Outgoing New Mexico governor Bill Richardson is giving consideration to pardoning Billy the Kid for his crimes during his years as an outlaw in the 1800s.
And the question being asked is this: Should the Kid be pardoned?
Two words as far as I’m concerned: HELL NO.
He killed several people before murdering a Sheriff and two deputies during his short life, before being gunned down by Pat Garrett. And they’re still unsure of how many murders that the Kid actually carried out. Some have attributed over twenty murders to Billy the Kid.
I don’t care that his life has been painted as heroic by Hollywood in recent years.
He was a cold blooded killer who is undeserving of consideration of a pardon. I also think that the governor of New Mexico (or any state for that matter) can pardon someone more deserving of it.
Many people who are pardoned today got into trouble, spent time in jail, came out, and never got into trouble again. In fact, some of the more recent pardons were given to people who became model citizens after they paid the price for whatever they did to get put into jail in the first place.
The Kid kept killing after his murder of the two deputies who were manning the jail that he was locked up in. This is not my idea of a model citizen.
Give the pardon to someone else. I’m hoping Governor Richardson chooses not to act.
The founder of WikiLeaks fears that the U.S. government is about to issue an indictment over his posting of classified materials on the Internet. Couple of questions and observations over his being worried about a potential U.S. indictment:
If he was afraid of being indicted, then why did he go WAY out of his way to post classified U.S. government materials online?
Why is he afraid? Judging from his bombastic statements, he obviously thinks that he can win a court case.
No, I think he was angling for a U.S. indictment all along. No one is above the law, and the malcontent Julian Assaunge is no exception.
If we were to judge what kind of person that WikiLeaks founder Julia Assaunge is based on his current behavior, what kind of conclusion are we forced to reach?
Consider: He’s releasing classified documents that don’t belong to him, and without any concern as to who gets hurt because of his releasing them.
Consider: He’s forcing our State Department to deal with the global damage caused by his reckless disregard for the consequences, thereby distracting the State Department from conducting American foreign policy both at home and overseas.
Consider: He was accused of serious sex crimes in Sweden and fled the country, which lead Sweden to file a warrant with INTERPOL for his arrest and extradition back to Sweden to face trial.
Consider: He’s threatened to release unredacted U.S. material—all of it—if he’s arrested to face a sex crimes trial in Sweden. In other words, he’s threatening to violate a ton of laws if he’s arrested for breaking laws in Sweden. In his mind, it’s all right for him to threaten the U.S. with severe damage if Sweden has him arrested for breaking Swedish laws.
What conclusion comes to mind about Assaunge when you consider all the above factors?
Here’s my read:
He’s a white-collar criminal who's out there blowing his own horn and saying "look at me!" And now he’s now threatening to use his ill-gotten gains to make demands of the U.S. government, “or else!” That’s classic blackmail, which is also illegal. An argument could be made that he’s also a terrorist, by holding our government hostage to these documents. Those documents are WMDs, and they’re definitely in the wrong hands.
The sooner they arrest him, the sooner they can get this man and his organization out of the headlines.
I am not a fan of WikiLeaks. Let me make that abundantly clear before I proceed any further.
I do think that this web site needs to go away, before any of the data that the site is releasing gets anyone killed, or before WikiLeaks volunteers start being targeted for assassination by various intelligence agencies from around the world.
Remember, Russia poisoned one of its enemies with radiation a couple of years ago. The KGB used to carry out hits around the world. The Israeli intelligence agency has a very active hit squad as well, and has used them to maximum effect both inside and outside of Israel. Our own CIA is currently firing missiles at terrorists in various areas of the world. There are dozens of other intelligence agencies who could really get nasty if their government orders them to take out a few key WikiLeaks people.
While I don’t think that a drone strike against WikiLeaks would happen in Great Britain, or in Sweden, or any other U.S.-allied country, it’s entirely possible that a foreign power might not feel the same restrictions in conducting an operation in a U.S.-allied country.
We do have some sort of patriotic hacker who is attempting to hurt WikiLeaks, in the same way he’s taken down jihaddist web sites spouting al-Qaeda propaganda. The U.S. government shouldn’t move against this person, even if he is breaking the law to stop a group that is also breaking the law.
He’s doing the U.S. government a huge favor. Pin a medal on him!
While no one has yet died from the WikiLeaks data dumps, it’s only a matter of time now, and the U.S. government SHOULD be waging cyberwar on WikiLeaks to prevent U.S. soldiers, spies and diplomats from getting killed.
I also believe that it’s not in U.S. national interests to have foreign leaders toppled due to WikiLeaks data dumps. The Yemeni President is particularly vulnerable, as are Arab leaders who publicly denounce the saber rattling between Washington and Tehran, but secretly pressure the U.S. to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. The Saudi King is of particular interest.
This is not about the First Amendment. The press in this country is covered by the First Amendment, as are its citizens, but not a foreign-owned (private) company that is headed by an anarchist.
They can also use this law to order international web sites to be taken down as well, if they are violating copyright laws. It also allows for charges and fines to be levied against the web site owners. By all means, take them WikiLeaks sumbitches DOWN! It won’t stop them completely, but it’ll slow them down for a while.
It’s better than a government like Russia’s, or Israel’s, to order hits on WikiLeaks employees who dare to participate in the release of information that isn’t theirs to release, which is now inevitable.
Sooner or later, WikiLeaks will anger the wrong people, and a government will order up their dirty tricks squads to take out some button pushers who release the wrong information, regardless of the consequences.
The sooner that WikiLeaks is held to account for their actions, the better. No one needs to get shot or blown up, but it will probably start happening soon if WikiLeaks isn’t reined in.
North Korea needs to be put into its place as soon as possible. And after they pull the trigger first.
Its leadership is too immature to possess the kind of firepower that it does have, at the costly expense of ignoring the plight of its own people. No responsible government would allow over a million of its own people starve to death, while arming its military to the teeth.
Why does North Korea need the fifth-largest army in the world when its people are starving to death? They rank just behind Russia in active duty personnel, and first in the world in reserves with 4.7 million people under arms. And they’ve engaged in a massive arms build-up in the last ten years.
The U.S. government needs to help South Korea deal with the North Korean problem permanently. The Obama Administration cannot back down from North Korea, under ANY circumstances. Give them an inch, and they’ll take the entire field.
The South Korean public is really upset over their government’s lackluster response to North Korea’s aggression. Demonstrations are really heating up in Seoul.
The U.S./South Korean war games need to proceed as planned. And if North Korea is crazy enough to take a shot at a U.S. Navy carrier, the Navy had better blow everything with a red star out of the water, and out of the air in reply.
There’s little chance of North Korean citizens rising up against Kim Jong Il; they worship him like a god. I don’t think the North Korean military will rise up either, until Kim Jung Il dies and his son tries to take over.
But then, would dealing with North Korea’s generals be any better than dealing with Kim Jung Il, or his hand-picked brat? Is there anyone with any amount of sanity in North Korea’s military?
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak accepted his Defense Secretary’s resignation after he came under heavy fire from politicians inside South Korea, who felt that South Korea hasn’t done enough to respond to North Korean aggression in the last year.
The first act by North Korea was the destruction of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan eight months ago by a North Korean submarine, which resulted in the loss of 46 lives, followed by the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island by North Korean military forces two days ago. In both cases, the South Korean military was restrained from launching retaliatory strikes against North Korean targets.
There have been other sea battles between North and South Korean warships in the Yellow Sea over the years, but the last two engagements have been really nasty, with a heavy loss of life in the sinking of the Cheonan, and heavy damage to Yeonpyeong Island.
The current South Korean government took a hard line against North Korea, but so far they haven’t lived up to their promises. Now the South Korean government is rushing troops to other South Korean islands that might be North Korea’s next target. The South Korean press and public are commenting that the move is too little, too late.
When North Korea strikes again, will South Korea sit back and let it happen again? Or will they make North Korea pay for what they’ve done?
Yesterday morning’s artillery duel between the North Korean and South Korean militaries doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The talking heads on TV are speculating that the North Korean leadership perceives its world-stage image as weakening, and took advantage of South Korean military maneuvers to demonstrate its strength.
I’m not sure that’s it.
I think it’s more likely that they perceive the United States leadership as weak, and that they (North Korea) want more bargaining chips for the six-party nuclear talks. If that’s what they were trying to do, I think it’s had the opposite effect that they were looking for. South Korea is looking for an excuse to knock out the North Korean base that opened fire on Yeonpyeong.
I also think that the talking heads are correct in saying that this move coincides with the transition of power from Kim Jung Il to his son.
The saber rattling sure hasn’t let up either. South Korea has promised “enormous retaliation” if North Korea puts one toe out of line, and North Korea has promised “merciless strikes” on South Korea if its sea border is “violated” again. The western sea border was set by the U.N. and has never been recognized by North Korea.
I think that there’s a good possibility that there will be some major sea battles in the days and weeks to come, regardless of what the North Korean leadership is doing. I hope it doesn’t spill over onto the rest of the DMZ. We don’t need three wars right now.
The border dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is an example of why a military force is necessary.
The two Central American counties have had a dispute for many years about a piece of land that runs along their common border. It belongs to Costa Rica and has been recognized as Costa Rican territory by the international community. A couple of weeks ago Google Maps showed that it was Nicaraguan territory, and Nicaragua used the mistake as a pretext to invade Costa Rica to enforce its claim of the area in question.
Since Costa Rica has no military, it cannot repel the Nicaraguans on its own, or keep the Nicaraguans from occupying the rest of Costa Rica if they so please.
This is an illustration of why a military force is necessary and that not having a well-disciplined military which obeys its elected leaders is a bad idea. The time has not yet come to beat the swords into plowshares either; there are too many aggressors in the world who are willing to use force to settle their disputes.
It can be argued that Costa Rica has been at peace without a military for many years; and that was true. But it’s not exactly helping them right now, is it?
All Costa Rica can do now is take this dispute to the U.N. and the International Court and see 1) if they can win a decision and 2) if Nicaragua will heed the decision should the case go in favor of Costa Rica.
Our pledge should not be required to be said in any language other than English. And school districts should not be threatening to give students zeros on an assignment like this.
It’s bad enough that they’re taking down American flags over schools on American soil in favor of the Mexican flag so as not to make Mexican students uncomfortable, while spitting on everybody else’s feelings every 5th of May.
If they’re going to persist in this behavior, perhaps they should take the Pledge of Allegiance out of school. If they’re going to force people to say it in a way that is coercive, then it should be banned. We don’t currently require students to say it in English, so why is this school in Oklahoma trying to force students to say it in Spanish?
They need to stop trying to turn the United States into Mexico. We don’t want to be Mexico.
National Public Radio has been under very close scrutiny the last several days, due to their very public firing of Juan Williams, a senior NPR correspondent and occasional Fox News contributor, over his expressing his viewpoint about Muslims on commercial airliners.
Williams was appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox, and said that he was nervous about flying on commercial flights with Muslims in “full garb.”
Thank you, Juan Williams, for expressing the viewpoints that MANY others have felt since 9/11.
Think about this:
A couple of years ago, there was a man who went crazy on a Canadian Greyhound bus. He pulled out a knife and started stabbing the guy sitting next to him; the screaming caused the bus driver to pull over and the other passengers to scramble off the bus as the screaming continued. Minutes later, police boarded the bus and found the guy eating his victim.
A few days after that, I was on an overnight bus here in the U.S., and guess what my reaction was? “Don’t trust ANYBODY!” I sat right behind the driver and wouldn’t have allowed ANYONE to sit next to me. Fortunately, there were only about a dozen passengers on this large bus. Still, I didn’t sleep a wink. I was aware of the location of every single passenger on that bus at every moment of the 22 hour ride by looking through the driver’s inside mirror.
Was my reaction any different than Juan Williams’ reaction that he expressed on the O’Reilly Factor?
There’s no other explanation: NPR fired Williams for expressing his honest opinion. And this kind of intolerance of people expressing their views cannot be tolerated at a taxpayer funded operation.
Since NPR is partially taxpayer funded, NPR should have more of a balanced viewpoint. But instead, they present the liberal version of everything, are anti-American and go out of their way to discredit Fox News.
For the record, I will support NO American government that comes to power by means of violently overthrowing a previously and legitimately elected American government, no matter how much I disagree with that elected government. The Constitution needs to be protected from rabble rousers like this.
Nor will I support any subsequent government that comes to power if it contains traitors who supported or participated in a violent overthrow. They are not fit for office either.
It is the duty of all American citizens to uphold and protect our Constitution.
Now, having said all that, if an elected government interferes with holding regularly scheduled elections, or tries to remain in office, illegally, then it’s the duty of all Americans to turn out en masse to protect the Constitution and force the government out in favor of a newly elected one.
There are Constitutional means to throw politicians out of office, as we will see in early November, and without firing a shot too.
But instituting a civil war will only turn our country into a third world country. We don’t need that kind of trouble here.
The Treasury Department announced that the Obama Administration has added $3 trillion to the national debt so far, with no end in sight. That’s after 22 months in office, compared with Bush’s addition of $5 trillion over eight years. As of October 15th, the total stands at $13.666 trillion. Obama is spending at a much faster rate than Bush did.
How long will this madness continue? This is totally unsustainable.
If the budget is $1.7 trillion out of whack, then they need to make a minimum of $1.7 trillion in government spending cuts. Discretionary spending needs to be cut, and they need to stop this talk of printing up more money to artificially prop up the economy.
If they want more Americans back to work, then they need to renew the Bush tax cuts for businesses. Small business owners aren’t hiring because they don’t know what the Obama tax rates will be.
If the Republicans win big in a couple of weeks, and they DON’T take IMMEDIATE steps to stop the out of control spending, then they’ll be voted out AGAIN!
And their tax cuts had better not include borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for the cuts. If they want to cut taxes by $700 billion, that needs to be cut from the government budget…no more of this “cut taxes but don’t cut expenses” business that both the Democrats and Republicans have engaged in while they were in the majority.
And the Obama Administration needs to cancel/stop whatever they’re planning on with 401K Plans. Those should stay in the private sector. Federal, state and local governments have made a mess out of their own retirement plans, so they should stay out of the 401Ks.
Israel will never be able to reach peace with the Palestinians, and this is what the Israelis had in mind all along.
Below is a map showing Israel, the West Bank, and the locations of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, as well as effective areas of Palestianian Authority control.
The Palestinians will need access to the Jordanian border in order to receive the kind of non-military aid that their economy and people need, but the sheer number of Israeli settlements effectively control Palestinian access to Jordan.
And some of those settlements have been there for decades. They cannot be removed without starting an Israeli civil war.
Israel has known for decades that these settlements, which have been in dispute under international law as long as they’ve been in existence, will make it very difficult to return Palestinian lands to the Palestinians. That’s what they’ve had in mind all along.
The Palestinians want their area of control (in green) to expand to include the entire West Bank. The Israelis want the map above to stand.
Those stands doom any chance at a land-for-peace deal, unless one side or the other makes extraordinary concessions. I don’t see it happening without major fallout.
This post might get me in some trouble, but I don’t really care.
I’ve been listening to common folk and to our politicians talk about thanking the military for “defending our freedom” while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, but let’s take a step back and consider this.
The military deserves our undying gratitude for their service to our country, and for all the sacrifices that they and their families have made during this long war.
But defending our freedoms? From who, exactly?
The Taliban and al-Qaeda can’t vote to curtail our freedoms, such as suspending habeas corpus and parts of the Constitution. Congress and the President CAN.
Our idiot politicians are FAR more likely to curtail or suspend our freedoms based on what kind of plot that al-Qaeda hatches in our midst.
If we REALLY want the military to “defend our freedoms” then we should deploy them to WASHINGTON DC!! Specifically, to the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the White House and the Supreme Court. THEN they’ll be truly “defending our freedoms” from the politicians who are likely to pass freedom-ending legislation in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack.
Let’s get this straight: the military is in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and to prevent them from launching attacks on us and our allies. They ARE keeping us safe, and I sleep a lot better at night knowing that. Thank you, U.S. military.
I disagree. His financial policies are proving to be more disastrous to U.S. short and long-term financial health than any perspective that Fox News promotes.
His refusal to give tax cuts to businesses are preventing them from hiring new workers, which would have a definite effect on the unemployment situation, bring in more revenue for state governments and for the federal bottom line, increase consumer spending, and do other things. Obama could trigger all of that almost immediately if he wanted to.
Businesses won’t budge until the President does. It’s not in their best interests to do anything that the President wants. His spending is reckless to the point of madness, and is going to bite us HARD when we least need it or want it.
President Obama needs to be more reasonable in how he stimulates the economy—through the private sector, not through more borrowing and spending.
More hubris from the left on global warming appears to be on tap.
They are abandoning the wildly inaccurate “global warming” term in favor of “global climate disruption.” And they’re still using their inaccurate politicized science to state that man is dooming the planet. New term, same old crap.
They are ignoring the effect that volcanoes around the planet have on global warming and global cooling. They’ve understated the impact for YEARS.
The fact is that we don’t know a lot of stuff about global warming and global cooling, and it is certainly NOT “settled science.”
They need to quit screwing around with the science. And as far as I’m concerned, renaming something as controversial as global warming IS screwing around.
I have no sympathy for Blockbuster Video filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They’ve been ripping their customers off with their high rental prices for years, and their various late fee schemes, and are reaping the results of what they’ve sown.
I’m looking forward to the discount sale at the local Blockbuster.
There's an immigration act attached to the Defense appropriations bill.
There's also a provision to authorize the ending of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in the Defense appropriations bill.
Both of these measures need to be broken out and voted on as stand-alone bills, as one is unrelated to the military, and the other is a Defense matter, and a Presidential decision.
All bills should be free of riders. And Congress should pass a measure which says so.
I'm tired of politicians sneaking ill-advised and unnecessary riders into legislation that deserves its own vote, that's free of controversial unrelated measures that often overshadow the measure that's actually being voted upon.
The next Congress had better do its job, or they will be voted out too!
… "it's very easy to give lessons". "France doesn't pretend to give lessons to the world, even if we're often seen as the country of human rights ... We also don't pretend to listen to lessons from countries that don't make a tenth of the efforts that we've accomplished," Francois Zimeray, France's ambassador for human rights. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/un-tells-france-to-stop-forced-expulsion-of-roma-2064038.html
The French government can buy it’s own BS if it wants, but they should have kept it to themselves if they intended to accuse other countries of arrogance.
The idiot politicians and liberal media made a huge deal out of their new codename for the Iraq War and that the “last combat brigade” rolled into Kuwait last month. American soldiers ought to punch reporters and politicians in the mouth when they utter those words. What an insult!
The military use of the term “combat brigade” and the civilian use of the term are not the same thing. The war is still on, and our soldiers are still under enemy fire. We should not forget that.
The remaining troops in Iraq are as combat ready as ever.
We now see what happens when the press overdoes it on coverage of hate preachers and imams.
Korans have been burned all over the country. Not that I care too much about that, but I wonder how much of this is due to press influence and over covering this idiotic Florida preacher and his “Burn a Koran Day.”
How long will this fiasco play out overseas? How many copycats in other Western countries will take place? And how many more embassies will get burned to the ground? The uneducated Afghans are already murdering people in the streets. They can’t even READ the Koran.
I registered my disagreement with the burnings on 9/11. That isn’t the date for protests of ANY kind, even though it is the Constitutional right of every American to do so. And as I had hoped, the pastor changed his mind, but Korans got burned anyways.
And the press is dutifully reporting the incidents, which ARE isolated. But by drawing all this attention to the distortions of these fanatical religious leaders, who are NOT part of mainstream Christianity, or of Islam for that matter, the press is making matters worse by creating a bigger splash to sell news and improve their ratings.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the press WANTS a war between the West and Islam. Their reckless actions in covering these self-important preachers and imams are taking us someplace that we don’t want to be.
The press needs to handle this MUCH more responsibly.
The news media has been stirring several stories and given them more coverage than they deserve. And they need to reverse their course.
I’m speaking of the continuing coverage that they’ve given to Westboro Baptist Church, which appeared on the radar several years ago due to their anti-homosexual agenda and their protests at military funerals, which is detestable.
They gave Jerimiah Wright too much coverage, due to his connection to President Obama.
Now they’re devoting WAY too much time to the Koran-burning church in Florida and the support that Westboro Baptist Church is (sort of) giving to them. And the attempts of the Florida church pastor to tie in his ill-advised Koran burning to the mosque plans in New York City, which was never mentioned when he scheduled his Koran burning for 9/11.
And the same thing goes for the planned mosque in New York City. It does not appear that the imam in charge won’t change course, though his investors might for the right price. And now Donald Trump is throwing his two cents in, offering to buy the property to get the mosque out of the news. I think the investor is holding out for mo’ money.
And the liberal media loudly booed Trump for getting involved. Shame on them for booing Trump’s attempt to end the mosque controversy, and denying them further material to cover. That’s what they’re really demonizing Trump about.
I’m not saying that the media shouldn’t don’t cover the subjects, but don’t OVER-COVER it, which they have already done too much of. These idiots love the coverage that they are getting. The media shouldn’t interrupt their programming to cover live press conferences from these idiots, and offer detailed analysis afterwards. That’s severe overkill.
Nothing that these people are doing warrants live coverage. ENOUGH, ALREADY!
There’s been a controversy brewing in Florida, ever since a church decided that it was a good idea to burn a pile of Korans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks. The controversy has gone international, and may have serious repercussions for U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan.
The Dove World Outreach Center says that “Islam is of the devil” and that the church is obligated to carry out the burning because the Koran is not God’s word, is “totalitarian, and….teaches idolatry, paganism, rites and rituals.” Over the last week, there have been large protests in cities across Afghanistan, and across the Muslim world.
In fact, the military brass is so concerned that General Petraus has gone to the press, expressing concern that the action might play directly into the hands of the Taliban and other groups who are fighting against the coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think there is merit to what Washington and the military leaders are saying. Anything that derails efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan, and the eventual withdrawal of international troops should not be tolerated.
The church does have a right to express itself, and I’m not in total disagreement with what they say, but how they express themselves makes me worry about the troops. They’re in enough danger already. And how many of our embassies in other Muslim countries will be burned to the ground if this book burning goes forward?
I would encourage the Dove World Outreach Center to cancel their current plan and come up with a way to express themselves that doesn’t cause more people to join the fighting against our forces. That’s the last thing that the troops need.
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck held his rally over the weekend at the Lincoln Memorial; an interesting conflict has broken out in between media outlets as to how many actually attended.
CBS News reported 87,000 people in attendance, with a margin of error of +/- 9,000.
MSNBC reported 500,000 people. The New York Times reported in the neighborhood of 300,000 people. NBC News’s Domenico Montanaro tweeted that he thought the number was around 325,000 people, based on what someone at the National Park Service told him.
Liberal bloggers reported 30,000. They must have been drunk or stoned.
Here’s something else that’s curious. I found this link to the rally, and an event marshal turning people away from the event, saying that the park was at capacity at the 2:00 mark of the video. The capacity of the National Mall is 2.1 million people. What gives?
Two possibilities (out of many): Beck reserved the park for 300,000 people, and the NPS decided to not allow any more to enter as they were at the 300,000 person mark. Or there were 2.1 million people there. I’m more inclined to believe the former. Even Beck said that there weren’t a million people there.
There is a possibility that the Beck rally outdrew the MLK rally of 47 years ago, which liberals are angrily in the process of denying. They’re still in a state of shock.
I don’t have a dog in this particular fight, but I’m really enjoying the bantering going on.
There’s nothing like a liberal belief being shaken to its core by an upstart conservative, especially a lunatic like Beck. The liberals can’t grapple with him; they come up short, even when Beck makes outlandish statements and is forced into minor retreats, like his statement that Obama is a racist, which he did pull back from.
And if liberals are wondering where in the world Beck came from, remember this: he worked for CNN first. Can you imagine what would have happened if he was still working for CNN and managed to pull this off? They’d be having hissy fits and calling for his head.
French and British interests often differ, and the respective navies are no different. Can you imagine the American and Russian navies sharing three aircraft carriers for the expressed purpose of saving money? It certainly wouldn’t work for us.
Does France really need an aircraft carrier? They don’t throw their military power around without the United States being involved first. They’d rather keep their military at home.
The Charles de Gaulle was put into service in 2001, but construction began on the ship in 1989. Work was stopped four times due to funding issues in the French economy. And the entire French Navy has suffered as well. French naval specialists have criticized the French government for allowing their Navy to fall into disrepair.
The British have two active carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, with one in reserve, with two more under construction (HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth). They’re cutting government spending, and are looking for a way to save money on their carriers.
What the British ought to do is phase out the two active carriers, and the reserve carrier, and go with the two new ones, and forget about the French. They are still a maritime power and need their carriers to defend the Falklands, and other British interests around the world, which sometimes conflict with French national interests.
Seriously though, what do the French need more aircraft carriers for? For them it’s a huge waste of money, if they don’t take care of their Navy.
I was online earlier today, and came across a commentator who said that the federal government response to Hurricane Earl’s approaching the eastern seaboard of the United States is radically different than the federal response to a hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast.
Currently, it’s “gee, there’s a hurricane approaching the Gulf states. Let’s wait it out and see what’s going to happen.” Compare to the East Coast response taken from headlines today: “FULL ALERT!! MASS EVACUATIONS!! CATEGORY 5!! SIDESWIPE!!”
It should be the same response on both coasts. The federal government should be springing into action whenever a hurricane approaches our coast, and not just on the East Coast.
There are those who are saying that the government wants to be on top of this approaching storm, given their very slow response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf, to show that they’ve made improvements to their responses.
If that’s true, it’s cheap theatrics. I’m not impressed so far.
I’ve been watching this debate over whether Obama is a Christian, or a Muslim, or an agnostic, or whatever label he’s choosing to describe his religious beliefs. And I don’t think it’s helping to defeat his agenda, which is continuing to advance.
In the end, it’s his secular POLICIES that will push us into an unprecedented economic collapse. The anti-Obama religious stuff isn’t particularly helpful to dealing with all the problems that we have directly in front of us. He’s spending much more, much faster, on failed economic policies that have long been disproven.
There is WAY too much to deal with without adding “Obama is a Muslim” to the list. It’s time to drop this debate and start talking balanced budget amendment, and getting government spending under control, before we’re sold off into economic slavery to the Chinese.
That scares me more than whether Obama is a Muslim or not.
Look at it this way: our country has survived ALL the religious persuasions (or lack thereof) of all 43 Presidents prior to President Obama. We’ll survive his religious persuasion as well.
I’d rather see us focused on fixing the government and the economy instead of this debate, which is nothing but a huge distraction and plays squarely into President Obama’s hands, as he continues to push damaging legislation through.
As a country, we have gone out of our way to show that we respect Muslim sensitivities around the world, instructing our soldiers not to enter mosques in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to damage those mosques during combat operations.
Here at home, we are being told that we have to respect Muslim holidays, to not use offensive terms to describe Arabs and Muslims, and to not associate the word “terrorist” with the word Islam. In short, we are extending every courtesy to those of the Islamic faith.
We have grown to be very sensitive to Muslim sensitivities.
So why the hell don’t they realize that they’re offending AMERICAN sensitivities, by putting up a mosque and a cultural center on the very doorstep of one of the worst atrocities in American history, carried out by Islamic extremists?
Our idiot politicians aren’t doing enough to protect American interests in this matter, subordinating our interests and our sensitivities to their version of political correctness.
This is like the controversy that erupted in Poland, with the construction of a coventry near the grounds of the Auschwitz death camp. In that situation, Jewish leaders protested, and the coventry was eventually shut down.
9/11 is not in the same ballpark as the Holocaust, but the the controversies that erupted after both events aren’t entirely dissimilar.
The people pushing for the creation of this Muslim shrine in the shadow of the twin towers should either scale back their plan, or construct this religious institution in a location that isn’t as traumatized or sensitized to it.
The last thing we need is for someone to try to destroy this mosque, should it be built. We don’t need religious wars starting up here.
This is not about freedom of religion. This is about freedom of speech, and political attempts to shut down the exercise of that free speech.
Shame on us, Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Cultural Diversity himself, for raising valid viewpoints? No, no, no. Shame on Mayor Bloomberg for being a blooming idiot, for ignoring his oath of office and for trying to silence those who have a differing viewpoint than his own.
Mr. Thought Cop ought to practice what he preaches—a little MORE diversity.
I cannot believe how much attention the media is giving to drug addict and sometimes actress Lindsay Lohan.
Part of the reason she’s going into rehab is that she can’t hack being in the media spotlight. Give her some breathing room and let her do what she must to get better.
As for the media itself, aren’t there better stories out there to report on??! This celebrity obsession is extremely unhealthy.
Will someone in the Obama Administration please read the Arizona immigration law IN ITS ENTIRETY? I don’t think a single person with a “D” after their name has. Obama sure hasn’t. Nor has his incompetent Attorney General. Nor has anyone in President Obama’s cabinet. Democrats in Congress sure haven’t.
I hope that Arizona files a lawsuit against the federal government, seeking a court order to force the government to enforce ALL existing federal laws along the ENTIRE Arizona/Mexico border, and not just certain sectors.
What do they need, bodies of dead American families found in their own homes, wiped out by Mexican drug lords who are currently waging a war against the Mexican government just over the border?
Obama needs to move the army up to the border, and issue orders that any Mexican gangs who are running roughshod over the border and firing on American border patrol agents on the American side of the line should be blown straight to hell!
Engaging in a frivilous lawsuit against a law that ONLY challenges the citizenship of people who are accused of a crime…that’s all that the Arizona law says, and nothing else. This federal lawsuit should be thrown out immediately. What a waste of time and resources!
Last week, President Obama signed a measure into law that gives him the authority to protect U.S. web assets from cyber attack, by having the U.S. part of the web shut down for up to 120 days.
Sounds like a really good way to isolate people from one another, to prevent the exchange of free ideas, and to prevent the American people from learning about whatever the government is working so hard to keep from them, until it’s too late.
They should be focused on firewalling the country’s internet access, and learning how to keep the Internet up and running while waging a cyber war against an attacker.
I don’t like the idea of having to shut down the Internet to stop a cyber attack. But if the American government now considers cyber attacks a threat to national security, they need to shift gears and adapt quickly to the growing threat from cyber attacks through use of other means.
Israel created a huge brew-ha-ha on the high seas last week, when Israeli naval troops boarded several Turkish vessels and impounded the ships, cargoes and people aboard them. On one ship, the activists resisted, and a fight broke out, which left nine of the activists dead and many others—activists and Israeli commandoes—hurt.
Israel has kept Gaza under blockade and has promised to maintain the blockade, so long as Hamas clings to power and continues to launch an array of weapons across the border into Israel.
Hamas has bombarded Israeli cities with rocket fire for a long time, and Israel doesn’t want them to be rearmed by Syria and Iran, with even deadlier weapons via the sea.
Israel does have a right to search those ships for weapons, in the same way that the United States imposed a blockade on Cuba to prevent nuclear weapons on Soviet ships from reaching Cuban ports during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The world feigns outrage at the Israeli actions, but casts a blind eye on Hamas bombarding Israeli cities with sophisticated weapons from Iran and other countries. This isn’t right or fair.
The international community has no right to ask Israel to lower its defenses without presenting a viable alternative. It should be that Turkey and other naval powers take over the blockade and stop ships carrying weapons from reaching Gaza. Once they’re inspected and declared weapons-free, they should be able to set sail straight into Gaza.
Or have the cargoes inspected in their home ports before departure, by Israeli and other international inspectors, thereby making a boarding at sea unnecessary. They could sail straight into Gaza without delay.
There is a lot of room for compromise here, as I see it.
I am in agreement that the current system cannot stand, but for crying out loud, the world should offer Israel something in return. I am also of the opinion the a UN peacekeeping force should take up residence in Gaza as well.
Any talk of a UN probe is suspect, given the UN’s reputation for focusing on Israel and ignoring the Hamas actions which started Israeli action to stop whatever Hamas is doing. Nothing’s changed.
In my next-to-last post, I called certain members of Congress “traitors” for standing and applauding the hypocritical Mexican President as he railed against Arizona’s anti-border crossing measures.
I’ve gotten some feedback, with mixed results, in the last week. I’m taking it all in stride, but this subject is worth another post.
I called them “traitors” for caring more about Mexican citizens than about the American citizens who have been murdered by Mexican criminals who came across the border illegally.
I called them “traitors” for not standing up against Phoenix becoming the kidnapping capital of our country.
I called them “traitors” for failing to look at statistics: 80% of all immigration officer deaths were at the hands of illegals. 35% of the entire federal prison population is illegal immigrants, and 20% of Arizona’s prison population are illegals. Ship them home and ease the overcrowding in our own prisons!
70% of Arizona’s population support SB1070. ‘That’s pure democracy that they’re trying to overturn.
Congress needs to get with the program, and Obama needs to fire his attorney general for saying that he won’t enforce federal laws. This is pure electioneering.
The Mexicans need to get their own house in order before telling us how to run ours. They have no room to be criticizing us when their own immigration policy is even stricter than Arizona’s. And Mexico needs to get their drug lords under control.\
Time for Mexico to put up, or shut up. And Obama’s party needs to follow suit.
The state really messed up when they put Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced former Mayor of Detroit, back into prison for the next eighteen months to five years.
When he was sentenced, he also lost his $100,000 a year job in Texas. So instead of him making whatever payments he can over the next five years, they’ve chosen to get reimbursed nothing.
Did they just shoot themselves in the foot or what? Yes, he needed to be taught a lesson, but Detroit can’t afford to be foregoing any income. In this case, it would have been better to come up with a solution that allowed him to keep his job and keep making payments.
Every Democrat and Republican who stood up and cheered as Mexican President Caulderon criticized the state of Arizona over their attempts to protect their people should turn in their resignations and walk straight out the door, never to return.
We’ll definitely remember in November.
And the Mexican President has the unmitigated gall to come into OUR House of Representatives, to complain about our treatment of HIS criminals??! He needs to get HIS own house in order before telling us how to run OURS! He’s the biggest hypocrite north or south of the Rio Grande.
And the liberal Democrats who stood up and cheered should be ashamed of themselves. First they didn’t read the legislation. Then they criticized what they didn’t read. And then they cheered one of the architects of the chaos along our southern border. We don’t want Mexico’s problems in any of the border states. Mexico can fend for itself. Why hasn’t it already CRUSHED the drug gangs with its army?
I do not like it when Mexicans illegally cross our borders in the first place. And I don’t like it when they cry about not having American citizenship, then throw it back in our faces with these demonstrations, carrying Mexican flags. They can go wipe their butts with their Mexican flags. Demonstrating for American citizenship with Mexican flags…they come to us begging for what they want, then insult us. What are we to think?
The message that many of us are getting is that they want to become Americans to be Mexicans.
What’s the point of their applying for citizenship here if they have no intention of contributing to our society, to making it better? They can stay in Mexico and be Mexicans, and contribute to the betterment of Mexican society. They sure need it, and we don’t need to be giving out freebies to illegals here.
President Obama has apologized to China for Arizona’s immigrant security law, which he has labeled a “human rights violation.”
I think it’s a very sad state of affairs when a sitting U.S. President apologizes for a law that is designed to protect AMERICAN CITIZENS—including immigrants who followed the law and came here legally, and went through the naturalization process— from being MURDERED in their own homes and KIDNAPPED on their own U.S. streets by ILLEGALS. People in Arizona who live along the border live in constant fear. Is this Obama’s version of “ensuring domestic tranquility?”
Obama should have apologized to the people of Arizona for the federal government FAILING to do it’s job and ENFORCING the law, and PROTECTING the border.
But instead, he’s caught apologizing for what IS (again), and kissing Chinese tail (again).
Can we have a recall election for President Obama in November as well?
It’s been a week of high drama in the United Kingdom as they had a general election, had a hung parliament in terms of no party capturing a majority of the seats in that election, and then all the haggling between the parties to form the next British government.
In the end, David Cameron’s Conservative Party joined forces with the Liberal Democratic Party; Cameron is now the Prime Minister; the leader of the Liberal Democrats is deputy PM. The cabinet has members of both parties taking up key positions.
President Obama needs to carefully watch what the British do with their budget in the next several months. If their measures work and Britain is able to stay on an even keel while refraining from exploding their deficit, as Obama is currently doing to the U.S. debt, then perhaps we can pull back from the abyss as well, using parts of the British model.
Cutting the U.S. debt load immediately would be a smart move. April was UGLY in terms of how much debt was added on: four times higher than in April 2009, and an all-time record for budget deficits in a month.
And President Obama’s team seems to think that they have to spend massive amounts of money to keep the economy afloat. This is flawed thinking, and they have to shift gears, before it’s too late.
GM’s announcement that they had repaid their federal loan in full was done by using money from another federal loan to take care of the TARP loan that they received after going into bankruptcy.
Guess what!! GM is STILL on the hook, except now they owe even more. Way to go, GM!
DISGRACEFUL! And now, a question: since the statement was done in a commercial and played across the country on national TV, can the FCC sue for false advertising?
The only good news coming from GM right now is that they’re making money. In the end, that’s what matters, but they need to come clean with what they did to “repay” their loan “in full.”
I seem to remember a political firestorm a couple of years ago when then-President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Meyers to the Supreme Court. And I didn’t disagree when Harriet Meyers decided to withdraw her nomination. Bush was loudly criticized for being an “idiot” for choosing an “obviously” unqualified person for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, President Obama has nominated someone who has never even BEEN a judge, just someone who whitewashed a plagiarism scandal at Harvard University.
So if Bush was an idiot for nominating “unqualified” Meyers, what does that make Obama for nominating non-judge and even-less qualified Kagan?
Looks like it’s back to the drawing board, and pick a judge, please, Mr. President.
The administrators of this high school should resign and apologize for dishonoring their country’s flag.
This is the United States, not Mexico. And any school on U.S. territory currently flying the Mexican flag rather than the American flag should remove those Mexican flags and run the Stars and Stripes up the pole, IMMEDIATELY! And any Mexican that doesn’t like that can make a run for the border, AND STAY THERE!
Cultural sensitivity, my afterburner! Liberal ilk imposing their viewpoints on everyone else is what this is!
There has been an ongoing debate on whether President Obama is a socialist, and my view is that he is not. He’s a liberal, but not a traditional one at that, either.
A socialist would have been pushing for the complete nationalization of the financial system, from top to bottom, as Chavez of Venezuela and Castro of Cuba have done to their own countries. Obama hasn’t done that. He’s helped to create a system with a kill switch built into it; when the banks stabilize and pay back the government, they’re off the hook.
To date, the American taxpayer has been paid back $587 billion of the original $787 billion that the government loaned out to the banks.
Socialists do not want Obama’s health care plan either. Under a Socialist plan, there would be no crushing after-care bills that will still bankrupt entire families; the Socialist model calls for Cadillac-style plans for everybody.
According to Bill Wharton over at the Washington Post, Obama’s plan underinsures everybody in the name of universal health care. And there’s still the possibility of catastrophic bills that could push a family or individual into bankruptcy if an individual or family uses up their “allotment” of health care.
I am opposed to both ideas, as both are prohibitively expensive to the American taxpayer. We can no more afford the Socialist plan than we can President Obama’s.
According to the Socialist web site, the official Socialist party line is to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq immediately, to close all of our overseas bases and to “unconditionally disarm.” Obama has set a deadline in Iraq, but not one in Afghanistan. And he wants to expand our involvement in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world, and upgrade our nuclear weapons platforms. So he doesn’t match up there either, though he has called for a nuclear weapons-free world, while taking steps to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal.
At first, I thought he was a socialist, but the more I researched it, the more I realized that the dots just didn’t connect. The Socialist platform is as radical an agenda as I’ve ever seen, and even a leftist like Obama has openly rejected major parts of it.
Make no mistake, I think his agenda is very bad news. And we don’t know what is coming next, though we have a general idea.
President Obama’s brand of liberalism is darn peculiar and difficult to pin down. But this man isn’t a socialist: he belongs to a branch of liberal thought that IS far to the left of center, and is quite radical. Beyond that, the picture is still out of focus.
There is a label out there for Obama’s brand of liberalism, but “socialism” isn’t the best fit for it.
Arizona’s state government passed legislation that cracks down on illegal aliens coming across their border from Mexico. GOOD FOR THEM!
The federal government hasn’t done its job in protecting the border, and Arizona is fed up. And until the federal government starts doing its job, or provides additional funds to help the border states with securing the border with Mexico, the feds and President Obama should stay out of Arizona’s business.
Why should one group of people (the legal residents of Arizona) be made to support an illegal population that has violated our border, disregarded our laws and flooded our emergency rooms and our jails?
No, Congress and the President should do their jobs and protect Arizona and the other border states from these continued incursions. What’s it going to take, Mexico’s drug war spilling over onto our side of the border to shame President Obama and Congress into enforcing laws that have already been signed into law?
Across the country, many levels of government engaged in the practice of raiding pension funds to balance their budgets. California was particularly bad at this: they borrowed $550 billion from their state pension funds to balance their state budget. And they’ve still got a $25 billion deficit in their 2010-2011 budget.
Those IOUs are coming due, with the retirement of many of the workers whose pensions have been looted by the various governments.
If they promised a pension to their workers, they ought to make sure the things are funded properly.
A U.S. Navy submarine rammed a U.S. Navy surface vessel last month, due to a serious breakdown of military protocols aboard the submarine. The captain of the sub was relieved of his command after it was discovered that his navigator was listening to his iPod, and hazarded the ship.
A few short months after Defense Secretary Gates killed the F-22 Raptor program, the follow-up F-35 Lightining II fighter is also being criticized for being too expensive. It’s jumped from being $179 million per copy to $329 million per copy in the same amount of time.
The reason for the jump is the vertical take off/vertical landing capability, delays in the prototypes and production issues, and other research & development problems.
Defense Secretary Gates is confident that the fighter will stay on track, though the military may not be able to buy as many as they would like.
Why not build more late model F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s instead?
I saw an article in zdnet.com today, trumpeting the end of the laptop in favor of the iPad.
Not so fast.
Just because Apple comes out with a popular design, it doesn’t mean that everyone will switch over to it. Not everyone likes the Apple operating system or business model, just as not everyone likes dealing with Windows or with the various PCs.
But the end of the laptop? Not even close. The end of the Apple laptop? That’s more likely.
People are very upset about Congress and the President ramrodding their very bad health care through, and how it was done.
It’s another example of what happens when one party-rule takes hold in Washington. The Republicans blew it when they were in total control, and the Democrats are blowing it right now with their grip on power slowly bleeding away.
In the November elections, I’m hoping that the Democrats and the Republicans have majorities in one house each. Neither political party can be trusted with total control. They enact really stupid legislation, abuse the system and abuse the trust of the American people.
This is another reason to enact term limits. Total turnover in Washington would flush out the system, and restore some credibility to the federal government that has been missing since 1994. And while I cheered the results of that election and enjoyed watching the Democrats react to their massive losses, in hindsight, it would have been better if the Republicans had won a majority in one house.
But the current balance of power in Congress needs to change, to keep more of the Socialist agenda at bay. As it is, it’s going to take years to overcome the damage that Obama, Pelosi and Reed have inflicted on our national interests.
China and Google have been waging a war of words for quite some time over China’s insistence that Google censor Chinese search results. China’s government can’t take the chance that its citizens will begin to freely exchange ideas, like in a free society, as the Chinese people might criticize their own government (GASP!).
Google’s big enough that they don’t need the Chinese market.
Google’s stock might be dropping over this debate, but their stock has gone up with a lot of people. And I’m sure that Google will return to the Chinese market when their government either changes their policy, or the Chinese government itself changes.
The Chinese people ought to be able to tell their own government what to go do with itself, without fear of the police arresting them and sending them off to forced labor “re-education” camps.
The Democrats will pay a heavy price in November for their defying the majority of the American people in their vote to bankrupt our country within the next four years with their health care plan.
And the next Congress WILL repeal this bill, or we’ll fire THEM too!
Thirty-seven states have vowed to sue the government to force the federal government to follow the Constitution, with regards to powers not expressly delegated to the federal government are reserved for the states.
Bart Stupak is a darn fool. Does he really thing that pro-choice Obama will restrict abortion language in the bill, now that he has what he wants? How many unborn will be murdered by this bill?
The best outcome for the upcoming vote on the health care bill is that the bill is rejected. It’ll pare down the forecasted debt that Obama and his Congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle are forcing on us.
They can do the health bill a lot better and cheaper than the 2,300+ page health care proposal that added four hundred pages in recent weeks, since its unveiling. And the measures contained therein are as UNCONSTITUTIONAL as the day they were first revealed.
They should be making cuts now, starting with the health care bill. That’ll save a huge chunk of change and will enable the government to cut at least $1 trillion out. That’s a healthy start.
At the very least, Congress and the White House should return us to surpluses before they even BEGIN to think about such a costly endeavor that may well bankrupt our country. This talk of today’s debt of $12 trillion, with an additional $9 trillion by the end of Obama’s second term is UNACCEPTABLE.
Why not make cuts now while there is still a choice as to which programs to cut, instead of the crash cuts that will have to be made within four years at current spending levels?
Recall ALL Priuses, discontinue the entire line, and give owners cash to go buy a safer car of their choice from any manufacturer. Toyota has NO business manufacturing a dangerous vehicle that they are incapable of fixing. And they should pull all fly-by-wire electronics in the engine and transmission and replace them with industry-standard mechanical devices in all other Toyota lines, too.
Their "fix" with their floor mats and gas pedals are clearly NOT the problem.
Toyota’s incompetence in fixing this problem with their product has gotten so ridiculous that it’s unbelievable. I’m glad I’m not driving a Toyota.
“Lost Boys” fans awoke to the news that actor Corey Haim passed away early this morning at age 38. Police suspect an accidental overdose and are waiting for autopsy results to confirm what killed Corey.
He had flu-like symptoms for the last few days, and was living with his mom, who is struggling with cancer. He got out of bed, felt very weak and collapsed to his knees. His mom called 911 and paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead a while later.
His fans had been hoping that he had put his demons behind him; in fact, he was looking great the last few weeks, according to news reports. Sympathies to his mom and his family, his longtime friend Corey Feldman and his family, and all who knew him.
I’ve been reading about the runaway Toyota Prius in California, and reading some of the comments from readers who say that all a driver has to do is stick the vehicle into neutral and allow the engine to race until you slow down. With respect, they have no idea what they’re talking about.
In Toyota vehicles, you are not able to shift when you’re going like a bat out of hell. The shifter won’t move until you’re below a certain amount of RPMs and speed. If the engine is racing and the vehicle is accelerating, there’s way too much torque, and the safeties won’t allow a shift. On my stick-shift Toyota pickup that I no longer own, you could shift into neutral, but you couldn’t shift back INTO gear if you were going too fast.
In essence, Toyota drivers who are in this Prius situation are locked into one of several outcomes: a high speed crash, the accelerator disengages and they’re able to brake safely, or they bail out at 90mph and die.
In the case of the Toyota Prius in California that’s in the news, the driver made another option: call 911, and get help. The cop pulled alongside and told him to engage the parking brake as well. They were able to slow the car down, until the driver could override the safeties and shut the engine off, which isn’t possible when the car is accelerating. The police officer pulled out in front and provided his cruiser’s braking power to bring the Toyota to a halt.
This is no floor mat issue, or brake pedal issue. It’s in the electronics, which are being shorted out. I think that defective chips are the cause of this acceleration issue with Toyota.
A few weeks ago I jump-started a 2008 Toyota Tundra. The driver said that it was easy to jump-start the Tundra as it had no spark plugs. What the Sam Hill….I asked him to show me and it was an electronic chip that’s wired into an on-board computer that regulates all the functions that the spark plug is responsible for. It was the most high-tech vehicle engine that I’ve ever seen.
The transmission is also controlled by computer. The electronics is the issue, and that’s where the problem lies, in my non-expert opinion. If they can't find a physical problem, it's an electronic problem. What else could it be?
The Germans have been lording over Greece in a way that is incredibly short-sighted and arrogant, in response to the economic troubles that Greece and the Euro have been encountering lately.
Germany needs to put up or shut up.
The rhetoric coming from German media outlets has been very negative toward Greece, which sparked retaliatory comments from Greece about the Nazi German occupation of Greece during World War II, and the subsequent looting of the Greek treasury by the Nazis, which has never been returned to Greece.
It’s been a real nasty verbal battle, which will only be made worse if the Greek economy collapses under its debt load.
And I thought the French were arrogant. The Germans are acting downright ugly!
The recent spat of earthquake disasters in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Virgin Islands, Haiti, Japan, China, Iran and elsewhere show that earthquakes can occur at any place, at any time, with little or no warning.
When New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, it was the greatest disaster to hit an American city, up to that point. But it was only one city.
What happens if California gets hit by a 9.5 earthquake from the San Andreas fault line?
Or what happens if the New Madrid fault line suddenly goes off, and there’s a swath of primary destruction stretching across four states (Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas) and then major aftershocks from the Gulf of Mexico up to southern Michigan and southern Wisconsin, and over to eastern Iowa and Nebraska, and as far east as North Carolina and Georgia?
We don’t know when a disaster will strike, so we should be prepared at all times. And that means being prepared with disaster relief preparation, and having a balanced budget with low debt, in the event that we do need to borrow trillions to rebuild. We won’t be in any condition to do so if we already owe other nations $22 trillion, as is projected. Or if we keep paying for other nations to recover from their own natural disasters.
We need the federal government to reign in spending, and get us in better shape to weather natural disasters, which are inevitable.
The above link to the New Madrid fault line goes to a 27 minute video, which is excellent and was produced by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The search for missing actor Andrew Koenig came to an end yesterday when his body was discovered in a park near Vancouver.
His famous father, Walter Koenig, held an emotional press conference and urged those families who have family members suffering from depression to act before it’s too late.
Nothing got accomplished, the abortion language remained intact, and the illegal measures that are unconstitutional remained in place. And there were enough distortions of what will and what will not happen that it’s as clear as mud.
Time for the voters to have their say on this matter. They ought to throw this entire mess onto the ballot and let the American people vote it straight up or down.
THEN we’ll see where the American people stand on this issue.
He promised to be the 41st vote against Obama’s health care mess. But he also said that he wasn’t going to be bound by party labels.
Republicans from New England have to appear independent enough from the GOP in order to keep the support of Democratic-leaning independents, so why all the fuss now?
They got their 41st vote, but Scott Brown will not follow the party blindly. He’s a Massachusetts version of John McCain, who is notorious for wheeling and dealing and being a closet Democrat. So will Brown. They can shut down health care, but they had better not count on Brown’s support on other issues, unless they can convince him to support their stand for all the right reasons.
Get over it and get on with the business at hand: shutting down this HORRID health care bill.
Andrew Koening, son of actor Walter Koening of “Star Trek” fame, has been missing for eleven days, and the search has been growing more desperate by the hour.
He went up to Vancouver from his home in California, after dispatching a dark letter to his parents, who called the police after contact was lost. Andrew has been suffering from depression, according to the Koening family.
Andrew was a child-star on the 1980s TV show “Growing Pains” and has been an activist, writer, director and actor since “Growing Pains” ended.
Thoughts and prayers for the Koenings. I hope this situation is resolved with Andrew being found safe and sound. But it doesn’t look good.
I hope Congress is paying close attention to the still-developing crisis between debt-overloaded Greece and their partners in the European Union, because there’s a warning for the United States in between the lines.
Several European newspapers are calling the EU moves against Greece a “shocking” and “crushing loss of Greek sovereignty.” It’s apparently in a part of the EU treaty that member states can lose control of their own monetary policies if their national debts exceed the 3% limit of deficit to the country’s GDP. Greece is currently at 12% and threatening to default on its debt load, which is 113% of its GDP.
The way that Europe is lording it over Greece, a lesson is there for all to see. With the types of numbers coming out of Washington, and the depth of borrowing that the current Administration and Congress is proposing to engage in, how long can it be before China and other nations try to lord it over us? What if China starts trying to dictate our monetary policy by threatening to reject American borrowing requests from Chinese banks? What happens when they start to dictate our foreign policy?
The American government must live within it’s own means, without borrowing another red cent.
No nation on earth should hold sway over our national interests; we can make our own decisions on whether we want to welcome the Dalai Lama to our country, or whether we want to sell weapons to Taiwan to deter Red Chinese aggression.
And if we want to give our taxpayers rebates, we don’t borrow the money from China to do it. That was the height of irresponsibility from the last Administration, and a national disgrace.
If the government can’t survive on a $2 trillion budget, they can learn to do without. But enough of this financial irresponsibility. There should be NO talk of a health care plan until our financial mess is straightened out.
Feral cats may be the new targets for hunters in some municipalities around the country. And I’m enjoying the picture a great deal. Even though I know that the proposition will probably fail.
In any case, feral cats kill tens of millions of birds a year.
The rape of the criminal justice system continues unabated.
Now that they’ve introduced legislation to bar funding for trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates in civilian courts, Constitutional shredders in Congress have targeted the Christmas Day bomber as well, saying he should be tried in a military court.
Bull honkey!
The military does not have any jurisdiction as the attempted bombing took place on a civilian airliner, in civilian airspace over an American city, not on a military flight, in military-controlled airspace or over an American military base. Moreover, the arresting officers were FBI, who are also non-military law enforcement personnel.
The line between civilian law enforcement and military law enforcement clearly needs to be strengthened as the line separating the two, aka the Posse Comitatus Act, has been weakened via attempted acts of Congress and the previous Administration. It was in response to Hurricane Katrina, and authorizations of Congress for President Bush to use troops in law enforcement in and around New Orleans as civil authority had broken down there. These acts of Congress expired in 2008 and the line was tenuously re-established.
I have faith in our military, but not in our elected Constitution-shredding leaders, who don’t seem to have any issues trampling all over the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold.
The same Congress people who are yelling about the Christmas Day bomber being in civilian court should think twice before putting the military tribunals (which are considered illegal under international law) above those of the civilian criminal justice courts.
The military courts should handle military matters. The Christmas Day bombing is a civilian matter, to be decided in civilian courts. This man was not arrested on some distant battlefield under military control; he was arrested in Romulus, Michigan, home of Detroit Metro Airport, attempting to blow up a passenger jet.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and anything that threatens the integrity of the Constitution should be banned out of existence and forgotten.
We dare not blur the lines of distinction in order to use enhanced torture methods. That’s a slippery slope that has been barely kept in check to this point.
Some things became a little clearer today when the U.S. government said that it had to pressure Toyota into recalling eight models for defective foot pedals.
And Toyota experienced a 16% drop in sales in sales in January.
As a former Toyota owner, I can tell you that this problem has been around for a while. I had to get the gas pedal on my 1994 Toyota pickup fixed because it was experiencing the EXACT problem that this current recall is about. I can remember the mechanic at the Toyota dealer telling me that it was a common problem. That was twelve years ago.
I haven’t had any problems with gas pedals in my Dodge.
So, it now appears that Toyota had no intention of doing this recall, and government pressure forced them into it, which was the reason they didn’t have a fix ready to go. In my mind, it turns this from a case of simple stupidity on the part of Toyota into one of denial and evasion, particularly since nineteen deaths have been linked to the defective gas pedals. Shame on Toyota!
I couldn’t help but notice that President Obama scrapped the Constellation program over at NASA, as it was an outdated concept when they retired it forty years ago, and was even more outdated when they proposed doing an upgrade to the forty-plus year old concept to replace the retiring shuttles.
Now that he’s gotten around to cutting the budget, I have another suggestion for him on where else he can make cuts:
Scrap his health care plan. His reasons for scrapping Constellation also apply to his health plan: it can be done cheaper and far more responsibly (AND without throwing people in jail, too, I might add).
He needs to go much deeper and make a dent in the debt. Closing up shop in Iraq this year would save more money in one year than he’s currently proposing for his ENTIRE current ten-year plan.
The President’s $3.8 trillion budget is a BUST. He needs to pare it down to about $2.2 trillion, and put the savings into paying down the debt owed to foreign creditors. It’s better to replenish the well and keep it in reserve, rather than draining it completely dry, which we are currently on track to do.
Congress and the President need to pass a balanced budget.
I’ve been watching the Toyota recall and can’t help but wonder: what is Toyota doing?
They issued the recall on eight models of Toyota vehicles and stopped selling those across the country. Then it emerged that they don’t have a solution, or permission from the federal government to proceed with a fix, which are required. If they saw a problem, why on earth didn’t they develop a fix first before announcing a recall?
I remember when Dodge issued a recall six years ago how efficient it was. They announced the problem (a recall of the upper ball joint), sent out mail to all Dodge owners with the affected vehicles (2001-2003 Dodge Durangos and Dakotas) and asked them to schedule appointments so that the right part could be shipped to the dealer ahead of the appointment.
A couple of hours after dropping my truck off at the dealer, I had it back with a clean bill of health.
After going through that, and then seeing that Toyota issued a recall in the last few days without a fix, it makes me wonder…what are they DOING? They announced a recall without a fix. They didn’t even have a fix on the drawing board so that they could discuss it with the feds.
Dodge developed a fix, and permission from the appropriate federal agency to carry out the ball joint repair prior to their huge announcement. This is how most American companies take care of their problems. Toyota didn’t do things his way, they’re doing it backwards.
The problem with the Dodge ball joints was thought to have been more widespread than the reported problem with the gas pedals in these Toyota vehicles, but more information is being released, almost on an hourly basis.
The Big 3 are gleefully watching Toyota’s market share shrink, but hopefully they’re taking notes on what NOT to do.
The TARP program which was designed to prevent the collapse of the U.S. financial sector has created new and far more serious problems, according to the special inspector general of TARP.
I hope they didn’t just delay the inevitable.
Treasury needs to get its head out of its arse and put safeguards in place that will address the myriad of problems that still need to be taken care of.
These banking bigwigs need to understand that TARP was NOT universally supported, in Congress or by the public. I preferred to let the system crash so that a rebuild could have been done, and a stronger economy would have emerged. We would probably have 20% unemployment right now, but it would have been a temporary situation that would have improved over time.
Instead, the government and the banks reset the clock. That’s a decision that may come around and bite us even more than it already has.
TARP was for nothing if this attitude continues to prevail on Wall Street and at Treasury. Some people warned that this was going to happen, and THEY WERE RIGHT. Again. And now we’re facing the real possibility of the banks doing the same thing again and counting on Uncle Sam to bail them out a second time.
The cost of a catastrophic meltdown will be much worse than if TARP hadn’t happened. We MUST escape this vicious cycle, before it’s too late.
I’m no PETA puffer, but I am of the opinion that the ridiculous Groundhog Day celebrations ought to involve leaving the groundhogs alone.
If they don’t, I hope they all reach out and bite someone.
I refer to Staten Island Chuck, who bit New York Mayor Bloomberg at last year’s Groundhog Day. The woodchuck objected to being taken out of his warm wooden house that the zoo had built for him, and having his food taken away from him. DUH!
I hope he strikes again. And the same for Punxsutawney Phil. I hope they drop him after he bites someone, and he runs amok and starts biting the idiots who are standing in close proximity. That would be poetic justice. I would post the video here and sing his praises.
President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address last night, and while it was a fine speech in how he performed it, the ideas contained within the speech were another matter entirely. He tried to please everyone and the strategy didn’t work.
Instead, it was crafted to give a little bit of something to everyone. Ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” for the liberals; cutting taxes and supporting offshore drilling for the Republicans; appeasing the environmental bloc with global warming hubris; and talking to everyone else about the economy.
This feels like the campaign all over again. Say something to this group. Say the opposite to that group. Deny it. Blame someone else. The mantra of the last couple of elections won by the Democrats. And that house of cards has begun to collapse.
He CAN’T please everyone. His State of the Union suffered greatly from this strategy, and it was memorable only for the constant flip-flops and his telling us what we already knew.
I don’t think he changed any minds or did anything to open up a dialogue with his opponents. I think all he’s done is polarize his own party and energized the conservatives.
President Obama made the news for proposing a spending freeze for a few years. It’s expected to save $15 billion next year, then more the following years. I saw a number of about $157 billion in the press release.
Big fat hairy deal.
Today’s debt is over $12 trillion. And the Obama Administration is projected to add another $9 trillion to our debt by the end of the decade.
Here’s a thought: We can make due with a $2.5 trillion budget instead of a $3.5 trillion. Take the savings and pay down the debt.
NASA may have to take a hit; so should military projects that are billions over budget, and months behind schedule.
But under no circumstances should they weaken our Homeland Security defenses, nor cut the budgets for Iraq or Afghanistan until the troops are out of there. The last thing we need is for the troops to be trapped there, with ammunition and fuel running out or their paychecks cut or stopped.
I’m not too happy about the recent Supreme Court decision which allows for unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns.
There should be limits on corporate donations, to prevent a conflict of interest as a potential political candidate may be called upon to cast a vote on an issue that directly impacts a corporation that has made a huge donation. The corporation may be able to exercise undue influence on said candidate by threatening not to make a huge donation to the candidate’s next campaign.
But more importantly, the rights of the individual are sacrosanct. Under no circumstances should the free speech and voting rights of the individual be lessened by the increased donation power of the corporations. Money has a way of influencing votes of our representatives in both houses of Congress. Corporations can now influence our Congressional leaders MUCH more than the individual.
The GOP took the open Massachusetts Senate seat in one of the most dramatic turn of events in recent election memory.
Independents turned out to support Scott Brown. Democratic arrogance managed to turn a “cakewalk” to the Senate into a mandate on President Obama and his health care disaster.
People are angry about the health care bill, and unless Congress puts a stop to trying to criminalize pro-life people who oppose part of their premiums going to pay for abortion services, or people who are too poor to afford the premiums, or don’t want to kill the national budget, or want to have their own insurance, there will be similar results in other states across the country.
The Democratic plan has been exposed: pass the bill, then try to sweep it under the carpet. It won’t work. Lawsuits are being prepared across the country to stop the unconstitutional health care bill. I hope it’s tied up until late October.
If this thing does pass and somehow survives with abortion funding intact, I won’t spend a PENNY on supporting someone else’s murder of an unborn child. I may end up going to jail for not buying their insurance, but I’d rather be a prisoner of conscience than go to hell for paying into a system that murders the unborn.
I hope that choice doesn’t become a necessity. I’d rather throw some Democrats out of office and bury this plan and then wait for someone to come up with a much better alternative.
Looking forward to seeing what happens in November.
Pat Robertson started another controversy, this time with his interpretation of the Haitian rebellion against French colonial rule in the early 1800s, and the subsequent natural and man-made disasters to hit the country since its inception.
First, a little history. It started with France fighting a war against Spain, England and the Holy Roman Empire from 1688-1697 (The Nine Years War) when peace finally broke out. The island of Hispaniola was divided between France and Spain in 1697, and the French territory became a slave colony.
Wealthy Frenchmen imported slaves to work the fields, which yielded a tremendous profit for the French. As time went on, and Haiti (it was called Saint Dominigue in those days) became the richest French colony in the region, the slaves yearned for their freedom against their masters. Predictably, the French said ‘no’, and created racist “Black Codes” which kept the slaves of the colony in servitude and in the sugar, coffee and indigo fields. The Black Codes were brutal in their treatment of African slaves.
A rebellion began, and eventually slavery was banned in the colony and the restrictions against the slaves were loosened. Then the French government underwent several changes and the ban on slavery in the colonies was reversed. In 1803, Napoleon of France sent a force of 20,000 soldiers to Haiti to restore slavery and the Black Codes. The invasion failed as the French troops got sick or were defeated by the Haitians under the command of Toussaint l'Ouverture. (The French got beat by EVERYBODY)
In 1804, Haiti declared its independence.
In the time since, various emperors, warlords, Prime Ministers and Presidents have ruled over Haiti, and the country has remained in poverty ever since.
It also sits on a major fault line, which has produced major earthquakes from time to time. This same fault line extends further east and runs under Jamaica, and was responsible for the destruction and sinking of Port Royale, then the major British colony in the Caribbean, in 1620.
Fast forward to 2010: a 7.0 earthquake on the fault line devastated Haiti, destroying the capital and killing at least 20,000 people. Pat Robertson made the following observation:
A few points: the Haitians were fighting for their freedom, both from slavery and from French rule. Slavery is evil, and the French of the period were seeking to restore it. How can Pat Robertson say that the Haitians were evil for resisting evil? Is this his interpretation of historic events?
Would he be saying the same thing if he was a preacher in Haiti, where his own church had just been destroyed, and many of his followers were dead or missing? Or would he be providing aid and comfort to the survivors of his flock, as a religious leader?
Or is he going negative on Catholics again, as many Haitians (80% or more) belong to that church?
I will pray for the salvation of the Haitian people, but not because they've been lost to the devil as Robertson says; I will pray for them because they need God's saving grace (especially now), the same as all of us do.
I am not in agreement with Robertson's assessment, but I'm not surprised by them either.
