Iran now has over 26,000 known centrifuge units enriching Uranium to weapons grade in underground facilities and labs. Why is this a problem, many nations have nuclear weapons capabilities? Well, because Iran sponsors international terrorist groups like Hezbollah, to the tune of about 100 million dollars per year, although that figure is slightly down right now due to the economic collapse of Iran.

Still, a nuclear weaponized nation that buys late generation military hardware from China and Russia, while sponsoring international terrorists to fight their battles by proxy merely to serve their political will is a huge problem. Everyone knows what Iran is doing and they are constantly bragging about it, and telling the IAEA they cannot inspect their advanced nuclear weapons facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has issued a statement telling the world that; "The Iran's failure to comply with the IAEA and UN inspections is unfortunate and disappointing." Come again, what the heck, is that statement suppose to mean; "Unfortunate and Disappointing?"

No, it's cataclysmic and leading the World into WWIII where 100s of millions of humans could perish, and the sands of the Middle East become glass. It is unfortunate and disappointing to underestimate the severity and reality of this situation.

The Bush Administration has also said that this is unfortunate and disappointing, which is great but we are well beyond the point where action is prudent to prevent WWIII. Additionally, failure to pre-empt will result in nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.

If we do nothing we do so at the expense of millions of innocent civilians. Still, Iran is counting on the ability to use the Obama Administration to allow them to pursue their long-term objectives, which the President of Iran has made perfectly clear; "Blowing Israel off the map!" Please consider all this.

By: Lance Winslow
Lance Winslow's Bio Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net.

So President-elect Obama and Sen. John McCain met in Chicago on Nov. 17 and, after months of campaign rancor, made nice. An air of bipartisan cooperation is supposed to take place starting a tenth of a second after the inauguration, if not before.

Pardon us for being skeptical. We'll believe this "cooperation" when we see it. Here's why.

Action speaks louder than words. Doesn't the word "cooperation" imply a two-way street? There's a track record for McCain working with the Democrats successfully ... the controversial McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law most notably ... but none whatsoever for Obama doing the same with Republicans.

McCain relishes his role as an independent party maverick; the ideologue Obama seldom strayed from the left-wing edge ... in fact, the National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" of the nation's 100 senators in 2007 ... he dutifully voted the liberal position on 65 of 66 key votes ... he was No. 1 and none other than the new vice-president, Joe Biden, was No. 3. Does that give the impression of a flexible, open-minded pairing?

The one time Obama and McCain tried to work together ... on an ethics and lobbying bill ... ended in disaster. McCain felt Obama was double-crossing him in putting forward a partisan Democrat bill rather than bipartisan one and told him, "please be assured I won't make the same mistake again" in having assumed he was sincere. That doesn't sound good, no matter what their makeover now.

The rank and file Democrats' true attitude toward "cooperation" can best be gauged in their treatment of Joe Lieberman. A pariah for having backed McCain in the campaign, Lieberman ... now officially an independent who has continued to caucus with his former colleagues, the Democrats ... faced being yanked from the chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee. The Dems eased off on that after a signal from Obama but still punished Lieberman by removing him from the chairmanship of a global warming subcommittee.

From the other side ... will the rank and file Republicans ... presently downtrodden but with their glory days not too distant behind them ... really want to help Obama achieve an agenda they find hard to swallow? If Obama had a middle of the road agenda, they probably would, but he doesn't.

As for cooperation itself ... it's a great-sounding concept. It's no doubt better, at least most of the time, than confrontation and hostility. But is it so great to cooperate if the other party wishes to push forward terrible bills? Will it be true cooperation if Obama seeks McCain's help on his pet projects, but he and the Dems ignore McCain if he brings up other priorities?

Coverage by the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal of the Obama-McCain parley was abysmal. Both papers speculated as to the benefits for Obama and McCain but neither could bring itself to point out that actual cooperation would be a total about-face for Obama. The president-elect hopes for comity from Republicans but how much did he ever give to Bush? Anyone wishing to know that will have to find out from some other entity ... this angle wasn't explored in the Post or Journal, unfortunately.

Obama made bipartisan cooperation a pledge during his campaign. The press scurried to report his words. Now let's see if it reports whether he can be believed with his actions.

By: Gerry Storch
Gerry Storch is editor and administrator of http://www.ourblook.com, a political discussion/media analysis website that fills the gap between a blog and a book. In his journalism days, he was a feature writer with the Detroit News and Miami Herald, a department head with the News and sports editor and business editor of Gannett News Service. He holds a B.A. in political science and M.A. in journalism, both from the University of Michigan.

Senator Barrack Obama while running for President told the UAW and Detroit that he would do everything in his power to help them. Now the Big 3 along with their unions, finally agree on something; they want a bailout. But where is President-Elect Barrack Obama now? Well, he is voting "present" and telling the UAW and Automakers that he is working on it with his advisors, but that he is not the President yet, so there is nothing he can do.

Actually, he may be correct this time, there really is nothing he can do, as 76% of all Americans do not want to bailout the automakers, even though the UAW purports that 3-4 million jobs could be lost, the 400,000 from the Big Three and all the feeder jobs and industries, vendors and support company lay-offs too.

One interesting side note is that the Democrats were able to take over the House and Senate thanks to the media, but that cuts both ways. Having given power to the media, now our fourth branch of government, the Democrats cannot go against the media or they will have a complete reversal of their good fortune.

Being elected thanks to the polling numbers must have been wonderful and allowing the mass media to incite the mob in voting a certain way was grand, but now, well now it's a completely different story you see. Now the polls show that folks do not want a GM, Chrysler and/or Ford bailout and thus, the Democrats cannot do anything. Indeed, their own party cannot even agree on what to do now.

No Democrat wants to take the political heat against the wishes of the voters. Amazing actually, "live by the media, die by the media," one might say? So, what does this say about Obama's promise? Well, right now he is hanging low, trying not to get in the way of things, just voting "present" but soon, very soon, he will actually have to make a statement and vote or veto with his pen. That my friends is when the real fun will indeed begin.

Will the Democrats be Forced to Bust the Unions after all their political rhetoric?

By: Lance Winslow
Lance Winslow's Bio Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net.

Mention Hurricane Katrina and the first thoughts evoked in many peoples minds will be how the government failed the people; more specifically, how President Bush failed them. They will not think first of the warnings issued by government at all levels, nor will they recall their own failure to heed those warnings. Why? The answer is simple; they heard the warnings and waited for their instructions from their "leaders". The instructions were clear, however, and they were to get out of the city fast, but most of the inhabitants of New Orleans were so accustomed to being cared for on every level that they sat back and waited for someone, anyone from the government, to come for them.

New Orleans was but a spec on the landscape of the entire nation, and was not anything more than an anomaly at the time. Other Gulf Coast cities dealt with the ravages of Katrina fairly well and have since moved forward, while many of the citizens of New Orleans still languish in the aftermath of the storm, still waiting for help. Still dependent on the government.

Apply this mentality to the nation as a whole, as we are beginning to witness through the financial crises that have befallen us, coupled with the mantra of our new president-elect, and we have the makings of a gigantic New Orleans. Everyone is now demanding a helping hand from the very people who caused this financial storm, unlike the culpability of Katrina which lay largely in the hands of God and, to a much lesser degree, Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco.

Bear in mind that Nagin was re-elected by the people he damaged so, while Blanco has been supplanted. But the people of the U.S. just elected Barack Obama, who has been promoting an agenda bearing a striking resemblance to the atmosphere that created the havoc in New Orleans, that being, that government will take care of everything. Personal responsibility is being vilified as we speak as a cruel outlook on the "misfortunes" of others, while it is all of us who stand to lose in this economic meltdown.

All of us dream of a protective blanket and a world in which we have no cares, but we are all born to fly free, and the constraints of protection and security are alien to us, in the end. Even birds nudge their hatchlings out of the nest. A prison cell is the most secure place in the world, particularly an American cell, where the incarcerated has nothing for which to want; except freedom.

I do not fret over the "red state" areas of the country save for one reason; it is those people who will be forced to deal with the marching zombies exiting the large cities when the experiment of re-engineering America fails. When people realize that they have traded their souls for the comfort of an omnipotent government, only to be sadly disappointed in the end, they may well end up as trophies on a dark-wood panelled den in flyover country.

By: Daniel James Wood
http://sanitysentinel.blogspot.com
Keeping An Even Keel In The Sea Of Liberalism
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