America's Back (and it's) Black!!!

Now that the Mac is not back, is it better to buy PC or Google? Whatever the case may be, I am so happy that the choice is still an American one. I always had this image of Obama being a 007 in a 747 flying America's best hopes and dreams all over the world. The guy's very focused and down to earth and having lived abroad in Indonesia and with roots and family still living in Kenya let's hope he will make a great President not just for America but for everyone around the world. He showed great respect for McCain and was very sober in his victory speech. I think America did a great hire in this election

http://thinkaloo.com

Will it take an Obama to catch an Osama?

While on one hand Obama wants to close down the prison in Quantanamo he also wants to focus efforts on catching Bin Laden. If Bin Laden is caught do you think it's better to just kill him or try him before executing him by placing him in a tall building and crashing a plane into it? Bin Laden is not the leader of an independent country like Saddam was. He has a wider religious appeal all over the Muslim world. My sense is to better kill him without trying him.

http://thinkaloo.com

Obama! Was it a true victory?

Don't get me wrong. I support Obama. My whole point is based on a very simple question. Is Bush who's well hated among the world wasn't the president for the last 8 years, do you think Obama would have won McCain so easily? My question isn't finished yet. IF Obama was white and Bush wasn't the president for the last 8 years what do you think the result would be?

http://thinkaloo.com

"Blackberry Denied"

Mister President, how are we going to break it to the people? I mean it's going to do one hell of a thing to your image. You can't buy this malarkey. Imagine commercials exploiting this in foreign countries showing their leaders calling you from their flashy red Blackberries. Silvio's with the Ferrari logo on it and Sarkozy's with the Carla-Bruni-singing ringtone. The Kim Jong ills, the Chavezes and Ahmadinejads having theirs designed to look like a missile. Damn it, Mister President. I've been warning for years that we're still riddled with traitors. With your permission I'd like to call the boys in CONCOM :P

http://thinkaloo.com

The Best Transition President

If only Bush had governed the same way he handled the transition period, he would have made a much better president. All Obama said about Bush in his speech was to thank him first for his service to the country (way too general) and then for his generosity and cooperation during the transition (as good as it gets). He basically acknowledged that Bush existed and that he was at his best as a president-in-transition. Obviously Bush was not as good in transition when he 'snatched defeat from the jaws of victory' from Al Gore in 2000 but 8 years changed him a lot. In any case, what a cordial thing of Obama to say about Bush..

http://www.thinkaloo.com

A better strategy to capture Osama bin Laden

Instead of faking his death, how about Obama officially announces that Osama Bin Laden had been working for the CIA all along? Produce good fake internal documents that prove it and put on trial for treason and conspiracy to attack the US a few CIA agents (who will later be proven not guilty). If, as some people believe, 9/11 was an internal plot, then no one will want to give safe refuge to a CIA agent. Discredit him in the eyes of his protectors and let them kill him or deliver him to you. Isn't that a more effective conspiracy strategy?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Fake Osama bin Laden's death

Obama, Brown, Merkel, Sarkozy, Zapatero, Berlusconi and Netanyahu make public statements that Osama Bin Laden is officially dead and leave it up to him to prove this otherwise. With some luck Osama will make the crucial mistake that will lead to his capture or real death. I suggest our leaders produce good fake visual material to prove Osama bin Laden's death. I see no problem killing anyone with Photoshop or other video editing software. After all, why use the technology only to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction which don't exist and not for the fake killing of dangerous people who are still alive?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

What's your impression of Obama's beliefs on war?

My impression is that Obama doesn't believe in war and wants to stir the world in that direction. That's not to say he doesn't believe in the use of force to go after terrorists in Pakistan. From his speeches and interviews, however, I rarely get the impression that in the back of his mind he seriously contemplates an attack on Iran or North Korea as the right policy, even if forced into that situation. Excluding another direct attack on America, I have the feeling Obama might be the first President to end his term(s) without presiding over a war.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Running out of months.

President Obama issued an official White House proclamation naming the month of June as the official gay pride month. Without getting into personal views on the issue of gays, or as they are now known in a more politically inclusive way LGBT, is this really a necessary thing? We will soon run out of months as we try to separate groups by race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference etc.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Obama to Palestinians: Stop violence!

You may think Obama's message was good news for Israel, you may think that all Israelis will benefit by ending violence. Here are some facts about Israel's economy to inform your opinion in a way that is upsetting to us Israelis.

Israel has put counter-terrorism at the center of its export economy and its economy has been booming since September 2001.

Let's call it trickle-down war economics.

Israel is the world's 4th largest arms dealer in the world, larger than the UK. Its technology sector, much of it linked to security makes up 60% of all exports.

Israel has become a shopping mall for homeland security technologies all over the world.

Nice Systems, Verint, Comverse, SuperCom, Check Point, New Age Security Solutions, Instinctive Shooting International etc are just some of the world's best and largest homeland security companies.

A call made to the New York Police Department will be recorded and analyzed by technology created by Nice Systems, an Israeli firm. Images captured in the London tube system are recorded on Verint video surveillance cameras, owned by the Israeli firm Comverse.

These are but two examples. When it comes to defense and security technology, Israel is the "Made in China" story. Not just cheaper, but also made by the best in the world.

In view of the above, I hope you can now begin to understand why, when the war with Lebanon started in August 2006, the Tel Aviv stock exchange went up. In the final quarter of the same year, which had also included the bloody escalation in the West Bank and Gaza following the election of Hamas, Israel's economy grew by a staggering 8%.

Conflict and violence breeds more conflict and more violence and the need for better security everywhere in the world.

The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is free advertising for Israeli security firms around the world. They are considered the experts and there is good reason for that. "Made in Israel" means tested in violence and proven to work.

Do you really think it is in Israel's economic interest for the Palestinians and other extremists to end all violence? Perhaps it might be.

But in the short-term, the answer is probably negative. If Israel can diversify its economy in the long term, then peace might have a better chance.

The world thinks the main obstacle is illegal settlements in the West Bank. It is definitely an issue but an easier one to solve from an economic point of view than diversifying the economy away from homeland security and defense spending and exports.

If a political deal is made, some of the illegal settlements can be sold out or rented to the new Palestinian owners who will buy them or rent them with loans and economic aid. Lavish economic compensation can entice Jewish settlers to relocate. Some of them will and some will have to be forced out.

But changing the structure of the Israeli economy can take years and it is a far more difficult task because it affects the economic well-being of a larger segment of Israel's population. The sad truth is that the Israeli economy, in its current structure, has an incentive to sponsor violence, not end it. It profits massively from it.

So for the time being, I am not very optimistic that there is the kind of economic change in the horizon to usher the kind of peace we can believe in.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Obama Cairo Speech. Perfect.

"He will be hailed as a man of peace; he will be accomplished as a great orator; he will win hearts and minds and many will follow him; but he will be tha anti-Christ"

So, when do we receive his mark? :-)

Is Obama the anti-Christ?? I don't think he is as good as lot of people think. I don't have any good points to support this but the fact that he is a president in the US means a lot to me.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Scumbank

Now that Obama capped CEO compensation at $500,000, I am thinking of starting a new bank where Wall Street fat cats can park restricted stock bonuses, corporate jets, yachts and all sorts of ponzinous financial assets. Out of respect to the public, the bank's premises will be non-descript and decrepit-looking, the exact opposite of what a modern-day Poshbank would look like. Poshbanks are dead. Long leave my Scumbank in little Burglardeshi...

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Meet Da Pirates

Finally, some 'smart' pirates over in Somalia have bought laptops and an internet connection and are reading JackSparrow on the loo! Finally, they are following JackSparrow's advice to dress better in order to make the world more sympathetic to their plight. But instead of picking Hollywood to do their PR as I advised, those fools chose the White House. They got so afraid The Bro in Da Houz would tax them, they dressed up and rushed to negotiate lower taxes on their bounty. I can almost hear this Somali pirambassador asking Obama, "Arrr...Don't tax me bro and I'll hook to the law." You never know with a pirate if he means The Law of the Sea or the Law of Pirasea but The Bro knows very well what he is up to!

Those Somali pirates are letting me down. I suggested they meet with the head of Warner Bros in Hollywood and they are meeting with The Bro in Da Houz? They think they can discuss maritime strategy with him and win him over?? Fools! BarRRAck will wench you hooks down before you can say aRrrrrrr..igato. The Bro in Da Houz is not a Bush Walker, what on earth do these Somalis think they're doing meeting The Bro in full costume, without preconditions and without my knowledge and permission??

The Bro in Da Houz is a transformative President you fools, if not a Transformer himself. He already got a dog for his daughters and a bloodhound parrot to help him regulate pirasea. You fools, he'll make you repeat after him and have you sing Arr N B like no pirate ever did. Before you know it, you'll find yourselves staging ballet shows on Broadway to highlight your plight with elegance and gay finesse. The Bro will have successfully transformed you into the entertainment trouperie of So Ma Lee.

No offense to gay people, ballet enthusiasts or parrot lovers, but for a Somali pirate, dancing ballet on the mast will be the only strategy Obama's parrot will agree to not regulate. It might be the only skill they'll ever practice trying to confuse navy seals into thinking they have the wrong ship on tarRRRget. You fools, do you have the slightest idea how good you mast learn how to dance in order to save your aRrrrrse from US navy seals who are so well trained at shooting pirates in the eye from a distance? Why do you think pirates cover their eyes with a black patch, you fools you think it's just Halloween huh...

Yarr, I will be so worried if I learn that this Somali pirambassador accepts a parrot as a gift from Obama. After the Queen got an Ipod and a hug, the minimum I will advise to accept from the Bro is The Black PeaRrrrl and the geaRrrl.

I am so worried about these Somali Pirates. Their days will soon be over after this meeting. May it be some solace to a pirate's heart that JackSparrow will still talk to them from the loo. With so much black bounty yet to be taxed, Obama asked me, in secret, to intervene. Everyone knows JackSparrow is a generous man and will not let the pirates down...yarrr yarrr, yes JackSparrow will use the bounty to train the next generation of So Ma Lee para-troupers in the Caribbean camps before he sends them to Hollywood for casting on his next big hit!

Next time I am asked to lobby The Bro in Da White House on behalf of World Wide Pirasea, I will expect a very generous retainer though. When a President has a good sense of humor, it's hard to outsmart him unless you are Da Real JackSparrow he is dealing with...

And that my fellow Somali pirates, in case you were thinking you can get away with some ballet on the mast, won't happen until you shake that booty.

JackSparrow's services are must-worthy and they will cost you more than a cheap pirate's costume and a photo opp with Obama.

You bet!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Message to Obama: Don't markets amply reward value anyway?

The message from the Obama team is that we have to reward people who add value to the economy by producing real products and services instead of rewarding bankers with sky-high bonuses and salaries which they haven't really earned nor they deserve. While I agree with the principle that people who add value to the economy should be rewarded and people who don't should not, I'm very confused by that message being repeated by Obama over and over.

Entrepreneurs who add value by innovating and creating successful new products do get rewarded very handsomely. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin etc. These people Are rich unlike bankers who get paid well but receive nowhere near the rewards successful entrepreneurs receive.

When there is no money around to give, bankers get fired. When there is, bankers get it. When a banker gets a high bonus, it's because he has earned it. When he hasn't earned it but still gets it, it is because the government gives it to him. My point is that bankers don't create money out of nothing, they get it from somewhere.

So long as they can be creating ways to get it, it sounds awkward to say that we need to reward other professionals more, unless Obama means we disperse taxpayers money directly into other professionals' bank accounts as bonuses for services or products they have not yet created or might never will. Just like he did with recent AIG and Citigroup bonuses for example. At least I can understand how that works. Hey you failed but here is your paycheck. I, the government, give it to you.

Saying however, that people who add value to the economy should be rewarded more than bankers who don't add any value, that I don't understand. Doesn't the market already reward successful people in every field anyway? What's wrong with that to want to make it work otherwise or differently? I don't understand why and how, in a merit-based market economy the reward system should change.

For the government to say we got to change the reward system in our market-based economy when the government rewards failed bankers with taxpayers' money it's confusing and convoluted. If the government gave the money to the failed bankers already, that means that they somehow deserved it, so be clear with your message Obama, what exactly do you mean when you say other workers should be rewarded more than bankers in a market-based economy that already rewards success in the market? Do you plan to play market or do you plan to subsidize the market? Or are you just saying?

You know, just stop paying high bonuses to Failed bankers and we are back to square one. Let them fail. Regulate. Simple. Stop preaching if your actions don't measure up to the message. Stop preaching about not wanting to reward failure in the system when you have already rewarded failure by keeping failed banks alive. Not cool.

Market failure and regulation is change we can understand and already believe in. That's why we elected you anyway. Be cool.

http://thinkaloo.com

Why fly when there's Photoshop?

Have Americans lost their minds? Here's a high-IQ question. Did terrorists take down all legal copies of Photoshop from FAA computers Or did they they just hack into officials' common-sense and replaced it with a sick sense of humor?

Before asking why it had to fly Low, I want to ask why Air Force One, escorted by two F-16s, had to actually fly over the New York skyline in order to take shots of the plane! Couldn't an intern edit the photo without authorizing an expensive photo-op flight over NY? I thought there is an economic crisis going on. These flights cost money and if they are not necessary they should not be authorized on economic grounds, not to mention New Yorkers sensibilities.

That was a sick joke for New Yorkers and if Osama-Bin-Laden is reading the story from his laptop cave, he is probably emailing the FAA, the CIA and the White House asking them to authorize low photo-op flights over Pakistan. Like Obama, he must be furious old images of him are still circulating in the media years after 9/11. If Osama's spokesman states that his boss is upset the CIA circulates old copies of him to the media, I am ready to accept that the Afghani guy is actually more grounded in his request than the FAA officials that authorized the flight.

I want to also prepare myself not to be surprised if Osama, out of empathy for the economic pain felt by millions of Americans announces that he is willing to pay for the cost of those photo-op flights over Pakistan.

I don't know what you think of this incident but I think it was a very sick joke to play on New Yorkers and also rude to everyone else suffering in this crisis.

If Americans are running out of common-sense sensitivity, what happened to their common-sense economic sensibility?

What's wrong with using Photoshop?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

How to keep the unemployed busy

Obama is talking of a new Green Economy and governments all over the world spend billions of dollars to spur economic growth. What if all unemployed people were immediately hired to work part-time to clean up the environment? Restore polluted sites, clean up beaches and cities from litter, install renewable energy infrastructure.

They would be paid for their work on top of the unemployment benefit and use their spare time to look for another job. It's better than no work at all and the government can hire them right away.

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Waterboarded 183 times? My Guinness!

What a colossal admission of failure for torture efficiency no matter how you look at it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a month? No, that's not inefficient. No, it's not a miracle that this guy survived to confess whatever he confessed at the end. No, it doesn't matter that the Central Inefficiency Agency discredits torture intelligence. 1-8-3 times?? Give Me a break!

I'm curious what else the recently declassified memos say. Did it ever occur to anyone that the subject might die before confessing anything? Could that be the reason why millions of uninsured Americans allege that prisoners in Guantanamo received better medical treatment in a month than they do in a lifetime? Since the allegation is not true as the terrorists captured do not number millions and the uninsured don't get treatment anyway, did we really need the CIA to give us reasons to believe it could be?

Ok, maybe after count 68 the torture was repeated to extract pleasure or revenge. 183-68=115 times, excluding 69 for a kit-kat that leaves us at 114 times that waterboarding could have been repeated for sadistic reasons. The US doesn't torture people. So true. That's because it likes to torture people??

Whichever way you look at it, 183 times in a month just waterboarding is sick and irrational. Dick Cheney argues that it was justified because valuable information was received. Waterboard me once and I'll buy that...But for all we know, Osama Bin Laden is still alive and not captured and the Taliban seem poised to take over Pakistan! Waterboard me twice...hello?

Fortunately, Obama felt compelled to explicitly ban the practice. Europeans can now, once again, contemplate the US in personal pronoun terms, even though we may never be able to pronounce it that way.

I am looking at the photos of the guy before and after water-boarding. He doesn't look at his best before the interrogation but look at the photo of him that gets published in the media after the interrogation. He's a sketch!

If Obama felt compelled to publish the secret memo showing how number-irrational the CIA was, then it makes sense why he had to ban torture altogether. Think of all the aspiring die-hard terrorists around the world receiving the news that it took the 9/11 mastermind 183 times of waterboarding to break him.

As if Osama-Bin-Laden was not enough of a hero icon to the die-hard Muslims now they get a true martyr to look up to. All it takes is one clever mullah to promise 1 extra virgin in heaven every time waterboarding doesn't break the martyr. 72 virgins in heaven for attempting to blow yourself up plus 183 if you martyr it out like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did, that's 255 virgins, a nice big royal harem in heaven!!

Obama had no choice but to ban the practice otherwise thousands more would rush to sign up to break the record.

Honestly, I wish Obama had banned the practice without revealing the details. It makes the CIA look weak and unintelligent, it makes this guy appear as a martyr and it makes me sick to think that the practice was not legally considered torture at the time and now it is. But none of that upsets me more than the fact that it's not President McCain publishing the memos and discrediting the Republican Dick.

For all we know, Obama might have published the details because he might have been personally disgusted by it. For all we don't know, is that 183 is the official number...

What a Sick Dick, Cheney!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Obama Sushi

Eating Obama for Sushi. The concept would have sold well in Europe and the Middle east under the Bush presidency. Sushi is easy to eat with the hands too, so the Arabs would have loved to eat Bush. The Obama Sushi will probably sell well among Republicans in the US, wouldn't it? I guess they are the ones who would love to eat Obama alive. Since they can't do it politically, the Japanese give them a chance to do it gastronomically! :)

If you can do it on Sushi, why not on other foods too? I can imagine a new industry that gives people the opportunity to eat anybody they want for lunch, dinner, snack or breakfast (lol)

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Obama's policies. The Way to Hell.

Mirek Topolanek, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and head of the EU presidency described Obama's bailouts and fiscal policies as the "Way to Hell". This is unusually harsh language that European politicians never used even when Bush was president despite the fact that negative/angry feelings were running very high back then and despite the fact that European politicians, on the whole, were completely opposed to Bush's policies in Iraq and his handling of foreign affairs. Why such language now for Obama?

Are Europeans feeling less fear to speak out their minds than before? Is it because they feel the US has declined and weakened in their eyes that emboldens them to speak up more freely?

Or is it a sign of fear and panic as the credit tsunami is expected to hit Europe's shores harder this year?

I think it's probably more a sign of European panic and fear than a feeling of relative European strength or self-confidence from perceived weakness of US power. Most of the foreign debt of the US is held by the Chinese and the Japanese, so in my mind if anyone should be excused for using such tone it should be them. Yet the language in the statements by Asian officials is measured and less emotional.

In addition, Obama's critics here in the US accuse him of trying to turn the country into some kind of European-style social democracy with his policies, those on the extreme accuse him of wanting to implant outright socialism. In view of that, it seems odd to me that Obama receives the kind of criticism he receives from Europe.

What is it exactly that the Europeans fear? Do they feel helpless to handle the crisis?

www.thinkaloo.com

US Presidential Elections, who can use who?

This thought was posted on Thinkaloo on 21 March 2008 by member monica

Visit www.thinkaloo.com, our new online community where you can share your thoughts and knowledge, discuss your ideas, ask questions and meet smart people

---

I am interested in your opinion on this. If Hillary wins, she could use Obama in her cabinet, possibly as Secretary of State or at the Department of Energy to oversee the transition to a green economy. If Obama wins, however, I don't think there is much room to use Hillary. Their positions on health care and foreign policy in Iraq are different. Which do you think is more likely to happen?

If it's true that Hillary and Obama are a dream ticket, would you vote for Hillary so that you can also get Obama's talent or would you go for Obama with less chances to use any of Hillary's experience?