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I support English as the official language of the United States. I do so because having an official language is more efficient and less costly than other alternatives. You only need to look as far as Canada and the European Union to understand why a single, common language is the best choice. The national languages of Canada are English and French, despite the fact that 90% of Canadians speak only English. The European Union has to contend with 25 or so official languages. Citizens of both Canada and the European Union complain about the costs of not having a single, common language. An example of this expense is the cost of translating and printing of government publications in the EU. Every proclamation and law has to be translated and printed in 25 languages, i.e. German to French, French to Spanish, German to Latvian, and so on.

I had an urge to see an action movie last week and so Ahu and I went to see MI:3 midweek at the Loews Theater in Schaumburg. I'm not sure why this movie is doing so badly at the theater. It's a really great action movie. There are a number of awesome stunts and a lot of good special effects. The plot isn't really that bad - again, this is an action movie! Action movie plots are always a touch unbelievable. Tom Cruise does a very good Ethan Hunt once again and Laurence Fishburne has a nice role also. Not sure if it was worth the price that movie theaters extort these days but definitely a good choice for DVD.

Anyone who spends time around me will eventually see me wearing gear from The North Face. Inevitably I find myself explaining why I buy stuff from The North Face. Most people I talk to think that North Face gear is overpriced. I agree that gear from The North Face tends to cost more than other brands of similar gear. However, the price is justified by the quality and reliability of the gear.

I saw something kind of silly today on my way to work. It was sprinkling slightly with occasional bouts of actual rain. A school bus winds its way around our subdivision and stops at various corners to pick up elementary school children. Today, a big black Hummer was waiting at a usual corner stop. The bus pulled up and two or three children got out of the Hummer and onto the bus. The Hummer then proceeded to drive back home, about 200 feet away. That's right, not even a full city block's distance away.

A new version of Narrative is now in beta. This page was generated by the new CMS, built on Narrative, called Exposition. One big change you might notice is the new page naming convention, where the title of the article is transformed into the page name.

At long last it is now possible to get your GMail by mobile phone. Just go to m.gmail.com and login. If you type this URL into a normal PC or Mac browser, you can see what you'll get in your mobile.