruvian parish fights malnutrition with high-protein cookies

re: Catholic parish won government bid to fight malnutrition high in the Andes by baking and distributing high-protein cookies (sometimes by truck, but some places by mule)...

hat tip: Open Book

poultryOne.com Guide to Raising Poultry | The Ultimate Resource for Raising Chickens and Poultry Care - Chicken Articles, Links, Tips, and More!

re: online community for chicken hobbyists...

Keeping Chickens or Poultry at Home, Backyard Poultry Keeping and Laying Hens

re: uk look at dreams of smallholding, getting an allotment, battles with local council over whether poultry was allowed...

Tsunami hits Crescent City / Series of 5- to 6-foot surges wrecks docks, sinks ship hours after 8.1 quake in Japan

re: "A tsunami generated by a powerful earthquake in Japan struck the small Northern California fishing port of Crescent City Wednesday, destroying docks, sinking a boat and fraying nerves./Bill Steven, a commander with the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department, said the tsunami was "more a series of big surges rather than waves," but he said the damage to the town's harbor was significant. /The surges were reported at 5 to 6 feet high. /"The water surged back and forth like a river, and our docks aren't designed to handle swift water," Steven said. "About 50 percent of the harbor was affected. There's a lot of torn-up foam, wood and concrete. We know at least one boat was sunk, and we had to round up about 12 more that were torn from their moorings." /Steven said no fatalities or injuries were reported.
Crescent City residents are particularly sensitive to tsunami threats. The town was struck by a 21-foot-high tsunami in 1964 that killed 11 people and destroyed most of the town center. /Steven said Del Norte County officials received a notification from the National Weather Service Wednesday morning that a 3- to 5-foot surge resulting from an 8.1 magnitude quake in Japan would hit the Crescent City region at about 11:40 a.m. "We did have a very small surge at that time, and then everybody went back to business as usual," Steven said. /Then at around 2:30, Steven said, residents noticed an ominous sign -- water started running out of the town's harbor, a classic indication of an approaching tsunami. /"You don't like to see that," Steven said. "It looked like a very fast river." /But instead of a large wave, Steven said, the tsunami was manifested as another large surge flowing back into the harbor./"It went on like that until about 5 p.m., maybe later," Steven said. "Just like a big river surging back and forth. It really hammered our docks. Pieces had to be tied off, whole sections disappeared."..."...

CurryPilot.com: TSUNAMI CAUSES DAMAGE AT CRESCENT CITY

re: "A tsunami caused damage in the Crescent City harbor this afternoon, but apparently no injuries, according to initial reports from the newsroom at the Daily Triplicate in Crescent City. /The wave was reported by national authorities as 35 inches, larger than any other reports on the Pacific Coast of the U.S., according to the National Weather Service Tsunami Warning Center's Web site. The reported height at Port Orford was 15 inches. The Web site is available at http://WCATWC.ARH.NOAA.GOV /Witnesses said boats were broken loose from their moorings, rammed into docks and even toppled onto each other. /No reports of initial damage were reported in the Port of Brookings-Harbor, Gold Beach or Port Orford. There were no warnings or evacuations in Curry County, according to the Curry County Sheriff's Office. /Brookings-Harbor Harbormaster Mike Blank said he noticed "unusual tidal occurences" just after 2 p.m., but had no reports of any damage or problems caused by the wave. /The wave was generated by an earthquake overnight near the Kuril Islands, off the northern coast of Japan. /The Triplicate is preparing a full report for its Web site, www.Triplicate.com, later this evening. A full report and photos will be published in the Thursday, Nov. 17, edition of the Triplicate and the Saturday, Nov. 18, edition of the Curry Coastal Pilot..."...

AP Wire | 11/16/2006 | Crescent City harbor suffers up to $700K in damages from tsunami

re: "CRESCENT CITY, Calif. - Two docks were destroyed after a five-foot surge rolled into the Crescent City Harbor on Wednesday afternoon and caused up to $700,000 in damages. /The surge was the result of an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 8.1 that struck earlier in the day near Japan, prompting tsunami warnings for Japan, Russia and Alaska, according to the National Weather Service...[snip]...In California, the weather service reported ocean surges as high as 6 feet and waves gusting up to 30 mph but did not call an official tsunami warning or watch. /Surges were observed from Port San Luis on the Central California coast to the Oregon border, but were too small and concentrated to prompt a tsunami warning, said Sten Tjaden, an NWS forecaster in Eureka. /"They don't want to put a warning out if the impact is going to be so localized," Tjaden said. "And I haven't heard of damage elsewhere. The only place I've heard of damage is at Crescent City at the harbor." /Harbor workers at Crescent City - about 20 miles south of Oregon's state line - noticed a fast-moving current around mid-afternoon that harbor master Richard Young described as a "river within the ocean."/As the surge rushed out of the harbor, workers noticed that two floating docks in the inner basin were destroyed, Young said. Another surge followed, severely damaging a third dock, he said. The harbor can accommodate up to 200 boats up to 75 feet long. /No injuries were reported, and the surge did not sink any boats. But several vessels attached to the destroyed docks bobbed away from their anchorage and likely received dings and possibly greater damages, the harbor master said. /Young said the replacement costs of the docks could range from $300,000 to $700,000. /Rain pounded the harbor after the surge, but crews were able to secure the loose boats and stabilize the damaged dock and the six remaining floating docks in the inner harbor.
"We're secure for the night, and we're going home after a long day," Young said Wednesday after sunset. "We've done our best to stabilize things." /Small surges of 1 to 4 feet continued to hit the California coast into the evening, and boaters, beach goers and others near the shore were advised to use caution, according to NWS...."...

MercuryNews.com | 11/15/2006 | 6-foot wave surge damages Crescent City harbor

re: "Wave surges related to the magnitude 8.1 undersea earthquake near Japan, the largest of them six-feet high, caused ``extensive damage'' this afternoon at the Crescent City harbor, according to the National Weather Service. /The surges were so powerful that docks and boats were damaged, forcing police to close it down. Several boats broke loose from their moorings, but no one was injured, Crescent City police dispatcher Julie Shafer said..."...

The Kitchen Madonna: Culinary Quote #33

re: "'Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be." Clementine Paddleford"...

Sovereignty Blog » HUMANS MATTER LESS THAN THEY’D LIKE TO THINK:

re: 22 of the world's 50 most forested countries have been increasing the amount of woodland...

Has excerpt from Planet 'winning the battle against deforestation' (The Scotsman, Nov. 14, 2006)...

ADF: Federal appeals court upholds federal protection for pro-life medical professionals - Alliance Defense Fund - Defending Our First Liberty

re: "WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a pro-abortion group challenging the “Weldon Amendment.” The Weldon Amendment is a federal statute that prohibits the federal government or state and local governments receiving certain federal aid from discriminating against medical professionals who refuse to perform or refer for abortions. /“Doctors and nurses should not be forced to participate in abortions against their religious beliefs or conscience. Under the banner of ‘choice,’ the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association asserted a supposed right to do this, but the court didn’t buy it,” said Casey Mattox, litigation counsel for CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “This decision turns back the effort to enshrine abortion as a right above even the First Amendment.”..."...

WorldNetDaily: Ten Commandments stunner: Feds lying at Supreme Court

re: "...Todd DuBord, pastor of the Lake Almanor Community Church in California...[snip]... was most disturbed by what appears to be revisionism in the presentations given to visitors at the Supreme Court. There, he said, his tour guide was describing the marble frieze directly above the justices' bench. /"Between the images of the people depicting the Majesty of the Law and Power of Government, there is a tablet with ten Roman numerals, the first five down the left side and the last five down the right. This tablet represents the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights," she said..."...

hat tip: The Alliance Alert, Nov. 14, 2006

Shielding Our Children

re: Emuna Braverman on the virtue of learning to not rescue or shelter a child too much. Book mentioned in passing: "The Blessing of a Skinned Knee" by Wendy Mogel...

OpinionJournal - Federation: Moral Purification

re: Josh Manchester discusses 'why intellectuals love defeat'...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square/ Elizabeth Powers

re: finding a neglected war memorial in Central Park, and comparing Americans of the World War I era with Americans of today who make pacts with the party of the safety net...

Brandywine Books: Call me Cassandra

re: Lars Walker featuring in his near-future novel Wolf Time a news reporter proud of having pushed the idea that nothing is worth dying for and America can't afford honor...And Walker wanting to be proved wrong, but feeling his prediction has held...

Brandywine Books: "If a conservative order is to return . . ."

re: the need to learn tradition attached to conservative ideas, plus books that shaped America's Conservative Renaissance (list courtesy isi.org)...

lines... in pleasant places: Lake Martin

re: a book about the history of the reservoir Lake Martin in Alabama...

Mom 2 Mom Connection » Blog Archive » Starting the Novel Writing Journey

re: NaNoWriMo update, plus info/links on bestselling Christian fiction author Brandilyn Collins and her years-long road to first publication...

Allthings2all: Let's Dance!

re: living in a place with different cultural traditions, such as when and how to dance...

magistramater's Xanga Site - Fine Art Friday - Briton Rivière

re: three dog-with-person paintings...

The Golden Road to Samarqand: :The Age of Homespun

re: "The Age of Homespun: Objects and stories in the Creation of an American Myth by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has to be one of the most interesting books about early American history that I have ever read. I like it even more than A Midwife's Tale..."...

hat tip: The Saturday Review of Books

Power Line: Three reviews

re: reviews of Mark Steyn's America Alone, Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, and Art Buchwald's "deathbed memoir" Too Soon to Say Goodbye...

Related: Art Buchwald column from Sept. 21, 2006

The Scotsman - Business - Parents splash out to fill void after children flee nest

re: noticing the obvious, i.e. parents tend to make changes - sometimes drastic ones - after their kids grow up and go away. The news is that today's empty nesters are collectively spending more, and more. "...Dr Hodson's comments were echoed by analysts at Datamonitor, which said empty-nesters spent £38.4 billion on consumer goods in 2003, but were forecast to splash out as much as £46 billion by 2008. It said their annual disposable income is expected to have risen 8.5 per cent to £17,872 from less than £14,000 a year ago, and that sudden increase in wealth often sparked some highly indulgent spending on everything from travel, new homes and new cars, to high quality food, fine drinks and pampering personal care..."...

Betsy's Page: Will the House increase?

re: Nancy Pelosi is supporting a bill that would increase Congress from 435 to 437 by adding a seat from D.C. and a statewide seat for Utah (never mind that an at-large seat in Congress isn't supportable)...

Captain's Quarters: Still not biting

re: advising fellow Republicans to be a good example of "the loyal opposition"...

Episcopal parish, diocese reach accord - The Washington Times

re: "...The leaders of All Saints, a 500-member congregation, announced Thursday they will cede the church's property to the diocese, which will pay the remaining $188,000 mortgage. /Then, All Saints will rent the property from the diocese for $1 a year for five years while it builds a new 800-seat church on a $2.7-million piece of property it bought in 2001. The site is on 28 acres near the Potomac Mills shopping mall in Prince William County. / "This is very, very encouraging for us," said the Rev. John Guernsey, rector of All Saints. "It helps us move forward." /Although Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee has said that he will sue any church trying to leave his diocese, this agreement releases All Saints from further legal obligations. / The congregation will vote Dec. 10 on whether to ratify the agreement. Its vestry, or leadership council, is unanimously recommending the church adopt the agreement and separate from the diocese..."...

Update: Nov. 9, 2006, news release from the Diocese of Virginia

Marines, Bush dedicate museum - The Washington Times

re: "President Bush yesterday attended the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., an event nearly 20 years in the making..."...

Portrait: The Girl From Schindler's List | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 27.01.2006

re: Stella Müller-Madej, who was a Jewish girl saved by Oskar Schindler during World War II, wrote a book about her family's ordeal and rescue...

American Battle Monuments Commission

re: "The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) was established by Congress in 1923 to commemorate the service, achievements, and sacrifice of U.S. armed forces where they have served overseas since 1917, and within the U.S. when directed by public law./ The ABMC commemorative mission is reflected in 24 overseas military cemeteries that serve as resting places for almost 125,000 American war dead; on Tablets of the Missing that memorialize more than 94,000 U.S. servicemen and women; and through 25 memorials, monuments and markers./ We invite you to explore the information and databases available on this web site, and to visit our cemeteries and memorials..."...

hat tip: Expat Yank

Memorial Dedicated to the "Oskar Schindler of China" | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 08.11.2006

re: "John Rabe was an ordinary German businessman in China when the Japanese invaded Nanking in 1937. Nearly 70 years later, a memorial was dedicated to the "Good German" who saved thousands of Chinese lives...[snip]...A member of the Nazi party in Germany, Rabe sold turbines and telegraph equipment for Siemens, and rose to become the German company's chief trade representative in the Chinese wartime capital of Nanking, now called Nanjing. /His career in China from 1908 to 1938 would have been unremarkable, except for one thing: the meticulous 1,200-page diary he kept that chronicled daily life during a nearly forgotten chapter of the second Sino-Japanese war.../ During the Japanese occupation, however, Rabe did something else that influenced more lives than a journal ever could: He used his Nazi credentials to rescue thousands of Chinese from certain death..."...

Memory of Spiritual Leader in German Resistance Lives On | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 21.10.2006

re: Father Laurentius Siemer, a spiritual leader of the German resistance movement during World War II...

Defining the Issues -- A Methodist Witness

re: defining the issues that divide the church...

Jesus Christ is "Our Vehicle to the Divine?" The Episcopal Church is in Big Trouble

re: Albert Mohler looks at some of what the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, Dr. Katherine Jefferts Schori, has been saying in interviews...

open book: Wha' Happened?

re: in a post about Pope Benedict, Amy Welborn says, "...But I have to say, when I read items like this, I don't see pessimism. I see optimism that eventually, when presented with the truth, people will eventually find their way to it. Don't you think that has marked almost every talk that has come from Benedict? A conviction that, first of all, God is real, human beings are made by God, in his image, and find their peace in Him. (yes, Augustinian, indeed.) All of the competing voices and temptations out there will eventually fail us, individually and collectively, and we'll eventually figure out that what God is offering us is not a prison sentence, but a key to unlock the prison in which we've locked ourselves..."...

Independent Women's Forum: And We’re Not Threatening to Move Out of the Country, Either

re: "Mark Shea points out a crucial difference between Republicans and Democrats: The former don’t sign up for psychotherapy after they lose an election..."...

Independent Women's Forum: Will we be humiliated in Iraq?

re: "Liberals see Iraq as Vietnam Redux. But now in the (London) Spectator, Charles Moore compares the possible effects of a U.S. stand-down in Iraq to the effect of England’s failure of nerve at Suez—an idea both so striking and so distressing (especially in light of the midterm elections) that I am breaking Inkwell’s unofficial ban on discussing articles that require registration to mention it..."...

Germany Divided | Deutsche Welle

re: special section with articles on Germany during the Cold War, and on efforts to reunify since then...

Katarina Witt: The New Queen of German TV | NEWS | Deutsche Welle | 10.11.2006

re: former ice skating champion hosts a celebrity reality show called Stars on Ice...

Eastern Europe Draws Veil of Silence Over Communist Past | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 03.03.2006

re: "...The pervasive presence of informers and collaborators during the communist era is an issue that has never been addressed at a political level in Hungary. Even so, it's a skeleton in the closet of public consciousness that refuses to go away...[snip]...Political observers believe that not only former communists have a vested interest in keeping the files under lock and key -- they believe that parliamentary parties across the board see the Hungarian people's reluctance to banish the ghosts of the last few decades as a natural turning away from the past. / But given that some 150,000 Hungarians are thought to have collaborated with the secret police, it seems likely that those ghosts will catch up with the public soon..."

Now the GOP Is For Affirmative Action? by Harry Stein, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: the fight for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) had to be done without Republican leaders...

Supreme Court Debates Best Method to Execute a Baby by Matt Bowman

re: notes from someone who was at the Supreme Court's hearing on partial-birth abortion...

Decent Films Guide - Search

re: movie reviews of five Zorro movies, 1920-on...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: What Katharine Jefferts Schori Does Not Say

re: "...I think no one on “Mere Comments” has commented yet on the sermons preached by the Episcopal Church’s new Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at her investiture and installation on November 4 and 5, 2006. Maybe they're not worth much comment. They do not include predictably controversial statements (such as her reference to "Mother Jesus" at General Convention 2006) but the sermons are more remarkable for what they do not say:/Bishop Schori’s sermons make no mention of the cross, nor of Jesus' death, nor of His rising again. Neither sermon uses the word "Gospel" (or the phrase "good news"). Neither sermon mentions Father, Son, or Holy Spirit (though the word "Spirit" does appear.) Jesus is not called Lord in either sermon; and somehow in her November 5 All Saints’ Day sermon, she managed to avoid saying “Christ” or “Christian” altogether..."...

Touchstone Magazine - Mere Comments: Hungarian Cardinal a Communist Informer

re: "The Hungarians did not start releasing the files of the Communist secret police until 1997. Historians are going through them and discovering unpleasant things. The American press has not mentioned anything about the discoveries, but Der Spiegel has a long article, “Verehrter Verräter,” and there are additional articles here, here, here, and here. /Cardinal Paskai, who was primate of Hungary until he retired in December 2002, was publicly a “peace priest” (the darlings of the left) and secretly an informer for the Communist Secret Police from 1965 to 1974. He had the code name Tanár, Teacher. During that time he wrote reports on priests and religious..."...[snip]..."Not only was Paskai informing on his fellow priests, the majority of the Hungarian delegation to the Second Vatican Council were in fact secret police informers, and in 1977 alone 421 priests informed on their fellow Catholics..."...

The Paragraph Farmer: Tiptoeing through the tulips

re: looking at the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis Collins...

MI5: 30 terror plots being planned in UK | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics

re: "MI5 has identified 30 major terrorist plots being planned in Britain and is targeting more than 1,600 individuals actively engaged in promoting attacks here and abroad, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the agency, warns today. /The 30 plots are the most serious of many more planned by some 200 British-based "networks" involved in terrorism, she said in a speech seen by the Guardian. In a gloomy assessment of the home-grown terrorist threat, MI5 says most of those involved are British-born, and most are connected with al-Qaida..."...

News from Agape Press: Silver Dollar City -- Where Management Makes a Difference in Employees' Lives

re: some of the story behind a longtime family friendly tourist attraction in Branson, Missouri...

OpinionJournal - Extra: End of the Revolution

re: Dick Armey says, among other things, "I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win."...

Power Line: Forum Post of the Day

re: more thoughts on the election and where we go from here...

OregonLive.com: Election Updates from The Oregonian

re: "Kulongoski presses his agenda for a bluer Oregon/SALEM - Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Wednesday he plans to take full advantage of Oregon's new political order and his resounding reelection to push an agenda that includes spending a record $6 billion on public schools over the next two years and raising taxes on corporations and smokers. / "I look upon the election as affirmation of the direction I want to go," Kulongoski said at his first post-election news conference..."...

Wright American Fiction (1851-1875)

re: "This is a collection of 19th century American fiction, as listed in Lyle Wright's bibliography American Fiction, 1851-1875. There are currently 2,887 volumes included (1,763 unedited, 1,124 fully edited and encoded) by 1,456 authors. See this page for more information. Collection last updated on September 3, 2005. MARC Records are available for the entire collection."...

DigitalBookIndex: Search by Author (eBooks, eTexts, On-Line Books, eDocuments

re: entry on John Townsend Trowbridge 1827-1916...

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - World War II

re: articles on World War II, and its legacy...

Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture - Scotland's People - An Edinburgh real-life James Bond hero

re: a Scotsman who helped the Danish Resistance in World War II...

Lonely, Flickering Light - Prison Fellowship

re: Kristin Wright writes about Adoniram Judson and the church in Burma, and the persecution today of Burmese Christians...

The Resurrection of Pearl Buck

re: Pearl Buck has become popular in China, even at the higher academic levels...

Petrona: Meaning of life

re: links to "Two articles on the unfashionable but essential characteristic of taking responsibility for one's actions..."...

Brandywine Books" Let's Cultivate Simplicity and Solitude

re: Phil shares some good suggestions from A. W. Tozer...

Eject! Eject! Eject!: MAKE A CHOICE

re: "...My friends, this is time to make a choice. We have suffered a very large defeat tonight, and there is nothing now that we can do about that except decide on how we wish to face it. We have been given an opportunity to show what losing with honor should look like. Do not wail and cry. Do not shout CHEATERS! or whine about media coverage. And most especially do not blame the American people. They are not idiots and they are not sheep..."...

hat tip: Lars Walker

A different campaign: Orthodox congressional candidates bring Jewish text study techniques to campaigning

re: two Republican candidates in Maryland set out to make a difference this year...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: a mostly glass-half-full look at the election results...

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

re: John O. McGinnis, professor at Northwestern University's School of Law, discusses the books "Does American Democracy Still Work?" by Alan Wolfe and "Our Undemocratic Constitution" by Sanford Levinson...

No Left Turns : Occidentalism and the Intellectuals

re: John Moser on the book Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of its Enemies, by Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit. He pulls the quote: "Where the free market dominates, as in the United States, intellectuals feel marginalized and unappreciated, and are inclined to be drawn to politics with grander pretensions. Taking their freedoms for granted, they become easy prey for enemies of the West."...

An Overdue Reckoning

re: Dean Barnett makes some suggestions on how to deal with the Republican losses (graciously) and how to go forward. He also isn't buying some of the excuses people are putting out...

Bridget Johnson on California on National Review Online

re: Bridget Johnson says it's time to let up on the California bashing, because California, overall, is not that different from the rest of the country...

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Bangladesh hails 'messiah' Zidane

re: former rags-to-riches football star receives a hero's welcome in Bangladesh...

The Scotsman - Business - BBC regional TV news network to benefit local press, says chief

re: "THE BBC plans to buy news and content from local papers across Britain for its planned network of local TV stations, the corporation's director-general said yesterday. / Mark Thompson proposed a partnership with local newspapers to avoid a head-on collision as television and newspapers moved into broadcasting on the web..."...

Intrepid gets stuck in the mud

re: the plan to move the USS Intrepid from its pier to a shipyard for refurbishing was derailed by muck in the river. Museum officials say they might try again at the next full-moon tide, Dec. 8...

In the shadow of the noose, Saddam softens - Los Angeles Times

re: "BAGHDAD -- A subdued Saddam Hussein, already sentenced to death in a human rights trial that concluded Sunday, walked into a courtroom again today and called on warring Iraqis outside to let bygones be bygones. "I call upon all Iraqis, Arabs and Kurds, to forgive, reconcile, and shake hands," the former dictator said after recounting tales of how both the Prophet Mohammad and Jesus Christ both showed forgiveness to their enemies..."...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: Richard Stith writes, "Why do many pro-choice people find our arguments against early abortion not just unconvincing but absurd?...[snip]... I submit that pro-life arguments seem absurd to any listener who has in the back of the mind a sense that the embryo or fetus is being constructed in the womb..."...

FrontPage magazine.com :: American Mourning by Jamie Glazov

re: the book America Mourning: The Intimate Story of Two Families Joined by War, Torn by Beliefs, by Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy, about the families of friends Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson, both of whom died in action...

Michelle Malkin: John Kerry: Uniting the armed services

re: another banner, this one displayed at the Army-Air Force Game. It reads (all in caps in original): We support those not as smart as John Kerry. On the left it has Go Army and what looks like a coat of arms. On the right, it has Go Air Force and what looks like another coat of arms...

Professor's Bigfoot Research Criticized - Examiner.com

re: "...Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University. He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical smelly ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.

That makes him an outcast - a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself - on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure..."...

NTSB: Wind Blew Lidle Plane Off Course - Examiner.com

re: "A light wind was cited by federal investigators Friday for blowing a small airplane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle off course and into a New York City high-rise on Oct. 11....[snip]...The report issued Friday said the airplane was flying along the East River between Manhattan and Queens when it attempted a U-turn with only 1,300 feet of room for the turn. To make a successful turn, the aircraft would have had to bank so steeply that it might have stalled, the NTSB said in an update on the crash..."...

N.J. Landing Error Worries Experts - Examiner.com

re: last week a Continental Airlines flight carrying 154 people from Orlando, Florida, landed on a taxiway at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey instead of the runway to which it had been assigned. Both pilots have been grounded by the airline...

Danielle Bean: This 'n That

re: several subjects, including "...the FDA wants to know how you feel about about vaccines manufactured using aborted fetal cell lines..." Has link...

National Novel Writing Month - FAQs

re: it's NaNoWriMo time again...

Elephants in Academia: "What's your plan?"

re: stump speech by President Bush, pointing out that Democrats offer criticism but no plan...

The Anchoress » NY Times out-and-out lies on Kerry (& costs us plenty) - Updated

re: I'd missed this. The New York Times story on the Kerry kerfuffle didn't include what he actually said???? In fairness, there is a November 3, correction at the bottom....

Penn: Office of University Communications

re: home page for University of Pennsylvania communications office - news releases, links to articles that reference Penn or its people, contact info for media looking for an expert, more...

Barbaro Trainer Ponders What May Have Been - washingtonpost.com

re: The Breeders' Cup Classic this weekend prompts some daydreaming about races that couldn't happen after all...

Penn: Office of University Communications: University of Pennsylvania Professor Re-Writes History of U.S. Saudi Relations

re: "Robert Vitalis, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, rewrites U.S.-Saudi history in his new book"...

Democracy Project: Penn President Poses with "Suicide Bomber"

re: University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann threw a Halloween costume party, and let a guy dressed as a suicide bomber ham it up for the cameras, including mock executions of 'hostages' (she also posed smiling beside the kid)...

hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

re: Scott Adams figures out how to remap his brain to restore his speech...

hat tip: JollyBlogger

Murder, Arson Charges For Wildfire Suspect, Raymond Lee Oyler Accused In Calif. Blaze That Killed 5 Firefighters - CBS News

re: man suspected of setting multiple fires in the area over a period of months, possibly years...

New Frontier Lures Detroit Autoworkers, As Employees Lose Their Jobs, Booming Energy Industry In Wyoming Calls - CBS News

re: Wyoming has 6,000 more jobs than people, is looking for workers from other states...

BostonHerald.com - Herald Columnists: Massachusetts’ botched joke

re: Jules Crittenden takes a sober look at Kerry's 'botched joke'...

hat tip: Gateway Pundit

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: Climate Non-Conformity

re: trying to keep the global warming debate open...

OpinionJournal - Extra: Stern Review

re: Bjorn Lomborg argues that more good will come from addressing some issues (like clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education) directly instead of plowing money into attempts to get carbon-emission cuts...

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: various links to follow up... (also includes, in ref to a story on increased birthrate in Iraq: As the 19th-century Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore observed, "Every time a child is born, it brings with it the hope that God is not yet disappointed with man.")...

Winter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

re: cultural differences, folklore, science, historical footnotes, starting dates for winter...

Last thoughts on John Kerry « Bookworm Room

re: coming at Kerry's 'get a good education or get stuck in Iraq' gaffe from a different angle, Bookworm notes that the Left seems to equate academic smartness with intelligence (an assumption that doesn't always hold up), and also generally doesn't acknowlege that other experiences, such as service in the military, can provide an education...

Voila! A Car Powered By Air, French Duo Says No Combustion, Zero-Emissions Vehicle Runs For Pennies Per Mile - CBS News

re: work continues on a vehicle run by compressed air (pull quote: “The beauty of this concept is air is everywhere and it doesn't generate pollutions. The main problem is the technology to make use of air." - UCLA professor Su-Chin Chow)...

Author Courts Book Clubs And Boosts Sales

re: Romance novelist John Shors put his email in a letter at the back of his paperback edition, offering to make personal calls and visits to book clubs. He's talked with 200-ish so far, reportedly has sales up to about a thousand books a week...

Petrona: Autumn books: battlefield between the ears

re: the book "Mind Wars: Brain research and national defense" by Jonathan D. Moreno, reviewed by Charles Jennings...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Saints Misbehavin'

re: Thomas J. Craughwell, author of "Saints Behaving Badly" (Doubleday, 2006), tackles the commonly held (and quite erroneous) myth that saints are people who lived their whole lives in holiness. Far from it, in many, many cases. Includes info on push to name French cop-killer and thief Jacques Fesch a saint, based upon his conversion and contrition after being put in jail...

Integration Is Helped When Everyone New Doesn’t Move In At The Same Time « Expat Yank

re: a look at the current push to force religious schools in the UK to accept students who don't belong to their faith, plus a consideration of the less obvious reasons this represents muddled thinking...