Watching the videos and news about the US Airways’ plane miraculously landing in the Hudson River AND everyone surviving should, without a shadow of doubt, trigger something in people to acknowledge that there truly is a God!  How else can this have happened without divine intervention?  Yes, I know the pilot did an outstanding job landing the plane and I give credit where credit is due.  BUT, you have to admit (or you should admit) that God was the ultimate mastermind behind this landing.  Think about it.  When the word miracle is used, it is usually associated with some sort of religious activity, right?

According to dictionary.com, miracle is defined as: 

1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.

While watching ABC News, when the story first broke, survivors of plane crash were stating that, even in the midst of the plane crashing, there was a calm within the cabin of the plane.  When one of the reporters asked a survivor why did he think that was, the survivor said, matter of factly, “everyone was praying.”  My God! My God!

I know there are people who are not going to like or agree with this post.  But that’s okay.  I just wanted to give a shout out to My God and say, “Lord, you’re awesome!  You can make a way out of no way.”

This morning a news show reported only 1 in 4 Americans look at President Bush favorably.  I’m sure it has something to do with the current recession – the fact that he isn’t 100% to blame doesn’t really matter to many.  It could possibly have something to do with how he has handled the country since 9/11.  Have we given up the search for those weapons of mass destruction (WMD) yet?  At any rate, I think it will be interesting, to say the least, to see how his legacy plays out.

I think President Bush was talking about his legacy during a recent interview and I will give him credit for one thing: he acts and talks as if the public has a high opinion of him.  Of course, that is my opinion of him or at least what I took from the short time I watched the interview.

It is Friday (thank God) and we want to have a relaxing long weekend leading up to the inauguration next week so how about a little fun?  Let’s do some word association.  I will try to keep it at one word. Feel free to add your own if you feel so inclined.

President Bush’s election – shady (hanging chads?)

President Bush’s re-election – unbelievable

9/11 – heartbreaking

Allegedly letting Bin Laden’s family and/or friends leave the country after 9/11 – notachance

Iraq – oil

Searching for WMDs – oil

Thinking about the 4,000+ men and women who have died in the war – avoidable

President Bush making a speach – shoes 

On Saturday, January 10, 2009, in Anchorage, Alaska, a convicted sex offender came forward to claim a $500,000 jackpot.  Okay, that’s not bad, right?  But, here’s the “things that make you go hmmmm” part:  The jackpot was the result of an Alaska lottery, called Lucky Time Pull Tabs, that donates its proceeds to a nonprofit group, Standing Together Against Rape, which, among other services, offers support to sexual assault victims!  It seems that the convicted sex offender is a two-time offender as he was convicted in 1993 and 2000 for sexual abuse of a minor!

According to Nancy Haag, the nonprofit’s executive director, “It’s not how we had envisioned the story going.”  Uh, Nancy, that is the understatement of the year (so far anyway).  According to FBI statistics, Alaska has the highest per capita number of rape cases in the United States.  Haag further stated, “With a ranking that high, it’s ironic that the person who wins is a convicted sex offender.”

Efforts to reach lottery organizer Abe Spicola, who owns Lucky Times Pull Tabs, were unsuccessful late Monday. But Spicola told the Anchorage Daily News that the winner “was going to buy a house and said he was going to donate part of it to God, and, you know, charity.”

Talk about irony, right?

I know Ryan, one of our loyal readers and a contributor, doesn’t believe “careless” (my words, not his) people should be bailed out.  But that is a done deal and the bailout money was allocated – but where is it exactly?  As recently as yesterday, soon-to-be President Obama stated, “When you look at how we have handled the home foreclosure situation and whether we’ve done enough in terms of helping families … we haven’t done enough.”

So far, financial institutions have been given $350 billion and it seems as though it is still unclear as to where it went.  Amazingly, banks and other financial institutions have received half of the allotted bailout money from the government with few rules, and most won’t say where the money has gone.  What does it really say about our current government to know that they forked over $350 billion and didn’t even ask for a receipt? 

The plan is to have the Senate vote on releasing the other half of the money so it would be available shortly after Obama takes office on January 20th.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson originally promised the money would be used to buy up mortgage-related securities whose falling values have clogged up credit markets and brought many financial institutions to the brink of failure.  The Bush administration has slipped on their oversight of this money and some members of the Senate aren’t scratching their heads – Obama’s administration has to do a better job of looking after the money.  It shouldn’t be too hard for them to do a better job since all they have to do is…something.

I would like to know if anyone knows of a business and/or person that has benefited from the first half of the bailout money.  I don’t, do you?

So we aren’t sure where the $350 billion is, the “Big Three” automakers got some money to help – money they shouldn’t have needed and $350 billion more is about to be released!  Good job!

To all you comic book collectors, Marvel Comics has announced it will feature president-elect Barack Obama in Marvel Comic’s Amazing Spider-Man #583, said Joe Quesada, Marvel’s editor-in-chief.  Obama is being featured because of his love for Spider-Man comic books as a child.  “How great is that? The commander in chief to be is actually a nerd in chief,” Quesada said. “It was really, really cool to see that we had a geek in the White House. We’re all thrilled with that.”

The comic starts with Spider-Man’s alter-ego Peter Parker taking photographs at the inauguration, before spotting two identical Obamas, according to the Associated Press.  Parker decides “the future president’s gonna need Spider-Man,” and springs into action, using basketball to determine the real Obama and punching out the impostor. Obama thanks him with a fist-bump.

#583 will be available in comic book shops nationwide on January 14, 2009 for $3.99 and is expected to sell out, with half the covers devoted to Obama.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been in a debate with myself on whether or not to write about the following story.  But, I see things have escalated, so I decided to finally write something.  Let me preface what I’m about to write with this:  There aren’t any excuses for this that, in my opinion, are legitimate.  Anyway, here’s the story:

On January 1, 20009, in Oakland, California, police officers forced an unarmed, 22-year-old Oscar Grant,  to the ground and held him face-down on a crowded BART, the San Francisco Bay Area‘s commuter rail system’s, train platform.  Suddenly one of the officers drew his gun and shot the man in the back.  The bullet entered Grant’s back and ricocheted to his lung area, killing him almost instantly. According to the news reports, the officer thought he was pulling the trigger on his stun gun!  Huh?!!  You mean to tell me a licensed firearm carrier can’t tell the difference between a stun gun and a real gun?!  Sorry, I don’t believe it.

On Wednesday, angry demonstrators smashed storefronts, set fire to cars and clashed with officers equipped with riot gear and tear gas in downtown Oakland. I am not surprised one bit surprised that a riot has occurred.  And not because Grant was Black.  Heck, I am of the opinion a protest should occur, regardless of the victim’s race. But you know what gets my blood boiling on this?  The officer remains free and has not been charged with any wrongdoing!  Why?!!  This entire incident was captured on video via someone’s cell phone!

The officer who shot Oscar Grant has been identified as Johannes Mehserle.  Prior to Wednesday’s riot, he was placed on paid leave.  However, on Wednesday, he resigned from the BART’s police force.  Amazingly, Mehserle refuses to speak with investigators about this incident.

In an unsurprising move, Grant’s family filed a $25 million wrongful-death claim against BART, and relatives want Mehserle to be criminally charged.

This video is all over the internet.  I refuse to watch it because I don’t want to see it, but click here if you wish to see it. Let me know what you think about this situation.  It’s so sad.

Today I’m thinking our society just keeps coming up with new examples to show that morally we are on a downhill course.  What are we going to do – what can we do to instill some values in the generations to come?  If we could return to some common courtesies that would be great, but that seems far too difficult for some to grasp.

Have you ever heard of someone stepping on another person’s shoe and it causing a dispute?  I’ve heard of people losing their life for something as small as this.  Back in the good old days a simple “Excuse me” would be good enough to forget/forgive about something like this, but now it seems as if stepping on someone’s toe is a capital offense.  The whole thing is stupid because who would do this on purpose?

I used to live in a popular west coast city and one night I was out at a club when an incident similar to this occurred.  A young lady I was talking too was bumped into by a guy.  Notice I said he bumped into her.  Anyway, the guy got very upset and was blaming the young lady for this.  Well, I came to find out this guy was a pimp and he thought he was above this happening to him.  I’m not saying he was a guy who was a lady’s man or anything like this – he was a pimp for real.  Can you believe he caused the action but thought it was her fault?  This guy must have had some serious juice because they told the young lady it would be best if she left the club instead of telling him to leave.

Remember when a simple punch would solve most problems?  I’m not advocating violence, but some people quickly take things to the next level.  Forget about normal fist fights because that seems to be a thing of the past and I can kind of understand why.  Why fight someone and possibly win when their next move will likely be to go get a gun?  That is exactly was a 4-year-old in Jackson Ohio did when his baby sitter stepped on his toe.  Did I mention the child was 4 and the baby sitter stepped on his toe accidentally?  Amazing.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather not be involved in any gun play for accidentally stepping on someone’s toe.  That just doesn’t seem like a way I possibly want to leave this earth and besides, it is downright stupid.

Yesterday’s congressional session on Capitol Hill was filled with so much drama today, it was as if the senators were starring in their own soap opera.  I mean, there was a senator trying to occupy a seat he was appointed to, only to be denied.  There was a senator, who was elected as vice-president, being sworn in as a senator, by the outgoing vice-president.  There was a senator who was literally kicked out of his office because he was finally declared the loser in a senatorial race.  And lastly, there was a senator, who has been battling brain cancer, return to work.  At this point, I’m catching my breath before I continue.  Okay, here’s a recap of today’s episode of All My Senators:

First, Roland Burris, Democratic U.S. Senate appointee, went to the Capital to “take” the President-Elect Obama’s vacant senate seat, which was given to him by disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  You do remember Blagojevich, right?   He’s the man who tried to sell Obama’s vacant senate seat to the highest bidder.  Although he got caught, he still has the power to act as Governor of Illinois.  Anyway, back to Roland Burris.  He had a slew of reporters capturing his embarrassing moment when the Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson rejected his certification, saying it lacked Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s signature and the state seal.  Although Mr. Burris was turned away, legally, he does have a right to the seat.  He is to meet with the Democratic leaders on Wednesday to try and resolve this issue.

Second, Vice-President Biden was sworn in as senator by outgoing Vice-President Dick Cheney.  Biden will serve as a senator for two weeks, until he officially takes over the vice-president duties.  He is still collecting a paycheck as a senator though.

Third, Democrat Al Franken, a professional comedian (remember, Stuart Saves His Family?) was finally declared winner of Minnesota’s November 2008 Senate Race.  Based on this declaration, Republican Norm Coleman, the loser, was swiftly given the boot out of his capital office.  Amazingly, he plans to challenge the results in court!

Lastly, Ted Kennedy returned to Capital Hill, after battling brain cancer.  He has been a senator since 1962!  In fact, he saw his son being sworn in as a senator today.  Welcome back Mr. Kennedy.

Can we say WOW!!!!!!  I have to say alot of this drama is coming from the Democrats.  What IS going on?  Is this an indicator of how things will be with a Democrat as President?  All I can say is stay tuned because you haven’t seen nothing yet!

First I would like to say thank you to Ryan, from JealousBrother, for the great article yesterday.  We asked him to write a post about whatever he wanted to and he came through.  The great thing about relationships with people is you don’t have to agree with everything they say to recognize the good in them.  Kim and I don’t always agree with Ryan, but we see the goodness in him and that is very important.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Material wealth.  Isn’t that part of the American dream or “The Dream” period?  There are millions and millions of people who dream of having wealth – that Gates/Winphrey/Murdoch/Walton kind of wealth.  Chasing those material things may have got us into the economic situation we currently find ourselves in, but we have failed to achieve that goal.

According to Wikipedia, the catchphrase “Keeping up with the Joneses” is the desire to be seen as being as good as one’s neighbors or contemporaries using the comparative benchmarks of social caste or the accumulation of material goods.  To fail to “keep up with the Joneses” is perceived as demonstrating socio-economic or cultural inferiority.  Now, even the Joneses are having a hard time keeping up.

The thought of having the bank account to buy anything I want has crossed my mind a time or two , but recently I’ve had to back away and look at things differently.  Good people are losing their jobs and are scrambling to find a way to make ends meet by no fault of their own.  At this time, keeping up with anyone is the furthest thing from my mind.  One reason is I could be in a much worse situation than I currently find myself in.  The second, and more important, reason is I prefer my family over chasing the almighty dollar.  I recently realized I’m happy where I’m at and would be fortunate to maintain my current way of living.  Besides maintaining, my only desire is to have a ceiling high enough to improve my situation through my own hard work.

I can only speak for myself, but the current economic situation has caused my perspective to change.  Would this have ocurred if the housing market stayed the same and companies continued to hire as before?  I’m not so sure, but there is one thing I think could be the result of this economy: we may get back to some form of family values and look at things differently than we did before.  In many ways, that would make us more wealthy than we’ve been in a long time.

Ryan Kazinec has been a consistent contributor here on 7daybuzz and his opinion is something we value.  Ryan is the founder of JealousBrother.com, an author on The Official JealousBrother Blog and on his personal blog GetToKnowTheCEO.com.  When Ryan has something to say, it will be thoughtful with a heavy dose of common sense.  Without further ado…

Planning for the Worst Case Scenario

I didn’t live through the “Great Depression” and was only eight years old when the savings and loan(S&L) crisis took place so it’s safe to say I haven’t experienced anything remotely close to as serious as the crisis the United States (and World) is currently facing. We’re all hoping for the best but are you preparing for the worst? The economic distress becomes more obvious each and every day. A simple drive home from work uncovered several more businesses closing their doors, neighbors foreclosing on their homes, and news on the radio of more companies going under with a horrendous amount of jobs being lost. In times like this it can be dangerous and borderline reckless to be overly optimistic.

Instead of looking at it as a glass half full or empty would it not be wiser to look at it as a glass that you will do everything in your power to keep from running dry, tipping over, or cracking? If you’re anything like the wife and I, you may live comfortably, pay all of your bills on time with a little extra money each check. The unfortunate thing is our relatively smooth situation could take a sudden and prompt turn for the worse if either one of us became unemployed. I’ve actually been forced to think about the “what if’s” and come up with the “would do’s.” For example, priority one would be to keep a roof over our heads at all costs, so that means luxuries like satellite television, telephone service, and internet would immediately have to go along with other wants like eating out, pricier foods, and unfortunately the beer would have to go as well. Sure filing for unemployment may buy us some time but I’m also forced to consider the dwindling job market and this is where the worst case scenario begins.

The situation I described isn’t a delusion, or a rare occurrence, its happening daily. If things keep getting worse how bad can it get? It’s hard to imagine our current society reduced to animal like behavior forced to cheat and steal in order to keep food in our stomachs but then again people did stomp a man to death in Wal-Mart on black Friday over slightly discounted merchandise. To further define the “worst case scenario” we need to take a look at the past. According to Wikipedia, “The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement.” Sound familiar? Well that’s a small portion of a description of the Great Depression; much like our current situation it is nearly impossible to isolate a sole cause for the downfall in the economy but the affects are eerily similar. Is it a stretch to compare our current situation to the Great Depression? Sure, but then again I’m writing about the worst case scenario.

A lot in our society and country has changed since the 1930’s like the invention of the television, computer, and internet but something that stands out as even more significant is our inability to self sustain. It would seem with our constant advancement in technology as a society we have forgotten how to rely on ourselves. Considering the worst case scenario what would you do if you couldn’t afford groceries or even worse what if groceries weren’t available? Have we forgotten that our ancestors actually lived off of the land? They grew crops, raised the animals they would later have for dinner, and made their own clothes. We have become so reliant on others to provide our goods and services that in the event of our luxuries disappearing we might find ourselves helpless and confused.

A recession is no laughing matter and a depression is a pure nightmare. The U.S. unemployment rate has been consistently growing since January of 2008 and is showing no signs of letting up. At a current rate of 6.7% of Americans unemployed the U.S. is approaching a milestone we’d rather not meet. (Source) Aside from the Great Depression where at times unemployment reached nearly 25% the second highest rate of 9.7% was hit in 1982 which the U.S. is getting dangerously close to. (Source) I think it’s realistic to assume that there isn’t going to be an abundance of jobs created any time soon that will lessen the blow of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are being lost on a monthly basis.

We’re a long way off from the staggering unemployment numbers of the Great Depression and unemployment is only one of many statistics used to measure an economy’s performance but let’s not be naive. Isn’t it always better to be safe than sorry? How hard would it be to start preparing for the worst even if you’re certain things will be okay? There are a lot of little things you can do now that will only benefit you if the unthinkable occurs. Learn how to garden and purchase plenty of seeds, learn how to can foods and gradually stock up on canning jars/lids, keep extra water around, and you can even dehydrate food and vacuum seal it. I’d be lying if I said I’ve taken all of these precautions but I am being honest when I say the thought has crossed my mind and there will be a boiling point when I will be more proactive in preparation. Optimism is a wonderful quality to have but be careful; being too confident in some circumstances can be a very poor choice. I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, views. Leave a comment here and then come express your opinions on our website where we have a rivalry involving a very similar topic. Very Scared/Worried vs. Everything Will Be Okay

Ryan Kazinec

CEO – JealousBrother.com

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