Quote of the day -- on the Middle East

Does not this seem wise, even simple, straightforward and simple? Maybe even obvious?

Senate Republicans keep "Big Oil's" tax cuts

Breaking news today: Senate Republicans reject Obama call to end 'big oil' tax breaks (links at bottom). In spite of the billions and billions of dollars in profits the oil industry makes and is taking in, the Republicans in the Senate today voted down taking away their tax subsidies. Get that--the oil industry makes more money than any other in the nation--and the world--yet we, the United States, give them tax subsidies. Not only that, but these Senate Republicans voted to allow them to get and keep these tax breaks. Does this make any sense to anyone? Well, except to the Senators in Congress who get "campaign contributions" from "Big Oil." Sure, it makes sense to them. Check this out, from one of the articles at the links below--"The top five oil companies in the United States have already made $5.8 billion in windfall profits from spiking gasoline prices this year." Yet we're giving them tax breaks. Is that not insanity? I thought tax breaks should be for small, upcoming industries you want to encourage, not already mature, grossly successful companies that, frankly, in this case we want to discourage since, first, it's a dirty, foul, polluting industry and second, we need to get out of the Middle East for national security purposes. Wow. We have got to stop this. Links: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/29/politics/oil-subsidies/index.html;

What we denied about the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War

I ask you, is this not what happened, ladies and gentlemen?

War? With yet another country? Now?

So simple. So right. So intelligent. Why, then, is he an "outsider" and why are these ideas of his not more common in Washington, especially right now? Insane. I don't get it. We should all be brighter than where we are and what we're doing.

Quote of the day

"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind."  --John F. Kennedy


Sure, we believe it and we think it's a good and nice and true quote but we don't live it.

A great idea from the president they'll want to shoot down

If President Obama comes up with it, there will be lines of people--mostly Conservative and/or Right-wing and/or Republican and/or Tea Party, etc.--that will be staunchly against it.  This is just one more:

Obama wants to curb U.S. oil imports by a third

By Alister Bull – Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will set an ambitious goal on Wednesday to cut U.S. oil imports by a third over 10 years, focusing on energy security amid high gasoline prices that could stall the country's economic recovery.

Obama will outline his strategy in a speech after spending days explaining U.S.-led military action in Libya, where fighting, accompanied by popular unrest elsewhere in the Arab world, has helped push gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon.

Discussing the speech, the Democratic president said the country must increase its energy independence.

"What we were talking about was breaking the pattern of being shocked at high prices and then, as prices go down, being lulled into a trance, but instead let's actually have a plan," Obama told party activists in New York late on Tuesday.

"Let's, yes, increase domestic oil production, but let's also invest in solar and wind and geothermal and biofuels and let's make our buildings more efficient and our cars more efficient. Not all of that work is done yet, but I'm not finished yet. We've got more work to do," Obama said.

The White House says this is a deliberate turn toward energy security and will be followed by other events to highlight his strategy.

So come on, who could be against this?  We know we need to reduce our energy dependence, particularly that that comes out of the looney-filled Middle East, what with their dictators, insanity, 2000-year-old wars and terrorists.

Yet against it they will be, whoever they are.  

The oil companies will most assuredly be against this because they're making ga-zillions from the oil in the Middle East and they like what's coming in so naturally, they'll give money--probably in the range of $2000.00 to $5000.00--to their Senators who will, in turn, then, say it's a crazy idea and imprudent and we should go another way.

Man, I hope we've learned we need to do this.

And if we haven't learned already, I hope we do shortly.

Link to original story:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_obama_energy

Holy cow! I'd hope so!

When I saw this headline this afternoon, my first reaction was just to guffaw in laughter:

Clinton rules out U.S. Syria involvement

My second reaction was to think that there is virtually no way anyone would allow anything remotely close to this right now.  Short of a direct attack on us right now, there's almost nothing and no one and no where that could get us to attack one more site on this planet, over-extended as we are.

Enjoy your Sunday, y'all.

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_syria_usa;_ylt=AmTQqQny512HXWfWSxr4rj1v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTMwbDlydGhrBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwMzI3L3VzX3N5cmlhX3VzYQRjY29kZQNtcF9lY184XzEwBGNwb3MDNwRwb3MDNwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2NsaW50b25ydWxlcw--

Hot potato!!! Comin' through!!!

US pressures allies to take Libya mission now (AP)

enjoy your evening, y'all

On the biggest problem of Muslims

No, the biggest problem of Muslims is not that they exist.  Don't be a hater.


The biggest problem of Muslims is that there are two sects of Muslims in the world, as we all know--Sunni and Shii'a--yet in too many countries and situations across the world, they kill each other.


Get that.


They're both Muslims.


They both have nearly identical beliefs on what they and most people, really, consider to be the most important issues in the world and life but a bit of a difference between the kind of Muslim they are and all of a sudden they can't abide the other type Muslim.


I won't go into a detailed account here of their differences but I will put this one quote up on the differences of Sunni and Shii'a Muslims:  


Sunni and Shia developed different political beliefs regarding the leadership after the death of Prophet Muhammad PBUH. All those who are in favor of Abu bakar, Umar and Ottoman ,the first three caliphs, are called Sunnis and those who believe that leadership only belonged to the family of the Prophet call themselves Shia. Shia Muslims believe that Ali was the legitimate successor and eligible as the first caliph since he was the cousin and son- in- law of the Prophet.


If you would like more information on the differences between these two types of Muslims, go to the links at bottom.


Anyway, it's insane.  It is truly insane.  It's psychotic.


Keeping all that in mind, here are some statistics on Muslims:

Islam is the world's second largest religion after Christianity. According to a 2009 demographic study, Islam has 1.57 billion adherents, making up 23% of the world population.^[1][2] 

Did you get that?  Nearly ONE QUARTER of the world's population is Muslim.  Added to that is the fact that they are also one of the fastest-growing populations of the world, too.

More:

Islam is the predominant religion in the Middle East, in northernAfrica^[3][4], and in some parts of Asia.^[5] Large communities of Muslims are also found in China, the Balkans, and Russia.^[6] Other parts of the world host large Muslim immigrant communities; inWestern Europe, for instance, Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity, though it represents less than 5% of the total population.^[7]

Approximately 50 countries are Muslim-majority.^[2] 

A demographic study conducted by the Pew Research Center in October 2009^[1][2] found that there are 1.57 billion Muslims around the world, accounting for roughly 1 in 4 people.

The vast majority of Muslims are Sunni, while an estimated 10 – 13% are Shi'a.^[2

Okay, so why do I mention this right now?  

I bring this up because of this quote below, from The New York Times "Quotation of the Day" today and because of the state of the world right now, both in some isolated countries and, more specifically, the country we just blew up and have to put back together--Iraq--and now the one we're starting to blow up--that is, Libya, as well as too much of the Middle East:

"I think all countries probably would like to see Libya remain a unified state. Having states in the region begin to break up because of internal differences is a formula for real instability in the future."  --DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT M. GATES

Looking at the "bigger picture" of the Middle East countries that are right now breaking apart--Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, etc.--and, we hope, getting Democracy with a capital "D", at the heart of each of these countries are these Muslim people of both sects and their inability to tolerate and so, live with one another.  

I think it is incumbent on all Muslims, worldwide, to push stringently for all of them to no longer even want ill of the other sect, let alone to kill or want to kill the other, first.

That seems obvious enough but I haven't heard this happening.  I'm not aware of anyone pushing for this.

Second, I think it is also incumbent on the rest of the world--all religious and non-religious organizations, all political parties, all politicians, everyone, everywhere, to push for this one-quarter of the world's population to, again, not have it in their heads that they can or should kill or want to kill or even to wish ill on anyone in the other sect of their faith.

This needs to happen and it needs to happen immediately, ladies and gentlemen, all across the world.

It especially needs to happen in the Middle East, where their own countries need to pull together so they can form countries that works together for the benefit of all their own people and that of the world.

Any thing less is more insanity.

Links:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-sunni-and-shia/

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=difference+between+sunni+and+shiia&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=b26d2f4496b7882f

Problems?

By and large, I think President Obama is doing and has done some terrific things, for sure, since gaining office this year.

Doing away with Guantanamo is an improvement for the country--re-establishing a nonpolitical Justice Department is huge, nominating Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court recently, the list goes on.

But there have been, as there always are, missteps.

Hey, they're all humans there at the White House but these missteps have seemed rather avoidable.

The first, I think, was the goofy gift he gave to Britain's Queen early this year.

(WTF?)

But that was really a minor problem or issue and we can all laugh about it and recover.

Then there was this odd oversight of the President's and French President Nikola Sarkozy's and Britain's Prime Minister. I mean, why would you NOT invite the one person to the D-Day commemoration WHO WAS THERE? (That being the Queen).

That just didn't make sense.

Now, in the very rare, overly-sensitive, odd and forever war-torn place that is the Middle East, the President made a very smart speech to the Muslim world and the rest of us.

In it, he said many wise, true and possibly difficult things.

He called for fairness and "give and take" from all sides involved. He asked for concessions from both sides and a lot more.

All good.

But one thing President Obama didn't do on this trip to the Middle East was include a stopover in Israel. I think that's a glaring omission and I'd love to hear an official explanation for it. I'm not saying he HAD to go or needed to go or that it was a huge mistake, at all.

It might possibly be one, though, and I'd love to know the reason he didn't make this stop.

(Link to story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090604/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama)

Where the President really hurts himself and his political party, though, is on spending, without doubt.

When now former President Bush proposed spending the trillions he said he wanted and needed to bail out the banks and support the economy, we all knew he was stupid and at the end of his Presidency.

For President Obama to continue this huge spending reflects especially badly on him and his Democratic Party because it makes it far too easy to paint him as the old cliche': "a tax-and-spend Liberal".

It's old but extremely effective and it makes a sort of "Achilles heel" for the President.

He needs to get away from this big, deficit spending, for the country's sake and his own.