Thank you SLUGGO!

That guy has his ducks in a row...

"good point sluggo" - very interesting...

Every one should watch the video - ten minutes is not too much time to
spend getting the RIGHT point of view here.

Three Holy Men and a Bear:

A Priest, a Pentecostal Preacher and a Rabbi all served as chaplains to
the students of Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk
shop.

One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really
all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear.

One thing led to another and they decided to do an experiment. They
would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt
to convert it.

Seven days later, they're all together to discuss their experience.

Father Flannery, who has his arm in a sling, is on crutches, and has
various bandages on his body and limbs, goes first. "Well," he says, "I
went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him I began to
read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do
with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water,
sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle a lamb.
The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and
confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and
both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone
oratory he claimed, " WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I
went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from
God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took
HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP
another and DOWN another until we came to a creek.

So I quickly DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you
said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day
praising Jesus."

The Priest and the Reverend both looked down at the Rabbi, who was lying
in a hospital bed.

He was in a body cast and traction with IV's and monitors running in and
out of him. He was in real bad shape.

The Rabbi looks up and says, "Looking back on it, circumcision may not
have been the best way to start."

SHMILY FOR YOU (NOT MINE! I HAVE BORROWED THIS FROM A FRIEND!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My grandparents were married for over half a century, and played their
own special game from the time they had met each other. The goal of
their game was to write the word "shmily" in a surprise place for the
other to find. They took turns leaving "shmily" around the house, and as
soon as one of them discovered it, it was their turn to hide it once
more.

They dragged "shmily" with their fingers through the sugar and flour
containers to await whoever was preparing the next meal. They smeared it
in the dew on the windows overlooking the patio where my grandma always
fed us warm, homemade pudding with blue food coloring. "Shmily" was
written in the steam left on the mirror after a hot shower, where it
would reappear bath after bath. At one point, my grandmother even
unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper to leave "shmily" on the very
last sheet.

There was no end to the places "shmily" would pop up. Little notes with
"shmily" scribbled hurriedly were found on dashboards and car seats, or
taped to steering wheels. The notes were stuffed inside shoes and left
under pillows. "Shmily" was written in the dust upon the mantel and
traced in the ashes of the fireplace. This mysterious word was as much a
part of my grandparents' house as the furniture.

It took me a long time before I was able to fully appreciate my
grandparents' game. Skepticism has kept me from believing in true
love-one that is pure and enduring. However, I never doubted my
grandparents' relationship. They had love down pat. It was more than
their flirtatious little games; it was a way of life. Their relationship
was based on a devotion and passionate affection which not everyone is
lucky experience.

Grandma and Grandpa held hands every chance they could. They stole
kisses as they bumped into each other in their tiny kitchen. They
finished each other's sentences and shared the daily crossword puzzle
and word jumble. My grandma whispered to me about how cute my grandpa
was, how handsome and old he had grown to be. She claimed that she
really knew "how to pick 'em." Before every meal they bowed their heads
and gave thanks, marveling at their blessings: a wonderful family, good
fortune, and each other.

But there was a dark cloud in my grandparents' life: my grandmother had
breast cancer. The disease had first appeared ten years earlier. As
always, Grandpa was with her every step of the way. He comforted her in
their yellow room, painted that way so that she could always be
surrounded by sunshine, even when she was too sick to go outside.

Now the cancer was again attacking her body. With the help of a cane and
my grandfather's steady hand, they went to church every morning. But my
grandmother grew steadily weaker until, finally, she could not leave the
house anymore. For a while, Grandpa would go to church alone, praying to
God to watch over his wife. Then one day, what we all dreaded finally
happened. Grandma was gone.

"Shmily." It was scrawled in yellow on the pink ribbons of my
grandmother's funeral bouquet. As the crowd thinned and the last
mourners turned to leave, my aunts, uncles, cousins and other family
members came forward and gathered around Grandma one last time. Grandpa
stepped up to my grandmother's casket and, taking a shaky breath, he
began to sing to her. Through his tears and grief, the song came, a deep
and throaty lullaby.

Shaking with my own sorrow, I will never forget that moment. For I knew
that, although I couldn't begin to fathom the depth of their love, I had
been privileged to witness its unmatched beauty.

S-h-m-i-l-y: See How Much I Love You.

Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for letting me see.

~©Laura Jeanne Allen~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best wishes to all; it is a beautiful sorry - a SHMILY for all my
friends .

Best wishes,

Verb

The Situation:
Some companies are bypassing costly, hard-to-manage software in favor of
free, online alternatives that make money by showing ads.

The Background:
Consumers have been using such services for years, such as Yahoo's email
or MapQuest's maps-but conventional wisdom had it that corporate users
weren't willing to do the same.

The Bottom Line:
Large companies are still reluctant to use free, ad-supported services,
but it makes sense for many small businesses with budgets to match.

Read it HERE:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117496231973149939-05bQvBXmI0tpwoBlv0d98dW4r70_20080325.html

Engineers to help find Homer's Ithaca

ATHENS — A geological engineering company said Monday it has agreed to
help in an archaeological project to find the island of Ithaca, homeland
of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that the
island of Ithaki in the Ionian Sea was the island Homer used as a
setting for the epic poem The Odyssey, in which the king Odysseus makes
a perilous 10-year journey home from the Trojan War.

But amateur British archaeologist Robert Bittlestone believes the Ithaca
of Homer is no longer a separate island but became attached to the
island of Kefallonia through rock displacement caused by earthquakes.
The theory could explain inconsistencies between Ithaki and Homer's
description of Odysseus' island.

Read it HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2007-03-27-ithaca-search_N.htm

"...the folks at Queens College have put together Social Explorer, which
combines a zoomable US map with tons of demographic information, much of
it drawn from census data collected during the last 60 years. Try the
slideshow function, which let you drop maps in and display them in a
sequence (say, over time). Wonkish and yet so very addictive."

http://www.socialexplorer.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WooHoo, this one it GREAT fun!

Check this one out:

"...the map's just an overlay to get you into the site search function.
And what are you searching for, you ask? It's pretty specialized -- the
site's a way of keeping track of anyone in the (non-federal) prison
population whose whereabouts you wish to know. The site's free, and
victims or others who want to know if a particular person's status
changes can sign up for phone or email alerts. For the right person, an
entirely useful site."

http://www.vinelink.com

LOS ANGELES — Scientists have discovered what appear to be sea-size
bodies of liquid, probably methane or ethane, on the surface of Saturn's
largest moon, including one about as big as Montana.

The discovery by the international Cassini spacecraft was welcomed by
researchers, who have long theorized that Titan possessed hydrocarbon
seas because of methane and other organic compounds in its thick,
largely nitrogen atmosphere. Until now, Cassini had spotted only
clusters of small lakes on the planet-size moon.

Read it HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-03-14-saturn-seas_N.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I might have posted this before from a different source.

Strangely, astronomers don't know how long a day is on Saturn, because
they can't get a firm footing on the problem given the giant planet's
gaseous nature.
So they have long relied on radio measurements of the ringed planet's
magnetic field to help estimate the length of the day. But that doesn't
really work either, they realized, so estimates have remained loose. Now
the scientists at least have a better handle on this aspect of the
problem.

Read it HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-03-23-saturn-strange-day_N.htm

~~~~~~~~~
...and from that same link:

Thought of the day

A day on Earth is determined by how long it takes the planet to spin
once on its axis. That's pretty easy to measure, because Earth's surface
is solid. Just sit there for about 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56.55
seconds, on average, and measure the time between two sunrises. (That
works today, but eventually we will have more than 24 hours to get this
job and others done. A lot more. In a few billion years, a day will last
about a month! )

~~~~~~~~~~

One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at
Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature
circling the north pole.
Rather than the normally sinuous cloud structures seen on all planets
that have atmospheres, this thing is a hexagon.

The honeycomb-like feature has been seen before. NASA's Voyager 1 and 2
spacecraft imaged it more than two decades ago. Now, having spotted it
with the Cassini spacecraft, scientists conclude it is a long-lasting
oddity.

"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion
with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric
expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer
team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never
seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick
atmosphere, where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate,
is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric
figure, yet there it is."

The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly
four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon
extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds.

At Saturn's south pole, Cassini recently spotted a freaky human eye-like
feature that resembles a hurricane.

"It's amazing to see such striking differences on opposite ends of
Saturn's poles," said Bob Brown, team leader of the Cassini visual and
infrared mapping spectrometer at the University of Arizona. "At the
south pole we have what appears to be a hurricane with a giant eye, and
at the north pole of Saturn we have this geometric feature, which is
completely different."

The hexagon appears to have remained fixed with Saturn's rotation rate
and axis since first glimpsed by Voyager 26 years ago. The actual
rotation rate of Saturn is still uncertain, which means nobody knows
exactly how long the planet's day is.

"Once we understand its dynamical nature, this long-lived, deep-seated
polar hexagon may give us a clue to the true rotation rate of the deep
atmosphere and perhaps the interior," Baines said.

Read it HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2007-03-27-saturn-hexagon_N.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Along with other artciles regarding Saturn and it's moons, rings and
other anomalistic features the planet become so much more mysterious to
me and not any clearer in it's scope.

I wish I had more scientific background in this area. Scientists have
learned so much more since I did any study in this arena.

Interesting stuff though...

I have norton and because I use AOL, I have McAfee also that
automatically scans.

I understand that AVG is excellent and is FREE. I downloaded it recently
as I got the Quicktime auto update from Myspace that was bogus and I
clicked to take it on... yeesh. I did not however get the avg to run
well yet. I pretty much depend on the norton and AOL Mcafee to take
care of everything and pretty much they do. I only get stuff now that I
am stupid enough to click through... my bad...

Try the AVG. Lots of folks swear by it.

Goood Luck!

jhood, I did not see LEO in there...

OK fedman, so what is the real gig on third st?

From anohter site:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

March 22, 2007: Islamic terrorists are encouraging their supporters, who
can write in English, to get on American web sites and pretend to be
friends or family members of American soldiers or marines. The "media
jehadis" are instructed to tell stories in line with the anti-war tone
of American and European media. Things like soldiers committing suicide
because they were forced to take part in atrocities in Iraq. Or wounded
soldiers suffering, or killing themselves, because of the poor care and
abuse they have received from the army. The media jihadis are told to
make it sound like they are simply passing on what a soldier said, not
to pretend to be a soldier or marine. Media jihadis are told not to
discuss anything from the Moslems side, and Moslems should only be
referred to as innocent victims. Never mention the Sunni-Shia conflict
or Islamic terrorism. Posters should not stick around for discussions,
lest they be found out. Care should be taken to select screen names
similar to other English speaking posters. Keep messages simple, so as
not to betray the fact that you are not a native English speaker.

This is a clever strategy, and whoever started posting it openly on Arab
language web sites, demonstrated a keen understanding of how the media
works in the West. Bad news is more believable, and stories like this
are already spread by the mass media. On some American anti-war sites,
American posters are already inventing such stories. Some will be
believed. That's the way the world works.

This strategy is already being executed by American media is very subtle
ways. For example, most American media stories about the suffering of
Iraqi civilians leaves out the fact that most of these victims are
Sunnis, or Shia who have been attacked by Sunni terrorists. Outside of
Sunni and partly Sunni areas, where 70 percent of the population lives,
economic conditions are much better, and there is little violence. But
by concentrating on the Sunnis, you get an anti-war human interest
story, without revealing that you are examining the self-inflicted
tribulations of the people who have caused all the problems in the first
place. Information War doesn't get any better than that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This makes a lot of sense to me.

Does it to you?

What is this about?

This is about Internet freedom. "Network Neutrality" -- the First
Amendment of the Internet -- ensures that the public can view the
smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by
preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field
for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending
millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress
doesn't take action now to implement meaningful Net Neutrality
provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.

READ MORE HERE:
http://savetheinternet.com/=faq

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you don't take time to read anything else today, DO take time to read
at the above web address!!!

What is this about?

This is about Internet freedom. "Network Neutrality" -- the First
Amendment of the Internet -- ensures that the public can view the
smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by
preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field
for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending
millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress
doesn't take action now to implement meaningful Net Neutrality
provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.

READ MORE HERE:
http://savetheinternet.com/=faq

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you don't take time to read anything else today, DO take time to read
at the above web address!!!!!!!!

activemode,

Toshiba does make an incredibly good laptop. I tried out several some
years ago and when I scrape the funds together will be getting one to
replace the old, old, old laptop I currently have. I don't even use the
thing much anymore as there are too many hoops to jump through to get
the info from "it" to this 'puter. LOL.

I think netuser has covered ya on the hard drive replacement classyjeff!

Have a great day all!

Hiya islandking,

It seems that being proven innocent is just as important as being proven
guilty (as you said) and these days, with all the accusations flying to
families first (conjecture) when a relative dies it could keep folks OUT
of jail.

Hiya beerrunner,

I don't see how DNA could be planted anywhere. They keep the results in
a database. Having this information can also prove you INNOCENT as the
article states.