Snipped from the huffingtonpost.com.

In reviewing the news on the Huffington Post, I came across an article by Bill Maher that while it made me laugh, it probably makes more sense than all the politics in Washington put together. Bush and Co. belabor their premise that we need to fight terrorists in Iraq so that it won’t become a base for terrorism. Well, has anyone checked to see how much of the fight in Iraq is with al-Qaeda? It amazes me that it is never brought up in the news media or that no one will challenge this premise. Well, Maher brings it up and makes a great point about how the hell we can fight al-Qaeda and get out of Iraq at the same time.

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The really do care, right?

We must be in an alternative universe because it was reported over the weekend that big business is actively seeking more government regulation. When did big business suddenly get a conscience? Do you think it is possible for corporate interests to give a flip about consumer safety? Well, think again, because they’re recent pleas for more safety regulation is not all that it’s cracked up to be. What is really behind their recent change of heart, is that they suddenly realized that product recalls and potential legal backlashes from unsafe products just may not be good for the bottom line … to hell with the consumer. Now they have jumped on the regulation bandwagon. So, what are they really up to?

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We all love trivia. Some of us are better than others when involved with trivia games. Whenever I watch any of the game shows or watch someone fill out a crossword puzzle effortlessly, I am amazed. I don’t know how people do it.

I came across a list of trivia questions the other day that were particularly humorous. So, I thought I would share them with my favorite people–Blog4Brains’ readers. So, enjoy. Maybe they will even make you smile. By the way, the answers are at the bottom of the list.

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I don’t know if you are a fan of Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s Countdown, but he usually hits the nail right on the head. I really like his hard hitting, unabashed assessments of Bush and his war. Recently he did a piece on the way that Bush keeps spinning the war to make us believe that he is “on board” and is sympathetic to the American publics’ cry for troop reductions. With the latest spin cycle aggressively promoting his alleged surge success, Bush is relentless in his “bully pulpit” side shows calling for “more time” and with hints of “some” troop reductions. But underneath his empty promises lies a man bent on keeping us in Iraq indefinitely. What this all boils down to is more of the same and more time, no matter what. If you aren’t sure about this, then would having Bush state that he wants a permanent presence in Iraq in his own words convince you? Well, that’s exactly what Bush has said and it’s in print.

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Snipped from EditorAndPublisher.com.

What is really going on in Iraq? We may never know. Why? Because the mainstream media is a puppet of the conglomerate corporate world in which they paint reality as they want it to be painted, not as it is. If anyone ever thought that war was not a profitable enterprise for big business, then you better think again. War is good for business. And, those that profit, even indirectly, will do anything to keep it going. Sound unreal? No, it isn’t. There is one man who is tired of all the whitewash and who sought out the truth by digging for it on the internet. What he found was made into a docu-drama about what is really gong on in Iraq.

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I don’t know if you have been paying attention to the skyrocketing executive compensation packages that have been in the news lately. What really got my attention was the fact that the top 20 equity and hedge fund managers raked in an average of $657.5 million. Or to put it in terms we can understand, that’s 22,255 times the pay of the average worker. If you look at the top executives in the Fortune 500 companies, they averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, which is 365 times the pay of the average American worker. Now, to further put that into perspective, workers at the lowest rung of the economic ladder just got their first federal minimum wage hike in a decade which amounts to only a paltry $2.10 per hour. Where is America headed and how does it hurt the fabric of society?

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Snipped from FollowTheMoneyProject.org.

As an American taxpayer, I am disgusted with the nonchalant attitude of George W. in his never ending request for more money for the Iraq War. Not too long ago Bush got $147 Billion with his “supplemental” money that the Democrats rolled over on. And, every time Bush asks for money, he plays the “support the troops” card and makes it sound like if he doesn’t get the money, the troops will suffer. How many times is he going to use this tactic? I guess as many times as the Democrats fall for it. But the truth is that the additional $50 Billion he is asking for will not help the troops. What has been proven is that it goes elsewhere. You will be surprised at where all the money goes.

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Here we go again. Another hideous legacy from another catastrophic war which never should have happened. I don’t know if you guys remember the devastating effects of agent orange on returning Vietnam vets’ health that the government denied for a couple of decades. Well, it was real after all, and even became known as the Gulf War Syndrome. Now we have an even more serious and deadly attack on our U.S. soldiers and it’s not from IEDs or bullets. It’s called “depleted uranium” and it comes from exploded tanks and armored vehicles. This is the stuff that the U.S. military is most proud of because it is very effective at penetrating armored vehicles. It accomplishes its task by using radioactive chemicals which are known as depleted uranium. What happens is as these munitions explode they diffuse a substance that hits the air as fine dust which is easily inhaled. Of course, again, the Pentagon is denying that any ill health has resulted from depleted uranium. So, what is going on with our returning soldiers that is causing them to die from extremely aggressive cancers?

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Snipped from the HuffingtonPost.com.

Well, here we go again. Japan is surpassing us and this time it’s in broadband access. Compared to the U.S. Japan has access that is 30 times faster than the U.S. As a result, we are being left in the dust when it comes to “experiencing innovation and enjoying applications that Americans simply don’t have access to.” In Japan, you can watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the internet. All we have is grainy, wallet-sized images. With Japan’s ultra-high-speed applications, they are introducing into the market low-cost, high-definition teleconferencing and telemedicine which allows doctors to diagnose diseases remotely. And, their advanced telecommuting is helping Japan reach their target of doubling the number of people who work from home by 2010. So, what happened to the U.S.?

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Snipped from WashingtonPost.com.

Is there no stopping a man who thinks he has a mandate from God? No, because he feels there is no higher authority–not Congress, not the American people and not even his own Intelligence Estimates and now the Government Accountability Office…oh wait, of course he would ignore that one since neither he, nor any of his people, have been accountable for anything. The GAO draft reported in the Washington Post paints a bleak picture of what is going on in Iraq and more pointedly comments on the success of the “surge”. Does it surprise anyone out there that it will be in stark contrast to what the White House will cook up next month? So, what does the GAO have to say?

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