tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post5163549075284748474..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: Billionaires For BombsKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-62502406864896907052015-03-15T14:59:40.054-04:002015-03-15T14:59:40.054-04:00Offering a Choice to the Terminally Ill http://ny...Offering a Choice to the Terminally Ill http://nyti.ms/1AoLQbq<br /><br />My comment to this editorial was that I was glad to be living in Canada at the age of 91. Practically all the comments to this editorial supported right to die legislation in the U.S. A hopeful sign.Pearlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-90165785775583146852015-03-15T14:55:53.248-04:002015-03-15T14:55:53.248-04:00How Canada's right-to-die ruling could boost m...How Canada's right-to-die ruling could boost movement in U.S. <br />http://ti.me/1D6cOsv via @TIME <br />Pearlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-70069240422170667062015-03-12T21:54:14.467-04:002015-03-12T21:54:14.467-04:00@Jay in Ottawa
Thanks much for the Andy Borowitz l...@Jay in Ottawa<br />Thanks much for the Andy Borowitz line re Iran offer to mediate talks betw repubs and obama. <br /><br />I found in on his New Yorker blog. We need this priceless humor to lighten the political gloom. <br /><br />This is also a gem....<br />MARCH 2, 2015<br />Boehner Calls Netanyahu Closest Ally in Fight Against Obama.<br /><br />All the usual lingo but applied to Enemy Obama.Meredith nycnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-66249448316825648242015-03-12T00:19:55.234-04:002015-03-12T00:19:55.234-04:00In case you missed it, this droll item found in th...In case you missed it, this droll item found in the Comments over at TI. (10 March 2:49pm)<br />https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/gop-2007-attacks-pelosi-interfering-bushs-syria-policy-v-todays-similar-dem-attacks-iran/<br /><br />TEHRAN (The Borowitz Report)—Stating that “their continuing hostilities are a threat to world peace,” Iran has offered to mediate talks between congressional Republicans and President Obama.<br /><br />Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, made the offer one day after Iran received what he called a “worrisome letter” from Republican leaders, which suggested to him that “the relationship between Republicans and Obama has deteriorated dangerously.”Jay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-44981525371530821852015-03-11T15:41:14.694-04:002015-03-11T15:41:14.694-04:00Karen.... Re the American Pie Chart you posted i...Karen.... Re the American Pie Chart you posted in your march 8, Times They Are a Changing----is it possible to find a chart for other advanced countries with more economic equality? Or some easy way to compare how much their billionaires own of their nation in comparison to us?Meredith nycnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-39794009395319430572015-03-11T14:40:21.906-04:002015-03-11T14:40:21.906-04:00Karen.....Agree re Friedman. I said:
See NYT edito...Karen.....Agree re Friedman. I said:<br />See NYT editorial from June 23, 2012--What Sheldon Adelson Wants.<br /><br />“No American is dedicating as much of his money to defeat Obama as Sheldon Adelson....who also happens to have made more money in the last three years than any other American. <br /><br />He is the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money, spending sums greater than any political donation in history to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.”<br /><br />If Friedman cares at all about US democracy he could write something about overturning Citizens United—and do it in every column no matter what the topic, since it affects everything. But we get little discussion of this. <br /><br />To find out our the future direction or our country, we citizens could just read a list of priorities of the richest billionaire donors to both parties. Let’s deal directly with the donors---why waste time and media hubbub with the candidates? We stand in line to vote for candidates as intermediaries on all issues. No one who gets the nominations can go too far outside the limits the donors set. <br /><br />So we still don’t have universal h/c compared to dozens of other democracies where they pay for elections with public funds and have strict limits on donations. <br />Here, our billionaires audition our future leaders.<br /><br />Our rw gop feels perfectly at ease in overstepping It’s role and undermining the president with letters directly to Iran. Our 3 branches are meaningless.<br /><br />Meredith NYCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-15005391330349205882015-03-11T11:15:05.461-04:002015-03-11T11:15:05.461-04:00The USA should improve relations with Iran. A good...The USA should improve relations with Iran. A good relationship would also constrain Israel.<br /><br />“The Islamic Republic of Iran is not going away—it is a critically important rising power, a huge hydrocarbon power, with a sophisticated, educated population—in some of the same ways the People’s Republic of China was a rising power in the early 1970s and just as then President Nixon came to understand that the United States, for its own interests, had to accept this rising power in Asia, the United States now needs to accept this pivotal and rising power in the Middle East.<br /><br />“It is imperative for the United States to do so now because, after a decade of counter-productive military adventures in the Middle East, our strategic position there is in free fall and we need a more constructive relationship with Iran to enable us to stop this strategically self-damaging pursuit of dominance in the region and instead pursue a balance of power approach that recognizes all of the important powers in the region and has constructive relationships with each of them.” <br /><br />- Hillary Mann Leverett, “Why Iran's rise is a good thing,”<br /><br />http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/04/opinion/leverett-iran-relations/<br /><br />Iranophobia …<br /><br />“There you have it: Not only is this casino mogul the unofficial head of the Republican Party in America (“he with the gold rules”), he is the uncrowned King of Israel — David with a printing press and checkbook instead of a slingshot and a stone. All of this came to the fore in Netanyahu’s speech on Tuesday: the US cannot determine its own policy in the Middle East and the majority in Congress are under the thumb of a foreign power.<br /><br />"Like a King Midas colossus, Sheldon Adelson bestrides the cause of war and peace in the most volatile region of the world. And this is the man who — at Yeshiva University in New York in 2013 — denounced President Obama’s diplomatic efforts with Iran and proposed instead that the United States drop an atomic bomb in the Iranian desert and then declare: “See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.”<br /><br />“Everything you need to know about Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress Tuesday was the presence in the visitor’s gallery of that man. We are hostage to his fortune. "<br /><br />http://billmoyers.com/2015/03/04/netanyahu-speaks-money-talks/Denis Nevillenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-23679592589103746012015-03-10T19:22:59.454-04:002015-03-10T19:22:59.454-04:00“Too much has been made in the West of the Iranian...<i> “Too much has been made in the West of the Iranian reflex to rally round the flag after an Israeli (or American) preventive strike[?]” </i><br /><br />Let's see now: <br /><br />As I recall—and Wikipedia confirms—Iran fought a bitter eight-year war with Iraq from 1980-1988, during which Iraq—the invader—used everything including chemical weapons against the Iranians, with Iran suffering an estimated 200,000-220,000 casualties. But despite being in “revolutionary turmoil” at the outset of the war, Iran was on the offensive for the last six of the eight years of war and fought Iraq to a mutually-devastating standoff. <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War<br /><br />The Iranians don't sound like pushovers to me.<br /><br />Should either the Israelis or the U.S. embark on an insane “preventive strike,” it seems likely—if it isn't already—that the Middle East will truly go up in flames from the Eastern Mediterranean all the way through Afghanistan, and maybe even beyond. <br /><br />I do not want to see Iran “get the bomb,” because, IMHO, their theocratic government is truly mad. But that is not reason for either the Israelis or America to prove ourselves equally mad by initiating a “preventive strike.”<br /><br />Far better to give the agreement that Obama claims to have with Tehran a chance to work, or failing that, to continue tightening the sanctions.<br /><br />And, if the Iranians get—and are mad enough to use—“the bomb,” well, the United States knows enough about radioisotope signatures to know where that bomb came from and whom to incinerate by way of ending the matter.<br /><br />But let us not be the first to strike.Zeenoreply@blogger.com