Consumers Digest

Are there any differences in how the news programs treat the same news story? Choose 2 of the following news channels: * CNN * MSNBC * FOX News * PBS News 1. Are the news priorities different or similar? 2. Are there any differences in how the news programs treat the same news story? 3. How did the broadcasts differ in how they presented subjects other than the breaking news, such as special in-depth reports, ongoing segments, etc? 4. What does this information tell you about the influence the media has on politics, politicians and their political agendas?

Is this a normal amount of work for teachers? Students are great but the workload, Just this last week I had: 4th Quarter Objectives, 4th Quarter Assessment Plan, Ranking students on grading scale, for Reading, Writing/Grammar, and Spelling. IEP reports for special need students, other reports for at risk students, list for most improved, best reader, perfect attendance etc. My biweekly plan, making test sheets for grammar and vocabulary, ongoing journals and portfolios. Preparing for upcoming Parent Teacher Conferences. Sheets for homework, checking C.W. and H.W. Scope and Sequence given out a few days ago, its the 4th Quarter where was this back in September? I.R.I reading assessment to be done with each child. IOWA introduction and pretesting. Things that they take from my classes, include, conflict resolution, library and assembly presentations every few weeks. Extracurricular activities such as iEARN, four teachers but I am the only one to show up. Break duties and an hour after school staff meeting every week. On top of checking daily classwork and homework, and grading. Plus teaching classes. Having to interfer everytime they have a fight and on top of all of that dealing with parents, ex: child complains but this is too much homework, with Math, Science and S.S. The child told her mother that I said I don't care. What I did say is that L.A. has to have daily homework, either you can do it today or do it on the weekend. The class opted for that day so they can have their weekends open. Parent writes a complaint to the principal that I am agressive with the kids... Why because I didn't drop the H.W.? I seriously believe that the stress gets to be unbearable especially when all of this happens in one week. Smile and remain positive. So I decided ok I will do what I can do. But sometimes it really tests me.

Supporters of Mexican in denial indicate there was no shooting at our border agents AP even reports on it? Border Patrol agents fire into Mexico during bust By PAUL J. WEBER (AP) – 1 day ago SAN ANTONIO — U.S. Border Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico after coming under attack during a half-ton drug bust and giving chase to a truck along the Rio Grande, U.S. authorities said Monday. No Border Patrol agents were hurt during the "fire fight" early Saturday in Mission, agency spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said. She did not say whether Border Patrol gunfire hit anyone, citing the ongoing investigation. "The firing they received came from the Mexican side," Huey said. Huey said several Border Patrol agents, at least some of whom were patrolling in boats, were seizing a half-ton of marijuana when they came under gunfire. Federal officials said the shots from Mexico began when a truck that was being chased by another group of Border Patrol agents entered the area. FBI special agent Jorge Cisneros said the truck, which was on the U.S. side, appeared to be connected to the drug seizure. He said the gunfire from Mexico was a "direct result" of Border Patrol agents doing their jobs. Cisneros described the shootout as brief. "We're obviously concerned with what happened, that they would be shooting from the Mexico side to us," Cisneros said. Federal officials did not release how many agents were involved, how many shots were fired or the number of shooters on the Mexico side. Cisneros said the FBI was working with Mexico authorities, including the Mexican military and the Tamaulipas state police, to determine what happened. It was at least the second time in three months that Border Patrol agents in Texas have fired into Mexico. In June, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after authorities say a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso. Reports of bullets whizzing across the border from Mexico also are on the rise. At least eight bullets have been fired into El Paso in the last few weeks from the rising violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where drug violence has killed more than 4,000 people since 2009, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world. Cisneros said he can recall a handful of times in the last few years that gunfire from Mexico has crossed over the border. He said Border Patrol agents "have always been very good about not shooting back unless there is a life-threatening situation." Huey who would not say whether the agents involved in the shooting still were on patrol. She said agents are authorized to fire their weapons any time they feel lives are at risk, even into Mexico. "As long as our agents feel their life is in danger, they are allowed lethal (force)," she said. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4bsSAl5isOWz2ldzjbM_za6j4gAD9I7AE082 This is the new method of intimidation by the cartels.. they know that the border agents cant cross into mexico.. so they are going to attack from the other side, where they can be protected by the federales. I say its time to bring out the snipers and have at it... enough is enough.. Hopefullly both the US Dept of Justice and the Mexican government will clear these officers of possible charges. They were just doing the job our LAWS require them to do and were defending themselves.

How can the people take the enormous amount of power that BIG MEDIA has in presidential elections? The press plays a vital role in our democracy, shaping citizens’ understanding of social and political issues and functioning as gatekeepers through which issues, people, and events must pass. No matter what you care about — gun rights or abortion rights, the environment or economics — the media influence the perceptions of citizens and policymakers, affecting the policies that touch us all. Media must not be considered just another business: they are special institutions in our society. Information is the lifeblood of democracy — and when viewpoints are cut off and ideas cannot find an outlet, our democracy suffers. Traditional media, telecommunications and cable are converging, all becoming firmly linked to the Internet. The ways we share information, the ways we receive information, and the ways this information is produced are all changing rapidly. In the halls of power — from corporate boardrooms to the corridors of the Capitol — policies are being rewritten to prepare for this new era. Big Media, Big Cable and Big Telecom are some of the strongest and fiercest lobbies in Washington, and, indeed, across the country. One of the most profitable industries and one on which politicians depend to make their views heard, it is difficult to battle such clout. Media outlets unwilling to report on their parent company’s interests and broader issues of media reform put more obstacles in the way of public interest advocates. BIG MEDIA has a huge effect on who wins presidential primaries. the major television news outlets are viewed by most americans, which gives them the power to manipulate the masses' opinions on candidates that would help them by relaxing laws on media ownership. They also have the power to essentially blacklist candidates who would be a threat to them by passing new laws that would be more in line with the constitution. So you can see how a candidate that values the constitution would be a major threat to them. if Dr. Ron Paul got the amount of attention that Obama, hilary, edwards, romney, mccain & guiliani get, i am sure that he would win the election by an enormous number of votes. If the average american knew who he was, and what he is all about, he would be a huge threat to hillary's presidential campaign. Ron paul is EXTREMELY popular among the people that know who he is because he truly represents the american people, not the establishment. Ron Paul has a voting record in congress that demonstrates that he will not be pushed into voting for any unconstitutional legislation, such as the patriot act, or the real id act, or the torture bill. He is 1 of only 6 republicans that voted against the war. Ron Paul has also been named "the taxpayers best friend." Many web sites and forums have had to shut down, due to the overwhelming number of people writing messages of support for Ron Paul. a MySpace page titled "Opinion Polling" posted the following note this week: "Temporarily shut down due to Ron Paul. will be back eventually." A source said that the page's owners shut it down because Paul supporters "invaded the place." here is a website called techPresident.com that has an ongoing internet poll displayed on it. http://techpresident.com/scrape_plot/myspace the poll shows that Ron Paul is the top republican candidate among internet users. Yet, the big media companies IGNORE Ron Paul on their 24 hour news networks. Every other story is about which celebrity is endorsing barak obama, or what color dress Hillary wore last week at a fundraiser. How did this happen? WHat can be done about it? i am thinking maybe the fairness doctrine should be applied to the big cable news networks, even though i am a libertan. here is an article (which i used some quotes from) that explains this further: (http://ronpaul.rescue-us.org/2007/03/02/ron-paul-support-on-the-internets-continues-to-get-noticed.aspx) -------------------------- Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has explored a presidential run, doesn't register very high in the national polls featuring 2008 presidential candidates (1 percent, tops). But there's one place that he simply rules: the Internet. Fans of the libertarian have stormed the Web -- in ways both good and bad -- to show their support. Over at TechPresident.com -- a Web site that tracks candidates' "friends" on the popular social networking site MySpace.com -- Paul is tops for Republicans, with 3,107 "friends" (Mitt Romney is second with 1,785). But elsewhere, the voraciousness of Paul's supporters has sparked the ire of others. The Web site 2008HorseRace.com, which features an ongoing poll for candidates, issued this notice on Feb. 23: "Ron Paul has been suspended for two weeks because of repeated use of mob intimidation tactics and multiple threats made by Ron Paul supporters against racetrack operators, racetrack officials and racetrack sponsors." PajamasMedia.com removed Ron Paul from its presidential polls after it was discovered that someone had rigged the poll system in his favor. It has since implemented a rule that it will only include candidates polling at 1 percent or more in credible national news polls. And a MySpace page titled "Opinion Polling" posted the following note this week: "Temporarily shut down due to Ron Paul will be back eventually." A source said that the page's owners shut it down because Paul supporters "invaded the place." Paul's exploratory committee spokesman Kent Snyder thinks he knows why Paul's supporters are so gung-ho for their guy. "One of the reasons that Dr. Paul is getting a lot of cyber support is because he voted against regulating the Internet," Snyder told Yeas & Nays.

Now that Obama has crashed and burned the economy, can we get the Doors to sing, This is the End? Extremely long article. http://www.shadowstats.com/article/hyperinflation-special-report-2011 HYPERINFLATION SPECIAL REPORT (2011) SPECIAL COMMENTARY NUMBER 357 March 15, 2011 __________ United States Nears Hyperinflationary Great Depression Federal Reserve and Government Have Exploded the U.S. Fiscal Crisis, Shattered Global Confidence in the U.S. Dollar but Not Resolved Ongoing Economic and Systemic-Solvency Crises High Risk of Ultimate Dollar Disaster Beginning to Unfold in Months Ahead 2014 Remains the Outside Timing for Same Contracting Money Supply Can Be Inflationary When Real Economy Contracts Even Faster Major Economic Series Suggest Formal Depression in Place

This man needs your help and support. Will you please write to him ? Congressman: Convicted agent's injuries are worse than reported-by Sara Carter (Daily Bulletin) (Feb 10, WASHINGTON, DC) - An imprisoned former Border Patrol agent who was beaten in his sleep has injuries that are more serious than previously reported, said a congressman on Friday. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., met with Ignacio Ramos, who was convicted in March for the nonfatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler. Ramos is serving an 11-year sentence at Yazoo Correctional Complex in Mississippi. Tancredo said he was astonished at the injuries on Ramos' body, which he said did not coincide with reports from the prison earlier this week that described his injuries as "minor." "His bruises were deep and severe," Tancredo said. "His arm, chest and back are black and blue with broken blood vessels on his arm. It was terrible." Ramos was beaten Saturday night by roughly a half-dozen inmates who recognized him from a TV show that aired shortly before 10 p.m. He was pulled from his cell, which remains unlocked until midnight, by the inmates and kicked repeatedly by the men who were wearing steel-toed boots. The boots are issued to inmates for their daily work, according to the prison's Web site. Ramos did not see a doctor until Wednesday, Tancredo said. The prison's warden, Constance Reese, did not return phone calls for comment. According to a prison press release, "Ramos was evaluated by medical staff at the institution, who determined he had sustained some bruises and abrasions." Charles Smith, a spokesman for the institution, also said in the release that Ramos' injuries "were minor in nature." "Inmate Ramos was subsequently placed in the Special Housing Unit pending a thorough investigation of the incident. He will remain in the Special Housing Unit until the conclusion of this investigation." Prison officials have interviewed six inmates associated with the assault, Tancredo added. The congressman said he is working to move the former agent to a facility where Ramos will be safe. Representatives of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, visited the facility with Tancredo. Tara Setmayer, Rohrabacher's communications director, said she was astonished at the injuries Ramos sustained. Setmayer said Reese refused to allow her, or Tancredo, to view photos taken of Ramos the night of the incident or any documents regarding the ongoing investigation into the case. "To underestimate the seriousness of the assault on (Ramos) is a disingenuous characterization by the prison officials," Setmayer said. "He clearly is the victim of a vicious attack. And the ineptitude demonstrated by prison officials with such a high-profile prisoner is troubling." Ramos and fellow former agent Jose Compean were convicted of shooting Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks and violating his civil rights. Compean was sentenced to 12 years in an Ohio federal prison. Instructions on How to Send Cards and Letters of Support to Agent Ignacio Ramos Cards or letters of support may be sent to Border Patrol agent Ramos at the following address. Addresses must be COMPLETE: Ignacio Ramos #58079-180 FCI Yazoo City Medium Federal Correctional Institution P. O. Box 5888 Yazoo City, MS 39194 I think all of us should take the time to show this man he has our support. Are you willing to take the time to do so? I Golden- He was doing his job defending our borders, the man he shot was a drug runner, who escaped back across the border. The Dept. of Justice went to Mexico and tracked him down to testify against these agents. And furthermore, he was shot by 1 bullet , how do two men get convicted for shooting 1 man with 1 bullet? Nobsallowed- He is in the appeal process right now. And how can you put "GOD BLESS AMERICA" in your profile, and not feel the need to defend this man? Loretta- I am trying to find the address for Jose Compean right now, I hope to have it for you shortly. To send letters of support to Agent Compean, address your letters exactly as follows: Jose Alonzo Compean #58080-180 FCI Elkton Federal Correctional Institution P.O. Box 10 Lisbon, Ohio 44432

If Janet knows terrorist are coming across southern border, why is more not done? If they know what potential dangers are coming from the southern border, shouldn't something be done about it? If this is in the reform to protect our citizens, do you think more people would support it? Since Arizona has been proven to be open not only to drug smugglers but also aliens with “extensive criminal records” and from “special interest countries,” which are defined as “countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism", then why are these pro-illegal aliens all against Sheriff Joe doing his job? Is Napolitano and our Senators finally realizing what dangers they are putting this country in by allowing these illegals here? Napolitano Says People From Countries Tied to Terrorism Could ‘Potentially’ Enter USA, But DHS Reports Says Thousands Already Have Monday, March 01, 2010 By Penny Starr Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the reforms being made to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's immigration detention practices will include "alternatives to detention." (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)(CNSNews.com) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told senators it is a national security concern that people from countries with ties to terrorism could 'potentially' gain entry into the United States by crossing the country’s southern border. But according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own reports, thousands of people from 14 “special interest” countries already have come into the United States illegally, including some across the U.S.-Mexico border. (The State Department designates some nations as "special interest" counties because of their links to terrorism.) Napolitano testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday. Her remarks on “special interest” persons came after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked her about the ongoing violence in Mexico and the possibility of that violence spilling over into the United States. “So, if the drug cartels succeeded, then it would be a matter of time before the violence would spill over onto our side of the border,” McCain said. “Not to mention the free, basically free, access they would have to bring drugs, as well as humans, into our country.” “We haven’t seen spillover violence in that sense yet,” Napolitano said. “It is a risk. The ability to traffic in drugs cause their own damage to lives in the United States. “Our ability to curtail that would be affected,” she said. “On the human trafficking side, it’s not solely illegal immigrants coming to work, but the ability of people from countries of special interest to immigrate into Central America and be ferried up to the border and over into the United States is also a concern.” McCain responded: “Countries of special interest – people could come up through our southern border?” “Potentially, yes,” Napolitano said. The State Department lists four special interest countries as sponsors of terror – Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran. The other 10 countries of interest are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. According to the DHS’s 2008 Yearbook of Immigration Studies, from the Office of Immigration Statistics, a total of 791,568 people where detained by federal law enforcement agencies in fiscal year 2008 – 5,506 of those people were from those 14 “special interest” countries. The report states that those individuals were detained “at the borders of the United States, in the interior of the country and at designated sites outside of the United States.” It does not disclose those details for each individual, however. The specific numbers of individuals by country are labeled in the yearbook at the chapter, “Deportable Aliens Located by Region and Country of Nationality: Fiscal Year 2008.” Afghanistan – 29 Algeria – 41 Cuba – 3,896 Iran – 98 Iraq – 118 Lebanon – 188 Liberia – 98 Libya – 11 Nigeria – 299 Pakistan – 494 Saudi Arabia – 71 Somalia – 66 Sudan – 46 Syria – 71 Yemen -- 78 Arizona’s border was judged to be open not only to drug smugglers but also aliens with “extensive criminal records” and from “special interest countries,” which are defined as “countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism.” “Some criminal organizations smuggle aliens and gang members into the United States,” said NDIC’s report on Arizona. “These particular individuals typically have extensive criminal records and pose a threat, not only to the Arizona HIDTA [High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area] region but also to communities throughout the United States. Alien smuggling organizations reportedly also smuggle aliens from countries other than Mexico, including special-interest countries.” “Special-interest countries are those designated by the intelligence community as countries that could expo

Was this sent to the wrong person? I gotten an email that landed in my junk mail. Read below Special Situation Report‏ From: karina montesinos olivares (karina_cool_9@hotmail.com) You may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as safe Sent:October 19, 2009 6:07:49 AM To:dancin_dan@hotmail.co.uk Successful companies aren't born, they're made - and they have to work their way from humble beginnings and through the ranks just like everyone else. When it comes to our microcap stock investing, I'm in it to win and win big � and that means the goal is never to hit less than a few 10-baggers in every microcap bull cycle. This week we've identified one microcap stock that is on its way to changing the game in its respective market, The Wyncrest Group, Inc. (Pink Sheets: WNCG - News), an innovative a niche insurance consortium. The company has six planned acquisitions that could catapult the company�s revenues to $50,000,000.00 in 2010! The stock is currently trading at $0.05 and our near term target is $0.43. Load up on WNCG before all the trend chasers... and cash out while short traders continue tripping over themselves. Watch for big swings upward and momentum trading in WNCG as the stock continues to gain momentum and trade under the radar of the Wall Street traders. WNCG is also in negotiations with several acquisition targets developed over an ongoing two-year campaign to find distressed agencies and consolidate contract assets under one lower cost platform. Through its Wyncrest Offshore Services Division, the Company is expanding into the growing offshore insurance and reinsurance market by offering a variety of services and products, including a liability program for helicopter flight training schools and non-owner helicopter pilots, and a line of Warranty Service Policies operating as a controlled foreign corporation. Royalty income is expected from licensing insurance products patented under a new category of business methods, a strategy taken only by a few in a new class of small innovative insurance companies leading the industry! Don�t let this super gem slip through your hands. - BUY that dancin_dan@hotmail.co.uk isnt my email but is close to mine (dancin_danny@hotmail.com) so my question is, why was this sent to me? I sent the other dan guy an email and never said it was not delivered (failure email never came up as it usually does when the email address is wrong so this email does exist.)

Geeks or Wonks? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks : Status quo or Change ? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks Lots of people get interested in political ideas through political campaigns. Maybe this is because politics forces you to decide who you are and what you believe. I can vaguely recall when I was very young, perhaps 7 years old, that I discovered that my best friend's family considered themselves Democratic whereas I was pretty sure that my family was Republican. I asked someone what that meant and only received hazy answers that concerned seemingly big issues about government. I didn't think much about it but nonetheless, they were my first thoughts on the thing that would consume my life. So it is for lots of people: politics is the entry way into taking political ideas seriously. If your interest intensifies, you tend to go one of two ways: wonk or geek. These are terms that apply in many categories of life – Wikipedia gives serviceable definitions of both wonk and geek – but the terms take on new meaning in politics. Political wonks are fascinated by process. They love the game. They get as much satisfaction from observing as changing. They want to be players above all else. Ideals bore them. History is mere data. Intellectuals seem irrelevant. What matters to the wonk are the hard realities of the ongoing political struggle. They defer to title and rank. They thrive on meetings, small victories, administrative details, and gossip about these matters. Knowing who is who and what is what is the very pith of life. There are political wonks and policy wonks. They exist on all levels of society. They appear to be running things, because their aim is to control the levers of power in just the right and strategic way, which means in a way that benefits the other wonks of their tribe. Geographically, life begins and ends in the beltway. They thrive on keeping information private and cartelizing their class. Their newspaper is the Washington Post, which they consider to be the insider report. In contrast to this are the policy geeks. They are no less fascinated by detail but are drawn to ideals. Observation alone bores them. They are drawn to the prospect of change. They don't want to be players as such; they question the very rules of the game and want to change them. They are happy to make a difference in the ideological infrastructure, whether big or small. They tend to work alone and totally disregard caste distinctions. They are interested not in the surface area but what's underneath, not the veneer but the wood. In software terms, they are forever looking forward to the next build. They are risk takers, so they prefer to debug after the system is live. In politics, this means that the geeks are drawn to ideas, even radical ideas. They can easily imagine what doesn't exist, which makes them dreamers and entrepreneurs. And so they are attracted to and study history and philosophy and economics. It doesn't matter if a lesson can be learned from the ancients or moderns; indeed, unearthing an old idea and bringing it back to life has a special appeal. They thrive on making information public, on smashing old structures, breaking cartels, and busting monopolies of power. Geographically, they can live and work anywhere, and they have no attachment to any single information source. The geeks and wonks can work together but their will always be a natural tensions between the two. The wonks think the geeks are hopeless, powerless, reckless outsiders whose heads are full of useless and unrealistic fantasies. The geeks think that the wonks are part of the system and, therefore, more than likely corrupted by it, and increasingly so. Broadening the view, the struggle to control history is a battle between the wonks and the geeks. The wonks are the ones who consolidate, stabilize, and entrench the status quo; the geeks are the ones who prepare revolutionary change. The wonks freeze it into place and make it work more efficiently; the geeks imagine and work toward a future that no one thought was possible. They wonks rule out drastic and extreme measures as imprudent and reckless; the geeks think these paths are the only ones worth pursing, and have confidence that the unknown future will somehow work itself out. The wonks try to bring the king around to their point of view; the geeks kill the king. Caesar: Wonk - Brutus: Geek ; Hamilton: Wonk - Jefferson: Geek Cheney: Wonk - Ron Paul: Geek Part of the agenda of democracy is to turn the whole of society into a herd of wonks who believe in the process and want to make it work. But it isn't so easy to control human nature. There are always the geeks to contend with who see that the system is based on a lie and want to overturn it. Why should the majority rule the minority – or, more precisely, why should the well-organized minority rule the relatively indifferent majority? What we need is democracy 2.0 in which power and privilege are not steered but abolished altogether. Who will carry the day? In the short run, the wonks are right. They win. They rule. They ruled the ancient world for hundreds of years. They ruled the Soviet Union for 72. They rule the US today. But the long run is another matter. Rome and the Soviet Union fell, in revolutions enacted by geeks. The wonks eventually come to underestimate the power of ideas and underappreciate the effect of ideals. Which life is worth living? The wonk is famous, even legendary. The geek rarely achieves fame, even when he does change history. Why? The wonks write the history. But it is the geeks who make history happen in the first place. The geeks will look back at their lives with satisfaction that they did their best to realize a dream. The wonks, looking back at their lives, see that they were little more than a cog in a machine. Someday, even in the US, they may have to concede that all they did crumbled into nothingness. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/ Jeffrey Tucker is editorial vice president of www.Mises.org.

Has anyone read this report yet? Phase II Report on Public Statements Phase II Report on DOD Policy Office ("Office of Special Plans") Washington, DC -- The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, and a bipartisan majority of the Committee (10-5), today unveiled the final two sections of its Phase II report on prewar intelligence. The first report details Administration prewar statements that, on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq. The second report details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department. "Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence," Rockefeller said. "In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." "It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa'ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa'ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses. "There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate. "These reports represent the final chapter in our oversight of prewar intelligence. They complete the story of mistakes and failures – both by the Intelligence Community and the Administration – in the lead up to the war. Fundamentally, these reports are about transparency and holding our government accountable, and making sure these mistakes never happen again," Rockefeller added. The Committee's report cites several conclusions in which the Administration's public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence. They include: * Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence. * Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information. * Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products. * Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing. * The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information. * The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed. Additionally, the Committee issued a report on the Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The report found that the clandestine meetings between Pentagon officials and Iranians in Rome and Paris were inappropriate and mishandled from beginning to end. Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz failed to keep the Intelligence Community and the State Department appropriately informed about the meetings. The involvement of Manucher Ghobanifer and Michael Ledeen in the meetings was inappropriate. Potentially important information collected during the meetings was withheld from intelligence agencies by Pentagon officials. Finally, senior Defense Department officials cut short internal investigations of the meetings and failed to implement the recommendations of their own counterintelligence experts. Today's reports are the culmination of efforts that began in March 2003, when, as Vice Chairman, Senator Rockefeller initially requested an investigation into the origin of the fraudulent Niger documents. In June 2003, he was joined by all Democrats on the Committee in pushing for a full investigation into prewar intelligence, which was eventually expanded by the Committee in February 2004 to include the five phase II tasks. The Committee released its first report on July 9, 2004, which focused primarily on the Intelligence Community's prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and links to terrorism. Those findings helped lay the foundation for some of the intelligence reforms enacted into law in late 2004. In September 2006, the Committee completed and publicly released two sections of Phase II: The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress; and Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments. In May 2007, the Committee released the third section of Phase II: Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq. Separately, in early 2007, the Pentagon Inspector General released its own report on the intelligence activities conducted by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and also concluded that those activities were inappropriate.

UN probing Sri Lanka 'executions' ? Nobody Can Deny? The UN says it is viewing with 'utmost concern' a video broadcast on Channel 4 News which allegedly shows Sri Lankan troops executing prisoners. Channel 4 News showed footage claimed to show Sri Lankan forces executing Tamils earlier this year. The images are "horrendous" and, if authentic, are a serious breach of international law. The United Nations’s own expert called for an investigation into footage broadcast by this programme. But there are accusations that the organisation failed to speak out about alleged atrocities committed in the dying days of Sri Lanka's war against the Tamil Tigers. Philip Alston, who is the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, explained whether he thought the pictures were authentic. He said: "This videotape seems to have most of the characteristics of a genuine article and that in itself is sufficient to impose an obligation upon a government to undertake a sustained, effective, impartial investigation to ascertain the truth. "I think the United Nations is in a difficult situation in the sense that it's really a grouping of states and the government of Sri Lanka has been very effective in terms of garnering the support of a large number of states and that does seem to have made the UN rather reluctant to speak out on these issues. "My own role is not that of a UN official. I am a so-called independent expert, appointed as a UN special rapporteur. I report to the UN human rights council. "I am therefore able to say very clearly that these images are gravely disturbing, that they raise prima facie concerns about significant extra-judicial executions and a full-scale investigation should be undertaken. "I would like to see a more active United Nations response to this issue. I think it's important to try to remove it from politics. I think the UN has to insist in relation to these sorts of issues that it is not putting the Sri Lankan government in the dock as it were. "The UN's objective should be to ascertain the facts, to verify whether killings of this nature did take place either on an isolated basis or a systematic basis and thus to provide the foundations for an ongoing dialogue with the government of Sri Lanka. "It shouldn't be seen as a one-off issue of 'do you condemn or do you support the government?'. The focus must be on the alleged killings and getting to the truth of those and then working out what should be done by all of the parti pls watch this links thanks http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=36535814001

With John-John out of the way, will the Clintons regain the White House, furthering a murderous cabal? “Just refer to me as ‘Delbert.’ That’s good enough,” he said, adding, “If they will kill ‘John-John,’ they’ll kill anybody.” The long-time Special Forces and Division 4 operative’s explosive evidence, witness testimony and his team’s suppressed and classified final report naming former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, President George W. Bush and Senator Hillary Clinton among others as being involved in orchestrating the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. will require U.S. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to hear testimony to investigate John Jr.’s death as part of his ongoing grand jury probe involving White House crime families. [From:] http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/PurgeTheEvil.htm and http://www.stewwebb.com/FBI_memo_photo_link_Bush_Sr_to_JFK_Dallas_murder_scene.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzUkhKaNylM&eurl= This, just in: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070207/ap_on_re_us/kennedy_crash_call_3

Mexican Teen Killed on Border Was Known Juvenile Smuggler, Sources Say ,What say you ? The 15-year-old Mexican boy who was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent as U.S. authorities came under attack along the border Tuesday was known to authorities as a juvenile smuggler, sources close to the investigation told Fox News. Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka was shot once near the eye as U.S. Border Patrol agents on bicycles were "assaulted with rocks" as they tried to detain illegal immigrants on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Huereka was charged with alien smuggling in 2009, according to sources who requested anonymity. Further details were not immediately available. "He is a known juvenile smuggler," a source told Fox News. He was also on a "most wanted" list of juvenile smugglers compiled by U.S. authorities in the El Paso area, sources said. Heureka's death marked the second time a Mexican citizen has been killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in as many weeks, stoking tensions along the border between the nations. Roughly 30 relatives and friends gathered late Tuesday to mourn the boy, who died on the Mexican side of the river. "Damn them! Damn them!" the boy's sister, Rosario Hernandez, sobbed at a wake in the family's two-room adobe house on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. "There is a God, so why would I want vengeance if no one will return him to me. They killed my little boy and the only thing I ask is for the law" to be applied, said the boy's father, Jesus Hernandez. His mother was less hopeful. "May God forgive them because I know nothing will happen" to them," Maria Guadalupe Huereka said. Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Ramiro Cordero said preliminary reports indicate that U.S. officers on bicycle patrol were "assaulted with rocks" by an unknown number of people before Herueka was shot. "During the assault at least one agent discharged his firearm," Cordero said. "The agent is currently on administrative leave. A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently ongoing." A U.S. official told the Associated Press that video of the incident shows the Border Patrol agent did not enter Mexico. The unidentified official said the video also shows what seem to be four Mexican law enforcement officers driving to the edge of the muddy bed of the Rio Grande, walking across to the U.S. side, picking up an undetermined object and returning to Mexico near the area where the boy's body lay. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexican law officers are not authorized to cross the border without permission. A Mexican migrant, Anastasio Hernandez, 32, died less than two weeks ago after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at the San Ysidro border crossing, which separates San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The San Diego medical examiner's office ruled that death a homicide. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his government "will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants." The government "reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico," the president added in a statement. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/09/mexican-teen-killed-border-known-juvenile-smuggler-source-says/

is Bush occupying the wrong country.? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. gunship has conducted a strike against two suspected al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia, but it was not known whether the mission was successful, U.S. news networks reported on Monday. The U.S. Air Force plane, operated by the Special Operations Command, flew from its base in Djibouti to the southern tip of Somalia, where the al Qaeda suspects were believed to have fled from the capital Mogadishu, U.S. networks reported. A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information on the reports. The two suspected al Qaeda operatives were not named but CBS News said one was a suspect in the car bomb attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the other was the Islamist group's senior leader in East The report said many bodies were seen on the ground after the attack by the AC-130 gunship, but the identities of the dead were not confirmed. The al Qaeda suspects fled Mogadishu after Ethiopian troops invaded on December 28 and were tracked with unmanned aerial drones as they moved south, CBS said. NBC News reported that U.S. officials said Ethiopian forces, which had conducted raids in Somalia, had gathered intelligence on three potential al Qaeda leaders believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. NBC reported that the air strikes were part of an ongoing operation and that the U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower was moving from the North Arabian Sea toward Somalia to support the operation. As I have said, the real war on terror and Al Qaeda is in Somalia and Afghanistan not Iraq, Bush invaded the wrong country and now occupy s Iraq at the war on terrors expense.

the people that claim to be the government of China are disgusting, morally bankrupt, and are greedy pigs.? Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline founded in China by Li Hongzhi in 1992. It has five sets of meditation exercises and teaches the principles truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. In April 1999 over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Communist Party of China headquarters, Zhongnanhai, in a silent protest against beatings and arrests in Tianjin. Two months later the People's Republic of China government, led by Jiang Zemin, banned the practice, began a crackdown, and started what Amnesty International described as a "massive propaganda campaign." A few months later, on July 20, 1999, thousands of practitioners were arrested in the middle of the night, the media campaign to vilify the practice began, and the persecution was officially underway. Since 1999, reports of torture, illegal imprisonment, beatings, forced labor, and psychiatric abuses have been widespread. 66% of all reported torture cases in China concern Falun Gong practitioners, who are also estimated to comprise at least half of China's labor camp population, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, and the US Department of State respectively. In 2006, human rights lawyer David Matas and ex-Canadian secretary of state David Kilgour published an investigative report concluding that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners have become victims of systematic organ harvesting in China and that the practice is still ongoing. The nature of Communist Party rule and a perceived challenge to it is also a commonly understood reason for the persecution. It's funny what people will do for power. maybe you should follow your own advice 'do't believe everything you hear' girl. yea, western media is corrupt. good thing i didn't get this info from any news channel. frankly i think it's funny you think the chinese government is misunderstood and/or blameless. you obviously don't know anything about the chinese government.

Where is Mexico's people at when their people are trying to kill border our agents? SAN ANTONIO -- U.S. Border Patrol agents fired gunshots into Mexico after coming under attack during a half-ton drug bust and giving chase to a truck along the Rio Grande, U.S. authorities said Monday. No Border Patrol agents were hurt during the "fire fight" early Saturday in Mission, agency spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey said. She did not say whether Border Patrol gunfire hit anyone, citing the ongoing investigation. "The firing they received came from the Mexican side," Huey said. Huey said several Border Patrol agents, at least some of whom were patrolling in boats, were seizing a half-ton of marijuana when they came under gunfire. Federal officials said the shots from Mexico began when a truck that was being chased by another group of Border Patrol agents entered the area. FBI special agent Jorge Cisneros said the truck, which was on the U.S. side, appeared to be connected to the drug seizure. He said the gunfire from Mexico was a "direct result" of Border Patrol agents doing their jobs. Cisneros described the shootout as brief. "We're obviously concerned with what happened, that they would be shooting from the Mexico side to us," Cisneros said. Federal officials did not release how many agents were involved, how many shots were fired or the number of shooters on the Mexico side. Cisneros said the FBI was working with Mexico authorities, including the Mexican military and the Tamaulipas state police, to determine what happened. It was at least the second time in three months that Border Patrol agents in Texas have fired into Mexico. In June, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after authorities say a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso. Reports of bullets whizzing across the border from Mexico also are on the rise. At least eight bullets have been fired into El Paso in the last few weeks from the rising violence in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where drug violence has killed more than 4,000 people since 2009, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world. Cisneros said he can recall a handful of times in the last few years that gunfire from Mexico has crossed over the border. He said Border Patrol agents "have always been very good about not shooting back unless there is a life-threatening situation." Huey who would not say whether the agents involved in the shooting still were on patrol. She said agents are authorized to fire their weapons any time they feel lives are at risk, even into Mexico. "As long as our agents feel their life is in danger, they are allowed lethal (force)," she said. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/13/border-patrol-agents-return-mexico-coming-attack-drug-bust/ Supporters said all is well at their secured borders. Obama declared the border secured as did Janet. They have it all under control. Where is Mexico's people at when their people are trying to kill border agents ? http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/13/border-patrol-agents-return-mexico-coming-attack-drug-bust/

What do you think here Obama supports US Latinos: ‘We’re all in this together’? The presence of US President Barack Obama caused a stir Friday among members of the Hispanic community who had gathered in Washington to discuss the ongoing flu epidemic and how it is affecting immigrants. Although he barely said “hello” and “thank you” in Spanish, Obama reaped applause, laughs, and even a “Viva Obama!” from an audience of around 100 at a townhall-style gathering at the White House. Top Latinos in the US government were also in attendance. Obama emphasized that his administration is working to prevent the outbreak of a previously unknown strain of influenza A(H1N1) from becoming a source of conflict and prejudice against immigrants. “We are one country, we are one community,” Obama said in his brief address. “Our experience with the H1N1 virus over the last couple of weeks is a sobering reminder of how vital it is that we all recognize, we are all in this together.” There have been isolated reports of xenophobia within the United States - particularly among local politicians - as well as scattered incidents of workplace prejudice. The federal government has consistently tried to avoid accusations aimed at Mexico - considered the epicentre of the epidemic - or immigrants. Unlike other countries, the United States never considered closing its Mexican border or suspending flights to and from its southern neighbour. “I have been working very closely - I spoke to President Calderon last weekend - to ensure that we were providing Mexico with the assistance that it needed,” Obama said. “Because one of the things that we have to understand is public health issues like this - not only is it important for all communities within the United States to be working together, it’s also important to be working internationally together.” Tino Cuellar, Obama’s special advisor for justice and regulatory policy, went even further, telling Hispanics that the White House was saying “no to discrimination.” “It is very important to remember that at this moment, despite the priority that we have to give to public health, it is also important to remember that civil rights do not stop, they move forward,” Cuellar said. “The truth that all the American public has to understand is that this virus respects no borders, respects no ethnic or racial lines, which means that it is not a Mexican-American, Latino, Asian or African-American virus. It is a challenge that we all have to face together.” Cuellar said that people should not fall into “traps” and urged people encountering any instances of illegal discrimination to complaints with public agencies. During the community meeting, officials answered questions from the Latino community, particularly focused on prevention and the timeframe for a vaccine. Obama celebrated this as the first townhall meeting at the White House to be “conducted entirely in Spanish” and vowed that it would be “the first of many” ways to reach out to the American people.http://blackpoliticsontheweb.com/2009/05/08/obama-supports-us-latinos-were-all-in-this-together/ Remember when Napolitano has also said that strict border monitoring is not yet necessary. So it really should not be a surprise that she said “crossing the border illegally is not a crime.” Napolitano is referred to Section B, Title 1325 of the U.S. Code that states otherwise. As the former governor of a border state with Mexico, she of all people should be painfully aware of the trials and tribulations Arizonans, Californians, New Mexicans and Texans have endured. The Phoenix-metropolitan area is now the ranked as the worst and most likely place to be kidnapped in the United States, and Napolitano isn’t rankled by this horrifying piece of information? Meanwhile, as Napolitano is ineffective as Homeland Security chief, she is now trying her hand as Secretary of Health and Human Services speaking out about the swine flu situation. Perhaps she can insult that away. She should not be holding either of those jobs. anyone who can read for more than 10 seconds by all means skip this question.It only reinforces what the pro lawbreakers say about being lazy Edit anyone who can't read for more than 10 seconds by all means skip this question.It only reinforces what the pro lawbreakers say about everybody being lazy

No doubt the work of Moveon.org since they hate members of the military.? From Oregon to Minnesota to Ohio, vandals trampled on Old Glory over the Memorial Day weekend. In one Ohio town alone, approximately 25 American flags were found set ablaze on Monday. At least one national veterans group called for those responsible for the "shocking and reprehensible" acts of vandalism to be quickly arrested and prosecuted. Police in Wooster, Ohio, were going door-to-door early Tuesday in search of the people who torched roughly 25 flags and flagpoles along Saunders Drive and Morgan Street, Capt. John Quicci said. "They were set on fire," Quicci told FoxNews.com, adding that an investigation is ongoing. No suspects or motives had been identified, according to Quicci, who was unable to estimate damages to the 3-by-5-foot flags and the 10-foot metal poles placed outside of residents' homes by the annual Wooster Rotary Parade of Flags project. The people who torched the flags face charges of criminal damaging and arson, Quicci said. "We're treating this very seriously," he said. In Minneapolis, a fire was set late last week to an American flag hanging outside a Marine veteran's home. The residence was spared and no injuries were reported, but the flag was destroyed. Elizabeth Hawley said she found the ashes Thursday morning and called the act "very disturbing." She said her husband is keeping his feelings reserved, but she knows he's upset. Hawley told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that she thinks the flag-burning was a random act of vandalism. In Portland, Ore., Christian Ashby and his wife awoke Sunday to find their American flag torn down, covered in obscenities and burned outside their home, KPTV.com reported. Flying the flag has special meaning to his family, Ashby said. "Well, we have some close relatives, especially my wife, who had a cousin who suffered from [post-traumatic stress disorder] and took his own life," Ashby told the website. "So, we have some very dedicated family to veterans of the United States services. So, it means a lot to us to fly the flag." Ashby said a local man who served two tours in Vietnam loaned him another flag after posting news of the vandalism online. Ryan Gallucci, a spokesman for AMVETS, a national organization representing 200,000 veterans, said he found the acts of vandalism "shocking and reprehensible," particularly on Memorial Day weekend. "We absolutely condemn it," Gallucci told FoxNews.com. "Memorial Day is one of our country's most significant holidays and a chance to honor the men and women who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. For someone to desecrate the American flag on Memorial Day, it's unconscionable, it's unforgivable." Gallucci called for quick closure to the ongoing investigations in at least three states. "The people who are responsible for this need to be apprehended and held accountable for their actions," he said. "We shouldn't tolerate it, regardless of what the excuse is. We need to get to the bottom of it."

Status quo or Change ?Geeks or Wonks? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks :? Geeks or Wonks? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks : Status quo or Change ? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks Lots of people get interested in political ideas through political campaigns. Maybe this is because politics forces you to decide who you are and what you believe. I can vaguely recall when I was very young, perhaps 7 years old, that I discovered that my best friend's family considered themselves Democratic whereas I was pretty sure that my family was Republican. I asked someone what that meant and only received hazy answers that concerned seemingly big issues about government. I didn't think much about it but nonetheless, they were my first thoughts on the thing that would consume my life. So it is for lots of people: politics is the entry way into taking political ideas seriously. If your interest intensifies, you tend to go one of two ways: wonk or geek. These are terms that apply in many categories of life – Wikipedia gives serviceable definitions of both wonk and geek – but the terms take on new meaning in politics. Political wonks are fascinated by process. They love the game. They get as much satisfaction from observing as changing. They want to be players above all else. Ideals bore them. History is mere data. Intellectuals seem irrelevant. What matters to the wonk are the hard realities of the ongoing political struggle. They defer to title and rank. They thrive on meetings, small victories, administrative details, and gossip about these matters. Knowing who is who and what is what is the very pith of life. There are political wonks and policy wonks. They exist on all levels of society. They appear to be running things, because their aim is to control the levers of power in just the right and strategic way, which means in a way that benefits the other wonks of their tribe. Geographically, life begins and ends in the beltway. They thrive on keeping information private and cartelizing their class. Their newspaper is the Washington Post, which they consider to be the insider report. In contrast to this are the policy geeks. They are no less fascinated by detail but are drawn to ideals. Observation alone bores them. They are drawn to the prospect of change. They don't want to be players as such; they question the very rules of the game and want to change them. They are happy to make a difference in the ideological infrastructure, whether big or small. They tend to work alone and totally disregard caste distinctions. They are interested not in the surface area but what's underneath, not the veneer but the wood. In software terms, they are forever looking forward to the next build. They are risk takers, so they prefer to debug after the system is live. In politics, this means that the geeks are drawn to ideas, even radical ideas. They can easily imagine what doesn't exist, which makes them dreamers and entrepreneurs. And so they are attracted to and study history and philosophy and economics. It doesn't matter if a lesson can be learned from the ancients or moderns; indeed, unearthing an old idea and bringing it back to life has a special appeal. They thrive on making information public, on smashing old structures, breaking cartels, and busting monopolies of power. Geographically, they can live and work anywhere, and they have no attachment to any single information source. The geeks and wonks can work together but their will always be a natural tensions between the two. The wonks think the geeks are hopeless, powerless, reckless outsiders whose heads are full of useless and unrealistic fantasies. The geeks think that the wonks are part of the system and, therefore, more than likely corrupted by it, and increasingly so. Broadening the view, the struggle to control history is a battle between the wonks and the geeks. The wonks are the ones who consolidate, stabilize, and entrench the status quo; the geeks are the ones who prepare revolutionary change. The wonks freeze it into place and make it work more efficiently; the geeks imagine and work toward a future that no one thought was possible. They wonks rule out drastic and extreme measures as imprudent and reckless; the geeks think these paths are the only ones worth pursing, and have confidence that the unknown future will somehow work itself out. The wonks try to bring the king around to their point of view; the geeks kill the king. Caesar: Wonk - Brutus: Geek ; Hamilton: Wonk - Jefferson: Geek Cheney: Wonk - Ron Paul: Geek Part of the agenda of democracy is to turn the whole of society into a herd of wonks who believe in the process and want to make it work. But it isn't so easy to control human nature. There are always the geeks to contend with who see that the system is based on a lie and want to overturn it. Why should the majority rule the minority – or, more precisely, why should the well-organized minority rule the relatively indifferent majority? What we need is democracy 2.0 in which power and privilege are not steered but abolished altogether. Who will carry the day? In the short run, the wonks are right. They win. They rule. They ruled the ancient world for hundreds of years. They ruled the Soviet Union for 72. They rule the US today. But the long run is another matter. Rome and the Soviet Union fell, in revolutions enacted by geeks. The wonks eventually come to underestimate the power of ideas and underappreciate the effect of ideals. Which life is worth living? The wonk is famous, even legendary. The geek rarely achieves fame, even when he does change history. Why? The wonks write the history. But it is the geeks who make history happen in the first place. The geeks will look back at their lives with satisfaction that they did their best to realize a dream. The wonks, looking back at their lives, see that they were little more than a cog in a machine. Someday, even in the US, they may have to concede that all they did crumbled into nothingness. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/... Jeffrey Tucker is editorial vice president of www.Mises.org

Was GW really the idiot President? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical idiot. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 11 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.

what if a Republican? what If A Republican had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical idiot. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? or is this more liberal hypocrisy

What do you think about these ambulances dropping patients off at SKID ROW?? read this: Hospital Dumped Patients on Skid Row, Police Say by Ina Jaffe All Things Considered, October 24, 2006 · Authorities are launching a criminal investigation after police officers in Los Angeles say they videotaped five hospital patients being dumped on Skid Row over the weekend. The incident is being cited as the latest in an ongoing problem of indigent hospital patients being dumped on the streets with no one to care for them. The 50 square blocks of Skid Row are home to more than 10,000 people with no where else to go. It has many shelters, social service agencies -- as well as convicted sex offenders and just about any illegal drug you can think of. In other words, it's no place for someone who's still sick enough to be transported in an ambulance. But last Sunday, Los Angeles police captured video and still photos of five patients from a single hospital being dropped off in front of the Volunteers of America Service Center. We told the ambulance driver that the person wasn't appropriate for us," says Jim Howatt, director of the center's homeless services, "and they wouldn't be able to leave them. And it's about that point that the police became involved." When the police interviewed the first couple of ambulance drivers they found out that the drop-off wasn't a fluke. It was more like a plan, says police Capt. Andrew Smith. "Sergeants interviewed the ambulance attendants and found out that there were three more ambulances waiting on the corner of 22nd and Western," Smith says, waiting to drop off more people in the area. The hospital at 22nd and Western is the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center. Calls to CEO John Fenton were not returned. The hospital said it would be releasing a statement later Tuesday. Police who interviewed some of the patients being left at Skid Row say that none of them reported asking to go there. One man, says Capt. Smith, had asked to be released to his children's home in Pasadena. Our supervisors actually gave that guy a ride back to his house, and his family was outraged," Smith says. "Not only did they not know that he'd been discharged but the fact that he'd been brought to Skid Row instead of home further outraged that family." That's one reason why Jeff Isaacs, head of the City Attorney's criminal and special investigations unit, says one criminal charge being considered in the case is that of false imprisonment. And because the location in this case is such a dangerous one, elder abuse is another possible criminal charge. Obviously, a hospital can't go to jail. But Isaacs says a criminal conviction could result in very serious consequences, "in terms of their accreditation and licensing, their ability to participate in government benefit programs like Medicare." "So a criminal prosecution would be taken very very seriously by a hospital," Isaacs says, "even if it was a misdemeanor prosecution." Isaacs says the city attorney opened a criminal investigation into patient dumping on Skid Row nearly a year ago. But the cases are very hard to make. The homeless aren't always good witnesses, he says, and a victim with no fixed address can be difficult to find.

What did John Dean’s testimony in front of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities lea? What did John Dean’s testimony in front of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities lead to? A) The belief that President Nixon was involved in the cover-up of White House involvement in Watergate B) The finding that the Watergate burglars tapped phones at the Democratic National Committee headquarters C) His conviction for ordering the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters D) The discovery that Nixon had been taping all White House phone conversations 2. How did the FBI conclude that the Watergate burglars were part of a Nixon re-election scheme? A) G. Gordon Liddy was assistant to the vice president. B) James McCord was a member of the Committee for the Re-election of the President. C) Nixon admitted the illegal campaign plan to the special prosecutor in May 1973. D) The security guard who reported the break-in saw White House badges on the burglars. 3. What were the results of the 1972 presidential campaign? A) Gerald Ford was elected to replace Nixon as president. B) Democrat George McGovern defeated Nixon. C) Nixon was re-elected president. D) Vice President Spiro Agnew won the election. 4. Nixon tried to avoid turning over the Watergate tapes by claiming that the tapes A) would compromise national security. B) were private property. C) did not exist. D) did not contain any information relevant to the investigation. 5. The arrest of five men for breaking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters led to A) the Nixon impeachment trial. B) the deportation of each man for crimes against the United States. C) a recount of votes tallied by the Committee in the recent mid-term elections. D) the Watergate scandal. 6. What was one outcome of the Watergate scandal? A) It showed that laws in the United States applied to everyone. B) Many people began to trust the country’s public officials again. C) People began to increase their donations to presidential election committees. D) It created a lasting distrust of the media in the American public. 7. Evidence on Watergate seems to show that President Nixon A) was never directly involved in it. B) ordered the break-in. C) ordered the cover-up. D) ordered the break-in and the cover-up. 8. Which of the following events was a main reason for the scandal surrounding Watergate? A) The House Judiciary Committee publicly questioned President Nixon about his involvement in Watergate. B) Information leaked to the press about President Nixon’s counsel John Dean’s false legal credentials. C) The discovery that Nixon’s vice president had taken bribes from the Democratic National Committee. D) Officials in the White House tried to cover-up their connections to Watergate. 9. Which of the following was an effect of the Watergate scandal? A) An ongoing Congressional subcommittee was formed to continuously monitor presidential re-election practices. B) The FBI Domestic Security Investigation Guidelines Act was passed. C) New laws were put in place to limit the powers of the judicial branch of the federal government. D) The Equal Protection Act was approved by Congress. 10. Which of the following best describes an effect the Watergate scandal had on the office of the president? A) It increased the authority the FBI and CIA had to investigate the background of presidential candidates. B) It created new qualifications such as minimum number of years in Congress that presidential candidates had to meet. C) It caused new laws to be passed that limited executive branch power. D) It discontinued the position of legal counsel to the president. Anything will help imma single mom trying to finish school and work. I fell a little behind I need some help to catch up

What Do You Think About This??? read this: Hospital Dumped Patients on Skid Row, Police Say by Ina Jaffe All Things Considered, October 24, 2006 · Authorities are launching a criminal investigation after police officers in Los Angeles say they videotaped five hospital patients being dumped on Skid Row over the weekend. The incident is being cited as the latest in an ongoing problem of indigent hospital patients being dumped on the streets with no one to care for them. The 50 square blocks of Skid Row are home to more than 10,000 people with no where else to go. It has many shelters, social service agencies -- as well as convicted sex offenders and just about any illegal drug you can think of. In other words, it's no place for someone who's still sick enough to be transported in an ambulance. But last Sunday, Los Angeles police captured video and still photos of five patients from a single hospital being dropped off in front of the Volunteers of America Service Center. We told the ambulance driver that the person wasn't appropriate for us," says Jim Howatt, director of the center's homeless services, "and they wouldn't be able to leave them. And it's about that point that the police became involved." When the police interviewed the first couple of ambulance drivers they found out that the drop-off wasn't a fluke. It was more like a plan, says police Capt. Andrew Smith. "Sergeants interviewed the ambulance attendants and found out that there were three more ambulances waiting on the corner of 22nd and Western," Smith says, waiting to drop off more people in the area. The hospital at 22nd and Western is the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center. Calls to CEO John Fenton were not returned. The hospital said it would be releasing a statement later Tuesday. Police who interviewed some of the patients being left at Skid Row say that none of them reported asking to go there. One man, says Capt. Smith, had asked to be released to his children's home in Pasadena. Our supervisors actually gave that guy a ride back to his house, and his family was outraged," Smith says. "Not only did they not know that he'd been discharged but the fact that he'd been brought to Skid Row instead of home further outraged that family." That's one reason why Jeff Isaacs, head of the City Attorney's criminal and special investigations unit, says one criminal charge being considered in the case is that of false imprisonment. And because the location in this case is such a dangerous one, elder abuse is another possible criminal charge. Obviously, a hospital can't go to jail. But Isaacs says a criminal conviction could result in very serious consequences, "in terms of their accreditation and licensing, their ability to participate in government benefit programs like Medicare." "So a criminal prosecution would be taken very very seriously by a hospital," Isaacs says, "even if it was a misdemeanor prosecution." Isaacs says the city attorney opened a criminal investigation into patient dumping on Skid Row nearly a year ago. But the cases are very hard to make. The homeless aren't always good witnesses, he says, and a victim with no fixed address can be difficult to find

9-11, were we aggressive enough,or did we just bail out Bubba? "Earlier today I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by B ritish forces," Clinton said. "Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors," said Clinton. Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors. 'Without delay, diplomacy or warning' The Iraqi leader was given a final warning six weeks ago, Clinton said, when Baghdad promised to cooperate with U.N. inspectors at the last minute just as U.S. warplanes were headed its way. "Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning," Clinton said. The president said the report handed in Tuesday by Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission in charge of finding and destroying Iraqi weapons, was stark and sobering. Iraq failed to cooperate with the inspectors and placed new restrictions on them, Clinton said. He said Iraqi officials also destroyed records and moved everything, even the furniture, out of suspected sites before inspectors were allowed in. "Instead of inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors," Clinton said. "In halting our airstrikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance -- not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed," the president explained. Strikes necessary to stunt weapons programs Clinton said he made the decision to strike Wednesday with the unanimous agreement of his security advisors. Timing was important, said the president, because without a strong inspection system in place, Iraq could rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear programs in a matter of months, not years. "If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," said Clinton. "He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction." Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world. Offensive Strike "The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," Clinton said. Such a change in Baghdad would take time and effort, Clinton said, adding that his administration would work with Iraqi opposition forces. Clinton also addressed the ongoing impeachment crisis in the White House. "Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down," he said. "But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America. http://attacked911.tripod.com/

Can these Miami-Dade Police Officers face charges for What happened to Man With Down Syndrome? http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Man-With-Down-Syndrome-in-Clash-With-Cops-129820353.html - Family "shocked" after confrontation with Miami-Dade Police. - Wednesday, Sep 14, 2011 - The attorney for a man with Down Syndrome who was badly injured after a confrontation with Miami-Dade Police Saturday night says his family is shocked over what they say was an unnecessary attack. "The family is very upset and really shocked, to be honest," attorney Philip Gold said Wednesday. "They can't believe that this could have happened, let alone to their their son who is an innocent, sweet individual with Down syndrome." - The Miami-Dade Police Department continues to investigate the incident involving Mr. Gilberto Powell," the statement read. "The integrity of the investigation and successful resolution of this case continues to remain our highest priority. As a result, the investigation remains active and ongoing; therefore, we cannot provide additional information at this time." But Gold says the police report is inaccurate and Powell's family is outraged. Gold said Powell claims he didn't hit any of the officers and was just trying to go home. "He's a really nice kid, he wouldn't hurt a fly," Gold said. "Gilberto says he didn't do anything wrong, he just wanted to go home." Gold said Powell and other witnesses claim police body slammed him to the ground, bloodying his face and eye and causing contusions to his head. The injury to his eye may still require surgery, Gold said. Even worse, Gold claims Powell's colostomy bag was "ripped right off his body." In addition to the physical injuries, Gold says Powell has suffered mentally. "The trauma of the whole thing, being accosted and beaten by the police, this kind of experience lives with you forever," Gold said. Gold also claims the officers should have known Powell has special needs immediately. If you just look at Gilberto, he 5-foot-3, 130 pounds with Down Syndrome, it's 100 percent obvious he has Down Syndrome," he said. It's impossible to believe [the police's story] if you hear one word out of Gilberto's mouth." Miami-Dade Police issued a statement Wednesday, saying they're still investigating the incident. "The Miami-Dade Police Department continues to investigate the incident involving Mr. Gilberto Powell," the statement read. "The integrity of the investigation and successful resolution of this case continues to remain our highest priority. As a result, the investigation remains active and ongoing; therefore, we cannot provide additional information at this time." Gold said he hasn't ruled out a lawsuit. "My understanding is that the officer that battered my client is working for the force, didn't get suspended or anything," he said. "We would like to speak with the department, sit down with the department and talk about how they can make this better for my client and his family."

What drugs is this guy on? He noted a dead princess was at the opening ceremony. And then he promised everything would be fixed - tomorrow. But what if tomorrow never comes for Suresh Kalmadi? The beleagured supremo of the Commonwealth Games produced a comedic performance for reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday. Trouble was, he was serious. Kalmadi is the chairman of the Delhi Games' organising committee, a loose term given the chaotic disorganisation which led to him being booed at Sunday night's opening ceremony. Things haven't improved since. Kalmadi fronted the media and initially noted the presence of Princess Diana, who has been dead for more than 13 years, at the opening extravaganza. "Princess Diana, ah, Prince Charles was there," he said. Kalmadi took questions about various ongoing problems: security, transport, catering, accreditation among them. When will they all be fixed? "The last issues will be addressed by tomorrow," he promised. What about transport problems? "There were problems with transport but today we have solved the problems, from tomorrow there won't be any," he said. Any explanation for Monday's botched boxing weigh-in, abandoned due to inaccurate scales? "I will give you a correct fuller reply tomorrow morning," Kalmadi replied. A sidekick then joined the show. Jiji Thomson is the organising committee's special director general responsible for Games village catering, press operations and transport. Asked what was being done after Australian swimmers fell to Delhi belly from eating at the village, Thomson was nonplussed. "No, we haven't received any report so far," Thomson said, before being told such news was widely reported 24 hours ago. "I will get back to you tomorrow," Thomson said. Kalmadi then resumed centre stage, adamant the organising was progressing smoothly. "I think we are there," he said. "Yesterday was the first day of the Games so whatever problem we found on the first day, we are trying to sort out today. "And from tomorrow onwards, I think we will have a straight flow of everything." Hahahaha and this is the guy running the show!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow,tomorrow,tomorrow,and then the games will be over. Ah yes ,good ole Sheila Diksh!t (real name).Comes from a long line of Diksh1ts I belive. That Kiwi presenter got in trouble again saying her name on the morning show lol I am sorry that your attention span is so short Johnny.Ritolin may help with that.

If George Bush..................................? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a Teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had said I think the police behaved stupidly for arresting a b l a c k friend of his before he had any of the facts would you have approved? If George W. Bush had said all legislation will be available for comment for 4 days prior to presidential signature and then renegged on this promise would you have approved? If George W. Bush had said all debate on the health care take over bill would be televised live on C-Span and then renegged on this promise would you have approved?

Was George W. Bush an idiot? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the e 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry.. He's done all this in a few months, so you'll have three years plus years to come up with an answer.

Will supporters of illegals be heading to Milwaukee officers arrested 15 illegal alien gang 14 are Mexicans? U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Milwaukee Police Department officers arrested 15 illegal alien gang members in the latest anti-gang dragnet that is part of an ongoing national ICE effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs. These arrests were made under an initiative by ICE's National Gang Unit dubbed "Operation Community Shield." As part of the initiative, ICE partners with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs. Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies are essential to the initiative's success, and they help further ensure officer safety during the operations. Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 17,500 gang members and associates belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide. All but one of those arrested are foreign-born members and associates of the following street gangs: Brown Pride, Latin Kings, Mexican Posse and C-14. Of the 15 men arrested, all are Mexican nationals except for one individual from the former Yugoslavia. Twelve are currently in ICE custody on administrative immigration charges pending removal proceedings, including a fugitive with an outstanding deportation order. One was previously deported to Mexico and is facing federal charges for illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, an offense that is punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment. Two gang members are in MPD custody; ICE has placed detainers, or "immigration holds," on them to ensure they will be turned over to ICE for removal proceedings when they are released from local custody. "Street gangs pose a growing public safety threat to communities in the Milwaukee area," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Chicago. "With each gang member we arrest and remove from the United States, we're making a positive impact in our communities and improving public safety." "The Milwaukee Police Department's partnership with ICE on this operation will remove some of the violent gang members from the streets of the south side of Milwaukee," said Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn. "In their absence, we hope to return the public spaces to the residents who rightfully should be able to enjoy them and to live free from crime, fear and disorder." ICE's National Gang Unit identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements to deter, disrupt and dismantle gang operations by tracing and seizing cash, weapons and other assets derived from criminal activities. Through Operation Community Shield, the federal government uses its powerful immigration and customs law enforcement authorities in a coordinated, national campaign against criminal street gangs in the United States. Transnational street gangs have significant numbers of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border. Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 17,500 gang members and associates belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide. http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2010m6d15-Criminal-alien-dragnet-in-Milwaukee-initiated-by-Feds-cops Will supporters of illegals be heading to Milwaukee officers arrested 15 illegal alien gang 14 are Mexicans to protest their arrests as these arrests will make illegals afraid to report crimes ?

Would you approve if Bush did the same things Obama has done to our great country? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches,would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas, would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had pronounced corpsmen as CORPSmen, would you have held him up to ridicule? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 15 months -- so you'll have two years and nine months to come up with an answer.

What is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical idiot. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Quattro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okay-ed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Command of the language? Corpseman? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in a year-- so you'll have three years to come up with an answer.

What is your opinion here Obama administration is continuing Bush's legacy? Last week, President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security announced that it was expanding the anti-immigrant 287(g) program—special enforcement arrangements between local police agencies and the DHS to detain, arrest and deport "suspected" undocumented immigrants. DHS announced that the 287(g) program has established 11 new relationships across the country with local law enforcement agencies, including one in Houston. In this ongoing offensive against immigrants, the Obama administration is continuing Bush’s legacy of attacking so-called "illegal aliens with criminal records." Many police departments throughout the country use 287(g) and the federal government’s wider attacks on immigrant communities as an excuse to stop, question, harass and detain Latinos and immigrants. In the past two years, more than 120,000 people have been detained and deported through the 287(g) program. During fiscal year 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deported more than 356,000 immigrants from the United States and tens of thousands more that have not been reported, which represented a 23.5 percent increase over the previous year. Congress created the 287(g) program in 1996. The program provides resources and training to local police departments to detain, imprison and deport "suspected" undocumented immigrants. Since January 2006, more than 1,000 state and local police have been trained under this program. Maria Hernandez, a resident of Raleigh, N.C., was booked into a Wake County jail after failing to show up for her 6-year-old son’s truancy hearing. Now she is in a deportation court. "I don’t understand why they come after people like me," she said.On top of the 287(g) program, the Obama administration also announced that it would continue the practice of requiring federal contractors and subcontractors to use E-Verify, an electronic system that monitors workers’ immigration status. The error-riddled electronic system has led to the firing of tens of thousands of workers. Government policy and actions have led directly to organized assaults on immigrant communities by local law enforcement and right-wing bigots. Though the Obama administration has suggested that local law enforcement agencies arrest and deport only "violent" offenders, the new policy directive is not binding or law. Contracts between DHS and local law enforcement will be kept secret. Joe Arpaio, the infamous racist sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, hailed as the "champion" of enforcing the 287(g) program, has given public voice to the stance of many local law enforcement agencies toward the program: "If I’m told not to enforce immigration law except if the alien is a violent criminal, my answer to that is we are still going to do the same thing, 287g or not. We have been very successful." More than 30,000 undocumented immigrants have been imprisoned or deported in the Phoenix area under Arpaio’s oversight.Obama’s campaign promise of immigration comprehensive reform is far from reality. The U.S. government’s attacks against the immigrant community are part of an overall strategy to keep workers intimidated. Deportations and the use of the police in its escalating attacks are a component of the repressive state machinery used against undocumented workers and their families in the United States. They are an attempt to isolate immigrants, enforce divisions, keep wages as low as possible and erect barriers to a united working-class fight back against the bosses. http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12583&news_iv_ctrl=1261

Which is more "elitist" -- getting a $400 haircut or INSTALLING A TANNING BED in the Governmor's Mansion...? ...as your first official act? "Palin’s Private Tanning Bed in the Alaska Governor’s Mansion One of Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s First Actions as Alaska Governor Was to Equip the State Building with a Tanning Bed By Al Giordano and Bill Conroy Special to The Narco News Bulletin September 15, 2008 The story is familiar: a politician emerges, we are told, from humble roots and pledges to restore America’s small town family values and represent the common man and woman. Late last month, the Republican Party offered the United States just such a leader in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, or so they said. “Mother. Moose hunter. Maverick,” announced the video with which the GOP introduced this candidate so far unknown to the rest of the nation. Governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has a darkening secret in the Alaska Governor’s Mansion. It’s the same Cinderella story line that Democrat John Edwards had hoped to ride to the top: the son-of-a-mill-worker from the Carolinas, embodiment of and friend to the just-plain-folks, with all-American good looks and a postcard perfect family in tow. He was going to be a contender… until the smallest little fact began to claw at his authenticity: that he paid $400+ per haircut to his Hollywood stylist to maintain the shine in his bouncy mop. The $400 haircut became emblematic of Edwards’ inauthenticity problem. It fueled suspicion and critique that he wasn’t quite the sincere man of the people that his campaign had projected, and added a “vanity vs. substance” narrative to everything he did and said. Sometimes it’s the small things that unravel the thread on big truths. But can you imagine the surprise had the public learned that Edwards had also installed an expensive tanning bed in his mansion? Former Senator John Edwards’ $400 haircut began to raise issues of his authenticity as a populist. Actually, he didn’t. But guess who did? The Republican nominee for vice president, Governor Sarah Palin, it turns out, is a pioneer of the Great Indoors: “The governor did have a tanning bed put in the Governor’s Mansion,” Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, confirmed to this newspaper. “It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion.” The home tanning bed in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau adds a trivial fact among the many, big and small, coming to light about the right-wing’s latest celebrity, McCain’s gamble to try and wrestle the election away from Democrat Barack Obama, but one that – tug the thread – leads to other questions about elitism, ethics, public health and the insufferable phoniness that plagues politics and politicians. The Alaska Governor’s Mansion in Juneau. After receiving a tip from a reader who reported some interesting claims about the governor, including that her mansion counted with its own private tanning bed, Narco News dialed those Alaska officials that should be in-the-know and received nervous replies that would not confirm nor deny, at first, that the Alaska Governor’s Mansion now includes a private tanning bed. Erica Fagerstrom, manager of the 96-year-old state mansion, for example, was not in a talking mood. Fagerstrom eagerly told us about all the contracting work being done to keep the mansion up to code, the plumbing and “water issues” for the family now living on the third floor. But asked repeatedly whether a tanning bed was also part of her charge, she responded only that, “a tanning bed is not part of the ongoing projects,” and pleaded that she had to hang up immediately as her workday had come to an end. Artificial Light as Metaphor An expensive, specialized machine, unaffordable and out of reach to most American homes, utilized to artificially enhance one’s appearance, provides an apt metaphor for political image-making in campaigns. In fact, such an energy-hungry appliance, in most cases, requires a dedicated circuit, a voltage regulator and 220 volt wiring (and for some deluxe models, a hardwire connection to the power source) — a set-up not found in 96-year-old homes. Republican presidential nominee John McCain recently said, of Palin, “she knows more about energy than probably anybody in the United States of America.” That kind of hyperbole can be expected from the guy who picked her out of relative obscurity, but so far both McCain and Palin have claimed that Alaska supplies “20 percent” of the United States’ energy, when, according to factcheck.org, that figure is “not even close… Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent,” and just 2.4 percent of total domestic energy consumption. Okay, so Palin may not know more about energy than other national leaders, but the revelation that her newly re-wired Governor’s Mansion includes a tanning bed may indicate that in this time of high oil prices forcing most Americans to conse , but the revelation that her newly re-wired Governor’s Mansion includes a tanning bed may indicate that in this time of high oil prices forcing most Americans to conserve energy, Palin consumes more energy than the others. Tanning beds of the kind used by tanning salons can cost upwards of $35,000 each. Asked whether taxpayer funds were used to equip the Alaska Governor’s Mansion for Palin’s tanning bed, Public Facilities spokesman Wetherell confirmed that the mansion’s electrical system had been upgraded early in Palin’s term. He insisted that the electrical work was not prompted by the extra needs of a tanning bed, but, rather was part of a project undertaken to bring the historic mansion’s wiring up to current building standards. Since governors (and vice presidents) are generally expected to be healthy role models for the nation’s youth, Governor Palin’s darkening secret raises Edwardsian questions about her habit, which medical professionals and organizations ..... ...which medical professionals and organizations have identified as a threat to public health, a cause of skin cancer, and a problem of abuse and addiction among teenagers and others through a condition that they call “tanorexia.” A Cancerous Habit Tanning salons are an absolute fad, especially popular among high school and college students, most of whom can’t afford to own such a machine – which can cost upwards of $35,000 – at home. But that’s what the spas and salons provide: An average indoor tanning session will set you back about $7 in Alaska — though special packages can run up past $20, according to Alaskan tanning salon operators interviewed by this newspaper. A 2004 survey sponsored by Wolff System Technology, a major manufacturer of tanning bed parts, found that the average age of those clients is 32 and that it’s increasingly a passion of men, who now account for about 30 percent of all indoor tanners. But medical authorities, including the American Academy of Dermatology, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) actively warn that tanning beds increase the risk of skin cancer. Some individuals do turn to tanning beds to treat chronic skin diseases, such as psoriasis, but even in those cases, most dermatologists only recommend that course of action as a treatment of last resort — since tanning beds emit far more damaging than healing energy in the UV light spectrum. The American Cancer Society is quite clear on the matter, and warns that skin cancer is a bigger public health threat than lung or breast cancer, and that it regards tanning machines as in the same category as cigarettes: Skin cancer is the most common of all cancer types. There are more than 1 million skin cancers (melanoma and non-melanoma) diagnosed each year in the United States. That’s more than prostate, breast, lung, colon, uterus, ovary and pancreas...

I just read this a moment ago and thought maybe you liberals would enjoy answering some of these questions? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompTer installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive and qualified to preach anything to anyone? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 15 months -- so you'll have two years and nine months to come up with an answer

Did Obama really do all of these things? I received an email that began with "IF George Bush would have..." it goes on on to detail a long list of undesirable actions for a president. Then at the end, it says that Obama actually DID these things. Here is the list, can anyone tell me if any or all of this is true? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had miss-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and “potatoe” as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position 32 or more Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had spent more than all the Presidents combined since George Washington, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 months -- so you'll have 3 years and 2 months to come up with an answer. Sorry, that last part was the end of the email. Please respond with sources if you have them

What do you think of this Girl Rescued From Human Smugglers:? Two men are in custody after allegedly kidnapping a Guatemalan girl and extorting the girl’s mother. Investigators say that on June 28, a woman contacted the Trenton Police and reported that her 15-year-old daughter had been kidnapped. The woman had paid to have her daughter brought to the U.S. from Guatemala. Once the girl arrived in Texas, police say that two men kidnapped her. They then allegedly demanded large sums of money over several days from the girl’s mother in exchange for the girl’s safe transport to Trenton. The mother told police that she made initial payments to the alleged kidnappers but her daughter was never delivered. The mother also told police that her daughter was hungry and frightened. On June 29, two Trenton Police Detectives interviewed the mother. During the interview, authorities say that the alleged kidnappers contacted her. Police say that the suspects made arrangements for a final extortion payment for her kidnapped daughter at a truck stop near the N.J. turnpike entrance in Bordentown. The detectives contacted Special Agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs (ICE) who joined the investigation. The investigators then followed the woman as she made her way to the drop-off point. Once she arrived, police say the two alleged kidnappers met her. Investigators say that she then made the final extortion payment and was reunited with her daughter. The ICE Agents and the Trenton Police then moved in and took the two alleged kidnappers into custody. Investigators say that the first suspect identified himself as Eddie Garcia, 25. According to police, Garcia couldn’t provide a valid form of ID or a valid address. Authorities could not confirm his identity and he was docketed as a John Doe. Garcia is charged with theft by extortion. Police say that the second suspect identified himself as Jose A. Luis-Hernandez, 27. Investigators identified Luis-Hernandez as a Honduran national. He was docketed for an extortion charge and was issued a detainer by the ICE agents. Investigators also found seven illegal immigrants inside the vehicle of the two suspects. Authorities believe that they were smuggled into the U.S. and transported to various drop-off points. Homeland Security took the illegal immigrants into custody for processing. Authorities say that the investigation is ongoing. http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Girl-Rescued-From-Human-Smugglers-Cops--124883529.html

If George Bush was an idiot than how do you feel about this? IF GEORGE W. BUSH WAS AN IDIOT . . . If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to quadruple the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to quadruple the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in ten months -- so you'll have three years and two months to come up with an answer. Joshua C- read answer below you. And no the point that you are missing is beyond me. The point is that people rode Bush hard for his mistakes he made. They really did. Why are people not for obama? You even did it yourself making fun of bush for the marbles in mouth. Why is the public not insulting obama the way they did to bush? Im not saying bush did not make mistakes. But he also did not create this "change" theory of spending money wise and end up going against it. Sorry to burst your bubble but you had wasted a lot of time writing what you wrote. Plus the guy below called you out. Better luck next time and thanks for backing up a president who has us in more debt than the last 200 years of presidents.

George Bush vs Obama? Who wins? IF GEORGE W. BUSH WAS AN IDIOT . . . If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to quadruple the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to quadruple the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in ten months -- so you'll have three years and two months to come up with an answer. Momma- you bring good points. however this "obama" guy preeched that he would not do spending unless it was needed. Has that been the case? Thank you.

Not inviting SIL to our wedding or pre-wedding events? As the title might indicate - I have some serious issues with my fiance's brother's wife! I am truly convinced that she will ruin my day, and all the other special traditions that come before the wedding. I am aware that it is a major etiquette faux pas not to invite the spouse of immediate family. I am very much aware that there would be hard feelings and uncomfortable conversations that would come with that territory. But to me, all that hassle just might be worth it for the sake of my happiness on our big day. To give you some details as to why I do not want her there: *** She has successfully been able to ruin just about every family get together with her drama. The woman is 27, and if she isn't the center of attention she will literally throw a fit. Rarely does she leave something without crying or screaming. I'm not even close to kidding. *** For the past year or so, she has done nothing but TRASH and disrespect me and my relationship with my fiance. She has told my fiance directly multiple times that we have a "sh*tty relationship" and all sorts of other nice things. She calls me a whore and constantly cooks up rumors about how I am trying to cheat on my fiance with our mutual friends [[oh yeah, did I mention that she actually goes to therapy for her anger and compulsive lying issues?]]. And we're not talking one isolated incident here - this is ongoing behavior over an extended period of time. Why should I invite someone to my big day who doesn't support us and is nothing but downright rude to me?? *** Finally, I'm just uncomfortable with her around. She can't even be civil to me. I can never have a true smile on my face if she's in eye sight. I don't want to be spending what is supposed to be the happiest day of my life half-pissed-off because she is there. The problem is that my fiance wants to invite her - even though he hates her too - because he wants to keep the peace in the family. Ok, I totally understand that. But it has officially come down to that vs. my happiness. I was irritated my whole engagement party because she was there and wouldn't shut up - I don't want my wedding to be like that. Help. And please, no rude answers. I will report if it isn't constructive advice.

Should I go to the police? When I was between 12 and 15 I used to spend all my spare time on a local farm with my horse and other similar friends. There was a man working there who must have been about 30 who behaved improperly - ie exposing himself, making me touch him and he indecently assaulting me and once took me to his caravan and tried to have sex with me. He had a reputation for being like this with all of the girls my age and there was one girl he had an ongoing sexually relationship with when she was 14. He would groom us all one at a time and made us all feel special and grown up. I bumped into one of these friends this week and she told me the guy is now teaching juniors at the local riding club so he is still around young girls. My question is this - should I go to the Police and report him - as although he would be about 50 now I feel he could still be a danger to kids - and has anyone actually done this and what sort of evidence would they need? I can give places and years - seasons even- but cannot be specific as to actual dates. I did have a lot of issues at the time however, I took an overdose at 13 and was so difficult my mother nearly put me in care. Im not good at asking for help - I tend to internalise everything so I just dont know what to do for the best. Any suggestions would be appreciated

What are your opinions and comments on this e-mail I just received? Are these statements true or not? PLEASE NOTE - I AM NOT GIVING MY OPINION AT ALL. JUST CURIOUS AS TO OTHERS OPINIONS. If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceded, egotistical prick. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 months -- so you'll have three years and two months to come up with an answer. OH,....remember Bush speaks twice as many languages as Obama. AND....Bush has a Master's degree from Harvard: Obama just has some non-transcripts from Claremont and that eastern school the CIA got him while he was a contract interpreter. And.....both Obama and Mrs. Obama had to surrender their law licenses for lying under oath.

How would the Obama faithful treat George Bush in the following situations? Do they see any irony here? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompTer installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? just a remider...the question asks how you would RESPOND..not what you think of bush..in other words do it asks if you understand simple irony.

If George Bush was the person that done all of these things would you approve? If George W. > Bush had been the first President to need a > teleprompter installed to be able to get through a > press conference, > would you have laughed and said this is more proof of > how inept he is > on his own and is really controlled by smarter men > behind the scenes? > > If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of > thousands of > dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in > NYC, would you have approved? > > If George W. Bush had reduced your > retirement plan's > holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a > majority stake in GM, would > you have approved? > > If George W. Bush had made a joke at > the expense of the > Special Olympics, would you have approved? > > > If George W. Bush had given Gordon > Brown a set of > inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when > Gordon Brown had given > him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, > would you have approved? > > If George W. Bush had given the Queen of > England an iPod > containing videos of his speeches, would you have > thought this > embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? > > If George W. Bush had bowed to the > King of Saudi Arabia , > would you have approved? > > If George W. Bush had visited > Austria and made > reference > to the non-existent "Austrian language," > would you have brushed > it off as a minor slip? > > > If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet > and circle of > advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current > in their income > taxes, would you have approved? > > > If George W. Bush had been so Spanish > illiterate as to > refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of > the Mexican ambassador when it was > the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub > it when he tried > again, would you have winced in embarrassment? > > > If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the > word "advice" would > you have hammered him for it for years like Dan > Quayle and potatoe as proof > of > what a dunce he is? > > > If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 > gallons of jet fuel to > go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have > concluded he's a > hypocrite? > > If George W. Bush's administration > had okayed Air Force One > flying low over millions of people followed by a jet > fighter in downtown > Manhattan causing widespread > panic, would you have wondered whether they > actually get what happened on 9-11? > > > If George W. Bush had failed to send > relief aid to flood > victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made > homeless > than in New Orleans , would you want > it made into a major ongoing > political issue with claims of racism and > incompetence? > > > If George W. Bush had created the > position of 32 Czars who report > directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on > much of what is happening > in America, would you have > approved? > > > If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO > of a major > corporation, even though he had no > constitutional > authority to do so, > would you have approved? > > > If George W Bush had proposed to double the > national debt, which had > taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one > year, would you have > approved? > > > If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the > debt again within 10 > years, would you have approved? > > > So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes > him so brilliant > and impressive? Can't think of anything? > Don't worry. He's done all this > in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and > seven months to come up with > an answer. >

Should ICE warn businesses of audits for inspecting their hiring records or just raid the business's? Does this not give them time to get rid of and warn the illegals they have working for them. Does this not give them time to get fraudulent papers for some of the illegals and play the "I didn't know" excuse? Would you rather have them warning business's or raiding the business's and rounding up the illegal workers and jailing the employers? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX I.C.E. News Release March 02, 2010 ICE serves 180 audit notices to businesses in 5 states Employment records will be screened for compliance with federal law NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is issuing Notices of Inspection (NOIs) to 180 businesses in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee. The notices alert business owners that ICE will be inspecting their hiring records to determine whether or not they are complying with employment eligibility verification laws and regulations. Inspections are one of the most powerful tools the federal government has to enforce employment and immigration laws. This new initiative is part of ICE's increased focus on holding employers accountable for their hiring practices and efforts to ensure a legal workforce. "ICE is committed to establishing a meaningful I-9 inspection program to promote compliance with the law. This effort is a first step in ICE's long-term strategy to address and deter illegal employment," said Raymond R. Parmer, Jr. acting special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in New Orleans. Employers are required to complete and retain a Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This form requires employers to review and record the individual's identity document(s) and determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and related to the individual. Due to the ongoing, law enforcement sensitive nature of these audits, the names and locations of the businesses will not be released at this time. In 2009, ICE implemented a new, comprehensive strategy to reduce the demand for illegal employment and protect employment opportunities for the nation's lawful workforce. Under this strategy, ICE is focusing its resources on the auditing and investigation of employers suspected of cultivating illegal workplaces by knowingly employing illegal workers. The initiative being launched today is a direct result of this new strategy. -- ICE -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE comprises four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities. For more information, visit www.ICE.gov. To report suspicious activity, call 1-866-347-2423. Last Modified: Wednesday, March 3, 2010 U.S. Department of Homeland Security http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1003/100302neworleans.htm _________________

If GWB had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded? If GWB had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, would you have said that he is clueless? If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas, would you have thought he was a self important, conceded, egotistical idiot? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He did all this, and more, in his first year as president -- so you'll have three years to come up with an answer.

Is this being hypocritical? If George W.. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.

George W. Bush v. Obama: Which is the bigger idiot? If George Bush Was An Idiot... http://www.rightofcenter.net/default.aspx?blogid=48 If George W. Bush's top advisor was a foreigner that did not have America's best interests in mind, would you have approved? (see George Soros and Barry Obama) If George W. Bush went to play golf while oil was spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, would you have approved? If George W. Bush said "CORPSE MEN" instead of corps men while addressing a group of troops, would you have thought he was a raving moron? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, would you have said that he is clueless? If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas, would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had ok'd Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in just 18 months -- so you'll have 2.5 years to come up with an answer.

If any other of our presidents had pronounced the Marine Corps,as Marine Corpse, would you think him an idiot? *If any other of our presidents had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?* *If any other of our presidents had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? * *If any other of our presidents had criticized a state law that he admitted he never even read, would you think that he is just an ignorant hot head? * *If any other of our presidents joined the country of Mexico and sued a state in the United States to force that state to continue to allow illegal immigration, would you question his patriotism and wonder who's side he was on? * *If any other of our presidents had put 87,000 workers out of work by arbitrarily placing a moratorium on offshore oil drilling on companies that have one of the best safety records of any industry because one foreign company had an accident, would you have agreed? * *If any other of our presidents had been the first President to need a Teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed. *If any other of our presidents had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take his First Lady to a play in NYC, would you have approved? *If any other of our presidents had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? * *If any other of our presidents had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? * *If any other of our presidents had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought it a proud moment for America ? * *If any other of our presidents had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia would you have approved? *If any other of our presidents had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? * *If any other of our presidents had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? * If any other of our presidents had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , wouldn't you have had second thoughts about his capabilities? * If any other of our presidents would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in his home town, would you not have thought he was a self-important, conceited, egotistical jerk. * *If any other of our presidents had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, wouldn't you have winced in embarrassment? * If any other of our presidents had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?* If any other of our presidents' administrations had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? * *If any other of our presidents had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? * *If any other of our presidents had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have ever approved. * *If any other of our presidents had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? * *So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? * *Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 24 months -- so you have that much time to come up with an answer.* *Every statement and action in this email is factual and directly attributable to Barrack Hussein Obama. Every bumble is a matter of record and completely verifiable. * AND NOW, HE ACTUALLY WANTS US TO RE-ELECT HIM. WAKE UP AMERICA 2012 IS UPON US. @ Joe. If "If any other of our presidents had pronounced the Marine Corps,as Marine Corpse, would you think him an idiot?" Is not a question then you have no idea what a question is! Maybe what boggled your mind is that there were to many question for your mind to handle all at once, I know that anyone that voted for Obama can't be to intelligent.

How can the people take the enormous amount of power that BIG MEDIA has in presidential elections? The press plays a vital role in our democracy, shaping citizens’ understanding of social and political issues and functioning as gatekeepers through which issues, people, and events must pass. No matter what you care about — gun rights or abortion rights, the environment or economics — the media influence the perceptions of citizens and policymakers, affecting the policies that touch us all. Media must not be considered just another business: they are special institutions in our society. Information is the lifeblood of democracy — and when viewpoints are cut off and ideas cannot find an outlet, our democracy suffers. Traditional media, telecommunications and cable are converging, all becoming firmly linked to the Internet. The ways we share information, the ways we receive information, and the ways this information is produced are all changing rapidly. In the halls of power — from corporate boardrooms to the corridors of the Capitol — policies are being rewritten to prepare for this new era. Big Media, Big Cable and Big Telecom are some of the strongest and fiercest lobbies in Washington, and, indeed, across the country. One of the most profitable industries and one on which politicians depend to make their views heard, it is difficult to battle such clout. Media outlets unwilling to report on their parent company’s interests and broader issues of media reform put more obstacles in the way of public interest advocates. BIG MEDIA has a huge effect on who wins presidential primaries. the major television news outlets are viewed by most americans, which gives them the power to manipulate the masses' opinions on candidates that would help them by relaxing laws on media ownership. They also have the power to essentially blacklist candidates who would be a threat to them by passing new laws that would be more in line with the constitution. So you can see how a candidate that values the constitution would be a major threat to them. if Dr. Ron Paul got the amount of attention that Obama, hilary, edwards, romney, mccain & guiliani get, i am sure that he would win the election by an enormous number of votes. If the average american knew who he was, and what he is all about, he would be a huge threat to hillary's presidential campaign. Ron paul is EXTREMELY popular among the people that know who he is because he truly represents the american people, not the establishment. Ron Paul has a voting record in congress that demonstrates that he will not be pushed into voting for any unconstitutional legislation, such as the patriot act, or the real id act, or the torture bill. He is 1 of only 6 republicans that voted against the war. Ron Paul has also been named "the taxpayers best friend." Many web sites and forums have had to shut down, due to the overwhelming number of people writing messages of support for Ron Paul. a MySpace page titled "Opinion Polling" posted the following note this week: "Temporarily shut down due to Ron Paul. will be back eventually." A source said that the page's owners shut it down because Paul supporters "invaded the place." here is a website called techPresident.com that has an ongoing internet poll displayed on it. http://techpresident.com/scrape_plot/myspace the poll shows that Ron Paul is the top republican candidate among internet users. Yet, the big media companies IGNORE Ron Paul on their 24 hour news networks. Every other story is about which celebrity is endorsing barak obama, or what color dress Hillary wore last week at a fundraiser. How did this happen? WHat can be done about it? i am thinking maybe the fairness doctrine should be applied to the big cable news networks, even though i am a libertan. here is an article (which i used some quotes from) that explains this further: (http://ronpaul.rescue-us.org/2007/03/02/ron-paul-support-on-the-internets-continues-to-get-noticed.aspx) -------------------------- Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who has explored a presidential run, doesn't register very high in the national polls featuring 2008 presidential candidates (1 percent, tops). But there's one place that he simply rules: the Internet. Fans of the libertarian have stormed the Web -- in ways both good and bad -- to show their support. Over at TechPresident.com -- a Web site that tracks candidates' "friends" on the popular social networking site MySpace.com -- Paul is tops for Republicans, with 3,107 "friends" (Mitt Romney is second with 1,785). But elsewhere, the voraciousness of Paul's supporters has sparked the ire of others. The Web site 2008HorseRace.com, which features an ongoing poll for candidates, issued this notice on Feb. 23: "Ron Paul has been suspended for two weeks because of repeated use of mob intimidation tactics and multiple threats made by Ron Paul supporters against racetrack operators, racetrack officials and racetrack sponsors." PajamasMedia.com removed Ron Paul from its presidential polls after it was discovered that someone had rigged the poll system in his favor. It has since implemented a rule that it will only include candidates polling at 1 percent or more in credible national news polls. And a MySpace page titled "Opinion Polling" posted the following note this week: "Temporarily shut down due to Ron Paul will be back eventually." A source said that the page's owners shut it down because Paul supporters "invaded the place." Paul's exploratory committee spokesman Kent Snyder thinks he knows why Paul's supporters are so gung-ho for their guy. "One of the reasons that Dr. Paul is getting a lot of cyber support is because he voted against regulating the Internet," Snyder told Yeas & Nays. go to http://www.freepress.org/ to read more about the problem with big media in the united states. sorry its so long, but i thoguht i had to give you a little background on the issue. The question is: How can the people take the enormous amount of power that BIG MEDIA has in presidential elections?

Geeks or Wonks? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks : Status quo or Change ? A Political Theory of Geeks and Wonks Lots of people get interested in political ideas through political campaigns. Maybe this is because politics forces you to decide who you are and what you believe. I can vaguely recall when I was very young, perhaps 7 years old, that I discovered that my best friend's family considered themselves Democratic whereas I was pretty sure that my family was Republican. I asked someone what that meant and only received hazy answers that concerned seemingly big issues about government. I didn't think much about it but nonetheless, they were my first thoughts on the thing that would consume my life. So it is for lots of people: politics is the entry way into taking political ideas seriously. If your interest intensifies, you tend to go one of two ways: wonk or geek. These are terms that apply in many categories of life – Wikipedia gives serviceable definitions of both wonk and geek – but the terms take on new meaning in politics. Political wonks are fascinated by process. They love the game. They get as much satisfaction from observing as changing. They want to be players above all else. Ideals bore them. History is mere data. Intellectuals seem irrelevant. What matters to the wonk are the hard realities of the ongoing political struggle. They defer to title and rank. They thrive on meetings, small victories, administrative details, and gossip about these matters. Knowing who is who and what is what is the very pith of life. There are political wonks and policy wonks. They exist on all levels of society. They appear to be running things, because their aim is to control the levers of power in just the right and strategic way, which means in a way that benefits the other wonks of their tribe. Geographically, life begins and ends in the beltway. They thrive on keeping information private and cartelizing their class. Their newspaper is the Washington Post, which they consider to be the insider report. In contrast to this are the policy geeks. They are no less fascinated by detail but are drawn to ideals. Observation alone bores them. They are drawn to the prospect of change. They don't want to be players as such; they question the very rules of the game and want to change them. They are happy to make a difference in the ideological infrastructure, whether big or small. They tend to work alone and totally disregard caste distinctions. They are interested not in the surface area but what's underneath, not the veneer but the wood. In software terms, they are forever looking forward to the next build. They are risk takers, so they prefer to debug after the system is live. In politics, this means that the geeks are drawn to ideas, even radical ideas. They can easily imagine what doesn't exist, which makes them dreamers and entrepreneurs. And so they are attracted to and study history and philosophy and economics. It doesn't matter if a lesson can be learned from the ancients or moderns; indeed, unearthing an old idea and bringing it back to life has a special appeal. They thrive on making information public, on smashing old structures, breaking cartels, and busting monopolies of power. Geographically, they can live and work anywhere, and they have no attachment to any single information source. The geeks and wonks can work together but their will always be a natural tensions between the two. The wonks think the geeks are hopeless, powerless, reckless outsiders whose heads are full of useless and unrealistic fantasies. The geeks think that the wonks are part of the system and, therefore, more than likely corrupted by it, and increasingly so. Broadening the view, the struggle to control history is a battle between the wonks and the geeks. The wonks are the ones who consolidate, stabilize, and entrench the status quo; the geeks are the ones who prepare revolutionary change. The wonks freeze it into place and make it work more efficiently; the geeks imagine and work toward a future that no one thought was possible. They wonks rule out drastic and extreme measures as imprudent and reckless; the geeks think these paths are the only ones worth pursing, and have confidence that the unknown future will somehow work itself out. The wonks try to bring the king around to their point of view; the geeks kill the king. Caesar: Wonk - Brutus: Geek ; Hamilton: Wonk - Jefferson: Geek Cheney: Wonk - Ron Paul: Geek Part of the agenda of democracy is to turn the whole of society into a herd of wonks who believe in the process and want to make it work. But it isn't so easy to control human nature. There are always the geeks to contend with who see that the system is based on a lie and want to overturn it. Why should the majority rule the minority – or, more precisely, why should the well-organized minority rule the relatively indifferent majority? What we need is democracy 2.0 in which power and privilege are not steered but abolished altogether. Who will carry the day? In the short run, the wonks are right. They win. They rule. They ruled the ancient world for hundreds of years. They ruled the Soviet Union for 72. They rule the US today. But the long run is another matter. Rome and the Soviet Union fell, in revolutions enacted by geeks. The wonks eventually come to underestimate the power of ideas and underappreciate the effect of ideals. Which life is worth living? The wonk is famous, even legendary. The geek rarely achieves fame, even when he does change history. Why? The wonks write the history. But it is the geeks who make history happen in the first place. The geeks will look back at their lives with satisfaction that they did their best to realize a dream. The wonks, looking back at their lives, see that they were little more than a cog in a machine. Someday, even in the US, they may have to concede that all they did crumbled into nothingness. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/ Jeffrey Tucker is editorial vice president of www.Mises.org.

What is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in Chrysler, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless. If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk. If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved. If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? Yet Obama has done all this in his first 15 months. So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?

How about this Napolitano people from countries with ties to terrorism can gain entry into US through Mex? How about this Napolitano people from countries with ties to terrorism can gain entry into US through Mexico border and supporters want to lessen border security ?(CNSNews.com) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told senators it is a national security concern that people from countries with ties to terrorism could 'potentially' gain entry into the United States by crossing the country’s southern border. But according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own reports, thousands of people from 14 “special interest” countries already have come into the United States illegally, including some across the U.S.-Mexico border. (The State Department designates some nations as "special interest" counties because of their links to terrorism.) Napolitano testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday. Her remarks on “special interest” persons came after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked her about the ongoing violence in Mexico and the possibility of that violence spilling over into the United States. “So, if the drug cartels succeeded, then it would be a matter of time before the violence would spill over onto our side of the border,” McCain said. “Not to mention the free, basically free, access they would have to bring drugs, as well as humans, into our country.” “We haven’t seen spillover violence in that sense yet,” Napolitano said. “It is a risk. The ability to traffic in drugs cause their own damage to lives in the United States. “Our ability to curtail that would be affected,” she said. “On the human trafficking side, it’s not solely illegal immigrants coming to work, but the ability of people from countries of special interest to immigrate into Central America and be ferried up to the border and over into the United States is also a concern.” McCain responded: “Countries of special interest – people could come up through our southern border?” “Potentially, yes,” Napolitano said. The State Department lists four special interest countries as sponsors of terror – Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Iran. The other 10 countries of interest are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. A prototype of a tower for a virtual fence along the U.S.-Mexico border at a test facility in Playas, N.M. (AP Photo/U.S. Customs and Border Protection) According to the DHS’s 2008 Yearbook of Immigration Studies, from the Office of Immigration Statistics, a total of 791,568 people where detained by federal law enforcement agencies in fiscal year 2008 – 5,506 of those people were from those 14 “special interest” countries. But we NEED open borders because there are all these jobs lying around that Americans just refuse to do. http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=62027 illegal immigration, welfare state, massive taxation, foreign wars without end, socialized health care, war on drugs without end, war on poverty without end, government services

What do you think of the following article? EXTRA HELP When Special Education Goes Too Easy on Students Parents Say Schools Game System, Let Kids Graduate Without Skills By JOHN HECHINGER and DANIEL GOLDEN August 21, 2007; Page A1 GREENPORT, N.Y. -- On June 25, 2006, Michael Bredemeyer threw his tasseled cap in the air and cheered after getting his high school diploma. Two days later, his parents mailed the diploma back. [More Data on Mainstreaming] * * * Plus, read more about the challenges of integrating special-needs students, at WSJ.com/Mainstreaming. Michael, now 19 years old, has learning disabilities and finished high school at a seventh-grade reading level, despite scoring above average on IQ tests. The Bredemeyers say he passed some classes because teachers inflated his grades and accepted poor work. By awarding him a meaningless diploma, they say, school officials avoided paying for ongoing instruction. "I felt proud because he had worked so hard," says Michael's mother, Beverly, her voice breaking. "You don't want to take that away from him. But you knew it wasn't real. What's he going to do in the future? Will he be able to go to college and get a job?" The Bredemeyers represent a new voice in special education: parents disappointed not because their children are failing, but because they're passing without learning. These families complain that schools give their children an easy academic ride through regular-education classes, undermining a new era of higher expectations for the 14% of U.S. students who are in special education. Years ago, schools assumed that students with disabilities would lag behind their non-disabled peers. They often were taught in separate buildings and left out of standardized testing. But a combination of two federal laws, adopted a quarter-century apart, have made it national policy to hold almost all children with disabilities to the same academic standards as other students. The 1975 statute now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act promoted putting special-education students in mainstream classrooms. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act said schools would be punished if disabled children don't pass the same state tests as other students. It also requires states to set standards for high-school graduation rates and meet them for all students, including those with disabilities. By some measures, the extra attention is paying off. Test scores and classroom grades of disabled students are rising, and their high-school graduation rate increased to 54% in 2004 from 42% in 1996. But critics say some of the gains have come because schools have learned to game the system. For instance, federal rules allow states to make "reasonable accommodations" to help disabled students pass tests and graduate, such as allowing extra time on exams. Some schools, say critics, are giving students too much help, for instance by guiding students to the right answers on multiple-choice tests. MAKING THE GRADE • The Issue: Some parents of students with learning disabilities say their children are graduating too easily. • The Background: Federal laws raised school standards, but left loopholes. Increasingly, special-education students get special help to pass tests. • The Problem: If schools game the system, those students move on without the skills they need. From 2000 to 2005, special-education fourth graders showed more improvement in reading and math than the general population on an important benchmark test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But accommodations also increased. In 2005, 70% of fourth-grade special education students received some sort of accommodation while taking the math portion, up from 44% five years earlier. In reading, 63% used accommodations in 2005, up from 29% in 2000. On tests used to measure compliance with No Child Left Behind, more states are permitting students with disabilities to use calculators on arithmetic tests or have reading-comprehension tests be read aloud. Massachusetts education commissioner David Driscoll warned school administrators in February that an alarming number of special education students -- a quarter or half in some cases -- were receiving such accommodations on state exams. With unclear guidelines, "People start driving trucks through loopholes," he said in an interview. Some school districts have an informal policy against failing students with disabilities even if they miss many classes or aren't learning. "I can go into any school we represent and have somebody tell me we have to pass special education students" to avoid being blamed for not providing the right services if students fail, says Janet Horton, a Texas special-education attorney. Federal law says special-education students should receive a "free appropriate public education," but it doesn't prohibit failing them. Mardys Leeper and Carol Merrill, former teachers at West Philadelphia High School in Pennsylvania, say a special-education administrator there ordered them to pass special-education students. Ms. Leeper says she made concessions for students with disabilities, such as letting them write shorter essays or copy paragraphs she wrote onto a word processor rather than composing their own. But when those students didn't make an effort, or skipped class, both teachers say they sometimes sought to fail them -- only to have the administrator insist on passing grades. The reason they were given: Students had met the goals of their federally mandated individual education plans, IEPs, spelling out goals and services for each special-education student. "Students who weren't even participating, even trying, we couldn't fail them," says Ms. Merrill, an English teacher who retired this year. Even if they couldn't read, "I had to give them a 'D.'" The administrator couldn't be reached for comment. Brenda Taylor, head of special education for the Philadelphia school district, called the matter a "breakdown in communication." The district has no written policy against failing special-education students, she says. But rather than being "punitive" if a student performs poorly or cuts class, she says, the district prefers to revise a student's IEP. "We're not in the business of failing students," Ms. Taylor says. Only 19 states require all students to earn the same kind of diploma, according to a recent University of Minnesota survey. Some of those states let special-education students amass fewer course credits to earn the degree, the survey found. Other states give substitute certificates, in some cases called IEP diplomas, to special-education students who don't qualify for standard diplomas. Many special-education parents are happy to see their children advance through school and graduate. Reggie Felton, director of federal policy for the National School Boards Association, says special-education students learn more in regular classes even if they're given a break on assignments or grading. The federal government recently decided to triple the percentage of students allowed to take easier tests, to 3% from 1%. Some legislators have proposed exempting more students. But the rebellion against too-easy passing is growing, says Pam Wright, who with her husband has co-authored books on special education issues and operates a Virginia-based information clearinghouse for special-education parents. She estimates she now receives more than 1,000 email messages a year from parents lamenting that their children with disabilities take mainstream courses but aren't being taught as much as their classmates. Dozens of parents have contended in recent administrative appeals that their children did not deserve the diplomas they received, she says. The family of Alba Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and speaks only with the help of a computer, filed one such case. Alba drew national attention in the 1990s when her family successfully pushed to include the then-third grader in a regular classroom. Then-President Bill Clinton backed her cause, and Alba, now 23, graduated with honors from a New York City high school in 2002. Last year, Alba and her family filed an administrative case claiming her education was a sham. A school report prepared weeks before she graduated showed she had language and math skills at an elementary school level, court records show. "You cannot shunt children through -- you cannot scam them through the system," says Alba's mother, Mary. [Michael Bredemeyer] Since shortly after she graduated, New York has been paying for a special program for Alba that costs $400,000 a year -- including a full-time teacher, an aide, transportation and extensive technology. The city says it is doing so out of compassion, not legal obligation. The family is seeking to continue the public funding another year to help Alba receive enough education to work as a museum docent. The Somozas lost the administrative case, but a judge in U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled in the family's favor earlier this year and ordered another hearing. Rather than develop a program that would help Alba reach her academic goals, teachers lowered the curriculum's "level of difficulty" and removed "large and meaningful portions of its substantive content," the judge said. One teacher testified that he did most of the work on Alba's final project in 2002. New York officials say the school properly adapted the curriculum for a severely disabled student. In northern California, Jennifer McGowan, an 18-year-old who is deaf in one ear and suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities, was supposed to graduate from Vacaville Unified School District in June. She didn't get her diploma -- because her family won a court injunction to stop it. In an interview, Jennifer said she often received A or B grades for poorly completed work or, at times, when she didn't do assignments at all or show up for class. Achievement tests she took in January 2005 showed that she had the math and reading skills of an elementary-school student, according to her administrative complaint. The school district denies her grades were inflated and said she showed her proficiency by passing a high-school exit exam. John Aycock, Vacaville's superintendent, said teachers did "a great job working with Jennifer." Jennifer says she failed the exit exam several times despite intensive preparation. "They just wanted to pass me and let me fly by," she says. The school system says it's not unusual to make several attempts to pass. At the Mercer Island school district in Washington state, the family of a girl with severe learning disabilities complains that, instead of the intense instruction she needed to master reading and math in eighth and ninth grades, teachers showered her with accommodations: a peer note-taker, a peer to read materials to her, oral exams, reduced assignments and a calculator on math tests. At an administrative hearing, the family -- whose names are not disclosed in the court papers -- sought to force the school system to pay for her private schooling. Noting her strong A and B grades, the district successfully argued that accommodations were helping her learn. In U.S. District Court in Seattle, a judge hearing an appeal of the case disagreed last year, saying the system improperly relied on accommodations rather than instruction, and has returned the case to a hearing officer to determine financial relief for the family. Boxes of school correspondence and Michael Bredemeyer's old tests and assignments line the hallways of his family's weather-beaten saltbox house in Orient, N.Y., on Long Island's North Fork. Michael's parents are demanding public funding for more services until age 21, to which students are entitled unless they graduate, so he can improve his academic skills for college. John Bredemeyer, a county public-health inspector, and his wife, Beverly, had high hopes for Michael, who has a strong work ethic and a knack for repairing machines. But once he entered public middle school in nearby Greenport, his parents worried that teachers were letting him skate through classes and tests. Michael, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities including dyslexia, says in some classes he "definitely earned" a passing grade, but others were "borderline." He took regular classes except for one period a day. "A little more one-on-one" instruction would have helped, he says. On state achievement exams, Michael's IEP permitted him extra time, simplified instructions and guidance from a teacher to slow him down if he rushed through answers. But when he completed the eighth-grade math test, his special-education teacher also took him to the resource room and directed him to redo problems he had answered incorrectly. According to a memo from Greenport Superintendent Charles Kozora, the teacher "exceeded the intent" of Michael's accommodations, boosting his score. The state investigated and invalidated Michael's test. [Revolt] Mr. Kozora said the school system had only two cases of testing irregularities in six years, few conflicts with parents over special education and "many successes" among students with disabilities. The district says achievement, and not cost, dictates its decisions on graduating students. When Michael was a junior at Greenport High, his chemistry teacher passed him with the minimum grade of 65, even though he says he spent much of the class doodling and playing solitaire on his laptop. Checking his assignments and tests, his parents couldn't understand how he could be passing. In a letter, the school principal acknowledged that the final grade was a "miscalculation" and should have been 56.6, or an F. The school offered to let him make up his lost credits by volunteering in the town library. When his parents balked, he was instead placed in courses in sociology and psychology. On one psychology pop quiz, five of Michael's seven answers were marked wrong, but a failing grade was crossed out on the paper and a passing score of 65 was substituted. The school district declined comment. For a senior English assignment, he received an A for one untitled paragraph. "I believe competition today has changed dramatically," he wrote. "Back in the day, sports was some of the only sports that had competition. Today, everyone wants to compete and only be successful. School work, school sports, major league sports, all involve high amounts of success and competition. Competition today has become very extreme." His English teacher, Michael Connolly, said he didn't remember the assignment and had no comment on the grade. On standardized tests, Michael had mixed results: On the SATs, which have a 200 to 800 scale, Michael received 330 and then 370 in two tries on the reading test, in the bottom 10% of all students nationally. On math, he scored 460 both times. He failed two state exams and passed five others. His school grades put him in the bottom one-third of his class. A month before graduation, the Bredemeyers debated whether he should accept the degree. "I wanted to have it," Michael says. "Get it and forget it." On graduation day, a school band played "Pomp and Circumstance." Michael's parents, his sister, his grandmother, aunts and uncles watched as he walked up to the podium and a school official handed him a purple diploma case with his name etched in gold letters. Michael says he knew his parents might not let him keep it. "I had a feeling they'd do something like that," he said, shrugging. "I'll eventually get it back, one of these days, months, years." This summer, Michael has been mowing lawns and picking up trash at a state park for $9 an hour. This fall, he plans to enter his second year at Suffolk County Community College, which does not require a high-school diploma. Last semester at Suffolk, he received a D-plus in freshman composition, D's in statistics and Western Civilization and an F in the history of rock 'n' roll. Write to John Hechinger at john.hechinger@wsj.com and Daniel Golden at dan.golden@wsj.com RELATED ARTICLES AND BLOGS Related Content may require a subscription | Subscribe Now -- Get 2 Weeks FREE Related Articles from the Online Journal • The Kids Are All Right • School Choice and Racial Balance • Back to Failing Schools • Tort-a-licious: The Trials of Law School Blog Posts About This Topic • SaukValley.com - Serving Dixon, Sterling & Rock Falls saukvalley.com • August 14, 2007 edspresso.com More related content Powered by Sphere

What is the relationship between 911 and Saddam? By The Numbers On September 11th, 2001 4 Flights were hijacked. American Airlines Flight 11 which left Boston's Logan Airport bound for Los Angeles before being piloted into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.American Airlines Flight 77 which left Washington's Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles before being flown into the Pentagon. United Airlines Flight 93 which left Newark, N.J., bound for San Francisco before crashing in Stony Creek Township, Pa United Airlines Flight 175 which left Boston's Logan Airport bound for Los Angeles before being piloted into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Why did the mastermind behind the attacks on America of September 11th, 2001 choose these particular flight numbers? MY THEORY ABOUT THE CHOICE OF FLIGHT 93 WAS THAT 1993 WAS THE YEAR IN WHICH SADDAM FIRST TRIED TO ASSASSINATE FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH IN KUWAIT, IT WAS ALSO THE YEAR IN WHICH SADDAM HUSSEIN FIRST TRIED TO DESTROY THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. IT TURNED OUT TO BE AN UNLUCKY NUMBER FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN BECAUSE THE PASSENGERS ON FLIGHT 93 BECAME HEROES AND STOPPED THE PLANE FROM GOING INTO THE WHITE HOUSE. "White House Was Flight 93 Target http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/20/attack/main509535.shtml May 23, 2002 Volunteers in Shanksville this past weekend. (Photo: AP) The San Francisco-bound jet had turned toward Washington and U.S. fighter jets were flying to intercept it when it crashed. All 44 people aboard were killed. (CBS) A high-ranking al Qaeda detainee told investigators the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, was the White House. Government sources said Abu Zubaydah, now in U.S. custody, is believed to be the source of the information. He is being interrogated by U.S. officials at an undisclosed location. Investigators have linked Zubaydah directly to hijackers on board Flight 93. United Flight 93 took off from Newark, N.J., and crashed in Somerset County, Pa.. A recorder on the plane and calls made to people on the ground indicate passengers fought for control with the hijackers before it went down. The San Francisco-bound jet had turned toward Washington and U.S. fighter jets were flying to intercept it when it crashed. All 44 people aboard were killed. Officials previously had assumed the White House was a likely target, but said the Capitol and CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., near Washington were other possibilities.Abu Zubaydah is believed to have played a key role in organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said. As al Qaeda's top operational planner, he ran the Khalden camp in Afghanistan, where U.S. investigators have learned many of the Sept. 11 hijackers trained. This suggests Abu Zubaydah may have had direct contact with the hijackers and chosen them for training. He also had telephone contacts with at least one Arab student at U.S. flight schools, according to a July 10, 2001, memo from a Phoenix FBI agent. The CIA, FBI and Pakistani authorities captured and wounded Abu Zubaydah in a raid by in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March. He is believed to have masterminded the failed millennium bombing plots in Los Angeles and Jordan, and has been linked to failed plots on the U.S. embassies in Paris and Sarajevo. Abu Zubaydah was also indirectly linked, through a web of associations with other al Qaeda members in Europe, to lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and his cell in Hamburg, Germany. Three members of the Hamburg cell were suicide hijackers; three others are still at large. Ziad Jarrah, believed to be the pilot-hijacker of Flight 93, was a member of the Hamburg cell." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/20/attack/main509535.shtml The first attack on the World Trade Center on February 26th, 1993. The February 26th, 1993 attack marked the 11th anniversary to the day of the declaration by the Reagan-Bush Administration of February 26th, 1982 that Iraq was no longer a state sponsor of terrorism and as such was eligible for American loans and grants, which it subsequently got. The February 26th, 1993 attack also marked the 2nd anniversary to the day of the liberation of Kuwait by the U.S. in the first Gulf War. Remarks at the Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Liberation of Kuwait Secretary Colin L. Powell Kuwait City, Kuwait (US Embassy) February 26, 2001 The World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists associated with Sheik Rahman on February 26th, 1993. It was Sheik Rahman's group that murdered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on the 8th anniversary to the day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, October 6th. Sheik Rahman's son was subsequently found with bin Laden's group in Afghanistan when the U.S. liberated Afghanistan. "White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: we have real and credible information that the airplane that landed at the Pentagon was originally intended to hit the White House." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010912- 8.html#intended-targets American Airlines Flight 77 which left Washington's Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles before being flown into the Pentagon. 7/7 is one way to write the date July 7th On July 7th, 1994 Yasser Arafat, PLO chairman drove from Egypt into Gaza, after 27 years in exile. What Arafat was doing was using the date of July 7th to re-write a perceived wrong he had felt some years earlier on another July 7th. It was on July 7th 1986 that the government of Jordan closed the offices of Yasser Arafat's al-Fatah. Because a bus bombing occurred in London on July 7th, 2005 it struck me that the nation that has endured more bus bombings than any other nation is Israel. There may be a connection between the July 7th, 2005 attacks in London and the terrorists who have targeted Israel with bus bombings for years. Recently terrorists in Iraq murdered Egypt's envoy to Iraq. "Zarqawi group reportedly killed Egyptian ambassador in Iraq Iraq-Egypt, Politics, 7/7/2005 News reports from al-Jazeera and al-Arabia satellite TV stations said that Egypt's top diplomat in Iraq to Iraq, Eyhab al-Sharif, had been executed. Meantime, Al-Qaida organization in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, had threatened in a statement on the Internet to execute the chairman of the Egyptian diplomatic mission al-Sharif. The threat to execute Sharif came a short time after al-Qaida organization in Iraq issued pictures for the identity cards of the Egyptian diplomat as an evidence that they are the ones which kidnapped him. The statement said the legitimate court of al-Qaida organization in Mesopotamia decided to "send the ambassador of the state of Egypt to the Mujahideen (indivduals from Egypt and other states that go to Iraq to fight with the insurgents) to execute the death penalty against him." The statement considered that "the embassies in Baghdad are but monitoring sites to snipe the arriving Mujahideen and preventing them from having access to their brothers in Jihad in the land of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and in Afghanistan." In an attempt to prove that the Egyptian ambassador is their possession, al-Qaida organization published documents including a driving Sharif's license and a work card for him at the foreign ministry and another one for health insurance. On Tuesday the organization claimed responsibility for kidnapping Sharif." American Airlines Flight 11 which left Boston's Logan Airport bound for Los Angeles before being piloted into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Saddam Hussein assassinated his first victim when he was 11 years old. Fixated on the number 11 ever since then he easily focused on the World Trade Center as a target because it looked so much like a number 11 that WPIX TV Channel 11 in New York City used the World Trade Center in its logo for years. The World Trade Center also housed an office of the Bank of Kuwait. Saddam used Rahman's group to punish Sadat for failing to defeat Israel in the attack on Israel of October 6th, 1973. Saddam also used Sheik Rahman's group to hit the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament during the first Gulf War when Egypt sided with America against Iraq. Saddam, acting like a child who is deprived of a toy, who subsequently breaks that toy, set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields as he was being driven out of Kuwait during the first Gulf War in 1991. "Aired 9/11/2001 "Baghdad Republic of Iraq TV: These are the fruits of the new US order.[Video of explosion rocking World Trade Center] Panic has spread among US official circles, which evacuated the White House following a series of explosions." "CNN LARRY KING LIVE Aired October 2, 2001 LARRY KING: Have you spoken to your father- in-law? (George Herbert Walker Bush) LAURA BUSH: I've spoken to my father-in-law. They were-they had actually spent that Monday night here.(at the White House) I had just seen them off that morning (9/11/2001) when I got in the car and found out about the first plane.(going into the World Trade Center.)" "CNN LARRY KING LIVE America's New War: Laura Bush Discusses the Impact of September 11 Aired October 2, 2001 - 21:00 LARRY KING: A couple of other things: Have you spoken to your father- in-law? (Not in transcript, but the father in law in question is one George Herbert Walker Bush !!!) LAURA BUSH: I've spoken to my father-in-law. They were-they had actually spent that Monday night here. (not in transcript but "here" means at the White House !!!) LARRY KING: Really? LAURA BUSH: I had just seen them off that morning when I got in the-got in the car and found out about the first plane. LARRY KING: Didn't know that. LAURA BUSH: They were-they were on their way to St. Paul, Minnesota to give a speech, and they were in a private plane, and their plane was diverted to Minneapolis." http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/02/lkl.00.html "September 11th, 2001 - The White House is evacuated. White House Sealed" http://www.september11news.com/AAWhiteHouseEvacReuters.jpg "try to avoid having the principal travel by commercial airline on terrorist anniversaries" from "The Art of Executive Protection" http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/000450.html " Saddam tried to kill former President Bush in 1993. Former President Bush's Speech to Congress September 11th 1990. 11 years to the day before September 11th 2001 "In the early morning hours of August 2d,(1990),a powerful Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. The crisis in the Persian Gulf also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective-a new world order-can emerge." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: we have real and credible information that the airplane that landed at the Pentagon was originally intended to hit the White House." "White House Was Flight 93 Target A high-ranking al Qaeda detainee told investigators the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, was the White House. Government sources said Abu Zubaydah, now in U.S. custody, believed to be the source of the information." Perhaps the following may explain how Saddam knew where former President Bush might be spending the night of September 10th-11th 2001: "Like everyone else in the United States, the group stood transfixed as the events of September 11 unfolded. Present were former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci, former secretary of state James Baker III, and representatives of the bin Laden family. This was not some underground presidential bunker or Central Intelligence Agency interrogation room. It was the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., the plush setting for the annual investor conference of one of the most powerful, well-connected, and secretive companies in the world: the Carlyle Group. And since September 11, this little-known company has become unexpectedly important. That the Carlyle Group had its conference on America's darkest day was mere coincidence, but there is nothing accidental about the cast of characters that this private-equity powerhouse has assembled in the 14 years since its founding. Among those associated with Carlyle are former U.S. President George Bush Sr., former U.K. Prime Minister John Major, and former President of the Philippines Fidel Ramos. And Carlyle has counted, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden's family among its high-profile clientele." "The White House is bordered on three sides by buildings that are as tall or taller than itself. (OEOB, Treasury, and Blair House.) Beyond these buildings there are still more buildings, that also are taller than the White House. The only flight path that is relatively unobstructed if making a controlled, straight-in approach, is from the south, over the ellipse. Even the Marine helicopter the president uses comes in from this direction and lands on the South Lawn. The problem with flying a plane the size of a 757 or 767 in from this direction is that there's a 555 ft tall structure in the way called the Washington Monument. The Capitol, although a bigger target, is similarly situated. There are buildings on all sides except for the west side, which faces the Mall. Again, for a controlled, straight-in approach, a pilot first would need to avoid the Washington Monument, and then fly straight down the Mall. There is more room to do this, but again, it would take considerable skill. Moreover, the buildings in Roslyn, just across the river from and to the west of the Mall, would have to be cleared, which means the plane's altitude would probably be too high, or the angle of descent too steep to permit a successful attack by anyone other than a skilled, experienced pilot." To indicate September 1990 one might well write or type 9/90 It was in September of 1990 that President George Herbert Walker Bush spoke to Congress on Iraq. On September 11th, 1990 in fact. What of EgyptAir Flight 990? Weeks after the last pile of debris from EgyptAir Flight 990 was pulled from the sea, investigators say they are more convinced than ever of their original theory: The jet was crashed deliberately." "The co-pilot under scrutiny in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 uttered an Arabic prayer not once but as many as 10 times just before the doomed airliner went down" "Aviation Analyst John Nance Talks About Flight 990 When a commercial aircraft goes into a dive as steep and precipitous as the preliminary radar data seems to indicate." An example of terrorists striking on an anniversary came on October 7th, 2004 in Taba. "Images of Destruction | Taba Hilton Before and After Terrorist Attack on October 7, 2004" According to initial findings Naveh said, a car bomb blew up at the entrance to the Hilton Taba Hotel and there was a combined bomb and shooting attack in two restaurants usually frequented by Israelis in Ras Al-Satan." http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4020867.html On October 7th,2001 "America Retaliates for the September 11 Attacks. October 7, 2001 President George W. Bush Speaks to America After the Strikes Begin. "On October 7th, 1959, Saddam and others attempted, but failed, to assassinate the prime minister of Iraq. Wanted by the Iraqi government, Saddam was forced to flee. He lived in exile in Syria for three months and then moved to Egypt where he lived for three years." http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/p/saddamhussein.htm "President Saddam Hussein chairs 48th Cabinet Session Baghdad, Oct. 22, 2001 INA President Saddam Hussein chaired on Sunday the 48th Cabinet session. The Cabinet discussed recent events of Palestinian Intifadha and praised Palestinians brave and persistent struggle for liberating their lands. The cabinet reviewed the current international situation, especially the U.S aggression on Afghanistan. The Cabinet brought back a historic stance Iraq had taken in 1979 when it condemned the military Soviet invasion of Afghanistan though Iraq had then deep relations with the Soviet Union and there was a friendship and cooperation agreement between Iraq and the Soviet Union, yet this had not prevented Iraq from taking the national independent stand rejecting Soviet's behavior. History repeats itself once again in 2001 as Iraq takes the same stance and condemns the US aggression on Afghanistan....this confirms Iraq's principled stance rejecting all forms of foreign intervention and aggressions. The Cabinet discussed issues listed on its agenda and made necessary decisions and recommendations." Saddam loves 11th anniversaries, for instance " Saddam Hussein's speech on the 11th Anniversary of the Great Victory Day In the Name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful Great People, The Valiant of Our Brave Armed Forces, Sons of our Glorious Arab Nation…" "Middle East Correspondent, Robert Fisk: Why was it that the bombing of the two embassies in Tanzania and Kenya occurred on the eighth anniversary to the very day of the first arrival of American troops of the 82nd airborne in Saudi Arabia in 1990?" "The 12th of October 2002 will for the rest of Australian history be counted as a day when evil struck with indiscriminate and indescribable savagery," "On October 12th, 2000 terrorists in a boat laden with explosives carried out a suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in the harbor at Aden, Yemen. In what President Clinton described as a "despicable and cowardly act," 17 U.S. sailors were killed, and over 30 others were wounded." After the liberation of Iraq terrorists struck the Baghdad Hotel on October 12th. If you add 1 to 9 you get 10. If you add 1 to 11 you get 12. Thus the 9/11/2001 attack was presaged by the attack on the U.S.S. Cole on 10/12/2000. The terrorists were engaging in what to them was a private joke regarding their plans for 9/11/2001. "Iraq has the motivation and the means to actively support the Islamist networks of the region*** In the past, there have been intelligence reports of possible cooperation between Iraq and Osama bin Laden. Iraq has already tried to assassinate President Bush Senior in 1993, when he visited Kuwait as a private citizen. In the attack on the USS Cole in Aden (in) October (of 2000), there could have been an Iraqi connection. Iraq has excellent relations with the anti-Western Yemeni Islamists of the Army of Aden-Abyan, whose militants have been arrested by the Yemenite authorities in connection with the attack. Such an attack required long preparations, technical and military skills and good operational intelligence. In addition, the explosive used in the attack was sophisticated, a "shaped charge" like a torpedo or a missile, a device not in use by terrorist organizations, and which may have come from a military stockpile." 4 DAYS BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Saddam's Stepson in USA "Authorities said Saffi" (Saddam's Stepson), " triggered red flags for four reasons: the family relationship to the Iraqi dictator; training at an American flight school; arrival on the eve of the Independence Day celebrations; and his only documented prior entry into the United States occurred just four days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks." "Saddam's Stepson to Be Deported Fri Jul 5th 2002 (Saffi) was planning to study at a flight school believed by the FBI to have been used by one of the Sept. 11 hijackers." "US officials state that an FBI investigation had substantiated charges that the Iraqi government plotted the assassination of former President Bush while visiting Kuwait in April 1993." "Terrorist Pilot Met With Iraqi Intelligence Agent By RICK JERVIS Special to The Wall Street Journal Europe Wall Street Journal, Europe October 4, 2001 [With thanks to Laurie Mylroie - Iraq News] PRAGUE-Mohamed Atta, who allegedly crashed the first plane into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, met at least one Iraqi intelligence agent last year in Prague before moving to the U.S., a Czech official close to the investigation said." United Airlines Flight 175 which left Boston's Logan Airport bound for Los Angeles before being piloted into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY 15 December 1988 43/175. Question of Palestine RECORDED VOTE ON RESOLUTION 43/175 A: 123-2-20 Did Anniversary Assassins Strike Again November 22nd 2004 What do you think the chances are that the plane crash which would have killed the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush,had he been on board the plane which was enroute from Love Field in Dallas, Texas to pick him up, on the 41st anniversary of the assassination of JFK 11/22/1963 was a botched assassination attempt? Saddam Hussein, who may be running the show from his jail cell, assassinated his first victim when he was 11 years old, took power in Iraq in 1968, made it official 11 years later in 1979, invaded Kuwait 11 years later in 1990 sent bin Laden to assassinate former President Bush 11 years later on 9/11/2001 on the 11th anniversary to the day of the 9/11/1990 Bush speech to Congress on Iraq in which Bush mentioned The New World Order."US plans to dominate the world under the cover of what is called the new [world] order. These are the fruits of the new US order. [Video of explosion rocking World Trade Center] [Description of Source: Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television in Arabic-Official television station of the Iraqi Government." The World Trade Center looked so much like the number 11 that WPIX-TV Channel 11 in New York City used the World Trade Center as its logo. Note 11 times 2 equals 22. The Madrid attacks were done exactly 911 days after 9/11/2001. Sadat, criticized by arafat and Saddam for making peace with Israel, was assassinated on 10/6/1981 exactly 8 years after the 10/6/1973 Yom Kippur War in which he failed to defeat Israel. The American Embassies in Africa were hit on August 8th, 1998, exactly 8 years after the US entered Saudi Arabia in response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. A gentlemanly John Connally reaches to remove his hat as Jackie Kennedy enters presidential limousine at Love Field, Dallas, November 22, 1963 Source: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/jbc-love.htm The shocking news that narco-terrorists in Colombia plotted to assassinate current President George W. Bush on Monday November 22nd, 2004, the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination, needs some examination. BCCI, the infamous drug-terror-arms bank that allegedly gave former President Jimmy Carter $10 million for the Carter Library,had offices in Peru, where coca leaves are grown, in Colombia, where the coca leaves are processed into cocaine, and in Castro's Cuba, and Baathist Syria and Baathist Iraq. Banks did not get offices in any of those 3 tyrannies without the approval of the tyrant. "Colombian Rebels Planned to Kill President Bush November 27th, 2004 U.S. National - Reuters By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - President Bush was targeted for assassination by Colombia's biggest Marxist rebel group this week when he visited the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, a top Colombian official said on Saturday. "According to informants and various sources, we had information indicating that various members of the FARC had been instructed by their leaders to make an attempt against President Bush," Defense Secretary Jorge Alberto Uribe told reporters. He would not be drawn out on the details of the threat. The White House had no immediate comment. The U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president, said it "does not comment or release information regarding our protective intelligence and protective methods." "We do not discuss any alleged threats to our protectees," said Jonathan Cherry, a Secret Service spokesman. There was heavy security in Cartagena when Bush visited the city on Monday(November 22nd, 2004)on his way back from the APEC forum in Chile. Military helicopters packed with armed soldiers flew over Bush's motorcade while naval vessels kept watch offshore. Many shops were shuttered." Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news? tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041127/us_nm/colombia_bush_plot_dc_5 "In early August, 1991, the Committee was provided with documents from the Latin American and Caribbean Region Office (LACRO) of BCCI, describing the offer for sale by the Argentine air force of 22 Mirage aircraft for $110 million. (63) The planned sale was to have been made to Iraq, as part of Saddam Hussein's massive military buildup prior to the Gulf war. BCCI was acting as the broker for the transaction, which was to take place in August or September of 1989...As Robert Mazur, the Customs agent in Tampa who selected BCCI as the target of the Customs money laundering sting testified, BCCI bank executives volunteered methods to enhance and improve his techniques for money laundering, and shortly before the sting ended the operation, offered to introduce Mazur to other potential "cash" customers for money laundering services from Bogota, Colombia...." Source: http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm "The Ba'ath leadership gave the orders for Qasim's assassination...On October 7th,1959, a six-,man assassination squad was waiting...the night before one member of the squad had fallen ill. A new recruit was drafted in...his full name was Saddam Hussein al-Takriti." Page 22 "The Ba'athist led forces...participated in the coup of 8th February 1963...Immediately after the coup, Saddam Hussein returned to Iraq, where he was appointed as the head of Al-Jihaz Al Khas, known popularly as Jihaz Haneen (the Yearning Apparatus), the clandestine intelligence organization of the Ba'ath Party. Saddam proceeded to turn it into an instrument of terror....on 18th November (1963) the army seized power in a swift military coup...the new leadership of the Ba'ath Party...was arrested. However, some of its members immediately collaborated with the new regime..." Pgs 25-26 "7th October 1959 A Ba'athist assassination squad fails to kill Qasim. A member of the team, twenty-two-year old Saddam Hussein, escapes to Syria and then to Egypt...8th February 1963 A Ba'athist coup overthrows Quasim amidst several days of terrible street fighting...18th November 1963 Following bitter infighting between...factions of the Baath, Arif overthrows the Ba'athist regime..." Pages 312-313 "Saddam...inherited from his uncle an admiration for Nazi principles...he was attracted to the ideas of the Ba'ath nationalist movement. The movement had been established in Damascus in 1943" (when Syria was a French colony and Hitler ruled France) "by two Syrians, Greek Orthodox Christian Michel A'flaq and Sunni Muslim Salah al-Bitar. Their philosophy was based on the ideology of German national socialism" (Nazism) "and on Italian fascism." Page 199 "After the Ba'ath Party came to power in February 1963...Saddam was promoted into the Regional Command Council and it was soon found that this was his metier. He was put in charge of a special force responsible for terror and assassination and was an interrogator and torturer in the Qasr al-Nihayyat (`The Palace of the End'). Eyewitnesses say Saddam excelled in creating new methods and revealed a sadistically inventive mind. He designed new instruments of torture and then experimentd with them on his victims. ...By the summer of 1963, Saddam was urging the party to put him in charge of creating a special security apparatus modelled on the Nazi SS. This was the Jihaz Haneen....following nationalisation of banks and certain foreign companies in 1964, the Ba'ath Party instructed Saddam to assassinate the president Abd al-Salam Arif. The proposed assassination was designed to trigger off another Ba'ath coup. Critics say it was a plan on behalf of the CIA but according to some Ba'athist defectors the CIA did not have direct contact with the Ba'ath itself but with army officers who were co-ordinating a joint coup with the party. The main contact with the Americans was Iraq's own ambassador in Washington, Dr. Nasser al-Hanni." Pages 201-203 "The second part of the plot was carried out by the Jihaz Haneen...Members of the Iraqi Jewish community...were...arrested. Eleven of them were among the first fourteen `spies' to be pubicly hanged on 27th January 1969....The public hangings turned into a national holiday with live television and radio coverage, and the Ba'ath Party organized the transport of some hundred thousand `workers and peasants' from outside Baghdad to join in...Families picknicked under trees while watching the hangings. This public orgy of death went on for twenty-four hours..." Page 206 Source: Unholy Babylon-The Secret History of Saddam's War by Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander St. Martin's Press, New York 1991 ISBN 0-312-06530-2 "Compare the January 1969 show trial with another spectacle organized by the first Ba'thi regime in 1963 and designed to counter the continuing popularity of the ousted president, `Abd al-Karim Qassem, among certain sectors of the Shi'ite population of Baghdad. In the first week of the coup, the citizens of al-Thawra, a suburb of Baghdad, had fought the army and Ba'thist militia in some of the bloodiest street battles in the history of the country. They refused to believe that Qassem had been overthrown....The Ba'ath...dealt with this emotive imagery by televising a lengthy film clip displaying Qassem's bullet-ridden corpse. Night after night, they made their gruesome point. The body was propped up on a chair in the studio. A soldier saunter around, handling its parts. The camera would cut to scenes of devastation at the Ministry of Defence where Qassem had made his last stand. There, on location, it lingered on the mutilated corpses of Qassem's entourage...Back to the studio, and close-ups now of the entry and exit points of each bullet hole. The whole macabre sequence closes with a scene that must forever remain etched on the memory of all those who saw it: the soldier grabbing the lolling head by the hair, came right up close, and spat full face into it. The fear that the Ba'th were trying to instill in this and other instances was brutally direct. The centuries-old message was simple: he is dead, you had better believe it, we can do the smae to you. The fact that it was on television extended its reach..." Pages 58-59. Source: Republic of Fear The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq by Samir al Khalil Pantheon Books, New York 1989 ISBN 0-679-73502-X "An Afghani tends to a field of heroin poppies, the sale of which provides much of the financing for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan is the world's No. 1 producer and distributor of heroin, and illicit drug trafficking is the biggest funding source for By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News About the author Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the New York-based Center for the Study of Corruption and the author of "Evil Money" (HarperBusiness) and "Narco-Terrorism" (Basic Books). Moving the money... In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade Center in Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested, Mohammed Salameh—the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant— offered $5 million for bail. Where could he get this kind of money? The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the same as the one that funded the eight men—arrested shortly afterward—who planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges and to assassinate public officials? Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11? ... For a long time, there has been evidence that terrorist, international drug trafficking and criminal organizations use the same fund-raising methods to enrich themselves. Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to crack down on their financing. Bin Laden's is only one among many hostile international criminal organizations, often state-sponsored, that will do whatever they can to diminish the status of the United States as the only superpower. According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's largest heroin production and distribution in the world. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production soared to hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were produced by the Taliban and available to fund bin Laden and his associates worldwide. First warning The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of England shut down what was the most important Islamic bank in the world, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This criminal entity was created by the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to fight the evil influence of the West"; to help with the creation of the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist organizations; and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit drug trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms trafficking. When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that Abu Nidal—the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that now enjoys the hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden—had accounts in the bank. By the end of the 1980s, the "special services" provided by BCCI included access to Western humanitarian and international development funds, as well as drug money laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes. A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal and other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same Pakistan that harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials told the United States that they didn't know his whereabouts. And the same Pakistan that for decades, even according to the State Department's annual report, had been a major drug trafficking and money laundering center. Western blindness Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The bank "that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal activities for decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim nations as victims of Western—and particularly U.S.— "imperialism." And when the bank was shuttered, the accusation in the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was that the U.S. and the United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail the growing fiscal power of Muslim countries. Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric to their advantage. But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward the growing volume of drug money laundering, exercised by Western bankers on the one hand and Western politicians on the other, that makes money laundering possible, despite the many laws and international conventions to control this phenomenon. The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about the abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist organizations, as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and drug trade, was made in February 1994 by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East terrorist groups and states were targeting the financial centers of London, Frankfurt and other Western countries, and that they favor illegal drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud.... Clinton appeasement Despite its stated policy of not negotiating with terrorists, the Clinton administration went out of its way to appease a few of the 20th century's most notorious terror groups: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the PLO and the Irish Republican Army. All are heavily involved in the drug trade. On the eve of the 1993 handshake on the White House lawn between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service estimated the PLO's ill-gotten gains to total between $8 billion to $10 billion, with an annual income of about $1.5 billion to $2 billion from "donations, extortion, payoffs, illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc." Since then, Washington has only aided and abetted the PLO. Since the start of the Oslo process, Arafat has received at least $3 billion more from the United States and the international community, without any serious demand for accountability, according to a report this year to Congress. Arafat, in well-documented instances, has been systematically skimming off portions of these funds, as he has with monies given to him on behalf of the refugees in the camps. The PLO was in the drug trafficking business almost from the beginning. Operating from Lebanon, under Habash's able leadership and assisted by a PLO-owned shipping company SUMUD, the organization exported hashish, opium, heroin and cocaine, first to Europe and later even to the United States and Australia. In return, it obtained weapons for their war against Israel and the West, and amassed a massive treasure trove. In addition, the PLO and Arafat, who enjoy the financial and strategic support of Hussein and bin Laden, have the distinction of being the organization that promoted "suicide bombers" as a weapon. Yet the Clinton administration subsidized a multitude of radical Palestinian groups, ranging from Arafat's Fatah branch of the PLO and its military wing, the Tanzim, to the socialist-nationalist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), headed by George Habash, all with close ties to bin Laden, Iraq and Iran. ...It was the Clinton White House that, despite evidence to the contrary, removed Syria from its list of the drug trafficking countries, to entice Syria to join the "peace process" in the Middle East. The failure of that process and the compromises the United States has made to maintain an illusion of peaceful prospects had no doubt added to the Muslim radical terrorists' resolve to attack what they see as a naive and vulnerable America. In another example of self-delusion, in 1999, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggested a U.S.-led coalition to negotiate with the FARC and supported Colombia President Pastrana's "land for peace" initiative, despite a report from the General Accounting Office that the FARC is running a major international criminal enterprise that, among other things, supplies hundreds of tons of cocaine and heroin to the U.S. black market. This second Clinton "land for peace" initiative gave half of Colombia to the narco-terrorist FARC, while doing nothing to diminish its violence or appetite to control the rest of the country...." Source: http://www.detnews.com/2001/editorial/0109/30/a17-306400.htm Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the Palestinian Authority a "gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists." "There is an obstacle [to peace] with the gang of corrupt assassins and terrorists that lead the Palestinian Authority," Sharon said in a televised speech in Israel. "The only way to peace is to remove this murderous posse." – Source: New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com Sharon raps Arafat `assassins' By KENNETH R. BAZINET DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, August 8th, 2002 "Bush back from surprise Iraq trip President Bush has arrived back in the United States after a surprise trip to Baghdad, where he spent two hours with US troops celebrating Thanksgiving Day. Mr. Bush told troops the US would not be swayed by ongoing attacks in Iraq. "We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost of casualties, defeat a ruthless dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," he told 600 US soldiers. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3245584.stm "President Bush and his wife, Laura, along with former president George H. W. Bush, welcome the King and Queen of Spain, Juan and Sofia Carlos, to their ranch Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004, in Crawford, Texas.(AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)" Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news? tmpl=story&u=/041124/480/txlj10111241820 A small jet chartered to fly former President Bush to Ecuador Monday,November 22nd, 2004 was well below normal altitude when it clipped a toll road light tower and crashed into a muddy field three miles south of Hobby Airport, killing the crew of three.The plane, which belonged to Jet Place Inc. of Tulsa, Okla., came from Love Field in Dallas. It was approaching the runway when the wing and the landing gear on the right side clipped the pole on a tollway road....." "Weeks after the last pile of debris from EgyptAir Flight 990 was pulled from the sea, investigators say they are more convinced than ever of their original theory: The jet was crashed deliberately." http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair000121.html "The co-pilot under scrutiny in the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990 uttered an Arabic prayer not once but as many as 10 times just before the doomed airliner went down" http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/egyptair991121.html "Aviation Analyst John Nance Talks About Flight 990 When a commercial aircraft goes into a dive as steep and precipitous as the preliminary radar data seems to indicate." http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/chat_johnnance110199.html "The White House is bordered on three sides by buildings that are as tall or taller than itself. (OEOB, Treasury, and Blair House.) Beyond these buildings there are still more buildings, that also are taller than the White House. The only flight path that is relatively unobstructed if making a controlled, straight-in approach, is from the south, over the ellipse. Even the Marine helicopter the president uses comes in from this direction and lands on the South Lawn. The problem with flying a plane the size of a 757 or 767 in from this direction is that there's a 555 ft tall structure in the way called the Washington Monument. The Capitol, although a bigger target, is similarly situated. There are buildings on all sides except for the west side, which faces the Mall. Again, for a controlled, straight-in approach, a pilot first would need to avoid the Washington Monument, and then fly straight down the Mall. There is more room to do this, but again, it would take considerable skill. Moreover, the buildings in Roslyn, just across the river from and to the west of the Mall, would have to be cleared, which means the plane's altitude would probably be too high, or the angle of descent too steep to permit a successful attack by anyone other than a skilled, experienced pilot." Imagine the rage and fury of Saddam Hussein "On February 26th, 1982 the Reagan Administration told Congress that it had dropped Iraq from the list of nations that supported acts of international terrorism. Baghdad would now be eligible for American government loan guarantees." source: SPIDER'S WEB: THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOW THE WHITE HOUSE ILLEGALLY ARMED IRAQ by Alan Friedman ASIN: 0553096508 Imagine Saddam's rage and fury when Kuwait was liberated on February 26th, 1991, 9 years to the day after the event described above! Is it any wonder that Saddam would launch the first of his 2 attacks on the World Trade Center on February 26th, 1993, the 2nd anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait City, and the 11th anniversary of the event described above, and that he would launch his 2nd attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, the 11th anniversary of the Bush I speech to Congress on Iraq. Saddam loves 11th anniversaries, for instance " Saddam Hussein's speech on the 11th Anniversary of the Great Victory Day In the Name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful Great People, The Valiant of Our Brave Armed Forces, Sons of our Glorious Arab Nation…" http://www.index.com.jo/iraqtoday/auguste.html Saddam took credit for the September 11th attacks on America on Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television. Saddam sent his henchman Osama bin Laden to attack America and to assassinate former President Bush, who was at the White House on the morning of September 11th, 2001,just as he had tried to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait in 1993. That is why Flight 93 was selected to hit the White House on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Fortunately the heroes of Flight 93 stopped that from happening and the plane went down in Pennsylvania. Second Attempt to Assassinate President Bush. We all know that Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate former President Bush in Kuwait in 1993. Laura Bush, wife of the current President Bush, along with the current President Bush's brothers, his parents, and former Secretary of State Baker were actually in the air enroute to Kuwait when the intelligence came in and their plane was turned back. Then President Clinton later bombed an empty Iraqi intelligence building in retaliation for that attempt in which Saddam's homicide bombers were caught in Kuwait. We believe that the Second Attempt to assassinate former President George Herbert Walker Bush was made by Saddam Hussein using his henchman Osama bin Laden on September 11th, 2001. September 11th, 1990 Dubya's Dad Speaks to Congress on Iraq When September 11th Yes ! September 11th 1990. Exactly 11 years to the day before the infamous September 11th 2001 attacks on America. Saddam's Revenge !!! How clear it is!!! "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis and the Federal Budget Deficit September 11, 1990. We gather tonight, witness to events in the Persian Gulf as significant as they are tragic. In the early morning hours of August 2d, following negotiations and promises by Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein not to use force, a powerful Iraqi army invaded its trusting and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. *** The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective-a new world order-can emerge. ***" READ THE WHOLE OF DUBYA'S DADDY'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1990 AT http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ "Note: The President spoke at 9:09 p.m.in the House Chamber at the Capitol.. The address was broadcast live on nationwide television and radio." http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ Iraq Cheers September 11th Attacks on America "Wednesday, September 12, 2001 Baghdad TV Commentary: US `Reaping Fruits of Crimes Against Humanity' Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television in Arabic 1700 GMT 11 Sep 01 [TV Commentary by Sa'd Yasin Yusuf read by announcer over footage of explosions in New York] [FBIS Translated Text] [With thanks to Laurie Mylorie - Iraq Watch] The American cowboy is reaping the fruits of his crimes against humanity. It is a black day in the history of America, which is tasting the bitter defeat of its crimes and disregard for peoples' will to lead a free, decent life. The massive explosions in the centers of power in America, notably the Pentagon, is a painful slap in the face of US politicians to stop their illegitimate hegemony and attempts to impose custodianship on peoples. It was no coincidence that the World Trade Center was destroyed in suicidal operations involving two planes that have broken through all US security barriers to carry the operation of the century and to express rejection of the reckless US policy. Panic has spread among US official circles, which evacuated the White House following a series of explosions. They also evacuated the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress and closed down the airports and government institutions. The collapse of US centers of power is a collapse of the US policy, which deviates from human values and stands by world Zionism at all international forums to continue to slaughter the Palestinian Arab people and implement US plans to dominate the world under the cover of what is called the new [world] order. These are the fruits of the new US order. [Video of explosion rocking World Trade Center] [Description of Source: Baghdad Republic of Iraq Television in Arabic-Official television station of the Iraqi Government]" http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3 "BLITZER: That's Osama bin Laden's group. Now you also have some new information, David, about Mohamed Atta. He's the suspected ringleader of the September 11th hijackings. ENSOR: Well, that's right. As you know, he was one of the suicide hijackers who died on September 11th on one of those aircraft. And we had previously reported on September 19th that he met with an Iraqi intelligence official somewhere in Europe. Well, I'm now able to tell you, based on information from U.S. sources, he met not once but twice with Iraqi intelligence officers in Prague in the Czech Republic: once last year in June of 2000 and once in April of 2001." http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/10/lkl.00.html Aired 9/11/2001 "Baghdad Republic of Iraq TV: These are the fruits of the new US order.[Video of explosion rocking World Trade Center]Panic has spread among US official circles, which evacuated the White House following a series of explosions." "CNN LARRY KING LIVE Aired October 2, 2001 LARRY KING: Have you spoken to your father- in-law? (George Herbert Walker Bush) LAURA BUSH: I've spoken to my father-in-law. They were-they had actually spent that Monday night here.(at the White House) I had just seen them off that morning (9/11/2001) when I got in the car and found out about the first plane.(going into the World Trade Center.)" http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/02/lkl.00.html "Senator Joseph Lieberman: (Saddam) tried to kill former President Bush (in 1993)" http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/25/le.00.html Former President Bush Speech to Congress September 11th 1990. 11 years to the day before September 11th 2001 "In the early morning hours of August 2d,(1990),a powerful Iraqi army invaded Kuwait.The crisis in the Persian Gulf also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective-a new world order-can emerge." http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/ "(White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: we have real and credible information that the airplane that landed at the Pentagon was originally intended to hit the White House." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010912- 8.html#intended-targets "White House Was Flight 93 Target http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/20/attack/main509535.shtml A high-ranking al Qaeda detainee told investigators the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, was the White House. Government sources said Abu Zubaydah, now in U.S. custody, believed to be the source of the information." "Moussaoui Says He Was to Hijack 5th Plane By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer (Monday March 27, 2006) Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House. Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom. His account was in stark contrast to his previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions. On Dec. 22, 2001, Reid was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. There were 197 people on board. The plane was diverted to Boston, where it landed safely. Moussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted it to happen. "You lied because you wanted to conceal that you were a member of al- Qaida?" prosecutor Rob Spencer asked. "That's correct," Moussaoui said. Spencer: "You lied so the plan could go forward?" Moussaoui: "That's correct." The exchange was key to the government's case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest. Moussaoui told the court he knew the attacks were coming some time after August 2001 and bought a radio so he could hear them unfold. Specifically, he said he knew the World Trade Center was going to be attacked, but asserted he was not part of that plot and didn't know the details. Nineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks on New York in Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil. "I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit," Moussaoui said. "I didn't know the details of this." Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun." Before Moussaoui took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying, but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court, only recognizes Islamic law and therefore "the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless." Moussaoui at first denied he was to have been a fifth hijack pilot Sept. 11 but under cross examination spoke of the plan that would have him attack the White House. He said Reid was the only person he knew for sure would have been on that mission, but others were discussed. The 19 terrorists on Sept. 11 hijacked and crashed four airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the planes. The intended target of the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field remains unknown. Moussaoui said he talked with an al-Qaida official in 1999 about why a 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center failed to bring the towers down. He said "was asked in the same period for the first time if I want to be a suicide pilot and I declined." Just before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks that a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a "very high interest" al-Qaida operative who became one of the hijackers. The official, a senior figure in the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again. As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI. The official was identified only as John. His written testimony was read into the record. "John's" testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the 9/11 plot. His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie's e-mail said "there's no indication that (Moussaoui) had plans for any nefarious activity." He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft. Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui, a French citizen, thwarted a prime opportunity to track down the 9/11 hijackers and possibly unravel the plot when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations and lied to the FBI about his al-Qaida membership and plans to hijack a plane. Had Moussaoui confessed, the FBI could have pursued leads that would have led them to most of the hijackers, government witnesses have testified. To win the death penalty, prosecutors must first prove that Moussaoui's actions — specifically, his lies — were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. If they fail, Moussaoui would get life in prison. ___ Associated Press Writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060327/ap_on_re_us/moussaoui_14&printer= 1;_ylt=Ags6isPJuz93w2EYYRP9gnVH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Do you belong to the "new Church of Global Warming"? "Aliens Cause Global Warming" A lecture by Michael Crichton California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA January 17, 2003 My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy. I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack. It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be avery good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let's look at how it came to pass. Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live. This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice. As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called "Rare Earth" theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way. Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day. But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what's the big deal? It's kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn't worth the bother. And of course it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value. Of course extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings. The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. Now let's jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on "Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations" but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor. In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on "The Effects of Nuclear War" and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage. Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled "The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon," which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer. The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions." This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate. At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows: Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe… etc (The amount of tropospheric dust=# warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance…and so on.) The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on. And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made. Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months. The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age. One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute. But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation. Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later. This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists' renderings of the the effect of nuclear winter. I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: "Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish." Hard science if ever there was. At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now? Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists…" I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases. In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women. There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light. Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees. And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y…the list of consensus errors goes on and on. Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. But back to our main subject. What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance. Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but…who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views. At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb." Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant. I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends. That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended. What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of "nuclear autumn." It just didn't have the same ring. A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a "year without a summer," and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that "it should affect the war plans." None of it happened. What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact. After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke. In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was "responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults," and that it " impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people." In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.) Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second hand smoke as a Group A Carcinogen. This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that "Second-hand smoke is the nation's third-leading preventable cause of death." The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent. In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information." The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science….there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people. Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke. As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions. And we've given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We've told them that cheating is the way to succeed. As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard? And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won't get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and "skeptics" in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it? To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds? Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the modelmakers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd. Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam? Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS… None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about. Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it's even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They're bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment's thought knows it. I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn't ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago. In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure. But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter. Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilites could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change. The 1995 IPCC draft report said, "Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." It also said, "No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes." Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: "The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate." What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area. The answer to all these questions is no. We don't. In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides. And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one. Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science. Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore what seriousness we must address this. I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what. Well, I'll tell you. In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist. The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists? Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to? When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic. Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church. Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science. Thank you very much.

America wake up our rights are being taken away ! is that what you want ? The airports of the developed world have been turned into mini prototype police states, with little or no backlash from those forced to pass through them. But of course we’ll suffer any assault on our God-given rights to ‘save us from the terrorists,’ won’t we? This argument is based on the assumption that there are actual terrorists worth worrying about and secondly that the measures being taken in our airports are aimed at stopping their activity. Both claims cannot be substantiated.Following in the footsteps of several US counterparts, Sydney Airport recently announced its beta testing of face recognition biometric cameras, aimed at identifying ‘terrorists and other undesirable travellers’ according to the Sydney Morning Herald. As with all biometric technologies, the digital algorithms that make up your facial features are captured and compared with a computer database of criminals. If you resemble an enemy of the state then red flags are immediately coordinated to the operator and your dangerous terrorist activity is brought to a swift halt. Proponents of this system fail to take into account that terrorist masterminds are hardly likely to use notorious criminals to carry out operations where their movements will be filmed a hundred times over. If there were nineteen hijackers on September 11 roaming around American airports, surely there would be multiple video sequences of their activity? The FBI says so but all they have provided us with is a dodgy tape of Atta with two different time stamps on it. The rest is classified ‘due to the ongoing investigation’. Another fairly important factor related to facial recognition technology is that it doesn’t actually work. A Boston Globe report, cited by The Register, concludes that a similar test at Boston’s Logan Airport failed miserably. You see, not unlike a toaster that only has two settings – burnt and warm bread – facial recognition technology is either far too sensitive or positively laid back. Either Ahmed and his terrorist chums walk on by unhindered or a mother with a pram is likely to be subjected to an armed standoff. On the non-sensitive setting, anyone who is aware of the technology can avoid it by wearing a pair of sunglasses. So what other methods will Big Brother present in order to ‘save us from the terrorists’? In the first stage of what will eventually morph into the behemoth ‘Total Information Awareness’ – the US Justice Department has proposed anti-terrorism regulations that would entail everyone who wanted to fly in and out of the country would be forced to disclose detailed personal information. This report was carried by The Washington Times. Even though the Immigration and Naturalization Service would implement the regulations, the law would apply to American citizens. This at a time when both the northern and southern borders are more wide open than ever. The ACLU, more interested in making sure gay people are allowed to cavort in street parades, have declared no opposition to the proposal. Some people, perhaps even most, would have no aversion to providing their name, date of birth, citizenship, sex, passport number, country of residence, U.S. visa number, and address while in the United States. I would certainly support such measures for foreigners if I were under the delusion that our governments had any incentive to prevent terrorism. But what most don’t realize is that this is only the initial stage of a nice little horror that the government has been planning for a year or more. As can be judged from reports early last year by both The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, these new proposals are merely the first generation in the creation of a centralized government database via the airports and airliners and one which will possibly form the largest chunk of Total Information Awareness. Federal aviation authorities (power) in alliance with technology companies (greed) eventually plan to delve much deeper into your personal life, right down to your daily activities through to what magazines you read. This, according to Joseph Del Balzo, formerly with the FAA, will enable the government to have, “a pretty good idea of what’s going on in a person’s mind.” Such minute details would characterize an individual’s ‘threat assessment’ – so if you willingly submit to letting the government know how many times you go to the toilet a day then you’ll get a green security grade, cheap airline tickets, fast airport security checks, convenience and consumer love. On the other hand, if you have any semblance of morality or memories of what it was like to live in a free country and refuse the ‘trusted traveller pass’ – you’ll get a red security grade and will be rightly hassled for the subversive that you are. The government will have a large task on its hands collating all the data, but has already been assured by market research companies that the system is workable. They will willingly pass on the data they’ve collected on you from all those annoying dinnertime calls, just for a small slice of the money pie. Big Brother then quashes our fears by promising us there is no possible scope for abuse of the program. Officials admit that ultimately the system is designed to be integrated into the biometric national ID card. Let me spell it out for you. A mandatory national ID card with your biometric thumbprint scanned on which tells the reader how the government view your behaviour on a scale of ‘submissive and compliant with state demands’ (green) to ‘definite subversive, possible enemy of the state and potential terrorist – 9pm house curfew’. Get the picture? Just take a glance at how the early ‘security measures’ have played out at airports across the world. Every week we hear stories about 18-year-old zit faced adolescents fondling blonde haired, blue-eyed women because they might be terrorists. Or how obese, greasy old men take 8-year-old Katie aside for some ‘special screening’. Nicholas Monahan, a film producer, related the harrowing tale of how his pregnant wife was forced to expose herself and have screeners touch her breasts in full public view at Portland International Airport. Upon seeing his wife crying her eyes out, Monahan complained and was subsequently arrested and thrown in the airport jail (yes they do have those now). Monahan likened his experience to something out of The Gulag Archipelago. The trauma of the experience contributed to his wife having to have a caesarean section. Don’t forget for a second that all this is coming from a government that is ‘manufacturing terrorist alerts to keep the issue alive in the minds of voters and to keep President Bush’s approval ratings high’ according to World Net Daily. Go look for the definition of terrorism in your dictionary and you’ll get something similar to, "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” By this very definition, the only group gaining a political advantage from terrorism or the threat of terrorism is the White House! Who is creating the ‘terrorist threat’ to justify the windfall of power and money that goes hand in glove with new airport security regulations? The very same group pushing the security regulations. Here’s a solution that would prevent another September 11 from happening, along with preventing our airports from becoming police state processing points. It’s a solution that is loaded with common sense, guaranteed to work, but would make no money for technology companies and wouldn’t contribute to feeding Total Information Awareness, which is just coincidentally why the government has been dragging its feet over implementing it. Arm the pilots.

Who can save poor Terresa???? She is too poor for a wrong pick of a liar faith of christ.? Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith By DAVID VAN BIEMA Thu Aug 23, 12:05 PM ET Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. - Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 ADVERTISEMENT On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one - the naked one - the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere - "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive." Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, - Listen and do not hear - the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me - that I let Him have [a] free hand." The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction - that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared. And in fact, that appears to be the case. A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever - or, as the book's compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, "neither in her heart or in the eucharist." That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta, and - except for a five-week break in 1959 - never abated. Although perpetually cheery in public, the Teresa of the letters lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything." Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God - tender, personal love," she remarks to an adviser. "If you were [there], you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.'" Says the Rev. James Martin, an editor at the Jesuit magazine America and the author of My Life with the Saints, a book that dealt with far briefer reports in 2003 of Teresa's doubts: "I've never read a saint's life where the saint has such an intense spiritual darkness. No one knew she was that tormented." Recalls Kolodiejchuk, Come Be My Light's editor: "I read one letter to the Sisters [of Teresa's Missionaries of Charity], and their mouths just dropped open. It will give a whole new dimension to the way people understand her." The book is hardly the work of some antireligious investigative reporter who Dumpster-dived for Teresa's correspondence. Kolodiejchuk, a senior Missionaries of Charity member, is her postulator, responsible for petitioning for her sainthood and collecting the supporting materials. (Thus far she has been beatified; the next step is canonization.) The letters in the book were gathered as part of that process. The church anticipates spiritually fallow periods. Indeed, the Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross in the 16th century coined the term the "dark night" of the soul to describe a characteristic stage in the growth of some spiritual masters. Teresa's may be the most extensive such case on record. (The "dark night" of the 18th century mystic St. Paul of the Cross lasted 45 years; he ultimately recovered.) Yet Kolodiejchuk sees it in St. John's context, as darkness within faith. Teresa found ways, starting in the early 1960s, to live with it and abandoned neither her belief nor her work. Kolodiejchuk produced the book as proof of the faith-filled perseverance that he sees as her most spiritually heroic act. Two very different Catholics predict that the book will be a landmark. The Rev. Matthew Lamb, chairman of the theology department at the conservative Ave Maria University in Florida, thinks Come Be My Light will eventually rank with St. Augustine's Confessions and Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain as an autobiography of spiritual ascent. Martin of America, a much more liberal institution, calls the book "a new ministry for Mother Teresa, a written ministry of her interior life," and says, "It may be remembered as just as important as her ministry to the poor. It would be a ministry to people who had experienced some doubt, some absence of God in their lives. And you know who that is? Everybody. Atheists, doubters, seekers, believers, everyone." Not all atheists and doubters will agree. Both Kolodiejchuk and Martin assume that Teresa's inability to perceive Christ in her life did not mean he wasn't there. In fact, they see his absence as part of the divine gift that enabled her to do great work. But to the U.S.'s increasingly assertive cadre of atheists, that argument will seem absurd. They will see the book's Teresa more like the woman in the archetypal country-and-western song who holds a torch for her husband 30 years after he left to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Says Christopher Hitchens, author of The Missionary Position, a scathing polemic on Teresa, and more recently of the atheist manifesto God Is Not Great: "She was no more exempt from the realization that religion is a human fabrication than any other person, and that her attempted cure was more and more professions of faith could only have deepened the pit that she had dug for herself." Meanwhile, some familiar with the smiling mother's extraordinary drive may diagnose her condition less as a gift of God than as a subconscious attempt at the most radical kind of humility: she punished herself with a crippling failure to counterbalance her great successes. Come Be My Light is that rare thing, a posthumous autobiography that could cause a wholesale reconsideration of a major public figure - one way or another. It raises questions about God and faith, the engine behind great achievement, and the persistence of love, divine and human. That it does so not in any organized, intentional form but as a hodgepodge of desperate notes not intended for daylight should leave readers only more convinced that it is authentic - and that they are, somewhat shockingly, touching the true inner life of a modern saint. Prequel: Near Ecstatic Communion [Jesus:] Wilt thou refuse to do this for me? ... You have become my Spouse for my love - you have come to India for Me. The thirst you had for souls brought you so far - Are you afraid to take one more step for Your Spouse - for me - for souls? Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second to you? [Teresa:] Jesus, my own Jesus - I am only Thine - I am so stupid - I do not know what to say but do with me whatever You wish - as You wish - as long as you wish. [But] why can't I be a perfect Loreto Nun - here - why can't I be like everybody else. [Jesus:] I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children ... You are I know the most incapable person - weak and sinful but just because you are that - I want to use You for My glory. Wilt thou refuse? - in a prayer dialogue recounted to Archbishop Ferdinand Perier, January 1947 On Sept. 10, 1946, after 17 years as a teacher in Calcutta with the Loreto Sisters (an uncloistered, education-oriented community based in Ireland), Mother Mary Teresa, 36, took the 400-mile (645-km) train trip to Darjeeling. She had been working herself sick, and her superiors ordered her to relax during her annual retreat in the Himalayan foothills. On the ride out, she reported, Christ spoke to her. He called her to abandon teaching and work instead in "the slums" of the city, dealing directly with "the poorest of the poor" - the sick, the dying, beggars and street children. "Come, Come, carry Me into the holes of the poor," he told her. "Come be My light." The goal was to be both material and evangelistic - as Kolodiejchuk puts it, "to help them live their lives with dignity [and so] encounter God's infinite love, and having come to know Him, to love and serve Him in return." It was wildly audacious - an unfunded, single-handed crusade (Teresa stipulated that she and her nuns would share their beneficiaries' poverty and started out alone) to provide individualized service to the poorest in a poor city made desperate by riots. The local Archbishop, Ferdinand PÉrier, was initially skeptical. But her letters to him, preserved, illustrate two linked characteristics - extreme tenacity and a profound personal bond to Christ. When PÉrier hesitated, Teresa, while calling herself a "little nothing," bombarded him with notes suggesting that he refer the question to an escalating list of authorities - the local apostolic delegation, her Mother General, the Pope. And when she felt all else had failed, she revealed the spiritual topper: a dramatic (melodramatic, really) dialogue with a "Voice" she eventually revealed to be Christ's. It ended with Jesus' emphatic reiteration of his call to her: "You are I know the most incapable person - weak and sinful but just because you are that - I want to use You for My glory. Wilt thou refuse?" Mother Teresa had visions, including one of herself conversing with Christ on the Cross. Her confessor, Father Celeste Van Exem, was convinced that her mystical experiences were genuine. "[Her] union with Our Lord has been continual and so deep and violent that rapture does not seem very far," he commented. Teresa later wrote simply, "Jesus gave Himself to me." Then on Jan. 6, 1948, PÉrier, after consulting the Vatican, finally gave permission for Teresa to embark on her second calling. And Jesus took himself away again. The Onset Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love - and now become as the most hated one - the one - You have thrown away as unwanted - unloved. I call, I cling, I want - and there is no One to answer - no One on Whom I can cling - no, No One. - Alone ... Where is my Faith - even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness - My God - how painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart - & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them - because of the blasphemy - If there be God - please forgive me - When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven - there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. - I am told God loves me - and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart? - addressed to Jesus, at the suggestion of a confessor, undated In the first half of 1948, Teresa took a basic medical course before launching herself alone onto the streets of Calcutta. She wrote, "My soul at present is in perfect peace and joy." Kolodiejchuk includes her moving description of her first day on the job: "The old man lying on the street - not wanted - all alone just sick and dying - I gave him carborsone and water to drink and the old Man - was so strangely grateful ... Then we went to Taltala Bazaar, and there was a very poor woman dying I think of starvation more than TB ... I gave her something which will help her to sleep. - I wonder how long she will last." But two months later, shortly after her major triumph of locating a space for her headquarters, Kolodiejchuk's files find her troubled. "What tortures of loneliness," she wrote. "I wonder how long will my heart suffer this?" This complaint could be understood as an initial response to solitude and hardship were it not for subsequent letters. The more success Teresa had - and half a year later so many young women had joined her society that she needed to move again - the worse she felt. In March 1953, she wrote PÉrier, "Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself - for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work.'" PÉrier may have missed the note of desperation. "God guides you, dear Mother," he answered avuncularly. "You are not so much in the dark as you think ... You have exterior facts enough to see that God blesses your work ... Feelings are not required and often may be misleading." And yet feelings - or rather, their lack - became her life's secret torment. How can you assume the lover's ardor when he no longer grants you his voice, his touch, his very presence? The problem was exacerbated by an inhibition to even describe it. Teresa reported on several occasions inviting a confessor to visit and then being unable to speak. Eventually, one thought to ask her to write the problem down, and she complied. "The more I want him - the less I am wanted," she wrote PÉrier in 1955. A year later she sounded desolate: "Such deep longing for God - and ... repulsed - empty - no faith - no love - no zeal. - [The saving of] Souls holds no attraction - Heaven means nothing - pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything." At the suggestion of a confessor, she wrote the agonized plea that begins this section, in which she explored the theological worst-possible-case implications of her dilemma. That letter and another one from 1959 ("What do I labour for? If there be no God - there can be no soul - if there is no Soul then Jesus - You also are not true") are the only two that sound any note of doubt of God's existence. But she frequently bemoaned an inability to pray: "I utter words of Community prayers - and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give - But my prayer of union is not there any longer - I no longer pray." As the Missionaries of Charity flourished and gradually gained the attention of her church and the world at large, Teresa progressed from confessor to confessor the way some patients move through their psychoanalysts. Van Exem gave way to PÉrier, who gave way in 1959 to the Rev. (later Cardinal) Lawrence Picachy, who was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph Neuner in 1961. By the 1980s the chain included figures such as Bishop William Curlin of Charlotte, N.C. For these confessors, she developed a kind of shorthand of pain, referring almost casually to "my darkness" and to Jesus as "the Absent One." There was one respite. In October 1958, Pope Pius XII died, and requiem Masses were celebrated around the Catholic world. Teresa prayed to the deceased Pope for a "proof that God is pleased with the Society." And "then and there," she rejoiced, "disappeared the long darkness ... that strange suffering of 10 years." Unfortunately, five weeks later she reported being "in the tunnel" once more. And although, as we shall see, she found a way to accept the absence, it never lifted again. Five years after her Nobel, a Jesuit priest in the Calcutta province noted that "Mother came ... to speak about the excruciating night in her soul. It was not a passing phase but had gone on for years." A 1995 letter discussed her "spiritual dryness." She died in 1997. Explanations Tell me, Father, why is there so much pain and darkness in my soul? - to the Rev. Lawrence Picachy, August 1959 Why did Teresa's communication with Jesus, so vivid and nourishing in the months before the founding of the Missionaries, evaporate so suddenly? Interestingly, secular and religious explanations travel for a while on parallel tracks. Both understand (although only one celebrates) that identification with Christ's extended suffering on the Cross, undertaken to redeem humanity, is a key aspect of Catholic spirituality. Teresa told her nuns that physical poverty ensured empathy in "giving themselves" to the suffering poor and established a stronger bond with Christ's redemptive agony. She wrote in 1951 that the Passion was the only aspect of Jesus' life that she was interested in sharing: "I want to ... drink ONLY [her emphasis] from His chalice of pain." And so she did, although by all indications not in a way she had expected. Kolodiejchuk finds divine purpose in the fact that Teresa's spiritual spigot went dry just as she prevailed over her church's perceived hesitations and saw a successful way to realize Jesus' call for her. "She was a very strong personality," he suggests. "And a strong personality needs stronger purification" as an antidote to pride. As proof that it worked, he cites her written comment after receiving an important prize in the Philippines in the 1960s: "This means nothing to me, because I don't have Him." And yet "the question is, Who determined the abandonment she experienced?" says Dr. Richard Gottlieb, a teacher at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute who has written about the church and who was provided a copy of the book by TIME. "Could she have imposed it on herself?" Psychologists have long recognized that people of a certain personality type are conflicted about their high achievement and find ways to punish themselves. Gottlieb notes that Teresa's ambitions for her ministry were tremendous. Both he and Kolodiejchuk are fascinated by her statement, "I want to love Jesus as he has never been loved before." Remarks the priest: "That's a kind of daring thing to say." Yet her letters are full of inner conflict about her accomplishments. Rather than simply giving all credit to God, Gottlieb observes, she agonizes incessantly that "any taking credit for her accomplishments - if only internally - is sinful" and hence, perhaps, requires a price to be paid. A mild secular analog, he says, might be an executive who commits a horrific social gaffe at the instant of a crucial promotion. For Teresa, "an occasion for a modicum of joy initiated a significant quantity of misery," and her subsequent successes led her to perpetuate it. Gottlieb also suggests that starting her ministry "may have marked a turning point in her relationship with Jesus," whose urgent claims she was finally in a position to fulfill. Being the active party, he speculates, might have scared her, and in the end, the only way to accomplish great things might have been in the permanent and less risky role of the spurned yet faithful lover. The atheist position is simpler. In 1948, Hitchens ventures, Teresa finally woke up, although she could not admit it. He likens her to die-hard Western communists late in the cold war: "There was a huge amount of cognitive dissonance," he says. "They thought, 'Jesus, the Soviet Union is a failure, [but] I'm not supposed to think that. It means my life is meaningless.' They carried on somehow, but the mainspring was gone. And I think once the mainspring is gone, it cannot be repaired." That, he says, was Teresa. Most religious readers will reject that explanation, along with any that makes her the author of her own misery - or even defines it as true misery. Martin, responding to the torch-song image of Teresa, counterproposes her as the heroically constant spouse. "Let's say you're married and you fall in love and you believe with all your heart that marriage is a sacrament. And your wife, God forbid, gets a stroke and she's comatose. And you will never experience her love again. It's like loving and caring for a person for 50 years and once in a while you complain to your spiritual director, but you know on the deepest level that she loves you even though she's silent and that what you're doing makes sense. Mother Teresa knew that what she was doing made sense." Integration I can't express in words - the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me - for the first time in ... years - I have come to love the darkness - for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus' darkness & pain on earth. You have taught me to accept it [as] a 'spiritual side of your work' as you wrote - Today really I felt a deep joy - that Jesus can't go anymore through the agony - but that He wants to go through it in me. - to Neuner, Circa 1961 There are two responses to trauma: to hold onto it in all its vividness and remain its captive, or without necessarily "conquering" it, to gradually integrate it into the day-by-day. After more than a decade of open-wound agony, Teresa seems to have begun regaining her spiritual equilibrium with the help of a particularly perceptive adviser. The Rev. Joseph Neuner, whom she met in the late 1950s and confided in somewhat later, was already a well-known theologian, and when she turned to him with her "darkness," he seems to have told her the three things she needed to hear: that there was no human remedy for it (that is, she should not feel responsible for affecting it); that feeling Jesus is not the only proof of his being there, and her very craving for God was a "sure sign" of his "hidden presence" in her life; and that the absence was in fact part of the "spiritual side" of her work for Jesus. This counsel clearly granted Teresa a tremendous sense of release. For all that she had expected and even craved to share in Christ's Passion, she had not anticipated that she might recapitulate the particular moment on the Cross when he asks, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perseverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain. Neuner would later write, "It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion." And she thanked Neuner profusely: "I can't express in words - the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me - for the first time in ... years - I have come to love the darkness. " Not that it didn't continue to torment her. Years later, describing the joy in Jesus experienced by some of her nuns, she observed dryly to Neuner, "I just have the joy of having nothing - not even the reality of the Presence of God [in the Eucharist]." She described her soul as like an "ice block." Yet she recognized Neuner's key distinction, writing, "I accept not in my feelings - but with my will, the Will of God - I accept His will." Although she still occasionally worried that she might "turn a Judas to Jesus in this painful darkness," with the passage of years the absence morphed from a potential wrecking ball into a kind of ragged cornerstone. Says Gottlieb, the psychoanalyst: "What is remarkable is that she integrated it in a way that enabled her to make it the organizing center of her personality, the beacon for her ongoing spiritual life." Certainly, she understood it as essential enough to project it into her afterlife. "If I ever become a Saint - I will surely be one of 'darkness.' I will continually be absent from Heaven - to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth," she wrote in 1962. Theologically, this is a bit odd since most orthodox Christianity defines heaven as God's eternal presence and doesn't really provide for regular no-shows at the heavenly feast. But it is, Kolodiejchuk suggests, her most moving statement, since the sacrifice involved is infinite. "When she wrote, 'I am willing to suffer ... for all eternity, if this [is] possible,'" he says, "I said, Wow." He contends that the letters reveal her as holier than anyone knew. However formidable her efforts on Christ's behalf, it is even more astounding to realize that she achieved them when he was not available to her - a bit like a person who believes she can't walk winning the Olympic 100 meters. Kolodiejchuk goes even further. Catholic theologians recognize two types of "dark night": the first is purgative, cleansing the contemplative for a "final union" with Christ; the second is "reparative," and continues after such a union, so that he or she may participate in a state of purity even closer to that of Jesus and Mary, who suffered for human salvation despite being without sin. By the end, writes Kolodiejchuk, "by all indications this was the case with Mother Teresa." That puts her in rarefied company. A New Ministry If this brings You glory - if souls are brought to you - with joy I accept all to the end of my life. - to Jesus, undated But for most people, Teresa's ranking among Catholic saints may be less important than a more general implication of Come Be My Light: that if she could carry on for a half-century without God in her head or heart, then perhaps people not quite as saintly can cope with less extreme versions of the same problem. One powerful instance of this may have occurred very early on. In 1968, British writer-turned-filmmaker Malcolm Muggeridge visited Teresa. Muggeridge had been an outspoken agnostic, but by the time he arrived with a film crew in Calcutta he was in full spiritual-search mode. Beyond impressing him with her work and her holiness, she wrote a letter to him in 1970 that addressed his doubts full-bore. "Your longing for God is so deep and yet He keeps Himself away from you," she wrote. "He must be forcing Himself to do so - because he loves you so much - the personal love Christ has for you is infinite - The Small difficulty you have re His Church is finite - Overcome the finite with the infinite." Muggeridge apparently did. He became an outspoken Christian apologist and converted to Catholicism in 1982. His 1969 film, Something Beautiful for God, supported by a 1971 book of the same title, made Teresa an international sensation. At the time, Muggeridge was something of a unique case. A child of privilege who became a minor celebrity, he was hardly Teresa's target audience. Now, with the publication of Come Be My Light, we can all play Muggeridge. Kolodiejchuk thinks the book may act as an antidote to a cultural problem. "The tendency in our spiritual life but also in our more general attitude toward love is that our feelings are all that is going on," he says. "And so to us the totality of love is what we feel. But to really love someone requires commitment, fidelity and vulnerability. Mother Teresa wasn't 'feeling' Christ's love, and she could have shut down. But she was up at 4:30 every morning for Jesus, and still writing to him, 'Your happiness is all I want.' That's a powerful example even if you are not talking in exclusively religious terms." America's Martin wants to talk precisely in religious terms. "Everything she's experiencing," he says, "is what average believers experience in their spiritual lives writ large. I have known scores of people who have felt abandoned by God and had doubts about God's existence. And this book expresses that in such a stunning way but shows her full of complete trust at the same time." He takes a breath. "Who would have thought that the person who was considered the most faithful woman in the world struggled like that with her faith?" he asks. "And who would have thought that the one thought to be the most ardent of believers could be a saint to the skeptics?" Martin has long used Teresa as an example to parishioners of self-emptying love. Now, he says, he will use her extraordinary faith in the face of overwhelming silence to illustrate how doubt is a natural part of everyone's life, be it an average believer's or a world-famous saint's. Into the Light of Day Please destroy any letters or anything I have written. - to Picachy, April 1959 Consistent with her ongoing fight against pride, Teresa's rationale for suppressing her personal correspondence was "I want the work to remain only His." If the letters became public, she explained to Picachy, "people will think more of me - less of Jesus." The particularly holy are no less prone than the rest of us to misjudge the workings of history - or, if you will, of God's providence. Teresa considered the perceived absence of God in her life as her most shameful secret but eventually learned that it could be seen as a gift abetting her calling. If her worries about publicizing it also turn out to be misplaced - if a book of hasty, troubled notes turns out to ease the spiritual road of thousands of fellow believers, there would be no shame in having been wrong - but happily, even wonderfully wrong - twice. WE ARE VERY LUCKY TO LIVE IN A WORLD OF FREE SPEECH & COMMUNICATION, BY MANY NEWS WE CAN JUDGE GOOD OR BAD, EVEN THE CASE IRAQ WAR, ALL OF PAPERS INDICATE THAT OIL WAR RATHER THAN A TINNY ARM FORCE THREAT. THE IMPORTANT IS US STILL A FREEDOM COUNTRY, NOT ANY WAR WILL TURN IT TO A MONOPOLY SOVEREIGN. JUST vatican, muslim, christ DO. AND LUCKILY, ALL OF US GET OUT OF christ, muslim HAUNT IN THE GOVERNMENT NOW. TO VOICE OUR OPINION WITHOUT ANY SLANDERING & CRIMES BY ANY RELIGIOUS COURT AS HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Do you think you know Larry Silverstein? Read it and tell me about your opinion.? Larry Silverstein is the New York property tycoon who purchased the entire WTC complex just 6 months prior to the 9/11 attacks. That was the first time in its 33-year history the complex had EVER changed ownership. Mr. Silverstein’s first order of business as the new owner was to change the company responsible for the security of the complex. The new security company he hired was Securacom (now Stratasec). George W. Bush's brother, Marvin Bush, was on its board of directors, and Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III, was its CEO. According to public records, not only did Securacom provide electronic security for the World Trade Center, it also covered Dulles International Airport and United Airlines — two key players in the 9/11 attacks. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for many years to the Bush family. KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec. Now, consider: The members of a small cabal owned the WTC complex, controlled its electronic security, and also controlled the security not only for one of the airlines whose aircraft were hijacked on 9/11, but the airport from which they originated. Another little “coincidence” -- Mr. Silversten, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that, he covered the complex against “terrorist attacks”. Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion — a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million. There’s more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this? The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings. The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion! In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected “terrorist” attack demolished the buildings completely. WTC Building 7 was a part of the WTC complex, and covered under the same insurance policy. This 47-storey steel-framed structure, which was NOT struck by an aircraft, mysteriously collapsed 8 hours later that same day into its own footprint at freefall speed — exactly in the manner of the Twin Towers. How could this have happened? Mr. Silverstein gave the world the answer when he slipped up during a PBS television interview a year later, on 9/11/2002: "I remember getting a call from the...er...fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." As anyone who knows anything about construction can tell you, “Pull” is common industry jargon for a controlled demolition. One thing is for sure, the decision to 'pull' WTC 7 would have delighted many people. Especially because it has been reported that thousands of sensitive files relating to some of the biggest financial scams in history — including Enron and WorldCom -- were stored in the offices of some of the building’s tenants: * US Secret Service * NSA * CIA * IRS * BATF * SEC * NAIC Securities * Salomon Smith Barney * American Express Bank International * Standard Chartered Bank * Provident Financial Management * ITT Hartford Insurance Group * Federal Home Loan Bank The Securities and Exchange Commission has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed by the collapse of WTC 7. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases." Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack. Inside WTC 7 was the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran. What a neat, complete, and fortuitous turn of events was 9/11. Incidentally, it’s worth noting that one of Lucky Larry’s closest friends — a person with whom it’s said he speaks almost daily by phone — is none other than former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

How long have we (the U.S. & U.K) been IN Iran now??????? How long have we been IN Iran now???????????????? Iran War Underway: US and Britain Funding Right Wing Terrorists For Regime Change The Long history of British and American covert provocation and action in Iran Steve Watson Infowars.net Friday, March 30, 2007 The US and Britain are already at war with Iran, have been at war with Iran for a number of years now and are funding anti-Iranian terrorist groups inside Iran in preparation for the fallout that will occur after overt military action is commenced. Not my words, the words of high ranking CIA officials, Defense department officials, former UN officials and retired US air force Colonels. Iran's state news agency, IRNA today listed five previous violations of Iranian territory by British armed forces: * June 2004: An unmanned reconnaissance plane violated Iranian airspace in northeastern Abadan and was hit by Iranian anti-aircraft guns. * June 22, 2004: Eight navy personnel in three speed boats entered Iranian territorial waters and were arrested by Iranian coast guards; the arrested were released after three days. * November 1, 2006: Two helicopters, hovering at a height of 150 meters (492 feet), violated Iranian airspace for a total of 10 minutes. * January 27, 2007: A helicopter violated Iranian airspace over the mouth of the Arvand river and left the area after a warning from Iranian coast guards. * February 28, 2007: Three navy boats entered Iranian territorial waters in the mouth of Khor Mousa. Can we believe Iranian state news? Is Britain and/or the US engaging in covert intelligence gathering in Iran? The answer is we don't have to believe Iranian state news because it is a well established fact that a covert intelligence war is already being waged with Iran and has been ongoing for many years now. In an article entitled The US war with Iran has already begun, written back in June 2005, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, addressed this very issue and described how intelligence gathering, direct action and the mobilizing of indigenous opposition is all being carried out already by CIA backed US special forces. Ritter stated: As with Iraq, the president has paved the way for the conditioning of the American public and an all-too-compliant media to accept at face value the merits of a regime change policy regarding Iran, linking the regime of the Mullah's to an "axis of evil" (together with the newly "liberated" Iraq and North Korea), and speaking of the absolute requirement for the spread of "democracy" to the Iranian people. But Americans, and indeed much of the rest of the world, continue to be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the fact that overt conventional military operations have not yet commenced between the United States and Iran. As such, many hold out the false hope that an extension of the current insanity in Iraq can be postponed or prevented in the case of Iran. But this is a fool's dream. The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun. As we speak, American over flights of Iranian soil are taking place, using pilotless drones and other, more sophisticated, capabilities. The violation of a sovereign nation's airspace is an act of war in and of itself. But the war with Iran has gone far beyond the intelligence-gathering phase. President Bush has taken advantage of the sweeping powers granted to him in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, to wage a global war against terror and to initiate several covert offensive operations inside Iran. Ritter goes on to describe how Iranian opposition groups, including the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein's dreaded intelligence services, but now working exclusively for the CIA's Directorate of Operations, are carrying out remote bombings in Iran of the sort that the Bush administration condemns on a daily basis inside Iraq. He also describes how to the north, in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the US military is preparing a base of operations for a massive military presence that will foretell a major land-based campaign designed to capture Tehran. Ritter is not alone in his assertions. During an interview on CNN a year ago, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner claimed that U.S. military operations were already 'underway' inside Iran. "I would say -- and this may shock some -- I think the decision has been made and military operations are under way," Col. Gardiner told CNN International anchor Jim Clancy. "The secretary point is, the Iranians have been saying American military troops are in there, have been saying it for almost a year," Gardiner said. "I was in Berlin two weeks ago, sat next to the ambassador, the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. And I said, 'Hey, I hear you're accusing Americans of being in there operating with some of the units that have shot up revolution guard units.' He said, quite frankly, 'Yes, we know they are. We've captured some of the units, and they've confessed to working with the Americans,'" said the retired Air Force colonel. The full seven minute CNN segment can be viewed below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmce... Around the same time that Gardiner revealed this, RAW story ran an exclusive, which also revealed that, according to counterintelligence officials, covert operations were underway that included CIA co-option and use of right wing terror groups: “We disarmed [the MEK] of major weapons but not small arms. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was pushing to use them as a military special ops team, but policy infighting between their camp and Condi, but she was able to fight them off for a while,” said the intelligence official. According to still another intelligence source, the policy infighting ended last year when Donald Rumsfeld, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, came up with a plan to “convert” the MEK by having them simply quit their organization. “These guys are nuts,” this intelligence source said. “Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them.” The MEK were notorious in Iraq, indeed, Saddam Hussein himself had used the MEK for acts of terror against non-Sunni Muslims and had assigned domestic security detail to the MEK as a way of policing dissent among his own people. It was under the guidance of MEK ‘policing’ that Iraqi citizens who were not Sunni were routinely tortured, attacked and arrested. The Just last month after a bombing inside Iran, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official has blown the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme. The claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime." John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity." If this all sounds a little familiar, it's because it is. The fact is that the US has a long history of provocation and covert action inside Iran. The In 1953 the CIA and MI6 carried out Operation Ajax (officially TP-AJAX), a covert operation by the United Kingdom and the United States to remove the democratically elected nationalist cabinet of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power, to support the Pahlavi dynasty and consolidate the power of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in order to preserve the Western control of Iran's hugely lucrative oil infrastructure. In planning the operation, the CIA organized a guerrilla force incase the communist Tudeh Party seized power as a result of the chaos created by Operation Ajax. According to formerly “Top Secret” documents released by the National Security Archive, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which U.S.-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate. The conspiracy centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah dismiss the powerful Prime Minister Mossadegh and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans after careful examination for his likeliness to be pro-British. Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mossadegh. The deposed Mossadegh was arrested, given a show trial, and condemned to death. The Shah commuted this sentence to solitary confinement for three years in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life. “If there had not been a military coup, there would not have been 25 years of the Shah’s brutal regime, there would not have been a revolution in 1979 and a government of clerics,” Ibrahim Yazdi, a former foreign minister and leading member of a political party that traces its origins to Mossadegh’s National Front, told the Christian Science Monitor on the 50th anniversary of the coup and installation of the Shah. “Now it seems that the Americans are pushing towards the same direction again. That shows they have not learned anything from history.” “For many Iranians, the coup was a tragedy from which their country has never recovered. Perhaps because Mossadegh represents a future denied, his memory has approached myth,” Dan De Luce writes for the Guardian. “Beyond Iran, America remains deeply resented for siding with authoritarian rule in the region.” After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the US again found itself sparring with Iran. Again we find a history of provocation and aggression. In particular, a fierce assault known as Operation Praying Mantis, is renowned. The operation began after a US warship had entered mined Iranian territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. From Wikipedia: On April 14 1988, the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine while sailing in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will, the 1987-88 convoy missions in which U.S. warships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect them from Iranian attacks. The explosion put a 25-foot hole in the Roberts' hull and nearly sank it. But the crew saved their ship with no loss of life, and Roberts was towed to Dubai on April 16. After the mining, U.S. Navy divers recovered other mines in the area. When the serial numbers were found to match those of mines seized along with the Iran Ajr the previous September, U.S. military officials planned a retaliatory operation against Iranian targets in the Gulf. The battle, the largest for American surface forces since World War II,[1] sank two Iranian warships and as many as six armed speedboats. It also marked the first surface-to-surface missile engagement in U.S. Navy history. The US also attacked and destroyed several Iranian oil platforms in a full out military assault. At the time the Chicago Sun Times reported: U.S. naval forces on Monday attacked Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf to show the Iranians that "if they threaten us, they'll pay a price," President Reagan said. In fighting conducted over nine hours, the U.S. forces knocked out two Iranian oil platforms, and then sank or disabled a fast-attack missile patrol boat, two frigates, and three speedboats when Iran attempted to fight back. Note Reagan's comments. Hence the name 'Operation Praying Mantis' was a reference to the fanning of the wings used to make the mantis seem larger and to scare the opponent. On November 6, 2003 the International Court of Justice dismissed Iran's claim for reparation against the United States for breach of the 1955 Treaty of Amity between the two countries. The court also dismissed a counter-claim by the United States, also for reparation for breach of the same treaty. As part of its finding the court did note that "the actions of the United States of America against Iranian oil platforms on 19 October 1987 (Operation Nimble Archer) and 18 April 1988 (Operation Praying Mantis) cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential security interests of the United States of America." The fallout of Praying Mantis also resulted in the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian civilian commercial airliner, Iran air flight 665, between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children. The Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the shoot-down. The On the morning of July 3, the Vincennes crossed into Iranian territorial waters during clashes with Iranian gunboats. Earlier in the day, the Vincennes - along with Iranian gunboats - had similarly violated Omani waters until challenged by an Omani warship. According to the U.S. government, the Iranian aircraft was mistakenly identified as an attacking military fighter. The Iranian government, however, maintains that the Vincennes knowingly shot down a civilian aircraft. According to the Iranian government, the shooting down of IR 655 by the Vincennes was an intentionally performed and unlawful act. Even if there was a mistaken identification, which Iran has not accepted, it argues that this constituted gross negligence and recklessness amounting to an international crime, not an accident. Newsweek reporters John Barry and Roger Charles wrote that Rogers acted recklessly and without due care. Their report accused the U.S. government of a cover-up. An analysis of the events by the International Strategic Studies Association described the deployment of an Aegis cruiser in the zone as irresponsible and felt that the expense of the ship had played a major part in the setting of a low threshold for opening fire. George H.W. Bush, at the time Vice President said "I will never apologize for the United States of America — I don't care what the facts are" in reference to the incident. The BBC later reported: It took four years for the US administration to admit officially that the USS Vincennes was in Iranian waters when the skirmish took place with the Iranian gunboats. Subsequent investigations have accused the US military of waging a covert war against Iran in support of Iraq. In February 1996 the US agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed, plus the cost of the aircraft and legal expenses. So we see that Britain and the US have a long history of covert action against and provocation of Iran in their bid to aggressively control the region. Nothing has changed. These facts and past precedents are exactly the reason why we should be questioning our own governments on the authenticity of the current seizure of the British marines by Iran. Our governments have continually violated Iranian territory covertly for decades and then covered up the fact. In January Republican Congressman and 2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul stated that he feared a staged Gulf of Tonkin style incident may be used to provoke air strikes on Iran as numerous factors collide to heighten expectations that America may soon be embroiled in its third war in six years. Just last month former National Security Advisor and founding member of the Trilateral Commission Zbigniew Brzezinski also tacitly warned that an attack on Iran could be launched following a staged provocation. During a BBC Newsnight feature story this week, it was demonstrated that the Iranian footage of the capture of the British sailors was in large part likely faked and the commentators all but suggested the entire incident was staged or at least constituted "gross negligence" on behalf of the British. Former British Ambassador Craig Murray and others are highlighting the fact that the maritime border between Iraq and Iran is contested, and the British have essentially manufactured a border to make it appear as if HMS Cornwall was within Iraqi territorial waters. The mainstream media has uniformly failed to address this issue. It seems that we are once again witnessing the unfolding of ongoing covert military action by our governments against (whether you agree with it or not) a democratically elected foreign government in Iran.

rev kamal karna roy a newer politician in strategic redevelopment _ changes to evade "jungle democracy"? Click here to join the NEWSWEEK community, post comments and subscribe to our e-mail newsletters User Name: Password: Forgot password? News Politics Tech and Business Culture Health Voices Quick Guide Periscope National News International Next 2008 Iraq War Issues 2008 Against the Odds Video Top Story Campaign 2008: A Game of Survivor My Journey to the Top Latest News Clinton hints at shared ticket PAKISTAN Elections Usher in a New Face By Zahid Hussain, Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK Mar 3, 2008 Issue « Return to Article Related:Makhdoom Amin Fahim Pakistan Peoples Party Pervez Musharraf Discuss Comments: Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/03/2008 10:05:01 PM Comment: TRIANGLE OF JUNGLE DEMOCRACIES USA TO PAISTAN TO RSSIA UJDER PUTIN TO USA. JUNGLES ARE DEEP FOREST BUT GREENS ARE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT OF SHADE. OTHER JUGLES ARE DEEPLY OF CONCERN TO PEOPLE. bUT WE THE PEOPLE MUST BRING TO EQUITY IN JUSTICE,LEADERSHIP AND OPTIMUM PRIVILEGES TO MOST SOONER THE BETTER, SAID DR THE REVEREND KAMAL KARNA ROY , A MR CLEAN FOR U S PRESIDECY 2008 AS SCHEDULED, BUT MAY NOT BE HELD WITH U S DISTRICT COURT INTERVENTIONS AS PROVIDED IN U S CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS OF U S. REPORTED BY REV MR PREMANGHU ROY DAS EFORMS AGENT IN DEMOCRACIES WORLD WIDE IN NEED OF REDELOPMENT. SEE BELOW WE NEED TRUE DEMOCRATIC CONDITIONS FOR WE THE PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:36:46 AM Comment: THE lunch hosted by Mr Asif Zardari for the newly elected members of the three leading parties on Feb 27 may well be remembered as a landmark in the long awaited transition to a democratic dispensation in Pakistan. The squalls that rocked the state on Oct 12, 1999 and in the form of the 17th amendment inflicted much damage. Then, the catastrophe of Nov 3 put all salvaging efforts beyond the capacity of any single party. The existing distortions in that historic but half-alive Constitution present a nightmare and demand the exercise of the highest form of political wisdom and legal expertise. The process of eliminating them by creating a new interface between politics and law has just begun. Pakistan???s present crisis is characterised by the bitter harvest of constitutional violations, growing imbalance between a power-hungry centre and the handicapped federating units, uncontrollable violence by ever-proliferating bands of extremists and, above all, by a rapidly rising table of sub-surface social anger at glaring inequalities of income and opportunity. A reasonably broad-based coalition government may provide a healing touch. There is no great virtue in a two-party system anymore as, for quite some time to come, regional aspirations will deepen particular identities of the constitutive elements of a diverse nation. The greatest achievement of the three top leaders present at Mr Zardari???s lunch is that they successfully persuaded their followers that these identities were perfectly compatible with an overarching national identity. Scratch the surface and lurking just beneath the protest against the humiliation of the higher judiciary and repeated violations of the Constitution is a palpable anguish of poverty and deprivation. Pakistan must eschew politics of vendetta but that does not mean that every crime against the state and society be brushed under the carpet. It needs a high-powered Commission on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in the interest of historical accuracy and to build dykes for future security. We need to replace mercenary relations with relations based on mutual respect, community of interests and coordinated pursuit of common objectives within our respective national parameters. A strong and stable national coalition can be built around the present understanding between the PPP, PML-N and ANP. The US-led West should welcome it and not undermine it as it alone can make Pakistan???s battle against militant extremists effective The west should to withdraw their support from the one Musharaf who loathed by the people at maximum Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:07:40 AM Comment: THE results of the election that took place on Feb 18 were astonishing. President Musharraf???s supporting party Pakistan Muslim League (Q) was wiped out and the ministers who were lucky enough to keep their seats are now at a safe distance from President Musharraf. The people at large want the president to go with no other choice. However, the US has been unduly interfering in our politics as its Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has emphasised the need to continue President Musharraf???s rule. Pakistan has remained under military rule for more than half of its life, and the people no longer want any dictator to rule over them. As the PPP has secured the maximum number of seats, followed by the PML (N), the ties made between these parties also pose a serious challenge to the president???s stay any further in office. His rule for eight long years has brought many hardships to the nation and now he should quit The US slogan for democracy is and justice is just a slogan and in real and practicle not willing to be so for their own agenda From whome to expect the justice and democracy in the world the only power it self violate This is not the Musharaf pakistan but of 1,600/-Millions people and what they think of the rest This is not in the benifit of US to support the cruel one of the country who now the people think as Mechile G.Choaf The people and the young generation have very strong anti US sentiments due to their blind support of Dictator Musharaf This is not a good sign and this will increase with passage of time Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/29/2008 2:12:44 AM Comment: IN THIS ENVIORNMENT OF ECONOMIC FEUDALISM WHERE THE MIDDLE CLASS MUST SUFFER IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE pROFITS OF MULTINATIONAL CORpORATIONS, WHO BENEFIT FROM CHEAp LABOR, THE AMERICAN DREAM HAS BEEN LOST. MULTINALTIONALS FROM INDIA HAVE BROUGHT THEIR CHEAp WAyS TO AMERICA. WE NOW HAVE AMERIANS GOING TO GET HEART SURGERy IN INDIA BEAUSE IT IS CHEApER. OUR INFORMATION TECHNOLy JOBS HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED TO INDIA. CHINA WAITS UNTIL WE INVENT IT AND THEN THEy STEAL IT. WHy REINVENT THE WHEEL. ARABS FINANCIERS OWN OVER TWELVER pER CENT OF OUR ECONOMy AND IN RECENT MONTTHS HAVE "BAILED" OUT OUR BANKS. IN ADDITION, ARAB INTEREST FROM DUBAI AND KUWAIT HAVE FINANCED OUR pOLITICAL LEADERS ENDEVOURS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE pOLITICAL SpECTRUM.. IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE. We have been fooled by our own government and there is no way any Republican is going to win this election. THE Middle class has had it with all this Bin LADEN terrorist crap. WE are now scared of our own government more than we are of the terrorist because the decisions this government is making on our behalf is not in our best interests and it is killing us. The government is now dominating our civil liberties. They are giving the states millions for Real ID Cards. This is just the start of government intrusion. Combine this with the misuse of the Patriot Act and the future Plans of insurance comPanies and corporations to have full access to our personal records and we have a real crisis. Credit Card companies have already started selling and sharing our personal information with the private sector. We really have to wake up and protect our constitution it is all we have to defend ourselves against interests that become too rich and powerful in this country. The government keeps expanding and is being predominantly controlled by special interest and lobbyist. The middle class is being weakened and our civil liberties are being threatened. Real ID Cards will not make "us safer" infacat terrorists can obtain fake ones and move about freely. The American people did not vote on Real ID Cards, we need a vote. Our constitution would have to be ammended in order for Real ID's to become legal. I do not know what has happened in Washington but it is getting out of hand. They know what they are doing is unconstitutional so they are trying to bribe the states by offering them money. I hope every state agrees with me and Prevents the federal govenment from imPosing THIS unconstitutional law. If the states allow the government to do this then they would have set a bad Precedent that could lead to further government violations. WHy IS THERE A NEED TO WIRE TAp EVERy CITIZEN. ARE yOU KIDDING ME. yOU NEED A WARRANT. THIS IS MADNESS. GOVERNMENT IS USING TERRORISM AS AN EXCUSE TO INTRUDE ON OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. THIS IS INSANE. McCain will continue to implementt these misguided REpublian policies. McCain's ONE HUNDRED year agenda is not in AMERICA"s BEST INTEREST. Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/28/2008 4:32:34 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEDA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. LET US REMEMBER BERG. I AM NOT JEWISH, HOWEVER I FEEL THAT WE MUST NEVER FORGET. IT IS WORTH THAT yOUNG ARABS AND JEWS FROM ALL BACKGROUNDS START FORMING GROUPS THAT ENCOURAGE THE INTERACTION BETWEEN JEWS ARABS MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. SOMETHING LIKE AN NGO. ANyONE FROM ANy BACKGROUND CAN CAN CONTRIBUTE. WITH ONE OBJECTIVE IN MIND. FRIENDLy RELATIONS. NO PRESSURE TO SET FOREIGN POLICy , JUST GETTING THE TWO ADVERSARIES IN THE SAME ROOM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WILL BE IN AMERICA'S AND THE WORLD'S BEST INTEREST. . THAT IS THE FIRST STEP . WHEN yOU TRy AND IMPOSE yOUR WILL "ALL OF A SUDDEN" ON THE MASSES, THEN ASSAASSINATIONS LIKE THOSOE OF RABIN AND BHUTTO WILL BE INEVITABLE. "WHEN ANy ONE INDIVIDUAL BEOMES LARGER THAN THE CAUSE THEy ARE CHAMPIONING THEN THEy THEMSELVES BECOME AN OBSTALE TO THEIR OWN CAUSE" EDDIWHERE 2008. EDDIEWHERE © 2008 Posted By: VoteResponsibly08 @ 02/27/2008 4:45:32 PM Comment: What is Obama going to do when he faces these people??? God Help us all..He does not have the know how and depending on advisers 100% is not my idea of a commander and chief! Do something! media, Press...you have given obama a Free Pass long enough! Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/27/2008 4:27:53 PM Comment: democracies in usa and pakistan, both are in jeopardy in respect of we the people of the nations, superpower or allied nation.both entities must detour to achieve people's wishes entertained. for dr kamal karna roy a small time democratic strategist in efforts to revive themes of equities for all.released by an assistant to dr roy identified by e mail id 2.27. 2008 new york Posted By: Houlbelat @ 02/27/2008 11:16:25 AM Comment: Is it a democracy reborn in Pakistan or sham of the highest order? People in Pakistan voted in favor of Bhutto's party, not for Zardari, who was responsible for her twice ouster from the Premiership due to his shameful dirty roles of Mr.10%. Country's biggest grass root party preaching "Government of the People, by the People, for the People", which was founded on the basic principle of providing them respectable " Bread, Dress and Shelter", was created by Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator. Now, the party is orphaned in a bomb-blast death of his daughter during another military rule. Situation brings forth her rootless spouse, "Mr.Tenpercent Zardari", holding the People's mandate ( at ransom?), for endless exploits. Whatever the words mean, they cannot change the genes. The name "Zardari" literally means "Gold-Lord" and he lives his name literally. He was responsible for legislating and monopolizing gold import into Pakistan (through an Emirates based gold-tycoon of Pakistan origin) on a ridiculous 2% custom duty and made unfathomable ocean of fortune. If the US administration is ready," to let them have their rounds of discussions, still expecting the [Pakistani] Army to take the necessary military action, counting on an interesting transition", then the whole riddle is solved. The ongoing change in Pakistan is not a change of " act" in the drama being staged but, a "change of gear into a powerful all terrain drive", to move forward on the designed road-map, crossing effectively all rugged and bogging tracts en-route. Posted By: engal @ 02/27/2008 3:08:04 AM Comment: Comment:Chinese's a Literature of the YanYuHongChen is very reality for the economy,the Culture,the Education,the Politice ,the Philosophy and the Business,but i expecting who the Leaders in International that will be the best support us and it will be Might spread you and the Literature to the Golabl.' chengchengcheng123@yahoo.cn Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/26/2008 3:06:30 PM Comment: Pakistan's elected leaders must be slow and very effective in democratic gains or the gains couod be reversed by internal forcesalien to ruling coalition in jeopady with foreign interests. jungle democracies have been most powerful mvirus which curbs democratic rights of citizens, that is what history tells us. see also below as relevant. the reverend dr kamal karna karuna roy author of electronic and hard copies publications which may give insights to living beings as known as human_animals may often behave in pure animal conducts to support their polluted rational feelings. interests, vested interests etc etc. rationality vs animality is the tug of war type emements of the living beings all over the Globe: Pakistan leaders be careful in your step ahead. as the powerfuls, nations, superpower or most entities give priorities to their own hidden agendas. native leaders could be in a privileged position to judge events those may cause them favor or pains: pl see below; dreams of freedom for people individual or national may not award any grants from external forces or native rulers, but steadfast demand and actions if orchestrated with pragmatic resolutions may succeed in demands of true liberty of coexistence. quotation from democratic strategist *** republican candidate U s presidential electoral competition 2008 by the rev ms lisa n r alston. 2.26. 2008 new york. Posted By: SAM08 @ 02/26/2008 11:50:41 AM Comment: The people in pakistan should have asked Zardari before woting for him if his going rate of kick backs will still be 15% or will it be more Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/25/2008 8:42:42 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. Posted By: shaista @ 02/25/2008 5:19:05 AM Comment: The newly retired General Musharraf has displayed no intention of leaving office despite his king party losing even after plenty of evidence that he had planned to rig the elections. The caretaker government was anything but neutral and the Election Commission was suspect. But pressure from Washington compelled him to change his plans. Had he still engaged in massive rigging, not only would he have drawn Washington???s ire but also evoked ugly street protests. He knew that if the ???agitators??? caused the country to come to a standstill, the army would distance itself from him. Without their protection, he would not last a day in office. The habitual offender Musharaf this time fail for not carrying out a full pleadge crime of rigging due to international observer existing These people will never be convinced that it is time for the ex-general to go. To them, he is the embodiment of truth, the doer of all good things, and the prince of enlightened moderation without whom Pakistan would return to the Dark Ages. It is time for Musharraf, to wake up and realise that the game is over. Everything Musharraf stood for was repudiated on Feb 18. The electoral results have made it clear, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the people do not wish to see Musharraf holding court on radio and television day in and day out. Aitzaz Ahsan spoke for millions when he said, ???Musharraf is the most hated & loathed man in Pakistan.??? During the last several months, poll after poll showed Musharraf???s popularity plummeting like a lead coin in a bottomless well. But he continued to reject the polls by saying that they only represented the views of a few thousand people and asserted vainly that he was vastly popular in the populous countryside. But even the King???s party was not taken in by the myths spun out by the monarch. It knew that once rigging was no longer an option, its fate was sealed. Why else would they seek to obtain the release of one of the key instigators of the Lal Masjid takeover, Abdul Aziz, just days prior to the vote? This was an obvious ploy designed to play on the religious sympathies of the people and to garner much needed votes. How else could one justify releasing a real and confirmed terrorist from jail while holding the nation???s eminent justices and barristers under house arrest? Musharraf had said not too long ago that he would step down when he saw that the people were no longer with him. He said he was continuing as president only because it was in the national interest. He would rather be playing golf or tennis, he noted, but the situation required him to sacrifice his personal interests. Well, the time has now come for him to do the nation a favour and quit as he is the only evil for this country. Posted By: democratic_reforms @ 02/24/2008 11:12:22 AM Comment: JUNGLE DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN. NO PAKISTANI PREMIER SHOULD ENGAGE IN DIRECT FIGHT WITH PERVEZ MASSAREF TO ENGAGE PAKISTAN AGAIN N VIOLENCES, AND/OR EMMERGENCY. tHIS IS BECAUSE MUSSAREF IS NOT ALONE BUT HE HAS SUPPORT FROM INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POWERBLOCS. A SLOWER APPROACH TO DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION IN PAKISTAN MAY BE MORECORRECT FOR THE TIME SCALES. THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY, A US AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL _ REPUBLICAN HOPEFUL, NEW YORK 2.24.2008 Posted By: Mohdsheikh @ 02/24/2008 12:49:45 AM Comment: Washington's top ranks seem unworried about what the new civilian leaders might decide. The only worry Americans have about the moment to keep up Musharraf in Presidency because Musharraf has amended the constitution in such a way no one else can do any thing without his consent and authority. This is worrisome for the new elected politicians. They know very much the hard fact that they have not been elected on merits, it is the hatred against Musharraf they have en-cashed. Because Musharraf have destroyed the true democrative spirit of the Pakistan???s Constitution by extremely autocratic and extra constitutional way before conducting the general election so that he could do the post election rigging. If those powers are not taken away from the presidency then the politicians will be nothing more than tools in his hands. If the politicians failed to restore highest court judges that will mean they are empty handed. Moreover they won???t be able to face their voters who have sent them Islamabad to clean up the mess and deliver good to them. Mohammad S Sheikh, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan Islamabad - Rawalpindi Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:08:02 AM Comment: My salutations to Dr. Rice for a job well done on the American side. Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:07:07 AM Comment: Hats off to Ms Rice, never in the history of public service t America has so much been freely given. SPONSORED LINKS Pakistani Dating Site 1000's Pakistani's Chatting Join Free! SalaamLove.com Singapore Air to Pakistan Deluxe Flights to Pakistan Best Fare Guarantee! Book A Flight. www.SingaporeAir.com 6.9¢ to Pakistan Long Distance from Cell & Home no PIN, no monthly fee - Try Today www.startec.com/Pakistan Reply Comments: Enter Your Comment Report Abuse Enter comments if any for reporting abuse Comments: Report Abuse Project Green Enterprise Leadership Boomer Files Giving Globally CES Coverage Education INNOVATION Not Made In Japan Christian Caryl Once upon a time, the country was a leader in technology. 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Is this hillary clinton 35 years of experience?? Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her ‘record,’ which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or ‘co-president’ - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes: - As FIRST LADY, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would ‘demonize’ anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn’t even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.) - Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as ‘my worst mistake.’ - Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier’s radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn. - Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign. - Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (“Filegate”) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996, both the drug use and Hillary’s involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years . - In order to open “slots” in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for ‘gross mismanagement’ and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours. - Another of Hillary’s assumed duties was directing the ‘bimbo eruption squad’ and scandal defense: —— She urged her husband not to settle the PAULA JONES lawsuit . —— She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr’s investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. —— Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all. —— And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury —— And Bill was impeached by the House. —— And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, ‘I do not recall,’ ‘I have no recollection,’ and ‘I don’t know’ 56 times under oath). - Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother’s clients, for a small fee, to get financial support. - Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen. - In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the ‘woman card’ by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her. - Hillary’s husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary’s correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.) - As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11. - Hillary’s ONE NOTABLE VOTE; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed. With this kind of a background, the value of “experience” is severely over exaggerated. Maybe she should position herself as the candidate who has learned from her mistakes instead."

whos gonna vote for hillary?? We need to think about the logic of those who would consider, even for a moment, bringing anyone associated with the Clintons back into the White House-----especially Hillary. Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her "record," which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or "co-president" - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes: * As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Pat Moynahan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would "demonize" anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn't even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House a nd Senate.) * Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations (Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood) were forced to withdraw their names from consideration, and then she chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as "my worst mistake." * Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier's radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn. * Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster allegedly committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign. * Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the posi tion of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. (FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996 both the drug use and Hillary' involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.) * In order to open "slots" in the White House for her friends the Harry Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for "gross mismanagement" and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours. * Another of Hillary's assumed duties was directing the "bimbo eruption squad" and scandal defense: ---- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. ---- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. ---- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all. ---- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury ---- And Bill was impeached by the House. ---- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, "I do not recall," "I have no recollection," and "I don't know" 56 times under oath). * Hillary accepted the traditional First Lady's role of decorator of the White House at Christmas, but in a unique Hillary way. In 1994, for example, the First Lady's Tree in the Blue Room (the focal point each year) was decorated with drug paraphernalia, sex toys, and pornographic ornaments, all personally approved by Hillary as the invited artists' depictions of the theme, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." * Hillary wrote "It Takes a Village," demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint. * Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother's clients, for a small fee, to get financial support. * Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen. * In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the "woman card" by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her. * Hillary's husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary's correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.) * As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. she has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11. * Hillary's one notable vote, supporting the plan to invade Iraq , she has since disavowed. Quite a resume`, isn't it? Sounds more like an organized crime family... Sources : http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/04/24/hillarys_experience_is_at_ <http:///??> surviving < http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/04/24/hillarys_experience_is_at_ <http:///??> surviving&g t; < http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/04/24/hillarys <http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DickMorrisandEileenMcGann/2007/04/24/hillarys> =

Obama Vs. Bush. Question for the Bush haters.? George Bush was an idiot. . . . If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and that he is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes? If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky? If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip? If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment? If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is? If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite? If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11? If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence? If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved? If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved? If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved? So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?