33 Senators Vote Against English

On June 6, 2007, 33 Senators Voted Against English as America 's Official Language. On Wed, 6 June 2007 23:35:23 -0500, "Colonel Harry Riley USA ret" wrote the following:

Senators,

Your vote against an amendment to the Immigration Bill 1348, to make English America 's official language is astounding. On D-Day no less when we honor those that sacrificed in order to secure the bedrock character and principles of America .. I can only surmise your vote reflects a loyalty to illegal aliens.

I don't much care where you come from, what your religion is, whether you're black, white or some other color, male or female, democrat, republican or independent, but I do care when you're a United States Senator, representing citizens of America and vote against English as the official language of the United States. Your vote reflects betrayal, political surrender, violates your pledge of allegiance, dishonors historical principle, rejects patriotism, borders on traitorous action and, in my opinion, makes you unfit to serve as a United States Senator... impeachment, recall, or other appropriate action is warranted.

Worse, 4 of you voting against English as America 's official language are presidential candidates: Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, Senator Dodd, and Senator Obama. Those 4 Senators vying to lead America but won't, or don't have the courage, to cast a vote in favor of English as America's official language when 91% of American citizens want English officially designated as our language.

This is the second time in the last several months this list of Senators have disgraced themselves as political hacks... unworthy as Senators and certainly unqualified to serve as President of the United States. If America is as angry as I am, you will realize a back-lash so stunning it will literally rock you out of your panties... and preferably, totally out of the United States Senate. The entire immigration bill is a farce... your action only confirms this really isn't about America ; it's about self-serving politics... despicable at best. "Never argue with an idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ~ anonymous

The following senators voted against making English the official language of America : Akaka (D-HI) , Bayh (D-IN) , Biden (D-DE) Wants to be President? , Bingaman (D-NM) , Boxer (D-CA), Cantwell (D-WA) , Clinton (D-NY) Wants to be President? , Dayton (D-MN) , Dodd (D-CT) Wants to be President? , Domenici (R-NM) Coward, protecting his Senate seat... , Durbin (D-IL) , Feingold (D-WI) Not unusual for him , Feinstein (D-CA) , Harkin (D-IA) , Inouye (D-HI) , Jeffo rds (I-VT) ,Kennedy (D-MA) , Kerry (D-MA) Wanted to be President , Kohl (D-WI) , Lautenberg (D-NJ) , Leahy (D-VT) , Levin (D-MI) , Lieberman (D-CT) Disappointment here..... , Menendez (D-NJ) , Mikulski (D-MD) , Murray (D-WA) , Obama (D-IL) Wants to be President? , Reed ;(D-RI) , Reid (D-NV) Senate Majority Leader , Salazar (D-CO) , Sarbanes (D-MD) , Schumer (D-NY) , Stabenow (D-M).

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale, and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged." - President Abraham Lincoln, "Amen" Please forward to as many people as you know. WE NEED THIS INFORMATION PASSED ON TO EVERY RED-BLOODED AMERICAN!!!!!!

Jeff Dunham - Arguing with Myself

Connie and I just finished watching Jeff Dunham's CD entitled "Arguing with Myself". This is the third performance we've seen of Jeff and both agreeded it was the best yet. Playing straight man to partners half his size, this ventriloquist/comedian again gives voice to elderly crosspatch Walter, wisecracker Peanut, pepper-on-a-stick Jose Jalapeno, Bubba J and Sweet Daddy Dee. This performance will have you rolling with laughter. Check it out on Netflix today.

The Patriots - A 52-7 Blowout Over the Redskins

This was almost better than the Sox winning the World Series. This was an an absolutely unbelievable game and showed anyone who ever doubted, that they have one of the greatest teams ever! If you were betting the over/under for this game, the over was 47-1/2 points. The most unbelievable thing was that the Patriots covered the over without a score from Washington. Brady hit his third touchdown pass of the game to make the score 45-0 in the fourth quarter. Shortly thereafter, the Patriots went on a 15-play drive, slowly bleeding the Redskins defense to death and culminating with a 2-yard touchdown catch by Welker. Finally, mercifully, the Patriots defense allowed a sympathy score for Washington. Campbell hit Chris Cooley, who New England had effectively taken out of the game up to that point, from 15 yards out to make the final score 52-7. Even more mercifully, the game ended three minutes later.

The Right To Pray

This is a statement that was read over the PA system at the football game at Roane County High School, Kingston, Tennessee, by school Principal, Jody McLeod:

"It has always been the custom at Roane County High School football games, to say a prayer and play the National Anthem, to honor God and Country." Due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, I am told that saying a Prayer is a violation of Federal Case Law.

As I understand the law at this time, I can use this public facility to approve of sexual perversion and call it "an alternate lifestyle," and if someone is offended, that's OK. I can use it to condone sexual promiscuity, by dispensing condoms and calling it, "safe sex." If someone is offended, that's OK. I can even use this public facility to present the merits of killing an unborn baby as a "viable! means of birth control." If someone is offended, no problem...

I can designate a school day as "Earth Day" and involve students in activities to worship religiously and praise the goddess "Mother Earth" and call it "ecology." I can use literature, videos and presentations in the classroom that depicts people with strong, traditional Christian convictions as "simple minded" and "ignorant" and call it "enlightenment."

However, if anyone uses this facility to honor GOD and to ask HIM to Bless this event with safety and good sportsmanship, then Federal Case Law is violated. This appears to be inconsistent at best, and at worst, diabolical Apparently, we are to be tolerant of everything and anyone, except GOD and HIS Commandments. Nevertheless, as a school principal, I frequently ask staff and students to abide by rules with which they do not necessarily agree. For me to do otherwise would be inconsistent at best, and at worst, hypocritical... I suffer from that affliction enough unintentionally. I certainly do not need to add an intentional transgression.
For this reason, I shall "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," and refrain from praying at this time. "However, if you feel inspired to honor, praise and thank GOD and ask HIM, in the name of JESUS, to Bless this event, please feel free to do so as far as I know, that's not against the law----yet."

One by one, the people in the stands bowed their heads, held hands with one another and began to pray. They prayed in the stands. They prayed in the team huddles. They prayed at the concession stand and they prayed in the Announcer's Box! The only place they didn't pray was in the Supreme Court of the United States of America - the Seat of "Justice" in the "one nation, under GOD."

Somehow, Kingston, Tennessee Remembered what so many have forgotten. We are given the Freedom of Religion, not the Freedom FROM Religion. Praise GOD that this remnant remains! JESUS said, "If you are ashamed of ME before men, then I will be ashamed of you before MY FATHER."

Joke of the Day - Spaghetti

A wealthy man was having an affair with an Italian woman for several years. One night, during one of their rendezvous, she confided in him that she was pregnant. Not wanting to ruin his reputation or his marriage, he would pay her a large sum of money if she would go to Italy to secretly have the child. If she stayed in Italy to raise the child, he would also provide child support until the child turned 18. She agreed, but asked how he would know when the baby was born. To keep it discrete, he told her to simply mail him a post card, and write "Spaghetti" on the back. He would then arrange for child support payments to begin.

One day, about 9 months later, he came home to his confused wife. His wife said, "Honey, you received a very strange post card today. "Oh, just give it to me and I'll explain it," he said. The wife handed him the card and watched as her husband read the card, turned white and collapsed. On the card was written: "Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Two with meatballs, one without! Request bread... "

"Fear" by Jeff Abbott

This was the first time I've read this author and really enjoyed. Though I thought it started out a little slow, it developed into a very good read. I give it 3-1/2 Stars.

DESCRIPTION: What if you could forget the worst moment of your life? Miles Kendrick is a federal witness hiding from the mob, constantly haunted by the horrifying memories of his best friend's death. While helping his psychiatrist with a mysterious favor, Miles stumbles into a murder—and an illegal medical research program that could free him and millions of others with post-traumatic stress disorder from their crippling fears. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Miles ends up in the cross-hairs of Dennis Groote, an ex-FBI agent turned hitman. Groote is determined to find a cure for his traumatized daughter—and determined to gain control of a secret drug formula worth billions on the open market, a formula he believes Miles possesses. Pursued by both Groote and government agents, Miles runs for his life. He draws on his old skills as a mobster's spy to survive a deadly duel of strike and counterstrike with the unrelenting and brutal Groote. Miles finds two unlikely allies: a mentally broken ex-soldier and a reclusive woman whose life was destroyed by violence. To save them all—and with one last chance to be the man he once was—Miles takes the battle back to the powerful, murderous forces who want to silence one troubled man before he can get his life back...

They Did IT! World Champions

I thought for sure that the last his of the Rockies in the 9th inning was going to be a home run. What a catch! But alas, for the second time in four seasons, the Red Sox are World Series champions! The Sox completed a four-game sweep of the Rockies with a 4-3 win with the Rockies succumbing as swiftly as the Cardinals did in '04. The Sox now join the Yankees as the only American League teams to sweep in successive Series appearances. Let the Yankees take that! Their play through the series was not only dominate, but included brilliant strategy mixed with some of the most outstanding plays ever seen in a World Series.

Go Red Sox !!!

Last night the Sox took a blistering six-run lead, then held off the Colorado Rockies, 10-5, in winning game 3 of the 103d World Series before a crowd of 49,983 blissfully unaware of the real meaning of the white towels they waved with such fervor when this one started. Only one American League team in 103 years of World Series play, the Yankees, has executed a four-game sweep in successive Series appearances. Three years to the night Keith Foulke flipped to Doug Mientkiewicz for the final out of the 2004 Series, the Sox stand poised to become the second team to do so. Tonight, the Sox send cancer survivor Jon Lester, 14 months after his diagnosis, to the mound for a potential closing scene that would make Hollywood blush and New Englanders weep.

Joke of the Day - The Dot

FINALLY, SOMEONE HAS CLEARED THIS UP FOR ME.... For centuries, Hindu women have worn a dot on their foreheads. Most of us have naively thought this was connected with marriage or religion, but the Indian Embassy in Washington , D.C. has recently revealed the true story. When a Hindu woman gets married, she brings a dowry into the union. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the dot to see whether he has won a convenience store, a gas station, a donut shop or a motel in the United States . If nothing is there, he must take a job in India answering telephones giving technical advice.

Bear in the Morning

Just received this email from my brother Tom who lives in South Tahoe and thought I would share it with all. He snapped it on the way to work this morning.

Though we don't get many bears in Vegas, we do have about 60 Canadian Geese on the golf course in view of our deck. Sometimes they're so loud, they wake us up in the morning.

Go Pats!

And don't forget those Patriots and this Sunday's battle of two 3-time Super Bowl-winning coaches. After beating a 19-point spread with Miami last week, and now at 7-0, Joe Gibbs leads his Washington Redskins into Gillette Stadium this weekend as nearly 17-point underdogs to Bill Belichick's New England Patriots ... and Gibbs is OK with that. OK! What a season for New England fans. We love it!

Gotta Love Those Red Sox

This pick-off at first had to be one of the sweetest plays of the game and just emphasized how well they are playing. Does Taco Bell knows what it is doing. Namely, creating a folk-hero out of Jacoby Ellsbury for steeling 2nd base. Everyone in America gets for free (a free Taco between 2 and 5 pm on October 30) what some wouldn't even consider paying for. Also, baseball was played. Schilling was solid, Oki and Paps were phenomenal at the end. What a game. Can't wait till Saturday for game 3. Go Sox!

Movie Review - Michael Clayton

We just saw the movie Michael Clayton with George Clooney and, though a little slow in the middle, thought overall it was very good. We'd rate it about 3-1/2 Stars. p.s. Connie complained about how bad the popcorn was and they gave her two free movie passes.
DESCRIPTION: Screenwriter Tony Gilroy makes his directorial debut with this dramatic thriller about burned-out corporate lawyer Michael Clayton (George Clooney), who's built a career on cleaning up his clients' messes. When a guilt-ridden colleague (Tom Wilkinson) threatens the settlement of a multimillion-dollar case, Clayton faces his biggest challenge ever. Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack and Michael O'Keefe round out the impressive cast.

Joke of the Day - The Affair

A wealthy man was having an affair with an Italian woman for several years. One night, during one of their rendezvous, she confided in him that she was pregnant. Not wanting to ruin his reputation or his marriage, he would pay her a large sum of money if she would go to Italy to secretly have the child. If she stayed in Italy to raise the child, he would also provide child support until the child turned 18.
She agreed, but asked how he would know when the baby was born. To keep it discrete, he told her to simply mail him a post card, and write Spaghetti" on the back. He would then arrange for child support payments to begin.
One day, about 9 months later, he came home to his confused wife. His wife said, "Honey, you received a very strange post card today. "Oh, just give it to me and I'll explain it," he said. The wife handed him the card and watched as her husband read the card, turned white and collapsed.
On the card was written: "Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti. Two with meatballs, one without! Request bread...

Hero performed by Michael Israel in New York

You gotta check this out. This guy uses his talent to speak a powerful message.

Movie Review - The Condemned

This was our latest Netflix viewing. While this movie may not be for everyone (contains lots of action and violence) we liked it. It actually says a lot about "today's" reality shows and how far they have gone. We give it 4-Stars. DESCRIPTION: While waiting out a death sentence in an infamous Central American prison, hard-boiled convict Jack Conrad (retired professional wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) is surprised to learn he's been bought by a reality show mogul who wants to cast him in his latest project. His assignment? To join nine other convicted murderers on the shores of a deserted island, where they'll fight to the death for the title of sole survivor.

Love those Red Sox!

What an opening game. Wow! Let's hope they can continue to keep it going in today's game. Red Sox hit plenty of highs in openerWith Josh Beckett at his nasty, Bob Gibson-esque best, the rolling Red Sox opened the 103d Fall Classic with a 13-1 demolition of the stale (eight-day layoff) Colorado Rockies.

Joke of the Day - Kids!

When my three-year old son opened the birthday gift from his grandmother, he discovered a water pistol. He squealed with delight and headed for the nearest sink. I was not so pleased. I turned to mom and said, "i'm surprised at you. Don't you remember how we used to drive you crazy with water guns?" Mom smiled and replied ...."I remember!!"

A new teacher was trying to make use of her psychology courses. She started her class by saying, "Everyone who thinks they're stupid, stand up!" After a few seconds, Little Davie stood up. The teacher said, "Do you think you're stupid, Little Davie ?" "No, ma'am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!"

Little Davie watched, fascinated, as his mother smoothed cold cream on her face "Why do you do that, mommy?" he asked. "To make myself beautiful," said his mother, who then began removing the cream with a tissue. "What's the matter?" asked Little Davie. "Giving up?"

Here's some Total Momsense

You gotta listen to this song by Anita Renfroe! Connie caught it on Good Morning America. She has been described as “a triple shot of espresso in a decaf world,” but there isn’t a latte cup big enough to hold the party that Anita Renfroe brings. Her inventive blend of musical comedy and inspiration leave audiences with cheeks that hurt and heartsinfused with humor and hope. The moment she takes the mic, you can be sure truth will arrive in Technicolor—as different as Kansas is to Oz. As a comedian, musician, author, and speaker, Anita stretches each experience beyond the normal boundaries. (Who wants to be normal, anyway?) She is decidedly original, bodacious in her faith, and unashamedly REAL.

Brahms' Symphony

We recently attended a free concert at the Henderson Pavilion, just up the street, performed by our local Henderson Symphony Orchestra honoring the classical mastery of Johannes Brahms. Pianist Mykola Suk provided a masterful performance demonstrating Brahms’ blending of pianistic effects, epic mood, grand classical concepts and thrilling technical difficulties in a collaboration with the symphony on Brahms’ masterpiece Piano Concerto #1 in d minor, op. 1. The orchestra concluded the Brahms tribute with his fateful Symphony #1 in c minor, Op. 68.

Mykola Suk gave a brilliant performance with a passion rarely seen. Over time, he has concertized in solo recitals, as a soloist with major orchestras under leading conductors (recently with the Russian National Symphony under Mikhail Pletnev), and at chamber music festivals throughout the former USSR, North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Asia. Mr. Suk has recorded for the Melodya, Russian Disc, Hungaraton, Melda and Troppe Note/Cambria labels.

Mykola Suk is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Nevada , Las Vegas . Professor Suk studied at the Kiev Special Music School, and at the Moscow Conservatory with Lev Vlasenko. In 1971 he received the First Prize and Gold Medal at the International Liszt-Bartok Competition in Budapest. Professor Suk has formerly been on the faculties of the Kiev and Moscow Conservatories, the New England Conservatory in Boston, and Columbia University .

Mind Your Cell Phone Manners

Have you ever experienced a cell phone user whom you wanted to pack up and ship to Miss Manners? Or have you ever witnessed a person on a cell phone do something so completely rude that you stop in your tracks? I have, and it continues to intrigue me just how polarizing cell phones can be. Sure, almost everyone has one, but they can drive even their most loyal users crazy. I'm talking about how you can put a cell phone in an otherwise courteous person's hand and then watch how that person loses all awareness of the people around him.


Be nice to the person behind the counter:
Last week I was waiting in line to order lunch behind a man blabbing away on his phone. When he got to the counter, he handed the cafe employee a piece of paper with his order and said, "I'm on an important call." So is it just me or is that completely rude? Next time Mr. Important, hang up or at least put your caller on hold.


Take it outside:
I'm also in favor of taking your phone outside, or at least away from the table, when you get a call in a restaurant. No one around you, much less your tablemates, care to hear what you have to say.

Use your inside voice:
I'm always fascinated how people's voices automatically go up a few decibels when they get on a cell phone. I can understand when you're using your phone in a crowd, near a construction site, or next to your local airport runway, but it happens even in quiet rooms. I just don't get it.

You're welcome:
Have you ever held the door for someone who's been on the phone without them acknowledging your presence? It happened to me last week. Remember folks: Even though you're on the phone you still exist in this world to other people.

Drive to distraction:
I know I'll open a whole can of worms here but please, when you're driving with a phone use a headset. And whatever you do, don't text while driving. Yikes.

Yes, they're talking to you:
I don't pay $10 to hear your cell phone ring during a movie so turn it off. But if you absolutely have to keep your phone on, please turn it on vibrate. And please don't start talking until after you've left the theater. It's just being polite. The same goes for weddings, funerals, and other milestone events. Remember that when they ask you to turn off your phone, they're talking to you.

Work out your body, not your mouth:
I don't care how important you think you are, the gym is no place for a cell phone. Don't talk when you're doing cardio and don't take up space on equipment so you can sit and catch up the latest dish. If you're bored while you spin, read a magazine.

Not in the bathroom:
Don't use your phone in a public restroom. That's just gross.

Remember the people around you:
If you're out with a group of friends, it's fine to answer the phone for a few minutes. Just don't make that conversation more important than the one you're already having.

Bluetooth geeks:
Wearing a Bluetooth headset when you're not talking on the phone just makes you look like a geek. Only wear it when you're alone!

Joke of the Day - Welfare

A Guy walked into the local welfare office to pick up his check. He marched straight up to the counter and said, 'Hi. You know, I just HATE drawing welfare. I'd really rather have a job.' The social worker behind the counter said, 'Your timing is excellent. We just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his beautiful daughter. You'll have to drive around in his Mercedes, and he'll supply all of your clothes. Because of the long hours, meals will be provided. You'll be expected to escort the daughter on her overseas holiday trips and you will have to satisfy her sexual urges. You'll be provided a two-bedroom apartment above the garage. The salary is $200,000 a year.'

The guy, wide-eyed, said, 'You're bullshittin' me!' The social worker said, 'Yeah, well . . . . you started it.

Cell Phone Radiation - A Health Hazard?

WHAT IT ALL MEANS:
According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), specific absorption rate, or SAR, is "a way of measuring the quantity of radiofrequency (RF) energy that is absorbed by the body." For a phone to pass FCC certification, that phone's maximum SAR level must be less than 1.6W/kg (watts per kilogram). In Europe, the level is capped at 2W/kg while Canada allows a maximum of 1.6W/kg. The SAR level listed in our charts represents the highest SAR level with the phone next to the ear as tested by the FCC. Keep in mind that it is possible for the SAR level to vary between different transmission bands and that different testing bodies can obtain different results. Also, it's possible for results to vary between different editions of the same phone (such as a handset that's offered by multiple carriers).

It's important to note that in publishing this list are we in no way implying that cell phone use is or isn't harmful to your health. While research abounds and some tests have shown that cell phone radiofrequency (RF) could accelerate cancer in laboratory animals, the studies have not been replicated. Cell phones can affect internal pacemakers, but there is not conclusive or demonstrated evidence that they cause adverse health affects in humans. Conversely, there is not conclusive or demonstrated evidence that they don't cause adverse health affects in humans. So, in short, the jury is still out, research is ongoing, and we will continue to monitor its results.

To find the rating for your cell phone go to the following web site: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6602_7-5020355-1.html?tag=nl.e404

Movie Review - The Unsaid

This was one of our recent viewings from Netflix. For a "B" type movie, this was a good psychological thriller with a good story line. We gave it a 3-1/2 stars.

DESCRIPTION: Tommy (Vincent Kartheiser) is a mental patient bent on proving he's sane and ready to leave the institution that's been his home for years. Psychiatrist Michael Hunter (Andy Garcia) is called in to assess him, but Tommy reminds Hunter of his own son, who had killed himself … which makes his job rather difficult. Hunter also unearths even more shocking revelations from Tommy's past.

Joke of the Day - Living Will

Last night my friend and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

She got up, unplugged the TV, and threw out my wine.

She's such a bitch.....

Movie Review - The Kingdom

Thought this was a good movie with some good action scenes. We'd rate it about 3-1/2 stars.

DESCRIPTION: When a deadly bombing attack targets Americans in the Middle East, a counterterrorism squad is dispatched to find the culprits. Once they arrive in the desert, the U.S. agents (an ensemble that includes Jamie Foxx as the group's leader) learn that in these parts, they are the true enemy. With their investigation hampered by local bureaucracy, the team realizes they may be the terrorists' next target. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman also star.

Joke of the Day - Retirement

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. Well, for example, the other day Gladys and I went into town and went into a shop. We were only in there for about
5 minutes.

When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and said, "Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?"

He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Nazi turd. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So Gladys called him an arsehole. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. Personally, we didn't care. We came into town by bus.

We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age.

The Meaning of American Pie

This was emailed to me from a friend and is one of the best videos I've seen. A must see!

A Message to Share; DADDY'S EMPTY CHAIR

A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me, he said. 'No, who are you?" said the father. The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up," "Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?" Puzzled, the minister shut the door.

"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head." I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest." "Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I will be with you always'. "Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now."

"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm." The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon. Did he die in peace?" he asked. Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?" The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

I asked God for a flower, He gave me a garden
I asked God for a friend, He gave me all of YOU...
If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.
Happy moments, praise God.
Difficult moments, seek God.
Quiet moments, worship God.
Painful moments, trust God.
Every moment, thank God.

Joke of the Day - Wedding Anniversary

Ed was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry. She told him "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in less then 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!!"

The next morning Ed got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up she looked out the window and saw a small box gift-wrapped in the middle
of the driveway.

Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale. Ed has been missing since Friday. Please pray for him!

Comedian Jeff Dunham

We found this guy on the Comedy Channel last week and thought he was worth sharing with everyone. You can rent the show we saw from Netflix. TITLE: Spark of Insanity. DESCRIPTION: Washington, D.C.'s historic Warner Theater is the stage for this sold-out performance by ventriloquist virtuoso Jeff Dunham and his host of hilarious characters, known collectively as the "suitcase posse." Joining regular posse members such as Peanut, Walter, Sweet Daddy Dee, Jose Jalapeño and Bubba J are Dunham's newest character creations, Achmed the Dead Terrorist and Melvin the Superhero.


Comedian: Jeff Dunham - Funny bloopers R us

America's Got Talent Final Four-Terry Fator does Roy Orbison

One of our favorites, Terry Fator, the winner of this year's America's Got Talent. We can't wait to get tickets to see his show when he comes to Vegas.

Proper Attire for Church

One Sunday morning an old cowboy entered a church just before services were to begin. Although the old man and his clothes were spotlessly clean, he wore jeans, a denim shirt and boots that were very worn and ragged. In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally worn out Bible.

The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old cowboy had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed with expensive clothes and accessories.

As the cowboy took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled at his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.

As the old cowboy was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. "Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship." The old cowboy assured the preacher he would. The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, shirt, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored. The preacher approached the man and said, "I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church."

"I did," replied the old cowboy.

"If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?" asked the preacher.

"Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He said He'd never been in this church "

Amen

(Britain's Got Talent ) Paul Potts' 1st Audition

Paul Potts, a Welsh mobile phone salesman who thought he could sing opera, was the eventual winner of the Britian's Got Talent TV Show. Oh wait, maybe he can sing opera. Absolutly amazing. Turn up your volumn, click the center button, then click play to hear.

(Britain's Got Talent ) Paul Potts' 2nd Audition

Paul Potts, the eventual winner of the Britian's Got Talent TV Show. This was the second performance of the Welsh mobile phone salesman who thought he could sing opera. Again, absolutly amazing.

The Living Camera

This video of a savant who has the ability to draw in nearly exact detail anything he see is absolutely AMAZING. A must see! Depending upon your computer and internet connection this may take a few minutes to "buffer" before it start playing after you click on the play button.

Winston Churchill on Mohammedanism

BACKGROUND: Unbelievable, but the speech below was written in 1899! It was delivered by him in 1899 when he was a young soldier and journalist. It probably sets out the current views of many but expressed in the wonderful Churchillian turn of phrase and use of the English language, of which he was a past master. Sir Winston Churchill was, without doubt, one of the greatest men of the late 19th and 20th centuries. He was a brave young soldier, a brilliant journalist, an extraordinary politician and statesman, a great war leader and Prime Minister, to whom the Western world must be forever in his debt. He was a prophet in his own time; He died on 24 January 1965, at the grand old age of 90 and, after a lifetime of service to his country, was accorded a State funeral.

HERE IS THE SPEECH:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." Sir Winston Churchill; (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London)

Churchill saw it coming 108 years ago.

Continued - The Kindle

"The book," says Jeff Bezos, 43, the CEO of Internet commerce giant Amazon.com, "just turns out to be an incredible device." Then he uncorks one of his trademark laughs. Books have been very good to Jeff Bezos. When he sought to make his mark in the nascent days of the Web, he chose to open an online store for books, a decision that led to billionaire status for him, dotcom glory for his company and countless hours wasted by authors checking their Amazon sales ratings. But as much as Bezos loves books professionally and personally—he's a big reader, and his wife is a novelist—he also understands that the surge of technology will engulf all media.

"Books are the last bastion of analog," he says, in a conference room overlooking the Seattle skyline. We're in the former VA hospital that is the physical headquarters for the world's largest virtual store. "Music and video have been digital for a long time, and short-form reading has been digitized, beginning with the early Web. But long-form reading really hasn't." Yet. This week Bezos is releasing the Amazon Kindle, an electronic device that he hopes will leapfrog over previous attempts at e-readers and become the turning point in a transformation toward Book 2.0. That's shorthand for a revolution (already in progress) that will change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish. The Kindle represents a milestone in a time of transition, when a challenged publishing industry is competing with television, Guitar Hero and time burned on the BlackBerry; literary critics are bemoaning a possible demise of print culture, and Norman Mailer's recent death underlined the dearth of novelists who cast giant shadows. On the other hand, there are vibrant pockets of book lovers on the Internet who are waiting for a chance to refurbish the dusty halls of literacy.

As well placed as Amazon was to jump into this scrum and maybe move things forward, it was not something the company took lightly. After all, this is the book we're talking about. "If you're going to do something like this, you have to be as good as the book in a lot of respects," says Bezos. "But we also have to look for things that ordinary books can't do." Bounding to a whiteboard in the conference room, he ticks off a number of attributes that a book-reading device—yet another computer-powered gadget in an ever more crowded backpack full of them—must have. First, it must project an aura of bookishness; it should be less of a whizzy gizmo than an austere vessel of culture. Therefore the Kindle (named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge) has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book's binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle's six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while, he adds, since there's nothing sadder than a book you can't read because of electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.) And, to soothe the anxieties of print-culture stalwarts, in sleep mode the Kindle displays retro images of ancient texts, early printing presses and beloved authors like Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen.

But then comes the features that your mom's copy of "Gone With the Wind" can't match. E-book devices like the Kindle allow you to change the font size: aging baby boomers will appreciate that every book can instantly be a large-type edition. The handheld device can also hold several shelves' worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. Also, the Kindle allows you to search within the book for a phrase or name.

Some of those features have been available on previous e-book devices, notably the Sony Reader. The Kindle's real breakthrough springs from a feature that its predecessors never offered: wireless connectivity, via a system called Whispernet. (It's based on the EVDO broadband service offered by cell-phone carriers, allowing it to work anywhere, not just Wi-Fi hotspots.) As a result, says Bezos, "This isn't a device, it's a service."

Specifically, it's an extension of the familiar Amazon store (where, of course, Kindles will be sold). Amazon has designed the Kindle to operate totally independent of a computer: you can use it to go to the store, browse for books, check out your personalized recommendations, and read reader reviews and post new ones, tapping out the words on a thumb-friendly keyboard. Buying a book with a Kindle is a one-touch process. And once you buy, the Kindle does its neatest trick: it downloads the book and installs it in your library, ready to be devoured. "The vision is that you should be able to get any book—not just any book in print, but any book that's ever been in print—on this device in less than a minute," says Bezos.

Amazon has worked hard to get publishers to step up efforts to release digital versions of new books and backlists, and more than 88,000 will be on sale at the Kindle store on launch. (Though Bezos won't get terribly specific, Amazon itself is also involved in scanning books, many of which it captured as part of its groundbreaking Search Inside the Book program. But most are done by the publishers themselves, at a cost of about $200 for each book converted to digital. New titles routinely go through the process, but many backlist titles are still waiting. "It's a real chokepoint," says Penguin CEO David Shanks.) Amazon prices Kindle editions of New York Times best sellers and new releases in hardback at $9.99. The first chapter of almost any book is available as a free sample.

The Kindle is not just for books. Via the Amazon store, you can subscribe to newspapers (the Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Le Monde) and magazines (The Atlantic). When issues go to press, the virtual publications are automatically beamed into your Kindle. (It's much closer to a virtual newsboy tossing the publication on your doorstep than accessing the contents a piece at a time on the Web.) You can also subscribe to selected blogs, which cost either 99 cents or $1.99 a month per blog.

In addition, the Kindle can venture out on the Web itself—to look up things in Wikipedia, search via Google or follow links from blogs and other Web pages. You can jot down a gloss on the page of the book you're reading, or capture passages with an electronic version of a highlight pen. And if you or a friend sends a word document or PDF file to your private Kindle e-mail address, it appears in your Kindle library, just as a book does. Though Bezos is reluctant to make the comparison, Amazon believes it has created the iPod of reading.

The Kindle, shipping as you read this, costs $399. When Bezos announces that price at the launch this week, he will probably get the same raised-eyebrow reaction Steve Jobs got in October 2001, when he announced that Apple would charge that same price for its pocket-size digital music player. No way around it: it's pricey. But if all goes well for Amazon, several years from now we'll see revamped Kindles, equipped with color screens and other features, selling for much less. And physical bookstores, like the shuttered Tower Records of today, will be lonelier places, as digital reading thrusts us into an exciting—and jarring—post-Gutenberg era.

Will the Kindle and its kin really take on a technology that's shone for centuries and is considered the bedrock of our civilization? The death of the book—or, more broadly, the death of print—has been bandied about for well over a decade now. Sven Birkerts, in "The Gutenberg Elegies" (1994), took a peek at the future and concluded, "What the writer writes, how he writes and gets edited, printed and sold, and then read—all the old assumptions are under siege." Such pronouncements were invariably answered with protestations from hard-liners who insisted that nothing could supplant those seemingly perfect objects that perch on our night tables and furnish our rooms. Computers may have taken over every other stage of the process—the tools of research, composition and production—but that final mile of the process, where the reader mind-melds with the author in an exquisite asynchronous tango, would always be sacrosanct, said the holdouts. In 1994, for instance, fiction writer Annie Proulx was quoted as saying, "Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever."

Oh, Annie. In 2007, screens are ubiquitous (and less twitchy), and people have been reading everything on them—documents, newspaper stories, magazine articles, blogs—as well as, yes, novels. Not just on big screens, either. A company called DailyLit this year began sending out books—new ones licensed from publishers and classics from authors like Jane Austen—straight to your e-mail IN BOX, in 1000-work chunks. (I've been reading Boswell's "Life of Johnson" on my iPhone, a device that is expected to be a major outlet for e-books in the coming months.) And recently a columnist for the Chicago Tribune waxed rhapsodically about reading Jane Austen on his BlackBerry.

But taking on the tome directly is the challenge for handheld, dedicated reading devices, of which the Kindle is only the newest and most credible effort. An early contender was the 22-ounce Rocket eBook (its inventors went on to create the electric-powered Tesla roadster). There were also efforts to distribute e-books by way of CD-ROMs. But the big push for e-books in the early 2000s fizzled. "The hardware was not consumer-friendly and it was difficult to find, buy and read e-books," says Carolyn Reidy, the president of Simon & Schuster.

This decade's major breakthrough has been the introduction of E Ink, whose creators came out of the MIT Media Lab. Working sort of like an Etch A Sketch, it forms letters by rearranging chemicals under the surface of the screen, making a page that looks a lot like a printed one. The first major implementation of E Ink was the $299 Sony Reader, launched in 2006 and heavily promoted. Sony won't divulge sales figures, but business director Bob Nell says the Reader has exceeded the company's expectations, and earlier this fall Sony introduced a sleeker second-generation model, the 505. (The Reader has no wireless—you must download on your computer and then move it to the device— and doesn't enable searching within a book.)

Now comes the Kindle, which Amazon began building in 2004, and Bezos understands that for all of its attributes, if one aspect of the physical book is not adequately duplicated, the entire effort will be for naught. "The key feature of a book is that it disappears," he says.
While those who take fetishlike pleasure in physical books may resist the notion, that vanishing act is what makes electronic reading devices into viable competitors to the printed page: a subsuming connection to the author that is really the basis of our book passion. "I've actually asked myself, 'Why do I love these physical objects?' " says Bezos. " 'Why do I love the smell of glue and ink?' The answer is that I associate that smell with all those worlds I have been transported to. What we love is the words and ideas."

Long before there was cyberspace, books led us to a magical nether-zone. "Books are all the dreams we would most like to have, and like dreams they have the power to change consciousness," wrote Victor Nell in a 1988 tome called "Lost in a Book." Nell coined a name for that trancelike state that heavy readers enter when consuming books for pleasure—"ludic reading" (from the Latin ludo, meaning "I play"). Annie Proulx's claim was that an electronic device would never create that hypnotic state. But technologists are disproving that. Bill Hill, Microsoft's point person on e-reading, has delved deep into the mysteries of this lost zone, in an epic quest to best emulate the conditions on a computer. He attempted to frame a "General Theory of Readability," which would demystify the mysteries of ludic reading and why books could uniquely draw you into a rabbit hole of absorption.

"There's 550 years of technological development in the book, and it's all designed to work with the four to five inches from the front of the eye to the part of the brain that does the processing [of the symbols on the page]," says Hill, a boisterous man who wears a kilt to a seafood restaurant in Seattle where he stages an impromptu lecture on his theory. "This is a high-resolution scanning machine," he says, pointing to the front of his head. "It scans five targets a second, and moves between targets in only 20 milliseconds. And it does this repeatedly for hours and hours and hours." He outlines the centuries-long process of optimizing the book to accommodate this physiological marvel: the form factor, leading, fonts, justification … "We have to take the same care for the screen as we've taken for print."

Hill insists—not surprisingly, considering his employer—that the ideal reading technology is not necessarily a dedicated e-reading device, but the screens we currently use, optimized for that function. (He's read six volumes of Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" on a Dell Pocket PC.) "The Internet Explorer is not a browser—it's a reader," he says. "People spend about 20 percent of the time browsing for information and 80 percent reading or consuming it. The transition has already happened. And we haven't noticed."

But even Hill acknowledges that reading on a televisionlike screen a desktop away is not the ideal experience. Over the centuries, the sweet spot has been identified: something you hold in your hand, something you can curl up with in bed. Devices like the Kindle, with its 167 dot-per-inch E Ink display, with type set in a serif font called Caecilia, can subsume consciousness in the same way a physical book does. It can take you down the rabbit hole.

Though the Kindle is at heart a reading machine made by a bookseller—and works most impressively when you are buying a book or reading it—it is also something more: a perpetually connected Internet device. A few twitches of the fingers and that zoned-in connection between your mind and an author's machinations can be interrupted—or enhanced—by an avalanche of data. Therein lies the disruptive nature of the Amazon Kindle. It's the first "always-on" book.
What kinds of things will happen when books are persistently connected, and more-evolved successors of the Kindle become commonplace? First of all, it could transform the discovery process for readers. "The problem with books isn't print or writing," says Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail." "It's that not enough people are reading." (A 2004 National Endowment for the Arts study reported that only 57 percent of adults read a book—any book—in a year. That was down from 61 percent a decade ago.) His hope is that connected books will either link to other books or allow communities of readers to suggest undiscovered gems.
The connectivity also affects the publishing business model, giving some hope to an industry that slogs along with single-digit revenue growth while videogame revenues are skyrocketing. "Stuff doesn't need to go out of print," says Bezos. "It could shorten publishing cycles." And it could alter pricing. Readers have long complained that new books cost too much; the $9.99 charge for new releases and best sellers is Amazon's answer. (You can also get classics for a song: I downloaded "Bleak House" for $1.99.)

Bezos explains that it's only fair to charge less for e-books because you can't give them as gifts, and due to restrictive antipiracy software, you can't lend them out or resell them. (Libraries, though, have developed lending procedures for previous versions of e-books—like the tape in "Mission: Impossible," they evaporate after the loan period—and Bezos says that he's open to the idea of eventually doing that with the Kindle.)

Publishers are resisting the idea of charging less for e-books. "I'm not going along with it," says Penguin's Peter Shanks of Amazon's low price for best sellers. (He seemed startled when I told him that the Alan Greenspan book he publishes is for sale at that price, since he offered no special discount.) Amazon is clearly taking a loss on such books. But Bezos says that he can sustain this scheme indefinitely. "We have a lot of experience in low-margin and high-volume sale—you just have to make sure the mix [between discounted and higher-priced items] works." Nonetheless the major publishers (all of whom are on the Kindle bandwagon) should loosen up. If you're about to get on a plane, you may buy the new Eric Clapton biography on a whim for $10—certainly for $5!—but if it costs more than $20, you may wind up scanning the magazine racks. For argument's sake, let's say cutting the price in half will double a book's sales—given that the royalty check would be the same, wouldn't an author prefer twice the number of readers? When I posed the question to best-selling novelist James Patterson, who was given an early look at the Kindle, he said that if the royalty fee were the same, he'd take the readers. (He's also a believer that the Kindle will succeed: "The baby boomers have a love affair with paper," he says. "But the next-gen people, in their 20s and below, do everything on a screen.")
The model other media use to keep prices down, of course, is advertising. Though this doesn't seem to be in Kindle's plans, in some dotcom quarters people are brainstorming advertiser-supported books. "Today it doesn't make sense to put ads in books, because of the unpredictable timing and readership," says Bill McCoy, Adobe's general manager of e-publishing. "That changes with digital distribution."

Another possible change: with connected books, the tether between the author and the book is still active after purchase. Errata can be corrected instantly. Updates, no problem—in fact, instead of buying a book in one discrete transaction, you could subscribe to a book, with the expectation that an author will continually add to it. This would be more suitable for nonfiction than novels, but it's also possible that a novelist might decide to rewrite an ending, or change something in the middle of the story. We could return to the era of Dickens-style serializations. With an always-on book, it's conceivable that an author could not only rework the narrative for future buyers, but he or she could reach inside people's libraries and make the change. (Let's also hope Amazon security is strong, so that we don't find one day that someone has hacked "Harry Potter" or "Madame Bovary.")

Those are fairly tame developments, though, compared with the more profound changes that some are anticipating. In a connected book, the rabbit hole is no longer a one-way transmission from author to reader. For better or for worse, there's company coming.
Talk to people who have thought about the future of books and there's a phrase you hear again and again. Readers will read in public. Writers will write in public. Readers, of course, are already enjoying a more prominent role in the literary community, taking star turns in blogs, online forums and Amazon reviews. This will only increase in the era of connected reading devices. "Book clubs could meet inside of a book," says Bob Stein, a pioneer of digital media who now heads the Institute for the Future of the Book, a foundation-funded organization based in his Brooklyn, N.Y., town house. Eventually, the idea goes, the community becomes part of the process itself.

Stein sees larger implications for authors—some of them sobering for traditionalists. "Here's what I don't know," he says. "What happens to the idea of a writer going off to a quiet place, ingesting information and synthesizing that into 300 pages of content that's uniquely his?" His implication is that that intricate process may go the way of the leather bookmark, as the notion of author as authoritarian figure gives way to a Web 2.0 wisdom-of-the-crowds process. "The idea of authorship will change and become more of a process than a product," says Ben Vershbow, associate director of the institute.

This is already happening on the Web. Instead of retreating to a cork-lined room to do their work, authors like Chris Anderson, John Battelle ("The Search") and NYU professor Mitchell Stephens (a book about religious belief, in progress) have written their books with the benefit of feedback and contributions from a community centered on their blogs.

"The possibility of interaction will redefine authorship," says Peter Brantley, executive director of the Digital Library Federation, an association of libraries and institutions. Unlike some writing-in-public advocates, he doesn't spare the novelists. "Michael Chabon will have to rethink how he writes for this medium," he says. Brantley envisions wiki-style collaborations where the author, instead of being the sole authority, is a "superuser," the lead wolf of a creative pack. (Though it's hard to believe that lone storytellers won't always be toiling away in some Starbucks with the Wi-Fi turned off, emerging afterward with a narrative masterpiece.)
All this becomes even headier when you consider that as the e-book reader is coming of age, there are huge initiatives underway to digitize entire libraries. Amazon, of course, is part of that movement (its Search Inside the Book project broke ground by providing the first opportunity for people to get search results from a corpus of hundreds of thousands of tomes). But as an unabashed bookseller, its goals are different from those of other players, such as Google—whose mission is collecting and organizing all the world's information—and that of the Open Content Alliance, a consortium that wants the world's books digitized in a totally nonproprietary manner. (The driving force behind the alliance, Brewster Kahle, made his fortune by selling his company to Amazon, but is unhappy with the digital-rights management on the Kindle: his choice of an e-book reader would be the dirt-cheap XO device designed by the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.) There are tricky, and potentially showstopping, legal hurdles to all this: notably a major copyright suit filed by a consortium of publishers, along with the Authors Guild, charging that Google is infringing by copying the contents of books it scans for its database. Nonetheless, the trend is definitely to create a back end of a massively connected library to supply future e-book devices with more content than a city full of libraries. As journalist Kevin Kelly wrote in a controversial New York Times Magazine article, the goal is to make "the entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages, available to all people, all the time."

Google has already scanned a million books from its partner libraries like the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library, and they are available in its database. (Last week my wife searched for information about the first English edition of the journals of Pehr Kalm, a Swedish naturalist traveling in Colonial America. In less than two seconds, Google delivered the full text of the book, as published in 1771.)

Paul LeClerc, CEO of the New York Public Library, says that he's involved in something called the Electronic Enlightenment, a scholarly project (born at the University of Oxford) to compile all the writings of and information about virtually every major figure of the Enlightenment. It includes all the annotated writings, correspondence and commentary about 3,800 18th-century writers like Jefferson, Voltaire and Rousseau, completely cross-linked and searchable—as if a small room in a library were compressed to a single living document. "How could you do that before?" he asks.
Now imagine that for all books. "Reading becomes a community activity," writes Kelly. "Bookmarks can be shared with fellow readers. Marginalia can be broadcast … In a very curious way, the universal library becomes one very, very, large single text: the world's only book."

Google's people have thought about how this connectivity could actually affect how people read. Adam Smith, product director for Book Search, says the process is all about "getting rid of the idea that a book is a [closed] container." One of his colleagues, Dan Lansing, describes how it might work: "Say you are trying to learn more about the Middle East, and you start reading a book, which claims that something happened in a particular event in Lebanon in '81, where the author was using his view on what happened. But actually his view is not what [really] happened. There's newspaper clippings on the event, there are other people who have written about it who disagree with him, there are other perspectives. The fact that all of that is at your fingertips and you can connect it together completely changes the way you do scholarship, or deep investigation of a subject. You'll be able to get all the world's information, all the books that have been published, all the world's libraries."

Jim Gerber, Google's content-partnerships director, suggests that it might be an interesting idea, for example, for someone on the liberal side of the fence to annotate an Ann Coulter book, providing refuting links for every contention that the critic thought was an inaccurate representation. That commentary, perhaps bolstered and updated by anyone who wants to chime in, could be woven into the book itself, if you chose to include it. (This would probably make Ann Coulter very happy, because you'd need to buy her book in order to view the litany of objections.)

All these ideas are anathema to traditionalists. In May 2006, novelist John Updike, appalled at reading Kelly's article ("a pretty grisly scenario"), decided to speak for them. Addressing a convention of booksellers, he cited "the printed, bound and paid-for book" as an ideal, and worried that book readers and writers were "approaching the condition of holdouts, surly hermits who refuse to come out and play in the electric sunshine of the post-Gutenberg village." (Actually, studies show that heavy Internet users read many more books than do those not on the Net.) He declared that the "edges" of the traditional book should not be breached. In his view, the stiff boards that bound the pages were not just covers but ramparts, and like-minded people should "defend the fort." That fort will stand, of course, for a very long time. The awesome technology of original books—and our love for them—will keep them vital for many years to come. But nothing is forever. Microsoft's Bill Hill has a riff where he runs through the energy-wasting, resource-draining process of how we make books now. We chop down trees, transport them to plants, mash them into pulp, move the pulp to another factory to press into sheets, ship the sheets to a plant to put dirty marks on them, then cut the sheets and bind them and ship the thing around the world. "Do you really believe that we'll be doing that in 50 years?" he asks.

The answer is probably not, and that's why the Kindle matters. "This is the most important thing we've ever done," says Jeff Bezos. "It's so ambitious to take something as highly evolved as the book and improve on it. And maybe even change the way people read." As long as the batteries are charged.
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