I finally got around to skimming the New York Times editions from last week (I get daily email synopses).  Knowing me, you can guess that the first thing I did when I read the headline “Researches Play Tune Recorded Before Edison“, was to read the whole thing.

Until now, the earliest known sound recording was Edison’s 1877 “Mary had a little lamb” experiment.  Now we have a woman’s voice recorded in 1860 by a Parisian printer and librarian named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville.  (In a self-published memoir in 1878, he railed against Edison for “appropriating” his methods and misconstruing the purpose of recording technology. The goal, Scott argued, was not sound reproduction, but “writing speech, which is what the word phonograph means.”)

The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

More coolness — he attempted audio recordings as early as 1853, but they are unintelligible (for now, anyway).

[The] device had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp. The recordings were not intended for listening; the idea of audio playback had not been conceived. Rather, he sought to create a paper record of human speech that could later be deciphered.

I still give Edison his due, however, since it only took about 150 years for us to figure out how to even listen to the phonautograph! Edison at least figured out how to record AND play.

You can have a listen to the recording here: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/audiosrc/arts/1860v2.mp3

To my surprise, I came across a story about the Interactive Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial.  Being a veteran myself, I decided to look at the website.  It was more than I expected.  The link is:

http://go.footnote.com/thewall/

It was created by the National Archives on behalf of these brave men and women.  It represents 58,320 soldiers, 8 of which were women. 

Compliments of the National Archives, some, but not all inclusive, of the statistics are:

Enlistment type: Regular(34,820), Selective Service(17,848), Reserve(5,842) or National Guard(97)

Service: Army(38,641), Marine Corp(15,003), Air Force(2,611), Navy(2,584), Coast Guard(7)

Hometown: New York (1,385), Chicago(973), Philadelphia(628), Detroit(533), Baltimore(422)

You can browse this database by a number of categories, and you can leave information on someone you know.  The website tells you how.

There is nothing more I can say that would be appropriate or honor these brave souls more.

May They Rest in Peace. They will Not Be Forgotten.

Randy Johnson pitched for the Mariners from 1989 to 1998 — nearly 10 glorious years of blinding pitches — before being traded to Houston. Since 1999 he’s pitched for the Arizona Diamondbacks. With a lifetime ERA of 3.22 and 4,616 strikeouts, he’s known both for his strikeouts and his occasional wild pitches.

In case you ever wondered exactly what a hard-throwing lefty can send your way, watch this clip from a 2001 spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, in which Johnson hits a dove with a 95 mph fastball….

Click here to see the video if the player doesn’t work.

Another group of “radicals”  make incomprehensible protests in inappropriate venues at completely unrelated events and end up demonstrating  that they’re not about a cause but about attention-seeking, pure and simple.

A judge set bond at $25,000 to $30,000 today for six anti-war protestors following an Easter service disruption at Holy Name Cathedral in the Loop Sunday morning.

Three men and three women were arrested at 735 N. State St. at the 11:40 a.m. service.

Cardinal Francis George was leading services at the Parish Center because of construction at the main Cathedral. The protestors discharged packets of fake blood. Some of it splattered parishioners. …

All six protestors were charged with two counts of felony criminal damage to property and two counts of simple battery.

As Cardinal George began his homily, the protesters stood up to stage what they called a Die-In.

The group denounced the Cardinal for meeting this past January with President Bush, who they label a war criminal.

Photos can be seen here.

Idiots.  Why target a Catholic church?  Both Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict XVI have spoken out against the war since the beginning.  Did they even bother to check to see if the Catholic Church was opposed to the war?

Why the Chicago cathedral?   Because they knew the press would be there:

The group, which calls itself Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, said in a statement after the arrests that they targeted the Holy Name Cathedral on Easter to reach a large audience, including Chicago’s most prominent Catholic citizens and the press, which usually covers the services.

Why Cardinal Francis George?  Because two and half months ago, Cardinal George  had a private meeting with President Bush and the group assumes that he didn’t try to persuade President Bush to end the war.  Huh????

Shouldn’t they have done this at the White House – you know, where President Bush, who really can tell the troops to pack up and go home, lives?  It’s like the morons protesting at Armed Forces recruiting stations, outside Army installations and at VA hospitals – do they really think the troops have any say as to where they’re going?

So explain to me what part of this was an anti-war protest?  They attack private citizens worshipping with their congregation on the holiest day of the Christian year — but that’s not senseless violence. No, because these thugs happen to oppose the war, this is an anti-war protest!  Excuse me while I go steal an ice cream sundae because I oppose over-priced beach front real estate…

Pope Benedict XVI is quickly becoming one of my favorite Popes of all time.   After getting threatened by al-Qaida during Holy Week, calling Pope Benedict XVI a crusader among other things, he went ahead and baptized a prominent Italian Muslim, Magdi Allam.  His conversion to Christianity was a well-kept secret, disclosed by the Vatican in a statement less than an hour before the Easter Vigil started.

Italy’s most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book “Long Live Israel.”

Already, there’s outrage in orthodox Islamist circles in Europe and as the news makes its way to the Islamist circles in the Middle East, you can bet the farm that the outrage is going to spread.  (Allam has had death threats against him  for years and is escorted by police wherever he goes, and his house is under constant surveillance.) 

“Conversion is a private matter, a personal thing and we hope that the baptism will not be interpreted negatively by Islam,” Cardinal Giovanni Re told an Italian newspaper. 

Still, Allam’s highly public baptism by the pope shocked Italy’s Muslim community, with some leaders openly questioning why the Vatican chose to shine such a big spotlight it. 

Never mind the fact that Easter is the traditional time for receiving converts into the Catholic Church.  Never mind the fact that Allam was baptized of his own free will.  Let’s start “questioning” this.  So a man wants to turn to Christ (and what an honour to be baptised by the Pope on Easter!). What business is it of atheists, Muslims or any non-Catholic? None.

At the same time, are any of us surprised?  The Pope knew full well that he was going to stir up quite a bit of anti-Christian resentment by performing the ceremony.  Standing up for your faith, for what you believe in, takes courage.

This is why I love the Pope.

I have read a great many stories and pondered the reasons each give on why the price of gas at the fuel pumps is higher than ever.  A number of times, it was stated that it is not the fault of the gas companies, gas stations, but more due to demand by the great many “gas-guzzler” vehicles held by consumers.

Well, I have seen a few articles where consumers have said they might have to cut back on use of fuel because of the squeeze.  Well, then that somewhat confirms it is the consumer’s fault, right?

There are a great many people that MUST drive to work, because they have to commute anywhere from 10 to 70 miles, or further.  So those people have to pay the fuel prices, they have no choice.  They have to work to pay for the huge increase in food prices nowadays.

I digress.  I read several articles in the past week and lo, and behold, it might just be that the gas companies ARE in fact at least partially responsible for the high fuel costs.

In this simple man’s mind, the basic principle of how the prices are set are this:  You use more gas, the price goes up.  You use less gas, the price goes down.  Basic law of supply and demand.  Demand more, the companies will raise their prices to get more profits.  Simple math.  And as far as gas goes, I am referring to what you put in your gas tank, not bio-this or that.  Won’t even touch the highway robbery on diesel fuel….

However, production of gas is also a key factor in all of this, aside from the investors alleged non-greed.  If production is limited or lowered and does not meet demand, then overall supply of gas is less and prices can go up. 

So the article says that Exxon, and we know how everyone likes to pick on Exxon, has kept their production at or BELOW production levels and anticipate doing this for the next few years.  You see, if they increase production, the supply increases and prices go down - bad for the investors.  And this is standard practice for almost all of the gas companies.  Check it out.  See the Billions that the gas companies made in profit.

So basically, the people who have to commute many more miles than they should have to, are paying higher gas prices at the pump so the gas company investors can make more money so that they, the investors, can at least afford to buy food. 

And you thought OPEC controlled all of this?  I’m sorry, because you know U. S. companies would not even dream of sticking it to the public, only for higher profits. Oh yes, the higher profits?

Let me give you a couple of parts of the article, with credit to Christopher Palmeri, Businessweek:

“Texas-based Exxon is the largest publicly traded company in the energy business. In fact, it’s the most profitable company in the history of capitalism, earning a record $40.6 billion on sales of $404 billion last year. Yet even with prices at the pump near all-time highs, Exxon isn’t planning on producing any more oil four years from now than it did last year. That means the company’s oil output won’t even keep pace with its own projections of worldwide oil demand growth of 1.2% a year.

Could Exxon spend more and generate more growth? Probably. Even with its increased capital spending, the company still spent 70% more on dividends and stock buybacks last year [$36 billion] than it did reinvesting in its business. Tillerson noted that share buybacks over the past have boosted the average stockholder’s share of the company’s oil production by 20% over the past five years.”

That little amount of 70% equates to roughly $120 for every person in the United States.  In one year.

Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian (aka Dr. Death), is planning on running for Congress from Oakland County’s (Michigan) 9th District.

Kevorkian, who will be 80 years old in May, picked up petitions from the Oakland County Clerk’s Office on Tuesday to run as a candidate with no party affiliation.

“I plan to,” Kevorkian said Tuesday afternoon. “I wouldn’t do this otherwise. We need some honesty and sincerity instead of corrupt government in Washington.”

He served 8 years (of a 15 year sentence) in prison for a 2nd degree murder conviction, was released last June (his lawyer argued he was dying), and is currently serving two years’ parole. And he’s running on an honesty, sincerity, and anti-corruption platform? My irony meter just went off the scale.

I don’t know much about his agenda, but he’s probably got a great plan to cut medicare and health care costs. And that’s my key problem with ‘assisted’ suicide and those that promote it.

It’s not about the “right to die” or the “right to refuse medical treatment.” We already can refuse medical treatment; we can choose to commit suicide. Neither the law nor medical ethics requires that “everything be done” to keep a person alive. What we cannot do is kill another person. And let’s make no bones about it — that’s exactly what is going on. “Kill” means to cause the death of a living organism. If my actions result in the death of another human being, I killed him/her. And that’s what assisted suicide promotes — the killing of a human being. A human being already dealing with enormous pressures — emotional, financial and psychological. Oregon has already shown us that nearly three-quarters of those requesting a lethal prescription are doing so because they fear being a burden.

Those who advocate for the “right to die” — i.e. assisted suicide or euthanasia — are those who put a utilitarian value on human life. They believe that those who are disabled, infirm, elderly, or frail don’t have as much value as other people. In the words of Baroness Mary Warnock, one of Britain’s leading medical ethics expert, “I don’t see what is so horrible about the motive of not wanting to be an increasing nuisance.” Such a compassionate, caring, loving attitude. And hospitals, Medicare and HMos will never put any pressure on someone to die just so they can save costs. Riiiiiight.

The taking of a life is a matter for the courts. One “right” I don’t want from the government is the right to kill my husband.

“Like all good stories, this one begins with a bull humping a cow in the middle of the road.” 

With an opening line like that, I had to read the rest of this article in Slate about Alan Abel, “America’s greatest living hoaxer.”  Among his best known hoaxes:

…founded SINA for real in 1959. The agenda: to get Bermuda shorts on horses, dogs, and any animal taller than four inches or longer than six. The battle cry: “A nude horse is a rude horse!”

or

When a broke and crime-ridden New York City teetered on the verge of collapse in the 1970s, Abel launched Omar’s School for Beggars, which supposedly taught unemployed professionals tactics for successful panhandling.

or

When the uproar surrounding Dr. Kevorkian was reaching fever pitch in the ’90s, Abel created a fake company that specialized in “euthanasia cruises.” A ship with a greased deck would venture a few hundred miles offshore and then tip slightly, dumping its disconsolate human cargo into the ocean.

The hoaxes are funny, but as the piece points out, the very fact that they were believed (and, at times, fully embraced) is a little depressing.

We can laugh at the suckers who thought dogs needed pants back in the ’50s, but is 2008 really any less fertile ground for hoaxers, benign or otherwise? A squirrel-cooking creationist made a nearly credible bid for the White House. CNN employs an anchor who told viewers that illegal immigrants have caused a leprosy epidemic in the United States. And a couple of weeks ago, the Mississippi state legislators proposed a bill barring restaurants from serving meals to fat people — a push more than a little reminiscent of Abel’s 2006 fat tax hoax, which he perpetrated with the help of Esquire.

Long before Ashton Kutcher and Punk’d, or Sacha Baron Cohen and Borat, Alan Abel was reminding us that we shouldn’t believe everything we read, see, or hear.   In 2005,  his daughter made a documentary of her father’s life, Abel Raises Cain.  Here’s a link to the trailer.  It’s now available on DVD, and I know what my next rental is going to be.

Now I am not the smartest apple on the tree, but there is something seriously wrong when you have people complaining about the education system before they make changes and AFTER they make changes.  I’m talking about the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, or WASL, for short. 

So many people complain that the education system is broken and either needs to be fixed or replaced.  Okay, I agree with that, to a point.  But the education system has implemented the WASL to see where the learning problems are, and finds out which students are where they should be in the basic reading, writing, math and science arenas.  And now people are complaining that it is too expensive, or too time-consuming, or too hard.  And they say it is discriminatory, although I don’t know how.

Here is some information I read this morning from the “Mothers Against WASL”  affiliated with the Parent Empowerment Network (PEN).  In their own brochure for a March 7, 2008 march on the Washington State Capitol, they state the following statistics:

WASL reading and/or writing have failed:
12,014/73,075 Seniors (16.4%) [This means 12,014 Seniors failed reading and 73,075 Seniors failed writing.]

The following is the breakdown of these Seniors:
789/5,966 Asian American Seniors (13.2%)
7,399/54,182 Caucasian/White Seniors (13.7%)
937/3,279 African American Seniors (29%)
522/1,771 Native American Seniors (29.5%)
2,179/7,110 Hispanic Seniors (30.6%)
5,207/18,433 Seniors from Low Income Families (28.3%)
3,019/6,095 Seniors in Special Education (49.6%)
1,371/2,077 Seniors in Bilingual/English Second Language (66%)

The same brochure states that the intention of Mothers Against WASL and PEN is to take legal action so that no student is denied their High School diploma, EVEN IF THEY FAIL!  Their second goal is to eliminate the WASL entirely, nationwide!

Here is one for you:  In the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) assessment, 1994-98:

•The average composite literacy score of native-born adults in the U.S. was 284 (Level 3); the U.S. ranked 10th out of 17 high-income countries;

•The average composite literacy score of foreign-born adults in the U.S. was 210 (Level 1); the U.S. ranked 16th out of 17 countries.

So what do we have?  We have two groups of “parents” who want empowerment to have their sons and daughters graduate, regardless of whether they can read or write at grade-level. And I assume they don’t care about math and science either since they want to eliminate the WASL entirely. 

Empowerment? They had it all along so why is it the these 85,000+ kids can not read and/or write? Is that solely the school’s fault? The parents have no responsibility in this? Oops, sorry, there is that word again!  Keep forgetting I am not supposed to mention responsibility.

I can only hope that when the day comes for one of them to be put into a nursing home, that the child who puts them there can at least read the contract.  Or is able to sign the right medical papers when the parent is in the hospital and is incapacitated, [that means the parent is unable to make the decision, in case you don't understand that word, just helping out....] Or the child signs a contract and because of the terms and the child defaults, you lose your home….Or mixes the wrong cleaning solutions together and blows your house up….

Never can tell what they might agree to or do, you know.  But don’t worry about that, because the average reading level right now is between 6th and 7th grade in this nation, overall.  Everything will have to have pictures in about 10 years.

So don’t worry about taking the time now to make sure your child can read, write, or add a few numbers. 

Too time-consuming and expensive to make sure your child is not illiterate, you know! Just ask your child, “wassup?” They’ll tell you, in their own language.

It’s Monday, I’m sleep-deprived and a bit cranky.  I am also on about a gazillion e-mail lists, and hate the fact that I compulsively have to skim through them.

But that doesn’t mean I’m over-reacting to this story about a Kentucky congressman who wants to make government even more intrusive.  (Hat tip GOPUSA).

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted…

Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district.

Okay, aside from the fact that this is: (a) unconstitutional; (b) an open invitation to have your identity stolen; (c) a handy tool for a stalker; (d) completely unenforceable and a total waste of law enforcement time and funds (kind of like having to state you’re 18 to log onto an ‘adult’ site which hasn’t stopped any minors yet);  (e) promotes the “I am a victim” mentality that plagues so much of our society; and (f) idiotic — leaving aside all of those issue, I’d consider this.

IF Rep. Couch (and all other Congress Critters) agree that anything they write or otherwise communicate with anyone else is recorded and published.  Including lobbying, campaign contributions, earmarks, etc. etc. etc.  So how ’bout it Rep. Crouch?  Still interested?  After all, if you’re going to have the government look over my shoulder, shouldn’t we, the public, be able to look over yours?

I suggest that maybe Rep. Crouch’s time would be better spent devising some better anti-spam laws.