Tired of people drooling over Obama.


It's actually too late now because I already sent the email but I'm going to ask your opinion about this anyway.

The following letter to the editor was posted in the Morning Call on Sat Nov 28: http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/letters/all-bartlett1119.7091919nov28,0,1141771.story

I generally don't read the paper but for whatever reason this happened to catch my eye as I was crumbling papers to get my wood stove going.  I am getting sick of uninformed people who seem to simply hate anything Bush and drool over Obama.  That's the impression I got from the womans letter.  It was more of a "poor Obama" letter than explaining why she agreed with any of the issues about which she spoke.  So I decided to do something I've never done before - I wrote to the editor myself.  That text is included below.

I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have.

This is in response to the letter written by Becky Bartlett on Sat Nov 28.

Miss Bartlett,

     Perhaps if the elected Democrats in Congress would have blindly followed the President (and Pelosi) there would be no need for any of this debate.  The government would have taken complete control of the banking, housing and auto industries.  We would have pulled our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan to make way for the next generation of Jihadist training camps.  Cap and Trade would have passed.  Health Care Reform would have passed and you wouldn't have to be bothered by those annoying once a year cancer screenings.  Gitmo would have been closed and the detainees sent.....where I don't know but at least Gitmo would have been closed.

     It's the Democrats in Congress that we should be focusing on -- at least those that are questioning these policies rather than just casting their vote along party lines.  If the majority thought these items were worth passing they would have been passed.  But because people are asking questions -- and the administration is strangely very short on answers by the way -- Democracy is doing its job.

     Thankfully it's not just the Conservatives that are griping about "how he's pushing the mop" or how he's trying to dig "their country out of the hole".  That should tell you something, ma'am.  Perhaps people are realizing just picking up a shovel and continuing to dig is not the answer.

September 11, 2001 - Have you forgotten?

I'm writing this in response to a blog posted by a friend of mine.  Check it out here and then read on.

Have you forgotten?  I'm serious. Everyone uses the cliche "Never forget" but do we really remember how that day changed our lives -- forever? Well, it did change out lives forever but I think some people are forgetting. Not forgetting that the buildings fell. Not forgetting that radical Muslim terrorists flew planes into those buildings and into the ground.  Maybe not forgetting how everyone came together on Sep. 12 and the following months.

But slowly I think peoples memories started to fade.  Politics is back to politics.  On Sep 12 everyone -- everyone -- wanted to go after those responsible.  It became the "in thing" to support going after Bin Ladens head.  We had been attacked on our soil.  This isn't how it's supposed to be.  They threw the first punch so we need to punch back and punch hard - so hard that they can't hit us again.

So we went into Afghanistan to get those responsible beginning with the leader - Osama Bin Laden.  Some conspiracy theorists will question why we were prepared to launch this mission in what seemed like moments after the attacks -- implying the attacks were staged as justification to launch the preplanned attack.  Malarkie(sp?).  During the 1990's the CIA was already active in Afghanistan - trying to find Bin Laden.  How close they ever got to him I'm not sure but apparently they were never given the green light to take him out so I guess it didn't matter.

Why we never got him - I don't know.  Would Sep. 11 have never happened if Bin Laden had been killed?  Possibly.  But then Oct. 11 or Nov 11 or Dec 11 would have gone down in history instead.

These people HATE us.  I don't believe it's all muslims but there is a group of them that is taught from an early age that America is evil and Americans should be killed.  These are the people that put Sep. 11 in the history books.  Have we forgotten?

So here we are, 8 years later.  What has changed?  (My use of that word "changed" is kind of funny given the current president and all the change he promised people)  Anyway, we're still running around trying to get Bin Laden.  Well at least that what it seems like to most but the recent disagreement between Obama and Gen. McCrystal over the need for additional troops -- makes me wonder if we're really trying to win.  The general that Obama appointed himself has stated a need for more troops to complete the mission.  The president apparently disagrees with that assessment.  Has he forgotten?

We're actually going to try some of those radical muslims that admitted they were instrumental in the planning of those attacks.  Military court?  Nope - United States federal court system.  They're going to get the same rights that they profess to hate.  Why is this?  Is it a question of whether we're at war with these people?  There is no question in my mind.  Yet this president, who is reluctant to send more troops to fight the war against the people that brought down our buildings, slipped away to Asia while his appointee for Attorney General Eric Holder announced he's giving these scumbags the full rights of American citizens.  Once again an example of Obama's henchmen doing his dirty work for him.  Supposedly Obama was not consulted by Holder before making the decision?  No?  I find it hard to believe that the two aren't on the same page.

Holder was asked what would happen if the defendants were found not guilty?  His response - "Failure is not an option."  So this is just a little bit confusing.  In the American justice system you're innocent until proven guilty, right?  Holder is somehow implying that the men are guilty and will be convicted - don't worry American public.  Is this great judicial system, which they want to flaunt to the world, no more than a side show?  Apparently the prisoners expressed their desire to plead guilty in a military court and had asked to be put to death.  Now, since they'll be on a world stage, they are going to plead not guilty and use the opportunity to pander their anti-America propaganda.  The US military is going to be made out to be the bad guy.  The defense attorneys, if they are going to do their job, will explain about the "torture" (what a joke) used against these poor men.  They will describe the "horrible" conditions at Gitmo.  Have they all forgotten?

I could go on but I'm getting too mad.  So much of this does not make sense to me.  There is more going on that meets the eye.  This administration has shown that they are not about the change that their leader so brazenly professed this country needed.  It's about more than that -- it's about the change they need to make to further their agenda......what exactly that is has yet to be seen.

We had a president that, if nothing else, kept us safe from further attacks.  He had not forgotten.  He had his faults but he definitely had not forgotten.  But the public grew weary of two wars and a weakening economy and decided it was time for a change. Change for the sake of change.  I love it.  Who is Obama?  What has he done?  What change does he stand for?  What's he going to do besides bring home our troops and close Gitmo, give health care to everyone and grease the palms of the SEIU?  It doesn't matter - vote for him - he's not Bush.  I can't tell you the number of times I heard people say "It can't get worse."  Oh really?

I believe the people in the current administration have not forgotten 9/11 and what it meant to this country.  They simply choose not to remember.  That kind of silver tongued twisting of words reminds me of someone........any idea who?.

Well another Thanksgiving is upon us. The delicious looking bird to the left is ours from 2007. I decided (last minute as usual) to put together a little slide show of pics from previous Thanksgivings at our house. In doing so I decided to try to watermark each image with the date it was from because I figured that would be one of the most common questions posed while watching the show - "oh wow - what year was that from?"

I tried a couple programs and while a couple would definitely do the job I wanted something that would be flexible and that I could use over and over again no matter what the occassion so I kept looking.

What I I found was Batch Photo Watermarker by EasySector. You can download a trial version that allows you to try it out for 50 images before it becomes crippled. I didn't realize this or I would have only tested one or two as I played with all the options.

I did read, however, that you can do just what I'm doing here - post a link to their website - and they will send you a free registration key. I'm hoping I do get a key because from the little I've used it - I'm impressed. It's simple yet powerful. The only thing I'd like to see changed is the ability to extract the date from the EXIF data and be able to modify the way it's displayed more than just the two ways currently supported. Other than that - nice little app!

I'll post again with the results of the free code request.

P.S. EasySector - I hope you read this soon and send my code along - I'm trying to get this slide show put together for tomorrow am!

World ending in 2012? Why? Because the Mayan calendar ends in 2012? Well many computers were going to "end" when our calendar rolled from 1999 to 2000. This was simply because when people were designing the programs, storage was at a premium so they decided to cut a corner and not account for the first two digits of the year. 1900 and 2000 looked the same to a computer - 00.

So why does the Mayan calendar end on Dec 21, 2012 @ 11:11pm UT? It counts the number of days since their beginning date - August 13, 3114 B.C. It goes in cycles of 5,126 years. They use the following units of measure:

kin = one day
uinal = 20 days
tun = 360 days (18 uinal)
katun = 7,200 days (20 tun)
baktun = 144,000 days (20 katun)

July 20, 1969 — the date of the first moon landing — would be written as: 12.17.15.17.0
(baktun).(katun).(tun).(uinal).(kin)

Dec 21, 2012 on the Mayan calendar would look like this: 13.0.0.0.0 People who understand the calendar say Dec 22, 2012 would be written as: 0.0.0.0.1.

So like the much hyped Y2K phenomena, the cycle is just going to repeat.....the date rolls over to the beginning again.With Y2K, the fears were SOMEWHAT justified because so many things relied on computers for calculations - airplanes, satellites, etc. If calculations went awry then perhaps some of these systems would have failed which could have ultimately led to a domino effect of planes/satellites dropping from the sky causing a lot of havoc. Possibly. These computers are based on the Gregorian calendar - not the Mayan calendar.

So while all this doomsday stuff is interesting to read about - I still haven't seen anything that makes me think anything is going to happen. I welcome any evidence to the contrary.