The Apollo 11 Mission: 50 Year Anniversary

Remembering the Apollo mission that landed a man on the moon on July 20, 1969 (50 years and 1 month ago yesterday…sorry, I’m late on this post). 

Thought this model (scale 1:48) of the command ship and lunar lander in the NASA store was perfect. 

It truly is miraculous that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldin made this journey.

In just 8 days, they made the round trip between the earth and the moon, traveling about 240,000 miles each way. 

And they walked on the moon for about 3 hours–I want to try that!

Even until today, the U.S. remains the only country to have actually put men on the moon (total of 12). 

“One small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Now it’s high time that we get ourselves to Mars already and colonize it!  😉

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Countdown To Iran

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Countdown To Iran.”

For two decades the cat and mouse game with Iran’s development of nuclear weapons has gone on while Iran is leading State sponsor of terrorism and one of the worst human rights abusers.  Iran has marched forward with its desire for a global caliphate and has gone on threatening death and destruction in the Middle East and beyond and murdering with impunity. 

Now the end game is almost here…

The U.S. and Israel are committed to preventing Iran’s existential threat and may G-d help us. 

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Extra Large Sizes

Obesity rates have been consistently growing in this country.

This is concerning for all sorts of health effects (including unfortunately Cancer). 

Many of us struggle with our weight and it is not easy to fight it especially given the processed foods and carbs all around us. 

The picture as of 2015 is that almost 40% of Americans are categorized as obese (versus a below average of 18% in Israel)  

In this context, this store sign in Israel for big and tall clothing was off the charts. 

Talking about extra large sizes for people…

Check out how many “Xs” as in XL this store is advertising? 

A full 11 Xs (after that I lost count)!

Hey, that is a large size for anyone. 

What does a size 11 XL look like.

Now that’s something that I don’t have a good picture of.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

At The Border: Immigration Or War

So it’s interesting how this whole immigration crisis is playing out in real life and simultaneously on TV. 

In real life, we have a caravan of thousands of people marching from Central America (Honduras and Guatemala) to the U.S. border seeking asylum, mostly for economic reasons. 

On TV, we have the Last Ship Season 5, where South and Central America are at war with the U.S., “no longer willing to sit at the children’s table of international politics,” and they are coming to the U.S. to fight.

In the U.S. today, there are over 40 million people that were born in another country.  Of these, there are over 12 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. (55% from Mexico), and we know that we need immigration reform.  

In the truest sense, we are almost all of us immigrants to this country, with ourselves or our families coming over at one time or another, and we are grateful for the generosity and open doors that allowed us to come here and make a good life.

Of course, we want to pay it forward and give others the same asylum and opportunity that we had and which they as human beings deserve. 

Yet, the country continues to debate the mix of compassion and giving to the oppressed and needy versus the merit principles for bringing in needed skills, talents, and investment, and how many is the “right” number to allow in at any one time.

In real life, we are beefing up border agents, building a wall, and calling in the military to halt the illegal flow of immigrants, so that we can channel immigrates through a process and vetting that leads to legal and safe immigration to this country

On TV, we are fighting in the air, on land, and at sea an alliance of countries from the south and central that want to take over the U.S., and we are also holding our own and holding them back.

In both cases, we need to have and maintain borders to be a sovereign country, to protect our country, and to ensure that caravans of illegal immigrants or foreign troops are not crossing the border and doing harm. 

It’s high time for true immigration reform that is compassionate yet principled, but overrunning the border isn’t an option that is practical or fair.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The DIVIDED States of America

Our nation is increasingly polarized with little to no tolerance of others wants, thinking, or actions. 

– First under Obama.

– Then with the election between Hillary and Trump.

– And now over Judge Kavanaugh.

The result has been some of the worst behaviors seen since the Civil War–with not only disrespect, restrictions on freedom of expression, but even threats and actual violence!

This nation is no longer the UNITED States, but much more like the DIVIDED States. 

And that just plays into our enemies hands and could lead us to eventually lose our very democracy to totalitarianism, dictatorship, and tyranny.  

So now may be a good time to review for yourself how many biases are driving your thought processes and behaviors and creating dangerous fundamentalists and extremists all around us instead of thoughtful dialogue, negotiation, and compromise. 

Here are 20 biases that may be affecting you more than you realize:

– Do you overestimate the importance of the information you have or feel good about (Anchoring,  Availability, and Choice-Supportive Biases)?

– Do you seek out and perceive information that simply validates your preconceptions (Information,

Confirmation, and Selective Perception Bias)? 

– Do you overemphasize information that is more recent or recognizable (Recency and Salience Biases)?

– Are you ignoring information that doesn’t “fit your script” (Ostrich Effect/Omission and Conservatism Bias)?

– Are you tied up in the groupthink of your peers (Bandwagon Effect)?

– Do you see patterns in random events or conspiracies that don’t exist (Clustering Illusion)?

– Are you overconfident in your thought process and conclusions (Overconfidence Bias)?

– Do you tend to overvalue the usefulness or success of something, but not recognize its limitations or failures (Pro-Innovation and Survivorship Bias)?

– Do you fail to take risks because you prefer certainty (Zero-Risk Bias)? 

– Does your thinking something will happen actually cause it to happen (Placebo Effect)? 

– Do you use the ends to justify the means (Outcome Bias)?

– Do you judge people by their race, class, gender, religion, sexual preferences, or national origin (Stereotyping)?

– Do you fail to recognize your own biases (Blind-Spot Bias)?

Perhaps if more people would open their minds to information and engage in genuine thinking and critical thinking, rather than a lot of fake news and hype, we would be a far better and stronger nation. 😉

(Source Graphic: Business Insider)

PM Netanyahu Deals Iran’s Nukes Another Blow

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called “Blowout of Iran’s Nukes.

As Iran continues to develop its nuclear weapons program and sponsor terrorism around the globe, as PM Netanyahu promised, Israel and the U.S. are on to them, and they will not let it happen! A little more than 70-years after the Holocaust that murdered 6,000,000 Jews, Iran will not be allowed to pose an existential threat to Israel and a danger to the entire world.”

Hopefully, the good people of Iran can change their tyrannical leadership, otherwise the blowout at the UN yesterday will be only the beginning. 🙂

It’s Fight or Surrender!

This is why President Reagan was able to “tear down that wall” and win the Cold War. 

He was a true role model for leadership and what a President is. 

– Faith in G-d.

– A strength of convictions.

– The Integrity that touches hearts. 

– Courage to carry forward. 

– Pride in our nation.

– Judicious use of our might.

Go USA! 😉

The Embassy Arrives In Jerusalem

Please see my new article in Times of Israel today

Never Homeless Again

The U.S. Embassy has moved to Jerusalem, but unfortunately, our enemies still attack us. 

Hope you enjoy the article. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Iran–and Obama–Lied

The Iranian Nuclear Deal has been definitively proven to be based on lies and deception. 

G-d has once again helped Israel achieve a miraculous intelligence coup against Axis of Evil, Iran!

Iran has a clear path to nukes, and they have been working feverishly towards this maniacal end for decades!

This has put Western Civilization at grave risk at the hands of the fanatical Mullahs who endessly call for death to America, Israel, and even Sunni civilization. 

The only thing the Iranian deal was good for was as a deceptive political ploy by Obama to gain a fake win and to support dangerous Iranian global terrorism, extremism, human rights violations, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

Now we know the real reason certain people couldn’t say the words “Islamic Terrorism.”

Iran lied, but so did Obama. 

I can hear our bombers revving their engines and see the smart bombs being loaded into their bays.

It’s well past time to make things right and conduct the necessary preemptive strike to foil their evil plans and destroy their wicked weapons of mass destruction before they can use them on you know who. 😉

Baiting With North Korea and Taiwan

 

OMG, I can’t listen to this politically correct nonsense for the masses on North Korean anymore. 

Yes, North Korea is a nuclear threat and they are ramping up the ante. 

And we are still technically at war with the North Koreans. 

But all the in-the-box ideas for stopping the North Korean threat is wasting everyone’s time and efforts. 

Today in the Wall Street Journal, we had everything from telling China that we’ll recognize the Axis of evil North Korean regime and sign a peace treaty with them in return for limiting the North Korean missile program and having inspections (because those worked so well in the past or with Iran) or we put the “squeeze” on China by threatening to remove their 328,547 Chinese students from American universities. 

Listen, it’s time to face facts:

China will not give up support for North Korea against us, until we would agree to give up support for Taiwan against them. 

Is that really so hard to understand?

No China will not be sanctioned by us or threatened by us economically or militarily–they are a superpower in their own right!

And we cannot expect to ask or force China to stop supporting North Korea, just because we don’t like it–in fact, that is exactly the point. 

We don’t like it, and that’s what China wants in order to push us out of supporting an independent and democratic Taiwan.

So now we are at the root of the choice here for America.

Either America is willing to negotiate with China for real and in effect compromise our values for democracy and freedom in the world or we can deal with North Korea on our own. 

And dealing with North Korea on our own–without destroying much of South Korea and even Japan in the process–probably means just one (or two) big bangs. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)