Commentary on a USA TODAY report by Tom Vanden Brook:
The Pentagon approved a 600% increase in production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles to protect soldiers from makeshift bombs in Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the vehicle the Pentagon's top priority. The MRAP's V-shaped hull and raised chassis are up to four times safer against the top threat to U.S. troops in Iraq — improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.
Gates said Friday he was pushing industry and the military to build MRAPs faster: "For every month we delay, scores of young Americans are going to die."
Soap Box Ravings notes that it took a change in the Secretary of Defense to get the equipment our troops need in Iraq
That recommendation followed a visit to Iraq by a high-level Army team to assess soldiers' needs and which vehicles would best fill them.
Soap Box Ravings wonders why there isn't a "high level team" on site in Iraq 24/7 to continuously ascertain troop needs.
"We're going to aggressively pursue maxing out production, definitely for '08," Sliwa said. "We're extensively testing the vehicle to ensure the soldier's very well protected."
FLASHBACK: Corps refused 2005 plea for MRAP vehicles
The Pentagon's move boosts the Army's MRAP total from the 2,500 the service had originally sought and the Pentagon's total commitment to almost 23,000 vehicles. That includes 3,700 for the Marines and 1,500 for other branches of the military.
The Pentagon's decision to build more MRAPs may encounter opposition from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who leads the committee that writes the defense budget.
Murtha said he wouldn't support more than $6 billion in MRAP spending for next year because contractors can't build the vehicles fast enough.
Soap Box Ravings notes that Representative Murtha is the "Marine" in Congress who wants the US out of Iraq. Basically, he is just another Democrat looking for ways to not support our troops in their mission.
The Army's bill for MRAPs next year would be $8.1 billion, according to a memo from Acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren.
MORE: Army seeks $20B for protected vehicles
To meet the increased demand, the Pentagon awarded contracts to nine companies in January to develop and build vehicles for consideration for its MRAP program.
Since April 23, the Pentagon has awarded contracts worth about $1.6 billion to three companies to build 3,130 MRAPs, records show.
Last week, Australian television reported that Thales Australia would make 1,500 MRAPs for the Pentagon, although that has not been confirmed by the Defense Department.
Soap Box Ravings does not give a damn about what country manufactures these pieces of equipment as long as they are made to function in accordance with their specifications. These units are needed now, more troops will be killed or injured while these are being manufactured and tested. If any manufacturers have them "on the shelf" then they need to be procured from the shelf. The troops needs must come first.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Secret, What's A Secret
Reported on Monday, July 02, 2007, ABC News Reports:
Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned
A "secret" U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.
Soap Box Ravings asks: If the report is "Secret," why is an un-named official even discussing it?
U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States did not have "have any specific credible evidence that there's an attack focused on the United States at this point."
As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against "airport infrastructure and aircraft."
The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received "no advance intelligence" that Glasgow might be a target.
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on on the report today, but said "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa."
Soap Box Ravings asks: What kind of comment would you expect a responsible public official make about an official report?
Soap Box Ravings says: Any idiot could figure out that Al Qaeda is going to attack their targets any where and at any time. Al Qaeda has publicly stated this in the past. The "secret" report can not say anything but "there will be attempts in the future." And every country on the receiving end knows damn well that the attacks are coming. The only people that are always surprised are those with their heads buried in the sand, of which we have many in this country as does the rest of the free world.
Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned
A "secret" U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer, according to a senior official with access to the document.
Soap Box Ravings asks: If the report is "Secret," why is an un-named official even discussing it?
U.S. officials have kept the information secret, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that the United States did not have "have any specific credible evidence that there's an attack focused on the United States at this point."
As ABCNews.com reported, U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against "airport infrastructure and aircraft."
The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received "no advance intelligence" that Glasgow might be a target.
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on on the report today, but said "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa."
Soap Box Ravings asks: What kind of comment would you expect a responsible public official make about an official report?
Soap Box Ravings says: Any idiot could figure out that Al Qaeda is going to attack their targets any where and at any time. Al Qaeda has publicly stated this in the past. The "secret" report can not say anything but "there will be attempts in the future." And every country on the receiving end knows damn well that the attacks are coming. The only people that are always surprised are those with their heads buried in the sand, of which we have many in this country as does the rest of the free world.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
I Saw A Bumper Sticker Today
The bumper sticker said:
Clinton Lied
Nobody Died
I thought about that for enough microseconds to figure out what they were trying to say.
The Lie is "Clinton Lied, Nobody Died"
The Truth is "Clinton Lied, Many Have Died"
Soap Box Ravings
Clinton Lied
Nobody Died
I thought about that for enough microseconds to figure out what they were trying to say.
The Lie is "Clinton Lied, Nobody Died"
The Truth is "Clinton Lied, Many Have Died"
Soap Box Ravings
Monday, June 25, 2007
From My Little Brother
This might interest you, some history detail I've never read before. Don't think I've ever seen the third stanza in print...I've seen three verses, but the 1st and 2nd, with the 4th stanza as the 3rd. Of course, Britain is still our ally..../D
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Star Spangled Banner
Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner you may find this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship. This is a good brush-up on your history. (FYI: Francis Scott Key lived in and is buried in Frederick, MD)
Editor's Note - Near the end of his life, the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed doctor......)
"I have a weakness -- I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time."
NO REFUGE COULD SAVE: BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV
I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.
"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff"
I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.
More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.
So now let me tell you how it came to be written.
In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.
At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.
Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack.
The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.
The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west.
The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic States and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.
The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.
On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release.
The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.
As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.
As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.
Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:
Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise? During World War I when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to the words. And don't let them ever take it away ... not even one word of it.
Soap Box Ravings Says: "Amen"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Star Spangled Banner
Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner you may find this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship. This is a good brush-up on your history. (FYI: Francis Scott Key lived in and is buried in Frederick, MD)
Editor's Note - Near the end of his life, the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed doctor......)
"I have a weakness -- I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time."
NO REFUGE COULD SAVE: BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV
I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.
"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff"
I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.
More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.
So now let me tell you how it came to be written.
In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.
At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.
Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack.
The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.
The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west.
The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic States and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.
The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.
On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release.
The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.
As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.
As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"
After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven" -- a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.
Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:
Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:
On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise? During World War I when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to the words. And don't let them ever take it away ... not even one word of it.
Soap Box Ravings Says: "Amen"
Torture Versus Humiliation
A Navy POW from Gulf War, CAPT Larry "Rat" Slade, retired recently with the ordeal of his capture still vivid in his mind.
During his 22 years in the Navy, he flew in the backseat of a Tomcat fighter over four combat zones, graduated from Top Gun school and won the naval flight officer of the year award.
But one moment of Slade's career fails to fold neatly into a shadow box with a flag, ribbons and medals.
On Jan. 21, 1991, a cloudy, damp night over Baghdad, an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile blew the tail off his Oceana-based jet at 25,000 feet. Slade and the pilot, Lt. Devon "Boots" Jones, ejected safely and floated into the enemy's desert a mile apart. Jones was rescued. Slade was captured.
For the next 43 days, Slade endured interrogation, torture and starvation at the hands of Iraqis. The military code burned in his mind: "I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability."
It still smolders: Did he resist to the utmost of his ability?
"I struggle with that question today," he said.
During a rare interview, Slade recalled the still-vivid pictures of being shot down in combat. As his F-14 tumbled toward the desert floor and with his altimeter unable to track the smoky and rapid descent he ejected at 10,000 feet and landed in a remote, rocky region outside the Iraqi capital a few miles from the burning wreck of his airplane.
He sent out emergency signals religiously. No answer came.
The next morning, an Iraqi soldier and Bedouin stumbled upon his hiding spot. The young Navy lieutenant, armed with only a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver, surrendered. "I had no expectation of living through the experience the moment I was captured," he said.
Jones, his pilot, evaded capture and was rescued by a special Air Force unit.
Once captured, the Iraqi took Slade to a secret, high-security prison and kept him in solitary confinement. The Iraqis videotaped Slade and other prisoners and broadcast their capture to the world.
At the prison, interrogators questioned Slade repeatedly about his target and other military intelligence. "I was going to fight every single one," he said during the interview at his office.
The Iraqis met his stubbornness with violence. They smashed his nose and teeth, and pummelled his ribs and spine with a bat. They threatened to kill him."Day by day, Rat," he told himself. "Day by day."
In late February, American air dominance over Iraq expanded. An allied bombing raid severely damaged the secret prison. The prisoners were then transferred to a municipal facility in Baghdad - now famously known as Abu Ghraib where Slade endured more days with nothing more than soup - "oily water" - for sustenance.
During his 43 days of captivity, Slade had lost 45 pounds. The Iraqi beatings left him with permanent damage to his organs and spine.
Soap Box Ravings says: "Torture is the destruction of tissue which causes grievous and often permanent damage to the human body. Humiliation makes you feel upset without causing damage to the body.
This is posted only so those of the liberal persuasion can learn about the subtle differences between when Saddam Hussein controlled Abu Ghraib prison and the United States controlled the same prison.
During his 22 years in the Navy, he flew in the backseat of a Tomcat fighter over four combat zones, graduated from Top Gun school and won the naval flight officer of the year award.
But one moment of Slade's career fails to fold neatly into a shadow box with a flag, ribbons and medals.
On Jan. 21, 1991, a cloudy, damp night over Baghdad, an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile blew the tail off his Oceana-based jet at 25,000 feet. Slade and the pilot, Lt. Devon "Boots" Jones, ejected safely and floated into the enemy's desert a mile apart. Jones was rescued. Slade was captured.
For the next 43 days, Slade endured interrogation, torture and starvation at the hands of Iraqis. The military code burned in his mind: "I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability."
It still smolders: Did he resist to the utmost of his ability?
"I struggle with that question today," he said.
During a rare interview, Slade recalled the still-vivid pictures of being shot down in combat. As his F-14 tumbled toward the desert floor and with his altimeter unable to track the smoky and rapid descent he ejected at 10,000 feet and landed in a remote, rocky region outside the Iraqi capital a few miles from the burning wreck of his airplane.
He sent out emergency signals religiously. No answer came.
The next morning, an Iraqi soldier and Bedouin stumbled upon his hiding spot. The young Navy lieutenant, armed with only a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver, surrendered. "I had no expectation of living through the experience the moment I was captured," he said.
Jones, his pilot, evaded capture and was rescued by a special Air Force unit.
Once captured, the Iraqi took Slade to a secret, high-security prison and kept him in solitary confinement. The Iraqis videotaped Slade and other prisoners and broadcast their capture to the world.
At the prison, interrogators questioned Slade repeatedly about his target and other military intelligence. "I was going to fight every single one," he said during the interview at his office.
The Iraqis met his stubbornness with violence. They smashed his nose and teeth, and pummelled his ribs and spine with a bat. They threatened to kill him."Day by day, Rat," he told himself. "Day by day."
In late February, American air dominance over Iraq expanded. An allied bombing raid severely damaged the secret prison. The prisoners were then transferred to a municipal facility in Baghdad - now famously known as Abu Ghraib where Slade endured more days with nothing more than soup - "oily water" - for sustenance.
During his 43 days of captivity, Slade had lost 45 pounds. The Iraqi beatings left him with permanent damage to his organs and spine.
Soap Box Ravings says: "Torture is the destruction of tissue which causes grievous and often permanent damage to the human body. Humiliation makes you feel upset without causing damage to the body.
This is posted only so those of the liberal persuasion can learn about the subtle differences between when Saddam Hussein controlled Abu Ghraib prison and the United States controlled the same prison.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Wow, The Feds Got One
Unwitting woman votes, faces deportation
Posted on aol.com: 5:28 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2007
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto.
But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old.
"To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview Friday.
"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said.
After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.
Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,"' said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto.
She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto, a town of about 23,000.
Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.
However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.
In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.
What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.
On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.
Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, "and they handcuffed me," Meyer said. "They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me."
"I said 'You're doing this because I voted?"'
The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life," she said. "She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. ... Everybody has due process when they're arrested."
Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.
Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.
Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.
"It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said of her case. "I see people writing 'this is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes ... you think you're free; you're really not."
Soap Box Ravings would like to point out that the Feds did not find this person, she was ratted out by someone else. As a police officer, we called the Feds to the Greyhound Bus Station to pick up illegal aliens, but the Feds were never interested and released everyone.
But I guess once you are outed, you are an easy kill for some lazy-assed armchair bureaucrat who can't get out of their own way.
Thirty-nine years of clean living in the good ole US of A and that is all the Feds can come up with.
When common sense can't be applied, blame is to be substituted.
It kinda makes you wonder, how much this deportation is going to cost the federal government in "well spent" dollars.
Posted on aol.com: 5:28 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2007
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto.
But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old.
"To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview Friday.
"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said.
After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.
Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,"' said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto.
She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto, a town of about 23,000.
Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.
However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.
In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.
What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.
On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.
Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, "and they handcuffed me," Meyer said. "They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me."
"I said 'You're doing this because I voted?"'
The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life," she said. "She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. ... Everybody has due process when they're arrested."
Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.
Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.
Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.
"It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said of her case. "I see people writing 'this is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes ... you think you're free; you're really not."
Soap Box Ravings would like to point out that the Feds did not find this person, she was ratted out by someone else. As a police officer, we called the Feds to the Greyhound Bus Station to pick up illegal aliens, but the Feds were never interested and released everyone.
But I guess once you are outed, you are an easy kill for some lazy-assed armchair bureaucrat who can't get out of their own way.
Thirty-nine years of clean living in the good ole US of A and that is all the Feds can come up with.
When common sense can't be applied, blame is to be substituted.
It kinda makes you wonder, how much this deportation is going to cost the federal government in "well spent" dollars.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
It's All In How You Read The Story
Father Kills 300-Pound Bear With Log
AP, Posted on aol.com: 2007-06-22 21:19:43
HELEN, Ga. (June 22) - A 300-pound black bear raided a family's campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow.
Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family's cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it.
The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine , grabbed the closest thing he could find - a log from their stash of firewood.
"(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear."
Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
"We've not had an attack in Georgia," Riddleberger said. "The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around."
The attack happened the same weekend that an 11-year-old boy was killed by a black bear while camping in a forest in Utah. Sam Ives was found mauled to death after he was pulled screaming from his tent in the Uinta National Forest, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
Authorities said it was the first recorded fatal attack by a black bear in that state. His family said there was no food in the tent to attract a bear.
Soap Box Ravings says "Since there has never been a recorded attack on a human by a bear in Georgia it is obvious in this case that the bear was the victim and Everhart had to be ticketed."
The Regional Game Magement Supervisor states basically that we should learn from this but it is hard to learn when you don't get the correct point. I can't help but wonder if those who actually work in the forest with the animals actually agree with this politically correct supervisor.
Soap Box Ravings says "The bears are there whether food is left out or not. It's the freaking woods, it is were they live stupid."
To me this is another reason why citizens should be armed when they are in the woods and they should be armed with large caliber weapons while in bear country.
As I have previously noted:
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Animal control, on the other hand, will be way, way, wayyyyy behind the arrival of the police officers.
Last year while on an alaskan tour to view bears, the Inuit guide carried a .338 Winchester Magnum rifle "in case we actually ran into any of the local bears."
AP, Posted on aol.com: 2007-06-22 21:19:43
HELEN, Ga. (June 22) - A 300-pound black bear raided a family's campsite, and the father saved his sons from harm by throwing a log at the beast, killing it with a single blow.
Chris Everhart and his three sons were camping in the Chattahoochee National Forest in northern Georgia when the encounter happened Saturday. The bear took the family's cooler and was heading back to the woods when the youngest son, 6-year-old Logan, hurled a shovel at it.
The bear then dropped the cooler and started coming at the boy, said his father. Fearing what might happen next, Everhart, an ex-Marine , grabbed the closest thing he could find - a log from their stash of firewood.
"(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head," Everhart said. "I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear."
Everhart was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
"We've not had an attack in Georgia," Riddleberger said. "The key thing to learn from this is if there's a bear around, do not have your garbage or food available. If we manage our food, we won't have bears around."
The attack happened the same weekend that an 11-year-old boy was killed by a black bear while camping in a forest in Utah. Sam Ives was found mauled to death after he was pulled screaming from his tent in the Uinta National Forest, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
Authorities said it was the first recorded fatal attack by a black bear in that state. His family said there was no food in the tent to attract a bear.
Soap Box Ravings says "Since there has never been a recorded attack on a human by a bear in Georgia it is obvious in this case that the bear was the victim and Everhart had to be ticketed."
The Regional Game Magement Supervisor states basically that we should learn from this but it is hard to learn when you don't get the correct point. I can't help but wonder if those who actually work in the forest with the animals actually agree with this politically correct supervisor.
Soap Box Ravings says "The bears are there whether food is left out or not. It's the freaking woods, it is were they live stupid."
To me this is another reason why citizens should be armed when they are in the woods and they should be armed with large caliber weapons while in bear country.
As I have previously noted:
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
Animal control, on the other hand, will be way, way, wayyyyy behind the arrival of the police officers.
Last year while on an alaskan tour to view bears, the Inuit guide carried a .338 Winchester Magnum rifle "in case we actually ran into any of the local bears."
Friday, June 22, 2007
To Communicate With An Arab You Need To Understand The Arabic Word As Used
Islam = Submission
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/518
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/518
Thursday, June 21, 2007
My E-Mail To President George Bush
President George Bush,
Just a few lines to let you know that my interest in Immigration has not died off.
I want:
1. The borders closed to illegal immigrants.
2. Convicted felons, sex offenders and people who have previously deported repeatedly either placed in prison or permanently removed from this country.
3. A realistic plan to allow persons to move across the border which eliminates the generation of anchor babies and wholesale attachments to our social security system.
4.After this is completed, then we can decide what to do with the remaining illegal immigrants in this country.
5. The language of this country is English.
Just a few lines to let you know that my interest in Immigration has not died off.
I want:
1. The borders closed to illegal immigrants.
2. Convicted felons, sex offenders and people who have previously deported repeatedly either placed in prison or permanently removed from this country.
3. A realistic plan to allow persons to move across the border which eliminates the generation of anchor babies and wholesale attachments to our social security system.
4.After this is completed, then we can decide what to do with the remaining illegal immigrants in this country.
5. The language of this country is English.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
A Quote From Thomas Jefferson
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Soap Box Ravings asks:
What, was the straw that "broke the camels back" and ignited the Revolutionary War? If you think you know the answer, post a comment and let me hear your theory. A hint: The war was started when the first shots were fired at L******** and C*******. Waiting to hear from you.
Soap Box Ravings asks:
What, was the straw that "broke the camels back" and ignited the Revolutionary War? If you think you know the answer, post a comment and let me hear your theory. A hint: The war was started when the first shots were fired at L******** and C*******. Waiting to hear from you.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Sound The Alarm, She's Coming
"Fairness doesn't just happen.
It requires the right government policies."
Hillary Clinton, May 29, 2007
It requires the right government policies."
Hillary Clinton, May 29, 2007
China Is Our Friend, They Need Our Money To Conduct Business As Usual
China Attempting Cyberspace Dominance
Taken from Military.com
By Christian Lowe
June 14, 2007
The Air Force has been tracking aggressive cyber incursions by computer technicians in China, primarily focused toward gathering information on military network infrastructure and American trade secrets, the Air Force's cyber warfare commander said Wednesday.
"China has put a lot of resources into this business," said Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of Air Force Cyberspace Command. "China, at this point, is not interested so much in attack as they are in using the Internet to pull [industrial] data."
"They're interested in doing this in a way that they can be dominant without even having a fight," he added.
A recently-released Pentagon report on Chinese military development said Beijing is crafting an aggressive computer network operations strategy that the People's Liberation Army "sees as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict."
The vulnerability of networks and the disruption computer hackers can cause to a country's infrastructure was demonstrated in early May after cyber attacks on a wide range of civilian and government networks in Estonia crippled state-run banks, telecommunications companies and news organizations for weeks.
Taken from Military.com
By Christian Lowe
June 14, 2007
The Air Force has been tracking aggressive cyber incursions by computer technicians in China, primarily focused toward gathering information on military network infrastructure and American trade secrets, the Air Force's cyber warfare commander said Wednesday.
"China has put a lot of resources into this business," said Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of Air Force Cyberspace Command. "China, at this point, is not interested so much in attack as they are in using the Internet to pull [industrial] data."
"They're interested in doing this in a way that they can be dominant without even having a fight," he added.
A recently-released Pentagon report on Chinese military development said Beijing is crafting an aggressive computer network operations strategy that the People's Liberation Army "sees as critical to achieving 'electromagnetic dominance' early in a conflict."
The vulnerability of networks and the disruption computer hackers can cause to a country's infrastructure was demonstrated in early May after cyber attacks on a wide range of civilian and government networks in Estonia crippled state-run banks, telecommunications companies and news organizations for weeks.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
At Least One Democrat Has Balls
Lieberman Favors Strike on Iran
Taken from Military.com
By Associated Press June 11, 2007
WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq.
"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our Soldiers."
The U.S. accuses Iran of fostering terrorism and Tehran's nuclear ambitions have brought about international reproach.
Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 who now represents Connecticut as an independent, spoke of Iranians' role in the continued violence in Iraq.
"We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American Soldiers," Lieberman said. "Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them."
He added, "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."
Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, although he would leave the strategy to the generals in charge. "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran," Lieberman said.
"They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."
Taken from Military.com
By Associated Press June 11, 2007
WASHINGTON - Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq.
"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman said. "And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our Soldiers."
The U.S. accuses Iran of fostering terrorism and Tehran's nuclear ambitions have brought about international reproach.
Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 who now represents Connecticut as an independent, spoke of Iranians' role in the continued violence in Iraq.
"We've said so publicly that the Iranians have a base in Iran at which they are training Iraqis who are coming in and killing Americans. By some estimates, they have killed as many as 200 American Soldiers," Lieberman said. "Well, we can tell them we want them to stop that. But if there's any hope of the Iranians living according to the international rule of law and stopping, for instance, their nuclear weapons development, we can't just talk to them."
He added, "If they don't play by the rules, we've got to use our force, and to me, that would include taking military action to stop them from doing what they're doing."
Lieberman said much of the action could probably be done by air, although he would leave the strategy to the generals in charge. "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran," Lieberman said.
"They can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," he said. "We cannot let them get away with it. If we do, they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home."
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Gun Control History
Here are some interesting historical situations from world history to think about:
Turkey established gun control in 1911. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million 'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
A rough total of defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control is approximately 56 million.
*************************************************************************************
Also, it should be noted that in the first 12 months after Australian gun owners were forced by their newly passed gun control law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, (a program which cost Australian taxpayers more than $500 million dollars) the following results occurred:
Australia-wide, homicides increased 3.2 percent
Australia-wide, assaults increased 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies increased 44 percent
In the State of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms increased 300 percent.
The weapons collected by the Australian Government were only the ones turned in by law-abiding citizens, criminals did not comply with the law and therefore, criminals still possessed their weapons!
Figures over the previous 25 years (before Australian gun control) showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms. However, this changed drastically reversed itself in the first 12 months after the weapons turn-in, as criminals were now guaranteed their prey was unarmed.
There was also a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.
Results similar to Australia have also occurred in Great Britain and Canada.
*************************************************************************************
This information will not be presented by any of the American news media nor will you hear of it from our pandering politicians who must constantly invent situations in order to save the uneducated masses to ensure their re-election.
Our forefathers believed that "With guns, we are 'citizens' but without them, we are 'subjects'."
Soap Box Ravings likes to remind all:
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away!
Turkey established gun control in 1911. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
The Soviet Union established gun control in 1929. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million 'educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
A rough total of defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control is approximately 56 million.
*************************************************************************************
Also, it should be noted that in the first 12 months after Australian gun owners were forced by their newly passed gun control law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, (a program which cost Australian taxpayers more than $500 million dollars) the following results occurred:
Australia-wide, homicides increased 3.2 percent
Australia-wide, assaults increased 8.6 percent.
Australia-wide, armed robberies increased 44 percent
In the State of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms increased 300 percent.
The weapons collected by the Australian Government were only the ones turned in by law-abiding citizens, criminals did not comply with the law and therefore, criminals still possessed their weapons!
Figures over the previous 25 years (before Australian gun control) showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms. However, this changed drastically reversed itself in the first 12 months after the weapons turn-in, as criminals were now guaranteed their prey was unarmed.
There was also a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns.
Results similar to Australia have also occurred in Great Britain and Canada.
*************************************************************************************
This information will not be presented by any of the American news media nor will you hear of it from our pandering politicians who must constantly invent situations in order to save the uneducated masses to ensure their re-election.
Our forefathers believed that "With guns, we are 'citizens' but without them, we are 'subjects'."
Soap Box Ravings likes to remind all:
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away!
Friday, June 01, 2007
Here Is An E-mail That Says It All To Me
Subject: GOODBYE GEORGE
We all have our disagreements with President Bush. Immigration, U..S. Attorney firings, Iraq , Darfur , etc. are all hot topics these days. The following "speech" was written yesterday by an ordinary Maineiac. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. An excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living. Sent with the author's permission.
=========================================
The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:
Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not "fellow Americans" any longer.
I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.
I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of minority homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.
Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
We face real threats in the world. Don 't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq 's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this "Bush Lied, People Died" crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could been "discovered." Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.
Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named "William Jefferson Clinton" established that policy. Bet you didn't know that either, did you?
You idiots need to understand that today we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.
That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.
You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.
When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.
Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.
In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.
I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream of such a place) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.
Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there're just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
So that's it. God bless what's left of America .
Some of you know what I mean.
We all have our disagreements with President Bush. Immigration, U..S. Attorney firings, Iraq , Darfur , etc. are all hot topics these days. The following "speech" was written yesterday by an ordinary Maineiac. While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective. An excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living. Sent with the author's permission.
=========================================
The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:
Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans." Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not "fellow Americans" any longer.
I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.
The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people.
I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once-great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.
Let's start local. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media. Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank. And that's despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of minority homeowners. And while we're mentioning minorities, I'll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high. Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration. I've mentioned all those things before, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.
Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.
We face real threats in the world. Don 't give me this "blood for oil" thing. If I was trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq 's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this "Bush Lied, People Died" crap either. If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could been "discovered." Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty. Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.
Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named "William Jefferson Clinton" established that policy. Bet you didn't know that either, did you?
You idiots need to understand that today we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.
That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That'd be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you. And the bastards are all over the globe.
You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.
When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor'.
Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.
In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol.
I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching. I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.
So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream of such a place) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.
Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there're just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.
So that's it. God bless what's left of America .
Some of you know what I mean.
Three Things To Think About
1. COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a single cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, then track that cow's calves to their stalls. But, they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around the country.
Perhaps, we should give each illegal alien a cow.
2. THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them our Constitution. It was written by a lot of really intelligent people, and it has worked for over 200 years.
Besides, we're not using it anymore.
3. TEN COMMANDMENTS
The truth is, the real reason that we can't post the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is this:
Posting "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians would create a hostile work environment.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a single cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington? And, then track that cow's calves to their stalls. But, they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around the country.
Perhaps, we should give each illegal alien a cow.
2. THE CONSTITUTION
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them our Constitution. It was written by a lot of really intelligent people, and it has worked for over 200 years.
Besides, we're not using it anymore.
3. TEN COMMANDMENTS
The truth is, the real reason that we can't post the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is this:
Posting "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery", and "Thou Shall Not Lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians would create a hostile work environment.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Communist China, You Remember Them Don't You
The first part was taken From Military.com on 05/31/07, the italics were added by Soap Box Ravings:
Just in case you didn’t see it already, the Pentagon released its annual Chinese Military Power report Friday.
One of the best (Communist) China reporters in the country, Bill Gertz, wrote in the Washington Times that the report shows a robust effort by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) (Communist China) to develop anti-satellite weapons that can “deliver a knockout blow to many U.S. military satellites.”
Gertz writes:
According to defense officials familiar with the report, it also highlights new strategic missile developments, including (Communist) China's five new Jin-class submarines, and states that Beijing continues to hide the true level of its military spending.
The officials also said that the report will detail how (Communist) China is developing two new types of strategic forces that go beyond what nations have done traditionally using air, sea and land forces by aiming to knock out modern communications methods on which the U.S. military relies for advanced warfighting techniques.
(Communist) China also is training large numbers of military computer hackers to deliver crippling electronic attacks on U.S. military and civilian computer networks.
Soap Box Ravings writes:
These are the people (Communist Chinese) who are now using the majority of the world's cement, steel and fossil fuel. So each time you bring home something, big or little, remember the more we purchase from them, the more they have to spend to raise their standard of living.
Just a year or so ago the PRC (Communist China) tried through a PRC (Communist China) state owned company to buy a california oil company so the could own the oil companies drilling rights in Southeast Asia.
Shop On!
Just in case you didn’t see it already, the Pentagon released its annual Chinese Military Power report Friday.
One of the best (Communist) China reporters in the country, Bill Gertz, wrote in the Washington Times that the report shows a robust effort by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) (Communist China) to develop anti-satellite weapons that can “deliver a knockout blow to many U.S. military satellites.”
Gertz writes:
According to defense officials familiar with the report, it also highlights new strategic missile developments, including (Communist) China's five new Jin-class submarines, and states that Beijing continues to hide the true level of its military spending.
The officials also said that the report will detail how (Communist) China is developing two new types of strategic forces that go beyond what nations have done traditionally using air, sea and land forces by aiming to knock out modern communications methods on which the U.S. military relies for advanced warfighting techniques.
(Communist) China also is training large numbers of military computer hackers to deliver crippling electronic attacks on U.S. military and civilian computer networks.
Soap Box Ravings writes:
These are the people (Communist Chinese) who are now using the majority of the world's cement, steel and fossil fuel. So each time you bring home something, big or little, remember the more we purchase from them, the more they have to spend to raise their standard of living.
Just a year or so ago the PRC (Communist China) tried through a PRC (Communist China) state owned company to buy a california oil company so the could own the oil companies drilling rights in Southeast Asia.
Shop On!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Remembering those who gave all
Remembering those who gave all
By Dave Smith
Lead Street Survival Seminar Instructor
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.-- Last Stanza of the Star Spangled Banner
The last week of May each year is a time to remember those who have served in the military and fallen to defend our Nation. Earlier this month we paused to remember those who wore the badge and stood between evil and innocence in our neighborhoods. We are free because of the following numbers. I pray we never stop remembering and that in our hearts each of us acknowledges each digit represents a brother or sister of ours who gave us all.
Writing the numbers and trying to visualize the faces, the lives, the families, the pain, the cost, is overwhelming. Read these numbers to your children, your nieces, your nephews, and anyone you care about, for if they are to stay free the sacrifice must have meaning; and the courage, the honor, the duty, and love of Country must be sustained. It is not the duty of our schools, our newspapers, or television to instill this in our people...it is ours.
United States Military Deaths 2007 as of May 26, 2007 (Iraq and Afghanistan): 374
America's Wars: U.S. Casualties and Veterans
American Revolution (1775-1783)
Total service members: 217,000
Battle deaths: 4,435
Non-mortal woundings: 6,188
War of 1812 (1812-1815)
Total service members: 286,730
Battle deaths: 2,260
Non-mortal woundings: 4,505
Indian Wars (approx. 1817-1898)
Total service members: 106,0001
Battle deaths: 1,0001
Mexican War (1846-1848)
Total service members: 78,718
Battle deaths: 1,733
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 11,550
Non-mortal woundings: 4,152
Civil War (1861-1865)
Total service members (Union) : 2,213,363
Battle deaths (Union) : 140,414
Other deaths in service (non-theater) (Union) : 224,097
Non-mortal woundings (Union) : 281,881
Total service members (Conf.) : 1,050,000
Battle deaths (Conf.) : 74,524
Other deaths in service (non-theater) (Conf.) : 59,2972
Non-mortal woundings (Conf.) : unknown
Spanish-American War (1898-1902)
Total service members: 306,760
Battle deaths: 385
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 2,061
Non-mortal woundings: 1,662
World War I (1917-1918)3
Total service members: 4,734,991
Battle deaths: 53,402
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 63,114
Non-mortal woundings: 204,002
Living veterans: fewer than 251
World War II (1940-1945)3
Total service members: 16,112,566
Battle deaths: 291,557
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 113,842
Non-mortal woundings: 671,846
Living veterans: 3,242,0001
Korean War (1950-1953)
Total service members: 5,720,000
Serving in-theater: 1,789,000
Battle deaths: 33,741
Other deaths in service (theater) : 2,833
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 17,672
Non-mortal woundings: 103,284
Living veterans: 3,086,4001
Vietnam War (1964-1975)
Total service members: 8,744,000
Serving in-theater: 3,403,000
Battle deaths: 47,424
Other deaths in service (theater) : 10,785
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 32,000
Non-mortal woundings: 153,303
Living veterans: 7,286,5001
Gulf War (1990-1991)
Total service members: 2,225,000
Serving in-theater: 665,476
Battle deaths: 147
Other deaths in service (theater) : 382
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 1,565
Non-mortal woundings: 467
Living veterans: 1,852,0001
America's Wars Total
Military service during war: 43,185,893
Battle deaths: 653,708
Other deaths in service (theater) : 14,560
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 525,930
Non-mortal woundings: 1,447,281
Living war veterans: 17,835,0004
Living veterans: 23,976,000
Global War on Terror (as of Sept. 30, 2006)
Total Service members (Worldwide) : 1,384,968
Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: 165,000
Battle Deaths: 2,333
Other Deaths (In Theater) : 707
Non-mortal Woundings: 21,649
Living Veterans: 588,9235
1. Veterans Administration estimate as of Sept. 30, 2006.
2. Estimated figure. Does not include 26,000-31,000 who died in Union prisons.
3. Years of U.S. involvement in war.
4. Approximately 1,065,000 veterans had service in multiple conflicts. They are counted under each conflict, but only once in the total.
5. VA estimate does not include those still on active duty and may include veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.Source: Department of Defense and Veterans Administration.
Law Enforcement Deaths 2007 to as of May 26, 2007
Total Line of Duty Deaths: 76
Accidental: 1
Aircraft accident: 2
Automobile accident: 24
Boating accident: 1
Drowned: 2
Exposure to toxins: 1
Gunfire: 30
Gunfire (Accidental): 3
Heart attack: 2
Motorcycle accident: 1
Struck by vehicle: 2
Vehicle pursuit: 2
Vehicular assault: 4
Weather/Natural disaster: 1
By Month:
January: 10
February: 12
March: 16
April: 19
May: 19
By State:
Alabama: 2
Arizona: 2
Arkansas: 1
California: 3
Colorado: 1
District of Columbia: 1
Florida: 4
Georgia: 4
Hawaii: 1
Idaho: 1
Indiana: 1
Iowa: 1
Kansas: 1
Kentucky: 1
Louisiana: 2
Maryland: 2
Massachusetts: 1
Missouri: 1
New Hampshire: 1
New Jersey: 3
New York: 5
North Carolina: 8
Ohio: 2
Puerto Rico: 2
South Carolina: 5
Tennessee: 1
Texas: 9
U.S. Government: 7
Virginia: 1
Washington: 1
Wisconsin: 1
Average tour: 10 years
Average age: 37
By Gender:
Female: 1
Male: 75
From www.odmp.org
Police line of duty deaths in America's history: 18,690
The sum of all of the above equals...Freedom
By Dave Smith
Lead Street Survival Seminar Instructor
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.-- Last Stanza of the Star Spangled Banner
The last week of May each year is a time to remember those who have served in the military and fallen to defend our Nation. Earlier this month we paused to remember those who wore the badge and stood between evil and innocence in our neighborhoods. We are free because of the following numbers. I pray we never stop remembering and that in our hearts each of us acknowledges each digit represents a brother or sister of ours who gave us all.
Writing the numbers and trying to visualize the faces, the lives, the families, the pain, the cost, is overwhelming. Read these numbers to your children, your nieces, your nephews, and anyone you care about, for if they are to stay free the sacrifice must have meaning; and the courage, the honor, the duty, and love of Country must be sustained. It is not the duty of our schools, our newspapers, or television to instill this in our people...it is ours.
United States Military Deaths 2007 as of May 26, 2007 (Iraq and Afghanistan): 374
America's Wars: U.S. Casualties and Veterans
American Revolution (1775-1783)
Total service members: 217,000
Battle deaths: 4,435
Non-mortal woundings: 6,188
War of 1812 (1812-1815)
Total service members: 286,730
Battle deaths: 2,260
Non-mortal woundings: 4,505
Indian Wars (approx. 1817-1898)
Total service members: 106,0001
Battle deaths: 1,0001
Mexican War (1846-1848)
Total service members: 78,718
Battle deaths: 1,733
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 11,550
Non-mortal woundings: 4,152
Civil War (1861-1865)
Total service members (Union) : 2,213,363
Battle deaths (Union) : 140,414
Other deaths in service (non-theater) (Union) : 224,097
Non-mortal woundings (Union) : 281,881
Total service members (Conf.) : 1,050,000
Battle deaths (Conf.) : 74,524
Other deaths in service (non-theater) (Conf.) : 59,2972
Non-mortal woundings (Conf.) : unknown
Spanish-American War (1898-1902)
Total service members: 306,760
Battle deaths: 385
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 2,061
Non-mortal woundings: 1,662
World War I (1917-1918)3
Total service members: 4,734,991
Battle deaths: 53,402
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 63,114
Non-mortal woundings: 204,002
Living veterans: fewer than 251
World War II (1940-1945)3
Total service members: 16,112,566
Battle deaths: 291,557
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 113,842
Non-mortal woundings: 671,846
Living veterans: 3,242,0001
Korean War (1950-1953)
Total service members: 5,720,000
Serving in-theater: 1,789,000
Battle deaths: 33,741
Other deaths in service (theater) : 2,833
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 17,672
Non-mortal woundings: 103,284
Living veterans: 3,086,4001
Vietnam War (1964-1975)
Total service members: 8,744,000
Serving in-theater: 3,403,000
Battle deaths: 47,424
Other deaths in service (theater) : 10,785
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 32,000
Non-mortal woundings: 153,303
Living veterans: 7,286,5001
Gulf War (1990-1991)
Total service members: 2,225,000
Serving in-theater: 665,476
Battle deaths: 147
Other deaths in service (theater) : 382
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 1,565
Non-mortal woundings: 467
Living veterans: 1,852,0001
America's Wars Total
Military service during war: 43,185,893
Battle deaths: 653,708
Other deaths in service (theater) : 14,560
Other deaths in service (non-theater) : 525,930
Non-mortal woundings: 1,447,281
Living war veterans: 17,835,0004
Living veterans: 23,976,000
Global War on Terror (as of Sept. 30, 2006)
Total Service members (Worldwide) : 1,384,968
Deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: 165,000
Battle Deaths: 2,333
Other Deaths (In Theater) : 707
Non-mortal Woundings: 21,649
Living Veterans: 588,9235
1. Veterans Administration estimate as of Sept. 30, 2006.
2. Estimated figure. Does not include 26,000-31,000 who died in Union prisons.
3. Years of U.S. involvement in war.
4. Approximately 1,065,000 veterans had service in multiple conflicts. They are counted under each conflict, but only once in the total.
5. VA estimate does not include those still on active duty and may include veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.Source: Department of Defense and Veterans Administration.
Law Enforcement Deaths 2007 to as of May 26, 2007
Total Line of Duty Deaths: 76
Accidental: 1
Aircraft accident: 2
Automobile accident: 24
Boating accident: 1
Drowned: 2
Exposure to toxins: 1
Gunfire: 30
Gunfire (Accidental): 3
Heart attack: 2
Motorcycle accident: 1
Struck by vehicle: 2
Vehicle pursuit: 2
Vehicular assault: 4
Weather/Natural disaster: 1
By Month:
January: 10
February: 12
March: 16
April: 19
May: 19
By State:
Alabama: 2
Arizona: 2
Arkansas: 1
California: 3
Colorado: 1
District of Columbia: 1
Florida: 4
Georgia: 4
Hawaii: 1
Idaho: 1
Indiana: 1
Iowa: 1
Kansas: 1
Kentucky: 1
Louisiana: 2
Maryland: 2
Massachusetts: 1
Missouri: 1
New Hampshire: 1
New Jersey: 3
New York: 5
North Carolina: 8
Ohio: 2
Puerto Rico: 2
South Carolina: 5
Tennessee: 1
Texas: 9
U.S. Government: 7
Virginia: 1
Washington: 1
Wisconsin: 1
Average tour: 10 years
Average age: 37
By Gender:
Female: 1
Male: 75
From www.odmp.org
Police line of duty deaths in America's history: 18,690
The sum of all of the above equals...Freedom
Friday, May 25, 2007
Rosie "who"?
The downhill slide of the reckless mouth has been accelerating. When the liberal O'Donnell wants to ridicule someone she has no problem with trashing anyone or anything by saying whatever comes to her mind regardless of truth. However when anyone else is seen by her as trying to gore her ox, she comes unglued. When she is called on her behavior she makes everything out to be a personal attack.
Rumor has it that she allegedly trashed her sty (dressing room) after her ballistic blowup with Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Then it was reported Rosie's chief writer Janette Barber was escorted from ABC studios after she was caught drawing moustaches on photos of Elisabeth hanging around the building.
Just tonight, ABC announced that Rosie O'Donnell will not be back on "The View."
The President of ABC Daytime, Brian Fons, issued the following statement: "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."
She is not even "man enough" to give notice and work through the end of her commitment.
Rosie who? If I am lucky, I will never have to think of her again.
Rumor has it that she allegedly trashed her sty (dressing room) after her ballistic blowup with Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Then it was reported Rosie's chief writer Janette Barber was escorted from ABC studios after she was caught drawing moustaches on photos of Elisabeth hanging around the building.
Just tonight, ABC announced that Rosie O'Donnell will not be back on "The View."
The President of ABC Daytime, Brian Fons, issued the following statement: "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."
She is not even "man enough" to give notice and work through the end of her commitment.
Rosie who? If I am lucky, I will never have to think of her again.
Ponder This
Taken from an article written by ALAN FRAM, AP presented on aol.com on 5/23/07:
Some U.S. Muslims Say Suicide Attacks OK
WASHINGTON (May 23) - One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances.
The survey by the Pew Research Center reveals a community that in many ways blends comfortably into society. Its largely mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the U.S.
Even so, the survey revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent.
While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.
That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely (This adds up to 26% on the suicde bomber side of the equation).
"It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.
He said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation - a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel (Unless they live in Iraq where it is used against amreican soildiers).
U.S. Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: "People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas."
Federal officials have warned the U.S. must guard against homegrown terrorism , as the British suffered with the London transit bombings of 2005.
Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In Pew surveys last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France (All of these countries have suffered home grown terrorism).
"We have crazies (Most Judeo-Christian crazies do not want to die themselves) just like other faiths have them," said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation's largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.
Andrew Kohut, Pew director, said in an interview that support for the attacks represented "one of the few trouble spots" in the survey (Do you think).
The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets" and then asks, "Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"
Those of all ages backing at least some suicide attacks were about evenly divided between men and women, with support stronger from those who were U.S.-born and less educated, and those who attend mosques at least weekly.
Only 5 percent of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion (Not saying something is also an answer).
Most said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S. and around the world.
Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (There is also a group who do not believe man landed on the moon).
By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq , while a third say the same about Afghanistan - far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public (In my opinion, this would seem to be support for Muslim extremists).
Just over half said it has been harder being a U.S. Muslim since the 9/11 attacks. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim(Since 25% of their peers think suicde bombs are ok the extra screening may have saved their life).
Forty-seven percent said they consider themselves Muslim first, rather than American. Forty-two percent of Christians and 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants identified themselves primarily by their religion in earlier surveys.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans (Thats about 587500 who believe in suicide bombings for either themselves or others). Among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are U.S.-born blacks.
By law, the Census Bureau does not ask about people's religions.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,050 Muslim adults from January through April, including in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names, and from Muslim households that had answered previous surveys.
The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Some U.S. Muslims Say Suicide Attacks OK
WASHINGTON (May 23) - One in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances.
The survey by the Pew Research Center reveals a community that in many ways blends comfortably into society. Its largely mainstream members express nearly as much happiness with their lives and communities as the general public does, show a broad willingness to adopt American customs, and have income and education levels similar to others in the U.S.
Even so, the survey revealed noteworthy pockets of discontent.
While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.
That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely (This adds up to 26% on the suicde bomber side of the equation).
"It is a hair-raising number," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, which promotes the compatibility of Islam with democracy.
He said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation - a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel (Unless they live in Iraq where it is used against amreican soildiers).
U.S. Muslims have growing Internet and television access to extreme ideologies, he said, adding: "People, especially younger people, are susceptible to these ideas."
Federal officials have warned the U.S. must guard against homegrown terrorism , as the British suffered with the London transit bombings of 2005.
Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In Pew surveys last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France (All of these countries have suffered home grown terrorism).
"We have crazies (Most Judeo-Christian crazies do not want to die themselves) just like other faiths have them," said Eide Alawan, who directs interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., one of the nation's largest mosques. He said killing innocent people contradicts Islam.
Andrew Kohut, Pew director, said in an interview that support for the attacks represented "one of the few trouble spots" in the survey (Do you think).
The poll briefly describes the rationales for and against "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets" and then asks, "Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?"
Those of all ages backing at least some suicide attacks were about evenly divided between men and women, with support stronger from those who were U.S.-born and less educated, and those who attend mosques at least weekly.
Only 5 percent of U.S. Muslims expressed favorable views of the terrorist group al-Qaida, though about a fourth did not express an opinion (Not saying something is also an answer).
Most said they are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S. and around the world.
Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (There is also a group who do not believe man landed on the moon).
By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq , while a third say the same about Afghanistan - far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public (In my opinion, this would seem to be support for Muslim extremists).
Just over half said it has been harder being a U.S. Muslim since the 9/11 attacks. Nearly a third of those who flew in the past year say they underwent extra screening because they are Muslim(Since 25% of their peers think suicde bombs are ok the extra screening may have saved their life).
Forty-seven percent said they consider themselves Muslim first, rather than American. Forty-two percent of Christians and 62 percent of white evangelical Protestants identified themselves primarily by their religion in earlier surveys.
The survey estimates there are roughly 2.35 million Muslim Americans (Thats about 587500 who believe in suicide bombings for either themselves or others). Among adults, two-thirds are from abroad while a fifth are U.S.-born blacks.
By law, the Census Bureau does not ask about people's religions.
Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,050 Muslim adults from January through April, including in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. Subjects were chosen at random, from a separate list of households including some with Muslim-sounding names, and from Muslim households that had answered previous surveys.
The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
This Stuff Upsets The "Brady Bunch"
Home invasion gone wrong for (illegal alien) criminals.
Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home.
It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year old's knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.
It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.
Remember - When seconds count, the police are only minutes away........
Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home.
It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.
Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year old's knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.
It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.
Remember - When seconds count, the police are only minutes away........
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Somehow This Poem Sticks With Me
Tommy
by Rudyard Kipling
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!
by Rudyard Kipling
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!
Maybe it's my years of government service, but this poem seems to say it all.
Reporters Jobs Are To Sell The News, Not Deliver The Story
VIRGINIA TECH IS NOT THE WORST SCHOOL MASSACRE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
For those who doubt; Google "Worst US School Massacre"
You should soon be able to identify the "Bath School Disaster" which occurred in Bath Township, Michigan on May 18, 1927.
On this day, Andrew Kehoe, a member of the school board of the Bath Consolidated School, who was upset by a an additional tax levied to construct an additional school building used three dynamite and/or pyrotol bombs in his attack at the school. The majority of his victims were grade school students in the second through six grades killed when one of his explosive devices went off under the North wing of the school.
Andrew Kehoe thereby committed the single deadliest act of mass murder in US history. This is a fact any high school reporter could have identified on the Internet with less than five minutes of effort.
Kehoe also used a firearm to initiate his second explosive device which he detonated by shooting into at the scene of the school explosion.
There was a third device found in the remains of the school that did not detonate. During the scene search to ensure all victims had been located another 500 pounds of dynamite and/or pyrotol was discovered in the schools South wing.
To initiate this disaster, Kehoe killed his wife and burned down his house and farm buildings. While the local firefighters were responding to the fire at Kehoe's farm the initial explosion detonated under the North wing of the school. Later, Pyrotol was also discovered to have been used in the destruction of Kehoe's farm property.
For those who doubt; Google "Worst US School Massacre"
You should soon be able to identify the "Bath School Disaster" which occurred in Bath Township, Michigan on May 18, 1927.
On this day, Andrew Kehoe, a member of the school board of the Bath Consolidated School, who was upset by a an additional tax levied to construct an additional school building used three dynamite and/or pyrotol bombs in his attack at the school. The majority of his victims were grade school students in the second through six grades killed when one of his explosive devices went off under the North wing of the school.
Andrew Kehoe thereby committed the single deadliest act of mass murder in US history. This is a fact any high school reporter could have identified on the Internet with less than five minutes of effort.
Kehoe also used a firearm to initiate his second explosive device which he detonated by shooting into at the scene of the school explosion.
There was a third device found in the remains of the school that did not detonate. During the scene search to ensure all victims had been located another 500 pounds of dynamite and/or pyrotol was discovered in the schools South wing.
To initiate this disaster, Kehoe killed his wife and burned down his house and farm buildings. While the local firefighters were responding to the fire at Kehoe's farm the initial explosion detonated under the North wing of the school. Later, Pyrotol was also discovered to have been used in the destruction of Kehoe's farm property.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Let Us Suppose
Today, I drove to Florida from North Carolina. During the trip, the news revealed that the professional ball player killed recently in an automobile wreck was driving "under the influence of alcohol."
That is polite talk for the police term "drunk on his ass."
Not only was he drunk, he was traveling at about 70 mph and talking on his cell phone when he hit the vehicle in front of him and killed himself. Marijuana was also found in the vehicle by the investigating police officers.
Now here is the "Let Us Suppose" part of this blog.
Let us suppose this same drunk had hit a bus full of children causing multiple deaths up to and including everyone on the bus. For a round number lets say a total of 22, including 21 students plus the driver.
How long would the resulting hullabaloo last and what would determine the length of the ruckus?
Unless someone really famous was on the bus, I believe the hullabaloo would more than likely over for the world in general within seven days after the last funeral.
Perhaps even sooner if Brittany Spears does something stupid.
There would be no politicians beating their war drums increasing the restrictions on vehicle usage, alcohol purchases, cell phone usage, and/or marijuana usage. The only people upset would be members of Mothers Against Drunken Drivers (MADD).
There are a lot more drinking drivers than there are MADD members.
In my example, the 22 subjects who died on the bus are just as dead as if they had all been killed with a firearm.
Sudden unplanned deaths are pretty similar in my opinion. Either way, you are dead without a chance to say goodbye. Your worldly journey is over regardless of you plans or goals. Whether you enjoyed your life or not.
As I see it, the difference between alcohol related deaths and firearm related deaths is that a lot more people in this country enjoy their vehicles, alcohol and cell phones and/or marijuana than enjoy firearms.
Because of this, politicians are not going to lobby for laws that affect the masses, including lawmakers themselves. This is regardless of the fact that misuse of vehicles, alcohol, cell phones and/or drug abuse kill many more people in this country than firearms.
However, their is another major difference that politicians as well as many citizens overlook for various reasons.
The use of a motor vehicle, the use of alcohol and the use of cell phones are a privilege.
The use of firearms in this country is a right as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
That is polite talk for the police term "drunk on his ass."
Not only was he drunk, he was traveling at about 70 mph and talking on his cell phone when he hit the vehicle in front of him and killed himself. Marijuana was also found in the vehicle by the investigating police officers.
Now here is the "Let Us Suppose" part of this blog.
Let us suppose this same drunk had hit a bus full of children causing multiple deaths up to and including everyone on the bus. For a round number lets say a total of 22, including 21 students plus the driver.
How long would the resulting hullabaloo last and what would determine the length of the ruckus?
Unless someone really famous was on the bus, I believe the hullabaloo would more than likely over for the world in general within seven days after the last funeral.
Perhaps even sooner if Brittany Spears does something stupid.
There would be no politicians beating their war drums increasing the restrictions on vehicle usage, alcohol purchases, cell phone usage, and/or marijuana usage. The only people upset would be members of Mothers Against Drunken Drivers (MADD).
There are a lot more drinking drivers than there are MADD members.
In my example, the 22 subjects who died on the bus are just as dead as if they had all been killed with a firearm.
Sudden unplanned deaths are pretty similar in my opinion. Either way, you are dead without a chance to say goodbye. Your worldly journey is over regardless of you plans or goals. Whether you enjoyed your life or not.
As I see it, the difference between alcohol related deaths and firearm related deaths is that a lot more people in this country enjoy their vehicles, alcohol and cell phones and/or marijuana than enjoy firearms.
Because of this, politicians are not going to lobby for laws that affect the masses, including lawmakers themselves. This is regardless of the fact that misuse of vehicles, alcohol, cell phones and/or drug abuse kill many more people in this country than firearms.
However, their is another major difference that politicians as well as many citizens overlook for various reasons.
The use of a motor vehicle, the use of alcohol and the use of cell phones are a privilege.
The use of firearms in this country is a right as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
For Those Who May Have Forgotten (Or Perhaps Never Knew)
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America
Articles in addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the several states, pursuant to the Fifth Article of the original Constitution
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In keeping with my truth statement at the top of my blog, you may want to actually research into what our government representatives actually meant to accomplish when they insisted on these specific Amendments so soon after they survived their traitorous war against their old government!
Articles in addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the several states, pursuant to the Fifth Article of the original Constitution
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In keeping with my truth statement at the top of my blog, you may want to actually research into what our government representatives actually meant to accomplish when they insisted on these specific Amendments so soon after they survived their traitorous war against their old government!
Dial 911 and Die
A little background on me: At the end of last year, 2006, I retired possibly for the last time. My first 30 years after highschool graduation, were spent serving in the United States Navy from were I retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer. Then for the next 15+ years, I was a fulltime law enforcement either as a Florida State Probation Officer or lastly, as an Airport Police Officer. During my active duty navy tenure I had also served as a reserve police officer for about another 8 years with the Highway Patrol and as a Deputy Sheriff.
I have been involved with firearms as a shooter, collector and instructor for about 50 years. I do not consider myself as an expert but perhaps as more of a learned person. I have also realized that the more I learn, the less I realize I know.
Today I was searching the internet and I happened upon a book call "Call 911 and Die". That is a very interesting idea because we all know that when you call 911 help has to come.
But does help "have" to come or does help "maybe" come. And if help does in fact come from how far away does it come and in what manner.
As a first responder police officer, I was taught rudimentary emergency first aid. HOWEVER, my department put very little medical equipment into the patrol cars because they always told us we could call the fire department. That takes time if you think about it, maybe more than the victim has.
What about the nights when the department is working with less than the minimum officers needed or when their are more emergencies than officers..........who is going to come when?
Then there were the LA Riots when the police were pulled out of the riot zone and not allowed to respond.
My purpose here is to let each person who reads this become aware that you are responsible for your own personal safety. In fact, courts have ruled that in many cases all over the United States that police have "No Duty To Protect Individual Citizens":
This person was not allowed to arm herself for protection IAW New York City Law but after acid was thrown in her face, the City of New York was not liable for failing to protect her.[Riss v. City of N.Y., 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968)].
This was a teacher assaulted and killed on school property by a student enrolled in the school. Again, police neither the city nor the police had a " special duty" to protect. [Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App2d 460 (1968)].
California ruling, No liability to provide sufficient police protection. [Hartzer v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal.Rptr 5 (1975)].
The U.S. Supreme Court declared that local law enforcement had no duty to protect a particular person, but only a general duty to enforce the laws. [South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (How.) 396, 15 L.Ed., 433 (856)].
This one is an actual 911 incident. Subject and friends suffered multiple assults after being told via 911 the police would respond. [Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C.App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981)].
In your continuing search for knowledge, you might want to check out this book. You may even want to send a copy to some of your friends.
Dial 911 and Die (Paperback)
by Richard W Stevens
http://www.amazon.com/Dial-911-Die-Richard-Stevens/dp/0964230445
As a challenge for those who think I am nuts and just made this up.. Google "Call 911 and Die" and see what the latest news is on that topic.
I have been involved with firearms as a shooter, collector and instructor for about 50 years. I do not consider myself as an expert but perhaps as more of a learned person. I have also realized that the more I learn, the less I realize I know.
Today I was searching the internet and I happened upon a book call "Call 911 and Die". That is a very interesting idea because we all know that when you call 911 help has to come.
But does help "have" to come or does help "maybe" come. And if help does in fact come from how far away does it come and in what manner.
As a first responder police officer, I was taught rudimentary emergency first aid. HOWEVER, my department put very little medical equipment into the patrol cars because they always told us we could call the fire department. That takes time if you think about it, maybe more than the victim has.
What about the nights when the department is working with less than the minimum officers needed or when their are more emergencies than officers..........who is going to come when?
Then there were the LA Riots when the police were pulled out of the riot zone and not allowed to respond.
My purpose here is to let each person who reads this become aware that you are responsible for your own personal safety. In fact, courts have ruled that in many cases all over the United States that police have "No Duty To Protect Individual Citizens":
This person was not allowed to arm herself for protection IAW New York City Law but after acid was thrown in her face, the City of New York was not liable for failing to protect her.[Riss v. City of N.Y., 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968)].
This was a teacher assaulted and killed on school property by a student enrolled in the school. Again, police neither the city nor the police had a " special duty" to protect. [Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App2d 460 (1968)].
California ruling, No liability to provide sufficient police protection. [Hartzer v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal.Rptr 5 (1975)].
The U.S. Supreme Court declared that local law enforcement had no duty to protect a particular person, but only a general duty to enforce the laws. [South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (How.) 396, 15 L.Ed., 433 (856)].
This one is an actual 911 incident. Subject and friends suffered multiple assults after being told via 911 the police would respond. [Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C.App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981)].
In your continuing search for knowledge, you might want to check out this book. You may even want to send a copy to some of your friends.
Dial 911 and Die (Paperback)
by Richard W Stevens
http://www.amazon.com/Dial-911-Die-Richard-Stevens/dp/0964230445
As a challenge for those who think I am nuts and just made this up.. Google "Call 911 and Die" and see what the latest news is on that topic.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Courage, Honor, Integrity
Some impressive thoughts by a Korean War Veteran regarding the United States Marine Corps:
http://www.kmike.com/Haditha.htm
http://www.kmike.com/Haditha.htm
Friday, April 27, 2007
Gun Owners of America
Gun Owners of America
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm
SO WHAT DOES HR 297 DO?
HR 297 provides, in the form of grants, about $1 billion to the states to send more names to the FBI for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]. If you are thinking, "Oh, I've never committed a felony, so this bill won't affect me," then you had better think again. If this bill becomes law, you and your adult children will come closer to losing your gun rights than ever before.
Are you, or is anyone in your family, a veteran who has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress? If so, then you (and they) can probably kiss your gun rights goodbye. In 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system. These military veterans -- who are some of the most honorable citizens in our society -- can no longer buy a gun. Why? What was their heinous "crime"?
Their "crime" was suffering from stress-related symptoms that often follow our decent men and women who have served their country overseas and fought the enemy in close combat. For all their patriotism, the Clinton administration deemed them as mentally "incompetent," sent their names for inclusion in the NICS system, and they are now prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4).
HR 297 would make sure that more of these names are included in the NICS system.
But, of course, Representatives Dingell and McCarthy tell us that we need HR 297 to stop future Seung-Hui Chos from getting a gun and to prevent our nation from seeing another shooting like we had on Virginia Tech. Oh really?
Then why, after passing all of their gun control, do countries like Canada and Germany still have school shootings? Even the infamous schoolyard massacre which occurred in Ireland in 1997 took place in a country that, at that time, had far more stringent gun controls than we do.
Where has gun control made people safer? Certainly not in Washington, DC, nor in Great Britain, nor in any other place that has enacted a draconian gun ban.
HR 297 TALKING POINTS
Regarding Cho's evil actions last Monday at Virginia Tech, you need to understand three things:
1. If a criminal is a danger to himself and society, then he should not be on the street. If he is, then there's no law (or background check for that matter) that will stop him from getting a gun and acting out the evil that is in his heart. (Remember that Washington, DC and England have not stopped bad guys from getting guns!) So why wasn't Cho in the criminal justice system? Why was he allowed to intermix with other college students? The justice system frequently passes off thugs to psychologists who then let them slip through their fingers and back into society -- where they are free to rape, rob and murder.
2. Background checks DO NOT ULTIMATELY STOP criminals and mental wackos from getting guns. This means that people who are initially denied firearms at a gun store can still buy one illegally and commit murder if they are so inclined -- such as Benjamin Smith did in 1999 (when he left the gun store where he was denied a firearm, bought guns on the street, and then committed his racist rampage less than a week later).
NOTE: In the first five years that the Brady Law was in existence, there were reportedly only three illegal gun buyers who were sent to jail. That is why in 1997, a training manual produced by Handgun Control, Inc., guided its activists in how to answer a question regarding the low number of convictions under the Brady Law. The manual basically says, when you are asked why so few people are being sent to jail under Brady, just ignore the question and go on the attack. [See http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm -- GOF's Gun Control Fact Sheet.]
3. Background checks threaten to prevent INNOCENT Americans like you from exercising your right to own a gun for self-defense. No doubt you are familiar with the countless number of times that the NICS system has erroneously blocked honest Americans from buying a gun, or have heard about the times that the NICS computer system has crashed for days at a time, thus preventing all sales nationwide -- and effectively shutting down every weekend gun show.
Perhaps the most pernicious way of denying the rights of law-abiding gun owners is to continuously add more and more gun owners' names onto the roles of prohibited persons. Clinton did this with many military veterans in 1999. And Congress did this in 1996, when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) successfully pushed a gun ban for people who have committed very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or merely yelling at a family member. Because of the Lautenberg gun ban, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans can never again own guns for self-defense. HR 297 will make it easier for the FBI to find out who these people are and to deny firearms to them.
GOA has documented other problems with this bill in the past. Last January we pointed out how this bill will easily lend itself to bureaucratic "fishing expeditions" into your private records, including your financial, employment, and hospital records.
HR 297 takes us the wrong direction. The anti-gun Rep. Dingell is trying to sell the bill to the gun owning public as an improvement in the Brady Law. But don't be fooled!
The best improvement would be to repeal the law and end the "gun free zones" that keep everyone defenseless and disarmed -- except for the bad guys.
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm
SO WHAT DOES HR 297 DO?
HR 297 provides, in the form of grants, about $1 billion to the states to send more names to the FBI for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]. If you are thinking, "Oh, I've never committed a felony, so this bill won't affect me," then you had better think again. If this bill becomes law, you and your adult children will come closer to losing your gun rights than ever before.
Are you, or is anyone in your family, a veteran who has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress? If so, then you (and they) can probably kiss your gun rights goodbye. In 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system. These military veterans -- who are some of the most honorable citizens in our society -- can no longer buy a gun. Why? What was their heinous "crime"?
Their "crime" was suffering from stress-related symptoms that often follow our decent men and women who have served their country overseas and fought the enemy in close combat. For all their patriotism, the Clinton administration deemed them as mentally "incompetent," sent their names for inclusion in the NICS system, and they are now prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4).
HR 297 would make sure that more of these names are included in the NICS system.
But, of course, Representatives Dingell and McCarthy tell us that we need HR 297 to stop future Seung-Hui Chos from getting a gun and to prevent our nation from seeing another shooting like we had on Virginia Tech. Oh really?
Then why, after passing all of their gun control, do countries like Canada and Germany still have school shootings? Even the infamous schoolyard massacre which occurred in Ireland in 1997 took place in a country that, at that time, had far more stringent gun controls than we do.
Where has gun control made people safer? Certainly not in Washington, DC, nor in Great Britain, nor in any other place that has enacted a draconian gun ban.
HR 297 TALKING POINTS
Regarding Cho's evil actions last Monday at Virginia Tech, you need to understand three things:
1. If a criminal is a danger to himself and society, then he should not be on the street. If he is, then there's no law (or background check for that matter) that will stop him from getting a gun and acting out the evil that is in his heart. (Remember that Washington, DC and England have not stopped bad guys from getting guns!) So why wasn't Cho in the criminal justice system? Why was he allowed to intermix with other college students? The justice system frequently passes off thugs to psychologists who then let them slip through their fingers and back into society -- where they are free to rape, rob and murder.
2. Background checks DO NOT ULTIMATELY STOP criminals and mental wackos from getting guns. This means that people who are initially denied firearms at a gun store can still buy one illegally and commit murder if they are so inclined -- such as Benjamin Smith did in 1999 (when he left the gun store where he was denied a firearm, bought guns on the street, and then committed his racist rampage less than a week later).
NOTE: In the first five years that the Brady Law was in existence, there were reportedly only three illegal gun buyers who were sent to jail. That is why in 1997, a training manual produced by Handgun Control, Inc., guided its activists in how to answer a question regarding the low number of convictions under the Brady Law. The manual basically says, when you are asked why so few people are being sent to jail under Brady, just ignore the question and go on the attack. [See http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm -- GOF's Gun Control Fact Sheet.]
3. Background checks threaten to prevent INNOCENT Americans like you from exercising your right to own a gun for self-defense. No doubt you are familiar with the countless number of times that the NICS system has erroneously blocked honest Americans from buying a gun, or have heard about the times that the NICS computer system has crashed for days at a time, thus preventing all sales nationwide -- and effectively shutting down every weekend gun show.
Perhaps the most pernicious way of denying the rights of law-abiding gun owners is to continuously add more and more gun owners' names onto the roles of prohibited persons. Clinton did this with many military veterans in 1999. And Congress did this in 1996, when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) successfully pushed a gun ban for people who have committed very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or merely yelling at a family member. Because of the Lautenberg gun ban, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans can never again own guns for self-defense. HR 297 will make it easier for the FBI to find out who these people are and to deny firearms to them.
GOA has documented other problems with this bill in the past. Last January we pointed out how this bill will easily lend itself to bureaucratic "fishing expeditions" into your private records, including your financial, employment, and hospital records.
HR 297 takes us the wrong direction. The anti-gun Rep. Dingell is trying to sell the bill to the gun owning public as an improvement in the Brady Law. But don't be fooled!
The best improvement would be to repeal the law and end the "gun free zones" that keep everyone defenseless and disarmed -- except for the bad guys.
Another "Good Deal" For My Fellow Citizens or Think Twice If The Government Is Doing It FOR You
These were the lead four paragraphs of a New York Times article.
I wish to point out that the "federal watch lists" to be used are the same federal watch lists that have caused all kinds of problems for innocent and unsuspecting air travelers whose names are listed as a "suspect".
Since this federal watch list was put together after the 9-11 catastrophe many innocent people have spent many hours trying to prove they are not the person named in the list. Some of those travelers affected have been very young, some have been very old and even had proven service to their country, but all were upset and wrongfully accused while attempting to catch an airline flight. If I remember correctly, some were even politicians.
There is no innocent until proven guilty if you are on the "federal watch list". You will have to prove your innocence first and since it is a government list, the appeal takes a lot of time energy and money.
I am at a loss to see how the last two paragraphs I provided from the article relate to the fight against terrorism.
It more seems to relate to firearms control against citizens of this country. Terrorists are more likely to be found in a garden center purchasing large quantities of fertilizer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Written by By MICHAEL LUO, for The New York Times and published: April 27, 2007
U.S. Proposal Could Block Gun Buyers Tied to Terror
Legislation would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.
WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Justice Department proposed legislation on Thursday that would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.
The measure, which was introduced by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would give the attorney general authority to deny a firearm purchase if the buyer was found “to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism.”
Suspects on federal watch lists can now legally buy firearms in the United States if background checks do not turn up any standard prohibitions for gun buyers, which include felony convictions, illegal immigration status or involuntary commitments for mental illness.
I wish to point out that the "federal watch lists" to be used are the same federal watch lists that have caused all kinds of problems for innocent and unsuspecting air travelers whose names are listed as a "suspect".
Since this federal watch list was put together after the 9-11 catastrophe many innocent people have spent many hours trying to prove they are not the person named in the list. Some of those travelers affected have been very young, some have been very old and even had proven service to their country, but all were upset and wrongfully accused while attempting to catch an airline flight. If I remember correctly, some were even politicians.
There is no innocent until proven guilty if you are on the "federal watch list". You will have to prove your innocence first and since it is a government list, the appeal takes a lot of time energy and money.
I am at a loss to see how the last two paragraphs I provided from the article relate to the fight against terrorism.
It more seems to relate to firearms control against citizens of this country. Terrorists are more likely to be found in a garden center purchasing large quantities of fertilizer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Written by By MICHAEL LUO, for The New York Times and published: April 27, 2007
U.S. Proposal Could Block Gun Buyers Tied to Terror
Legislation would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.
WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Justice Department proposed legislation on Thursday that would give the attorney general discretion to bar terrorism suspects from buying firearms, seeking to close a gap in federal gun laws.
The measure, which was introduced by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would give the attorney general authority to deny a firearm purchase if the buyer was found “to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism.”
Suspects on federal watch lists can now legally buy firearms in the United States if background checks do not turn up any standard prohibitions for gun buyers, which include felony convictions, illegal immigration status or involuntary commitments for mental illness.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Gun Free Zones
Here is an interesting site: http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/02/gun-free-zones-and-mass-shootings.html
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
A Well Prepared News Story
In police terminology, the story presented below is about an emotionally disturbed person (EDP). Every day police officers interact with EDPs, in each and every state. Each year, police officers are injured or killed by EDPs. I remember one in the news who was 86 years old when he shot and killed two police officers who were giving him a ride home after his vehicle died at the side of the road.
EDPs do not act or react like more normal people, but they can be extremely dangerous.
Many homeless are EDPs, but not all. Even those in the military or going to college can be or become EDPs.
Without citizen complaints, Florida police officers can only "Baker Act" or involuntarily commit a person who says they are going to harm themselves or others. I do not know the requirements in other states.
Whether Seung-Hui Cho is mentally ill or only emotionally disturbed is somewhat past my training as a police officer. He certainly had the ability to plan his crime down to the details of chaining doors shut. I also believed he understood what he had done as he committed suicide to avoid punishment.
As long as that type of person is alive in society, there is no way to prevent him or her from killing innocent and unarmed victims.
However, if there are armed victims under attack, they have the ability to respond and at the least possibly derail the plans of the attacker.
As a police officer, I know that people are the ones who kill people.
Va. Tech anguishes over missed signals
By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer (Yahoo News @ Yahoo.com)
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The student slouched into his chair, his face wrapped in sunglasses, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down so low his eyes were almost lost. The Virginia Tech professor who took a seat across from him did so because there didn't really seem to be any other option.
But in three, hour-long talks that began that October day, Lucinda Roy tentatively edged away from the lesson plan for her class of one, moving beyond poetry and drawing the darkly troubled student, Seung-Hui Cho, into a tortured and all-too-brief conversation about the human need for friendship and the pain of being trapped inside oneself.
Looking back, it may have been the closest anyone ever came to reaching the brooding loner before he metamorphosed into the gunman responsible for the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
But soon after their meetings in 2005, Roy — who alerted university officials with her fears about the student and tried to get him into counseling — lost touch with Cho. The semester ended. She went on leave. They exchanged e-mails once or twice. Then nothing.
It is only now that she asks herself: What if ...?
Roy has wrestled with that question endlessly in the past few days. And it is a variation of the one that now haunts this quarrystone campus and mountain town, an aching doubt that grows with each new revelation of missed signals and miscalculations, twists of fate and legal loopholes, and what appear increasingly like a series of lost opportunities to avert tragedy.
"That's a question I'll probably be asking myself the rest of my life," Roy says. "What else could I have done? Could I have done more? I think probably all of us could have done more."
In fact, it is not at all certain what might have stopped Cho from carrying out the rampage that left 32 people dead before he killed himself.
What has become clear is that at numerous points over the past year and a half, critical incidents took place that at least gave people around Cho — as well as administrators, police and mental health providers — the briefest windows into his state of mind, and perhaps chances to alter his path to destruction.
We wouldn't be human if we didn't second-guess ourselves. And there's probably no time when that is more true than after a tragedy unleashed by a fellow human being.
"I don't think at the time you could have said he's definitely going to shoot someone. But we had talked about he was likely to do that if there was someone that was going to do it," says Andy Koch a junior from Richmond, Va., who was Cho's suitemate last year.
"The first thing I thought of Monday was Seung ... and if that's the first thing you think about, there were definitely some things that we should have done," he says. But "I don't know what we could have done."
Many Virginia Tech students say that they do not want to second-guess, that they are content that university officials and those who came in contact with Cho did the best they could to prevent the tragedy.
But the story of the Virginia Tech massacre is a labyrinth of what-ifs. Many of them come with explanations any reasonable person would understand. There's just one problem with such explanations: They do nothing to explain the horror of the most unspeakable acts.
"We're all asking `what if,' and we all want to know why," says Fawn Price, a sophomore from Lebanon, Va. "But I don't think we're going to get the answers we need as soon as we need them."
There were signs, so many signs.
Or so it appears in hindsight. But the people in the position to do something and the systems we create to protect ourselves seemed ill-equipped to deal with Cho.
There was an opportunity when two female students called university police, soon after Roy began meeting with Cho. They were being hounded, they complained — there were repeated phone calls, instant messages, notes. They did not know Cho and did not want to know him.
Then, in December 2005, Koch called police to say that his suitemate seemed suicidal.
Officers went to speak with Cho. He was referred to the local mental health center, and then sent to a psychiatric care hospital.
Here was Cho, safely away from campus, in the arms of the mental health system. What if it had been possible to keep him there?
It didn't happen. A day or two later, he was released and returned to campus.
Virginia Tech officials say his care was out of their hands, and they could not know that he needed more help.
And what could they have done? When George Washington University and New York's Hunter College expelled students who appeared suicidal, the students sued.
Schools have to "balance the rights of students with the rights of the communities and with what parents want, and its not an easy thing to do," says Dr. Joanna Locke of the Jed Foundation, which works to prevent suicide and promote mental health among college students.
What about the mental health providers beyond campus who dealt directly with Cho? Couldn't they have done something?
Not unless Cho shared his morbid fantasies, and people like Cho almost never do, says Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychologist who has profiled mass murderers.
Cho "is not a person who fell through the cracks. He's a person who crawled into the cracks," Welner says.
If mental health providers couldn't follow him there, what if university police had pursued a case against him?
But that would have required the two female students to press stalking charges against Cho. And after speaking with Virginia Tech officers, the two women decided against it, police say.
Other female students said last week that they would almost certainly have made the same decision. Unusual behavior is not unusual on campus. No one wants to make trouble for others.
"Stalking happens on almost every campus across the country. It is a problem and people rarely know how to deal with it," says Michele Galietta, a clinical psychologist who is researching the treatment of stalkers.
"I think that's why sometimes officials are hesitant to take a heavy hand with it," she says. "Keep in mind that this guy (Cho) didn't threaten anyone. He did bizarre things."
But that hasn't stopped Galietta from mulling a whole series of what-ifs.
If the women had pursued a case, and if Cho had been convicted of stalking — rather than a misdemeanor charge of harassment — he would have entered the domain of the criminal justice system. If so, he might have served time and on release would have been assigned to a probation officer who could've have monitored his behavior. When he went to buy a gun, a criminal record would have prevented it, she says.
And that raises the emotionally charged question of Cho's access to guns.
What if firearms laws had been tougher?
The problem with that question is that, as easy as it is to buy a gun in a state like Virginia, a case can be made that Cho still shouldn't have made it through the net.
After Cho was evaluated at a psychiatric hospital in late 2005, a judge found that the student "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." That should have disqualified him from purchasing a gun under federal law, experts say.
But Virginia court officials insist that because the judge ordered only outpatient treatment — and did not commit Cho to a psychiatric hospital — they were not required to submit the information to be entered in the federal databases for background checks.
The thread that runs through nearly all the what-ifs at Virginia Tech is the most obvious and perhaps the most difficult to parse. What if the university police and administration had taken more decisive action, at any number of junctures?
That opens up a debate about whether Virginia Tech did enough to protect itself against threats from within.
There are many who are willing to accept school officials' word that they took all possible security measures to prevent what happened here. College police departments are just as well-trained and sophisticated as any city department and they take just as aggressive a stance in preventing violence, says Ray Thrower, head of security at Minnesota's Gustavus Adolphus College and president-elect of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.
If anything, Virginia Tech — one of the first campus police departments in the country to win professional accreditation — exemplifies that argument.
But could that argument be missing the point?
The problem with Virginia Tech's policing — and with most other college's approach to security — runs deeper than training or resources or dedication, says S. Daniel Carter of Security on Campus Inc., a nonprofit watchdog group. The problem is mindset, he says.
On a campus, everyone is a big family — the administrators, the students, the faculty and the university's security officers.
As a result, "the tendency is to overlook or downplay potential problems," Carter says. "They don't want to think that their campus community members — their students — could be that dangerous."
Carter believes that mind-set was almost certainly a factor in how Virginia Tech officers handled — or mishandled — previous complaints about Cho. And it was clearly a factor in many of the things that went wrong early on a flurry-filled morning last Monday when a campus just stirring from its weekend slumber was shaken by gunfire, he says.
The dorm Cho chose for as his first target requires a magnetic card for entry. But students say they let each other into one another's dorms all the time. What if the security system had been more comprehensive?
When officers responded to a 911 call at West Ambler Johnston Hall and found the bodies of resident assistant Ryan Clark and freshman Emily Hilscher on the fourth floor, they began investigating the killings as a crime of domestic violence. The problem, Carter says, is that they even as they pursued that lead, investigators assumed as fact a theory that hadn't yet been proven.
What if they'd considered the possibility of shooter with a different profile, one who had no intention of stopping with two victims?
Administrators and police did not decide to lock down the campus and notify students of the violence taking place around them until the shootings that left 31 more people dead in Norris Hall. What if they'd acted sooner?
It is the last in a heart-rending series of what-ifs. Together, they weigh on the mind but not because it is essential to lay blame, or to find a culprit.
They matter because we need to understand. Because to know what, if anything could have been done differently, is the only means we have for squeezing a drop of reason, comfort or understanding from utter senselessness.
What if we had it all to do all over again? Would Reema Samaha have lived to dance once more? Would Michael Pohle still be here to don cap and gown this spring and clutch his diploma?
What if? Can there be anyone who hasn't asked themselves that question in recent days and not felt the ache of knowing it can never be adequately answered?
That is a feeling that Chris Flynn, director of Virginia Tech's mental health counseling center, is beginning to understand all too well.
What if? The question plays again and again through his head.
That, he says, is a question he'll ask "for the rest of my life."
Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Blacksburg and Matthew Barakat in McLean, Va., contributed to this report.
EDPs do not act or react like more normal people, but they can be extremely dangerous.
Many homeless are EDPs, but not all. Even those in the military or going to college can be or become EDPs.
Without citizen complaints, Florida police officers can only "Baker Act" or involuntarily commit a person who says they are going to harm themselves or others. I do not know the requirements in other states.
Whether Seung-Hui Cho is mentally ill or only emotionally disturbed is somewhat past my training as a police officer. He certainly had the ability to plan his crime down to the details of chaining doors shut. I also believed he understood what he had done as he committed suicide to avoid punishment.
As long as that type of person is alive in society, there is no way to prevent him or her from killing innocent and unarmed victims.
However, if there are armed victims under attack, they have the ability to respond and at the least possibly derail the plans of the attacker.
As a police officer, I know that people are the ones who kill people.
Va. Tech anguishes over missed signals
By ADAM GELLER, AP National Writer (Yahoo News @ Yahoo.com)
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The student slouched into his chair, his face wrapped in sunglasses, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down so low his eyes were almost lost. The Virginia Tech professor who took a seat across from him did so because there didn't really seem to be any other option.
But in three, hour-long talks that began that October day, Lucinda Roy tentatively edged away from the lesson plan for her class of one, moving beyond poetry and drawing the darkly troubled student, Seung-Hui Cho, into a tortured and all-too-brief conversation about the human need for friendship and the pain of being trapped inside oneself.
Looking back, it may have been the closest anyone ever came to reaching the brooding loner before he metamorphosed into the gunman responsible for the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
But soon after their meetings in 2005, Roy — who alerted university officials with her fears about the student and tried to get him into counseling — lost touch with Cho. The semester ended. She went on leave. They exchanged e-mails once or twice. Then nothing.
It is only now that she asks herself: What if ...?
Roy has wrestled with that question endlessly in the past few days. And it is a variation of the one that now haunts this quarrystone campus and mountain town, an aching doubt that grows with each new revelation of missed signals and miscalculations, twists of fate and legal loopholes, and what appear increasingly like a series of lost opportunities to avert tragedy.
"That's a question I'll probably be asking myself the rest of my life," Roy says. "What else could I have done? Could I have done more? I think probably all of us could have done more."
In fact, it is not at all certain what might have stopped Cho from carrying out the rampage that left 32 people dead before he killed himself.
What has become clear is that at numerous points over the past year and a half, critical incidents took place that at least gave people around Cho — as well as administrators, police and mental health providers — the briefest windows into his state of mind, and perhaps chances to alter his path to destruction.
We wouldn't be human if we didn't second-guess ourselves. And there's probably no time when that is more true than after a tragedy unleashed by a fellow human being.
"I don't think at the time you could have said he's definitely going to shoot someone. But we had talked about he was likely to do that if there was someone that was going to do it," says Andy Koch a junior from Richmond, Va., who was Cho's suitemate last year.
"The first thing I thought of Monday was Seung ... and if that's the first thing you think about, there were definitely some things that we should have done," he says. But "I don't know what we could have done."
Many Virginia Tech students say that they do not want to second-guess, that they are content that university officials and those who came in contact with Cho did the best they could to prevent the tragedy.
But the story of the Virginia Tech massacre is a labyrinth of what-ifs. Many of them come with explanations any reasonable person would understand. There's just one problem with such explanations: They do nothing to explain the horror of the most unspeakable acts.
"We're all asking `what if,' and we all want to know why," says Fawn Price, a sophomore from Lebanon, Va. "But I don't think we're going to get the answers we need as soon as we need them."
There were signs, so many signs.
Or so it appears in hindsight. But the people in the position to do something and the systems we create to protect ourselves seemed ill-equipped to deal with Cho.
There was an opportunity when two female students called university police, soon after Roy began meeting with Cho. They were being hounded, they complained — there were repeated phone calls, instant messages, notes. They did not know Cho and did not want to know him.
Then, in December 2005, Koch called police to say that his suitemate seemed suicidal.
Officers went to speak with Cho. He was referred to the local mental health center, and then sent to a psychiatric care hospital.
Here was Cho, safely away from campus, in the arms of the mental health system. What if it had been possible to keep him there?
It didn't happen. A day or two later, he was released and returned to campus.
Virginia Tech officials say his care was out of their hands, and they could not know that he needed more help.
And what could they have done? When George Washington University and New York's Hunter College expelled students who appeared suicidal, the students sued.
Schools have to "balance the rights of students with the rights of the communities and with what parents want, and its not an easy thing to do," says Dr. Joanna Locke of the Jed Foundation, which works to prevent suicide and promote mental health among college students.
What about the mental health providers beyond campus who dealt directly with Cho? Couldn't they have done something?
Not unless Cho shared his morbid fantasies, and people like Cho almost never do, says Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychologist who has profiled mass murderers.
Cho "is not a person who fell through the cracks. He's a person who crawled into the cracks," Welner says.
If mental health providers couldn't follow him there, what if university police had pursued a case against him?
But that would have required the two female students to press stalking charges against Cho. And after speaking with Virginia Tech officers, the two women decided against it, police say.
Other female students said last week that they would almost certainly have made the same decision. Unusual behavior is not unusual on campus. No one wants to make trouble for others.
"Stalking happens on almost every campus across the country. It is a problem and people rarely know how to deal with it," says Michele Galietta, a clinical psychologist who is researching the treatment of stalkers.
"I think that's why sometimes officials are hesitant to take a heavy hand with it," she says. "Keep in mind that this guy (Cho) didn't threaten anyone. He did bizarre things."
But that hasn't stopped Galietta from mulling a whole series of what-ifs.
If the women had pursued a case, and if Cho had been convicted of stalking — rather than a misdemeanor charge of harassment — he would have entered the domain of the criminal justice system. If so, he might have served time and on release would have been assigned to a probation officer who could've have monitored his behavior. When he went to buy a gun, a criminal record would have prevented it, she says.
And that raises the emotionally charged question of Cho's access to guns.
What if firearms laws had been tougher?
The problem with that question is that, as easy as it is to buy a gun in a state like Virginia, a case can be made that Cho still shouldn't have made it through the net.
After Cho was evaluated at a psychiatric hospital in late 2005, a judge found that the student "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." That should have disqualified him from purchasing a gun under federal law, experts say.
But Virginia court officials insist that because the judge ordered only outpatient treatment — and did not commit Cho to a psychiatric hospital — they were not required to submit the information to be entered in the federal databases for background checks.
The thread that runs through nearly all the what-ifs at Virginia Tech is the most obvious and perhaps the most difficult to parse. What if the university police and administration had taken more decisive action, at any number of junctures?
That opens up a debate about whether Virginia Tech did enough to protect itself against threats from within.
There are many who are willing to accept school officials' word that they took all possible security measures to prevent what happened here. College police departments are just as well-trained and sophisticated as any city department and they take just as aggressive a stance in preventing violence, says Ray Thrower, head of security at Minnesota's Gustavus Adolphus College and president-elect of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators.
If anything, Virginia Tech — one of the first campus police departments in the country to win professional accreditation — exemplifies that argument.
But could that argument be missing the point?
The problem with Virginia Tech's policing — and with most other college's approach to security — runs deeper than training or resources or dedication, says S. Daniel Carter of Security on Campus Inc., a nonprofit watchdog group. The problem is mindset, he says.
On a campus, everyone is a big family — the administrators, the students, the faculty and the university's security officers.
As a result, "the tendency is to overlook or downplay potential problems," Carter says. "They don't want to think that their campus community members — their students — could be that dangerous."
Carter believes that mind-set was almost certainly a factor in how Virginia Tech officers handled — or mishandled — previous complaints about Cho. And it was clearly a factor in many of the things that went wrong early on a flurry-filled morning last Monday when a campus just stirring from its weekend slumber was shaken by gunfire, he says.
The dorm Cho chose for as his first target requires a magnetic card for entry. But students say they let each other into one another's dorms all the time. What if the security system had been more comprehensive?
When officers responded to a 911 call at West Ambler Johnston Hall and found the bodies of resident assistant Ryan Clark and freshman Emily Hilscher on the fourth floor, they began investigating the killings as a crime of domestic violence. The problem, Carter says, is that they even as they pursued that lead, investigators assumed as fact a theory that hadn't yet been proven.
What if they'd considered the possibility of shooter with a different profile, one who had no intention of stopping with two victims?
Administrators and police did not decide to lock down the campus and notify students of the violence taking place around them until the shootings that left 31 more people dead in Norris Hall. What if they'd acted sooner?
It is the last in a heart-rending series of what-ifs. Together, they weigh on the mind but not because it is essential to lay blame, or to find a culprit.
They matter because we need to understand. Because to know what, if anything could have been done differently, is the only means we have for squeezing a drop of reason, comfort or understanding from utter senselessness.
What if we had it all to do all over again? Would Reema Samaha have lived to dance once more? Would Michael Pohle still be here to don cap and gown this spring and clutch his diploma?
What if? Can there be anyone who hasn't asked themselves that question in recent days and not felt the ache of knowing it can never be adequately answered?
That is a feeling that Chris Flynn, director of Virginia Tech's mental health counseling center, is beginning to understand all too well.
What if? The question plays again and again through his head.
That, he says, is a question he'll ask "for the rest of my life."
Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Blacksburg and Matthew Barakat in McLean, Va., contributed to this report.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Harry Reid, The New "Jane Fonda"
Taken from AL-JAZEERA.NET:
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007
6:20 MECCA TIME, 3:20 GMT
Iraq war 'lost' says top Democrat
The US war in Iraq is lost and a further build-up of US troops in the country will not recover the situation, the senior Democrat in the US senate has said.
"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Harry Reid, the senate Democratic majority leader, told reporters.
Reid, who held talks with George Bush on Wednesday, said he told the president that he thought the war could not be won through military force.
Only political, economic and diplomatic means could bring success, he said.
His comments came as the US defence secretary told Iraqi leaders that US support for the country was not an "open-ended commitment".
Robert Gates was speaking as he left Tel Aviv for his first visit to Iraq since the US decided to send an extra 30,000 troops to the country in what the Bush administration has labelled a troop surge.
On Wednesday at least 180 people were killed in a series of bombings in Baghdad, with one blast near a market killing more than 140 people – the deadliest single bomb attack in the capital since the US-led invasion in 2003.
On Thursday, the violence continued when a suicide car bomber rammed into a fuel truck, killing 12 people and injuring 24 others in the Jadiriya district of Baghdad.
Angry reaction
Reid's comments drew a swift response from the White House and an angry reaction from Republicans in congress who accused the senate majority leader of turning his back on US troops.
"I can't begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States senate has declared the war is lost,'' Senator Mitch McConnell, the senior Republican in the senate, said.
Reid's assessment of the situation in Iraq came before the House of Representatives voted 215-199 to uphold legislation ordering troops out of Iraq next year.
Bush did not directly address Reid's comments.
However, a White House spokeswoman quickly fired back that they were at odds with US military assessments of the two-month-old effort to quell sectarian violence in Iraq.
"If this is his true feeling, then it makes one wonder if he has the courage of his convictions and therefore will decide to defund the war," Dana Perino said as Bush called for his plan to be given time to work.
Funding row
Locked in a bitter row with Democrats over emergency war funding, Bush said that no crackdown could ever fully banish such attacks such as the ones that took place in Baghdad on Wednesday.
"If the definition of success in Iraq - or anywhere - is 'no suicide bombers', we'll never be successful," he told an audience at a high school in Tipp City, Ohio.
"I'm optimistic we can succeed. I wouldn't ask families to have their troops there if I didn't think, one, it was necessary, and two, we can succeed. I believe we're going to succeed," he said.
Democrats, who owe their control of the US congress to deep US public anger over the war, have tied timetables calling for a withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq in 2008 to a $100bn emergency war funding measure.
Bush, who has vowed to veto any measure with a deadline, warned on Thursday that "the very radicals and extremists who attack us would be emboldened" by a hasty US withdrawal, and violence could spread beyond Iraq's borders.
The version of the funding bill in the House of Representatives would pull US combat troops out by September 2008.
The senate version would begin getting US forces out in mid-2007 with the goal of having most of them withdrawn by March 31, 2008.
In my opinion, my fellow citizens, should join with me in demanding his resignation from the United states Senate immediately. This so much exceeds the exercise of free speech.
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007
6:20 MECCA TIME, 3:20 GMT
Iraq war 'lost' says top Democrat
The US war in Iraq is lost and a further build-up of US troops in the country will not recover the situation, the senior Democrat in the US senate has said.
"This war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Harry Reid, the senate Democratic majority leader, told reporters.
Reid, who held talks with George Bush on Wednesday, said he told the president that he thought the war could not be won through military force.
Only political, economic and diplomatic means could bring success, he said.
His comments came as the US defence secretary told Iraqi leaders that US support for the country was not an "open-ended commitment".
Robert Gates was speaking as he left Tel Aviv for his first visit to Iraq since the US decided to send an extra 30,000 troops to the country in what the Bush administration has labelled a troop surge.
On Wednesday at least 180 people were killed in a series of bombings in Baghdad, with one blast near a market killing more than 140 people – the deadliest single bomb attack in the capital since the US-led invasion in 2003.
On Thursday, the violence continued when a suicide car bomber rammed into a fuel truck, killing 12 people and injuring 24 others in the Jadiriya district of Baghdad.
Angry reaction
Reid's comments drew a swift response from the White House and an angry reaction from Republicans in congress who accused the senate majority leader of turning his back on US troops.
"I can't begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States senate has declared the war is lost,'' Senator Mitch McConnell, the senior Republican in the senate, said.
Reid's assessment of the situation in Iraq came before the House of Representatives voted 215-199 to uphold legislation ordering troops out of Iraq next year.
Bush did not directly address Reid's comments.
However, a White House spokeswoman quickly fired back that they were at odds with US military assessments of the two-month-old effort to quell sectarian violence in Iraq.
"If this is his true feeling, then it makes one wonder if he has the courage of his convictions and therefore will decide to defund the war," Dana Perino said as Bush called for his plan to be given time to work.
Funding row
Locked in a bitter row with Democrats over emergency war funding, Bush said that no crackdown could ever fully banish such attacks such as the ones that took place in Baghdad on Wednesday.
"If the definition of success in Iraq - or anywhere - is 'no suicide bombers', we'll never be successful," he told an audience at a high school in Tipp City, Ohio.
"I'm optimistic we can succeed. I wouldn't ask families to have their troops there if I didn't think, one, it was necessary, and two, we can succeed. I believe we're going to succeed," he said.
Democrats, who owe their control of the US congress to deep US public anger over the war, have tied timetables calling for a withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq in 2008 to a $100bn emergency war funding measure.
Bush, who has vowed to veto any measure with a deadline, warned on Thursday that "the very radicals and extremists who attack us would be emboldened" by a hasty US withdrawal, and violence could spread beyond Iraq's borders.
The version of the funding bill in the House of Representatives would pull US combat troops out by September 2008.
The senate version would begin getting US forces out in mid-2007 with the goal of having most of them withdrawn by March 31, 2008.
In my opinion, my fellow citizens, should join with me in demanding his resignation from the United states Senate immediately. This so much exceeds the exercise of free speech.
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