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Showing posts from 2011

As we lower the curtain on 2011...

I leave 2011 with some more of the impudence, impertinence, and irreverence: San Diego State University and Boise State University will be joining the Big East Conference in 2013.   No wonder American kids suck at geography. Today’s 24/7 news cycle and political pundits can make or break a candidate in 2011 faster than a real crisis; might as well have Simon and Paula become political analysts. To those Obama 2008 supporters thinking of backing Romney, you need to ask yourselves why you supported Obama to begin with, because Romney is more like McCain than Obama. If I am President Obama I discover my emotional intelligence side and start connecting with folks.   The emotional aspect of voting decisions cannot be underestimated. If vaccines can make you retarded, then Michele Bachmann’s supporters remain the most inoculated demographic in America. While America focuses on the presidential election, the Walker recall election, likely in May or June, will provide some potential insight in

Assessing the Presidential Field

Ron Paul:   Says he is a libertarian and the defender of freedom.   Yet the man who would legalize drugs opposes abortion.   So the crack pipe is the symbol of freedom but the uterus is government property.   Mr. Paul espouses a U.S.   Global disengagement when the world is hyper connected.   If isolationism sank the USSR 20 years ago, what would happen to the U.S. today?   Finally, Dr. Paul believes in delegating federal power to the states.   With state fiscal situation direr than the federal situation, delegating responsibility to the states will be the quickest way to kill any hope of education, welfare, and healthcare reform.   Paul is the perfect candidate for 1781 to promote the Articles of Confederation; he is the most out of touch in 2012. Rick Perry: If it were not for Mitt Romney, Rick Perry would be the poster boy for flip flopping.   The man has moved all over the map on immigration reform depending on the various reactions of debate attendees and his poll numbers.   This

Random Thoughts from a Vacation Day

If Islamic martyrs do go to paradise to be with 72 virgins the twisted part of me hopes it is 72 Justin Biebers singing Baby in a nonstop loop. People are upset that the Saints rolled up the score last night against the Falcons so that Drew Brees could break a record.   Hey Falcons fan, if you don’t like it, tell your team to stop them next time. Did I miss something?   I keep seeing these adds about some doomsday event happening in the U.S. as predicted by the same guy who called the GM and Fannie/Freddie collapses.   OK it’s December 27 th and the clock is running dude. I hear the Muslim Brotherhood Super Pac’s are doing a number on the secular liberal candidiates in the Egyptian parliamentary elections. Tonight was supposed to be Trump Debate.   I guess I will settle for watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Love the Karen O, Atticus Finch, Trent Reznor cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opening credits; a perfect Fincher opening sequenc

Things that make me go huh, holy cow, and WTF

·          Skaneateles High School (NY) cancelled its winter ball to stop students from grinding on the dance floor.     Sorry school officials, Footloose and Dancing with Your Hormones can neither be stopped nor contained. ·          Fort Worth pastor Greg Beutel’s car was badly damaged when a street light fell on it.   When seeking $2,000 of compensation from the city, the city denied the request citing “It was an act of God”. ·          Top three most annoying verbal fillers from Marist College: whatever , like , and you know .   Or as many Gen-Y’ers call it speech. ·          Hackers from China illegally accessed the massive lobbying group The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.   Ironic that a group of political hacks were hacked. ·          Attorneys for Pfc. Bradley Manning claim their defendant’s superiors are the ones to blame because they failed to revoke his security clearance even though he had been demonstrating ‘uncontrollable behavior’.   That may be true, but it’s your client who

I found a few things underneath the Christmas Tree

Our leaders can come up with a long term Fiscal Stability Act that includes $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of revenue   increases without choking off recovery. Our leaders come up with a long term energy plan that includes the safe and environmentally sound extraction and refining of natural sources here, as well as development of future renewable sources, while limiting our economic, political, and security dependency on Middle East sources. The people of Israel and its leaders realize that further antagonism and unilateral actions against the Palestinian Authority and the rest of the world may win a skirmish, but will lose the public opinion war and eventually lead to economic suicide. Europe’s leaders and its central bankers achieve stabilization of its banks and its sovereign wealth funds.   The new globalized world will sink into a deep recession if the Eurozone fails to achieve stability. Liberals and Progressives realize that the numbers don’t add up and that Medicare and Soci

Christmas Eve Stocking Stuffers

Better than Hanes and tube socks President Obama will defeat Mitt Romney 310-228 as the President offsets the losses of Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, and North Carolina by carrying the battleground western states of Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado while holding onto Florida, thanks Rick Scott, and Virginia. The Republican nomination picture will appear be cloudier at the end of January than it really is.   While Rom Paul, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich will all claim victory during the early contests, Romney’s war chest, organization, and party backing will win the war of attrition long before the Florida convention. Al-Assad will not be in power for long in Syria and neither will Saleh in Yemen.   Egypt will compete its parliamentary elections and then the battle will ensue as the military will resist giving up any control while the Muslim Brotherhood fights a two front battle with the military and the militant Salafists.   The Netanyahu government in Israel will continue to be a dis

Some Hanukkah Kvetching

1.        News anchors that hold iPads and stand in front of the camera to look hip and in touch. 2.        College football teams with 6-6 records making it to a bowl game. 3.        Debate formats that aren’t debates but beauty pageants; debates involve one on one intellectual competition. 4.        Calling Bradley Manning a victim 5.        Ignoring the fact that one man, Manning, was able to access and steal such delicate information 6.        Commercials that include bastardizing Christmas Carols (bad enough) with awful lyrics ( Most wonderful sale of the year ) 7.        Lazy people who can’t walk 20 feet to put their shopping cart into one of the many available receptacles in the parking lot 8.        Talk shows with more than four people in the roundtable.   9.        News talk shows that don’t report anything new.   (Maddow is the exception) 10.    Weather reporters (can’t even call them meteorologists) who insist on telling us the temperature in every city and town within the

President Obama's Leadership Grade

The Republican attack machine has so little to go after President Obama with, they are using the trumped up allegation and charge that he has failed as a leader.   Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and all of the GOP Presidential hopefuls lead the charge claiming the President has demonstrated no leadership in dealing with the economy, Iran, China, and a whole slew of other topics.   Granted, most of this is simply political posturing and grandstanding, but it begs the question: “What makes a good leader?” When we hear leader we typically rattle of heads of state, businessmen, sports coaches and stars, and military men.   You know who I am talking about: General George Patton, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Vince Lombardi, etc.    But what makes them good leaders?   I have studied leadership traits and theories and I tend to assess the relative strengths of leaders using the criteria established by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner in their landmark book: The Leadership Challenge.  

Chanukah Chommentary

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How would the nation react to a Cinderella Muslim quarterback who thanked Allah for his team’s success and his physical skills?   What if he placed an Islamic prayer rug behind the bench to thank his God at the end of the game?   I am pretty sure he wouldn’t end up in any Lowe’s commercials. Speaking of Tim Tebow, America’s favorite religious nut bag, Pat Robertson was railing on SNL for its Tebow satire.   Robertson went on to describe a war on Christianity.   Yeah must be that same war tied to Lowes Home Improvement Stores pulling its sponsorships from the 700 Club’s All-American Christian. As expected Asian markets were spooked following the death of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il as the one certainty in finance is nobody likes uncertainty.   Staying on Kim, did you happen to see that GOP Presidential candidate and every student’s best bell curve buddy Rick Perry referred to the deceased dictator as Kim Jong the Second?    The man makes Michele Bachmann look like a Rhodes Scholar

Sunday Wrap Up

I think it’s disingenuous for Bradley Manning’s defense team to claim he did what he did because of his homosexuality and the pressures of DADT. Greatest thanks a nation can give its troops is to never elect a government that uses this precious resource frivolously and flippantly. European nations will have to decide if the environmental concerns associated with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, outweigh dependence on an ever growing nationalistic Russia for natural gas. Tim Tebow is an average quarterback at this stage of his career.   What he lacks in experience and skill, he makes up with in heart, desire, and courage.   Will he get better?   Absolutely.   But it is premature to anoint him to the same class as Brees, Rodgers, and Brady when he has yet prove he is in the same class as Rivers, Stafford, Bradford, and Fitzpatrick. Republicans can’t keep saying things like regulations are killing jobs without citing and quantifying which new regulations are actually killing how many jo

Sheriff Joe Arpaio: America's Biggest Threat to Democracy

America’s toughest sheriff: ·          Arpaio fired his two top aides: Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott and Deputy Chief Larry Black, both of whom have been accused of crimes and misconduct.   Hendershott was an Arpaio favorite and from 1996 to 1999, Hendershott's salary doubled, from about $60,000 to $120,000. In 1999, Arpaio allowed Hendershott to quit, begin collecting a pension of $51,000 annually, then get rehired to his same position at the same $120,000 salary. Four years ago, Larry Black took a $386,000 one-time pension payment, retired, and was rehired as one of Arpaio's top aides. Can you say double dip?   Conclusion, there is no way Arpaio was unaware of his top deputies actions.   ·          Failed to investigate sex crimes.   His MCSO allegedly botched more than 400 sex-crime cases, including some child molestations with victims as young as 2. In many cases, after taking the initial report, sheriff’s deputies failed to do much else -- even when an alleged victim knew

Friday Nights in White Satin Sheets to the Winds of Change

·          I miss Christopher Hitchens.   An original ·          Excuse Hollywood Foreign Press:   How do you ignore Melissa McCarthy, Friday Night Light’s Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, Breaking Bad and it’s co-stars Aaron Paul and Giancarlo Esposito, Justified and its dynamic stars Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, and Margo Martindale? ·          Kobe Bryant getting divorced, pending approval by NBA Commissioner David Stern ·          Loud mouth opinionated hockey commentator Mike Milbury has been charged with assault and battery on a child after an incident at a pee-wee hockey game.   It seems Milbury’s boy was roughed up and dad stepped in.   Not many people will be shedding   a tear about Milbury’s predicament. ·          The Securities and Exchange Commission sued six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives on Friday for misleading the public about the mortgage giants' exposure to risky subprime mortgages as the housing bubble deflated.   That’s a start. ·          A

The Anti-Hypocritical Oath

1)       You can’t say you are for holding people accountable and then not criticize the terribly flawed execution of the Fast and Furious operation 2)       You can’t say Bill Clinton cut and ran out of Somalia and not do the same about Ronald Reagan after he hurriedly withdrew our troops from Lebanon. 3)       You can’t hammer the George W. Bush administration for its methods prosecuting its war on terror and then give President Barak Obama a free pass 4)       You can’t call out the current administration for spending if you were silent during the Republican borrow and spend administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush 5)       You can’t be a Red Sox fan and charge the Yankees with trying to buy a championship 6)       You can’t be ‘for the troops’ and then boo a gay soldier 7)       You can’t be a Christian and then applaud when someone dies on a hospital gurney due to lack of health insurance 8)       You can’t say you love the Constitution and then tell someone to shut up

Tuesdays with Diggie

Trump cancels his debate aka the chat.   Did taste and professionalism win out over sensationalism and Bull shit?   Did the fact that Gingrich and Santorum said yes make them look desperate or diminished?   Ever notice when Ron Paul gets excited he gets that high pitched squeal and sounds like ex-Colts Head Coach Jim Mora?   “Playoffs?” Remember a few weeks ago when the media reported that our drones had been hit with a virus that was capturing and logging all of the drone operators key strokes?   With two drones going down in less than a week, are we seeing the results of a cyber-attack?   Or is it some kid playing Call of Duty? The rate of mysterious explosions in Syria and Iran has been increasing over the last few weeks.   Is it the Israelis, Americans, or both conducting covert operations against the regime?   Probably, but you see Mitt, Newt, Rick, and others, there called COVERT operations because you’re not supposed to let the other side know what you are planning.   Children.

Monday Mishegas: December 12, 2011

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·          Just because I don’t drink the Tim Tebow Kool-Aid it doesn’t mean I am anti-Christian.   I only want to know why he gets all of the love for basically doing what Mark Sanchez has been doing? ·          You can disagree with the President’s policies, but you should never negligently challenge his patriotism. ·          You cannot support a balanced budget amendment and then ignore an agreed upon deficit reduction plan (pssst that means you. Yeah you congressional Republicans) ·          Bachmann opposes Wall Street Bailout and financial reform.   In other words we should accept systematic financial failure over and over again. ·          Newt Gingrich is definitely the quickest and snarkiest of the GOP debaters.   Making him a great candidate and a shitty President. ·          As great as President Obama’s national security team has performed, his justice and economic teams have been commensurately mediocre. ·          After President Obama wins re-election he needs to replac