I am Sorry Twitter

I live by this motto that if you are wrong you have to admit that you are wrong and apologize. So, I have to give twitter my apology.

About two years ago I wrote a blog post blasting away how bad and pointless I found twitter to be. Well, I was wrong.

When I first signed up with twitter, which was forced upon me by a class assignment I had, I didn’t understand the whole point of it. I found it one simple aspect taken from facebook, the personal status’s, and put into its own website. It was confusing, boring and even a bit creepy.

However, after two years I finally understand how great it actually is! I mean it depends on who you follow and what you use it for, but if you use it right, it’s a very beneficial social networking site. It’s easy to keep up with all types of current events; you name it twitter got it. It’s quick, to the point and easy to read – after you get the hang of it-. You can use it as a self promoter for your business, product or just to get yourself out there, in my case it’s my journalism and reporting skills- hopefully I will be discovered someday-.

Anyways, I’m not going to make this too long, my whole purpose for this blog post is to apologize to twitter. So, here it goes… I am sorry Twitter!

By the way, feel free to follow me on my account, I’m quite interesting to follow!

Is Osama bin Laden really dead?

I think it’s safe to say that most people in this world are very happy that Osama bin Laden is finally dead. Or is he?

What proof do we really have, other than the American government said so, that bin Laden is truly dead? Yes, Al-Qaeda did “confirm” his death, but they never mentioned what proof they had or saw that allowed them to confirm his death. Maybe Al Qaeda is just going along with it in order to keep bin Laden, IF he is still alive, safe. Or, maybe this is now a solid excuse for Al-Qaeda to justify future attacks they may be planning. Who knows?

But one thing I do know is that America and the world deserves to see pictures of bin Laden actually dead. And no, not the photoshoped ones that people put together, I’m talking about the real photos.

President Obama justifies the US’s decision to not release the photos by saying,

“It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool …We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies…given the graphic nature of these photos it would create a national security risk.”

Let’s take President Obama’s response and break it down. I am going to start with his excuse that, “It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence.”

With all due respect to our president, I don’t think that releasing photos of the death of the man who has terrorized the entire world, is going to spark anymore violence than what has already consumed our world. If that is a reason, then how about banning violent shows, violent movies, violent video games, the news, music, etc. I believe the true reason for this world’s violence lies more on what I have just named, than a picture proving the man who has terrorized our nation and the world is dead.

Another reason why the US government doesn’t want to release the photos is, “It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as… a propaganda tool.”

Really? As if this world, media and its people are completely free of propaganda, and the photo of the death of the man who terrorized and destroyed the lives of thousands maybe even millions of people, is going to make or break the propaganda we are going to see in the future.

Next up is, “We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.” Well, let’s forget that bin Laden terrorized the world, and let’s just focus on America. Don’t you think that Americans deserve to see the death of the man who killed thousands of Americans, planted fear in millions of Americans, was the start for many wars for this country, and sparked the horrendous economy that has plagued the United States? I believe these people deserve to at least just have a peace of mind that bin Laden is actually dead.

Think to yourselves a little bit. How many of you, upon hearing that the US government was not going to release the photos of bin Laden’s death, thought to yourselves and said, “Man, I know he’s dead and all, but I wish I can actually see it, it would give me that feeling of relief and erase any doubts I might have about this.”

Lastly, we have, “given the graphic nature of these photos it would create a national security risk.”

Is this seriously an excuse? I don’t think releasing a photo of bin Laden’s death is going to anger Al-Qaeda more than they already are. And I don’t think the national security of the United States is going to be at stake more than it already is. If this really is a worry for the United States, then they should have thought twice about invading Iraq, having armies and bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, giving billions of dollars, weapons and military support to Israel each year, getting involved in other country affairs when they have nothing to do with it. I think these subjects threaten the US’s national security a lot more than releasing a photo of Osama Bin Laden dead as proof to people of his death.

I’m going to agree with President Obama about not releasing the photos to the public for a second and agree with the excuses he has listed above. But I will still ask myself, why doesn’t the American government at least release the photos to the families who have been directly affected by bin Laden and have lost a loved one because of him? Don’t they at least deserve to have some peace of mind, and feel assured that the man who has robbed them of their loved one is truly dead?

Now, let’s assume the excuses President Obama has given are valid and that bin laden was killed by the US military in Pakistan, but then why did the US government burry his body at sea?

It seems like a great plot to dispose of the body so that it can never be found, never be able to get the proof that it was actually him, and it was very quick, which also quickly disposed the fear of having something exposed that they might not have wanted exposed.

The government’s excuse was, that they wanted to handle bin Laden’s body with accordance to Muslim tradition and make sure his body was buried within 24 hours.

This excuse actually angers me more than any other excuse given by the US government thus far because it is entirely hypocritical. The burial was everything, but in accordance to Muslim tradition. Actually, if the US wanted to go by Muslim tradition they were supposed to give the body back to the family so that it can be buried in a grave with the head pointed toward Mecca.

Now, for the sake of the argument I am going to assume that bin Laden is dead. The next question I pose though is, had he really been killed by the US military in Pakistan on May 1, 2011?

I mean, the timing is just impeccable, so close to the 2012 presidential elections. President Obama’s popularity was seeing great declines, and his chances for re-election were getting smaller by the minute. What better boost can President Obama have than catching the most wanted and hated man in America, whom they have been trying to catch for the past ten years, and that the Republican Party couldn’t do?

I want you guys to take a look at this interview with Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto was the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party and was running for Pakistan’s general elections in January 2008. This interview with Bhutto was done on November 2, 2007 by David Frost, a reporter for Al-Jazeera English, where you can see she makes the claim at 2:15, that “Omar Sheikh murdered Osama bin Laden.” Ironically, Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007; a little over one month after this interview took place.

Although this accusation was not the first stating that bin Laden was dead, it was one of the more controversial ones, especially that Bhutto was killed one month after her accusation was made.

There were also many other accusations claiming he was dead. There was the battle of Toro Boro, then there was the reports of him dying from kidney failure in 2002, followed by many other reports that he was arrested or he  died; the list is quite big.

One question I did ask myself in the last ten years was that how can the United States of America, one of the most powerful countries in the world, one of the most high tech countries in the world and one of the most smartest governments in the world not be able to find one man an his team. For sure, that shouldn’t have been a challenge for this country. Am I wrong?

But there is a slim chance that we might ever be able to know the truth for sure.  I just wanted to bring these questions and issues up to get people to think a little bit rather than believe everything said to them by their government and media. I, like the next world citizen, would love to know for sure that Osama bin Laden has graced us with his death and freed the world of his presence. Although I do personally believe he is dead, how or when I can’t say, I do have my questions and concerns, and believe you should too.

The real truth about Syria

Pro-President Supporters take to the streets 3/29/2011

As most people continue to see in the news, the Middle East region is under great reform. The Tunisian and Egyptian presidents have already been checked out of their offices, and Libya is underway, with possible threats carrying into Yemen and talks about several other countries. One of these countries is Syria. But, should Syria truly be compared to the rest of the Arab nations? And do the Syrian people really want a new president?

As I am of Syrian origin myself, I can give you a first hand account as to what is truly going on in the country. I have been trying to explain to people outside of the country and region over and over again what is going on and I have gotten tired of repeating myself, so I figured the best way to deal with this dilemma is to post the issue on my blog and carry out an open discussion from here.

I am going to start with the latest news about Syria, which is the decision of the Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, to accept the resignation of the government chaired by Mohammad Naji Otri. Following this decision hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets throughout Syria chanting in support of President Al-Assad.

Now, I will go through the events of the past week.

Let me start with the claim that news sources were publishing saying that thousands of people had taken to the streets protesting the current Syrian regime. This claim is nowhere near the capacity the news organizations are publishing, including the popular Arabic News Networks Al Jazeera and Alarabiya. Unfortunately, we are in a day and age where news agencies are not looking out for truth anymore as much as they are looking out for money and their own interests, even if it means printing lies.

Luckily, there are people -although it’s a very small number- who are still seeking the truth. Al Jazeera and Alarabiya say that thousands of people took to the streets protesting the Syrian President’s regime. My answer to them? Take a look at the Arabic News Network, Dunya. They cared enough to go around in the Syrian streets to find out the truth. One of their destinations was the congested Souk al-Hamidiyeh, one of the most popular Souk’s -shopping centers- in Damascus. The reporters asked workers, merchants and customers in the Souk about the alleged protests against President Al-Assad.

Although I have provided a link to the video of the news segment, I know that most of you reading this blog post probably don’t speak any Arabic. So, I will translate for you some of the responses by the people you see interviewed by Dunya.

Man 1: “Souk al-Hamidiyeh is congested whether it is winter or summer. Friday or Thursday. We see in front of the cameras now, it is a Souk for business. It is known amongst all people. 20 or 15 people entered, that can’t possibly fill Souk al-Hamidiyeh.This is something that has been exaggerated.”

Man 2: “They were 10. I was standing in the same spot I am standing in right now. And they came out from here. 10 people. Young boys and two girls. There was not the number that they are talking about. Our country is safe. They’ve been paid to do what they did, I am sure about it 100%.”

Man 5: “They are saying that thousands of people came, but this is not true. In normal circumstance Souk al-Hamidiyeh is always crowded.”

Woman 1: “They are a small group in Syria, too small. They’ve been sent and are working for someone. Someone has tricked them and paid them.”

Reporter: “The images that have been presented by mobile camera’s, and for anyone who looks carefully, they will see a very limited number of people in the middle of the Souk, who integrated themselves within the main population of the Souk in order to show a greater number of people protesting than there actually was. That same image exposed their reality.”

Man 7: “This is coming from outside the country. These are spies who have entered the country or are a group of people being paid by someone outside of the country.”

Man 8: “Boys. They are all little boys and have a little girl with them. The News stations are making it so big, we heard it on TV, and it’s not. We heard of 50 people and 70 people; there is none of that. All of them won’t reach up to be more than 10 people.”

Man 9: “These are spies who have been sent to the Souk so they can ruin the image of Syria. But we are, thank god, living in peace and stability.”

Man 11: “It is about spies. About 10 or 15 people that entered between all the people in the Souk. As you can see the Souk is very congested with many people. They entered between the people and they started chanting. And the images make it look like all these people are protesting. This is all wrong.”

Alarabiya also showed a video saying that this was a video of people sent by the Syrian government carrying weapons, and that they had been ordered to go and attack the protesters. Dunya did an on-air interview with a Lebanese man who recorded the video, Dr. Kamal Fayyad. This was what Dr. Fayyad had to say:

“This afternoon at about 4:00 pm Dubai time, I became surprised with the Network station Alarabiya. They put a special video about the anti-protesters in Syria. They said that these are people who had weapons, they had explosives, they had knives and they had many dangerous things with them, who had been sent by Syrian security forces so they can go and attack peaceful protesters. I became surprised with the scene that I saw in front of me that was supposedly a scene taking place in Syria. This scene was actually from 3 years ago during events taking place in May of 2008 in Beirut, Lebanon, of which I recorded! This scene was in the streets of Beirut, and I have a copy of it, of which I will upload tomorrow on my facebook profile so that all the Arab viewers can go in and see it. My name is Kamal Fayyad, and I will upload this video for everyone to see… I am really surprised. Why all these lies? Why has the Alarabiya Network entered such a conspiracy? This was a very big surprise for me. What does Alarabiya Network want from this? Why are you acting like this? Why are you participating in such a conspiracy?…I wish for one thing; that any Syrian citizen or any Syrian lawyer sue the Alarabiya Network on the counts of lying, fabrication and ruining Syria’s image. These things are fabricated, things that you are trying to fool the Arabic people with, not just the Syrian people. “

The scene Dr. Fayyad is talking about can be seen starting at 2:05 in the link provided.

The anger of the Syrian people towards Al Jazeera and Alarabiya News Networks became clear. So clear that the Syrian people decided to protest in front of Syria’s Al Jazeera station to show their disapproval towards the lies that were being said and fabricated. The Syrian pro-government protesters held up pictures of President Al-Assad and the Syrian flag chanting, “Say God and higher your voices. Al Jazeera record record. See the Syrian people here. What a lie, what a lie. God is protecting our Assad.”

My cousin, Michael Anastassiou-Bondokji, who is of Greek origin, arrived back from Syria two days ago. I was excited to ask him about the situation in Syria and what was actually going on. Not to my surprise, he told me it was all a lie and fabrication, and nothing in comparison to what the news organizations were broadcasting. I asked him to explain and he started to show me videos he took of what was actually going on. His videos reaffirmed what the people in Dunya’s news segment were saying. The protesters against the government were very small.

The Syrian people had become so tired of hearing the lies, they decided to hit the streets with protests that were in support of the government and president to show the world the truth about the Syrian people’s beliefs and feelings towards their government. These protests were much bigger than the anti-government protests. In these videos you will see girls, boys, women and men of all ages.

The people are chanting, “God, Syria, and Bashar only!” And, “Our Souls, and blood, we will give to you Bashar.”

People were also interviewed asking their views on President Al-Assad, of which all the people interviewed replied that they would die for their country and support their president all the way and were willing to lay out their lives for their country and president.You will see people holding pictures of the President and the Syrian flag, which clearly shows their support for the government and president.

I know that many of you are still asking, what about Daraa? Well, I am going to answer this for you.

The anti-government protests in Daraa were one, not peaceful, and two, many were not even Syrian citizens. Armed gangs had been invading and attacking police stations, government headquarters and worst of all, Syrian citizens. Some had opened fire from roof tops of buildings at passers-by while others stole weapons from police stations and used it to fire at officers and people. When news stations said that Syrian security had attacked and killed peaceful protesters they were lying, because the protesters were not peaceful, and any peaceful protesters that were out, the Syrian police didn’t even care to look at.

Now, after having tried to explain all this to people outside of the country who were unable to see what was truly going on, I was targeted with some concerns and questions of which I will now address. One person said to me, “I am sure you are proud of your country and your culture but we do have a right to be skeptical. Syria refuses to grant visas to American journalists and we cannot independently verify what is happening.”

Barbara Walters having lunch with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his wife Asma Al-Assad

My response to him is that this is completely untrue. Two of the top journalists in America have been to Syria, and even met with President Al-Assad. One was Diane Sawyer in 2007. Diane Sawyer actually broadcast her show for one week from inside Syria. If you youtube Diane Sawyer in Syria, you will see almost a complete list of her news segments and interviews while she was in Syria.

The other journalist was Barbara Walters, who went in 2008. Walters came back and spoke about her experience in Syria on her show, “The View.”

Walters spoke about President Al-Assad saying that, “From my experience, he was a very intelligent, a well informed, thoughtful, he spoke perfect English, wants very much to have relations with this country, has some solutions for ending the war in Iraq.”

Walters then went on to speak about President Al-Assad’s wife, Asma Al-Assad, saying “She was educated in England, worked in this country, speaks English the way I’m talking to you, lovely, intelligent…They just were very charming and intelligent. She has a cooperative, a group teaching children to be entrepreneurs with Harvard University, was raised in England, worked in this country. So this is not what we expected in terms of the leaders.”

In regards to the current situation, as I have laid out earlier, the news agencies and journalists have not been looking for nor printing the truth about what is truly happening in Syria, and have even fabricated videos to play out their interests. Actually, while my cousin was in Syria, he heard that Syria was not letting people video tape what was happening. So he decided to go down and see for himself. While he was there he saw a foreign journalist freely taping the anti-government protests. Later pro-government protests came out. When they did, the journalist turned her camera off. So he went up to her and asked her, “Why did you shut your camera off? Why don’t you tape what is truly happening?” Where he then took out his camera and started to freely record the events. From here you can see that there is some kind of conspiracy going on trying to mold the events in Syria towards one side.

I also received many comments about how Christians in Syria feel suppressed and have no freedom. Again this is not true. I am a Syrian Christian, and I never felt happier or safer as a Christian than when I am in Syria. Speaking from experience, Christians and Muslims in Syria live very peaceful lives. There are many inter-religious friends and dialogue. Actually, during the Islamic Holy month of Ramadan, Syrian Christian priests go and visit the Sheikh’s and Imam’s and celebrate with them. Then during Christmas, the Sheikh’s and Imam’s visit the Syrian Christian Priests to celebrate with them.  The parade’s that take place during Christmas and Easter in Syria, is something probably never seen anywhere else in the world. Thousands of people take to the streets for parade’s during the Christian holiday’s set up by Syrian churches and members of the church. Muslims and Christians flood the streets to watch.

Does this look like Syrian Christians running in fear to you?

Even Walters, when talking about her trip to Syria said, “They have total freedom of religion because it’s a Christian, Muslim, there are not very many Jews there.”

I believe in 2008 Syria had the second largest Christmas Tree in the world and the largest one in the Middle East, where Muslims and Christians together went out to see the tree.

Many people have this misconception that Syria is an Islamic country run by Islamic law. This is incorrect. Syria is not an Islamic country. The Syrian Constitution defines Syria as a secular socialist state. Islam consists of the majority of the population in Syria, but that does not mean Syria is an Islamic state. Just like most of the people in the USA are Christians, but that doesn’t mean the USA is a Christian country run by Christian laws.

Some people then asked me, why are Christians in Syria fleeing the country because of the Muslims and economy in Syria, to come to the USA? The response to this question is, the Christians in Syria are not fleeing the country to run away from Islamic oppression. Many young Christian and Muslim men in Syria dream to come to the USA. Why? Simply because they have a misconception about the USA. They believe if they come to the USA then within a year they will be living on a bank of money.The reality? When most of these young Christian and Muslim men arrive here they realize they were wrong. They realize how expensive it is, and that they can not live the life of luxury they were dreaming of and see on TV, but instead have to work day and night just to live and pay their bills. What do they do? Well many either pack up their bags and go back, or spend the rest of their lives working at a minimum wage job and feel it’s too late to go back now, but regret the day they ever came.I know of many cases where men have dreamed of coming to the US, and once they got here they were shocked at what they saw and started to say life in Syria was way less stressful and so much better.

I am not saying Syria is heaven on earth. The country is far from it. However, neither is it anywhere near the image and conception that some people have and some news sources are printing. No country in the world is immune to corruption, lying and stealing. There isn’t one government in the world that doesn’t lie to its people and steal from its people. But what I do ask of everyone is to always check two sides of the story before creating  for yourselves an idea about a people, region or news story, and indulging yourselves in the ignorance of the world.

Nuttin but Stringz, best violin duet

In season three of America’s Got Talent, two New York young suburban men rocked the show with their unique style in music. They managed to combine classical, rock and hip hop music to create , what I believe, the two most amazing violin duets today.

These two young men who call themselves, “Nuttin but Stringz,” give electrifying performances on stage, and compose incredible music. As Sharon Osbourne said, they “are going to be responsible for a lot of young kids going for violin lessons.”

It is unfortunate that they came in third place in the competition. Nonetheless they have now created their own cd and music videos and are on their way to international stardom having debuted their song “Broken Sorrow” at  number 3 on Japan’s billboard charts.

I just had to share this amazing music with you. Here is a video of one of their performances on America’s Got Talent.

The end is still the beginning

So, this is a post following a request from my professor, Scott Brodeur, to put an entry in my blog reflecting on my feedback journalism course.

Throughout the semester I was subjected to a number of assignments where I had to give and receive feedback on topics. I also had to update my blog weekly in efforts to get people to give me feedback on my blog, and I also had to go and give feedback on other people’s blogs.

Before taking this course, I would occasionally get into discussions under controversial topics or topics that interested me. However, I didn’t do this on a regular basis, and like I said, my comments would mainly be on issues that were directly related to me or I felt strongly about.

During the duration of the course, many times I was put in positions where I had to begin discussions or give feedback on issues that never really interested me, and I would have probably never commented on before. Nevertheless, doing this really opened up my eyes and mind. It was very interesting to see all the different types of ideas out there and what other people had to say.

One of my favorite assignments for this course, was the assignment where we had to go out and comment on 10 different topics on the internet and try to engage ourselves in a discussion. This assignment was a lot of fun, but at the same time it taught me a lot. I tried to post on a variety of topics to see what happened. The feedback I received opened my eyes to many different perspectives that people had. It also taught me a lot and let me see and realize ideas I might not have realized before.

My least favorite assignment for the course was when we had to follow twitter for one week. I always had some sort of idea what twitter was, but was never 100% sure. Well, after having followed twitter for one week, my idea about twitter was correct. I always thought and still think twitter to be real pointless. I don’t understand the point of twitter and probably never will.

Needless to say though, I loved this course. After this course I am more involved in commenting on all different types of topics and giving my feedback, not just topics that  interest me like I did before. I realized that my biggest learning experience came from the ideas and experiences of others.

I also hope to continue to evolve my blog and advertise it. I loved receiving feedback on my posts and hearing what others had to say, and I will try to continue this even after my feedback journalism course is over.

So for me, basically, the end is still the beginning.

Commenting week

Receiving the assignment of trying to get as many comments as possible on a blog post was not as hard as I expected it to be. The beginning was the most challenging part for me.

I started out with a story on Preisdent Obama’s positive influence in the Middle East, but I realized that this might not be the best way to go. Reason being is that my personal interest is in politics. However, not everyone has the same interest. Trying to get people to comment on such a post might be a bit difficult, because probably not everybody is going to be up-to-date on the most recent foreign relations and Middle Eastern news, making it hard for them to get into the discussion.

Therefore, I decided to change my topic making it more of a general knowledge and personal opinion topic. I decided to use the whole Madonna adoption issue as my blog post of discussion for the next two weeks.

It seemed as though this topic was more of an interest to people. I advertised my blog primarily on facebook. I first advertised my entire blog website, wondering if people’s interest might switch off of the Madonna article and onto another article. However, most of my comments started to build under the Madonna adoption article, so after about one week I switched the link that led into my entire blog, to the link that leads  only to that specific blogpost.

Other than advertising my blog post on facebook, I also started to send my blog link to all my friends and family members. From there, my friends and family members began to send the link to their friends and family. As a result, I began to watch the comments on my blog grow and grow.

The first few days my blog post was very active,  however, towards the end the activity started to die down until it reached no activity at all.

By the end of the two weeks I had a total of thirty-three comments. Not bad I guess, for a beginning blogger.

The comments all varried in opinion. Some people agreed with me, and other’s were in disagreement.

What I would have done different though, to get more comments is probably try and advertise my blog on youtube, especially under videos of Madonna. This thought didn’t occur to me until the end of the two weeks.

Overall, this whole experience was a very interesting one. I enojyed seeing discussions take place under posts I wrote. It was amusing to see the opinions of other people, and their opinions opened up my mind more into perspectives I might not have thought about before, especially the ones that disagreed with me.

Twitter

If it wasn’t for the assignment I had to do in my class, I don’t think I would have ever made a twitter account or even tried it out.

After the assignment I had, I know that I will never want to keep up with twitter and was happy I never did make an account before.

Twitter, I found, is so pointless and time wasting. I really don’t get the point of it. Maybe I am missing something. Basically, all I see twitter to be is a website where people go and update status’s all day long of what they are doing or possible topics and stories they find interesting.

I don’t see the big deal of it. All twitter did is take one small aspect of facebook, which is the status updates, and make that into a whole website.

Twitter is incredibly confusing and hard to keep up with. When people update their status’s your whole twitter “wall” fills up with status updates that are hard to read and distinguish from one another.

I don’t understand why people waste their time using twitter. You get random people following you, which is a bit creepy needless to say, and I found no benefit or learning experience from it. I couldn’t even visit a profile to see who the people following me were.

After about a week I noticed my direct message inbox, that blended into the background, which caused me to not even notice it before. I saw two messages from acmaurer, a journalist, and the coloneltribune welcoming me to twitter. Well, I didn’t really feel very welcome there given that I could not understand how to use anything, and when I did I found it to be a waste of time.

In my opinion, facebook is a lot more easier to use and less creepy. At least on facebook we can see the profiles of the people who add us and vice verse.

I think twitter is just going to be a short phase that is going to die down soon, and then people might see what a waste of time it was.

U.S. soldier takes advantage of Iraqi’s?

I am very curious to see what people think about this video?

I for one am very upset to see such a video. The U.S. did not send it’s soldiers down to Iraq, with their big machines and trucks to take advantage of the people there!

I feel disgusted when I see a soldier using their big powerful machine’s and trucks to take advantage of the people in Iraq, and ram their trucks into the small cars in such a way so they can pass them on the street.

Is this what America the free is all about? Is this the type of law’s, order and tranquility the U.S. is trying to instill in Iraq an its people?

Rather than using their machine’s for fun and taking advantage of the people, the soldier’s should be setting a good influence on the people in Iraq, not creating more chaos!

I am really curious about what you guys have to say in regards to this video?

Egypt orders salughter of all the pigs

So, here is a bit of some ridiculous news I read this morning.

Egypt has ordered a slaughter of all the pigs in Egypt, because of the swine flue epidemic, says the Associated Press.

Egypt began the slaughter of about 300,000 pigs on Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the swine flu, even though there have been no cases reported there yet, said the Health Ministry.

This in my opinion has got to be the most insane decisions I have ever heard.

Pigs are alive just as much as humans are. They feel, eat, breathe, endure pain, love and do pretty much everything humans do. This decision is like saying, there was a human reported in Mexico with a cancer spreading disease and humans are beginning to spread this disease around the world. Then Egypt comes along and says, we should slaughter all humans as a precautionary measure for the spreading disease!

This is a very inhumane decision in my opinion. There have not even been any cases reported in Egypt, nor in Africa, nor in the Middle East.

The majority of the Middle East are muslims, they don’t even eat pork anyways!

Swine flu spreads

It seems like almost every year we are going to get some form of a flu epidemic.

The big scare of the bird flu,  that started several years ago and scared the globe, has become less of a scare now. However, the new influenza going around, the swine flu, is building in momentum.

Having reportedly already killed 81 people in Mexico, countries fear that this flu is going to spread on a large international scale.

According to the associated press, the flu has reached the states of California, Texas and Kansas.  Now, there are worries that the swine flu has also reached New York.

Well, I personally don’t think people should sit and worry about this. Every year we have something to worry about; the bird flu, the AVIAN flu, the west nile virus, and now the swine flu.

If we had to worry about every possible sickness or disease that was out there, we might as well just all quarantine ourselves at home.

This world is full of sickness, diseases and dangers. If we don’t die one way we will die another. So, we should all live our lives and when our time comes it’s going to come whether it’s through a flu or a car accident.