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A few years ago when I was traveling regularly to Cuba I started a Yahoo group about Cuba. I had several members of that group who were elderly refugees from Cuba, who have a rather slanted view of American politics; namely that being a Democrat is the same as being a traitor to the United States, as well as a Communist. I actually have had to kick out two of these men after warning them they could not call me a traitor just because I happened to disagree with them.

I still get email about Obama from one of them. Here is a typical screed from him:

“This guy, Barack Hussein Bin Laden Obama, is nothing more than a renegade and frustrated muslim with his fundamentalist ideas that included the hate for America, americans and all that represent our values as an americans.

So, don’t let this Obama fool you with his incoherents speeches about “the change”. Yes, of course, the so called “change” will be not only the destruction of America, but the convertion by force of all americans to the muslim religion. Don’t allow that to happen to you and your family. Don’t let that to happen to America.”

Charming stuff, huh?

Recently this same man sent me a column written by a Thomas Sowell, of the conservative Hoover Institute. The article goes to great lengths to explain he is a black man who does not support Obama. In an effort to show how open-minded he is, he says that he would happily vote for Colin Powell for President. In other words, it’s not as if he is prejudiced against black people. Just liberal ones.

All of this makes me wonder how my Cuban friends would take today’s column by Robert D. Novak , which says that Colin Powell is going to endorse Barack Obama for President. Not only that, but Time Magazine’s Robert Halperin thinks that Powell will speak at the Democratic Convention.

Will my old Cuban “friends” label their old buddy Colin Powell a traitor, too?

Of course polls this early don’t mean very much. Nevertheless, at this moment, Obama is winning Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida.

Pollster.com

If the election was held today, Obama would win one of the greatest landslides in history.

Last week I attended the Book Expo Convention in Los Angeles and flew on Virgin America Airlines, which has recently started service from Seattle to San Francisco and LA.

I have to say, if I was the CEO of Alaska Airlines right now I would be very, very worried.

I decided to try flying Coach on the way down to LA and First Class on the way back so I could see what they were both like. The Coach segment cost $120 and the First Class segment $269 for a total of $389, which is a very competitive price these days.

Check-in was a breeze. I arrived with my preprinted boarding pass, and the smiling employee checked my bag for me. As a matter-of-fact, all the employees of Virgin appeared to be smiling and happy, not to mention very attractive. There was no line to speak of and I immediately proceeded to security.

Entering the plane, right on time of course, you immediately notice the lavender lights, along with lavender tinted plastic dividers between the sections and some light-techno music playing in the background. It put me in a very good mood immediately, which only increased as I saw the comfortable leather seats, each one with a video monitor and adequate legroom.

On the video screen they have a wide variety of choices of entertainment, free music and TV shows, including some You-Tube type films. Movies were $7. They have a chat feature, which allows you to flirt with people in other seats if you are so inclined. The flight attendants come around with drinks the first time, and after that they switch to video ordering. You pull up the snacks on your screen,a swipe your credit card, and then they deliver right to your seat. In my case, I ordered a cheese and fruit plate for $8 and a free cranberry juice. They delivered the snack, but forgot the drink, so I ordered it again, this time successfully.

I spent the flight watching an interview with Richard Branson and a couple episodes of King of the Hill, all for free. They provide the headphones, also free. Before I knew it we had arrived in Los Angeles.

The First Class experience on the way back was truly awesome. There are only 2 rows, 8 seats altogether, which I found kind of surprising. You have about 3 feet of legroom, which is good, because the seat reclines like a barco-lounger. It also vibrates like a massage chair! As soon as I sat down I was given a water and my drink order was taken. I had time to drink the first Bombay Sapphire and tonic before we took off.

Once in flight, we actually were served delicious food. I had some gourmet snacks followed by Portobello mushroom raviolis. And more drinks. I watched Bee Movie with Jerry Seinfeld, which kept me happily laughing the whole flight. The buxomy and friendly attendants were constantly available. Seated in front of me was Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, his wife and towheaded little boy.

I was actually disappointed when the flight landed and I had to leave. I don’t know how Virgin Air does all this for so little money, especially now that so many airlines are having financial problems. I am actually looking to flying from now on, as long as I can fly Virgin.

Was it a disgruntled Vista user? Or perhaps a Yahoo stockholder? Or just the Macintosh guerrillas? Whatever the reason, Steve Ballmer found himself the target of a not very accurate egg-thrower in Hungary. Fortunately for him he had a platform to hide behind.

It’s amazing to me how more democratic some other countries can be compared to the United States. In the USA this guy would have been jumped on by the authorities, pummeled and dragged off to the hoosegow. In Hungary, people watch the whole thing with a minimal amount of protest. Then the egg-thrower calmly makes his way to the aisle and is politely pointed towards the exit.

No animals or CEO’s were harmed in making this movie.

The Oklahoman newspaper (owned by the wife of that sleazy Clay Bennett) recently had a contest to rename the Sonics if the city is successful in stealing them from Seattle.

Well, guess what name they chose? ‘Sonics’ tops ‘Pioneers’ in voting | NewsOK.com

Hmmm, that could certainly cause problems.

Well, no matter, they are probably never going to leave Seattle anyway.

That’s my prediction anyway!

ESPN.com has weighed in with an article that believes Howard Schultz just might have himself a case:
ESPN

It’s not over till it’s over and Schultz may yet be vindicated and I just might start drinking Starbucks again!

You know what, I don’t care if we get another team to replace the Sonics or not. After seeing the NBA owners’ sideshow yesterday, I don’t want to have anything to do with them.

County leaders say suing Sonics isn’t the solution

I support Mayor Nickels on this one. Sue the hell out of them. Bleed them. Make Clay Bennett spend another $100 million or so. Bring him to his knees.

Seattle has been dissed and now we should get even.

That’s my opinion!

The New York Times this week had an article about the Pennsylvania Democratic Primary. Specifically they interviewed some rural voters in Pennsylvania. One woman said she would never vote for Obama because he refused to wear an American flag lapel pin. Another said she wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was a Muslim. They both prefaced their remarks by saying that their opinion had nothing to do with him being black. Of course not!

These statements and others are the reason that rural Pennsylvania is often labelled ” the Alabama of the North.”

Just what does it mean to say a region is like Alabama? Alabama is the state in which the Republicans led by Karl Rove pursued the state’s most popular Democratic, former Governor Don Siegelman, finally jailing him on charges that amounted to accepting a political contribution.

Recently when he was released on bail while the courts review his dubious prosecution, the Alabama GOP released a statement bemoaning his release.

Alabama Republican Party :: News Item - ALGOP RESPONSE TO SIEGELMAN RELEASE

It says Representative Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn), Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party stated “the former Governor’s release pending appeal does not change the conviction by a jury of his peers. It would be premature to turn this development into anything other than a formality.”

The Alabama GOP was also kind of upset that the Chairman of the Democratic Party Howard Dean was visiting Alabama and actually fundraising for the Democrats, in Alabama of all places!

” Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and the liberals are preparing to swoop into the state tomorrow and raise money to promote the Democratic Party and its platform. The Alabama Republican Party asks if Dean and the Democrats will commit to not using Alabama money for pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-illegal immigration and pro-gay marriage policies.
Rep. Mike Hubbard, Chairman, ALGOP stated, “The majority of the tax payers in Alabama have a much different value system than the far left lead by Chairman Dean and Nancy Pelosi.”

“Using Alabama dollars to promote these liberal ideals would be a slap in the face to the people of the state,” Hubbard said.

Hmmm. Let’s get this straight. The Alabama GOP considers the Democratic Party to be “far left” and they don’t want money freely given by Alabama Democrats to be used to support their agenda. Makes you wonder if they really believe that Alabama Republicans are somehow in the mainstream, and the rest of the country is full of Communist, homosexual, N***er-lovers.

All of this 40 years after Martin Luther King was shot. In the clips showing Dr. King’s life we saw many film clips of hateful southern whites demonstrating against him, calling for him to be killed and espousing racial hate. Makes you wonder how many of those demonstrators are now southern Republicans. Most of them I would imagine.

UPDATE: I have recently located a liberal blog in Alabama that is covering the Siegelman issue:
Left In Alabama

I am truly impressed that there is at least one liberal in Alabama!

Don Seigelman has been released from prison while his case is appealed. Expect him to testify in congress about how the President’s Justice Department railroaded him. Salon.com

Governor Chris Gregoire of Washington State has been quoted saying that she spoke to Clay Bennett, owner of the Sonics, and he has said that the Sonics are not for sale.

Well, duh!

Of course he is saying that.

She is also saying that we could keep the name Supersonics and Sonics and get a new team.

Well, I support the Governor in most things, and she will always have my vote, but this is nonsense. She is not at all helping Seattle’s cause in our effort to keep the Sonics.

Repeat this after me, Governor: We do not want another team. We want to keep the Sonics. If the NBA is stupid enough to allow the Sonics to be stolen from Seattle, well then FUCK THEM! We don’t want another team. We want either our Sonics or we will be quite happy to live forever without another basketball team. Let them beg us if they want to come back to Seattle.

The Chairman of Starbucks got a lot of publicity last week at Starbucks’ stockholders meeting, but in Seattle he is a reviled man for selling the Seattle Supersonics to a group of Oklahoma investors who are planning to move the team.
Google Finance: Starbucks Corporation

Ducking into a Seattle restaurant in a floppy hat and to pick-up a meal to go. Is that what has happened to the man who was a hero when he purchased the team?

Why, Howard, did you secretly negotiate with out-of-towners to sell your team? Your own co-owner offered to buy the team from you and keep it in Seattle.

If Seattle loses the Supersonics, Seattle’s 14th largest radio market would be the largest without an NBA basketball team:

List of United States radio markets

Seattle isn’t exactly the 14th largest city however, because some of the larger cities such as Ft. Worth and San Jose are considered to be part of another larger market.

Seattle would also become the largest metropolitan area that has a Major League baseball team and football team, but not basketball. Surely the NBA is not so stupid as to ignore this fact.

Not only that, but Seattle is obviously a gateway city to Asia and the huge NBA market that China represents. One can see now how Seattle’s baseball team, the Mariners, have benefited from its connection with Japan. Seattle has become a huge destination for Japanese tourists mostly because of Ichiro and his teammates.

As for getting another team in the future, I have a feeling that the citizens of Seattle would tell the NBA to fuck off if the Sonics were stolen from us. Hell, it is their loss.

So if Oklahoma wants to take our team and the NBA lets that happen, the hell with the NBA.

I still have a feeling that Seattle will manage to keep the Supersonics in town because of the obvious stupidity of taking a successful team for 41 years from the 14th largest market with over 3 million people and growing, and moving it to the 48th largest market with only 1 million.

homesteadbook.com » Blog Archive » Oklahoma City & Seattle in Civil War over Basketball team

homesteadbook.com » Blog Archive » Design a Jersey for the Oklahoma Sonics?

The Oklahoma City Newspaper is having a Jersey Contest to design a jersey for the Sonics after they steal them from Seattle.

Follow the link and print out the jersey, then decorate it anyway you like and submit it to them.

Some obvious names come to mind, like the Oklahoma Thieves, Bennett’s Travesty, etc, but I am sure you can do even better than that. Be creative and enter their damn contest!

I was right again, and once again William Kristol was wrong. Today he quoted Newsmax, which is wrong even more than Kristol is, saying that Barack Obama was present when the Reverend Wright made the inflammatory speech that is all over rightwing radio (especially our friend Dori Monson’s show).

Well, as usual Mr. Kristol was wrong, Obama was in Florida giving a speech, and Kristol has now posted an apology on the New York Times website. Not really enough to undo the damage.

Here’s a link to a blog I wrote a few months ago about how William Kristol is always wrong:

William Kristol is a menace, a disaster, and always wrong

I may not always be right, but I sure have a better track record than the rightwing cheshire cat Mr. Kristol.

Oklahoma City and Seattle would seem to have very little common with each other, but now the two cities seem to be engaged in a Civil War of sorts over the Seattle Supersonics basketball team.

I’m not a big NBA Basketball fan I’ll have to admit, but I do have very fond memories of the time 30 years ago when the Seattle Supersonics won the NBA championship. Many of us do in Seattle, and except for the Seattle Storm a couple of years ago, there has never been another athletic championship in this town in modern times.

When Seattle upgraded the Key Arena 10 years ago and Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks Coffee bought the team, everything looked promising in this town for basketball fans. In fact, Schultz seemed to be the biggest fan of all, more interested in the game of basketball supposedly than making money off his team.

So it came as a surprise last year when Schultz suddenly sold the team to some outsiders from Oklahoma in a fit of pique. He felt dissed by the Seattle city government when they ignored his request for a new arena. Nobody even knew he wanted to sell the team; it was a fait accompli when it was announced. The new ownership headed by Clay Bennett pretended they wanted to keep the team in Seattle, but not too many people really believed them. It seemed kind of crazy to buy a successful team in the 14th largest market (3.2 million) in the United States with a plan to move it to Oklahoma City, the 45th largest market (1.2 million).

Oklahoma City had hosted the New Orleans basketball team after Katrina, and the local fans turned out enthusiastically for all the games. All of a sudden the city was a player in the basketball business, and Mr. Bennett and other local billionaires got all excited about bringing the NBA to their city.

In Seattle meanwhile, taxpayers were a little burned out after building spanking new state-of-the-art stadiums for the baseball and football teams. Basketball paled in comparison to these much more popular sports, and the city just didn’t feel the need to do the same thing for the Sonics.

Meantime the new owners proceeded to trade all of the high-paid stars on the team, including Ray Allen, as they prepared to move the team. Several alternative venues were proposed for the Sonics, including a generous offer from the Mukilteo Indian tribe, but the new owners weren’t really that interested and soon announced their plans to move.

As is typical in Seattle, at the last minute some new billionaires have come along to save basketball in Seattle. I can’t resist the opportunity to gloat that our Seattle billionaires are much bigger and richer than the Oklahoma City billionaires.

Anyway, I have been following this saga from the other side, too, namely by visiting the website of Oklahoma’s newspaper The Oklahoman, coincidentally owned by the wife of Clay Bennett himself.

It is interesting to see the fight over a basketball team from the other side, and I have also learned a few things about that city somewhere north of Texas. Like for instance, they aren’t really in the middle of a dustbowl. They have rivers and hills. And apparently they have some proud citizens who want to see their city became a major city, like perhaps Seattle.

The most fun I have had is reading the readers’ comments. That’s where the real war is. Predictably the Okies call the people in Seattle whacked out liberals, commies, and all sorts of nasty things, while the Seattleites call their enemies in OKC hillbillies who marry their sisters and all sorts of nasty things. One of the things I learned is that Okies are not hillbillies, really, and the citizens of Oklahoma are big sports fans anxious to have their first major league professional team.

But there is still hope. All the readers agree on one thing. They hate Starbucks. The Okies hate Starbucks for being an effete Seattle business, and the Seattleites hate Starbucks and especially Howard Schultz for selling their team to the other side.

Hey, there is hope for us after all.

CBS News finally broadcast last Sunday evening their report on the relentless prosecution and eventual conviction of former Democratic Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman. It appears that Karl Rove personally led the attack with the help of a willing US Attorney and the Attorney General’s office. Siegelman was convicted and is now serving 8 years, supposedly for bribery, but probably more likely for being a popular Democrat and a Jew.

Amazingly, some stations in Alabama went black during the report. For those in Alabama who didn’t get to see it, here is the entire report. Watch it and weep.

The secret is out. Cat owners would not be surprised to find out that owning a cat is extremely healthy for your heart as reported on WebMD.

This is as good an excuse as any for me to display picures of my new kittens. Aren’t they cute?

Of course the best thing is that these little guys (Teddy and Petie) will keep me alive for a few extra decades.

A funny thing has been happening to me lately when I meet new people and tell them I live in Ballard (a neighborhood in Seattle for you non-Seattlites). They tell me how cool it is to live in Ballard and how much they love my neighborhood. It’s occurred to me that many people in GenX and later don’t even remember how uncool Ballard used to be; all the jokes about Snoose Junction and cars driving along with the seat belt dangling out the door. Instead they know Ballard as the place with all the nightclubs and bars and galleries, etc.

I was as shocked as anybody when The Stranger chose Ballard as the hippest neighborhood in Seattle. More than Capital Hill…and Fremont….and even Queen Anne where I met some new friends last night. To me that’s amazing.

So then why are people trying to ruin my cool neighborhood with all these new condos and townhouses going up, replacing many of the bungalows that so defined Ballard? Not to even mention the old Denny’s and the Sunset Bowl, and the Yankee Diner, and even my neighborhood QFC, all to replaced with condos and more condos.

I agree that maybe this attempt to save the old Denny’s by calling it a landmark building sounds crazy to people in other neighborhoods, but I see it as an attempt by our neighborhood to save itself. Enough is enough. If people like Ballard so much why are they trying to change it?

Now Will over at HorsesAss.Org likes to claim that this is NIMBYism run amok. He claims to be a poor schlub who couldn’t afford to buy a house in the city if it wasn’t for all these new developments going up.

I have to admit he gave me pause here, but Will, honestly have you priced these new condos lately? They are not much cheaper than houses, frankly, and they certainly don’t qualify as low-income housing.

Frankly, I don’t know who is buying all these new condos, and I suspect that they really aren’t selling that well. It appears to be speculators upon speculators, and the situation is getting worse all the time. I predict a crash in the condo market in Seattle. You read it here. Why would people buy a condo in Ballard, a residential neighborhood? They would be much better off buying one downtown, where there are amenities and you don’t need to have a car to get around.

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