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Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

From Russia...Love Withheld

Pretty interesting news yesterday, it seems that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as arrested 10 people. The Washington Post has a story on it as well as most news agencies.

While I am very interested in this story. I am not surprised by the news at all. Vladimir Putin is the current Prime Minister of Russia but that is only because he had already served two terms as President. So, when he ran up against a term limit issue he hand picked his successor, Dmitry Medvedev , and became Prime Minister a position that I believe has no term limits. Putin is old school KGB he joined up in 1975 and, I feel, is Cold War all the way. I think that America has not been as diligent as they should have been in dealing with him. For us to think that just because the Soviet Union fell apart means that Russia wants to be our friend is short sighted and really dangerous. The international world is not a safe place and these countries that have long been our enemies, Russia and China, to name just two, are not going to sit on their hands while we devote all of our time and considerable resources to the Middle East.

Now, I realize that part of the problem is that the Middle East is sitting, due to no fault of ours, on our oil and we need it to run our cars and big machines. But I think if we continue to act like Russia and China are countries that we do not need to be concerned about we are going to be in big trouble in the next few years.

I believe that there has been an 11th arrest in the Russian spy case and I bet there is going to be more. This case is going to be something to keep an eye on and I am sure that both sides of the American political coin are going to be spinning it for all it is worth. But, I do not think these arrests are intended to discredit President Obama, this is a far bigger issue then mere political maneuvering and if that is the sole intent of these arrests then we as a country deserve what is coming to us.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thursday

Hello again, hello. I am coming to you today from the chair in the living room. I am driving to work today so I thought I would get something out rather then skipping it entirely.

I tried to watch the Daily Show last night. I noticed it was on and thought I usually enjoy that so I will watch it again. But I am not sure what happened. There were parts that I found humorous but overall it really seemed to be lacking for me. There was a section of the show where Jon Stewart was talking about the first speaking engagement of our last President Bush. Now I am well aware of the idea that President Bush as a public speaker does lend itself to some humor but in this case the Daily Show seemed almost mean about it. I think what bothered me is that I like things to be a little clever. I am not above mocking someone or something and I often find that kind of humor pretty funny. But, this seemed pretty mean spirited. Which, while they are a comedy show, seemed out of line from a show that has largely risen above the pettiness that seems to have infested the other political shows like Olbermann and Beck.

The new just showed President Obama at Dover Air force Base he was there to honor some of the latest soldiers that were killed in Afghanistan I believe. It was interesting to me because they showed him saluting as a coffin was carried past. Now I believe that in the years prior to Vietnam they used to show the coffins of dead military personal on the news as sort of a tribute to there efforts on behalf of the country. But, I think, correct me if I am wrong that the amount of military killed and the anger the Vietnam was generating caused the presidential administration at the time to move to stop the practice. I wonder if we should go back to showing the service men and woman come home. I think that it is to easy to forget that we have people dying on foreign soil and in a America whose military is composed of volunteers it really seems easy to forget that the people who are being killed are more then just statistics.

They just mentioned on the news that the United Nations General Assembly voted against the U. S. embargo of Cuba. This is not a surprise the vote was 187-3 with only Israel and Palau supporting the U. S., I find this interesting because this is the 18th year in a row that they have condemned it. My problem with the embargo is that if we were being consistent about how we were treating communist countries we would be embargoing China instead of Cuba. I submit that China by far is a bigger threat to us. I will grant you that Castro is not a nice man and he is not deserving of our friendship but it just makes no logical sense for us to treat China differently then Cuba. Wait let me note that it makes economic sense because Cuba does not have millions of dollars of our debt and American companies doing business there.

That's all I got folks, have a good day.