Also, check out some of my other photos of Blue Hen Falls and Brandywine Falls from last spring, summer and fall.

Blue Hen Falls: Spring, Summer, Fall
Brandywine Falls: Spring, Fall

While it doesn’t surprise me at all that Borders earned a 100% score, I was pleasantly surprised to see them proudly acknowledging it on the front door of one of their stores in Ohio.

Many companies use their HRC score in advertising targeted towards the gay and lesbian community, but it’s great to see a major corporation stepping out and utilizing it amongst the general population as well, whether it be for advertising or employee recruitment purposes.

So kudos to you, Borders! Let’s hope this is the beginning of a much larger trend.

If you want to read more about Borders extensive diversity programs, I found a detailed write-up on their website.

I loved Eytan Fox’s 2002 film Yossi & Jagger, the love story of two Israeli Defense Forces soldiers serving on the Israeli-Lebanese border, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the DVD release of his latest film, The Bubble.

The Bubble follows the lives of a group of young, liberal Israeli friends in Tel Aviv. One of the friends, Noam, falls in love with Ashraf, a Palestinian he met while working at a border crossing. Noam and his friends try to integrate Ashraf into Israeli society, but his Palestinian roots are just too hard to hide. Ashraf returns to Nablus for his sister’s wedding, which just happens to be to a HAMAS militant. The night before the wedding the groom sends a suicide bomber into Tel Aviv, injuring one of Ashraf’s Israeli friends. The IDF retaliates, killing Ashraf’s sister. In despair and knowing he will never be able to spend his life with Noam, Ashraf volunteers to go on the suicide mission to avenge his sisters death. The story only gets more tragic from there.

The film is an amazing love story and brilliantly weaves in the human side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I must admit that I didn’t see the ending coming and quite frankly wish that I had stopped the movie a few minutes earlier.

If you’re looking for an original film and don’t mind reading subtitles (unless you know Hebrew) then The Bubble is a must see. The young cast is fantastic and the film features the music of the talented and upcoming musician Ivri Lider.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In 2004 I knew early on that I wanted Howard Dean to be the next President of the United States. Now, here we are in 2008, only two weeks away from the Ohio Primary and I’m still not 100% sure who I want on the ticket this November.

I’ve been pretty much undecided the entire campaign. I really wanted Al Gore to run, but he didn’t. A few months back I flirted a little with the idea of supporting John Edwards, but decided he wasn’t my guy. For the last month I’ve been warming up to Hillary Clinton and if I had to vote today, she’d get my vote. But a lot can change in two weeks.

On Friday night I went and saw Hillary speak in person. She was great. Seeing her in person really is what has made me more comfortable in stating that I’m now on her “side”, even if that may still change. I guess it’s a good thing to be torn between two great candidate, because either way the Democrats end up with a winner as their nominee. Now if only we could actually pick a nominee…

Happy Birthday American Peak!!

I didn’t get up for the Black Friday sales this morning since I didn’t see any great deals in the ads that really appealed to me. Apple was running some sales on their online store so I called and got a price match for the AirPort Extreme router I purchased two weeks ago. Also, Amazon has Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac on sale for $125, plus today only there’s a $100 rebate and a free upgrade to Office 2008 when it comes out. So in other words you get the newest version of Office for only $25! That was one deal I couldn’t pass up.

My new MacBook Pro, AirPort Extreme router and Canon photo printer arrived last week and I’ll be spending some time this weekend finishing up my migration from Windows over to Mac. I’ll also be posting some reviews very shortly since I’ve had some time to play around with all of the new equipment.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and for those of you away from home, have a safe trip back!

• Almost 18 months’ of free gas for all Americans. US drivers consume approximately 384.7 million gallons of gasoline a day. Retail prices averaged $3.00 a gallon in early November. Breaking it down, $611 billion could buy gasoline for everybody in the United States, for about 530 days.
• Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road. With $611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over. TheBudgetGraph.com estimates that converting the 136,568,083 registered cars in the United States to ethanol (conversion kits at $500) would cost $68.2 billion.
• Nearly 14 million years’ worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard. At published rates for this year, $611 billion translates into almost 14 million free rides for a year at Harvard University. Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.
• More than a year’s worth of Medicare benefits for everyone. In fiscal 2008, Medicare benefits will total $454 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation summary. The $611 billion in war costs is 17 times the amount vetoed by the president for a $35 billion health benefit program for poor children.
• A real war on poverty. According to World Bank estimates, $54 billion a year would eliminate starvation and malnutrition globally by 2015, while $30 billion would provide a year of primary education for every child on earth. At the upper range of those estimates, the $611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world’s poor for seven years.

So which do you think would be a greater benefit to mankind, the Iraq War or feeding and educating the world’s poor? Just a little food for thought.

So what would you do with $611 billion if you were in charge of the US government’s appropriations?