ShowMeBlog

DHS reading your tweets and Facebook posts?

  CNN has a story “DHS reading your tweets and Facebook posts?” 

  It sounds scary and feeds into the paranoid that Republicans and others have about government.

  But from reading the story what you see is that the DHS is just doing what other corporations are doing.  When I blog about a subject here on this little blog corporations and others are watching for keywords and tags and they get a notice and they check to see what was said.
  In FL and here in TX when I have blogged about a problem with a cable company their agents have spotted the post right away and contacted me right away and said we see you have a problem we will fix it for you.  And they have done it.  
  I have posted good things about products and had people or corporations contact me. 
  I saw a year or so ago that a guy that I knew when he was a police officer back in the 70s had died and I posted about what a great man and police officer he had been.  His family found the post about him and they were so happy to read it and contacted me.   I posted about a girl that I liked when I was ten years old and she found the post and contacted me.  
  I could go on and on with stories like that.   So people or corporations watching tweets or checking Facebook or doing a search is not a bad thing.  In fact I think it is great.

  But I do see when the police or government are monitoring and watching it can be scary. I do not have a problem with the DHS, at this time, doing what they are doing.
  The problem is going to be if the wrong people get into government.  We do not want a President Nixon again with his hit list.  I would also fear having a man like President Reagan again.   Reagan because of Iran-Contra.  He showed that he did not care what the law was he was going to do just what he wanted to do and lie about it and cover it up.   Then also I would fear a man like President George W. Bush.  Bush because of his war on terrorism and his thinking that “enhanced interrogation techniques” was moral and legal.  If you take a position like that and you say it is OK for government to do anything you will have a government out of control.
  We need people in government that believe in the rule of law.  We need people that believe in the Bill of Rights.   We need a strong honest Attorney General. 

  The Republicans have had a lot of fun attacking President Obama for appointing a lot of “czars.”  I think the truth is that President Bush appointed more.   I think it is the word “czar” that the Republicans just love to point out.  It is a poor name for the position.   The position should just be manager or boss or something. We could use a czar to protect us from government.
  The United States Attorney General should be the person watching out for things like that.  We have had some rotten AGs in the past and some great ones.  Under President Bush we had a worthless one of course.  Under President Nixon we had a great one and thank God for that.  The President of the United States order him to do something that was not legal and he resigned right on the spot.  President Nixon then ordered the next in line to do it.   He resigned right on the spot.  So sometimes you have men with the right stuff.

   We just need to be Americans.  We just need to do the right things.
   We need to be a nation of laws.   We also need an organization like the ACLU to keep a watch on things.
   Right now the one thing we do not need is Republicans in the White House or in Congress.

Hate works both ways

Sorry Jim but I'm gonna have to call you  out  - your most recent two posts are just too close in time and adjacent on my screen at the moment. 

At 0807:

"  I just do not understand why there is so much hate for President Obama. "

And adjacent at 0728:

  " I HATE the blog RedState.Com with a passion.  They are such a right wing hate site."  

Those two aren't exactly equivalent  - you're wondering why so much hatred for a person,  Barack Obama, on one hand while you yourself express hate for a website and by extension for a Party on the other but hate is hate and it's a short trip from hating "something" like redstate.com to hating the people behind it and the people it supports.  

I do agree with you that there is a whole industry and movement out there built on hating Barack Obama and working to bring him down.  An intelligent, thoughful man is seen as a threat and portrayed in the most inflammatory terms the right can dream up. It is beyond reason and does not bring credit on those who have become hate-mongers.  Do they deserve hate in return? Well they sure don't deserve admiration and it is hard to understand the depth of their venom but should we hate the haters? Easy to do but it just raises the rhetoric level another notch and both sides are slinging mud - with everybody diminished.

Better to rise above it - call them out for what they are and what they are doing to civility and honest dialogue but let them have the low road to themselves.  Maybe they'll slide off it and  those who aren't of their persuasion will see them as the shrill bullies they are. 

It used to be just Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity - now they've got competition and fellow travelers. Come to think of it I'm not very fond of Sean Hannity myself. In fact I've probably said I hate him so I need to do some talking to myself on the topic. 

I sure don't like those three and lots more of their ilk but I think I can hold it in and try to not fall into their league and language.  Any true independents  - those who swing elections - will see them for what they are - unreasonable people who aren't nearly as well informed as they think they are and and are following some very flawed leaders and media outlets. Nothing very fair or balanced about their sources. 

 

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Steps Down from Congress

Uploaded by giffords2 on Jan 22, 2012

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced her plans to step down from Congress Jan. 22, 2011.
Transcript of video:
"Arizona is my home, always will be. A lot has happened over the past year. We cannot change that. But I know on the issues we fought for we can change things for the better. Jobs, border security, veterans. We can do so much more by working together. I don't remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice. Thank you for your prayers and for giving me time to recover. I have more work to do on my recovery so to do what is best for Arizona I will step down this week. I'm getting better. Every day, my spirit is high. I will return and we will work together for Arizona and this great country. Thank you very much."

Grandson walked into Air Jordan frenzy

  My grandson is 22 years old.  He has never been in trouble with the police.  He is working.  He works at a mall. 
  My grandson is biracial (half black). 
  When he got home from work he told me what happened today about 0530 hours.  He was walking towards the mall to go to work and a police officer took his arm and pulled him hard back away from the mall.  The officer demanded to know where he was going.  My grandson told him he was going to work.  The officer demanded to see his employee ID card and Russell did not have it with him.  The officer then asked him how he was going to get into the mall and he told the officer and the officer then let him go into the mall and go to work.
  From listening to the RadioReference archives of Fort Worth police calls for that time it appears that there was a very large group of blacks that were inside the mall running around.
  From reading CNN it appears it was happening all over the United States.
  A new version of the Michael Jordan athletic shoes sent fans to malls across the United States to get the shoes!
 
  
  I am not saying the police did anything wrong.  I am not even saying it was racial profiling. They were dealing with a group of blacks.  So it makes sense they would be checking blacks.
  But I love my grandson and I hate to see something like that happen to him.
  I am also glad that nothing bad happened. 
 
  I am not sure if the feelings that I am having are normal.  Some other grandfather might be mad or upset or in a rage.
  But I have been a police officer.  I have was a security officer from 1971 to 2000 in Kansas City.  During that time I worked part-time security at a shopping mall.
  After 2000 I worked security in Orlando (FL), Dallas (TX) and Miami (FL).  For one year, in Miami, I worked full time doing mall security.   So I can see both sides of events like this.

  My grandson was not upset or mad about anything.  He did not come home angry.  He just wanted to tell me about it. 

  I am thinking how stupid of people to go nuts about shoes.  Then I think hell I have seen women going nuts over sales and wedding dresses.  People get crazy over thing they want.

  When things like this happen both sides need to calm down and use good sense.  Things can get out of hand.

Gingrich would arrest judges!

“WASHINGTON -- With just weeks to go before the Iowa Caucus, Newt Gingrich has turned his presidential campaign into a veritable megaphone warning about the dangers and elitism of America's judicial system. The former House Speaker held a half-hour phone call on Saturday during which he pledged to abolish courts and eliminated activist judges he believed were either outside the mainstream or infringing too deeply on the commander in chief's authority.

On Sunday, he followed that up by saying he would be willing to arrest a judge who he thought was out of line.

"If you had to," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" when asked if he would send a Capitol Hill police officer to round up a judge, "or you would instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshal." His preference, he added, would be to impeach the judge in question…”    Huffington Post

 

    I been talking about Newt Gingrich for years.  In the past I said some good things about him.  Recently I been saying how bad he is now. 
    But until now I did not think that Newt Gingrich was insane.  He suffers from bad mental problems.

    I guess yesterday he said he would do away with entire courts, if he was President of the United States, to get rid of judges that he did not agree with!
   So you expect him the next day to pull a Cain and say it was a joke or come up with something to correct the very stupid an un-American thing that he said… But Newt doubles down!  The next day he says that he will send the Capitol Police or United States Marshals to arrest judges! 

  He is crazy and scary.  He is very scary.
  I think even the corn famers of Iowa know how un-American what he is say would be.  So it will be interesting to see how he does in the polls now and in the vote in Iowa. 

Update on the food stamp shooting

  I have seen very little about this on the news.  You would think that would be major news.  I would think it would be something that everyone would be talking about.

 

“LAREDO, Texas -- In one of the poorest counties in the U.S., neighbors still pitied Rachelle Grimmer and her children. Grimmer would walk down the highway after midnight and beg closing crews at restaurants for food they planned to throw away.

Her children, 12-year-old Ramie and 10-year-old Timothy, didn't go to school. They bathed outside the family's trailer with the garden hose. Timothy wore the same camouflage shorts day after day.

Grimmer didn't have a job, and the state had denied the family food stamps and emergency help despite repeated requests. Tragic shootings sometimes come without warning, but interviews with family members and neighbors show there were many signs of frustration before Grimmer entered a state welfare building with a .38-caliber handgun earlier this week and shot herself and her children after a seven-hour standoff.

Ramie died Wednesday night at a San Antonio hospital; her brother was taken off life support Thursday and died. They led a miserable, nomadic life leading up to the standoff – which Ramie live-updated on Facebook with an eerie mix of detachment ("im bored") and dread ("may die 2day").

The children's father, Dale Grimmer, had tried three times since his divorce about six years ago to have them removed from his ex-wife's custody while they were living in Montana and Ohio, said his mother, Mary Lee Shepherd. She claimed her daughter-in-law had a history of mental illness that authorities ignored…”

 

  Since I last posted about the story the two children have died.
 
  The story has a lot of details.  See Huffington Post story

First nationwide Emergency Alert System test

“Washington (CNN) -- Problems were reported across the country during the first-ever nationwide test Wednesday of the Emergency Alert System, designed to allow the president to address the American people during a national emergency.

Some television and radio stations did not air the planned 30-second test at all. Some that aired it stayed with the signal longer than others.

There were anecdotal reports of TV stations failing to air the message in Washington, Atlanta, New York, California and elsewhere. The message did not air on a cable channel being monitored in a Capitol Hill office and in the Capitol's radio and TV gallery…”

 

  I had forgot that there was going to be a nation wide test.  I was watching TV at the time.  But I was watching a recorded show from my DVR unit.  I think the system worked the way it should.
  I was watching the recorded show and it kicked me out of the video over to a cable channel that had the test.  So after the test I had to go back to DVR and start the video again but it had saved the location so I just started watching were I had left off.
  So I would say from my point of view it was a success.  I have Charter Cable service.

  Not sure how long I will have Charter Cable service!  The other day I got an email from Charter Internet Security that my IP address had committed a “copyright infringement.”  I am not going into detail about it here.     My grandson and I share this apartment and Internet service.  
  Well yesterday I got another email from them.  It seems that whatever my grandson downloaded, not that I am saying he did download something, it took him three days to download (if he did download it).  So I may get another notice about the incident. 
 
  I told my grandson about the emails and I told him not to be downloading stuff if there was any question about it.  I also told him that if Charter cancels my Internet service that I will get DSL service and that it will be for me alone and that he will have get his own Internet service.  He needs Internet service, well we all need Internet service, because he is taking college classes online.
  Right now I have 18Mbps down and 2 Mbps up Internet service.  If I have to get DSL service I think the most I could get would be 12Mbps down and 800Kbps up.  That would be from AT&T.
  I hope I do not lose my Internet service from Charter.  My grandson loves fast Internet service.  Well we all do.  What I should do is just use Charter for my own use and make him pay for DSL service for his access.

Author of tough Arizona immigration law recalled

“(CNN) -- The state senator who wrote Arizona's controversial immigration law conceded defeat Tuesday night in a recall election widely seen as a referendum on tough measures against illegal immigrants…” 

 

  I am starting to feel good about things.  I think, at last, the American people are starting to understand. 
  The win in Ohio yesterday and this are good signs.  We still have to see Wisconsin kick Gov. Walker out of office.

  Then happy days will be here again… Well I guess not happy days… We can not have happy days with over 9% of Americans not working.
  But I am happy about yesterday. 

Is corporal punishment appropriate?

Do you believe corporal punishment by parents is appropriate for children?

Read Related Articles

Yes  63%

55582

No  37%

32421

Total votes: 88003

 

Social Security checks to rise 3.6%

  Happy days are here again!  Old farts like me (senior citizens) will get their first Social Security increase in three years.  We are going to get a 3.6% increase in January.
  Inflation has been low ( ) in recent years so we have not got a COLA increase since 2009.  It seems to us like cost have been going up every time we buy something but the government said the increase was low.
  Now, at last, we are going to get a COLA increase.
  I get $1155.00 a month from Social Security.  Of course they take out for Medicare almost $100.00 each month.  So I get each month $1,022.00 a month. 
  So each month I will get an extra $36.79 if my math is correct.  We have not received the notice from Social Security yet with the notice and with the amount we will be getting.

See CNN for “Social Security checks to rise 3.6%.” 

  So I will be getting $1058.79 a month unless they decide to increase the amount I have to pay for my monthly Medicare fee. 

  Of course just the other day I got the increase in fees that the Medicare insurance company will be making in 2012. 
  A few years ago I had a prostate cancer screening exam.  I forget if I had to pay for it or not but if I got one in 2011 I would have a copayment of zero dollars.  I do not plan to have one again but next year if I one I would have to pay 20% of the total cost.
  That is just a little sample of the stuff that is going to come up and happen.

  But I am glad I will be getting a few extra dollars each month.
  Social Security is an excellent program.  It works.  It is great. 
  Medicare is also an excellent program for older Americans.   All Americans need a program like Medicare.