We were in tiny, tidy Van Buren, Ohio this weekend and heard three choirs in the contest finals of the Ohio Music Educators Association. Being a few miles from Findlay, we again stopped at Stately Raven (rated “best bookstore in Ohio”) and Revolver Restaurant. I had meatloaf which I thought was always made with ground meat. To my surprise, it was made with shredded short ribs pressed together—very good. Also, it made a pretty picture with a few small carrot circles mixed in the loaf.

Sources of the Growth and Decline in Individual Income Tax Revenues Since 1994 (PDF; 167 KB) Source: Congressional Budget Office
Federal individual income tax revenues have risen and fallen by significant amounts since 1994. Revenues increased by $461 billion (85 percent) between fiscal years 1994 and 2000, fell by $211 billion (21 percent) between 2000 and 2003, and then increased by $370 billion (47 percent) between 2003 and 2007. Those changes in individual income tax revenues are partially responsible for a similar pattern in the overall budget balance. Permalink

Global Agricultural Supply and Demand: Factors Contributing to the Recent Increase in Food Commodity PricesSource: U.S Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service
World market prices for major food commodities such as grains and vegetable oils have risen sharply to historic highs of more than 60 percent above levels just 2 years ago. Many factors have contributed to the runup in food commodity prices. Some factors reflect trends of slower growth in production and more rapid growth in demand, which have contributed to a tightening of world balances of grains and oilseeds over the last decade. Recent factors that have further tightened world markets include increased global demand for biofuels feedstocks and adverse weather conditions in 2006 and 2007 in some major grain and oilseed producing areas. Other factors that have added to global food commodity price inflation include the declining value of the U.S. dollar, rising energy prices, increasing agricultural costs of production, growing foreign exchange holdings by major food importing countries, and policies adopted recently by some exporting and importing countries to mitigate their own food price inflation.
+ Full Report (PDF; 784 KB) Permalink

Injunction against Washington emergency contraception law upheld On May 1, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed [opinion, PDF] an appeal of an injunction [PDF text; JURIST report] suspending a Washington state law that would require pharmacists to dispense Plan B emergency contraceptives [product backgrounder; JURIST news archive], the so-called "morning after" pill. US District Judge Ronald Leighton's injunction effectively creates a "refuse and refer" system, allowing disapproving pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill if they refer the customer to another nearby source. Critics say that the system could harmfully delay women's access to the contraceptive, which must be taken with 72 hours of intercourse to be effective. Reuters has more. A similar compromise was proposed in a settlement in Illinois [JURIST report] after pharmacists sued the state in 2005 after Governor Rod Blagojevich passed a rule [press release] requiring all pharmacists to dispense the pill despite any moral objections to it they might have.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/injunction-against-washington-emergency.php

Pakistan judges to be restored May 12: Sharif
Ousted Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] and all other judges removed by President Pervez Musharraf last November after his declaration of emergency rule [PDF text; JURIST report] will be reinstated on May 12, former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [JURIST news archive] said Friday. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party websites] reached an agreement on reinstating the ousted judges on Thursday after extensive talks [JURIST reports] between the two parties in April and May. Sharif also said that Pakistan's national assembly would pass a resolution endorsing the reinstatements the same day. BBC News has more. The coalition government, sworn in in March after parliamentary elections earlier this year, has vowed to establish a fully independent judiciary [JURIST reports]. One of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's first actions upon taking office was seeking Chaudhry's and other ousted judges' immediate release from house arrest [JURIST report].
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2008/05/pakistan-judges-to-be-restored-may-12.php

Take Me Out to the Ball Game 1908 and 1927 versions
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_stmo.shtml
If you are at work, and want to hear eight audio clips from mandolin to Mike Ditka, you can forward this to your home PC for entertainment.
Author: Jack Norworth http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?id=68437
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_home_page.asp?exhibitId=267
Composer: Albert Von Tilzer http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=12533
http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_home_page.asp?exhibitId=284

Negatives
If someone doesn’t ask for advice, don’t give them advice.
If you let someone mooch off you on a steady basis, you become the “moochee” and are doing the moocher a disfavor.

May 4 birthdays
It's the birthday of Horace Mann, born in Franklin, Massachusetts (1796), the first great American advocate of public education. He believed that in a democratic society education should be free and universal. He fiercely opposed slavery and toward the end of his life, he was the president of Antioch College, a new institution committed to coeducation and equal opportunity for all students, black and white.
It's the birthday of novelist and short-story writer David Guterson, (books by this author) born in Seattle, Washington (1956). He worked for many years as a high school teacher. The two books he always assigned were Romeo and Juliet and To Kill a Mockingbird. When he wrote his first novel, he combined the story of star-crossed lovers with a courtroom drama about race. The novel was Snow Falling on Cedars (1994), about the murder trial of a Japanese-American in the wake of World War II, and it won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
The Writer’s Almanac

Today is Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in Mexico that celebrates the Battle of Puebla, 1862, in which Mexican forces defeated French invaders against overwhelming odds. What began with a demand by the government of France for payment on bonds turned into a war of conquest. The French commander was sure of victory, but 2,000 troops under General Ignacio Zaragoza carried the day instead. The French ultimately won the war, installing Maximilian of Austria as ruler of Mexico, but the victory at Puebla gave the Mexicans the confidence to depose him and declare independence, five years later.
The Writer’s Almanac

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