Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Marines lead run to Ground Zero during Fleet Week NY 2011

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photo 5/31/11, from NYC Marines stream



via Weasel Zippers

Things that I want: Spy wristwatch!

spionkamerahere is a really cool thing I found on Coolstuff.se.
It is a wristwatch with a camera! isn't that so cool?

It goes high up on my list of things that I want. I figure it would be a cool way to take even more pictures than I usually do.

If nothing else, a cool gadget for technical freaks like me. :)

END GAME


THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT:  The whole world is divided between just two powers.

The first power is Western Globalism.  This consists of Western quasi-capitalist  nations owned and financed by communist China.  Sorry, if that bursts your bubble, but that is just the facts.  Modern capitalism is a ruse.  It has become, as Hilaire Belloc said it would be, "The Servile State."  It is an economy whereby the state, through positive law and monopolies, mandates that certain people must work for others, and their employers must "take care" of them.  It is not a true free market, whereby any man can take his life savings and invest in a business of his choice, thereby creating and owning his own job and his own destiny without the fear of being undercut, and run out of business, by a massive international corporation with resources far beyond what he could ever accomplish himself.  The Servile State in Europe and North America is indebted to communist China for it's very existence now, and so the Chinese now own the West.  The Servile State is also heavily dependent on oil, as is China, and in the face of an emerging "peak oil" economy, the West has taken it upon itself to invade and conquer the Arab world for it's oil supply.  This is how it works.  Remember, the Servile State is a quasi-capitalist globalist system, with elements of socialism and serfdom intermixed.  It depends heavily on large corporations, and an alliance between large corporations and Western governments.  In the United States we know this as the relationship between Wal Street in New York and K Street in Washington DC.  When Western nations need more oil, they attempt to contract with Arab powers in the Middle East and Northern Africa.  This is because of their abundance of "light crude" in that region, which means oil that is easy to drill and requires the least refinery process, thus maximizing profit for the oil company and reducing gasoline prices for Western consumers.  When Arab powers cooperate, they are rewarded with riches beyond their imagination -- think Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula region.  Cooperation consists of freedom for Western corporations to drill there and the guarantee that all oil will be traded in U.S. dollars.  (This is the ONLY thing keeping the U.S. dollar afloat after leaving the gold standard behind in the 1970s.)  If, however, a particular Arab power refuses to cooperate in some way or another, than the Western corporations tattle-tale to Western governments, and those Western governments respond by sending in secret covert operatives to the problem Arab nation.  The idea here is to stir up a revolution, so as to effect "regime change," and replace the old leaders with new ones that are willing to deal with Western oil companies.  (Think Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain. etc.)  All of the attempted revolutions in these countries were spawned by the CIA, MI6, and other European intelligence agencies.  If these uprisings succeed, like they did in Egypt, then we go back to cutting deals with Western oil corporations.  If they don't succeed, as they didn't in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Libya, then the West responds with military force to effect "regime change."  Once that's done, we go back to cutting deals with Western oil corporations.  One way or another, the West gets it's oil, and oil continues to be traded in U.S. dollars.  You will notice that this new way of doing things seemed to come about in around 1990.  At around the same time the old Soviet Union collapsed.  The collapse of the Soviet Union was absolutely necessary to implement this new Western hegemony.  Prior to 1990 the Soviet Union stood in the way.  After 1990, the West had free reign to implement the imperial aspirations of the Servile State.  Former President George H. Bush referred to this new Western hegemony as the "New World Order."  The video above covers the emergence of this "New World Order" onto the public scene twenty years ago, when it was discussed openly by the President of the United States and his administration, along with the Congress, Pentagon, Western allied nations, NATO and the UN.  It was at that time we learned that the unification of Europe was part of a much broader plan.  Later, under the administration of George W. Bush, we would discover that unification of North America was also on the agenda, as well as the unification of other regions around the world.  Again, China is intimately involved with this, and believe it or not, the United States of America serves at the behest of China, which owns most of the USA's national debt.  As China's economy begins to emerge in the years ahead, it's need for oil will grow exponentially, and so the United States will continue to use it's military to insure that this flow of "light crude" from the Arab world remains at a constant until it is completely and totally depleted.

The second power is the emerging Islamic Caliphate which is an alliance between Islamists and socialists.  Yes, ironically, socialism plays a role on both sides of the emerging global conflict.  On the Western side, socialism works together with large corporations to form the Servile State of the New World Order.  While on the Eastern side, socialism works together with radical Islam to form the emerging caliphate.  On both sides, Socialism (the brainchild of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels), plays an intimate role.  Russia has always aligned more with the northern Arab states and Islamic powers, even since the days of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.  Since the end of the Cold War, the United States and NATO have consistently cut Russia out of any share in the New World Order.  So Russia has adopted a very hostile attitude toward the Servile State of the West.  The recent war in Georgia was one example of this, where the Russians cited the bogus charge of "ethnic cleansing" to seize an oil pipeline that spanned the northern frontier of Georgia.  Russia has also been working closely with Iran and Syria against Western influence in the Arab world.  This is why Western attempts to usurp Arab powers will likely backfire, as we are already beginning to see in Iraq and Egypt.  Likewise, Europe has seen a massive influx of Arab Muslims while hard-core Socialists (Marxist Russian style) have made inroads into European culture for years.  The alliance between hard Socialists and Islamic radicals is now playing out in the open for all the world to see.  The two are frequently seen protesting together throughout Europe, while emerging Islamist states in the Middle East are starting to implement hard Socialist policies.  The Russian Socialists and Islamic Arabs are working together AGAINST the Western centered Servile State in the New World Order.  Now the Russians probably have further plans to establish their own globalist power in the long run, while the Islamists clearly seek their own idea of a worldwide caliphate.  As far as the Islamists are concerned, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  They are willing to work together against the Western New World Order until it is destroyed, and then duke it out with the Russians once that conflict is settled.

In the middle of all of this is the Zionist nation-state of Israel.  So it would seem Israel has been playing the Western New World Order with it's political and economic alliance with the United States.  That relationship is now strained and Israel's future is now in question.  There are those who would like us to believe Zionism is behind all of this.  I'm not so sure of that right now.  For the time being, it looks like Zionists have been playing the system to their advantage, but that's not the same as controlling it.  In the end, Israel has served the purpose of the West, and so the West tolerates it's existence for now.

Right now we are living in the days just before the End Game, the time when nations are preparing for the final conflict between East and West.  The West has formulated the New World Order.  It is a form of soft-socialism. combined with corporate hegemony.  It is the Servile State and it seeks to dominate the world.  The East fancies a harder form of Socialism, and seeks it's own global power, but that cannot be realized until the Western New World Order is crushed and the Socialists and Islamists duke it out to see who will be in control.  The Middle East has become a tinderbox with it's access to light crude in a peak oil economy.  While Zionist Israel has become the fuse with it's Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The fuse will be ignited soon, and the whole region will go up in flames.  This is inevitable.

However, the flames will not stop in the Middle East.  The Socialist-Islamist alliance in Europe is very strong,  When the Middle East goes up in flames, Europe will likely follow, and with that we will begin to see the fulfillment of Catholic prophecy.  France, Italy and Britain will fall to social upheaval, on the order of that seen in Egypt and the Middle East.  What comes around goes around, so the saying goes, and as the West has orchestrated the failed attempts of "regime change" in the Arab world, so the East will orchestrate the same in the Western world.  Those of us who know Catholic prophecy know what will become of that.

For the time being, we are seeing calls to nationalism and patriotism.  This always precedes times of war.  The globalist agenda will likely enter into it's next phase the years ahead.  It will be precipitated by another global economic meltdown this year, or next year at the latest.  The underlying economic problems that prompted the crash of 2008 have not been addressed.  Therefore, another collapse is inevitable.  This collapse will be so deep, and so terrible, that it will likely prompt North Americans to choose between breadlines or economic unification.  Europe on the other hand will be plunged into a war for it's very existence.  This is when the best laid plans of the Western globalists and the Eastern anti-globalists will come to a head and begin to crumble for both sides.

It is prophesied, by the Saints of old, that God will use the wicked powers of the East to destroy the wicked plans of the West.  Then when the West has been brought to it's knees, facing total destruction, God will raise up a holy pope and a great monarch to defeat the powers of the East and restore order to Europe, and the world, under the reign of a vast Christian empire, unlike anything seen since the days of the Holy Roman Empire.  Somehow the nation of Russia plays into these prophecies.  Currently, Russia serves at the behest of the wicked socialist anti-globalists and is allied with Islamic radical powers.  But toward the end of the conflict, like in World War I, Russia will undergo a change that will cause it to withdraw from the arena of world affairs, and eventually bring it into alignment with the great monarch of the West.  Could this event be the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church with Rome, (i.e. the "conversion of Russia") spurring the return of the czars?   Prior to World War I Russia was a Christian empire.  After World War I, Russia became a godless socialist republic.  Now as we approach World War III, Russia will enter the conflict as a godless socialist-fascist republic, but possibly emerge as a Christian empire again?  The prophecies, both Biblical and extra-Biblical seem to suggest some kind of cataclysmic event befalling Russia, prompting it's return to sanity.  This is the linchpin to the Catholic understanding of end-times prophecy.  Russia is the key.

Catholic prophecy also tells us of a period of peace that will follow this end game, whether it will last just one generation or many remains to be seen, and the prophecies themselves seem to leave this open ended.  After that period of peace however, man will return to his wicked ways.  Zionism will return with a new Messianic fervor, and the world will find itself in the clutches of the great and final Antichrist himself.  That day is coming, but it is not now.  Today we face the end of our current way of life, the clash and destruction of the globalist ambitions of Western secularist powers.  The likely fall of the Zionist regime in Israel, but not necessarily the end of Jews living in the Holy Land.  The terror of an Islamist-Socialist takeover of the world is upon us, followed by their own destruction through the intervention of God.

How does this relate to us right here and now?  First and foremost, don't fall for the propaganda.  The current world system cannot be saved.  The New World Order is destined for destruction.  Since the United States is so intimately involved in the New World Order, indeed the USA is mostly the catalyst behind it, the result of it's demise will be hard on America -- very hard.  Catholics should be aligning themselves with the pope and strongly relearning the catechism.  We should be careful not to let nationalist or globalist ideology cloud our judgement.  We should physically prepare ourselves by storing up some basic survival foods and necessities that will last us about a month.  Likewise, investing in hard currency, such as gold and silver, instead of soft currency (dollars, euros, etc.) would likely be prudent.  Finally, we must network with fellow Catholics and other Christians of good will toward us.  Beyond regular prayer and striving for personal holiness with charity, this is literally ALL we can do.  We can do no more but wait and watch it all unfold around us.

Just Americans Talking Politics

At a local coffee shop, a few of us were just sitting there chewing the fat talking about what's been going on in the Country. And yes, as usual it went from one subject to another.

First one of the guys started talking about high gas prices, and the high price of hay these days. Then it went to how food prices are climbing as well. Then all of us talked about the high unemployment numbers in this area and across the Nation.

One friend said, "it's was the damn Liberals and the Environmentalist. They're trying to bring down the Nation."

He mentioned how they shut down our Lumber Mills, but yet at the same time those Liberal types don't find anything wrong with buying lumber from the people who are clear cutting the Rain Forest in Brazil. All there agreed that they are definitely a problem.

"They're the ruination of our Country," another friend said.

Someone said that it's the liberal attitude that's made Americans more dependant on other Nations for everything we need to live. Someone brought up our dependency on Foreign Oil from oil rich Dictators.

Another mentioned that we get almost all of our manufactured products like televisions, radios, other electronics, cars and trucks and their parts from foreigners. Another said let's not forget shoes and boots, clothing, clocks and watches, building supplies, and yes beef and more and more of the food we eat.

I said that I had a problem with the way Liberals think. Only God knows how the Liberal mind allows them to justify the poor working conditions, the slave labor, the polluted rivers and harbors in other countries. At least if we produced stuff here, we'd have a handle on taking care of the workers and making sure the land isn't completely shot to Hell in the mean while.

Another brought up how about their safety measures when it comes to everything from the water they use to make beer in Mexico for example to the horse manure and raw feces that some countries use as fertilize the crops that they are sending to Americans.

Our Environmental Laws have no standing in Foreign Countries. Someone said that he wouldn't want to eat the food that is grown in some of those countries with both no regulation or enforcement.

He said, "Just look what happened in Europe on Tuesday. A News report came out that there was a massive and unprecedented outbreak of bacterial infections linked to contaminated vegetables that were shipped in from one country to another. And it's killing some folks while it's making thousands of other folks sick. And pards that's in at least eight different countries over there."

We all talked about how those Environmentalist are the same folks who live in the city and are trying to shut down American Farms, Ranches, and Dairies.

One of the guys said, "it's as if the damn Liberals have an agenda to shut down everything American and make us all dependant on everyone else! There's nothing wrong with getting some stuff from overseas, put we have so much coming in these days that we ain't got enough inspectors to see if it's all safe to eat."

And as for the liberals wanting to shut down America, weaken us and make us a second rate country, we all agreed that their plan is simple. And yes, it's working.

They want to shut down American Farms by regulating how they grow crops to the point of making the cost of growing enormous and non-profitable for the everyday Farmer. Ranches by way of a bogus argument that cattle destroy the land. Liberals conveniently forget that bovine in the shape or another either cattle or buffalo were in the millions in the West long before Americans came West.

Yes, we all agreed that the Environmentalist are the same crazies who want to close Dairies because of the cow manure. Imagine that! As if you can have milk without manure!

One friend said, "Heck, what used to be Dairies and crazing land is now more and more Grape Vineyards. But to the Liberal mind, people need a good Chardonnay wine more than they need milk and meat."

Another said, "And try finding things built in America anymore? It's harder and harder to find quality American goods because of all the regulations put on our Manufacturers."

"Do we even make anything anymore?" I asked.

"Not much!" a friend answered.

Then the subject finally got around to President Barack Hussein Obama. Someone asked if anyone heard about Obama throwing Israel to the wolves. Obama wants Israel to give up the lands that they got when they were invaded in 1967.

That's when the subject got around to those poor folks in Joplin Missouri and how many people were still unaccounted for. The lost, the destruction, the lack of Federal help afterwards. And by the way, why was Obama in an Irish Pub during the disaster in Joplin?

We all laughed agreeing that the Liberal News Media would have lynched George W Bush if he were in some Pub drinking while there's a disaster at home!

Someone brought up the fact that Obama increased the amount of Foreign Aid that we send to the Middle East when he first entered office. And someone else brought up how Obama is now trying to write off and forgive the huge debt that the oil rich countries in the Middle East still owe America - at a time when we need whatever money we have.

"Imagine that," one friend said. "He seems to care more about the folks in other countries and to Hell with the folks right at home!"

Then before we know it, one of the few die hard Liberals in town got up from the counter and loudly called us all, "Racists!"

He then went on to say, "You folks don't like him because he's Black! You're all Racist! And besides, all of our problems in this country are Bush's fault."

A stranger sitting behind me who must have been listening for a while leaned over from his booth and said, "No, they're not! I'm not! And he's not!"

"You're not and he's not what?" the old Liberal asked.

"These men are not Racists. They're just talking what's on their minds. We are still free to do that aren't we? Obama is not all Black. He's actually only half Black. But that doesn't matter. His skin color doesn't matter. It's his actions that matters. His skin color has no bearing on his lousy job performance. Besides, he's supposed to be representing all Americans and not just Black or Liberal Americans."

We just sort of looked at these two and let them go at it awhile. We didn't know the stranger sitting behind me. And as for the old Liberal, well we knew that he was the same guy that was trying to get the County to have more say in how we live by having the County "inspect" our properties as if we were in a Communist State where the State rules over the people. I think it's called Big Brother!

The old Liberal had had enough and stood up, saying, "You're all just Racists! His policies would be better received if he were White!"

"No it wouldn't!" the stranger answered. "Sir, my doctor is Black and he is the father of my son-in-law who is also Black. I love them both. I'm very proud of my son-in-law because he is an educated man who is a good husband to my daughter. I might not agree with all of their Conservative ways, but then again I'm pretty much a Moderate and not some Leftist Liberal Democrat."

The stranger went on, "I see my self as a JFK Democrat. Not Liberal at all. In fact even Conservative in some things like John F Kennedy was. The Democratic Party these days doesn't seem to want people in it if they are not ultra-Left Liberal types like yourself. But besides that, the point of the matter is that skin color has nothing to do with bad policies or taking our country in a direction that most people do not want to go."

"Quit hiding beind semantics and catch phrases like a being a JFK Democrat. Face the truth!" the old Liberal said. "You're all just like those angry racist whites in the Tea Party! Just all Conservative Racists!"

"I was a life long Democrat until Clinton was in Office." one of my friends said, "I didn't like McCain because I thought he was too Liberal and a Wimp. I didn't vote at all because I didn't like McCain and I couldn't vote for Obama because he had absolutely no experience other than being some sort of Community Organizer. Whatever the Hell that is!"

"The Liberals used to love to say that Bush was stupid, but being honest I don't think Obama is as bright as he was advertised to be," one friend said. "Geeeze, the man didn't even know how many States we have or how many stars are on our flag! What's that all about! And by the way, I've attended a Tea Party rally. Does that make me a Racist?"

"I am a Democrat." the stranger said. "I voted for Obama because I didn't like Bush and I thought Obama was what we needed. But now that Bush is gone, I'm learning that Bush wasn't all that bad. And what's worse is I've found out that Obama is not what we need. I made the mistake of letting the News Media, who loved to spred Bush hate, tell me how to think. I won't make that mistake again."

We listened to the stranger and then turned to look at the old Liberal. My one friend asked, "OK, what do you say to that?"

Another stranger who was sitting near by, pulled his chair out and asked, "Why is it that anyone who disagrees with Obama is called a Racist? When I was disagreeing with George W Bush, like say on his Border Policy, everyone called me a smart man. Now if I disagree with Obama's Border Policy, I'm a Racist! That stinks!"

"There are a lot of Americans getting killed and kidnapped along the Border, and he's not doing a thing to help the situation. I read that he doesn't want to rile the Mexican voters. So am I a Racist because I care about those folks on the Border and disagree with his policies? I don't think so. And by the way, I've been to a few Tea Party rallies. Another thing! At those Tea Party rallies, there isn't any of the hate that there used to be at the Bush protests when he was President. I worked in Sacramento and saw it for myself!"

"I would not call our peaceful protest of Bush hateful." the old Liberal said. "We were just exercising Free Speech ...."

"Sir, there were a lot of threats against Bush's life," the observer behind me interrupted. "I was working in San Francisco up until last month. I witnessed a lot of protests while Bush was in Office. A lot of crazies hated Bush for no reason. A lot of them wanted him dead, and they said so much in their signs."

"Try saying that now? Man, you'd have the Secret Service, FBI, and all sorts of law coming after you," one man said. "No one cared if someone wanted Bush dead when he was in Office."

"I'm sorry, but as much as you want it to be that way, it is not a matter of color or race," the stranger standing behind me said looking directly at the old Liberal.

"It's all about bad policies, pandering to special interest groups, raising over a billion dollars in Campaign Contributions from unknown and foreign sources, his ineptness when dealing with other nations. Then there is that little thing about him trying to turn America into a Socialist State by having the government takeover our Medical System. It's nothing to do with his color."

"Any regrets?" I asked.

"Sure! I know I helped put him into Office by voting for him, but I also know that I will not make the same mistake twice."

The old Liberal turned and walked out as angry as they come, and the observer turned around and went back to reading his paper.

We looked at each other and smiled. Then one of guys signaled for more coffee.




Story by Tom Correa

I got a new Jacket

Från Ipoden 003
Robin helped me when I went shopping for some new clothes. This is
a nice jacket I got. I love it!







ps.
By the way, I wanted to ask my readers to do me a huge favor.
There is a facebook fanpage, and if you like this blog,
please click on it.
It is sort of a way for me to see if people like the blog or not.

30 Posts in 31 Days - I Made It!

Michelle Rafter
Today marks the conclusion of the 2011 Wordcount Blogathon. I was among 200 bloggers who accepted the challenge to post every day in the month of May. Michelle Rafter, a Portland-based business editor, reporter and blogger, organized this event to bring together professional writers and anyone else with a blog to help them improve their blogging skills.

"This year, people embraced the challenge with more enthusiasm and camaraderie then I've ever seen, which was evident in tweets & Google Group posts," Rafter told me over Twitter. "There's something to be said for spending an intense period of time working on blog improvements and also on doing it as a group=big rewards."


It feels great to have seen this challenge through - the only day I missed was when Blogger.com had a technical glitch that prevented me access to my blog. This experience allowed me to connect with other bloggers and writers, while also stretching my discipline and creativity. Before I started this challenge, I was fortunate if I posted every two to three weeks; now I feel confident that I can post twice a week without too much effort!

A few of the varied topics I tackled this month included:

Bonnie Daneker
I also invited colleagues to be guest bloggers. On May 23, Bonnie Daneker became my first guest, offering tips for turning your blog into a book. On June 20, I look forward to a guest post by Judy Stone-Goldman, creator of The Reflective Writer, a blog on writing to achieve personal and professional balance.

Through my participation in this year's blogathon, I wanted to more clearly find my own voice as a blogger through daily posts, and to explore what I love about writing and storytelling. I realized both of these goals.
I also improved my skills at "content curation" -- a technique where you comb the web for useful expert articles on your topic and reference them in your own blog. A third goal still in progress is expanding my blog's reach to a broader audience -- I was able to link up my blog with my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts so everything is in sync.  Now, I want to find other ways to drive traffic to my blog.

While I have more to learn about this medium, I got a very big boost this month in my confidence that I have something to contribute to the blog writing community. Thanks, Michelle, for creating this opportunity. I look forward to what's in store for Wordcount blogathoners in 2012.

Monday, May 30, 2011

In Obama's 2 years, more troops lost to suicide than combat-Congress.org

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Figures are likely to be even larger due to reluctance to report and varying standards.

1/24/11, "More troops lost to suicide," Congress.org, John Donnelly

"For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included?

But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war.

Figures released by the armed services last week showed an alarming increase in suicides in 2010, but those figures leave out some categories.

Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle.

Last week’s figures, though, understate the problem of military suicides because the services do not report the statistics uniformly.

  • Several do so only reluctantly.

Figures reported by each of the services last week, for instance, include suicides by members of the Guard and Reserve who were on active duty at the time. The Army and the Navy also add up statistics for certain reservists who kill themselves when they are not on active duty.

But the Air Force and Marine Corps do not include any non-mobilized reservists in their posted numbers. What’s more, none of the services count suicides that occur among a class of reservists known as the Individual Ready Reserve, the more than 123,000 people who are not assigned to particular units.

Suicides by veterans who have left the service entirely after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan also are not counted by the Defense Department. The Department of Veterans Affairs keeps track of such suicides only if the person was enrolled in the VA health care system — which

  • three-quarters of veterans are not.

But even if such veterans and members of the Individual Ready Reserve are excluded from the suicide statistics, just taking into account the deaths of reservists who were not included in last week’s figures pushes the number of suicides last year to at least 468.

That total includes some Air Force and Marine Corps reservists who took their own lives while not on active duty, and it exceeds the 462 military personnel killed in battle.

The problem of reservists’ suicides, in particular, has been a major concern to some lawmakers. A Pentagon study this year confirmed that

  • reservists lack the support structure that active-duty troops have.

Some types of reservists are more cut off than others. Rep. Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, says that members of the Individual Ready Reserve and other categories of citizen-soldiers do not receive a thorough screening for mental health issues when they return from deployments....

One of those soldiers, a constituent of Holt’s named Coleman S. Bean, was an Army sergeant and Iraq War veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder but could not find treatment. He took his own life in 2008.

Moved by Bean’s story, Holt wrote a bill requiring phone contacts with these reservists every 90 days after they come home from war. The House adopted Holt’s provision as part of its defense authorization bills for both fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011. But conferees writing the final version of the bills took it out both years.

Holt said in December that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain was responsible for that decision in the most recent bill. A spokeswoman for McCain, Brooke Buchanan, would not state his position on the provision. Instead, she said House members had removed it.

A House Armed Services Committee spokeswoman, Jennifer Kohl, said the House reluctantly pulled the provision from the bill because of the opposition of senators, whom she did not name....

"In order to know whether the steps we’ve taken work," Holt said, "we’re going to have to have more detailed knowledge of who’s out there.""

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This was a serious problem under George Bush but he is gone. It is now worse and the media said we could sleep at night because of Obama:



Cover of New Yorker Magazine, 11/17/2008, after Obama's election. Time.com, breathless, notes about the cover:


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Obama budget defeated 97-0, democrat controlled Senate hasn't passed a budget in 760 days

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Obama trashed precious taxpayer time and expense on a 2400 page 'budget' so bad no democrats voted for it.

5/30/11, "Washington is Broken, and Needs Leadership. Where is President Obama?" Senator Ron Johnson, RedState.com

"For over 31 years, I’ve been building a manufacturing business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin with hundreds of good, hardworking, taxpaying Americans. During that entire time, I have watched government steadily grow, increasing its control over our lives, heaping trillions of dollars of regulations on our businesses, fostering a culture of entitlement and dependency, mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren, and driving America toward national bankruptcy.

I’ve been here in Washington for 5 months now, and I am more convinced than ever that our political and budget process is horribly broken. The Democrat controlled Senate has not passed a budget in over 760 days. Last week, President Obama’s FY 2012 Budget was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 0-97. Let me repeat that, ZERO to 97. The President’s budget that was unveiled as THE solution to our long-term fiscal problems did not receive a single vote in the United States Senate.

This is a stunning indictment of the President’s lack of leadership and seriousness. I don’t know how many thousands of man-hours that over four inch thick, 2400-page budget document took to create, but it was a total waste of time and resources. That is a very sad fact. Instead of acknowledging this failure, the Administration and members of the President’s party have been viciously demagoguing the only other budget plans offered, and engaging in a concerted effort to scare the American public and financial markets over the debt ceiling limit."...

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Comment:

"You cannot expect leadership from someone intent on destroying America

"Sorry, but Obama is a destroyer not a leader.

The Republicans in the Senate need to get a grip and start fighting Obama tooth & nail - you cannot work with this Marxist. The RINOS in the Senate are more on the side of socialism and that is the problem.

You must hold and block until after the Nov. 2012 elections.
If not and Obama gets re-elected then it won’t matter how many elections the Republicans win after that.

Sorry for the blunt talk but what is needed right now is a Republican Senate with spine & guts. I don’t know how you get to Brown, Snowe, Collins, Murkowski and a few more of the RINOS but they need to understand the fate of the republic is in the balance and it is much more important than their next election.

The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo.


via Tea Party News articles

Things I want: Mac Air





So I can't help it. I saw this Macbook air once, and I couldn't stop staring at it. 
Plus those damn apple commercials are just so amazing. "its so simple" they say. 



But my problem is that I allready have the Ipad 2. 
but as far as writing goes, the Ipad doesn't go a long way. So I just don't know to be honest. Also if I was going to put down good money on a new computer, I could get really good fire power from a desktop, especially if I order the parts myself and put it together myself. 

Also, if I was going to get a macbook, I would get the PRO version, that way I could use boot camp and install windows 7, and the PC boy inside of me would be satisfied. :)

But some day... who knows... 




Egyptian Arab Spring officials gave 'virginity checks' to women grabbed at random a month after Mubarek was gone, say 'none were virgins'-CNN

.
Islamist perverts gave girls electric shocks too. The Arab Spring needs more hard earned American taxpayer money to practice Sharia sexual degradation. Anybody home in congress?

5/31/11, "Egyptian general admits 'virginity checks' conducted on protesters," CNN, Shahira Amin

"A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges

  • and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests."

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted

  • and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general said. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)."

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said.

  • "None of them were (virgins)."

This demonstration occurred nearly a month after Egypt's longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of democratic reforms.

Afterward, Egypt's military -- which had largely stayed on the sidelines of the revolution -- officially took control of the nation's political apparatus as well, until an agreed-upon constitution and elections.

Mubarak denies ordering shootings

The March 9 protest occurred in Tahrir Square, which became famous over 18 historic and sometimes bloody days and nights of protests that led to Mubarak's resignation.

But unlike in those previous demonstrations, the Egyptian military targeted the protesters. Soldiers dragged dozens of demonstrators from the square and through the gates of the landmark Egyptian Museum.

Salwa Hosseini, a 20-year-old hairdresser and one of the women named in the Amnesty report, described to CNN how uniformed soldiers tied her up on the museum's grounds, forced her to the ground and slapped her, then shocked her with a stun gun while calling her a prostitute.

"They wanted to teach us a lesson," Hosseini said soon after the Amnesty report came out. "They wanted to make us feel that we do not have dignity."

The treatment got worse, Hosseini said, when she and the 16 other female prisoners were taken to a military detention center in Heikstep.

There, she said, she and several of other female detainees were subjected to a "virginity test."

"We did not agree for a male doctor to perform the test," she said. But Hosseini said her captors forced her to comply by threatening her with more stun-gun shocks.

"I was going through a nervous breakdown at that moment," she recalled. "There was no one standing during the test, except for a woman and the male doctor. But several soldiers were standing behind us watching the backside of the bed. I think they had them standing there as witnesses."

The senior Egyptian general said the 149 people detained after the March 9 protest were subsequently tried in military courts, and most have been sentenced to a year in prison.

Authorities later revoked those sentences "when we discovered that some of the detainees had university degrees, so we decided to give them a second chance," he said.

The senior general reaffirmed that the military council was determined to make Egypt's democratic transition a success.

"The date for handover to a civil government can't come soon enough for the ruling military council," he said. "The army can't wait to return to its barracks and do what it does best --



via Lucianne.com

If climate guys don't want FOIA requests, let them use their own cash and don't allow alleged results used for public policy affecting billions

.
5/30/11, "WashPost: Freedom of Information Act not for skeptics’ use," JunkScience.com

"In a bizarre Memorial Day editorial, the Washington Post criticized climate skeptics for using the Freedom of Information Act to pry documents concerning Climategater Michael Mann from the University of Virginia."...

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

5/26/11, "FOI requests shouldn’t be needed in the first place," Talking About the Weather, Harold Ambler

"If such research were being done with the scientists’ own money and did not involve policy affecting billions of the world’s people, then the refusal to follow normal scientific protocol in terms of transparency could, perhaps, be justified. But it is not the scientists’ own money, and their work does affect you and me, profoundly.

The implication from Nurse is that Big Oil or some such is funding those sending the FOI requests, whereas all the significant climate-scientist FOI requests that have been made public have come from private individuals connected in no way with oil, big or small. They come from the heart of honest skeptics. Big Oil, keep in mind, funds mainstream climatology, the alarmists that is, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

How many times will mainstream journalists allow this mantra of poor, persecuted climate scientists to be repeated

  • before checking a single fact?

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

The Washington Post's 'environmental' "reporter" Juliet Eilperin is married to Center for American Progess 'Climate' Specialist Andrew Light whose work at CAP's Global Climate Network is

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

5/25/11, "Freedom of information laws are used to harass scientists, says Nobel laureate," Guardian UK, Alok Jha

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

Elite media and 'scientists' mingle at posh getaways to ensure each other's financial success. Ordinary Americans who lack advocates of their own pay the bill.

"For five days, esteemed scientists and elite journalists gathered on Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles, east of Aruba, to loll on the island's fine beaches, sip cocktails at the Tipsy Seagull and perhaps marvel at the flamingoes for which Bonaire is famous.

The official purpose of the October 2002 gathering of the

"Learn how to navigate the stormy waters of the media," read the description of one Bonaire workshop. "Packaging your message is a key to success — whether talking to the media,

  • submitting a paper to Science or Nature (magazine), writing a grant proposal, or writing an op-ed for your local paper."

But it wasn't all business.

The workshops were followed by "barside discussions" as the sun-soaked setting

  • blurred the line that usually separates reporters and those they cover. So, too, did it blur the line between trainers and trainees.

The scientists being trained on Bonaire had a ready pool of journalists on which to practice what they were learning about working the media. The list of reporters invited to Bonaire was a

  • who's who of science journalism: Cornelia Dean of the New York Times, Natasha Loder of the Economist, Charles Alexander of Time magazine and Tom Hayden of U.S. News and World Report, among others.

Dean told the Gloucester Daily Times her trip to Bonaire was paid for by Pew, the powerful nonprofit that uses its multi-billion-dollar endowment to steer public policy on the environment and other issues.

  • While the New York Times has strict standards against junkets, Dean said, an exception is made for "teaching," and that's what she was doing in Bonaire.
  • "My goal was to help scientists to speak more clearly to the public," she said.

The scientists mingling with the journalists on Bonaire included beneficiaries of Pew money, like Steve Palumbi, Elliot Norse and Jeremy Jackson.

Another notable scientist on Bonaire was Daniel Pauly, the author last year of "Aquacalypse Now: The End of Fish," and

Pauly is a longtime prophet of doom for commercial fishing.

In a 1998 article he co-authored for Science magazine, Pauly predicted that rapacious commercial fishermen would work their way down the marine food chain — eliminating predator fish such as tuna and swordfish, then setting their nets for the bait those fish feed on. In the end, nothing would be left on the menu but "jellyfish and plankton soup."

'Fished Out'

The Bonaire conclave is just one example of the symbiotic relationship that has developed between
  • environmental advocates and scientists and some of the
  • big-media journalists who cover them.

The journalists are wined and dined by the advocates

  • and hired to train the scientists to use the media to advance their message.

The journalists, in turn, call on those same scientists as sources when writing about the advocates and their agenda.

  • In June 2003, eight months after Bonaire, Tom Hayden warned of the cataclysmic consequences of overfishing in a cover story for U.S. News and World Report,

The story, "Fished Out," quoted 13 different concerned scientists and citizens coming to the same awful conclusion: Jellyfish might one day be fishermen's only catch.

Although Hayden was virtually unknown in commercial fishing circles,

  • his story had the potential to influence the American public's view of the fishing industry.

Hayden did not mention to his readers that, of the 14 sources he quoted for the article, 13 received their funding directly or indirectly from Pew, as Pew fellows or the recipients of Pew grants. The 14th was a restaurant chef.

  • Hayden also quoted Jane Lubchenco, now head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

'Frame their messages'

Lubchenco, a Pew fellow and mentor of many other Pew fellows, wasn't on Bonaire. But she appeared in a PBS-produced film shown at the event titled "Empty Oceans, Empty Nets," another cautionary tale of overfishing, funded in part by Pew.

  • Lubchenco for years has urged her fellow scientists to become activists in the debate over issues like global warming and overfishing and

In 1997, as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Lubchenco called on fellow scientists to

  • join her in a new "social contract."
Scientists must promote their ideas to politicians and the public in order to create a world that is "ecologically sound, economically feasible and socially just," she argued.
  • A year after the speech, Lubchenco founded the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program to advance her activist vision.

The program trains chosen scientists in "talking points" to use with the media and other nonscientific audiences, according to its website. Through "role playing and small group interactive exercises,"

  • the scientists learn how to develop "specific, appropriate messages to stakeholders."

Trainers hired to work with Aldo Leopold fellows have included

  • reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post and National Public Radio, as well as leaders of environmental groups and
  • White House and
  • congressional staff members.

Lubchenco also helped organize two groups with a similar mission, SeaWeb and the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea — COMPASS.

  • Lead trainer for all three advocacy groups — Aldo Leopold, SeaWeb and COMPASS — is Nancy Baron, a zoologist and former science writer.

Baron has boasted to colleagues about her success in manipulating the media message — and the media.

In 2008, referring to a story on damage to the ocean ecosystem written by Andrew Revkin for the Science Times section of The New York Times, Baron wrote: "This Science Times piece came out of AAAS (American Academy of Arts and Sciences) and our infamous marine mixer."

  • The infamous mixer was a cocktail party hosted by COMPASS for members of the Academy and the press.

The networking that links activists and journalists was fully on display in the Washington Post story that broke the news of President-elect Obama's decision to nominate

  • Lubchenco as head of NOAA in December 2008.

The story was written by the Post's environmental writer, Juliet Eilperin, who has been both a panelist and participant in COMPASS events.

  • Eilperin cited "several sources" for the scoop and quoted one in praise of Lubchenco: Andrew Rosenberg.
The story did not mention that Rosenberg is an adviser to both Pew and COMPASS and has ties to Lubchenco that date to when she was a professor and he a grad student at Oregon State University. He lists Lubchenco as a reference on his resume.
  • Rosenberg is also a former high-ranking NOAA official who
  • now runs an environmental consulting company that has obtained
  • more than $12 million in NOAA contracts in the past decade.

Last fall, Lubchenco made him a White House consultant on ocean policy."

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

Commenter to JunkScience.com

Adrian Vance

"There is so much money and power driving anthropogenic global warming with young Ph.D.s paying off their loans with government grants livelihoods are at stake. It is just that simple. So far they have gotten $106 billion and that is a lot of money to the few thousand schools able to grant higher degrees. They have corrupted the whole system."

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

5/29/11, "Harassing climate-change researchers," Washington Post editorial


.

Strauss-Kahn brother Marc-Olivier is visiting adviser to US Federal Reserve-Washingtonian

.
5/16/11, "Dominique Strauss-Kahn: What Does the IMF Chief's Arrest Mean?" Washingtonian, Apolline de Marherbe
.

"Strauss-Kahn has four children from his previous marriages and Sinclair has two, plus grandchildren. In Washington, they settled as a tribe: DSK’s brother, Marc-Olivier Strauss-Kahn, was appointed visiting senior adviser at the Federal Reserve board and administrator of the Inter-American Development Bank. Marc-Olivier was sent here by the Central Bank of France; his wife works at the World Bank. Sinclair’s younger son, David Levai, also made his way here and got a job as a program manager with a microfinance institution."...

---------------------------------------------------------
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Soros, in meeting with US Federal Reserve Vice Chairman in 2010.

5/12/10, "
US central banker targets imbalances in financial crisis," The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Now accused IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn met in Zurich in 2010 with US Federal Reserve Vice Chmn., Donald Kohn, George Soros and others.

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

3/8/10, "IMF suggests how to raise climate change funds," AP

Strauss-Kahn says global warming slush fund is needed ahead of carbon taxes.


.

Outside with Agnes

Picture 210
Agnes loves to go for a walk.
Picture 216
Usually she just looks around for intresting noises and smells.
Picture 215
And usually she is fully satisfied, eating grass (!)
Picture 211
But she comes back to me every 2 minutes, to circle around me, to
sort of make sure that she is with me, and that I don't leave her.
Picture 218
She is so adorable.
Picture 212
She jumped up on our table outside, and said hi to her mother.
But Kajsa of course tried to hit Agnes. :)
Picture 213
And that is when Agnes decided to look at me, to tell me, that she is done
now, and wants to go inside again. :)






ps.
By the way, I wanted to ask my readers to do me a huge favor.
There is a facebook fanpage, and if you like this blog,
please click on it.
It is sort of a way for me to see if people like the blog or not.

Advice on Writing a Family Memoir

You only have to peek at bookstore displays of new titles to see how much memoir writing has grown in popularity in recent years. The desire to honor and chronicle one's family legacy and create a "living history" is compelling and drives many to the craft of memoir -- and certainly was a factor in my own family memoir, A Breath Away: Daughters Remember Mothers Lost to Smoking, which I wrote a year after losing my mother and aunt to lung cancer.

"Writers are the custodians of memory, and that’s what you must become if you want to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into," writes author William Zinsser in his post, "How to Write a Memoir."  In May, HarperCollins released the 30th-anniversary edition of Zinsser's bestseller, On Writing Well, including a new chapter on memoir.

He says a memoir can take many forms -- from a formal memoir to an informal family history or even an oral history that you extract by tape recorder from an ailing parent or grandparent. 

Narrow Your Topic

Zinsser says it's important that you make a series of "reducing decisions." "For example, one big decision would be to write about only one branch of the family. Families are complex organisms, especially if you trace them back several generations. Decide to write about your mother's side of the family or your father's side, but not both."

Listen First

New York-based professional writer Brian McDonald advises that memoir writers first master the art of listening. McDonald wrote My Father's Gun, his 1999 family memoir chronicling three generations of Irish-American New York City Police Department officers. The book, which came out two years before 9/11, was later made into a two-hour documentary on the History Channel.



"I was lucky I had a family of storytellers – police officers and bartenders and such are natural storytellers. I was always a great listener. Those anecdotes I heard from when I was first a child stayed with me, and later on when I decided to do a book about my family, they came to life. Then I went about reporting them, finding out where family lore stopped and where fact began."


Flesh out the Details

The details in your memoir are critical, advises Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, a certified geneologist and memoir writing instructor for WritingOnlineWorkshops.com, in her Writer's Digest post, "Write a Memoir to Remember!"


"While writing your memoir, probe as deeply as you can to fill out a scene or an event. Use photographs, letters, diaries, interviews or background research to explain, reflect and fill out your narrative. In the details, you will begin to make sense of your life experiences," Carmack states. "Some budding memoirists rush through a scene without stopping to smell the rain on the pavement. Granted, you don't want to overwhelm your readers with details; you have to keep the story moving along. If the scene or event is crucial, slow down and describe it so that the reader can experience it with you."

In McDonald's case, he got his "hands dirty" – going to halls of record and pulling research off of shelves.  "Because my family were police officers, there was a lot of history of the police department – old records and first-person narratives that I pulled out," he recalls.

In the end, he was able to tell not only the stories of the men in his family, but also the behind-the-scenes stories of his family's women, who he considers "the real heroes" of the book because of the emotional toll they carried raising children while their husbands went about very dangerous work. His brother Frankie Jr. served in the Bronx during the 70s -- a period noted for the high murder rate, racial tensions and cop assassinations by members of the Black Liberation Army, McDonald recalls. 

"My sister-in-law used to say every time the 11 o’clock news would come on, she’d stay up and the lead story would be a cop shot or a shootout in the Bronx, and she’d have that same feeling in her stomach -- that same dread that it was her husband. That way is a very hard way to live your life."

McDonald considers the best part of the book project was the end result -- a family record that can be shared with future generations. "Grandchildren and great grandchildren down the road are going to be able to pick this book off the shelf and say, 'That was my great grandfather.' 'That was my uncle.' 'That was my cousin,'" he says.
Links to Read More

If you want to read more about writing memoirs, check out this Squidoo post, "The Best Books for Writing a Memoir," which recommends works such as Judith Barrington's Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art and Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir by Sue William Silverman.