It's been a week since Thanksgiving. You've probably already swallowed down the last of your left over stuffing and you discarded the remains of the last of the turkey after you've gotten sick of eating turkey sandwiches. You think thanksgiving is completely order, don't you?
You're dead wrong.
You see, nothing comes without a price. Your over indulgence in the flesh of a turkey last week caused you to hold a debt and the only way you can pay this back is in a pound of flesh. Turkey's aren't your regular birds. They're no foster farm chickens. There are many of them... they all look the same... and they have a plan.
Did you think that the turkey's would sit by ideally and allow a fellow fowl get taken down without any sort of a fight?
Hell no, not without a fight...
It may have taken them a week, but they realize that their buddies are gone. This holiday season they have no reason to be thankful.. they were attacked. They were decapitated, packed and then tossed into markets. Now their kin is seeking revenge.
Their attack plan was simple. The humans ate their buddies.. they will now attack the humans and everything they love. Their homes. Their children, Their much beloved Freedoms.. Did you think that the police can save you? Ha! Think again, they don't give a fuck about no 5-O
They are relentless and if you think about the odds, if you had 5 people at your thanksgiving sharing 1 of them, how many turkey's are there out roaming the land? Seeking revenge for the fallen?
What can you do? Hide the turkey baster. The first sign of one of those and you'll get some claw marks from ear to ear, draining your body of all your blood long before you ever hit the ground. Don't even think about getting the stuffing or the gravy, either. Hide the pumpkin pie. They can smell the hints of dead turkey that linger around any pumpkin pie.
You can't call for help from the police. The moment you hear the gobble gobble, you're already as good as dead. But really, it's only fitting. How long did that turkey spend in the oven? How dry was it when it hit your plate? In all truths, it's only fitting that they'll be after us. They'll get us in the end. It's only a matter of time. My only advice for you is....
On Monday night, French media giant Vivendi and NBC parent company General Electric agreed to terms that clear the way for US cable giant Comcast to take a controlling stake in NBC Universal. An announcement from Comcast is expected within days. The proposed merger would create a media behemoth, and clear the way for an unprecedented era of media consolidation across cable, the Internet and broadcast television.
Be afraid. Comcast is both the largest cable company and the largest residential broadband provider in the United States: a $34-billion business with 24 million subscribers, reaching nearly one out of every four homes in the country. NBCU owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Universal Studios, 27 television stations, and a host of other properties.
You know what I say? Big fucking deal. It was only a matter of time. Comcast wasn't owned by any of the big media five (News, GE, CBS, Viacom, Disney, Time Warner) so far. To be honest I was expecting Rupert to own them eventually.
Time Warner already has a bunch of content providers (including CNN), I don't see how this would start a tidal wave. Tidal wave already happened, it's just now beginning to hit us. Content providers and content distributors have always merged all the time. This is just happening in the age of the internet and so people are going all up in arms about potentially losing Hulu. Does it suck? I suppose. Just depends on how you look at it. I mean, look at it this way. No one watches NBC except for football, the office and Conan.
For the most part, they bought into a bad product. NBC is total shit right now. It's very much a fix'er up'er. But really, there's no mass control on your news. Television ceased to be relevant for news half a decade ago. CNN, Nightly News and the local news are all a joke.
Yes, Comcast raised the cable rates for years while raking in record profits nearly every quarter. They're a business. I guess that'll happen. There is always another option.. Hell, I say that even though my only option for cable/internet is Time Warner. You want to talk about shitty service.. try Time Warner.
It's even more annoying that only a couple of blocks north is where AT&T cable is offered. And really, if you're not a consumer that uses comcast so far, it wont have much of an impact on you anyway. Then again. Landlines aren't very useful anymore. I haven't had one for at least 4-5 years now. It really sucked to be an early adapter for that since places like Time Warner still expected a land line for bills. They had to catch up to me not having one in my apartment.
How much white guilt do you have towards NBC currently? I mean, it was owned by General Electric, a corporation which has large arms manufacturing subsidiaries. If GE can put p with Hulu and the other problems the network has, Comcast probably will too. At least they won't be owned by a major weapons manufacturer anymore.
I would not be worried for Hulu. NBC Universal has a share in Hulu. That's it. Along side News Corp, Disney and Providence Equity Partners, a Rhode Island-based group of investors who also owns a bit of MGM alongside with Comcast, Sony and others. Comcast's COO said that he doesn't plan on making Hulu a pay service, but later added that he has no call on it since NBC Universal is only one of a group of owners of Hulu. There have been some wonders from various parts if Hulu would become a pay service or not, and if it did become so, I would personally have no problem with it if they were able to make it worth the money (e.g., finding more licensees to add content, keeping new content ad-supported and perhaps adding older episodes that could be paid for, etc.).
So really, all this means is that someone new owns a majority of NBC. Nothing new under the sun.
News From The Front: The War On Christmas Front, That Is
Yes, enough about that silly war for now. I mean, we got another 18 months to criticize it, am I right? We should turn the attention to the war that we're knee deep in the trenches on.. That is the War on Christmas.
I suppose I should bring about this message of having Happy Holidays from the people who are badly trying to retake power over the most powerful military on the planet. The first step is to reclaim Christmas. Yes, that's right, we need to put the Christ back into Christmas and the only way to do that is to avoid all them stores who just say Happy Holidays and NOT Merry Christmas.
Wingnut Christians have a powerful new ally in the War On Xmas: It’s a website full of retailer ratings to let you know if maybe Jews or Atheists or (God forbid!) Muslims are making the Xmas Season less Christ-y! StandForChristmas.com reports and decides on which chain stores (WalMart) know the “reason for the season,” and which homosexual shops (Best Buy, The Gap) are trying to make nice with anti-American forces such as Muslims, Jews and Atheists. Let’s review the reviewers!
One day, the Pagans will take back Christmas, because they invented it, but for now only Christians are unemployed in numbers large enough for a volunteer-force War on Xmas. And now that the season of Santa and Frosty is upon us, this is what’s on the collective mind of America’s disgruntled white Jeebus-followers (other than porn and extra-value meals, anyway):
quote:
Macy’s: * “Me and my family shop at Dadeland Macys in Miami Florida.The Salespersons are very friendly and Christmas Focus. I am a very Aggressive and Bold person for CHRIST any store that i spend my money in they better tell me Merry Christmas or a VOID will be following in seconds.”
* “I was looking for a Christmas Sweater and told by a clerk that they had not carried Christmas Sweaters for some time. I was disappointed. They used to have sweaters depicting the ‘Silent Night’, the Three Kings, etc. I find I frequent the store less and less frequently.” [The mythical Three Kings were Iranian Devil-Worshipers, did you know? -- Ed.]
Best Buy: * “I wish I knew about this store prior to my purchase. The service was good and they were friendly. No Happy Holidays, no Merry Cchristmas nothing. Now I know why. Last time I shop here.”
* “Just bought an ipod from Best Buy, but then learned of their anti-Christmas/pro -Eid al Adha actions. I so regret having purchased from them. Best Buy, give glory to the one who has allowed and attributed to your success…Jesus Christ, not Mohammed!”
* “Great holiday prices and friendly staff.” [Nice try, Mohammed Atta! -- Ed.]
* “In your flyer advertising Black Friday the weekend before Thanksgiving, you had nothing regarding Christmas.. instead you had Happy Eid Al- Adha…a muslim religious Holiday. This is the United States of America, founded on Chrisitan principals, not Muslim. I am disgraced by this and will not shop your stores until you recognize the religious holiday that prevails in the U.S. - Christmas!”
* “It’s so rude that Best Buy has a Muslim Wish on the front of their WebFlyer. This is America! Wish us a Merry Christmas! I will not be shopping at Best Buy ever again!”
The Gap:
* “I was completely disgusted by the commercial on tv for the GAP. Not only was Christmas so casually mentioned, but to push the idea that it’s ok to do whatever feels right is so obviously against God and His Word. I for one will no longer shop at any company affiliated with the GAP. I pray that others choose to join as well. I also encourage others to pray for the people involved that God could reach them in some way and change their hearts and minds.”
* “You have offended the U.S. majority (Christians) by equating the birth of Christ with Wiccan soltice. I’m curious as to to buying power of Wiccans compared to the buying power of Christians? This Christian respectfully WANNUKAHS to cancel my GAP credit card in person in my local store. Other Christians - please let your local store manager know in person of your decision to no longer support their stores.”
* “Just heard about Gap deciding against Christmas. They are comparing Christmas to cults and witchcraft and encouraging folks to celebrate the ‘holiday’ in whatever manner they see fit. Come on, Gap, take a stand for what is RIGHT - you benefit from our Christmas dollars for Christmas gifts. Because of their stand on Christmas, I won’t be buying anything from Gap this year. Come on Gap! Celebrate Christmas! Jesus died for EVERYONE!” [Jesus *died* on Xmas? WTF? -- Ed.]
Eddie Bauer:
* “I was made to feel very uncomfortable by their employees who would only respond to my ‘Merry Christmas’ with a ‘Happy Holidays’. If they know I believe in Jesus, why can’t they just wish me a Merry Christmas???”
* “Shopping CHRISTmas friendly stores is very important to me. I do not believe that CHRISTmas advertising should begin until after Thanksgiving. The day to celebrate the birth of Jesus has become far more too materialistic, and seems to become that way more each. year. Loacally the CHRISTmas decorations, songs, etc. began before holloween. Absurd and disgusting. Thank God for Focus on the Family and all you do. God Bless each and everyone at Focus. Myrna”
Uh yeah because the BIBLE clearly commands that you can’t have Xmas decorations before Halloween, jesus fucking christ, you people are all lunatics. [Stand For Christmas]
Damn. I guess there goes the idea of making a nativity scene with Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett as the wise men. As well as having Mary, Joseph and Jesus being authentically brown rather than American pleasing pasty white.
This part of is just too much:
* “Me and my family shop at Dadeland Macys in Miami Florida.The Salespersons are very friendly and Christmas Focus. I am a very Aggressive and Bold person for CHRIST any store that i spend my money in they better tell me Merry Christmas or a VOID will be following in seconds.”
I think I'm going to join the suicide rate that happens during this most depressing time of year. Merry Christmas doesn't go far enough. All they're wishing you to do is have a nice day in the near future, with no implication as to who is providing that day for you, (Jesus, in case you didn't know). If the clerk doesn't wish me a Christy Christmas I'm going to put out my cigarette in their eye, the way Jesus would have wanted it.
You two can follow this movement and not shop at stores that don't put the Christ in your shopping habits by following the list of stores in this following link: http://standforchristmas.com/
That is definitely what Jesus wants. He wants you to only spend your money to corporations who will gladly exploit your religious beliefs for profit. How christian of them to not give their money to the non-believers and liberals. Jesus was the ultimate conservative, vote with your dollars in the name of G-O-D!
Maybe this year I'll pretend to have no idea what Christmas is or what it's all about. I guess that's the only way to piss off those religious freaks even more. By taking the Christmas out of Christmas.
"Merry Christmas!" "Mary who?"
Or maybe I'll celebrate it by singing Christmas carols from the 1600s and 1700s, when they knew the true meaning of the season.
To conclude, I'le tell you news that's right, Christmas was kil'd at Naseby fight: Charity was slain at that same time, Jack Tell troth too, a friend of mine, Likewise then did die, rost beef and shred pie, Pig, Goose and Capon no quarter found. Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down.
I'm not sure Jesus ever wore gothy sequined fabric from the oanns cheapie rack except maybe when he was the guy from Skid row in Jesus Christ Superstar. These folks really get up in arms when you take out Christmas from anything. I would pay money to see an edited version of It's A Wonderful Life airing on Christmas day "Happy Holidays, movies! Happy holidays, Emporium! Happy holidays, you wonderful old building and loan!"
How dare Christians try to take the focus away frm Santa and put it on Jesus. Santa has given millions of gifts every year to gleeful children and brought hope to America.. What has Jesus done for me lately? WHJDFML? Should have put a ring on it, yo.
If you're wearing a crown of thorns, shouldn't the thorns be pointing in to scratch and pierce your flesh? Oh, I realize, that would actually hurt.. But wait, that brings up an even bigger issue. Why are they wearing that for Christmas? Shouldn't they wear the crown for Good Friday? Jesus wasn't rocking that style on the day he was born. It's bad enough Mary was poor, no need to have her crowning with a crown of thorns.
Never mind the fact that Jesus was a Jew and if he were alive today, he wouldn't be celebrating Christmas.. No wait, he would. Cause it's his fake birthday.. But he wouldn't be giving anyone shit, yo. No secret santa for him! Nah. He wouldn't celebrate it cause he would know it's not his birthday.. Holy shit, he has two birthday! He rose again.
It's not like if someone says Merry Christmas to me I scream "I'M ATHEIIISSSSST!!!" in a cracking falsetto. Christmas isn't my favorite holiday by any stretch, but I don't mind imagery of christian mythology any more than I do imagery of Santa Clause. They both seem pretty far fetched and ideas that children subscribe to.
America just seems obsessed with Christmas as a whole. It's really an unhealthy obsession. We should rename the US to "Santa's workshop" and tell everyone they're all elves and it would be a better way to sell communism to the masses. You know what happened on December 25th? Not the birth of a brown baby in the desert. James Brown died. And that in itself is something we should Celebrate.
Merry Jesus to you and may you have a jew-free New Years.
As much as I'm a strong and powerful American supporter, I do still believe that Capitalism is not the best economic plan for longevity. I've made the example about Monopoly and how at first, you really enjoy buying up all the land you can with all the money you get tossed at you. But as the game goes on and it's clear that someone has the strong hold on a monopoly and starts building like crazy making you pay every time you pass by it, it starts to lose the fun factor.
So when the news came out that Dubai is dead broke... I can't help but be the bearer of bad news and say that this is a preview of tomorrow's Wall Street carnage. Yup, Dubai is pretty much broke as a joke...
Dubai's Request For Debt 'Standstill' Shakes World Markets
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills – causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment.
The fallout came swiftly and was felt globally after Wednesday statement that Dubai's main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a "standstill" on paying back its $60 billion debt until at least May. The company's real estate arm, Nakheel – whose projects include the palm-shaped island in the Gulf – shoulders the bulk of money due to banks, investment houses and outside development contractors.
In total, the state-backed networks nicknamed Dubai Inc. are $80 billion in the red and the emirate needed a bailout earlier this year from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Markets took the news badly – with the Dubai woes and the continued fall of the U.S. dollar giving investors twin worries. Dubai's move raised concerns about debt across the Gulf Region. Prices to insure debt from Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all rose by double-digit percentages Thursday, according to data from CMA DataVision.
In Europe, the FTSE 100, Germany's DAX and the CAC-40 in France opened sharply lower. Earlier in Asia, the Shanghai index sank 119.19 points, or 3.6 percent, in the biggest one-day fall since Aug. 31. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 1.8 percent to 22,210.41.
Wall Street was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday and most markets in the Middle East were silent because of a major Islamic feast.
"Dubai's standstill announcement ... was vague and it remains difficult to discern whether the call for a standstill will be voluntary," said a statement from the Eurasia Group, a Washington-based research group that assesses political and financial risk for foreign investors interested in Dubai.
"If it is not, Dubai World will be going into default and that will have more serious negative repercussions for Dubai's sovereign debt, Dubai World and market confidence in the UAE in general," the statement added.
Dubai became the Gulf's biggest credit crunch victim a year ago. But its ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, had continually dismissed concerns over the city-state's liquidity and claims it overreached during the good times.
When asked about the debt, he confidently assured reporters in a rare meeting two months ago that "we are all right" and "we are not worried," leaving details of a recovery plan – if such a plan exists – to everyone's guess.
Then, earlier this month, he told Dubai's critics to "shut up."
After months of denial that the economic downturn even touched the glitzy city-state, the Dubai government earlier this year showed signs of trying to deal with the financial fallout that has halted dozens of projects and touched off an exodus of expatriate workers.
After an expensive adventure in doing things the Western way, it's "going back to basics" for Dubai, Shakeel added.
But if this comes to you as a surprise, I really don't know what to tell you. Dubai has been broke for a while now, they've just been in denial. A couple of weeks back their was a report that more people were leaving the hell out of the place abandoning their Ferrari's in the airport parking lot as they fled from collectors. Their is the ability to have a debtors prison sure scares people. I wonder if you could get a sweet deal on one of those abandoned cars. I always wanted a gold/silver plated exotic car and right now I'm sure you can get a great deal on one.
But there's a difference between abandoned Ferrari's and the whole city/state going belly-up. Although it sure seemed inevitable. I guess the business model of building Jurassic park in real life doesn't seem so sound. I mean, they had an indoor ski resort... And world shaped islands. Wait, let's see how that 'The World' project is coming along. You know, all those islands that were carefully designed off the coast of Dubai so that they would be in the shape of the contine--
Ha! yeah.. needs a little work..
The World project is one of the dumbest things ever attempted by man. You dump rocks and sand in water long enough to build islands.. not only that, but islands that look like the world. It's like that one beer ad where they toss rocks into the ocean so they have an island to party on. I mean, who doesn't want their own island to buck the rules of... drinking in public? Hmm, I'm not sure what laws they would need to make their own exclusive island for.
I'm going to talk about the bigger fish that will fry because of this, but there's just so much ground to cover. I mean, first of all, this is going to suck for those migrant slav-workers, there. It really is just a Slave run Vegas near the ocean with a lot of tall buildings. And tall buildings for nothing.
It really is pretty sad that the only thing that Dubai gets deadlines for is its massive skyscrapers and financial debts. It's not like it's a haven for slavery, corruption, blatant human rights violations, or a massive sex trade or anything. Whenever I say that I would rather visit pretty much anywhere else in the world besides Dubai people never understand why.
Besides screwing over the slave market that has been going on there for the luxuriant rich, Dubai was a place for companies to put their money into hoping for some return. In fact, this is going to kill the shit loads of companies that bailed out Dubai not too long ago by investing in them. We'll finally ge to see which banks are holding all that debt that Dubai World will "pay back when it gets around to it", from what I've heard this weeks lucky winner is HSBC. How about other companies who loaned Dubai money and have zero chance of seeing it back:
The US public will be “outraged” by Citibank’s $8 billion loan to Dubai just six weeks after the bank was bailed out, US House of Representatives domestic policy subcommittee chair-man has said. Dennis Kucinich commented on the Dubai loan and other US banking investments as a congressional panel released a report that strongly questioned Citibank’s actions. The report, shown to 7DAYS, cites the Dubai loan as the largest of the “questionable transactions” by banks after the US government bailed them out. It notes that the loan to Dubai’s public sector came on December 14, just six weeks after the US government gave Citibank a $25 billion bail-out.
The report quotes Win Bischoof, then chairman of Citi, as saying the bank agreed to the Dubai loan because “we continue to place the Gulf region among our globally most significant markets”. The report also questions JP Morgan’s $1 billion investment in India and Bank of America’s $7 billion investment in China. “When the American people find that their tax dollars, which were supposed to be used to get us out of this financial crisis, are instead being used to ship jobs and investments overseas, there will be outrage,” Kucinich said. The report notes the loans were not illegal and that it is not known if they were directly funded by bail-out funds. A Citibank official was quoted at the time as saying the $8 billion came from the bank’s own funds and third party sources. The report was released as the committee prepares to question banking chiefs about their use of bail-out funds.
Keep dreaming, Kucinich. People wont be outraged unless Glenbeck tells them to and Citibank would be more successful if it was run by some sort of dog or maybe a hamster. Even though I wrote an article about a dog stealing a turkey showing how they are untrustworthy tricksters who steal turkeys, they would make better CEO's. They can't steal 40 billion turkey's. If a dog stole a turkey that would completely occupy its attention for at least an hour, so a dog CEO could only realistically steal 5,500 turkeys a year.
I guess the best investment magnets are the ones that have no actual value aside from being investment magnets. Much like the best magnets are really big strong ones that slam together so hard that they turn your fingers into mincemeat. So this turning into a piss poor investment really shouldn't shock anyone.
It really makes you wonder why the hell economists all over the world shocked by this? It was concluded last year when the shit hit the fan that Dubai was going to go even further tits up. At least now you can get an amazing deal on a partially finished 500 story desert igloo tower. I mean, what was even the point of that towering symbol of modern day Babylon? You can see all the waste of money from up here!
This just highlights how stupid it was to build all those super-skyscrapers. There is no density that required it. It's really a work of stupidity. I recall hearing all the Econ majors foaming at the mouth and jerking off to Dubai. I guess it was just a matter of not having enough free market. The market, it needs more freedom! Actually, what it needs are more bootstraps and strawmen. Ten years from now all those abandoned towers are going to make for some really awesome post-apocalyptic locations for movies made by the Chinese, or poor college kids.
It was a bourgeois wonderland. I mean, how could it not be with a full fucking indoor skiing. Why would you want to go skiing in a desert? I do not know. I guess they took the idea of the indoor water park from vegas and ran with it. Really though, it's not needed and it's just over abundance. I guess I can't feel bad for those people because they went to an oppressive, shit hole country hoping to get rich. Goodbye, modern day version of Babylon. I guess the only thing now is I have no place to see disgusting displays of opulence and wealth now.
I am Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon my Jurassic Park recreation, and despair.
I haven't even touched on the tip of the ice burg in terms of absurd pictures of wasteful spending. You can check this site out to see the amount of pointless shit they were making in this wonderland where they assumed you could just throw more money at and it'll start working.
You'll have to forgive me. I've reached this far into this piece and I have not shown any concern for Haliburtons new headquarters located in Dubai... What will become of that poor company?! Heaven forbid it now has to spend more money on relocating to somewhere that isn't going to become a ghost town. Karma seems to be a bitch.
Dubai is a nice allegory for everything that is wrong with the world. It's basically Titanic 2.0. You know how in Sim City you make a really dense city as quickly as possible with tons of skyscrapers and you add tons of worthless landmarks and take out a bunch of loans to pay for all of it? That game strategy was really bad and usually never worked out. You didn't have to make a modern day Sim City situation to find that out.
England is deserted, Australia and New Zealand have merged, and the man who bought Ireland has killed himself.
They were designed to make Dubai the envy of the world: a series of paradise islands inhabited by celebrities and the super-rich reclaimed from the azure waters of the Arabian Gulf and shaped like a map of the Earth. It was called The World.
As millions of tonnes of rock were dumped into the sea for the foundations, timely leaks suggested that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were to buy Ethiopia, Sir Richard Branson was tipped to occupy England, while Rod Stewart would border him in Scotland.
Instead it has become the world’s most expensive shipping hazard, guarded by private security in fast boats and ringed by warning buoys to keep the curious away. A development that was meant to send Dubai’s star into the firmament of First World cities has been left to the mercy of the waves and the baking winds.
Mile after mile of breakwater built from boulders brought hundreds of miles by ship has been laid, but inside its man-made lagoon, work has completely stopped. The expected map of the world of 300 islands is instead a disjointed and desolate collection of sandy blots — a monumental folly just out of sight of Dubai’s shore.
Those who bought into what was the world’s most ambitious building project were not celebrities. Many were more ordinary investors who put down 70 per cent deposits, some of them Anglo-Indians. John O’Dolan, who fronted a consortium that bought Ireland in 2007 for $38 million (£27 million), committed suicide earlier this year. The others have little prospect of seeing a return. Now The World has stopped they can’t get off.
“The World has been cancelled. It doesn’t even look like the world. Basically there is one island that is maintained that is said to be owned by the Sheikh [Dubai’s ruler] and the rest looks like a pile of muck,” said one local property agent.
It is the starkest example of a financing crunch that faces the emirate but many other projects are also in jeopardy. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Dubai is a part, about $300 billion of building is on hold after prices began tumbling. Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s oil-rich neighbour, is helping to support it through the crisis, so far to the tune of about $10 billion. Another $10 billion is likely to follow soon, and more may follow.
Yesterday Obama announced that he was going to send in 30,000 troops and I'm sure an unknown amount of mercenaries to Afghanistan and Pakistan for 18 months to see if he can wrap this mofo up.
His claim is that we can't just ignore the level of terrorism that could potentially come from those locations if we do leave it alone. Hey, do you guys remember when he tried to appeal to the independent voters and was really hawkish about Afghanistan and Pakistan when trying to outflank McCain? Ha. yeah, that was some time ago...
And at what cost will this run us up in the total? That's the real kicker. It seems the estimate is about a billion-dollars-a-day and that really pisses me off almost as much as the inevitable loss of lives. Considering Medicare-for-all would cost roughly $63 billion/year. Congrats! With one month's funding for two wars on terrorism, you could have provided the entire country with affordable and comprehensive medical care for a year!
Then again, let's be realistic here, the stat is roughly one million/Troop/year. So with 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, that's $100 Million a day. So the rough estimate is Iraq + Afghanistan = Universal Health Care.
Commentator David Sirota wrote a really great piece asking some tough questions about this plane. They're really simple questions and should be addressed or at least some thinking behind them should take place.
Tue Dec 01, 2009 at 20:41 Just a few quick questions to ponder after President Obama's speech announcing a massive escalation in Afghanistan - the very first being shouldn't we be able to honestly answer these queries before mindlessly cheering on a deployment of more troops to a Central Asian war zone?
Here they are in no particular order:
- What percentage of those kids in the West Point audience will die because of this decision?
I would be literally shitting my pants if he just was addressing me, as a soldier and saying that I'm looking to the next 18 months of digging in the trenches and spread thin in these two locations.
- Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?
- Why do so many pundits and pro-Obama activists continue to focus on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this decision is for President Obama, rather than on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this will be for the soldiers who are killed? Doesn't Obama get to make this decision, and then go home to the comfortable confines of a butlered White House, while thousands of Americans will be sent 7,000 miles from home to face their potential deaths? Isn't the latter "harder" than the former?
As much as I usually sound like I hate the troops, this is really an important question. How much positive are we really doing in these areas? Afghanistan is corrupt as all hell, do you really think our efforts will be matched?
- Where's the antiwar movement and the marches and the organizing and the protesting? Where's all those well-funded groups that protested George W. Bush's war policy? Or was all that really just about hating George Bush and embracing blind Partisan War Syndrome?
As much as I support Obama and voted for him, I really think that there should be some outrage to this. Yeah, it was a campaign promise, but now is not the time, especially when you have high unemployment rates and trying to work on UHC, to spend money so easily on an overseas war.
- In the days and weeks after this speech, will the White House's cynical new spin get ever more desperate and become, hey - at least an Afghanistan escalation holds out the possibility of making sure military combat casualties start outpacing military suicides?
- Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan War at the same annual cost of universal health care will save more than 45,000 Americans a year (ie. the number of Americans who die every year for lack of health insurance)?
- Did CNN really turn a move to send thousands of Americans to potentially die in Central Asia into an over-stylized, hyper-marketed television show called "Decision Afghanistan?" Is the media really that soulless, or did my eyes betray me? Because it's really hard for me to believe that even in this cynical age, a television network tried to make a cheap reality-TV show out of life-and-death decision that could affect tens of thousands of people.
- Which is worse - a stupid person like George W. Bush starting a dumb occupation, or a smart person like Barack Obama following the lead of that stupid person, but actually escalating that occupation?
Bush got us into this mess and instead of getting out, it looks like we're painting the walls red and making an even bigger mess. How are we going to really pull out in 18 months if it's in bad shape?
- The "we're going to escalate war to end war" refrain throughout the speech - have we heard that before somewhere? It sounds sorta like "we'll burn down the Vietnam villages to save them." Just curious if that's what we're talking about here - because, ya know, that worked out really well.
- Are we really expected to believe that massively escalating a war is the way to end a war? I mean, really? Like, is the public really looked at like we're that stupid? And a follow-up question: Are we really that stupid?
- If Obama's Afghan War strategy about escalating a war to end a war was a self-help strategy for, say, alcoholics, wouldn't it prescribe drinking more whiskey to stop drinking - and wouldn't we all laugh at that?
This really does seem like not the case to feed a cough. Instead we should be starving that flu.
- How many pundits will insist that bowing down to the Military-Industrial complex and escalating this missionless war somehow shows "resolve" and "strength" and "toughness" and "leadership" and not embarrassing weakness?
- Would the Obamaphiles now telling us to "give President Obama a chance" with this decision and/or defending Obama's escalation - would these same people be saying we should "give President McCain a chance" and/or defending President McCain's escalation if he was the one in office making this decision?
- I'm confused: Is this hope or change?
I guess we can't really be angry at him. The dude said he was going to do this shit before the election. It literally is one of his campaign promises to go after Osama. Look at what Obama said in July of 2008;
"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism," Obama said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," he said.
Obama said troop levels must increase in Afghanistan.
"For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three," he told CBS. "I think it's very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough."
I mean, at least Bush and Cheney stood to directly profit from the wholesale slaughter of brown people using weapons Cheney sold us and recovering oil for Bush. But I'm all out of ideas on why Obama would be interested in this whole situation as he owns neither sorts of corporations.
It is just a matter of being re-elected in 2012, and you know that 18 month pull out plan is going to be delayed. Just look at Gitmo still up and running and with a hiring McDonalds. Polls aren't necessarily favoring this war, so obviously he has to be directly profiting from it somehow. Or perhaps he just doesn't give a shit. I mean, what's the chances of catching Osama? Really now.
While I realize that these were in his election promises. I do think that now that we see how bad this situation is, that we get something different. It really does seem odd that for all this CHANGE that we are hoping for, this sort of stuff sounds like more of the same. In fact, all the real change that happened was the President's speeches sound a bit more intelligent. But it still sounds like a Bush speech.
I'm not calling on the birth certificate nor am I going to jump on the teabaggers side on this, but really, It just seems Obama's plan to send in more troops to solve the issue is like burning money when we need it on more important, in house expenses.
It's bad enough that the number of suicides by our troops outnumbers the amount of deaths in Iraq so far this year. Do we really want to make sure that those numbers start inverting here? Maybe he's just sending those troops out to weed out the numbers a little and get that jobs available/ workers to fill them quote to balance out a little more?
Woah, how did I almost miss World Aids Day? Well it's a good thing I jumped in here with some fun facts before the day is over so you can get some juice out of Aids day.
Did you know:
In Botswana, it is estimated that 22.5 - 24.9% of the population aged 15-49 has HIV/AIDS? If you were in Botswana now, 1 out of every 4 people you meet is dying!
Then again, if you want to think like that, 1 out of every 1 persons you meet will be dying... eventually. I mean, we don't live forever or anything.
In South Africa, there are somewhere between 230,000 and 320,000 people infected with HIV. Oh wait, no, that's just children (age 0-15). The adult HIV-positive population is between 4,700,000 and 6,200,000!
Guess how many countries in Africa have set UN mandated Universal Access Targets for HIV treatment, prevention, care, and support? The answer is... all of them! Except Liberia, Equatorial Guinea (not to be confused with Guinea), Guinea-Bissau (also not to be confused with Guinea), Western Sahara (isn't really a state), and Libya.
Now guess how many countries in North America have set UN mandated UATs? The answer is... none of them! Sure, there are only three countries in North America, but one of them is where we live and also happens to be the wealthiest state in the world!
Guess what else the US has? That's right, 1,200,000 people living with HIV!
Don't worry folks, as long as you never get tested, You never have to worry about the indiscretions of your past! We can all thank Ronald Reagan for doing nothing during the early years of Aids.
Here's a helpful chart so you can guess which place has the most Aid's outbreaks. It's a sort of paint by numbers. Happy World AIDS Day everyone!
I came across this little news piece today and I just didn't know what to make of it. I mean, it's just so odd. Now that you're coming back to work and to your daily life from the Thanksgiving weekend, perhaps it's best that you look back at the terrors of dealing with bad flights, awkward family situations and dry turkey and be thankful yet again at the story you're about to read:
Click on the picture to see the article...
The thing that makes me laugh the most about it is that someone got paid to write that. Someone had to come in on Thanksgiving and was told by their editor who also had to come in on Thanksgiving to write that. Then someone got paid to photoshop a golden retriever as the unabomber.
I'm not all that surprised. I worked in the news field before. You get called in on any day possible. Nights/weekends aren't free to you. But still, it is very funny. But the lack of work in this case is the most comical. I've worked editing jobs where you can get away with sitting around all day and then doing the work you need in 5 minutes and getting paid for a full day's work. It's like stealing candy from a baby.. or in this case, stealing turkey from a family.
I suppose some sympathy is needed here. The owner of the turkey is a seven and a half months pregnant, and says she and her husband spent their last $25 on the turkey. At least the couple was still able to have a thanksgiving turkey, provided to them by some generous neighbors.
When you break it down, Thanksgiving is a primitive animal sacrifice ritual symbolizing the subjugation and ethnic cleansing of the American native population and glorifying American waste and excess. A dog which defiles such an event, stealing the food of the white oppressor, is giving a symbolic lesson on the theft of food and resources committed by America upon their own people and the rest of the world. This not a bad dog.. this is the best dog.
Dogs in generally seem like they have a straight head when it comes to which side they lean towards. It seems that they are inherently leftist. Then again, unless this dog stole that turkey from the poor family to bring to his rich master, then he's just like any other tool of the bourgeois.
Once my dog ate my birthday cake. I didn't see that story make it on Fox news... Clearly they aren't fair or balanced after all!
Once was a writer, tho, you see words to your left, so I guess I'm still that to some degree.
You can find my scribbles and mind ranting on this and various other places as a means to keep the creative, satirical and costco talk muscles worked out.
Was once apart of the tv industry, but I'm sure the NDA's are still in effect so let's move on from that. Now I spend my time slinging beer and keeping a building in one piece.
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