Iran and Nuclear Energy

Iran and Neuclear Energy...Oh, dear Lord!


In a recent speech at a conference held Tehran called "The World without Zionism" the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Israel should be "wiped off the map."

After the world protested this statement harshly, and I quote, "In Madrid, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos summoned Iran'sambassador to protest Ahmadinejad's comments. French Foreign Minister Jean-Baptiste Mattei also condemned the remarks 'with the utmost firmness.' " (Boy, I bet that put a chill in those Iranis)


Italy was the firmest and clearest in their protests, condemning the words of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, telling the Iranian ambassador the comments were "unacceptable" and that they confirm worries over the political positions — and nuclear intentions — of Iran's new leadership. (I can already see their heads hanging down in shame)


And the British waffled only as the British can. Britain's Foreign Office said Thursday it intended to summon Iran's charge d'affaires to protest Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling them "deeply disturbing and sickening."" (Ouch, and a blow to the head. I bet the Irani leaders are shivering in their boots.)


Other governments that protested the statment by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are Canada and Germany. (Oh, no, not them too. I wouldn't want to be an Irani today.)


Interestingly, 15 years ago while Desert Storm was going on and Iraq was shooting missles at Israel, George Bush asked, no demanded, that Israel stay quiet concerning getting their arses shot off. Nobody is asking Israel to do anything like that today and in fact Israel has taken the forefront of the protests. And why not? They have pretty much been alone in
this whole fight, and until these idiots decided to bomb us, we really wanted nothing more than the status quo, which means sell me oil.


Oddly enough, though, nobody protested the existence of the conference itself. Remember it was called "The World without Zionism". According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Zionism means...:an international movement orig. for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel."


So as I see it, the conference was held to discuss the elimination of Israel. Why isn't anybody protesting the existence of the conference itself? "What's the matta' for ya!" Everybody that speaks at this conference in agreement with the premise of the conference, should be duly noted and put on some sort of watch list as a terrorist. Remember that conferences are held to share information and to aid in the planning of whatever the topic is of the conference. The title of the conference does not leave anything to the imagination as to what the intentions were of the host country.


Now, the significance of this conference being held in Tehran, Iran and the president of Iran making such a bold statment as calling for the destruction of Israel, should aid the International Atomic Energy Agency in making a decision concerning whether Iran wants to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes or for bomb making. It should have been a no brainer before this incident, but, now, my Lord, it becomes axiomatic. The guys running Iran are not 'good' guys...they are 'bad' guys.

Sturgis Mississippi Motorcycle Rally

August 19-21Sturgis, Mississippi Motorcycle Rally

What can I say. 950 miles for 95 to 103 degree heat and just to be at a town festival. They can call this event what it wants, ibut it is simply a town festival without the carnival. I guess that is why they invite the motorcycles, kind of like a side show for the local farmers, or rednecks, or whatever you call the slow talking, smug, Yankee hating, southern inbred we encountered.

So let's get this straight, this is not a motorcycle event. Sure, there are some motorcycles. The town claims 35,000 to 40,000. I would suggest more like 1500 to 2000. Let me write that out so you don't think I missed some zeros accidently...fifteen hundred to two thousand bikers.

Ok, now that we have that straight, what was it, then. I already said it...A town festival. For vendors, it is what we call a real-estate show...meaning they make their living selling spots to vendors. The only local restaurant said her turnout for the past couple of years has been much below expectation. She thought it was because there were too many vendors. Maybe, because there were a lot of them, but if the only restaurant in town isn't making it with 35 to 40,000 bikers in attendance, then there wasn't that many there. We were set-up so we could look down the street with most of the food vendors. Except for Saturday, most of the time you could easily count the number of people that were in this street at any time. Most of the time it was less than 10. On Saturday there were more but the street was never crowded.

I am getting disgusted with people trying to make a buck off the bikers and not delivering anything for it. Sturgis, MS decided a few years ago since their town name was the same as the Great Sturgis in South Dakota, they would have a "bike rally" and the bikers would flock there and they would make a ton of money. Guess what...The show has progressively been getting worse, because they aren't delivering anything.

We were told they chose the hottest days of the year in Mississippi, even though they know it is so hot it becomes dangerous to be out in it, because it follows the Sturgis North show and they thought that would draw the bikers down. Obviously they have spent too many years cooking their brains in the heat and drinking straight whiskey to understand that if it is the hottest days of the year, many (could I say most) people simply won't come. Why would they? To watch Cletis and Zeb playing banjo on their broken down, leaning to the left, porch, whilst Auntie Ethyl and Uncle Mort do a diddy on the dirt front yard? Give me a break.

We won't be back. I don't do fairs and festivals. I do motorcycle shows. I offend the ignorant, inbred, outright stupid, what some call the "regular" people, just being me. I don't offend anybody at a bike show. Don't invite me to your fairs and festivals and I won't insult you......Mick

Uncle Jim

I lost my Uncle Jim this week. He was a special man, and though we haven't seen much of each other in a lot of years, I will miss the opportunity of seeing him in the future. He was called "Golden Toes" at Muskegon High School in the 50's when he attended there. He was a great kicker and held records for a zillion years, it seems. He married my dad's youngest sister, Mary, when I was about 9 or 10. It is the first wedding I remember attending and I didn't know him, but my Aunt Mary was a beautiful young girl and she was always nice to me and I liked her.

Uncle Jim quickly became part of our family and he became a sort of 'big-brother' to me. He would always play basketball or football or catch with me and he always had a way about him that made everthing kind of fun. He spent some serious time with me as a teen. He is one of the men I remember as having a lot of influence on me while I was growing up. Years later, I was fortunate to be able to give some of this back. I was coaching youth baseball and his son, Jimmy, played for me. Jimmy is probably as special as his father.

I will miss Uncle Jim. I will miss his smile and his deep chuckle he had. He always seemed happy to see me and I know I was happy to see him. I have missed time with him for quite a while. I send my prayers to him and I hope he will pray for me. See you soon, Uncle Jim. Keep a place open for me.

Wouldn't you know it

We rented the house we live in a year ago last October. It is located between a restaurant and a very busy gas station/convenient store. The house is owned by the family that runs the restaurant and our back door actually empties into the parking lot for the restaurant.
It happens to be one of the most private houses I have ever lived in. Even though there are people constantly parking behind our house and going to the restaurant and there are hundreds of people that go to the station next door, if I mention where we live to locals, they don't remember a house being there.
When we rented it, we knew that the restaurant, a corner store and five other houses were for sale by the family. Today we were notified that they had managed to sell the lot and we are to have new landlords. Since the house is located in a prime location for a driveway, Sassafras and I feel that we will be given notice to vacate soon.
So we are now starting to look for another house, or property to build a pole barn on or whatever. Don't you hate moving?
Oh well, I guess this is just part of the adventure.

Pioneers

Yesterday, we said goodbye to a friend that was leaving for China. He was returning for his fifth tour in China, teaching English as a second language. He is also a Bahá’í pioneer. We talked about, this week, how he is not able to openly teach the Bahá’í Faith. On the other hand, there have been times when he has been told to please incorporate information concerning the Bahá’í Faith into his lessons. He can hold meetings in his apartment, but can’t call them meetings and other paradoxes like these.

And yet, he is convinced, as I am, that the message of Bahá'u'lláh is being spread quickly across the vast continent of China. This has caused me to ponder how this could be happening in spite of all the roadblocks that have been put up in front of the pioneers. These individuals, who have sacrificed so much, for little or no recognition, could be the true heroes of the New World Order.

One of the thoughts I had, that the big difference between the Bahá'í pioneers and missionaries from the past, is that the Bahá'í pioneer is not trying to convert anybody. They are just learning to live with the native population, living the life, becoming “brilliant stars” which, then, gives them an opportunity to share the principles that Bahá'u'lláh gave us. They are taught to teach the principles, and for those that are curious, to teach the source. It is these principles that have already and will change peoples hearts, one heart at a time.

These principles are:

-The oneness of the world of humanity
-The foundation of all religion is one
-Religion must be the cause of unity
-Religion must be in accord with science and reason
-Independent investigation of truth
-Equality between men and women
-The abolition of all forms of prejudice
-Universal peace
-Universal education
-A universal auxiliary language
-Spiritual solution of economic problems
-An international tribunal

We, non-pioneers, could learn from these brave and sacrificial souls. We must teach these principles and for those that are curious the source. For those that are not Baha’is, but can see the sensibility and logic in these principles, they too must share these principles, until they become axiomatic in the way we, as a human race, think.

I bow to these wonderful pioneers that have taken the banner of Bahá'u'lláh up and carried it into the night to enlighten the world of the new wishes of God. God bless all of them and I pray daily for their wisdom and strength.

HEY WORLD!!!!!!!!

BLATHER, BLATHER, BLATHER

This is the first entry in our Blather Board. Sassafras has been after me to start it and I decided it would be easier to write this, rather than continue to be prodded by Sassafras Whine.

The intention of us having this board was for me to share some of my Zellarisms. That’s my last name with the suffix isms added. It refers to my own philosophies, or spins on situations, or observations, or favorite spins by other people. The intention is not to offend anybody, but I probably will. I seem to do that just ‘being myself.’ The intention is to get Sassafras off my back.
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Boy, is anybody else destroyed over the 100,000 lost lives in the Indian Ocean basin caused by the huge tsunami? Can you imagine the number of children that have been lost? I only mention this, because one of the hopes for the world is for us to nurture every child in this world as if they were our own; as if they were going to be the next Albert Einstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Martin Luther King, Henny Youngman, Ghandi, or Al Kaline. Nothing we can do about it. Well, we can start nurturing.
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Whew, where to start. OK. Here we go. As you have obviously noticed, we are kind of enamored with the word misfit. The name of our business is MisFiT’s CenTRaL. This website is called Misfits Central. I am called the Boss Misfit. Almost all my emails have Misfit in the name. Why, you ask?

It all started in the 80’s when I happened to view an animated movie with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the elf that wanted to be a dentist, the Abominable Snowman, and a land of misfit toys. It made me realize that it was ok to be a misfit. The elf wasn’t a bad guy; he just didn’t fit in…same for Rudolph and same for me. I wasn’t a bad guy, but I surely didn’t fit in. I also found there were a bunch of us misfits in the world. In fact, let’s face it, the majority of the participants of the human race are misfits. We’re not bad, we just haven’t found our niche.

I started to look at life differently. I come to realize that it isn’t necessary to apologize for being me. What, you say? You don’t do that? Well, most people do, at some time in their lives. They spend time explaining why they are working where they work, or doing what they are doing or driving what they are driving or wearing what they are wearing ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

So, QUIT IT! Don’t do it anymore. On the other hand, you can do what you please. I really don’t care if you continue to be a frustrated nerd instead of an enlightened nerd. Have you seen the “Revenge of the Nerds”? The last scene when what’s his name takes the microphone and gives his “I’m a nerd” speech and the whole stands empty to support him. Great cinema, man. I can feel the tears welling up trying to flood out of my tear ducts. Just a minute. Let me get myself together.

OK…Life is not like a box of chocolates or a bowl of cherries. It can be pretty hard. It is a whole bunch of days strung into a row, where you must make a bunch of decisions that will affect the rest of you life. There is no good luck or bad luck. It is a series of events that each of us, as individuals, can influence by the decisions we make. Sure, things can happen that seem out of your control, but it’s all part of the adventure.

I’m not going to preach much more, but I hope I have been able to get across to you what makes up a misfit. Misfits that recognize who they are just aren’t bothered with the daily grind. In fact, it isn’t a grind. It is “part of the adventure.”

One last thing about being a misfit…if you want to know what’s hot and what’s not, don’t ask a misfit. Not only don’t they know, they don’t care. I have gone through a couple of fashion changes where I was hot all of a sudden and then I was not. Sure wasn’t by my doing. Just wearing what I liked. In fact, I have been wearing them for 45 years; loafers, boots, chamois shirts, wool plaid shirts, levis, rings on more than one finger, hair length (which by the way is as long as it will grow, which is not very long at this time in my life).
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2004 was a good year for us and a year of craziness. We blew up three vehicles. That cost us a little bit more than we had budgeted. We are now hunkered down, when I thought we would be cruising. We always have hunkered in the past, which simply means we don’t go anywhere or do anything that will cost us money. If you don’t go, you can’t spend.

Cruising means we finally put a little something away so that November, December and January don’t eat us alive. Well, the vehicle expenses ate us up and here we are hunkering. That’s my ‘wah’ for today.

We had hoped to get into the woods this winter to do a little Bigfoot hunting in the Baldwin area. But we really can’t afford it. Maybe in February.