Month: March 2009

RANT! Iranian justice is disgusting (again)

RANT! Iranian justice is disgusting (again)

I have spoken about Iranian justice in the past and ranted that a population that wants to be treated seriously cannot be so barbaric.  Now I read about a blogger that specialized in cultural discussions was imprisoned and died in prison. On this blog, I rant and discuss a lot of politics and some cultural things.  In Iran, I would be thrown in jail and I too would probably be dead by now.  For as much as I complain about broken things in the US, at least it is better than most of the world.

I first saw this information on Blog Herald so go over and read about what they have to say on the subject.  You can also read more in the New York Times, the LA Times, and they all seem to point to Radio Free Europe.

Interestingly, Iran is among the 12 worst countries for a free Internet.  The other haters of freedom of information are:

  1. Burma,
  2. China,
  3. Cuba,
  4. Egypt,
  5. North Korea,
  6. Saudi Arabia,
  7. Syria,
  8. Tunisia,
  9. Turkmenistan,
  10. Uzbekistan
  11. Vietnam

PEOPLE OF THE WORLD – WE NEED TO CONDEMN IRAN FOR THIS TERRIBLE EXERCISE!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday. I just hope the judicial system in Iran doesn’t give me reason to ever think about this.

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RANT! Mexico attacks!

RANT! Mexico attacks!

A lot of noise was made about how George Walker Bush ruined our relations in the international community.  I have discounted this since international relations are always opportunistic and this is a perfect case in point. 

Mexico has been a close friend to the United States for decades.  The President of Mexico was always warmly greeted by GWB and I am sure that Barack Hussein Obama will greet him warmly as well.  But the confusing signals that BHO has sent on NAFTA combined with the foolish blocking of Mexican trucks (surely a concession to the politically powerful Teamsters) have triggered a needless and foolish international crisis and show the lack of multi-dimensional thinking that is required to run this country.

Now this foolish move is going to cost us billions in tariffs on goods that we ship to Mexico.  Hurting our economy by violating NAFTA in a down economy is not something we should be doing.  Offending our international friends is also something we shouldn’t be doing.

The good news is that international relationships are opportunistic, as i said above.  If we drop this stupid mistake and stop violating our treaties then Mexico will surely drop the trade war. Then we can all go back to being friends again – at least until our resume-lacking President screws up again.

DEMOCRATS IN POWER: STOP BEING THE LACKEYS OF THE UNIONS AND UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS IS GOOD FOR AMERICA!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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Coach K reacts to BHO

Coach K reacts to BHO

The coach of Duke University has reacted to President Barack Hussein Obama’s choice of UNC to win the NCAA Men’s Division 1 basketball tournament.  Coach K:

“Somebody said that we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four, and as much as I respect what he’s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said from the Blue Devils’ first-round site in Greensboro, N.C.

I agree.  I hope BHO didn’t do this during work hours (which is 23.5 hours a day in his job).

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President seems to be a pretty good basketball analyst

President seems to be a pretty good basketball analyst

The White House has released the March Madness NCAA tournament picks of President Barack Hussein Obama.  While I don’t begrudge the man the opportunity to spend a few minutes of pleasure doing the same thing that many Americans are doing today, I question the wisdom of releasing those picks to the public.  I think it may play to the superstar status that he tried to get away from in the election (and caused Paris Hilton to release this video).  It also may be a little frustrating to the thousands that received a foreclosure notice today.

Regardless, here are BHO’s picks.  You can click on the image to go to the original larger image.

I question that BHO crossed out Louisville and then selected UNC.  While that may be a prudent choice, I wonder about his flip-flop on this issue.  I sure hope that he didn’t have a political analyst help him with this!

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NCAA Men’s Division 1 Bracket for 2009

NCAA Men’s Division 1 Bracket for 2009

There are a lot of brackets out there that you can print off as a PDF file but this one is based in MS Excel and it has drop downs for each game that progress with the the winners that you pick.  If you aren’t using one of the web based pool management systems but are using a paper based system, this is a much easier way to run your pool or manage your personal picks.

Click this link to download the Excel file:ncaa-pool-master-2009

Please do not post this file on any other site but rather just refer them back to this page.

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Obama Breaks Promise to Stop Congressional Earmark Pork

Obama Breaks Promise to Stop Congressional Earmark Pork

I wrote a comment on the blog “Replace Congress” that I wanted to repeat here.  Yes, I am the famous (infamous?) Irishman.  The subject of the blog post was the disgust of the signing of the latest spending bill even though it contains billions of dollars of pork and earmarks and is contrary to the campaign promises of Barack Hussein Obama.  Here are my comments but please click through and read the original posting and the comments of that blogger.

It is unlikely that BHO could have not signed this bill and keep 50+% of support that he currently enjoys. The really bad news is that he will almost definitely not be that strong in a year, will be looking at mid-term elections and therefore have to make the same compromise of his principles.

He needs to save this 50+% political capital for the other great socialization of the country that is to come – health care.

What we need is a President that doesn’t care about his party and doesn’t care about getting re-elected but is not a lame duck on his/her second term. Then we will have someone that actually do the job efficiently (maybe). The job can’t be a popularity contest – we need someone that can make the hard choices. By my reckoning we haven’t had someone that could do that since Harry S. Truman.

Not withstanding the above, we could also do the job if our Representatives and Senators were not so wired into their jobs and responsible to the country not just to the pork barrel projects that they delivered.

The line item veto that Ronald Reagan so desperately wanted, would help as well.

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