Archive for November 30, 2009
Rick Warren Scrambles to CYA
Yesterday “Christian” pastor Rick Warren refused to say whether he thought it was a bad idea that Uganda has decided that its official policy will be to slaughter gays who are HIV positive.
As you might imagine, that didn’t go over so well so voila — Pastor Rick and his wife have arranged for a gathering tomorrow at the Saddleback church; people can get free AIDS testing, $1.00 tacos, and “speakers, prayer, testimonies and music.”
What a guy.
(H/t JG.)
No Thanks Obama
Tomorrow night President Obama will commit millions of dollars, and who knows how many years and how many lives, to continuing a war against 100 al Qaeda guys in Afghanistan. The ratio will be something like 1,000 U.S. troops to every one al Qaeda member.
On Wednesday Obama will hold a “jobs summit” at the White House and on Thursday he’ll kick off a “White House to Main Street Tour.“
I can’t imagine going to a “Main Street Tour” rally. The pandering that’s going on here is just sickening.
4,367 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq
We don’t hear about the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in “Operation Iraqi Freedom” very often anymore — Iraq! George Bush’s war — but I think we should keep the number in mind. 4,367 Americans. 4,685 “Coalition of the Willing” forces.
What a waste. What an awful, awful waste.
I’m proud to say that before Bush launched his war I was a member of the “focus group” that protested against the loss of those lives.
Those 4,367 people were alive then. They didn’t have to die.
Palin’s “Bus Tour” is as Fake as She Is
Sarah Palin’s salt-of-the-earth “bus tour” is actually a Gulfstream jet tour. Guess they park the bus around the corner from wherever she’s going, put her on, and drive a few hundred feet to make it look authentic.
Chinese Company Awarded Giant U.S. Construction Projects
From ChinaDaily:
China State Construction Engineering Corp, the largest contractor in China, has bagged a subway ventilation project worth about $100 million in New York’s Manhattan area, marking the construction giant’s third order in the United States’ infrastructure space this year.
[...]
“The new project, along with the $410-million Hamilton Bridge project and a $1.7-billion entertainment project it won earlier this year, signals China State Construction’s ambition to tap the American construction market,” said Li Zhirui, an industry analyst at First Capital Securities.
[...]
In the first three quarters of this year, the Chinese construction giant signed more than $2 billion worth of contracts in the US market. China State Construction was also the contractor for a high school, a railway station and the Chinese embassy in the US.
Are we crazy?
Rick Warren Refuses to Take Sides When it Comes to Slaughtering Innocent People
You’d think that for a, ah, “Christian” pastor this would be a no brainer. But no. Here’s the scoop.
Wall Street’s Partying Like It’s 2006
On Saturday the New York Times published an article titled: Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades:
From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.
There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.
The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an article about Wall Streeters who are “spending money like the financial crisis never happened:”
From $15,000-a-week Caribbean getaways to art auctions to $200,000 platinum wristwatches that automatically adjust for leap years, signs of the good life are returning.
“What we’re seeing in the last four to eight weeks is a fairly substantial uptick” in demand for extravagant purchases as Wall Street employees grow more confident that the market’s steep rebound so far in 2009 will soon bring them fat bonuses, says David Arnold, senior vice president at Robb Report, a magazine targeted at the super-wealthy.
I volunteer at a food bank. I see the people who don’t even qualify for food stamps. They could live for years and years and years on what people are paying for a watch.
The Pentagon Shows Utter Disrespect for American Taxpayers
In 2000, the Pentagon admitted it has lost — yes, lost — $2.3 trillion. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a subsequent Department of Defense study said it was only $1 trillion. To put such numbers in perspective, contemplate what those sums could finance. $1 trillion, for instance, could pay the total cost of universal health care for the long haul. $2.3 trillion would cover universal health care plus the bank bailout plus the stimulus package.
As We Move Into the Second Decade of the 21st Century…
…or is that a typo? Is it the 1st century?: Uganda proposes death penalty for HIV positive gays.
