Cigars...?*

President Obama announced the most significant change in U.S. policy toward Cuba in more than 50 years, paving the way for the normalization of relations and the opening of a U.S. Embassy in Havana.

Obama said "we will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests.  Instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries."These 50 years have shown, isolation has not worked. 

Obama said as these changes unfold, he will talk to Congress about lifting the embargo on Cuba. The U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, shortly after Fidel Castro and his communist rebels ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista.

This decision deserves the respect and recognition of our people," Castro said. However, this "does not mean that the most important issue has been resolved. The embargo on our country ... has to end."

The same "know it all" came out against the decision. So much talk, but the Republicans’ outcry against the new policy contradicts their own faith in the power of free market economies.   

Nobody dared to approach this issue for years. Obama did.   Just a thought.

Block it...*

Image is not related.

Two Australian brothers aged 16 and 17 were stopped at Sydney Airport on suspicion of headed to join the Iraq conflict. 

"These two are kids, not killers, and they shouldn't be allowed to go to a foreign land to fight, then come back more radicalized," Dutton told reporters. The boys' parents were "as shocked as any of us would be" 

Australians who fight for foreign militant groups face prosecution at home. It became a criminal offense punishable by 10 years in prison for an Australian to enter the Islamic State-held territory without a legitimate reason. " My message to anyone who is listening to the death cult is block your ears. Don't even begin to think you can leave" Australia.

The government said at least 90 Australians were fighting with and supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria and have had their passports canceled. More than 20 Australians have been killed, that is 23% and the rest is facing the same difficulties. Its a serious choice.

Just a thought.

Meet Him..*

A new poll finds the businessman with both his broadest support and his widest lead in any national live-interviewer telephone poll since he announced his candidacy in June.

Three candidates cluster behind Trump in the mid-teens,  Ted Cruz at 16%, Ben Carson at 14% and Marco Rubio at 12%. All other candidates have the support of less than 5% of GOP voters.

The poll reflects Trump's dominance over the rest of the field. He holds massive margins over other Republicans as the candidate most trusted to handle the economy, the federal budget, illegal immigration, ISIS and foreign policy.

Carson (down 8 points), Jeb Bush (down 5 points to 3%) and Rand Paul (down 4 points to 1%)

The poll was conducted before the shootings in San Bernardino, California, but this will potentiate Trump position further more. 

All tried to dismiss Trump in favor of others, but his tackling the issues that the Country is concern about set him up in first place. The Economy, Immigration, Social services, Unemployment, the Middle east, the Federal Budget, Healthcare for the poor, etc. put him up on top.

Presidents Carter, Regan, Clinton, and Obama reach the top of their political career from just an entry level., Trump is on his way. Who knew?  Just a thought.... [Written December 4th., 2015]

The Face...

Ten-year-old Maggie Momen clings to life in a Cairo hospital four days after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Sunday Mass packed with women and children.

She had gone with her family to the St. Peter and St. Paul Church. At the part of the service when worshippers turn to each other, shake hands and offer forgiveness, the bomber stepped in, turning a moment of shared mercy into a scene of unspeakable carnage.

As Egypt's Christian community and the country struggle to come to terms with the attack, Momen has become the face of their grief, with pictures of the smiling child circulating on social media alongside prayer requests.  [foxnews]

Religion...*

Freedom of religion is a political principle that strives to forbid government constraint on people's choices of beliefs. It requires also that people be free to act upon their beliefs. Religious freedom includes the freedom to worship, to print instructional material, to train teachers and to organize groups for their employment and schools in which to teach, including religion.

Religions and religious beliefs have played a significant role in the political life. Religion has been at the heart of some of the best and some of the worst movements in history. Many of the early colonists fled religious persecution in their former countries and cherished their right to worship, as they believed in their new country.

Freedom of religion is considered to be a fundamental human right. In a country with a state religion, freedom of religion is generally considered to mean that the government permits religious practices of other sects besides the state religion, and does not persecute believers in other faiths. But how much of this is true in the oil countries?   Just a thought.

Loon Wolf...*

Boston Marathon Terror victim and rescuer.

The relentless series of mass killings across the globe poses a challenge for experts. Terms like contagion and copycat killing apply in some cases, and in certain instances perpetrators' terrorist ideology intersects with psychological instability.

The coordinated assault on multiple targets in Paris last November, were elaborately planned operations. However, they may have contributed to some of the other attacks by troubled individuals with no established ties to the militant group.

J. Reid Meloy, a San Diego-based forensic psychologist, said some of the attackers appear to have identified with terror organization as an outlet for their own seething emotions.

"In virtually every one of these cases, there was a deeply held personal grievance - loss, anger, humiliation," Meloy said. "When they come across terror group material, they're stimulated by that. They can take their personal grievance worldwide."

Two different syndromes could be surfacing in the series of attacks - contagion, in which one attack rapidly inspires imitation attacks, and copycat incidents, in which an individual seeks to emulate a previous perpetrator.

In Germany the deadliest of four recent attacks was carried out by an 18-year-old German-Iranian who killed nine people in Munich. Police said the young man had researched previous mass attacks, including the rampage in Norway that killed 77 people exactly five years before the Munich attack.

The attacker who killed 84 people in Nice, France, by driving through a holiday crowd was described as a psychologically troubled and violent man, not linked directly to any terror group. But what had been a history of domestic violence and petty crime took on darker implications with his decision to use a truck as a killing machine.

Max Abrahms, a terrorism analyst who teaches political science at Northeastern University, has been using the term "loon wolf" to depict individuals whose attacks are as much the product of mental instability as of any form of radical ideology.

"Historically, governments were looking for people who seemed to be undergoing radicalization," he said. "Now, we're looking at people committing similar acts, but in some cases with no evidence they were being radicalized and maybe were being driven by mental instability."   Just a thought.

Teller-Son...

Would we get a peaceful world by this appointment?
Yes we will....Just a thought.

Disappointed...*

When I ask you to listen, and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen and you begin to tell me why I shouldn't feel that way,

you are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem,

you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask is that you listen. Don't talk or do - just hear me.  

And I can do for myself; I am not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.

But when you accept as a simple fact that I feel what I feel, no matter how irrational,
then I can, stop trying to convince you and get about this business of understanding what's behind this irrational feeling. And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when we understand what's behind them. Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, because God, doesn't give advice or try to fix things.

God just listens and lets you work it out for yourself.

So please listen, and just hear me.  And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn...

Unknown Author.

Aggressive...?*

Individual feel vulnerable about showing sexual self, which is why sexual intimacy is so exciting. To have your partner choose to be sexual with someone else can feel like the deepest kind of rejection and the most painful.

Infidelity is the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or other sexual partner. It is often an expression of unhappiness in a continuous aggressive way.  It is a poor method of communication and in many cases it is a way to manipulate unsuspected person.

The cheater "inadvertently" leaves clues, an e-mail, a photo.........  an unconscious wish to be caught.

Some are concerned solely with their own desires, needs, or interests which may seek or capture such a cheating opportunity.

While this act may hurt others, it definitely ruins the cheater's life.
Make no [such a] mistake... about it. 

Just a thought

Ignorant...*

 



Students at the University of Arizona are cheering over the arrest of Dean Saxton, aka “Brother Dean”
A street preacher best known for hanging around the campus carrying a sign that says “You Deserve Rape” and yelling about how women deserve to be raped because they wear yoga pants and yoga pants are for SLUTS.

Shockingly, he is not exactly very popular on campus.    Saxton has been accused of kicking a woman in the chest (as Jesus surely would have done), and was not only arrested, but banned from the campus for one year.

Saxton was in the news when he was allegedly attacked by a 19-year-old woman while "using a megaphone to preach his beliefs to students at Apollo High School in Glendale."
Tabitha Brubaker was arrested by the Glendale Police Department and booked on an aggravated assault charge. Brubaker denied involvement in the bat attack, according to a police report.

If you are that shallow, fixation on one irrue, makes you more attracted to what you really try to project differently. There are few places in the world with views similar to yours. You need help. Luckily we have freedom of expression.   Just a thought.