Tulsa-Smith:- emotional...

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Jefferson in the cooler for freezing assets

There have been a lot of corruption cases in the news over the years, ranging from Asian heads of government and ministers being arraigned, African legislators surreptitiously setting the bar very high on their own wages despite the suffering masses living in squalor, British parliamentarians claiming some really phished expenses, and so on.

Now, a long running one has finally found closure. American Rep., Jefferson, has been sentenced to thirteen years behind bars!

I think the genesis of the case was that the man had accused the former Vice-President of Nigeria of receiving bribes from him during a visit to the congressman's house.

The V-P had no recollection of such an encounter and said so. The American security authorities investigated with a search warrant and found the supposedly doled out - marked , I think - money in the congressman's freezer!

The ex-congressman's deed should qualify as a new and practically illustrative definition for the term 'assassination of character'.

Is it not actually ironic though? President Thomas Jefferson, his namesake, was assassinated for speaking about stopping slavery!

You can read up more about the late president as follows:

Jefferson and Slavery and Thomas Jefferson and slavery.

Corruption lands ex-Louisiana congressman 13 years

Louisiana's Jefferson Gets 13-Year Prison Term
13-year sentence for ex-congressman

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Fw: The Commandments

I really do not understand the following joke. It was sent in by an old friend. Hee-hee (feeling a bit peevish now). If you do get the yoke, please let me know. And, also let me have an idea of your rating for this particular entry, on any scale you choose or can imagine. Don't be shy. Ha-ha...

--- On Thu, 10/29/09, ........:

From: ......
Subject: Fw: The Commandments
To: "You"
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 10:54 AM

HOW MOSES GOT

God went to the Arabs and said,

"I have Commandments for you that will make your lives better."

The Arabs asked, "What are Commandments?"
And the Lord said, "They are rules for living."

"Can you give us an example?"
"Thou shall not kill."

"Not kill? We're not interested."

So He went to the Blacks and said, "I have Commandments."
The Blacks wanted an example, and the Lord said,
"Honor thy Father and Mother."

"Father? We don't know who our fathers are. We're not interested."

Then He went to the Mexicans and said,
"I have Commandments."

The Mexicans also wanted an example, and the Lord said,

"Thou shall not steal."

"Not steal? We're not interested."

Then He went to the French and said,
"I have Commandments."

The French also wanted an example and the Lord said,
"Thou shall not commit adultery."

"Not commit adultery? We're not interested."

Finally, He went to the Jews and said,
"I have Commandments."

"Commandments? How much are they?"

"They're free."

"We'll take 10."

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Fw: Home Grown Terrorism!

If the telephone companies could approach the level of uptime record achieved by the blogging platform providers and Internet service providers, the world would be a much more peaceful and much less misunderstood place to live in.

Do you recall how frustrating it can be to try a number endlessly and get all kinds of error messages, ranging from 'wrong number' to some other glib missive or recorded tonal voicing?

Well, an old friend sent in a classic example of how painful being misunderstood can be. I was tempted to do a little editing but refrained from doing so - in order to preserve the original punchline, sort of. Enjoy...

--- On Fri, 10/30/09, .........; wrote:

From: .........;
Subject: Fw: Home Grown Terrorism. !
To: "You";
Date: Friday, October 30, 2009, 10:19 AM

:

A woman was trying to reach her hubby on his mobile phone but discovered she was out of airtime. She instructed her son to use his phone to pass across an urgent message to his daddy.After junior had called, he got back to mummy to inform her that it was a lady that picked up daddy's phone the 3 times he tried reaching daddy on his mobile phone. She waited impatiently for her husband to return home on sighting him, she immediately gave him a hot slap, while the man was trying to utter a word, she repeated the slap, which attracted their neighbors to the scene, the woman then asked junior to tell everybody what the lady said to him when he called. Junior said:

"The number u're trying to call is not reachable at the moment, pls try again later".

LOL.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Fw: BIG FISH AND SMALL FRY PAN

Do you have a great fish story or a great fishing story? There is really nothing fishy about my inquiry, and I am not also fishing for comments. Ha-ha....

The following story was sent in by an old friend. I thought it was inspiring. I hope that you, too, think so.

--- On Thu, 10/29/09, ......:

From: .....
Subject: Fw: BIG FISH AND SMALL FRY PAN
To: "You"
Cc: "Everyone"
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 10:20 AM

An encouraging piece indeed!!

Two men went fishing. One was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn't. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back.

The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing the man waste good fish. 'Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?' he asked.

The inexperienced fisherman replied, 'I only have a small frying pan..'

Sometimes, like that fisherman, we throwback the big plans, big dreams, big jobs, big opportunities that God gives us. Our faith is too small.

We laugh at that fisherman who didn't figure out that all he needed was a bigger frying pan, yet how ready are we to increase the size of our faith?

Whether it's a problem or a possibility, God will never give you anything bigger than you can handle. That means we can confidently walk into anything God brings our way.

You can do all things through Christ (Philippians 4:13 .) Nothing is too big for God.

REMEMBER:

Stop telling God you've got big problems.
Tell your problems you've got a BIG GOD!

Send this to all your friends .

Greenville, Rhode Island bakery owned by the Cavanagh family, which uses the plant to produce church communion bread from just water and bread. That business is known to produce about 850 million sacramental wafers annually and to supply 80% of the Holy Communion bread used in American, Australian, Canadian, and British churches. The only middlemen in the supply chain are nuns living in convents! Now they want to expand to West Africa with their Christian sacramental ware for Pentecostal, Catholic, 'New Wave', and Orthodox church offerings. I make reference to the so-called New Wave churches - my term for those churches that broke away from the orthodoxy of the Protestant fold, just as the latter roke off from the Catholic church by virtue of the exploits of Martin Luther centuries ago. Many new-wave and other church goers in the generally undeveloped West African subregion of Africa pay more to religious organizations in monthly tithes and offerings than they do to their government in personal income and value added taxes. Now, that last fact is quite interesting because it is an admission that a bakery in Rhode Island has seen a huge market in the center of Black Africa for small white perfectly laminated and non-crumbly holy wheat bread, reportedly costing "less than a penny" apiece, for the use of both the bible-reading and the bible-believing religious organizations. However, the picture from the Cavanagh's factory floor speaks volumes, in my own opinion, about the need for the company to watch its business ethics and to treat all customers equally irrespective of location, creed, or other discriminatory demographic information or criteria. So, I just hope and pray that the wafers falling off the conveyor belt and by the way side are not destined for West Africa and that the actual wafers delivered will be wheat bread and water, and not just glutamate-free bread and 'pure' water, if you get my point, even if so requested by some shady, greedy, and unethical businessmen over in West Africa. Posted by Okonkwo O. Awa on Sunday, December 28, 2008.

In the summer of 2007, Pope Benedict XVI (BXVI) encouraged The Church to reach out to young people using new technologies, as he himself learned to send out cellphone text messages to the faithful. So in obedience, a tech savvy evangelizing Catholic priest got some help from a Web designer in order to write all the daily books of prayers into a low-cost computer software application downloadable onto the iPhone. Rev. Paolo Padrini's iTunes prayer book was officially approved by The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications in December 2008. Of course, all proceeds from the electronic prayer book venture will go to charity. Speaking of charitable behavior, The Holy See has seen it fit after 400 years to honor Galileo Galilei in 2009 as the "patron" of the non-mutual exclusivity of the faith versus reason dichotomy. That is very appropriate in this age of new technology, even though The Church still smarts from its error of judgment in calling the famous astronomer a heretic after he publicly embarrassed The Church by reporting that his scientific observations in Astronomy with his unique telescope had led him inexorably to believe that the Earth actually revolved around the sun, in direct opposition to the teaching of The Church at the time that Planet Earth was the center of the universe. In seeking to paint the Church in a new light of worldly knowledge by distancing itself from a past of imbibing pure dogma, The Vatican may have ventured to cross the final frontier and boundary between Science and Christianity by acknowledging recently that there could be life on planets other than the Earth! Posted by O. O. Awa on Wednesday, December 24, 2008.