The Pete's blog/

It's COLD!

Wow, day one of this "2009" thing went by so fast! This "new year" thing is going to be a pinch!

@Andrew_Taylor Can't imagine why there would be rules. Besides, I'm talking more about Hilary Clinton and John Edwards. I'm still interested

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

Of COURSE, it has to look like that on the outside. They couldn't just

rely on a *sign*.

First, they leave up a price for their DIY Muppets that is fully $50 cheaper than it is in the store (it's still at the wrong price, see for yourself: http://is.gd/eClY ) and now, when I log into the FAO Schwartz website to check on the status of my own Muppet order I see that they think my name is "null". "Welcome back, null!" the site tells me. Clearly, the system is not able to pull my name from the order I placed a couple weeks back. When I check my account profile it's completely blank, despite all of my shipping and billing address info being accurate on the recent orders page. Ah well. I guess even incompetent people need jobs.

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

@bbittner I should totally know that, but I don't.

So, here's the deal.

I've been writing about this shit going on in Israelistine, or Palestisrael (which ever you prefer), for many, many years. So, let me break it down to the simplest terms I can think of:

Israel can bring peace if they want to.

That's it. Now, please, consider the following:

1) Is Hamas, or anyone in the occupied territories a real threat to Israel? Or are they just a bunch of pissed off people with crappy, unreliable weapons.

No and yes.

2) Did Hamas even exist before Israel occupied the occupied territories?

No.

So, doesn't that mean Israel is the root cause of this strife?

Let's keep going:

3) No one ever asks the question: What does Israel want by occupying these chunks of land?

Jerusalem? They have it. Now what are they doing with all of those Palestinians?

3) Does anyone really think pounding a house, a mosque, or even a neighborhood with weapons like the kinds Israel can afford will do anything but make people hate them more?

Terrorism is the result (generally) of a person or people feeling they have no other options--they have no voice, no control and think hurting people or destroying things is the only thing they can do. Keep reacting that way and you'll never stamp out terrorists--but you will create dozens more.

In fact, some might see the Israeli government's actions as part of a terrorist-making machine. In fact, if I were a corrupt leader who was more interested in keeping my citizens rallied behind me and less with their well-being, I'd say "kudos" to the Israeli government for doing what the Nazis did by giving the citizenry a unified enemy to always be afraid of. Well done!

So, in the end, who has the real power to create peace here?

The Palestinian terrorists who keep shooting their useless little rockets into Israel killing almost no one? Or the big guys with the undisclosed nuke program?

Israel can take her lumps--that's all they'll ever be. Hamas and anyone else in the occupied territories have limited resources. They'll never be a formidable foe or threat to Israel. So, the violence stops when the government of Israel stops acting like an abusive parent and starts acting like a civilized governing body. They need to treat the handful of terrorists in the territories as criminals because that's what they are.

When hundreds are killed in the name of stopping a handful, you have to wonder: who is worse?

Something else I almost forgot to mention: I wrote some fiction last night! Yay me! I hope I can do more today.

The shot's a little dark, but that's the eee in the lower right corner.

Yep, the US government's budget deficit is $1,200,000,000,000!! And
Congress is said to find that number "jaw-dropping."
I'm pretty sure this would be the case for ANYone who understood what
kind of money that is.

First off, in case you're fuzzy on it, the budget deficit is the
difference between the amount of money a body has and the amount it
wants to spend. Yep--the USG wants to spend $1.2 tril more than
they've got--that being a "surprise" to Congress, really gives us an
idea of how much they've got!

The main thing to consider is just how absurd it is that Congress
finds this jaw-dropping. Why is this so shocking to them? Where have
they been all of this time? Have they not been paying attention to
things like this? Seriously:
Just who the hell is minding the store down there in Washington??

I don't think it's possible for our government to do anything more to
undermine our confidence in it.

Come on--how do you not see a hole so big you could stick $1.2 trillion in it??

You people in DC are absolute idiots. Why do we put up with this
behavior from the people who we've supposedly hired to protect us?

This isn't just a Bush thing, clearly--it's EVERYONE IN WASHINGTON.

I suppose it's too much to ask that you all impeach yourselves, isn't it?

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

OK, cool--just did a couple more pages--just a few down from my goal. Now it's time for some Katamari on my iPhone and then sleep. YAY!

In case you missed it, free adult diapers on Craigslist: (ping.fm/LxGBk)

Posted via email from thepete's posterous

Somewhere along this journey my instalation attempts killing my factory install of XP. Sure no big loss but my 3e won't recognize my backup!

The wife and I have visited the Macy's on 34th street a couple of

times in the past week and both times I found their (practically)

ancient wooden escalators fascinating. They feel different underneath

your feet (they've got rounded edges) and they even sound different

from the all-metal escalators we're all used to (hollow wood resonates

better than hollow steel, I think).



New York City is a study in time travel. Some areas reflect the

latest in everything. Meanwhile, places like Macy's keep "technology"

over half-a-century-old around when they could have easily updated it.

That's kinda cool in my humble opinion.

Spied this at the Target last week and was a bit surprised to see it.

Yes, my fellow men, we can now drop TWENTY BUCKS on 2.5 OUNCES of

cologne just so we can smell like a giant, gas-guzzling, wastefully-

big, tiny-penis-compensating SUV.



Sweet, sweet capitalism!

I'm pretty sure this was a mistake on the part of some Target store

employee. Then again, after seeing that $20 price tag on a 2.5 ounce

bottle of "Hummer" brand cologne, anything's possible...

Let's see... Infants/toddlers, boys, girls, children's shoes,

MCDONALD'S???



Well done, Macy's! Stick the unhealthy fast-food RIGHT next to the

sections of your store that little kids will be in.



I wish there was an emoticon for the SLOW CLAP.

The irony is that, when she doesn't get what she asked for, that

little girl will learn how to make a letter bomb on the Internet and

next year Santa will get more than cookies and milk.



Yes, "Believe" because it's important we teach our kids to have trust

in things that don't really exist. You know, like WMD in Iraq, or

ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT.



Say... just where are our presents for trusting the USG? Santa didn't

bring them this year!



I just hope our kids are paying attention.



Kids: Don't be a good boy or girl because it's the right thing to do,

do it FOR THE PRESENTS!



And try not to be too disappointed when the shitty economy stops

"Santa" from once again getting you what you really want.