Thursday, September 21, 2006

Thursday, September 21 is...

Independence Day (Belize and Armenia)
Freedom Day (Malta)
Mikeli (Latvia)

From Wikipedia:

In ancient Latvia, Miķeļi was a festival held on September 22–September 24, during the dzelzs nedēļa meaning "the week of iron." The holiday was sacred for both Miķelis and Jumis.

The festival held at the end of the harvest season; when Jumis' gift of food had been received.


Here are some things I harvested from this morning's Register:

I didn't see him there, but apparently Marc Hansen was at the school board meeting in West Des Moines Monday night to discuss The Laramie Project. He shares a few lines I wish I had come up with:

By most accounts, almost everyone was calm and civil at Monday's meeting, including the people who felt the play promoted the "gay agenda."

That's the weakest argument against dumping the production, if you ask me. If the "gay agenda" means trying to stop folks from tying gay people to fences and beating them to death, maybe they're right. That would be a good agenda to promote.

But does the Matthew Shepard story make you so sympathetic to the cause you're suddenly gung-ho for same-sex marriage? A world-class long jumper would have trouble making that leap.

And if "gay agenda" means pushing an alternative lifestyle, it's hard to see how being brutalized and left for dead is such an enticing advertisement.


Earlier this week I commented on the Kerry beer bong picture from Saturday, mainly because State 29 wrote a great caption for it. Today, it's back in the Register, along with this gem of a quote:

The New York Times said Kerry, considering a 2008 run for president, "learned his lesson" about the peril of wading into "festive" environments.

The Times said Kerry's spokesman, David Wade, stressed that Kerry did not try the beer bong and joked, "Actually, since we were in Iowa, it was probably filled with ethanol."


Finally, this morning we get news that the city of Clive is disappointed with their new red light cameras. They expected to make $85,000 in August, but only made $3535. They, of course, blame the system.

I'm going to blame their math. I'm guessing the company that installed the cameras gets a cut of every $75 red-light citation, but even if they didn't, to generate $85,000 in revenue, they would have to catch 1134 people running red lights, in one suburb, in one month.

If half that many people ran red lights in Clive, a crew would have to be stationed at 100th and Hickman 24/7 to pull wrecked cars out of the intersection.

KL

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