i may get sigmon off blogspot

other possible hosts

review of Downtown restaurants: from a downtown cuisine connoussiour
Signature School students are given the option of eating at one of six downtown restaurants or a coffee shop for lunch every day (listed in order of distance from Sig): The Pressbox, Blimpies, Milanos, Lics, Stratmans, Angelos, and Emges. Here's my review:

The Pressbox- typical coffee shop, similar to Penny Lane
Food quality: unknown (I have not eaten there yet)
Food to try: try whatever, and tell me what you think!
Price: expensive
Location: Right across Main Street from Sig

Blimpies- subs and soups, similar to Subway
Food quality: good, more meat (or at least it seems that way) than Subway
Food to try: Gyro with extra tzatziki sauce (yes, that is how you spell it. You can just ask for the "ziggy sauce" however, and they'll understand)
Price: more expensive than Subway, but it also has a food stamp card (buy 10 6" subs over time, get one 6" free). And they accept Visa
Location: Right across Main Street from the Loft

Milanos- Italian food (lasagna, pastas, calzones, salads, pizza)
Food quality: Great! Better than Fazoli's by far
Food to try: Chicken carbonara
Price: relatively cheap for good Italian food. And a full pizza costs only $9 and will fill four people. And they accept Visa
Location: and the opposite end of the block from Blimpies

Lics- general sandwiches and ice cream; sexy, crazy Kensington works there
Food quality: good
Food to try: Pepperoni pizza wrap and Choco-Creams
Price: OK, though the kiddie cone ice cream is $1...
Location: around the corner past Milanos. Watch out, that street can be very very windy and cold during the school year

Stratmans- sandwiches and a lunchline in the cafeteria. They also sell Cokes and candy in the store department
Food quality: nice home-style meals
Food to try: club sandwich, whatever is in the lunchline, or Lemon Heads
Price: About the same as non-pizza food at Milanos (which is the benchmark for downtown restaurants, by the way), but students and senior citizens get a discount. Like Blimpies, they have a card-stamping program for free food. And they accept Visa
Location: across from the park off of Main Street

Angelos- Italian food, selection is similar to Milanos
Food quality: I've only had the pizza, which is better than Milanos pizza
Food to try: something
Price: the pizza is much more expensive than at Milanos. I believe the other dishes are similar in price to their Milanos counterparts. And they accept Visa
Location: Way down Main Street from Sig

Emges- Sandwiches and ice cream
Food quality: Ok food. Good ice cream, though not as high quality as Lics
Food to try: Vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce and sprinkles, in a cup
Price: much more resonable than Lics ice cream prices
Location: Way, way, way down Main Street from Sig

those EUers
Most Euros in Germany Carry Cocaine Traces

"Nine out of 10 banknotes show clearly measurable amounts of cocaine," Fritz Soergel from the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in Nuremberg told Reuters on Wednesday. Some 600 euro notes were examined in the study.

But I'm sure most dollars in the US have traces of other, more exotic drugs

Signature School's ETS (CEEB) Code
I just realized I needed this number for application to the Air Force Academy. For anyone else who needs this number, it is 150966. If anyone needs to find the ETS/CEEB code of their high school, go to www.collegeboard.com and register for an SAT--at some point, you'll be asked to identify your high school. Search for high school by City and State, and then you'll see a listing of schools in your city, along with their ETS codes.

o!
EVSC's deal with Coca-Cola

early July slam at the Wadi Cafe
zildjangirl: Poetry slam July 5th at 7:30 pm

Open topic still

Speech and Debate Nationals!
According to my Nirav, no one from Sig made it to break rounds in their primary events. Amy will probably try to compete in impromptu, and Rachael has a poetry program ready to go (Nirav has to return to Evansville to attend summer classes).

Good luck to Amy, Rachael, and the other Evansville people still left in the tournament!

On a side note, I find it very interesting that Victory Brief's assessment of Nationals summarizes with

In other words, watch out for MN, IN, CA, TX, and MO. In particular, it's almost guaranteed each year for there to be a National Champ from Eagan HS, or Apple Valley HS, or one of the Evansville schools, or Bellarmine! Talk about dynasties!

Indiana? A speech and debate powerhouse? Well last year, Indiana had several top OO, FX, and Poetry competitors (and the champion in each of those events!) but those results will be hard to duplicate, and it's very presumptuous to assume that a champion will come from "one of the Evansville schools," as several of the top schools in Indiana are now situated in Northern Indiana.

What Should the US do for Peace in the Middle East?

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, said it "may be the conclusion" that an international force is needed to stop the violence and if so, "it is possible that there will be an American participation."

"But having said that, I would just say this is down the trail," he said. "We have to be very, very careful about the use of American forces, whether they are to be all by themselves, whether with NATO, whether with the U.N., with whoever." (full text)

Should the US really step in? Would Israel accept international peacekeeping in its own borders? Would the Palestinians cease attacks? But the US may be ignoring the most important question of all: "Does the peace process have the self-capacity to move forward?"

According to FOXNews.com, the Israeli people are against the recent bout of strikes directed by Prime Minister Sharon.

A new survey by Dahaf Polling shows more than two-thirds of Israelis oppose Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Sixty-seven percent oppose targeted killings of terrorist leaders, such as the ones that took place this evening in Gaza. While Sharon insists the Palestinian leadership is a bunch of "crybabies," Israelis want to give Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas a chance to set up his authority. Sixty-seven percent of those responding to the poll also agreed that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian areas.

The Israeli people want peace. Will they reverse the election trends of the past two elections, and give the Labour Party another chance in office?

Dr. Suess and Iraq....

what more could you want?

Try to Make It Real Compared to What?

Coke driver fired for drinking Pepsi

I prefer Pepsi, but I have to take this opportunity to say that Ski beats out all the other soft drinks. For those unenlightened citizens around the nation (Ski is basically only distributed in Evansville), Ski is like Mountain Dew only with an unbelievable concentration of sugar. Buy a 12 pack of Ski at any gas station or Walmart in Evansville.

this article sums up PERFECTLY why I'd vote against Bush

Fall Guy?

At particular issue is an allegation that the Iraqis were trying to import uranium from Africa. When this piece of intelligence first surfaced, CIA director George Tenet dispatched a trusted former top official to Niger to investigate. He reported that the documents alleging the sale were forged. It wasn’t even hard to spot. The Niger government officials cited were no longer in office. Yet months later this phony evidence showed up in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address as part of the administration’s case for war.

What comes next is straight out of a Tom Clancy novel. In a front-page report in Thursday’s Washington Post headlined CIA DID NOT SHARE DOUBT ON IRAQ DATA, the White House asserts that the CIA did not pass along the information about the forged Niger documents, and therefore Bush was unaware they had been falsified. If true, that means that George Tenet, head of the CIA, knowingly placed a verifiably false piece of information in the president’s hands that Bush used as a key element in the road to war when he spoke to Congress and the country. If Bush truly believes his CIA director set him up like that, he should fire Tenet.

Phoning around Capitol Hill for reaction to the Post story, I found a high degree of skepticism about the White House version of events. The SOTU is the most vetted speech a president gives. It’s not credible to believe Bush and all the bigwigs around him were duped. A more likely explanation is that the administration needed to bolster the nuclear leg of its case. The hard-liners running foreign policy didn’t have enough to claim Iraq was an imminent threat with chemical and biological weapons. Most experts don’t regard them as real WMD; they’re terror weapons, and absent a convincing connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, which the administration couldn’t make, they did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

If this whole scandal about how Bush may have skewed intelligence evidence to his favoring turns out to be true, this incident should go down is history beside Watergate--only this time it will not hurt the US government's domestic credibility, but its international credibility.

I <3 Alan Greenspan!

Well, I really don't know what to think of Mr. Greenspan. He chaired the Federal Reserve during a period of growth and prosperity under the Clinton Administration, and headed a falling economy under Bush. He's either an economic whiz who has been limited by Bush's federal spending and tax cuts, an economic dud who managed to ride the coattails of Clinton in the prosperity of the 90s, or maybe just a good guy trying his best against tough times.

But some teenage girls out there sweat Alan. Check it out!

"Well, whether your a die hard FED-Head like me, or whether you just discovered Alan this morning, this site is for you!! We're always adding new stuff, so be sure to keep checking us out. We have all the hottest Al news, Greenspan Gossip, and FED Fashion."

Yeah.

*Props to Clare Lascalles for the above link

yeah yeah

I need to update this site more. I've been spending a lot of time on contributing to www.mikebknight.com recently. Expect updates soon!

And if anyone is interested in helping me keep Signature Monitor updated, just let me know! Any help would be appreciated!

from top dog to gutter cat

Survey: War in Iraq Erodes U.S. Support:

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has sent support for the United States to new lows in predominantly Muslim countries and significantly damaged the standing of the United Nations in those nations and elsewhere, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The Pew Global Attitudes Project poll also found al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden still gets favorable marks in some predominantly Muslim countries, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan instill more confidence than President Bush in non-Muslim countries.

Even in the United States, Blair comes out ahead of Bush.

I remember Clinton was pretty well-liked by most world leaders. Why does the world's view of the US even matter? Well this excerpt would be funny, except for its dire consequences:

Majorities in seven of the eight predominantly Muslim countries surveyed said they think their nation will be attacked by the United States. In Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan, more than 70 percent of those questioned had this concern.

We are now the policeman/bully of the world.