] ASBURY PARK -- As she watched her niece graduate from
] kindergarten yesterday, Sherri Stanard's pride turned to
] shock and anger when a vice principal told the children
] to stand up to demonstrate that he believed one-third of
] a kindergarten class would not make it through high
] school because of alcohol, drugs or pregnancy.

Wow... what a Kodak moment.

Warning hits sour note at Asbury Park kindergarten graduation

] The RFSU, which produces condoms and also doubles as a
] national association for sexual information, has
] initiated a safe summer sex campaign that is bound to
] attract attention and controversy. The group urges
] partners to take their sex outside, and provides a guide
] to prominent potential sites for a summer tryst.

Aftenposten Nettutgaven, Local

In case you need to convert your currency, for whatever reason. Quite useful. I guess.

XE.com - The Universal Currency Converter ®

] They are sexy you fool!!!!

boobs!

Why women have breasts

] SCO Group has upped the ante in an amendment to its
] suit against IBM, seeking more than $3 billion in
] damages for alleged copying of proprietary Unix
] intellectual property into Linux.

] SCO seeks at least $1 billion in damages from IBM's
] alleged breach of its contract with SCO; another $1
] billion for breach of the Unix contract signed by
] Sequent, which IBM acquired in 1999; and another $1
] billion for unfair competition. SCO also seeks more for
] misappropriation of trade secrets and punitive damages.

SCO suit now seeks $3 billion from IBM | CNET News.com

] OK. I admit. You got me. I am a straight up criminal. I
] am a gangsta.

amusing

MarthaSings.com .................................This Site is a Parody

] The reason these net people get away with all kinds of
] stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up
] with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous, but
] it symbolizes what the Internet is becoming.

Becoming? I guess Bill thinks the free press (free expression?) is a dangerous thing..

] So all over the country, we have people posting the most
] vile stuff imaginable, hiding behind high tech
] capabilities. Sometimes the violators are punished, but
] most are not. We have now have teenagers ruining the
] reputations of their peers in schools on the Internet.
] Ideologues accusing public officials of the worst things
] imaginable. And creeps gossiping about celebrities in
] the crudest of ways.

How is this the fault of the Internet? Would Bill have us start to place limits on speech on the net?

Bill is angry about "word of mouth". "Word of mouth" pre-dates the Internet by thousands years. Its just grown more powerful and attained further reach due to the recent advances of information technology. Much in the same way it did because of the telephone, mail service, etc.. If this is a bad thing, then our human ability to communicate is a bad thing..

Do we need to return to the old arguments about "right to reply" and "equal time"? Europe seems happy to do so.. A mistake we made in the US for awhile, before we came to the conclusion that the entire concept was flawed..

] The Internet has become a sewer of slander and libel,
] an unpatrolled polluted waterway, where just about
] anything goes. For example, the guy who raped and
] murdered a 10-year old in Massachusetts says he got
] the idea from the NAMBLA Web site that he accessed from
] the Boston public library. The ACLU's defending NAMBLA
] in that civil lawsuit.

Is NAMBLA the problem? Or the web? Oh! Its the web! Thanks for clearing that up Bill!

Oh yeah, and the ACLU is also bad.. Couldn't have one of his rants without shit talking the association who's mission it is to protect our civil liberties..

See a common thread here? A gross mis-understanding of what freedom of speech means? Its not freedom of speech if only the people you think should be allowed to talk, can talk.

] So which is the bigger threat to America? The big
] companies or the criminals at the computer?
] Interesting question.

Take note, what brought this on was someone saying something about Bill that Bill didn't like. As the story goes.. The San Francisco Chronicle posts a story with an error, blogs link to story, Bill gets pissed at blogs. Now we have this Talking Point's memo, where he is pretty much suggesting that speech on the net should have limits. This is bullshit of the highest order.

Bill seems to think that the only speaking should be done from the top of the ivory tower.. An opinion that seems to be common in the big media circles..

This guy is really dangerous.

FOXNews.com | Bill O'Reilly still an idiot

] SARASOTA -- A 30-year-old Bradenton woman was left brain
] dead and will die after being pummeled in her first
] amateur boxing competition Saturday at Robarts Arena.
]
] Family members said Stacy Young, who entered the Toughman
] Competition thinking it would be fun, would die at
] Bayfront Medical Center early this morning. But doctors
] continue to keep Young on life support as they wait for
] physicians around the country to properly organize and
] harvest her organs.

For all of you that think Toughman competitions are fun. Here is another opinion.

heraldtribune.com: Southwest Florida's Information Leader

] A study published in The Journal of Sexually Transmitted
] Diseases and Aids claims awareness of the risks posed by
] anal sex is ignored in many of the continent's health
] campaigns.
]
] However, HIV experts reject the findings, maintaining
] that vaginal sex is the main route of transmission for
] the Aids virus.
]
] The study by researchers at the University of Tuebingen
] in Germany proposes that anal sex, both heterosexual and
] homosexual, is the second biggest cause of HIV
] transmission in Africa.
]
] They say there is a presumption that anal sex simply does
] not happen in Africa and many educational programmes have
] therefore neglected to cover what they call an
] "embarrassing topic".

First off, it seems odd to hear the phrase 'anal sex' in the news.

But this story really does need more attention than a Beavis-and-Butthead chuckle. In the sidebar, it mentions this fact:

"There are 42 million people in the world living with HIV or Aids. Seventy percent of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, where Aids has already killed more than 14 million people. The overall infection rate in the region has stabilised, but the number of deaths each year is expected to rise further."

14 MILLION. And just under 30m of the 42m with the disease on the entire planet are on one continent. However, if you look at the "Success Story" sidebar, it notes that aggressive safe sex campaigns have lowered the HIV prevalance (in females) in Uganda from 27% in 1992 to 9% in 2000 - so it's not a lost cause. But the current governmental administrations need to understand that these kinds of programs need to be supported in African countries, and not to cut funding to overseas programs because of any pro-life/pro-choice stances. Cutting funding to these programs means that people will die - and that's not very pro-life, is it?

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Africa 'needs anal sex awareness'

] The labor union for striking workers at the Oyster Creek
] nuclear power plant met with representatives for Sens.
] Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg at the union
] headquarters here Thursday.
]
] The talks mostly centered on the union's version of
] events that led to a massive fish kill at the plant last
] year. The two-hour session came as the union begins its
] fourth week of a strike at the nation's oldest nuclear
] power plant.
]
] At the meeting, two union leaders and six power plant
] workers said on Sept. 23, 2002, that they warned
] management not to turn off pumps that cool water
] discharged from the plant into Oyster Creek.

] "We brought it up several times," said Bill Strako, a
] control room operator. "We said, 'You know, if you do
] that, you're going to violate the thermal limits.'"

] "Does it tie into the strike?" Stroup said. "Yes, it
] does in a way. Our members are the safety net for this
] plant. Now we're walking up and down Route 9 in picket
] lines. And they're bringing in people who will do
] anything they're told."

The plant workers are still striking. Its been about a month now. The outside of the plant has taken on the look of a shanty town. Tents, fires in steel drums, and at least a hundred ragged looking picketers stationed at the plant's three main entrances.. The length of rt9 that runs along the plant is sporting signs every hundred feet or so, "Don't Trust AmeriGen's Lies!", "Who is running the plant?", "Striking for saftey, not money!", etc.. Between the strikers and the heavy national guard presence, its makes for one damn surreal scene..

There has been almost no press coverage.. This is one of the few articles I have found, and I've been looking. The AC Press seems to be the only paper in the area even taking note that there is a strike going on. Of course, all the other papers in the area are Gannet. Still, I find it very strange that the workers of the oldest (and most accident prone) nuclear power plant in the United States or America are striking because they don't feel the plant is safe, and none of our local news papers give enough of a shit to cover it!

Oh the comedy of errors! Plant errors killing fish.. Working striking over saftey.. National guard soldiers accidentally shooting themselves.. At a plant with a rusted and cracked drywell that's over ten years past its design lifetime.

I gotta get the hell outta this town^H^H^H^Hcounty^H^H^H^H^H^Hstate.

AC Press | Union says members warned company before act that caused 2002 fish kill