Hillary And Others Running For The Hills

Hey folks,

I do not have much time today, this is why I wrote the daily article last night. But then I just saw this. That was fast. But this SHOULD be far from over. According to AP-Clinton to give away fundraiser's cash By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 29, 11:22 PM ET

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 in donations she has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.

$23,000? That’s it? What about all the other money that Hsu “arranged” to be given to her? The money given to her by those that CLEARLY could not have afforded the “gifts?”

The decision came Wednesday as other Democrats began distancing themselves from Norman Hsu, whose legal encounters and links to other Democratic donors have drawn public scrutiny in the past two days.

Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, both of Massachusetts, also planned to turn over Hsu's contributions to charity. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California; Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota; Reps. Michael Honda and Doris Matsui of California; and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania also said they would divest Hsu's contributions.

Hsu is a fundraiser for Clinton and is described as a devoted fan of the presidential candidate and New York senator. He had planned to co-host a money event for Clinton on Sept. 30. In a statement Wednesday, Hsu said he believed he had resolved his legal issues, but said he would halt his work raising political money.

"I would not consciously subject any of the candidates and causes in which I believe to any harm through my actions," he said. "Therefore, until this matter is resolved, I intend to refrain from all fundraising activities on behalf of all candidates and causes."

“I intend to refrain from all fundraising activities on behalf of all candidates and causes." You should be going to JAIL.

Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said the $23,000 included contributions from Hsu to Clinton's presidential campaign, her Senate re-election and her political action committee. The campaign did not plan to return any money Hsu raised from other donors, Singer said.

Of Course. {Laughing} That may change though.

"In light of the information regarding Mr. Hsu's outstanding warrant in California, we will be giving his contribution to charity," Singer said.

Reports in The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times this week caused numerous Democratic candidates and organizations that have benefited from Hsu's contributions to reconsider the donations.

Hsu gave Kennedy $4,000 in 2004 and gave his political action committee $5,000 this year, according to Federal Election Commission records. He also gave Kerry's presidential campaign $4,000 and donated $2,000 to a separate Kerry legal compliance fund. Boxer's campaign received $2,000 from Hsu in 2004, and her political action committee received $2,000 in 2005. Feinstein received $1,000. Franken received $2,300 this year from Hsu, Matsui received $6,100 since 2004 and Sestak and Honda each received $1,000 for their re-election efforts.

FEC records show that Hsu has donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates since 2004. Though a fundraiser for Clinton, he also donated to Sen. Barack Obama's Senate campaign in 2004 and to Obama's political action committee.

What about Obama?

In 1991, Hsu pleaded no contest to a single felony count of grand theft but failed to appear in court for sentencing, according to Ronald Smetana, a California deputy attorney general who prosecuted the case.

Smetana said there is an outstanding warrant for Hsu's arrest. A clerk at the San Mateo County courthouse where Hsu was prosecuted said the warrant was issued in 1992 and orders were for $2 million bail for Hsu if he were arrested.

Smetana said Hsu collected about $1 million from investors by falsely claiming he had a contract to import latex gloves. Smetana said he planned to ask a judge to sentence Hsu to prison.

"We would obviously like Mr. Hsu to return and face justice," said Smetana, who said he had assumed Hsu, a Hong Kong native, had fled the country.

In a statement Wednesday, Hsu said:

"I believe I properly resolved all of the legal issues related to my bankruptcy in the early 1990s. Therefore, I was surprised to learn that there appears to be an outstanding warrant — as demonstrated by the fact that I have and do live a public life. I have not sought to evade any of my obligations and certainly not the law."

He went BANKRUPT? Where did all this money come from then?

On Tuesday, Hsu's Washington attorney, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., disputed any suggestion that Hsu had any hand in improperly directing contributions from other donors. The Journal reported that six members of the family of William Paw, a San Francisco mail carrier, donated a total of $45,000 to Clinton since 2005. The Journal reported that the donations closely track Hsu's contributions.

That’s because THAT is illegal. Not that he would do anything illegal. Right?

While the Journal created a stir in Democratic circles, the final straw for some candidates seemed to be Hsu's legal troubles in California, first reported by the Times on Wednesday.

"Congressman Sestak is always grateful for the support of people who contribute to him, but in light of the new criminal charges revealed today, the Sestak Campaign decided to return Norman Hsu's campaign contribution."

Honda, however, planned to donate to charity $5,000 received from Hsu as well as members of the Paw family and one other donor whom his staff could not immediately identify.

THERE you go. Hillary?

Spokeswoman Gloria Chan said the money would go to local community organizations but that Honda hadn't yet decided which ones. Matsui's office said she also would return money from the Paw family.

"While there's no information that we have or evidence showing that the contributions were illegal in any way, we have a campaign policy that if we have information that a contributor or someone directing contributions to the campaign has or may have committed a felony, then it's the policy to either return the funds or make a charitable donation," said Chan.

THAT is the right thing to do. But Hillary will be given the “Legal limit” of contributions given to her by Hsu himself. We are talking a LOT of money from “other” donors.

This is going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Right now, this is an attempt to plead ignorant and the MMD will probably say things like, “Well, she didn’t know. {You know how ignorant she is} But as soon as she found out, like the rest of those involved, she gave the money back. Let’s move on. The President is evil and the War is lost.”
Peter

Hillary Taking Laundered Money From a Fugitive

Hey folks,

This story is not going away. I knew that it wouldn’t. But like I said, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is stepping down. I truly believe that he will leave all together. This is the difference between the LWL and those with morals. According to the AP -GOP senators say Craig should resign By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's political support eroded by the hour on Wednesday as fellow Republicans in Congress called for him to resign and party leaders pushed him unceremoniously from senior committee posts.

The White House expressed disappointment, too — and nary a word of support for the 62-year-old lawmaker, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge stemming from an undercover police operation in an airport men's room.

Craig represents the Republican Party, said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the first in a steadily lengthening list of GOP members of Congress to urge a resignation.

That’s right, URGED him to resign. Others?

Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Norm Coleman of Minnesota joined Hoekstra in urging Craig to step down, as did Rep. Jeff Miller of Florida — and others who joined them as the day wore on.

McCain spoke out in an interview with CNN. My opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime, you shouldn't serve. That's not a moral stand. That's not a holier-than-thou. It's just a factual situation.

Coleman said in a written statement, Senator Craig pled guilty to a crime involving conduct unbecoming a senator.

For a second consecutive day, GOP Senate leaders stepped in, issuing a statement that said Craig had agreed to comply with leadership's request to temporarily give up his posts on important committees. He has been the top Republican on the Veterans Affairs Committee as well as on subcommittees for two other panels.

This is not a decision we take lightly, but we believe this is in the best interest of the Senate until this situation is resolved by the ethics committee, said the statement, issued in the name of Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party leader, and others.

What about the President?

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said, We are disappointed in the matter, without specifying exactly what was causing the discomfort.

He said he hoped the ethics committee would do its work swiftly, as that would be in the best interests of the Senate and the people of Idaho.

So unlike the Democrats, when a Republican does something wrong, they get them out. The LWL? They ignore, defend, and surround theirs with support. No matter what.

Then you have this discriminatory statement.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said his party stood to gain. All of these people who (are) holier than thou are now under investigations. ... I think the Republican Party will find itself in a great peril next year, he said.

THESE people? Holier than thou? These are hateful and discriminatory statements. Will anything be said about them? Nope. But they are.

Then you have the joke that is CREW. Soros funded and LWL controlled hit group, NOW calling for others. Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the following in a statement yesterday.

"Senator Ted Stevens maintains his position on the Appropriations Committee despite being the subject of a major criminal investigation, including an FBI raid on his Alaska home and Senator David Vitter maintains his assignments despite admitting to the crime of soliciting a prostitute.

A disorderly conduct plea requires a member to give up his committee assignment, but a full-fledged bribery investigation does not. Apparently, in the view of the Republican conference there is almost nothing more serious than a member attempting to engage in gay sex. For consistency's sake, Senators Stevens and Vitter should both be forced to give up their committee assignments as well."

What about Jefferson? You know, the $90, 000 grand in the freezer? What about Murtha caught on tape talking about taking bribes? What about Hillary accepting money from a Convicted Felon and a fugitive from justice? Are you calling for them to resign?

What am I talking about? This, from the LA Times -Democratic fundraiser is a fugitive in plain sight By Chuck Neubauer and Robin Fields, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
August 29, 2007

California authorities have sought businessman Norman Hsu for 15 years. Since 2004, he has carved out a place of honor raising cash for such candidates as Hillary Rodham Clinton.

WASHINGTON -- For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish.

He is a fugitive, Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. Do you know where he is?

Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years.

Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving.

On Tuesday, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. -- a Washington lawyer who represents the Democratic fundraiser -- confirmed that Hsu was the same man who was involved in the California case. Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time. Hsu remembers the episode as part of a settlement with creditors when he also went through bankruptcy, Barcella said.

This get’s better.

The bulk of the campaign dollars raised by major parties comes from the same sources: business groups, labor unions and other well-heeled interests with a long-term need to win friends in the political arena.

But the appetite for cash has grown so great that politicians are constantly pressured to find new sources of contributions. Hsu's case illustrates the sometimes-bizarre results of that tendency to push the envelope, often in ways the candidates know nothing about.

As a Democratic rainmaker, Hsu -- who graduated from UC Berkeley and the Wharton School of Business -- is credited with donating nearly $500,000 to national and local party candidates and their political committees in the last three years. He earned a place in the Clinton campaign's HillRaiser group by pledging to raise more than $100,000 for her presidential bid.

Records show that Hsu helped raise an additional $500,000 from other sources for Clinton and other Democrats.

Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton, Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday.

"During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

STOP Read that again.

"During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them. "

HE”S A FUGITIVE He was to serve JAIL TIME He is GUILTY of Grand theft. Uh, just a question here, ever wonder where the money CAME from?

Wolfson did not immediately respond Tuesday night to questions about Hsu's legal problems.

Working on a spin.

Though he is a fugitive, Hsu has hardly kept a low profile. The website camerarts.com, which sells photographs taken at political events, features shots of Hsu at several fundraisers he hosted at Manhattan's elegant St. Regis hotel -- including a June 2005 luncheon for Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento).

Hsu lives in New York City. Efforts to contact him were unsuccessful. Barcella said Hsu chose to respond through his lawyer.

Records show that Hsu has emerged as one of the Democrats' most successful bundlers, rounding up groups of contributors and packaging their checks together before delivering the funds to campaign officials. Individuals can give a total of $4,600 to a single candidate during an election cycle, $2,300 for the primaries and $2,300 for the general election.

One example of the kind of first-time donors Hsu has worked with is the Paw family of Daly City, Calif., which is headed by William Paw, a mail carrier, and his wife, Alice, who is listed as a homemaker.

The Paws -- seven adults, most of whom live together in a small house near San Francisco International Airport -- apparently had never donated to national candidates until 2004. Over a three-year period, they gave $213,000, including $55,000 to Clinton and $14,000 to candidates for state-level offices in New York.

The family includes a son, Winkle Paw, who Barcella said was in business with Hsu. Another son works for a Bay Area school board, while one daughter works for a hospital and another for a computer company.

That’s because the do not have the money. Hsu was basically laundering it through them, even though it is being denied.

"They have the financial wherewithal to make their own donations," Barcella said. "It didn't come from Norman."

Really? Where did they get it?

He said that Hsu had known the Paws for a decade.

"Norman never reimbursed anyone for their contribution," Barcella said. "It is a violation of federal law for one person to reimburse donors for campaign contributions."

No REALLY? Idiot. Of course Hsu would NEVER break the law. {Laughing}

Hsu's bundling of contributions from the Paws and others was first reported Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal.

Records show Hsu also solicited funds from three members of a New York family that helps run a plastics packaging plant in Pennsylvania. They have given more than $200,000 in the last three years.

Danny Lee, a manager at the packaging firm, has given $95,000 to federal Democratic campaigns -- $19,500 of which went to Clinton. Yu Fen Huang, who shares a New York house with Lee, has given $52,200 to Democrats, $8,800 to Clinton. Soe Lee has contributed $54,000 to Democrats, $8,800 to Clinton.

The Paws, the Lees and Huang did not return telephone calls seeking comment on their donations.

Over the years, Hsu and his associates have given to Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. Obama and Biden, like Clinton, are seeking the presidential nomination.

WAIT CREW, are you taking notes? ALL these people took illegal contributions.

Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California,
Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts,
Barack Obama of Illinois
Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware

Are you calling for them to resign?

Hsu's legal troubles date back almost 20 years.

Beginning in 1989, court records show, he began raising what added up to more than $1 million from investors, purportedly to buy latex gloves; investors were told Hsu had a contract to resell the gloves to a major American business.

In 1991, Hsu was charged with grand theft. Prosecutors said there were no latex gloves and no contract to sell them.

Hsu pleaded no contest to one grand theft charge and agreed to accept up to three years in prison. He disappeared, Smetana said, after failing to show up for a sentencing hearing. Bench warrants were issued for his arrest but he was never found, Smetana said.

This is not going away folks. More on this breaking news to come. Let’s see if any of the other news agencies out there pick this up. I know if I were a Democratic Candidate running for the nomination, I would be making noise about this.

This is just another example of why I call them the LWL, and the Mainstream Press, the MMD. Craig is BIG news. This about the Clintons accepting money from a fugitive, and laundered money at that? “Well, let’s just hope it goes away.”

Peter

All This and Iran Too

Hey folks,

{Sigh} Yes, we have yet another Republican caught up in a sex scandal. What is it with Republicans and kinky or weird sex? From sexually explicit emails to underage, same sex interns, to looking for sex in public restrooms? Sen. Larry Craig, just like Foley, should resign.

But THIS is all you will most likely hear about for the next few days, in between attacking the President on Iraq that is. Here’s my take on this. Really quick, then we move on. According to the AP -Craig says 'I am not gay,' did no wrong By TODD DVORAK, Associated Press Writer

A defiant Sen. Larry Craig denied any wrongdoing Tuesday despite his guilty plea this summer in a men's room police sting, emphatically adding, "I am not gay. I have never been gay."

Why were you playing footsy with a guy in another stall? If you did nothing wrong, then why plead GUILTY?

From what we can see so far, he got caught. He should resign. Plain and simple. Unlike Democrats that get caught doing things that are illegal, immoral, or just plain wrong, getting a free pass from the Mass Media, and staying in power, he probably WILL resign or be forced out. OK, enough of that.

Have you noticed a full court press by the press and the LWL against President Bush on Iraq? Just in the little box on the front page of one of my search engines?

AP-U.S. military deaths in Iraq at 3,731
Reuters -The price of a pizza in Iraq: an eye and a leg
US News and World Report -A Sobering Outlook on Iraq
Washington Post -U.S. Falters In Bid to Boost Iraqi Business

Traitor and LWL member Pelosi said this.

"The President's assertion that his escalation has been fully operational for two and a half months misses the point. American men and women have been fighting and dying in Iraq for nearly four and a half years. After all that time, and despite the 30,000 additional troops the President added this year, the new National Intelligence Estimate concludes that security improvements have been 'uneven' and that the level of overall violence in Iraq 'remains high.' In fact, the death toll from sectarian attacks is double last year's level, according to news reports. The purpose of the surge was to provide the Iraqis 'breathing room' for political reconciliation -- and the Maliki government has utterly failed.

Rather than reducing the threat of terrorism and promoting stability in the Middle East, the President's Iraq policy is making each worse. Until that policy is changed, the dire risks described by the President will not diminish.

The President's speech comes on a day when thousands of Americans are participating in town hall meetings and candlelight vigils across the country to demand a new direction in Iraq. It is time to begin a responsible redeployment to bring our troops home safely."

Blah, blah, blah. Howard Dean said this.

"President Bush couldn't be more wrong. Last week, our own intelligence agencies reported that after Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq six months ago, violence remains high, sectarian conflict is raging, and the Iraqi government is failing to make political progress. American troops are doing their jobs honorably but it's up to the Iraqis, not the U.S. military, to achieve political progress in Iraq.

"The fact of the matter is the war in Iraq has diverted attention from the real war on terror, making America less safe and giving Al Qaeda time to rebuild. It is time for President Bush and his Republican allies to take a hard look at the situation in Iraq, listen to the will of the American people, and change course. But if they refuse to do so, electing a Democratic President next year will be the only way to end the Republicans' failed Iraq policy."

Let’s see, the surge is working. Even Supreme Leader Wannabe Hillary admits that. Everyone that goes there and comes back, HAS to admit that. Now this past Sunday, they had MAJOR Political progress made, with the potential of even more coming soon. NOTHING but good news and great things happening. SO?

The LWL and their accomplices, the Mass Media Drones have been forced to step up their attacks on President Bush, and step up their campaign to convince you that the war is lost and that we cannot win, Iraq is a lost cause and we just need to leave. All they really do is sound pathetic.

So with all this good happening, in the middle of us WINNING in Iraq, the LWL and MMD either ignoring it, or coming right out and lying about it, another ally of their’s is sitting back and watching. As a matter of fact, HE is stepping up now to “help.”

According to the AP-Iran ready to fill any vacuum in Iraq By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boldly declared Tuesday that U.S. political influence in Iraq is "collapsing rapidly" and said his government is ready to help fill any power vacuum.

OF course he is. I’ve been telling you that for a long time now. He WANTS Iraq. Some in this country want to GIVE it to him.

The hard-line leader also defended Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite Muslim who has been harshly criticized by American politicians for his unsuccessful efforts to reconcile Iraq's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

What he is saying? “You hate Bush, I hate Bush. You do your part and pull the American troops out and I will take care of Iraq. You get your political victory over the devil {Bush} and I get Iraq. It’s a win, win, for everyone.” What he is REALLY saying. “I hate you too. Just get out. I will take over Iraq. I will increase my power and numbers. Later, I will kill you along with the Republicans and all the rest of the evil Americans. I will start with controlling your precious oil, then I will just bomb you as soon as I can.”

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on his remarks, an unusual declaration of Iran's interest in influencing its neighbor's future. The mention of a Saudi role appeared aimed at allaying the fears of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim nations that Iran wants to dominate in Iraq. Even though Saudi Arabia and Iran have not cooperated in the past, it "doesn't mean it can't happen," Ahmadinejad said.

Iran fought a brutal eight-year war with Saddam Hussein's regime and welcomed the elimination of a deeply hated enemy. But Iran also strongly objects to the presence of America, another rival, over its eastern and western borders in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Occupation is the root of all problems in Iraq," Ahmadinejad said. "It has become clear that occupiers are not able to resolve regional issues."

President Bush defended the Iraq war in a speech at the American Legion's national convention and accused Iran of violating human rights and trying to destabilize Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider region.

"Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan to be used to attack American and NATO troops," Bush said. "Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and impose no threat to their regime. And Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

Yet, the LWL would gladly hand him Iraq, if it means they can secure an American loss. They do not care about Iraq, it’s people, or the very bloody future both there and here. They will simply blame Bush for it. Even though the blood will be CLEARLY on THEIR hands.

Bush and the U.S. ambassador in Iraq have given blunt assessments of political stagnation in Baghdad, and Bush has said it is up to the Iraqi people to decide if their government deserved to be replaced.

But key Democratic politicians, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, have called for al-Maliki to be replaced because his Shiite-dominated government has been unable to forge national unity.

Al-Maliki has shrugged off the gloomy assessments of Iraq's future, saying he would "pay no attention" to American critics and if necessary "find friends elsewhere."

"They rudely say (the Iraqi) prime minister and the constitution must change," Ahmadinejad said of U.S. critics. "Who are you? Who has given you the right" to ask for such a change, he added.

On this, we agree.

Ousting al-Maliki, a longtime Shiite political activist, would require a majority vote in the 275-member Iraqi parliament. As long as the Kurdish parties and the main Shiite bloc back al-Maliki, his opponents lack the votes for that.

But do you see what they, the LWL, is doing? They are attempting to do there what they are doing here. Divide the country. Turn Iraqis against their own Prime Minister. Convince them he is a failure and that he needs to leave. He called them out on it. It is not their job to run this country, it’s the Presidents job. It sure as hell is not their job to run Iraq.

In a move that could further strain U.S.-Iranian relations, U.S. troops raided a Baghdad hotel Tuesday night and detained about 10 people, including six whom a U.S.-funded radio station described as members of an Iranian delegation visiting to negotiate contracts with the Iraqis.

The Iranian Embassy said seven Iranians — an embassy employee and six members of a delegation from Iran's Electricity Ministry — were staying at the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel.

Iran has been vehemently protesting the detention of five Iranians by U.S. troops in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil in January. U.S. authorities have said the five included the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants.

Iran describes the five, who remain in U.S. custody, as diplomats.

Washington has accused Tehran of being behind attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq — a claim al-Maliki's government has only partially backed, saying Iran could have a role in the attacks. Iran has denied the charges.

Of course they are.

Ahmadinejad dismissed the possibility of any U.S. military action against Iran, saying Washington has no plan and is not in a position to take such action.

As Ahmadinejad spoke, fighting between rival Shiite factions in southern Iraq raised new fears that a pullout by British troops there could lead to chaos. The clashes appeared to be part of a struggle for power of southern Iraqi Shia heartland, which includes the bulk of the country's vast oil wealth.

Folks, it really is simple. Little Hitler is rising. We are appeasing him, and even worse than the original, some in this country WANT to GIVE him more power. They are either too ignorant to be in power, or they are truly that obsessed with getting Bush, they do not care. Either way, remember this in 08. I cannot emphasize this enough. America itself could very well be at stake here.
Peter

Iraq Reaches Benchmarks Dems Silent

Hey folks,

Iraq's top political leaders representing the Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities announced Sunday that a compromise had been struck on several key elements of outstanding concern. According to Reuters, the deal includes an agreement on the outlines of a draft oil law, a statement on the powers of Iraq's provinces relative to the central government, and other important concessions vital to Political Progress.

Yup, Political Progress. What the LWL have been calling for. Saying isn’t happening. Saying is a failure

President Bush, at the Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, yesterday, said this.

“I congratulate Iraq's leaders on the agreement reached yesterday in Baghdad. I've been briefed on the agreement, and this morning I spoke to Iraq's elected leaders. These leaders represent all the Iraqi communities. These leaders -- Prime Minister Maliki, President Talabani, Vice President Hashimi, Vice President Abd al-Mahdi, President Barzani -- recognize the true and meaningful reconciliation that needs to take place, and they recognize this is a process. Yesterday's agreement reflects their commitment to work together for the benefit of all Iraqis to further the process.

The agreement begins to establish new power-sharing agreements, commits to supporting bottom-up security and political initiatives, and advances agreement among Iraq's leadership on several key legislative benchmarks.

While yesterday's agreement is an important step, I reminded them, and they understand, much more needs to be done. The Iraqi parliament will convene again in early September, and it will need to act to codify this political progress.

It's in our interests that we help the Iraqi people succeed. Success in Iraq will be a major blow to the extremists and radicals who would like to attack America again. And that's why the United States will continue to support Iraq's leaders and all the Iraqi people in their efforts to overcome the forces of terror that seek to overthrow a nascent democracy.

In this regard, I welcome and accept the expressed desire of the Iraqi leadership to develop a long-term relationship with the United States based on common interests. The United States is committed to developing this relationship and to strengthening diplomatic, economic and security ties with the Iraqi government and its people.”

The Mainstream Media Drones? They say this.

--------------------------

Of course their big news was and still is the resigning of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. They love reporting what the usual suspects have to say. The LWL, “it’s about time, it proves he was incompetent, who is next,” ETC. But this GREAT news out of Iraq?

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt said this about the new development in Iraq.

"The broad political agreement struck by Iraq's leaders this weekend represents an important moment in the country's social and political reconstruction, and a potential breakthrough for its future security and political stability.

This consensus is also great news for American support forces in the area -- whose continued success on the ground is helping create the conditions for political reconciliation to take place. I remain deeply grateful for the ongoing efforts of our men and women in the field, and hopeful that the Iraqi political leadership will seize this important moment to move forward with real solutions for the future of its nation.

Real leadership involves making difficult decisions, and then having the courage to act on them. It's now up to the leaders in Iraq to fill in the details of this agreement, and work openly and honestly with one another to deliver a sustainable, long-term strategy for success."

The Democratic Senators responded this way. They said this.

---------------------------

I guess they are too busy gloating over Gonzales. After all, you do have to give them credit. They accomplished what they wanted. You do not have to like it. You can understand that the separation of powers means they could actually do NOTHING to him. He works for the President, NOT Congress. They have no power. But he caved in. So now they will feel they won. In essence, they did.

But what about this great news in Iraq? What cannot be done? The benchmarks that were just MET?

You see, this is NOT good for them or their accomplices in the MMD. They are invested in the defeat of this country. They cannot and will not politically survive a victory in Iraq. They just can’t.

So first it was “The War is lost.” “The surge has failed.” “Bring our troops home NOW.” No, wait, we are winning. “Well, OK, OK, uh, it doesn’t matter that the surge is working. The Iraq government is incompetent. They have failed. They have not met benchmarks. Bring our troops home now.” Now that the deal, which includes the agreement on the outlines of a draft oil law, a statement on the powers of Iraq's provinces relative to the central government, and other important concessions vital to Political Progress?

----------------------------

They are thinking folks. They are working hard to find a way to raise the bar higher. They are looking for some other talking points to put out there. They MUST find a new line to call for our troops coming home before we do win. They will NOT give up on this. They cannot let it go. They cannot support the troops. They MOST DEFINITELY cannot support the President. They have to find a new way to attempt to fool YOU into thinking all is lost.

Some in the media will be attempting to down play this deal. Of course you have some saying it won’t work, it’s doomed. They will never come together. What was that? Oh yeah, the surge can’t work. The war is lost. You know, same old same old.

One major problem they face? YOU are not that stupid.
Peter

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announcing his resignation

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales :



"Thirteen years ago, I entered public service to make a positive difference in the lives of others. During this time, I have traveled a remarkable journey from my home state of Texas to Washington, D.C., supported by the unwavering love and encouragement of my wife Rebecca and our sons Jared, Graham, and Gabriel. Yesterday, I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government service as Attorney General of the United States, effective as of September 17, 2007.

Let me say that it has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women who work here. I have made a point as Attorney General to personally meet as many of them as possible and today I want to again thank them for their service to our nation. It is through their continued work that our country and our communities remain safe, that the rights and civil liberties of our citizens are protected and the hopes and dreams of all of our children are secured.

I often remind our fellow citizens that we live in the greatest country in the world and that I have lived the American dream. Even my worst days as Attorney General have been better than my father's best days. Public service is honorable and noble, and I am profoundly grateful to President Bush for his friendship and for the many opportunities he has given me to serve the American people.

Thank you and God bless America."

President Bush: "This morning, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that he will leave the Department of Justice, after two and a half years of service to the department. Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle. And I have reluctantly accepted his resignation, with great appreciation for the service that he has provided for our country.

As Attorney General and before that, as White House counsel, Al Gonzales has played a role in shaping our policies in the war on terror, and has worked tirelessly to make this country safer. The Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and other important laws bear his imprint. Under his leadership, the Justice Department has made a priority of protecting children from Internet predators, and made enforcement of civil rights laws a top priority. He aggressively and successfully pursued public corruption and effectively combated gang violence.

As Attorney General he played an important role in helping to confirm two fine jurists in Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. He did an outstanding job as White House Counsel, identifying and recommending the best nominees to fill critically important federal court vacancies.

Alberto Gonzales's tenure as Attorney General and White House Counsel is only part of a long history of distinguished public service that began as a young man when, after high school, he enlisted in the United States Air Force. When I became governor of Texas in 1995, I recruited him from one of Texas's most prestigious law firms to be my general counsel. He went on to become Texas's 100th secretary of state and to serve on our state's supreme court. In the long course of our work together this trusted advisor became a close friend.

These various positions have required sacrifice from Al, his wife Becky, their sons Jared, Graham and Gabriel, and I thank them for their service to the country.

After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.

I've asked Solicitor General Paul Clement to serve as Acting Attorney General upon Alberto Gonzales's departure and until a nominee has been confirmed by the Senate. He's agreed to do so. Paul is one of the finest lawyers in America. As Solicitor General, Paul has developed a reputation for excellence and fairness, and earned the respect and confidence of the entire Justice Department.

Thank you."

To Democrats, Do Not Count On Florida Vote

Hey folks,

Someone asked me what I thought of this. Since I was not here yesterday, I did not see it. But now I do. They seem to think that this is a big deal. I don’t. I really do not care if they try this bonehead move. It really is simple where I sit.

According to the AP -Florida Dems could lose say in 2008 race By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 26, 12:33 AM ET

Florida Democrats would forfeit their votes in selecting a presidential nominee unless they delay their state election by at least a week, the national party said in a stern action Saturday meant to discourage others from leapfrogging ahead to earlier dates.

The Florida party has 30 days to submit an alternative to its planned Jan. 29 primary or lose its 210 delegates to the nominating convention in Denver next summer.

The state party chairwoman, Karen Thurman, said she would confer with state officials about the ultimatum. "It's going to be a difficult discussion," she said, because Floridians are wary of having their votes taken away.

The LWL HATE Florida. They still blame Florida for 2000. It really is that simple. AP goes on to say.

Elected officials in Florida have said they would consider legal action and a protest at the convention if the national party barred the state's delegates.

There is general agreement that the eventual nominee will seat Florida's delegates rather than allow a fight at a convention intended to show party unity. But the decision by the Democratic National Committee's rules panel could reduce Florida's influence because candidates may want to campaign in states where the votes are counted.

Florida party officials said they originally opposed the early primary date, which covers both the Democratic and Republican primaries. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the change and the GOP governor signed it into law in an effort to give the state a more prominent voice in national politics.

But Florida Democratic leaders now are committed to the state-run election because voter participation would drop drastically if Democrats held an alternative contest.

Members of the DNC rules committee expressed skepticism that Florida Democrats did enough to stop the change and they approved the harshest penalty. Florida's representative on the panel, Allan Katz, was the only vote against the penalty.

Refusing to seat the delegates would set a "terrible situation for Florida and a very bad situation for the Democratic Party," Katz said.

Absolutely. It will be WORSE for the Democrats than it will be for Florida. These people, The LWL, and the DNC, cannot be this completely ignorant. Can they? Get this.

Party rules say states cannot hold their 2008 primary contests before Feb. 5, except for Iowa on Jan. 14, Nevada on Jan. 19, New Hampshire on Jan. 22 and South Carolina on Jan. 29.

The calendar was designed to preserve the traditional role that Iowa and New Hampshire have played in selecting the nominee, while adding two states with more racial and geographic diversity to influential early slots.

So they only want those states that are either LWL, or brainwashable. Easily lead.

Several DNC officials said before the vote that they wanted to take the strong action against Florida to discourage Michigan, New Hampshire and other states that were considering advancing their contests in violation of party rules.

Garry Shay, a rules committee member from California, said allowing Florida to move forward "would open the door to chaos."

{Laughing} I told you, they HATE Florida. They NEED Florida. But they hate it.

DNC committee member Donna Brazile also argued for a strong penalty, saying, "I hesitate to see what happens if we show somehow some wiggle room in our process."

The shifting dates have added uncertainty to the presidential candidates' campaign plans with the first votes to be cast in less than five months.

Advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has a wide lead in Florida polls, said she will go wherever elections are held. Sen. Barack Obama, who was campaigning in Miami on Saturday, said: "The national party has a difficult task, which is to try to create some order out of chaos. My job is really not to speculate on how to make it all work. I'm a candidate, I'm like a player on the field. I shouldn't be setting up the rules."

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico Democrat said it is important that the leadoff roles of Iowa and New Hampshire "not be usurped."

"As a candidate, I just want to get this settled and just appeal to all parties to get their act together and have some definitive roles," Richardson said. "Let's have an orderly process instead of states trying to outdo each other."

Well, I can agree with that. Makes sense. But Once you allow one? You know.

Florida's congressional delegation has raised the possibility of a voting rights investigation in response to the punishment.

National Democratic officials insist there is no legal basis to force the party to seat delegates in violation of its rules. Florida officials could not say what law the DNC would have violated or where the case could be pursued.

Jon Ausman, a DNC member from Florida, pleaded for a role in what could turn out to be a historic election, with the potential of the first woman, black or Hispanic nominee, even if the state were the "black sheep" of the primary season.

"We're asking you for mercy, not judgment," he told the rules committee meeting in a hotel conference room.

The party's action comes seven years after Florida was at the center of an unprecedented dispute over presidential vote counting. In 2000, the election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore was held up for a recount in Florida. The Supreme Court stopped the recount, and Bush won the state by 537 votes.

THERE YOU GO FOLKS!!!!

Terrie Brady, a DNC member who helped present Florida's case, said the party's denial of delegates disenfranchises voters. Rules committee members objected to the term, saying Florida's votes would be counted if they followed the rules.

Yup. This is just complete fact. It WILL disenfranchise voters.

"I find your use of the word disenfranchisement to be an overstatement," said committee member David McDonald, who is from Washington state.

Because he is smarter than you. The people will do what they are told to do. Right?

New Hampshire's secretary of state says he may move up the state's primary, but for now the party has submitted a plan for Jan. 22, with the notation that the date is subject to change. Michigan's Legislature has taken up a bill that would move its contest to Jan. 15, but the state party submitted a proposal that for now describes a caucus on Feb. 9.

Michigan Democratic Party chairman Mark Brewer said he hopes the ruling against Florida keeps the DNC calendar in place. "If it doesn't, we're going to move," he said.

Look, it’s really this simple, the DNC doesn’t want Florida to help elect their party's nominee, they should simply NOT expect Florida to vote Democrat in the General Election. Period. These people really need mental help. They truly feel they can do whatever they want and YOU will just sit back and take it. Sad thing is, some LWL members, and some Democrats, will.
Peter

IWA For Sunday 082607

Hey folks,

This weeks winner had everything. Fortune and fame. A promising long term career in what he loved. Big houses, great cars, everything. Now? As NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell said,

"You are now justifiably facing consequences for the decisions you made and the conduct in which you engaged. Your career, freedom and public standing are now in the most serious jeopardy," Goodell wrote. "I hope that you will be able to learn from this difficult experience and emerge from it better prepared to act responsibly and to make the kinds of choices that are expected of a conscientious and law abiding citizen."

That’s right folks, I’m talking about Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcons quarterback . Turns out that Goodell suspended Vick indefinitely without pay Friday, just hours after Vick filed a plea agreement that portrayed him as less involved than three co-defendants and guilty mainly of poor judgment for associating with them.

According to the AP

Vick acknowledged bankrolling gambling on the dogfights, but denied placing bets himself or taking any of the winnings. He admitted that dogs not worthy of the pit were killed "as a result of the collective efforts" of himself and two co-defendants.

Yeah they were killed by being tortured to death.

Goodell decided not to wait until Monday, when U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson in Richmond, Va., formally receives the plea and schedules a sentencing likely to land Vick in prison for one to five years.

The commissioner said Vick's admitted conduct was "not only illegal but also cruel and reprehensible." Even if he didn't personally place bets, Goodell said, "your actions in funding the betting and your association with illegal gambling both violate the terms of your NFL player contract and expose you to corrupting influences in derogation of one of the most fundamental responsibilities of an NFL player."

Goodell freed the Falcons to "assert any claims or remedies" to recover $22 million of Vick's signing bonus from the 10-year, $130 million contract he signed in 2004.

I hope they get EVERY dime back.

The commissioner didn't speak to Vick but based his decision on the court filings. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Goodell might meet with Vick in the future, and Goodell said he would review the suspension after all the legal proceedings.

"You have engaged in conduct detrimental to the welfare of the NFL and have violated the league's personal conduct policy," Goodell told Vick in a letter after meeting in New York with Falcons president and general manager Rich McKay.

Falcons owner Arthur Blank supported Goodell's decision.

"We hope that Michael will use this time, not only to further address his legal matters, but to take positive steps to improve his personal life," Blank said.

Nike, meanwhile, terminated its contract with Vick.

Good.

Earlier Friday, a "summary of facts" signed by Vick and his lawyers was filed along with his written plea agreement on a federal dogfighting conspiracy charge.

"While Mr. Vick is not personally charged with or responsible for committing all of the acts alleged in the indictment, as with any conspiracy charge, he is taking full responsibility for his actions and the actions of the others involved," the defense team said in a written statement after the plea agreement was filed.

"Mr. Vick apologizes for his poor judgment in associating himself with those involved in dog fighting and realizes he should never have been involved in this conduct," the statement said.

Congratulations Mikey, you had everything most dream of, you decided to throw it all away on this completely sickening cruelty to animals. I concur with Goodell. You are getting what you deserve. You ARE the Idiot of the Week.
Peter

H.S. For Sunday 082607

Genetic Factor in Taste?

Hey folks,

This is interesting. I do not know how true it is but interesting non-the-less. According to the AP -Study: Fear of new foods mostly genetic By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer

Having trouble persuading your child to eat broccoli or spinach? You may have only yourself to blame. According to a study of twins, neophobia — or the fear of new foods — is mostly in the genes.

"Children could actually blame their mothers for this," said Jane Wardle, director of the Health Behavior Unit at University College London, one of the authors of the study in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Wardle and colleagues asked the parents of 5,390 pairs of identical and non-identical twins to complete a questionnaire on their children's' willingness to try new foods.

Identical twins, who share all genes, were much more likely to respond the same way to new foods than non-identical twins, who like other siblings only share about half their genes. Researchers concluded that genetics played a greater role in determining eating preferences than environment, since the twins lived in the same household.

Wardle said food preferences appear to be "as inheritable a physical characteristic as height."

So in essence, you could be responsible for having short kids that hate Brussel Sprouts. {Laughing}

Unlike nearly every other phobia, neophobia is a normal stage of human development.

Scientists theorize that it was originally an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect children from accidentally eating dangerous things — like poisonous berries or mushrooms.

Back to Evolution. Got to love that. Just like Anxiety. According to the experts that is.

Neophobia typically kicks in at age 2 or 3, when children are newly mobile and capable of disappearing from their parents' sight within seconds. Being unwilling to eat new things they stumble upon may turn out to be a lifesaver.

While most children grow out of the food fussiness by age 5, not all do. For parents of particularly picky eaters, experts encourage them not to cave in when their children throw food tantrums.

"Parents should not feel like they're doing something wrong if they keep trying but their child is not overjoyed to be eating Brussels sprouts," said Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, who is not connected to the study.

While most people will eventually like any food — even one they initially disliked — after trying it about 10 times, more persistence may be needed when trying to convert a neophobic child.

So force them to eat it? It thought that was a bad thing. Sorry, but I could eat Popcorn ten times and I would hate it ten times. You like what you like and dislike what you dislike.

"It's like learning to ride a bike," Schwartz said. "Some children have a harder time learning and it takes longer, but it's still worthwhile to teach them."

Other taste-related traits — like the ability to taste bitterness — are also inherited. Scientists have already identified the gene responsible, and have found that approximately 30 percent of Caucasians lack the gene and cannot taste bitterness.

Really?

Some experts think that neophobia is essentially a reflection of personality. People known as "sensation seekers," or those in search of new and intense experiences, tend to be willing to eat anything. Conversely, shy people tend to be reluctant to experiment with their palate.

So it’s mental also?

"Food is just one kind of stimulus in the environment that people either approach or avoid," said Patricia Pliner, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.

Still, experts say that the environment parents create is crucial to determining their children's eating habits.

"It can't all be genetics," said Marcy Goldsmith, a nutrition and behavior specialist at Tufts University. "Parents need to offer their children new foods so they at least have a chance to try it."

You think? Like I said, I do not know how true it is, but I did find this interesting. See you soon.
Peter

Off Day Tomorrow Sunday 082607

Hey folks,

Quick note, I will not be in tomorrow, Sunday, 082607. I have a very special little girl's 4th Birthday to go to. Since she requested that Joshua to be there, we are making that happen.

But fret not. I’m coming right back with all the Sunday stuff, TODAY.


See you soon.
Peter

Presidential Radio Address For 082507

President Bush:

Good morning. This week I traveled to Kansas City to address the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I spoke about the ideological struggle that our Nation faces in the 21st century, and the lessons we can draw from the advance of freedom in Asia in the 20th century. America's enduring presence and perseverance on that continent aided the rise of democracy, helped transform American enemies into American allies, and made our country safer.

Next week I will address the members of the American Legion at their annual convention in Reno. In that speech, I will focus on the Middle East and why the rise of a free and democratic Iraq is critical to the future of this vital region and to our Nation's security.

I will also provide an update on the developments we are seeing from our new strategy in Iraq. Every month since January, U.S. forces have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists. And in June our troops launched a surge of operations that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against al Qaeda, clear the terrorists out of population centers, and give families in liberated Iraqi cities a safer and more normal life.

As security improves, more Iraqis are stepping forward to defend their democracy. Young Iraqi men are signing up for the army. Iraqi police are now patrolling the streets. Coalition and Iraqi forces have doubled the number of joint operations. As the Iraqi people feel more secure, they are also forming neighborhood watch groups. They're volunteering important information about the terrorists and extremists hiding in their midst. And the increase in tips helps account for the marked reduction in sectarian murders.

By driving out the terrorists from cities and neighborhoods, we're creating the conditions for reconciliation -- especially at the local level. In communities across Iraq, citizens are seeing their local and provincial governments return to operation. Despite continuing violence, leaders in places like Anbar, Najaf, and Ninewah are now working through local provincial councils to approve funds to finance the rebuilding of homes and neighborhoods, to fight corruption, and to create new jobs.

Here at home, it can be easy to overlook the bravery shown by Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians who are in the fight for freedom. But our troops on the ground see it every day. Last week, a team of American soldiers was meeting with an Iraqi citizens group near Baghdad. Suddenly, a suicide bomber came running around a corner and headed straight for our soldiers and the Iraqi civilians.

One Iraqi man saw what was happening and ran to intercept the bomber. As he pushed the terrorist away, the bomb detonated -- killing both men, but sparing four American soldiers and eight Iraqi civilians. Army Staff Sergeant Sean Kane is one of those who says he owes his life to this brave Iraqi. Sergeant Kane says, "He could have run behind us or away from us, but he made the decision to sacrifice himself to protect everyone." Sergeant Kane spoke to the Iraqi man's father, who said that even if his son had known the outcome beforehand, he "would not have acted differently."

The story does not end there. Later that same night, the citizens group contacted the local director of the National Police and told him the location of the al Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the attack. The National Police immediately conducted a raid that resulted in four arrests.

We are still in the early stages of our new operations. But the success of the past couple of months have shown that conditions on the ground can change -- and they are changing. We cannot expect the new strategy we are carrying out to bring success overnight. But by standing with the Iraqi people as they build their democracy, we will deliver a devastating blow to al Qaeda, we will help provide new hope for millions of people throughout the Middle East, we will gain a friend and ally in the war on terror, and we will make the American people safer.

Thank you for listening.

A New Conspiracy?

Hey folks,

Here we go again. There is a new conspiracy brewing. According to the AP -Iraq report may bolster surge policy By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press WriterThu Aug 23, 5:33 PM ET

Intentionally or not, a new assessment of Iraq's political and military prospects landed just in time to bolster President Bush's case that the United States should maintain its troop buildup in the country and stand by its beleaguered government.

“Intentionally or not.” So it may have been?

The consensus report by U.S. spy agencies contained a veiled warning: Any move to shift U.S. troops out of their role directly combating insurgents could squander the modest security gains secured by the troop surge.

"A change of mission ... would place security improvements at risk," the report concluded.

That conclusion, coming unanimously from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, will likely help the administration and its ground commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, argue for patience from a skeptical Congress and public. Petraeus has overseen a U.S. troop buildup and a more aggressive counterinsurgency effort that Bush announced in January.

“Coming unanimously from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies.” Remember that.

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said intelligence assessments aren't meant as policy arguments, but the warning in the new National Intelligence Estimate, revealed Thursday, may be seen as just that.

"I don't mean that the timing of the release may not have something to do with a campaign for supporting the president's position," he said.

What? The timing is done to support the President and the Troops? So I guess ALL 16 inelegance agencies are working together to support Bush?

Colin Kahl, a former Pentagon analyst and now an assistant professor of national security studies at Georgetown University, said the intelligence community is aware that the timing of the new report — just nine months after the last intelligence estimate on Iraq — looks political. It was dropped this week into the dead calm of an official Washington in the middle of summer vacation.

"I think those working on the NIE were well aware that it would be politically controversial, but I don't get the sense that this was done in the service of helping Petraeus or the administration," said Kahl. "I get the sense that some within the (intelligence community) thought it was unnecessary, and unprecedented, to do another Iraq NIE so close on the heels of the last one."

Could THIS be the reason? Look at this statement released by Traitor and LWL member Pelosi.

"In today's National Intelligence Estimate, the American people were presented with yet more evidence that the Iraqi government has failed to take the necessary steps to reach political reconciliation. Our military has performed their duties excellently, but the purpose of the escalation in Iraq was to create a secure environment in which political change could occur, and it is clear that the Iraqi leaders have failed to make progress.

"We need a New Direction to bring our troops home from Iraq so that America can refocus its efforts against terrorism worldwide."

Key Quotes From the New NIE on Iraq:

Is This What The Bush Administration Calls Progress?

"It appears to me ... there is some progress being made." - President Bush, August 21, 2007

Today, the National Intelligence Council released an unclassified summary of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. The report paints a grim picture of the political and security situation in Iraqand is at odds with the President's assessment.

-- "[T]he level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq's sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively." (pg. 1)

-- "Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments." (pg. 1)

-- "Intra-Shia conflict involving factions competing for power and resources probably will intensify as Iraqis assume control of provincial security... The Sunni Arab community remains politically fragmented, and we see no prospective leaders that might engage in meaningful dialogue and deliver on national agreements... Kurdish leaders remain focused on protecting the autonomy of the Kurdish region and reluctant to compromise on key issues." (pg. 2)

-- "[W]e judge that the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] have not improved enough to conduct major operations independent of the Coalition on a sustained basis in multiple locations and that the ISF remain reliant on the Coalition for important aspects of logistics and combat support." (pg. 2)

-- "The IC [Intelligence Community] assesses that the Iraqi Government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months because of criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition (the Unified Iraqi Alliance, UIA), Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties." (pg. 3)

-- "Population displacement resulting from sectarian violence continues, imposing burdens on provincial governments and some neighboring states and increasing the danger of destabilizing influences spreading across Iraq's borders over the next six to 12 months." (pg. 3)

It was really easy for her to pick out the negatives. Without reading the whole thing, I really do not take this spin on face value. According to the other AP report yesterday, it showed progress being made, positive signs, good news. This AP article is attempting to spin this as a conspiracy to HELP Bush. So? Which is it? Back to AP.

One senior intelligence official said, however, that the timing was intentional — designed to inform decisions to be made about Iraq strategy this summer and fall. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue more candidly.

Of course.

Kahl said the report itself amounts to an "honest, somewhat grim, 'damned if we do, damned if we don't' assessment."

The warning against any change in Iraq tactics comes as Capitol Hill and the White House are showing fresh interest in the 2006 bipartisan Iraq Study Group report. That report recommended, among other things, that U.S. forces pull back from the front lines and focus on providing logistical support and training to Iraqi forces, along with conducting targeted counterterror operations.

Yes and Bush has always said he was open to this, as long as we won militarily. We are winning.

In June, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to adopt the Iraq Study Group's 79 recommendations, with the goal to begin withdrawing combat troops not needed for force protection as early as March 2008. And on Thursday, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., called for starting troop withdrawals by Christmas.

Bush, who politely dismissed much of the Iraq Study Group's report last year, told an audience in Michigan on April 20 that he liked some of its ideas.

"Embedding troops and training troops makes sense for me. I like the idea of having our troops on the over-horizon presence, to be able to help bail out extreme situations. I really want to make sure that our special ops stays on the hunt for al-Qaida in Iraq," he said.

Pentagon officials say it will put severe strains on the military to sustain the additional 30,000 surge troops in Iraq beyond April 2008.

They are looking for ways to continue surge missions — protecting the population while pursuing al-Qaida and militia extremists — while transferring more day-to-day responsibility for operations to Iraqi forces. A senior military official in Iraq said Thursday that process is already under way.

"It has never been an either-or proposition," said a second top military officer. "We have to both protect the population and develop the Iraqi security forces. It's a matter of how."

Which is what they have been saying all along. It is the Press and people like Pelosi that have twisted it. But that is not working out so well. More and more American are starting to get tire of the games that Pelosi, Reid and others beholden to the Looneys out there. The moron.org {Moveon.org} types out there. More on that in part two.

Get ready folks, this is FAR from over. Be right back.
Peter

WND -Finally! Combating the anti-victory crowd, I concur.

Hey folks,

This one comes from our friends at World Net Daily. Melanie Morgan to be exact. I have been telling you for sometime now, that if the LWL keep playing games with our troops lives, you will see more and more people start seeing them for what and who they are. The news coming from Iraq is so good lately that the press, anti-war folks, and even some LWL members themselves have been forced to admittedly re-calibrate their message.

Now they are attacking the political progress, the Iraqi Government and they are attempting to back pedal as fast as they can to a position where they want you to believe that they have ALWAYS supported the troops and the surge. That is just not the case. It will not fly here. They OWN defeat. They bought it, fought for it, are STILL fighting for it, and more and more people have had it with them.

According to WND -Finally! Combating the anti-victory crowd by Melanie Morgan

In the largest effort of its kind since Operation Iraqi Freedom began, pro-troop supporters are now working together to beat back the voices of defeat and surrender. This week, we saw the first public display of behind-the-scenes activities that have gone under radar for the past several weeks.

Finally!

Dozens of groups, opinion shapers, talk-show hosts, grass-roots conservatives and others are getting it – al-Qaida isn't the enemy we have to worry about the most; our troops can handle those guys with their lethal determination.

The most dangerous enemies are here at home, those deliberately plotting to undermine support for the missions of our troops. This fifth column in America has engaged in the psychological warfare of defeatism in a way we have not seen since the Vietnam War. Even President Bush is now acknowledging that fact.

Amen!!!

The pro-victory group Freedom's Watch unveiled a $15 million television and radio ad campaign featuring compelling first-hand testimonials from people who understand quite clearly that "SURRENDER IS NOT AN OPTION." Watch the Videos here.

It's not as much as George Soros and the Hollywood liberals who contribute to the network of left-wing extremists, but it's a good start.

I've been working with a broad array of pro-troop advocates to help make such efforts as the "Freedom's Watch" ad buy a reality. As the chairman of Move America Foreword, the nation's largest pro-troop organization, I've been honored to work (conspire, if you are a anti-war liberal reading this column) with a coalition of pro-troop and veterans organizations that believe in peace through strength, and who also support victory for our troops.

{Laughing}

During our planning meetings of this [cabal of supporters of this supposed illegal war based on lies], I've been impressed by the determination of the pro-troop movement to not cede any battlefield in the war for hearts and minds.

For too long we were unhappily silent while the likes of MoveOn.org, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and CodePink were grabbing media headlines for their antics.

George Soros, and the LWL.

Perhaps that's why I can report to you (with absolute moral authority) that unlike those in the anti-victory movement, who have been mired with dissension and infighting, there's been very little discord in the ranks of the pro-troop camp. Oh sure, there's an occasional clash of personalities and those individuals who want it their way or no way, but these instances have been the rare exception, not the rule.

That's because at the end of the day our egos stop where our national security begins. We understand the importance of our troops' missions in Iraq. We recognize the consequences of handing al-Qaida a victory in Iraq, and letting the Middle East become a playground for terrorists.

“Politics Stop at the Waters Edge”. This principle recognized that no matter what our political differences, our survival and the survival of our Armed Forces on the battlefield depended on our presenting a unified front to our enemies. This principle “Politics Stop at the Waters Edge” has little sway with Left Wing Looneys. It’s too bad. I still believe that if we were united, and stayed united from 9-11 on, we would probably have won by now and our troops would be home.

We really are fighting two enemies. One over there, and one here. The one here IS more dangerous. Sorry for the interruption, back to Melanie.

We know that if al-Qaida wins, we'll be hit with deadly terrorist attacks in this country, and the countries of our allies, over and over again.

Like during the Clinton years. Sorry again.

The anti-victory/anti-military/anti-American/anti-everything coalition of liberal Democrats and Green Party members do not have a unifying theme other than what they're against. That's led to vicious infighting between the leaders of the anti-victory organizations that has spilled out into public view.

As Ann Coulter recently noted there's a colorful recent history of anti-war activists eating their own for, what else, political gain.

Another example: Cindy Sheehan, grieving mother turned professional America-basher is transforming yet again. Having previously earned the marquee role as the star of the left's anti-war movement and leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, she's now been recast. Today Democratic Party activists deride Sheehan as a has-been, the object of so much derision after she announced plans to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan's legacy, Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, is as forlorn and pitiful as the two lone anti-war protesters who are all that remain of the once formidable army of activists. As the Washington Post points out, one of the last holdouts is Sonny, the dog. Including the dog in their counts allow the anti-war crowd to claim their numbers have doubled!

Contrast that to what you'll see next month when an array of pro-troop and veterans organizations fight back like you've never seen before. We're putting America on notice that victory is the only option. But the anti-war politicians are already starting to come up with mealy-mouth "compromise" solutions. You cannot compromise with terrorists. Their negotiation strategies usually end with human body parts flying through the air as a result of an IED explosion or the self-detonation of a suicide bomber in a hotel or restaurant.

EXACTLY what I have been saying. You cannot negociate with someone who’s starting point is your death. If you want more information in joining in on any of these, check out the list at the WND website.

Approval numbers in the tank. More and more LWL members telling the truth, the surge is working, simply because they cannot hind the truth any longer. The MMD actually reporting good news out of Iraq, for the same reason. The fact that most Americans CAN see right through this shift of attack by the LWL, and now this?

Yet, if you listen to them, they will tell you, they are doing all this FOR the American people. YOU want the troops home now. YOU want the President held accountable for this illegal and immoral war. YOU do not care what happens AFTER we leave. They are doing this ALL for YOU because this is what YOU want.

Really?
Peter

The Warner Situation

Hey folks,

Yup, it’s STILL Friday. I have to address this. Some of you, and you know who you are, have let me know that I was wrong. The MMD {Mass Media Drones} have been having a field day with this one.

I said that Warner was not just another Senator pumping his fist in the air and demanding President Bush bring the troops home now. I pointed out why. He stated he was never for a full pull out. He voted against timetables. He was simply advising the press that the President was planning on bring some of the troops home.

Well, well, well, the MMD have been saying the exact opposite. He IS another Republican Senator that is distancing himself from Bush and he DOES want the troops home now. We cannot win, ETC.

Even the White House was saying what I said and urged him to clarify his comments. So the AP asked him to do just that. According to the AP -Warner's Iraq proposal roils White House By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer

Sen. John Warner's suggestion that some troops leave Iraq by the end of the year has roiled the White House, with administration officials saying they've asked the influential Republican to clarify that he has not broken politically with President Bush.

But Warner said Friday he stands by his remarks and that he took no issue with how his views have been characterized.

"I'm not going to issue any clarification," Warner, R-Va., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't think any clarification is needed."

This is just bizarre folks. You have one set of comments, two completely different interpretations, and he says "I don't think any clarification is needed."

Following his trip to Iraq this month, which included a two-hour meeting with Petraeus, Warner said time has run out on the Baghdad government and Bush should make good on his word that the U.S. commitment was not open-ended by announcing a pullout of troops this fall.

Not exactly what he said, but let’s go with that.

The symbolic gesture, he said, could amount to as few as 5,000 of the 160,000 troops in Iraq brought home by Christmas. The goal would be to pressure the Iraqi leaders to make the political compromises necessary to tamp down sectarian violence.

Warner's remarks were significant. While he said he would still oppose Democratic legislation ordering troop withdrawals, it was the first time he had embraced pulling troops out by a certain date. It also put him at odds with the president by rejecting Bush's long-held assertion that only security conditions on the ground should dictate deployments and that any announced redeployments would be an unhelpful broadcast of war plans to the enemy.

Before stepping before the television cameras, Warner met with Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the president's chief adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After Warner made his ideas public — and attracted headlines suggesting he had effectively broken with the president on the war — White House officials said they reached out to Warner's staff and asked him to clarify his position.

Told you so.

According to an administration official, Warner's staff agreed that the story was being portrayed incorrectly as Warner splitting with the president.

"They said they'd take steps to deal with it," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the private conversations.

Of course {Sigh}

However, in the AP interview, Warner said he personally had not been asked to revise his comments and he took no issue with how his views were reported. When asked whether he had indeed split with Bush on Iraq, he declined to say and noted his remarks speak for themselves.

"You have to surmise that on your own," he said.

What in the Blue Hell does THAT mean?

Warner's comments also prompted pushback Friday from GOP colleagues known for their steadfast allegiance to Bush on the war.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., issued a statement saying that efforts to pre-empt Petraeus' September review was "premature and irresponsible." Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said "it's a little curious to me that people are proposing a change in strategy when in fact the current strategy appears now to be working."

Likewise, the U.S. military commander in one of the more troubled areas of Iraq said Friday that embracing Warner's call to begin withdrawing troops before the end of the year would be "a giant step backward." Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of troops south of Baghdad, said that in such a scenario, militants pushed from his sector in recent operations would quickly return.

The swift pushback undercuts any suggestion that Warner — known for his caution and party loyalty, as well as his expertise on national security issues — might have been paving the way for Bush to announce his own plan to withdraw troops.

Warner, who has not announced whether he will run for re-election next year, said he spoke on his own behalf. He also said he was unconcerned about any political fallout and didn't want to wait until mid-September to speak out because by then Bush may have made up his mind.

WAIT!!! Read that again. Not a quote, but worth noting. He also said he was unconcerned about any political fallout and didn't want to wait until mid-September to speak out because by then Bush may have made up his mind. So perhaps he WAS calling on Bush to pull out troops. Then he said this.

"I've always said politics be damned," he said. "This thing is too important. . . . I simply view my effort as a way of putting out one option that could — I repeat could — help the situation."

Well, there you go. I guess. Now we are fully and completely clear on what Warner was saying. I think.
Peter

Iran Not Cooperating

Hey folks,

Why is this news. I have been following Little Hitler for years now. I have been warning you about his rise to power. I have printed what he is SAYING. I have been warning people that they need to listen to him.

Some in congress wants to TALK to him. Some in Congress and around this country want to ask him for his help in Iraq. Many in the country want to appease him. Just like the rise of the first and original Hitler.

Well, there is a new report out that talks about Iran. According to AP -Draft report logs bleak outlook for Iran By PAULINE JELINEK and KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writers

A draft intelligence report on Iran suggests a change in the Tehran regime appears unlikely any time soon despite growing public anger over the country's economic woes, U.S. officials said Thursday.

Really? When everyone was saying that Little Hitler {President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad} was going to lose power after the Iranian elections, I said this. December 21, 2006,
Update on Little Hitler

“I think that the AP is making a mistake here though. Even more who read this, run the risk of making the same mistake. Iran is NOT America. Their political system is not the same as ours. Hitler {The original} rose to power through their political system. While the world appeased and ignored, Hitler became bigger than the system. He just took power and control. It then no longer mattered what the Germans "wanted." It was too late.

So far it doesn’t seem that he {Little Hitler} cares what the people want already. Yesterday we will be gone. Today, Bush "the most hated." Still, some here, you know who you are, want to GIVE Iraq to President Ahmadinejad. They want to "talk" to him. They truly think that they can change his mind.

But here’s the problem. His mind is set on world domination. He TRULY believes that he is on a mission from his god. He truly believes that the end is near, and that it is HIS destiny to lead Muslims into the World powers. He TRULY wants you and anyone else non-Muslim, dead. Let’s hope that the people DO have some kind of voice. Sadly, I have my doubts.”

I was right then, I am right now.

The report also anticipates little progress in getting Iran to halt its nuclear program or stop supporting militant groups in the region, officials familiar with the draft said on condition of anonymity because the report has not been released.

Really? Back on May 26, 2007 I said this. Iran Heating Up Yet Again, Talks On Monday

“Little Hitler and the "Supreme Leader" will NOT back down from their Nuclear ambitions. They WANT bombs. They WANT to use the bombs. They want us dead. Israel wiped off the map. I do not understand how some see what the paper printed as a "good sign." It’s a little amazing, the boldness. But unlike the way we do things sometimes here, they do not run their policies per the Press there.

Yes folks, Iran is heating up yet again. This time though, I’m not so sure that it will, or SHOULD cool off anytime soon. They cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb. If President Bush does nothing before he leaves the office in 08, and we get a spineless, gutless, pawn in there who is beholden to the likes of MORON.org or Soros. They {Little Hitler, Iran}WILL not only have, but will use them in due time. Time is ticking.”

Back to the Article

The latest in a series of reports from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies, the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is nearly complete and could be shared with President Bush and other policymakers within weeks, said the officials. One said it is expected to be completed as soon as next week.

It is one of four reports the intelligence community is wrapping up on the Persian Gulf. Two others look at Iran's nuclear program and its military and conventional threat.

And an update on the situation in Iraq was released Thursday.

The report on Iran's political situation looks at issues ranging from the economy to its weapons programs, the officials said.

It says that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will continue in power despite rising discontent with the worsening economy, the officials said.

With the backing of the unelected clerical leadership that controls Iran, hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected on a populist agenda in 2005, promising to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty and tackle unemployment. His failure to keep those promises has provoked increasingly fierce criticism over recent months from both conservatives and reformists, who point to rising housing, food and oil prices, including the recent decision to ration fuel.

The new intelligence report also says Iran will continue to pursue a nuclear program that the United States and others believe is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, the officials said. Tehran denies that and says the program is for power generation.

Addressing another dispute between Washington and Tehran, the report also says Iran will continue to cause problems in Iraq, the officials said.

They want us DEAD. Do you really think they are going to stop helping anyone that is killing American Soldiers? If you do, you are complete ignorant of the threat Little Hitler poses.

The U.S. government alleges that elements of Tehran's military are equipping and training militias involved in sectarian killings, roadside bombings of U.S. troops and other violence in Iraq — allegations that Iran denies.

Of course they do. But WAIT. Read that again. “The U.S. government alleges that elements of Tehran's military are equipping and training militias involved in sectarian killings”

I thought it was a civil war. When did Iran become Iraqi citizens?

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker met in Baghdad early this month with his counterpart from Iran, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, on the subject. Though it was the third round of U.S.-Iranian security talks in just over two months, officials have reported no progress.

There will not be any. You cannot negociate with someone whos starting point is you being dead.
U.S. officials and others also have criticized Iran for supplying money and weapons to the Shiite Muslim extremist group Hezbollah, which is on the U.S. government list of terrorist organizations.

The new intelligence estimate foresees that Iran will continue as a main backer of the group, along with Syria, the officials said.

The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The lingering poor relations have been exacerbated in recent years by rising tensions over Iran's nuclear program and U.S. allegations that Tehran is supporting armed groups in Iraq.

Iran said it had uncovered spy rings organized by the U.S. and its Western allies and has detained a number of Iranian-Americans.

The United States in recent months warned U.S. citizens against traveling to Iran, accusing Islamic authorities there of a "disturbing pattern" of harassment after the detention of a fourth Iranian-American for alleged espionage.

Folks, do not be surprised by this. I have been telling you these things for years. Little Hitler is rising. Iraq is slowly becoming the new Germany and all you have to do to KNOW what their intentions are, is LISTEN to them.
Peter

End Of Day Roundup 082307

Hey folks,

Yup, it’s still Thursday. Talk about some misleading headlines. Here are some articles you need to be aware of. First up CNN -Sen. Warner: Take steps to bring troops home in September

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called on President Bush to start the process of bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq in September.

No he didn’t.

Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said Thursday that a pullout was needed to spur Iraqi leaders to action.

He has recommended Bush announce the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report is released from the top U.S. officials in Iraq, and that those troops should be back in the U.S. by Christmas.

No he didn’t.

Folks, this is completely spun. According to Reuters- Republican senator: Bush should begin Iraq withdrawal

President George W. Bush should announce on September 15 a small initial pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq to spur the Iraqi government to take steps toward political reconciliation, an influential Republican senator said on Thursday.

Virginia Sen. John Warner said Bush should "announce on the 15th that in consultation with our senior military commanders he has decided to initiate the first step in a withdrawal of our forces."

Warner, a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee who has pressed Bush to change his Iraq policy, suggested a withdrawal of "say 5,000" troops, who could be home by Christmas in December of this year.

Warner said the United States needed "to show that we mean business" when it says its commitment to Iraq is not open ended.

He spoke following his return from an Iraq visit and after the release of a U.S. intelligence estimate projecting that political progress in Iraq would remain elusive over the next year. The report said the position of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government would become more precarious.

More on the NIE report in a second.

Warner said he did not advocate "rapid pullout" from Iraq and pointed out he had voted against any timetable for withdrawal. Congress has asked for a progress report on Iraq by September 15.

U.S. troops had delivered on their commitment to enhance security in Baghdad and elsewhere, but Maliki's government had "let our troops down," Warner said. He said he could not go "as far" as Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan who called for Maliki to be replaced.

WAIT! STOP!! He advised the press that Bush should announce a start to troop withdraws. We all know this already. We already know that General Petraeus will be telling us GOOD news. There will be no need for as many troops there, because we are WINNING.

Second, Warner does not advocate rapid troop pull out. He voted against timetables. The CNN piece leads you to believe he is yet another Senator pumping his fist in the air and calling for the President to bring the troops home NOW. That is simply not the case.

Now to this NIE report. According to the AP -Report finds Iraqi government precarious By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago

The Iraqi government is strained by rampant violence, deep sectarian differences among its political parties and stymied leadership, the nation's top spy analysts concluded in a sobering assessment released Thursday.

All is lost!! Right?

With the country teetering between success and failure in the next year, Iraq's neighbors will continue to try to expand their leverage in the fractured state in anticipation that the United States will soon leave, the new report found.

Who said?

It predicted that the Iraqi government "will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months" because of criticism from various Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. "To date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," it said.

Get this.

There was a glimmer of backhanded hope for the Iraqi leadership in the often dark analysis: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will continue to benefit from the belief among other Shiite leaders that "searching for a replacement could paralyze the government."

A Glimmer of hope? {Laughing}

The new National Intelligence Estimate was an update of another high-level assessment prepared six months ago by the top analysts scattered across all 16 U.S. spy agencies. The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency were the key contributors to Thursday's report, which found some security progress but elusive hopes for reconciliation among Iraq's feuding groups.

Some security progress, BUT!!!

It came at a time of renewed tensions between Washington and Baghdad, and as the Bush administration prepares a mid-September report on how this year's troop buildup in Iraq is working.

Overall, the report finds that Iraq's security will continue to "improve modestly" over the next six to 12 months, provided that coalition forces mount strong counterinsurgency operations and mentor Iraqi forces. But even then, violence levels will remain high as the country struggles to achieve national political reconciliation.

The surge is WORKING!! BUT EVEN THEN!!! This is too funny folks.

"The strains of the security situation and absence of key leaders have stalled internal political debates, slowed national decision-making, and increased Maliki's vulnerability" to factions that could form a rivaling coalition, the document says.

Although al-Maliki is a Shiite, it finds that other Shiite factions have looked at ways to constrain him.

The administration and the many opponents of its Iraq policy both will find evidence in the report to justify the policies they recommend.

So there is good and bad news. We already know this. The political front needs tweaking. No doubt about it. The have just begun. But they can no longer say that the war is lost,,,oh wait, here is Traitor and LWL member Reid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report confirms what most Americans know.

"Our troops are mired in an Iraqi civil war and the president's escalation strategy has failed to produce the political results he promised to our troops and the American people," he said.

Somebody update this moron on reality. PLEASE. Most Americans do NOT believe there is a civil war, because there is NO civil war. I just said this, I’ll say it again. If Traitor Reid was to ever get his way, and all the troops pulled out over night, the blood is on HIS hands. The blood of the aftermath and the blood of our brave American men and women who died fighting this war, is on HIS hands. Along with the hands of the rest of the LWL members who have no clue what reality is.

Yet the report also backed many of the administration's arguments: the troop buildup announced in January has created new room for success, and the military can't leave quickly or shift its focus from efforts to stop insurgents and stabilize the Iraqi government.

It’s WORKING.

Earlier this week President Bush said the Iraqi government clearly could do more, but he and his aides quickly sought to tamp down suggestions the administration had lost faith in al-Maliki.

"This is a government that is learning — frankly — learning how to govern," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "No, it is not moving nearly as fast as everyone in Washington, D.C., would like it to move."

That is what I was saying. They are new at this. They have to learn how to do it.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, are due to report next month on how much progress is being made with the buildup, which now has some 162,000 troops, the highest of the four-year-old war.

As of like three days ago.

Among the polarizing questions facing U.S. policymakers is whether and how to reduce the number of forces stationed in Iraq.

Hours after the intelligence report's release, Sen. John Warner, a prominent Republican on military affairs, called on Bush to start bringing some troops home by Christmas. He said the move wouldn't destabilize the country, but could send a clear warning to Iraq that time is running out.

{Sigh}

Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the president needs to develop a consensus at home and give clarity to the Iraqi government about the U.S. course. "Groups in Iraq are making assumptions about what they think we will do, and some of those assumptions are wrong," Hoekstra said.

WHO”S FAULT IS THAT!!! I told you this morning. It’s the MMD and the LWL’s fault. Plain and simple. They get this one right also.

The intelligence report warns against scaling back the mission of U.S. forces. Analysts found that changing the U.S. military's mission from its current focus — countering insurgents and stabilizing the country — in favor of supporting Iraqi forces and stopping terrorists would hurt the security gains of the last six months.

The report said there has been measurable, but uneven, progress. In seven of the last nine weeks, U.S. agencies have seen a downward trend in the levels of attacks, said a senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the report more freely.

WAIT again! There has been “measurable progress?” I thought it was “modest progress.”

The intelligence analysts found that some localized security initiatives could help lessen the violence in the next year, particularly the improved cooperation from some Sunni tribal sheiks who have banded together and turned on al-Qaida in Iraq.

The people are fighting back. This is a GREAT thing. Notice this report is REALLY not as bad as they are leading you to believe.

But those local efforts could also have a downside. The senior intelligence official said it could empower factions that, in some cases, could challenge the authority of the central Iraqi government.

Another but. According to someone who does not want to be named.

The report and senior officials also found:

• Iraq's neighbors will continue to focus on improving their leverage in Iraq, expecting the U.S. and its allies to leave. "Assistance to armed groups, especially from Iran, exacerbates the violence inside Iraq," the report said. Since January, there is mounting evidence of Iran's support for Shiite militants, including highly lethal explosive devices.

More on Iran tomorrow morning.

• Syria has cracked down on al-Qaida networks inside its borders because they threaten Damascus' security. However, Syria is increasing the range of groups it supports in Iraq to bolster its influence there. And it still allows roughly 50 to 80 foreign fighters a month to travel into neighboring Iraq.

• Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states have not supported the al-Maliki government, but they haven't provided arms or other support to Sunni fighters, choosing instead to stay on the sidelines.

All these things that the AP pointed out was to get you to believe that this is a bleak outlook. That things are not going well in Iraq. But they really don’t pull it off to well, because they have to comment on all the positive in the report.

Basically, it tells us what we already know. The report that I’m waiting to see is by General Petraeus. Then we should see what the FACTS are on the ground. But this full court press by the press is to help the LWL get away from their “War is Lost” message and switch gears to the “Political Progress” failure talking points. I told you they would do this. They can no longer say the war is lost, because we are winning. But they cannot stand behind our military either. Once again folks, they cannot afford politically for us to win.
Peter

Sources:
CNN -Sen. Warner: Take steps to bring troops home in September
Reuters- Republican senator: Bush should begin Iraq withdrawal
AP -Report finds Iraqi government precarious

Aftermath of a Great Speech

Hey folks,

What an insanely busy week I’m having. But fret not, I am going to make a major effort to be here with you for the rest of it. Yesterday, President Bush gave what may very well be his greatest speech ever. It was filled with history and lessons learned. Lessons some in Congress NEED to learn. It was more of a gloves off, this is reality, this is fact, than he has done in the past. It was great. THAT is President Bush.

The LWL? They are insane over this. {Laughing} You know they hate facts. They hate truth. If they cannot spin it to the way you SHOULD believe because they tell you so, they get upset.

Traitor and LWL member Nancy Pelosi said this.

"In an attempt to justify his stay-the-course strategy in Iraq, President Bush is offering false lessons from history. The American people have already judged the President's war in Iraq as the wrong war at the wrong time, and are ready for our troops to come home.”

This is COMPLETELY false. As a matter of fact, this is a complete LIE. One, history is as it is. Two, the popular opinion on the war is increasing. More and more Americans WANT us to stay and win. Hell, even some of your own people are starting to say we are winning.

“Whatever improvements in security that may have resulted from the efforts of our troops since the surge began, Iraqi leaders have not done the hard political work on which the future of their country depends. And therefore, the purpose of the surge -- to enable the Iraqis to produce political reconciliation -- has not been accomplished. That is the standard against which Congress and the American people will judge the White House report of September 15.”

Recalculate your message Nancy. I thought that the surge could NOT work? I thought the war was lost? I thought that our military can’t win? Oh, wait we are winning. Uh, “Political Progress.” {Sigh}

“Instead of continuing to spend money and lives in Iraq, the American people want our nation to refocus its efforts against terrorism worldwide, especially in Afghanistan."

No, they don’t. They want to win. They want to defeat this enemy. More and more people would be united for this cause if the Mass Media Drones and you, the LWL, would get untied. You know, like on the steps of the Capital right after 9-11. If we held that position, unity, we could very well have won already.

You know folks, I said back on December 07, 2006

“Let’s say they win. We pull out. We turn Iraq over to "Little Hitler." In 5 years, 1 year, tomorrow, whatever time in the future, if Israel ceases to exist, millions of Jews die, and or we lose a city, I lay the blame at the feet of those in this group, the LWL, and the Mass Media Drones. The blood will be on their hands. The main reason, they have forgotten that not only is this possible, it HAS already happened. They have either forgotten, or their hatred for Bush is causing them to lose reality. Either way, the fault and blame shall be on them.”

On March 25, 2007, “The blood of any other Americans that die in future attacks, if we lose, is on YOUR hands.”

On May 21, 2007, “The blood of our men and women, sons and daughters, is on YOUR hands.”

President Bush, finally said the same thing. Pointing to historical facts.

In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" A columnist for The New York Times wrote in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: "Indochina without Americans: For Most a Better Life."

The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea.

Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields." President Bush.

The LWL cannot handle this truth. But that does not change the fact it IS. John Kerry even came out and said “There was no blood bath in Vietnam.” Really? He also said that the “Re-education camps” were not so bad.

“Antiwar Senator” Sound familiar? The LWL. Traitors Pelosi and Reid. Those that have weekly conference calls with the Moveon.Org lunatics. They are the same Lunatics that came right out a said they OWN the Democrats and THEY run this country.

AP reported.

The president's speech — and another one like it next Tuesday — are intended to set the stage for a crucial report next month on the progress of the fighting and steps toward political reconciliation in Iraq. Democrats in Congress and some Republicans are pressing to start the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

That is simply an insane position to still hold. We are winning. I think that it was not until just two days ago were we even at full numbers for the surge. We are winning. Even Supreme Leader Wannabe Hillary is saying we are winning. Yet they want to pull out? They CANNOT AFFORD VICTORY. They will not survive politically if we win in Iraq.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who addressed the VFW on Tuesday, reacted to Bush's speech, saying there is no military solution to Iraq's problems. He called for increased diplomacy and humanitarian efforts in the region and a "phased withdrawal of our forces that puts real pressure on the Iraqi government to act."

It’s working. This is the same ignorant Senator that said he wanted to invade Pakistan, will not use nuclear weapon under ANY circumstance, and wants to meet with those that want us dead, giving them credibility.

The BBC?

BBC world affairs correspondent Nick Childs says Mr Bush's speech will fuel the controversy over whether he is drawing the right or wrong lessons from history.

Right or wrong lessons? History is what it is. What happened, happened.

Opinion polls suggest that many Americans clearly do not see the stakes or the struggle in the same way, our correspondent says.

Why do you think that is? Could it have something to do with all the agenda driven, LWL funded, and controlled PRESS? Say it isn’t so.

Mr Bush is pressing home these broad themes even more forcefully than before because he faces a very specific short-term political problem, with less than 18 months left as president.

Or maybe he has just had it with the insanity. We are winning. We need to win. They are doing everything in their power to cause our defeat. Yes, I’m talking about these “Antiwar Senators”, not the terrorists.

Here is what the world is thinking about.

Whether his successor will see things in the same ideological and historic terms is, at the very least, open to question, our correspondent adds.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, said this, about the President’s Speech.

“The president this morning rightly identified our current campaign in Iraq as part of a generational struggle between two very different views of the world: one that believes in the promotion of democracy and the dignity of the human spirit, and another whose sole source of legitimacy derives from its ability to destroy human life and disseminate a message of hate, fear and intolerance.”

Remember Nahool the Bee. That is Hamas. But in the big picture, Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, they are all the same. Indoctrinating from youth this message of hate and murder.

“This is a struggle, as the president suggested, that will not be won with a single battle. But while the fight continues at home and overseas, the undeniable progress being made by our troops on the ground has created a new landscape in Iraq, and confronted in a serious way the agents of terror who have staked their campaign on a precipitous withdrawal of American support forces from the region.”

Completely with the help of some in Congress and the MMD.

“Now, as Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker prepare to issue a report on the current status in Iraq, even some Democrats who support surrender and withdrawal have started to acknowledge the successes we've seen across the region. It's now time for the Democratic leadership to decide whether it wants our mission to succeed in Iraq, and come back in September willing to work with us to ensure the safety, security and ultimate success of our troops in the field."

Amen. Not going to happen. But Amen. They cannot afford a victory in Iraq. The Washington Post put it this way.

Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.

Folks, take the time to re-read President Bush’s speech to the VFW. It’s is well worth a second look. This is what I, and many others have been telling you. Finally, the President is telling you the same.
Peter

Sources:
The President
Office of the Speaker of the House
Office of the House Republican Whip Roy Blunt
AP -Bush says he supports Iraq's al-Maliki
BBC -Bush in Vietnam warning over Iraq
Reuters -Democrat split on Iraq may hurt '08 chances: analysts

President Bush Statement Made At The VFW Conference

Kansas City, Missouri

9:46 A.M.

President Bush: Thank you all. Please be seated. It's good to be with you again. I understand you haven't had much of a problem attracting speakers. (Laughter.) I thank you for inviting me. I can understand why people want to come here. See, it's an honor to stand with the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. (Applause.) The VFW is one of this nation's finest organizations. You belong to an elite group of Americans. (Applause.) You belong to a group of people who have defended America overseas. You have fought in places from Normandy to Iwo Jima, to Pusan, to Khe Sahn, to Kuwait, to Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. You brought security to the American people; you brought hope to millions across the world.

As members of this proud organization, you are advocates for the rights of our military veterans, a model of community service, and a strong and important voice for a strong national defense. I thank you for your service. I thank you for what you've done for the United States of America. (Applause.)

I stand before you as a wartime President. I wish I didn't have to say that, but an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, declared war on the United States of America. And war is what we're engaged in. The struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it's a struggle for civilization. We fight for a free way of life against a new barbarism -- an ideology whose followers have killed thousands on American soil, and seek to kill again on even a greater scale.

We fight for the possibility that decent men and women across the broader Middle East can realize their destiny -- and raise up societies based on freedom and justice and personal dignity. And as long as I'm Commander-in-Chief we will fight to win. (Applause.) I'm confident that we will prevail. I'm confident we'll prevail because we have the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known -- the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. (Applause.)

For those of you who wear the uniform, nothing makes me more proud to say that I am your Commander-in-Chief. Thank you for volunteering in the service of the United States of America. (Applause.)

Now, I know some people doubt the universal appeal of liberty, or worry that the Middle East isn't ready for it. Others believe that America's presence is destabilizing, and that if the United States would just leave a place like Iraq those who kill our troops or target civilians would no longer threaten us. Today I'm going to address these arguments. I'm going to describe why helping the young democracies of the Middle East stand up to violent Islamic extremists is the only realistic path to a safer world for the American people. I'm going to try to provide some historical perspective to show there is a precedent for the hard and necessary work we're doing, and why I have such confidence in the fact we'll be successful.

Before I do so I want to thank the national Commander-in-Chief of the VFW and his wife, Nancy. It's been a joy to work with Gary and the staff. Gary said, we don't necessarily agree a hundred percent of the time. I remember the old lieutenant governor of Texas -- a Democrat, and I was a Republican governor. He said, "Governor, if we agreed 100 percent of the time, one of us wouldn't be necessary." (Laughter.)

But here's what we do agree on: We agree our veterans deserve the full support of the United States government. (Applause.) That's why in this budget I submitted there's $87 billion for the veterans; it's the highest level of support ever for the veterans in American history. (Applause.) We agree that health care for our veterans is a top priority, and that's why we've increased health care spending for our veterans by 83 percent since I was sworn in as your President. (Applause.) We agree that a troop coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan deserves the best health care not only as an active duty citizen, but as a military guy, but also as a veteran -- and you're going to get the best health care we can possibly provide. (Applause.) We agree our homeless vets ought to have shelter, and that's what we're providing.

In other words, we agree the veterans deserve the full support of our government and that's what you're going to get as George W. Bush as your President. (Applause.)

I want to thank Bob Wallace, the Executive Director. He spends a lot of time in the Oval Office -- I'm always checking the silverware drawer. (Laughter.) He's going to be bringing in George Lisicki here soon. He's going to be the national commander-in-chief for my next year in office. And I'm looking forward to working with George, and I'm looking forward to working with Wallace, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you. They're going to find an open-minded President, dedicated to doing what's right. (Applause.)

I appreciate Linda Meader, the National President of the Ladies Auxiliary. She brought old Dave with her. (Applause.) Virginia Carman, the incoming President. I want to thank Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield for joining us today. I appreciate the United States Senator from the state of Missouri, strong supporter of the military and strong supporter of the veterans, Kit Bond. (Applause.) Two members of the Congress have kindly showed up today -- I'm proud they're both here: Congressman Emanuel Cleaver -- no finer man, no more decent a fellow than Emanuel Cleaver -- is with us. And a great Congressman from right around the corner here, Congressman Sam Graves. Thank you all for coming. (Applause.)

Lieutenant General Jack Stultz, Commanding General, U.S. Army Reserve Command, is with us today. General, thanks for coming. Lieutenant General Bill Caldwell, Commanding General, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is with us today, as well. General Caldwell, thank you for your service. (Applause.)

Thank you all for letting me come by. I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.

The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.

If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.

Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.

The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia -- a region that brings us countless benefits -- would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. It would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today. And I thank you for your service. (Applause.)

There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important similarity is at their core they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others.

Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous; this enemy is determined; and this enemy will be defeated. (Applause.)

We're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we do know how the others ended -- and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East. The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent whose people want to live in peace with America, not attack America.

At the outset of World War II there were only two democracies in the Far East -- Australia and New Zealand. Today most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all the differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common: Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we listen to criticism of the difficult work our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.

Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that -- and I quote -- "democracy in Japan would never work." He wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that -- and so did the Japanese -- a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: democracy simply wouldn't work.

Others critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would "retard the progress of Japanese politics."

It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. He wrote, "There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence." That's what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's minister of defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House. Other critics argued that democracy-- (Applause.)

There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion -- Shinto -- was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith, and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, "any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure." The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: "The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic."

Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken, and fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.

And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions, and stands as one of the world's great free societies. (Applause.)

You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts" -- he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage."

Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the lynchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)

Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from communist invasion. Then as now, the critics argued that the war was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued that America's intervention was divisive here at home.

After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South -- and found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate endorsed Harry Truman's action, saying, "I welcome the indication of a more definite policy" -- he went on to say, "I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may maintain it intact," then later said "it was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war."

Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States to withdraw from the war in Korea, or expand the war to the Chinese mainland. Others complained that our troops weren't getting the support from the government. One Republican senator said, the effort was just "bluff and bluster." He rejected calls to come together in a time of war, on the grounds that "we will not allow the cloak of national unity to be wrapped around horrible blunders."

Many in the press agreed. One columnist in The Washington Post said, "The fact is that the conduct of the Korean War has been shot through with errors great and small." A colleague wrote that "Korea is an open wound. It's bleeding and there's no cure for it in sight." He said that the American people could not understand "why Americans are doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea."

Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our commitments in Korea. And while it's true the Korean War had its share of challenges, the United States never broke its word.

Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.

Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century. (Applause.)

For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for your service. (Applause.)

Finally, there's Vietnam. This is a complex and painful subject for many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. Then as now, people argued the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end.

The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.

In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" A columnist for The New York Times wrote in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: "Indochina without Americans: For Most a Better Life."

The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea.

Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.

We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating. (Applause.)

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America. (Applause.)

Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.

Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.

In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour -- because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all. (Applause.)

I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives -- and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.

The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere -- if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.

In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the timeless truths about human nature that have made us free.

Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of war, they're tired of dictatorship and corruption, they're tired of despair. They want societies where they're treated with dignity and respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom.

And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the polls -- millions turned out to the polls. And that's why their leaders have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that's why tens of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle East -- and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them.

There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America -- those are the men and women in uniform. Through nearly six years of war, they have performed magnificently. (Applause.) Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world, and liberated more than 50 million citizens. (Applause.)

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. (Applause.) We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed. (Applause.)

Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us. It is critical work to lay the foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all.

A free Iraq is not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across its provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on its books, that the parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation.

Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. (Applause.) A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)

Prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation. And the question now that comes before us is this: Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?

The journey is not going to be easy, as the veterans fully understand. At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an interview with a New York newspaper. He said, "In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished, the democratic system bankrupt."

In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down -- brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today. Others here have been inspired by their fathers and grandfathers and uncles and cousins.

That generation of Americans taught the tyrants a telling lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for a free future for his children. (Applause.) And when America's work on the battlefield was done, the victorious children of democracy would help our defeated enemies rebuild, and bring the taste of freedom to millions.

We can do the same for the Middle East. Today the violent Islamic extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the Nazis, or the Imperial Japanese, or the Soviet communists were of theirs. They are destined for the same fate. (Applause.)

The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the American people will be safer.

Thank you, and God bless. (Applause.)

END 10:29 A.M. CDT

He Who Controls the Youth, Controls The Future.

Hey folks,

While debating the topic of why I truly believe there is such a Liberal agenda in our public school system, the questioner was expecting a three to four page response from me. He was quite surprise when my total response was this.

“He Who Controls the Youth, Controls The Future.”

Another reason the Supreme Leader Wannabe Hillary is pushing to get kids into the system a year earlier. But if there was any doubt to the validity of this statement, one only has to look at Hamas. One only has to look as far as Nahool the Bee.

According to CSM -Hamas's approach to jihad: Start 'em young By Dan .

As a weapon in its struggle with Israel, Nahool the Bee doesn't look like a particularly threatening addition to the Hamas arsenal. He doesn't even have a stinger.

But what the bright yellow star of "Tomorrow's Pioneers" on Hamas-owned Al Aqsa television lacks in muscle he makes up for in fervor. Speaking in a recent episode, Nahool vowed to help take back Jerusalem from the "criminal Jews" and expressed his hope that he and all of his listeners would grow up to become holy warriors.

Suicide bombers.

The show, along with paramilitary-style summer camps for Gazan boys, reveal a key element in Hamas's long-term strategy.

Like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned Hamas, the group takes a patient approach to tapping religious conviction to build political support. It is the movement's youth focus, critics say, that sets it apart from Hamas's rival, Fatah, which controls the West Bank and enjoys US and Israeli support.

Rival? They are not rivals. Hamas is a terrorist organization. The bad guys. Fatah is not. Big difference.

The basic unit of the Hamas organization isn't cells or political committees – it's families. The organization has shown that by introducing children early enough to Hamas's hard-line Islamic thinking, it can recruit lifelong supporters.

"It hurts us so much when the international community misunderstands us," says Samir Abu Mohsen, a senior director at Al Aqsa. "Nahool isn't for teaching hate. It's for teaching children to think in the right way, to socialize them in our culture's way of life, and, of course, to remind them of their rights to the land that was taken from us."

STOP! Are you kidding me? "Nahool isn't for teaching hate?” Well, here you go folks, watch this Nahool Video, you judge for yourself.

In case you did not catch all that, here is the transcript.

Nahool: “You and we will liberate the sad Al-Aqsa that is waiting for us. Yes, we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews, who killed my grandfather, and killed Farfur, and history will bear witness to that…”

A young caller, Sabah, is asked what she wants to be when she grows up.

Sabah: “Journalist.”

Saraa', girl in studio: “Wow, journalist! Nahool, we need journalists.”

Nahool: "Why? So that… so that they will photograph the Jews when they are killing Farfur and the little children?

Saraa’: “Yes, Nahool.”

Another young caller says: “We will go on [the path] of Jihad when we grow up.”

Nahool: “Yes, we are all Jihad warriors.

Saraa’: “Allah willing.”

[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), July 20, 2007]

The killing of Farfur referred to by Nahool, the bee, was from a previous episode when beloved Farfur, the Mickey Mouse look-alike, was beaten to death by an Israeli interrogator. In an earlier program a child called in and insisted the Jews were dogs because they killed Farfur. So the propaganda may be working.

That’s NOT teaching hatred? Of course it is. Back to the CSM article.

Mohammed Ramadan, the young man who dons the Nahool costume and who also played Farfur before that character's televised martyrdom, says he's been "shocked" by international allegations that his characters teach children to hate.

"Look, Israeli aggression against us is a fact, they kicked these children's grandparents and parents from their homes, and we're not allowed to talk about this?" he asks. "They need to know."

They have not said that they would wipe YOU off the face of the map. The land is theirs.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ramadan says that he won't cross certain "red lines." "A red line would be telling children to go kill Israelis. But talking about our right to our land, to one day return? That's not a red line. That's what they need to know."

But you do Promote killing Jews.

"Nahool exists for two things," says Mr. Mohsen. "Teaching basic stuff like respect for adults, looking twice before crossing the road, and respecting the environment. But No. 2, we want to make sure they remember that we're exiles from our own land, land they have to be committed to regaining."

It’s not yours. The rest is bunk. Yes respect your parents. If they tell you to go strap a bomb on yourself, do it. Right? Get this.

"Life is so tough here we say our children are born men, but they're still just kids,'' says Mohammed, who runs the Abu Musab Hamas camp in central Gaza and asked that his full name not be used. As he speaks, rows of painfully polite 10-year-olds in green Hamas hats file off the beach at the end of the day. "They need entertainment and we give it to them, with a single goal: To get their attention so they develop good Islamic manners, bond their egos to the group, and integrate them into the right way of life."

Which is EXACTLY what the Liberal agenda is by the way. But this is NOT harmless camping folks.

Though Mohammed mentions soccer, public safety lessons, and basic Muslim teaching, he fails to mention that many of the Gaza camps also include a paramilitary element. A Hamas official says that such training is reserved for boys over 16, but a photographer who recently visited a camp in central Gaza and others say much younger boys also take part in paramilitary exercises.

In one Gaza City camp, boys practiced field drills with wooden pistols and crawled under barbed wire while being harangued by an adult drill instructor. Teenage boys undergo a tougher regimen that includes hand-to-hand combat and exhausting exercise. Boys that break discipline are sometimes beaten with sticks, said the photographer.

"Are the camps an important part of our strategy? Of course," says Museb Malik, who runs the First Educational Childhood camp where children are divided into groups named after cities – Haifa, Acre, and Japfa – that Israel now controls and Hamas would like to someday regain. "But we're also filling an important social function. These children need something to take their minds off of the violence."

Typical Liberal double talk. Translation? We are taking their minds off violence by teaching them violence?

Mehmet Gishrawi, a dimpled 9-year-old at the camp, stands beneath a poster of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, and explains that he had trouble sleeping after he survived an airstrike two years ago that claimed his cousin and 20 other neighbors.

"I have had a lot of fun, I've learned a lot," he says. "I'm not as afraid now."

Yes, they are helping the kids. They are doing it all for the kids. It’s a good thing. Right?

I repeat, he who controls the youth, controls the future. It really is, just that simple.
Peter

Now The Press Thinks THEY Are Commander and Chief

Hey folks,

Happy Monday to you. I understand slow news days. I understand that August is pretty much a slow news month. But this is irresponsible journalism to say the least. Basically Journalistic Malpractice.

Get this, from the AP -Extending Iraq buildup would be tough By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Sun Aug 19, 12:48 PM ET

Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year,

So who is saying this? Ex-Generals? The White House? Current Generals? Nope. Not even the Democrats. It’s the AP. This AP writer, Lolita C. Baldor.

according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

_Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

Says her.

_Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

Says her.

_Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

Says her.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable.

They are not written anywhere either. These are strictly her speculations. Her opinion.

In Iraq, there are 18 Army brigades, each with about 3,500 soldiers. At least 13 more brigades are scheduled to rotate in. Two others are in Afghanistan and two additional ones are set to rotate in there. Also, several other brigades either are set for a future deployment or are scattered around the globe.

The few units that are not at war, in transformation or in their 12-months home time already are penciled in for deployments later in 2008 or into 2009. Shifting them would create problems in the long-term schedule.

Says WHO?

Most Army brigades have completed two or three tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; some assignments have lasted as long as 15 months. The 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, has done four tours.

Two Marine regiments — each roughly the same size as an Army brigade — also in Iraq,_ bringing the total number of brigades in the country to 20.

So this is news because? Other than helping the enemy determine the count?

When asked what units will fill the void in the coming spring if any need to be replaced, officials give a grim shake of the head, shrug of the shoulders or a palms-up, empty-handed gesture.

WHO?

"The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply," the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, said last week. "Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don't go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces" for other missions.

Where and why did he say this? It couldn’t possibly be because of funding. Could it?

Casey said he would not be comfortable extending troops beyond their 15-month deployments. But other military officials acknowledge privately that option is on the table.

Uh, so?

Pentagon leaders hope there is enough progress in Iraq to allow them to scale back at least part of the nearly 30,000-strong buildup when soldiers begin leaving Iraq around March and April.

There are 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, the highest level since the war began in 2003. That figure is expected to hit 171,000 this fall as fresh troops rotate in.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq who will deliver a much anticipated progress report to Congress in September, said Wednesday he is considering possible troop cuts and believes the U.S. will have fewer forces in Iraq by next summer.

That is what this is all about folks. The report is expected to say we are winning. Because of this fact, we can start cutting troops in Iraq. This will be a sign of defeat for the Mass Media Drones and the LWL. They continue to attempt to make it seem all is lost. That we cannot win. They truly want you to believe this. So if they can report the bad, they do. If they can’t, they’ll just make stuff up.

That is what this piece is all about. We cannot win. We cannot continue to support the surge. We do not have enough men and women to pull it off. Thankfully, Ms. Baldor is NOT the Commander and Chief.

Other commanders have said the security situation is improving, which would allow U.S. troops to be shifted from combat and lead to an eventual force reduction.

And this is Bad?

Still, Petraeus and other military leaders have warned against drawing down too quickly. In fact, an upbeat progress report in September may solidify arguments that additional troops should stay longer to ensure that positive changes stick.

"The longer that you keep American forces there, the longer you give this process to solidify and to make sure that it's not going to slide back," said Frederick Kagan, an American Enterprise Institute analyst who recently returned from an eight-day visit to Iraq. "The sooner you take them out, the more you run the risk that enemies will come in and try to disrupt."

Again, this is bad?

Kagan, a leading supporter of the current buildup strategy, said any decision to maintain force levels would have to take into account the effects on the Army. That would include, he said, the strains of sending Guard units back to Iraq more rapidly than Pentagon policy allows or keeping active duty units there longer than 15 months.

"You have the same tradeoff at every moment in this process, which is the institutional well-being of the Army versus what is felt is necessary to win the war," Kagan said.

According to military officials, some soldiers in Iraq are hearing that it may not be wise to pack their bags to come home when their 15-month tour is up. But to date, Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have said they have no plans to extend those tours.

There are no plans to extent tours. So this whole “Don’t Pack” thing is simple propaganda.

National Guard officials are bracing for a new round of Guard deployments and a move to decrease their time at home between tours — despite announced plans to give the citizen soldiers five years off for every one year served.

One Guard official said this past week that the Army is pushing to give Guard units four years or less at home in order to get access to those combat brigades sooner.

Last April the Pentagon notified National Guard brigades in four states that they should be prepared to deploy to Iraq later this year. But documents obtained by the AP show that Guard units in five states — Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma and Minnesota — are scheduled to deploy to Iraq before the end of the year. A New York Guard unit is set to go to Afghanistan.

Later this year, before the end of the year? What’s the difference?

The shortage of combat units will be remedied over time. The Pentagon slowly is increasing the size of the active-duty Army by 65,000 members to 547,000 by 2012. The 38 combat brigades currently available for war will expand to 48 by 2013.

Again, let’s tell the enemy all the numbers we have. Brilliant. But let’s say there was a shortage. She even goes on to say that it will be remedied. So? Again, what’s the point?

The Iraqis hold the key to any U.S. withdrawals. The government in Baghdad has made little progress on political changes the Pentagon says are critical to restoring stability to the country, thus allowing U.S. troops to begin leaving.

If progress is not made and the violence does not abate, the Pentagon will turn again to the Army.

"The Army will do what's necessary and will pay a very high price if necessary," said Kagan. "but I'm hopeful that it won't come to that and I honestly don't think that it will."

Folks, I’ll tell you the truth. I was going to cut this short. All it is, is a surface story to attempt to get people that cannot think for themselves stirred up. “We are going to run out of troops. We are going to start treating our military like slaves. We cannot win,, uh,, OK we are winning, but,,uh, the Iraqi Government is failing. Yeah, that’s it.” But there is no depth. No real facts to support her claims. If you scratch the surface, you find nothing.

However I decided to let you read the whole thing here. The sad thing is though, there are ACTUALLY people out there that WILL buy this bunk. The same ones that visit the Huffy Post and read the NYT. You know, Sheepeople. Those that cannot think for themselves.
Peter

IWA For Sunday 081907

Hey folks,

It’s Sunday! Time for the IWA.

This weeks winner shows how worrying about material things and money, can destroy lives. I have often said, and will again now, I loath money. If it were not for those around me that seem to love it, and love taking it from me, I would have no use for it.

I have seen too many good people go bad. I have seen too many families torn apart. All for the love of money. In some areas of society, Banks and the Stock Market have replaces Churches. Money has replaced God. This is not a good thing. Look at all the panic whenever the Stock Market goes through a correction.

So this type of thing is not so far fetched. According to Reuters -Professor found guilty of staging own shooting By Scott Malone Fri Aug 17, 3:08 PM ET

A judge on Friday found a former professor at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology guilty of shooting himself and trying to shift blame to his son as part of a long-running family feud.

The case revolved around a night in December 2005 when John J. Donovan, who taught business for three decades at the famed U.S. science and technology university, called police to allege that two men with Russian accents had shot him as he sat in his minivan.

Have to give him an A for effort, and dedication.

As police investigated the case, they found some evidence that seemed to contradict that claim.

Donovan, who had a bullet wound in his side when police found him, said he survived the attack because a large metal belt buckle had deflected some of the shots. The belt bore bullet marks but a doctor who examined him did not find injuries that would have been expected if Donovan been wearing it while it was hit, prosecutors said.

We take these allegations and go where the facts lead us, state Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Donovan, now 65, was found guilty of filing a false police report. He had pleaded innocent and denied shooting himself.

Prosecutors said he shot himself and planned to pin the attack on his oldest son, James Donovan. The Donovan family has been entangled in a dispute over real estate for years.

All over money folks.

Middlesex Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fishman ordered the elder Donovan to serve two years' probation, stay away from his children and pay a $500 fine.

Through a spokesman, Donovan said he was disappointed and surprised and he planned to appeal.

What is he arguing? “I went through all this trouble and pain of shooting myself, and you want me to pay $500.00?” He should be lucky he is not serving jail time.

Donovan retired from MIT in 1997 to found a consulting firm. He is a well known expert on business and technology.

Apparently not an expert in forensics.

When Donovan called police to report the shooting, he begged them to send someone to his home in the wealthy Boston suburb of Hamilton, saying he feared his wife was in danger.

Mr. Donovan's behaviour was bizarre and premeditated, Coakley told reporters. For the family members and the very small Hamilton police department, the episode was upsetting, it was unnerving and ... it was expensive and time consuming.

She estimated that state authorities spent $50,000 (25,000 pounds) to $100,000 investigating the case.

Of which he should also be forced to pay back. Sorry Mr. Donovan, but for putting money before family, and thinking that you could get away with the elaborate hoax, you ARE the Idiot of the week.
Peter

H.S. For Sunday 081907

Hey folks,

Happy Sunday to you. This one is just too funny. I had to share this. I figure starting the day with a good laugh is therapeutic, so here you go.

Turns out that according to this Dr. Randolph Nesse, there is a very good reason for you having fear in your life. If you are down, or feeling anxiety, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. Going against the common psychobabble popular opinion, he will tell you that these are simply adaptations you have gone through during Evolution. Listen to this “story” and the solution. This is too funny.

According to Live Science -The Evolution of Anxiety

I’m standing frozen in terror at the entrance of an amusement park, holding the hand of an excited child, and thinking, “No. No, No. I can’t go in here.”

My kid unhooks her hand, wipes the sweat on her skirt, and says sweetly, “It will be OK, Mommy. You can pick the first ride because you’re so scared,”

Alert as a rabbit in a hunter’s field, I scan a few rides and choose one designed to delight a 5-year-old. It’s called Starship America, a ring of tiny rockets built for two. It goes around and around and then each rocket goes up and down.

Piece of cake, I think.

But as we climb aboard one of those rockets-of-death, my anxiety rises up like bubbling magma and takes over my body. My heart races, my breathing grows shallow, and I want to jump out of that steel air-coffin and run run run away.

I am ashamed of my fear until I think about the work of Randolph Nesse, a psychiatrist at the University of Michigan.

Nesse is a Darwinian psychiatrist interested in applying evolutionary theory to traditional views of mental illness. Instead of calling mood disorders such as anxiety or depression “illnesses,” he believes there might be good evolutionary reasons for feeling blue or scared; these feelings are not necessarily diseases or disorders, but adaptations.

For example, successful, competent people with seemingly great lives present at Nesse’s clinic feeling depressed, but not knowing why. Nesse asks the usual psychiatric questions, but he also asks broader questions about their lives. Was there a goal not achieved? What’s going on with the path of their lives? Embedded in those questions can be major issues that explain why someone has lost hope, despite the trappings of a “perfect life.”

Who says what is a perfect life? Just curious.

Retreating into depression in the face of perceived failure makes evolutionary sense, Nesse points out, and his job is to help patients find hope again.

It’s not your fault.

Fear in a space ship also has evolutionary roots. Anxiety is an extended version of the fight–or-flight response which evolved to keep us alive; an animal without fear is a dead animal. But humans have a penchant for dragging the fight-or-flight response into every situation and holding onto it until we are sick.

What helps, Nesse claims, is realizing anxiety is not necessarily a bad thing but a good thing, because anxiety attacks often keeps us from certain unpleasant situations.

I know someone who get Anxiety attacks on a semi normal bases. I guess I should just tell my friend that it’s a good thing.

I could imagine Nesse sitting in the next rocket, talking to me above the happy screams of those around me.

“Look,” he might say, “You’re whizzing around in the air in a capsule and humans didn’t evolve to be in this situation. It is indeed scary. You have your child in that rocket and you are appropriately terrified she will fall out. It makes sense, and it will be over soon.”

What a complete bunch of bunk. OK, leaving aside that even Dr. Nesse cannot prove Evolution to begin with. If nothing added to nothing is nothing, nothing taken from nothing is nothing, where did the first something come from? Why would we not be in rocket ships? We can do whatever we put our minds to. We are not mindless and soulless animals. We have gone from horse and carriage, and candle light, since the beginning of mankind, to laser beams and space travel, in about the last 100 years.

This is simply one psychobabblist hyping another. Meredith F. Small is an anthropologist at Cornell University.

So to all of you out there that feel that you are in need of this type of “help,” remember, your anxiety is normal. There is nothing wrong with you. You are fine. You are just feeling the adaptations of Evolution. All is well.

Amazing.
Peter

Presidential Radio Address for 081807

President Bush: Good morning.

In recent months, American and Iraqi forces have struck powerful blows against al Qaeda terrorists and violent extremists in Anbar and other provinces. In recent days, our troops and Iraqi allies launched a new offensive called Phantom Strike. In this offensive, we are carrying out targeted operations against terrorists and extremists fleeing Baghdad and other key cities -- to prevent them from returning or setting up new bases of operation. The terrorists remain dangerous and brutal, as we saw this week when they massacred more than 200 innocent Yezidis, a small religious minority in northwestern Iraq. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed, and our troops are going to go after the murderers behind this horrific attack.

As we surge combat operations to capture and kill the enemy, we are also surging Provincial Reconstruction Teams to promote political and economic progress. Since January, we have doubled the number of these teams, known as PRTs. They bring together military, civilian, and diplomatic personnel to help Iraqi communities rebuild infrastructure, create jobs, and encourage reconciliation from the ground up. These teams are now deployed throughout the country, and they are helping Iraqis make political gains, especially at the local level.

In Anbar province, at this time last year, the terrorists were in control of many areas and brutalizing the local population. Then local sheikhs joined with American forces to drive the terrorists out of Ramadi and other cities. Residents began to provide critical intelligence, and tribesmen joined the Iraqi police and security forces. Today, the provincial council in Ramadi is back, and last month provincial officials re-opened parts of the war-damaged government center with the help of one of our PRTs. Thirty-five local council members were present as the chairman called the body to order for its inaugural session.

Similar scenes are taking place in other parts of Anbar. Virtually every city and town in the province now has a mayor and a functioning municipal council. The rule of law is being restored. And last month, some 40 judges held a conference in Anbar to restart major criminal trials. In the far west town of al Qaim, tribal leaders turned against the terrorists. Today, those tribal leaders head the regional mayor's office and the local police force. Our PRT leader on the ground reports that al Qaim is seeing new construction, growing commercial activity, and an increasing number of young men volunteering for the Iraqi army and police.

In other provinces, there are also signs of progress from the bottom up. In Muthanna, an overwhelmingly Shia province, the local council held a public meeting to hear from citizens on how to spend their budget and rebuild their neighborhoods. In Diyala province, the city of Baqubah re-opened six of its banks, providing residents with much-needed capital for the local economy. And in Ninewa province, local officials have established a commission to investigate corruption, with a local judge empowered to pursue charges of fraud and racketeering.

Unfortunately, political progress at the national level has not matched the pace of progress at the local level. The Iraqi government in Baghdad has many important measures left to address, such as reforming the de- Baathification laws, organizing provincial elections, and passing a law to formalize the sharing of oil revenues. Yet, the Iraqi parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation.

And despite the lack of oil revenue law on the books, oil revenue sharing is taking place. The Iraqi parliament has allocated more than $2 billion in oil revenue for the provinces. And the Shia-led government in Baghdad is sharing a significant portion of these oil revenues with Sunni provincial leaders in places like Anbar.

America will continue to urge Iraq's leaders to meet the benchmarks they have set. Yet Americans can be encouraged by the progress and reconciliation that are taking place at the local level. An American politician once observed that "all politics is local." In a democracy, over time national politics reflects local realities. And as reconciliation occurs in local communities across Iraq, it will help create the conditions for reconciliation in Baghdad as well.

Thank you for listening.

Someone Has To Ask This

Hey folks,

It is Saturday morning, August 18, 2007. I came into the office to start the normal process of scanning the news to see what is going on out there. {As a side note, Thank you to all of you for your Birthday wishes.} Then this one story jumped out at me. One has to ask this question. “What is going on?”

Now I know the Chicken Little Crowd will have a field day with this one. Since there is no such thing as Global Warming, I will just laugh at them and most likely poke a little fun at them when it happens. But someone really needs to look into this a little deeper.

First we had the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse on August 01, 2007. Then on August 13, 2007,

“At least 39 people were missing after the 320-metre (1,000-foot) concrete arc bridge spanning the Tuo river in Fenghuang county, Hunan province, collapsed on Monday during the evening rush hour, Xinhua news agency said.”

I asked “What, No Global Warming? Not Bush’s Fault? You know, the way the Looneys blamed ours on Global Warming and the President?

Then on August 6, 2007, we had the Utah Mine Collapse. This is not looking good at this point. According to the AP- Rescuers suspend effort at Utah mine By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer

Rescuers still cling to the hope that six trapped coal miners — will be found alive, but they are running out of time — and options — after a second mine collapse killed three among their ranks.

Officials declared it too dangerous to tunnel inside the mountain, instead pinning their hopes on a fourth hole being drilled into the mountain to look for any sign of the missing men and deliver food and water to them if they are alive.

"Is there any possible way we can continue this underground operation and provide safety for the rescue workers? At this point we don't have an answer," federal Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Richard Stickler said Friday as he announced that officials had suspended the rescue operation indefinitely.

Three rescue workers were killed and six injured in Thursday night's collapse. Rescuers working beneath 2,000 feet of sandstone had dug more than 800 feet over 10 days, with about 1,200 feet left to go, when they were hit with the huge blast.

The cave-in at 6:39 p.m. was believed to be caused by a "mountain bump," shifting layers of earth. Coal flew from the reinforced walls with a force Stickler said could break a 40-ton mining machine in half.

Now of course the owners of the Mine have insisted the whole time that it was an earth quake that caused the original collapse. Not true reports MSNBC and LiveScience.

The mine collapse last night that killed and injured rescuers at a Utah coal mine generated seismic waves that reveal the event was a collapse and not a natural earthquake, seismologists say.

And increasingly strong evidence also supports the claim that the magnitude-3.9 seismic event that initially trapped six miners on Aug. 6 was the mine collapse itself and also not a natural earthquake, say seismologists at the University of Utah.

So what DID cause it?

Then this morning, THIS jumped right out at me. According to the AP- Flooding traps 181 Chinese miners By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer

Floodwaters from heavy rains poured into two coal mines in a town in eastern China, leaving 181 miners trapped and feared dead, government officials and state media said Saturday.

There was no word on whether there was any sign of life in the mines or when rescuers might enter them. Two high-speed pumps reportedly were being rushed in to drain the flooded shafts.

A dike on the Wen river in Shandong province broke Friday afternoon, sending water gushing into a mine run by the Huayuan Mining Co. in the city of Xintai and trapping 172 miners, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Work areas were submerged and the miners "had only slim chances of survival," Xinhua said, citing Wang Ziqi, director of Shandong's coal mine safety agency. There was no indication whether rescuers had any sign the miners were alive.

Friday night, nine more miners were trapped when floodwaters poured into Xintai's Minggong Coal Mine, Xinhua and China National Radio reported.

OK. We have a collapse of two bridges with no explanation. We have a collapse of a Mine in Utah, that was NOT due to and earthquake, and a Dike that broke flooding a Mine in China. Sorry, I do not believe in coincidences. Even if you were to believe that “Things happen.” you have to wonder about these.

We also cannot ignore all the tainted food and toys that have come out of China. This is another area of concern. For years we never had problems with this. Then all of a sudden we do? Could there be a connection? All of these things happening at the same time? What about the fact that North Korea has already threatened us may times in the past and came right out and said they would use Nuclear Weapons against us? Could there be a connection there? While we are focused on Iraq? I’m not saying anything definitively. It just seems to me to be interesting that all these things have just occurred in a very short span of time.


Someone somewhere has to start asking questions. These events are far too “coincidental” to ignore.
Peter

OPNTalk -Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
OPNTalk-What, No Global Warming? Not Bush’s Fault?
MSNBC-Utah mine collapse caused seismic waves
AP- Rescuers suspend effort at Utah mine
AP- Flooding traps 181 Chinese miners

This Is Why I Call Them The MMD

Hey folks,

FINALLY! It’s Friday. Happy Friday to you. I am completely drained. Yesterday was a day that just sucked just about everything I had out. But being the consummate professional I AM, I am here with you ANYWAY. {Smile}

I have been asked why I call some in the Mass Media the MMD. That stands for Mass Media Drones. Now I have already told you and proven that there is a MMD Guru. His name? George Soros. I have already told you that they have a Liberal Agenda. They love to keep you fearful. They love doom and gloom. They HATE President Bush.

Here are some more examples of what I am talking about. We now have a Tropical Storm hitting Texas. We have a Hurricane moving around out there. Not expected to hit us, but it’s out there. So what was in the news yesterday morning? Yup. Katrina. Get this. From the USA Today, ALL or these.

USA Today -Katrina victims struggle mentally

Many Gulf Coast residents still feel the wallop of Hurricane Katrina nearly two years later.

Mental illness is double the pre-storm levels, rising numbers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and there is a surge in adults who say they're thinking of suicide.

A government survey released Wednesday to USA TODAY shows no improvement in mental health from a year ago.

About 14% have symptoms of severe mental illness. An additional 20% have mild to moderate mental illness, says Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School, who led the study.

The big surprise: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which typically goes away in a year for most disaster survivors, has increased: 21% have the symptoms vs. 16% in 2006. Common symptoms include the inability to stop thinking about the hurricane, nightmares and emotional numbness.

We already know that this is caused by Global Warming and Bush himself. Then this.

USA Today -Gulf Coast kids of every class affected by Katrina

Nearly two years after it hit, Hurricane Katrina continues to wreak havoc in the lives of many Gulf Coast children of every socioeconomic class, says Corey Hebert, a New Orleans pediatrician.

"The difference is, the poor ones ended up stranded on a bridge with no food or water for three days," he says, "while the better-off ones saw it on TV. Their houses may have been destroyed, but they weren't here to see it. If you had kids and a car that worked, generally you weren't here."

Spared the brunt of physical trauma, many affluent children are doing better than the poor ones, Hebert says. But families came back to demolished neighborhoods and new financial strains, discovering they'd lost friends or relatives who had left town. So Hebert says he sees plenty of middle-class kids with anxiety and depression linked to Katrina's effects.

Panic attacks during rainy weather are common, says Hebert, but therapists to treat childhood panic are very scarce.

What really rips him apart is seeing what's become of some kids who were doing so well before Katrina, Hebert says. There's the "smart, articulate" 14-year-old whose house was destroyed and now smokes two packs of cigarettes a day — he learned to smoke from adults while evacuated to Houston. Now he's jammed into a house with about a dozen other people, because there's no rebuilding money yet.

So PTSD and the Poor black kids are suffering more than the Rich kids. This just smells of Race and economic divisionism. Of course, Bush and Republicans in general are at fault. You know, being the racists and greedy bastards they are. Then THIS

USA Today -Trauma shapes Katrina's kids

New Orleans pediatrician Corey Hebert dreads the rainy weeks when he knows he'll face about 20 sobbing, screaming children in full-blown panic attacks.

"They can't be calmed because they're terrified another hurricane is coming," he says. Parents bring them in because there are no therapists around.

Hebert says about 5% of children in his medical practice had mental-health problems before Hurricane Katrina; now it's 50%.

Psychologist Leslie Higgins, whose suburban practice is full, sees storm-related trouble daily. "If they were prone to anxiety, they've become more anxious. If they were prone to acting out, they've become much more defiant and irritable. Many are depressed, and this is how depression shows up in kids."

Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, the toll the storm and slow recovery are taking on Gulf Coast children will be among the topics covered at the American Psychological Association meeting. The conference begins Friday in San Francisco.

SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!! {Sigh} Folks, this is ALL by one author, Marilyn Elias. These were ALL on the front of the USA -Yahoo news site. Do you see the pattern? I wonder how long they have had these ready to go. Just WAITING and hoping for a storm to appear.

Then the other big news in the morning was Rumsfeld’s resignation letter. Here it is.

Dear Mr. President:

With my resignation as secretary of defense comes my deep appreciation to you for providing me this unexpected opportunity to serve.

I leave with great respect for you and for the leadership you have provided during a most challenging time for our country. The focus, determination and perseverance you have so consistently provided have been needed and are impressive.

It has been the highest honor of my long life to have been able to serve our country at such a critical time in our history and to have had the privilege of working so closely with the truly amazing young men and women in uniform. Their dedication, professionalism, courage and sacrifice are an inspiration.

It is time to conclude my service. As I do so, I want you to know that you have my continuing and heartfelt support as you enter the final two years of your presidency.

Respectfully,
Donald Rumsfeld

The AP reported it this way.

AP -Rumsfeld resignation letter omits 'Iraq' By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press WriterWed Aug 15, 11:41 PM ET

The word "Iraq" doesn't appear in former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation letter. Neither does the word "war." In fact, the deadly and much-criticized conflict that eventually drummed him out of office, comes up only in vague references, such as "a critical time in our history" and "challenging time for our country," in the four-paragraph, 148-word letter he wrote to President Bush a day before the Nov. 7, 2006 election.

To: xxxxxx
From Peter Carlock xxx

Please consider this as my letter of resignation. My last day of work will be xxxxx

Sincerely,
Peter Carlock xxx

An actual letter of resignation of mine. WHAT’S the point? Who cares if it was four paragraphs and 148 words? Who cares if he did not use the word war, or Iraq? What does any of that mean? The AP went to GREAT length to get this letter.

According to a stamp on the letter, Bush's office acknowledged receipt the next day, as voters were going to the polls. Bush announced Rumsfeld's departure a day later, after the massive anti-war vote that swept Democrats into control of the House and Senate.

The elusive letter — which the Pentagon denied existed as recently as April — surfaced this week in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests by The Associated Press.

But it sheds no light on why Rumsfeld believed he should leave his post after directing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly five years.

Instead Rumsfeld, in his last paragraph, says only, "It is time to conclude my service."

SO? They are fishing folks.

A request for the resignation letter, submitted last Nov. 13, was finally answered in April. At that time, Will Kammer, chief of the Pentagon's Office of Information, said that a thorough search of the records "revealed no records responsive to your request." A second request was submitted.

The Pentagon had no answer for why the letter suddenly surfaced this week.

It’s a conspiracy! Those wascally Republicans are at it again. They are lying to the American people. They are covering something up. Do not trust them.

Finally, just because of time, you had this.

AP -Bush pushes agenda — without Congress By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 16

The door is closing rapidly on President Bush's opportunity to shape domestic policy.

His strength is sapped by an unpopular war, Democrats are running Congress and the 2008 presidential election is in full roar, distracting attention from the president's priorities. With dwindling options, Bush has decided he might get more done in his final months by going it alone.

Outgoing presidents often unleash a flurry of executive orders and regulations in last-minute attempts to leave their mark on U.S. policy. Frustrated by Congress' inability or unwillingness to pass the president's agenda, the administration already is taking steps to do it through executive action.

I keep talking about this. Remember, what the AP is saying here.

With his immigration bill dead, the administration rolled out a proposed rule to address some of the major issues in the failed legislation. It will tighten border security, streamline guest-worker programs and pressure employers to fire illegal immigrant workers.

Bush said it was an example of acting within the boundaries of existing law when Congress failed to act.

Energy is another area where Bush is ready to go solo.

In his State of the Union address in January, Bush urged Congress to expand the use of alternative fuels to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The president's energy proposal — dubbed 20 in 10 — aims to cut gasoline use by 20 percent in 10 years.

With the House and Senate struggling to compromise on their own energy measures, the president asked the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Cabinet secretaries to see how much of his energy proposal could be done through regulation — without congressional action.

"The president hopes Congress will return to Washington in September ready to work," said Joel Kaplan, Bush's deputy chief of staff for policy. "Now with that said, of course we're considering things that the president can do through his executive and administrative authorities. But, again, there's a long way to go in the legislative calendar."

"The president hopes Congress will return to Washington in September ready to work?" That would be nice. Different. But nice. Here is the “Expert" that the AP decided to use to evaluate the Presidents last days. {Laughing}

John Podesta, former White House chief of staff for President Clinton, said Bush is "running into a brick wall in Congress" and will be forced to use executive action to further his domestic policy desires.

"Hardly a bill goes by that he doesn't issue a veto threat," Podesta said. "The places where he could find common ground, he's in a `Just say no' mode. I find that kind of surprising given the place he's at in his presidency."

That’s because they are insane ideas by some who think they are the President. Bush may be coming to the end of the road, but he has not lost what is right and wrong.

This is an interesting slip up. Look how they end this article.

Kaplan said Bush could use his bully pulpit and veto threats along with executive orders and regulation to push his agenda, but that the president probably wouldn't follow Clinton's lead.

"I'm not sure you'll see this president or this administration trying to jam a number of midnight regulations through the door," Kaplan said.

I do not like Executive Orders. I understand that at times, they may have their use, but as a whole, I do not like them. The tone of this, up to the end, is that we need to be careful. The President could just wave a pen, and get whatever he wants. Like Clinton did. Like Hillary says she WILL.

Yes, the MMD sometimes reminds me of that old Saturday Night Live skit, “Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Bridges and Mine collapses, Global Warming, War, Pestilence, floods, fires, and of course, the collapse of the economy. That’s the news, and have a great tomorrow.”
Peter

Sources:
USA Today -Katrina victims struggle mentally
USA Today -Gulf Coast kids of every class affected by Katrina
USA Today -Trauma shapes Katrina's kids
AP -Rumsfeld resignation letter omits 'Iraq'
AP -Bush pushes agenda — without Congress

Environmental Wackos Caused The Katrina Death Toll

Hey folks,

Now let me start out by saying this. I love nature. I love when “Mother Nature” shows her stuff. We build our million dollar houses on sand, and then wonder why they go bye, bye, when the good “Mother” blows. I am all for trying to keep the Earth as clean and free from landfill waste as possible. I want Joshua to grow up strong and healthy and enjoy “Mother Nature.” Of course he will also learn who put Mother Nature here. {Smile}

By I have always had a major problem with the Environmental Wackos out there. Seriously. I’m all for making sure we do not hunt a certain species to extinction, but if my family is starving, and there is a spotted owl sitting a few feet away? We are about to have us a BBQ. Sorry, PEOPLE come first.

I know, I know, you are waiting for me to get to the title. Environmental Wackos Caused The Katrina Death Toll. Well, in essence, they DID. Among many other things. Now I’m not saying that those that chose to build New Orleans under sea level were the smartest people, but I just saw this piece last night by Walter E. Williams.

Walter E. Williams is a great writer and a pretty good fill in host for Rush, when he goes to play gulf. A friend of mine told me I should tune in when he is hosting and I did the last time. He really is pretty good. He wrote this article over at World Net Daily, The deadly cost of environmentalism.

Environmentalists, with the help of politicians and other government officials, have an agenda that has cost thousands of American lives.

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in 1965, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building flood gates on Lake Pontchartrain, like those in the Netherlands that protect cities from North Sea storms. In 1977, the gates were about to be built, but the Environmental Defense Fund and Save Our Wetlands sought a court injunction to block the project.

According to John Berlau's recent book, "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health," U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse told the court that not building the gates could kill thousands of New Orleanians. Judge Charles Schwartz issued the injunction despite the evidence refuting claims of environmental damage.

So because of the Environmental Wackos, NOT GW Bush, nothing was done. A fix could have been made and New Orleans may have been saved. Now there is something you do not get in the Mainstream Media.

Why is no one asking questions about this? Why is the blame not being placed where it belongs? OH, yeah, most Environmental Wackos are also LWL members. But Mr. Williams does not stop there. He shifted gears and wrote this.

We're told that DDT is harmful to humans and animals. Berlau, a research fellow at the Washington, D.C-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, says, "Not a single study linking DDT exposure to human toxicity has ever been replicated." In one long-term study, volunteers ate 32 ounces of DDT for a year and a half, and 16 years later, they suffered no increased risk of adverse health effects.

"Not a single study linking DDT exposure to human toxicity has ever been replicated."

Despite evidence that, properly used, DDT is neither harmful to humans nor animals, environmental extremists fight for a continued ban. This has led to millions of illnesses and deaths from malaria, especially in Africa. After WWII, DDT saved millions upon millions of lives in India, Southeast Asia and South America. In some cases, malaria deaths fell to near zero. With bans on DDT, malaria deaths and illnesses have skyrocketed.

That is true.

Environmental extremists see DDT in a different light. Alexander King, co-founder of the Club of Rome, said, "In Guyana, within almost two years, it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time, the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it greatly added to the population problem." Jeff Hoffman, environmental attorney, wrote on grist.org, "Malaria was actually a natural population control, and DDT has caused a massive population explosion in some places where it has eradicated malaria. More fundamentally, why should humans get priority over other forms of life? . . . I don't see any respect for mosquitoes in these posts." Berlau's book cites many other examples of contempt for human life by environmentalists and how they've made politicians their useful idiots.

This guy is sick.

Get this.

In 2001, thousands of Americans perished in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. In the early 1970s, when the World Trade Center complex was built, the asbestos scare had just begun. The builders planned to use AsbestoSpray, a flame retardant that adhered to steel. The New York Port of Authority caved in to the environmentalists' asbestos scare and denied its use. An inferior substitute was used as fireproofing.

After the attack, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) confirmed other experts' concerns about asbestos substitutes, concluding, "Even with the airplane impact and jet-fuel-ignited multi-floor fires, which were not normal building fires, the building would likely not have collapsed had it not been for the fireproofing."

Interesting.

Through restrictions on asbestos use, our naval vessels are more vulnerable to our enemies, a disaster waiting in the wings. The Columbia spaceship disaster was a result of the EPA's demand that NASA not use freon in its thermal insulating foam.

That’s right, I did not think of that. Now it seems that nearly every launch, they have some loss and damage. Never happened before. Not like this.

Congress mandates auto fuel mileage standards – Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards – resulting in lighter, less crashworthy cars. In 2002, the National Academy of Sciences calculated that CAFE standards caused 2,000 additional traffic deaths each year. In 1999, a USA Today analysis of government and Insurance Institute data found that since the 1970s CAFE standards went into effect, 46,000 people died in crashes which they would have likely survived had they been riding in heavier cars.

None of this is news to politicians. It's just that environmental extremists have the ears of politicians, and potential victims don't.

Just a little something to think about as you go off to start your day, or unwind from it. Tomorrow is Friday!! See you then..
Peter

Concept Vs Reality of Universal Healthcare

Hey folks,

Just a couple of days ago, there was an article out there talking about how we are trailing the world in longevity of life. I did not save it because I was not planning on talking about it, but the point to the article was the factor that caused this lacking, was Universal Healthcare.

Every now and then, since this is a big topic for most of the Democratic Candidates, the Mass Media Drones will print or do, stories about how wonderful Universal Healthcare would be in America. Everyone would be able to get medical treatment without fear of paying for it. All those poor sick kids would be taken care of. It's right, compassionate. Medical care should be considered a Right, and should be taken care of by the Government to ensure all have access to it.

But this whole thing is pretty surreal. It is like no one has even really looked into Universal Healthcare elsewhere, and the reality of the situation. Well, here is some information that these people tend to leave out. From the City Journal-The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care

Socialized medicine has meant rationed care and lack of innovation. Small wonder Canadians are looking to the market. David Gratzer
Summer 2007

Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.

When Aucoin appealed to an official ombudsman, the Ontario government claimed that her treatment was unproven and that she had gone to an unaccredited clinic. But the FDA in the U.S. had approved Erbitux, and her clinic was a cancer center affiliated with a prominent Catholic hospital in Buffalo. This January, the ombudsman ruled in Aucoin’s favor, awarding her the cost of treatment. She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, and then fighting Canadian bureaucrats (and often suing) to get them to pick up the tab.

But if Canadians are looking to the United States for the care they need, Americans, ironically, are increasingly looking north for a viable health-care model. There’s no question that American health care, a mixture of private insurance and public programs, is a mess. Over the last five years, health-insurance premiums have more than doubled, leaving firms like General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy. Expensive health care has also hit workers in the pocketbook: it’s one of the reasons that median family income fell between 2000 and 2005 (despite a rise in overall labor costs). Health spending has surged past 16 percent of GDP. The number of uninsured Americans has risen, and even the insured seem dissatisfied. So it’s not surprising that some Americans think that solving the nation’s health-care woes may require adopting a Canadian-style single-payer system, in which the government finances and provides the care. Canadians, the seductive single-payer tune goes, not only spend less on health care; their health outcomes are better, too—life expectancy is longer, infant mortality lower.

Thus, Paul Krugman in the New York Times: “Does this mean that the American way is wrong, and that we should switch to a Canadian-style single-payer system? Well, yes.” Politicians like Hillary Clinton are on board; Michael Moore’s new documentary Sicko celebrates the virtues of Canada’s socialized health care; the National Coalition on Health Care, which includes big businesses like AT&T, recently endorsed a scheme to centralize major health decisions to a government committee; and big unions are questioning the tenets of employer-sponsored health insurance. Some are tempted. Not me.

I was once a believer in socialized medicine. I don’t want to overstate my case: growing up in Canada, I didn’t spend much time contemplating the nuances of health economics. I wanted to get into medical school—my mind brimmed with statistics on MCAT scores and admissions rates, not health spending. But as a Canadian, I had soaked up three things from my environment: a love of ice hockey; an ability to convert Celsius into Fahrenheit in my head; and the belief that government-run health care was truly compassionate. What I knew about American health care was unappealing: high expenses and lots of uninsured people. When HillaryCare shook Washington, I remember thinking that the Clintonistas were right.

Ah yes, the serenity of we in this all together. The greatness and compassionateness of Socialized Medicine. No longer any worries. No concerns. Everyone treated equally. Yes the poor will have the same access to healthcare as the big bad evil rich. Here is the REALITY. This from a once time believer.

My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.

I decided to write about what I saw. By day, I attended classes and visited patients; at night, I worked on a book. Unfortunately, statistics on Canadian health care’s weaknesses were hard to come by, and even finding people willing to criticize the system was difficult, such was the emotional support that it then enjoyed. One family friend, diagnosed with cancer, was told to wait for potentially lifesaving chemotherapy. I called to see if I could write about his plight. Worried about repercussions, he asked me to change his name. A bit later, he asked if I could change his sex in the story, and maybe his town. Finally, he asked if I could change the illness, too.

My book’s thesis was simple: to contain rising costs, government-run health-care systems invariably restrict the health-care supply. Thus, at a time when Canada’s population was aging and needed more care, not less, cost-crunching bureaucrats had reduced the size of medical school classes, shuttered hospitals, and capped physician fees, resulting in hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for needed treatment—patients who suffered and, in some cases, died from the delays. The only solution, I concluded, was to move away from government command-and-control structures and toward a more market-oriented system. To capture Canadian health care’s growing crisis, I called my book Code Blue, the term used when a patient’s heart stops and hospital staff must leap into action to save him. Though I had a hard time finding a Canadian publisher, the book eventually came out in 1999 from a small imprint; it struck a nerve, going through five printings.

Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada—they characterized all government-run health-care systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it canceled—48 times. More than 1 million Britons must wait for some type of care, with 200,000 in line for longer than six months. A while back, I toured a public hospital in Washington, D.C., with Tim Evans, a senior fellow at the Centre for the New Europe. The hospital was dark and dingy, but Evans observed that it was cleaner than anything in his native England. In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave—when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity—15,000 elderly citizens died. Across Europe, state-of-the-art drugs aren’t available. And so on.

But single-payer systems—confronting dirty hospitals, long waiting lists, and substandard treatment—are starting to crack. Today my book wouldn’t seem so provocative to Canadians, whose views on public health care are much less rosy than they were even a few years ago. Canadian newspapers are now filled with stories of people frustrated by long delays for care:

vow broken on cancer wait times: most hospitals across canada fail to meet ottawa’s four-week guideline for radiation
patients wait as p.e.t. scans used in animal experiments
back patients waiting years for treatment: study
the doctor is . . . out

As if a taboo had lifted, government statistics on the health-care system’s problems are suddenly available. In fact, government researchers have provided the best data on the doctor shortage, noting, for example, that more than 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province’s population) can’t find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who’d get a doctor’s appointment.

Dr. Jacques Chaoulli is at the center of this changing health-care scene. Standing at about five and a half feet and soft-spoken, he doesn’t seem imposing. But this accidental revolutionary has turned Canadian health care on its head. In the 1990s, recognizing the growing crisis of socialized care, Chaoulli organized a private Quebec practice—patients called him, he made house calls, and then he directly billed his patients. The local health board cried foul and began fining him. The legal status of private practice in Canada remained murky, but billing patients, rather than the government, was certainly illegal, and so was private insurance.

Chaoulli gave up his private practice but not the fight for private medicine. Trying to draw attention to Canada’s need for an alternative to government care, he began a hunger strike but quit after a month, famished but not famous. He wrote a couple of books on the topic, which sold dismally. He then came up with the idea of challenging the government in court. Because the lawyers whom he consulted dismissed the idea, he decided to make the legal case himself and enrolled in law school. He flunked out after a term. Undeterred, he found a sponsor for his legal fight (his father-in-law, who lives in Japan) and a patient to represent. Chaoulli went to court and lost. He appealed and lost again. He appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. And there—amazingly—he won.

Chaoulli was representing George Zeliotis, an elderly Montrealer forced to wait almost a year for a hip replacement. Zeliotis was in agony and taking high doses of opiates. Chaoulli maintained that the patient should have the right to pay for private health insurance and get treatment sooner. He based his argument on the Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights, as well as on the equivalent Quebec charter. The court hedged on the national question, but a majority agreed that Quebec’s charter did implicitly recognize such a right.

It’s hard to overstate the shock of the ruling. It caught the government completely off guard—officials had considered Chaoulli’s case so weak that they hadn’t bothered to prepare briefing notes for the prime minister in the event of his victory. The ruling wasn’t just shocking, moreover; it was potentially monumental, opening the way to more private medicine in Quebec. Though the prohibition against private insurance holds in the rest of the country for now, at least two people outside Quebec, armed with Chaoulli’s case as precedent, are taking their demand for private insurance to court.

Rick Baker helps people, and sometimes even saves lives. He describes a man who had a seizure and received a diagnosis of epilepsy. Dissatisfied with the opinion—he had no family history of epilepsy, but he did have constant headaches and nausea, which aren’t usually seen in the disorder—the man requested an MRI. The government told him that the wait would be four and a half months. So he went to Baker, who arranged to have the MRI done within 24 hours—and who, after the test discovered a brain tumor, arranged surgery within a few weeks.

Baker isn’t a neurosurgeon or even a doctor. He’s a medical broker, one member of a private sector that is rushing in to address the inadequacies of Canada’s government care. Canadians pay him to set up surgical procedures, diagnostic tests, and specialist consultations, privately and quickly. “I don’t have a medical background. I just have some common sense,” he explains. “I don’t need to be a doctor for what I do. I’m just expediting care.”

He tells me stories of other people whom his British Columbia–based company, Timely Medical Alternatives, has helped—people like the elderly woman who needed vascular surgery for a major artery in her abdomen and was promised prompt care by one of the most senior bureaucrats in the government, who never called back. “Her doctor told her she’s going to die,” Baker remembers. So Timely got her surgery in a couple of days, in Washington State. Then there was the eight-year-old badly in need of a procedure to help correct her deafness. After watching her surgery get bumped three times, her parents called Timely. She’s now back at school, her hearing partly restored. “The father said, ‘Mr. Baker, my wife and I are in agreement that your star shines the brightest in our heaven,’ ” Baker recalls. “I told that story to a government official. He shrugged. He couldn’t fucking care less.”

Not everyone has kind words for Baker. A woman from a union-sponsored health coalition, writing in a local paper, denounced him for “profiting from people’s misery.” When I bring up the comment, he snaps: “I’m profiting from relieving misery.” Some of the services that Baker brokers almost certainly contravene Canadian law, but governments are loath to stop him. “What I am doing could be construed as civil disobedience,” he says. “There comes a time when people need to lead the government.”

Baker isn’t alone: other private-sector health options are blossoming across Canada, and the government is increasingly turning a blind eye to them, too, despite their often uncertain legal status. Private clinics are opening at a rate of about one a week. Companies like MedCan now offer “corporate medicals” that include an array of diagnostic tests and a referral to Johns Hopkins, if necessary. Insurance firms sell critical-illness insurance, giving policyholders a lump-sum payment in the event of a major diagnosis; since such policyholders could, in theory, spend the money on anything they wanted, medical or not, the system doesn’t count as health insurance and is therefore legal. Testifying to the changing nature of Canadian health care, Baker observes that securing prompt care used to mean a trip south. These days, he says, he’s able to get 80 percent of his clients care in Canada, via the private sector.

Another sign of transformation: Canadian doctors, long silent on the health-care system’s problems, are starting to speak up. Last August, they voted Brian Day president of their national association. A former socialist who counts Fidel Castro as a personal acquaintance, Day has nevertheless become perhaps the most vocal critic of Canadian public health care, having opened his own private surgery center as a remedy for long waiting lists and then challenged the government to shut him down. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week,” he fumed to the New York Times, “and in which humans can wait two to three years.”

And now even Canadian governments are looking to the private sector to shrink the waiting lists. Day’s clinic, for instance, handles workers’-compensation cases for employees of both public and private corporations. In British Columbia, private clinics perform roughly 80 percent of government-funded diagnostic testing. In Ontario, where fealty to socialized medicine has always been strong, the government recently hired a private firm to staff a rural hospital’s emergency room.

This privatizing trend is reaching Europe, too. Britain’s government-run health care dates back to the 1940s. Yet the Labour Party—which originally created the National Health Service and used to bristle at the suggestion of private medicine, dismissing it as “Americanization”—now openly favors privatization. Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: “The big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture.” Last year, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain’s nonemergency procedures; Labour aims to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to voucherize certain surgeries, offering patients a choice of four providers, at least one private. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.

Sweden’s government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm’s primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city’s largest hospitals. Since the fall of Communism, Slovakia has looked to liberalize its state-run system, introducing co-payments and privatizations. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany: increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control). It’s important to note that change in these countries is slow and gradual—market reforms remain controversial. But if the United States was once the exception for viewing a vibrant private sector in health care as essential, it is so no longer.

Yet even as Stockholm and Saskatoon are percolating with the ideas of Adam Smith, a growing number of prominent Americans are arguing that socialized health care still provides better results for less money. “Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world,” writes Krugman in the New York Times. “But it isn’t true. We spend far more per person on health care . . . yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.”

One often hears variations on Krugman’s argument—that America lags behind other countries in crude health outcomes. But such outcomes reflect a mosaic of factors, such as diet, lifestyle, drug use, and cultural values. It pains me as a doctor to say this, but health care is just one factor in health. Americans live 75.3 years on average, fewer than Canadians (77.3) or the French (76.6) or the citizens of any Western European nation save Portugal. Health care influences life expectancy, of course. But a life can end because of a murder, a fall, or a car accident. Such factors aren’t academic—homicide rates in the United States are much higher than in other countries (eight times higher than in France, for instance). In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don’t die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country.

And if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.

Like many critics of American health care, though, Krugman argues that the costs are just too high: “In 2002 . . . the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman, and child.” Health-care spending in Canada and Britain, he notes, is a small fraction of that. Again, the picture isn’t quite as clear as he suggests; because the U.S. is so much wealthier than other countries, it isn’t unreasonable for it to spend more on health care. Take America’s high spending on research and development. M. D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than Canada does.

That said, American health care is expensive. And Americans aren’t always getting a good deal. In the coming years, with health expenses spiraling up, it will be easy for some—like the zealous legislators in California—to give in to the temptation of socialized medicine. In Washington, there are plenty of old pieces of legislation that like-minded politicians could take off the shelf, dust off, and promote: expanding Medicare to Americans 55 and older, say, or covering all children in Medicaid.

But such initiatives would push the United States further down the path to a government-run system and make things much, much worse. True, government bureaucrats would be able to cut costs—but only by shrinking access to health care, as in Canada, and engendering a Canadian-style nightmare of overflowing emergency rooms and yearlong waits for treatment. America is right to seek a model for delivering good health care at good prices, but we should be looking not to Canada, but close to home—in the other four-fifths or so of our economy. From telecommunications to retail, deregulation and market competition have driven prices down and quality and productivity up. Health care is long overdue for the same prescription.

This was sent to me from a friend of mine, Bob. Bob’s wife was born and grew up in Canada. Pretty interesting, don’t you think? While the rest of the world is trying, and in some cases even literally dying, to get OUR version of healthcare, some want America to adopt their’s.

Like with most things that the LWL want to do, when you look into the FACTS, you find that things are not as they seem. Other than complete control over your lives, literally, where was the benefit to Socialized medicine?
Peter

What, No Global Warming? Not Bush’s Fault?

Hey folks,


















Not too much time this morning, but I noticed a lack of some information in this story by Reuters-China bridge death toll rises to 22 .

A road bridge under construction across a river in southern China collapsed, killing 22 people and injuring 22, state media reported on Tuesday, but witnesses expected the death toll to rise substantially.

At least 39 people were missing after the 320-metre (1,000-foot) concrete arc bridge spanning the Tuo river in Fenghuang county, Hunan province, collapsed on Monday during the evening rush hour, Xinhua news agency said.

Some 400 police had been sent to the scene to keep order, Xinhua said.

Pictures showed bulldozers and rescue workers picking through a massive pile of debris stretching between two hills at the banks of the river.

"I saw a lot of bodies lying on the road, some of them were construction workers, and some were passers-by ... blood was everywhere," Yang Shunzhong, a witness, told Reuters.

"A car was crushed flat under the bridge, it was so ruined that I could not even tell the size of the car," he said by telephone.

Police told Yang that they had found about 60 bodies, and more rescue workers were searching for the missing buried amid the ruins and in the river below.

Sounds sadly familiar.

State-run China Central Television reported the death toll at 22, but Yang said "people on the scene" told him it could rise much higher.

"A lot of women and children were on the scene, crying and looking for their families or friends," Yang added.

Just like in our Minneapolis disaster, I pray that those involved in this one, receive the peach and comfort they need, in this time.

It seems that it’s not just America with dangerous bridges.

A total of 123 workers were at the site of the 42-metre (138-foot) high bridge, which had been scheduled for completion this month, Xinhua said.

They had been "dismantling steel scaffolding erected during the construction process" at the 12 million yuan ($1.58 million) bridge since mid-July, it added.

Part of the bridge collapsed across a highway linking Fenghuang county to an airport in neighboring Guizhou province's Tongren region, according to a notice posted on the local government Web site on Tuesday.

The accident was under investigation and police had detained a construction manager and a "project supervisor" for questioning, the agency said.

Hunan's provincial governor, Zhou Qiang, and vice-governor Xu Xianping were on their way to the site, it added.

The bridge's collapse came as state media reported that China would fix more than 6,000 damaged or dangerous bridges across the country. A bridge collapse in June in the southern province of Guangdong killed nine people.

An editorial in the China Daily warned that thousands of the country's bridges had been categorized as "unsafe."

"If left unrepaired these bridges may crumble at any time, wreaking economic havoc and possibly claiming human lives."

It’s Global Warming! It’s all Bush’s fault. He would rather spend all this money in Iraq. He doesn’t seem to care about our infrastructure. He,,, oh wait,, wrong country. Uh, never mind. But if he wasn’t sending all this money to this failed war in Iraq, then he would have it to help the Chinese. So, it’s STILL his fault. Right?

Truth is folks, accidents happen. When they do, we need to investigate them and see how we can prevent them from happening in the future. If you notice the common thing with ALL these? They were working on the bridge at the time. I don’t know, maybe we should be looking into HOW to repair bridges?

If you have many occurrences, like in criminal investigations, many crimes, you look for common denominators. An MO. What is the same in all situations. Well, in this case, it seems to be bridge repair itself. Instead of political spin, let's look into fixing our problems with OUR bridges. This is a perfect example of accidents happen everywhere.

The sad thing is, when they happen outside the US, they are accidents. Inside the US, they are Bush’s fault. Or of course if that doesn’t work, then it’s YOUR fault. Global Warming. YOU caused it, because you are an evil and selfish person.
Peter

President Bush and Karl Rove On Rove’s Departure.

THE PRESIDENT: Karl Rove is moving on down the road. I've been talking to Karl for a while about his desire to spend more time with Darby and Andrew. This is a family that has made enormous sacrifices not only for our beloved state of Texas, but for a country we both love.

We've been friends for a long time, and we're still going to be friends. I would call Karl Rove a dear friend. We've known each other as youngsters interested in serving our state. We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country. And so I thank my friend. I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit. I thank Darby and I thank Karl for making a tremendous sacrifice, and I wish you all the very best.

MR. ROVE: Today, I submitted my resignation as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor effective the end of the month. Mr. President, I'm grateful for the opportunity you gave me to serve our nation and you. I'm grateful for being able to work with the extraordinary men and women that you've drawn into this administration. And I'm grateful to have been a witness to history. It has been the joy and the honor of a lifetime.

I've seen a man of far-sighted courage put America on a war footing and protect us against a brutal enemy in a dangerous conflict that will shape this new century. I've seen a leader respond to an economy weakened by recession, corporate scandal and terrorist attacks, by taking decisive action to strengthen the economy and create jobs. I've seen a reformer who challenged his administration, the Congress, and the country to make bold changes to important institutions in great need of repair.

Mr. President, the world has turned many times since our journey began. We've been at this a long time. It was over 14 years ago that you began your run for governor, and over 10 years ago that we started thinking and planning about a possible run for the presidency. It has been an exhilarating and eventful time.

Through it all, you've remained the same man. Your integrity, character and decency have remained unchanged and inspiring. Through all those years, I've asked a lot of my family, and they've given all I've asked and more. And now it seems the right time to start thinking about the next chapter in our family's life.

It's not been an easy decision. As you know from our discussions, it started last summer. It always seemed there was a better time to leave somewhere out there in the future. But now is the time. I will miss, deeply miss my work here, my colleagues, and the opportunity to serve you and our nation, Mr. President.

But I look forward to continuing our friendship of 34 years, to being your fierce and committed advocate on the outside, and to the next journey we might make together.

At month's end, I will join those whom you meet in your travels, the ordinary Americans who tell you they are praying for you. Like them, I will ask for God's continued gifts of strength and wisdom for you and your work, your vital work for our country and the world, and for the Almighty's continued blessing of our great country.

Thank you again for this extraordinary opportunity. (Applause.)

Things Starting to Shake Up

Hey folks,

Tommy Thomson out, Mitt really won, Hillary a drag, and Obama’s wife says enough already. Good Monday morning to you. Yes, things are starting to shake up a bit. This Iowa Straw Poll means more than you think.

First, the standard Liberal tactic for dealing with issues that they cannot win, or opponents they see as a major threat, is simple.

1- Ignore it or them.
2- Attempt to dismiss or discredit, it or them.
3- Attack it or them.

As I pointed out to you yesterday, they are in step one and two with Romney’s win. “He bought the votes, voting machine glitches, no one really turned out,” basically, “well, it just doesn’t really mean anything.” Forget the fact he got the same percentage of the votes as did Bush in 1999. Forget the fact he got nearly double the votes of his nearest rival. It just doesn’t matter.

Well, ask Tommy Thomson. According to the AP-Tommy Thompson drops presidential bid

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson said Sunday he is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after finishing sixth in an Iowa straw poll.

"I have no regrets about running," he said in a statement released Sunday evening by his campaign.

"I felt my record as Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services gave me the experience I needed to serve as president, but I respect the decision of the voters. I am leaving the campaign trail today, but I will not leave the challenges of improving health care and welfare in America."

The statement was issued several hours after WITI-TV in Milwaukee reported that Thompson, 65, told one of its reporters he was withdrawing.

"I have very much enjoyed my years in public service and I am comforted by the fact that I think I made a difference for people during that time," Thompson said in the campaign announcement. "I hope to continue working to serve others over the next few years."

The statement said Thompson intends to take some time off before returning to the private sector and his nonprofit work.

He had said before the Iowa event that he would drop out of the race unless he finished first or second.

So he is. This is good for the other candidates. The field was way too big to begin with. Now their voices can be heard more clearly. Then you have Romney actually having to defend his landslide victory. According to the AP-Romney: Win not hollow

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Sunday that low turnout and the absence of some notable opponents shouldn't diminish his win in Iowa's Republican Party Straw Poll.

Romney said the straw poll did just what it was designed to do: Let candidates demonstrate support that could propel them to victory in the state's caucuses this winter.

He said,

"I think if they thought they could have won, they would have been here," Romney said on Fox News Sunday. "If you can't compete in the heartland, if you can't compete in Iowa in August, how are you going to compete in January when the caucuses are held, and how are you going to compete in November of '08?"

"I got a higher percentage even than the president got eight years ago," Romney said. "It was a warm day, and actually, it was difficult turning people out."

He’s right.

Then you have this. It seems that some Democrats are starting to look into the actual and TRUE possibility of Clinton winning. The AP reports AP-Clinton a drag? Dems fear her negatives

Looking past the presidential nomination fight, Democratic leaders quietly fret that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their 2008 ticket could hurt candidates at the bottom.

They say the former first lady may be too polarizing for much of the country. She could jeopardize the party's standing with independent voters and give Republicans who otherwise might stay home on Election Day a reason to vote, they worry.

In more than 40 interviews, Democratic candidates, consultants and party chairs from every region pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavorable ratings in places with key congressional and state races.

"I'm not sure it would be fatal in Indiana, but she would be a drag" on many candidates, said Democratic state Rep. Dave Crooks of Washington, Ind.

They are starting to find out what we already know. Then you have this. AP-Obama's wife decries blackness question

The wife of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Sunday admonished those who question her biracial husband's credentials as a black man, calling the issue "nonsense."

"We're still playing around with the question: Is he black enough?" Michelle Obama told a campaign event on Chicago's South Side. "Stop that nonsense."

Michelle Obama, who was raised on the South Side, was speaking at a predominantly black "Women for Obama" rally, which cheered her comment about the U.S. senator from Illinois.

OK I do agree with her there. But as you can clearly see things are shaking up. All this is happening AFTER this non-issue and meaningless Iowa Straw Vote. So maybe this was not such a hollow victory after all?
Peter

Sources:
AP-Tommy Thompson drops presidential bid
AP-Romney: Win not hollow
AP-Clinton a drag? Dems fear her negatives
AP-Obama's wife decries blackness question

Karl Rove to resign at end of month, Breaking News From The AFP

Hey folks,

I came in this morning and starting to write the Article of the day, when this just came across as Breaking News. AFP-Karl Rove to resign at end of month

Top White House political adviser Karl Rove, who masterminded President George W. Bush's political campaigns in 2000 and 2004, said in an interview published Monday that he will resign at the end of this month.

"I just think it's time," Rove told The Wall Street Journal. "There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."
The paper said Rove's resignation as White House Deputy Chief of Staff would become effective on August 31.

Rove has been under fire since 2003, when retired US diplomat Joseph Wilson claimed he had illegally leaked to the media the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA employee.

Wilson asserted the leak had been orchestrated in retaliation for his New York Times article, in which he refuted the Bush administration's claim that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had explored ways of purchasing uranium ore from Niger.

The claim, made by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, was widely used to justify the subsequent invasion of Iraq.

An investigation into the Plame leak led to perjury and obstruction of justice charges, and subsequent conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Richard Cheney.

But prosecutors determined last year there was no reason to charge Rove with any wrongdoing.

Asked in the interview if he felt he had committed any mistakes during his White House tenure, Rove said, "I'll put my feet up in September and think about that."

Don’t think too hard. When you retire, you are suppose to leave the job behind. Wishing Karl Rove nothing but the best in all things in the future. Should be fun to watch the spin on this one.
Peter

H.S. For Sunday 081207

Plagiocephaly Revisited

Hey folks,

Back on May 20, 2006 I shared my story with you. It went like this.

I want to take a second to set aside politics, the news of the day, and the normal stuff I talk about. I want to share with you my story. Whatever you may think of me politically, or even personally, please hear what I’m about to tell you. You have NO idea how hard this is for me to share. How hard this has been, and continues to be, for me to go through. I know A LOT of it is simply pride and ego. I know that in the long run, it will work out.

My boy, Joshua, the love of my life, has always been a source of great pride. The fact he is so cute, advanced in his intellect (Documented), and just a source of joy that is undescribable, I walk around with him with my chest puffed out with pride. I love when we go somewhere, anywhere, and we are bombarded with strangers coming up to us and talking with us about how great he is. Then the medical condition became worse.

You see folks, Joshua was diagnosed with Torticollis which lead to Plagiocephaly. Because of this, he needs a helmet to be worn 23 hours a day for the next three to four months. As a proud and somewhat egotistical Father, I found and still find this hard to deal with. Now in the back of my mind, I, yes the one who couldn’t care less what people think about him on a normal bases, find myself upset and concerned what people are thinking when they see the helmet.

My pride was not the only problem. Our insurance company REFUSES to cover the cost of the helmet and treatments. They declare this to be cosmetic, therefore will have nothing to do with it. So myself and Laura are left to foot the bill. $250.00 every two weeks. The cost of the helmet? $2000.00. Along with any further and additional medical costs.

I’ll even admit to you, that I found myself guilty of this condition. I blamed myself and my wife for Joshua’s "Flat Head Syndrom". This all changed however, Friday 19th of May 2006, at 10:30am. My wife Laura found this web site. On this site, it talks about the fact that this is increasingly common, and a growing problem In the Leda Quirke piece, she said,

"Since the American Association of Pediatrics formally recommended in 1992 that babies sleep on their backs, the incidence of plagiocephaly has increased significantly. Records indicate that positional molding in back-sleeping babies is one in 10."

Myself and Laura are fortunate enough to find a way to come up with the added and unexpected cost of the helmet and $250.00 every two weeks. We are scraping by, but we will do it. But what about the single parents? What about those that live paycheck to pay check, penny to penny? That’s $500.00 a month folks. I know people that pay that in rent. Where do they get this money from? Their insurance will not cover it. So, do they do nothing? Do they watch their child grow and wait for the conversation that WILL come, "Mommy / Daddy, why did you not love me enough to fix my head when you could?" After a year, the only fix is surgery.

This is a cause that I will be taking on. This is a problem that needs to be dealt with. The insurance companies NEED to pay for this. I thank David A. and Pamela A. Schultz, along with Senator Larcenia J. Bullard (D) District 39, and Representative Edward B. "Ed" Bullard (D) District 118. I join with Mr. And Mrs. Schultz in their plea....You can read the whole thing with links included HERE.

So just a couple of days ago, I got this from a Mother of Three, Cherry, who said this.

Hey Peter, I have a 91/2 month old baby girl who is wearing the Doc Band right now. I have yet to submit some paper work for SSI, do you think she'd be eligible for it? I'm a single mom with 2 other older boys. She wasn't diagnosed by her physician even though I had asked him about her misaligned ears and misshapen head. As I was researching about how to correct her ears, I stumbled upon clues that she may have plagio and tort. I switched doctors and she's going through physical therapy right now. She's had the Band for 2 months now and may need a second one. I'd like to know if you think she's qualified for SSI...thank you for the heartfelt sharing of your story...

Cherry is EXACTLY who I was talking about. A single Mother of three, just trying to make ends meet. Do you think she is able to just throw an extra $500.00 a month into this NECESSARY process to help her Daughter?

I responded to her.

Welcome to the OPN.

I’m sorry I do not have an answer for that. I do not qualify for SSI. Myself and my Wife have pretty good jobs. I had, at the time, what I thought was great insurance. All I can do is share more of my story with you.

I’m 38 years old. I’ve lived my life, doing whatever it was I wanted to do. I have done some things in my life, both good and stupid. Law Enforcement, Hotel Management, Bouncer, Truck Driver, even Wrestled for fun. I have met ALL kinds of people, from all over the world. I would like to say that I have had a blessed life. I’m no millionaire. My name is not up there in lights. But I was happy. I’ve loved and lost. Married and divorced. Quit and got fired. You know, the normal stuff.

But then I met my Wife Laura. Soon after that, we had a Son. THAT changed EVERYTHING for me. I have always loved kids. I have worked with kids and even helped raise a couple of them. Kind of a Father figure without being the Father. I have been “Uncle Pete” longer than I can remember. Even talked about getting a T-Shirt made up that said so. But when I first laid eyes on Joshua? That day in the Hospital, my whole life changed. I went from being “Uncle Pete” to one of the proudest Papa’s you have ever met.

Now they told us at the hospital all about SIDS. They taught us the proper care and nutrition of our newborn Son. They told us about the proper use of the car seat. What they NEVER say word one about, is Plagiocephaly or Torticollis. We had no idea that these were even possibilities. They never told us about rotating the baby when he is sleeping. Never told us what could happen if we didn’t. Nothing.

When we began to realize he had a problem, we told him right to the Doctor. That is when we learned all about plagio and tort. You can see pictures of Joshua from day one all the way up to his last Birthday {Two years old now} and some with the two different helmets he had to wear at Joshua's Photo Bucket.

Now the battle began. The total cost of everything when it was said and done was somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000.00. Our “great insurance company? Nothing at all. They just kept saying this was cosmetic. Our Doctor, GREAT DOCTOR, kept arguing with them that this was MEDICAL.

You see, because he had Tort, he always favored the one side. Therefore, even if we were to move him all night long, the chance of him getting Plagio was great. So we battled and battled and in the long run, I will admit, we just paid for it to get it fixed sooner than later. Time IS of the essence.

So then I found Mr. and Mrs. Schultz. I learned about Amanda’s Law, which died in both the House and Senate. I learned that this is more of a common condition than we though. The battle wages on. Like I said, “Myself and Laura are fortunate enough to find a way to come up with the added and unexpected cost of the helmet and $250.00 every two weeks. We are scraping by, but we will do it. But what about the single parents? What about those that live paycheck to pay check, penny to penny? That’s $500.00 a month folks. I know people that pay that in rent. Where do they get this money from? Their insurance will not cover it. So, do they do nothing?”

You are exactly the type of person I was talking about. This is the reason that this needs to be revisited in Congress. The only problem is, with this do nothing congress, all they care about is “getting Bush.” they do not even seem to want to hear about anything else so I have backed off for now. It’s pointless.

You said that you have two older boys. An interesting point would be this. They do not have Plagio. Your Daughter does. She has also been diagnosed with Tort. That has to be, at least somewhat, of a link between these two.

I wish you nothing but the best. I know, if you do what the Doctor says, it should work out. This is NOT your fault. This IS a medical condition. Joshua is doing just fine now. If he chooses in the future to have a military haircut, you may be able to notice a bit of it, not too much. It is A LOT better than it was, and it is money well spent.

I would try SSI. The worse they can do is say no. We heard that a lot. It is hard to go through. No doubt about it. But now, Joshua is fine, and I’m back to being a proud Papa.

Please feel free to contact me at ANYTIME. You can email me, opntalk@netscape.net I will discuss any part of this, give you encouragement, help in anyway I can, or even just say hi.

On a lighter note, stop by the OPN anytime, you never know what you will see here. {Smile}

Best wishes, and you are in my heart and prayers. I know what this is like. Talk to you soon my friend. Like I said before, this is NOT your fault.
Peter

This began a process in my head. I started to revisit the feelings, emotions, and the thought process, as back when I was going through this whole mess the first time. I wasn’t sure if I had helped Cherry or not. I just knew I understood EXACTLY what she was going through.

That night I came in to check the news and comments, and I saw that Cherry had responded back. The following is her, and my conversation to each other.

Peter, thank you so much for the encouraging words you gave me.

No problem. I will help in anyway I can. I know when we were going through this, no one was out there to give us encouragement. Oh, of course friends and family, but the Insurance company wanted nothing to do with it, or us.

How old was your baby boy when he got diagnosed with plagio and tort?

Six months old. The first picture you see is with the corrective gear is a Star Strap. The one with the moon and stars. He out grew that one pretty quick and ended up with the helmet. He also had a reaction to the Styrofoam used for the lining.

And how long did it take for him to wear the bands?

I believe he was somewhere around 15 months when it came off totally. MAJOR improvement. Like I said, if he shaves his head, you will notice it a bit, but nothing even in comparison to the way it was before. His eyes and hearing is great. That was one of our most major of concerns.

You are lucky to have an excellent doctor. We weren't that lucky. My baby girl's ear was noticeable since I first held her at the hospital. Her left ear didn't have a curve, it floppy and sticking out much further than the other. I brought this to her doctor's attention but all he told me was she will grow out of it. So after getting that advice, which I believed, I just started to tuck her ear under her baby cap and even tried to tape it but taking it off was painful because she has a lot of hair so I didn't do that afterwards.

It’s easy to believe. When a Doctor tells you something, you figure, since he is the Doctor, he must know what he is talking about. It also sounds logical. This tiny little head is like putty and is simply going to grow out. Kind of like a balloon. Truth is, the head STOPS growing VERY early in life. There is only a very minute window where corrections can be made without major surgery. Once the head solidifies, or becomes fully formed, it will grow a little lager, but the form or shape is pretty much there.

Then my baby's dad, (whom I'm not with anymore)and I, noticed that she only likes to point and lean her head towards the left so her ear was getting more forward. And her dad actually was the one who noticed the flatness on her head and brought to my attention when she was two months old or something. I asked her doctor about it and again he said she'll grow out of it and even suggested for me to put a small pillow under her. I nodded but I wasn't about to put my baby girl's life in danger of suffocation. The things he suggested were really odd. He also suggested for me to wash her head with Selsun Blue to remove the baby dandruff. I didn't do that risky thing either.

You should tell any and everyone you can about this Doctor. This seems to me to be EXTREMELY bad advice to say the least. I am so VERY glad you didn’t listen to him. This guy does not sound like he should still be practicing.

My baby's head cleared up a week later because I started to wash off the baby shampoo really well from her head (I was too scared to touch her soft spot before that's why I was only gently rinsing her head.}

I know the feeling. {Laughing} I was totally convinced that I was going to “break him” if I was not overly careful. You get use to it though. I understand that YES, you need to be careful of the soft spot, but not overly so. Well, I get that now. {Smile}

How come the doctor had to suggest a harsh shampoo for her head? I didn't understand that.

He sounds like an idiot.

Then she had a cold or cough or something like that and he prescribed and otc medicine but I've read and also asked 2 pharmacists about babies those young taking otc meds, and they all said they don't suggest giving babies those, articles and pharmacists said those.

You are not still seeing this Doctor are you? I’m serious about this. From what you are telling me, this guy needs to loose his license, or at least be barred from Pediatrics.

Anyway, I used to work overnight as an auditor for a big hotel chain so after I'm finished with all my paperwork, I would just browse online and I wanted to find something about babies with ear problems. I found something called Ear Buddies which was developed and only sold in England anyone can order them and I was happy...I was worried what the other people would think with those ear splinters but I knew my baby would need it.

I talked about this a few times when it was happening to me. Really, to Joshua. I use to HATE when people would come up to me and ask stupid questions. “Oh, is he handicapped?” “What happened? Did he fall?” “Oh, my so and so had the same problem. They got seizures too.” Seriously, I cannot tell you how this was a learning experience in the control of my temper.

My Niece actually helped me out a lot. She was afraid I would end up in jail, so she said to me. “You know Uncle Pete, they really do not mean any harm. Nothing gets to people’s emotions more than a baby in need.” She also said the same thing you just did. “You know, it really is all about Joshua.”

Believe me when I tell you, she is my Angel. She was only 14 at the time.

So after nights of researching about ear splinters, for some reason I stumbled upon a an article which led me to start researching some other worse problems my baby girl may have. After 5 appointments with her doctor, and no diagnosis of any of my findings, I started to look for a different one. Five months passed without knowing my baby have these problems. The second doctor was supposed to be good but I also had problems with her. She's too busy shadowing or teaching her medical students medical terminology and she just don't seem to concentrate or show any compassion about my baby's condition. I was the one who told her that my baby has plagio and tort, I didn't waste any time for her to guess what my baby's problems are. So we got referred to different specialist but all her referrals were snots. The neurologist she referred me to didn't have an availability until my daughter is past a year old. So did the neurosurgeon. I have medicaid and I believe that it's the reason why they wouldn't see my daughter, I mean can you really believe a neurologist can't squeeze in a 5month old to be evaluated? At that young age, that's an urgent thing.

OK, I’m NOT, I repeat, I am NOT a medical Doctor. So what I’m about to say to you is friendly advice between friends. I do not practice medicine and in no way is what I am about to suggest to you to be taken by you, or anyone else out there reading this, as medical advice.

Try this. Pick a new Pediatrician. Briefly advise them that you believe that your baby has Plagio and Tort. Ask them if they will refer you to a Prosthetic Company. We used Hanger. Look them up, see if they are in your area. I believe they are nation wide. They are great people. They are the ones that made, monitored, and remade Joshua’s Helmet. We NEVER saw a Neurologist. It was not needed. If you have already done that, then I’m saying this for the benifit of anyone else out there reading this.

I have depression for years now, have been on antidepressant for years, then got the severe post partum depression and got much worse when all these problems with my daughter start popping up. I have to take her to physical therapy every week. Single mom of 3 who's suffering a mental breakdown.

You know Cherry, I want you to realize something that is REALLY important to remember. Once you bring a child into your life, it’s all about them. I can have the worse day ever. I can be sick. I can be angry. When I get home, Joshua runs over and says “Up!” When I give him a hug, I smell him. Yup, I said it. I actually take a deep breath in and smell him. Baby’s have a very unique smell.

Also, right there, in my arms is the essence of innocents. Pure as the wind driven snow. All he cares about is I was not there, now I am. When I hung my boy, the cares and the problems melt away. NOTHING is more important to me than my Son. NOTHING.

So the next time, I do not care what, why, how, who, or anything else, the next time you start feeling depressed, sad, lonely, hurt, mad, or ANY negative feelings whatsoever, pick up your baby, and smell her. Trust me on this.

I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me because my kids are my responsibilities and my life and I love them very much. They're the reason why I haven't given up in life. I refuse for them to have no mother.

Remember this also Cherry, it is possible for them to not have a Mother, even when you are there. If you are so focused on your problems and the way you feel, sometimes you can forget that right there in front of you is someone that needs you. Someone that loves you unconditionally. Someone that couldn’t care less about the phone bill, bad days at work, where the money is coming from for the next trip to the grocery store. Nothing. All they know is they love and depend on you for EVERYTHING. Mommy is there to comfort, guide, fix, and love. As long as Mommy is there, all is right with the world.

So right now, my daughter is on her 2nd month of wearing the Doc band. Did you also get a Doc Band for your baby? His helmet actually looks different from what they have now. Did it just recently change?

The first one is a Star Band the second they just called a helmet. I’m not sure if they just recently changed or not to tell you the truth. But just wait until she is done with the process. When you hear, that’s it. She no longer needs it. When you see the difference it made. THAT will be a good day. I know this may sound simplistic, or seemingly needing not to be said, but it really DOES take time. Do not keep checking every night for improvements. You will drive yourself nuts. Also remember there is no such thing as a perfect head. EVERY head has imperfections.

Thank you for your time, Peter.

No thanks needed. It is MY pleasure to talk to you. As a matter of fact, you may have re-lit the fire in my heart to attempt to get Amanda’s Law revisited. I have been formulating letters in my head to different Senators and Congressmen. With all this talk about American Healthcare, maybe they will be willing to look at this again. I still doubt it. I still believe all they really care about is “Getting Bush.” But hey, this would be a GREAT way to prove me wrong.

I will attach a pic of my daughter and her band. I have no decorations on it right now. It's just plain white but I may color it pink soon. Have a great weekend.

I would LOVE to see it. You have a great weekend as well. Talk to you soon.
Peter

That is Exactly what she did. She re-lit the fire in me to get something done about this. I will be contacting Congress, when they get back from Vacation and see if we can get Amanda’s law re-visited. Someone like Cherry, or Me for that matter, NO ONE should have to go through this. This is a growing medical condition. 1 in 10? Come on. This is a serious situation that needs to be addressed.
Peter

Sources:
OPNTALK -Plagiocephaly
Plagiocephaly.org
Torticollis

The Spin Begins For Romney Win

Hey folks,

Happy Sunday to you. We will get to the Sunday stuff in a few minutes. I just wanted to point out to you how the spinning is beginning. People are haveing a hard time believing that, not only did Romney win the Iowa Straw Poll, but that he did so hands down.

Now everyone is starting to talk about him. As I predicted, look to see the attacks on him increase. Look for the MMD and the LWL to start to Focus their attention on him. Especially because on one point. More on that in a second. But right now, they are reporting the win, BUT, they are playing it off at the same time.

First up, AP -Romney wins Iowa straw poll as expected

Romney had been expected to win the test because he spent millions of dollars and months of effort on an event that was skipped by two of his major rivals.

Translation, “He bought the votes. No big deal.”

Announcement of the results was delayed for 90 minutes because a hand count was required on one of the 18 machines.

Voting Machine Glitch. A standard and over used LWL and MMD tactic. “Well, did he really win by this much? Did someone tamper with the machines? Did he steal this victory?” This is a laying of ground word for arguments and demands for recounts if something happens in 08. As usual.

The scale of the spectacle was so immense — event organizers planned for the arrival of 375 buses — that even Iowa Democratic Chairman Scott Brennan decided to take a look. State Democrats don't hold anything similar, arguing the event is more about raising money than selecting candidates.

No big deal. This was not a real test.

Then you have this from the AFP -Republican Romney takes first 2008 test

Counting of the 14,000 votes by activists by state Republican Party officials was slowed by a voting machine glitch, and came after a day of political pageantry, barbecues, political speech making and music concerts in this university town.

You have to watch these wascally Republican activists.

Then this from Reuters -Romney wins Iowa Republican straw poll

Republican Mitt Romney won the first test of the 2008 White House race on Saturday, using a big wallet and broad organization to muscle aside a field of second-tier rivals in a low-turnout Iowa straw poll.

Again, he bought the victory. Besides that, no one showed, so no big deal. {Sigh}

But THIS is the point that really has them fired up. THIS is the reason you will see more focus on Romney.

Romney matched the 31 percent of the vote won by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in his 1999 straw poll victory on the road to the White House. He said his performance was not devalued by the absence of his top rivals or the low voter turnout in the sweltering heat.

We all know who won in 2000. {Smile}

So the spin begins. This should get interesting to watch.
Peter

Sources:
AP -Romney wins Iowa straw poll as expected
AFP -Republican Romney takes first 2008 test
Reuters -Romney wins Iowa Republican straw poll

Congratulations Romney

Hey folks,

As I said before, the more I learn about him, the more I like him. Seems I’m not alone. Romney won the Iowa Straw Poll handsomely. Mike Huckabee came in second with 2587 votes. What was Romney’s vote count? 4516. Even the chairman say WOW.

So look for the attacks to increase as early as tomorrow morning against Romney. Interesting that the Mass Media Drones haven’t really paid him much attention. Other than his Religion that is.. That most likely is about to change.

Way to go Mitt.
Peter

Presidential Radio Address 081107

President Bush: “Good morning. In America, August is considered a slow news month. But in the war on terror, America and our allies remain on the offense against our enemies. And this month, we've had some encouraging news from both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Earlier this week, I had a good meeting with President Karzai of Afghanistan at Camp David. He updated me on the work his government is doing to help build a more hopeful future for the Afghan people. He told me that senior officials and tribal leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan are meeting to discuss how to deal with the extremists who are targeting both their countries. And he explained why he's confident that his government will prevail against the Taliban remnants who continue to launch attacks throughout his country.

Here's how President Karzai put it: "The Taliban do pose dangers to our innocent people... . [But] they are not posing any threat to the government of Afghanistan, they are not posing any threat to the institutions of Afghanistan, or to the buildup of institutions of Afghanistan." He continued: The Taliban "is a force that's defeated" and it is "acting in cowardice by killing children going to school." In other words, the Taliban fighters can still launch attacks on the innocent, but they cannot stop the march of democracy in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, we are working to help put the Iraqi government on the same path. The surge that General Petraeus and our troops are carrying out is designed to help provide security for the Iraqi people, especially in Baghdad -- and aid the rise of an Iraqi government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens, and serve as an ally in the war on terror. Our new strategy is delivering good results, and our commanders recently reported more good news.

One encouraging development was a coalition air strike that killed a terrorist named al-Badri earlier this month. Al-Badri was the mastermind of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines. That bombing sparked the escalation in sectarian violence we saw in 2006. Al-Badri was the most notorious al Qaeda commander in Samarra. He sheltered foreign terrorists, and he was responsible for attacks that claimed many innocent lives. His death is a victory for a free Iraq, and a sign that America and the Iraqi government will not surrender the future of Iraq to cold-blooded killers.

Al-Badri is just one of the many al Qaeda leaders and other extremists who are coming under a withering assault across Iraq. Only a year ago, al Qaeda ruled places like Ramadi, terrorizing the local population and intimidating local authorities. Today al Qaeda has largely been driven out of these cities, markets and schools are reopening, and normal life is returning. And since January, each month we have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other enemies of Iraq's elected government.

Our surge is seizing the initiative from the enemy and handing it to the Iraqi people. And Iraqis are responding. Local residents are coming forward with tips that are helping U.S. and Iraqi forces rout out terrorists hiding among the population. While political progress has been slower than we had hoped, the Iraqi parliament passed more than 50 pieces of legislation in its most recent session. They approved a $41 billion budget, created an electoral commission and military courts, and laid the groundwork for private sector investment in production of gasoline and diesel fuel. At the same time, Iraqi forces have taken responsibility for security in a number of areas. They are taking losses at a much higher rate than we are. And they're making these sacrifices willingly, because they are determined to see their children live in freedom.

The enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, and the surge is still in its early stages. Changing conditions on the ground is difficult work. But our troops are proving that it can be done. They are carrying out their mission with skill and honor. They are accomplishing great things for the future of our Nation and for the future of a free Iraq.

Thank you for listening."

180 On Immigration?

Hey folks,

After the whole Amnesty mess, attempted by President Bush and the majority of Democrats, your voices were heard. They understand where it is that most Americans are coming from. We are not anti-immigration, we are anti-Amnesty. Rewarding those that come here legally, and punishing those that chose to commit a felony, their very first act on American soil.

The funny thing is, the Democrats TRIED, failing miserably, to blame Bush for this also. It was HIS plan. So what do we see now? Leading up to the MAJOR 08 elections? A full 180 on illegal immigration.

The Democrats have not gone away on this yet. Make no mistake about it. They want Amnesty. But they want to stay in power more. The President still wants Amnesty. But the Republicans want to regain the House and Senate, and retain the White House in 08. So both sides are attempting to blame the other for doing nothing, and both are attempting to show YOU, they are serious about this issue. Of course, you have some in the Mainstream Media still backing the poor little innocent Illegal Aliens.

According to The Christian Science Monitor -American dream falters

The United States is now experiencing a wave of immigration comparable to the largest in its history. More than 1 million immigrants enter the United States legally every year, up from about 300,000 in the 1960s. An estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants also enter the US annually, according to Pew.

Even the more reason for the fence. Even the more reason to start to enforce the laws we have.

The effect this influx has on the pay and prospects of nonimmigrant workers is a contentious issue. Some economists forcefully argue that immigration hurts the poor already present in the country – particularly poor African-Americans. Others insist that the US economy is large enough to accommodate the newcomers easily.

No it really isn’t. Those that hire these people could hire poor Black folks. They could hire poor White folks. They could hire Christians. They could hire Jews. They could hire, oh I don’t know, how about LEGAL immigrants. Why the “need” for Illegal Aliens? Slave labor. Plain and simple.




















The AP reported this new crackdown this way. According to the AP -Immigration crackdown worries employers

"It'll just shut us down," said Manuel Cunha, a citrus grower who heads the Nisei Farmers League, a farming group in California's San Joaquin Valley, the nation's most productive region for fruits and vegetables. "It'll just be over if they start coming in here and busting employers. The food chain would fall apart."

The guy all the way on the left is Cunha. Why did you hire so many you KNOW are illegal? Now that the government announces that they will start doing their job, you are worried and are blaming THEM. You did it. YOU put yourself in this situation. How much money do you think YOU made by using slave labor?

Illegal immigrants often give made-up numbers when applying for jobs, though honest mistakes such as the misspelling of a name can also cause problems. Employers say it can take weeks to clear up discrepancies.

The Genius continues.

"This the stupidest thing our government could do," Cunha said. "They're worried about terrorists, but I've never heard of a farmworker walking across the Arizona desert with a nuke strapped across his back."

Brilliant statement. How do you know? I know if we stop them coming, which YES, it can be done, we will not have to worry about that. Then, this guy.

"Employers want to obey the law," said Mike Stuart, president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, which represents more than 200 farmers. "The question is whether they have the tools to continue operation and obey the law at the same time. That's the catch-22."

You know it’s not that difficult to find out if the person applying for the job is legit or not.

Conservative groups lauded the move, saying it would be welcomed by a population tired of watching illegal immigrants and their employers go unchallenged.

Absolutely. That was what it was all about.

Then you have this from Reuters -U.S. cracks down on employment of illegal immigrants

The Bush administration said on Friday it would increase scrutiny and impose heftier fines on U.S. businesses that employ illegal immigrants as it sought to step up enforcement despite Congress's failure to reform immigration laws.

Employers who ignore immigration laws will face an increased likelihood of criminal charges and 25 percent higher penalties, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

Chertoff said the new effort was the most the government could do to fight illegal immigration as long as Congress does not act.

"These are ... not the best tools we can use," Chertoff said at a news conference. "This is kind of a half measure."

It’s a start. The American people are looking forward to see if you actually carry it out.

Now of course you have President Bush seeming to be happy about this. He said.

“Today, members of my Cabinet announced a series of important new Administrative actions to address border security and immigration challenges. These reforms represent steps my Administration can take within the boundaries of existing law to better secure our borders, improve worksite enforcement, streamline existing temporary worker programs, and help new immigrants assimilate into American society.

Although the Congress has not addressed our broken immigration system by passing comprehensive reform legislation, my Administration will continue to take every possible step to build upon the progress already made in strengthening our borders, enforcing our worksite laws, keeping our economy well-supplied with vital workers, and helping new Americans learn English.

I appreciate the work of Secretary Chertoff and Secretary Gutierrez in implementing these important reforms, which will improve our security and enrich our Nation."

You know, this is interesting. First, the Amnesty Bill did NOT have learning English in it. It did not have anything new about workforce enforcement. It was Amnesty. But now maybe we are heading in the right direction. Pelosi said this in response.

"Securing our border remains a top priority for the New Direction Congress. By strong bipartisan majorities, the Democratic-led Congress has already passed tough border security measures this year -- two bills that significantly enhance security at our borders and add at least 3,000 new border patrol agents. After today's announcement, we hope that the Administration will work with Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform."

Translation time “After today's announcement, we hope that the Administration will work with Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform." AMNESTY revisited.

Look, we have to at least give them credit for LISTENING. Why? Because I, and nearly all of you said, "Secure the boarder first, then we will talk about the rest." Well, that is basically what she just said. So I AM open to revisiting this issue, as soon as they show they are actually DOING what they said they are going to do.
Peter

Sources:
The Christian Science Monitor -American dream falters
AP -Immigration crackdown worries employers
Reuters -U.S. cracks down on employment of illegal immigrants

A Day In The Looney Left

Hey folks,

Sorry I was not here yesterday. Well, actually I was. I got a little distracted with behind the screen stuff. I came in a found a note by my comment checker saying I HAD to see a comment left by a single Mother of three on the Plagiocephaly article I wrote back on May 20, 2006. I will share more soon. But fret not, I miss nothing. How about spending a day in the Looney World of the Left.

First up, hypocrisy. Yeah I know, Duh, right? But sometimes it even amazes me. Yesterday, World Net Daily’s Melanie Morgan wrote this.

The war on terrorism has shaken up the American homeland, and like any house, when things are shaken up you never know what will come crawling out from the dark corners.

In the case of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there's been an infestation of those who are determined to undermine our troops, and force them to surrender and admit defeat.

While most of the focus in the conservative world (and surprisingly in the Mainstream Media) this week has been on Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who admitted to Army investigators that he fabricated stories of wrongdoing by U.S. troops, I've also been swatting my folded newspaper at someone who has worked even harder to thwart the missions of our troops in Iraq: anti-war, left-wing activist, Jon Soltz.

Yes folks, Jon is a Vet. Yes he served in the Military. But he is now well founded to attack the war and the Bush administration. They LOVE guys like Soltz. They seem to feel that because he was a soldier, he cannot be criticized about his idiot remarks and actions. But this one, shows just how idiotic he really is.

Soltz is co-founder of the group VoteVets.org which works with MoveOn.org as part of the umbrella network known as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

This weekend Soltz was a panelist at the left-wing "Yearly Kos" convention where he launched into a tirade against U.S. Army Sgt. David Aguina of the 733rd maintenance company. Sgt. Aguina made the 'mistake' of noting the progress being made with "the surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq. He did not express any political opinions; he merely challenged the panel to prove him wrong that civilian casualties in Iraq had dropped.

I have touched on this quite a bit. They, the LWL, cannot accept good news about the war. They will not survive politically if we achieve victory.

Left-wing activist Jon Soltz apparently considers citing any evidence of success from Iraq a "political act" because Sgt. Aguina was soon subjected to a verbal attack from Soltz who threatened to have him punished by the military.

"For the sergeant I want to see you outside, I want the name of your commander, your first sergeant, you never ever use my uniform again in the name of political purposes."

As Soltz bolted from the stage, the Pajamas Media cameras were still rolling and asked Soltz why he was so worked up.

"Well look, you don't use the military uniform to talk politics…. I don’t appreciate people using military uniforms in politics," Soltz said.

Huh?

This photo appears on HIS, Soltz, POLITICAL website Votevets.org At least it does as we speak. Soltz threaten to have U.S. Army Sgt. David Aguina Court Marshaled for engaging in politic while in uniform. Soltz is nothing more than a hypocritical Idiot.

Then you have this, Reuters -Edwards attacks Giuliani over Sept 11 comment By Steve HollandFri Aug 10, 5:01 PM ET

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani came under attack on Friday from Democratic rival John Edwards for saying he spent as much time if not more at the site of New York's destroyed World Trade Center than rescue workers.

The clash highlighted the continued importance of the September 11 attacks to U.S. presidential politics as Giuliani tries to use his record as former New York City mayor to help him get into the White House.

The group 9-11 Families, which represents some of those rescue workers, demanded an apology, saying, "Rudy Giuliani has insulted all September 11 first responders, family groups and especially those of us who are battling life-threatening illnesses with his delusional statement."

In a visit to Cincinnati on Thursday, Giuliani told reporters that no one did more for firefighters killed in the attacks and their families than he did and that he raised millions on their behalf.

He did.

"Every single penny of the $227 million went to the families," Giuliani said. "This is not a mayor or governor or president who was sitting in an ivory tower."

"I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers," he said.

He was.

The Edwards campaign issued a statement from its national chairman, former Michigan Democratic Rep. David Bonior, who said, "Evidently, Rudy Giuliani has taken a break from reality."

"It is outrageous for Giuliani to suggest, in any way, shape or form that he did more at Ground Zero or spent more time there than the brave first responders who worked tirelessly around the clock for many months during the rescue and recovery operation," Bonior said.

Wrong! It is true. How many times did Edwards tour the 9-11 site? How many hours did he spend helping out there?

Rudy clarified his remarks this way.

"What I was trying to say yesterday is that I empathize with them because I feel like I have that same risk," Giuliani said.

He does, he was there. Anyone there faces the same risks. That is just fact.

He said he was not suggesting he was competing with the rescuers, while admitting it came across that way.

"Gosh almighty, I was there often enough, even though they were there, people there more and people there less, but I was there often enough so that every health consequence that people have suffered, I could also be suffering," he said.

Giuliani's communications director, Katie Levinson, lashed out at the Edwards camp for its attack.

"For John Edwards to lecture Rudy Giuliani about September 11 is laughable at best. This is, after all, the same guy who thinks the 'war on terror' is simply a bumper sticker," she said.

Excellent point. Then this. AP-ABA criticizes Bush terror policies By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press WriterFri Aug 10, 4:51 PM ET

President Bush's recent order on CIA interrogations of terror suspects should be overturned because it still allows harsh treatment in violation of international treaties, two American Bar Association committees say.

The CIA should follow the same rigorous standards adopted by the military that are intended, in part, to ensure that captured U.S. soldiers are extended the same protections, according to a resolution the ABA is expected to adopt next week at its annual meeting here.

"The CIA should not be exempted from rules that guide even our armed forces," ABA president Karen Mathis said Friday.

The executive order that Bush issued July 20 bans torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, sexual abuse, acts intended to denigrate a religion or other degradation "beyond the bounds of human decency." It pledges that detainees will receive adequate food, water and medical care and be protected from extreme heat and cold.

But it leaves undefined what methods are acceptable. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has said revealing what techniques are allowed would help people who might be subjected to them. He said he would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process, but he added that it was not torture.

So I guess they want to give the enemy a play book? “OK, if you get caught, this is what they will do, so start training yourselves now for it?”

They want to have the CIA, and the Bush Administration broadcast every detail of everything, so THEY can decide what’s right and what is not “acceptable.” Stating the oblivious here, there is ONE Commander and Chief. It’s not Congress, and most definitely not the ABA.

So what about that? What about all these gestapo tactics and torture by the hands of our brave men and women in those evil needing to be closed prisons? Get THIS! According to CNN -High court denies prisoner's efforts to stay at Guantanamo

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court refused to block the pending transfer of an accused terrorist held by the U.S. military, despite his fears of being tortured if he is sent back to his home country of Algeria.

Ahmed Belbacha has been incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for five years. He has tried to keep himself detained because he said he fears being tortured by the Algerian government if he goes home.

{Laughing} I’m not making this up. Here it is, by CNN, in black and white. This guy has been in Guantanamo for FIVE years. He is fighting to STAY there because he fears being tortured. Not trying to get out.

The justices, in a one-sentence order, denied his emergency request for a stay to any pending release.

Six other Algerians also face release from the Guantanamo prison The U.S. military has been under pressure to speed the process of evaluating the approximately 360 detainees and freeing those who are not considered dangerous.

By whom? Who is applying the pressure? Yup, the LWL.

The Pentagon has said about 80 Guantanamo men are eligible for freedom and has been negotiating with their home countries to accept them. Pentagon and State Department officials have said they would not repatriate any prisoner to countries where they would "likely" be tortured.

I could keep this up all day. These people live in a world that is completely opposite of reality. They continue to say that they are doing what the American people voted for them to do. Interesting that they ignore the 3 percent approval rating. Yes, there is the “reality” of the Looney Left. Then, there is the truth.

I’m out of time right now. Trust me though, I’ll make up for missing yesterday. I have a lot more to talk about, along with more information on the conversation I am having about Joshua’s “Flat head Syndrome.”

Be back soon.
Peter

Sources:
WND Melanie Morgan -Busted! Shining light on a cockroach
Votevets.org
Reuters -Edwards attacks Giuliani over Sept 11 comment
CNN -High court denies prisoner's efforts to stay at Guantanamo
AP-ABA criticizes Bush terror policies

It’s The Reporting Stupid.

Hey folks,

Good Thursday morning. The AP asks us this question this morning. Are attitudes on Iraq changing? No. Not really. It’s the way it’s being reported. The AP reports this.

Even some critics of President Bush's Iraq war policies are conceding there is evidence of recent improvements from a military standpoint.

Of course they have to point out not all is well, for the Looney fringe.

But Bush supporters and critics alike agree that these have not been matched by any noticeable progress on the political front.

Despite U.S. pressure, Iraq's parliament went on vacation for a month after failing to pass either legislation to share the nation's oil wealth or to reconcile differences among the factions. And nearly all Sunni representatives in the government have quit, undermining the legitimacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite.

Still, there have been signs of changes in attitudes, some on the ground in Iraq, some in the United States:

_Two critics of Bush's recent handling of Iraq, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, both of the Brookings Institution, penned an op-ed opinion piece in The New York Times suggesting after a visit that "we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." They recommended Congress sustain the current troop buildup "at least into 2008."

They went, saw, and returned to tell the TRUTH.

_Leading anti-war Democrat Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania predicted that U.S. commanders will begin drawing down troop levels early next year and that Congress can be more flexible in setting a fixed deadline for ending the U.S. occupation.

{Sigh} NO ONE CARES about YOUR fixed deadlines. They have not passed. Will not pass. YOU are not the Commander and Chief. The American people merely see you as incompetent and insignificant.

_Polls suggest that Bush has had some degree of success in linking Islamic militants in Iraq with the al-Qaida terrorist movement.

That’s because that’s the TRUTH. Al-Qaeda was there before we went in. They ARE there now, attempting to make it appear ro be a civil war. They ARE al-Qaeda.

"The administration is aggressively engaged in shifting (public) attitudes. And our side has been less aggressive than it needs to be," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. "The administration has been making inroads on their Iraqi argument, particularly linking it to terrorism."

I’m sorry. You know folks, sometimes it’s hard for me. It really is. Are these people REALLY this ignorant? Really. Can they REALLY be this stupid. This pollster, Democratic Pollster, cannot believe what she is finding out there, so she has to blame someone for it. In essence, she wants you to believe that the only reason that the numbers are the way they are, is because the Republicans are out propagandizing the LWL. {Laughing} It could not possibly be that it’s as simple as the American people are hearing and excepting the TRUTH.

After sliding to just 28 percent in June, within range of an all-time low, Bush's job approval rating on handling Iraq rose slightly to 31 percent in July, according to AP-Ipsos polling. And a recent CBS/NYT poll showed an increase in the percentage of Americans who think the U.S. did the right thing in going to war with Iraq, up to 42 percent from 35 percent in May.

Some polls show this even higher. What about Congress’s 3 percent approval rating? Oh yeah, let’s not mention that.

"I don't claim our recommendation to keep surging into 2008 is a no-brainer. That can be debated. But I think people's opinions need to catch up with the battlefield facts," O'Hanlon said in an interview.

Did you hear what he just said. Translation time. He just said, we need to start reporting what is ACTUALLY happening there. The American people are seeing it for what it is, so we had better start reporting it that way.

The op-ed piece he wrote with Pollack has been widely circulated by war supporters but denounced by many war critics. "As long as people start to get a sense that what's happening on the battlefield is different and better than what it was, then I feel like we've made our contribution," said O'Hanlon.

He is proud that they told the truth. So am I.

O'Hanlon and Pollack supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but they have been sharply critical of the administration's handling of the aftermath.

Like the Iraqi parliament, Congress has recessed for the rest of August, to return in September — when an eagerly awaited progress report on Iraq will be presented by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

“Like the Iraqi parliament, Congress has recessed for the rest of August, to return in September.”

Like typical LWL, the Left is mad because the Iraqi Government did as they do, not as they said. Some made a big deal about this. But the truth is, WE are at war. OUR soldiers are in harms way. THEY {Our Congress} have no business taking the month off. If they REALLY cared about the troops, they should have stayed in session. They chose to take vacation. So they cannot say squat about the Iraqis.

What lawmakers hear from their constituents during the next month could do a lot to shape the Iraq debate ahead of receiving that report.

We already know that they have said, the report doesn’t matter. They have already said the war is lost. This new push for “Political progress” is a extremely weak and pathetic attempt to divert your attention away from the fact the surge is WORKING.

Visiting Iraq, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said Wednesday from Baghdad that American-led forces were "making some measurable progress, but it's slow going."

"As our troops show some progress toward security, the government of this nation is moving in the opposite direction. This is really unsustainable with the American people," Durbin said in an interview with National Public Radio.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that Petraeus' plan was "producing good results. And the troops have achieved tactical momentum against al-Qaida. ...We're anxious to see what General Petraeus has to say in September. It will be a watershed moment in our efforts in Iraq."

Petraeus asserted that "we are making progress. We have achieved tactical momentum in many areas, especially against al-Qaida Iraq, and to a lesser degree against the militia extremists." Still, he told Fox News on Tuesday that "there are innumerable challenges."

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said, progress there "is a very mixed bag." After visiting Iraq, Cordesman cited recent military successes against al-Qaida terrorists — but said there has been less progress against Shiite extremist groups.

"I think senior Iraqi political leaders are talking to each other, but they're doing it around the prime minister (al-Maliki). It's not clear the prime minister is exerting any great leadership toward conciliation," Cordesman said.

Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon defense strategist and now president of the Center for a New American Security, said that "the clock in Washington is running down pretty fast. There's sort of a wall next March-April. That's when they'll have to start replacing units, which will hit the 15-month mark." Bush recently extended tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months.

"They're going to have some very tough choices then. Either the 'surge' will de facto end and they'll start bringing people out because there's no units to replace them. Or you're going to have to have a presidential decision to extend tours from 15 months to 18 months," Flournoy said.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank that follows defense issues, cites "significant progress" on the military front. "There's the backlash against al-Qaida in Anbar Province. There's a reduction in attacks in Baghdad. And there's the ongoing stabilization efforts in the suburban belt around Baghdad," Thompson said.

"The problem is that nobody in the United States sees any significant progress on the political front. The Shiites and Sunni factions in the government don't seem to be able to get along. And that makes Congress wonder whether we're making any real progress. Because, even with better security, the country can't figure out how to take care of itself," Thompson added.

So the TRUTH is out there. No one, not even the LWL can deny it any longer. The Mass Media HAVE to report progress. The more THEY tell the truth, the more people will get behind the President and the war. This is the way it should have been from the beginning. But some LWL members cannot let go of their hatred for Bush, or their beholden to the far Left Looney fringe. So they need to change THEIR direction in Iraq. They lost the battle that the surge is a failure. They can no longer lie about that. So they have to change their attack. “Political Progress.” is the new mantra. Their new templet. They cannot have victory.
Peter

Must Read Opinion Journal Feature Artile

Hey folks,

First I have to say this. You know, I’ve been called everything. Racist, a bigot, a hatemonger, Right Wingnut, a Homophobe, whatever. I always take the attacks as a sign of success. Those that know me, know me. But I was told by someone recently that maybe I’m a little too harsh because I coined the name LWL, Left Wing Looneys. OK, here you go.

Times Online- Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

News Busters -Ex-Clinton Official Ties Minneapolis Bridge Collapse to Global Warming

No comment needed. No excerpts from these articles needed. Clink the links if you want. These people are just plain NUTS. The Chicken Little Crowd, and the LWL. Really. They are Looneys. So I’m being harsh for pointing out the truth? So be it.

But what I do want to talk about is THIS. You HAVE to read this whole article. It’s from The Wall Street Journal / Opinion -At War Propaganda Redux BY ION MIHAI PACEPA Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

During last week's two-day summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thanked President Bush for leading the global war on terror. Mr. Brown acknowledged "the debt the world owes to the U.S. for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism" and vowed to follow Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.

He even said this on the campaign trail. Now he is going to live up to it? Really? A Politician saying what he is going to do, then DOING it? Maybe some of our Politicians could learn something from him.

Mr. Brown's statements elicited anger from many of Mr. Bush's domestic detractors, who claim the president concocted the war on terror for personal gain. But as someone who escaped from communist Romania--with two death sentences on his head--in order to become a citizen of this great country, I have a hard time understanding why some of our top political leaders can dare in a time of war to call our commander in chief a "liar," a "deceiver" and a "fraud."

Amen!

I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president.

My father spent most of his life working for General Motors in Romania and had a picture of President Truman in our house in Bucharest. While "America" was a vague place somewhere thousands of miles away, he was her tangible symbol. For us, it was he who had helped save civilization from the Nazi barbarians, and it was he who helped restore our freedom after the war--if only for a brief while. We learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

Later, when I headed Romania's intelligence station in West Germany, everyone there admired America too. People would often tell me that the "Amis" meant the difference between night and day in their lives. By "night" they meant East Germany, where their former compatriots were scraping along under economic privation and Stasi brutality. That was then.

But in September 2002, a German cabinet minister, Herta Dauebler-Gmelin, had the nerve to compare Mr. Bush to Hitler. In one post-Iraq-war poll 40% of Canada's teenagers called the U.S. "evil," and even before the fall of Saddam 57% of Greeks answered "neither" when asked which country was more democratic, the U.S. or Iraq.

Pay attention to this.

Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink.

The communist effort to generate hatred for the American president began soon after President Truman set up NATO and propelled the three Western occupation forces to unite their zones to form a new West German nation. We were tasked to take advantage of the reawakened patriotic feelings stirring in the European countries that had been subjugated by the Nazis, in order to shift their hatred for Hitler over into hatred for Truman--the leader of the new "occupation power." Western Europe was still grateful to the U.S. for having restored its freedom, but it had strong leftist movements that we secretly financed. They were like putty in our hands.

The European leftists, like any totalitarians, needed a tangible enemy, and we gave them one. In no time they began beating their drums decrying President Truman as the "butcher of Hiroshima." We went on to spend many years and many billions of dollars disparaging subsequent presidents: Eisenhower as a war-mongering "shark" run by the military-industrial complex, Johnson as a mafia boss who had bumped off his predecessor, Nixon as a petty tyrant, Ford as a dimwitted football player and Jimmy Carter as a bumbling peanut farmer. In 1978, when I left Romania for good, the bloc intelligence community had already collected 700 million signatures on a "Yankees-Go-Home" petition, at the same time launching the slogan "Europe for the Europeans."

Are you getting this?

During the Vietnam War we spread vitriolic stories around the world, pretending that America's presidents sent Genghis Khan-style barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies and razed entire villages. Those weren't facts. They were our tales, but some seven million Americans ended up being convinced their own president, not communism, was the enemy. As Yuri Andropov, who conceived this dezinformatsiya war against the U.S., used to tell me, people are more willing to believe smut than holiness.

“Barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies and razed entire villages.” Is that like “Terrorizing women and children in the dead of night.” “Killing innocent Iraqis.” Sound familiar?

The final goal of our anti-American offensive was to discourage the U.S. from protecting the world against communist terrorism and expansion. Sadly, we succeeded. After U.S. forces precipitously pulled out of Vietnam, the victorious communists massacred some two million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Another million tried to escape, but many died in the attempt. This tragedy also created a credibility gap between America and the rest of the world, damaged the cohesion of American foreign policy, and poisoned domestic debate in the U.S.

Similar WILL happen in Iraq.

I have been telling you, This new Liberalism, is a quest for tyranny. Get this.

Unfortunately, partisans today have taken a page from the old Soviet playbook. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, for example, Bush critics continued our mud-slinging at America's commander in chief. One speaker, Martin O'Malley, now governor of Maryland, had earlier in the summer stated he was more worried about the actions of the Bush administration than about al Qaeda. On another occasion, retired four-star general Wesley Clark gave Michael Moore a platform to denounce the American commander in chief as a "deserter." And visitors to the national chairman of the Democratic Party had to step across a doormat depicting the American president surrounded by the words, "Give Bush the Boot."

Competition is indeed the engine that has driven the American dream forward, but unity in time of war has made America the leader of the world. During World War II, 405,399 Americans died to defeat Nazism, but their country of immigrants remained sturdily united. The U.S. held national elections during the war, but those running for office entertained no thought of damaging America's international prestige in their quest for personal victory. Republican challenger Thomas Dewey declined to criticize President Roosevelt's war policy. At the end of that war, a united America rebuilt its vanquished enemies. It took seven years to turn Nazi Germany and imperial Japan into democracies, but that effort generated an unprecedented technological explosion and 50 years of unmatched prosperity for us all.

Now we are again at war. It is not the president's war. It is America's war, authorized by 296 House members and 76 senators. I do not intend to join the armchair experts on the Iraq war. I do not know how we should handle this war, and they don't know either. But I do know that if America's political leaders, Democrat and Republican, join together as they did during World War II, America will win. Otherwise, terrorism will win. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi predicted just before being killed: "We fight today in Iraq, tomorrow in the land of the Holy Places, and after there in the West."

On July 28, I celebrated 29 years since President Carter signed off on my request for political asylum, and I am still tremendously proud that the leader of the Free World granted me my freedom. During these years I have lived here under five presidents--some better than others--but I have always felt that I was living in paradise. My American citizenship has given me a feeling of pride, hope and security that is surpassed only by the joy of simply being alive. There are millions of other immigrants who are equally proud that they restarted their lives from scratch in order to be in this magnanimous country. I appeal to them to help keep our beloved America united and honorable. We may not be able to change the habits of our current political representatives, but we may be able to introduce healthy new blood into the U.S. Congress.

For once, the communists got it right. It is America's leader that counts. Let's return to the traditions of presidents who accepted nothing short of unconditional surrender from our deadly enemies. Let's vote next year for people who believe in America's future, not for the ones who live in the Cold War past.

Enough said!

Lt. Gen. Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. His new book, "Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination" (Ivan R. Dee) will be published in November.
Peter

Update on the H.S. This Week. Foot and Mouth Outbreak Spending

Hey folks,

It seems that Britain officially has a full blown outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. According to Reuters-Foot and mouth outbreak spreads to second UK farm By Kate Kelland1 hour, 5 minutes ago

A second herd of cattle in southern Britain has contracted foot and mouth disease, the government said on Tuesday, raising fears that the highly damaging animal virus is spreading.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said culling of animals had already begun at the farm, which was within a 10-km radius (6 mile) protection zone set up around a farm where foot and mouth cases were first found last week.

The outbreak poses an immediate threat to the British livestock industry, whose meat exports are worth $1 billion a year.

"The chief veterinary officer will confirm shortly ... that the tests that were done overnight on the samples taken ... confirm foot and mouth," Benn told BBC television.

"We've got to keep on top of this outbreak and make sure it doesn't spread anywhere else."

Doesn’t seem like you did a good job of that already. According to CNN-2nd UK disease outbreak confirmed

Confirmation of the second case comes a day after the European Union said it would restrict all live animals, fresh meat and milk products from mainland Great Britain.

Laboratory results Friday confirmed the first outbreak of the disease was found in cattle at a farm in Surrey County, England.

Culling of the 38 infected cattle in Surrey was completed Saturday, DEFRA said in a posting on its Web site. Cattle on two additional sites that together make up the enterprise and animals on an adjacent farm were also culled.

One of the additional cattle tested positive for the illness, it said.

Now I asked a question that noone has been able to answer yet.

“OK. Outbreak in 2001 linked to them messing with this disease. Outbreak today, due to them messing with this disease. Why continue to mess with this disease? I do not understand the logic. If someone out there can explain to me the reason they keep doing this, please enlighten me. Logic dictates to me, that this is a very bad and VERY contagious disease that can be carried on the wind. Why not just leave this alone?”

The laboratories, which store foot-and-mouth disease for use in vaccines, are shared between the Institute for Animal Health (IAH), a diagnostic and research center, and pharmaceutical company Merial Animal Health, whose work includes manufacturing vaccines.

Both organizations use the strain of the virus detected in slaughtered cattle at the first farm, but both have insisted there was no evidence of breaches in biosecurity at their labs.

"Merial managing director David Biland said Monday the company had been manufacturing vaccines for 15 years under strict adherence to quality control standards and never had such a problem, but welcomed the investigation and would comply with it.

I do understand the process of using disease to assist in making vaccines. But if you have already caused an outbreak once, then would you not look into CHANGING the way you do things? Of course these Labs are going to comply. They CAUSED this. All I’m saying is that there must be a better way.
Peter

Souces:
Reuters-Foot and mouth outbreak spreads to second UK farm
CNN-2nd UK disease outbreak confirmed

The Push For Approval Is On

Hey folks,

Yesterday was all about the sudden 180 in Congress. This new and sudden change is NOT sitting well with the LWL. Of course the big news was the fact that The House approved and expanded the dreaded and evil Bush “illegal” wiretapping program. More on that in a second. But they also did this. According to AP -House approves $460B Pentagon budget By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

The House approved modest changes to President Bush's record Pentagon budget proposal early Sunday, but Democrats signaled plans to resume a more contentious debate over the Iraq war after the August recess.

They had to throw that in for the moveon.org Looney types

The House's $459.6 billion version of the defense budget, approved on a 395-13 vote, would add money for equipment for the National Guard and Reserve, provide for 12,000 additional soldiers and Marines, and increase spending for defense health care and military housing.

As soon as they did this, they left. They will be gone until Labor day.{Laughing} They did it and ran.

The White House criticized Democrats for cutting Bush's request and effectively transfering $3.5 billion of the money to domestic spending programs. It is likely the cuts will be restored this fall when Congress passes another wartime supplemental spending bill.

The administration has not threatened to veto the measure.

The measure does not include Bush's 2008 funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats say they want to consider that money in separate legislation in September. This approach would set the stage for a major clash over the war; Democrats are likely to try to impose conditions on the money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like timetables, surrender policies, ETC. The same old, same old. Some past opponents of any increase in “Bush’s War” came out in support of this bill.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a point man on military matters for Democrats, told reporters this past week that he backs only short-term extensions of war spending.

The massive military measure represents a nearly $40 billion increase over current levels. The Pentagon would get another several-billion-dollar budget increase through a companion measure covering military base construction and a recent round of base closures.

The defense legislation largely endorses Bush's plans for major weapons systems such as the next generation Joint Strike Fighter and the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, which has been beset by cost overruns.

The Democratic military budget would provide $8.5 billion for missile defense, about 4 percent less than requested by Bush but $1 billion more than current spending.

Get this.

Murtha had prepared amendments to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and require troops be fully trained and equipped before going to fight in Iraq. But facing the prospects of losing votes and inflaming partisan tensions, he withdrew them.

The bill contains a provision barring the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq.

Thats not going to sit well with the Looneys.

But the big news was this. According to the AP-House approves foreign wiretap bill By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

Late Saturday, Bush said, The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has assured me that this bill gives him what he needs to continue to protect the country, and therefore I will sign this legislation as soon as it gets to my desk.

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals reasonably believed to be outside the United States. Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

If you remember, this is the same LWL that was crying for impeachment or censure of President Bush for this VERY thing. Now they voted FOR it 227-183.

The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that foreign intelligence information is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said.

Now if a communication by an American citizen is intercepted and that person falls under suspicion, they will still have to get a warrant for further surveillance. Of course that’s not good enough for the Looneys.

This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review, without any checks and balances, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., during the debate preceding the vote. I think this unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

Just plain Bunk.

According to the AFP -US Congress approves expanded wiretap powers, LWL member and Traitor Reid was not happy either.

My Republican colleagues chose to rubberstamp a flawed administration proposal, said Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, accusing the White House of misusing anti-terror powers in the past.

Democrats were angry because they claimed the Republican approach would allow Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, target of their demands for perjury and impeachment proceedings, to authorize wide-ranging surveillance.

Some of them voted for it. Quiet a few. I remind you, the vote was 227-183, the Republicans are the MINORITY. So do the math.

Even CNN pointed out the obvious

Despite the push from the Democratic leadership for their bill, several Democrats said during debate that they would vote in favor of both measures.

All the bills are temporary fixes -- the Democratic bill would have expired in four months, while the GOP bill gives lawmakers six months to overhaul the 30-year-old law.

So why did these people that have been fighting tooth and nail over these things, suddenly turn around a vote for them? 3 percent approval rating. 16 percent overall approval rating. They seemed to make this move, as I pointed out before, they hit and RAN, to increase their support. Their approval. Maybe they are finally starting to realize that they cannot win elections, like 08, by simply attempting to satisfy a minute group of far left Looney Fringe idiots, no matter how much money they are giving them. I doubt it, but we can hope.
Peter

Sources:
AP -House approves $460B Pentagon budget
AP-House approves foreign wiretap bill
AFP -US Congress approves expanded wiretap powers
CNN -Congress gives Bush administration more eavesdropping leeway

No Reason For Surveillance in The US?

Hey folks,

One reason why I have no problem with the Surveillance Programs, Domestic or otherwise?



American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn. According to (CNN) -- U.S. Embassies and American interests "at home and abroad" are prime targets for terrorist attacks, American al Qaeda member Adam Yahiye Gadahn said in a newly released al Qaeda-produced video.

"We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad ... ," Gadahn -- also known as Azzam the American -- says in the video provided to CNN by www.LauraMansfield.com, a Web site that analyzes terrorism.

Later in the video, which is about an hour long and takes the form of a documentary, the self-proclaimed American jihadist makes explicit threats against the United States and U.S. interests, singling out embassies and consulates.

"These spy dens and military command and control centers -- from which you plotted your aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and which still provide vital moral, military, material and logistical support to the crusade -- shall continue to be legitimate targets for brave Muslims ... until and unless you heed our demands: Stop the crusade and leave the Muslims alone," he said.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told CNN that investigators are analyzing the video for any indication of Gadahn's whereabouts.

"The increased messaging from al Qaeda could represent different things and our analytical personnel, working with (intelligence community) partners, review every message for clues and leads," Kolko said.

He noted that the content of Gadahn's message is nothing new.

"There is no shortage of al Qaeda making noise that they intend to attack the U.S. or its interests overseas," Kolko said. "We are concerned, but that is why we do our job every day."

Enough said. He may be nuts, but he is an American al- Qaeda member. Where there is one, you get the point.
Peter

Source:
CNN -Al Qaeda member: U.S. embassies prime targets

IWA for Sunday 080507

Hey folks,

It’s Sunday, time for the IWA. Now do not take this the wrong way. I’m not attempting to turn anyone off from going to the library. I’m not saying that libraries are bad in anyway. I know many people that love libraries. I’m just not one of them. I find them boring and quite frankly, I just do not care for them at all.

Maybe it the fact that I can with a click, get any and all the information I want about anything. Maybe it the fact that if I want a book, I can BUY one. This way, it matters not, how long it may take me to read it.

Having said all that, even I understand the way the library system works. They have books, tapes, movies, ETC. that you are more than welcome to BORROW to read, listen to, or read. Borrow being the key word. They kind of expect you to give them back.

Well, according to the AP-Library patron accused of selling books

A library patron suspected of selling hundreds of books, tapes and DVDs he had borrowed has cost Denver-area libraries tens of thousands of dollars, officials said.

Thomas Pilaar, 33, was suspected of using different names to obtain seven library cards from the Denver Public Library, then checking out 300 items per card and selling at least some of the items, KCNC-TV in Denver reported.

"It appears his intent was to sell 2,100 (items) from the Denver Library collection," Denver Public Library spokeswoman M. Celeste Jackson told the station. She estimated the losses at about $35,000.

How did he remove all the information imbedded in the books indicating they were library books? Where and to whom was he selling these?

Arapahoe County library administrators said Pilaar obtained three library cards and checked out 250 to 300 items.

Again, I do not go to libraries, but are there not limits as to what you can take?

James Larue, Douglas County's head librarian, said Pilaar checked out more than 300 items from two county libraries and had $11,000 worth of overdue items.

$11,000 worth of overdue items? {Laughing} Hey, maybe THAT’s why he started selling the books. He was attempting to raise enough money to paid his overdue late charges.

Authorities were tipped by a woman who recently bought books through Craigslist.org and noticed the library identification stamps.

Oh! He didn’t bother to remove the library identification.

Pilaar was jailed on an unrelated parole violation and was being investigated for theft, said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver prosecutor's office. He was being held without bond.

Pilaar declined to comment.

Congratulations Mr. Pilaar , you are the Idiot of the Week. Hey, if I know they expect them back, you most definitely should have.
Peter

H.S. Foot and Mouth Disease In Britain Again

Hey folks,

In the Health and Science segment this week, it seems that Britain is again facing the dreaded Foot and Mouth Disease. According to Reuters -Research lab in spotlight over foot and mouth By Luke Baker

British authorities investigating an outbreak of highly infectious foot and mouth disease searched two research laboratories on Sunday located just miles from where a herd of cattle was infected.

While there was no confirmation the sites were the source of the infection, both the high-security labs -- one run by the government's Institute for Animal Health (IAH) and the other by pharmaceutical company Merial -- were placed within a 10-km radius (6-mile) exclusion zone as inspectors moved in.

The laboratories, built on one site, handle a variety of strains of foot and mouth, conduct research into the virus and develop vaccines against it and other animal diseases.

Merial is a leading animal health firm with 2006 sales of $2.2 billion. It is jointly owned by U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. and France's Sanofi-Aventis SA.

Attention focused on the labs as the possible source of the infection after Defra, Britain's department for agriculture, said the strain of foot and mouth confirmed in 60 head of cattle on Friday was not one "recently found in animals."

In fact, it was a strain of the virus isolated 40 years ago by British biological researchers, it said.

The director of the government-funded IAH issued a statement saying there had been no security breaches at his laboratory, but left open the possibility that the rare strain of foot and mouth may have leaked from the Merial facility, located alongside the government lab at a site called Pirbright.

The government said Merial had produced a batch containing the same rare strain of the foot and mouth virus -- identified by the government as 01 BFS67, a strain isolated by British scientists in 1967 -- as recently as July 2007.

No proof yet that there is a connection, but, uh? If they just produced the stain in July, and now after having no signs of the SAME strain, they now have 60 head of cattle with the disease?

A Merial spokesman said the company had halted vaccine production as a precaution but had no further comment.

Of course they have no further comment.

Britain's chief veterinarian, Debby Reynolds, ordered an "urgent review into biosecurity arrangements" at both sites, although Defra emphasised that "all potential sources" of the virus were still being investigated.

"The important thing to bear in mind is that this is a promising lead, but we don't know for sure and therefore it is very, very important that people continue to be vigilant," Environment Minister Hilary Benn told BBC television, referring to the possibility the virus leaked from the laboratories.

The infected animals, found on a farm in Surrey, southwest of London, were isolated, culled and taken away for burial on Saturday. A nearby herd was also culled as a precaution.

This also happened in 2001. According to Wikipedia

2001
The outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom in the spring and summer of 2001 saw more than 2,000 cases of the disease in farms in most of the British countryside. Around seven million sheep and cattle were killed in an eventually successful attempt to halt the disease. Cumbria was the worst affected area of the country, with 843 cases. With the intention of controlling the spread of the disease, public rights of way across land were closed by order. This damaged the popularity of the Lake District as a tourist destination. By the time the disease was halted by October 2001, the crisis was estimated to have cost Britain £8bn ($16bn).

2007
An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom was confirmed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) {Basically their version of our FDA} on August third. On a farm between Wyke and Flexford in Surrey England. All livestock on the premises were culled on 4 August. A nationwide ban on the movement of cattle and pigs has been imposed, with a three kilometer protection zone currently in place around the affected farm and a further ten kilometer zone of cattle surveillance. Other potential cases are being investigated

On 4 August, the strain of the virus was identified as one linked to vaccines and not normally found in animals, described as a 01 BFS67 – like virus, isolated in the 1967 outbreak. It is the same strain as used at the nearby Institute for Animal Health and Merial Animal Health LTD at Pirbright 2½ miles (4 km) away which was named as a possible source of infection.

No do not get worried about possibly getting sick from this yourself. According to the CDC

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common illness of infants and children. It is characterized by fever, sores in the mouth, and a rash with blisters. HFMD begins with a mild fever, poor appetite, malaise ("feeling sick"), and frequently a sore throat. One or 2 days after the fever begins, painful sores develop in the mouth. They begin as small red spots that blister and then often become ulcers. They are usually located on the tongue, gums, and inside of the cheeks. The skin rash develops over 1 to 2 days with flat or raised red spots, some with blisters. The rash does not itch, and it is usually located on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. It may also appear on the buttocks. A person with HFMD may have only the rash or the mouth ulcers.

Is HFMD the same as foot-and-mouth disease?

No. HFMD is often confused with foot-and-mouth disease of cattle, sheep, and swine. Although the names are similar, the two diseases are not related at all and are caused by different viruses.

Basically, this is going to have an economic impact on Britain, but there is no reason for people to panic. Like back in 2001, Britain stands to lose a lot financially. The European Commission said it had banned all live animal exports from Britain, as well as meat and dairy products from the infected area. Further restrictions could be brought in after EU veterinary experts meet on Wednesday.

We {The US} have put restrictions on imports of cattle and sheep from Britain due to other health scares, said it would also ban imports of pork and pork products.

According to Reuters

Depending on how long the EU and U.S. bans remain in place, the impact on British agriculture could be profound. Industry experts said British exports of livestock and meat were worth about 15 million pounds a week.

OK. Outbreak in 2001 linked to them messing with this disease. Outbreak today, due to them messing with this disease. Why continue to mess with this disease? I do not understand the logic. If someone out there can explain to me the reason they keep doing this, please enlighten me. Logic dictates to me, that this is a very bad and VERY contagious disease that can be carried on the wind. Why not just leave this alone?
Peter

Souces:
Reuters -Research lab in spotlight over foot and mouth
Wikipedia
CDC

Presidential Radio Address for Saturday 080407

President Bush: Good morning. Today, I am traveling to Minneapolis to the site of Wednesday's tragic bridge collapse. Like millions of Americans, I was shocked and saddened when I heard the news that the I-35 bridge gave way during rush hour. The bridge was a major traffic artery, and when it collapsed dozens of cars fell into the Mississippi River.

Laura and I join all Americans in mourning those who lost their lives and in sending our thoughts and prayers to their families. And we pray that those injured will make a full recovery.

On Thursday morning, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Federal Highway Administrator Richard Capka traveled to Minneapolis. They announced $5 million in immediate federal funding for debris removal and to help restore the flow of traffic. This is just the beginning of the financial assistance we will make available to support the state in its recovery efforts. Several federal agencies are on the ground aiding state and local officials, including the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

I recognize how important the I-35 bridge is to the state of Minnesota, and my administration is committed to working closely with Governor Pawlenty and Mayor Rybak to rebuild this bridge as quickly as possible.

In times of tragedy, our hearts ache for those who suffer, yet our hearts are also lifted by acts of courage and compassion. We saw those qualities in the residents of a nearby apartment building who rushed to the scene to offer their help. We saw them in the divers who fought the mighty currents of the Mississippi to reach victims. And we saw them in the firefighters who searched car to car for survivors.

Among the survivors was a group of kids returning from a summer field trip. Their school bus had just passed over the Mississippi River, when the bridge below them gave way. The bus dropped more than 20 feet and came to rest on the guardrail of the collapsed bridge span. A staff member named Jeremy Hernandez quickly swung into action. He broke open the backdoor and helped evacuate the terrified children to safety. The mother of one of the children on board credited Jeremy's presence of mind with helping spare her daughter from tragedy. She put it this way: "I don't know what he was thinking but it must have been something really good."

Our country is fortunate to have brave and selfless citizens like Jeremy, and all those who risked their own safety to aid in the rescue. This is a difficult time for the community in Minneapolis, but the people there are decent and resilient, and they will get through these painful hours. As they do, they know that all of America stands with them, and that we will do all we can to help them recover and rebuild.

May God bless those who are hurting in Minneapolis, and may God bless our wonderful country.

Thank you for listening.

The Democrats Are Trying To Fix The Elections

Hey folks,

You get a two part post today. Actually three if you count yesterday. I told you yesterday,

“The truth of this whole mess is just this simple. The LWL and Democratic approval rating are the lowest in history. They have done nothing. They have turned off the majority of the American people. The sad fact is this, they are scared. Scared that they, because of their own actions, will be voted out in 08. They are afraid that the Republicans will retain the White House. THAT is what they want to fix.”

Well, well, well. What I did not know is that Zogby just came out with a new poll. Congress has a 3 percent approval rating on their handling of the war. 3 folks. Now I’m not sure, but that seems almost impossible. That has to be the lowest in history. Even the President has a 24 percent.

Get this. In the overall opinion on the war, 44 percent of Americans are FOR it. Only 55 percent oppose it. It’s funny, the more and more people actually learn the TRUTH about the war, the more and more people are for it. This number keeps going up.

The sad thing is, the LWL just do not get it. In The Washington Times -More Iraq progress wanted.

The remarks echo the opinion of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, who aides say is "not willing to concede there are positive things to point to" in Iraq, despite recent upbeat assessments from Pentagon officials, House members who toured Iraq and even from a liberal Washington think tank.

"Not willing to concede there are positive things to point to?"

We know that sectarian violence is down. More and more Iraqis are stepping up. Businesses are starting to thrive, American deaths are on a decease, and we are WINNING. Just ask Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack who went there, saw, and came back to tell the truth.

She CAN”T acknowledge progress has been made. Gen. Petraeus’s report means nothing to her already. Has invested everything on America’s loss in Iraq. EVERYTHING. As a matter of fact. Get this.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee have joined forces to launch a Month of Action on Iraq that will begin with a national television advertising campaign highlighting the Democratic Congress's accomplishments and calling on President Bush to work with Democrats to end the war in Iraq.

The ads will tout the progress the Democratic Congress has made on the priorities important to the American people -- raising the minimum wage; a historic increase in benefits for veterans returning from Iraq, ensuring 6 million children keep their health care, and putting America's security first by passing the 9/11 Commission's recommendations.

{Laughing} THIS is surreal. It get’s better. I have Pelosi’s speech on this. That will be in part two.

"The American people voted for a new direction in the last election, and Democrats are delivering it," DSCC Chairman Chuck Schumer said. "Now it's time for the Republicans to stop obstructing change, and join us to bring an end to the war in Iraq."
WE ARE WINNING. You MORON. The American people are starting to see this. Hence, a 3 percent approval rating.

"Congress is making progress on the new direction the American people demanded," said DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen. "There is more work to do, this August we're going district by district to urge Republicans to stop obstructing progress and work with us to end the war in Iraq. Republicans who continue to vote in lock step with the President Bush's failed policies will be held accountable."

NO! YOU will be held accountable Sen. Van Hollen YOU will be by the American people. YOU are fighting to end the war, causing America to surrender to an enemy that wants us DEAD, just so you can get Bush. Plain and simple.

"The American people want a new direction in Iraq yet President Bush and his Republican allies are stubbornly supporting a policy that is making America less safe," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "Time and again, Democrats have passed legislation to end Bush's war of choice in Iraq but Republicans refuse to change course. Democrats will continue to hold them accountable but one thing is clear-Democrats have accomplished more for the American people in the past six months than Republicans accomplished in six years."

You know folks, these people are truly just sick. They are mental midgets that think they are more important than they will ever be. They think you are THAT stupid. They think that most of America think like the Looneys out there. The Moveon.org types. They really do. They need help. The more and more I watch these imbeciles, the more and more I am sure that Bush Derangement Syndrome should TRULY be classified as a legitimate mental disorder.

The ad campaign kicks off a Month of Action on Iraq calling on Bush and Republicans in the House and Senate to change direction by ending the war. The Committees will also spend the month of August targeting Republicans in their home states and districts for their support of the President's failed Iraq policy and their continued obstruction of Democratic proposals to end the war. The advertisements begin airing on Monday on national cable stations.

This from the DNC.

These people are getting beyond looney now folks. They are dangerous. They have completely lost their minds. They truly think that they own this country and can do whatever they want. Take this mess in the house. They STOLE the vote. They are obsessed with giving illegals rights. OBSESSED.

According to The Politico

Details remain fuzzy, but numerous Republicans argued afterward that they had secured a 215-213 win on their motion to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance. Democrats, however, argued the measure was deadlocked at 214-214 and failed, members and aides on both sides of the aisle said afterward.

One GOP aide saw McNulty gavel the vote to a close after receiving a signal from his leaders — but before reading the official tally. And votes continued to shift even after he closed the roll call — a strange development in itself.

Whatever the final tally, acrimony quickly exploded between lawmakers on either side of the aisle as Democratic leaders tried to plot a solution, while parliamentarians on either side argued over protocol.

They got caught. This is NOT going away. Pelosi said a mistake was made and corrected {IN THEIR FAVOR} and it’s time to move on. But House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) Had THIS to say yesterday.

"The ability of this Congress to fulfill its responsibilities to the American people depends on the presence of clear rules and an open, ordered debate -- and a fair hand in protecting both. The majority did not observe those rules last night, in the process reversing the will of this chamb