Oh, this is just TOO good! A spelling mistake in the Congressional record, picked up by Al Jazeera and other media, heightened international tensions this week. The error led to the mistaken belief that the US had conducted atomic tests in the Sudan more than 40 years ago and was blamed for causing cancer in that troubled country. The errant quote went as follows: "The Sudan test displaced 12 million tons of earth and dug a crater 320 feet deep in (SIC) over 1,000 feet in diameter," ...
We're doing it again. We keep on trying to save the world. And, of course, the world is predictably dissatisfied with the way that we go about it. View the blog posts from around the world. Count the number of people that people that post that America has no business in Iraq. Compare that to the number that point out (or even know) that Iraq was a British colony from 1918 (the end of the Ottoman Empire after WWI) until 1932. See http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Gilgamesh/1918.html Sure, Iraq wa...
This the 350th Anniversary of the first Jewish community in America, an event not really recognized outside of the Jewish community. Yet it symbolizes what America has to offer. The story of Jews in America begins in 1492. In that year, the last Moslem city in Spain fell, Columbus set sail to find India (being a man, he refused to ask for directions and so ended up in Puerto Rico) and the Inquisition began in Spain. Soon the Inquisition spread to neighboring Portugal as well. Jews living i...
The full quote goes "We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" and is attributed to Pogo author, Walt Kelly. It strikes as a very apt description of the state of affairs in the Mid-East. Divisions within the Arab and Israeli may be more of an impediment to peace than most people think. The Arab Street is divided on the issues of terrorism and Lebanon, while Israel is divided about the withdrawal from Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon meet for peace talks and announce a cease-fire. Concessi...
Al Queda should hate us. They have every reason to. For we are going to destroy their way of life. Bin Laden should hate us. For he sees the inevitabilty of defeat. Everything that he holds dear is going to fall and be forgotten, except as a historical footnote. And he knows that he can only delay it but never defeat it. All the little tin dictators in the Middle East should hate us. For we will render them as irrelevant as the dinosaur and just as extinct. The winds of change are bl...
I come to JoeUser to write, to read, to comment and to learn. I learn most from people that are different from me, that offer ideas and perspectives that I would never have thought of. I don't think that I am unique in this. But civility is a requirement. When things degenerate into "flame wars" or simple meanness, neither side listens or benefits. One of my dear friends is our own BakerStreet. I know BakerStreet from the skinning community and he has always had my respect and admiration....
With apologies to the group War: "CEO s, huh! What are they good for? Absolutely nothing!" If you are looking for good reality-based entertainment, you need look no further than some of the trials of CEO s currently in progress. Then ask yourselves, why were these guys ever paid so much? First of all, what is a CEO? CEO stands for Chief Economic Officer. He (or she in some cases, but not many) is the person in charge of the overall economic positioning of a company. You can usually...
If you are looking for a rant that George W. Bush "stole" the election in 2004 (or in 2000, for that matter) you have come to the wrong place. Move along now, nothing to see here. My contention is that George W. Bush IS a liberal, in the strictest sense of the word. Please note that I didn't say "Democrats" won anything, I said Liberals. The Reader's Companion to American History says that the modern definition of "Liberal" in American politics comes from FDR. Quoting from that source, ...
In the Pope's latest book, he refers to gay marriage as part of "a new ideology of evil." In this time of ever-increasing revelations of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church, I stand in wonder of just how misplaced priorities can be. The book Memory and Identity is based on transcribed conversations between the Pontiff and his circle of friends. The conversations occurred in 1993, before the extent of the sexual abuse of children by priests was widely known or acknowledged. But I ...
In what could further destabilize the Middle East, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been indicted in a campaign funding scandal. The indictment comes at a time when many Israelis are angered by concessions made by Sharon to the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in order to get the peace process started. The indictment is the result of a three-year investigation of Sharon and stopped short of indicting the Prime Minister himself. Sharon's son Omri, how...
Today is the ninetieth anniversary of D.W. Griffith's movie "The Birth of a Nation," a controversial and racist film that celebrated the origin of the Klu Klux Klan in America. I only know one way to fight hatred and that is with humor. I hope that you get a chuckle. Today is a fitting day to begin "White History Month," a celebration of all things white. Classroom curricula should focus on traditional white music, like Lawrence Welk or anything with a polka sound to it. Teachers should ...
Today is the ninetieth anniversary of D.W. Griffith's movie "The Birth of a Nation," a controversial and racist film that celebrated the origin of the Klu Klux Klan in America. I only know one way to fight hatred and that is with humor. I hope that you get a chuckle. Today is a fitting day to begin "White History Month," a celebration of all things white. Classroom curricula should focus on traditional white music, like Lawrence Welk or anything with a polka sound to it. Teachers should ...
Where do new ideas come from? One thery is that they come from the conflict between older ideas. Hegel's famous dialectic went as follows: Thesis meets anti-thesis creating synthesis. Someone puts forward an idea, someone else opposes it and out of the conflict comes a new idea. I think that we see this in politics. Presiden Bush suggested a plan to reform Social Security. Some people opposed it. They try to knock holes in it. The President and his supporters rebutt. Out of the two idea...
This may be surprising, but did you know that Google has released a browser? They call it Mozilla. The Mozilla Project states its purpose as follows: The mission of the Mozilla project is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. An open source community of developers and testers. A partner for the technology industry. An advocate for standards on the Net who provides tools for developing standard web content. Educators, providing educational materials about Internet techn...
I'm a secularist. I teach Sunday School at a Secular Humanist institution. But I'm not an atheist and I am certainly not immoral or amoral. There are so many misconceptions about what Secular Humanism is, I thought that I would clear the air. We are not atheists. You can be an atheist and a Secular Humanist, but you can also have strong religious beliefs. In fact my group is a Jewish Secular Humanist one. We do think that an individual's relationship with God (or lack thereof) is a privat...