Brian over at IowaVoice had such a brilliant idea that I decided to blatantly rip it off and make it my own! Yes that’s right, I’m a capitalist pig at heart. Actually the splash page is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile now and Brian’s post just motivated me to create what is now known as the Front Page. The page itself is nothing more than a simple html file who’s design was inspired by the DrudgeReport and Page 2 with of course a little Iowa flare.

Update:It’s been a week since I switched to HTML-ing the front page. While it was a unique product it just takes way too much time to continually edit. For a week I was able to understand exactly what Drudge goes through! I’ve returned the blog to the forefront. From now on the “Front Page” will be referred as “News and Feeds“. Normal blogging will resume

Let’s get the job done so we can get our troops home.

An Iowa National Guardsman was killed in Iraq Friday, the Guard announced on Sunday.

Spc. Gregory L. Tull, 20, of Pocohontas, was killed during combat operations when insurgent forces detonated an improvised explosive device near his armored Humvee. Tull was a gunner in the vehicle when it was attacked in Al Anbar province near Hit, Iraq, at about 2 p.m. Tull was assigned to the Iowa Army National Guard’s Detachment 1, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 194th Field Artillery, in Storm Lake.

Tull was born in Phoenix, Ariz., and graduated from Pocohontas Area High School in 2003. He attended South Dakota State University before volunteering for Operation Iraqi Freedom in November 2004.

Tull is survived by his mother and father, Eileen and Gary, and, brother, Bryan, all of Pocohontas. He is also survived by his grandparents, Bill and Janet Velau of Garner, and Erland and Phyllis Nelson of Humboldt.

KCCI.com – Local News – Iowa Soldier Killed In Iraq

TORONTO (Reuters)- Canadian inmates can now get tattoos in prison parlors under a pilot program aimed at cutting down use of unclean needles and the spread of disease.

The Canadian government showed off its tattoo parlor program on Thursday at a prison in Bath, Ontario, where it is being tested.

“The program has advantages in that we can take a practice that already occurs, and make it safer,” said Holly Knowles, a spokeswoman for Correctional Services Canada. “We’re trying to reduce the amount of make-shift needles.”

The government believes secret tattooing contributes to the spread of disease in prisons because of the use of shared needles.

Prison authorities say rates of hepatitis B and C among prisoners are about 30 times higher than outside prison walls. HIV rates are about 10 times higher.

To be eligible for the program, tattoo designs must be approved by prison officials and must not be gang-related, or deemed racist. Participating inmates must have a good prison record.

I mean, Earth to Canada… this is the rest of Earth calling. Fighting AIDS and other viruses is one thing, but giving inmates reduced priced tattoos is another. The air up north must be thin because this is cut from the same cloth as the infamous “bridge to nowhere” project in Alaska.

(image: Sacred Cow Burgers)

Welcome to the Thanksgiving Trackback edition with all your Thanksgiving Themed Blogging. The rules are simple: I’ll link to you, if you link to me! To join just link to this post and use the following Trackback URI

Trackback URI: http://halfthepolitics.com/2005/11/24/happy-thanksgiving-everyone-with-trackbacks/trackback/

Other Thanksgiving Trackbacks:
ThePoliticalTeen

The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. This comes as President Bush wraps up a visit to Asia, in which he sought to strengthen U.S. ties with key allies in the region.

Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.

“In any case, if tension between the United States and China heightens, if each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives,” Mr. Ishihara said in an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, are “extremely incompetent” and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. Indeed, he asserted that China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities—even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.

The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.

East Asia allies doubt U.S. could win war with China

Gee, major props goes to the liberals for tearing down any credibility we had against Red China. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say this has been their endgame all the long. However, I’m not going to go down that conspiracy theory route… no matter how tempting.

The United States government has placed an interim ban on poultry from British Columbia. The move comes after a case of avian flu was found on a Fraser Valley farm.

U.S. officials sent a letter to Canada’s chief veterinary officer Dr. Brian Evans to inform him of the ban.

CTV.ca | U.S. places interim ban on B.C. poultry

Wow, KWTX is reporting that the State of Texas is suing Sony

Texas is suing Sony BMG Music Entertainment, alleging the company illegally installed spyware on millions of music CDs that Attorney General Greg Abbott says can make computers “vulnerable to computer viruses and other forms of attack.”

Abbott said the spyware installs files onto the computers on which the CDs are played.

While their intentions might have been good, Sony is never going to get past this one!

Click Here To Read The Lawsuit

Meanwhile…

RIAA President Cary Sherman weighs in:

“The problem with the SonyBMG situation is that the technology they used contained a security vulnerability of which they were unaware. They have apologized for their mistake, ceased manufacture of CDs with that technology,and pulled CDs with that technology from store shelves. Seems very responsible to me. How many times that software applications created the same problem? Lots. I wonder whether they’ve taken as aggressive steps as SonyBMG has when those vulnerabilities were discovered, or did they just post a patch on the Internet?”

Source: CP NewsLink Transcript: Cary Sherman of the RIAA

(hat tip: RealTechNews.com)

• Stewart Cruises to Second NASCAR Title on Yahoo! News

  Stewart cruised to his second NASCAR championship in four years Sunday, capping an uncharacteristically calm season for the former Bad Boy.

• Review: Walk The Line

  The long and short of it is that this movie is probably about what most Johnny Cash fans had in mind upon learning of the intent to make a biography of the man in black.

• Jerusalem Post | Breaking Naews from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World

  The Elaph Arab media website reported on Sunday that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of the al-Qaida in Iraq terror group, may have been killed in Iraq on Sunday afternoon when eight terrorists blew themselves up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The u

If you would like to display the Iowa Blogroll on your own website just add the following code snipet anywhere between the ‘head’ tags.

Click to View

If you would like to be added to the Iowa Blogroll shoot me an email or leave a comment!

Network Announcement: All the blogs are now online.