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August 31, 2007
Hillary takes a clear position
On the Late Show with David Letterman:
Hillary's top ten campaign promises10. Bring stability and long term security to “The View.”
9. Each year on my birthday, every American gets a cupcake.
8. You’ll have the option of rolling dice against the IRS for double-or-nothing on your taxes.
7. Having trouble getting a flight and Air Force One is available? It’s yours.
6. My vice president will never shoot anybody in the face.
5. Turn Gitmo into a Dairy Queen as soon as possible.
4. For over a century there have been only two Dakotas -- I plan to double that.
3. We will finally have a president who doesn’t mind pulling over and asking for directions. Am I right, ladies?
2. I will appoint a committee to find out what the heck is happening on “Lost.”
1. One more pantsuit joke and Letterman disappears.
Posted by Mike at 07:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 29, 2007
Where they were found
Posted by Mike at 01:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 28, 2007
Sandra Day O'Connor's grandson is uninsured
BIG NUMBERS, like 45 million uninsured Americans, are hard to grasp. But that number came home to me at a recent conference. The keynote speaker was former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Her topic was our healthcare system, and her message was personal and anguished.The gist was that even she lives in constant fear of major uninsured health bills. Not her own -- those of her son. He can't afford insurance because his son -- her grandchild -- has a preexisting condition.
As I listened, a light dawned: O'Connor and the rest of us with health coverage are also uninsured. We too face terrible, albeit more remote, healthcare risks -- the risk that our employer will drop our plan, that Medicare will go bust, that our plan won't cover our needs, that premiums will eat us alive, that our doctor will stop taking our insurance, that long-term care will wipe us out, and that our uninsured friends and family members will need major financial help.
These risks are entirely avoidable. We can have an efficient, transparent system that includes everyone; treats everyone fairly; covers all the basics, including prescription drugs, home healthcare, and nursing home care; and costs little more than what we now spend. But we can't get there via the piecemeal reforms that President Bush, most of his would-be successors, and our state governors are advocating.
Posted by Mike at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Warning of kamikaze pilots from October 2000
“We recruit the Kamikaze bombers ready to die for Palestine in Italy”, Il Giornale (Milan, Italy), October 14, 2000. According to Bakri, during the previous month, the IIF had recruited 160 volunteers in Britain and sent them to Jordan, where they awaited opportunities to infiltrate into the West Bank and join the uprising against Israel. Recruits had also been sent in recent months to Lebanon, where they were training in Palestinian refugee camps.
Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad
In another interview, with Milan's Il Giornale on October 14, 2000, Bakri said that The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders (The IIF), created by Osama bin Laden, was actively supporting Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. "We collect funds to be able to carry on the struggle; we recruit militiamen; and sometimes we take care of these groups' propaganda requirements in Europe." According to Bakri, during the previous month The IIF had recruited 160 volunteers in Britain and sent them to Jordan, where they awaited opportunities to infiltrate into the West Bank and join the uprising against Israel. Recruits had also been sent in recent months to Lebanon, where they were training in Palestinian refugee camps. "In the 'Ein Al-Hilweh camp, for instance, new mujahideen are being recruited and trained with the aim of opening up another front in south Lebanon." He added that The IIF is also "in touch with Hizbullah and with Islamic movements such as Usbat Al-Ansar, which are determined to fight for the liberation of Jerusalem."
Congressional Record: May 21, 2002
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that if we would have implemented the NOAH, which John Hamre offered to pay for with DOD dollars, back when we first recommended it, I am convinced we could have stopped or known about and prevented September 11 from ever happening.Let me give an example. CIA information on terrorism, combined with what the FBI knew about training pilots and open-source information on remarks by al Qaeda, would have helped the intelligence community and enforcement agencies focus better on the threat. For example, in August of 2000, an al Qaeda member had been interviewed by an Italian newspaper and reported that al Qaeda was training kamikaze pilots. The intelligence community and enforcement agencies, however, do not read open-source information. Yes, they read all the classified stuff, but this interview in 2000 was in an open-source newspaper account in Italy.
If we would have had a fusion center, all of that data would have been processed, and in very real quick time, through massive high-speed computers, and we would have seen the linkages between what was
occurring.
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August 27, 2007
So much for clapping harder
Troops Cheer Call For Iraq Withdrawal
A call by Puerto Rico's governor for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq earned a standing ovation from a conference of more than 4,000 National Guardsmen.Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila said Saturday that the U.S. administration has "no new strategy and no signs of success" and that prolonging the war would needlessly put guardsmen in harm's way.
"The war in Iraq has fractured the political will of the United States and the world," he said at the opening of the 129th National Guard Association general conference. "Clearly, a new war strategy is required and urgently."
Acevedo said sending more troops to Iraq would be a costly blunder.
Posted by Mike at 05:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 26, 2007
Memorable quotes
Statement of Dale Watson, Chief
International Terrorism Section, National Security Division
Federal Bureau of InvestigationBefore the Senate Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information
United States SenateWashington, D. C.
February 24, 1998Although we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security or underestimate the nature of the threat that confronts us, I believe it is important to note that in the five years since the Trade Center bombing, no significant act of foreign- directed terrorism has occurred on American soil.
Posted by Mike at 08:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 20, 2007
"The pendulum maybe swung too far"
What is this? Edgar Allen Poe?
Some 35 liters, or just over 9 gallons, of highly enriched uranium solution leaked from a transfer line into a protected glovebox and spilled onto the floor. The leak was discovered when a supervisor saw a yellow liquid "running into a hallway" from under a door, according to one document.The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
"It is likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute health effects or death," the agency wrote.
"We don't want any security information out there that's going to help a terrorist," agency Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. said in a newly released transcript from a closed commission meeting May 30. But "that's entirely separate" from dealing with an event that could have killed a worker at the plant.
"The pendulum maybe swung too far," agreed Luis Reyes, the commission's executive director for operations. "We want to make sure we don't go the other way, but we need to come back to some reasonable middle point."
Posted by Mike at 07:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 16, 2007
Dating Advice for Mob Informants?
SANDRA HARMONMafia Son
St. Martin’s Press, Spring 2007
In this shocking true account of government corruption, Mafiosi, and
murder, Sandy Harmon tells the life story of Greg Scarpa, Jr., son of
crazed mafia killer and top echelon informant for the FBI, Greg Scarpa Sr.Greg Jr. was a man of conscience who recoiled from the violent
mafioso behavior in which his father indulged. However, Greg Jr. was
certainly no saint, and he eventually went to jail. From behind bars,
he became a treasured informant for the FBI, eventually conveying
valuable information about the 9-11 attacks on America before they
happened. His significant intelligence on Al Qaeda, however, was
buried, and even though he was never convicted of a heinous crime,
he too was buried in the dark hole of 23-hour-a-day lockdown in the
Colorado Supermax Prison where he is now serving 40 years to life.Sandy Harmon, at great danger to herself, tells Scarpa's mesmerizing story and investigates why the government has sought to silence him.
Sandy Harmon is the bestselling co-author of, among other books,
GETTING TO I DO (with Patricia Allen for HarperCollins) and ELVIS
AND ME (with Priscilla Presley for Putnam).
She is also apparently an online dating coach. Stay tuned:
Best-selling author of Getting To I Do, Staying Married and Loving It, Elvis and Me, A Girl Like Me."I will help you find the love you have always dreamed of – or bring the passion back to the relationship you already have."
Sandra Harmon has become the #1 Love, Dating, Sex and Relationship Coach since the phenomenal success of her two, best selling, self help books, the powerful and ground breaking "Getting To I Do" and it’s sequel, "Staying Married and Loving It".
Her clients, who include Hollywood superstars and power brokers, all swear by her simple but successful methods for and her proven programs have helped thousands of men and women find and keep lasting love. It can happen for you too.
Posted by Mike at 03:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 13, 2007
Innocent until incapacitated?
US terror interrogation went too far, experts say
Miami - Jose Padilla had no history of mental illness when President Bush ordered him detained in 2002 as a suspected Al Qaeda operative. But he does now.The Muslim convert was subjected to prison conditions and interrogation techniques that took him past the breaking point, mental health experts say.
Two psychiatrists and a psychologist who conducted detailed personal examinations of Mr. Padilla on behalf of his defense lawyers say his extended detention and interrogation at the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C., left him with severe mental disabilities. All three say he may never recover.
Padilla's psychological condition is important because his situation marks the first time an enemy combatant in the war on terror is in a position to present a verifiable claim of abuse at the hands of US interrogators. Padilla's mental health itself is a form of evidence, mental-health experts say, and it strongly suggests that – at least in Padilla's case – the government's harsh interrogation and confinement tactics went too far.
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August 10, 2007
Ghouliani exposed for what he is
If you keep trying to score political points off 9/11, eventually you're gonna push the envelope too far and show your true colors:
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday that he misspoke when he said he spent as much time, if not more, at ground zero exposed to the same health risks as workers combing the site after the Sept. 11 attacks."I think I could have said it better," he told nationally syndicated radio host Mike Gallagher. "You know, what I was saying was, 'I'm there with you.'"
The former New York mayor upset some firefighters and police officers when he said Thursday in Cincinnati that he was at ground zero "as often, if not more, than most of the workers."
"I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," he told reporters at a Los Angeles Dodgers-Cincinnati Reds baseball game.
Fire and police officials responded angrily, saying Giuliani did not do the same work as those involved in the rescue, recovery and cleanup from the 2001 terrorist attacks, which left many workers sick and injured.
On Friday, Giuliani said he was trying to show his concern for the workers' health.
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