Random Thoughts- Do They Have Meaning?

This evening my son and I watched it together. It brought back such memories, Mr. Hooper, Bob, Luis, Maria, Snuffy and the kid who played Jon Jon. It was a lot of fun to watch. I hate to admit that I have a soft spot, but they played a clip of the episode in which Big Bird discusses Mr. Hooper's death and I got a little choked up. It was a lot of fun to watch it and a little strange to look at these characters that I grew up with in clips as the young people I remember and then now. I guess that when I was watching they were probably younger than I am now. My son had a hard time believing that I knew so many things about the show. I guess that he thinks that I am really old now. Oh well, 35 is better than being 36. ;) Actually I am not bothered much by age, although I have to admit knowing that 40 is just around the corner is a little surreal. But since I am going to live to be 130 I have a long way to go.

For years any time the discussion of Palestinian refugees has been raised one of the responses has been about the Jews who were forced to leave Arab Lands. And now are we witnessing a wide spread movement or a feint by Gaddafi as he tries to make Libya an international player.

Iran arms plan worries Putin "SOCHI, Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed concern about Iran's atomic programme yesterday and said it must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. "Russia has co-operated with Iran and we will continue to do so, but like our European colleagues France, Germany, Britain, and the US, we are concerned by the fact that questions are being raised about Iran's nuclear programme," Putin said. "We are categorically against an enlargement of the club of nuclear powers, and that includes Iran," Putin said after talks with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac." Remember the post below in which I mentioned Russia and the US aligned against the Muslim world. It could happen. Part of the challenge is trying to avoid making it a battle against the "Muslim world." That is problematic for all sorts of reasons and really not necessary.

"UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 31 - The United States and France decided Tuesday to rush forward a Security Council resolution calling on Syria to remove its troops from Lebanon and cease its intervention in that country's politics. The action comes in response to a sudden decision by the Lebanese cabinet over the weekend to endorse a Syrian-backed move to let President Émile Lahoud stay in office for three years beyond the constitutional limit of a single six-year term. Mr. Lahoud, whose term is to expire in November, is favored by Syria, which exercises extensive control over politics in Lebanon and has kept 20,000 troops there despite the 1990 accord ending the 15-year Lebanese civil war that called for the eventual departure of all foreign forces." Boy that would be a nice change of pace. With a little help the Iranian support of Hezbollah will disappear as well and things will really start moving, but somehow I don't see that.

"SOCHI, Russia : Russian President Vladimir Putin linked last week's downing of two passenger airliners to the Al-Qaeda network and said it was evidence of the presence of international terrorism on Russian soil in Chechnya. "The fact that an international terrorist organization linked to Al-Qaeda took responsibility for the blowing up of two planes shows once again the link between destructive elements in Chechnya and international terrorism," Putin told reporters." Tom Clancy wrote a book that semi-predicted cooperation between the US and Russia in fighting terror. Don't be surprised to see it happen. It is also interesting to see what the French and Germans had to say on this: Both Chirac and Schroeder gave Putin a wide berth in dealing with Chechnya, voicing support for what they described as his efforts to obtain a political solution to the separatist crisis there. "A political solution is necessary and this is what Russia wants,&q

Ok, after a lot of hard work I have finally "restored" my Blog. My expertise does not lie in programming and I am not really a detail person, but when I decide to focus on something I can be "pit-bullish" in my determination to succeed. And I was determined to figure out what the hell happened. I tried to to use the auto-install of Haloscan and that ^%$T^^%^ the whole thing up. And then I went bonkers along with the fercockteh computer and template trying to restore it. So that is why you now see a very white interface. It was a whole process and I am pleased to pat myself on the back and say I figured it out myself. But I will likely not mess with this for some time again as that was a hassle. And if I do I won't be so foolish as to not have made a clean backup so that I can correct my mistakes. My apologies for the issue and now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Hello Readers, The shack is currently experiencing some technical issues. So if you see some funky stuff bear with us, we are working on resolving the problems.

"MOSCOW - Explosions near a busy Moscow subway station in a shopping district Tuesday night killed six people and injured at least 20. The Itar-TASS news agency said authorities blamed a woman suicide bomber. Initial reports said a single car blew up, but witnesses said they heard at least two explosions. The blast struck about 8:15 p.m. in an area between the Rizhskaya station and a nearby supermarket-department store complex." Ladies and gentlemen I expect to see the fighting between the Russian gov't and the Chechen's heat up real soon. Russia is still a member of the UNSEC, so don't expect to see the UN do much in the way of preventing this.

Medical science consistently amazes me. This is very cool.

It is a Tuesday morning in Los Angeles and I just had a flashback to August of 1985. I am 16 years-old and living in Jerusalem for the Summer. My trip is almost over and I am just beside myself because I don't want to leave Israel. I miss my family, but I am caught, captivated and mesmerized by everything around me. The intifada hasn't broken out yet and I wander through the shuk and Arab quarter on a regular basis. I wander into the Jewish quarter and head to the Kotel. I am not sure why I am there. Up until a short time prior I had been convinced that I was an atheist. I hadn't been one for very long, but I was convinced that I was. I can't remember what day it was. I know that it wasn't Shabbos, but it really doesn't matter. All I know is that my Hebrew is flowing and I don't feel like an outsider looking in. I just feel like I am home. I am in Israel, I am in Jerusalem and I am home. I am a content teenager. I don't care that my girlfriend and

In recent weeks I have received another 15 copies of an email circulating through cyberspace in which Dubya's "credentials" are reviewed. I am not a huge supporter of Bush, but I am someone who believes that one of the challenges we face is living in a society in which critical reasoning and logical thought are often neglected and or meaning. This email contains about 25 points that are all designed to try and make Bush look bad. And if you turn off your brain and read them without any consideration for context, validity or significance then it just might work. I hate this list because to me it is demonstrative of just how limited so many people are in their ability to really understand what is happening. The list does not provide any factual support for the allegations it makes. The information may be accurate, but they leave it to the reader to verify the veracity of the charges. And on top of that there are the issues of context and significance. * I appointe

As I mentioned when the Democrats held their self-congratulatory party I find these conventions to be staged and dull. They make good photo ops. The candidate stands before a crowd that offers thundering praise and support for his every belch, burp and remark about anything and everything. The problem is that because of the Media impact we do not hear real ideas/thoughts/plans about how the candidate is going to implement change and legislation to improve our lives and positions. It is a problem for all parties. I find it to be irritating. If you say that you are going to improve the economy/security/build jobs or provide healthcare tell me how you intend to do it. Why should I believe you? If I ask my son to clean his room he'll provide me with a list of excuses why he can't and a timeline of when he will get it started. If I press him he will even tell me when it will be completed. Why can't you Mr. President and Mr. Candidate to replace the POTUS.

I came across this website and really enjoyed many of the shots of the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon as well. Just beautiful.

A Yale economist has developed a model to predict the outcome of elections. I am not real impressed with the gentlemen who explained this in the article I linked to. I found his explanation to be kind of boring. But I am interested in learning more about models such as this to see if there is any value in it. I have to agree with the commentator that the model doesn't take into account a number of social factors that can easily impact the way the election swings. Not a very profound explanation on my part, but it is what I have to give right now.

Diabetes Going Undetected in Many Heart Patients MUNICH (Reuters) - Diabetes is an undetected and silent threat for many people who end up with heart disease, according to new research published on Monday. Professor John McMurray, of the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, Scotland, said the problem was more widespread than previously realized, highlighting the need for more routine diabetes testing. Of 43,500 people screened for inclusion into a major heart drug trial -- of whom only 20 percent already had cardiovascular disease -- approximately 1 in 5 had previously undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, McMurray told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. And more than 1 in 4 additional subjects had impaired glucose tolerance, a pre-diabetic condition which frequently progresses to full-blown diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the illness, results from the body's inability to respond to the action of insulin produced by the pancreas.

Man Drives Home with Headless Friend ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia man who drove home with a friend's headless body after a truck accident then went to bed while the remains dangled out the window faces charges including vehicular homicide and drunk driving, police said on Monday. John Hutcherson, covered in blood and visibly inebriated, was arrested in bed on Sunday morning after a local resident out on a stroll observed a headless, bloody body hanging out of the 21-year-old man's truck, Cobb County police said. Hutcherson was due to make an initial court appearance on Monday. Police said that Hutcherson and his friend, identified as Francis Brohm, 23, were returning from a bar outside Atlanta early Sunday morning when their black 1992 Chevrolet Z-71 pickup hit a curb near a telephone pole. Brohm, partially outside the window at the time, was decapitated by a guide wire on the telephone pole, according to police, who recovered his head at the crash site. "

Daniel Pipes revisits this topic fresh off of the recent "revelations" of a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report written in May 2002 and made public on Aug. 27, 2004 by Stewart Bell in Canada's National Post. Essentially this says that American Airlines Flight 587 did not crash but was taken down by Al Qaeda with the terrorist using a shoe bomb. Every time I read "shoe bomb" I can't help but think of "Get Smart." Someone bring down the "Cone of Silence" while I finish this. I am not an expert on these affairs and certainly this is possible, but I would think that it is just as likely that Al Qaeda would like to claim responsibility for as many incidents like this as possible. If you want to promulgate terror you want people to view you as being omnipotent. Certainly if I was OBL I would want people to think that I can get to them any time I want. Being able to claim something like this helps to add to this myth.. How

"Man gets one-year suspended sentence for grabbing marathoner August 30, 2004 ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- A defrocked Irish priest with a history of disrupting sports events was given a one-year suspended sentence and fined $3,600 Monday for grabbing a runner who was leading the Olympic marathon with three miles to go." I feel badly for the runner, so close to a gold medal and you get accosted by some meshugehneh.

Spent some time this evening trying to get my daughter to calm down and go to sleep. I shouldn't mischaracterize it as trying to get her to calm down, she was calm. The problem was that my little 5 week old girl was wide awake at 10:30 and I was ready for some down time. So I turned on the boob tube to zone out as I walked her around the living room. Flipped on VH1 and found that they had some special on regarding the 50 worst songs. It was mildly interesting, but it made me wonder a little. They had commentary about each song. It was given by people who I cannot place, that is, I haven't the foggiest idea who they are. And without that identification it made me wonder how they got on to the show. They were all trying to be witty, profound and or biting and misfiring on all three accounts. It eventually got to be quite irritating listening to amateur hour so I flipped over to MTV. I used to really enjoy watching it when they played videos. And I have to admit for a perio

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog. We'll see how this works and if we like it we'll continue using it.

Here is a short list of things I should be working on instead of typing away at the computer: 1) Thank you notes for gifts for my daughter . If I could email you all a general thank you and have you find it to be personal and meaningful I'd do it. 2) Fixing the side gate on my house . I have to go to Home Depot and buy a gate, some anchors, a 2x4 and a couple of hinges so that I can repair the soon to be completely broken gate. I like working with my hands and enjoy these kinds of projects. However something like this is going to take a while and at 7 PM it is way too late to start. For that matter I am one of those people who once I start a project will continue doggedly until it is completed or completely broken into so many pieces it can never be reassembled. So I'll take this on next weekend or earlier in the day during the week. 3) Clean up around the house . Pretty self-explanatory really. The house is not ridiculously dirty or messy, but two young kids and 230

Scrap Electoral College, Says New York Times NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States should abolish its electoral college because it creates the possibility that the president will be a candidate who loses the popular vote, the New York Times said on Sunday. The electoral college "thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis," the paper said in an editorial. In the last presidential election in 2000, Republican George W. Bush won the presidency despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore ( news - web sites ) by more than 500,000 votes. "Most people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters themselves, but by 538 electors," the editorial said. "It's a ridiculous setup." The paper, one of the most respected in the United States, said "there should be a bipartisan movement for dire

Alaska Brown Bears Gather for Salmon Feast Sat Aug 28, 9:15 PM ET By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer McNEIL RIVER, Alaska - Each summer, the falls at McNeil River turn into a mosh pit of bears. Instead of thumping music, it's the sound of salmon slapping their way up the falls at the McNeil River State Game Sanctuary that sends the bears into a fishing frenzy. This summer, an exclusive group of 257 people was allowed into the 114,400-acre state sanctuary in an extraordinary opportunity to see close up one of the most feared predators on the planet. "It is just awesome," said Uleta Clark, of Upper Kenai, whose name was selected by lottery to visit the sanctuary. "You aren't going to see this anywhere else." That sounds so cool. I'd love to see it.

I thought it fitting to pay tribute. In all three major team sports fielded by the U.S. in these 2004 Games, the women won gold medals. In none of those sports did the U.S. men do the same. American women here reminded us of a truth that has been lost all across America, somewhere between two-handed touch and six-year contracts, between T-ball and beanball.There is no "my" in team. There is no "buy" in team. From softball players carrying their coach, to soccer players carrying a farewell message, to basketball players carrying each other. From Lisa Fernandez's dugout meetings, to Julie Foudy's midfield pleadings, to Dawn Staley's sideline chats. "For so many years, women in our country have been only too happy to play for the approval of applause," said Vivian Stringer, U.S. assistant basketball coach. "Money-wise, they have made peanuts, so they play to make people happy, working hard and doing it the right way.&q

MUNICH (Reuters) - Virtually the entire risk of heart attack can be predicted and the impact of factors causing attacks is the same whether you live in a rich country or a poor one, a global study released Sunday showed. Results of the study of more than 29,000 people in 52 countries, released at a meeting of the European Cardiology Society, showed that two factors alone -- an abnormal ratio of bad to good cholesterol and smoking -- were responsible for two-thirds of the global risk of heart attack. Other risk factors were high blood pressure, diabetes, abdominal obesity, stress, a lack of daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, and lack of daily exercise. Drinking small amounts of alcohol regularly was found to reduce risk slightly. "This convincingly shows that 90 percent of the global risk of heart disease is predictable," researcher Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, told a news conference. It is kind of cra

I agree with David who says "This story really confirms what I have been saying all along: Islamic terrorism is all about supplanting Western civilization with one based on Islam. Countries like Israel and the US are feeling the brunt of it because they are standing in the way." http://www.israellycool.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/29/131813.html/ If you read the Al- Jazeera account of the kidnapping of the French journalists the reason for it is not because of the war in Iraq or the peace process but the following: "In a statement sent to Aljazeera, the group demanded the French government end a ban on Muslim headscarves for the release of the captives." What this continues to demonstrate is that there is a desperate need for moderate Muslims to speak out and not allow the radicals to co-opt their religion. Among the many problems facing the West are those here who are unable to accept that there are people who will butcher them and their families in the nam

Question: Is "deep linking" illegal? Answer: "Deep linking" refers to the creation of hyperlinks to a page other than a website's homepage. For example, instead of pointing a link at http://www.chillingeffects.org, this site's "homepage," another site might link directly to the linking FAQ at http://www.chillingeffects.org/linking/faq . Some website owners complain that deep links "steal" traffic to their homepages or disrupt the intended flow of their websites. In particular, Ticketmaster has argued that other sites should not be permitted to send browsers directly to Ticketmaster event listings. Ticketmaster settled its claim against Microsoft and lost a suit against Tickets.com over deep linking. From Ticketmaster v. Tickets.com opinion :Further, hyperlinking does not itself involve a violation of the Copyright Act (whatever it may do for other claims) since no copying is involved. The customer is automatically transferred t

Emerging Legal Guidance on 'Deep Linking' By Margaret Smith Kubiszyn Summary: The practice of "deep linking" -- when one web site links to a page deep within another site -- has been a great source of controversy in the Internet community. Although at least one case failed to find this practice illegal, it remains an unclear area of Internet law. This article explains why. Author: The author of this article, Margaret Smith Kubiszyn, is a member of the GigaLaw.com Editorial Board and practices patent, trademark, copyright and computer law as an associate at the law firm Bradley Arant Rose & White LLP in Birmingham, Alabama. She is a registered member of the U.S. Patent Bar and has written on various Internet law topics. E-mail: mkubiszyn@barw.com . The Deep-Linking Debate The practice of "deep linking" -- when one site links to a page of another site other than the other site's home page -- has been a great source of controversy in the Intern

http://similarminds.com/leader.html You like power because it increases your sexual options. You are JFK. You are a thrill seeker by nature and don't shy away from risky behavior. http://similarminds.com/movie.html You are Raiders of the Lost Ark. You live for adventure, fortune hunting and danger. I can live with these. Don't know if they are meaningful, but I'll take it.

I took a Quizzila test and this is the result You are Tigger! T - I - DOUBLE G - R! You are happy and bouncy and insane and busy and running and falling and hungry and talking and leading and showing and... Gods, you're annoying, but everyone seems to like you - at least, for a while. How exciting. If you want to try the test you can at http://quizilla.com/users/Eeyoar/quizzes/Which%20Winnie%20the%20Pooh%20character%20are%20you?/

How do visually impaired people dream? Diego Kaski poses an interesting question "The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was."Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream Despite recent advances in the understanding of sleep, dreams continue to bewitch us with their unfathomed mysteries. Dreaming occurs during paradoxical sleep, a stage in which people's eyes move rapidly under the eyelids, and is therefore also known as rapid eye movement sleep. As we know from our own dreams, what we dream reflects our waking life experiences, which are mostly visual in nature. Are the content of visually impaired people's dreams related to their lack of vision? Do they have visual images while dreaming? Indeed, how do visually impaired people dream? The content of dreams Dreaming can be considered to be a passive event, a phenomenon that we expe

As a child there are so many little things that you cannot do because you are too young, too little, too this or too that. You hate taking naps because there is so much to do. You hate being too young because you are convinced that you are old enough to do whatever the bigger kids/people are doing. Now that I am an adult, well I have an adult body I find that there are things that I miss from my childhood. I miss endless Summer days. I miss the endless Summer nights of my adolescence and early 20s. I miss taking naps and I miss being invulnerable. Nothing could stop me, nicks, scrapes and bruises slowed me down, but they didn't stop me. And the reality is that now they don't stop me either, but I feel their effects much longer than ever before. The impact that they have is that they turn into nagging little injuries that just suck energy and take forever to go away, or so it seems. This is not something that I wanted to aspire to grow up to enjoy, but I suppose that it

Can you sit in a room and say nothing and be comfortable. I can. I can think of many times in which my father, grandfather and I have shared extended periods of silence. There hasn't been anything of consequence to say and there was nothing uncomfortable with sharing the moment. In a world of clutter and chaos silence is a gift that we all too often miss out on. And some people simply cannot handle it. I can be very gregarious, quite verbose. I can be the life of the party and then I can go the other direction. Many years ago I was told by a lady who was no longer interested in sharing time with me that I can suck the energy out of the room by merely walking in. As if I had that power. Although in that particular case I suppose that I did because she gave it to me, but that is a topic for a different time. What her biggest issue at that time was that I could simply shut down and listen without responding. Shut down may be too extreme. I heard everything that was said and

Flying Cars Reportedly Still Decades Away By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer SEATTLE - It's a frustrated commuter's escapist fantasy: literally lifting your car out of a clogged highway and soaring through the skies, landing just in time to motor into your driveway. Researchers stress that the ultimate dream — an affordable, easy-to-use vehicle that could allow regular people to fly 200 miles to a meeting and also drive 15 miles to the mall — is still probably decades away. But engineers at NASA ( news - web sites ), Boeing Co. and elsewhere say the basis for a flying car is there. People have been building, or trying to build, such vehicles for decades. The problem is, those ideas have generally required both a lot of money and the skills of a trained pilot. And melding cars and planes hasn't always been very successful. "When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that's hard to use,"

Argentina 89, United States 81 By CHRIS SHERIDAN, AP Basketball Writer August 27, 2004 ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Bronze is the best the American men can do in basketball, and the reason is simple: A hastily assembled assortment of NBA stars couldn't beat a better team -- Argentina . Manu Ginobili scored 29 points to lead his nation to another victory over the country that used to dominate the sport, an 89-81 win in the Olympic semifinals Friday night. For the first time since 1988, the gold medal will not go to the Americans. And for the first time since pro players were added for the original Dream Team in 1992, the United States will not be the Olympic champion. ``We fought as hard as we could. We couldn't get it done for whatever reason. They were a better team than us,'' Allen Iverson said. Argentina, with almost the same roster that made history in 2002 by becoming the first team to defeat a U.S. squad of NBA players, will compete for the gold meda

German doctors grow jaw bone replacement in man's backLast Updated Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:21:53 EDT LONDON - A German man was able to chow down on a bratwurst sandwich after surgeons grew a new jaw bone on his back muscle and transplanted the bone to his mouth. The 56-year-old man had part of his lower jaw removed because of mouth cancer. Until the transplant, his diet was limited to soft food and soup for nine years. Doctors in Kiel, Germany have rebuilt a man's face using a new jaw grown on his back.(AP PHOTO) Dr. Patrick Warnke, a reconstructive facial surgeon at the University of Kiel in Germany and his colleagues used CT scans and computer-aided designs to build a virtual jaw replacement. The researchers used the model to construct a mesh cage, which they filled with bone mineral, protein and stem cells from the patient's bone marrow. They then transplanted the implant below his right shoulder blade. Seven weeks later, surgeons transplanted the new bone gr

Russia crashes: Traces of explosives found Friday, August 27, 2004 Posted: 7:04 AM EDT (1104 GMT) MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Traces of explosives have been found in the wreckage of one of the two Russian passenger jets which crashed Tuesday, killing 89 people aboard, Russia's top intelligence agency says. The two planes crashed within minutes of each other Tuesday night after departing Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, killing all aboard. The Federal Security Service (FSB) said the explosive traces were found in the wreckage of the Siberia Airlines Tupelov 154 -- the second plane that crashed. A hijack alert on the aircraft had been activated before it crashed, killing all 46 on board, Siberia Airlines said on its Web site. The aircraft was bound for the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The FSB also said it had found data at the Siberia Airlines crash site that could enable them to identify suspects involved in the attack. The FSB confirmed that a Chechen woman was on board

Sweet Revenge May Be a Hard-Wired Reward By Amanda Gardner 08/27/04 9:41 AM PT According to the study, cooperation among humans is both unique and essential to human societies. The question is, why have people been willing to engage in altruistic punishment even if it can be costly to them personally? Scientists have discovered that the sweetness of revenge may have a neurological basis. A Swiss brain imaging study shows that punishing people when they behave unfairly activates the same reward circuitry of the brain that is fired up when sniffing cocaine or seeing a beautiful face. The findings, which appear in the Aug. 27 issue of Science, may partly explain the phenomenon of "altruistic punishment," which is exacting revenge on behalf of a stranger. "A lot of theoretical work in evolutionary biology and our previous experimental work suggest that altruistic punishment has been crucial for the evolution of cooperation in human societies," said Ernst Fe

If I ever have the chance I'd love to wear the rubber suit and stomp all over a minature Tokyo. Just think, I could be a star in a poorly dubbed B Movie. Better yet, I could be a star in some Kung-Fu flick. And if you are really curious what the real story is, here is a little tease for you: TOKYO - Japan's capital has a 90 percent chance of being devastated by a major earthquake some time in the next 50 years, according to a study by a government panel. The study, released earlier this week, marked the latest attempt by scientists to address one of this quake-prone country's most pressing concerns: when the next "Big One" would level one of the world's most densely populated cities. Tokyo was last hit by a destructive quake in 1923 that toppled buildings, set the city aflame and killed at least 140,000 people — and experts warn it's overdue for another. Use the link above for the full story.

I wasn't really sure what to title this post, primarily because it is really a stream of consciousness type piece. I am just kind of going with the flow of my mind and we'll see where it takes me. Pretty scary stuff. :) When I was younger, roughly in my teens I used to wonder what my parents were like before they had me. What kind of people were they? I tried to imagine them as children, teens and college students who didn't have children. Without responsibilities were they at all like me? Were they as wild and crazy? Were they stiff and nerdy? Were they somewhere in between? I heard the word "no" quite a bit. Not because they were overprotective, I don't think of them at all like that. But because I was headstrong, defiant, impulsive and at times fearless. Ok, some of the readers who know me well are laughing because that still describes me. But I couldn't help wondering how much they hid. It always seemed to me that they kept a piece of themselv

Gymnastics officials want Hamm to give up gold Posted: Friday August 27, 2004 9:53AM; Updated: Friday August 27, 2004 10:31AM ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Gymnastics officials asked Paul Hamm to give up his gold medal as the ultimate show of sportsmanship, but the U.S. Olympic Committee told them to take responsibility for their own mistakes. The USOC is exactly right. In a dispute over scores that has turned into a political squabble, the head of the International Gymnastics Federation suggested in a letter to Hamm that giving the all-around gold medal to South Korea's Yang Tae-young "would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair play by the whole world." You cannot change history, no matter how you try. If you could I can think of about 6 different things in my life that would be different. FIG president Bruno Grandi tried to send the letter Thursday night to Hamm through the USOC, but the USOC refused to deliver it. Give the USOC a harrumph.

Europe's New War With America By Seth Jayson (TMF Bent) August 26, 2004 If you were spooked by the vision of technology and institutional hubris gone amok in Minority Report, pull the covers over your head now. This week, the European Union's (EU) European Commission (EC) opened an investigation into a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) deal that would give them control of digital rights management (DRM) company Contentguard. The crime? Future domination of a market that does not yet exist. If you're confused or angered by this, then you must not be a socialist or an EU commissioner. So step outside yourself for a moment, you capitalist dog, and try to see things from the EC's side of the table. Here's what the EC claims: "It appears to the Commission that the transaction might possibly create or strengthen a dominant position by Microsoft in the market for Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions." Silly me, but I th

Top Russian Official: Plane Terror Likely By MARIA DANILOVA, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - A top Russian official acknowledged on Thursday what many citizens already suspected — that terrorism was the most likely cause of two jetliners crashing minutes apart, a feeling reflected in a newspaper headline warning that "Russia now has a Sept. 11." Just a day after officials stressed there were many possibilities besides terrorism, presidential envoy Vladimir Yakovlev told Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency that the main theory "all the same remains terrorism." He said the planes' flight recorders had not provided any clues to the disaster. Additionally, Transport Minister Igor Levitin confirmed Sibir airlines' report that its crew activated an emergency signal shortly before the plane disappeared from radar screens. Visiting the site of the crash, he said, however, that details were slim because "no verbal confirmation from the crew was r