911 Commission Report - Free!

If you have an Ebook Reader - either on your desktop or on a Palm Pilot, PocketPC,etc, then you can download a free copy of the full 911 Commission Report at Fictionwise . Looks to be fairly easy reading. Check it out. You can also download an audio version from Audible.com for $4.95.

Is this what you want America?
According to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday, households with incomes in the top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090. Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually...... Mr. Kerry would seek to roll back the tax cuts for households with incomes above $200,000 a year, a move his campaign estimates would save $860 billion over 10 years, and use that money in large part to pay for a vast new national health care plan ( Middle and Lower Income America - Time to go Vote! (Source - NY Times )

Olympics
Just a reminder - NBC tonight from 8-11 p.m. (Eastern) - Opening Ceremonies !

Birding
A red footed Falcon makes its way to the Western Hemisphere for the first time! Sighted on Martha's Vineyard, one of the observers was David Sibley, creator of an encyclopedic series of books on birds, who also heard about the bird on Tuesday. "I found out what the earliest ferry was and came right over," said Mr. Sibley, who lives in Concord, Mass. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

Mr. Sibley said the bird was male, just over a year old. "It still has the feathers that have the pattern of juvenile feathers," he said.

Red-footed falcons winter in southern and western Africa and breed in Eastern Europe, principally in Russia, Mr. Laux said. No one can say how the bird got here, but this species is adapted for long-distance flying. It may have come from Africa on trade winds or storm winds, and made its way north from South America. Or it could have come across the North Atlantic from England, Ireland or Iceland, where red-footed falcons have been spotted sporadically in recent years. To hear it's voice, go to this page . A high-pitched Ki-ki-ki, not unlike the kestrel, but more drawn-out and mournful.

Word of the Day
putative - Thought, assumed, or alleged to be such or to exist (the child's putative father) (ignorantly entered into a putative marriage before the divorce from a previous spouse was final)

Quote of the Day
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
Robertson Davies

Market Indexes Year to Date
DOW -4.93
NASDAQ -11.03
S&P 500 -2.04
(Vote Kerry/Edwards!)