Jeremy Herndon

I’m not quite sure how this all plays out because I keep hearing that Afghanistan is where all of (or most of) the worst terrorists are hiding out, which gives me the impression that somehow the government is supporting their efforts. Yet, on the news today there was word that the Taliban tried to assassinate the president of Afghanistan during a parade that was celebrating the 16th anniversary of Afghanistan’s overthrowing the Soviet’s based rule.
Shots were fired and an MP and a ten year old were killed, but the President was not injured. The Taliban DOES take responsibility for the terrorist attack. The attack was carried out by six terrorists, three of whom were killed, and the other three were captured.  I just don’t understand why the Taliban would attack the country that seems to be giving them safe harbor!

Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems to me that every few months I hear about another case of large numbers of people being killed in a fire in a public place like a restaurant or a nightclub.  And most of the cases I hear about this kind of thing happening the following investigations discover that one of the biggest reasons that so many people died was because the emergency exit doors were padlocked shut.

I understand why the owners of the night clubs would want to lock the doors, to keep out people who are trying to sneak in without going through proper channels.  Seems to me that the better thing to do would be to hire security to stand by the doors and keep the unauthorized people out!

This most recent case was in the news, a night club caught on fire from a pyrotechnics stunt that was not authorized to be done, and that caused a fire, the fire spread and people could not get out fast enough because the emergency exit doors were locked.  I think that’s not only a shame, it’s a crime.

I don’t know why I always wait until the last minute to do my taxes!  I think it is a bad habit that I learned from my parents.  They always waited until the last minute to file their taxes; I can remember driving to the Post Office at 11:45pm and dropping the envelopes with the tax forms in the long handled net that the Post Office Employees were holding out to the cars as people drove past them, so the people could just drop their taxes in the nets and not have to get out of their cars.

I know that my parents did their taxes at the last minute because they had to pay taxes every year and they didn’t want to part with their money a second sooner than they absolutely HAD to.  But, come on, driving to the Post Office at 11:45pm?  That’s carrying it a little bit too far!

I’m luck; I always get some money back, which is why it makes little sense for me to wait until the last minute to file my taxes.  I think maybe it is really a case that I’m afraid that if I file them any sooner, I will get some forms in the mail afterwards that will require that I send in a revision, and I don’t want to have to do all of that extra work!

The shark experts claim that the chances of being bitten by a shark (and killed) are slim.  They claim that you are more likely to be struck by lightening than attacked by a shark.  Yet, every year I hear news stories of shark attacks happening!  The most recent news story going around about a shark attack is from Australia; a sixteen year old boy was attacked and killed by a shark off the coast of Ballina, Australia.  He was bodyboarding with a friend at the time.  Experts think the shark was a bull shark.  

The news story goes on to say that Australia ranks 4th in the world for shark attacks, that the USA ranks higher than Australia.

I know lots of people are fascinated by sharks; I think I’ll just stay out of the water thank you very much!

My wife told me today that she read an article that some scientists had created a part-cow/part human embryo and that the embryo lived for three days.  I was absolutely shocked to hear that, in fact I didn’t believe her at all!  Why on earth would anyone want to do that? 

But then she showed me the website she had read the article, http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23476268-38200,00.html?from=public_rss, and it sure seems that she was not lying to me!  According to the story, the scientists were NOT trying to create some kind of new creature that would be roaming around the earth; they were trying to find ways to further the progress of stem cell research.  So now that makes sense!