Egypt: Land of Savages
Egypt is supposed to be the cream of Arab culture. Watch this forced, abusive propaganda TV interview of just-released POW Gil Shalit.
The Egyptian journalist is a national hero, believe it or not.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4136728,00.html
It’s official: I am a Herman Cain man
With nothing against any of the other Republican presidential candidates, all of whom bring tremendous SKA’s to the contest, I am now officially a Herman Cain for President supporter.
Watching Cain sing “Imagine There’s No Pizza” is what pulled me over the line.
Cain has a sense of humor.
On top of his sharp intellect, honest speaking, and leadership abilities, Cain is a real person.
Sign me up.
Josh
Well isn’t this reassuring?
The “Occupy ______________” folks have strong support from Iran’s government, the American Communist Party, and now the American Nazi Party.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/figures-nazi-party-throws-support-behind-occupy-wall-street-movement/
Curious why so many elected officials, including president Obama, are supportive of them. Not only is that support a policy non sequitor, but with friends like these, reputations usually begin to sour.
Yes, plenty of individual “protestors” have violently attacked police, Jews, and people dressed nicely (business?), but it’s the formal endorsements that say oh, so much.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148795
How reassuring it is to know that these “protesters” are as wacked out as they appear.
Interesting Detritus from the Flood of 2011
September’s historic flood waters brought interesting gifts from upstream, nonchalantly and gently leaving them stranded on my lawn and driveway.
How did the three-gallon gas can end up in the flower bed, upright, as though I had left it there myself while mowing the lawn?
Whose pack of 1992 Topps baseball cards had been burnt around the corners before mysteriously arriving? And why were they burnt? A frustrated mother or angry girlfriend?
The cigarette pack was the most incongruous of all, at least in our neighborhood. Lying there in its minty mentholy promise, it looked like a social land mine, or lawn cancer. My tired hands found it first of all the new things, and trashed it first. Mind you, I’m an occasional pipe smoker and hardly a tobacco Prohibitionist. But let’s face it, cigarettes are a dirty habit. The soggy pack reminded of that.
Various childrens’ things, like a slipper, a sneaker, some small plastic toys, all were straight forward examples of the shared family sameness from Scranton to Harrisburg. Those were easy to trash. Heck, I’m throwing away my own kids’ leftover artifacts every week, anyhow, so the newcomers were nothing new and in good company.
Someone is missing an important part of their split rail fence. Not to waste, it’s now part of my eight-cord wood pile and will heat my home for an hour on some upcoming winter day. Undoubtedly the least showy or remarkable, it is probably the most useful of all the flotsam. at least after I chainsawed it into 18-inch lengths.
Some buildings in my neighborhood had finning, flopping, fish in their basements. Now you know that if the fence rail felt out if place lying in my lawn, then those fish certainly felt like a fish out of water, so to say. They probably survived and are back in their river now, albeit a bit more migratory than their kind is accustomed to. Just this year, fellas, ok?
While the five feet of water in the basement upended our plans and schedules for the next six weeks, at least, we enjoyed the unusual fruits dropped off by Mother Nature on her way down to the Chesapeake Bay that September weekend.
I reported myself to attackwatch.com….plan fail!
Supporters of Barack Hussein Obama have an official “enemies of the state” website they can report bad people to: www.attackwatch.com
Feeling neglected and unimportant, I went to the site and reported myself. Plugging in this site, joshfirst.com, to that site was supposed to bring a torrent of postings and hate to this site by Obama supporters.
Ok, we netted a few, but nothing like I expected or wanted. I quickly disposed of the weird postings. I had hoped I’d get onto some big political machine radar screen. Alas, I’m still unimportant to Obama.
However, his campaign is getting even with me another way: They’re sending me two to three emails daily about Obama’s tax-payer funded (the Canadian-made bus and his speaking tour tailored to Republican campaign stops and swing states) campaign, his way out-of-mainstream policies, his union-only jobs plan, etc. I’ll have some sport with them, here, in a day or two. The messages from his campaign are so sadly lame that I’m actually feeling bad for him.
Hope and change pablum didn’t cut it. Americans want real, substantive, pro-America policies, and Obama hasn’t delivered.
Buh-bye!
Herman Cain is my kind of candidate
Herman Cain, an experienced businessman who does not run away from a tough debate, is looking more and more like my man to be my next American President.
Smart, articulate, quick-witted, creative, Cain brings the fight to the other corner of the boxing ring.
And he would be America’s first African-American president. Obama is America’s first African president. Cain is the real-deal, a real descendant of slaves brought from Africa to America 300 years ago. As an American, that means a lot to me. Cain demonstrates the possibility that awaits anyone who wants to take risks and succeed.
Cain inspires and motivates me, and I’m weighing my next steps with his campaign. Won’t you please join me?
Happy 11-11-11! My beloved city is about to declare bankruptcy and get taken over by the State
By Josh First
It’s an unusual alignment of numbers today, 11-11-11, and one wonders if it’s an ill omen or good.
After all, Harrisburg City Council voted tonight to declare bankruptcy, a move that Pennsylvania law says is illegal without prior good faith negotiations. Next week, Pennsylvania legislators will vote on a bill allowing the governor to take over the city and run it until it becomes solvent.
The only good faith efforts displayed yet by local officials have been by our mayor, Linda Thompson, who has been constantly stymied by her political foes for the flimsiest of causes. Thompson has been criticized from all sides for years, and of course she has her flaws. But among elected officials here she is also the only apparent cheerleader for Harrisburg City, so dissing her is dissing the city.
Not one opposing member of city council has yet articulated a good reason for his or her opposition. Councilman Brad Koplinski, the Great White Hope of Harrisburg’s moderate Democrats, has never articulated what he is thinking, or why. Many other members are simply inarticulate. Common-sense members like Patty Kim are steamrolled by the majority.
My family has lived here in Harrisburg continuously since the early 1700s, and I am the last Mohican of our clan to remain in the city itself. Is this the kind of place that any American would want to live, regardless of their family history? Our homes’ values are low as a result of the political infighting and lack of problem solving.
As today’s date numbers have aligned in an unusual formation, so we can only hope for an alignment of the political actors here, as well.
Racing fast to the next red light: where not to buy used cars
New York City would be the last place on earth I’d want to buy a used car, because drivers there universally rip from one red light to the next. Stragglers like me drift up behind them or up next to them in the adjoining lane about fifteen seconds later. Same red light, but they got there first. What they got out of arriving at a red light first, before anyone else, it’s closely held knowledge. I don’t understand it.
Call me Grandma, whatever; the need to accelerate my vehicle in that environment seems unnecessary. It’s not like I am going to get somewhere faster by going faster and arriving at one red light after another before most other drivers. The lights are timed to turn red in a row. Unless a driver can do 0-60 in half a second, by the time he arrives at the next light, he’s pretty much guaranteed it’ll be red.
Ultimately, aggressively accelerating just burns more gas and stresses the engine more than driving slowly and deliberately.
Perhaps it’s a mindset thing. Beating everyone to the next light gives the impression of being ahead, even if you’re all even. Well, that’s weird.
New Yorkers apparently have it in for their vehicles, because they beat the heck out of them with this intense driving business. A New York car may look shiny on the outside, but under the hood, look out. It’s gonna be an ugly mess.
I’d rather buy a vehicle from Amish country.
Josh
Ode to Apple’s Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs influenced my life greatly, even though we did not meet or communicate directly. He will be missed in my own mind, where he long occupied a far-off, small, funky niche in my brain.
His innovative, intuitive, “user-friendly” products appealed to me as a kid and as an adult, and they vastly improved my high school, college, and graduate school experiences. Obviously now, a “professional” isn’t a professional unless he or she has an iPhone or clone firmly grasped in hand.
Learning to program in Basic on an Apple II in high school introduced me to the usefulness of math, a boring as hell subject that I otherwise could not ever grasp from the droning mouth of a boring as hell teacher. Why are math teachers so universally so uninspiring, anyhow?
Apple’s computers were simple, useable, and increasingly intuitive. In grad school, I had a Mac, you know, the big clunky 25-pound thing in its own carry case. Really. Shoulder strap and all. By the day’s standards, it was indeed portable. I refuse to throw it away. There’s Steve Jobs again, in my attic.
In 2005, Jobs gave an unbelievable commencement speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc) that is so overwhelmingly inspiring that you can watch it and gain much whether you are 18, 28, or 48. Probably a lot of retirees would benefit from it, too, as they look at their second life, you know, life after “work.”
Jobs is a true American in every sense. Self-made, despite being a college drop-out. He didn’t stand on form in person, but his fusions of form and function are now iconic and trend-setting around our planet. It says much about what America offers to those who want it, and his story also is testimony to the importance of family in rearing us, instilling values in us, and supporting us as we grow and take risks. Jobs was adopted at birth, and loved the family that gave him love, not just the family that gave him life.
Steve, I didn’t know you in person, and I never watched one of your famous presentations. But you have been in my mind and my life in different ways and times throughout my adult life, from age 14 to now, at 46. Thank you, Steve, for all you gave me.
Many other people feel the same way.
And as a social entrepreneur myself, I love what I do, and I refuse to settle for doing less than what I love. Although I do not aspire to have a large company or make hundreds of millions of dollars, because those require trade-offs in my personal life that I am unwilling to make, I remain inspired by your work.
Thank you, Steve. Good-bye, old friend.
Josh
The Amanda Knox Case: Italy’s Great, Really Great, Flaws on Parade
by Josh First
October 5, 2011
This week, Amanda Knox took the witness stand in her own defense, a highly unusual move for the truly guilty.
Her desperate, earnest, tearful plea for justice moved the Italian jury to vacate the bizarre judgment against her. Italian prosecutors had accused Knox of wild sexual behavior that, in most people’s minds, exists only among Italy’s most liberated citizens.
Italy is famous for its beautiful country, high-minded art, and also infamous for corruption and a perennially weak military whose inadequacies reflect the deepest failings of Italian society.
Italy’s pervasive culture of corruption, at least by Western standards, has been on vivid parade this past year with constant reporting about prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s sexcapades on the public dime, and financial misdeeds. As a man, I gotta recognize impressive performance when I see it, and Silvio, old buddy, you are both a total stud and a terrible public servant. At least by my American values.
Earlier this year, PBS ran a three-part series called “Zen,” a cool-sounding Bhuddist name, but which according to the show’s producers is actually an old Venetian (Venice) name. Venice…the romantic, mysterious city of love. Intriguing, right?
In this TV show, Zen is an Italian police detective known for being honest and an unlikely survivor of Italy’s rampant official corruption. Viewers enjoy a voluptuous tour of Italy’s women, architecture, wine, cars, rural countryside, and, yes, the beautiful Machiavellian art of public corruption.
PBS is not in the business of damaging relationships with liberals, so if there is any truth to “Zen,” Italy is one screwed up country. Everyone is obsessed with sex, money, power, and using power to get women and money. The women are depicted as seductive, manipulative, and obsessed with money and capturing men. Especially married men. So, I admit to watching “Zen” to great entertainment. Especially with my wife. It’s pretty hot. At least by my American standards.
Is “Zen” a fair description of Italy? Are press reports about Berlusconi representative of Italy-at-large?
A popular Italian joke I have lifted from my old friend Trish at mozzarellamamma.com answers this question, and goes like this:
A husband and a wife are at an expensive restaurant. While seated at the table, a beautiful, leggy, buxom blond in a low-cut dress comes up and kisses the husband. “Ciao, Amore,” she says, before waltzing off.
“Who was that?” demands the wife.
“My lover,” answers the husband nonchalantly.
“WHAT?” the wife nearly screams. “How dare you take a lover!”
The husband leans across the table and says, “I will give you five minutes to think about it, and if you do not like it, you can get up and leave.”
The wife is silent. She looks around at the elegant restaurant, her jewel-laden fingers, and her mink coat, all a product of her marriage, and she thinks.
While she is thinking over his proposition, Giovanni, a colleague of her husband, comes up to their table to greet them. At his side is a young, buxom brunette, pretty but not quite as tall and leggy as the blond lover. They chat for a minute and the couple leaves.
“Who was that woman?” the wife asks.
“She is Giovanni’s lover,” the husband responds.
“Well, our lover is prettier than their lover,” the wife answers, making her final choice and her loyalty evident.
This uniquely Italian joke illuminates how cheating on your spouse is acceptable in Italy. Although legal since 1970, divorce is far less acceptable. According to mozzarellamamma.com, this arrangement “is part of the Catholic culture that men and women may be forgiven for taking lovers, but not for divorcing and breaking up a family. The family is sacred. For many reasons, it has therefore become acceptable to take lovers.”
Back to Amanda Knox, alone in a fantastic society whose values are upside down from the ones she grew up with in America. She is in a beautiful, screwed up society that she does not understand. And her misunderstanding nearly lands her in jail for life.
Italian prosecutors are used to dealing with perversion, wild and kinky sex, and the passionate violence that seems to ever accompany those practices. It was easy for the Italian prosecutors to fabricate a fantastic case, and to accuse delicate Amanda of being something other than she appears. After all, it’s totally Italian to be what they claimed she was, and anyone as sweet as Amanda must actually be the opposite of what she appears. That is the Italian way, apparently. Their claim was believable enough to Italian judges and the first jury, who wrongly convicted Amanda on those titillating, exciting, mental images alone.
But Amanda is not Italian; she is a product of American culture, which remains Puritanical at its core, Thank God.
During her appeal, when the light of day was focused on the prosecution’s insane house of cards that summed up the totality of the evidence against Amanda, good-hearted Italian jurors could not help but shake their heads in disbelief and let Amanda go home to her boring country. Amanda was clearly out of her league, but she was not a murderer or sex-crazed dominatrix, either. Italians know their business and recognized a fake when they saw one. Amanda, you are not one of us and you do not deserve to be punished, the jury must have concluded.
And Amanda came home to Wonderful Perfect Amazing America.
Welcome back to old fuddy-duddy America, Amanda, back to the land of Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead. Back to the land of The Rule of Law. Yes, we are boring. Yes, we are not extravagant. Yes, we are simple. Yes, we are not pseudo-sophisticated. And aren’t you glad of those facts?
America, love it or leave it! And if you leave it, be ready for the ride of your life.