Our Syria non-policy

What if we had gone after Syrian president/dictator Bashar al-Assad instead of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy? well about 2,000 Syrian protesters might still be alive today. What if we didn't have wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan at the moment maybe we could have gone after BOTH. Maybe if we didn't get involved in any of this mishegas we could devote full-time to the escalating crisis in Somalia, a country without a functioning government where 30,000 children have died from cholera there in just the last 3 months alone in this the land of Famine and Drought. The Arab Spring has turned into the long hot summer. We preferred to do business with Assad instead, Hillary even referred to him as a "reformer" not that long ago but here's a great way to cut federal spending and put a dent in the debt and deficit at the same time -- STOP ALL WARS! Just sayin'. BTW has "just sayin'" become an annoying catch phrase yet? just sayin':)

Life's little miseries

(TMI Disclaimer: If you don't like scatological commentary please turn the page. If u post thanx 4 sharing why did you just read the whole thing?) You see the thing about Port-o-Sans -- there are two on the South County Trail, one at Great Hunger Memorial Park in Ardsley which I still refer to as Woodlands and the other at the Farragut Ave. parking lot at the Hastings-on-the-Hudson end. Now for me to use a Port-o-San for the other thing it has to be Absolutely Necessary, some kind of an apocalyptic emergency, Omega Man with the trots and so yesterday sparing the reader the more graphic details a critical decision was rendered that at the end of my walk I would bite the bullet. There exists a Murphy's Law of Port-o-Sans, it's a cosmic mechanism that doesn't vary and that is that somebody always took a dump before you got there. Doesn't matter if the tank guy just came by a half hour before to clean the place out and hose it down and in this case that same tank guy ain't coming 'til next Tuesday and yesterday was Thursday. At this point due to the condition of the facility ANOTHER critical decision was rendered to wait for the public library to open at 10:00, geez only about 40 minutes away so this is where your meditative powers and use of nice pleasant imagery like babbling brooks comes into heavy play. Now I've used enough public facilities in my lifetime to come to the conclusion that this nation ain't digesting its food right, it's a public health concern and just this morning I checked out the other Port-o-San at Farragut out of a kind of perverse curiosity and same deal. Someone shellshocked by Life, the same jogger working off a bad divorce? Ah what job stress hath wrought, what it's done to our once fine country and they can't pay this tank guy enough imo (Spanish guy, go figure). Basic potty training is the foundation of Civilization and we're obviously a country in decline. When my friend worked at Pathmark in dairy I'd meet him there every once in a while towards the end of his shift to go out and had to go once, nothing serious mind you so he showed me through the breakroom and on to the Men's Room. Let's just say all three stalls were a federal disaster area and I asked him wha'happened? and he said one of the workers wasn't feeling good. OK I get it, I understand but how'd the stuff get on the walls? I honestly don't know how the gays do it, God bless 'em. The rest stop at the train depot at White Plains, pretty gangster. Ever have a bird crap on your head? Is that supposed to bring good luck?

Personality pools

You really do work with a garden-variety of people but I think the reason I've never fit into any of the cliques at work is I operate under a kind of inverse principle from everyone else: sometimes I'll dislike other people whom others like and conversely I'll like others who are disliked. Sets me at odds right off the bat. The majority of people I've worked with over the years seem OK but when I didn't like someone sometimes it was on a visceral, even existential level (Saty chalks this up to karmic crap in past lifetimes and it's an interesting theory). More likely of the ones I didn't like despite their popularity I saw them as somehow being phony and conniving or some other group of strong negatives. I judge character with other criteria besides popularity and it's like sometimes they know it, they can sense it and there's a vibe in the air and they know that you know you're on to them and whatever bullshit game they're playing. On the other hand back in the day we once had this district manager who was strongly and I mean strongly disliked and there was practically a consensus about him. Prick was one of the nicer terms used and yet I liked him and said to a co-worker once that you may disagree with him at times but what I like about him is he shows passion for his job, his position, takes it seriously and has a good knowledge of his district and what needs to be done. Most DM's I've encountered over the years come across as simply bland titleholders who are more interested in teeing off on a nice day than learning the ropes but this DM was different and had a kind of youthful enthusiasm for the job. Now my lady boss at the time when everyone learned he was being reassigned to our region was clearly perturbed, said he's a pain in the ass and other choice words and yet I felt like saying to her some of us feel about you the way you feel about him. The best workers I"ve worked with tend to fall into the ethnic categories of Latinos and Asians. I don't even care if the Latinos aren't full citizens as they say but they work their asses off and the phrase work like a Mexican came into widespread use for a reason. Asians are quiet and take orders without bitching and churn out the work product too and this goes back to their strict upbringings and the installation of values like appreciating being here in America, working and studying hard and it shows and they're moral too btw, don't go throwing other people under the bus. Getting back to the DM I think the reason why he grated so much is he just wanted people to do a little work is all and do the right thing and yet I had a manager once, an inveterate asshole who gave me a hard time but clearly won in the popularity sweepstakes. Tomorrow I have to say something about Port-o-Sans:)

Bad teachers or just bad kids?

I was never that caught up in the whole education debate in this country, not that I don't care but in the conservative worldview if I understand it correctly and I think I do there are an awful lot of bad teachers in the public schools and so if we just got rid of teacher tenure everything would be hunky-dory. In fact this is one issue they really get their dander up about, endless columns to the point where I just cruise them and turn the page but dunno man, maybe the problem is with the Kids. In our discussion of utterly boring and meaningless jobs Saty had this to say: "Quite a lot of jobs could be made more interesting by the motivation and willingness of the person doing it to make it more interesting." Just substitute the word class for jobs and student instead of person and the same point applies to education. What's a teacher to do with a class full of asshole kids, fidgety brats who won't sit still and aren't willing to learn? I started out very early in the public school system but then my folks switched me over to private but out of all those years I don't really recall too many truly bad teachers. Maybe a few were too boring and dry for my tastes and could have been better but to hear conservatives tell the tale......Mayor Bloomberg's multimillion dollar Black and Latino Initiative in NYC has as a key component teaching the young'ens all about Sex, rubber instructions, things like that but if I may borrow from the soapster here it is not even the primary obligation of the State to educate your kid. It certainly isn't to teach them something Mom and Dad should be teaching them anyway and I say teach 'em a trade, how to make money, how to get a job. How is learning about Mike and Fred adopting a kid gonna pay the bills down the road? Now Mayor Bloomberg somehow got the law changed in the City so he could run for a third term and we get this stuff for his finale and pedestrian plazas where cars used to be and bike lanes nobody really uses and he even wants to have food grade inspections for New York's trademark fast food vendors because in his words if he's buying a hot dog he wants to know whether the guy washed his hands first. Maybe you want one of those giant salted pretzels and Moussa just took a dump. I just shut my mind off to it:)

Wasted time

A co-worker and I were having this discussion last night. Take the most boring, unsatisfying and mundane job you can think of, fill in blank but we can start with armpit sniffer if you like and I said in a way it's tragic, those are lost hours of your life you can never get back to read a book, to watch a documentary on cheetahs, to go for a walk, to cultivate a friendship or any of a hundred other activities that give enjoyment and meaning to you personally. He thought for a moment and considered but then said "but you're getting paid for it." A strong logical point and I had to think for a minute. His is a common attitude, perhaps the prevailing one but dunno I said, I disagree. Since work is such a large part of our lives, such a huge chunk of Time really it should at least be satisfying and fulfilling on some level, have some overall Meaning. Now we all feel being stuck in a traffic jam is a perfect waste of time but let's say we got paid a little for it to take the edge off, to compensate us for the pain of our boredom and delay would it still be wasted time? My friend would obviously say no but I say yes it would still be since a traffic jam is not even remotely related to the meaning and purpose of Life. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the motive power of Life is simply the joy of existence, that's good enough for me and by this standard being in a coma for ten years even if you're lucky enough to come out of it accounts for Time Lost and the Good Lord doesn't give those back unless there's some kind of holdover system into your next life. You'll often hear conservatives say that prisoners these days have the life. This is rather asinine and I have to say something about this. The prisoner's real sentence here is wasted time and I don't care if there's a gym involved and three square meals a day and cable tv, it's still prison. I would rather be at home at night watching that good cheetah documentary or reading a stimulating book or doing a challenging crossword puzzle and this is the short list because I'm somehow broadening my horizons, massaging my imagination, increasing my knowledge if only by increments whereas the totally nonfulfilling job takes important time away from doing this and far more besides and even taking into account the monetary consideration involved it's a total waste of my time although apparently not of my friend's and that's cool, to each his own as they say. If I could call this blog anything it's a kind of ongoing Manifesto of Life. They say you learn something new everyday. By my reckoning if you live to be 5oo you'll be a Genius:)

Joe Biden and the Tea Party Terrorists

Originally this blog was taking shape as all the various ways critics, usually liberal ones invalidate those with whom they disagee by the use of the political pejorative "extremist." SHAW does this and neocon David Brooks of the New York Times does it as well and it's an argument from intimidation, a deliberate polemical device to curb free-flowing and robust intellectual, philosophical and political debate and its purpose is to circumscribe already shrinking respectable parameters of civic discourse and yes it's an attempt at thought control although I can't obviously impugn motives to everyone here. On my walk today the way this was shaping up in my mind though is why we worship moderation so much (seems kinda boring and bland to have this as your overall guiding life philosophy), why it's now considered the supreme political virtue and basically I want to know do we worship moderation in and of itself as a goal and an end or is it simply a technique, an important at times and pragmatic step towards the Larger Goals (the Reagan approach)? If it's the former what's the point? if it's the latter I can understand and there may be times that it makes eminent practical sense although I can imagine my idealist colleague soapie disagreeing. Used to be if the word extremist was bandied about everyone pretty much knew who everyone was talking about, those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for instance, narrow folks who were seen as being overly cramped on the social issues. NOW it means especially for liberals anyone whom the wielder of the term disagrees with. If you're for fiscal responsibility and government living within its means you're an extremist. If you're against higher taxes on the wealthy (and don't kid yourself on everyone else) as a way of dealing with the debt and deficit then you're an extremist and I can imagine the list expanding. It means whatever SHAW and Brooks and others want it to mean. For liberals and conservatives some things are just not for sale whereas moderates want to sell the whole house. Oh isn't Joe Biden charming btw, just had another brain fart:)

A kind of closet environmentalist

Yesterday I took my long customary walk from Woodlands Lake in Ardsley, Westchester County NY all the way up to Rte. 119 in Elmsford figuring maybe the beavers moved downstream after all these years. When we were kids my Dad took us to Warehouse Lane in Elmsford off 9A where UPS is and where the Saw Mill River meanders its way through on its eventual destination in the Hudson River and we observed the local beaver population busy at work building their lodges and dams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver). Now there's much more industry here, there's a Sam's Club where the drive-in theater used to be and Masters Department Store has been replaced by a huge multiplex showcasing the latest in Hollywood dreck. Warehouse Lane, home to a huge Coca-Cola plant, FedEx, Conway Freight, Nestle Foods (Poland Spring and Deer Park trucks parked outside), a tire and auto place and San-Mar Laboratories, the Elmsford Animal Shelter and other assorted places of business. Over down 9A a bit by where you get on 287 is a Romantic Depot, an overpriced porn hut. Browser packs, a clown fucking some fat woman or maybe that's Giggles. It kind of melds together in your mind after awhile in one big existential landfill but I mean at least strive for Art. Wendy's, KFC, Grainger's, Rosedale Nurseries more in Hawthorne where the Saw Mill is very picturesque here and quaint like something out of a jigsaw puzzle. If Rush lived here he'd probably think it's all good, a hustling and bustling area, good population and jobs galore but you'd think a beaver population would be special, a kind of nurtured and protected area. Do we have ANY sense of the environment anymore? Does that make me an environmental wacko? maybe in his book but I'm just someone who would like the Dads of today to be able to take their kids there and learn something about Nature, about this special rodent that had been so heavily and tragically decimated back in the day, to see something they don't teach in school anymore because they're too busy learning about the Gay Lifestyle instead. Been meaning to ask btw, Powerwalkers with their weird arm movements, what's that supposed to do for you?

I don't want to bore you with this stuff

The New Debt Deal for Dummies

Nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts. The debt limit would be raised in two stages, a $900 billion increase now and a $1.5 trillion increase next year. Obama has a temporary authority to hike the debt limit without Congressional approval. The plan calls for at least $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and also takes place in two steps: $1.2 trillion in cuts now and at least another $1.5 trillion in cuts to be named by a special bipartisan committee by Thanksgiving. If the Congress doesn't act on the suggested spending cuts by 12/23 automatic triggers go into effect to the tune of $1.5 trillion and we're talking sacred cows like the Pentagon and Medicare here. Reforming entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are on the table as well as the tax code. My thoughts: reminds me of Astronomy which I was interested in as a kid. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year moving along at about the rate of 186,000 miles/sec. and this galaxy and that star are so many light-years away from Us and then you get into the whole area of black holes and event horizons and when you seriously begin to ponder the whole thing boggles the Mind and so these #'s from the Guv'ment are hard to wrap around so how does the average yokel know if they're good or they're bad? All I knows is keep raising the debt ceiling as it will be again in 2013 and you begin to escape the field of gravity (i.e. fiscal responsibility and good governance), actually we've been in Orbit for some time now. I'm not gonna be like the other erudite bloggers out there and pretend I understand this stuff. The whole thing imo is just an intergalactic clusterfuck:)

And on the aggressive atheism front

A group calling themselves American Atheists has filed a lawsuit trying to prevent the return of the steel beam cross that was found standing in the rubble of 9/11 to the new World Trade Center Memorial. They argue that the government is partially funding the project and the Cross is a religious symbol. The new memorial is set to open on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (sans banos btw but that's a whole side issue). Mayor Bloomberg who always can be counted on to say the safe and nondisputable thing said on his weekly radio show on WOR that they have the right to sue. My take, by its very nature mourning is for so many people such an intensely spiritual and religious experience and this country has such strong religious underpinnings that goes all the way back to its Founding that only a bunch of Grinches with too much time on their hands and nothing better to do could do such a thing.

Rush, the Old Gray Lady and political masochism

As a very occasional reader of Shaw's blog "Progressive Eruptions" the topic of Rush Limbaugh comes up ALOT. To be fair she mentions Rush's name about as much as conservatives talk about New York Times editorials. I get the sense liberals form a core listenership of Rush's radio show just like conservatives probably form a core readership of the Old Gray Lady, in fact they probably subscribe. The New York Post has an occasional feature called TimesWatch but does the NYT have a counter-section called PostWatch? (I'm watching you buddy) I don't get caught up in this stuff. I say this, both should be allowed to peacefully co-exist. A nonopining newspaper, oh how I yearn! Rush is like the Mick Jagger of our national political discussion, I may occasionally tune in but there's newer stuff out there:)

The gutting of the 9/11 Zadroga Act

First responders who may have gotten cancer on that fateful day are not covered under the $2.7 billion compensation fund. Federal doc John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says in a new study he can't seem to come up with a cancer/9-11 toxins in the air kind of link. Well that's one way to cut spending. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do in these financially apocalyptic times but makes you wonder why they wanna raise the debt ceiling and yet they won't cover these brave men and women. C'mon, not even a trickle of a trillion? By the time they finally get the bill right most of the ailing 9/11 heroes will be dead or maybe that's the whole point. Maybe this is one of the rationing aspects of Obamacare we're seeing but I wouldn't want to be accused of making another hate statement.

Pro-Choice = Pro-Abortion

Is this another Hate Statement? Why is it when you get close to the Truth of the Matter you're accused of making a hate statement? So nobody in the abortion clinic, not the doctor or the woman or the boyfriend or any member of the nursing staff or a counselor or the janitor is really for what is taking place? Everybody is morally sleepwalking through the entire procedure? It's a surreal conclusion.

Obama's State of the Apocalypse

Though it was a rather brief speech Obamawise I was furiously scribbling down notes in my little pad. The Debt Crisis - A Special Address. The speech and the president were utterly predictable, I could've written it. He hates capitalism but through a polemical sleight-of-mind cast himself as a compromiser and a moderate. Basically he is holding a resolution to the debt crisis hostage so he can punish the Rich so unwavering is that principle for him. If no deal is reached he said America will lose its AAA credit rating. Another point - two wars (that he continued btw) and a prescription drug plan added greatly to our national debt. SS checks and Veteran's Bennies are now in jeopardy, interest rates will rise on car loans and mortgages and credit cards (what, they're not high already on the credit cards?) and we won't be able to pay for Medicaid and Medicare. The whole address was peppered with the classic key words and phrases of Class Warfare. 98& of Americans who make under 250G as a household would see no tax increases (250G being the threshold I guess for being considered a millionaire these days) and he had to get in about corporate jet owners and oil companies his favorite mantra of late. Boehner's approach to extend the debt ceiling for 6 more months won't solve the problem and basically there are two approaches he said. First drastically cut spending without any revenue (read: tax increases), the Republican plan and two Our Way which is to close all those tax breaks and loopholes for the rich (one of David Brooks' favorite talking points). It's not fair he said that the wealthiest Americans and Corporations not contribute anything at all here (what, they haven't paid Taxes up until now?) and what we need is a balanced approach to reducing the debt and deficit (i.e. those tax increases again which Republicans are deadset against). He invoked Ronald Reagan 2X saying Reagan himself raised the debt ceiling 18X (he likes the Gipper when it suits him and Abe Lincoln too). Kicking the can down the road, he likes that one. Congress has one week left to act and it's a dangerous game we're playing. Yeah we have the challenges of entitlements and tax reform to consider. "Compromise has become a dirty word." If only he practiced it. Let's put Politics aside for God's sake!!! Then House Speaker John Boehner spoke. He's all for cutting and capping government spending which will eventually lead to a balanced budget amendment. We got a health care bill nobody wanted and Obama wants the largest increase ever in the debt ceiling after the largest spending binge in History. The Boehner Plan would cut spending by $1 trilion. So stimulate my stimulus. We now return you to Masterchef already in progress:)

The tragedy in Oslo

It is now just coming to light that the 32-year old man Anders Behring Breivik wanted to target ex-PM of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland who led 3 Labor Party governments in the 80's and 90's and is known as the "mother of the nation." All told 76 people tragically lost their lives last Friday and after bombing Oslo, Norway's capital Breivik gunned down scores of Labor Party youths on the island of Utoya. Apparently he left alot and I mean alot of online rants, manifestos on the Web filled with hateful and violent and extremist rhetoric which begs the question with such a lengthy cybertrail were authorities asleep at the switch? I mean how could he do what he did, was nobody keeping tabs on the guy? Well now we know Breivik is some kind of right-wing fanatic motivated by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment and according to Liberal Theory there exists some kind of mysterious, mystical connection between all right-wing groups. In other words we are all guilty, somehow implicated, Palin/Bachmann so please Curb your Free Speech. Breivik wanted to spark some kind of Crusade and transformation over there, prevent "cultural Marxism" and Islamism from taking over Europe. Expect liberals to make hay and politicize Tragedy here:)

The Good Ole Summertime

Yesterday it was 104 degrees in Central Park a record for July the 22nd. There was no major power outages to my knowledge but you dread them just the same this time of year Crank up the temps and folks naturally crank up the AC units then naturally blame Con Ed when the power grid can't handle it and they don't fix it in a timely enough fashion as in NOW. People today don't want any discomfort, no more that shared sense of sacrifice for the greater good and gone is the day of the Fan you used to see in those old black & white film noir detective movies with the gumshoe's feet on the cluttered desk and the old and tired dog in the corner. Now I'm not against the AC, I'm not against Progress by any stretch and schools, stores and most especially hospitals need it this time of year. The elderly and the sick are most at risk during a heatwave but what about the Rest of Us? Ceiling fans, there ya go! What if most of us opted to use a fan in order to reduce the chances of the next major blackout? just a thought. Think of how much you can save on your next electric bill. Anyway there's a definite difference between 90 and 100 and yesterday even just going to your car or sitting on your porch reading the paper was like being on Venus. It's hard on the pets but they know what to do, take it easy. We haven't even gotten to the dog days of August yet, oy vey!

The GOP field is giving me a migraine

I've decided to hold off on doing the usual, blogging about the ever-growing GOP field for president and so we get ten different conservative bloggers going with ten different conservative candidates but something tells me we'll be talking alot about Michele Bachmann in the near future. BTW how are President Obama's bowel movements?

The thought occured

I made an OJ joke the other day at work and the black guy made a good point, "if Casey is innocent then OJ is innocent too." Now we are taught that no matter how a jury decides in controversial and high-profile cases we should respect their decisions. The system worked and other nostrums. Fine but if we accept juries' decisions then how come nobody is out actively searching for the real killers? in fact nobody seems to care. You can't have it both ways, if jury verdicts represent some kind of philosophical truth, legal realities then everybody needs to start these now open cases over again and ferret out the true perps and bring 'em to justice. Imagine that, the killers of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and of little Caylee are still walking the streets!!! On the other hand if you concede as I do that juries are frequently just plain stupid and don't follow instructions then there really is no problem, no intellectual inconsistency to speak of. Do ya know what I'm sayin'? Just another exhibit in why Conventional Wisdom is so often wrong:)

I need a pill for the pill for the pill for the pill......

Shift Work (Sleep) Disorder or SWSD, from Wiki: "SWSD is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder characterized by insomnia and excessive sleepiness affecting people whose work hours are scheduled during the typical sleep period. There are numerous shift work schedules and they may be permanent, intermittent or rotating; consequently the manifestations of SWSD are quite variable." BUT there's good news, there's NUVIGIL!!! Nuvigil may cause side effects like, oh I don't know a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may affect parts of your body such as your liver or blood cells which may result in hospitalization and be life-threatening. A skin rash, hives, sores in the mouth, blisters, swelling, peeling or yellowing of the skin or eyes, trouble swallowing or breathing, dark urine or fever. Then there are the serious sides: mental (psychiatric) symptoms such as depression, anxiety, sensing things that are not really there, mania, suicidal thoughts, aggression or other mental problems. Symptoms of a heart problem including chest pain, abnormal heartbeat and trouble breathing. Some of the more common sides include headache, nausea, dizziness and trouble sleeping, you know the usual. Why not deal with the Original Problem instead of twenty myriad other ones?

Will liberals continue to use the race card?

Proba-blee. Now by any objective standard Obama's first term has been more than a bit of a dud, even the alleged bin Laden slay doesn't seem to have any staying power. The nub of the matter, Obama is not a good president. Conventional political wisdom says people vote mainly on the economy, economy still ain't doing so good and the jobless rate is up to 9.2% with only 18,000 new jobs added for the whole month of June. I don't care if the guy is black, white or polka-dot you can't vote for the guy. The Obamanauts will though and they'll make a whole racial thing about it but how can I in good conscience vote for a black Jimmy Carter? Obama doesn't suck because he's a black guy, he's a black guy who happens to suck. He made History though, duly noted for the Almanac:)

If we were living in a police state he'd still be alive today

This seems to be the thrust of NYS lawmakers in the wake of the Leiby Kletzky tragedy. Known as "The Leiby Initiative" incentives would be offered local merchants to set up surveillance cameras around their places of business. As everyone knows 8-year old Leiby Kletzky was abducted by a stranger by the name of Levi Aron early this past week on his first solo trip home from day camp and he got lost in Borough Park, Brooklyn and asked Mr. Aron for directions. Leiby was smothered to death sometime later after probably putting up a great struggle and dismembered by this monster ironically of the same faith. I knew I would be blogging about this of course but at first my thoughts turned to such philosophical things like The God Problem, why does a loving God allow such tremendous evil? However it takes but a day or two after a tragedy or disaster or some type of social calamity of this sort (think the LIRR massacre or whatever else fits here) for our heroic legislators to step up to the plate and what I am against is the politicization of tragedy. Now we have Caylee's Law being enacted in several states. Bill O'Reilly is for that and it means if you don't report a child missing within a very short period of time, say a day or two then you can be charged with a felony. Evil has been around since the dawn of time and recorded history and yet our lawmakers seem to think they can somehow legislate it away or at least contain it or reduce it or modify it or circumscribe it or mollify it or something. Anyway that's just my view and I'm sure there will be disagreement. The other thing, hindsight is 20/20 of course and now people are coming out of the woodwork as they always do saying Levi Aron was weird, this and that and the other thing, the way he sliced meats down in that kosher deli in Tennessee and do you wanna know how many weird people I worked with over the years? To be weird is not a crime so let's not malign the whole community of the weird here however you define that and OF COURSE he was a loner. Now the vast majority of loners would never even think of doing such a thing and I think we can go out on a limb here and say while the majority of these type killers may be loners the majority of loners are not killers. Finally not that long ago we had a good rollicking discussion, still going on apparently on Race and Crime and while blacks do commit a disproportionate share of everyday crime (I hate to make crime sound so prosaic) whites seem to commit the more bizarre acts of a kind of mind-boggling evil that defies all logic and this goes all the way back to Charles Manson and beyond. This latest tragedy has brought together the Hasidic enclave in Borough Park and shows a tight-knit faith community and that is heartening. There are no more words I can say except don't push the latest atrocity in order to set up some kind of police state as we all know what the road to hell is paved with. That's not the way to go and if folks would just come out of their prescription drug induced fogs or whatever the hell everybody is in these days maybe someone would have noticed something wrong in this situation and taken action without the use of the extra surveillance network the Albany lawmakers are advocating. See Something Say Something. Prayers:)

@ the Movies

I really don't go to the flicks that much anymore but my friend wanted to see Horrible Bosses so we went. Besides it was a scorcher of a day so at least I can sit for an hour and a half with the AC and meditate and ponder and ruminate if the movie sucks. I didn't like it that the plot revolved around three pals trying to do in their respective bosses. That happens in real life and it ain't funny but that's Hollywood. Jennifer Aniston was hot though, didn't even know it was her at first and Kevin Spacey always plays a mean prick of a boss. Oh the Previews!!! Movies never start on time of course and just because the schedule said 1:30 that just means when the Coming Attractions start. It lasted it seemed for 20 minutes and there were six of 'em. Reminds me of why most movies are pure dreck and the Cancer Movie with Seth Rogen (I only vaguely know the latest names but my friend is up on this) looked downright depressing. You really gotta do a cancer movie right and even then I don't wanna see it. That Marine Sgt. who invited actress Mila Kunis to the Marine Ball on YouTube...let's try that again, that Marine Sgt. who invited Mila Kunis on YouTube to the Marine Ball...that Marine Sgt. who posted an invite to Ms. Kunis on YouTube. I don't even like her movies and word on the street is she may not be going after initially accepting because she's in the middle of work on two flicks, crappy no doubt. If I did something like this I'd be a stalker:)

The true test of a retired conservative

Return all your Social Security checks.

Thoughts on Jaycee Lee Dugard

It was Compelling TV. I wasn't gonna watch all of it but I did, the Diane Sawyer/Primetime Live Special with the first exclusive interview with Jaycee Lee Dugard who in 1991 was kidnapped at the age of 11 somewhere in CA and held captive in a nightmarish world for the next 18 yrs. by the charming Phillip and Nancy Garrido couple. Now during the latter years of her ordeal she had ample opportunity to escape with the two daughters Mr. Garrido helped sire with her so why didn't she??? They were at an amusement park couple of occasions, there was Phillip's new printing company (what Hallmark Cards with a pervy twist?) which gave her access to the Web and the chatter inevitably turns to Stockholm Syndrome or some variant thereof and yet why do so many of us stay in bad jobs, forms of corporate slavery, endless mindgames, manipulative bosses, the alternate reality of the Office, the Hell on Earth that is the 9-5? They say there is a soulmate for everybody and Nancy fell in love with Phillip Garrido while he was serving time in prison for earlier sex crimes. She went to visit an uncle then something must have happened, a romantic spark, the lust on the apple or maybe it was just his eyes, those psychotic baby blues. This husband and wife perv team, this existentially creepy couple, him with his quirks hearing angels' voices and making some contraption to commune with God and her holding the kid down in the backseat of the car, this 1/2 Manson who made her life a living hell yet somehow didn't kill her, fed her and gave her kittens in between molesting her...and yet so many nice men out there who can't seem to find Someone and conjugate with them who eventually spiral down into the circle-jerk hell of bad gas station porn and Jose Cuervo. The second half of the special had Chris Cuomo's investigative report on why the federal bureaucracy didn't work in this case. I mean how could parole agents have visited that fantastic Garrido compound on 60 separate occasions and not notice anything even remotely peculiar? took two amateur female campus security officers to get things rolling. Chris needs to seriously bone up on his Peter Principle, this is the way a bureaucracy is supposed to function. Jaycee came off well and poised for a gal who's been through so much and her book or memoir comes out today. I can't believe I'm living:)

A Simple Experiment

There is only way to ultimately prove the political validity and viability of either liberalism or conservatism as a way of correct governance for Society. Now in Science tests are done, experiments are repeated endlessly and new ones thought up to winnow through the various theories that sprout up to help explain this or that so as to ferret out better conclusions and so Politics should be no different. The Eternal Political Debate, Shaw, Dave, BB, Saty et al making their respective points, passionately argued of course and so what I propose is simply that we have fifty years of pure liberalism and fifty years of pure conservatism. Liberalism can go first if it wants. Of course this is a long time, real political epochs spanning generations but a Study of this magnitude and import takes time and you don't want various conservative pockets like Reaganism and fig Newtons let's say to offset the results, to give false positive readings spawn from a quirky kind of giddiness that doesn't prove anything anyway one way or the other. These things take time and since we'll all be long gone and dead by then it will be up to posthumous generations to study and collate the results and infuse the wisdom found therein to political systems in the future and so we'll all be more enlightened by then to know what to do and how to proceed...Oh wait, we've already had 50+ years of liberalism:)

Is Wealth evil?

Obama in the so-called budget talks with Republicans says we have to end tax breaks and close the loopholes for wealthy Americans and oil companies and corporate jet owners. He's had philosophical issues with The Problem of Wealth his whole life, it bothers him and animates him and inspires him and it's not just him, it's the whole Democratic Party. Wealth is evil is a kind of unspoken Democratic Party platform. The constant engagement in the rhetoric and tools of class warfare, now it'll be dressed up as practical and responsible measures to lower the debt and reduce the deficit but what is the real motive here? I would submit they have a philosophical problem with wealth as does the president and on a psychological level it's really all about punishing the rich who when you get right down to it create jobs for the rest of us. Though I cannot relate to the rich, they are out of my orbit but if a person comes by his wealth honestly and through sheer dint of hard work why should they be punished in the form of confiscatory taxation? I can come up with no valid reason except for the psychological one, you resent them. This doesn't make me pro-the wealthy just being honest. C'mon admit it all you liberals, you hate the rich!

Government needs to go to Rehab

DON'T raise the debt ceiling.

The Casey Anthony verdict - NOT GUILTY!

There is alot of public outrage over this. Here are my thoughts -- The only charges she was convicted on were four misdemeanor charges having to do with lying to investigators which begs the obvious question if you're innocent why all the lying? If she really is not guilty then that means the murderer is still out there yet nobody seems to be looking for him or her (O.J. Redux?). Casey's mother Cindy looking up the subject "chloroform" on the house computer, consensus is she lied to protect her daughter from the death penalty about which more in a minute. Now it's a free country and God knows what topics I've googled over the years, they sure as hell ain't your more popular Yahoo trenders but chloroform out of the blue? It's an unusual topic to search on the Web, it's free speech and it's your right but I could be bored out of my skull and I'd sooner look up muskrat or the Eastern King Snake. It took this jury just under 11 hours, yes hours and not days to render a verdict from a 36 day trial and that in and of itself shows a lack of respect imo. I guess what was obvious to them ain't so obvious to the rest of us. Clearly to many people the defense team fogged the jury here with tales of family dysfunction and the father molesting his daughter which even if the judge deleted that so to speak it still plants the seed and that's all you need. Could 2-year old Caylee have accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool? Sure but people don't usually cover these things up but grieve like mad the rest of their haunted days. I'm not comfortable with totally circumstantial cases especially involving the death penalty, it's far preferable to have evidence. Reasonable Doubt - those two former NYC police officers who were acquitted in that rape case involving a drunken female Manhattan executive, despite feminist excoriation of the jury it had reasonable doubt written all over it so I understand perfectly well how the system is supposed to work. In this case one of the alternate jurors was talking to Matt Lauer this morning. Let me put it this way, I respect the fact that in our system a jury can reach a conclusion that might be different from mine ("thank you for your work") but what I absolutely hate are pinheads:)

Coyotes in Westchester County NY

So I'm driving to work yesterday in the wee hours and see a coyote crossing North Broadway just past Executive Blvd. in Yonkers and enter the woods of Lenoir Preserve. Silvery fur, nice canid and told a few people at work what I saw. Now I didn't make the official phone call, report a sighting. I didn't want to be kind of a dick because folks get excited and I mean real excited over these things. Actually there's woods there, they were here first so I figure they have every right to dwell and they come down from the Old Croton Aqueduct but there was another reason I didn't want to involve my local government bureaucracy. Last summer a couple coyotes showed up on Park Ave. by Roberts at about 2 in the morning, people called of course and since it was their jurisdiction a couple Yonkers cops, one a sergeant, showed up. So the sarge encounters one of the critters and takes out his pistol and fires off some shots. WTG!!! I got some issues here: first he ain't part of Animal Control and hasn't been trained as such, two an errant shot could have hit some innocent bystander, say some guy dropping a girl off and three he could have mistaken somebody's pet for the wild canid as there can be some confusion here with certain breeds (maybe BB here can link us up with the rare coydog). Now they say you're supposed to scream at the top of your lungs if you encounter one and as my friend goes it's all part of the Pussification of America. Later that night nothing on the tv so I hit the Audubon Field Guide to the Mammals, second time I read it: cruising speed from 20-30 MPH (can I jog that fast?), top speed 40 MPH for short distances, can make 14 foot springing leaps, they weigh anywhere from 20-40 lbs. (kinda a light dog so what's all the fuss about? it's not like a feral Sasquatch), average lifespan in the wild 6-8 yrs. This was right before the Hastings-on-Hudson border but more Yonkers so I know how these things play out. Did see a couple of dead coyotes recently on the side of the Saw Mill Pkwy. in the Hastings/Ardsley corridor which runs parallel to the much-used South County Trail butcha wanna know something? My exercise and my health comes first, went for my powerwalk this morning and I'll be damned if I'm walking there with my murse slung over my shoulder and start screaming at the top of my lungs like some little bitch:)

I don't have a position because I think all of your positions are stupid

My take on politics.

The Government Conundrum

BB-Idaho used a most interesting example of what happens or what can happen when a country, in this case Somalia, has absolutely no government (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4017147.stm). It's obvious why BB being a liberal used this example and it strongly buttresses his case. The man is not wrong and yet on the other side of the coin soapie seems to have been advocating lately no government whatsoever, anarchy if you will and he has a point, not about the anarchy but about the government (it fucks things up). So why does Government exist in the first place? I would submit human nature being corrupt it exists to rein in our baser instincts. You can get into a whole discussion here if you want that most people are good by nature, the Rousseau version but Christianity says otherwise and basically government exists because we know that people left unto themselves being inherently sinful if you want to get all theological about it will do Bad Things. So that's the premise here and that's the real reason government, any government exists (I know I know there have been legions of corrupt governments from the getgo down through the ages whose sole purpose seems to be to pillage from the people but I'm talking on a theoretical level here). Now the following point I can't take total credit for, I think Beth made it back in the day BUT the government is made up of human beings, not perfect automatons, not computers, not cyborgs (although I realize Mayor Bloomberg looks and acts like a cyborg). Human beings are corrupt hence the government will be corrupt (think JFK coverup or any other example that tickles your ivory). It's a circular argument but we still need government even though that government will tend to be corrupt over time. Without any form of government you get Somalia, it desperately NEEDS an official government and yet you can wind up with an Idi Amin or a Robert Mugabe or a Charles Taylor which leads me to my next blog and that is my distillation of what I've seen and read here and elsewhere since Oct. the 23rd, 2006......

Radical social change doesn't sell so well in the Heartland

Though he says he has no interest it's NY Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo's presidential prospects in 2016. New York is a kind of world unto itself, one big vast political Amusement Park. You might come out from an orgy where everyone thinks alike (Sexual Hero) but don't expect everyone to understand. What plays in New York doesn't always play in Peoria. I think Obama understands this which is why he's still "evolving." Gay marriage means bigger and more expansive government and for an excellent commentary go to http://weblogs.wpix.com/news/larrymendte/2011/06/gay_marriage.html. As for those GOP presidential wannabes I generally avoid the subject. You'll read this conservative blogger likes this one, that conservative blogger likes that one but we're all scattered. No one is emerging as THE ONE but that's what primaries and conventions are for. Knock yourself out in the meantime but I'll wait.

Gay marriage in the Empire State

New York State has legalized gay marriage. I knew this already but popped on my local newscast last night anyway to get the latest on the pharmacy murders, whatever fire in Brooklyn and what it's gonna do tomorrow but after about two minutes, no make that 30 seconds I channel-surfed back to Globetrekker. It wasn't my local pornographic violent news I've come to expect, it was the Gay News. It's like sometimes I'll be watching Ch. 25 here and they have some good stuff but some nights it's just the whole gay theme and you're like why can't they just have some good cooking show on instead? Social Liberalism as a Way to Placate the Annoying - maybe folks just wanted to pass the gay marriage just to move onto more pressing matters like the economy and jobs, you know we don't endorse what you do but shut up already, we'll give it to you is there anything else? Look people don't get along. I don't care if you're Man & Woman, Man & Man or Woman & Woman, have two people live alongside each other for years and years and they'll get on each other's nerves. Today Gay Marriage, tomorrow Gay Divorce. Obama's stance is still evolving because of the ickiness factor, perfectly understandable. There will always be that residual societal disgust that gays just need to accept and get over. My deliberately provocative title poses a conundrum, what to do when PETA and gay rights clash:)

You're killing me

How do people annoy you? For me listening to David Brooks on the Friday evening political roundup with Mark Shields on the Jim Lehrer Newshour falls into this category. Maybe it's a sign of age but lately for me it's everything but I have to remember not to top it off with analysis from Shields and Brooks:)

Do you want Obama picking the next Supreme Court?

The Supreme Court in a recent and narrow 5-4 decision (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/supreme-court-orders-california-to-free-40000-prisoners/) has ruled that the State of California must release about 40,000 prisoners in two years. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision. The usual liberal and ACLU-inspired drivel, prison overcrowding, lack of full medical attention, constitutional violations but it was really a cruel and unusual decision for the people of California. Point I'm getting to is new justices and Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan BOTH joined in the majority. Remember them? they were supposed to be centrists, not scary at all. Well the decision merits a blog unto itself but IF the GOP nominees were smart and that's a big if they'd run with this front and center. I'm expecting alot I know.

Sex before jobs

New York State under the liberal stewardship of Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo seems poised to become the sixth and largest state in the Union to legalize same-sex marriage. Some key Repubs in the State Senate have shifted position and so it's closer to becoming a reality but I hearken back to Michael Kinsley's position of not too long ago that maybe it would be a good deal for the government to not get involved in the marriage business on any level hetero or homo. So WHY do you need the government to recognize and validate your special relationships anyway? Is this the time to push for radical social change? Aren't jobs and the economy more important and who has time to worry about this stuff in this day and age? Last time I brought up the Kinsley Proposal folks seemed to miss the point but it's a good time to revisit it. Couple gay jokes: when Liberace died they scattered his ashes in San Francisco Bay and killed all the blowfish. Bunch of gay men in a pool and some white thing comes floating by and one guy goes "ok who farted?" Not too long ago I lamented the fact that we have another Cuomo in office and it won't be long before we revisit the Social Issues annoying as that is and I just think Kinsley's idea makes alot of sense. Just take this stuff off the table:)

Weiner pulls out

Now the Democrats can go about the unfinished business of implementing liberalism for the American people. I liked it better when it was a distraction:)

The Pearl Harbor Bias

For purposes of the following discussion Asian means Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai and all the rest (folks don't know the difference) but the thesis of the thread is the existence of what I call the Pearl Harbor Bias. Anyways so I'm watching an episode from the second season of Masterchef a few nights ago. This is kinda the American Idol of amateur chefs from around the country who get to show judges Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich their culinary skills. So early on in the competition you have to present one of your signature dishes and so it's the young Asian guy's turn and even the judges agreed his crab dish was absolutely delectable, light and the purity of it all but only Joe thought he had potential and the other two simply eliminated him. Some picayune, nitpicking criticism that it wasn't a main dish or something. OK so in the wake of the tragic Japanese tsunami my parish never even took up a collection for the victims unless I missed something or even mentioned it in their prayer intentions at Mass. Now on the workfront we usually have some type of trendy collection box going especially when such an apocalyptic disaster occurs but with this thing straight out of the Bible absolutely NOTHING and I mean nothing. Yeah the usual cancer and Jerry's Kids stuff, pink ribbons and March of Dimes, oh that's K-Mart. Oh yeah some bakery manager who I haven't seen in quite some time came in yesterday and I said hi and she said "what happened to you, are you anorexic?" Always a plain-spoken bitch but mathematically at 195 lbs. and exercising regulary with the chest pull resister I bought at Modell's her theory doesn't work out and I said my doctor gave me my ideal weight range and I reached it, I mean take it up with him. I'm digressing but the point is a bunch of Japs can be swept out to sea and folks express more concern that I'm healthier now (funny how they don't seem to notice it when you're overweight). I've long ago come to the conclusion Society is irretrievably weird. Getting back to the Asian crab guy on Masterchef he was standing there all proud and sure of himself but then it was like he was relegated to culinary eternal damnation or something. Joe said the other two were making a mistake but it was like Gordon and Graham saw absolutely no potential in the guy and it was only his first signature dish and yet they'll pass in some black mama from Georgia or Mississippi who talked sweet and threw something together. You know they've had a bad run of it lately what with the tour bus full of Asian gamblers coming back from Mohegan Sun in Connecticut overturning when it reached the Bronx, one half-expects to turn on CNN only to find a jetliner full of Koreans flying into some erupting volcano somewhere but you'd think they could get a little respect in the culinary world:)

The guy has a first name you know

The weird part about the Anthony Weiner scandal is he didn't actually have sex with any of these women so it's like a kind of pseudo-scandal, it'd be like going to hell for masturbation and where in hell does Bill Clinton get off being mad at him? Now if you're name is Weiner and you do decide to engage in this type of behavior wouldn't you go with a legal name change first? You know there's a side street over by Cross County in Yonkers called "Hiscock Place" and it'd be like if Mr. Hiscock ran for office and got embroiled in some big gay sex scandal you might wanna dot your i's and cross your t's first is all I'm sayin'. The existential coldness of Anthony Weiner's situation, even his own party wants to throw him overboard. Maybe he didn't push abortion enough, dunno but Slick Willie got away with more, far more and it made him stronger. Been meaning to pose this: so who do conservatives hate more, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? You remember back in the day you couldn't live through 24 hours without hearing of Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or even Juanita Broaddrick, dead teenagers on the Arkansas train tracks and drug-running at the Mena Airport, Whitewater, Lewinsky, those 500 or was it 900 FBI files? Ken Starr, Chinagate, impeachment, last-minute pardons......we don't even talk about that anymore, that's like a Three's Company or Sanford and Son rerun but the void has been filled by one Barack Hussein Obama. I must caution the Republicans if they're buying tickets to board the big old PhallusShip into the next election. An overindulgence in Weiner minutiae is not gonna get you there but with Huma being pregnant and all this throws a curve into normal conservative thinking. Mr. Weiner doesn't even have a business or law degree to fall back on like some of the others, what's he gonna be a deli clerk? and you wouldn't want those economic pressures to lead to a bad decision here. BTW some rich guy is gonna scuba-dive for bin Laden's corpse in the North Arabian Sea next month and our corporate media is wasting no time in calling him an eccentric.

FREE SPEECH - abortion, gay jokes, the works

Beth thought this important enough to discuss and I agree. The link: http://beta.news.yahoo.com/jilted-ex-boyfriend-puts-abortion-billboard-194142831.html
Since I subscribe to the principle that in the vast majority of cases free speech should win at the end of the day it didn't take me long to reach my conclusion. I read the article twice and it doesn't say if the ex's name was used on the billboard but it clearly falls under free speech even if he shouldn't have done it. Of course you could make the argument that since it's a specific guy on the ad people in the local area can easily put 2&2 together and deduce who the ex probably is but it's a very interesting case and I love this stuff. Now Tracy Morgan of 30 Rock has said some stuff, some antigay jokes down in some nightclub and well it didn't take long for the almost immediate pro-forma apology from Mr. Morgan (maybe in the future it can come right after the joke, saves time) but the thing about these cases is I absolutely HATE political correctness. Now I'm not antigay by any stretch but when the obligatory gay spokesman from some group issues the mandatory official statement that everyone's feelings got hurt you just wanna call him a faggot. You see the thing about humor is it's entirely subjective, it's in the eye of the beholder. There's no objective norm to humor in the first place and so some people in the club, the ones who weren't offended did find his comments hilarious but that doesn't prove exactly they hate gays. The best gay jokes I ever heard in my life came from liberals btw. Here's the other thing, how does censorship solve the Problem? Why not let Tracy Morgan make his jokes and the gay guy can call him a dick? Works for me and why if he's such a big star on 30 Rock is he doing standup in the first place?:)

Essential Truths

Most people don't read your blog. Letters-to-the-Editor are probably more widely read although the blog offers far more creative freedom of course so I prefer them (not really into cyberforums anymore either, always the moderators with their corrective measures). My sitemeter is like my weight, it keeps going down. Actually my weight's being maintained but my hits keep going down. Keeping this essential truth in mind why do we blog? For me it's a kind of hobby, something to relax to after work. There are those who say to increase your hitmeter you have to visit quite a few other blogs on a regular basis, you know you scratch my balls I'll scratch yours. Too much work to do on a consistent basis imo so I only visit those that interest me on any given day and I tend to visit the same ones. If it ain't fun don't do it. Essential Truths -- a kind of continuing series:)

AIDS - 30+ years later

Read a big writeup about AIDS in my Sunday paper yesterday, how despite initial pessimism they're making progress after all these years. Many of the harsher earlier drugs like AZT have been replaced by kindler, gentler and more efficient and less toxic medicines and there is definite hope on the horizon but I got to thinking back to what the Jamaican chef (a character who occasionally pops up in these blogpages) told me once. Now if you met the guy you'd say he's quite intelligent, articulate and not your broadbased wildeyed conspiracy theorist, you can rap with him and since I'm on the subject I've been meaning to pose the question for BB and the others is there at least one conspiracy theory that you believe in, that you subscribe to? (what is this overtrust of government anyway?) Anyway he opined to me one day that he thinks AIDS was invented by the U.S. Government as a form of genocide against black people. Now I don't subscribe to this but it should be apparent by now that the darker-hued folks do see alot of subjects quite differently but I will say the key here and something I cannot answer and that doesn't sit well is why should there be a new disease? We've had your basic classic diseases down through the centuries. Mentions of syphilus have been woven into some of Shakespeare's plays and breast tumors have been around since the time of Cleopatra but AIDS??? Was this invented by some weird masturbator in a CIA lab somewhere, some Mengeleian prodigy? a form of biological warfare as it was maybe initially designed that somehow found its way into the general population? So how would you respond to the Jamaican chef? The argument from intimidation won't work, the man wants anwers.

Abortion

......(continued)......

Politics is alot like cooking

Everyone thinks their way is the way.

Don't get involved with Anthony's Weiner

Already I'm beginning to read the conservative punditocracy microanalyzing what happened, that a risque picture was somehow sent to a young female college student out West from New York Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner's Twitter account. It's a mildly interesting scandal at the beginning of summer, something to sip on in the shade of your hammock and points to the fact of a rather bleak GOP presidential field if this is what we're spending time on. I like this stuff but only for the entertainment value, I don't want to bring the man down. He doesn't look the type and with a name like his you'd think he'd be extra-vigilant for potential scandals of this nature. Speaking of underwear doesn't Obama look like a male underwear model? You know you're in Sears or the Big K looking for some Hanes or Fruit of the Loom and there he is on that fresh cottony package in his briefs rather well-toned and grinning from ear to ear. I think I heard on the news that Weiner has something like 50,000 followers on Twitter so anything's bound to happen. I'm hearing he ain't acting right, ain't acting like an innocent man and why didn't he go to the cops over this? Anyway enjoy the scandal for what it's worth but if this is your way of pushing forward a public-policy agenda to counter Obama's it has that prurient look to it like finding an orange pubic hair in the drain of a public shower. I feel a little skeevy even talking about it. It's all fungusy so let's not spend too much time on it OK?

stress @ work

It's one of those hypocritical issues stress at work because while practically everybody says it's bad for you, studies show it's a killer when push comes to shove nobody really cares about it or does anything about it. Boss (holding general meeting of staff at 9AM): "I realize workplace stress is an important issue to address so if there's anything I can do to make your day go better please let me know." Well no, certain work has to be done and done in a timely fashion, other work has to be completed not tomorrow but today. The honchos are coming in later, the suits are gonna go over everything with a fine toothcomb and this is your typical average American workday. When stress is addressed again we realize it's A Bad Thing but the problem is most likely YOU, don't let it get to you and btw you don't have to come in at 6:30AM anymore because we realize you also require so many hours of sleep again for reasons of health. The modern paradox, we all realize one's health is extremely important but it's the nature of the business world that nothing can really be done about it and if it leads to an early grave you can always be replaced. The wake information will be posted of course but the show must go on. When was the last time the issue was addressed at your place? No, put your political gavel down for a minute and think about it, Herman Cain and Ron Paul and Mitt Romney can wait. It's not so much my stress at work but I feel as if through osmosis the stress of others, that tense vibe going through the place and I'm thinking it doesn't have to be that way but it is. Health and Work, two worlds apart:)

Not voting as an act of conscience

NONE OF THE ABOVE is a valid option. Besides Jack Kemp is dead.

What is the purpose of the IQ test?

seriously

The GOP Establishment wooing of Chris Christie, why they're always out of touch

You'd think he's the best the GOP can throw up against Obama next year, NJ Governor Chris Christie. Brash, plain-spoken, fiscally restrained or just a dickhead. I ain't voting for the guy and here's the reason. In one of my threads about the red-light traffic cams in the city of Yonkers a commenter posted a link about Gov. Christie wanting to double the number of towns in New Jersey that use red-light cams (http://njtoday.net/2011/04/14/scutari-criticizes-christie-administration-push-to-double-number-of-towns-using-red-light-cameras/). That ain't limited government, that's Big Brotherism, Basic Thuganomics 101. So that's it, that's my reason and that's the sheer beauty of our voting process. I can go into that booth, oh I forgot it's not a booth anymore. I can stand at that there table and fill those little oval circles on that scansheet and pull the lever, I mean hand it in, bascially vote for or against someone for whatever reason that tingles my ball that day. I care not one whit whether others think my reasons stupid, that's between Me, Myself and I. Maybe I don't like it that I think he's had too many Krispy Kremes and is therefore a poor role model for our youth. So the Supreme Court in New Jersey said he has to spend millions and millions of dollars on the poor school districts in that state, he criticized the court for telling him how to spend the state's money but will comply anyway. Well whoop-dee-doo!!! he's still for those red-light cams and I've gotten four of those in Yonkers to date. Didn't get anymore for a few weeks now since I now totally avoid the area where I got 'em, I treat it as practically a nuke zone but at the time I couldn't write out a check to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York for their annual fundraising appeal. I usually give a hundred, built up my checking account again and sent my check in the mail just this morning so charity has to wait at times so as cash-strapped cities, towns and municipalities who don't know how to handle money in the first place can rape the American taxpayer. The GOP wooing of Chris Christie, God help us!!! Obama will go into the next election with he killed something that may have been bin Laden, had the body chucked into the ocean after several hours so we'll never know for sure but the public has seemed to accept it as they always do and it is now a part of our collective socio-politico mythology (who can forget that iconic picture in the Situation Room?) and they've already moved on to Sex and Eschatology and all we get is the Republican establishment wooing faux libertarians/tea partiers. Michelle Bachmann who voted to extend certain provisions of the Patriot Act, same deal honey. Don't tell me what conservatism is. I know it in my gut and these folks ain't conservative:)

Fresh from the bin Laden kill Bam thinks he can solve the Mideast Crisis

Every president has to give it a shot, it's the irresistible political version of Rubik's Cube. President Obama has told Bibi to go back to Israel's pre-1967 borders before the Six-Day War. This apparently didn't go over too well, guess Obama has more important votes to get than the Jewish bloc. WHY do we have to spend so much time on this subject? Don't other parts of the world merit attention? I mean yeah they get covered like the Ivory Coast but they don't turn into foreign policy obsessions. Immigration reform and the Mideast, Obama put alot on his plate just now. Why not wait 'til a second term unless, unless...you don't think the World is ending soon do you?

The world will end not with a bang but a whimper

I hardly noticed, I mean the seamless transition was so smooth. The phrase comes from poet T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and I'm gonna make a bold prediction here. The world will end when the Sun runs out of fuel. I haven't worked on the calculations yet but it involves literally millions of years. According to 89-year old preacher Harold Camping the World As We Know It was supposed to end this past Saturday at 6PM. Went to work the next day and the place was unusually slow for a Sunday afternoon in a food place so I says to a co-worker you know why it's slow right? All the good folk have been Raptured up and you're always going to Giggles (you have to be around these parts to get the joke). He said to me "you have five months." Yeah go through your hardcore I said and start throwing the shit out, softcore too buddy before the angels with the flaming swords start knocking on people's doors. I'm not against the world ending, it should but you have to be a fool to predict when. One of the readings this past Sunday had to do with only the Father knows when the world is going to end, apparently He didn't share this info with the Son. That's interesting and one of the curiouser passages from Scripture along with those unforgiveable sins against the Holy Spirit. Of course the world doesn't have to end per se, more likely humanity might just kill itself off by then. Think Charlton Heston in front of the Statue of Liberty (fave line from that movie: "you damn dirty ape!"). Our Lady of La Salette said "in the Last Days Rome itself will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist" and then the Three Days of Darkness and the earth will renew itself and mankind will start over basically with the unrepentant in "the everlasting chasms of Hell." I think the Protestants especially the evangelical crowd take the End Times more seriously than the Catholics, Catholics only care if they can get a last game of Bingo in. As I said everything after bin Laden is anti-climax, we have to have something to fill the weekly newscycle. Religion and Sex lately:)

The Sperminator

Already I'm hearing the cluck-clucking of the tongues but c'mon, we love the story! ADMIT IT. I always look at these stories first and foremost as is it interesting to read? You're darn tootin'! Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger are filing for divorce because he had a love child with the hired help, compared to what Strauss-Kahn is alleged to have done it's a generic scandal, no more no less. What's not to enjoy? So what is this moral clacking? after bin Laden everything else is anti-climax anyway.

I'm really not getting anything out of all this bin Laden coverage

Everyday it's something new. A diary, bin Laden porn and you don't even know if it's all true or not. Long Island Congressman Peter King has said he saw those pictures. Apparently there's some small cell of a room select Senators and Congresspeople go into and it's like the Third Secret of Fatima. You have to leave your cell phone outside so you can't send an image to the outside world. Mr. King said part of bin Laden's forehead was blown off which begs the question how can we positively identify him now? not that anybody's tallying all the contradictions. Then there's all the versions of the Story. Please can we settle on one positive official White House version of the Events for all posterity even if it is wrong? Let's say he was reaching for a strap-on harness and they thought it was an AK-47 ya know?

Will the bin Laden execution anger Obama's base?

Yes and No. Actually there are two left-wing bases we're talking about here, there's the base and then there's the base-base. The first base, maybe the majority are what I call the liberal pragmatists despite their various moral intonations from time to time and I include several prominent bloggers here. So long as Obama supports gay marriage or rights, health care reform, economic and social justice, whatever their issues are then the dubious and murky events in that compound in Abbottabad don't bother them in the least. In fact they're happy about it, will use it to their advantage and will quite joyfully point out that it was their man Obama and not the hated Bush who finally got the bastard and meted out justice. I used to think most liberals were alike but many of them will show the same bloodthirstiness they often bemoan conservatives as having. Conservatives may be pro-war but the more traditional ones from the Old School anyway are also pro-the laws of war meaning you don't kill an unarmed man no matter how bad. It's just the way it is as my Dad who served in the Navy during WW2 and who is as far from a liberal as you can get explained to me. Now the base-base, I think they're smaller than the pragmatists but they do take their principles very seriously and while they are all for the gay marriage, health care reform, economic and social justice and all the rest of the first group with which you can agree or disagree to your heart's content but they also have a certain moral compass that doesn't waver, one that eschews violence whenever possible and may even tend strongly towards pacifism re war and foreign policy in general. I know how we all feel about Michael Moore but he's mad about what Obama did. Say what you will he's consistent. Finally about the Event itself I've come to this conclusion: the government is probably telling the truth that bin Laden was killed, is dead. I choose to believe it and yet I can't fault those who don't or who at least question it and here's why. They got rid of the body so damn quickly, put it on the USS Carl Vinson, said something in Arabic we're told after wrapping him in a white sheet and then dumping him overboard. Basically what we have here is the government or those acting on the government's behalf telling us that bin Laden was shot to death but the evidence, namely the cadaver is gone so that no independent entity or more objective group of observers can verify that this is indeed what happened. You can make fun all you want, knock yourself out with your pejorative of choice and be clever but in the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of truth this is no small problem. Surprised nobody foresaw this. So who's on first?:)

Why Bush didn't go to Ground Zero

He knows something ain't right. Bill Clinton another one, scheduling conflict. Chatter at work and wherever I go, something weird went down. There's a surreal vibe in the air, visions of Eric Holder under oath, a Congressional investigation? IMO President Obama authorized this kill mission to boost his poll numbers and to seal his reelection, to give his presidency a certain historical gravitas that has been sorely lacking until now. Spokesman Jay Carney who is a joke at this point called it a "legal kill." What are we on safari here hunting lions on the Serengeti? Speaks volumes but listening to Rush Limbaugh's childish commentary yesterday afternoon reminded me of why I don't listen to the man anymore. His take: liberals (his fave word) saw him as a kind of faculty lounge wuss and the Osama kill made a man out of him. Whatever, a more incisive commentary would have been government is corrupt and Obama who campaigned as a fresh moral voice in Washington has lost his innocence as they all do. Osama's death, like curing cancer sure it helps humanity but it also helps you and many times we make moral decisions out of supposedly altruistic reasons but the hidden moral calculus is how it really benefits us. I Killed Osama will be a kind of unspoken campaign slogan next year, may as well say that in response to each question in the presidential debates but folks are starting to ask questions and word on the street is he won't win reelection ("I don't think he's gonna make it" one woman said to me). This is not a transparent government, which government is? Final Word: Bush would have done it differently:)

The reluctant conspiracy theorist (an abridged reader)

Although to be sure there are inconsistencies. Now unless the unarmed Osama at 6'6" was a mystical Bruce Lee figure who could pull off some fancy Matrix moves there's nothing those Navy SEAL hunks in that room couldn't have handled with a little Krav Maga action? Did one of the SEALS lose his cool the way Magnum P.I. once shot that Nazi at the end of that classic episode? Worked a little late last night and on the drive home tuned into Mark Levin, wasn't gonna listen but it turned out to be a fascinating discussion. A former Navy SEAL called in and said are we to believe that AG Eric Holder would let them just walk in and kill a man in front of his whole family? The burial-at-sea, as one commentator wrote this was a mistake and gave the impression that Osama was a good and practicing Muslim being buried according to Muslim law and we might add why so quick to make him shark bait? Obama has told Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes" that they've made the official decision to not release any of the Osama death photos (ahem), cadaver images even though CIA head Leon Panetta said just the other day he wouldn't be surprised if a photo emerges. They're afraid of inflaming the Muslim world but here's the thing. Obama is exhibiting a pronounced anti-Muslim bias here, most are bad and can't handle the pics goes the thinking but somehow they can stream live videos of actual beheadings and we get those put on on right-wing websites like Savage. The Administration now has an image problem which begs the question HOW do you exactly fuck up a good thing?

A question of Authority, libertarians and conservatives

Alot of folks assume conservatism and libertarianism are more or less the same creature, not so and at times they do make strange bedfellows. If I could distill one of the key differences it is this: conservatives are vastly more pro-authority than libertarians although to be sure there are different flavors, genres you could call it of libertarianism. Conservatives generally respect authority far more than libertarians because social and political stability is at the foundation and cornerstone and practically inspires and permeates all conservative thought which is why they were and still are against the hippie upheaval of the Sixties and feel the Vietnam War should have been fought on to ultimate victory. At heart it's really not about the wisdom of the war but about respecting institutions like the military and if you get drafted suck it up like a man and do your duty. Hit the nigger on the head and they'll come up with excuses for the cops. The AZ immigration law, the con 'tude is it's 'bout time, we're gonna kick some alien ass with the new law. Authority itself is problematic for me even though I recognize it is necessary and practically runs through the whole of our existence, how could it not? I've a visceral reaction to it like the boss making your schedule, it's mostly what he or she needs. Now it may be necessary for the workplace to run this way in order to function but at heart authority is a control issue. Think about how many ways your life is not your own. You have to put off your daily run or trip to the pier because somebody else, Authority finds the workplace a far more important place for you to be than you do. Maybe it's good, maybe it ain't but it's still all about authority, control. So how much authority do we need and how much is over the top? Driving drunk is and should be a crime, buckling up should be up to you and when cops are expected to uphold even nonessential laws they in effect symbolize the Power of the State. Think of the sheer power that comes with authority, the power of the few over the many, it's awesome in fact. Anarcho-libertarianism would seem to reject all authority so where do you fall on the spectrum?:)

Porn in Brooklyn, just don't light up

Apparently it is now OK to view porn on public library computers in any of the 200+ branches in New York City if you're a grown A-dult. "Customers (?) can watch whatever they want on the computer" said Brooklyn Public Library spokeswoman Malika Granville. "In deference to the First Amendment protecting freedom of speech the New York Public Library cannot prevent patrons from accessing adult content that is legal" said New York Public Library spokeswoman Angela Montefinise. The libraries provide for extensions on the sides of the computers for privacy, no mention if they provide spackle buckets too. Libraries that only get federal funding have to install filters on the public computers to block content that is illegal like obscenity (?) and child porn. Maybe someday we'll get around to actually nailing down the definition of obscenity but if a barely 18 girl with braces and a couple of zits is circle-jerking three guys and it's straight down the hatch and she's blowing bubbles does that qualify? I give great preference to the First Amendment in most cases but this is kind of skeevy. You already got your societal castoffs playing card games by themselves, your homeless set, druggies, young dorky stalkers, older men who form a kind of male bonding club and spend all day at the library because their wives don't want 'em around the house. Do we really want to downgrade the clientele even further? I feel like an immigrant in my own country. As my friend once said New York City is violently weird:)

The Royal Flush

Imagine if Donald Trump's lavish lifestyle were funded by the American taxpayer, Warren Buffet's sons were Princes and Oprah Winfrey were the Queen. American Royalty. Well that in a nut is the situation in the United Kingdom and you can't bitch and moan about tax cuts to the wealthy here and then get all misty-eyed about the celestial nuptials this Friday over there. Contradiction in terms, at least our well-to-do have earned their riches the honest ones anyway. Kate lost alot of weight, stress? William already has a receding hairline and I get the sense he's bored looking for things to do else why trek up the Arctic and have a dog outside your tent at night in case a polar bear is lurking? The roots of my conservatism are more primeval and explains my distaste for the Royal Welfare. It's not that I'm pro-work, not at all. Kyle Smith recently wrote a piece about why we love the rat race, I don't think so Kyle but if I have to suffer, if I have to work then so do the rest of you, princes and paupers alike. Get off your Royal Ass and get a job! They seem like nice enough kids though:)

The World's Biggest Egotists

Now it's good to have a healthy sense of self-esteem but these outsized egos are out of all proportion to their actual contributions (can you Supersize that?), I mean none of them have cured Cancer. They see themselves as so integral to the Progress of Civilization, so pivotal to the Race of Man, well here's a partial list by no means exhaustive: Hugh Hefner - actually let's throw in Charlie Sheen here too since together they form a kind of hybrid creature called Don't You Wanna Be Like ME? which even if you thought that would you say it? Now Hef sees himself as a kind of cultural icon/hero who helped Society break off from the iron shackles of sexual repression (the World didn't enjoy Sex until He came along) but the culture would have gone whichever way with or without his help. They say Charlie Sheen is actually a crystal methhead in which case he's a goner, just sayin'. Glenn Beck - makes the list only for pro-forma reasons, so many people think he should be there although I'm not sure how many egotists (or is that egoists?) talk about their past alcoholism and how they messed up their lives. For me Bill O'Reilly looks like he has the bigger ego the type that would give the deli clerk a hard time ("I said THINNNNN!!!"). Then there's Keith Olbermann - never got those lists of his, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. One week it was Rush Limbaugh. You don't have to like the guy, I really don't care but Worst Person on the Third Planet from the Sun Keith? that'd probably be Moammar Khadafy with Robert Mugabe running a close second. Barack Obama of course with his messianic complex. Has a bug up his ass about the rich, he sees it more as the problem of wealth and it's been bothering him his whole life but you're somehow an extremist if you don't see him as a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist. His Saviorhood has been somewhat tarnished by his rather dismal performance in office thus far but as a Kool-Aid drinker at work told me the other day give him some time, he only got his feet wet. Donald Trump - probably heads anybody's list but I'd still vote for the guy, actually I'd vote for Ryan Seacrest if he ran against Obama. Diddy (past names Puff Daddy, real name Sean Combs) - actually most rap stars but YOU made it that way, all those white suburban kids who somehow gravitated away from Rock over the years. Once arrested on a gun charge they become semi-respectabalized as time goes by, look for Fitty to be doing Eugene O'Neill on Broadway. Egotism is like a weird drug trip and to me never made any sense. I mean I've done so many dickheaded things in my life it'd be hard to be that way. Doesn't seem like the natural state this overinflated self-deified condition but that's just me. The Lady Gaga - Here's how it works. In Madonna's case she was like a monkey swinging from the trees, she discovered Morality and now she's swinging from the trees again. Look for Gaga to have a moral arc somewhere in the middle, settle down, have a couple kids and then go back in the jungle again. Gaga's talents which I will concede are eclipsed by her antics and I like what my friend said once. We were in a Target store looking at the magazines and we seemed to be in the young adult section, Miley Cyrus on the cover over here, the pale guy from Twilight over there, Avril Lavigne, whoever and he takes one look at them and says to me they're all full of shit:)

Would you vote for Donald Trump?

He's tapping all the right buttons. Wants to bring jobs back to America, has been stroking the seniors over Medicare and has even told Pat Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network that he's done a conversion and is now pro-life. Sounds serious about reducing our debt and deficit but on foreign policy looks a little weak, kind of bullshitting his way through. I look at it this way, if he doesn't work out we can always fire him. If it came down to Trump vs. Obama would I vote for the guy? brief and to the point, YES.

I know what they're doing

Meet the Parents (2000) Meet the Fockers (2004) Little Fockers (2010) Mother Fockers (2012)

Did Glenn Beck get too hot too fast?

His syndicated radio show on WWOR has been yanked here in New York and the Fox News no longer has his show. The usual explanations have some validity of course, a show needs sponsors to survive and Mal thinks his new religious side turned off alot of people. I know he's a Mormon but Mal will have to fill me in on his latest spiritual quirk as I'm not up to speed. Now the classic liberal, more a dinosaur these days that belongs in a museum used to say things like "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" but today they behave as if censorship and suppression of speech they find offensive is a more important value and way to go which to me makes no sense since the stuff just goes underground anyway where it just bubbles and percolates, simmers so may as well address it seems to me. For my own taste I always found Beck entertaining and informative but somewhat confusing, his thread. One day he's practically saying we're on the verge of uncovering some monstrous conspiracy with Obama at the apex, plans have been drawn up to put political dissidents in concentration camps and a couple days later he's putting down those parents who are suspicious of the government vaccinating their children against Swine Flu. I have to agree with soapie though, he only goes so far. It's like a half-finished dramatic movie with no resolution or overarching theme and he doesn't connect the dots the way Alex Jones does. For me I'm seeing more and more of Life as a vast control issue, people who want to control others but that's just me. He doesn't seem to put Things in an ultimate framework the way Jones does, what I call the Matrix of Politics. The real offense is not that he's offensive but he's afraid of saying certain things, leads you on and then pulls back. I'd say Alex Jones gives certain matters more weight than Glenn Beck let's put it that way and take any thread at random from my own blog and there are interconnecting themes and that's by design, it's the way to go and you have to tie it all together in the end instead of meandering sputterings but free speech? sure the guy should still be on the air:)

The overweening government of Yonkers and its ticket blitz

There have been severe budget cuts in Yonkers of late, that's nothing new but seems the city under the mayorship of Republican and self-described pro-life conservative Phil Amicone have hit upon a solution. Wasn't gonna do another blog about this so soon since I got my very first traffic camera ticket issued on March the 4th for allegedly not coming to a complete stop going northbound on Nepperhan Ave. in order to make a right onto Odell but I got another nice thing in the mail just yesterday for allegedly doing the exact same thing on March the 16th. The letterhead reads like it did before: City of Yonkers Red Light Traffic Safety Program PO Box 22091 Tempe AZ 85285-2091. That's some intercity racket these cities and municipalities have going on and then there's the website where you can view actual video footage of your moving violation at http://www.ViolationInfo.com/ and they even give you your very own PIN # for this. That's an invasion of Privacy right there, Big Brother would be proud. Fine again is 50 bucks with no points attached to your license and I'm leading up to a very larger point at the end which the soapster should be able to appreciate (he must be rubbing off on me). There really should be an audit from a totally outside independent agency of these things (actually they really shouldn't exist these red light cam programs in the first place as they are unconstitutional but be that as it may) and then we can find out Things like who's involved? who's collecting the money? who knows who? can they target people they don't like? etc. etc. Yonkers is legendary for its corruption, there have been problems in its police and fire departments down through the years and you'd think they'd want to change the image of the City of Gracious Living so why not investigate everything to make sure everything is on the up-and-up? The older reader may remember the Parking Violations Bureau scandal down in New York City during the Koch Administration and for any PVB to be collecting such vast sums of money the need for massive oversight should be obvious. The red light cams at Nepperhan and Odell might also prove bad for business down the road. There's a popular and major shopping area here anchored by an A&P and Walgreen's and I would think the merchants would want to fight this as I'm sure many consumers in the area have already had their tickets doled out in the mail and are thinking of taking their business elsewhere. Now the Overriding Theme where the personal becomes political: I am no longer voting for someone who calls himself a conservative Republican, throw in pro-life too if you want if that person like Mayor Amicone does not really believe in the tenets of limited government and acts that way. Yonkers' Red Light Traffic Safety Program is happening under his watch, he has to have knowledge of it and this is no way to close budget gaps. It's not the Tea Party way and he can find work elsewhere after his mayoralty is over. Last I checked it's the consent of the governed:)

Obama and the birthers

I think he's just messin' with 'em. He probably has his birth certificate in his back pocket but if they wanna think I'm a spearchucker from Kenya so be it. Trump is kinda reviving the whole birther thing with his quasi-bid for president. He was rapping with Meredith Vieira this morning, always entertaining. The other thing is Obama honoring Sharpton and his National Action Network in Harlem the other day does not and will not appeal to the White Voter next time around, just seeing Sharpton's face in the paper gets my Dad upset. That YouTube video of that kid screaming he wants to be governor of New Jersey, NOT funny. Annoying, irritating in a white suburban kind of way and please don't give it the time of day. There's a 300+ pound black NYC Councilman who wants to ban toys from McDonald's Happy Meals. You see here's the thing, people who pass too many laws don't think they're passing too many laws and that's the root of the problem. I was doing some research on feral cats the other day and came across "Glendale CA woman evicted from apartment for feeding feral cats". Dunno why but animals seem to be a polarizing topic for alot of folks, people seem to either love 'em or hate 'em. Andrea Peyser of the New York Post, she's a great writer otherwise and don't know why but she's firmly in the latter category. So we gotta cover everything in the Law these days, stray cats, Happy Meals, pissing in the woods ("no human excreta may be deposited within 500 feet of any marsh, spring or watercourse...," see I still remember my fishing license handbook after all these years). I think what Trump is saying is we got a feral president, probably eats caterpillars and digs ball bugs from the barks of trees when he's not putting plates in his mouth:)

The Ivory Coasters

Why not throw a dart at a board and help the Ivorians? Almost one million people in the Ivory Coast in southern Africa are now refugees and are fleeing in droves especially from the main city of Abidjan. There has been a four month power struggle going on between the incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo and his opposition rival Alassane Ouattara due to the disputed election of last November but Ouattara is internationally recognized as having won. Gbagbo has refused to go saying the election was rigged and the U.N. has accused pro-Gbagbo forces of shelling pro-Ouattara areas. Things are on the verge of an all-out civil war and many health centers no longer operate because staff have left and they lack basic drugs and medical supplies. There's a 12,000 strong U.N. peacekeeping force with calls to strengthen that and here's what French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to say: "At a minimum there should be no heavy weapons in Abidjan. We're talking about helicopters, mortars that could shoot on the population. It should be declared illegal by the international community." France has already drafted a U.N. resolution dealing with this. The way I see it to be constantly intervening and never intervening are two extremes, false options as Obama rightly noted in his address to the nation the other night regarding Libya. We've never been overly interested in the African continent imo, it's all the Middle East 24/7 and that consumes the better part of each succeeding president's foreign policy efforts. Africa's a tragic continent always relegated to the Third World, so much potential and yet so many dictators and bad apples throughout its history. As a sidenote I used to work with a young woman from Malawi, brought back pouches of Malawi gin one day. Not bad:)

If it's a covert operation why are we talking about it?

Caught Chuck Todd this morning on Today in between making the coffee and feeding the cat and generally getting ready for work. Word on the street, CIA operatives on the ground in Libya getting a feel for the rebels with the whole aim of arming them the better to overthrow the Mad Dog. Congress would have fairly tight control with the funding and the whole thing affords the White House legal deniability. Now I can just picture Khadafy eating his palm dates in the morning with a cup of goat milk, a little couscous or tabbouleh on the side going over the early edition of the Ole Gray Lady. What's this a map with who doing what? how many U.S. G-men? they're talkin' smack with who? what kind of weapons, state of the art? turns on the Today show and gets filled in on the rest from Mr. Todd of what Obama's gonna do -- who what where when and how. Again why are we talking about it? why am I even blogging about it? They say the Italian media don't say shit, they talk about the Jersey Shore. Maybe there's a value in pop ephemera after all. Somebody please hit the Sheen Button!!!:)

The arc of the commentary regarding Obama and Libya

Early on when the uprising in Libya began and the rebels took some cities but then Khadafy's forces were closing in the criticism then was Obama wasn't doing enough, dithering, taking too long to decide to try to stop a massacre. Hillary was seen as the real powerbroker behind the scenes who eventually persuaded the boss to do something. She was seen as being stronger than him, probably would've been a better president and I remember a New York Post editorial or two saying c'mon Obama let's get with an official Libyan policy already or was that just my imagination? Now their editorials tend to be more critical and questioning of the Libyan situation or is that just my imagination too? So that was the arc of the commentary early on (c'mon, admit it) and now that he has an official Libyan policy and is acting on it the arc of the commentary has now changed to why Libya? what is our national interest there? do we intervene militarily everywhere where dictators oppress their people? and related questions and subissues. I'm sorry but where I come from that's known as a mindfuck. In this case criticizing him early on for not doing something and not having a coherent Libyan policy in place but then the same people criticizing him when he finally does take action with some kind of Obama Doctrine taking shape. I take it these same people would say Bill Clinton did the right thing in not doing more in preventing the Rwandan genocide. There's something in that ancient classic The Art of War by Sun Tzu about the virtue of changing positions, you see it in the workplace alot. Apparently the Rwandan non-intervention is the model to follow since the whole thing hinges on our national interest anyway. So one day Obama is criticized for not putting the U.S. front and center in a leadership role in dealing with Khadafy and practically two days later criticized for putting the U.S. there at all. One can make the case that Obama initially launched those missiles due heavily in part to the earlier criticism of his apparent indifference to the crisis and is now explaining himself in front of the nation and not too well either I might add due in large part to the criticism that came later but that's what the mindfuck does, gets you to act in mutually contradictory ways due to the influence of the critics who change their views on an almost daily basis as events unfold and you're left to fend for yourself and your critics write another column or publish another blog. I try to aim for consistency here and can't fault the president for his humanitarian instincts, a humanitarianism that is apparently irrelevant if it isn't tied in with our national security interests:)

At the risk of being upstaged by world events

In terms of blogging material I had nothing today (Libya/Tsunami, been there done that) so I went home before and opened up my mailbag, a daily ritual I hate btw ("URGENT - Open at Once", well can I take a dump first? cat might be hungry) and got one of those Gotcha! pictures in full color and couple of different angles too detailing exactly where I made an illegal right hand turn by not making a complete stop during the red phase of some traffic light even though otherwise you could make a Right on Red there at the intersection of Odell and Nepperhan Ave. The return address on the stub said City of Yonkers Red Light Traffic Safety Program PO Box 742503 Cincinnati OH 45274-2503 (didn't know the city of Cincinnati and the big YO had a connection, hmmm) and the amount of the infraction was 50 bucks. Now I said quite recently that I probably never would blog about a traffic ticket, not the merits of one anyway as you'll always get the dutiful right-winger from the Law Enforcement wing of the party and overall Good Citizen who points out "but Z you deserved that ticket, could've hit some 14-year old Catholic schoolgirl coming home from school" (visions of the bookbag flying) but there was something in the letter...they gave me my own PIN # and a web address where I can view a VIDEO of my moving violation online. Must everything be online these days??? Yeah I know only I can access it but it's weird and creepy in a vague way. Well if my vid can be online so can my commentary. Now I was always in my bones against these traffic light cams as being somehow a violation of Something although I never felt the spirit move me to blog about it (there are always more important things you know) and always felt these tiny encroachments on our liberty and/or privacy would someday amount to some big cumulative nightmare on the spirit of our freedom but the prob here is if you complain let's say that in a couple years you won't be able to get an incandescent light bulb because our friend Bush signed a law doing away with them in favor of the compact fluorescent you risk sounding like Charlie Sheen in a militia uniform so at the risk of sounding hyperdramatical at what point in time can we say (and apply your own special pet peeve here) this and no more? makes me trepidatious. Can we conversate?:)