by Peter Boyles | May 16, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
I always call myself an amateur historian, somewhat of a traveler, a reader of this part of the world, and a listener to people from the Middle East.
The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians — how many people in this country really truly know the history of the conflict.
Historically the British take control over the part of the world known as Palestine after World War One. The Arabs help defeat the Ottoman Empire which ruled Palestine and the British and the French then cut their throats. The tension between Arab and Jewish populations deepened when the UK agreed on the principles of a national home in Palestine in the Balfour Declaration.
Jews, Zionists I should say, had historical links to the land, but Palestinian Arabs also had claims dating back centuries and were very much opposed to the move. The British said the rights of Palestinian Arabs would always be protected.
Between the 1920s and the 1940s European Jews arrived and then the knowledge of over six million Jews murdered in the holocaust increased urgency to demands for a safe haven. In 1947 there was growing violence between Jews and Arabs and against British rule. The UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states. Jerusalem would be an international city. No Arab nation supported it and the British abstained and then in typical British colonial fashion handed the whole problem over to the UN on May 14, 1948.
Jewish leaders in Palestine declared an independent state known as Israel. Then Israel was recognized by the UN the following year. The day after Israel declared independence it was attacked by the armies of five Arab nations.
By the time the fighting ended in an armistice in 1949, Israel controlled most of the territory.
The agreements left Egypt occupying Gaza Strip. Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Israel occupied West Jerusalem.
Over 750,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes on land that becomes Israel, and they end up as refugees. That event in Arabic is called Nakba. It means catastrophe. In the years that followed hundreds of thousands of Jews left or were expelled from Muslim countries. Many go to Israel and then what is known as the 6 Day War in 1967 changes everything again. The war saw Israel fight Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The Israelis launched first strike on the Egyptian air force. By the time the fighting ended the Israelis had Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, Golan Heights from Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West bank from Jordan. A million Palestinians came under Israeli control.
Israel, in a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 returns the Sinai and exits East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Along with Gaza it is now known as the occupied Israeli territories.
Israel has overall control of the West Bank but since the 1990s the Palestinian government has run the towns and the cities.
There are 150 Israeli settlements and housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians want all Israeli settlements to be removed, and Israel does not recognize the right of Palestinians to have their own state and argue the West Bank is part of the Israeli homeland.
In July 2024 the top court for the UN, the International Court of Justice, said Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal.
Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capitol. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capitol of a future Palestinian state. Most of the population is Palestinian and only a very small percentage of them have chosen to become Israeli citizens. The UN and most international opinions consider East Jerusalem to be Palestinian.
Gaza is 25 miles long and about 10 miles wide. It’s home to 2.3 million people and even before the latest war between Israel and Hamas, Gaza had one of highest unemployment rates in the world, people living below the poverty line, and depending on food aid to survive.
Egypt was driven out of Gaza in 1967 and the strip was occupied by Israel.
The UN still regards Gaza as Israeli occupied territory and in the years that follow, Hamas and Israel fought in several conflicts, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021. In every round of fighting people were killed on both sides but the vast majority of them have been Palestinians in Gaza.
Then October 7, 2023, Hamas launches the assault from Gaza. Kills around 1,200 people in Israel and takes more than 250 hostages, a major military offensive in Gaza. It’s believed that more than 46,700 people have been killed, a majority of them women and children.
In January 2025, after 15 months of war, begins the slow agreement to halt the war and release Israeli hostage and Palestinian prisoners.
The war spreads into Lebanon, the West Bank.
143 out of 193 members of the UN vote in favor of a Palestinian bid for full UN membership. Some European countries, along with our country, do not recognize a Palestinian state, and say they will only do so as part of a political solution to the conflict.
There are about 5.9 million Palestinian refugees. They are descendants of the Palestinians who fled, that were forced from their homes. Most live in Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon.
The two-state solution to all of this seems highly improbable. Israel rejects it. Early efforts to settle the conflict led to a deal called the Oslo Peace Accords. Those talks collapsed.
We sit where we sit today.
I don’t have an answer and seemingly no one does. The Israelis now have four stated goals. Destroy Hamas, free the hostages, ensure Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel, and return displaced residents of northern Israel.
The Palestinians seek to establish their own independent state in at least one part of what was historic Palestine. Israeli defense controls West Bank. The Egyptian blockade of Gaza and the terribleness of Palestinian internal politics place their goals totally out of reach.
What I tried to say here is a line I’ve used too many times. There are parts of the world where there is no tomorrow, there is simply yesterday repeating itself.
Thanks for reading this, it was difficult to write.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Apr 18, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
On all levels — local, national, and worldwide — tariffs seem to be the topic of conversations. And I cite you an example of how tariffs do work and can help. And also, how major corporations in our country, nationally and locally, totally misunderstand who their target audience and their target customer is.
Take you back in time.
In 1983 President Ronald Reagan intervened to protect Harley Davidson by imposing tariffs on imported motorcycles principally from Japanese manufacturers.
Harley Davidson the corporation had fallen into the hands of AMF, the bowling company. AMF was systemically destroying a product that began in 1912 in this country, had a great reputation, and people bought the bikes. In the early 1980s Harley Davidson was facing significant financial difficulties due to the Japanese manufacturers who were dumping, another term could be flooding, the U.S. market with cheaper motorcycles. You could indeed buy a large Japanese motorcycle cheaper in Denver, Colorado, than you could in Japan. They were in essence bayoneting the wounded.
The United States trade commission concluded that the Japanese motorcycles were harming domestic industry and recommended protective measures. Ronald Reagan, not Donald Trump, agreed to impose a tariff on big motorcycles imported from Japan. Anything over 700 ccs. Now watch this.
He raised the tariff from 4.4 percent to 49.4 percent. The tariff was designed to provide relief for Harley to get back on its feet and reverse the decline. Harley returns, regains market share, and the company invested in improvements and innovation. They also used the time to retune their factories, introduce new engines, and develop new technologies. Ronald Reagan protected this iconic corporation from foreign interests.
Would Harley Davidson be here today if Ronald Reagan hadn’t stepped in? I really don’t think so. Reagan saved Harley Davidson.
Now the fools that got their hands on the company after that decided to go woke. The board of directors brought in from Europe, the new CEO, Jochen Zeitz, declaring Harley Davidson would be woke the year after Bud Light decided it was going to be woke as well. The mecca of motorcycling is Sturgis. I was there when both things happened. The huge street bar owned by Bud Light was empty and the grumble was nobody’s going to drink that tranny beer. And much like George Bush learning nothing from what the Soviets were doing in Afghanistan, Harley Davidson pulls the same stunt. The target demo for these motorcycles is principally middle-aged men, veterans, conservatives, Trump supporters, and so the factory decided to go woke on them. The manufacturers are now in huge difficulty and much of it is because of woke policies and building electric motorcycles. And a company that always prided itself on “made in America” was like the rest of the multinationals, they were headed abroad.
Harley Davidson is more than just a motorcycle. It’s a culture. People got mad. The company faced a boycott over DEI efforts. Read the stories of John Deere and Tractor Supply, both of those corporations have now stepped away from DEI in favor of keeping customers, and Harley finally responds. The culture of Harley Davidson is more than just motorcycles. It is, as they say, a way of life.
And what the current board did was offensive to everybody up and down the line. Now they’ve slammed the brakes on woke policies after sparking outrage. They’re in search of a new CEO and board members have resigned.
It’s a microcosm of how things can work. What Donald Trump is doing was done once by Ronald Reagan. And nobody remembers that story. I’d like you to at least look at the accomplishments of Reagan in 1983, and the real question is can it be done again on a macro scale?
Ride fast, take a lot of chances. Make a lot of noise.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Mar 28, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
Dr. Nelson Prager
Dr. Jason Shofnos
Dr. Jeffrey Park
Millions of years ago I took auto and diesel mechanics at Forbes Trail Technical School, because I couldn’t fit into normal high school, allegedly to study auto diesel repair. One of the things that stood out was that flathead Ford vehicles needed valve jobs at 81,000 miles. I’m now 81. And was told I needed a valve job.
On a serious note, for the last three years, I have really had a difficult time existing. If you’re keeping score at home I had a mini stroke on air, degenerative heart failure in Sturgis needing to be brought home, and received my pacemaker.
Dropping fully back in time, 25 years ago, I still think I’m being haunted by the Bush administration as we took our morning radio show to Washington, D.C., to cover the George W. Bush first inauguration.
When I returned, I was having a hard time breathing and walking and I was immediately taken to Dr. Richard Flanagan who turned me over to the capable hands of heart surgeon Dr. Kevin Miller. I had a quintuple bypass and went back to work at KHOW just in time to go on to great ratings and great health. I ran the Bolder Boulder. I skied and always will, and did mixed martial arts. I always saw it as a bump in the road.
Then about three years ago when I was 79, I started having issues again. That’s when I, along with publisher Chuck Bonniwell, discovered Dr. Nelson Prager, cardiologist to the stars.
And then I had an incident on Christmas Eve with my grandson in Winter Park, where I literally could not catch my breath. I came back, called Dr. Prager, and went through a battery of tests. That’s where, through Dr. Prager, I met Dr. Jeffrey Park, the new age heart surgeon, along with Dr. Jason Shofnos.
When I met them, it was like going to a meeting of outlaw bikers. Shofnos, like myself, has inked up his left arm, and Dr. Park, like Dr. Nelson, just seems to be like one of the guys. Except they’re brilliant.
They ran me through a battery of tests at Swedish Hospital (what a great place) and decided I had a calcified aortic valve in my heart, and that I was going to need a valve job.
I hit the panic button. I thought as difficult as it had been going through bypass surgery would my 81-year-old carcass be able to take another open-heart job. Shazam.
Enter the dragon. These guys are trained in robotic surgery. As Dr. Prager said, “this is our bread and butter.”
My son tells me that I was in the OR for the bypass surgery for almost seven hours. So now, for what’s behind the curtain, what’s in the box that Julie’s pointing to, and the new car, how long did it take for all this modern equipment and wonderful physicians to get me a new heart valve? Forty-seven minutes. They go up the insides of your legs and a balloon goes into your valve, the balloon opens, the new valve tips come out, the calcification of the valve crunches into the new valve, the balloon pulls out, and your heart is brand new.
I know when I was in the hospital the first time with bypass I was there for eight days. This time I was in Swedish overnight. One of the things that Dr. Park did before and after was hand me his stethoscope and said, “Want to hear your murmur?” It sounded like a river rushing. He gave me the stethoscope again when I was ready to go home, and I could hear a heartbeat.
I’m back in the gym for an hour; I want to get an easy one-day ski in as the end of the season beckons, and it’s a whole new lease on life, and I owe it to those three men and the remarkable staff at Swedish Hospital.
If this is what medicine can do now, imagine what it will be for my grandson. Assuming the world is still here. But I publicly want to thank Swedish, Aurora Denver Cardiology, and the three horsemen who saved an old man’s rear end. Thanks guys.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Feb 19, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
After watching Donald Trump run the table in November and knowing or believing that what Trump is about to do is to really turn over the apple cart and try to straighten out the mess that we looked to for guidance, i.e. Washington, D.C. The movement has been dubbed MAGA. Make America Great Again.
I propose MDGA — Make Denver Great Again.
Anyone of us who has lived in this city for any period longer than 10 years and believes that things are running smoothly and going our way is either out of their minds or consuming copious amounts of the legal weed. People are fed up and like many American voters when will Denver voters scream enough is enough.
Donald Trump was forgiven so many challenges to his career from the New York charges to the overrunning of the Capitol, and you understand the list goes on. But our city Denver, that once was so beautiful and so safe and made fun of as a cow town, has now turned into a total realignment of what’s socially acceptable.
This City has been run by Democrats and we’re not talking about the Bill McNichols old school Jack Kennedy Democrats, but progressive quasi-Trotsky-ites who have allowed the Queen City of the Plains to become the city dump for convicted felons, drug addicts, sexual predators, and non-citizens.
We have an opportunity right now in Denver to stop this. Until around 2000, Denver Democrats and Republicans shared many policy positions. But in this last 20 plus years the insanity of Denver’s management on gun control, the environment, and immigration, and many other things that Denver citizens, if they are aware under these circumstances, realize this is a death knell that sits right around the corner waiting for me and you.
We seemingly have a worthless media, the city fathers, and this Mayor who, in a series of absolutely terrible mayors, takes the cake. Spending his media time always dressed like Robert Kennedy with rolled up sleeves and pulled down tie, who seems to travel with journalists and academics who not only came out supporting Vice President Harris, but seemingly always this Mayor’s political madness.
And this rally and cry in Denver of why would intelligent people support Donald Trump? These are the people who don’t understand that this city is slipping into darkness, and people watching America seemingly do the same voted for Donald Trump. Basic law, this mayor, and political and media outlets welcome with open arms more drug addicts and illegals, remember that basic 101 rule, subsidize anything, and you’ll get more of it.
Denver Public Schools have become a clown show. The Denver cops have become social diversity warriors. As far as I’m concerned, the media has lost its franchise. We all better wake up.
These people seemingly undermine our Constitution one Amendment at a time. I was a lifelong democrat but this attitude that’s emerged that runs this city I simply cannot relate to, and I don’t want to be called stupid because I don’t think they’re smart. It’s the emperor’s new clothes. I’m serious about this. There must be a program that begins with let’s make Denver great again. We need the candidates; we need the ability for the electorate to overlook the failures and the lives of men and women who legitimately want to change this City’s course. The democratic coalition that runs Denver must be destroyed.
And out of the ashes like the phoenix we have to see a renewal regardless of the candidate. Saving this city, and perhaps even the state, is a far greater task than whether or not someone was painted black face in high school. A lot of the national issues don’t play out on the local level. Interest rates and electric bills and gasoline and cable fees going up can’t be changed at Colfax and Broadway.
But so much more can. Please, we have the next two years, let’s take it back from them.
So, who in Denver will step up? I got my list. What’s yours?
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jan 16, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Are we becoming not Jonestown but Johnstown? Most people remember the sadness of Jim Jones in Guyana, force feeding Kool Aid. It was the sad people who moved with him from San Francisco, and later, of course, gunshots rang out. Som
eone shoots Jim Jones.
You can almost hear those same gunshots every
night on the 16th Street Mall. Our city is in decline. And you would have to be a fool not to recognize it.
So, when the well-known substance rolls downhill, it always rolls down on you. Here’s a headline that we never see with Kyle Clark’s Channel 9 News. Denver has been ranked among the worst run cities in the United States by a WalletHub study. Interestingly enough for those of you keeping score at home, San Francisco won the award of being the worst run city in America. Guess who we’re closing in on?
The Mile High City is in the bottom 10 and San Francisco is ranked last.
We’ve always quoted Barry McGuire’s classic song The Eve of Destruction. As Barry tells you, “Look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy.”
The quality of city services has been cut. The Mayor, remember he promised he was going to put an end to homelessness in four years. One of the great laws of economics is if you want more of something subsidize it. Jim Jones “Junior” has cut large chunks out of all department budgets due to the influx of the people he likes to call newcomers. And actually visualized housewives standing in the middle of Broadway like the brave Chinese man in Tiananmen Square to stop illegal immigrants being removed from the city.
Immigration spending by the city was expected to reach $90 million by the end of the year. As it turns out, the city is on track to spend $155 million up to and including December of 2024 — $65 million more than Johnston previously said it would cost.
What does the future look like? US News and World Report said it looks at the data on America’s 150 most populous metro areas that includes cost of living, job markets, crime rates, public education, and much more. The rankings that US News and World Report used were from census, the FBI, and Department of Labor. The best place to live is Green Bay, Wisconsin. Denver ranked high in the survey in a quite different category. Denver is listed as the 15th most dangerous place to live in our country, 16th most expensive place to live. Since 2020 when Denver was number 2 overall in the list of best places to live, we have dropped to 55th.
These are all trends heading in the wrong direction.
The Denver Gazette reported that three years ago Boulder and Denver took the number one and two spots. Boulder is now number four, Colorado Springs is number 9. Fort Collins is number 23. And Denver has tumbled close to the bottom.
So as Lenin asks, what is to be done? The impossible needs to be done. The Democrats and Republicans alike must look at our city and fear what the next five, 10, or 20 years will bring. We all have children and grandchildren, what are we leaving them?
We’re not going to get better with people like this Mayor, and members of the City Council who voted for heroin injection sites.
Honestly folks the future of Denver, Colorado, is bleak. When is the last time you went downtown? Took your kids to see Christmas lights? Or better yet, got yourself a concealed permit. This isn’t funny. The future is not bright, and we have to pull together and keep the lunatics away from elected office.
Mark my words, there will come a time…
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Dec 13, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Abe Said, Where Do You Want The Killing Done?
God Said, Out On Highway 61
Blasting With Boyles
One of the more troubling stories in the Bible is in Genesis Chapter 22 where God tells Abraham, “take your only son, whom you love, and offer him there as a burnt offering.” Islamic scholars point that Abraham had, in fact, two sons. One with Hagar the maid, who his wife Sarah had Abraham impregnate when she thought she was barren. With God’s intervention Sarah, at age 78, gave birth to Issac 17 years later. Biblically Ishmael is the progenitor of all Arabs and Isaac is the forefather of all Jews. Muslims and Jews/Christians have debated over the many centuries who God asked to be sacrificed, Ishmael or Issac.
We are not sure whether God directly talks to President Joe Biden as he did Abraham, but recently President Biden announced that he was pardoning his second son Hunter from being sacrificed on the altar of American Justice.
The real question for those of us who are fathers is whether you would pardon your son from being a burnt offering on some altar? I know I would. The real problem for me and many others is that President Biden told all the gathered tribes that he would never pardon Hunter (Isaac/Ishmael). Not only that, but once he had gotten the hang of this whole pardon thing down, he threatened to pardon virtually everyone in his Administration, and who knows perhaps even every descendant of the original seven tribes.
But if Joe Biden’s actions seem to parallel those of Abraham, are there other present American political figures with parallels to biblical figures? Is Donald Trump akin to David, and is he creating a great MAGA kingdom that will never be exceeded in the history of this country?
What about Elon Musk being a Joshua-like figure, causing the trumpets to ring out that cause the almost impenetrable walls of the Administrative State of Jerico to fall down, allowing the MAGAites to burst through killing every man, woman, and child bureaucrat with God’s blessing?
You can come up with your parallel figures between today and biblical times but, my advice to all of you is, watch out for toads falling from the sky, water that turns into blood, and the death of all first born.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
— Peter Boyles
