Month: August 2013

Countdown Has Begun

All the yelling has been done….all the waffling is about finished……someone will get their way……it is a slow countdown until the US goes all in with Syria…….

I spend a lot of time reading news from the Middle East and of course Syria is at the forefront of all reporting on the Middle east……..the US will commit itself shortly and I am hoping that all aspects of the situation have been taking into consideration…….we cannot afford another miscalculation like the one we had with Iraq….

A few stories that have not been played for us here in the US….btw action against Syria is less popular than Congress….but we will go anyway and damn the torpedoes!

Source: Saman Mohammadi, Guest Post

Who is more deaf to global public opinion – Obama or Assad? Answer: Obama. Sources of photos: AP and Reuters.
First, the U.N. official. Her name is Carla del Ponte, the “former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals” (Wikipedia). She’s an attorney general from Switzerland, so you know she’s neutral.

Read the excerpt below from the article, “Syrian rebels used Sarin nerve gas, not Assad’s regime: U.N. official” by Shaun Waterman, published in The Washington Times on Monday, May 6, 2013:

Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.

Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.

But she said her panel had not yet seen any evidence of Syrian government forces using chemical weapons, according to the BBC, but she added that more investigation was needed.

Damascus has recently facing growing Western accusations that its forces used such weapons, which President Obama has described as crossing a red line. But Ms. del Ponte’s remarks may serve to shift the focus of international concern.

The same false allegations against Assad that were flying around back in May were bound to resurface late in the summer. So the date of the article in no way diminishes its value as far as enlightening the world about who actually is willing and has the means to carry out a chemical weapons attack against Syrian civilians.

The Saudi-Turkish-Qatari-French-British-USraeli backed Al-Qaeda terrorists have everything to gain by framing Assad because they are currently losing the war and would see their fortunes reversed at least somewhat if the U.S. attacks Syria.

Saleh Muslim, Syria’s main Kurdish leader, says that Assad would be stupid to use chemical weapons against his own people in front of the eyes of the world.

The Al-Qaeda terrorists are the most likely culprits, if in fact there is proof that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.

Read the excerpt below from the article, “Syrian Kurdish leader says Assad not to blame for attack” by Alexandra Hudson, published by Reuters on Monday, August 26, 2013:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would not be “so stupid” as to use chemical weapons close to Damascus, the leader of the country’s largest Kurdish group said.

Saleh Muslim, head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said he doubted the Syrian president would resort to using such weapons when he felt he had the upper hand in the country’s civil war.

He suggested last Wednesday’s attack, which the opposition says was carried out by government forces and killed hundreds of people, was aimed at framing Assad and provoking an international reaction. Assad has denied his forces used chemical weapons.

“The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, 5 km from the (U.N.) committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so,” Muslim told Reuters.

Are these stories the truth……we may never know for sure…..but it needs to be read before any action involves the US……your thoughts please.

What Price Syria

Okay the news is in….chemical weapons have been used and it appears it was the Assad people that did the dirty deed….and now all the neocons are screaming about the US needs to do something and soon…….Assad has to be punished for this breach of civility…….one of the most loud people is Corker from Tennessee…..

The alleged chemical attack in Syria continues to reverberate today, with members of Congress hitting the Sunday talk show rodeo to call for action—or restraint, reports Politico. Leading the charge for action was Bob Corker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who said he believes chemical agents were used and “I think we will respond in a surgical way. Something that gets their attention, that causes them to understand that we are not going to put up with this kind of activity.” Corker’s Democrat counterpart in the House, Eliot Engel, was equally hawkish, saying, “We have to move, and we have to move quickly. Congress needs to be involved, but perhaps not initially.” There were calls for caution, however: Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed said he wants to “verify that it was directed by the Assad regime because that will allow us to build an international coalition,” while Texas Republican Mike McCaul worried about public support for action, saying, “I don’t think that American people have an appetite to put troops on the ground in Syria.”

First let me say…..I am tired of the douche bags saying “boots on the ground”……we are talking about American lives and to use that offensive term is just a way to pretend that they are talking about something other than humans….

Next, here is an idea….all you dorks that are so willing to send in the Army need to take one of your famous fact finding missions to Syria….they won’t…they are cowards and do not want to put themselves in harms way but are more than willing to send others to do their dirty work….sicken pricks and that goes for ALL of them Senor, Bolton, Cheney and any other asshat that are quick to jump…..

Time for the rest of the “free” world to step up and do what is needed and let the US watch while they succumb to the hype….but for now ….we wait….we wait to see just how far the US will push itself on Syria….will it become yet another war or will it be a limited excursion?

A Beautiful Voice Silenced

I am breaking with my policy of not commenting on gossip and such but this one has a personal component to it and I feel I must comment…….

I will admit it…..I am a child of the 60’s….yes I did my share of drugs and stupid pranks…..and then there was the music……the greatest music ever recorded……Cream……Hendirx….Dylan……Electric Prunes and so many more…….but there was one voice that always got to me……Linda Ronstadt….it was perfect….it was beautiful….and she was a gorgeous flower child……okay I will cop to it…..I had a large thing for her!

I got my shot back in the days of the Jazz Festival when it was held at city park….there was this one time and I will not date myself for I am old and do not like to be reminded of it, Ronstadt was one of the featured acts….I was there and it was in the days when rock stars could walk among us mere mortals without the need of a mountain sized bodyguard……anyway I made my way to the stage that she was to perform on and waited for the magic to start…….and there she was walking through the crowd shaking hands and schmoozing with us….anyway I got to shake her hand and immediate proposed to her…….she got a good laugh out of it and I in turn got a great hug and a kiss on the check…..I did not wash that cheek until I got married for the first time….but I always remember the one that got away….well that is the way I tell it!

I do not usually go in for gossip….I detest that sort of thing and most of it does not deserve a mention much less a post on my blog….but this is the exception to the rule……why?  We have lost her voice for ever…….

LINDA Ronstadt, the onetime ‘First Lady of Rock’, is no longer able to sing because of Parkinson’s disease.

The 67-year-old, who has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide and is regarded as the most successful female rock singer of the Seventies, said she was diagnosed eight months ago and “can’t sing a note”.

In an interview with AARP Magazine, the singer said she began to show symptoms eight years ago.

“I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t figure out why,” she said. “I knew it was mechanical. I knew it had to do with the muscles, but it didn’t occur to me to go to a neurologist.”

She was “completely shocked” when finally diagnosed. “I wouldn’t have suspected that in a million, billion years,” she said.

Ronstadt now uses sticks to walk on uneven ground and a wheelchair when travelling.

It breaks my heart to get this news….I wish her well and to let her know she will be sadly missed……..and to me she will always be a love and the one that got away.

My Thoughts On The Bigger Race Issue

This will be my only post today……this subject needs to be talked about and seriously……..

We have just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington and the legacy of MLK, Jr…….

I have waited a while before posting this……basically I was hoping that I was wrong and something would have been said …..I realize that after I post this there will be some that will label me a racist…..to that I say BITE ME!  No one knows me well enough to make that assertion……

After the verdict in the Martin case we had weeks of everyone yelling about the need to have an honest conversation on race and race relations….on that point there is a need for such a conversation but we will never have it until there is honesty on all sides…..so far we have railing and ranting but the honesty needed is sadly lacking……

My biggest bitch is MSNBC’s Al Sharpton…..for one thing, I do not think that the person who is the head of an activist group should have his/her own show….that gives an unfair advantage that other organizations doing the same work could not have…..I have never been a fan of Sharpton’s and it has nothing to do with the color of his skin….I just think that he will fixate on one side of a question to the exclusion of the other…….

The Martin case…….personally I thought it was a bullshit verdict and the stand your ground law is a piece of crap …..but that aside after the verdict was in there was a mountain of people throwing accusations and innuendos around and all were calling for the nation to have an honest conversation on race in this country.  WE had to revisit every aspect of the crime and the trial and that effort went Nowhere…..after everyone got their say we moved on to the next big deal for the media.

Now we come to the part that is pissing me off.

Oklahoma, USA….three teens gun down a single jogger because they were  bored and want to see what it felt like to kill someone….yes it was 3 blacks gunning down a white……..and I am waiting for Sharpton to come out swinging on this type of violence…..and I am waiting…..

If the Martin case was a case of profiling and a possible hate crime….what is Oklahoma?  To me I do not give a crap about the color of anyone……this type of violence is as prevalent as the Martin type….but yet Sharpton and his cronies  has moved on to something else……..

If we want to have this truly honest conversation then we need to look and talk about all aspects of the violence……and until we talk about all these aspects then there will be NO honest talk on race…….to ignore one aspect of violence and emphasize another is not honest and is not ever going to be helpful.  We need to stop talking about the race of people involved in whatever disgusting piece of violence they have committed…….most people today are disingenuous for they all talk about the race to the perpetrator…..the act is the disgusting part…..the race is nothing !  There are many issues that can be broken down by race but violence knows NO color and to have an honest conversation, the one that so many are calling for will never arrive as long as we blame the race for the action of the person.

Until all sides have an honest and thorough discussion then they all need to shut the fuck up…..and I will personally ignore anything these twats have to say.  Personally, I think that King would be ashamed of the people that claim to speak for him in today’s world…….he did inspire a generation….a generation that is now more worried on how much cash they can collect than making his dream come true and endure…..ask yourself…..who has the guts that King showed through his life….today it is an ego trip and not an effort to make his dream a reality……..you may try and justify it all you like but there are way too many people making money off Dr. king’s dream.

Is Papa John Just Cheesy?

I like a good pizza and for years I preferred Papa john’s over Pizza Hut and Dominos…..I just like their pizza…..well all that good feelings was crushed last year when good ol boy John was caught bitching about Obamacare and that it would cost 12 cents per pizza more to furnish health care to his employees……that just hit me wrong after hearing how much this a/hole spends for ads on the Super Bowl and he bitches about 12 cents…..personally, he can add the 12 cents to my pizza if it would help his employees out….but since I stopped using Papa’s it is a moot point…..but there is more about good old honest Papa John and his pizzas….

Source:Yahoo

Many fast food chains, like McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Subway, do voluntarily provide them, in part for indemnity against lawsuits and in part because they realize some of their customers actually want to know what they’re eating.

But not Papa John’s. They’ve decided it’s better to keep their ingredients a secret. You won’t find any information about them on either the company’s website or in stores. Charlie, the friendly and accommodating employee who took my order for a small cheese pizza at my local Papa John’s in Boulder, Colo., told me that he didn’t know what the pizza ingredients were. “I think they’re listed on the website,” he said, making a reasonable assumption.

When I called Papa John’s customer toll free number, I was told that for “additional information on allergen or nutritional info” I should leave a message with Connie Childs, who would return my call the next business day. I left two messages, but Connie never called. Public relations wasn’t much help either. My emails and voicemails went unanswered. Only Charlie offered a few thoughts about what exactly makes Papa John’s pizza “better.”

“We get deliveries in every three days, so nothing that’s in the fridge is more than a few days old. And we form the dough here. It doesn’t come ready to go, though it is made in a central facility and then frozen,” he said, offering a slightly different version of the story than what’s printed on the pizza boxes.

Read More…

Not only is he cheesy but dishonesty makes him sleazy also…….anything to add?

Thoughts Without Posts–2013 #2

Finally, my two days of mental cleansing……leaving the silliness and the absurdities that is politics behind…….

Every day I make hundreds of notes and some are lucky enough to make it into posts….then there are others that just do not hold the fascination and I opt out making them into posts…….and that brings us to this post……

1–Why do so many women want to be blonde?

2–Where is sharia law a threat to US citizens?  Is not forced living by christian religious law the same thing?

3–GOP is trying hard to make real change impossible and in doing so they making it inevitable.

4–Is it me or is reality TV becoming more and more white trash?

5–“a test for a moral society is how it treats its children”…….the US is failing.

6–If you follow the POPE on Twitter then you will do less time in Purgatory……

7–politicians and diapers need changing often and for the same reason…….

8–Let’s be honest….the GOP wants to appear to be moving on immigration without doing anything……

9–Who decided that Khaki was the universal color of geek-dom?

10-Who decided that orange would be the international color of decaf?

11-Is there a correlation on the amount of endorphins in the brain and the loss of reason?

12-Difference between dumb and stupid…..dumb ain’t funny…..Lewis Black.

My mind will not shut down….it is always calculating or formulating so there are thoughts written everywhere……stay tuned…..more to come…..