Archive for 2005

We’re just a week from Christmas now, and the Women’s Lunch Place on Newbury Street could use your help. The Place needs baby clothes and soft toys for its Christmas party for the homeless and poor women the Place serves. The staffer I talked to yesterday said they have the gifts they need for [...]

Bottom line: If we hadn’t let Muslims, and in particular Arab Muslims, immigrate to America this would not have become a problem. 9/11 would never have happened. The Patriot Act would not have been necessary.
In public President George W. Bush ridiculously claims that “Islam is peace.” In private, he understands that Islam’s followers are a [...]

The Apprentice 4 was easily the best Apprentice since the original, with good tasks, interesting dynamics, and abrupt mass firings. Some of the episodes brought valuable lessons, none more so than the Final Four showdown where Alla and Felisha enthusiastically illustrated the term sub-optimization. Both were so eager to not be seen as weaker than [...]

Good Lord. I totally forgot that yesterday (Tuesday) was Saint Lucia Day. Belated Happy Lucia!

(Must have been a quiet Lucia in the Old Country. I haven’t seen any of the ubiquitous post-Lucia “Knivdåd i natt” headlines. Yeah, young Swedes traditionally do a little bit of really excessive drinking on the night prior to Lucia).

I had been looking forward to Mayor Thomas M. Menino lighting Kenmore Square’s very own Holiday Tree (although I have it on good authority that it really is a Christmas Tree), but he had to cancel due to some illness (OK, listen, this isn’t the Howie Carr Show, I’m not implying the Mayor was drunk, [...]

Headline and teaser from Swedish newspaper Expressen:
Tookie injectecuted
Condemned children’s book author not granted clemency by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
The four murders? Whatever!
Another Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet went with this equally illuminating headline:
Peace activist executed

It took a few games longer than it should have, but the New England Patriots finally looked like a good team in beating the Buffalo Bills 35-7 on the road. The Patriots are now 6-0 against teams with losing records - there isn’t a bad team in the NFL that the Pats can’t beat - [...]

I didn’t know until I scanned the excellent local ethnic rag Sampan today that Asian American Bank, with headquarters in the Hub’s Chinatown, has been snapped up for $34 million by Chinese-American bank UCBH from California.
UCBH actually claims to be bullish on New England, according to Sampan:
“The acquisition of Asian American Bank allows us [...]

When I was an Army conscript back in the Old Country I was assigned to a unit that did peacetime planning for wartime mobilization and movement of troops (we used to jokingly call ourselves Logistics Rangers). That stuff was right up my alley (actually, what really would have been up my alley would have been [...]

A jury in New York has found that the New York Port Authority is 68% responsible for the 1993 terror attack against the World Trade Center (which was destroyed by other Muslim activists in 2001). The Muslim activists who actually, you know, bombed the building was found to be only 32% responsible. I guess that [...]