Just gotta hang the gate and I'll be done with the fence on the north side of my house.

Road Trip!!!

Karen and I are off to Phoenix, Az. this weekend to take in a couple of spring training baseball games. We will be seeing the Angels on Saturday and the Dodgers on Sunday.

See ya next week.

Drinking the "cool aid" as well!!

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D Florida) grabbed my attention during the recent presidential campaign as a straight talking, take no shit, politician. Today she announced that she has been battling breast cancer for over a year.


Wasserman Shultz, 42, discovered a lump in her breast over a year ago during a self examination two months after a clean mammogram. She has had seven major surgeries in the last year, all during congressional breaks. Because of her family history of breast cancer returning in healthy tissue, she has had both breasts removed.


Wasserman Shultz has gone public with her illness while introducing a bill to target breast cancer awareness for younger women. "Young women do think we're invincible; and we don't think about it. The bill will also focus on educating physicians. So many times physicians blow off a young woman when she comes in with symptoms or warning signs because they don't focus on that young women can get breast cancer."

Wasserman Shultz is married to Steve Shultz and they have three children.

E.O.W. Oakland P.D.

Officer John Hege

Sgt. Daniel Sakai

Sgt. Mark Dunakin

Sgt. Ervin Romans

Sadly...

As I predicted here just the other day, the UCLA Bruins got their lunch handed to them by the Villanova Wildcats 89-69 ending their trip to college basketball's playoff system known as "March Madness".

The game was pretty much over after about five minutes when three different Bruins were seen hitting the floor when driving to the basket. Villanova was much more physical than UCLA and the early pounding seemed to take the life out of the Bruins. The Bruins were trailing 28-11 with ten minutes left in the first half. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Bruin highlights include... well there really were no Bruin highlights, so here are their cheerleaders instead.

Pope Benedict recently made the statement that, "condoms are not the answer to AIDS on the African continent. You can't solve the problem with the distribution of condoms, In fact, it increases the problem."

Cartoonists have had a field day with this as you can well imagine.

Don't drink the Cool Aid!!!

OMG!!! (Oh My Gosh)

It seems that many religionists are in a tizzy over the on-line version of "The Game of Life." Remember playing the game where you spin an embedded dial and move a car around the board getting married, getting a job, paying enormous amounts of money for "things", and ultimately retiring?

Well it seems that there is an on-line version of the game on http://www.shockwave.com/ that allows the players to marry someone of the same sex. AGHAST!!! The same-sex couple is also allowed to have children. HAVE MERCY!!! Some of the complaints have been from parents who have been confronted by "uncomfortable questions" from their young offspring.

What to do!! What to do!!

Representative Randy Forbes (R-Va) from the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced a bill to place the Lincoln-Obama Bible on permanent display in the Capitol Visitor Center. The bill states that the Bible should be permanently displayed "on the Lincoln table at the Capitol Visitor Center for the benefit of all it's visitors to fully understand and appreciate America's history and Godly heritage."

This of course is the Bible that President Obama took his oath of office on in January of this year.

I have no problem with the display of this Bible for purely historic purposes. However, I have to take offense to the wording of his proclamation and wonder where Rep. Forbes' real intentions lie.



First there is a great deal of evidence that those who formed our great nation were less Christian in belief than Deist. A Deist is someone who believes that there is a "god" but that he/she formed the universe and has been "hands off" ever since. The Deist likens "god" as a great watch maker who puts the movement of the watch into motion and then steps back and watches it tick.

Now the statement "Godly Heritage" may not be a problem until Rep. Forbes goes on to add in the body of the bill, "Whereas the Holy Bible is God's Word." Says who? Which God? America has long been the "melting pot" of the world and that melting pot has always included persons of every faith and many of no faith. The Holy Bible is strictly a Christian text and would lend one to believe that the "Godly Heritage" indicated would be the Christian Godly Heritage.

Now you may say that nobody who visits the capitol visitors center will ever know the wording behind the bill so what's the big deal. Would Congress, by approving this bill, be confirming that the Bible is the word of God? We have this small issue called separation of church and state.

Rep. Forbes - display the Bible if you wish for historic value, but change the wording of your bill to be more inclusive of all faiths (or no faith) of the United States of America.

You can read the bill at www.opencongress.org/bill/111-hc34/text.

UCLA 65 VCU 64

The UCLA Bruins pulled out a squeaker last night beating Virginia Commonwealth University by one point. The Bruins were ahead by one with 18 seconds and won when VCU guard Eric Maynor missed a driving lay up at the buzzer.

I've been watching and rooting for the Bruins all year and I just don't see them advancing too much further in the tournament. They just don't seem to have a killer instinct in the last ten minutes of the game.

It could happen!!!

There's a little controversy brewing over in New Zealand, where authorities are trying to figure out whether a woman who gave birth on a flight from Samoa to Auckland left her baby on board the plane intentionally.

Reports differ. Some say the mother abandoned the newborn and walked off the plane. Others say she tried to go back to the plane for the baby (so, presumably, she merely forgot about it).

This happened on a Pacific Blue airline flight today.It's also not known whether any of the crew noticed that the woman was in labor or had given birth. All the New Zealand Press Association says is that "the baby was found on the aircraft" after landing.Both mother and child are recovering at an Auckland hospital as the investigation continues.

"Let's see. Where did I put that newborn baby I just delivered?????"

My friend Jack and I went to the beach Wednesday to take advantage of a high pressure system over the area bringing rather warm conditions. (Thank you Jackie Johnson!!)It was a nice day and traffic in both directions was pretty light. We've certainly noticed a drop in traffic in the area recently due in part I think from the 10% unemployment rate in SoCal.

Who is Jackie Johnson someone asked??? She is the meteorologist for KCal9 News in the evening. In 2003 she was voted the "hottest meteorologist" by Playboy magazine.

Lost amongst the news about AIG and it's bonuses yesterday was the 6th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq for colonization by the U.S. I like to call it colonization because we aren't leaving completely anytime soon.

President Bush told us it would be strictly to disarm then Iraqi strongman Sadam Hussein. He told us it would not cost more than $2.4 billion dollars and we would be greeted as liberators.

Today the death toll for U.S. military personnel stands at 4,259 with another 31,102 wounded. The loss to Iraqi civilians is over 91,000. The cost is currently believed to be $659 billion dollars and rising every day.

There are currently 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. President Obama campaigned on the promise of ending the Iraq war. 12,000 troops are scheduled to return home by September of this year. President Obama has said that all but 40 to 50,000 troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Let's hope he is good on his word on this one.

An interesting side note: The photos of the flag draped coffins of U.S. troops coming home were banned from the media by President Bush throughout the Iraq war so as not to draw attention to the casualties. President Obama lifted that ban believing that the troops coming home demanded the respect they deserved for the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Todays birthdays include:

Actor Jerry Lewis who is 83 years old

Game show host Chuck Woolery who is 68 years old.

Eric Estrada who is 60 years old.

Brooke Burns who is 31 years old.

My son Corey got a tattoo last Friday on his left shoulder.