December 29, 2004

A Wave of Anti-Americanism


I'm afraid that this Tsunami business has given the forces of anti-Americanism grist for the proverbial mill. The latest round of Bush bashing revolves around the president's reaction (of lack therof) to the Tsunami effected countries needs. First of all, everyone has to calm down. A well planned relief effort surely will be more effective than a rushed one. America will do what is needed to get the world back on its feet. We always do. America is and has been the largest source of humanitarian aid in the world. Last year alone, American aid in dollars represented 40 percent of all aid given. We come up with almost half the money and all we ask is that every other country in world kick in the other half. There should be no complaints about our generosity. And for those still whining that 35 million isn't enough money for Tsunami victims, you may want to be aware that: President Bush just authorized a 350 million dollar aid package for tsunami victims. I imagine we will be giving more in the end which, along with the current level of aid puts and end to the latest round of Bush bashing. Next.

December 24, 2004

Terminal Kickassity

The assault rife meant to replace the M-16 currently used by American Forces is close to coming on-line. Meet the XM8. Among its many other bad-ass features, it's actually four types of weapons in one. With a few modifications, the XM8 can be used as a sniper rifle, a light squad support machine gun, an assault rifle with grenade launcher, and a close quarters compact carbine.

The future of weaponry is almost here.

December 11, 2004

What is Kerik thinking?

On the heels of President Bush demonstrating support for Koffi Annan to remain Head of the UN comes an equally puzzling development. Bernard Kerik, one of the heroes of 9-11, has rescinded his acceptance of the position of secretary of Homie Boy Security (read homeland security). WTF... This guy would have been perfect. A welcome departure from the semi-milktoast and undeniably bland former office holder, Tom Ridge. Kerik is Rudolph Guiliani's right hand man and a true bad ass. After being the NYC police commisioner under Guiliani he went to Iraq to oversee/consult with, the newly founded (and now floundering) Iraqi security forces. A brave and forceful man to say the least. Now it appears that he has encountered "personal issues" that would "interfere with" his ability to "fully perform his duties..." Whatever.. I have some theories of my own as to why Kerik is doing this: 1. Perhaps he has been recently enlightened as to the political expediency of his acceptance of this position. Meaning: if he has any other future political aspirations than perhaps accepting this nomination would be a detriment. (Apparently the position of homeland security is a loser because either you're seen as a nazi-like totalitarian law-enforcement type who tramples on civil liberties or as the guy who allowed an attack to occur. If an attack occurs on the SecHS's watch, it appears to be due to his/her incompetence.) 2. Perhaps he really has some kind of personal crap to deal with. Who knows... His daugher has cancer.. whatever. And Number 3 theory is left... to the lefties.... I'm sure the left (and leftie bloggers) have some sort of conspiracy-ish theory as to why Kerik stepped down. Something like: Secretly he works for Haliburton and/or was one of the nine gunmen who killed Kennedy from the grassy knoll. Anyway, That's at least 3(ish) theories as to why this dude stepped down. Who Knows.... It may be convienient for Kerik to be available in say ... four years. Right around the time that Rudolph Guiliani runs for president. Hmmm... Wonder who He'll pick as a runnning mate.

December 09, 2004

In Memory Of Dimebag/ Bar Wars II

One of the dopest guitarists in all of heavy music was shot in the face and killed last night in Ohio. MTV News Link Police have identified 25 year old Nathan Gale as the shooter. He was apparently disgruntled over the break up of Dime Bag Darrell's former band, Pantera. The new band was called Damageplan and featured other former members of Pantera including the drummer and Dimbag's brother Vinnie Paul who was shot as well . From what I can gather, here's what went down: The shooter mounted the stage at some point during Damageplan's first song of the night. He must've gotten the band to stop playing before pulling out the gun because witnesses report he was shouting at the band regarding Pantera'a break up, saying among other things, "What About Phil!", Refering to Phil Anselmo (Pantera'a former frontman). He then proceeded to empty his automatic handgun into Dimbag Darrell's face at first then his upper body as he went down. Some fan reported thinking that this was somehow part of the show. Then, after changing clips, the gunmen shot at other bandmembers and then into the fleeing crowd. Finally at this point part of the crowd (probably led by bouncers) tried to rush the gunman and disarm him. Being a former marine the gunman was no slouch (in terms of interpersonal combat) and was able to dispatch the first incoming would-be-heros. Details are vague but at somepoint during this struggle a cop, who had heard the gunshots initially, gained access to the club through a rear door. When the cop came upon the scene from behind he saw the shooter holding a hostage in front of him and was targeting others, possibly bouncers. The desicion must have been a simple one for the cop who had the tactical advantage of approaching the shooters from a blind spot (not to mention being armed with a shot gun). The cop targeted the back of the man's head and opened fire possibly striking the hostage as well as dropping the maniac shooter. At this moment im watching a police press conference in Ohio and the spokesman refered to the manner of the cops actions as "strategic". This cop, named James Neigermeyer, probably prevented many more deaths and is a hero. And Dimebag Darrell, creator of many glorious heavy riffs, great songs, and blazin' guitar solos will be missed.

December 08, 2004

Dominance


This photo was taken on Sunday April 22, 2007. A Red Sox game I was at where the Red Sox, specifically Manny Ramirez, JD Drew, Mike Lowell, and Jason Varitek, hit 4 back to back home runs to go on to defeat The Yankees and complete a three game sweep. Dice K was the starting pitcher, but the highlight for me was seeing my favorite pitcher in baseball, Jonathan Papelbon, dominate A-rod and the Yankees. The pic below was taken from my seats on the first base side.

December 07, 2004

Music review: Testify



The Christian rock, nu-metal, post-grunge band by the name of P.O.D. has a new album out entitled; "Testify". The album is …Luminous, as is the band P.O.D. I'm realizing. Testify is the fourth album by P.O.D. who came on the scene back in 1999 with “The Fundamental Elements of Southtown”. By now they have clearly mastered their form of swirling layers of guitars over a tight rhythm section laced with tasteful rap and reggae style singing. With the appearance of Hasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu on the Very first track, “Roots In Stereo” the best rock reggae metal combo is realized since 311 Grassroots. Track 11 “Strength of My Life” also features Matisyahu as well as a poignant feeling hook interwoven into an edgier more interesting version of one of the best Sublime tracks. “Mark my Words”, track thirteen, is just phat. In a hip hop meets power chord sort of way. It’s easily one of the best songs on the album, or any album released this year for that matter. When I purchased the album at the Imusic store it came with mucho bonus material including a fifty minute discussion of the album by the band with the album playing in the background and several Itunes compatible music video movies. The mood of P.O.D. is pensive and reflective while also being triumphantly jubilant at times. The duality of mood that Metal meeting Reggae accomplishes allows for transitions and sections in the song structures that tell more of a story than any single genre band is capable of. This album represents Reggae Metal at its best.

November 29, 2004

Bar Wars

Wow I've never seen so many cops, bouncers and patrons fighting at one time in the same melee as the other night. Cops fighting bouncers, bouncers bottling club-goers .... I guess that's par for the course in Providence at this place I was at, the other night: Jovan's. What a scene. Hip hop brawl anyone?

November 23, 2004

Limo Times

I have done away with my Limotimes blog. From now on everything will appear on this blog. For now here's a highlight from the now defunct Limotimes blog:


Christmas Surprise!

On Christmas Eve we had a break in here at Shady Limo Inc. Someone smashed a window in every limo in order to swipe the stereos and some TV's out of the back of each car. Merry F'in Christmas... Now its into January and our company has still not recovered. Both of our Excursions are still off line. (Which screwed us on New Year's eve) I was pretty pissed at who did this. They abused my beautiful Excursion. Dope stereo gone. The silver lining is that now we (hopefully) will get top of the line multi-media presentations re-installed into every car. I will settle for nothing less in my excursion than a kick ass mp3/CD playing stereo with mega bass and a some sort of DVD presentation. Maybe some flip down DVD screens from the roof or, at the very least some screens that actually work in an all weather environment. The two crappy LCD flat screens that the thieves labored to extract from my excursion are worth about 15 bux each and don't even work. There are multiple Soprano-esque theories as to the why/how this incident occured. Druggies looking for a quick score, a former disgruntled employee or employees seeking revenge, a rival limo company seeking to cripple us for new year's, and perhaps the most intriguing theory; that the theft was carried out by my boss himself. Gee, come to think of it, the only car that was untouched was the brand new 2005 sedan, the same car my boss likes to tool around in. -Tuesday January 4, 2005

Assault into the Triangle of Death


Now that the election is behind us our forces in Iraq can take the (politically correct) gloves off without fear of the negative-story centric liberal media being squeamish or the likes of John Kerry grabbing the latest headline and somehow making it the foundation of his campaign. On the heals of a successful Falluja campaign; American and British Forces, flanked by newly trained Iraqi commandos, are sweeping into what is being called the "Triangle of Death" This is an area south of Bagdhad where terrorists have been generally menacing the countryside and having thier way with the more peaceful inhabitants of Iraq. The gloves are off finally and we can kick some arse. Go get 'em boys.

"Do you hear that, do you hear that?"

Dan Rather has announced his resignation and thus a pillar of the mainstream media has been removed. Lets hope the whole house collapses. I’m sure it will one day, as more and more people turn to sources like Fox News, talk radio, and enterprising bloggers for their source of aggressive investigation and insightful commentary. Now it makes sense why Dan Rather was sprinkling so many Texas down home style phrases into his election coverage. He knew that these were his final days and he had so many great phrases that no one had heard yet. I’d like to hear a medley of all of his hokey and folksy phrases that he used on election night. “George W Bush is cutting a swath through the south like a ferris wheel through a field of cotton” and so on. At one point, I remember tuning in to Rather and there was a bizarre silence and then in a kind of trippy moment when he gave an odd look to the camera after a long pause and said quietly “do you hear that, do you hear that?” At first I thought he was talking to his producer or someone off camera, then he suddenly blurted: Knock, knock, knock….. George W Bush’s Presidency is knocking on the door.” Well, he was at least factually accurate this time unlike his and his networks attempt to foil the Bush candidacy with an asinine, un fact-checked, attempt of a story that even if it were true wouldn’t really matter/move votes. Of course I'm refering to when Rather and CBS broke the story that they had documents proving that GW was awol or whatever.
Oops, it only took bloggers about five minutes to find out that the documents, that supposedly were authored 30 years ago were created using Microsoft word! As Homer (Simpson) would say: D’ohhh! Goodbye to “the dull witted advocate” as a Boston radio show host just called him.

November 21, 2004

Everything is Everything


Left: Right
Emotion: Logic
Subjective: Objective
The Water: The Rock (Taoism)
Female: Male
The Arts: Math & Science
Liberal: Conservative

Marine Shooting!


You heard it here first! In the marine shooting incident that is all over the news lately: The terrorist who gets shot in the incident is not the person who the edited for TV clip leads you to believe it is! The unedited video shows another scene playing out on the other side of the room at the moment of the gunshot sound. And one can quite clearly see that a different enemy trooper is being shot. This seems significant becuase im sure when most of America sees the edited footage they are basing whatever desision vis-a-vis the soldiers guilt on a misleading piece of footage. I do find it odd that the pundits have yet to notice this. Bill O'Reilly, for example, claims to have seen the unedited footage but fails to correct everybody's assumption. If you dont believe me then find the unedited footage online and see for yourself.

November 03, 2004

Concession

I's Nov 3rd and I'm watching John Kerry’s concession speech at Fanuiel Hall. As one Bush voter visiting Boston from Florida stated about Kerry when interviewed: "This Is The Classiest thing John Kerry has done." I tend to agree. This, believe it or not, is John Kerry’s finest hour.

This Is The Classiest thing John Kerry has done.


Clearly he's struck the correct tone and in doing so he's departed from the kicking and screaming, by any means necessary, style of democratic rhetoric, a-la Al Gore and others. He is on the verge of tears and this time I believe the words he is saying. He is giving the best speech of his life, conciliatory and at times moving. It is a sad day in Boston, I’m afraid, but a great day for America.

Now I’m watching the Bush acceptance speech. Well, actually Cheney is on first now and apparently George W Bush won the highest popular vote count in American history. And there was a record voter turnout. Amazing. The message America is sending to the world is clear. The rest of the world now has proof of our resolve and our support for our president, even in the face of his detractors best, and at times underhanded efforts. Our Allies overseas have been heartened and those countries that have been troublesome will be forced to reevaluate their dislike of our President.

September 06, 2004

Spasms



The Republican National Convention just finished and as a result John Kerry too, is finished. He’s now undergoing the spasms and convulsions of dying. As evidence I offer the remarks he made in a special emergency press conference that was held at midnight immediately following the President’s impressive convention speech. This Presidential Address served as the finale of pretty stellar week of memorable performances by Arnold Swartzeneger, John McCain, Zell Miller, Mitt Romney, and Rudolph Guiliani just name a few. Kerry's lame response consisted of blatant misinterpretations of what was said at the RNC followed up by petty, childish comments and hypocritical whining about “meanness”. The rhetoric of the left has officially become laughable and John Kerry will lose this election.

July 22, 2004

Kerry's Latest Nonsense


In a recent interview Kerry accuses the Bush campaign of getting very “angry” in regards to the Vietnam era. First of all, this “anger” is purely imagined. I believe it is the dems who are more known for their anger in the recent months. How often does one see Bush or Rumsfeld or Condoleezza Rice foaming at the mouth ala Al Gore or Howard Dean? He’s trying to spin. The Kerry campaign is aware that Mr. Kerry’s actual voting record indicates that he is extremely weak on defense and more or less anti-military. Democrats are trying to switch the debate to the Vietnam era. Kerry himself is, like so many Dems did previously, whining about being called unpatriotic somehow.

As was the case before, right after 9-11, the Dems are imagining that someone is questioning their patriotism, when in reality it is their policies and voting records/tendencies that are being called into question. Kerry will continue to try to talk about 30 years ago in an effort to avoid the much more relevant issue of how strong he is on defense based on his voting record. Moreover, the fundamental difference between Bush and Kerry is that Kerry has no proactive vision of the war on terror. He, if anything, (because after all it is rare to hear him o pine about truly relevant defense issues) leans towards a more law enforcement based answer to terror which is reactive rather than proactive. Kerry would never seek to find these terrorists were they live and route them out, he would rather wait until we get hit, then find those responsible and then wait until the next attack.

This issue of the prosecution of the war on terror is the most important issue of our time and Kerry can continue to smokescreen and bring up almost any other, less pressing, issue but eventually the American people will see which candidate is a stronger wartime president.

June 16, 2004

Careful Now



John Kerry has to be careful not to lose himself in the glee and enthusiasm of being anti-Bush because he may, unintentionally be interpreted as anti-American. On NPR (of course) the other day in his zeal and single-mindedness to be anti-Bush, he first laughed innapropriately and then made absurd commentary vis-à-vis the recent uprisings in Iraq. Kerry referred to the terrorist newspaper, which serves as a propaganda machine, published by this rebel cleric, Al Satar, as a “legitimate voice”. But even Kerry knew rhetoric like that was too over the top and so he then flip flopped mid-sentence when he artfully omitted the term “legitimate” the next time he mentioned the subject. Nonetheless he persisted in siding with Al Sater on this matter, lost in the excuberance of jumping all over any source of any possible Anti-Bush sentiment. The sheer idiocy of aligning yourself with a foaming at the mouth anti-American terrorist is beyond me. The only conclusion is that Kerry’s zeal to be anti-Bush blinds him to what the actual correct stance is. Kerry will continue to align himself with the terrorists, The French, The corrupt UN, and other “unnamed foreign leaders*” and, in turn, will not win the election.

*Kerry had claimed to have met with various vague foreign heads of state casually in New York coffee shops. Yeah Right.

January 20, 2004

In Praise of Romney/The new economy

I just heard a report on NPR about how the Disney corporation has recently laid off several thousand employees who had worked in their traditional animation departments. Disney is making the shift to computer animation which requires far fewer employees. Once the artist masters the computer interface he is off and running, however there is a host of other tasks associated with animation that are no longer necessary when making the transition from traditional animation to computer animation. The report cited the positions of the clean up artists and the ink and color people as no longer needed.

What's happening in this industry I’m sure reflects a larger trend in most industries. The idea of doing more with less. If a company can maintain and even increase its productivity while requiring less personal it doesn’t require four years of business school to agree that such a situation makes good business sense.

These days companies are learning that we live in a leaner economy, which requires and end to unnecessary expenses and inefficient use of personnel.

This concept was championed by and is still being implemented by Governor Mitt Romney. In his recent state of the state address Romney proposed merging Massachusetts Highway Department with the Mass Turnpike Authority. This is the kind of thinking that is required to do more with less. Rather than simply raising taxes when the state runs out of money, I for one would prefer the kind of restructuring that does away with unnecessary jobs. By implication Romney pointed out that these two highways related agencies essentially perform the same tasks. When combined I'm sure a host of administrative jobs will literally become redundant.

As a former employee of the MDC I have seen first hand just how wasteful government agencies can be. As a park ranger in Hull my little contingent worked very hard which made it all the more frustrating when I learned that MDC employees based in Quincy would routinely inflate their hours to the point were one employee was busted when someone noticed that he had put in to be paid for 27 hours on one given calendar date. I guess he forgot that there is only a possible 24 hours to available to work in one given calendar date, oops. Now just imagine what else goes on within the various government agencies.

And yes, these kinds of restructuring efforts will result in a net loss of overall jobs. So we face a net loss in overall jobs in the public and private sector due to this streamlining of the economy. The economy itself is changing. It is becoming less imperative to have tens of thousands of factory floor workers and countless administrative staff.

In the end, it is rather short sighted to point to the number of overall jobs only as the primary indication of the state of the economy. The situation is more complicated than it was in the past when perhaps the number of jobs was paramount. I for one am insulted when certain politicians, by harping on this issue of jobs imply that the public is incapable of understanding that the economy itself maybe changing and despite robust and positive economic indicators (e.g. productivity) we may never get these jobs back because companies are learning they can do more with less.