Mad dot in the universe

The God Problem - You finally meet God someday and go to him "how come you didn't do anything about ISIS?" God: "Who?" then you see Him quickly searching wikipedia. God truly has swarms of galaxies solar systems and other planets to worry about but then there's the guardian angels. As a Catholic we're taught they exist but I see no evidence. Where were James Foley and Steven Sotloff's guardian angels? (angel walks in on the imminent beheading: "what's going on here?" bullets passing harmlessly through his Michael Landon-type body to the utter amazement of the crazed jihadists). Are our guardian angels too busy on their smartphones? Foley even prayed the rosary during his captivity in Libya, did it help? A priest or theologian might say it helped his soul but did it help his situation? Personally speaking my faith crisis really started after Newtown which imo is the most shocking news event to happen in my lifetime after 9-11. We still don't know why the bug-eyed psycho did it and it didn't change Wayne LaPierre one iota so there goes your great Saul-like conversion on the road to the gun show. My Mom just had a dear friend die of cancer, why doesn't al-Baghdadi get cancer or at least a damn bug egg-sac in his brain to say nothing of Kim Jong-un? Why doesn't the executioner/beheader the day before suddenly get a heart attack instead of your brother-in-law or dearly beloved aunt? Ray Rice was done in by TMZ not God but maybe God works through TMZ? Look it's fairly obvious to me God the Creator or an architect of the Universe or a central planner exists but does He care? Big Speech tonight, no not God although He should be giving one too:)

The rise of the appy savage

Their mentality and overall religious outlook is straight out of the 1400's yet they know how to upload videos to YouTube, cave-dwelling techno-savages who even make trendy and newsy references to events in Ferguson, MO. Next thing you know they'll be blogging. I thought YouTube like all mainstream websites of this nature have a TOS, you know you can't just submit a video say of how much you hate N-words or harass your ex-girlfriend so why is it technically ok for ISIS to upload a video showing the beheading of freelance US reporter James Foley? Various Islamic terror elements also take to Twitter, Twitter feeds, Twitter accounts - they've finally joined the Twitterverse those religious troglodytes! Now libs spend a good part of every waking day concerned about the threat posed by the Religious Right (oooooohhh!) but when was the last time Pat Robertson beheaded an American professor who passionately teaches evolution and then put it on YouTube? ISIS has said the beheading was in retaliation for US airstrikes, they just lost control of the Mosul Dam and the peshmerga are on the move so this is their way of making a Statement. Obama needs to keep pounding away however and I don't see how after such an atrocity you can rule out boots on the ground which should give McCain's heart a flutter or two. So stop worrying about Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer and start worrying about ISIS coming to a mall near you:)

What's up with the Ferguson PD?

If you were a troglodyte the past week and just popped on the tube you'd swear there was a major terrorist attack in the community of Ferguson MO. OK so let's rap about race and the police again. Despite my recent post re the NYPD for me Eric Garner is not Sean Bell is not Michael Brown is not Amadou Diallo and why don't we throw in Tawana Brawley while we're at it. I approach these cases on a purely individual basis and you can make the case that maybe Sean Bell or his friend was driving his SUV towards the cops OR that yes maybe teen Michael Brown was tussling with a police officer in his squad car and went for his gun after strong-arming a convenience store. Look I get it but put these other cases together and start comparing and they all highlight even more at least for me that the Eric Garner case is the weakest in terms of the NYPD POV & PR. He wasn't running down the street half-naked waving a machete, he didn't have a gun or a device that resembled a gun or even took out a black wallet the way Amadou Diallo did in the Soundview section of the Bronx when four officers shot him to death. So for parts of the right-wing like the New York Post to unreservedly support the cops as a general rule is a huge socio/political mistake imo if the GOP wants to get serious about attracting the Black Vote and no Bo Dietl doesn't know more than the NYC ME. Missouri - well at least conservatives are starting to wake the hell up by criticizing the increasing militarization of our nation's police forces what with all that surplus army stuff the federal gov't doled out to them in years past. Actually you know something? conservatives all conservatives should start reading Twelve Years a Slave if they haven't already and watch the movie as it's obvious they have no interest in or never got the whole Black Experience. Lastly conservatives waste far too much time talking about Al Sharpton:)

I never thought I'd agree with Sharpton

but...I don't think I'll be installing the NYPD app anytime soon. NYPD has a force of about 35,000, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says they'll have to retrained all of them. I was never big on this broken windows theory of policing or go after the squeegee men and the homeless basically and the Chinese guy with his left nut hanging out. When I used to drive the van for the wholesale flower company I had to go down the city really early one morning, got off the West Side Highway somewhere and there was one of them guys with the bucket and the squeegee and my windshield was dirty anyway so I gave him a buck. Polite, didn't bother me, didn't feel threatened, didn't feel gangsterized. By some convoluted logic of modern policing go after the graffiti artist and the serial killer won't take the girl into the woods, dunno. PBA issued a statement saying that while their thoughts and prayers go out to the Garner family this tragedy wouldn't have occured if Mr. Garner didn't resist arrest. Vile. Disgusting. Offensive. That's a union for you and if Giuliani or even Bloomberg were still mayor they'd be chiming in too on the side of the cops of course. All conservatives can ever talk about is Sharpton's rhetorical style but imo he's being mighty civil in this case. Broken Windows - Broken Lives.

Why not just have a coyote app?

Actually it'd be far cheaper than subscribing to Sarah Palin's new Web TV Channel.

OK so maybe now we can all hate the SCOTUS

For decades now conservatives have hated the Supreme Court because of the Roe vs. Wade decision among other things. There are other things of course but that was/is primary. NOW liberals including feminists and the New York Times hate the SCOTUS because of its recent Hobby Lobby decision even though for the longest time liberals have counseled accepting Roe as the Law of the Land mainly because the SCOTUS said so. Here's a thought though, maybe the Supreme Court shouldn't be the most powerful branch of government in the Land. If it takes the various cycles of the political pendulum to see that so be it.

Conservatives, Vietnam Syndrome and Obama

In a way Bush's foreign policy has become Obama's foreign policy, try as he may Obama cannot fully extricate himself from the situation. We're probably gonna see some big-time action in Baghdad starting with air strikes and as much as Obama distanced himself from Bush and the Bush Doctrine during the campaigning inevitably he's become Bush 2. Now I read a fair amount of conservative commentary, have a few issues of National Review and The Weekly Standard on my tablet and in my view there are many, maybe even most conservatives who when push comes to shove feel we should have stuck it out in Vietnam so the same thinking of course applies to the Middle East. Obama has the perfectly reasonable position that we can't stay there forever but for your average conservative and that's a neo-type no matter how many body bags let's get the job done. Radical Islam, a couple people here don't get it but easily it poses a far greater threat than the Christian Right. I mean c'mon purity balls vs. massacres at shopping malls. In coastal Africa the al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group al-Shabab has been going door to door in villages during the night while people have been tuned into the World Cup and asking the men basic questions about Islam and if they fail to answer correctly they get shot, a kind of terrorist version of Jeopardy (Moustafa: "what was the name of Mohammed's wife?"). Imagine the Jehovahs doing this going door to door with their Watchtowers and if you brush 'em off they open fire. Of course over at the Hannity Forums you can't really talk like this because you're questioning a faith system. Look I'm no fan of Obama but on Iraq the bulk of the blame goes to Bush.

App Permissions - for the NSA to collect your data

How many saw Brian Williams special interview with Edward Snowden last night? Probably didn't make much of an impression on ole BB though we learned for instance that the NSA can turn on your smartphone even when it's off and take pictures. Don't know what they'd do with my cat though or me watching Home Shopping Network. Brian Williams called this chilling and then we also learned that Mr. Snowden was not just a low-level "hacker" or NSA contractor but had worked for the CIA as a spy overseas, had training in this area and so knows what he's talking about. Also he had a nice haircut and for the ladies out there a couple of moles here and there. NSA's main concern is preventing the next big terrorist attack or even small ones leading up to that but with all these lone fuseboxes out there getting ready to blow who populate the social media and leave copious e-trails with not infrequent weird rantings you'd think there'd be an algorithm for that. I mean if we're gonna give up our privacy en masse in these massive data-mining sweeps it's not too much to ask to go to the mall or get a bite to eat in relative safety. He also said ask the US Government why he wound up in Russia. Then I went to bed.

Other thoughts on the Santa Barbara shootings

I was watching the PBS Newshour last night and Judy Woodruff was interviewing reporter Adam Nagourney of The New York Times. I didn't know this but Mr. Nagourney stated quite clearly that the guns 22-yr. old shooter Elliot Rodger used in the seaside massacre in Isla Vista were all legally purchased and CA has some of the nation's strictest gun control laws on the books. I've long felt while I'm fairly in support of gun control in many cases and welcome some legislation to that effect I'm also realistic enough to know it's not the magic bullet if you'll pardon the pun. It was truly a bizarre manifesto Rodger left behind and my first thought was angel dust or bath salts but you know what's scary? if you're this Nutz and you're NOT on drugs, I mean at least ex-rapper Big Lurch can fall back on that. My other thought was let's say Rodger in his YouTube videos and other postings steered clear of the more violent and weirder elements it would have come across as angry and whiny but truth be told many men would have agreed with him. So instead of discussing maybe a valid social issue or two once the person behind the "cause" resorts to violence that invalidates the cause right off the bat so then the trending topic turns to potential armies of psycho virgins training in the caves somewhere instead of maybe what alot of men can relate to. I honestly think if he was this far gone take away ALL his guns he would have easily found another way to commit mayhem perhaps with a samurai sword say. This is one of the very rare times when I actually agree with the Scientologists as I don't put much stock in psychiatry as a whole as the guy had his therapists and counselors and look what happened. The debate needs to go beyond gun control and the latest theories of the shrinks but that's where it seems to be stuck:)

Radical Islam still happens

It's nice to see Hollywood celebrities and liberals in general finally addressing the real war on women. One yearns for a Jack Bauer-type to take on Boko Haram and rescue those 276 Nigerian schoolgirls being held hostage probably in some primeval jungle but what we got instead is Obama's Hamlet tendencies in the foreign policy arena, hashtags, Anne Hathaway and hey can you believe they're STILL talking about Donald Sterling? At this point I DON'T CARE, don't care if he has the N-word tattooed on his ass cheek. I think the latest version of 24 rocks but if there's one thing Chloe constantly looking like Ozzy Osbourne fighting terrorism is massively distracting. 24 too is getting back to having radical Islamist elements in their plotline and all this just might take the spotlight off the far lesser threat if you can call it that of the Christian Right and Gary Bauer (BB & Saty opening). Some Techno Thoughts (Again) The other day at work everyone was walking around looking at their smartphones and the thumb was constantly scrolling. You know one day homo sapiens is gonna evolve to the point where we all have thumbs like the great apes and we'll be walking hunched over into traffic. They say technology has an asocial effect, don't wanna say anti-social but there are times to be perfectly honest when I'd rather be with my tablet than my friend no offense. Downloaded a great app the other day, not just a file manager but a real file explorer so you can actually see what's taking up all that storage space and why. Root capabilities is even on the menu but that's soapie territory and I don't intend to go there. OK so to tie it all together do you think Boko Haram really cares about the First Lady's hashtag?

The Donald Sterling Matter

A thumbnail summary for the few troglodytes out there - LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been banned for life by the NBA Commissioner for making racist comments in a private conversation with his ex-girlfriend. She kinda looks like a model and he looks like a sagging bag of flesh so the word golddigger comes to mind but I digress. What if you went to your uncle's place of employment and said to his boss "you know what Joe said when he came over on Thanksgiving?" Many people have conservative Dads, do you want EVERYTHING leaking out about what was said in the living room especially after the goblet's been sipped a few times? OK you say the uncle is not a millionaire who owns a sports team so episodes like this is gonna churn out the usual pc self-righteous commentary. I already know you never said anything stupid in your life, hell you could smoke ten joints in a row and nothing stupid's gonna come out 'cause your software programming is so right on. Maybe it's because Al Sharpton has predictably involved himself in this case so I reflexively go the other way, dunno. OK throw your coins into the fountain:)

Thoughts on the double canonization

Yesterday's double canonization in Rome of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II -- I think most of the three million pilgrims were there for the latter to be honest. I hate to be a balloon-popper but I still don't get why the "good pope" of Vatican II was even elevated to sainthood. If it was simply that he changed the Latin Mass into the vernacular and did some other hip things that's not too high a bar imo. Even in death he could only muster one miracle not the two usually required for the Catholic Hall of Fame so they simply waived that standard and included him yesterday. I don't think most folks have the slightest issue whatsoever with canonizing John Paul and there were so many saintly pointers during his life and papacy but I think it was his divinely patient endurance of his acute suffering near the end that easily pushed him over the line. So WHY was John XXIII elevated? Here's my theory -- not that long ago there was serious talk of elevating to sainthood none other than Pope Pius XII, he was on the edge but it soon became apparent that that wasn't in the cards, ain't gonna happen and if you have to ask me why you haven't studied your history. So my astute theological hunch is that Roncalli was a substitute for Pius yesterday, they wanted to do a double coronation anyway but didn't want to burn the bridge to Judaism in the process. At any rate I know who I'm praying to during tough times and it ain't the Vatican II guy.

Is a Sebelius book in the works?

She's now being kinda more blunt and candid on the talk show circuit about the whole health care debacle. Yeah yeah I know she voluntarily resigned but in my book the president still threw her under the bus. Makes ya wonder why Jay Carney is still sticking it through when it would probably be better for the both of them to work on the same book and rake in the dough. Smaller networks of doctors and higher premiums, the federal government deciding what treatments you get - what's not to like? They say in particular cancer patients are gonna be screwed bigtime under ObamaCare. I don't think though the Sebelius resignation is gonna swing the midterms in a more positive direction for the Democrats if that's the strategy here, I mean it's not like she's the Frankenstein who created the thing in the first place.

The liberal obsession with the Koch Brothers

Sounds like a brand of soda pop. I never really heard about the Koch Brothers until liberals started talking about them so much. Conservatives also seem to like to comment on the liberal obsession with the Koch Bros so conservatives have an obsession with their obsession just like they have an obsession with reading NY Times editorials (hey guys they're just editorials, don't let them ruin your day). Charles and David Koch of the Koch Industries have been responsible for much charitable giving to various cultural and medical institutions but Harry Reid and Chuckie Schumer say they're unAmerican for funding anti-ObamaCare ads and for calling for smaller government. BB has a bit of a Koch fetish too so maybe he can explain. The pro-Obama Hollywood tripe that spews out daily is ok though.

Further thoughts on Pope Francis

Haven't been selling as much seafood at work as we thought we would despite a fairly strong demographic showing of Catholics in the area then I thought maybe I missed the memo, maybe this theological modster changed the rules again and we can now eat meat on Fridays during Lent. He has so many things in his head that are spilling out right now (e.g. civil unions) that the Vatican is scrambling to spin things along the lines of don't read too much into his words he's still upholding Church teaching but I'm wondering how long they can do this before they say Houston we have a problem. He was recently voted Man of the Year by BOTH Time magazine and the gay-rights magazine The Advocate so unless he's down with that I would have expected a polite but clarifying letter-to-the-editor to the gay review. The phrase I'm hearing most lately is he's some sort of rock star. That's kind of an interesting analogy considering the personal history of most rock stars and it kinda puts faith on a cheap pop culture level (Justin Biebs in charge of interfaith/ecumenical affairs?). If I may borrow a line from the classic Sidney Poitier movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Francis seems to be saying to all the mostly dead popes except one who have gone before him "it's time we got the dead weight of your generation off our backs" (Spencer Tracy was a great actor btw). Things are murky right now but Francis' foglight seems to be beckoning in the opposite direction so try not to hit all those traditionalists bobbing in the water as you steer towards some progressive's promised land. Does he have a Facebook page yet?

Mitt Romney had a better grasp of foreign policy

Just sayin'. Most countries these days are responsible for at least one or two positive contributions to the civilization-at-large. Of course everything is Made in China today but Japan has given us superior cars and cameras for example and even South Korea has Samsung headquartered there. Has Russia ever given us a digital camera, a computer chip, a smartphone or a new tablet? Russia is known for two things only - vodka and its military buildup. I remember learning in high school that a large % of the Russian economy, maybe it's even the majority is devoted to its keeping up its military might. Putin is an anachronistic leader and seems to have a very bad case of those cold war blues. Putin doesn't like Pussy Riot, he doesn't like the gays and he's not into going forward. Of course Obama's red lines mean nothing, it'd be like Gilbert Gottfried being a bar bouncer. A former director in the KGB vs. a former Chicago community organizer and I'm thinking my Dad is right Hillary would have been a better president at least on the world stage. So what's gonna happen now if Crimea becomes officially annexed to Russia again? is Obama gonna issue one of them executive orders he likes so much say banning the import of their famous drink? It's like as soon as the Sochi Olympics were over Putin couldn't wait to get back to the action. So has anyone apologized to Mitt Romney yet?

& oh btw Happy Birthday

I'm just a few days shy of my 50th B'day and already I got a one-year membership offer from the AARP in the mail yesterday (didn't know they did this that early)and if I join now I get a free tote bag. Then for practically the whole past year my doctor has been peppering our discussions with the subject of colonoscopies. I feel like a vampire, I've been alive for half a century already. There's something gauche and vaguely offensive imo about all of this as I feel you should enjoy your birthday without incident instead of others overlaying it with dreadful reminders. It should be a light and happy time no matter what your age but in this case instead of thinking about a birthday cake with candles they got me thinking about the ass then the AARP got me thinking about my mortality (how much more time do I have?). Hell instead of downloading the latest issue of the Nat'l Review why don't I just subscribe to Arthritis Today? So is a colonoscopy indicated at the exact stroke of midnight as soon as you turn the big 5-0? I think it has more to do with our cultural OCD obsession with round numbers that end in zero. Remember all the media coverage of the 47th anniversary of JFK? didn't think so. Maybe in a few years time, hell maybe in a few months I'll get a brochure from Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. I've pretty much decided after much thought and Internet sleuthing the full hardcore 4' colonoscopy is off the table for me and I've said as much. As well I don't need a handy travel bag with the AARP logo just yet but thanks just the same. I pretty much just want to enjoy my birthday so leave me alone. You turn the 1/2 century mark and they got one foot in the grave for you already. Lastly conservatives have spent a lifetime talking about the importance of the rich and powerful that they can make you feel pretty insecure about yourself. Of course the sex-drenched men's magazines don't help matters and don't take into account all your romantic failures so when you put the two together you're supposed to be a Trump or a Koch Bros. who gets laid all the time. Better yet after you're done with me you can put a birthday candle in there and leave the tote bag on the side:)

Cyber-nosy management (or watch what you tweet)

Not a week goes by when I don't read about the issue of watch what you post on social media it may affect your future job prospects or job you already have. Tesh is big on this but he's big on all the latest trends anyway and he just goes with the latest mainstream thinking as it evolves. My feeling - a boss who snoops in your cyberspace is not worth working for plain and simple. The ONLY matter at hand is are you qualified to get done the job at hand done? Look you get a busted pipe in the middle of winter I don't care that the local plumber may post socialist ravings on his blogsite nor should the plumber's boss care if he's a good one. I'm truly not getting this issue and why it's so much discussed and why some bosses feel the need to delve into your online personas. Of course if you're posting a personal scat video online then ok but by and large Free Speech is like a reservoir, row around and dip in and troll what you like it's all good and it's no concern of anyone else's much less a potential employer. Then again I don't put much stock in your basic job interview, I mean you could suck at them and still be a kickass worker but the smooth talkers and bs-artists always skate through. "What are your strengths and weaknesses?" dunno, my hands shake when I have too much coffee? Discuss:)

Grammys

Now I know why I never really watch any of those major award show extravaganzas on Sunday nights at least not in their entirety. I skim and surf them at best but when it comes to the music awards shows like the Grammys it always inevitably devolves somehow into black/urban music aka rap/hip-hop which isn't really my thing and from what I saw somehow combining that with Imagine Dragons didn't work imo. Beyonce & Jay-Z, you know if we stopped helping celebrities trend on Yahoo everyday they might not be the massive ego-trippers they've turned into. Help them out will ya, google a major disease instead. Lots of parents and others are up in arms over Jay-Z and his wife's raunchy routine last night, what is it somehow classier when Beyonce twerks instead of Miley? and oh yeah there was some type of gay mass weddings going on although I must've missed that part. I've never liked the mixing of politics and any type of major awards show from LA but they all do it and that's usually when I change the channel to a NutriBullet infomercial or a Sanford and Son rerun. I honestly don't even know who won I was so turned off.

I don't know why we expect like we still have privacy

Maybe BB can explain why the Government needs to collect 200 million text messages a day. What a banal undertaking! The operative principle is despite ethics or legality Government does what it wants. This aside what is the practical value of this NSA program called "Dishfire"? none that I can see. Obama as usual fails to inspire or lead.