Doing The Right Thing.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

Barrack Obama during his first Presidential election campaign

Seven years ago a young fellow called Barrack Obama was running for President. One of the cornerstones of his campaign was a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, which he called “a dumb war”.

In that much he was right. It was a dumb war, instigated by the dumb American and British politicians who preceded him and who had the deceit and arrogance to lie to their electorates in order to manufacture an excuse to invade that country.

It was always destined to be a disaster. Once Saddam had been eliminated there was no strong leader to hold Iraq together. He may have been a monster, no one is arguing he wasn’t, but without him, or someone like him, things have far from improved. That is just the harsh reality, like it or not.

Seven years ago Obama had no moral objection to the fact that a withdrawal of the occupying forces in Iraq might leave the way open to civil war and genocide. In fact to quote him from that period he said, “[If] that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done.”

He could have said the same about many other countries in the world where civil strife raged.

So today the speeches laden with moral indignation, telling the world that he has ordered military action in Iraq “to prevent a potential act of genocide,” ring mightily hollow.

It would be much better if Obama came clean.

I know it’s a bit of a reach for a politician to start telling the truth, but it would help.

Obama needs to tell the world that he will clean up the mess he and his predecessors made. He needs to admit that the “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” that he said he had left behind, when U.S. troops pulled out, was a dream that has deteriorated into a nightmare. And he needs to remove the advisors who prompted him to compare ISIS to a junior varsity basketball team when he was interviewed on the subject in January this year. That was just another thing they got completely and tragically wrong.

Yes, I’m asking for a bit of honesty and humility, that’s all.

What I’m hearing instead, however, is more claptrap and confusion.

Vice President Joe Biden is telling everyone that the U.S. “will follow ISIS to the gates of hell”, while other senior Obama Administration officials are assuring us that America is, “not launching a sustained US campaign against ISIS…”

Journalist James Foley minutes before he was beheaded by ISIS terrorists

Conflicting statements like those, in the face of the continuing barbaric beheadings of men, women and even children, and other heinous crimes committed by these despicable and godless terrorists, will hardly strike fear into them. Perhaps the strategy is to have them so helpless with laughter that they cannot continue fighting?

Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

After all this time and after all these failed initiatives we must be getting closer to doing the right thing  –  surely???

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What A Flipping President – What A Flipping Mess!!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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President Obama said in June that he would be prepared to “take targeted and precise military action” in Iraq, whatever that meant.

But it’s taken him two months to make the decision. Two months during which Islamist militants have swept through northern and western Iraq and are now threatening Christians in that country with religious conversion or death.

So far its not only too little too late, but half-hearted to boot, with Obama saying that the step was being taken to defend US personnel in the city of Irbil and protect religious minorities facing what he called a “potential act of genocide” from the Islamic State, the extremist group most recently known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

There doesn’t seem much “potential” about from the reports I am reading.

It’s as if the President’s Administration and his advisors didn’t see it coming!

This belated decision is yet another turning point in the Obama administration’s dreadfully badly thought out foreign policy, which has seen his ratings plummet, both at home and in the eyes of the world.

Even now his administration’s goals remain unclear. For example, is this latest move a tactical decision, or a simple reaction to the consequences of failing to act sooner, or is there a strategy behind it?

I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else knows, but I fear it is just the former. Sadly, a belated attempt to halt ISIS’s advance toward Irbil won’t be enough – and if I know that, why don’t Obama’s advisors?

Of course, on the other side of the political fence, rather predictably, some of the gung-ho Republicans, always spoiling for a fight (somewhere other than in the US), have quickly jumped on the bandwagon and tried to use this latest debacle to score political points against the President.

They have criticized Obama’s inaction in Syria and the failure to bolster moderate rebel forces there as contributing to ISIS’s growth. But hang on a moment GOPers, think it through before you speak (this will be new territory to most of them!). If the President had intervened (or rather, been allowed to intervene) in Syria he would have been intervening on the same side as ISIS, not against them.

Then we would have had an even more bewildering situation where US troops would have been fighting with ISIS (effectively) in Syria against Assad and at the same time fighting against ISIS in Iraq trying to stop their genocidal purge of the Christian community there.

It is this kind of utter confusion that has over the past few years greatly diminished America’s global influence and standing.

The mess that was left in Iraq after Bush’s invasion on the false premise (the lie) of WMDs, and Obama’s withdrawal of troops on the equally disingenuous premise (another lie) that they had brought peace to the country, is a disgrace.

And unfortunately it sends a message to the world that America is confused, indecisive, deceitful, short-sighted, blundering – in short all the things that you don’t want the world to think about you if you want to be taken seriously.

What a flipping mess!

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They Say Pride Goes Before A Fall

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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So, if pride goes before a fall, what goes before a CRASH?

Well, in terms of the pathetic Obamacare web site, the usual form of words from the Obama Administration is

“…the site was fully-functioning for a “vast majority” of users.”

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CRASH!

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It happened again last week, early Friday afternoon in fact, as millions of Americans tried to get insurance coverage before the deadline.

I don’t know where they got the information that the site was functioning for the “vast majority of users”.

Well, I do actually. It was a lie. Another one.

In fact the healthcare.gov is not fully-functioning for anyone. On the positive side I suppose you could say that everyone has an equal chance of not being able to use the web site, but that is small comfort to those trying to do so.

And this is just the latest CRASH of many. Last November there was another major one. They “fixed” it, except of course they didn’t, they just got it working for a while, until it toppled over again.

Left in the hands of idiot bureaucrats who clearly have no idea what they are doing, no system can work efficiently. They choose bad designers, who use bad code, produce a bad product, and then are amazed and surprised when it doesn’t work.

There are tens of thousands of commercial web sites, like Google, Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, even Wikipedia, that take much higher traffic every day without crashing – and they’ve been doing it for years.

Yet the bureaucratic bunglers can’t get their web site working for more than a few weeks at a time.

About all they got right was the timing of the CRASH.

No, wait, they even got that wrong, because the whole debacle happened less than two hours before President Obama had a scheduled press conference, helping to push his approval rating more and more in the negative direction.

But fear not, as millions of his citizens now find themselves stressed and worrying because they have no insurance – due to no fault of their own –  their leader will have a solution.

I don’t know what it is, but the odds are in favor of another vacation, possibly in Hawaii – but definitely fully insured!

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What Happened To This Thing Called ‘Democracy’ Anyhow?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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Some people have asked me why, when I am so scathing about politicians, I still have an interest in politics.

It is a good question because one thing is for sure, I do have little or no time for the politicians who in general I consider to be stupid, self-serving, untruthful, devious party-before-country hacks seldom, if ever, working for the best interests of the people they are suppose to represent. The exceptions to that statement are VERY rare!

But that’s my assessment of the politicians.

Politics as a subject is important because it sets the rules and standards that we all have to live by.

One of those standards that we have chosen to live by is the principle of ‘democracy’.

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I used to think that I knew what that meant.

I used to think that in a ‘democracy’ the adult population got a chance to vote for candidates and policies that, based on the arguments and evidence provided, they thought were most in line with their own thinking and therefore best for the country as a whole.

I used to think that when a candidate said something during an election campaign he or she would stick by those pledges once elected.

I even used to think that ‘democracy’ meant that the country would be governed by the policies that the majority of people voted for.

I don’t think like that any more. Indeed I haven’t thought that way for some considerable time.

And I don’t think that way any more because the ‘democracy’ that we once knew has long since disappeared.

Nowadays ‘democracy’ is no longer a matter of principle, but rather a matter of political expediency. Nowadays ‘democracy’ means pandering to the vested interests of those who can donate millions to the obscene amounts spent on political campaigns. Nowadays politicians will say whatever they have to say to get elected and forget every promise they have made the minute the polls close.

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President Obama was elected by a ‘democratic’ vote.

President Obama is a member of the ‘Democratic’ Party.  

Yet President Obama is and will continue to try to ride roughshod over that ‘democracy’ by starting another war, or wars, that the vast majority of the American people do not want and did not vote for.

Wars that will eventually cost the lives of yet more young brave Americans in a foreign land – no matter how Obama and his minions like failed Presidential candidate Kerry try to spin it (i.e. lie about it).

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It may even cost the lives of those within America itself should these foolhardy misadventures spawn retaliatory terrorist attacks on the homeland.

Sadly, people have short memories.

Politicians rely on that.

None more so at the moment than President Obama and his sidekick Joe Biden.

Hardly anyone remembers that during the presidential election last year Biden attacked Mitt Romney for being “ready to go to war” in Syria. (York, Pennsylvania, Sept. 2, 2012)

In the previous campaign Biden also said that the nation could only be taken to military action with the approval of Congress, except where it was necessary to stop an “imminent attack” on the United States itself.

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He was supported in this ‘principle’ by the then ‘Senator’ Obama, who said that the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

“The Constitution is clear”, Biden declared. “And so am I.”

I wonder where all that ‘clarity’ has gone today?

Maybe it’s in a White House cupboard somewhere, on a shelf along with ‘democracy’.

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Gas Bags And Gas Prices

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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Back at the end of July in a previous Sunday Sermon I wrote that:

“Troops are being sent to Syria and soon we’ll get bogged down in another mess that’s none of our business and will probably take many years and many lives to get us disentangled from – leaving behind chaos and confusion and a worse situation than the one we tried to fix.”

Of course it’s still being denied by Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama and his administration, but there is little doubt now that Syria is next on their war hit list and we are indeed about to be bogged down in another bloody mess.

Already naval and ground forces are being positioned, for example, the cruise missile laden USS Gravely, USS Ramage, USS Barry and USS Mahan are all in the eastern Mediterranean.

The only remaining part is to con-vince the American public, who do not want another Middle Eastern debacle, that they are wrong and that a strike on Syria is essential for their future well being.

The pretext that is going to be used this time is ‘evidence’ of the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against the rebels. And the people that are being relied on to provide that ‘evidence’ are the very same people who provided false ‘evidence’ that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Everyone now knows and accepts that the WMD excuse for getting embroiled in Iraq was a deliberate deceit – otherwise known as a ‘lie’ – so the track record of the ‘evidence’ providers is neither good nor credible.

Already government apologists are making statements about how Syria had “used them [chemical weapons] before”, which is untrue. UN investigators charged the rebels, not Assad’s government’s forces, with use of chemical weapons in Syria earlier this year. Strangely (or perhaps not) Obama did not feel such a moral necessity to send a missile or two towards the rebels, instead he gave them more support. 

Now add to that another good pinch of hypocrisy.

In fact make that two good pinches.

The first, because the rebellion now taking place within Syria would not have happened without the financial and military assistance of the US, along with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The hypocritical part of it all is that these three nations are in fact supporting people who, if successful, will become even more bitter enemies than the Assad regime.

And the second, because in an alleged effort to encourage ‘democracy’ in Syria, ‘democracy’ in America and Europe is being ignored.

For example, 64 percent of the French people have said they don’t want to get involved, but as in America the ‘people’ don’t have a say on the final outcome.

In Britain the Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron got a very embarrassing slap in the face in Parliament when he tried to emulate the lies of previous Prime Minister Tony Blair but lost a vote on military intervention in Syria. His spin doctors will be working overtime to cook up a good story for the next debate.

And it is plain that the majority of ordinary Americans do not want the President they elected on the promise of getting their troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, plunging them into another conflict which could prove to be as bloody if not bloodier. So plain in fact that until late Friday Obama had planned bypassing Congress obviously trying to avoid a similar embarrassment to that which was suffered by British PM Cameron.

Think this time it will only be a few missiles and drones and that troops won’t be involved? After all Obama has said “We’re not considering any boots on the ground approach”.

Then you need to think again.

Sure, at the outset Obama will try to fool the public by limiting attacks to missile strikes, but these alone won’t be enough. Even in today’s high-tech world you can’t wage wars without those boots on the ground. And in those boots are brave, but misled men and women, some of whom will lose their lives or be maimed as a result.

The doomsday pundits are saying that all this posturing and war mongering by Obama could spiral into something worse. Possibly even be the start of WW3. Unfortunately grandiose claims like these only serve to lessen the credibility of those who are arguing against another foreign intervention.

Putin seems to have more sense than Obama. The Russians have already made their mistake in Afghanistan and are unlikely to do it again. Even less do they want to start or become involved in, a major conflict – not at the moment anyway.

China has little interest in getting involved in a conflict in the middle east either. They will take the long view, and, as they did with Iraq, they will let the US waste billions more dollars blowing things down and building them up again and then they will step in and secure more oil supplies for themselves.  

If it does get down to the nitty gritty one possibility that is more realistic is that the conflict could spread to other nations within the Middle East.

Iran for example has a mutual assistance pact with Syria. It also knows it is next on the US hit list so the longer the US is focused on Syria the longer it will postpone an attack on itself. It is not beyond imagination therefore that Iran could send arms and even troops to assist Assad.

Neither is it unreasonable to imagine that, if missile strikes on Syria result in retaliatory Syrian missile attacks on Israel, Israeli troops will also be sent into Syrian territory, with US forces backing them up shortly thereafter.

That is boots on the ground, no matter what denials you currently hear.

However it pans out, two things are certain. ‘Evidence’ or no ‘evidence’ Uncle Sam will stick his nose in once again. And if it all goes pear shaped, as it most likely will, then UP is the only way your gasoline and heating oil prices will be heading.   

Happy winter!

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Did You Know? Here Are The Facts – Let’s Face It Folks, Your Whole Childhood Was A Lie!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes indeed, here are the facts. Another random selection for your enjoyment.

I hope you find them interesting, maybe even educational.  

And, of course, you’ll find out a little later why your whole childhood was a lie.

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The chances of making two holes-in-one in a round of golf

are one in sixty-seven million, 1:67,000,000.

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Another word for hiccups is ‘singultus’.

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Airports that are at higher altitudes require

a longer airstrip due to lower air density.

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The only poisonous birds in the world are the three species of Pitohui.

The Hooded Pitohui from Papua New Guinea is the most deadly out of the three

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In 1955, only 330 Volkswagen Beetle’s were sold

at a price of $1800 each in the United States.

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The Chihuahua was named after

the Mexican state where they were discovered

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There are more than 640 muscles in the human body

(and as you get older they all start to hurt!)

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The odds of having quadruplets are 1 in 729,000

(for men the odds are much higher!)

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The destruction of the Berlin Wall began when private citizens

started to demolish entire sections of the Wall without interference

from government officials on November 9, 1989

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France is known as the perfume capital of the world

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Since its introduction in February 1935,

more than two hundred million Monopoly board games

have been sold worldwide

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It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL

with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs.

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When former Texas Governor James Hogg was on his deathbed

he made a special request that a pecan tree

be planted at the head of his grave instead of a tombstone.

The governor passed away on March 2, 1906,

which is Texas Independence Day.

The pecan tree is now the state tree of Texas

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In 1477, the first diamond engagement ring was given to

Mary of Burgundy by Archduke Maximillian of Austria

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The smallest frog is the “Brazilian baby frog”,

which is smaller than a dime

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India used to be the richest country in the world

until the British invasion in the early 17th Century

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Marie Curie, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered radium,

died of radiation poisoning

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The iron disulfide (Pyrite) is considered “fool’s gold”

because it looks very similar to gold.

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In 1759, St. James’s Gate Brewery (where they brew Guinness)

was leased for to Arthur Guinness for 9,000 years for 45 pounds per year.

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A Roadrunner’s top speed is 20 mph

while coyotes can reach speeds of up to 43 mph

– so let’s face it folks, your whole childhood was a lie!

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Punchy Punitive Punditry Today? – No, Just More Puny Pungent Puns!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Yes it’s another selection of those groan-making jokes carefully wrapped up in the thing we call puns.

Enjoy, if you can.

 

 

When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.

 

What did the grape say when it got stepped on?

Nothing – but it let out a little whine.

 

A criminal’s best asset is his lie ability.

 

Be true to your teeth, or they will be false to you.

 

If you give some managers an inch they think they’re a ruler.

 

Gravity is studied a lot because it’s a very attractive field.

 

Old lawyers never die they just lose their appeal.

 

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

 

When women enter middle age, it gives men a pause.

 

Prison walls are never built to scale.

 

There was a guy who was fired from the orange juice factory for lack of concentration.

 

We were so poor when I was growing up we couldn’t even afford to pay attention.

 

I used to be a tap dancer until I fell in the sink.

 

When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U C L A.

 

The poet had written better poems, but he’d also written verse.

 

There was a ghost at the hotel, so they called for an inn spectre.

 

Ancient orators tended to Babylon.

 

What do you call a melon that’s not allowed to get married?

Can’t elope.

 

For plumbers, a flush beats a full house.

 

Did you hear about the guy who sent ten puns to friends, in the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh.

Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

 

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