May God bless and comfort those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.

History fascinates me. Not only am I interested in the famous people of the past, but I also like to read about every day life in bygone days. How much did people pay for beef in 1902? What were the hottest styles of 1909? What kind of financial pressures did everyone face in 1899?

The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities are joint sponsors of Chronicling America, a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. I got goosebumps when I first stumbled upon this site because it allows visitors to view selected newspaper pages from 1890 to 1910. Right now, there’s only a limited amount of states, but they are working on creating a “national, digital resource of historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922.”

They also have some information about newspapers published in the U.S from 1690 to present, but that is also an ongoing project. The best part about this is that the site is totally free for everyone! I know we all complain about income taxes, but I have to say that I think this is a pretty good use of taxpayer dollars.

I found Wix.com last night and haven’t had a chance to play with it much, so I thought I’d post about it and encourage someone else to take it for a test drive (hint, hint) .  It says it allows you to create sites without using html, you just drag and drop and the end result will be a stunning site with flash.

Like I said, I’ve hardly tried it all, but I have to confess I was transfixed by the koi swimming under the text. I plan on going back and really trying it out asap, but in the meantime, have fun and if you make anything cool, I’d love to see it.

OH! It’s free too! I don’t know how companies can give away free stuff like this, but then again, I’ve never fully understood the  internal combustion system.

This morning, I started to make oatmeal with stevia for breakfast. In case you’re not familiar with stevia, it has NO calories and is much safer than artificial sweeteners. It also tastes much better than those artificial sweeteners and is very popular in every other civilized country besides the U.S. There have been a lot of politics involved in the whole situation and Arizona congressman Jon Kyl called the FDA action against stevia “a restraint of trade to benefit the artificial sweetener industry.” There’s a whole lot more information at Wikipedia, in case you’re interested.

Meanwhile, back to my little narrative:

So there I am, half awake, and I spy some Goldfish crackers, lonely and ignored.  So tempting, so tasty. Did I mention crunchy, because they are definitely packed full of crunchy goodness. I pick them up and start reading the label, and just then, BBD decides she is hungry too. Do I give her the Purina One, or maybe… she’d like something else?

She got the Goldfish crackers, I got the oatmeal and both of us were happy. Well, my happiness wasn’t as immediate as hers, and I didn’t wag my tail at all. But I’m glad that I stayed on my gluten free plan, it seems to be helping me a lot. I have to admit that I miss some forms of flour, and at night, I dream of hot buttered toast. I am finding the best way to deal with temptation is to get rid of it as soon as possible. Thankfully, BBD, being a loving and faithful companion, is more than happy to dispose of anything that I give her, she’s so helpful that way.

I admit that I don’t use a feed reader. I figure that if I want to read blog posts, then I might as well go read the posts where the blogger put them in the first place, lol. But since everyone else on the planet seems to like feed readers, I might as well learn what FeedBurner is all about. I just found a great tutorial, “Beginner’s Guide to Using and Building Traffic with FeedBurner” and I’m mostly posting it here for my own benefit. The author says, “I started this guide with every intention of putting out a short 2–3 page guide with tips for using the FeedBurner service for newbies, but it grew into a 22 page report. ” It’s free, and I downloaded it, and it’s very easy to read while being full of good hints that will come in handy for me if I ever install FeedBurner here.

I also found an article at Associated Content, “7 Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic with FeedBurner“, which would be handy for those that are concerned about getting more traffic to your blog. As for me, I don’t think I have very much traffic right now, unless I count the people looking for my post titled Islam Supremacy and hatred taught by Muslim Mickey Mouse clone. I probably should update that soon, that clone has been replaced by another character, but that’s another post, another day.

In an interview, Barack Obama was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “This Week” program whether he’d ever thought about military service and replied: “You know, I actually did. I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school” A few moments later, he said, “But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979.”

However, the Selective Service  Registration requirement was terminated by  Proclamation 4360 which eliminated  the registration requirement for all 18-25 year old male citizens. This proclamation was signed by President Gerald R. Ford on March 29, 1975.  According to Wikipedia, it was reestablished by Jimmy Carter in 1980, after Obama graduated:

On March 25, 1975, Pres. Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4360, Terminating Registration Procedures Under Military Selective Service Act, eliminating the registration requirement for all 18-25 year old male citizens. Then on July 2, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4771, Registration Under the Military Selective Service Act, retroactively re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all 18-26 year old male citizens born on or after January 1, 1960. Only men born between March 29, 1957, and December 31, 1959, were completely exempt from Selective Service registration.^[2] The first registrations after Proclamation 4771 took place on Monday, July 21, 1980, for those men born in January, February and March 1960 at U.S. Post Offices. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were reserved for men born in the later quarters of the year, and registration for men born in 1961 began the following week ^[3].

I know many people are probably focusing on Obama’s “My Muslim Faith” comment during the same interview, but I think this is just as important. Why in the world would he lie about something like this? Everyone at the time knew that young men were no longer required to register.

Even if Obama didn’t know that Ford had signed the proclamation, how could he be remembering being required to sign up, when there was no requirement at all?

I am happy to admit, that after a lifelong quest, I have found that Someburros makes the best salsa in the world. It’s so good that I hope the streets of Heaven aren’t just paved with gold, but also lined with shelves containing an endless supply of their salsa.

However, their salsa isn’t very compatible with a computer keyboard, so after a heart-stopping OOOOPS moment, I am sitting at my big girl desktop, hoping that the laptop suffers no permanent damage.  Of course, all my bookmarks, my notes, and everything are on the laptop, so I don’t know how much work I’ll be able to do today. Heck, I can’t even get my IM program to work on this computer for some unfathomable reason. I’ll figure that out in a bit, but in the meantime, I have some delicious Mexican food to keep me busy. If you’re in the Phoenix area and are a fan of a good chile relleno, you have to check out the ones at Someburros, they are AMAZING! Just make sure that when you dig in, your laptop is safely put away first.