Here is my unofficial list of .com sites (along with their year of birth) that you might be thankful for today:
I love to watch a good movie - especially one that involves complex characters. The Phantom of the Opera is one such movie. Saw it on Christmas a few years ago and was blown away by the music even though I have seen the stage production several times. Watching the movie I came away better understanding the Phantom. The Phantom, like most of us, is pretty complex - hard to dismiss as just an evil person.. in the end someone more tragic than evil.. more wounded than wounding.. if you can look past the mask.
And in the vein of strange characters I think of the obsessive compulsive Detective Adrian Monk (of the USA network show "Monk").. this TV detective show junkie has been watching it since it first aired.. there are two more weekly installments left in the series. A few years ago, to my horror, I began to identify with Monk. I saw myself in Monk's obsessiveness and became quite uneasy when I realized how compulsive I am at times.. just ask my wife.. I can be one compulsive and obsessive dude 
I think that this is a rather extreme example of how we often miss those things in life that we want so much not to miss. Abigail was born prematurely.. her dad said that he planned to be at her birth and was sorry that he could not be there. But I wonder how often the rest of us miss important life events because of work or other seemingly important things.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astronaut Randolph Bresnik jubilantly welcomed his new daughter Sunday as he floated 220 miles above Earth.
Abigail Mae Bresnik was born as her father circled just hours after his first spacewalk.
"At 11:04 last night, Abigail Mae Bresnik joined the NASA family," Bresnik announced Sunday by radio from the linked space shuttle Atlantis and International Space Station.
On the recommendation of a good friend I added this movie to our Netflix queue a while back. Each week it got pushed further and further to the bottom of the list.. guess I believed the movie critics more than my friend.In northern Australia at the beginning of World War II, an English aristocrat inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.I liked the main character played by Nicole Kidman.. she was a very strong woman.. an advocate for people being abused.. and seemed to have a clear understanding of justice. Her relationship with a young aboriginal boy named Nullah was a very sweet part of the movie. The movie was an underdog type of flick where the protagonists kept persevering and overcoming all sorts of obstacles. The heart of the movie was a love story but I think that it also had a good delineation of good and evil with a smattering of Australian history mixed in.
I usually don't begin with a disclaimer but here is one for this post: if you love Sarah Palin you may not like this post. On Monday Ann and I watched Sarah Palin on Oprah. I wasn't expecting to hear a lot of deep policy issues but was interested in what last years GOP Veep candidate had to say.. yeah.. I probably watched for the same reasons that many watch reality shows.. reality TV can be pretty entertaining. NEW YORK — A New York pastor accused of using church funds to pay for plastic surgery has been ordered to serve five years probation.Yet I have to admit that I was not too surprised about a story of a pastor feeling entitled to people's offerings.. I have been involved in church finances for many years.. but using donations dedicated to the poor for Botox.. now that is low.
The Rev. William Blasingame also must pay back $84,537 to St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church on Staten Island.
Prosecutors say he paid for personal luxuries, including tens of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery and Botox treatments, with money earmarked for the needy and the upkeep of church grounds.
Defense attorney James Hasson said Wednesday that Blasingame plans to sell land he owns in Georgia to cover the restitution, the Staten Island Advance reported.
Blasingame pleaded guilty to felony grand larceny in September. He could have faced 15 years in prison if convicted at trial.
His lawyer says Blasingame is "very sorry."
Anyone who knows anything about Star Trek is familiar with the concept of First Contact. Here is a thought on it from a Trekker:The term first contact describes the first official encounter between representatives of two races or governments. Occasionally, the official first contact takes place years or even decades after members of the species involved have first met.That seems to be an okay segue to an AP article titled
Some conservative commentators seized on President Barack Obama's deep bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito over the weekend, accusing the U.S. commander in chief of groveling before a foreign leader.The article goes on to say that this is not too unusual and gives examples of how other presidents acted when they interacted with other foreign leaders. It seems silly to call President Obama's act of respect as one of 'groveling'.. comes across to me as pure spin.
Last Monday I spent an afternoon with a very old (he is young but we have known each 32 years) friend. The few days before were pretty dark ones for me emotionally.. I was depressed about life in general and honestly I was feeling sorry for myself. As we shared our lives with each over lunch and many cups of coffee I felt something happening to me.. the darkness was lifting and my burdens were lightening. I went away from our time together renewed and refreshed. BYD has said it would start building beachheads in America by the end of next year by launching the e6. It plans to pick a specific region within the U.S. and initially market “a few hundred” e6s to government agencies, utilities and other corporate fleet customers, priced at slightly more than $40,000.I am not ready for an electric vehicle yet but this one is pretty tempting.
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.I do wonder if anyone on the list doesn't love power? Can anyone have this kind of power and not like it? I think that most on this list probably have a healthy respect for the power that they wield. What do you think?
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Please read the rest of the story here.. it is a way to honor a veteran on this day we dedicate to those who have given all for freedom.Last Thursday, we were reminded of what true courage, sacrifice, and heroism is all about. At a private White House ceremony, worlds away from the polarizing health care fight and the latest Kanye West stunt, President Obama posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to the family of Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest decoration for military valor. It’s received, not won. And it’s a distinction so rare that in 150 years, less than 3,500 servicemembers have received it. To put it in perspective, this is less than the number of troops that have bravely given their lives during the Iraq war.
Sgt. Monti was only the sixth recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, all posthumously.
Like those honored before him, Sgt. Monti is to be revered for his exceptional bravery and tremendous personal sacrifice. At age 17, before he was eligible to vote, Monti enlisted in the Army. Returning from his first tour in Afghanistan, he was already highly decorated with the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation Medal for valor. A consummate soldier, and equally humble, his own father didn’t know Monti received the Bronze Star until he found it resting, tucked away in his son’s drawer.
But the day that would come to define his gallant service and leave a legacy beyond what many of us could fathom occurred on June 21, 2006 in Gowardesh, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan Border. Sgt. Monti was in charge of a 16-man patrol from the 3rd Squadron of the 71st Calvary Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. Positioned on a mountaintop, Monti’s team was swarmed by Taliban fighters. While engaging the enemy, Monti simultaneously radioed for help, until he saw that one of his men, Pvt. Brian Bradbury was badly injured, and exposed to enemy fire.
Sgt. Monti’s patrol leader volunteered to rescue Pvt. Bradbury, but Monti insisted he be the one to go, saying: “No, he is my soldier, I’m going to get him.” Despite the intense enemy gunfire, Monti ran into the open and attempted twice to retrieve his wounded comrade. On his third try, he was cut down by a rocket-propelled grenade, and died shortly thereafter. His actions in that moment, however inspired his men to thwart the Taliban fighters, thanks in part to the air support Monti had called for before his death.
This past Sunday would have been Monti’s 34th birthday.
The picture to the left is one of my courageous son taken over in Iraq. Today I am taking a moment to remember the joy I felt when he came home and giving thanks for his service. In my son I see the qualities of honor, courage, sacrifice and heroism that Paul Rieckhoff saw in Jared C. Monti. Our veterans deserve to be honored today. I can so resonate with a scary diagnosis.. we were scared last year when Ann was diagnosed with Devics Disease.. living with things like cancer, ALS and other life threatening diseases can do a job on your brain. It causes you to confront the fleeting aspects of this thing called life.. it sometimes refocuses your attentions to things like prayer and worship that transcend life.The disease was diagnosed in December. But Abdul-Jabbar said his condition can be managed by taking oral medication daily, seeing his specialist every other month and getting his blood analyzed regularly. He said he expects to lead a healthy life.
Abdul-Jabbar acknowledged he was scared after visiting his doctor and learning of the diagnosis.
"The word 'leukemia' is a very frightening word," he said in a phone interview from New York. "In many instances, it's a killer and it's something that you have to deal with in a very serious and determined way if you're going to beat it."
My first reaction to the clip is to wonder why the Republicans are painted as the folks not wanting and blocking bipartisan legislation.. like the president and the Democrats want it but they do not. It seems that this is a subtle way to give the president a pass and not paint him as a leader who is either unable or unwanting to achieve bipartisanship.When the Gallup Poll asked voters last month if Obama had kept "the promises he made during his presidential campaign," only 48% said yes. And when the pollsters asked whether voters considered Obama a liberal or a moderate, 54% called him a liberal -- a big jump from the 43% who gave that answer on election day in 2008.
Many of those disillusioned voters are moderates and independents, people who voted for Obama not because they supported liberal programs but because they responded to his call for a post-partisan politics. To be sure, Republicans in Congress haven't given Obama many chances to pass bipartisan legislation; they have opted instead for drawing sharp contrasts. At least in the short run, that strategy appears to be working.
Instead of a new centrist consensus, Obama's first year has produced a backlash -- and not only among zealots of the Republican right. Polls show conservative views up across the entire electorate.
The article goes on to detail the great deals of execs at Merck, Connoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil and other benevolent entities. I know that some folks feel that corporate executives are entitled to lavish benefits like these pensions.. heck.. folks in our congress get great lifetime pensions after just a few years of "service".. but I mean really.. what is it going to take to change the executive weasel compensation culture in Corporate America?Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
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Executive pensions rose even as the share prices at the companies declined an average of 37% in 2008 and many firms froze employee pensions and suspended retirement-plan contributions.
