Feeling out of control

I think I'll take a break from talking politics for a brief posting, as I need to say that I'm feeling out of control. Don't worry about me doing something dumb, I'm not planning on that. It's just some circumstances have happened where I've been more reactive than proactive, and I just hate that feeling. It sucks. However, there's not much to do about it.

Just understand, we all have these days, even your's truly, Jgsf1987. Anyway, this shall pass and I'll be back to hitting fast at the GOP, once again.

Thanks for understanding and reading. This is Jgsf1987, out!

More News On The Kookieness Of Our Nation's Far Right Wing

Ha! That title as apparently one can see, doesn't adequately explain the wholeness of the far-right these days.

First off, we need to address one key fact here. Not all Republicans or conservatives are die-hard supporters of the True-Believer/Tea-Party wing of the +GOP. Let's be clear on that. I'm sure that many of you, like myself, know people who are registered Republicans and are not these unreasonable types as the faction mentioned above. I can say this off-hand, as I'm related to one (one who happens to be a fiscal conservative).

Now with that settled, here's what's going on. Apparently there's been a large amount of trolling on both +Twitter and +Instagram aimed towards Robin Williams' daughter. Again much of what it had to do with is Robin's activism in liberal politics. However, a lot of it got downright personal to the point of Zelda largely leaving her accounts dormant. Additionally, there's been talk of Robin Williams taking his own life due to the liberalism on display by none other than +Barack Obama. That's about as bogus as ever.

However, that's not the craziest among the stories. I've noticed that the case involving the death of Michael Brown, there's been a few rather crazy developments. First off, I've read on +Raw Story that the Ku Klux Klan has mounted a fundraising effort for the shooting officer's legal defense. Their claim is that they need to defend a hero who took out a "thug" (direct Klan quote of what they called Brown). This is an exact replay of what happened with Treyvon Martin back in 2012 or Oscar Wild in 2007. The fact still remains, racism is still abound in this country. More so than people could ever imagine. However there's a couple of other articles that I think people ought to read here. One article from DeadSpin shows that many still hold the view that America is a Whites only nation. Don't be so shocked by this, it's fairly common in many parts of America. There's another article from Gawker, which explains clearly that even though Brown was not armed when the police officer in question shot him, his situation is not unusual for young African-American men. Actually it's a tragic and all too familiar narrative, police come in and shoot young Black man. Senseless, and playing to the very reason why we need to do more to make society aware of the deadliness of White Supremacy, when combined with the declaration that we as Americans need to armed to the teeth. I'm sure about 1 thing, those 2 statements are bogus, plain and simple. It's just whack to think that if we could put Blacks in their place then there'd be less of them showing up dead in our news lines. Yeah, that's like racism 101 to believe that.

Something needs to break through

I can report on the news all day long, just like I can report on how life sucks. However, that doesn't really solve the issue of how to make it suck less.

First off, yeah, the whole thing with the Middle East is screwed up. This is primarily because of the power vacuum left over from the invasion of Iraq during the Bush Administration and this is just one portion of why going in there was a bad idea. Now we have ISIS running amok in Northern Iraq and along the pourous border with Syria. However, that's not a complete surprise, as Saddam's removal basically created this vacuum, and if one thinks about it, Bush, Sr.'s reasoning for keeping Saddam in place was because he knew this was how the scenario of his removal would play out. For all those who want to paint me as defending the tyrant Saddam Hussein, let me tell you this, I'm not! Saddam was a tyrant to his people and was an international criminal. While those two previous points stated are 100% true, it wasn't enough of a reason to take him out, nor did it have any strategic sense. The lack of strategic sense comes out of the fact that Saddam was armed by us to bloody up Iran just after the Shah fled and the Ayatollahs took over. If anything, Iran was scared of Saddam as he fought an eight-year war against them.

Then again, there's also the fact that the war between Israel and Gaza has finally started to wind down, to a point. However, for this current cease-fire, I'd be amazed if it even allows some kind of breakthrough for a political solution. I'm not optimistic that either Israel or Palestine (really Gaza) will be able to make some kind of political accord to end the violence cycles. Actually the real guilty party of not allowing a political accord in this sense is Israel, for continuing to prevent a unified voice for the Palestinians. Go figure that Hamas would go all out on Israel, their backs are to the wall, and so they really feel like they've got nothing to lose.

But to get back to my earlier point, there's nothing worthwhile about continuing to sit back and complain and then do nothing to try to resolve my situation or for anyone with their own. We need to realize that in order to make something more functional, the will to do so has to come from within. There's no use blaming outside factors, or getting stuck in, "what-ifs". It's time to go forward, and to make it, something needs to break through.

Ann Coulter's Royally Screwed

Holy Cow! I never thought I'd see the day that Ann Coulter's screwed herself over royally. From what I've seen on +Addicting Info, she's managed to piss off almost the entire conservative Evangelical sphere of the right by blasting one of their own (Dr. Kent Brantly) for taking a missionary trip to Africa in areas heaviest hit by Ebola and contracting the disease. I'm sure she meant to say that he should have put more thought into doing missionary work in the region due to the outbreak, but it seems like that message got garbled up when she tried to blame +Barack Obama and the Democrats. Saying that they should be doing missionary work in America instead of Africa is just whack.

Source: +Addicting Info

Bomb Threats in San Francisco and Oakland

Okay, let me start by saying that I'm getting tired of hearing about bomb threats in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is getting more absurd by the second. Luckily, both turned out to be fakes, but how many fakes will we get before there's a real one? And if there is a real one, how many are likely to be injured and/or killed? This is my concern, and why it's pissing me off as well.

I really wish that someone in law enforcement would capture the wise individual and/or group that is behind these acts. I'd like to know who they're backed by and what their motivation is. Right now, I can't claim that it's terrorism, and I won't. I will say that this is making it difficult for me to get to work, especially when trying to ride the +Bay Area Rapid Transit system downtown.

There's been 2 incidents that have happened this week. The first was last night in Oakland, on an +Alameda Contra Costa Transit bus just outside of the West Oakland +Bay Area Rapid Transit station. The other just happened a few hours ago, just outside the +San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency/+Bay Area Rapid Transit station at Montgomery street in San Francisco.

As I said before, I hope that someone can find this character and arrest them. We need to know who they're affiliated with.

SoCal Lightening Strikes

I'll start by saying that there's been a few stories in the local news here in the San Francisco Bay Area of some fairly frequent lightening strikes down in Southern California, especially near the Los Angeles Metro Area. The latest has happened near Venice Beach, of which I'd have to look at a map to see if that's close to Los Angeles or not. If it is, just drop me a comment and I'll be happy to look into it.

I will say that I'm becoming concerned for a few reasons. One is that I have family down in SoCal, so I just wish for them to be safe. The other reason is a good friend of mine, +KatieColeOfficial, a hella kickass singer, lives down in SoCal as well. To those who are unfamiliar with +KatieColeOfficial, just check out her channel on +YouTube, and you'll see why she's an amazing singer.

This may be because of climate change, or the fact that because of that 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami shifted the Eart 1.3 degrees off of its axis. Then again, there's been a fair amount of tropical depression activity as of recently along the Mexican Pacific Coast. I don't know, but what I do know is, I hope that +KatieColeOfficial is safe. I just wish her well so that she can be out there singing for us.

Ceasefire between Israel & Hamas

In all the craziness that happened in the Middle East between Israel & Hamas will finally let up for 72 hours. This is necessary to provide the people with much needed humanitarian relief. Good for Barack Obama and John Kerry, along with Ban Ki-Moon, in getting the fighting to end.

End the Violence

Continuing to hear about the ongoing violence in this most recent flare-up between Israel and Hamas, just infuriates me even more. The whole operation in Gaza looks to me like a massive landgrab. More on that at a different time.

In the meantime, I recently saw a newsflash from Newsy that Israel's just hit more UN schools in Gaza. What's so infuriating is that the schools run by the +United Nations, specifically the +UNRWA, should be specifically avoided for targetting. The schools sheltered thousands of Palestinian refugees trying to escape from the violence. However, what's more sickening is that many soldiers from the +Israel Defense Forces (aka, the Israeli military) are actively killing civilians out of revenge for their lost comrades. This is not how one conducts a war! Shouldn't the words, "Never Again", mean something?

Even with that being said on Israel's part, for Hamas the criticism for them is even more scathing. Hamas has done nothing but shown pigheadedness of its own to the suffering of the people of Gaza. What's worse is that they're actively turning those civilians in Gaza into human shields, which is directly in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

It's time to end this violence. It's time for the United States of America to put its foot down, on the part of both +Barack Obama and John Kerry, and demand an end to these massacres.

Move

I need to take a brief break from politics to make this accurate statement: moving blows. Luckily I'm about 100% done, but it feels so unneedingly stressful.

Replay of 2008-9

Well Israel and Hamas are at it again, same replayed scenario of 2008-9. I'm not entirely surprised of this chain of events as both sides made numerous threats and warnings of ensuing war.

Recent events show another ground war, and one that will inevitably lead to more unnecessary carnage. Hamas has received numerous warnings from both President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab state leaders that if they don't get the various militant factions under control, they'd be inviting an Israeli invasion. Obviously, Hamas does not retain the capability to hold off the Israeli miltary for very long, nor the fire power necessary to carry on mass resistance as it pledged. However, Israel is not entirely innocent in this regard either, but more on that later.

As for the Israeli position in this current crisis, it is correct in saying no one should live in a situation of continual rocket fire. Additionally, there is truth in saying that Israel has every right to defend itself. On one more historic fact about the Jewish people as a whole, if we're attacked we fight back until we've exhausted the life out of ourselves, and we take the words, "Never Again," as being the reason that we will not let anyone try to harm us.  However, it does not excuse going overboard in retaliation strikes. Nor does it excuse the bombing deaths of kids.

Based off what I've seen online on CNN (via Youtube), it's fairly obvious that the political leadership has thought they can kill as many civilians as possible. The video is fairly graphic, so it's not for those who may become queasy from watching this kind of scene. These are Israeli military strikes in Gaza, only the people killed in this video were kids playing on the roof of their house. I'd hate this to be the scene that we see if we were attacked like this.

This is not to say that Israelis are in a cycle of fear and anguish of their own. They are, as a number of Hamas militants attempted to enter Israel through a tunnel connecting it to Gaza. Daily Rocket barrages and fears of attempted kidnappings are a daily reality many face in Southern Israel.