Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Well the sunroom part of our remodeling project is moving along great. It is completely enclosed now, and the roof has been tiled just in time for possible thunderstorms tomorrow. That could be news tomorrow if they come because it seldom rains here. Anyway while the sunroom is now enclosed and the drywall partially installed, the floor is still a cement slab. Well we moved the doggie door to the sunroom.
The beasts have found out that when they go to the sunroom and bark, they hear an echo. While they might feel that is a great thing, the barking has been driving me nuts. At least they have finally worn themselves out fromthat little game and have gone to sleep.
On other doggie news, we wound up keeping one of the pups from the last batch. the guy that took him brought him back because he cried to much. well we found out the guy was locking the puppie up in his garage over night and the poor little pup wasn't used to that. Well since we didn't find an owner right away he has become mama's newest little boy so we are keeping him.
He had his shots today and was really feeling miserable. Ma RWO spoiled him by giving him a few peices of steak and so he is in hog heaven and also sleeping. One thing that surprized me was that while my daughter was a the vet with him today getting his shots a woman offered her $1000 for him. For her sake she didn't take the woman up on it as I think Ma RWO would have had a cow.
For the guy that wanted to keep the eight week old poodle pup in the garage overnight, I only wonder. Does he know the responsibilities that come with the ownership of an animal. They are like your children, and must have care and attention to have a happy life. There are far to many people that have pets and after a few days the new pet is out in the back yard lucky to be fed regularly.
While sometime a serious pain inthe rear, ours sleep with us, they all know thier position in the bed. They never want for food or water. Sometimes they don't get all the attention they want individually, but they all get attention. I am so glad that we rescued this one from someone who would have been a bad owner.
Posted at 11:43 pm by RWO
I don’t know how many times I have started and re-started this entry for Laila’s contest. It’s hard for me as an American to fully understand fully the politics of the Philippines. My access to particulars has been limited to talking to a few friends that are now American Citizens, some folks that currently live there, what I have been able to find on the internet, which consists of news articles and blogs, and what I have seen on the news here in the states, which is also very limited.
Anyway, here is my understanding of the Filipino situation, from what sources I have been able to find, and I would like to remind you that I am no expert on this topic. This is an opinion piece that I have made from what I have been able to find.
Early in my career I was stationed aboard the only supply ship home-ported in the Western Pacific. Though we were stationed out of Yokosuka, Japan we spent most of our in port time in Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines, as that was the site of the Navy’s largest supply depot in Westpac.
I first went to the Philippines in 1976 when the Marcos imposed Martial Law was in full swing. Most of the Filipino’s I knew were very unhappy with the Marcos regime but were very hesitant to speak out about it as folks the did not tow the government line had a habit of either being arrested or disappearing.
One thing I had a hard time with was the poverty that the Filipino’s suffered. You have to remember that I was a young sailor in my late teens early twenties at the time and I had never left the United States before, so my knowledge of world affairs was pretty limited.
The people all seemed to be hard working, that ports were full of ship’s picking things up for export, and the United States was paying some pretty high rent for the use of Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base. Additionally there was a lot of money coming in from the servicemen and tourism so there was no excuse for some of the poverty I saw.
Martial law was a little strange to me as I had never been any place up to that time where armed troops were guarding street corners and where you had to be off the streets before curfew. It was some strange times for me. It was great back in the mid to late eighties when Martial Law was lifted, though many of the Filipino’s I knew were very distrusting of their government under Marcos.
Upon the election of Corazon Aquino, many of my Filipino friends were elated as they felt that she, being a simple honest person would be able to correct the corrupt government and the Philippines would be on the road to recovery. The only problem was that when Marcos left the Philippines, so did the Treasury. Under the Presidencies of Aquino and later Fidel Ramos the country was making a slight recovery though money was always a problem. A lot of folks were making money off the backs of the Filipino’s but it was all foreign businesses and the money as well as manpower was leaving the country.
Also in the southern Philippines the government was having problems fighting radical Communist Groups as well as Muslim extremists.
The Filipino’s then elected Joseph Estrada as President who returned to the Marcos ways of accepting bribes and corruption and he was removed from power in 2001 and replaced with his Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a political rival.
Under Arroyo, the Philippines has remained a troubled country with the Muslim extremists and Radical Communists still making waves, with money and people still leaving in droves for financial stability overseas, and the people continuing to live in poverty in their home country. As I traveled throughout Westpac in the last few years of my career, I ran into more and more Filipino’s working in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Japan. It seems like the Philippines is supplying the maid service and manual labor force for Asia, though there were also many Indian’s and Pakistani’s also working in these countries.
Along comes the 2004 Philippines election. Fernando Poe Jr. (An actor friend of Estrada’s) decided to run against Arroyo and after the election the government was unable to come up with a clear-cut winner, as accusations of election fraud and voting irregularities surfaced. Depending on whose side tells the tale, Poe won or Arroyo won. They decided to have the election solved by recounting the votes under supervision of representatives from both camps, however with the ballot box stuffing, disappearance of poll workers, and a few other problems this was probably not the best way to do things.
Finally on June 23 they proclaimed Arroyo the winner amid protests from a good portion of the Filipinos. Talking to different Filipino’s you get pretty much a split of opinions. Basically Arroyo supporters say it’s great she was elected and non-supporters feel robbed of their vote through a bogus recount process that was unconstitutional.
From what I see as an outsider, the Philippines will continue to see their wealth deteriorate. As long as businesses see turmoil in the Philippines (the people rose up and ousted Marcos and Estrada, will they do it with Arroyo?) they will be hesitant to invest there. As lack of investment trickles down the Filipino people will suffer, as the government coffers will continue to run dry.
The imposing of an “under the radar” Martial Law, which I understand from a few folks, (can’t find any reports on it) will fuel the outrage that the Poe supporters have over the election results. Depending on how far this outrage goes, Arroyo’s days, like Marcos and Estrada before her may be numbered if the Filipino people keep the protests up.
One thing I find really interesting is that she is going to build a palace in Cebu to thank the folks there for putting her in office. To move the capital like that would be a pretty costly proposal in a country struggling to make ends meet.
For the near future Arroyo will pretty much get her way as her party has the majority in the Philippine Congress. I see two things that could result in her downfall. The first one is, if the people who continue the protests over the unfair elections oust her. I see this as the more likely of the two, especially if Poe doesn’t let the issue die. The second is if the status quo remains in effect, meaning she continues to do nothing about the poverty. People with no hope tend to reach a breaking point, and as the regular guy sits out there with unreliable electricity, weak job prospects, among other things, he will reach that breaking point.
I see an even bigger problem looming for the Philippines though. That is the fact, that as the Filipino people remain divided over this election they still have problems with the Muslim extremists. They will get bolder and bolder. As that happens the Philippines can say goodbye to foreign investment as the returns for that investment would be questionable and there are plenty of safe places to invest. If that happens the Philippines will continue to go backward in the world economy.
While my government has expressed congratulations to President Arroyo, they did make it a point to mention that the election results were questionable. Also whether you agree or disagree with the US’s war on terrorism and Iraq in particular, if the Filipino’s cut and run, it would be a bad thing for the Philippines as the current US administration would consider it a slap in the face. In dealing with the Abu Sayyraf terrorists in the Philippines, the Philippine Government doesn’t deal, however they will pull up stakes over this hostage in Iraq? Angelo dela Cruz has been getting a lot of press here in the States, as is the Philippine government considering pulling their humanitarian workers out. While we all hope and pray that Mr. dela Cruz will be released, if the government of the Philippines caves, their relationship here will suffer.
While most of the world sees the American Press and treats it as gospel, what people from other countries don’t know is, our press is very biased to the left, controlling what the people see and hear. There is a silent majority here in the states that have awoken since the attack on the World Trade Center, and that awakening will prevent the liberals from being elected to office here. Additionally conservative talk radio, a few conservative newspapers, and the Fox News Network are thriving here as more and more people have all of a sudden wondered, how did something like that happen in our country? They then see how Christianity is under attack here, people pushing to legalize drugs and homosexual marriage, and political action groups equating the President of the United States with Adolph Hitler. This kind of stuff is waking up the mainly silent majority of people here, and these people are a huge voting base.
That will not sit well for the Philippines, if they do not remain allies of this administration and that would also be unfortunate. This administration has been extremely helpful in training the Philippine military and helping with Muslim extremists. I doubt if future requests for assistance would be freely granted if the Philippines pulls their support. If Kerry were elected it would be even worse for the Philippines, as he would do nothing without direction from the United Nations and we see what a fantastic job they are doing in Africa.
In summary, until the Philippines can hold an election that is fair and accepted by all, they will not advance. They need to get rid of the folks currently in power, who will do anything to hold on to that power. They need to let the world know of their plight, so the world takes more of an interest in what is going on there and takes an interest in their political system. This is difficult, as much of what is going on is not released outside of the Philippines, since the government there suppresses free speech to a certain extent (from Filipino’s I know). They haven’t suppressed the Internet yet, as China has done, so the Philippine people must use this medium to let the world know how they feel.
While it is great that many Filipinos are finding work, it is work outside of their country. This means a great influx of cash for the economy, but is breaking up the family unit. Jobs for Filipinos must be created in the Philippines for family stability. I see a lot of hope in that several American countries have been outsourcing work to the Philippines with effective results. That will not continue if there is continued turmoil.
Again, I have to say I am not an expert on the Philippines, just a friend of several Filipino’s. Also Politics is such a hard subject to address without ruffling a few feathers. If I ruffled your feathers a bit I apologize. I make my opinion on what sources I found, personal experience, and talking to friends. No doubt, some of the info I got from friends is most likely biased, as anyone talking to me about US politics would bet my biased view.
In closing I hope and pray that a good solution presents itself to the Philippine people, as they deserve to live in peace and prosperity, rather than oppression and poverty.
Posted at 11:15 am by RWO
Friday, July 09, 2004
Richard Riordan is a jerk.
Talk about being a jerk, have you seen this in the press?
Richard Riordan
There is no excuse for saying this to a little kid, especially if you are the Education secretary. This was far over the top and this guy needs to be fired. Swartzenegger won't do it though because they are to close. I would like to see this guy go away.
Posted at 11:33 am by RWO
Why is it when you take a vacation just to hang out around the house, you wind up working harder than if you had gone to work? I'm wondering if I am just weird or if this happens to other folks too!
We have recently been getting our house remodeled. Now that some of the work is getting finished up the time has come to do the painting of the newly remodeled rooms. Well guess who got nominated for that job? I did some of the trim on our sun room the other day and since is was a cool day it wasn't that bad.
Today I decided to finish it up. I got up early this morning and outback I went. I decided to use a sprayer for most of it. Well about the same time I got all set up to paint, here came the sun. As someone who has suffered from heat exhaustion in the past, i am very suseptible to getting it again so I have to be very careful. Especially since I am home alone and if I get overcome I am screwed. Well I have just finished the spray part, leaving a bit of brushwork to do.
I always hate putting off things because I sometimes have a habit of not getting back to them, but it is nearing noon and that sun is getting higher and higher in the sky, so i guess I'll take a break until this evening when it cools down.
I did manage to do one smart thing. I received this deal in the mail for a free stay at Barona Indian Casino and Resort, so i made reservations for Sunday, so that will at least make sure I get one day of rest during this week off that I took.
Posted at 11:22 am by RWO
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Ann Coulter's column this week was pretty enlightening. She writes about John Edwards and rips into his background as an attorney.
Ann Coulter
I never paid much attention to what Edwards was babbling about when he was running for his parties nomination. Now that he is running for Vice president, I have been forced to take notice of his background and what he stands for. A personal injury attorney one step away from the presidency? I don't think so.
These types of attorney's are the lowest of the low. They only take cases they know they can win, and then they get these outrageous jury awards, where they get 1/3 of the award. This is just a guy that has taken advantage of the court system for personal gain and have made millions. While he and Kerry are harping about tax breaks for the rich, remember that they are both richer than Bush or Cheney. Kerry married into his wealth while Edwards gained his by exploiting little kids in court cases.
I don't think either of these guys can speak for me, the little guy who has busted his butt to gain a modest living.
Posted at 07:01 pm by RWO
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
I have had it with this so-called Good Samaritan of San Diego. John Moores, owner of the San Diego Padres Baseball team, is a corporate crook.
LINK
LINK
The man sold his Peregrine stock just before the company went belly up. He then invested his money by buying up 21 acres of land down town and is currently redeveloping it, which will gain him a fortune. He was very active in ensuring the new ballpark would be built down town at taxpayer's expense. Most of the gullible folks in San Diego feel it's a good deal because the City will be making money from a portion of the ticket sales and concessions.
The person who will be making the money is Moores once his redevelopment is completed. The new ballpark is his cash cow. This is not covered by the fine news agencies in San Diego, as Moores and his wife have been so good to the city. They have built Little League parks for the younguns, and have donated millions to various hospitals and San Diego State. This makes them beyond reproach as far as the San Diego media is concerned.
Yesterday Moores was handed a defeat when the San Diego Port Commission decided building a new stadium for the Chargers at the Tenth Ave Pier (Downtown) would not be such a great idea.
LINK
Why should the city taxpayers be paying for stadiums for sports teams owned by billionaires? Don't Alex Spanos and John Moores have enough money?
Posted at 11:16 am by RWO
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
I caught this article over on Drudge tonight and even though I have had to sit through my liberal college education I still knew how to exercise some common sense when I was studing about sunspots, the sun and all.
Sunspot activity is up..
Now let me see here. Back in the 1600's when there was little sunspot activity the earth went through a mini-ice age. Now that there is more sunspot activity than ever recorded there is global warming. Ok, that makes sense to me. Now when they try to relate that to emissions I have a problem. With the additional sunspot activity you would expect the earth would get warmer. Emissions have nothing to do with it.
The sun is one huge unregulated nuclear reactor. Over the years it gets hotter and colder. When it gets hotter as it has been doing over the past 50-60 years the earth in turn gets hotter. Now whike the depletion of the ozone layers does have an effect on the Ozone Layer, depletion of this layer will not have as dramatic effect as the sun heating up. It might make you more susceptible to a bad sunburn, thus skin cancer, but global warming?
It's about time all of these alarmists, stop doing research and get a paying job, as anyone with a brain should figure out, sun gets hotter, earth gets hotter.
Posted at 09:44 pm by RWO
I just put a couple of game sites over in my favorites column. For some reason the link to yahoo games requires you to click on games.yahoo.com but other than that the links work. Check them out and have some fun.
Posted at 09:25 pm by RWO
Monday, July 05, 2004
I sure hope Bush doesn't treat his faithful like this.
I love when I see stuff like this. If I remember correctly Boston is quite a Democratic stronghold, so I guess they figure they can count on not losing too many votes by screwing thier constituents. I guess we'll see in November.
DNC Screwing the Middle Class.
Oh, by the way. I am sorry for not posting lately. I have been getting quite a bit of remodeling done lately and in addition to that, the wife had a few honey do projects to be done. Between the power being off for wiring, moving my LAN cables, and running errands I took some time off blogging and the internet in general. I will try and get at least something up each day from now on.
Posted at 04:36 pm by RWO
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Deliberations and a verdict.
After the defense finished up and the Judge read us our instructions and appointed a bailiff, off we went to the Jury Room. Our bailiff showed us how to use the call system and told us the rules he would follow if we had a break come up or anything like that. He then left and we only had about half an hour until the lunch break so we decided we would go ahead and pick a foreperson.
We asked who wanted to be the foreperson and a few hands went up so we decided to write down the names of the folks who raised their hand and put them in a paper bag. Someone then reached in the bag and we then had a foreperson. We also then went to lunch.
We returned from lunch at 1:30 and then the deliberations began. We had a couple of folks that wanted to hold a vote immediately, but others wanted to go through the checklist item by item. We did the item-by-item thing.
Pretty much everyone agreed on all line items but one, so we started talking about that one item. That one item was, did Erskine have brain damage or a mental problem that caused him to do what he did.
We did a around the table discussion with each person stating their opinion in turn. One of the younger guys on the jury had suffered from a concussion in the past and was hung up on Erskine’s failure of the smell test. Some or the other Jurors put that to rest by stating Erskine smoked like a chimney, which affects smell. Also when the loss of smell thing came out it was many years after the crime. Erskine appeared to be surprised by the results and said he didn’t have any trouble with his sense of smell. Also someone brought up that he was taking a medicine cabinet worth of drugs for all of his ailments.
One of the other young men thought that Erskine had mental problems as after the Rape of the girl that managed to land him the 70 year sentence he did weird things, like let her know his name, asked her out, and dropped her off down town. I happened to mention that during this particular crime he had been doing meth and drinking beer with the victim, and that may have been a reason for the odd behavior.
Also during this time one of the jurors had been putting up pictures of the boys, and they weren’t the nice ones. We then had one of the older ladies that also thought he might have a mental problem that caused loss of control, but several people brought up the fact that he never hurt his older sister, or the Navy woman. Also even though he had gotten physical with his girlfriend, as soon as she stood up to him and told him she was calling the police, he backed down and stopped the assault. All of these things demonstrated that he could exercise control when he wanted to.
We had taken a few mini breaks for folks to make head calls and all, and we were just finishing this line of deliberation when the bailiff knocked and said it was time for the afternoon break. We all decided to skip the break and continue. He seemed a bit surprised, said ok, and left.
We then decided to have our first vote. Before voting one of the guys got up and pointed to the crime scene photo’s and said, do we really want the man that did that to live to old age? We then voted. Some of the folks, mainly the women and one of the older men were in tears when saying death, but on the first vote it was 12-0 for the death penalty. It was only 3:15 in the afternoon. The foreman buzzed for the bailiff and a few expressed concerns that we did that way to fast. A few of us stated, that we all agreed there was only one item on the list to debate and that we had debated it.
We then started talking about a few things that went on in court. Folks started sharing different things they observed during the case, while we were waiting for the bailiff to come back. Also some of the folks were just gaining composure, from the vote. We shared things like Erskine’s behavior in the courtroom. Two of the people had only taken notes on Erskine’s behavior, and had notes like; he was laughing and joking with his attorneys whenever crime scene photos were shown. That he was making hand signals to his mother during her testimony, and that he was trying to intimidate the family members of the victims.
We also talked about one of the alternate jurors, who had been a little disruptive at times. He had this bag that he brought everyday. It had several zippers and he would continually play with the zippers on his bag, play with his water bottle, make comments, and play with his notebook. He was really annoying, in the courtroom and on the breaks. He was a subject matter expert on everything. The only problem was that he didn’t really know much about anything; so many people just tuned him out.
Finally the bailiff came back and we told him we had reached a verdict. He seemed a little surprised and told us to stand by and that he would come and get us when everyone got back to the courtroom. We continued to talk about stuff, like sidebars and objections. We passed around e-mail addresses and all. It kept getting later and later. We were used to getting out of court by 4:30 each day and 4:30 was rapidly approaching. There was some discussion about how we would probably have to come back the next day. I stated that if that were to happen they would have to sequester us for the night because they wouldn’t want the verdict to get out before it was announced in court.
It was right about 4:30 when we heard the knock on the door and were taken over to the courtroom. I was the first to enter as I sat in the back row, closest to the families. When the door to the courtroom opened there were camera’s everywhere and many more people in the courtroom than I was used to seeing. When I first came in I miscounted and sat in the wrong chair (smooth move), and rapidly corrected myself.
Once we were all in the courtroom the Judge asked the foreperson if we had reached a verdict and she said we had. She then handed the verdict sheets to the bailiff and they were read. When the Death Penalty was read the families let out a gasp of relief. Erskine showed no expression, just looked straight ahead. The prosecutor with tears in her eyes mouthed a thank you to us. We then each in turn had to say that we agreed with the verdict. I made sure I made my yes loud and clear.
The Judge then thanked us for our service, and let us know that our names and personal information would be sealed. He further stated that if these were to ever be unsealed the court would let us know in advance. He also said that we could now talk about the case.
We were then let back to the Jury room. The bailiff asked us if we wanted to walk the gauntlet, which meant talk to the families, prosecution, defense, and the press. A few folks expressed a desire to speak to the families but were told, you will have to meet with the press also if you do that, as it was an all or nothing situation. Everyone said no, everyone wanted to avoid the press after a high profile juror screw up the previous week. In the case of Richard Tuitt one of the jurors decided to talk to the press. He told them that the jury was hopelessly hung until he personally presented a piece of evidence, which turned the holdouts. The only problem was that it wasn’t a piece of evidence so now they may have to retry that case. No one wanted to have something like that happen to them.
The bailiff came back with a few buddies and said they were going to clear the way for us to get out of the courthouse without being hassled. We asked about how we were to check out of Jury service and he collected all of our Juror badges and said he would take care of it for us. After a few minutes he got the all clear and we were escorted by about 6 to 8 Sheriffs to a side door where they let us go back to our lives.
That was it, back to work the next day, to answer many questions. All in all, while I hated to have to sit on this case, I am glad of the outcome. I feel I looked at everything in a fair manner. The defense didn’t present anything to me that told me that he wasn’t at fault. If they would have, then I would have gone against death.
I saw an article in the paper a couple of days later, where the defense is going to challenge the verdict as being unconstitutional. He also had some unflattering remarks because we reached a verdict so fast. Sorry, but everything was very clear to us as the prosecutor laid out and presented a great case. Anyway that is pretty much how I saw the case and I guess in the future I may post some more things about it as things come up. I hope all you folks that have been following my posts enjoyed it.
Posted at 08:33 pm by RWO
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