A Different World

Thousands of Muslims from 5 continents write letters condemning attacks, honor slain U.S. ambassador

They don't all hate us or want to see us dead ...

'Celebrate Mercy': After Libya Attack, Muslim Condolence-Letter Campaign For Slain Ambassador's Family Goes Viral

From the piece: 

el Messidi told WATE.com that the goal of the campaign had initially been to encourage 1,000 people to send online condolences to Stevens' family. Within two days, however, that number was increased to 5,000.

And now, Celebrate Mercy says, even that goal has been smashed.

According to a press release published on Wednesday by the non-profit Muslim group, over 7,000 letters have been sent from 110 countries in eleven days and more continue to be sent out "at a rate of one letter every two minutes."

The organization says it has received letters from Muslims "spanning five continents," including many Libyans and Libyan-Americans.

Hard to envision there's much demand for Asian Wonder Land in Myrtle Beach

I admit: I am not a Renaissance man, not even close. So maybe I'm looking through uncultured eyes as I find it hard to envision how an Asian Wonder Land would work in Myrtle Beach.

I know enough about the culture to know that it is deep, rich and broad and more diverse than American culture by a mile. But a museum built upon Asian culture attracting a lot of tourists and locals in the Myrtle Beach area? I just can't see it. Can anyone else?

What might interest me is something to do with the icon Bruce Lee, or maybe checking out Pearl Harbor from the other perspective, or maybe how the atomic bombs affected that part of the world. Those are things that quickly jump out at me. Maybe the Ming dynasty?

More than half of the world's population lives on the continent of Asia, and countries there have been around seemingly forever. The history is rich and deep.

But how do you successfully market it in Myrtle Beach when a Hunley exhibit housed at ultra popular Broadway at the Beach couldn't even make it?

A 75 percent tax rate for the super rich?

A long time ago, the top marginal rate in the U.S. topped out at 90 percent, if I'm not mistaken.

Would anybody be in favor of even a temporary 75 percent tax rate for the super rich like the one being pushed in France? I suspect not. Such a move isn't even necessary and would only further gum up an already crazy tax system.

I wouldn't be in favor of such a tax height, though I am in favor of allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of this year, which would push the top marginal rate back up to 39.6 percent and push us a long, long way down the road to fiscal sanity.

Who will have better football season? Joe Moglia or David Bennett?

Joe Moglia, who took over the Coastal Carolina University football program this year from former coach David Bennett, has had a fairly successful start. Now the real tests begin.

But I'm wondering who will have the most successful season after all the games are played, Moglia or Bennett?

Another dispiriting headline for the Edge family

I'm not even sure what to say about this latest incident, which is noteworthy primarily because Rep. Tracy Edge and his family have had to endure a great deal of depressing headlines over the past couple of years.

I still believe Edge is a good man and a good legislator, even when I disagree with him. I just hope he and his family can put these types of incidents behind them.

Cognitive dissonance: Fox News suggests polling bias - but fails to mention it's own poll has president ahead

More evidence that though we are inhabiting the same earth, we are in different universes:

A quick glance at FoxNews.com, for instance, reveals an election package at the top of the page with several stories, which is fairly standard this time of the year. One of the stories highlighted is labeled "The truth about 2012 polls," in which a former Clinton pollster and Fox News contributor argues that the polls are skewed to the left, even if President Barack Obama is currently ahead.

It's a part of the growing discussion on the right that the left-wing media is somehow manipulating all of the polling data to depress the conservative vote - a case they did not make when those same polls had the race essentially tied.

Police officer said he was fired for giving Clemson head football coach a ticket

Police officer said he was fired for giving Clemson head football coach a ticket

From the piece: The city of Pickens said it fired the officer because he posted his version of events on a South Carolina message board while still on duty and using a police department computer.

NFL: 'We want to protect the integrity of our brutal, inhuman game'

NFL: 'We want to protect the integrity of our brutal, inhuman game'

The history of fighting over God's image in America

Fighting over God's image

From the piece: 

In the early Republic, many Americans avoided depicting Jesus or God in any form. The painter Washington Alliston spoke for many artists of the 1810s when he said, “I think his character too holy and sacred to be attempted by the pencil.” A visiting Russian diplomat, Pavel Svinin, was amazed at the prevalence of a different image: George Washington’s. “Every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home,” he wrote, “just as we have images of God’s saints.”

Only in the late 19th century did images of God and Jesus become commonplace in churches, Sunday school books, Bibles and homes.

Report: U.S. economy added 386,000 more jobs in past year than we thought

U.S. economy added 386,000 more jobs in past year than we thought

We added even more private-sector jobs than that - and cut more government jobs that we thought as well. We are constantly told that when you cut the size of government, it frees things up in the private sector and the economy will soar. Well, we've cut about 600,000 public jobs over the past couple of years, and the public sector has been adding them - but the jobless rate is at least a percentage point higher than it otherwise would be had the government just remained the same size. Even given that, those who frequently talk about the need to cut government are complaining about the higher-than-necessary jobless rate. Why aren't they rejoicing instead?

Measuring Obama's job creation performance by Romney's metric