Month: March 2015

My Friends Are Good For Me

It is no secret that I am a dog person….my 2 best friends are Little man and Baby Girl, the rescue dogs I found after Katrina……both were pretty dramatized by the storm and needed a home…..I was still hurting after having to put my friend Lodi down after she was badly injured in the storm…….not long we were family…….

Dogs are good for us humans…..psychologically as well as physically,,,,,and now there is a study that confirms it……..

How is a dog like a cup of yogurt? Well, canines might also have a “probiotic effect” on humans, researcher Kim Kelly explains in a post from the University of Arizona. Science suggests owning a dog can be healthy—for instance, kids in families with dogs generally have lower allergy and asthma rates, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. A new study aims to find out why. “Microbes in our gut can have profound effects on our health, both our mental health as well as our physical well-being,” Kelly tells Arizona Public Media. The question, she says: “Is there something in the transfer of these microbes between dogs and humans that is actually making us healthier?”

In order to investigate the matter, Kelly’s team plans to lend out canines for three-month periods to study participants, with help from southern Arizona’s Humane Society. Participants needn’t fear losing their new companions: They can adopt the dogs after the study, which will involve following both the dogs’ and the humans’ health through blood and skin samples, Arizona Public Media notes. Researchers will also keep tabs on participants’ mental health. In case you’re tempted, be advised that participants must be older than 50, since researchers are taking a particular look at our bacteria “as we age,” one says. (Click to read about more ways pets make you healthier.)

Make yourself healthier….go out and rescue a deserving friend that needs love and a good home….you cannot not be happier!

ISIS Coalition SITREP #80

I do this so my readers do not have to……..if there is something they need to know…..they will.

Good day……the events in the Middle East especially in Iraq are slowing down…..airstrikes continue but the assault on Tikrit has slowed due to heavy resistance…….

Item 1–ISIS is making in-roads around the world……..

Top US officials are expressing concerns that ISIS is putting efforts in to organizing its Libyan allies, and are making serious inroads in the nation.

an Islamist faction in Derna pledged loyalty to ISIS, and began calling itself ISIS, which allowed it to attract a large number of new recruits, and expand into several other cities.

The extent of the relationship between ISIS and its affiliate has been a matter of a lot of speculation, but US officials say several ISIS leaders are known to have traveled to Libya to advise this affiliate and help them organize.

My worry is that it may not be as substantial as reported….it could be just another ttempt to use force…….

Item 2–Yemen is becoming yet another hot bed for ISIS expansion……..

In Yemen there is little history of sectarian strife. The two main sects, Shia Zaidi and Sunni Shafi, have traditionally been seen as moderate with minimal differences.

But this changed when the Houthis, followers of an obscure Shia tradition who are accused of serving Iranian interests in Yemen, stormed the capital, Sana’a, in September, forcing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to the southern port city of Aden.

Their advance had a galvanising effect in the country’s Sunni-dominated south, where al-Qaida is particularly strong and the jihadis of Islamic State are just starting to secure a toehold.

Another suspect report……not saying it is not so just that it may not be of less importance than the reports…..

Item 3–The battle for Tikrit while aimed at the forces of ISIS have brought about even more sectarian problems……..

Reuters) – Two Iraqi local officials and a police officer accused Shi’ite paramilitary forces on Saturday of burning and looting homes in the town of al-Dour after capturing the area during a military campaign to oust Islamic State fighters.

A spokesman for the armed faction, Kataib Hezbollah, denied the allegations, while a security commander in the area also said there had been no incident in al-Dour.

The Shi’ite paramilitary forces have been hailed as heroes by fellow Shi’ites, but accused by the Sunni minority of punishing Sunnis with extrajudicial killings and by driving ordinary people from their homes for failing to resist Islamic State.

Item 4–ISIS is getting a foothold in Libya……It is working hard on the Arabian Peninsula…..and then there is the team up with Nigeria’s Boko Haram….it is growing daily and the strategy is not changing …….this is not the way to end tyranny.

Item 5–US airstrikes have joined in with the battle for Tikrit….the problem is that the Iraqis have slowed their advance…….

the Pentagon was originally on the outside looking in at the Iraqi attempted to retake the city of Tikrit from ISIS, Iraq having been told they could use US or Iranian forces and chose Iranian help, now it seems they will have both.

Pentagon officials are insisting the airstrikes are not going to be tacitly supporting the Shi’ite militias or Iranian forces involved in the offensive, even though they obviously are because they’re on the same side of the same battle, suggesting the US still isn’t coming to grips with being in a war with Iran as an ally.

Item 6–The Shi’a militias are re-thinking their involvement in the battle for Tikrit….

A fourth militia said they will remain involved in the offensive, but also threatened to attack members of the US-led coalition while fighting ISIS, suggesting they might begin using anti-aircraft weaponry against the US warplanes.

Some of the militias are complaining that they had the battle for Tikrit almost won on their own, and that the US is just coming in at the last minute to try to hog all the glory.

The end of another week…..and as usual NOTHING is clear and on schedule……this is gonna be a long war…..

Thanx for your time and attention…….

Turn The Page!

Say Good-Bye To Harry

The story of the day…..will not be that the US is dangerously close to yet another conflict in the Middle East…….or that the battle for Tikrit is getting weirder and weirder……..nope none of that will matter….the gigantic news is that Harry Reid will not go for re-election in 2016……

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced this morning he won’t be seeking re-election in 2016, the New York Times reports. The Nevada senator, who reveals he’s been thinking about retiring “for months,” per the Times, says he’s not ending his nearly 30 years in the Senate because he lost his seat as majority leader in November or because of the injuries he suffered during a Jan. 1 exercise session. But in a press release titled “Thank You,” he acknowledges that the “accident has caused us for the first time to have a little down time. I have had time to ponder and to think.” And the result of that thinking was the determination that it’s time to go. “I want to be able to go out at the top of my game,” he tells the Times. “I don’t want to be a 42-year-old trying to become a designated hitter.”

He also acknowledged he doesn’t want to siphon campaign funds that could be used to help Democrats in hotly contested states take back Senate control from the GOP. “I think it is unfair for me to be soaking up all the money to be re-elected with what we are doing in Maryland, in Pennsylvania, in Missouri, in Florida,” he tells the paper. “These are big, expensive states.” Not that Reid plans on simply coasting by during his lame-duck period. “My friend, Senator McConnell, don’t be too elated. I am going to be here for 22 months, and you know what I’m going to be doing? The same thing I’ve done since I first came to the Senate,” he says in the release.

What will the Dems do without their fearless leader?

Unless Dick Durbin makes a stink about it, it appears that Chuck Schumer will replace Harry Reid as the Senate’s Democratic leader come 2016. In an interview after announcing that he would not run for re-election, Reid tells the Washington Post that the New York senator is his pick. “I think Schumer should be able to succeed me,” he says. Schumer is currently the No. 3 Democrat, with Illinois’ Durbin ahead of him as minority whip. But Reid spoke to Durbin today by phone and tells the Post that Durbin will step aside for Schumer.

Neither Schumer nor Durbin has made an official comment on succession plans, but Schumer’s team has long made it known that he would try to replace Reid whenever he stepped down, reports the Hill. One other name being mentioned frequently as a contender is the fourth-ranking Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington state. Even before Reid’s endorsement, however, Schumer was the heavy favorite, notes the Hill.

Oh goody…..a Clinton Dem will lead the Congress……it is NO secret that I do not approve of much that Reid has done….but at least he had the guts to do it….does anyone really think that Schumer has those guts?

I do not….I see him going back to the Blue Dog politics of Clinton…..if so the poor will suffer the most just like they did under Bubba……..

Any thoughts?

Iraq: Is US Making The Situation Worse?

I know you had rather go on about some e-mail scandal……but while you were fretting over a non-existent scandal…..the world is still a pretty messed up place…..and we are not helping.

Many people and analysts are spending all their time on the ISIS problem in the Middle East.   We are told that unless we stop them in Iraq and Syria then they will be on the Main Street of Hometown, USA ….and I will agree that ISIS could propose a major problem if they go unchecked……but could we be looking at the situation through rose colored glasses?

About here I usually drift into some historic perspective……but if my reader is unaware of the situation in Iraq and Syria by now then I prefer they move on to a gossip blog or some other topic….I have neither the time nor the inclination to rehash present day history…..with that said I shall get to the heart of the post……

After our victory against the war machine of Saddam in 2003….the US has been in the busy of suring up Kurds, for they were part of the reason for the invasion in the first place…….when the violence got intolerable to the prez and his gang of business men we began seeking help and arming some of the Sunni tribes in the dash to beat back all the extremists that were flooding into Iraq to fight the US and her allies.

After many long months and years of fighting the US pulls out of Iraq…..and then the sectarian fighting continues and intensifies to the point that the US had to back track and do something massive.  You see ISIS went from Syria into Iraq and made great headway fighting the Iraqi army that the US had trained…..and of course our reputation is at stake.

We waited and watched……and the situation presented the US with the prefect incident to return in a grand way to Iraq……a story of some Iraqi tribes trapped on a mountain gave the US its pretense for action…..and as they say………. the rest is history.

 

 

The humanitarian problem was not as immediate as we had been lead to believe…..but we came any way…..now we are arming the Yazidis in their fight against ISIS.

Then ISIS attacked Christians and the Assyrians……we condemned and rushed to arm them and train them.  The came the ancient Chaldeans…….they put together a force to fight the encroachment of ISIS into their region….we decide to arm them and train them……and recently the Iraqi Turkmens are coming under the awe of ISIS…..they are demanding arms and training………but what is going on?

Every region that ISIS enters…the locals try to ban together and fight them at every turn.  On the surface this is just locals banning together for collective protection……but once the surfaced is breached there is a situation that could turn even uglier than the ISIS problem.

We have issued the edict that ISIS is an enemy of all Muslims and that we should do all we can to ensure the protection of Iraqi sovereignty…..the problem as I see it is that the minorities that are being backed by the US and its allies will present a bigger problem when the ISIS problem has been lessened or eliminated.

Each one of these minorities, like the Kurds, see an opportunity to secure a possibility of a “homeland”….or a nation of their own within Iraq……..

The violence after ISIS will be far from over…….clashes will be an ever-present situation….all the massive amounts of arms and training will make it inevitable.  In a country awash with weapons violence will be an inevitable by-product.

In 2003 there was a proposal that Iraq become a Federation of 3 distinct states…Sunni, Shi’a and Kurd…..but now every minority is in it for a homeland…..each has a grievance against Baghdad and/or ISIS….there will be a push for multiple homelands or states if you will…….the amount of weapons will ensure a period of constant warfare in Iraq…..and only time will tell the outcome.

Surrounding countries will not be immune to this violence….there are “oppressed” minorities in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon…..just to mention those countries bordering on Iraq.  And of course the safety of Israel will ALWAYS be a driving issue.

Keep in mind that the first Gulf War was entered into because we were told that Saudi oil fields were in danger…….the fields are still there and will once again be in danger.  The US has made certain that we can NEVER leave the Middle East

The making of a new Hundred Years War.

I will be watching with the chance that I could utter the four most beautiful words in the English language……………”I TOLD YOU SO!”

AP Analysis: Is Israel Democratic? Not So Clear – ABC News

We hear this incredible lie every time there is something going on with Israel…….it is a propaganda ploy to keep Israel in the favorite son category with the American people…….

Sorry people but an election does not a democracy make!

It is that simple……..false information is still a lie no matter how we try to spin it……

 

AP Analysis: Is Israel Democratic? Not So Clear – ABC News.

Racism 101: The Apology

The Univ of Oklahoma’s frat,  SAE,  on a day trip was taped singing a very racist song, basically about lynching a black person……the vid was leaked and a scandal was afoot.

Fter a couple of weeks of coverage and the media attempting to have the “Race” conversation……one of the song leaders has stepped forward with an apology…..his name is Levi Pettit….this person was surrounded by local reps, NAACP and a batch of preachers…….and his disingenuous apology began……..

“There are no excuses for my behavior. I never thought of myself as a racist. I never considered it a possibility,” Pettit, flanked by clergy and black civic leaders, told reporters at an Oklahoma City church. “But the bottom line is that the words that were said in that chant were mean, hateful and racist.

“I will be deeply sorry and deeply ashamed of what I’ve done for the rest of my life,” he said.

“I knew they were wrong but I never knew how or why they were wrong and the people I’ve met with … have opened my eyes to really put meaning behind those words,” he said as a community leader standing behind him patted him on the back. “Meeting with a few people does not change what I did, but it has begun to change me.”

This yutz was reading from a script and his tome was so disingenuous that it was pathetic….my thought was….would this a/hole apologize if he had not been caught on tape?  And just how much did Daddy pay for all that support the community was giving this guy…..they said that they accepted his apology……..must have been a mountain of money…….then ask….why would these people forgive him….what is their motivation?

Now the biggest piece of crap in his little speech was when he said……….””I knew they were wrong but I never knew how or why they were wrong and the people I’ve met with … have opened my eyes to really put meaning behind those words,”…..are you telling me that this 20 year old did not know that it was hurtful, wrong and outright racist?

Was this bigot home schooled?  Where has he been for the last couple of years with all the hate speak that has made the news?

I hope that the African-American community does NOT accept his apology……his speech was, as I have said, disingenuous, cold and aloof….he made it to get daddy off his back……he was a racist when he lead the song and I bet that he is still a racist…..this illustrates why we CANNOT have an adequate conversation on race….too many settle for crap!

 

Yemen: Into To The Arms Of Aries

We have been try to kick ISIS in the ass for about 8 months…..and all the while Yemen has been on the verge of collapse…..the US has pointed to the country as a bit of a success in the war on AQAP….we have killed many fighters and probably more civilians but that the war is going well on the Arab Peninsula…..

while we were patting ourselves on the back a conflict has been smouldering since the 1990’s with an occasional blow up here and there……and in the last 3 months that smouldering ember has become a full fledged war…….the Houthis, a Shi’a tribe from the northwest of the country has taken it upon themselves to storm the capital of Yemen, Sann’a and his consolidating their hold in a move to take the port of Aden…..

Saudi Arabia has had a hard on for the Houthis for years and some minor skirmishes have erupted…..minor, that is until yesterday………

Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir has announced that his country has begun military operations against Yemen, with an eye toward restoring Gen. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as the “legitimate government.”

Reports are that the military action has begun with airstrikes, which Saudi officials insist are being conducted only by Saudi warplanes and not with any coordination with any other country, against the Houthi forces.

Yemen was heading in the direction of a multi-faction civil war at any rate, with Hadi’s forces increasingly confined to the south, the Houthis spanning the north and west, al-Qaeda in the tribal areas, and ISIS and the forces of previous dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh both roaming around as well. Now, the Saudis are in the mix.

Obviously the Saudis’ goal is to install a friendly government, and to that end they’re seeing Gen. Hadi, “elected” in a single-candidate vote in 2012, as having at least a little legitimacy. Hadi’s resignation and subsequent fleeing into exile, however, are going to make it awfully hard for the Saudis to reassert him as a credible ruler.

How long will this situation continue?  The longer the more of a chance that the US will be drawn into this conflict……..and once we enter our enemies will triple throughout the Middle East.

Will the US use a level head in this situation?  Or will we rush to help an “ally”?

Whatever we decide it will most likely be wrong……this conflict will be a lose-lose scenario.

Espionage, Treason, and the Congressional Fifth Column by Justin Raimondo — Antiwar.com

The Congress is ignoring the Constitution in its efforts to undermine the negotiations of this president…..not only is it unheard of but it is the lack of respect for the Constitution…..a document that they pretend to want to protect from destruction…but in reality all the document means to them is a political prop that they can roll out when things are going tough for them and claim that it is under attack……..

There is a time for the Congress to be involved in the treaty process….and it is NOT in the negotiations……it is the authorizing or not…….

So, just what is the Congress doing, you may ask……

 

Espionage, Treason, and the Congressional Fifth Column by Justin Raimondo — Antiwar.com.

Outside Chance He Should Stay?

Assad must go!

We all remember those famous words 3 years ago……the problem is Assad stayed!  Obama said he should go……Congress said he should go…..Clinton said he should go……everybody said that Assad was as good as gone……and yet Assad is still the leader of Syria…….Go Figure!

In the early days all my fellow bloggers were in sync with all the calls for Assad;s head…………And since those dark days a couple of years ago not much has been said about Assad other than he is a dick and is mistreating the average Syrian……but as far as he MUST go there has not been much chest thumping in that area of discussion…….could there be an ulterior motive?

While I was reading some news from the Middle East I came across this info in the Jordanian Times………

CIA Director John Brennan said Friday the United States does not want to see a chaotic collapse of the Syrian regime as it could open the way to Islamist extremists taking power.

The spy agency chief said Washington had reason to worry about who might replace President Bashar Al Assad if his government fell, given the rise of the Daesh terror group and other jihadists in Syria.

“I think that’s a legitimate concern,” Brennan said when asked if the US government feared who might succeed Assad.

Washington’s stance is that Assad should have no role in Syria’s future but President Barack Obama’s administration and other governments wanted to see a political solution that would ensure a representative government, he said.

“None of us, Russia, the United States, coalition, and regional states, wants to see a collapse of the government and political institutions in Damascus,” Brennan said.

That info smells like bad monk fish to me……..is there a softening of the “must go position”?

Recently Sec. Kerry had a few choice words about Assad and Syria…….

In an interview with CBS News, Secretary of State John Kerry said his goal is the push the Syrian government until President Bashar Assad is willing to negotiate with him, with an eye on a post-war transition.

That implication is also apparent in recent comments from pro-US opposition factions, with reports over the weekend that they intend to discuss the possibility of leaving Assad in power for at least the next two years as part of the “transition” process.

Kerry’s comments put the US more directly in line with that position, though it isn’t clear if the administration intended that to be the case, with the State Department quickly disavowing Kerry’s comments.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf insists that there was always an intention to negotiate with a “representative” for Assad, but that no US government official would ever be willing to negotiate with Assad himself.

Damn!  That monk fish is getting ripe!

Even the Syrian opposition is starting to think that Assad may not need to go………

Exiled opposition factions from Syria, increasingly resigned to the reality of the situation on the ground and likewise worried about the rise of ISIS, are discussing a proposal for their next big meeting to leave President Bashar Assad in power.

Publicly, the opposition has long insisted that there is no discussion to be had with the Assad government without the understanding that Assad steps down immediately. The new proposal would call for elections in two years.

Sounds like a softening of the rhetoric……at least by the admin spokespeople……will it play with those on the down side of smart?

Right now the Right has a full plate from which to dine….e-mails, immigration, Obamacare, Iran (the all consuming issue for them)…….they have barely noticed the spoiled monk fish next to them……it will return….fear not!