Maybe a Little Premature

As much as I appreciate :
A:) Barack Obama plays for a team the remotely approaches my team
B:) The Danish poke in the eye to the Neocons

A Nobel Prize?!?! really!?!? for pretty speeches? For hoping someday to do something that might lead to peace?

The standards are getting a little light don't you think?

Hmmm? Wonder if my keeping a Red Sox and Yankees fan from killing each other puts me in the running next year?

Seriously - Carter brought Isreal and Egypt to a peace treaty that still holds after 30 years of war.

Are we that desperate?

I find it really sad that we are so hungry for a sense of connectedness that we will manufacture one by attaching ourselves artificially to a celebrity. I've got an idea - how about you go out and meet your next door neighbor! Have a beer with your coworkers!
For those who were close to Micheal Jackson I sympathize, for the rest of us - premature death is sad but let's not pretend MJ had any more than a tangential affect on our lives.

The Russians are Coming, The Russians are coming.

Was just thinking. I hope the new governor's house is close enough to see Russia! Otherwise.....

Why my Government are Awesome!

I have recently finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and among other things he tells a story which warms my heart. Apparently in the early 70s the folks who brought us the Food Pyramid and the USRDA had originally reached the conclusion that we should eat very little meat and dairy and lots of fresh vegetables, but the meat and diary industry went apeshit so we now have the "western diet."

In a similar move the current congress is fighting the health "reform" bill because a public option would make insurance companies have to compete. A single payer option was blocked from the discussion by the "democratic" chairman despite the insistence of some doctors. Insurance companies will likely get a windfall of tax dollars from this legislation as we are all "mandated" to have coverage.

Why do these things make me happy? I'll tell you. I am a Hashshishin and business has taken a real hit do to the end of some wars and the new "diplomacy" craze. (Let's hope that's a fad. Can anybody say Pet Rock?) I'm confident the same wiser heads will prevail in my case and realize that hatred and aggression is a serious profit driver. Peace may be good for the masses, but there is an ancient and lucrative industry that is seriously at risk if peace and negotiation is allowed to run unchecked. I am glad I live in a country where commercial interests are given their proper place - trumping nonsense like science, or public well-being, or what is best, or what is right.

Once in a....well Ever...day!

So in my last post I put the damper on the expectation train for myself. Now I want to celebrate the extraordinary thing that has happened.

I am prouder today than I have ever been of America. America the idea and America the people.

Today we emerge from a long dark and dangerous era into the sunrise of hope renewed. I don't know if we really will ever understand how close we came to fascism. Obama may not be everything I would like in a Democrat, but he signifies both in his person and his ideology, the repudiation of force as right, of monolithic thinking, of with us or against us, of the framing documents of our country as guidelines and not law.

The American people, or at least a majority of them, have come to their senses. The fact that he does not look like any other president is for my money just a bonus.

Handel's the Obamassiah!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Horde!  rrrrrrtttt!

• Rick Warren - The Warren court was a good thing, no?  What's that?  Not that Warren? Oh THAT Warren?!?! Must be a misprint
• Ken Salazar - The business and extraction friendly senator from CO who supported a English Language as Official language bill? - Secretary of the Interior - Really?
  
• Putting the band back together (Clinton retreads a plenty) - the band that brought you great hits like - "Sub prime Mortgage and bank deregulation", "NAFTA" and everybody's all time favorite "Extraordinary Rendition"

La La La La, I'm not Listening ImnotlisteningIMNOTLISTENING!

Blessed is he who comes....

Wait a minute he's a bit conservative no? 

Goodness gracious who could have seen this coming?!?!?!?

Hmm let's look at the 08/01 post -- appears we did.

You don't GET a lunch, you TAKE a lunch!

As much as I would like to claim some sort of Pirate motto in the title, it's really more of a comment on the mindsets inherent on either side of the sentence.
I have some smart, competent and determined friends who continually tell me they didn't "get to" do something or how they wish they "got to" do the things they see others do.

THIS JUST IN......Life does not require a permission slip.

One might suggest this is just an expression, but if you look carefully it is not. There are people who get to do things and people who simply do them. More often than not those who "get to" actually "don't get to."  This mode of expression reflects a passive mindset that views life as a series of things that they are allowed and not allowed to do. Somehow life decides which - the mortgage, school, responsibilities, opportunities - something is always in the way.

Sorry folks it's all in your head!

The truth is these people choose not to act; often for perfectly sound reasons, like lack of resources or more important responsibilities and priorities but in the end it is always a choice (not made, usually).

If you find yourself envying the regularity with which someone else seems to be doing something cool take a second to ask yourself; Did you get a lunch today? or did you take a lunch?