It’s all about Style

President Obama on his world tour found many nations willing to join in his campaign and message to promote that there is a new sheriff in town in the USA. There is finally a President of the United States that is willing to listen to other nations rather than demand that they assimilate. There is finally a President of the United States that is willing to work with our allies rather than demand that they tow the line. There is finally a President that can and will listen to the rest of the world. There is finally a President of these United States of America that knows that we do not live in this world alone, that message is clear and obvious by the support President Obama has had in every country he has visited.

If you want the world to follow you, then you can not force them to do so by threatening them with a billy club mentality. President Bush used the “With us or against us” approach and it failed miserably. One does not deter terrorist actions by pissing off the leaders of nations that could stop terrorist actions internally with their own police forces. President Obama made nice nice with the folks overseas and he is coming back home to face many more battles on many more fronts. And he is up to the challenge. It is pretty clear to this writer that he is not afraid to answer or tackle any of the toughest issues facing his own people. As long as he is honest and straight forward with all of the people then he will have a Presidency that has never been seen in modern times.

The difference between Obama and Bush is night and day. One President told and dictated his desires and consequences followed, the other is listening and being a true statesman. Night and day and you can not argue how different these two Presidents are on policy. While Bush ruled from his gut, Obama is listening and learning from his heart. Big difference, HUGE!

Papamoka

Thanksgiving Thoughts

I’m hoping and praying that everyone that reads this post has family or friends to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with.

My family will have started the cooking event the night before with the pies courtesy of Mamamoka. Several of our girls were supposed to help Dad make the cranberry sauce but the only one that came up to bat at the stove soon became bored because Disney had a better form of entertainment on the television. I survived the process. Uncle Emeril has nothing on the Ocean Spray package instructions and recipe to make cranberry sauce from scratch.

I’m dreading the rest of the cooking but I’m looking forward to the meal, the smiles from my family and the pure joy of all of us together for this holiday. Having five daughters I plan to enlist many of them for active duty in peeling, prep work, dish washing and anything that will make the process of cooking the feast for Thanksgiving day easier for the cook. Post meal they will be called back for active duty to help with the clean up and like W I have no qualms about multiple enlistment.

Mom no longer cooks the turkey due to a near miss experience with a fire, a turkey, and a towel used as an oven mitt that caught fire, caught Mom’s pant’s on fire too. Long story short, she is in therapy and the fire department in the house was able to save her life but not the towel. She misses that towel and I miss her cooking the meal.

We have a few friends coming for dinner and we always enjoy their company. I’ve already told the kids that Daddy has dibs on the couch and the clicker but I have a feeling that the turkey and all the fixings will get the best of me and the NFL game will be turned to the Cartoon Network or some other diabolical anti learning channel. No matter, my eyes will be watching a private screening of whatever my little brain dreams up. HD has nothing on dreams.

From the Bay State to the world, I wish you the best of family and friends in what is the beginning of the holidays we all love the most. Except for the poor folks last standing at the sink washing and cleaning up after the chef. BACK TO YOUR POST!

Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you for reading our thoughts and creative works here at Papamoka Straight Talk. I’m thankful that my friend Mike Jones post’s his amazing works here and I’m thankful that he is my friend first. I’m personally thankful that you think this site is worthy of your time. Now shut the damn computer off and go enjoy your family and friends!

Papamoka

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YES, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE WAS THE MAIN REASON I VOTED IN 2006

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

There are those who condemn the Democrats for not ending the Iraq War upon assumption of Congressional power after the 2006 elections. I've always felt that, as unpleasant as it may be, we must be realistic about what Congress can actually do. A presidency without oversight for years is a dangerous thing. Restoring some semblance of that is constitutionally justified; an absolutely necessary.

Now we're being given a lesson in Congressional irresponsibility. Take your pick among the different stories, but I found this one by Brian Knowlton of the International Herald Tribune: U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER VOWS DEBATE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION.

WASHINGTON: The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives insisted Sunday that she would bring to the full chamber a resolution condemning the killings of Armenians nearly a century ago as genocide, even as a Turkish general warned that this could lastingly damage a military relationship crucial to American forces in Iraq.

A House committee Wednesday passed a nonbinding resolution declaring the killings, which began in 1915 in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, to be genocide, and the speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, said Sunday that "I've said if it passed the committee that we would bring it to the floor."

SNIP,

If Pelosi does bring the matter to the full House, probably late this month or next month, it would be "the most irresponsible thing" to come from Congress this year, said Representative John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, the House minority leader.

"There's no question that the suffering of the Armenian people some 90 years ago was extreme," he said on Fox-Television. But that chapter in Turkey's past, Boehner added, "ought to be a subject for historians to sort out, not politicians."

An ABC-TV interviewer put to Pelosi the tough question at the core of the debate: What if forcing a vote on the resolution were to endanger the security of American troops in Iraq?

"Some of the things that are harmful to our troops relate to values - Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, torture," said the California congresswoman, whose district includes thousands of Armenian-Americans. "Our troops are well-served when we declare who we are as a country and increase the respect people have for us as a nation."

SNIP,

Representative Steny Hoyer , Democrat of Maryland, the House majority leader, said he hoped Turks would understand that the resolution was not aimed at modern-day Turkey or its people. But he seemed to imply that the economic and political costs to Turkey of cutting off U.S. access might be so great that it might ultimately back down.

"Turkey's help to us is vital," he said on Fox TV, but "more vital is the United States' help to Turkey."

Eight former U.S. secretaries of state oppose the resolution, and on Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter joined them.

"I think if I was in Congress I would not vote for it," he said on CNN.

It's a strange day when I find myself in agreement with John Boehner, eight former secretaries of state, and former President Jimmy Carter. There are many definitions of maturity, one of them being the process of anticipating the consequences of our actions before we actually take such actions.

As someone with an avid interest in history, I am always saddened and outraged by man's inhumanity to man. Josef Stalin once said that killing one man is murder; killing a million is a statistic. Stalin was right and wrong; when the numbers of victims reach into the millions it is impossible to grasp the true horror of mass deaths.

But let me say that I am horrified by the needless deaths of millions of Irish during the great hunger of the 19th century. The Irish "Famine" as it's known is not accurate because while people were literally collapsing and dying from hunger, wheat was being exported from that country. The Holocaust, the systematic extermination of Jews, the millions murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the millions slaugtered by Stalin BEFORE World War II, the millions who died under the tutelage of that moron Mao Tse Tung, the suffering of Native Americans......I could go on for pages and never finish listing all the atrocities.

The suffering of the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century was no less nor no more horrible than other instances of the callous application of power. For the Congress to take up a resolution NOW, aimed at what is purported to be an important ally which just happens to be a NEIGHBOR OF IRAQ, is one of the more bone-headed things I've ever heard of.

Like it or not, foreign policy is determined by the president. It is not wise, or mature, for Congress to alienate a nation that the president is trying to work with during combat operations. For this I voted for Democrats in 2006? I don't think so.

One comedian said that Congress was issuing a strong warning to the Ottoman Empire. But it's true, that's exactly what they're doing. How stupid would it appear if Congress passed a resolution condemning Britain for what happened in Ireland between 1854 and 1865? What purpose would it serve other than to unnecessarilly anger and alienate a nation that only shares the name of those who caused such suffering?

For once in his life John Boehner is right: it is a matter for historians, not politicians to debate. Nancy Pelosi is illustrating Harry Truman's point about a "do nothing Congress."

More precisely, this Congress is turning out to be more of a "do something worse than nothing."

Is there such a thing as a voter's refund?
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Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones.com

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