QUESTION OF THE DAY (Courtesy of JD):

If the rapture took place, would Jesus Christ be really pleased and feel comfortable with people around him wearing crosses around their necks???

AP Photo/Damian Dovargane

I said the same thing about three weeks ago....

President Obama betrays the gay community
We supported you. Time to live up to your promises

By John Aravosis

Jun. 17, 2009 |

Team Obama keeps telling lesbian and gay Americans like me to be patient. If we just wait a little longer, administration officials whisper to us lovingly (and out of earshot of the media), after the White House finishes with healthcare reform and getting the troops out of Iraq, your time will come. In the meantime, cheer up -- we put a gay band in the inaugural parade!

Everyone loves a parade, but we don't like being betrayed. And while gay and lesbian Americans were initially willing to cut our new president some slack, the president's now-clear reticence to follow through on even one of his many campaign promises to the gay community has put the Democratic Party on the precipice of an ugly and very public divorce with this once-solid constituency.

During the presidential primaries, then-candidate Obama promoted himself as the biggest defender of gay rights since Harvey Milk. He would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights, he promised, and he even out-gayed Hillary Clinton: telling gay and lesbian voters that while she was for a partial repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), he'd get rid of the whole damn thing.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then, not so much.

About a year before the November election, primary challenger Obama invited Donnie McClurkin, a homophobic gospel singer who claims to have been "cured" of his own homosexuality, to lead a series of concerts in the South in order to woo the black vote. The gays were not amused, but candidate Obama held firm. The gays forgave the Big O until a year later, when then-President-elect Obama chose evangelical preacher (and well-known homophobe) Rick Warren to give the inaugural prayer. Again, the gays expressed their ire, Obama wouldn't budge, and his advisors continued to whisper sweet nothings in our ears about how glorious the future would be once Dear Leader was finally in office.....

Read the complete editorial here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/gay_rights/index.html

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Are dental office employees universally hired for how STUPID and TOTALLY INCOMPETENT they are?

An acquaintance called me early Tuesday afternoon.

He called me once...didn't leave a message.

He called again...didn't leave a message.

He called me again five minutes later and then I relented and answered my phone.

"Ivars, did you hear it, did you hear it?" he said to me breathlessly.

Before I could make an attempt to respond to him, gasping for air, he went on.

"New Hampshire just signed on as the sixth state to approve gay marriage. Can you believe it...can you believe it," he continued.

Being the damp blanket I can be responded, "That's nice."

"That's all you can say? What's wrong with you?" Before I got a chance to continue he hanged up on me.

What I wanted to really say was "big whoop." What is all the excitement all about? O.K., it is nice to see another state to recognize same-sex couples as having "equal rights," but the fact is that it means NOTHING. Despite all of the hoopla, there seems to be a total disconnect on these pronouncements when you look at the basic fact that until the basic attitudes towards gay people in general changes, gays and lesbians will continue to be discriminated. Maybe they won't be openly discriminated against as they have been in the past, but there is nothing to stop gays and lesbians to be discriminated against in less obvious and underhanded ways. And then you have the right-wing Bible bangers (actually hypocrites who will proclaim that only God can "judge"), who themselves are making judgment by citing and pigeonholing even the most ridiculous Bible passage with "their interpretation" in order to justify their homophobic paradigms. (My favorite excuse by far has to be when Bible-bangers run out of Bible passages by saying, "If God had intended there to be same-sex marriage, He would have created Adam and Steve and not Adam and Eve.")

The bottom line is that only when President Obama actually takes a real stand on an issue (Heaven forbid) and signs the executive order ending fellow Democrat President Bill Clinton's disastrous "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Then I will share in my acquaintance's breathless excitement and agree that the gay community will have made a significant stride in social justice.

No truer words have been spoken....from all places...but from the editorial page of PRAVDA...the Russian newspaper which used to be the propaganda arm of the Russian Communist Party!

American capitalism gone with a whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

There comes a time when certain people are called for leadership, they seize the day, and just plain lead. Then here are those who talk the talk, yet fail in the end to walk the walk. Such is the case of President Barack Obama.

He has a million dollar smile, he talks big, he loves to trot out in front of the TV cameras and the lights with his lady love. But when you get right down to it, he really has not really begun to take the lead on any issue, although the media establishment tries to set in place a breast enhancing wonderbra trying to tell us that he is still "the one" or "the messiah." Or in the spirit of the old Clara Peller 1980's Wendy's commercial, it is all coming down to "Where's the beef."

Rather than take control of issues, Barack Obama has allowed issues to control him. What hasn't helped is that he has surrounded himself with an incredible cadre of incompetent goons, led by former Senator Joe Biden. While Biden shows that he needs a license to "drive" his mouth after all of Bushisms, Attorney General Eric Holder continues to be an embarrassment with his race baiting comments, and Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano has never lived down her comments about returning Iraqi war vets as being a bunch of right-wind racists capable of domestic terrorism and her misstatement that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. through Canada. And when he has attempted to take control of an issue like the controversial idea about closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, it was his own Democratic party in the Senate which quashed any notion of allowing it to happen by refusing to fund any closure by a 90-6 vote. It is almost like the tail wagging the dog rather than the dog wagging its tail.

And you know things are not good on the homefront for President Obama when left-wing political pundits as Rachel Maddow have hit him hard nightly over his failure reverse the U.S.'s archaic position on gays and lesbians being allowed to openly serve in the military, as the military continues to spew out gay Arabic linguists and other incredibly talented military people just because of their sexual orientation. Again, the tail wagging the dog. And then there is the incredible case of Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach which President Obama is IGNORING. (Obama's point man on the issue, Rep. Barney Frank, has stated that dealing with the issue won't come for at least another two years. Whoopee! The very people that we need to carry out the war on terrorism are being cast out out to sea. The Democrats love to play the "progressive thinking" card with the gay community when it comes to fundraising to which the community runs to them panting. Yet when it has come to actually DOING SOMETHING and getting past the "talk," the Democratic party has FAILED MISERABLY. Am I wrong? If so, please let me know.)

Ghe fact is that Pres. Obama has never developed any momentum since taking office in January, something which is needed if one is to position oneself as a leader from the getgo. He needs to position himself as a take charge leader if he is to even begin to fulfill his campaign promise of "bringing change we can believe in." The only change we have had for now is all of the spare change he is and will be pickpocketing from the American people in his own spree of government spending which our country is going to have to deal with one way or another.

I'm starting to miss G-dub dangling his participles...


"I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House." --George W. Bush, referring to White House chef Cristeta Comerford while meeting with Filipino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2008

I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., June 26, 2008

"I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." -George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

"The German asparagus are fabulous." --George W. Bush, Meseberg, Germany, June 11, 2008

What in the heck happened to the concept of DIVERSITY OF OPINION?

I never thought I would be stooping to the level of defending a Miss USA contest, but I will because it illustrates the mindset we are now seemingly endorsing in our country...that if don't agree with the status quo belief, then you are dogged and eviscerated by popular culture. The latest controversy flareup occurred the other night when Carrie Prejean - Miss California - said she believed that "a marriage should be between a man and a woman." She had been asked for her views on the subject by one of the judges, celebrity gay blogger Perez Hilton.

Ms. Prejean said that "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," in an interview section of the show. "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she continued. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised." The remarks drew a mixture of booing and applause from the audience.

Speaking after the show, which was broadcast on Sunday evening in the US, Ms Prejean said: "I wouldn't have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that's all I can do." Hilton said he had been "floored" by Ms Prejean's answer, which, he said, "alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters."

The gay community in the U.S., by the way they are going by wetting their pants when somebody dares to have a contrary opinion, is going to set itself back just as the illegal immigrant Mexican community put itself back and swayed public opinion against them several years ago by parading down the streets of Los Angeles waving Mexican flags and hollering "Si se puede." (On their next protest they quickly switched from paper Mexican flags to the red, white, and blue.)

Our country was built on diversity of ideas and thoughts. No group -- minority or otherwise -- has the right to judge whether someone's views are right or wrong...just accept them and go on. Personally I really don't care about the opinions being expressed by someone who has gained notoriety through YouTube clip rather than doing it the old fashioned way....by EARNING it....

No joking here.......Today I learned about a new term in made for TV movies referring to the genre of movies aired on Lifetime (no kidding!) as "JEP movies" which is short for "Women in Jeopardy" movies, or "WIP" -- which is short for "Women in Peril."

And yes, they're invariably the movies of a woman being roughed up by some guy named "Zack," who wears the obligatory wife-beater t-shirt under his sport coat and who cheats on each one with all the others.

Usually they star Meredith Baxter, Tracey Gold, Nancy McKeon, Victoria Principal, Delta Burke and very special guest, Valerie Bertinelli, starring in a VERy SPECIAL movie event entitled, "This Is The Only Work We Could Get: The Lifetime Movie Story."

To paraphrase what a friend said to me tonight.....which makes sooooo much sense...

Why are there so many "born again" Christians who feel they have a free ride to a glorious afterlife, but don't they think they don't have to have the courage and effort it takes to take the high road and do "the right thing" in their daily lives in this one.

What an amateur....

SOOOO bizarre....

I can't wait to see this!

Bruno Official Trailer (R-rated!)

Oh, we're in such good hands.....

The walking haunted tree, Sen. John Kerrey, now wants to hold hearings on the terrorists. Great. The end result will be NOTHING...just a lot of meandering "it's so nice to be nice" words and no results.

That poor Captain of the Alabama is either going to end up being held hostage for a very long time or killed...meanwhile...Sen. Kerrey, the master of doublespeak, goes around Washington and does all of the media chat shows with his zombie-like face saying absolutely nothing.

I will always remember Sen. Kerrey during his White House campaign being asked, after a 45-minute speech telling the world how George Bush had raped the land and environment with his policies, whether he drove a SUV on a daily basis. "No, I don't drive one but my family does," he said, with his characteristic stone face and eccentric "I want to sound incredibly cultured" monotone voice.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for hearings on the mounting piracy threat as the fate of an American cargo-ship captain remained in limbo Thursday.

"These acts of piracy off of Somalia’s coastline may seem surreal, but they’re all too real and a thorough policy debate is long overdue," said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in a statement. "When Americans, including at least one from Massachusetts, are endangered, you’ve got a complicated and dangerous international situation brewing, and that includes questions about a hot-pursuit policy on Somalia’s coastline."

The 20-member crew of the Maersk Alabama, which was carrying food from the World Food Program and the United States Agency for International Development to Kenya, managed to wrest control of the ship from the pirates after the Wednesday hijacking, but the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, was taken by pirates into a lifeboat that was drifting near the Alabama and the USS Bainbridge guided missile destoyer, which had arrived on scene to aid the ship.

On Thursday, the FBI had joined Department of Defense efforts to secure Phillips's release.

One of the main headlines this morning on the BBC's news website is, "How can pirates be stopped?"

Why is this a question at all? Although this will never happen under the presidency of President Barack "I'm sorry-I'm not worthy" Obama, the bottom line is that we need to drop a megabomb outside of Mogadishu and show the Somalis that if they can't control their homegrown terrorists, then we'll do it for them, and send them back to the 2nd century B.C. in the process. I cannot even begin to fathom how we have gotten into a mindset to allow the turds of the world (read Somalia and Iran and North Korea) make the major world powers bristle and shake in their white kneehighs and MaryJanes. Is this the "change" we voted for?

I still remember in the years of Ronald Reagan that Libya was making a nuisance of itself by terrorizing the international skies. The United States went in, gave sufficient warning for the Libyans to "cut it out or else." The Libyans didn't. Instead of speaking softly (that is, babbling continuously incoherently) and threatening to carry a big stick, we simply went in, gave the Libyans sufficient warning that they were about to be attacked, and spoke very loudly with a very large bomb that decimated the country's Navy and other installations. The Libyans responded by shooting off some SCUD missiles with a peashooter which missed horribly. The Libyans eventually came to their senses that they could get whacked again, acknowledged their wrongdoings and themselves went after international terrorist, Abu Nidal, and compensated the victims of their terrorist acts. And now, since they have shown their civility, Libya is prospering as it enters the normal world of civilized countries.

The United States still has a score to settle with Somalia after the torture and killing of several American soldiers in 1993 in the Battle of Moghadishu where a Blackhawk helicopter was downed and the soldiers aboard were taken hostage and tied to the back of a jeep and dragged to their deaths through Moghadishu.

But of course, now that we have evidence that our esteemed President is more interested in giving landmark speeches in the middle of marketplaces throughout Europe with well-written applause lines to gain him the adoration of the unwashed masses, saying how the U.S. is a horrible and arrogant country, and bows to misogynist rulers (King Fahd of Saudia Arabia) of misogynist countries, I don't see the situation with the Somali pirates ending anytime soon, or anytime positively.

How can pirates be stopped?

An American warship, the USS Bainbridge, has reached the area off the coast of Somalia where a cargo ship was seized by pirates a day earlier. How can the pirates be defeated?

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the government was following the situation very closely and urged the world to act to end the "scourge" of piracy.

Pirate attacks have been increasing rapidly in recent years - more than 130 incidents were reported in 2008, which has cost the world an estimated $60 - 70m.

How can one of the world's most important shipping lanes be protected? What's the long-term solution to the problem?

Whatever President Obama's advisers are smokin'....I want some of it.

The latest "idea" suggests that we "geoengineer" earth's atmosphere by shooting reflectorized particles into the atmosphere to reduce the supposed affects of "global warming." Notwithstanding the debate that has ensued whether carbon dioxide emissions are causing the earth's atmosphere or not, I think the first thing that should be done is to put a plug on the hot methane gas being emitted into the air by Washington DC politicians (starting with Sen. Ted Kennedy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi).

I like creative ideas in the quest for creative solutions to problems, but I think that this whole idea is on the same level when suggestions are made to fill raging volcanoes with baking soda to quench the fiery cauldrons of magma. This solution is no different than some-people-with-too-much-time-and-too-much-money who insist on feeding their dog "FeeFee" a vegan/vegetarian diet and make their family and friends endure Feefee's flatulence (another source of CO2).

We need to get past the Al Gore junk science being promoted by political extremists in order to give legs to whatever political cause they are pushing. We need to put back into the attic whackjobs like Pres. Obama's "science adviser" with their so-called "bright ideas" to solve a questionable problem.

WASHINGTON -- The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told the Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Mr. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Mr. Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Mr. Holdren compared global warming to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."

At first, Mr. Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

Mr. Holdren, a 65-year-old physicist, is far from alone in taking geoengineering more seriously. The National Academy of Science is making climate tinkering the subject of its first workshop in its new multidiscipline climate challenges program. The British parliament has also discussed the idea.

The American Meteorological Society is crafting a policy statement on geoengineering that says "it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential, to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment."

Last week, Princeton scientist Robert Socolow told the National Academy that geoengineering should be an available option in case climate worsens dramatically.

But Mr. Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air -- making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested -- could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.

Still, "we might get desperate enough to want to use it," he added.

Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide -- the chief human-caused greenhouse gas -- out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.

Now THIS is good and the TRUTH!

Now, like never before, my support for Pres. Barack "The Messiah" Obama, has never been so tepid, and he really is testing my beliefs as an independent voter.

Not only am I getting really tired of what I see as his "People Magazine" moments posing with the Queen of England and world leaders, I'm really getting steamed at his brown-nosing of the Islamic world and putting the United States down as "arrogant and derisive." I guess having 3000 Americans murdered at the hands of Islamic terrorists means nothing to him. Well, it means something to me. I have tolerance and respect for different belief systems (I have very good friends who are Muslim), but to go around the world as Pres. Obama has in the past two weeks (it feels like a month!) as he has is short of disgusting.

Hey, Barack, why not come back to Washington DC and actually try to get some work done, huh?

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Barack Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared Monday the United States "is not and will never be at war with Islam."

Calling for a greater partnership with the Islamic world in an address to the Turkish parliament, Obama called the country an important U.S. ally in many areas, including the fight against terrorism. He devoted much of his speech to urging a greater bond between Americans and Muslims, portraying terrorist groups such as al Qaida as extremists who did not represent the vast majority of Muslims.

"Let me say this as clearly as I can," Obama said. "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical ... in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject."

The U.S. president is trying to mend fences with a Muslim world that felt it had been blamed by America for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

OBAMA: OUR OWN HUGO CHAVEZ?

I'm very troubled with the news tonight that General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner resigned under pressure from the White House and Pres. Obama. While the U.S. Government might try to have a say how the bailout of GM and the other automakers goes, it troubles me that Pres. Obama goes around making pronouncements of this type. That is being a DICTATOR. Here he is loading up the American taxpayers with a frightful debt so that he can pursue his social/leadership agenda and now he is playing King.

As a Republican who after the fact has come to support Pres. Obama, I'm not sure how much longer I can support him. On one level he is doing the cheezy press junkets (Jay Leno, etc.), yet he is on the other leading us into uncharted waters with his agenda. What is he going to do next, order the slaughter of anyone who opposes him?

Pres. Obama has 1.5 years to get things right, just as the fickle American people supported him by bringing in more Democrats to support his agenda, if he messes up, there is no telling that his Democratic majorities can be sustained.

Only time will tell.

Simply brilliant.


Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.

This is evidence that I'm right on my point about the Mormon Church and their positions on legislating how other people should live. They are no different than the Muslims who come to the United States (for reasons beyond me), and try to change the fabric and attitudes of our country.

To be "diverse" we don't have to accept every language and culture which someone thinks we should embrace without question.