The Okcitykid – A Peaceful Vet

Dear Blog

In the past I had said that I could not vote for Obama because of his support of the 700 billion dollar bail out.

Well here is my delima.? Here in Oklahoma you cannot write in a person’s name for president, that disqualifies your whole ballet.? Oklahoma apparently only recognizes Republicans and Democrats.? So I can only choose between McCain and Obama.

Ok.? I think McCain is a good person, but I think Obama is a better, so I’ll have to vote for the better person, OBAMA.

But I’m telling you, they’re liars, both of them and neither one of them is the best candidate for president, but we get what we get and I have to vote for the least of two evils, and that would be Obama.

I’ve been goofing around.? After upgrading my computer, well you know I had downloaded the latest and greatest Linux I could find, burn it and install it because I could and so I did.

Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4.whatever.? Well with tears in my eyes, broken hearted and a contrite spirit, in other words, I was crushed.? I couldn’t get it to work.? Either it couldn’t find my monitor or video card, I don’t know which because I couldn’t get in there to find out.? You know how the screen is so big, you can’t access the buttons in all the screens.? It was frustrating, but it looked nice.

I have an older copy.? A 32 bit Kubuntu 7.04 and it worked pretty good, I had good luck with it.? But it was a 32 bit and I have a 64 bit processor and so I wanted a 64 bit OS, until I discovered everything don’t work with a 64 bit OS and so now I want a 32 bit, kinda went around a circle there didn’t I.? That’s what I do, that’s how you learn.

So I installed that older copy, luckily it came with Firefox 2.something because their 3.something always crashes.? Then I got this message, would you like to upgrade to 7.10.? Oh man, the temptation was to great, I said, OK.? It worked, it was so cool.? So now I had 7.10 and I got it from 7.04, how cool is that.? Well, then it asked me would you like to upgrade to 8.04.? Heart be still, my finger trembled as it caressed the enter key and it all happened so fast, in the space of a TV commercial, behold, I have 8.04.? It didn’t give me KDE 4.something, I still have KDE 3.5 something.? Thepenguin must know that KDE 4 won’t work on my computer, that’s a pretty smart penguin, because it aint asking if I want KDS 4.

Two strange things happened.? It upgraded my firefox to 3.something and I thought oh no, it’s going to crash all the time.? But, it doesn’t, it hasn’t crashed yet, it’s been almost a week, unbelievable.? See it was Windows all the time – I knew it.

And the other strange thing, really not so strange, seems to happen a lot, my windows xp became unbootable.? And I thought about it.? If I try to fix windows xp I could loose my Linux.? Screw windows, I got Linux working and working good.? But you know, for us techie amateurs, if something is broken we have to fix it.? So I did, Ran the sort of reinstall windows fix thing and low and behold, windows didn’t steal the bootup and Linux was still there working, and hopefully they will live happily ever after, at least that’s the way it works in fairy tales.

So you know all that takes time.? Now, once again, I’m behind on my blog and have about 400 emails in my email box.? But, before I did anything else, I figure I should tell people, before the election that I’m voting for Obama.

From The Mailbox – Salina sends:

Islamic Finance appeal growing in face of credit crisis

The global credit crisis presents the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry with an opportunity to expand its appeal beyond Muslim investors, as a haven from speculative excess.

The message may have particular resonance in the West after the crumbling of the U.S. mortgage market left banks holding hundreds of billions of dollars of nearly worthless credit instruments tied to home loans by a web of complex structures.

While conventional banks worldwide are nursing losses of more than $400 billion from the credit crisis, Islamic banks are virtually unscathed. And they are playing up the contrast to scalded shareholders, bondholders and borrowers and fearful depositors.

“It’s very much a return to old-fashioned conservative lending,” said David Testa, chief executive of Gatehouse Bank, which began operations in April as the fifth Islamic bank in Britain.

“The current global market condition has given Islamic finance a great opportunity to show what it can do – help to fill the liquidity gap,” he said.

Investors traumatized by the credit crisis could seek comfort from the stricter rules imposed on lending by Islamic law, which bans some of the structures and financing methods that quickly unraveled during the U.S. mortgage crisis.

Testa said that Islamic finance practices were more fiscally conservative, with direct participation by investors in plans that do not involve parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles.

Islamic finance is based on Shariah, or Islamic law. It requires that gains be derived from ethical and socially responsible investments and discourages interest-based banking and investments in sectors like pork, gambling and pornography.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that Islamic assets globally have a combined value of about $1 trillion, with annual growth of 10 percent to 15 percent a year. Al-Rajhi Bank of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait Finance House are the two biggest Islamic banks in the Gulf region. In Malaysia, the largest Islamic lender is Maybank Islamic, a subsidiary of Malayan Banking.

The jump in popularity of Islamic finance is drawing the interest of companies outside the Middle East.

City Developments, one of the largest developers in Southeast Asia, said last week that it could issue Islamic debt and sell hotels to enhance its ability to make acquisitions.

The Islamic finance industry, which was nearly nonexistent 30 years ago, has certain distinguishing features that make it less risky, analysts say.

Islamic bonds, or sukuk, replace coupons with payments backed by the performance of tangible assets. Islamic law prohibits the payment of interest and requires transactions to be linked to assets, thus deterring the kind of complexities prevalent in conventional financing operations.

Debashis Dey, the Dubai-based head of capital markets at the law firm Clifford Chance, said that although the Islamic finance industry was adapting conventional products to make them compliant with Shariah, it was a long way from sophisticated products like collateralized debt obligations.

But while Islamic products are coming into favor, analysts say market commentators and intermediaries may be too zealous in promoting the merits of Islamic finance as a safe product.

Mohamed Damak of Standard & Poor’s cited the case of the boom in real estate financing in the Gulf mainly by Islamic banks in the past three years, amid soaring property prices.

“A correction of the real estate sector would impact Islamic banks involved in this business line. Islamic finance is not immune from risk,” he said.

Even as experts are weighing the degree of insularity that Islamic financing provides, there are differences in the way accounts are prepared and in how Shariah law is interpreted.

Banks in Britain differ in their accounting operations from banks in Bahrain, for example, which in turn differ from banks in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Dey, at Clifford Chance, said the lack of standardization posed a hurdle to growth, but others said that a cookie-cutter approach was not desirable and that regional differences would remain.

“Complete standardization may not happen – there will always be variants,” said Raj Maiden, managing director at Five Pillars in Singapore, who added that it was more important to tailor products according to the needs of each market.

While the debate rages on whether Islamic finance provides a safer bet or is merely a potential source of irrational exuberance, most agree the industry should make the most of the attention it is now receiving.

“If Islamic banks step up to the mark, then they will gain traction,” said Testa, of Gatehouse.

Source: International Herald Tribune

http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IH0810-3694

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My Two Cents:
http://forum.khurram.ca/viewtopic.php?t=489
Posted: Mon 12 Jun 2006 1:04 pm Post subject: The Answer is Buried Under The Ice of Antarctica

I had a dream last night that I was a part of a crew employed by the government to uncover a structure under the ice of Antarctica that would contain the answer, led by a recently discovered prophesy that led the government and policy.

There is prophesy if Isreal excepted Jesus and there is prophesy if Isreal did not except Jesus and that was the key that led us to believe in this prophesy that took us to Antarctica, thus the reason for global warming.

The law required that you submit to the doctors treatment (I’m guessing we were ill from the global warming).

The alarm went off before I could find out what the answer was we were trying to uncover.

Strange dream. Last meeting I had with the mormon missionarys, I was explaining that I felt that the church had cracks in it (one major crack was its silence on global warming).

Is this dream in response to that, or just a creation of my mind to find peace with this – don’t really know. But because I remember this dream so vividly, it must be important.

Found on Flickr.com

Men Are Only Good
When They Die
From War

Men have hands
But cannot touch
Arms
But cannot hold
Hearts
But cannot feel
For this
They are bad
Men are only good
When they die
From War
For this reason
No boy will ever strive to be a passionate man
Rather
Boys
Play war

By: Roger Harkness
The Okcitykid

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RATE MY POEM

Poetry.com really likes this poem.? Out of all the poems I have submitted to them, they keep sending me emails about this one.? Yep, they’re going to put it in a special book and this poem will have a page all to its own and I can buy a copy if I like, also I have been invited to join a special club, membership dues are about 300 dollars.? I was invited to read my poem, but I wouldn’t be refunded the air fair or hotel fees.? I got some honorable mention or something but I have to pay for the plaque.

So I guess they liked it.

All my life I have been taught how men are bad and I mostly believed it until I woke up one day.? Though I have woke up, still, I find most of society is sleeping.? Yes, it is commonly believed that men are bad, unless of course there is a war and you fight and die for your country.? Then you get to be a hero and that is the only way you get to be a good person in the eyes of society if you’re a man.? But then again, if there were no men in this world, there would be no wars, so it is believed. You can tell me I’m wrong, but I’ll tell you what, you need to wake up, stop your dreaming and see the real world for what it really is.

For what it is worth, men are not bad, men are just misunderstood.

This is not a man’s world. I didn’t make this world, like you, I too was born into it and like you I have to deal with the card I was dealt. It would do me no good to blame it on women.

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I met her when I joined the National Guard after getting out of the Navy.? Her anger would come from no where.? She lived to be angry.? She enjoyed anger as much as you or I would enjoy happiness.? I would try so hard not to fight with her, but she wouldn’t have it, we would have to fight about something.

We would spend lovely weekends together until we moved in together and that’s when it all changed.? She would threaton to leave and the last time she threatoned to leave me I told her to just go.? She said she needed gas money, so I filled up her gas tank and the next morning she left while I was at work.

I missed her and was glad she was gone all at the same time, weird huh, well that’s love for you, or maybe it was lust, never really was sure about that.

Thousands Erroneously Tagged Ineligible to Vote –In New Databases, Many Are Wrongly Flagged as Ineligible 18 Oct 2008 Thousands of voters across the country must reestablish their eligibility in the next three weeks in order for their votes to count on Nov. 4, a result of new state registration systems that are incorrectly rejecting them. In Alabama, scores of voters are being labeled as convicted felons on the basis of incorrect lists. Michigan must restore thousands of names it illegally removed from voter rolls over residency questions, a judge ruled this week. Tens of thousands of voters could be affected in Wisconsin. Officials there admit that their database is wrong one out of five times when it flags voters, sometimes for data discrepancies as small as a middle initial or a typo in a birth date.

“When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain.” Early W.Va. voters angry machines kept switching their votes to GOP candidates –Jackson County touch-screens switched votes, 3 residents say 18 Oct 2008 At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win. Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk’s office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates. “When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain,” said Matheney, who lives in Kenna. When she reported the problem, she said, the poll worker in charge “responded that everything was all right.” [WHY are these 'voting' machines, aka GOP tools to implement Coup 2008, *still standing?*]

“I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican,” she said. “I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.” More W.Va. voters say machines are switching votes –In six cases, Democratic votes flipped to GOP 18 Oct 2008 Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”. In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections.

Voters say they were duped into registering as Republicans –YPM, a group hired by the GOP, allegedly deceived Californians who thought they were signing a petition. Similar accusations have been leveled against the company elsewhere. 18 Oct 2008 Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country. Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters [lots of them in the GOP, btw.]. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Others had no idea their registration was being changed.

‘Wake up, niggers!’ –Locals say the “inciting” language used by the McCain campaign in the past month has emboldened racists to act and speak more openly, leading to outbursts such as “traitor”, “terrorist” and “kill him” at campaign events. 19 Oct 2008 In a small town in Oklahoma, not even loyal Democrats will vote for a black man. Kristi Balden woke up at 4.30am to the sound of screeching tyres and yells of “nigger lover!” As she looked out of the window, a vehicle sped away with spinning wheels, peppering her parked car with gravel. She saw her Barack Obama yard sign in shreds on the lawn. It was the fifth time in three weeks her signs backing Obama had been vandalised. Elsewhere in the small town of Enid, in northwestern Oklahoma, more than 50 other residents have had their Obama signs smashed to pieces, and cars with bumper stickers that bear the black presidential candidate?s name have been splattered with eggs. Late one night three weeks ago, four white youths went to a town museum that celebrates minority achievements and took down an exhibit of five Native American teepees. They dragged two of the tents around the streets of an African American neighbourhood, yelling: “Wake up, niggers!”

Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after accusations 17 Oct 2008 An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal-leaning voter registration group’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting [GOP/Nazi] tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

Obama camp calls for special prosecutor in fraud investigation 18 Oct 2008 The Obama campaign announced Friday that it is asking Attorney General Michael Mukasey to turn over any investigations of voter fraud or voter suppression to Special Prosecutor Nora Dannehy. Dannehy is also the special prosecutor recently appointed to investigate the U.S. attorney firing scandal. Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign’s general counsel, said on Friday that partisan politics was behind Thursday’s leak from senior governmental officials about a preliminary FBI investigation into the voter registration activities of ACORN. “ACORN is a tool for attacking voters,” Bauer said.

Reid calls McCain robo calls ‘scummy’ 17 Oct 2008 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he’s surprised at “scummy” tactics employed by Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign and “can’t believe John McCain knows what’s going on.” Reid held a news conference Friday to call on McCain to stop sending automated phone calls attempting to link Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with one-time radical William Ayers.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins decries anti-Obama robocalls 18 Oct 2008 Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, facing a tough reelection fight, urged GOP presidential contender John McCain on Friday to stop making automated calls into her state linking Democratic nominee Barack Obama to a 1960s radical. “These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics,” said Collins’ spokesman, Kevin Kelley.

Once again I have fallen behind, missing a day on my blog. ?But I had a fun day. ?Bear who owes us some money and does chores to pay us back. ?She was supposed to do beading, making jewelry to sell at an upcoming craft fair. ?Her mother was angry because she hadn’t done her beading as promised. ?To encourage her to do her beading and to make it more pleasant for her, I sat and watched dragon movies on sci fi with her all day. ?Well, I took a nap in the chair as I work nights and did a repair project for my wife and emptied the dishwasher, made coffee, fed the chickens and collected eggs, but other than that, I mostly watched dragon movies with bear, and it was fun.

My wife passed on a poem to me from her younger daughter to put in my blog, very interesting, and I will, I just need to get more information on it.

I’ve upgraded my computer. ?I once had 512mb memory and I thought that was a lot, but have discovered that this is low grade, so I’ve upgraded to 1.5 gig, and it is a lot faster, makes a difference, but the Internet isn’t any faster, that is disappointing. ?I’ve also added a DVD/CD reader writer. ?Now this cost me 24 dollars. ?Just to give you a bit of history. ?I think it was gateway computers who was just one man who came up with the idea of adding a CD player to computers. ?Such an amazing thing, and expensive, only Universities and big businesses could afford to own it, we’re talking somewhere around the figure of 10 grand. ?And we’re talking a CD reader. ?Now I have a CD reader/writer, DVD reader/writer, for about 24 dollars, amazing. ?

I like Linux and it is getting better all the time. ?With my high speed cable access and now my burner, I have downloaded and burnt Kubuntu, which is a derivative of Ubuntu with the KDE desktop. ?I like the KDE desktop the best, it is more like windows like most of us are used to and I find it more functional than the other desktop options like Gnome for instance.??

Here is an example of why Linux is better than Windows. ?After upgrading my computer, if I boot up to Linux, Linux says, “Cool!” ?Windows however says, “what the hell is this, I can’t understand this.” ?So you have to install more software and drivers and still Windows doesn’t understand without a reboot. ?You know what is even more sad, we pay for that, but Linux is free. ?A true testimony to free in freedom.

It is now Sunday morning. ?I was going to write something else, but I can’t remember now what it was, oh well, like my mother would always say, it must have been a lie, I don’t know, I can’t remember. ?After I post this, I’ll go take a nap and get up and get to work outside and around the house. ?Because it is Sunday, because we work on Sunday, because we rested on Saturday. ?It’s a religious thing. ?Because God, the way I understand it, rested on the seventh day, which is a Saturday, and I’m guessing, he got back to work on the first day, Sunday, but I’m not sure, the bible isn’t that specific.? But honestly, we just do it that way because on Saturday we are tired and on Sunday we have work to get done and on occassion, neighbors will remind us that is Sunday, a day of rest and?I don’t know where they come up with that.? Like everything else, everybody just follows everybody else, but not me.? I have a mind and I use it and I go my own way.

Peace
Roger

Found on brianmpei.wordpress.com

?

Sin looses
and we win
Stronger, wiser
The rules are simple
and we cannot loose
A word describes this
it is:

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I wrote this after Desert Storm and for awhile it was one of my most popular poems in Google ranking as it seemed to support the Iraq war.

I was in the Navy during Desert Storm awaiting a possible deployment that never came and my only battle was with local peace protesters via?letters?to the?LA Times and Navy times, etc.? I received phone calls of support.? I really believed in what we were doing.? I was really wrong.?

I could go on about why I made the mistake in judgement I had made, justifying my error, but why, so many made the same mistake as I did.? Many will understand without need of an explanation.

I can be patient with any person who is mistaken about anything and it seems that there are a lot of mistaken things going around giving room for much patience.

However, when you are confronted with the truth, will you humbly admit your error or will you stubbornly continue to believe the lie to protect your?silly worthless pride while others die?? For such I have no patience or understanding, you are weak, you are a sissy.? Only the strong and brave face their faults and rise above the mire and stink.

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My brother Richard working together with other songwriters; Felix Stehle wrote this instrumental and Richard my brother used a poem by Edgar Allan Poe called Eldorado.?? The background voice is his daughter.? Was going to get this up earlier but my host had taken an unknown hit.? It must have been those communists the “CIA”? (Communist’s in America) who spy on U.S. citizens at the pleasure of king George.? Really!!! you didn’t know that?

Found on the Democratic Underground

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I am mad in my anger
I am mad in my hate
My lying is all in madness
Hear my mad laughter
I love the madness of my madness
I am mad with fear
A place to hide
No one can get near
The nerves crack
I break
Fall to the floor and cry
Wish to commit sweet suicide
I live to die
Then something comes over me
It’s my only chance
I look to the ceiling
“Lord please help”
Behold, it is day
Temporarily
The madness goes away

By: ?Roger Harkness The Okcitykid

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When I wrote this I actually in-visioned myself as a mad man in a rubber room.? Weird huh.? I wonder, did I actually write about a real person I don’t know, I just picked it up telepathically and put it on a piece of paper.? You have to wonder sometimes, because it seems so real.? I mean, a lot of energy was put out, had to go somewhere, maybe I picked it up.