26 Feb 2015 - President and Vice President's Schedule

President Obama has no public schedule today.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2015-02-26 

Yesterday he was in Florida talking to an Immigration Advocacy Group (as usual, the fact that it is *illegal* Immigration advocacy is never, ever mentioned.

 I read a message board of a successful soundtrack producer who is a former active, and he as about 10 people contributing to his message board on a daily basis, one of whom is an "immigration" lawyer (who specializes in helping illegals stay in the country) and she mentioned a few days ago that she had given a talk about "immigration" to people... I forget all the precise details but the main thrust of the argument is that she was not talking about "immigration" - most US citizens have no problem with immigration.... she was talking about *illegal* immigration...but they just won't say that....

It's like living in the Twilight Zone...or in Kafka's world...

Vice President Biden also has no public schedule today according to the scheduler, anyway. Yesterday he made a couple of speeches in New Hampshire:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/vice-president/2015-02-26

Ever heard of Drabbles?

I decided to launch my own Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. The first of hopefully several...

When going through some campaigns on Kickstarter, I found one called 1 Drawing for 1 Dollar. The campaign asked for only $250, and the guy had received over $7,000 in orders.

Unfortunately I'm not an artist, so I couldn't offer such a deal...but I *am* a good writer and wondered if I could sell drabbles. I set the bar at only $25....

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/118270389/1-drabble-for-1-dollar?ref=nav_search And a woman has already ordered 25 drabbles featuring John Steed and Emma Peel: The Avengers.

So after 3 days I'm already fully funded.

So if you would like a drabble, you'll receive it immediately.

What is a drabble? It is a story that is exactly 100 words long. It's typically fan fiction - for The Avengers, Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Original Series and so on.

Here's a couple of samples, one for The Avengers, and one a non-fiction drabble that I call a Scrabble Drabble, to help people improve their Scrabble vocabulary.

Religions don't kill people...

Someone mentioned this to me yesterday...these friends are Democrats who were annoyed about Giuliani's comment that Obama doesn't love America because he refuses to call ISIS Islamist radical terrorists.

The husband said: The refrain from gun lovers about guns is : "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

So following that logic, "religions don't kill people, people kill people."

Do you think the comparison is apt, in all its ramifications?

There's a woman on the hannity forums who persists in equating Islam of today with Christianity of today, which I've got to say shocks me. While there are fundamentalist Christians who won't let female refs referee a basketball game (because that would place a woman in a position of authority over the boys - God forbid! - I wonder if they have women teachers there or not) but I've yet to hear of a Christian parent doing an honor killing because daughter left the house without a male relative. I've yet to hear of these sects not allowing women to drive - which women can't do in Saudi Arabia...and on and on...

I felt like asking her where'd she prefer to live, as a woman, Saudi Arabia or any city in the US or even Europe...

What can we do about ISIS?

President Obama says that if we get these terrorists jobs, they'll stop beheading people or setting them on fire.

All well and good...but where are they going to get jobs in the middle of a desert? What kind of jobs could they do?

Of course since they wouldn't allow women to work, they'd get any available jobs for themselves, which is one benefit... Seems to me ISIS folks are just living in the 13th century..and need to be sent back there as expeditiously as possible.

OT: Rucksack Appeal: A UK chairty

For my readers in the UK, I thought I'd feature this charity for the homeless, located in the UK, that I thought was pretty interesting. (And there's no reason why my US readers can't help out as well if you feel so inclined.

The Rucksack Appeal is a charity whose goal is to collect rucksacks (or backpacks, as we say in the States), fill them full of necessities, and give them to the homeless.

Their URL is http://www.aokrucksackappeal.org.uk/.

They've been working for a couple of years now to help the homeless in the UK, and are putting together a variety of charitable events to help raise funds to fill rucksacks, such as holding a poetry competition, an art exhibit that sounds pretty interesting - it will focus on all aspects of homelessness and be held in St Stephens church Bournemouth at the beginning of July.(See their website for more details).

The Kaiser Chiefs, an Indie Rock band, are also going to help them out on the night of Feb 10, 2015. (Remember the English put their day before the month). They'll be asking for donations outside the the concert at the BIC.

So, if you're Anglophiles, or if you're in England, check out the Rucksack Appeal and help them (and help out the homeless) if you can.

Ever wanted to improve your posture?

Think about a smart back brace.

An inventor is crowdfunding to get the funds to manufacturer his smart back brace.

Here's his campaign video:

If you're not familiar with crowdfunding, it's a business and entrepreneur funding model, where average people like you and I make pledges on sites such as Kickistarter.com, IndieGoGo.com, etc and in return - if the product is fully funded, we receive rewards, such as a back brace at a special price.

If the product isn't fully funded, then the money we pledged is returned.

So, check out the campaign webpage and see what you think of it.

Check out the link to his video, so you can see what it's all about:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smart-back-brace-ssb-posture-correcting-device/x/9250570

1 January 2015, Thursday: Happy New Year

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get back to posting in this blog on a daily basis.

I only hope that through the next few months the morons who are proving to the police that they are the mindless thugs that the police think they are, will get a grip and turn over a new leaf.

And of course I hope the people suffering under ISIS et al get a reprieve and someone civilized can take over in that part of the world.

Today is the Rose Bowl... I can remember decades ago when all the main bowls took place on the same day... now we've had weeks and weeks of crappy bowls from crappy teams... kind of dilutes the status of the name "bowl."