I make a point of visiting the classrooms of my elementary-school aged children during this month to do a presentation on Islam. Teaching about world religions, including Islam, is a requirement of our state's standards, but because of the contentious nature of teaching about religion in the classroom, it is often avoided by teachers. This fear of teaching about religion doesn't stop our schools from hosting many representations of Christianity.

I really, really don't understand what's going on in the stock market right now. And by that, of course, I mean I do understand, I just don't like it. Today's alleged good news is the decrease in the unemployment rate, from 9.5 percent in June to 9.4 percent in August. Predictably, the markets jumped to '09 highs, capping off a nearly 50 percent run from the March lows.

As far as I can tell the government's proposed "health care reform" can be summarized as "put more money into the existing U.S. system". I'm wondering why we as a society would want to do this.

Yesterday's New York Times has an article on a new trend in search and data gathering technology, called sentiment analysis, which attempts to extract information about public opinion from, for example, postings on social networking sites: An emerging field known as sentiment analysis is taking shape around one of the computer world's unexplored frontiers: translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.

In temperate climates, influenza displays distinct seasonality: infections mainly occur from November through March in the northern hemisphere, and from May to September in the southern hemisphere. The results of experiments in guinea pigs have revealed that aerosol transmission of influenza virus is most efficient in cold and dry conditions, and completely blocked at warm or humid conditions.

A good friend of mine enjoys online gambling. He plays regularly
and likes to risk a few dollars each week for recreation. He never
goes over that limit and most of the time he makes a few dollars.

Anti-war protests in all 50 states and in front of the hated King Bush II's Texas ranch were a fixture in American life and newspapers from 2003 through mid-2008. The protests seem to have disappeared yet the ills of war remain.

A Presidential advisory group of the nation's leading scientists and engineers today released a new report assessing the Obama Administration's preparations for this fall's expected resurgence of 2009-H1N1 flu and outlining key steps officials can take in the coming weeks and months to minimize the disease's impact on the nation. The report concludes that the 2009-H1N1 flu is unlikely to resemble the deadly flu pandemic of 1918-19.

I remember back in the good ol' days of 2005 and 2006 when being against the wars was not only politically correct, but it was very popular. I remember receiving dozens of awards, uncountable accolades and even was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yesterday's report on residential construction provided more evidence that step one of a housing bottom is underway " and that step two may be beginning. Total housing starts fell slightly in July because of weakness in multi-family. But starts of single-family homes increased to 490 thousand (at an annual rate), the fifth straight monthly increase and the highest level since last October.

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