End of the month blogbits

With 9 blogs, you'd think I'd get everything said, but when I flip through my notebook at the end of the month, I find little snippets that I thought I would research, comment on, and find links. Here are some:

Defense information school (Dinfos), Ft. Meade, MD trains artists in 66 days to learn what their civilian counterparts at art academies take in four years. They attend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 95% of the recuits complete the program. What are our colleges and universities doing wrong that makes education so time consuming and expensive? WSJ story here.

Temp employment agencies in Ohio are weeding out illegals. ICRA (1986) arrests have increased by 638% in the 3 years since the INS was folded into Homeland Security. Garcia Labor Co. in Ohio was watched for 2+ years before the arrest. Columbus Dispatch story

Opinion page in Dispatch blasts Christians. 2 letters to the editor and a column by E.J. Dionne (WaPo)

Zaha Hadid, Pritzker Prize, architect. WSJ article on 10-19. Don't care if she is a woman, I hated the Cincinnati Centre for Contemporary Art. Why do architects try to make you dizzy?

Pet odors, pet smells. I'll still do this one. Very important not to abuse your pets. On the back burner.

Costs of a second income. How 1 income families get along.

Do children really need expensive vacations? I listed all the favorites our family did. Might be a Monday Memory or Thursday Thirteen.

Firsts. Maybe a TT list.

Who has time for breakfast? Are you abusing your oatmeal? 20 minutes? Yikes, I do 60 seconds in the microwave.

Children of alcoholics. The biological connection.

New activity badge for Boy Scouts about down loading pirated movies and music. They learn about copyright and how to identify stolen materials.

Homophily--birds of a feather flock together. Comments on a WaPo story.

B & D infrawave speed oven. I want it.

Do you want Charlie Rangel to be the House Ways and Means Chairman?

If the Dow were plummeting instead of soaring, do you suppose the media would pay more attention? Maybe if someone leaked it?

Draw a 6 x 6 chalk line and ask 24 lawyers to step within the line. Elevator death at OSU.

Licking Co. (Ohio) Child Support Enforcement Agency is still collecting child support from Joe Randolph even though he's had custody of his children for months after the death of his wife. You need a bureaucracy to really screw up a family.

Service Employees International Union Local 1199 and the Homeless Coalition are trying to thwart Ohio's voter ID laws. They are suing Ken Blackwell, our current secretary of state, and Republican candidate for governor. Update at Volokh When they used voter ID in Cleveland in the primaries, the observers said people brought in everything but the kitchen sink. It's not that hard to prove who you are. Dems want to get illegals to the polls.

Over the past 25 years governments at all levels have collected twice as much in gas taxes as the domestic oil companies have earned collectively in profits. Add on corporate taxes and the govt's total take rises to $2.2 trillion in today's dollars. (WSJ column)

Pets are property, not family. But you should make plans for their care in the event of your death or illness.

Gasoline costs and obesity. Engineering Economist, Oct-Dec 2006

Daddies in coffee shops letting their toddlers run when people are walking with hot coffee.

Mussels don't like Prozac. Getting into Ohio's rivers and streams, female mussels release larvae early. Drug screens for sewage?

What I saw in the ink blot ibm.com/special/cio1

American can do spirit. Illinois river fisherman makes money selling carp to China.

Kahuku High School north of Honolulu has 5 graduates in the NFL--2 in CA and 3 in FL. Beaches and palm trees.

Are you pre-diabetic? There's a plan to list it as "communicable disease" and track you with lab tests. Letting the gov't supervise your fatty acids is like letting it plan levees for a city below sea level.

There are over one million head injuries each year from car crashes, falls and assaults. There are about 250 a year from the War in Iraq. (story about how Progesterone can reduce brain swelling)

"My little Golden Book about God" 2 billion sold since 1942. WSJ article 10-6-06

No load, no Republican mutual funds: "Act blue" and "give blue" investments for liberals: Adobe Systems, Apple, CBS Corp., CVS, Costco, Starbucks

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