Tom Faranda's Folly

A critical issue: Do bald men have more testosterone?

When I lived in Cayman, way back around 1980, one of my friends and a fellow rugby player (Scottish) used to say "Why waste testosterone on hair?"

Yes, he was just about completely bald -

Myth or Fact: Do Bald Men Have More Testosterone?

A Sugarloaf Mountain walk

I love the one hour hike up Sugarloaf Mountain, just north of Cold Spring and next to Breakneck Ridge. So last Friday, Brigid and I and Mike and Karen Riner met up, and headed up. It was a good opportunity for Mike to try out his new titanium hip, which he had installed about six months ago.

The weather was great! Brigid took most of these pictures. Two short videos at the end.

 

 
 
Right hip is looking good!

 
 

That view south! Storm King on the other side of the Hudson.

 
 
 

 

I took this one.

 
 

The view north
 

 
Designer M & M's! celebrating a big anniversary - how'd they do that?

 
That's a hawk. Photo by me.

 

We actually spent about 90 minutes at the top, both hangin' around or wanderin' around
 
 

Photo by Karen, proving (1) I need a tanning salon and (2) I need to go on a diet

 

 

 

 If you've lasted this long, a bonus! Two short videos - first one by Brigid as we are headed off the top of Sugarloaf and Mike and Karen are talking about carrying a rock (?) down with them. That's me cackling away at the end.

The second one I took, as we look over a tumbling stream, between Sugarloaf and Breakneck Ridge.

 

and the stream

Great trip. No pictures of the beer and pizza afterwards.

Joan Rivers visits Letterman

Hmmm. The soon-to-be 78 year old Rivers, talks about Continental Airlines.

Sorry for the commercial.

 

Baseball Hall of Famer Harmon "Killer" Killebrew enters hospice

Esophogeal cancer. Here's his wiki Harmon Killebrew .

Harmon Killebrew ends cancer treatment, enters hospice

“I have spent the past decade of my life promoting hospice care and educating people on its benefits. I am very comfortable taking this next step and experiencing the compassionate care that hospice provides.

“I am comforted by the fact that I am surrounded by my family and friends. I thank you for the outpouring of concern, prayers and encouragement that you have shown me. I look forward to spending my final days in comfort and peace with Nita by my side.”

Today: Catholic feast of Our Lady of Fatima & 30th anniversary of attempted assassination of Pope JP II

 
30 years ago today ... 

The Holy Father credited Our Lady of Fatima for re-directing the bullets and saving his life. He would later say: “One hand fired, another guided the bullet.”

Many people were surprised the Pope so easily forgave the man that wanted him dead. Just days after the shooting, he said:

“I pray for that brother of ours who shot me, and whom I have sincerely pardoned. United with Christ, Priest and Victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and for the world. To you, Mary, I repeat: 'Totus tuus ergo sum.'" (I am all yours).

 

President Bush speaks out on death of bin Laden

When asked by forum moderator Melissa Lee of CNBC how he felt upon learning the news, Bush said he was "not overjoyed," explaining that the campaign to track down the 9/11 mastermind was done not "out of hatred but to exact judgment."

The development is ultimately a victory for the American people, he said.

"The guy is dead. That is good," Bush said of bin Laden. "Osama's death is a great victory in the war on terror. He was held up as a leader."

"The intelligence services deserve a lot of credit. They built a mosaic of information, piece by piece," he said, claiming no credit for himself.

"I met SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan. They are awesome, skilled, talented and brave," he added.

******

"The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal," Bush said. "People who do not look like us want freedom just as much. The relatives of [former Secretary of State]Condoleezza Rice over 100 years ago wanted freedom. It is only when you do not have hope in a society that you join a suicide bomber team."

Catholic faculty have issues with Boehner and his version of Catholic social justice

UPDATE: Already a response - this from Fr. Robert Sirico. Thanks to my friend Antoinette for sending me this link - Boehner’s Catholic Critics Rush to Protect Welfare State

Speaker of the House John Boehner is a Catholic, and will be giving the commencement address at Catholic University tomorrow.

A group of Catholic educators have written him, saying his legislative record is not in accord with Catholic teaching on social justice and care of the poor.

Here's the article in the Washington Post.

Catholic faculty question Boehner’s record on poor before commencement address

And the letter can be found here, at NCR.

Catholic Academics Challenge Boehner

Yesterday evening two of the professors were on The O"Reilly Factor - Bill O'Reilly opened his show with them. One of the professors had the original idea that taxes were too low on high earners and their money needed to be distributed to the poor. He used the term "Distributive Justice". This is NOT a common term in Catholic social teaching when it comes to the rights of the poor and marginalized. The Catholic Catechism mentions the term once in it's whole 803 pages, saying:

... Distributive Justice, which regulates what a community owes it's citizens in proportion to their contributions and needs. (Page 579.)

So, kind of a vague term. The better term is "preferential option for the poor". In practice, many Catholics convert this to "preferential option for the government".

I recognized three names on the list of signees: Thomas Reese SJ, former editor of America magazine, Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College, and Paul Lakeland, who has an endowed chair in religion at  Fairfield university, my alma mater, and who is an ex-Jesuit.

In any event, their letter is sure to be controversial, since it simply suggests that government programs for the poor can't have their funding lowered. I'm sure there will be responses to this letter, from Catholics who are fiscally conservative and don't hold that care for the poor = bigger government programs.

I will post them.

Very interesting PBS story on merging of old & new media at the NY Times

Actually a PBS Newshour feature about the documentary.

I love the line "We are pulling out what you need to know." Reminds me of the saying about the NYT that's a play on their motto, which is (or used to be) "All the news that's fit to print." The play on the line is "All the news that fits." That's the NY Times for you...

AP discovers high approval ratings for the President - amongst mostly Democratic voters

Big headlines and lots of stats here -

.AP-GfK poll: Obama approval hits 60 percent

No mention of this -

Latest AP Poll Sample Skews to Democrats by 17 Points

One of my favorite sayings: "Never believe your own PR."

Romney op ed in USA Today: his view on healthcare reform

Sign me up.

First, the good news: Health care in the United States has made remarkable advances in our lifetimes. Dramatic improvements in medical technology have expanded both the length and quality of life.

But our health care system has several well-known problems: high and rising costs, significant numbers of Americans without insurance, and glaring gaps in quality and efficiency.

We can fix these problems. Unfortunately, with the passage of ObamaCare last year, the president and the Congress took a wrong turn. ObamaCare will lead to more spending, greater federal involvement in health care and negative effects on U.S. economic activity. The president definitely forgot the admonition to "do no harm."

My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ObamaCare's top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ObamaCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ObamaCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and value.

Romney goes on to offer five steps to a better healthcare system. Hit the link for the whole op ed.

Rugby: Southern Hemisphere Super 15 - Stormers ( S. Africa) vs. Crusaders (NZ)

Played in South Africa. The Canterbury Crusaders were missing a large part of their first team.

Incredible offload by the Crusader center on the first score.

Kimmel: Surprise Kentucky Derby winner

LA Times: bin Laden death now part of Obama re-election campaign

Bin Laden death now part of Obama's re-elect message

AP files under Freedom of Information Act to get bin Laden photos

I am conflicted on this. Originally I felt they should be released, but now - don't know. I think there are good reasons to not release them.

The Associated Press's Case for Releasing the Bin Laden Photo

Passenger gives new meaning to old Delta jingle, "Delta is ready when you are".

Woman Strips Naked on Delta Flight

An interview with physicist Stephen Hawking

The theoretical physicist who suffers from A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and the author of "A Brief History of Time."

Worth the five minutes it takes to read it.

Life and the Cosmos, Word by Painstaking Word

Not everyone is happy that Pope John Paul II was beatified.

UPDATE: From one of my friends (a woman) re: Maureen Dowd (see below) -  "My theory is she was never picked for the May crowning of Mary. Really, the bitterness never goes away."

I personally know a several people who are unhappy; they are "Traditionalists" of the extreme variety. Not only do they prefer the Latin Mass, but they think the current Mass is invalid, and the Pope is illicit. And they point to the horrible sex abuse - as if the Pope was personally responsible for the appalling behavior.

Now here are two voices from the "Progressive" kook fringe.

Eugene Kennedy is a bitter former priest who manages to spin 10 page magazine articles into 200 page books which no one reads.

Beatification of John Paul II leaves many Catholics cold

The metaphor suggests other questions. If John Paul knew how to make himself -- or part of himself -- present to a crowd, how much of himself did he ever really reveal to anybody? How well did you know the real man, Karol Wojtyla?

Are there unanswered questions about this pope who may have dazzled but seemed to exude so little real warmth for the believers at whom, above his Slavic smile, he never seemed to look directly?

Yawn.

The NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who fancies herself a Catholic theologican - and also bitter.

Hold the Halo

Now the Vatican is like Wall Street, where companies give their most disgraced C.E.O.’s golden parachutes to make up for the stress of outside attack. Except the Vatican gives golden halos.

Her beef, among other things - she can't be ordained.

 

Home values continue to drop

Down 3% in the first quarter of 2011, the steepest drop since the end of 2008. The 57th month in a row for home price declines.

From the Wall Street Journal.

Home Market Takes a Tumble

Charges against Brigid (and the 87 other members of the "Notre Dame 88") finally dropped by Notre Dame

As the two year May 17th anniversary of the protests for the giving of an award to then new President Barack Obama, approaches.

Here are some postings I'd put up at the time. Brigid makes the news at Notre Dame today, Brigid took all these pictures at Notre Dame, Brigid's home, safe and sound and there's plenty more if you type in the search box on the upper right - "Notre Dame", as I chronicled the trespassing charges wending their way through the Indiana court system.

And here's an interesting picture Brigid took - the woman on the left is Norma McCorvey, the original Roe in Roe v. Wade, who is now prolife. Next to her is Father Norman Weslin, and on the right Joan Andrews Bell. All three of them were arrested.

ND could have (& should have) had the charges dropped at any time. In a normal civil disobedience case the charges are normally dropped within a month or two, or there's a settlement that stipulates the protestors arraignment and the couple of hours they spent in the police station are enough.  BUT, Notre Dame was concerned that if they simply dropped the charges, they'd be civilly sued for violating the civil rights of the protestors. A reasonable fear on their part. The campus is open to the public, nothing was blocked or disrupted, and all the people were doing is wearing t-shirts (Brigid's said "ProJustice ProLife ProPeace"), carrying signs and singing hymns. It would have been an interesting case ...

Lots of pro bono work was done on behalf of the demonstrators by local South Bend lawyers who agreed with the protest, led by Tom Dixon, pictured below, as well as at least two national Catholic legal organizations.  We are very grateful for everything they did - the attorneys put much, much, more time into this then Brigid did - even with the long trip to Notre Dame and back!

They strongly recommended the final agreement, which dropped all charges and some other annoying limits the University tried to put on people, in return for the protestors agreeing to not sue the University. It was the unanimous opinion of the lawyers that Notre Dame has tried to make amends by supporting some initiatives to help pregnant women, among other things, and that it would not be productive from a prolife perspective to pursue legal action against the University.

Go here for more information, including a link to the final agreement outlining some of the points in the prior paragraph.  The complete story: Notre Dame dismisses charges against the "ND 88"

How can the economy add almost a quarter million jobs, but the unemployment rate still rise?

A common sense question. The Labor Department report last week showe a gain of 244,000 jobs, but unemployment rising two tenths of a per cent to 9.0%.

Howzat?

The National Journal article here tries to explain it, while giving lots of data

U.S. Adds 244,000 Jobs in April, but Unemployment Rises

but then leaves out a crucial point - more people are entering the job hunt then the economy is creating jobs. Many people who were labelled "discouraged workers",and were NOT counted in the unemployment figures - they'd given up looking for work - having re-entered the job market.

 

 

Definitive picture proof Osama bin Laden was taken and buried at sea

 

Sent to me by my friend Joe.

UPDATE: Here's the prior view smuggled out by Rich

 

Bob Woodward: "Death of Osama bin Laden ..."

In the Washington Post on Friday.

Fascinating, and not a very long feature. I thought President's little one liner at the end was quite amusing.

I doubt if anyone has more Washington contacts then Woodward.

Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone call pointed U.S. to compound — and to ‘the pacer’

There was a pause, as if the friend knew that Kuwaiti’s words meant he had returned to bin Laden’s inner circle, and was perhaps at the side of the al-Qaeda leader himself.

The friend replied, “May God facilitate.”

When U.S. intelligence officials learned of this exchange, they knew they had reached a key moment in their decade-long search for al-Qaeda’s founder. The call led them to the unusual, high-walled compound in Abbottabad, a city 35 miles north of Pakistan’s capital.

“This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,” said one U.S. official briefed on the intelligence-gathering leading up to the raid on the compound early Monday.

The exchange and several other pieces of information, other officials said, gave President Obama the confidence to launch a politically risky mission to capture or kill bin Laden, a decision he took despite dissension among his key national security advisers and varying estimates of the likelihood that bin Laden was in the compound. The officials would speak about the collection of intelligence and White House decision making only on the condition that they not be named.

Amazon bringing out an iPad competitor?

Looks like it. I would be interested, since i am thinking of getting a kindle (the Amazon ereader).

Amazon to Release iPad Killer?

Wall Street Journal: Debate over photos shouldn't detract from larger victory

A sensible editorial from two days ago.  

Osama Second-Guessing

President Obama ought to have ordered the release of photographs of Osama bin Laden's corpse. The terrorist mastermind deserved a burial without a dignified religious ceremony. And Administration officials blundered in not getting their story straight about whether bin Laden offered armed resistance before he was shot.

That's our view. We also think critics should give the Administration some benefit of the doubt on these difficult choices.

******

We would have preferred to see Osama dispatched to Guantanamo and interrogated—roughly if necessary. But we won't second-guess a Navy Seal's decision to shoot first during a perilous nighttime raid. And if it turns out that Mr. Obama ordered bin Laden killed, we also would not quarrel too much. Mr. Obama would never have ordered a difficult interrogation, and a trial might have lasted years. At least the Administration corrected its own chronology, and quickly.

Charles McCord retires from "Imus in the Morning"

This morning was his last day.

Here's the uhhh, tribute from the show. Sorry for the commercial.

 

Rugby: Gigantic drop goal

A drop kick (worth three points) of close to 70 yards.

 

Jim Caviezel, star of Mel Gibson's "Passion", speaks

The man who played Jesus in the film "The Passion of the Christ".

My friend Linda sent me this article, which is only a few paragraphs long.

Actor Jim Caviezel, his voice sometimes cracking with emotion, spoke of being "rejected in my own industry," the problems of his friend Mel Gibson and his son's cancer in an appearance Saturday night at First Baptist Church of Orlando.

 Caviezel has said his faith is his guide, both personally and professionally. He speaks of being "called" to the acting profession and says it was no coincidence that "in my 33rd year, I was called to play Jesus." He even joked about his initials — J.C. — with Gibson at the time of his casting, which "freaked him out a little."

Caviezel and his wife have adopted "special-needs" children from China, and one has cancer.

"Maybe God, through my son's death, is going to teach me something."

Washington Post "On Faith" column by Jennifer Fulwiller: "How John Paul II Changed my Life"

Several years ago I read a column in the Jesuit magazine America, written by this woman. I even posted about it here -  A remarkable story; one women's journey from pro-choice atheist to pro-life Catholic.

She'a a website designer - and now a writer, with a popular blog. I corresponded with her by email several times.

The whole article is short - 545 words.

How Pope John Paul II changed my life 

The first time I took notice of Pope John Paul II was at his funeral. I was an atheist, as I had been for the duration of his pontificate, and I sat with my husband, a non-practicing Baptist, to watch the coverage. We hadn’t planned to tune in for the event, but both of us were intrigued by the enormous world response.

******

Despite the fact that I found this religion to be imminently reasonable, I still couldn’t convert until I saw some kind of evidence that its doctrines were divinely-guided, as it claimed they were. After months of reading, I discovered the writings of John Paul II, specifically his Theology of the Body. What I found was a counter-cultural, brilliant yet counter-intuitive wisdom like I’d never encountered before.

******

I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing John Paul II while he was alive, yet I am one of thousands -- perhaps millions -- who has been touched by his legacy.

Ann Coulter on Osama and Obama

Clever, as she usually is...

Next Time, use Fedex

Obama gets to reap the rewards of Bush-era terrorism policies -- policies that he, his fellow Democrats and Jane Mayer hysterically denounced at the time -- while Reagan and Bush had to deal with the consequences of Carter's Iranian policy and Clinton's bin Laden policy. 

Tueday night's no-hitter

The first of the season.  Pitching againsst the White Sox, Minnesota Twins Francisco Liriano walked six and only struck out two, and got some help with a bad call by the first base umpire in the eighth.

Liriano had never thrown a complete game - let alone a no hitter - in his entire major or minor league career.

The final score was 1-0.

Minnesota Twins left-hander Francisco Liriano was among the last pitchers anyone would have picked to throw this season’s first no-hitter.

Just about everything was stacked against him, including his natural talent; his fastball velocity is down, his slider hasn’t moved as it has in previous seasons and he is having trouble controlling his entire repertoire.

That's baseball.

A former SEAL speaks with Rush Limbaugh

I heard this conversation on the radio yesterday; an interesting conversation.

Hit the link for the whole thing.

RUSH: To North Carolina. This is Greg, who says he's a former SEAL. It's great to have you on the program, sir. Welcome.

CALLER: Yeah. But one thing I would like to say if you'd permit me, is I really believe that this decision... I believe that President Obama's hand was forced in this, and this is really just a crass political decision. When I hear people say that this took courage, I just believe he was absolutely forced into doing this.

RUSH: Yeah, because somebody came and said, "We got Osama." So he's got to do something.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: We've got Osama so we've got to do something.

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: If he wouldn't have acted I assure you the information would have been leaked prior to the election cycle.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And he would have had to have dealt with that, and frankly if that came to knowledge late in the election cycle, our next president would be either Hillary Clinton or whoever the Republicans nominated.

Right. There's no question that they had to get Osama when they knew where he was; the issue was whether to drop a bomb on him and incinerate the whole compound - and everyone in it - or do the commando mission. The President made the right, and riskier, decision.

Natve Americans unhappy with Bin Laden "Geronimo" code name

I'd mentioned this here yesterday - Bin Laden's code name was "Geronimo" - an insult to Native Americans !

Onondaga Nation leaders blast 'Geronimo' codename for Bin Laden

Onondaga Nation Territory -- Leaders of the Onondaga Nation blasted as “reprehensible” the code name used for Osama bin Laden in the commando assault that killed him: “Geronimo.”

More on the SEALS

SEALS are Standing Taller After Secret Raid

A very cautious stock market view

From an academic who turned to managing money.

Hussman: This Market Is Setting Up Just Like Some Of The Worst Markets Of All Time

Hussman considers this "overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yields syndrome" market similar to those of 6 others in recent history, and more "extreme" than any of those moments

Bin Laden's code name was "Geronimo" - an insult to Native Americans !

Go here.

“We have a visual on Geronimo,” he said.

The link is to Ann Althouse' blog, which also takes you to the original NY Times article.

At least one journalist, and the Vatican, agrees with me about celebrating the death of bin Laden

The night the news broke, I posted this - Good, but somber news .

 Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online - NRO - had a similar feeling

Honk if You Agree

I appreciate justice, but I can’t break out the champagne.

I keep thinking about those who have died in the ten years since 9/11, serving our country. I keep thinking of those who were murdered at the hands of terrorists. 

And that death is never a cause for celebration. 

We should always be uneasy about such things

And here's the Vatican announcement, which I just posted

Vatican statement on the death of Bin Laden

I noticed that almost everyone celebrating in the streets - as if their town had just won the World Series - was young. Which tells me something.

 

Vatican statement on the death of Bin Laden

Vatican Statement on the Death of Osama Bin Laden

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., released the following statement regarding the death of Osama bin Laden:

Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions for this purpose.

In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.

"Seal Team 6" - So classified even their official name is classified

From Business Insider -

Meet The "Seal Team 6", The Bad-Asses Who Killed Osama Bin Laden

The development of SEAL Team 6 was in direct response to the 1980 attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran.

The Team was labeled 6 at the time to confuse Soviet intelligence about the number of SEAL teams in operation at the time. There were only two others.

Team 6 poached the top operatives from other SEAL units and trained them even more intensely from there. Even among proven SEAL's the attrition rate for Team 6 is reported to be nearly half.

There are no names available for current Team 6 members, but the CIA does recruit heavily from their numbers for their Special Operations Group, so it makes sense that they were chosen to work with the CIA on this mission.

Good Daily News wrap-up of attack; with good CBS video

Accordign to CBS, they got to Bin Laden by tracing his favorite courier.

Osama Bin Laden dead: U.S. spies eyed Al Qaeda leader's compound for year before operation

Here's the live twitter tweet of the attack on Bin Laden

On the Wall Street Journal website -

From Abbottabad, Live-Tweeting the Bin Laden Attack

A man in Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin Laden was killed by the U.S. on Monday, inadvertently live-tweeted the attack as it started.

And here's the Reuters report, if you cannot access the WSJ website.

Captured on Twitter: U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden

Athar, a resident of Abbottabad where bin Laden was holed up in a fortified mansion, first noticed the sound of a helicopter and thought it unusual enough to post via his Twitter account.

"I was awake, working on my computer when I heard a sound of helicopter. It was rare here. It hovered for about six minutes and then there was a big blast and power gone," Athar, 34, said in an interview with Reuters.

"I tweeted it because it was something unusual in the city," said Athar, adding that he moved from Lahore to the city a year and a half ago to avoid "bomb blasts and terrorist attacks."

After liveblogging and speculating for several hours over what happened, it dawned on Athar and those following him that they were witnessing the end of a worldwide manhunt for the man held responsible for orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected," said one of Athar's followers.

Joe makes his college choice!

It's Rochester institute of Technology (RIT), for a five year program in electrical engineering. There is a caveat - he is wait-listed at RPI, and if he gets accepted, may opt for Renssellaer.

The background is - we visited three schools where Joe was accepted for electrical engineering - Drexel, RIT, and Catholic University. RIT was his second choice after RPI, which Joe visited as a junior and really loved. We visited Drexel in early March, and Catholic University of America (CUA) in Mid-April.

A word about Catholic University. Not the first place you'd think of for engineering (at least in my mind) but we were pleasantly surprised at how strong their program appeared to be. Excellent presentations by faculty and engineering students, and very good vibes from the whole campus. Had it been me, I probably would have opted for CUA, especially since living as a student in Washington is to my mind an upgrade over the suburbs of Rochester (Oh, and they offered Joe a nice scholarship - 18K - with no strings attached. However their cost is higher then RIT to start with.)  And friends who had childern who'd attended CUA had nothing but good things to say about the school.

But Joe loved the RIT campus, the labs, and the five year coop program. For a year and a half you are working (no tuition and getting paid!) in any one of hundreds of companies that recruit students to work for five month stints. Joe could end up working anywhere in the country for a big company, or overseas.

The presentation by the head of the electrical engineering department, as well as by other faculty and students was excellent.

So that's the story. Here are a few pictures from the day we were on the campus, April first (no April Fools!).

 
Besides engineering RIT has a many other programs, including a huge visual arts program.

 

 
Here are some views of the engineering labs - besides electrical, there are about seven other engineering majors -

 

 
Here is the microelectronics lab - all those small chips thst require a totally clean environment.

 
 

 
Now, HERE'S THE REAL REASON JOE CHOOSE RIT!!

 
The view from ENGINEERING HOUSE, an all engineering dorm floor, that Joe hopes to get into for his first two years. However there are typically many more applicants then places, so we'll see what happens.

 

So that's the story. It was fun visiting all the schools, and the whole thing is pretty exciting. We were also lucky to be able to stay with friends outside of Rochester - we travelled up on a Thursday for the school visit on the Friday. The drive is over six hours. I am going to put up another posting about our stay with Carol and Dick Crossed, and Dorothy Hayes, who joined all of us for dinner Thursday night.

Dueling governors: Connecticut vs. New Jersey

An interesting editorial piece in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend.

the great thing about our federal system is that you can have statewide "laboratory's" try ing out differnet ideas - like Massachusetts when they inroduced universal (or almost universal) healthcare.

In a couple of years we'll have some idea whether fiscal conservativism (New Jersey) or higher taxes-for-services liberalism (Connecticut) is the better approach for a northeast state.

"The Anti-Christie"

 That's how Connecticut's Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy describes himself in contrast to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and we'd have to say he's right. Nutmeg State residents will pay for the appellation.

Whereas Mr. Christie has vetoed tax increases, cut spending and is trying to reform public pensions, Mr. Malloy wants to close the Connecticut budget deficit with a huge tax hike and the legislature in Hartford may approve it as early as next week. It's worth exploring Connecticut's tax gamble, not least because it is so at odds with the fiscal strategy that most Republican Governors and New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo are employing to repair their state finances.

The Yankee Institute, a free market think tank, counts some two dozen new taxes in Mr. Malloy's budget. He would raise taxes on cigarettes, gasoline, Internet sales, drugs, booze and wealthy estates. Property tax bills would climb by $500 for the average homeowner.

He also wants to kick every Connecticut worker with earnings above $50,000 into a higher tax bracket. Those who make more than $500,000 would see their tax rate rise to 6.7% from 6.5%. Even that's not enough for Democrats in the legislature who want to raise it to 7%.

OK, let's see what happens. Malloy won the CT. governorship by a razor-thin margin.

Good, but somber news

I'm glad Bin Laden is gone, but not too keen on the street celebrations going on now.

FULL DISCLOSURE: - I knew seven people killed on 9/11, including a young man My friend, Tom Knox  who I knew very well.

I'm afraid the war against terrorism will go on for decades.

John Paul II Beatified

A million to a million and a half people attended.

 

Report from the gym - Tim squats 300 pounds.

Pretty good for a 14 year old who started lifting in mid-December. Of course he has the potential to build himself up, and he's doing it.

Yesterday Tim broke his previous PB (personal best) of two reps at 290, by doing two reps at 300, with good form; to parallel. Joe took these two pictures as Tim was rising and lifting the weight back up on the first rep. Tim didn't know Joe was going to take a picture; he never would have done the lifts if he knew. Next time, we'll do a quick video (maybe at 400!).

The boy in the left is Michael Feeney, a friend of Tim's who is a freshman at Fordham Prep.

 

and this - first rep done, one to go! The squat is the most important lift for a football player, but as you can see, Tim has also been doing some arm work!