Good Morning All:

First, do apologize for being MIA the past few days, but life, duty and personal exhaustion have kept me from blogging.  Anyway, it's the weekend, hopefully Pina will get a chance to rest, and the sun is out and looking FABULOUS.   OUr daffies are REALLLY out in force, and everything is starting to bllom nicely...hoping for leaves on our trees in the next few days!

The cast is truly DRIVING ME NUTS....BUT, I get it off on Tuesday, so am pleased the cast period of this while thing is ALMOST over.  Will be a change pace to find out what my PT is going to involve...I am anxious to drive again.  Yesterday, had to make a quick trip down to the court house, and it was a $10 round trip in the taxi, and not near as much fun.

Let's do a quick news here, and let me go do my Nascar trades.

In what I consider short sited, and potentially dangerous to the peace...is it wise to be cancelling rebuilding promises ALREADY MADE in parts of Iraq?  I think this ill thoughtout war of Bush's has already cost out nation FAR TO MUCH, but, not sure how wise it is now that we are there to be cancelling out infrastructure improvements that could cause further instability if they had already been promised...your thoughts on this?  Even more disturbing, is that this is a Kurdish project...uhhhh....seems to me, as OUR ALLIES they deserve better than this.

Security vs. Rebuilding: Kurdish Town Loses Out

http://www.times.com/2005/04/16/international/middleeast/16halabja.html?hp&ex=1113710400&en=d0cc53d0702952e7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: April 16, 2005

Iraqi Army comes before clean drinking water for the people of Halabja," he said quietly, "then we can't expect anything from them."

The Halabja project, worth around $10 million, accounted for a small fraction of the $18.

ALABJA, Iraq, April 11 - For years Nuradeen Ghreeb has dreamed of bringing clean drinking water to his hometown. That town happens to be Halabja, where 17 years ago he and his parents cowered in a basement as Saddam Hussein's airplanes attacked with chemical weapons, killing at least 5,000 people.

But on Sunday, Mr. Nuradeen learned that his dream was over, because the United States had canceled the water project it had planned here as part of a vast effort to rebuild Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Ordinarily a quiet and reserved civil engineer, he sat on one of his beloved water pipes on hearing the news and wept, his tears glistening in the afternoon sun.

"If the Americans think that training the 4 billion that Congress approved in 2003 for the reconstruction of Iraq, including $4 billion for water and sewage projects. But with the outbreak of insurgency in central and southern Iraq last year, the United States shifted $3.4 billion from water, electricity and oil projects to pay for training and equipping the Iraqi Army and police forces.

The implications of that shift are only now becoming clear as individual projects are canceled in scores of communities across the country. Some of the largest cuts have come in waterworks: of 81 water projects that were to be financed through the Public Works Ministry, all but 13 have been canceled, with many of the rest reduced in scale, ministry officials say.

Remember Bush who told us about ALL THE PROSPEROUS time we could expect in his second term?  Where are they, where is the help for the middleclass, and why has our stock market been all but FLAT for the first almost five years of his presidency.  DO NOT LET HIM TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY!  Get involved, take back our nation and our economy, and tell Bush to keep his hands off od legalized abortion and our retirements.

Stocks Plunge to Lowest Point Since Election

By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

Published: April 16, 2005

http://www.times.com/2005/04/16/business/16stox.html?hp&ex=1113710400&en=ab1a6a489c34333a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

But it may be that general uncertainty - something that the stock market and millions of investors have never warmed to - is the real force behind the decline.

While some economists are now suddenly predicting slower economic growth, others are not. And no one is talking about a slump. Federal Reserve officials have been worried about inflatiotocks tumbled to their lowest levels since the presidential election yesterday, extending a recent slump that has come amid fears that economic growth is slowing.

The sell-off yesterday was ignited by surprisingly weak earnings from I.B.M., and steepened throughout the day. It was the worst single day for the market this year and capped the worst week since August.

nary pressures, but any economic slowdown might help relieve those.

"Right now it's a no vote on the economic outlook for the next six months," said Joseph Liro, an economist and market analyst with Stone & McCarthy Research Associates. "And that is because of the uncertainty about the impact of oil" on consumer spending, corporate profits and inflation, he said.

The persistence of crude oil prices above $50 a barrel, he said, "is certainly doing something to consumer sentiment," a fact reflected in the decline in April consumer confidence reported yesterday.

In the GET OVER IT, you've more than had your turn with 212 Popes, I bring you this WHINER story on the upcoming Papal election.

Italians Feel They Need the Next Papacy for Themselves

By JASON HOROWITZ

Published: April 16, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/16/international/worldspecial2/16italians.html?hp&ex=1113710400&en=4f2b44137e4f0350&ei=5094&partner=homepage

ATICAN CITY, April 15 - For 455 years, the papacy passed uninterrupted from one Italian to another until the election of the Polish pope, John Paul II. Now, after 26 years, many Italians think it is time to get back in office - for fear that changes in the Roman Catholic Church may close the door on them for good.

As 115 cardinals from 52 countries prepare to enter a conclave on Monday to select the next pope, some Vatican historians believe that the election of another foreigner will conclude a historic shift of power away from Italy. According to this school of thought, the papacy needs to mirror Catholicism's growth in the Southern Hemisphere, where the ranks are increasing in Africa and Latin America while shrinking in Europe.

Few church experts think that another loss for the Italians will knock them out as papal contenders for good, but it seems sure once and for all to shatter the idea, reinforced by so many centuries of dominance, that Italians are preternaturally the best men for the job.

Some here think that would be a mistake.

"There is a vocation, an Italian charisma," said Vittorio Messori, an Italian writer who collaborated on John Paul's 1994 book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope." "The Italians have a tradition of centuries behind them, they know how to do the job of pope, it's in their DNA."

Well, until now, anyway. "Another non-Italian pope would confirm Italy's decline," said Giovanni Maria Vian, a Vatican scholar at La Sapienza University of Rome. "It would mean Italy has lost its central role in papal succession."

There are signs that Italy is resisting such a trend, seeking to reclaim its traditional hold and add to the 212 popes it has had in the church's history.

Sigh...and I'd always hoped to own one of those old Rovers made famous in the classic movies from out youth.  Would seem to me one of our American car companies should step in, buy the company and bring Rover production to America!  Any one out ther have a few hundred million I could borrow to leverage the company?

Blair diverted as Rover collapses

Friday, April 15, 2005 Posted: 1853 GMT (0253 HKT)
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/04/15/mgrover/index.html