DR Panni: You have a pretty daughter with beautiful eyes. You must be proud of her. How old is she?
Purloined Parrots to Get Trip Home
• Agencies join forces to return 90 exotic birds stolen from Mexico.
By Richard Marosi, Times Staff Writer
SAN DIEGO — With help from authorities in two countries, nearly 100 birds headed home Monday.
Dozens of Amazon parrots seized from smugglers in recent months were handed back to Mexican officials as part of an effort to return the birds to their natural habitat in the lowlands and forests of Mexico.
The parrots — 90 lilac crowns and Mexican redheads — were probably stolen from their nests and driven north before U.S. authorities discovered them hidden in two cars crossing the border at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry.
The birds — squeezed into tiny cages with their beaks taped — were found in side panels and under seats. Mexican officials said that, typically, for each bird that survives the journey, about five die.
…
Amazon parrots, which are green with yellow and red crowns, can talk, but those seized had not been around humans long enough to mimic speech, Brooks said.
When parrots do talk, they can help investigations, he added.
In a separate case, a U.S. man who said he kept birds only for breeding purposes came under suspicion for smuggling when the animals started squawking Spanish phrases.
"If the birds are speaking Spanish, that probably leads me to think that they are from across the border," Brooks said.
Higher education in decline,
Posted: December 15, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Walter Williams
© 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Last week's column discussed the sad and tragic state of affairs in higher education. According to loads of letters received in response to that column, it's worse than I thought. Let me share just a few of them.
One person wrote that he knows an elementary school teacher and said, "She believed, until just this past summer, that the state of Alaska was an island because it is so often shown as an inset on many U.S. maps, appearing somewhat like an island."
A professor said that while he was trying to help a student with a problem, he asked her, "What is 20,000 minus 600?" He went on to say, "She literally could not answer without the calculator." He rhetorically questioned, "Should a person receive a college degree that cannot answer that in their head?"
An English professor wrote, "One of the items that I assigned was a two-page essay that described a favorite vacation or holiday. One student turned in two pictures drawn with crayon depicting the beach. When I gave her a failing grade, she was indignant and said that she put a great deal of work into the pictures. When I told her that she did not do the assignment and that she was supposed to write an essay, she said, 'But I don't know what an essay is!'"
Such students are academic cripples and don't belong in college in the first place. Recently released findings of the Program for International Student Assessment ranked U.S. high-school students 24th out of 29 countries. American 15-year-olds demonstrate less math proficiency than their counterparts in Hungary and the Slovak Republic. With those findings, we shouldn't be surprised by a recent U.S. Department of Education study finding that nearly half of all college students must take remedial courses in math and reading. According to National Center for Education Statistics, in 2000, close to 80 percent of colleges offered remedial services.
Several devastating consequences result when colleges admit unprepared students. First, it lets high schools off the hook by allowing them to continue to confer fraudulent diplomas. Second, it leads to a dumbing down of the academic curricula and the creation of Mickey Mouse courses for students who can't make it in more challenging courses. Academic departments or professors who don't dumb down their classes and participate in grade inflation risk declining enrollment and administrative threats to their budgets. Finally, hiring faculty to staff remedial courses inflates college costs to parents and taxpayers.
By the way Jose, I must commend you on your excellent piano playing on the What If? special edition DVD! Your fingers must have been exhausted by the end of the evening!!
Jose - So glad your dad is up and aboot (oops - my years in Canada popped up).
That is good new about your father, Jose!
I got home last night after ushering for a performance by Cherish the Ladies here in Olympia. In my mailbox was NOT the "What If?" DVD (sigh). Hopefully tonight!
Tomorrow I'm taking the day off from work and my niece and I will see the first showing of "The Phantom of the Opera" movie. She got the movie soundtrack, but didn't offer to let me borrow it. I told her that it would make a nice Christmas gift for someone who has the original London, Canadian, German, Mexican and Japanese cast recordings, as well as a studio cast recording. I hope she took the hint!
Quick notes as work is CRAZY today!
Re: Dumbing Down; my 11 yeras old daughter's History teacher when teaching about ancient Eqypt tol dmy daughter there was no such place as the Valley of the Queens. (She has been fascinated with Egypt since the 1st grade) when she argued with him , saying. "Yes there is, Theres a Valley of the Kings and A Valley of the Queens, can you show me wher it is on the map?" he replied "There is no Valley of the Queens, get over it" It was of course with great pleasure that she returend to school the next day with several web and book references to said nonexistent "VOQ"
his reply? "I was just testing you"
THEN , same teacher, assigned a prohject where the kids had to make up a menu as if they were opening a diner in Mestopotamia. She got a 90. He took off 10 points because she had included two items with duck on the menu. He wrote in the margin, "ducks only exist in North America". Today she is bringing in some printouts showing him all the places ducxks are native to, including , yes , Ancient Mesopotamia!! (She plans to demand those 10 points back as well!)
When I finally get a chance to sit down and relax in front of the set, I think maybe I'll watch one of the greatest of all holiday movies - THE SNAKE PIT. :D
Danke.
I'm just trying to figure out how many cities POTO will be opening in tomorrow? All the ads say "selected cities" December 22, then wide release in January. But I keep hearing from friends in various parts of the country right now that are planning on seeing it tomorrow. Heck, even two movie theatres in Richmond are showing it a midnight tonight! I guess it's nice to know that Richmond has made the "selected cities" list.
I don't know if I "got" Ryan in What If? either...I was too busy watching Paul! (I am obsessed, but I can't help it!).
Looks like I am the only one who didn't "get" the rest of Ryan's performance in What If? But that's okay - just the type of performance I respond to in a negative way - always do, but it's subjective, ya know!
Now, I know there are some in the liberal elite who frown on incorporating a falafel into hot sex, especially when it comes to teaching kids how to have hot sex with a falafel, but those high-minded intellectuals are so out of touch with today’s society that I don’t really care what they think. They wouldn’t know hot sex if it drove up on their lawn in a big falafel truck. So let them be pissy about it; but don’t let them ruin your hot sex with a falafel.
So as I was saying, kids, you have to be prepared before starting a task. With that in mind you must know how to make a falafel before you use it for hot sex. Here then is a simple recipe that will help get you on your way.
Ingredients
¾ cup dried chickpeas
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
4 tablespoons coarsely chopped parsley
5000 mg of Levitra®
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
½ teaspoon baking powder
Salt and ground black pepper
Oil for deep frying and putting on sex parts.
Pita bread, salad and yogurt, to serve.
Preparation
Put the chickpeas in a bowl of cold water and let sit overnight.
Drain the chickpeas and cover with water in a pan. Bring to a boil. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes. Reduce heat and let simmer for about 1 hour or until they’re soft like boobs. Drain, and then take off your pants.
Place the cooked chickpeas in a food processor with the onion, garlic, parsley, Levitra®, cumin, coriander, and baking powder. Add salt and pepper to taste. Process until the mixture thickens and forms a paste.
Selected Tips from
Emily Post's
Etiquette for Ukrainian Dinner Parties
Guests should be seated beside their spouses and opposite their assassins.
Use a darkly colored tablecloth, so that spilt wine or bodily fluids are less noticeable.
The large spoon is for soup, the medium spoon for eye-gouging, and the smallest spoon is not to be used until coffee or tea after the meal.
When pulling the ol’ switcheroo, always start with the poisoned goblet to the left of the victim. Goblets should be swapped in a counterclockwise flourish.
Salad is too early to kill, dessert too late.
When choking or strangling, see to it that the victim’s chair is first pulled back six inches from the dinner table, so that his flailing arms and legs do not upset the place setting.
Keep some rolls of paper towels nearby, so as not to ruin the fancy napkins mopping up blood.
When serving poisoned soup, always serve from over the victim’s right side.
If stabbing a guest, do so under the table so that no blood will splatter bystanders or their meals.
After successfully killing your mark, do not shout any victory whoops or slogans in favor your cause. It is uncouth to shout at the dinner table.
Keep the music low enough to maintain pleasant conversation, but loud enough to veil the gurgles of a wounded victim. Bach seldom fails.
No hats.
Always wait for a suitable lull in conversation before stabbing with a butter knife. (Tip: For effectiveness, butter knives should be inserted between the third and fourth ribs.)
Dioxins and dry white wines are best served at a temperature between 8º and 10º centigrade.
Avoid discussion of politics or religion in mixed company, or at least until after those with differing opinions have been brutally dealt with.
Don’t sit next to Rasputin.
DRJRand54, it looks to me like you and I are the only ones who have commented on his performance, and I think the jury's still out with other viewers.
DRJRand54, it looks to me like you and I are the only ones who have commented on his performance, and I think the jury's still out with other viewers.
Media Play - we had two of them in the Indianapolis area that were open a little more than a year....then closed up.... I liked their selection, but thought they were a bit pricier than Best Buy particularly on their CD's.
Clowes Hall - it is announced Clews.....
Ain't it the truth, DR 's CP and ELMORE.....
thanks to all who have been sweet enough (and kind enough) to mention Kritzer Time and Writer's Block
Certainly those were my favorites of 2004 (admittedly, I don't read a lot of books for fun - just for research)
One moved me more than any novel I've read in years (Kritzer Time), the other was seemingly written for me, so right up my alley (Shubert) it was.
I'll comment on all this later. A small (not serious) emergency has come up that I have to take care of.
I'm already zonked - this is two mornings in a row of waking up very very early. Tomorrow I shall sleep until the cows come home. Tonight I shall watch the original Japanese Gojira, just issued on DVD in Australia (the US version with Raymond Burr is also included).
DR Elmore, I listened to my CD and LOVED it. A question if I may? How many musical instruments do you play?
It's absurd to think that Amazon has the resources or even interest to scourge all the idiot, crap reviews of the hundreds of thousands or millions there most be for all the books they sell.
Not another collapsed rack!
Panni, is DD now insured?
BTW, I noticed that DE-LOVELY is out this week on DVD.
DRDanise, I wouldn't know where to begin after your analysis of the keyboard and the scale! It's rather like my analyses of economics, banking, astrophysics and other things far beyond my ken.
Hisaka, I'll have to show you a picture of my prize (since I haven't killed it--yet) Michael Crawford Rose. It's my pride and joy. It also has a very nice odor to it.
We should all go to the amazon site and vote no that the review was not helpful
Re: negativity. I got some disturbing word today that I have evidently been stolen from. Quite blatantly, by someone I trusted. I am very sad and am wondering about various recourses. I suppose it's best to let this kind of thing go. You know the old adage: harboring a grudge/wanting revenge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.
My rule has always been that if you kick me once, I'll forgive you. Do it twice and rot in hell.
But, quite frankly, it's no easy thing to prove either libel or slander, I doubt BK could win a case given what is posted there. I doubt he'd want to wast money trying.
If Bruce spoke to someone at Amazon as the author, requesting the review be removed, I don't know whether that would carry any weight or not. But I think he is responding in exactly the way he should. If an ant gets in your way, either ignore it or step on it. But don't wring your hands over it. Besides, he apparently has enough people on this site to seethe with umbrage over this nothing person for him. All you who get outraged play into her hands and give the attention she wants...which is what this is really about. So why should BK lose sleep over something and someone so utterly inconsequential? How many people do you think actually visit an individual book page like this? It's not like it's a review in the New York Times book section.
Hello
If anyone has time can you go over to
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-14058/ (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-14058/)
I have been working on updating BK's bio page there. I need a second eye to tell me if I everything is spelled correctly and I haven't made any mistakes.
Thanks
DR MS
The middle credit is spelled as "Najed Space"
"Liekly Stories" is spelled that way once.
And under "DIRECTOR" it is listed as Nudie Misical
Pretty good. Only three things I could find!
WARNING TO WEST COAST POSTERS CONTEMPLATING WATCHING THE KENNEDY AWARDS:
When Renee Fleming comes on stage, lock up the animals, hit the mute botton, and take a trip to the john (loo, not Elton)! The most excruciating painful performance of a wretchedly arranged "Over The Rainbow" has never before been heard! (No, my name is not Cora!)
But do come back for Fantasia, who is delightful, and Heather Hedley who does a blow your socks off fantastic rendition of "Your Song" - which has a brilliant arrangement (Larry, were you there?).
der Brucer
YOU ASKED FOR IT:
Biography:
Bruce Kimmel has had a long and varied career. He wrote, directed and starred in the cult movie hit, The First Nudie Musical. He performed those same duties on his second film The Creature Wasn't Nice (a.k.a. Naked Space), with Leslie Nielsen, Cindy Williams and Patrick Macnee. He also co-created the story for the hit film, The Faculty, directed by Robert Rodriguez.
COMMENT: In the second sentence you set off “The First Nudie Musical” with a comma; in the thirs sentence, you do not set off “The Creature Wasn’t Nice” with a comma. I would prefer a comma before “the Creature….”.
We should all go to the amazon site and vote no that the review was not helpfulDone-I was the 10th person. :)
I've never seen any roses having male name. It's interesting.
In the second sentence, I would prefer the alternate spelling of the word "thirs" - "third". :o ;D :P
I've always wished the Kennedy Center would make the tapes of the full evening of The Kennedy Center Honors available for public viewing somewhere.
DRJOSE that would be wonderful. Would love to meet you in person and do a dinner or two. Hmmmmmmmmm.....what show? Hmm....MILLIE?
Surprisingly enough- Clowes Hall - it is announced Clews.....as in the game! Family name.
DRJOSE not much in the way of fine dining in Indy....and Clowes is on the Butler Campus with not much within walking distance. Usually I see a bus transporting the cast from the venue to the hotel downtown.
I've been very good this year while Christmas shopping with not buying things for myself, but today in Tower Records, I picked up The Snowman on DVD. This is another animated holiday film that I love. If it weren't so late here right now, I'ld put it on and watch it.
Oh, what the heck--it's Christmas and I don't have to go to work tomorrow! I'm going to watch it now!
'night!