"Turkey Shoots Down Russian Military Plane Near Syrian Border" + a joke

"This complicates an already complicated situation in the Middle East"
here or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/turkey-plane-syria_56541c75e4b0258edb32ce67

Points to remember: Russia's ally is Syria and our ally is the rebels trying to overthrow Syria's Assad. Russia is targeting the rebels, Turkey's enemy is Syria and Turkey is our ally. Turkey just shot down a Russian jet? Sounds like the bane of my existence -- an algebraic word problem:

"If I have 3 apples and you have 9 pencils then how many pancakes will fit on the roof? Purple. Because aliens don't wear hats!" Okay, just trying to see some levity in this horror show. http://weknowmemes.com

Welcome to war in the Middle East. If you thought World War One was too complicated to understand this makes that war seem like a sandbox dispute. This is utter LUNACY and we will be dragged into just what ISIS wants another war.

This is NOT good. I just hope it is not WWIII. Call me a pessimist -- that I am -- but I think there is some merit to the madness of my worried thought.

Mental Illness Madness: Babysitter in alleged Hamilton kidnapping held without bail

Babysitter in alleged Hamilton kidnapping held without bail
Abigail Hanna, 21, allegedly kidnapped 2-year-old: story here or below:

Tom Crosby and his wife should be given heroes' medals. Initially, as they drove down a sparsely-settled dirt road in Rowley, Mass, they thought they saw a doll lying face-down naked in the leaves at the side of the road but they had the good sense to turn around to make sure and by doing so found a little girl shivering from the cold, bruised with cigarette butt burns on her body. They called police and saved that gorgeous child's life. Kudos to them and kudos to all those who were and are involved in the investigation of this heinous crime.

Clearly, the alleged 21 year old perpetrator is saturated with mental illness and, who knows, an arm-chair diagnosis of possibly psychosis. Our nation is drowning in mental illness in so many ways. What happened to us or maybe it was always this way but never discussed. I do not know. We have so many fixes for diseases below the brain but little fix for the brain itself especially so for mental illness. It is very hard to treat and meds are often thrown into a hat to try with little or no measurement for their use. Mental illness, too, takes lives but our culture has little empathy for one who suffers from it. Is it genetics or environment -- nature or nurture? In the end it is a disease which needs an ameliorative fix as other diseases do. Unlike other diseases of the body like diabetes or even cancer mental illness affects behavior and therefore has implication for all of us who are at the other end of its ugly assault.

My heart goes out to everyone in this story. At least there is a happy ending win for the child victim but a probable ruined life loss for the perpetrator of this unconscionable act. Our collective nation should be benefiting from research into the causes and cures of mental illness so that those who suffer from or who are the victims of its onslaught will be spared its ruin.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/11/23/parents-kidnapped-hamilton-girl-expressed-thanks-child-found-safe-after-horrific-ordeal/2qDDMUkpAWEFr5xcHo01AK/story.html

If you want to hear something gorgeous listen--9 years old! "Hello"

She is 9 years old singing Adelle's "Hello" with a phenomenal voice.

here or http://www.drewoliviatillman.com/

Restores my faith in our species.

My letter to Dr. Malk M.A. Kahn of Islamic Center of Boston, Wayland

Dr. Malk M.A. Kahn wrote a condemnation piece of the Paris attacks for the Islamic center in the Middlesex News.  I paste it here and below.  I commented on his thoughts.


It is so disgusting and heinous that Dr. Kahn even has to write an opinion of the Islamic rejection of the Paris attacks and really even all attacks for which innocent Muslims are so grievously indicted. Dr. Kahn, truly I think there are more who harbor views as I do believing in our constitutional system which CLEARLY separates church from state. Your belief is your business and rejecting these unconscionable attacks should NOT have to be stated by you or any in the greater Muslim community.

It is a given through our Constitutional principles that a man is considered innocent and it is up to the state NOT you to account for guilt. Your statement is well received by me, a Jew, who would no more hold you to account for any crime not committed by you than I would for me. Painting the Muslim community with a broad brush of guilt for something most would never think of committing is simply morally reprehensible. Most acts of violence are committed by a few political extremists or psychopaths and most all in the Muslim community are not about that.

Personally, in Paris I loved the hugs given to each other that show love and caring of one another. One woman was a Jew and the man was a Muslim. They hugged proving we are all human. I am you, Dr. Kahn, and you are me. We are the same under the skin. It is sad, indeed, that in this nation we have carnival barker Republican candidates that would take us back nearly a century when Jews were forced to identify themselves as Jews by a star of David on their clothing. Trump makes me ashamed.

The day when someone forces you to enter your name in a data base or wear a crescent on your lapel is the day I leave what will be a God forsaken land that has gone temporarily insane!

THE ANTIDOTE FOR THIS HATRED IS TO KICK REPUBLICANS OUT OF OFFICE EVERYWHERE AND KEEP THE OVAL OFFICE, THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE IN DEMOCRATIC HANDS.  OVERTHROW ELECTORALLY REPUBLICANS IN STATE LEGISLATURES. REPUBLICANS ARE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO THIS NATION.  DO THIS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.  GET EVERY DEMOCRAT OUT TO VOTE!

Read and Learn

CONFESSIONS OF AN ISIS SPY

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/15/confessions-of-an-isis-spy.html

A Deal Breaker

Glenn Greenwald: It's 'Irrational' To Blame Paris Terrorism On Snowden

"Many large scale terrorist attacks have been successfully perpetrated well before anyone ever heard the name Edward Snowden." Link here or below.

I used to be a Glenn Greenwald fan. I even heard him speak at Harvard where one person said to me he was "a national treasure." I wish I had written the name of that person down to see what he thinks now.

Well before the ISIS attacks, initially when Snowden spilled the beans he and his mouthpiece Glenn Greenwald made me, a civil liberties aficionado, uncomfortable. I saw his pitch BUT also see the realities of the world in which we live. I thought Snowden's leak was utterly dangerous, stupid and naive to a fault.

In an imperfect world one must be intellectually challenged to think that this country's adversaries would accord one the freedom that has been for years accorded to Glenn Greenwald. I always wondered what if Snowden and Glenn lived in Snowden's present residence, Russia, and Snowden had the same job for Russia that he held in the US. What if Snowden saw equal or even more egregious civil liberties abridgements, torture, jail for homosexuals and others who do not meet a patriotic test and even death for those who are deemed traitors to the state would Snowden have felt comfortable doing what he did here there and would Glenn, a citizen of Russia, too, have felt comfortable traveling all over the globe to get this story out?

I submit they would have been jailed without trial in a heartbeat second, probably tortured and then disposed of forthwith. Yes, I am willing, in view of the noxious attacks I have seen from ISIS and others to allow my government to do anything it needs to protect the homeland. I aver one does not appreciate what one has until one looses it and if both Snowden and Greenwald did what they did in Russia they would appreciate how good they had it here.

Snowden and Greenwald cannot pretend to know everything  Snowden released and if there were one shred of information that helped our nation's murderous adversaries -- which I am sure there is -- supporting both Snowden and Greenwald is a deal breaker for me.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glenn-greenwald-irrational-to-blame-snowden-leaks-for-paris-terrorists_564b4005e4b08cda348a7d00?utm_hp_ref=hpl

A Metaphor for Darkness

"Massive Police Raid In Paris Suburb Targets Terror Mastermind

The seven-hour siege focused on Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks."  Link here and below.

 

The Paris plotters are killed or captured but there are oceans more to take their place.  This is the face of eternal war.

12 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia but the genius Bush was persuaded into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.  Bombing Afghanistan possessed, perhaps, some justification because they provided a safe haven to train those who would and did attack this nation.  Attacking Iraq based on a WMD lie, a nation that did nothing to us, to warrant military invasion became not only insanity but a war crime.  It revived ancient tribal and religious civil wars between Shia and Sunni Islam about which Bush did staggeringly not know.  He did not even know the difference between Shia and Sunni.  Iraq's strong arm Hussein, the glue that kept Iraq together, was deposed and control of all the oil in that area was in the American neocons’ sights.

 

The neo con barbaric know nothings like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle and others were salivating as their long-held vision for total American domination of that region was, it seemed to them, possible and Bush’s  cozy love relationship with Prince Bandar of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia -- you know where massive amount of oil flows -- was the ticket to ride.

 

This nation dismembered a sovereign entity that did nothing to us, fractured an entire Middle East tinder box region, deposed dictators that kept the lid on revolution, killed innocents and created a million Iraqi refugees.

 

The Republican criticism of Obama is that he did not stay in Iraq long enough breaking the “Status of Forces Agreement” to leave, breaking the rationale for his electoral win and breaking his word to the American people that he would extricate us from Iraq but who cares about all of that?  If Cheney was alleged to have said "F___ the Constitution favoring warrantless wiretaps he could easily have said F___ the Status of Forces Agreement and remained in Iraq in perpetuity.

 

The Iraq War waged by Bush and his so called "coalition of the willing" is wholly responsible for the present chaos not only in the Middle East, Syria and elsewhere but for the carnage in Paris as well.   A straight line can be drawn from the Middle East destabilization of Iraq and other Middle East nations to the Paris attacks, the refugee Syrian crisis, the growth of ISIS, ISIL and Al Qaeda in Iraq now omnipresent all over the region (and even the world) where they never existed before.

 

The know nothing Republicans and their carnival barker so called "candidates" for the 2016 presidency will continue to spew their lies and short sighted cruelty of a now anarchic Middle East to elect another RepubliCON to the nation’s highest office with his finger on the nuclear black box button.  He will commit your children and your children’s children to eternal war.

Paris, now, is a metaphor for darkness in the city of light.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gunfire-exchanged-raid-in-paris-suburb_564c003ce4b06037734bb306

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN REPUBLICANS ARE ELECTED.  DO WHAT IS NECESSARY ELECTORALLY TO ENSURE THIS NEVER HAPPENS!

Robert H. Jackson (1945) Opening Statement -- Nuremburg 1945

Said to be one of the greatest pieces of oratory at the beginning of the Nuremberg trials of crimes against humanity and should be viewed and listened to among those of all nations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJj6NcWHkDE

Singularly Lucky

I cannot stop thinking of Paris. What can and should be done to ameliorate our fears? What can we do at this moment in our time? Would removing all western troops from the Middle East even help now? I suspect no it would not. It is much more complicated than that now and one blog or opinion cannot say it all so I summarize my thoughts.

I love the west which is no secret from those who know me. I love the freedom of expression, I love the freedom to believe OR not to believe in religion. The two most important freedoms -- the freedom to speak as one chooses and the separation clause of the US Constitution that implies you may say anything you want ... ANYTHING for or against religious belief and religion itself remains separate from the state.

One can say, most especially, anything for or against a political belief or for or against any political policy which god knows I utilize that freedom with consistency because I may do that here. I am not afraid of the NSA, the FBI, the CIA or any other government institution entrusted with this nation's security because I love and believe in this nation and the impenetrable Constitutional principles on which shoulders our way of life and our freedoms rest.

In elementary school I remember thinking how wonderful it was that I could ask my teacher anything. So young was I to appreciate even then the blessing that was bestowed upon me. I was singularly lucky and so are we all who were lucky enough to be born in the west!

Are there changes in Middle East policy we must address? To be sure there are many and our nation has done much wrong. Still, with all of our nation's faults at least we can discuss them and ultimately change them. Yes, we were singularly lucky to be born in the west! It is worth preserving and it is worth changing policy to ensure those freedoms, we often take for granted, do not disappear from our midst.

(Sunday Homily) Massacres in Paris: The Apocalypse Is upon Us

Brilliant, unique and interesting interpretation By Mike Rivage-Seul of the Apocalypse spewed in hundreds of fundamentalist churches throughout the land. I urge you to read it and THINK! Think about what your leaders are asking you to do. Ask the question why and who does it benefit.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sunday-Homily-Massacres-by-Mike-Rivage-Seul-Apocalypse-Apocalyptic-End-Of-The-World_Empire_Isil_Jesus-151114-803.html

Dr. Irvin Yalom discusses Death

What I have not heard yet and what plagues me about death is not only the inevitably of it BUT worse for me losing those I love, family, friends, etc. Even though we are all in this together we face it really alone and especially alone if we are left but our family and friends have died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMbkIYpZ1v8

Il n'y a pas de mots

There are no words!

My Letter to Senator Warren

Senator Warren, I just got through listening to your book "A Fighting Chance" on CD. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am one of your ardent supporters from Framingham you mention in your book. I have been a supporter of yours since I first saw you on Bill Moyers PBS show. When you ran for the Senate to take back the seat Teddy Kennedy occupied for 50 years held after his death by a Republican the views of whom Teddy would have loathed, I cheered as it returned to Democratic hands.

I could not be with everyone at the Copley Plaza Hotel cheering your Senate victory because I am disabled from polio. Yes, I was one of the unlucky ones who contracted the dreaded disease inducing paralysis before Dr. Salk and Sabin freed humanity from its terror. FDR who began the March of Dimes to find a vaccine for it proved to me government can work for the greater good. If my legs are not so well functioning my mouth surely is and my pen writes, I humbly say, rather well.

I cried at the end of your book out of sadness and empathy when your beloved dog Otis died and I cried out of happiness when you won that seat back for the people of Massachusetts. Teddy would have been so proud.

I have watched you closely over the years and every time Rachel Maddow has you on I am glued to the interview. I will work hard for any Democrat who wins the 2016 presidential primary as I did for you for the Senate. I am hoping, one day, you will take a seat in the oval office and I will live to see that day too.

I love you Senator Warren. You give me hope and instill the same for the powerless and hopeless many. May you be in our political midst for many years to come. Finally, you have proven, despite all odds, we the people have a fighting chance!

Yalom's Cure

This clip below is in English and hit a bulls-eye to so much about which 
 I have given thought. It's short.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B_PGY3eN6Xw

Wrong

I confess, I did not watch the Republican debate last night. I could not because it hurt too much to hear their spewing that passes for policy truth when I know they are the Trojan Horse waiting to strike and kill a nation. I could not watch those who are the most unqualified for the highest office in the land burp policy as though they knew what they were talking about. I could not look at a Ben Carson, the most unqualified in the group, whose belief in fantasy which included hitting his mother with a hammer in his youth, stabbing someone and whose ego makes him think he, the most unqualified of the sad Republican slate, could handle the Herculean task of assuming the presidency of the strongest nation on earth and who will hold the nuclear keys to the box that could annihilate the globe.

These science denying know nothing Republican candidates are poised to destroy this nation if not by weapons then by doing nothing to stop the climate disasters we have seen with frequency so vividly across the nation. Science denial is their most egregious sin as man's knowledge of science is the key to our species' survival. The key to Republican survival is to court the richest oil, gas and bank barons who support their candidacy with oodles of cash.

The Republican Party genius is that it has made their Tea Bag and other middle class income supporters think they are all about them. They surely are not. They are, as I and others much smarter than I, have said so many times about the top richest 1% and care nothing for most of you.

All the Republican tax plans will add trillions to the debt, take programs away from those who need them most and nearly all pledge this nation to eternal war in the Middle East. If this is what you want for your children and succeeding generations then by all means vote Republican. Vote for a Republican Party that is mendacious – lying ALL the time and doing so with impunity.

Republicans will never have an immigration plan as they will NEVER deport 11 million Hispanics and others or build a wall and make Mexico gleefully pay. They will never round up 11 million human beings who will go happily into the night like Jews to the German slaughter. Hispanics and others will fight back and it will be bloody sending millions to their graves or jails in privately owned prisons that are already stuffed to the gills belching humanity that cannot fit into their crowded cells.

I have sat on the left humane side of the political spectrum and have been a strong Democrat all of my adult life. I did so not because I think Democrats are always right but because Republicans in times of significant economic upheaval and war are nearly always wrong. You simply have to look to modern history to believe it.

Ben Carson and the Truth by Charles Blow

This serves to emphasize my point.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/opinion/ben-carson-and-the-truth.html?comments#permid=16611904

Eighth and Ninth Wonders of the World

"Dr. Ben Carson Plays Defense as Biographical Questions Pile Up" -- link here or below.

After what has been uncovered about the probable fabrications of Dr. Ben Carson’s life by him, it is the eighth wonder of the world that this man has gotten to be a Republican front-runner for the presidency, the highest most powerful office in the land arguably the world.

It is the ninth wonder of the world that Fundamentalists and other humans cannot accept truth scientific or otherwise in the face of unmistakable falsehoods of Biblical myth or the mounting evidence of the personal lies a presidential candidate tells about himself.

Those who support him will turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the truth even if the truth is in front of their nose because it is so important to their mental health that all of these fabrications and untruths are really true. If they are not true, which a rational mind would know they are not, then I am guessing the Fundamentalists and their world with them would collapse. It is frightening, indeed, when in the face of Carson’s obvious lies he gains not loses support within mostly Republican ranks.

Carson promotes these lies, in my opinion, to make money and oodles of it. One should never give money to charlatans whether it’s people peddling religious falsehoods or snake oil salesmen trying to sell you junk. You may think they care about you but they don’t. What they do care about is their own bank accounts and making millions off the suckers who swallow their tripe. Carson, it appears, is smart enough to float a made up story about his own life that sells to Fundamentalists and others gullibles.

The truths of science and its experts cannot be denied as they ensure survival of only the fittest when its laws are known, admitted and followed. Those who reject the truths science tells us will die out. It is the evolutionary law of nature and it has been billions of years correct!

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/dr-ben-carson-plays-defense-biographical-questions-pile-n459411

Democratic Forum--Auditory Excellence

 If you want to hear policy at the adult's table then I paste for your enjoyment the questioning by Rachel Maddow the Great of the three Democratic candidates for the presidency. I have never seen or heard more professional, brilliant political programming than the one led by Rachel tonight.

It was a pleasure to listen to it and entertaining to boot. If you did not catch it on MSNBC I paste it below or you can get it on the Rachel Maddow online site. It was a gem and could not be more different from the Republican Barnum Bailey Circus. How anyone in this nation can even contemplate being Republican and worse voting Republican I will never know.

Listen to excellence here or below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrat-forum-msnbc_563d4e8fe4b0b24aee4a7fc8
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrat-forum-msnbc_563d4e8fe4b0b24aee4a7fc8

Gran Mal Seizures

Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point scholarship. Carson's campaign on Friday conceded that a central point in his inspirational personal story did not occur as he previously described. Linked here or below:

What a LYING charlatan to fabricate all that and think he is going to get away with it that no one is going to check as he runs for the highest most powerful office on earth. Carson, you JERK, if they checked W. Bush's draft dodging status they will SURELY check everything you say.

The press needs to report the allegedly 8 medical malpractice lawsuits two of which have apparently been adjudicated. He LOST but they have non-disclosure of fee agreements. They have pics, however, of the patient and it is tragic. Makes me think the payment was hefty. Well if you were a brain surgeon and allegedly left a sponge in someone's skull or allegedly diagnosed a malignancy where there was none I might want a little cash for those gran mal seizures!

Just shows to go you you do not have to be brilliant to be a brain surgeon. Kind of makes me think of Leonardo DeCaprio in "Catch Me If you Can" based on a true story of a man who fabricated many occupations which included being a doc. Now just what does Johns Hopkins have to say?


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/ben-carson-west-point-215598

Vote Distribution In Kentucky Is A 'Significant Anomaly'

What you should know: Republicans steal elections and think nothing about the ethics of doing it. Just ask Al Gore in 2000 and if you research it I am sure there are many instances of more Republican fraud. Funny they are the ones who prevented persons of color and other Democrats from voting to "reduce fraud." Oh sure. Believe that and I'll tell you another lie.

The election in Kentucky was an anomaly. Here is the link that casts doubt on it. The problem is proving it now is difficult and in my opinion Conway conceded too soon.

Moral for 2016: Watch YOUR voting booth and make sure things are ethically pristine. Do so all over the nation!

http://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/we-may-never-really-understand-what