Jason Bay to sign with Mets

WFAN of New York is reporting that Jason Bay, former left fielder for the Boston Red Sox will sign with the New York Mets. Bay rejected the 4 year/$60 million offer made by the Sox during the season with interest in exploring the free agent market.

Unfortunately for Bay, a hot market never really developed in the off-season and latest reports were that the Mets had offered him 4 years/$65 million. The Red Sox, unable to wait for Bay to decide, had already signed Mike Cameron leaving Bay few options.

Jason Bay was a well-liked and respected player in Boston. He was a power hitter who had a tendency to strike out frequently. Even so, he still hammered over 30 home runs and over 110 RBIs last year. More importantly, perhaps, was that he seamlessly moved into the position left vacant by the departure of Manny Ramirez in 2008.

I wish Bay well in New York. He seemed a decent fellow, very professional in his ethic and demeanor. Good luck, Jason Bay. You'll need it at CitiField.

For what it's worth....

Throughout the day, I get these great ideas for blog entries. Or at least I think they are great. They seem great to me, but I suppose they wouldn't necessarily appeal to everyone.

Unfortunately, when I get the time to sit down and focus on making a blog entry, either the idea has flown away or the steam necessary to run the writing engine has cooled down.

Sometimes I think I overthink what I want to write which leads to the paralysis of analysis (which is a phrase I picked up from my days in Amway over 15 years ago). And sometimes I only have a shred of an idea which I don't take time to think out at all.

The upside to all this is this: without an idea to develop, my blog entries can be shorter.

Much shorter.

And they won't take as much time, effort or discipline to carry out.

My definition of Chicago-style politics

If you can't persuade, then "persuade."

Spam

Please note that if you plan on leaving spam messages on my blog, they will be deleted. I receive emails whenever a comment is left, so I know when it happens.

So, really, don't waste your time.

Scutaro Signing

I found this post on Boston.com and thought it funny. So I'm reposting it here:

redroverredrover wrote: Yikes. The guy had one good year and now he's our starting SS? Sounds like the next Julio Lugo to me. However, I'm glad we've got another player to add to the list of silliest Red Sox names, joining the likes of:

Heathcliff Slocumb
Arquimedez Pozo
Coco Crisp
Izzy Alcantara
Nomar Garciaparra
Gar Finnvold

Please add to this list. I know I'm missing some gems.

Can we get some clarity?

There's a common thought in the world of sports news pundits.

It is this: Defense wins games.

I beg to differ.

Defense, technically, prevents the other team from winning the game. If there's good defense, but little to no offense, then there's often no win for that team.

Occasionally, the defense will score points. Take, for instance, an intercepted pass in the NFL which is then run for a touchdown. But in this case, the defense has become offense because defense, by its very nature, does not score points. It tries to prevent the other team from scoring points.

'Nuff said.

Bah

So the Yankees won #27.

Good for them. Lousy for everyone else.

I don't care for the Yankees. I think it's genetic. I don't hate the players - I don't even know them. You should never hate someone you don't know due to lack of justifiable cause. But I don't like them, will always root against them.

I tend to think their fans are obnoxious. And, yes, they probably say the same thing about Red Sox fans. Their gloating makes me want to block their news feeds on Facebook. I am not a fan of gloating.

So the Yankees won #27.

From what everyone is saying, it sounds like they think that the team as it is currently comprised won all 27 World Series. But that can't be right.

It has been 9 years since their last WS victory. Back then, their starting roster looked like this:

Lineup
Jorge Posada*
Tino Martinez
Chuck Knoblauch
Scott Brosius
Derek Jeter*
Ricky Ledee
Bernie Williams
Paul O'Neill
Shane Spencer

Starting Pitchers
Roger Clemens
David Cone
Orlando Hernandez
Denny Neagle
Andy Pettitte*

Bullpen
Randy Choate
Jason Grimsley
Jeff Nelson
Mike Stanton
Mariano Rivera*

Joe Torre was managing and George Steinbrenner was micromanaging.

So, while the Yankees NAME has won 27 championships, the current Yankees TEAM has only won one. I wouldn't call the current team a dynasty. Nope, not at all.

The General Manager Meetings start Monday in Chicago.

Predictions

Angels over Red Sox in 4.
Yankees over Twins in 4.
Cardinals over Dodgers in 5.
Phillies over Rockies in 3.

Yankees/Cardinals World Series.

Cardinals win WS.

Say What?

During one of the morning sports flashes on our local sports news/talk radio stations, the announcer for national news said that Tom & Gisele Brady (Bundchen) have been served a lawsuit for $1 million for "negligently hiring" a security team for their wedding. Apparently, and allegedly, one or more of the security team fired at paparazzi during a post-wedding party in Costa Rica.

None of the soul-stealing sleeze weasels were hit, but it was, of course, a very traumatic experience for them which caused "mental harm."

Now, please look at the basis of the lawsuit in the first paragraph.

Negligently hiring.

Think about that for a minute.

Negligently hiring.

So, according to the lawsuit, Tom & Gisele Brady (Bundchen) were negligent when they hired a security team to make their nuptials and post-nuptial celebration as private as possible.

In a perfect world, a judge would look at this for one second and toss it out with some sort of reprimand for the "injurees" seeking a nice pay day.

But given some of the decisions handed down by those who wear the robe over the last fifty or so years, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see this go through.

What a country!

Beware Clampi.. the new Trojan

Cyber criminals have created a highly sophisticated Trojan virus that steals online banking log-in details from infected computers.

The Clampi virus, which is spreading rapidly across hundreds of thousands of computers in Britain and the United States, infects computers when users visit websites that host a malicious code.

More here:

Click this link for article

A Blog Entry Just to Blog

The time between entries is growing longer and longer.

That's OK. I don't make money from this blog. I don't have any regular followes of it.

All the same, I still feel a little guilty when I ignore or forget about it.

Don't know why.

It's mid-September. Red Sox are looking to clinch the wild card spot in the American League. The Patriots played their first game with Brady back in as quarterback for the first time in a year. They squeaked by in a heartbreaker for their opponents, the Buffalo Bills.

School has started. It's time for apple picking again.

My kids have birthdays coming up - both boys were born in September. Hey, talk about efficient, eh?

Besides the normal changing of seasons, there's not much different going on.

But at least it's a blog entry.

More Hypocrisy

Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid is a hypocrite.

He calls the people protesting against the socialistic healthcare bill as evil-mongers.

He said nothing, in the past, about all the protesters against the Iraq war, against G7, against anything that differed from his political point of view.

Here is the article:

Reid: Protesters are 'evil-mongers'

@ 1:19 pm by Eric Zimmermann

Town hall protesters are "evil-mongers," says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)

Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.

Such "evil-mongers" are using "lies, innuendo and rumor," to drown out rational debate, Reid said.

"It was an original with me," Reid said of the term. "I maybe could have been less descriptive," he said, adding that "I doubt you'll hear it from me again."

Nevertheless, Reid worked in the word one more time during the interview.

"I feel I haven't done anything to embarrass [my children]," Reid joked. "Except maybe call somebody an evil-monger."

Harry Reid is despicable.

Road User Study

The US Government, heretofore known as 'gummint' wants to tax you on the amount of miles you drive in the course of a year.

As the gummint has been pushing and pushing for more fuel efficient vehicles, ostensibly to solve that unproven bugaboo known as global warming, it has found its coffers depleted due to dwindling gasoline taxes. You see, people are spending less on a tank of gas when they switch from their 3/4-ton Ford pickup to a Honda Civic. It doesn't take as much fuel to fill up the smaller car, so fewer gallons equals less tax revenue for the tax-and-spend whores in the gummint.

So now, they are advertising a road user study on the radio with the promise to pay over $800 to each person who takes part in the study. For more information, go here: roaduserstudy.org.

They will install a computer - most likely a GPS system - onto the subject's car and then track how many miles the person drives in a given time period.

You shouldn't allow this to happen. Here's why.

When the gummint finally decides to tax you by the mile, they will most likely require that you have a tracking device installed on your vehicle. If they can track your mileage, they can also track where you go.

This should be especially loathsome to all those folks who complained about invasion of privacy with the Patriot Act. But somehow, I don't think we'll get any complaints from them.

I just don't.

Is it Me? Or is it Them?

Having been on poetry sites for most of about three years now, I have read a lot of verse written by armchair scrawlers, some of it good, some of it quite bad. It has gotten to the point, though, where it's all starting to read the same to me.

I'm not sure why this is. Maybe there's a certain homogenizing that takes place as everyone tries to describe how sad they feel from lost love in free verse. Maybe it's because the topics all seem to distill down to about five common themes with most everyone.

All I know is that my mind and eyes are tired from either trying to make sense of what's been written or trying to find some particular verse that really stirs something deep inside.

The odd thing about it all is there are so many people on these sites that continuously praise (with high praise, I must say) these same folks I am reading. It's as if they all see something I can't seem to see, or feel something I can't seem to feel. So it makes me wonder if I've just gotten a bit too jaded to be able to experience the same things they do when reading these pieces.

Is it all really that good? What am I missing?

You see, there is poetry that does to me what I described earlier. It touches something inside me, makes me think or experience it in ways that have a deeper meaning. Some examples I have pulled from poems include:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

**************************
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

**************************
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

**************************
they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

**************************
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders;

Of course, these were written a long time ago by some well known names in the world of poetic literature. So I guess there's a good reason why they stand out. But you would think that with everyone being a poet these days, someone would rise above the ground-level clutter with something that soars free from the shackles of cliche, doggerel and just plain dull poetry.

Some have.

Blaze by Carol Brandt
Winter in Waiting by Emil Donatello
Nightscapes by Keith Bickerstaffe

These are a few that stand out in my mind. You won't find any of these people on the pages of any books on the shelves of Borders, but they have produced fine work. There are others as well, but they are too few and far between to remember.

Maybe that's the way it's always been. Only a small percentage of the whole will have any real merit.

If that's the case, then, once again, why are all these people being praised by others on the sites?

It's gotta be me. I guess I'm just too dense to "get it."

Yes, But Does it Rhyme?

One of the more irritating things about poetry review sites is the number of people who absolutely have to have perfect rhymes in the poems they review, if they rhyme at all. These people are ignoring a whole different aspect of rhyme that has been used by famous poets who write far better than they do. Here is some information that I copied from another website with regard to rhyme.

---

(From Wikipedia, but only because they have the most complete information that I've found on it)

The word "Rhyme" can be used in a specific and a general sense. In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions are filled with rhyming words. A rhyme in the strict sense is also called a perfect rhyme. Examples are sight and flight, deign and gain, madness and sadness.

Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme

• masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words. (rhyme, sublime)
• feminine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words. (picky, tricky)
• dactylic: a rhyme in which the stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable ('cacophonies", "Aristophanes")

In the general sense, "rhyme" can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:

• syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter)
• imperfect: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
• semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
• oblique (or slant/forced): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)
• assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes used to refer to slant rhymes.
• consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
• half rhyme (or sprung rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)
• alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (short,ship)

It has already been remarked that in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words. If this identity of sound extends further to the left, the rhyme becomes more than perfect. An example of such a "super-rhyme" is the "identical rhyme", in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming syllables are identical, as in gun and begun. Punning rhymes such are "bare" and "bear" are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may of course extend even further to the left than the last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that we have two lines that sound identical, then it is called "holorhyme" ("For I scream/For ice cream").

The last type of rhyme is the sight (or eye), or similarity in spelling but not in sound, as with cough, bough, or love, move. These are not rhymes in the strict sense, but often were formerly. For example, "sea" and "grey" rhymed in the early eighteenth century, though now they would make at best an eye rhyme.

The preceding classification has been based on the nature of the rhyme; but we may also classify rhymes according to their position in the verse:

• tail rhyme (also called end rhyme or rime couée): a rhyme in the final syllable(s) of a verse (the most common kind)
• When a word at the end of the line rhymes with a word in the interior of the line, it is called an internal rhyme.
• Holorhyme has already been mentioned, by which not just two individual words, but two entire lines rhyme.

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem. Internal rhyme is rhyme which occurs within a single line of verse.

---

In the scope of the poetic word, there is a lot of room for play and nuance. I usually ignore those who insist that it has to be just one way, and one way only to be right. Once someone starts harping on rhyme in this manner, I see them as, oh, perhaps, less than competent with verse. And I really don' t want their opinion.

Rambling

Lakers are up 3 to 1 against the Magic in the championship series. When I heard that this morning on the radio sports news, I just said to myself, "I don't care if LA wins it." Back in the 80s, I would have hated to see the Lakers on top. But then again, the 70s and 80s Celtics were my team. I haven't really followed professional basketball since 1988.

Which got me thinking about Major League Baseball. I loved the Red Sox in the 70s. I like them now and feel somewhat disappointed when they don't make it all the way. But I'm not devastated. I don't know... I just have a hard time getting to wrapped up in fandom of any sports team these days. They are fun to watch now and then, fun to talk about. I just can't get to the level of worship of these overpaid game players that some people do, though.

It's unfortunate, but the skyrocketing payrolls of professional sports teams have made the sports inaccessible to me. I can't afford to take the family to Fenway Park to catch a game, though my son keeps bugging me to. Back in the 70s, a box seat went for $5. Even in the 80s when I was in college in the greater Boston area, seating was affordable. Now, they start at $125 - if you can get them.

We don't have cable TV, so we can't watch any of the games as almost all of them are broadcast on NESN. I tried a month of MLB-TV which is streamed over the internet, but all live Red Sox games are blacked out.

I don't mean to sound like I'm living in the past, but I miss those days when you could catch a game on network television or just go to the ticket counter at Fenway Park and buy tickets the day of the game.

Speaking of the past, whatever happened to curb feelers? You know, those springy metal things people clipped to their car bodies to warn them when they got to close to the curb when parking? I wonder how the curb feeler industry ended up going out of business - lack of interest?

I see Obama wants to drive this country into the ground with his seemingly popular brand of fascism. I think it's getting time to hunker in the bunker.

Later.

How Time Slips by Unnoticed

Been almost a month since the last entry. Too busy here, with work and other things - not a satisfying labor, but a kind of crazy work demanded by others.

No idea when the next blog entry will be.

Say What?

I used to think writing was a good thing - you know, a way to express some creativity. But now I wonder. It has stirred up some sort of pot which was bubbling away in the background. Or I think it has. Maybe that pot would have stirred on its own with the passage of time.

I am 48, going on 49. For the last three years, or so, I have experienced middle age. Some would call it a crisis. I wouldn't go that far, for there is no real danger of anything beyond losing my mind. An argument can be made that that happened a long time ago (yes, self-deprecating sarcasm, sorry about that).

Despite there being no danger, there has been a hammering realization that aging is a reality. That the past is the past, separate from us, yet still attached. The future is no comfort because we now actually get a feeling of what it may be like with the degradation of certain bodily functions. The present is no friend as we use that time to consider both the future and the past. Middle age is a vortex, a desperate grab to hold on to what was and a furtive attempt to avoid heading down the dreaded hill.

I thought writing would benefit my attempts to record the past, to somehow rebreathe life back into it. I don't want to live in the past; just simply experience it again from time to time. Unfortunately, it's left me frustrated more than anything. It seems that I can't capture any of it in a manner which is realistic and fulfilling. I've tried with poetry. I've tried with fiction. I get glimpses of it now and then, but the sum totality of it all is missing.

I keep thinking that I just need the right combination of words to act as a key to unlock the chambers that hold the essence of what I seek. The search for the right combination has been fruitless, though, to a large extent. Additionally, there seems to be an attention deficit disorder lurking in the shadows that robs me of my will to keep searching. It's as if I sense a futility in the trying. It's also as if the task seems so daunting that I just can't see the point of attempting it.

Maybe there's a spot of laziness as well.

Now, I look back over what I have written here, and I see the ADD has taken over again. This has missed the mark of what I was attempting to do, and I have lost that thread already.

Just a part of getting older, I guess.

New Email Scam

Received this email today. It is obviously a phishing scam, but oh, so clever.

Hello.

My name is Dennis Platt I am the representative of Internet Fidelity Bureau. We were based in 2001 and have a seven year experience fighting against internet criminals. The main aim of our activity is to help victims of a scam. If you`ve become a victim of internet scam, let us know immediately and we will help you to get your money back. If you or your friend have got scammed of a home based job, were a money mule, cashed out fake checks, transferred the funds overseas, sent parcels and were cheated or just suspect your company a fraud - let us know urgently! We will make our best to get your money back and solveyour doubts about your strange employer. We cooperate with the biggest National Safety agencies, fraud departments of Western Union and MoneyGram and internet providers from US,Africa and Europe.

Contact me today.

Regards,
Dennis Platt, IFB Team..

Given how poorly this email was written (I've made some corrections), it smacks of scam. Still, it's a clever approach.

Watch yourselves out there.

Manny Happy Returns (in 50 games)

So Manny Ramirez has tested positive for a banned substance, and Major League Baseball has suspended him for 50 games.

He stated that the drug was presribed for a medical condition. Unofficial reports are saying that the drug was Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG).

Wikipedia has this to say about HCG:

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a glycoprotein hormone produced in pregnancy that is made by the developing embryo soon after conception and later by the syncytiotrophoblast (part of the placenta). Its role is to prevent the disintegration of the corpus luteum of the ovary and thereby maintain progesterone production that is critical for a pregnancy in humans. hCG may have additional functions; for instance, it is thought that hCG affects the immune tolerance of the pregnancy.

Assuming Manny isn't pregnant, then why would he take HCG, a female hormone?

I knew someone many years ago who had to take HCG. His testacles didn't descend, and he had to receive HCG injections, I believe, to stimulate the production of testosterone.

And there lies a possible clue. Steroid users apparently take HCG after going through the steroid cycle to restimulate the production of testosterone which is apparently suppressed by steroid usage.

There are people who have stated that HCG can have a performance-enhancing affect as it does increase testosterone production. But I have to wonder if Ramirez took steroids some time in 2008, for his numbers shot into the stratosphere during the second half of the season after being sent to the Dodgers.

I don't know that there is much anecdotal evidence for steroid usage beyond that and the HCG. However, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Manny thought he could get away with using steroids in this day and age.

There seems to be a serious disconnect between common sense and Manny Ramirez.

Of Trains and Other Things, Kindle Edition

Of Trains and Other Things, Kindle Edition,
is now available.

You can find it here: Amazon.com

Get yours now!

24 is 22 too much?

So, I've been watching the television show 24 this year for the first time from beginning to end.

Having watched the '18th hour' of the show last night, I have a few thoughts.

First, I have to say that the concept of the show is brilliant, and the writing ensures that each episode of the serial is filled with tension, action, and all sorts of twists and turns. It makes it difficult to quit watching the show because you have to see how the latest unforeseen twist plays out the following week. Kudos to the writers and actors for this effect.

On the other hand, I told my son last night that I just wanted to flip ahead to the end now and see how it all turns out. You see, as a 24-episode serial, it is really a movie marathon. And as movies are wrapped up in 2 to 3 hours, 24 feels overly long to me.

Earlier in ths season, it seemed that the episodes all had some sort of resolution that answered questions raised by the previous episode. That was good.

But lately, it seems like the resolutions have grown rather thin, and actually nonexistent, and I find I really don't want to continue to invest the time in the show.

I'm not sure if I'm tired of the show or what. It feels like it has been on too long now, and the amount of action that takes place in a 24 hour period is starting to seem silly.

I will, of course, watch it to its conclusion. After all, what would be the point of quitting now?

2 Wins, 4 Losses

OK, so it's only 6 games into a 162-game season. That's fewer than 5% of the games played. It is a marathon as opposed to a sprint....

However!

The Boston Red Sox have not looked good at the start of the 2009 season.

Beckett pitched really well in the opener, but didn't seem as sharp in his game against the Angels. Lester and Dice-K were nothing to brag about, both having a lapse of acumen during an inning which cost them the game.
Brad Penny was OK. Tim Wakefield was standard Wakefield - he kept his outing to three runs.

From the bullpen, Okajima is off to a rough start. Masterson, who was terrific last year, is showing some cracks. Papelbon had a 37-pitch outing the other day, loading up the bases, but managing to get out of it.

On the offensive side, Ellsbury is still doing his darndest to prove he shouldn't lead off. Pedroia has been cold at the plate. Big Papi has turned into Big Floppy, and I wonder if we'll ever see the Manny-era Ortiz. I tend to think not. I think he got a lot of protection from Manny and now pitchers aren't as concerned about him any more.

Youkilis has been THE bright spot. He's hot hitting right now. J Bay has included a couple home runs to the mix. Lowell and JD Drew have had some contact, and Varitek has surprised with a couple long balls of his own.

Lowrie is continuing his non-hitting streak from last year.

While it's too early to make pronouncements on this team, I have to say that when Plan A failed in the off-season (acquiring Texiera), one could conceivably say that there's reason to be concerned. It remains to be seen if Plan B (loading up on pitching) will carry the team in ways that offense was supposed to. But if the first six games are any indicator, it looks to be a long season.

Early prognostications - Red Sox end up third in their division.

Subject to change, if they change.

Lies Lies and Damn Lies

The White House recently denied that the President of the United States bowed to the King of Saudi Arabai.

Here is the denial from an article:

The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab outlets.

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The White House is lying through its collective teeth. If you watch the video and pause it, you will see that Obama DID NOT grasp Abdullah's hand with both hands. And there was no reason to bend over due to height. You will also note that Obama added a second hand to the shake AFTER he stood back upright. It was obviously a bow.

Watch the video for yourself here:

White House: No bow to Saudi

AI Observation

I told myself I would not comment on American Idol at all this year. And I haven't.

But after watching two of the top 36 elimination rounds, I have to say something.

I can't, for the time I've watched American Idol, remember a time when there were as many people who flat out stunk, especially at this level. Some of it appears to be nerves. I understand what nerves do to your voice, to your presentation. I've sung in front of people before - it's not easy.

Several of the singers have been off key. Not just pitchy, not just hitting a note sharp or flat here and there. I mean totally out of key. And some have been out of rhythm as well.

It's almost as if they can't hear the background music really well.

HERE'S A TOTALLY RANDOM THOUGHT

Why do car dealers say that some of the vehicles they advertise are "Priced to Sell?"

Does that mean that the other cars in the ad are overpriced? That they couldn't be bothered to price them to sell as well?

Oh well, that's all.

Oh This is Just Too Funny

The email scammers have changed their stripes again. First it was the Nigerian-gotta-get-millions-out-of-country scam. Then it was massaged to make it look affiliated with Ocean Bank. Then the UK Lottery winning email, not to mention other forms of lottery announcements. Now it's the Hyundai Automobile International Promotion Program. Here is the one I received:


Edgware Road,
105 West Hendon Broadway,
London NW9 7BN.

24th February 2009,

REF No.: DF-100511

Dear Distinguished Winner,

It is with utmost regard to inform you of our official proclamations made today. You are among the winners of the HYUNDAI AUTOMOBILE INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION PROGRAM. You may have incidentally visited one of our affiliated websites,for you to have received this official notification.

This International Promo Program is to mark the 40 years Anniversary of HYUNDAI MOTOR COMPANY. You have therefore by this notice, been approved for the payment of the sum of GBP 450,000 (Four Hundred And Fifty Thousand Great Britain Pounds)

Please be informed that your WINNING CHEQUE of the sum of GBP 450,000 is now with the Payee Center. Do proceed by sending the below detailed informations and your Winning Identification #:HYU3114/504660 to our claims representatives

Hyundai Anniversary Promotion Team

Edward Phil

Tel: +447031972981
E-mail: hyundaiagent09@googlemail.com

HYUNDAI PROMO WINNERS BIODATAS

1. Full Names: …………………………
2. Gender:……………………………..
3. Age:………………………………..
4. Contact Address: …………………….
5. Country of Residence:…………………
6. Nationality:…………………………
7. Occupation:………………………….
8.Telephone Mobile #:…………………..

Choose your mode of payment

1. Courier Delivery

2. Bank transfer

Congratulations!!! for this rare and wealthy opportunity.


Sincerely,
Mr. Wilford C. Grant
Officer of Operations
Division of Informations


Remember - there's no such thing as a free lunch and you don't get rich by doing nothing. Stay e-safe out there.

Headlines that Make you Go Hmmmm

Kansas suspending Income Tax Refunds

Will Russian Kremlin bailout Oregon steel plant?

CALIFORNIA ON THE BRINK

Chávez to speed up his Bolivarian Revolution

State Department Congratulates Vote (Chavez winning "vote" in Venezuela)

Indonesian women protest Clinton visit

Households to be charged tax for each flush of toilet in Australia...

NY GOV OFFICE STAFFERS GET SECRET RAISES AMID 'FREEZE'

1900% Beer Tax Hike Proposed in Oregon

A letter to my Senators

This letter was sent to both Senators Snowe and Collins separately.

Dear Senator Snowe,

There was no "March to Socialism" in your topic list, so I chose "Budget" instead.

Our Federal government HAS to stop this unfettered spending now. The 'stimulus' package currently before the Senate continues to pile burden upon burden on the citizens of Maine, the USA and our children. I disagreed with President Bush's push to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, ostensibly to thaw the credit freeze all while nationalizing segments of our financial system, and I disagree with President Obama's continuation of same. We must let economic Darwinism, ie the markets, to resume their normal workings to weed out those who took unnecessary, greedwagon jumping risk to the detriment of their bottom lines.

Failure has always been a part of the strength of the United States, for it is failure where the greatest lessons are learned. Unfortunately, the mindset of those who administer power in this country is that failure is intolerable and unacceptable. This disturbing paternalism is leading us down roads we have no business traversing.

I fear for the direction we are going, and I must rely on my elected representatives to bring some Maine common sense back to the process. Please stand strong against the astronomical amounts of money being proposed in the name of "economic stimulus." It's all a trillion dollar lie.

Thank you,

Jeff Howe

Today's Comedian

They say things that aren't funny
Yet everyone laughs
They do things that aren't funny
Yet everyone laughs
They take pains to be offensive
And everyone laughs

I don't know if the problem is with them
Or everyone who is laughing

Nancy Pelosi said it...

... in a press conference:

"Every month we don't have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs."

500 million Americans. lol

More of the Same Old, Same Old

Congress is working on an $825 billion "stimulus" package to be voted on sometime this year, probably February. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has said it could get larger.

Apparently, it's chock full of .... what we used to call pork, now they call earmarks.

As House Minority Leader, John Boehner, said of the bill, "“How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?”

For a guy espousing "change", it certainly sounds like business as usual to me.

C'mon America, wake up! Flush Washington clean and start over again.

Everyone Should Read This

It's time to pray for global warming, by John Tomlinson, Flint Journal Columnist

by John Foren | Flint Journal Editor

Monday January 19, 2009, 4:20 AM

Flint Journal's
John Tomlinson

If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news.

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guy say such a ridiculous thing? But it turns out he's right.

The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels.

Meanwhile, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center released conclusive satellite photos showing that Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels. What's more, measurements of Antarctic ice now show that its accumulation is up 5 percent since 1980.

In other words, during what was supposed to be massive global warming, the biggest chunks of ice on earth grew larger. Just as an aside, do you remember when the hole in the ozone layer was going to melt Antarctica? But don't worry, we're safe now, that was the nineties.

Dr. Kunihiko, Chancellor of Japan's Institute of Science and Technology said this: "CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or the other ... every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so." Now why would a learned man say such a crazy thing?

This is where the looney left gets lost. Their mantra is atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But ask yourself -- if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise -- how can it be true?

Ironically, in spite of being shown false, we must now pray for it. Because a massive study, just released by the Russian Government, contains overwhelming evidence that earth is on the verge of another Ice Age.

Based on core samples from Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica, we now know earth's atmosphere and temperature for the last 420,000 years. This evidence suggests that the 12,000 years of warmth we call the Holocene period is over.

Apparently, we're headed into an ice age of about 100,000 years -- give or take. As for CO2 levels, core samples show conclusively they follow the earth's temperature rise, not lead it.

It turns out CO2 fluctuations follow the change in sea temperature. As water temperatures rise, oceans release additional dissolved CO2 -- like opening a warm brewsky.

To think, early last year, liberals suggested we spend 45 trillion dollars and give up five million jobs to fix global warming. But there is good news: now that we don't have to spend any of that money, we can give it all to the banks.

John Tomlinson is a local conservative columnist for The Flint Journal. He lives in the Genesee County area. You can e-mail him. Read more columns by John Tomlinson.

This is Interesting, pt. 2

Beam me up: Scientists left baffled as mysterious columns of coloured light appear in the night skies

By Mail Foreign ServiceLast updated at 11:29 AM on 15th January 2009

These stunning images show mysterious columns of light streaming into the sky above the town of Sigulda in Latvia at the end of last month.

Taken by designer Aigar Truhins with a standard digital camera, the photographs have prompted excited online discussions among amateur astronomists all over the internet.

'My son exclaimed, 'The aliens are coming!'' Truhins was quoted as saying.

Enlarge

Beam me up: Mysterious columns of light stream into the air above the town of Sigulda

The mysterious lights prompted excited discussion on the internet

'It certainly looked that way,' he added.

But experts are agreed there may be a more prosaic explanation - ice crystals in the air.

The air above the town was notably cold and filled with suspended ice crystals.

It is believed that the columns were formed by those reflecting light from the bright streetlamps and other lights on the ground - beaming it back downwards again.

Skies all over Europe have been filled with such natural phenomena during the cold snap of recent weeks.

But finally the experts agreed on one explanation...

The lights were said to be a reflection caused by the light from streetlamps on the ground hitting ice crystals suspended in the cold air

Scientists at the website spaceweather.com said: 'Truhin’s pillars are not the ordinary kind. Even eading experts in atmospheric optics can’t quite figure them out

'These pillars are mysterious. They have unexplained curved tops and even curved arcs coming from their base.

'Arcs in rare displays like these could be from column crystals to give parts of tangent arcs, others could be the enigmatic Moilanan arc or even the recently discovered reflected Parry arc.

'We do not know – so take more photos on cold nights!'

This is Interesting

Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected
By Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
posted: 07 January 2009
04:43 pm ET

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Space is typically thought of as a very quiet place. But one team of astronomers has found a strange cosmic noise that booms six times louder than expected.

The roar is from the distant cosmos. Nobody knows what causes it.

Of course, sound waves can't travel in a vacuum (which is what most of space is), or at least they can't very efficiently. But radio waves can.

Radio waves are not sound waves, but they are still electromagnetic waves, situated on the low-frequency end of the light spectrum.

Many objects in the universe, including stars and quasars, emit radio waves. Even our home galaxy, the Milky Way, emits a static hiss (first detected in 1931 by physicist Karl Jansky). Other galaxies also send out a background radio hiss.

But the newly detected signal, described here today at the 213th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, is far louder than astronomers expected.

There is "something new and interesting going on in the universe," said Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A team led by Kogut detected the signal with a balloon-borne instrument named ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission).

In July 2006, the instrument was launched from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, and reached an altitude of about 120,000 feet (36,500 meters), where the atmosphere thins into the vacuum of space.

ARCADE's mission was to search the sky for faint signs of heat from the first generation of stars, but instead they heard a roar from the distant reaches of the universe.

"The universe really threw us a curve," Kogut said. "Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted."

Detailed analysis of the signal ruled out primordial stars or any known radio sources, including gas in the outermost halo of our own galaxy.

Other radio galaxies also can't account for the noise – there just aren't enough of them.

"You'd have to pack them into the universe like sardines," said study team member Dale Fixsen of the University of Maryland. "There wouldn't be any space left between one galaxy and the next."

The signal is measured to be six times brighter than the combined emission of all known radio sources in the universe.

For now, the origin of the signal remains a mystery.

"We really don't know what it is,"said team member Michael Seiffert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

And not only has it presented astronomers with a new puzzle, it is obscuring the sought-for signal from the earliest stars. But the cosmic static may itself provide important clues to the development of galaxies when the universe was much younger, less than half its present age. Because the radio waves come from far away, traveling at the speed of light, they therefore represent an earlier time in the universe.

"This is what makes science so exciting," Seiffert said. "You start out on a path to measure something – in this case, the heat from the very first stars – but run into something else entirely, some unexplained."

From: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090107-aas-loud-cosmic-noise.html

As the Leadership Turns....

From an article:

On Wednesday, Mr. Obama is set to speak about deficit-control measures he plans to include in his first budget, due next month, an Obama aide said. The aide stressed that the president-elect is inheriting a fiscal disaster not of his making.

I'd like to repeat part of this paragraph for effect.

The aide stressed that the president-elect is inheriting a fiscal disaster not of his making.

Again:

The aide stressed that the president-elect is inheriting a fiscal disaster not of his making.

And again:

a fiscal disaster not of his making.

I beg to differ.

Mr. Obama and his colleagues in the Congress are primarily responsible for this fiscal mess we are currently in. It's been documented time and again. They did it for political and financial gain.

It's not all on him, of course. But he was one of the leading recipients of donations from Franklin Raines and Fannie Mae.

Unfortunately, half of this country will refuse to see it or believe it.

Willful ignorance is not pretty.