The Obama Watermelon Email Case

So, the Republican mayor of Los Alamitos, a small Southern California city of 12,000, says he will resign after being criticized publicly for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."

The news reports that Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose added that he didn't mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons...
Yeah, right...

This goes back to parenting. You reap what you sow.
Prejudice is always wrong. Discrimination is useful to discern between green and yellow lights, but wrong when coupled with racial prejudice.
Everybody is racist to a degree, and racial jokes are the great equalizer between cultures that will never disappear or put Chris Rock out of a job, so recognizing that and being sensitive to other people's perception should prevent one from applying humor ignorantly in a hurtful and disrespecting manner (unless everyone can laugh about their own bias).

If someone who is not too smart chooses public life, gaffes, like Bush mentioning his Filipino chef to the Philippine president, are bound to happen.
Apology accepted, lesson learned.
Bush didn't step down, and nobody called for it. This mayor therefore must be smarter than Bush by a brain hair...

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Brave New Economy

And so we suddenly find ourselves in a new economy. It's not that we didn't see it coming, it's that we didn't want to see it coming. Smart people have been warning us for years, holding up charts and papers filled with calculations and scientific data.
Now we're wrong and they were right. But that no longer matters, as on the tombstone that reads, "He had the right of way..."
We're screwed.
As an entrepreneur I see the effects firsthand of the paralyzing scare that has the world in its grip. My sales have tumbled 60%-70%. Imagine that, suddenly having to make do with 30%-40% of your regular income...
I try to be proactive, like any sensible person, and have started to reduce costs on subscriptions, services, and generally everything that now weighs on me and my business financially.
I created a special website with Free Shipping items. Some have noticed, and placed orders. One of my other websites now advertises "Free Shipping On Orders Over $100." Again, some are taking advantage of that, but it hasn't helped sales and now I'm paying for shipping too, thereby reducing profit substantially.
I don't mind. Better poor than broke.
I will continue to do what I can to keep myself afloat financially, and I bet so will you.
But...
I have yet to see any gestures from the companies that matter in our lives.
The credit card companies haven't cut their exorbitant interest rates.
When I turned in my cable TV tuners, thereby cutting my cable bill 60%, Oceanic Cable, whose customer I've been for nearly twenty years didn't say, "what can we do to keep you as our loyal client?"
In fact, as I went about canceling services, none of the companies asked for a reason, or tried to retain me as a customer.
They don't need us? Well, I found I do just fine without them, and I guess this is the basis for survival—to be able to get by with just the essentials.
If we're all going to hell in a handbag, it is because we refuse to acknowledge what's coming and fail to draft a Plan B. It's for lack of vision.
Businesses that postpone finding solutions until they realize that without customers they don't have a company are screwed.

Credit Crisis For Dummies (That's Me...)...

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

In the midst of this malaise, Jonathan Jarvis deserves credit for making a complex issue easy to understand.

Winning Words...

"What has happened in technology over the last few years has been about the downturn, not the future of technology. A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets." - Steve Jobs, August 2003

Entertainment?

Shoot The Messenger...

One of today's BBC World News headlines reads: "US Muslim TV boss 'beheaded wife'"
The founder of a US TV station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims is charged with beheading his wife.

Muzzammil Hassan, 44, is accused of second degree murder of Aasiya Hassan, whose body was found last week at the TV station in New York state.
Both Mr Hassan and his wife worked at Bridges TV, a station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims.
Bridges TV, a satellite-distributed news and opinion channel, was founded by Mr Hassan in 2004 and was based in a suburb in Buffalo, in upstate New York.

Woman Freaks Out...

The original headline read: "Chinese Woman Freaks Out In Airport, Gets 600,000 Hits On YouTube"

An innocent headline to many, but I see ignorance rearing its ugly headline. If the woman had been Caucasian, would the headline have read, "Caucasian Woman Freaks Out?"

Now, I know that Chinese is a group, and not a race, but tell that to my Chinese ex-wife...

The woman was not identified as a Chinese national, but as someone looking and sounding Chinese. She could have come from anywhere. So, let's rewrite the headline accordingly:

"A Mongoloid Woman Freaks Out."

Better?

Some anthropologists would argue that there are only three races: Negroid, Caucesoid, and Mongoloid. Thomas Huxley introduced the term "Mongoloid," based on the physical characteristics of Mongolian people, but included American Indians as well as Arctic Native Americans, Laplanders, the Finnish, Eskimos, and Pacific Islanders, but ultimately "Mongoloid" was widely adopted to mainly include the people of South-East Asia, and we recognize Eskimos, American Indians, and Polynesians as different races.

More recently, the Human Genome Project stated unequivocally that "races" do not exist in any biological sense... I'd agree with that more than the tendency to divide people based on their physical appearances. My point is that in the U.S., where race is often mentioned as a distinct feature that typifies the behavior of a group, Caucasians are often excluded from this bias when it comes to the news and their skin color or racial origin is seldom if ever mentioned.

Therefore, "Caucasian Woman Freaks Out," is an unlikely headline in a country where people have grown accustomed to think in racial terms when looking at someone...

Therefore, "Woman Freaks Out," would have sufficed, but I doubt it would have garnered as many YouTube views...

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Beats Bush By Using His Brain...

No, kiddos, not by using Bush's brain, or Karl Rove, but by using his own. In sharp contrast to George W Bush, who used to sign off quickly on troop requests from his commanders without giving it much thought, Obama appears to be taking his time pondering a request by the Pentagon for three Army combat brigades and Marine units for deployment in Afghanistan.

While I personally have my doubts about even the possibility of success with the stated objective of militarily ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban, especially now that the scoundrels seem to become more active in Pakistan, the reality is that the US has a military presence there, but its activities have been hampered with inadequate troop levels, due to obligations in Iraq and minimal support from foreign nations, as the results of the Bush gang's shortsightedness.

Obama is challenged by his predecessor's ineptness to finish what he started in a way that has failure already written in big capitals into the equation. If US troops are perceived as staying too long in Afghanistan it will be served up by the Republicans in huge scoops as failure. If he gets the troops back home before scoring any big successes he will be perceived as failing to stand up to terrorism. Ultimately, his fate rests with an American public that hastily gave Bush another term to get the job done—at which he failed miserably.

A real problem is that America has not won any of its wars in a long time and Desert Storm I was just a prelude to Desert Storm II, not because of the military which just does what it does best, but because of politicians that use it to manipulate a public that has been hammered into a crouched position with fear tactics. These are not wars, they are police actions, or rather cleaning operations in countries the US has no business being or staying in. I hope that Obama realizes that these so-called wars are undeclared and illegal acts of war. Bush went it alone (oops, forgot Poland and Palau) and Obama will have to douse the fires the Bush gang started.

That the GOP, after fanning the flames, now have adopted a strategy of obstructing Obama's efforts tells me that they're not interested in anything but playing politics at the expense of US soldiers and foreign civilians—unless one thinks we're behaving smartly and without incurring wrath by killing Muslim people—always conveniently labeled "terrorists"—by sending drones equipped with missiles from one souvereign country into another. As a video game it may seem engaging, but as a solution to the problem of extremist Islam it's contra-effective. Mind you, this all started with 3,000 people losing their lives on 9/11. Hundreds of thousands of dead later see where our politicians have taken us... Indeed, the people will have to choose for a solution, but they just did that by electing Obama. It is my hope the majority understands that the mess Bush en co. created may not be cleaned up in 4 years. The GOP's obstructionist stance is reprehensible and shameful. We may have thought that by Bush's leaving office the nation ridded itself of the effects of his brain. The crushed GOP, it turns out, while unable to even utter Bush's name, can't come up with a single constructive thought and is still using his rambling brain for its thinking...

The Greatest Crime Ever Committed...

In the months leading up to Obama's inauguration the criminal gang that has been busy ruining the lives of American soldiers, Iraqi citizens, and Afghan mountain dwellers decided they were not satisfied with the billions of taxpayers' money siphoned off into black hole accounts of companies engaged in the Wiedergutmachung in Iraq under the protection of Blackwater mercenaries during a regime-change blitzkrieg that to this day is called a "war," but is undeclared, and has as its enemy a vague entity that may or may not be engaged in trying to liberate Arab soil from the infidel invaders that came for oil, so-called freedom, and the spread of Christianity, but settled for torture, corruption, lies, manipulation, and the expansion of the industrial military complex.

So, with an eye on the perceived temporary discontinuation of the dismantling of America during the Obama term the most evil members of the GOP concocted a sublime plan by creating a new 9/11, but this time rather than using explosions and controlled demolitions of tall buildings a series of implosions was proposed that would severely handicap the new administration and perhaps restore Republican popularity come the 2012 elections by manipulating the stock market mechanisms. If the Nazis had succeeded they would have destabilized America's and Great Britain's economies by flooding them with counterfeit bank notes. This time something similar in outcome could be effectuated by processes that started with deregulating the banks and financial institutions and introducing a sophisticated and incomprehensible scheme with worthless loans that were traded deep toward a black hole that would at some trigger point collapse under its own gravity.

While Capitalism has been sold to its last breath as a system that would perpetuate itself with the elimination of weaker companies so that stronger ones can survive, the market economy, once hollowed out from within was not to be tolerated to behave thusly. If Obama pulls it off to "save" the economy it will be a miracle. Most everyone so far is impressed with his royal stature and supreme intelligence. But even he will find it difficult to stop the avalanche set in motion by the Republicans.

Bush (and by Bush, I mean the lying, cheating, conspirators Cheney, Wolfewitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al) have pulled off another daring feat, by turning America overnight from a Capitalist into a Socialist society and grabbing billions of the people's monies and turning it over with nary any oversight to henchman and executioner Henry Paulson, a Wall Street insider who has been retained to distribute this new wealth to the wealthiest fat-cats who shamelessly jumped in their private jets to ask Congress for even more free funds to shore up their mismanaged and behind-the-times companies. Trickle-down economy in reverse. Does anyone have any doubt that the Republican Party's main doctrine has outlived its premise?

Supposedly extending the people's credit to failing institutions managed by failing executives will suddenly make the latter humble, make them see the error of their greedy ways, and turn them into social-conscious do-gooders, while a study of these people's faces during laughable public "hearings" tell you that they know only one creed: greed. The companies receiving public funding should have been forced to make the American taxpayers shareholders and the recipients of promised profits when these companies are back on their feet, but that hasn't happened. Your check will not be in the mail.

And so the crime was committed, and all saw that it was good. Markets and financial institutions would continue to be headed by the only ones capable and available to manage them—those that helped getting us into this mess in the first place.
What will change? I predict nothing. Nothing at all.

The much-touted American Dream is shattered.
A wake-up call has sounded as loud as the civil defense siren in your neighborhood, but, once again the American people are paralyzed, conned as they have been by a wide scare, and while they're being robbed, raped, and pillaged, they are ready to go along with whatever sounds like a good idea as alternatives are not being deemed acceptable (the collapse of Wall Street, the banks, and the automobile industry) even though that is just what capitalism and a free market-driven economy should allow to happen.
Afraid that their dollars may no longer support their glutinous lifestyles Americans quietly and uncomprehendingly watch the bailout-scheme unfold on their oversized HDTVs instead of taking en-masse to the streets to yell, rebel, and protest so loud that it would be heard around the world. A world that in turn is devastated by what begun as the actions of a few, headed early on by Phil Gramm and his quest for deregulation and suspending financial oversight. Like everything else the Republicans plan, their execution is flawed, because the premise of their very core is based on denial of equality, amassing personal fortune, and hatred for those who are not them. The results are favoritism, installing cronies in positions of power, bribery, misuse of public funds, voter-fraud, the corruption of public office, the betrayal of the religious base they claim to represent, using soldiers for political ends, and ultimately the destruction of The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will vote against any attempt by the Obama administration to save the economy they destroyed, as they have already shown us in the last weeks. Obama's failure will be their victory with Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coultier laughing the loudest. After voting twice for Bush I don't give the American people any credit for smart future decisions in spite of Obama's win.

And so, the overall picture is becoming clear. We're watching a looting in progress with as goal total control of the political playing field and the American people by the Republicans. This is a high stakes chess game where the ante will be upped by the player who can see several moves farther into the game. My bet is still on Obama, but he's a nice guy and his opponents are strategic bullies who'll stop at nothing, even as their party seeks to rebuild its dented public facade.

After 8 years of Republican indoctrination I fear that the possibility of a major Republican victory (by counting or buying votes) may effectively dismantle the current 2-party system and leave in place a 1-party system like old Russia, China, or Germany under the Nazis.
The people have other worries, like losing their jobs and homes.
For now.
The conditions will be as ripe as they were when Hitler grabbed power.
This time the enemy has an American face. The ruddy, greedy, contorted, ugly, hateful, and angry face of the Republican Party.

Low Level Laser Takes 6.5 Inches Off My Body in 2 Weeks...

Not exactly an exciting headline, nor a pretty picture, but I just lost a total of 6.5 inches around my waist, hips, and thighs during a 14 day low level laser treatment with Erchonia’s Zerona low level laser, and I wanted to share my faux-lipo story with you.
Let me start at the beginning of this victorious tale: Like you, I've been putting on weight over the last years and like you I wish it wasn't true, but a sedentary lifestyle, long hours working on a computer, and sneakily snacking from the fridge can make a pumpkin out of anyone. What's your excuse?
Now, I'm also a highly skeptical person. I mean, I don't believe there's a God, can you believe that, with all the overwhelming evidence out there? How more skeptical can one get? So, I wasn't going to be a believer in low level laser fat loss, or any quick weight loss scheme either.

Then my friend Les opened Laser EnergyWorks in Honolulu and not before long I was undergoing low level laser treatment three times a week, 40 minutes each time, for two straight weeks under his Zerona laser. It was as easy as lying on a towel on the beach, except there was no heat or any other sensation. The 5-head laser lights are positioned with flexible arms above your body and make a not very loud noise I can best describe as an electric buzz.

Now, before I subjected myself to this regimen I rudimentary educated myself about this method which targets fat cells with low power laser beams. It's like, straight out of SciFi. Contrary to lasers that are so strong they cut through anything, the low level laser gently tickles the fat cells so that they collapse laughing and release their stored fat. The body then absorbs the fat and by drinking large amounts of water (large for me, I prefer beer) it's flushed out of your system. So far so good, but the big news came when my girlfriend declared after one week of not seeing me, "I believe you lost some weight!"

No, I told her, I had not stopped eating, I was having 2-3 glasses of wine every day, I had not exercised, and I wasn't doing Jenny Craig behind her back. In fact, I had not changed my life one bit. I had not even followed the recommended taking of supplements, the wearing of special compressing garments, or the drinking of at least 8 glasses of water a day.

Anyway, her delight gave me pause and for the first time after starting treatment I checked myself in the mirror. At that point I had undergone only 3 treatments and sure enough, I looked trimmer already.
That got me motivated. I decided to help the process along, so I bought one of the recommended food supplements—niacin pills—and plenty bottled water, and went 3 more times under the laser, as a total of 6 constitute a full treatment.
After the last session my measurements and pictures were compared with those from before treatment and the verdict was I had lost 3.5 inches around the waist, 2 inches around the hips, and 1 inch around the thighs. I had not lost any weight—yet.

All that without any major change in lifestyle.

I was impressed. I was also devastated by the right-before and right-after pictures; each snapped upon an exhalation, so there was no trickery with holding one's breath. Clearly, at 60, my body (or Party Central as I call it) was going the wrong way and it appeared now was a good time to get serious about getting back in shape and to begin thinking about longevity and a healthier lifestyle instead of Dreyer's vs Breyer's ice cream.

As a result, some of my next entries are going to be about how I'm tackling the onslaught of time, bad habits (not that I have any), weight increase, wrinkles, hair-loss, and dementia.
No seriously, vanity goes a long way toward changing my ways, so that I may eventually post better looking pictures.
If you too look at yourself in the mirror the way I do now, you know it's time to say, enough!

When that moment comes, tell Les at Laser EnergyWorks Rudolf sent you. He will give you a nice discount and maybe, maybe help rid me of my double chin, which by the way, is another trick the Zerona has on its, uh, flexible arms. Les's philosophy is that he will only deal with products that are scientifically proven to work. I know, he's a God-conscious man, but that's one philosopy a skeptic like me can believe in...