Israel's Ordeal

The Promised Land ?

When David slew Goliath, with a single shot from his sling, Israel’s determination to defend itself was everlastingly punctuated.

That event is purported to have occurred about 1,500 years before the birth of Christ. When the Jews escaped from bondage in Egypt, Moses led them to the Promised Land, where by happenstance, the Philistines were also endeavoring to establish themselves.

What defies credence is the enormity of suffering that Israelis have undergone since their tribal origin along the Euphrates river. No matter where Jews settle, they are ostracized, persecuted and even massacred. And since 1948, when with U.N. approval they re-established themselves in Israel, they have been under constant attack by the Islamists who surround them. Worse, they are now threatened with nuclear extinction, by Iran. While Jews ask for nothing but human understanding, except for the United States, the world keeps its back turned on them.

But now that the newly elected President of the United States is Barack Hussein Obama, an Afro American, sired in Hawaii by an itinerant, Kenyan Muslim, what new fate has destiny prepared for Israel? While we ponder that question, let us not forget that for the past several decades, Israel has depended almost exclusively on America for its continuing survival!

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Obama's Flaw Revisited

Please re-read my December 11th Post
“Obama’s Fatal Flaw”

In it, you will discover that I have clearly discerned Barack Obama’s pathological propensity to be drawn to (and manipulated by) strong, impulse driven people. Though not yet in office, he is showing once again how vulnerable he is to such people. Sadly, unless he can correct this flaw, the initiative he plans to exercise as president, will be seriously attenuated.

Look closely at the Governor Blagojehvich travesty. Here, with what should have been a routine transfer of his own senate seat to an appointee, Obama has allowed himself to become helplessly, and perhaps hopelessly, entangled in an ongoing fiasco that is still wildly unfolding. Isn’t it past time for him to see that the “CHANGE” he keeps proclaiming for us, needs to start with himself?

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SPQR

Senatus Populusque ? ? ?

With Obama’s vacant Illinois Senate seat being offered to the highest bidder and Clinton’s New York seat being token-tendered, to the dynastic, multi-millionaire Caroline Kennedy, we have cause to be more than just a little concerned. Although we must depend on a bi-cameral Congress for our legislation, it seems that of the two, only the House of Representatives shows any semblance of political relevance. Our "House of Lords" Senate continues to prosper and fester in a chronic state of irrelevance.

States with diverse political views, often reflect their divergence by the composition of the delegations they elect. And because Representatives are elected for two year terms, they do tend to have a more actively current orientation than those posturing Senators who use their chamber to grow rich, old and hoary. But it is particularly disturbing when both senators are from the same party, because when that happens the opposing views in that state get short shrift by the Senate.

Bogged down by counter-productive disparities, Congress ought to think seriously about abolishing its perpetually divisive political aisles and start generating inspired ideas that do not have to carry a party label. Especially now, during these critical but astonishingly fertile times, our Senate should be able to tolerate more than just two political viewpoints at a time?

If the U.S. Senate appears to have become functionally redundant, don’t let’s blame it on our founding fathers!

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Obama's Fatal Flaw!

Is denouement setting in?

In two of my previous postings, Hail to Obama and Enter the Jackass, I clearly described what may be Obama’s fatal flaw; his injudiciousness in his choice of unsavory, scheming, impulse driven associates and his reluctance to repudiate them until he is compelled to do so by a groundswell of public disapproval. I am referring, of course to his attachment to people like Reverend Wright, Father Pfleger, Terrorist Ayers, Unscrupulous Rezko and others. And let’s not leave out his wife, whom he never publicly admonished for repeatedly declaring how ashamed she is to be an American.

And now begins to unfold the saga of Blagojehvich, the Illinois Governor who has been so avidly and so surreptitiously seeking for the highest remunerator, to sit in Obama’s now vacant Senate seat. Although Obama has not (yet) been singled out by the U.S. Attorney for complicity in this matter, is it possible that while everyone in Chicago’s political circles was aware of the Governor’s outrageous quest for high magnitude reimbursement, Obama knew nothing about it? Indeed, as a serious disclaimer, isn’t it really even worse for him to say, he didn’t know what everyone else knew?

Let’s face it, Obama has been propped, prepped, prompted, protected and promoted by nearly all of our ubiquitous, liberal oriented media. Faced with that reality, his political opponents have had to walk a tightrope of restraint to avoid being accused of racism. That left him unchallenged and essentially unexamined. And having had no serious competition, he is now our President to be.

>|< Pschodynamics >|<

I see a basically passive Obama with an undeniably strong and imprudent proclivity to attach himself to unscrupulous, aggressive, impulse driven people. Perhaps timorous about acting out himself, he may be drawing vicarious satisfaction from the behavior of his chosen associates. If he remains insensitive to this critical vulnerability, high level schemers and plotters can be expected to cozy up to him from every direction. His administration will almost certainly reflect their aberrant, self-serving influences.

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Roasted Chestnuts

Good ole Google!
How did we ever manage
before you came onto the scene?

While at the A&P the other day, my attention was drawn to a great big basket, filled with freshly imported chestnuts. I purchased a pound and returned home as quickly as I could.

How to roast them? - I remembered that my mother used to make criss/cross cuts on the chestnut tops and she baked them. But at what temperature and for how long? I didn’t know. I called around and asked among friends and family. I got conflicting answers. Even my cookbooks failed me.

So . . . do what comes naturally these days, ask Google. Sure enough, that awesome program brought me quickly to how chestnuts should be nuked in the 21st century. Article after article described how to criss/cross cut them and cook 3 or 4 of them for about 30 seconds in the Microwave. For my wife and me, four chestnuts are ample, after they are cooked, shelled, sectioned and sprayed with pepper and salt.

Here’s to you Google, you never fail to bring warmth, goodness and enlightenment to this crotchety, grateful old nonagenarian.

And by the way, dear reader, “Google News” is in a class by itself. Culled from an endless and diverse plethora of sources, it will one day get everyone to become more informed and less biased. I’ve placed the Google News hyperlink on my blog’s opening page, for your convenience.

Comment: mailto:domgab1914@comcast.net

Danger: Congress at Work!

Please, Virgil
Lead US out of this Inferno!

With one malicious and grossly irresponsible observation, Congress, in its pathetically hapless efforts to re-invigorate our economy, may have inadvertently dealt a mortal blow to the entire corporate jet industry.

By ridiculing our auto industry’s CEOs for flying to the congressional hearings in their corporate jets, our legislators injudiciously revealed their naivete and their abysmal absence of understanding of our planet's modern, global economy. It was as though they were crowded at the windows in the caboose of an ancient freight train and pointing maligning fingers at planes flying overhead. It probably has not yet occurred to these gesticulators that they have perhaps, forever forfeited the freebie rides they have always so eagerly sought from corporations and were usually so generously given.

Congress! Stop posturing! Start cerebrating! You keep treading in quicksand and you are taking all of US with you!

That mindless glance by Congress at the role currently played by corporate jets saw only flamboyance and needless extravagance, but intelligent, unpoliticized scrutiny reveals that these planes are a vital and indispensable cog in the gears of our present day global politico-economy.

Comment: mailto:domgab1914@comcast.net

Awesome Coincidence!

Dear Readers:

I received what follows in an e-letter forwarded to me by a friend. That letter concluded with a recommendation that each of its readers re-forward it to their own e-letter groups. I decided, however, to broaden my distribution of this remarkable centenary of coincidences, by publishing it in The Horn. To see more about this subject, amble over to Google and you will be amazed at the number of articles there that refer to these tragic events. But what truly puzzles me about this string of coincidences, is that nowhere among them did the usually ubiquitous Archangel Gabriel, make a single appearance.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946

Lincoln was elected President in 1860

Kennedy was elected President in 1960

Both Presidents were shot in the head on a Friday
Both Presidents were shot adjacent to their wives

Lincoln’s Secretary was named Kennedy
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln

Both presidents were northerners
Both assassins were southerners
Both successors were Johnsons

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln was born in 1808
Lyndon Johnson who succeeded Kennedy was born in 1908

John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin was born in 1839
Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin was born in 1939

Both assassins were known by their three names
Both assassins’ names contain 15 letters

Lincoln was shot in a theater named Ford
Kennedy was shot in a car made by Ford

Lincoln was shot in a theater
and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse
and his assassin ran and hid in a theater

Booth was assassinated before his trial
Oswald was assassinated before his trial

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was (in) Monroe, Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot he was (with) Marilyn, Monroe

U.S. Presidents Garfield and McKinley were also assassinated
but similar lists of coincidences have not yet been worked out

Although this awesome string of circumstances is startling beyond belief, to endeavor to postulate a mysterious significance to them would be pointless and foolhardy.

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