(Opinion) Afghanistan…Why are we still there?

The fact that Obama, a lawyer, has a war plan for Afghanistan is in itself outrageous to say the very least. Our Generals and the pentagon no longer plan war strategies and have actually become as useless as the United Nations and as laughable as the Nobel Peace Prize since Obama, a lawyer, was awarded it…go figure.

Congress and the Senate, all lawyers, also have no more business involved in war decisions of strategy and the release of information that endanger our troops. If we are going to be a warring nation, a country that tries to impose our capitalist ways and Christianity on everyone else in the world shouldn’t our generals, the pentagon, and Pat Robertson be running the country?

Scary and makes no more sense than Lawyers running a war and lawyers running our country…after all no one trust a lawyer!

Wouldn’t we be better served if top notch and trusted academics ran the country and the pentagon charged with building the best defensive military and stop the lawyers from taking us to war to satisfy their egos, greed, and bullying ways and to impose our ways on the world.

Back to my question (Afghanistan…Why are we still there?) It is a losing battle, a war we can’t win, there is no saving face. Afghanistan has a drug based economy and nothing to replace it with, i.e. it can’t be fixed. We should leave asap and stop the loss of American lives and the flood of money that would be better placed in the rebuilding and improvement of our countries infrastructure thus creating much needed jobs; what the money should have been being used for all along as well as the money spent on the presidents special interest entities—financial institutions and the auto industry…

D L Ennis © July 24, 2010

Degenerating Industry

Just like our economy, infrastructure, and moral fiber are deteriorating our industry in America is getting too old to sustain itself. America is a dying super power and our demise is being hastened by our corrupt and self-serving leaders!

© 2010 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

The U.S. Capital

The U.S. Capital where a lot of overgrown bad seed children claim to work; they should all be medicated and put away somewhere where they can do no more harm! While at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is the spendthrift American President who in his first year in office has shown no interest in anything but the PERKS of the office.

Entertaining friends and celebrities, viewing movies before anyone else gets to see them, jetting his family around Europe showing them the sights that most Americans will never see, and while 85000 more Americans lost their jobs in December, Americans died in Afghanistan and were wrongly imprisoned in Iran and North Korea, and America came as close as we have been to another terrorist attack since 9/11, he spent two weeks living large in Hawaii all at the expense of the taxpayer.

© 2009 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

Politics in D.C.

This image is not representative of my politics but just something I saw on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. last week.

© 2009 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

The Right to Choose

In Virginia, you cannot go into a bar and have a cigarette with your drink but, still, no safeguards have been put in place to keep you from having one to many drinks, getting into your car, and killing a whole family on your way home. Go figure.

Saw this in the window of a pub in Lynchburg, Virginia.

© 2009 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me, D L Ennis. Link to be used…(Visual Thoughts https://dlennis.wordpress.com/)

NOTE: Commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.

A Cost of $1.1 Billion to Screw the People and Create More Profitable Insurance Companies

The $787 billion economic stimulus bill approved by Congress will, for the first time, provide substantial amounts of money for the federal government to compare the effectiveness of different treatments for the same illness.

Under the legislation, researchers will receive $1.1 billion to compare drugs, medical devices, surgery and other ways of treating specific conditions. The bill creates a council of up to 15 federal employees to coordinate the research and to advise President Obama and Congress on how to spend the money.

To begin with, with the multitude of medical scenarios and differences in people there is no effective way to set guidelines for any one of the following things, “…drugs, medical devices, surgery and other ways of treating specific conditions.” There are most always extenuating circumstances attached each diagnosis and each individual.

We will more than likely never see anything come from this $1.1 billion but if we do it can’t do anything but harm the uninsured, underinsured, poor, disabled, and elderly. On the other side of the coin if the research is ever completed and implemented it will boost the profitability of insurance companies, slow advances in innovative techniques, drugs, and tools as well create the need to greatly expand the FDA or create another government agency to oversee the new regulations and approval or disapproval of new discoveries in medical technology.

This program will also put in the governments hands more power over the decisions that we make concerning our own lives. It’s wrong and just another way of bolstering big business at our expense.

Speaking as someone who has lived with endless health issues since birth where I see the problem in excessive medical spending is in the laziness and lack of keeping up to speed by doctors. I know it is an exhausting experience getting through medical school and an internship but doctors seem to think they can take a break from learning and thinking once they are settled into a practice. This is especially true where GP’s (your family doctor) is concerned. These are the ones how send you for countless, some perhaps necessary and some that are totally irrelevant to your symptoms. A lot of times it would be in everyone’s best interest to send you to a specialist rather than blindly testing for a half dozen different things or misdiagnosing, simply because they don’t want to admit that they have no clue what’s wrong with you.

If the government wants to cut out some of the needless spending in the world of medicine they should put in place a program that would require further educating and yearly testing of doctors. This is the underlying problem and tying doctor’s hands who are capable and competent can only serve to lessen the quality of health care.

Andrew Witty, the chief executive of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, said European officials often considered the costs as well as the clinical benefits of new drugs — with mixed results.

“Comparative effectiveness is a useful tool in the tool kit, but it’s not the answer to anything,” Mr. Witty said in an interview. “Other countries have fallen in love with the concept, then spent years figuring out how on earth to make it work.”

Quotes from this article, U.S. to Compare Medical Treatments, in the New York Times.

Dumping Crops at Sea—Good Idea? Bad Idea?

I say…BAD IDEA!

Stuart Strand of the University of Washington and co-author Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine say they have a simple way of appropriating carbon.

“Sucked from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and sequestered in leftover husks and stalks are 150 million tons of carbon. Scientists now claim that all we need to do is toss them to the bottom of the sea, and a huge quantity of greenhouse gases be banished at a stroke.”

To begin with, harvesting and transporting this waste to the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, where they propose dumping it, could become much more costly than the $340 a ton that they propose it would cost…especially if fuel cost soar to prices we saw early this year, and there is no reason to believe that they won’t if not higher. Also, wouldn’t it be a better idea to develop a more efficient way of turning this waste under to rebuild the soil where the crops grow and then planting a cover crop?

(Soapbox)

I believe that leaving any farm land lay fallow at any time is a sin with so many hungry people in the world. If we could remove politics and greed from the task of feeding people it could easily be done…think about it, our government pays farmers not to grow crops…what a waste!

(End of Soapbox)

Next, they have no idea what the long term effects would be on the Gulfs ecosystem. I really can’t imagine that could be anything but detrimental to the Gulfs health. I mean, don’t we already dump too much crap into our oceans and seas on this planet? Haven’t we already done too much damage to our waters? Shouldn’t we be looking for ways to restore our waters of the world which provides food and livelihood for a great number of the world’s population?

At the end of the article on Discovery News, And John Harte of the University of California, Berkeley questions the wisdom of this idea and says, “The real message of this paper is that to solve the problem of global warming, we need to keep thinking of new things,”

I agree with Mr. Harte in that we need to solve the problem of global warming, and continue seeking new ideas but I really don’t think that Stuart Strand and Gregory Benford have done anything here but waste time and resources.

Read the article “Dumping Crops at Sea Proposed as Way to Bury Carbon” by Michael Reilly, Discovery News…here.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/01/30/carbon-sequestration.html

So, who will it be in 2012?

Now that we have elected America’s first black president…what’s there to look forward to in 2012? We know that if all goes as planned Democrats will be behind Obama again but the big question is…will the MSM?

Let’s face it, the MSM by rallying the great American two legged cattle around their call for everyone to be a part of history is what won the election for Obama. Even with the record amount of money that the Obama campaign raised that money didn’t do near as much for him as the billions of dollars of free coverage he got from the MSM.

I believe that future historians will see Americans of 2008 as the MSM cattle with the reality show mentality and the MSM with the true electoral power. In this election the majority of Americans behaved like a heard of preteen and teenaged girls at a Jonas Brothers show.

So, who will be the 2012 rock star? If he don’t totally screw up Obama will have a good chance of repeating his performance. So who could still the spotlight from him? Some think Palin will be there and then there are still the diehard Hillary fans who will want to see her run but no. Hillary had the only chance she will ever have this year and it was stolen by the DNC who jumped on the MSM for Obama bandwagon…they knew that Obama would be a sure thing with the American MSM behind him.

No, I don’t think that 2012 will se a white woman who will be able to contend. I believe that the MSM will still be a little perturbed by the Hillary fans that challenged them this year

I believe that if Obama is to be beat in 2012 and especially if the Republicans want back in then they are going to have to pull a rabbit out of their hat. What do I mean by that? A strong and intelligent black woman…A Condoleezza Rice perhaps.

That’s what I see for 2012…if the repubs can talk Ms. Rice into it.

So, for 2012 I see Obama vs. Rice with Rice winning. I really think that the MSM electoral board would go for a black female over a second term black male!

What has Our Government Done for Us Lately?

What has our government done for us lately? I’ll get to that.

First I want to tell you what our government has done to us lately…They are baling out the Wall Street and the greedy big-wigs that are suffering a huge mess that they made for themselves…we are suffering their mess too.

Meanwhile wile our government is bailing out the greedy hoards in America’s financial community that we are paying the cost with our tax dollars some of us can’t afford our medicine, can’t afford to pay our bills, and are loosing our homes.

Our government is not about to bail us out…even with our own tax dollars. I can’t afford my medicine and my wife and I are about to loose a home that we have been paying on for fifteen years yet we will we see any help from our tax dollars…NO!

Do you think that either of the candidates for president is going to help us? Do you think that either of the candidates is going to make our financial woes go away? I tell you…NO!

The one who claims to be the champion for average people is the one telling you that he is going to change things…to make things better for the average American. Well he is either lying or ignorant! I think he is lying because he thinks we are ignorant. Why?

Well, he has promised that he is going to cut taxes for the middle class and raise cooperate taxes. Do you like that? Did you know that if he does that it is probably going to cost you more?

How do you think these cooperation’s are going to pay these new higher taxes? To begin with, they will raise the prices of the consumer goods they make and we buy and slash jobs, In the end your tax cut is going to cost you a lot more than if nothing changed. The real people who are going to hurt from what the champion of the average people wants to do are the poor, but they are always the one who pays the price!

Now, back to the original question… What has our government done for us lately? The one thing our government does for all of us is keep us safe from outside and internal forces that would love nothing more than to see us destroyed. No matter what you think of our current administration, since 9/11/ 2001 they have kept us safe within our boarders. That is the strength of our government and the one thing they do for all of us so I think it is obviously the deciding factor and only promise the candidates can make and possibly make.

I don’t think that the self proclaimed champion for the average American is experienced enough or strong enough to keep that one promise! It’s you vote in November so don’t listen to the MSM and make your decision because they will not tell you the whole truth if they tell you any truth at all. Think for yourself and do your own research and then cast an educated vote!

Vote for who ever you want, but vote for them for the right reasons

John McCain, no matter what you think of him is a real American. Some people scoff at his hero status…well, to me John McCain is an American hero, if for no other reason, because all of his life he has given to America…both in this country and overseas. He has served America in more ways than most living Americans have or will ever do. Most of all he stands up and says I am an American and proud of it.

 

Barack Obama on the other hand has never served America and doesn’t even refer to himself as American, but African American. I’m Scott-Irish but I don’t run around saying that’s what I am…I’m an American. If we are born and raised in America are we not Americans? If Obama wants to be president of America shouldn’t he speak of himself as an American? If he is President of America shouldn’t he be a president who represents all Americans and not just African Americans?

 

I heard part of a speech yesterday on NPR radio that Obama gave in New Mexico and he said he would fight for improved conditions for Hispanics and African Americans. Does that mean that Obama, who claims to be so in touch with the plight of regular Americans (working people), doesn’t know that there are white people suffering a lot of the wrongs and being kept poor in this country? Or is it he doesn’t care about whites?

 

Oh, I can hear it now…you’re a bigot some will say. I have been called a bigot and many other things when commenting on articles by the MSM this year by other people commenting on the same articles. About the mildest thing I have been called is a “white buhhba.” Why? Because I don’t support Obama. Barack Obama sat in a church listening to the likes of Rev. Wright for 20 years…Rev Wright baptized Obama’s children…Wright was a family friend, yet Obama didn’t know what Rev, Wright was all about? Give me a brake…The good Rev. Wright is a bigot and a man who does not love America yet in twenty years Obama didn’t see this? To me that suggest that Obama sees and cares about only what he wants to see and care about and that is not what’s best for all Americans.

 

Well, if because I don’t support Obama makes me a bigot, then what does it mean that my only human hero is Martin Luther King? What does it mean that I have always been at odds with my parents who were brought up with that mindset and who aggravated me to no end with there prejudice? What does it mean that when in 1969 when schools were first integrated in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I spent my teen years, and blacks came into our school terrorizing white kids and stealing young whites lunch money and beating the hell out of them, raping white girls along with many other violent acts that I came away from that still despising the injustices that blacks had always endured in this country since being traded by there tribal leaders for beads and trinkets during the era of slave trade? I am not a bigot!  

 

For the sake of all of us and America I would suggest that if you are white, be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you are not voting for Obama…why? If you find that it is because he is black then you need to grow up and accept the world we live in the 21^st century. I would also suggest that if you are black and voting for Obama ask yourself why? If you are voting for Obama simply because he is black then you are not doing your share to improve race relations in America and to be quite honest that makes you a bigot. Statistics show that 95% of black American will be voting for Obama and most of them because he is black…Who’s the bigot here?

 

We can’t move beyond all of this 19^th and 20^th century crap by dragging it into the 21^st century…whites and blacks…get over it already!

 

Vote for who you truly believe is right for this country but do it for the right reasons…not the Wright reasons! I will not vote for Obama because I don’t think he is ready and experienced enough to lead America and that is the only reason!