From some recent statistics on abortion:

Nearly half of all African American pregnancies end in abortion. Since 1973, the number of abortions by African American women has totaled more than twelve million. In some localities, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland, and Georgia, more than half of all abortions are performed on black women.

That’s heart-breakingly sad. Half…

Quoting from a piece in the American Thinker

Senator Obama’s two tax promises: to limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of “working Americans,” intrigued me. As a hard-working small business owner, over the past ten years I’ve earned from $50,000 to $100,000 per year. If Senator Obama is shooting straight with us, under his presidency I could look forward to paying no additional Federal taxes — I might even get a break — and as I struggle to support a family and pay for two boys in college, a reliable tax freeze is nearly as welcome as further tax cuts.

Jim Geraghty also makes the point that if Obama allows President Bush’s tax cuts to expire, that’s an effective tax increase for most middle-class families.

I’ve asked several people at work. All of us makes well under $250,000, but even the Obama supporters don’t actually expect to pay less in taxes under Obama’s plan. I certainly don’t. Something doesn’t add up.

From an ABC story on the election, comes a quote from the Speaker of the House.

But I do tell you that if the Democrats win, and have substantial majorities, Congress of the United States will be more bipartisan,” said Pelosi.

Somebody had better get her a dictionary. A bigger majority means more bipartisanship? What? Bipartisanship is more of a willingness to work together rather than having a super-majority to rule by fiat. She’s been so emphatic about accusing President Bush of unilateralism, that statement screams of the pot talking to the kettle.

This SNL skit is hilarious. Check out Michigan! I can make it bounce!

There was a recent request on the Tellico mailing list about exporting to the UIEE format. Based on the information at uiee.com, I put together a stylesheet for exporting Tellico XML format to UIEE.

It’s rudimentary, since I’m not really familiar with the UIEE usage patterns. But it should be readily apparent how to improve and update it to include the information needed. Let me know if you have any questions.

Color me surprised! The San Francisco Gate has an article about Biblical passages concerning homosexuality. It goes into detail about LDS and Catholic efforts to pass Prop 8 in California, and it actually does a pretty good job at not making religious folks sound like nuts. For a California newspaper, that’s big!

Why does Youtube include Obama Girl and a Reagan ad in the list of Related Videos for a commercial from the 1980s for a wine cooler?

JPL revealed a new website design earlier this week. Lots of flash and Ajax-y goodness…

According to Ogden on Politics

According to STATSIndiana, In 2007, Indianapolis/Marion County had an estimated population of 876,804. Of that number 232,607 were below 18 years of age, for a total of 644,197 people in Marion County/Indianapolis 18 or over and thus eligible to vote. (Indiana allows felons to vote as long as they are not incarcerated).

So we have 644,197 people eligible to be registered in Marion County/Indianapolis, and 677,401 people registered. Congratulations go to Indianapolis for having 105% of its residents registered!

That doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Over at The Corner, Yuval Levin makes a comment about the 64 Nobel Prize-winning scientists support for Barak Obama:

In their letter of endorsement, the Nobel laureates list among their reasons for supporting Obama “stagnant or declining federal support” for science under the Bush administration (in fact funding for the NIH is up 41%, for the NSF is up 45%, and for overall federal scientific R&D is up 56% in the Bush years)

I need to research those numbers. If true, that’s a stunning mistake by the campaign and those oh-so-intelligent Nobel Laureates.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama’s tax break proposals are mostly credits, meaning they’re refunds to people who might not even be paying taxes in the first place. That’s how he figures on cutting taxes for 95% of working families.

I need to check up on the American Enterprise Institute to figure out how non-partisan they really are, but the WSJ uses a chart that the AEI put together. I can’t figure out why there’s a huge jump in tax rate at a $45,000 income level. But apparently, my taxes, under an Obama Administration, won’t go up that much. But I’m still not in the 95% who will get a cut.

Joe Coarter makes a point about Proposition 8 in California. I’ve been seeing the No on 8, let anyone get married ads, as well as the Protect Marriage ads for a while now.

In the same week that the No on 8 campaign launched an ad that labeled as “lies” claims that same-sex marriage would be taught in schools to young children, a first grade class took a school-sponsored trip to a gay wedding. Eighteen first graders traveled to San Francisco City Hall Friday for the wedding of their teacher and her lesbian partner, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

That confused me when I read the Voter’s Guide. The first thing mentioned in the rebuttal by the opponents of Prop 8 is that it does not affect education. But with the recent home schooling ruling in California, it’s hard to believe that teaching curriculum won’t be required to change. And if kids are taking field trips, that’s the first step. So I think the No on 8 folks are shooting themselves in the foot.

Kottke points out a website with political commercials all the way back to Eisenhower. I need to figure out how to catch that Stevenson! line in the “Adlai to you” jingle to use as my ring-tone.

It’s surprising how well many of the commercials fit in this year’s political cycle.

Elizabeth Snead at the LA Times comments on the Newsweek cover with Sarah Palin. I think she’s making a joke, when she says:

Hey, is that even the right way to hold a rifle? Can’t you shoot your foot off like that?

Much more amusing to me are all the comments to her post which correctly point out that Palin is not holding a rifle, she is holding a breech-loading shotgun. And there is no possible way for it to fire without having the trigger pulled and the stock locked. But those are details which don’t get taught out here in LA LA land.

So charitably, Snead is just a bit ignorant of firearms, nothing wrong with that at all. Too bad she tries to make a joke about one and falls on her face.

Chris Harrison has a fantastic graph, visualizing Biblical references.

The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect.

Boston.com’s Big Picture has some great photos of international troops in Afghanistan.

In particular, the shot catching the shell leaving the barrel of the howitzer is pretty amazing. I wonder how many times the photographer had to try for that shot.

I get to be a groom after all. For a little while, it looked like I would be reduced to Person A on the California marriage licenses. As reported by CBS,

When same-sex marriage became legal in the state on June 16, the health department issued new gender-neutral marriage forms with the words “Party A” and “Party B” where “bride” and “groom” used to be.

The latest paperwork, which county clerks will be required to use starting Nov. 17, will have blank spaces for applicants’ names and personal information next to the words “First Person Data” and “Second Person Data” and boxes for checking “bride” or “groom.”

The financial crisis, in a nutshell:

Oprah Winfrey’s mother says she shouldn’t have to pay a nearly $156,000 debt to a high-end fashion store because store officials shouldn’t have extended credit to her.

Oprah might need to preach a bit more personal responsibility.

The Senate bailout bill includes all sorts of unrelated crap. I guess it makes it more likely to pass that way? What does it say about a senator when a bill has to include:

There are dozens of other highly targeted provisions helping makers of wooden practice arrows used by children, film and television productions, motorsports racetrack property and the wool trust fund.

Other provisions target fishermen affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, mine safety equipment, American Samoa economic development and Indian employment.

Now if I were an affected fisherman from American Samoa who bought toy bows and arrows from Indians and sold them at racetracks, I bet I’d benefit greatly from this bill. But as it is, I doubt it.

That’s just stupid. State propositions and bills sometimes have rules that say only one subject can be address in each bill. I think the Senate should have the same. Make them very specific. Don’t be so broad that every single topic under the sun gets mentioned. No wonder it’s 451 pages long!