On this first morning of my summer vacation, I watched the sunrise. Check.

In their 2006 working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government professor Stephen Walt accuse AIPAC of being “the most powerful and best known” component of a larger pro-Israel lobby that, they say, distorts American foreign policy. They write: “AIPAC’s success is due to its ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it. … AIPAC makes sure that its friends get strong financial support from the myriad pro-Israel PACs. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. … The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress. Open debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

Cited on Wikipedia 

It seems very few have been willing to admit what we really knew all along: Barack Obama is just another American politician. He is not some savior of humanity, as some would like to portray him, and he is certainly not going to step on the toes of the corporate demons who fund his campaign.

In times such as these, when America is being ruled by a president who will do anything to please his corporate sponsors, whose policies have killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, sacrificed thousands of American soldiers, opened the door for torture, championed the imprisonment of innocent people, and welcomed the contempt and disgust of the entire world, there is something the American people need more than politics as usual.

The American people need morality and honesty. Above all else, a leader who is willing to do what is right and to speak the truth even when he does wrong is the type of leader who can truly turn this country and this race (the human one) away from the brink of extinction that it has now brought upon itself.

Instead, Obama has become glossy eyed with the prospect of becoming president and is willing to bend over backwards for Israel and the AIPAC, even if it means echoing Israel’s call to attack Iran, a country that has not invaded nor even threatened to attack another country (something even Iraq could not claim).

Obama sounds like Bush, albeit a more eloquent and intelligent upgrade from the first two Bush versions. He proudly proclaimed, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything.”

The evidence, Senator Obama, indicates that Iran is not even trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, so why even mention this? You might very well pressure Iran into doing the very thing you swear you will prevent them from doing. And what does “everything in my power” mean? Surely, a president’s power includes control over the military. Obama is threatening to attack Iran. That is not quite as strong as Hillary Clinton’s language, but the end result would be the same.

” … There is no greater threat to Israel or peace than Iran,” he went on to say.

Any intelligent (and honest) person can easily see that the greatest threat to Israel and peace is Israel itself. It is Israel that invaded Palestinian territory. It is Israel that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. It is Israel that committed massacres, one after another, against thousands of innocent Palestinians. It is Israel that continues to hold scores of Palestinians in dungeons, without any formal charges against them. It is Israel that has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, not the other way around. It is Israel with the track record of invading another country (Lebanon) and occupying it for 20 years, not Iran. It is Israel that has nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the NPT. It is Israel that has had over 40 U.N. resolutions passed against it condemning its atrocities, yet it refuses to take heed of any of them. It is Israel, Senator Obama, that forces the Palestinians to live in Apartheid-like conditions, and that is not just my opinion, Senator Obama. Former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, agree.

So like Reagan, Senator Obama, you are supporting yet another Apartheid regime, another regime that has acquired and is threatening to use its nuclear weapons against a country that is guilty only of defending the rights and lives of the Palestinian people when everyone else in the world, including you, Senator Obama, is unwilling, or too much of a coward, to do so.

Obama was not finished. He continued with, “This audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in support of Israel’s security. …”

Do we? Do Americans really care about Israel’s security while the policies of our own government continue to degrade our own security? Senator Obama wants us to believe that Israel is a symbiont inside of the heart of America, but there is another more appropriate name for such an organism: parasite.

“The Iran regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …”

If we really wanted to make this statement true, it should probably be uttered by the Iranian supreme leader, “The American regime supports violent extremists (Israel) and challenges us (Iran) across the region. It already has a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and …(blah blah blah)…”

Finally, Senator Obama either wants us to believe he is a complete idiot (just as Bush expects us to believe that about him) or he is a liar in the esteemed tradition of liars who have occupied the oval office, both republicans and democrats. Senator Obama decided to echo the propaganda that has infected our airwaves and television sets, “Its president denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map. … [M]y goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

I see no point in even trying to disprove this lie again. He never denied the Holocaust (he said that it should be studied by independent historians) and he certainly never threatened Israel (but rather said that Israel will fade from the pages of history).

So how, Senator Obama, do you plan to eliminate a threat that does not exist? I suppose you will do as other presidents before you have done: you will create one.

I’m certainly not voting for McCain, and unless Obama grows a conscience, I’m afraid he has lost my vote as well.

With the cost of gasoline being what it is, shouldn’t a water-powered car be on the front page of every news source?

“I get 100 miles to the ounce on water. I can run any water, distilled water, drinking water, tap water,” said Brown.

The self-proclaimed inventor said he has almost done the job and has fixed his car to run mostly on water, Firstcoastnews.com reported.

“Right now it’s using a little bit of gas. If anything it’s getting a fuel vapor. I’ve got the fuel injection system shut down,” said Brown.

“When you separate the water from the oxygen from the hydrogen, it cooks and it cooks down to a brown color. We’re not having any waste product off of it. Everything is consumed and burned,” he explained.

Brown said the invention would be complete within the next few months and the profits would be used to help missionaries around the world.

– First Coast News, Jacksonville
(emphasis is mine)

Turkey has once gain placed their so-called “secular” principles above the independence and human rights of their own people by once again upholding the ban on head scarves in universities.

Or lies if you prefer:

Grandfather: “If you’re good, maybe I’ll give you two some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

My 4-year-old daughter: “I don’t like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Grandfather: “Yes you do.”

Daughter: “No I don’t because they make me throw up.”

Not true of course.

Konqueror currently has a feature that allows you to preload an instance or even multiple instances of it. As a result, clicking the konqueror button brings up the window immediately, even on a slower machine.

Now the dolphin is the default file manager, it only makes sense to add this feature to dolphin.

We’ve had quite a bit of turbulence in our area lately. A storm last week ripped the roofs off of many buildings in our area. Many people were left without power or even homeless. By the grace of God, our neighborhood was spared. My prayers go out to any who were injured or displaced.

From Democracy Now:

McClellan went on to say President Bush had personally told him he authorized the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. McClellan says he asked President Bush aboard Air Force One if he was the one who approved outing Plame to the media. McClellan says Bush replied, “Yes, I was.”

McClellan would have to be crazy to lie about something like that, knowing that his very life could be in danger for even suggesting that Bush is a criminal.  Here we have a witness testifying to the public that Bush committed a federal crime (in addition to all of his war crimes), and they still will not impeach him?

Whatever little faith I had left in the democrat majority congress just leaked out onto the floor.

For those of you who don’t believe that Linux is making an impact on the PC market, you obviously haven’t been watching the actions of Microsoft. Every time a country announces they will switch their government computers to Linux, Microsoft is there literally begging them reconsider (by begging, I mean showering them with incentives). When it became clear that the Open Document Format (ODF) would make serious waves in the office software world, did Microsoft adopt it for their office suite? No, they created their own crippled version and swindled under-the-talbe deals to ISO officials to get it passed off as a “standard.”

Now, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program, which had the noble goal of trying to provide laptops to children in third world countries equipped with educational software running a customized version of Linux, has come under Microsoft’s scope. They knew what it would mean. Generations of young people would grow up not using Microsoft’s products. They could not allow this. They found it so damaging, so dangerous, that they’re practically giving Windows XP away (notice I said practically — they still intend to turn a profit) to what’s left of the project developers (apparently after the moral few were weeded out) to ensure that windows will make its way into every shack in the developing world.

Now these children will have laptops running bloated, battery hogging, soon to be no longer supported, security hole-filled software with little to no educational value (as you know Windows XP does not come with any office software or much else for that matter).

Thanks Microsoft. Once again you have managed to leave a bad taste in my mouth.