TESTING...ONE, TWO, THREE

WOW....I thought I got it! Abby has been bugging me to learn how to attach links to my blog. I previously reported that I was finally successful in that endeavor. But alas, I was wrong. My bad!

CROSS-OVER VOTERS

Extremist candidates and low voter turnout are the "norm" these days, so I support the effort to allow registered independents and other third party voters to cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries. By allowing those voters to participate in primary elections, several very important benefits can be achieved. First, the unfair disenfranchisement of independent and third party voters would finally end. Those voters ought to be heard, and that should include in primary elections, especially in politically lopsided districts such as York County where final decisions are frequently decided in the primaries. Second, by opening primaries to independent voters, who tend to be middle-of-the-road in their political beliefs, there is a far greater likelihood that qualified moderate candidates, who appeal to people in both parties, will choose to run for public office. Political extremists only represent fringe elements of their own party and do not give a voice to the majority of people they are supposed to represent, whereas moderate candidates offer a far better chance of actually advancing the interests of a greater number of their constituents. Democracy thrives when the most number of voices are heard. Let independent and third party voters speak too!

IRAQ - A GLANCE IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

Over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children lost their lives in our war to depose Saddam Hussein. That’s 100,000 innocent men, women and children who all had names, families, dreams, aspirations for the future and who aren’t coming back. To put that number in perspective, 100,000 is almost thirty-four times the number of innocent lives lost at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.

When you consider the anguish, pain and suffering people in this country experienced in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy one can hardly imagine the pain being endured by bereaved family members of innocent victims all across Iraq, multiplied times thirty-four, yet scarce attention has been paid to their individual losses.

I recognize the American party line is now that all Iraqis should be thankful we liberated them from a brutal dictator, but the truth of the matter is we didn’t invade their country or cause the deaths of 100,000 innocent civilians in the name of liberation, we took those 100,000 innocent lives in the name of protecting ourselves. Whether Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat or not, one thing is perfectly clear: 100,000 innocent men, women and children had their lives snuffed out so we could feel safer. We should all have a hard time sleeping because of it.

PRAYING FOR THE SOUL OF BIN LADEN

Somebody at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in West Palm Beach, Florida put Osama bin Laden's name on the congregation's prayer list, and some members of that congregation aren't too happy with the idea. They prefer to cling to the widely-held notion in this country that bin Laden is already burning in hell, and they aren't in any mood to pray for an early release.

Catholic doctrine holds that departed souls can still benefit from prayers offered by the living, and apparently, there is somebody at the Holy Name of Jesus church who thinks there's still time to salvage bin Laden's soul. I'll admit I'm a skeptic on both counts, but I have to admire the individual who placed bin Laden's name on the prayer list, because that's the act of an individual who's willing to follow Christ's "love thy enemies" dictate.

A lot of people profess that America is a Christian nation and claim that we seek to follow the teachings of Christ, but that's mostly hogwash. Saying that you're a faithful Christian is easy. Being a faithful Christian is a whole different story.

IN THE PURSUIT OF LIFE, LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - Thomas Jefferson (America's Declaration of Independence)

Yesterday, police in Mexico stopped two tractor-trailers filled with human cargo destined for the United States. A combined five hundred and thirteen would-be immigrants were packed like sardines inside two tractor-trailers, with little water and insufficient air to sustain them during the arduous journey. According to the statement released by Mexican police, the would-be immigrants paid $7,000 apiece to make the journey, and given the conditions in their mode of transportation, some of the travelers were destined to pay the ultimate price – death, had they not been discovered when they were.

Think about it. Five hundred and thirteen people were willing to pay seven thousand dollars apiece for the opportunity to pursue life, liberty and happiness in America, while a vast number of our own citizens cry foul when the government levies a single dollar in taxes for the same privilege. It makes me question whether we really value the rights and the life we have in this country.

Some people view that group of would-be immigrants as a pack of criminals, intent on illegally violating our border, but I can't help appreciating the fact that these individuals found life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness so valuable that they would pay such a hefty price, and even risk death, in an attempt to experience what we claim are inalienable rights endowed by God, our creator!

Those people deserve our cheers, not our jeers!

LIBYAN RAP & OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh - Who knew that Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, was a big rap music fan? Apparently, he can't get the lyrics from MC Hammer's rap song, "U can't touch this" out of his head, telling Libyan state television that NATO air strikes can't touch him. That's a lot of bravado coming from a guy who had to flee his nation's capital because rebel fighters, finally fed-up after decades of torture from Gadhafi's brutal regime, are slowly overtaking it.

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh - Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Hussein thought the same thing. He was found living in a hole in the ground.

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh – Gadhafi says that he is safely entrenched in the hearts of his citizens. Saddam thought that too…which might explain why thousands partied in the streets the day he was hung.

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh – Osama bin Laden managed to avoid capture and death for ten years, but even his luck ran out.

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh – 91 year-old John Demjanjuk was finally brought to justice. He convicted last week in a German Court for his role in killing thousands of Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Can't touch this…da-da-da-da-duh - They all thought they were untouchable...and they were all wrong!

SOME LOCAL NEWS TO PONDER

York City Council's vote to provide domestic partner coverage in its employee health insurance plan is nothing short of brilliant! Any day now, fire and brimstone will start raining down from the Heavens. With York's fire department in the process of downsizing, it'll be unable to control the firestorm, and large swaths of city blocks will be reduced to rubble in a matter of hours. Residents will be forced to flee the City for suburbia, where the grass is greener and the schools are better and drug wars only happen when three seniors battle for position at the supermarket pharmacy counter. With nobody left to police, the City can significantly cut its forces and, with the influx of funds from rebuilding permits, the City will recover its financial health in a matter of months. Given all the new empty space, parking problems should disappear overnight, snow removal will no longer be a problem, and those pesky meter maids can finally be retired. It's a win-win situation for everybody. That's why it's hard to believe that City Council would consider such a humane act of kindness, but they did, and I'm glad. The world needs all the kindness it can get.

THE WHACKY 4

I'm probably one of a handful of blazing left-wingers who's willing to admit this, but I'm glad Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul have tossed their hats into the 2012 presidential candidate ring. Now, if Donald Trump and Sarah Palin would only throw their hats into the ring, the GOP's "whacky-4" would be complete.

Of the four, only Palin should worry folks. Gingrich, Paul and Trump are honest and up-front with their political beliefs, and won't mince words telling folks exactly what they'll do if elected to the White House. I see that as a good thing, because the beliefs of that trio are so far outside the mainstream of moderate conservatism that even the average Republican would be scared to vote for them. They may not like voting for Obama, but a known rational commodity is far better than anything those three men would bring to the table. Trumps diving poll numbers seem to verify that fact. Gingrich and Ron Paul can't be too far behind.

Palin should give folks reason for pause, because she has a surface appeal, call it charisma if you will, and that charisma masks her scary political agenda. Make no mistake about it - Palin is just as radical as Gingrich, Paul and Trump. Her down-home folksy style does a much better job hiding that fact. It's the wolf in sheep's clothing everyone should be concerned with, not the dangers in full sight!

WEIRD NEWS OF THE DAY

U.S. Officials claim that pornography was found among the stuff seized from Osama bin Laden's compound.

Doubtless, people in the Middle East will raise their eyes over this allegation, and figure it's an attempt by the United States to further smear bin Laden's name, but for those who understand the connection between lust for human degradation and pornography won't see that revelation as a stretch. Osama bin Laden feasted on human degradation of the worst sort, so it's not a surprise that he'd be into pornography too.

SON, IT'S A LITTLE LATE FOR OUTRAGE!

According to published reports, one of Osama bin Laden's sons has publicly and bitterly complained that the decision made by the United States to bury his father's body at sea is demeaning to the bin Laden family. Pardon me if I don't share his sense of outrage!

Grief is an appropriate emotion at the time of a parent's death, even a parent as demented and evil as Osama was, and you can certainly understand why a son might lash out in his time of sorrow over a perceived slight to his grieving family. Death has a way of stirring that emotion in folks.

What I want to know is this: Why wasn't this son of bin Laden publicly complaining when his deranged father demeaned the bin Laden family reputation by killing thousands of innocent men, woman and children on September 11th, 2001? Where was the public display of bitterness in the decade afterward, as lieutenants of bin Laden continued their killing of thousands of innocent civilians in daily bombings across the Middle East? The vast majority of those dead followed bin Laden's own Islamic tradition. Surely, the grief of those families meant something to this now-grieving son. Or, maybe it didn't!

Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe this son of bin Laden was so wrapped up in his own sense of importance that he never took the time to consider the grief and the horrendous suffering his father was unleashing against the rest of the world. Maybe this son of bin Laden thought the rest of the world deserved the misery, and maybe, just maybe, this son was sharing in his father's jubilation as the twin towers in New York City fell into a heap of rubble and death. We may never know for sure. One thing I do know is this - bin Laden junior finally knows what the rest of us felt. And it hurts!

CONSPIRACY THEORIES ONLY FOR THE SANE

Remember, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you! – Anonymous

I'm one of those crazy people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy. I believe that in 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong actually walked on the moon. I believe Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinski. I also believe Clinton White House counselor, Vince Foster, committed suicide. I think terrorists acted without George Bush's and the C.I. A.'s help or approval on September 11th. I think President Obama was born in Hawaii, and I also think Osama bin Laden is now dead and feeding crustaceans at the bottom of the Arabian Sea. I realize my beliefs may go against popular thought, but I'm comfortable with a life unencumbered by conspiracy theories.

GE - BRINGING THE PLIGHT OF PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES TO LIGHT

Public servants (not to be confused with elected politicians) have become the latest scapegoat in the right-wing's ideological war against government and taxation. Instead of laying the blame where it deserves to be – at the feet of Republicans for waging two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) without demanding that taxpayers sacrifice out of their pocketbooks to pay for those wars, the GOP has launched a nationwide attack on public service workers to divert the blame them for the country's economic woes away from where it deserves to be.

Policemen, firefighters, teachers, prison guards, road maintenance crews, health clinic nurses, regulators, inspectors, judges, scientists and low-level bureaucrats are not to blame for the Wall Street meltdown, the Mortgage Industry tanking or the shipping of millions of jobs overseas. Those fiascos you can lay at the feet of the well-heeled Republican politicians and the money interests that stand behind them and fund their campaigns.

Take General Electric, for example. Last year, GE raked in $14.2 billion dollars in profits, but didn't pay a dime in income taxes. What's worse, GE took advantage of corporate tax credits created by Republicans and siphoned $3.2 billion back from the U.S. Treasury. With corporate theft of that magnitude, supported by the GOP, no wonder the federal deficit is growing by leaps and bounds.

Perhaps public sector employees should find some solace in the fact that they all paid more in federal income taxes than GE last year, but they probably won't. They're too worried about keeping their jobs.

BAIT.....AND OTHER NONSENSE

"A faceless government is taking away their lifeline, water, all because of a 3-inch fish. Where I come from, a 3-inch fish, we call that bait. There is no need to destroy people's lives over bait."

-Sarah Palin (speaking at West Hills College in California for a fee of $115,000)

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To counter public outcry against paying such a fee, West Hills College sold VIP tickets at $5000 dollars apiece to 25 individuals who got to sit up close to Ms. Palin as she was speaking and later shake her hand.

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"Where I come from, spending an amount equal to our family's yearly food budget, just to sit close to a celebrity and shake her hand, is not what I'd call a good example of fiscal responsibility. And a person who has that kind of money to burn certainly is not having their life ruined by a 3-inch fish."

-Steve Zorbaugh (typing in Pennsylvania without the likelihood of collecting any fee)

MAY 2nd - THOUGHTS IN THE AFTERMATH

Whenever I'm part of a group and the discussion turns to the events of September 11th, 2001, I've tried to pay particular attention to what people remember from that day. Most people remember where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news, much like my generation recalls where we were when President Kennedy was shot. Some folks were watching the television when the second plane struck the World Trade Center. Others saw the videotape afterward. Most remember the gut-wrenching images of the buildings collapsing, people running, dust and falling debris filling the air, and the looks of shock and horror that crossed the faces of everybody they knew. It was one of those days we'll never forget, because the trauma of that tragic event will be forever seared in our psyche.

Strangely, over the past ten years, nobody I've queried about their most vivid memory of 9/11 has ever mentioned the one scene that haunts me more than all others from that day – a newsreel segment of thousands of Palestinians filling the streets in Gaza. They were smiling, singing and gleefully celebrating the horrific deaths of three thousand people they never even knew. Those three thousand innocent people, with friends, families and loved ones who would never again have the benefit and warmth of their company, met with a tragic end…and thousands of miles away, people were dancing in the streets with joy at their loss. That's what I remember most about September 11th.

I suspect that years from now, assuming I live that long, people will ask me what I recall from May 2nd, 2011, the day Osama bin Laden – the terrorist mastermind of 9/11 – was shot and killed by U.S. Navy Seals. And the one thing I'll remember more than anything, were the people in the streets, smiling, singing and gleefully celebrating the death of an evil, evil man thousands of miles away.

All day yesterday, my thoughts kept returning to the Amish community at Nickel Mines in Pennsylvania. In 2006, Charles Roberts, a deranged man, entered the community's one-room schoolhouse and shot ten girls, killing five, before committing suicide. The Amish in that community banded together in their grief, and showed their utmost compassion by reaching out to the family of Mr. Roberts, who the Amish also recognized were hurt by the tragedy. There was no singing and dancing in the streets in Nickel Mines over Charles Robert's death; just the recognition that a great loss was suffered by all. That's what I took from September 11th. That's what I'll take from May 2nd too!

God bless the entire world. Lord knows we all need it.

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD

Many will find jubilation in the news that the U.S. has located and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack upon the United States. Others will feel justice has finally been done and gain a sense of closure by hearing the news. But there's a bittersweet aspect to watching the celebrations that are happening in the streets all across this country. The death of bin Laden will not resurrect the innocent lives who's blood he spilled during his horrific campaign of terror, and try as we might, we will never successfully erase the horror that was etched in our minds as we watched the events of September 11th unfold.

Still, the world is a better place with Osama bin Laden no longer in it.

MOUTHING OFF, TEXAS STYLE

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas has been mouthing off the past several days about the time it's taking the Obama Administration to process his request for Texas to be designated a "disaster area" because of the severe storms and tornadoes that swept across the South, including parts of Texas, over the past two weeks. Now mind you, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was on the ground in Texas the day after the first tornado swept through, but Perry is more interested in the "disaster area" designation because that opens the door for businesses in the affected area to get low interest government loans, even if the businesses haven't been damaged by the storm and even if all the money isn't being used to rebuild damaged areas.

In principle, I support Governor Perry's request, because I believe it is America's collective responsibility to help out citizens hit by these kinds of natural disasters. I know that sounds a bit socialistic and Christian of me, but I'm a staunch believer in helping neighbors in need, and if that makes me a believer in socialism or Christianity, so be it.

I don't particularly subscribe to the notion that businesses that weren't damaged by the storms should be able to get government subsidized loans too, but if that's the price I have to pay for seeing that the truly needy get help, so be that too.

What I find offensive about Governor Perry's current beef is that it's coming from the same man who heretofore regularly criticized others for asking for the exact same thing he's now asking for the state of Texas. This the same Rick Perry who said that the people of New Orleans should get off their butts and stop looking to the federal government to solve their problems, and this the same Rick Perry who said that Texans would be better off seceding (*) from the Union because they could get along better without the rest of the country. Now, all of the sudden, there stands Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, with his hands outstretched, moaning and groaning that Texans aren't getting their share of the Federal Government's largess. That's hypocrisy in my book.

Where's all the bravado we're use to seeing in Rick Perry? Where's all that loud-mouth talk about rugged individualism and people solving their own problems? Where's that boisterous cheer for secession (*), now that the people in Texas find themselves in need of assistance? Perhaps those twisters took Perry's bag of wind with them, because suddenly, Rick Perry's not the larger-than-life figure he likes to think he is.

(*) Here's a shout-out to Dan Sindlinger for correcting my spelling.