Could a house cat really be this big?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Hamas murder campaign in Gaza exposed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/13/hamas-gaza-murders-abduction-torture
These guys do not play nice. Yet it is very rare that you see any coverage of this sort of thing in the media. It is almost always criticizing Israel all the time, while giving the terrorists in Hamas a pass. So I would like to thank the Guardian and Amnesty International for bringing this to light.
There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Hamas controls Gaza. The sooner that the international community realizes this the better.
Israel's blockade of Gaza must continue as long as Hamas is in control. All non humanitarian aid to Gaza cannot be allowed under these circumstances.
New evidence has emerged revealing the extent of the crackdown by Hamas during and after Israel's war in Gaza last month.
Amnesty International said Hamas forces and militias were involved in a "campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats against those they accuse of 'collaborating' with Israel, as well as opponents and critics".
These guys do not play nice. Yet it is very rare that you see any coverage of this sort of thing in the media. It is almost always criticizing Israel all the time, while giving the terrorists in Hamas a pass. So I would like to thank the Guardian and Amnesty International for bringing this to light.
There will never be peace in the Middle East as long as Hamas controls Gaza. The sooner that the international community realizes this the better.
Israel's blockade of Gaza must continue as long as Hamas is in control. All non humanitarian aid to Gaza cannot be allowed under these circumstances.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Obama should not apologize for Las Vegas quip
Mayor: Obama should apologize for Vegas trips quip
President Obama is right. Fat cat Wall Street bankers should not be going on expensive junkets to Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime. It's that simple. If they want to finance a trip to Vegas with their own personal funds, that's one thing. But the bailout money that they received from the taxpayers was intended to help free up the credit market so that banks could start loaning out money again. It was not intended to finance business as usual with expensive junkets, private jets, and hefty bonuses.
Americans are really hurting right now. Business in Vegas is down because many ordinary Americans can't afford to go there right now. Plus, God knows that they can't afford to gamble away all of their money at a craps table at one of the casinos. So why should the Wall Street boys be any different?
This is not rocket science. When times are tough, cut back. But I guess that the fat cat bankers didn't get that message.
It is regrettable that many employees of the hospitality industry in Los Vegas have lost their jobs. But that's what happens in a recession. And they are not alone of course. Jobs are being lost everywhere, not just in Las Vegas.
But the mayor of Las Vegas apparently doesn't care about all that. He wants to selfishly put the narrow interests of his city ahead of the greater interests of the American people. It is this type of selfish attitude that we don't need right now during this financial crisis. We are all in this together, and we have all got to sacrifice together. And that includes that Wall Street bankers and casinos and hotels in Las Vegas.
President Obama is right. Fat cat Wall Street bankers should not be going on expensive junkets to Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime. It's that simple. If they want to finance a trip to Vegas with their own personal funds, that's one thing. But the bailout money that they received from the taxpayers was intended to help free up the credit market so that banks could start loaning out money again. It was not intended to finance business as usual with expensive junkets, private jets, and hefty bonuses.
Americans are really hurting right now. Business in Vegas is down because many ordinary Americans can't afford to go there right now. Plus, God knows that they can't afford to gamble away all of their money at a craps table at one of the casinos. So why should the Wall Street boys be any different?
This is not rocket science. When times are tough, cut back. But I guess that the fat cat bankers didn't get that message.
It is regrettable that many employees of the hospitality industry in Los Vegas have lost their jobs. But that's what happens in a recession. And they are not alone of course. Jobs are being lost everywhere, not just in Las Vegas.
But the mayor of Las Vegas apparently doesn't care about all that. He wants to selfishly put the narrow interests of his city ahead of the greater interests of the American people. It is this type of selfish attitude that we don't need right now during this financial crisis. We are all in this together, and we have all got to sacrifice together. And that includes that Wall Street bankers and casinos and hotels in Las Vegas.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Guest article
This guest article is by Retfireman.
It is becoming more obvious by the day that many people who voted for Barack Obama are now having second thoughts about him. If this trend continues it should be interesting.
Barack Obama throws Joe Biden under the bus
So IF they do everything right, with absolute certainty, making all these "tough decisions" they still have a 30% chance of getting it wrong...then exactly what percentage is it the way they have BEEN doing it? Considering just what this "stimulus" package means and all the pork shoved into it, the massive amount of inflation that will occur because of it and the fact that there is only a 37% approval rating of it, I would think they are in the 80-90 percentile of FAILURE. When the Left accused Bush of using the "Politics of Fear" in order to fight the very real threat of Islamic terrorism, why all of a sudden is it ok for them to use it concerning the crisis Dodd and the other Democrats created with their high risk lending demands of the past few years? Why did this "crisis" only rear it's ugly head AFTER the Democrats took over the Congress in 2006, with them doing NOTHING to prevent it? Why, if it is so important for this to pass, did Obama NOT write it himself, but instead gave it to Pelosi and Reid to write, filling it up with all the Liberal goodies they could like telling a child he can choose anything he wants to at a candy store?
This is leadership? This is "change"? This is "hope"? This is nothing more than a Socialist grab for power no different than what Chavez has been doing for a decade in Venezuela or other Socialists/Marxists have been doing since 1917, and America can only blame itself for opening the door wide in November.
If you have to keep throwing a tantrum every time you get in front of a camera, whining, "I won", then you are not a leader, you are not strong and you have no direction. And just because you won the election, that does not make you the dictator where everyone must fall into lockstep rubber stamping everything you put forth. This is still a nation of laws and pseudo-democracy... so far. However, the way Obama has been acting, the things he has been declaring and stating in recent days leads one to begin to believe he is trying to be the almighty dictator and anyone in opposition will be summarily punished. God help us all.
It is becoming more obvious by the day that many people who voted for Barack Obama are now having second thoughts about him. If this trend continues it should be interesting.
Barack Obama throws Joe Biden under the bus
Saturday, February 7, 2009
What happened to the "politics of hope?"
He wrote a book called the "Audacity of Hope." Then he made "hope" the cornerstone of his campaign for the presidency. But it didn't take long for president Obama to dump hope and embrace the politics of fear.
But now it doesn't matter. Millions of people have already drunk the kool aid, and now it's too late. We have to take what we can get for the next four years. However, it sure would have been nice if Obama could have held out for hope for at least a while longer. So much for campaign promises. We were told that a new type of politics had arrived in Washington, but it sure looks like the same old politics as usual to me.
Yes, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to have fear. (See yesterday's article.) We are watching the world's economy totally collapse right before our eyes. But at least the president should try to embrace hope. He is our leader, and if he can't encourage us then who can? Nevertheless, he is trying to sell fear as a way to bludgeon Congress into approving that boondoggle that he calls a "stimulus bill." It's already one campaign promise down the drain, and I suspect that even though it's the first it won't be the last.
In 2012 Obama will be forced to run on his record in office. He won't be able to sell us his bill of goods about hope next time. So if he wants a second term he is not getting off to a very good start since he has already stomped on one of his campaign's main themes. If you are an Obama supporter you had better "hope" that "hope" makes a comeback. Or we might all find out by 2012 that Obama is just another politician after all.
Obama Warns of 'Catastrophe:' What Happened to 'Hope' and 'Change?'
But now it doesn't matter. Millions of people have already drunk the kool aid, and now it's too late. We have to take what we can get for the next four years. However, it sure would have been nice if Obama could have held out for hope for at least a while longer. So much for campaign promises. We were told that a new type of politics had arrived in Washington, but it sure looks like the same old politics as usual to me.
Yes, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to have fear. (See yesterday's article.) We are watching the world's economy totally collapse right before our eyes. But at least the president should try to embrace hope. He is our leader, and if he can't encourage us then who can? Nevertheless, he is trying to sell fear as a way to bludgeon Congress into approving that boondoggle that he calls a "stimulus bill." It's already one campaign promise down the drain, and I suspect that even though it's the first it won't be the last.
In 2012 Obama will be forced to run on his record in office. He won't be able to sell us his bill of goods about hope next time. So if he wants a second term he is not getting off to a very good start since he has already stomped on one of his campaign's main themes. If you are an Obama supporter you had better "hope" that "hope" makes a comeback. Or we might all find out by 2012 that Obama is just another politician after all.
Obama Warns of 'Catastrophe:' What Happened to 'Hope' and 'Change?'
Friday, February 6, 2009
Financial meltdown
The world's financial crisis continues unabated, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I just heard a commentator at Fox Business Channel say that this crisis will continue for many years to come, and there really isn't anything that policy makers can do to stop it, notwithstanding Obama's so-called "stimulus package."
It is not a stimulus package. It's just pouring $900 billion more down a rat hole. It's too late to turn this economy around and the only realistic recourse that we have left is to just let it run it's course. Governments around the world should be hunkering down and preparing for the inevitable. As times get tougher they will need all of the political capital that they can muster. If they throw billions of dollars at a totally dysfunctional world wide financial system, by the time the real crunch comes in a few months the governments will have little else to do than calling out the riot police.
Massive street demonstrations have been happening all over Europe already, and it will probably spread to the good old USA pretty soon. Americans tend to be stupid docile sheep, but eventually even they will wake up and smell the coffee and realize that the whole world is between a rock and a hard place and there is no getting around it.
At least they had a world war to mitigate the last great depression in the thirties. But I don't think that will work this time. We are already waging at least two multi billion dollar wars, and apparently they have had no stimulative effect on the economy or we wouldn't be in the serious pickle that we are in now. Unemployment is getting worse everyday and most states will soon run out of money in their unemployment insurance funds. This really is the perfect storm. God help us all.
What can the average person do about all of this. IMO, not much except to hoard all of your money (not in a bank that will probably fail) and pray. Maybe the religious fundamentalists are right. Maybe the end of the world as we know it really is at hand.
It is not a stimulus package. It's just pouring $900 billion more down a rat hole. It's too late to turn this economy around and the only realistic recourse that we have left is to just let it run it's course. Governments around the world should be hunkering down and preparing for the inevitable. As times get tougher they will need all of the political capital that they can muster. If they throw billions of dollars at a totally dysfunctional world wide financial system, by the time the real crunch comes in a few months the governments will have little else to do than calling out the riot police.
Massive street demonstrations have been happening all over Europe already, and it will probably spread to the good old USA pretty soon. Americans tend to be stupid docile sheep, but eventually even they will wake up and smell the coffee and realize that the whole world is between a rock and a hard place and there is no getting around it.
At least they had a world war to mitigate the last great depression in the thirties. But I don't think that will work this time. We are already waging at least two multi billion dollar wars, and apparently they have had no stimulative effect on the economy or we wouldn't be in the serious pickle that we are in now. Unemployment is getting worse everyday and most states will soon run out of money in their unemployment insurance funds. This really is the perfect storm. God help us all.
What can the average person do about all of this. IMO, not much except to hoard all of your money (not in a bank that will probably fail) and pray. Maybe the religious fundamentalists are right. Maybe the end of the world as we know it really is at hand.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
What is wrong with Blog Explosion?
Blog Explosion has been unreachable for a few days, and now I see that as of today it is back up again. As far as I can tell that site was having problems with it's name servers. It makes me wonder if anyone is really there at BE or has it just been left on autopilot forever?
And this was not the first recent outage. The site has been down on several other occasions recently but this last outage was the longest in duration.
Apparently it has been very difficult lately to get BE to approve new blogs. It can sometimes take weeks or months. And that's a real shame.
If the owners of Blog Explosion are going to continue with the site they need to pay a bit more attention to it. It has been very frustrating lately to have to try to deal with them. I hope that someone from BE can read this and let us know what is going on.
The BE forums are also very dead and it seems like it has been months since anyone officially connected to BE has commented there. Maybe it's time to move on and look for a better run link exchange site. BE just isn't cutting it.
[End of rant.]
And this was not the first recent outage. The site has been down on several other occasions recently but this last outage was the longest in duration.
Apparently it has been very difficult lately to get BE to approve new blogs. It can sometimes take weeks or months. And that's a real shame.
If the owners of Blog Explosion are going to continue with the site they need to pay a bit more attention to it. It has been very frustrating lately to have to try to deal with them. I hope that someone from BE can read this and let us know what is going on.
The BE forums are also very dead and it seems like it has been months since anyone officially connected to BE has commented there. Maybe it's time to move on and look for a better run link exchange site. BE just isn't cutting it.
[End of rant.]
Monday, February 2, 2009
Obama to allow CIA renditions to continue
The left is howling like crazy over this one. God forbid that we should actually try to catch terrorists before they get us first. Congratulations to President Obama for using some common sense.