Sunday, March 23, 2014

Forget March Madness--The Dodgers are undefeated

++The L.A. Dodgers opened the season in Australia with two wins over the Diamondbacks. If you want to read about how the Diamondbacks liked Australia,just check out the Washington Post. If you want to know about Clayton Kershaw's first win and the Dodgers,read the L.A. Times.

++It was a wild week. Yes, Fred Phelps is really dead.

++Fox News reports that 138% of Americans disapprove of the way President Obama is dealing with the Ukraine situation.

++Forget the secession of Crimea from the Ukraine,the most important story for art fans and those who like to drink coffee in Europe's first coffee houses is the vote in Venice. Venice voted 89% to separate from Italy.

++The second most important secession story is about the Vikings in Scotland or inhabitants of the Shetland Islands who sided with the Scots' independence campaign.

++Erick Rush said that President Obama killed everyone on board the Malaysian airliner as a jihad against China. Bill O'Reilly attacked cable news for focusing on the Malaysian Airliner because the tragedy deflected from the IRS scandal and Benghazi.

++CNN had a psychic on that said the passengers were still alive and she had been hired to communicate with those that had died.

++Do yourself a favor and read Michigan judge Bernard Friedman's opinion declaring the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. A Reagan appointee , he eviscerates the anti-gay defendants on the issue that marriage is for procreation. He unravels this argument by saying that the law makes no provisions for nullifying the marriage of those who do not have children and then he lists by class and race all those who might not be good parents. He argued that ,according to the defendants,only rich,well-educated,Asian-Americans should marry. Yesterday, he postponed the implementation of his running until Wednesday,putting hundreds of marriages in limbo.

++It was a great week for oil. It was revealed that the Koch Brothers hold 1.1 million acres of Tar Sands, making them the largest lease holder in Canada. 

++It was also revealed that the FBI consulted with Transcanada on security threats to their proposed pipeline.

++ExxonMobil proclaimed that their billions of joint projects with Russia will go forward and that progress on the Crimean gas fields will be delayed until the situation settles down.

++Congress is urging that liquid gas ports be developed to export natural gas to Europe to undercut Russia. Th result would be gas prices would rise in the United States and the recovering manufacturing base in America would suffer.

++Russia is moving its focus on gas and oil to its Asian allies to alleviate the pain European and American sanctions will cause Moscow.

++The Ukrainian crisis has moved the United States to suggest there is an urgency to reaching a trade agreement with Western Europe. This would enable the United States to export natural gas and oil to Europe,

++House Republicans moved to prohibit President Obama from declaring any more national parts like he did in California. The reason--there could be oil on lands which he might be interested in.

++Hillary Clinton is said to have moved to the right of President Obama on foreign policy. More interesting is that yesterday, she urged that a grass-roots movement be created to fight climate change because that is an issue the next generation has to deal with. I thought 340.org was that movement. 

++Vice Magazine showed a video on the melting of Greenland, which will result in a massive surge on ocean tides.

++Nate the Great Silver is back with his website on ESPN. Nate predicts that the GOP has a slight advantage in picking up the Senate this year. His previous prediction was that it was a toss-up.

++This is the week that Putin declared the annexation of Crimea to be official. So what does that mean to our relationship? The nuclear arms treaties remain in place, Syria has already gotten rid of half it chemical weapons, and ,despite promising to sabotage the P5+1 talks over the Iranian nuclear program, the Iranian foreign minister said all things were on track to conclude an agreement on time.

++President Obama's step-by-step approach to the crisis with Russia didn't win the hearts of war hero Bill Kristol but it had some interesting results. Belarus, of all people, announced it want to join the E.U. Standard and Poors downgraded Russian bonds. The OSCE agreed to send observers to the Ukraine and Putin agreed. The Ukraine signed the European Association deal. Unfortunately this will mean they will have to undergo austerity measures. And the plutocrats in Moscow lined up for hours to see Putin and complain about the sanctions and his actions in Crimea.

++Vice President Biden flew to Lithuania to reassure the Baltic States that NATO would defend them. Western observers felt that Putin would test Estonia and the Transdniestr region of Moldova in his new Lebenstraum. Poland has asked for more NATO forces in Central Europe and the United States has agreed to supply Ukraine with arms. Putin has mobilized troops on the Ukrainian border and seized Ukrainian military posts in the Crimea. The United States has expressed fears about an invasion of the Ukraine. The United States and the EU will hold a G-7 meeting in the Netherlands after Angela Merkel declared that G-8 was suspended for now, meaning Russia was exiled.
Nato's chief Anders Rasmussen said events in the last week have been a "wake-up" call.

++In Israel, Bibi has told the Israeli armed force to prepare for an attack on Iran this year. He has allocated $3billion to the program. His defense minister loudly complained that Obama's policy was weak and feckless. Israel bombed Syrian positions on the Golan Heights and raided the largest tunnel from Gaza. 

++Pope Francis appointed his panel for investigating the "indiscretions of priests", meaning sex abuse.

++Uruguay announced there were accepting 5 prisoners from Gitmo.

++Bill Donohue of the Catholic League wants to march in New York's Gay Pride parade with a sign that says,"Straight is Great". The organizers agreed but Bill says they are putting too many conditions on his participation.

++Larry Sabato at Crystal Ball says Christie is dead and that the favored GOP presidential candidate is Jeb Bush.

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