Tag: prison

I think I could like Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi

I think I could like Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi

I think I could like Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi. I will likely never meet him as he is in prison in Iran and being tortured and relatives fear he is close to death.

Mr. Boroujerdi supports the traditional Shiite view that religious leaders should stay out of politics and preach their messages to the faithful in mosques (maybe a few Christian preachers in the US could learn that lesson). In his words, protesting in 2006, “the regime is adamant that either people adhere to political Islam or be jailed, exiled or killed. Its behavior is no different from that of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar.”

Mr. Boroujerdi has also preached tolerance of all religious beliefs, including atheism, on the grounds that faith must be freely chosen. Perhaps nothing bothers the Iranian regime more than religious pluralism: In recent years, the country has been swept by the arrests and executions of members of minority groups like the Bahais and Sufi dervishes.

In 2010, a message from Mr. Boroujerdi was smuggled out of Evin prison, delivering a message to the world’s Jews in celebration of Hanukkah. “Any religious belief that brings us closer to (God) is the truth,” he wrote. “This force will lead humanity towards enlightenment. On this great day, we celebrate the unity among the believers of God’s light.”

Yes, I think I could learn from this man. Too bad Iran will make sure he is dead soon.

Article from the Wall Street Journal talking about Mr. Boroujerdi.

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

Bill Maher is a relatively famous television personality. Of course, he got this position by correctly realizing that he wasn’t a very good standup comedian and his real talent was getting famous people on TV and then making fun of them or using them as foils to make a political point.  He has bounced around a couple of different venues and has currently landed at HBO.  His show is called “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  He has used this notoriety and fame to also publish some of his remarks and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post.  His latest article is the subject of this post.

Originally, I only wanted to reply to Bill Maher in his comments section.  However, Huffington Post limits comments to a small number of words so I am forced to make further comments here.  You can read my original thoughts at this link as there are currently over 2500 comments on this article and it would be difficult to find mine.  You may also want to read Bill’s original article before you read my comments.

Bill’s opening comment starts out all wrong.  He says “Not everything in America has to make a profit” and while this is true, I am not aware of any time in America’s history when it was discussed that something could NOT make a profit.  Doesn’t it seem very un-American to decree that a certain portion of our economy is not eligible to make a profit?

When the very unfunny Bill Maher mentions the war profiteering problem, he forgets that at the time we were a very agrarian society and not even close to the world power that we are today – in fact we were probably not even ranked in the top 10 most powerful nations. Can we have one without the other? Do we want to live in that world again? Really, do you? Think about it Maher.

Yes, I understand that there is a concern over Haliburton and other companies that were awarded contracts in the MidEast without open bids. But he includes this discussion in an article that talks about not making a profit, which implies he thinks that government contractors and service providers should not make a profit.

The term “war profiteering” was really a big concern back in the two world wars when rationed goods were required. With any rationed good there are, inevitably, ways to make lots of profit if you can find a supply of the rationed goods and sell them outside of the system. It was also a time when over-charging for military goods was easy to do.  In fact, then Senator Harry S. Truman made his big mark by chairing a committee that was designed to go after profiteers. But even Mr. Truman didn’t want to eliminate profit from the process, he just wanted to eliminate the corruption of charging for goods and services in unfair manners.

Does Mr. Maher really want to eliminate the profit potential of companies that do work for the United States?  Will he be able to delineate those that offer services to the military versus those that offer services to other branches of the government?

While it is important to make sure that we are getting value out of our government spending, I doubt that most people (aside from Mr. Maher) would want no profit to be made in the process. At the time of the big worry on war profiteering, approximately 20% of the workforce was in agrarian efforts but by 1970 it was about 4%.  To make matters worse, a decade or two before the world wars (but definitely in the memory of most alive at the time) over 40% of the workforce as agricultural based and we were not considered to be a world power at all.  In fact, prior to WW1, the real powers of the world resided in Europe.  This change from an agrarian society that was not a force in the world to a world power in 40 years was fraught with danger of profiteering and therefore a real concern to everyone.

He then goes into prisons that make a profit. Does he really think that the reason that we have a lot of people in prison is because of the profit making of CCA?  Come on, Bill.  That simply doesn’t make sense.  There are approximately 2M people in prison in this country and according to CCA’s website only 75,000 of them are in their care.  If CCA has such a huge influence do you think that they would have a larger market share than under 4%? Are the other 96% of the convicted criminals incarcerated the real felons and CCA is only getting the CCA influenced laws?  This is a perfect example of Bill Maher simply not thinking before he talks/writes.

Bill then goes after journalism and he dreams of the good old days. He dreams of when real journalists were like Walter Cronkite, may he rest in peace. That was an era with little competition for TV. There were 3 stations, no Internet, only AM radio, 2 newspapers in every town, only 2-3 movies came out a month AND LIFE magazine was a thriving concern.

The reason that News didn’t make money was because it didn’t have to make money. Bill is correct, it was a loss leader because people watched it and it drug people to watch the Entertainment divisions products which did make money. Now it needs the Entertainment division to pull the viewers to the 11 o’clock news. A regular complaint of station owners is when the Entertainment division of their network has fallen behind in market share it affects the 11 o’clock news profitability.

The profitability of News v. Entertainment was never a philanthropic effort on the part of the big networks. Quite the opposite, it was a concerted effort to drag in viewers and achieve the highest gains that they could.

And then Bill, the lover and worshipper of Michael Moore, gets to his real agenda (because the above junk is not really a problem anyway) – healthcare.  Bill is one of those that doesn’t think that it is fair to make a profit from running a service in the health sector because if you are sick then you have to go to a doctor and get better. You don’t have a choice so it is morally wrong to charge more than your costs.

But that is precisely where Maher blew it in his utopian dream rant. He specifically discussed healthcare and made the reference to going to a Catholic hospital. Yes, there was little motive for profit BUT there was little interference from the government, as well. How do you get from the times were great in the past without interference from government and now the only way to get better is to make government bigger?

If you read some of the comments in Mr. Maher’s columns you will see them chastise insurance companies.  Mr. Maher only makes one reference to an insurance company in his column but instead spends time lambasting HCA, an operator of hospitals.

Of course, he doesn’t take it to the next step and look at food. If you don’t eat then you will die so this is a requirement of life as well.  Therefore, if we follow Bill’s thought pattern then Kroger and WalMart should operate as non-profits as well. To continue this logic, then surely the power utility provider should operate as a non-profit since you need electricity to heat/cool your home and we wouldn’t want them to take advantage of you. And since the majority of people in the US need clothing to survive the elements at least during part of the year, no one should make money on winter coats, scarves, hats, boots, etc.

And even if you buy the absurd argument that all of that should be free from profit then where do you stop.  Does the thread provider that provides the thread for your coat need to operate as non-profit?  And the trucking company that hauls vegetables from the farm to your local grocery store, should he succumb to non-profit status as well?

And what about the nurse that works hard and cares for the child with the broken leg at the hospital? Should she work for only enough to fulfill her basic needs? If so, doesn’t that make her a ward of the state?  Is that the goal of Mr. Maher?

So when we get down to following the logic of Bill Maher (and the more confused Michael Moore), who is allowed to make money these days?  Why of course, Bill Maher and Michael Moore are!

Don’t let Vick back into the NFL until Pete Rose can play baseball

Don’t let Vick back into the NFL until Pete Rose can play baseball

Michael Vick was released from prison today to continue his sentence in house arrest.  I know that there is a lot of desire to say that he has paid his price for his mistake and therefore should be allowed to play in the NFL.

I sympathize that a man or woman should be able to move on after they have paid for their mistakes. However, sports should be held to a different level of integrity.  We should not allow Michael Vick to play professional sports until Pete Rose is allowed to play baseball again.

As I discussed several times, we need to hold athletes to a standard that at least is equivalent to everyday life and they probably should be held higher due to their incomes. Check out the following articles:

RANT! Drugs and bad conduct in professional sports

RANT! Drugs and bad conduct in professional sports (again)

Professional athletes and entertainers need to wake up to their responsibilities and stature.  Don’t let Vick play football and if he does – boycott his games.

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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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Afghanistan Taliban leader was at Gitmo

Afghanistan Taliban leader was at Gitmo

Another story in the continuing discussion regarding former prisoners at Guantanamo that returned to cause harm to Americans and our allies.  This further questions that very political decision to close Gitmo as a secure prison for terrorists.  We obviously cannot release them back to their home countries since it seems that so many were true criminals and should be put in jail for decades.

Here is a part of the story from AP but there are some other interesting thoughts at the blog Clinging to G & G

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Taliban’s new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration’s efforts to close the prison. U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.

Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007. Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

The officials, who spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to release the information, said Rasoul has joined a growing faction of former Guantanamo prisoners who have rejoined militant groups and taken action against U.S. interests. Pentagon officials have said that as many as 60 former detainees have resurfaced on foreign battlefields.

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Guantanamo Bay is compliant with Geneva Convention

Guantanamo Bay is compliant with Geneva Convention

So says a report by the New York Times

A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concluded that the prison complies with the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva Conventions.

Does this mean we can cancel the silly Presidential decree to close the prison that was issued BEFORE anyone bothered to check to see if we were compliant?

It is amazing that an important decision like this was made without facts.  Sounds like it was made for political reasons.