Edward Kennedy: A Man and a Legend

Today we all heard the sad news of the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. Known as the Lion of the Senate, his passion for championing the rights of the downtrodden will go down in history.

While I did not always agree with his politics, my respect for him is unwavering. He was able to bring both sides to the table and come up with compromises and agreements in situations where many would have called it completely impossible.

My heart goes out to his family and my thoughts are with them in this their hour of need.

Senator God be with you! The world has lost one of the greatest politicians in history.

Zappos Bridal Shoes

Has everyone heard of Zappos? I first learned about Zappos while I was working on a Business Process Improvement project for the company I work for. Because of what I learned about the company culture and their drive to make sure that every customer is completely satisfied I suggested this site to a friend of mine when she was planning to get married.

The selections they have are phenomenal and the quality is unparalleled. My friend was completely blown away by the number of bridal shoes that they had available to purchase. The shoes that she chose for her bridesmaids were absolutely gorgeous and her shoes were just stunning. She cannot stop talking about the experience that she had with Zappos and has recommended it to a number of friends.

If you want to experience incredible service and passion for making customers happy please take a look and make use of this incredible company. They just can't do anything wrong from what I have been able to tell. Brides worldwide should really look at this and they can be sure that at least as far as the shoes are concerned there are no worries with having the perfect bridal shoes.

Politics today: How we have chosen the anointed ones.

I believe that there is a great misunderstanding of how things are supposed to work as opposed to how they actually work. I truly would like someone to point out where in the Constitution (You remember the Constitution don't you? The document that is supposed to guide us in making the laws and policies of this land?) I am somewhat perturbed by the fact that Congress now seems to think that since they have a majority of Democrats that they have been anointed by God to pass legislation with no assistance whatsoever from the Republicans. I am, as I am sure you have already guessed, a Republican but I am well aware of how badly the Republicans have handled things recently and I DID vote for Obama. That being said, we have a 2 party system that is supposed to instill co-operation and bipartisanship so as to bring forth the best possible legislation for our country. Standing up and basically saying screw you guys we won is a show of the most unbelievable arrogance.

We do need a lot of what is being proposed but my major problem with this is that with all the talk we really have no serious details. I believe that it should be a federal crime, punishable by some serious fines and the loss of your seat in the legislature for you to stand up and speak to and vote for a piece of legislation that is thousands of pages long without having read through it yourself, word for word, to make sure that you know exactly what you are voting for. I don't really care what your staff thinks about what you are voting for. We elect our legislators to represent us. I don't want them voting one way or another based on what a staff member thinks about legislation. I want to you know what YOU think guys. Put it on the record and see how many of you win another election once the public sees exactly what you think rather than what you say.

The Micheal Jackson Phenomenon

Michael Jackson was one of the best artists that the world has known. Few people have been able to match the unbelievable talent and popularity that he enjoyed and fewer still can say that they came from the background he had. Many people do not recognize him for what he accomplished. He became an incredible talent at an incredibly young age. What we have seen over the last week or so is something that I honestly would have expected given the circumstances.

I also want to say that while I am a Republican I am ashamed of the despicable comments that came from a conservative lawmaker. Michael had some legal problems in years past but this bozo has apparently forgotten that he was acquitted of those charges which make him innocent.

Michael we will all miss you.

The Hazards of Overseas Journalism

Today 2 American journalists were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for what the North Korean regime calls the "grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing."

As much as I feel for the families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, it must always be remembered that journalism is not welcomed at all in many countries around the world that do not allow free speech and great caution must be taken when reporting from area in or closely adjoining these countries.

It has been said by the families of these young women that they had no intention of crossing into North Korea and that may very well have been the case when they left on this assignment but, it is a fact that any great journalist will take some serious risks to get a good story and it pays off in many cases. I suspect that if someone came to them and said I can get you into an area of North Korea where you can speak to some of the people who live there; my guess is that they would jump at the chance to be able to bring back a story of that kind.

I can completely understand their need to do this. I would very likely have done the much the same thing in their situation. There are many good journalists but the journalists that have become great have taken chances. Some with their reputations such as Dan Rather, who made the announcement to the world that President Kennedy was dead before anyone, anywhere had actually confirmed it. That became his starting point and he went on from there to become an extraordinary newsman. ABC anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were both very seriously injured in Iraq when the convoy they were traveling in was hit by a roadside bomb. They were doing what they needed to do in order to get the raw truth out to the world. In so doing they placed themselves in peril and in this case paid a very heavy price.

The 2 young ladies in North Korea are actually quite fortunate. They could certainly have been charged with spying for the United States and while I am not familiar with the laws of North Korea I would not be surprised if the penalty for that is death.

I hope and pray that a release can be negotiated for them but if not then we need to think of them as courageous young ladies who were doing what the believed needed to be done in order to bring back stories of the common man that would otherwise never see the light of day.

Tragedy

I am sure everyone has now read or seen something on the horrible incident to befall Air France Flight 447 over the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the passengers and crew of that flight. I cannot begin to imagine the feelings of those left behind but my heart and the hearts of tens of millions around the world go out to you in your time of despair.

It matters not what is going on in the world when something like this happens and the world takes notice. Despite the difficulties involved in recovery of meaningful data I am certain that the investigators will not rest until they have reached a conclusion as to what happened.

It is difficult I am sure to think in terms of recovery and data analysis in times like these but the deaths of your loved ones will not be meaningless. I realize that this will come as little comfort now but this accident will do, as others in the past have done, a great deal in terms of making it safer than ever to fly.

Remember that even as they throw off the bonds of this earth and move on to the next stage of existence they will not be forgotten.

Legal Help

I was online the other day looking for a lawyer to review some potential contracts I have had offered to me. While I was searching I found a site that would be enormously helpful to anyone that lives in New Jersey. I am not in New Jersey but close so I have sent some requests to see if any of these attorneys are perhaps also licensed in this state. This website is something that is actually pretty easy to maneuver as websites go.
This site covers just about any non-criminal law issue that I can think of. This is a pretty effective site. I come from a back ground that includes web site hosting and I can tell from that experience that this is a very well done site.
If you need legal assistance with something that is not related to a criminal matter and you live in New Jersey, I can absolutely recommend this site for its ease of use and wealth of issues that they support.

Vacationing in a recession

Even in an economic downturn, as long as you still have an income, you can take some pretty nice vacations. And depending on what you do, this economy may have placed enough stress on you that a vacation is needed. A little research and some phone calls or emails can yield you some pretty nice results. In researching this article I used a number of sources including booking each piece individually.

The prices I have here are from Priceline which does a pretty good job of “negotiating” as they put it.

The first example is a trip from the east coast using Baltimore as the departure airport and I came up with a price of $550.00 flight plus hotel staying at The Stratosphere from March 23 and departing March 27.

That is an extraordinary price for a trip that would take 37 hours to drive and cover approx 2400 miles one way.

Another excellent things to look at is a cruise. There are some very affordable cruises if you do some looking. You can get a 3 night Bahans cruise for as little as $99.00 a person. That, of course does not include the cost of getting to the embarkation point but any way you look at it that is a good deal. That particular deal sails out of The Port of Fort Lauderdale. That is very convenient for flights because the Fort Lauderdale International Airport is almost right next door. It would be I would guess perhaps a 10 or 15 minute cab ride to the boat.
Using Baltimore as the example again you can get to Ft Lauderdale for as little as $144.00 per person round trip flying Southwest Airlines . You may very well be able to find a somewhat lower price but Flyinf Southwest for that next last week in March there quite a few nonstop flights which means that you can leave Baltimore and be on the ground in Ft Lauderdale about 2 ½ hours later.

The point to this article is that you can have some stress relief during the recession without spending an arm and a leg.

Blogging for fun and profit

Blogging has become very popular among almost all ages. People like to give their opinions on just about anything under the sun. Blogging is also now a way to pass on the news of the day with news outlets having blogs that are added to at least several times a day.

One thing to remember is that you can also make some money blogging. You are not going to get rich overnight but you can start small and as you build a following you can earn more money. There are many sites that claim to pay you for blogging but one that I particularly like is called Blogsvertise.

This site gives you the opportunity to earn money by getting assignments from companies that would like you to blog about them. It is a very interesting concept and I think has a great deal of merit. You can find more information about Blogsvertise by going here.

If your questions are not answered there you can contact Blogsvertise by clicking here.

I think that this is a great idea for both bloggers and the companies involved. They get legitimate feedback from people not related to the advertising companies and you get paid.

Brilliant!!!

Who I am

I have made two relatively short posts and it is time to let everyone know who I am. My name is Tom and I am a White Middle-Aged male living in Pennsylvania. I am 49 years old. I decided to start this blog not because I am an expert on everything but because I have substantial amount of knowledge about a number of things and because I have been reading, watching and listening since I was old enough to decipher what was going on.

I read anything I can get my hands on and I watch television and listen to the radio (music, variety, news and talk shows on both) because I refuse to let myself be limited to just one source of information. I do not feel that I can be truly informed on a subject unless I am aware of the opinions and, in the case of politics, the policies of all parties involved.

You will be seeing regular posts on a variety of subjects. You may agree with me and you may not. That is a good thing. Disagreements, communicated in a civil manner and with open mindedness on both sides, can many times result in a compromise position that is superior in many ways to either original suggestions or thoughts.

The bane of all societies everywhere is the group or groups who absolutely refuse to even discuss alternatives and who are convinced that no one could possibly have any ideas or beliefs that are superior to theirs.

Online games

Many games require that you join in a group to be able to really accomplish anything substantial and that can help someone learn team work, it can teach leadership and it can teach problem resolution.

Online gaming can be a very good thing. You will hear and see new reports of someone that has some kind of medical issue or loses a job because they spend most of their waking hours gaming.

For those people I would say the problem is not the gaming. The problem is one with setting priorities for adults and if this is a child then I would say the problem is parenting. If you allow a child to spend that much time gaming and never set boundaries then there will certainly be problems.

My point is that these are games. They have good points and, in some cases, bad points but they are games none the less.

When problems arise please try looking at the people that have the problems not the games.

Disrespectful Attorney General?

Do we really need a public official, particularly a cabinet level public official, that trashes the entire population of this country?

We do indeed still have problems with racism and it absolutely needs to be addressed but to call an entire nation cowards steps far beyond the role that was provided to this man by our president. We have troops overseas fighting and in some cases dying together no matter what their race may be and I submit that those men and women are not cowards.

The cowards in this are our elected officials that look at laws and enforce those laws based on personal beliefs rather than what the laws actually say. If we could get an entire government (local, state and federal) that can read and understand what has been written and act on it as it put forth in the law then we would be far better off than we are now.