Fidei

Shroud of Turin

2012-05-31T08:40:00.001-04:00

Disgusted by the secular media and researchers. This find does not cast doubt on the Shroud of Turin! Is it so unfathomable that in a huge metropolis like Jerusalem with different garment makers you could have different weaving techniques and one versus multiple piece burial cloths? HOW ASANINE!!! The Shroud of Turin is amazing and true and is scientific proof of the resurrection of Christ! PRAISE GOD!

Haywire (2011)

2012-05-18T07:15:00.003-04:00

This film was in sore need of a strong stylized narrative. I attribute this to the director, Soderbergh, who is known for being heavy handed and muddy in his story telling. The storytelling was laborious and at times disjointed. Just shows you can have 4 well known and very competent actors, Douglas, Banderas, McGregor and Fassbender, who if not given a good script and proper direction will not produce a film worthy of their stature. The focus on Mallory's fighting skills (Carano is an ex MMA fighter) is one of this film's downfalls. Instead of having her take out someone with a sniper rifle and suppressor she *has* to engage in minutes of hand to hand combat and literally beat them into submission or abeyance. I do give Carano credit for taking on such a prominent acting role (she clearly needs to still grow as an actor), but since she didn't have the acting chops equal to her co-stars she should have been molded into a more minimalistic character focused tightly on her skill as a badass assassin/super agent. There's been a lot of talk comparing this film to the Bourne franchise. What Bourne had and this movie lacks is a fast paced intricate yet clearly articulated plot where all of the story arcs and even sub plots are integrated and contribute to a single intelligent narrative.

Osteen is a false prophet

2012-05-14T23:46:00.000-04:00

I just read in an article that megachurch pastor Joel Osteen is now endorsing Mormonism! Osteen is greatly deceived! He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. His Christianity Lite "everything is positive" gospel is sending millions of deluded followers to Hell! Mormonism is absolutely NOT part of the Christian faith. They deny the deity of Christ and teach that Satan and Jesus were brothers! YOU CANNOT DENY CHRIST'S DEITY AND BE A CHRISTIAN! They do not have the Holy Spirit and are lost in spiritual darkness. REPENT AND TURN TO CHRIST! Osteen sickens me. He needs to actually read the Bible and he'll see that Christ promised us suffering and tribulations not materialistic comfort and worldly success. His father had bad theology too.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables."
- 2 Tim. 4:3-4

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them." - Matt. 7:15-20

La mort de la France?

2012-05-10T06:41:00.003-04:00

Sarkozy had problems, but of the french leaders in modern times he alone had been brave enough to ban the Muslim veil (hijab) and he sees that radical, fundamentalist Islam (Islamism) is hell bent on dominating France, destroying the Judeo-Christian historic culture and replacing it with a tyrannical Muslim hegemony where an Islamic theocracy rules over all under strict Islamic law (sharia). In such a state all non-Muslims would be relegated to the status of second class citizens (this process is known as dhimmitude). I am in favor of the laïcité (secular government) in France and in America. It is a mechanism to safeguard our liberties, including our religious liberties.

The new leader Hollande is a liberal socialist. The liberal socialists have done more harm to modern Western civilization than any other force. They peel away traditional Judeo-Christian morality, set laws to liberalize the land: rampant divorce, disintegration of family life, rampant drug and alcohol use due to a permissive culture, a populace dumbed down by the education system and mass media. So this coupled with misguided immigration policy will eat away at the historic culture like a cancer virus. Once this process is complete society is destroyed and another belief system (such as Marxism, radical Islam, or secular humanism) takes preeminence. I weep for France! Please note: I have dear Muslim friends, I am not against Muslims or any faith group, but I am strongly against the fundamentalist strain of Islam which preaches the destruction and subjugation of the West. Many immigrants in America have different religions and histories and that makes America a richer place, but for this process to be successful there is an unwritten understanding that the new immigrants will try to become part of the greater American society (no not McDonald's - lol) and not actively work to destroy our historic institutions (whether they be religious, secular, cultural).

Here is a short film on how radical Islam is trying to destroy France:

Some Muslims were recently caught demonstrating in support of the Toulouse killer Mohammed Merah! Imagine that, to march in support of a mass murderer. This is totally Satanic!

I fear we will soon face in France another Battle of Tours to stop the radical Muslim advance into Europe, but who will be our Charles Martel? Where is the unity and leadership? What is worse about this new Muslim conquest is that Europe invited the Trojan Horse of radical Islam into her lands. What a foolish and dangerous capitulation! 95% of the current conflicts in the world relate in some way to radical Islam. We cannot ignore the data. Fundamentalist Islam is on the move and its sole aim is global domination and hegemony. The brutal attacks of the Jihadists are only one spear. Muslim immigration into Europe coupled with extremely high birth rates could spell the death of Christianity in Europe in just two or three generations! This is the fruit of liberal socialist policies, the historic Christian faith is subverted, the historic culture is replaced with new Islamic culture, the social milieu and language are replaced and you have a Europe broken and weak, unable to battle against the Islamic tidal wave overtaking it!

I pray that France turns back to God, puts their faith in Jesus and only then can a united France, strengthened by faith, take the country back. Let the serpent of liberalism perish!

Scientific Stupidity

2012-05-08T13:28:00.002-04:00

Stupid virus researchers have released a paper in the journal NATURE, and another paper will soon appear in SCIENCE, showing step by step how to change two genes in the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus so that the resulting mutated strain has a 80% mortality rate among humans! These papers were based on actual research conducted in the Netherlands and the US where researchers mutated the H5N1 virus in their labs into a form communicable by air with direct contact! What fools! This show scientific curiosity needs to be tempered by sound moral principles and have limits on what may be done for the sake of seeing if it can be done. If this pandemic ever got out it could literally devastate all life on earth. It would make the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million people look tame by comparison! Imagine if the mutated virus they created had gotten released outside the lab! Do these sorts of mutations using theoretical computer models you idiots!

Nota bene:
I am not against dissemination of ideas, but I am against publicly disclosing such dangerous information in a reckless manner. Al Qaeda can just pick up a copy of NATURE and have one of their researchers start work on a deadly virus. I would prefer the authors of such papers take more responsibility. It's not enough to hide behind "all knowledge should be open" and let come what may.

Diablo franchise ruined

2012-05-04T17:55:00.001-04:00

Diablo 3 is a big disappointment. Blizzard decided to make it too much like World of Warcraft with big 3D characters, they have ornate environments, less features, and sadly less monsters. All they needed to do to make it awesome was to keep it like Diablo 2 except make the 2D graphics better, add more acts, more monsters and the integrated inventory, but no they got greedy and ruined the game. Not everyone has drunk the World of Warcraft Kool-Aid! Diablo 3 runs noticeably slower on my PC, they clearly dumbed the game down by having fewer monsters, fewer skills, and you can't change your skills mid-battle easily. Also you must have an active internet connection to even play in single player mode. How stupid can you get!? In my view the game experience has not been improved. This was all about the money. Blizzard knew that by making the game similar to WoW, and dumbing it down, they would make it more attractive to newbies and to hardcore WoW players who are looking for another game but with a similar feel. I think this has destroyed the franchise and I want no part of it!Totally disgusted :(

Cherry Blossoms

2012-04-18T20:45:00.000-04:00

gentle and fragrant
they sing
perfuming Japan

delicate and cheerful
they blossom
spring returns

slowly and inexorably
they fall
samurai souls

honored and revered
they float
among clouds

- by Zachary Uram (c) 2012

God Bless America (2011) film review

2012-04-14T08:14:00.002-04:00

In this film we see another false dichotomy:

Left = good, intelligent, free thinking, uber cool

Right = bad, dumb, closed minded, lame

This distillation is the sum total of the script. The writing is amateurish and so ridiculous and downright trite that I found myself laughing aloud at line after line.

Being a Leftist film, if this is the best of the so-called New Left there is nothing to fear, it couldn't resist taking a dig at Christianity (which has sadly become a popular trend for the unthinking tired comedians of our time) with the "imaginary friends" line.

This film fancies itself some deep indictment of the American psyche while it delivers nothing more than a caricature of an imagined America which is more revealing of the disturbances in the minds of the writers and liberalism in general. It could have been much more, but like much of popular discourse it cannot escape viewing the world in a binary state where either agrees with you and is worthy of blameless rightness, or disagrees and is thus a vulgar enemy to be mocked and ridiculed on every imaginable level.

This film is partisan in the worst possible way and does nothing to address the real problems we face or to posit solutions which would include meaningful dialogue, a return to the best of those traditional values the Left hate so intensely, more focus on education (we've become an unthinking nation in many ways), greater devotion to the spiritual man and less on the carnal.

By glorifying murder and showing it in such a callous and thoughtless way this film is just another nihilistic rant that rings hollow and nullifies any positive message the writers thought they were delivering. Violence without any redeeming aspect (eg. preserving another life, stopping a great evil) is the refuge of the weak minded and morally bankrupt.

New Gmail interface

2012-04-14T02:06:00.001-04:00

At midnight (nearly 2 hours ago) I was FORCED by Google to using the crappy new user interface. I hate it! There is TONS of white space, it's very hard to quickly differentiate between the three leveled view panes, they've removed the labeled buttons and replaced them with ambiguous icons, and it is noticeably SLOWER! Also I see they have removed the option in setting which forced replies to be in plain text so when I reply now and the person I'm replying to used HTML now my reply defaults to HTML! THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE GOOGLE! And to make it worse there is no CLASSIC LOOK option available. Ugh if Yahoo makes it possible to easily import my Gmail I may switch! It's sad Gmail used to be the fastest, most intuitively easy to understand and concise web mailer out there. THANKS FOR RUINING A GREAT PRODUCT GOOGLE YOU MORONIC HIPSTERS who listen to clueless web stylists who put subjective style over objective substance.

My new Gmail report card:

Usability: F

Aesthetic: F-
Ease of Use: D-

Customization: E-

Intuitiveness: F-

What really irks me even more than this monstrosity from Google is the fact that they are SO ARROGANT they felt compelled to FORCE it on me and don't even give the option for the classic interface! Also in using other Google products I've noticed how upset and frustrated people are with the fact that Google doesn't provide a toll free number for feedback; they have no official support or complaint department you can email. Your best bet is to post on some random product specific group in Google Groups and pray someone at Google sees your post! This is totally unacceptable for a company that is as large and profitable as Google! They now reek of arrogance.

"My Belly"

2012-04-11T13:06:00.002-04:00

my belly is swollen
and that's no lie
i smack my belly
i don't know why

i smack it in the day
i smack it at night
my supersized belly
is always a delight

so give me yummy foods
and delicious drinks
to consume at my leisure
recompensed with great pleasure

- Zachary Uram (c) 2012

Dysfunctional Housewives of New Jersey

2012-03-25T05:01:00.000-04:00

I think that Caroline Manzo, Jacqueline Laurita and Teresa Giudice, from the reality show, "Real Housewives of New Jersey", are some of the most vapid and acrimonious people I've ever witnessed on TV. They have heaped so much vitriol and hatefulness towards Danielle.

Caroline clearly has control issues and it's hilarious and sad that she views herself as a paragon of virtue and goes to church (Catholic), yet sees nothing wrong with basically acting in a manner that is the total antithesis of what Jesus preached. Does she really think God is OK with her constantly calling someone "garbage" and obsessively demeaning and gossiping about them? She is also a huge hypocrite. She literally explodes at even the slightest perceived offense, yet treats others in a negative fashion that is magnitudes worse than the perceived wrong against her! Life is a binary game in her view, there must be a righteous winner and an evil loser in her personal moral calculus.

Theresa refers to Danielle constantly with nasty pejoratives, calling her "bitch", "coke whore", "whore", "pig" and other unsavory terms. Jacqueline constantly refers to Danielle as a "pig" and "psycho". Both of these women can invariably be seen wearing a crucifix necklace, yet they talk like street thugs. It's disgraceful.

Caroline obviously has a persecution complex and needs for the world to see her as the innocent victim all the while she engages in childish tirades and endless polemics against her perceived enemies. Several times she has said that, "Danielle will not win." She has no problem with acting like a belligerent foul mouthed bully. She is always the one wronged who is without reproach, all the while she viciously lambasts others. On the Season 1 finale Caroline had a staged breakdown crying and yelling at Danielle calling her once again "garbage" for some great evil that she claimed Danielle perpetrated against her family. As we later learned from Danielle's blog, what happened was that Caroline's ex brother in law had a custody dispute and one day knocked on Danielle's door and asked for Caroline's cell phone number. Danielle had no knowledge of the ongoing dispute between Caroline and him so she gave the number out. During the reunion show Caroline tried to spin it to make it sound as if Danielle knew what was going on and sought the man out herself as an attack on the Manzo family. I think Caroline is delusional and paranoid, anyone and anything whom she doesn't like or is at odds with her unyielding personal opinions are perceived as the enemy. Some of Caroline's comments are so absurd it's like something out of a Mickey Spillane novel. She loves being offended on behalf of her family, then Caroline has the opportunity to talk tough and be intimidating, boasting about how if you mess with her family she will go after you.

Theresa also seems obsessed with Danielle and says the most vile things about her. It was particularly offensive and outrageous when Theresa and Caroline were denigrating Danielle's children, saying they had dead eyes and were not socially well adjusted! Jacqueline turned on Danielle as well and now obsessively talks about her with Theresa, Caroline and Dina. They claim they want to forget about Danielle, yet are compelled to discuss here incessantly. These women are obsessed with Danielle, clinical obsession!

Jacqueline now calls Danielle scum and a pig every chance she gets, and all of the women call Danielle crazy and insinuate she has mental problems. It doesn't just end there either, Jacqueline's annoying and spoiled daughter Ashley, who routinely disrespects her parents and has a bad attitude, set up hate pages on Facebook attacking Danielle, further she actually physically assaulted Danielle and ripped out clumps of her hair. How immature! Ashley also is living in sin with her boyfriend so she needs to stop fornicating and worrying about Danielle.

Danielle was right about Theresa and her husband Joe having financial problems, in 2009 the filled for bankruptcy and were $11 million in debt, this is public record.

Theresa also verbally attacked Danielle in front of Danielle's children. They have a clear vendetta against her and it's really evil what they did. Caroline admitted to spreading unflattering information about Danielle's past all around town. Everyone make mistakes. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, Jesus said. This show demonstrates that for all their money, material possessions and in spite of their chronological age these women who have conspired together to attack Danielle repeatedly are behaving like spoiled children. They clearly have mental disorders. Just shows what petty and mean spirited shrews they are.

Danielle left the show after season 2 so it was no surprise to see in Season 3 that Caroline had found a new enemy, Theresa, her former ally! I think Caroline gets some sort of passive aggressive satisfaction from conflict and feeds off of it. Isn't it convenient that this innocent and righteous Manzo family has a seemingly endless stream of enemies out to destroy them! What a joke.

Caroline, Theresa and Jacqueline's self-righteous pomposity, cruel gossiping and constant denigration of others show them to be very disturbed women who are absolutely not living for Christ. They would do well to heed these words from Scripture:

"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." - Matt. 7:5

SOPA/PIPA defeated!

2012-01-20T12:27:00.001-05:00

SOPA/PIPA has been defeated! But we must not rest on our laurels. The greedy, amoral media companies will not stop until the law itself stops them for good. Sadly there is no short supply of corrupt politicians in Congress who put their own selfish interests ahead of the rights of We the People!

If SOPA/PIPA has passed it would have meant the end of the open and free Internet a we know it. The media companies and any copyright holder would not have even needed any proof to shut down a site, to have a person charged and facing 5 years in prison. All they would have to do is file a complaint and claim a rights infringement and your website/blog could be shut down.

The dirty little secret is that the media companies themselves are behind many file sharing networks. Further these companies like Sony, Viacom, Time-Warner engage in illegal activity. They use malware, aggressive port scanning, denial of service attacks, viruses and packet inspection to gain access to users computers and see what files they have.

By treating consumers as hardened criminals these media companies have alienated several generations against them. Not the best business model. The RIAA, MPAA will be stopped, they will finally be forced, by the law and by the market dynamics, that they cannot conduct business like this and will find a profitable and fair business model for digital consumption.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson

Here's a good article by Dr. Michael Ham on how SOPA/PIPA could have been used to arbitrarily take down websites, stifle business competition and silence scientific debate.

Ipod Touch

2012-01-15T21:54:00.001-05:00

Using the Blogger app!

formspring.me

2012-01-13T11:17:00.001-05:00

Ask me questions about Movies http://www.formspring.me/netrek

Cancer center bans Christian symbols!

2011-11-21T21:56:00.001-05:00

These types of stories really make my blood boil. The Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center has banned all religious symbols on its premises for this Christmas season. They did it so as not to "offend anyone"! Spokeswoman for the Hollings Cancer Center, Vicky Agnew said that decorations will be, "more secular and respectful to all beliefs." Agnew said, "We don't want to offend a volunteer with good intentions, but we need to think of the bigger picture. People who are Muslim or Jewish or have no religious beliefs come here for treatment." This action is, "not meant to be cold," she said.

This is, sadly, yet another instance of arrogance, fundamental misunderstanding of our Constitution and an outright cowardice! Keep in mind this cancer center is where sick people are recuperating from serious illnesses and it has been proven in peer reviewed research that prayer and ones Christian faith does have a positive impact on patient recovery! If anyplace this is where such vital symbols of faith, encouragement and hope are needed. Our Constitution does not establish an absolute divorce of religious content from the public arena. The so-called separation of church and state clause was instituted to protect people of faith from the abuses of government - something which many of our forefathers had experienced in Europe.

The rights of the many are abrogated and sacrificed on the expedient altar of political correctness! So the fear of a hardhearted atheist or member of some other faith was so compelling that they were forced to take such a Draconian action? I think not. There has been a concerted effort by liberals, spearheaded by groups like the ACLU, for decades to systematically remove all evidence of our Judeo-Christian heritage from *any* public space. This attack has been concentrated mainly on court houses, public primary schools, hospitals, universities, state parks, and businesses. They've even gone after private property owners having a large cross on display. We must fight back against this tyranny. For too long people of faith and freedom lovers have sat back and allowed this evil to foster. Now is the time for action! Please take time to contact the Hollings Cancer Center and let them know that you are angered by their decision and want them to reverse it. Remember: Jesus is the Reason for the Christmas season!

Here is some helpful contact information I collected. Make your voice heard today!

Vicky Agnew, Public Relations
Hollings Cancer Center
E-mail: agnew@musc.edu
Phone: 843-792-0376

Andrew S. Kraft, M.D., Director
Hollings Cancer Center
E-mail: kraft@musc.edu
Phone: 843-792-8284

Hollings Cancer Center
Main Phone: 843-792-0700

Medical University of South Carolina
Main Phone: 843-792-2300

Medical University of South Carolina
Attn: Raymond S. Greenberg, President
Colcock Hall
179 Ashley Ave.
MSC 001
Charleston, SC 29425

Medical University of South Carolina
Hollings Cancer Center
Attn: Andrew S. Kraft, M.D., Director
86 Jonathan Lucas Street
P.O. Box 250955
Charleston, SC 29425

a poem

2011-11-21T21:34:00.001-05:00

"Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali

"evening repose"

you labored all day
now it's time to play

sit back and relax
don't hack

after eating a fine meal
happy you shall feel

turn your ear
to Bach's Well Tempered Clavier

now read a good book
on Facebook do not look

no email for tonight
go and dim the light

now drift off and snooze
without aid of booze

have happy dreams
reality isn't what it seems!

-- Zachary Uram (c) 2011

Decline of the West; Europe is lost

2011-11-02T08:01:00.000-04:00

In Japan you still have a fairly intact family unit, schools are much stricter than in the West, children are taught to follow the law and be good citizens. Hedonistic parents in the West raise their spoiled brats to be narcissistic self-absorbed twats who just look to satiate their base carnal desires; if anyone gets in their way they just step over them. The feminist movement and so-called sexual revolution has destroyed the family unit. In the black community 90% of kids are born bastards and grow up with no father present. Things aren't much better in the white or hispanic communities. I regularly read in the British broadsheets of the rise of hooliganism and thuggery, school kids slashing each other with knives, and the law is lax and lets them off the hook. Sexual morality is at an abysmal level in the West too. Half the population is either stoned on drugs or in a drunken stupor. Also a fundamental, a very non-PC, factor is people turning away from God. For those bashing America: yes we have our faults, as does any country, but at least we still have a majority Christian nation and haven't bowed down to the tyranny of the Islamists and welcomed the Trojan Horse into our own shores as misguided liberal Britain and much of Europe has done. It's too late for you now, but we still have a chance. The European Union has failed and many member nations now have stagnant economies deep in debt, with high unemployment, crushing social obligations (especially as tens of millions of illiterate immigrants, mainly Muslims, received social benefits), failing central banks, currency decline, inflation and over-taxation. Enjoy the Sharia law which will be coming in the next decades!

Utter idiocy in the UAE and Saudi Arabia

2011-10-27T05:38:00.000-04:00

The blasphemer of Islam!

According to a recent story in the Emirates 24|7 news blog, a 'social activist' in the United Arab Emirates, Mariam Al Ahmadi, was outraged to discover a Chinese made toy at some local shops which, she claims, makes a noise that somehow mocks Islam. Specifically, it somehow gives offense to Mohammed's child bride wife Aisha. One would think she'd be outraged that Mohammed married Aisha at age 6 and consummated the marriage at age 9, but that doesn't seem to rattle her fragile sensibilities. Ms. Al Ahmadi he is now leading an effort to get all of the offending toys removed. Seriously UAE this is your source of moral indignation? This story reminds of primitive animistic beliefs, where ignorant tribes believe that lightning is an angry god shouting at them or something.

Not surprisingly Saudi Arabia got wind of this and confiscated a bunch of them. Well done! Note that both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are Islamist countries where there is no freedom of religion, no freedoms of speech or press, and women do not have the full rights they enjoy in the West. This activist didn't raise so much as an eyebrow over the Christians in UAE who are raped, falsely imprisoned, beaten, tortured and even murdered (all in the name of Islam) for their beliefs. Yet a toy gun making a sound akin to RATATAT stirs up feelings of outrage. This is ridiculous, but sadly not very surprising. In case the offending story is deleted, which seems to happen quite often in such cases, here is an archived copy.

It's natural instinct for those of us not brainwashed to laugh at such an absurd assertion, but there is a very serious, and disturbing, cultural dynamic at work here. We see the archetypal Righteous Defender of Islam at work. Even the most innocuous and innocent things may set them off into a rampage. It's happened numerous times and we must fight it at every turn. Hopefully Islam will finally go through a much needed reformation and purge itself of the Jihadist and Islamist factions, but the calls for moderation and sober introspection from within Islam seem far too few and weak. I would love to hear from Muslims and hear what they think about this story.

And on an economic digression: the Chinese have mastered Western capitalism (including its amoral defects and excesses) and know their customers. Can you imagine some poor factory engineer in Shenzhen, plodding through his 6 day, 100 hour work week, recording an anti-Islam message in Arabic onto the memory chip of the control board of a plastic toy gun! It would be harder to come up with a more implausible scenario.

Islam actually enjoys greater protection in China than Christianity. The Quran is sold in a wide variety of bookstores and mosques are not regulated. Whereas Bibles are only sold in a limited number of state run religious bookstores and the only recognized Christian churches are ones which belong to the Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM). Of course the pastors of the TSPM churches are all trained by the Chinese Communist Party! Oppression of Christians in the Muslim world and China is a very serious issue, but the Church is growing mightily. Praise the Lord!

Melancholia (2011) - film review

2011-10-08T00:12:00.000-04:00

A very earnest gaze! LOL

WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

"Melancholia" proves that a big budget means nothing in terms of the final artistic creation. It was the worst sort of disaster film I've ever seen. Even hammy B movie type films are at least enjoyable for their contrived drama, overwrought affectations and downright silly action sequences, but this film tries so hard to be taken seriously and fails.

Some reviewers have been critical of the slow pace of the film, and defenders retort that this is somehow evidence of its sophistication. I disagree with both camps. Having a slower pace is not a problem if the character's are engaging, the plot is interesting and we're made to care on some level. Also, as evidenced in "Melancholia" a slow pace is an exercise in futility if all the components don't work.

Kirsten Dunst's performance was overdone and tiresome. She is a good actress, but not a great one. Kiefer Sutherland was great in 24, but I don't think his acting style is suited to slower paced dramatic films. Or rather I should say melodramatic films which this one was. I'm not a parent, but one other aspect of this film really irked me. Charlotte Gainsbourg's character's resignation to her fate was semi-believable, but the way she behaved in light of her young son's impending doom was ridiculous! Dunst spends about half of her screen time making various depressive, vacant or angst ridden facial expressions. The master of this sort of facial acting was Toshiro Mifune. With a subtle expression he could brilliantly convey an emotional state, or even several, but it was never overdone. I wish Dunst would study his films and take some lessons!

The tone of the film as a whole was pretentious. Melancholia was a Victorian term for people with depression and that's how I felt after watching this film. I'm not a parent, but one other aspect of this film really irked me. Sadly this sort of film is not an anomaly for director Lars von Trier. I've never been a fan of his work, but I went into this film with an open mind and was once again disappointed. His ethics are also highly questionable, and yes I maintain this is relevant since as a director one's moral makeup has a definite impact and imprint on what you put into a film. At the last Cannes Film Festival Trier made pro-Nazi comments, saying he sympathized with Hitler. Also, he left his pregnant wife to shack up with the family babysitter who was young enough to be his daughter!

The Wages of Fear (1953) - film review

2011-09-26T02:15:00.002-04:00

"Le salaire de la peur"

This is a great film, yet it has a fatal flaw in my view. Mario, played by Yves Montand, and his close friend Jo (Charles Vanel), and others are tasked with transporting nitroglycerin (which is very unstable) to a far off site where it's needed. The plot is simple and straightforward. The richness of the film comes from the poignant drama, the three dimensional characterizations provided by the script and principal actors, the use of cut shots to convey emotional content and the use of symbolic imagery,. I strongly disagree with the Sartresque ending however. Japanese films, which are known for having the protagonist(s) die, have a rich history of self-sacrifice. Bound by a strict social code of honor, their death is given context and a meaning, even if we disagree with it. In this film however, the ending feels heavy handed and reeks of the philosophical influence of atheistic existentialism. In pushing against what they saw as the problems in Idealism they established a system of thought just as arbitrary with its own problems, which I'd contend are far worse. In this nihilistic view life and even our existence is a tragic joke, a pointless exercise where we are certain only of despair and nothingness.

There is no spiritual existence, nor even a sure epistemological foundation to rely on. In this broken ontological state man is destined for destruction without meaning. Mario is finally liberated from his materialist concerns, yet his joy was short lived and he's soon destroyed. Existentialist philosophy girds the script. A much better ending would have been for Mario to get back home and live his life, to have some measure of happiness and love, yet tempered with sorrow at the loss of his friend. But such a hopeful and life affirming conclusion is an affront to the nihilist. Some say Mario was driven to such irresponsible behavior by suicidal impulses, but I think it's clear he was compelled to demonstrate man's ultimate folly. When the truck was stuck in the oil pond Mario disregarded Jo's well being. When asked why he didn't stop Mario says that he had no choice. Also when Jo was near death in the truck and reminiscing about a fence on the street he used to live on, just moments before he dies he asks, "What was beyond the fence?" Mario answers, "Nothing." Then as Jo is literally exhaling his last few breaths his eyes grow wide and full of fear as he exclaims,"Nothing!", then dies immediately. This is akin to waving a giant red flag at us! The nihilistic message implicit in that sad exchange is so obvious. This and other little cues are peppered throughout the film and speak to the running nihilistic narrative.

Mario's exuberant, 4000 francs richer and on the way home to be reunited with Linda, yet I knew exactly what was to come. If one has read mid 20th century nihilist literature, particularly French, this ending was expected. Arnaud and Clouzot wanted this and it lessens the value of their film to a degree. A magnificent film, yet tainted by a dangerous and fatuous philosophy. The entire tortuous journey, the death of his friends, it was all for nothing. They were all destroyed and nothing was gained by it.

China's Heart

2011-09-14T22:31:00.001-04:00

steaming hotpot
perfumes the air
gleaming summer's sun

countryside life
earthy and noble
unchanged by time

daily rhythms
a people linked
a proud culture

kids play
innocence of youth
their parents dream

new society
globalized and homogenized
what is lost?

generations leap
the Cultural Revolution
Facebook and Twitter

fish swim
the Yangtze river
strong and dynamic

return youth
to the fields
of amber wheat

find joy
in simple pleasures
laughter and song

a path
walked for millennia
follow it well

God's creation
the beauty unfolds
let minds behold

before Communism
journeyed Apostle Paul
across China's soil

preaching life
eternal in Christ
Han people followed

a struggle
modernism and materialism
twin evils abound

fear not
in China's history
a seed planted

bearing fruit
sweeter than lychee
a liberating Gospel

dusk now
my ears delighted
by the erhu

drifting asleep
i will dream
of Jesus's China

-- by Zachary Uram (c) 2011

formspring.me

2011-08-20T07:09:00.001-04:00

Ask me anything which is not profane, heretical, sexual, crude, lewd or rude. http://formspring.me/netrek

"2012: Ice Age" (2011) - film review

2011-06-30T20:37:00.000-04:00

This movie is a disaster! The acting is so bad I often laughed out loud at the delivery. I could write better dialogue when I was in 9th grade! The plot is very implausible and the premise is ridiculous. One would have to be wholly ignorant of science to not be incredulous.

First of all the glacier would not be speeding across the ocean no matter how big it was. If such a gigantic glacier shelf broke off (1,000 miles wide) it would have triggered a massive tsunami. The shortest over-water distance between Europe and America is 1,630 miles so if glacier will reach the eastern US coast in 19 hours it is traveling at 86mph! This is just not possible.

The Indian scientist is a complete moron, he sees explosions less than a mile away and waits until the last possible minute to take off in the helicopter. Then the fool travels along the fault line! All he has to do was fly at a 90 degree angle to the fault line and he would have been safe. Or he could have just flown higher, the helicopter was way too close to the ground. And that was an extremely powerful huge helicopter he was in so it had the power.

Julie McCullough is not aging well. I was shocked to read that she's only 45. She looks closer to 60! I remember when she was on "Growing Pains". This is what happens when you get too much sun exposure. I bet she's also a smoker. Her skin looks at least 10 years older than her age, she has dark pockets under her eyes, liver spots, tons of wrinkles, skin looks extremely dry and unhealthy! Girls if you want nice skin when you get older STAY OUT OF THE SUN and moisturize.

Their slut daughter is totally annoying. She meets her ostensible boyfriend in Manhattan and after less than 1 minute says, "Let's go back to the dorm and fool around!" Right there I have lost any sympathy for her and hope the glacier gets her! haha

When the jets fired missiles at the face of the glacier the chunks that broke off went straight up into the air! That violated several laws of physics lol.

As they drive away everything is destroyed by the glacier, yet it somehow stopped just before reaching the road?!

The son has a panicked expression for most of the movie and seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The exchange between in the car between the mother and him is hilarious. Keep in mind that he's apparently 17-18:

Nelson: Everything is gone isn't it?
Teri: Just don't even think about it alright Nelson.
Nelson: Everything. God! Friends. I need to get online!
Teri: No no. You need to focus on what's important ok.
Nelson: THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Teri: No it's not important!

I guess Nelson wanted to check Facebook before the entire east coast is destroyed!

Their car crashing was so dumb. He knows the weather is bad so he speeds and takes his eyes off the road to talk to his wife?! They then commandeer a group home van.

Instead of being logical and telling their daughter to head south now they decide to drive 6 hours to go and pick her up. The glacier would have reached NY way before they'd even get there since it just hit Maine and is traveling at around 86mph. Idiotic!

The people in Boston are walking around and are instantly frozen in place by super cold air! lol.

We are treated to this brilliant exchange:

Julia: But what about the glacier isn't it headed straight for us?
Natl. Guardsman: Not for long. There's a combined task force on its way to meet it.
Julia: So you've declared war on a glacier?
Natl. Guardsman: That's right. It's the last chunk of the glacier and they're putting everything they have on it. Now get your asses inside before I have you arrested!

Later when they are in the Cessna flying to NJ Nelson logs into the NOAA website (user: julia, password: nelson - haha how dumb!) and informs his parents that the glacier is now moving at 200mph! HOW ABSURD!

When the cop told Teri the George Washington Bridge is out she looks at it, sees the damage and says, "Wooow." haha! Perhaps the worst acting I've ever seen on film!

No matter how congested traffic is they always find a convenient alternate route.

The snow is obviously fake.

Twice Bill expertly maneuvers the car to dodge gigantic chunks of falling glacier ice!

They take refuge in the Statue of Liberty and the massive glacier stops moving as soon as it hits the statue, but not hard enough to knock it down!

Boycott NBC - removed "under God" from Pledge of Allegiance

2011-06-20T16:27:00.006-04:00

During the recent U.S. Open broadcast this past Sunday, in the beginning of coverage NBC Sports division blatantly removed the words "under God" twice from the pledge of allegiance! As a Christian I am outraged by this slight. How dare they do this. And the lukewarm apology which was issued was very weak. Who is responsible for this? We demand to know who made the decision to have this deliberate omission, it was no accident. No doubt some hateful bitter atheist employee of NBC Sports who can't stand the fact that most people in this country are people of faith. This person deserves to be fired! ALL CHRISTIANS, JEWS AND MUSLIMS MUST BOYCOTT NBC! We must let NBC know that they will not get away with this evil action. God is not to be mocked. This is even a stupid move pragmatically since the vast majority of their audience and most people who buy products and services from their advertisers are people of faith who believe in God. So this was a very dumb move strategically.

This just shows how debased atheists are. If someone wants to believe in nothing I think they are wrong, but I won't try to harass them. However the New Atheists are not content to enjoy their disbelief, they feel compelled in a very infantile passive aggressive way to remove symbols and expressions of faith from all institutions both public and private. This just shows how intellectually bankrupt the New Atheism is (all of their arguments have been made before, by better men, and refuted) and how unethical they are! If they can't defeat you in an argument or in the court of public opinion they will seek to censor you. And another one of their tactics is to personally attack, mock and ridicule those who disagree with them. Richard Dawkins is infamous for doing this. If you don't subscribe to his brand of atheism you are derided as one who is self-deluded, anti-intellectual, uneducated, unintelligent, a fool or even insane. The same thing happens in academia all the time to conservative professors who disagree with the liberal establishment. Whoever at NBC Sports authorized this action is full of hatred and misery to be compelled to do such a thing.

CONTACT NBC NOW AND LET THEM KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!

NBC Headquarters
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Phone: 1 (818) 840-4444 (switchboard)
Phone: (212) 664-2333 (comment line)
Phone: (212) 664-4444
Fax: (212) 664-4426

NBC Sports
National Broadcasting Company, Inc.
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY
Phone: (201) 804-0300

Bob Wright
Vice Chairman and Executive Officer, GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer NBC Universal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Phone: (212) 664-4444
Fax: (201) 583-5453

Jeff Zucker
President, NBC Universal Television Group
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Phone: (212) 664-4444
Fax: (201) 583-5453

Here is a list of email contacts:

nbcsportshelp@nbcuni.com, JOHN.ECK@nbc.com, JEFF.ZUCKER@nbc.com, jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com, STEVE.CAPUS@nbc.com, ALLISON.GOLLUST@nbc.com, PAULA.MADISON@nbc.com, CORY.SHIELDS@nbc.com, JOHN.WALLACE@nbc.com, David.Verdi@nbc.com, LYNN.CALPETER@nbc.com, DICK.EBERSOL@nbc.com, dick.ebersol@nbcuni.com, MARK.HOFFMAN@nbc.com, MARC.CHINI@nbcuni.com, Alyssa.Corcoran@nbcuni.com, MICHAEL.BASS@nbcuni.com, MICHAEL.PILOT@nbcuni.com, Ron.Lamprecht@nbcuni.com, Kathy.kelly-brown@nbcuni.com, amy.zelvin@nbcuni.com, Nate.kirtman@nbcuni.com, Rebecca.Marks@nbcuni.com, NIKKI.LICHTERMAN@NBCUNI.COM, JAMIE.FRENCH@NBCUNI.COM, david.verdi@nbc.com, Marianne.Gambelli@nbcuni.com, Mark.Lazarus@nbcuni.com, Jeremy.Gaines@nbcuni.com, Lauren.Kapp@nbcuni.com, Curt.King@nbcuni.com, Cindy.Gardner@nbcuni.com, John.Kelley@nbcuni.com, John.Miller@nbcuni.com, Mike.McCarley@nbcuni.com, Gary.Zenkel@nbcuni.com, Peter.Diamond@nbcuni.com, Sam.Flood@nbcuni.com, Christopher.Mccloskey@nbcuni.com, Kevin.Monaghan@nbcuni.com

UPDATE! My voice was heard. I've just received feedback from Christopher McCloskey. Praise God!

Zachary,

Thank you for writing regarding your concern over the beginning of our
U.S. Open coverage on Sunday.

We are aware of the distress this has caused many of our viewers and are
taking the issue very seriously.

Unfortunately, when producing the piece - which was intended to
capitalize on the patriotism of having our national championship played
in our nation's capital - a decision was made by a small group of people
to edit portions of the Pledge of Allegiance.

This was a bad decision.

As soon as management became aware of this decision and the controversy
it justifiably created, it immediately took steps to correct it
resulting in an on-air apology provided by NBC Sports' lead golf
commentator Dan Hicks.

It was not the intent of NBC to upset anyone and we sincerely apologize
to anyone who was offended.

Thank you again for taking the time to voice your concerns.

Sincerely,

Chris McCloskey
Vice President, Communications
NBCUniversal Sports & Olympics

A case against Obama

2011-06-19T15:21:00.004-04:00

By every single metric people are worse off and suffering more now under Obama than they did under Bush. The only one's who are actually doing better are the hyper rich. Obama took trillions in stimulus and bailout money and gave it to his Wall Street banker buddies who turned around and either invested it in foreign banks, gave themselves huge bonuses, invested it in risky hedge funds (which they promised they wouldn't do) or loaned money to their fellow banks at near 0% interest rates here in the US, they were supposed to lend that money to the middle class, the working poor and small business owners and that is precisely what they didn't do! Credit is still very tight and there is no sign that liquidity will open up anytime soon.

Obama's Federal Reserve has pursued one of the most reckless policies in history with quantitative easing (buying up $600 billion - $1 trillion USD), QE1 was proven to have failed, so they stupidly went away with QE2 and now we see that has also failed. Moron Ben Bernanke denies QE3 is happening all the way the Fed keeps buying bonds! We already have a fiat currency, but when you monetize the debt on top of record deficits and debt you compound bad fiscal policy with bad monetary policy. The reckless policies of the Fed are killing us, their inflation game must be stopped. The real point of QE was to drive down interest rates to nothing so his hyper rich buddies could benefit (including one of Obama's main financier's George Soros). In fact since regulators knew about the housing and credit bubbles and did nothing and major banks knew it was an intentional program to make trillions of dollars and then when the bubbles burst to devalue assets so the hyper rich could buy them up at a bargain.

"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." – J. Edgar Hoover

ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and QE (quantitative easing) do not work! The only thing it has done successfully is to transfer wealth to Wall Street and the international banking cabal while recklessly monetizing our debt, increasing inflation and devaluing the US dollar. Bernanke is utterly clueless, he is an educated idiot, his untested academic models are not to be tested on a weakened US economy. Their lauded fiscal stimulus did nothing except make things worse!

As a result we are now in danger of falling into hyper inflation, the value of the US dollar has been so far reduced it will likely never recover and since cost of oil is index on USD this has played a part in rising oil costs - along with immoral behavior of oil speculators which Obama won't do anything about: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/speculators-fed-share-blame-for-higher-gas-prices-2011-05-06?link=home_carousel

We are now heading into a Double Dip recession.
Since Obama has been elected inflation has been skyrocketing and things are about to get much worse as we enter hyperinflation! Note that the inflation formula the Fed uses does not include food or energy costs - both of which have been surging like crazy in the past 2 years so we're in for a tougher time on the middle class and more misery for the poor. Honestly how can anyone say they are better off now than they were 2 years ago or that the country is better off as a whole?

We already have two costly wars so Obama gets us involved in a third war in Libya. Bush got Congressional approval for Iraq and Afghanistan wars, yet Obama's Libya war is illegal - he never got approval and thus should be impeached. Perhaps the former Constitutional professor and then serving U.S. Senator Obama forgot his own expert opinion on December 20, 2007:

Q: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress?

A: (Obama) "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

Further he said, "In the end, no amount of American forces can solve the political differences that lie at the heart of somebody else's civil war."

-- NBC's Today Show on January 11, 2007"

Then Senator Joe Biden answered the same question:

"I asked them to put together [for] me a draft, which I'm now literally riding between towns editing, that I want to make clear and submit to the Untied States Senate pointing out the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran. And I want to make it clear, I want it on the record, and I want to make it clear, if he does, as chairman of the foreign relations committee and former chair of the judiciary committee, I will move to impeach him."

Now Obama has us fighting a three front war. US needs to bring all troops home. Obama and mainstream media and Democrats viciously assailed Bush on going to war in Iraq and that was after he waited 9 months, got numerous UN sanctions and two authorizations for war from Congress, Obama has done none of this. The hypocrites in main stream media will once again look the other way! Notice hoe once Obama was elected the near 24x7 critical news cycle regarding Iraq and Afghanistan suddenly disappeared?!

The wealth gap is now larger than it's ever been, the US has the largest wealth gap of all industrialized nations, and it is accelerating! In the past 10 years the only ones who have seen real income go up are the rich.

“Our cause is noble. It is the cause of mankind, and the danger to it is to be apprehended from ourselves. Shall we slumber and sleep, then, while we should be punishing those miscreants who have brought these troubles upon us, and who are aiming to continue us in them; while we should be striving to fill our battalions, and devising ...ways and means to raise the value of the currency, on the credit of which everything depends?” – George Washington , George Washington, letter to James Warren, Speaker of the Assembly of Massachusetts, March 31, 1779.

On foreign policy Obama has been a disaster, the killing of Osama Bin Laden was based largely on intelligence from actions of the Bush administration and even though Obama know where Osama was for over 6 months he refused to act and the CIA and DoD had to take the initiative. Bush was right! Enhanced interrogation works and is a valuable tool. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/19/wikileaks-bolsters-argument-for-enhanced-interroga/

And Obama's attack dog Eric Holder at the Justice Dept., the same racist guy who refused to prosecute Black Panthers who intimidated white and black voters, is going forward with prosecuting CIA interrogators with torture allegation. These patriots deserve medals not prison! Without them we would never have caught Bin Laden. Even liberal Leon Panetta who Obama appointed head of the CIA has publicly admitted that water boarding of KSM and other Jihadists and other forms of enhanced interrogation led to the highest value intelligence. For the sake of appeasing Muslims Obama has alienated our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel; the only real functioning Western style democracy in the region! The temerity of this main to dictate to Israel what borders they should have. Even Obama's own advisers told him otherwise, yet he makes a fool of himself by telling Israel they must agree to pre-1967 borders, such borders are indefensible. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority now has over 50,000 rockets (courtesy of Iran) which they are preparing to use against Israel. Note that Hamas is dedicated to the total destruction of the state of Israeli, they want a one state solution - them! Yet Obama does not dictate policy to them they way he does with Israel. His bias is clearly showing. Speaking of Iran, they are getting dangerously close to producing a nuclear weapon, yet Obama's administration has not done a single them to oppose them. Bush did more to advance the peace process with his Roadmap to Peace than Obama. Obama is only making things worse with his unrealistic unfair pro-Palestine demands. Regarding his naive and clueless speech where he outlined his foolish foreign policy on Israel Rep. Joe Walsh said it well, "Today's speech was just another example of Obama throwing our allies to the wolves in a vain attempt to appease our enemies." Obama's administration has been one blunder after another. He is a horrible leader. If Obama is reelected in 2012 I shudder to think what it will mean for America. We can't afford 4 more years of the most liberal president in US history.

Obama's legacy: socialized medicine, hyperinflation, multiple recessions, devaluation of US Dollar, fascist TSA which violates our Constitutional rights, trillions of dollars given to Wall Street bankers, high unemployment, price of oil sky high, record national debt, weak foreign policy, hyper-partisanship, dishonest corrupt government and general incompetence in everything he touched!

Geithner, Bernanke, Greenspan, Paulson, Rubin and Summers belong in federal prison for their crimes!!! As the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report (PDF) showed the crisis was man made and preventable.

“There is a war going on in this country...waged by the wealthiest people in America on the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country. The nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end and they are apparently unconcerned for the future of this country if it gets in the way of their accumulation of power & wealth.” -- Sen. Bernie Sanders

How does a student with failing grades at a lower tier school, Occidental College, suddenly get into Columbia University? Obama failed to attain even minimum honors while at Columbia and never once made the Dean's List, he refuses to release full academic records, yet suddenly Obama is given one of the extremely coveted and limited seats at Harvard Law who has an acceptance rate of around 1%! It is the most difficult graduate program to enter in the entire world. Students with perfect grades are routinely turned down, yet mediocre student Obama miraculously was accepted! And he did this without a scholarship allegedly.

We have a national debt over $14 trillion USD, soon the interest payments on that debt will be $1 trillion a year alone! S&P has cut the U.S. Sovereign Debt rating to negative for the first time since the Great Depression. And we're in danger of losing our AAA bond rating and becoming a a failed economy brought down by massive debt like Greece.

Knowing all of this what does Obama do? Does he do ANYTHING to offer relief to hurting Americans? No. Instead he goes ahead and stubbornly tries to push through cap & trade regulations at the EPA which would double or even triple electricity prices in the next few years! He refuses to allow us to build any new clean coal electricity plants or nuclear power plants. The man is clueless.

Obama's girl Napolitano of Homeland Security is so inept it would be comical were the issues involved not so important. She won't profile Muslim men who fit the terrorist profile, yet has no problem with her TSA goons molesting 5 year old kids, groping non-Muslim women in their breasts and doing extensive search on 80 year old white grandmas. Really effective! WE NEED RACIAL PROFILING YOU MORONS! 99.9999% of all Jihadists plots against the US (both failed and successful) were conducted by people of Arab or African features - not Caucasians, not Asians, not Hispanics! Giving full body search to a white baby, while letting 25 year old Saudi student stroll right through is utter madness and the height of idiocy. But they must bow down to altar of political correctness and pretend EVERY race is an equal threat when reality screams otherwise!

Every area Obama and his minions touch they utterly ruin. People attacked Bush but at least he wasn't utterly clueless. You can't run the presidency like a college classroom. Obama is intelligent yet lacks the proper wisdom and leaderships skills to be an effective president. He has analysis paralysis. Obama is an unyielding ideologue trying to push his far left agenda on America which is not a majority leftist country. Obama knows the vast majority of the country is conservative-moderate, yet he refuses to stop implementing his socialist agenda. What he's done to the economy and our fiscal and monetary policy will take generations to correct. Such ineptitude with monetary policy in particular hasn't been seen since the 1920s. Attack Bush all you want, but when Bush left office the recession Bush inherited from 9/11 and the housing and credit bubbles was ending (thanks to his leadership), the unemployment rate was around 4%, our debt was big, but that was due to two costly wars mainly, but still manageable around $8.5 trillion, inflation was significantly lower, the value of the US dollar was significantly higher, Egypt was not lost to the Islamists, our support for Israel was still unwavering, and economic growth was higher than it is now. By any metric you choose things are worse now than they were 2.5 years ago. Under Obama our unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 9.1%, economic growth is an anemic 1.5% of GDP. The real GDP growth is now only 0.2% off what it was during height of Great Depression - 1.5% currently (1.3% then), GDP growth under Obama: 2008: 0%, 2009: , -2.6% (that's negative 2.6%), 2010: 2.8% The mainstream media with its liberal bias has a lot of complicity in our problems. Obama was THE MOST RADICAL PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN US HISTORY, which scandal after scandal, friends with terrorists, the most liberal ideologue in the history of the Congress, yet the mainstream media gave him a free pass, refused to exercise due diligence and investigate his past, refused to ask Obama hard questions.

The housing market is in ruins. Half of all mortgage holders owe more than their home is worth. Mortgage prices have fallen 33% which is more than they did during Great Depression (31%). The percentage of Americans who want work and can't find it is now worse than during Great Depression. And thanks to the asinine Federal Reserve the US dollar is very devalued and we are close to seeing hyperinflation. Our national debt is over $14 trillion, and our unfunded liabilities are $50 - $100 trillion! OBAMA'S AMERICA! The income gap between the rich and poor is bigger than enough and it's accelerating! Consumers buying power is a fraction of what it was only 50 years ago! But the Wall Street banks got bailed out and used the stimulus money lending to foreign banks and US banks at near 0% interest, giving themselves huge bonuses, further investing in risky hedge funds, and they aren't lending to middle class Americans and small businesses! IT'S MADNESS! We should stop all foreign aid now until we fix the economy, monetary policy and labor market. Obama just gave $1 billion to Egypt. And the unemployment rate is now up to 9.1% - for the 28th consecutive month above 8% (and the real rate is over 20%). Energy costs domestically are due to skyrocket thanks to stupid liberals refusing to let us build 'clean coil' fired plants, won't let us build nuke plants and Obama's EPA is about to impose cap&trade madness that may see our electricity prices double or even triple in the next few years! In my state of Pennsylvania we have the LARGEST proven coal reserves in the world (enough to last for 500 years), we also have one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world (enough to last for at least 100 years), so there is no excuse for having such high energy costs. Obama has analysis paralysis, he just cannot make tough decisions well, and his extreme liberal bias will cause him to keep messing up the economy As if that wasn't bad enough now he goes and alienates Israel our closest ally in the Middle Eats and the ONLY true functioning Western style democracy in the region! Expect Obama to start pushing for legalizing illegal immigrants soon so that he can count on those votes to save his failed presidency!!!!! WE CANNOT AFFORD 4 MORE YEARS OF OBAMA! HECK, WE CAN'T AFFORD 2 MORE YEARS, IMPEACH HIS ASS NOW!!!!!!!!!!

After 2 years of Obama's Stimulus, Bailout and economic, fiscal and monetary policies there is still no economic recovery!

It took 8 years and 2 unpopular wars for Bush to get approval rating in the 40s, it took Obama only 2 years to get worse approval rating than Bush ever had! Obama is just clueless on nearly every issue.

Obama's horribly dumb and naive idea of imposing pre-1967 borders would leave Israel indefensible.

Also note Obama's extreme lack of transparency (both in his personal life and administration) despite claims his would be the most transparent administration ever! Obama ignored the will of the majority of Americans to shove his flawed Obamacare through which will raise costs for many Americans and penalize people who can't afford it. That is no solution. Any national health care plan which does not lower costs across the board is an abject failure. But he doesn't care about the suffering lower middle class, the working poor, or the poorest of the poor who are unable to work due to disability.

For all the leftists hollow charges of anti-Constitutional behavior against Bush it has been Obama who has overseen an assault on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 10th Amendments which is unparalleled in modern times! So much for the Constitutional professor Obama.

Obama is a prideful and arrogant man.

"According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil
became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind." - C.S. Lewis