J's Cafe Nette

Archive for August 2nd, 2007

So, it’s your first kiss and several questions might come to mind:

Is it the right time?

Is anyone watching?

Does your partner even want to?

Is your breath fresh?

And… Should you use some tongue?

Then you lean in and just go for it…..!!!

Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet This Post

From Wednesday’s Omega Letter comes something to think about.

Special Report: Inscrutable China

The world’s attention — particularly the Western world’s attention — is laser-focused on the threat posed by Islamic extremism and the war on terror.

The bulk of US intelligence gathering, the bulk of its forward deployed assets, the majority of its money and resources are devoted to the Middle East and Iran.

Somewhere, off in the periphery, there is a nagging awareness of big trouble brewing from China, but China is so far away (and so big!) and, after all, the Chinese aren’t shooting at us. Muslim extremists are.

The Islamic problem is enormous. If only ten percent of world-wide Islam is sympathetic to the aims of al-Qaeda, that equates to some 120 million Islamic enemies — a ratio of one Islamic fighter per to every three Americans, including women and children and grandparents.

And at the heart of it all is the Israeli-Arab conflict, which threatens to spill over into open warfare again before the year is out. That could bring about an all out conflict in the heart of the Middle East, and, in a worst-case scenario, one involving nuclear weapons. The danger is so acute that it occupies the full attention of the “Quartet” consisting of the UN, EU, and Russia with the US as the lead negotiator.

China is taking an arm’s length approach to the Middle East, leaving it to occupy the West and Russia’s attention. And, since it is not actively involved in the global war on terror, China manages to stay ‘off the radar.’ But still, there is that nagging sense that China is up to no good — but that will have to wait for now.

China is like the elephant in the living room that everybody is trying unsuccessfully to ignore. No matter where you turn, there it is.

China’s trade imbalance threatens the stability of the dollar. Chinese products are dangerously defective. Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet This Post

I know this story sounds hopeful for peace in the Mid-East, but I just don’t buy it.

Until the Saudis and all Muslim countries recognize Israel’s right to exist there will be no peace in the Mid-East.

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt — Saudi Arabia expressed interest yesterday in attending a Middle East peace conference proposed by President Bush, a move that would put its delegates at the same table with their Israeli counterparts for the first time since the founding of the Jewish state.

“We are interested in a peace conference that deals with the substantive matters of peace,” Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said at a press conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who are making a rare joint visit to the region to seek help stabilizing Iraq.

“If [the planned conference] does so, it becomes of great interest for Saudi Arabia and, should we then get an invitation from the secretary to attend that conference, we will look very closely and very hard at attending the conference,” he said.

I’ve read too much Bible prophecy to believe anything good will come of this on a lasting basis, so yes, I’m a skeptic.

My only question is what is Saudi Arabia’s hidden motive? Maybe now it is to be in the peace process, but they will never recognize Israel’s right to exist and unless they can do that there can be no peace.

Tweet This Post

Excuse me, but isn’t the fact President Bush “invaded” Iraq, a great friend of the United States and a fighter of terrorism with a benevolent dictator, the thing all the Democrats and half the Republicans are griping about these days?

Well now. We have Sen. Barack Obama saying he will be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

Pakistan? Out of Iraq and into Pakistan? Not Afghanistan where all the Democratic candidates for president say we should be instead of Iraq?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country’s military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won,” he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, “The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Obama’s warning to Musharraf drew sharp criticism from several of his rivals for the Democratic nomination, but not from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Obama delivered a biting critique of President Bush’s conduct of the war in Iraq and of the administration’s overall strategy for combating terrorism, while seeking to reassure Americans that his long-stated opposition to the Iraq war would not compromise his commitment to defending the country from the threat of Islamic extremists.

As I’ve said before, it’s fun being the clown in the circus until you have to run the circus. Barack Obama is not yet ready for prime time.

Let’s bring our troops home to Pakistan?

One thing Barack Obama needs to remember is Pakistan is a nuclear power. You don’t provoke countries with nuclear capabilities.

Tweet This Post

It’s no secret among people who have been following Rupert Murdoch’s bid to purchase Dow Jones which owns The Wall Street Journal that the New York Times has been against the deal and has lost in its effort to stop it.

It’s also no secret among people who are honest with themselves that the New York Times is no lover of the GOP or of Rudy Giuliani.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise to me that, absent the headline on the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the New York Times would have had its page one headline today be what has been pushed down on the page a bit: “In Fox News, Giuliani Finds a Friendly Stage”.

So WHAT? Is it a crime for someone to appear on a news channel more than someone else? Read the rest of this entry »

Tweet This Post

A conservative talk show host that has completely gone off the edge. There will never be civility in this country as long as people like this are around. I’ll bet that there is a lot of people out there who are more than happy to associate themselves with the likes of Michael Savage or the Turks on air american.

On the July 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage reacted to news that Chief Justice John Roberts had suffered a seizure that day by raising the possibility that “his health was in some way tampered with by the Democrats.” Savage said, “Something’s wrong with this picture,” after noting that Roberts’ seizure occurred just three days after Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said he would seek in general to reject any future Supreme Court nomination made by President Bush. Schumer told the American Constitution Society (ACS) in a July 27 speech: “I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.” Schumer said that, since the confirmation of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the court had come to represent “what a diminishing clique of conservative ideologues wish for.”

Savage asked, “Am I to believe there’s no connection between Charles Schumer on Friday saying he would never appoint, or never, excuse me, approve another Bush appointment to the court, to any court? And then the chief justice suffers a so-called seizure two days later? You’re telling me there’s no possibility of a conspiracy by the Democrats to have caused this seizure in some manner?” He added: “Tell me it’s not possible, and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.”

Story

Tweet This Post

This is an editorial by David S. Broder.

It is rare that a retirement announcement by a single back-bench member of the minority party in the House of Representatives sends shock waves through the whole chamber. But that was the reaction last week when Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois put out word that this would be his final term.

LaHood is not a familiar figure to most Americans, because he isn’t a Newt Gingrich or a Duke Cunningham. He has never occupied a leadership position or been involved in a juicy scandal — usually the only ways to stand out among 435 members.

But he embodies the characteristics that make the House work as an institution. He takes care of his constituent duties, he carries more than his share of the legislative workload, and — most important — he cultivates the kind of personal relationships that build trust across partisan and ideological lines.

In this era of polarized politics, fewer and fewer members of the House fit that description. So when LaHood, who is only 61, announced that he is leaving after seven terms, it signaled trouble for the House — if not for his Republican Party.

The central Illinois district he represents, stretching from his home city of Peoria south through rich farm country to the state capital of Springfield, regularly delivers solid GOP majorities. But no new Republican can really replace LaHood in the dynamics of the House.

This is a man so thoroughly schooled in the rules of procedure, and so trusted by both Republicans and Democrats, that he was the natural choice to preside over the House during the explosive days when it was debating the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Story

Tweet This Post

Can you believe this? . These are the last people in the world, except for Congress, who deserve a raise .

Before paying $48,823 in cash bonuses to its chief of regulatory affairs in 2005, the Food and Drug Administration asked her to sign a simple declaration: “If I am unable to receive a retention allowance, I am likely to leave the federal government for a higher paying position in the private sector,” wrote Margaret O’K. Glavin.

Glavin’s statement did not detail a specific job offer, but that did not impede the payment. Over the past 4 1/2 years, she has collected more than $178,000 in cash bonuses — on top of her $159,840 annual salary.

FDA officials justified Glavin’s bonuses by saying her pay should be close to the salaries of those employed by companies she regulates, namely Washington lobbyists. The private-sector comparison has prompted large cash bonuses for top agency officials to quadruple since 2002, to $13.6 million in 2005, according to FDA officials and salary information provided to Congress.

The bonuses were paid during a rough patch at the FDA, encompassing a shortage of flu vaccine and embarrassing recalls of the pain-relieving drug Vioxx and malfunctioning heart defibrillators. Throughout, the agency repeatedly insisted that it lacked the resources to conduct adequate food and drug inspections.

Story

Tweet This Post

MINNEAPOLIS — An interstate bridge jammed with rush-hour traffic suddenly broke into huge sections and collapsed into the Mississippi River Wednesday, pitching dozens of cars 60 feet into the water and killing at least seven people.

The eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge, a major Minneapolis artery, was in the midst of being repaired and two lanes in each direction were closed when the bridge buckled.

“There were two lanes of traffic, bumper to bumper, at the point of the collapse. Those cars did go into the river,” Minneapolis Police Lt. Amelia Huffman. “At this point there is nothing to suggest that this was anything other than a structural collapse.”

Jamie Winegar of Houston was sitting in traffic shortly after 6 p.m. when all of a sudden she started hearing “boom, boom, boom and we were just dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping.”

The car she was riding in landed on top of a smaller car but did not fall into the water. She said her nephew yelled, “‘It’s an earthquake!’ and then we realized the bridge was collapsing.”

Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack said 60 people were taken to area hospitals for treatment and that the death toll could rise.

Rescuers called off the search as nightfall made it too dangerous to search the waters filled with chucks of the mangled bridge and at least 50 vehicles in the water.

“We think there are several more vehicles in the river we can’t see yet,” Clack said, adding that the likelihood of finding survivors was slim.

Dr. Joseph Clinton, emergency medical chief at Hennepin County Medical Center, said his hospital treated 28 injured people — including six who were in critical condition.

Clinton said at least one of the victims had drowned.

The Homeland Security Department also said the collapse did not appear to be terrorism-related. The National Transportation Safety Board planned to send a team of investigators to Minneapolis, NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said.

I pray there are no more deaths, but who knows at this point but God?

Just everyday people going about their business one minute and finding themselves in the river the next.

Everyone please be in prayer for the living victims and for the families of those injured and killed.

Story here.

Update:The death toll has been lowered to 4.

Tweet This Post