December 28, 04 by kenrich
Just wanted to drop a note and let you know that I have made a donation to Care USA in the amount of $50 to the Sumatra Earthquake victims. This seems to be a good charity since 92% of the money collected goes directly where it’s needed.
The scope of the disaster is staggering and it only looks to be growing bigger. The good news is that the United States has increased it’s aid to the affected areas by $20 million bringing the total to $35 million. That contribution is likely to be increased since some say the total cost could be in the billions of dollars.
December 27, 04 by kenrich
It was really sad to see all of the destruction and devastation wrought by the huge earthquake near Sumatra yesterday. For those who haven’t heard, it was a 9.0 earthquake that occurred underneath the sea and caused a massive Tsunami which killed over 14,000 lives. It’s amazing that they didn’t have any form of early detection or warning in places like Sri Lanka.
On the positive side, it’s good to see that other countries have pledged aid to help those victims. I saw the Europe pledged $4 million and the Red Cross pledged $6 million. The United States said they would also provide aid but didn’t provide a figure. I hope that money is put to good use unlike the aid that was sent for the 9/11 catastrophe.
I am always wary of donating money to a charity - especially one that was created “ad hoc” to administer aid to a specific cause. One charity I have found that really interests me is Donors Choose. They allow you to donate money to teachers in America who need school supplies or educational aids. Although I haven’t donated any money yet, I plan on doing so soon.
October 22, 04 by kenrich
Recently, I have been following an election predictor that attempt to predict the outcome of the presidential election based on polls of
likely voters from each state. Earlier this week, the polls indicated a definite Kerry advantage and just in two days have switched to a Bush advantage.
Another story indicated that many undecided voters tend to vote for the underdog when it comes down to election day. This may explain why the voting has changed the way it has. But we still have 10 more days until election day and both candidates are in good position to take the election.
It amazes me that so many people would support Bush when he has
demonstrated time-and-time again that he only cares about helping rich people and big business (corporations). Not only has he done very little to help the poor and less fortunate (and yes, middle class this includes you), but amazingly, he has put into legislation, new laws that hurt the majority of the people. One example of this is the law he passed forbidding sick people to import medications from Canada. This harmful law was compounded by barring imports of flu shots from the Great White North.
And as for the “middle-class” moniker that Bush likes to throw around. In his eyes, you aren’t middle class unless you make at least 200K per year. Notice how he never even mentions the lower class in his speeches and how he stammers when asked if he would raise the minimum wage. It’s time for people to wake up and take back the country into their own hands.
October 08, 04 by kenrich
Today, I just found out that the Nobel Peace Prize went to an activist in Africa (female and black) who is on a mission to plant one million new trees to save the African forests. I had no idea that this is where the Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded. We hardly get any news from Aftrica on the national news here in America.
Most american news is all domestic issues and the middle east. It’s very rarely that Asia, Australia, South America or Africa are mentioned. I am studying dotNet developement where I can. My plan is to take the Microsoft certification exams for dotNet to help improve my carreer. So far I have just started out but it is proving to be interesting to study.
Work is busy as ever. Lately I have mastered a new technique for doing efficient searches of large amounts of data. The technique was developed by my former boss as a way to search the large player rosters and team contacts for sports teams. I am applying this to a couple of search scripts that I had written quite a while ago and the results have been promising. I just have a little bit more work to finish it up … so I better get back to work!
October 07, 04 by kenrich
I’m really glad that President Bush tells me the world is much safer. He insists in every speech that he gives that we should feel more secure and relax thanks to the hard work of George Bush.
It’s a good thing I don’t have to worry about kidnappings over in Iraq or how many americans get killed by road-side bombs and suicide attacks. And of course, I don’t have to worry about how many Americans get their heads chopped off or how many of our allies are kid-napped and murdered.
I can see how much safer the world is when I see scores of young children brutally murdered by our own attempts to kill a handfull of Iraqi insurgents by bombing entire buildings. Of course I agree that the insurgents need to be stopped.
I used to wonder why the Iraqi people were so mad at us after all that we did for them. But now I realize that we are just turning their entire country into a battleground. People are missing out on the basic needs that we take for granted. Their are drastic shortages of water, electricity and gasoline. Add to this, that their country has been robbed of their national treasures, parks and security. The insurgents are bread due to the pitiful conditions that they must continually endure.
At the beginning of the war, our fearless president talked about winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. And to that end, the president went about establishing a huge national police force. But he neglected to make sure that peoples basic everyday needs were being met. People are still lacking for food, water, electricity and homes.
George Bush says the world is a much safer place, but what he is really saying is that America is a much safer place. That is, until the world makes a collective decision that the world would be a safer place without America. George Bush has continued to alienate many countries throughout the world, even some of our closest allies have completely lost their respect for us. It is imperitive for our country to make a change and “make right” all of the wrongs we have done.
September 23, 04 by kenrich
There’s an interesting article on the Washington Post about how Kerry has basically been tagged with the “flip-flopper” tag by the Media and all of Dubya’s cronies. The article talks about how you could just as easily label Bush a flip-flopper when you look at his record as president.
An interesting point is that George Bush was totally against making another agency to coordinate the effort of all of our defense agencies (Homeland Security) after the Democrats suggested this immediately following the 9/11 attacks. And then about a year later, he changed his mind and decided that such an agency would be needed. When congress didn’t pass his bill needed to create an agency right away, he blamed the Democrats for dragging their feet.
Even though Kerry is not any more of a “flip-flopper” than Dubya. The conception put forth by the Media and the Republicans is that Kerry can’t make up his mind on anything. The facts couldn’t be anything farther from the truth. Bush is the ultimate “flip-flopper” for joining the National Guard and then refusing to do his duty. I guess when it comes down to it … Bush is for other people following the laws of the government, while he just does
whatever he damn well pleases.
Here’s the article
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43093-2004Sep22.html">Despite
Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label
