JawsBlog

Today marks the 56th anniversary of Israel’s Independence Day!
On this day, in 1948, the following declaration and the State of Israel was established!

Today Israelis and Jews around the world celebrate the country’s birthday! Happy Birthday Israel!

The first National World War II Memorial is about to be dedicated, almost 60 years after the war ended.

I personally think such a memorial is extremely overdue…after all, were it not for the members of “The greatest generation” we may not even be here today.

The pictures of the memorial make it look like a very fitting tribute and memorial

Fox has a story on it’s website reporting Hamas-Linked U.S. Ventures Under Scrutiny.

Eerily enough, this isn’t something that should really be new…as the roots of Islamic terrorism and their financing networks have been in this country for a while. Just read either Steven Emerson’s American Jihad and/or “Terrorist Hunter : The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America” by Anonymous

I used to watch the West Wing before it started to go downhill and I lost interest in the show.

If I recall correctly, at the start of one episode, President Bartlett was doing a live TV interview on some politicial issue (can someone help fill in the details?) and after the “live” portion of it was done, the interviewer just said something to Bartlett, and he in turn responded, but said something not so nice about a political foe…Little did Bartlett realize he was still on camera….

Looks like Sen. Kerry had the same thing happen to him this morning on GMA, as he apparently said:

Kerry unaware being taped after GMA segment, “Geez… They’re working for the Republican National Committee” of ABC’s Charlie Gibson, GMA Staff…

Real life imitates TV once again…

Update: Other recent occurances of this phenomenon, include Kerry’s remark about Republicans a few weeks ago that were picked up on a mic. Also picked up on a microphone,, 4 years ago, Bush telling Cheney about an NYT reporter that he didn’t think highly of. Then there was Reagan’s famous “Bombing of the USSR” mic test…

Like I mentioned yesterday, I’m not paying too much attention to this whole medal-throwing thing.
[an aside: does every potential "scandal"/"big issue" in Washington have the suffix -gate appended to it?]

But from the little bits I’ve heard here and there, this could wind up being a problematic thing for Kerry. I don’t think it’s the “Republican attack squad” or anything like that; rather I think this was a result of an investigative reporter doing some hard work. I agree with Mickey Kaus that this is the kind of story that should’ve come forth in the primary season.

Nevertheless, it’s out there now, and it’ll make waves for a few days. I just thought I’d link to some posts on this topic…the Smarter Cop has a good one and Roger Simon has an extremely interesting one

MICKEY KAUS: “Which is creepier–the possibility that the Times prints only pro-Kerry letters, or the possibility that it receives only pro-Kerry letters?”

Is it just me or does anyone else think that you could easily replace the NYT with the Boston Globe and ask the same question? Perhaps SillyGlobe would know.

The Boston Herald on the other hand probably gets the opposite type of letters.

Guess what’s (apparently?) made a reappearance on the political radar…this time under a slightly different name.

The Republican Attack Squad but this time it’s being called the: Republican attack dogs’…

But seriously McAuliffe, there’s no VRWC or any secret attack squad. After all, the Dem primaries weren’t that nice to the President…

Update: It’s gotten even dirtier: Democrats Call Cheney ‘Attack Dog-In-Chief’…

And why are they trying to bring back the whole Bush Nat’l guard issue–that card was played during the primaries, and is now beyond moot.

Today’s news has included this story: Lt.-Gen. Ya’alon: Iraq had chemical weapons and here’s the Reuters piece

I’m going to look and see if the original interview was put online (in Hebrew), unless anyone has a link to it already.

But I share this piece as like many, I’m left wondering about what happened with Iraq’s weapons programs.

I just came across the following pieces by Kenneth Timmerman called: Saddam’s WMD Have Been Found and this accompanying piece: Iraqi Weapons in Syria

Now I’m not sure how accurate these articles are but they do provide some food for thought…

I think I’m begining to understand why many people consider Matt Drudge to be a “sensationalist” with the news.

Granted, he does run a good website with lots of good links to news stories, but some of the things he choses to headline, are well, not really “headline-worthy” material.
Not even the kind of material that would be on the front page (or pages of) most newspapers.

What am I talking about this time?
(more…)

Sox Win! Sox Win! Red Sox win 2-0!
The Bronx Infidels™ have been defeated again!

Thus, the Boston Red Sox have swept the Bronx Infidels for the first time in the Bronx since 1999!

Time to get out the brooms to sweep the Bronx Infidels™ (and their fans) away!

Yankees Suck!

All right! It’s time for some Neuroscience Blogging! Woohoo!

Over at slate I found this article: How To Hack Your Head A buyer’s guide to recreational brain scanning

Now granted, the author of this piece is attempting to promote his recently published book, which I have not read, but nevertheless, the article is still worth a read, and it’s targeted towards the non-science audience.

I’ll let you read the whole article, but what the author is refering to are mostly non-medical devices (save for the CRF, fMRI which has some medical uses). The “neurofeedback” technique seems to be a commercial version of an EEG (electroencephalogram) which are used for a wide variety of neurological purposes.

Will any of these tell you definitively how the brain works? No, unfortunately not. We’ve not gotten that far yet. But some of these techiniques do provide researchers with information that helps us ultimately discover what occurs on the “macro”-level, and with that we can then work down to the “micro”-levels (no pun intended) to determine which neurons fire, what causes them to fire (e.g. what chemicals, proteins, transmitters are involved) and how they connect with each other.

It’s a really facinating thing! Then again, you’d probably assume that I’d say that seeming that Neuroscience is what I study.

Check out Chris Muir’s “Day By Day” cartoon from Saturday

Did you understand the science joke in it?
(Or is it one of those things that only those of us who’ve taken a lot of chemistry classes are nerdy enough to know of?)

Looks like Chumpsky has decided to get back into the game of making anti-semetic comments such as this one:

“By now Jews in the US are the most privileged and influential part of the population… Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem, fortunately. It’s raised, but it’s raised because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control. Thats why anti-Semitism is becoming an issue.”–Source

Repulsive, no?
[via Steven Plaut's Blog]

Went into Boston this evening for a friend’s birthday…
Just a few things that I saw this evening that I feel like sharing:

–Don’t run across an intersection diagonally with a beer in hand in Boston, in traffic
–$4 for a Jello Shot is way, way, way too much
–Why do bars insist on blasting music so loud that people can’t talk?

The Red Sox are playing the Red Sox again this weekend.
All I’ve gotta say is: “Yankees Suck!”

In light of some of the recent news, especially those from the Catholic church regarding abortion and communion, it’s pretty hard not to expect that religion won’t play a role in political races.

I mention this in light of Kerry’s comment that: “Religion Shouldn’t Be Issue”

I’m not a Catholic, nor am I very familiar with Catholic teachings and as such I won’t comment on anything along those lines.

But to expect that religion won’t be an issue is wishful thinking. Just look at all of the buzz that was made about Lieberman’s being Jewish in the 2000 presidential eleciton, need I say more?

Well Sen. Kennedy won’t be back here this weekend (I’m sure everyone is dissapointed by that), instead Brandeis is apparently playing host to “the Third Annual North
American Conference of the Global Studies Association” a conference titled:

“Globalization, Empire, and Resistance.”

I wonder how much of the conference is going to be either a: bash-America and/or Israel fest or the usual Republicans and capitalism are evil thing. As well as the rest of the usual shtick….

It sounds like Washington DC is going to be rather crazy this weekend.

Today and tomorrow, is the semi-annual World Bank/IMF protests–which as usual feature all the latest in giant puppets, pro-communist propaganda, dirty hippies, anti-Israel bigotry and hate America slogans. I mean, all the big groups will be there, ANSWER, UFPJ, ISO, WWP, etc.

Then on Sunday there’s the ‘Keep abortion Legal” march/rally thing. In addition to the “usual cast and crew” for such events (NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, FMLA) . Nothing too exciting or out of the usual.

However, what makes this year different is all the kooks who will be protesting today and Saturday will likely be taking part in this march, making for…well who knows what.

As if that wasn’t crazy enough, supposively a few Right-Wing groups have obtained permits for the sidewalks along the march route….one can only begin to predict the fireworks that will begin to fly in DC this weekend…

It should be um….interesting….

Pat Tillman, who left a multi-million dollar contract in the NFL to join the Army Rangers in an inspirational act of patriotism after September 11, has been killed in Afghanistan.

For more through coverage see:
Aaron’s Rantblog
Stars N’ Stripes
ASV
IMAO

“Thank you for having me here, members of the Politburo,” Bush deadpanned to newspaper executives at the head table of a gathering of the Newspaper Association of America, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Associated Press. “I mean, my fellow Americans.”

The crack prompted laughter at the gathering of editors and publishers at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. The Fourth Estate evidently found it funny to be compared to the chief political and executive committee of the Communist Party.