The Sham of Microchipping Pets

I continue to see postings and info-pieces put forth by supposed animal-loving groups & individuals on the benefits of microchipping one's pets.

Here is one I just reviewed
All Cats Need an Identity: Cats Without ID Can Become a Statistic

I quote :

The headline never fails to cause a twinge of empathy in a cat lover. Nothing can approximate the emotions playing hopscotch through the mind of someone who has lost a cat: fear that you'll never see her again; fear that you will see her again-- a broken corpse thrown to the side of a road; paranoia that someone has stolen her; anger at the cat for escaping; guilt and remorse for allowing her escape; hope that any minute now you'll hear that familiar "meow" and she'll be waiting patiently at the front door; and that heavy, dull, empty feeling of loss

Sounds like the only true compassion is keeping your cat or other pet microchipped and registered, right? Also, major heaps of F.U.D. (= Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) if you don't do this.

Here are some other less-alarming pro-microchipping pieces
- 'Microchipping Your Cat for Extra Safety', http://www.myhealthycat.com/microchipping.html
- 'All About Microchipping Identification for Dogs and Cats', http://petcaretips.net/microchipping-dog.html

Here is a pro-microchipping piece that hints at the current costs to animal shelters and potential pet owners for voluntary microchipping theirs pets. 'Microchip Your Cat', http://catszone.blogspot.com/2007/03/microchip-your-cat.htm

Microchipping is not an expensive procedure, in most areas the cost of this safety precaution is $50 USD. The owner must pay an additional fee to register the cat’s microchip ID information. This registration fee is used to make sure your cat’s information is entered into databases at shelters in your area. If you get your cat from an animal shelter, it may already be microchipped and you will only have to pay the small registration fee. Contact your local animal shelter to find out if they provide a free microchipping service.

Finally for now, there is also the "Uses and benefits" section of the Microchip implant (animal) Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchip_implant_(animal)#Uses_and_benefits
As this piece summarizes,

Microchips have been particularly useful in the return of lost pets. They can also assist where the ownership of an animal is in dispute.

--

The striking aspect of all these site-pieces, without exception, is that these are all for the supposed benefit of the pet-owner and naturally, the owned pet.

Actually, there are some disturbing trends that indicate that any accrued benefit of microchipping may not be completely beneficial for the pet(!), and even more certainly, not for that pet-owner who voluntarily chose to microchip his/her pet or who voluntarily chose to adopt his/her pet in the first place.

Consider these findings.
1. The cons of microchipping pets as described at goemstic.com's Pros and Cons of Microchipping Pets
2. Within the last few years preceding this particular blog writeup, several news reports of studies suggesting that microchip implants may be linked to
tumors in pets.
- The washingtonpost.com's 'Chip Implants Linked to Animal Tumors
- LA radio station KNBC's Do Microchip Implants Pose Health Threat To Pets, Humans?
- A hard-hitting Anonyumous blogspot.com response to Arlington Pets blog: Microchip Concerns Premature

I'm extremely disappointed by your post. The title alone is misleading, if not wholly inaccurate. Ohio State University's veterinary oncology dept. has come forward requesting a full, 20-year retrospective study of chips and possible sarcoma links before any categorical ruling of 'safety'. The medical community has immediately stopped the implantation of chips in alzheimer's and dimentia patients, and most of the doctor's of the 200 or so already implanted are planning immediate removal.

One dog has already been confirmed to have contracted and died from chip-associated sarcoma. Perhaps it's best that you let ALL of the facts come out before commenting that concerns are 'premature'.

And citing the AVMA holds little to no validity in my book. It's an organization committed to its members and their business, not to animal welfare. Look at the AVMA's current VOCAL opposition to the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act.

Sorry - but you missed the boat on this one.10/18/2007 8:39 AM

Indeed, this may be the key reason that microchipping pets is a sham solely for our pets' healths alone.

IMNSHO, it seems to me that microchipping and the pet-databases associated with this practice are almost as concerned with licen$ing and product-marketing/spamming [to us pet owners] as they are with their primary purpose of recovering lost pets.


Are microchip manufacturers and veterinarians somehow burying the real statistical health-risks on the use of pet microchips from current and new pet-owners??

Who else could stand to benefit from the non-reversible use of pet microchips?
(Animal-rights lawyers and law enforcement personnel certainly!)

This may easily lead to a scenario in which animal registration and governmental surveillance possibly increases enactment and enforcement of animal-cruelty laws, making it increasingly criminal and punishable not to use pet microchip devices.
- What can effectively stop the eventual scenario of law enforcements' fining or arresting owners whose microchipped-ID'd pets accidentally and temporarily wander away from their owners, or fining or else arresting microchip ID'd owners when their pets miss a scheduled vaccination ??
- Will such owners of microchipped pets get fined or otherwise penalized when they do not pay initial and renewal fees for their pets' microchips?

FOX's mudslinging against Obama 2B called FOXslinging

Here is the YouTube video 'FOX ATTACKS OBAMA'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouKJixL--ms

No doubt one or more persons connected with the Clinton campaign put in their "little pitches" to FOXNews. Reminiscent of Yellow Journalism a century ago, it's recognizable, and it's awfully shameful of FOX to do!!! :<>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY04gIruZ4E&NR=1

Not even the simplistic excuse of "just trying to get at the real truth" cuts it for these guys; does this ever stop or turn towards Clinton??

Better to visit more balanced sites such as msnbc.
Their decent article of today is OBAMA CALLS WRIGHT ISSUE A DISTRACTION found at http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/26/819290.aspx
This article reveals Clinton's return after a week of silence to her typical anti-Obama mudslinging tactics.

Do the FOXslinging and Clinton's desperate mudslinging tactics really help get her elected?
A YouTube video that came out almost exactly a month ago hopefully helps shed light on this: 'Hillary Clinton Negative or Nice? NBC Calls Her Out! 2/25' ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMssGeYbnxI

Many of we Democrats will just have to remember all this as Clinton's supporters try to maneuver Obama as "the primary divisive candidate" for this Summer's DNC in Denver, http://www.demconvention.com/

Lest Clinton actually somehow wheedle her way past the Democratic delegate assembly into the role of the Democratic Presidential nominee, then we'll have to recall this when she tries running against McCain this Fall!

Big Democratic Primariess in TX and OH

Obama is trying to catch up to Conniving-Clinton in the Democratic Primaries of Texas and Ohio tomorrow. Current polls show that [Power]-Hungry Hillary is a few percentage points ahead of Obama in Texas. Hungry-Hillary's hubby, ex-Pres [Monica-inspired]-Bill is campaigning all over the great state of Texas for his Hungry-Hillary.

O.K., well maybe Conniving-Clinton can fool most Texans in her bid over Obama's for the nomination, but I just hope that the great people of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton,.. etcetera in Ohio really get some more sense in them and don't get as duped!!

Tomorrow's wish: Ohio goes right to Obama.

More sources on Anita Gay Shooting, part 3

Again, the news sources brought down on the shooting of Anita Gay CONTINUE to predominantly take Police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss's statements regarding officer Rashawn Cummings' actions as indisputably correct.
One can go through these sources and make one's own conclusions:

- SFGate's 'Neighbors blame cops in shooting death', found at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/18/BAELV4EKI.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

- OFFICER.com's 'California Neighborhood Angry after Police-Involved Shooting' found at http://www.officer.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=1&id=40247

- The Berkeley Daily Planet's 'Police Officer Kills Berkeley Woman' http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-02-15/article/29254

- East Bay Express blog 'Berkeley Police Shooting Questioned' found at
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/blogs/berkeley_police_shooting_questioned/Content?oid=646430

- The Daily Californian's 'Berkeley Police Officer Shoots, Kills Woman' found at
http://www.dailycal.org/article/100441/berkeley_police_officer_shoots_kills_woman



On the positive side with these above sources, it's clear there was no racist or lewd/bestial acts as in Brooklyn's Abner Louima case.


On the very negatively remaining side, officer Cummings shot Anita Gay in the back upon VERY questionable circumstances.
Here is another telling quote of one of the neighbors, taken verbatim from insideBayArea.com's 'Conflicting accounts in Berkeley shooting' found at http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_8294592?source=rss


"The police should be ashamed of themselves," said 55-year-old Channell King, who added she witnessed the incident from the front porch of her house, directly across the street from Gay's apartment building.

"He could have tased her, used rubber bullets — anything than what he did," King said of the policeman, who's been described by neighbors as a young African-American male. Gay was also African American.

"He could have tased her, used rubber bullets — anything than what he did," King said of the policeman, who's been described by neighbors as a young African-American male.

More sources on Anita Gay Shooting, part 2

The intended confusion on the conflicting accounts of Anita Gay's shooting continues.

According to KCBS's 'Berkeley Police Say Officer Involved Shooting Appears Justified' at http://www.kcbs.com/pages/1669328.php?,
Berkeley police are releasing more details about this weekend's fatal officer involved shooting, and they say their preliminary investigation shows deadly force was justified.


Again, a very one-sided acceptance of Berkeley Police Sergeant Mary Kussmiss's statements here:
”So the possibility that this suspect could have stabbed the family members very quickly, was very, very evident,” said Berkeley Police Sergeant Mary Kussmiss. “From our preliminary investigation, this officer acted within our deadly force policy, and therefore, the shooting was justified.”
This is the Berkeley Police Department's own self-reporting on the members of their own force, so OF COURSE they would find the shooting completely justified from their "preliminary investigation"!!


You'd really need an independent review here.


Another updated news source on the shooting that blatantly contradicts Berkeley Police Sergeant Mary Kussmiss's above preliminary findings, is SFGate.com's 'Neighbors blame cops in shooting death' found at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/18/BAELV4EKI.DTL
Several angry neighbors of a woman who was fatally shot Saturday night by a police officer outside her Berkeley apartment said Sunday that they do not agree with the officer's assertion that he had fired to protect himself and the woman's two daughters.

Here from speaking with persons other than the only officer(s) present at the scene, is some rudimentary gist for a MUCH more balanced and neutral review :
Neighbors said Gay had done nothing to threaten the officer and questioned whether she was a danger to her daughters.

Chanell King, 55, who lives across the street and said she saw the shooting, said Gay was shot in the back as she made a move up her front steps toward her front door. King said she talked to Gay's daughters after the shooting, and that they were angry.

"She didn't make a move to go after him or anything. The only move she made was to go back into the house," King said. "This woman died for nothing."

Then further on
Neighbor Kim Johnson, 26, said three officers, including Cummings, interviewed Gay and then left. There was no evidence that Gay broke the windows, Kusmiss said.

Johnson said she soon allowed Gay, who had been locked out by her daughters, to use her phone to call police again. Johnson said it was around this time that she noticed Gay had a kitchen knife.

A single officer returned to the street, parked, walked up Gay's driveway with a flashlight and then ordered her to drop the knife, Johnson said. The officer then ordered Gay to put her hands against the stucco wall of her apartment, Johnson said.

Staggering, Gay complied but bumped her head on the wall and had to pull up her shorts after they fell down, Johnson said.

Johnson said she and another neighbor, 26-year-old Lisa Jones, then walked away because they thought the situation was under control. The knife, Johnson said, was on the ground nearby. But after a few seconds, they heard the gunfire and ran back to find Gay on the ground.

Seems from this that the only person who definitively saw Anita Gay holding the knife was that exact sole "single officer" just mentioned.
If this single officer's testimony is at least 51 percent true, then goodness people, a male member of the force [for five years no less!] has just GOT to know how to disable a fifty year-old woman on medication/alcohol and shakily holding a knife, and doing this by *average* physical strength and using a standard-issue officer's baton..... and WITHOUT the need to fire a gun!! >:-<

GO FIGURE THIS OUT ALREADY !!!!!!!

and What really went on with the officer's trigger-happiness!!!???

More sources on Anita Gay Shooting, part 1

Here are further local media news stories found on last night's Anita Gay shooting :


- KTVU.com's 'Berkeley Officer Shoots Woman With Knife' found at http://www.ktvu.com/news/15325520/detail.html
- The Daily Californian's 'Berkeley Police Officer Shoots, Kills Woman'found at
http://www.dailycal.org/article/100425/berkeley_police_officer_shoots_kills_woman


These seem to be fairly closely-honed repeats of the earlier-quoted KCBS and SFGate online sources on this story. Differences in the news' versions are whether they specifically rely in a more balanced fashion upon Berkeley Police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss's official statements or upon members of Anita Gay's family and close friends in the neighborhood. Seems to me that to date, the SFGate news version of the shooting toes the line as far as going by Sgt Mary Kusmiss's official statements, and that the KCBS and The Daily Californian reporting of this got more of the story "on the ground" from Anita Gay's family and friends.
I'm wondering how the Berkeley Daily Planet will end up reporting this?


I find it fairly significant that the shooting comes at a time when the Berkeley Police force is left thin due to the ongoing demonstrations and counter-demonstrations over the Marine Corps Recruiting Center downtown (now being reported nationwide). As quoted in the same Daily Californian story as above:
The incident comes after a week when many Berkeley police officers worked overtime hours in response to a number of protests involving the Marine Corps recruiting center in Downtown Berkeley. On Tuesday night, at least 100 Berkeley police officers were stationed in front of the City Council chambers until 1a.m.


Getting close to nightfall now, and tomorrow is President's Day 2008, when many offices are officially closed for the National Holiday. During the daytime today, it was mostly quiet on the block of the shooting. A decent day out and people cycling and strolling around with family for the Holiday Weekend. Decently warm specifically in the sunlight once the morning cloud-cover and chill cleared up. Now its getting cool fast again. Neighbors were all aware of the news, and I wish some more reporters came by to ask we neighbors more of what really went on. Certainly did not see a significant police presence around my block or approaching Ward St., so nobody is really out to thwart or gag persons (e.g., neighbors, reporters, journalists, activists) from speaking out and gleaning further facts "on the ground". Would not hurt for reporters to elucidate neighborhood sentiment regarding this shooting more than just accepting the gravely serious one-liner, Berkeley police homicide detectives and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office are investigating the shooting. Yes, let's please completely trust a self-administered non-neutral investigating body with this!! /sarcasm here/


As an interesting aside as I follow this story of the Anita gay shooting, I actually found the above two news stories through the Answers.com search site as found at http://www.answers.com instead of through the ubiquitous Google. The news' stories of this neighborhood shooting from using Answers.com were in some ways *BETTER* than the ones found through my Google search. Now how about that?!
Google coders and proofreaders who may be reviewing this, beware: you really don't want to now start letting your search-engine-efficiency guard down now do you ?? :)

Anita Gay to Abner Louima?

Well, it turns out that history is somehow trying to repeat itself between Brooklyn and Berkeley ten-and-a-half years and three-thousand miles distant, with the police shooting of Anita Gay a block-and-a-half-away from me.


Some of the current news reports are at the SFGate's (the San Francisco Chronicle's) 'Berkeley officer shoots, kills woman with knife' and at radio station KCBS 740AM's 'Woman Shot to Death by Berkeley Police Officer'
The respective webpage/URL's are
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/17/BARUV4CJQ.DTL
-and-
http://www.kcbs.com/Woman-Shot-to-Death-by-Berkeley-Police-Officer/1669328


From these news stories, it seems questionable whether the police shooting and killing of Anita Gay (in the name of self-defense) was entirely justifiable.


This brings to mind the big newsworthy incident when I was living on 132 Parkville Ave in Midwood(Brooklyn).... my residence EXACTLY(!) a-block-and-a-half from the 70th Precinct where the police brutality incident occurred. As reported in the Wikipedia piece 'Abner Louima' at URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima,
Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was arrested at an East Flatbush nightclub, maybe 15-20 minutes away from where my housemate A.S. and I were both rooming.


I recall that my parents were visiting me that week and that we were driving South on Ocean Parkway approaching 18th Ave near the Lawrence Ave angled-offshoot streets a day or two after the incident, when the news of the incident and the gathering of an ad hoc protest at the 70th Precinct broke on the radio. I seem to recall that we were stuck in traffic due to more police arriving at the scene to help restore order in the chaos at the precinct that followed the incident itself. IIRC also, I think the pro-police news claimed at first that the officers needed to commit their subduing tactics due to Louima resisting arrest, struggling in the bathroom and fighting back. Soon after this though, at just about the time when my parents were leaving from visiting me, the radio and newsprint news starting more clearly exposing the true brutality and bestiality of the officers who arrested and tried to subdue Louima.... the protests and community outrage were getting much much stronger then. See this above 'Abner Louima' Wikipedia writing for more detailed descriptions of what the arresting officers actually performed on Louima.
Within several weeks after my parents left NYC from their visit, there was a huge outcry of several thousand Haitians against the greater NYPD's role in the incident, this outcry possibly having connections to the Irrelevent Al Sharpton. Thank goodness the truth came out and that the worst officer-offenders were tried, sentenced, and booted off the force.


This Berkeley neighbor similarly hopes that the current confusion and [perhaps] orchestrated-chaos of the shooting of Anita Gay will get more play in the news and in local conversations, will lead to outrage as the facts become inarguably clearer by third party investigation, and will possibly lead as warranted to the successful prosecution of the Berkeley Police officers found guilty in this shooting.

Anita Gay similarly accused in the minds of the arresting officer(s) just as Abner Louima was!!??

More Troublemakers 1

More Troublemakers 1
(sent to others on this as well)


Police and ambulances going by my street Saturday night from about 6 or 7pm onwards.
Seems that there was a shooting incident occurring about a block-and-a-half over from me on Ward St between McGee and Grant, involving the Berkeley Police and some lady on the block.

Later that night at about 8:15pm, someone started ringing my doorbell and urgently pounding upon the front door.
Imagine my surprise when I peeked out through the front door and saw two girls trying to reach me. Both looked to be somewhere around 11 to 13 years old, one girl was Caucasian and the other girl was African-American. No adult guardian or supervisor present. The spokesgirl of the two had a really annoying dose of chutzpa: first she asked me if it was my bicycle that was locked just outside my apartment, then she asked if she and her friend could come into my actual apartment (like WHY??). I said no, I asked them what they wanted, and then the same spokesgirl pointed to her friend (someone named "Jasmine"?) and said that she wanted money for this friend. I refused their panhandling, then told them to please leave, then completely closed the door on both girls. The spokesgirl then spat on my door and as she was leaving hurled out some insult I refused to pay attention to.

I called the Berkeley Police on these girls to report their suspicious behavior and found out
- most patrol cars were dealing with the much higher-priority shooting emergency on Ward St., so they couldn't come over to my apt to investigate or focus upon my low-priority panhandling "visit"
- these girls or someone else they know had apparently visited my apartment earlier that same Saturday afternoon -- in order to panhandle/beg?? -or- in order to case my place for a possible attempted break-in??
- I should NOT answer my door when someone unidentified knocks, even if they urgently ring on the doorbell and pound on my door like these [not-so-innocent] girls; I should ask to speak with an adult; I should report the above girls' behavior and take photos of these unsupervised minors when I see these just in case they try to panhandle again or are lookouts for someone else to try to break-in.


I went outside later that Saturday night to visit the Ward St shooting scene. My block was prett much deserted, but half of the next block over was lined with police cars, and the actual block of the shooting was all cordoned off, with extra officers carefully watching and supervising all approaches to the cordoned-off area.

This shooting reminds me in a bad way of the notorious crime-ridden areas back in East Brooklyn:
Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Sty), Crown heights, East New York, Brownsville.
Only major difference between E. Bklyn and So. Brkly here are that so much happens in the bad E. Bkln areas ON A CONSISTENT BASIS, that one can NEVER go out at night in the bad E. Bkln areas. Even to just drive thru the "wrong place in the street". Also, the crack and drug wars continue to make the E. Bkln areas KNOWN problems to ALL. Here in So. Brkly, even though it's the same thing that the neighbors don't watch out for each other or look out and around to see who goes by and hangs around..... still at the same time, Cal students, Cal alumni/ae, and persons from adjacent neighbors DO pass by and through all the time (walking, jogging, on bicycle). Might be a similar case of urban poverty and family strife (w/ Christian vs. Islam religion transformation mixed-in) fighting against gentrification -- as if the latter could really take hold in So. Brkly (NOT!)


Coming back home, did not see and damage to my building from the girls or their adult accomplice(s). If I see them or they see me, I'll be sure to ask them their names and where their associated adult/parent is. Will ask for their name(s) too. Maybe they can visit their local church to ask those praying there to "open their hearts" [and wallets!]

VDay and QDay

It's Valentine's Day, but also a Queer sort of day.
Am not feeling well at all, and am taking ibuprofen, drinking much fluids, and occasionaly taking some guanifesin to clear my lungs.


The tide sways back and forth (so to speak) on these matters:
- The progression of the Democratic Presidential Primary '08
- The outcome of Microsoft's desire to buyout Yahoo!


At first the news articles were writing that Barack Obama was getting a great deal of momentum to be chosen as the Democratic contender, following this past weekend's primaries. Now some of the news stories are describing the mudslinging Hillary Clinton is continuing to throw more and more upon Obama.
These news stories readily bring out the poll numbers that Clinton is currently ahead of Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
I hope that Clinton's mudslinging tactics backfire upon her and that Obama comes out far ahead of her in both these states!
Good luck to him on this, right?


Here in the SF Bay Area, the recent news from the SF Chronicle is 'To escape Microsoft, Yahoo turns to News Corp.'
I'd much rather see Rupert Murdoch's News Corp partner with Yahoo! than Microsoft.
At the very least, this exciting prospect puts an enourmous amount of pressure upon Microsoft to either up its per-share offer for Yahoo! or else lose the deal to MS's advantage. A great advantage for News Corp is that Yahoo's Web 2.0 resources and ad market would get under the aegis of News Corp instead of under the cloud of Microsoft with its competing stake in Facebook, see article Microsoft Fires Volley At Google in Ad Battle, (happens to be published in the Wall Street Journal... owned by News Corp!)

Seedy Oakland/Berkeley guys Around

Saw the local seedy homeless guy Will around my neighborhood again tonight just wandering around my block puffing his cancer stick. Might have been looking to meganef some items for sale/cash (meganef=petty theft here). Another few similar guys hanging aroung the Ashby BART.


Seems that I run into similar types of guys on a daily basis in an area going from Downtown Berkeley all the way towards and into North Oakland. The type is a lean, lanky, "hungry"-type African-American, typically in his low-40's to mid-60's. Partially unshaven look with short-white whiskers. Lingers around people trying to make eye contact, asking questions, sometimes asking for spare change, sometimes ignoring those who are onto him, sometimes getting hostile and giving those that challenge him an icy stare. Sometimes these are the guys I see smoking on the street or hanging arouund stores late-night to buy alcohol. One word: trouble!
Keep away from such guys and if they hassle me, get the info on them and report their behavior to the police. Tabulate a history of their annoying behavior and their confrontations.


This character type reminds me exactly of the type of guy I regularly saw going from car to car on the NY MTA subway trains asking for money or food. Only difference with the subways is that you could never report such guys (or gals) because they would always manage to panhandle during areas of the lowest cellphone coverage (e.g., tunnels, underground stations, bridges)
Just like for the NYPD, the Berkeley Police are also spread thin and will more readily respond to actual acts violence, altercations, or use of weapons.

Nice radio tchotchke

Was wandering around a couple of Downtown SF Walgreens this evening, looking for a nice green tea diet powder supplement. Found this nice special on radio-pens, 2 for $5, and went ahead and pucrhased a pair. Each pen-radio comes with its default black ink-barrel, a replacement blue-ink barrel, a full set of radio batteries, an extra pair of radio batteries, and the volume-adjustable radio earbuds for listening to the radio. Most importantly of all (to me), once the batteries were inserted, the radio worked EXACTLY as described!!

TWIE FM Band Radio Writing Pen

Pretty impressive!

I'll probably use a high quality radio and more comfortable headphones when regularly commuting, but these pair of pen-radios are nice to use when it's fairly quiet around and I wish to listen to FM music for awhile -- w/in FM-radio reception areas, and not on Shabbos of course.

Wonder if it's possible to use a converter piece to 1/8" stereo input to allow powered amplified speakers to plug into this little pen-radio tchotchke?

Democratic Presidential Primary Election '08

Big election doings.

I'm a Democrat voting for Obama Barack.
Mostly because I find it difficult to avoid the strong sense that NY Senator Hillary Clinton is just a little too power-hungry and conniving.
She'll probably get most of the women vote on this Super Tuesday though.
Sheesh, all she had to see was her poll numbers slipping a little in New Hampshire, and she let out humble tears. Senator Hillary cried a little, and all of a sudden most of the Democratic New Hampshirites shed her their votes. Sympathy, I guess.


A two-part series of calmly-produced YouTube videos gets to the heart of Hillary Clinton's real beliefs and tactics:
- The Shocking Video Hillary Does NOT Want You To See! (1of2) at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xq8aopATYyw
- The Shocking Video Hillary Does NOT Want You To See! (2of2) at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=AMfUajhL24I


Too much stuff she keeps trying to bury.

Wonder how many more attempts in the future to bury her past with any newfound "Executive Privilege" ??


Should Hillary Clinton come out way ahead after today's Super Tuesday Democratic Primary (which BTW, I sincerely hope SHE DOES NOT!), then I'd have to take a good hard luck at the leading Republican contenders.
Maybe even wish that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg would consider entering the race -- now would Senator Hillary Clinton REALLY go ahead and try to clandestinely bribe Mayor Bloomberg to keep him from doing so !!???? Naaaah, couldn't be!
(hmm, then again, maybe not so far-fetched)

Deja vu all over again 2

It was certainly NYYankees great,Yogi Berra, who said "It's deja vu all over again


Went travelling after hours all the way from Oakland,CA to Fremont on BART wearing my Yankees cap.
Seems that much of the crowd passing through the Fremont BART trains is Continental Indian / Sri Lankan / Pakistani. Big reminder of much of Queens except very quiet, no panhandlers, and better seating (+cleaner!). Bathrooms actually work and people actually can use these at stations -- contrast this with the F and 7 trains in Queens!!


Coming back from Fremont, I stopped at Down Town Berkeley's Jupiter Bar and had a half-pint of something called Kolsch that Jupiter brews itself. Fairly insipid. A young lady on the side of the bar table recommended that a beer called Bear Republic Red Rocket was somewhat sweeter and may have been the better beer to imbibe.
Good idea.


Incredible, this young woman at the bar table was a deadringer for CBI's Rebbetzin Frayda Gonshor-Cohen!! Same flat-top wool/felt fabricy baseball-style cap, similar hair and expression on her face, probably similar age as well. Scary.
Was so intimidated by this, that I started several times and then moved away. Did not have the courage to approach this young woman from this fact.


If I see this young woman again, maybe I''ll try telling her that she looks eerily similar to someone who lives just over a half-dozen blocks from Jupiter itself.
Nah, probably will not see this young lady around so soon, oh well.

What a great Super Bowl!

First half was so-so. Basically, a tie game even though the official score was NE Patriots over the NY Giants by a mere 7-3.
Mistakes by the Patriot's Tom Brady, but even more by the Giants' Eli Manning.

Finally, in the fourth quarter, it all came down to the last several minutes, with the Giants ahead by three.
At that point I was cycling through Downtown Berkeley and stopped in at Bobby G's to have a beer and watch the end of the game.
Tom Brady moved downfield with the clock ticking and the NE Pats down by three, 10-7.
He hits receiver Randy Moss in the endzone for a NE touchdown with about three minutes in the game, 14-10 NE over NY. The Bobby G's crowd moaned and the things got tense with under three minutes left in the game.

Eli Manning and the NY Giants move downfield and make several BIG first downs. Just when it looks like Manning would be sacked from behind, he pulled perhaps one of the biggest escape tricks of the season and threw a pass caught deep in Patriots territory. A couple of plays later, Manning looped a nice pass to receiver Plaxico Burress in the endzone and the score was 17-14.
The Bobby G's crowd went wild, it was great!

Then another half-minute or so of nailbiting as the crowd waited to see if Tom Brady could somehow pass his way to position for a long field-goal to tie the game.
No luck for him, and Brady even got sacked in the attempt.
Exciting end-of-game, and apparently one of the biggest Super Bowl upsets in history.
(would have been easier I think for the NY Giants if they had one of their great running-backs, Tiki Barber)

Boston,MA folks might not want to read this, but this Super Bowl upset seems almost fitting in a way, to help counteract the great Boston-area near-arrogance in their sports teams' successes; such sport's teams as their basketball Celtics and their baseball's World Series team, the Red Sox (arch enemies of the MLB-AL NY Yankees.)

New expression, local rabbi, oy-that-speech!

Welcome to my first Brooklyn2berkeley blog post.

An expression I learned today is hippy dippy.
Think that this mean a very experiential but "intellectually-constrained" 1960's-aspiring person. Another Jewish blogger, Ryan from Eretz Yisrael, seems to also indirectly try to define this in his blogspot post Reflections on my hippy-dippy shabbos
Someone named Bree O'Connor closer to my old 'hood wrote a hippy-dippy blogspot post around the same time as Ryan's, entitled I Hate To Be Hippy Dippy, But.... Whatever the case, interesting term to use, sort of like the old term, touchy-feely.

The local non-Chabad shul is Congregation Beth Israel or CBI for short.
CBI's rabbi is Rabbi Yonatan Cohen, a rabbi of fairly short stature who always seems to dart around the synagogue or circulate in, out, and around everyone. His wife Frayda, similarly (although maybe in more of a "charging" than in a "darting" fashion) circulates around and seems to try to manage the women's side of the mechitzah and direct many of the synagogue's affairs. I understand that these two were married in Montreal four or five years ago and they choose to remain childless for the time-being.

This past Shabbos, CBI put on a Shabbat Shalem Dinner with Guest Speaker. The food was delicious at both the dinner and at the Saturday late afternoon dinner (Shalosh Seudos). The speaker was a Dr. Zohar, and he stuck to themes of Sephardic Individuality and Liberalism. He basically just read from the his circulated handouts and spoke sermon-style with a few summarizing comments of his own interspersed throughout the speech. I thought that this was basically your typical One-Way Act of D'var Torah'rism. Been there, done that; I've been used to this in Jewish Brooklyn even before the infamous 9/11/01 WTC attack.
Better if he and other speakers would actively engage their audiences with something like accepting questions from the floor (or tables as-it-were) or active, non-monolithic discussion.
As it is, his words for this attendee are already in-one-ear-out-the-other.
Enough already! Next!