MICHAEL JACKSON, WORLD FAMOUS PEDOPHILE, DEAD AT 50
Rick,
You are clearly an old timer :-) Sorry, but no one in the contemprory music world is going to live up to your expectations and standards.With all that being said, i can still remember the time i tried to imitate his break dance moves, just like the millions of other kids around the world. He was a remarkable entertainer and he singlehandedly made the American music scene more global than all the greats before him.
of course as some one pointed out, his music unfortunately lead to a slew of copycat wannabes (thats you Justin Timberlake) as well.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 27.06.2009 @ 15:05
PUT NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN ON HOLD
I second Gayle Miller - there is no one that a bully dislikes more than some one who is so willing to be pushed around. It is a sign of weakness and bullies can smell it from miles away.
Obama's comments on this issue has been forced by the cold blodded killings on the ground - besides the Washington Times today reports that Obama sent a letter to Khameni before the elections
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/24/us-contacted-irans-ayatollah-before-election/?feat=home_cube_position1&page=2
What this shows is that Obama was nothing more than a wuss who was literally BEGGING the mullahs to behave better - "see, i sent you this nice letter and now i have not gone anywhere near Sarkozy or Merkel have in expressing condemnation, so please, please.... please dont make me outright condemn you !"
Andrew McCarthy at NRO has this jaw dropping article about how Obama HAS ALREADY released Iranian backed terrorists in exchange for the bodies of two British hostages who were kidnapped and killed ( Five American soldiers were killed by the same terror cell)
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODFkYTU2MjBmMTE5MDUzZTEzZWMyMTE5ZWZjNWI4Mjg=
Rick, you have tried to honestly evaluate Obama's position on Iran - kudos to you - but no matter how much lipstick you put on the Iranian pig, it still is a pig.
If anything, the regime will now work overtime to get its nuclear bomb ready - imagine the security and leverage that the regime would get once it has the bomb - it would be The Shia MIRROR IMAGE of Pakistan. If the cost of attacking Iran now is terrible, the cost of attacking a nuclear armed Iran would be inexplicable.
The more you try to delay the inevitable, the quicker it seems to happen - especially with war.
The Iranian regime has every reason to believe and logically so that should it survive the current crisis, its longevity is best guaranteed by nuclear weapons.
And from what we have seen in the last two weeks - first, the hastiness with which Khamenei declared Ahmedinejad to be the winner and second the forcefulness of his threat in the Friday sermons no less to any one who dares to protest shows that there is a new power center in Iran who has the backing of the military (the IRG) - and he happens to be their next President.
DinnerJacket has FORCED Khamenei to back him if Khamenei wants to keep the illusion of the sole Supreme leader going.
All I can say is that Netanyahu is the only man who has the balls to pull off what is needed - a total annhilation of their nuclear program.
BUT Obama is not going to allow Israeli planes to fly over Iraqi airspace - how the hell is Bibi going to counter this?
For more news on how brutally Iranian protestors were attacked and killed today, please read this
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/06/iran-day-12-of-the-revolution.html
Pray for the brave people of Iran - they are fighting pure evil.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 24.06.2009 @ 19:12
OBAMA'S CAIRO ADDRESS: DID IT LIVE UP TO THE HYPE?
Rick,
I think that the premise of the "Islamic world" is flawed to begin with - there is no such thing as the "Islamic world" - although inadvertently, you walked right into Osama Bin Laden's trap of viewing countries not on their individual basis, but on a purely religious basis.If Obama was addressing the "Islamic world" in what capacity was that ? As it is America is already considered the leader of the Christian/Crusader nation by Osama Bin Laden and the average person in the Middle East - none of them view America as a secular country especially given your strong support for the Jewish world/ state in Israel.
Obama, if anything reinforced the prism that OBL wants those Muslims of the world (who are insane and bloodthristy enough to listen to him in the first place)to view America through.
The more appropriate words should have been the Arab world and states that have very close economic, religious and geopolitical interests with the Arab world -take for example,Pakistan.I dont think he was addressing the 150 million Muslims in India, or the equal number of Muslims in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia or in African countries like Nigeria - and hope you realize here that the number of Muslims in all these countries exceed that of the number of Muslims in all of the Arab states.
I would be alarmed if he did - coming from India, and having seen first hand how many people tried to divide the country into Hindus and Muslims (does any one remember the rationale for Pakistan ?), I am not exactly comfortable with Indian Muslims seeing themselves as part of the "Muslim world".
This does not mean that iam denying their faith - it simply means that I dont want them to feel that they belong to something other than a diverse and multi cultural India - the exact same way you wouldnt exactly like US citizens of foreign origin to hang on to the identity of their host countries - again, I understand that this does not mean that you are demaning that people should forget their roots - but at the same time, they also have to remember that they are American NOW first and foremost and every thing else later.
Obama claims that he lived in Indonesia but he behaves that he knows nothing about it - they are easily among the most moderate Islamic nations on earth, along with the Malaysians. Their women folk follow traditional dress codes but are allowed to work in public places - any one who has been to Kuala Lampur or Jakarta can attest to that.
If anything Obama should have pointed to the moderate nature of these two countries and shown how much they have progressed -and how they are able to treat their women with far more dignity than the stonings and honor killings you see in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the entire Arab world.
Leave it to a Democrat to clump Muslims as one homegeneous block of people -they play identity politics all the time and it comes easy to them. I am disappointed that you fell for the "Muslim" world meme too.
I did like the passage where he said that women can and should be equal participants in civil society in these Islamic states - it was met with stony silence. Imagine that ! we are talking about a University here - a place of learning. And they could not applaud him for that ??
The shallowness with which the MSM has treated Obama's "outreach" is pretty predictable - but i would also like to point out that you guys look pretty condescending to Arabs and the "Muslim" world when you use words such as "outreach".
This was a start by Obama - a dangerous one, that is.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 7.06.2009 @ 13:49
THE MORAL PARAMETERS OF TORTURE
Full disclosure - I used to be one of those who was deeply troubled by the way the Bush Govt handled the issue of interrogating suspects.
I think we can all agree that the Bush Admn DID abuse this technique and use it more often than what we would like. This does lead us to a slippery slope, where we could very easily use these techniques as the very first option instead of using them as the last resort.
With all that being said, we still dont have an effective framework, legal or military to deal with these thorny issues.
I think the military and intel agencies performed well post 9/11 did take a lot of risks and do the dirty job to keep the country safe.
Oh btw, is rendition also completely banned now ?
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 28.04.2009 @ 21:18
"The whole ticking bomb scenario needs to be dumped by torture defenders. It does their argument no good to posit a hypothetical that is more the product of fantasy than possibility."
Rick, I wish you would address some of the facts that we already know - for e.g. Al Zubadayah did not disclose the actual location of KSM until they water boarded him - there are times when this method can get information - admittedly not always, and most definitely not with some one who is innocent and does not know the information.
Similarly the plans made to attack L.A. in 2001 were stopped - this is not exactly a "TTB" scenario - there were plans that were made to attack L.A. and these were pre-empted by the CIA who took the gloves off.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/04/la-terror-attack.html
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46949
So, let's review here- this is not a scenario where there was something about to go off in an hour or a couple of hours - with the clock ticking.
Instead, this was a scenario in which there were people in place who were ready to carry out attacks later on - the second wave as someone coined it.
It is very easy to sit on the moral high horse here - the tremendous pressure under which these guys were operating to prevent further attacks post 9/11 is almost an afterthought.
If Barack Obama would come out and say that future terror suspects or terrorists would be treated with GEneva Convention protections NO MATTER WHAT, it would be good. At the very least, the US would have made a decision. Reasonable people can agree or disagree. But all this moral preening is just mere show if it is not accompanied by an absolute ban on torture policy.
Some thing tells me that people in this country would not back that absolute standard. After watching the way people were frightened by the White House photo -op fiasco, I just cannot imagine how.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 28.04.2009 @ 21:12
CPAC AGENDA SHOWS CONSERVATIVES STILL IN DENIAL
Richard Chicago,
Here is another factoid for you, which you must have surely missed - that rabid hot bed of conservatism known as California voted yes on proposition 8, a few months back to ban marriage between gays.Those raging homophobic Californians ! The state must surely be full of right wing evangelical conservatives who reliably vote Republican in every Presidential election !!
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 16.02.2009 @ 19:27
Richard Chicago,
"While that wing of your party continue to call all the shots and insist that they can dictate everyone else’s private life, fiscal conservatives like myself have no choice but to vote elsewhere."They continue to call the shots because they volunteer for the GOP like no one else does - they continue to call the shots because they can show their power at the polls. They are not some monolithic movement that liberals like you try to portray them - but they have more courage in their convictions than any one else in the country does.
It is laughable for you to say that they dictate your private lives while ignoring how the Democrats have been doing the very same thing for the last 75 years - they will tell you which schools your children cannot attend with Govt vouchers, which cars you cannot drive, which food you cannot eat, which people you HAVE TO contribute to from your pay check for their pension/old age.... which way you should look at Islamic terrorism, which way you should feel about minorities... Either you are Rip Van Winkle or you have an amazing level of awareness about the Democrat party.
Fiscal conservatives voting for ANY political party now is a joke - after whining about how Bush spent trillions of dollars of money that the country did nt have ( with which i agree btw), the Democrats have now signed on to a plan that will in actuality cost 3 trillion dollars in the next 10 years - and scuttled Bush's plan on reforming entitlements such as Social Security - how's that for fiscal reform ??
"I don’t really like Democrats any more than I like the Religious Right, but I’m going to err on the side of those who aren’t going to tell me how I MUST live my life."
Well, you have chosen the "right" party then. The Democrats will never tell you how you must live your life. And Unicorns exist as well.Wait till the baby boomers start retiring with in the next 10 years - we will then see how far the Democrats go to keep their favorite Ponzi schemes of Medicare and Social Security alive.
And Ive got to say this - many conservatives, as well meaning as they may be have lost their nerve.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 16.02.2009 @ 19:22
IS THE RIGHT READY TO RETURN TO POWER?
Sara in Va,
Some thing tells me that liberals like Shaun will never respond to your reasonable arguments. Not happening.I've also noticed how they take personal insults rather easily. Manning was clearly referring to the Berkley communist types of the 60's and never directly to Shaun - and yet Shaun felt that his patriotism was personally questioned. How wierd was that ?
What I learned on the 4th of November is that the most heavily media promoted candidate in the history of American elections cannot possibly lose.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 16.02.2009 @ 19:31
OBAMA GLIDES THROUGH PRESSER UNCHALLENGED
Rick,
Since you seem to be such a baseball fan, does it ever cross your mind that the biggest celebrity fan of the team that you root for is this slimebag ?Kind of like Red Sox fans who didnt really want Ben Affleck any where near Fenway or representing them ?
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 10.02.2009 @ 20:04
Michael Reynolds,
Were you listening to the same press conference as the rest of the world did ? He was not addressing a damned thing - he was setting up incredibly dumb strawmen agruments all conference long.If you think this is what passes for the "adult", it shows your maturity is not any better than that of a 15 year old.
You may want to read Jay Cost's analysis of the press conference at RealClearPolitics
Jay Cost is not a partisan by any stretch of imagination and conveys a genuine sense of disappointment of how Obama had strawman arguments the whole fricking evening.
Comment Posted By Nagarajan Sivakumar On 10.02.2009 @ 20:00