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Thursday, November 1. 2007
War is Good!
If you’re wondering why “we” (some of us at least) live in California, look no further than the photo on the left. Taken at Mission Beach in San Diego in February — FEBRUARY! — that’s a big reason for me anyway … and the year-round nice weather!
This got started in such fashion because California has been going through one crisis after another as of late. As the whole world knows, Southern California was burning—the largest wild fire in state history—all of last week, and still burns actually, and earlier today San Jose was hit with a 5.6 magnitude earthquake. So why would anyone continue to live here?
California has a vibe and that vibe appeals to a certain type of person. It’s the same for New York City, Miami (Florida in general), and New Orleans. Regardless of the drawbacks, there’s something about living in one of these areas that no amount of natural disaster can drive us away. The California “vibe” has many different facets; the one most people see and assume is the California “vibe” is the glamorous one portrayed on TV, in the gossip rags and on the Internets. We’ve all seen the photos of Brangelina and their clan, bopping through some nice neighborhood; some of the most sought after party invitations emanate from Hugh Hefner’s home, most commonly referred to as “The Mansion” by those “in the know.”
But there’s more to it than that. A trip up Highway 1 along the coast, basically from Malibu to Santa Cruz, gives the cruiser a day’s worth of spectacular scenery; a coastline with areas still left unfettered by the insanity of unchecked development. Then of course there are the mountains, deserts and Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe. Ever see the sun rise over the desert? Something everyone should witness at least once.
People are pretty much free to be who they are in California, much more so than in most other places. Let’s face it: could Hugh Hefner be who he is if he had remained in Chicago? I like Chicago, by the way. One of my favorite cities in America, but in terms of allure and culture, it doesn’t hold a candle to San Francisco, or even Los Angeles. Chicago has its own charm though, and many people I know who live there love it. Great nightlife, mostly unfettered by the egos of stardom. Well, they did have Michael Jordan for a while and in the mid-1980’s the Bears. Winning championships will do that.
For me, it’s that big ocean just a few short miles from where I sit; sometimes blue, gray, and on occasion, that turquoise green. Once you see a sunset from La Jolla Cove you’ll be hooked.Yes, you can have your blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes. I like my state just the way it is, wild fires and earthquakes be damned.
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One thing I like about having a Yahoo! E-mail account is that it’s always accompanied by interesting news stories. This one: Albert Snyder, the father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, was awarded nearly 11 million dollars in a lawsuit leveled against the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.
They run a website called godhatesfags.com. I kid you not! Talk about a hatred! Besides “fags,” those kookie Baptists hate Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims as well as the countries of Sweden, Canada and the United States.
So, the young Marine, Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, a Maryland native, and during his funeral members of that kookie Baptist church, run by Fred Phelps and his equally abhorrent daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, picketed with signs saying things like “Thank God for IED’s” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.”One part of me thinks “Good.” Let the religious kooks deal with the constant pressure of having to pay the damages, everything they own getting a lien, their ability to travel curtailed by financial hardship … but the other part of me has concerns for the First Amendment. If the religious kooks want to parade around with their First Century ideas, let’em. But do they have the right to interrupt something as private as a funeral? The jury said no. Question is, will the verdict get over-turned on appeal? The religious kooks will surly appeal. They don’t have the assets to pay the damages; I’d be surprised if they have much more than a million dollars between all the members of the cult, made up mainly of family members and their extended families. Possibly 100 people in all.
As written in a previous blog, I subscribe to some conservative web sites and receive their e-mail alerts. One of the latest from right wing nut organization called Townhall.com, a group started by the Heritage Foundation but now claims to have broken away from that “think” tank. Their most recent e-mail alert is a campaign spearheaded by Pat Boone. He has sold over 45 million records and made 12 “hit” movies without ever uttering a profanity and having graphic scenes in his movie! Awe, that’s so cute! Your movies suck Pat and most of your songs are quite forgotten by the majority of the world’s population.
Pat is starting another campaign to diminish your right to watch what you like on television. You’ll want to start a backlash against Pat Boone, asking advertisers to boycott any television and radio programs featuring the old, old singer/actor.
To start, the alert has a link to Boone’s survey, Click Here, and what I did was mark the “disagree” button on all his questions and points.One of the things I like about owning a television is that it has two control mechanisms, one that allows the viewer to CHANGE THE CHANNEL and another that allows the viewer to TURN IT ON AND OFF. And for parents, every TV these days has the “V” chip. I’m not sure how to work them, never wanted to use one, but every TV has one, unless your set is more than 20 years old. Not to mention, with cable and satellite TV being what they are, all the receiver boxes have parental controls on them giving parents a multitude of ways to block programming.
For several years I worked for a major cable television provider and would occasionally tell subscribers how to use the parental controls. They’re rather easy and require nothing more than having a pin number. Parents may have to be diligent and change the pin number from time-to-time and discipline their own children for causing them to change that pin number, but it’s all left in the hands of the parents. It’s called parenting.
Parents are going to respond with how hard it is to be a parent, how difficult it is to monitor everything their kids consume as radio and television users … well, too fuckin’ bad. You chose to have children, either by direct design or by having unprotected sex, so it’s your responsibility to control what your kids watch on TV and listen to on the radio, not the government’s. When did it become the norm to have the FCC be the national babysitter?
The e-mail alert that causes me the greater concern though is from NewsMax.com. It alerts investors to buy more shares of oil, gold, silver and to invest in foreign currency because as the price of the commodities go up, the strength of the dollar diminishes. And why are the prices of those commodities going up? Increased danger of an expanded war in the Middle East.
The price of a barrel of crude oil reached $96 on Wednesday due to the expected war between Turkey and the Kurds in Northern Iraq and the anti-Iran rhetoric coming from the administration. Let me quote a few paragraphs from the e-mail:
The new U.S. sanctions against Iran include the U.S. freezing Iranian assets in U.S. banks, blacklisting three Iranian state-owned banks and companies controlled by the Iranian defense ministry, and reiterating that the U.S. regards several branches of the Iranian government — including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. (IRGC) and Iran’s elite Quds Force as terrorist organizations responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers through their support of insurgents in Iraq.
The new U.S. sanctions will make it much more difficult for Iran to transact business in the U.S., but more importantly make it unlikely that the U.S. and Iran will peacefully settle their differences over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program — which the U.S. insists is a prelude to Iranian nuclear weapons, and which Iran insists is only for the peaceful production of nuclear energy.
Further sanctions against Iran and U.S. insistence that Iran abandon all nuclear enrichment programs make a diplomatic settlement with Iran less likely. That's because Iran’s nuclear program is a source of national pride (as well as a major investment), and any Iranian leaders who surrender to the U.S. on this issue would likely be signing their own political death sentence.
The bottom line is that war with Iran is now much more likely before Bush leaves office, with enormous effects on world oil and gold prices, and the U.S. economy.
The e-mail then goes on to tell us that many of their subscribers have taken advantage of previous alerts—when Bush and his ilk ratcheted up its rhetoric to start a war with Iraq and then the subsequent war—to invest in the oil and gold markets and saw their investments double or go even higher. In other words, the blood of our young men and women could pay off for you and your investments.The e-mail goes on to applaud the likelihood we will be paying more than $5.00 for a gallon of gas in the near future, as this will increase the value of your oil investment, and gold, which is trading right now at about $745 per ounce, will reach $1,000 or more as the dollar declines and the U.S. marches to war with Iran. And of course you’ll want to invest in the yen or the euro, and China’s currency … can’t remember what it’s called … the Yuan!
The NewsMax e-mail strongly suggests investing in the Canadian dollar!
Remember in 2001 when Vice President Dick Cheney had his super secret meetings with the heads of the various oil companies? We weren’t even told who was present at those White House meetings, let alone what was discussed, but is it any surprise we went to war, under false pretenses, and the oil companies have been posting record profits ever since? It isn’t just about opening up previously protected lands for oil exploration, it’s about driving up the price of gas at the pump, at the expense of the average American citizen, so the oil companies can reap record profits.During Vietnam one of the many issues involving that war were the record profits earned by the defense contractors who made the weapons used to fight the Vietnamese. Now, the stakes are much higher because the record profits are being earned more directly on the backs of U.S. consumers. As the economy falters, and the NewsMax e-mail predicts a major recession by next summer, those who have invested in oil and gold — in the misery and suffering of Americans — will reap plenty of rewards in their investment portfolios.
In the coming months as you scramble to make ends meet and ask yourself questions like, “is it more important to have enough gas in my car to get to and from work, or to put food on the table,” you can be comforted knowing your anguish and hardship are earning high dividends for the oil companies and their investors! You can also remember the people at NewsMax.com like the idea of another war, one with Iran and, they hope, between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.
Not only is Bush the worst president in this Nation’s history, but his administration is by far the most damaging to our Nation’s well being. They started a war so their cronies in the oil industry could make a killing; and that killing requires the continued killing of U.S. service men and women in the Middle East. Next year, when we’re watching our troops getting ready to invade Iran, be prepared to pay $5.00 or more for a gallon of gas and ask yourself this question: are your hardships at home, and the deaths of thousands of America’s service personnel worth the profits the oil companies and NewsMax.com supporters will reap from the results of the war?
I hope your answer is “No.”
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