Saturday, August 29, 2009

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to prosecute Reform Leaders

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for prosecution of Iranian Reform Leaders a day after the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplayed foerieng links to this summer's widespread post-election protests. How long wil he last?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

RIP Edward Kennedy...this is teh most moving story I read about him today.

Ted Kennedy Was Surrounded by Crying, Praying Family


embers of the Kennedy clan were summoned to the family's compound in Hyannis Port Tuesday night to say tearful farewells to the man remembered today as an icon of American politics but known to them as Uncle Teddy.
Ted Kennedy
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., waits to speak at a ceremony to announce a federal grant for the University of Massachusetts-Lowell for nanotechnology manufacturing research in Lowell, Mass., Oct. 18, 2006.
(Brian Snyder/Reuters)

In keeping with a family tradition, they gathered around the bed of Sen. Ted Kennedy to pray.

The Rev. Patrick Tarrant, who was present with the family during those final hours, said he was impressed by Kennedy's spirituality and faith in his last moments.

The priest said family members were crying and that in his final moments Kennedy was "a man of quiet prayer."

"The truth is, he had expressed to his family that he did want to go," Tarrant told WCVB, ABC News' Boston affiliate. "He did want to go to heaven. He did want to die... He was ready to go.

"There was a certain amount peace -- a lot of peace, actually -- in the family get-together last night. I couldn't help but think that the world doesn't know that part of the senator at all," Tarrant said.

He said Kennedy's wife Vicki, his children and other family members were there.

"They were there and they were very prayerful and reverent and of course, crying," Tarrant said. "Of course they were aware that the very sick, the sense of hearing is the last thing to go. So, whatever is said around the sick bed is always heard by the patient ... and they were very well aware of it. They let him know how much he was loved and cared for and missed. It was quite an experience, for me."

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Watch Monster of the Milky Way on PBS. Great show on the Milky Way's central black hole.

Ticket rebate program suspended after New York Times article

Since Jo Craven and Ralph Blumenthal published a report in the Times highlighting a New York City program to streamline parking ticket handling the program has been scrapped. The last four times I've pleaded not guilty for a parking ticket no rebate has been offered.

Bloomberg continues his war on the middle class

Parking tickets continue to rise: