Wednesday Night Blog #3 August 20, 2014

Everyone it's good to be back blogging this week. I apologize for not posting a blog a week ago. I was in a vehicle crash where I suffered a back injury and $6200 worth of damages to my car. My back is still hurting since I have a lumbar strain and a fractured disk/vertebrae (I was not a good science student so my terminology is not at its best) as well as arthritis in my lower back. After a weeks worth of exercises, doctor's appointments and PT, I'm beginning to get used to what is now the new normal for the time being. I definitely miss running with Fleet Feet Sports Rochester. They have become like a sort of family to me. The people at Fleet Feet as well as my running crew have been very encouraging.  This was definitely a pick me up for sure. My buddy Ray who is also my boss at work has been very encouraging as well while giving me timely advice regarding back injuries since he had a back issue a year ago.  The injury couple with the writing sabbatical that I'm going to be on until November has turned into a "Wake up and smell the roses moment" for me.  It seems that I haven't been enjoying life like I should and am now starting to do so once again.

Well I'm following baseball in full throttle mode while picking up some autos in stadium and in person and making trades/purchases of sports cards on line and in person.  I'm now working on 2014 Allen & Ginter Baseball, 2014 Upper Deck Goodwin Champs and 2014 Panini Golden Age sets. They have an awesome historical feel to them. I'm also in the process of trying to complete insert sets for Topps Series I & II baseball. The inserts are limited print cards that are issued in Topps packs. Also the 2014 Bowman Baseball both base and prospects as well as 2014 Topps Pro Debut are on my list of sets that I am trying to complete.  I have a couple of baseball card shows in my area to check out this weekend as long as my back is able to hold up. They will be the first ones since June.  I even made a killer find at a flea market Sunday.  I picked up four small boxes of cards and a bag of 100 nine pocket sleeves.  Needless to say that a Ken Griffey Bowman rookie from 1989 and a racing autograph were my top finds.  Today I bought a few packs of 2014 Topps Football. I'm going to collect only the rookies and trade the rest of the cards.  Well once again card collecting has helped me keep my head on straight during trying times.  It is a therapeutic activity for me along the lines of FDR and his stamp collecting that helped him forestall a nervous breakdown.

As for my writing, I have seventy three days left on my writing sabbatical.  When it ends on November 1 at 12:00 am, I will immediately begin to write Gladio for my National Novel Writer's Month project.  As NaNoWriMo approaches I will discuss Gladio more.  It has been nine days since Deception has been published and Trafford Publishing has approached me about doing a book to screen event in Los Angeles at the end of September.  They would like me to go there and pitch both Black Friday and Deception to Hollywood producers.  I tried that route with Black Friday last year and although I had a great time in New York, the attempt to turn Black Friday into a movie was a failed one.  The prices for Pitch Fest as it is properly called are outrageous and I refuse to do it again at this time.  Some of the story lines for Deception are actually being played out in the news these days.  Between the mass immigration of Mexicans (Arabs in Deception), rioting (See Ferguson, MO) and the Caliphate (ISIS) it's hard to ignore what has been transpiring in the news as of late.

With the mass immigration of Mexicans, it's hard not to ignore the fact that there is a possibility that al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group had its members enter the United States through the Mexican border while blending in with the immigrants or even Mexican citizens converting to Islam and then crossing the border into the USA.  That's one diabolical way of carrying out a terror plot.

The events in Ferguson, MO are disturbing to put it mildly.  With the different accounts of what occurred, if Michael Brown was in fact rushing for the officer's gun, the officer should have fired bullets into Michael Brown's leg or arm or even both.  With the two bullet wounds in his head and four in his arm, it was a Marine style shooting according to a friend of mine who served in the Marines.  One shot to the head and then two to the body.  The fact that the Ferguson Police Department has been very slow in releasing the details and key information regarding the investigation and what occurred that day makes me question what really happened to Michael Brown.  Although there was audio/video about the shooting, if it was audio I would question it and if it was video I would accept it.   It's frightening that the protests and rioting could spread nationally.  I'm convinced that we need to brace ourselves for the possibility.

With ISIS, they desire to convert the USA to Islam and put a black flag on the White House while establishing a Caliphate.  The methods that are being employed by ISIS have outraged a lot of people.  One Syrian Christian was kidnapped and tortured to the point that he rejected Christianity and converted to Islam.  After he said an Islamic prayer, he was beheaded! What a humiliation to be stripped of your faith, your salvation and then get beheaded! That was ISIS' plan with him all along.  They have also kidnapped Christian women and are using them as sex slaves.  If this is the future of Islamic terrorism, then we need to go all out and fight ISIS until they are no more. I think that they are the grave threat these days.

Enough on this blood boiling issue.  These issues have been swept aside by the deaths of both Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall as well as he ALS ice bucket challenge.  We have lost two movie icons a week ago.  They were tremendous talents who have left an unforgettable impression on us.  The ALS ice bucket challenge has swept the nation by storm.  With my back injury, I know that I would make one awkward movement and make the injury worse.  That is why I will donate from my heart and not be told how much to donate.  I videotaped my neighbor doing the ice bucket challenge last week.  I think that it's very admirable, the tactics could use a little fine tuning.  How about donating what one can afford.  I think that would put more people at ease about the whole thing.  Enough said about that.

It's hard to believe that another summer is about come to an end.  Time flies these days especially as everyone gets older.  I have no question that we all must take advantage of what the waning days of summer has to offer.  That is what we must do especially in the next week.  With that it is time for me to close this blog for the week and take advantage of what summer has left to offer!

Take Care,

Tom

Wednesday Night Blog #2

Wednesday Night Blog #2

August 6, 2014

By

Tom DiCaprio

 

Everyone, since the first blog worked out well; I thought that I would do this again tonight.  Deception has been published as of yesterday.  Deception is about a Saudi plot to take over the United States and Western Europe and convert them into Islamic nations.  Mohammad abd Ibrahim grew up resenting the Western nations splitting up the Ottoman Empire while making false promises to the Arabs.  Ibrahim was further incensed over the setting up of a Jewish State in Palestine.  After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in which it became in Shi’a Islamic State, Saudi Arabia was now feeling threatened over the possibility of the fact that the Islamic Revolution will spread there as well.  Mohammad abd Ibrahim then began a chain of events that would lead to disenfranchised citizens of five different nations who would be on the brink of becoming their leaders while the reestablishing of a Caliphate in Saudi Arabia would occur.  Ibrahim would pay for the college educations of the disenfranchised citizens while choosing five of the students whose college educations that he paid for and groom them to become leaders in the process.   A condition for accepting the scholarship was that the person who accepted must convert to Islam.

One candidate is Darryl Jeremiah Gant who was repeatedly denied a scholarship to pay for his college education.  Gant who resented the Caucasian race for their racism towards minorities was befriended by Ibrahim who paid for his scholarship and is now being groomed to someday become President of the United States.  Gant meanwhile continued on with his resentment of the Caucasian race which results in a series of violent encounters through the years. 

CIA Agent J.T. Vincent proceeds to discover bits and pieces of Ibrahim’s plot in the weeks leading up to the 9/11 attacks while investigating another crime involving a bodyguard for now-Congressman Gant.  When Gant and his bodyguard Quinn Sanders are questioned, the Attorney General’s office proceeds to stop it and Agent Vincent is transferred to Washington, D.C. where his superiors would keep a close eye on him. 

Years later, Congressman Gant becomes the Vice President while Agent Vincent continued on with his investigation of Gant and his ties to radical Islam.  Mohammad abd Ibrahim gives the approval for the final stages of his plan to be carried out.  Can Agent Vincent stop it in time?  Read Deception to find out.  Deception is told in the tradition of both The Manchurian Candidate and The Da Vinci Code.  You can purchase it at www.trafford.com. 

 

Week two of my novel writing hiatus is going well.  I am actually learning that there is more to life these days than writing novels.  For example last night I went out on a group run, but I tweaked my knee to the extent where I had to end my run.  The knee is feeling better today but still a tad sore.  I may try again this weekend should it improve even more.  I saw Edge of Tomorrow Monday night and the movie played out like a video game that would be very addicting.  I highly recommend it, just put your preconceived notions about Tom Cruise aside before you enter the theater.  This was one of his better performances as an actor.

Insomnia has become a key part of my life once again.  It came back Saturday night and is now an every other night thing.  We shall see tonight if the trend continues or not. 

The MLB Trade Deadline may have ushered in a new trend.  It looks like the trade deadline has went from trading fading star players to trading free agents to be while a team can get something in return for them to now trading players for established MLB players in the hopes of jump starting their team in the near future.  You can thank the Boston Red Sox for this new tradition.  I personally think that it’s a good idea since most of the players that Boston received are solid MLB players.  The Red Sox will likely make a splash in the free agent market this winter and it looks like they will be a 2015 playoff team.  One of the players who Boston traded Jon Lester has bolstered a solid Oakland rotation and they will likely face Detroit in the American League Championship Series.  The Detroit Tigers counted and were the UNLIKELY winners of the David Price sweepstakes.  It looks like the Price was right for the Tigers to make the trade. 

Well this is going to be a short blog this week.  Everyone have an awesome week and remember to purchase your copy of Deception.

 

Tom

Wednesday Night Blog #1

Wednesday Night Blog #1

July 30, 2014

By

Tom DiCaprio

 

Here we go everyone the first of a series of Wednesday Night Blogs that I promised that I would write starting tonight.  I’m going to get this started by talking about how I first got into writing.  It began in August 1994 when I read Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy when it was first published.  I was so impressed with Debt of Honor especially with its ending that I first became interested in writing.  It was also a great way to while away the waning days of the summer of 1994.  Fast forward to 2005.  This was when I saw a segment on CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Presents.  He discussed the likelihood of a plot for a dirty bomb attack at the upcoming second inaugural of George W. Bush.  Now I had an idea for a novel.  For the next several years I did so much writing that I ended up with bits and pieces of six different novels with the first one Entebbe completed on August 23, 2012. I think it was the ten year anniversary of Dan Brown completing The Da Vinci Code.  It was an amazing read.  Anyways, the editing of Entebbe has since become a long and drawn out process.  In fact it’s now rivaling production of a run of the mill Stanley Kubrick movie.  At least the editors convinced me to cut down on the 500+ page novel.  Since I’m on my novel writing sabbatical until November 1 when National Novel Writer’s Month begins, Entebbe will be put on hold for a little while more.  Since then I have written Black Friday in November 2012 and it was published on October 2, 2013 aka the day that it was announced that my favorite author/literary idol Tom Clancy had passed away; Cyber Monday which was completed a year ago, but has yet to be published; Ruthless which was written during National Novel Writer’s Month back in November 2013 and has since been published on March 14 of this year aka my birthday (Best birthday present by the way!!!) and Deception which was finished this past April and it will be published on August 8.  Recently I have been suffering from writer’s block as well as a lack of focus when it comes to writing hence my hiatus from it.  So far I’m having a lot of fun while getting some housework caught up. 

 

This section for the next two weeks will be a discussion about a novel that I have published.  The fun part will be what to replace this section with on August 13.  This should get very interesting to say the least, but I will start thinking about it on August 7.  As for Black Friday, I came up with the idea after watching a news segment about the chances of a terrorist attack at the malls.  On Halloween 2012, I had a very rough day and I needed to come up with something to do for fun.  I discovered National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo) by accident when I was checking out the First Friday’s Rochester website to get some ideas about which galleries to check out.  Needless to say that I stayed up until midnight and began writing immediately when NaNoWriMo immediately began.  From midnight to 1:30am I began writing Black Friday while playing the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack for the Umpteenth time that evening.  Great movie by the way and I highly recommend it.  Well it commenced a fourteen day run where I finished writing Black Friday.  The weather was so bad that I wasn’t working a lot and therefore had a lot of time on my hands.  I spent most of the time at Dark Horse Coffee writing Black Friday. Dark Horse Coffee is very author friendly and I became sort of a celebrity there during that time.  Black Friday is about a plot for a terrorist attack at the malls on the day after Thanksgiving.  Its main character Ian Daley was haunted by the death of his wife on 9/11.  He joined the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to prevent another attack from taking place.  Now with a presidential recount and a series of chatter along the lines of the events leading up to the September 11^th Attacks, Daley becomes suspicious that another attack is about to take place and the intelligence community is once again failing to connect the dots.  Meanwhile Daley is worried that his twin daughters who are shopping at the malls may become victims of the attacks should they occur.  Daley then goes on a mission to try to prevent the attacks from taking place.  It has since been published and I went to New York City for Pitch Fest in October of last year to talk to some Hollywood producers about turning Black Friday into a movie.  I had a great time but there won’t be a movie in the foreseeable future. *Sigh*

 

The following November, I began to write Ruthless.  It was in part inspired by two conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination which I thought made sense to me.  With the 50^th Anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination taking place last November, I decided to write a modern day version about the 1960 Democratic Presidential Primaries with explosive results.  The two main characters New York Governor James Frederick Curry and Texas Senator Zeke Roy Jackman are the two front runners for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.  Jackman was the presumptive favorite to win the nomination until the Iowa Primary.  This evokes memories of Lyndon Baines Johnson being the front runner back in 1960 only to lose the nomination to John F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton going from the favorite to winning the nomination in 2008 to losing the nomination to Barrack Obama.  Meanwhile one of the characters in Ruthless blackmails the other which sets off a chain reaction that lasts for the next twenty five years.  The ending of Ruthless promises to captivate the reader while making them think in the process.

 

I highly recommend that you check out both novels.  They are memorable reads to put it mildly.

 

Now that I’ve discussed my writing for the week, the blog will now become an interesting one.  I promised that it would be writing and more.  Here’s where the more comes in.  This week is a favorite time of the year for me.  Thursday August 31 is the MLB Trade Deadline.  This deadline is set so teams can trade players without waivers.  In the past the MLB trade deadline was about veteran superstars who had seen better days are traded to a contending team in order to provide leadership while giving the team a spark.  Usually players in the minor leagues are traded for the aging veteran players.  The Philadelphia Athletics (Now known as the Oakland Athletics) of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s began the tradition by trading for aging superstars in an attempt to win the World Series.  They were successful during that period winning the World Series in 1929 and 1930.  Ty Cobb was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Philadelphia Athletics during that time.  These days although some aging star players/veteran players are traded, the non-waiver MLB Trade Deadline is used exclusively for trading free agents to be so that the team who would be trading the players gets something for the traded player instead of getting nothing should they become free agents and sign with another team.  Minor leaguers and young players on MLB rosters are traded for the players who have seen better days as well as free agents.  Today Justin Masterson was traded from the Cleveland Indians to the St. Louis Cardinals for a young minor league outfielder who seemed to be lost in the shuffle due to Oscar Tavares who is the Cardinals top minor league outfielder/top prospect overall in St. Louis as well as being among the top prospects in the minor leagues.  Maybe Jon Lester and John Lackey will be traded from the Red Sox in a similar Jeff Samardija and Jason Hammel like trade.  Trading two top pitchers from the same team to another team may be the trend this year.  Who knows the Mets may trade Bartolo Colon and either Jon Niese or Dillon Gee (Maybe all three since their pitching in the minor leagues evokes memories of the great Mets pitchers/prospects of the 1980’s.  What a golden age for the Mets!!!).  David Price could be traded from the Rays and the Phillies could trade Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Jimmy (J-Smooth) Rollins and Chase Utley or even Marlon Byrd.  The deadline ends at 4pm tomorrow so I will be following it like a NHL fan especially in Canada follows the NHL trade deadline.  It’s like a religion in Canada although it’s the second favorite sport.  That honor belongs to lacrosse which was originated by the Native Americans.  Lacrosse was first played to decide conflicts while the losing team gets executed.  These days the losing team gets an “L” in the loss column.  Lacrosse has come a very long way!  I admit I’m a lacrosse fanatic.  I first started following the sport ten winters ago when the NHL lockout resulted in the 2004-05 NHL season being scrapped.  Rochester has three Lacrosse teams.  The Rochester Knighthawks which have won the past three National Lacrosse League championships, the Rochester Rattlers of Major League Lacrosse and the Rochester Greywolves of the CanAm league.  Since my first lacrosse game in 2005, lacrosse has become sport 1B.  Baseball will always be my favorite sport although it has been given a 1A designation.  Hockey has now been demoted in the favorite sport pecking order.  Although I enjoy basketball, golf is growing on me and football is more that a sport, it’s become an event it itself.  One that rivals the Christmas Season, but doesn’t surpass it of course.

 

Enough on sports for the time being although it segues into my next subject.  When I was six I received trading cards as party favors.  I remember receiving Rocky II cards, Star Wars and some football cards.  I briefly collected Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back cards.  It was a come and go phase until 1982 when I first became a baseball fan.  I became a baseball card/card collection addict.  Now that my collecting has entered its 33^rd year, my enthusiasm for it is greater than when it was when I first bought rack packs of 1982 Topps baseball cards.  The hobby has provided me with some income along the way while building a good collection.  The 1980’s was a boom for baseball cards in which they rivaled stocks as an investment.  I often think about the players who I collected back then.  Besides completing my sets, I collected Mets cards especially Dwight Gooden, Gregg Jefferies, Mookie Wilson, Lenny Dysktra, Howard Johnson, Kevin Mitchell and Kevin McReynolds, Jose Canseco, Wally Joyner, Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Ruben Sierra, Pete Incaviglia, Rafael Palmeiro, Cory Snyder, B.J. Surhoff, Kevin Seitzer, Roberto Alomar, Ken Griffey Jr, Gary Sheffield, Sandy Alomar Jr, and Mark Grace just to name a few.  It has also been a therapeutic hobby for me in which my sanity was saved during some very harsh times in my life.  In short card collecting is an outlet for me.  I now collect baseball sets, Mets cards, Miguel Cabrera, minor leaguers/top prospects/rookies and game used jersey cards, autos and bat cards in baseball while I collect rookies/game-used/auto cards for all sports.  I even go to Rochester Red Wings game to score autographs from the players before and after the games (I would be stuck in traffic if I left right after the game).  The Red Wings are the Minnesota Twins AAA minor league team.  I’m planning on checking out the Batavia Muckdogs a couple of weekends from now.  They are the Miami Marlins Class A Short Season team.  The Marlins have been known to have one good player after another come up only to be traded since they can’t afford to keep the players and sign them to long term contracts.  On August 9-11 the Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets Class A team) will be heading up to Batavia.  It looks like I will be neutral during the series.  Looks like I will be doing some autographing during that time. 

 

It looks like that it’s time to change the direction to current events.  I can’t believe that Ebola is back in the news.  An outbreak in Western Africa has resulted in Peace Corps workers moving to another area in order to avoid being infected.  As of tonight there have been 800-1200 cases with 456 people dying of the virus and another 216 people being infected.  I hope that the virus doesn’t spread here.  Doctors Without Borders Director Bart Janssens announced that the virus may be a lot worse than previously reported given the fact that there are many places in which the infection has spread, but no one may know about it until it’s too late.  This time the epidemic is unprecedented with concerns that it may spread beyond Western Africa. 

The House of Representatives have approved of Speak John Boehner suing President Obama by a 225-201 vote.  Boehner claims that the president has abused his executive authority which was done at the expense of both Congress as well as the United States Constitution.  This could lead to impeachment proceeding according to the Democrats.  This has to be the first time that a sitting president has been sued.  If anything I thought that there would be an effort to sue George W. Bush while he was president.  This makes me wonder what would have happened in a hypothetical presidential election matchup of George W. Bush and Barrack Obama.  Just saying though.  This makes me wonder the outcome.  I could easily see a third party candidate entering the race and quite possibly winning the election given the mood of the American people for this hypothetical presidential election and I stress HYPOTHETICAL.

If the situation in the Ukraine isn’t bad enough, well the fact that the Ukraine has now claimed that the rebels have planted mines near Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.  This makes an already murky situation even murkier to put it mildly.  Bad enough Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 hasn’t been found and no one what happened to the plane as well as where it may be, but the unanswered questions of MH 17?  This makes one wonder what is really going on out there.  Could the Soviet Empire be waking up from a long slumber?  All I know is that this news story should go on for quite a while at the very least.

Enough on my musings for the week.  I just wanted to take time and just write in general.  I wanted to use this blog to be seen as more than an author.  With the fact that I’m taking a break from writing novels until November, I just thought I’d use this time to keep writing fun and not turn it into a chore.  In a closing note for the week, one of my friends asked me why I decided to take a break from writing novels.  She thought that I was having fun doing it.  I told her that I wanted to keep having fun with it.  This is why I made this turn to writing weekly blogs instead of novels for the next few months.         

Update

It has been a while since I posted my last blog.  I just thought I would make a few announcements. 

1.  Ruthless has been published.  Pick up your copy at www.trafford.com and Yesterday's Muse in Webster, NY.  Also contact me at tomdicaprioauthor@gmail.com to order a copy.  At this time I will only be accepting checks, cash and money orders until further notice.

2.  My third novel Deception has been submitted to Trafford Publishing.  If all goes well, it should be published sometime in August.

3.  I will be taking a break from writing novels until November 1 when National Novel Writer's Month resumes.  I have been suffering from writer's block among things so I thought I would take a breather before writing is no longer considered to be fun for me.

4.  Starting this Wednesday night, I will be kicking off a series of Wednesday Night Blogs just for fun.  I don't want to be completely out of writing shape since inactivity is not the best thing in the world especially when it comes to writing.  They will be published here.  The Wednesday Night Blogs will consist of me talking about my writing, current events and some of my favorite sports, activities and hobbies.  I wanted to have something for everyone on it.   

Until Then Take Care,

Tom 

Today's shooting at The Mall in Columbia in Maryland was like a scene out of "Black Friday."

     In my novel "Black Friday" published last October, two heavily armed Arab terrorists entered the fictional Galleria Mall in Maryland plotting to carry out an unprecedented terrorist attack on American soil during the busiest shopping day of the year.  Today a heavily armed man entered the Columbia Mall in Howard County, Maryland and killed two people in a second floor store before killing himself. 

     First, we need to pray for those affected by the attack whether it be the victims, their families and friends or those who were inside the mall at the time of the shooting.  Second, the parallels between "Black Friday" and today's shooting are too much not to ignore.  Just months after the attack at the Westgate Mall in Kenya, it was only a matter of time before a heavily armed person would enter a mall in the United States and kill people in the process.  I remember speaking to a group of friends while I was in college about Columbine which at the time had just happened.  I said to them that "With this generation of grade and high school students at the present, we are going to see shootings at colleges in the future."  Tragically Virginia Tech took place in April, 2007 and have since repeated itself throughout the United States several times over including a few occasions this week.  I hate to say this, but we have now graduated to attacking shopping malls.  I'm very concerned that this won't be the last shooting/attack at a mall, but quite possibly the first of many.  After that festivals, dance/nightclubs, concerts and sporting events will likely experience this disturbing trend if we are not vigilant when it comes to preventing this from continuing. 

     As Americans we must do everything we can in order to prevent this from happening again.  Therefore we must educate ourselves about this threat as well as the root causes of violence.  Therefore we will become aware of the potential causes and prevent future incidents such as today's from occurring in the future.

CNN Situation Room Segment 1/7/14

I just listened to what I consider to be a priceless opening segment on The Situation Room on CNN.  The ever popular Wolf Blitzer began the show with Robert Gates upcoming biography Duty which will be released a week from today.  After watching the segment, I would consider it not only my duty, but the duty of every American to buy a copy.  In the segment a reporter mentioned that Duty has already received some serious buzz especially on the New York Times and Washington Post websites.  Click on the links below to read them:

New York Times Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/world/asia/obama-lost-faith-in-his-afghan-strategy-memoir-asserts.html?ref=robertmgates&_r=0

Washington Post Link:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/robert-gates-former-defense-secretary-offers-harsh-critique-of-obamas-leadership-in-duty/2014/01/07/6a6915b2-77cb-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html


I'm also going to throw in a couple of other links make that three other links for good measure:

Swampland:  http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/07/in-memoir-gates-slams-biden-reveals-he-nearly-quit/

Visalia-Times Delta:  http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/usatoday/article/4358481

Washington Examiner:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/robert-gates-notes-that-joe-biden-is-always-wrong-about-foreign-policy/article/2541712


In the interview, Gates writes that Vice President Biden has been wrong in every major foreign policy in the past 40 years while praising him as a man of integrity.  John McCain proceeds to support that assessment later on in the interview.  Gates also writes that although President Obama was not afraid to make tough decisions regarding the War on Terror, he was not confident in his war strategy.  After learning these bombshells, I won't be sleeping better at night knowing this.

The CNN reporter proceeds to mention that one of the tough decisions that President Obama made against the advice of his advisors was and I quote "The killing of Obama...oops I meant Osama bin Laden."  Did he say his true feelings about the president?  Well Jay Leno will likely have a field day about this as well as every late night comedian.

Another note about John McCain's propfest when it came to Vice President Biden, Mac proceeds to all but announce that he will be running for a sixth term as a U.S. Senator from Arizona.  he states that he is at the top of his game and he is not afraid to continue on serving as the Senior Senator from Arizona.  Wolf Blitzer then says that he hopes that McCain "continues on as Senator for a very long time." McCain proceeds to reciprocate that he hopes that Blitzer "continues on in The Situation Room for a very long time."  Looks like another propfest is on!

Well, I've been watching The Situation Room since the epic opening segment and all I can say is that it has lost edge despite the fact that a CNN reporter quipped that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will "piss off some people" since he signed an immigration bill today.  Now I will be waiting to see when the latest sounding off by Dennis Rodman will regain the momentum that tonight's opening segment had.  I know I haven't watched The Situation Room in years, but it looks like that it's becoming as entertaining as Shepard Smith aka the Jim Rome of news broadcasting.  Like Romey, Shep is not afraid to dish it out as needed.

Everyone I'm now going to write another chapter for Deception which I hope is finished and published later this year.  Stay warm.  It's 4 degrees in East Rochester with a wind chill of  at least -15 and this is considered to be warm as compared to the rest of the nation!  Even Alaska is warmer than us!

The last thing the War on Terror needs

Could there be a new al-Qaeda in the making...click on the following link to find out: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/opinion/dont-create-a-new-al-qaeda.html?ref=alqaeda&_r=0