Reporters Convicted in North Korea

Wow! A country that enforces it border security laws. What a concept.

North Korea verdict (CNN)

What’d they expect when they went over there? They knew this was possible. Reporters knowingly take chances and they are rewarded and glorified when they get away with it but when they get caught we want them released on “humanitarian grounds”. But, had they gotten away with it they’d come home, hit the talk show circuit, write a book and be hailed as brave reporters trying to uncover injustice in the world. Sorry, this time the reporters got caught and have to pay the price. Next time think about it before violating somebody else’s laws whether you agree with them or not.

If they were men (especially white men) we’d never hear about them. Remember the white male reporters who were shot and killed in South America a few years ago? No?

The two reporters in North Korea essentially amount to a hostage situation and hostage situations can get tricky. Obama needs to play this one correctly. But, even the Obama friendly Huffington Post is blasting him for being friendly to Iran and the Muslim nations while not saying a word about the one lady that was convicted in Iran nor the two in North Korea. It’s even mentioning him wanting to set Gitmo prisoners free but not getting our prisoners home from foreign countries. This can bite him later.

Carter messed up the Iran hostage situation. Reagan took advantage of that. Iran didn’t fear Carter but they were afraid Reagan would retailiate in some way. Reagan had Bush and Cheney is his cabinet. After the crises was over there were lots of mysterious bombings and “accidents” that occurred to Iranian officials. That’s back when we let the CIA do its job and didn’t occupy countries. Ah, the good ole’ days.

Like Carter, these countries don’t fear Obama. He’s a “kindler gentler” President. He’ll need to change that image if he doesn’t want more things like this to eat away at his chances of re-election.

Expect the reporters to be home shortly. North Korea is using them as bargaining chips. They want something and they’ll probably get it. They wanted this to get out publicly making it a bigger deal. The more it’s in our news the more the politicians will think they have to seem “humanitarian” and help the girls out. Don't be surprised if they’re home by the 4th of July so the politicians can reference “freedom and independence” in their public speeches while they secretly give away the farm for their photo op.

Government Motors (GM) presents...

…the new Chevy Obama! The perfect vehicle for visiting Americas 57 states.

Features include:

· Bubble top for transparency.
· Built in Teleprompters in case the conversation gets stale or you need assistance ordering a cheeseburger.
· 3-wheel design and special differential allow for easy Left turns (but it doesn’t like to turn to the Right).
· European style driver controls.
· Comes in Liberal Yellow, Deficit Red and Bailout Blue.

Mainstream/Misleading Media

According to the mainstream media’s picking on the Conservatives, President Bush, and Sarah Palin I would’ve thought the majority of the country was Pro-Choice and every Pro-Lifer was some right-wing nut job. My guess would’ve been 75% Pro-Choice and only 25% Pro-Life. According to polls by the right-leaning Fox news and the left-leaning CNN/Gallup that is not true. Interestingly both polls resulted in almost the exact numbers.

The Fox poll has it 49% of Americans are Pro-Life, 43% are Pro-Choice and 8% are undecided.

CNN/Gallup has it 51% of Americans are Pro-Life, 42% or Pro-Choice and 7% are undecided.

Thus, if you weed out the brainless undecided’s it’d be 53-47 in favor of Pro-Life for the Fox poll and 55-45 in favor of Pro-Life for CNN/Gallup. Wow! The majority of people with brain enough to pick a side are Pro-Life. This is not accurately depicted by the mainstream media that leads one to believe only a few right-wing crazies are Pro-Lifer’s and if you’re not a Pro-Choicer then you’re a crazy unenlightened person too.

Fox News Poll

CNN/Gallup Poll

London Newspaper says "sorry"

Maybe many of our American newspapers should follow suit.

London Newspaper says 'sorry'

It’s a valiant attempt though for the new owners.

Many in the news business forget "news" is also a BUSINESS. Like any business you need to cater to the needs and wants of your potential customers. While providing a variety for ALL you also have to cater to specific customers. Near our house we have two Wal-Mart’s. There’s one closer to our house but the one I prefer is a little bit further away. They carry some different items from each other and even have different prices on the same items. It’s called “zone pricing”. The two stores are in different zones. Example; the new towel set we just bought are all 50 cents higher per piece at the one near our house but cheaper at the one further away where we bought them. Each store has a slightly different clientele so they have differences in their product offerings and their pricing.

Whether it’s print or television News people tend to want to push their agenda rather than aim the news (a.k.a. their product) towards what their customers want. Rupert Murdoch (a Democrat who hosted fundraisers for Hillary Clinton) saw a niche for his Fox News network and catered to it. It was purely a business decision and NOT ideaology. He saw a base out there that had no news to watch so he created one for them. He’s now laughing all the way to the bank.

Maybe the new owners of this newspaper in London are thinking along those lines. It sounds like they’ve done some research into what their customers like and dislike. Only time will tell if a newspaper run like a business can still be successful in today’s tough news market.

Pelosi Knew

So, she DID know.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/12/pelosi.waterboarding/index.html

Ok, let’s assume for a moment that Pelosi is telling the truth (a bit of a stretch but I still leave cookies out for Santa and the Easter Bunny too). If she’s telling the truth then she’s incompetent. Thus, she was either informed and uncaring or incompetent and oblivious.

When these “techniques” were discussed, which she admits to being party to, what did she think they were going to do with them? She never asked? She never inquired about the administration’s decision on whether they were going to actually use these “techniques” or not? She was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. That’s INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE. Shouldn’t she have known SOMETHING?

If she knew about their usage then she’s an accessory to the crime and if she didn’t know then…well she’s still an accessory to the crime since it was her job to know and she failed to find out. Ignorance is no excuse for the law.

Testing Obama

Here’s an article about Obama being tested so far. It’s pretty good. It’s not making any accusations or conclusions. It’s just laying out the tests thus far that Biden promised and how only time will tell if he’s passed the tests or not.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22370.html

Most of these are lose-lose situations. They’re pretty hard to deal with no matter who you are. But, the problem is that these tests shouldn’t have happened. Many of these tests have occurred because the villains in these cases are not gaw-gaw Europeans in awe of our Celebrity in Chief. They view him as weak and do not respect him. It’s not how many people like and respect Obama that matters. It’s those who don’t that we have to be concerned about.

Stimulus Payback?

According to an article at chicagobusiness.com the state of Illinois is getting 12% of the Stimulus package money for roads and bridges. As a state Illinois represents 2% of the 50 states. 1 state out of 50 is 2%. Population wise Illinois represents 4.3% of the nations population (according to 2007 estimates Illinois had 12,852,548 of the 301,621,157 U.S. residents). Square mileage wise Illinois represents 1.5% of the United States (57,918 of the 3,749,066 square miles).

If Illinois is only 1.5% of the square mileage, 2% of the states and 4.3% of the population how could they possibly warrant 12% of the stimulus money? There is NOTHING proportionate about this disproportionate amount of money. Does this NOT look like some sort of payback?

Most would think that the powers that be would prefer to remain above reproach in a situation like this and fly under the radar. The audacity of arrogance and elitism this must take to blatantly rob the American Taxpayers is staggering. So much for equality and the greater good. Whatever happened to “one for all and all for one”? Shouldn’t OUR tax money have been spread equally among the states in some fair and honest fashion? This is typical old-school Washington politics that we were promised would was going to end.