#2
We missed that BIG YELLOW CROSS = JEDI LIGHT- SABER-ESQUE BACKGROUND THINGY BEHIND THE BAM-MAN's SPEECH PODIUM, two days ago as per CNN + FOX, DIDN'T WE!?
#2
There are those who say the conservatives and true Trunks should turn the other cheek in spite of the behavior of the other side. To be the better person. But no apologies are coming forth by those who carried on such behaviors for the last eight years. It only emboldens and justifies their behavior that they attained power at whatever price. As another esteemed voice recently mentioned, pacifism doesn't work in face of those who's minds are closed. Don't do it irrationally, but do it rationally on each and every important issue.
#5
ION SWISSINFO > SWISS FINANCIAL GURU MARC FABER PREDICTS FULL/STATE BANKRUPTCY FOR THE USA IN LONG RUN.
* Perennially LOW US Stock Market exchanges or indexes.
* US to incur US$1000.0BILYUHN = US$1.0TRILYUHN [ per ANNUM?] in ADDITIONAL NEW DEBT ATOP ITS CURRENT DEBTS.
* AMERS MUST GET USED TO LONG-TERM/PROTRACTIVE BANKRUPCY [survival].
Also on SWISSINFO > EASTERN EUROPE BRACES FOR FORVIOLENT "SPRING OF DISCONTENT". espec BULGARIA + ROMANIA + BALTIC STATES.
This one may actually have been worse than that other wretched speech. Even local lefties who sang the big Wright-excuse speech's praises, calling it the second coming of MLK Jr., have been saying this one didn't go anywhere or deliver any punches. But it was worse than that. Some stock American History 101, some standard bootstraps and strong America rhetoric, and a string of other platitudes and sniping entirely unsupported by anything he has said or done or said he will do ... because once you get past the vague "hope" and change" promises, everything else has either been put on hold, sent back for reconsideration, or as is the Obamist wont, abandoned in favor of someone else's ideas. Then there was the fact that much of it was also entirely divorced from anything representing the realities of Washington and the world.
I'm not going to waste a lot of time on it. Another disappointment from a guy who is being hailed as the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Ambraham Lincoln, Truman and FDR. Still waiting to get a sense of what the guy actually believes in, and what, aside from his personage, the mystical change is about.
"We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." I dunno, looks from here more like discordant Americans just took counsel of their fears, and put a "hope" blanket over their majority head.
An "end to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics." Unless he just fired Congress and resigned, then petty grievances, false promises and worn-out dogmas remain the order of the day. Jury's still out on the recriminations.
This next part would have been pretty good if he wasn't talking about the twin scams of socialized medicine, global warming, as well as his watch-your-wallet New Deal threats:
"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage." Actually, the most recent person to suggest our systm cannnot tolerate too many big plans was Obama himself. Talk about short memories. Bush not only had big ambitious plans, he brought them to fruition with the help of many free men and women whose imaginations were joined to common purpose. Including quite a few Democrats, though once they got cold feet they had to be dragged along kicking and screaming.
"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long, no longer apply." Yes they do. He doesn't actually think his election has somehow allowed this nation to transcend politics, does he? Hang on, I get it. He means the Bush political arguments. Well, the Bush arguments Obama is adopting still apply. As well as the stale Clinton political arguments he's pikcing up and the stale political arguments of Congressional Democrats he'll soon find himself saddled with. That leaves the Republican half of a bunch of political arguments. I guess we are not one after all.
"... we are ready to lead once more." This is from a guy who just took over another guy's war policy wholesale, and plans to put a bow on it and call it his own. Kind of rude when the guy whose cabinet he just raided is sitting one row over. He may not have noticed, but while he was still an Illinois state senate hack, that guy formed and led several coalitions. To fight a war in Iraq. To fight a war in Afghanistan. To combat the financing of terrorism and coordinate anti-terrorism efforts globally. To try to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. To thwart Iranian plans to build nuclear weapons. Then, there was the much vaunted leadership the fight against rampant AIDS in Africa. That's a lot of global leadership.
Ha. Here's a lefty at Firedoglake calling it the "Worst. Inauguration. Ever." Coming on the heels of two Bush inaugs, that must be pretty bad. The lefty in question spent hours in the cold and could hear anything. Don't worry lefty, you didn't miss much. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
01/21/2009 07:59 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If you did go out, it was a long cold day, but a damn good party. Lefties can sure dance.
Posted by: Grolush Darling of the Hatfields3195 ||
01/21/2009 8:36 Comments ||
Top||
#3
If you watched carefully on television of Obama walking through the interior of the Capitol on his way outside to the seating area, you could see the cold hard reality of his new position sinking in. I saw fear, reluctance and insecurity as he seem to be contemplating how the hell he got here and what am I going to do now? [You could almost see his thoughts, "that son-of-a-bitch Soros told me not to worry, yeah what a piece of Hungarian bull shit!"
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/21/2009 12:45 Comments ||
Top||
Around 1.2 million Pakistani children of a lesser god, under the age of five years, is at the risk of becoming victim of the ongoing militancy and subsequent military operations in some areas of the country, as these kids are unlikely to get the polio drops during the first round of polio vaccination campaign in 2009 launched on Monday. The heart [burp!] burns bleeds.
Even heavy snowfalls in some parts of the AJK and the Northern Areas are said to have added to the problems of health workers, planning to visit these areas to save the children from the looming threat of becoming handicapped for the rest of their lives. It's too bad they're too inept to run a competent public health program...
What to talk of other violence-torn areas, 377,075 children in Swat district alone would not get polio vaccination during the current campaign, raising instant alarm bells in donor agencies, if not within the Pakistani society and the media that Pakistan might soon see a rising numbers of polio cases as the government had no idea about this shocking human tragedy in the making in the militancy-hit areas of the country. No doubt everyone will thank Mullah Radio for his contribution to the nation's health and well-being...
Background interviews with several concerned officials revealed that the health authorities were trying to hush up the shocking issue amid the rising political temperature in Islamabad. Even the opposition parties were not interested in the sorry tale of these children. "How can you control the spread of the deadly poliovirus when the government is not ready to halt the ongoing military operation in the NWFP and the Fata to give some space to workers to go and administer the vaccination?" an official source said. Even if they halted the military operations, the guys with the turbans and automatic weapons would bump off the public health workers as they came in to try and dose the little miniturbans.
He also blamed the religious extremists who, he said, were also playing with the lives of innocent children by not allowing health workers to visit those areas. Neither the government nor the militants are ready to show any mercy to the future generations of these war-torn areas, lamented one source. Pakistain's a pretty merciless place. So what else is new?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
How about starting a fund raising drive in Mumbai?
#2
Sometimes, you just have to let people go, and hope that they bottom out. But letting children be exposed to polio by these islamic nutcases is total insanity. I guess that the disease of ignorance will have to run its course in Pakistan. There is no other way.
Who knows, maybe POTUS O will wave his wand and make it all right.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/21/2009 1:33 Comments ||
Top||
#3
We can but hope that the One will change all that.
#7
Alaska Paul, you are so right. Many years ago I was taught by my first business mentor that sometimes you have to let people fail. Not until then will there be a teachable moment where your advice might be heard.
Of course he followed up by saying "Some of these morons can never be taught, better to leave them to stew in their own juice."
#9
I read an article the other day (here, perhaps?) that families who want their children properly educated -- especially those with daughters -- have been emigrating from the Taliban territories to the more civilized parts of the Land of the Pure. No doubt these same families will ensure that their children are vaccinated. Can an entire region be given a Darwin Award?
Hamas thought they were invulnerable to Israeli attack. By placing so many of their military and government facilities in densely populated residential neighborhoods, they believed any Israeli bombing or shelling would cause high, and politically unacceptable, civilian losses. But the Israelis used surprise, more precision than expected, and innovations like calling civilians in the target area and telling them to get out before the bombs hit nearby. As a result, most of the 1,300 Palestinian dead were Hamas personnel, and nearly all the damaged structures were those used by Hamas. The Palestinians cranked up the spin machine anyway, and accused the Israelis of war crimes and genocide. But Israel responded with a media campaign featuring aerial videos of Hamas fighters setting up mortars and rockets next to schools and residential neighborhoods. This didn't stop the usual alliance of leftists, anti-Semites and Islamic radicals from calling Israel names. But the mud didn't stick nearly as much as in the past. It's as if the Israeli campaign was seeking to humiliate and discredit Hamas, as much as it was to destroy military and government assets.
Dozens of senior Hamas officials were killed by smart bomb attacks. The families of these Hamas leaders often died as well. Israel ignored Hamas attempts to protect its leaders by surrounding them with women and children in residential areas. What dismayed Hamas the most was Israel finding the location of their officials. Even before the ceasefire took effect on the 18th, Hamas death squads were rounding up the usual suspected (members of rival Fatah, and anyone else unlucky enough to be suspect) for torture and execution. The UN did not pay much attention to this, as it has been going on for over two years in Gaza. In that time, over 400 Fatah members have been killed by Hamas death squads, and many more Fatah (and any other Hamas rivals) tortured, wounded or jailed. Hamas apparently didn't realize that there were other ways to get target locations, besides informants on the ground. But all they understood was informants, so Hamas went after informants, and Hamas felt better after. But the bombings continued.
Israel believes it has destroyed 60 percent of the 200 or so smuggling tunnels that bring weapons (particularly long range rockets for attacks on Israeli civilians) into Gaza. Israel wants Israeli or American sensors and technicians prowling the Egyptian border to detect all the tunnels, and for Egyptian border guards to destroy them. Hamas opposes this (as do many Egyptian officials, especially the ones who benefit from the bribes of the tunnel operators). Negotiations continue.
Ultimately, Hamas found that hiding their senior leadership in hospitals or orphanages offered the best protection from Israeli attack. Weapons and key items of military equipment could also be stored there. Hamas apparently exercised some restraint, in to what degree they took over these institutions for military purposes. Someone in Hamas began doing the math, and realized that, at a certain point, a hospital full of weapons and Hamas personnel stopped being a hospital to Israeli commanders, and became a prime target.
Israel believes that Hamas had about 3,000 rockets in late December, and that during the 22 day campaign, about 700 of those rockets were fired in the general direction of Israel, while Israeli air (mostly) and ground forces destroyed another 1,300. That leaves Hamas with about 1,000 rockets, and dozens of functioning smuggling tunnels to Egypt through which components for replacement rockets can be moved.
Hamas claimed that Israeli bombs and troops did $1.9 billion worth of damage. It was probably closer to a few hundred million dollars. There were only about a thousand smart bombs used, and many of these were small ones (like the new U.S. 250 pound SDB, which Israel recently received). Hamas claimed that 5,000 homes were destroyed (and 20,000 damaged), along with 16 government buildings and 20 mosques. There are about 147,000 buildings in Gaza. Israel may take another media shot at Hamas by releasing photos of what was actually destroyed, and let Hamas try to dance away from their lies. But that may not be necessary, as Hamas is already the growing target for ridicule in the Arab world. If Israel was trying to get Hamas exposed as a bunch of tyrants, genocidal liars and blowhards, they seem to have succeeded.
#3
Need to find a way to isolate the hospitals from all technology so taht if leaders are there they are cut off from their people and the Pals need to use smoke-signals to get messages across. There has to be a way to blow up cell towers and sat dishes without taking out the entire building.
Every time Israel seeks to defend its civilians against terrorist attacks, it is accused of war crimes by various United Nations agencies, hard left academics and some in the media. It is a totally phony charge concocted as part of Hamas strategysupported by many on the hard leftto delegitimate and demonize the Jewish state. Israel is the only democracy in the world ever accused of war crimes when it fights a defensive war to protect its civilians. This is remarkable, especially in light of the fact that Israel has killed far fewer civilians than any other country in the world that has faced comparable threats. In the most recent war in Gaza fewer than a thousand civilianseven by Hamas skewed counthave been killed. This, despite the fact that no one can now deny that Hamas had employed a deliberate policy of using children, schools, mosques, apartment buildings and other civilian areas as shields from behind which to launch its deadly anti-personnel rockets. The Israeli Air Force has produced unchallengeable video evidence of this Hamas war crime.
Just to take one comparison, consider the recent wars waged by Russia against Chechnya. In these wars Russian troops have killed tens of thousands of Chechnyan civilians, some of them willfully, at close range and in cold blood. Yet those radical academics who scream bloody murder against Israel (particularly in England) have never called for war crime tribunals to be convened against Russia. Nor have they called for war crime charges to be filed against any other of the many countries that routinely kill civilians, not in an effort to stop enemy terrorists, but just because it is part of their policy.
Nor did we see the Nuremburg-type rallies that were directed against Israel when hundreds of thousands of civilians were being murdered in Rwanda, in Darfur and in other parts of the world. These bigoted hate-fests are reserved for Israel.
The accusation of war crimes is nothing more than a tactic selectively invoked by Israels enemies. Those who cry war crime against Israel dont generally care about war crimes, as such, indeed they often support them when engaged in by countrys they like. What these people care about, and all they seem to care about, is Israel. Whatever Israel does is wrong regardless of the fact that so many other countries do worse.
When I raised this concern in a recent debate, my opponent accused me of changing the subject. He said we are talking about Israel now, not Chechnya or Darfur. This reminded me of a famous exchange between Harvards racist president, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, and the great American judge Leonard Hand. Lowell announced that he wanted to reduce the number of Jews at Harvard, because, Jews cheat. Judge Hand replied that Christians also cheat. Lowell responded, Youre changing the subject. We are talking about Jews.
Well, you cant just talk about Jews. Nor can you just talk about the Jewish state. Any discussion of war crimes must be comparative and contextual. If Russia did not commit war crimes when its soldiers massacred tens of thousands of Chechnyans (not even in a defensive war) then on what basis could Israel be accused of accidentally killing a far fewer number of human shields in an effort to protect its civilians? What are the standards? Why are they not being applied equally or selectively? Can human rights endure in the face of such unequal and selective application? These are the questions the international community should be debating, not whether Israel, and Israel alone, violated the norms of that vaguest of notions called international law or the law of war.
If Israel, and Israel alone among democracies fighting defensive wars, were ever to be charged with war crimes, that would mark the end of international human rights law as a neutral arbitrator of conduct. Any international tribunal that were to charge Israel, having not charged the many nations that have done far worse, will lose any remaining legitimacy among fair-minded people of good will,
If the laws of war in particular, and international human rights in general, are to endure, they must be applied to nations in order of the seriousness of the violations, not in order of the political unpopularity of the nations. If the law of war were applied in this manner, Israel would be among the last, and certainly not the first, charged.
#1
Why, in the movie the Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, does the image of Khan in his last moments quoting from Melville's Moby Dick, "To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!" do I feel is such an analogy of MSM and its acts towards America and the republic. While they are going down, they in their agony want to take the rest of us with them. They refuse to go after the real culprits and therefore impede addressing those actions that will work or prevent further erosion of the market, and they refuse to focus on sectors that are still working and functioning. As Kirk would say in the next flix - I have had... enough... of YOU!
#2
WAFF > SWISSINFO - ETHICS CRISIS IN AMERICA:CHURCH LEADERS SAY "YES".
Article - Hiding or taking away HONESTY = TRUTH, etc. IN LONG-RUN ONLY WORSENS ONE'S SITUATION OR PROB, AND RARELY IFF EVER RESOLVES OR ENDS SAME [ Goes on and on and on and .... like the EVERREADY BUNNY, iff not worser].
The following is a transcript of the inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, as provided by CQ transcriptions.
Praise song for the day. and thank heaven we don't have to hear this junk very often
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. But noise is preferable to bad poetry
All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Eeeuu. This is even more disgusting than tongue piercing
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair. and those things cause noise???
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice. Sure. I see people banging cellos on oil drums all the time
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin." as 5th graders get failed for writing compositions with no coherent theme and then say its poetry because two verses have a similar metre
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider. Words used in sentences that don't relate to each other
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road." and why did the poet cross the road; well it wasn't done to inspire anyone with real poetry
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see. Of course some people open their eyes when they walk but that's just crazy talk to some other people
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of. Most glittering edifices use glass and steel; also construction workers don't generally turn into maintenance crews
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables. and here's hoping poets with talent haven't thrown up in this kitchen by now or committed suicide with the silverware
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need. how come the first cliche was in quotes and the next two weren't???
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance. Ready to pay royalties to Burt Bacharach
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun. Of course it would be nice to also finish sentences
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light. What light? You were talking about noise, then words, then crossing the road, then love. Which verse is about light?
#8
Crap like that is why I stopped hanging out at poetry slams. Well, that & the paranoid whining about homophobes trying to run down squirrelly little queers with their Hummers.
All that's missing is the fascination with orifices, nattering on about their privates, and bad basement-bar lighting. Which makes slams sound much more interesting than they really are, but you get the idea.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/21/2009 9:26 Comments ||
Top||
#9
C-I-L-L. Kill my landlord.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/21/2009 9:29 Comments ||
Top||
#10
OTOH, Lowery was the highlight of the entire Inaugural. "Yellow be Mellow?" LOL
#13
Actually, I was thinking that someone like Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers should have come back from the dead and read Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go!":
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away.
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.
(later toward the climax)
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you'll be quite a lot.
And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.
But on you will go
through the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl.
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
(then a cymbal clashed finale)
And will you succeed!
Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
So....
Be your name Buxbaum, or Bixby or Bray
Or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to great places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting
So....get on your way!
I just think its more appropriate:)
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/21/2009 12:39 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Your brand new government
will dispense more poo.
#20
That was painful. Were it not for the in-line commentary, I could not have gotten to the bottom. There was not one phrase worth repeating, not one image worth remembering, no rhyme or rhythm to carry the listener/reader from beginning to end. Although it is rather insulting to assume either that all African-Americans were unlettered labourers, if it was about African-Americans, or that only labourers are Americans, while the wealthy and the businessmen are defined by the poet as the nonexistent Other.
Mitch, I always assumed poetry slams were like those horrid Beat things I saw in the movies, all heartfelt pseudo-intellectual posing... like most of the stuff published in my high school literary magazine.
#21
Obonics, heh. But I must say that he is an excellent speaker in that he enunciates very well. I hope his example leads more blacks to abandon their from the 'hood, black, redneck accent.
#23
There was not one phrase worth repeating, not one image worth remembering, no rhyme or rhythm to carry the listener/reader from beginning to end. Although it is rather insulting to assume either that all African-Americans were unlettered labourers, if it was about African-Americans, or that only labourers are Americans, while the wealthy and the businessmen are defined by the poet as the nonexistent Other.
actually, the oral delivery made it even worse, if that is imaginable
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/21/2009 22:28 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Around 1.2 million Pakistani children of a lesser god, under the age of five years, is at the risk of becoming victim of the ongoing militancy and subsequent military operations in some areas of the country, as these kids are unlikely to get the polio drops during the first round of polio vaccination campaign in 2009 launched on Monday.
Hamas thought they were invulnerable to Israeli attack. By placing so many of their military and government facilities in densely populated residential neighborhoods, they believed any Israeli bombing or shelling would cause high, and politically unacceptable, civilian losses. But the Israelis used surprise, more precision than expected, and innovations like calling civilians in the target area and telling them to get out before the bombs hit nearby. As a result, most of the 1,300 Palestinian dead were Hamas personnel, and nearly all the damaged structures were those used by Hamas. The Palestinians cranked up the spin machine anyway, and accused the Israelis of war crimes and genocide. But Israel responded with a media campaign featuring aerial videos of Hamas fighters setting up mortars and rockets next to schools and residential neighborhoods. This didn't stop the usual alliance of leftists, anti-Semites and Islamic radicals from calling Israel names. But the mud didn't stick nearly as much as in the past. It's as if the Israeli campaign was seeking to humiliate and discredit Hamas, as much as it was to destroy military and government assets. 
