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[Guest Aloysius]

Thats a rather misleading quote Alo. After listening to the entire interview, he states that "If he in fact deserted from his unit" he wouldn't mind what the Taliban did to him. This is probably the belief of anyone who served. You don't desert in time of war. IF he did in fact desert, which is unknown. Although, the army says he just "walked off the base camp". Not that he lagged behind in a patrol. I have to see more facts on this. Something isn't right here.

It's not a misleading quote; it's just one that you agree with on an emotional level. And I doubt you actually believe that the soldier shouldn't be rescued. Or that it'd be great if the Taliban killed a soldier suspected of desertion.

[calfoxwc]

That's disgusting to even bring up. We don't know the story about this kid, but regardless,

 

that is a pitiful thing to say.

 

 

 

 

[Mr. T]

545 vs 300,000,000

 

EVERY CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.

 

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

 

 

545 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

 

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

 

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

 

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

 

You and I don't propose a federal budget.. The president does.

 

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

 

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

 

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

 

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

 

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

 

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

 

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

 

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

 

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

 

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

 

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

 

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..

 

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

 

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

 

There are no insoluble government problems.

 

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

 

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

 

They, and they alone, have the power.

 

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

 

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

 

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

 

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

 

What you do with this article now that you have read it.......... Is up to you..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This might be funny if it weren't so darned true.

Be sure to read all the way to the end:

 

Tax his land,

Tax his bed,

Tax the table

At which he's fed.

 

Tax his tractor,

Tax his mule,

Teach him taxes

Are the rule.

 

Tax his work,

Tax his pay,

He works for peanuts

Anyway!

Tax his cow,

Tax his goat,

Tax his pants,

Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,

Tax his shirt,

Tax his work,

Tax his dirt.

 

Tax his tobacco,

Tax his drink,

Tax him if he

Tries to think.

 

Tax his cigars,

Tax his beers,

If he cries

Tax his tears.

 

Tax his car,

Tax his gas,

Find other ways

To tax his ass.

 

Tax all he has

Then let him know

That you won't be done

Till he has no dough.

 

When he screams and hollers;

Then tax him some more,

Tax him till

He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,

Tax his grave,

Tax the sod in

Which he's laid..

 

Put these words

Upon his tomb,

Taxes drove me

to my doom...'

 

When he's gone,

Do not relax,

Its time to apply

The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Dog License Tax

Excise Taxes

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel Permit Tax

Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)

Gross Receipts Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Personal Property Tax

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Service Charge T ax

Social Security Tax

Road Usage Tax

Sales Tax

Recreational Vehicle Tax

School Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone Federal Excise Tax

Telephone Federal Universal Ser vice FeeTax

Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge=2 0Tax

Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax

Telephone State and Local Tax

Telephone Usage Charge Tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft Registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

 

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

 

What in the hell happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

And I still have to 'press 1' for English!?

 

[DieHardBrownsFan]

It's not a misleading quote; it's just one that you agree with on an emotional level. And I doubt you actually believe that the soldier shouldn't be rescued. Or that it'd be great if the Taliban killed a soldier suspected of desertion.

 

Not true Alo. To me the quote is misleading. You make it sound like the retired LCOL wants the guy dead, period. Typical journalistic approach in a headline. Such as the word "denies", insinuates that someone is lying.

[Mr. T]

VIDEO: Congressman Stearns: Mr Paulson How Do You Have Any Credibility?

 

[calfoxwc]

July 22, 2009 | Vol. 4, No. 29

 

 

The Press Conference President Obama Could Give

(Today's Newt Gingrich Letter has been written with Nancy Desmond, CEO of the Center for Health Transformation)

 

Last week, the Federal Reserve made a little noticed, but astonishing announcement. In addition to projecting unemployment over 10% in the coming months, they also projected no net new jobs over the next five years.

 

Let me repeat that to drive the point home: no net new jobs over the next five years.

 

This is an amazing and sober prediction about the health of our economy, one that should make every lawmaker pause and reassess the priorities of government.

 

In this environment, almost every decision for lawmakers should come down to one question: Since small businesses create ¾ of the jobs in America, would this piece of legislation create a better or worse environment for small business job creation?

 

It is in this context that tonight's press conference with President Obama on health reform should be judged.

The Opportunity Buried in the Bad News

Until now, President Obama has more or less allowed Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies in the House to dictate the terms by which health reform would be accomplished.

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Disappointingly, they have chosen an expensive, big-bureaucracy health care plan that would raise taxes on small businesses.

 

The reaction from moderate Democrats, Republicans, health professionals, indeed, from most Americans, has been growing opposition, and despite a massive majority in the House, it looks unlikely today that Speaker Pelosi can coerce this legislation through Congress like she did the energy tax.

 

As a result, President Obama could be stuck tonight trying to defend an indefensible piece of high tax legislation in the middle of a recession with growing unemployment and massive deficits. It's a task that will be even more difficult in the wake of CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf's recent testimony before the Senate Budget Committee that the proposed legislation would actually increase the long term trajectory of federal spending in healthcare.

 

But what if President Obama used the announcement from the Federal Reserve to, in effect, start the health-reform debate over?

 

What if he said tonight, that given the continued trouble of our economy, he is asking Congress to go back to the drawing board to craft a pro-jobs, pro-growth, pro-reform health bill that would gain bipartisan support?

 

What would that bill look like?

A Pro Jobs, Pro Growth Plan for Health Reform

The fact is America desperately needs real change in our health and healthcare system. Americans are paying more and more money for less and less quality care.

 

At the Center for Health Transformation, we have been working for the past six years to develop solutions for the problems in our health care system, which don't rely on higher taxes, bigger government, and more bureaucrats.

 

We believe we can have a system in which every American has access to better health with more choices at lower cost.

 

We believe we can have a system in which the individual and his or her doctor have the knowledge and incentives to make wise choices; a system in which fraud and waste are rooted out, in which quality and best practices (not volume of services) are rewarded and in which prevention, health and wellness are central.

 

And most importantly in today's troubled economy, we believe we can have a system that will also be central to job creation and to America's economic recovery.

Six Straightforward Steps to Better Healthcare

To create a system that delivers more choices of higher quality health care at lower cost we need to take the following six straightforward steps:

Stop Paying the Crooks. First, we must dramatically reduce healthcare fraud within our current healthcare system. Outright fraud - criminal activity - accounts for as much as 10 percent of all healthcare spending. That is more than $200 billion every year. Medicare alone could account for as much as $40 billion a year. (Please visit HealthTransformation.net for the information about our latest CHT Press book, Stop Paying the Crooks, edited by Jim Frogue.)

 

 

Move from a Paper-based to an Electronic Health System. As it stands now, it is simply impossible to keep up with fraud in a paper-based system. An electronic system would free tens of billions of dollars to be spent on investing on the kind of modern system that will transform healthcare. In addition, it would dramatically increase our ability to eliminate costly medical errors and to accelerate the adoption of new solutions and breakthroughs.

 

 

Tax Reform. The savings realized through very deliberately and very systematically eliminating fraud could be used to provide tax incentives and vouchers that would help cover those Americans who currently can't afford coverage. In addition, we need to expand tax incentives for insurance provided by small employers and the self-employed. Finally, elimination of capital gains taxes for investments in health-solution companies can greatly impact the creation advancement of new solutions that create better health at lower cost.

 

 

Create a Health-Based Health System. In essence, we must create a system that focuses on improving individual health. The best way to accomplish this is to find out what solutions are actually working today that save lives and save money and then design public policy to encourage their widespread adoption. For example, according to the Dartmouth Health Atlas, if the 6,000 hospitals in the country provided the same standard of care of the Intermountain or Mayo health clinics, Medicare alone would save 30 percent of total spending every year. We need to make best practices the minimum practice. We need the federal government and other healthcare stakeholders to consistently migrate to best practices that ensure quality, safety and better outcomes.

 

 

Reform Our Health Justice System. Currently, the U.S. civil justice system is the most expensive in the world-about double the average cost in virtually every other industrialized nation. But for all of the money spent, our civil justice system neither effectively compensates persons injured from medical negligence nor encourages the elimination of medical errors. Because physicians fear malpractice suits, defensive medicine (redundant, wasteful treatment designed to avoid lawsuits, not treat the patient) has become pervasive. CHT is developing a number of bold health-justice reforms including a "safe harbor" for physicians who followed clinical best practices in the treatment of a patient. You can learn more at HealthTransformation.net.

 

 

Invest in Scientific Research and Breakthroughs. We must accelerate and focus national efforts, re-engineer care delivery, and ultimately prevent diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease and diabetes which are financially crippling our healthcare system.

The Last Thing We Need is a Plan That Raises Taxes and Eliminates Jobs

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Clearly, the last thing America needs is more taxes on job producers, whether it is in the form of a national energy tax, automatic tax increases in 2010 when the 2003 tax relief measures expire, or a healthcare plan that will raise taxes, eliminate jobs, and allows Washington bureaucrats to make decisions that ought to be made by individual Americans together with their families and doctors.

 

President Obama has a choice tonight, as does America.

 

We can make health and healthcare into a major source of job creation, economic revival, and improved health and well-being for every American.

 

Or we can make it into a government-run system that will destroy our economy along with our health.

 

To learn more about our plan for reforming health without raising taxes, eliminating jobs or raising the deficit, please visit HealthTransformation.net.

 

 

Your friends,

 

Newt Gingrich and Nancy Desmond

 

 

 

 

[Mr. T]

Lawmakers Express Outrage at ‘Potential’ $23.7-Trillion Liability Bank Bailout Law Could Impose on Taxpayers

 

Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) called it a “brave new world.” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) called it “one fraud after another.” Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) said the corporate bailout was being run as a “don’t ask, don’t tell program,” and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) made biblical references. A bipartisan group of lawmakers were mystified Tuesday at how what began as the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) could potentially reach a liability of $23.7 trillion for U.S. taxpayers--compared to the U.S. gross domestic product of $14 trillion.

 

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general of the TARP program, testified Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the same day his office’s TARP quarterly report was released, which showed the potential escalating cost of the program. “Your report really demonstrates that we have entered into a very, very scary territory, a brave new world where Washington decides what happens on Wall Street and Main Street, and hopefully sometime in the future, we can find a way to have an exit strategy,” Bilbray said.

 

Barofsky was sure to state that the $23.7 trillion figure was “the total potential government support,” a worst case scenario of sorts under the current structure. “The speculation is if every one of these programs is fully subscribed to, that is the total commitment of guarantees,” Barofsky told the panel. Rep. Dan Burton (R-In.) remarked, “If even half of that is correct, we’ve got a big problem.”

 

Barofsky stressed that the amount currently outstanding is closer to $3 trillion. Of the original $700 billion in TARP funds approved by Congress and President George W. Bush, $643.1 billion have been allotted to 12 different programs, while a total of $441 billion has been spent. The actual bulk comes from loan programs through the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). “But when you add up all of the different programs, including the ones that are paid back, including ones that may have been cancelled, including collateral programs, the total amount of support, which is what we are trying to capture is, does total $23.7 trillion,” Barofsky said.

 

Documents obtained by FOXNews.com showed that the $23.7 trillion covers total estimated exposure of the government in dealing with the financial crisis and specifically some 50 “initiatives or programs” created by myriad federal agencies in dealing with the crisis, reported The New York Post. However, Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams called the figure “inflated” and said the estimate “does not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs,” the Associated Press reported.

 

Issa, the committee’s ranking Republican, said the $23.7 trillion figure was “about 30 times what you would have if you gave away $1 million a year from the birth of Christ until today--just for somebody to try to figure out if that’s true or not.”

 

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/arti...px?RsrcID=51375

[calfoxwc]

I bought a new FORD F-150 and returned to the dealer yesterday, because I couldn't get the radio to work. The salesman explained that the radio was voice activated by Microsoft Sync.

 

'Nelson,' the salesman said to the radio. The radio replied, 'Ricky or Willie?''Willie!' he continued and 'On The Road Again' came from the speakers. Then he said, 'Ray Charles!', and in an instant ' Georgia On My Mind' replaced Willie Nelson.

 

I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I'd say, 'Beethoven,' I'd get beautiful classical music, and if I said, 'Beatles,' I'd get one of their awesome songs.

 

Yesterday, some illegal Mexicans ran a red light and nearly creamed my new truck, but I swerved in time to avoid them. I yelled, 'Ass Holes!' Immediately the Iranian National Anthem began to play, sung by Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand backed up by The Dixie Chicks, with John Kerry on guitar, Al Gore on drums, Dan Rather on harmonica, Nancy Pelosi on tambourine, Harry Reid on spoons, Bill Clinton on sax, Ted Kennedy on Scotch, and Barack Obama on teleprompter.

 

Dang, I LOVE this truck!

[Mr. T]

Apologists for evil

 

[calfoxwc]

 

Who's in "disarray more, Reps

 

The Waxman-Pelosi Follies

<H2 class=subhead>Democrats should be asking: What would Big John do?</H2>

• By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

If anyone might have the right to revel in a bit of health-care schadenfreude, it’s John Dingell. Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman ought to feel lucky he’s foregone the pleasure. The Michigan Democrat, at least until last year, presided over the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. As such, Mr. Dingell, the House’s longest-serving dealmaker, was positioned to be point man for President Barack Obama’s health-care and climate priorities.

 

Was. Weary of Mr. Dingell’s slow pace, and impatient with his attempts to unite diverse committee Democrats around legislation, within weeks of November’s election Speaker Pelosi made her move, enlisting some home-town muscle. Fellow California liberal Henry Waxman challenged Mr. Dingell to his chairmanship, and with Mrs. Pelosi’s support, dethroned him. The speaker has been reaping her whirlwind ever since.

 

The measure of Mrs. Pelosi’s leadership was always going to be her ability to manage an unruly caucus. She was an architect of that diversity, rounding up an unprecedented crew of conservative Democrats to pick off vulnerable GOP seats in 2006 and 2008. These “majority makers” sat uneasily with her liberal wing and her own ideological inclinations, but Mrs. Pelosi initially proved herself savvy. The House Democrats’ debut “Six in ‘06” agenda—minimum wage hikes, cheaper student loans and the like—was carefully crafted to present a united Democratic front.

 

View Full Image

 

Chad Crowe That restraint has gradually given way to Mrs. Pelosi’s more radical ambitions, and Mr. Waxman enlisted to see that agenda through. He has certainly fulfilled Mrs. Pelosi’s hope that he be the anti-Dingell. And the result of his purist, knuckle-cracking style is that House Democrats flood to recess today on a wave of division, confusion and dismal headlines. “Henry Waxman has been our greatest gift,” chortles one House GOP aide. If Mr. Obama ultimately fails in his top ambitions, he should know early whom to thank.

 

On the conservative side of the equation, Mr. Waxman has unrelentingly antagonized the rural Democratic members who make up the majority of his committee. He wrote a climate bill without their input, loaded it with provisions that hurt their districts, and left them to vote on Republican amendments designed to inflict maximum political damage.

 

He ignored requests to wait to see if the Senate could produce, instead forcing a painful floor vote on legislation prior to the July Fourth recess. Members went home to be brutalized by constituents and local employers.

 

This high-handed treatment already had Blue Dogs loaded for bear, not that Mr. Waxman heeded warnings. When he again ducked into secret meetings to craft health-care legislation, a group of 45 members sent a letter complaining. “We don’t want a briefing on the bill after it’s written. We want to help write it,” declared Arkansas’s Mike Ross, chair of the Blue Dog health-care task force. Rebuffed, conservative Democrats delineated for Mr. Waxman what they saw as an acceptable bill. Rebuffed again, they asked Mr. Waxman to let the Senate go first. Rebuffed yet again, Mr. Ross took his case to the nation, with a revolt that has beat down the House bill for weeks.

 

Mr. Waxman’s subsequent negotiations with these members—in which he reportedly showed little concern for the political challenges of anyone outside of Los Angeles—made matters worse. Blue Dogs stormed out of one session, with Louisiana’s Charlie Melancon bellowing: “I’ve been lied to. We have not had legitimate negotiations.” Mr. Waxman, for his part, declared he was “not going to let [blue Dogs] empower Republicans to control the committee.”

 

By this week, Hill newspapers were reporting on an increasingly prominent presence in the Waxman negotiations: John Dingell.

 

“These guys gotta fight to stay,” explained Mr. Dingell of the Blue Dogs, after one such peacemaking session. “They can warn us about pitfalls that we, in our arrogance, may not see. Their concerns are legitimate.” He refrained from adding: “Duh.”

 

On the liberal side of the equation, Mr. Waxman’s committee ownership has meanwhile potentially set expectations too high to be reconciled with Blue Dog demands. The Californian’s “breakthrough” with Mr. Ross this week (achieved with Mr. Dingell’s help) contained only minuscule concessions, yet set off a riot on the left.

 

Within a few hours of his Blue Dog deal, Mr. Waxman had to postpone markup again as his furious fellow “progressives” accused Blue Dogs of hijacking their bill. His “deal,” in fact, leaves just enough scary stuff in the legislation to allow Blue Dogs to get smacked around all August, while taking just enough out to ensure the base reaches fever pitch by September.

 

The Waxman-Pelosi strategy has also reverberated beyond the House. The hammering that House Democrats received on cap-and-trade has only further discouraged senators from tackling that legislation. Mr. Obama has felt compelled to say nice things about this early House product, tying the White House to reckless legislation, and further raising the left’s hopes.

 

Mr. Waxman and Mrs. Pelosi head into recess with one comatose climate bill and one wounded health-care project. Now comes the long hot summer month where the nation gets to think about this some more. If the speaker wants to make use of her vacation, she could always get on the phone to Michigan. Mr. Dingell might have some advice.

 

 

[calfoxwc]

UPDATE 2-Venezuela begins shutdown of 34 radio stations

Sat Aug 1, 2009 7:45pm EDT

 

Market News

 

Chavez says stations no longer belong to 'bourgeoisie'

 

* Calls closures part of effort to democratize airwaves

 

* Critics say the move attacks freedom of speech (Adds Chavez comment)

 

By Raymond Colitt and Ana Isabel Martinez

 

CARACAS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - More than a dozen of 34 radio stations ordered shut by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday, part of President Hugo Chavez's drive to extend his socialist revolution to the media.

 

The association of radio broadcasters said 13 stations had stopped transmitting, following an announcement Friday night by government broadcasting watchdog Conatel that 34 radio outlets would be closed because they failed to comply with regulations.

 

Critics said the crackdown infringed on freedom of speech and that owners were not given the right to a proper defense.

 

"They're closing the space for dissidents in Venezuela," William Echeverria, head of the National Council of Journalists, told RCTV, a private cable TV station, which did not have its broadcasting license renewed in 2007.

 

Chavez defended the closures, calling them part of the government's effort to democratize the airwaves.

 

"We haven't closed any radio stations, we've applied the law," Chavez said on state television. "We've recovered a bunch of stations that were outside the law, that now belong to the people and not the bourgeoisie."

 

Chavez supporters say they are waging a "media war" against private news companies and have denounced in recent days what they say is a renewed offensive by privately owned domestic and international media to discredit Venezuela.

 

Diosdado Cabello, the public works minister who also oversees Conatel, said some of the radio stations were shut because they did not have their broadcasting licenses renewed and others transferred them illegally to new owners.

 

Conatel delivered an order to CNB radio in Caracas before dawn for its five stations to stop transmitting by 8 a.m., the station said on its website.

 

At CNB's headquarters in downtown Caracas, hundreds of CNB employees and government critics gathered to protest the shutdown. Some later marched to Conatel.

 

CNB said it would continue to broadcast on its Internet site, www.cnb.com.ve.

 

'MUTILATOR OF RIGHTS'

 

"This government has turned into a mutilator of rights," Juan Carlos Caldera, of the opposition political party Primero Justicia, said on Globovision TV.

 

Antonio Ledezma, the opposition mayor of Caracas, called on Venezuelans to protest the move in the streets.

 

One of the stations to cease operations was Radio Bonita 1520 AM in the city of Guatire, 25 miles (40 km) from Caracas.

 

"Fifteen years after my father died, they tell me (broadcasting) licenses can't be inherited, we're shocked," Felix Ali Obelmejia, director of Radio Bonita, told Globovision.

 

Another 120 radio stations were being investigated for administrative irregularities and the radio frequency of stations being shut down would be transferred to new community broadcasters, Cabello had said.

 

Venezuela's attorney general presented this week draft legislation that would establish prison sentences for anyone who provides false information that harms the interests of the state. Rights groups harshly criticized the proposal.

 

As part of his drive to remake Venezuela as a socialist country, Chavez has vastly expanded the number of publicly owned television and radio stations since he took office in 1999. Some are directly owned or financed by the government, while others are operated by cooperatives and community groups.

 

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

 

 

[calfoxwc]

GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona . She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership:

 

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues a re that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

 

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

 

 

 

 

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

 

 

 

 

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

 

 

 

 

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

 

 

 

 

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

 

 

 

 

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

 

 

 

 

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

 

 

 

 

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

 

 

 

 

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

 

 

 

 

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

 

 

 

 

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

 

 

 

 

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

 

 

 

 

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.

 

Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business s of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

 

 

 

 

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

 

 

 

 

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

 

 

 

 

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

 

 

 

 

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

 

 

[Guest mz.]

We the people are coming.

 

Now that's just gross, cal.

 

[calfoxwc]

Dear Fellow Conservative,

 

Now that Barack Obama has gotten GM Chairman Rick Wagoner out of the way, he is confident that GM is on the way to unimaginable success. The government has given GM and Chrysler $65.1 billion in bailout money, which is only appropriate.

 

I mean, "millions" is so 90's...

 

To promote the sales of GM vehicles, Obama says it will be the government that will now stand by your GM car warranty. And the taxpayers all get a lube job. Your future GM owner's manual will come with a disclaimer: "Close enough for government work."

 

I don't know why everyone is so upset about the government taking over a major American car company. They've done a great job with social security. I mean, haven't they? Taking over GM and Chrysler is American as baseball, apple pie and Mussolini.

 

But the Manchurian Teleprompter IS "UPBEAT ABOUT GM'S FUTURE" as a recent New York Times headline declared.

 

As soon as I read the headline, I rushed to the financial pages. There I learned GM had just been kicked off the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Yikes! Picture the New York Yankees playing so badly they were demoted to Little League status.

 

That doesn't sound so good. Also, I discovered GM's share price was listed as N/A. Not applicable. Sounds to me like -- "price so low it can't be measured."

 

Ah, but the Times says Team Obama has a plan. GM's new chairman, Barack Obama, has demanded that GM focus on more green technology. Another nice feature is that instead of an airbag, your GM car will come with a Joe Biden. Thank you, and drive safely...

 

So the plan is: The "New GM" is going to persuade presumably sane Americans that a bankrupt Detroit automaker run by union hacks and government bureaucrats will make little, dinky, green cars better and cheaper than Toyota, Nissan, and KIA already make little, dinky, green cars.

 

Believe that?

 

I have a better idea. Be really smart and follow the investing advice of someone who actually understands that America is a free-enterprise democracy... and knows how to protect your money while Team Obama tries to dismantle the greatest economic powerhouse in world history.

 

I refer to Mark Skousen, Ph.D., a man who for 29 years has helped subscribers to his Forecasts & Strategies newsletter build wealth -- through the crash of 1987, the boom years of the 1990s, the bursting of the Internet "bubble" in 2000, and the Crash of 2008. Dr. Skousen has seen it all, done it all, and witnessed what happened when a previous U.S. president tried his best to kill capitalism and wreck the country.

 

Back then the "Dismantler-in-Chief" was Jimmy Carter. In the 1970s, "Smilin' Jimmy" complained about our "inordinate fear of communism" -- and carried his own suit bag to show what a regular guy he was. He also gave us economic stagnation, hyperinflation, stock-market disintegration, and the contempt of the Soviet Union, Iran, and every other democracy-hating dictatorship on earth.

 

Obama makes Carter look like Ronald Reagan. He's apologized for America to so many countries that the only ones left on the remorse-tour are Cuba and North Korea. (Wait for it!) Obama is spending so much, so fast, that the inflationary havoc he'll cause is going to make the Carter years look like a golden age. "Malaise" will be an improvement over what's coming.

[Mr. T]

Junk food dummies: How bingeing on burgers and chips can drain your brainpower -- if you are a rat

This generalization from rats has a number of problems. The rats were fed a VERY high fat diet and fat is probably not a large part of a normal rat diet anyway. They would not have good adaptation to it. So once again poor generalizability from rodent studies to humans can be expected

 

Eating too much fast food will make you thicker in more ways than one, according to a study. As well as expanding the waistline, a high-fat diet of curries, kebabs, burgers and chips can make you less intelligent. The research was performed by scientists at Oxford University on rats. A high-fat diet over less than ten days damaged the rodents’ short-term memory and made them less mentally alert, as well as significantly decreasing their ability to exercise.

 

The group of biological experts say their results – dubbed a ‘high-fat hangover’ – show an important link between what people eat, how they think, and how our bodies perform.

 

Andrew Murray, co-author of the study, said: ‘Western diets are typically high in fat and are associated with long-term complications such as obesity, diabetes, and heart failure yet the short-term consequences of such diets have been given relatively little attention. ‘We hope that the findings of our study will help people to think seriously about reducing the fat content of their daily food intake to the immediate benefit of their general health, well-being and alertness.’

 

The research team studied rats fed a lowfat diet, comprising just 7.5 per cent of calories as fat, and compared them with rats fed a high-fat junk food diet, typically 55 per cent of calories as fat. They discovered that after just four days the muscles of the rats eating the high-fat diet were less able to use oxygen to make the energy needed to exercise, causing their hearts to work harder and increase in size. After nine days on a high-fat diet, the rats took longer to complete a maze and made more mistakes in the process than their low-fat-diet counterparts. The number of correct decisions before making a mistake dropped from over six to an average of five to 5.5.

 

The low-fat rats were also running 50 per cent further by this stage than their fatter and ‘thicker’ counterparts.

 

Researchers then investigated the cellular causes of these problems, particularly in muscle cells. They found increased levels of a protein called uncoupling protein 3, which made the cells less efficient at using oxygen to make the energy required for running.

 

The findings are published by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology. Dr Gerald Weissmann, editor of the journal, said: ‘It’s nothing short of a high-fat hangover.’

 

The research funded by the British Heart Foundation may have implications for athletes looking for the best diet for training and patients with metabolic disorders. The scientists are now studying the effect of a short-term high-fat diet on humans.

 

SOURCE

[calfoxwc]

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C.., Albany, New York, and Dakar, Senegal.. He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

 

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University. Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.

 

Dr. David Kaiser

 

 

History Unfolding

 

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

 

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

 

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

 

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

 

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?

 

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity.. Why?

 

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

 

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

 

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

 

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

 

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

 

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

 

And that is only the beginning..

 

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory.. Conservative "losers" read it right now.

 

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think.. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

 

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

 

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.

 

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

 

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

 

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

 

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.

 

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

 

David Kaiser

Jamestown, Rhode Island

United States

[Mr. T]

YOU MUST KNOW #77

 

 

Being the responsible telephone company employee that I am, I always feel like I should set the record straight on this topic.

 

#77 does contact police in some states, but it is far from universal, and it depends on the phone company serving the area. Some use *55, *47, *77, etc, and some use no code at all.

 

Your best bet everywhere is to simply dial 911 if you think you are in danger - that works everywhere.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/fakecop.asp

 

YOU MUST KNOW #77

 

I knew about the red light on cars,

but not the #77 It was about 1:00

p.m in the afternoon, and Lauren

was driving to visit a friend. An

=0 A

UNMARKED police car pulled up

behind her and put his lights on.

Lauren's parents have always told

her never to pull over for an

unmarked car on the side of the

road, but rather to wait until they

get to a gas station, etc.

 

 

Lauren had actually listened to her

parents advice, and promptly called

#77 on her cell phone to tell the

police dispatcher that she would not

pull over right away. She proceeded

to tell the dispatcher that there was

an unmarked police car with a

< /div>

flashing red light on his rooftop

behind her.. The dispatcher checked

to see if there were police cars

where she was and there weren't,

he told her to keep driving, remain

calm and that he had back up

already on the way.

 

 

Ten minutes later 4 cop cars

surrounded her and the unmarked

car behind her. One policeman went

< div>to her side and the others

surrounded the car behind. They

pulled the guy from the car and

tackled him to the ground. The man

was a convicted rapist and wanted

for other crimes.

 

 

I never knew about the #77 Cell

Phone Feature, but especially for a

woman alone in a car, you should

not pull over for an unmarked car.

Apparently police have to respect

your right to keep going to a safe

quiet place. You obviously need

to make some signals that you

acknowledge them, i.e. put on your

hazard lights & call #77 as Lauren

did

 

 

Too bad the cell ph one companies

don't generally give you this little bit

of wonderful information.

 

 

Speaking to a service representative

at Bell Mobility confirmed that #77

was a direct link to State trooper

info. So, now it's your turn to let

your friends know about #77.

 

 

Send this to every woman (and

person) you know; it may save a life.This applies to ALL 50 states..

[Mr. T]

Senator Nancy Pelosi Exercise Video - Sweatin to the Tax dollar!

[Mr. T]

To heck with what they tell us, what the stock market is doing, what housing is doing, what employment is doing. This is a real example of what is going on! One of my best buddies has been traveling to Malaysia and has been there 3 times in the last couple of months and is going back this week. He has seen this and it is real.

Will

 

 

 

 

Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession

 

 

 

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore . It is is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year.

 

 

 

Full Story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/ar...-recession.html

 

[Mr. T]

The US Dollar on the slide

 

[calfoxwc]

Written by an Australian Dentist

To Kill an American

You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

'An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish , Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian , or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion.... For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return........

 

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

 

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan ... The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America

 

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11 , 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists. <I> So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo , and Stalin , and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself . Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

<IMG id=ecx_x0000_i1025 width=1 height=1>

</I>

[Mr. T]

 

 

Obama's Sudden Infant Syndrome

[CoachShmaltz]

brad thor

[calfoxwc]

Yeah. These scientists must be just like me, you know, not educated not very intelligent.

 

yeah. Betcha Al and Shep would like to read this:

 

*******************************************

Scientists Counter AP Article Promoting Computer Model Climate Fears September 24, 2007

Scientists Counter AP Article Promoting Computer Model Climate Fears

Posted By Marc Morano – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov 9:55 AM ET

 

Nearly two dozen prominent scientists from around the world have denounced a recent Associated Press article promoting sea level fears in the year 2100 and beyond based on unproven computer models predictions. The AP article also has been accused of mischaracterizing the views of a leading skeptic of man-made global warming fears. The scientists are dismissing the AP article, entitled “Rising Seas Likely to Flood U.S. History” (LINK) as a “scare tactic,” “sheer speculation,” and “hype of the worst order.” (H/T: Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters.org - LINK)

 

Dr. Richard S. Courtney, a climate and atmospheric science consultant and a UN IPCC expert reviewer ridiculed the AP article.

 

“Rarely have I read such a collection of unsubstantiated and scare-mongering twaddle. Not only do real studies show no increase to rate of sea level change, the [AP] article gives reasons for concern that are nonsense,” Courtney told Inhofe EPW Press Blog on September 23.

 

UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand slammed the article as well:

 

“This [AP article] is a typical scare story based on no evidence or facts, but only on the ‘opinions’ and ‘beliefs’ of ‘experts’, all of whom have a financial interest in the promotion of their computer models,” Gray wrote to the Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

Swedish Professor Wibjorn Karlen of the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Stockholm University: “Another of these hysterical views of our climate,” Karlen wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog regarding the AP article. "Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate,” Karlen explained.

 

The September 22, 2007 Associated Press article promoting future computer generated climate fears, appears just days before a high profile UN climate summit in New York City this week. The AP’s Seth Borenstein has a history of promoting unverifiable climate fears of the future (See: “AP Incorrectly claims scientists praise Gore’s movie” from June 2006 – LINK )

 

This AP report comes at a time when the peer-reviewed science is continuing to debunk the foundation of man-made climate change fears. (See "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears" (LINK)

 

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, stated that the AP mischaracterized his views on sea level in the article promoting climate fears a hundred years from now.

 

“[My] discussion [with the AP reporter Seth Borenstein] was primarily about the storm surges which come from hurricanes - that's the real vulnerability. The sea level is rising around 1 inch per decade, but sea level is like any other climate parameter - its either rising or falling all the time. To me, 16 inches per century is not a significant problem to deal with. But since storm surges of 15 to 30 feet occur in 6 hours, any preventive strategy, like an extra 3 feet of elevation, would be helpful,” Christy wrote to the Inhofe EPW Press blog.

 

“Thinking that legislation can change sea level is hubris. I did a calculation on what 1000 new nuclear power plants operating by 2020 would do for the IPCC best guess in the year 2100. The answer is 1.4 cm – about half an inch (if you accept the IPCC projection A1B for the base case.) Also, there doesn't seem to be any acceleration of the slow trend,” Christy explained.

 

Borenstein's AP article stated: “Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting. In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.”

 

Borenstein, who only quotes six scientists in the article, of which only one can be labeled a climate skeptic, uses the generic phrase “several leading scientists say." [EPW Blog Note: This blog report alone quotes nearly two dozen climate experts countering the AP’s “report” on sea level]

 

Borenstein’s article also claims alarming sea levels “will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation.”

 

“Storm surges worsened by sea level rise will flood the waterfront getaways of rich politicians—the Bushes' Kennebunkport and John Edwards' place on the Outer Banks. And gone will be many of the beaches in Texas and Florida favored by budget-conscious students on Spring Break,” Borenstein’s AP article continued.

 

But prominent scientists are speaking out and denouncing the article a mere hours after its publication.

 

Here is a sampling of scientists’ reaction to the AP story:

 

State of Florida Climatologist Dr. Jim O'Brien of Florida State University countered the AP article.

 

“The best measurements of sea level rise are from satellite instrument called altimeters. Currently they measure 14 inches in 100 years. Everyone agrees that there is no acceleration. Even the UN IPCC quotes this,” O’Brien wrote to EPW on September 23. O’Brien is also the director of the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies.

 

“If you increase the rate of rise by four times, it will take 146 years to rise to five feet. Sea level rise is the ‘scare tactic’ for these guys,” O’Brien added.

 

Climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990:

 

The IPCC never makes ‘predictions’, only ‘projections’; what might happen, or be 'likely" if you believe the assumptions in the model. No computer model has ever been shown to be capable of successful prediction,” Gray wrote to the Inhofe EPW Press Blog on September 23.

 

“Actual data on sea levels are unreliable. Long term figures are based on tide-gauge measurements near port cities prone to subsidence and damage of equipment from severe weather. Many recent and more reliable measurements show little recent change. Satellite measurements have shown a recent rise which may be temporary,” Gray added.

 

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, a retired Senior Research Scientist and Coordinator for national international marine geological research at the Geological Survey of Finland:

 

“Even the worst case scenario is half of that quoted by Associated Press. This is a hype of the worst order. This whole scare builds on GCM's which we know mimic Earth processes very simplistically and are thus most unreliable,” Winterhalter told Inhofe EPW Press Blog on September 23.

 

“I, as a marine geologist, am abhorred. I just looked at the USGS (US Geological Survey) site and am astonished that none of the references or fact sheets seem to refer to IPCC Fourth Assessment Report released this spring,” Winterhalter added.

 

Prominent scientist Professor Nils-Axel Morner, declared "the rapid rise in sea levels predicted by computer models simply cannot happen." Morner, a leading world authority on sea levels and coastal erosion who headed the Department of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics at Stockholm University, called the AP story "propaganda." "The AP article must be regarded as an untenable horror scenario not based in observational facts," Morner told Inhofe EPW Press Blog, “Sea level will not rise by 1 m in 100 years. This is not even possible. Storm surges are in no way intensified at a sea level rise. Sea level was not at all rising 'a third of a meter in the last century': only some 10 cm from 1850 to 1940,” he wrote.

 

Morner previously noted on August 6, 2007: "When we were coming out of the last ice age, huge ice sheets were melting rapidly and the sea level rose at an average of one meter per century. If the Greenland ice sheet stated to melt at the same rate - which is unlikely - sea level would rise by less than 100 mm - 4 inches per century." Morner, who was president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution from 1999 to 2003, has published a new booklet entitled "The Greatest Lie Ever Told," to refute claims of catastrophic sea level rise. (LINK)

 

Dr. Richard S. Courtney, a climate and atmospheric science consultant and a UN IPCC expert reviewer:

 

“Global sea level has been rising for the 10,000 years since the last ice age, and no significant change to the rate of sea level rise has been observed recently,” Courtney wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog on September 23.

 

"A continuing rise of ~2 mm/year for the next 100 years would raise sea level by ~0.2 m as it did during the twentieth century. And it is hard to see any justification for Andrew Weaver's claim (as quoted by AP) that ‘We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it, unless Weaver is talking about the next 500 years,” Courtney wrote.

 

“Simply, there is no reason to suppose that sea level rise will be more of a problem in this century than it was in the last century or each of the previous ten centuries,” he concluded.

 

Geophysicist Dr. David Deming of University of Oklahoma.

 

“Projections of sea-level rise are based on projections of future warming, fifty or a hundred years hence. And these projections are based on speculative computer models that have numerous uncertainties,” Deming wrote in a September 23, e-mail to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“These models cannot even be tested; their validity is completely unknown. In short, predictions of future sea-level rise are nothing but sheer speculation,” Deming added.

 

Swedish Professor Wibjorn Karlen of the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Stockholm University:

 

“I have used the NASA temperature data for a study of several major areas. As far as I can see the IPCC “Global Temperature” is wrong. Temperature is fluctuating but it is still most places cooler than in the 1930s and 1940s," Karlen wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog regarding the AP article.

 

“The latest estimates of sea level rise are 1.31 mm/year. With this water level increase it will take about 800 years before the water level has increased by 1 m if not conditions change before that (very likely). Society will looks very different at that time,” he added.

 

Emmy Nominated Meteorologist Art Horn says AP loves ‘a scary story’

 

“Fearless forecasts from people who likely have never made real time, real world predictions. We who have worked in the real world of everyday weather forecasting for decades understand what it's like to be burned, even when you felt the forecast was a lock. I'm of the belief that most if not all of these predictions come from people who don't know much about the nature of prediction,” Horn wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog the day after the AP article was published.

 

“Working with computer models that don't even start with a climate remotely similar to the real world can't give you results that are in any way close to useful. But the AP and all news organizations love a scary story. I know, I worked as a TV meteorologist for 25 years. If it will generate a buzz they will run with it,” Horn explained.

 

“Making predictions about how much sea level will rise helps to insure the money train will continue. There will be people in seats of power that will continue to feed money to universities, research facilities and people like [NASA’s] James Hansen.

 

Greenpeace co-founder ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore noted the AP article was way off base from even the UN IPCC predictions.

 

“The IPCC predicts 18 - 59 cm, i.e. their high end is about half predicted in the AP story, and the AP story warns of a possible three meters,” Moore told Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“The sea was 400 feet (130 meters) lower than today at the peak of the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago. This is an average of 72 cm/100 years. Most of this occurred between 18,000 and 6,000 years ago so there were periods when the sea rose more that 1 meter per 100 years,” Moore concluded.

 

Former Harvard physicist Dr. Lubos Motl:

 

“There's no good reason to expect more than 3 millimeters per year in average. It's been really 1.5 mm in the last 50 years, and 2 mm per year in 1900-1950. The rate has actually slowed down according to some papers,” Motl wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“Any model that predicts significant acceleration [of sea level] with growing CO2 is falsified or nearly falsified by the observed data. It's crazy to think that this slow gradual rise is anything that would justify any actions besides the houses that have to be either moved or protected on the centennial scale,” he added.

 

“Any calculation that wants to indicate that the effects of sea level rise are a significant portion of the life or the economy is simply a miscalculation,” he concluded.

 

Chemist and agronomist Paavo Siitam:

 

“Despite some doom and gloom predictions, excluding waves washing onto shores by relatively rarely occurring tsunamis and storm-surges, low-lying areas on the face of our planet have NOT yet been submerged by rising oceans... so probably low-lying areas along shorelines of Canada and the USA will be SAFE into foreseeable and even distant futures,” Siitam wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“By the way, I'd be happy to buy prized oceanfront properties at bargain prices, anywhere in the world, when unwarranted, panic selling begins. The dire predictions will not come true this century,” he added.

 

IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Dr. Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist:

 

“I cannot help but conclude that this is one more example of scare-mongering by some very reputed scientists in the atmosphere/ocean science. I am disappointed to find that none of these scientists seem to want to refer to the excellent work of Prof Morner of Stockholm University who was the President of the INQUA commission for Maldive Islands SLR and who has discounted & dismissed the Maldive Islands 'disappearing' in ONE hundred years or even earlier according to some scare-mongerers!” Khandekar wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“Besides Prof Morner's excellent studies, the scientists named in the news story seem to have ignored another well-documented study by Simon Holgate , an oceanographer in UK, whose paper in GRL( Geophysical Research Letters, 2007) has analyzed nine long sea-level records from 1903-2003 and the study finds that the SLR from 1953-2003 was about 1.5 mm/yr while the SLR from 1903-1953 was about 2 mm/yr, so there is NO ESCALATING sea level rise at present,” Khandekar explained.

 

“If the earth's climate enters into a mini ice age by 2035-2040 as several solar scientists are suggesting now, we may NOT even see half the sea level rise as quoted above,” he added.

 

Atmospheric physicist Dr. Fred Singer:

 

“The key to Borenstein’s story is the first very word: 'Ultimately.' Yes -- with sea level continuing to rise at the rate of about seven inches per century (as it has in past centuries), Florida will be flooded in a few 1000 years,” Singer, co-author of “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years,” wrote.

 

Singer added sea levels will rise “unless a new ice age begins sooner -- lowering sea level -- as ocean water turns into continental ice sheets.”

 

Dr. Art Robinson of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine:

 

“Long term temperature data suggest that the current - entirely natural and not man made - temperature rise of about 0.5 degrees C per century could continue for another 200 years. Therefore, the best data available leads to an extrapolated value of about 1 foot of rise during the next two centuries,” Robinson explained to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

”There is no scientific basis upon which to guess that the rise will be less or will be more than this value. Such a long extrapolation over two centuries is likely to be significantly in error - but it is the only extrapolation that can be made with current data. There may be no sea level rise at all. No one knows,” he added. Accuweather chief meteorologist Joe Bastardi, who specializes in long-range forecasts, slammed the AP article for being offering up "a series of anything can happen and probably will statements."

 

“As someone who competes in the private sector and gets fired if my forecasts are not supply enough merit to be right enough for clients to benefit, I would welcome the kind of padding one has in making such outrageous long range forecasts that no one still alive will be able to verify,” Bastardi explained.

 

 

Internationally known forecasting pioneer Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and his colleague Kesten Green Monash University in Australia:

 

“Dire consequences have been predicted to arise from warming of the Earth in coming decades of the 21st Century. Enormous sea level rises is one of the more dramatic forecasts. According to the AP’s Borenstein, such sea-level forecasts were experts' judgments on what will happen,” Armstrong and Green wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“As shown in our analysis experts' forecasts have no validity in situations characterized by high complexity, high uncertainty, and poor feedback. To date we are unaware of any forecasts of sea levels that adhere to proper (scientific) forecasting methodology and our quick search on Google Scholar came up short,” Armstrong and Green explained.

 

“Media outlets should be clear when they are reporting on scientific work and when they are reporting on the opinions held by some scientists. Without scientific support for their forecasting methods, the concerns of scientists should not be used as a basis for public policy,” they concluded.

 

The Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley in the UK, an advisor to the Science and Pulblic Policy Institute, who has authored numerous climate science analyses (LINK):

 

“Given the absence of credible evidence for extreme sea-level rise over the coming century in the peer-reviewed literature, the IPCC has been compelled to reduce its sea-level estimates. The mean centennial sea-level rise over then 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age has been 4 feet per century; in the 20th century sea level rose less than 8 inches; and the IPCC's current central estimate is that in the coming century sea level will rise by just 43 cm (1 ft 5 in),” Monckton wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

Canadian Geologist Albert F. Jacobs, co-founder of the group Friends of Science: “Basic to the IPCC case for sea level rise and for the alarmists’ hype is the hypothesis that increasing levels of carbon dioxide will cause increasing amounts of global warming. It should be stressed that this assumption of truth is no more than a hypothesis, which is increasingly being attacked and on which any meaningful discussion has been thwarted by the IPCC’s political masters,” Jacobs wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

“As far as CO2is concerned, basic physics has always been clear about the limitations of higher concentrations of gas to absorb equivalent amounts of heat radiation. ‘Doubling of CO2’ does none of the things the IPCC’s computer says it does. And that’s all separate from the fact that water vapour is a much greater ‘greenhouse’ driver than carbon dioxide in any case," Jacobs added.

 

Canadian economist Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph in Ontario (who was key in debunking the infamous “Hockey Stick”) pointed out that real estate values would be plummeting on the coastlines if the AP article was accurate.

 

“If what they're saying is true, we will see the effect on land values long before we see the effect on sea levels. They are saying that it is certain that all sea-level waterfront property around the US will be worthless in 50-100 years. Since the market is very efficient at discounting future certainties into present values, US beachfront property ought to be losing at least 20 percent of its remaining value every decade from now on,” McKitrick wrote to Inhofe EPW Press Blog.

 

”It might be worth asking some real estate agents, especially in places like Hollywood and the Hamptons, where there seems to be such a consciousness of global warming, if beachfront owners are beginning to dump their properties at a discount. Because, of course, if some people have inside information that this land is really going to be worthless soon, they'll be the first ones to cash out and move to higher ground,” he concluded.

 

As EPW previously reported in a comprehensive report debunking fears of Greenland melting and a scary sea level rise, many prominent scientists dismiss computer model fears. (LINK)

 

Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack of the University of Pennsylvania, explains that sea level is only rising up 1.8 millimeters per year (0.07 inches) -- less than the thickness of one nickel.

 

"Sea level is rising," Giegengack said, but it's been rising ever since warming set in 18,000 years ago, he explained according to a February 2007 article in Philadelphia Magazine. “So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn’t know it. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming," he said. (LINK) Giegengack also noted that the history of the last one billion years on the planet reveals "only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice." (LINK)

 

# # #

Related Links:

 

New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears

 

Global Warming "Consensus" Continues To Melt Away (Op-Ed By Senator Inhofe, Power Magazine)

 

Cutting Emissions May Cost U.S. Economy Up to $1.8 Trillion

 

Senators Propose $4500 Climate Tax on American Families

 

Newsweek Editor Calls Mag's Global Warming 'Deniers' Article 'Highly Contrived'

 

Newsweek's Climate Editorial Screed Violates Basic Standards of Journalism

 

Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt

 

EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy’ Career of Climate Skeptic

 

Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

 

Senator Inhofe declares climate momentum shifting away from Gore (The Politico op ed)

 

Scientific Smackdown: Skeptics Voted The Clear Winners Against Global Warming Believers in Heated NYC Debate

 

Global Warming on Mars & Cosmic Ray Research Are Shattering Media Driven "Consensus’

 

Global Warming: The Momentum has Shifted to Climate Skeptics

 

Prominent French Scientist Reverses Belief in Global Warming - Now a Skeptic

 

Top Israeli Astrophysicist Recants His Belief in Manmade Global Warming - Now Says Sun Biggest Factor in Warming

 

Warming On Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, Neptune's Moon & Earth Linked to Increased Solar Activity, Scientists Say

 

Panel of Broadcast Meteorologists Reject Man-Made Global Warming Fears- Claim 95% of Weathermen Skeptical

 

MIT Climate Scientist Calls Fears of Global Warming 'Silly' - Equates Concerns to ‘Little Kids’ Attempting to "Scare Each Other"

 

Weather Channel TV Host Goes 'Political'- Stars in Global Warming Film Accusing U.S. Government of ‘Criminal Neglect’

 

Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Decertifying Global Warming Skeptics

 

ABC-TV Meteorologist: I Don't Know A Single Weatherman Who Believes 'Man-Made Global Warming Hype'

 

The Weather Channel Climate Expert Refuses to Retract Call for Decertification for Global Warming Skeptics

 

Senator Inhofe Announces Public Release Of "Skeptic’s Guide To Debunking Global Warming"

[Mr. T]

[Icemann778]

limit shouldn't be misconstrued as a daily requirement to start another thread.

[Paxton]

Here's a good discussion of the Tea Party Movements:

 

 

More nuance than you'll get from either the left or right-wing media.

[Mr. T]

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too

much government.

 

Thomas Jefferson

 

 

 

 

 

[jucky68]

I think the feeling is mutual. So why wouldn't they be as pissed as you Christians are?

[Mr. T]

When Did World War III Start ? ? ?

 

 

 

 

1979

 

This is not very long, but very informative.

 

 

You have to read the catalogue of events in this brief piece. Then, ask yourself how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is bring our troops home from Iraq, reset the snooze alarm, go back to sleep, and no one will ever bother us again.

 

 

In case you missed it, World War III began in November 1979...

 

 

US Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola , Florida . Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today and why this action is so necessary.

 

AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!

 

That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been 'Get Out of Bed!' In fact, the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.

 

It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran . This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency The attack on this sovereign U. S. Embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 25 years.

 

America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America 's inability to deal with terrorism

 

America 's military had been decimated and down sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.

 

Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East . America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.

 

In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.

 

Then just six short months later in 1983 a large truck heavily laden down with over 25 00 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.

 

Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait , and America continues her slumber.

 

The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.

 

Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe . In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid

 

Then in August 1985 a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rheine-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.

 

Fifty-nine days later in 1985 a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.

 

The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie , Scotland in 1988, killing 259.

 

The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder.

 

The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America . In January

 

1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley , Virginia

 

The following month, February 1993 , a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City . Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.

 

Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.

 

A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran , Saudi Arabia . It destroys the Khobar Towers , a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.

 

They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania . These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.

 

The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000 , when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.

 

And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America . How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.

 

In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979.

 

I think we have been in a war for the past 25 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough. America needs to 'Get out of Bed' and act decisively now. America has been changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over and go back to sleep.

 

After the attack on Pearl Harbor , Admiral Yamamoto said '... it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.' This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.

 

This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year, this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.

 

If you believe in this please forward it to as many people as you can especially to the young people and all those who dozed off in history class and who seem so quick to protest such a necessary military action. If you don't believe it, just delete it and go back to sleep