Shameless plug department:



Ever wanted that little house in the country?

My cousin and her husband are in the process of building (and selling) a new house up in the Catskills (up by Monticello).

Doing the whole good cousin thing I’m posting the link up here. The area is one of those areas which will probably be experiencing a boom within short order as gambling is being moved into the area (which will make it a more popular vacation destination). Either way for those of you looking it’s worth considering.

News about the whole gambling thing (which happened today as fate would have it, can be found through this link.

So, I did what was probably a very stupid thing today (like this is something new in my life)...

I was reading one of these Iraqi blogs, I’m not quite sure if it was Raed of Dear Raed fame or not but the blog is Raed in the Middle.

Anyway, the guy was talking about the whole transfer of power and everything else... this one is a CIA puppet, Bush is this, and so on and so on, you get the drift.

Now, any reasonable person has to figure living in Iraq right now has got to have a big suck factor involved (to put it mildly) but, can someone tell me please what the hell the answer is supposed to be!?!

There was a poll on the local news channel (the real local one on cable with the normal looking - ugly anchor people) where they asked when American troops should be withdrawn from Iraq and a majority (something like 48%) said immediately.

In the meantime, this guy on the blog was ranting and raving about the situation.

They’re lopping people’s heads off and televising it and you get this sense that people in our country are just besides themselves over this - the horror of it (and it‘s not like I’m denying it is an ugly, ugly thing).

In the meantime though (and as I said before), we’ve spent the better part of the last ten years flying over this damn country, dropping bombs, launching cruise missiles and enforcing these sanctions and until they invaded about a year ago the only thing it was doing was making life miserable for the people living in Iraq.

So, now there are troops on the ground, they’ve been there a year and there’s these bombings going on and kidnapping and all kinds of crappy things and people kind of seem to have the attitude that this is all to much and we should just walk away.

And it made me think of New York city in the late seventies and throughout the eighties when there was a lot more crime and graffiti everywhere and people said you just couldn’t do anything about it and so a lot of businesses and people moved away from the city.

Someone came along and decided it wasn’t the way things should be and it took a couple of years but the city is a lot better now than it was.

I also was thinking about how back in the 30’s there were groups of nations that really didn’t think it was worth fighting over anything (because WW1 had been so horrible) and so their foreign policy was one of appeasement which meant that axis countries were allowed to roll in and take over other nations (Poland, the Sudetenland, Ethiopia, Manchuria).

The thing I’m trying to get at is appeasement never ever seems to work that well.

But, maybe I’m wrong so, crack the history books and see if you can prove me wrong.

Or maybe you’ll find that there are some battles you can’t walk away from and it might just be that we’re in the middle of one.

Anyway, I wrote the guy (which means I will probably wind up on some Patriot Act FBI list somewhere) and I just asked him if he thought us not being there (like starting tomorrow) would make things that much better or if things had been so much better when Saddam was running the show. I know it sounds simplistic and a bit naive but I really do hope 10 years from now things are better in that country - one thing is what we were doing from 91 through 2003 sure didn’t do much good.

Last week, I caught Bill Clinton on The Charlie Rose show (which if you click on the link you can listen to as well - not through the Charlie Rose website though and not for those of tiny bandwidth).

Bill’s out there these days plugging his new book which seems to be doing quite well.

Anyway, I watched and there is no denying Clinton is a compelling speaker. He’s charming and there is just no escaping the fact. I think it’s a large part of his allure as well, he evokes extreme passion in people they either love him or hate him.

I have a tendency to be more pragmatic though, as the years passed during Clinton’s term in office, I liked him less and less.

There were things that happened during his watch I liked - mainly the reduction of the national debt (which I think could be attributed more to Congress at that time) but, simultaneously there was a gap between what he said and what he did.

The disconnect between Clinton the statesman and his actions in regard to issues such as personal privacy of citizens, use of the military and fixing health care was so very wide.

So, getting back to watching Bill. Charlie Rose and he were talking about the book and Clinton’s term in office and invariably Monica Lewinsky’s name comes up.

Clinton apologizes to his wife and daughter and talks about going to therapy to save his marriage but, there was one really gaping (and noticeable) omission. Of course, it was Lewinsky herself. I’m not a big fan of hers and she doesn’t catch my fancy but, he was with her!

It isn’t like she forced her way into the oval office and attacked the presidential member (and there’s got to be a joke about alert secret service agents and wrestling in there somewhere) but, he just kind of glossed over the fact and commented on how he “did it” mainly just because he could - which probably said a lot more about him than any public statement he’s made to date.

Anyway, I noticed the omission and consequently I can’t say I was surprised when a day or two later the following appeared:

“He says he was proud of the way that he defended the presidency - at my expense. In the process, he destroyed me,” she said. “I was a young girl and to hear him saying some of the things he was saying today - it's a shame.”

And also:

“I had wanted him to say that I was a nice, decent person and that he was sorry this had happened because I - I tried to do as much as I could to protect him,” Lewinsky said. “I didn't allow him to be put on tape that night.”

So, when it gets right down to it, as compelling a speaker as he is, as charming as he can be, I leave you to make your own determinations about his conduct - I’ve drawn my own conclusions and the best I can say is that I believe history will look back at him with a jaundiced eye.

Why is this woman smiling?



I guess resistance really isn’t that futile after all...



Illinois Repub lican senatorial candidate Jack Ryan, his candidacy in turmoil over sex club allegations, decided to quit his quest for Congress on Friday. “I am today withdrawing from the race,?? he said in a statement prepared by his campaign.



No, it’s not that Jack Ryan, the one from the Tom Clancy novels which has been protrayed by Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin.

Jeri Ryan charged during a custody hearing that Jack Ryan took her on surpris e trips to New Orleans, New York and Paris in 1998, a nd that he insisted she go to sex clubs with him on each trip. She said that after going out to dinner with Ryan in New York, he demanded that she go to a club with him.
“It was a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling,?? she said.

She said Ryan asked her to perform a sexual act while others watched, and she refused. She said they left and Ryan apologized to her and said it was out of his system.

But then, she said, he took her to Paris and again took her to a sex clu b. She said she cried and became physically ill at the club, and her husband got angry with her. She said she could never get over that incident.



It’s a story that will bounce around in the minds of Star Trek nerds for years to come folks.

C’mon, you know you want to find out:

I was thinking today I might be considered a liberal Republican or maybe it’s a conservative Democratic but then when I got right down to it I figured out I was just basically a cynic at heart.

Fahrenheit 9-11 opened the other day (notice I didn’t link to it - on purpose).

While advertised as a documentary, I’ve seen it called in many quarters more of an oped-entary since it is less based in fact and more the opinion of it’s autuer.

I liked Bowling for Columbine and also really liked Roger and Me but, Michael Moore is a man of double standards, the ones he applies to himself and another set for himself (truthfully, I wouldn’t mind seeing someone point their lens Moore’s way and see how he fares under the scrutiny).

Which brings me to my true topic: Americans believe we went to war in Iraq in spring of 2003.

Unfortunately, the truth is we’ve been at war for over ten years. Ever since the first Gulf War, Americans have been involved in one way or another in military action in Iraq.

Americans have been flying patrols, launching cruise missiles and basically making the people of Iraq pay for our mistakes since the first Gulf War.

During his first term, Clinton had been challenged by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on a number of occasions. In June 1993, following an abortive Iraqi attempt to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait, the U.S. bombed an intelligence center in Baghdad. In October 1994, Saddam Hussein moved his army toward Kuwait and the U.S. responded by airlifting military forces to Kuwait and warning Iraq not to invade, a threat that achieved its purpose. The U.S. was less successful in August 1996, however, when Iraqi troops, in cooperation with the KDP (the Masud Barzani faction of the Kurdish opposition), attacked the rival PUK faction of Jallal Talabani which had been aided by Iran, and drove it from Irbil, thus severely damaging U.S. efforts to force a united opposition against the Iraqi regime. The U.S. responded by expanding its “no-fly” zone in southern Iraq to the 33rd parallel, and by bombarding Iraqi air defense installations. France, which had hitherto cooperated with the U.S. in maintaining the “no-fly” zone, did not cooperate in the newly extended part of the zone. Furthermore, the Arab world viewed the limited U.S. cruise missile attacks as worse than useless, stirring up Arab popular anger while not threatening the bases of Saddam Hussein’s power.

How can this be? Where was everyone when all this was going on? Were we asleep? I seem to remember these events, does anyone else?

The “No-Fly Zone War” pitted the air and naval forces of the United States and the United Kingdom (also referred to as “Great Britain”), against the air defenses of Iraq. This conflict proved to be largely ignored by the media and the public in both the U.S. and in the U.K., though it impacted the military and the citizens of Iraq on an almost weekly basis, especially since the intense “Desert Fox” bombing campaign of 1998.

Mmmmmm... I’m trying to remember who our president was?

Let me see... mmmmmm.

You see, the point I’m trying to make is for all the demonstrations in this country prior to the actual invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, no one seemed to want to cotton to what our country had been doing for the last ten years. We probably should have done more to support the Shia and Kurdish uprising after the first Gulf War but, GW’s father (and the pundits at the time) were too afraid of the destabilizing effect it would have had on the region.

Now, I’ve been making my way though the Woodword book and I don’t like the administration’s linkage (or lack thereof) to Al Qeada as a justification for the invasion but, I do think in some ways it might not have been such a bad thing to do what we did.

Don’t necessarily take my word for it though, I came across this blog (via Salam Pax’s blog) by an Iraqi doctor which speaks far more eloquently to the situation than I can.

...These are the same people that continue to pour in from the borders of our ‘friendly neighbours’ to wage their 7th century Jihad on Iraqi soil, they are the same people that pack vehicles with tons of explosives to relieve thousands of Iraqis of their existence, they are -I believe- the same people who continue to assassinate hundreds of Iraqi professionals and ‘collaborators,’ they are the same people that run the Taliban style Emirate of Fallujah, they are the same people who the Arab media insists are heroic ‘resistance fighters.’ Yet all we hear after such grisly scenes is... (croak)... (croak)... a maddening silence, and then a few obligatory half hearted ‘This is not the real Islam, you know,’ ‘Noooo, it’s really a religion of peace, you don’t understand.’ However, I don’t think people are buying these lines any more.

What the media fails to realise, is that the logic of these groups can actually be turned against them. They claim they are here to drive the foreigners who have been killing Iraqis out of Iraq. Ironically, those Mujahideen are also foreigners who have been slaughtering thousands of Iraqis over the last year. I’m not sure we are going to see any of them beheaded on tv though.

Be afraid... be very afraid!



I’ve heard it said a man should always know his worth. Click on the link above (embedded with the photo) to see the really scary implications for anyone working in graphics today.

So, I’m one of many undecided voters for the upcoming presidential election...

I can boast (thankfully) I don’t suffer from the ignominy of having voted for our current chief executive but simultaneously, I don’t buy into the vitriolic statements of many of his opponents:



Too often, I find the people screaming the loudest at GW’s shortcomings are the very same people who turned a blind eye to the indiscretions and failures of our previous president (and many they were indeed).

I’d like to make a decision based more on arguments made in a calm, well-reasoned fashion. One of the things I think the opposition could take our current president to task on is the hypocrisy of the following:

Dear Vince:

While the president of the United States is never completely on vacation, most commanders-in-chief manage to enjoy a respite from the daily grind during their stay the White House. George W. Bush seems to have taken this to the extreme early in his tenure as president. A humorous, fake resume for Bush suggests that he set the record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history — a bit of an exaggeration, but still cause for some teasing.

As opposed to:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says about 20,000 U.S. troops will stay in Iraq three months longer than had been expected. The Pentagon says the soldiers — a quarter of whom serve in National Guard and military reserve units — are needed to cope with renewed fighting in Iraq. The troops had been told they would return home this month, part of a Pentagon promise that Iraq duty would be for 12 months only. NPR's Eric Westervelt reports.

Seems to me if a president is going to send troops into harms’ way and then extend their time of service in a war zone, the least he could do is forego his own vacation while they’re over there. Show some kind of acknowledgment and reciprocity for their (the troops) sacrifice.

File under chickens coming home to roost.

The dozen militants who were arrested elsewhere during the sweeps in Riyadh included Rakan Saikhan, one of the Saudi government’s 26 most wanted terrorist suspects and an alleged conspirator in the attack on the Cole, a Saudi security source said. The Interior Ministry said police also confiscated large caches of weapons, including three rocket grenade launchers, computers and $30,000 in cash.



“Over the course of the last year, Saudi Arabia has taken a number of really important steps,” Snow said. “I am convinced they’re deeply committed and sincere about this effort.”

He said the Saudis are cooperating with U.S. experts “to make sure Saudi Arabia is not a source of terrorist money, that Saudi Arabia takes all the steps they can to close off those flows.”

Snow’s comments appeared to be somewhat at odds with those of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who praised Saudi Arabia for cracking down on Muslim militants but said the kingdom can do more to stop the flow of charitable money to terror groups.

“I do think that even greater pressure can be put on Saudi and Saudi officials to go after the financing mechanisms, the support of charities both there and around the world that may be funding some terrorist activity,” Frist, R-Tenn., said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Excuse me if I fail to shed tears or leap in elation over this sudden change of heart on the part of the Saudis.

The Saudis have been good over the last decade at playing both sides against the middle - presenting a face of moderation to the west and at the same time funding Wahabbism, turning a blind eye to the fundamentalist movement within their own borders and vilifying the west to their own people.

Our own hands are not free of blood when it comes to the formation of groups like Al-Qeada (referred to during the Reagan administration as the heroic freedom fighters in Afghanistan) but, before we wring our hands over the abuses of prisoners in an Iraqi prison let’s take a look at the governments and societies in the region who are only to happy to take money for oil simultaneously blaming the people giving them money for the problems in their own societies they fail to address. Also of note is the due process exercised on the part of the Saudi authorities (no messy trials here). Wonder if that will get up the moral indignation of the Arab world on the next broadcast of Al Jazerra?

Saudi Arabia told al Qaeda militants on Sunday it would not allow them to destabilize the kingdom and warned they would share the fate of their slain leader unless they repented.

Undeterred by the death of Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, the leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, the group vowed renewed “holy war” in the country.

Quick which team is baseball’s hottest team right now?

(the answer will surprise you)

So there’s this strange dichotomy going on:

On the one hand, I do the whole blog thing because it’s something to get the ’ole muscles exercised in the hopes one day, I‘ll be able to write something a little meatier (the blog being the training - laps if you will - before the marathon - a book if possible).

It’s not something so much produced for an audience, as much as a means to an end.

There’s also the guilty catholic aspect which views any ostentatious or prideful display as vulgar and shameful (man, that whole Catholic thing can take a lot of the fun out of life, I tell you).

Yet, I find myself surprised when I do hear someone actually reads this thing!

Surprised and pleased both for I can’t possibly imagine anything I produce being entertaining or interesting. Too many years of being beaten into the ground growing up I imagine - I know other people have gone through it but it’s one of those learned behaviors it takes years of therapy (and many dollars to break) and I’m a cheapskate so I’ll just have to suffer through it.

Anyway, I think I may have an audience of about a half dozen or so and to the select few I thank you for your kind indulgence. And of course, I do get a charge finding out people do read.

I usually have the TV on while I’m working. It just provides background clutter to offset the ringing in the ears. When commercials come on I normally zone out on them not paying them any heed.

Men who experience an erection for more than four hours should seek immediate medical attention.

Yet, when I hear a line like the one above, I can’t help but think about all the rather humorous implications such a statement elicits.

It’s shouldn’t be surprising in a society where boob jobs are given as graduation gifts, men want equal time for their own drugs.

I just can’t help but think though if something like the statement above happened you’d be able to break cinder blocks or something.

(If you click on the link and check out the website, dig the smiling happy couple...)

Old Superheroes Never Die, They Just Fade Away...



Courtesy of the Lying in the Gutters column on Comic Book Resources dotcom

Just another quick note while I have the presence of mind:



Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.

Reagan was a President, not an emperor (even though the media would have you think otherwise with the wall to wall coverage of his passing). When his death was announced late Saturday afternoon, the commentators pointedly remarked on two events during his term in office.

First, was the assassination attempt on the President’s life by John Hinckly.

Second, was his handling of the air traffic controllers strike by firing most of the air traffic controllers.

One gave us the Brady Bill, an attempt by the federal government to put the genie back in the bottle where handguns were concerned and the other put back the cause of labor in this country to a point where it had been at the turn of the century and managed to erase most of the gains made by the organized labor movement.

So, there was good and bad. There were a lot of scandals during the Reagan years (which people are forgetting) but, it is true Reagan was a force that changed the world.

In the end, he was just a man. Flawed and as human as any of us.

No news is good news.

I’ve been offline for four days. Sunday afternoon I broke down the old machine and shortly afterward found I couldn’t get the laptop to log on for some reason.

The upshot was I was offline from Sunday afternoon through this past afternoon.

Truth be told, it was probably one of the best things I could do. This week was eventful in what got done. I never get as much done as I would like but, a lot more got done without me wasting hours surfing aimlessly.

I think if I can cut this and TV viewing life will be much, much better - just another move forward into a productive phase (I hope).

So, if you send an email and don’t get an immediate response, don’t be upset or shocked.

Also, when I finally did log on again there were 64 emails. Out of the 64, 37 were spam or just a shade under 58%. Obviously, I have to do something about that.

File this under one of those things most people don't know about:

Pepsi Picnic Area
Every Wednesday home game, the first 1,000 fans to arrive at Shea with an empty Pepsi can or bottle will be admitted to the Pepsi Picnic Area for free.

So, on those nice summer evenings when you have a day off and are looking for something cheap to do you can actually get in to see the Mets for free if you get out there early enough (or close enough to free if you bring along a can of Pepsi).

Official site for The Corporation

Must see movie of the summer:

One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity.
Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history. In this complex and highly entertaining documentary, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation’s increasing preeminence.

In the parallel blog universe there but for the grace of an underscore go I:

Where you will go if you type http://writingwrong.blogspot.com forgetting the underscore in http://writing_wrong.blogspot.com/