A sandwich with just bread

Does a debate without any real meat persuade anyone to vote for either candidate? Romney completely threw his campaign speeches under the bus. Obama was lackluster and looked as though he would rather have been having a 20th anniversary dinner with the Mrs. But in the long run, to me, it shows how our system no longer works. Two candidates is just not enough to choose from. There was no real concrete difference between the two of them because all we heard were empty words. Ugh.

Mitt and Newt...a laugh riot...

Listen Mitt, about the debate with the POTUS, be sure to use more of that tanning lotion and be sure to crack a couple of jokes.  Maybe a few about not overpaying your taxes...oops not that one.  Or maybe something about 47% of Americans are moochers...maybe not that one either.  Hey, how about a knee slapper about how the Palestinians can't compete...er maybe not so funny.  I've got it, tell one about Michelle making pancakes with her pearls on...oh, that was Ann?  This is getting tough.  I heard one the other day about how many Iranians does it take to develop nuclear rods...can't remember the punch line.  Maybe you can tell one about drinking cool-aid with the Tea Party fruitcakes.  That would be funny...get it...cool-aid Tea Party.  Yuk.  Got it!  Tell one about how the uninsured won't die at home because they can use the emergency room at their local hospital.  That was pretty funny.  Oh, you weren't joking?  Maybe those funny guys over at FoxGOPNews can give you some ideas 'cause I gotta go pee.

Israel's mistreatment of refugees

Israel's lethal apathy towards refugeesIsrael seems to have crossed a series of red lines in its handling of asylum seekers; as Yom Kippur and its message of ‘return’ approaches, the injustices committed by the state mean that the gates of repentance are gradually swinging closed behind us.
By Natasha Roth and Natasha Roth | Sep.24, 2012 | 11:29 AM

Migrants from Eritrea rest in a building, used to house people waiting to be smuggled into Israel, near the Egyptian-Israeli border in Sinai December 25, 2010. Photo by Reuters

"Help us return to You with a whole heart..."
We say these words from the Kol Nidrei service near the beginning of Yom Kippur's 25-hour fast, abstaining from food and drink in order to repent and prepare for a return to God. Yet how are we to return with a whole heart, when we seem to have no heart at all? Barely a month ago, we endured the slow, macabre spectacle of a group of Eritrean asylum seekers stuck for a week behind a fence just inside our border, all of them silent witnesses to Israel's lethal, prejudicially-informed apathy. We were starving them in preparation for a return, too, albeit one to either the infernal torments of the Sinai, or to another captivity in Saharonim prison. 
There is a growing sense that Israel has, over the past few months, crossed a series of red lines in its handling of asylum seekers. From the violent riots in May to the aforementioned desert fiasco in September, the government has laid itself a moral minefield, and each detonation caused by its casual and disastrous cruelty erodes our ability to return to some sort of ethical equilibrium. The seething injustices committed in the name of demographics are having a corrosive effect on our right of spiritual return; with each wrong, we can hear the creaking of the gate gradually swinging closed behind us, ready to clank shut completely.
Israel's intransigence and lockdown as a city of refuge comes in spite of full awareness of the terrors African immigrants have escaped. As an illustration, Eritrea (from where most asylum seekers in Israel have come) inflicts on its citizens all the crushing exploitation, neglect and restrictions one would expect from one of the most viciously enforced dictatorships in the world. 
Yet whatever desperation they faced in their country, for the majority the misery is only beginning once their journey starts. If they are fortunate, the worst they will suffer is privation and exposure from having to trek through the desert. All too frequently, however, asylum seekers are kidnapped by Bedouin smugglers, who keep them chained up in the Sinai. In order to extort ransom money, the victims' families are dialled and made to listen while their relatives are tortured. It is hard to imagine a more lacerating phone call. This can continue for weeks or months; scorching days of blood and iron, in exchange for cold cash. Somehow, however, when faced with groups of people who have been subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse, the government and the army find it within themselves to either leave them floundering in the desert or put them in another prison, further postponing lives that are becoming defined by locks, keys and metal bars. 
Examples of the consequences of this chain of events are common currency at the African Refugee Development Center in Tel Aviv. Tesfay (not his real name), a 35 year-old Eritrean man whom the ARDC has been assisting, was kidnapped in the Sinai and held in chains for 6 months, during which time he was severely tortured. Now, after finally receiving a temporary licence to remain in Israel, Tesfay has had to leave his job washing dishes in a restaurant; the extent of the damage caused to his arms and hands has left him unable to hold a plate properly. And yet, for all the physical suffering and injustice he has endured, his most aching concern is his reliance on others, and his inability to support himself. "I am a man", he keeps telling me. If this is a man, then those who would see him imprisoned and deported are not worthy of the same classification.
Nonetheless, there are those in Israel who hold the conviction that such people are deserving of yet more ill-treatment. Interior Minister Eli Yishai, with his increasingly impenetrable chainmail of hubris and hatred, seems determined to squeeze every last drop of agony out of African immigrants before he can kick them out and bolt the door behind them. Each rush of blood to the head Yishai experiences, with its accompanying spurt of violent rhetoric to the media, is another turn of the screw for asylum seekers in Israel. 
Such is the climate of aggression that has been cultivated here that many Sudanese coming to our office have begged to be allowed to return to warzones, rather than remain in Israel. Yet there is no return for these people, and as long as we continue to fire bullet after bullet of prejudice at them, there won't be for us, either.
We must be humane to be human, and we must recognize that humanity in action can return humanity as a state to those who have had it stripped away. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you", says a quotation from Ezekiel in the machzor, the prayerbook of the Days of Awe. To claim those for ourselves, we must first offer them to the bruised wanderers among us.
Natasha Roth made aliyah from the UK in March 2012, and is currently the Identity Claims Coordinator at the African Refugee Development Center http://www.ardc-israel.org/ in south Tel Aviv.

ARDC Israel | Advancing the dignity of refugees in Israel

www.ardc-israel.org

The African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) is a non-profit organization found...See More

The UN shames itself by allowing Ahmadinejad to address its membership

Here is the United Nations Charter Preamble.  Read it, then ask yourself this question:  Why is Iran a member of the UN and why is Ahmadinejad permitted to speak?  He has taken every opportunity to disregard the Charter and to threaten the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.  If Hitler were alive today would he be permitted the same right to address the United Nations, which was specifically established to eradicate the type of hatred that Ahmadinejad spews out to the world.  He long ago discredited himself and his nation as members of the UN.

PREAMBLE

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

• to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
• to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
• to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
• to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.

A new Grimm's Fairy Tale entitled "Cinderblock Gate." In this one, someone breaks into Lttle Red Lying Hood's office, mysteriously wipes out the hard drives, steals Grandma's cookies, and leaves. Little Red Lying Hood's staff doesn't password their hard drives? "Oh my," they cry. Little Red Lying Hood cries "foul" and runs all the way home. But the Big Bad BS Squad that actually has a brain figures out the crime in .47 seconds and solves the case. And everyone lives happily ever after except the Mad Hatter who serves coffee at the Tea Party brunch since this is National Coffee Week.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/michael-grimm-campaign-office_n_1909357.html?1348500702&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

he Staten Island campaign office of Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) suffered a destructive break-in over the weekend, in an incident that left three windows shattered by cinderblocks and computer hard drives cleared.

The first-term congressman was informed of the damage Sunday and quickly decried it as a "politically motivated crime" and "an assault on democracy and the political process."

“In fact, one officer said to me today they see this as a crime against the government, because I am a sitting United States congressman and they take it very seriously. You know, especially in light of what happened with Gabby Giffords, we’re not in the world today where we can shrug things off,” Grimm said, according to the State Island Advance. “Violence is violence. Throwing large stones and concrete through the window is an act of violence, and we’ve got to take it seriously."

Continuing, Grimm declared the episode indicative of something that he thought would take place elsewhere in the world.

"This ignorance, of violence, I would expect in the Middle East. You know, that wouldn't shock me at all," Grimm said. "But here on Staten Island, a family-based community, we're better than that."

The New York Daily News reported that police have found no evidence of forced entry at the building and are investigating the incident as an act criminal mischief, not burglary.

Grimm is currently under federal investigation over allegations that he took illegal donations during his 2010 campaign. The Tea Party favorite has denied any wrongdoing amid an ongoing probe that has focused on his connection to a wealthy Israeli rabbi.

Intruders were able to clear data from the hard drives by installing Linux on office computers. Grimm told authorities that the sensitive polling data, voter information, and other campaign material contained in the hard drives had all been backed up "literally hours before." He suggested that a suspect could have gained access to the building because his campaign hadn't changed the locks since it changed hands from the car dealership that had previously occupied the building.

Nathan Smith, a spokesman for the Grimm's Democratic challenger, Mark Murphy, also denounced the attack in a statement from the campaign.

Oh Mitt, what will we talk about after the election

I sure would like to have an Adjusted Gross Income of $13,696,951 without working even one day in 2011.  And I would gladly pay the IRS whatever the laws demanded.  And I surely would not care one bit that I paid above or below what the average taxpayer paid.

But get this.  A close inspection of the Ann and Willard Romney tax returns reveals this:

Income $13,696,951.
Income from Capital Gains taxed at 15% $6,810,176
Charitable deductions $4,020,000 30% of AGI
Charitable deduction claimed $2.250,000

Now why oh why would they actually donate over $4,000,000 but claim only $2.250,000?  Is it from a sense of altruism?

Or am I cynical thinking that the higher figure would have lowered his tax to 10.55% rate, much lower than his claim of never having paid less than 13%.  The lower deduction amount was an obvious manipulation to raise his tax rate and cheat the voters from the reality of Mitt.

I also realize that the Romneyites would not change their minds even if they discovered that he avoided the draft by being a Bishop of the Mormon Church.  Oh wait...

Even if he disregarded those serving in the military and called them not important.  Oh wait...

Even if he would call 47% of Americans freeloaders and moochers.  Oh wait...

Even if they found out he was a bully in high school.  Oh wait...

Even if they found out he was secretly Obama's twin brother and was trying to cover it by using white makeup.  Oh, never mind.

Apple I am coming for you!!!

I am announcing here to family and friends that I am going to take Apple to court.

This is not a frivolous lawsuit.  Oh no, this is for the entire enchilada.

Here it is:

I.  The use of the number "5"  I have used the number 5 for at least 60 years and did not give Apple the right to use it.

II. Apple claims the new iphone is thinner.  I have been told I am thinner than President William Howard Taft.  I did not grant Apple permission to use the word "thinner" that was applied to my stature at least 60 years ago.

III. Apple claims the iphone is "very capable."  In the third grade my teacher told my parents I was "very capable" of attaining a better grade than a B.  That was in 1953.  Steve Jobs wasn't even born yet.  No, Apple does not have the rights to that term.

IV.  Apple claims it's A6 chip is "twice as fast."  I raced Sheldon Katz down 75th Street in 1958 and won.  I reached the corner when he was just half way down the street.  Therefore I maintain I was "twice as fast."  Sorry, Mr. Cook, you lose.

To all of the lemmings waiting in line at Apple stores nationwide, be aware that I will soon own Apple and plan to ban those silly tables and paint the walls Phiilies red.  And those blue shirts will now also be Phillies red.  And all ipads will be Phillies red.  iphones, too.  So get ready.

Apple may settle this thing by responding to my blog.

I will start at 10 figures.