Top 10 … err ok only 4 Ugliest People of 2007

I asked and you have spoken here is the list of the Top 10 Ugliest People of 2007:

1. Blackwater: They’re nothing but Mercenaries. The United States has enough soldiers we don’t need to use Mercenaries.
2. 12 member all white jury in the Martin Lee Anderson trial: Although there was overwhelming evidence they still found the guards not guilty.
3. Anne Coulter: Uber-conservative who’s mind is as closed as a book that has been glued together.
4. Michael Moore: The complete opposite of Anne Coulter except for the closed mind part in which case they could be twins.

Well folks that is really all that I got that really fit the bill, there were nominations for Nancy Pelosi, Cindy Sheehan, and Hillary Clinton. However, the person apparently only nominated them because he was a far right-winger. Some of you might wonder where the illustrious leaders of our country are? Well, that would be too easy wouldn’t it. Maybe next year I’ll nominate them for the life time achievement award.

I figure the problem with this years was because I just didn’t give you enough time to give me entries. So for next year I’ll start taking nominations starting today!

Beware of Mail Fraud!

Today my wife received a letter from Spain saying that she just won 1 million Euros. They provide a form that you must fill out and fax to them. When you look at the form they are asking for your personal data.

It is an obvious scam. First off the letter says that they got my wife’s name and address because she flew on an European Airline in the last 10 years. Which is funny because my wife has only been using my last name since 2003 (when we were married) and we have only lived at this current address since 2004 (since our son’s birth). In that time my wife has not flown on a European Airline.

So if you are living in Germany and you get a letter Spain saying you won 1 million Euros. Take the letter to the police to take care of.

Last Week to Get Your Votes In!

Ok everyone this is your last week to get your votes/nominations in for the Top 10 Ugliest People.

If I don’t get enough votes/nominations for this year’s vote I’m going to create the list as I see it. If you want to have a say in the list then YOU need to get posting. Otherwise, well we’ll just have to go with MY opinions.

No Comcast in Germany … They wouldn’t be able to stand the competition.

After reading this article, I realize that I’m really happy to live in Germany where just about every person and his cow provides ADSL service. The competition is so high that it is a buyer’s market. It is amazing what the ADSL providers in Germany will do to get your business.

One thing that they won’t do is mess with your bandwidth even if you are using P2P. Now I’m not saying that Germany good for software/music/movie pirates, German law is pretty specific about such things. However, you never hear about an ISP blocking or Inserting TCP in an attempt to throttle bandwidth use.

So you Americans who are upset with Comcast I have a couple of suggestions for you:
1. Change your ISP and tell Comcast to go to hell … OR
2. Start your own ISP and provide more competition.

I Want To Believe … but I Can’t.

So have you heard the buzz about the late Pope John Paul II appearing as a flame in Poland? As much as I would love to believe that this is a supernatural appearance of the soul of a great man, I’m forced to remember that flame has a fluid type property and will flicker in random directions during the course of burning (I have no idea what the mathematics that describes this but I think Chaos Theory has something to do with it). It must only be coincidence that the photographer click the shutter at the same time as the flame was in that particular shape.

What is really sad is the number of people who are gullible enough to believe this and perform all kinds of worshipful acts in reverence to this image, and that the Catholic Church is promoting it. Since the event took place on the anniversary of his death, I’m expecting more people to travel to Poland to see if he appears in the bonfire again, and he probably won’t.

Now had the flame actually stayed that way for a long period of time or made a sound then I would believe something supernatural happened. Otherwise it is just a big coincidence. Sorry Catholics you’ll just have to wait and see.

Sword Fighting with Real Swords … Ok It Was Choreographed but Damn It Was Fun!

Kindergarten here in Germany is much different than what we have in the states. It isn’t actually officially part of the school program. Most of the kindergartens are operated privately or semi-privately (yes they have ones run by the city but usually they aren’t so nice). We decided that there was a kindergarten that we would really like our son to attend. However, getting a place in this kindergarten is not so easy. The kindergarten had an open house for families that were interested in enrolling their children for the following year. We knew that our son’s age would be a little close to get a spot (usually spots go to older children first as they would be the most needing the social skills that children learn in kindergarten) but we figured we’d give it a shot anyway. Of course these open houses are a way not only for the parents to see the kindergarten for their decision making but also for the staff of the kindergarten to see how the family works together to help them decide if you get a spot for your child (ingenious these Germans eh?).

So we arrive and as normal when dealing with important German things I let my wife take the lead, and I follow close behind with a stupid grin on my face (trust me it works). The leader of the kindergarten explains that the children are currently learning about Medieval history and such. We see some really nice examples of what the children have been doing through out the year. I even saw some Heraldry that the children drew themselves that is better than some of the stuff I’ve seen in a Letter of Intent. Of course my wife jumps on this really fast and says, “My husband and I study and recreate Medieval history as a hobby. We have lots of things we can share with the children (it was still fairly early in the kindergarten year), we would be willing to bring in music cds, armor, feast gear, clothing. The kindergarten leader was so thrilled. So we set up an arrangement so that they could borrow some of our things. They were pretty happy and so were we as they at least took our son’s enrollment paper (a couple of days before it was open to the public), which to us was a good sign.

Fast forward to June. I get a call from someone in the local area. Ferdinand has a daughter that is in the kindergarten. He was to perform a sword fight for the children during the kindergarten’s end of year fest. However, his normal partner couldn’t make it, and the kindergarten leader suggested that maybe I could help. I thought about it for a about half a second, of course my mouth took over and said “Yeah of course” before I had actually completed my thinking. He asked if I had my own sword. Fortunately like many SCAdians I’m a sword nut anyway and actually have a very nice demo sword I bought back in my Army days in Würzburg that would be perfect for this. So we set up a day and time to meet and start with the practice. We probably should have practiced more but in the end I think we gave a pretty good show.  You can see some photos from the day at my Facebook photo album.

Needless to say our son will be starting Kindergarten on his third birthday at the end of November (a little delayed from the first day of kindergarten but that’s ok).

No Justice in America

When I first read the news article about the pending trial of eight guards of a “Boot Camp” for young offenders, on manslaughter charges after beating a fourteen year old boy who had collapsed during physical training, I figured it was an open and shut case. The guards used excessive force with the child that ended in his death. How much of a fool I am after hearing the verdict given by the all white jury. They have set free the eight killers without any explanation. I am amazed and shocked that this has happened but I guess that is what happens in the South. I guess we can start seeing Florida returning to the time of Jim Crow laws where blacks don’t get the same rights as the whites. I know for a fact had all the guards been black and the child was white every one would have been found guilty and spent 30 years in prison.

One of the things that gets me is that when I went through Army basic training, the Drill Sergeants were not allowed to lay hands on us. However, they could pressure us to do what we had to do without threat of physical contact, and we were adults. What makes people think it is right to physically beat a child to get them to perform.

Some Things I Don’t Understand About Turkey.

Yes I’m talking about the country here not the bird. Why do they feel attacked whenever what happened to the Armenians at the end of WWI is labeled Genocide? If you look at this logically: The persecution of the Armenians happened at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. However, Turkey is no longer an Empire it is a Republic. The Republic of Turkey was set up by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the Ottoman Empire fell. Modern day Turkey is nothing like the Turkey of the Ottoman Empire and even has changed their language (although mostly just the character types). It would be very easy for the Government of modern Turkey to say, “We accept that the Ottoman Empire has committed Genocide. However, the Republic of Turkey does not accept that we were to blame.” Which is exactly the truth. When the Armenians were being put to death the Republic of Turkey did not yet exists. You can’t say that Genocide is inherited from a previous government. When the Armenians were persecuted Turkey was part of a Monarchy. It is now a Democracy. Just as during WWII Germany was a Fascist state. However, now is a Democracy. Can we truly blame the current German Democracy for the crimes of a government that was overthrown? No, it would make no sense. If the rest of the world would only declare that the Genocide that happened to the Armenians to be the fault of the Ottoman Empire and not the Republic of Turkey then the Turkish people and politicians would really have no reason to agree.

Maybe it is just me but it seems that the problem is either bad wording, improper understanding, or a group that won’t accept that they are not who their forefathers were.

The Crazy Things Children Will Do.

As a father of a soon to be three year old boy and another boy on the way soon, I can tell you that this story I found on Yahoo! would have scared the bajeebus out of me had it happened to my child. I think I can understand what that father was feeling.

A brief summary of the story is that a three year old boy and his two year old friend were playing with a toy Mustang GT (apparently large enough to ride in). They decided to take it for a joy ride and went several blocks on busy roads before being pulled over by the police. According to reports they followed the traffic signs and obeyed the traffic laws (except the fact that their “Car” probably wasn’t street legal).

It all had a happy ending after the the police picked up the boys about five blocks from their home. The little boy was quoted as saying “We went for a ride, daddy.” At which point I as a father would have collapsed from the stress and started with hysterical laughter.

Tagegory? Man I Wish I Had Thought of That!

Hey I would like to point people to That Girl Again’s blog Wank She’s got a great post about this whole grey area of Categories and Tags or as she calls them Tagegories.

It looks to me that she’s waging a little war against the administrators of WordPress.com which honestly I can agree with in part. In particular the comments, lack of support, and firewalling of the particular admin Matt (not sure what he does other than act as a human firewall but he apparently is staff here He’s the software Author? No wonder he is so sensitive. Maybe we should be nicer … nah!). So I’m going to start a new Tagegory (damn I love that word) called “Bad Matt” and I hope everyone who has a complaint about him joins in with this.