Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Things you can’t mail to places "part 1"

Here comes a series of posts entitled Things you can’t mail to places. This information is all available at the USPS website

Syrian Arab Republic (Syria)

Margarine and other kinds of artificial butter and materials for its manufacture.
Footwear of all kinds and parts thereof.
High frequency radio receivers (above 100 megacycles).
· Salt.
· Soap, except shaving soap.
· Stockings of all kinds except wool stockings.
· Television equipment.
Used clothes made of silk or cotton.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

An E-mail exchange with my wife

I read a german e-mail from my employer, I then forwarded it to my wife to read as well to make sure I didn’t miss any thing.


My email
“Read this for me please , I think I have the gist”


Her response
blah blah blah,… “ps. what do you mean "Gist'?”


My response was to email her the definition.


Her response
“I thought it was some kind of sickness :-P”

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

If you are not part of the solution...

You are part of the precipitate.

If I had a dollar ...

every time I had sixty cents.

I would be in Canada

Monday, November 21, 2005

Take fair shots


Ok, I am no fan of G dubbya, but the above picture is a low blow. It has nothing to do with if he is smart or if he is a decnt leader. So what if he tried to walk through the wrong door. A good leader could have done the same thing. If you want to go after Bush, go after his policy.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

o come on now

Iraq's interior minister defended allegations of torture in Iraq prisons by saying that they only found 7 torture victims out of 170 detainees in the prison. Not torturing prisoners is not virtuous, it is expected.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Interacting with other people is a part of life.

If you are traveling on a train, and the train is crowded. Your ticket does not entitle you to a seat for yourself plus a seat for your bag. It certainly does not entitle you to a seat for yourself, a seat for your bag, and a seat for your feet, as the man currently sitting across from me seems to think it does. There are people without seats sitting in the stairwell. If you are some deity and deserve such decadence, then pay for a first class ticket. To be honest, my wife does this as well to prevent anyone from sitting by her. It drives me crazy.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Beinwil am See


Ich lebe in Beinwil am See. Es liegt am Hallwilersee westlich vom Zürichsee. Nur zweitausendfunfhundert Leute leben in meinem Heimatdorf. Wir haben nur einen Markt, einen Kiosk, eine Bäckerei, und einen Bahnhof. Jedes Geschäft ist am Wochenende geschlossen. Beinwil ist ein gutes Dorf um einen Spaziergang zu machen. Wir haben viele Wanderweg beim See und durch Wäldli. Wenn es heiss im Sommer ist, du kannst einfach schwimmen gehen. Das ist gut weil in der Schweiz nicht viele Gebäude Klimaanlagen haben. Beinwil liegt an einem steilen Hügel. Ich muss jeden Tag den Hügel nach dem Bahnhof steigen. Das ist gut für meine Gesundheit aber Hügel steigen im kalten eisigen winterlichen Morgen gefällt mir nicht. Ich lebe in Beinwil weil es der Geburtsort meiner Frau ist. Beinwil ist sehr verschieden von meinem Geburtsort.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Support the Fine Arts

Shoot a rapper.

Our Rutabagas



We carved these on the 11th of November, it is swiss a tradition where the town children parade through town with these carved vegetables in honor of Saint Martin. Despite being smaller than pumpkins I like thier glow more.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Viva la Révolution


The riots in Paris have been occurring nightly for the past eleven nights now. The Riots started when two teenage immigrants, fleeing from police or not fleeing from police depending on who you ask, tried to hide in an electrical sub station and electrocuted themselves. The large minority populations blame their deaths on an atmosphere of police brutality against the large Muslim and African populations living in communities surrounding Paris.
Even if the police are brutal and racist against minority groups, remember who the French president is, how could this event set off riots. The poor teenagers died because of their own stupidity. The two dead teenagers were not at the moment in the custody of police. Nor would I consider the chasing of suspects that are fleeing overt police brutality or racism.
In America we have police brutality but the events that set off riots are much more severe. If the police in America beat a man lying motionless on the ground or sodomize a man in handcuffs in a police station, then I would support, non violent, public outcry and demonstrations to bring severe justice to the offending officers. I would not doubt that the Parisian police may discriminate and treat the immigrant populations poorly, but the minority population should choose better victims to champion. The deaths were tragic but the police, save a policy of not perusing criminals, could have not prevented it. It should be noted that the suspects had not yet been convicted of any crime. This makes it sad that their deaths could have been a misunderstanding but it doesn’t justify rioting.
I hope the french goverment puts this uprising down better than the one 215 years ago. Then again guillotining a few leaders would shake things up abit.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Draco of Athens or Goodman of Las Vegas

CNN is reporting here that the mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, suggested on television that grafitti vandals should have thier thumbs cut off on television as punishment. I don't want it to be said that I do not support tougher laws against crime but there exists a reason that draconian laws do not work. These people who lose thier thumbs probably wouldn't tag anymore and the city would have to pay less for cleanup. The state would however be paying more in the long run. These people will not be very employable without all thier digits, which means they will be collecting unemployment, which more than offsets the cost of cleaning up some grafitti.