Thanksgiving

Yesterday, 3 Iraqi kids were killed and 20 injured when a bomb went off as U.S. troops were handing out toys. 2 U.S. Marines were also killed. The reason I tell you this and show you this photo is to make clear a simple point; no matter how much better we are being told things are in Iraq, if any one of the acts of violence that still occurs across that country happened here, it would be major news for months.
Imagine a bomb going off as firemen handed Gameboys to 5th graders. There would be round the clock news coverage for weeks. Daily updates on the police search would continue for months. But 3 kids killed in Iraq is considered a sign that things are getting better.
Saying only 3 children were killed is not a success. All it manges to demonstrate is how jaded we all have become.
Democrats are also starting to say that leaving might be worse than if we stay. The thinking goes that once we pull out, all the key players will be at each others throats.
Unlike now I guess.
In other words, you think it looks bad now, wait and see what would happen if our stabilizing forces are suddenly gone.
Think about this argument for a moment. Having created the disaster in Iraq, it would cause even greater destruction if we left now. So we can't ever leave. Better to keep the constant stream of blood running into the sand down to a slow trickle over the next decade rather than the orgy of violence that would be released in one big bang if we leave.
Is that why Bush recently used Vietnam as a reason for us to stay?
Where else could you get a way with this sort of logic in life?
Having run over the pedestrian, we should park the car on top of him.
After rushing into the bank and killing several people, we should now take the remaining people inside hostage until our demands are met. For peace.
Seriously, are these examples that far fetched? I don't think so. Fact is, we have set up a situation that cannot be won no matter what we do now. Of course, the longer we remain in such a situation, the more unstable the entire region becomes. That means the price of oil will continue to rise earning a very small minority of people in the world, a group I might add that includes the President, his father and his close personal friends, millions of dollars a day in profit.
According to recent evidence gained in a military raid on a home in Baghdad, 60% of the foreign fighters in Iraq come from two countries; Lybia and Saudi Arabia.
And those are our friends! The other 40% are coming from countries that openly hate us.
Is Iran sending men and weapons into Iraq?
Yes.
Just like we sent weapons and expertise to Iraq during the 8 year war on Iran.
Just like we spent millions of dollars outfitting and training Al Quedia in Afghanistan to drive out the soviets.
Just like Saudi Arabia sends men to fight for fellow Sunnis in Baghdad.
If you want an honest look at the situation over there you first have to stop thinking we have never done what all the countries surrounding Iraq are doing now.
When we did it, it was called protecting our interests.
When they do it, it's called helping the enemy.
It's worth remembering what meddling in other countries wars gets you; Al Quedia. A fully functional terrorist organization we trained and supplied weapons to for a couple of hundred million dollars.
This is the same organization we have now spent one trillion dollars fighting in a global war.
A war we say must continue. A war where they make bombs with the knowledge we gave them.
They are just doing what we trained them to do. Something we were very pleased with when they used that expertise to blow up soviet tanks and kill Russians.
Now we fight them in Iraq. A place Saddam did not allow Al Quedia to operate in. Ironic, but he hated them because he didn't want religious extremists inside his country undermining his secular authority. Al Quedia didn't show up in Iraq until we did. It wasn't difficult for them. All they had to do was come over from Afghanistan. A war we sorta pulled out of to go fight Saddam. The one guy over there who actually agreed with us what a menace religious extremists are.
Salute the flag.
Get ready to shop at the sales.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Add?

Dear Loyal Readers & Fans,
I am thinking about trying the Google Add Sense thing on my blog. Here is how it works. A computer program looks at the content of my site and then determines what the best adds might be for my blog. When a person clicks on one of the adds, I get something like a penny deposited into a paypall account.
Who knows, there might be some money to be made.
But here's the thing.
If I am raging against the system and the corrosive effect of placing a monetary value on everything, would it not be a huge hypocritical action to have commercials embeded along side my texts proclaiming these dangers?
Comments please=)

New Zealand's Fat Policy

A British woman planning to start a new life with her husband in New Zealand has been banned from entering the country - because she is too fat.
Rowan Trezise, 33, has been left behind in England while her husband Richie, 35, has already made the move down under leaving her desperately trying to lose weight.
When the couple first tried to gain entry to the country they were told that they were both overweight and were a potential burden on the health care system.
Wow!

Were not talking about rides at Disney Land here people, were talking about an entire country!

When you get to New Zealand is there something like the carry on luggage warnings at airports?
If your bad cannot fit into this space you cannot take it on board the plane.
Except in this case it would something like a pair of cut-offs. If you can't get into them, you don't get to eat fresh Kiwi tonight.

Even if the woman manages to loose the weight, she is definitely going to require mental health care from their system now.
It's one thing to be a little winded walking up a hill, but when a whole country tells you your simply too fat to enter, thats going to leave lasting emotional damage.
If that was me, I would of ran back onto the plane in tears screaming, "I am so fat their afraid I will sink the island!"

I thought America was cruel. Who knew the Kiwis could be so anti-fat? On the other hand though, I understand it to a certain degree. Employers in this country can legally tell unhealthy employees to shape up or they will be terminated. Sounds unfair, but every scientific study ever done proves that an employee who is 10 pounds or more over weight, takes more sick days and ends up costing the company more in the long run in insurance payments.
So from the cold hard cash perspective, I get it.
Too bad our immigration debate is centred around Mexicans crossing the border. It would make it all so much more hilarious and absurd if politicians were standing at podiums scare mongering Americans with speeches about Fat people illegally crossing the border! "They can hide potential weapons in their fat and they will eat food that would otherwise go to a hungry American! Don't you see? Fat people are coming into this country with no regard to our ways! The culture is being destroyed by these Fat people! They refuse to learn our menus for God sakes! To them, the great American melting pot is a cheese fondue!"
Your telling me that wouldn't make you suddenly pay more attention to the ongoing debate over immigration?

If you have seen any of the news reports about the minuet man brigades who watch the border with guns in hand, you know their not the fittest bunch on the planet either. You ever see these fat white guys? In fact, most of these guys would be denied entry into New Zealand.
No what I mean?
They are always telling us how much illegal immigrants cost our health care system. First of all, what system? Second of all, how much are these fat morons costing us?
Seriously?
While their keeping us safe from a work force willing to be paid slave wages for jobs most Americans wont do, they are eating their weight in beef jerky. Eventually, this will catch up to them and it wont be cheap to reverse a life time of Beer, pork rinds and ignorance.

A little side comment on the whole thing before we go back to the easy laughs at the expense of larger Americans.
The big question I never hear asked by either side is why. Why are people from south of the border coming here in unprecedented numbers? The answer is surprisingly simple. America went into every one of those countries and decimated their economies. Central and South America should be wealthy nations. They are, in natural resources. They actually have more timber, oil, coal and precious metals than we do. So why aren't they rich? We gamed the system of international financial markets. Basically, we tell the leaders of those countries that if they want U.S. help, they have drop any restrictions to outside investors coming in and controlling everything. Countries like Bolivia took the bate. Bechtel bought all of Bolivia's public water facilities. As soon as they did, water rates went up 400%!
At one time, it was against the law to even capture rain water in a bucket.
We destroy the infrastructure, economy and spirit of a country to make money for the wealthy elite. In turn, those poor people come here because even minimum wage is a high rate of pay to people use to living on less than a dollar a day.
They come here seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
Kinda like your ancestors did.

What is the connection between a closed mind and a constantly open mouth anyway?
Don't get all politically correct on me. You have noticed it too.
New Zealand determines if someone is fat with the Body Mass index. What is your height compared to your waist line. That sort of thing.
Maybe New Zealand is on to something. Obesity is described as an epidemic in this country. But it's not like the polio epidemic where mothers kept kids out of public pools for fear of catching it. It is the first epidemic in the history of the world to be self made and self sustained for no other reason other than we love to eat shit. You don't catch fat like you would Ebola or AID's. You have to work at it. I realize a lot of people are genetically predisposed to being heavier than other people. The fact remains however, we are a large nation. When it comes to the size of our people anyway we really are the largest nation on the face of the earth.

The other night, I was switching back and forth between two stations on T.V. On Spike, they were showing clips of an upcoming competitive eating championship to be held on Thanksgiving. On the history channel, they were showing the extreme conditions of poverty that the majority of people live in on this planet.
Same planet, different worlds.
Ours is a culture of plenty. Ours is a culture of no impulse control. Our society is all about the individual who wants more now!
The vast amount of people who we share this world with go to bed hungry every night. They always say, go to bed, but most of these people don't have a bed or even a roof.
Why are people coming here again?
Because we did too well at selling the American dream to the rest of the world. Everyone all over the world knows America. Even now, in the middle of a war, refuges come to our shores because they too want the luxury of throwing away what is left on their plastic trays at any McDonald's when they find themselves full.
Be careful though. If you get too fat you can forget about ever going on the super geeks tour of places where The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed.