I am rarely angry, but wow

From the AP... 


By MATTI FRIEDMAN
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) - The U.S. will cut $100 million in American aid money to Palestinians in Gaza if the territory's Hamas rulers continue with "unwarranted audits" of local American nonprofit organizations, a state department official said Friday.

The American threat came in response to a growing attempt by Hamas to exert control over the international organizations that support the many impoverished Palestinians among Gaza's population of 1.5 million people.

This week, Hamas shut down the U.S.-financed International Medical Corps after it refused to submit to a Hamas audit.

The State Department informed Hamas on Thursday that aid worth $100 million would be halted if the International Medical Corps were not allowed to operate freely.

"If they are not allowed to reopen and operate then obviously we are looking at USAID to suspend all operations until the IMC is allowed to reopen," said a state department official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "These are unwarranted audits and amount to an increase in harassment of humanitarian relief staff."

The U.S., which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, does not have direct contact with the group.

Hamas has told nonprofit groups that they must be registered with the Gaza government and provide financial records.

Mohammed Awad, the Hamas minister of planning in Gaza, said the organizations had agreed to have their accounts vetted through a Hamas-appointed accountant.

"We are not saying there is corruption in these organizations but we are trying to put things in order and to ensure that these organizations are providing services to citizens," he said. "These organizations entered this land on this basis."

Hamas - an Islamic group backed by Iran - has been slowly spreading its influence to local groups that had remained outside its control, possibly viewing them as a political threat.

No significant, organized opposition to Hamas exists in Gaza, which came under the group seized in a violent takeover from rival Palestinians in 2007. That takeover followed a Hamas victory in Palestinian elections the previous year.

Most of the international community views the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which now governs only the West Bank, as the Palestinians' legitimate government.

One such group, a non-governmental organization called the Sharek Youth Forum, was shut down outright last month.

____

Rizek Abdul Jawad contributed to this report from Gaza City.

Really? We give 100 million dollars to palestine? Which is under Hamas control? Hamas?, whom we have designated a "terrorist organization", and yet we still give 100 million? 

Heeeyyyy... Now, I may be off base a bit, I'm certain I'm missing something... But, I have an idea where we can start trimming some of that whole budget thingy. Is anyone else with me on this?


I must say that it's my instinct to say let them sort themselves out and we'll deal with the survivors. That may seem a bit isolationistic of me, but I believe a certain amount of pullback from our MASSIVE expenditures in both treasure and blood in the rest of the world's affairs is in order here.

I am tired of being the world's arbiter
I am tired of being who the world looks to for rescue
I am tired of being the world's police force
I am tired of us pouring untold billions into the money pit that is everywhere else.

Let's take that capital and invest it back into OUR infrastructure, into OUR schools and OUR hospitals. 
Let's build a rail infrastructure second to none on earth. 
Let's return our dilapidated highway system to the envy of the world. 
Let's turn our education system back into the envy of the world. 
Let's upgrade our power grid until it is again the the envy of the world. 
Let us abandon our status as a debtor nation and return to being a creditor nation.

Let the rest of the world pound sand for a decade or two. We have family to care for before we start helping the neighbors.

Way to go San Fran!!!.

I just read this little gem of a news item from the great people's republic of San Francisco.

"By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press – Sat Aug 13, 3:52 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Transit officials blocked cellphone reception in San Francisco train stations for three hours to disrupt planned demonstrations over a police shooting.

Officials with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, better known as BART, said Friday that they turned off electricity to cellular towers in four stations from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The move was made after BART learned that protesters planned to use mobile devices to coordinate a demonstration on train platforms.

The tactic drew comparisons to those used by the former president of Egypt to squelch protests demanding an end to his authoritarian rule. Authorities there cut Internet and cellphone services in the country for days earlier this year.

"BART officials are showing themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on its website.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the tactic, saying on its blog that it was the "wrong response to political protests."

BART officials were confident the cellphone disruptions were legal. They said in a statement that it's illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains, and that it has set aside special areas for demonstrations.

The demonstration planned Thursday failed to develop. "We had a commute that was safe and without disruption," said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

The demonstrators were protesting the July 3 shooting of Charles Blair Hill by BART police, who claimed Hill came at them with a knife. Several people were arrested when a July 11 demonstration disrupted service during the rush-hour commute and prompted the closing of BART's Civic Center station."

Three cheers to you San francisco!! It's about time someone cracked down on that stupid 1st amendment with a little preemptive action! Well done! That will show those layabout ne'er-do-well jackanapes just exactly who has the authority in your town! Protesting a shooting indeed, I have never heard such shocking disrespect for authority in all my days.

 And to plan a demonstration which clearly disregards the "special areas" which you have so graciously set aside for demonstrations so any such demonstrations cannot disrupt even for a moment the orderly and controlled flow of workers to and from their assigned duties. To have a demonstration cause a disruption or inconvenience simply goes against everything that you have been so long trying to ingrain into their minds. Everyone knows that disruption of the planned routine is antithetical to order and control. I mean really, who do these protesters think they are? It's not like San Francisco lays claim to any kind of tradition of free thinking, where do they think they are Haight-Ashbury? Wherever that is. 

Well! What other choice could you have possibly made than to shut down everyone's ability to communicate, thus snipping the strings of their anarchistic puppet masters before they could ever make them dance their disruptive, and therefore dangerous dance. 

"BART officials were confident the cellphone disruptions were legal. They said in a statement that it's illegal to demonstrate on the platform or aboard the trains, and that it has set aside special areas for demonstrations."

And the proof of it is that there was no such protest. The quick actions of BART have also assured that there were zero lion attacks and bear maulings. Their quick actions of shutting down everyone's ability to communicate has also prevented a repeat of the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, thus preventing us all from the hell of yet another world war which would have no doubt resulted in the deaths of untold millions, possibly even billions of innocents. Thank you San Francisco. 

"The demonstration planned Thursday failed to develop. "We had a commute that was safe and without disruption," said BART spokesman Jim Allison."

See, the ends justify the means, just look to San Francisco from now on for order and preemptive action. 

I'll shut up now and get back to my pottery. 

food food food

Hello everyone, Joe Wahler here again for some more of my opinion, I recently read this piece in the NYT by Mark Bittman and thought how thoroughly condescending and at the same time naive of him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24bittman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hpw

If you tax soda the only thing that will be accomplished is that you will take more money from poor, uneducated people. They will not stop drinking soda, it's loaded with caffeine, and sugar.

The answer is to do something effective, educate don't legislate, and if the people choose not to participate... well that's their choice, not anyone else's.

The point of good food is not to attempt to feel superior to, or to pass judgement upon, or to impose your will upon those so less fortunate that they don't know the difference between pork injected with a solution to enhance flavor, and a proper piece of old breed loin. That condescending attitude will only serve to alienate those whom you are trying to reach.

It's like placing a tax on soda, "We know what's best for you, and will punish you for this behavior", that attitude is smug at best, and it may fill you with a self satisfied sense of superiority, but it's a false one because in the end, you want those whom you are punishing with your taxes as your allies, not your underlings.

These people are your fellow citizens, they are not your charges to care for because you know best. They have the exact same rights to do with their own bodies as you have. This debate is actually a political one, it's the age old battle between collectivism on the tax side, and individualism on the other. Barring a completely and totally irrefutable argument from the former, I shall always choose the latter. Because the latter always allows one to participate in the former if he so chooses, while the former by it's very nature precludes the latter.

What a strange trip.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general


I just read an article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times titled "The Lesser Depression", and it reminded me of the time when a moving sidewalk malfunction at one of our safe and secure airports deposited me in our "mirror universe". A place where the people are all the same, but something about them is different. Paul Krugman as an example, in that alternate universe he was an actual economist, was well versed in history, and could quite literally grasp basic mathematic concepts. Oh yeah, and he didn't have a beard.

That Krugman would have never blamed the crash on corporations not falling upon their swords by way of extravagant spending in order to save the economy, and he certainly would have never made any such statement which implied that the "stimulus" plan was anything but a cash grab for the FOOB, or "Friends Of OBama". Where did all that money go by the way? Does anyone know?.... anywhere?

I lost my shirt investing in a "job ready" shovel company.

PS. Obama is the president over there as well, but he got there by having Hilary killed in a shooting accident with his now cyborg VP Dick Cheney. They both have beards. Joe Biden had to close his hot dog and foot massage stand due to some questionable practices we won't go into here.

So anyway, someone got me to say my name backwards and here I suddenly find myself, where Krugman is an idiot, and all is right with the world.

Till next time;

relhaw eoj

THE BARRIER IS DOWN!!!!

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-job-losses-prove-stimulus-worked

The logic barrier, after years and years of attempts, has finally been shattered completely. People as far as 100 miles away were able to hear the "reason boom" as our great leader Barack Obama was able to outpace the nearest national competitors Kim Jung Il and his Venezuelan rival mr. saggy face.

The key to this triumph it seems was not in the mere absurdity of any one claim, as this only generates random directional bursts of ridiculousness which die out rather quickly and never really threaten the logical thought barrier. But rather the gyroscopic "spin" which has become the hallmark of this great administration's efforts with the cutting edge "bamboozle drive" Without the "spin" as it were, the "bamboozle effect" would never have been able to achieve sufficient "anti logic" for long enough to even attempt to shatter the heretofore impervious barrier.

We are all to be applauded, for without the tireless efforts of all those years of federally controlled public education, a feat such as this could never have even been dreamed of, let alone actually accomplished. I say, 3 cheers, and a hip hip huzzah!

Where's my gin and tonic, I'm going to the pool now. CHEERS!!

WOW!! and I thought I was crazy

I just read an article by an insane person. 


http://www.salon.com/books/history/index.html?story=%2Fpolitics%2Fwar_room%2F2011%2F07%2F05%2Flind_three_fundamentalisms


The progressives are exactly the same, their sect alone understands the True religion, and the True Constitution, and the laws of the market. The answer lies somewhere in the middle , between the 2 radical ends, which do not represent the vast majority by the way. 

You see, the great society was a failure, not because of it's ideals and morals, but because the left refused to incorporate the concepts of fiscal conservatism. Borrow and spend became the policy du jour, and it became so acceptable that it became the norm no matter which side was in power. When the only time that is really acceptable is in a time of national emergency. When your government is run in a constant state of emergency, spending more money than you have on programs that cannot be done away with and paying for it with borrowing, the piper will one day be paid. 

The "conservative" answer is to cut spending before we go over that precipice. The "liberal" answer is to raise taxes. Now, there is a given in government, that the more money they have, the larger they will make the government, that is an axiom that has been proven in this nation for 235 years now. So, given that known fact, does it really make sense to just feed the beast more. 

Our current government is that 1000 pound man who cannot leave his bed, if something is not done very soon, he will die. The liberals say the only answer is to bring him another bucket of fried chicken.


By the way, his rather simplistic and quite obvious disdain for any who may share a right leaning view is not even remotely disguised in this article.

I myself am somewhat of a social liberal, while maintaining that fiscal conservatism is the only sane policy. Yet to the average person on the left these days, I am considered to be the equivalent of Mussolini.

Remember this article was written by a man who truly believes that affirmative action was implemented for the sole purpose of destroying the connection between liberalism, and the civil rights movement.

This guy also believes: "After the 1990 census, the first Bush administration collaborated with the civil rights establishment to reapportion and create as many black and Hispanic congressional districts as possible, thereby pulling the rug out from under white Democrats in surrounding districts and making it easier for the GOP to win control of Congress in 1994." 


Does that really make any sense to anyone at all?

Lind favors a system of "proportional voting", what the hell is that? .

He wants to raise wages by BANNING all unskilled immigration.

He is in favor of a tariff on all third world imports, but not on any others.

Many of the points he makes in his book are indeed true, but so were Mussolini's. Read his book, and you will see enough truth to make you consider his solutions, hopefully right before you decide he is a madman and a very poorly hidden racist, Oh wait, my mistake, that's probably my right wing, conservative, white supremacist acceptance of multiculturalism showing.


OK, I'll shut up now. 

what a twit

I was recently asked by an author friend of mine whom I respect greatly to do a critique on this piece in "Slate"

http://www.slate.com/id/2297019/

Following is my response to him, please do read the piece yourselves and do try to refrain what using foul language while doing so. I could not. But please do feel free to voice your opinion here in comments, was I wrong? Or is this guy really as much a condescending, academic twit, as I think he is?


Dear Dan,

"Man dude I just can't. I have never seen so much twaddle piled up in one condescending place at one time, it's overwhelming. Firstly, Robert Noznick was NOT the "father" of libertarianism, that's been around for centuries.

Then he could not get his head out of the academia ass long enough to look around and breathe, where one could logically argue the merits of full blown communism ad nauseum and have it be perfectly accepted. Until it enters the real world that is, where that model must then interact with actual living human individual beings, and it, as a result, falls utterly apart. No worker bees in a free society.

Which is exactly what this turd is arguing against, a free society. Even his "gardener" example is a "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" statement. It sounds wonderful, but you know what, I don't want to take care of "your needs". I'm busy enough handling my own, and who the hell is the arbiter of those needs of mine? Who is it placed "in charge"?

There is absurdity after rose colored glasses absurdity in this piece.

And the mere fact that it is a libertarian concept of a free press which allows him to print this drivel without fear of reprisals is apparently quite lost on him.

This buffoon ignores the fact that libertarianism takes advantage of human nature and the fact that people are not worker bees, but indeed they are thinking individuals, with different ideas, and agendas. Even agendas which try to push worker bee mentality onto us poor, ignorant masses.

This was in no way the complete dissection and refutation this article so desperately deserves, but I only have so much time on earth to devote to showing the fools a mirror. So, I'll shut up now ;-)"