An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Archive for 14 December 2007
Happy Camper!
After about EIGHT months of Mr Ol’ Broad living there (WI), and me living here (TN), we are now, officially residents of the same state, in the same house….etc.
Hmmm… this is going to take some readjustment, isn’t it. Oh well, we’ll adapt!
Evil By Any Other Name….
…. is still evil.
Afghan blast kills 6; Taliban behead two
A civilian car hit a freshly planted land mine in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing six people and wounding six others, while Taliban militants beheaded an old woman and her grandson accused of spying, officials said.
The blast ripped through the car as it traveled on a road outside the town of Tirin Kot, in Uruzgan province, a ministry statement said.
“This mine was possibly planted by the enemy,” it said. Afghan officials refer to the Taliban and other militants as “the enemy.”
The enemy? Well gee…..YA THINK? Heaven help them if that’s what FRIENDLY folks do.
In Uruzgan’s Dihrawud district, Taliban militants beheaded a 60-year old woman and her grandson on Wednesday, said provincial police chief, Juma Gul Himat. The militants accused the woman of spying for government and NATO forces.
It doesn’t matter if the woman and her grandson were ‘spying’. Odds are, they probably weren’t. Perhaps someone from NATO asked for directions, or some other innocent thing. They wanted those two dead, so now they are. Cutting an old woman’s head off. How peaceful can you get.
By the way, these are the type of people our very own Congress critters want to protect. Uh huh.
Not on MY Christmas List
Instead of checking things off the list of things I’m suppose to be doing today, I decided to clean out my mailboxes. Hey, I’m out of bed, showered, and dressed, what more do you expect from me???? 
Anyway, I came across one in my spam box (good place for it) from Rudy’s 2008 campaign store. Now, I don’t know about you, but even if I was a Guiliani supporter, one thing I would NOT want under my tree Christmas morning…..
I’m afraid I’d have to hurt someone. I wouldn’t want a Fred Thompson gift basket either. This is CHRISTMAS fer petes sake. CHRIST’S DAY! Politics are fun, but they don’t necessarily go well with the Birth of our Savior. Keep that for another day.
Sheesh!
The Do Nothing/Know Nothing Congress
The “Wrong” What?
Once campaign killers, traits like infidelity less of an issue among voters today
A quick-fading political storm over Barack Obama’s teen drug use shows how some issues that once would have torpedoed a candidate have lost their pop.
Let’s see. The man is 46 years old. He did some stupid stuff, say, 25, 30 years ago. Didn’t we all? Apparently, he, like most people, got over the ‘nosy’ faze of being a kid, and no longer indulges. Ok, move on.
Traits that a decade or a generation ago would have automatically disqualified a candidate for higher office can be found in many of this year’s top presidential candidates: Divorce, infidelity, “wrong” race, “wrong” gender, “wrong” religion, “wrong” age – and none are now considered insurmountable.
Ok, here is where I have a problem. While I don’t think there is such a thing as “wrong” race, gender, religion (well, maybe ONE) or age, I do have issues with the infidelity part, especially if it as recent as say, Rudy Guiliani’s very public indiscretions. I’d have to hold my nose to vote for him, and not solely because of his wondering ways. It’s his pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agendas, anti guns stand that gets in my way. And milking a national tragedy for all it’s worth is seriously starting to bug me.
Now, the way I see it, if a person has a habit of cheating on his/her spouse, it says a great deal about their character. I don’t have a problem with divorce, because sometimes, it’s just necessary. Trust me, I know from experience. Hopping into someone else’s bed BEFORE the marriage has been put aside is just plain wrong.
A national co-chair of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign told The Washington Post that Mr. Obama’s admission of cocaine and marijuana use as a teen might make him less electable. Within hours, the national campaign disavowed the statement. The man who made it apologized, then resigned.
Compare that to 1992, when candidate Bill Clinton was asked about pot smoking in college and treated the query like a ticking bomb: “I didn’t inhale.”
Let’s face it, whether the Clintonistas want to admit it or not, he was full of kaka. He inhaled, and I’m fairly certain she did too. With Hillary, it’s not the “wrong” gender. It’s the wrong woman. Period.
Obama isn’t the “wrong” race either. He’s the wrong person for the job.
And you know full well that the Hildebeast knows EVERYTHING that goes on with her campaign. As usual, the little guy is going to take the fall for a failed campaign attack. That’s just what they do.
“Wrong” religion? Well, I can think of only one religion I’d have a problem with in a candidate. Ya get three guesses, and the first two don’t count. Romney’s Mormonism is not a problem with me. I like him actually, and if he’s the nominee, I’d have no problem voting for him. Well, unless he trotted out two or three more wives he’s been hiding in the background, and I find that highly unlikely.
It’s a generational change in attitudes, said Leonard Steinhorn, professor of politics and media at American University and author of The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy.
“In the past, private morality was predominant, and people gave a wink and a nod to bigotry and sexism. Now as long as you aren’t hurting people, that’s your personal morality you’re figuring out,” he said.
So, here is the major problem. The ‘if it feels good, do it’ generation is now all growed up. Sort of. Chronologically, maybe, but certainly not emotionally. My generation has forgotten, or maybe they don’t want to know, that no matter what you do, it has an effect on others. If you are sitting home at night, watching the idjit box with your kids, or grandkids, and light up a joint, THAT most certainly affects them. If you decide to go for a cocktail or two, get blitzed on your way home from work, the likelihood of you killing someone when you get behind the wheel, most definitely affects a great many people. If you find yourself looking at that hot number at the end of the bar and decide no one will know if you get a quickie…. The list goes on.
The biggest problem I see, we’ve lost national morality, and that will affect my vote.
Morning Coffee 12/14/07
House Approves Bill Banning Waterboarding, Other Interrogation Techniques
The House of Representatives has approved an intelligence bill that would prohibit the Central Intelligence Agency from using waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh interrogation methods.
The 222-199 vote Thursday sent the measure to the Senate, which still must act before it can go to President George W. Bush. The White House has threatened a veto.
Most of the bill is classified, so why announce to the world we have become a nation more concerned with the little psyches of murderous pigs than the safety and well being of our own citizens? Oh yes, silly me. What the ‘world’ thinks is much more important than the future, assuming we even HAVE a future.
2007: worst year for the environment
The American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, in San Francisco, is one of the largest scientific conferences in the world – and it coincides exactly with the second half of the Bali meeting.
There, in a series of symposia, climate scientists reported how 2007 was becoming a “year of worsts”. So far the year has seen the least sea ice in the Arctic, fastest retreat of mountain glaciers on Kilimanjaro, and the quickest decline of snow in Greenland.
I dunno. I thought 1979 was pretty bad, but then, that’s just me. I don’t suppose it’s EVER occurred to all these so called scientists that at one time, there naked mountains. No snow and all that? If we have a really cold winter, and Kilimanjaro gets buried under snow and ice, will they claim it’s ‘man-made global cooling’? Again?
Pakistan: Bhutto pledges to stop terrorism if elected
Former Pakistan prime minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has pledged to deal with growing terrorism and extremism “politically” if elected in the upcoming general elections.
“If voted to power in the 2008 general elections, my government will find a political solution to the growing trend of extremism and terrorism as these menaces cannot be controlled militarily,” Bhutto said.
Is she kidding? Pfft!
Hamas will ‘harm Schalit if IDF carries out Gaza incursion
Quoting Saudi newspaper Al-Jarida, the report cites Hamas’s Syrian-based leader Khaled Mashaal, saying that he made an agreement with Iranian partners to increase violence against Israel which includes a threat to harm Schalit.
The planned escalation would be implemented in an effort to prevent an incursion into the Strip and cause talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to fail.
I’m of the mind this kid has been forced to convert to Islam, otherwise, he’d already be dead. Israel is always under threat of ‘more’ violence. What makes this time any different? I don’t suppose it has ever occurred to these yahoos to try a different tactic?
Iraqi Kurds: No Kurdish state but long term presence of US
Iraqi Kurdish leaders rule out a Kurdish state but stress they want continued American presence in northern Iraq and establish a strategic alliance with the United States similar to that between the Washington and Baghdad.
A top Iraqi Kurdish leader has said the Kurds want a deal with Washington that would protect their rights as well ensure long term American troops presence in the country.
Well, at least the Kurds like us.
Giuliani shifts tactics, goes on offensive
Instead of emulating former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope strategy and letting his opponents tire themselves out in contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former New York mayor has had to start swinging hard in those states.
That’s because Giuliani is behind in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls show. So while Ali’s strategy enabled him to unseat heavyweight champ George Foreman in 1974, it won’t help Giuliani win next year’s Republican presidential nomination, political scientist Dante Scala said.
“He needs to break through before the end of January,” said Scala, who teaches at the University of New Hampshire.
Could he be lagging behind because people have gotten over the idea of “America’s mayor”, and actually taken a good look at his policies? Hmmmm….
Al-Qaida No. 2 blasts peace conference
The conference relaunched Palestinian-Israeli peace talks after a seven year hiatus — a key breakthrough in the region’s core conflict.
“The Annapolis meeting was held to turn Palestine into a Jewish state,” the voice, purported to be that of Ayman al-Zawahri, said the 20-minute posting that carried a still photo of the white-turbaned militant against a backdrop of a photograph from the conference.
Seems to me, Somebody already “turned it into a Jewish state”, a very long time ago, but I don’t see the Israelis trying to blow anyone up to prove it.
Hispanic drivers stopped more often
Hispanic drivers appear more likely to be stopped by Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers than white and black drivers when compared to each group’s proportion of licensed drivers in the state, a new analysis of THP vehicle stops in 2006 concludes.
After the stops, there appears to be no racial disparities among those who are issued citations — about 90 percent of all THP stops resulted in a citation — but there does appear to be variation by race in the number of vehicle searches and seizure of physical evidence, according to the study by the state comptroller’s office of research released this week.
It’s just possible that Hispanics are more likely to be bad drivers, don’cha know.
State panel on global warming agrees to hire consultant
LITTLE ROCK (AP) – The Governor’s Commission on Global Warming has agreed to hire a consultant to help the panel work up policy proposals to help the state be less of a contributor to climate change.
The commission was authorized by the Legislature earlier this year. In a meeting yesterday, the group agreed to pay $50,000 to the nonprofit Pennsylvania-based Center for Climate Strategies. The firm has served as a consultant to more than 20 other states.
Can I be a ‘global warming’ consultant? Sounds like a pretty lucrative BUSINESS. Pfft!
