Category: Politics

At the Cost of Our Ideals

On this season of Fox’s “24”, Jack Bauer continues to be pummeled for his insistence that torture is a viable mechanism to get vital information out of a terrorist, especially when the timeliness of that information is critical to preventing a terrorist attack.

jack-bauer

In last week’s episode, the White House was attacked and the President is taken hostage, all because they chose to stick by their ‘ideals’ rather than continuing a torturous interrogation of a key player who was about to give up the location of the imminent attack.

Characters in high ranking government positions are being forced to ask themselves the question, “Does this betray our American ideals?”  and “At what cost of life and property do we hold onto our ‘ideals’?”

Continue reading At the Cost of Our Ideals

Is Obama Still Running for Something?

What do the following cities have in common?

  1. Ottawa, Canada
  2. Phoenix, Arizona
  3. Aurora, Colorado
  4. Denver, Colorado
  5. Peoria, Illinois
  6. Springfield, Illinois
  7. Springfield, Virginia
  8. Ft. Myers, Florida
  9. Elkhart, Indiana
  10. South Bend, Indiana
  11. Williamsburg, Virginia

These are the cities that President Obama has visited in this first month of his Presidency.  While travel has been cut off almost entirely by most corporations, apparently the recession has had no effect on the ability of Air Force One to operate.

Obama

Continue reading Is Obama Still Running for Something?

Help a Brother Out

My little brother has recently entered an awesome graphic into some kind of art contest scholarship thingey.  It’s of Obama – and it’s very thoughtful and well executed.

It’s time to throw the full weight and force of the WhiteEyebrows readership behind this entry.  Please click on the link and vote for his piece.  Do it lots of times.  As many as you can….

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE PICTURE AND VOTE

… or there’ll be NO MORE AMERICAN IDOL POSTS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR!!!

(now there’s an ultimatum that will blow your hair back!)

Also, please post this on your own blog, or I’ll stop reading your blog and will turn its address over to my friends in the Cialis and fake diplomas spamming engines… then we’ll see who’s laughing!

Inauguration Stupidity

Here are some of the stupid things I have heard people say since the inauguration:

“I will put my hope and faith in [Obama]” – a friend’s blog

Uhh… not to be a jerk or get all preachy on you, but there’s only one place I put all my faith and hope.  Men (and women) will always fail.  God is the only one who is perfect.  As dorky as it sounds, “God is Faithful” & humans suck.

“…[Obama] will rule this country…” -doofy reporter on NPR

Ok… no one RULES this country.. got it!  The minute someone starts ruling this country is the minute I pack my bags and naturalize myself somewhere warmer.

Oh, and P.S…

You want to know who was shouting for joy the most when Obama signed the executive proclmations ending the CIA’s interrogation programs, closing Guantanamo Bay, and pledging a new transparency and freedom of information?  Not the human rights advocates.  Nope, it was the terrorists.  Yes!  They don’t even have to spy on us now to figure out what we know about them… we’re just going to tell them out loud.  And then we’re going to treat them like gold and offer them every luxurious inefficiency of the American judicial system as well –  the country which they hate, pledge to destroy and are not even citizens of.

This president obviously has no concept of the value of information in the war against terror we are fighting.

Obama is a Class Act – Biden is Not

Obama just signed his first proclamations as President, most notably on transparency expected from his administration.

More interesting though was the moment that happened immediately afterward, when VP Biden was asked to administer the oath to the senior staff members who were assembled.  Biden wasn’t expecting to give the oath, and so in a moment of cover and panic, made a crack that “he didn’t have as good a memory as Justice Roberts” and would need a copy of the oath to read.

When Biden made that comment, Obama visibly bristled and frowned.  This is the exact kind of classless politics he has renounced for the past 2 years on the campaign trail – and now he has a poster child of such politics on his right hand.

Lucky guy, huh.

I’m thrilled about Obama’s reaction though.  It shows me he actually believes what he was saying, and is actually committed to a more civil dialogue in Washington. Then again, it just might be a sign that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, and even the highest levels have yet to buy into his vision.

Update: Washington Times Wire

Update: Here’s the video… it’s about 1/2 way through.

The First in a Long Line of Mistakes

Yesterday’s Presidential Oath of Office was kind of botched first by the Chief Justice, then by Obama, then the awkward stepping all over each other’s lines.  Sadly, the beauty pageant was slightly marred by the bungling of this critical moment.  Of course, most news outlets I listened to just glossed over the whole thing (imagine if that were governor from the South with an accent up there… we’d never hear the end of it…)

Didn’t anyone tell these guys that the bible is really there as a place to hide a cheat sheet?!?!  For reals…

oath

But I’m not here to rail on the media, the Chief Justice, or even President Obama.  Who cares.

I’m here to rail against expectations.

Continue reading The First in a Long Line of Mistakes

Keep Your Right-Wing Nuttery To Yourself

Last week in Sunday School, I had another one of those shake-your-head-and-sigh-out-loud moments.

We were discussing… uhh.. God… and related subject matter (in other words I have no clue what the context of the discussion was) when this lady – out of the blue – raises her hand and reminds us that the ‘real battle’ is having accurate information as to what is really going on in the world, and that the wickedly-liberal-Satanically-run-news-media is always just trying to lead the world into a moral black hole.  Then, in the same breath, she admonished us to rely on her favorite conservative ‘news website’.  (Turns out, the website is just a political action website, using cherry-picked propaganda from past church leaders.  So instead of even talking about current events, she was really just pushing her political agenda at church…. UGGGGG…)

Continue reading Keep Your Right-Wing Nuttery To Yourself

Stop Replying to All!

Every once in a while at work, we have a big email storm.  It usually begins with someone sending out an email to a large, open access distribution list about a topic no one cares about.

Then the ‘Reply to All’s begin.

For those of you who aren’t email experts, there’s an oft overlooked button that gets terribly overused in Corporate America, and that’s the “Reply to All” button.  It is the magic button that sends your response to everyone who the message was sent to, not just the sender.

Continue reading Stop Replying to All!