Oh, so cool...

Okay, I'm a bit of a geek but you have to admit - this stuff is awesome.

Scientists hail 'frozen smoke' as material that will change world
The Times U.K.

A miracle material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to mars.

Aerogel, one of the world's lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a mannered mission to Mars.

Identity thief sent back to Mexico

The illegal immigrant who was taking sanctuary in a church has been sent back to Mexico. Strangely, despite her arrest under an identity theft charge, working under another person's social security government, the government has declined to prosecute her for this fraud. I'm not sure why people are rallying around someone who has committed fraud against the government and stolen someone else's identity but the rallying point for the illegal immigration movement probably shouldn't be a criminal.

I just don't understand why we're flocking to grant amnesty to individuals who, like Ms. Arellano, are committing fraud to tax evasion instead of expanding the number of legal, law abiding immigrants. If we truly have all these jobs that American's won't do - often found to be an inaccurate description of the events - then what's wrong with selectively attracting the best qualified individuals who aren't identity thieves or tax evaders?

Immigration Activist Deported to Mexico
ABC News

An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.

Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce that she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.

She had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had been living.

"She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."

Like anyone could find that job

ABC News has a filler-fluff piece about working parents trying to get jobs that work around their students' school schedule. Nice idea, but let's be honest: nearly every parent would want this shift and businesses can't just change their entire culture to accommodate. If these positions were to be open, competition for them would be even more fierce than normal-hours jobs. It's a pipe dream.

Here's a better idea: instead of school running from 7:00 until 2:00, it can run from 9 to 6 with the last two hours of the day reserved for sports, music, extra-curricular, or tutoring activities. The 7 to 2 school day we have is just as archaic and just as useless as the August to June school year. Yes, there would be some added discrete costs but the overall costs would diminish - parents would spend less on extending the school day then on after-school child care and costs for after-school activities would be reduced. Plus the added benefits would greatly outweigh the costs - students who start class at 9 will be awake and ready to learn; participation in sports, music, and extra-curricular activities have proven to increase academic achievement; school-sponsored tutoring would be more easily available; and, the after-school trouble-making time, when students are least supervised and most likely to break the law, have sex, or use drugs, would be eliminated.

Back-to-School Work Hours for Parents
ABC News

Back to school means a desire or need to go back to work for many parents, but doing so with a flexible schedule - ideally one with hours that mirror the school day - makes life much easier for many families.

A growing group of major employers like Aflac, Cleveland Clinic, Container Store, IKEA, Met Life, among others, have implemented school shifts for full-time positions.

Yet, the reality is these are highly coveted positions that still require a proactive approach to finding them and getting hired.

What Southeastern Asian Communists? Oh, these!

Fred Kaplan wrote up a hack-job piece in Slate attacking Rudy Guiliani's new foreign policy missive. Most of Kaplan's stuff is simple rubbish, a little of it has a couple good points but is predominantly a "there's no detail here." The following exchange, though, is most striking:

"America must remember one of the lessons of the Vietnam War...Many historians today believe that by about 1972 we and our South Vietnamese partners had succeeded in defeating the Vietcong insurgency and in setting South Vietnam on a path to political self-sufficiency. But America then withdrew its support, allowing the communist North to conquer the South. The consequences were dire, and not only in Vietnam: numerous deaths in places such as the killing fields of Cambodia, a newly energized and expansionist Soviet Union, and a weaker America."

Does he really believe this? What books have his advisers been giving him? The "South Vietnamese partners" were as corrupt and illegitimate as they come. The Khmer Rouge came to power amid a political vacuum that was spawned as much by Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia as by anything else. As for the "expansionist" Soviet Union, things didn't end very well for the Moscow Politburo. America, it is now widely agreed, was weakened by the Vietnam War, not by its termination. And, by the way, how about that "domino theory"? You'd think from his description that Southeast Asia has subsequently all gone Communist.

The idea that the primary reason for the ascendancy of the Khmer Rouge was due to a power vacuum is self-evident; however, the power vacuum existed when the U.S. removed several hundred thousand troops. That was the real cause of the vacuum, not the bombing of Cambodia.

More importantly, though: I hate to break it to Fred Kaplan, but Southeast Asia pretty much did go entirely Communist. Vietnam became Communist, which meant Communists in Laos and Cambodia. Malaysia and Burma were already Communist at the time and Thailand spent the 70's and the early 80's fighting off Communist rebels. Obviously, China was already Communist. What part of mainland Southeast Asia is he talking about? That pretty much covers it. I must be missing this liberal democratic paradise which flourished in Southeast Asia after we abandoned it.

He goes on for four long pages of further drivel which really isn't worth the space to critique it but, be assured, it's more of the same.

Taking a day off...

...to welcome the new addition to our family - our rambunctious 12-week Beagle puppy, Zoe!

Compressed Natural Gas cars

I'm torn. I really, desperately want a natural gas car. Unfortunately, I can't get one unless I'm willing to sell-out and buy a Honda. My options, apparently, are to stay true to my Buy-American mindset and buy a high-quality, union-built, American car (like the very nice, Saturn Aura hybrid) or travel to New York to buy a non-union-built, Japanese car (the Honda Civic GX). I'm incredibly impressed with the CNG technology: similar range, fuel economy, and power compared to a gasoline car but with fuel that's available at home at lass than half the cost. I guess I have to wait until the Volt comes out.

Quote of the Day

"This isn't North Carolina. We won't continue to keep someone in custody if we can't prove the case against them."

- Wayne County (MI) Prosecutor Kym Worthy, after dropping murder charges against two teenagers

Time for a change

The most recent Michigan-wide academic test scores have come out and the results should sicken all of us. In Michigan, more than half of all 11th grade students failed the math portion. 45% of 11th graders taking the science exam failed while a nauseating 61% of 11th graders failed the writing portion. The social studies exam had an 83% pass rate which is better but still not acceptable.

Michael Horn, the principal of Southfield High School, said it best: "I am very, very disappointed in the test results. All of us are at fault. We must acknowledge that. We failed our kids."

This is an attitude which we need from administrators, teachers, and - more importantly - parents. Also, the state has just introduced a new, tougher set of standards for the entire state, which should improve the situation.

It's not enough.

What we need is a fundamental change in the way in which education is funded and operates. We need to consolidate technological infrastructure; consolidate services; create state-wide educational research and development programs; implement community mentoring of at-risk students; expand the use of charter-schools; identify and reward high-performing teachers; change the pay structure so that we can attract more and better math, science, foreign language, and special education teachers; and concentrate more heavily on personal success and personal discipline over the self-esteem-first approach that has plagued education in the past few decades.

This will require fundamental changes to the way in which education is handled, and will require implementation of the results which education R & D will provide - something which has not seriously been done in this country. We are still educating our children essentially the same way we did 50 years ago; despite radical advances in every other field of study, the advances in education have been negligible. We need to identify how education can benefit from new technology, new psychological theories, new sociological models, and even new economic processes. Instead, the only really significant improvement to education in the last 50 years is the move from blackboards to dry erase boards in classrooms.

Right now, we're failing half of an entire generation in providing them with the single most important contribution they can receive. With these abysmal, shameful results we as a society have received, we are condemning countless numbers to poverty and it in unacceptable.

Merit test scores fall short
Detroit News

More than half of Michigan's high school juniors failed the state's new exam in math and writing and fewer than 60 percent passed reading and science, according to results released Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Education.

The new Michigan Merit Examination, which replaces the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) in high school, is billed as a tougher gauge of how well prepared students are for college, and it showed in test scores.

While state officials said they expected room for improvement, some district officials expressed shock their scores.

"I am very, very disappointed in the test results," said Michael Horn, principal of Southfield High School, where students struggled in math and writing. "All of us are at fault. We must acknowledge that. We failed our kids."

The results are the first indicator of whether Michigan is on the road toward increasing college readiness, and it likely will present a roadmap of where improvements must be made.

Nicole Brown Simpson's sister upset about book

It looks like I am not the only one who thinks that it is unseemly for the Goldman family to publish the O.J. Simpson book "If I Did It." It turns out that Denise Brown, Nicole's sister, was "shocked and horrified" about the publication of the book and is justifiably concerned about the effect this will have on Nicole's children.

All of this is perfectly reasonable considering that, despite the minor contribution to the very new Ron Goldman Foundation, the Goldman family stands to make a tremendous amount of money on the project. As such, I strongly urge any reader to join in Denise's call for a boycott of the book.

Nicole Brown Simpson sister: Boycott O.J. book
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) - The sister of Nicole Brown Simpson on Tuesday called for a boycott of the O.J. Simpson book "If I Did It" about the slayings of Simpson's ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Fred Goldman, father of the slain Ron Goldman, gained the rights to O.J. Simpson's book in July.

Denise Brown said she was "shocked and horrified" to learn that a literary agent for the Goldman family had reached a deal to publish the controversial book.

In a prepared statement, she said she couldn't bear that her sister's two children "will have to be subjected to this step by step manual on how their mother and her friend Ron were murdered."

Dingel's tax-and-spend attitudes

If you have not gone to www.vote-smart.org, you should. This is a great site which details the votes and positions of the various members of Congress. For instance, I have been reading through the positions of my Congressional Representative, John Dingel. A few items caught my attention. Rep. Dingel wants to increase spending in defense, education, environment, homeland security, international aid, law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health, scientific research, transportation, and emergency preparedness. Of these, he wants to "greatly increase" funding for education, environment, homeland security, law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health services, scientific research, and emergency preparedness.

How would he pay for this? First off, he supports a personal income tax increase which would, by his accounting, generate $63 billion this year. For taxes, he wants to eliminate taxes for those families making under $25,000 a year - not a difficult position considering that families making under $25,000 a year pay almost no taxes as it is thanks to President Bush's recent tax cuts - but increase personal income taxes on families making over $150,000 a year. He also wants to increase taxes on alcohol, capital gains, cigarettes, corporations, and inheritances. In other words, he wants to increase nearly every tax that the government charges except, apparently, gasoline taxes - which is odd considering his recent positions on carbon taxes.

Quote of the Day

"Not Only Are We Going to Reach Land, We're Going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and We're Going to California and Texas and New York! And We're Going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan! And Then We're Going to Washington D.C.! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

- James Taranto in Best of the Web yesterday, regarding the formation of Hurricane Dean

Levin still trying to snatch defeat from success

Carl Levin is apparently on his way to Iraq to tell Iraqi lawmakers that despite military successes in Iraq, he wants the U.S. out of the country immediately. Desperate to get the U.S. out of Iraq, regardless of the cost to the Iraqi people or the military gains that the U.S. has achieved, Sen. Levin realizes that success in Iraq will severely hurt his chances at reelection next year. The gall of his statements, implicitly acknowledging that the military situation is going very well, is just shocking. Here, in his own words:

"I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq."

So, his argument goes like this: we're doing a good job making areas safe for Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi and international workers who are building essential infrastructure but we should abandon those efforts, allow Iraqis to suffer genocide and ethnic cleansing while giving Al Qaeda and various insurgent and ethnic groups a free hand to attack civilians. Nice. Not quite Barak Obama levels (genocide is an acceptable result of pulling American troops out of Iraq) or even Chris Dodd levels (ethnic cleansing should be actively pursued by the U.S. government to precipitate the withdrawal of American troops) but still galling nonetheless.

Senator Carl Levin to Tell Iraqi Lawmakers to Count U.S. Out of Civil War
Fox News

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services committee said he was leaving Wednesday for Iraq to tell its leaders that they must accept responsibility for their country.

"Folks, if you want a civil war in this country, that's your choice. Count us out of your civil war. We've been here four-and-a-half years," Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan told reporters Wednesday during a stop at Michigan's statehouse.

Levin's comments came as the death toll rose to 250 following a spate of four homicide truck bombings in northwestern Iraq Tuesday, underscoring the difficulties in curtailing the steady stream of shooting and bombings that have become the soundtrack to Iraq's reconstruction efforts.

With Americans increasingly frustrated about the mounting U.S. deaths there, the U.S. Congress is awaiting a pivotal assessment due in September by Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus amid a fierce debate over whether to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Quote of the Day

“I believe the intent of the movie is to alarm people into being more skeptical of their government. It had the opposite effect on me. It made me happy to think there might be a plan. If the war on terror is real, it scares the shit out of me. But if, as the movie claims, it’s entirely manufactured, and the war in Iraq is meant to be a permanent conflict to sell weapons and control oil – that is much less scary. It means the war will stay where it is and no one will ‘follow me home.’"

“It also means the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran are a lie. That’s one less thing to worry about. All I have to do is stay out of the National Guard and invest my money in defense contractors and I’ll be safe and happy. Those shadowy rich guys are doing a great job!”

- Scott Adams, referring to Zeitergeist, a movie about the U.S. government conspiracies to conquer the Middle East

Tropical Storm Erin

There's a new tropical storm, Erin, which just formed in the Caribbean and it looks to be heading right toward the Texas / Mexico border. This shouldn’t be a big one considering how close to land it formed and will probably downgrade to a depression in the next day or so. Still, it’s always worth being careful as even a tropical storm can be deadly.

Tropical Storm Dean is the potentially more dangerous one. It still looks to become a hurricane in the next day or so right in time to hit Puerto Rico. It looks to be aiming a little south of Florida, but once it clears Cuba there’s no real way to tell where it’s going or how fast. Either way, if you live in the Gulf Coast, be careful, particularly if you’re in Puerto Rico.

Good thing the UFOA was there to comment

In an article from the AP, Libby Quaid does a great job digging up quotes about Rudy Giuliani. A quick phone call to the UFOA - a union group which has a long-standing pro-Democrat and anti-Republican stances - and she got the two quotes she needed for her article. Nice work!

Giuliani: I Misspoke About Ground Zero
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"

The former New York mayor struck a nerve with firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

"I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.

Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue, recovery and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left many workers sick and injured.

"I have a real problem with that statement," said Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York. "I think he's really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11."

Must Read

Hitch nails another one...this is a must-read.

Fighting the "Real" Fight
Salon

Over the past few months, I have been debating Roman Catholics who differ from their Eastern Orthodox brethren on the nature of the Trinity, Protestants who are willing to quarrel bitterly with one another about election and predestination, with Jews who cannot concur about a covenant with God, and with Muslims who harbor bitter disagreements over the discrepant interpretations of the Quran. Arcane as these disputes may seem, and as much as I relish seeing the faithful fight among themselves, the believers are models of lucidity when compared to the hair-splitting secularists who cannot accept that al-Qaida in Mesopotamia is a branch of al-Qaida itself.

Objections to this self-evident fact take one of two forms. It is argued, first, that there was no such organization before the coalition intervention in Iraq. It is argued, second, that the character of the gang itself is somewhat autonomous from, and even independent of, the original group proclaimed by Osama Bin Laden. These objections sometimes, but not always, amount to the suggestion that the "real" fight against al-Qaida is, or should be, not in Iraq but in Afghanistan. (I say "not always," because many of those who argue the difference are openly hostile to the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as to the presence of coalition soldiers in Iraq.)

The facts as we have them are not at all friendly to this view of the situation, whether it be the "hard" view that al-Qaida terrorism is a "resistance" to Western imperialism or the "soft" view that we have only created the monster in Iraq by intervening there.

Tropical Storm Dean

Looks like the fourth Atlantic tropical storm has formed, Tropical Storm Dean. The NHC is predicting it might become a Category 2 hurricane when it gets to Puerto Rico. It’s possible that it might swing north to hit Florida. This would be the year’s first hurricane. At this time last year, which was historically a low year despite pre-season warnings that it would be historically very high, there had been three tropical storms. This year is, again, predicted to be a historically high season, primarily due to the Atlantic Multidecadal Cycle wherein warm water in the Atlantic Ocean travels in a large band over decades.

This isn't required

It's sad to see Rudy Giuliani betray his moderate roots while trying to, apparently, imitate Mitt Romney. I’m just hoping that this is a bit of political posturing, which I was really hoping Mayor Giuliani would be above. We’ll see how it goes. He’s still the most pro-choice of the group but these sorts of statements are troublesome.

Giuliani continues his conservative shift
Boston Globe

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani continues to discard the moderate and liberal positions of his past. The latest is civil unions for same-sex couples, which the Republican presidential candidate has been backing away from in recent months.

A campaign aide told the Globe this weekend that Giuliani favors a much more modest set of rights for gay partners than civil union laws in effect in four states offer.

Giuliani has described himself as a backer of civil unions and is frequently described that way in news reports. But he began distancing himself from civil unions in late April, when his campaign told The New York Sun that New Hampshire's new law goes too far because it is "the equivalent of marriage," which he has always opposed for gays.

Giuliani's aides offered little explanation of what specific rights he would support for same-sex couples.

Way to profit from your relative's murder

It's so nice to see the Goldman and Brown families profiting from the deaths of their family members. They're already dead, why not pimp them out after the fact to make a few bucks?

Oh, I’m sorry, they’re doing this in order to punish O.J. Of course, there’s no word why, if that’s their only goal, they aren’t putting it out on the Internet for free, pricing the book at-cost, or donating all the proceeds to domestic violence shelters or other charities.

Controversial O.J. Simpson Book Will Be Published
ABC News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson's hypothetical account of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson will be printed by a New York publisher, a spokesman for literary agent Sharlene Martin said on Monday.

Martin struck a deal on the controversial book -- a previous print of it was scrapped last year -- on behalf of the family of Ron Goldman, who was murdered along with Brown Simpson at her Los Angeles home in 1994, according to a spokesman.

A federal judge last month gave the rights to the book, entitled "If I Did It," to Goldman's family, who are owed $33.5 million in damages by Simpson.

Simpson was acquitted of criminal murder charges in 1995 but was found liable for the deaths two years later in a civil case brought by the victims' families. The former U.S. football star has vowed to never voluntarily pay damages to the families.

The identity of the publisher is due to be announced on Tuesday, Martin's spokesman said.

"The (Goldman) family and publisher have pledged to leave Simpson's manuscript entirely intact, but they will also add key commentary," Michael Wright, the spokesman for Los Angeles-based Martin, said in a statement. The nature of the commentary was not disclosed.

The Goldman family, the publisher and Martin will contribute portions of the proceeds to the Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice, Wright said.

Under the court agreement, the Goldman's obtained all rights to the book, and to Simpson's name and likeness in connection with it. Simpson will not receive any money.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.-owned publishing house, HarperCollins, printed 400,000 copies of the book but scrapped it in November amid public outrage shortly before its release. Murdoch apologized, and all copies were recalled and destroyed.

Relatives of Simpson's ex-wife had not previously pursued a claim to the book but made an 11th-hour request for up to 40 percent of the proceeds. The claim was denied the court.

But last month's agreement requires the Goldmans to give a court-appointed trustee 10 percent of the first $4 million in gross proceeds and a percentage of all proceeds beyond that. The Brown family will get most of that money.

In an interview last month with Dallas-based Web site Market News First (www.MN1.com ), Simpson said the book was composed by a ghost author and that he reluctantly agreed to include a "night-of-the-crime" account as told by him only after it was agreed to clearly label it as hypothetical.

What was that about Wal-Mart?

In the middle of an AP Business story from Friday:

Foreign-owned stores such as France's Carrefour, Germany's Metro, and America's Wal-Mart cater to slightly more sophisticated tastes, selling crumbly blue cheese, wheels of Gouda, and red-waxed balls of Edam.

It's been a while since I've been to Wal-Mart (my discount shopping is generally done at Meijer or perhaps Target) but apparently they've decided to move in a different direction that I remember.

Milk Prices Rise to Record High
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) - Got milk? Well, you're going to need more cash these days to get it.

Growing appetites for dairy in Asia and limited worldwide supply are among a number of factors driving prices of the dairy drink to record highs.

In China and elsewhere in Asia, chains such as McDonald's and Starbucks are introducing unfamiliar taste buds to cheeseburgers and lattes, increasing the region's demand for dairy.

Rising costs of animal feed, shrinking European production and long- standing drought in Australia and New Zealand, the world's largest milk-exporting region, are also pushing up the price.

Paying more for milk is causing an uproar in Germany, where families consider providing children with an affordable glass of milk a fundamental right. It is also a concern for consumers in the United States and elsewhere in Europe.

Milk prices hit a record last month in the United States, where consumers paid an average $3.80 a gallon, compared to $3.29 in January, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It forecasts prices will remain high throughout the year.

Prices are likely to remain high worldwide until dairy farmers add more cows or shift production to powders, which are more easily traded than the liquid stuff.

International dairy prices increased 46 percent between November 2006 and April 2007, with milk powder prices increasing even faster, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Companies like candy giant Hershey Co. that use dairy for their products are feeling the pinch. But in many parts of the globe, dairy farmers are cheering.

"Global demand has been extraordinary for American dairy products, but global supplies of dairy products have been exceptionally tight," said Michael Marsh, head of the Western United Dairyman trade group in California, the top dairy-producing U.S. state.

"From the American dairy farmers' perspective, you have almost a perfect storm."

It's good that he's politically raw

"We've to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." - Senator Barack Obama as reported by the AP last night.

I am just afraid that if Sen. Obama was more politically savy, he would have avoided this statement. It's good, however, to see exactly what sort of person he really, truly is and in what esteem he holds the military.

Obama Gets Warning From Voter
The Washington Post

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - Presidential hopeful Barack Obama was warned by a friendly voter Monday to avoid public spats with his Democratic rivals - but remarks he made later could add fuel to the criticism against him.

Maggie North of Claremont told Obama he risks becoming part of the usual political scene if he keeps being drawn into well-publicized disputes with rivals. He and chief rival Hillary Rodham Clinton have jabbed at each other over foreign policy, the war on terrorism and the use of nuclear weapons.

"You can be it," North said at a small gathering at a Hanover restaurant Monday morning that drew eight people. "But you've got to stop - excuse me for being blunt - you've got to stop getting involved in the way people are fighting each other, chewing you up a little more."

"That's what you do when you run for president," Obama responded, getting a laugh.

But during a later appearance before about 800 people in Nashua, Obama made a comment likely to further the spats he was warned about.

Answering a question on how he would refocus U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism, he said, "We've to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

Is this a bad thing?

In the BBC, they decry the U.K.'s position as the EU country with the lowest mandated paid leave. This isn't really a new thing, but the story is slightly newsworthy because there has been a change in how the EU measures mandated paid leave - not counting paid holidays and only counting paid discretionary days off. The question, though, is if this is a bad thing?

This should go without saying, but there is a very close relationship between having more days off of work and slower governmental economic growth. Increasing the amount of time people aren’t at work means that the most potent resource we have – labor – is going untapped. Certainly, there needs to be a balance between work and personal life but that balance should be dictated by individual agreements between workers and management, not by interventionist governments.

In Denmark, you can take a day off of work every other week and still have over 3 weeks of paid vacation each year.

UK workers 'get least paid leave'
BBC News

The UK is set to stay at the bottom of the league for holiday entitlement in the European Union even after a rise to 28 days in April 2009, a survey warns.

A change in EU rules means the UK will have to stop including eight public holidays in the EU's 20-day minimum.

But Incomes Data Services says the UK will still lag entitlement elsewhere, which ranges from 28-29 days in the Netherlands to 39.5 days in Denmark.

The TUC says six million workers will benefit from the rise in paid leave.

The UK entitlement will be raised in two stages, initially going up to 24 days from October 2007.

"The new regulations are clearly aimed at preventing the practice of including the current eight bank holidays in the minimum entitlement - whereby some employees effectively got just 12 days' annual leave," said Ken Mulkearn, Editor of IDS Pay Report.

The EU's Working Time Directive gives workers in all member states a minimum of 20 days paid leave.

Despite being bottom of the EU holiday league, the UK is still well ahead of many other developed nations.

In Canada and Japan, workers are guaranteed only 10 days of paid leave per year while the USA does not have any legal minimum for paid leave.

ANNUAL LEAVE
Denmark 39.5
Austria 38
Sweden 36
Slovakia 35
Luxembourg 35
France 35
Germany 34-39
Portugal 34
Czech Republic 33
Slovenia 33
Italy 32
Spain 32
Greece 32
Poland 31
Finland 31
Bulgaria 31
Belgium 30
Hungary 30
Romania 30
Ireland 29
Netherlands 28-29
UK 28

It's worked so well so far.

African Union soldiers have done so well stopping the violence in Darfur that AU president Alpha Oumar Konare is making it clear he expects that only African Union soldiers will make up the U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur. I don’t know if this is some sort of “go it alone” statement or a hope that donating troops will mean a UN-based financial windfall for African countries but disengagement of the 1st world in Africa is in no one’s interest. The very best individuals available – which should include very significant numbers of troops from the U.S. – should be the ones doing the job.

Darfur force 'to be all-African'
BBC News

Africa will provide all of the 26,000 peacekeepers to be sent to Sudan's Darfur region, the head of the African Union (AU) has said.

AU chairman Alpha Oumar Konare said enough African troops had been promised for no outside help to be needed but he did not give details.

The UN had expected to call on Asian troops. Critics say Africa lacks enough trained troops for an effective force.

Sudan's government has long opposed the involvement of non-African soldiers.

It only agreed to a joint United Nations-AU force after months of negotiations.

The UN Security Council resolution setting up the force said the troops would be mostly African but they would be under UN command.

Army meeting its recruiting goals

It looks as though the fact that our soldiers are busy fighting the least bloody war in American history isn't dissuading new recruits from joining the Army, which is exceeding its recruiting goals. Added sign-on bonuses are definitely helping, but critics are predictably complaining about them. I don’t see why it is so difficult for some to believe that making the Army financially tenable for more individuals would allow more to join. The current financial structure, where soldiers start out making less than $20,000 a year, makes it impossible for many who have made financial commitments to their families to afford to join up. Adding a signing bonus isn’t bribing these individuals; it’s giving them an opportunity to join up when they wouldn’t have been able to do so before.

Army Signing Bonuses Bring in Recruits
CBS News

New York - Twenty-nine-year-old Joan Marte thinks that now is the right time to join the army.

"I get to travel, basic training sounds like fun," he says.

Yemin Ko, 24, who describes himself as a patriot, is also signing up.

"I wanted to do something important," he says.

The Army needs them both to meet its enlistment goals for this year.

It surpassed its July recruitment targets by more than 200 new soldiers, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, by adding recruiters — and with an unprecedented incentive: $20,000 signing bonus given to soldiers willing to ship out to basic training within a month.

"The intent of the bonus is to get folks to ship quickly so they can attend basic training and we can meet the end strength the army is required to have," says Lt. Col. Joseph Feliciano.

In New York, recruitment commanders say they're already seeing better numbers this month since the signing bonuses were put on the table. And the army hopes to pump up those numbers by September 30th, the end of the fiscal year.

"Is this what we really want? To bribe people to get them to go and fight an unpopular war?" says Larry Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Korb, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the new policy will be bad for the army.

"They've already lowered the standards. Last year, when they did meet their recruiting goals, they had lowered the educational and aptitude standards," says Korb.

Tommy Thompson drops out

In a long-overdue announcement, Tommy Thompson dropped out of the running for the Presidency. I can't say that I'm sorry to see him go. While he had a tremendous background, his policies really seemed to be lacking. His long-running desire to impose oil revenue sharing in Iraq based on his simplistic arithmetic really destroyed any chance there existed that I'd personally vote for him. This stance combined with his social conservatism made him an unpalatable candidate in the face of the others running.

Tommy Thompson Drops Presidential Bid
ABC News

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll.

"I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign.

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America."

The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

"I have very much enjoyed my years in public service and I am comforted by the fact that I think I made a difference for people during that time," Thompson said in the campaign announcement. "I hope to continue working to serve others over the next few years."

The statement said Thompson intends to take some time off before returning to the private sector and his nonprofit work.

He had said before the Iowa event that he would drop out of the race unless he finished first or second.

The statement didn't say whether he would endorse another candidate.