I am not ethnocentric or xenophobic, and I'm certainly not a racist. Having lived abroad for almost half of my adulthood I have known a lot of people from other cultures and countries. If I were to list the top 20 people I have known over the years who I like and trust the most, more than half would hold citizenship from another country, and many would have have darker colored skin.
If you look at the people who have been responsible for most of the bombings over the last 25 years, either of airliners or as suicide bombers, you see certain things. What I am about to say is not racism or intolerance; it is simply realism. Facing up to the truth.
----- Most of them were religious fanatics of one denomination or another.
----- Very few of these people are over 45 years old. Most are 30 or younger.
----- Most have dark colored skin.
----- A significant number are named Abdul or Mohamed.
Some may call this a form of racism called racial profiling. I simply call it the profiling of murderers. It is unproductive and rude, and a horrific waste of time and money, to force a courteous, 60 year old white haired grandparent to remove his/her shoes and undergo rigorous procedures like being patted down. This is what happened to me just a few weeks ago on a domestic flight when I few from El Paso, Texas in America to Amarillo, Texas. This farce pretends that nothing is known about terrorism, and that elderly Americans are as much at risk of committing an act of terrorism as a young, fanatically religious Muslim is.
The rules are currently being modified so that no one can get out of their seat during the last hour of a flight. What about all those older folks who have to pee frequently? An hour is a long time for me and many others.
The 20 something Nigerian who tried to blow up the airliner a couple of days ago not only fit the profile I have identified, he was so weird and screwed up that his own father had recently warned the American authorities about him. These incompetent American “security” jerks didn't think that the opinion of his own father was adequate cause to put his name on the database list where the security folks at the Amsterdam airport would have been warned about this young man which might have caused them to look a little closer at him.
One time I flew out of Lod airport in Israel. The security people in Israel weren't out of work minimum wage people who had been given a bit of training. They were soldiers from the Israeli military. They carried at the ready loaded sub-machine guns. Every single passenger, fully 100%, was given a thorough pat down. Then all of their luggage, both hand bags and checked bags, were completely unpacked and inspected – right there in public by the security people with you standing there watching and answering any questions they had. These people even removed the batteries from my Sony Walkman. They were professional. They were not abusive, but they were were absolutely no-nonsense. You didn't joke around with these folks. When soldiers are standing there with loaded weapons drawn, and they are not smiling, you take the whole event a little more seriously.
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I spent almost half of my adulthood living abroad. During these years I got to know many people from other cultures and countries: Holland, Germany, France, Belgium, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Kurdish Iraq, Senegal, Finland, and many others.
There were a few bad apples, but in the vast majority of cases these people were all hard working, decent, and honest. One exception was the people from Sweden. For some reason this culture is well known by their fellow Scandinavians as being arrogant. I most certainly agree.
I got to know many Swedes, and almost without exception they were revoltingly dishonest and arrogant.
I see in the news today that one of the nazi groups in Sweden funded the theft of the 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign from the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. There is some logic to this. -
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I have watched several of the Swedes I know swell up with national pride and arrogance when they explain that Sweden remained neutral during WWII. In other words the Swedes did not have the balls or the strength of character to oppose Hitler and his sadists. Many years later the new generation which wasn't even alive during WWII is still proud of this refusal by Sweden to oppose nazism. These people are seriously demented.
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After a year in office the American people have a much better idea of who the man who is currently serving as President really is. It is clear that us liberals and progressives did not get the candidate we thought we were electing. Not at all.
Obama now claims that he did not campaign on the “public option.” He actually campaigned on the “single payer” system, which is even better than the PO. Saying that he did not campaign for the PO is actually downright dishonest and deceptive.
He kept on the top Bush people on the economy and warfare. He presided over the largest bail out of (give away to) the super rich in history. He speaks nice words, but his actions as commander in chief are those of a right-wing warmonger. He has not ended the wars, and he has not closed down all the secret jails. He did not stand up to the drug companies, the health insurance companies, the military, or the right wing. He has not achieved any meaningful reform of Wall Street and financial re-regulation.
It is now clear that Obama is a spineless coward who is perfectly happy to compromise his values and beliefs. He is a chicken; afraid of getting his hands dirty or any fight.
By the George Bush standard of intelligence and sounding articulate when reading from a teleprompter Barack Obama scores very well.
By the GB standards of candidness and honesty to the American people he scores just a little bit better than Bush.
Certainly the ambulance chaser, cheating lawyer from North Carolina would not have been better. Nor John Kerry, or the Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson.
Does the American form of democracy weed out all the honest men long before they ever work their way up to important positions of power? The pervasive corruption of campaign finance appears to be well on its way to destroying democracy in America.
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I recently was invited to a surprise birthday party for one of my relatives. Surprise is the operative word here.
A Surprise Party has a lot in common with Punking someone. Maybe the person is tired, or in a bad mood, or has been out all day hiking and smells horrible. Rather than being able to properly prepare himself emotionally and otherwise for a party in his honor, it is just thrust upon him like an unexpected slap in the face. This is inconsiderate, bad mannered, and rude behavior.
Surprise parties share certain similarities with negative or put down humor.
I didn't say any of this to the host; I simply declined to participate. I didn't wish to be a participant in this sort of thing. My lack of attendance seems to have caused a wee bit of resentment.
Do I look like I'm overly concerned?
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I'm not interested in reading the news from the perspective of the Klan or the neo nazis. Nor am I interested in the opinion of fools who belong to the Hummer Owner's Association. These and many other groupings of racists, right wingers, or just plain old clueless people do not have anything worthwhile to teach me. At the very minimum they are a waste of my time. So I do not click on news which is published by them.
I now put Fox News in this same category. I do not like their world view, and I find their reporting to be biased. So I do not click on news which is published by them.
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I am heavily inclined towards a humanitarian approach to immigration and naturalization.
Immigration is good for America, assuming that the immigrants are the best educated and most highly motivated members of their society. Allowing uneducated fruit pickers to become American citizens simply because they haven't committed any serious crimes recently is not necessarily as good for America. But we still should try to treat these foreigners decently.
Whoever they are, whatever social class they come from, a demonstrated proficiency in speaking and reading/writing in the English language must be an absolute requirement to gaining permanent resident status or American citizenship. A country cannot continue to function properly unless all the members of the society can communicate well with each other.
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Robert Gaston Fuller grew up in El Paso, Texas. He is probably most famous for his song I Fought The Law and The Law Won.
There was a teen club on Pershing St. in El Paso where I got to see him and his band play in the early 1960s.
In 1964 he and his band The Bobbie Fuller Four moved to southern California. Two years later he was found dead. He was 23 years old at the time of his death (he was six years older than me). The death was considered very suspicious since he had been badly beaten. Many people still think he was murdered.
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LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fuller
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The results were extremely poor, much like I was afraid. The developing countries actually thought this conference was about an enormous transfer of wealth from the developed countries to the largely corrupt/poor countries. But it really was about making substantial and difficult changes worldwide to greatly reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
America, the world's second largest polluter, agreed to lower its total emissions, just a bit. China, the largest polluter in the world, agreed to lower the rate of growth of it's emissions. In other words the air pollution coming out of China will continue to grow, just not quite as rapidly as it would have. But the Chinese wouldn't even consider any form of verification, so its all just words. Blah, blah, blah.
America can't even protect New Orleans or rebuild it after the big flood. Is it going to help by giving billions of dollars of cash to corrupt, poor countries supposedly to build sea walls, etc? All it will do is enrich the corrupt political leaders in these developing countries.
Don't just talk about humanity doing things to reduce global warming. Put your money where your mouth is. I drive a Prius, and my house has a white roof and triple pane windows.
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So was anything accomplished at COP15? At least we are well beyond the ignorant George Bush's denial of global warming. This is very welcomed.
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I get tired of hearing ignorant right wingers tell us how wonderful all our troops are. I am a veteran with an honorable discharge and a couple of medals.
When you agree to join a military to fight and kill, and you do so primarily because of the money offered to you, this fits the definition of a mercenary. OK, these people have few skills and virtually no opportunity for financial success in America. That doesn't affect anything. Most did not join the military out of a sense of patriotism, rather it was from financial desperation.
Most of the people who over the years have joined the French Foreign Legion were misfits, escaped criminals, psychopaths, alcoholics and drug addicts, or other people who did not have opportunities in normal civilized society. So they became mercenaries.
It is time to begin telling the service people of the United States of America that they are expected to behave in a civilized fashion and live by the rules laid out in the U.S. Constitution.
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While campaigning for his current job he said he was in favor of a single payer health care system with universal access. He is so morally weak (read such a coward) and so afraid of a fight that he has almost completely caved in to the arguments of the drug companies, the massive health insurance corporations, the right wing fanatics, and the Republicans.
The senate bill does not assure universal access and it does not implement a single payer system or a vigorous public option.
Obama has not ended the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or closed all the secret jails. In fact he has become a complete tool of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about.
He totally missed the opportunity to reform Wall Street. He sold out to them too.
President Obama is almost as bad as George Bush...a total sell out. This is not hyperbole. Honest. Obama is not at all what he seemed to be, any more than Tiger Woods is. What a terrible shame.
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At the moment I have three computers. All are PCs. One of them has the Microsoft XP operating system, the one I am typing this on runs on Vista, and my newest machine runs under Windows 7.
My first perception is that Windows 7 is only Vista in slightly different clothing. There is one major problem with Win 7 however. Two of my most favorite programs run fine under XP and Vista but not under Win 7. One is a Nikon program which manipulates pictures and the other is a very nice World Atlas sold under the Microsoft brand.
The machine running under XP boots up faster than either the Vista or Seven machines. At this point my favorite operating system remains Windows XP.
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Tiger Woods has single handedly done more to harm the cause of black people (at least black men) than the most ignorant, fervent, racist, and morbidly obese drug addicted radio talk show host in existence. Tiger should be made a life member of the Klan because he sure has helped their cause. Tiger has reinforced the stereotypes of black men being obsessed with sex - especially when it comes to black guys screwing good looking white chicks.
Tiger’s wife apparently rightfully has decided that this alley cat behavior of his will not ever change, so she is planning to divorce him. She is no gold digger, she is just a lady who has been treated incredibly poorly by her arrogant philandering husband.
Tiger is wealthy and has many options open to him. The one where he is ever perceived by the public again as Mr. Clean, or a good guy, or an honest and ethical man is not one of the options.
He could become completely celibate and devote the rest of his life to some worthwhile cause like dealing with poverty. Sort of an ex-whore Mother Teresa type of life. Or he can continue with his downward spiral and his constant sluttish behavior. Or he could just go ahead and commit suicide.
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The health care reform legislation has been so emasculated and perverted in the Senate that it is now a health insurance company's dream. This in no way resembles Universal Health Care. Without a public option or at least a social security buy in this legislation really is worse than the crappy health care system that America already has.
This is not some kind of game or negotiating strategy. This legislation should be defeated. Really.
I worked in his primary and general election campaigns. I am an Obama supporter. But I can only conclude that if President Obama was half as honest and sincere as he pretends to be, he would be absolutely outraged. And unless it is substantially improved in conference committee he would be forced to veto this legislation.
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I have visited Copenhagen several times. It is a delightful city. A friend who is living in Europe sent me a picture this morning:
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I was just watching an old episode of Star Trek Generations. Captain Jean Luc Picard is describing his brother and says, “So pompous and arrogant. Always had to have the last word. He mellowed a little bit in the last few years.”
Remind you of anyone you know?
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I received a nice email from an old friend today. This note came from a guy who for years was frequently in and out of rehab for alcohol and/or drug abuse. As far as I know this guy has never done anything that didn't either earn him outrageous profits or at least a one night stand with some other guy's wife. Even so he is a close friend and I like him lots.
In the twenty years I knew him well he scoffed at tree huggers, liberals, and other similar do-gooders. I usually felt that these categories were intended to include myself. Either he is trying to appeal to chicks who like sensitive, politically aware guys; or he is getting old and is beginning to lose it a little.
His quote comes from Albert Schweitzer:
Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.
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Most of the action in this book takes place in Rome, Italy and in the Vatican. Perhaps the reason this all felt so comfortable is because I have spent some time in Rome and also at the Vatican. The Vatican museums are among the world's very best, and visiting the Sistine chapel is certainly among the top experiences one can have.
The news media this afternoon is saying that Tiger Woods has decided to take an indefinite leave from golf to try and save his marriage.
Tiger is a confused young man. The problem is not his pursuing a career, the problem is that he has been behaving like a French Whore. He doesn't need to quit playing golf, he needs to quit sleeping around.
The problem is one of arrogance. Tiger knew he could have anything or anyone he wanted. He did not have an adequate moral compass to guide him in this situation. His behavior was like an alley cat.
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The DVDs Terminator Salvation and Angels and Demons arrived yesterday. This afternoon I’ve been watching Angels and Demons. I got an email from Amazon that the latest Harry Potter movie has been released on DVD and has been shipped, so it will arrive any day now.
The most recent time I went to a movie in a theater I was in Dublin. Before that I was in London. It has now been almost three years since I have moved back to America, and I haven’t stepped inside of a movie theater once.
I have a difficult time seeing why anyone would want to pay an outrageous ticket price to go into a theater to watch a movie. Movie theaters are where the person behind you lightly kicks the back of your chair throughout the movie, babies cry, people cough and sniffle all around you, and rude jerks talk and text on their cell phones. It looks like a pretty good imitation of masochism to me.
Of course I guess for many people this is the only option. But if you have a nice large screen TV with a Dolby 5.1 DVD, watching the movie in the comfort of your own home is a vastly superior experience. Plus if you need to pee you just press the pause button. If you want subtitles you press another button.
Yes, sometimes you have to wait several months before the DVD comes out…that is OK. It is well worth the wait.
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Goodness, that is one pessimistic title for a blog article. But I am convinced that is exactly what we are now witnessing.
Just drive a little way on the motorway-autoway-autobahn-expressway-freeway in almost any western country and you will be shocked at the pervasive rudeness of most drivers. Discourtesy and insolence have now become the norm in most of America, and the same is true in much of the wanna-be world.
This is not just the story of the decline and fall of the USA. A majority of the people around the world aspire to what America already has. Most seem to be perfectly happy to sacrifice their ethics and deeply held cultural values in their pursuit of wealth and materialistic goods.
This selfish and narcissistic behavior is the norm one-on-one, and it is the standard behavior for national governments as well. The chances that enough of the rich and poor countries will get together and make the incredibly difficult sacrifices which are going to be required to retard and reverse global warming are very close to zero.
There is increasing anti-intellectual behavior. The religious fundamentalists and suicide bombers are slowly gaining the upper hand.
Yes, I don’t think there is really much question about it. We are now watching the early stages of the decline of western civilization.
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st amount of this pollution - but there are a lot of Chinese people. America, Australia, Canada, and Saudi Arabia lead the pack as the most wasteful countries on earth, i.e. the highest per capita consumption.President Obama is in Oslo, Norway receiving the Nobel peace prize. In his acceptance speech he spoke about justified wars, i.e. Afghanistan/Pakistan.
I like Barack. He is a thousand percent better than that cretin George Bush. But Obama is turning out to be a master of disguises.
In his latest support of the Bush foreign policy in Afghanistan he increased the American troop level to 100,000 people. He understood that this would be seen as the act of a war monger, so he stressed that the drawdown of troops would begin in just 18 months. Now less than one month later there is virtual denial of any exit strategy or some kind of commitment to bringing the troops home and genuinely ending the war. There is almost universal talk of the war going on another eight years. Said nicely Obama’s speech about bringing the troops home was only spin. Said more honestly, this was insulting dishonesty on the part of Obama.
In the arena of foreign policy it is hard to see any great difference between the policies of the Bush administration and the Obama administration. The same thing can be said about economics. In many ways the Obama administration is continuing the same pro-business, anti-worker, deregulatory, and pro-Wall Street philosophy that the Republicans pursued. He has rooted out virtually all of the liberal economists and now the president only listens to right wing advisers.
On issues like poverty, taxation of the wealthy, energy conservation, and universal health care Barack’s behavior towards liberal issues has been lukewarm at best. He has shown very little strength of character, genuine enthusiasm or passion.
Barack Obama is eloquent. He is a master speaker. But it is becoming clear that he is also a deeply dishonest man. As a senator and during the presidential campaign he pretended to be a liberal. It is now becoming clear that his actual policies (rather than his words) are just one little baby step away from what the Republicans believe in.
Actions speak much louder than words Mr. Obama. You have turned out to be a true disappointment Barack.
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In today's news there are reports that the right-wingers have exempted car dealers from the new consumer protection legislation, and that once again they are pulling out all the stops in their latest effort to kill the public option in health care.
These sick, ignorant right-wing bastards ought to be sent back to Afghanistan to live with their buddies the Taliban.
The political system in America is slowly grinding to a halt thanks to the ever present corruption. Democracy where only the super wealthy have a meaningful voice in the legislative process is not democracy. Remember the phrase “By the people, for the people?” Unless true campaign finance reform is achieved, the USA is certainly doomed.
And I am not the slightest bit optimistic about this subject.
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There is a long tradition in America of throwing pies and ripe tomatoes at politicians. Now tomatoes have been thrown at the cretin of Alaska, their loser former governor and ex-beauty queen.
I wonder if it is against the law to advocate tomato throwing? Just in case, I certainly am not advocating it. Even against these sicko right wing lunatics.
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I happened upon an interesting website today entitled Celebrity Crashes. Here are a few of the people listed: http://www.check-six.com/lib/Famous_Missing/Celebrity_Plane_Crashes.htm
October 25, 2002: U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (58) of the Democratic party, along with his wife Sheila, (58), daughter Marcia and five others in a snowy northern Minnesota plane crash that injected uncertainty into congressional elections only 11 days away. They had been on their way to a funeral for the father of a state lawmaker from the town of Virginia at the time of the accident, and had been scheduled to continue on for a debate in Duluth later in the day.
The NTSB concluded the likely cause of the crash was, "the flight crew's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which they did not recover."
October 16, 2000: Missouri governor and Senate candidate Mel Carnahan (66) was killed along with his son Roger (44) and the governor's campaign adviser Chris Sifford when the Cessna 335 they were in crashed. The three had been en route to a rally for Carnahan's U.S. Senate campaign when the plane went down about 25 miles south of St. Louis in a hilly, wooded area.
The NTSB concluded the likely cause of the crash was, "the pilot's failure to control the airplane while maneuvering because of spatial disorientation. Contributing to the accident were the failure of the airplane's primary attitude indicator and the adverse weather conditions, including turbulence."
16, 1999: John F. Kennedy Jr. (38), his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (35), and her elder sister Lauren Bessette (37) were killed when their Piper Saratoga II HP crashed into the ocean off Martha's Vineyard. Their crash may have been caused by John's inexperience in flying with only instruments in a twilight haze over the ocean. They had been on their way to a family wedding.
October 12, 1997: Singer John Denver (53) died when his experimental single-engine Rutan Long EZ plane crashed near Monterey, California. At first, rescuers could not identify the body because the face was damaged beyond recognition, but authorities were later able to identify Denver by his fingerprints. Denver was famous for writing and performing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Country Roads,” and other songs.
The crash occurred when Denver inadvertently pressed down on the plane's right rudder pedal while trying to switch fuel tanks by reaching for the fuel selector switch behind him. The plane had been modified to place the fuel selector switch behind the pilot rather than between his legs.
March 16, 1991: Seven band members of singer Reba McEntire, and her manager died in the crash of their Hawker Siddeley DH.125-1A/522 near San Diego, Calif. A rushed flight schedule, combined with improper flight planning resulting in a controlled impact into mountainous terrain, killing all ten aboard. This mishap was the imprimis for her following album, For My Broken Heart.
Members of the band aboard the plane were: Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Terry Jackson, Michael Thomas, and Tony Saputo.
December 31, 1985: Rock & roll singer Rick Nelson (45), five members of his Stone Canyon band, and his fiancée were killed when a fire broke out on board a DC-3 taking them to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas, Texas. Two people survived the crash landing near DeKalb, Texas. The fire was caused by a malfunctioning heater.
Nelson was first known as the son of Ozzie and Harriet in their TV show of the late 1950s. He later became famous as the singer of such hits as “Travelin' Man” and “Garden Party.”
August 2, 1979: Baseball player Thurman Munson (32) died when his twin-engine Cessna Citation jet fell 1000 feet short of the runway while practicing touch-and-go landings at the Akron-Canton airfield and tragically burst into flames. Two others were injured. Munson, the catcher for the New York Yankees, was a seven-time All-Star, the 1976 MVP, and the 1970 rookie of the year
June 28, 1979: Philippe Cousteau (35), son of Jacques Cousteau, was killed when his Catalina PBY-6A airplane crashed as he was landing. His plane had just been repaired when he took it out for a flight. As he landed, one of the plane's propellers sheared off, cut through the cockpit, and killed Cousteau.
October 20, 1977: The Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. Killed lead singer and song writer Ronnie VanZant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick. Also killed were pilot Walter McCreary and co-pilot William Gray.
According to the NTSB report, the pilots miscalculated the amount of fuel provided in Lakeland, Florida on October 18, 1977. When they refueled in Greenville, South Carolina on the 20th, they compounded this error by believing they had more fuel than they really did. The airplane was also experiencing some mechanical difficulties which required the pilots to operate the right engine in the "auto-rich" position which burned fuel at an excessive rate. The combination of these problems resulted in nearly complete fuel exhaustion.
September 20, 1973: Rock singer Jim Croce (30), members of his company (accompanist Maurice Muehleisen, manager Dennis Rast, and comedian George Stevens), and the pilot died when their chartered Beechcraft E18S crashed while taking off from the Natchitoches, Louisiana airport. The plane hit a tree when it failed to gain enough altitude on takeoff. Croce was famous for his rock hit, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”
December 31, 1972: Baseball great Roberto Clemente (38) and three others were killed when their overloaded Douglas DC-7CF plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off San Juan, Puerto Rico, on its way to providing relief supplies to the victims of a Nicaraguan earthquake.
October 16, 1972: Hale Boggs, the House Majority Leader, along with Alaska congressman Nick Begich, and two others disappeared in their Cessna 310 flying through the Chugach Mountain range in southeast Alaska.
August 31, 1969: Rocky Marciano (45), the former heavyweight champion boxer, and two others died in the crash of a Cessna 172H airplane near Newton, Iowa. It had been a dark and stormy night. He was one day short of celebrating his 46th birthday.
December 10, 1967: Rock 'n roll singer Otis Redding (26) and four members of his Bar-Kays band were killed when their Beechcraft H18 plane crashed in icy Lake Monoma near Madison, Wisconsin, on a foggy night. Redding is best known for his hit, “Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay,” which was released after his death. Redding had recorded the song just three days earlier.
March 5, 1963: Patsy Cline (30), Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Cline's manager were killed when their Piper PA-24 Comanche plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee, in adverse weather conditions. Cline was famous for her country hit, “Crazy.” Copas and Hawkins were Grand Ole Opry stars.
February 3, 1959: The Day The Music Died. Rock Hall of Famers Buddy Holly (22), the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) (29), and Ritchie Valens (18) as well as the pilot Roger Peterson died when their Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashed just outside Clear Lake, Iowa, during a stormy winter night. Holly was famous for many hits including “Peggy Sue.” The Big Bopper had one big hit, “Chantilly Lace,” and Valens was best known for his hit, “La Bamba.”
July 2, 1937: Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared aboard her Lockheed 10E "Electra" on one of the final legs of her 'around-the-world' flight. While flying to Howland Island in the south Pacific, the aircraft became lost, and believed to be lost at sea, despite the largest search in naval history.
August 15, 1935: On a flight to the Orient, humorist Will Rogers (56) and aviator Wiley Post (37) died when their Lockheed Orion-Explorer plane crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska, after taking off in bad weather.
Also of note: At least 18 U.S. senators and members of Congress have died in plane crashes. Among them were Senator John Heinz, R-Pa., and former Senator John Tower, R-Texas, who died in unrelated plane accidents within a day of each other in April 1991.
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What a shame. We get our first Black president. He is the U.S. Senator with the very most liberal voting record of any of them.
Almost immediately President Obama starts following Bush policies in both economics and foreign policy. On many important social issues he is completely passive. Liberals are almost totally excluded from his inner group of advisors. What part of landslide does Barack not get?
Now it is revealed that Tiger Woods has had extramarital affairs with at least six different women. Mr. Clean.
Oh no. It seemed like things were really improving for a little while…
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A dislike of foreigners and racial intolerance is quite common among us humans. The Germans don’t like the Turks, the Dutch don’t like the Germans, the Americans don’t like the Mexicans, Mexicans with light skin don't like Mexicans with dark skin, and ignorant people with white skin in Georgia and Mississippi don’t like the people who have darker colored skin even if they have a vastly superior education compared to the white red necks.
A well rounded liberal education and plenty of foreign travel helps dispel this hatred of foreigners and these ignorant stereotypes. Living and working abroad is even better.
If I think about the thousands of people I have know over the years, the top ten list of decent, honest people includes very few white skinned Americans. Most of the people who I really liked and trusted were foreigners or people with darker skin. I’m thinking about many of these people now, but there is no real value to naming names.
When the postman or the UPS guys comes to the front door, most domestic dogs will start barking vigorously, and some will go totally ballistic with a desire to injure and kill. My little black furry friend wags his tail when the door bell rings because he understands that almost always when someone comes to our front door they mean us well and are bearing gifts. And many times he gets to run out front without a leash on and make friends with them. One time he even jumped right up into the UPS guy’s truck.
If a person of mixed race brutally killed a white girl in Louisiana or Mississippi the trial would proceed fairly rapidly, and the “darkie” would probably be found guilty and eventually put to death. This happens in America pretty often even when there are no witnesses and fairly marginal forensic evidence.
When a white American girl and her Italian boyfriend brutally kill a foreigner of mixed race while living in Italy, the trial takes nine months. Some things are admissible as evidence which would not be in the American courts. At the end of the process the American girl who is found guilty automatically gets an appeal under the Italian system of jurisprudence. There is no death penalty in Italy. The Italian courts are overseen by the European court of human rights.
Getting up on one's high horse over this issue is a clear cut case of misdirected moral outrage. One only has a limited quantity of moral outage, and it should be used wisely.
Of my sixty years total (call it 40 years as an adult), almost twenty years (call it half) were spent living abroad. First in Germany and then in the Netherlands. I have travelled widely to other countries. My experience is that there are many different ways to skin a cat. Things work somewhat differently in foreign countries, but often achieve the same result - or sometimes even better results. A great many things actually are far better abroad. The police are better educated and trained in Holland than in the USA. No one goes bankrupt or loses their house because they come down with cancer. In France one’s education is paid for by the government. All the way through a university education.
The “American Way” is that young people are forced deeply into debt if they choose to go to college, and the “American Way” is that you soon lose your job if you get really sick. Without a job one’s marriage frequently fails. You soon lose your health insurance and access to modern medical care, and before you die you are forced into bankruptcy and may even lose your house. If one feels like being morally outraged then one should think about the million dollar bonsuses paid to the Wall Street traders at the companies which were bailed out by the tax payers; or maybe the murders and extortion taking place in Juarez, Mexico.
Save your moral outrage for those times and issues where it may actually do some good.
I am amazed at how much intolerance and ignorance this conviction in Italy is bringing out in my fellow Americans. We usually hide our hatred of foreigners better than this. This redirection of moral outrage is being used by the right wing to take peoples' eyes off the ball. There are really imortant issues happening right now like health care reform, financial regulatory reform, and unpaid-for-wars which are leading the country towards bankruptcy. It is sad to see people wasting their moral outrage on this issue.
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Space. The final frontier. To boldly go where no man has gone before. This movie is about the young James Tiberius Kirk; from his childhood to being the commander of the starship Enterprise.
(NOTE: Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero, was the second Roman emperor. He was one of Rome’s greatest generals. His reign as emperor was from September 18, 14 AD - March 16, 37 AD.)
Although I don’t own a Star Trek uniform or any other Trekkie memorabilia I suppose it would be accurate to describe me as one. I have been a fan of Star Trek going back to the late 1960s. The guy who originated it, Gene Roddenberry, was born in my home town of El Paso, Texas. He grew up in Los Angeles though, so I guess the El Paso connection is pretty weak.
I especially liked Jean Luc Picard. Make it so! I still drink Earl Grey tea because of him.
This latest iteration is advertised as, “Not the Star Trek of your parents.” It would probably be more accurate to change this to grandparents. I just finished watching the movie on DVD. It really was quite good. Not perfect, and not quite up to the standards established by Patrick Stewart in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis or the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
But still really enjoyable to watch and well worth your time.
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President Barack Obama has now officially become a war monger. After sending in these new troops America will have as many soldiers in Afghanistan as Russia did at it’s peak.
He says that he will probably maybe START bringing these troops home 18 months in the future. But he also said that he would close all secret jails (he has not), and that he would close down Guantanamo. I see this as very little more than empty words. I hate to say it, but more accurately I would call it dishonest and deceptive empty words.
The President believes that guns, drone missiles, and killing people will help solve the problem. But he is seriously underplaying how corrupt and incompetent Karsai and his government are.
Obama and his team do not have the strength of character to admit that we have to figure out how to pay for this ever growing and now completely insane “Defense Department.” The President tried to explain the importance of all this killing, saying that the people who committed the atrocity on 911 were from Afghanistan. In fact they mostly were living in Germany and were from lots of different places including Saudi Arabia.
Either the military has totally bamboozled Obama, or seriously threatened him and his family, or has received the big payoff. There is no way I accept that Barack is in fact this incredibly stupid and immoral.
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This is a true story.
Paint a mental picture of this. Large public park, not one person in the park, about 4 or 5 inches of fresh snow on the ground. I let my doggie off the leash to enjoy running around and playing in the snow. He is in heaven.
Arrogant, rude dog catcher is stalking the park. She suddenly appears. I put my dog back on the leash and walk over to her. When I get right to her she yells at me in a very abusive voice, “Why are you walking your dog off the leash? He could bite someone!!!!!!”
I direct her to look around the park and point out to her that there are no children, no disabled elderly ladies, in fact no one at all in the park. She yells at me again telling me that she doesn’t have to look around if she doesn’t want to. I tell her that it appears far more likely she will bite someone than that my dog will bite someone. I look her right in the eye and tell her that she is a rude minimum wage clerk who is wearing a shiny badge and is on one major power trip.
She checks my dog’s rabies tag, which is of course up to date. She harshly demands my ID so that she can call me in to see if I am a bad guy with lots of warrants outstanding. After waiting for 10 minutes in the cold wind she is disappointed to find out that I am not a criminal.
So she issues me three citations: Dog off the leash, performing the forgoing heinous crime in a public park, dog taking an enormous dump.
I admit that he was off the leash, but with plastic bag in hand I ask her to show me the evidence that he did actually have a bowel movement. This causes her to yell abusive remarks at me again. Naturally she refuses to show me the dog crap. I look all around but can’t find any feces, either old and cold, or nice and new and warm.
I ask her if she knows how much the fine is for letting your dog shit in the park. She claims ignorance. In fact she is indeed a rather ignorant person, but she knows very well how much the fine is going to be.
In parting I wish her “Good luck in your dog killing.”
Twenty minutes later I am at the police station paying the ticket. Various other hardened criminals like myself are waiting in line to pay. Total fine is $305-. I pay the ticket with hundred dollar bills.
Rude, poorly paid government employees like this who are permitted to exercise their insulting power trips are part of what makes the right wingers say that government is the problem.
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