What Excuse Can I Give?

I love DC United. I think they're as close to a home team as I'm gonna get when it comes to MLS - at least until Philly gets their acts together and forms a pro team. At the end of June, when David Beckham's contract is up with Real Madrid he is coming to the States to play for LA Galaxy.

In August Galaxy is coming to RFK Stadium to play United.

Tickets don't go on sale until July 2 and even then everyone is assuming it will sell out quickly. I found an auction on eBay selling tix now. What excuse can I give for buying them? My birthday is out - there's too much else I've already attributed to being my birthday present. How about Earth Day? Is $200 too much to spend for Mother's Day? Cinco de Mayo? Memorial Day? Help me out here people!

Happy Valentine's Day

I can't imagine anything more romantic than this:

Skeleton Couple Locked in Embrace for 5,000 Years

"Buried between 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric lovers are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, as their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig."



Locked in an eternal embrace

"We have found plenty of women embracing children but never a couple. Much less a couple hugging -- and they really are hugging. It's possible that the man died first and then the woman was killed in sacrifice to accompany his soul."

Be Still My Heart

Really does it get any better than David Beckham as Prince Phillip from Disney's Sleeping Beauty photographed by the incredible Annie Leibovitz?

I could die happy right now.

Read up about it here:
Soccer Star David Beckham Becomes Newest Prince for Disney

Who Really Cares?

I read this op in our local paper and was wowed. I'm not particularly a fan of O'Reilly but I would like to read Mr. Brook's book now...

RELEASE: WEEKEND OF DECEMBER 2-3, 2006

CHARITY: IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO

So what are we to make of the fact that conservative Americans donate 30 percent more to charity than liberal Americans? A new book called "Who Really Cares," by Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks, is not going to please the Howard Dean crowd. The book states flat out that religious Americans who vote Republican are far more likely to be generous to the downtrodden than secular-progressives.

The big question is, of course, why? Liberal philosophy is all about "nurturing" people who need help. The "tax the rich" crew can't yell loud enough that more money needs to go to Americans in need. Just not their money.

That may be unfair but probably is not. The cornerstone of liberal economic thought is "income redistribution," that is big government taking assets from the affluent through taxation and giving said assets to the less well off through entitlements like subsidized health care, housing, educational scholarships and the like. The left is also big on imposed "economic justice," things like guaranteed wages and lifetime job security.

But a funny thing happened on the way to socialism. Americans who believe in "income redistribution" give 75 percent less to charity than Americans who do not, according to Dr. Brooks. That is a stunning differential.

I believe this is a religious thing. Secular-progressives believe in individual gratification, and that often takes money. Buying that jazzy new SUV and a vacation home can deplete disposable cash fast. If it's all about you -- then you are thinking about you -- not about poor Dave down the street.

But devoted Christians, Jews and Muslims are compelled to help the poor by their beliefs. Personal gratification is not a big theme in Scripture. Jesus was a huge "help your neighbor" guy. For J.C. it is all about Dave down the street, not the latest material possession.

The statistics say that religious Americans give four times as much money to charity each year than secular people and are 23 times more likely to volunteer to help people than folks who never attend church. And here's another crushing stat: If liberals donated blood at the rate conservatives do, the nation's blood supply would rise 45 percent.

So in this season of giving, Christmas, a word some liberals don't like to say, it might be worth pondering just who is really looking out for the have nots. The leftist media often portrays conservatives as mean, cruel and insensitive to the plight of the downtrodden. But, as the tax returns of multi-millionaires Dick Cheney and Al Gore prove, the media image is false. The vice president gives millions to charity, Mr. Gore very little.

So the next time you hear a big government liberal bloviate about helping the poor, please trot out the statistics mentioned in this column. And then tell that person that in America today giving money to charity seems to be the right thing. What's left is not even close.

Veteran TV news anchor Bill O'Reilly is host of the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" and author of the book "Who's Looking Out For You?" To find out more about Bill O'Reilly, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. This column originates on the Web site www.billoreilly.com.

COPYRIGHT 2006 BillOReilly.com.
Originally Published on Saturday December 2, 2006

In Case Of Death, Break Glass

I have Googlehome set as my home page and one of the personalized items that appears daily is the WikiHow of the Day. Today's WikiHow is "How to Share Your Obituary With Your Online Friends." Interesting reading if you've never thought about it. Since I have a morbid fascination with death, I've already told Steve how to log into all my boards and I made him promise to contact the cross stitch girls before he gets rid of my stash.

Hunka Hunka Hershey's

Hershey to Honor Elvis With Banana Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

Love me slender: Candy fans are all shook up over plans by Hershey (HSY) to sell a peanut butter and banana crème version of its Reese's cup to honor The King.

The King, as in Elvis Presley.

Elvis' favorite sandwich was fried peanut butter and banana - sometimes with honey or slices of bacon added.

So in July, to mark the 30th anniversary of the rock legend's death, Hershey will introduce a limited edition of its chocolate cup featuring a layer of peanut butter and a layer of banana crème.

Heartburn hotel, you say? Perhaps, but Hershey insists that retailers are very excited about it.

"It brings The King's favorite taste of peanut butter and banana to life, and it's a fantastic way to bring two American icons together," said company spokeswoman Stephanie Moritz.

The Reese's Elvis Cup, first reported by Advertising Age, will have a picture of a young, thin Presley on the package. It will hit store shelves in time for Elvis Week in Memphis, to be held from Aug. 11 to 19.

Lifting up a tab on the wrapper will give buyers a chance to win a trip for two to Graceland, the Presley mansion in Memphis.

Article from FOXNews.com

The only thing I can say besides the obvious (I'll be saving every penny I have so I can pull a Veruca) is that it seems funny to me that they have to tell us which Elvis will be on the package. Putting a picture of a bloated, tired Elvis on their peanut butter banana candy would be too reminiscent of the Wheaties campaign. After all you are what you eat.

Amazing News About "Dilbert"

One of the gals on my playgroup board linked me to Scott Adams' blog. He has an amazing story about losing his voice. It's longish but fascinating and well worth the read. For those that don't know, S. Adams is the creator of the office cartoon, Dilbert.

A nurse friend of mine (also on the playgroup board) said many people after having a stroke are only able to speak in rhyme and because the people around them don't understand what is going on, they think the person is just babbling. I have noticed many of the residents where I work tend to like to rhyme and some only ever rhyme. One woman I occassionally take care of has had a stroke and can still speak although she stutters sometimes in the effort to get her words out. But at the end of every sentence, she rhymes. She says things like, "I want to go to bed, head, red."

The brain is a fascinating thing.

I Heart Wolverine

Hurrah! I've just read that Hugh Jackman is planning a solo Wolverine movie. It's to be a prequel to the X-Men movies. One article quoted Jackman as saying, “I don’t want this to feel like X-Men 4. I want this movie to be different in feel. I don’t want it to feel like we’re just flogging a dead horse.”

Read more about the Wolverine movie on VH1.com and Comicbookmovie.com.

Personally, I'm guessing it'll be a bomb since these things usually are (e.g. The Scorpion King, Catwoman, Speed 2 just to name a few) but it won't keep me from watching it. Especially if we get to see Hugh without his shirt again. Whoa baby!

The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

From the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927

Here are the new Ig Nobel Prize winners. Nearly all the winners came to the ceremony. Seven Nobel Laureates handed out the Ig Nobel Prizes.
For details, see:

• The winners (and references)
• The ceremony
• Video of same

ORNITHOLOGY-------------
Ivan R. Schwab, of University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for exploring and explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

NUTRITION-------------
Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.

PEACE-------------
Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible to teenagers but not to their teachers.

ACOUSTICS-------------
D. Lynn Halpern (of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and Brandeis University, and Northwestern University), Randolph Blake (of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University) and James Hillenbrand (of Western Michigan University and Northwestern
University) for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard.

MATHEMATICS-------------
Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.

LITERATURE-------------
Daniel Oppenheimer of Princeton University for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of
Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

MEDICINE-------------
Francis M. Fesmire of the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage"; and Majed Odeh, Harry Bassan, and Arie Oliven of Bnai Zion Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, for their subsequent medical case report also titled "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage."

PHYSICS-------------
Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.

CHEMISTRY-------------
Antonio Mulet, José Javier Benedito and José Bon of the University of Valencia, Spain, and Carmen Rosselló of the University of Illes Balears, in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for their study "Ultrasonic Velocity in Cheddar Cheese as Affected by Temperature."

BIOLOGY-------------
Bart Knols (of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research, in Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna Austria) and Ruurd de Jong (of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy) for showing that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae is attracted equally to the smell of limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet.