Goooaaaallll!!!

This morning, Kate scored her first soccer goal of the season in just her second game. What's funny is that Kate's never struck me as the athletic type. She hates to work, and abhors sweat. But she actually has some skills.

Here's to the Sharks first win of the season.

Hee Hee

Apparently, the Evangelical Lutherans drank the Kool-Aid too.

Millions of Lutherans will be able to sing a new song -- actually some 300 new songs -- to the Lord in an updated worship book that offers more options for contemporary worship and less emphasis on exclusively masculine images of God.

The Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gave the proposed new prayer book and hymnal a thumbs up by a 740-250 vote Wednesday at its biennial meeting. The action allows church officials to make final revisions to the new volume scheduled for publication in October 2006.

Not everyone was happy. Some delegates said the church had been too distracted with sexuality issues to give full attention to the worship book. Others protested a "totalitarian" process in eliminating male imagery for God from worship.

The changes in the language about God "will be like a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" to many in the church, said Larry Kallem of Iowa.

Before the final vote, proposals to keep the current Lutheran book of worship, which was published in 1978, and to delay any action until 2009 were overwhelmingly turned down.

Then, after two hours of debate, delegates gave sustained applause for the approval of work on the new book that attempts to be open to different cultures and new musical styles. It will offer alternatives such as "Holy Eternal Majesty, Holy Incarnate Word, Holy Abiding Spirit" for the male-dominated Trinitarian image of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in prayers during Sunday services.

I'm Speechless

From Johannesburg, South Africa:

The hunt is on for three women who ambushed a 30-year-old man and forced him to have sex with them at gunpoint.

According to police spokeswoman Paula Nothnagel, a case of indecent assault had been opened and identity kits would be released soon. The man cannot be named because of the nature of the offence.

Nothnagel said that on Saturday night the man was walking through Roodepoort when the women pulled up next to him in their maroon BMW.
They asked him for directions to the Savoy Hotel and he got into the car to show them the way.

At the hotel the women persuaded him to join them for a drink, before asking him for directions to yet another hotel.

While on the road to the Station Hotel the women suddenly changed direction and drove to a dark and empty field near the Durban Deep mine.

"One woman produced a firearm and held the man at gunpoint," Nothnagel said.

"The women got undressed and all three took turns to have intercourse with him."

A Plague of Flies

STATE COLLEGE -- Remember the much-discussed stench that swept parts of the Centre Region early this month, just about the time that Penn State spread some powerful manure on nearby farm fields?
Consider this Chapter Two.

In the past two weeks or so, since the stink dissipated, locals have said houseflies are appearing at startling rates -- indoors, at picnics, everywhere. Steve Jacobs, a Penn State extension associate who specializes in entomology, confirmed the reports Wednesday and said that, at least in his anecdotal observations, the housefly population in and around State College seems unusually abundant.

al Ja-Reuters Is At It Again

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood, blocked from fielding its own candidate in Egypt's first presidential elections, is keeping a low profile until November parliamentary polls to avoid conflict with the authorities, observers say.

The moderate Islamist group, prevented from participating in the September 7 presidential election by tough terms on who can stand, says its priority is the legislative elections. Its members, elected as independents, already hold more seats than any other opposition group in parliament.

Moderate?

P-Man Injured At Recess

The boy nearly bit his toungue off yesterday playing tackle football at recess. He received a head to the chin while his toungue was sticking out. Lots of blood but no stitches. At football practice, all of his buddies thought the gash was very cool.

My fatherly advice: Keep your tongue in your mouth when playing football.

That's One Bright, Shiny Coin

I knew Pops should have been a coin dealer.

UC, Hugs, Zimpher and Race

Jason Whitlock weighs in:

Nancy Zimpher, president of the University of Cincinnati, will be hailed in some circles and assailed in others for the bold stance she took with her basketball program.

She basically fired Bob Huggins for recruiting too many poor, academically and socially underprepared black kids. She called off the whole, tired charade.

I offer her praise. I respect her honesty.

She's uninterested in playing statistical games about who did and who
didn't graduate. She's unimpressed with Huggins' charitable activities in and around Cincinnati. She apparently doesn't believe Huggins has a legitimate interest in helping the underclass.

With the Bearcats safely tucked in the money-generating Big East, Zimpher wants to fix the nasty perception that Cincinnati is a halfway house for lawless, difficult-to-educate black basketball players. Getting rid of Huggins is the first step in that process.

I spent the better part of two hours perusing the letters that flew between Huggins' attorney and UC's legal counsel this summer. Zimpher's message was concise and clear.

"Mr. Huggins continues to recruit individuals that exhibit a disregard for the law and respectful behavior," one of the university's letters read. "I fully understand that off-the-court trouble and the poor choices made by student-athletes are not restricted to UC's basketball team. Indeed, such discipline and control issues are a national problem. Yet problems appear to be more prevalent in Mr. Huggins' basketball program."

The letter went on to state that in a 16-year span, 21 of Huggins' players had run afoul of the law in a significant way, including three players/recruits who were scheduled to play at UC this season.

"In short," the letter continued, "although Mr. Huggins may claim some specific successes, the University is seeking an environment and climate where the development of the whole student is sought and the successful education of all our students is realized. And while some may argue that academically challenged individuals who experience difficulty conforming their behavior to appropriate norms deserve a chance at success that a winning college basketball team can provide, UC believes that it can better advance its mission by building a winning program around scholar athletes who earn degrees that will allow them to succeed not only in athletics but more importantly in life generally."

Now we can play games and pretend like we don't know what Zimpher and Cincinnati are saying. But we know what she's saying. We know the type of players Huggins used to resurrect the UC basketball program and garner personal fortune and fame. He raided junior colleges for poor black players, snagged an occasional transfer and patched them around other players from the other side of the tracks.

Those players served their purpose for Huggins. They elevated UC to a level where it would be worthy of joining a major conference, and now Zimpher and UC are ready to wash their hands of Huggins and his image-eroding junior-college players.

Yes, the saga continues. Another institution used poor blacks for its benefit, disrespected them in writing and then kicked them to the curb.
Some will blast Zimpher and UC for its callousness. I won't.

Again, I offer her praise. I respect her honesty.

What must be questioned is the sanity of the black community that continues to allow its youth to be used by institutions that don't respect them.

The University of Cincinnati basically just said that, for 16 years, Bob Huggins had little interest in educating the black athletes he recruited. That's not a secret nor is it much of a surprise. It's probably even unfair to blame Huggins.

The blame falls on the players, their families and the black culture that gleefully participates in and condones this exploitation because a handful of black kids sign NBA contracts.

Cincinnati, just like every other mainstream academic institution, has virtually no interest in properly educating the black underclass. It's not the mission of a mainstream institution. UC, Duke, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio State, USC, Notre Dame and all the rest are set up to educate upper- and middle-class kids.

"Academically challenged individuals who experience difficulty conforming their behavior to appropriate norms" are not wanted at Cincinnati or at Boston College, Nebraska, Texas Tech …

And you know what? It's not in the best interest of those academically challenged individuals to go to Cincinnati. When you go someplace where you're not wanted, you get treated like you're not wanted. You get used. You get used by the well-intentioned basketball coach, the well-intentioned school president, the well-intentioned student body and the well-intentioned professors.

Black athletes participating in Division I sports graduate at an alarmingly low rate because the people running the institutions don't view the athletes as capable of being truly educated, and the institutions are ill-equipped to educate the black underclass.

Again, I want to thank Nancy Zimpher for her honesty and integrity. Maybe one day poor black athletes and their parents will study their history and realize that countless black leaders and professional athletes were educated and groomed at historically black colleges. There's absolutely nothing second-rate about the education, and black students are seven times more likely to graduate at a historically black college than at a mainstream institution.

At first I thought Jason was nuts, then right on, then nuts. I can't make up my mind.

A Slight Omission

In today's Journal of the American Medical Association, five researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, review nearly 2,000 studies on the hotly debated questions. They conclude that legislative proposals to allow fetal pain relief during abortion are not justified by scientific evidence.

But their seven-page article has a weakness: It does not mention that one author is an abortion clinic director, while the lead author - Susan J. Lee, a medical student - once worked for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

JAMA editor-in-chief Catherine D. DeAngelis said she was unaware of this, and acknowledged it might create an appearance of bias that could hurt the journal's credibility. "This is the first I've heard about it," she said. "We ask them to reveal any conflict of interest. I would have published" the disclosure if it had been made.

UCSF obstetrician-gynecologist Eleanor A. Drey, medical director of the abortion clinic at San Francisco General Hospital, said: "We thought it was critical to include an expert in abortion among the authors. I think my presence... should not serve to politicize a scholarly report."

High Gas Prices A Good Thing?

Larry Kudlow writes:

"I say three cheers for higher energy prices. Why? Because I believe in markets. When the price of something goes up, demand falls off (call it conservation) and supply increases (call it new production). We're seeing a tectonic shift."

While higher gas prices sting, I think I agree with Kudlow.

Helping "A Community of Individuals Democratically Find Practical Solutions to Important Contemporary Social Problems"

Who put this fool on the Court:

In a book slated for release next month, Justice Breyer -- among the more liberal members of the court -- gives a detailed insight into his philosophy of deciding cases, namely that the Constitution should be viewed in light of its overarching goal, which he sees as creating a participatory, democratic society. In the process, he offers a rejoinder to a longtime intellectual opponent, Justice Antonin Scalia, who advocates "originalism," or a more literal interpretation of the Constitution's meaning at the time of its writing....

The 161-page book, set for publication Sept. 13, aims to popularize ideas Justice Breyer has already advanced in academic lectures and articles. A judge's task, he says, is construing the Constitution in a way "that helps a community of individuals democratically find practical solutions to important contemporary social problems." He calls that freedom to participate in government "active liberty," a complement to passive liberties that protect the individual from interference by the government....

You Wouldn't Want To Report That

Ralph Peters notes:

What should have made headlines? It would've been nice to see more attention devoted to the complexity and importance of drafting a new constitution for Iraq. But my nomination for the "Greatest Story Never Told" is a quieter one: Locked in a difficult war, the U.S. Army is exceeding its re-enlistment and first-time enlistment goals. Has anybody mentioned that to you?

Remember last spring, when the Army's recruitment efforts fell short for a few months? The media's glee would have made you confuse the New York Times and Air America.

When the Army attempted to explain that enlistments are cyclical and numbers dip at certain times of the year, the media ignored it. All that mattered was the wonderful news that the Army couldn't find enough soldiers. We were warned, in oh-so-solemn tones, that our military was headed for a train wreck.

Now, as the fiscal year nears an end, the Army's numbers look great. Especially in combat units and Iraq, soldiers are re-enlisting at record levels. And you don't hear a whisper about it from the "mainstream media."

You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

Former NFL running back Lawrence Phillips, who was wanted by police for domestic violence, was arrested Sunday after allegedly running his car into three teenagers who argued with him during a pickup football game, police said.

Phillips, 30, was booked on suspicion of attempted murder and domestic abuse and held without bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Web site. It wasn't immediately clear if Phillips had an attorney to represent him.

Police had been seeking Phillips since earlier this month for allegedly attacking his girlfriend twice, once choking her into unconsciousness.

How Much Do Kids Cost?

From columnist Scott Burns:

Let's say that the cost of living for a young married couple without children gets an index number of 100. From there, the revised equivalence scale has an index to represent the cost of living for each size and age of family composition.

A young single person, for instance, would get an index of 71. The arrival of a first child takes the index to 127. The arrival of a second child moves the index to 147.

The index continues to climb as the children age. It reaches 204 when the older child is 6 to 15 years old and peaks at 231 when the older child is 16 to 17. (The index is apparently unaware that some children go to college.) . . . From there the index starts to descend, going down to 186 when only one child is at home (assuming the other isn't at Stanford or Harvard). It reaches a mere 120 when the couple makes ''empty nester" status. It hits 104 when the couple is retired, and bottoms at 57 when a spouse dies.

What does this mean in cold hard dollars? Nothing good - unless you're planning on staying childless:

Between the day we marry (index 100) and the day the index peaks at 231 - a period of about 17 to 19 years - real family income needs to grow at 4.5 percent to 5 percent a year to maintain our standard of living . . . [If] inflation is 2.5 to 3.5 percent, the simple project of marrying and having a family requires income growth of 7 percent to 8.5 percent a year . . . for nearly two decades.

Unfortunately, that rarely happens:

. . . Typical workers can expect a raise of 3.7 percent this year, following an average raise of 3.6 percent in 2004. At best, that's 1 percentage point over the rate of inflation, not the 4.5 to 5 percent a young family will need to avoid a declining standard of living.

That's an average American wage increase, mind you. Since wages have been going up much faster for highly-skilled workers than for the working poor over the last few decades, I think it's safe to say that having children is particularly expensive if you aren't, say, one of Richard Florida's beloved "creatives." And working class parents are also more likely to have large families - so they're really paying through the nose.Burns puts it best:

Many young couples, armed with visceral knowledge of this reality, decide to have fewer children. Some - an increasing number - decide to have none.

What about the others? Are they dumb? No. They are heroes, real everyday heroes.

Can't We Just Build A Really, Really Big Wall

There are only 2,000 Border Patrol agents out along the vast Mexican border at any time, and they are not only undermanned but often outgunned. Attacks on them are at record highs--around 200 in the Tucson Sector so far this year, according to Border Patrol. They are increasingly shot at like tin clowns being plinked by high-school hooligans with carnival-booth air rifles--except that it's hot lead flying from smugglers who move aliens and drugs and, in an increasingly common twofer, aliens hauling drugs as their fee for passage.

Not helpful is a negligent President Bush, forever singing the song of homeland vigilance, but providing only 210 additional Border Patrol agents when Congress called for 2,000. All manner of "OTMs" (Other Than Mexicans) are caught crossing the border--119,000 so far this year. Many are released on our home turf with a "notice to appear" for their deportation hearing. (Since last October, 70,624 have been released, including 50 from "special interest" nations, according to Border Patrol.) Many of these OTMs--98 percent in one Texas district--can't be bothered to show up for their hearing, since by the time the special day rolls around they are putting up your siding or driving your cab . . .

The Space Elevator Idea Lives

It now costs about US $20 000 per kilogram to put objects into orbit. Contrast that rate with the results of a study I recently performed for NASA, which concluded that a single space elevator could reduce the cost of orbiting payloads to a remarkably low $200 a kilogram and that multiple elevators could ultimately push costs down below $10 a kilogram. With space elevators we could eventually make putting people and cargo into space as cheap, kilogram for kilogram, as airlifting them across the Pacific.

The implications of such a dramatic reduction in the cost of getting to Earth orbit are startling. It's a good bet that new industries would blossom as the resources of the solar system became accessible as never before. Take solar power: the idea of building giant collectors in orbit to soak up some of the sun's vast power and beam it back to Earth via microwaves has been around for decades. But the huge size of the collectors has made the idea economically unfeasible with launch technologies based on chemical rockets. With a space elevator's much cheaper launch costs, however, the economics of space-based solar power start looking good. . . . I have found that the schedule for more elevators, after the first, could be compressed to as little as six months. The first country or consortium to finish an elevator would therefore gain an almost unbeatable head start over any competitors.