Who Stole the Beach?

Ok, when I saw this news story I had to do a double take. Police in Jamaica are investigating into who stole 500 truck loads of sand form a planned resort in Coral Springs. Right now no one is sure who could have done this but by the shear amount of sand taken it seams to have something to do with the hotel industry. Apparently, illegal sand mining is a big problem in Jamaica because having a good beach is considered a valuable asset for hotels. What I would like to know is how could anyone steal 500 truck loads of sand without anybody realizing what's going on? This might have something to do with it:

"There is some suspicion that some police were in collusion with the movers of the sand."
Mark Shields
Deputy Commissioner of Police

Your Pinkie or Football

I can't remember what school it was but an offensive linemen for a D-II college team decided to have a pinkie amputated instead of having surgery on it that would have ended his senior year of playing. And this comes in a week were Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo is out for a month for a broken pinkie on his throwing arm. Now, I don't know wither or not what this college kid did was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid but I guess he thought that football was more impotent to him then his little finger. And besides, there was talk that he might of needed the finger amputated anyway. So, I guess it's best to deal with it sooner then later.

Cheerleaders and Mock Executions

There has been some controversy about this skit by the Nacogdoches High School cheerleading squad were they do a mock execution of the opposing team:






And there even more controversy because an article in the schools newspaper critical of the skit was edited by the school principal.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5996974

Now, like the video says I don't think the cheerleaders meant this in any real mean spirited way but I'd think that someone might have thought "You know this might not be a good idea" before they did this.

Your Civic Duty To Not Vote?

I'm one for these people think that every American that is old enough to vote should vote; no excuses. Well, John Stossel form 20/20 has a different idea. In his article for 20/20 Stossel states that there are people out there whose civil duty should be to not vote on election day because they just don't know enough about the government. Now, there are a bunch of things that I have agreed with Stossel on. This isn't one of them. Do we really want to say that only a privileged few should be aloud to vote and tell how the country goes? I've seen how that works in history class and it isn't pretty. And for those who say "Well I don't know much this election so I'll just not vote." Well for the love of God you have around three weeks before election day. Is it that hard to find a candidate whose political views are close to yours? Not voting is bad enough but to not even get yourself informed so that you don't have to vote is inexcusable.

When Things Get Ugly

You know this election is coming to a close when the real nasty politics start coming in. But here's something I saw in this article from ABC News.

At a rally on Monday in Clearwater, one man shouted "Kill him," according to the Washington Post, after Palin mentioned Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers. It was not clear who made the comment or if the man was referring to Ayers or to Obama, but the Secret Service says it will investigate.

So this is how far we've gone? I think it is ok to question Obama on any association with Bill Ayers but threading him with death is not something you should do. You can't really blame Palin for this because she wasn't the one who said it, but there are those like Kimberly Gross, a professor of political communication at George Washington University who think she should have done something about it:

Gross said politicians had a responsibility to call out their supporters when they say offensive things, not only for the good of their own electoral chances but for the good of the political system.

"In my opinion candidates have a responsibility to say something," she said. "Negative campaigning per se is not absolutely a bad thing, and can be informative. But candidates do us disservice when they create the conditions that can allow a crowd to get out of hand. It just reinforces a cynicism about politics."

I think she has a point. It would be a sign of great respect to call a supporter out when they say an offensive thing and would make me think more highly of them. Unless they want to totally ruin Obama's career which hopefully is not the case.

There is one thing that I always wonder. Bill Ayers is considered a terrorist yet he is a Distinguished Professor at the the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We either must be very forgiving or I'm seriously missing something here.

UPDATE:
I want to thank John McCain for trying to calm the crowd down Friday. It's nice to know that there are people out there that know that you can disagree with someone at still say that they are a good person.

Buy an Endzone for $500,000

This is something interesting. As part of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book the Dallas Cowboys are selling one 530 square yard endzone for $500,000. Of course their are other thing included but you really want endzone don't you? So if you have one really big backyard and lots of money to blow you can have this. But there is more then just this up for sale. Hear are some more:

Every 45 RPM vinyl record that was listed on the Billboard Top 100 Rock and Pop charts from Jan. 1, 1955, through Dec. 31, 1990: $275,000

Medieval and Renaissance Era Rings : $25,000-$45,000

HIS & HERS: Life-Size Replica in LEGO Bricks: $60,000

A Custom Backyard Golf Course Designed by Jack Nicklaus: $1,000,000

On Court Experience With The Harlem Globetrotters: $110,000

Luxury Destination Wedding Package at The Resort at Pelican Hill: $1,300,000

Authentic Guinness Home Pub: $250,000

NM Limited-Edition 2009 BMW Individual 7 Series Sedan: $160,000

There's a whole lot more but this just the some of the most interesting ones. So, if you have a lot of money and aren't suffering from this economic slowdown here are some good gift ideas for Christmas.

Oh The Irony

I'm sure by now you've seen the new Windows commercials were they take a slam at Mac's commercials. Well something interesting came up about them. It seems that some of those commercials were made using Macs. Apparently someone on Flicker discovered traces of Apple's operating system and Adobe's Photoshop CS3 in the still images of the commercials. Of course in response to it Microsoft removed all traces from the images. I guess the the long run it doesn't take away from what the message it but you have got to admit you have to see the irony in this.

Find out more here.