Wednesday, October 19, 2011

An 11 year old is not a grape to experiment grafting on!

OCTOBER 19, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

October 19 is … Evaluate Your Life Day



Today could be a depressing day for many of us. Just try to look on the bright side of life.



The World Series starts on tonight. The Cubs are not in it. I do not think Tony LaRussa is going to get beat this year.  Texas is a very good team but I think the manager will be the difference.



Boy, I am glad Bank of UnAmerica initiated the $5.00 per month per customer debit fees. They were shrinking down to a mere 6.2 BILLION dollar profit for the third quarter. Wait until the 3 BILLION dollar a year fees cstart coming inn.



Bank of America earned billions of dollars in profits last quarter, even as banking officials expressed concern recently about the effects of new regulations on their bottom line. The bank reported third quarter gains of $6.2 billion, compared to a $7.3 billion loss during the same quarter last year.



The increase in profits comes after Bank of America roiled customers by announcing that it will start charging customers $5 per month to use their debit cards for purchases in 2012. Shortly after the bank announced the fee, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan defended it, saying that the bank "has a right to make a profit."



Moynihan and other banking officials have said that they need to start charging fees on debit cards and checking accounts for once-free services to recoup the revenue they expect to lose as a result of financial reform regulations -- including a cap on the debit card swipe fee banks charge merchants -- passed as part of the Dodd-Frank act.  Bank of America isn't the only bank adding new fees. Wells Fargo announced in August that it would test a $3 debit card fee this fall, while Citibank said earlier this month that it would start charging certain customers a $20 fee for low account balances.

President Barack Obama criticized the banks for the slew of fees in an interview with ABC News earlier this month, saying that they don't "have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit" if their "customers are being mistreated."



He just does not understand capitalism. These fees are a result of a law Congress passed and he signed. Now it is the bank’s fault.



This is child abuse. It surely is not helping the general acceptance of lesbian couples having children.



 A lesbian couple in California who say their 11-year-old son Tommy who wants to be a girl named Tammy are giving their child hormone blockers that delay the onset of puberty -- so that he can have more time to decide if he wants to change his gender. The couple’s supporters say the Hormone Blocking Therapy has only minor side effects and is appropriate for a child who is unsure of his gender. "This is definitely a changing landscape for transgender youth," said Joel Baum, director of education and training for Gender Spectrum, a California-based non-profit group. "This is about giving kids and their families the opportunity to make the right decision."



But critics of the treatment say 11-year-olds are not old enough to make life-altering decisions about changing their gender, and parents should not be encouraging them. They say it’s too soon to tell what the side effects of the treatments may be, and they say Tommy’s parents, Pauline Moreno and Debra Lobel, are irresponsible for seeking them and allowing them to be administered. "This is child abuse. It's like performing liposuction on an anorexic child," said Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University.



"It is a disorder of the mind. Not a disorder of the body. Dealing with it in this way is not dealing with the problem that truly exists.



The kid is eleven. He cannot decide if there really is a Santa Claus. He should not have a say in whether or not he has a working penus.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"Money is like sea-water: The more we drink the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame." - Schopenhauer

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The end of the world, again!

OCTOBER 18, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

October 18 is … No Beard Day



 I am screwed today. I have had a beard for thirty straight years and over forty years during my life. None of my children have ever seen me without a beard. None of them knew me when I was in high school.



Here we go again. The end of the world is October 21, 2011. Are you ready?

Many people were among the thousands that changed their life and waited around, praying, when the May 21 "Judgment Day," predicted by California radio preacher Harold Camping and advertised by thousands of billboard and pamphleteers nationwide, came and went without event.

Now Oct. 21, the date of the supposed end of the world, is approaching. While the demonstrations and ads predicting the event have disappeared and Camping has gone silent, the thousands of people who quit their jobs and spent their savings to spread his teachings haven't.



Camping, whose Oakland, Calif.-based network of radio stations spent millions of dollars advertising the end-times and received a bounty of donations from listeners, initially said he was "flabbergasted" that nothing happened on May 21. He later said the God had brought down an invisible "spiritual judgment" upon humanity, and that the world was still scheduled to end in October.



Camping, who declined a request to be interviewed for this article, suffered a stroke in June and has not spoken at length on his signature Open Forum call-in show since. In his only public address, a recent a six-minute audio statement uploaded to the Family Radio website, he said his heath has improved and that he believes the end is "probably" near.



"I really am beginning to think as I restudied these matters that there's going to be no big display of any kind," said Camping, 90, in the recording. "The end is going to come very, very quietly, probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by Oct. 21."

I wonder how much money ignorant people are sending this grifter this time.



This Iowa minister has had his world end. An Iowa minister has been charged with attempting to purchase sex after being busted in a prostitution sting, police said.



Rev. Jonathan L. Offt, 41, of Cedar Rapids, was one of nine men charged with one count of prostitution Friday. The men were taken into custody after they responded to a phony Internet ad and arranged to meet an undercover female police officer for sex, Marion Assistant Police Chief Shellene Gray told The Huffington Post.



Offt, a married father of one, has served as the senior pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church since 2003. The church has a school and house of worship in Cedar Rapids. Pat Ehler, business director of the church, said there is a general sense of sadness among the parishioners about what has happened.



"Trinity Lutheran Church and School is saddened by the most recent news story regarding Jonathan Offt," Ehler said in an email to The Huffington Post. "The proper authorities are handling the situation. The church and school request your prayers for all involved. We have no further comments at this time."



This is how many dictatorships, Communists countries and Socialist regimes. They tolerate protesters long enough to show the world how civilized they are and then they bring out the dogs, batons and water cannons. Guns with real bullets are next.



Over the week end, several cities and the powers that be decided the Occupy ‘whatever’ had been around long enough. The crackdown to break the back of the movement has begun. New York police say more than 80 people have been arrested in the latest demonstrations there against corporate greed.



Two police officers suffered injuries and had to be hospitalized Saturday. One had a head injury. Police spokesman Paul Browne said 42 people were arrested in Times Square after being warned repeatedly to disperse; three others were arrested earlier while trying to take down police barriers.



Two dozen people were arrested at a Citibank branch when they refused a manager's request to leave. Most were detained for trespassing. Five others were arrested for wearing masks. About 10 people were loaded into a police van at a Manhattan park after midnight after police announced the park had closed.



Police say they arrested around 175 Occupy Chicago protesters on early Sunday who refused to leave the city's Grant Park, the occupation's new base after weeks of demonstrations outside the Federal Reserve Bank.

Around 11:25 p.m., the Chicago Sun-Times reports that police began to warn the occupiers that their staying in the park violated a municipal code. When many protesters remained despite multiple warnings, around 1 a.m., police began to move in on a three-deep human chain around the occupied area.

One by one, police offered each protester a choice: to voluntarily leave the park or be arrested. Police commenced to arrest around 175 demonstrators, a process that lasted until around 3 a.m. The arrests were almost entirely peaceful, particularly when compared with violent outbursts at a similar demonstration in Rome.

According to the Tribune, while the arrests were taking place, demonstrators chanted, "Shame on Rahm! Shame on Rahm!" Some demonstrators seem to feel Chicago's mayor is lacking in sympathy for the "occupy" movement, while mayors in other cities where protests are taking place have supported or even joined in on demonstrations.



This is why we cannot let the government take our guns and gun rights away from us.

Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton

Monday, October 17, 2011

Send in the zebras.

OCTOBER 17, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

October 17 is … Gaudy Day



Good morning Glenn. Today is just for you.



RIP Dan Wheldon. I am not a huge Indy racing fan but I do watch it quite often. Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon died Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after his car became ensnarled in a fiery 15-car pileup on Lap 13, flew over another vehicle and landed in a catch fence just outside Turn 2.



Wheldon, 33, was a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, including this year’s race. Motor sports are dangerous. Deaths occur but not as often as they used to. It is unfortunate when it happens as well as shocking.



Did the Detroit Lions bubble burst Sunday?



Death by a thousand cuts takes longer and often hurts more than one killing stab. Hopefully, this is what is happening to Obamacare. For the President to shelve a major portion of his only real domestic accomplishment a year before he is up for reelection is a sure sign he does not think his whole plan is going to survive a legal Constitutional challenge and economic reality.



The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president's signature health overhaul law – a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.



Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the program became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. It had been expected to launch in 2013. "This is a victory for the American taxpayer and future generations," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., spearheading opposition in the Senate. "The administration is finally admitting (the long-term care plan) is unsustainable and cannot be implemented."



Proponents, including many groups that fought to pass the health care law, have vowed a vigorous effort to rescue the program, insisting that Congress gave the administration broad authority to make changes. Long-term care includes not only nursing homes, but such services as home health aides for disabled people. Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a longstanding priority of the late Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.



Although sponsored by the government, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers, and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. The money could go for services at home, or to help with nursing home bills.

But a central design flaw dogged CLASS. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.



After months insisting that could be fixed, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, finally admitted Friday she doesn't see how. "Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time," Sebelius said in a letter to congressional leaders.



The law required the administration to certify that CLASS would remain financially solvent for 75 years before it could be put into place.



Finally, a little common sense from the White House.



Everybody thought the Celtics were playing even though the NBA is on strike/lockout. An endangered female zebra and her foal that escaped from their exhibit and forced the evacuation of a Boston zoo have returned to their enclosure.



The zebras at the Franklin Park Zoo escaped late Saturday morning. No injuries to animals or humans were reported. Operator Zoo New England says the baby broke through the exhibit's electrical fencing and its mother followed.



The foal returned to the enclosure about 40 minutes later. Its mother was led back to the zebra barn at mid-afternoon. The zoo then reopened.



Zoo New England says the fencing was tested and working before the zebras escaped. The zoo needs new testers or testing equipment. I will offer this to the zoo, just grab the fence, if your get a tingling sensation, it is working, if you don’t, fix it. Hire a livestock farmer or a rancher; they know how to keep an electrical fence operating.

The animals are Grevy's zebras, a species found primarily in Kenya that numbers only 2,500 worldwide. It was the baby's first day in the exhibit. Sometimes it is in you and it has to come out.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011



VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular." - Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Look up definition of super dud.

OCTOBER 16, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

October 16 is … Dictionary Day



Do you know the definition of dictionary? It is;



·                   noun: a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them



The morons in Washington DC are at it again, or should I say still. Who did not see this coming from the middle of the summer? This was as predictable as snow in January and as predictable that both political party leaders would lie to us and blame the other side.



The super committee is struggling. After weeks of secret meetings, the 12-member deficit-cutting panel established under last summer's budget and debt deal appears no closer to a breakthrough than when talks began last month.



While the panel members themselves aren't doing much talking, other lawmakers, aides and lobbyists closely tracking the committee are increasingly skeptical, even pessimistic, that the panel will be able to meet its assigned goal of at least $1.2 trillion in deficit savings over the next 10 years. The reason is the familiar deadlock over taxes and cuts to major programs like Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.



Democrats won't go for an agreement that doesn't include lots of new tax revenue; Republicans are just as ardently anti-tax. The impasse over revenues means that Democrats won't agree to cost curbs on popular entitlement programs like Medicare.



"Fairness has to be a prerequisite for it," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Translation, it is their fault. "We have just come through passing a bill that was (all spending) cuts, no revenue." Pelosi was referring to the August debt limit bill, which set tight "caps" on agency budgets but didn't contain revenue increases pressed by Democrats. Democrats are more insistent on revenues now.



"There's been no movement on revenues and I'm not sure the Democrats will agree to anything without revenues," added a Democratic lobbyist who required anonymity to speak candidly. Asked last week whether she is confident that the panel can hit its $1.2 trillion goal, Co-chairman Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., sidestepped the question.



"I am confident that the public is watching us very closely to see if we can show this country that this democracy can work," Murray told reporters. "I carry that weight on my shoulders every day and so does every member of this committee."



The two parties have equal strength on the panel, which has until Thanksgiving to come up with a plan to submit for up-or-down House and Senate votes in December. That means bipartisan compromise is a prerequisite for a successful result. Thus far, say aides to panel members and other lawmakers, neither side has demonstrated the required flexibility in the super-secret talks. The $1.2 trillion target evolved after efforts by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to strike a so-called grand bargain on taxes and spending fell apart in July.



Those discussions and earlier talks led by Vice President Joe Biden identified numerous options for cutting the deficit. They included requiring federal workers to contribute more to their retirement, cutting farm subsidies, auctioning broadcast spectrum and curbing payments to Medicare providers like skilled nursing facilities, rural hospitals and home health care services. The super committee could scoop up these relatively easy-to-generate savings but still fall short of the $1.2 trillion target. Interest groups like the powerful farm lobby might be willing to accept cuts when everybody else is getting hit, too, but are likely to fight back if they're among the relative few getting singled out for sacrifice.



"Once you start taking things off the table or you pick a deal that only hits some parts of the budget, then you have some people who get hit who say, `Well, why me? Why not other people?'" said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. To be sure, the super committee still has time. And panel members, while divided, earnestly want a result. A more optimistic scenario is that in coming days and weeks, members of the panel will become more flexible as the deadline nears – and as pressure builds from financial markets and credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor's, which in August downgraded U.S. debt from its AAA rating.



At the same time, failure to produce a measure would trigger painful across-the-board cuts to the Pentagon budget and a big slice of domestic programs. The idea behind this so-called sequester was to force the two sides to come together because the alternative is too painful. "I made it clear to the Republican members of the super committee that I expect there will be an outcome, that there has to be an outcome," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a Washington forum on Thursday. "The sequester that was built behind this is ugly, and it was meant to be ugly so that no one would go there. I don't underestimate how hard it's going to be to come to an agreement by the so-called super committee, but we have to get to one."



The across-the-board sequester, however, wouldn't take effect until the beginning of 2013, which is already fueling speculation that Congress would simply revisit the issue after the elections next year.



I am sure this will work itself out. A plan will come forth both sides will praise and talk about bi-partisan cooperation even though a monkey with ears can see nothing was really accomplished. The party leaders set this fiasco up so it would occur a year before the election. Between now and next November several different challenges and crisis’ will have put this budget failure on the back burner. Let’s not forget; never forget.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer." - Dean Acheson


Saturday, October 15, 2011

Tainted Halloween candy?

OCTOBER 15, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

October 15 is … White Cane Safety Day



I often use a cane but it is never white. Perhaps children could use one on Halloween.



I have been preparing for Halloween. Since my children are fully grown and I have no grandkids, preparation means that I buy candy twenty days before my wife and I really need it. That gives us plenty of time to eat the first and second supply of Halloween candy requiring I go out on the 31st of October to buy what will be handed out to the visiting trick-or-treaters. In reviewing the available options of affordable candy I have decided the candy companies should quit making the ‘fun’ size candy bar. There is nothing ‘fun’ about these products.



The truth in labeling and false advertising laws must be violated with the moniker some product developer gave to these pieces of pseudo-candy. It is no fun opening fifteen of these candies just to get a proper taste. The only way to really have fun with one of these treats is to throw it at a friend in a game of ‘candy war’, melt them in the microwave or feed them to the dog.



I think the ‘fun candy’ should be renamed the ‘we make more money with this size’ candy or the ‘this is what you can afford’ candy. They could also be called the ‘the parents don’t care if they have fat kids but we do’ candy.



Growing up, we used to start trick-or-treating three days before Halloween. Everybody gave out real treats in the normal size, not in a size marked ‘not intended for individual sale’. People even gave out home-made treats. We cannot do that anymore because people don’t have the time to prepare the home-made treats and because parents do not trust anything not pre-packaged. Everyone forgets at Halloween that there are 10 to 15 product recalls every year. Recently we have cantaloupe recalls, several meat recalls, beans in a can recall, frozen chicken, steak fajita products, frozen ground tuna, yeast tablets and shredded iceberg lettuce.



I think a home-made treat from a neighbor has a better safety record than mass produced food products that are shipped all over the globe.



People are still afeared of adulterated products handed out at Halloween. For a period of time, hospitals would x-ray your treats looking for items inserted into them. None were ever found. How much damage did the x-ray cause to the products later eaten by the children. The stories of strangers handing out Halloween treats harming children are myths and scare tactics.



Did you hear about the little girl who bit into a candy bar and died because a stranger had tainted it with poison? Maybe in the story you heard, a little boy bit into an apple and cut his mouth on a razor blade. The stories of evil strangers tainting Halloween candy and apples with poison, glass and razor blades have prevailed for several decades. But are they true?



Although there have been a few reports of candy tampering over the years, nearly all of them have been debunked as hoaxes or pranks. Until 2000, there hadn't been a single proven incident in which a child was injured by Halloween candy from a stranger. That Halloween, James Joseph Smith of Minneapolis was charged with one count of adulterating a substance with intent to cause death, harm or illness after he put needles into candy bars and handed them out. One child was pricked with a needle when he bit into a candy bar, but neither he nor any other children were seriously injured. The idea of tainted candy from a stranger may have started with a 1964 incident involving a New York homemaker named Helen Pfeil. Irritated at the idea of handing out free candy to older kids, Pfeil gave out packages of steel wool pads, dog biscuits and poison ant buttons. Although she made it clear that her "goodies" were inedible, Pfeil was charged with endangering children.



There have been at least two confirmed deaths linked to tainted Halloween candy, but strangers didn't cause them. In a 1970 case, family members sprinkled a 5-year-old child's candy with heroin to hide the fact that he'd gotten into his uncle's drug stash. In the other case, which occurred in 1974, a man named Ronald Clark O'Bryan of Houston, Texas, laced his son's candy with cyanide and the child died. The motive was a big insurance policy that O'Bryan had taken out on his son. To make the poisoning appear random, O'Bryan also poisoned his daughter's candy and the candy of three other children. None of them ate it, however. He was eventually convicted of murder and died by lethal injection.



Although these were isolated incidents, the idea of candy tampering spread through cities and suburban neighborhoods, making parents fearful about the contents of their children's Halloween baskets. The candy-tampering scare reached its height in 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area died after taking tainted cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. About 40 communities actually went so far as to ban trick-or-treating. That year, the candy industry set up a telephone hotline to collect police reports of candy tampering, but it hasn't received a single verified report of a child being seriously hurt by tainted candy from a stranger. Despite the lack of evidence, parents still sometimes panic over candy that looks strange. Usually the appearance is due to variations in the manufacturing process or in storage. Chocolate can appear gray when the candy has been exposed to too much heat or moisture; it is normal.



Although the odds of someone actually tampering with Halloween candy are slim-to-none, most experts recommend that parents check their kids' Halloween haul before letting them eat it. Although you don't need to have your candy x-rayed at the local hospital or airport (and many of them offer the service), you should throw out any candy that's unwrapped, homemade (unless you know the person who made it) or has a torn wrapper, just to be on the safe side.



We have enough to worry about. Tainted Halloween candy should not be one more thing to be concerned with.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011





VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"Anger is never without reason, but seldom with a good one." - Benjamin Franklin