You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2007.
for a while.
Early Happy Labour Day (1 May) to all!
(I’m giving them all a fair chance).
Despite how much I like what Giuliani did for NYC as its mayor, voters should not be scared into voting for one party or ther other, they should vote for their candidate based on what he says he’ll do for the country. I didn’t know much about Romney before he started running, and now don’t want to know more since he’s involved in the same thing.
Giuliani stood by his comments Wednesday, saying Democrats don’t understand the threat posed by terrorists.“They do not seem to get the fact that there are people, terrorists in this world, really dangerous people that want to come here and kill us,” Giuliani said on “The Sean Hannity Show,” according to a transcript distributed by his campaign. “They want to take us back to not being as alert which to me will just extend this war much, much longer.”
He was defending his remark Tuesday in New Hampshire, where he echoed sentiments expressed by other Republicans in election time. The former mayor said if a Democrat is elected, “it sounds to me like we’re going on defense. We’re going to wave the white flag there.”
But, he said, if a Republican wins, “we will remain on offense” trying to anticipate what the terrorists are going to do and “trying to stop them before they do it.”
GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told reporters in Salem, N.H., Wednesday night that he agrees with Giuliani. “There’s no question in my mind that Republican values … keep America safer,” Romney said.
I don’t have to wish.
• 1 May is a holiday here (Labor Day) and I’ve taken 30 April off, so I have a four day weekend;
• I’ve taken 10 & 11 May off and voila – another four day weekend;
• 17 May is a holiday here (Ascension Day) and the school is closed on 18 May, so yet another four day weekend;
• 28 May is also a holiday here (Pentecost Monday), so I have a 3 day weekend then.
• 7 June is yet another holiday here (Corpus Christi) and our school is closed the following day.
Long weekends + beautiful weather + baseball season + plenty of books to read + digital camera = lots of cycling a blogging slowdown.
Notes:
- 25C and very sunny – a great day for baseball;
- (Cologne) Cardinals lost both games, but the 2nd went 10 innings (second games here usually only go 7).
you should know this
McCain says he backs no gun control
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Wednesday he believes in “no gun control,” making the strongest affirmation of support for gun rights in the GOP field since the Virginia Tech massacre.
The Arizona senator said in Summerville, S.C., that the country needs better ways to identify dangerous people like the gunman who killed 32 people and himself in the Blacksburg, Va., rampage. But he opposed weakening gun rights and, when asked whether ammunition clips sold to the public should be limited in size, said, “I don’t think that’s necessary at all.”
Sure, let more Columbines and VA Techs happen.
Also, for those that think the 2nd Amendment gives them the right to have guns (like McCain does)
“I do not believe we should tamper with the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States,” he said.
This is what the 2nd Amendment says:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
It was passed at a time when the newly formed US was vulnerable to attack. The 2nd Amendment gives the right to own guns to be used by a militia, not to shoot up office buildings and schools.
Frankly, the VA Tech thing was horrific and shouldn’t be allowed to happen again by lenient gun laws. However, thanks to power of the gun lobby and the fact that the representatives are too cowardly to take it on, the truth is that it will happen again, sometime, somewhere in the US – most likely one of the places where people think ‘things like that don’t happen here’.
Guns are one of the reasons I left the US. I wasn’t afraid of getting shot, I just got to a point where I hated hearing about all the shootings going on in the US and nothing was being done about it. I wrote to my Congresspeople many times after shootings and encouraged them to take some kind of action about guns, but never got a reply. The gun lobby is very strong in the US and, quite frankly guns don’t figure into my life at all.
There was a church shooting on 16 Sept 1999 and I posted this on an internet bulletin board the day after it while still trying to figure out why nothing had been done to prevent situations like that (1999 was a very bad year for shootings in the US and Columbine happened just about 5 months before this one did):
ThoughtsI know that most of us have heard about the shooting in a church in Texas last night. I am sad that these “mass” shooting seem to happen ever month. However, with a country like this, that has very lenient gun laws, I guess it is to be expected. There are shooting and killings almost every night here in Philadelphia and know that other large cities in the USA are like that as well.
I remember hearing about legislation that President Clinton signed last week to give more money to cities for gun buy back programs (Philadelphia had one of those programs earlier this year and it went well). That is, once again, a start. However, in my opinion, there are still too many guns out there (I don’t own a gun, nor will I ever). I know that some people argue “Guns don’t kill, people kill people”. I think it’s more like “People with guns kill people”. Our forefathers insisted on the “Right to bear arms”, however, I feel this is not what they had in mind. Back then, I believe it was mainly for protection.
So, I guess I am wondering what do we do now? I have written my Congress people and encouraged my family and friends to do the same. However, nothing has really changed, partly due to our “Do Nothing” Congress. They watered down a good gun legislation bill just to save face so that they did pass something.
One idea that I have is, since we cant rely on the federal government to pass the legislation to run the country in a proper way, we now are going to have to rely on our local governments. For instance, Los Angeles County recently passed a law forbidding the sale of firearms on its property. That effectively limits what can be done at the LA County Gun Show.
However, I feel that is not enough. What other suggestions do people have? I am still trying to figure out how I can help more and make a difference. Can an average, everyday person that doesn’t have a lot of money, like me, really make a difference, or are my efforts in vain?
Sorry this turned into a rambling, long-winded rant. It wasn’t supposed to be. I just started typing and this is what came out.
**** Update 7h40 – 21 April ****
Hey McCain, still not convinced yet? Be glad it was a contractor and not a terrorist.
Gunman kills hostage in NASA building
By MONICA RHOR, Associated Press WriterA NASA contract worker took a handgun inside an office building Friday at the Johnson Space Center and fatally shot a hostage before killing himself, police said. A second hostage escaped with minor injuries.
The gunman was able to take a snub-nosed revolver past NASA security and barricade himself in the building, which houses communications and tracking systems for the space shuttle, authorities said.
See? I was right.
“But of course we never believed this could happen here to our family and our situation.”
for not biting the guy’s head off due to the fact that I’ve been asked this far more often than I should be by educated adults.
New student in long time running class: ‘You’re American? Do you teach English or American? I learned English at school, not American.’
After a few probing questions, I determined that he actually thought ‘English’ and ‘American’ were two very different languages (he wasn’t talking about British English and American English), so I educated him on the fact that while there are some differences, they actually are the same language.
Notes since a new and busy weekend is approaching and I won’t have time to blog about last Sunday:
• Got up early and caught the train to Frankfurt;
• Strolled through the city instead of taking the metro in the 18C weather (it was only 10h30) to Yours where I met B for brunch and 3 hours of conversation;
• Went to my first rugby game. I had directions to the place and asked B if she knew where it was. She then informed me that she definitely did as she can see the pitch from the window of her apartment (but had no idea that rugby was played there). Enjoyed the 24C sunny weather;
• Strolled around for a while after that (unlike Adam, I think Frankfurt is a great place);
• Met up with Jen and Sparky for good conversation and a theatre performance;
• Got home at 23:30.
Interesting note: When Jen came up to me, she mentioned that I looked sunny (probably because of my yellow shirt and sunglasses and then said, ‘You look………[long pause while searching for a word]………Happy!’
She was right. After such a brilliant weekend, I was.
My region (as with most) definitely has a dialect, but I try (not always successfully) to speak Hochdeutsch. For those that don’t speak German, Hochdeutsch is ‘High German’ and is (as far as I know) the best form of German to speak. However, most Germans in my region don’t speak it. They tend to speak the dialect of this region, most commonly the inability to use the ‘ch’ and ‘g’ sounds. Both come out here as ’sch’ – (example: ‘Zwanzig’ is pronounced ‘zwanzisch’, ‘ich’ is pronounced ‘isch’ etc. To most people in this region, the words for ‘church’ (kirche) and ‘cherry’ (kirsche) sound identical.
I have an accent when I speak German – not uncommon for a non-native speaker of any language. So, I try to stick to Hochdeutsch so that people that aren’t used to speaking with foreigners can understand me better. I make sure with some of German colleagues that I do sound somewhat closer to Hochdeutsch than Platt (dialect) due to the fact that it can be difficult for native speakers to understand non-native speakers that have accents and also use dialects.
While speaking to a shop assistant today in German, she smiled. She then said to me (in German) in all seriousness ‘You’re not German. The correct pronunciation for words like ’sich’ is ’sisch’.
I was corrected today for speaking (my version of) Hochdeutsch.
Who is she?
My pick to win the Great Turtle Race!
Why did I pick that particular turtle? Due to the fact that she’s sponsored by NYC Life Sciences Secondary School and not a company.
Turtle power rules!
Notes from yesterday (since I’m off to Frankfurt soon for a busy day (unfortunately no cycling) and don’t have time to blog (nor do I foresee time to do so in the near future)):
• Found my sandals;
• Trained to Rmgn;
• Cycled to Caps season opening home game against Paderborn;
• Had a great time watching the game and hanging out in the sun with my baseball friends;
• 29°C today;
• Had a picnic lunch in the Rhein between games;
• Both teams played well in the first game, Caps totally sucked in the second (and lost less than gracefully due to the Mercy Rule);
• Started cycling back and wasn’t sure (and didn’t care) how far I’d get;
• Divided the next several hours cycling, sitting in the grass and reading and enjoying the sun;
• Took the train home from BdBrsg;
• Cycled about 70km.
Sunset near BdBrsg at 19h57
In no way did Germany suck yesterday.
