Tag: Obama

HR 158: A Betrayal of Iranian Americans

img_photo_asmoudeh_190wThe following op ed, written by Kamran Azmoudeh, a local dentist, was printed in my daily paper, the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, on January 8, 2016. It’s worth reading…and re-posting.

*     *     *     *     *

The war on terror and ISIS in particular has hit home in Santa Rosa. Its effects have shaken me and over a million Iranian Americans (and certainly other Muslim Americans) to the core. Not unlike Kristallnacht or the internment of Japanese Americans in 1942, those perceived as Muslim immigrants are becoming victims in this ill-fought war. The events that lead to Kristallnacht started with the same type of hateful ideology, except sadly this is happening today in the United States.

I have lived in this country for 38 years and managed to gain an education which has afforded me a good life. I have been married 24 years to my loving wife who happens to be a Catholic American of European heritage and have two beautiful American children and two American grandchildren. I have been a productive American citizen for decades and proudly hold an American passport, which enables me to travel freely with all the privileges afforded to Americans. Continue reading “HR 158: A Betrayal of Iranian Americans”

“Muslim” March Madness

Ali FarokhmaneshOmar SamhanWhat is the overlap between the set of all rabid NCAA Basketball Tournament fans and the set of all knee-jerk despisers of anything Islamic? I suspect the intersection is large.

If so, then the first two rounds of March Madness may promote more US-Islamic tolerance than all the State Department visits Hillary Clinton can schedule.

Two young men, Continue reading ““Muslim” March Madness”

Calling the Massachsetts Senate Race

stalin“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”

attributed to Josef Stalin in Boris Bazhanov’s
Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary, publ. 1992

*     *     *     *     *

Bev Harris is one of democracy’s watchdogs. She leads Black Box Voting, a non-partisan group that seeks transparent and honest elections. Here’s her unsentimental, hard-facts take on today’s important Senatorial election in Massachusetts.

SHINING A BRIGHT LIGHT ON AN UNDEMOCRATIC TACTIC

For 10 years, I’ve been watching a trend to manipulate elections Continue reading “Calling the Massachsetts Senate Race”

Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)

As described in a previous post, Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy is drilling a Lake County test well aimed at producing energy by utilizing a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). AltaRock’s project is on federal land leased by the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) on a ridge just above the community of Anderson Springs, CA. According to an article published July 15 in the Lake County News, however, “concerns about the technology AltaRock is using has caused the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] and the Department of Energy [DOE] to decide to conduct further study before the work moves forward.”

In light of the earthquake activity caused by a similar EGS project in Basel, Switzerland in 2006, the question to be studied is: might EGS engender serious earthquakes here in California?

Continue reading “Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)”

How to Bet on the NCAA Final Four

You pays your money and you takes your chances, but the House always has an edge.

Did you ever wonder how big that edge is?

Among the simplest edges to compute is Las Vegas roulette.  If your chips are on one of the numbers from 1 to 36, and you win, you get paid 35-1. That means that if you put $1 on each of those 36 numbers, when the ball drops onto one of those numbers, you’ll get your winning bet back plus $35; you’ll break even. Those are fair odds.  But the House, as I said, always has an edge. Las Vegas wheels include two other numbers that also pay 35-1: 0 and 00. So to be sure you’ll win, you’d have to place 38 one-dollar bets, thus giving the House a $2 profit on every $38 you bet (a 5.26% margin).

Coming up this week are the NCAA basketball Final Four games, Continue reading “How to Bet on the NCAA Final Four”

MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech in Washington, DC, to an immense crowd that filled the Capitol Mall. Revered and reviled in his time, King stood as the standard bearer in the fight for civil rights.

Clarence Jones, King confidante and one of those who helped draft the scripted part of the speech, recalled on CNN today that halfway through the speech, King turned his prepared speech face down and began to dream aloud and extemporaneously. Jones recalled how the uplifting oratory of that dream prompted one of those near to King to whisper that these people [on the Mall] “are going to go to church now.”

Almost a half-century later, on Martin Luther King Day, one day before Barack Obama will be sworn in as our president, it is time to “go to church” again, to watch and listen to King’s momentous…and now prophetic…speech.

(Link to the full transcript.)

[youtube PbUtL_0vAJk]