Brad's Place

New Blog

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 15:45:18 GMT

Due to ease of use and being able to do more with the blog, I am switching my blog over to http://bradstaggs.blogspot.com/. I hope you will join me there...

Attention Liechtenstein! The Swiss are here!

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:05:39 GMT

If you happen to be one of the 33,987 residents of the country of Liechtenstein, then be warned... the Swiss are coming for you!

The Swiss claim that while on a "routine training exercise", a company of 170 Swiss soldiers got lost and ended up in neighboring Liechtenstein. The soldiers wandered over 2 Km (which I believe equals 18 feet or so, but who knows with metrics) into Liechtenstein before they realized their mistake (probably due to the cow with "Welcome to Liechtenstein" painted on its side) and turned back.

Interior Ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Firstly, if they had stormed over in attack helicopters, the Swiss would likely have missed Liechtenstein completely! I've seen their cute little helicopters and they are not attack worthy. They look more like the Island Hoppers chopper that T.C. owned on Magnum P.I. Not to mention the fact that the entire country of Liechtenstein is smaller than Washington D.C.!

Secondly, while Liechtenstein has no official military, I'm sure that Prince Alois - Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein, Count of Rietberg and royalty voted "most likely to look like Dracula in old age" - can afford to put some nerf rifles and toy tanks on his border since he's worth roughly $4 Billion.

Thirdly, this is not the first time that the Swiss have tried this "we got lost" manuever. Recently, some Swiss soldiers got lost in Serbia and blew through three checkpoints along the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) between Serbia and Kosovo. They claim that it was a mistake and that they didn't know they were "on vacation and got lost". Obviously, the large signs and crossing guards meant nothing to them. They were stopped when a brave Ministry of Interior Police... uh, man... jumped in front of their van in order to make them stop. That policeman may have siingle-handedly thwarted the opening salvo in the Swiss war!

I think that this is a combined effort on the part of the Swiss to test defenses in an attempt to take over the world a small piece at a time. They have no shame. They give us chocolate, great knives and women's scantily-clad ski teams in an effort to lull us into a false sense of security. "Oh, look at the cute little neutral country! Aren't they precious?" Then they attack with as many as 170-200 soldiers at a time. All of our Swiss Army knives are usless against their Swiss Army protective armor (you should see the can opener that comes out of that!) and we are forced to kick-start our Pennsylvania chocolate production in order to keep up with international demand. The United Nations creates sanctions against the Swiss and we eventually end up with more American Soldiers stationed at our tiny forward operating base in Liechtenstein than there are residents of the country.

Oh yes, I see this as just the beginning. I will remain vigilant on the Swiss watch (no pun intended) in order to make sure that they are kept in their place. Maybe we need more cows along the borders...

who is Julio Pino?

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:24:03 GMT

I would, literally, die in order to protect our freedoms, freedom of speech being one of the chief among them. I believe that if somebody wants to say something, they should have the freedom to say it as long as they are ready to accept the consequences for what they say.

Then along comes a man named Julio Cesar Pino.

Pino is an associate professor of History at Kent State specializing in Latin American history. He asks his students to view the Cuban revolution in a favorable light and claims that Castro's rise to power "brought justice" to Cuba. But again, he has the right to say that.

What I have a problem with is awebsite allegedly belonging to Mr. Pino, Global War. Mr. Pino converted to Islam in 2000 and has become an insane proponent of the killing of people in the name of his twisted version of Islam. On his website, the current headline is ""Are You Prepared for Jihad?" COME, O, BROTHERS! 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!" You got it, a history professor at Kent State University in Ohio says this on his website: "We are a jihadist news service, and provide battle dispatches, training manuals, and jihad videos to our brothers worldwide. All we want is to get Allah’s pleasure. We will write ‘Jihad’ across our foreheads, and the stars. The angels will carry our message throughout the world."

He says of a female suicide bomber who killed 41 people "Now she lies on the Golden Couch of Paradise." All I can hope for is that the couch she is lying on is covered in razor-sharp spikes that she is forcibly pushed onto each minute of eternity. Pino then had the nerve to complain that he was "harassed" and received "death threats" when once complained that the Jews were engaged in genocide against the Palestinians even though he clearly believes in and espouses the virtues of mass murder.

Some have said that his blog should not be an issue. He is a history teacher who has been published (1997 - Family and Favela: the Reproduction of Poverty in Rio de Janeiro - Greenwood Press) and has a Ph.d in History from the University of California at Los Angeles. He has been recognized as Faculty member who made a difference" in undergraduate teaching by University Teaching Council in 2002 and 2003. He has been in "Who's Who in America" in 2005.

However, in a curious twist, the Islamic Community Net posted this headline recently: "URGENT WARNING TO MUJAHIDEEN: AVOID JULIO PINO". The article calls Pino "a likely government informant" and warns allies not to "fall for Pino's trap". It seems that a website called "A Small Dose of Reality" claims that the FBI is running a Nuslim sting operation using Mr. Pino as bait via his website.

"Much like the sting operations run to uncover and prosecute pedaphiles, Pino's website attracts and indentifies muslim extremists." the suthor claims. "Facing prosecution for his HATE activities, Pino was turned and is now being used against his own kind. All hits on his website are monitored by the FBI who refuse to identify exactly how many are investigated and to what extent. The FBI says that there have already been more than six successful prosecutions and that there are dozens of ongoing investigations as a result of this operation."

Some people are not convinced, however. I don't know the man at all, but if it is proven that he is the one spouting this insanity on his website, I have this to remind people of: 18 US Code Section 2381: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

Presidential Aspirations

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:16:35 GMT

In what is certainly a sign of our political times, Sen. John McCain announced he is running for President... much to the surprise of absolutely nobody in the audience at the Late Show with David Letterman. That's right, once again, a candidate for the highest office in the land was announced on a late-night entertainment show possibly wedged between jokes about Britney Spears and K-Fed.

If you will remember, during the previous Presidential primary, Sen. John Edwards announced his candadicy on The Daily Show with John Stewart, a move that worked out very well for him.

Candidates are trying so hard to "reach out" to middle America that they miss the whole point of why they are politicians in the first place. They work for us, the voters, and if they were doing their jobs, they wouldn't have to go to the lengths they do to prove to middle America that they are "just one of you". I'm sorry, but I live in close proximity to Washington D.C. Once they become part of the political establishment, they stop being "one of us". Washington is one of the most insulated places on the planet where politicians don't have to actually deal with "the people" if they don't want to.

McCain defended his decision to announce during the Late Show by saying that he will be issueing a "formal announcement" in April. Does that meant that this really isn't an announcement and it doesn't mean anything? Is he finally realizing that because of his own McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act, he has to be very careful when he officially announces? Wouldn't want to cut off any possible funding now, would we?

All that the McCain-Feingold Act does is to allow more control over campaign finance by the two major parties. A small, third-party candidate now finds it virtually impossible to raise the neccessary funds to run against the big boys. Tom Vilsack has already, three months into the race, had to drop out due to lack of funding.

I have no problem with anybody announcing their run for office in any medium they wish. The great Dave Barry announced his campaign through his blog site at the Miami Herald. I announced my run for President here at this blog. I believe that Mr. Barry and I will be starting a trend that will be the next level of politics. Nobody will ever meet us as politicians, they will judge us solely on the blogs we write. If blogs had been around in 1960, Nixon might have beat Kennedy.

VERY IMPORTANT!

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:37:12 GMT

On March 17th, the anti-war protest group International Answer will be holding a protest in Washington D.C. wherein they are planning to march from the Vietnam Memorial to the Pentagon in order to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. I have no problem with this as the group has the Constitutional right to assemble peacefully.

However, I am calling for support to several veteran's groups who are going to gather at the Vietnam Memorial on March 17th in order to protect it from vandalism. The Military Order of the Purple Heart and Rolling Thunder will be among the groups who will be gathering to protect the wall on that day.

Last month, during a "peaceful protest" in downtown Washington D.C., the steps to the capital were spray-painted in an act of vadalism. The groups want to gather in order to keep the same thing from happening to the Vietnam Wall.

The website for International Answer indicates that the group will gather at Constitution Gardens which is near the Vietnam Memorial. They will turn all amplifiers away from the Memorial in an attempt to not disturb family members visiting the Memorial. They will "march on Constitution Ave. and then to Virginia on the way to the Pentagon".

But the promises to be thoughtful of those visiting the Memorial are not enough for Captain Larry Bailey of the group Gathering of Eagles. "And having seen what Jane Fonda's group did last month on the Capitol steps, spray-painting the capital," Bailey says, "we got to thinking, 'What if they did this to the Vietnam Wall?'"

I would ask anybody who will be in the Washington D.C. area on March 17th to please join these men and women. We don't want to confront or stop any peaceful protest, we just want to make sure that nothing happens to a piece of so many people's lives. I wish that I could be there, but being in uniform keeps me from being where I want sometimes.

On behalf of current Soldiers, I thank you and thank all of the men and women who fight for veterans. And I want to say "you're welcome" to the International Answer group. Freedom of speech and assembly is pretty cool, isn't it?

The FCC is at it again!

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 11:31:19 GMT

Boy, I wish I had a government job at which I could be the morality monitor for millions of people who would probably hate my guts if they ever met me. Maybe I could work at the FCC! Or become a Democratic congressman!

Dennis Kucinich (pronounced Coo-coo-nich), Democratic Congressman from the state of Ohio and Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, made a surprise appearance at the National Conference for Media Reform held in January in Memphis, Tennessee. He announced that he will be heading a new House subcommittee which will focus on issues surrounding the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC.

Does this mean that he would be investigating the years of fraud, waste and abuse committed by the FCC? How about the unconstitutional media control put in place by the governmental body? No, Kucinich said that his committee would be holding "hearings to push media reform right at the center of Washington." He went on to say "We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda" and added "we are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible."

Being able to flip through over a hundred channels from the comfort of your couch incorporates a very narrow corporate agenda? These are not the days of three networks battling each other for all the viewers. We have choice. More than ever. And each individual should have the right to choose what they do or don't want to watch. We don't need a television babysitter, the American public votes by watching or not watching a particular show. I almost NEVER agree with what they are watching, but that is my choice. Or I could choose... gasp... to not watch anything at all!

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps was also at the conference and said these words which I am not making up: Broadcasters should be taken to task due to "too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on rality TV. Too little local and regional music, too much brain-numbing national play-lists." That's right, ladies and gentlemen, because a suit in Washington who was appointed by the President, not voted into office, thinks that what he sees on television today is not up to his standards, we MUST do something about it! Define "quality entertainment". Define "brain-numbing national play-lists". To whom? While I may agree that I don't like reality TV shows at all and I think that most radio is crap, all I have to do is turn the channel.

Kucinich's committee is also going to try to reinvigorate the "Fairness Doctrine" which was eliminated in 1987. The Fairness Doctrine required broadcast licensees to present controversial issues of public importance, and to present such issues in what was deemed an honest, equal and balanced manner. This doctrine was created in 1934, at the same time as the FCC, because there were so few radio and then television stations that the public had no choice in who they listened to or watched.

In August 1987, the FCC itself abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC insisted that the doctrine had grown to inhibit rather than enhance debate and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional. I personally think that vote should expand to include the FCC itself, a governmental body that has far outlasted it's time.

The FCC was created at a time when there were very few choices, if any, for radio and television. The government decided that they would be the ones who controlled the frequencies on which these stations were carried, doleing out licenses for broadcasting as long as you fell in step with their rules. They control what is seen on television and who can get a license to broadcast. At the time of it's creation, no accompanying governmental body was created to watch over news print because there were so many newspapers in any town that the people had a choice. If they found one to be not to their liking, they could simply read another one.

To this day, their is no government watchdog on newspapers and I'm not calling for one. If something is printed which isn't true, the person, persons, or organization hurt by the article has many means of redress and this is what keeps papers (for the most part) honest. People are also very quick to tell the newspaper that they will stop their subscriptions. Newspapers are run by free market standards.

But television and radio is run by government standards. It doesn't matter what the people want, the government will tell television carriers what they have to program. There must be X number of hours of educational programming in a day or you will be fined. An accidental bad word or "costume slip" during a live sporting event? It's obviously the fault of the network, not the person who did it.

The FCC is no longer needed in this country to tell us what we have to watch and when we have to watch it. Vote with your televisions. We have been doing it for decades. Why do you think a radio station changes from Top 40 in 80's to Alternative in the early 90's to Country in the late 90's and is now back to classic rock? Because they follow what the people want to hear.

How many television or radio stations are available in your hometown? Can you choose between every kind of programming you could ever want to see from your couch? Now, how many newspapers are there? Which gives you more choice? Get the government out of my choices.

Where is (was) Jesus buried?

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 09:36:57 GMT

I like going to a few websites which point out the hypocricy of politicians, media types and people in general. One such site is NewsBusters which is, yes, very right wing, but still manages to pull the insanity out of the news.

I had hoped that the site, owned by the Media Research Council (MRC), could see when both sides were being idiots and leave people to their own devices, letting people choose for themselves what they wanted to believe and think. I now know that is not true. Brent Bozell, the President of the MRC, has shown his true colors on the subject of censorship.

The controversy sorrounds an upcoming special on the Discovery Channel titled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" which is produced by none other than James "Terminator and Titanic" Cameron. The special is about the discovery of the possible "real burial site" of Jesus. However, that is not the whole story. According to the special, Jesus' bones were still there in an ossuary along with the ossuaries of Mary Magdelene, Jesus' mother Mary, and Jesus' son. If this were true, several tenets about Christianity would have to be re-thought. For instance, if they are the bones of Jesus, he didn't transcend. If they are the bones of a son, Jesus was married and had children.

The Discovery Channel has broadcast television specials like this before. I have a few of them from Discovery and the History Channel on DVD. But this one has caught the ire of the religious right like nothing since the DaVinci Code. Bozell, in an editorial on NewsBusters, says "The Discovery Channel, like most of the national TV elite, display a dramatic bias in target selection when it comes to religion. There are no controversies over the historical claims of Islam, Judiasm, or any other religious faith. But Christianity is another story."

This is an outright lie. I have several specials on disc which relate to the origins of Islam and Judiasm as well as Christianity. What Mr. Bozell is not telling you is that since we are a "Christian nation", most people don't know enough about Islam and Judiasm to realize what they are being told during the special. How many people realize that the Koran actually mentions the virgin Mary more times than the Bible does? The origins of all three major religions are the same. They have the same first five books with little variance. And those variances come in the form of human editing from ancient text.

But Mr. Bozell takes his form of zealot thinking to a new level. He says "If the Discovery Channel fails to cancel this slanderous 'documentary', it will have to explain why it is intentionally misleading the public... To slander Christianity at the start of the lenten season is unconscionable."

Slanderous?! What he is saying is that any television program which presents a viewpoint opposing his purely Christian viewpoint is slanderous. He talks about the bible as if every single word is to be taken as gospel (no pun intended) and can never be questioned. Who is going to bring about the charges of slander? The Vatican? This is the same man who said that the DaVinci Code was an evil book and movie which was being used to turn people away from Jesus. I agree. And Harry Potter is a book which brings young children to satan and teaches them to be witches... not to mention that silly bible thing which teaches people to be intolerant of others and to stone their children when they misbehave. Did I go too far? Welcome to the world of interpretation.

When Al Gore's fictional 'documentary' was being shown in theaters, even though NewsBusters opposed it, they never called for the head of Al Gore, shouting about his slanderous views toward real science and how he was misleading the public. They looked on almost humerously, shaking their heads and laughing. But by God, don't you dare make any program that calls our faith into question!

And to argue that airing the special during the lenten season is a non-argument. Not everybody, believe it or not, believes in lent or follows the traditions thereof. I was raised in the Christian church and had never heard of lent until I had Catholic friends. That is like saying that we cannot have any freedom to discuss religion during Easter or Christmas unless those discussions follow the lockstep walk of a particular sect of Christianity.

We live in a FREE society. We live in a country where, yes, you do have the right to voice your opinion and decry what you think is wrong but you do NOT get to decide for me what I should think is wrong. If you don't want to watch the Discovery Channel special, then don't watch it. Nobody is forcing you or any of those who believe the way you do to watch the program. But if I want to watch it and decide for myself how realistic and truthful I think it is, then I will watch it. Claiming that the Discovery Channel owes anything to the American viewing public for a program it airs is like saying the McDonald's owes money to people who got fat by eating their food. Nobody forced anybody.

I haven't seen the special that is being discussed yet. I will at some point simply because all of these claims facinate me in the same way the fantical claims of people who see the virgin Mary or Jesus in their grilled cheese sandwich facinate me. I can't say whether I agree or disagree with the viewpoint presented in the special nor will I simply because I haven't seen it. But I can make a bet that Brent Bozell hasn't either.

Global Warming Buffoons?

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 14:57:22 GMT

How many of us can remember back to the 60's when the people who made up the left, or liberal, side of the political spectrum were considered "tolerant" and the right, or conservatives, were considered the closed-minded idiots?

Welcome to the new world, my children.

We now live in a world where the mouthpieces of the left (Rosie O'Donnell, Arianna Huffington, The Dixie Chicks, Michael Moore, Al Gore, etc) and the mouthpieces of the right (Bill O'Reilly, the entire Fox News Network, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc) have become equally intolerant and hateful toward anything and anybody who doesn't fall into lockstep with their ideas. If this trend continues, how are we as a nation and a people ever going to come together on any ideas when these are the people we hold high?

A prime example of intolerance was displayed on Friday by San Francisco Gate columnist Mark Morford in an article entitled "Behold, The Lost Americans: Who are the 13 percent of us who've never heard of global warming? And how can they be stopped?" If this article mentioned something about educating this missing 13 percent about both sides of global warming and then allowing them to make up their own minds, that would be fine. That would be educating the public to a possible problem which still has a lot of questions to be answered on both sides and what they could possibly do to fix the human errors which have occured.

However, the article was nothing more than a rant against people who mind their own business and live their own lives rather than sticking their foul little noses into other's business. Following are just a few of the literary spins that Morford uses to make fun of anybody who doesn't think the way he does: "...some of them live right next door to you and breathe the same air and steal your parking spaces and often don't shower for six days at a stretch." "They are, in short, the deeply uninformed. The inexplicably ignorant. The wondrously numb, the disconnected, the way, way out of touch. And they are, apparently, legion." "I am not speaking of, say, those armies of happy blank-eyed red-state 'Merkins who only read NASCAR-themed Harlequin romance novels and only drink Hooters-branded energy drinks (real products, both) and who like to bury their gay sex fantasies under mountains of happy homophobic sing-along God-fearin' megachurch denial." "Nor am I speaking of your average Bush-lovin' bobbleheads who appear to get their worldly information by way of licking the stuff found on the bottom of the rocks in front of Fox News HQ and then tripping for three days while watching "The O'Reilly Factor" from the bathtub. Everyone knows about them. And no one really takes them seriously anymore."

Isn't it amazing to find the one entity on this planet who can read people so well that he knows what category to place everybody in? I wish I had that castle high on Telegraph Hill beside Coit Tower from which I could make assertions out of hat.

Mr. Morford happens to be talking about people like my Father who may not know much, if anything, about global warming, but he understands about trying to make a day-to-day living for his family. Morford calls the myth of global warming "the most dire issue facing the planet today". Does everybody agree with that? Ask the people of America who are simply trying to put the proverbial bread on their collective tables everyday. They don't have the view from on high, either.

My Father pays attention to the weather, the market prices, and sports scores. He's not stupid in any way, he just has his own life to live. He doesn't believe that he has any right to tell others how to live theirs.

When I was being taught journalistic ethics, I was told that journalists should be able to keep a distance in order to present all sides of a story. This, of course, has been completely distorted by newspapers and television journalists throughout the history of media. Pulitzer himself was one of the busiest yellow-journalists in the business. However, Morford calls Bush a "...monkey-like Republican presidents deny its existence and spit on science and mock the simply insurmountable pile of evidence in the name of oil profits and flagrant cronyism." I'm sorry, but when did calling the President "monkey-like" invoke good journalism? And what, exactly, IS monkey-like?

Many people will yell about the writer's first amendment rights, the same rights that allow me to take him to task on this paltry little blog. I agree whole-heartedly with a person's first amendment rights. I, more than many, believe in ALL of the constitutional rights afforded to us as Americans. And as long as Morford never does a news piece involving global warming, President Bush, conservatives, liberals, or the world in general, I have no problem with him expressing his opinion. But how are we supposed to believe any kind of journalistic integrity when the man writes things like "The United States is, by far, the world's worst contributor to the root causes of global warming, and yet we are the least concerned about it... It's enough to make you look at George W. Bush and want to slap him across the face with the razor-sharp paw of a dead polar bear."

You see, as is always the case, George Bush is to be blamed for decades of abuse of the environment by companies and individuals who were born and dead long before he became President. Deep down, every issue involving the environment becomes a political threat against whoever is in charge at the time. We did not sign the Kyoto Treaty because it was bad world legislation. No country who signed it can afford to enact it's protocals without going broke.

Morford continues: "Sure, the overall lack of concern is understandable. After all, the vicious GOP spin machine has been working like a rabid dog for the last six years to demonize science and mock environmentalists and sneer at the Kyoto protocol and force eminent scientists to bury their dire findings lest Dick Cheney visit them in the night with a box of rat poison and a shotgun sneer." The GOP spin machine?! As opposed to the liberal spin machine?! Do NOT try to say that only one side uses spin while the other is silky white and clean as a hospital operating room table in a private hospital! Spin machines are hard at work on BOTH sides of the issues trying to pull the uninformed and young into their way of thinking.

And finally: "Maybe our 13 percent blindness rate is simply the brutal upshot, the logical conclusion of all the endless stripping of school textbooks of fact and perspective, of the push for silly literalist Christian dogma at the expense of true awareness, of the systemic neoconservative drive to get Americans to stop asking questions and stop thinking for themselves and to hate and mistrust the media (except, of course, Fox News), and wouldn't you be better off just enjoying your Wal-Mart candy corn and your "Everybody Loves Raymond" DVDs and just turn off your brain because it's all just far too complicated and messy and suspicious anyway, so really, why care at all?"

Stripping of all fact and perspective from schoolbooks? Really? When I went through school in the time before the white man did anything wrong, Custer was the hero of the Little Bighorn. He fought off hords (we used the word hordes back then) of Indians (we used the word Indians back then) and sacrificed himself for his men. Thanks to the fact that we are doing everything we can to erase revisionist history, we know the truth about what happened at the Little Bighorn. We know that Columbus did not discover America and we know that government programs simply drain the government of money and create worthless jobs... like the FCC. Do I agree with the movement to strip schoolbooks of evolution? Absolutely not! But I do agree with the privatization of schools because our government shouldn't be running them anyway.

I am a member of the United States Army, very much an arm of the government since the President is our Commander in Chief, and I have never been told not to ask questions or do my own research. As a matter of fact, I did something silly. When I first was told about the evils of global warming, I did not move in lockstep and believe everything which was handed to me. If I did that, I would be a Jehovah's Witness now. I did my own research. Not just about who said what, but where did their research come from? Where did they get their numbers? And you know what I found out? NEITHER side is telling the whole truth. Let me repeat that: NEITHER side is telling the whole truth.

Does Al Gore and his "award-winning documentary" (Powerpoint slide show) tell you that the numbers he uses are made-up? Nobody can tell what the weather patterns are going to do next year, let alone 20 years from now. Weather is a variable, one that you cannot assign a number to, so the environmental scientists assign a number which will enhance their findings and provide them the worst-case scenario. Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" exposes the flawed science and exaggerations used by the global warming alarmists. Joseph Bast of the Heartland Institute wrote a very well-received paper on the book that is available here.

But many people will say that this is a work of fiction. Fiction is defined as "the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form" by Dictionary.com. Funny, that's what I call Al Gore's "movie" as well as Mark Morford's article.

Group Mentality

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:34:52 GMT

Those of us who make a lifetime out of avoiding meetings can now rejoice: a new research study suggests that people have a harder time thinking of alternative solutions when in a group than when alone.

In this month's issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, scientists will discuss their project which centered around exposing participants to one brand of soft drink and asking them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

According to an article on MSNBC.com, team member H. Shanker Krishnan tells Livescience.com "When a group gets together, they can miss out on good options." I completely agree. While in college, I missed out on several good opportunities because I was with a "group", which was defined as "several guys dragging themselves from bar to bar in a pathetic attempt to find that one woman with that look of abject desperation so needed by a group of drunken college nerds."

I have known for years that meetings make a person stupid... possibly even stupider than they were at the beginning of the meeting. In the military, we run on meetings. Meetings are the bread and butter of what we do. Let's listen in on one such meeting that took place in late 2002:

Military Leader who shall remain anonymous: "Alright, I want to hear from each of you at this table... what should we do next year?"

Military underling #1: "Um... can I skip this round and go next?"

Military Leader: "No, you spineless welp! I knew I shouldn't have promoted my Sister's son to Colonel. Tell me what you think!"

Military underling #1: "Well then, um, how about we invade a country?"

Military Leader: "What country?"

Military underling #1: "Um... Iraq?"

Military underling #2: "That's so stupid!"

Military underling #3: "Yea!"

Military Leader: "I think it's a darn good idea! Start plans immediately."

Military underling #2: "Absolutely, Sir! Great idea!"

As you can see, a group mentality in a meeting can create a situation which is not in the best interest of... well... anybody. My suggestion is to stear away from all meetings as much as you can.

And on behalf of all nerds in college bars, please be nice to us when you see the pocket protector peeking up over the top of the sweater vest. We may be mild on the outside, but inside, we're wild! No, really, stop laughing...

Guardian Article

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:20:45 GMT

The latest edition of the Guardian East Magazine, the official magazine of KFOR 8 and the National Olympic Team, is out on the streets now! But you don't have to go to one of the dozens of stands which carry the magazine, you can get it right here! My article, edited by the marvelous Nicki Fellenzer, entitled "Word of Mouth: One Soldier's Quest to Live Life to the Fullest While Deployed" is on page 27. Enjoy!

Let's Talk about Global Warming

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:54:17 GMT

When asked about whether global warming is real, the average person on the street today will tell you "yes!" and tell you "yes!" most vehemently.

But then when you ask that same person to prove it, they become stumped. Or they start spewing a few figures they heard or read once and then say "but it's warmer this year!". Unfortunately, that is not true. I remember living in Indiana in the winter of '77-'78 when we had record snowfalls and the New York Times and Time Magazine were declaring the beginning of a new ice age.

The subject of global warming and the great powerpoint escapism which is Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" are based on computer environmental modeling. Numbers are fed into a computer and the computer spits out what it says is the most likely course of future events, kind of like the Terminator looking for Sarah Conner. But as Orrin H. Pilkey, a coastal geologist and emeritus professor at Duke, and his daughter, Linda Pilkey-Jarvis, computer modeling is all wrong.

According to an article in the infamous New York Times, nature is too complex, they say, and depends on too many processes that are poorly understood or little monitored — whether the process is the feedback effects of cloud cover on global warming or the movement of grains of sand on a beach.

The pair has written a book entitled "Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future" which concludes that computer models place fixed values on far too many variables which are constantly in flux. For example, “assumed average wave height,” a variable crucial for many models, assumes that all waves hit the beach in the same way, that they are all the same height and that their patterns will not change over time. But, the authors say, that’s not the way things work.

Modeler's formulas also include coefficients which the authors call "fudge factors" to ensure that they get the results they were seeking in the first place. This is very much a case of desired results driving the research just as a cattle drive herds cattle into a specific place in order to arrive at a specific time. In real science, the results of unbiased research drives the outcome.

The best example quoted in the New York Times article is beach modeling. Among other things, participants concluded that beach modelers applied too many fixed values to phenomena that actually change quite a lot. For example, “assumed average wave height,” a variable crucial for many models, assumes that all waves hit the beach in the same way, that they are all the same height and that their patterns will not change over time. But, the authors say, that’s not the way things work.

The authors go on to say that we should have transparent models, that is, models in which any interested person should be able to see exactly how the model works and where all of the data is derived from. Models should be regarded as producing “ballpark figures,” they write, not accurate impact forecasts.

The truth is that while man has contributed to many problems on this planet and, yes, we absolutely need to change the direction that we have been headed, cattle are more to blame for Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emmisions than humans and the vegan and PETA imbicils are very quick to jump on that one. The point is, any research can be used to one person's or organization's benefit depending on the spin. Nothing is going to be accomplished positively until we stop with the scare tactics and panic mongering. All corporations are not evil and if you really want to hurt a big money business, stop buying from them!

If you think the Wal-Mart is evil, don't shop there. If you think that gas companies make far too much profit, remember that we are in America. Making profit is not only not illegal, it's part of who we are. Since 1985, the price of milk has much more than doubled, but none of us even blink an eye at that. We are supposed to be a free market society. Prices are based on what people will pay for products. If something is priced to highly and nobody buys it, it goes out of business. Pure and simple economics. The people should be the ones who decide what stays and goes, not the government.

But Americans need to wake up and research what they are being told. Don't blindly trust anybody to tell you how to live your life or that they know exactly what the future holds. "If we wish to stay within the bounds of reality we must look to a more qualitative future,” the authors write, “a future where there will be no certain answers to many of the important questions we have about the future of human interactions with the earth.”

Nobody has a crystal ball.

Websites consulted for this blog article were The New York Times - from which I took several quotes - Junk Science, and the Global Warming Skeptics site.

What Would Jesus Shoot Out of his Eyes?

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 04:37:26 GMT

That's right, the loons are out again. First up, a man in West Charlotte has found the image of Jesus on an Oyster Shell. I'm sure that will go for more than the grilled cheese Jesus on EBay. (video link)

And secondly, a statue on display at a major museum is being called the "Miracle Statue". It seems that the really scary statue of Jesus going after the money lenders with a whip can shoot sparks out of its eyes! It seems that because one woman went into a "trance" and claimed to see sparks shoot out of the statue's eyes, people are now flocking to worship at the statue's feet, obviously forgetting completely that "thou shalt not worship graven images" is still one of the commandments. Key quote by the maker of the statue: "I worked on the piece for about a year but I never saw any sparks apart from those coming from the welding torch." I love that guy. See the story here.

Where's Linda Blair When We Need Her?

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:04:26 GMT

Here it is, proof that exorcism is real! The victim is supposed to die, right? Right?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,252760,00.html

The Big Announcement

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:00:27 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now announcing that I am throwing my hat in the ring and running for President of the United States.

That’s right, because of a new federal law, all American citizens who are qualified to run for President must file with the Federal Election Commission whether they are planning to run a winnable campaign or not. This explains the record number of 372 Democrats, 412 Republicans, and one Libertarian available to vote for with only just over 600 days left until the election.

Thanks to the fact that I did at least 10 minutes of exhaustive internet research on the subject, I can honestly tell you that it is much too easy to run for President. Did you know that the only requirements are that the candidate must be a natural-born citizen of the United States (or a citizen at the time the Constitution was adopted, which qualifies Robert Byrd of the Whig Party), at least 35 years of age, and a resident of the United States for at least the last 14 years (and no, California does not count)? The rules say nothing about the necessity of being a lawyer or being able to power nap through important votes while playing golf.

As your President, I promise there would be changes made. Sweeping changes. Several of my closest, personal friends will be given top jobs on the White House cabinet after a comprehensive search and vetting process in order to make sure they are qualified for the job. By qualified, I do mean that they gave more to my election fund than the idiot who lives just down the street from them.

I also promise that we will have dress-up Fridays at the White House. Why? Because every other day will be a theme day: Hawaiian shirt Monday, College t-shirt Tuesday, 80’s Wednesday, etc. I believe this will help international relations immensely. Nothing puts two people on a more even playing field than sitting on the lawn and drinking brewskies while wearing Hawaiian flowerdy shirts made in Taiwan and cheap sunglasses while listening to Jimmy Buffett.

Not only will I abolish income tax, I will personally turn the IRS building into a homeless shelter only for those whose homes were taken away by the IRS. All IRS agents who are fired during the Great Purge will be put to work at DisneyWorld directing guests to the bathrooms. (Remember, you use two fingers or more to point with.)

I will seriously limit government to only the powers laid out for them in the U.S. Constitution. You remember that document… it’s yellowing and rotting in the National Archives so that future schoolchildren can see a display of all ancient documents our politicians no longer pay any attention to.

There will be a roll-call at the beginning of each work day for congress. Any member of congress not present during the roll-call who cannot present a note from his or her Doctor detailing that they were ill or, in the case of Robert Byrd, dead, will be docked pay for that day.

Cameras will not only be available in the Senate and on the House floor, but will be set up in each and every office of an elected politician. Viewers will have the opportunity to watch what happens in the office of each Senator and Congressman and woman. These cannot be turned off and each voter in that representatives area will be given a direct line of buttons which will rate the job performance of the representative from “Attaboy!” down to “You Suck!”.

If I have to retire at 72, so should all politicians. Unfortunately, this will over-burden the infrastructure of Florida and possibly cause it to sink into the ocean, so buy land along the Georgia coastline now.

All politicians will be paid only the median income of the state or district which they come from. If they lose jobs and pay scale goes down, so does theirs. Simple.

The Pamela Anderson Clause: all bills must be in language simple enough for large-breasted blonde actresses to understand it and can be no longer than three pages, 11-pt font, double spaced. If you can’t fit everything into the bill in that much space, it’s a bad bill.

There are many other problems which need to be addressed such as homelessness, war, starvation, war, Geraldo Rivera, war… but those will come in time. Suffice to say, I have a plan to rid the world of all of these problems! Except maybe Geraldo… he’s like a cockroach that’s left after the bomb goes off.

So vote for me! At least you’ll know that you wasted your vote for fun…

Let's Write a Children's Book

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:20:02 GMT

Because there is not enough to worry about in today's MTV world, a new children's book has caused an uproar among librarians everywhere. This children's book is entitled "The Higher Power of Lucky" and was the reipient of this year's Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children's literature. So why is this book aimed at 9-12 year olds so contraversial?

On the first page of the book, the heroine, a 10-year old girl named Lucky Trimble, hears the word "scrotum" through a hole in a wall when another character says that he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog on the scrotum.

Oh dear freezing Jesus! What will we ever do when our children can read a book and see the word scrotum instead of sneaking behind our backs and learning all of the slang from a leading men's magazine like "Juggs" or "Hustler" like we had to do? It might actually lead them to ask questions! We can't have that!

This book is marketed toward an age group that is deveoping a great interest in the human body, their own as well as others. Why do we want to hide words from them because we, as parents or teachers, would be too chicken to talk to them about it? With our world today, we cannot afford to hide our heads in the sand and pretend that children don't need to know or won't find out about sex until they are properly out of the house and married. Children are sorrounded by sexual images everyday of the year whether it be the cover of a magazine available at the check-out stand, images on television and in movies, or talk in the schools. To believe that we can get away with never talking to them, especially during their years of sexual discovery, is an insane notion.

But what really gets to me is the idea of censorship in the libraries. We should have gotten past the need to censor books decades ago when Hitler was creating bonfires in the streets. The only idea too dangerous to be heard is the idea that there are ideas too dangerous to be heard.

I'm not saying that we should allow pornography in our school libraries, but the word scrotum is not pornography... it's a medical term.

Recently, in Florida, a sign promoting a production of "The Vagina Monologues" had to be changed because one woman complained that she was "embarrassed because the sign forced me to explain the word vagina to my 5-year old daughter". She was embarrassed to have to explain the word vagina to her FEMALE offspring?! At what age does she teach her child the biological names of parts of her body?! What does she call her arm?! Her foot?!

Thank God that calmer heads prevailed and, after two days, the word vagina was returned to the marquee, replacing the replacement title of "The Hoo-ha Monologues".

But we don't want to have the job of explaining in our country things that make us feel strange explaining, and anything to do with sex or the human body in our society seems to be verboten. Some librarians are arguing that even though the book was written for the 9-12 year old market, the heroine is only 10, which will make some younger children read the book. Lord knows we can't have that! I waited until I was at least 7-years old before I read my first Mark Twain book and I thought of it as a great adventure! Prejudice didn't enter my mind, just the good guys beating the bad guys. Same with the classic "Treasure Island". I only saw pirates and people getting their come-uppence. Children will only make a big deal out of the word "scrotum" if the adults around them make a big deal out of it.

But there will always be those who just can't see themselves as adults who can have an adult conversation with a child. “I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that.”

Of course, this is not the first time in recent memory for school censorship. Many schools will not carry the Harry Potter book series, books which have made millions of kids want to read, because they say that the books are anti-Christian and openly promote witchcraft and satanism. We are now at a point where what is fiction is not determined by the reader, but by a select few. I bet those same librarians don't think twice about promoting Al Gore's fiction scare-film "Inconvenient Truth".

Dana Nilsson, reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in Durango, Colo., said she had heard from dozens of librarians who agreed with her anti-book stance. “I don’t want to start an issue about censorship,” she said. “But you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.”

Boy, it's a good thing she's never read the bible. How sad is it that a teacher doesn't want to teach?

Most Important New U.N. Signage

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 09:30:25 GMT

The most important sign available from the UN is the brand new Radiation Warning Triangle! Everybody rejoice! Luckily, everybody knows that a radiation-style sun will create pirates which you must then run away from!

Stupid Legislators Roll-Call

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 10:58:39 GMT

That's right, kiddies, it is once again time to shine a Xenon spot-light on those members of our society who like to leach off of the hard work and moral inepititude of others. I am speaking, of course, of our elected officials.

Nimrod #1 comes to us from the great state of Massachusetts (state motto: We'll Elect Aybody! See, a Kennedy!) where state Senator Scott Brown proved what a great man he is. It seems that Sen. Brown openly and vehemently opposes gay marriage. Some students at a Mass. high school wrote some not-so-nice things filled with foul language about Sen. Brown and his daughter, an American-Idol contestant, on the Facebook page of a pro-gay-marriage teacher.

Did Sen. Brown complain about this to the school board, the Principal of the school, the teacher or, perhaps, even the children's parents? No, that would be far too simple. Sen. Brown appeared at an assembly at the school and read aloud their obscenity-filled commentaries to all students present, including names of all involved, while teachers begged him to stop. He was very happy with himself after the fact. “I felt really good about it. And now I find out I’m being portrayed as a vile-speaking hate-monger." Brown siad. "It’s pretty saddening. I feel very badly that I’m being victimized here.”

Well, as you can guess, the story doesn't end there. As karma is a very harsh mistress, it has now been discovered that the homophobic Sen. Brown who preaches family values posed in the buff for Cosmo in 1982! This was during the time when men posed completely naked for the magazine along with complete dossiers written about them. You can find the pictures here. Remember ladies, Scott appreciates women who are "tall, athletic, and have longish hair and beautiful legs... hmmm, I'm getting excited!" Good thing he knows dirty language when he sees it!

Nimrod #2: Representative Carolyn McCarthy from New York's Fourth Congressional District has started a one-woman assault on assault weapons! She says in a release on her official website "In Philadelphia, a gunman opened fire on his colleagues using an AK-47 assault rifle he legally purchased. These dangerous weapons, which are intended to hit multiple targets in a short period of time, were allowed back on our streets when the federal ban on assault weapons expired in 2004. The deaths in Philadelphia could have been prevented if Congress had done its job of protecting the homeland and renewed the assault weapons ban."

Among the glaring problems with this statement, the main problem for me is the lack of investigation done by Rep. McCarthy and her staff. The shooting in question happened on February 12 at a business meeting set up by Vincent Dortch, the gunman, and the main staff of a Philadelphia marketing firm named Watson International. Dortch believed that he had been ripped off when he invested with the firm and sought his revenge. He told the people present at the meeting that they had two minutes to pray and then shot and killed three individuals, shooting another in the stomach.

Yes, this is a horrible story, but would enacting the failed assualt weapons ban have prevented this? Would outlawing all guns in the United States have prevented this? Absolutely not. It is only the arrogance of politicians who believe that they can legislate our lives and people with rose-colored glasses who believe this. Dortch was angry enough to kill several people over his allegation that he was ripped off. If he did not have access to the rifle and the 40-caliber handgun he used, he would have found another way to achieve his goals. Possibly by using a knife or two. Possibly by using a baseball bat. Do we then have a ban on all sharp-edged weapons and sports utensils which could be used for other purposes? You know what could have stopped Dortch? Just one shot from somebody at the meeting who was legally armed.

Nimrod #3: I should say "Nimrods" since there are actually three of them. A three judge panel from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of Alabama has banned the selling of... how do I put this nicely... sex toys. That's right, sex toys in Alabama will get you arrested! I think that's all I have to say on this one. Use your own imagination now...

First Amendment and Students

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 09:00:39 GMT

Quality student journalism is quickly becoming a thing of the past in high schools around the nation. As the educational focus swiches to math and science, thanks in part to the "No Child Left Behind" program, so-called arts programs are left to gasp for their last breath on their own.

Schools cutting music and extracurricular programs considered unnecessary are well-documented but overlooked many times is the journalism program or school newspaper. Not everybody can run a school newspaper like Cloe from Smallville and turn it into an investigative unit, but the students who run the newspaper should expect some kind of preofessional guidance and mentoring just like sports programs.

In the past, mentors were teachers who had at least been exposed to journalism while in college who volunteered to act as the faculty advisor to the newspaper. They would give the students free rein to decide the format, or look, of the paper, pick a senior editor and assignments editor, put the paper together, and publish the paper. It was a student-run newspaper featuring stories of all kinds that revolved around student life.

There was a set of guidelines created which laid out what content was acceptable and what content was not acceptable. The staff was given these guidelines and if they strayed outside of them, they were held accountable. Not for the purposes of trampling on the student writer's first amendment rights, but in order to keep the format of the newspaper and to ensure that nothing tasteless or libelous was published.

Now, however, schools are choosing to micro-manage by committee. The schools which still have an active newspaper are treating it, for the most part, as an extra-curricular activity which has no educational purpose... as opposed to sports which bring in money. Only six states, according to Gene Policinski of the Frist Amendment Center, offer protections for scholastic journalism and freedom of expression. California, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas Iowa and Massachusetts are the states which allow student publications to be just that, publications run by the students as a real newspaper would be as well as holding the individual writers and editors up to the same ethical standards which should be imposed on the main stream media.

Faculty advisors to student-run newpapers in some areas have become whoever has some extra time on their hands, not who has experience in the field and can teach something to the kids. The schools don't want anything disparaging presented in the publication, so they either trample all over the student's first amendment rights by telling them what they can and can't write about or they create an atmosphere of expendibility by giving the paper no support whatsoever.

It may not be sports, but the school newspaper can be just as important to the school if the program is run correctly. Kids can be very creative and when they are not given an outlet in which they are taught and mentored, they will find their own outlet. The internet is full of kids who make sure that people know what is wrong in their part of society.

Political Correctness Watch for February

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:45:30 GMT

If you listen to the political correctness police, it's a wonder that the human race has survived this long! Can you believe that at one time we actually chose individuals from among school children to act as "leaders" in activities?! How are children supposed to know that they are all equal if we place one above the others? At one time, we actually "graded" schoolwork on the basis of "right and wrong answers" instead of how much they by golly tried. Children actually "failed" classes at one time and were "held back" by their teachers without their parents consent! After all, as we have found, parents know much more about their child's ability to grasp subjects such as "Math", "English", and "Nose Picking" than any professional educator... or, as we call them, babysitters.

I think that the problem lies in the fact that the educational system is now made up of all of the kids who were picked on in school so it is now their chance to get even. Except for the football coach who still advocates wedgies for all Freshman. Case in point:

A teacher at Johnstown Primary School in Carmarthen, West Wales, named Helen Starkey noticed a big problem among the students that needed to be recitfied immediately! In this age of terrorism and fear-mongering, she could not allow this to go unchecked any longer. Miss Starkey (we say Miss because we couldn't imagine anybody marrying her) discovered that it was a long-standing tradition at the 357-pupil school to make... gasp... Mother's Day Cards!

Can you imagine the horror?! All of the paper and glue and cut-out hearts and crayons and markers and, quite possibly the worst of all, glitter all over the place! It would be a madhouse of epic proportions! Call the riot squad, a child is holding a cute teddy bear hostage! Oh, the humanity...

No, this tradition has not been called off because of any terrorist threats or dangers to the children. Starkey has canceled the making of Mother's Day cards because "More than five per cent of children here are separated from their birth mother and have either no contact or no regular contact with their mothers." Mathmatically, that means that because approximately 18 kids don't have contact, for whatever reason, with their birth Mothers, the other 339 students can't show their love to the Mothers in a traditional way?

Starkey went on to say "This decision was not taken because of any philosophical attitude towards the celebration of Mothering Sunday, but to protect a significant number of children in our school." 18 is a significant number now? And how are you "protecting" these children? What are you protecting them against? Normal, everyday life?

I lost my Mother at the age of 14 but you know what? Mother's Day still kept coming once a year. Other people still have Mothers who they love. I had friends I, to this day, consider to be my second Mother and I was more than happy to say "Happy Mother's Day" to them. If you read her quote closely, she also says "More than five per cent of children here are separated from their birth mother". Does this mean that they do not take into account any step-parents on parental holidays?

Stop trying to protect children from something they don't need to be protected from. Let them go out and skin their knees or possibly break something. You don't learn to not touch the hot stove by being constantly protected from it, you learn that first time you touch the hot stove that you never want to do it again. There are so many more things in this world that everybody needs to be protected from... let's worry about those things and not punish the many because we feel we must "protect" the few.

Why doesn't she just ask the children?

Take the bus to Bulgaria

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 14:05:41 GMT

If you are traveling in Sofia, the captial of Bulgaria, and you are alone and over, say, 18, you may want to travel by bus at night. It seems that giant plasma screens in the city bus station show bus schedules during the day but late at night, when the lovers come out in Bulgaria, the giant plasma screens show soft-core porn films!

"We wanted to give the passengers something to take their minds off the cold and to pass the time while waiting for a bus," said a spokesman for the station management. "And there are unlikely to be children around that time of night."

I applaud, quietly of course, this brave move on the part of some anonymous pervert in Bulgaria. Sofia obviously needed something to boost tourism and they aren't likely to get the Super Bowl or NBA play-offs anytime soon. Maybe the adult video awards will move there from that less progressive city, Las Vegas.

Of course, not everybody is happy about this. Parents, of all people, are angered by the movies just because they have young children! I say that they should be happy! At least they will know where the little rugrats are at night! They also claim that security guards have stopped patrolling for "troublemakers" and are spending their time watching the giant screens instead. This is not entirely true. Due to the type of movie being played, all of the troublemakers flock to the big screens. this gives the security guards a single place to look for the little hoodlums. Maybe they are the unsupervised children of the parents complaining in the first place, I'm not sure, but I volunteer to sacrifice my time and have the U.S. Government fly me to Sofia in order to complete a complete and comprehensive report on the effects of porn on bus travelers.

I'm just a giving kind of guy.

Photo Album: Brad

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:42:31 GMT

Brad

Brad Fair

Brad on the farm '69

Mark Racop, Brad and Greg Fauvergue

Nala and Brad

Sister's Wedding

During Play Production

Photo Album: Munich Nov 06

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 05:47:39 GMT

Munich Nov 06

Nicki, Brad, Meghan, Dacu, Brian, and Jacquie at Dinner

Munich 1

Munich 2

Munich McDonalds

Munich 3

Dinner Wine

Photo Album: Friends

Thu, 26 May 2005 22:05:58 GMT

Friends

Mark Racop, Nancy Strantz and Greg Fauvergue

Starship 1: Havoc on Homeworld - Brad, Rob Hinkle, Mike Williams, Shannon Kennedy

Starship 2: Rendevous with Ramses - Mike Williams, Leslie Culton, Brad, Rob Hinkle

with John Astin 2001

Members of the old 107th MPAD - Brad, Maj. Paul Trapp, SFC Kathryn Perez, Sgt. Lorie Jewell, Cpt. Bob Kuster and Cpt. Bill Greer

Photo Album: Cartoons

Thu, 19 May 2005 01:15:58 GMT

Cartoons

What I Want

Studio Execs

Production Chart

Producer

Showbiz Truth

Production Team

FX Supervisor

Custom List: Links

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:43:58 GMT

Links

Nicki's Blog
My friend, Nicki's, blogsite. Remember, you were warned.
Arts and Letters Daily
A site dedicated to opinion.
Day By Day Cartoon
Amazingly insightful and funny cartoon.

Book List: Book List

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:57:19 GMT

Michael Z. Williamson: Freehold
Sci-Fi book, one in a series of very good books, written by a friend and sword dealer...can't beat that
Jewel Shepard: If I'm so Famous, How come Nobody's ever Heard of Me?
The story of a B-Movie Queen having fun.
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Fantastic play written by the same man who wrote "Shakespeare in Love"
Jimmy Buffett: Tales From Margaritaville
Great traveling book I go nowhere without. It will keep you company and take you to Snake Bite Key, right where you want to be.