Necessary Roughness

two kingdoms, hundreds of thousands of miles

Archive for May, 2007

Lutheran Carnival L: Golden
Sunday, May 20th, 2007

The mother ship/home office/headquarters of the Lutheran Carnival has posted its fiftieth edition. Random Dan, who started the carnival, takes time out to thank Pastor Walt Snyder and some blogger with a repeating task item on his PDA.
It’s been enjoyable checking out the sites of those who host the carnival and reading the articles. It [...]

Some Punishment
Saturday, May 19th, 2007

Fox News reports that former national security advisor Sandy Berger (a.k.a. Sandy Burglar) will forfeit his law license as an additional punishment for smuggling highly classified documents out of the National Archives.
“I have decided to voluntarily relinquish my license,” Berger said in a statement issued by his attorney, Larry Breuer, in a report in The [...]

Exxon Buys Back Stock
Saturday, May 19th, 2007

BusinessWeek reports that Exxon Mobil, instead of using its world-record profits to build new refineries, is using that impressive cash flow to buy back stock.
Reducing development is a short-term gain but can be a long-term loss. Sure, the shareholders are happy now because their earnings per share is up, but the total value of the [...]

Here I Sell
Friday, May 18th, 2007

Day 1 of the two-day garage sale went quite well. There were a couple of slow times, but there wasn’t ever a time when the lack of activity caused boredom.
We sold some strange things: wooden baby fence, a glass front door that had been ripped off our doorjamb by our Chicago-like winds, the SNES, an [...]

Dumbing Down Torture
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

BBC reports that the Pentagon has released a transcript of a Guantanamo Bay inmate. The Statement of Torture was written while the prisoner’s “enemy combantant” status was reviewed.
Torture — real torture, e.g. pulling fingernails, starvation, etc. — invites heated debate as to its utility and morality. There are real issues to discuss, which are done [...]