You Sir, Are No Jimmy Carter!

Yes, may the real Jimmy Carter stand up. The venerable ex US President Jimmy Carter recently declared himself severed from the Southern Baptist Convention, an organization that couldn't distance itself any sooner from its past attitude towards slavery than 1995.

I pity those that need the words of Jimmy Carter to wake up to the notion that rational thinking is the enemy of religion and believe itself. Had he gone one step further he might as well have condemned the "Holy Scriptures" of the world as having been written by men if not perhaps with the singular aim to control women, but to enslave mankind itself with silly tales of virgin birth, talking snakes and burning bushes, all the way through to denying millions proper education, life-saving birth control, and the practice of free thought and freedom itself.
As much as I applaud Carter's long-delayed moment of clarity, the case for equality will not succeed as long as people are either born into a controlled environment of a singular belief system, forced to adopt one, or persecuted for having a different belief as these religions are more than cults, they have grown into massive mind-controlling powers that influence trade, governments, social life, and human interaction.
Carter's ascend to the club of Elders conjures up images of the wise men and women of the past who'd blow smoke up on youngsters' asses by relishing in the respect they hope to have earned by those that don't remember their youthful mistakes. So, yeah, we may listen respectfully when someone of stature makes an unexpected statement, like breaking with a splinter cell of the larger belief franchise, but until the same rationale is applied to those aspects of "Holy Scriptures" that don't (yet) fly in the face of currently fashionable conversation topics the liberation of women and logic will only pay lip service to those that hold the reins of the various clergies. By the very belief their foundation is based on they will delay any and all attempts to undermine it.
So, I humbly invite Jimmy Carter to put his thinking cap on once more and draw the only logical conclusion he can make when beginning to question why we need to be told what to believe by a "higher authority" that defies much, if not all, common sense, and when it comes to discrimination, decency.

GLAAD Slams 'Bruno'

I went to see Brüno last night with my son and we laughed from beginning to end. Brüno does what many other comedies do, making fun of stereotypes, or use them to score a laugh. Sure, there will be anti-gay people lured into seeing this movie but it's them this movie makes fun of and they will only see themselves on screen.

As far as stereotypes go, gays are well aware of the kind of over-the-top Priscilla Of The Desert queen Brüno portrays, glimpses of which we recognize in Miss J (Tyra Bank's Next Top Model), or in some of Bravo's characters in Queer Eye, or Runway. Richard Simmons is another example of someone who takes "gayness" to the extreme and millions adore him and buy his tapes. You can hate Brüno and see him as someone who does a disservice to the gay community, but I think he succeeded in holding up a mirror to America and homophobia in general. As Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen had the courage to even confront a known terrorist with his narrow minded world view. If anything, GLAAD should welcome the discussion and the opportunity to share their views, but making Brüno the bad gay, uh, guy only shows their lack of vision. At least Kazakhstan awarded Borat a prize for putting the country on the map...
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

All In Favor Of Many More Wars...

U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles.

An experimental oddity just two years ago, these strange semi-submarines are the cutting edge of drug trafficking today. They ferry hundreds of tons of cocaine over the Pacific Ocean route for most northbound shipments.

So, if the government, administration after administration, remains in the business of protecting its citizens with a War On Drugs at the tune of $20 Billion a year, thereby acting preventively with concern for the health of its citizens, why not extend the same policy by implementing a War On Cancer, or a War On HIV, or a War On Obesity, or a War On Overpriced Medication, or a War On Stupidity, or a War On Greed, or... you get the idea. There are many threats to our health and well-being but we've seen that the government cannot and will not interfere on our behalf, which is why we're in the mess we're in, health-wise, economy-wise, and otherwise. So, I suggest to either abandon the selective "War On Drugs" concept or extend it to all areas related to our well-being.

Vietnam Defeats America's Paranoia With 80 Million Smiles...

©2011 Rudolf Helder

This morning we arrived in Vietnam. While I had arranged for a visa to Vietnam for our party of three, Tiger Airways snatched at the last minute our carry-on bags from us and put them in the baggage hold. Because of that two of my companion's visa photographs were not available as they were in one of the bags. So, instead of entering Vietnam smoothly new pictures had to be taken, and as we discovered, with one of the immigration officers' personal camera. The money he charged went into his pocket, and we have a bet that the pictures never made it onto the visa applications... Oh, well...

Saigon, as the locals prefer calling Ho Chi Minh City, is a testament to the Asian mindset to see oneself as part of a greater whole rather than as an all-important self-indulgent individual. As an example traffic, even when it merges into opposite directions, like rivers that meet and continue in different streams, is an organic experience where everyone sways, nudges, accelerates and yields in order to allow others to advance in their respective directions. Think of all the scooters, mopeds, trucks, taxis, buses, and other vehicles like fishes in a school of fish that swirls around in one big floating ball in the ocean. They never hit each other, and are in perfect harmony as they move. We quickly learned to calmly walk at intersections through dense throngs of traffic that flowed around us uninterrupted. In Amsterdam, New York, or Rome where every driver has an ego as inflated as their tires you'd be dead...

At the time of this writing we sit in a small hotel in some back alley in the old section of Saigon that's decent for the price and has WiFi in the room, in stark contrast to Singapore where WiFi was practically unavailable and hotel rooms are crappy and expensive. The streets below offer great food for those daring enough to sit with the locals on 2/3 size plastic chairs and sample dishes with unknown names and content. As a reward for all the walking, flying, waiting, and sleeping slumped on chairs in a Singapore airport Starbucks we topped our day off with a full body massage at a parlor we stumbled upon. Reminiscent of Thai massage, Vietnamese massage added a for us new twist with the use of heated stones and intense knuckling of the foot soles that would have Dick Cheney and Shaun Hannity cry "torture!"

While the day had started bright and sunny and soon turned the city into a hot pot, it ended with crackling thunder and a steady sheet of rain, and a very welcome cooling off of the air.

After a few days of Saigon we set out to Hoi-An by way of a slow train that started in the evening and got us there by following noon. We shared a small cabin with a young man and his toothless grandmother who turned out to be his mother. The Hard Sleeper was the only configuration available to us, having missed out on the one-dollar-more-expensive Soft Sleeper. Three bunks were lined up on each side, the middle one made with a hinge so it could be pushed up, allowing for the bottom dweller to have his upper neighbors join him. Through AC vents in the ceiling descended at times horrendously strong cold air. Alas, we saved on a night's hotel expenditure, traveled while sleeping, and got to see the landscape and occasional station or little village whenever the train stopped, which it did from time to time. We got into a few battles in the gangway with a conductor who insisted we keep the window up through which we tried to take some pictures. Supposedly, we could get injured by stones that children throw at the train. None of that happened and we defended our unwritten right as travelers to aim our cameras at whatever strikes us as interesting.
As the train wormed its way through the rice fields and over rusty brown rivers I couldn't help but be reminded of films and pictures in which heavily armed American GI's trudge through Vietnam's lush landscape.

When morning came the Hard Sleeper had turned into the more appropriately termed Sleeping Hardly. Yet, we arrived reasonably energetic because a train as opposed to a plane allows for the stretching of the legs, although a walk to the latrine must be strongly discouraged a few hours into the journey...
In Hoi-An we located a charming little hotel by the name Thanh Xuan, where we got 2 rooms with fabulous bathrooms for $32 a night. Not per room, per both. Shutters on the windows, towels folded into swans with orchids on the bed, and more orchids in the bathroom.
The Vietnamese may not display the same tranquility and sensibility the Thai have incorporated into their contemporary interior design and decor products, but on the human side they make up for it with sheer friendliness and perhaps even gratitude that you favor their place over other destinations. It quickly becomes obvious that their standard of living is a few notches below that of Thailand—a country that never endured a setback in terms of a national war.

One thing the American War, as the Vietnam War here is called, teaches me at this point in time is that in spite of its devastating defeat here America continues to cultivate its paranoia with regard to other civilizations, their culture, religions, and political systems by invading countries, establishing military bases, and seeking regime change by installing puppet governments, or flat-out waging war on its inhabitants without knowing much about them, their situation, or their sentiments. Surely, the Vietcong in its days was seen as an insurgency that had to be stopped fueled as it was by communist doctrine, but just as today's mislabeled insurgents often revolt against a government whose legitimacy it can't accept, the Vietcong were fighting for freedom and reunification of a country that had been butchered to pieces by the Chinese, the French, the Japanese, and finally by the misguided American resolve to halt the advancement of Kremlin communism through no other method than sacrificing Vietnamese and American lives.

So, today Vietnam is communist, or socialist, as it prefers to be called, and if it wasn't for the political posters and prominent displays of Ho Chi Minh's portrait and name you'd never know it. There are no troops on the streets and even police appears absent. People are friendly, quick to smile or laugh, or engage in simple conversation. Shops and restaurants are well-stocked and appear open to all, and people go about their business on mopeds, scooters, motorbikes, and cars just like in any other Asian nation, making comparisons between Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, or the Philippines easy to draw without Vietnam ending up any gloomier, disadvantaged, repressed, or impoverished in a way that points to a brutal socialist regime. In fact, its people enjoy universal healthcare at affordable rates, 4-weeks of state-paid maternity leave, and not a single person or situation we encountered hinted at a repressing government.

Over the years, I've seen several documentaries on American TV in which returning GI's were brought to tears as they realized that the Vietnam War had been waged upon a kind, hard-working, and forgiving "enemy." Some have banded together and collect funds to help establish hospitals or do other good work in an attempt at war reparations on an individual scale, while the US government still gnashes its teeth and makes war reparations conditional to the recovery of American MIAs, as if it's the Vietnamese fault they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In effect, the US still wields the threat of a trade embargo with Vietnam as a stick that lamely keeps beating its victor over the head, long after Hanoi has sought reconcilliation.

A young woman whom we met in Saigon declared that a recent viewing of a documentary about the American War had made her cry as she sympathized with victims on both sides. Indeed, one feels that for the Vietnamese life has moved on and that instead of lingering resentment about the past, the future, and a positive outlook based on understanding and acceptance is of much greater value.

We've met Christians and Buddhists, and learned that they and others can practice their religions freely. Successful business people flaunt their wealth with late-model Lexuses and BMW's and while such status may not be for everyone, in this nation of 80 million it appears that at the very least each citizen has acquired a bicycle, moped, scooter, or motorbike.
Again, the caricature commie bastards of America's paranoia propaganda machine, ready to devour the West and bring much-dreaded equality, universal health care, and socialism to our shores, turns out to be little more than a family of 4 on a single motorbike, or a mother with child on a scooter on their way to school, or a worker carrying items much larger and heavier than anyone would consider safe on his moped, or a student, a doctor, farmer, or just about anyone else going about their business, providing food, making a living, earning their keep, living a life much like you and me...

I'm not about to glorify or idolize Vietnam and the Vietnamese after a mere 10 days here, but it gladdens me to see that at first sight the country is vibrant and full of energy and that its people appear content, healthy, and industrious. Perhaps it pleases me extra that I finally get to enjoy the return on a small investment I made. Still a student, living off a scholarship I remember well the days of the Vietnam War as it played out on TV screens in my native Holland. My disgust for the incessant hammering of farms and villages by carpet-bombing B-52's and horrific images such as of the My Lai massacre and napalmed children running down a road prompted me to allocate a small portion of my meager allowance every month to Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, the humanitarian help organization that along with monetary contributions collected used eyeglasses, prothesis, shoes, and other things that they practically had to smuggle into Vietnam to aid the victims of war. Maybe that's why while I'm here and as people look me in the face and kindly ask me for the hundredth time where I'm from and what my name is and how long I'm staying I look back and patiently repeat the same replies rejoicing in the knowledge that it has all turned out okay in the end and that we can have a purpose in each others' lives.

So, as the day of my departure nears I allow myself new thoughts and impressions that replace those of days long gone. I think of America's new president, Barack Obama, whom I wish has the courage to face the CIA, Pentagon, and the US military complex, and steer a course clear from confrontation and the gargantuan greed and profit war and the cost of human suffering brings to those that heavily invest in it. The people of North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Syria, Pakistan, or Darfur are in the end just like the Vietnamese, likely willing to fight for what they think is right, but even more so just mothers, fathers, children, grandchildren, babies, brothers and sisters going about their business as they quietly eek out an existence within the family of man...

The Obama Jugend Nazi Horde vs Fact

By way of a friend landed a link in my mailbox that courtesy of The Voice (yes, that's the voice in your head) lead to the following headline:
Obama Youth Brigade: Church Attendance Forbidden
Below it, the author, Jonas Clark asks: "Is this the change you really voted for? President Obama has only been in office for two months. Now we have HR 1388. The Bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) with 37 others. The Bill was introduced to the floor of the House of Representatives where both Republicans and Democrats voted 321-105 in favor.
This bill’s title is called “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education” (GIVE). It forms what some are calling “Obama’s Youth Brigade.” Obama’s plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade. His goal is one million youth! This has serious Nazi Germany overtones to it."

Oh my, how could we not have seen it coming that Americans in their demure demeanor would vote a new Hitler into office? Surely, the writer has some strong arguments which I'll attempt to refute with facts. First, let's look at "Obama’s plan is require anyone receiving school loans and others to serve at least three months as part of the brigade."
Did you notice "and others?" That means everyone else. Is that in the Bill? No, it's not. Neither is the word "brigade." The Bill is about recipients of school loans and if you are one, the chance to spend 3 months in a pay-back scheme where the recipients volunteer for social, economic, and ecological government programs. Don't take out a government loan and you won't be part of GIVE.
As for some calling GIVE "Obama’s Youth Brigade," no one calls it that, except Jonas Clark and Glenn Beck (FEMA concentration camps), with help from the unhinged Michelle Bachmann, whose paranoia gave birth to "Obama's re-education camps." Indeed, Third Reich references abound in the extreme right's tempest in a teabag brain bonanza.

Clark continues: "The Bill would forbid any student in the brigade to participate in “engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.” Even though Clark tries to pass off the foregoing as a quote, it is in fact not wording as it appears in the Bill, and his simplistic conclusion, "That means no church attendance or witnessing" further destroys all validity with a false implication that is as terse as it is inaccurate.
Lastly, he asks, "Again, is this what America voted for?"
Well, no, America didn't vote this time for Jonas Clark's extreme right wing view of an America that tortures, suspends habeus corpus, promotes indefinite incarceration without trial, kidnaps foreign militants, starts wars, and wastes billions of taxpayers monies in shady deals with combatants and dictatorial governments.

Unfazed by reality Clark lists the offending parts of Bill HR 1388. Let's read along:
‘SEC. 132A. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
‘(a) Prohibited Activities- An approved national service position under this subtitle may not be used for the following activities:
‘(1) Attempting to influence legislation.
‘(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
‘(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of proselytization, consistent with section 132.
‘(10) Conducting a voter registration drive or using Corporation funds to conduct a voter registration drive.

Yeah, I know that the religulous right regards Obama's presidency as the second coming of Hitler, and that the paranoia apparatus of the frequently wrong Christian Right is in overdrive, but misinterpreting this Bill only leads to the kind of distortion of facts Hitler's propaganda machine would have been proud of.
In fact, this bipartisan Bill (which has meanwhile been put into law) seeks to engage youth that receives government scholarships to pay back in sweat equity, much like the Peace Corp, or Bill Clinton's Americorp, from which it sprouted.

GIVE keeps religion (read: religeous fanatics) at arm's length while the participants are carrying out the duties they chose. They can engage in worship all they want, just not while on the government's "payroll." If I were paying an employee and he would forego his task by proselytizing I would have a problem with that too. Nowhere does it say Obama (Hitler II) wants to turn those that sign up (likely youths in their twenties or thirties, who'd like to serve their country, but not by joining the military) into mindless minions. As part of GIVE they are simply not supposed to engage in activities GIVE doesn't and cannot endorse, such as building a church in Africa, or teaching abstinence while withholding condom distribution to the poor, or linking receipt of medical services to participation in religious activities, for example.

While I applaud the newfound vigilance of those American people who were largely in a state of moronic morose during the Bush/Cheney fairytale times, holding Obama up to scrutiny should be done on the basis of facts. A simple tweak here and a slight distortion or insinuation there was exactly how the Nazis tried to manipulate the German citizenry and ultimately mobilize it with disastrous result. We have to be vigilant indeed and in that I side with Jonas Clark, but it cannot be done by pushing a different agenda and trying to fool your readers into believing the opposite of what words say. Words have meaning, and so do lies. Jonas Clark, you're a liar and I pity those that rely on you for information and are unable to see the forest of facts for the trees you put in front of them.

In Favor of Risk

Tom Vander Ark, in today's Huffington Post, seems to make a case for less, rather than more, oversight of financial institutions, afraid that risk-capital may get sent overseas.
To quote: "The uniquely American combination of market capitalism, extraordinary universities, and risk capital--specifically venture capital and growth equity--are the engine behind a century of remarkable progress."

That may be so, but in my opinion that run has come to an end, not just because of the so-called toxic assets that Wall Street and banks dabbled in, but also because there are other forces at work as well, such as the melting of polar ice, global warming, rising waters, peak oil, mounting unemployment, and industries that continue producing crap that's not needed, nobody wants, and ultimately clogs our rivers and landfills.

His article is based on old-school thinking. There's not a new idea in it. It's typical for the ugly investor we no longer can trust.

Separating funds from morals has lead to a breach in the economic levees and the funds have been drained out of it, not because there was no oversight, but because an environment had come to exist in which bigger equaled better, and richer equaled more desirable. All that now looks silly and out of touch.

Risk capital fleeing to Asia is like water that seeks its own level, like big fish looking for a place to spawn. If he wants that capital to stay in America conditions will need to be created for new investment, not by lax oversight or lack of regulation, but by appealing to a different mindset than playing Russian roulette, knowing that the government will cover your risk in case you bet wrong.

So, while he's talking about risk as a virtue, Mr. Vander Ark seems unwilling to risk anything new. He simply assumes that the same kind of people will be back wanting more of the same. Mostly, he seems afraid. Not exactly the risk taking kind...

So, I'm not sure what it exactly is he's asking for. Venture capitalists can be as supportive of the new economy that will emerge as they want to be. If great American talent and opportunity is going to be skipped over in favor of foreign investment in same than so be it. If you want to preserve capitalism as the only (other) God, than be prepared for how it behaves, like an irresponsible, greedy, destructive, resource-devouring beast.

Perhaps now is the time to look at a better use of capital than purely squeezing profit from it. Money is a natural resource as well, in a way, that helps make things possible. Wonderful things, sustainable things, innovative things, that may nourish us and excite us without creating toxic by-products that smother the environment and in the end our dreams and hopes. Perhaps the new investor will look upon our efforts to recreate the economy with the brave foresight of the risk taker who sees not only opportunity and profit, but also understands that what we all want is to live in harmony. Yes, that investor may not yet have emerged, but those are the ones we're all waiting for. Who goes first?

About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Oversight Of Financial System and The Right To Arm Bears...

There are always folks that consider themselves "real" Americans in the way only a Sarah Palin will recognize that worm themselves into every blog thread with no regard to its topic, only to spew some vitriolic ideas 360 degrees.
Today, I encountered the following interruption of Geithner's economic discussion with the following remarks:
"Because of the violence in Mexico, Hillary is talking about banning assault weapons here in the USofA. Time for me to go out and purchase a few more assault weapons to add to my tactical weapons collection.
I have every right to defend my home against any and all evildoers. God Bless America, and God Bless our Troops."
To that I couldn't help but reply thusly: "Hey pal, you walked into the wrong discussion group. This one's about the economy. The creepy survivalist, kill-em-when-they-come, paranoid, fearful, big-mouth, finger-on-the-trigger, semi-fascist, neo-nazi, hiding-in-a-fox-hole, bunker-building, Timmy McVeigh-worshipping sad sacks discussion group is over to your far, far right, down the hall, in the basement. Be careful when entering and don't use the word "government" or you may get a load of your own fear fired at you by your com-patriots..."
I know, I shouldn't have, but hey, I carry ammunition too...

About Timothy Geithner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Oversight Of Financial System Obama's Form Of Socialism?

One recurring accusation of Obama's attempts to attach some strings to Bush/Paulson's plan to bail out overnight-no-longer-profitable mega corporations with tax payers money is that he has a socialist agenda.
I think it's so demagogue to accuse Obama of socialism. If one insists on the term though, consider that it was the Bush gang that decided to take people's money and throw it no strings attached at those that were bringing down the capitalist system. Essentially, it was Bush's form of socialism that was implemented. Obama et al are in the uncomfortable position to make sense out of a senseless act. The premise of capitalism is that companies survive and profit by competition. In my opinion, these companies failed and money is better spent on helping those that have become victims of this failed concept of profit without responsibility. All the pollution, fraud, bribery, and political control that these mega conglomerations have effected is now old-school. Forward thinking is needed that takes into account our well-being and the health of ourselves and the planet. All those that are now losing jobs and homes would be well served if innovative measures are equally applied to the taxpayers that are in distress and whose funds are being taken without any say on their part. I'd call that fair, but some may call it (a form of) socialism, because at the basis the idea of fairness scares them.

About Timothy Geithner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Facebook And Kids: Yet Another Parents' Nightmare...

Kari Henley writes on Huffingtonpost that she recently joined Facebook, so she "could track her kid's antics like a sneaky James Bond spy." Now she is hooked, but claims she uses Facebook a bit different than her kids do (like, for exchanging recipes), and that plenty of kids are getting addicted, use it for bullying, or to say things they would never in person. She's worried there have been many reports of teen suicide from internet related bullying.

Bla bla bla. Here's your typical out-of-touch American parent getting all nauseous as they always do about their pampered but grossly misunderstood litter.

The rest of her article is all about fear of this and fear of that. In spite of her claim of having done research for the article she doesn't appear to know that there have been NO suicides, except one traced to a mother() bullying a kid. She even goes into at what age a child's brain is fully developed with the premise that kids underdeveloped brains can't cope with the modern world...

Puleeze!

Kids are fine and will pick their fights based on what they can handle. They are way ahead of adults when it comes to how they communicate, either parents like the ways in which they do it or not. They have this "new" technology long figured out before parents have. The main point is that parents don't need to play cyber police if they have crafted a good relationship with their children. Many adults act either dismissive or overly protective when it comes to their kids. Let them talk from early on and listen to what they say and respond in an adult manner. Adults often shut kids up since way back when baby's blatter sounded just like goobely-doobely. To baby that's exactly how you sound! Treat kids early on like persons and not like fairies by painting them an innocent pink or blue wonder world occupied with choo-choos and horseys.

I recall when my baby first ventured up the stairs. The women present panicked. I calmly grabbed his ankles and let him go further, then backtracked, and repeated going forward and backward until he "got it." From then on he could not only to go up but also come down safely. That's teaching trust. Yanking him off the stairs is not.

If you're concerned about that big mean world out there then act like animals do and prepare your offspring for it. All the self-indulgent "concerned" psycho-babble of Kari Henley shows her disconnect, which is all too common. Simplify your thinking. Avoid cliché babble like "How was school?" and don't accept cliché replies. Get to know your kid by communicating in an adult manner since day one and you will have an adult relationship. You reap what you sow. Your children are a reflection of you.

About Facebook
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Limbo The Clown Now Official Mascot Of GOP...

Just when you think the country cannot be any further in limbo and along comes Limbo "The BOMBastic Radio Clown" (pictured here before he let himself totally go and turned into a bag of lard). Let's not waste time on discussing the language on his balloons. He drove into the circus ring in a cardboard car and is now doing a fine job of laying a fuse under the Big Bloated Elephant pinata and doesn't need any help turning it into confetti. Go Rush! (Applause)

About Celebs Talk Politics
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Emmanuel Rahm calls Rush Limbaugh "The Voice, Energy And Intellect Of The GOP"

Rahm Emmanuel is right. It's clear that in absence of a vision the GOP has its conservative action strategies dictated by media clowns like the ever-ballooning Rush Limbaugh and the heartless, meatless, and bloodless Ann Coulter with their obnoxious late-term lovechild Jonathan Krohn—who escaped being thrown away with the bloody bath water of so many Republicans trying to wash off the death and destruction brought on by their support for Bush, the waffling self-proclaimed "Decider" and his paranoid policies.

It would actually be funny as a Republican sideshow of thick-skinned ruddy-faced elephants and their adorable pink offspring, were it not that the evidence from the last eight years teaches us that the ad-nauseam repeated sound-bite rhetorical phlegm production they trumpetted as proof of brain activity has delivered nothing for the economy, the environment, and the well-being of a changed America. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. These self-described conservatives conserve little else than the nostalgic notion that they are the fossilized godzilla guardians of little more than the idea that the Sixties were America's finest hour.

I'd say, let this public circus of worn-out slogan slingers and dapper Don Quixotes parade all it wants as it blindly beats a noisy path into the nocturnal and dank dawn-less forest where old dogmas die under the applause of one hand clapping, and let its historical grandstand linger on in fitful dreams of a return to dictatorial days by the Hannitys, O'Reillys, and Malkins that drunk with absent power have fallen off the political relevancy bandwagon...

You can neither fight windmills nor windbags.

About Rahm Emanuel
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Obama Watermelon Email Case

So, the Republican mayor of Los Alamitos, a small Southern California city of 12,000, says he will resign after being criticized publicly for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."

The news reports that Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city. Grose added that he didn't mean to offend anyone and claimed he was unaware of the racial stereotype linking black people with eating watermelons...
Yeah, right...

This goes back to parenting. You reap what you sow.
Prejudice is always wrong. Discrimination is useful to discern between green and yellow lights, but wrong when coupled with racial prejudice.
Everybody is racist to a degree, and racial jokes are the great equalizer between cultures that will never disappear or put Chris Rock out of a job, so recognizing that and being sensitive to other people's perception should prevent one from applying humor ignorantly in a hurtful and disrespecting manner (unless everyone can laugh about their own bias).

If someone who is not too smart chooses public life, gaffes, like Bush mentioning his Filipino chef to the Philippine president, are bound to happen.
Apology accepted, lesson learned.
Bush didn't step down, and nobody called for it. This mayor therefore must be smarter than Bush by a brain hair...

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Brave New Economy

And so we suddenly find ourselves in a new economy. It's not that we didn't see it coming, it's that we didn't want to see it coming. Smart people have been warning us for years, holding up charts and papers filled with calculations and scientific data.
Now we're wrong and they were right. But that no longer matters, as on the tombstone that reads, "He had the right of way..."
We're screwed.
As an entrepreneur I see the effects firsthand of the paralyzing scare that has the world in its grip. My sales have tumbled 60%-70%. Imagine that, suddenly having to make do with 30%-40% of your regular income...
I try to be proactive, like any sensible person, and have started to reduce costs on subscriptions, services, and generally everything that now weighs on me and my business financially.
I created a special website with Free Shipping items. Some have noticed, and placed orders. One of my other websites now advertises "Free Shipping On Orders Over $100." Again, some are taking advantage of that, but it hasn't helped sales and now I'm paying for shipping too, thereby reducing profit substantially.
I don't mind. Better poor than broke.
I will continue to do what I can to keep myself afloat financially, and I bet so will you.
But...
I have yet to see any gestures from the companies that matter in our lives.
The credit card companies haven't cut their exorbitant interest rates.
When I turned in my cable TV tuners, thereby cutting my cable bill 60%, Oceanic Cable, whose customer I've been for nearly twenty years didn't say, "what can we do to keep you as our loyal client?"
In fact, as I went about canceling services, none of the companies asked for a reason, or tried to retain me as a customer.
They don't need us? Well, I found I do just fine without them, and I guess this is the basis for survival—to be able to get by with just the essentials.
If we're all going to hell in a handbag, it is because we refuse to acknowledge what's coming and fail to draft a Plan B. It's for lack of vision.
Businesses that postpone finding solutions until they realize that without customers they don't have a company are screwed.

Credit Crisis For Dummies (That's Me...)...

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

In the midst of this malaise, Jonathan Jarvis deserves credit for making a complex issue easy to understand.

Winning Words...

"What has happened in technology over the last few years has been about the downturn, not the future of technology. A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets." - Steve Jobs, August 2003

Entertainment?

Shoot The Messenger...

One of today's BBC World News headlines reads: "US Muslim TV boss 'beheaded wife'"
The founder of a US TV station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims is charged with beheading his wife.

Muzzammil Hassan, 44, is accused of second degree murder of Aasiya Hassan, whose body was found last week at the TV station in New York state.
Both Mr Hassan and his wife worked at Bridges TV, a station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims.
Bridges TV, a satellite-distributed news and opinion channel, was founded by Mr Hassan in 2004 and was based in a suburb in Buffalo, in upstate New York.

Woman Freaks Out...

The original headline read: "Chinese Woman Freaks Out In Airport, Gets 600,000 Hits On YouTube"

An innocent headline to many, but I see ignorance rearing its ugly headline. If the woman had been Caucasian, would the headline have read, "Caucasian Woman Freaks Out?"

Now, I know that Chinese is a group, and not a race, but tell that to my Chinese ex-wife...

The woman was not identified as a Chinese national, but as someone looking and sounding Chinese. She could have come from anywhere. So, let's rewrite the headline accordingly:

"A Mongoloid Woman Freaks Out."

Better?

Some anthropologists would argue that there are only three races: Negroid, Caucesoid, and Mongoloid. Thomas Huxley introduced the term "Mongoloid," based on the physical characteristics of Mongolian people, but included American Indians as well as Arctic Native Americans, Laplanders, the Finnish, Eskimos, and Pacific Islanders, but ultimately "Mongoloid" was widely adopted to mainly include the people of South-East Asia, and we recognize Eskimos, American Indians, and Polynesians as different races.

More recently, the Human Genome Project stated unequivocally that "races" do not exist in any biological sense... I'd agree with that more than the tendency to divide people based on their physical appearances. My point is that in the U.S., where race is often mentioned as a distinct feature that typifies the behavior of a group, Caucasians are often excluded from this bias when it comes to the news and their skin color or racial origin is seldom if ever mentioned.

Therefore, "Caucasian Woman Freaks Out," is an unlikely headline in a country where people have grown accustomed to think in racial terms when looking at someone...

Therefore, "Woman Freaks Out," would have sufficed, but I doubt it would have garnered as many YouTube views...

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Beats Bush By Using His Brain...

No, kiddos, not by using Bush's brain, or Karl Rove, but by using his own. In sharp contrast to George W Bush, who used to sign off quickly on troop requests from his commanders without giving it much thought, Obama appears to be taking his time pondering a request by the Pentagon for three Army combat brigades and Marine units for deployment in Afghanistan.

While I personally have my doubts about even the possibility of success with the stated objective of militarily ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban, especially now that the scoundrels seem to become more active in Pakistan, the reality is that the US has a military presence there, but its activities have been hampered with inadequate troop levels, due to obligations in Iraq and minimal support from foreign nations, as the results of the Bush gang's shortsightedness.

Obama is challenged by his predecessor's ineptness to finish what he started in a way that has failure already written in big capitals into the equation. If US troops are perceived as staying too long in Afghanistan it will be served up by the Republicans in huge scoops as failure. If he gets the troops back home before scoring any big successes he will be perceived as failing to stand up to terrorism. Ultimately, his fate rests with an American public that hastily gave Bush another term to get the job done—at which he failed miserably.

A real problem is that America has not won any of its wars in a long time and Desert Storm I was just a prelude to Desert Storm II, not because of the military which just does what it does best, but because of politicians that use it to manipulate a public that has been hammered into a crouched position with fear tactics. These are not wars, they are police actions, or rather cleaning operations in countries the US has no business being or staying in. I hope that Obama realizes that these so-called wars are undeclared and illegal acts of war. Bush went it alone (oops, forgot Poland and Palau) and Obama will have to douse the fires the Bush gang started.

That the GOP, after fanning the flames, now have adopted a strategy of obstructing Obama's efforts tells me that they're not interested in anything but playing politics at the expense of US soldiers and foreign civilians—unless one thinks we're behaving smartly and without incurring wrath by killing Muslim people—always conveniently labeled "terrorists"—by sending drones equipped with missiles from one souvereign country into another. As a video game it may seem engaging, but as a solution to the problem of extremist Islam it's contra-effective. Mind you, this all started with 3,000 people losing their lives on 9/11. Hundreds of thousands of dead later see where our politicians have taken us... Indeed, the people will have to choose for a solution, but they just did that by electing Obama. It is my hope the majority understands that the mess Bush en co. created may not be cleaned up in 4 years. The GOP's obstructionist stance is reprehensible and shameful. We may have thought that by Bush's leaving office the nation ridded itself of the effects of his brain. The crushed GOP, it turns out, while unable to even utter Bush's name, can't come up with a single constructive thought and is still using his rambling brain for its thinking...

The Greatest Crime Ever Committed...

In the months leading up to Obama's inauguration the criminal gang that has been busy ruining the lives of American soldiers, Iraqi citizens, and Afghan mountain dwellers decided they were not satisfied with the billions of taxpayers' money siphoned off into black hole accounts of companies engaged in the Wiedergutmachung in Iraq under the protection of Blackwater mercenaries during a regime-change blitzkrieg that to this day is called a "war," but is undeclared, and has as its enemy a vague entity that may or may not be engaged in trying to liberate Arab soil from the infidel invaders that came for oil, so-called freedom, and the spread of Christianity, but settled for torture, corruption, lies, manipulation, and the expansion of the industrial military complex.

So, with an eye on the perceived temporary discontinuation of the dismantling of America during the Obama term the most evil members of the GOP concocted a sublime plan by creating a new 9/11, but this time rather than using explosions and controlled demolitions of tall buildings a series of implosions was proposed that would severely handicap the new administration and perhaps restore Republican popularity come the 2012 elections by manipulating the stock market mechanisms. If the Nazis had succeeded they would have destabilized America's and Great Britain's economies by flooding them with counterfeit bank notes. This time something similar in outcome could be effectuated by processes that started with deregulating the banks and financial institutions and introducing a sophisticated and incomprehensible scheme with worthless loans that were traded deep toward a black hole that would at some trigger point collapse under its own gravity.

While Capitalism has been sold to its last breath as a system that would perpetuate itself with the elimination of weaker companies so that stronger ones can survive, the market economy, once hollowed out from within was not to be tolerated to behave thusly. If Obama pulls it off to "save" the economy it will be a miracle. Most everyone so far is impressed with his royal stature and supreme intelligence. But even he will find it difficult to stop the avalanche set in motion by the Republicans.

Bush (and by Bush, I mean the lying, cheating, conspirators Cheney, Wolfewitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al) have pulled off another daring feat, by turning America overnight from a Capitalist into a Socialist society and grabbing billions of the people's monies and turning it over with nary any oversight to henchman and executioner Henry Paulson, a Wall Street insider who has been retained to distribute this new wealth to the wealthiest fat-cats who shamelessly jumped in their private jets to ask Congress for even more free funds to shore up their mismanaged and behind-the-times companies. Trickle-down economy in reverse. Does anyone have any doubt that the Republican Party's main doctrine has outlived its premise?

Supposedly extending the people's credit to failing institutions managed by failing executives will suddenly make the latter humble, make them see the error of their greedy ways, and turn them into social-conscious do-gooders, while a study of these people's faces during laughable public "hearings" tell you that they know only one creed: greed. The companies receiving public funding should have been forced to make the American taxpayers shareholders and the recipients of promised profits when these companies are back on their feet, but that hasn't happened. Your check will not be in the mail.

And so the crime was committed, and all saw that it was good. Markets and financial institutions would continue to be headed by the only ones capable and available to manage them—those that helped getting us into this mess in the first place.
What will change? I predict nothing. Nothing at all.

The much-touted American Dream is shattered.
A wake-up call has sounded as loud as the civil defense siren in your neighborhood, but, once again the American people are paralyzed, conned as they have been by a wide scare, and while they're being robbed, raped, and pillaged, they are ready to go along with whatever sounds like a good idea as alternatives are not being deemed acceptable (the collapse of Wall Street, the banks, and the automobile industry) even though that is just what capitalism and a free market-driven economy should allow to happen.
Afraid that their dollars may no longer support their glutinous lifestyles Americans quietly and uncomprehendingly watch the bailout-scheme unfold on their oversized HDTVs instead of taking en-masse to the streets to yell, rebel, and protest so loud that it would be heard around the world. A world that in turn is devastated by what begun as the actions of a few, headed early on by Phil Gramm and his quest for deregulation and suspending financial oversight. Like everything else the Republicans plan, their execution is flawed, because the premise of their very core is based on denial of equality, amassing personal fortune, and hatred for those who are not them. The results are favoritism, installing cronies in positions of power, bribery, misuse of public funds, voter-fraud, the corruption of public office, the betrayal of the religious base they claim to represent, using soldiers for political ends, and ultimately the destruction of The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will vote against any attempt by the Obama administration to save the economy they destroyed, as they have already shown us in the last weeks. Obama's failure will be their victory with Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coultier laughing the loudest. After voting twice for Bush I don't give the American people any credit for smart future decisions in spite of Obama's win.

And so, the overall picture is becoming clear. We're watching a looting in progress with as goal total control of the political playing field and the American people by the Republicans. This is a high stakes chess game where the ante will be upped by the player who can see several moves farther into the game. My bet is still on Obama, but he's a nice guy and his opponents are strategic bullies who'll stop at nothing, even as their party seeks to rebuild its dented public facade.

After 8 years of Republican indoctrination I fear that the possibility of a major Republican victory (by counting or buying votes) may effectively dismantle the current 2-party system and leave in place a 1-party system like old Russia, China, or Germany under the Nazis.
The people have other worries, like losing their jobs and homes.
For now.
The conditions will be as ripe as they were when Hitler grabbed power.
This time the enemy has an American face. The ruddy, greedy, contorted, ugly, hateful, and angry face of the Republican Party.

Low Level Laser Takes 6.5 Inches Off My Body in 2 Weeks...

Not exactly an exciting headline, nor a pretty picture, but I just lost a total of 6.5 inches around my waist, hips, and thighs during a 14 day low level laser treatment with Erchonia’s Zerona low level laser, and I wanted to share my faux-lipo story with you.
Let me start at the beginning of this victorious tale: Like you, I've been putting on weight over the last years and like you I wish it wasn't true, but a sedentary lifestyle, long hours working on a computer, and sneakily snacking from the fridge can make a pumpkin out of anyone. What's your excuse?
Now, I'm also a highly skeptical person. I mean, I don't believe there's a God, can you believe that, with all the overwhelming evidence out there? How more skeptical can one get? So, I wasn't going to be a believer in low level laser fat loss, or any quick weight loss scheme either.

Then my friend Les opened Laser EnergyWorks in Honolulu and not before long I was undergoing low level laser treatment three times a week, 40 minutes each time, for two straight weeks under his Zerona laser. It was as easy as lying on a towel on the beach, except there was no heat or any other sensation. The 5-head laser lights are positioned with flexible arms above your body and make a not very loud noise I can best describe as an electric buzz.

Now, before I subjected myself to this regimen I rudimentary educated myself about this method which targets fat cells with low power laser beams. It's like, straight out of SciFi. Contrary to lasers that are so strong they cut through anything, the low level laser gently tickles the fat cells so that they collapse laughing and release their stored fat. The body then absorbs the fat and by drinking large amounts of water (large for me, I prefer beer) it's flushed out of your system. So far so good, but the big news came when my girlfriend declared after one week of not seeing me, "I believe you lost some weight!"

No, I told her, I had not stopped eating, I was having 2-3 glasses of wine every day, I had not exercised, and I wasn't doing Jenny Craig behind her back. In fact, I had not changed my life one bit. I had not even followed the recommended taking of supplements, the wearing of special compressing garments, or the drinking of at least 8 glasses of water a day.

Anyway, her delight gave me pause and for the first time after starting treatment I checked myself in the mirror. At that point I had undergone only 3 treatments and sure enough, I looked trimmer already.
That got me motivated. I decided to help the process along, so I bought one of the recommended food supplements—niacin pills—and plenty bottled water, and went 3 more times under the laser, as a total of 6 constitute a full treatment.
After the last session my measurements and pictures were compared with those from before treatment and the verdict was I had lost 3.5 inches around the waist, 2 inches around the hips, and 1 inch around the thighs. I had not lost any weight—yet.

All that without any major change in lifestyle.

I was impressed. I was also devastated by the right-before and right-after pictures; each snapped upon an exhalation, so there was no trickery with holding one's breath. Clearly, at 60, my body (or Party Central as I call it) was going the wrong way and it appeared now was a good time to get serious about getting back in shape and to begin thinking about longevity and a healthier lifestyle instead of Dreyer's vs Breyer's ice cream.

As a result, some of my next entries are going to be about how I'm tackling the onslaught of time, bad habits (not that I have any), weight increase, wrinkles, hair-loss, and dementia.
No seriously, vanity goes a long way toward changing my ways, so that I may eventually post better looking pictures.
If you too look at yourself in the mirror the way I do now, you know it's time to say, enough!

When that moment comes, tell Les at Laser EnergyWorks Rudolf sent you. He will give you a nice discount and maybe, maybe help rid me of my double chin, which by the way, is another trick the Zerona has on its, uh, flexible arms. Les's philosophy is that he will only deal with products that are scientifically proven to work. I know, he's a God-conscious man, but that's one philosopy a skeptic like me can believe in...

Bush Protest: Shoes Thrown At White House

It's all very ludical, throwing shoes over the White House fence on the last day of Bush's presidency, but for eight years we've not seen any protests significant enough to speak off. The American people went bravely shopping and let W Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice run the country and Iraq into the ground without much criticism. So, throw your shoes in response to a currently being held and tortured Iraqi journalist who showed he had the guts to stand up against Bush and show the world how he felt, but don't congratulate yourself. As a nation, you've been lazy, silent, complicit, and cowardly. Hopefully, Obama will negate this shameful period in world history with intellect, tact, and sincerity, but crimes have been committed and too many have stood by. That didn't happen in the Philippines, Ukraine, Beirut, and other places where the people took to the streets and demanded change they could believe in before it was offered to them on a platter...
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost