On the lighter side-Movies-The Exorcist (1973)-Linda Blair

I saw this movie while I was young and it was a terrifying experience (now I am numb to horror movies). But Linda Blair as the possessed soul being exorcised by the Priest is the best horror movie of all time (according to me). Add to the terror is the beautiful and haunting music and you have the best of both cinematic world. A must see and highly recommended (though intense for kids and not for the squeamish).

On the lighter side-Movies-Wrath of the Titans (2012)-Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson

Sequel to the blockbuster about Greek gods fighting each other and humanity with good special effects and action but not as great as the original one. Recommended with reservations.

People, votes, politicians and policies

Every time, I see a post on Middle east conflict or something happening near the Middle East, there are tons of comments about how we should get out of the area and let it leave it to fend for itself and then I see how people who write these comments vote for Politicians who vote for this trouble spot or make policies that drag us into that hot shot. Granted that out of many comments, many of the people may not have even voted or voted for the politicians who oppose our policies in the middle east but even if there are few who do vote, then the commentators are equally responsible for our involvement since they don’t take to task such politicians once they are elected. These politicians who get elected on the basis of their opposition to the middle east policies but once in congress they change their minds ( I don’t know why) and vote to stay in that troubled hot spot. There is no greater part of the world that has given the U.S. much grieve and anguish than is the Middle east and no matter how hard we try to stay away, we keep on getting drawn to it even while opposing some of the policies that gives us trouble. So even voting for the so called right politician does not guarantee that your voice will be heard on the Middle East issue since there are larger interests at hand than the interests of a bunch of small voters who may or may not understand the complexities that is the MIDDLE EAST.

The Real Estate meltdown reasons

There have been many reasons attributed to the real estate meltdown. Greedy bankers, investors, buyers, speculators, opportunists etc. You can also add the television shows that showed people flipping houses like it was buying groceries. A few days ago I was watching a show from the height of real estate market and flipping was the thing to do, showing people making unrealistic profits. All these shows along with gargantuan profits that people were making made it seems like it was lottery with everybody winning. Some people were buying rundown and fixer upper houses, repairing and renovating them and then selling them at high profit. No wonder this party was going to end with a busted balloon. And now people whose houses are underwater and foreclosed or are on short sale have been blaming everybody but themselves. Look at the great state of Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California, all speculative real estate markets now struggling to recover from the meltdown. Untold millions of people have their houses foreclosed and short sale by the banks. The blame game is still going on but to put in perspective, nobody put a gun to people's head to buy a certain property, they did that of their own free will and now crying foul is like saying we were force fed into the housing frenzy. If you have seen my earlier post on housing reforms, you will see that a strict mechanism should be in place so that unqualified buyers should be given loans and full disclosure should be provided so that the potential buyers are under no delusion that what they are getting into.