brainstorming

In the Category of Better Late than Never

What Child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Merry Christmas and God's Blessings!

Hear it here.

You Have WHO on Your Team?

It's one thing to give your all to raise money for the troops and the people of Iraq, but the competition has degenerated from ruthless to sheer desperation when you allow paedophiles for kim jong-il to join your team.

Ewwwwwwwwwww!

I consider, John, his lovely wife Beth, Army of One, and Teresa all friends of Brainstorming, making this latest development all the more disturbing.  What could drive them to join forces with such evil?

You CAN support Spirit of America without endorsing the North Korean dictator or criminal acts against children.  Join the Northern Alliance efforts by donating to Spirit of America here, and maintain your principles at the same time.

How to Get More Done in Less Time

Is it possible to be more productive by limiting the amount of time you allow yourself to work?  I haven't tried it myself, but anecdotal experience does lend the idea some credence.  Think about the last time you had to accomplish something at work before you had to leave for an appointment.  Were you more productive than usual or less productive?

Feeling Like Scrooge?

You never really liked that Tiny Tim character or maybe you secretly rooted for the Grinch?  As with all things subversive, there's a home for you on the web, The Christmas Resistance Movement.  Of course this author can't endorse their spirital or political agenda. I do however find it tremendously entertaining that an anti-consumer movement offers their own goods for sale, "at cost", naturally. Uh-huh.

Friends of Iraq Blogger Challenge

If you're like me, you're amazed and thankful for our awesome all voluntary military and the sacrifices they and their families are making to keep the terrorists on the run, and liberate millions at the same time.

Here's a great way you can help them.

The blogosphere has gotten together to raise funds for Spirit of America.  To give you an idea of their mission:

Spirit of America helps Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan assist people in need. We fulfill requests from American personnel for goods that improve the lives of local people and thus help advance freedom and peace.

We have provided school and medical supplies, sewing machines, hand tools, water barrels, clothing, soccer gear and toys in response to needs identified by American personnel. We contributed equipment to Iraqi-owned television stations to establish a better alternative to Al Jazeera. We helped Iraqi men whose arms were amputated by Saddam Hussein get a new start on life.

We provide timely and effective assistance where it is needed most on the front lines. The Wall Street Journal says, “Spirit of America’s organizational insight is to deploy the best practices of the modern U.S. economy - efficiency and speed - around the margins of the Iraq war effort.” The Journal adds, “Spirit of America and the Marines are a coalition of the can-do.”

Brainstorming has joined the Northern Alliance of Blogs team.  So far the group leads the donations for group blogs with $7,135.00, but the competition is ruthless. The total amount raised by all participants at the time of this writing is $38,390.

The huge majority of Americans support our troops.  We're all sporting those magnetic ribbons on the family auto.  Here's an easy way for all of us to put our money where our mouths are.  Not only do we help get our troops what they are asking for, we also get to help the people of Iraq.  You can't beat that combination.

Are you having a hard time coming up with a Christmas list for yourself?  Maybe we can ask friends and family to donate to Spirit of America instead of buying something for us this year.  If the idea appeals to you, donations will be accepted at this link through Dec. 15.

Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty I'm Free at Last!

This message is being brought to you tonight from our kitchen table.  I bought an Apple Airport Express so we now have wireless internet in the house.  I haven't tested it to see what kind of range it gets.  It's in the den which is a room and a hallway away from where I'm sitting, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work if I went down to the basement.  It was pretty easy to set up and I'm loving the freedom.  (It also has the ability to broadcast iTunes to your stereo, but I'll let the hubby figure that part of it out.)

It's freed me from my desk,  (which is at the office, still on the homestead, but in a separate building from the house.)  I can just pick up the laptop, bring it to the kitchen table, and work from home.  Thanks to the foresight of the wonderful hubby, (He Who Puts Up With My Many Faults), I even have access to the business files I need on the server at the office from here.  How I mentioned before how smart he is?

It's an awesome thing.

I no longer have to choose whether to stay at the computer to get some stuff done, or go home to be with the family.  I can do both.  I can put dinner on the stove and sit down to check a few e-mails while it simmers.  Wow, it just hit me.  I can try pajama blogging!  I no longer have to get dressed to face employees and the UPS guy.  This could be revolutionary!

I've heard other people say they could never go back after having wireless, and I'm starting to understand why.  Since my Powerbook G4 already had an Airport card, it was pretty darn cheap too, about 100 bucks.  (It's $129 on the Apple site, but I negotiated it down by combining it with other purchases.)

Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty I'm Free at Last!

The Freedom Haters

Anne Applebaum in The Washington Post:

    

Just in case anyone actually thought that all of those people waving flags on the streets of Kiev represent authentic Ukrainian sentiments, the London Guardian informed its readers otherwise last week. In an article titled "US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev," the newspaper described the events of the past 10 days as "an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing." In a separate article, the same paper described the whole episode as a "postmodern coup d'etat" and a "CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days, adapted to post-Soviet conditions."

    

Neither author was a fringe journalist, and the Guardian is not a fringe newspaper. Nor have their views been ignored: In the international echo chamber that the Internet has become, these ideas have resonance. Both articles were liberally quoted, for example, in a Web log written by the editor of the Nation, who, while writing that she admired "citizens fighting corrupt regimes," just as in the United States, she also noted darkly that the wife of the Ukrainian opposition leader, a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian descent, "worked in the Reagan White House."

SNIP

The larger point, though, is that the "it's-all-an-American-plot" arguments circulating in cyberspace again demonstrate something that the writer Christopher Hitchens, himself a former Trotskyite, has been talking about for a long time: At least a part of the Western left -- or rather the Western far left -- is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States. Many of the same people who found it hard to say anything bad about Saddam Hussein find it equally difficult to say anything nice about pro-democracy demonstrators in Ukraine. Many of the same people who would refuse to condemn a dictator who is anti-American cannot bring themselves to admire democrats who admire, or at least don't hate, the United States. I certainly don't believe, as President Bush sometimes simplistically says, that everyone who disagrees with American policies in Iraq or elsewhere "hates freedom." That's why it's so shocking to discover that some of them do. (emphasis added)

Read the whole thing.

Of course, lovers of freedom, left or right, should be following the Kiev story at SCSU Scholars.

 

Lava Lamp Fatal Explosion

A 24-year-old man who placed a lava lamp on a hot stovetop was killed when it exploded and sent a shard of glass into his heart, police said.

I won't say anything snarky, because some family lost their son, but seriously, can you imagine the odds?

Study up to become a Citizen of the USA

I'm sure we've all heard the stories of immigrants studying to take the test for U.S. citizenship, admired them for their work to become Americans, and then wondered how many of us who were born here would pass?

You can practice test questions here.  The format seems to be 5 questions at a time and you can then check your answers, so it doesn't give you a simulated test with a score, but it's interesting to see what the questions are like.