History may repeat itself two or three times or even reach the point, which Francis Fukuyama described as the end of history. The US historian of Japanese origin introduced the notion during the time when there were two dominating superpowers in the world – the United States and the Soviet Union.
When the USSR collapsed and Russia lost much of its international influence, the USA became the world’s number one gendarme. That was the time, when US presidents started making one mistake after another. Their mistakes eventually led to the phenomenon, which is currently known as the clash of civilizations. America needed an enemy. America needed oil. Both were found in one country – Iraq.
US President George W. Bush declared the date of September 11, 2001 as the beginning of new history in the world and announced the crusade against the international terrorism, which took roots in radical countries of the Muslim world.
Pakistan found itself involved in the US-led war in Afghanistan. The relations between the United States and Iran were finally ruined and were balancing on the brink of war during the last year of Bush’s presidency.
The new president of the United States of America, the first Afro-American of the Muslim origin, Barack Hussein Obama, had to face the severe reality of Bush’s legacy.
As soon as the United States found itself in the middle of the economic crisis, the administration of the country decided that it was the best time to launch the struggle for peace in the whole world. This is exactly what Mikhail Gorbachev was doing during the agony of the Soviet Union.
Barack Obama did not say anything when Israeli troops were destroying residential quarters in the Gaza Strip during the Cast Lead operation in Palestine. Obama was as silent as a sphinx.
The sphinx started talking.
Obama said during his landmark speech at the Cairo University that the state of affairs in Palestine was unbearable. He also emphasized that the USA’s ties with Israel were indestructible. Obama quoted the Holy Book of all Muslims, the Qur’an and urged the people of all religions to live in peace with each other. However, good words do not leave a sweet taste in the mouth.
Obama says that it would be good to give a new incentive to the dialogue with the Muslim world. Will the US administration be able to recognize the rights of the Palestinian Authority to create an independent state? Will the US administration ever realize that the Muslim world is not a pack of cards which the USA can play to win the geopolitical leadership?
History repeats itself. The Mideastern tour of the Afro-American head of the White House was promoted as a new page in the relations between America and the Muslim world. As a matter of fact, Mr. Obama simply did what his predecessors had done before him.
Forget about the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the values explained in our founding documents. Barry has come from a higher place than we, poor, wretched common folk. We are the simpletons who still "cling to the Bible and guns".
He knows better, though. He knows that because you can't find the exact legal phrase in any of our documents, that America's soul can't be Christian. He is, after all, a Harvard-educated lawyer.
While trying to "humanize" their pick for President, MSNBC does a humorous bit on Barry. It's just a cute skit where the reporter ends up interviewing TOTUS, the Teleprompter Of The United States. No harm, no foul, right?
I don't know about you, but when I hear the notion of public speaking and the president, I still can't get the ringing out of my ears over the 8 years of constant drumbeat from the MSM saying, "POOR SPEAKER=DUNCE", and all of the other variations of such hatemongering towards a sitting President.
But to their guy, they gently poke fun of the softer sides of his very, very, trying time in the White House. Doing a "hug piece" on him has started early--be ready for a long ride through Obamaland, filled with well-produced puppets, songs, and video graphics, all for the means of...
...brainwashing you? Yes, but that's not all.
This cutesy soft-hit on the president from MSNBC serves as a distraction from the past week's news: N Korea thumbing its nose at Barry; his recent calling the US one of the largest Muslim nations, after just 2 months ago telling Arabs that "the US is not a Christian nation"; and the announcement of a deepening recession with no solution on the horizon anytime soon.
TOTUS needs the press, and the press needs us to watch the little trick over hear while you avoid looking at the falling empire.
The Left is now and has always been suffocatingly smug. Evan Thomas, editor of Newsweek--which is one of a handful of long-running weekly political digests that is passed around in high school gov't/civics classrooms--rewrites history concerning Ronald Reagan's presidency to make him look like some inbred, club-weilding, retard waving an American flag in one hand while he bashes foreigners with the other.
This effete little man--Thomas--is typical of the Left's disgusting sense of superiority, bought with the blood, tears, and limbs of common men who don't have the luxury of time to ponder how patriotism is really passe'. He blithely tumbles out the words,
Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-
See how much better it is to NOT be like Reagan? Why, if you're like Reagan, you're parochial, chauvinistic, and provincial! How about that? To the man who stared down the Kremlin and deployed missiles all over free Europe to help them protect themselves from the U.S.S.R., we can so easily say, "we are above that now".
And just where is he getting his history from? It surely can't be from the archives of his own publication. The likes of Newsweek, Time, The NYT, etc. were ALL performing a constant drumbeat of how DANGEROUS, senile, and cruel the great Ronald Reagan was. It wasn't ok to buy into this notion of Reagan's that America is a "shining city on a hill". That quote was always mocked, ridiculed, and defrocked with statistics about the homeless people crowding the sidewalks of that 'shining city on a hill'. Remember those days? I do:
“As a practical matter, the homeless won’t get very far unless they can persuade a Republican to break with Ronald Reagan’s policies — or elect a Democrat.” — Newsweek senior editor Tom Mathews in the March 21, 1988 issue. (source)
This is the typical attitude behind most of the media, most certainly the msm.
Sears had a great sale recently on this olympic weight bench from Joe Weider, so I decided to splurge a little bit on myself:
Unfortunately, the box (although banded) contained two identical uprights, which come pre-drilled in order to be assembled and aren't supposed to be interchangeable. You can see how these two posts have the holes drilled at exactly the same spots:
This is how they are supposed to look:
Notice the holes on the right one--different setting for them on this correct upright from Sears. Luckily, they serviced my incorrect order swiftly and with no fuss at all. I returned the post later that day after I bought it, they recognized the problem, and simply went into the back stock area, opened another seperate but equal weight bench box, and exchanged the post.
I also found a sale on 300 lbs of olympic weights at Sports Authority, plus a good, sturdy olympic bar:
With preacher curl attachment:
Loaded up and ready to go!
It's a lot like an old glove that still fits after 30 years. I've benched all of my life since I was 12, and it has always been a comfortable ritual. Good for the bones, which contributes greatly to overall health, toning/strength enhancements to the muscle groups involved, and development of balance skills due to the nature of free weights.
To say nothing of the mental therapeutic benefits.
This past weekend, my girlfriend Pam and I left for a nice 3-day trip up to St Petersburg and Tampa. It was a blast, mainly because of the chance to get away from home a bit for once. We were able to just let a whim carry our direction for three days.
We took some shots with our still cameras, as well:
Here's what it sounded like when a sitting Republican president fought for months to get the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court in 2003:
And today, you're seeing amnesia-ridden journalists stumble all over themselves to say that Barry's Sotomayor is the first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court.
It's pathetically obvious to those of us who have watched politics for anything over, say, a week at a time. The press is staffed with "marketing majors", or "broadcast journalism degrees", and the owners accept that this brain-dead approach to broadcasting is the best that can be, because how else are you going to attract an audience to sell products during spot breaks if you don't have 22 year-old recent graduates from college?
Their sad memory is left in control of the images, context, and angle for which we must be subjected.
Netanyahu: Call for settlement freeze unreasonable
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dismissing U.S. calls for a West Bank settlement freeze as unreasonable.
Officials say Netanyahu delivered his assessment to a closed parliamentary committee Monday.
The U.S. has demanded that Israel halt all construction in the settlements. Netanyahu says some building must continue to accommodate what he calls "natural growth."
A meeting participant says Netanyahu testified that Israel cannot "freeze life" in existing settlements. He said "there are reasonable requests and unreasonable requests."
Another participant says Netanyahu said his job is to protect Israel, even if his decisions are not popular.
The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Mobs of Jewish settlers went on a rampage in the West Bank Monday, attacking Palestinian laborers and setting fire to agricultural land to protest against an Israeli government crackdown on unauthorized outposts in the territory.
Six Palestinian laborers riding on a minivan were injured when stone-throwing settlers attacked them, the workers said.
The violence comes as the Obama administration is pressuring Israel to honor long-standing pledges to tear down wildcat settlement outposts in the West Bank and to freeze expansion in existing, government-sanctioned settlements.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has balked at the U.S. demand to halt construction in existing settlements and faces stiff resistance within his hard-line government against taking down about two dozen of the outposts. The disagreement has caused a rift between the allies.
It has also put Jewish settlers and their backers in the Israeli government on the defensive.
Monday's violence was all deep inside the West Bank, where most of the hard-line settlements are located.
It started overnight near the radical settlement of Yizhar, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. About 100 settlers blocked a road to protest against Israel's recent removal of a handful of tiny, uninhabited outposts. Six settlers were later arrested there.
Before dawn near another radical settlement, Kedumim, stone-throwing settlers ambushed a minivan carrying Palestinian laborers to Israel, the workers said. Six of the 15 Palestinians on board were hurt, including Yahye Sadah, who was hit in the head.
"I was hit in the head by a rock from a distance of 3 meters (10 feet). I ran away. I thought I'd die," said Sadah, 44, who spoke from a nearby hospital after getting six stitches.
Police said settlers threw rocks and burned tires in the area but that only one man was slightly wounded. The attackers fled and no arrests were made, they said.
A few hours later, settlers torched a wooded hilltop near Nablus and set trees and Palestinian agricultural land on fire near the village of Hawara, local council chief Ali Eid said.
Romel Sweiti, a Hawara resident, said the fires torched nearly 1 acre (0.40 hectares) of land. He said about 50 teenage Israeli settler girls gathered on a main road and blocked traffic as Israeli paramilitary police stood in the background.
Settler activist Daniella Weiss, who lives in the area, said she was unaware of the violence. But she vowed that Jewish residents would resist any attempts to move them, "no matter how harsh the policy of the Israeli government will be against us."
"The policy of dismantling outposts is an opening phase for withdrawal," she said. "This will not ensure the future security of the state of Israel."
Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in the settlements among 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. Another 180,000 live in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas — captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as parts of a future independent state.
The U.S. considers the settlements an obstacle to peace, but traditionally has done little on the issue, a policy that appears to be changing under President Barack Obama.
The rampage underscored the difficulties Netanyahu faces.
On one hand, he is wary of picking a fight with the U.S., his most important ally. But settlers have a vocal leadership with many allies inside Netanyahu's government, constraining his ability to take action.
"Anyone with a basic understanding of this issue could have predicted that as talks of evacuations of illegal constructions begin, Jewish terror cells will rear their heads and set the West Bank on fire," warned Yesh Din, an anti-settlement watchdog group in Israel.
Netanyahu has dispatched his defense minister, Ehud Barak, to Washington this week in hopes of winning approval to allow at least limited construction to continue in the settlements. But the Obama administration has so far signaled it is not willing to budge.(source)
Just your average Zen Baptist, admitting upfront to being a (mostly) reconstructed hillbilly.
If you can't understand the attitude or perspective I come from, it's safe to say that we're from different realities.
If you can't start off the conversation with a respectful question about how/why I came to the particular perspective I did, and then find some way that you can relate to it, then I don't have any time to entertain your issues.
Give respect, get respect.
Hear Together: Roanoke Outside Foundation
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Roanoke Outside is a nonprofit working to protect outdoor experiences and
build a stronger outdoor community. One of the biggest ways they do that is
thr...
Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
Website - http://twoshacks.com.
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