Belay My Last
Oops!
I got word from Regl that the upmod on the digg site was not performing the desired function.
I was wrong so I took off that post. I am destined to be 1996.
So, belay my last.
So, how the hell are ya?
Oops!
I got word from Regl that the upmod on the digg site was not performing the desired function.
I was wrong so I took off that post. I am destined to be 1996.
So, belay my last.
So, how the hell are ya?
Thanks to your help, my name got mentioned as the person to beat for raising money to help The Gathering Place!
I want to thank the new helpers that have donated recently ...
I was very touched and thankful to see the donations.
Please, your support will make a difference in the life of someone touched by cancer.
Please visit the website for the gathering place to learn more about where your donation is going.
Thanks again for all your help. I am really, sincerely humbled when I think of the friends I have and the difference they make. I know I haven't been doing much here lately, and I do hope to change that.
Track your 2008 deductions with a free website - www.itsdeductible.com!
A few of you have been able to support me in The Race For The Place and I thank you!
I thought it was too bad that the tributes were on the donation site and not on this site, so I want to take a moment to list the tributes here. If anyone is disappointed in me doing so I will work with you to remove them.
Donations have come from:
If you visit the donations page, you can click on the great big emblem on the top to go to the website for the gathering place. The website is http://www.touchedbycancer.org/.
I wish I could somehow emphasize how incredible the gathering place is and how it has affected the lives of many people. Please visit the site and find out more. Then, come back and donate. :-)
I am currently enjoying the lead in the company for donations. But I tell everyone that it really doesn't have anything to do with me, but instead with the people I have come to know and love over the years.
Please remember also that you have until June 1st to donate. If you can't do it until then I totally understand. If you can't do it at all, that's fine as well. But if you can and you do, or you have, Thank You for keeping the free-of-charge gathering place alive!
I copied some MP3 files off of a CD of music I have on to my Ubuntu Linux box. I opened Rhythmbox and tried to import the files. I received a message along the lines of 'The gstreamer plugins to decode MP3 files cannot be found' and was very sad.
I used the search engine Google to search for the message and was greeted with a lot of sites that were not very friendly in their attempts to help users with this problem.
I remembered having had this problem before and thought that there was a Totem install or something to fix it. But it turned out that Movie Player is what is returned in Add/Remove programs when I search for Totem, so I thought I already had it.
The Quick Fix: I opened Movie Player and then tried to open one of the MP3 files using Movie Player. Movie Player detected that I did not have the gstreamer plugins and asked if I would like it to install it for me.
I said yes and it did.
So I closed Movie Player and went back to Rhythmbox and imported the files and played them successfully since Rhythmbox now knew the gstreamer plugin all because of the Movie Player install.
I was then able to move the MP3 files over to my trusty 3rd generation iPod.
Thanks, Movie Player!
I have always been able to rely on my friends and family to help raise awareness and funds for worthy organizations. In the past, I have been involved with Junior Achievement. Now, I am coming to you asking for your help in supporting The Gathering Place.
If you are not familiar with The Gathering Place, it is an amazing place where people who are touched by cancer can go and share their experience.
A very good friend of mine who recently had a life-changing cancer experience spoke so highly of The Gathering Place that I knew I had to get involved.
My employer supports The Gathering Place. I have seen money raised through different events at work that raised money for the gathering place. I am very proud of the affiliation.
Often, we will have casual days at work where you may donate 3 dollars to a fund and dress down for the day. Those of you who know me and my continued desire to be laid back will not be surprised that I take every opportunity given.
I will be participating in the Race For The Place on National Cancer Survivor's Day on June 1st.
Please support me with your one-time donation of 20 dollars!
For every donation of 20 dollars that is given, I will be allowed to dress casual at work!
Even without that, I have personally seen and been brought to tears by the work that The Gathering Place does. I wouldn't care about the casual days at all, I would still be in this race.
The real race is the race to keep The Gathering Place available for those people in the future who are going to turn to The Gathering Place. Your donation helps to keep the reality of The Gathering Place alive.
I don't know how to end this post. Please visit this website and donate 20 dollars. Please use your real name when you donate so I know who to thank.
Please feel free to cut and paste this link:
http://thegatheringplace.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=265584&u=265584-212387111&e=1649959698
and send it to everyone you know. Yes, spam your address book and ask people to please give 20 dollars. Take til June 1st if you have to wait to get the money. I know that times are very hard right now. If you get your economic stimulus check, please give 20 dollars.
Above all, please mail me through the mail link if you have any questions about what I am asking and why.
I would be happy to post your name and a link to a site if you would like to contact me about your donation.
Thanks, everyone!
I am often asked why I don't shop at Wal-Mart. Although I have a few good reasons, I was never able to articulate the reasons well. Sure, their products are cheap, overseas crap. Everyone knows that and doesn't care. Sure, they give workers just enough hours to keep from having to pay healthcare so that the workers can still be on welfare. Everyone seems to know that and doesn't care.
People tend to act like, yeah, so what? We all know what you are saying is true, but we still shop there.
Most of my friends know very well the affect on small business.
But they still shop there.
Okay, I think I found an article that strikes at the heart of what bothers me, not just about Wal-Mart, but about a large part of the economic system.
Consider this headline: Small Retailers Being Forced Out By Big Chains.
Seems like a pretty common headline. In fact, it is a pretty common headline. But that's free market! That's capitalism! That's the beauty of the program!
Because this is the real headline: Small Retailers Being Forced Out By Government Subsidies To Big Chains!
Think about that headline, and then read the article on how Small Retailers Are Being Forced Out By Government Subsidies To Big Chains.
Go read it! I can wait!
Corporate Socialism!
A system in which government, whether Federal or local, picks the winners in the economy, is not capitalism, it’s not competition, it’s not free market, it is corporate socialism ...
The retail stores in America are being funded by money from people that may not even shop there!
Sam Walton practiced corporate socialism. As much as he could, he put the public’s money to work for his benefit. Free land, long-term leases at below-market rates, pocketing sales taxes, even getting workers trained at government expense were among the ways Wal-Mart took every dollar of welfare it could get.
Government subsidies to a corporate retail store, while the small businessman is taxed and forced out of business.
Subsidies to retail cannot make us wealthier. Retail is at the end of the economic line.
Whose America is this? The Clinton's? The Bush's? The corporations?
Bury America at Arlington National Cemetery. Because the America that we thought we lived in, we hoped we lived in, is G-O-N-E GONE and it can NOT be voted back.
The last three jobs that I have had I have been required to pass a urine test to become employed. After I was employed, the United States Government took a portion of every paycheck and distributed some of my money to people without jobs.
I think it would be perfectly fair for the people without jobs to have to take a urine test to receive the money taken from people with jobs who had to take urine tests to work for it.
If I didn't pass the urine test, I would not have gotten the job.
If the people without jobs don't pass the urine test, they should not receive my money.
Do all states allow you to switch your party affiliation at the voting booth?
I personally witnessed three people in front of me switch their party affiliation to vote democratic. I think that Hillary is winning Ohio because of republicans voting democratic to choose who a republican candidate could beat in a national election.
How many states do that?
There is so much that I want to do, and so many people that I want to stay in tough with, that I oftentimes end up doing nothing and talking to no one. I am trying to make a concentrated effort (via GTD) to keep in touch with people and work on those projects that I would like to work on.
Admittedly, I consider finishing Zelda a project just like working on songquotes.net.
When I think of the phrase 'Indian Giver' I think that it is bad against the Indians. Meaning, in the world of political correctness, you shouldn't say 'Indian Giver' because it presents Indians in a bad light. I gave it some thought, though, the Indians weren't the ones giving something away and then asking for it back. It was the American Government that GAVE the Indians the land and then took it back.
Saying Indian Giver makes no sense. It should be 'Government Giver'. I wonder if the tax rebates that are coming up are another example of a 'Government Giver'.
I read a statement from a man who said that a pound of chicken breast in his grocery store costs 7 dollars. A minimum wage worker makes 5.85 an hour where he lives. That means that the worker would have to work over an hour for a chicken sandwich. His comment was 'What country is this, Zimbabwe?'
Thinking it through, that minimum wage worker works an hour and can't buy two gallons of gas. This isn't even considering that tax is taken out of his paycheck.
Maybe the problem in America is expectations. Expectations that someone is going to take care of us and give us money and food even when we don't work. Expectations that if we do work we should have a big screen television. Expectations that the amount of money you have is based on how hard you try.
I now have cable and spend a lot of time trying to find shows that I think are going to make me smarter. I search through the 150 channels trying to find something that teaches me something. Because there are so many choices I get overwhelmed and end up watching Sanford and Son. 'Lamont, you big dummy!'
But right now I am watching 'Banned from the Bible II' on the History channel. They are talking about a book called 'The Testament Of Solomon' that was not 'authorized' by Jews or Christians. I want to read this testament. I wonder if it wasn't authorized because they didn't think Solomon really wrote it or it was just too wacky.
I first spelled wacky as 'whacky' and realized that would be a different kind of 'whack'. I went without the H.
Thanks to my favorite news site, www.reddit.com, I got to see a video of two guys that looked like U.S. soldiers holding a puppy up and then throwing it off a cliff. It can be heard whimpering and falling to its death while the 'soldiers' chuckle. It is very mean. I have asked my good friend to look at it and see if they are 'soldiers' based on their uniform.
There's an Obama story that quotes him like this...
When he came to saying that gays and lesbians deserve equality, though, the crowd fell silent. So he took a different tack: 'Now I’m a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday,' he said, to a sudden wave of noisy applause and cheers. 'I hear people saying things that I don’t think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian,'
The headline on reddit read "Barack Obama Tells Crowd that Homophobia is Not Christian" and it got me wondering. It can be concluded that Homesexuality is not condoned by Christians. Homophobia is defined by merriam-webster as 'irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals.' So, what do you think is Homophobia Christian?
I heard someone say that Hussein is a biblical name but I didn't find it on the wikipedia biblical name list. I did find an article about the name Hussein that was pretty interesting.
I feel very convinced that there is a serious economic problem in America that will get very worse very shortly. MSNBC has an interesting article about recession-proof pizza and beer skyrocketing in cost.
I have never considered myself an ethical vegetarian. However, I recently visited a website that had an incredible video about factory farms (email me for the site if you dare) and I was incredibly glad that I am not eating meat.
There is a long-standing joke about not wanting to know about what is in a hot dog, but instead just eating it because it tastes good. Most people do not want to know what is in sausage, but instead want to eat it without hearing what the government allows to go into it.
The video that I just recently saw was less about what goes into hot dogs or sausage and more about the conditions by which the animals end up in the hot dogs and sausages. I know this may sound like crazy talk, but if I were eating meat, I would only want to eat meat that I saw grazing out in a field for a year or two and then eaten. I don't think I believe that a stressful life for an animal is contained in its meat and eating the animal causes 'stress' in the body of the eater. I also want to be careful about attributing 'rights' to an animal the way rights are attributed to people.
Having said that, though, I can honestly say that I don't want to eat an animal that has come out of the factory farm process. Additionally, milk and butter. I mean, this video really affected me, and I am already not eating the animal!
So that's what I am thinking about now. What's on your mind?
