Stop Escalation

I thought that this video was very interesting. This is scheduled to air during the Super Bowl and I'll be curious to see if it has any affect on the escalation plans proposed by Bush.

Tuesday's Pic of the Day...

Fun Charlie Brown cartoon...

Ran across this cartoon the other day and couldn't resist putting it up...

The "God Hates Fags" Song

Here is a video that I actually ran across today on http://joemygod.blogspot.com/
and just could not believe it when I saw it. It truly amazes me and saddens me that there are people that honestly agree with this guy.

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim U.S. Congressman and history...

Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran (Koran), the Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during his ceremonial swearing-in. Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota. The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in the library. Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college, said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources. There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli. Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.

Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves. The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected. Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow. Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery.

When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria. Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the negotiations. Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.

Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy. In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain. The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease. During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts. In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800. Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast. The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action. In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves. During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."

It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.

Superman vs. Batman

Here's a neat Superman and Batman picture I found on the net. Enjoy!

X-men Quiz

Here is a new "superhero" quiz that is based solely off of the X-men characters. This was my outcome..



You scored as Wolverine. Wolverine is a loner, and a skilled fighter. He's got the hots for Jean Grey but a better fit for him would be Storm. He doesn't like to follow orders which pisses Cyclops off. He has terrible memories from the experimentation done on him at Weapon X. Even though he doesn't show it, he loves the X-Men. Powers: Fast healing and adamantium skeleton and claws.

Jean Grey		60%
Rogue		60%
Wolverine		60%
Iceman		55%
Cyclops		55%
Colossus		55%
Storm		50%
Beast		45%
Emma Frost		45%
Gambit		30%
Nightcrawler		10%

Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

The latest invasion of our privacy...

I recently heard some new news concerning ways that Bush is continuing to strip away our rights. However, this one really floored me.

The below information comes from an ABC news article published on 1/4/2007...

Jan. 4, 2007 — President Bush says he and other government officials have the power to snoop through your mail without a judge's warrant.
Bush made the claim last month in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill. Bush wrote that the bill "provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection."

After last year's revelation of Bush's secret domestic eavesdropping program, the move caused waves on Capitol Hill among some legislators who said that it contradicted the postal reform bill, as well as existing law.

"Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said to the New York Daily News.

So, now, not only can the government listen in our our phone calls without a warrant, they can also open up our mail and read it without a warrant too. Where the heck are our freedoms going to!? Is this still America that we are living in!? I feel like we are becoming more of a Socialist country instead of a Democratic one. This has got to stop!

January Ice Storm...

Since Friday we have been having nasty weather. We are actually going through an ice storm and are expected to get about 2 inches of ice before it's over with. I decided that I would post a few pics so that you could feel like you were here too...:-)

Another Superman pic...

Here is another great Superman pic...

Bush's new plan...

I'm not going to say as much as I could on this subject, but I just can't get over how stubborn and obstinate President George Bush is. He has a committee put together to give recommendations on how best to proceed with theWar, and he basically ignores most of what they suggested and decides to send in even more troops. The issues over there will not be fixed by adding more troops and putting more of our brave men and women's lives at risk. The main issues that need to be solved our political ones and not military ones. The Sunni's and the Shia need to work out an agreement between themselves which they can all live with. We need to be pushing that to happen and providing professional resources to assisting that process. Once that occurs, then a lot of the sectarian fighting will calm down and the government can then begin to govern.

I just can't understand why Bush's answer to all of his issues with the War continues to be to add more troops. I so wish that Congress would begin Impeachment sessions on him as he is sucking the lifeblood from this Country.

Wednesday's pic of the day

Sort of slow news here today, so I thought that I would post a pic. This picture was drawn by the artist Alex Ross. You can find more of his work at http://www.alexrossart.com/. Enjoy!

Apple iPhone

So, Steve Jobs from Apple made some new product announcements today. The most interesting announcement was concerning their latest invention, the iPhone. This device will serve as an iPod (plays music, videos, and stores pictures), a cell phone (allows you to makes calls, view your voicemails and pick which ones you want to listen to first, compose and send IM's), and an internet device (allows you to surf the internet wirelessly). It's a beautiful looking product and will most likely be "the product" that everyone will be wanting when they are released in the U.S. in June. After reading the details on it, I do agree that this will most likely revolutionize the cell phone industry and that it will dramatically change how all other providers design their phones from here on out. For more information: http://www.apple.com/iphone/.

New Pic of me...

Here is a recent pic of me standing in our backyard. When I took this picture, it was an unusually warm and beautiful day here...

Clothes exchange...

So, for Christmas, I received several articles of clothing from family members that were too big. I even received some XL articles of clothing! I know that I have been growing, but I don't think that I have made that much of a leap yet...:-). Anyways, most of these articles of clothing came from Jos. A Banks. Luckily we have one close to us, so I took these articles of clothing to the store today to do an exchange for the correct size. They were very nice and accomodating and let me pick out my own colors, etc. Naturally, you would assume that you could simply trade one article of clothing for another size of the same style. However, after the clerk does the exchange on the articles of clothing, he informs me that I owe about $12.00. I'm curious as to why, and find out that it's the OK tax that would have been paid. I've never heard of this before! So, not only did my family members pay tax on the articles that they originally bought, but now, I'm having to pay tax on the exchange items. I went ahead and paid this, but was wondering if anyone else has ever encountered this problem before?

Tom Cruise still won't come out of the closet

Here's another funny one...:-)

Treadmill Dance

Okay...here's another oldie but goodie. Amazing how they do this.

Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

I know that this video is an old one, but everytime I see it I can't help but laugh...:-)

Running of Red Lights...

So, here I am talking about one of my biggest pet peeves. I detest people who run red lights. When living in DC, I would see that on a daily basis. I don't see it as much here in OKC, but I do occasionally still see it. I do understand that people do go through a light when the light is yellow and the light may turn red when they are under it. That is not where my issue lies. My issue is when the light has already turned red and someone clearly goes through it because it will cause them too much trouble to have to actually stop. It amazes me that people seem to be so selfish as to think that it is okay to do this and that their needs are so much more important than everyone else's.

Here are some stats that I recently found from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)...

According to 2004 data from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting and General Estimates Systems, crashes caused by red light running (RLR) resulted in as many as 854 fatalities and more than 168,000 injuries. In addition, approximately 40 percent of all crashes are intersection-related.

I think that it's sad that deaths and severe injuries have to occur because there are such selfish people in the World. I hear people complain about Red Light Cameras as they say it's not fair, but to be honest, I'm a firm believer in them. I think that everyone who runs a red light should be given an extremely stiff fine as they are putting not only their lives at stake, but lives of other innocents too. I think that every red light in America should have Red Light Camera's on them. As we all know, the best way to get Americans attention is to hit their pocket book.

WICKED is coming to OKC....:-)

WICKED the musical is coming to OKC in June and I'm already pumped about this. Bill and I actually saw this musical in DC last January. At the time, I really didn't know what to expect, but I have to say I was blown away. I loved it! In my opinion, it was the best musical that I have ever seen. It was wonderfully crafted and had an excellent musical score to it too. It was one of those experiences that will stick with me the rest of my life. I will also never look at the Wizard of Oz the same again. Ever since I saw it last January, I have been itching to see it again and can't wait to see it here. Believe me when I say that I will be one of the first people getting tickets when they go on sale in May. If you have never seen this musical and have the opportunity, you should make sure you do. You will not regret it.

January 2, 2007

Well, I started the new year off well yesterday. Had a nice day. Bill and I had a friend over for New Years lunch. We then all piled in the car and headed up to the movie theatre to see "The Good Shepherd". "The Good Shepherd" is a movie about the beginnings of the CIA and stars Matt Damon as the principal actor. Overall, this was actually a very good and compelling movie. It also had a very disturbing death scene in it which all 3 of us have spoken about several times. It's one of those things that you just can't get out of your mind.

Today has been a slower day at work, so I figured that I would take a picture of me and post it for all to see. This is me sans the goatee. I shaved it off yesterday and I'm thinking about growing a beard and thought that I would start from scratch.

It's still weird for me when I see myself in the mirror as I don't recognize myself off the bat. Makes me definitely look younger..:-)

Happy New Year and Happy Blogger Anniversary!

Well, it's been exactly one year since I started my blog. Amazing how time flies. Also amazing at how much of my life has actually changed since then. Since my first blog, I learned that Bill and I were going to be moving from Washington DC to Oklahoma City, left some old friends, made some new friends, left my job in VA yet was still able to stay with the company through another division, and my grandmother died. 2006 was definitely a very big year of change for me on many fronts. Funny, when the year started out, it appeared to start out as all other years did in the fact that I thought things would relatively stay the same with a few minor changes along the way. Boy was I surprised...:-) Makes me wonder what 2007 will be like? I have a feeling that this year will also bring some changes in my life too. I'm just sensing it in the air. Don't expect to be moving though and that is good. I'm done with that for at least 2 years I hope.

I do hope to do a better job this year with writing in my blog. Sometimes it can just be so hard for me to sit down and put my thoughts together. When I was a kid, I loved to do that, but then again, I had more time to do things like that then too. However, I am going to put forth more effort to do better this year. A few of my resolutions for this year are:

1. Workout at least 3 - 4 days a week
2. Gain about 20 pounds of muscle
3. Read the bible through this year (I did this when I was a kid, but think that it would be good to do so again)
4. Be a better listener to Bill and make sure that I take time out to sit down and plan some vacation time with him
5. Really work on paying off some debt and making a big dent in that
6. Continue to develop the friendships that I have in OKC
7. To overall, just be a better person

For those that have taken the time to read this, here's wishing you all a very HAPPY and Prosperous New Year!