soapbox

(1) This is just sick: “The Daily News reported that the hate mail to the Yankees’ 31-year-old captain called him a “traitor to his race” for dating white women. It warned him “to stop or he’ll be shot or set on fire,” the paper said in Monday editions, quoting an unidentified law enforcement source.

(2)… and this is kinda cool: ER visits down during Red Sox playoff run
Associated Press.

“We knew if we were looking for any public event that would have an effect on health care utilization, it would have to be the Red Sox championship games,” Reis told The Boston Globe.

They discovered that during the championship games, fans in three of every five households were watching. At the same time, emergency room visits dropped by about 15 percent when compared with trends for ER visits on fall evenings.

here’s a lame copy-paste from a Move-On email, but it’s said pretty clearly [here's info on the full list of cuts]:

Last week, congressional Republicans responded to Hurricane Katrina by proposing to cut nearly a trillion dollars from vital national services, like health care for the poor and elderly, student loans, Amtrak, and eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (again!). Republican leaders in Congress are now gauging the public’s response to see if they can get away with their plan. We need to show them the answer is “no.”

The cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, while huge, is far less than what President Bush has given away in tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent. National crises like Hurricanes Rita and Katrina are times for all Americans to stick together and put in our fair share.
(more…)

There are some [fairly stale] petit fours in my office if you’d like to have some.

If they aren’t eaten by the end of the day, they’re getting thrown out.

The pictures from the croquet party are up so that you can relive the last sunny day of summer.

Personally, I think we all looked pretty sharp.

All the stuff’s still in the back of my car too, so we’ll have to play some day soon at lunch. I think it should be with the international setup too… and you don’t have to wear all white if you don’t want to.