Subscribe in a reader

An on-line magazine supporting the Ninth Amendment

State of the Union Reviewed

Chuck Simmins | January 31, 2006

Decent performance by the President. Other bloggers seem to see it as strong. I say average. Too long, too many programs, and too many talking points. That’s three toos. We have a cat with six toes, but that is something completely different.
Foreign policy and the war were better, as usual. Still and all, it was [...]

Tonight’s State of the Union

Chuck Simmins | January 31, 2006

As I would write it:
Ladies and gentlemen, America is at war! And we are winning!
This war began decades ago, with hijackings and bombings and murders of Americans. It continues today, but the enemy, our enemy, has lost two of his most important hideouts. For today Iraq and Afghanistan stand with America in this war and [...]

Staff Sgt. Shannon Kay

Chuck Simmins | January 31, 2006

Ledger-Enquirer
The citation accompanying Thursday’s award of the Silver Star to a Fort Benning soldier for his heroic actions in Iraq reads more like an action movie script.
But for Staff Sgt. Shannon Kay, now a member of the 2nd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, what transpired on Dec. 11, 2004, was far from Hollywood fiction.
Then a squad [...]

Black Colleges Survive

Chuck Simmins | January 31, 2006

Washington Post
Xavier University, the nation’s only historically black Catholic university, expected half its 4,100 students would return this semester; instead 3,110 are back on its restored campus, surrounded by uninhabitable houses and boarded-up shopping centers. Tulane University expected three-quarters of its 12,500 students and got 88 percent. Loyola University’s current enrollment of 4,436 amounts to [...]

Red Tape From FEMA

Chuck Simmins | January 31, 2006

Shreveport Times
Because Lafayette’s fiscal year ends Oct. 31, the expedited funds delivered Sept. 22 ensured the city-parish government’s books will be in the black when the audit is complete. Lafayette expects to be paid all outstanding claims long before this fiscal year ends.
But in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Cameron and Orleans parishes, where the tax base [...]

WHO on Avian Flu

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

Deaths:
85 deaths out of 160 cases, as of January 30, 2006. Turkey is listed as having 12 cases and four deaths.

Turkey:
A WHO collaborating laboratory in the United Kingdom has now confirmed 12 of the 21 cases of H5N1 avian influenza previously announced by the Turkish Ministry of Health. All four fatalities are among [...]

Avian Flu in China

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

Washington Times
China has lifted the last of the quarantines placed on areas affected since last year by the H5N1 bird flu virus. The Ministry of Agriculture said a quarantine on Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province, was lifted Saturday morning, the Xinhua state news agency reports.
And this means exactly nothing.

Dumb Idea of the Year

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

It’s still early in the year, I grant you. But the dumbest idea of the year may have already been advanced by the United Nations. Flu-casters.
LA Times
The United Nations is considering using “flu-casters,” modeled on television weather forecasters, to publicize vital information if a global flu pandemic strikes.
They could broadcast the latest developments from emergency-response [...]

Sgt. Michael McMullen

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

Daily Times
“Let not your hearts be troubled,” the chaplain told the mourners. “Pray that the Lord gives us faith to look to the future with hope and confidence.”
The funeral procession — half a dozen fire engines, police and rescue vehicles and hundreds of friends and supporters in vans and chartered buses — left Salisbury at [...]

Terry Kelliher Responds

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

In a forceful and determined response, Terry Kelliher adds to the information surrounding his conviction for forgery which I noted in my post Democrats In Jail. I believe his explanation and defense deserves a broader viewing than in the comments of a post nearly two months old. Here is his comment:
I would like to comment [...]

Recovery continues for Favre

Chuck Simmins | January 30, 2006

Packers News
While Green Bay Packers fans wonder whether Favre will retire this offseason, his mother, Bonita, wonders when the builder will come to pour the foundation so she can rebuild her home. “And the builder is my son, Scott,” she said. “He’s so darn busy building houses he doesn’t have time to get to mine.”
On [...]

China Hides From WHO

Chuck Simmins | January 29, 2006

I dislike the World Health Organization greatly. But I dislike the Chinese Communists even more. Just as they played their little games with SARS, so they are doing so with avian flu.
VOA News
For months, the World Health Organization has expressed frustration over China’s failure to hand over tissue samples from animals that died of the [...]

Col. Rickey Grabowski

Chuck Simmins | January 29, 2006

Daily Gate City
The date of March 23, 2003, will forever be associated with Grabowski’s bravery, according to Marine Corps Col. Ron Bailey, Grabowski’s former commander.
On that date, Grabowski’s battalion fought, under heavy fire, for 17 straight hours as they inched along, attempting to take the Iraqi town of an-Nasiriyah. Eventually, Grabowski and his Marines took [...]