Quotes from the Inaugural Speech...

I was just reading through the Presidents speech, and the following few paragraphs caught my attention, so I wanted to share them. I think they bear repeating.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious
and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of
time. But know this America: They will be met.

...

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.
~ President Barack H. Obama, January 20, 2009

Early 70's Homelite XL12 for sale...

Selling this old chainsaw for $150 or best offer. Here's what it looks like:

So, please, if you are in need of a good, hardworking, fast cutting saw, check out the craigslist ad (linked).

The mess that is Gaza

So what's the deal with the situation in the cradle of religion, anyway? I mean really. What the??? Ok, so I'm going to tell it from my point of view, and what the situation looks like to me as a complete outsider, so if I get some details wrong, please forgive me. Constructive, informational comments are welcome, flames are going to get discarded.

Lets just disregard how the situation got started - it's out of scope for the current discussion. What I want to talk about today is what has been happening since Christmas. It seems like a good day to pick, as that was roughly when everybody was making noises about a cease fire.

So, here's what it seems like from the outside... The Hamas folks are firing rockets at... who, exactly? Are they attacking the Israelki Government? Or just lobbing bombs over there shoulders in the general direction of Israel to try and make the Israel Government go away? C'mon, folks, what's the deal here? "You need to leave me alone so I'm going to hurt your cousin." Is that what they are thinking? That's what it seams like to me. "We are launching rockets at all of Israel because when they blow our rocket launchers some people get hurt." That is a really dumbed down version, but that's what the heart of it sounds like to me. Here's another from when that first cease fire was being bandied about... "We aren't going to stop firing rockets at the general population until they stop bombing our rocket launchers." Or at least that was the way it came across to me at the time.

Now, I don't think Israel is in the right either, don't get me wrong. They haven't been very nice either. This whole thing is really a pretty bad deal for everyone. From Israel's point of view, the Palestinians in the Gaza strip are all squatters on Israeli property (which, I concede, is what it really looks like to me...) But that land has been a free-for-all for 2000 years, and I'm not surprised it's still a mess. There's just to much juju associated with that little strip of sand. So now the weapons have gotten bigger and messier. The people that really want to cause problems have an outlet through which they can cause bigger problems than ever before.

Now all we need is for someone, somewhere to say "Enough!"

Disarm everyone in that area, set a clear boundary, and get people to abide by that boundary. Split the difference between whatever 10 feet of sand everyone is arguing about. find the people that are causing issues, find out specifically what their real issue is, and see what can actually be done to try and appease them. There's got to be some way to get the problem cleared up to where everyone can at least live as neighbors.

I know, I know, there are extremists out there that just want all of us infidels to die. Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon, so figure out how you are going to live with that. There's just to many of us. That's about all I have right now... the news is on...