I just saw this interesting ad on a Yahoo news page. I am trying to figure out what the gal in the bikini top has to do with mortgages.
U.S. Attorney General Proposes Changes in Child-Porn Laws
by Pete Winn, associate editor
Alberto Gonzales wants Internet service providers to report violations.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is proposing major changes in child-exploitation laws -- changes that family advocates say are long overdue.
At a speech Thursday at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the attorney general said Internet service providers (ISPs) are not doing enough to help the government fight child pornography. They must take the issue seriously.
"For starters, let's be clear," Gonzales said, "it is not a victimless crime. Most images of child pornography depict actual sexual abuse of real children. Each image literally documents a crime scene."
Pat Trueman, who headed the Justice Department's war against pornography in the early 1990s, when President Bush's father was in office, said it's a step in the right direction.
"The most important thing the attorney general did," Trueman said, "was to offer legislation that will correct a previous law that will require Internet service providers -- like Google and Yahoo -- to report incidences of child pornography or child sex abuse that they know of online."
If Gonzales' suggestion becomes law, ISPs would be required to provide that information to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which would pass it on to the Justice Department.
The attorney general also wants a law which would require pornographic Web sites to include warning statements and ratings.
"A mandatory rating system would prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet," Gonzales said.
Daniel Weiss, senior analyst, media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action, applauded Gonzales for highlighting the dangers.
"He's definitely right to alert parents and the community on how to go about protecting kids," Weiss said. "But on the other hand, the attorney general is talking tough on this issue, just like he talked tough on the issue of obscenity.
"Unfortunately, he's done nothing about obscenity. He said prosecuting obscenity was a chief goal of his term. But we've not seen vigorous obscenity prosecution. Instead, we might call the effort anemic or even pathetic. I wonder if he's proposing new laws that he has no intention of enforcing."
Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, agreed the Justice Department has long needed to crack down on hardcore pornography.
"I was very disappointed with what he didn't say," he said. "The fact still remains that hardcore, so-called 'adult' pornography, is the leading problem in this country. More children are harmed from hardcore adult pornography than from child pornography. You cannot separate the two. You can't talk about child pornography without talking about hardcore pornography, which is available at many of our hotels. It's available on cable. It's available in video stores. It's running rampant and the Department of Justice is doing nothing about it."
Burress said addiction to pornography generally doesn't start with child pornography.
"They start off with hardcore, sexually explicit adult pornography and they grow into it," he told CitizenLink.
Burress said there are five stages: exposure, addiction, desensitization, escalation and acting out.
"What they do is, they start out with hardcore adult pornography and then their fetish turns to children, and then they start using and producing child pornography, so you cannot separate the two."
Burress said the reason the Justice Department has not engaged in a major crackdown is because of the man who heads the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Justice Department, Drew Oosterbaan.
"We met with him five years ago. He's a hold-over from the Clinton administration," Burress said. "There lies the problem. We, meaning the pro-family movement, complained about this inaction all the way up to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. We've objected to it every year, because nothing is going to be done by a man who, even under the Clinton administration, refused to enforce the laws against hardcore pornography."
Burress has called for Oosterbaan's replacement with someone who would prosecute obscenity.
As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, Let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." they used the brink instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (New International Version)
Nantucket joined several other historic tourist towns across the country in approving a measure that would ban chain stores from the island's downtown, a move endorsed by more than 480 residents at a town meeting.
The rule would bar any new chains with more than 14 outlets that have standardized menus, trademarks, uniforms or other homogeneous decor from opening downtown. The ban would not affect gas stations, grocery stores, banks and other service providers.
"I'm extremely gratified," said independent book seller Wendy Hudson, who proposed the ban. "I guess it feels validating ... people saw the balance and need to protect our character rather than this amendment just being another new regulation."
I have a rather politically incorrect confession to make. As a boy in the 1970’s, I fried ants. Not fried like you would make French fries. No, I used a magnifying glass and the power of the sun to incinerate thousands of the little buggers on sidewalks and roadways throughout my youth.
I am sure that somewhere in the subterranean world of ants there is a wanted poster with my boyhood picture on it and a description of a heat ray.
I make this confession only after learning that the ancient Greeks probably fried ants too. This is of course not an historical fact, but rather a deduction, since it seems that those crafty Greeks used a similar method (sun + glass) to light the first Olympic flame. In fact, the current Olympic flame which is bound for Torino, Italy was also ignited with light.
Here is the story. The tradition of the Olympic flame and its associated Olympic torch developed from Greek polytheism. In ancient Greece, a permanent flame burned in the sanctuary of Olympia, venue for the ancient Olympic Games. Since the flame was part of the worship of the gods, it need to be pure and it would seem the Greeks thought that just whipping out a Zippo would be beneath the dignity of the gods. Instead, these Greeks used a skaphia, which according to people way smarter than I am, is the ancestor of the modern parabolic mirror. The skaphia concentrated the sun’s energy and then reflected it outward, creating an intense heat ray which would have made Flash Gordon jealous. This heat ray was concentrated on the center of a torch and voila, the torch burst into flame.
Read the rest of this article on Associated Content.
“The IOC declared that Italyart is the best cultural programme ever presented in all the editions of the Games” Evelina Christillin declares proudly, TOROC vicar vice-president and responsible for the Cultural Olympiads. Actually the cultural programme which will accompany the athletes’ competitions on ice and snow is extraordinary in quality and quantity in terms of proposals. “When we started to think about this great project – Christillin underlines – we were faced with a vast offer and many possibilities to interpret this opportunity. Together with some important cultural operators of the territory, coordinated by Giovanni De Luna and me, we thought about methodology guide lines in which to record the project, which were then published in the volume “Il linguaggio dei corpi” (The Language of the Bodies). From there we worked at an operative level with Councillors of local institutions as well as the Cultural Assets Office and Cultural Institutions operating on the territory. A mixed work team that, instead of proposing each its own programme, was able to optimise the financial resources of every reality, giving life to a homogeneous and very rich playbill”.
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The German Relay squad, today consisting of Michael Roesch, Alexander Wolf, Sven Fischer and Michael Greis, is still the measure of all things, winning the third race in a row today. Strong performances on the cross country course as well as at the shooting range (Michael Roesch used all three German spares in the standing session, all others shot clean) left absolutely no chance for the other squads. Austria (Daniel Mestotisch, Wolfgang Perner, Ludwig Gredler, Christoph Sumann) was the surprise runner-up, 41.2 seconds behind, also using just three extra rounds, also all by the runner on the first leg, also in the standing session. Norway (Halvard Hanevold, Emil Svendsen, Frode Andresen, Stian Eckhoff) needed eight spares and finished third, 59.6 seconds behind the Germans.
Great shooting and a fantastic overall consistency were the keys to the victory of the German team today. Their running shape is quite outstanding, although they didn't score the fastest course times today. Combined with shooting results like today, however, their performance must have been rather demoralizing for the competition.
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"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when
once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their
liberties to the first external or internal invader."
The word “hockey” comes from the old French word "hocquet", meaning "stick". The origins of ice hockey are unclear, but it is widely accepted that the British are responsible for bringing hockey to North America. Soldiers stationed in Nova Scotia, Canada, played the earliest games. In 1879, a group of college students at McGill University in Montreal organised competitions and developed the first known set of hockey rules. The sport migrated south to the United States during the 1890s. The first known hockey games took place between Johns Hopkins and Yale Universities in 1895. The first Olympic Games to include ice hockey for men were the Antwerp Games in 1920. However, the first Olympic Winter Games took place in 1924 in Chamonix.
At the Olympic Winter Games, women compete in an eight-team tournament (women's hockey was added to the Olympic Winter Games programme in Nagano in 1998), whereas men compete in a 12-team tournament. A team must not have more than six players on the ice while play is in progress. Typically, these players are one goalkeeper, two defenders, two wings and one centre. Fewer players can be on the ice as a result of penalties: a goalkeeper can be replaced by a skater during a delayed penalty, or at any other time of the game, at the team's risk. A regular game consists of three 20-minute periods, with a 15-minute intermission after the first and second periods. Teams change ends for each period. If a tie occurs in a medal-round game in which a winner must be determined, a five-minute sudden-victory overtime period is played. In the gold medal game, a 20-minute sudden-victory period is played subsequent to another 15-minute intermission. In the case of a tie after any sudden-victory period, a game-winning penalty shoot competition takes place to determine the winner.
(1) Katrina Disaster Defined, by Marvin Olasky.
(2) EarthMovers, Disaster Upon Disaster Beyond U.S. Shores, by Jamie Dean.
(3) Iraq, War and Progress, by Mindy Belz.
(4) Africa Discovered, LIVE8, G8, and Other Greats, by Priya Abraham.
(5) Supreme Changes, the High Court, by Lynn Vincent.
(6) Wrongful 'Right' the Case of Terri Schiavo, by Lynn Vincent.
(7) From John Paull II to Benedict XVI, by Edward E. Plowman.
(8) Israel, Leaving the Land (and the Likud), by Jil Nelson.
(9) Terror, Al-Qauda Affiliates Attack, by Priya Abraham.
(10) Security Storm, Reform Plan that Didn't (about Social Security), by Timothy Lamar.
1. Feb. 11 - Soldiers of the 1544th transportation Company arrive at Volk Airfield near Ft. McCoy, Wisc. and are greeted by loved ones after spending a year serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Feb. 22, after months of speculation and weeks of preparation, Paris opens its arms and embraces 1544th soldiers. The unit lost five soldiers while serving in Iraq...
2. Aug. 28 – The arrival of Hurricane Katrina...
3. Jan. 12 - Hospital groundbreaking...
4. May 19 – On the last day of school, an accident involving five Paris High School students leaves three in the hospital.
5. Sept. 7 – The City of Paris continues to pursue underground water sources and authorizes an investment of $150,000 to do so. The search continues through the end of the year. Oct. 25, announcement is made of two test wells dug on the Donnelly site near the Wabash River.
6. Aug. 2 – Paris Arkay Industries announces its closing in September. The facility employs approximately 50 people.
7. Feb. 17 - Crestwood Eighth Grade boys basketball team earns a State Championship title...
8. High profile court cases:
9. June 15 – The whereabouts of Robin Mewes who has been missing for 15 years is determined and verified. She disappeared Sept. 15, 1990, from Paris and was last seen in Terre Haute, Ind. In the meantime, she changed her name, moved out of state, graduated from college, married and earned a master’s degree and is gainfully employed.
10. July 13 – The Edgar County Board passes a resolution to consolidate county voting locations into 10 sites in accordance with federal mandates of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Read the whole article from the Paris Beacon.
German Kati Wilhelm continues her strong season with another win, her second win of the winter. Despite her single error in the prone session, she stayed ahead of Sweden's Anna Carin Olofsson (no error, +5.9 seconds) and Norway's Linda Tjoerhom (no error, +54.4 seconds) and increased her lead in the World Cup Total Score. Only five of the 90 athletes managed to shoot clean in very difficult conditions – again and again, thick swaths of fog wandered though the shooting range, obstructing the visibility considerably at times.
Anna Carin Olofsson had been one of the fastest runners in the most recent events, and she had been shooting very consistently as well, which resulted in two victories in Osrblie. She had picked the very low number two in the draw on Friday and was expected to provide a first point of reference.
Two of her greatest rivals started just a few minutes behind her: Sandrine Bailly (FRA) had number six on her bib, Kati Wilhelm (GER) number nine.
14:37 CET - First Lap - Olofsson has set a first best at the 0.8 km intermediate. She is 1.6 seconds faster than Mali (SLO).
14:39 CET - First Lap - But now it's Wilhelm, who tops the rankings at the first split. Wilhelm is 3.1 seconds ahead of Olofsson.
Was Wilhelm already burning the candle at both ends or was Olofsson simply not as fast as before the Christmas break? The Swede took her time in the prone shooting session …
14:41 CET - First Shoot - Olofsson clears! We'll see if Sandrine Bailly can shoot a little faster in a few minutes.
14:42 CET - First Shoot - Bailly starts with an error, and another... Three errors for Bailly! Wilhelm is next ...
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