United States

March 24, 2013

Costa Rica to file protest with FIFA over snow

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Word on the street is that Costa Rica is planning on filing a protest with FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, over their 1-0 loss against the United States Friday night in a World Cup qualifier. The game was played in snowy Colorado. Costa Rica wants the game to be replayed and they want referee Joel Aguilar from El Salvador to be suspended. Aguilar could have canceled the game, but wisely chose not to.

Not that he had much of a choice. The game needed to be played and neither side had a schedule that was conducive to rescheduling. The United States will be playing Mexico at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Tuesday. Costa Rica hosts Jamaica on Tuesday. Though Aguilar as the match referee, had the power to cancel the game, he lacked the power to alter time and space. Canceling the game would have created a monumental scheduling problem that would have created more trouble then just playing the game in the snow.

If Costa Rica has a problem with snow, they need to take it up with God, not FIFA. Since Roman Catholicism is the official Costa Rica religion, they need to take their silly protest to the Pope, not FIFA.

Photo: Getty Images

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September 18, 2012

Romney believes Obama voters are lazy freeloaders who want everything given to them

A couple of months ago, I saw a secret video on the Internets that someone claimed was Mitt Romney speaking to some wealthy donors about the upcoming presidential election. In the video, Romney spoke about a good many things. One of the things he talked about was the 47% of the electorate who will be voting for Obama and that the reason they will be voting for him is because, basically, they are non-tax paying freeloaders who want everything given to them. In the video, he says that his job is not to worry about those people and that he’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

I assumed the video was fake. It turns out, it wasn’t. It’s real. The Mother Jones website has posted the video and the mainstream news media is reporting on it. Romney has confirmed that the video is accurate, though “not elegantly stated.”

Gee, you think?

This sounds to me to be something inflammatory Rush Limbaugh would say in hour two of his radio show to get a rise out of people, not something a man who wants to be president of the United States would say.

If Romney thinks so poorly of such a large percentage of Americans, why would he even want to be their president?

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September 12, 2012

Protests over Muhammad video in Libya leave U.S. ambassador, three others dead

Protests over Muhammad video in Libya leave U.S. ambassador, three others dead
A video portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a womanizing pedophile has outraged many in the so-called Muslim world, resulting in deadly protests in Egypt and Libya. One such protest, in the Libyan city of Benghazi, resulted in the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.

I didn’t even know we had an ambassador to Libya. What an awful way to commemorate the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

The video was reportedly produced in the United States. I haven’t seen it and since it will probably never make it on Netflix or Redbox, I probably never will. Plus, I have the feeling that it’s probably an awful movie.

If Muslims believe a video portraying their most cherished prophet in a highly negative light can make anyone view their religion more poorly, they are sadly mistaken. People today view Islam not by the personal character of the man who founded their religion over a thousand years ago, but by the bloody and violent actions of many of his followers today. Islam has a public relations problem. As a brand, its image is sullied and it’s not because of any stupid video.

One can hear that Islam is a religion of peace so many times until it begins to sound a hollow and a tad bit ridicules.

If the followers of Islam ever want the rest of the world to view their religion in a more positive light, they need to clean up their act. They need to stop storming embassies and burning flags. They need to stop killing woman because they have been raped. They need to stop poisoning girls because they go to school. They also need to stop with all the terrorism.

Seriously, they need to knock it off.

Photo: Esam Omran Al-Fetori / Reuters

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August 13, 2012

Thank God, the Oylimpics are finally over

The XXX Summer Olympics finally and mercifully came to an end last night. It lasted over two weeks, but it began to feel like three months.

Finally, the world of sports can get back to normal. The XXX Summer Olympics were like a bad case of the stomach flu that just wouldn’t go away.

I’m tired of going to the sports section and of a website or a newspaper and having to navigate through the Olympics coverage to get to the real sports. Starting today, I wont have to do that.

My favorite athlete from the XXX Summer Olympics has got to be Leo Manzano, the winner of the silver medal in the 1500-meters final. He celebrated achieving second place by carrying not only the flag of the United States, but the flag of Mexico too. You see, Manzano was born in Mexico, but immigrated to the United States when he was just four years old and eventually became a U.S. citizen.

After the race, he posted on Twitter that he was representing two countries, the United States and Mexico. Funny, it only says USA on his chest.

Leo Manzano is my favorite athlete of the XXX Summer Olympics because he is a shining example that the participants could care less about whatever country they’re supposedly representing and care really only about themselves.

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August 10, 2012

Fareed Zakaria suspended for plagiarism

Time magazine editor-at-large and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has been suspended by both Time and CNN for plagiarism. Time is suspending Zakaria for 30 days. CNN has put no expiration date on his suspension.

Zakaria stole from an essay on gun control written by Jill Lepore, published in The New Yorker on April 23.

Here is a paragraph from Lepore’s original essay:

As Adam Winkler, a constitutional-law scholar at U.C.L.A., demonstrates in a remarkably nuanced new book, “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” firearms have been regulated in the United States from the start. Laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813, and other states soon followed: Indiana (1820), Tennessee and Virginia (1838), Alabama (1839), and Ohio (1859). Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.

Here is a paragraph from Zakaria’s version published in Time:

Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, documents the actual history in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Guns were regulated in the U.S. from the earliest years of the Republic. Laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in Kentucky and Louisiana in 1813. Other states soon followed: Indiana in 1820, Tennessee and Virginia in 1838, Alabama in 1839 and Ohio in 1859. Similar laws were passed in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. As the governor of Texas (Texas!) explained in 1893, the “mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder. To check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man.”

Zakaria essentially took Lepore’s words and rephrased them into something slightly different. A simple, honest mistake this was not. This was hard-core, blatant theft.

How can anyone trust anything produced by Zakaria ever again? He has permanently lost all credibility. If his suspensions don’t become permanent, it will say a lot about the credibility of Time and CNN.

Fareed Zakaria is an awful person.

Photo: Harvard Gazette

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July 27, 2012

What we should be talking about a week after the Aurora, Colorado massacre

It’s been a week since James Holmes walked into an Aurora, Colorado movie theater armed with an AR-15 and other weapons and began shooting people he didn’t know. Some have used the massacre to once again, start a discussion on gun control. Since the Constitution of the United States guarantees all Americans the right to own a military weapon with a high capacity drum magazine, it seems like a waste of time. What we should be talking about is not gun control, but health care.

Remember health care?

It would seem a good many of the victims in the theater last week didn’t have health insurance. Now, because of no fault of their own, they are looking at thousands, even millions of dollars in medical bills. Even the victims that have health insurance will be looking at medical costs not covered by their plans. Medical bills are the cause of 60% of personal bankruptcy in this country.

Many of the victims, both the insured and the uninsured, will most likely have to declare personal bankruptcy to get on with their lives financially. That is just so wrong and unjust. It’s not right and it’s not fair.

People have begun raising money for many of the victims. We shouldn’t have to do this. We should be better than this. We should have a health care system in this country that doesn’t require people to declare bankruptcy or to take financial contributions from strangers.

None of these victims did anything wrong. They simply went to a theater to watch a movie.

If it’s a Constitutional right for people like James Holmes to arm himself with military weaponry, is it asking too much not to be forced into financial ruin when people like James Holmes use these weapons against you? I don’t think it is.

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July 9, 2012

‘True Blood’ needs more vampires, less smoke monsters

I watched last night’s episode of True Blood and thought the episode was good in some respects, but not so good in others. I’m tired of the story lines that don’t involve vampires. Call me old-fashioned, but when I sit down to watch a TV show about vampires, I expect to see a TV show about vampires. What I don’t want to see is a story line involving Iraq war veteran Terry Bellefleur, two of his former squad mates, and a creepy Iraqi smoke monster.

I watched every episode of LOST. The last thing I need in my life is more smoke monster.

The premise is stupid. Evidently Terry and his fellow soldiers committed some kind of war crime in Iraq while drinking and taking drugs. A lot of innocent civilians were killed. Bodies were piled everywhere. One Iraqi woman was still alive. Before Terry could finish her off with his M-16, she cursed him, resulting in the before mentioned smoke monster.

OK, if this woman had the power to summon a smoke monster, why did she wait so long to evoke it? Why didn’t she summon it as soon as the Americans invaded? And why did it take so long for the Iraqi smoke monster to start kicking American G.I. ass? Years went by before it began picking off members of Terry’s squad. Why did it wait until everyone returned to the United States?

Maybe it’s just me, but I think Terry and his fellow solders deserve everything the Iraqi smoke monster can dish out. They killed women and children and then covered it up. A vengeful Iraqi smoke monster is the least they deserve.

Last night’s episode featured the return of the former vampire king of Mississippi, Russell Edgington. The episode could have used a lot more Russell Edgington and a lot less Iraqi smoke monster.

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June 15, 2012

Obama administration to start ignoring immigration laws even more than before

If you’re in the United States illegally because your parents brought you here when you were a child, your life is about to get a lot easier. Maybe.

From the Associated Press:

The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

As if unemployment wasn’t bad enough in this country, the legal labor pool is about to get bigger. What would the unemployment rate be now if illegal immigrants weren’t in the workforce? Thank goodness we are a nation of laws.

I wonder, does this only apply to Latinos? Will people who came here illegally from Canada, Japan, or Luxemburg also be able to circumvent our laws and get work permits too?

I’m guessing not.

I think this is a crappy thing to do to people who are here legally. It’s rewarding bad behavior, not so much to the people this new non-law will directly affect, the children of illegal immigrants, but to their parents. People who bring their children here illegally do their children a real disservice. At least they would be if our laws were being enforced.

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June 14, 2012

‘Game of Thrones’ puts George W Bush’s head on a stake

Viewers watching the first season of HBO’s hit fantasy drama Game of Thrones on DVD and listening to the audio commentary learned that one of the severed heads in the 10th episode belonged to George W. Bush, former president of these United States. David Benioff, one of the show’s many co-creators, states, “The last head on the left is George Bush.”

The good news is that this was in no way political. At least that’s what Benioff says. According to him, they just used some heads they already had and as luck would have it, they just happened to have a replica of George W. Bush’s severed head sitting around collecting dust.

Sure, I believe that. Who wouldn’t?

What I find to be weird about this is the DVD set of the first season has been out for some time now. The first time someone pointed this out was yesterday in a post on reddit. Gawker’s science fiction blog io9 picked up the story and posted a lovely video of the scene. What took so long for someone to point this out? Does this mean nobody listens to audio commentaries?

I’m in no way a fan of George W. Bush, but he was the president. It seems a tad bit disrespectful to put the man’s head on a stake.

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June 13, 2012

Bryce Harper: ‘That’s a clown question, bro’

Bryce Harper: 'That's a clown question, bro' Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper was answering questions from reporters last night in the locker room after beating the Toronto Blue Jays. A Canadian reporter asked him if he was going to celebrate by by having a beer. Harper is only 19 years old and in the United States, a person cannot legally drink until they are at least 21. In Canada, people can drink beer when they’re 19.

Harper, never one to miss the opportunity to act like a dick, responded to the lighthearted, jovial question with, “That’s a clown question, bro.”

It’s a legitimate question. The United States, the land of the free and the brave, doesn’t allow people like Harper to have a beer like a regular person. In the United States, you are considered an adult when you are 19, you just don’t have the same rights and privileges as everyone else.

Instead of just answering the question, he decided to act like a jerk.

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