Happy New Year!

Haven't written in a while but a lot has been going on. Where to start... I am, obviously, not the best blogger. I can start a post but I cannot seem to finish one. So here we are. New Year's Eve. Another year is over. Is it just me or are these years just flying by? It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting here on New Year's Eve commenting on how the previous year just flew by. So what does this all mean? I would like to think that this year I would be a better blogger but it just seems like I always have way too much to do. But I can try. So here's to a new year!

Saturday

David Gray's White Ladder playing...
Rain falling outside...
Just finished washing dishes...
Laundry spins in the washer.

So much to do.

Have to finish the bedroom...
Mom wants her desk assembled...
Dick needs his computer picked up and rebuilt...
The apartment hasn't been vacuumed in weeks.

So much to do.

Laundry to fold...
Ana has printer problems...

'Fridge has an echo; need to go shopping.

Bills to pay...

So much to do.

SIGH....

Summer Vacation?

The Iraqi parliament has adjourned for a month long vacation without taking action on any of the benchmarks designed to show political progress.

News item: On Thursday, 8/2, the largest coalition of Sunni Muslim political parties withdrew from the government.

News item: 35 Iraqis were killed in a suicide attact today; 15 of them children.

... and American soldiers fighting to provide safety and security to allow time to achieve a politcal consensus continue to die at the rate of 2 a day.

What is wrong with this picture?

Just plain wrong....

Just because a statement is repeated dozens of times does not make it true. In the run up to the war in Iraq President Bush repeated literally dozens of times statements linking the 9/11 hijackers to Iraq and Saddam Hussein until fully 78% of Americans polled believed there was a link. This despite the total lack of evidence to back this up and the 9/11 Commission verified the non-link in their report covering the attack. And yet here we are, 6 years after 9/11 and a recent Newsweek Poll still shows that:

"Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein's regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right -- and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq." (Emphasis is mine)

How can this be? Why are the American people still so woefully out of touch with the reality of this situation? And there was Bush at yesterday's news conference still defending his failed Iraq policies by saying that the people we are fighting over there are the same people that attacked us on 9/11. NO. This is NOT true. The groups we are fighting are either Sunnis or Shias involved in factional fighting or they are members of Al-Qaeda in Iraq which is loosely affiliated with Al-Qaeda in name only. They are NOT the same people who attacked us on 9/11 and no matter how many times Bush repeats it it will never be true.

This Guy Has it Right

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg filed papers yesterday "to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party" which he says, “...brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead my city.” Translation: Bloomberg's now an independent. Of course the big question on every one's mind now is whether he is positioning himself to jump into the race for President. For someone who works in NYC, I believe Bloomberg has been good for the city and the fact that he is not beholding to any political party or special interests is a breath of fresh air in an arena dominated by big money contributed by PACs and the like. Don't get me wrong; this not an endorsement for his candidacy, but anyone who says, "I believe we can turn around our country's current, wrong-headed course, if we start basing our actions on ideas, shared values, and a commitment to solve problems without regard for party," (emphasis is mine) has it right. This country is so bogged down in the partisan politics of both parties to the extent that Washington can truly be declared a dysfunctional entity when what we really need at this time is unity and leadership to guide us through these rough and difficult times.

Nasty, nasty, nasty...

Being a huge Criss Angel fan, I decided to check out his latest illusion that he was doing live in Times Square. So there we were Tuesday morning waiting for his big escape. It was a beautiful morning with all his fans crammed into a small area; everyone jockeying for position trying to get a better look hoping to see exactly how he was going to do it. Then, these dudes next to me decide to light up. I couldn't believe it. I mean... how rude can you get? Packed into a crowd of people and these guys cannot due without a cigarette? Everyone around them spent the next 10 minutes or so fanning away smoke that blew in our faces. Now that smoking is illegal in most indoor public places I think most people have become more sensitive to the smell of cigarette smoke. I know I have, so this makes it all the more offensive. Now I've heard all the talk from smokers about their right to smoke and it's outdoors so they can do anything they want, but come on, let's be reasonable here! Not in a crowd where people are standing shoulder to shoulder with no where to go to get away from the smoke. This is just common courtesy! And they wonder why people hate this behavior so much! And then I looked down at the ground and saw the other reason that I hate smoking so much - the cigarette butts lying all over the ground. Why is smoking also a license to litter? Most smokers will tell you that it's OK because the butts are biodegradable. In fact, cigarette butts are not biodegradable in the sense that most people think of the word. Cigarette butts take many, many years to decompose and in that time the toxic chemicals that the filters are designed to trap leak out into the ecosystem. Please go to and explore http://www.cigarettelitter.org/ for more information and to raise public awareness about this issue.

From the "What's Wrong With This Picture Department"

I was standing on the platform at the Hicksville LIRR station yesterday waiting for my usual 7:06 into NYC when I heard this announcement come over the PA system: "Commuters should be aware that there will be a random search of trains stopping in Jamaica today."

- Now, if you really wanted to catch a bomb wielding terrorist would you tell him when you were searching the trains? Hmmmmmmm.... Maybe I should take an express and skip the Jamaica stop.....

News Item: An out-of-control wild fire burned 18,000 acres of forest in Little Egg Township, NJ after a New Jersey Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet dropped flares (used in combat to disorient heat seeking missles) during a training mission.

- Let me get this straight... It is brush fire season. The 9,400 acre gunnery range is experiencing dry conditions and these dudes decide to drop flares during a training exercise.

May 14th

Happy Birthday Dennis.

Snippets

News Item: 21-year retired Army 1st Sgt. Jerry Massey assigned to train Iraqi Army recruits reports that, "We can't leave here for another five years, minimum." Iraqi Army commander Col. Abbas Fadhil says, "We need time for training.... We need at least seven years. Even better, 50 years."

Five years? Seven? Fifty? Just when will these people step up to defend their country?

News Item: As the surge continues to build, the Iraqi parliament prepares to take a 2 month summer recess. "For the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand," U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates also said that he pressed for the recess to be canceled. Sen. John Warner (R-VA) said a two-month recess is "not acceptable."

Maybe they could be encouraged to cancel this insane idea if we link their vacation plans to the new war funding bill; i.e. no parliament, no money.

News Item: "Iraq may demand timetable for U.S. to get out"

Hmmmmm... An interesting thought but will Bush listen to them just because it is their county?

Old Fashion Customer Service

Ever wonder what ever happened to customer service? I have. It seems that more and more these days we are being asked, no, required to help ourselves more and more. Self-serve gas stations have given way to self-checkouts at the supermarket. And don't even get me started with those sterile automated telephone menu systems that we must now maneuver through in order to resolve whatever issue it is that we have. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised not once, but twice in the past 2 days with examples of that "Old Fashion Customer Service".

First, I was out shopping with my wife, Angela, looking for a comforter for our daughter's birthday. We were looking in the JC Penny at Roosevelt Field and had found exactly what we were looking for and; it was on sale! However, the only twin size that was on the display had been opened and the box was a mess. We located a salesperson and I asked if, perhaps, they had more of that size and style comforter in the stock room fully expecting what has now become the standard response to this question: "everything we have is out." Much to my shock and surprise the salesperson called an associate and left the floor to check their stock returning in a few minutes to report that they did, indeed, have more but they had to get a stock man to pull one down off a high shelf. Wow. We left with the item we came for and some good vibes from the store. Now, that's what I'm talking about!

The second example came while trying to resolve an issue with some contact lenses that I had ordered for my daughter from 1-800 CONTACTS.com. The lenses that arrived appeared to be different than what I had ordered so I had to put in a call to the company to find out if they were right or whether I would have to return them. Well.... You can imagine how amazed I was when, instead of being directed through a multi-tiered telephone menu system, my call was answered by... Jenny; a real live human Customer Service Representative! I explained my problem and was kindly asked if I minded being put on hold while she found out the answer. Within minutes she was back on the line telling me that the lenses were the correct ones. Seems the company had recently changed their packaging. Thanks, Jenny! Now, that's what I'm talking about!

And Away We Go......

So here I am, or rather, here we are. At the start of what I hope to be an interesting journey.