- This week’s Congressional Ass Hat Award goes to, in an
unprecedented landslide…….Rep. Joe Walsh, a Tea Party Republican from Illinois! Walsh
believes he has a plan to solves the generations-old conflict between Israel
and Palestine and that his plan will succeed where others have failed. This
tool lays out his plan in an op-ed piece in the Washington times and it boils
down to three points: 1) Make the occupied territories part of Israel; 2) Give
Palestinians who live in those territories "limited voting power" in
the new, bigger Israel that they'll have suddenly become residents of and 3)
Palestinians who don't like having "limited voting power" can move to
Jordan. Nothing like channeling the ugly days of apartheid in South Africa or
hearkening back to the days of slavery in the United States in which the votes
of black people were valued less than those of white people. Walsh isn't bold
enough to lay out his entire hare-brained concept, but the ideas seems to be
that Jews get one-person-one-vote and Palestinians get something less, so that
Israel can remain a Jewish state. Yes, cynics might argue that Israel has
existed under a sort of apartheid because it has ruled West Bank Palestinians
for 45 years and seems disinclined to end that occupation any time soon.
Palestinians are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections even though Jewish
settlers in the West Bank do get to vote. Conversely, the opposing side in the
debate would argue that the West Bank isn't part of Israel and therefore, any
policies there have no bearing on making Israel an apartheid state in any
sense. But perhaps the best aspect of Walsh’s idiocy is that his idea is
tantamount to ethnic cleansing, without the bloody execution of thousands of
the undesirable minority. Giving the land of one ethnic group to someone else,
refusing to allow them to vote or have an equal vote to people they live next
door to and suggesting that if they don’t like it, they can get out…..that
sounds an awful lot like ethnic cleansing. This has to be a truly proud day for
the constituents in Walsh’s district, being represented by a man so clearly out
of touch with reality and the basic rights of any one group of people………
- Not everyone in Major League Baseball is a big fan of
Washington Nationals phenom Bryce Harper. The 19-year-old has been in the
majors for less than two weeks, but already he’s stealing home, making diving
catches in left field and nearly gunning out baserunners at the plate. He’s
also showing up on the National Mall and jumping in on pickup softball games,
all while showing the sort of confidence and swagger he’s displayed throughout
his meteoric rise to the majors. That act isn't sitting well with Philadelphia
Phillies ace Cole Hamels, who drilled Harper with a fastball in the small of the back his first time up during the
Phillies' 9-3 win Sunday night. After being hit by the pitch, Harper quickly
got retribution by advancing to third and then stealing home when Hamels made a
pickoff throw to first. Harper slid in safely ahead of the tag for the first
stolen base of his career, giving the Nationals an early run in a game they
ultimately lost. Normally pitchers will deny intentionally hitting batters even
when it’s blatantly obvious what they were doing. Not Hamels. "I was
trying to hit him," Hamels admitted. "I'm not going to deny it.
That's something I grew up watching, that's kind of what happened. So I'm just
trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are kind of
getting away from it. I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was
really, really small and you didn't say anything because that's the way
baseball is." The reaction from the Nationals was either extremely
professional or extremely angry, depending on who you ask. Harper handled the
potentially dicey situation the right way, sidestepping the controversy and
sound like a 10-year veteran. "Hamels threw a great game tonight," he
said. Other members of the Nationals organization weren't so diplomatic.
Washington starter Jordan Zimmermann hit Hamels in the left leg with one out
and a runner on first when the Phillies pitcher squared to bunt and GM Mike
Rizzo lit Hamels up by calling him a “fake tough guy” who committed the “most
classless, gutless, chicken sh*t act” he had seen in his 38 years in baseball.
The best aspect of the entire story is that the two teams are division rivals
that will play 18 or 19 teams a season for as many seasons as Hamels and Harper
are with their respective teams……………
- Promotional stunts for movies are only as good and
creative as the stars who carry them out. Sacha Baron Cohen’s movies haven’t always been
funny, but his upcoming comedy “The Dictator” looks hilarious and the
promotional campaign for the film has been a show in and of itself. The
campaign kicked off in earnest with his über-hilarious stunt at the Oscars,
when he battled the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences to be allowed to show up as his
character in the movie, Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen, Cohen dumped ashes
reportedly from late Korean dictator Kim Jong-il on teeth-bleaching, tip-frosting,
overly tanned red carpet troll Ryan Seacrest. That stunt was just a warm-up act
for his appearance on Monday’s edition of the “Today” show on NBC, when Gen.
Aladeen was interviewed by Matt Lauer. The general showed up in style to the
show’s Rockefeller Center studio, stepping out of a stretch limo with a handful
hot women as his guards, sporting berets and short skirts and toting machine
guns. He greeted and kissed fans in the plaza, staged a bloodless coup in the
control room and was more than ready to go when he finally sat down with Lauer.
When asked about his country, Wadiya, he replied, "It is 1300 miles from
Tel Aviv as the SCUD flies. It has a population of 4 million, but obviously
that figure changes depending on my mood." Gen. Aladeen billed himself as
a legendary ladies’ man who has hooked up with Megan Fox, Katy Perry and Oprah.
"No relationships, just sex activity," he said. As with any good
despot, he also came to the interview prepared, just in case he didn’t like any
of Lauer’s questions or the interview’s general tone. "By the way, how are
your family? ... How is your wife Annette? "What is she doing
now?"" he asked as the interview got started. "She's probably
watching this interview," Lauer replied. "Incorrect!" Gen.
Aladeen exclaimed, pulling a swatch of brown locks from his pocket. "Is
this her hair?" The entire stunt was so absurd and so over the top that it
was impossible not to laugh, which is the entire point of movies like “The
Dictator,” which opens May 16………..
- Finding a good parking space is a war of attrition most
days in most cities. City parking decks, surface lots at colleges and
universities and crowded acres of pavement outside shopping malls are short on
spaces and long on impatient people looking for a place to park. Disputes are
bound to break out and if enough disputes break out, sooner or later someone is
going to break out a large, sharp metal implement to settle a confrontation. It’s
just a rule of life, so don’t try to avoid it. Accept that people like the unidentified
Augsburg, Germany man who threatened
his neighbor with an ax following their argument over a parking space are a
vital and unavoidable part of the world around you. These two Deutschland
dwellers engaged in a furious argument Sunday evening over a parking space at
the apartment block where they lived. Anyone who has ever been to Germany can
attest to the scarcity of parking spaces in most cities and clearly, neither
man was going to back down. When the confrontation escalated to the point where
physical violence seemed possible, one of the men fled to his apartment and
barricaded the door like a coward. His choice proved to be a wise one, as his
angry neighbor headed to his tool shed, grabbed his ax and attempted to smash
his way through the door. The first man called police, who responded to the
scene and pursued the attacker as he retreated into his own apartment. When
officers forced their way inside, the man attacked them with the ax as well.
The 47-year-old attacker was shot
dead prosecutors said in a statement, and one officer was placed on leave
following the incident. All of this over a parking space………….
- The FBI has been busy. Actually, the Bureau is always
busy, so that in and of itself is nothing new. However, the FBI’s latest round
of activity will provide plenty of fodder for the privacy-minded segment of
society, those paranoid that Big Brother is listening and that someone is
always watching them. According to multiple reports, the FBI has held several
meetings with
companies that deal in Internet communications, urging them to build a back
door into their systems to allow its agents to wiretap personal communications
of citizens. Doing so would necessitate action on the 1994 Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, which would require
communications platforms like Facebook and email services like Gmail and Yahoo!
to build FBI-accessible backdoors into their services. The FBI believes such
action would not represent an expansion of its powers, but rather a way to use
its existing powers more effectively in an age of increased social meeting use
and availability. Oddly enough, companies have been reluctant to go along with
the request given the heated reaction to recent Internet regulation such
as SOPA and CISPA. Whether the wiretapping back doors are installed or
not, there is no question that technology and specifically Internet-based
technology, is advancing so quickly that much like the devices themselves, laws
and techniques used to police digital communications become outdated quickly. The
FBI has argued that it will become even more ineffective if laws governing its
policies and practices don’t remain current. Getting what it wants in this case
would necessitate a court order for the Bureau, but that would be just one of a
series of headaches in the process. Paranoid people across the United States
are undoubtedly waiting for this fight and lying in wait with their torches,
pitchforks, blogs, Twitter accounts and Molotov cocktails should this increases
surveillance ever become reality………….
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