What this country needs is more young people
who will carry to their jobs
the same enthusiasm for getting ahead
that they display in traffic jams.
*.*
Oneliners
Yesterday's stress is past tense.
My opinions are my wife's, and she says I'm lucky to have them.
You know you're getting old when you're more attractive hanging upside
down
All I ever wanted was an unfair advantage.
Eminent domain is just a fancy name for government theft.
If I knew then what I know now . . . "now" would be a whole lot better.
Outcome has a lot to do with income.
Too many couples marry for better or for worse, but not for good.
Whenever you're losing an argument, just talk louder.
I wonder why black olives come in cans and green olives come in jars.
*.*
A mother will go to the store for bread and milk, and return with
enough groceries to feed Bangladesh for a year.
A father goes to the store for bread & milk and return with bread,
nacho-flavored Doritos and 5 dollars' worth of lottery tickets.
*.*
Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination
WA****NGTON, DC-The Department of Health and Human Services issued a series
of guidelines Monday designed to help parents curtail their children's
boundless imaginations, which child-safety advocates say have the
potential
to rival motor vehicle accidents and congenital diseases as a leading
cause
of disability and death among youths ages 3 to 14.
"Defuse the ticking time-bomb known as your child's imagination before it
explodes and destroys her completely," said child-safety expert Kenneth
McMillan, who advised the HHS in composing the guidelines. "New data shows
a
disturbing correlation between serious accidents and the ability of
children
to envision a world full of exciting possibility."
The guidelines, titled "Boundless Imagination, Boundless Hazards: Ways To
Keep Your Kids Safe From A World Of Wonder," are posted on the HHS
website,
and will also be available in brochure form in pediatricians' offices
across
the country.
According to McMillan, children can suffer broken bones, head trauma, and
even fatal injuries from unsupervised exposure to childlike awe. "If your
children are allowed to unlock their imaginations, anything from a
backyard
swing set to a child's own bedroom can be transformed into a dangerous
undersea castle or dragon's lair," McMillan said. "But by encouraging your
kids to think linearly and literally, and constantly reminding them they
can
never be anything but human children with no extraordinary
characteristics,
you can better ensure that they will lead prolonged lives."
Although the exact number of child fatalities connected to an active
imagination is unknown, experts say the danger is very real. According to
a
2006 estimate, children who regularly engage in imagination are 10 times
more likely to suffer injuries such as skinned knees from mythical quests,
or bruises and serious falls from the peak of Bookcase Mountain.
One of the HHS recommendations emphasizes increased communication between
parents and children about the truths behind outlandish fantasies. "Speak
with your children about the absolute impossibility of time travel,
magical
powers, and animals and toys that talk when adults are not around," reads
one excerpt. "If this fails to quell their imaginations, encourage them to
stare at household objects and think clearly and objectively about their
actual, physical characteristics."
The HHS also discourages aimless playtime activities that lack a rigid,
repetitive structure: "Opt instead for safe activities like untying knots,
sticking and unsticking two pieces of Velcro, drawing straight lines of
successively longer lengths, and quietly humming a single note for two to
three hours."
But even these relatively safe activities can become imaginative, experts
warn, without proper precautions. "Do not let children know that, for
example, sailors and pirates untie knots," McMillan said.
Although no cure has yet been developed for childhood imagination,
preventative measures can deter children from potentially hazardous bouts
of
make-believe.
"Many of the suggestions are really quite simple, like breaking down
cardboard boxes or sewing cu****ons to couches so they cannot be converted
into forts or playhouses," McMillan said. "Blank pieces of paper, which
can
inspire non-reality-based drawings, should be discarded unless they are
used
in one of our recommended diagonal folding and unfolding activities. And
all
loose sticks left lying in the yard should be carefully labeled 'Not a
Sword.'"
Unfortunately, removing everything from a child's field of view that could
stimulate his active young mind is extremely time-consuming, and
infeasible
as a long-term solution, McMillan acknowledges. "To truly protect your
children, you must go to great lengths to completely eliminate their
curiosity, crush their spirit of amazement, and eradicate their childlike
glee. Watch for the danger signs: faraway expressions, giggle fits, and a
general air of carefree contentment."
Added McMillan: "Remember, if you see a single sparkle of excitement in
their eyes, you haven't done enough."
*.*
Short Ones
We are developing a unique educational system.
Where else can you find
algebra taught in the third grade and spelling in college?
The France that helped us during the Revolutionary War
was that of Louis XVI . . . but then
they cut off his head and France has not helped us since.
I'm convinced that no one "earns" a journalism degree.
Universities just hand them out
to those who managed not to get lost in the hallways.
A bank is a dignified institution that was established
for people to have a place
to keep the government's money until tax time.
Global warming can be attributed to that
extra hour of sunlight we get
when we switch to daylight-saving time.
Issue of the Times;
Stalin and the Ukranian Massacre by Eric Margolis
Five years ago, I wrote a column about the unknown Holocaust in Ukraine. I
was shocked to receive a flood of mail from young Americans and Canadians
of
Ukrainian descent telling me that until they read my article, they knew
nothing of the 1932-33 genocide in which Stalin's regime murdered 7
million
Ukrainians and sent 2 million to concentration camps.
How, I wondered, could such historical amnesia afflict so many young
North-American Ukrainians? For Jews and Armenians, the genocides their
people suffered are vivid, living memories that influence their daily
lives.
Yet today, on the 70th anniversary of the destruction of a quarter of
Ukraine's population, this titanic crime has almost vanished into
history's
black hole.
So has the extermination of the Don Cossacks by the Soviets in the 1920's,
and Volga Germans, in 1941; and mass executions and de****tations to
concentration camps of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Poles. At the
end of World War II, Stalin's gulag held 5.5 million prisoners, 23%
Ukrainians and 6% Baltic peoples.
Almost unknown is the genocide of 2 million of the USSR's Muslim peoples:
Chechen, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Tajiks, Bashkir, Kazaks. The Chechen
independence fighters today branded "terrorists" by the US and Russia are
the grandchildren of survivors of Soviet concentration camps.
Add to this list of forgotten atrocities the murder in Eastern Europe from
1945-47 of at least 2 million ethnic Germans, mostly women and children,
and
the violent expulsion of 15 million more Germans, during which 2 million
German girls and women were raped.
Among these monstrous crimes, Ukraine stands out as the worst in terms of
numbers. Stalin declared war on his own people. In 1932 he sent Commissars
V. Molotov and Lazar Kaganovitch, and NKVD secret police chief G. Yagoda
to
crush the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to forced collectivization
Ukraine was sealed off. All food supplies and livestock were confiscated.
NKVD death squads executed "anti-party elements." Furious that
insufficient
Ukrainians were being shot, Kaganovitch "the Soviet Adolf Eichmann" set a
quota of 10,000 executions a week. Eighty percent of Ukrainian
intellectuals
were shot.
During the bitter winter of 1932-33, 25,000 Ukrainians per day were being
shot or dying of starvation and cold. Cannibalism became common. Ukraine,
writes historian Robert Conquest, looked like a giant version of the
future
Bergan-Belsen death camp.
The mass murder of 7 million Ukrainians, 3 million of them children, and
de****tation to the gulag of 2 million (where most died) was hidden by
Soviet
propaganda. Pro-communist westerners, like the New York Times' Walter
Duranty, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and French Prime Minister Edouard
Herriot, toured Ukraine, denied re****ts of genocide, and applauded what
they
called Soviet "agrarian reform." Those who spoke out against the genocide
were branded "fascist agents."
The US, British, and Canadian governments, however, were well aware of the
genocide, but closed their eyes, even blocking aid groups from going to
Ukraine. The only European leaders to raise a cry over Soviet
industrialized
murder were, ironically, Hitler and Mussolini. Because Kaganovitch, Yagoda
and many senior communist party and NKVD officials were Jewish, Hitler's
absurd claim that communism was a Jewish plot to destroy Christian
civilization became widely believed across fearful Europe.
When war came, Roosevelt and Churchill allied themselves closely to
Stalin,
though they were well aware his regime had murdered at least 30 million
people long before Hitler's extermination of Jews and gypsies began. Yet
in
the strange moral calculus of mass murder, only Germans were guilty.
Though Stalin murdered 3 times more people than Hitler, to the doting
Roosevelt he remained "Uncle Joe." At Yalta, Stalin even boasted to
Churchill he had killed over 10 million peasants. The British-US alliance
with Stalin made them his partners in crime. Roosevelt and Churchill
helped
preserve history's most murderous regime, to which they handed over half
of
Europe.
After the war, the Left tried to cover up Soviet genocide. Jean-Paul
Sartre
denied the gulag even existed. For the Allies, Nazism was the only evil;
they could not admit being allied to mass murders. For the Soviets,
promoting the Jewish Holocaust perpetuated anti-fascism and masked their
own
crimes.
The Jewish people saw their Holocaust as a unique event. It was Israel's
raison d'tre. Raising other genocides would, they feared, diminish their
own.
While academia, media and Hollywood rightly keep attention on the Jewish
Holocaust, they ignore Ukraine. We still hunt Nazi killers but not
communist
killers. There are few photos of the Ukraine genocide or Stalin's gulag,
and
fewer living survivors. Dead men tell no tales.
Russia never prosecuted any of its mass murderers, as Germany did.
We know all about crimes of Nazis Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler;
about
Babi Yar and Auschwitz.
But who remembers Soviet mass murderers Dzerzhinsky, Kaganovitch, Yagoda,
Yezhov, and Beria? Were it not for Alexander Solzhenitsyn, we might never
know of Soviet death camps like Magadan, Kolyma, and Vorkuta. Movie after
movie appears about Nazi evil, while the evil of the Soviet era vanishes
from view or dissolves into nostalgia.
The souls of Stalin's millions of victims still cry out for justice.
Quote of the Times;
All pass****ts issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have
always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for
officials - And Hackers - to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid
about strangers slurping up your identity? Here's what you can do about
it.
But be careful - tampering with a pass****t is punishable by 25 years in
prison. Not to mention the "special" customs search, with rubber gloves.
Bon
voyage!
1) RFID-tagged pass****ts have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the
chip is embedded in the back.
2) Sorry, "accidentally" leaving your pass****t in the jeans you just put
in
the washer won't work. You're more likely to ruin the pass****t itself than
the chip.
3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave - the chip could burst into
flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled
burnt
pass****t?
4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard
object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn't invalidate the
pass****t,
so you can still use it.
- Jenna Wortham
Link of the Times;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=440069&in_page_id=1770
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