I am not really all that familiar with HTML. I kind of learn as I go with it.
I was quite happy to get away from Blogger. Still, Word Press is not a really super user-friendly program for a novice. There is no spell checker, the plug-ins don’t work for this version apparently, the text editor is less than fun and I am getting frustrated.
Still, I am slowly working through the problems.
But I want a damned spell checker. Pasting Word into this editor is a nightmare……
I have long felt that the protests that some people make about Muslims ring false. The usual cry is that the “terrorists don’t speak for the majority of Muslims” or something along those lines.
But where are the voices of the moderates? All we hear, day after day, are cries of hatred, calls for death and justifications of barbaric acts done in the name of Allah. But moderate voices? Nothing but crickets.
So when I do come across one of them, I try to publish it. I did it earlier with the manifesto from Rushdie and his fellows. Here is another one, actually published in the New York Times. (Their Editors must have had the day off, it isn’t an anti-Bush diatribe).
A moderate Muslim voice calling the Israeli wall a good thing. As it is. It saves both Israeli AND Arab lives. I would rather a wall was not needed, but it is the most humane way to deal with the situation.
UPDATE: Mike’s comment made me realize the link to the article somehow hadn’t made it into the original post. I told you I was still learning this software! Here’s the article I was posting about.
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Anti-Bush placards, $500.
Silly Costumes, $250
American flag, matches and lighter fluid, $10
Having nobody show up for your big anti-war march: Priceless!
Gateway has a good roundup of opinion. The observation that the anti-war protest was more anti-American is classic.
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UPDATE: Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link. Welcome to the Boulevard.
Ann Althouse reports that the giant puppets were indeed spotted in Madison, so we have ALL the elements.
And the headline of the AP story today seems to imply greater protest activity than the actual story itself does. The lede is:
The third anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq drew tens of thousands of protesters around the globe, from hurricane-ravaged Louisiana to Australia, with chants of “Stop the War” and calls for the withdrawal of troops.
While strictly true, it kind of downplays the decided lack of enthusiastic support that the protests actually drew. Out of something like 6 or 7 BILLION people on earth, they were able to get (a very few) tens of thousands. The French drew HUNDREDS of thousands to protest a jobs plan. The Taiwanese drew more than 100,000 to protest against reunification with China.
BUT - The giant puppets were there! This is serious!
UPDATE YET AGAIN: LGF supplies the documentation of the giant puppets of doom!
Ok, this is a subject I have at least some expertise in, having spent a lot of years in the utility industry. Several states, led by leading New York demagogue Elliot (I’ll be Governor if it kills
you) Spitzer, have “won” a
lawsuit forbidding the EPA from relaxing a certain clause in the Clean Air Act. The new rules would have let aging power plants make improvements without having to upgrade to the latest “best available” pollution control equipment.
"Under the Clean Air Act, operators who do anything more than routine maintenance are required to add more pollution-cutting devices. Under the proposed change, industrial facilities could have avoided paying for expensive emissions-cutting devices if they spent less than 20 percent of the plant's value”.
Elliot is, of course, crowing about the great victory he just won. Here’s why it is no victory at all: The current rules allow the older plants to continue to operate exactly as they have been. They will continue, for now, to emit at the current rates, and emissions will gradually increase as more equipment ages and less is spent on maintenance. The kinds of improvements that are now banned actually are ones that increase the plant’s efficiency, thereby reducing the emissions the plant makes. When I was managing engineering at a large fossil plant, we had to be very, very careful about what we installed. We routinely made decisions not to install things that would have increased the plant’s efficiency, producing more power for the same emission output. We did so in order to avoid running afoul of the (stupid) rule that would have forced us to install “best available” emission controls. But Elliot and company just saved everyone. Aren’t you proud? For Gaius’ primer on power, see here.
When I first glanced at this article, I thought “Big deal, kangaroos on the loose in Australia”.
Except it was AUSTRIA, not Australia! At least two kangaroos have escaped in the past few weeks and led perplexed police on a bit of a chase.
Tourists, being essentially clueless apparently, sometimes ask Austrians where the kangaroos can be found! The locals even sell T-shirts that read “There are no kangaroos in Austria”. However, since we now know that statement is false, we expect an immediate recall of the fraudulent T-shirts!
Blue Crab Boulevard, always at the forefront of consumer protection…..
To own a whole town! The first town to ever be auctioned on eBay, tiny Bridgeville, California, will be put back on the eBay block. The current owner, Bruce Krall, did not actually buy the town from eBay. The winning bidder in that auction never went to the town and the deal fell through.
Krall is asking more than twice what he paid for the town in 2004. He says he’s made a lot of improvements…
Gateway Pundit has a good takedown of Harry (My only agenda is Bush sucks) Reid. The increasingly creepy Reid bashes the Republicans for the deficit but fails to mention that 170 BILLION in new taxes and spending proposed by Democrats was cut from the budget.
By the way, I tend to be a linker, without a huge amount of original content (Although I do some stuff I am rather proud of like this or this. Gateway Pundit does a LOT of highly original content with a lot of research behind it. I am adding Gateway to my blogroll.
Wow, this is so fifties. A high school teacher in Columbia, Missouri has resigned after a few members of the Callaway Christian Church complained about the “tawdry” content of a previous production of Grease.
“It became too much to not be able to speak my mind or defend my students without fear or retribution,” said Fulton High School teacher Wendy DeVore.
Here’s my take on this: The crabby, self-righteous pettiness of a few fundamentalist Christians coincides directly with the vehement Political Correctness of the education establishment leading to a perfect storm of stupidity. All involved should be required to read Mark Twain’s The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. Old Sam Clemens was familiar with small-town Missouri small-mindedness……..
That show just how out of touch with reality the “peace” movement crowd is:
“Iraq is a quagmire and has been a humanitarian disaster for the Iraqis,” said Jean Parker, a member of the Australian branch of the Stop the War Coalition, which organized the march. “There is no way forward without ending the occupation.”
Saddam was a much kinder and gentler person, right? So called rallies are being staged around the world to mark the third anniversary of the war in Iraq with the mandatory anti-American activities: placards, flag burning, etc. No word on giant puppets at this time.
My son (who just emailed that he has arrived in theatre) is quite adament that removing Saddam was absolutly the right thing to do, even though that means he had to go back for a second tour.
 Meanwhile in Iraq, US and Iraqi forces are engaging in the largest air-assault operation in three years. Word is that they are capturing or killing a number of insurgants.
At least not hungry enough to eat at a Denny’s in California, anyway. They have had a third shooting incident at yet another California Denny’s restaurant in Anaheim. This follows shootings at Denny’s locations in Pismo Beach and Ontario. The spree has left 5 people dead so far.
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I predict that Denny’s will never use the slogan: “Denny’s! It’s to die for”!
Rants | Gaius Saturday, 18 March , 2006 | 
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