Now that one can place images of receipts into individual Quicken entries that my life will never. be. the. same. again.!!!!!

A whole new level of financial management is within reach! Woo hoo!

The good news is that the microwave is working again so now I can defrost food quicker and havea wider meal selection.

The bad news is that the microwave is working again so now there are more bad food choices available.

Not that I hadn’t managed to eat my share of frozen mozzarella pizzas, but the expanded variety of crap now available is daunting.

My saving grace? I am not sure about the electricity here. I don’t think I can have the microwave and the entrance light on at the same time *lol*

Some people on a saturday night get ready to party.

I do research and review web lectures on Sarbanes-Oxley Requirements sections 303, 404, and 409, along with some research and web lectures on Statement of Auditing standard 70.

I’m cool.

Yes, that’s right. It’s time to select the color of the year. That color is orange.

Wanna elect the first femal german chancellor from the former communist part of the country? They should wear orange.

Want a good source of vitamin C? Orange (both a color and a thing)

Want to wear something which says “I want freedom. And democracy. And coverage on CNN”? Wear orange.

Feel like the cashier at McDonalds gave you a smaller portion of fries than you paid for? Wear It. Orange.

Sigh. It’s the color of the year. And the most misused symbol of the year too. This is akin to the ribbon movement (what isn’t there a ribbon for). Or Hallmark’s attempt to make every holiday have a card (have you ordered you card forAll Saints Day yet? I can just see it now, a card says something like “On this day that christ flew to heaven, i’m thinking of you. happy all saints day.” And with a signature that says “eternally yours (soon), Satan”)

I am in a bad mood I think, but I don’t know why. I have “Hung Up” remixes by Madonna. And they rock.

Well it has been a crazy week. My formal assignment in Sweden will go until 30 June 2006. My company is working on a local contract offer, but I don’t know that it will offer enough enticements for me to stay, but it is still early in the process. My friend’s boyfriend won the election for his region of sweden. My ex got beat up by a group of arab guys who assumed he was a nazi because he was speaking german with a friend, my other friend visting from london might have ionjured his leg and is at the hospital, and i had a yummy mini-kebab pizza and slept the day away and walked around the city for some exercise.

oh yeah, and the best part was having to visit the embassy to get something notarised only to be old my passport looks like it’s been mishandled by terrorists and being basically forced to get a new passport. Not too much of a problem except my work permit is in that passport as well as my non-expiring Ausralian visa (which was valid as long as the passport was valid) and my visa to Brazil (2 years left on it). Sigh. Cancel those plans to Sydney and Rio. And that US$12 security enhancement fee I had to pay still pisses me off. they charge ever person this amount who does anything more than come to the embassy and says hi. I asked what the fee does. The Swedish lady at the embassy said “stops terrorist attacks.” Who knew that America’s efforts to combat terrorism only required $12 per visitor to a US Embassy.

Blah I say. Or O’rly. Or damn it all to hell. I need drink.

It is interesting to read this section. Obviously I have not travelled as much or the to as many of the locations as the Carters, but I have traveled enough where I feel like I could agree to their interpretations…

CNN’s Larry King Live
TRANSCRIPT of interview with Former President of the United States of America Jimmy Carter and Former First Lady of the United States Rosalyn Carter
Original Air Date: 15 November 2002
Note as of 09 December 2005, the original full transcript could be found at http://www.cartercenter.org/search/viewindexdoc.asp

(preceding transcript text omitted)

KING: Mr. President, you’ve traveled the world extensively. I don’t know anyone who travels more than you. Why do so many people hate this country?

PRESIDENT CARTER: Larry, Rosalynn and I have been in more than 120 nations in the world, mostly the very poorest and most destitute and needy people. We have programs at the Carter Center now in 65 countries, 35 of them in African and not coincidentally. And it’s given us a chance to have an incident into the lives of those people and the attitude of those people. And I think there is a sense that the United States has become too arrogant, too dominant, too self satisfied, proud of our wealth, believing that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful and influential nation in the world. I think they feel that we don’t really care about them, which is quite often true. Because they see that a tiny bit of financial help would change their lives for the better. I think there’s a feeling, too, that our emphasis has been on countries in the Third World that have oil, and countries like Mali or Burkina Faso or Ghana or Benin or even Haiti and Guyana are not even on our radar screen. They all know, the ones that are at all educated, that among the developed, industrialized nations on earth, the United States is at the bottom, way at the bottom, in providing humanitarian aid for peace and for human rights and for housing and for health and education. We give about one-thousandth of our Gross National Product for development assistance. That’s one-tenth of one percent. And the average European country gives four times as much. For every time an American gives a dollar, a citizen of Norway gives $17. And I think that we — maybe after the tragedy of 9/11, we’ll begin to see that a very tiny investment of help in those poverty- stricken countries will prevent the hopelessness and lack of self- respect and despair and anger and violence and potential terrorism. And that will be of great benefit to our own country.

KING: I’ll have Rosalynn chime in on that right after we come back from the break. The Carter Center is 20 years old today, and of course the president is this year’s recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re back with the Carters. Rosalynn, you wanted to add something on that question of why we’re not liked?

MRS. CARTER: I do, because it’s not the American people. The American people don’t see what we see. They don’t see the ravages of war. We go into these countries and see people who have lost everything, even their babies. And if the American people could see that, they would respond overwhelmingly. We’re talking about the government and our foreign aid program. But if people in our country could see, as I’ve said before, the poverty and the terrible conditions these people live in. And when we’re there, they don’t ask us what the United States can do to help them. They ask us if we know anybody in Japan or if we know anybody in Norway, because those countries give more. But I still want to impress on you that is not the American people, who are good, and you know how they respond to if there’s a tornado, an earthquake in a country, and we see it on television and so forth, people respond to it.

KING: Well, Mr. President, isn’t the government the make up of the people?

PRESIDENT CARTER: Well, in a way, Larry, but you know, there’s an interesting thing that has been kind of surprising to me. When I go to Belgium or to the Netherlands or to Norway or Sweden or Denmark or Finland, even to other countries, I may not name them all, when they run for Parliament, one of their most attractive political planks is, “If I’m elected, I’m going to make sure that our country will do everything in its power, say in Africa, to promote justice and peace and freedom and democracy and human rights, and alleviate suffering there.” And it’s a very popular thing. But can you imagine what would happen for an American candidate for Congress to say, “If I’m elected, I’m going to increase foreign aid?” It would be suicidal. So you put your finger on it; foreign aid in this country has a bad name, but in other countries it’s a right thing for the government to do. And that’s where we at the Carter Center quite often
have to turn.

(subsequent transcript text omitted)

but i am working out aggressively again, so that is a good thing…

Well I was reading a friend’s posting on racism in America, and the responses to it, and I have to say that I am really amazed. Not much at his assertions but really at the majority of response which offered complete and total validation. I personally strongly disagreed with it and with the follow-on supportive comments for reasons you can read in my original response.

Particularly the poster from Toronto when I gave the counterfiet money example and her response to it. By that logic for example, because it is assumed that black people shoplift more, then by extension, security guards trailing all black patrons in shops simply because they walk in is acceptable. After all, shoplifting is a big problem and costs billions in revenue and profit, right? The logic seems wrong not because I disagree with her statement, but I disagree with the foundation on what they are based on.

Read it all and give me your thoughts, whether in response here or in e-mail. I’ve put the thread up for sharing with some other multi-national, multi-cultural groups I am a member of (you all who read those threads will see it soon), if only because I need some confirmation that my position is not totally off-base. Sure, shoot me for being idealistic or focusing too much on the bigger picture at the expense of the question, but this is the first time that it would have truly felt wrong *not* to respond.