The Stupid, It Burns

I don't tweet, I find it stupid and a waste of time.  There is nothing going on in my life, or quite a few other people's, that needs to be posted for the world to see every other minute.  And I certainly wouldn't want to post anything that harms another person or reveals thoughts that are better left unsaid.

At 2:29 p.m. ET, UT’s Lauren E. Pierce wrote: “Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”

Pierce, the president of the College Republicans at UT Austin, told ABC News the comment was a “joke” and that the “whole [shooting incident] was stupid.” Giggling, she said that an attempted assassination would “only make the situation worse.”

That an idiot from Texas would post something like this less than a week away from the 48th anniversary of a sitting President assassinated in Texas, boggles the mind.   I, along with most people alive at that time, know exactly where I was when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  I may have been seven years old, but like most of the people in the United States at that time, I will never, ever, forget how traumatized we were as a nation.  

Ms. Pierce's behavior is wrong on so many levels that one wonders exactly what they are, or not, teaching at the University of Texas.  It makes me wonder if anyone from the state of Texas should be allowed to hold any office with the title of President.

Lowering The Bar

What kind of creep do you have to be to break in to a family's home three days after they were killed in a car crash?  It's bad enough that the parents and two kids were broadsided by a drunk driver who ran a red light at seventy miles an hour as they were returning from a family vacation in Hawaii, but it takes a real lowlife to break into their home and steal their possessions and their car before their bodies have been buried.  Hopefully these morons will plead guilty because it's going to be difficult to find an impartial jury.

Protecting the institution of marriage by banning gays from being married is better than banning divorce, because it would be "impractical" according to the California Family Council. Two people of the same sex pledging their lives to one another is wrong but it's okay for people to get married in a drunken stupor and get divorced three days later.  On the other hand, some people try marriage (and divorce) three times before realizing that they are gay.  How is marriage protected when it can be undone at will?  Maybe the 47.9% of heterosexual marriages that end in divorce should have been prevented?

As if stealing from dead people wasn't bad enough, stealing $100,000 worth of toys and food from an agency that helps the poor is worse.  Scumbags.

I don't accept his apology either.  I'm not his wife or child and it isn't any of my business so I don't need an apology.  He deserves the apology for people intruding on his life.  Everyone is entitled to privacy, even if they are in the public spotlight.  It isn't like he's a Lohan, Hilton or Salahi who seeks fame for fame's sake or someone who sees an opportunity to grub for money.  And since it didn't happen on the golf course, why should it affect his career?  My senator was fooling around with his best friend's wife and he still has a job.

How can a female soldier die from being shot in the back of the head and it not be considered murder?  That is happened on a "secure" base in Iraq is even more mystifying and why is it taking the military so long to solve the case?  Don't they watch NCIS?

If it wasn't for mom's social security deposit, we would be unbanked also.  Three weeks after B of A raided my account for the California government and charged me $100 for the privilege in addition to $105 for not paying my bills, I have yet to receive notification or any official paperwork.  California isn't getting the disputed tax money and my bills aren't paid, but B of A made a couple of hundred dollars at everyone's expense.  I'd rather pay three dollars to Wal-Mart to cash a check and then run around town and pay my bills in cash.  I wonder if Arnold is going to have his bank account raided for his back taxes?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Speaking of the IRS, they are trying to auction off lands that belong to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation using the pretext of back taxes.  There must be undiscovered oil or gold.   Considering that the land originally belonged to them before they were hunted down and forced to exist on land that barely supports insects, this is some real chutzpah. 

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Guano Loco

Orly Taitz.  Watching her on the The Daily Show made me suspect she didn't have both oars in the water and now I'm pretty sure she's missing the plastic thingy that holds a six pack together.

Jon Gosselin.  I don't watch TLC (or any reality shows) so I haven't been following the trials and tribulations of Kate Plus Eight except what pops up in the entertainment section of GReader.  What I do know is that no matter how difficult Kate may be, Jon is nothing but a whiny crybaby.  He does not have his kid's best interests at heart and seems to think that his wife owes him a living while he cavorts with babysitters and publicity whores.  He has spoken on national television about how he doesn't love (the actual word was despise) his wife and that he loves his newest bed mate more than he ever loved his wife.  Taking $230,000 dollars from the joint bank account and leaving his children without a source of income while he cavorts unencumbered by responsibility shows a narcissistic personality disorder and severely impaired judgment.

McDonald's next to the Louvre.  That should wipe the smile right off of the Mona Lisa.

Overcriminalization.  A six month federal investigation and two years in the federal pen for growing orchids without the proper paperwork.  What's next?  Two years for not putting the proper sticker on a UPS package? Oh wait, that was in the story too.

Anyone who thinks that the insurance companies are in the business to provide affordable health care.

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Of War And Death

Surprise, surprise, surprise.  Not.  Our ignorance, and mind boggling arrogance, has killed quite a few of our own soldiers and now it seems that we, the taxpayer, footed the bill and installed the mines before some of these poor kids were even born.  How's that for irony?

In the article, British journalist Kate Clark quoted an unnamed Taliban commander as saying, "There's a kind of landmine called a Dragon. Iran's sending it. It's directional and it causes heavy casualties." The commander said the new mine would "destroy" large tanks "completely", whereas "ordinary" anti-tank mines had only caused "minor damage".

If true, the revelation that an improved Iranian anti-tank weapon had been killing US and NATO troops in larger numbers would have been a major development in the war in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb attacks are acknowledged by US and NATO officials to be the cause of most of the casualties and deaths of foreign troops in the country.

The rapid rise in casualties over the past two years is attributed in part to the increased lethality of the Taliban mines.

But according to the Pentagon agency responsible for combating roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the increased Taliban threat to US and NATO vehicles comes not from any new technology from Iran but from Italian-made mines left over from the US Central Intelligence Agency's military assistance to the anti-Soviet jihadists in the 1980s. (Emphasis mine)

Ah yes, the mujahideen and the Reagan Doctrine.  Can't say that worked out real well for us.  Now our soldiers are paying the price for a policy most people have forgotten.  That still doesn't give us the right to burst into hospitals, tie up staff and visitors, and force patients from their beds.

As tragic as Corporal Bernard's death is, the highly disputed AP photo is only showing the consequences, the true reality (he died on the operating table) of war.  Soldiers are real people and they are really dying and in horrible ways.  Being outraged over a photo, instead of how the young man came to be in that condition, is the real travesty.  And as sorry as I am for the family, I am even sorrier for his teammates who have those moments and many more like them seared into their brains forever.  If we can't handle looking at a photo then how do we expect our troops to function after seeing people die violently on an all too frequent basis?

I'm against the death penalty on principle, several of them if you want to be picky. One of the principles is that it isn't uniformly applied.  In Kentucky Steven Green gets five life sentences for raping a teenage girl he and his friends had been stalking, killing her, her parents and her six year old sister, then setting fire to the lower half of her body to cover it up.  Meanwhile in Florida, the death penalty is being recommended for Michael King who killed a young mother of two.  If one crime is more heinous than the other wouldn't you think that what Steven King did was the most evil?  Hopefully there is a no pizza provision as part of his sentence.

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Stating The Obvious

And this is a surprise?  To whom?  The political landscape has become a pressure cooker with no release valve and some nut will take the opportunity to do what the voices tell him to do.  Unfortunately those voices belong to pundits and preachers who influence millions of people and that makes it increasingly likely that more than one person will decided to take matters into their own hands.  When you talk about someone as if they aren't human, as if they are the devil in disguise, the hate factor is ratcheted up into the stratosphere and logical thought flies out the window.  It won't occur to the perpetrators that they have lost the moral high ground, listening to the right justify killing someone at church is proof of that, and that the repercussions of their actions will bring about almost everything they fear.  Martial law, restrictions on what few civil liberties we have left and confiscation of as many weapons as possible.  But that won't stop them because their hatred knows no bounds.

My issue is with the Secret Service and the cavalier way they seem to be doing their job.  There is never, and I mean never, a good reason for people without a badge to have weapons around the President.  It has been almost 46 years since the last successful attempt to take the life of a President and there have been unsuccessful attempts since then.  Squeaky Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinckley spring to mind and you would think that the Secret Service would do everything in their power to prevent another attempt.  Especially since they were so good at making sure that people who were wearing tee shirts protesting the war or the administration and who were exercising the right of free speech, weren't allowed into events where Bush and Cheney were speaking.  Why does the Secret Service hold the Second Amendment in higher regard than the First?  But then I remember, the Secret Service has members that are comfortable hanging ropes that look like nooses in training facilities.

In October 2000 there was a television show named Freedom whose premise was a coup that started with the killing of the President by flying a plane into the White House.  It wasn't on long but as I think back it doesn't seem to be that far fetched.  No matter how many times the previous administration and their cheerleaders repeat the opposite, somebody did foresee using an airplane to attack the United States and it isn't that far of a stretch to think that someone will use the diatribes of Cheney and the encouragement of "pastors" to set the country back on the "right" course.

To the detriment of us all.

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Random Musings

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan and all we have to show for it is that we are stuck in another land war in Asia.  Osama bin Laden hasn't been accounted for, our troops are dying at the highest rates (more have died from March to now than in the first three years) since the war started and the Taliban are freely reimposing harsh penalties on Afghani citizens for participating in democracy.  Next thing you know, they'll be talking to a Sicilian.

Eight years in and the military in Afghanistan have very few hi tech hospitals.  How can this crap still be happening?  I understand about going to war with the army you have, but shouldn't the army have weapons, armor and decent medical care by now?  70 minutes to get to a decent hospital after you've been involved in a roadside bombing doesn't sound very efficient.  Or lifesaving.

Science doesn't seem to be a big thing in Texas.  If the fire marshal had training instead of strutting around like Fire Marshal Bill, Cameron Todd Willingham might have been exonerated instead of spending the next thirteen years before he was put to death trying to get people to believe he was innocent.  Just because he wasn't an angel doesn't mean he was a devil.  Further prof that the death penalty process is barbaric and an in your face example of cruel and inhuman treatment.  Even more so if you're innocent.

Do you ever think about what you're thinking about?  I know I'm strange and I've known for a long time.  I'm not autistic but it would be a good bet that my baby brother and I have more than a touch of Asperger's.  As a small example I really don't like bright lights or loud noises.  During my last year of school I wore sunglasses and a hat (at night) because I couldn't take the fluorescent lights anymore.  And the hum was a constant that grated on my nerves.  As a child I could spend hours watching the dust motes in the light or follow patterns in the ceiling and I still do.  As an adult I catch myself doing long division when I'm not actively paying attention to something else.  And now there is an application that will let me expand my mathematics skill, such as it may be.  Now if only I could convince myself that washing dishes was a repetitive action that I enjoyed...

Rest in peace Senator Kennedy.  Thank you for all you did and I hope that there will be someone who can take up the liberal torch.  Not liberal by the conservative standard, but liberal in the truest sense of the word.

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The Morality Of The Right

Waah! Waah! Waah!  Imagine that you are capable of intelligent thought instead of being a self serving crybaby and conflating two separate issues in one whining article.  Yes, becoming a doctor is a grueling, time consuming and expensive endeavor.  But it is one which should be considered if your primary reason for doing it is to help people.  If it's to pad your pocketbook then you should have been a stockbroker.  Since when is earning a lot of money a moral right?

Now imagine how you would feel if the rest of us got together and proposed that the government should become the primary client for medical services. As part of the deal, the government will determine how much you will be paid. Lawyers, business executives, electricians, and plumbers (to name but a few) will all be allowed to command what the market will pay for their services-but not you. Simply because it is possible that a majority may be found who think this scheme is a good idea, you may lose all the benefits of offering your services in a free economy.

Is this situation really fair? Have your fellow citizens honored your inherent rights and freedoms? They have not, and this why a public option is so offensive. It represents a move by a majority of citizens to control the economic well-being of a person who has endured extraordinary hardship and trials in order to become a much-needed provider of medical services.

I've had doctors like him and it is one of the many reasons I don't trust them and why health care reform is so necessary. Ever since it became business oriented the quality of the care provided and the quality of the provider have suffered. We make fun of Cuba but we are just above them when it comes to health care outcomes. Perhaps people should think about that instead of "death panels".

Which is why I'm confused by something.  During Terri Schiavo's last weeks and after her death many people crafted living wills and discussed advanced directives with their loved ones and swore to each other they would never let that happen in their family.  So why is end of life counseling so bad now?  Nobody gets out of here alive but a little dignity would be nice.

Having repeated sex with a woman who isn't your wife isn't "legally wrong" according to John Ensign.   He feels this way because he didn't get on television and lie about his affair.  Here in Nevada serial adultery isn't legally wrong but in the Republican world it is supposed to be morally wrong.  Especially if your name is John Edwards.

When dealing with people going through a mid-life crisis I like to ask the question "would you let an 18 year old make a decision for you?" and the answer is always "of course not".  So then I ask 'why would you let a decision you made at 18 run the rest of your life?" and most people will say "that's a really good point".  Meanwhile, you can't legally buy cigarettes until you're 18, you can't legally drink until you're 21 but you can face life imprisonment at the age of twelve.  If society (and biology) judges you incapable of making good choices until your late teens and early twenties what in the world makes anyone think that a twelve year old has a grasp on life and how momentary impulses determine how their life will proceed from that point?  Twelve year olds aren't allowed to make their own health care decisions or decide whether or not they will attend school and occasionally they get to have some input on custodial arrangements during their parent's divorce but that is the limit of decisions they are trusted with. 

For a supposedly Christian nation we certainly are judgmental when it suits us.  John Ensign (51) knew what he was doing was wrong.  Every single time he had sex with his friend's wife.  And then he tried to cover it up.  With his parent's help.  That type of hypocritical behavior is deemed okay even though it is against one of the Ten Commandments (actually he broke two of them) the right is so fond of.  Demarco Harris (12) made a bad choice and broke one (possible future CIA or Blackwater employee?) but owned up to it.  A life sentence seems a little harsh for a twelve year old whose perception of time makes Christmas and birthdays seem to come rarely as opposed to a 50 year old where they always seem to be right around the corner.

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Of Men And Dogs

I've tried to resist writing about George Sodini because just like the man who shot John Lennon (and yes I know his name but refuse to use it) he shouldn't be glorified and he shouldn't receive in death what he couldn't achieve in life.  I feel no sympathy for the man or his dating issues and it most certainly isn't my fault or any other woman on the planet that he didn't have dates or get laid.  Because one has outdoor plumbing doesn't automatically entitle one to be a success with the opposite sex and it certainly doesn't mean women are emasculating, dominating or contemptuous if they aren't interested in you (beware, the link belongs to an angry wackjob site that hates women, which is obvious by the language they use to describe us).  It could mean that you are a little weird and women feel uncomfortable around you.  Which is more your problem than theirs.  And hating women because you feel rejected is not likely to increase your chances of dating success.

In my own life I learned many years ago that men were interested in me for mainly one reason and it was located south of their belt buckle.  A girl can get tired of that sort of thing, which I did, and take herself off the market.  Which I also did.  I wasn't put here to make men happy just as men weren't put here to make me happy but that doesn't give me the right to blame the opposite sex for their lack of interest in me as a person.  And it most certainly doesn't give me the right to take someone else's life out of frustration.

Speaking of dogs, they might not be as smart as a fifth grader but they can be pretty darn smart when they need to be.  When Shai was a puppy she knew all her toys by name and would bring the proper one when asked.  She also has emotions that are easily recognizable, the two most prominent being happiness and disgust. She's really good at letting me know when I don't live up to her expectations or aren't reading her mind correctly.  What I want to know is how my dogs know I've decided to take them to the park while I'm typing at the computer.  Without moving or stopping my typing they all of a sudden start running back and forth, barking at their leash, looking at the doggie bags and pawing at the front door.  Very strange.

And in the interest of being fair, since I picked on cats last week, here is how to take a puppy picture.

1. Remove film from box and load camera.
2. Remove film box from puppy's mouth and throw in trash.
3. Remove puppy from trash and brush coffee grounds from muzzle.
4. Choose a suitable background for photo.
5. Mount camera on tripod and focus.
6. Find puppy and take dirty sock from mouth.
7. Place puppy in pre-focused spot and return to camera.
8. Forget about spot and crawl after puppy on knees.
9. Focus with one hand and fend off puppy with other hand.
10. Get tissue and clean nose print from lens.
11. Take flash cube from puppy's mouth and throw in trash.
12. Put cat outside and put peroxide on the scratch on puppy's nose.
13. Put magazines back on coffee table.
14. Try to get puppy's attention by squeaking toy over your head.
15. Replace your glasses and check camera for damage.
16. Jump up in time to grab puppy by scruff of neck and say, "No, outside! No, outside!"
17. Clean up mess.
18. Fix a drink.
19. Sit back in Lazy Boy with drink and resolve to teach puppy "sit" and "stay" the first thing in the morning.

My dogs don't present with these issues, they are hams of the first order and as soon as they see a camera they stop doing whatever cute thing it was that made me find the camera and start posing.

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Justice? I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

This absolutely takes the cake for judicial stupidity.  My blood pressure is so high I think I'm going to have a stroke.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, what the hell is wrong with the state of Oklahoma?  Are the people in this state out of what little minds they have?  It's okay to shoot a perpetrator in the head, get another gun a few moments later and pump five more bullets into a motionless body but repeatedly raping a four year old girl and forcing her five year old brother to watch it is only worth one year in jail and he gets credit for nine months already served?  Are you effing kidding me?

She was raped, she was sodomized and she most certainly didn't ask for it, dress provocatively or use suggestive language to lure this pervert on.  As if that would ever be an excuse for rape under any circumstances.  The child advocate and her supervisor should lose their jobs due to gross incompetence since they obviously have not a clue as to what advocating for the defenseless means.  The prosecutor should be fired for stupidity and an inability to punish real criminals which just so happens to be his job and for not investigating the past history, and this guy definitely had a criminal history, of this cretin because perverts don't start at 64, they've been at it most of their lives.  And the judge, well he should be recalled.  If there ever was a time for an "activist" judge, this was it.  He could have used common sense and said no, this creep belongs in jail for twenty years no matter what kind of plea bargain was arranged and let the inmates take care of him, ala Jeffrey Dahmer.  Or maybe the trial should have taken place in Ohio, their prosecutors seem to have a handle on ensuring that creeps get appropriate sentences for raping a child.

So what if the perp gets labeled a sexual predator and has to pay a $1000 fine, is that going to make the rest of this girl's life any easier?  How about when she is an adult and realizes that what he did to her was determined to be worth a tiny slap on the wrist?  Now is the time for the Michelle Malkins, Laura Ingrahams, Nancy Graces and Ann Coulters of this world to get up and scream their tiny little heads off about the injustice that was committed here instead of the made up stuff that babbles brainlessly from their talking heads.

Oh yeah, and the state of Oklahoma should be boycotted, not a dime of tourist money should they get until this situation is rectified. Heck, the Interstate shouldn't even travel through it.

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Common Sense Is A Thing Of The Past

I love when they do studies that reveal information that anyone with a modicum of  common sense could have predicted the outcome.  Politicians have traits that are common in serial killers.  I wish I could say I was surprised, but that would be lying.  Lack of remorse is evident every time they vote against what their constituents want and vote for whatever entity has donated the most money to their campaigns.  When they finally wander back to their districts, usually for reelection purposes, they claim they had to vote the way they did for security reasons or any other excuse they think will fly.

Kouri, who's a vice president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, has assembled traits such as superficial charm, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, glibness, lying, lack of remorse and manipulation of others.

These traits, Kouri points out in his analysis, are common to psychopathic serial killers.
But -- and here's the part that may spark some controversy and defensive discussion -- these traits are also common to American politicians. (Maybe you already suspected.)

Yup. Violent homicide aside, our elected officials often show many of the exact same character traits as criminal nutjobs, who run from police but not for office.

I've noticed.  Ten dollars worth of gas doesn't go very far, which is another reason to sell the car.  People make appointments to see the car and then never show up and they don't call to cancel.  I dragged the kids back from the dog park on Saturday and the person never showed.  The dogs could have continued to have a great time, as it was all they got to do was sit around the apartment all day.  I've dropped the price a $1000 and still no takers.  I can't drop it much more because it won't solve my financial problems and then I would be without a car to boot.  Very frustrating.

In typical Washington fashion they once again rammed through a bill that was supposed to help people but had a somewhat opposite effect in real life.  Those who make a certain amount of money might be able to keep some type of roof over their head, as long as they don't want to eat real food.  Ketchup is a vegetable.  Again.

White guy kills three cops who he thinks are going to take away his guns, just a lone nutjob. Minutemen dressed as cops kill a Hispanic father and 9 year old daughter in their own home, not a hate crime.  White man shoots a doctor in a church, not a crime of terror.  White guys shoots up a church while spouting crap he heard on Limbaugh and Hannity, not a hate crime.  Old white guy shoots a security guard at the Holocaust Museum, it's an isolated incident.  Black guy with strange name kills a recruit and it's a bloody rampage and a "giant step forward for the jihadist movement".  According to World Net Daily here is a partial list of recent church shootings, none of which are considered terrorist acts.  I know it's not new, but can we say "double standard?"

• August 12, 2007: A lone gunman, Eiken Elam Saimon, opened fire in a Missouri Micronesian church, killing a pastor and two other churchgoers.
• May 20, 2007: A standoff between police and a suspect in the shootings of three people in a Moscow, Idaho, Presbyterian Church ended with three dead, including one police officer.
• Although not at a church building, the Oct. 2, 2006, attack in Lancaster County, Pa., by a gunman who killed five girls and then himself at an Amish school targeted a religious site.
• May 21, 2006: Louisiana. Four were killed by a man at Jesus Christ Church.
• Feb. 26, 2006: Michigan. Two people were killed at Zion Hope Missionary Baptist Church by a man who reportedly went to the church looking for his girlfriend. He later killed himself.
• April 9, 2005: A 27-year-old airman died after being shot at a church in College Park, Ga., where he had once worked as a security guard.
• March 12, 2005: A man walked into the services of the Living Church of God in Milwaukee and open fired immediately, killing seven people.
• Oct. 5, 2003: A woman opened fire in Turner Monumental AME church in Kirkwood, east of Atlanta, killing the pastor and two others.
• Sept. 16, 1999: Seven young people were killed when a man opened fire during a prayer service for teen-agers at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas

Someone too dumb to know that if an escaped gorilla was Michelle Obama's ancestor then it was his ancestor also.  At this rate Americans are going to start regarding their Indian and Chinese doctors as more competent than their blond, blue-eyed doctors.  Unless they have a British accent to go with their "normal" looks.

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Stoking The Wingnut Ire And Other Interests

Yippee!  Greasemonkey has finally been updated to work with FF 3.5b4 and a few other extensions I like to use have been updated as well.  I really missed Colorful List View for Google Reader, it makes it much easier on the eyes when you have a 166 feeds.  And now that Google Reader Subscriber Count is working again, I find that I have more readers than a few months ago.  Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.  I may not be one of the big boys in the blogging world but at least I don't feel like I'm yelling into a void.

Folk hero? Umm, no.  He's a cold blooded murderer.  I think I'm safe when a guy is lying on the ground bleeding from a bullet wound to the head.  I wouldn't find it necessary to get another gun a minute or two later and fire five more bullets into him.  But then, I don't scare easily.  And since it's Oklahoma if it had been a black guy who shot and deliberately killed a white thief, he would be in jail and no anonymous donor would have posted bail, as if bail would have been an option.

Box said that another person might have reacted differently, but he asked: "When do you turn off that adrenaline switch? When do you think you're safe? I think that's going to be the ultimate issue."

As much as I dislike the man this is ridiculous.  Obama has a date night on Broadway with the wife and the GOP goes nuts (rapidly becoming their default state) because the country is in economic freefall and Le Prez shouldn't be relaxing.  Meanwhile Bush spent 487 days at Camp David and 490 day in Crawford, several of them while the Gulf Coast was drowning during Katrina, and not a peep was heard.  Two and a half years on vacation in an eight year term is okay but a night on the town is a no no.  And let's not forget that Condi was buying shoes and enjoying a Broadway show while a major city was underwater and the GOP said...nothing.  IOKIYAR applies to more than sex crimes, wow what a concept.

If you are homeless you shouldn't have computer access because you should be focused on getting a job according to a good proportion of the commenters at the WSJ.  Totally missing from these holier than thou people is the fact that most jobs are posted online and that if you submit an application for a job and don't have a home address or phone number that if you have an email address you can be reached for a job interview.  And that out of a 24 hour day only eight to ten hours are good for job hunting and the weekends are useless.  But they must suffer because they are homeless, they shouldn't be watching movies or enjoying music.  Personally, if I was an employer (not that there are many nowadays) I would look for enterprising people like these who are determined to stay connected and have figured out a way to do it without a permanent roof over their heads or a reliable source of electricity.

Since arriving in Reno I sneeze every day, at least twenty times and usually more.  When I first got here I had to take Benadryl constantly but the last week has been a little better.  I'm still sniffly and my eyes itch but my asthma is back under control and I can breathe through my nose most of the time.  Although I'm not the only one suffering I wish I knew what it was I'm allergic to.  Or it could be that my body is reacting to breathing air instead of San Jose smog.  Whatever it is I hope it goes away soon, I've blown thru several boxes of Kleenex  and I haven't had an uninterrupted nights sleep in a long time.  Supposedly the pollen count is on its way down.

The suffering, the trauma. It seems that the Chosen don't like it when they don't get everything they want and the world doesn't bow to their wishes.  Their idea of construction is we take what you had, you go live in a ghetto that we won't let you leave so we can bomb you at will.  When I was growing up I was told you could catch more bees with honey than you could with vinegar, nowadays it's all about killing the bees instead.  And as we are now finding out bees are important to survival, maybe the Palestinians are too.

Sunday Morning Diversions

Well, the WaPo is at it again, trying to create a crisis where none exists.  Yes the H1N1 flu virus has made people sick, the flu usually does that but it is not a pandemic and it is already dying down.  But did that stop the intrepid reporters from the Post?  No way Jose.  A two page article in the Sunday edition, still calling it swine flu and a whole section devoted to stoking the fire.  Approximately 36,000 people a year die from the flu and that number could be overstated but the news ignores that and hypes the death toll from this new version as a coming pandemic.  Since when are 19 deaths in a poor country a pandemic?  If they had paid this much attention to SARS when it first started it might not have spread as much as it did.  One thing the flu did accomplish, it knocked torture right off the front page.  How convenient.

The number of confirmed dead in Mexico stood at 19 on Saturday, unchanged from the day before, Córdova said at a news conference in Mexico City. Confirmed swine flu cases, including the deaths, rose from 397 to 473.

Why is it that people are willing to risk serious injury or death to lose weight but they aren't willing to cut calories and get exercise?  The only way to successfully lose weight and to keep it off are to change bad eating and exercise habits.  That's it, there is no other way.  No matter what diet you are on if you don't change your approach towards food on a permanent basis then you will put the weight back on.  It may take a few months or it may take a couple of years but most likely at the end of five years you will be back to your original weight, plus a few extra pounds. Park at the rear of the lot, take the stairs, cut back on the sodas and alcohol, eat more colors (otherwise known as vegetables) and not only will you lose weight you will feel better and your cholesterol will decrease.  Now that is a win, win.

I deeply resent it when people assume that because someone is liberal they want revenge on the Bush administration for authorizing torture and that those who are conservative approve or condone torture and believe that we should let bygones be bygones.  Neither of those assumptions is completely true and only serve to continue to polarize the country.  Do I believe that torture is wrong?  Yes.  Do I believe that those who authorized it should be punished?  Yes.  Does it matter that it was the Bush administration?  No.  I would feel the same way if it had happened under Carter, Clinton or the current fox guarding the henhouse, Obama.  Torture is wrong, it will always be wrong, nothing is going to change that and the perpetrators should be punished.  Not even a ticking clock is a valid excuse.  Better to die with my head held high than to live under a cloud of shame and hypocrisy.  Most Americans used to feel the same way before they were fed the pablum that passes as news.

Given a choice between putting convicted criminals to death or finding the criminals who committed murders and haven't been found, I opt to find the criminals running free.  Hopefully Colorado will decide that the money used to try and kill those already convicted will be better used to hunt down and prosecute those who think they have gotten away with murder.  Not all cases will be solved but there are many parents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands and children who would like to know who killed their loved ones.

Dipshit.  I'm sorry I ever believed in you.

A little humor to lighten the morning.  These classifieds actually ran in newspapers - a smile for your day.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8-years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!

FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE PUPPIES..
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG.
Looks like a rat. Been out a while. Better be a big reward.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

NORDIC TRACK
$300 Hardly used, call Chubby.

GEORGIA PEACHES
California grown - 89 cents/lb.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer $300.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE.
Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie.

And the best one?:

FOR SALE BY OWNER:
Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes Excellent condition.
$1,000 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last month. Wife knows everything.

Big Brass Blog

Guns, Testosterone And Stupidity

I beg to differ.  No retreat should only apply if you are inside your home and think you are being attacked.  It should not mean that you grab your gun, go outside and stand in front of a moving vehicle and then shoot.  He deliberately put himself in danger when he could have picked up the phone and dialed 911 and waited for the authorities to handle the situation.  Shoot first, make up your story later.

According to the affidavit, Jones heard his Toyota Land Cruiser, parked in the barn at his orange grove, start up before daylight Tuesday. Jones told police he grabbed his gun, a 9mm that he keeps with him while working at the grove. He said he could see two people in the SUV as it backed out of the barn, according to the affidavit. He said he saw the passenger's arm reach outside the vehicle, and believed that person might be holding a gun.

The Land Cruiser stopped directly in front of him, Jones said in the affidavit. He said he raised his gun and pointed it at the occupants, shouting "Stop," but the vehicle appeared to be moving directly toward him.

"Fearing for his life, he then fired what he thought to be six to eight rounds into the front windshield of the vehicle," the affidavit stated.

If he was that scared he should have stayed inside.  So which was it, six or eight?  I guess examining the gun wasn't necessary since his word seems to be so good.

People are having way too much fun Photoshopping Air Force One into various places in lieu of flying it over places it doesn't belong. My brother had the original poster hanging on his wall for a long time, I believe it was originally for Maxell.  And the other one sums up the stupidity nicely.

Blown away!
It sure does.

Some of them were racist and some were quite artistic, personal preference is everything.

I need furniture.  Air mattresses definitely suck for daily use but the dogs are having a great time switching between mom and I in the middle of the night.  My back is killing me from sitting on the floor and I can't believe how much my knees ache and how difficult it is to get up.  I'm only 52, at least for a few more days, I shouldn't be falling apart this fast.  The puter is on a cardboard box that is slowly collapsing and mom says the camp chair isn't all that comfortable day in and day out.  I'm not going to be able to get my stuff from San Jose for quite a while since the grants that were dangled in front of my nose were a hoax and I have no way to get back and get the stuff from storage until I get a job and earn some money.  The Alzheimer's Association is investigating the agency that sent me the paperwork but that doesn't help mom and I.  Still, I'm glad to be out of California.

The dogs are adjusting but Shadow sits by the door from the time I leave until I come back, I think she is having separation issues.  I found a great off leash dog park that they enjoy and Shai even went into the pond.  She was really thirsty otherwise she wouldn't have done it, she normally won't walk through a puddle.  They normally don't get very far from me and Shadow remembers where I parked the car but not where I'm sitting so it can be pretty funny when she realizes she lost me.  She's like Vizzini, she goes back to the beginning.

I'm playing around with Firefox 3.5b4 and even though most of my extensions aren't working yet (ForecastFox, Greasemonkey and Better Greader in particular) I like it.  I'm also trying ScribeFire and so far, so good.  I can post to Blogger with no problem but Big Brass Blog runs on a different engine that isn't covered.  Oh well, one can't have everything.

BBB

Firefox, Beta, Shootings,

Into The Breach One More Time

I am so tired of hearing that Bush kept us safe for seven years and four months after 9/11.  If you look at the statement logically, the US was safe for 225 years and one month from terrorism (unless you count the actions of those dudes McVeigh, Nichols, and Rudolph) before Bush ignored warnings of an imminent attack on the United States by a known terrorist and 2,572 people lost their lives while he held a book upside down and the "Vice President" hid in an undisclosed bunker for several hours.  And since when do two wrongs make a right?

Keeney in 1962 covertly set up a CIA front called MK-ULTRA, which used the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies to conduct tests on unwitting federal inmates, the overwhelming majority of whom were black, to chart the effect of hallucinogenic drugs.

All of this is reprehensible, horrible stuff. But it was generated by well-meaning American officers from what has been called “The Greatest Generation” to keep America safe.

I doubt that it was to keep America safe but if it makes you feel better to believe that, then you are no better than Josef Mengele  and have no business having contact with normal people. And equating the release of the torture memos to the possibility of another attack on the US shows that one has trivialized and ignored the reasons why the terrorists hate us.

They don't hate us because of our freedoms, they hate us because we interfere in their beliefs, have no respect for their religion and willfully ignore their requests to remove ourselves from areas they consider to be consecrate. Oh, and that torture thing?  Not helping our reputation but reinforcing the terrorists will to punish the oppressors.

Torture is wrong, it will always be wrong and saying that the end justifies the means is short-sighted and foolish.  That's like saying that lying about a blowjob is worse than ordering people to be treated like animals and have their basic human rights removed.  And Americans aren't really like that, are we?  Because last time I heard, torturing animals was one of the early signs of antisocial personality disorder and maybe the people who wrote the memos, followed the memos or defend the memos should be evaluated and treated before they harm their own families.

BBB

Do Unto Others

Yesterday the FX channel showed A Few Good Men and while everyone remembers "you can't handle the truth" very few people remember the pressure exerted on Marines to follow orders no matter what or the ending and the judgment rendered against the two Marines.  It seems that back in 1992 following an illegal order was enough to have you kicked out of the military with a dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming a Marine.  Just like it was when I joined the Army in 1974.  It's almost funny that the crime took place at Gitmo.

On the charge of Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

It's hard to resist the temptation to scream and shout, but they do.

RANDOLPH
(continuing; reading)
On the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

RANDOLPH looks up. Then reads from the last slip of paper.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
On the charge of Conduct Unbecoming a United States Marine, the members find the defendants Guilty as Charged.

A little of the energy drains out of the room.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
The defendants are hereby sentenced by this court to time already served, and are ordered...

RANDOLPH clears his throat.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
... And are ordered to be dishonorably discharged from the marine corps.
(pause) This Court-Martial is adjourned.

RANDOLPH raps his gavel.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
Ten hut.

All rise.

RANDOLPH's gone.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
(continuing)
Dismissed.

The M.P.'s move to DAWSON and DOWNEY to unlock their handcuffs. KAFFEE is packing up his things, just another day at the office.

DAWSON
Why?

KAFFEE
Harold, I'm sorry.

DAWSON
Why?!

DOWNEY
I don't understand. Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red.

JO
I know, but--
 
DOWNEY
Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red, what did we do wrong?

JO
It's not as simple as--

DOWNEY
What did we do wrong?

DAWSON
We did nothing wrong.

If it wasn't a viable excuse in 1992, it's even less of an excuse when you have a college degree (required to join the CIA) or a medical degree and are supervising torture. Waterboarding two men 266 times and receiving the same answers shows that torture doesn't work.  Common sense dictates that if they haven't given any more information after the first or second time, they aren't going to cough up anything useful on the hundredth time.  By then they know they aren't going to die from simulated drowning and that their captors are depraved idiots following illegal orders.

Why is it considered torture when our troops are subjected to water-boarding but not when we do it to other people?

Interestingly, we weren't nearly as blithe about waterboarding when it happened to our own guys during World War II. Then, we considered it a war crime and a form of torture.

In "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts," Judge Evan Wallach of the U.S. Court of International Trade has documented the trials in which the United States used evidence of water-boarding as a basis for prosecutions. The article, still in draft form, will be published soon by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Among the numerous examples, Wallach cites one involving four Japanese defendants who were tried before a U.S. military commission at Yokohama, Japan, in 1947 for their treatment of American and Allied prisoners. Wallach writes, in the case of United States of America vs. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita, "water torture was among the acts alleged in the specifications ... and it loomed large in the evidence presented against them."

Hata, the camp doctor, was charged with war crimes stemming from the brutal mistreatment and torture of Morris Killough "by beating and kicking him (and) by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils." Other American prisoners, including Thomas Armitage, received similar treatment, according to the allegations.

Armitage described his ordeal: "They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about 2 gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness."

Hata was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, and the other defendants were convicted and given long stints at hard labor as well.

Wallach also found a 1983 case out of San Jacinto County, Texas, in which James Parker, the county sheriff, and three deputies were criminally charged for handcuffing suspects to chairs, draping towels over their faces and pouring water over the towel until a confession was elicited. One victim described the experience this way: "I thought I was going to be strangled to death. ... I couldn't breath."

The sheriff pleaded guilty and his deputies went to trial where they were convicted of civil rights violations. All received long prison sentences. U.S. District Judge James DeAnda told the former sheriff at sentencing, "The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country."

Hmm, so we have prosecuted our own law enforcement agencies for performing water torture but the CIA. the doctors and everyone else involved in these heinous acts against people in their custody are not to be punished?  Right now President Obama is no better than President Nixon was when he had Lt. Calley removed from the stockade after a single weekend after being sentenced to hard labor for the rest of his life for killing innocent women and children at My Lai 4.

I love this country but I am not immune to its faults and lately they have been obvious to everyone but us.  Whenever we feel threatened we feel we can use any means necessary to accomplish our goals but we want others to be punished (Mr. President, I'm sure you saw those documents as you studied for that law degree, they were in your college library) for using those same means.  I guess this means that our motto is no longer "Land of the free, home of the brave" it's more along the line of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but do it first."

As John Adams said many years ago, we are a nation of laws.  Mr. Obama it is your job to enforce them.  Otherwise you, and by definition America, are nothing more than an empty suit.

BBB

After, After

Did the Wall Street Journal just call Gore smart?  It's amazing how when you don't like someone new you can wax poetical about someone you disliked many years ago.

Mr. Obama's troops palpitate with excitement at the prospect of $1 trillion in "stimulus," though any net benefit to the economy likely will be incidental. Al Gore has thrown out the window any unpopular carbon taxes in favor of direct subsidies to his green energy investments. He sees the moment for what it is -- alarm about global warming has degenerated into a pretext. Billions will be diverted from useful purposes to create "green jobs" that deliver no meaningful impact on climate or the accumulation of atmospheric carbon.

And Malkin said that Bush allowed the subprime crisis to fester on national Fox TV?  The world is definitely changing if these two examples are any example.  See what happens when you stop drinking the Kool-Aid?  If only it had been sooner.   Like eight years ago.  Unfortunately,  it's more likely they changed the flavor for the new guy.

Coincidence?  I think not.  Sales are up to 75% off and 75% of the American populace are glad to see Bush go.  And not a moment too soon.   Too bad it isn't off to jail for crimes against humanity, but there's always some sort of hope.  Even the futile

I have always loved Eartha Kitt.  From the first time I saw her playing Catwoman on Batman to hearing her sing "Santa Baby", she was always a favorite of mine.  I even used to have part of "Santa Baby" as my outgoing answering machine message durin the holidays, at least until Madonna screwed it up.  Eartha you had a long life, if not a particularly happy one, but I will miss you and your talent.  If I could sing I would say you were my inspiration.  Rest in peace and thank you for all the happy memories.

Pull a prank, get sent to jail.  That's where kids now get to learn the really good stuff like how to steal cars, break into homes and how to set up a successful street drug operation.   Just as every crime is not the same, neither is every criminal.  And now states that didn't want the rich to suffer by paying a few taxes that they wouldn't even notice, we will all suffer the results of kids learning to be hard core criminals instead of learning how to compete in the global market.  As if there was nothing wrong with the economy that a little jail time couldn't fix.  But those criminals are too busy spending their bailouts on things that will do nothing to improve the economy of the have nots and much more to insulate themselves as the have mores.

Gee, I hope it isn't the same group that determined the air was safe in New York after 9/11.  Just because all the fish are dead is no reason to worry.

BBB

Soup Lines, Bread Lines, Unemployment Lines

What a Corker!  And the right hand said to the left hand "I don't need your help to jerk myself off, I'm going to show you how to be a fiscal conservative again.  We won't even need tissue paper."  Meanwhile, what's left of the American Automobile industry is flushed down the toilet.  And why don't the Republicans in Congress care?  That's way too easy to answer.

Because they have a salary that's way too high for the job they aren't even trying to accomplish; they have health care for when their ulcers (that they might not be reelected or any other physical problems that affect "normal" people and then the taxpayer so nicely pays it for them without ever seeing a bill to make sure they aren't being overcharged!) goes bad; because they really don't realize that it is their constituents who are the ones in major financial trouble (and who gives a flying fig about them since most of the Senators aren't up for election for the next two to four years and they know American memories are short, name the last 10 Presidents in under ten seconds) and they know that after the inauguration they will still be able to go on a junket vacation on the taxpayers few remaining dimes.  Because we all know that the solution to this problem is to cut back everyone's wages and eliminate all pensions except for those in government and the problem will magically solve itself using the free market system.  Of stupidity.  Whatever happened to making government so small it could be drowned in a bathtub?  Or did Katrina show that little plan wasn't going to work?

As I sit here and watch the country I was willing to bleed and die for, I wonder why it took me so long to realize that my country truly is apple shaped and that we are well on our way to a fatal heart attack or stroke.  Then I realized that the people currently in power think all those stories about soup lines (great link with pictures and everything!) and The Grapes of Wrath were just brilliant works of fiction to make the have nots not feel so alone and that it really was never that bad, will never be that bad and it was probably made up in the first place to give the photographers something to do.  Methinks that sometime soon the crew without a clue will finally realize what the Second Amendment was really about...and that it had nothing to do with owning guns just because you wanted to.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It has everything to do with making sure that once again the have mores will understand that the have nots have had about as much not as they can take and still call themselves men and women instead of slaves.  We may not have taxation without representation, but we certainly have had representation without repercussions to the perpetrators of our current mess.

If we all work together, we just might get both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights back into the positions of authority that they held for hundreds of years before this bunch of bozos decided to drive the Escalade over the Grand Canyon to see if it could fly.

Without wings, a pilot or parachute for anyone other than the owners.

BBB

Hubris Usually Precedes A Fall Unless IOKIYAR

So much for  constituents having a say in who represents them.  And you thought the Daley years were bad.  At least the Longs of Louisiana had interesting accents, but Blagojevich wins the award for political stupidity this year and probably the decade.  I never thought anyone would top Bush's "heckuva job, Brownie," but I was wrong." 

It's amazing how fast some politicians end up in jail and how quickly legislators in some states try to remove them from office while politicians who have been convicted on seven counts are still out wandering around, pandering and receiving sympathy.   Of course he's not Don Siegelman  or a black guy with a fake pistol robbing a 7/11 so he's still likely to get off.

Maybe if his stance had been a little less wide somebody might have believed him.  On the other hand, Larry Craig isn't Mark Foley.

While three Illinois Governors have gone to the Big House (just not the one they were elected for) did you know that three out of four (Madeline Albright, Condeleeza Rice and more than likely Hilary Clinton) of the last Secretary's of State have been women?  I guess one could draw their own conclusion on how important the position is any more.)  And so far they have all  managed to stay out of jail even though Colin Powell (the token guy in the group who has manged to avoid most of the mudslinging about his false testimony on those WMDs that were hidden so well that the Road Runner couldn't find them.)  No matter how hard Ken Starr tried to ruin the Clintons, she's still standing.

I have a friend that lives in the area and I haven't heard from her.  I'm worried because as unlucky as I am, she has the unfortunate luck to be in the wrong place most of the time.  I really hope she's all right.

BBB

Stupidity, Torture And Fraud

Geez, I knew these guys were dumb when I wrote about them earlier, I just had no idea how dumb.  And how dumb might that be?  Well, after killing the woman they went to a convenience store and asked the clerk how to get bloodstains out of their clothes.

Sheriff's investigators said they received the initial tip about the killing from a convenience store clerk. Two of the group members went into the store and asked the clerk if he knew how to get bloodstains out of their clothes, Strain said. The clerk told them no, and called the sheriff after they left.

Officials tracked down those two members and arrested them. Authorities established telephone contact with other members of the group who were still at the campsite and let them know law enforcement officials were on their way. They surrendered without incident.

Have you ever heard an acoustic version of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean?  Chris Cornell's (Soundgarden) version is...interesting.  The lyrics hold up pretty well.

The truth is slowly dawning on some people.  Waterboarding is torture and the United States has been torturing people for the last seven years and those who authorized it are criminals that need to be held accountable.  Even if you are the current Vice President.  Gee, I had no idea that for this administration vice was being used as noun instead of an adjective.

Blue light special on aisle four.  Why is everybody so shocked?  If billions of dollars were lost in Iraq due to no oversight, why should the 700 billion dollar bailout be any different?  You didn't really think that the bailout was to help anybody except the people at the top did you?  After seven years of looting the Treasury, why in the world would they stop before the last second?

What do Gretzky, Smith and Montana have in common?  Their kids are all playing football at the same high school.  A San Fernando Valley high school hasn't been this famous since Spacey, Winningham and Kilmer graduated from Chatsworth High.

Umm, yeah.  Americans cut back on spending because the few dollars they made have to cover the important things like food and shelter.  A new car?  Not so much.  But keep on cutting that interest rate in the mistake belief that people will borrow more.  Banks don't lend to little people who have service wage jobs, they lend to people who don't need the money.   So those same people can invest in foreclosed properties to rent to little people who can't afford to live in the homes they thought they owned.  It's the American way.

The usual place.

Tales Of Woe

My sentiments exactly.  When I saw the article yesterday about Michelle Obama being only interested in getting her kids settled and that she isn't going to have a seat at the decision table, I thought, "wow, she has had to give up everything that made her who she is and settle for picking the drapes."  She isn't an extension of her husband, she is a person in her own right.  If she had wanted to be a stay at home mom, she would have done it earlier in her career.  And as one commenter pointed out, if Hillary had been elected what role would Bill be playing right now?  It certainly wouldn't be as the interior decorator, clothes horse or chief babysitter.  America is so far behind the times when it comes to gender equality that I doubt we will ever catch up to the rest of the world.

Dumb-dee-dumb dumb.   To say they weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer is putting it mildly.  I'm sure the KKK would like to disavow all knowledge.

I'm desperately looking for a place I can afford here in San Jose and having no luck at all.  99% of the ads for places under a thousand dollars have been either preforeclosure homes or a variation of this letter.

It is a great pleasure that to you are interested in my Place.Thanks for your email and it is my gladness to hearing you I am a Single Christain Father, With no kid, My Wife, Pass by Last 4 Month  (got dead). Due to the Fatal Accident we Had she got Dead, and I got Dislocation on my Legs and Hand, My name is Pastor Rev Benard Glott The Owner of the 2 bedroom home and its located @ 3665 Benton Street, Santa Clara, CA 95051 I am presently in West Africa due to my transfer that makes me leave the house and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it as I am not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own. So for now, i am here in west Africa, My new house and put all my worries off concerning the maintenance of the apartment  for, since i am not residing there for now.I left behind some Facilities and electonics which include the rent, and a DVD player, air conditioning, alarm system. The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils, arefrigerator-freezer, four-hob and oven, microwave,dishwasher and washing machine, My Computer Connected with Internet Acess Also the keys to the House are right here with me, and the lease document. Which i can send to you after all necessary agreement has be accepted. Also i will like you to know that the rent charges is not really the issue ,but your absolute maintenance of my apartment is most important thing so will want you to get back to me with the Application form below.

And here is one of the many variations.

We are so much excited. My name is Jeff Garza the owner of the apartment and also want you to know that it was due to my transfer that makes me and my wife and little daughter to leave the apartment and also want to give it out for rent and looking for a responsible person that can take very good care of it while we are not at the state as we are not after the money for the rent but want it to be clean at the time and the person that will rent it to take it as if it were its own. So for now, we are here in West Africa, our new house and put all my worries off concerning the maintenance of the apartment for, since i am not residing there for now. I left behind some Facilities and electonics which include the rent, DVD player, air conditioning, alarm system. The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils, refrigerator-freezer, four-hob and oven, microwave, dishwasher and washing machine, my computer connected with Internet access also the keys and document of the apartment are right here with us in West Africa, and the lease document. Which i can send to you after all necessary agreement has been accepted. Also i will like you to know that the rent charges is not really the issue, hope you are okay with the price of $699 per month including utilities like water, gas, heat laundry facilities, air condition and so on, but your absolute maintenance of my apartment is most important thing, if you are really interested in renting this apartment get back to me so that i can forward you an application form for you to fill so that i can start all necesary arrangement asap.  Here is the apartment address :   347 Massol Ave, Los Gatos, CA 95030, USA   ..... Pls note that you will be viewing the apartment from outside and won't be able to inspect because the keys and document to the apartment are with me here in africa and. It is located on a cool, quiet and safe neighbourhood.

I've received about fifteen of these responses so far.  Meanwhile, my landlord is taking me to court and that will prevent me from renting anywhere else in the future.  I don't have a clue as to what to do.  The effects of moving on mom will be bad enough, moving her to another state would be disastrous besides being fiscally impossible  Her doctor doesn't think she should go into a care facility yet and adult protective services told me not to move her until we have a solid place to stay.  For the first time in my life I am having anxiety attacks and they are as far from fun as you can get.  I know that I'm hyperventilating and that lack of oxygen is what causes my vision to go dark, but it is really hard to get my breathing to slow down when my heart is beating abnormally fast.  All I can say is that this situation sucks and I need help.

Oh yeah, and now my internet connection is slower than dial up (ten minutes to load a page, the signal keeps dropping) and I can't get anything done.  I can hardly wait for the next shoe to drop.

BBB


Update:  The manager came over and made me an offer to extend the time until February 15th, as long as I can come up with a $1000 in three days.  I'm thinking of selling my car, but then I wouldn't be able to get to work at all the places I have to be since the bus service isn't all that great.  And certainly not within the time frame that my job requires.  But I'll do it in order to stay here for a few more months and keep a roof over mom's head.  They say that when one door closes another opens.  Unfortunately I think I'm stuck in a real world variation of Cube.