2009 September :slashingtongue

Archive for September, 2009

Race : Why NJ is so wrong.

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 6:27 pm  
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As an Independent, there are times when I am shocked by how people can just limit their choice of vote to just two parties, when there is a better third party candidate. Whilst most media attention is concentrated around a closing of a gap by the incumbent over the challenger, there is virtually no one reporting on the independent.

Latest polls show a 43% support for Republican challenger Chris Christie, Democratic incumbent Governor John Corzine has 37% and only a sad 12% of Jerseyites support Chris Daggett. This is a classic election where we Independents pick the winner, but not one of our own. The Republicans are supporting Republicans, the Democrats are supporting Democrats. But when it comes to us, we give nearly half of our support to Christie, about a third to Governor Corzine an a pathetic sixth of our support for Chris Daggett.

Yes, we Independents are the true Americans. We are not citizens of Republicstan or Democratland. We are the ones that vote on the grounds of a good candidate and or manifesto. And there are times, like the Presidential Election in 2008, where it comes down to 2 good candidates and we choose what we feel is the better one. I myself supported President Obama over Senator McCain. I would have voted for Senator McCain if then-Senator Clinton was the Democratic nominee.

But then, there are cases like this where the top 2 on the ticked is just not competent. This race is essentially the race between the crook, the screw up and the environmentalist dude. Why is it that the poll results paint a very different picture? It really baffles and frustrates me even though I am not from New Jersey.

Chris Christie got his job by being nominated by President Bush as Attorney after the former raised money in the latter’s Presidential campaign. Smelling something fishy? The smell grows stronger and stronger when as Attorney he awarded millions of dollars worth of “no-bid” contracts again and again to people that are all closely tied to him. There are too many accusation of corruption in this guy’s history for any sound minded person to trust him!He was a lobbyist too!

Governor Corzine has had the chance to run New Jersey well and he failed miserably. If any Governor forces the state to shut down for days, then (s)he does not deserve to run it again! It is the litmus test of competency. To add on to that, increasing the sales tax is a measure that I do not support. Unlike income and corporate taxes, sales tax directly increases cost directly and is a cost multiplier with retail. His plans to increase this to balancing the books is really not acceptable.

The problem with Chris Daggett is that he is just known as Mr. Environment. All his working like has been for the environment, in both private and public sectors. But his other policies are very good with common sense measures. For example, teachers would be judged on merit and all poorer performing teachers would be weeded out. If there are not enough teachers, get it from other state or country. That is what I call common sense.

Okay Jerseyites, here are your options. Lets say you are a patient that is has a severe disease which you do not know of. Would you go to….
Doctor 1 – a doctor that is strongly suspected of selling his patients; organs. Nothing else to show that he is competent.
Doctor 2 – your current doctor that has made you more sick
or
Doctor 3 – who though specialized on heart, knows enough about everything…

The choice is yours. Please make a good one. Please vote Chris Daggett for Governor! Help spread the word.

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Kill Health-care Bill now!

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:04 pm  
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I have never been a fan of HR 3200. I loathe the Republican lies even more. However, it has come to a stage where the bill is as bad as the Republicans lies. It is time that America kill this bill, or our health care system would bankrupt us faster than the current situation does.

Moments ago, the Senate Finance Committee has voted 15-8 against the public option. In other words, the public option is dead with the remotest chance of revival. Blue Dog Democrats are worried about the costs while some like Senator Baucus worry about it not making it past the Republican filibuster. To me these are nothing but a bunch of excuses.

While I have mentioned that there could be better alternatives, I was not so worried about this bill because it had some good things in it. E.g. I supported taxing people that had the ability to get insurance but choose not to. I supported the end of life counsellings before it was taken out. I supported ending coverage without pre-existing condition.

But all this had to come with a measure that would bring the cost down. The only way to do so it is through competition. I suggested things like starting a trade war between insurance companies (think Pepsi vs Coke), allowing foreign insurers to flood the market and looking into ways of helping the creation of new insurance companies by rookies as other alternatives. Not a single person from any party gave anything along these lines. The only manner suggested to provide competition is the public option.

Price is all about supply and demand. Right now demand for health insurance is huge, supply is limited, hence the price is high and is increasing. The public option was the only thing that increased supply via competition which would have brought cost down. On top of the rejection of the public option, when we force insurance companies not to deny pre-existing conditions and force every American to have health-care, we are also increasing the demand of health insurance. In effect, this bill would increase the demand and not increase the supply, hence increase the cost health-care and premiums.

With the current system, health-care would bankrupt America with the high cost and ever increasing premiums. With this bill, it bring America down faster and harder. Hence the urgent need to kill it.

What saddens me the most is the killing of the indexing part of the public option. “Indexing” (we name it, not official term) is the listing of all insurance into one index, showing its price and its coverage. This is the part that I feel everyone would have endorsed it whole heartedly. Even Bill O’Reilly agrees with this. Why in the world was it tied with the public option? What can go wrong with a list? Isn’t this what we see in the stock markets? Why can’t we choose from all insurances from a one stop location? This was easily the best part of the bill and was removed.

I also question the intentions of the Democrats. In the end of the day, politicians only answer to two entities in America, voters and lobbyists. When polls show that the public option is supported by more than 60% of Americans, and I guarantee more would agree with “indexing”; we can eliminate voters as the reason for not wanting the public option.

I have no proof, but I am confident that the Democrats are being bought over by the corporations. I think that they are answering to the corporations and their lobbyists and not the American people. That shows that we need to break this stranglehold of the lobbyists on our politics. A reform that needs to come soon too…

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FOX hate that you would have to hear to believe

Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 8:29 pm  
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FOX and MSNBC are the terrible news networks of America. If we were to make a list of all the screw ups that they make and how partisan their so called “news” is; we would have nothing else to write about. But this really takes the cake. It is really something so irresponsible that it could lead to blood…

Frank Gaffney, a person that believe it or not was actually nominated and worked in the (Presidents) Reagan and Clinton administrations, runs a “think tank” and is, in my opinion, the father of Islamo-phobia.

He is actually a frequent guest on the MSNBC and FOX. Only these two crappy news organizations would have a person like this on. FOX News bans Bill Maher but this guy is okay for them to have! I equate this to President Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust.

This is what he said, “ This (Sharia) is the program that I think we need to be worrying about is the connective tissue between these myriad of attacks.” Does he even know what Sharia is? It is basically the law of Islam. What do you think the Muslim reaction would be?

More proof “ I am saying though that there is this well, virus as you will, a virus that is far more toxic than swine flu. And we are failing to recognize it as such; even though it is actually animating people to believe that Jihad is what God wants them to engage in to the lots of people….:” Wow! Sharia is a virus more toxic than swine flu? Are you kidding me?

What if this was being said about Christians on air? What if there was just one person that said that crazy Evangelism is the disease that is worse than swine flu? What if this message was said or played in volatile regions like South Asia? Do you know how many Hindu Muslim riots has happened in India because of speeches like that? Does he even think of the consequences?

Sharia is the law for the Muslims. It is like the Talmud or the Bible. Of course there are verses in it that sound bad. But they are for Proselytizing. E.g.
“If you eat with a Gentile, it is the same as eating with a dog”–Talmud
“Fight them (non-believers), until all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam.” – Quran
“When the Gentiles worship their Gods, they worship demons.”– Bible

But in the end of the day, there needs to be a person wise enough to decipher them. The people of the three religions above should know that the Earth is not flat despite what is being written as their religious order.

But that is something Frank Gaffney does not understand. He blames the entire legal framework of Islam and rather than the idiots that cannot decipher what is right and what is wrong.

With regards to his point about inmates converting to Jihadi Islam, he should understand that these are the people that Al Qaeda target, not the other way round. As we in Slashing Tongue have mentioned earlier. They already have violent tendencies or are exposed to such thought in prison. Adding in religion would just add the excuse. I think that the state should stop sponsoring religion to these people due to those facts.

Fighting hate with fear and hate is not going to solve the problem, it is going to make it worse. That is the biggest mistake that Frank Gaffney is making. We should not fall into that trap.

Please view clip at Moxnews.com

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Gay marriage : ST’s position becoming popular!

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 at 4:37 pm  
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In the toughest of times, gay marriage is able yet again to creep into the headlines yet again thanks to former President Bill Clinton. I covered it this time because we noted that there were more Americans than we thought that had the same mentality as I do. And it is something that neither opponents or supporters of Proposition 8 would like…

Let me be clear, the person who influenced me with is Governor Jesse Ventura. I think it is he that came up with this concept.. We should be banning marriage outright and replacing all marriages that we have with civil unions!

I remember voicing out this position earlier and was rather ridiculed for it. But right now, following the blogs and comments on news site, our alternative does not sound so ridiculous anymore. Some of “my” people that would think of it being in terms of this being part of big government versus small government. The reason for my stance though is different.

I agree with people that claim that marriage is a religious and a cultural affair. That is why there are different rituals for different kind of marriages. Most Christians take their vow before a priest and are pronounced married. Russian Orthodox Christianity requires them to drink wine, while the Jews would have to break glasses. Hindus walk round a fire seven times to get married and Muslims tell it to their Imam. If marriage were the same shouldn’t the rituals be the same.

In fact, there are different laws for different kinds of groups within our country itself. Muslim men and some Christians are allowed to practice polygamy while it is a crime for others to do so. There are even some Tibetan customs that requires polyandry and are recognized in this country. Even some Christian sects allow all kinds of marriage and some allow only hetro-sexual marriage.

So why is there a ban on gay marriage? Three of the biggest religions in America are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Majority of their sects consider homosexuality a sin. Hence, by forcing marriage as a whole to be forcefully recognized by all religions, we are infringing on their religious rights. By not allowing two Buddhists to marry in a Buddhist ceremony, we are also infringing on their rights as well.

So what should we do? Why in the world is the government coming into religion and telling us what we can and cannot believe in our religion? If we believe that marriage is to be only between a man and a woman., let us believe so. If we believe that marriage can be gay, let us believe so. Isn’t freedom of religion a tenet of American freedom.

But the government should grant us the rights of civil unions with our partners. We need them. For example, when a person dies without the will, a spouse should have the right to claim the property and the kids. As of now, it is the parent or the sibling of a gay individual that would get it. There is also the topic if divorce and separation settlements that gays cannot have.

So basically, we want the term marriage today to be converted into civil unions. Hence, the churches and mosques can have their religious rights protected and can kick gays out of their religion. Gays can enjoy equal rights while the religious institutions can ensure that gays not get married. Of course, the crazy right-wingers would go crazy with this and many gays would not be happy with it either. But as a whole, I think that this is a good compromise with both sides having their way.

Personally, I used to be against gay marriage. That changes while I was in the Army. I knew gay soldiers and I realized that they weren’t the sissy-boy perverts that I thought them out to be when I was younger. They are just like any other soldier, like any other human being. That is why I am okay with them marrying each other.

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Californian Republican girls for office!

Saturday, September 26th, 2009 at 6:49 pm  
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Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman are Republican corporate ladies from California that are going to run for public office. Carly Fiorina used to be the CEO of Hewlett-Packard and the Vice President of AT&T. Meg Whitman was the CEO of E-Bay.

Before I go about my critics, I think that I would like to make it clear that I think that these two women are not on the same level of competence as my usual Republican female political targets, Governor Sarah Palin and Representative Michele Bachmann. These are the types of women that the Republican party should be wooing, accomplished women with brains. Not women who give no-brainer speeches that are poisonous for the country. If they were, I would not dismiss them in an instant and compare them to the other people that are also running for the same office.

In the case of Carly Fiorina, I would not support her over Senator Barbara Boxer. The first reason is that I think that there is not much that is really wrong with Senator Boxer. She is not the greatest Senator in America, but she is not a Senator Barney Frank or Senator Harry Reid. She does not spew the poison of hatred that all the four politicians that I have disapproved of earlier did.

The second reason is that there are past judgments in Carly Fiorina’s past that are suspect. Her screw up of HP is one thing that I guarantee her opponents would bring up. The very fact that she ran HP though is something to be commended and I think that it should not be a big negative point for her. Some may even comment on her crappy website; which I think was a ploy all along to get attention.

However, it is her blind endorsement Governor Palin that I objected to. Any Independent and even some Republicans could see that Governor Palin was a know-nothing big-mistake. But Ms. Fiorina came out in stout defense of Governor Palin saying that she was qualified. She also did played the gender card and said that the attacks on Governor Palin were sexist. That made me question : Would she have independent observations or would she be playing the Republican party’s message? That is a risk that I am not willing to take with her.

As of now, Meg Whitman, has my support to be California’s next Governor. Unlike Carly Fiorina, there is nothing that seems out of place from Meg Whitman. In fact, when it was revealed that she was on Senator McCain’s shortlist for Vice President last year, I questioned McCain’s judgment further. He accepted a dim lady, over a lady that made E-Bay what it is today! That really did not make sense to me.

Secondly, I share a lot of her views. For example, we both disagree on taxing away on non-green energy. Our reasons are different though. She thinks that there could be unknown effects on the economy that is not studied yet, whilst I think that the government should be more hard handed. I do not know if she is pro-choice as I am, but I agree with her that minors should not be able to get an abortion without parental or guardian’s consent. Though I support gay marriage and she does not, I think that there is no harm in her opinion of guaranteeing equal rights between civil unions and marriages.

Lastly, there no rival in the gubernatorial race that is anywhere close to being as accomplished as her. She should be the symbol of a successful American woman. Not the First Ladies, Miss America wannabes that think that they are protecting marriage or the know nothing politicians like Governor Palin and Michele Bachmann.

Things can change. E.g. If Senator Boxer screws up big time or if another side of Meg Whitman is displayed, then I would change my mind. Else, I would support Whitman for Governor and Senator Boxer to keep her seat.

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