Videos on MTV????
Now Playing: Eurovision 2004 Kiev
Topic: Music
Watching a video for NIN, The Hand That Feeds on MTV of all places. I didn't know that they ever had any videos on that channel. I'm pretty sure that the programing there consists of variations on the 'throw hot and sexy kids together and see who screws and see who fights' reality crap shows along with videos of black singers dressed as pimps or gangsters while scantily clad women do variations of pole and lap dances. Yup, about ten minutes of commercials followed the video by the Killers and the video by NIN. But hey, it's MTV so the commercials were only for 'cool' things like ring tones and anti smoking commercials. A veritable crapfest.

Anyways, the NIN video was good, minimal, blue scan lined and edgy in that artfully done raw look that takes a bit of work to arrive at. The important thing, the song, was good. A good NIN song that is a good sign for Reznor and gang. The Fragile, his last double album was a bit uneven and some of the works were admittedly unlistenable. This album is better.

The stuff I'm listening to is the European Idol stuff. Except it came first and is less of a freak show as I understand it. Eurovision Song ContestTatu came from this contest and I love Tatu. Basically it's artists from each country competing. A lot of it sounds like Abba clones. I'm thinking of Angelica Agurbash who I'm listening to now. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's a European style of music that is distinctive enough to notice. Marian van de Wal sounds melodious of voice as well. All in all the music is upbeat and fun to listen to. I give it a three out of five based on my incomplete listening of the work so far. And really, that's far more attention than most folks give when reviewing a CD.

Oh wow, MTV has actually put a Green Day video on now. And now the Gwen Stefani video, complete with lap dancing skank whore cheerleaders as well as the regular kind. That makes four videos in a half hour. It must be a new record for that Network.

Triumph Of Our Communities
Now Playing: Bernadette Peters - Live at Carnegie Hall
Topic: Art and Poetry
"Triumph of our communities" is a ASU's publication on Chicano art which is linked here and includes a profile on my own brother as a prominent artist in the Chicano art community. A wonderful artist and an active member of his community in Colorado.

Military positioning for China Conflict
Topic: Politics
Looking at the long awaited base closings list I see that there isn't much in the way of major bases being closed. That's good news for the military in many respects and it seemed to me that any list that did in fact try to close major bases in major states would have been the end of any power President Bush hoped to wield in his final years as President. The death by a thousand cuts endured by every President combined with the ill advised attempt at Social Security reform had taken any power he had over his Senators and House Republicans. It's every man for himself out there and trying to close any big base in the state of any two Republican Senators would have been complete suicide. However there is one political hit on the list, the Base in South Dakota, big old Strategic Air Command base Ellis must go. Sort of a delayed punishment for the sins of ex Democratic Senator Tom Dachele. I mean really, you folks in South Dakota elected him many times and now here is your reward. The memories of Republicans are long. Republicans aren't represented by an elephant for nothing.

The other base closing that caught my interest is the one in Connecticut. True enough it's in a Democratic State with Senator Dodd and Senator Lieberman who have no influence with the Republicans and of course will be punished for their allegiance to the Democratic Party but it's also a sign that the military threat assessments are coming in line with the emerging reality from Asia. China is the threat now and redirecting forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific is critical to the chances of threat containment. I heard that some of the assets currently at the Groton Base will likely transfer to Guam and that is good news. Peace through strength isn't just a snappy saying, it's true as can be. The better our forces are prepared and arrayed in the Pacific the less chance the Chinese will calculate that they can achieve their Pacific ambitions without consequences. And again, like many would be threats the Chinese assess their chances based upon their ability to complete their goals before the US can react thus leaving the US and her allies with a fait accompli to be dealt with. The theory goes that if the US is faced with a invasion instead of a defense that the military cost would be too high and the US would grudgingly accept the new reality. Thus were the dreams of the old Soviet Union with regards to Europe and thus are the dreams of Red China with their Taiwan dreams.

On the Run
Now Playing: TaTu - Russian Music Videos
Topic: Physical Well Being
Ah indeed. Thank you Naproxen. Naproxen and Nutrigrain bars to get me through the day. Said to hell with it and ran a mile then thirty minutes cardio on a bike. The kind of bike with the sensors in the handles so I could keep my heart rate way up there. After the run Blood Pressure as 129/84 with a 106 Pulse. After the thirty plus minutes pounding hard on the bike (over 160 heart rate the whole time and mostly about 170- I really was pounding it hard) it was 122/79 with a 123 Pulse. It was nice, I walked into the gym and a woman smiled and said "There you are, we were just talking about you and how we hadn't seen you in a while." Well goodness, didn't know I was missed and I told her I appreciated her worrying about me. Very nice indeed.

Nuking Iran - Say Hello to My Little Friend
Now Playing: Pink Floyd - Best Of
Topic: Politics
An article at World Net Daily here discusses the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iran coming closer to reality. It's sort of a self evident future event that some folks will chatter in alarm about after it happens. The reasoning remains the same as when Israel attacked Iraq over the same issue. Nuclear facilities coming online which will be used to help create nuclear weapons combined with a semi irrational leadership that has expressed the desire many a time that it would be very nice indeed to vaporize Israel. In this sort of a situation there is very little chance that Israel would stand by and let themselves be vaporized. So while the UN talks and the Europeans talk the state of Israel makes plans. The article goes into a bit of detail with attack strategies and possible fallout to such an attack.

"Project Daniel: Israel's Strategic Future," is a discussion by Israel over their strategy with regard to a nuclear Iran. Of note to my eyes is a strategic discussion of a 'mutual assured destruction' philosophy in the event that they cannot stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Basically this requires that they are able to retain a second strike capability in the event of a nuclear attack by Iran. What I find interesting is like the US MAD strategy it involves targeting population centers which proved effective in deterring any attack to date. The interesting part to me is that they specifically exclude 'religious sites' in any such discussion.

To me, the idea of Mutual Assured Destruction is that of total devastation. I would specifically put those holy sites on the target list, tell Iran and everybody else that we are nuked you better believe everything you love and value as holy will be gone. In fact, and this is my opinion, the United States should likewise have a policy to include Islamic Holy sites as targets in the event we are nuked by terrorists. We should state that any use of any nuclear device will be assumed to be state sponsored and we will react accordingly in a complete and devastating fashion. They already believe the United States to be the devil and so it would behoove us to build on that belief. Any other type of response or promise of a response would be a weakness that they believe they can exploit. The times that we have been attacked there has been a perception that we were either too weak to respond, unwilling to respond effectively or unable to respond at all. There was no response to the Beirut barracks bombing, no response to the attack on the Cole, no response to embassy attacks. The attacks just kept coming. After 9-11 those sort of international attacks stopped because we responded. The attacks in Iraq are attacks of opportunity and while those attacks wouldn't have happened if we were not in Iraq other attacks would happen elsewhere.

Of course, I do not think in any way Iraq was the proper place to respond and that's another issue.

California Pizza Kitchen -Comes Through
Now Playing: Pink Floyd - Best Of
Topic: Physical Well Being




Sitting on the beach, a sunny and happy day and my cell rings once again. It's the regional manager for California Pizza Kitchen with a few kind words for me. Being a busy guy I didn't quite hook up with him for a few days. An apology for the bit of bother I had from the previously mentioned tasty pizza. I maybe eat a third of one of these good servings and take the rest home for the next day so I had the bag and the pizza for the picture. And thanks to the kind fellow I don't have to file a complaint with the health people. Food occasionally might go bad a bit, which is understandable but being treated badly by a manager is never acceptable. So I did get an apology and so less bother for me. You know, it's all about refrigerating the mayo I think.

All those US Catholics upset over the New Pope -NOT
ABC/Washington Post Poll If you were to believe the news reports bemoaning the selection of conservative Pope Benedict XVI then American Catholics were up in arms and disturbed with yet another Catholic Pope. You know, the kind who believes in the Catholic Faith and all it stands for? Well that kind, not the one the liberal media/intelligentsia wanted. You know that guy -a pro abortion/pro birth control/pro divorce sort of guy. Well, the first poll I've seen has come out. And horror of horrors - the new Pope is only supported by 81% of responding Catholics. Trying to spin it in its worse possible light, they do point out that only a 'quarter' of those responding were 'very enthusiastic' - 27 % is their number which according the mathematical crowd over there is a 'quarter' This probably won't make the top of the news but at least they didn't bury it completely. Just goes to show that people can think for themselves despite the media reeducation attempts.

The call of Doom
Now Playing: Hall and Oates - Hits, Chieko Kawabe - Brilliance
Topic: Mysteries of Life
I'm fighting the desire to turn Doom III on and go looking for more shambling zombies and roaring pinkies to dispatch. The game is better than I thought it would be and more addictive. My own fault actually, whenever there is a clamoring noise extolling the virtues of this product or that person I automatically refuse to be baited or drawn in. I remember the first Doom game and how 'great' that was. Boring and headache inducing.

The television blurts out to me as I surf through the channels that there are only three Everybody Loves Raymond left before it's gone for good. Another blindingly inane mess that I've not seen one minute of. Somehow I'll find the strength to go on when it leaves network TV and lives forever in syndication.

The NBA Basketball playoffs have finally begun. I think the season began a year or two ago. Who knows. I flip over for a second or three to listen to the pregame show for Miami Heat vs New Jersey Nets. Scotty Pipen says he thinks the Heat with Shaq will easily win the first game. The next guy over who I don't recognize says the same thing, a brief knowing smirky smile pass between him and Pippen. The anchor fellow is about to fall on his sword for the network and predict that he thinks the Nets will actually win this one and surprise everyone. A attempt to hold onto a audience with a valiant effort.

Don't know if I mentioned that I had gone to see Sin City. First of all - 10 Dollars?! Holy bejesus. I almost walked away from that one. Anyways. Very bloody and very violent. Rory from Gilmore Girls is one of the prostitutes which was startling. Three stories tied together in a loose fashion. Not terrible. Prepare for severed heads, Pez dispenser heads, limbs hacked off, cannibalism, child molesting, torture and boobies of course. Great boobies then again aren't most boobies great.

And if you can't see the forest for the trees.

The Wedding Huppa - With Gilbert the Goat
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Did I mention that I love Gilmore Girls? One of the great things about the repeats is you get to catch those little bits you missed. I love good writers who fill up every minute with some extra clue, some other information that informs the characters and the long term story. I remember the episode when Luke and Lorelai are talking about the wood carved goat named 'Gilbert' who was found in the yard. I hadn't seen 'Gilbert' before that episode and had no idea where Gilbert the Goat came from. Well, the episode where Lorelai is about to get married (but runs away instead) to Max has Luke bringing a carved Huppa to her yard and she mentions there even being a carved goat on it. Hence the first reference to Gilbert the Goat. An unnamed reference to Gilbert but at least he's there. Brings a unexpected smile to my face.

California Pizza Kitchen
Topic: Physical Well Being
Had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen here the other day. My favorite pizza there is the one with the Caesar salad and avocado on top of it. California Club I think they call it. Well, an hour after eating that it was heavy painful cramps followed by a painful drive to a bathroom. The joys of food poisoning. I still don't feel great but I thought it would be a good idea to let the restaurant know so they could take that Caesar out of stock. Ah, the joy of trying to be a good citizen. The manager on the phone got defensive and pretty much treated me like a criminal over it. You know, you really don't get sick after an hour. Humm. That would be wrong. MedlinePlus here says "The symptoms from the most common types of food poisoning generally start within 2 to 6 hours of eating the food responsible. That time may be longer (even a number of days) or shorter, depending on the toxin or organism responsible for the food poisoning." Well, after being treated like I was trying to pull a scam on them I said you know, it doesn't pay to be a good guy. So to the Corporate site I go to give them the clue in about the bad salad and to tell them about their manager and his people skills. Unless those are the people skills they've taught their managers - you know, the customer is to be disbelieved and treated like a potential criminal. I'll give the Corporate a short while then it's off to the health department.

The New Pope - Classic Pope
Topic: Politics
Very interesting the selection of the German Pope. As you read the news reports you can see that the news conglomerates are treating the Pope the same way they treat a Candidate for President. By that I mean they are falling over each other to 'expose' the background of Pope Benedict XVI. 'Hitler Youth' and 'The Pope's Rottweiller' being the more polite things being said. The Germans themselves in Der Spiegel here catalog the really abusive reports about the new Pope coming out of England. The historic enmity between the Germans and the English are readily apparent and out there for all to see. The above Der Spiegel article digs at the British being 'captivated' with the 'diabolical fantasies' of Hitler and mentioning royals running around with Nazi uniforms. A fascinating article which you'll notice does not in the text of it mention the Pope's Pope name - Pope Benedict XVI.

For American news you can see that they are gearing up to fight against his ideas. By painting him in a bad light they can do what they do the best - which is to discredit his ideas and his religion. He is disappointing the people who want the Catholic Church to move over to the moral relativism of today's society rather than the morality and religion as they have known it. He's definitely not movable in that regard so the papers say 'he doesn't understand' and he should be a 'unifier and not a divider.' It amazes me how attacked the Catholic Church is for it's stance on Abortion and birth control but Islam gets a free pass with regard to the subjugation of women, it's own intractable unreasonable stands on many many things and the advocation of violence by so called Islamic leaders. But the Pope is unreasonable. Right.

Another aspect of the Pope's writings that is encouraging is his opposition to letting Turkey into the European Union. Now his argument is that Turkey is Islamic and rightly belongs in that sphere. Bringing up an argument that is these days violently put down whenever it's brought up, the islamification of Europe is and should be a concern. Not only a concern but something that should be stopped. A 'racist' argument to be concerned with your own culture which hopefully now will lose that taboo tag put on it by the self sacrificing self immolation crowd who think that their views of multiculturalism is shared by the people they are letting into their countries under the ideology of multiculturalism. People who come to your country or mine who do not share the ideals of democracy and freedom of (or from) religion should not be allowed there period. A good article about this can be found at the Assyrian International News Agency here

Female Orgasm - The other side of the seven minute normal male
Topic: Mysteries of Life
Well the infomercial I've been waiting all my life to see has finally found it's way to TV. Well almost. I'm looking at the Lifetime Channel right now and it looks like your basic infomercial but they aren't selling the magic cream or phallic toy. Secrets of the Sexually Satisfied Woman A number of women are defining the problem of sex without orgasm. The show might be an infomercial in the end but it's just discussing the problems of orgasmless sex. Knowledge is power and goodness knows that there isn't enough knowledge in the whole sex thing. As I watch this I would almost be shocked by the lack of knowledge I'm seeing. Of course, it isn't a big shock that there are so many women with difficulty having orgasms when you think of the one and a half minute premature ejactulator and the 'seven minute normal male orgasm'

Pepper and Salt Grinders
Now Playing: NIN - With Teeth
Topic: Physical Well Being
For many a year I would go past the large box store
called 'Bed,Bath and Beyond'and never go in it. Their website Out
of respect for the feelings of a friend who once had
a bad experience with that store I stayed away from
it. I know I'd see it at least once a week, it's
always near the Barnes and Noble or some other store
I would go into. I'd see that large sign on the
front and think about the person who told me the
story which I have completely forgotten except for
the part that Bed, Bath and Beyond was not good and
friendly to her. Going into the store was no big
loss of course, who needs to see a store full of
bedsheets and towels. That sounds slightly less
exciting than a ladies shoe store.

A salt grinder, a pepper grinder. My kingdom for a
salt grinder. You know how you decide you need
something, something to make your life a tiny bit
better. It started in this case with those little
McCormick Salt and Pepper grinders. Clever little
things, inexpensive and useful as can be. You take
the perfect pasta dinner and take a bite. Ah let's
see, like last night's dinner. A mini penne, done al
dente with just a bit of butter and chopped fresh
parsley. A bit of grated Mozzarella cheese. Some lime
and cracked pepper grilled chicken breast, sliced
and put atop the pasta. Into the oven at 350 until
the cheese melts. Garnish with sliced Roma tomatoes,
sliced hard boiled egg and lettuce. Ummm. You take a
bite and of course it needs just a bit more pepper
and salt. But for it be really exceptional you need
to have the fresh ground pepper and a good sea salt.
This would be where those McCormick grinders come
in. Those little guys are great but you know, I
always worry about what happens if I look for
something and it's not there any longer. They are so
small and easily lost. Hence my search for the
bigger and better grinders. Well you know it's not
as easy as it seems. Something like a pepper grinder
is not an item you generally would think of often.
At least I never thought of it much. Finding one
became a chore. And when I would find one there
wouldn't be a salt grinder to go with it.

It started as a low level search that got more
intense as I didn't find what I was looking for.
Don't know exactly what it was, a walk in front of
the store while thinking of the problem of finding
or not finding the salt grinder but eventually I did
find myself walking into the dread store. You could
see kitchen stuff there through the window and it's
a awfully big store so I thought perhaps they might
actually have some grinders. Walked in and wow. As
far as I could see there before me was an array of
kitchen items. Well now, I can take or leave the bed
stuff, don't much care for the bath stuff but I'm
all over the kitchen stuff. And this place has some
kitchen stuff. That Swedish style kitchen stuff,
high end pans, baking things, utensils, just
everything you never knew you needed. And to make it
even better they had a genuine selection of grinders
which even included salt grinders. Aha, at last.

As is my wyrding way I vented my spleen at the
manager who checked me out. Excuse me sir, but you
know, the name of your store 'Bed,Bath and Beyond'
has kept me from even coming in. Who the hell wants
to come into a store to just look at towels and
bedsheets? My god man, you've got stainless steel
kitchen utensils! You've got Salt and Pepper
grinders in many sizes and styles! I ranted in my
good natured way and the fellow was very kind,
explaining how they've expanded the inventory and
the types of things they carry. I said thank
goodness as I clutched the three pack of ice cube
trays- the ones I'd never seen before that had big
long thin ice 'cubes' for plunking in your workout
water bottle. And I might add they keep the iced
tea very very cold and have become my preferred
handmade ice cubes. New Salt Grinder and thin long
ice cubes. A very good haul indeed. I still felt
guilty being in the store but I did get some things
I absolutely needed.

Empty of thought

Well, I could wax nostalgic about the day when Cheeze-its were made with coconut oil and were tastier. Or when there were occasionally the ones with burnt edges. A taste treat to be hunted for which sadly because of tighter quality control are pretty much nonexistent. Curse technology sometimes. There must be at least five new odd flavors for Cheeze-its but not even the odd almost burnt edged ones of days gone by. Alas. Probably should post another older picture from the vault.

Death Penalty and the People's Republic of Texas
A welcomed change to the death penalty aside from it's abolition is the inclusion of a "Life without Parole" option here
that is under consideration in Texas. By offering the option of life without parole to juries you might find them more willing to not impose the death sentence. Only Texas and New Mexico do not offer that option to juries. Incremental changes are better than no changes at all.