News: November 2006 Archives
Girl jumping on bed falls out window.
A toddler plunged to her death from an eight story-apartment building on Sunday when she fell through an open window while jumping on a bed, authorities said.Alameda County Coroner's officials identified the girl as 3-year-old Tia Simmons. The girl's mother wasn't in the apartment at the time, authorities said.
Sad. I'll save this for when I have kids.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Why not share something you're thankful for in a comment?
Even though this Thanksgiving will probably be one of the most difficult for my family, we really do have a lot to be thankful for. Our escape from Los Angeles went almost flawlessly; my new job is great; our new house is fantastic; and our kitten has likely found a new home. Sure, there are struggles, but we'll get through them with some hard work and a healthy dose of God's grace.
Please be in prayer for my mother-in-law who is in the hospital. The doctors still need to figure out exactly what's wrong with her, but we're optimistic that she'll make a fill recovery.
Also, this is the first Thanksgiving that I haven't spent with my parents, and I miss them. The hardest thing about moving across the country is not getting to see them very often, which probably goes without saying.
Capitalist pioneer Milton Friedman has died. Few individuals have done more to improve the human condition. Rest in peace.
My brother sent along this link to an obituary of Markus Wolf, former East German spy master.
Known as "the man without a face," because for years Western intelligence agencies did not even possess a photograph of him, Wolf died in his sleep in his apartment in Berlin, according to his stepdaughter, Claudia Wall. She did not specify a cause of death.Wolf had lived quietly in the German capital since the last of several efforts to punish him for his role in spying on the former West Germany ended in 1997 with a two-year suspended sentence.
For 34 years, Wolf headed the foreign intelligence service of East Germany's feared Ministry of State Security, or Stasi. He ran a network of 4,000 spies who infiltrated NATO headquarters and the West German chancellery, even bringing down a chancellor, Willy Brandt. Wolf was not directly responsible for Stasi's primary business of spying on East Germans, which made it a reviled instrument of repression, but not all critics were convinced of this.
As so many Cold Warriors pass on it becomes easier to forget just how terribly evil Communism is. The obituary is quite a puff peace, considering that this man was instrumental in oppressing millions of people for over three decades.
Well it looks like the Democrats have won the House, contrary to my hopeful predictions, and bettors on TradeSports give the GOP a 12% chance to hold the Senate. Looks like my wife might have been right.
Democrats taking over the House of Representatives wouldn't be too tragic (except for the tax cuts they wouldn't renew), but if they get the Senate too then the next couple of years could be very difficult. Let's look at the potential winners and losers (toss in some more if you think of them).
Winners:
- Crazy leftist blogosphere. We won't hear the end of it, despite the fact that most of their seat takeovers are due to rather conservative, even pro-life, Democrats.
- The Democrat party, if their new, more conservative, politicians can help reign in the crazy leftists that pushed their party out of power.
- North Korea, al Qaeda, Iran, Syria, Hugo Chavez, Hamas, and all the other thugs and tyrants around the world. They're probably dancing in the streets.
- The Media, for flexing their muscles and dragging the Democrats over the finish line (one last time?). Despite polls showing that Americans overwhelmingly want smaller government the media has managed to convince the public that our surging economy sucks, our success in Iraq is a failure, our success in Afghanistan is irrelevant, and that one gay pedophile Republican who never actually committed a crime reflects badly on the whole party.
- American parasites, because they'll reap the rewards of putting their masters into office.
- Republicans, if they get their act together and realize what happens when you don't dance with the guy who brung you.
- Right-wing bloggers, because we'll have a lot to rage about for the next two years!
Losers:
- Republicans, because they wasted their majority and lost it.
- Iraqis, because they'll probably be abandoned to the predations of their Islamofascist neighbors.
- Iranians, North Koreans, "moderate Muslims", and the rest of th people oppressed by our enemies, because things are now likely to get a lot worse before they get better.
- American taxpayers, those few of us who remain, because our income will be redistributed to the parasites who put the Democrats in office.
- Hillary Clinton, unless the Dems really pull a rabbit out of their hats and manage not to screw the world up too badly before 2008.
- Unborn babies, who will keep being aborted for a while longer.
