
Don't you all wish the Simpsons were right and these characters were fictional? Canada and the world would be better off.
Recommend this postDon't you all wish the Simpsons were right and these characters were fictional? Canada and the world would be better off.
Recommend this postNancy Pelosi was all smiles and over-enthusiastic about the speech, but poor Joe Biden had a hell of a time keeping up with her for standing ovations.
Recommend this postJoe the Plumber is not going away. First he was McCain’s hero and ticket to the Whitehouse. It did not work out that way but Joe the Plumber got a lot of publicity. After McCain folded we heard that Joe the Plumber was going to run for a Senate seat. After a while that ambition evaporated. Then he became special correspondent for the Middle East and was going to report on the Gaza/Israel conflict. I did not see any report, did you?
Now he has re-surfaced. He has written a book called "Joe the Plumber" of course. He showed up at a CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) meeting and did a book signing ceremony. He managed to sell a grand total of 5 books in a day.
Story goes that he is quite disillusioned with McCain and the GOP in general. He considers Obama a socialist and bad for the capitalist system. Why not run for President and reclaim the party and the Whitehouse? He looks like a Martian and he will make a great team as Joe the Plumber and Marvin the Martian all the way to the Whitehouse.
Sanjaya and Bobby will make a great team. Sanjaya is already well known and well liked in the US and people are just getting to know Bobby Jindal, Republican Governor of Louisiana. It will be a fun Whitehouse if they win. Jindal responded to Obama’s address to the Congress of the U.S. last night. I thought he was good but he seemed to be mimicking Obama a lot.
Recommend this postBoth the Conservative Party website and the Liberal Party website prominently feature pictures of their respective leaders with Barack Obama on his visit to Canada. However, the website of the Whitehouse features Barack Obama with... the Governor General. What happened to Iggy and Harper? They tried so hard to impress the President.
Recommend this postI once in a while watch the program GPS on CNN which is hosted by Fareed Zakaria. He interviews influential world leaders. Yesterday, he interviewed Imran Khan of Pakistan, leader of one of the opposition parties there. I have heard the name before as he became well-known when he married Jemima Goldsmith of Britain in 1990s, a wealthy socialite, and he was in the news quite a bit.
As Fareed Zakaria interviewed him, I was impressed by Imran Khan's assessment of the situation with regards to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Insurgency. Is it possible that Barack Obama is wrong on Afghanistan?
It is not a winnable war. Swat Valley and the North Western Territories have been no-man's land and rogue areas for centuries. No one has ever been able to subjugate these people. The British failed and it brought down USSR empire. Why does Obama think he can succeed?
I have heard that it is one of world's roughest terrains. I once drove around Cape Breton on Cabot Trail and I was scared stiff as a minor mistake and I could have ended up in the ocean - a several hundred feet fall. I am told that compared to Swat and frontier territories in Pakistan, Cabot Trail is a picnic. And there is no ocean that you may have a chance to survive in the water.
Imran Khan was asked what he would do if he was running the Government of Pakistan and if he was advising the US. His assessment was blunt and realistic. He said Afghanistan must have never been invaded to start with because you cannot win. He suggested that efforts should have been made to alienate Taliban from Al-Qaeda as the Taliban were not involved in 9/11 in any way. He said that was the sole way to end the insurgency in that area. He said he would negotiate with the Taliban because fighting them brings out the extremists and it is a no win situation.
He said that the latest peace-treaty with tribal forces and Pakistan was inevitable. Pakistan had no choice. It does not have the financial or military resources to defeat these forces. Where the USSR failed, how can Pakistan succeed? The only choice is to negotiate and marginalize Al-Qaeda and other extremist group. It looks that may be the only solution. Maybe Obama will learn in due course.
One of these days Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will shake hands with the Chinese official Dai Bingguo and US relations with China will be normalized. Until such time we must all hold our breath?
The sooner the US realizes that it is no longer the financial and military power it once was, the better it will be for the world. Once the US learns to deal with the Asian countries at an equal level as partners, we may have better world. Until such time, US hands may be open and extended but they will remain empty.
Maybe they should open an amusement park devoted to Dubya and his stumbles. Shoes will be a big item for sale at such a park. His shoe monument should be at the entrance of the park. It will amuse the kids for few generations to come.
Recommend this postAll he wants to do is become Prime Minister and he is all set for that. The only problem is that someone needs to wind him up every so often and then he acts in sync with whosoever last did the winding. Right now it looks that he is being toyed with by the wrong people/kids. It is a dilemma, what is one supposed to do? Maybe brand new batteries and new kids for his maintenance, kids who have some morals and care about fellow human beings and the environment. Too many wasted batteries can be bad for the environment, you know.
Recommend this postHow can the US and Canada support such apartheid which is considered worse, by some, than the one which existed in South Africa. One has to admire Brian Mulroney who, contrary to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, opposed apartheid in South Africa. What is wrong with Stephen Harper and the so-called "Liberal" leader Michael Ignatieff? Michael Ignatieff does not come across as human. He is more like a robot who wants to be Prime Minister at any cost. The leadership situation in Canada is depressing. At least Obama recognizes the suffering of people in Gaza. Time will tell how his policies will materialize. There is no such hope from Harper and Iggy.
Now with Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel, will things get any better? Does not look it? However, he and Obama may have serious enough differences that there may be a turn around for the better... maybe.
Here is a song, "There's a Tear in my Heart" which depicts the Gaza situation quite well.
This cartoon would be complete in its intent if Murdoch and editor were shown dancing and saying "he is dead, he is dead." Because this cartoon is not funny, it is plain morbid.
Only Rupert Murdoch's (or rather Rupert Murderhawk's) paper could have thought of that. First comparing an African-American President to a chimp and shot dead by two policemen. Are Murdoch and his fellow CONS sending subliminal messages? It is one of the most disgusting cartoons I've seen. If Murdoch has any brains he should fire both the editor and the cartoonist. But then he has whole bunch of them at Faux News who are not much different and who should be fired too. For example, Sean Hannity was palling around and doing business with Allen Stanford who committed fraud of $8 billion on the financial markets and was second only to Madoff.
This cartoon was racist and was not any different from the way some KKK members hang nooses from trees in southern states to remind blacks they can be hung there. I put this cartoon in the same league. Then what else can you expect from a Murdoch paper and TV News Network.
Okay, just kidding. I do not think Terry Milewski even attended the press conference. However, it was in the news that Joseph (Stalin) Harper's operatives had very strict rules about the press conference. Only four reporters could ask questions and only those four whose names would be called could ask questions. Also, if any reporter tried to shout a question the press conference would come to an abrupt end. So much for the free press. An Obama aide was asked about it and he said that he hoped that US reporters would not suffer the same fate in Ottawa. He said reporters shout questions all the time at Whitehouse press conferences.
Recommend this postSkinny Dipper suggested in his comment (it is the sixth one in this post) that Obama try some Beavertails at the Byward Market when he is in Ottawa. Lo and behold, Obama took Skinny Dipper's suggestion. ;)
Recommend this postBut of course, look at them ;) Some bloggers are making fun of that too.
Kory Teneycke, a spokesperson for Harper, said the following: "They really, at a basic level, have quite a bit in common. They are both outside the political establishment," (Maybe not the exact quote but something similar).
Oh! I did not know that. Are they "really"?
Click here to read the story.
Remember Burris who was appointed by Rod Blagojevich (now the impeached governor of Illinois) to the Senate seat to replace Barack Obama? This guy, Burris, has real problems. First he said he had no contact with Rod Blagojevich or his associates and that there was no "pay to play" discussion. Then he realized that most of the conversations were tapped and said he did speak with Rod Blagojevich's brother Rob three time, and that he was asked about financial contributions but refused. More recently he has said that he does not want to discuss "pay to play" because there is a court case. Deja vu all over again, or Clintonian what "is" is.
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Imagine, song by john Lenon about Palestine and Israel
A fellow blogger "Gene" warned me that reading about Gaza could become quite self-absorbing and can take a lot of one's energies. He is quite right. After reading plenty of material, seeing the pictures of destrution in Gaza, dead women, children and residents in general, it is hard to get those images out of my mind.
I even seem to dream about it now, though you could say these dreams are more nightmares. In my dream, I saw a little child with a glass of very muddied water. I took the glass and spilled the water in order to give him fresh water. He started crying uncontrollaby. I said why are you crying little one. He said that was the only water he had and I spilled it. I woke up after that. It is horrible what is happening in Gaza. It is an apartheid of the worst kind. I will be writing about apartheid in a later post.
Here is another video about destrution in Gaza:
A Genocide is taking place in Gaza!
I do not understand what is wrong with the Israeli government. It is clear that they are conscience dead. Is it possible that they are brain-dead too? How long will they hide all this from the world. What is being done in Gaza are indeed crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Jim Flaherty is fully Obamaized and all set to welcome Obama to Canada. Harper's primping lady was made available to him too.
Only last November 2008, he was saying that there would be a net surplus in 5 years. It must be Obama's influence that he is set for a stimulus package too (mind you it may not be as good but it is there) and a large deficit. How politicians change. There you have it.
Bill Clinton was one of the better Presidents. The economy did well and the world was at relative peace. However, his personal indiscretions got in the way - especially amusing himself with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. Therefore he leaves himself open to jokes.
Now that Stormy Daniels, adult entertainer, is considering a run for the Senate seat in Louisiana against David Vitter, maybe she will go to Bill for advice, especially now that Hillary is travelling all the time. As the saying goes, "when the cat is away the mouse will play."
The reason she freaked out, she missed her flight. She was lucky she was not handled by the RCMP, otherwise one jolt of taser and she would have taken off for the world hereafter.
Recommend this postI do not believe in personality cults. Thank God I never suffered from Trudeaumania or now Obamamania. All leaders have strengths and weakness as they are all humans. The balance is different for different leaders. Carter is one of those leaders I do admire. He lost the 1980 election not because he was less qualified, but because he was up against a Hollywood actor. Ronald Reagan gave some of his best acting performances during the Presidential election and when he was president - not when he was actually in Hollywood.
Jimmy Carter is a great humanitarian and has done impressive work internationally. He speaks from his heart.
Then there is this fellow who calls himself C-Nuck who visits my blog and defends Israel's atrocities in the occupied areas with flimsy arguments. When I wrote in one of my previous posts that there have been hundreds of Israeli military personnel who are objectors to the invasion in the occupied territories, he said that was not true.
http://ledaro.blogspot.com/2009/02/holocaust-lest-we-forget.html - see the comments section.
Maybe this video will convince C-Nuck otherwise:
I believe there are good people in every society, and no matter how hard politicians try to brain wash the public these people are not fooled.
Recommend this postHarper and Iggy are ready to welcome Obama to Canada. It will be interesting to see the very popular Obama with these two. Would they get any photo-op during Obama's short stay of 5 hours?
Recommend this postWe must celebrate the lives of such hereos and do whatever we can in our humble way to follow in their footsteps. What the Israeli government is doing in Gaza and the West Bank is intolerable by any civilized standards. Killing and slaughtering of women and children is simply not acceptable and the people in Gaza are living in conditions of a concentration camp, as many World authorities have pointed out. It must be stopped and all nations must condemn it and do everything to stop it. Here is a video about Gaza which sheds some light on the plight of Palestinians.
Gaza: The sound of reason:
We must speak out against this carnage regardless of our religion, nationality or ethnic background. First and foremost we are all human. As the speaker in the first video says, not doing anything in case of extreme need is already an act of evil.
Recommend this postLong live the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberals, Mr. Harper has volunteered his primp lady to Mr. Ignatieff and he too is ready to meet Mr. Obama on February 19th.
Recommend this postGiven the popularity of Barack Obama in US and globally, many world leaders will like to emulate him. Stephen Harper is no exception to that. So he hired himself a brand new primping lady and here are his new looks which you shall see on February 19 when Barack Obama stops by Canada ;)
Recommend this postSurely there must be more information about the years since 1948.
The following is a video which is a great example how power can be corrupting, on how George W. Bush abused power.
Then of course there are the atrocities committed by the Bush Administration in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Recommend this postJonathan Turley is a professor of Constitutional Law at George Washington University. He makes a powerful case as to why Bush, Cheney and company must to be tried as we owe it to America and the rest of the world. Turley has repeatedly spoken about this issue on Keith Olbermann's show and on the Rachel Maddow Show.
I have written on this issue before and I believe that Bush, Cheney and company have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture. If we let this go because the US is the most powerful nation in the world, then it would be a grave injustice and a dangerous precedent. The rest of the world will feel free to carry out similar activities. There will be no moral authority left to prosecute others when we do not prosecute Bush, Cheney and company.
Here are the transcripts from the Rachel Maddow Show as well as the video.
Also, an interesting special comment by Keith Olbermann on the same issue.
Poor Harper, he was expecting a lot of fanfare and ceremony during the visit of the very popular US President Barack Obama, but Harper is not going to get it. It looks that Obama does not want to give Harper much publicity or credibility. He will be in Ottawa for a short time and fly back the same day. Maybe Iggy will get to meet him, or maybe not. It looks like a snub.
Recommend this postLouisiana Republican Senator David Vitter is facing some rough and stormy waters for his re-election. He had too much fun when he was in the Capital and he rendezvoused with the Madam of Washington D.C. In 2007, he appeared in public to state that indeed he was the client and intimate with the working gorgeous employees of the Madam, but he did not resign like Eliot Spitzer the former governor of New York.
Now the storm is swirling around him as the well-known porn star and adult entertainer is being encouraged to run against the senator. It is going to be fun. She was interviewed by Rick Sanchez of CNN where she said she was all set to tangle with Senator Vitter and that she has a lot of "assets" that Mr. Vitter lacks. She can say that again. She was asked what about her past. Her response was that her past was all legal and that it was clear that she cannot say the same about Mr. Vitter - his forays into the world of extra pleasures may not have been legal.
Mr. Vitter must have enjoyed his past rendezvous, but let us see how he weathers this storm.
To read the story about her bid for the US Senate click here.
Let me quickly point out that I am anti-war and whosoever is the aggressor, I condemn them. The recent slaughter by Israel in Gaza falls in that category. At first I did not follow the issue that closely, but when some moron tried to censor thoughts on a certain aggregate, I studied the issue more and then reached the conclusion that the IDF and the Government of Israel did carry out a horrific slaughter in Gaza.
I got attacked on both sides. Two examples are Schlemiel and A-Lunatic. Schlemiel (or Schmuck) accused me of "anti-semitism" and the other called me a "coward Jew-lover "and "condescending Canadian."
Let us start with Schlemiel. He called me an anti-semite and neo-Nazi because I criticise Israel and especailly Netanyahu. This guy is immature and a bit of an imbecile. He is obsessed with certain parts of human anatomy, see here and here. This should give you pretty good idea what an imbecile this useless tote is.
Then he wrote a post on me, accusing me of being a neo-Nazi. Here is part of it.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 07, 2009
How To Tell a "LiberalONLINE" from a Neo Nazi?
What do you call someone who spreads false 9/11 quotes, supposedly by prominent Jews? And if these quotes are sourced from someone who hates Anne Frank? And worships Hitler? And whose favourite book is "Mein Kampf"?
You call him "LeDaro", a "Progressive", "LiberalONLINE" blogger from Canada.
You can read the rest here. It is contained in one of the last comments. He quickly deleted the post when he realized how imbecile it was. But he did not stop there, he wrote another post accusing me of the same. You can read that here and make up your own mind about the imbecility of this person.
This guy's heroes are:
1) Netanyahu
2) Avigdor Lieberman
3) Stephen Harper
Now for the A-Lunatic, he is a self-declared anti-semite. His comments were so horrible that I started deleting them and he became very abusive, calling me a Jew Lover, a coward, and a condescending Canadian. I had to put my blog comments on moderation mode to escape his attacks. His blog could have been written by Hitler himself because it was so full of hate, irrationality, and imbecile rhetoric. Here was one of his links: http://zionofascism.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/what-if-hitler-had-killed-six-million-jews/#comments
It was full of hatred and I am glad that Wordpress has caught on and removed his blog. It was a hate-filled post where he was defending Hitler and justifying the Holocaust. In one word, that post was disgusting, and his hero is here.
It is sad that people like these two succeed to kill any goodwill in a society. As long as people like them exist, we will have problems. Maybe Google should remove this Schlemiel's blog like Wordpress removed A-Lunatic.
Here O'Reilly tries to prove that the only way to deal with substance addicts is to put them in jail. If you follow his prescription then a large proportion of Americans (and people elsewhere as well) will be in jail. There will be very little housing problems that's for sure. In his mind there is no such thing as rehabilitation. He may be right, he cannot be rehabilitated.
Here is another video where he proves his point of lack of rehabilitation.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Vice President Joe Biden reached out to the international community Saturday, saying that the U.S. is open for talks with Iran to repair relations, and willing to work with allies to solve world problems. However, Netanyahu of Israel wants to bomb Iran and wipe it off the map.
Will it be a different and peaceful world under the Obama administration? This new approach will render the extremists, including Netanyahu, irrelevant to the new world order.
What was Duffy thinking when he said this:
"I was disappointed to see that our dynamic young premier in Prince Edward
Island, Robert Ghiz, has climbed into bed with the premier of Newfoundland.
"You know what happened, what a grotesque scene that is. You
know what happens when two politicians climb into bed together. One of them
comes out on top and I'm afraid when you're in bed with Danny Williams, he's
going to be on top."
There is partisanship but this is just plain dumb.
Also, a quick administrative note, a self-declared anti-Semite was flooding my comments section so I had to turn on comments moderation. I did not want to, but he was not giving up and I was left with no other choice. I want my blog to be a welcoming place for people of all cultural backgrounds, and I did not want my comments section flooded with hate messages.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The first week was pure honeymoon. However, the Oval Office has its burdens which can stifle that honeymoon real fast. First, he had problems with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's confirmation as Geithner had failed to pay certain taxes.
Then along came the Nancy Killefer nomination for the federal government's chief performance officer. She had to withdraw from consideration for similar reasons. Then there was Tom Daschle who had too many free rides (without paying taxes) and he had to withdraw from the consideration as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Obama's $900-billion stimulus package has been having rough ride in the Senate and may not pass as Obama wants it. Of course there are also the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan inherited from Bush. Newsweek called Afghanistan the Vietnam of Obama. It is a place where empires meet their grim reaper.
Second week is not going so well, so Obama is a little unhappy. I wish him all the best because so many have so much riding on his Presidency, both in the US and around the world.
Michael Ignatieff, the "Canadian Obama" according to the New York Times, let the budget pass. Just like Obama he brought the foes together and made a compromise ;) Or did he? Iggy sounds more like a O'Bozo than Obama – or a bunching bag.
Recommend this postVisit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
At least David Duke is steady in his views. Great choice for worse person in the World.
Recommend this postOne feels impressed by Barack Obama that he cares, and that he is a humanitarian. He has signed a memorandum to help the people of Gaza.
Would Harper do the same?
You can click here to read the text of the memorandum.
Also, I hope that Obama will push forward with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process - now more than ever it is urgent for him to do so.
Barack Obama will be visiting Ottawa on Feb 9, 2009. How odd it will be for him to be standing next to Stephen Harper, and maybe meeting with Michael Ignatieff as well. History does repeat itself. Nelson Mandela made history by getting rid of apartheid in South Africa. It was an odd couple when he stood next to FW de Klerk, the last President of apartheid South Africa.
Obama made history by breaking the glass ceiling for African-Americans by becoming the first black president of the United States. What is Harper and Iggy's claim to fame? Harper supported the Iraq war, and now unconditionally supports apartheid in Gaza – what one Vatican official called a "Concentration camp in Gaza." Iggy supported the Iraq war, supported torture and now supports apartheid in Gaza as well. Instead of learning from history, it is a shame that our so-called leaders are supporting and encouraging it to repeat itself. Some hybrid of Warren Kinsella and Ezra Levant has praised Michael Ignatieff in the New York Times, that does not impress me much.
Since the Iraqi government has rejected the first shoe memorial of Bush in Iraq, we can give it another try. The person who was actually being recognized was not included in the memorial. It is only appropriate that he is included. Here is the new proposal. It is hoped that the Iraqi government and George W. Bush will approved it. Iraqi people love it ;)
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