What You Surely Did Not Miss Over the Weekend - and What You LIkely Did
Friday's stock market ended down, capping a down week. Not enough to circle the wagons maybe, but likely a bit disorienting to those prepared to gorge on a year-end rally. But, of course, the media couldn't gin up any drama about such goings-on once the news from Paris broke.
All the news feeds continued the live coverage until the results from the concert hall were in: slaughter. Not just slaughter, but measured, mechanical shooting of innocents by armed terrorists. Adding the dozens of deaths to the killings at other locations, Saturday morning found the total at 127, with hundreds more injured, many critically. That's what you didn't miss over the weekend.
I don't know where those numbers stand right now, but they have not only dampened the news from financial markets, but preempted attempts to parse through them, although by now most of have returned to business as usual. But before we consign this horrendous event to the past, a few comments on what you might have missed over the weekend. We begin with the obvious.
Having switched news feeds throughout the event, there was one - as in one - we stumbled upon that mentioned the word "Muslim" or "Islam." The problem of facing the truth about these terrorists and what lies behind their heinous acts apparently continues. Before the obvious recent decision to suppress truth - that their are hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of Muslims who justify killing of innocents not only in the name of God but to further their cause of subjecting the rest of us to their "Caliphate" - we might have been reminded that not all Muslims were "radical," or "extreme," or "violent." The talking heads of the main stream media and the various experts they would interview after previous incidents would lecture us that most Muslims were "moderate," going so far as to say that Islam is a "religion of peace." What happened to that? And we're not talking here about waiting some reasonable length of time to confirm the facts before jumping to conclusions. All we get is "radio silence" that attempts to hide the elephant in the room. It's absurd. So absurd, that a local news feed (NYC) opined that a committee of police and other officials was "right now" meeting to determine if there was any threat that needed any particular local response, including looking into whether there was any "religious connection" to the Paris shootings. Really, they said that.
Continuing on to Saturday morning, we found the City of Paris dead, mourning their dead. Virtually no one road the metro, and apparently most Parisians heeded the government's urging them to stay indoors. Perusing the news feeds early that morning, I was flabbergasted when I heard one official explain that people should remain indoors until the government could determine whether there were any more armed terrorists at large. They could have called me and saved their time and effort. The answer is a resounding "Yes!"
Don't they get it? Even if they've killed or arrested every individual involved in these killings, many more lie in wait. They've allowed such dangerous people into their country for years. Even with the advent of ISIS, the latest (albeit it seems most deadly) outbreak of Islamic terror, you'd be hard-pressed to see any measures being taken that change the basic composition of the toxic brew of open borders and denial of the fundamental facts about Islam. The facts to which I refer are those teachings that allow, excuse, or support the killing of non-Muslims, no matter who they are, or where they live, if such killing furthers the goals of a given Jihad. While this is a complex area, the simplistic denial of it's existence, or the ignoring or minimizing of those teachings will only serve to advance the increasing use of such methods around the world - and that includes not just Paris, but where you and I live.
Finally, in case you actually did miss it, the head of the U.S. government, Obama, (it's painful to write "our President") announced mere hours before the attacks that the threat of ISIS (which he called "ISIL") has been contained. What can one say to this? To see and hear this man speak, the obvious flat, sterile timbre of his words reinforced by the clueless look of his facial expressions, is simply stunning, never mind disturbing. Not only that, but apparently he not only confirmed his decision to allow 200,000 "refugees" from Syria into the U.S., but wants to increase that quota.
With that in mind, may I suggest we all prepare ourselves. Even if this incident, or some future incident, does not cause dislocation in financial markets (and one of these times, one of them will) they have and will continue to profoundly impact our lives. Since our "leaders" will apparently do virtually nothing to address the situation beyond the (admittedly effective) methods of monitoring those known to be suspect, we may need new leaders who will. I could be wrong, but the pattern pursued by the current crew appears to be: Let them in, monitor them, arrest them when caught red-handed, let more in, monitor them, arrest them when caught red-handed...etc. The idea of controlling our borders effectively somehow is not their #1 priority (which is, in case you've forgotten, the main reason Donald Trump exploded on the scene in the current presidential election campaign).
For now, let's keep our eyes on this Syrian refugee situation. If the original plan (and apparently those refugees have already arrived) is now augmented by additional (likely) terrorist-laden injections, we all need to consider whether our government really has any serious or sustained plan to protect our country from those sworn to destroy it...and take any and all actions necessary to hold our "leaders" accountable.
All the news feeds continued the live coverage until the results from the concert hall were in: slaughter. Not just slaughter, but measured, mechanical shooting of innocents by armed terrorists. Adding the dozens of deaths to the killings at other locations, Saturday morning found the total at 127, with hundreds more injured, many critically. That's what you didn't miss over the weekend.
I don't know where those numbers stand right now, but they have not only dampened the news from financial markets, but preempted attempts to parse through them, although by now most of have returned to business as usual. But before we consign this horrendous event to the past, a few comments on what you might have missed over the weekend. We begin with the obvious.
Having switched news feeds throughout the event, there was one - as in one - we stumbled upon that mentioned the word "Muslim" or "Islam." The problem of facing the truth about these terrorists and what lies behind their heinous acts apparently continues. Before the obvious recent decision to suppress truth - that their are hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of Muslims who justify killing of innocents not only in the name of God but to further their cause of subjecting the rest of us to their "Caliphate" - we might have been reminded that not all Muslims were "radical," or "extreme," or "violent." The talking heads of the main stream media and the various experts they would interview after previous incidents would lecture us that most Muslims were "moderate," going so far as to say that Islam is a "religion of peace." What happened to that? And we're not talking here about waiting some reasonable length of time to confirm the facts before jumping to conclusions. All we get is "radio silence" that attempts to hide the elephant in the room. It's absurd. So absurd, that a local news feed (NYC) opined that a committee of police and other officials was "right now" meeting to determine if there was any threat that needed any particular local response, including looking into whether there was any "religious connection" to the Paris shootings. Really, they said that.
Continuing on to Saturday morning, we found the City of Paris dead, mourning their dead. Virtually no one road the metro, and apparently most Parisians heeded the government's urging them to stay indoors. Perusing the news feeds early that morning, I was flabbergasted when I heard one official explain that people should remain indoors until the government could determine whether there were any more armed terrorists at large. They could have called me and saved their time and effort. The answer is a resounding "Yes!"
Don't they get it? Even if they've killed or arrested every individual involved in these killings, many more lie in wait. They've allowed such dangerous people into their country for years. Even with the advent of ISIS, the latest (albeit it seems most deadly) outbreak of Islamic terror, you'd be hard-pressed to see any measures being taken that change the basic composition of the toxic brew of open borders and denial of the fundamental facts about Islam. The facts to which I refer are those teachings that allow, excuse, or support the killing of non-Muslims, no matter who they are, or where they live, if such killing furthers the goals of a given Jihad. While this is a complex area, the simplistic denial of it's existence, or the ignoring or minimizing of those teachings will only serve to advance the increasing use of such methods around the world - and that includes not just Paris, but where you and I live.
Finally, in case you actually did miss it, the head of the U.S. government, Obama, (it's painful to write "our President") announced mere hours before the attacks that the threat of ISIS (which he called "ISIL") has been contained. What can one say to this? To see and hear this man speak, the obvious flat, sterile timbre of his words reinforced by the clueless look of his facial expressions, is simply stunning, never mind disturbing. Not only that, but apparently he not only confirmed his decision to allow 200,000 "refugees" from Syria into the U.S., but wants to increase that quota.
With that in mind, may I suggest we all prepare ourselves. Even if this incident, or some future incident, does not cause dislocation in financial markets (and one of these times, one of them will) they have and will continue to profoundly impact our lives. Since our "leaders" will apparently do virtually nothing to address the situation beyond the (admittedly effective) methods of monitoring those known to be suspect, we may need new leaders who will. I could be wrong, but the pattern pursued by the current crew appears to be: Let them in, monitor them, arrest them when caught red-handed, let more in, monitor them, arrest them when caught red-handed...etc. The idea of controlling our borders effectively somehow is not their #1 priority (which is, in case you've forgotten, the main reason Donald Trump exploded on the scene in the current presidential election campaign).
For now, let's keep our eyes on this Syrian refugee situation. If the original plan (and apparently those refugees have already arrived) is now augmented by additional (likely) terrorist-laden injections, we all need to consider whether our government really has any serious or sustained plan to protect our country from those sworn to destroy it...and take any and all actions necessary to hold our "leaders" accountable.
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