criminal behavior Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Monday Afternoon News Roundup

It seems to me that there’s more going on with Hamas in the Gaza Strip the meets the eye. I don’t understand the strategy of lobbing missiles into Israel. What were they hoping to accomplish? Were they thinking that they had improved relationships within the Arab world? Will their Arab neighbors like Egypt come to the rescue? That simply doesn’t make any sense to me. None of this makes any sense, unless Hamas was trying to lower Israel into a ground war. Maybe Hamas has obtained chemical or biological weapons from Iran. Maybe Hamas wants to sucker the Israelis into making some major error which would cause an enormous number of Israeli casualties. I don’t know. It simply doesn’t make any sense.

There are several things that need to be reformed in our government. In no particular order – we don’t need a debt ceiling. It has become a political hot potato in which Republicans can rail on about how much money the government is spending. Election reform is mandatory. We need some sort of national standards for elections. It doesn’t make sense that it took me seven minutes to vote (including time chatting with the folks working at the polling station) and other Americans spent more than seven hours in line waiting to exercise this basic civic duty. The filibuster in the Senate also needs to be rethought and revised. As of now, simply threatening to filibuster causes legislation to be derailed; therefore, almost everything requires sixty votes in order to pass.

British Petroleum is not a criminal. British Petroleum is a company. BP is nothing but a pile of papers and agreements. Criminal behavior can only be done by people; people like the executives of British Petroleum.

Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren should be placed on the banking committee! No one in the Senate is more qualified. In my mind, she should be Senate majority leader, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Look for the financial industry to fight hard to try to keep Elizabeth Warren off of the banking committee.

Sunday Afternoon Grab Bag

The Dallas Mavericks tried as hard as they could to fumble away victory against the Oklahoma Thunder. In spite of what looked like a concerted effort to lose, the Mavericks made just enough plays down the stretch to win.
Since I’m alive today, I guess that means the world did not end. I find apocalyptic thinking kind of interesting. This is been a part of man’s consciousness for thousands of years. Live blogging here.
Maine representative pulls a gun on a reporter. I’m guessing that sanity is not a criteria for political office.
Herman Cain, CEO of Godfather’s pizza, has announced that he’s running for president. WooHoo!
Mitch Daniels, Indiana Governor and former director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, has decided he is not going to run for president.
For reasons I don’t understand, President Barack Obama announced nothing new with regards to Israeli – Palestinian policy, yet conservatives went nuts. (Romney – President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus. He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace.) What conservatives heard was “the 1967 borders.” What President Obama said was “returned to the 1967 borders…” and this is the important part… “with land swaps.” The land swaps would account for some of the settlements and the security concerns that Israel has to have. We have to get off of Square One. For the security of Israel, Palestine and the United States, we need an equitable solution to this problem. Some in Israel are supporting Obama’s plan.
In yet another article justifying the stupid and sometimes criminal behavior of powerful men, Time Magazine jumps into the fray. Society is different today than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Officially, men and women are supposed to be in monogamous relationships, but in reality, powerful men played by different rules. Times have changed. We live in the age of the Internet where almost nothing can be kept secret. Preying on younger women is no longer okay. Using your position of power to manipulate the legal system or to “course” someone have sex with you is no longer okay. It hasn’t been okay for decades. The list of men that have gone astray is long and wide ranging. I think the words of Senator Tom Coburn are probably needed here. Allegedly, he told Senator John Ensign, while he was waiting to have a rendezvous with his mistress, “put your pants on and go home.” The top 10 political sex scandals are worth a read if to reinforce the idea that some men stray often.
The final round of the Colonial is going on right now. To say that David Toms had a bad day yesterday would be an understatement. He shot a 4 over par after shooting 8 under par on Thursday and Friday. He starts today’s round one stroke back. If he can play a solid round of golf he can still win this tournament. Charlie Wi leads the tournament by one stroke at the start of today’s round.
Finally, in NBA basketball, the Miami Heat play the Chicago Bulls this evening. The Miami Heat with Lebron James and Dwayne Wade have an opportunity to take control of the series. They’re playing at home. There’s no reason to believe they shouldn’t be able to out hustle, outshoot and out muscle the Chicago Bulls. The question is how badly do they want it.