Susan at my office is the resident queen of Starbucks. There is no one in our office who drinks as much of it as she does. I, with one Mint Mocha Frapuccino every day, am probably the only one close to her, but I’m still not in her league.

In the office next door to me are Leah and Susan. A while ago, Leah and I reached an agreement. I would mooch off the coffee they made every day in exchange for me buying the coffee. Leah and Demetre (the third person in that office) make an awesome pot of coffee, so it’s nice to be able to mooch a cup every now and then.

I’ve been trying to brew Starbucks at home for weeks and have had little to no success. It comes out like motor oil. Either too thick, or mostly too strong. Either way, it’s almost undrinkable. So I shared that bit of frustration with the ladies next door today, and they enlightened me on a few things which I will share for the coffee-making rookies in my reading audience.

1. Despite the idiotic claim on the side of the bag of Starbucks coffee, you do NOT need 2 tablespoons of grinds for every cup of coffee. In fact, you only need 4 tablespoons for 8 cups! No wonder it was coming out so damned strong. The bag was telling me to add quadruple the amount of coffee I should be adding for normal folks!

2. Add a secret ingredient to the grinds while they’re in the filter. Salt. A bit of salt inside the grinds helps cut the acidity of the coffee.

3. DO NOT double up the amount of grinds to make 16 cups. Three scoops should be enough.

Okay, I’ll admit, I was skeptical. I mean, here I was dumping almost a whole bag into my coffee pot, and they’re telling me that I only need 1/4 of that? I called Beth from work and told her that I had the coffee problem licked and I was making coffee tonight.

I popped in the right amount of coffee, a sprinkle of salt, and plenty of water. While it was brewing it even smelled better. Then the real test.

Into the cup. It was dark dark dark dark brown, not black! We’re getting there!

I took a sniff, and it smelled smooth.

A bit of International Delights French Vanilla…

The sip…

Needs sugar…

One packet of Splenda later, and I was in coffee heaven. Honestly, it was the best pot of coffee I have ever made.

Needless to say I’m encouraged by my coffee success tonight, so tomorrow morning, I’m making a thermal mug of it before I head out. I mean… It’s Starbucks! What could be bad when you know how to make it?

In keeping with the vein of RKB’s point that liberals were solidly behind President Bush after 9/11, I decided to look for an event I remembered that happened about a month after it. Sure enough, I found a link today with a photo.

Now, I will caveat this by saying that it’s from the World Socialist Web Site. However, anyone in New York at the time knows the size of this demonstration (for once, I’d reckon they didn’t inflate those numbers in their press release) because every news outlet covered it extensively, making sure to note that these were New Yorkers who were protesting the war that was started in our city.

New York City protest opposes war in Afghanistan
By our reporter
12 October 2001

Over 10,000 people turned out in New York City on Sunday, October 7 to oppose the Bush administration’s so-called war on terrorism. The demonstration, which had been planned for several weeks by a coalition of pacifist and activist groups, was expected to draw only a few thousand but grew in size as word spread that the US had begun bombing Afghanistan.

Marchers assembled at Union Square, which has been the site of an impromptu outdoor memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attack. Speakers there included Ruben Schaffer, whose grandson Gregory Rodriguez was killed in the WTC collapse, reading a letter from Mr. Rodriguez’s parents to President Bush: “Your response to this attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death. It makes us feel worse. It makes us feel that our government is using our son’s memory as a justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.” Rita Lasar, whose brother died at the World Trade Center when he stayed behind to help a wheelchair-bound friend, also spoke.

100,000 10,000 people. Heavy coverage in this city. One month later, the handwringing had already begun. It was around this time that NION (Not In Our Name) was formed, all the anti-war activity really picked up steam, and the Bush = Nazi comparisons really hit full stride.

Please don’t lecture me on the people of this country “fully supporting” Bush based on some polls taken ten days after the attacks. And don’t hand me legislation that was passed and has since been either disavowed or turned against the President despite a Democrat signature on it. If the extent of their support was signing the Patriot Act, which no one in Congress read before signing, then they’re in big trouble because they’ve all gone to herculean lengths to make sure they distance themselves from it.

I lived here. I saw the “support” first hand.

I understand Boing Boing is a blog just like everyone else, but…

Cory Doctorow: The US’s new Supreme Torturer Alberto Gonzales has removed the $8,000 drapes that his predecessor, John Ashcroft, caused to have hung over the bare tit of the statue of the Spirit of Justice in the DoJ’s Great Hall.

…I mean, really. Boing Boing is slowly going the “Lost Remote” direction.

“[They] handled 9/11 like it was a debate over a highway bill instead of a matter of people’s lives. People wanted leadership and they didn’t get it from the Democrats.”

Wow. Harsh words. That Rove’s a real lying bastard. No wonder the Democrats are offended.

Read More »

And on that note, it’s time for me to retire. I don’t particularly want to, but it seems I pretty much have to. I’d very much like to explain why here but, unfortunately, I cannot. My friends are welcome to email and I will explain in private. Perhaps some of you can even help. Suffice it to say that there have been some other - not-so-nice - articles about blogs in the papers lately and I do not wish to be used in anyone’s campaign of personal destruction. Given the current climate, I am seriously starting to believe that anonymity may be the only way to blog about politics.

One of only two people I’ve ever trusted the keys to IT to, and the only person aside from myself with a login on this site other than me. Dodd, thanks for all the great stuff over the past few years. It’s been great reading and I hope you’ll stick around here and drop a comment in every once in awhile.

Barack Obama, the young dynamic African American savior of the Democrat Party…

“I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator,” Obama said. “As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African-American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice.”

And as for what Lincoln may have thought about Obama’s election to the Senate in 2004?

“He may not have dreamed of that exact outcome. But I like to believe he would have appreciated the irony,” Obama said.

‘Tweren’t for him, you’d be picking cotton on the plantation, my friend, whether you “swallow” that view or not. Typical Democrats. Can’t go on without tearing down those white men.

Imagine if someone had said this about Martin Luther King Junior?

ATLANTA (CNN) - Gasoline prices are back on the rise, reversing a two-month decline, according to a survey released Sunday.

The average of price of a gallon of self-serve regular jumped eight cents to $2.21 a gallon — just 7 cents below the all-time high that was set on April 8, the Lundberg Survey found.

Publisher Trilby Lundberg said the biggest reason was the rising price of crude oil, which set an all-time high on Friday — the same day gasoline prices were surveyed at about 7,000 stations nationwide.

Light sweet crude oil for August delivery closed at $59.84 a barrel Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange — the highest price for a nearby futures contract in the 22 years oil has been traded at the exchange.

I don’t get it, and maybe I’m just slow… It’s possible…

Gas prices are “back on the rise” reversing a “two-month” decline.

Did you catch that, also?

Well, here’s something to ponder… When did the news media report the decline?

Based on what’s been reported over the past year, gas should cost about a million dollars a gallon. You never see the reports of gas going down, and only reports when they go up. I doubt anyone even knew that gas prices had been going down in the past two months. Do you remember ever catching a report in the last two months about a price decline?

Now ponder this. Who gets rich when gas prices go up (or at least who is perceived to get rich)?

Right. The oil industry.

And who are the poster children for the oil industry? Well, if you ask the MSM, it’s Bush and Cheney.

So why else would it be nearly impossible to find a report on gas prices dropping?

9-0

Originally uploaded by VincenzoF.

By any accounts of people who have been there, Keyspan Park in Brooklyn is the nicest minor league baseball park in the country. That’s not my “They’re the affiliate of the Mets so everything about them is cool” voice talking, it’s an oft-repeated fact.

Today was my first visit to Keyspan Park. Along with my wife, father-in-law, and brother-in-law, we went for a picnic and then to catch the Cyclones play the Ironbirds (the affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, both in the New York Penn League).

Striking about this park is the coziness of it. It only seats about 11,000 people, and they had about 8,500 there today.

We were treated to a great game. The Cyclones, last year’s New York Penn League Champions, beat up on the Ironbirds in every aspect of the game. Allowing no runs and only two hits, the Ironbirds were entirely shut down by the base running and offense of the Cyclones.

It’s no wonder the innaugural NY Penn League All-Star game is going to be held at Keyspan Park. Having been to professional stadiums, I can truthfully say it’s a great place to see a game, a terrificly designed park, and a friendly fun way to spend a weekend day. If you’re in the area, do check it out.

There are some photos on my Flickr so go check them out. You’ll get a good idea of what I’m talking about!

Ever swear up and down you weren’t something by defining that something?

In the past, when the Yanks lost to the Mets I would get pissed. The fan rivalry (as well as the rivarly within my mixed NY baseball team family) made it that way.

In the past, if the Sox reached first place with the Yanks trailing this many games behind, I’d be pissed. Or at least upset.

I just don’t care anymore.

It’s not like I’m a fair weather fan whose team is losing so she gives up. Not like that at all.

Well, Michele, I hate to inform you, but that makes you a fairweather fan of the highest order. But it’s okay. You can take comfort in the fact that most of the “Yankee Faithful” as they’re called when the Yankees are winning fall into that category.

See Yankee fans fall into the same repetitive moulds every season. When they lose, the games don’t matter until October. When they win, it was the greatest win ever and they’re primed for number [insert championship number here] and no one is stopping them.

Year after year after year after year, Mets fans endure the constant barrage of Yankees Rule, and year after year we hear about how they’re the best in baseball, the legends, the gods, the great ones, the chosen team, america’s team, and so on and so forth. We hear, when they lose how the games don’t matter until October (as if its some great foregone conclusion that when the Yankees get to the World Series they automatically win, just like the last few years, right?) and so on. When they beat the Mets, we hear about it day in and day out over and over until the Yankee fans can’t stop breezing it by everyone wearing the blue orange and black. When they lose, the games are unimportant because they don’t happen in October for a World Championship.

It’s great, really, to watch the Yankees fans who are self-proclaimed die-hards dying hard over their unbelievably bad season. Suddenly all the “die-hards” aren’t ready to proclaim their fan-ship anymore.

Suddenly the games in June mean something. In fact, if you listen to the New York sports press, the series this weekend against the Mets who smacked them around like overpaid bitches yesterday, was critical after they blew it big time to the worst team in baseball, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. A must win they couldn’t win. A must win in June.

Come to think of it, Michele may not be a fairweather fan. She’s a Yankee fan which means that she’ll most likely be silent for the rest of this season.

Just like the rest of ‘em.

The headlines are all over the papers, and you’d have to have your head firmly implanted into your anus to miss them. They’re screaming because people like Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid want Karl Rove to resign. Why? Because he said the following:

“But perhaps the most important difference,” he said, is “in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

Straight up and down the party line, the Democrats are furious over this quote, and right they should be because it exposes them for what they are. Handwringing blame-america-first losers (surely you know the term loser; it’s what the great Harry Reid used to describe George W. Bush to a room full of students).

Well, see we have two ways to approach this quote.

On one hand, we could use the Downing Street attack. This attack, simply put, means that we don’t say whether or not the accusation is true, we only say that it must be true because no Democrats have denied it. What, you say? They have?

Well? Prove it. All I’ve heard from the Democrats since this quote came out is the perpetual insistence that Karl Rove resign (a standard operation for Democrats; everyone must resign except for the former head of the KKK and Hillary “Gandhi is a Gas Station Owner” Clinton). Not once have they shot back with a defense other than “Rove is a bastard for saying it.” You would think something that was so obviously untrue would be easy to disprove. All we’d have to do is examine the war voting records and quotations of the likes of the Democrat party to find this untruth.

Instead of actually defending themselves by proving where the quote is wrong, they’ve been defending themselves by saying the person making the accusation should resign. When conservatives suggested that the “Downing Street Memos” were not 100% what they claimed to be and that their sourcing was questionable (considering every single report based on them was based on a fabrication by a reporter), we were told that we were too busy discrediting the source and that we should be more interested in addressing the charges.

Well, Democrats, here’s your big chance. Address the charge and not its source.

Of course, we also have the “Dan Rather” method. Surely you know this one also. In the Dan Rather method, the truth of any accusation is based, not on its veracity, but on its seriousness. For example, Bush’s National Guard record, which is capped with an honorable discharge, is irrelevant because a memo that Dan’s friends at the DNC made up for him that states that he was a bastard in the Texas ANG and a bad soldier who was given favors.

Or the “Koran” memos. They weren’t true, they never were true, and they never will be true. So untrue were they that Newsweek refused to stand behind them after a week of begging us to accept their truth.

But what the Dan Rather and Koran memos have in common is that Democrats (and pundits alike) suggested that the seriousness of the charges warranted their investigation and exploration. Not their content, and certainly not the veracity of their sourcing. In the liberal world, the sourcing of an attack is irrelevant, and the content of such attack is unimportant, except to the degree that the charge is serious. If a charge is really really serious, true or not, it must therefore be investigated, defended and so on.

All we’ve heard coming out of the mouths of Howard Dean and the left hemisphere of the blogosphere this weekend is how Rove is out of control for saying what he did, and he’s trying to smear Democrats and so on and so forth. You would think such a blatant attempt at putting together a false smear would be easy to disassemble given a small amount of time. I mean, Democrats could trot out their record on their response to 9/11. How they’ve supported our troops while they’re in combat. How they’ve made public declarations supporting them. How they’ve understood that our military has, through much cost to itself, not just carpet bombed Afghanistan and Iraq, which would’ve saved thousands of American servicemen and women’s lives.

Surely such a blatant falsehood would be extremely easy to disprove if their record were as good as they want us to believe it is. I would think that instead of beating Karl Rove over the head and asking for his resignation, they would be lining up to tout their record.

Were it good in the first place.

But due to the seriousness of the charges, and their non-denial of them, I’d have to conclude based on prevalent Democrat methodology, that the charges are indeed true. The good news is once you reach a conclusion based on Democrat methodology, all you have to do is call counter-evidence insufficient, partisan, or a lie, so don’t bother defending the Democrats here.

Democrat methodology is impenetrable.

The Dip

Originally uploaded by VincenzoF.

7 years (and many many pounds) ago today, Beth and I started dating. We’ve grown a lot spiritually and shrunk a lot physically, and through it all we still love each other as much as if not more than we did before.

June 25, 1998 was a day that changed my life forever; it was the day I met the love of my life.

Reverend Phelps’ Hate Mongering Minions

Originally uploaded by VincenzoF.

Well, needless to say we didn’t make it in to see Reverend Graham last night. We just couldn’t navigate the sheer mass of people that was there. To put in perspective the estimated 60,000 people who were there last night alone, Shea Stadium, home of my New York Mets only holds 57,400 people.

Beth and I decided after hanging around a bit that we would just head home, so we did, and on the way out the Fred Phelps morons were out in force. All ten of them. Some volunteers from Graham’s group were debating them, and some pedestrians walking by (some of them obviously from out of town) were openly mocking their nastiness.

Phelps and his ilk can’t stand Graham. A true Christian in every sense of the word preaching a message of love to those who’ll hear it is like sunlight to a vampire for the Phelps crowd of Godhatesfags.com fame.

Graham’s greatest accomplishment may very well be proving to the world that there are true Christians out there on the other side of the Phelps “everyone is going to hell” crowd, and for that alone, I deeply admire him.

He’s a voice that’s going to be missed, but his legacy will last forever.

When I first started dating Beth, I had never been in the Bronx in my life, except for one trip to the Bronx at the ripe old age of 5 to go to the Bronx Zoo (which I now live a five minute walk from). I had always expected it to be a wasteland of burned out buildings, flaming garbage cans, gang wars, and so on. Typical thoughts for most people outside our beautiful bourough.

It isn’t like that here. In fact, I love the neighborhood I live in, and I’m not so sure I want to leave at any point.

However, the South Bronx is not the same as my neighborhood. Foresaken for many years and generally avoided by most people, it has its bad points. Crime is high, the neighborhoods are somewhat rundown in some areas, and housing is resigned to apartment buildings that are usually left unkept by slumlords. While it isn’t as close to the outside reputation people give it, it’s not a fun happy place to live and most people are happy to get out in one way or another if they can actually afford to.

For years, the residents of the South Bronx have been begging the city to help improve conditions in the South Bronx, and for the most part those requests have been met with yawns and empty promises.

Fast forward now, to 2005. Much like the “meat packing” district of Manhattan, the hipsters have arrived and the gentrification of Port Morris and Motthaven have begun. You would think this would be a good thing, right? People with money who aren’t criminals start moving to your neighborhood en masse, the worth of the neighborhood goes up, and people pay more attention to it.

It’s finally what these neglected neighborhoods have always wanted, right?

Wrong.

Amidst a New York Times article touting the arrival of “SoBro,” we find the “unhappy with everything” crowd has already started moaning bitching and complaining that their neighborhood may no longer be the craphole they’ve become accustomed to:

Still, no one expects the area to become another TriBeCa or SoHo anytime soon. The newcomers, some of whom have spent much of their lives abroad or in the hinterlands and are not as easily put off by the Bronx’s outdated reputation, say they have felt welcomed. Nevertheless, those welcomes sometimes mask fears by longtime residents that they may someday be priced out of the neighborhood.

“It’s going to attract a class of people whose incomes and lifestyles are going to be radically different from those in the South Bronx, which is one of the poorest areas in the city,” said Hector Soto, a lawyer active in developmental and environmental issues. Many of those fears coalesced around a rezoning measure passed by the City Council last March that essentially added another 11 square blocks of Port Morris to a five-block zone where, starting in 1997, apartments were permitted among the factories.

Mr. Soto and other critics - backed by artists and professionals - fought in vain for provisions that would have assured that half of any new apartments be set aside for low-income families. Amanda M. Burden, the chairwoman of the City Planning Commission, objected successfully that such set-asides would have discouraged development.

Taken on its word, this article claims that people are upset that the improvements and development that will come to these neglected areas will price them out of the neighborhood. Well? What the hell did they expect?

The contradiction in their desires and their gripes is laughable. They want the high-end neighborhood with beautiful stores, nicer apartments, and less crime. However, they still want to pay the same rent as they’re paying in the crime-ridden crappy-apartment neighborhood they live in now. You can’t have it both ways, although, as with most of the people in New York City, they’re going to die trying.

The fact is these people are going to get what they wanted. The neighborhood will improve around the “investment” of the “hipsters” and so on. You can’t invest nothing in the neighborhood (as most people who live down there do) beyond a corner bodega and expect the neighborhood to turn around.

If only residents down there would learn to accept the receipt of what they’ve been asking for for years, they may actually learn to like it.

Source: NY Times

I’m off with the wife to see Billy Graham, although I’m not holding out hope. There’s gonna be 200,000 people there, and that park simply cannot hold that many people, so I have a feeling I’ll be heading home much earlier than planned.

If, of course, I get some pics, I will definitely be posting them later.

Here we go……………….

Why I love Factcheck.org:

A Premature Attack
Pro-Bush group’s ad faults Democrats for criticisms they haven’t yet made, about a Supreme Court nominee who hasn’t been named, to a vacancy that doesn’t yet exist.

And then the summary of the article:

Summary

A pro-Bush group fired the opening salvo - they call it “a warning shot” - in what threatens to become a multi-million dollar advertising and public relations campaign over a possible Bush appointment to the Supreme Court. The ad predicts “Democrats will attack anyone the President nominates,” saying that ” a Supreme Court nominee deserves real consideration, instead of instant attacks.”

But this ad itself is an attack that goes beyond “instant” - it was launched without waiting for Bush to name a replacement for the ailing Justice William Rehnquist, or even for Rehnquist to say publicly whether or not he will retire as he is reported to be considering. And whether or not Democrats will criticize “anyone” Bush names can’t be known for sure at this point - it may or may not turn out to be true.

To support its case, the ad cites editorial blurbs from Republican newspapers criticizing Democrats over their treatment of Supreme Court nominees in the past. But the ad fails to note that the blurbs were about the Robert Bork nomination fight that happened nearly 18 years ago.

Sigh…

So on one hand you have Democrats running the show in the Senate, despite being in the minority. They set the agenda, control the debate, vote on nothing, propose nothing, and act like winners.

On the other hand you have a stupid-assed flag-burning amendment, gay marriage, and so on, all over the lips of the small-government conservatives. Their supporters put out ads about things that haven’t happened yet and manage to muster mucho outrage over it.

Three words can describe the party that’s won (in every sense of the word) every election since 1998:

Acting

Like

Losers.

So the “no flag burning” amendment is all the rage. Bolstered by less than stellar polls, I’m sure, Republicans are pushing the issue to “protect” our flag. Had you told me about this a year ago, I would’ve jumped for joy. Nothing burns me more than someone burning a flag. But it seems my “rah rah” has rah’ed itself out. This amendment just stinks.

I don’t like flag-burning, and I would love to beat on people when I see them burning once, which is exactly why I think it needs to be protected.

When the first amendment was passed, the intention was clear. It was passed in order to protect even the most heinous speech that could ever be uttered. In doing so, the founding fathers established a country that people could feel free to criticize, desecrate, and flagrantly insult at their own whim. In fact, the idea was to protect even the most agregious speech because oftentimes it is exactly that form of speech that is targeted by the so-called “speech police.”

What’s the point of protecting speech if we assume that speech only includes that speech which we agree with?

If given the chance, I would absolutely vote against this flagrant attempt to “rally the troops” at the cost of the Constitution. I know it’s an amendment, and I know it would be the Constitution and therefore could not “cost” the Constitution anything. However, something that runs clearly counter to the intent of the Constitution whether it’s a law or a proposed amendment must be defeated at all costs.

The Constitution cannot be amended to merely allow “certain kinds” of speech and outlaw others. In some ways, in order to protect it the way we expect judges and other politicians to protect it, we must also protect the ideas behind it.

This amendment must be defeated so soundly that it’s never brought up again, and any “small government” Republicans (if there are any at all anymore).

Anyone seen David?

Originally uploaded by VincenzoF.

Playing with my nephew is a heck of a lot of fun. When I saw the potential photo in this pic, I had to go for it. It reminded me of the millions of “cartoon” hide and go seek games you’ve seen since you were small. You know, where the main character hides in a bush and his legs are underneath and the bush walks around to some xylophone music?

Yep. That’s what this reminded me of. No one’s gonna find me here!

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a photographer who was detained for taking pictures of the BART system in California. RKB also linked a similar story in the comments. I was hoping that things would have cleared themselves up and the authorities would’ve realized that some people just like taking pictures. Was I ever wrong.

Sharma was in America on a screening tour of his film across several universities since March 22. He arrived in New York May 12 from Los Angeles for a screening of his film at the New School, and was staying at Hotel Bedford on 40th St.

The next day he was out about 2:30pm with his tourist-grade Sony palmcorder. “I walked around the block and found an interesting visual—yellow cabs emerging from the underpass and receding against the backdrop of tall buildings,” said Sharma.

That is when his troubles began. “I took several shots and started walking to the next block, en route to Times Square when I was approached by a gentleman wearing a pair of jeans and a shirt, who flashed or rather rapidly flipped a badge and identified himself as Detective Elimeyer of NYPD,” Sharma said in a complaint filed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent mayoral agency which reviews police conduct.

Now mind you, he’s done nothing wrong at this point. He’s videotaping traffic and a building. Observe the silliness of this story progress into stupidity:

“The detective told me he found me suspicious because I had been shooting at the spot for half an hour,”

…

“He insisted that I was shooting a ‘sensitive’ building. He said ‘it was okay if you were walking and shooting for a minute or two,’ at which point I asked him whether there was a law I had broken or it I needed police permission to take candid shots on the streets of Manhattan or whether there was indeed a ceiling on the number of minutes I could shoot at a spot.

“He said less than five minutes was fine but when I asked what about 15 or 20 or more, he said, ‘Buddy, that’s going to be a problem’.” By standing in one spot, the officer told Sharma, he was engaging in “suspicious behavior.”

This is the problem. It’s not the law. The law is what it is. It’s the fact that the law is interpreted (or in this case invented) at the whim of the person enforcing it. Now this would all be bad enough. A foreign filmmaker being held for no reason and being threatened as if he did something illegal when he didn’t. This alone would be enough to get the juices flowing for most normal people. So now we continue the story. After asking Sharma (and being allowed) to look into his shoulder bag:

At that point, according to the complaint, the officer walked over to a patrolman when Sharma turned on the camera to offer to play back the recorded footage, when, he said, the officer charged him, shoved him, snatched the camera and said, “We know how to deal with you guys.” The officer then said he was authorized to punch him if necessary, Sharma said.

For nearly two hours Sharma was made to stand on the sidewalk outside a Starbucks, coffee shop with his camera and passport in the detective’s possession, not allowed to move, not allowed to use his phone or buy water. He said he was humiliated in front of hundreds of passers-by and onlookers.

Now mind you that while this insanity is going on for two hours, and the police are hoping that this darkskinned man will turn out to be the next big surprise terrorist bust, the job they’re really supposed to be doing is not getting done.

Sharma ended up being taken to a precinct after further questioning, and because of Google he was able to prove who he was.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m all for the protection of this country and tightening laws that put people in danger. However there is no law on the books that backs the harassment of this man. Yet again, as with the case on the BART, an overzealous police officer seems to be making a play to find the “next big bust” and trampled all over the rights of this guy.

I’m willing to hear the other side of the story if it’s presented somewhere, but frankly I don’t see how the NYPD’s actions here can be considered proportional or reasonable.

Source: Indypress NY

The United “Church” of “Christ” (note my use of scare quotes) is having issues. A rift is forming and battle lines are being drawn. At issue? Whether Christ was divine and whether or not God exists. You heard that right. Some members of the UCOC (including, according to this article, some in the clergy!) don’t even believe in God…

“The whole point of this is that many of these people have a very fuzzy idea of faith in God,” said the Rev. Albert W. Kovacs of the Hungarian Reformed Church. “We have significant numbers of clergy who don’t believe in God.”

A Haworth pastor said the conservatives have a point, though he added that the resolution is unenforceable and a waste of time.

“If you don’t offer a risen Christ, you’re not offering hope,” said the Rev. David Boda-Mercer of First Congregational Church of Haworth. “If people are looking for answers, and they come to us and get a vague non-answer, but great food and musical programs, then I don’t think we’re helping them.”

But others in the denomination disagree. Many Christians, they say, reject a literal interpretation of the Bible and lead full spiritual lives.

“We have people with all sorts of beliefs of what Christianity is - just like society does,” said Barb Powell, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland-based denomination. “The difference is that our polity allows us to talk about it and discuss it with one another.”

So let’s understand the idiocy of this. The United Church of CHRIST has members who don’t believe Christ is divine and is pondering changing their “charter” (for lack of a better word) so as not to offend those who don’t. At the same time, there are members of the UCOC who are performing the duties of the clergy who don’t even believe in God.

What are they praying to?

I’m legitimately asking the question because it’s quite confusing to me. It’s like becoming a Catholic priest and saying, “I believe in everything but the existence of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” You can’t be a Catholic without accepting certain core beliefs. Jesus is divine. God does exist. And so on.

The UCOC has a real problem on its hands if it can’t even rally around the baisc precepts of Christianity.

Source: NorthJersey.com via 21st Century Paladin