Microsoft's Windows Marketplace: "Ubuntu is perfect!" -- Eek!
Excerpt:
Yesterday, for a brief shining moment, you and 10,000 or so other people could and did download Ubuntu Linux from a link on that page
Comment: Maybe they know something that we all should know - like Linux is a solid, compact, secure operating system that will run even on a 486!
Not Buying It
Excerpt:
Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.
They dress in castoff clothes and furnish their homes with items found on the street; at freecycle.org, where users post unwanted items; and at so-called freemeets, flea markets where no money is exchanged. Some claim to hold themselves to rigorous standards. “If a person chooses to live an ethical lifestyle it’s not enough to be vegan, they need to absent themselves from capitalism,” said Adam Weissman, 29, who started freegan.info four years ago and is the movement’s de facto spokesman.
Wiki: Freeganism
Excerpt:
Freeganism is an anticonsumerism lifestyle where people employ alternative strategies for living based on "limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed."
Comment: I've heard this called Dumpster Diving
Myrtle, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the church's morals, kept sticking her nose into other people's business.
Several members did not approve of her extra curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence.
She made a mistake, however, when she accused George, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town's only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told George (and several others) that everyone seeing it there would know what he was doing.
George, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn't explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing.
Later that evening, George quietly parked his pickup truck in front of Myrtle's house...walked home...and left it there all night.
Comment: From one of Kathee's coworkers. Image from http://www.nicktarr.com
I found this cool vintage (from 1908!) postcard of McEwen Lake in Alto Michigan. My Mom and Dad grew up in Alto and I've been to this lake many times in my youth. My first experiences water skiing were here behind Uncle Jim's boat.
I bought it today and am sending to my Mother!
Ten Reasons We Believe the Bible
Comment: Good read from the Pulpit Magazine
Bloomberg's Politics: A post-partisan savior, or just another spoiler?
Excerpt:
Independents who have made a splash have done so by adopting an issue ignored by the existing parties. Lincoln and the early GOP had slavery, while even the mercurial Ross Perot had the federal budget deficit. Mr. Bloomberg's plea for post-partisan "managerial competence" won't soon have voters marching in the streets. He has been a competent mayor, and he has taken political risks in particular to push education reform. But his popularity also owes no small part to the 2003 Bush tax cuts that have floated the city's financial markets and revenues--something he himself doesn't seem to understand, or give credit to.
Mr. Bloomberg has been quoted as saying that he wouldn't run unless he could win. We hope he means it. He's rich enough to afford the race, but a candidate for the nation's highest office should have more on his agenda than competence, and should have reason to believe he'd be more than a political spoiler.
Comment: Good read from the Opinion Journal.
Rachel had to order steel toed shoes for her factory audit next week. We are making fun of them!
Bloomberg's Bigotry
Mr. Bloomberg's freewheeling question-and-answer session was peppered with the kind of provocative, blunt talk that could appeal to some voters while alienating others. "It's probably because of our bad educational system, but the percentage of people who believe in creationalism is really scary for a country that's going to have to compete in a world where science and medicine require a better understanding," he said in one such foray.
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The AP notes that the Newton papers, according to the exhibition's curator, "complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion." No kidding. When Bloomberg endorses that idea, is he really expressing a devotion to science, or just a fashionable urban prejudice against serious Christians?
Comment: Illustrates anti-supernaturalism bias!
Subprime storm winds will keep blowing
Excerpt:
Home foreclosures in Minneapolis doubled in 2006 and are on pace to double again this year. The number of vacant buildings is rising in working-class neighborhoods with high levels of subprime loans. Some families are simply walking away from once-secure homes.
"People are upside down; they owe more than their house is worth," says Glennis Ter Wisscha, deputy director of Neighborhood Housing Services of Minneapolis, who counsels borrowers. Homeowners "can make it at the (initial) teaser rate, but the adjusted rate is going to go up $400, $800, $1,000 a month."
Comment: See the foreclosure map posted earlier this week. People should go to jail for pushing ARM mortgages on people!
Sortable report: 500 Top foreclosure zip codes. MN zip 55411 is the worst in Minnesota! Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, & Cleveland high on the list!
Joe Kennedy's First Marriage: Still On
Excerpt:
The most controversial "marriage that never was" in recent U.S. political history is back. Sources tell TIME that the Vatican has reversed the annulment of Joseph P. Kennedy II's marriage to Sheila Rauch. The annulment had been granted in secrecy by the Catholic Church after the couple's 1991 no-fault civil divorce. Rauch found out about the de-sanctification of their marriage only in 1996, after Kennedy had been wedded to his former Congressional aide, Beth Kelly, for three years. The annulment was the subject of Rauch's 1997 book Shattered Faith, which lambasted her ex-husband and was severely critical of the Catholic Church's proceedings, which made the marriage (which had produced twin boys) null and void in the eyes of the church. Rauch argued that Kennedy was able to unilaterally "cancel" nearly 12 years of marriage because of his clan's influence in the church. Kennedy argued at the time that the annulment was the right thing to do in religious terms.
Comment: Sheila Rauch is face of the Catholic annulment hypocrisy!
Safari ushers in better browser colors
Excerpt:
Unlike the prevailing browsers on the Internet--Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox--the Apple browser supports different ways of encoding images that can mean richer, deeper colors. With the beta version of Safari now on Windows, Mac OS X users aren't the only ones who'll be able to see the difference.
However, Apple won't keep that edge for long. Mozilla's forthcoming Firefox 3 browser, due to ship in beta form this July, likely will include support for richer color, said Vlad Vukicevic, a technical leader at Mozilla and a photo enthusiast.
Comment: I have IE 7, Firefox 2, and Safari on my old Dell home laptop. In order of preference ...
The World From Our Window: Church Covenants and Alcohol - Utter Ludicrousy
Comment: a good read! I personally don't agree that the "abstain clause" in Baptist church covenants is ludicrous! This article - Christianity and alcohol - provides three Christian positions:
Illegitimacy has risen despite--indeed, because of--legal abortion
Conclusion:
From the beginning of the abortion debate, those favoring abortion have pointed to the social costs of "unwanted" children who simply won't get the attention of "wanted" ones. But there is a trade-off that has long been neglected. Abortion may eliminate "unwanted" children, but it increases out-of-wedlock births and single parenthood. Unfortunately, the social consequences of illegitimacy dominated.
Children born after liberalized abortion rules have suffered a series of problems from problems at school to more crime. The saddest fact is that it is the most vulnerable in society, poor blacks, who have suffered the most from these changes.
Liberalized abortion might have made life easier for many, but like sex itself sometimes, it has had many unintended consequences.
Comment: Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge"
Ever use Edit+Copy or Edit+Cut or [CTRL]+C (for pasting elsewhere)?
Beware: This copied data is stored in clipboard and is accessible from the net by a combination of Javascripts and ASP.
Try this:
Alabama town uses "Mockingbird" to learn from past
Excerpt:
MONROEVILLE, Alabama (Reuters) - When Harper Lee wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird" she could not have known it would be hailed as a classic, much less that it would shape the way her hometown viewed its past.
Lee's novel has put Monroeville, Alabama, on the map and acted as a magnet for tourists. It has also stimulated debate in the town about the legacy of racial segregation that prevailed in the south until the 1960s.
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird (film)
Monroeville, Alabama
Comment: One of favorite books! Book is better than the movie, but the movie is great!
A war on memory
Excerpt:
An attack on religious symbolism has been waged for several years now on a barren hilltop in California. A simple cross to honor fallen soldiers is simply too much for militant ‘separationists,’ who seem intent on disassembling this country’s Christian past.
Commentary by USAToday's Michael Medved
ND farmers suing DEA over right to grow hemp
Excerpt:
Two North Dakota farmers who want to grow hemp are filing a federal lawsuit today to challenge the Drug Enforcement Administration's ban on the plant that is the same species that produces marijuana.
Hemp can be imported from Canada, Europe and China, but growing hemp in the USA is illegal, the DEA says.
"Hemp is marijuana," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney says. "There's no distinguishing feature between marijuana and hemp."
Lawyers for the farmers say the Controlled Substances Act, which governs illegal drugs, makes a specific exception for hemp, a non-drug version of the marijuana plant. They are seeking a court ruling that says the federal authorities cannot arrest the North Dakota farmers for growing hemp.
The federal government used to encourage farmers to grow what is known as "industrial hemp," says attorney Joseph Sandler in Washington, D.C., who is representing the farmers. Hemp plants have a low concentration of the psychoactive chemical that gives marijuana users a high, he said.
Comment: Hemp is not marijuana! The Hemp Industries Association (HIA). Comment on the image: from the Wiki article.
Papers show Isaac Newton's religious side
Excerpt:
Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible -- exhibited this week for the first time -- lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.
Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law -- even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters -- and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end.
------
In another document, Newton interpreted biblical prophecies to mean that the Jews would return to the Holy Land before the world ends. The end of days will see "the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom," he posited.
Links of interest:
Downtown traffic snarls expected near Target Center on Wednesday
Excerpt:
That advice comes as thousands of extra vehicles on highways leading into downtown Minneapolis and on streets near Target Center could create significant traffic delays and parking problems for morning commuters.
-----
More than 15,000 people have bought tickets for “Get Motivated,” which includes keynote speaker and author Zig Ziglar, former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, comedian Bill Cosby, financial guru Suze Orman, ABC-TV “20/20” host John Stossel along with Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, and Tom Hopkins, an expert on maximizing sales achievements.
Comment: Having been caught in this snarl before (driving down I-394 into downtown ... and waiting for up to half an hour in halted traffic / leaving downtown even worse!), Kathee and I have alternate plans that avoid the freeway.
Card Tricks: Harry Reid hopes to help unions deprive workers of their right to vote
Excerpt:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided to hold a vote this Wednesday on perhaps the most unpopular element of the Democratic agenda. The Employee Free Choice Act has already passed the House, but now it faces real hurdles in the Senate because, contrary to the name, it undermines workplace democracy.
Under the so-called card-check bill, a company would no longer have the right to demand a secret-ballot election to certify a union, thus stripping 140 million American workers of the right to decide in private whether to organize.
Republican senators, except possibly Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, are uniformly opposed to the idea. "We went to the secret ballot in the early 1800s in this country for a darn good reason: If somebody's looking over your shoulder, your ballot doesn't mean much," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says, noting fears of intimidation by unions should the bill pass.
Comment: The Democrat's attempt to muscle workers to satisfy a narrow constituency! Read it and weep!
Ethanol focus forces oil industry to cut expansion
Excerpt:
A push from Congress and the White House for huge increases in biofuels, such as ethanol, is prompting the oil industry to scale back its plans for refinery expansions. That could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come.
With President Bush calling for a 20 percent drop in gasoline use and the Senate now debating legislation for huge increases in ethanol production, oil companies see growing uncertainty about future gasoline demand and little need to expand refineries or build new ones.
Oil industry executives no longer believe there will be the demand for gasoline over the next decade to warrant the billions of dollars in refinery expansions - as much as 10 percent increase in new refining capacity - they anticipated as recently as a year ago.
Comment: Illustrates the law of unintended consequences!
Kathee and I took a drive this afternoon over to the Crescent Moon Bakery. North Minneapolis is a true cross cultural zone in Minnesota. On Central there are Vietnamese restaurants, Indian restaurants, and Afghanee restaurants. Further North in Columbia Heights there is a Jerusalem market! The residents have learned to co-exist! The Crescent Moon is Arabic. Al Jazeera is displayed on a large flat screen monitor in the restaurant. English is spoken but not often heard.
Address: 2339 Central Ave. NE, Minneapolis
The Crescent Moon is a combination bakery, grocery, and restaurant. We've eaten there before and it is very good. Today's trip (it actually wasn't our destination - we were wandering) was to buy dried fruit. Today I bought dried white mulberries and dried plums.
Mulberries are an excellent snack ... so tasty. Kathee is not that fond of them. More for me! The dried fruit we bought today are products of Pakistan.
A History of Problems
Jefferson Memorial's Signs of Sinking Raise Fresh Alarms
Excerpt:
The big problem seems to be a section of the sea wall that is breaking from the memorial's plaza and settling into the Tidal Basin. The "ring road" along the memorial's circumference also seems to be shifting, officials say.
Such movement is an alarming -- and chronic -- problem at the Jefferson Memorial, which was built in the late 1930s and early 1940s atop pilings and caissons sunk into an artificial mud flat that is about 100 feet deep. Engineers have been struggling for decades to keep everything firmed up.
We celebrated Father's Day last night. Roger marinated and grilled chicken and veggie kabobs. Kathee made red potatoes. Roger left at 6:30 a.m. for 2 weeks of Marine Corp reserves @ Fort McCoy, WI. He paused briefly for me to snap this photo.
Today's activities: Church at 4th this morning. We are planning on going to Victory Baptist with my Brother and Sister-in-Law tonight.
Dr Bauder preached from the book of Jude this morning on "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (v 3). It was an excellent exposition of the entire book.
A ’57 Plymouth Is Unearthed, and It’s Rusty
Excerpt:
A concrete vault encasing a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere buried a half-century ago may have been built to withstand a nuclear attack but it couldn't beat back the natural onslaught of moisture.
At a Friday ceremony complete with a couple of drum rolls, crews removed a multilayered protective wrapping caked with red mud, revealing a vintage vehicle that was covered in rust and wouldn't crank.
There were a few bright spots, literally: shiny chrome was still visible around the doors and front fender, and workers were able to put air in the tires.
Other Links:
Tulsa’s Big Dig: A ’57 Plymouth Is the Prize
Buriedcar.com
Lesson: Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Arafat's Children: Gaza's mayhem is the bitter fruit of terror as statecraft
Conclusion:
The deeper lesson here is that a society that has spent the last decade celebrating suicide bombing would inevitably become a victim of its own nihilistic impulses. This is not the result of Mr. Bush's call for democratic responsibility; it is the bitter fruit of the decades of dictatorship and terrorism as statecraft that Yasser Arafat instilled among Palestinians.
Hundreds Flee Hamas
GAZA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Palestinians fled Hamas-controlled Gaza by land and sea on Saturday to the West Bank where President Mahmoud Abbas prepared to swear in a new government that will bring an end to a U.S.-led aid embargo.
"I will not live in a Hamas-run state," said Shadi, a fighter from Abbas's Fatah faction, after escaping Gaza for the occupied West Bank through an Israeli crossing point.
Comment: Won't be resolved until the Prince of Peace arrives!
Less traffic may mean end for Crystal Airport
Excerpt:
When Crystal city officials look across the green and open expanse of the Crystal Airport, they visualize new homes, businesses and a park -- no more planes taking off and landing. But to small-plane aviators and flight-training companies that fly in and out of that hub, it's still an important gateway to the sky that needs to stay in service -- even though flight numbers are declining. "There isn't any other place that is convenient for me to fly from," said Kevin Rebman, a small-plane pilot from Maple Grove. As the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) plans for the future of all six metro-area reliever airports, Crystal officials are seizing the opportunity to renew a 20-year campaign to close the Crystal Airport and put the land to other uses.
Comment: First I heard of this! I hope the Crystal Airport survives. It's a great place to get up close to small planes and watch take offs and landings.
A Little History on Israel’s Future
Thoughts on Romans 11:25-26
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
“ The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob
Kathee and I had the day off and our excursion today was to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Comments:
Kathee entertained tonight and we had special friends by the house. Some of my blogger visitors will recognize these faces:
Breaking Down the Walls Between Mac OS X and Windows
From the Desk of David Pogue
Breaking Down the Walls Between Mac OS X and Windows
By DAVID POGUE
Published: June 7, 2007
David Pogue reviews a program that lets you run both Windows and Mac OS X at the same time on one computer.
Excerpt:
Shared Networking. I love this one a lot. In Parallels 3.0, Windows "hides" behind the Mac's networking; it's completely invisible to hacks, pings and bots on the Internet looking to infect you. Your "Windows PC" is therefore much less likely to wind up becoming a "zombie" or "bot" that does the bidding of spammers behind your back.
Comment: My co-worker Mike M brought in his son's Mac book and demo'd Parallels several weeks ago. Very cool. Sad that Windows does not have better protections built into the operating system (unlike Mac which is built on UNIX, and LINUX (Unix like))
My interest is not running Windows programs on a MAC (since I have a company laptop anyway!) but in running Linux on Parallels.
Benjamin B. Warfield on Election
Excerpt:
Read Rom. viii. 29, 30, and see "the golden chain" which, as a fine old divine, John Arrowsmith, puts it, "God lets down from heaven that by it he may draw up his elect thither." "For whom he foreknew"--that is election, the setting upon his people with distinguishing preoccupation and love, according to the pregnant use of "know" in such a passage say, as Amos iii. 2, "You only have I known out of all the families of the earth" --"for whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son"-this is the high destiny prepared for us!--"that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Count these five golden links, all acts of God's own, working our salvation, and note how they are welded together in one unbreakable chain, so that all who are set upon in God's gracious distinguishing view are carried on by his grace, step by step, up to the great consummation of that glorification which realizes the promised conformity to the image of God's own Son. It is "election," you see, that does all this; for "whom he foreknew, . . . them he also glorified." That fine old divine to whom we have just referred tells us further that "election, having once pitched upon a man, will find him out and call him home, wherever he be. Zacchaeus out of cursed Jericho; Abraham out of idolatrous Ur of the Chaldeans; Nicodemus and Paul out of the college of the Pharisees, Christ's sworn enemies; Dionysius and Damaris, out of superstitious Athens. In whatever dunghill God's jewels be hid, election will both find them out there and fetch them out from thence." "Rejoice," our Savior cried (Luke x. 20), "rejoice in this- that your names are written in heaven," in, that is, the Lamb's book of life (Rev. xxi. 27), which the same fine old divine counsels us always to remember, is "a book of love-the writing of our names in which is the firstborn of all God's favors."
Romans 8:29-30 "For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
The Golden Chain:
WikiHow: Maintain a Pistol (Handgun)
Excerpt:
Properly maintaining a handgun is an obvious step for any gun owner, and it is absolutely necessary for optimal safety and effectiveness!
The case of the disappearing Great Lake
Excerpt:
Lake Superior, the world's largest freshwater lake, has dropped to its lowest level in 81 years. The water is 20 inches below average and a foot lower than just a year ago.
The dropping levels have had serious environmental and economic consequences. Wetlands have dried up. Power plants run at half capacity. Cargo ships carry partial loads. Boaters struggle to find a place to dock.
Comment: 9 photos in the article.
90% of mail received by companies in May was spam
Excerpt:
According to data compiled by TrustLayer Mail, the managed security service from Panda Software, 90 percent of email that reached companies in May was spam. This data has been extracted from a study of those companies who have contracted this service.
“Spam is more than just annoying. Unless there is a good mail filter system in place, workers will waste a lot of time deleting junk mail. It could also contain malicious code, and therefore represents a risk to corporate security. For this reason, TrustLayer blocks spam and all types of malware before it can reach computers”, explains Victor Omaechevarria, TrustLayer Mail Product Manager.
Comment: Periodically one may need to create a new email account (abandon the compromised account). My own experience is that Gmail does a super job abandoning Spam (to a Spam folder). Bluebottle absolutely stops Spam via whitelisting.
Here's a brief tutorial on favicon.ico:
6 Reasons Why We’re Not Eating Healthier
Excerpt:
Here are the major areas in which the survey found "diet disconnects" that could stand in the way of a healthier diet and lifestyle:
Star Tribune: Interactive map
Comment: I was surprised by the number of foreclosures in Plymouth. Check out N. Minneapolis (area near I-94 and Hwy 55).
MacBook Pros Look Like Older Models, but the Innards Are Different
Excerpt:
Technology
MacBook Pros Look Like Older Models, but the Innards Are Different
By JOHN BIGGS
Published: June 14, 2007
Apple rarely makes sweeping changes to its product line, which is why its new MacBook Pro laptops look identical to older models.
The 17-inch model, shown here, now includes a 2.4-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor along with up to 4 gigabytes of RAM. The battery lasts more than 5 hours on one charge, and it includes high-speed 802.11n wireless support and Bluetooth.
10 ways to become a better blogger
Comment: I have a lot to learn! Perhaps I should revert to the "cocktail napkin"!
Excerpt:
Takeaway: If nobody bothers to read your blog posts, you might as well just scribble your thoughts on a cocktail napkin. But if you truly want to share your ideas and opinions, check out these pointers for crafting an engaging blog and building a loyal following.
The mouseover effect is one of the most fundamental javascript programming need for framed sites with navigation in a TOC (table of contents). Yesterday I created new buttons for ffbc.ws. The button creation itself is fairly straight forward, but the javascript has been (at least for me) more complex. Dynamic Drive offers a DOM Image Rollover II tool.
How easy is it?
Minnesota Muslims in culture clash at airport
Excerpt:
For Mahamed Jama, a Minnesota taxi driver, the Islamic restriction on drinking alcohol is a seamless rule for life.
"He who carries alcohol, he who drinks and he who sells it are the same thing," he says.
That belief could affect his livelihood.
The commission that runs the Minneapolis airports in May began enforcing a new policy allowing it to revoke the licenses of drivers who refuse to ferry passengers carrying alcohol -- something that has happened to 4,854 travelers trying to get a cab at Minneapolis International Airport in the last five years.
"The increased penalties appear to have brought drivers into compliance," airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said of the policy -- a 30-day license suspension for a first infraction and a two-year license revocation for a second.
Although Hogan said the measure was implemented without incident, it has provoked outrage among some of the 900 cab drivers who work the airport. About three quarters of them are Somali, most of whom are Muslim.
Comment: Interesting that 3/4 of MSP cabbies are Somali Muslims. Could this be right?
Minnesota native 'Mr. Wizard' dies at 89
Excerpt:
Don Herbert, the Waconia native who introduced generations of young viewers to the joys of science as television's "Mr. Wizard," died Tuesday. He was 89.
Watch Mr. Wizard
Watch Mr. Wizard was a United States television program for children in the 1950s, a general science experiments show, that explained the science behind ordinary things. It was briefly revived in 1971, and then later in the 1980s as a program on the Nickelodeon children's television network as Mr. Wizard's World.
"Mr. Wizard," had a formula to hook kids, dies at 89
A low-key, avuncular presence who wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a tie, Mr. Herbert launched his weekly half-hour science show for children on NBC in 1951. "Watch Mr. Wizard" — broadcast live from Chicago on Saturdays the first few years and then from New York — ran for 14 years.
Mr. Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his TV audience via an in-studio guest boy or girl who assisted in the experiments.
"I was a grade school kid in the '50s and watched 'Mr. Wizard' Saturday mornings and was just glued to the television," said Nikosey, president of Mr. Wizard Studios, which sells Mr. Herbert's science books and old TV shows on DVD.
"The show just heightened my curiosity about science and the way things worked," said Nikosey. "I learned an awful lot from him, as did millions of other kids."
By 1955, there were about 5,000 Mr. Wizard Science Clubs across the U.S., with more than 100,000 members.
In explaining how he brought a sense of wonder to elementary scientific experiments, Mr. Herbert said in a 2004 interview with The New York Times that he "would perform the trick, as it were, to hook the kids, and then explain the science later."
Official Site: Mr Wizard
It is with deep sadness that we regret to announce the passing of Don Herbert - the one and only "Mr. Wizard". Don lost his battle with cancer today, June 12, 2007, at 9 AM Pacific Daylight Time - slightly more than one month shy of his 90th birthday. He was lovingly surrounded by his family, who are at once, saddened by his passing, and relieved that he is no longer suffering.
We all feel extremely lucky to have had him in our lives and to have known and worked with Don over the years. We have also been tremendously honored to carry on his legacy as an original and truly legendary figure in the worlds of both Television and Science Education. He has been inspirational and influential in so many ways and on so many lives and we are comforted in the fact that his ground breaking work and legacy will continue to inspire many more people for years to come.
Thank you so much to all of you for your support and sympathy.
Sincerely, The Family
Museum of Broadcast Communications: WATCH MR. WIZARD
Watch Mr. Wizard, one of commercial television's early educational efforts was highly successful in making science exciting and understandable for children. Presenting scientific laboratory demonstrations and information in an interesting, uncomplicated and entertaining format, this long running series was a prime example of the Chicago School of Television and of quality education in a visual format. Created and hosted by Don Herbert, the show's low key approach, casual ad lib style and resourceful often magic-like demonstrations led to rapid success and brought Herbert instant recognition and critical acclaim as an innovative educational broadcaster and as a teacher of science.
Donald Jeffry Herbert, a general science and English major at LaCrosse State Teachers College in Wisconsin, had originally planned to teach dramatics. Following his graduation in 1940, he acted in summer and winter stock and then traveled to New York with an eye toward Broadway. World War II interrupted his career and the young actor entered the Army Air Forces as a private. As a B-24 bomber pilot, he flew 56 missions with the Fifteenth Air Force and subsequently participated in the invasion of Italy. Discharged as s Captain in 1945, Herbert had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.
Wiki: Don Herbert
Comment: A show I watched as a child. I did not know he was a Minnesota native or that he served in WW II. He was a contemporary of my Father.
Milestone Marks What Phillies Fans Already Knew
Sports / Baseball
Milestone Marks What Phillies Fans Already Knew
By JERÉ LONGMAN
Published: June 12, 2007
The Philadelphia Phillies have lost more games than any professional franchise in any sport and are fast approaching their 10,000th loss.
Comment: Kathee and I were at "The Vet" when the Phillies won the pennant in 1983!
Excerpt:
The franchise has set awful records for futility — with a collective earned run average of 6.71 in 1930 and 23 consecutive defeats in 1961. And, of course, 1964 brought one of baseball’s most infamous collapses, when the Phillies held a 6 ½-game lead in the National League with 12 games to play and blew the pennant after losing 10 in a row.
“It was like someone sticking a nail in your head and hammering it once a day,” said Tom McCarthy, 70, an actor who plays the title role in the one-man play “The Philly Fan.”
Penurious and indifferent owners, poor trades, suspect managers and some truly bad teams have conspired through decades to influence Philadelphia’s gloomy faith. Here, victory is fleeting and ephemeral, not an encouraging sign that further success is ahead but a taunting hint that disaster is just around the corner in a city where defeat has become the natural order.
See: His nickname was 'Losing Pitcher'. His Career Stats
A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life
International / Middle East
A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: June 12, 2007
Religious and political leaders say that there is a crisis in Islam because too many religious edicts are being issued
Excerpt:
First came the breast-feeding fatwa. It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties.
...
The breast-feeding fatwa came in mid-May. A religious scholar, who headed a department that studies the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings at the Foundation of Religion College of Al Azhar University, wrote that there had been instances in the time of the prophet when adult women breast-fed adult men in order to avoid the need for women to wear a veil in front of them.
“Breast-feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage,” wrote the scholar, Izat Atiyah. “A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breast-fed.”
The ruling was mocked on satellite television shows around the region, and was quickly condemned at home. Mr. Atiyah was suspended from his job, mocked in newspapers and within days issued a retraction, saying it was a “bad interpretation of a particular case.”
Comment: Needs no comment other than "weird"!
Microsoft Surface: First look from Popular Mechanics
Wiki: Microsoft Surface
Excerpt:
Microsoft Surface is a forthcoming product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of natural motions, hand gestures, or physical objects. It was announced on May 30, 2007 at D5, and is expected to be released by commercial partners in November 2007. Initial customers will be in the hospitality businesses, such as restaurants, hotels, retail, and public entertainment venues.
Comment: Suggest you read the Wiki article first and then view the Popular Mechanics demo (video). Very cool. To me (but I am late adopter of technology) I question it's value.
