As IF Times

link  Holly Thompson Cant Shut Her Mouth After Yawning in Class.

When we were kids, all of us were warned by our parents that if we persisted in making  silly contorted facial expressions that it would stay that way permanently.  Well whaddya know?  Some real life evidence of this!   This may put a scare into some kids that if they keep on doing a certain something to themselves, they will in fact go blind.  The person who proves that will really be embarrassed.

But there must be something to this theory.  Kids should also be warned against saying stupid things as well, or else there’s a good chance they’ll wind up carrying that habit into adulthood.  We can offer up endless streams of stupidness  from many of the people who are quoted in the public space.  Politicians to be sure, as we can cite thousands of examples of obtuse hyperbole that is offered to the public as logical rhetoric.   There is no way they can actually believe what they say.  It must be because they can’t help it.   In fact, our images of many of these people are when they are captured in mid rant.  We’d be hard pressed to recognize them in a photograph with their mouths closed.

Most recently, the heated battle for budget cuts and fiscal responsibility in the U.S. have produced such treasures as,  “they are here to kill women”, oddly enough from a Democrat named Slaughter.   Chris Matthews of MSNBC employ and another who has his mouth regularly in the wind tunnel position,  has expressed that budget cuts will kill half his audience.   Ex-speaker Pelosi expressed that “elections shouldn’t matter as much as they do”.  In San Diego, budget cuts apparently will hurt students’ education according to teachers who are vastly overpaid.  That chestnut has been around for a while, but it’s worth trotting out as a standard complaint.   Apparently, budget cuts will close libraries which will contribute to illiteracy.  That’s debatable.  I can more willingly believe that closing libraries will affect the ability of the homeless to find a place to sleep.

Old people, students, immigrants, minorities, artists, gays, women, religious sects and workers seem to fight a never ending battle against their existence regardless of who is in office.   Logically, it’s best to avoid being part of that group of people if you can help it.  Of course recently, being a bug, a fish or a tree is not so benign either as that group is also apparently under attack.

Much of the wrangling that’s going on now is the usual posturing by both sides, but the arguments from the Republicans at least make some logical sense.   The retort to the GOP budget proposals by the Democrats on the other hand are full of the ‘open mouthed’ inanities that are taken directly from the progressive manual of rhetoric.    The president described the Republican plan for reducing the nation’s debt as one that would ” let roads crumble, accept mediocrity in education, stop caring for seniors and lead to as many as 50 million fewer people covered by health insurance” .  He derided the Republican approach as one that would not invest in “education or clean energy” while giving away tax breaks to wealthy people.  This is the same stuff we’ve been hearing for decades.

At an early age, kids should be warned against making contorted faces or expressing stupid things.  It can only lead to a career in politics.

link U.N. chief warns of humanitarian disaster as Libya meeting opens – CNN.com.

To whom is this guy addressing his warning?  Banned From The Moon is essentially pleading for more money (what else?) to head off an ‘humanitarian disaster’ in Libya.   Since the U.S. is the largest contributor to the U.N., it logically means, he’s asking that Americans pony up more dough.  China and Russia are already helping by graciously agreeing to buy Libya’s oil.  The U.S., through NATO are only contributing bombs and bullets.

Someone may want to give the earnest head of the U.N. a map of the region.  He will note that immediately to the north and east of Libya are found the most moneyed states in the world today.  He may want to pass the collection plate around their tables.  While the U.S. has always come to the table in the past for almost any cause,  at the moment, their credit card balance is a bit high.  It can’t be that hard for some of the neighboring Arab states to toss a few hundred million into the aid pot to help a neighbour.    The Arab nations in the middle east have always existed on very fine balance.  Running most of the wealthy states are autocratic families who receive most of the oil wealth with the support of western countries and in return, support those western countries in order to keep hostile religious factions at bay.  Over the past half year, the yawning chasm of wealth between these rulers and their restive subjects has boiled over into mob insurrection.  Tunisia and Egypt were the first to go. 

If anyone can figure out which side of the combatants in Libya are worthy of support, it would be the immediate neighbors, since they’ll have to live with them later on.   It doesn’t really matter which side the Americans take, it will be the wrong side from someone’s perspective.  Factions and tribes have been battling each other over there for centuries and grudges and animosities persist.  It’s somewhat similar to 14 year old girls who are united against little Suzy, until she’s out of the picture and then they go back to hating each other.   There is the old Arab saying, ” the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.     Better off not giving anything, just stick with the artillery. 

There are humanitarian emergencies all over the world at any given time.  The calamity in Japan recently is a genuine emergency with no political root to the devastation.  Everyone was just minding their own business, when kaboom, the ground shook and the waves came.  If anyone deserves donations, it’s the Japanese.  They are living in peace.  They are contributing to the world.  The only jihad they spread is by technology advances and karaoke.  It makes more sense to help peaceful people than people who would behead you in your sleep.   The humanitarian crisis being warned of is man made.  Who’s to say there isn’t another one after this one?  I’d say they had better keep the collection plate in circulation.