Lou Reed RIP

This is stunning. Also too, consider this an exception to the new rule.

What I know him for…:

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Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

via Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71 | Music News | Rolling Stone.

May he rest in peace.

More Fruits of Wilsonian Foreign Policy in Iraq

Remember the stupidity of Wilsonian foreign policy that I wrote about in my previous posting?

Well, here you go! The fruits of what happens when the United States of America invades a sovereign Nation based on bad intelligence.

The Story:

Several car bombs have exploded around the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 38 people, officials say.

The bombs were placed in parked cars and detonated over a 30-minute period in busy streets, mainly in Shia areas.

At least 100 people were injured in the attacks, some of which targeted markets and bus stations.

Hundreds have been killed in Iraq this month, with the often sectarian-fuelled violence reaching its highest level since 2008.

Almost 1,000 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in September alone, according to the UN.

And unofficial counts for October suggest more than 600 have been killed.

Sunni militants, including the local offshoot of al-Qaeda, are often blamed for the attacks, which usually target Shia areas.

The Shia-led government has been accused of failing to address grievances among the Sunni Arab minority, including allegations of abuses by security forces.

via BBC News – Iraq car bombs cause Baghdad carnage.

You’d think that the United States and American Jews would learn from that horrible mistake; but if Sheldon Adelson and his bumbling idiot friends have anything to say about it, we will be making the same mistake again with Iran.

This my friends above, is why you do not allow the Israeli or the Saudi Governments to dictate foreign policy.

Sheldon Adelson is a blubbering idiot

Someone has to say it; so, it might as well be me. 😀

Now, why do I say this? Because this steaming pile of idiocy here, the money part comes at 5:26:

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The quote from the JPost:

NEW YORK – During a panel at Yeshiva University on Tuesday evening, Sheldon Adelson, noted businessman and owner of the newspaper Israel Hayom, suggested that the US should use nuclear weapons on Iran to impose its demands from a position of strength.

Asked by moderator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach whether the US should negotiate with Iran if it were to cease its uranium enrichment program, Adelson retorted, “What are we going to negotiate about?” 

Adelson then imagined what might happen if an American official were to call up an Iranian official, say “watch this,” and subsequently drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert.

“Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes’,” Adelson said.

“So a tremendous demonstration of American strength?” Boteach clarified. “So that they would get the message?” 

“It’s the only thing they understand,” Adelson said.

“And do you see the current negotiations as a sign of weakness?” Boteach asked.

“Absolutely,” Adelson said.

Adelson, who donated tens of millions of dollars to defeated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the most recent campaign, criticized the Obama administration’s willingness to engage the Iranians diplomatically.
“[It’s] the worst negotiating tactic I could ever imagine, my entire life,” he said.

“Because you can’t get anything. He’s not saying to them, Roll back your entire program and show that you’re willing to be peaceful. So, roll it all back… and we’ll roll back the sanctions…. What is that, a game of chicken, who’s going to blink first?”

Okay, now that is a good deal of stupidity to unpack; but I shall do my best here.

If the United States of America pulled something as stupid as that, the fallout would be chaos of Biblical proportions.

First off, if we dropped a nuke in the Iranian desert, the radioactive cloud from that sort of a bomb would go over into Iraq, and possibly kill half of the population. Not to mention that it would most likely kill half of the Iranians too. This would be the last thing we would need, seeing we just left that Country and our invading it, was based on some seriously bad information.

Second of all, if we did something like that; Al-Qaeda would order every last sleeper cell in the United States to activate and the result of that would be many terrorist attacks in this Country, that would make 9/11 look like a walk in the park. Furthermore, the entire arab community, would turn on us, like a rabid dog and begin attacking our interests overseas. You think things are chaotic in the middle east now? You let something like that happen; it would be utter bedlam.

This right here is why I have such an issue with neoconservatives, and basically Zionism in general. Because they simply do not think past the idea that Israel should be defended to the death. Sheldon Adelson does not give two flips about the security of the United States and the effect that doing something as stupid and reckless as this, would have on the United States. All he and his neoconservative friends care about, is Israel.

Daniel Larison is correct in his assessment that the GOP should rid themselves, of the idiots like this man, and people like Rick Santorum; who have this sort of thug mentality, when it comes to Israel, Foreign Policy and the United States of America. It is reckless, it is irresponsible and it will only cause more instability in the middle east.

Make no mistake, Iran is a Country that I would not trust further than I can throw them. However, this sort of foreign policy is what gave us Iraq twice, Korea, Vietnam and World War I. Pursuing this sort of foreign policy is a fool’s errand. We cannot afford it either. Ronald Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union in a peaceful way and brought down the iron curtain without firing a shot. I believe these reports of Iran having the bomb; to be bogus, manufactured by those who wish to take us to war with Iran. I treat them with the skepticism that I do all the neoconservative, Wilsonian propaganda.

If Israel and the Saudi’s want to go after the Iranians; let them. But keep the United States out of it. We have had enough war to last us a good lifetime. What did we get out of Iraq? A mountain of debt, that President Obama added to; and an middle east that is a powder keg ready to blow.

Enough is enough, the Wilsonians have to go. Period, end of story.

 

 

More Black on White Crime: Anchorage, Alaska

This story comes via Top Conservative News:

From Anchorage Daily News…

Anchorage attorney Joe Palmier didn’t think twice when he saw three young men walking past his home on Edinburgh Drive on Friday.

What happened next left the 76-year-old Anchorage trial lawyer with five staples in his head, a mangled face and a bristle of stitches in his lips.

One of the young men said something but Palmier’s leaf blower drowned out the words. The trio kept going. Palmier returned to his quick afternoon chore, still wearing his leather jacket and work clothes.

The next thing Palmier knew, the three young men stood in the driveway, which was strange. People don’t just walk up the Palmier driveway leading to the Tudor-style home 25 or 30 feet above the road.

They asked him to contribute to a West High School fundraiser.

Palmier said no. He and his wife give to United Way every year.

“They turned to go back down the driveway and I turned in the opposite direction,” Palmier said by phone Monday afternoon, home from the hospital and recovering from his injuries. “That’s the last thing I remember. I woke up in a pool of blood.”

What some people do for money

This one just makes me shake my head….

The Story:

Shepard Smith, the endlessly endearing (and easily angered) Fox News anchor, has likened the right-wing channel to a “family,” with president Roger Ailes as its domineering father. Which makes it only slightly awkward that in early 2012, the 49-year-old anchor started courting an attractive young production assistant who worked under him on Fox Report With Shepard Smith. Now they are a couple.

Gawker has learned that Smith is dating a 26-year-old Penn State grad and Fox Business producer named Giovanni “Gio” Graziano. According to multiple sources with knowledge of their relationship, the couple met sometime after Graziano started working at Fox Report in October 2011 as a production assistant. He’s the man with whom Smith frequents Bathtub Gin.

“Yes, that’s Shepard’s boyfriend,” Katya Minskova, the Bathtub Gin waitress Smith berated in March, confirmed to Gawker when shown a photo of Graziano. Another source who had seen them together at the Chelsea speakeasy confirmed Graziano’s identity as well. Both sources say they saw Graziano and Smith together at the bar on multiple occasions, and that they appeared to be romantically involved.

While Smith and Graziano’s boss Roger Ailes, a notorious homophobe, was apparently kept in the dark about the relationship—“higher ups had no idea,” a source close to Graziano said—the pair doesn’t appear to have gone to great lengths to keep the workplace romance from their co-workers.

via Shepard Smith’s Office Romance: A 26-Year-Old Fox Staffer.

I know, I said I was going to clean my act up here a bit; but this one here, is just too darned easy:

This story just brings this little pre-rap days tune to mind, this is from 1984:

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Others doin’ it for the money :  Erik WempleJoe. My. God. and The Other McCain

If gas prices go up, this is why!

It figures, gas prices go down; and a refinery part goes up in flames. 🙄

The story:

(Reuters) – The fire-damaged crude distillation unit at Citgo Petroleum Corp’s 174,500-barrel-per-day (bpd) Lemont, Illinois, refinery is expected to be shut five to six months for repairs, sources familiar with operations at the refinery said on Friday afternoon.

The CDU was heavily damaged by a fire that broke out on Wednesday night and burned for hours, but caused no injuries.

A company spokesman said Citgo might issue an update later on Friday about the status of the sole CDU at the refinery.

Piping on the CDU, which does the initial refining of crude oil coming into the refinery and supplies feed to all other units, appeared to be heavily damaged, the sources said.

Access to the CDU was blocked by the damaged piping and scaffolds that have been in place around the unit for repairs following a small fire in the unit’s insulation in August, the sources said.

Whatever repairs are needed could be lengthy, they added.

“It’s going to be a while before it restarts – five to six months,” one of the sources said.

via Lemont refinery crude unit fix may take six months: sources | Reuters.

 

More Black on White Crime: Greenville, Mississippi.

More black on white crime, and this time; it happened to a World War 2 veteran.

The Video:

The Story:

The king is dead.

Four teenagers are being charged with capital murder in the fatal mugging of 87-year-old Lawrence E. ‘Shine’ Thornton of Greenville, Mississippi.

‘Shine’ was a World War II veteran and a famous personality in the Delta region for his hot tamales. They were known as ‘Maria’s Famous Hot Tamales’, named after his wife Mary. He was crowned king of the 2012 Delta Hot Tamale Festival.

According to Greenville police, Thornton was killed after being accosted in his own driveway on Oct. 18. He was pushed down and his wallet stolen.

 He passed away from his injuries two days later at the University Of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Assistant police chief Andrew Kaho tells the Delta Democrat Times Terrance Morgan and Edward Johnson, both 19; and Leslie Litt and Geblonski Murray, both 18, were arrested in connection with the incident. Each of the four is charged with robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.

via 4 Teens Charged in Death of WWII Veteran, Hot Tamale King | CNS News.

Lawrence E. ‘Shine’ Thornton – 87 years old, WW2 Veteran.
The Murders: Terrance Morgan and Edward Johnson, both 19; and Leslie Litt and Geblonski Murray

It is indeed Obama’s world; I have to wonder, is this what Obama meant by, “get in their faces and rough them up a bit?” 😡

(H/T to Top Conservative News)

Good News: U.S. Army puts the brakes on Christian bashing

Some good news for a change….

Via WorldNetDaily:

The chief of the U.S. Army has ordered that training for the military on “extremists” be halted until the program can be corrected and standardized to eliminate the Christian-bashing that has been reported several times.

It was earlier this month that one such “training” course was reported as identifying the pro-family American Family Association as a hate group – a designation that earlier was applied to the group by the domestic terror case-linked Southern Poverty Law Center.

According to a commentary from Fox News’ Todd Starnes, Army Secretary John McHugh has given military leaders a memo with the orders.

“On several occasions over the past few months, media accounts have highlighted instances of Army instructors supplementing programs of instruction and including information or material that is inaccurate, objectionable and otherwise inconsistent with current Army policy,” the memo said.

Starnes reported an Army spokesman, David Patterson Jr., said that McHugh “directed that Army leaders cease all briefings, command presentations or training on the subject of extremist organizations or activities until that program of instruction and training has been created and disseminated.”

It was a soldier at a Camp Shelby in Mississippi who presented evidence to media that an Army presenter at a briefing identified AFA as a “hate group” because of its stance on homosexuality and marriage.

Army spokesman George Wright later confessed the information was “acquired from an Internet search” and that the allegations “did not come from official Army sources, nor was it approved by senior Army leaders, senior equal opportunity counselors or judge-advocate personnel.”

Tim Wildmon, president of AFA, one of the country’s largest Christian ministries, said, “We are probably going to be taking legal action. The Army has smeared us. They’ve defamed the American Family Association.”

Brian Fischer, AFA’s director of issues analysis, said the “internet” source likely was the Southern Poverty Law Center, which routinely labels Christians who adhere to biblical teaching on homosexuality as “hate groups.”

At the time, he said, “The blatantly false ‘hate’ allegation is coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is now a thoroughly discredited source on any subject, especially hate. In fact, for spreading malicious lies about pro-family groups, SPLC belongs on its own hate group list. They’ve made a despicable career out of using lies, distortions and innuendo to whip up reckless and dangerous animosity against groups which defend the values of the Founders.”

Fischer said the “real hate group here is the SPLC.”

That isn’t news to anyone familiar with the terror attack on the Washington headquarters of the Family Research Council, an organization with standards and beliefs like those of the AFA.

I think the lawsuit from AFA is a bit on the extreme side; but I am glad to see that reasoned minds prevailed over liberal idiocy.

Video: Charles Krauthammer tries to explain conservative thought to Jon Stewart

….and he doesn’t do half bad either.

Before you watch the video, head on over and read Krauthammer’s story of how he went from a liberal to a conservative, it is an interesting read. It is something I can very much relate to. I too am someone, who realized within a short amount of time, that the liberal left was simply wrong about a good number of things.

Anyhow, here’s the videos: (Via HotAir’s Green Room)

(Via Daily Show)

Get Krauthammer’s book: