The Zogby polls are in:
33% of the troops in Iraq feel they should be pulled out immediately.
72% of the troops in Iraq feel they should leave within the year.
23% of the troops in Iraq feel they should stay as long as needed.
34% of Americans approve of the job Bush has done.

Utah's House of Representatives has rejected Intelligent Design from the state's high school standards in a 46-28 vote.

China is preparing to launch a second internet. Some are pondering it's the beginning of the end of the global internet... I ponder perhaps it's just the beginning of the end of the global internet for China.

China is taking the idea of the overbearing soccer mom to a whole new level as it gears up for hosting the 2008 Olympic games. The country has formed sports schools where children as young as 6 years old are trained in all the Olympic sports. The children are able to visit their parents on the weekends, but otherwise must spend their time mastering the sport they have been deemed best at. The goal is for China to have a medal in every sport by the end of the 2012 games, and to be the country with the most medals from now on.

Last night we had our Japanese dinner at Brent's. I made miso soup, curry buta, and green tea, and we also had dried taco (octopus) and sampled some other things my host family sent like bean jellies, and a couple things I wasn't sure what they were. Brent went and got some sushi from Little Tokyo, and he also made the rice and set up the table. It really helped set the mood, as did all the dishes, bowls, tea accessories and such that Sandy gave me. I also made little place cards with our names written on them in katakana. It was a very good evening.

The Truth, which is the organization that airs commercials about smoking and the smoking industry had a commercial on the other day that said that one cigarette manufacturer gave $125,000 in food to charity, and then spent $21,000,000 to advertise that they gave food to charity. I wonder what effects their ads have had on smokers or if anyone has quit because of them.

Yesterday after work I went to the Food4Less with Teresa to get the rest of the fresh ingredients for Japanese dinner night. We were going to get beef for the curry... but all their beef seemed freakishly red- not just blood red, or red meat red... but cherry red. It just seemed odd, so we went with pork instead. After that we played Nintendo some, I beat Zelda, and then we did incredibly well at the first level of Super Contra, but then did poorly after that.

This morning I made little place cards in Japanese for the dinner, and I gathered up the stuff I was going to take.

The rest of the day did not go well.

Sunday, today I slept in, watched more of Voyager, and played Homeworld 2.

Saturday I went to work, and then after work I went shopping with Teresa. We went the Asian food market on Gage and got Miso Soup (instant) and some curry mix. Thursday we were planning on cooking a Japanese meal for the karate class... even though we haven't gone since last year, but Dennis came back to visit and will go back to Texas next Saturday. After the Asian market we went to PetSmart and Walmart (I needed aquarium supplies and fish food). After that we ate at KFC and played Zelda.

Friday, What did I do Friday? I forget now. I went to work, and then watched the Sci-Fi Friday on TV of course! It was also bitterly cold Friday.

Today I took the day off because of the weather and stayed home... Most of the day I spent watching Sara's Voyager season 3 and doing chores about the house. Teresa called tonight cause she wanted to remind me to print a photo from our Colorado trip, so I pondered I'd finally do that for her so she can be happy.

The last shoe is about to drop at Apple... I'm somewhat of an anti-apple person, mainly because the iPeople think that their systems are superior to all, when really they are marginally equal, and are way overpriced. No matter what marketing ploy they use, Apple has never broken the 5% market share among home computer users. Somewhat recently the dropped their old operating system for a pepped up version of Linux which became OSX, and then next they started using Intel processors rather than building their own, and now something is being tossed around that will shake every Mac user to the core- Apple may just drop production of its own OS and use Windows. The people at Apple had hoped that the iPod would have gotten people to switch over entirely to Mac, but now that it is clear very few people changed over it appears they might be pondering ways to grab more of the market share. If they make the move to Windows I still don't see them gaining ground as it is usually the OS that is cited as the reason why Mac systems are better than Windows PCs, and if the Mac goes to Windows they will much more similar in every regard to the PC- and then, why pay more for a Mac?

Today I had my curry udon noodles- Very delicious!

Today I fixed a package of kimchi udon noodles that my host family sent me- it was very good.

Smally seems much better now- The vet added another medication to her daily doses, and slowly she's returned back to normal, minus the hair on her bum, but perhaps that will grow back in time.

Scooter Libby was not in the news today, but Cheney was as he accidentally shot a hunting partner.

Scooter Libby has testified that he was authorized directly from someone higher up in the Administration to make a leak to the media- and since the Vice President is his direct boss things may finally hit the fan, but I guess we will see on Monday.

I'm back to good health once again!

The Public Affairs officer for NASA I blogged about Monday resigned today, after taking a lot of heat it was also discovered that he had lied about having a degree.

Carl Rove has delivered a message to all Republicans: If you voice any dissagreement with the NSA warrentless wiretaps, you will recieve no support from the GOP in your re-ellection.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has been questioned by the Senate, and some very interesting things have come out of it. Gonzalez was asked why when he came to them for confirmation when he was asked if the NSA was conducting warrantless wiretaps, he said that it was not going on. He was also asked several times if wiretaps were being conducted on solely domestic calls, he refused to answer, and was asked again, he refused to answer... round and round, each time the questioner got a wee bit more angry. Gonzalez also gave this wonderful quote: "I gave in my opening statement Senator, examples where President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance of the enemy on a far broader scale." Wow, perhaps this is a classified issue I'm unaware of, but I had no idea President Washington had such an advanced electronic surveillance network.

Coretta Scott-King's funeral was today- President Bush spoke, as did Clinton, Carter and a number of other famous people from entertainment and civil rights groups. It quickly became political and anti-Bush, the King's devoted their lives to liberty, peace, and were also wiretapped by the government, so there were many statements on current issues, any of which that were negative to Bush receive great applause. I must credit Bush for going and taking it, course how could he have not went. I also must credit President Clinton, who was one of the few to try to steer the subject solely to Coretta.

An Iranian newspaper has announced a competition for readers to submit their best Holocaust cartoon in order to test the idea that the Western World is enlightened and not upset over freedom of speech.

"Undiplomatic Behavior" is what many are calling it... The US embassy in Cuba has installed a giant ticker in its windows so anti-Cuba messages scroll past for the Cubans to read.

St. Bernard Parish council members have taken the law into their own hands and stole trailers from FEMA. They have begun to park them in the yards of people who are trying to rebuild their homes and lives. FEMA has given them the warning that any trailer that leaves the parking lot without a FEMA barcode will not be paid for by government.

Wow, this weekend really sucked! All day Sunday I was super sick and didn't get out of bed or eat anything. Today I feel much better.

Smally is not doing well, she is our Chihuahua with lymphoma. She's lived over a year past what they expected, but now she's losing all of her hair and sleeps all day.

Saturday I got a package from my host family full of lots of Japanese food- I pondered I'd stay away from it until I'm back to perfect health.

There appears to be some discontent within NASA these days- The Bush Administration appointed a new public relations officer there, and they immediately began to write a religious slant to everything, including adding intelligent design into the formation of the Universe. After using his post to suppress information on global warming (which the Bush Administration does not believe) NASA Administrator Mike Griffin released an e-mail to all NASA staff stating that: "It is not the job of public-affairs officers to alter, filter or adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA’s technical staff."

It's the end of an era- the final Western Union telegram was sent yesterday. I didn't realize that telegraphs were still being sent.

The European Union embassy in Gaza was stormed by gunmen and hostages were briefly taken yesterday. This was in response to a cartoon that was printed in a Danish newspaper, which sparked boycotts of Danish goods, which cause French and other EU papers to reprint the cartoon with the growing story.

I'm now the proud owner of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory stock- well, that is if the stock drops a bit after the market opens and my order takes place. I pondered Choco-Stock because Valentine's Day is coming up, and Chocolate has got to do well, right?

My sore throat came back- I had one last night, and it went away after a bit, but it seems to keep coming back. It's not bad or anything, barely noticeable in fact... but since it has stuck with me it causes concern- I hate being sick.

I worked on Brent's site a wee bit tonight and fixed some things, and I need to ponder something flashy for the side.

Bush is preparing to ask Congress for $120 billion more for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan- if allowed, this would push the total to half a trillion dollars.