Saturday, July 19, 2003

Oklahoma Iraqis

Many Iraqis got their education in Oklahoma. A recent story in the Washington Post qoutes one of those Iraqis who was helping the Post reporter with his story on hunting down bad guys in Iraq:

Eventually I ask my translator what he thinks. A former Iraqi Airways flight engineer who studied in Oklahoma, Naseer Nori has at this point assisted me with more than 15 hours of interviews with Azzawi. We have visited the ex-cop's family twice.




Dish vs Cable

I have to laugh when I see those Cox Cable ads that feature disgruntled dish subscribers whose programming connection fails when "the dog wags his tail". I have Cox cable service and the outages are so frequent I'm afraid I've missed many of their anti-dish ads. Channels are so frequently unavailable I'm wondering is satellite dish could be any less reliable.

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Tony Blair for President

Did you catch UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's appearance on Capitol Hill today? What a class act. Watching him debate in Parliament is even more fun. Blair is incredibly articulate - even if I didn't like most of his policies I would wish him as our President. Can you imagine a debate between Bush and Blair?

What pains me is how awfully bad Bush and Rumsfeld have treated Blair - their best foreign friend.

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Unwanted Spam Faxes

It's bad enough getting all the unwanted spam in our mailboxes but can you believe the lowlifes that send advertisements to your fax machine? I don't know how these creeps get people's personal fax numbers but I know I don't give my fax number to ANYONE but family - still, I get an average of one unsolicited ad by fax at home every day. Today I recieved one advertising a "Rapid Weight Loss program by "Dr. Michael Bouchard". There is no address or no way to get off their fax list - at least the sender does not identify how to. They do give an 800 number to call to order their junk but I'm too wary of calling to tell them to stop sending me this stuff - I've heard too many stories of people unwittingly getting charged telephones fees by calling certain numbers.

This is worse than spam because it uses up expensive ink and paper. It should clearly be illegal.

But, I did file a complaint with the FCC. You can easily do this in about 3 minutes at the FCC's online complaint center.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

A Lieberman in Tulsa

I received a postcard announcing the appearance of Hadassah Lieberman at the Teamster's Local 523 in Tulsa on July 22nd. Apparently, Jose Geise is the state director for Lieberman. Is Hadassah Joe's wife? Lieberman's sister lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Lieberman seems to be a principled man but I'm not sure I care for some of his policies. His dedication to the crucial American principle of the separation of church and state is very shakey and at times he seems at least as interested in the welfare of Israel as he does in America's - and the interests of the two are often not the same.

Monday, July 14, 2003

JC Watts in Nigeria

Former Oklahoma Congressman JC Watts showed up in Nigeria when President Bush visited the country last week. Watts just had to be there with the President so he could impress his Nigerian business contacts that he still has stroke with the Prez. Even while Watts was traveling to Nigeria as a Congressman (at gov't expense) the word is that he was trying to negotiate business deals there with, or on behalf of, a Tulsa-based energy company. As a private person Watts is free to do business where he can - the question is, did he do it while he was travelling in an official capacity for the people of the United States? The next question is, can you do business in Nigeria without paying illegal bribes to Nigerian officials? I don't think so.
Tulsa's No-Nicks Get Early Start

The Tulsa version of Oklahoma City's MAPS project is finally ready to go to the ballot in September. It took forever to get the package ready, partly because the Mayor LaFortune was so dis-engaged and partly because it was a grassroots effort. But the anti-tax Ludites got an early start in putting out their "Vote No" signs. I doubt they even know what's in the package Tulsans will be voting on.

The anti-tax and anti-investment crowd in Tulsa has defeated the last two bond issues brought to the citizens and have, as a group, caused the downward spiral of Tulsa over the past decade. Tulsa used to be the proud and progressive city that Oklahoma City envied. But Oklahoma City has invested heavily in itself over the same decade and has blown Tulsa away. If Tulsa doesn't overcome these selfish anti-communitarians in September the city might as well give up hope of ever pulling itself up by its bootstraps.

A Tulsa friend of mine told me last week she's determined to leave for Dallas if the bond issues are voted down this time. As more and more young professionals leave Tulsa for more progressive cities the negative nabobs comprise an ever greater percentage of what remains of Tulsa.
The Great Wall of Tulsa

Last year, the state Transportation Department bought and demolished dozens of houses along I-44 between Yale and Sheridan in Tulsa. The reason for demolishing all these very nice homes at taxpayer's expense was supposedly to widen I-44. In the neighborhood today I see that rather than widen the highway they built a wall where the houses used to be, landscaped the area, planted trees and built a walkway to nowhere. The area that used to have beautiful homes and many families in it is now occupied by homeless people and, judging by the graffiti on the wall, gangs. The highway can't be widened unless they tear out the wall and trees they planted. The question is, why are we paying for this kind of idiotic expenditure? I see no beneficial aspects of this expensive boondoogle at all. Was this a case of a contractor needing some business at state expense?