Well, this can be a complex question:
Joey is twelve. No, wait, fifteen. His face is twelve. His neck, scarred from pepper spray, is a bitter eighteen. His abdomen, with a line from a stab wound, is a harsh twenty-five. I guess it averages out. Okay then, fifteen it is.
Over My Med Body has the rest of this sad story.
Oh yea, there is plenty more at Grand Rounds Vol. 2, No. 29.
Billmon ponders:
I’ve been trying to picture what the world might look like the day after a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran, but I’m essentially drawing a blank. There simply isn’t a precedent for the world’s dominant superpower turning into a rogue state — much less a rogue state willing to wage nuclear war against potential, even hypothetical, security threats. At that point, we’d truly be through the looking glass.
This shouldn’t be so hard to visualize because it is not a nuclear strike against Iran that is the turning point. That turning point was reached several years ago. The world’s dominant superpower has already turned into a rogue state and we are already on the other side of the looking glass as exemplified by the fact that this discussion is even happening.
There is still some small possibility of getting back to the sane side. Don’t expect your congress critters to lead the way anytime soon.
Is the oath that newly elected officials are supposed to recite in Tequesta, FL unconstitutional?
A newly elected village council member is suing the municipality to have the oath of office declared unconstitutional because it supports the federal government, something he says he does not do.
Basil E. Dalack, 76, an appellate lawyer, also wants the words ”and government” removed from the section that reads, ”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida.” The lawsuit was filed last week in federal court.
The oath violates the Constitution by placing a restraint on Dalack’s right to free speech and denies him, without due process, occupancy of his elective office, the lawsuit states.
Well, it may or may not be constitutuional but this question obscures what should be the real issue.
These electected officials are supposed to be public servants, i.e., they serve the citizens of their jurisdiction. It is these citizens to whom they should be swearing oaths of fealty and their oaths should be similar to a proper pledge of allegiance; something like:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the people of [name your jurisdiction], protect their lives, help them maintain their liberty and assist them in their pursuit of happiness.
To the extent that the Constitution and government of Florida and the US match this then, well, they are supportable.
As a number of others have noted Henley’s great post and the ensuing comment thread which will undoubtably be discussed at length in future histories of the blogosphere.
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?
We will add your post to the list if you do one of the following:
Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about. Time permitting we will continue boardings until the Carnival of the Cats goes up on Sunday.
Do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.
Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders.
Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map. (54 shouts as of 04/06) BTW, the slideshow of the pics folks included is pretty nifty!
Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings.
Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 107th edition will be hosted this week by The Scratching Post. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff’s Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants. Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.
Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 20th edition is up and hosted by the Bootstrap
Analysis.
For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The seventh edition is up at Research at a Snail’s Pace. The 8th edition will be hosted at the end of April by Get Busy Livin’, or Get Busy Bloggin’.
Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.
Alert: Updates may be slow today between 10:30 and 4:30 EDT.
Cats
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Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted “too rapidly” by the same host. I don’t know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I’m sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh….Update (4/7/06): Haloscan has beome much worse. Last week I was able to get TBs through to only a few sites before it stopped accepting them even after long intervals.