Free kibbles

Americans know that government prison schools are the worst option for educating a child, but pretty much every parent still sends their kids to them.

Tax and Spend

The punishing tax rate in the US pushes companies and jobs out of the country.

"...the U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world."

And that rate doesn't include state and local taxes.

Federal debt officially tops $16 trillion.

"It took the United States government over 200 years to accumulate its first trillion dollars of debt. It took only 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion dollars of debt."

Turn out the lights. The party is ending.

"China owns so much US debt that the INTEREST INCOME they receive from the Treasury Department is nearly enough to fund their entire military budget."

That's a powerful fact. I hadn't heard that before. Ron Paul should have used this every day during the primary.

"This is banana republic stuff, plain and simple… and smart, thinking people ought to be planning on capital controls, wage and price controls, pension confiscation, and selective default. Because the next trillion will be here before you know it."

Definitely a banana republic.

Police State

City police union and its law firm using thuggery to influence politicians from cutting their funding.

"“What you have here is police associations and their law firms hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on elected officials that they can then use to extort them, embarrass them or worse in order to get the elected official to vote against the best interests of the city to protect themselves,” Righeimer told me. “That’s the definition of extortion.”"

They threatened to arrest one councilman for DUI using a false eye-witness report.

Politics

Romney's aggression toward Ron Paul supporters cost him votes.

"The number of people who were open to voting for Romney, and now will not, is surely small, though in a tight election, small groups can make a difference. Carro, for one, is planning on going fishing on Election Day, saying, “I cannot support the Romulan empire.” Others expressed similar sentiments. Referring to the disenfranchised delegates, Susanne Nightingale, a Paul-ite from California, said, “No August vote, no November vote.”"

Boy, Romney was stupid. He had the chance to be gracious, welcome Paul delegates and persuade them to support him, but he did just the opposite.

I'm not the only who thinks Romney was stupid. This website doesn't seem to have links for individual posts, so I'll quote it in its entirety.

" "Politics is the art of inclusion" said former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean. The Romney campaign seems to have forgotten this wise advice. Although, I am certainly a practitioner of hardball politics,the Romney treatment of Congressman Ron Paul at the Republican National Convention strikes me as gratuitous, unnecessary and perhaps fatal in terms of Romney's November prospects.

Although, Congressman Paul won at least 131 delegates through the primary and caucus process, the Secretary of the Republican convention refused to acknowledge, tally or announce Paul's votes. I cannot imagine the reason for this incredible snub.

When Congressman Paul's supporters gathered the majority of delegates in five states necessary to put Paul's name in nomination, the Romney forces quickly amended the rules to require a majority of eight states for that purpose. With Romney having secured more then enough delegates to be nominated it is difficult to understand what harm would have been done if Ron Paul's name had been placed in nomination and his duly elected delegates had been tallied and announced in the balloting.

All of this is particularly vexing in view of Ron Paul's studied neutrality in the November elections and not-too-bright Senator Rand Paul's transparent, self-serving endorsement of Mitt Romney.Rand Paul keeps calling the pro-War, pro-interventionist GOP platform " very libertarian." It isn't . Wake up Senator, Romney is itching to bomb Iran,backs the war in Afghanistan, supports the federal "war on drugs, the Patriot act and won't abolish the Federal Reserve.

Mitt Romney and his handlers have essentially told the Liberty Wing of the Republican Party to drop dead. They would have been wise to remember that Governor Gary Johnson is still likely to be on the ballot in 50 states despite the illegal and fraudulent effort by Republicans to block his ballot access in Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. The Romney forces should bear in mind that Ralph Nader got 97,000 votes in Florida, a state George W. Bush ultimately carried by 523 votes. The Romneyites have helped push Paul supporters into the Johnson camp.Romney acts like he's 15 points ahead instead of in a dead heat in which he needs every vote. Any significant showing by Johnson in any swing state could spell doom for Romney, who did not support Ronald Reagan in the general elections of 1980 or 1984 and who didn't become a Republican until 1983."

I hadn't heard about Republican efforts to keep the Libertarian candidate off the ballot.  Here's an article about the challenge in Iowa.

"Johnson says he faces ballot challenges in several states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma, led by Romney campaign operatives."

Same states. Libertarians tried to do the same to Romney in Washington, and failed.

Claim that Clint Eastwood tossed his vetted speech and ad-libbed. What an awesome guy.

Interesting, detailed breakdown of the Republican-Democrat voting blocks supports the contention this will be a very close election. I'm not so sure. I don't think this analysis measures how badly Obama personally and his policies have turned off the American people. I keep seeing claims that Obama has high likability ratings, but I don't those are accurate. I think people don't want to say they dislike him. I don't find anything about him likable.

Seeking to insure the highest rates of voter fraud possible, federal court blocks Texas voter ID law.

Local

Who the hell is the government to block a recycling company from using new equipment, equipment the company already purchased and installed, to fix an odor problem?

Federal Reserve

Bernanke promises to print more money ASAP. He calls this stimulus. I call it stealing.

Freedom of Speech

I just tried to play Kate Bush "Night of the Swallow" on YouTube, only to discover that it had been removed for copyright reasons. I tried to find it elsewhere, only to find it had been removed for the same copyright reasons. Copyright has made Kate Bush irrelevant. How does this benefit anybody including Kate Bush? I'm flabbergasted.

Regulation

Lew Rockwell offers an admission that most Americans are not willing to make:

"I love Apple products, but the death of Steve Jobs cut an emotional tie to the company."

This is why I call Apple customers iZombies, a term I believe has been copied copiously. Apple lovers don't care about its products. They care about Steve Jobs. That's because Apple does not provide innovative products. Apple has, since its inception, has been a great copier of better products, a great marketer of products, but never an innovator. People who aren't tech savvy don't realize this. They buy the hype. Rockwell further pretends he was surprised at Apple's aggressive application of government's bogus IP laws and humanitarian applications.

"Then there was the billion-dollar hit on Samsung, via the State. Now—among many other items—Apple has rejected an app that keeps track of drone murders—through publicly available info. It would be "objectionable," says Apple."

Hello? When did you check your brain at the door and miss the true character of one of government's greatest sycophantic companies? The only reason people lose their minds for Apple products is savvy marketing. Apple exemplifies the conquest of style over substance that flows from the Fed's corruption of American values. The Fed's printing of money teaches us that immediate glorification is more important than producing a product of substance. The Fed corrupts us into believing that products are disposable. Steve Jobs capitalized that and created an army of iZombies like Lew Rockwell. Government created this iZombie phenomenon. All libertarians should reject it. I appreciate Rockwell's admission of his mistake, but if he believes expounded by Rothbard, how did he go so wrong? This isn't one mistake. It's a decade of ongoing mistakes.

Global Warming and Energy

While everybody is distracted with the Republican convention and Isaac, Obama quietly releases new, punishing CAFE standards that had been developed in secret. I love the picture at the top of the article.

That picture captures so much more about Obama than just his oppression of the auto industry.

Tax and Spend

Five examples of Obama using our money and executive power to buy votes.

Romney's welfare ad is accurate, and even liberal Mickey Kaus agrees.

City government subsidizing housing for homeless artists.

Media

In a very unusual move for the establishment, a person is held accountable, fired, for his actions.

"David Chalian, the Yahoo News Washington Bureau chief, has been fired after getting caught on a hot mike telling a fellow host on an live ABC News web show to “feel free to say” that “they” — Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans — “are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
The implication: that Republicans’ decision to continue with their convention despite the hurricane hitting New Orleans means they don’t care about black people.
Chalian’s words were first caught by the conservative media criticism site Newsbusters. Yahoo has released a statement apologizing for the comment and announcing that Chalian had been terminated. "

Good for Yahoo. They're new CEO might just work out for them.

My Google aggregator page shows only one headline about Romney's speech. Did he give one? Clint Eastwood also rates one headline. Isaac rates only one. How much do you want to be that at midnight, Thursday next week, pretty much every headline on my homepage links to something about Obama's speech? Stay tuned for next week...

War

The real reason the neo-cons advocate war and attack Ron Paul for not supporting war is they profit from war. These people are in bed with the industrial-military-intelligence complex. If peace broke out, those people would no longer receive money stolen from taxpayers by the government. Even though they believe in big government and central planning, the Democrats wouldn't fund them to fight the Soviets because the Soviets were kindred ideological spirits, so they switched parties to be Republicans where they could better loot the people.

Because the government refused to release information confirming Osama bin Laden's death, we now have two competing reports on when he died, May 2011 and 2001. Report claims bin Laden was treated for a terminal disease in a US hospital in Dubai in July 2001, and he met with the CIA while he was there. Many sources confirm bin Laden died before 2011. More evidence he died in 2001.

Police State

Government establishment acknowledges the TSA costs us far more than its nominal $8 billion a year price tag.

"Chief among the TSA's enormous extra expenses are “state and local police placed at airports, the amount of time spent by travelers to pass through long security lines, and the economic impact of new counterterrorism mandates placed on private corporations.”"

But those are the most obvious costs. How about the cost to the people abused? How about the cost to the child who will grow up warped by TSA's assault?

Boortz relates another police state nightmare from the convention.

Politics

On the one hand, Republicans criticize Obama for continuing to blame Bush for stuff. On the other hand, they keep parading Bush staffers onto the stage at the convention. Republicans won't repudiate Bush to their and our peril.

Republicans seem to be repeating the mistakes of 1976, but worse. The worst part about this is despite their thuggish tactics, Romney will most likely win because Obama is terrible.This means Republicans will continue these tactics in 2016 and 2020, and only change them in 2024 if the lose in 2020. God bless the US survives the US survives until 2024, but I strongly doubt it.

Romney bans hologram of Reagan because, northeastern liberal that he is, he wants to be neither outshined by Reagan nor beholden to Reagan's libertarian reputation.

Obama's propagandists seem to be upset with Clint Eastwood's speech, which tells me it was effective. Too bad Clint decided to support a northeastern liberal.

Every song I play on YouTube seems to advertise Obama. None advertise Romney.

Health Care

Government's food, drug and medical establishment isn't satisfied with making adults unhealthy then trapping them on an endless regimen of drugs and doctor's care. They're doing the same thing with kids.

Tax and Spend

In addition to the $16 trillion in on budget federal debt that will never be paid off, state governments have forced another $4 trillion in debt on us.

Here's how the feds think of things:

"More Americans rely on their families for assistance than the government, so federal officials have undertaken an effort to help people to apply for federal assistance."

This isn't stupid. These people know they're going to crash our economy and destroy our country. They just want to accelerate the process. What is never mentioned is how family members helping each other strengthens families, while isolating individuals from their families by trapping them on welfare harms them.

Education

Teacher's unions fighting charter schools.

Local

Not satisfied with having pretty much all our streets torn up at once, Dayton city government allocates $1.2 million to destroy more streets.

Regulation

I was surprised that Apple won a $1 billion verdict against Samsung. I put the verdict down to home field advantage: Americans favoring an American company, a bizarrely popular American company, over a Korean company. But it appears that confusion also played a role.

"In discussing the first patent on the list, he says they got into a discussion about the prior art that was presented at trial. Here's why they discounted it: 'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.' That isn't disqualifying for prior art. It doesn't have to run on the same processor. It doesn't have to run at all. It can be words on a piece of paper."

I don't know if this foreman was stupid or evil, but his analysis if flat wrong, and it contributed to a bad verdict that's going to hurt us all. Here's what this case was really about:

"Samsung, the world’s top smartphone seller, is offering a variety of Galaxy handsets, with different sizes and features, to lure consumers from limited choices offered by Apple."

Samsung is beating Apple in the market, so Apple used the coercive power of government to damage its more successful competitor.

Global Warming and Energy

Obama's EPA using our tax dollars to promote liberal idea of environmental justice.

"$1.9 million in environmental justice grants 10th May 2010 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $1.9 million in environmental justice grants to 76 non-profit organizations and local governments working on environmental justice issues nationwide. The grant program supports Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to expand the conversation on environmentalism and work for environmental justice.
And it isn’t just in the USA, the EPA is giving US taxpayer money to Brazilian programs. Think that’s bad? They are giving money to China too, as if the Chinese need our help."

The $1.9 million is less than a drop in a bucket, but this does highlight how the government, like any other mafia, uses the money it steals from us against us.

Politics

It's amazing how Romney and his establishment abused Ron Paul supporters, and by doing so created the kind of angry protest he was ostensibly trying to avoid. I don't think he was trying to avoid it at all. I think he wanted this confrontation as a show of power. The rumor mill suggests Paul delegates will walk out during Romney's speech. More on the thuggery.

"Properly elected Ron Paul delegates were stripped from us. And when a motion was made to amend the Credential Committee's report, it was ignored. Morton Blackwell, a longtime conservative activist and RNC Rules Committee expert, found himself indefinitely detained — along with the rest of the Virginia delegation. The RNC bus driver responsible for transporting delegates somehow 'got lost' for well over an hour until a critical Rules Committee meeting adjourned.  [The new rules adopted by that committee] are designed to make the Republican Party a top-down organization and strip power away from state parties and grassroots activists of every stripe. All efforts to vote down these onerous rules were ignored . . . "

This is the same Chicago-style politics conservatives criticize when used by Obama and his cronies.

Peggy Noonan reports it's a quiet convention. In other words, Romney still doesn't energize anybody.

The Republican party has been such a miserable failure at the national level since Gingrich managed to put a check on Clinton that one of its propagandists wants us to look to the states to understand the party as if all the disasters they brought about at the federal level don't matter.

Police State

TSA accosts Ron Paul and his family as they try to leave Clearwater airport in a private plane.

War

New book by SEAL involved in the assassination of Osama bin Laden reports bin Laden was unarmed. That was reported by alternative sources at the time. That's why I keep calling it an assassination. Here's a reminder of the official story. The White House and the Pentagon admitted he was unarmed.

Emails show that Obama and his guys bent over backward to help a movie producer produce a movie about Osama bin Laden's assassination.

"Officials at the White House, Pentagon and CIA eagerly cooperated with movie producers who were expected to roll out a pre-election movie about the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden, according to a cache of documents revealed by Judicial Watch.
“I know we don’t pick favorites but it makes sense to get behind a winning horse,” CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf wrote in a July 2011 email. The “movie is going to be the first and the biggest. It’s got the most money behind it, and two Oscar winners on board,” she added.
Tom Fitton, president of the Judicial Watch public-interest law firm, said Tuesday that the documents “provide more backing to the serious charge that the Obama administration played fast and loose with national security information to help Hollywood filmmakers.”"

Of course he did because it was in his interest.

Mark Twain's rewritten Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Free and Brave or Beaten and Scared?

Suppose two guys told you to pick which one of them was going to hit you in the head with the flat of a shovel then steal all your money. Both guys were big and strong with long records of hitting people in heads with shovels and stealing their money. Both guys would tell you what a great sacrifice you were making for your country, maybe one more eloquently than the other. You might even think one of them would hit you slightly less hard than the other, but you knew unequivocally both would hit you hard and steal your money. Suppose the biggest way they differentiated themselves was by offering different sized bandages and drugs to treat your wound. Which would you vote for?

I hope you said you would never vote for a person to hit you in the head with the shovel and steal your money, even if that meant the one you believed would hit you less hard lost. Please keep that position with you on election day

Is this the land of the free and home of the brave or the land of the beaten down and running scared? The American people are in an abusive relationship with government. They're afraid to walk away, so every election they come back for another beating. It doesn't matter if that beating is administered from the left or right, it's a beating none the less. The only rational response is for us to end the relationship.

Local

Another DP&L failure results in 2,800 people losing power, and this time weather wasn't a factor.

Politics

This is the reality we suffer under.

"Prediction 1: If Romney wins, in four years we will have a higher national debt, and still have a drug war, a police state, troops in 150 countries, and a national security/warfare state. Prediction 2: If Obama wins, in four years we will have a higher national debt, and still have a drug war, a police state, troops in 150 countries, and a national security/warfare state."

We're the the stupidest people on earth when it comes to politics, and we're going to pay a horrific price for that.

Along the same theme, this election will change nothing. I love this first line.

"Writing is often cathartic for the writer."

That's why I write. Fortunately for me, what I write tends to be entertaining for my readers. This article gets better from there.

Article compares the supposed core beliefs of Obama and Romney. I can sum this up: use government's gun to get all I can while I can.

In a telling act, the national Republican establishment passed new rules taking power over delegate choice from the states and centralizing it in the national establishment. This is a parallel to what both parties have done with government. It's a reminder that all government agents are corrupt, they all want power, they all want to advance their own interests at the expense of everybody else. They also refused to recognize some duly elected Ron Paul delegates. Some Ron Paul supporters walked out. The Governor of Maine, a Romney Republican, boycotted the event in response.

"As the roll call of states commenced, several states listed votes for both Romney and Paul. When repeating back the count, those at the podium cited only the Romney votes."

What a sham. This is going to hurt Romney politically. He won the nomination. All he had to do was be magnanimous, follow the rules, welcome Paul supporters to the party, and he would have been recognized as the Republican standard bearer. Now he's alienated many natural supporters, and he's going be dogged by attacks for his insecurity and underhanded actions. Democrats, who have nothing to commend them to the American people, are laughing and profiting from this disgusting display of personal interest at the expense of the party in general, but with Democrats running away from the Democrat convention as fast as possible, this is shaping up to be the biggest contest of losers in US history.

Ron Paul gets rock star welcome at Republican convention. Ron Paul set up Rand Paul to take over his movement, but I think the Republican establishment is ruining that opportunity.

I don't know if I believe this report.

"Gov. Chris Christie wasn’t willing to give up the New Jersey statehouse to be Mitt Romney’s running mate because he doubted they’d win, The Post has learned."

It smacks of truth, it's funny and the timing is impeccable given Christie just delivered the keynote address to the Republican convention, but who gains from it? The New York Post is a reliably conservative paper in the New England vein, if that can be called conservative. Who has anything to gain here? Christie, obviously. But conventional wisdom suggests Romney, Ryan, the publisher, the editor and the writer all lose. So why was this article published? Conventional wisdom must be wrong. Somebody high up at the paper must be a closet Obama supporter, under the thumb of one or just hates Romney. Romney probably made lots of enemies in New England. I'm going with the last option. It also makes sense that Chris Cristie, because he's a New England liberal like Romney, would have seriously misjudged the electorate.

Economy

Economist wonders if our civilization will survive the coming collapse. Here's a couple of choice quotes:

"A team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts believes they have proof that the threat is indeed real - and the danger imminent.

'We found an identical pattern in our debt, total credit market, and money supply that guarantees they're going to fail. This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible.'"

"According to Martenson: 'These systems could all implode at the same time. Food, water, energy, money. Everything.'"

Notice all those economic sectors are powerfully controlled by the government.

War

China increasing nuclear missile capability. Apparently we're supposed to think they're bad people for doing that.

Socialism

GM suspends production of Chevy Volts for a month because of terrible sales.

"The plant's single 10-hour shift works four days a week. That single shift will be suspended for four weeks beginning Sept. 17, supplier and union sources said."

This means all that equipment is idle, being wasted, 14 hours a day already. Romney should highlight this.

Dayton Construction

Here's the link to the last Dayton Construction post. There's been a flurry of activity in the last week. The contract must end soon. It probably ends on Labor Day.

The hung stoplights at both ends of the street.

They added another spur for neighborhood access. The white truck is on the new road they laid in two days

They also dumped off a bunch of wood chips to put in the play scape, so after 15 months, the children might be on the verge of getting to play on the jungle gym again. Today there's a street sweeper cleaning the main boulevard. This week shows again that crews can work fast when they show up to do it. It wasn't that many people, and it wasn't that much equipment either. It's just disgusting that it has taken them 15 months to do about two months of work. They squandered resources for 13 months. But politicians love it because this visible project makes it look like they're working for the people and providing a socialist jobs program.

Police State

One month after government shut down the number one spam producer on the internet, spam levels are unchanged.

Check out this picture of security in Tampa. They look like they're out of Starship Troopers.

Global Warming and Energy

The latest predictions for Isaac have it never becoming a hurricane. Just yesterday it was predicted to become a category two before striking the northern Gulf coast. Once again the predictors were wrong. Isaac has officially become a cat 1 hurricane. The Google map still shows Isaac as a tropical storm though it correctly reports it as a hurricane. This seems like a bug. This is a terrible page. I can't see anything because of the rain graphic. And it doesn't tell me any facts like the wind speed, the storm surge, the coordinates, the direction, or anything else. Granted, it links me to a lot of stuff, but why should I visit Google's crisis page instead of going directly to the Accuweather page?

Obama buys votes in Louisiana by declaring a disaster before any disaster exists. As far as we know, no emergency will exist. Notice he didn't declare Mississippi a disaster. You can bet right after this storm hits, the press will praise Obama for his quick action and contrast that with President Bush. I was wrong. The press is already doing this.

"NBC's Chuck Todd tries to tie Hurricane Katrina and former President George W. Bush to the GOP convention in Tampa. From Sunday's edition of NBC's Nightly News: "There are folks with the Romney campaign who think, 'Boy, Romney can't catch a break ever since he named Paul Ryan. He got a little momentum after the Ryan pick and then he's disrupted by two storms. One, a political storm in Todd Akin which we just brought up. But now an actual storm, and when you think when this storm moves to and closer to Louisiana, the specter, the sort of shadow of Bush and Katrina does hang over this convention. It is something organizers are concerned about and don't be surprised if Tuesday gets changed again.""

It's so predictable.

Germans will build 23 new coal power plants because wind and solar power turned out to be expensive and unreliable. As if we didn't know that all along.

Gas prices to be highest ever for Labor Day.  This doesn't bode well for Obama.

Health Care

Polio vaccine killing children in India.

"What you're NOT learning from the mainstream media, however, is that there's a growing public movement fighting the profound misinformation about the vaccine, mainly because VACCINE-CAUSED polio is maiming and even killing a growing number of children every day, far outstripping the damage done by the wild-type polio that has been supplanted by the manmade form found within the vaccine. "

"…while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated. The principle of primum-non-nocere [First, do no harm] was violated."

Are you kidding me?

Foreign Policy

Obama is pressuring Europeans to keep Greece in the eurozone until after the election.

Economy

Rothbard explains why the US remains trapped in depression.

"It should be clear that any governmental interference with the depression process can only prolong it, thus making things worse from almost everyone’s point of view. Since the depression process is the recovery process, any halting or slowing down of the process impedes the advent of recovery. The depression readjustments must work themselves out before recovery can be complete. The more these readjustments are delayed, the longer the depression will have to last, and the longer complete recovery is postponed."

Our government is intervening significantly, keep us trapped in depression.

Freedom of Speech

Photo of Woman A smiling happily with Julien Assange 48 hours after she claims he raped her should put an end to those bogus charges.

The FCC wants to tax internet access.

Police State

Security hinders activities at the Republican convention. They're getting a taste of their own medicine.

Misc

This is excellent.

Local

Another crash in the I-75 construction death trap.

Global Warming and Energy

As I predicted, Isaac was still a tropical storm when it hit the keys. Furthermore, the forecasts now put it at a category one storm when it hits the mainland, not a category two as was predicted the last few days. Once again the weather service has over-estimated a storm to scare people.

Misc

I'm downloading Ubuntu. Apparently it takes 21 minutes. I was thinking back to my sophmore year of college in 1982 when I took Fortran at UC. I had to sit at a terminal and type in my code. When I was done,   I had to walk to the end of the terminals and pick up my punch cards.Then I had to walk somewhere else and insert my punch cards into a card reader for the computer to read. Then I had to walk somewhere else and pick up the printer output for my program. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to do this very often because my programs were generally right the first time. But, despite that incredibly inefficient system and having to walk all over the computer lab from one place to another to another to another, it was still faster than waiting for a Windows computer today. I designed microprocessors my whole career. I know how much faster we made them. I understand Moore's law, but I swear to God - may he strike me down if I'm lying - Microsoft has made computers shower than they were in 1982, including the walking time. I really can't imagine how Bill Gates managed to make computers so much slower and harder to use while still being considered an innovator. Gates was a marketer, not an engineer. His products made computers harder to use, not easier. He made them slower, not faster. I can't think of another human being who did more to restrict the benefits from computers than Bill Gates. Yet he's considered a genius. He's definitely a genius at looting people, but not at providing a product that benefits people. The only reason he was able to get away with this and profit from it is his association with government.

War

If you are anti-war and anti-Isreali like Justin Raimondo, you might claim that any Israeli attack on Iran will result in a nuclear exchange. And you would be wrong. I'm not advocating an attack on Iran by either the Israeli or US governments, but a nuclear response is not inevitable.

"The Israelis are going all out to lure, threaten, and scare the US into attacking Iran: the world hasn’t seen such a frenzy of staged hysterics since my three-year-old niece threatened to hold her breath until her parents agreed to buy her all six Barbie Fashionistas. "

Oh my goodness, that's a fantastic comparison to the vapid claims of Iranian danger.

"It is merely to suggest that something else is at work here, a factor unreported but previously hinted at – and that is the possibility Netanyahu is playing a game of nuclear blackmail with this administration, threatening to launch a nuclear first strike at Iran."

I'm skeptical. Call me naive, but I don't think even Netanyahu will go there. I think Raimondo's anti-Israel bent has infected him. God knows I hope I'm right.

Foreign Policy

Eric Margolis rips the US foreign policy in Africa. Well deserved.

"It says much when the long-time rulers of two of Africa’s largest, most important nations, Egypt’s Husni Mubarak and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, had to fly to Europe for critical medical treatment because their own nations lacked facilities and specialists."

And he didn't fly to the US either.

"Meles’ untimely death at 57 last week in a Belgian hospital – probably from cancer – has left Ethiopia reeling. He and a junta of Tigrayans ruled Ethiopia’s 90.8 million people with an iron first since 1991 after they overthrew the murderous Communist Derg regime of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. Mengistu’s Red Terror is said to have murdered tens of thousands and starved to death a million peasants."

Oh crap. You know who those people are going to blame. US money kept him in power, and those he oppressed will want to kill Americans. Blowback will strike again.

Federal Reserve

I'm not terrified by Bernanke's blindness. I'm used to government so-called experts being fools. But I am terrified of the consequences.

Economy

While recognizing the economic collapse we're doomed to suffer, this post terribly misidentifies its cause.

"Quoting social scientists before him, Berman establishes a theory of a hustler mentality of the average American and the solitary goals of self-indulgence and compulsive consumerism. Where once there were family, friends and culture now resides a "technopoly" or a "totalitarian technocracy" which "eliminates everything else". Where people are treated like machines and cultural life forms bequeathed to the "sovereignty of technology." Where if one is not very careful, the virtual world and (social) network lead one to isolation "because if you are at home alone with a screen, that's where you are." Where brain function takes on the characteristics of the telecommunication device. Where the Internet teaches malleable users to skim read and not contemplate, permanently fragmenting the thought process and ability to attach oneself to a thought or idea."

What a bunch of crap. Our cultural problems are all consequences of economic problems. Children grow up knowing that government, because of its threats of violence, is more important than family. This degrades families. Children grow up knowing that money comes easy because the Fed prints it. Any old job today will pay more than a quality job yesterday. When parents tell children to save their money, the children laugh. They innately recognize that savings in our world of grotesque inflation is stupid, so they spend instead. This further undermines the family. Social networking is not our problem. It just magnifies the problems created by government. If we could get government off our backs, social networking and the internet would magnify positive behavior like saving and creating wealth.

Governments have long known that if you want to scare people into doing some activity you want, scare them. Declaring a gold crisis is just an investor using the same tactic. I believe gold is a good investment. But there's no crisis. It's not like the government has seized it yet. Yet.

The government lets crony John Corzine go free despite his company losing billions. You might think this is shocking. If so, you're a fool. The important word in all is crony. That's the get of jail free card for the ruling class. Corzine has it. He used it. He goes free, billions richer, while every other American becomes poorer.

A few days ago, gold was at a buying opportunity. Even though it's gone up since then, it's still a good buy.

Global Warming and Energy

Computer models suggest Isaac is more likely to threaten Biloxi than Tampa. Even though Isaac is predicted to be only a category two when it hits the gulf coast, New Orleans is at risk because the government controls its levies, insuring they are vulnerable. Predictions still favor my prediction that Isaac will not be a hurricane when it first strikes the US in the Florida keys.

Turning a good rainstorm in a crisis, Republicans cancel the first day of their convention in Tampa. This is just foolish. The storm would have brought them coverage. Now they're going to lose coverage on Monday, and they'll lose more coverage because the storm, predicted to be a category two at that time, will hit land during the convention. What a screw-up.

Politics

Ron Paul refuses to bow down to Mitt Romney.

"Mr. Paul, in an interview, said convention planners had offered him an opportunity to speak under two conditions: that he deliver remarks vetted by the Romney campaign, and that he give a full-fledged endorsement of Mr. Romney. He declined.“It wouldn’t be my speech,” Mr. Paul said. “That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president.”"

Good for him.

The Republican party was embarrassed because Ron Paul supporters forced them to break their own rules to present the illusion the party supports Romney. They were exposed as the crooks they are. In order to make sure this doesn't happen again, they're changing the rules so nobody can challenge the establishment choice in the future.

If I had money to bet, I'd bet it all that Ron Paul does not stand up with Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in support of Romney.

I've already put in my prediction on the weather (Isaac will be a tropical storm when it first hits the US), and I've predicted Romney will win the presidency. I might as well go for the trifecta and predict that Akins will win the Missouri Senate seat.

"What does this hysteria over one egregious gaffe reveal?A deep-seated fear, a gnawing anxiety among Republicans that the positions they have held and hold on social and moral issues, and even on economics and foreign policy, no longer command the support of a majority of their countrymen."

Pfft. Buchanan is all wrong on that one. What it shows is Republicans want to make this election about economic issues like the economy and entitlements. There's no cowardice here. There's no hiding or goofiness. It's just about economics. The last thing Romney, the guy who ordered a health insurance mandate in Massachusetts, loved abortion back then, promoted an assault weapons ban, and probably sucked a lot of ----, oops, can't say that, wants is an election on social issues. Once again, this should have been a non-issue, but because Republicans nominated a big-government Massachusetts liberal, it is an issue. It cracks me up that conservatives talk about small government and whatnot while they always, and I mean always, vote for the most big government liberal Republican in the race.

Neil Armstrong Died

I can't think of any greater American hero in my lifetime than Neil Armstrong. Rest in peace.

Police State

The Colorado Batman shooter sent a notebook with his plans for the shooting to his psychiatrist at Colorado University a week before the shooting. The notebook reported was never delivered. It sat unopened in a post office room. That's convenient. I'm skeptical.

Originally the news reported that a shooter in New York City randomly targeted bystanders. Now we know that NYPD cops shot the bystanders, not the original shooter.

"Questions have been raised over the New York police department's handling of a shooting near the Empire State Building after armed officers injured nine passers-by as they pursued a gunman who had just shot dead his former boss.

One of those injured by police told the Guardian that officers appeared to fire "randomly" as they confronted Jeffrey Johnson, 58, minutes after a workplace dispute escalated into a chaotic shootout in one of the busiest parts of Manhattan.

Reports suggest that while Johnson drew his gun when he was confronted by officers, he did not fire; all those injured appear to have been shot by police."

Do you think victims cared whether they were shot by the original shooter or cops, or do you think they only care about the consequences? This is nothing new. Every time we hear about cops shooting people in wheelchairs, they shot 50 or so bullets, but only several hit, killing the poor unarmed victim.

"The New York police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said officers had no choice but to act as they did: police discharged 14 rounds and the gunman died at the scene."

Baloney. Of course they had a choice. They could have chosen to carefully target the original shooter or hold their fire if they were unable to do so. Supposedly cops are highly trained, but apparently these cops, and all the other cops we read about missing their target, which is pretty much all of them, are poorly trained.

Double standard of cops shooting others. This points how private individuals, because they are subject to liability, are encouraged to act responsibly and not shoot bystanders, while cops, because they face no real liability for shooting bystanders, are encouraged to fire bullets seemingly randomly into crowds. This is a double-standard in the law that should be erased. It is inconsistent with the philosophy of the rule of law.

Microsoft is collecting your information with Windows 8. It claims to be benevolent. No thank you.

Will Grigg rips the state over killing Vicky Weaver in a way that American should do the same. We should commemorate her murder by government agents every year.

As much as I love reading Will Grigg, I don't believe I've given him the publicity he deserves. I consume his articles, but I don't often re-blog them. In this case...

"The negotiator, being a police officer, performed as he was trained to – that is to say, he lied."

If you pay enough attention to Grigg, you realize this is the norm. And he tells us this is the norm. And he proves it every day with a new example. Grigg shows us the disgusting reality of law enforcement all around the country, and my personal experiences in court room back his descriptions up. But I hate to acknowledge that reality, but only a fool would ignore it.

Regulation

Apple and Samsung face mutually assured destruction in South Korea because of patents.

"Apple and Samsung both face sales bans in South Korea following a ruling from a panel of judges in Seoul that the electronics companies have infringed on each other’s patents."

"According to PCWorld, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and the first and second generations of iPad tablets can no longer be sold, along with the Samsung Galaxy S, SII, Galaxy Tab or Galaxy Tab 10.1."

This shows the absurdity of giving government the power to ban innovation. Apple, Samsung and consumers all lose. The only winner is government because the politicians and bureaucrats profit from this baloney.

Apple wins $1 billion award from Samsung in the US. The US is government is using patents to grant Apple a monopoly. This is a good reminder that monopolies can't happen in a free market. They are always created by government.

Tax and Spend

Government could balance the budget just by reducing the spending growth rate, but it won't until creditors force it to.

Illegal Immigration.

Immigration agents sue Janet Napolitano over amnesty program.

"Ten federal immigration agents have filed suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claiming recent directives are forcing them to break the law and ignore their duties when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants."

I love it when government agents fight with each other.

Socialism

When Obama bailed out GM, I predicted socialism would destroy the company. It's happening.

"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that GM is bleeding money because of decisions made by a management eager to please its political masters -- and by the terms of the bankruptcy arranged by Obama car czars Ron Bloom and Steven Rattner.Rattner himself admitted late last year, in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club: "We should have asked the UAW (the United Auto Workers union) to do a bit more. We did not ask any UAW member to take a cut in their pay." Non-union employees of GM spinoff Delphi lost their pensions. UAW members didn't.
The UAW got their political payoff. And GM, according to Forbes writer Louis Woodhill, is headed to bankruptcy again.
Is this really what Obama wants to do for all manufacturing across America? Let's hope not."

I'm sure this is exactly what Obama wants to do to all of manufacturing across America. Marxism is his goal.

Health Care

Another analysis predicts Obamacare will create health care shortages.

"Healthcare analysts say that under the Affordable Care Act, physician availability will decrease dramatically, as there won’t be enough practicing medical providers to tend to the greater number of insured patients.Moreover, once the Affordable Care Act takes full effect -- in 2014 -- some say doctors will have to devote more time and resources to preventive health services, and as a result, productivity will decrease."

This is all part of Democrats' plan to destroy our health care system so they can implement full-blown socialized medicine.

War on Drugs

Feds make bath salts and synthetic marijuana illegal.

Politics

Apparently Biden and Ryan have a lot in common in their voting records.

Tropical storm Isaac is heading toward Tampa, but Republicans have banned umbrellas at the convention. You can't make this stuff up.

Model that predicted last eight elections predicts Romney will win.

"Mitt Romney will win the popular vote and take the White House with more than 300 electoral votes, according to a election model that correctly determines the winner when applied to the past eight presidential elections.
The model, based on state-level economic data, predicts that President Barack Obama will lose nearly all key states that many observers view as toss-ups: North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin and New Hampshire. He’d also drop Pennsylvania and Minnesota, where polls indicate Obama is ahead, the study finds.
The analysis, authored by Colorado political science professors Kenneth Bickers and Michael Berry, looks at unemployment rates and per capita income from the past 22 years and builds a model that would have accurately predicted each election. It also looks at other indicators, like which party currently holds the White House.
“The apparent advantage of being a Democratic candidate and holding the White House disappears when the national unemployment rate hits 5.6 percent,” Berry said in a University of Colorado press release. The unemployment rate is currently 8.3 percent nationally."

I don't think Romney should get too excited about this. As important as the economic situation is, individuals matter too. But then again, I predicted Obama would lose because of the economy long ago.

ACORN did not disappear. It just reorganized under new names.

Police State

Judge orders Virginia man previously imprisoned for a 30 day psychiatric examination to be freed because of lack of evidence. Excellent.

Health Care

It's bad enough that the government has fooled so many Americans into eating wheat, but it gets worse...

"Note that I said "modern" wheat, because I would argue that what we are being sold today in the form of whole grain bread, raisin bagels, blueberry muffins, pizza, ciabatta, bruschetta, and so on is not the same grain our grandparents grew up on. It's not even close....The gluten proteins in modern wheat, for instance, differ from the gluten proteins found in wheat as recently as 1960. This likely explains why the incidence of celiac disease, the devastating intestinal condition caused by gluten, has quadrupled in the past 40 years. Furthermore, a whole range of inflammatory diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to inflammatory bowel disease, are also on the rise. Humans haven't changed -- but the wheat we consume has changed considerably."

Holy crap. It wasn't enough for the government to foist wheat on us. It had to corrupt the wheat to be more harmful than ever. Sort of like meat.

God bless Lance Armstrong. God damn the state.

"The USADA, a quasi-governmental agency created by the U.S. Congress in 2000, formally charged Armstrong in June with doping and taking part in a conspiracy with members of his championship teams. Five other cyclists have been accused of conspiring with Armstrong over the course of 14 years to hide doping activity.The agency said in a letter to Armstrong that it has blood samples from 2009 and 2010 that are "fully consistent" with doping."

As if those samples didn't exist before today. He won his races before then. What a crock of crap.

"Armstrong's attorneys contend that he has "passed every drug test ever administered to him in his career - a total of 500 to 600 tests... more drug tests than any athlete in history.""

So what is really going on here? The state would be better off co-opting Armstrong. Apparently, he didn't oblige. My theory is that Armstrong provides the proof-positive that the government-cancer establishment is unhealthy for Americans. Prove me otherwise.

Police State

How would the government police whether or not developers did a good job of protecting against hackers? This just sounds like a government tool advocating for government power.

Sometimes stories are so absurd, I don't even know how to frame them. Former Iraq and Afghanistan war-monger arrested for DUI. You think I'm joking?

"Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan Ryan Crocker is facing drunken driving and
hit-and-run charges in Washington state after his vehicle collided with a truck last week, authorities said on Thursday."

And hit and run. There's a bigger story here being covered up by the press. For some reason, the powers that be have thrown Crocker under the bus. It won't be too long until the real story leaks. Honest people have rejected our dishonest government too fast for the government to stop.

Misc

Apparently the former Penn State president who is firing back at corrupt Freeh is just another tool of the government. The corruption of government knows no bounds. This guy was reportedly involved in the climategate scandal. But of course he was. Michael Mann, one of the great frauds of the movement, works at Penn State.

Apparently the bicycling tyrants have beaten Lance Armstrong down despite never having produced a shred of evidence he cheated. This is a travesty.

"Lance Armstrong is giving up his fight against the latest wave of charges by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which will likely rule that the seven-time Tour de France winner is a cheater who should be banned from cycling for life and stripped of his titles.
Armstong, who never tested positive during his career, has denied using performance enhancing drugs. Armstrong, who retired last year, won the sport's ultimate contest from 1999-2005."

Explain why other bikers didn't do the same thing as Armstrong? This is crap.

"“There comes a point in every man's life when he has to say, 'Enough is enough.' For me, that time is now,” Armstrong said in a statement released on his website. "I have been dealing with claims that I cheated and had an unfair advantage in winning my seven Tours since 1999. The toll this has taken on my family and my work for our foundation and on me leads me to where I am today -- finished with this nonsense.”"

Good for him. He's refusing to play their game. Good for him. The sport of bicycling will be worse off because of this. Lance will be better.

Can the Indianapolis Colts get more stupid? Peyton Manning's injury last year exposed they had a terrible team. Then they had the first pick in a draft that included the supposedly best quarterback prospect since John Elway. Well hello. You already controlled one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. The smart thing to do would be to trade that draft pick for the biggest bonanza in history. But no. Irsay decided to kick Manning to the curb and draft whatshisname. Because of that decision, the Colts are no better this year than last year. Irsay is an idiot, whatshisname will get beat up for a decade, and the Colts will contend now and then as a better than mediocre team. If they had traded that pick though, they would have been the best team in football for five or six years. What an idiot.

Federal Reserve

Greece central bank printing euros into existence to keep the government afloat.

"On July 20, the ECB announced it would no longer accept Greek sovereign debt as collateral. Left without any viable alternatives and facing a looming 3.2 billion euro payment due Aug. 20 on a bond held by the ECB, Greece subsequently requested that the amount of short-term bills the Bank of Greece was allowed to accept as collateral in exchange for euros be raised. The ECB granted the request. The new arrangement allows Greece to print T-bills and then sell them to its own banks who then pledge them to the Bank of Greece as collateral for euros. In this way, Greece has already printed 5 billion euros into existence."

So the ECB is offloading its exposure to Greek debt by allowing the Greek central bank to print euros. It seems like this defeats the purpose of the unified currency. The Greek central bank is stealing from everybody across Europe, and that's what the ECB was supposed to keep from happening. But it gets worse.

"Spain's banks borrowed a record 38 billion euros from the ECB in July, bringing the total borrowed to 402 billion. Consider that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Spain accounts for 33% of all eurozone ECB borrowing, while the country's economy only makes up 12% of eurozone GDP. What is more disconcerting than that, however, is that according to the above-cited Rueters article:

...the section of the Spanish central bank's balance sheet that usually denotes so-called 'emergency liquidity assistance,' where losses are borne by Spain itself...[rose] from a lowly 2 million euros in June... to 402 million euros [in July].(emphasis mine)

What's happening, then, is that apparently Spain's banks have run out of ECB eligible collateral and have resorted to ELA funding wherein the Bank of Spain sets the collateral requirements rather than the ECB."

So Spain is doing the same thing, but on a much larger scale.

"Investors must understand the potentially disastrous situation that is currently in the making: If the ECB decides to buy a massive amount of Spanish bonds to keep the country afloat and then the country losses access to the long-term debt market anyway, the ECB cannot give back those bonds. It will be saddled with them and forced to allow Spain to print its own euros (a la Greece) to pay the bonds. This is inflationary to the extreme, not to mention the fact that it imperils the ECB's balance sheet at just the time when the central bank can ill afford to print its way out of trouble.The evidence continues to mount in favor of the prediction that sooner or later, this situation will implode."

Despite all the bailouts, or because of them, the problems in Europe keep getting worse.

Fear that the ECB is racing towards insolvency.

"Otmar Issing, former ECB chief economist and former Bundesbank member, suggested today that weak European banks need to "disappear" and opined that the eurozone in its current form does not necessarily need to be saved. Issing noted that there are too many member nations (something which perhaps should trigger a bit of introspection or self-loathing considering Mr. Issing helped draw-up the euro in the first place), an untenable situation that has essentially allowed fiscally irresponsible members to spend as they please and "pile up debt" without fear of reprisal..."

Sounds like Issing is becoming Austrian. In a couple years, or maybe months, everybody will be an Austrian.

"Furthermore, the central bank's continual relaxation of collateral requirements has led to a situation wherein even mortgage-backed securities and car loans are acceptable. When the ECB announced itsnew collateral rules on June 22 it noted that residential mortgage-backed securities, loans to small and medium sized businesses, and auto and consumer finance loans would be subject to haircuts of 16%, 26% and 32% respectively. This was the only protection the bank had against the credit risk posed by the newly acceptable "assets.""

Now the bankers and the politicians want us to believe that debt is an asset. Truth is treason in the empire of lies. Orwell is laughing at us.

Republicans are pretending to support the gold standard, but of course they are really trying to use that rhetoric to steal more power and money from the people.

Socialism

Obama may have pushed General Motors back into bankruptcy with CAFE standards.

Media

The mainstream media protects Obama and attacks Republicans on his behalf.

"NBC, CBS and ABC's evening and morning shows have devoted an astonishing 88 minutes (or 40 segments) of coverage to Congressman Akin's "legitimate rape" remark. Over a similar three day period, the networks allowed a scant 19 minutes (or ten segments) to a racially charged gaffe by the Vice President of the United States."

You might think a media that is constantly accusing of being racist with no evidence would highlight the VP's chain's remark, but you'd be wrong.

Not too long ago I told Lew Rockwell that his incessant declarations that Ron Paul would win were crap. I told him they were hurting his reputation. I told him Ron Paul had no chance. He responded by blocking my email. Here's what he has to say today:

"The Crime of Maine, like those of other states, is designed to make sure that Ron's name cannot be placed in nomination at RomFest. But really, did anyone expect honesty and fairness from the oligarchic party of war, corporatism, spying, and torture?"

Gosh, it's almost like Lew Rockwell agreed with me all along.

Global Warming and Energy

Yet another link discovered between solar activity and climate, this linking a cold winter cycle along the Rhine to the solar cycle. These links are coming fast and furious.

Ice melt in Antarctica peninsula the norm over long periods.

The media has been desperate for a major hurricane to hit he US for years now, but they keep missing. This coverage of Isaac is typical. The reality is the storm is weakening, but the article scares us by claiming...

"Conditions favorable for rapid intensification"

Be very afraid of the weakening storm. Buy more newspapers. Watch more cable news.

I don't think for a minute that Michael Mann will follow through with his suit on National Review for defamation. Michael Mann is a fraud. He's emotional. He's narcissistic. But he isn't stupid. Neither are his lawyers. Once it becomes clear he will have to expose everything he ever wrote and every aspect of his scientific analysis, he will withdraw. He has nothing buy money to lose at first, and since he's funded by taxpayer dollars, he doesn't care about money. But at some point, he will he ordered to provide discovery. Then he will withdraw.

Here's my comment on wattsupwiththat.com.

"Come on. We all have dreams about this, but it will never happen. Mann is a fr***. He's a narcissist. But he's not stupid. And if he behaves stupidly, his lawyer won't be stupid. This is just another step in the great global warming fr***. The bad guys couldn't afford to back off. But they will back off before they are forced to deliver discovery. By then, they will have perfected their argument for why they "were forced" do so for the good of the [people, scientific community, lobsters, or something].
If you're having too much fun tonight over this, get over it. It's just another phase of the charade."

This will amount to nothing.

Tax and Spend

I first heard of the Rosetta Stone back in elementary school, but this is the first time I heard that the content of the stone was an order of tax amnesty. I always wondered why only one stone had the same text in three languages. It that was the rule, there should have been many such stones. If not, the content must have been either a language primer or extra-ordinary. Now we know it was extra-ordinary. Maybe, after Americans abandon their farms to escape the government's oppressive taxes, the US will announce a tax amnesty in both English and Spanish.

Here's a scary analysis:

"All together, the three largest mandatory spending programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — will grow to 12.2 percent of GDP in 2022, or 55 percent of all federal spending."

But it's worse. This analysis doesn't take into account the imminent economic collapse. For years we've heard that Social Security and Medicare were going to bankrupt us in the 2030s. Baloney. This analysis moves that ten years closer. But the reality is they're bankrupting us today.

Politics

The Republican platform excludes moderates on abortion because it allows no exception, and now the Democrats have rejected moderates as well.

Democrats pay women less than men for supposedly the same work.

Poll reports Americans are becoming more aware of the reality of politics. The criminals-in-chief will fix that before the next election. They aren't stupid.

It's kind of funny to think about, not that it would ever happen, but what do you think would happen if ballots offered "none of the above" as an option?

War

Former Navy SEAL exposed for writing tell all book about the assassination of bin Laden, proving once again that self-interest motivates everybody.

"A spokesman at Dutton, a division of Penguin Group, said proceeds from the book will be donated to charitable causes that benefit the families of fallen Navy SEALs."

Except for the portion of the proceeds that end up in the writers' and the publisher's pockets.

Syrian army retakes Christian areas of Aleppo and the heart of Aleppo while fighting erupts near Damascus. Our government won't be happy until the entire Middle East has been reduced to the stone age.