Where Did It All Go?

Indeed…      

    

The Underwear Bomber, whose lawyer wanted the judge to go soft on and who is part of the reason why people are groped at the airport, has been sentenced to life in prison:

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for trying to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underwear.

"This was an act of terrorism that cannot be quibbled with," said U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who imposed the maximum sentence allowed.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 25, showed no emotion when Edmunds pronounced the sentence, sitting with his hands clasped under his chin, elbows resting on the arms of his chair at the defense table.

The bomb caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam carrying 289 people on December 25. He was quickly subdued by passengers and crew and the fire extinguished.

Since then, U.S. officials have sought to bolster airport security, deploying full-body scanners to try to detect explosives.

School-provided chicken nuggets are apparently healthier than a turkey and cheese sandwich and a banana:

Notice in the story that the child was not "forced" to consume the State-provided meal, whether in addition to or in replacement of her lunch from home.  She was, however, compelled to accept it.  It did not matter that her mother had provided a perfectly wholesome meal for her daughter.  The State said the lunch from home was insufficient.  The girl was only four years old.  Imagine, if you can, the fearsome and imposing intimidation an adult can have over the psyche of a tiny child.  Imagine, then, that this authority figure has told you that the lunch given to you by your mother was not good enough; and, that you must eat what the school (i.e. government) gives you.  Let that sink in for a moment.  The State, at least in this one case, is already establishing its supra-paternal power of authority over a child that in all respects should be at home with the care and protection of her mother.  The State is asserting its authority over the child in defiance of parental rights.  Furthermore, the premise of the debate has been falsely framed by the State.  What if the child had a lunch of dry toast and a slice of cheese?  Is the next step in this process a visit to this girl's home by the Division of Child and Family Services for a broad-based audit of her living conditions?  That we willingly allow the State to be the final determining authority of our children's diet has alarming implications that far exceed nutritional concerns.  In the case of this young girl in the Hoke County public schools, we are witnessing a purposeful usurpation of the State over the parent in the raising of children.

No one wants children to go hungry or to consume day-after-day sugary/salty/fatty/greasy foods while playing with i-PODs their single mothers told the welfarists they were too poor to buy but this nutritional brow-beating is the tip of the iceberg. First, children are going hungry so we must empty our pockets of coffee money to feed them, even if the entire thing is a scam, a packed lunch is more affordable than one thinks, isn’t that healthy or is actually a way out for the most idle. Now, only the state can determine what is suitable to go into a packed lunch and what isn’t, whether one likes it or not. Short-term unsustainable solutions to hunger without the discovery and resolution of root problems have allowed the state one further reach and that is the ultimate decision of what goes in a kid’s stomach. Lazy parents might feed their kids a bag of potato chips and that’s not an ideal meal. That might not even be typical of a how a household is run if the meddler-in-chief fails to investigate (should it come to that and it usually does). Then again, for every meddling bureaucrat dressed in the finery of good intentions, there is a road or bridge in need of repair. You know- the things the state should be working on instead of trying to be a de facto parent. 

I’ve seen it and it’s no surprise:

Western schoolchildren are up to three years behind those in China's Shanghai and success in Asian education is not just the product of pushy "tiger" parents, an Australian report released Friday said.

The study by independent think-tank The Grattan Institute said East Asia was the centre of high performance in schools with four of the world's top systems in the region -- Hong Kong, South Korea, Shanghai and Singapore.

"In Shanghai, the average 15-year-old mathematics student is performing at a level two to three years above his or her counterpart in Australia, the USA and Europe," Grattan's school education programme director Ben Jensen said.

"That has profound consequences. As economic power is shifting from West to East, high performance in education is too."

Students in South Korea were a year ahead of those in the US and European Union in reading and seven months ahead of Australian pupils, said the report, using data from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment.

Say whatever you want but education and hard work are not prized in North America just as innovation is scarce in Asia. Continue treating Western students like unique little snowflakes- just like everyone else- while Asian students are the shovel that pushes them out of the way.

What this guy said:

I believe liberals adopt their beliefs not because they actually believe them but because it makes dad mad. Patriarchs are an easy villain and antagonizing them has become a political doctrine in itself. The left’s entire raison d’être is nothing more than a teenager puffing his chest out and saying to his father, “Oh yeah?” 

Scratch a liberal/leftist, find some guy who wants to fry his dad. Oedipal.

Star-spangled communism vs. the Church? Hhhmmmm…

In short, American communists and the radical left generally have long targeted the Roman Catholic Church.  They know their enemy, one that is both spiritual and eternal.  They have long attempted to pit Protestants and Catholics against each other.  It's an old art, really, that's today totally forgotten.

And so, is this tactic being resurrected right now under Barack Obama?  Is this more of the "fundamental transformation" we were promised -- elected by oblivious Americans in November 2008?

If Obama can frame his mandate as a matter of contraceptive freedom -- rather than an obvious constitutional affront on religious liberty -- he may be able to successfully pit large numbers of Protestants and even many Catholics against the institutional Catholic Church.  It would be the kind of religious agitation that would make the Marxists of the last century -- particularly Obama's mentor -- very proud.  How's that for "hope" and "change"?

Let’s just say this wouldn’t surprise me.

What Zilla said. Really.

As long as they are banning Christmas, everything is coming up roses:

We can’t even question religion being practiced in public schools.

That’s the message the majority of Ottawa-Carleton Public School Board trustees sent out earlier this week when they voted on a motion put before them.

Pam FitzGerald is Zone 5 College Ward trustee for the board.

She put forward the following motion at the Feb. 14 meeting

“THAT staff be directed to prepare a report for the May 2012 Strategic Planning and Priorities Committee meeting detailing policy and procedure(s) currently in place which addresses the subject of religious services within schools, during school hours and ensure all schools adhere to applicable law.”

The motion failed 8-4.

But at a previous meeting the majority of trustees seemed to be behind it.

FitzGerald believes they were persuaded by people attending the meeting to change their tune.

“There was one woman who told me that God is mad at me,” said FitzGerald.

If that’s the rhetoric being tossed around, it’s not hard to imagine some people would change their vote.

Read that motion carefully. It’s asking that the school board make sure they comply with the law. And trustees opted against that?

“The law says there is not supposed to be religious services during the school day. We need to respect the law.”

FitzGerald wants to officially record what’s happening in our schools.

“I just want to find out what’s going on in the schools.”

The parents in her ward have been asking her to do this for a while, she’s received such calls for more than five years.

She cites one particular incident as alarming.

At Bell High School there was an all-student assembly. Several community leaders were in attendance, including a local imam. Despite the fact it wasn’t a religious gathering, the imam delivered a prayer in Arabic to the entire student body.

“When I spoke to the principal a couple days later, he first saw nothing wrong with the situation.”

If he doesn’t see anything wrong with that, I imagine most of the parents at his school would see something wrong with him.

So it was sown, so it will be reaped.

Related: in the province where not supporting Francophone language and culture is a crime, it is mandatory to leave your kids in “ethics classes”- whether you like it or not:

Canada's top court on Friday rejected an appeal from parents in Quebec who sought the right to keep their children out of an ethics and religious culture program taught in the province's schools.

The program, which was introduced in 2008 to elementary and high schools by the provincial Education Ministry, replaced religion classes with a curriculum covering all major faiths found in Quebec culture, including Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and aboriginal beliefs.

"Exposing children to a comprehensive presentation of various religions without forcing the children to join them does not constitute an indoctrination of students that would infringe the freedom of religion of L and J [the appellants]," Madam Justice Marie Deschamps wrote in the main ruling.

"Furthermore, the early exposure of children to realities that differ from those in their immediate family environment is a fact of life in society. The suggestion that exposing children to a variety of religious facts in itself infringes their religious freedom or that of their parents amounts to a rejection of the multicultural reality of Canadian society and ignores the Quebec government’s obligations with regard to public education."

The top court said that the appellants had not proven that the ethics and religion course infringed their freedom of religion, nor that the refusal of the school board to exempt their children had violated their constitutional rights.

Imagine the case was for Catholic classes and watch the fur fly.

Why do we need activist judges?

 

And now, Bart Simpson and his chalkboard.

Stuff For a Thursday

Here it is....


How much the Drummond Report was like a refreshing punch to the kidneys. Except that being punched in the kidneys hurts and is not at all refreshing, nor should anyone do such a thing. Things are grim, is my point:

Clearly, Ontarians want their health care system not only sustained, but also improved. Can fears of unsustainability — that the system will not remain affordable — be eased by proposing some of the more obvious — or at least most often cited — solutions? Again, unfortunately, there is no straightforward response. Sustainability involves many moving parts; any number of changes to the equation can render health care more sustainable or less so. Three of the moving parts come to mind:

• First, stronger productivity growth, by generating more economic growth, would make it easier to afford more health care spending. But even if productivity growth doubled from its low levels of the past decade, trend growth in nominal GDP would still fall far short of the projected increases in health care spending. In any case, such an aggressive assumption about productivity growth is mere wishful thinking since we have no ready answers on how to revive it. Wishful thinking, needless to say, cannot be the foundation of a policy response to the sustainability issue.
• Second, we could afford more health care if we raised taxes, but tax rates would have to rise persistently to keep the new revenue received above income growth. This might generate voter tax fatigue and would inevitably result in broader economic losses as the economic distortions induced by rising taxes magnified.
• Third, we could restrain all other government spending severely to leave more room for health care. But as TD Economics pointed out, status quo trends suggest that by 2030, health care would account for 80 per cent of Ontario’s program spending. The remaining 20 per cent would not even cover the current education system, let alone any other public services.

It goes almost without saying that these are not solutions; the status quo growth path of health care spending needs to be curbed. At the same time, much of the Ontario health care system not only can be improved, but calls out for improvement.

 Oh, I'm sure this is going to help:

The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly ratcheted up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday by overwhelmingly approving a resolution that endorses an Arab League plan calling for him to step aside.

The initial count showed that the resolution, which is similar to one Russia and China vetoed in the Security Council on February 4, received 137 votes in favor, 12 against and 17 abstentions, though three delegations said their votes failed to register on the electronic board.

Russia and China were among those opposing the resolution, which was drafted by Saudi Arabia and submitted by Egypt on behalf of Arab U.N. delegations. Unlike in the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, and its decisions lack the legal force of council resolutions.

"Today the U.N. General Assembly sent a clear message to the people of Syria - the world is with you," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement.

"An overwhelming majority of UN member states have backed the plan put forward by the Arab League to end the suffering of Syrians," she said. "Bashar al-Assad has never been more isolated."

Well that's going to show him!


Where were they a year ago?



Some people deserve to rot in hell. Like this lady.



I wonder how this wastrel is going to suck moolah out of the mullahs in Tehran:

Former Roseau River chief Terry Nelson is asking Iran for help with the governance issues on his and other First Nations.

A referendum on how Roseau River chooses its leaders was postponed Thursday. Aboriginal Affairs said it needed more time to work with the community, which has been plagued by issues at the ballot box.

When the news came down Thursday, Nelson decided to lead a caravan of cars to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in about two weeks. He plans to thank Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his condemnation of Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people, and ask him for help in bringing attention to the issue of missing and murdered women.

“I am not going to spend my time trying to get the immigrant governments to hear our plight, it is time to ask other nations to investigate and support us directly,” he wrote.

“Ottawa police and RCMP are just going to have beat women, children and men to keep us from attending to the embassies.”

Nelson plans to hold a press conference in Roseau River Friday to detail his plans.

“I don’t want violence to be the only option left for my community. They should have had a simple referendum to allow the people to decide, but now what options do the people have?”

Financial and emotional blackmail is not beneath sleaze like him. Idiot.


(Mamnoon)



Why Celebrity Apartheid Week matters: if Sean "Pig" Penn really loved Hugo Chavez, he would move in with him:

Actor Sean Penn criticized Republican presidential candidates during a visit to Venezuela on Thursday, saying that right-wing policies in the United States aim to benefit the wealthy....

Penn said he doesn’t think “the use of those exploitive sort of demonizations will be very beneficial to this crew of candidates.”

“That would be the least amongst their weaknesses,” Penn said. “It’s never predictable what can happen in an American election, but we certainly believe at this point that it’s becoming increasingly clear to the American people that the policies of the far right are the policies of the rich, and that they are to the exclusion of the middle class and the poor, and that no society has a future on that basis.”

The Oscar-winning actor has met with Chavez several times in Venezuela and has a friendly relationship with the leftist leader.

 
The delicious periodic table done in cupcake form.



Mmmm.... frosted boron....


Perhaps an inventive teacher could teach the periodic table WITH cupcakes, having the students decorate the cupcakes with the appropriate number of sprinkles for atomic numbers and such.


Just a thought.


We knew this had to happen: LEGO Blade Runner.

Rather Belated Mail

Bumping this up for a respondent who was rather late in the game.


Better late than never, I guess.


This comment is for a post I did six years ago. First, the post:

This is why you can't have a "dialogue" with these people. Not that it is morally or intellectually repugnant to do so but impossible.

Just read the words of Saudi cleric, Salman al-Oda:

Nobody says you should face your enemy in the battle with roses or aromatic plants, or that you should give him your head on a platter. Even Christianity, which says that if you are struck on the right cheek, you should turn your left cheek, and if you are asked to give your coat, you should give your shirt as well, also includes the words of Jesus: “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.” As we see, the Christians today are the ones who attack the world of Islam. It is not the world of Islam that is aggressive. Who colonized whom? Who invaded Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and every piece of the world of Islam? The Islamic world is subject to the aggression, the strikes, and the colonialism of the Western powers. Today, we see that the extremist, terrorist American and British administrations are attacking the Islamic world, supporting all the forces of violence and extremism, and abandoning the scales of justice.

Now you listen to me, you piece of crap, the founder of Christianity did not murder others, burn libraries, wage wars or deflower children. If you had the brains to read the entirety of the Pope's address and understand the message of a true religion of peace (the one founded by, as you may remember, "a monkey on the cross" ), then you would know that violence defies reason and is not conjunctive to the human soul, that Pope Benedict XVI was QUOTING a man under seige from lovely representatives of your backward religion and has been studying Islam extensively and that everything the Pope said was proven over and over and over again. Remember, too, that the West did not SHOOT A NUN IN THE BACK (a true martyr and a servant of God who looked after YOUR poor and suffering). There are no American, British or Zionist conspiracies. No one is trying to get you, least of all Christians (you know- whose churches you burn and from whom you demand jeziya- protection money- the pure gratitude of not being beaten up your thugs). You must think the rest of the world is stupid but you. YOU cause your own problems with your violence and ignorance.

I would like to take up Emperor Manuel II Paleogus' question: show me what good Islam has done for society. Where are the hospitals and schools (not the madrassas that recruit future suicide-bombers)? Where are the bodies of art, literature and philosophy? How many wells were dug? How many children immunised? What have you done to make everyone think that yours truly is a religion of peace and not a band of thugs who maim and butcher?

Let the world know when you think of an answer.

Now the comment:

Boy, you didn't just say deflower children and Pope in the same sentence did you? that, is as they say, rich. on Just Insufferable

Allow me to retort...


Yeah, I did. The Pope didn't harm any children but did take steps to remove the truly criminal among the Church's ranks AND fried the perpetually angry who do have it in their creed to deflower children and have done so.


I hope that answers your question and thanks for posting.

Mid-Week Post

The crux of the work week….

Economist Don Drummond has bad news for McGuinty:

The Ontario government needs to “swiftly and boldly” implement all of the hundreds of recommendations in a massive report released Wednesday if it wants to eliminate a projected $30.2 billion deficit by 2017, warns economist Don Drummond.

“Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a harsh reality in identity here,” said Mr. Drummond, author of the 543-page report and former chief economist with TD Bank.

The audit, which took nearly a year to complete, offered 362 recommendations in various sectors including health care, education, social programs, justice and labour relations.

Ontario is living beyond its means right now, Mr. Drummond said in a news conference.

“In each sector we looked at, we can certainly both improve the quality of the service and cut the spending associated with it, but only if we introduce reforms. Not if we continue with the same approach,” he said.
Among his harshest proposals, Mr. Drummond suggests the government instill a wage freeze for doctors, that departments should not budget for any wage increases, improve the delivery of health services and ask Ottawa to be responsible for inmates sentenced to incarceration longer than six months.

The report also asks the government to consider axing full-day kindergarten, increase class sizes and raise the retirement age for teachers.

In its 2011 budget, the Ontario government had projected its deficit to climb to $16-billion, but Mr. Drummond says his projects peg it at more than double that if the province continues its current spending.

Why was he re-elected? 

The melodrama carries over to another generation: 

Liberal MP Justin Trudeau put his foot in his mouth during a 16 minute radio interview in French with Radio-Canada.

No, he didn't use an expletive this time, he did something, some would argue, is much worse.

According to the Globe and Mail, Trudeau offered a scenario whereby he might support Quebec separation.

"I always say, if at a certain point, I believe that Canada was really the Canada of Stephen Harper — that we were going against abortion, and we were going against gay marriage and we were going backwards in 10,000 different ways — maybe I would think about wanting to make Quebec a country," the Globe and Mail quoted him saying.

Trudeau has since backtracked on his comments tweeting "Canada needs [Quebec] to balance out Harper's vision that I (and many) just don't support."

Like father, like son. 

The price one pays for waking up:

Given the incredible density of the popular Liberal mind, how the readers of my articles were unable to see how the beliefs of Islam were in direct conflict with human rights, gay rights, women’s rights and basic Democratic Values, I wrote a final piece called, “Are You In Favor of Human Rights?” and that one of course got me banned from Daily Kos.  It should be noted that in one of the Loonwatch.com articles the author, a person simply calling himself “Danios” demanded that DKOS silence me and provided a link for its readers to email the editors of the Daily Kos, demanding that this “Islamophobe” be censored.  And it worked – once again proving the oil and water relationship between Islam and tolerance for free speech.

Read the whole thing.

The knee-jerk reactionaryism, the Islamist apologetics and the demand for censorship are not uncommon in liberal/leftist circles. Why such people are called “progressives” boggles my mind. Had they the vast treasure trove of proof and logic on their side, surely they would put to rest anything they thought was false and inflammatory. But there is no such treasure trove. All they have is their naivety and contrarian attitudes.

Could this be another person unable to pick up on inter-personal cues?

Using data from previous studies in Britain, researchers at Brock University in Canada claim to have discovered a relationship between IQ scores and political orientation.  The study suggests that persons of lower IQ choose to be conservatives because conservatism opposes change and is thus "safer" for those who are slow to adapt.  Not only that, the researchers find that conservatives, being persons of low intelligence, are less tolerant, less original, and less open-minded than others.

In a separate study, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics purports to have found that highly intelligent people tend to identify themselves as liberals and atheists.  Researchers suggest that the link may reflect "evolutionary forces," as smarter humans advance the species with "new thinking," or it may result from smarter individuals competing for status by embracing unconventional and "advanced" ideas. 

There are several fallacies, I believe, behind both of these studies.  Intentionally or not, the "questions asked" -- in this case, IQ tests from as long as forty years ago that measure a subset abstract intelligence but nothing else -- were selected to arrive at the result that libs are smarter.

In fact, on all measures of practical intelligence and performance, conservatives would seem to be brainier.

Standard IQ tests have never been a very good predictor of success because they fail to measure a broad range of mental aptitudes -- everything from mechanical ability to social skills and emotional stability.  Many of these alternative mental aptitudes contribute to one's ability to function in the real world.  They comprise a set of skills that philosophers have traditionally referred to as "good sense," the sort of intelligence that liberals appear to lack entirely if we are to judge from their recent "investments" in green energy and their mishandling of health care reform.  

In contrast to the abstract reasoning measured by standard IQ testing, this deeper intelligence plays a crucial role in making essential life choices.  It involves more than solving problems on paper; it makes possible prudent choices, careful planning, and responsible behavior over the course of an entire lifetime.  The evidence suggests that liberals don't score too well on these benchmarks.  It is a fact, for instance, that those stodgy conservative sorts who marry and stay married over the period of a lifetime live longer.  They also raise children who are less likely to commit crimes, take drugs, or commit suicide.  And they end up donating more to charity and participating more in volunteer activities.  All of these measurements reflect a more profound order of intelligence that exists among conservatives and not among liberals.

Remember- Stephen Harper signed trade agreements with them and “students and creative professionals” are our social betters:

But Apple, like Nike and the Gap before it, inevitably gets extra attention because of its visibility, its success, and its monolithic mystique. When it uses Third World labour, its customers—among whom students and creative professionals are overrepresented—might well expect it to be a force for good. Under Jobs, however, Apple chose to be inscrutable and unresponsive in the face of concerns over suppliers. That strategy has, so far, worked. The company recaptured the global lead in the smartphone market for the fourth quarter of 2011, a year in which its market capitalization grew to over US$400 billion. Its latest quarterly profit was over $13 billion—the most by any company in corporate history. But how quickly might that change if consumers continue, more and more, to question the morality of buying Apple?

It’s undisputed that Foxconn City assembly-line workers face conditions that wouldn’t be tolerated in the West. Most of them live on campus in spartan, cramped dorms, and many do their jobs standing up. Laws limiting the lengths of shifts and the minimum age for workers seem to be flouted fairly routinely. Breaks are all but unheard-of. Workers have occasionally dropped dead on the line from exhaustion.

The factory is closely policed by a brutal security staff, and “troublemakers” who organize, or even meet privately to discuss their rights, find themselves blacklisted.

There has been lingering controversy over the use of hexane, which can cause neurotoxicity after chronic exposure, to clean new touchscreens prior to packaging.

(137 workers were poisoned non-fatally by hexane at another Chinese Apple supplier in 2009, and aluminum-dust explosions at two factories making Apple cases and heat sinks, including one owned by Foxconn, killed four and injured 77 last year.)

But most damning have been the Foxconn suicides: 18 attempts in 2010 and 14 deaths. Analysts were quick to point out that the implied rate of suicide was actually low by general Chinese standards, but what stood out was that 17 of the suicide attempts involved leaps from the roofs of Foxconn buildings. The impression that workers were trying to signal desperation to the world was unavoidable. Foxconn raised pay in Shenzhen and announced other reforms, but the netting it had to erect around its rooftops to discourage jumpers has become a symbol of Taylorist productivity mania run mad. Apple is in the business of selling magic and joy, and images of mass suicide comport poorly with that business model.

Do liberals even listen to themselves when they speak? Do they think before they speak?

This amateurish opinion piece says not:

Ultra liberal Martin Bashir hit a new low on Tuesday, outrageously comparing Rick Santorum to mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin. In a fit of vitriol, the MSNBC anchor also connected the Republican to George Orwell’s Big Brother from 1984. However, the most repugnant moment came when Bashir spewed, “If you listen carefully to Rick Santorum, he sounds more like Stalin than Pope Innocent III.”

Stalin’s useful idiot.

Where's your messiah now, Dawkins? 

(With thanks) 

 

I can’t believe someone would use dogs for evil:

A protest outside the Westminster dog show aimed at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has drawn about a dozen demonstrators and a few pooches.

The half-hour protest Tuesday in New York by Dogs Against Romney took issue with Romney's oft-told story of travelling with his Irish setter. Romney said he put the dog inside a crate and strapped it to the roof rack for a 12-hour drive on a 1983 family vacation.

The protesters held signs that said "Mitt is Mean" and "Dogs Aren't Luggage."

American Kennel Club spokeswoman Lisa Peterson says putting a dog in a crate for car travel is the first step toward responsible dog ownership. But she says the second step is putting that crate inside the car.

Why? Be mad at whichever candidate isn't Obama but leave the dogs out of it. 

And now, a puppy is rescued from a drain pipe:

A tiny four-week-old puppy managed to crawl through a basement grate of his owner's house in west Detroit. The dachshund-pug mix was separated from its mother, and got stuck in the underground drain pipe where he remained overnight.

"It was crying, and I was crying all night, I felt so bad," the dog's owner, who asked not to be identified, told WXYZ News.

The next morning, the Humane Society's emergency rescue department came to the puppy's rescue. Unable to see the dog, rescuers used a stethoscope to track the pup's location.

What happened next was an elaborate rescue, caught on camera, which included an excavator:

"They dug a 7-foot-deep trench to free the canine, which traveled about 15 feet from the drain opening and became wedged within the pipe that connects to a storm drain line beneath the house," UPI reported.

Cats as fonts.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day

Or do they?

Today is the feast day of the patron saint of beekeepers, birds that mate for life and love.

This is interesting:

Iran may reject Western influences, but Valentine's Day has become a growing phenomenon thanks to the romantically minded youth of the Islamic state's affluent classes.

Although the ruling clerics and hardline politicians have been waging a campaign against what they call "decadent" cultural imports, the Christian day dedicated to amorous displays has so far survived.

Part of the reason could be the sheer number of young adults in the country: 60 percent of the 75 million-strong population is under 30, and one Iranian in three is aged 15 to 30.

With many of them unmarried, and with bars, clubs and mixed parties all banned under the country's strict laws, Valentine's Day is increasingly seen as a tolerated courting opportunity -- one whose commercial side is much appreciated by Iranian retailers.

Several shopkeepers in Tehran told AFP that demand for rose bouquets, sentimental cards with the English word "love", chocolate, perfume and even teddy bears was strong, adding to a growing trend of recent years.

And nothing says "love" like a badly made cake.



It is also the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius who developed Cyrillic.

Have you always wanted to know how to say "love" in Russian? Sure you have. Well, you're in luck.

Aaahhh.... the poetry...