Little Wolf's World

Healthcare Summit 2010 Part 1

2010-02-26T19:24:00.002-05:00

My plan is to have a wider discussion with more video postings from the Healthcare Summit, but I wanted to kick off with this video clip from Fox News' Shepard Smith. I am not a huge fan of Fox News, but I have like Shepard for sometime, and feel of the personalities on Fox he tends to be the most fair. (I know that isn't saying much when it comes to Fox, but the it is what it is.)

WWII vet recalls harrowing moment over Nazi Germany

2010-02-09T22:22:00.002-05:00

This article is being posted with limited commentary. I believe that the heroism involved speaks for itself.

Free Press Article

I am glad he is being honored, and I am glad that his sons took the initiative.

Palin's speech at the Tea Party Convention

2010-02-07T18:33:00.004-05:00

The transcript that I am working from is at Palin Transcript.

"It is just so inspiring to see real people." As usual she implies that people who have a difference of opinion with her are not 'real' people. I am really tired of this kind of bullshit. I as real of an American and as real of a person as any at the Tea Party, I just don't agree with Sarah's positions.

"So he stood up, and he decided that he was going to do his part to put our government back on the side of the people." This statement is about Scott Brown. I am not sure how the government is not on the side of the people now. Oh, right it is not being run by Republicans.

"... President Obama foundsome way to make this all about George Bush. You know, considering the recent conservative election sweep, it’s time that they stop blaming everyone else. When you’re O for three, you’d better stop lecturing and start listening." I am not sure what she is referring to about blaming George Bush, unless it was when the President made the statement that the same anger that swept him into office also swept Scott Brown into office. And the 0 for 3 suspiciously overlooks the Tea Party backed candidate in NY that lost his race and swept a Democrat into office for the first time in over 100 years in that district.

"Because from Virginia to New Jersey to Massachusetts, voters are sending a message up and down the East Coast and in good places like Nevada and Connecticutt and Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, they got the liberal left—that establishment running scared." Yes, because the fact that more Republicans are not running for re-election in the fall really has the 'establishment' running scared. It once again overlooks the NY situation, and that her good friend John McCain is in trouble with his own re-election.

"And it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter." Nice swipe, to bad it was from notes in front of her, and was made just a week after she tore the House Republicans apart with out notes or a Teleprompter. I doubt Ms. Palin could do the same if challenged.

"New terms used like “overseas contingency operation” instead of the word “war.” " Yes, because the Administration has never used the word war. Come on, let's at least be intellectually honest in the discussion. Well I guess I can't expect intellectual honesty out of an intellectual void.

"What followed was equally disturbing. After he was captured, he was questioned for only fifty minutes. We had a choice in how to do this. The choice was only question him for fifty minutes and then read his Miranda Rights." Yes let's continue the bullshit spin. First off, perhaps Ms Palin need to go back and look up Richard Reed (The Shoe Bomber) and how he was treated by the Bush Administration. Second perhaps she need to put down her ghostwritten book and perhaps follow current events. There were reports for the last 2 weeks how the FBI have continued to interrogate Mutallub and have gotten huge amounts of intelligence, verified from other sources, and that can now be acted upon. Of course, no torture was involved so it wasn't good enough for Sarah.

"...there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer because he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. Constitutional right to remain silent" Perhaps if she followed the news she would realize they have probably been answered.

"...we’re going to bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution and wants to destroy our Constitution and our country? This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we’re going to deal with the terrorists. We don’t have to go down that road." Perhaps Sarah, as the Constitutional scholar that she is, could explain where the Constitution states that it would not apply in this situation. I think in my readings of the Constitution. I have missed that.

"The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th." Like the actual Pre-911 attitude that lead to the Bush administration ignoring the warnings and allowing 9-11 to actually happen?

"They know we’re at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a PROFESSOR OF LAW STANDING AT THE LECTURN!" You mean like the Commander-in-Chief who took several months to actual figure out the best way forward in Afghanistan with the military commanders, as opposed to fire anyone in the upper chain of command who didn't tell him exactly what he wanted to hear. Or the Commander-in-Chief who fulfilled a long standing request for additional troops in Afghanistan, instead of letting it languish on his desk for months without paying attention to it like GWB.

"It’s that same kind of misguided thinking that is seen throughout the administration’s foreign policy decisions. Our president spent a year reaching out to hostile regimes, writing personal letters to dangerous dictators, and APOLOGIZING FOR AMERICA! " Nice talking point about apologizing for America, to bad its pure bullshit and isn't supported by anything but Right Wing delusions.

"Here’s what we have to show. North Korea tested nuclear weapons and longer range ballistic missiles." This is very good point, to bad most of the development of those missiles were done under the Bush Administrations 8 year tenure running our foreign policy.

"Plans for a missile defense system in Europe . . . they’ve been scrapped." Mainly because the military didn't want the systems, they were years behind schedule, billions over budget, and no workable system in sight, but let's not let reality get in the way of a good talking point.

"And around the world, people who are seeking freedom from opressive regimes, wonder if Alaska is still that beacon of hope for their cause. " Alaska? WTF? Even with a pre-written speech she didn't get that one correct. I think I will leave to speak for itself.

"The administration cut support for democracy programs, and where the president has not been clear, I ask, “Where is his clear and where is his strong voice support for the Iranians who are risking all in their opposition to Ahmadinejad?”" I just don't know what she expects the President to say to support people in a country that we have no intention of 'invading.' He has stated that he feels the government needs to make reforms. There is not much more to be said.

"Foreign policy can’t be managed through the politics of personality. And our president would do well to take note of an observation John F. Kennedy had made once he was in office: that all the world’s problems are his predecessor’s fault. The problems that we face in the real world require real solutions, and we better get to it, because the risks that they pose are great, and they’re grave." Yes because it's clear that this Administration is trying to manage through the "politics of personality," as opposed to Sarah who is all substance. Please, she is the definition of "politics of personality." And she is right, we are facing grave problems that require real solutions, not the bullshit political nonsense she has spouted.

Well hopefully Sarah will get torn apart for her stupidity, but by all means I hope the Tea Party and the Republicans continue to back her, I don't think she is electable. But then again, I didn't support Barack at the beginning either, because I wasn't sure he was electable.

Flags and political protest

2010-02-05T19:20:00.003-05:00

Looking back at the past, I have always found the burning of flags as a political protest a bit odd. I understand the symbolism, just never understood the reasoning for doing it in many of the domestic situations.

The new things seems to be flying the flag upside down in the symbol of distress. I understand the thinking, 'I disagree with the direction the country is going.' I suspect a lot of the people who are feeling this way, were supporters of GWB in all his glory, and don't like the fact that a non-Republican is in the White House.

When I was in college, there was a girl on campus, who was into the punk scene at the school, who war a military field jacket with the flag patch upside down. Even then I felt it was a stupid thing, apparently I haven't 'grown' on this issue.

I am not suggesting that what people are disgusted/angry/upset/worried about is bad. I think there are a lot of things to be worried about in this country, but I am not really sure that these types of protests are going to really accomplish.

I do know one thing, we won't see anyone advocating a Constitutional amendment outlawing flying your flag in that position.

New Leopard Species

2010-02-03T20:29:00.003-05:00

The little beauty above is a newly identified species of Leopard known as the Borneo Clouded Leopard. As a fan of cats of all sizes I thought I would post this picture. The link below is for the National Geographic short article about the pretty kitty.

National Geographic

Superbowl Ad Controversy

2010-01-30T11:54:00.003-05:00

Just to be clear on this up front, I am not gay and I am not a woman. Therefore, I have no horse in this race.

While I haven't seen either of the ads in question I am interested in the situation that CBS has apparently put itself in. They have accepted the 'Focus on the Family' ad that discusses abortion, and stars College football star Tim Tebow's mother. The other ad in the situation for a gay men's dating website called Mancrunch.com.

I am not sure that the Superbowl is a good place for politically charged advertising. I have always enjoyed the entertainment value of the advertising during the Superbowl, and for the most part they have been interesting and creative. (The cat wrangling ad from several years ago still makes me chuckle when I think about it.)

To state clearly on both these issue. Abortion: I can't have one. I do believe that they should be legal in the US but I also believe that they should be rare. My instincts tell me that a good number of the abortions preformed in the US are for 'convenient' birth control and not for other medical reasons. Homosexuality/Gay dating: I have some friends from both high school and college that are gay. I really couldn't care less. On a religious basis I have a problem with the activities of homosexual men, but only on a religious basis. My religious feeling on the matter does not have an affect on the legal positions I take, they are based on what the US law says or should represent.

Having said all that I have. I really don't want to see either of these ads during the Superbowl. I have a problem with CBS accepting the 'Focus on the Family' 'Pro-Life' ad and rejecting the 'Mancrunch.com' ad. This shows a bias towards a particular political agenda which I don't feel should be a part of a major sporting events broadcast.

As an added note: this is not the first time that CBS has rejected ads that don't fit a certain political agenda for a Superbowl broadcast. While they have the right to broadcast what they wish, I don't think this is a good venue for them to be displaying a political agenda.

It has been some time

2009-12-26T20:03:00.002-05:00

I have been away for some time. I had some issues with my home internet connection, and my wife was with me in Buffalo for a period of time, but was not feeling well or getting comfortable in Buffalo.

She is at least temporarily back in Ohio with her parents, and is starting to feel a bit better. Hopefully she will get herself straightened around.

In other personal news. I am starting to settle a bit in Buffalo, and I am enjoying my job. I still have a lot to learn after 6 months, but the basics are under control.

Well that is a brief update, hope to be back soon.

Government Health Care and Terri Shiavo

2009-08-14T17:29:00.002-05:00

Okay. I have heard this said places, but just wanted to pointed it out.

Apparently the government involvement in an individuals health care is bad, unless the person is brain dead and the local/state government isn't doing what I want them to do.

Health Care -The Kent Conrad Files

2009-08-14T17:20:00.003-05:00

I heard this afternoon that Senator Conrad has announced that like his Republican counterparts, if there is a government backed option in the Health care reform bill, he will not vote for it.

Mr. Conrad, I am not one of your constituents, so you can ignore me. I have a problem with this, and I will work from out of state to see that you are replaced next year when you are up for re-election if you stand behind this statement when the bill comes up for a vote, and has a public option.

You have my word on that.

Health Care - The Arlen Spector Files

2009-08-13T19:36:00.003-05:00

The other day at a town hall Senator Specter encounter an amazing cross section of, in my opinion, dishonest stupidity.

Case 1: I don't know the woman's name so I will just refer to her as Mrs. Sleeping Giant.

She was interviewed on Hardball last night. Despite being nervous, she actually was quite communicative, up to a point.

She was asked about her political background and said she didn't really follow politics. Despite this a few minutes later, she mentioned that she was at a friends residence the night before and was involved in one of an on-going, and many over many years, discussion of political issues. While she said it was a civil debate. I felt that it clearly shows that she has been following politics for some time. She also asked the question she asked from a piece of paper. I am guessing the question was not her own.

When asked why she objected to the health care plan her reasons were that it wasn't Constitutional and she didn't want to pay more in taxes. She was then asked if she and her husband (who own a small business) made more than $250,000.00. After hesitating for a moment, she explained that she was not comfortable discussing that on TV, and that her husband handled all the bills so she really didn't know. (My reading of this, no they didn't and she didn't know of that being a cut-off.

The interviewer then asked if her parents were on Medicare and Social Security. She said not yet but that they would be soon. The host then asked if she felt that Medicare was a good program. After hesitating again, her response was that she felt the government had a number of programs that were not really covered in the Constitution.

Case 2:

Craig Anthony Miller, 59. Or as many people will recognize him, Angry Yelling guy.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1250178009215370.xml&coll=1

The above link is to an article about Mr Miller. I am going to report a few items on him.

1. He is on Disability.

2. His medical coverage is provided through his wife's job.

3. He had a number of jobs before his disability.

4. He only became politically active in the last few months.

5. Miller likes to watch Fox News and enjoys commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

6. He said he thinks Obama wants to set himself up as a dictator for life,

7. "I'm not against all government programs," he said, "just those where they are stepping in where they don't have to step in. Their main job is to take care of those citizens who don't have a voice."

Let's just look that list over for a few moments. I have a feeling that items 4,5, and 6 are completely related. I also like that he thinks some government programs are good. Apparently as long as they benefit him. He is upset with the government because he feels, essentially, that the FDA is preventing doctors from being able to prescribe medications that would limit his pain from Fribromyalgia, and allow him to go back to work.

I would like to now discuss this point for a moment. I understand his problem there, he wants to go back to work but can't because of pain. I have joint pain as a result of my Crohn's. If I was working in a job or industry that required me to do physical labor on a regular basis, I would likely not be able to. Up until about a year ago I was on a medication that would have made it possible, but I started to break through and went off. I am not having 'main line' symptoms of the Crohn's so I am not taking anything on the strong side. I am taking medications that help limit the pain and discomfort, but there are times I am in pain. The FDA had approved the medication I was on for long-term treatment for my condition at about the time I went on it.

All that being said, and my understanding of his situation, he is still an idiot. He thinks a President who has been in office for less than a year is trying to set himself up as dictator for life, I am sure if I found out more about this man I would not be surprised to find additional idiocy in his ideas.

To wrap this segment up I am going to repost something that was posted in a discussion thread on Fark.com

by a poster named Ozone at this link http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4572890:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Health Care Reform

2009-08-12T18:17:00.003-05:00

I plan on writing on the health care reform quite a bit because I feel that this is a very important issue. As such I am going to give a little background on why this is important to me.

Both my wife and I have a 'pre-existing conditions.' I have Crohn's Disease, my wife has a mental health problem.

The problem is this. I have been unemployed several times over the last few years. None of these umemployments have been a result of anything on my preformance. My wife has, until the last couple of years, worked as a nurse. She is in graduate school and hasn't been working.

During the last year, we had to pay $641.00 per month for medical insurance, this we had to do with no income other than unemployment. We also had to pay rent, car payments, buy food, buy medications. pay for utilities, and all the other day to day expenses that everyone has. To accomplish this we had to borrow money from family and friends, as well as use ALL of our retirement savings.

I am not asking for a hand out. I am willing to pay for my insurance. But I strongly feel that changes need to be made. That being said I feel that I have given you the situation and basis for my perspective. Starting in the next couple of days I will start to discuss the issues as I see them. Hopefully Someone out there will feel the need to discuss the issues.

Health Care Reform, Debate, Townhall Meetings, and Guns

2009-08-11T17:41:00.003-05:00

I don't know about anyone else, but my headline makes me hum the 'One of these things' song from Sesame Street.

I am not really sure why someone felt they needed to take a gun to a town hall meeting, but someone did.

Also when President Obama appeared for a town hall meeting today, an opponent appeared on the lawn of a church across the street with a gun strapped on. Aside from what is obviously an attempt to intimidate people, what is the point. If you have a problem with a policy protest, speak out, don't threaten people with a gun. Bully tactics are both ridiculous and childish. And that is what is happening right now. The Right appears to be left with bully tactics.

Clinton and North Korea

2009-08-04T19:02:00.003-05:00

Just a quick thought on this.

I find it interesting that President Clinton spent a few hours in North Korea, and was able to get the 2 young ladies being held in prison out.

I also found it interesting that the North Koreans were honored at the former President came for a visit and to discuss some issue with The Dear Leader.

It seems that this worked in every body's favor. It made the North Koreans feel good. It may have helped improve the relationship with North Korea, though that we have to wait to see, and the Obama Administration has some ability to disavow that they stepped in to the situation.

The situation with Iran is going to be more telling in some ways. There is no one in the US that is that well respected by the Iranians.

I'll be interested to see how this plays out.

Something New

2009-08-03T21:25:00.003-05:00

This is going to be a new start so to speak.

It has been some time since I wrote with any consistency, but I am going to try to do more for several reasons.

1. I am in a new place, and by myself at the moment. (More in a moment)

2. I feel a need to express myself again, something I haven't felt like doing much in quite sometime.

3. I miss just getting things that are bothering me off my chest, even if the outside world neither knows or cares.

I am sure there are other reasons as well, but this seems like enough for now.

Now the new place additional information.

I have relocated from Northeast Ohio to North Western New York. I have basically moved from the middle of Lake Erie to the Eastern end of Lake Erie. I am currently working and living in the Buffalo area.

I have been here for five weeks as of yesterday, and started a new job 5 weeks ago today. It was almost a year of living with out me or my wife working and that made for a very long and financially draining year. My wife is still living in Northeast Ohio, but will hopefully be joining me before the beginning of October.

The best way to describe my home situation is camping in an apartment. I am sleeping on an inflatable mattress, I have a card table to serve as both my table and desk. I have a camping chair, a lazy boy recliner (not really the most camping like item), no real eating utensils, (and I am getting really tired of plastic silverware) and a cat. Actually I have a TV but unfortunately it got dropped when I was moving it into the apartment and it doesn't work anymore.

That being said I am preparing to move forward with a new chapter of my life, and as I said earlier, I feel a need to express myself again.

So here I am.

Passover

2009-04-08T16:25:00.001-05:00

In a little before the holiday.

May all have a happy, healthy and kosher holiday.

chag sameach.

Iran, Oil, and Citibank

2009-03-11T14:04:00.002-05:00

I wanted to make another quick comment on some items today. I saw an article on the web that has the Iranian President saying that the economic woes in the West (world wide really) is the beginning of the end for Capitalism. I can understand his point of view, but he is completely wrong. He obviously doesn't understand the history of economic trends and that these worldwide recessions and depressions have happened before. Unfortunately this one is made worse than the last several recessions because the regulations that were put into place in the US during the 'Great Depression' have been slowly eroded over the last 30 years.

I am glad that some of that may be reversed only because it means we may finally get some sanity back in this country as a whole.

Where does Citibank fit in all of this? Well they announced yesterday that they were performing much better than expect in the first quarter of this year, and the market went up. January sales numbers for Wal-Mart were better than anyone expected. Is the economy suddenly better off than it was 4 months ago, NO. It is just a sign that the economy 'maybe' at the bottom, not that it is turning around. We could be at this level for sometime before things improve.

Why do I feel we may be at the bottom? Aside from the two items mention above, I have seen an increase in the last month in the number of jobs available in my field. Tax accounting isn't something a company rushes out to hire in a down economy because we are seen as a double hit on the bottom line. An increase in Tax Accounting jobs available with corporations is a good sign that companies may be starting to feel better about their financial situation. Actually 2 of the jobs that I have seen are new positions with companies that haven't had internal tax accounting personnel in the past.

(Hopefully one of them will come through in the near future.)

Please keep your fingers crossed, or my wife and I may soon be amoung the growning numbers of homeless people.

Spree Killings

2009-03-11T13:58:00.002-05:00

I just felt a need to discuss this for a moment since we had a spree killing yesterday, an attempted spree killing on Sunday, and the 17 year-old going on a spree in Germany today.

I find these very disturbing. Yes, I sure most people do. The main reason that I feel the need to get this off my chest today, is that I suspect we will see more of this kind of thing. I don't think that this is an isolated set of incidents, but something symptomatic of the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in at this point in history.

There are always the occasionally spree killing, but I can't remember see so many in unrelated 'venues' in a short period of time. If the world economy doesn't begin to show signs of improvement soon, we will probably see more of these sorts of things. I really hope that I am wrong, but I just see the trend toward a violent outburst as getting worse as the economy gets worse.

Is the Far-Right going completely off the reservation?

2009-03-10T08:51:00.002-05:00

I know it has been some time since I have been here to express my self by something that I just read is really disturbing me.

Chuck Norris: I may run for president of Texas

This article/post of Mr. Norris at World Net Daily, greatly disturbs me. Not because it is being said by Chuck, after all he showed that he is a bit nutty during the last election cycle, but because I do not believe Chuck is the only one who is 'thinking' this way.

I have been telling my wife for more than two years that I see signs that this country is moving toward a second civil war. I do not believe it is inevitable but I do think that it becomes hard to avoid when you have people at the extremes of the political spectrum who are so locked in to a set view point that they are unable to compromise.

The problem here is that both sides are becoming set in the 'it's my way or the highway' mind set, but that is not were we need to get to. The Republicans and others on the Far-Right are always talking about our Founding Fathers and their religious beliefs. Very few of them would be in line with the religious view that are prevalent today. Most of them were deists and not Christians in the modern usage.

I am really getting tired of the situation. The same loons who were saying while GWB was President that speaking against the policies of the President during a time of war were committing treason, are doing the same thing with Barack as President. The President has changed, and the party of the President, and the tune has changed. They have no problem talking about other people being treasonous for disagreeing with a President, but when they talk open sedition, apparently that is okay.

This is really frustrating.

John McCain's World

2008-09-01T22:31:00.003-05:00

I am not completely sure what John McCain was thinking when he picked Ms Palin. (Several people I have talked to had an initial reaction of "did he just say he picked Michael Palin of Monty Python?"

She gave a terrible, very unorganized speech on Friday, and I found her voice to be annoying and screechy.

I found it rather funny that her 17 year old daughter was pregnant when it was released today. Wife kept trying to tell me that she wasn't 17 and that the baby was her's. (I guess from the rumors on the internet, my wife isn't the only one.) I also think that it was interesting, that the press release was all candy and flowers about the issue. I have a feeling that the news wasn't received at home quite that well.

They said that she is going to be marrying the father of the baby so I just was hoping to get several questions off my mind:

Where did the girl and the father of the baby meet?
How old is the father?
When is the wedding?

A separate list of questions in about the Palin family come to mind.

As she is a big supporter of home schooling, are their children home schooled and if so by who? After all she has been a mayor and is now governor, and hubby is busy commercial fishing.
If they are paying for someone else to educate their kids at home does that qualify as home schooling?
How did someone who is as shrill as she is get elected to any kind of public office?
For a family that is as evangelical as they are reported to be, why do I get the feeling that she runs the family with an iron fist?
Does anyone else get the impression that she is a closet bitch?
Am I the only one who thinks she appears to have moments of the eyes of a psychotic person?
What did this woman do to convince John McCain that she was the first best choice for VP?

And several questions about John and his wife:

Why does Cindy McCain appear to have inhuman eyes, and does this worry anyone but me?
Aside from his VP choice, does anyone else think that John may be getting a wee bit senile? After all he seems to be forgetting some important things recently.
Wife and I seem to think that there is something physically wrong with John. He doesn't seem to move very well any more. Anyone else feel this way?
I realize that the good Senator's mother is still going strong, but is anyone else worried that a 72 year old former POW and torture victim is going to put himself under the stress of 'running the free world' is may not make if 4 years.' (This, I might add seems to be made all the worse by his VP choice.

DNC Days 2-4

2008-09-01T22:25:00.003-05:00

I enjoyed the rest of the convention last week.

I though Hillary and Bill did what they had to, and hope that her voters will listen and move to support Barack for the general election.

Joe Biden's speech really impressed me, I don't remember him giving that good of a speech in quite some time. (I also felt that if Hillary had spoke as well as she did at the convention through out the campaign, the out come might have been very different.)

The Speech that Barack gave was outstanding. My first comment to my wife was that he was quite as dynamic as he usually is, but he was much more presidential than usual.

I have comments on John McCain, but will do those separately.

As PS on the Day one comments: I thought Nancy Pelosi look very good, but was very dull on the speech front. (She doesn't always look all that good to me.

DNC Day 1

2008-08-25T22:43:00.002-05:00

I watch most of the first night of the convention this evening.

Some initial thoughts.

The tribute to and speech by Senator Edward Kennedy, had me in tears. Both were very moving and I was glad to be able to see it live. (I did record it, as my wife starts year two of Grad school tomorrow at 7:45 am and she was not able to stay up to see the entire first night.)

Michelle Obama, was very grounded in her speech. I was glad that I was able to see that also, because I got a great deal of information about her, and Barack, that I didn't know.

I did get a smile out of the 'appearance' by Barack at the end of the speech by Michelle.

I was glad that Michelle mentioned Hillary by name and gave her credit for what she was able to accomplish. I think the healing was intended to begin there.

Well, it's late I have a couple of things to take care of and a short night of sleep ahead of me, as I am taking my wife to school in the morning.

I will return tomorrow night.

I am confused.

2008-08-25T22:30:00.002-05:00

To be honest, the title is only partially accurate, I am confused, but bewildered may be a better term.

While watching CNN this afternoon and early evening, they were discussing a number of issues surrounding how some of Hillary's supporters feel that their candidate has been slighted, and that Barack and his campaign are not respecting her.

This conversation was 'enhanced' by James Carville, in both recorded clips and a live segment, stating that one of the things that he is upset about is that Mr. Obama didn't get the input of either Senator Clinton or President Clinton in the choice of the Vice-President.

My question for Mr. Carville is did President Clinton consult with President Carter before he made a decision to name VP Gore as his VP. I am guessing the answer is no, but as I am not an insider I don't know for sure. (I would like to know that though, because I think it would reveal what a fool Carville can be.)

The other thing that was driving me nuts is that they had various supporters of Hillary say things about how they aren't going to give up the fight. The other one is those supporters who say that if Hillary isn't the nominee that they are going to vote for John McCain. This tells me one of two things, these people ONLY supported Hillary because she was a woman/former first lady, and didn't care for her policies. Or they are so afraid of Barack Obama, for some reason, that they are throwing all reason out the door. It also tells me that they are likely not 'real' Democrats, at there core. (For anyone who is offended by that, I will state that I did make the mistake of voting for the Chimp in Chief for re-election. I am still regretting that decision now.)

Modern Clintonian Politics or How to Throw a Kitchen Sink

2008-04-12T22:31:00.003-05:00

To start with I am sorry for not having posted in such a long time. I have been very busy with my wife's graduate school, working my full-time job, working a part-time job, and in the last few months doing tax returns for my clients. With tax season ending and with the school year ending I am hoping to get the time to do more posting.

To preface these comments, I have not heard the initial comments, but I am not quite sure what was said that is causing the number of comments that are being made over Mr. Obama's comments about small town people in the Mid-West being bitter about the situation in this country.

It seems that Hillary and her campaign is taking the position that if they don't get the nomination then the destruction of the Democratic Party's chances of winning the White House in November is the only other option. This view is not based on the way the current situation is being handled, but on the entire approach to the campaign.

I am not anti-Hillary, but I can tell you that a lot of people are. There are people who will not vote for Hillary; and I have heard more and more people say that if the nominees are McCain, which it is going to be for the Republicans, and Hillary, they will stay home in November.

If the nominee is Hillary, I will vote for her, or more precisely I will vote against McCain. I strongly believe that a McCain Presidency will be a disaster for this country. My problem with Hillary is I just don't feel she is electable. She will turn off the potential 'Obama' Republicans, and will activate a demoralized right-wing base who isn't enthusiastic about McCain. The election in the fall will have large turn-outs for the Republicans if Hillary gets the nomination.

But back to what I was intending to talk about. Hillary has tried repeatedly to throw anything she can at Obama. I think a number of these things have back fired because many people are tired of these types of politics. But as we saw in Texas and Ohio, if she get the right item to throw, legitimate or not, as the time to vote in Pennsylvania and Indiana arrives, she can sway people. This has been her tactic several times through the winter and spring. I expect it will be in the late spring and into the summer. The reason I really dislike this, she is not picking up votes for her, but winning by scaring off some of the new voters. She better watch what she does, because if she is the nominee, she is going to get the same to a much higher level in the fall from the Republicans, and she doesn't have the same grace of response that Obama does.

Cats cats everywhere, but not a drop to ...

2007-12-06T23:04:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update on the feline situation, as I haven't mention them in a very long time. Our evil Siamese Anina, is doing well. I know I had mentioned previously that she was having seizures and that we had begun treating them with Phenobarb. Well she was doing very well for a period of time, but appears to be having an increase in seizures. She is due for an annual exam after the first of the year, so we will find out if we need to up her med.

Maggie the Cat, our older, domestic long-hair has been not feeling well. We noticed about 10 days ago that she seemed to be losing a large amount of weight. After seeing if the problem was that Anina was eating her food, we determined that she wasn't eating. (As a result, a 9 pound cat became a 7 pound cat.) After 2 exams in three days (we had a substitute vet over the weekend because the regular vet was out of town for a family Bar Mitzvah) we have determined that there was a problem. (I know, pretty obvious being that she lost so much weight.)

Wife had take Maggie to her second appointment on Monday, and the Doctor determine that she had an enlarged bowel. (I was un-aware but apparently she had had a large lymph-node at her last exam.) (My first comment after learning of the enlarged bowel was that at least I now knew for sure she was my child. Those damn Crohn's genes apparently did make in to her) The vet gave Wife 3 options: 1. some test that would cost $900.00, 2. exploratory surgery, that would cost $900.00, or 3. putting her on a chemo drug and prednisone, as it was likely to be lymphoma, and that would be the likely end result anyway. (cost $400.00 for 2 visits, which was not part of the previously listed $900.00, and which include the Prednisone and a drug to increase her appetite. (about $20.00 for the months supply of prednisone) and $25.00 for the chemo med. Wife, in her infinite wisdom chose to go with what was behind door number 3. End result. She is now on chemo and prednisone for the future.

My cats are nearly as expensive on the med front as kids.

Global Warming

2007-12-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

I have been sort of thinking about this post for some time. Actually since the time of my last post. It seems that my posting has become so few and far between that I am missing lots of opportunities to post items of interest to me.

Anyway.

Global warming or global climate change.

The basis of my comments here are from a conversation some weeks back with a young man that I am friends with at my job. He is . . . a right-winger. He is a devoted listener of Rush and Glenn Beck.

I try not to be a knee-jerk party line towing anything. (I am a registered Democrat, but I tend to be a moderate on most issues.)

My friend sat down at lunch one day and asked my opinion on 'global warming.' I wasn't sure from his comments whether he believes it is happening and not man-made, or doesn't believe it is happening. (Actually based on the weather in Cleveland this week, I am expecting talk of an ice age any minute.) He quoted some things that I know he heard on Rush's show. One they were spun, and second at least one of the things I have heard come out of Rush's mouth when I have been listening to see what he has to say. (Listening to Rush generally gives me a headache if I listen for more than a few minutes at a time.)

After the discussion, it made me realize several things:
1. Apparently while science is open for discussion, the preponderance of current evidence seem to no longer hold any water if you subscribe to the Rush Limbaugh/George W. Bush/NeoCon agenda party line. ( I sort of knew this from listening to the President on the occasions that I can actually take listening to him for longer than 10 minutes. He's another one that gives me a headache, and I, regretfully, voted for the moron the second time.)
2. Disagreement with anything this Administration espouses is deemed to make you at least moderately un-American.

What the conversation really got me thinking about was not my feelings on the current environmental situation. I have a pretty clear understanding on this, which I don't feel the need to discuss at this exact moment. But how we reached a point where science, or the discounting of science, has become a political issue. I would think that we can show what happens every time we throw a segment of the ecological balance out. As an example: In Ohio over the last 220-230 years we have hunted the majority of the predators out of the state. Actually hunted is probably not really all encompassing, after all we have developed the land that they lived on, and we have driven them before us. The results of removing the predatory portion of the ecological chain has caused a huge increase in the number of deer. In fact the deer are so prevalent that the Ohio, like Pennsylvania and other states, is in danger of becoming overcrowded with deer. (Actually some parts of the state are over populated as it is .)

Okay, I feel a need to address my opinion on Global Climate Change. I really don't want to, but for where this is going I feel it is necessary. I believe that the climate of the planet is changing. I believe that to a certain extent this is a natural process. The planet heats up and cools down as it wobbles it's way through axial adjustments. I also believe, unlike Rush and my I think my friend, that the planet is warming at an unnatural rapid pace. I have heard Rush say he doesn't believe that man has the ability to affect the climate on the planet because G-d created the planet and he controls it. I will agree with this statement. I do believe that if Hashem decided today that global warming was not going to be possible, then the planet would not get any warmer. I also believe that the planet was left in our care by Hashem, and at a very least, as a species we have done nothing but destroy the planet. (This is to a large extent getting away from what I wanted to talk about but there it is.) During the conversation, I told my friend that with the speed with which we are destroying the amazon, and old growth forest in North American that we are creating a measurable increase in carbon emitted gases. (This also doesn't include the fact that by increasing the number of cows, we have increased the number of cow flatulence and there by the amount of methane. Sorry but that was one of the stranger 'global warming' stories I have heard recently.) As such, getting back on the deforestation that is occurring, I believe we are not only capable of increasing the amount of carbon gases that are not being processed through the ecological system, we have thrown the entire system out of balance.

I really don't think that is that hard to comprehend. I also think that by actively denying what is obvious isn't the answer. We, as a species, have proved to be rather rotten stewards of the planet and I am not surprised that it is coming back to bit us on the posterior.

In my mind, the question isn't if global warming is happening, we have been having an effect on our environment for at least a couple of hundred years, so it is entirely likely global warming is not only happening, but why is it happening and what can we do to stop or reverse the process. I would say that stopping or for that matter reversing the process may be to much to ask of ourselves at this moment, I would settle for trying to slow the process. After all, the process is a natural one at it's basic level, and despite our arrogance as a species, we are just one more species on the planet. The dinosaurs disappeared from the planet when they had overstayed their welcome and a global climate change occurred that they could not adapt to, it is entirely possible that we will do the same. The only difference is, is that as a species we are very adaptable. (I on the other hand am probably not very adaptable.)

Sorry for the length, but as I said this 'rant' was rumbling around in my head for quite sometime.

Have a Happy Hanukah, and a wonderful Shabbat. I will be back next week for sure as Wife's schooling for the semester is coming to an end and she will not be needing me as much in the future.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T23:04:00.000-05:00

Although I haven't really been blogging much recently, I did want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Things I am thankful for this year:
My wife
My Crohn's being under control
My feeling better (at least for tonight)
My beautiful little cats Maggie and Anina.
My job with a great and quickly growing company. (We manufacture and distribute Compact
Florescent bulbs, Manufacturing 70% of US market.)
My family, and my (as much as it pains me) in-laws.
My changing financial situation
My friends
My mom who is still going strong (though slowing down a little bit) at 77 years old.
and finally,
I am thankful for everyday that HaShem gives me to see the wonder of the world. (And my desperate hope it will still be so on January 20, 2009)

If you happen to see this and decide you would like to add to the list, please feel free to comment.

Senator Larry Craig and bathroom stalls

2007-10-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

I know I am a bit late on this one, but since the good Senator keeps popping up trying to defend himself, and I wanted to throw a bit of water on the 'honorable' Senator from Idaho, I thought I would just get this off my chest.

I have a bit of trouble accepting Senator Craig's story. That having been put out of the way I have a couple of comments on the overall situation before I actually analyze his story. Personally, I do not give a rats bare behind whether Senator Craig is gay, straight, bi-sexual, sleeping with sheep on weekends (as long as the sheep is consenting), or likes playing with a rubber reproduction of human anatomy. As long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, it is none of my, or anyone else's business. (Good, I got that out of the way.)

So let me analyze the story that Senator Craig has told(As a point here I spend a lot of time in bathrooms and public restrooms because of Crohn's Disease.):
1. He was just waiting for a stall to open, not 'staring' in to the 'sting officers' stall to check him out. I will just 'jump in' as they say; when I am in a bathroom waiting for a stall, I will rarely stand outside a specific stall because I don't like when someone is standing outside my stall. On this point we will give Senator Craig a pass, mostly because I do not know the set up of the men's room in question or how busy it was at the time Senator Craig was in need of his relief.
2. I have a wide stance while going to the bathroom. Aside from this being far into the realm of more information than I needed to know about Senator Craig, we are crying BULLSHIT on this one. I do not know the waist line of the Senator's pants, but if he were sitting down to do his business, and had pulled his pants down, his legs would only go to a certain distance out. With this excuse Senator Craig is either is much fatter than he looks on TV (which I doubt) or he didn't have his pants down. If he didn't have his pants down, then why was he in a stall to begin with, and if he is very fat, he probably shouldn't have fit into a standard size stall.
3. I wasn't waiving under the stall wall, I was reaching for a piece of toilet paper I dropped. Well aside from the yuck factor of picking up toilet paper off of a dirty bathroom floor. I believe we shall categorize this one as BULLSHIT as well. As stated above, I am unfortunate enough to have to use a lot of public bathrooms. While I don't claim to be 'normal' I don't really believe that the upstanding gentleman from Idaho was trying to pick up toilet paper that fell under the stall. The only time I pick up toilet paper I have dropped in a public bathroom is when I have another piece of toilet paper in my hand. (I don't know what is on the floor and I have a compromised immune system.
4. Senator Craig's response to being informed that the person in the next stall was a police officer and that he was under arrest. "Do you know who I am, I am a US Senator." This is definite the statement of a person trying to intimidate the officer. Our response: "Senator Craig, nobody is above the law in the United States."
5. I only plead guilty because they were pressuring me and I felt that it was the best way to quickly resolve the issue. Our response was and is, you don't plead guilty if you did nothing wrong. We also felt that his trying to quickly make this go away seems to be an odd approach.

We have one other point that we feel needs to be added here. When Senator Craig stood up as this story broke and assured everybody that he was not gay, has never been gay, and loves his wife we were skeptical. When we found out it wasn't the first time that the 'honorable' Senator had done this it really raised some questions. In our final analysis we have come to this conclusion: Senator Craig should resign his seat for clearly lying to the public about this incident and also for pleading guilty to a crime he claims he didn't commit. If he plead guilty and was guilty of nothing, he has poor judgement and should not be in a decision making position. If he is guilty of something in that bathroom than he should resign because he is a liar and a hypocrite and that does not a good Senator make.

BOTTOM LINE: We feel that Senator Craig is a closeted Homosexual (not that that is bad) and that he should come clean on his sexuality, he should also apologize to the people of the State of Idaho for being such a yutz and lying his way through the years.

We call on Senator Craig to stop the political bullshit road show, admit that he is lying about the incident in Minneapolis, and resign his post. Then maybe the Senate can look at something important, like whether Move On.Org or Rush Limbaugh should be discussed in the Senate for something stupid they did.

Church and State

2007-10-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

I know the concept of the separation of Church and State seems to be one that Evangelical Fundamentalist nut-jobs seem to have a real problem with. The term that is coming to be used for many of the leaders of this movement is Dominionists. This is the 'Christian Right' that seems to believe that this country was founded by a men of 'high value' Christian morals. (Say like Ted Haggard or Larry Craig.) Men who were beyond reproach; and who followed every tenet of G-D's law. Men like George Washington, who had more maids in his residence during his Presidency than he had years in his Presidency and he also had quite the reputation as a ladies man, Thomas Jefferson, who is well know to have had a long term relationship with one of his slaves (whose name escapes me at the moment) as while the US Ambassador to France she essentially was treated as his wife by the French, Benjamin Franklin, a man who was so morally upstanding that he had an illegitimate son live with his family for a while before arranging for him to become a Royally appointed governor.

Yes, I know George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were all very brave and forward looking people, but men of high value Christian morals? They raised arms in rebellion against their rightful King (George III of England). As I am sure you know, many at the time believed that Kings rose to power by divine decree and that the actions that they took were by divine providence. If all of that was the case, then we should all be English, and George, Thomas, and Benjamin probably would be footnotes in world history.

So what brought this rant on today. I was looking for an article for my wife, and it happened to have been published in 2002 by the US Department of Health and Human Services. While attempting to find said publication on the HHS website I came across this page: http://www.hhs.gov/fbci/Publications%20&%20Resources/. Why is this page important, you ask? Well, because it contains a number of articles that were published by the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Under normal circumstances the I try to ignore this ridiculously named skein of the great American experiment. I happened to open one of the articles, more out of curiosity than anything else, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, not a government generated article on how the Faith Based Initiatives were to be implemented, but a document (48 pages long) written by a church. This seems to me to be a clear attempt to establish some kind of state religion, in violation of that damn inconvenient piece of parchment.

Oh well, I suppose we should just let the Constitutional violations continue. After all, what is an undermining of a secularly established democracy between friends.

Ann Coulter

2007-10-18T12:46:00.001-05:00

In a recent interview Ms. Coulter claimed that Jews need to be 'perfected.' Many people found this offensive. I did, but not because it is anything that Ann is original in. The 'Messianic Jewish' movement (that is such a big oxymoron I wont even attempt to go into it in this discussion) has been using that term for years. They always refer to themselves as prefected Jews. (This is one of the reasons they 'observe' Jewish holidays.

In addition to the Messianic movements, a number 'mainstream' Christian Movements are 'in-step' with this idea. My wife has stated on a number of occasions she is 'worried about' my immortal soul if I don't accept Jesus. My response is, it is a little hard to accept something that is not theologically in line with my own beliefs. And I find the concept of saying 'you have to believe in ________'in order to go to Heaven a little bit odd. HaShem has never said that, and that is where I come from. It makes little sense to believe that HaShem is merciful and then will send non-Christians to Hell if they don't accept one item of faith. Judaism seems that it is more realistic. Do you follow the rules? HaShem is going to give you the benefit of the doubt if you do. Also Judaism is a little less 'theologically organized' when it comes to what happens after one dies. There is some indication that there is a continuation after death, but no realy theologically concept, at least until one is initiated in to the 'mysteries' of Kabbalah.

I don't know what happens after death. Frankly I don't think I am smart enough to figure out what HaShem wants, I am sure that HaShem doesn't want me to be a Christian because that isn't what He taught my ancestors. As a family, I think that we need to address the Christian world about what it the problem is with their approach and why Chistianity isn't, in any form, related to Judaism as Jews understand it. The fact that a majority of the Hebrews alive at the time of Jesus, didn't accept that he was "the Son of G-D" or the "Messiah" should tell Christians what they need to know about the majority of Jews of the time. (I am leaving the aestetic Ascenes out of the discussion because much of their doctrine became the basis of early Christian Theology.)

To sort of wrap this up: Ann Coulter wasn't saying things that others don't already say, the only reason most people aren't aware of it is because they aren't dumb enough to go on television and say it. Ann Coulter has made a good living playing the Banshee-voiced Harpy of the lunatic-fringe Right-Wing. She has played the lightening rod so long she actually can not say what ever she wants, whether it makes sense or not, and have some other lunatic-fringe right-wing goofballs defending her. They all need to get a grip and stop attacking people who believe differently and start a civil discourse. It isn't going to happen, but then that is good for the Democrats; as everytime some goofball opens their marginally civil oral flapping whole, they are pushing more people to the middle who are going to be likely to vote Democratic in the next election.

Republican Party Pratfalls

2007-10-18T12:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the President vetos the S-CHIP bill. I don't agree with the move, but that is fine. Could someone please explain what the Republican party as a whole gets out of not supporting an override of the veto.

Lower Income and Lower-Middle Class income earners who do not have health insurance for themselves and their children not at least being able to get good health care for their children seems to be almost a criminal offense. I just don't see what they think they are gaining here. The bill was designed to raise the additional money's needed to pay for the expanded program; and the largest advantage is that by providing health insurance to at least a portion of the uninsured population, we will be saving everyone money on the health care front. (I am sure that everyone knows that the uninsured are 'part of the problem' of health care costs as they tend to wait until a problem is so bad that it is more expensive to treat, and they also tend to use the most expensive forms of health care to get that treatment. As a result of the increase we all, companies and individuals, pay hire health care costs to cover the costs that the facilities need to write off because fo uninsured people.)

In addition to helping control, if only in a small way, the rising cost of health care, the Republicans at least appear to be going against what the majority seems to support.

Rovemort

2007-08-08T11:17:00.001-05:00

Heard about this video and thought it was funny:

Let me know what you think.

You-Tube Debate

2007-07-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

I watched a good portion of the Democratic You-Tube debate this evening on CNN. I found this to be a good way to handle the asking of questions. Even though the network had control of which questions were asked, it didn't have a great deal of control over what questions were submitted. Some of the questions were not what a 'trained' moderator would have asked.

Mike Gravel, as usual, probably did the best job for a candidate that has no chance of getting the nomination. My wife and I both thought that Dennis Kucinich did well when he had a chance to speak, and neither of us usually care for him as a politician. Congressman Kucinich usually seems to be much more 'out there' than he did this evening while we were watching.

Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton did a good job, a few odd statements in how things were said but otherwise did well.

Senator Dodd seemed to do much better and appealled to my wife this evening. We both were sometimes annoyed and sometimes interested by what Senator Biden had to say.

My favorite going into the debate was Senator Edwards. As usual, I feel he did a great job of answering the questions that were asked of him, and making his points. I liked Edwards in 2004 as my second choice, I am mildly embarassed to admit that I was a Lieberman supporter then. I find Edwards to be refreshing and sincere in his desire to help this country, and I think that coming as he did from 'humble' beginnings that he has a good understanding of the general public and the 'little people' in this country who may be often overlooked.

As for Senator Lieberman, I have to say I am not very happy with him. I understand why he was upset with Democratic leadership in the 2006 elections, but I don't understand why he doesn't see the real situation in Iraq. I am not asking him to say anything against anyone, but I just don't understand how he is letting his pride or ego over rule the reality of Iraq. I keep hoping that he will stop acting like such a utter putz, and move on to the help this country like a good religious Jew should. I am tired of him constantly putting his ego ahead of the good of the country. I am not at the point a lot of Democrats are saying he should just 'leave' and become a Republican, I feel he needs to stop acting like a Bush supporter in the Senate and look at all of the damage that has been done to our democracy with that twit in office.

Michael Vick's Issues

2007-07-23T11:09:00.000-05:00

I would like to state up front that while discussing this issue I know that Mr. Vick has not been convicted and that until he is convicted the correct term is alleged connection to dog fighting but for the sake of expediance will only refer here after in this post as his connection to dog fighting.

Dog fighting is, I think MOST people feel, is a barbaric and disgusting practice. (At least I hope most people feel that way. Mr. Vick's connection to is, to say the very least, problematic. I also think Mr. Vick should be 'given time-off'' during the period he is defending himself against the allegations. I also believe that his team mates will likely hope that he is there, especially if they feel that he gives them the best chance of winning games. Both of these last two statements are contradictory and one side has to give. I think the man's personal issues should come before the game, but I doubt that the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons, or Mr. Vick himself are going to see it that way because there is to much money involved.

I heard a statement early this morning on ESPN Radio that was rather absurd. The statement was something about the fact that this story is continuing to be talked about because Mr. Vick is a star and people are trying to 'bring the star down.' (None of that is exactly what was said, but it is a good approximation.) My response was two fold: First I ranted for a minute in the car about the stupidity of the statement, and then I changed radio stations. (To be fair I was planning the station change before the statement, but it changed immediately afterword as a response to the statement.) I don't believe the statement about the continued discussion to be true in any way. I believe that if Mr. Vick had been guilty of a wild sex party on a boat, or stupid actions in a strip club that the discussion would have waned by now. (Mainly because it has with other big name players.) I believe that the particular 'sport' that Mr. Vick was accused of participating in is the reason for the discussion.

The property had 66 dogs seized as part of the raid that lead to the indictment. Many if not all will eventually have to be put down because they will not be able to be 'reformed' successfully. I find it hard to believe that if Mr. Vick had visited this property at any time since 2001 (when the allegations stem back to) that he is either a complete idiot to not know what was going on, or he actively didn't know what was going on, either is a result of his own lack of action. I really have to believe that he was parbably involved, if for no other reason that the other option is illogical. (Though as stated at the beginning of the post, I still feel that the situation is an alleged legal infraction. ) I am also not sure how one can 'support' what Mr. Vick did, some people still do.

My harsh punishment side is leading to want to take Mr. Vick out to an enclosed back yard cover him in iching power and raw meat, and then release the dogs, and see if Mr. Vick likes to be attacked by his own dogs in a dog fighting situation. That having been said, IF Mr. Vick is guilty, because of his stardom, I would like to see him treated harshly (with in the limits of the law). This may be the best opportunity to teach him, and many others in this country, about the horrors of Dog Fighting.

One final related point: Mr. Vick has got to be at least a bit of an idiot, when the allegations first surfaced, he blamed his cousin and apparently expected his cousin to just take the penalty himself. His cousin turned around and negotiated with the government and threw Mr. Vick 'under the bus' in order to save himself.

Updated: 10:21pm 7/23/07: I saw a short time ago that the NFL has asked Mr. Vick to not attend training camp until it has finished a review of the strength of the charges he is facing. I am not sure I am upset about this. I do feel that it is time for the various sports leagues to 'get tougher' with the various employees of those leagues. That is all the employees, coaches, players and referees.

Though of the Week

2007-07-20T12:46:00.001-05:00

John Lehman:

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Found this to be an interesting statement. Kind of follows along with the Presidents joke several years ago about how being a dictator would be easier, especially if he was the dictator. It seems to me, he would think absolute power was kind of neat.

Saying of the Day

2007-06-18T13:43:00.003-05:00

I am not sure if this will truly be daily, but this struck me as something of use to think about today, and I thought I would share.

Miguel de Cervantes:
"Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse."

This having been said, much better than I ever could, I will leave it at that.

Authoritarianism in America

2007-06-14T19:36:00.000-05:00

I have addressed this issue several times before. I actually have a different reason for addressing today, but before I get to that I can't help but mention that the President the other day referred to 'His government.' I am fairly sure that his statement was to refer to his administration, but I think the verbal blunder had a bit of telling information in it any way.

The real reason for this post is a book review. I recently finished reading 'It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush' by Joe Conason. It is clear from the title what the position of this book is and where it is coming from, but I wanted to get someone else's 'input' on the subject. The book does a very good job of summing up the similarities between the Bush Administration and how it functions with authoritarian governments past and present. It is a detailed examination of the Administration and it's apparent need to operate in secrecy.

Something the book did that I thought was interesting was an indepth discussion of the Nixon Adminstration and the development of the 'Unitary Executive' theory that this Administration has built up.

Another thing that Mr. Conason did that I thought was very interesting is comparing the real world of the present with the book written by Sinclair Lewis the author of 'It Can't Happen Here' (1935) in which Mr. Lewis discusses a proposed take over of the United States by a fascist government.

I would recommend this book for two reasons. 1. I feel the book is very good and very well researched, and does a good job of concisely pointing out the problems with the Bush Administration. 2. Even if you don't agree with the point of view, getting the information gives you a feel for what the 'other side' is saying.

Bumper Sticker Politics

2007-06-14T19:29:00.000-05:00

I was driving to work yesterday and I saw the following on a bumper sticker:

National Security begins in the womb

The color was just for emphasis. It was on a red, white, and blue bumper sticker. The car had other 'pro-life' bumper stickers.

The bumper sticker bothered me most of the day. Finally at the end of the day, I discussed the bumper sticker with my wife, and she had a completely different view of the slogan than I did. After talking with my wife and listening to her thoughts on it I decided that she was probably correct on what the meaning of the bumper sticker was. If anyone out there can help though, I would like some other thoughts on the meaning of the bumper sticker. (I am actually interested to see if anyone else takes it the way I did.)

Cindy Sheehan and Newt Gingrich

2007-05-29T15:34:00.000-05:00

I am posting the link to Ms. Sheehan's letter at the Daily Kos.

Though I will admit that I was not a 'huge' support of Ms. Sheehan, I also never felt any of the ridiculous attacks on her were proper. (My lack of support has nothing to do with politics, it has everything to do with not being a politically motivated as I probably should be/should have been.)

I am sadden that this country has become so unhealthy, so unlike what it was intended to be by our Founding Fathers. It seems that many of us, and I have moments of being guilty of this as well, are so wrapped up in our ideology that we are incapable of tolerating the view of others who have a different perspective. Why? I think we have become very comfortable in our 'freedom' that we feel the need to take that freedom from anyone who disagrees with our point of view. More specifically, it seems that the Republican talking heads believe if you don't agree with the President than your not Patriotic. Why? Is this administration so strained to support it's ideas that any thing that defending them against a different viewpoint is not possible. If that is the case, then perhaps it is time that we examine what 'Freedom of Speech really means. I have posted previously the 'rant' from near the end of Aaron Sorkin's 'The American President.' I am not going to quote it but directly but it deals with Freedom of speech being the toleration of someone who is yelling at the top of their lungs that which we find repugnant, and yelling at the top of our lungs why we feel they are wrong. (I don't believe that includes call the person on the other side an attention whore.)

I have attacked the Republican talking heads hear, Ms. Sheehan mentions in the herein attached link that the blogs on the left began to attach her when she began to speak out about the Democratic members of Congress that weren't doing their jobs, that weren't actively seeking to end the situation in Iraq in a timely matter. To those people who did attack Ms. Sheehan who claim to be either Democrats or Progressives (or what ever they want to call themselves on the left) YOU are as much at fault for your behavior as those who attached Ms. Sheehan on the right. Go look in the mirror and see what is looking back, it isn't what you have thought all along.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/28/12530/1525

On the other side of the coin, Newt Gingrich is attacking the Republicans and the Congressional leadership. From at least one thing I read today on the subject this is partially a response by Newt to things he disagrees with. I am not sure that what this isn't in reality is a cynical, politically motivated attempt to distance himself from the Old Republican Guard in the anticipation of running for President. (I am beginning to believe Newt may be the only Republican who wasn't left behind as a child, he can read polls and understand them. AMAZING.)

Oh well, time to go. Work day is almost over and I will be heading to the home front shortly.

Some Sunday Thoughts

2007-05-20T18:04:00.000-05:00

Several things on my mind.

1. Despite all my happiness for Wife, we have been having a problem or two. Recently we had a discussion about religion in which she made a (supposedly) last ditch effort to convert me Christianity. I find these conversations to be very upsetting, I am very happy with who I am and don't feel the need to switch to something that makes no sense to me. The other is that we have been discussing our wedding 13 years ago. She has been harboring several issues for all of this time and seems upset that I am not as bothered by them. I have tried to explain that 13 years have passed and that I can't do anything about it to change it know, but she just gets frustrated with me.

2. We saw Ghost Rider about 2 weeks ago. (It was at a second run theater.) I have never really cared all that much for the character, and found the movie to be rather strange. On a positive, the special effects were enjoyable.

3. I can't remember if I discussed this one yet but we watched Last King of Scotland on DVD recently. I really didn't care for the movie. I thought it was slow moving and poorly paced, Forest Whitaker did a fantastic job in it, which I guess is why he won the Oscar, and was the main saving grace of the movie.

4. We saw Spider-Man 3 today. I have to say that most of what I have read about is about how I felt about it. There were to many villians. (New Goblin, Sandman, and Venom) I thought they did a good job with the way Sandman looked, and I like his origin. Venom was set up very early in the movie and the 'black suite' took way to long to get on Peter. The movie was very crowded with things. All of that said, I still thought the movie was very good and that I would recommend seeing if you like the first 2 movies. (I still feel that Spider-Man 2 was the best of the movies.)

5. Just another note that isn't like the others. (Okay now I have the Sesame Street song One of these things isn't like the others running through my head.) We wanted to give a quick recognition to our friend Jameel at The Muqata. We had an email exchange at the beginning of the year about the situation in Israel and the region. He told me at that time that he expected the IDF to take action against the Palestinians in the Gaza in about 2 months. His estimate was 6 weeks off, which I thought was amazing. He stated in a more recent exchange that he felt the time line changed because PM Olmert was 'uncomfortable' taking any action in the wake of the Lebanon fiasco. We just wanted to acknowledge this, and let people know we do sometimes get information direct from the ground.

It is well passed time for to get off this silly machine and eat dinner and do some other useful tasks around my abode. Have a good week, and we will take to you soon.

Update on Wife's Drive for Grad School

2007-05-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

Well good news on the home front.
First and foremost at the moment is that we found out yesterday, though we haven't received the 'official notification' that Wife was accepted to the Graduate Nursing Program she wanted. She will be seeking her Master's degree as a Clinical Nursing Specialist. When she is done with the 2 year program her next task will be to take a couple of classes to be a teacher of nursing at the college level.

Second, and nearly as good, is that Wife had a job interview last week, and a second interview this week. (This is from the potential job from her friends wedding.) The two interviews went very well and she had a very good feeling about getting the job. (Please keep your fingers crossed. Though that will make typing hard.) We should know sometime today if she has the job.

Yay, Wife.

Why do I do this to myself?

2007-05-18T11:49:00.001-05:00

Every so often I make an effort to listen to Rush Limbaugh. It isn't that I enjoy his show, but I like to know what the talking heads on the right are spewing.

While out getting lunch today I was listening and he was talking about the 'illegal immigration' bill that is working it's way through Congress. The first thing out of his mouth on the issue nearly had me rolling on the floor in laughter. (Which being that I was driving was rather dangerous.) He was actually complaining because in the process of negotiating the legislation, the Democrats had members of the pro-legalization lobby in the meetings. For some reason he found this very offensive, and he said something about the outcry if the Republicans had Big Business involved with the negotiations for energy legislation. I think that would, for the Congressional Republican Caucus, be an improvement over having them actually write the legislation, and then just voting to approve it.

This past weekend Wife and I were visiting with my Mother. (Nothing like a Mother's Day visit with Mom.) And the discussion turned to my Mother's health. As reported hear about 2 weeks ago she is now on oxygen and medications for a combination of Asthma and Emphasema. During the discussion the subject of Medicare Part D came up. I will admit I didn't know much about this legislation, other than that the Pharmacutical/Insurance communities basically wrote the legislation. The way it is working in my Mother's case is she will get the discounted medications until total amount of medications purchased (at the full, not discounted price) reaches $2,500.00, after which she will be required to pay the full price of the medications for the next $2,500.00. (This is until a total of $5,000 in full price billings of medications is reached.) Then she will start getting the discounted price again. My Mom's income is very low. She lives in apartment with a cousin who helps pay the bills, she doesn't really have the money to pay for the meds, and Wife and I will try to help, but we have our own medical issues.

The other thing that good old Rush was spewing about is that the key to this legislation is to, in the near future, give all of these new legal aliens the right to vote even though they are not citizens. (If this was ever proposed I would greatly oppose it.) First of all, I am not sure that is the plan, and I don't know how he know (other than his own Oxycodone fevered delusions) that this is the case. His reasoning is that the Democrats are trying to destroy the Republicans and to insure that they are always in control. (Sort of like Tom Delay's gerrymandering of the Congressional districts that the Republican's tried.)

Why is it that people always accuse the otherside of doing what they are guilty of? (Transference anyone?) The other thing that amazed me, all things considered, was that Bill Clinton was being blamed for all of this somehow. It seems if they can blame even the most illogical things at Bill's feet they will.

Well, no further thoughts on this subject.

Got time for a chuckle

2007-05-17T09:07:00.000-05:00

This gave me a laugh this morning. It was an obvious joke, but it got me to laugh.

Mickey and Farfur Mouse

2007-05-07T15:15:00.001-05:00

Teaching Kids to Hate and Kill

The above link is to an article on the A7 website with greater details of Farfur Mouse

I am a huge Disney fan, and one of my all time favorite charaters is Mickey Mouse. I know the history of his creator, but the charater has always been one that calms me for some reason. (My favorite version of Mickey is from Fantasia - Sorcerer Mickey.

The article above details a Palestinian TV childrens show that stars a mouse by the name of Farfur. The mouse does teach some positive things. (Praying the requisite number of times, proper nutrition, etc.) Farfur also teaches many negative things. (Zionist Occupation is bad, killing Israeli's is good, to hate both Israel and the US.)

I find this rather disturbing. I am not particularly shocked that there is an education structure for children in a Muslim country that teaches negative things about Israel, I am willing to bet that this happens in most of the Arab/Muslim countries. I find it shocking that it is being marketed in a 'pretty package' for pre-school aged children.

As Camel cigarettes proved with their Joe Camel ads for years, the right packaging get the message across so effectively. There was a point be for they stopped using the Camel in advertising that Joe was the best known corporate icon in the world among young children. Someone in the PA learned the lesson, create a cute and cuddly character and then let it sell you idea or product for you.

I am not even getting to any of the much deeper issues that I could, only that this really bothers me. Can you imagine the uproar in the US if there was a similar type of charater on the TV today. Song of the South - One of my favorite Disney movies, from what I can remember, from my childhood and Disney will neither run the movie or sell the movie because it will be met with resistance of many minorities. I understand the problem, I just happen to believe that it reflects a particular era with some 'stretching.' Even many Tom and Jerry's and Warner Brother cartoons are not aired anymore because of racial sterotypes. I find this only minorly problematic, as a society we are constantly striving to improve this country and many of those racially negative sterotypes do not need to be seen, because they will only cause additional problems.

Below I have placed copies of both Farfur Mouse and Mickey Mouse.

UPDATE: The above discussed show staring Farfur Mouse has been pulled from the Hamas television channel. Below is the link that will take you to a brief article discussing this fact. My favorite item in the article, how the PA Minister of Information complaining that the foreign media is still discussing this iusse after it has been resolved but never reported on Israeli Human Rights Violations based on video that his Ministry provided in the last few weeks.

My response, Duh. Why well, after the PA's record with misinformation in the past, it might take a media source time to 'check out' any PA produced information prior to airing. Having said this, having read several things about Mustafa Barghouti in trying to track down his exact title, I am not sure that I would necesarily say he is a bad guy. I haven't read much on him before today, but he at least seems to support a situation that creates a sustainable 'peace' with Israel.

Haaretz.com

Thoughts on various things

2007-04-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

1. The Brother-in-law is still looking for a job. I am not sure what to even think on him anymore.

2. My Mom is better. They have put her on oxygen and she seems to be doing well. (I need to make another visit, but not until after this coming weekend.

3. Wife is still without a job. She did make an interesting contact at a wedding we were at this weekend that may become a job, we shall see.

4. Though I don't often post about it, I do watch a lot of sports:
a. I was happy over all with the Browns drafting this weekend. My only concern is that Brady Quinn dropped as far as he did and that we moved up to get him. (All the sports talking heads think it was a good move and they are supposed to be the experts.)
b. Despite a number of bizarre things, (a snow out of one series, playing a home series away from home, etc) the Indians are in first place at the end of April for the first time in what feels like a century.
c. The Cavaliers, for the first time in franchise history, swept a playoff series and are into the second round.
d. While not a real thing, I watched most of 2 separate showings of 'The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh' in the last week. Talk about strange movies that I will sit and watch anytime they are on TV.

5. I greatly enjoyed the 3rd season of the new Battlestar Galactica. I am really annoyed that it will take until at least January before we will see new episodes.

6. I have enjoyed Battlestar's 'replacement' for the short term Painkiller Jane.

7. I don't really understand NBC. It seems like they haven't shown new episodes of any of the Law & Order franchise in months. (I know it is new this week, it just seems weird.

8. How does Fox premiere a show this time of year? One that is a continuing premise show, and not even give it at least more that 3 viewing dates to build an audience. (Drive was an enjoyable show.) (All-in-all, at least they showed it in order, unlike Firefly which was just plain incomprehensible the way they showed it.)

9. While I am not a huge American Idol fan. (Actually not a fan at all) I am forced to watch it and while I thought Sanjaya was interesting, someone should be dragged out behind the wood shed for his being on the show as long as he was. (Either Jordin Sparks or Melinda Dolittle will win this season.)

10. On the local news this evening was a story about a man who is going to jail for attempting to hire someone to kill his wife. Aside from crying in court during the pre-sentence hearing today, the strangest thing about this may have been his defense. He claims that he thought the undercover police officer that he was speaking with was a member of a biker gang that he wanted into, and thought the 'kill my wife' thing made him sound tougher. (I think the map of his wifes mail route and details of how he wanted the murder staged that were captured on tape sort of did him in.

Well I am getting to tired to think straight and I need to clean the kitchen before I sleep tonight.
Have a good one all. I'll be back soon.

Mr. Tenet goes to TV and a Book Store Near You

2007-04-30T21:57:00.000-05:00

George Tenet has a book coming out. While I am sure this is almost shocking to most people I find what is going around the TV interviews to be the funniest part of all of this.

Mr. Tenet, in an what appears to me to be an attempt to 'rehabilitate' his image, has written a book that returns fire at a number of members of the Bush Administration. What I found to be the most interesting is how the political talking heads are responding.

For whatever reason I decided today to listen to Rush Limbaugh as I ran errands around noon. While the regular blowhard was 'absent from school' today, the subsitute blowhard was actually funny, and the callers were actually scary. What I gleaned from the substitute blowhard was that Mr. Tenet is NOW the darling of the Left. (You know those crazy liberals.) He was also, along with the callers, blaming everything on one William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton. So let me see if I understand. 6+ years after the man left office, and everything is Bill's fault. The fact that the Bush Administration did everything it could to find a way to bring Iraq into the argument didn't really seem to register. A couple of things that really got me laughing. First was the person who seemed to think that Al Qa'eda was in Iraq (other in the Kurdish areas, where Saddam was not able to operate militarily) and that we 'need to fight them there in order to not fight them here.' (Does anyone actually believe that?) The second was a person who seemed convinced that Bill had done everything in is power to set up the Imperial Executive. (Perhaps we should call him, He-who-should-not-have-reigned.)

What was really stunning to me about all the ranting by the substitute Blowhard today was that, having listened to a number of the 'liberal' talkshows, they were harder on Mr. Tenet than the Blowhard and his listeners.

What does this teach us? I don't know, but I am really hoping that the morons that I heard on the Rush Limbaugh show were not representative of the entirety of the listenership, but I figure it probably was.

VA Tech Some thoughts

2007-04-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

I have been following the spree killings at Virginia Tech with only marginaly interest. It isn't that I don't think the story is interesting, but I am rather put off by the 'wall-to-wall' coverage of the cable news industry. I do believe that it is an important story, but I can only take the repetitions of the exact same information so many times.

I have heard several interviews with some of the students who survived the classroom attacks. These have been both very chilling to me as well as very riveting. I wish I had some insight in to the situation and how to deal with the situation. I don't, and I can't imagine what the Virginia Tech community is going through at this moment.

I find that the information that is coming out on the young man who killed the 32 other people to be very interesting. The fact that he had mental health issues isn't really surprising, but for the first time that I can remember the news channels, (I have watched CNN for the most part) are actually delving into the mental health issues surrounding this situation. As someone who is on a medication for Depression and whose wife has been diagnosed with Depression and Anxiety/Panic Disorder and had multiple hospitalizations in the nearly 13 years we have been married this is a relief. It seems that many times in these situations that the mental health issues are a post-script used as the 'cause' of what ever caused the killer to spiral out of control. It seems in this situation, that a deeper explination of this young man's problems is being discussed.

I find it rather had to believe that these kinds of things continue to happen in this country. I have read a trilogy that had a point of discussion which seems to fit these situations. I wonder if to some extent these spree killings are a symptom of a much deeper problem societial problem. That these kinds of spree killings aren't just a way for a specific level of societal anxiety or societal pressures to be released at a regular interval.

Finally, I wish to once again express my deep sadness and sympathy for those whose families have been affected directly or otherwise by this tragic situation.

May HaShem look after the families and the souls of those who have died, and may the memories of those who have died be nothing but a blessing on those who knew them.

It Is A Sad Day

2007-04-16T14:29:00.000-05:00

I wish to express my sympathies to the families of those who were killed today at Virginia Tech.

While I don't know much of the circumstances, the report I saw had 31 dead. I hope to learn more later today, as this is a problem in our society that we need to find a way to prevent.

Are You Nervous?

2007-04-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

I am not talking the run-of-the-mill nervousness. You know the type you get when you have to speak in front of people.

I am talking more in terms of that 'little-voice-in-that-back-of-your-brain-telling-you-there-is- a-problem' kind of nervousness. The kind of nervousness that is general nearly paranoid in its approach to how you look things around you.

Digression 1: My interest in politics began when I was 8 years old and there was a re-election of the sitting President. It was the first time I became aware of the bigger country out there.

Digression 2: I first remember learning about Rome, and I remember reading about the Roman empire and some of the things that lead to its down fall and collapse.

The things that have me paranoid is the direction that this country is headding in. For one thing this country has much in common with the Roman Republic.

Some of the things that were symptomatic of the deteriation of Roman Repulic. The Gladatorial games, the constant expansion of the republic. Both of these continued under the Empire and they added some lovely things like the use of people outside of the traditional military structure.

We have our own version of the gladitorial games to keep the masses under control. How many people watch an average NFL game. How many have an interest the new extreme fighting programs that are on TV it seems like 7 nights a week.

The US hasn't directly expanded in a number of years but the war in Iraq is definitely a war of that was, at least in retrospect, not a necessary war.

In Iraq we are using nearly as many military contractors as we are military personnel.

The Roman Republic became the Roman Empire when the 'executive branch' of the government made itself all powerful and singular in nature.

Why am I nervous? Because history shows that minorities tend to get 'put down' by the majority when the majority begins to feel threatened. Democracies can be subverted by a well planned attack if the people attempting the subversion have a well thought out plan and are willing to work over a period of time for the goal.

Look at Germany after the first World War. The National Socialist party had a plan, they executed it and they succeeded and took over the government. Look at Imperial Russia in the early part of the last century. The overthrow of the rule of Tzar Nicolas by the democratic forces lead directly to the rise of the Bolsheviks and the rise of the totalitarian socialist society that developed.

As I stated above in the first digression, I have been aware of the political situations in this country for closing in on 40 years (that should give you an idea what election was refered to above.)

As I state in the second digression, I made a very astute observation long before it was 'fasionable' to see that happening in this country.

The current administration is guilty of attempting to subert the Constitution and the political structure of this country. But they are not the first. The peril of our social structure and the centralization of power in a manner that wasn't the idea of the Framers of the Constitution, goes back to the second President.

Hopefully the public will realize that it is time for a change in the political nature of our society. Not to a less tolerant, more authoritarian political structure, but to a less authoritarian more equitable government that respects all citizens equaly.

Please think about the idea of the overall direction that this country is heading in, and let me know if you are nervous.

New Issues for the Same Old People

2007-04-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

My mom, as I mentioned in my Passover post, was in the hospital. She got out of the hospital on Tuesday of that week. The diagnosis wasn't as bad as I was fearing, but not as good as nothing being wrong. She was diagnosed with both Asthma and Emphysema. She is on Oxygen, but seems to be doing well otherwise.

Additionally, Brother-in-Law, who just spent the last 4 or 5 months preparing for a career as a truck driver, decided not to work for the company that had hired him. It wasn't until well along in the process that we found out what was going on, and that had to be dragged out of him by Wife. His trainer with the company he was going to work for was, to say the least, a problem.

After much discussion, it appears he is trying to justify working for Waste Management as a garbage truck driver. We have told him he isn't going to make enough money, but apparently that doesn't matter. And who am I to tell him what to do.

Ah Well.

Is It Bad Luck or No Luck?

2007-04-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

I have to say that if I didn't have bad luck with my cats, I wouldn't have any luck at all.

As documented about 18 months ago, we had to put to sleep one of our cats. Prior to that I we had had to put to sleep the sister/litter mate of the male we put to sleep at that 18 months ago. (We had to have put her to sleep about 10 years before.) The little cat we got to replace the first female we had to put to sleep is generally healthy except that we have to clean her teeth every other year or so, and she has an under-developed tear duct in for one of her eyes.

The little Siamese Lynx Point we had found about 15 months ago abandonned in our apartment building. Wife had taken both of the cats in for their annual appointments. We had notice that she had a strange behavior and Wife mentioned it at the time and the Doctor said that it was a feline seizure disorder. What she didn't mention at the time was that she wass having these seizures 2-3 times a day.

Today we took the little Siamese in for a dental cleaning. Well as part of the cleaning they determined that 3 of her teeth were bad and needed to be extracted. (3 teeth from an 18 month old cat, this was very disturbing.) My wife then tells me she also discussed with the Doctor again about the seizures, and that they are happening 2-3 times a day. The Doctor is now doing tests and is going to talk to an expert in feline seizures to determine what the best way to treat this is. I am just really thrown off by this. I am not sure why, but has upset me. (Okay, it is because the cats are like my children, but still.)

Passover Time Again

2007-04-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

Passover, as the Holidays and Festivals go, is not one of my favorites. Not because of the holiday itself, but as I've complained about before, I don't like having my eating habits messed with. This year I am actually hoping to lose a little wait during the Festival.

For a variety of reasons I will not be going to a Sedar tonight, and I may not be going tomorrow night. I have one scheduled for tomorrow night at a cousins house, but my mother is in the hospital and may not be out in time. If she is not I will be spending that time with her at the hospital. Aside from that, May all who visit during this time have a happy, healthy (and Kosher) Passover. And may we all be able to celebrate next year in Jerusalem.

An Old Discussion?

2007-03-26T12:01:00.000-05:00

Uri Avery

The above linked article is about Israeli and Arab education. Or more specifically it deals with how children are educated to 'hate' the other side and whether text books on both sides (or either side) are at fault.

My first clue of the 'tone' of the article was when the author used the line "These are foundations of the far-right, disguised as "scientific" bodies, which are lavishly funded by Jewish-American multi-millionaires. " This statement really begins the premise of the article is full view of the reader. Why is it that the approach by either side of a discussion is to attack the other side as being intellectually dishonest. (After all that is what that statement really gets down to.

I believe that the problem, on both sides, stems from the basis of the world view at home. But I don't believe that the problem is solely based on that. I was raised in a home in which we were proud to be Jews, but Israel, other than when there was a war, wasn't really a factor. I have come to the conclusion that Israel is much more important to me than my mother ever has. Part of this may be that my mother was born before Israel was re-born. She lived a portion of her life (to adulthood) with out Israel being a living breathing entity.

I find that the idea that everything that is going on in the Middle East to be the fault of any one person or group of people to be ridiculous. I understand that everyone has a perspective, I tend to side with the Israeli perspective, and with the 'right-wing' of the Israeli political spectrum. I am not saying I am in lock step on that, any more than I am in agreement with everything the Democrats do or say in this country.

The author has a good point, that in order to change the situation you need to change how both sides think. I don't like the idea that anyone in the US is being blamed for the situation. There are as many wealthy Jews in the US that would support the author and the organization that he supports as any 'Right Wing' causes. The author is guilty, though to a lesser extent, of exactly what he is accusing the 'Right Wing' of.

I don't believe that the Palestinians are a true peace partner, and until the use of violence as a political tool ceases, they won't be a true peace partner. I also believe that that won't occur for some time because they have had success in getting part of their goals accomplished. Am I saying that Israel is the perfect peace negotiation partner. Of course not, I believe Israel can change what they do and how they do it, but that they are trying the best they know how in the situation they are in. The 'Far Left' in Israel, and the US for that matter, overlook the motivation of human nature. I would love to think that Israel, or the US for that matter, could just disband their militaries and that we would be safe, but that is not how the other sides in some of these situations behave, so it becomes a question of how to best accomplish what is in the majority's interest. I don't know what the answer is, but Israel signing on to end her own existence is a non-starter.

Congress

2007-03-21T12:41:00.001-05:00

It is nice to see that Congress may finally be remembering that they are, Constititutionally at least, a 'co-equal' branch of the Federal Government.

I know that a large part of what has been happening the last several years has been political, but I really have a major problem with any branch of the government not respecting itself or the rolls of the other branches.

The Congress, while under the Republican control the last several years, really was not doing it's part of the process. It just was an extension of the White House. This is not the first time that this has happened, probably will not be the last time that it happens, we just have to hope that the Government will not fall under sway of someone who wants to so take advange of this type of situation as to change this coumty in a fundamental way.

I just keeping watching situation, and hoping for someone to get a grip and make a change.

I will probably keep hoping for some time to come.

Bending Over to Far

2007-03-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

The below linked article is probably on of the more bizarre things that I have heard of a school district doing.

A British School system has change the name/story of the Three Little Pigs to the Three Little Puppies. The biggest problem with this, not even the Muslims in the area of London where the school to this action were objecting to the play/story in it's traditional name.

I just don't understand. Are people at the school so very un-aware of their surroundings that they would do this. And why would Muslim's be upset about the name of the show anyway? At the very worst, like Jews, they are forbidden from EATING pigs, not see alligorical plays about them.

Three Little Puppies

More On Alberto

2007-03-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, I really don't have anything to add about Alberto himself, but I was skimming the following article: NY York Times Article.

Somethings that jumped out at me while reading:
Mr. Bartlett said it was “highly unlikely” that Mr. Rove would testify publicly to Congress but added, “That doesn’t mean we won’t find other ways to try to share that information.” Does this seem to indicate that even if he is subpoenaed to testify, he won't. (Maybe I am reading something into it that isn't there) That could get interesting.

With Mr. Bush traveling in Mexico, the White House insisted that the president’s role had been minimal and laid the blame primarily on Harriet E. Miers, who was White House counsel when the prosecutors lost their jobs and who stepped down in January. Of course, she just took unilateral action. She would be much easier to blame being that she is no longer in the Adminstration. (Does anyone in this Administration take responsibility for anything. Mr. Gonzales did, but it was kind of weak.)

The other thing that I think is interesting, which wasn't in the above linked article, is that Mr. Gonzales said he was unaware of the discussions that were going on. The Attorney General's Chief of Staff took unilateral action without him being aware of the situation. Doesn't that make Mr. Gonzales incompetent.

The only other possible that I can see is that Mr. Gonzales knew about it and is lying. If this is true, then he should be go for the situation.

I think that either way, Gonzales has backed himself into a corner. And if what the article discuss about the President having lost, at least some, confidence in him. It may be time for him to go.

It's Not My Fault, It's Him. All Him.

2007-03-13T15:35:00.000-05:00

Alberto Gonzalez, in what seems to be the standard operating procedures of the Administration, apparently is putting the blame for the firing of the 8 US Attorney's on his (now former) Chief of Staff.

Dispite what appears to be an increasing amount of information that the Attorney General and The White House (oh that is very general isn't it) were very involved in the preparation and execution (in more than one way) of the plan. It also appears that former Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers, who if I remember correctly thought Unitary Executive W was the smartest man she knew, was the one who 'proposed' this idea. (This may explain her leaving the administration when she did. She may very well saw this coming and jump while the jumping was good.

I find this situation very disturbing. Not because the firing of US Attorney's is a problem, but that this was obviously a reasoned political strategy that was designed to increase the power of the executive branch at the expense of the judiciary and to try and 'marginalize' the political process in this country.

In his press conference today, Alberto Gonzalez said basically said that the situation was under control and that he is refusing to resign. I wouldn't expect him to resign, after all he is having to much fun and being way to successful at taking away the civil liberties of the citizens in this country. (But at least we are bring Democracy to the Middle East.)

I think it's time for Congress to 'turn up the heat.' It appears that they may, but I have questions whether the Democrats in Congress have the balls to actually do anything, but getting rid of the Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (The AG AG) would be a start to putting things back to normal in this country.

As a final note, I heard on the radio today that one of the articles of the Nixon Impeachment articles was interference in the judicial process by trying to manipulate the make up of the US Attorneys to facilitate using the judicial system to go after 'political enemies.' OOPPS.

General Pace's Comments

2007-03-13T10:34:00.000-05:00

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace was quoted as saying in the newspaper interview. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

So General Pac has made the above comments. When I heard these statements first thing this morning on my way to work, only one thing occurred to me. That one thing, does General Pace feel that homosexual acts between more than 2 individuals are moral and that we should then condone them. I think that his specific language may imply that. I am just not sure why he would feel that the homosexual orgies are okay, but non-orgy homosexual sex would be immoral.

Link: General Pace's Comments

Israel seeks name for 34 day war.

2007-03-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

In what can only be considered a major priority for Olmert's Administration in this period of no other problems in Israel. DM Peretz set up a commission to name the war. To further prove how important this situation is 'Advertisement Yaacov Edri, a minister without portfolio, said on Tuesday he was mounting a separate search through a ministerial committee that he chairs and which oversees state ceremonies.'

The Lebanese are calling this war the 'July War' and Hamas is calling it 'The Divine Victory.' The Israelis, through a YNet poll, have suggested things such as 'Operation Failure', 'The Idiotic War', 'The Big Shame' and 'Amir Peretz's Final War'. I would like to suggest perhaps 'Olmert's Offensive Offense.' But as I am not an Israeli, I guess I don't have any say.

link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070313-0620-israel-lebanon-war.html

Support the Troops!

2007-03-12T12:44:00.000-05:00

Some thoughts on the news

2007-03-09T13:04:00.001-05:00

1. I am not sure why, but the news about Newt Gingrich being involved in an infidelity during the time he was attacking President Clinton is actually about as Ironic as it could get. I don't really care about it, but I find him bringing it up when he is preparing to possibly run for President to be rather funny.

2. The President has gone to Brazil and discussed the dangers of being reliant on foreign oil sources. As part of this statement he has signed an agreement with Brazil that will increase the production in this hemisphere of alternative fuels. I find this to be a rather funny thing as well. A President that has us fighting a war that is 'allegedly' over oil, telling the world how dangerous it is. Does this fall under the NO Duh catagory? I think so.

3. The at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is just frightening. How does an administration that claims to support the troops allow something like this to happen? I would address this situation further, but I am not really sure what to say.

4. Does anyone think that it took Senator Obama an extended period of time to pay off the Harvard University parking tickets to be any more of a problem than his having attended an Muslim school while a child?

5. As one could expect the FBI was unable to restrain from abusing the Patriot Act provisions that allowed it to investigate 'terrorists?'

6. Is it me or is the fact that the President asked for a new plank in the Patriot Act renewal that allowed an Administration to fire Federal Prosecutors and replace them at will with out the normal vetting process in the Senate, and then abused the authority really all that suprising?

Well have a good Shabbot, and I hope every one had a safe Purim celebration.

Family Update

2007-03-02T16:38:00.001-05:00

A couple things I thought I would pass on:

1. The reason for the continuation of a lower number of posts is two-fold:

a. I have been working my full time job and then working as a tax-whale on several nights a week.

b. I was basically unable to post for a week due to a death in Wife's family.

2. The death in Wife's family was of her Grandmother. Grandmother was the one who slapped Father-in-Law last year. It was a sudden thing, though we found out latter that she had been suffering from the flu for about 8 days and hadn't gone for help when she died.

3. I was at work for the weekend that she died helping move our warehouse from location A to location B. As a company we moved over 4500 pallets from the old facility to the new facility from Friday at 6am and Sunday at 6pm. (Friday and Saturday were 2 10 hour shifts.) It was really a rather amazing thing to see happen. Unfortunately some of the pallets didn't make it to the correct location, but for the most part everything was fairly smoothly done.

4. Wife is not working currently and also is preparing to go back to school to get a graduate degree in Nursing. I will update this issue as time allows.

5. During the week of the funeral for Wife's Grandmother: Father-in-law had a stomach virus. He passed this to Mother-in-law, who was unable to attend Grandmother's funeral. Wife had Strep Throat and was unable to full-fill her 'assigned' duties for about a week of caring for her Grandfather.

Brother-in-law also got ill with the virus. (He also passed his CDL licensing, and will be going through a three week orientation program)

I Don't Understand

2007-02-28T17:32:00.001-05:00

I don't understand how the British forces pulling out of southern Iraq is proof of improved conditions in Iraq, and at the same time the US is surging the troop present in central Iraq.

Wouldn't it make more sense to shift the 'excess' British forces to central Iraq to help the US forces to improve the conditions there?

Also, why is the VP going around the 'Far East' making policy statements that seem to be at least moderately out of touch with reality?

Why does this Administration think that citizens of this country are going to fall for the exact same ploy from Iraq repackaged?

Why do people seem to believe that this Administration has the best interest of the country as a goal, when they are starting to push their own base away?

Why can someone who claims to be a liberal also hate both the troops and Jews and say that both are undermining the progressive movement?(This was a phone call I heard this evening on the radio)

I am currently out of things off the top of my mind that I don't understand. Please help.

Why Is It Important?

2007-02-27T14:28:00.000-05:00

It seems to be important somehow that the Tomb of Jesus has been found. So I have been trying to decide why this is an important issue.

Okay, if Jesus was buried and did not 'rise from the grave' after three days, it sort of destroys the basic theological points of modern Christianity. But is this really an important thing, after all the concept of Jesus' divinity was in dispute by early Christians and was partially resolved the the historical occurance of the Rise of Islam.

All that aside, let's exam the issue at hand.

If this is the Tomb of Jesus, does it change the reality that Christianity will not accept it and it is difficult, if not impossible, confirm that is or isn't the real thing. Since faith is a major part of any religion, it will not 'shake the faith' of people who are 'true Christians.' If it isn't the Tomb of Jesus, nothing changes. As such no change in the situation so it really isn't an issue. (Unless of course you are a sociologist or archeologist.)

The biggest thing that bugged me about the whole report was something I saw on CNN at about 2:30am last night. It seem that they are partially basing the identification of the situation on one item, a name on one of the containers that had the words 'Jesus', 'Son of', and 'Joseph.' And they were reading these names (on the screen) from left to right. The only problem the way they were written (being in Hebrew) it should have been read Joseph son of Jesus.

OOPPSS!!

A Few Things

2007-02-14T16:49:00.000-05:00

An update on the job front:

I have been hired as the in-house tax professional for a corporation that produces and distributes energy efficient lighting.

The above picture is from the website of the company that I work for. I have been very busy recently trying to get a grip on what is going on, and what I need to get accomplished on a company wide basis.

Additionally, I have been working part-time at H&R Block. The result of this is that I haven't had as much time to comment and post on things that are going on. I really wish that I did because of all the wonderous things that I could have been commenting on.

To Ezra:

I hope that you are feeling better, and that the illness that was involved was not a chronic health issue and can/will be cleared up permanently.

Politics:
1. Going back to the State of the Union. I am not sure the President really got anywhere with the speech.
2. Does anyone really think that the 'surge' is really a good idea, or that it is going to change anything? After all the number of troops that was chosen (21,500) is the result of a discussion of how many troops that can actually be deployed.
3. Why are the Senate Republicans not willing to discuss the 'surge'? And more important perhaps than that, how stupid does Senator Warner look? He proposed the non-binding resolution to be debated and then voted against actually debating it.
4. The administration continues to ask for a chance for the 'surge' to work. Why, they haven't worked in the past, what makes this one different? (I haven't heard that yet. Yes I know; Take and hold a neighborhood rather than clear and leave. 21,500 additional troops are going to make this idea successful?
5. The President actually said in his news conference today that sometimes money takes precedent over peace. I am not sure what that means in his mind, but it doesn't sound good. I sure Tony Snow will find a way to explain this one tomorrow.
6. I sent an email to Senator Voinovich to express my disapproval of his stance on debating the non-binding resolution. I think that he was suckered in on this one, and that he missed what the people of Ohio were saying when they removed his political compatriot Michael DeWine from office in the November election. I hope he reconsiders and begins to pay attention to what his constituents want. Otherwise he will be looking for a new career as well.

More on the Personal Front:
1. Wife was in the hospital briefly a couple of weeks ago. She is feeling better, but the stress of my brief unemployment will leave some temporary issues, but we are getting through them slowly.
2. Father-in-Law was in the hospital at the same time that Wife was. While it has taken until now, he is starting to act 'normal' and the meds that he is on are finally taking a solid effect.
3. Other than that, things are improving slowly and I hope to be able to post regularly on the go forward.

On other note:
The snow has really been kind of heavy the last couple of days. (Okay, not Oswego County, NY heavy, but heavy.) The end of day, it is going to be cold and windy tonight. I am tired of people who drive in heavy snow with no head lights on or drive at ridiculous speeds.

Have a good one. We will return after this (hopefully) brief intermission.

Update on the Job Front

2007-01-30T08:29:00.001-05:00

Well just a quick note.

I have accomplished the mission of finding a new job.

I am working for a corporation that produces and distributes energy efficient lighting. Tax is a wonderful thing, and just about every organization needs people who know tax.

Well I will be back later to update on other things, until then have a good day.

A Surge in Troops

2007-01-10T22:23:00.000-05:00

I forget what I was listening to on the radio today but they pointed out that a surge in electricity was a bad thing. Can a surge in troops be a good thing?

The President had his primetime Iraq address last night. I found what he had to say to be rather boring and repetative. His only new point was that he is sending in the 20,000 new troops.

Additionally, I heard today that the Pentagon is taking the approach that National Guard units are all starting with a fresh position and instead of having a 5 year window for their next deployment, they are eligible for deployment at any time.

The only thing that this Adminstration is doing that I don't have a problem with is the expansion of the military. I was not sure about the cut backs under the last 2 Administrations.

A lot of the talking heads last night seemed to be comparing the stategy to gambling, the double down senario. I actually would say it is more like a drug addict trying to get that one last hit before going clean. He is trying to find a successful high before he realizes that he has completely screwed up his life.

Tax Whale, Again

2007-01-10T22:07:00.000-05:00

I have, unexpectedly, been given the opportunity to return to H&R Block in a seasonal tax position. I was not originally planning on going back to Block as I was asked by my former employer not to. It did take way to much out of me last year.

Updating other items:
1. I had an interview to day with a privately held corporation as to be the in-house tax person. The company is facinating and I will give more information on this at a later time if I get the position. This opportunity called on me, and I found it to be a very interesting opportunity.

2. Tomorrow I have an interview with a small wealth management firm to be an in-house tax preparer for their client base. This was in the Sunday paper and I have no idea what to think about for this position.

3. I have a phone screening tomorrow also for a Law firm that is in downtown Cleveland to be an in-house tax preparer. This is a potentially very good opportunity. I have thought of going to law school and it seems that a law firm may be a good place to learn if that is something I truly want to do.

4. Father-in-law has been driving wife absolutely nuts. As we have noted before, Father-in-law has anxiety and panic/depression issues, (same type that Wife has) but refuses to admit (unlike Wife) that he has them. He has been taking Cipro for one problem, Diflucan for another problem, and Xanex to control the anxiety/panic. We (the family) have been trying to get him to go back on an anti-depression medication. (He was on one for about 2 years and went off it this summer. He has had just about every test you can imagine trying to find out why he has the chest pains and breathing problems, in my house we call these Panic Attacks because we have the ability to admit what is wrong with us.) Since going off the medications he has been driving Mother-in-law crazy. (Although in Wife's family that is a short trip.) Any way, he recently started taking the medication for the depression. (It happens to be the one he took before, one that I am on, and Wife was on previously.) He reads on line regularly about his drug interactions and then he has what ever symptoms the interactions say may happen. (His mother is like this.) On Monday night he called Wife about 10 times between 8:00pm and 3:00am. (Wife then had a panic attack and he finally apparently went to sleep.) It turned out to be a very, very long night.

Well I have one more thing to post separately, but wife came home and I will need to talk to her shortly.

Are You Missing Any Mail?

2007-01-07T20:24:00.000-05:00

This was a story that didn't get a lot of press, though it was on the television news for about 24 hours. Apparently, toward the end of December our very honorable and trustworthy President, His Royal Majesty W the first, signed a piece of legislation that prevents the reading of mail illegal without a warrent. This is wonderful news until you look at his signing statement. He basically says in that the if he deems to be an emergency, that he will then just ignore the law and do what ever he wishes.

What exactly is it about this twit that makes him believe that he is above the law simple because he is the President?

Happy New Year

2006-12-30T00:55:00.000-05:00

Well it's that time of year again.

Time to make a change either for the better, or for a change. Time turn to a loved one and remind yourself, and them, that you love them.

Happy New Year to one and all. May your new year be one of joy, happiness, and prosperity.

And on a completely different note, while searching for a graphic for New Years I cam up with the picture below as well. I am not sure what it means, who it is, or why it came up for New Years, but I figure it was worth posting just for the fact that I thought it was an odd thing to find for New Years.

Another Week Another Update

2006-12-30T00:21:00.000-05:00

So where are we:

When last we spoke, I was preparing for an interview on Tuesday of this week and not really sure what I was going to do. That interview went well, but due to the time of year, nothing really came of it as yet. One of the positions that I previously interviewed for decided to not offer the job based on my credit history which is not very good because of a previous unemployment that lasted for 2.5 years. ( I have started making phone calls and sending emails to see if there is something I can do to get this situation redressed as I feel that this may be the best situation for me overall.) I had an interview on Friday with Accountemps, and they may have a 3+ month temporary position for me that would begin on January 8. In addition to this I spoke to a couple of the recruiters that I am working with and they may have interview opportunities for me as early as next week. Every time I get down about the situation, I seem to get another reason to be positive about the next week. (As I have said to Wife several times recently, I just have to keep Doors and Windows in mind.)
On the In-Law front. Father-in-Law has seen a new medical specialist, and seems to be very enthusiastic about the direction this Doctor is proceeding. Father-in-Law was supposed to be picking up his parents for the day on Christmas, but there was another in the continuing soap opera that is Wife's family. As you will likely remember Wife's Grandmother had 'taken back' Grandfather to live in an independent apartment, despite this being wholly inappropriate for his current situation. Father-in-Law had discussed that when Grandmother and Grandfather came to visit, that Grandfather would need to wear Depends, surprisingly this did not cause a huge problem. Two days before they went to pick them up, Father-in-Law mentioned in a casual way that she should make sure to bring an extra set of clothing with them, just to be on the safe side. (I believe they may have heard the response in Iraq, but I am not sure.) Basically, Grandmother got very nasty and said that Grandfather has never had an accident. (Actually we know of at least 3 that he did have all in the last several months. Some of which lead to the situation of them moving from one building at the facility that they are in to another.) Father-in-Law called his sister to discuss the situation only to discover that Grandfather had had accidents the two previous nights. (Apparently Grandmother told Father-in-Law's Sister that there was a ghost in the apartment that had left poop-balls, not sure of the official term used, around the apartment.) When Father-in-Law's Sister talked to Grandmother, she got an ear full. Then Father-in-Law's Niece or, as Wife call's her, The Chosen Granddaughter got on the phone to 'calm Grandmother down,' she got told off. The Chosen Granddaughter has NEVER been spoken to by Grandmother this way before. (At least to our knowledge.) The Chosen Granddaughter has had a number of problems over the last 6 years or so, and when Father-in-Law's Sister got back on the phone she was told by Grandmother that she was a bad mother and that is why her daughter turned out the way she did. (The fact that Grandmother undermined the parental power of both her daughter and son-in-law had nothing to do with it apparently.)
Back to the Job Front for just a moment. I forgot to add above that I did not end up going to North Virginia for the 2 interviews. Why, well I didn't have the money and family pressure.
I have heard from 2 of my clients in the last week. One is living in Italy and wants to get a head start on his tax return. The other is living in Denver and has issues from last years tax return. ( And to my favorite trolls out there, no the issues were not a result of anything I did or didn't do.) I find it facinating that people continue to know exactly when I need that emotional/ego boost, even when they are unaware of what is going on in my life.
The only real news on Step-Sister is that she is planning on divorcing her husband. I got some old information on the situation though. When Step-Brother-2 was going to our home town to visit our brother-in-law, Step-Sister told him about the situation, and he decided not to visit. (Yeay for my big brother. I am happy someone did this.) Step-Brother-1 was not happy about the situation when he found out, but is having problems in his own marriage because of mental health issue for Step-Brother-1's Wife. Step-Brother-1's middle son and wife had a baby. (I only found out because they were going to be at the Hannukah party. I didn't end up going to it because neither Wife or I were feeling well.)
I was supposed to be in Colorado this week for a wedding. For financial reasons, obviously, this was not going to be a trip we were taking. (Actually this was decided long before the lay-off.) I am moderately happy that it occured this way as Colorado is getting the big snow storms and I am hoping for a predominately Snow Free winter this year. (I really get tired of snow and cold very quickly.)

Well I can't think of anything else that I need to get off my chest this evening, I will update again when I have time.

Saddam is Dead, Is This Truly a Big Deal?

2006-12-30T00:09:00.000-05:00

My mother called on Friday evening to inform me that Saddam had been executed. (She also asked if I was joyful about this, which seems to be an odd question.)

I have several thoughts on this:

I really thought Saddam should have been killed when he was located in his hole-in-the-ground, hide-a-way. The fact that he wasn't was entirely politically motivated on the part of the US. After all we had to capture someone, and we don't seem to be able to capture Osama Bin Laden. (Well unless you believe that there is a conspiracy that is allowing him to live.)
I truly can't believe that there are many people in this country that feel this is a major event. I certainly don't believe that it is worthy of the time that was devoted to it on CNN while I was watching. (Either before the execution, or after.)( I didn't watch any of the other networks on Friday to see how much coverage was being given to it.)
I don't understand why my mother thought I would be joyful about the execution. I am glad he is no longer in power. I really don't care how he died.
I don't really think the execution really accomplishes anything at this time. The ordinary citizen of Iraq is to busy staying out of the way of the violent boneheads running around killing innocent people to worry about this. I really think it would have accomplished more if he had been killed per item 1.

If Saddam's execution really changes anything in Iraq, it may be that the Baathist members of the 'insurgency' are going to be reinvigorated. They just had their leader, even if it was nominally at this point, executed and they are not likely to be very happy about it.

Well hopefully I am wrong on this, but I doubt it.

Iraq: President vs Study Group

2006-12-27T12:45:00.000-05:00

The comment here is actually fairly limited.

Why did the President agree to a Bi-Partisan commission lead by one of his daddy's good friends if he had no intention of changing his policy on the handling of Iraq?

For that matter, why did he appoint a member of that study group as his Secretary of Defense to replace Secretary Rumsfeld, if he was going to continue on the same course?

This President really confuses me, he 'acts' like he is going to make changes but then he just does the same thing over and over. Isn't he just proving that he meets the 'classic' definition of insanity? (You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.)

I also read some place along the way in the last 24 hours that Mr. Bush is in Crawford for a vacation and that one of the things that he is doing is 'contemplating a change in direction in Iraq.' I guess I will believe it when I see it.

In Memorium: President Gerald Rudolph Ford

2006-12-27T02:21:00.001-05:00

A few thoughts from my memories of the former President. I was young when Mr. Ford assumed the Presidency. Aside from President Nixon's re-election, this was the first major political issue that I remember. I also remember when he pardoned his predecessor. I don't seem to remember truly understanding at the time what the meaning of that was or the up-roar over the situation.

In looking back from my knowledge now I found the move to be one of the hardest I think that I have seen, in my life time, a President have to make. I saw several different channels talking about it tonight and I have to believe the simple fact that none of his advisors thought that it was a good idea, probably is the best defining moment of Mr. Ford's early Presidency.

I have on other thought that I feel the need to express at this time of night, and that is that I truly believe that Mr. Ford may have been one of the last truly humble and genuine politicians that we will have on the American Stage. (I am not sure that genuine and politician truly belong together in a sentence, but you get the idea.

Wikipedia Biography or Official White House Biography

I am SO Sorry

2006-12-14T22:19:00.000-05:00

I am extending appologies to anyone and everyone who has been checking back for updates or commentary. I have been busier while trying to find a job than I was when I had two jobs during last tax season. I have a few spare moments this evening and decided to post an extensive update on everything that has been going on in my life since my last post. Hopefully I will be able to post more frequently from here on out and I will try to get back to comment on things as I feel the need.

1. Job search:
While I am still unemployed, I have been working on a contract project for the corporate parent of my previous employer. (It really is nice to have a good reputation and a knowledge of the entire organization.)

I have had interviews with a number of accounting firms in Cleveland, and thought I had a position 2 weeks ago. The Tax Partner of the firm indicated in my interview with him that he was going to hire me, but 2 days later they had changed their minds.

I have had interview in the last week with a Midwestern CPA firm, a smaller national firm for a possible position in their Denver office, a DC local firm for a position with their firm, and company that does special projects for large companies on an out-source basis, and a major hotel chain. Wife and I are hopeful that one of these will come through.

I am actually hoping it is the Midwestern CPA firm, it seems to be a good fit and the company is growing. It would also keep me in Cleveland near most of our family. As of my last report from the recruiter that brought me the opportunity (report was yesterday) things were on track and we will hopefully hear something before the end of the week. (Please keep your fingers crossed and pray hard for a quick answer on this.)

2. Wife's Family:
I am not even sure where to start on this one. When last we left off, Grandmother had hit Grandfather in front of nursing facility staff. Father-in-Law has been going through what can best be described quickly as a persistent anxiety attack. All of this has cause, with my unemployment and some issues at work, lots of issues for Wife.

For about 3 weeks Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law were 'sharing' their problems (between them) with Wife. While this was 'inappropriate,' it was also infuriating. Not only did it upset Wife, but some of the issues that were coming up were enough for me to lose my temper about the situation. (Luckily we live about an hour from my In-Law's, so violence on my part was a bit out of the question.)

And now back to Grandmother and Grandfather.

After much family discussion and statements to the senior facility to the contrary, they allowed Grandfather, who is getting quite senile, to return the care of his abusive wife. This occured after a second observed beating incident. Brother-in-Law and Father-in-Law were visiting and Father-in-Law was discussing several issue with a nurse at the Nurse's Station. Grandfather became very confused and disoriented while trying to take a sweater off. Grandmother beat Brother-in-Law to remedy the situation and after pulling the sweater back on Grandfather, hit him several times as a 'punishment.'

One piece of additional information on this, when Grandfather first went to the full nursing portion of the facility he was evaluated. He didn't know where he was and believed the year to be 1960. (I guess you have to be even less communicative and be further off from the date to actual qualify as not being able to decide you want to go back to an abusive situation.)

3. An issue in my family:
This came to my attention very recently. With out going to full detail, mostly because one I don't know the full details and second I get irritated just thinking about it, I recently found out the husband of Step-Sister has been having an affair. The woman that he has been having the affair with lives about six hundred miles away. This only makes the situation that much more absurd. I don't know yet how Step-Sister found out about this lovely little situation.

An an example of the stupidity of Step-Sister's husband, every year we have a family Channukah celebration at Step-Brother2's house. Step-Sister's husband has not been invited to the 'party.' In a marriage counseling session that they attended, the subject came up and Step-Sister's husband tried to blame Step-Sister for the situation because: She told people and he didn't want anyone to know, and just wanted to go on like nothing happened. Step-Sister responded in the session that it wasn't her fault, that it was his. (I happen to agree, after all he did have the affair not her.) With this response, Step-Sister's husband got angry and stormed out of the session.

There are very few things that really tick me off. Two of them involve people who are married.
One is people who have affairs. It is not like getting a divorce is so hard that you can't get one before you sleep with someone other than your spouse. The other is men who abuse their wives. (Anyone really, but in my particular family, with Wife's grandparents as an exception, it has been the man rather than the woman who is abusive.)

We that about updates the situation to the moment. I will post again soon, and thank you in advance for your understanding.

And We Wonder Why Are Children Are Poorly Educated.

2006-11-02T11:31:00.000-05:00

This article from the N.Y. Daily News discusses the apparent in ability for a principle to add. It has a range, when totaled, to between 105% and 140%.

The principal excuse, it was designed to be flexible so teachers have some discretion on grading. They must have a lot of discretion, other wise I suspect almost noone will get an A. (Hitting 105% is going to be a bitch.)

A Day of Family Insanity

2006-11-01T23:33:00.000-05:00

I was taking care of a few errands this afternoon, after my wife went to work for the evening, and I got a call from her. The information of that call was rather enlightening and disturbing. ( I will be providing some non-phone call information that relates to this as I go, so not everything is 'new' information from the phone call. I will try to identify this where it makes sense.)

As a bit of background, Wife's grandparents moved to a 'senior living' apartment about four years ago. (This is the same grandmother, and her husband, that slapped father-in-law last year.) We somehow got through the 'trauma' of the move.

For the last several weeks, Grandfather was in the skilled nursing facility in preparation of a move from one apartment to another in a building that they would be more easily 'watched.' It wasn't assisted living just in the main building at the facility. When Grandfather was 'admitted' to the nursing facility they evaluated him and had determined that he was showing signs of advanced 'dementia.' (He thought it was 1960 and he had no idea who the President was. This may actually be a good thing all things considered.) On Monday the facility had a meeting with Grandmother, Grandfather, Father-In-Law, and Father-In-Law's Sister (by phone). At the meeting Grandmother 'demanded' that she 'get' Grandfather back in her charge, which the facility agreed to. Additionally she agreed to 'allow' a nurse to come in to the apartment to help them get their medications straight.

So the phone call from today. Mother-In-Law called Wife to tell her that Grandmother, who has officially moved apartments, was visiting Grandfather in the nursing facility. While Grandmother was visiting, she began hitting Grandfather. (Actually we had suspected this was going on but we had no proof.) I am not sure of the circumstances of the situation, ( That information has trickled to me yet.) but Grandmother was observed in the 'act.' She was then informed that due to the situation that Grandfather would not be 'returned' to her care. She then called Father-In-Law to tell him what was going on and threatened to hurt herself.

This is as up-to-date on the situation as I am on the moment. The insanity has more to it but Wife got home from work a short time ago, and I need to go. I have other things to add to the over all situation, but that is will be filled in over the next several days.

My All Hallow's Eve Fright

2006-11-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

I was skimming the internet this morning and decided to check Foxnews.com to see see what they were reporting on today. I came across the follow which is, I guess, a transcript of Bill O'reilly's Talking Points segment.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226640,00.html

"Is America Becoming a Sick Society?
Wednesday, November 01, 2006

On this Halloween, the No. 1 movie in the USA is "Saw III," a sadistic slasher flick designed solely so its audience can enjoy graphic depictions of human suffering.

Now I'm a libertarian when it comes to censorship, so I don't like it. I fully support freedom in the marketplace. You alone should decide what you want to consume. But I will say this, sadistic movies are bad for everyone. They are a disgraceful exhibition and the companies that finance them are harming individuals in the country.

There is nothing worthwhile about seeing graphic displays of unspeakable violence. And if you enjoy that, you might want to find out why to protect yourself and others.

Cannibalism, dismemberment and all the other garbage that is featured weekly in the multiplex is worse than gangster rap or dirty movies, far worse. Young children are buying tickets to see PG films and then sneaking into the sadism displays. Young adults are craving more and more barbaric images, all in the name of entertainment.

On the "Oprah" show, she told me that freedom means slasher flicks should be available and Oprah is correct. But freedom also means Americans have the right to condemn these movies and hold the companies who supply them accountable.

The turning point for ancient Rome arrived when the population turned from building their society to consuming whatever the government would give them, including sadistic displays of brutal death in the Coliseum.

In modern America, the culture is definitely on the decline. Just ask any public school teacher how kids behave these days, as opposed to even 10 years ago. Standards of behavior are collapsing everywhere and the media is leading the way.

Vile gangster rappers have hurt millions of at-risk children. And now we have a movie industry that can't make these sadistic films fast enough. Of course, they all hide behind freedom, but that rationalization is hollow. Those who push base entertainment are villains, no question. All of us need to wise up and jump into the culture war when the No. 1 movie in the country revels in close-upshot of limbs being sawed off, there is a problem.

Enough is enough with this dehumanizing trash. It is wrong, it is evil and it demeans America — period.

And that's The Memo.

Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Did you know that Halloween is a $5 billion industry in the USA, second only to Christmas in consumer sales? And the Eve of All Hallows has now spread to many other countries.
But France is rethinking the trick-or-treat situation. According to the magazine "Le Monde," the French have begun to reject Halloween because of the rise of anti-American feeling in that nation.

And that's fine with me. I'm still boycotting France.
Besides how would you like to say Bon-bons ou batons all night long? That's "trick-or-treat" in Francais. Bon-bons ou batons, bon-bons ou batons.
Ridiculous? You make the call.

You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the FOX News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly"

The link has been reproduced in it's entirety for sake of completeness. Why, may you ask, is this frightening to me. I actually agree to a large extent with what he is saying about horror/slasher flicks and how this country is showing more and more signs of becoming like Rome. The thought of agreeing with that twit about something is actually very scary to me.

Oh Well.

Yesterday

2006-10-31T11:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my 12th wedding anniversary. For the 'celebration' my wife and I went to see Man of the Year. I was a good movie, and lots of funny information in it. The only problem I had with it was there were a few points where the tone of the movie got very preachy at a couple of points.

It was a little bit of a romantic comedy and a lot of political commentary. Overall I would recommend the movie as it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

I will try to come back later and comment on something a little more substancial, but I wanted to comment on this.

13 Reasons to Continue to Ignore Republican Talking Points

2006-10-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

The following text is copied in its entirety from Mona Charen.

What I don't understand is the seeming tepidness of so many Republicans. Yes, the war in is a long, hard slog. The world is not Topeka, Kansas (would that it were). A journalist pointed out to President Bush at his most recent press conference that the Iraq war has now been going on as long as World War II did for the United States. Well, yes, but we lost 407,316 men in World War II. On Iwo Jima alone, we lost 6,800. This is not to say that the deaths of our people in Iraq should be trivialized. But comparisons with World War II -- in terms of sacrifice and terrible price paid -- are ridiculous. And of course, WWI was fought in Europe, the South Pacific and we as a country actually committed to fighting the war. I don't believe we gave tax cuts during the war, or had bizarre photo opportunites in the war zone. (You get the idea)

Republicans have abundant reasons to reserve a spot at their polling places on Election Day:
1) The economy. More than 6.6 million new jobs have been created since August 2003. Our 4.1 annual growth rate is superior to all other major industrialized nations. The Dow has set record highs multiple times in the past several weeks. Productivity is up, and the deficit is down. Real, after-tax income has grown by 15 percent since 2001. Inflation has remained low. As Vice President Cheney summed it up at a recent meeting with journalists, "What more do you want?" The tax cuts proposed by President Bush and passed by a Republican Congress can take a bow. The tax cuts by this administration have touch a very small portion of the population in a significant way. After all most people in this country were helped by the rise in the child tax credit by $400.00 per child, and of course teachers by the $250.oo expense deduction. Yes, this has certainly grown the economy.

2) The Patriot Act. Democrats and liberals mourn this law as a gross infringement upon civil liberties. Yet the much-discussed abuses simply haven't materialized. The law has, on the other hand, permitted the to cooperate and share information about terrorist threats -- at least so long as The New York Times isn't publishing the details of our counterterrorism efforts on the front page. When in doubt attack the NY Times. Mona says the much discussed abuses of the Patriot Act simply haven't materialized. I say they simply haven't materialized YET. Or perhaps they haven't been made public yet.

3) The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, to which liberals clung with passionate intensity, has been cancelled, permitting us to work on missile defense. In the age of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is anyone (except Nancy Pelosi) sorry? Yes let's get rid of all the treaties, they just hold this adminstration back ABMT, the Geneva Conventions, etc.

4) Immigration. Republicans in Congress insisted upon and got the first serious immigration restriction in decades. On Oct. 26, the president signed a law that will build a 700-mile fence along our southern border and, what is more important, does not offer amnesty. It also doesn't fund the border fence but if we mention that we may be questioning the sincerity of the adminstration. We can't have that now can we.

5) There has not been another terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Who would have predicted that on 9/12? This has to be the dumbest of the talking points. After all, there was 9 years between the first and second attackes on the World Trade Center. But Bill Clinton won't get credit for that now will he.

6) Libya has surrendered its nuclear program. Thanks to the British Foriegn Ministry's ability to negociate with 'bad guys' in order to accomplish something. Wouldn't this also be a good response to point 13.

7) A.Q. Khan's nuclear smuggling network has been rolled up. No real comment here, I would feel even more comfortable though if we had say, captured or killed Osama bin Laden, or perhaps stopped Kim Jung Il from conducting a nuclear test as well.
8) John Roberts and Samuel Alito sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Yes, lets vote to continue to stack the Supreme Court with people so far to the right they believe that the Constitution is barely of human origin. (Okay I don't really believe that but this is another useless reason to vote for Republicans.)

9) Those Democrats who do not want to close Guantanamo Bay altogether want to give all of its inmates the full panoply of rights Americans enjoy in criminal procedures. I would hate to think that the any Americans would actually want to uphold our ideals and not degenerate our country in to some third world tin pot dictatorship or anything.

10) Democrats believe in immediate withdrawal from Iraq.( A different approach for this one) Actually I don't believe I have heard anyone advocate IMMEDIATE withdrawal, I have heard a call for a phased withdrawal and setting a series of dates for these to occur. The withdrawal also is to forward positions IN THE REGION. If they succeed in forcing us to leave under these circumstances, the United States will suffer a stinging defeat in the war on terror. As opposed to the slow moral-decaying process that we are in now. The terrorists already believe that they drove the Russians from Afganistan and Israel from from Lebanon and Gaza. Let's see, the Russians left Afganistan because they were taking continuing loss that the military found to be unsustainable, that would seem to be a correct assessment on the Terrorists part. Israel withdrew from Lebanon because the were an attrition creating situation that was slowly decaying the moral in the IDF (Check number two) The Israelis, in a poor political move, withdrew from Gaza after years of attacks by the terrorists. Seems to me that even if that wasn't the motivating factor they at least could make a valid point. (Check number three) They are convinced they chased us out of Lebanon in 1983 (Under the Reagan Administration. This occurred after a military base was attacked and the 'will' for us to stay there was stripped from the military.) and from Somalia (This after they killed a number of aid working/peace keepping members of the US military, removing the 'will for us to stay there.) in 1993. (Checks number four and five.) According to Osama bin Laden and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. (Seems to me that Mona is proving this point very well) Like it or not -- and no one likes it (But the military contractors) -- we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis. We might as well run a white flag up the flagpole at the Capitol. Sorry Mona, your analysis is actual proof enough they may be correct. And the Russians would be considered to be 'liberals' the way you are using it, and Ariel Sharon and Ronald Reagan either. (Of the above points I suppose that just leaves Ehud Barak and Bill Clintons as the 'weak willed' liberals wouldn't it.)

11) Democrats would like to eliminate the terrorist surveillance program. I haven't ever heard anyone say this at any time. The Democrats just want to follow the laws that are on the books like FISA and the 72 Hours waiting time. It would of course be horrible to want to actually enforce the law, and expect the person charged with that job to actually do it correctly.

12) If Democrats achieve a majority in the House, Barney Frank will chair the Financial Services Committee, Henry Waxman will head the Government Reform Committee, and Alcee Hastings will chair the Intelligence Committee. Wow, if the Democrats achieve a majority they apparent will actually want there own people as party chairpeople. I am frankly shocked.

13) Democrats believe that the proper response to Kim Jong Il's nuclear test is "face to face talks." That's what the Clinton administration did for years. It worked out well, didn't it? Yes actually it did. The North Koreans didn't reopen their nuclear weapons program until GWB came in to office and decided to take a 'different' approach dispite the advise of his then Secretary of State. The went even further when GWB included them in the 'Axis of Evil' and then invaded one of the other members of that Axis. After all they may not have looked at any of that as a threat or anything. Oh and we couldn't expect that Kim would, say, behave like those wonderful and perfectly civilized Libyians could we?

Windows and Doors

2006-10-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

For some reason I always get to test the theory that when G-D shuts a door He opens another door (or window.)

I was informed on Thursday after work, that as of the end of the month I will be laid-off. I believe that this will be a temporary situation and that I will be recalled after the first of the year. (Basically at the beginning of tax season.) But for at the moment, unless something changes, I will be temporarily out of work.

While this was a bit of a shock, I actually am not horribly upset about it at this point. For one thing, it will give me time to finish preparing for the CPA exam. Second, it will lower my 'at work' stress of trying to stay busy the rest of the year. And third, I always have other options to look for short-term income replacement. (Nothing illegal mind you, but things that I can do to create income.)

Oddly, while my wife and I were both upset on Thursday, we both are taking a vary positive attitude on the situation at the moment. (Trust me that is odd. Usually I am the positive one and she is the negative one, but so far she is telling me exactly what she thinks about my 'job search' situation.)

Updates to this situation as I have information.

How to Stop Unionization 101

2006-10-19T18:21:00.000-05:00

Though the decision by the Bush Administration was apparently first reported in early July, I just heard about this early this week and felt a need to express my feelings on the subject.

Just to be clear before I go off on my rant. I am not the most pro-union person in the world. I feel that unions, in many cases, are more interested in protecting themselves rather than their members. I was employed for a year not that long ago at a union grocery store, during that year I paid my union dues regularly, but got nothing for it. I also saw the union take hours away from union members because of 'minor' issues. I really found the whole situation very frustrating.

All that having been said, I became aware earlier this week of the following. The Bush Administration has changed the definition for what constitutes a nursing supervisor when it comes to unionizing. The problem I have with this is that the new definition is so broad, it neatly prevents the nurses from unionizing. The way the new definition appears to be written, and I would like to add here I am still looking for additional information on this subject, any nurse who has functioned as a Charge Nurse is now defined as a nurse supervisor. My wife has worked at a number of medical facilities as a nurse. She worked for over 5 years at one of the 'T0p Three Hospitals' in the country. Any nurse who was on a floor for more than 6 months would take a turn as a charge nurse. They were not given a choice, they would be designated as a charge nurse. Now the facility in question is not unionized, though several of the hospitals in the 'hospital system' are unionized. They run the poor nurses in to the ground and now they don't have any legal redress to fight the situation if they so wished to.

I have a problem with this. Again, not because I think that a union is the be-all and end-all of labor situations, but the working people should have the option to decide if they wish to be unionized, and not shut out by a bad definition.

To Stingray #1

2006-10-19T18:17:00.000-05:00

I guess your revolution has started as one of your brother stingray's jumped into a boat and tried to kill some one. Any chance that someone could get a pass on the stinger-in-th-heart routine.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/19/stingray.ap/index.html

The link is to a story about an 81-year-old man who was attacked by a stingray while on a boat with his Granddaughter. Just thought I should mention this.

The Bush 'Puppet' Speaks

2006-10-03T18:42:00.000-05:00

Bush: Democrats shouldn't be trusted to run Congress
This is the headline of a CNN article from today.

The President said the same things that he has said repeatly before without effect.
"If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like -- it sounds like -- they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again." This makes me wonder what speaches he is hearing.

The article basically states that he said nothing new and that the comments are part of a 'defense' against the information that is contained in State of Denial.

Oh well, I suppose some one will actually believe that the Democrats shouldn't be trusted to run Congress. Especially after the last couple of weeks with the Republicans in charge.

Yom Kippur

2006-10-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I would ask for the forgive of all whom I have offended, and forgive all who have offended me in the last year.
May we all be sealed in the Book of Life for a sweet and healthy year.
May all who visit here have an easy fast.

I will be back after the Yom Tov.

An Interesting Exhibit

2006-10-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

I recently had a chance to visit the recently opened Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland, Ohio. It has been running a special exhibit titled 'The Cradle of Christianity.'

The items on display are a wide variety of archeological items from the Holy Land that are of historic value for both Jews and Christians. It gives an interesting look at life during the early Christian period.

If this exhibit is available at some point in an area close to you, I would highly recomend taking the time to see the it. It had dinnerware, tombware, and even a large portion of an early period church to see.

One of the most facinating items was a large segment of the Dead Sea Scroll known as the 'Temple Scroll.'

While I would say much of the exhibit is aimed at Christians more than at Jews, it is still very interesting. This is the first time any of the items that were on display had been outside of Israel. The tour is starting here, but I am not sure where else it is going.

Yeay Torture

2006-09-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

So the President will get to define what is a degradation of human dignity. The Secretary of Defense gets to determine who an illegal enemy combatant is, and we then get to 'hard interrogate' them.

The way the new law that is in process works, as I understand it from what I have heard. The Secretary of Defense will appoint a commission with the power to determine who an illegal enemy combatant is. (Frankly I am not sure what an illegal enemy combatant is, it sounds rather like a made up term that means anyone who is a member of the enemy, but I am not going to try to get that one figured out today.)

If some one is determined to be an illegal enemy combatant, and from what I have heard this can be a legal resident alien in the US that has made a 'bad' donational choice, they can be detained and denied access to the US Court system. They can also be held indefinitely without being charge with a crime, and without being told what they are being held for having done. Then, if it is believed that they have information that is vital to the 'War on Terror' they can be hard interrogated in order for them to pass on the information.

Well the President has said that Freedom was on the march, he just never really has said that it was away from the US. But who needs a 300+ year old legal concept like the Writ of Habeas Corpus anyway.

L'Shana Tova

2006-09-21T18:47:00.000-05:00

May you and all of your be entered in the book of life for a sweet and fruitful year.

May you find your year easy.

An Interview of Ahmadinejad

2006-09-21T18:44:00.000-05:00

I have debated how I wanted to post this.  Did I want to discuss some of the points in the article or just post it and let it stand with out comment as I have discussed some of the issues in previous posts.

I have decided to post it without further comment at this time.  Though I probably will make some comments next week on the issues I find it necessary to comment on.

The following is the text of an article that appears on CNN.com and is an interview of President Ahmadinejad.  The following link is to the original article for any who wish to see the original. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/21/cnna.ahmedinejad/index.html

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he is surprised American politicians are so pro-Israel, and he again expressed doubt that the Holocaust is a historically established fact.
The Iranian leader also insisted his country is cooperating on nuclear inspections. In an exclusive interview, he spoke Wednesday with CNN's Anderson Cooper via a translator.
COOPER: At the U.N., you spoke with great passion of -- of brotherhood, of peace and respect for all nations.
Yet, in Tehran last year, you spoke about wiping Israel ... off the face of the map. That doesn't sound to many people in the United States ... like great respect for other nations.
Do you want to wipe Israel off the face of the map?
AHMADINEJAD: I'm surprised why American politicians are so sensitive and biased with regard to Israel. ... Is there a relationship, to speak with such prejudice? (Watch Iran's president question U.S. sensitivity on Israel -- 14:28)
Everyone is prevented about questioning the regime. Whenever a question is raised, some American politicians react very strongly to it, whereas we know there's a lot being said about many countries around the world.
Lebanon was bombarded. In Ghana, people were killed with laser bombs. But it doesn't seem to have created concern among American politicians as much. But when somebody questions or criticizes the Zionist regime, there's so much reaction. Could you tell me why this is the case?
I would think it would be a good question to ask from American politicians, the extent of the prejudice we see with them about Israel, given the massacres committed by Israel, killing people in their own homes. Should they not be subject to criticism? Should nobody complain and raise objections about the violations of rights and the murders that they commit? Are they free to do such acts?
Should they not act within the framework of any law?
COOPER: To some in America, though, that is going to sound like you're not answering the question. ... The question really is, do you believe Israel has a right to exist?
AHMADINEJAD: I say that it is an occupying regime.
We say we must -- you must allow the Palestinian nation to decide for itself what its fate should be. There are 5 million displaced Palestinians, 4 million who live under the threat of bombardments, or actual bombardments and attacks.
So, let Palestinian people decide for themselves. We support the vote of the people. And whatever the result is, we must all accept. Why should there be objection to this proposal, or ... with the vote of the people to indicate their will? Don't the people in Palestine have the right to live? Are they not human beings? They live in their own homeland. In their own homeland, they are under attack.
COOPER: The same statement could be said of Jewish people in Israel, that they're living in what they say is their homeland. Don't they have a right to exist?
AHMADINEJAD: Yes, in Palestine, there were a group of Jews that live. But where did they come afterward, the larger groups that came to Palestine?
We know what the trend was. A group of people came from other places to that land. Where does the father of Mr. [Ehud] Olmert come from, for example? Some of the ministers in Israel are in fact of Iranian origin, with no background, historical background, in Palestine. But they're there, ruling.
COOPER: So, you're saying, really, they don't belong there; they should go somewhere else?
AHMADINEJAD: I am saying, let the Palestinian people decide. The Palestinian people should decide what to do.
And among Palestinians, there are Jews, Muslims and Christians. Our question is, what about the rights of the Palestinian people? They lived there, and they were displaced and forced to leave their own homeland, under the threat of a gun, and, regretfully, with the support of the American government.
What is happening to the Palestinians? Do they not have the right? Shouldn't we be thinking about that? Their young people are being killed on the streets. Homes are being destroyed over their heads, even in Gaza, even in the West Bank.
After all, they are human beings, too. They have ... the right to life and to live in their own homeland. Others have come from far and beyond, and are now there ruling there and governing that land.
Why did they go there? They should return to where they came from. Or, even if they don't, they should at least allow the Palestinian nation to decide about that and the future.
So what I'm saying is quite clear. We want peace to be established there. We care for the Jews who live under pressure there as well, because they too are living outside their own homes, from where they belong, their homeland, actually. That is not their homeland.
COOPER: You have repeatedly implied that the Holocaust never happened. And ... implied that more research needs to be done on whether or not it did happen.
... The argument could be made that the genocide was perhaps the most well-documented genocide of the 20th century. Do you really believe that the Holocaust never happened?
AHMADINEJAD: If this event happened, where did it happen? The where is the main question. And it was not in Palestine. Why is the Holocaust used as a pretext to occupy the Palestinian lands?
COOPER: But do you understand why it's deeply offensive to people. ...
AHMADINEJAD: That subject, how is it connected to the occupying regime in Jerusalem?
COOPER: You do realize though why it would be deeply offensive to so many people that ... you even say "if it ever happened"?
AHMADINEJAD: Well, you don't speak here for all Americans. In the past two or three days, I have met with many members of the media and the press here, some who are even related to the U.S. government. But the questions are the same across the board.
COOPER: Why can't you believe there was a Holocaust and support Palestinians?
AHMADINEJAD: No, that's not a reason at all.
The subject of the Holocaust is a different subject. I raised two or three questions that were very clear about it. I said that, in World War II, 60 million people lost their lives. They were killed. Two million of them were noncivilians, so to say, military. The rest were civilian populations.
And they all lost their lives. Their lives were all cared for and respected. But why is it that we concentrate so much on the lives of a group among the 60 million?
The second question is, assuming that this happened, why don't they allow more research and studies to be done about it? If it is a truth that happened, then we will need more clarity about it. And they ... must be impartial groups, or whoever who is interested should be able to do the research. Why is that prevented?
COOPER: President Bush, at the U.N. ... tried to speak directly to the Iranian people yesterday. And he said ...
AHMADINEJAD: Did you get the answer you wanted about the Holocaust?
COOPER: No, I didn't, but I know my time is limited.
It is a fascinating subject. ...
AHMADINEJAD: Are you asking the questions that are on your mind or questions that are given to you by others?
COOPER: Actually, in America, we have a free press, unlike in parts of Iran.
But I'm asking the questions that I'm interested in. But I know your time is short. ... Frankly, I would love to talk to you for two hours. But ...
AHMADINEJAD: Well, given that all the questions are very similar, it speaks for itself.
It seems to me that Mr. Bush fails to understand the reality of the world today, the conditions that beset the world today. This is not the kind of language you speak talking with a great nation. It's an insult to a great nation. I don't know what he is actually thinking, when he makes remarks like that. I invite him to speak for half an hour with our nation every day. And everyone will listen to what he has to say, but nothing will be resolved. (Watch how Ahmadinejad, Bush engage in a war of words -- 2:33)
COOPER: He gave his message to the Iranian people. What is your message to the American people? What do you want them to know about Iran, about you?
AHMADINEJAD: Our message is a message of peace and brotherhood with all nations, with all people. And we like all nations and people. We are against oppression and injustice. And we love the American people, as we love our own. We respect everyone. And to clarify issues, I called Mr. Bush to debate. I propose that we sit and have a debate to talk about our positions, to discuss issues and allow everyone around the world to hear the debate. ... It was a great suggestion, I think, because I believe that, after all, it is the public opinion, the world public opinion, that must have information and decide.
COOPER: Your ally, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, today, speaking at the [U.N.] General Assembly, called President Bush a devil and said that he smelled sulfur.
I'm wondering what you think of his comments and whether you smelled any sulfur when you were speaking at the General Assembly.
AHMADINEJAD: Do you want to interview me or Mr. Chavez, perhaps?
COOPER: You have no thoughts on his comments?
AHMADINEJAD: I think that the United Nations offers a podium for everyone. And everybody can speak of what they think. So let's keep it open.
COOPER: You said at the U.N. yesterday that your nuclear program is, quote, "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors." That's not what [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors have said. In a recent report they have said that they frankly cannot verify the peaceful nature of your program and that it is not transparent.
Why not just open up the program and fulfill all the requirements that the IAEA would like?
AHMADINEJAD: They said that they did not find any evidence or sign, although they must continue inspections. And they're welcome to continue inspections at all times.
COOPER: The report that ...
AHMADINEJAD: The IAEA has declared that on numerous occasions in fact. And we know that that is not the first time they've stated that.
COOPER: The report that I read in August said Iran has not addressed the long outstanding verification issues or provided the necessary transparency to remove uncertainties associated with some of its activities. [IAEA chief] Mohamed ElBaradei was quoted as saying that he can't give you a clean bill of health yet.
AHMADINEJAD: Perhaps the report that you had and saw is incomplete. The IAEA has indicated that it has found no evidence that would show that Iran is developing a nuclear energy for other purposes that are other than peaceful.
So I like to ask ... are you positive that the United States of America in fact has not diverted from its own nuclear programs to develop, perhaps nuclear devices, that are not for peaceful purposes? The United States, are you telling me, is not building a nuclear bomb? Are you not concerned about that?
... There has been no evidence saying that we are doing any such activities. Then why should there be a furor of concern among people, among groups? But please, go on.
COOPER: But well, you say that, without a doubt, your program is for peaceful purposes. ... The IAEA report I read said that they've not had all the interviews they would like to have. They've not had all the documentation they would like to have.
Are you willing to provide them everything that they say they would like? Or do you feel it's inappropriate that they are pushing too much?
AHMADINEJAD: We're working within the framework of international laws. They might, for example, choose to interview me personally. But that would be stepping beyond the framework of international law.
So they have to tell us exactly what provisions of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] they're speaking of which they believe we have not abided by. There's no such case. They are interested in getting more information. And we're ready to cooperate with them and provide them with all information within the framework of international law.

Hugo and the Devil

2006-09-20T22:09:00.000-05:00

I had been thinking about addressing the comments of Hugo Chavez at the UN earlier today. And since someone, sarcastically based on the ‘tone’ of the comment, asked for the comment here are my initial thoughts.

I am really rather blasé about President Chavez’s comments. I don’t think they were particularly appropriate to the forum that they were made in, but on the other hand you have to look at the source of the comments as well. Hugo was playing to his ‘constituency’ in the Third World. He was trying, and probably succeeded, in gaining points at Junior’s expense.

In truth I don’t feel what he was attempting to accomplish was really all that different from what President Bush, or other speakers for that matter, are attempting to do in a forum like this. They are trying to communicate with a real constituency at home or a perceived constituency around the world. (And probably both.) President Bush communicated about the ‘War on Terror’ and about ‘democracies in the Middle East.’ (In Iraq and Afghanistan) This was aimed at the 35% to 40% of the US population that makes up the basic constituency of the President, and it was also an attempt to demoralize the ‘terrorist elements’ in the Muslim countries.

I wonder if anyone would have really taken any notice of the ‘Bush as the devil’ comments if say a less vocal ruler of a small ‘Unaligned Nation’ were the one to say it. Probably they would, but the question would then be, would anybody really care?

Jesus Camp

2006-09-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday on my way to my review class from work, I heard Ed Shultz talking about the documentary Jesus Camp that is coming out this weekend in New York and LA. Some of the things that were being reported in the article he was reading from were . . . not the most encouraging things I have ever heard on a religious front.

I had a discussion with my wife about the situation and for a class she is taking we decided I would do a bit more research on the story. The information I found was less troublesome to me than the article that I had heard yesterday. The one thing I did read that I found rather frightening was that the leader of the organization that runs the camp that Jesus Camp was filmed at, Pastor Becky Fischer, brags that she could walk on to any playground full of children and begin to talk to them and have the entire playground of children following her ideas in a very short period of time. If this is true it concerns me on several levels:

This shows an incredible lack of religious education in our children. After all if a stranger can convince them that they are missing something spiritual from their lives, what could people who know these children and work with them regularly do for them.

Another is that it opens up a wide range of possibilities for charismatic people who have less divinely inspired goals in mind. (Child molesters and ‘hate merchants’ come to mind immediately.)

The third is that there is the very real possibility that Pastor Fischer could be ‘manipulated’ by someone as well.

Today on my way home from work Ed was interviewing Pastor Fischer. She was very well spoken and dispelled some of my earlier fears of the situation from things that I had read. The only problem was that she gave me the creeps listening to her talk about her mission. It was nothing particular that she said that caused the feeling just sort of made me feel uncomfortable.

Perhaps YOU could explain it

2006-09-19T19:29:00.000-05:00

Perhaps one of you could explain this to me.

I am simply expressing my view of events, but a number of you feel the need to insult me. Why? If you disagree with something I have said, respond to the point. Insulting me does nothing but make me laugh at the childishness. (I must say that I do get a good kick out of it, but I don’t understand the reasoning.)

As the tag-line says – this is MY optic view of a myopic world. I am open minded and willing to discuss the issues, but all I am getting is moronic comments. Maybe the problem is you are just over whelmed by my brilliance. (Okay I doubt that, but I would much rather you express your own opinions and give me something to think about rather than insult me.

E. Coli Spinach

2006-09-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

When the story about the tainted spinach broke the other day, I jokingly said to my wife that I thought this was Al-Qa'eda's next terror attack. That they had watched to many Popeye cartoons and thought that by making people sick with E. Coli on Spinach that it would weaken us and they would be over to defeat us like Brutus always beats Popeye before he has the spinach.

Now I am off.

The New Improved Speech-making George Puppet

2006-09-17T09:44:00.000-05:00

His Highness made several speeches this past week, and my basic thought was "AND?"

He has yet to really say anything new, he just runs around like a dog chasing his tail. My wife's reaction was that he is beginning to sound like a dictator. My favorite comment was his discussion the other day about Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions when he said to a reporter something to the effect of 'You can come with whatever hypothetical senario's you want, we need this clarified or the program will stop.' Does he really believe that if we define Article 3 to include sometypes of physical abuses to a prisoner that other countries won't do the same?

I am also not sure I understand what his problem with Article 3 is, while I haven't read the text, I have heard it read in the media and it seems pretty clear cut. It really comes down to not violating the human rights of other people. Or perhaps - do onto others as you have them do unto you (or yours.)

It appears that this Administration may truly be one of the shortest sighted Administrations in the history of the country. It also appears that the people who were in the Nixon Administration who are now holding positions learned all the wrong lessons from the Nixon Administration.

One final question to anyone who supports all of this expansion of Presidential powers: Do you support Jr. having these powers because you trust him, or because you truly believe that the Office of the President should have these powers? Or put another way, will you still want the Office of the President to have these powers in 2 years IF Hillary Clinton were to be elected President? (And if not Hillary, pick someone that YOU would not want to be President.)

As a complete aside, does anyone look at a product that says "New and Improved" or "Now Tastes Better" and wonder how they possible could have sold such a crappy product before. (One product, the Hershey's S'mores bar, I think tasted better before they improved it.) Well I am off, I do have something else to do today.

And They Talk About Me

2006-09-17T09:38:00.000-05:00

Some wonderful individual continually 'attacks' me about my spending time blogging while at work. Frankly I find this rather amusing as I have not done much blogging since the beginning of the year, and if I have posted anything during the work day, it would have been during lunchtime while I was eating.

Having said all of that I had a visitor on Wednesday who spent almost 3 hours here, and apears to have had a long senseless conversation with themselves. Talk about a hugh waste of time and effort. Although the person was moderately entertaining, and I had great fun this morning reading through the posts. I hope whom ever you are that you had fun doing it, it seems like you probably got great entertainment out of it.

Some Thoughts On Citizenship

2006-09-10T18:41:00.001-05:00

This is something I have wanted to do for a while. The following quote is from the movie 'The American President.' I have presented the quoted in its entirety, but the bold faced portions are what I really wanted to 'get out of my system.' (The following quote was copied from imdb.com.) (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0112346/quotes)

The following is stated by President Andrew Shepard near the end of the movie at a press conference: "For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character. For the record: yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? Now, this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question: Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago. America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free". I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it. (Nobody has ever won an election by talking about what I was just talking about. This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they're terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment. We are a nation afraid to go out at night. We're a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated.) We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and personal character. And you hold up an old photo of the President's girlfriend. You scream about patriotism and you tell them she's to blame for their lot in life, and you go on television and you call her a whore. Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through law school, prosecute criminals for five years, represent the interests of public school teachers for two years, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources. You want a character debate, Bob? You better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league. I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer, and I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job. Well, that ends right now. Tomorrow morning, the White House is sending a bill to Congress for its consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a 20 percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and I'm writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns. We've got serious problems, and we need serious men to solve them, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This is a time for serious men, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President. "

First a not the portion of the text that is underlined and in parenthesis is not, to my knowledge, in the final cut of the movie, I have left it intact so that anyone checking this against the imdb site will see that the text is presented in its entirety.

The first point that is made that I believe is important to any political discussion is that character is important to any office. That being said we shall move to the next sentence.

The second section deals with the upholding of the Constitution. I, and numerous others, have continually discussed the idea of the current administration upholding the Constitution. I have bolded this portion because I think the question is important to think about in a general sense. Why does anyone in this country who has run for elected office not want to uphold the Constitution? I am not really sure.

The next segment that I have bolded is a discussion of the 'citizenship requirements' of the United States. Oddly, we have many people in this country who have no desire to be involved in the political process, even as far as voting. Our freedoms are protected by being involved in the process. (And by the military, but that is another discussion altogether.) Prior to the last election I was involved in an email group that was discussing a wide variety of politically charged topics. It was actually quite interesting. I did lose interest in the discussion group though, partially because several people who were expressing their opinions were not voters. While you have the right to have an opinion and to not vote, I personally find it frustrating to discuss issues with people who are not even taking the time to express their opinion in the most important way in this country.

The final segment I think is important because it is the way the Bush Administration has been proceeding with electioneering since it was elected. The more they scare the population, the more they believe the population will vote Republican. Will see if they can get it to work one more time. I tend to think they will not be successful, but that is just my opinion.

Have a good evening all. I will be back sometime this week.

Quick Hits

2006-09-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

1. I am sorry about not posting much recently. I have been running around (it feels like in circles) taking care of a number of things. In addition I had problems with my dial-up access, that has been resolved by getting a cable modem. I now have the ability to actually work on the internet at home.

2. I am tired of listening to the Unitary Executive (UE) mispronounce words. It isn't folksy, and it isn't genuine, it is just annoying. I am also tired of hearing him say the phrase " The War on Terror" in such a way as to make me think we are attacking the plantation home from Gone with the Wind.

3. Hasn't the UE gotten tired of promoting the 'War in Iraq' and watching his poll numbers go down further. I am beginning to think that he wants to lose at least one of the Houses of Congress. (Doesn't make sense to me, but then I am not Karl 'The Brain' Rove.) And I wish to state for the record, again, that I was not, and still am not, opposed to the idea of going/having gone, in to Iraq. The problem I have is that this Administration couldn't plan a way off a flat piece of cardboard without something they couldn't have forseen happening.

4. I am glad that the 'War in Lebanon' is over, but I really wish that the Israeli Administration would have either commited to destroying Hezbu-Allah, or not gone in at all. It seems they are taking war planning from the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld team.

5. I really think that the President of Iran ( I didn't attempt his name because it would be misspelled) is rather amusing. Frightening, but amusing. I will give him credit for a couple of things though. He is more adept at making allies around the world than our 'Great and Glorious Leader.' He seems to get a better response from his own citizens, though this may be more fear of being arrested and executed than that he is actually connecting. And finally, he seems to be able to actually get a point across when giving a speach. (I wonder if he mispronounces words.)

6. The UE is as much a cowboy as I am. This putz is a Connecticut Yankee through and through. And like much of 'his' Administration, as big a chicken hawk as they come. I guess it would be pretty easy to say, "Under my watch, we will not give up territory to the terrorists," and " Stay the course." After all, he has next to nothing on the line. He has a terrible reputation, he has no future elections to loose, and finally looks like a complete idiot. What worse could happen to him.

7. I was asked for my opinion, a short time ago, on the 'Portly PM' and his situation. I feel bad for his family, and I am not sure exactly what is expect by trying to keep his body going. He died when he had the massive stroke months ago, now they are just prolonging the agony for the family.

8. I read somewhere today that Tony Blair is planning to step down with in 1 year. It's a shame really, he seems like a pretty likable guy. He just can't seem to look at the UE and see him as the putz he is.

9. Two quick 'aniversaries' I want to mention. 1st about 5 weeks ago we reached our first birthday here at Little Wolf's World. I am kind of proud of that. 2nd, it was just over a year ago that I had to put MY cat (or perhaps I was his human, whatever) to sleep. While I am not 'upset' about it any more, I do miss him and his unique character. Our little Lynx Point Siamese is nice and cute, but not quite the same. (Our other cat is, for lack of a nice way to say it, pretty much a fur lump. She is beautiful, but all she does is lie around and sleep.

10. Final thought for the day. I was very sorry to hear about Steve 'The Crocodile Hunter' Irwin's death. I was not really a big fan of his, frankly I found a bit on the annoying side. (Sort of like the puppy that won't leave you alone.) But I still respected him for what he did. I don't think I would want to be in the range of any number of the animals that he dealt with regularly. I have seem several reports of people (Germaine Greer, I believe that is the correct spelling, in particular today) bashing him for what he did. My response, I didn't have to like him to respect him, and I feel very bad for both of his children. (Not to mention father, wife and other family.) I was young when my father died, and it was always hard on me. (Even now at times.)

Well I am off to dinner. Have a good one and I will be back soon.

Jews, Jesus, and Jackie Mason

2006-08-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

The following is a part of an article from CNN today.

I have made my comments with in the body.

Founded in the 1970s, Jews for Jesus practices Judaism but regards Jesus as the Messiah. Was this written by the Jews for Jesus? Let's be honest here, if you believe Jesus was the Messiah, you are a Christian. You stop 'practicing' Judaism at that point. It is sort of hard to say I am a Jew, but I believe that Jesus was the son of G-D and the Messiah. They aren't compatible, unless of course I have missed something.

The pamphlets feature an image of Mason next to the words "Jackie Mason ... A Jew for Jesus!?" with information inside that outlines the similarities between Jews and Christians. Okay, Jews and Christians are similar. Is there any need to mention Jackie Mason, or have an image of him. There is a logical reason that they are similar, not having seen the pamphlet I can't say if they discuss that, but the reason is there.

"The pamphlet uses my name, my likeness, my 'shtick' (if you will), and my very act, which is derived from my personality, to attract attention and converts," Mason said in an affidavit. I don't always agree with Jackie, but I have to say, I would be quite offended myself if somebody was using me to 'attract attention and converts.' The Messianic 'Jewish' movements have been using bait and switch tactics on people with out a strong Jewish identity or education for years. This just seems to follow in that path.

Susan Perlman, a spokeswoman for Jews for Jesus, said the pamphlet was "good-natured." Ms. Perlman is likely to be a convert. But that isn't a reason to dislike her reference to the pamphlet as 'good-natured,' the reason is that it is a lie. Like many other things that the Messianic 'Jewish' movements do to attract converts, the pamphlet is intentionally deceptive. Make no mistake on this, they knew exactly what they were doing when the pamphlet was put together and how it would/could be perceived.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/08/25/jackiemason.ap/index.html

One final note, these types of 'campaigns' and marketing ideas get more insidious every year, because the groups need to find new ways to 'get inside' peoples heads and attract attention. As my wife always says about Jews for Jesus, neither side claims them many Christian groups don't see them as Christians, and no legitimate Jewish group sees them as Jewish. Basically these are people who are trying to have their cake and eat it, too.

I Hate Camping

2006-08-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, why this subject? I recently spent an 'extended' weekend camping with my wife, her sister and her sister's family (husband and 2 kids).

I love the people we were with, which may make it the only thing about camping I like. It has become an annual 'adventure' to go camping with the family.

Over the last several camping trips the following has happened.

1. I ended up in the hospital with a Crohn's episode.

2. We had an invasion of adorable skunks.

3. We had the police called to an nearby campsite to breakup an altercation between drunk people, one of whom broke out the window of one of the vehicles during the altercation.

And finally this year:

4. A spider-to-human ratio that was something well over 20-to-1. ( I hate spiders, anything with more than four legs is, by definition, evil as far as I am concerned.)

5 We purchased a new tent (Okay it was at Wal-Mart, but that was the only place available) because of 'packing issues.' The last night of camping had a rainstorm, and naturally the tent developed puddles.

The new tent was bigger than our old tent and was bigger than my sister-in-law's tent so this is where the family gathered to 'ride out the storm.' Let's just say we all ended up sleeping in a much smaller tent.

Now I have jokingly told my wife for years that Jew's don't camp, we spent 40 years camping centuries ago and we only camp now in Jerusalem during Sukkot. For some reason she does't seem to buy this and continues to force me to camp year after year. As such I have decided to become a camping maven. I am going to 'boldly go' where I have dreaded going for years.

Oh well, that is what marriage is for, to force men to do things we don't want to do or enjoy just to keep our wives happy. Well off to study for the Audit portion of the CPA exam. (I hate auditing, but that is an entirely different subject on which to rant some time.)

Anti-Semetism in France.

2006-08-22T19:50:00.000-05:00

The following is from an email version of the Schmoose that arrived in my inbox today. While I make no representation of it's contents beyond that I found it very interesting, I felt it was important to getting it to what I hope will be a wider audience.

Once again, the real news is conveniently not being reported as it should. At present, in my Hebrew class, there is a woman who recently made aliya (immigration to Israel) from Paris with her family. I have spoken with her about anti-Semitism in France and she confirmed that it is very, very serious and getting worse every week. She and her family fled Paris and came to Israel, fearing for their lives - literally. This is first hand, my friends.

To give you an idea of what's going on in France where there are now between 5 and 6 million Muslims and about 600,000 Jews, here is an email that came from another Jew still in France. Please read! Will the world say nothing - again - as it did in Hitler's time?

He writes, "I AM A JEW -- therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my e-mail lists. I will not sit back and do nothing." Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France:

In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire.

In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed;

so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles;

so was a Jewish school in Creteil - all recently

A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Moloto v cocktails,

and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words "Dirty Jew" were painted.

In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars.

The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months.

According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days. Wake up, world! Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming "Jews to the gas chambers" and "Death to the Jews."

A gunman opened fire on a kosher butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France;

a Jewish couple in their 20s were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne, France. The woman was pregnant

a Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France. This was in the past week

So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merely a person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity, to do, at least, these three simple things:

First, care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight. I remind you of what Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: First they came for the Communists, and I didn,t speak up, because I wasn't a Communist . Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Second, boycott France and French products. Only the Arab countries are more toxically anti-Semitic and, unlike them, France exports more than just oil and hatred. So boycott their wines and their perfumes. Boycott their clothes and their foodstuffs. Boycott their movies. Definitely boycott their shores. If we are resolved we can exert amazing pressure and, whatever else we may know about the French, we most certainly know that they are like a cobweb in a hurricane in the face of well directed pressure.

Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you know and let them know that you and the people that you care about need their help. The number one best selling book in France is "September 11: The Frightening Fraud," which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon.

see also

http://www.ejpress.org/article/10360">Jews live in fear in Sarcelles

Thought of the Day?

2006-08-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

I received this in an email today. It was sent as Shabbat Humor. I am not sure I agree that it is appropriate for that, but then again it may just be that it reflects a real view of a possible out come to the current situation.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls President Bush and tells him:

"President Bush, I called you because I had a dream."

Bush: What was the dream about, Ahmadinejad?"

Ahmadinejad: "I dreamed that USA was rebuilt and on the top of each

house there was a flag."

Bush: "And what was written on the flag?"

Ahmadinejad: "Allah Akbar!" (God is Great)

Bush: "You know what Mahmoud, it's good that you called because I had a

dream too. In my dream Iran was rebuilt and on the top of each building

there was a flag too."

Ahmadinejad: "what was written on the flags?"

Bush: "I don't know, I can't read Hebrew!"