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Pogo Dave on Route 4 South in North Kingstown

Today on Route 4 South in North Kingstown between Oak Hill and West Allenton Road, I observed a guy riding an exercise bike on top of his car. My first thought was that it must be some sort of political stunt, with all the red, white, and blue wrapped around the car and the 20 foot high flags, shooting up off the exercise bike handles.

Come to find, out after examining the photos and seeing the website: PogoDave.com, this is all about nonsense. He even sells support nonsense t-shirts. Now where is the sense in that? Oh yeah, there is none; right got it.

So why is he doing this again? Nonsense, oh wait wait after reviewing his bio it appears there is some sense in this after all: he wants to make people laugh, because as he describes making a lady laugh got him a job. I wonder if he could come back down and perform for my birthday tomorrow; it would have to be strictly on nonsensical basis of course.

Pogo Dave on Route 4 South in North Kingstown

I guess if we all lightened up and laughed a little more instead of stressing out so much about how this recession, increased car taxes (which I will have more about later, because I am not going to let that one go quite yet), more taxes, decreased or stagnant pay, and a plethora of other things that are making life very difficult for many of us we would probably all be better off.

Also as the saying goes: laughter is the best medicine, and many studies do suggest this to be true. Also, although I think it probably goes without saying; nonetheless, I will say it anyway. This should be qualified with the fact that it is not very healthy to laugh at crude and demeaning sorts of humor, which of course so often come at someone else’s or even our own expense.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lighting Thief is a well done, and for the most part family friendly movie. It does however have some scenes that would probably scare younger children, due to intensity. The movie is based largely and pretty accurately on the Greek mythology of the gods and demigods i.e. half gods.

The latter group of half mortal half god such as Herculean category is the main focus of the movie. The premise as the name implies is that someone has stolen Zeus’s lightning bolt. No one knows who the thief is, however Percy Jackson quickly becomes the most likely suspect.

He must then embark on a journey to clear his name, but gets side tracked from that journey into a journey of regaining his lost loved one from Hades, the god of the underworld. The course of the movies is predictable in many ways, yet the predictability is comes in a very well done fashion.

The bulk of the movie takes us along on a journey across the United States in a search for pearls, which will allow Percy Jackson, and his group of friends to return from the underworld. After they complete this journey they must then embark on a journey down to the underworld.

The location of the underworld will come as no surprise, but what will be a surprise is a seemingly small yet crucial detail they overlooked in their planning. Also, as we of course learn the identity of the lighting thief, predictable towards the end we are taken a bit off guard.

Notwithstanding, there is still very good and yet subtle foreshadowing as to the identity of the lighting thief, coming as early as the first stop on their quest.

Also most viewers will find the twists and turns along the trip quite a refreshing change of pace from some of the more completely predictable movie themes. Of course, most people will see some of the twists coming from just due to our familiarly with basic Greek mythology, but they nonetheless add in enough new elements to keep it interesting.

As many of you have heard WikiLeaks has Published Afghanistan war logs dating from 2004 all the way up to the beginning of 2010. They claim since everything is submitted anonymously they do not know who sent them the war logs. Not only did Wikileaks publish them, but they published the entire 91,000 logs, well actually they did hold back a few something like 18,000, so technically not all, but yet a huge amount.

So not only did they publish the logs, but they have sent them to the major papers the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, with the condition they not publish them before the date WikiLeaks published them, in order to increase the coordinate an increased buzz. While these logs do not contain much sensitive data, at least on the surface of it, they do contain dates and locations, but what they mostly do is confirm the tenacity and parasitic nature of our enemy. Here is one excerpt of from of Islamofascist propaganda that our enemy was attempting to spread back in January of 2004:

(M) NIGHT LETTERS DISTRIBUTED AROUND HAZARJUFT: THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSLATED VERSION OF ONE LETTER:
ISLAMIC IMARATS OF AFGHANISTAN. FOR THE BRAVE WARLORDS OF AFGHANISTAN, SALAM ALAIKOOM. AS YOU KNOW THAT AFGHANISTAN IS THE LAND OF BRAVE PEOPLE AND HISTORICAL PEOPLE WHO AT THE FIRST TIME IN THE CRADLE HIS CHILD/KID HOW TO BE BRAVE. (ALAMA-SHEKEB ARSALAN) SAYS: THAT JIHADS NAME WOULD BE FORGOTTEN IN THE WORLD BUT STILL FROM PAMIR TO HIMALIAS LAND THE WARLORDS WILL FIGHT FOR ISLAM AND SUPPORT ISLAM. BUT IN THE LAST CENTURY, THE AFGHANISTAN WARLORD PEOPLE WERE ABUSED, KILLED AND THREATENED BY THE SUPERPOWERS LIKE ENGLAND AND RUSSIA THAT BROKE AFGHANISTAN IN PIECES. BUT STILL THE WARLORDS AND BRAVE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN DIDN''T GIVE UP AND TAUGHT THEIR ENEMY A LESSON AND TOOK THE FREEDOM FOR THEMSELVES AND THE POOR MUSLIM INDIVIDUALS IN ALL OVER THE WORLD. BY KINDNESS OF GOD AND HIS MERCY THE TALIBAN KID''S OVER RULED AFGHANISTAN FOR AN ISLAMIC ENVIRONMENT AND BROUGHT PEACE AND ISLAM IN AFGHANISTAN THAT 95% OF THE PEOPLE WERE RULED BY ISLAMIC LAW.

Our first mistake in Afghanistan is something, that while seemly simple says it all. The name is no longer Afghanistan, but the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and we legitimize them placing Islam before republic, not only symbolically in the name, but in everything they do they Islamic law takes precedent over any other laws of the republic. Not even in the United States do we allow religious tradition and sentiments to govern us to the extent that they do. We have our basis in religion sure, but never has that basis been used to force others to follow it in any way that is not consistent with an orderly system of law. Now just look at what the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has in their Constitution and tell me if it is any wonder why we are not succeeding there.

Right off the bat, the second article of their Constitution completely contradicts itself in just the first two sentences. First Islam is declared the scared religion of the land, but follows can supposedly perform other rites, but essentially only within the limits of Islamic law which is declared in the third article as the law of the land. United States law is based on the Bible, but it doesn’t defer to the Bible, it takes the Biblical principal and clearly states it. They are not bold enough to state their Islamic principles in there actually, because they know they are intolerant.

Article 1 [Islamic Republic]
Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article 2 [Religions]
(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam.
(2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.

Article 3 [Law and Religion]
In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.

Furthermore, they do not even begin to talk about our first amendment rights until their 34th article. Then in their 34th article they defer their freedom of expression with “by observing the provisions stated in this Constitution” (i.e. article 2 and 3), right to publish without prior permission, but again “in accordance with the law” (i.e. Islamic law), directives related to mass media “will be regulated by the law” (i.e. Islamic law). What you think they are going to keep more scared their 34th or first 3 articles where they declare Islam as law of the land?

Here is another highly disturbing piece of Islamic propaganda from 2007 It sounds like they at least do show some restraint in not wanting to harm children, but it also sounds like they are willing to take any means necessary to kill an America, and are almost saying next time they will be willing to kill children if the local populace does not heed their warning. It sounds like they are so brain washed in this Islamofascist ideology that they are simply beyond any reasoning even with regards to our humanitarian efforts over there.

RC EAST: 021817Z Sharana PRT Nite Letter Received 01 MAY 07 WARNING Dear Brothers, Aslamu Alaikum: As a Muslim we are all brothers to each other, and we help each other in order to resolve our muslim brothers problems, therefore based on our religious claim that all Muslims are brother and they take part in their brothers problems in order to assist and find a resolution for his problem we have sent you this warning letter and we would ask you all to read this letter from A to Z with patience, and its every ones responsibility to act according to this warning letter, dear brothers we hope that the Mullah of your Mosque or your village elder reads this warning letter with loud voice in the mosque to all people in order to pass our words to all residents of the village, its because its our responsibility to pass the facts for you all, and after that its your responsibility either your going act accordingly or not, Prophet Mohammad Says Our Allah orders us for righteous and he has forbidden us for evil, those who are disobeying his orders he will be punished, after you commit an evil action even if you repent and ask for forgiveness you wont be granted forgiveness by Allah, because you have disobeyed his orders, as obvious our homeland has been occupied by infidels and the Jihad (the holy war) is obligated for each Muslim against occupiers, every time Americans or infidels show presence to your village, your kids and yourself show them lots of love and friendship this has caused to prevent your kids from participating in the holy war against occupiers in our homeland, we have had few of our Muhahideens in your district who were ready to commit suicide attack on the infidels in your district but unfortunately every time we have planned to attack them we have found a huge crowd of kids around the occupiers and that has prevented us from attacking them but after this warning letter we will warn you all that we have lost our patience and our tolerance from now on any civilian causality due to our suicide attacks you will be set responsible for it not we, every time Americans are going to a school in order to distribute school kits in order to make more aliens and enhance relationship stronger, we have warned the principle of your high school to keep students away from Americans but, this person passed the words the way to prove it that we have personal hostility with the principal and told the villagers not to worry and no one will harm your kids, but we will guarantee that this principle is trying to misled you all with his false words in fact he is a devil he works for his personal desires, for the interest of Americans and for the chief of police, last time we warned the principle of the high school via warning letter we asked him to resign from his position but unfortunately he didnt listening to us but instead he strengthened his relationship with Americans, and since he has had received the warning letter we have noticed increase in the patrols and presence of Americans around is village, brothers this person who is the principle of the high school he is an American spy and he uses students and some teachers for providing information about Taliban to collation forces, in a very near future the principle will be beheaded by Taliban however he relies on American and he believes that they will protect him but in fact he is wrong because no one can protect him from us, we have made the word to behead him and we will stay on our word and we will definitely cut his head off, the principle in the past spread our the word that Taliban are against education and they are the enemies of school but in fact we are supporting education but this principle is American collaborator and spy and we will assure you all that very soon we will get rid of this devil so that the entire Islamic society is purified from devils, Prophet Mohammad says that those who are deviling among Muslims they should be beheaded in order to act according to Sharia we have to behead the principle and his collaborators who provide him information about Taliban so he can pass it to Americans and the chief of police will also be beheaded, Allah says that all muslims are forbidden for make friendship with infidels because Allah says you will be granted dignity only by Allah not by any infidel in another verse of Quran Allah says do not pick ajew or Christian friend if you choose one from them you will be considered one of them, dear brothers once again at the conclusion of this warning letter we would ask you all to keep your children away from American forces and their convoys and we would as the Mullahs of the mosques and the elders of the village to read the entire warning letter loudly to all residents of the village and pass the above mentioned to every resident of this area, Dear brother principle of the high school (Faizullah) chief of police and their collaborators they all believe that the Americans will protect them but in fact no one or no force can protect these people from us, however we could behead long time ago but the only reason that we havent done yet, its because we wanted to make you all aware on their devil and Non-Islamic behaviors than we will kill them, so after this letter and notice these people will be beheaded, the above mentioned people are working against Islam and agaist Ulemas (religious leaders) in fact since they have been warned by Taliban we ave seen increase at the presence of Americans in our area but after this warning letter our Taliban brothers will put their efforts to kill these people, Dear Muslims Taliban are acting according to Islamic principles and we have always wanted to make more friends and strengthened our friendship with our follow Muslim friends.

Lastly, I saw one Air Assault related log where they sadly had to leave a body behind, and come back for it later. As anyone familiar with America Military honor knows you do not leave anyone behind dead or alive. However, practicality sometimes has to win out at least in the short term, and bodies get left to be recovered later. However, they do not forget and they take the recovery missions very seriously.

http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/afg/event/2007/07/AFG20070729n731.html

Lone Survivor, is perhaps one of the best books I have come across in a very long time. The book begins like many movies do at the end of the story and back home in the States, with Marcus on a mission to meet with all the families who lost a loved one during Operation Redwing, a mission from which (as the name implies) Marcus was the sole survivor of.

Maricus was one of 4 Seals on Seal Team 10, that went into the mountains of Afghanistan that day, and while 4 sounds like a small number of men to lose you will later discover that the rescue party also suffers a significant loss too. What is more, after reading this book the mantra that one is one too many to lose will take on all new meaning, as you become familiar with and emotional invested in the fate of each member on the team.

Marcus Luttrell Photo by Rob Curtis/Navy Times

Through out the first half of the book Marcus takes you through the brutal Navy Seal training, giving you a brand new perspective on pain in the process. During the second half of the book he shows how the training is implemented in the teams valiant action against insurmountable odds.

After a number of missions coming up empty in their search for a particular high ranking Taliban leader whom they had been tracking for quite sometime, they finally have reason to believe on this last mission that they are on the verge of finally locating and taking him out this time. The mission gets off to kind of a rocky start, but then quickly goes South after an unplanned encounter with some locals.

Suddenly, they find themselves vastly out numbered, occupying the low ground, and without a means to call for support. With no other options left they literally fall back several times, tumbling down the mountain as they go, and amazingly they still maintained their weapons and fighting form while falling down the mountain. What is more, they time and again mange to establish decent fighting positions and rhythm enabling the 4 of them to take out quite a substantial number of Taliban fighters before finally making their last stand around the base of the mountain.

After the epic battle on the ridge, the then wounded Marcus faces an equally harrowing ordeal in order to just survive and come out alive. Eventually, his journey brings him to relative safety, only to find himself caught in a brutal tug-a-war between the locals and the Taliban while he awaits rescue. As if all this is not enough for a great war story, during Marcus’s ordeal we simultaneously learn of a massive vigil occurring back at Marcus’s home in Texas.

Disturbing what Pfizer did with Bextra, now on American Greed. Sales representatives got financial incentives to push the drug for off label uses: tropical getaways, seats at sporting events, expensive wine, etc all based on marketing. All for a drug that didn’t solve pain any better, but just had extra risk like heart attack, stroke, renal failure, and also might actually lead your skin to fall off. The $2.3 billion fine accounts for only 3 weeks worth of sales and was paid in one wire transfer. No one went to jail, but a compliance program was put in place.

Tom Watson Photograph: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images Europe

It was late Sunday afternoon at the Turnberry golf course and 59 year old Tom Watson was staring down a medium length putt that would seal his victory at the 138th Open Championships. He could feel a brisk wind hitting him; the same wind that was coming off the ocean all day and reaching speeds of over 20 mph. He knew what was on the line as he stared down at the hole. If he was to sink that putt then he would complete one of golf’s most amazing feats by becoming the oldest man to win a major golf championship at the age of 59. Watson had the opportunity to win his first major title in 26 years (his last victory in a major happened to be the 1983 Open Championships) and win his 6th Open Championship, tying Jersey’s Harry Vardon for the most wins ever at the Open. Tom Watson had the chance to finish a dream weekend in Scotland that would conclude with him hoisting the Claret Jug for the 6th time. Tom Watson had a lot on the line.

Watching from the Club House was the American Stewart Cink. Cink was the club house leader and the only other player in the tournament that had a chance to take the victory. Earlier, he had sunk a fifteen foot birdie putt at the 18th to post a score of -2. As he watched, he knew that if Watson missed his par putt, then he and Watson would enter a playoff for the Championship. He knew that the putt would determine whether or not he would have a legitimate shot at his first major victory. The former 3-time All-American at Georgia Tech and 1997 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year knew that victory was within his reach, but it all depended on one putt.

With the entire crowd in complete silence, Watson hit his putt. As the putter hit the ball his eyes inched forward as he watched the ball move toward the hole. The ball rolled along the green and then broke to the right. The putt was not to be. It stopped short of the hole and a little bit to the right. Watson then tapped in the bogey putt and finished the day at -2, thus forcing a playoff between he and Cink.

The Open Championship has it’s own unique style of a playoff, where players golf four holes and see who can do it in the least strokes. Cink took care of Watson easily in those four holes, as he finished six strokes ahead by the end of the playoff. It was not Tom Watson who would be holding the Claret Jug by the end of the day, but rather Stewart Cink. Although, it would have been nice to see a 59 year-old win a major, we have to remember that Cink had never won a major before in his career. Watson had already won eight. So whether you were rooting for Watson or Cink, it was overall a great weekend on the links.

The next major to be played on the PGA tour will be “Glory’s last shot”: the PGA Championship. The tournament is nicknamed “Glory’s Last Shot” because it is the last major tournament in the season, the last chance at immortality for each golfer. Will Watson bounce back and win the PGA (which happens to be the only major tournament that he has never won)? Will Tiger rebound from a poor weekend at the Open and win his first major since coming off of his knee injury? Will the World number 2, Phil Mickelson, reclaim a title that he earned in 2005 as the victor of the PGA Championship? These questions and more will be answered in August at the Hazeltine National Golf Club.

Zach Seites-Rundlett

The recent release (June 19) of the Apple iPhone 3GS (I’m sure we have all seen the commercials and advertisements for Apple’s newly updated version of the iPhone) has an innumerable amount of what the iPhone calls “apps” (features). The various apps allow you to perform different functions such as listening to music, recording videos, going on the internet, using e-mail, looking at maps, taking photos, and a number of other functions. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it is also supposed to work as a phone.

Apple introduced the original iPhone on June 29, 2007, after a very long and hyped up wait. With Apple’s recent widespread successes in selling both computers and iPods, Apple decided to expand upon it’s already popular name by venturing into a business that was growing perhaps even faster than Apple’s bank itself, the cell phone industry. The iPhone was to go farther and be better than any other phone before. It was to combine music, internet, e-mail, camera, and verbal communication into a singular device. It was to be a multitude of devices all fit into one. However, there is one question to be asked. When does it all become too excessive?

We appear to have an American society that is becoming more fast-pace and technologically advanced than ever before. This advancement is not unexpected, given the fact that society is always progressing forward and inventing new gadgets and devices in order to move ahead. But are we becoming too obsessed and infatuated with objects such as iPhones and other similar devices. The iPhone allows us to do so many things right out of our own pockets, but is their an actual need to be able to constantly go on the internet or message your buddy whilst enjoying a picnic, taking a hike, watching a sporting event, or driving. I believe personally that it has extended far beyond the definition of superfluous (useless or needless). How can one possibly enjoy what they may be doing when half of their attention is focused on watching a surfing dog on youtube or messaging their friend about the weather.

Let’s use going to the beach as an example. One might visit the beach to enjoy the water, spend time with other people, go surfing or bodyboarding, meet other people, play a particular sport such as volleyball or Frisbee, or just take in the natural beauty of the coastline. There are many reasons why one might enjoy going to a beach, but the list does not include playing solitaire on your phone, or text messaging your friend about how good you thought a movie was. Perhaps you may want to take pictures at the beach, and if that is the case then there is still no need for a multi-functional device, rather you could bring a camera which will give you much better quality anyway.

If you are going to taste the splendors of the natural world and places such as a beach then there is no reason to spend the entire time focused on a phone. If one wants to spend a day watching videos on their phone or text messaging their friend, then one can easily do all of these things at home. If you really want to be social with one of your friends then get together with them rather than glue your eyes to a touch screen keyboard (iPhone feature) all day. Enjoy the beach for what the beach is, not as a place where you can sit and play with your phone.

If you have a phone that has an infinite amount of features than please don’t let it become an interference when you are doing other things. If you want to watch Youtube videos than watch them at home on your computer, not on a camping trip. There is much more to this world than iPhones. Remember, there were other things to do before playing virtual soccer on a little phone screen, there was playing actual soccer itself.

Zach Seites-Rundlett

Virtual Soccer

Actual Soccer

An electron microscope image shows an H1N1 swine flu virus culture obtained from a California patient suffering from the current international outbreak. (U.S. Centres for Disease Control)

Now that the World Health Organization has taken to calling Swine Flu simply influenza A (H1N1), the Centers for Disease Control here in the United States will not follow suit, because they believe changing the name now will only serve to confuse people. They want to be as clear as possible in such an anxious time. Of course now many in the media have just started tacking the H1N1 name onto swine flu to help be even more clear about it.

Also Rhode Island Officials have just sent two more probable cases of Swine Flu to the Health Department for testing bringing the total of probable cases in Rhode Island up to 6 pending results which I imagine should be coming back very soon for at least that one from North Kingstown. One of the other probable cases is also at Johnson and Wales, and they are now canceling classes and activities for Monday at JWU at the request of the state department.

Thermal Image taken by one of many scanners used in airports around the world to help determine whether travelers have swine flu

Airports are currently trying new high tech detection techniques (actually many installed them back during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and bird flu scares). Still they are fairly new. The only problem with their fancy thermal image scanners is that they can only detect swine flu after the early stages of entry and uncoating, before it triggers all of our bodies defenses. However, during this incubation period which can last up to 6 days the virus can still be contagious.

Unfortunately, for recognizing the limitations of these thermal images scanner and using them sparing here in the US many have officials have come under fire.

Now Rhode Island is still awaiting results on swine flu tests, but we are now up to 4 probable cases here, as there has now been the addition of one from Johnson and Wales University, along with the one from North Kingstown High School and the two others from around the state. There are now somewhere around 19 states and 149 cases in the US, along with 34 in Canada, 14 in Spain, 8 in UK, 2 in France, and 1 in Hong Kong (Mexican citizen). There are of course cases in a number of other countries too.

President Obama reportedly sought $1.5 from congressional leaders to help fight swine flu. They are now moving forward towards a vaccine hopefully by the fall. Although, they still do not know for sure if it is possible to create a safe and appropriate vaccine. Further, they do now believe the origins of swine flu now to be a million hog farm in Perote, Mexico run by Smithfield Foods.

Fortunately swine flu seems to lack some of the genetic traits of the 1918 flu and bird flu despite being of the same subtype H1N1. They now believe swine flu to be less variable then first feared. Now that it seems we have very much overreacted to this swine flu, and are now proceeding with cautious optimism. Let us just hope that next time something comes down the pipe we do not under react to what may be the proverbial bubonic plague of our time.

As I have said before the only known prevention methods for swine flu H1N1 thus far are the same ones you would use for the common flu. However, we are thus far only guessing that this flu has the same vectors (methods of transmission) as the common flu, which would make sense being that it is so similar.



On a personal level some prevention methods are again:

* (Make sure hand sanitizers are at least 60% alcohol (typically ethanol) content or better, there are some discount brands out there which are only 40% and can actually mobilize the bacteria and worsen the problem. (as indicated by an informal classroom experiment at East Tennessee State University))

The WHO and others are now discussing a new name for swine flu because of the adverse affects it is having on the pig markets. As many of you know I mentioned in a previous post that Egypt has ordered the slaughter of all their pigs. Also I imagine this does not help the pigs rap much as it is also considered unclean in Judaism and Islam. The dietary laws of Kosher or Kashrut under Jewish tradition and Halal under Islamic tradition, because it does not ruminate or chew the cud. Of course under most Christian tradition the pig is now considered clean because Jesus freed us from the obligation of the dietary laws.

So how has swine flu affected pigs, well it is known to affect them, but there are no know pigs in the United States with swine flu, at the moment. Also, pork is still completely safe to eat so long as you cook it properly.

This is affecting really hard pig export from North American nations to places such as Russia and China who have imposed bans on exports of live pigs and pork.

Currently the WHO thinks their name was appropriate because there is a large competent of swine influenza in the flu virus, along with genes from North American avian influenza, human influenza and a form of swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, according to Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC’s Influenza Division.

As of right now it remains to be seen whether the WHO and others will end up deciding to change the name of swine flu to something more straightforward name like “H1N1 flu”. Although, that name wouldn’t be anywhere near as catchy or as fun for the news media to throw around.