Israeli action against Hamas

For the past three days Israel has been bombing Hamas targets in the Gaza strip. These attacks are retaliations against the rocket attacks that Hamas keeps making on Israeli cities. Israel is now moving its tanks and troops to completely surround the Gaza Strip. Tension is building and according to senior Israeli officials a ground operation may be started (CNN). Throughout the 3 day period almost 300 people were killed ,most of them Hamas militants.

In my opinion Hamas is just asking for it by sending their rockets into Israeli cities and killing random civillians. Israel is taking the right action by moving their troops around the Gaza strip. In case the conflict escalates they need to be ready to defend themselves. Israel knows many of the countries near them and most of the arab world hates them. They have prepared for that hate by building up a strong military.

Hamas has extraordinary zeal when it comes to hating Israel. It is likely that they know that Israel has much stronger armed forces then they do but, their hatred for them transcends common sense. At this point nothing will change their mind and open military conflict is inevitable.

Idle Auto Manufacturers

After the Auto bailout failed in the senate , the White House announced that it would offer GM and Chrysler 17.4 Billion dollars in emergency funds. This action is unnecessary because giving an unprofitable company more money will not make it profitable. The government should let the Big three fail. If we keep throwing them lifelines , they will just continue to put out bad products and still be unable to deal with the unions. Workers in the auto industry make ,on average, about 70 dollars an hour. Workers in foreign car factories make about half of this. Until these unions cease to ask for such huge wages , American car companies will be choked to death. By letting the companies fail, they would file bankruptcy and could cancel their union contracts. This would open up the opportunity for restructuring their business models.

As of right now GM and Chrysler are temporarily closing their assembly lines. Chrysler announced that it would cease all factory operations for at least a month. Meanwhile GM is shutting down certain plants and laying off workers. Just recently GM announced that one of its Ohio plants was being shut down and all 1080 workers would be left idle. Hopefully the unions will accept lower wages and perhaps then these companies may become profitable.

Innocent until proven guilty

Almost as soon as our governor , Rod Blagojevich, was arrested the Attorney General , Lisa Madigan, was asking the supreme court to remove his powers. Not only that ,but many other people are already calling for his impeachment or removal from office. What people are forgetting here is that while it is highly likely that our governor is guilty of corruption ,he is innocent until proven guilty by a jury. Calling for his impeachment or having his powers as Governor removed before he is proven guilty is unconstitutional. I have already wrote an article on Blagojevich ,where I criticize his ability to manage our budget and his failure to care about Illinois' natural resources. It was common knowledge that Blagojevich was corrupt ,but now that some solid evidence has come up we may finally be able to throw him in the slammer for a long, long time.

In other news, Bush got a shoe throw at him during a farewell speech in Iraq. To Iraqis the throwing of shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. The person who threw it also shouted , in arabic, " This is a farewell kiss , you dog." Bush responded "So what if a guy threw his shoe at me?" Classic Bush.