insignificant thoughts

Boosting credit to struggling small businesses is “crucial” to the economy’s recovery and poses an important policy challenge, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday.

“To support the recovery, we need to find ways to ensure that credit-worthy borrowers have access to needed loans,” he told a Fed-sponsored conference on small business financing.

Translation: We can’t recover until everyone is following the governmental model of spending money they don’t have.

The Obama administration has quietly begun implementing a new policy for dealing with illegal aliens. Under the new plan ICE audits employers (more than 2,900 in the past year) and then forces them to fire all the undocumented workers on their payroll. If the employer doesn’t comply, they are hit with massive fines.

Mark K. Reed, president of Border Management Strategies, a consulting firm in Tucson that advises companies across the country on immigration law explained “Instead of hundreds of agents going after one company, now one agent can go after hundreds of companies, and there is no drama, no trauma, no families being torn apart, no handcuffs.”

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Here’s the catch. The administration has already decided not to deport Invaders unless they’ve been convicted of a felony. This is the official policy and has been documented in other stories on this blog.

And people wonder why Arizona had to pass it’s own law? The fact that the Federal Government is unwilling to deport illegals, to me, is proof that they’ve officially abdicated their responsibility to enforce the border and immigration laws, and instead are looking to make a cash grab against the corporations that hire them.

I’m all for punishing the companies, but once you know who these folks are, why are they allowed to stay?

*crickets*

(Click above to watch the video)

Well well well… That looks like the signal drops when the phone is covered…

Now you may say “Big deal, I’ll never cover the screen with my hand and hold it and try to use it.”

Forget your hands; hold it up to your face.

Oh, you get it now?

Of course since the Nexus One sold about 10 units in a year, it’s not the sexy target the iPhone 4 is, but it is interesting that it behaves similarly and no one is really talking about it.

I can’t wait to see all the Nexus One users (who are impartial and not fanboys and love openness) start expressing their outrage to HTC and Google with as much fervor as they point the finger and laugh at the iPhone and Apple.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t wait. I don’t wanna age that much.

CATHOLICS are outraged after discovering rosary beads – sacred jewellery used in prayer – are being flaunted as a fashion statement.

The strings of beads with a cross are now as likely to be found in cheap jewellery stores as they are in a church, with fashion franchise Diva selling three styles of a rosary necklace with a silver cross pendant for $14.99 each.

The beads are a hit with teenagers, but national president for the Catholic Women’s League Australia, Madge Fahy, said it was inappropriate for people to wear them as jewellery.

“It is totally disrespectful to the religious beliefs of Catholics” she said.

“I believe it’s an abuse of our religious object. Rosary beads are solely used for prayer.”

Ms Fahy said non-religious followers of fashion should have more regard for a sacred symbol of the Catholic Church.

Nope, they shouldn’t. They should be able to run them through their buttcrack if that’s what they feel they should be doing with them.

Am I happy that people are disrespecting rosary beads? Nope. Not at all. In fact, I think it’s a scummy thing to do and cowardly because I know that such disrespect would never dare be afforded to certain other religions who would behead people for doing so. That being said, you can’t accuse someone of blasphemous behavior if they don’t belong to your church. It’s not blasphemous to them; they’re just beads.

The Catholic Church is pretty clear on rosary beads; they’re not to be worn as decoration. That being said, if you’re not a member of the Catholic church, whether or not you wear rosary beads is a moot point. If you are Catholic and wearing them, that’s between you and God.

It’s just the way it is.

Buxbaum said she felt guilty celebrating their marriage in a city where her gay friends couldn’t enjoy the same benefits. “I started to feel terrible,” she said. “I was sharing something that not everybody could have.” Stringer said, “We both agreed it was the right thing to do.” The couple will still hold a ceremony in New York City in September, but will obtain their marriage license and have a civil ceremony in Connecticut a few days before.

Oh wow, Scott. You showed them. You’re gonna get married in Connecticut, then come back to New York where you’ll re-assume your useless position as Borough President, a do-nothing job with no responsibility that collects a nice paycheck just like you do now.

What a champion.

You all know how I feel about gay marriage, but only a true toolbag can make an issue about them when, in reality, it has nothing to do with them. The city loses nothing by Mr. Stringer getting married in Connecticut so I don’t really see the point.

Symbolic? Sure. Actually meaningful? Not even close.

Let me get this straight — the William Morris Agency has reportedly dropped Mel Gibson as a client because he used the “N-word” in an unhinged privately recorded rant, but William Morris continues to represent the likes of P. Diddy, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, 50 Cent, and many more, who broadcast the same awful word to millions — daily, unabashedly and continually?

Gotta love Hollywood.

Nothing new, but still worth noting.

We begin the day by thanking Patrick Ewing, a real franchise player and warrior who left it on the court every time he wore a Knicks uniform.

Was he perfect? No. When I see him I still tell him he has the worst hands of any all-time great player. Was he easy to cover as a reporter? Not all the time. He could be a pain in the rear but he was always honest and he always accepted responsibility for his and the team’s performance.

Think about that today as we struggle to deal with LeBron James‘ decision to leave Cleveland in his rear view mirror and head to Miami to play the role of Scottie Pippen to Dwyane Wade‘s Michael Jordan.

It’s clear now that LeBron had no intentions of signing with the Knicks regardless of how many times he wore a Yankees cap in public. New York would have meant pressure. Staying in Cleveland would have meant pressure and as we know LeBron, unlike Ewing, cannot handle the pressure.

Let’s not get too glowing about Ewing; he didn’t deliver a ring either and he easily had one of the best teams ever on the court in 1994. That being said, his personality and leadership are what the Knicks have been lacking since he left and frankly something I didn’t think LeBron actually had; he would’ve just scored a lot and overcome the lack of leadership.

LeBron would’ve brought some “cred” to the Knicks, but I’m not sure he would’ve brought a ring. I think he felt the same way which is why he made sure he went to a team with a deck that was a little more stacked even if the city is second-rate and he has no opportunity to really matter to the sport in that market.

GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.

I have to admit, it made me lol…

The Championship of Me became the Championship of Flee, because LeBron James doesn’t believe he can be the centerpiece of a title team. He needed Dwyane Wade, a closer, far more than Wade needed him.

Yes, he’s ruined everything. What a wonderful idea: Divorce your childhood sweetheart on national television and tell her, hey, I’ll let you keep the “We are all Witnesses” billboards lording over downtown Cleveland.

“I’m taking my talents to South Beach,” James said, and it was like time stopped because – even for him – this was a moment so devoid of reality and free of concern of consequences. South Beach? He wasn’t picking a basketball team as much as a party. He’s 25 years old, and yet somehow this felt like a cloistered teenager picking a party school for college.

Perfect.

Bradley: it is the Islamic belief in the afterlife that could be an incentive to die in the name of Islam. According to the prophet Mohammed, the next life is paradise, offering forgiveness.

Faisal: In the Islamic belief system, the next life is the primary life. The next life is more real, more intense, and more vivid.

Yusuf: I think that there are people that do these things that believe that we have a noble end, and the noble end is to bring about some kind of conflict to wake up the Muslim world, to start a global jihad against the evil west.

Bradley: And the Satan of the evil west, according to Muslim extremists, is the United States and its culture of commercialism, which Imam Farid Esack equates with a religion.

Esack: it is the fastest- growing religion in the world, the religion of consumerism, and everybody is being drawn into this new religion. And if you do not buy into this, you are an outcast, you are a heretic, and there is the hellfire of utter poverty which awaits you.

Bradley: And throughout the Muslim world, there is also strong opposition to America’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East because of its support of Israel and economic sanctions against Iraq.

Faisal: it is a reaction against the US government politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights, and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.

Bradley: Are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?

Faisal: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but united states policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.

Bradley: You say that we’re an accessory? How?

Faisal: Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.

Nice. But hey, if we oppose his mosque, we’re the ones who are bigots.

Welcome to bizarro world.

So earlier this week, a mosque was set on fire in Georgia – yet more evidence of the anti-Muslim backlash that’s sweeping the country.

At least, if you listened to The Council on American-Islamic Relations. Upon hearing the news of the crime, they reacted the way you’d expect. Says, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper…

“Given the recent wave of incidents targeting American mosques, a possible bias motive for this apparent arson attack must be considered… Unfortunately, there is a vocal minority in our society promoting anti-Muslim bigotry, and that minority is experiencing little or no pushback from mainstream religious and political leaders.”

Uh yeah, I wish he’d expand on all these incidents, but maybe he’ll be too busy removing egg from his face. That’s because fire investigators have pretty much figured out who set fire to the mosque, and it’s a dude named Tamsir Lucien Mendy. Investigators said Mendy belongs to the congregation.

Not that it matters; the truth never matters in situations like these.

During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that “some of it may just be the fact that my middle name is Hussein, and that creates suspicion.”

Our President thinks you’re all retarded enough to not like him simply for his middle name. I don’t know what’s worse: the aggressively racist tone of that statement or the arrogance of a man who thinks that all criticism of his actions are rooted, not in his actions, but in his name alone.

Jesus, can we have the elections now?

There’s a rumor being perpetuated by Daring Fireball that Microsoft only sold 503 KIN devices. Many other sites are picking up this posting as though it were true. What I find interesting is that the KIN registers its Facebook app on Facebook, where anybody can actually see the total number of monthly active users of the application. The KIN Facebook app is only available on KIN devices and can only be used by people who have KIN devices. So how many people are actually using KIN devices that are connected to Facebook? 8,810 as of right now.

Not that any of the sycophants that suck up to him will actually call him out on it (they never do lest they be labeled asshole of the week or some other highly journalistic thing), but it is funny how he’s so obviously wrong on this one.

I love watching the pompous get smacked.

Improper entry by an immigrant is a misdemeanor crime, punishable by up to six months in prison. A second offense is classified as a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.

In 2008, the most recent year for which information is available, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California (which includes San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties) didn’t prosecute a single person for simple illegal entry. NOT ONE!

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said “We basically do not prosecute that offense. Essentially, if you’re an illegal alien and you come across the border and we find you, we almost never do anything.”

Yet again I will say it.

The reason Arizona passed SB1070 is because there is a universal unwillingness to enforce the law on the part of the Federal government.

It really is that simple.

Remember all those Hollywood types who said mean and capitalistic America should be more like cultured and fair Europe? Well, now that these Hollywood types have Obama, their dream candidate, as America’s president, they’re panicking. Why?

Because they’ve come to realize that Obama actually is making America more like Europe, and they don’t like it.

Thanks to Kim for pointing this one out…