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We had some pretty big storms last night and a lot of rain. Some of the roads flooded out here. We had some tree branches come down at the house. Hopefully we will have a nice weekend.
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REST IN PEACE HARVEY KORMAN
Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to “The Carol Burnett Show” and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in “Blazing Saddles,” died Thursday. He was 81.
Korman died at UCLA Medical Center after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm four months ago, his family said. He had undergone several major operations.
He became a cast member in the first season of “The Carol Burnett Show.”
After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett’s show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. “The Harvey Korman Show” also failed, as did other series starring the actor.
Korman’s films included two “Pink Panther” moves, “Trail of the Pink Panther” in 1982 and “Curse of the Pink Panther” in 1983; “Gypsy,” “Huckleberry Finn” (as the King), “Herbie Goes Bananas” and “Bud and Lou” (as legendary straight man Bud Abbott to Buddy Hackett’s Lou Costello) “High Anxiety,” “The History of the World Part I” and “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.”
Harvey Herschel Korman was born February 15, 1927, in Chicago, Illinois.
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THE UNKNOWN
Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest.
The National Indian Foundation, a government agency in Brazil, published the photos Thursday on its Web site. It tracks “uncontacted tribes” — indigenous groups that are thought to have had no contact with outsiders — and seeks to protect them from encroachment.
More than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, and about half live in the remote reaches of the Amazonian rainforest in Peru or Brazil, near the recently photographed tribe, according to Survival International, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people.
The photos released Thursday show men who look strong and healthy, the Brazilian government said. They and their relatives apparently live in six communal shelters known as malocas, according to the government, which has tracked at least four uncontacted groups in the region for the past 20 years.
*** I am sure some big company will decide to pay them a visit and destroy their society. ****
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NO EDUCATION FOR GAZA WINNERS
With those words, in a brief letter from the United States Consulate in Jerusalem, the dreams of seven talented and ambitious young people from Gaza were dashed.
The seven, including Hadeel Abukwaik, had been offered places on the prestigious Fulbright scheme – realising their desires to complete their studies abroad.
For talented students, like Hadeel, the Gazan education system can only offer so much.
It is almost impossible to enrol on post-graduate university courses and many, specialised, degrees can only be pursued elsewhere.
On its own website, the Fulbright Program, which is run by the US State Department, proudly proclaims to be “an integral part of US foreign relations”.
“Face-to-face exchanges have proven to be the single most effective means of engaging foreign publics while broadening dialogue between US citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad,” it says.
Nonetheless, because of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, not even students sponsored by the US government can leave to further their studies overseas.
The Israeli government maintains that as long as Palestinian militants fire rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns, nobody – apart from the most urgent of medical cases – can leave. And nothing – apart from the most basic humanitarian aid – can get in.
The decision to deny the seven students – and dozens of other young Gazans with places in Western universities – is counter-productive say human rights groups.
Some Israeli members of parliament have criticised their government’s decision to refuse the students exit permits.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised to investigate the withdrawal of the scholarships.
In the letter sent out to the “Fulbright Seven”, the US Consulate General says it is “extremely sorry” but urges the student to apply again in 2009.
*** Didn’t the NAZI’s deny the Jews an education also? ****
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“They didn’t think we were a nation that could conceivably sacrifice for something greater than our self; that we were soft, that we were so self-absorbed and so materialistic that we wouldn’t defend anything we believed in. My, were they wrong. They just were reading the wrong magazine or watching the wrong Springer show.”
—George W. Bush. Washington, D.C., March 12, 2002
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235 Days left of this idiot
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Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring
Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central
Command: 4574
