INTERESTING: Gooferment goof for liberty

Sunday, October 25, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125597721400194603.html?mod=yhoofront

EUROPE NEWS
OCTOBER 21, 2009
Did Brinkmannship Fell Berlin’s Wall? Brinkmann Says It Did
Reporter Claims He, Not an Italian Competitor, Caused an Apparatchik to Err and Open Border
By MARCUS WALKER

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Pressed on the meaning of the new travel policy — When did it come into force? Did it apply to West Berlin? Did people need a passport? — the flustered apparatchik rustled his papers and gave confusing answers that led the news media to believe the border was open, with immediate effect.

The result, once East Berliners had seen that night’s news on West German television, was chaos at border crossings across the city.

At Bornholmer Strasse, one of the main checkpoints in central Berlin, confused border guards couldn’t get clear orders on how to deal with the crush, and debated whether to open fire. Instead, they opened the barrier, and the Berlin Wall was history.

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I love a good “gooferment” story. Especially when it means a victory for liberty! LOL!!

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Earhart

Sunday, October 25, 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart

Saw the movie. Swank did a good job and even looked like her. Hollywood made her into an adulteress. (I don’t know if she was, but never speak ill of the dead.) Gere was a distraction.

All in all “interesting”.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Pain of suicide

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091015/cm_csm/ynashweb_1

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For Japanese couples forbidden to marry, leaping from Mount Fuji used to be a common place to end their lives, but when the government erected a sign about the pain it was causing survivors, the suicide rate plummeted. Posting on Facebook could have a similar effect.

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I had a boss who committed suicide. It was said that the technology changing scared him. I hope that’s not right. He could have asked for help. THere were a lot of people who liked him for his caring and could have helped ease the transition worries. Maybe life would have been different if he had. Or if we’d known. We’ll never know.

Requiescat In Pacem, Bob, boss in my youth

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Political quiz

Friday, October 16, 2009

http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php

200910160746.jpg

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I’m not surprised. I’m a wonk! It wasn’t very hard.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Cheating a little kid

Monday, October 12, 2009

http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/1270200.html

Posted on Wednesday, 10.07.09
LAND SHARK STADIUM
Historic baseball safe at home in Miami girl’s hands
12-year-old gets historic baseball back, but only after lawsuit filed
BY ADAM H. BEASLEY AND EMILY MICHOT

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After catching the ball, Jennifer was escorted alone to the Phillies clubhouse, where they talked her into exchanging it for an autographed baseball, worth substantially less, said her Fort Lauderdale attorney and memorabilia enthusiast Norm Kent.

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Imagine cheating a little kid. It could be her ticket to a college education. Now that might have been a fair trade.

And, what parent lets their child go alone anywhere today?

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING:Too many shots to the head!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/sports/football/30dementia.html?_r=1

N.F.L. Study Finds Link to Dementia
By ALAN SCHWARZ
  Published: September 29, 2009

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A study commissioned by the National Football League reports that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49.

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It would seem that a whole bunch of sports have to reevaluate what is “safe”.

We can’t turn men into women or boys into girls. But, we can take “precautions”.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Oh Donna!

Monday, September 28, 2009

http://www.impactlab.com/2009/09/29/lucy-in-the-sky-dies-at-age-46/

September 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am

‘Lucy In The Sky’ Dies At Age 46

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The woman who inspired the classic Beatles song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, has died at aged 46, a charity said today. The song featured on the ground-breaking 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

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This ranks right up there with Valen’s Donna!

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Donna_Ludwig_still_alive

Makes me sad!

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Islamic Ben Stein!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/136082.html

Hail to the Islamic Ben Stein!
  Nick Gillespie | September 15, 2009, 8:04am
  Islamic creationism is on the rise!

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Operating from Istanbul, Yahya is the founder of the Science Research Foundation, an impressive publishing empire that boasts more than 60 websites dedicated to his writings. It provides documentary films and audio recordings in fifteen languages, including Turkish, English, Russian, Amharic and Arabic, and claims to sell more than half a million books a year, including the infamous 850-page, fully illustrated Atlas of Creation, which was sent free in two volumes to dozens of universities, libraries and prominent scientists (including Richard Dawkins) across the world. In painstaking detail, with a mass of photos, graphs and statistics interspersed with verses from the Koran, the Atlas purports to prove that Darwin was utterly mistaken, that each plant and animal was created intact, and that no modification through natural selection ever took place.

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If I was Ben Stein, I’d be upset.

I always thought Ben was thoughtful and accurate.

This fellow may be wrong, But, he’s prolific. He must be funded and have help to do all this.

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: Gooferent can’t see the consequences

Sunday, September 20, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20cairo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs
Pigs were the champion garbage consumers in Cairo. Goats just don’t seem up to the task.
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: September 19, 2009

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When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring — in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu — it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash.

The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba.

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“unintended consequences”?

The only difference between their gooferment’s stupidity and ours is in size, scale, and topic.

TARP makes killing pigs look small. “Healthcare”, “Health Insurance”, or whatever they are trying to do will impact one SEVENTH of our economy. Misdirected swine flu versus psuedo climate change.

How stupid can gooferment be?

Very!

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Posted by reinkefj

INTERESTING: giant man-eating birds?

Saturday, September 19, 2009

http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/09/14/1718211/Maori-Legend-of-Man-Eating-Birds-is-True?from=rss

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10597177

Legends of the New Zealand Maori tell of giant man-eating birds. New scientific evidence proves that these birds did exist and were around the same time as humans in New Zealand. From the article, ‘Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast’s eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago.’

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Wow, so the legend has a basis in fact. How much other wisdom has been lost? Think the Firefox collection. Argh!

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