The Stimulus

"You've got some economists and some folks who think they're economists. By the way, theses days everybody thinks they're economists."

President Obama casually joked while stressing the need for the U.S. Senate to pass a stimulus package that was around $700 billion, but has now gone beyond $900 billion. With public support for his stimulus plan falling from %46 to now %34, President Obama now feels pressure to pass his stimulus plan as quickly as possible. President Obama cites that the U.S. economy is in the same dire straits as it found it's self during the Great Depression, even though Wall Street analysts say that while the economy is in a slump, it's nowhere near the level experienced during the 1930's.

As the American public becomes more aware of the pork barrel spending that makes up a majority of the bill, the less likely they will be to support such a measure. Obama knows this, which is why he's pushing so hard for this bill, but spending almost a trillion taxpayer dollars over the next several years just to simply grow the government doesn't sound like economic stimulus to me. And the more that the American public learns of this, the less likely they will believe that such a radical step is necessary.

It's true that there are economists, and then there are those who think they are. However, if I remember correctly Obama's major at Harvard was Law, not economics, so I guess it would be safe to say that he's (Obama) not an economists either.

President Obama Criticises Wallstreet Executives

Yesterday President Obama chastised Wall street Executives for handing out an astonishing $18.4 billion in bonuses in 2008 after receiving financial aid from the government over the sub prime mortgage fiasco. Obama called the bonuses "The height of irresponsibility", and asked that more restraint be shown by Wall street executives. Yes, it's true that Wall street executives showed poor judgement, and gave bonuses to their employees rather than buying up all the "Toxic Loans" that the bailout money was intended for. However, there is another group that shares an equal amount of blame for this mismanagement of the bailout. While it is true that a Republican President called for the bailout, it was a Democrat controlled Congress who voted for it, with no oversight, no way to determine how the money was being spent, and no idea where the rest of the money is now. So before Obama starts pointing his finger at the abuse of Wall street executives, he should start cleaning up his own house first.

President Obama lifts Abortion Ban

Last Friday, President Barack Obama lifted the Ban on U.S. funding of overseas abortions. "For the past eight years, (the restrictions) have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing counties." stated Obama. It never ceases to amuse me how pro-choice groups continually refer to abortions as "family planning". They make it sound like they're planning a vacation for you and your child, not promoting a medical procedure where a doctor cuts up a mother's unborn baby into some weird type of sushi. That President Obama lifted the restrictions is no surprise to me. What does surprise me is the timing of the decision. With America on the brink of financial collapse you would assume that President Obama's primary concern would be getting the economy back on track. Instead Obama has decided to reinstate a program that will cost American taxpayers over $400 million dollars a year. With American workers getting laid off in droves, and wondering where their next pay check will come from, this seems like a very odd move for President Obama to make.

Guantanamo To Be Closed Within A Year

On his second day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo by the end of 2009. Gitmo has been a continuing source of critsizim by governments, and human rights groups around the world. At the same time, President Obama is suspending all terrorist trails there for not more than 120 days to review the military tribunerials. Although there are some people who see the need for Gitmo's existence, the truth of the matter is that it is a violation of international law, and the Geneva Conventions. According to the Geneva Conventions, a terrorist is not considered a legal soldier, and cannot therefore be held in a military facility, or tried in a military court. The only question that remains is where to put them? A civilian facility?

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Ok, to make a long story short it goes something like this, take the first Mummy movie, and combine that one with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and you have The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Just like those previous films I just mentioned, this one was just as predictable. Hopefully this will be the last of the Mummy films; Brendan Fraser is too talented an actor to be type cast to this kind of genre of films. Although I did enjoy the one scene when Jet Li's character transforms himself into a three headed dragon, it kind of reminded me of King Ghidorah in those campy 1960s Godzilla movies. In summation, this is another summertime popcorn flick not to be taken seriously.

Liquid Discovered on Saturn’s Moon Titan

Since the space probe Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been studying in depth the ringed planet and its moons. One moon in particular Titan, which scientists theorized had liquid on its surface, but could never verify until Cassini reached Saturn. After over forty close fly-bys of Titan, the spacecraft dropped a probe to land on the surface of the moon, the end results were some rather startling images. First was the discovery that Titan did indeed possess an atmosphere made up primarily of methane gas. The second discovery was that Titan has lakes of liquid ethane, which makes Titan the only other planet besides Earth with liquid on its surface. For those who don't know, liquid ethane is a component of crude oil, which means, Shell, Exxon/Mobil, or BP better take advantage of this before Al Gore decides to blockade the planet.

Bush Signs Mortgage Bailout Bill.

Yesterday, just after entering the white house, President Bush signed into law a mortgage bailout bill, but with none of the fanfare that usually attends these events. This bill is supposed to help some estimated 400,000 people who face foreclosures on their homes, as well as institutions such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae who gave out the loans. Those in attendance at the bill signing were Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steve Preston, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James B. Lockhart, also Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Housing Administration Director Brian Montgomery, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Karl Zinsmiester, and finally National Economic Council Director Keith Hennessey. Even though President Bush initially swore to veto the bill, citing that it was too socialistic, pressure from a Democratic congress had forced him to take an all or nothing approach to the problem. This to me has set a dangerous precedent, it tells the American people that whenever they make a bad financial decision, whether it is a loan on a house they can't afford, to maxing out their credit cards, that it'll be the government (i.e. the U.S. taxpayer) and not the individual who bails them out. This bill is just one more entitlement in a land of entitlements. Worse still, it absolves any responsibility to not only the consumer, but the financial institutions who gave the bad loans, and in the end the only one who loses is the taxpayer. It's the taxpayer in the end that must make good on these bad financial decisions by the consumer and lender, while still trying to make enough to support their own families.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

This is another one of those films I would label a popcorn flick, lots of action, comedy, and special effects. Just not an engaging plot line, kind of like Batman: The Dark Knight, you really had to try hard to get enveloped in the story. However unlike Batman: The Dark Knight, at least this film describes the background of the nemesis are hero has to defeat. I think Ron Pearlman was made for this role, and Selma Blair well what can I say, she's a babe! Ssshhaawing! I'm not real sure about the interspecies love interests in the film, so I'll just put that down as science fiction.

The War on Terror

During his Middle East/European tour, democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama stated that Afghanistan, and not Iraq was the central front for the war on terror. Sen. John McCain has said as much, but has either one taken the time to consider what that means? In 1980 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and for the next ten years fought a war to try and bring that nation into compliance. During that conflict the Taliban would continually cross the northern border into Pakistan to rearm, and regroup. Equipped with American made weapons, primarily the Stinger anti-aircraft missile, the Taliban would again cross the border into southern Afghanistan and engage in guerrilla attacks on Soviet units. Eventually the attrition rate became such that, like American forces in Vietnam, the Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops. So why didn't Soviet military units pursue the Taliban into the tribal regions of northern Pakistan? Quite possibly for fear of escalating the war. At that time the Soviet Unions' prestige was at an all time low because of the invasion. At the United Nations General Assembly world leaders denounced the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Fear of drawing other nations in and widening the conflict is what kept the Soviet Union from invading across the northern border of Pakistan. Now almost thirty years later we have another conflict in Afghanistan, and just as with the Soviets, after American forces routed out the Taliban in Kandahar, and Kabul, the Taliban simply crossed into northern Pakistan to regroup. Armed now with Iranian weapons funneled through Pakistan, the Taliban continue to cross into southern Afghanistan to conduct hit-and-run attacks on N.A.T.O. troops now. If senators McCain and Obama view Afghanistan as the central front for the war on terror, then the question must be asked; Will either one in their role as commander-in-chief order U.S. troops into the northern tribal areas of Pakistan to engage and destroy the Taliban, or will they be content to try and keep the Taliban out of Afghanistan, while the casualty count continues to climb? Anti-war protesters called the war in Iraq illegal, or refer to it as a quagmire. The legality of the war in Iraq I'll touch on later, but to call it a quagmire in light of how combat operations in Afghanistan are conducted is a gross distortion of the facts. Although the Iraqi government is far from laudable, at least it's making progress towards stabilizing their country. Iran supplies weapons to Iraqi insurgents, but the surge has worked to quell the violence. In Afghanistan the government is still having difficulty unifying the different tribal groups in their country. The Afghan government has done very little to stop the growing and harvest of opium, something the Taliban never allowed under their rule. With Pakistan's statement by their foreign minister last month that no U.S. forces are operating in northern Pakistan, and that none would be allowed even though that particular region of Pakistan is where the Taliban go to find sanctuary, to that is the very definition of a quagmire. Again, I don't believe either presidential candidate has thought this through.

The UFO Cover Up

Ok, here's one for all the X-Files geeks. In a recent radio interview, Dr. Edger Mitchell proclaimed that governments around the world have been covering up evidence of extraterrestrial visitations. For those of you who may not know, Dr. Mitchell was an astronaut, and one of the last men to walk on the moon during Apollo-14 in 1971. Dr. Mitchell had said that the space agency personnel who had contact with the aliens described them as "little people who look strange to us." The radio host Nick Margerrison was caught off guard by the sudden turn during the interview, "I thought I'd stumbled on some sort of astronaut humour, but he was absolutely serious that aliens are definitely out there and there's no debating it." During the radio show Dr. Mitchell stated about the UFO cover up "It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it." Dr. Mitchell also remarked that the aliens' physiology was similar to what most people would associate an extraterrestrial to look like, small frame, large head, and large eyes. I don't know if UFO's really exist. All the material I've read or video's I've seen on the subject are vague at best. Maybe if one landed on the White House lawn, or abducted Al Gore, and John McCain, I might be prepared to take the subject more seriously. As for Dr. Mitchell's claims, I can't really argue the point. Dr. Mitchell has earned a Bachelor of Science degree pertaining to aeronautical engineering, and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics, and Astronautics. In other words, this man is no quake, but a highly educated individual whose had access to intelligence circles that ufoologists could only dream of having access to.