"Nothing increases the size of a fish like fishing all by yourself." (unknown)

Also, someone once shared a story about someone praising another.
The other said "Shame on you and Shame on me."
The first said "for what"
The other said "You for exaggerating and me for feeling good about it"

"Behold the turtle; he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out" by James Bryant Conant

"The only way to have a friend is to be one." by Ralph Waldo Emerson

From Acclaimed Chaplain, to Accused Enemy Terrorist, to Vindicated but Unemployed to Delegate
I read with interest today that someone I regard as a dear friend, although I have only had the chance to meet him and email him on a number of occasions, is serving as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. James Yee, the West Point Grad, former chaplain to Guantanamo, is one of the delegates from the state of Washington. It's amazing that someone who had to go through his ordeal, from being a valuable asset of the US govt, to being enemy #1 and having his life ripped to shreds and his reputation nuked, to being vindicated, would come back to the political scene which he was such a highlight of not too long ago. God bless him, make him prosper and compensate him for all that has befallen him.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2008136158_danny25m.html

Blind, Drunk, Driving Journalist Makes News
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hLkA5A8ltZ1H52wfKiMXE8jdqnYg
Another example of judgement gone drunk.
Journalists are supposed to report the news, right?
Well Mr reporter here, who just happens to be blind, and his buddy are through a bunch of pints and thinks to himself, hey would I love to drive a car. His buddy loves the idea. They proceed, with his buddy supposedly holding the hand brake and steering wheel. At least they were driving slow, thats why the cops pulled them over. Reminds me of the awesome classic Black Sheep, where Chris Farley and David Spade were pulled over for driving a souped up cop car with the nitrous leaking 7mph on the freeway and pulled on to the center median. Classic.
Lesson be learned, you drink, no keys to the car, no brilliant decisions to be made.

END THE GAZA BLOCKADE
The human catastrophe of Gaza continues unabated. Israel cuts off the overpopulated area it has continually devastated from the outside world, and needed food, medical supplies, and other necessities are not able to get in. Do we hear at all about this? nope. Do we care? I should hope so. Well a group of people who picked up the slack for the rest of us have done something about it. They have travelled by boat from Cyprus to Gaza and have enterred Gaza with the intention of breaking the blockade. Although the aid they are delivering now is nominal (hundreds of hearing aids and balloons) as compared to the crisis and need, it is a step and a powerful one. God Bless them and any who try to help those who are oppressed.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1014462.html
The organization's website follows:
http://freegaza.org/

Also, if you feel underinformed (or misinformed as it may be by the media) about the Palestinian crisis, I would highly recommend you check out the award winning Occupation 101. This wonderful dvd highlights the every day lives and history of the conflict. You can see it at
http://www.occupation101.com/

So What If He Were Muslim?
Ellis Cose of Newsweek spelled it out like most of us have wanted to hear from someone, anyone during this hate fest against Islam and Muslims. SO WHAT IF HE WERE? Does that change anything?
http://www.newsweek.com/id/154909

Are you sick of all the politics as usual?
Are you ready for a change?
Its time for us to head in a new direction.
Join me as we strive to make a difference

(UPDATE: THE SOURCE VIDEO FILE WAS REMOVED. SORRY)

Paid for by the committee of people who are thinking casually of possibly electing some person such as the one who posted this who seems to have too much time on his hands who goes by the name of Omar Haydar for President.


Obama 2008

Marriage is tough. Trust me I know. Tough enough that seemingly two decent reasonable people can ruin each other's lives.
Tough enough that if you add some spice to it, such as inability to control your self (infidelity or anger), you can wreak havoc on it.
Take this first couple:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25839910/
They look like they will be happy a long time! Wedding night brawl. Three days later, honeymoon throwdown. Hey you never know, maybe they will have a long, loving, and very violent marriage. Perhaps they should invent a couples prison, so they can live happily ever after.

Or these folks above. Boy oh boy. And can you believe all these stories are from one weekend?

You know it is a good thing to fight in marriage, so long as you do it peacefully(ie no violence), resolve why you fought, and make up.
As they say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
In these peoples cases, lets hope they don't kill each other.

No Reservations Saudi Style
My mom and sisters are hooked to food shows. Even my kids now will beg to watch one of the many shows (especially after they have used up their cartoon quota for the day)...
So I was surprised and pleased to see one about food in Saudi.
No Reservations, which I think comes on the Travel Channel, had some sort of contest, which was won by a very bright and charismatic Saudi lady. So Mr Bourdain headed out and the show is pretty sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gokw7TScjRw&feature=related
One of the producers even wrote a very cool piece on the Abaya
http://no-reservations-crew-blog.travelchannel.com/2008/07/under-the-abbaya-female-produc.html

Stop the presses, Stop the presses
Israel clears another genocidal criminal of wrongdoing
He killed 8 Palestinians and one journalist, who he specifically targeted. Took them four years to try him.
Kind of like when they shot Mohammed Al-Dura and his father in plain sight. The two were cowering for cover and they shot them in cold blood. Of course, the Middle East's only democracy, as they laud themselves, immediately bulldozed the site removing all evidence. Then they took their time investigating. Supposedly recreated the scene. And then handed down their BS for anyone with the IQ of a rock to believe, that, actually, the two were shot by Palestinian terrorists intending to incite more violence.
Kind of like when Rachel Corrie, May God have mercy on her soul, was run over by the innocent IDF bulldozer. Trying to protect another Palestinian family from being uprooted from their land (which the revisionist criminals will in the future claim as they have had no one living on it) and bulldozed from their home. As the democratic fact finders clearly stated, it was truly a tragic accident.
May God have mercy on all those killed by these criminals. May God try and punish these criminals both in this life and in the next.

The internet has opened a new frontier of information sharing and communication. We can find someone or some information in mere seconds. We can communicate with billions in mere clicks. We can make or break our reputation in one meager posting.

Years ago, when the internet was in its infancy, and the web was the gopher system, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Individuals who were very introverted or anti social in real life sometimes took on a whole new identity in the cyber world. I personally like to be a straight shooter, and prefer my cyber identity to match my real persona.

This phenomenon was especially apparent on bbs', forums, and mailing lists. Especially in the online Muslim community, people who didn't exist on campus or in communities, were very prominent online. Cyber shaikhs issuing cyber khutbahs and fatawas. I would always email some of these cyber personalities with .edu domains, "hey I am on campus all the time at all the meetings, lectures and activities, how come I never run into you"
The benign ones simply had a much different cyber personality than real life. People carried themselves online in ways that conflicted so much with their real life personalities. Because they could. because the keyboard and monitor were protective barriers to real social interaction, fears and consequences.

I remember two scenarios that were funny yet illustrated the online alter egos. I was a moderator on a bbs years ago and noticed some unsavory contact between a gentleman and a young lady (and I mean young). I contacted the young lady's brother to notify him of concerns about what was going on. I then received threatening messages from the gentleman. After doing a little bit of investigative work, I emailed him back and said I would be down the street from his house on such and such a day and time and would welcome a face to face discussion(or him at least not hiding behind his keyboard with such threats). Of course he didn't show.
Similarly, a little pest who bid for and never paid for something from me on ebay and then gave me negative feedback (not sure how Ebay let that one go), emailed me months later offering to mutually remove the negative feedback. I said sure, just pay what you owe and we are all set. He responded with some nice words. Again, a little investigative work, and I sent him his address, phone number, the names of his family members, and an invitation to cut the crap. I didn't hear from him again.

Later, the malignant forms of cyber alteregos popped out, email addresses by individuals run by groups or organizations with agends. Fake names and fake emails. Hacked email/moderator accounts.

The beauty of the internet was with a little investigative work, we could find out who was really who. Just track the login ips for the user domains.

Things have become much more complex, but yet the trouble has gotten much worse. The New York Times had a wonderful article about Trolls that highlights the pheonomena.

It must be exciting for people to feel they can do what they want online. Extort, threaten or just harass others.

Just because you can do something, and not be prosecuted for it, doesn't mean you should. The old adage do unto others as you would have others do unto you should be applied in all settings, especially online. Unfortunately nothing can be done about these cyber threats until each and every individual takes it upon themselves to be responsible and accountable.

The house of cards this administration built to force us into invading Iraq continues to fall, and of course we will see more scapegoats. An author writes that an order came from Bush himself to concoct evidence linking AlQaeda to Iraq. Read for yourself
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26030573/

Hey if the Golden Bear isn't gonna play, why not let the Black Bear Play?
A Black Bear from the wild decided to drop in on the Senior US Open.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Colorado-Springs2C-Colo-USGA-2008-US-Senior-Open-Championship/photo//080802/483/555eb2285fc84e6bbaf6b3268a2dd3df/;_ylt=AhK6N14nd6l14L.F8HulDeMDW7oF

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20080726/cm_uc_crabox/op_476839;_ylt=AkfuHfqOFwxTvz7_IrrUHKKt8c8F

McCain Makes Historic First Visit to Internet

John McCain goes where he has never gone before.

Guantanamo has been a huge black eye for the US. These shams of trials seem to make us look more and more like a lawless circus. How dare we criticize other country's human rights records, when we avoid giving these people any rights.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080801/ts_nm/guantanamo_hearings_dc_8

The driver for Bin Laden is charged and going to trial. But if he is acquitted, I quote "The Bush administration says it can still hold him as an "unlawful enemy combatant," even if he is acquitted of the charges, until the "end of hostilities" in the war against terrorism declared by U.S. President George W. Bush."

And with our brilliant Attorney General Mukasey, following well in the footsteps of the person who shook the foundation of the AG position in his incompetence and blatant partisanship, John Ashcroft, wanting Congress to declare an indefinite war against such unnamed parties as we see fit to include in our pathetic charade, this circus will never end. Well, thats why we have elections. Lets get out there and vote.