This Just In...

Views of the news and other stuff

Fom.....Yeah, that's the ticket, more guns!

This damn fascination we have for guns has to end! Using guns for hunting is one thing, but I am certainly not convinced that keeping them for self defense is defensible...Obviously the right wing Supreme Court thinks otherwise....and again we become the laughing stock of the rest of the western world..... what a shame. We fall back on that damn second ammendment every time, and I am convinced the writers of the constitution would be rolling in their graves if they see what we have become...

OK--once again the Motime engineers have fallen asleep at the wheel...the hyperlinks arent working properly... I click the hyperlink icon, type in the url to be linked, click on ok, and it show that I am linked but it doesnt go to the link when activated.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr---it has been like this for a few days now.

Here is the link for the article above http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guns

posted by: JustMe63 at 16:00 | link | comments (1) |

From...Fear Knows No Bounds...

America lives under a reign of fear...no, not from terrorist or the threat of nuclear war, rather from the ingrained fear put into us by the Bush regime. Ever since 911, we have been lectured that at any moment, some terrorist with a shoe bomb is going to attack us, some kook is going to put some deadly chemical in our water supply, some idiot is going to let loose a dirty bomb. Our recent elections have been tainted, nay won, on who is best to handle terrorists. And in trying to prevent such a calamity, we have spent billions on putting up barricades in front of every major building in the country, employing closed circuit cameras everywhere, acckkk you know what I mean. And the worst of all, the damn TSA, which has made traveliing through airports hell. Take off your shoes, untie your belt, no more than 3 oz of deoderant, you know the drill.

In all of this we have lost so many civil liberties, diverted billions of dollars away from repairing our infrastructure, providing health care and food to the poor, and of course the big lie---Iraq has WMD's, thus we send thousands of our young men and women to die.

Well a fascinating article in the Post Sunday by Becky Akers----listen to these figures: In commenting on the uselessness of the TSA...

The TSA's checkpoints have been delaying passengers for six years now. With roughly 720 million "emplanements" every year, the TSA has searched almost 4.5 billion fliers. No screener anywhere has found a single terrorist. That's because terrorism is one of life's most improbable dangers. In fact, it's so remote that the National Safety Council only calculates how likely we are to die from "war and other sequelae" -- and in 2004, Americans ran a mere one in 10,487,744 chance of becoming such a casualty. By contrast, those who climbed into a car stood one chance in 19,216 of traveling in a casket next. Anyone who moves is an even greater daredevil: walking, climbing stairs or rolling over in bed makes your odds of dying from a fall one in 15,614.

Kinda makes ya think doesn't it.....

NOTE-- for some reason the links to the article are not working in Motime. Here is the complete URL for the Akers article...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002227_pf.html

posted by: JustMe63 at 20:09 | link | comments |

From...Another Sadness

Just heard that George Carlin died....Being a child of the '60's he was one of my favorite comedians. Yes he tended to be very off color, but what the hell....he usually told the truth, and it was an "intellectual" type of comedy that made you sit back and say, "yes...he is right."

It was recently announced that he was going to be presented with the Mark Twain Award by the Kennedy Center. Sad he won't be able to accept it in the city that gave him so much grief...

posted by: JustMe63 at 14:27 | link | comments (2) |

From...This and That...

This will be a “this and that” post. Just got back from a most interesting day. I am currently taking a photography course, our last class is next Wednesday, and we have to have ready a portfolio of photos based on a theme. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do until 3:30am last Monday, when I sat straight up in bed with one of those “ah ha” moments…my project is going to be a “trip” up the Potomac River. So today I drove down to Mt. Vernon, the start of the “trip,” to take photos. Then I stopped at each and every  place to stop between there and Alexandria…a total of about 8-9 places, and took pics of the river…different scenes, different objects, but with the river as the main theme.

The Potomac really is quite a beautiful river. When you get south of DC it really becomes quite placid…it is even quite placid as it passes DC…but go just a few miles upstream and you are in to a raging torrent, especially during flood season. Each year sees a number of folks loosing their lives when they fall into the river. Today I made it as far as the Alexandria waterfront. Tomorrow I will finish the trip at Riverbend Park, just north of Great Falls National park. If time permits I might even get up as far as Harpers Ferry, where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, but will have to wait and see.

Once all the pics are taken, I want to process them into either black and white prints, or infrared…will try both.

In other news…

On Monday, I went to St. Albans School for the public wake for Tim Russert. I didn’t always watch “Meet the Press” but when I did I was always impressed by the commonality of the man. And thousands of other must have felt the same thing--- they stood in line with me.  This was the first of these kinds of things I have attended, but I felt I really needed to go. I never went for Reagan (heaven forbid) or Ford or any other celebrity. None. The lines stretched for blocks, some folks coming from way out of town. The outpouring of both grief and tribute to Tim has been quite astounding. Dana Millbank’s column today really described the overall feeling that has been conveyed.

I think one of the reasons why so many people feel this way towards Tim is that he always put himself above the fray. He was first and foremost a common man, a son of  Buffalo. In many respects, I found that the questions he asked of his interviewees in Meet the Press were the same questions that I would ask if I was there…. And many folks felt the same way.  For those of us living here, he was also another citizen of DC. He was proud of the city, not because it was the nation’s capital, but simply because this is where he called home. He could be seen at the Wizards and Nationals games, the shopping malls, walking the Mall… just another frumpy guy in shorts and t-shirt…no different in that respect then the rest of us. So when every Sunday morning he hosted MTP, and was interviewing some famous politician or public figure, he was representing us. And gawd don’t we need more of his kind…especially now, with the bad shape our country is in…and politicians not really keen, or even willing,  on doing very much.

And on this….what the hell is it with Dubya and McCain wanting to go drill offshore for more oil? Yeah, another wonderful solution to our energy crisis…..more petroleum, that’s the ticket…pay no never mind to the fact that we will, some day, run completely out of oil….with probably no alternative energy sources in sight! I read that the amount of oil reserves calculated to be offshore would take just a tad over 2 years to use up at the current rate we use oil. And sure enough some oil spill will take place, which takes 100  years to clean up thoroughly. But isn’t that typical Republican thinking? Short term results, greed, and go Haliburton!

Those poor folks in Iowa, and now Missouri and Illinois as well…devastated by the floods. Dubya flew over the area today, and talked with some folks there…did anyone hear if he said “Way to go…good job xxxx” to anyone. Does the name "Katrina" bring back memories?

And Tiger Woods wins the US Open on a buggered up knee and a busted leg to boot! Wanta bet ever other golfer heaved a huge sigh of relief now that Tiger is out for the rest of the season…

Supper is now calling….pork chops on the grill sounds wonderful..

More later…

 

posted by: JustMe63 at 21:57 | link | comments (3) |

From...Very Sad

NBC has reported that Tim Russert has died of a heart attack...what a shame....he will be missed.

posted by: JustMe63 at 21:34 | link | comments (3) |

From...What the Hell?

This has become too  common place in this country...what the hell are we coming too???? Are you as pissed off as I am? (Look especially at the video...notice the cars that just drove by, swerving to avoid the man but not even slowing down!)

posted by: JustMe63 at 21:43 | link | comments (1) |

From...Enough Already (Part 2)

Hillary, for god sake woman, give it up. That non-concession speech doesn't do anyone any good! And you are using your minions to press for you to be VP. If Obama is smart he will say thanks but no thanks. The fact that you have yet to concede is reason enough to turn you down. And if you were to be asked to be on the ticket, how much do you bet that you and Bill would turn the White House into your own little fiefdom.

Nope, you had your glory. Maybe you will have it again. But not this year...

posted by: JustMe63 at 22:47 | link | comments (2) |

From...Enough Already!

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is not a favorite columnist of mine. But on occasion I do find myself in agreement with some of his thoughts. His column in this morning’s paper is one of those in which I say “amen.” In a word, Cohen has come to hate the current presidential campaign, especially the Dem side.

I, too, have come to the point where I am almost tuning out what is being said by the candidates. The constant harping;  the overt, and covert, racism that is present in so many voters (as Cohen says, when referring to those voters in Kentucky who said they would not vote for Obama because he is black….(these) voters didn't even know enough to lie, which is what, if you look at the numbers, others probably did in other states.; the tendency of the media to dwell on insignificant details, compared to the broader picture which must be addressed (witness the hullabaloo over Rev. Wright.) The list is endless.

My greatest fear is that the Dems are shooting themselves in their own feet. At a time when god only knows that we need a regime change in this country, the chances are increasing daily that the red states will again prevail. God help us if that is the case. In this regard the Dems are their own worst enemy, and they are really pissing me off.

What we really need is a much shorter election season. This campaigning for two years or longer leaves us with too much time to dwell on the insignificant things. A much shorter campaign would force the candidates and the electorate to concentrate on those issues which are really important, never mind the fact that it would cost a hell of a lot less money. I tend to think that much of the problem with the media is that they have to really dig to get the latest “campaign” news and such trivial things as how the candidate dresses, what they ate for breakfast, ad nauseum stories dealing with some aspect of semantics, etc. would fall by the way side if the campaign was much shorter. In this regard, no other country on earth spends so much time on election campaigns. We have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world in this regard. Countries with parliamentary systems of government usually spend no more than 8 weeks max on the campaign , and most spend around 5-6.

So Hillary, give it up. Dems, quite the bloody infighting. Between now and November, let’s talk about the economy, health care, energy policy, the freaking “war”, how to reestablish our reputation in the world.  No more of the drivel that we have heard and seen so far. Let’s rally round guys and get the Reps out of the White House, for a good long time!

posted by: JustMe63 at 15:53 | link | comments (1) |

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