How Did I Become a Bleeding Heart Liberal?

I'm not sure. I was brought up in moderately conservative family. I spent 12 yrs in Catholic school being taught about Jesus, Love, social justice and being told that JFK is great. That might have played a role subconciously. I attended a 'liberal arts' college during the Vietnam War and I'm sure that had something to do with it. An unjust draft system certainly had something to do with it. I'm pretty sure we would have more liberals right now if we still had a draft. When I was first eligible to vote, at 21 yrs, I voted for Richard Nixon (not the second time though). I put up with 4 yrs of being around conservative Navy guys (not all of them were), but was still anti-war during my entire tour. I think what has turned me from being a liberal to a bleeding heart, leftist, commie, pinko liberal is 5 yrs of good ole G. W. Bush and a mindless republican controlled government. I'm still trying to analyze why I'm such a liberal. Maybe because I believe in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I'll dwell on it some more.

I Feel So Dirty Now!

Vice President Dick 'FU' Cheney was over at Ft. Drum lying to our troops today. The thought of him being so close (about 100 mi.) makes me feel all icky. Ft. Drum will need a heavy downpour to wash the stain of 'torture boy' away. How can such an obvious draft dodger even appear before our troops?

UPDATE:
One good think about the Cheney visit to Ft. Drum, all the soldiers got issued the new ACU (Army Combat Uniform). There was a huge rush getting these uniforms to the soldiers in time for the VP visit. The soldiers weren't scheduled to get the new uniforms for months.

Grant Money Available!!!

From the NYT:

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

It's really hard disguising your 'hokum' as science once people start evaluating it by scientific criteria. Intelligent Design folks can't seem to come up with any experiments to test their 'theory'.

Defines An Adirondacker

Suggest a title for this.

Are We Safer? - Another Promise Broken?

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told supporters at a town-hall meeting Tuesday. "And then we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us."

Not according to the 9/11 commission. Police, firemen and government workers still have no common reserved radio frequencies with which to communicate during a disaster. Homeland Security funds are handed out like candy to those that don't have a high risk of a terrorist attack. Our intelligence agencies still cannot easily share information. Katrina proved that this administration is imcompetent. Do we need yet another terrorist attack to futher prove their imcompetency?

Iraq War Profiteering

Anyone hear about the $10 million dollar bat mitzvah party for a 13 yr old girl? She and 300 of her best friends (who has 300 best friends?) were entertained by 50 Cents (reportedly one-half million for 30 min act), Aerosmith, Kenny G., Stevie Nicks and hosted by Tom Petty. It was held for the daughter of David H. Brooks, CEO of DHB Industries. DHB Industries produces bulletproof vests but evidently not very good ones. Over 5000 of the vests were recalled last May because they did not meet contract specification (i.e. bullets evidently went through them). This guy made $70 million dollars in 2004 and sold DHB stock for another $186 million dollars. As of Nov. 21, 18,000 more vests have been recalled. How do people like this live with themselves?

Christmas 'War' Theme con't

This sort of sums up the meaning of Christmas in modern day America. This was said by the leading general of the anti-secular forces in this country.


Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable. More than enough reason for business to be screaming 'Merry Christmas'.
Bill O'Reilly

If there really is a 'war' on Christmas I don't think 'Falafel O'Reilly 'is the best person to defend against it. I truly dislike hypocrites.

War on Christmas?

Not according to a Fox News Poll. 48% say no war on Christmas vs. 42% say there is a war on Christmas. I wonder how many casualties this war has caused? Ummm, physical casualties that is.

Christmas and Christianity

How did December 25th become associated with Christianity? The actual birth date of Jesus is not known. Best guess by some is in the Fall of the 4th century BC. In early Christian times it was celebrated on Jan 6, Apr 21 and May 1. It wasn’t until the 4th century AD that the church decided that Jesus’ birth should be celebrated around the winter solstice which occurs on Dec 21. Seems like a good choice because this is the longest night of the year. Each succeeding day becomes longer providing more light and warmth. There is no evidence, biblical or historical, that Jesus' birthday was celebrated at all before the 4th century AD.

Many other pre-Christian pagan religions honored the birth of their god around that time of year.

In Rome Attis was born in 200 BC, the son of the virgin Nana. He died when crucified on a tree and returned 3 days later. His followers symbolically ate his body in the form of bread.

In Greece Dionysus’ birth was also celebrated on Dec 25th. There was a center of worship for Dionysus in Jerusalem in the 1st century. His body was also symbolically eaten in the form of bread and wine.

In Egypt Osiris was a savior-god who had been worshipped in pre-history. Three wise men announced his birth. Many sayings by Osiris were taken over into the bible. His birthday was celebrated on Dec 25th.

In Persia Mithra was worshipped as a savior, especially among Roman civil servants and soldiers. Mithrism was a direct competitor to Christianity in the 4th century. He was believed to have been born on Dec 25th. It was believed that he was born of virgin, performed miracles, and cast out devils. He celebrated a last supper, had 12 disciples and ascended into heaven around Mar 21st.

Saturnalia was celebrated from Dec 17 to 23rd in the Roman Empire. The early Christian church chose Dec 25th as the birth date of Jesus to coincide with worship of this pagan god.

The Roman Emperor Constantine was largely responsible for the popularity of Christianity. In fact, he decreed that worship for Christianity switch from the seventh day Sabbath (Saturday) to the first day of the week – Sun-day – the day the pagans worshiped the sun.

Christmas as it is celebrated today is more about retail merchandising than the birth of a savior.

World AIDS Day - Today

Acquired immune deficiency disease (AIDS) is the result of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus. This is a terrible disease, it basically destroys your immune system. Forty million people are infected with HIV worldwide. Last year 3 million new cases appeared. 8000 people die as a result of AIDS every day. There are only 4 ways you can become infected with HIV: (1)unprotected sex with an infected partner, (2) sharing HIV-contaminated needles, (3)transfusion with infected blood or blood products or transplanted infected tissue or organs, (4) from infected mother to child, in the womb or by breastfeeding. All of these means of infection can be prevented. A huge amount of money is spent on research, drugs, and medical treatment, 19.7 billion dollars in the USA last year.

Tuberculosis is caused by infection with the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 2 billion people are infected worldwide. Every year 3 million people die from tuberculosis, 1 million die needlessly because they were also infected with AIDS. Although TB can be treated with drugs, preventing TB is very difficult. The NIH spends about $40 million dollars on TB research.

Malaria is caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Plasmodium falciparum and 3 other strains of lesser importance. 300-500 million people are infected with malaria with 1-2 million dying every year. Most of these being very young children. Malaria can be treated with drugs but it can also be prevented by getting rid of the mosquito vector that transmitts the disease. The NIH probably spends about as much on malaria as it does on TB, maybe less.

Why does the USA spend so much money on AIDS and not so much on TB and Malaria. Simple, very few people in the USA become infected with TB or Malaria.

Find out more about these diseases at this website.

Bush, Stem Cells and Jobs

Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins are a husband-wife research team. They are famous for developing methods that identify cancer-causing genes, work completed during their three decades at the National Cancer Institute at NIH. They are leaving because of restrictions, by the Bush administration, on use of stem cells. They hoped to go to Stanford and use state funds for stem cell research, but lawsuits by anti-abortion groups have held up use of that money. So where will they go? The Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore. Now we are exporting medical research jobs.

National Strategy for Victory

I read the document and still do not understand what the strategy is, however the strategy is working.

Economic front: "Our restore, reform, build, strategy is achieving results."

Political front: "Our Isolate, Engage, and Build strategy is working."

Security front: "Our clear, hold, and build strategy is working."

In other words: STAY THE COURSE! DON'T CUT AND RUN! (I love to say cut and run).

It only took Bush 30 seconds into the speech to refer to 9/11.

Wal-Mart Wages

Wal-Mart pays wages about 16% below those paid by other large retailers. If Wal-Mart were to pay wages comparable to other large retailers it would cost them ~2% of sales. So an item priced $1 would cost $1.02 instead. If they did this, their employees would make a living wage and Wal-Mart would still out-compete all other retailers. So why doesn't Wal-Mart do this? I guess because they want to make 11 billion a year in profits instead of 10.78 billion dollars. Where are their values?

Doonesbury, Bush and Torture

I've read 'Doonesbury' almost since it first started being published in newspapers. Since the cartoon strip's author Gary Trudeau is from Saranac Lake, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise probably ran the cartoon from the beginning. More to the point, Gary Trudeau was a student at Yale University at the same time as upperclassman G. W. Bush. Although Trudeau probably got accepted due to his smarts and not his dad.

Last Sunday, there was a really funny Doonesbury cartoon connecting 'W's frat boy days with current attitudes on torture. I didn't realize the cartoon was fact based. Evidently DKE, Bush's frat, was branding frat members with a red hot coat hanger. Gary Trudeau broke the story in the Yale student newspaper. Bush made the following statement to the newspaper "Insignificant! There's no scarring mark physically or mentally!"

Saranac Lake Big Box Store Building Site

This is the 10 acre sand pit owned by Saranac Lake. It is on Rt. 86 behind McDonalds and the car dealership. It is currently zoned residential but the village board wants to rezone it as commercial. Just to the right, going up the road, is the Will Rogers Retirement Village.



Here is another view of the site. It's taken from the railroad tracks (Adirondack Scenic Railroad).



See? What is on the other side of the tracks?



Pretty nice, even with the capped landfill in the upper left corner. Can you say wetland?



The wetlands are actually quite extensive. Actually I don't really use an environmental argument against a Wal-Mart in SL. Although after seeing the potential building site, I could change my mind. Wal-Mart could change my mind if they would only treat their employees better. There is no doubt they can afford it.

Victory Strategy for Iraq

Tomorrow our president is going to speak at the US Naval Academy. There he will outline his 'victory strategy for Iraq'. Is this something he's been keeping a secret and is only now going to tell us about? Or is it something new? If it's a new plan, isn't it a couple of years too late?

Conspiracy Nut

Ok, maybe I've gone to far over to the other side and I've become a conspiracy theorist. But don't forget that Mel Gibson movie 'Conspiracy Theory'. For reasons I will not go into I was reading about fascism last night. Fascism basically says that the government is everything and the individual is nothing. The word Fascism is derived from the latin 'fasces'. This was a bundle of sticks bound by a red ribbon. The bundle represented the state and the individual sticks represented the citizens. The message was that the bundle was important and not the individual sticks. Sure sounds un-American to me. Surely this symbol would never be used in the government of the United States of America.


Behind the Speakers podium in the House of Representatives


Et tu Abraham? Look at the arms of his chair.


The reverse of the dime. Notice the axe, that is often part of the symbol as well.


National Guard Symbol

Geez, now I've really got to look into those barcodes on the back of road signs!

New Links Added

I added two new links. One to the UK Guardian because if you want to know what's really going on in the world, especially concerning the USA, it's a must read. The second is to Russia's 'Pravda' because it's fun to read. I can't figure out how to get my links etc back up to the top of the page without screwing up the html.

Finally - NYT Editorial on Use of White Phosphorus

"White phosphorus, which dates to World War II, should have been banned generations ago. Packed into an artillery shell, it explodes over a battlefield in a white glare that can illuminate an enemy's positions. It also rains balls of flaming chemicals, which cling to anything they touch and burn until their oxygen supply is cut off. They can burn for hours inside a human body". NYT

The battle to remove Saddam worked quite well. But what has gone right militarily since then? I can't believe Sec. Rumsfield hasn't resigned in shame. We may or may not be safer with Saddam gone, but at what cost?

RFID Good or Evil?

Passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). What to hell is this? Well it's simply a high tech means of storing and remotely retrieving information. They are small wireless devices that emit unique id numbers when interrogated by RFID readers or sensors. I use one of these devices several times a day to get into work and into various facilities at work. Somewhere, a computer records who, when and where every time the device is used. Great for security!

These devices can be very small (.4mm x .4mm). They can also be as thin as a piece of paper. This is great for the manufacturing, transportation and retail industries. Millions of items can be tracked from manufacturing to store shelves (and to your home or anywhere else).

RFID will be a life saving technology in hospitals and medicine. It would be awesome to require some devices to be labeled with them (handguns? ammunition? explosives?). But what about drivers licenses, passports, SS cards etc? Do you use EazyPass? RFID is used there.

I'm certainly not a Libertarian or a conspiracy nut. But these devices are becoming cheaper and are being used more and more. There is a very high potential for these devices to be misused. Without good security RFID tags create 'privacy pollution' by potentially exposing personal information to snoops.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has comments on this techology