This video is a little alarming.
Yes - I understand that we have a gigantic military budget - but we also have a 100% voluntary military. Other nations who don’t spend as much on the development of their defense capabilities do so because they have the luxury of a large force that will always be replenishing as long as their populations keep procreating. There are so many other arguments against what Obama is saying here… but I’ll leave that to the comments.
I stumbled across an atheist blog tonight, and I just had to send the author (”Brian,” I guess) a message.
His blog points out a litany of horrible things that have happened at the hands of religious radicals… Christians, Muslims… pretty much no faith is spared.
This is all well and good, except he is clearly building a very one-sided argument. As someone who is somewhat religious, I felt it was my duty to point this out. I replied to the top post on his blog as follows:
Like so many in the atheist community - it would appear that you would throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Do you realize the logic you use in many of the posts on your site to vilify religion is similar to the logic that people use to vilify the U.S.A.? “Oh - the U.S. is soooo terrible… so greedy… so war-mongering… so lazy… so fat…” The funny thing is that this type of one-sided assessment ignores the fact that the U.S.A. is the most charitable and generous nation on the planet.
Many atheists - and from what little I’ve read here, Brian is one of them - comprise a truly perplexing, oxymoronic lot. They claim to have so much irrefutable knowledge and insight, yet are themselves so myopic and bigoted. In the end, it seems to me, that you are no better than those you strive so fervently to tear down.
I agree with you that people who use religion as a justification for committing horrible crimes against other people are among the worst of the worst that humanity has to offer. Yet, I still try to pray for these people in spite of my utter revulsion to the deeds that have been done in the name of God.
Attempting to label an entire group based on the actions of a minority is pretty much the definition of prejudice. You are doing nothing more than fomenting intolerance in your blog… nothing more.
I have nothing against atheists, yet I meet so few who are reasonable and tolerant. Apparently the author of Religion *is* a Problem is neither.
The search continues…
In a commencement speech at Wesleyan University, Barack Obama advised graduates not to pursue the American dream of success. Ivy League graduates who live in big homes can be selfish, you know. Read the article here
According to Mike Dorning of the Chicago Tribune, Oprah Winfrey used to attend the same church that Barack Obama attended for years, but left because she was not comfortable with Reverend Wright’s controversial views and fiery diatribes.
I am not one to believe that Senator Obama should be held accountable for the racist, anti-American rants of Jeremiah Wright, but this recent revelation does make me stop and ponder Obama’s judgment.
Oprah had the common (read “business”) sense to realize very early on that, if she were to be associated with such garbage, she would likely suffer incredibly for it. She would probably lose a good number of fans who watch her show, buy her magazine, etc. It would have hit her right in the pocketbook.
Why couldn’t Senator Obama have demonstrated the same vision and forethought? Pleading ignorance doesn’t seem to hold much water… (”I wasn’t there for those sermons…”). It’s a little difficult to believe that he did not know about his pastor’s views when he attended church at Trinity United Church of Christ for a long as he did (Senator Obama has been a member there since 1988). It’s troubling not because I think Obama subscribes to the same views as Wright, but because he did not exercise the judgment to distance himself from something that could potentially torpedo his chances of becoming our President.
Or, as Michael Ramirez puts it:
click the image for a (slightly) larger version
According to a report released today by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, the Bush administration lied on a scale the seems almost unbelievable in the time between 9/11 and the launch of hostilities against Iraq in March, 2003.
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both. (Source)
It truly is sad to believe that we as a nation were duped by someone seemingly as unintelligent as President Bush. It is even more disturbing that our media really didn’t do its job during the build-up to the invasion; fearing that they would be labeled “unpatriotic.”
Scientific American has published an incredibly detailed article laying out how the United States could drastically reduce its dependency on foreign oil by the year 2050. The cost? As it turns out, it would cost less than the U.S. has spent on the war in Iraq to this point. Here are the main points the article makes:
Interesting read. If Bush really cared about his legacy - maybe he’d start something as ambitious as this before his lame duck self leaves 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I won’t hold my breath.
If the mere fact that the U.S. should have never gotten involved in Iraq (because there was no imminent threat by Saddam Hussein) doesn’t get you angry, put the cost of the war into perspective.
If you are the head of a household in the U.S. - the cost of this war to you so far has been $4,100. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have that kind of scratch lying around. Thanks Mr. Bush - for choosing to spend that money for me on something that has further injured the image of the U.S. among the very people who hate us most, killed narly 4,000 U.S. soldiers, injured over 60,000 U.S. soldiers, killed over 700,000 and displaced over 7 million Iraqis. (source)
And to think - we could have had near energy independence…
Eric of Blog-O-Matic has a terrific post about why Chuck Norris would make a great VP… check it out!
In his first one-on-one interview following the assassination of political rival Benazir Bhutto, Pakastani President Pervez Musharraf laid all the blame for the hit at to feet of the victim:
“For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers,” Musharraf says.
Now, I find it a bit odd that anyone would blame the victim for the crime. If anything, Bhutto was the victim of poor judgment - but not responsible for her own death.
When Bhutto died, so did the West’s hopes for any real reform in Pakistan. Under Musharraf, we will never be able to rein in the radical Islamic terrorists that reside in that country (which most likely includes Osama bin Laden). Very sad - and a major setback for the world.
In this article I found in the Chicago Tribune (that originally appeared in the L.A. Times), a young boy’s family is being sued for an accident he had on the ski slopes last year in Colorado. Apparently, there are coddlers among us who have taken up the boy’s cause under the banner of “excessive litigation.” The boy’s mother made a statement that really set me off:
The young skier’s parents, Susan and Robb Swimm, are happy the public shares their outrage. “People are really angry about this, and they should be,” she said. “What kind of a message are we sending to our children if we’re just going to turn around and sue after an accident on a ski slope?”
Uh… let me tell you Susan: it’s called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. I am a skier. From the first day I took to the slopes, I was told that I was responsible for my safety, and that meant that I was responsible for NOT RUNNING INTO OTHER SKIERS. It’s a pretty simple notion - if you cannot control yourself, then stay off the slopes until they are not quite so crowded.
Young Scott Swimm - being coddled by Daddy
Now, the older man who is suing the Swimms allegedly grabbed the kid after he was hit and cursed him out. Boo-freaking-hoo. I mean, if he started beating the kid with a ski pole, then that’s assault and that would be horribly wrong. But the Swimms apparently have no basis for a counter suit of that nature, so they are just relying on the sympathy of the pathetic coddling masses of the United States to come to their aid and ruin the old man’s holiday by engaging in harassment (uh… which is illegal), driving him and his family from their home to avoid the flood of phone calls they were receiving.
The article referenced above leaves a lot of information out - like why didn’t the victim’s insurance company sue the Swimm family… (i.e. why is this apparently a “personal” lawsuit)? This omission, among others, aside - the simple fact is that this kid injured someone on a ski slope - and the family of the child has a responsibility to compensate the victim for medical bills at the least - and the $75,000 in the suit sounds reasonable to cover the bills resulting from the injuries sustained, which included severe rotator cuff damage. It’s not like the guy is suing for multiple millions of dollars for “pain and suffering.”
But in this new age of coddled Millennials and helicopter parents, this type of idiocy doesn’t surprise me. It does concern me, however. If we continue to over-coddle, how will anyone ever learn to take responsibility for his/her own actions?
To add on to why I loathe the New England Patriots - and especially their pretty-boy QB Tom Brady, here’s what he had to say in a readio interview recently:
“We’re not trying to win 42-28, we’re trying to kill teams, we’re trying to blow them out if we can.” (Source)
If that doesn’t just put the ol’ bullseye squarely on him for the rest of the season, I don’t know what will. His offensive line better be up to the task.