Can we talk here?

Well, are our leaders finally waking up to some realities? Gen. David Petraeus said military action was necessary to improve security in Iraq but "not sufficient" to end violence altogether.

Well, no shit sherlock. In the typical fasion, the administration has taken a won sided, "we'll put a boot in your ass" approach to the war. All the while, those who actually live there are just fighting back. I'm not big on negotiating with terrorists but clearly the actions over the past few years have not yielded a stable Iraq. "Staying the course" has not worked, we need to adjust.

How is it that all these guys with these pedigrees cannot put 2 and 2 together and reach the conclusion that we need to find out what makes these guys tick? Simply lobing bombs at each other will never get us to a stable Iraq. Ultimately, every conflict has to come to some conclusion via policital discussion and negotiation. This is true even in the cases of unconditional surrender (e.g. Germany, Japan) -- there's still discussion on what those terms are.

Key Words: Iraq

What the heck happened to Eddie Van Halen?

Seems to me, Eddie ought to be playing "Somebody get me a doctor". Eddie Van Halen is apparently going into Rehab again. It is no wonder they cancelled their "reunion" tour.

As eddie said in a statement: "That's why I have decided to enter a rehabilitation facility to work on myself, so that in the future I can deliver the 110 percent that I feel I owe you and want to give you". Seems to me, the way he's looking, 85% would be a challenge.

I mean really, I know the guy had cancer and all. But holy cow does he look old and grizzled. Just goes to show what the life of booze and drugs will do to you. Speaking Van Halen, David Lee Roth isn't looking so good either.

Guys, just hang it up. Let us revel and enjoy all your great licks from yesteryear.

More Scary Eddie Pictures here from a recent "performance".

Key Words: Van Halen

Tons o' Myspace Friends

Well, by now if you're not aware of myspace, you must have been living in space. Some of the numbers are mind-boggling:
95 Million users
10's of Billions of page hits a month
500,000 new users each week.

It has truely become a pop-culture phenomenon. And with that some creepy folks, scams and some new celebs. Many of which have gained fame, magazine covers and more.

Two in particilar have on the order of 1 million friends. Tila Tequila and Christine Dolce (aka Forbidden) have one order of 1.3MM and 980,000 users respectively. Both have parlayed their online personas into some serious bank.

How in the heck does one get to 1mm friends? Samy, a rather creative and enterprising young lad accomplished this in a matter of days. Well, he had the help of a "myspace worm". Myspace has apparently blocked this sort of monkey-business.

I've been drawn to the myspace dark-side with my own profile (UncleFire of course) and have also put up a myspace code site. Go here if you want some cool graphics and myspace tweaks.

Tags: MySpace

You have the freedom to leave

This whole set of events around illegal immigration is ridiculous. I am absolutely livid over this.

I am an immigrant. My parents are immigrants. I have family and friends which are immigrants. We all came here legally. We played by the rules. We learned English and became part of American melting pot. At the same time, we did not lose our ethnic heritage, traditions or languages. What’s the problem with doing it right? I’m sorry if people can’t just simply come here when they feel like it. I am annoyed with people who feel that rules don’t apply to them. I have no issue with immigrants and immigration in general. But there are rules, laws and policies on immigration. We are supposed to be a country run by the rule of law. Do we need to change some of our immigration laws? Sure.

There are plenty of folks here illegally and they are trying to influence our laws and leaders. In a few days we’ll have protests and boycotts. Look folks, if you don’t like it here leave. You’re not here legally anyway and we will find some way to live without you.

You will also hear the rhetoric that many illegals aliens are upstanding productive parts of our society. Great, I have no doubt that is true. But at the same time, so what? You want a medal? That is the absolute minimum our society expects of people. The fact of the matter is, they still broke the law. I am a productive member of society. I work, pay my taxes, I obey the laws. But if I drive 74 MPH in a 45 MPH zone I have broken the law and if I get caught, I pay the penalty.

Some guy in the UK just released a Spanish version of the US National Anthem. Look, the US National Anthem is in English and should be sung in English. End of story. Any alteration is simply an insult to all citizens and legal residents of this country. Here in Arizona we have places where Spanish is the primary language of education. Immigrants need to learn English, that’s what we speak here. Most other folks I know who have emigrated, were immersed in English. You know how many times I’ve done business with a company and can’t communicate with the workers because they can’t speak English? Too many. So I’m faced with having to try and communicate in Spanish (which I do well enough).

For that matter, what is up with voting ballots printed in both English and Spanish? Let me put this in perspective. To vote, you need to be a Citizen. To become a Citizen (which I did myself), you need to show proficiency for a few things including the ability to speak/read/write English. There are exceptions but the ballots and a good many things nowadays cater to what should be the exception. I don’t remember seeing ballots in Italian or Polish or German. And there are A LOT of folks who emigrated from those countries.

For me this is not a racist or ethnocentrist issue. Unfortunately, it becomes a “race” discussion. It’s not a race issue. While there are illegal aliens from other parts of the world, the vast majority are Hispanics. So what- it’s still illegal and many times dangerous for many of those folks trying to find a better way in life. If we had a bunch of Canadians, French, Germans or Poles coming here illegally, most people would have the same issue with it.

So, illegal aliens go ahead and protest and/or boycott. Lose a day of pay or burn a vacation day if you get one. The rest of us will go about our normal business. This country affords people many rights and freedoms which you are getting – including protesting. If you don’t like our rules, laws or anything else regarding this country, you also have the freedom to leave. Adios.

Keywords: Immigration Border

One Red Paperclip

It is really amazing how a seemingly small initiative can blow up and get so much attention. If you haven't seen the furor over One Red Paperclip over the past few days, here it is in a nutshell. Kyle MacDonald is trying to parlay One Red Paperclip (hence the name) into a house. He is doing this by bartering his way up with better stuff each trade. It's really an interesting story. Where does this guy find time to do it? He's up to one year free rent in Phoenix. The last few days I've seen this mentioned in quite a few places, like CNN. I heard him on an AM radio station here in Phoenix which led me to his blog (on Blogspot no less). The latest on his blog (see link above) is that there is a party at Alice Coopers Town here in Phoenix. Simply amazing. I wish the guy luck.

This kind of reminds me of a similar "adventure", The Million Dollar Home Page created by a 21 year old British student. He's apparently sold out-- 1 megapixel for 1 Mega dollars. Sweet.

Reminds me of the Dire Straits song...Money for nothing and your checks for free! Geez, I've gotta come up with some smart scheme to score some decent swag. I guess I'll have to do it the old fashion way in the meantime-- work for it.

Right Wing Political Hacks

I thought it was just me. But I have a similar opinion as this guy. That is, alot of blogs (and media folks) on the right wing, continually regurgitate the same mantra as the administration and party line. Heck, its not even limited to blogs-- just look at letters to editors in many papers and you hear the same rhetoric from average "Joe". Lefties can be guilty of this too but it doesn't seem as prounced to me. Where has objectivity gone? It has died as the walls of division have risen in this country. People on both sides of the aisle seem to have lost the ability (or will) to conduct their own critical analysis or a situation, issue or policy.

Regardless of political leanings, a key question for you readers is:

If the "other guy's" party was in office, and a given situation or policy issue comes up, would you hold the same opinion as if your own party was in office? Or is your opinion dependent on what party is in office?

Keywords: Politics