From an AP article of the same title in The Detroit News:

A Wal-Mart cashier who posted a joke on his MySpace Web page lost his job after the company apparently perceived it as a threat.

David Noordewier, of Lapeer County's Almont Township, posted a joke that suggested average IQs would increase if a bomb were dropped on every Wal-Mart store. He said he thought it was crude, but funny.

His bosses at the store in Macomb County's Shelby Township disagreed, and fired him Feb. 27.

He said he believes a co-worker who disliked him copied the MySpace page and showed it to his boss.

"If you have a MySpace site, you better act like you're a politician," he said. "Be politically correct and don't try to be funny."

You might have heard that France recently elected a right-wing candidate. A French friend told me. "We elected our George Bush." It's interesting to see what passes for right-wing among the French. From a recent editorial in The Week:

In the Gallic context, a right-winger doesn't resemble anything close to a Ronald Reagan. He's more like a Bill Clinton or a Tony Blair - tempering a respect for market economics with a strong commitment to social services. Sarkozy's version of tax reform, for example, envisions a cut in the top income tax rate from 60 percent all the way down to 50 percent - still among the highest in Europe. And his plan to reduce France's bloated bureaucracy doesn't call for a single job cut; he simply proposes not replacing some of the civil servants who will retire in the next few years. Add to that his pledges to ban "golden parachute" payouts to corporate executives, make all national museums free, and legalize gay civil unions, and Sarkozy starts to seem more left-wing than most Democrats. In foreign politics, as in foreign policy, perspective is everything. One country's conservative is another country's liberal.

On another blog I've started a new hobby of maintaining a timeline of major news stories about Iraq with links to the articles. For example the next time someone tells you there was a significant pre-war link between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, go there (link) to find a link to the article describing the recently-released Pentagon report debunking that claim. It's also a sad summary of the constant march of death with a rare nugget of good news occasionally mixed in.

We had some friends (Chai, Sitter, Wanous) over Saturday afternoon. Below are some photos and a video of the boys in the backyard. On Monday we watched the parade. The Somasi and Jolly families came over for pizza lunch. Some yard work in the afternoon. Then dinner at the Jolly's place.

• A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith (NY Times, discusses Obama's faith and his relationship with his controversial pastor)
• A Plastic Wrapper Today Could Be Fuel Tomorrow (NY Times, scientists are developing plastics for normal uses that are designed to be easily used as a diesel fuel)

Here are some photos of Elliot from a few weeks back:

Some people really lack judgment and wisdom. REALLY LACK. From a recent issue of The Week magazine:

Teachers told sixth–graders on a field trip to a Tennessee state park last week that a gunman was coming and ordered them to turn off the lights and hide under tables. After five minutes, during which someone in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on the locked doors, the teachers told the trembling students that the whole thing was a prank. “I thought I was going to die,” said 11–-year-–old Shay Naylor, who estimated that about a third of the 69 children were crying in terror. The teachers said “campfire pranks” were a school tradition, and that most of the kids thought the experience was fun. One teacher and an assistant principal were suspended after some parents complained that the prank was horribly ill–conceived, coming just weeks after the mass murder at Virginia Tech.

In an article of the same title in The Washington Post by Dana Milbank describing President Bush's Thursday press conference:

The session was called to draw attention to the fact that Democratic leaders had just caved in to Bush's demand that the Iraq spending bill have no withdrawal timeline. But as frequently happens at presidential events these days, it quickly became al-Qaeda, all the time. Bush invoked the terrorist group 19 times and even suggested it was going after individual reporters' kids.

"They are a threat to your children, David," he advised NBC's David Gregory.

"It's a danger to your children, Jim," Bush informed the New York Times' Jim Rutenberg.

This last warning was perplexing, because Rutenberg has no children, only a brown chow chow named Little Bear. It was unclear whether Bush was referring to a specific and credible threat to Little Bear or merely indicating there was increased "chatter in the system" about chow chows in general.