don’t panic

Saw this on CNN this morning.

I have to ask myself what in the world the point of a piece like this is on the home page of CNN?  I like opinion as much as the next guy, but parading it to the public as though it’s somehow “news” is nothing short of journalistic crap.  Aside from being obvious flame bait, it seriously lowers my view of CNN to that of say FOX, which at least acknowledges that it portrays sensationalistic journalism.  I don’t go to CNN for half-baked opinions, I go there for headline news and nothing else.  If I want details, I’ll hit Google.  If I want an opinion, there’s certainly no shortage of blogs and discussion forums out there.

Oh, and Navarrette is an idiot.  His views in this article are worthless drivel, and it’s only by the grace of God that his influence is restricted to the news medium and not actual governing.

Wow, it seems that former vice president Dick Cheney just doesn’t know when it’s over.  It’s somewhat of a standing unspoken courtesy that the outgoing administration holds off comments on the new incoming one.  There are really good reasons for this… giving the new administration a chance to get their own policies situated being one of them (policies that, if the system is working, the majority of the population want implemented).  But it seems that Cheney missed that memo.  Since leaving office the guy has been making nearly weekly public statements critical of President Obama’s decisions.  I’m certainly no expert, but I can read the news, and from where I sit, we certainly seem to be in better graces with most the rest of the world now than we ever had with the Bush administration.  There is a genuine sense of hope again in the world.

Does that mean that I should suddenly like Hugo Chavez?  Nope.  But treating the guy like a child or a terrorist is certainly not going to help things.  The fact that Obama can go meet with the man, shake his hand and laugh at a joke speaks to the fact that the President is doing his job. He is our chief representative.  What would it say to the rest of the world if that representative can’t even meet and talk with other nations regardless of how they feel about us.

What gets me are the nasty generalities that Cheney has set up so that when we have another terrorist attack (does anyone really believe that we’re not going to have another one some day??), he can do a big, “I told you so.”  It’s a bit like a fortune teller reading your palm and then saying that you’re going to have an accident with a black automobile.

The days of ruling by military scare tactics are over, Dick.  And not a moment too soon.  Go crawl back to whatever hole you came out of and just SHUT UP ALREADY!

It would seem that it’s not a good time to be a pirate…  Not that there is EVER a good time to be a pirate, but lately, they just can’t seem to capture anything without getting caught themselves.  And then there was that whole American sniper incident.  A bullet through the head will really ruin your day, you know?

And part of me feels for these people, at least the fishermen.  They’re desperate.  They have fished out their own waters (along with everyone else apparently), and now they either take hostages and demand ransom money, or they starve to death.  Hmmm.

But then there’s another side of me that remembers that they aren’t finding those grenade launchers out in the jungle growing on trees.  The government (if you can call it that) is passing these guys weapons and boats, and I’m sure, are taking a healthy cut of the loot as well.  They’re making millions and millions of dollars (which in Somalia goes a loooong way, mind you), and in the past, if they were caught, they were given food and released.

“Bad pirate.  Now take this canned ham and don’t do it again.  Um, where would you like us to drop you off?”

As of this date, there is no official UN policy regarding the capture of pirates.  In almost all cases, they are simply let go.

I’m sorry, but that really sucks.  And as a real stick in the eye, the defacto leader of the Somali pirates stated to the press that they were angry at the United States for “escalating” this conflict with “violence” by shooting dead three pirates that had weapons drawn on the captain of a vessel the U.S. Navy was trying to rescue.  I’m just curious, but how is it that rescuing a hostage held at gunpoint is “violent”, but threatening to sink a 40 million dollar vessel with anti-tank weapons, boarding her by force with guns drawn and then taking the captain and crew hostage under the treat of death, NOT violent?

It sounds like they’re just miffed because somebody finally decided that their racket was a little one-sided and changed the rules.

Here’s another change we could make.  If the UN can’t decide what country to send the captured Somali pirates too, why not just give them a one-way cruise to Antarctica, drop them off with their complimentary provisions, and let them find their own way home.  One of those detached ice shelves would work too.  Lots of room and no political troubles.

CNN posted recently – “An organization of Christian physicians argued Wednesday against an impending rollback of a federal rule allowing health care workers to refuse to provide certain reproductive services, saying it’s discriminatory.”

Say what?  Let me see if I understand this correctly…  I group of people that distinguishes themselves by the fact that they follow a specific set of religious tenets that are hugely exclusionary (of most of the rest of the world), is upset that they cannot refuse their services based on that religion and feel that stopping them is discrimination.

Wow.  I think maybe these people went into the wrong profession.  Isn’t the point of being a doctor that you HELP people?  If helping others takes a back seat to religious practices, then what makes you any different than someone who kills in the name of their god?  What if my religion says that I can’t offer medical help to females with short hair, or anyone who wears a hat?  How about if they are African American, or Muslim? How about if they happen to be Jewish?  What if I’m a Jewish doctor?  Can I discriminate against a Christian patient?

The idea that anyone in the professional medical field would be able to refuse services based on religion is insane.  Either you are there to help people, or you’re not.  Deciding the ethics of procedures is NOT the concern of individual doctors, nurses, or pharmacists.  There is a board of medicine for that.