Trick or Treat.

Tonight I Trick or Treat.

We've taught my son to share.

I hope he is overwhelmed with Snickers.

;)

Fall Back

Testing the Waters - The NewYorker

David Remnick interviewed Senator Barack Obama at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.


Fall Back - tonight for some of us.

Frantic Friday

This weekend will be a frantic one.

Out of towners.

You know how they are.

Hungry.

Many are semi retired from blogging.

For Pia that means posting about as much as I do now.

Shayna is still discussing the disgustiing commentary on the MJ Fox Video despite here pregnant state.

I'm singing coopers song.

Picked up another client this week so I told my son I could treat him to McDonalds.

No comments on how bad the food is for us, every so often I need all that fat; it keeps the brain cells funtioning.

What happended to Detroit anyway?

Pleasant Mood

Things I've seen today that leave me in a pleasant mood.

New Jersey Court Rules for Same-Sex Rights

New Jersey's highest court rules that same-sex couples are entitled to the same rights as heterosexual couples. Now, it will be up to the legislature to rewrite state laws to provide for gay marriage or some other form of civil union.

I'd move there if it weren't almost seven degrees colder on average.

This was a disaster. GOP retires ‘Playboy’ ad in Tennessee
I heard the Congressman say that the people of Tennesee were smarter than to take words at face value, smart enough to look for the truth. I hope so.

Shayna has a question to weigh in on.

Cooper rewrites and dedicates a song to Pia.

So far I give the day a rating of 7+.

Following the crowd today.

I can't help it I am going to follow the crowd today and direct you to the Essay written by Kevin Tillman.

There are referrals to it all over the web, I missed the article originally - you can read it here at Truthdig.

Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

I will be around.

Do people purchase and consume egg salad from outside sources? I’ve always thought that was dangerous.

I’m busy working on some potential ways of product branding an organization which has contracted with me for two years. Two years is good for a first time client most people will give you one campaign two year will give me two maybe three. There will be little time for blogging over the next fee weeks, maybe well into and past the holiday season. I'll do my best.

My lunch hour is the time of day I usually read and post in blogs. In the evening my wife and I exchange our day, each competing for the "most diffifcult day" position. I spend the rest of the time with my son. I don't teach him anything we just play -t- ball, kick the ball, read me that book, jump on daddy's back and get black newspaper print all over. I sometimes read him my proposals, he finds this funny but at times is quite attentive. I can tell by the look on his face he is just humoring me.

Often while reading the news I want to bury my head in the sand. It’s easier to read stories about egg salad killing seventeen people than to read about the mess we have still in Afghanistan, the continued death toll in Iraq, the worsening genocide in Darfur.

I will be around but if not I'm not lost just putting food on the table.

Sunday - football is all.

Baltimore Falling Behind, Election Worker Training

This is not good. Maryland in general could have quite a mess come election time with all the problems they had in Montgomery County during primaries. I'm not looking forward to this.

Will it be Hilary vs Obama or just Obama?

"Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday he was considering a run for president in 2008, backing off previous statements that he would not do so."


Cooper mentions she bought his book and is keeping a spreadsheet on potential political candidates.

Maybe we all should.


I like that she has me pictured as potential enemy on her sidebar now in her acknowledgment of the Baltimore%20Falling%20Behind,%20Election%20Worker%20Training'>Military Commissions Act of 2006. She's right, we are all a little behind in out concern for out basic freedoms.


Shayna has an interesting guest at the Music Highway - I wish I spoke Italian.

Pia does love her Capote.

The Prez - pissing on everything again.

Bush Marks His Territory in Space

Comments - Iraq: time to signal a new era for health in foreign policy

All the dicsussion over the last few days as to the untruth of this study has me reading it again and again and thinking - about things other than my new clients and the work stacked up long into the forseeable future of my existence.

I thing that however faulty one originally thought this study might be, reading it again and absorbing some of the minute details, calculating how long it took to do the surveying of the individuals and then in general looking at the conclusion it makes more sense to me now than it did at the onset.

I have read more on the deaths in Iraq, from various sources, over the last few days than I have since the beginning of this war, and my conclusion is that this study is not unreasonable and, although possibly a little on the high side, it is not as high as some would like us to believe.

From what I can see the death toll now is admittedly be significantly higher than what this administration and the people who support it have been claiming, they are admitting it despite the fact that they have disregarded this study.



From

The Lancet.com

In 2004, Johns Hopkins researcher Les Roberts and colleagues reported findings that suggested the risk of death in Iraq was 2·5-fold greater after the military invasion in 2003 than before.1 They estimated that there were 98 000 more deaths than expected, with violence accounting for most of these casualties. Their work provoked great political controversy, not least because the 95% CI around the 98 000 figure was wide, ranging from 8000 to 194 000 deaths. Despite rigorous methods, critics found this uncertainty hard to take seriously.

Since 2004, and especially recently, independent observers have recognised that the security situation in parts of Iraq has deteriorated dramatically.2–6 This week, The Lancet publishes a follow-up to the 2004 study by the same research group.7 Their findings corroborate the impression that Iraq is descending into bloodthirsty chaos. Gilbert Burnham and colleagues completed a mortality survey in over 1800 households in Iraq between May and June this year. The death rate in this sample before the 2003 invasion was 5·5 per 1000 a year, rising to 13·3 per 1000 a year for the entire postinvasion period. Interestingly, and reassuringly, the trajectory of the death rate up until September, 2004, closely matched that of their earlier survey. But now the estimated number of excess deaths has increased by an enormous amount.

They calculated that 654 965 excess deaths have taken place as a consequence of the war. The lower 95% CI on this figure is still huge, at 392 979 deaths. Violence—gunfire and car bombing in particular—remains the main cause of this excess mortality.

Given the controversy surrounding the previous Iraq paper that we published, it is worth emphasising the quality of this latest report as judged by four expert peers who provided detailed comments to editors. All reviewers recommended publication with relatively minor revisions. For example, one adviser noted that “this is an important piece of research which should be published because it is possibly the only non-government funded scientific study to provide an estimate of the number of Iraqi deaths since the US invasion.” She underscored the “powerful strength” of the research methods, a view supported by other reviewers. Indeed, this study adds substantially to the new field of conflict epidemiology, which has been evolving rapidly in recent years.8–10

The US administration recognises the peril of the present anarchy in Iraq, albeit in often unrewarding ways. Although a recent US report produced differing interpretations, the US National Intelligence Estimate did conclude that the situation in Iraq was likely to have increased the terrorist threat to the USA at home and abroad. US government officials are now blaming Iraqi leaders for this escalating spiral of violence. “You do not see them taking the levers of sovereignty,” Republican senator John Warner declared last week, according to a report in the Washington Post.11 And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has impatiently urged the Iraqi government to step up its efforts to quell sectarian violence.

The natural response to this deteriorating situation is despair. Military action in Iraq has dragged on, inflaming an already volatile atmosphere. Diplomacy seems to have broken down. The absence of any plan for reconstruction after the 2003 invasion has provided an inviting vacuum that continues to suck in violence and terror. And the rhetoric of democracy and freedom sounds little more than empty hope.

Of most serious concern must surely be the collapse of a foreign policy based, in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's words, on “progressive pre-emption”. His doctrine of international community was forged on the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. At that time he claimed that “The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people's conflicts”. A longstanding principle of non-interference in the affairs of other states was no longer credible, he argued. Intervention based on values as much as territorial ambition was to be the new military strategy. “The answer to terrorism”, he has said, “is the universal application of global values.” And in August, 2006, he called for “a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those who threaten us…by showing that our values are stronger, better, and more just, more fair than the alternative”. Yet the splinter of our presence in Iraq is increasing, not reducing, violence. By making this a battle of values, Tony Blair and US President George Bush risk pitting one culture against another, one religion against another. This could rapidly become—and for many it already is—the politics of humiliation.

Yet absolute despair would be the wrong response. Instead, the disaster that is the West's current strategy in Iraq must be used as a constructive call to the international community to reconfigure its foreign policy around human security rather than national security, around health and wellbeing in addition to the protection of territorial boundaries and economic stability. I would go as far as to say that health is now the most important foreign policy issue of our time.

The advantages of using health as an instrument of foreign policy are at least four-fold. First, focusing on health is strategically correct. By protecting nations against health threats (eg, HIV/AIDS, emerging infections, non-communicable disease epidemics), governments will promote internal stability.12 Second, focusing on health will produce unequivocally positive benefits—social cohesion, equity, and a strengthened national infrastructure. Third, focusing on health is a valuable diplomatic tool in its own right to promote good bilateral relations and to signal good leadership. Finally, focusing on health will encourage trust between nations and across global multilateral organisations. This strategic reappraisal of foreign-policy thinking would introduce important new actors into policy formulation, including academic leaders in global health, health-related non-governmental organisations, human development institutions, and new strands of public and media opinion.

Traditionally, public health becomes an important foreign-policy matter only when there is an immediate crisis—eg, the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome—or when the scale of a health problem seems too large to ignore (eg, HIV/AIDS). Yet the longitudinal importance of health as a human security concern argues against this kind of discontinuous thinking. And the signs are hopeful that agencies and governments are beginning to lay the foundations for health as a broader policy instrument. WHO is taking a promising interest.13 A welcome joint ministerial initiative led by the Norwegian and French Governments aims to produce a preliminary analysis of the value of health in foreign policy early next year. And the issue has even surfaced in the debate about who should become WHO's new Director-General.14

Globalisation has changed the terms of human engagement at many levels—in trade, aid, economic development, environmental protection, and agriculture. Yet foreign policy is still governed by principles that had their origin in the 19th century, based, as they were, around notions of national sovereignty and economic and geographical self-interest. Those principles need to be radically revised. Health and wellbeing—their underpinning values, their diverse array of interventions, and their goals of healing—offer several original dimensions for a renewed foreign policy that might at least be one positive legacy of our misadventure in Iraq.

Monday Stuff.

I just showed this to my wife - I got it off of a feminist website, which I check out every now and then.

As many of you know my wife is an attorney, she has a great sense of humor and I find her gorgoues but that's hardly the point.

She said, and I quote,"what a bunch of idiots on both accounts".
"Are lists the only way these people can get people to read their blogs"?

She has a good point.

I've signed three new clients over the last week so if I'm scarce don't be surprised.

Cooper, makes some good points at taking place, she also has some commentary on the much ignored Bob Herberts op-ed.



My eye is on Obama.

I'm still posting to both websites during the change; this could last forever.

Weekendish.

Weekend links only today - short lunch hour.

Pia is getting roasted, it's the first roast I ever attended and admit to feeling uncomfortable roasting others.
But go feel free to take a shot.
Shayna may be giving up her blogging slippers, this would sadden me, but Iunderstand.

Cooper reminds us of the The Tibetan Massacre - Unmitigated Atrocity or at least she points us to some links which tell us about it. I had never read this before so it is surptrising to me how much horror can occur in the world without out knowledge.

For me: Winter has arrived here at least for the weekend and I have to meet a potential new client for a late lunch.
Wish me luck, my son needs shoes.

A Meme from the Music Highway

A Meme I stolen from Shayna


1) Five Minutes to yourself. How would you spend them ideally?
Playing or watching golf.

2)Five Dollars to spend right now. How and where would you spend it?
A capucino from a place in the city near where I used to work.

3)Five Items in your house you could part with right now
the rug in the lower family room it's a disaster and should be burned
a vase of some kind given to us for Christmas by my parents - it's the ugliest thing you have ever seen
the phone - it rings way too much
the "old magazine holder" and everything in it

4)Five Items in your house you positively, absolutely could never part with.
my computer
my palm pilot
my coffee make
rmy golf clubs
Our family pictures wall thing...don't know what it's called a collage of some kind.

5)Five Words you love.
son
golf
sunshine
yes
breakfast

feel free to meme yourself

Rainy weekend update.

Check out my renter.

Tell them I sent you.

I am posting at both blogs but posting the same thing, read whichever one you prefer.

I still can't figure out how to get Shayna's musichighway code up on my wordpress blog, because in the free wordpress blogs you can't change the code in any way. The rental code doesn't work there either.


This makes me sick.

I'll not mention golf today except to say because of the weather I can't play.

My son wants to go to this park, a park which opened here last year on the side of the highway and has continued to grow and now sports a roller coaster, a roller coaster which by all accounts was put in illegally without proper permits, a roller coaster which came from another site and has been traced back to at least 1976.

My son is too young for roller coasters, he just wants to ride the merry go round and if it stops raining that is where I will be this afternoon, and if the sun comes out maybe I'll take him to hit some golf balls, it's never too early to learn.

Oil Remains Below $60 A Barrel

I just love me some cheap cheaper gas.

If you are flying around the internet go take a peak at Shayna's baby pictures.

Be aware of Darfur at Cooper's blog Hell on Earth, a lot of worthwhile reading their this week. While you're at it check out her personal musings.

Check out pia's guest posters; interesting people.

I'm sorry I mentioned golf twice.

Pre weekend rambles.

Same-sex marriage ban upheld by court
Ruling says change can come only from voters or Legislature
What strikes me a shameful in all this is that there is some statistical evidence that beibg married - unlike just living together and having a legal contract - it's good for your health both mentally and physical. It allows you to live longer and be happier.

ALMOST inevitably in the way of these scandals, if disgraced Republican congressman Mark Foley ends up facing criminal charges, he will do so because of legislation that he championed.

Priceless.

Bush Pitches Incentive Pay For Teachers
It's not about choices it is about fixing the schools which are not doiung their job; if most schools are not doing their job it is clear the problem is the whole system and this little bandaid will not work.

If you do any research you will see that most charter schools fail as well.

Check out my renter, not my usual read but I needed the money.;)

Rankings.

I've posted a couple of posts at the wordpress blog, it's more pleasing to look at template wise. It is not ranked in google because it's new so I am going to keep posting here.

The other problem is on wordpress I can't put the code for the music highway.

I finally have a google ranking; I know it's not that important and it is all screwed up and means nothing but damn it so what.

My ranking comes mainly from my inbound links from cooper, pia and shayna, Cooper being my first real link, not including the now defunct political notio, with Shayna following shortly afterwards.

Goes to show I know how to pick them.

Speaking of cooper, she reminds us of Darfur day.
I'm giving up all my iced tea, coffee, you would be surprised how much that stuff costs.