
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men."
By Kevin Horn: My views on life about atheism, religion, comic books, movies, politics and all things Macintosh. BBG stands for Bear Byte Graphics.

It really pisses me off that Obama is now taking the blame for Bush's crap.One thing is clear: the feverish discourse about Muslims’ role in American society is not about the proposal to build an Islamic community center a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site. Park 51, as it’s being called, merely let an ugly genie out of the bottle. The dark stain of Islamophobia had spread far and wide long before the controversy erupted.
Heading into his first midterm, Roosevelt, too, faced an ailing economy and critics blasting him as a socialist. Jeff Shesol on how he beat the odds—and what Obama needs to tell America now.
One of the main reasons FDR prevailed—then and thereafter—was his ability to paint a clear, consistent picture of the kind of country he wanted America to be, the kind of country we needed to be in the industrial era.....In his inaugural address, President Obama spoke of a “new era of responsibility,” but soon dropped the idea in favor of another unifying theme (wrapped in a laundry list, inside a mixed metaphor): a “new foundation… built upon five pillars that will grow our economy.” The pillars—financial reform, education, clean energy, health care, deficit reduction—tell us a lot about his priorities, but little about his basic objectives. Where does this all lead? What defines Obama’s America? Absent a clear answer, Obama has, in effect, asked the country to infer his goals by inductive reasoning—to assume that on the basis of policies A, B and C, Barack Obama seeks X, Y, and Z.
Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen and Ryan Longwell were dispatched to Favre's home in Hattiesburg to convince the 40-year-old quarterback to return. He was contemplating retirement yet again because of a surgically repaired left ankle that was hurt in the NFC title game.
Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra. But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.
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I use Zemanta to add content to my blog posts, such as pictures. I've been having problems with it after switching to Chrome so I uninstalled it.
Now I've reinstalled it, so I know I have the latest version, but I suspect the problem is with Chrome, the Google browser doesn't work well with the Google Blogger.
Why this picture? Why the hell not? I have no idea who that is but it caught my eye ;)
Edit: Well it worked as far as publishing, which is where my problem was. I was getting error messages for illegal HTML code. heck, Blogger adds the code on it's own. I am still having a weird problem, I can't hit Return and move down the page for a new paragraph. I have to start the paragraph, then back space to the start of the paragraph, THEN his return.
Then it works. What a hassle. Much as I like Chrome I might have to use Firefox whenever blogging.
Apart from being a moment of true, embarrassing old-fuckitude, I'm not quite sure in what venue where this wonderful story would fit -- apart from the old Playboy Party Jokes page -- except it's true. Maybe the Times NYC Diary, but then again no.I boarded a downtown R train at Lexington Avenue and 60th Street and sat down in the last car to watch Rachel Maddow on my iPod. I put my huge back pack on the seat next to me, enjoying the illusion that it was somehow cleaner than the floor.At 57th Street however, the crowd started to build, and this being a new train, and the seats being fewer, I put my bag on the floor. Across from me, a Muslim woman about 22 sat down. Fully wrapped, but for her intoxicatingly beautiful face (I'm a sucker for Persian eyes), she had a brown and white head-thingie, a blouse I can't remember and a flowing, silken, full length blue and black dress.As we continued downtown I found myself wondering if she was getting off at City Hall Station -- my destination. Park Place where the Cordoba Center is to be and the WTC are just upstairs. With all the publicity about the Cordoba (now Park51) center downtown, the fact that an old Arab Muslim community (and mosque) has been downtown for ages made my speculation make sense. I kind of felt sorry for her. With all the vitriol and rage directed against them this summer, Muslim women in NYC must feel naked despite their conservative dress. Frankly I don't get the cover up, and find it not the least bit modest. In fact, I find it oddly provocative. Especially with a woman as beautiful as the one sitting across from me -- dirty old atheist that I am. And she had that whole Cleopatra eyes thing going on. Woo. Did I mention that?Well sure enough, as I prepared to get off at City Hall, so did she. I hoisted my backpack over my shoulders and stood at the door. My iPod still going. As I stepped off the train, I felt a light tapping on my shoulder...It was that woman. I thought she was going to ask me directions. I took out my earbud, and she hers, and she gently put her hand on my shoulder, leaned close enough for me to smell her perfume and feel her breath, and she whispered in my ear, in that exotic Middle Eastern accent the women on "24" use -- "Your zipper is open."She laughed quietly after patting me on the back, royally I would even say, and went on her way smiling while I sputtered thanks and damn near broke my zipper pulling it up in spasm of sheer terror.AHA!Take THAT Tea Party. Open Fly Diplomacy! Bill Clinton would approve!
But the policy wasn't popular. Few liked it. Some thought it socialism. Some thought it cronyism. Which presents, of course, a difficulty for the White House: Saving millions of jobs and the American auto industry at an ultimately very small cost to the taxpayer is the sort of major policy accomplishment you should be able to run for reelection on. But what if people don't really understand that you did it, or that it worked, or that it didn't cost them much?
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. ~George Washington CarverI have to say that this comes damn close to the heart of my own personal philosophy.
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
If every man's internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who raise our envy now?
~Peitro Metastasio
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him. ~Booker T. Washington
Life is short but there is always time for courtesy. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson,Social Aims
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Ten percent unemployment and a terrible recession ended up discrediting the people trying to do more for the economy, as their previous intervention was deemed a failure. That, in turn, empowered the people attempting to do less for the economy. So rather than a modestly sized stimulus leaving the door open for more stimulus if needed, its modest size was used to discredit the idea of more stimulus when it became needed.
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Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Frank Frazetta, the master illustrator whose brooding, epic painting style shifted the tone of comics and fantasy paperback covers forever, has died. He was 82.He was the Grand master of comic and fantasy art, I'm sorry to see him go. I think all art in the field today was influenced by him. I rarely cry when famous people die but I'm feeling misty right now. I spent a lot of time from my teenage years on studying - and copying - his art.
ED:
This is the most complicated issue we have today and I really don't think there is a good solution. And both sides are split on it, each having reasons for and against.
For the Right, the business owners want cheap wages first, and to drive down wages in general. But the rest of them want all the brown people out of their country.
On the Left, first there is just plain old compassion for people in trouble, people who left everything and risked everything to find a better life. And we are a country of immigrants, it's just a matter of when our ancestors came here. On the other hand, they are driving down wages for all workers, and in some cases, such as construction here in SoCal, have pretty much destroyed the industry for American citizens. And if you happen to be an American born Hispanic good luck getting a decent job with a decent wage.
There is a price for Mexico, too. All the best and brightest, the strong and brave, are leaving to come up here. These are just the people Mexico needs to bring their country out of poverty. The only real solution is for Mexico to improve enough that it isn't worth it to come up here, but how does that happen when all the entrepreneurs, the risk takers, are up here?
Amnesty is a bad idea, when Reagan did it there were 2 million illegals here, 25 years later and there are 12 million of them because amnesty was great advertising.
I've worked in a business for 30 years where the entire warehouse crew is always Hispanic, most not speaking English. These are very nice people, when my wife died they all chipped in and bought a big bouquet of flowers to throw on her ashes when we spread them out at sea. There is no way for any employer to tell who is legal and who isn't. Every place I've been at was very strict about every employee having the correct ID, and all the illegals had them, it's a big business down here.
The Republicans always come up with draconian solutions that are always unworkable, and frankly, evil. That's what this law in Arizona is. Not only is it racial profiling so that any dark skinned citizen will get stopped and maybe go to jail because what citizen has "papers"? But it makes the police the enemies of immigrants, illegal and legal. None of them will call a cop if they are robbed. None of them will come forward to be a witness or even talk to a cop if they can avoid it. This means evil people will prey on them and the cops will not be able to do real police work.
Here in California a few years ago there was a big stink about illegals at ER's, getting expensive medical care the state had to pay for. The stink was so bad that illegals stopped going to the ER when they needed to and we started to get a TB epidemic. One idiot even put it on the ballot that all ER workers, doctor's, nurses and everyone else who worked there was supposed to keep an eye on everyone and call the cops if anyone looked suspicious. That's all we need, doctors and nurses moonlighting as immigration workers.
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A busy intersection was ahead, the traffic no longer halted by the terrified police who now had no idea what was occurring.The whole story is well worth a look.
“We’ve got half of four horsemen here, a full one-fucking third of the unholy trinity!” Richard Dawkins shouted from the passenger seat. “I told you to get a car with a sunroof! My plan required a sunroof! I’ll never hit him at this range.” Dawkins drew his sidearm, a long-barreled Colt Anaconda with the phrase “Malthusian Solution” engraved across the grip, which was inlaid with the actual shell of a Galapagos tortoise.
“Make a new plan!” Hitchens snapped. He wheeled around an old woman with a baby carriage. Dawkins leaned out the window with his .44 and fired, but the bullets hit God’s Protection – 40 mm of armoured glass and plating.