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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Iran's Nuclear Threat, SuperPac Growth and ZIPPERONI!

Followiers of Jack's Potpourri cannot be reminded too often that as the title at the top says, this is your blog as well as mine.  If you have an opinion, let's hear it.  If you have a story, tell it!  And if you don't like the museum exhibit I recommend in this posting, tell me that too. 

Oh yes, in regard to the picture off to the right and the POTPOURRI POLL below it, they are independently managed. That means that the changes I make in them are not necessarily concurrent with new postings on the blog.  That's just the way things are set up by Google Blogspot, the system on which Jack's Potpourri is based.  

As for the most recent poll, voters chose Mitt Romney over all other G.O.P Presidential aspirants by a wide margin, and now, we have a slightly different question: your favorite ice cream flavor, to be chosen from the traditional basic flavors.

When will Israel Attack the Iranian Nuclear Facilities?

A prominent Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman of the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth and author of the "Secret War with Iran,” recently reported that Israel knows precisely how far the world can let Iranian nuclear development proceed without the Iranian sites where such research and development takes place becoming “immune” to attack.  Israel knows that if Iran’s nuclear program is not put under International control by that point, that program will have to be destroyed.  It is said that point in time will be reached during 2012.  

                                         

Bergman, who was interviewed on National Public Radio on January 30 by Neil Conan, says Israel has long posed a three-part test to decide whether it's time to strike at Iran's nuclear facilities. 1. Would such attacks make a severe dent in Iran's program? 2. Can Israel count on international support, particularly from the United States? 3. Have all measures short of war been exhausted?  Bergman concludes that Israel's political leadership is convinced that for the first time, the answers to all those questions is “yes.”  

Of course, the Iranians are fully aware of this, and that is why this week’s visit of UN nuclear arms inspectors to Iran is important.
Jack Lippman
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Cocktail Culture at the Norton

                                   

For those of you in South Florida, there is a wonderful exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.  It is called “Cocktail Culture” and deals with what cocktails people drank illegally during the days of Prohibition, after its repeal and on through the Depression, World War Two and the half century that followed.  The exhibition includes dresses, shoes, millinery, jewelry, cocktail mixing paraphernalia, glassware, art work and motion picture clips tracing “cocktail culture” during that period.  The exhibit is remarkable from an historic and fashion standpoint.  There is a wonderful computer based guide system to explain each item on display.  “Cocktail Culture” continues until March 18.  And I almost forgot to tell you that the gallery’s walls are covered with detailed recipes for making many of the drinks popular during the period including such libations as the “Harvey Wallbanger” and “Long Island Ice Tea.”  Take notes.  No samples were available the day I went.
JL

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SuperPac Money

In a posting on this blog on January 21 regarding SuperPacs and the awful Citizens United Supreme Court decision, I commented that More money will probably be spent in 2012 by such groups than either the Democratic or Republican parties and their candidates will spend.”  Well, not quite, but almost as much according to a study released by Weslyan University on January 30. 
Excerpts from that report state that A new analysis shows that in the deluge of TV ads in the early voting states for the Republican presidential primaries, nearly half of the ads are coming not from the candidates but from superPACs — the new breed of political committees that raise unregulated money.  Political scientists at Wesleyan University in Connecticut found that so far, there have been about the same number of GOP primary ads as there were four years ago.”  The analysis went on to show that while the overall number of ads is similar in the 2012 Republican presidential primary to four years ago, the source of the ads has changed.”  The  following chart illustrates this.  Interest Groups are synonymous with SuperPacs.
Republican Primary TV Ads -  2008 compared with 2012
Stopping the influence of the SuperPacs in the Presidential election will be difficult, but not impossible.  The White House should not be for sale.

                                         
Jack Lippman
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Zipperoni!

There is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.  It probably exists in many places out there.  But I am going to concentrate on one particular life form on a distant something or other (I can’t call it a planet because I don’t know what it is) so far from us that it would take 1,000 generations to reach there, wherever “there” is, on a spacecraft flying at the speed of infinity.  I know this although I don’t understand it because this is what “they” have told us by whatever means of communicating with us they have developed, which I don’t fully, or even slightly, understand.

                                     

There is no doubt that whatever is there is intelligent, but what form it takes, and from what it evolved is an unknown.  I doubt if we would recognize any of the species inhabiting the place, if indeed it is a place in the sense that we use the word, or in what dimensions life exists there.  It apparently is, however, far advanced over civilization on Earth.  Proof of this is that they have managed to transmit the following story to us for publication in Jack’s Potpourri.  How they did it, and how they found out about this blog, is inexplicable, but apparently they know enough about us to put their thoughts, if that’s what they are, into something vaguely comprehensible to us.   

Here is what showed up on my computer a few hours after I sent out my most recent “Blog Update Alert” inviting recipients to submit material to the blog.  And that’s exactly what “they” did.  Don’t ask me why they didn’t send it to the Library of Congress or Cal Tech or M.I.T, but they didn’t. So here it is: Jack’s Potpourri’s first exclusive cosmic connection, reproduced here exactly as received by us.

Here we do not umph have names but you umph do so us will have one if please you will umph use it when communicatttting with me/us/we you see we all are more than umph one combined together but you umph are one so preeeeetend us is one which is not.  Cal us or me Pisha.  Okay? Umph.  Let me explain why I am umphing so much as us, I mean me, writes this to you.  Most times me or I, very confusing which to use, don’t breathe but when communicatttting with you, me have to breathe and that is why umph I am umphing a lot. Capishioso?

Me work in research lab studying inner space where is you located.  Here is my colleague I wil call Paysha.  Paysha has good news for you on Zuckerberg.  Us know you call ur place umph Earth but that obsewleet inner space name.  On all our charts, it called Zuckerberg and same for the charts of other places we have umph been. U shuld start using it. Eberywon else duz.  But now Paysha want talk to you.

Thank you, Pisha.  Zuckerberg-man.  Heh, Heh .. you stil have men and woo-men there. We got rid of that forty seven infinities ago.  Anyhoo, I got noooows for you, Zuckerberg-man.

Hold on, I said, although I had no idea to whom I was talking, or if he could hear me as I read the Email before me.  I blurted out “How come you’re not umphing like Pisha was, Paysha?” (Apparently, they were able to alter the Email, or whatever it was they had already sent, before my very eyes when I interrupted with a comment. Wow!)

Usta scuba dive and am using old tank with breathing device.  Okay, Zuckerberg-man?  But here is the noooows I got fer ya.  You got over seven billiyonims peepuls living on Zuckerberg.  We survey it and you is rich.  You got enough everythings to support seven trilliyonims peepuls  … which you is going to have soooon since half a millionims more Zuckerbergers .. I just made that up … heh, heh, get borned each Zucker year than get dead.  You is racking my brain, Zuckerberg-man, to think dis way because here nobody gets borned or gets dead any more.  We just is and is and is and is.  Hold on.  Pisha gotta question.

Dis be Pisha again umph and me ask why you got Zuckerbergers starving and killing each other.  Zuckerberg got enough everythings for everybodies there for umph sixtrillionins more Zucker year whatchmacallitz. 

Look, guys, I interrupted them again. I don’t want to get into economics, politics and population problems, but you must know that Earth’s, I mean Zuckerberg’s, wealth is spread out all over the planet.  We have many different nations on Zuckerberg, some rich, some poor, with different economic systems, and it works out pretty well if everyone works hard at it.  And we are trying very hard.

Dis be Paysha again.  Not good enough, Zuckerberg-man.  U gotta cut owt the tribull stuffff.  You got enuf everythings down dere so no one be starve and no one killy to get what other have.  Stupidoso. You gotta change.  Scuba tank running out and I don’t want umph have for breathe.  What you want, Pisha?  Oh, we gotta get back in bottles for nuther Sixpillions eons. Wurry you nott. I wil keeep check out ur blog on skypad bought onlinerino.  Keep in bottle next to Chivas Beagle pet. Umph. Zipperoni!

I still cannot figure out what happened, or how this Email got to me, but I think I owe it to Pisha and Paysha, whoever, wherever, whatever and whenever they are, to include it on the blog today despite its lack of clarity.  Zipperoni, guys, if you can read me!
JL

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Most readers of this blog are alerted by Email every time a new posting appears.  If you wish to be added to that Email list, just let me know by contacting me at Riart1@aol.com. Also, be aware that www.Jackspotpourri.com is now available on your mobile devices in a modified, easy-to-read, format.

Our family of web sites includes:   www.computerdrek.com  - www.politicaldrek.com  -  www.sportsdrek.com  -  www.healthdrek.com
Check all of them out, find out what “drek” really means and feel free to submit your thoughts and articles for publication on these sites, which, while still “under construction,” already contain some interesting content.
Jack Lippman

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