16th of September

Juarez has decided to cancel all 16 de Septiembre Mexican independence day festivities due to the narco violence. This is the first time this has ever happened, since the Mexican revolution.

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Illinois vs. Mexico In The Corruption Competition

Mexico is an incredibly corrupt place. Almost no transaction between a citizen and the government takes place without a little “grease” being applied. The state of Illinois stands out in America as one of the very most corrupt places. Politicians keep going to jail yet voters continue to elect corrupt politicians. In Illinois and lots of other places there is a well established culture of corruption, like in Louisiana and rural Texas.

I guess the good news is that while the judiciary and the idea of rule-of-law are mostly irrelevant in Mexico, they do somewhat work in Illinois. Even so, corruption persists.

People who are much smarter than me have dealt with this issue. How do you reform a corrupt country or state into one that is not? When we find the answer to this maybe we can help Mexico.

But at the moment we are dealing with a country where the entire culture accepts bribery and corruption. It goes without saying that Americans do not want this culture of corruption incorporated into America via immigration and the melting pot.

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Lindsay Lohan's Father To Open Rehab Clinic

He says that what he knows best is helping people with drug addictions. His claims that his new clinic will not use prescription drugs, instead relying on preaching a spiritual approach to treating addiction. Lohan said, “God will be a major element in recovery.”

God, a belief in talking snakes and spontaneously combusting bushes has sure worked out well in his family life and with his daughter Lindsay.

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Medical Science

Alzheimer’s has been known for a long time, but there still is no cure. Same with my version of leukemia. Or the common cold. Antibiotic resistance and bacterial diseases which no longer respond to “modern medicine” are growing.

This profession is mostly one big swindle. Prescribe heroin like pain killers to drug addicts and boner pills to 50 year old men. These old farts no longer find that they get turned on by their 50 something fat, lazy, rude wife. I guess not.

Orthopedic physicians repair broken bones, and they are GOOD. The docs who make large amounts of money injecting botox are mostly con men.

The doctors can't fix obesity or diabetes. Yup, most of these ghouls are best avoided.

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This Is Going To Be Almost Inconceivably Ugly

“This is going to be almost inconceivably ugly.” That is how Dr. Paul Krugman ended his blog post on 28 August 2010.

It is a short blog entry, but to me it is a monumental one. I hope he doesn't mind me quoting liberally from it. He begins, “I’m finding it hard to read about politics these days. I still don’t think people in the administration understand the magnitude of the catastrophe their excessive caution has created. I keep waiting for Obama to do something, something, to shake things up; but it never seems to happen.”

Let me interject that this excessive caution (I call it a lack of testosterone) means that Obama's version of Universal Health Care does not include a vigorous public option, making it very close to worthless. Guantanamo is still open, the unwinnable war in Afghanistan is raging and expanding, the financial reform legislation is tepid at best, Obama has approved offshore drilling in environmentally sensitive areas which even George W. wouldn't touch, and President Obama has also demonstrated that he is strongly anti-environmentalist and pro-nuke.

Dr. Krugman goes on to say: “the important thing is that all signs are that the next few years will be a combination of economic stagnation and political witch-hunt.”

All because President Obama has no balls. He had a major frigging mandate, and because he was afraid of getting sand kicked in his face by the racists and Republicans, he frittered away the mandate. Then Barack got his surrogates to attack his base in the Democratic party, calling the progressives and liberals “retards.” Sorry Mr. Obama, I hate to say it, but we now see that you are one pussified loser.


LINK TO KRUGMAN BLOG: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/failure-to-rise/

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What Happened To America's Economy?

America no longer manufactures much. A great many of our production and manufacturing facilities have been shut down and moved overseas. Much of this has been encouraged by American tax regulations. It has been more profitable to fire American workers and move production to low wage countries like China, thus evading workplace safety regulations, environmental regulations, and allowing children to work long hours which would never be allowed in America.

Selling collateralized debt obligations from one entity to another was turned into a highly profitable occupation. It was dishonest and in reality amounted to nothing more than fraud and theft, but the greed encouraged by the deregulation crowd made them arrogant and blind.

Our elected representatives in Washington, D.C. both allowed and even encouraged this. The Republican mantra of deregulation has now almost fully played out. We are beginning to see what the results are. The American economy is becoming a mere shell. We continue to flush vast amounts of money down the toilet of military adventurism. All while firemen, policemen, and teachers are being laid off.

Concepts like social fairness have become passe. The idea that the wealthy should contribute more to the country's welfare in shared areas like our nation's defense or building roads (progressive taxation) were declared by the Republicans, and even many of the blue dog Democrats as negative or even socialist.

We have stood by and allowed a large and growing part of our people to lose their jobs, their homes, and access to health care. And the so-called Christian Republicans are not concerned in the least. It just doesn't seem to bother them. No compassion at all. These people disgust me.

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Muslims

I lived in Europe for almost twenty years. I was the General Manager of the European Division of a food processing company. I got to know many Muslims. My friend Mohamed lived in Brussels and Mustafa lived in the southern part of Holland. Camara was from Senegal, and others were from northern Iraq, Morocco, and Afghanistan.

What I found is that most of the Muslims who I felt the most comfortable with almost never entered a mosque. Same with my Jewish friends. Their Mom may have been Jewish, but it had now been many years since they stepped inside of a synagogue. The same applies with the Christians. Most were highly secular and only saw the inside of church if someone died, if then.

It is not being a racist to say that in the twenty first century religious fanatics make me feel really uncomfortable. I find them ignorant, deluded, and frankly not very bright.

So it is not racism that makes me keep saying that Islam is defective and dangerous; it is my secular beliefs talking. And in America the same freedom of religion which allows these poor, fanatical, confused people to believe in talking snakes also allows me to openly not believe in any of these screwed up organized religions.

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The American Melting Pot

In the past immigrants to America were anxious to fit in and prosper in American society. They did their best to learn English, dressed in the typical American style clothing, and many people even legally changed their names to something which sounded more American.

The situation in the early 21st century is no longer a melting pot. It has become a mosaic where immigrants keep their foreign sounding names, continue to wear their foreign looking veils and garments, and rather than wanting to assimilate into the American culture want to retain the culture and the language which they grew up in.

So in those communities where there are large numbers of Mexican-Americans the radio, TV, and newspapers are gradually changing over to Spanish. When the school sends home a note for the parents it is now in English and Spanish.

By not demanding that these immigrants get very proficient in spoken and written English this is ensuring that these Mexican American immigrants will remain second class citizens. How cruel. And intelligent, caring people think that they are doing right by these immigrants by providing bilingual education and allowing this linguistic sloth to continue.

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The Evolution of President Obama

Vice President Joe Biden has warned that Obama is better than Bush. Yes, I agree, but as a campaign slogan "Better Than Bush" isn't real inspiring.


The following article by Doug Gibson is so excellent I have copied it intact:

“The centre cannot hold” is a from a William Butler Yeats poem, “The Second Coming” that’s in about every anthology of Western poetry. Although it deals with weightier subjects than a pol’s popularity, I think of “the centre cannot hold” when I mull President Obama’s slow slide from 60-plus approval ratings to the current low to mid 40s. In retrospect, it was naive to think that the president’s early high approval ratings would hold. Obama’s “centre,” or promise, meant distinct things to different people. Liberals, or the left, saw Obama as a leader who would restore legitimacy to populist, progressive, government-engineered programs to reform health care, the environment, the financial systems, infrastructure, education, job opportunities. They saw a Keynesian-inspired effort to transfer the United States into a conservative version of a European semi-socialist state, one that would offer security and a dignified standard of living to citizens yet require higher taxes, a loss of some previous options and a government headed largely by technocrats. It would be a mix of liberal Paul Krugman and conservative Bruce Bartlett.
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Independents, or moderates — the group that has mostly abandoned the president — anticipated an Obama who would end the reckless spending — military and domestic — that the Bush administration had created over 8 years. They also saw Obama as a president who would demonstrate managerial competence that the Bush administration had lacked, in the war and in natural disasters such as Katrina. They also expected a Democratic president and Democratic Congress that was veto proof to smoothly pass legislation. … Those conservatives who supported Obama believed his election would usher in managerial competence and a more prudent budget.
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The president has accomplished several goals — health care, financial reform, some success in the War on Terror — but in the real world, that involved deals with Congress and constant pressure from lobbyists (the financial industry spent ungodly amounts to water down financial reform) — but the finished accomplishments cannot match the campaign rhetoric that caused so many to swoon in 2008. Health care without a public option, no environmental reform, lukewarm financial services reform, and a stimulus deal that many Keynesians say isn’t big enough to dent a troubled economy has liberals in the dumps. Ironically, the cost of all these programs and projected trillion-dollar deficits have turned independents away from the president.
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Obama’s political inexperience has also cost him. Thoughtless remarks regarding race — in the Henry Louis Gates incident — and waffling over the New York City mosque proposal has made him more unpopular. What seemed like great oratory and depth of understanding two years ago looks to more of us as condescension and arrogance. On social issues, the president’s smartest move is to stay silent.
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In fairness to the president, it was never going to be easy to hold the centre in today’s political environment, which manufactures “issues” that last anywhere from an hour to a couple of weeks on the cable TV networks (anyone remember the New Black Panthers?). This has resulted in a more corrosive political era, one in which a partisan feels that he or she must defend a subject, rather than a circumstance. One must always be opposed to tax cuts, one must always support a pro-choice-approved position. We seek our news from the outlets we feel most comfortable with. As a result, the party out of power controls the debate.
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Democrats, who had Republicans flailing during the years 2005 to 2008, must be amazed, and shocked, that the Republicans are so easily controlling the debates today on most issues, particularly high-interest ones such as immigration and the mosque near Ground Zero. But that is politics today; if the Republicans take control of Congress in the elections this fall, they will encounter a more hostile media, and public, in 2011.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://blogs.standard.net/2010/08/president-obama-discovers-that-the-centre-cannot-hold/

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Mexico – Failed State

Bribery has been the semiofficial system in Mexico for many years. If you needed for a government worker to simply do his job, you paid him a small bribe, some grease. If you needed to achieve results more quickly, you applied more grease. Of course this system favors the wealthy, and it destroys the idea of rule-of-law. Inefficiency and corruption thrive, accountability becomes nonexistent.

The judicial system in Mexico simply does not function. Take 100 serious crimes, like murder or rape. Maybe 2 or 3 are even investigated – the rest are just ignored. Take 100 of these investigations and only about 2 or 3 result in arrests. Once people are arrested they are tortured until they confess, they they are exhibited to the media, but out of 100 only 2 or 3 of them actually go to trial...the rest are released; especially if some grease is applied strategically. Very few people get convicted in a trial, and once in jail you find that the rich mobsters run the place, not the government authorities.

We are now beginning to see where such as system of dishonesty and corruption eventually leads. And we are just in the early phases. The drugs mafias clearly have the upper hand over the government. We are seeing a mass exodus from the country – both of human resources and money. I have recently seen Mexican Government numbers saying that 40% of homes in Juarez have now been abandoned.

Corpses which have had their hands, heads, and/or testicles cut off are hung by their feet from freeway overpasses almost daily. Normally there is a big hand painted sign nearby with some sort of a message from the killers to whoever they are especially pissed off at. Mass murders at teenage birthday parties are fairly common. The thriving and growing new profession in Mexico is kidnapping. Attractive girls are now becoming hit men for these narco mafias. Car bombings activated by cell phone have now begun in Mexico; the first was in Juarez.

Within the last few weeks stray bullets coming out of Juarez, Mexico have hit the El Paso City Hall and the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. An American car driving by close to the border had his car shot, and kidnappings have begun here in El Paso. The El Paso Police had to close down a highway next to the border until the shootout was finished.

What does America need to do? If we legalized marijuana it might help a little, but the Mexican mafias have now begun diversifying away from just drugs and prostitution into much wider criminal enterprises like extortion and kidnapping.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that many of the law abiding Anglo citizens of America are becoming quite intolerant of the Mexican culture and language. They see the same types of dishonesty and corruption spreading in America wherever large numbers of Mexican immigrants are settling. The Arizona backlash against illegal immigration by Mexicans should have been expected, and in some ways is almost logical.

I went into Walmart over the weekend. I asked the greeter to point me in the direction of sporting goods. She could not speak any English, at all. The greeter! Since I happen to be fluent in Spanish I asked her a second time speaking Spanish. She gave me good directions. I guess 10% -15% of the cars I see on the road in El Paso, Texas USA now either have Mexican license plates, or no license plates at all. Just total and complete disrespect for the idea of rule-of-law. Black SUVs with blacked out windows are becoming common. Very few of the TV and radio stations in El Paso broadcast in English; most now are entirely in Spanish, as are most of the newspapers.

On a personal level, I have a state issued license to carry a concealed firearm, and I am always armed when I leave the house. But this is just whistling past the graveyard. The big question is What does America Need To Do? What actions will be effective while being the least brutal?

Should we invade Mexico, then using Caterpillar bulldozers clear a strip of land one mile wide; a sort of No Man's Land? A free fire zone. Close off all trade with Mexico? We can take some of Obama's 50,000 non-combat troops out of Iraq and use them, their helicopters, and their armored vehicles to help patrol this no man's land.

Obviously this sort of extreme reaction seems completely out of line for a modern, civilized Democracy. Most of the Mexicans I have know over the last 60 years were fine people. Unfortunately just like with the Muslims, these decent people in the majority did not have the strength of character to weed out the corruption and the bad guys. It now is completely out of control and is overwhelming the entire country and the Mexican culture.

Americans have the right and the duty to protect ourselves from this cultural invasion of brutality, dishonesty, and corruption. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to reign in the bad elements of the Mexican culture.

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Van Gogh Theft

And the winners of the absolute dumb ass of the year award are hands down the Egyptians.

This same Vincent Van Gogh painting had been stolen before; from this very same museum. Yet only 7 out of 43 security cameras were working and none of the alarms were working. And they had been out of order for some time. The words slow learners doesn't do this situation justice.

So the Egyptians catch two Italians at the airport trying to leave the country with the Van Gogh painting. These Italians apparently are actually under arrest. But now it seems that maybe the painting has gone missing again.

And these are the same people who built the sphinx and the pyramids? My Oh My, something terrible has happened here. I won't suggest this is a genetic problem, so it must be somehow related to the Egyptian culture. I cannot honestly say I was very impressed with the Egyptians when I visited there many years ago. Horrible poverty and discrimination, and the rich can get just about anything they want.

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The Palestinians Are Depressed

A Reuters article today says that the Palestinians have all but given up hope. They think that the chances of their having a Palestinian state side by side of Israel is a pipe dream. They are depressed.

Say what? You are the same people who year after year call for the total destruction of Israel. You refuse to accept its right to continue in existence. And you still regularly shoot rockets from your territory into Israel. Just exactly how did you think they would react?

You are really fortunate that they have been fairly moderate in their punishment. If Mexico or Canada regularly shot missiles into the U.S.A. and kept it up for years, you can be certain that at some point the military and the warmongers would get the upper hand. We would bomb them back to the dark ages.

If the Palestinians ever get honest with themselves (and with Israel) the two state solution might come to pass. But thinking that the Palestinians are going to be permitted to move back to Israel and get their old land back, or thinking that Israel is going to give back Jerusalem shows that these Palestinians are living in a dream world.

The Jews defeated you militarily. More than once. Get over it. Accept and move on and life will get a lot better. Or you can keep up your propaganda calling for the destruction of Israel, and you can keep firing missiles into Israel. If so, you will continue paying a heavy price.

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Dutch Sailor Begins Solo Round The World Trip

Laura Dekker, the 14 year old Dutch girl, has begun her attempt to sail solo around the world. I admit to feelings of concern for her welfare.

At age fourteen I sure thought I was an adult. I was deciding priorities and writing the checks to pay our family's bills...my parents only signed the checks. I had a driver's license and my own car. I was an avid ham radio operator and was active in the El Paso Amateur Radio Club. Thanks to the lively Juarez, Mexico I was able to drink and go to various sex shows that would have made sailors blush. Back in America I was as sexually active as I was when I was in my 20's and 30's.

If you look just a short period back in history you will see that at age 14 men were fighting in the American Civil War. They were fighting and dying just as heroically or sadly as the old geezers. Look a little further back in time and it becomes clear that for much of human history people were expected to behave like adults and were treated as adults at this tender young age.

I wish Laura Dekker well, but I'm still a bit concerned.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/dutch-teen-missing-ahead-solo-sailing-bid-launch

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President Obama Was Born As A Muslim

There is an article which was widely circulated today about the President's religion. Just like in a Jewish family, one's birth religion is determined by your mother's faith; this article claims that in Islam one's birth religion is determined by your father's faith. Barack's father was indeed a Muslim, and he made sure that he gave him an Islamic name too.

None of us has much choice regarding our birth parents or or birth circumstances. Obama has since renounced Islam and is now a Christian.

My Response: Ho Hum, So What? I like the fact that Barack Obama is a bit international, and is not some dumb ass provincial jerk like George W.

As long as the guy is 99.99% secular I don't care at all. If he begins making policy decisions based upon some mystical true believer faith which thinks talking snakes are real, then I'll get worried.

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One Worlders

President Obama deeply believes that all people are basicly good. This includes Republicans, Muslims, and the Chinese. If he just bends far enough; compromises America's core values enough, that he can work out a friendship with these people.

This is the same attitude as the appeasement of the nazis before WWII. The appeasers would do almost anything to avoid a fight with Hitler, Mussolini, and the other racists and right wingers. In the end they were shown that in fact there are times when one has to stand up and be willing to fight for what one believes.

China is hurting our economy big time. The Obama administration needs to slap an across the board 20% tariff on everything coming into the country from China. Barack wants to talk rather than fight. The Republicans are racists who hate him and everything that he stands for. Instead of getting down and dirty with them he lashes out at his own supporters, the progressives and liberals of the Democratic party. No amount of compromise will make the GOP like him. They are a lost cause.

The Muslims have a religion which openly supports cutting off young girl's clitorises, and burning down their segregated schools if these women dare to try and get educated. They are completely intolerant of other religions and beliefs. America needs to stand up for its core values and fight the Muslims, not try the appeasement routine. It won't work.

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Our Media Is Not Serving Us Well

Twenty percent of Americans think President Barack Obama is a muslim. This number has actually increased since he became president. There have been a number of news stories yesterday and today talking about this and the fact that a surprisingly large number of people still deeply believe that Obama was not born in America.

Especially the dishonest and partisan right wing media like Fox has stopped trying to inform Americans of the actual facts. To increase their profits and to help out the richest members of society, they are now frequently boldly just making up stories. In the bad old days we called this dishonesty or lying, and it would not have been tolerated.

A democracy cannot function properly without well informed citizens. This radical increase in dishonest propaganda by the right wing media will only harm America. The challenge is how to stop this intentional lying without violating the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and a free press.

Obama supposedly used to be a constitutional scholar, teaching college courses on it. If he was not so severely lacking in backbone and strength of character, he would strenuously combat this intentional dishonesty in the media. He is so afraid of getting sand kicked in his face, I guess he will continue compromising the country's sacred values on this issue also.

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Why Are Educational Standards Going Down?

There are many smart and dedicated people involved in education. Yet a report today in the Wall Street Journal says that only about one fourth of the high school graduates in America are good enough in reading, English, math, and science to succeed in college. Most have not learned enough along to the way to prosper.

These educators want more money, higher salaries, more computers, and more paid vacations-trips to conferences. Most are competent and work at their chosen profession quite hard. Yet the kids are learning less and less.

My theory of the morning is the problem has been caused by encouraging, almost forcing, everyone to graduate from high school. Even the really dumb kids who are in no way academically oriented. Even the members of gangs who are there mostly to sell or buy drugs and maybe occasionally to get laid. Even the kids with terrible, dare I say psychotic, attitudes who consider high school to be the equivalent of jail time.

So the entire educational system has been dumbed down. Heavy duty.
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Our Low Testosterone President

Barack Obama has drawn a line in the sand, very clearly saying, “Over there is where those retard liberals and progressives are, and here is where I stand. I deny being one of those Liberals or a Progressive.” Well he didn't actually have the balls to come right out and say these words, but his message has been crystal clear through the words of his surrogates and via his own actions – or more often his lack of action.

He has now finished the war in Iraq, just like he promised. But there are still 50,000 troops in Iraq, and heaven only knows how many mercenaries and private security contractors. Our dishonest President seems to think that just re-naming these troops in Iraq will fool the American voters.

The Obama War in Afghanistan is going worse every day. Almost no one with any brains and experience thinks that we can possibly win. It is just different scenarios of how badly did America fail this time? He still doesn't have the strength of character, the intellectual rigor, or honesty to just wave goodby and bring ALL the troops home.

Yes, of course the Democrats are much better than the insane, racist Republicans. Well, at least somewhat better. When you look at the blue dog Democrats it sometimes is difficult to see where they in fact are better than the Republicans.

It turns out that he is anti-environmentalist, wanted cost control rather than universal health care, and on economic issues behaves like a Republican wannabe.

Mr. Obama has now gone back on most of his campaign promises. Choosing him after George Jr. sure seemed like the right thing to do at the time. What we didn't understand is that Barack Obama is a total wimp. No backbone, no strength of character. Afraid of a fight, always wanting to form some sort of compromise even when it is with horribly evil and dishonest people.

It hurts to realize and then openly accept that we were so terribly fooled.

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Barack Hussein Obama Backs Mosque at Ground Zero

America has a lot of religious freedom. I have the constitutionally guaranteed right to say that talking snakes are absurd; as is the idea of Mohamed riding up to heaven on his horse launched from a big rock in Jerusalem. But Americans do not have total, absolute, 100% deregulated religious freedom. As an American I cannot form a church which uses the swastika as its main symbol and calls for the murder of all Jews. I can't form a church whose main religious belief is that all black men and dark skinned foreigners should be lynched without trial.

We impose limits on our constitutional freedoms of speech (yelling fire in a crowded theater) and on our religious freedom. Timothy McVeigh was a mass murderer in the Oklahoma City bombing. He was an ignorant sicko political radical, and he also was a Christian. But he did not explode that bomb in the name of Christianity.

All of the men involved in the 911 mass murder were Muslims. The critical difference is that they performed this act of mass murder in the name of the Muslim religion. Female genital mutilation is routinely performed so as to adhere to the Muslim faith. Jews and Israel continue to be targeted for destruction in the name of the Muslim faith. And there is no big opposition inside the Muslim faith saying that these people are murderers.

The continuation of civilized society demands that we have the strength to make intelligent and well informed choices. Building a mosque anywhere in America supports this defective religion. Building a mosque very near to where the world trade center twin towers used to stand is a hard core slap in the face to all peace loving Americans. This has nothing at all to do with Christianity. I am not one bit religious, but I can clearly see that the Muslim religion is openly supporting and causing constant killing and wars. So I oppose the Muslim religion. Not because of some other faith, but because what the Muslims stand for is not compatible with twenty first century America.

The President apparently has no qualms about openly supporting the Muslim faith. Some are saying he has taken a courageous stand. But he sure didn't have any backbone when it came to supporting universal health care. His program was about cost control, not about universal access. He was happy to double to troop levels in Afghanistan. He approved off shore oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas which even Bush-Cheney didn't dare mess with. His economic reforms are so weak and have such little backbone that they are laughable. Almost a Republican wannabe.

I worked in Barrack Hussein Obama's primary and general election campaigns, but now that I realize what he really is, I sure won't be working in his electoral campaigns again. I will continue to vote against the Republicans, but I will certainly not be voting for Mr. Obama.

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Cutting Military Spending

Looking back over world history for the last 3,000 or 4,000 years you find many great and powerful civilizations. Countries which were well educated and accomplished wonderful things in literature, medicine, art, and science. Unfortunately far too large a proportion of these empires have eventually been brought to their knees because of adventurism and excessive military budgets. And once they have declined and fallen, they do not seem to be able to learn from their mistakes and manage to recover. Thousands of years later most are still very poor countries, and are has-been places, living in the past. None that I can think of have ever really recovered. Once they are down, they are out for good.

At least in the past if an empire's military campaign was successful, they were able to plunder great wealth and perhaps add productive citizens and land to their country. Nowadays it is all just spend, spend, spend without getting anything back in return.

The conservative Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried warning the country about the growing “military industrial complex” but to no avail. We were too apathetic to get involved, and this was before the advent of video games, flat screen TVs, and rampant obesity. Once the military contractors achieve a certain level of wealth, they are almost unstoppable. And in America where the legislators are almost all on-the-take (via large campaign contributions), democracy has completely broken down. Human greed and the lust for power are very powerful forces.

It probably is already too late. In the modern vernacular, we are very likely well past the tipping point already. But maybe not. A 40% to 50% reduction in military, defense, and intelligence spending would not make America even a teeny, tiny bit less safe; and it might be enough to prevent us from continuing our fall towards becoming a third world country.

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