TO HELL WITH THE ENVIRONMENT

INDUSTRY

There are some who believe its alright to destroy the environment as long as it profits industry. I don't know about you, but I don't want the only green on Earth to be industrial chemical sludge. I don't want the only animals remaining on Earth to be housed in zoos or parks, or painted on sides of building, just so we can remember that they used to live here.

www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/freeport/tenrisks.html

www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/motherlode/freeport/env.html

www.minesandcommunities.org/Country/indonesia4.htm

LOS ALAMOS

NUCLEAR LAB

It's not a surprise to me that the University of Calfornia retained control of the Los Alamos Nuclear Research Lab. Look at Morton Thikol, they killed seven astronauts and still produce the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle. So, see, you can even kill someone and not lose a government contract.

RELIGION AND SCHOOLS

whtfucover said...

Religion used to be a part of school, its the anti religious Nazis that don't want it taught in public schools because it teaches morals, we don't want that now do we

For someone who believes in strict adherence to the Constitution, I don't believe you forgot the part about separation of Church and State. That was why Judge Roy Moore's monument to the Ten Commandments was removed from the State Court house. That's why prayer was removed from schools. I'm not saying I condone it, but that's the law according to the Constitution.

Now there are schools that are allowed to teach religion as well as regular classroom subjects but these are parochial schools, or church run schools. I know before the Scopes Monkey Trial of the 1920s, no one taught evolution in the classroom. But that trial just reaffirmed the separation of church and state. That Darwin showed some scientific validity for evolution where as Creationism is faith based. Again, I'm not taking sides, just stating the facts. Being Catholic and from what I've been through, I know there is some higher being, but who is to say that he didn't try out several different forms of animals before finding the right ones to exist here?

ALASKAN WILDLIFE REFUGE

whtfucover said...

you want to decrease our dependancy on foreign oil....but....you dont want them to drill anywhere...WTF?

First of all, we have the original Alaskan pipeline that pumps a million barrels a day but that oil is put on tankers to be taken to the Middle East to be refined. Drilling in a wildlife refuge isn't going to change that. Its just more of our oil being sent overseas to be processed.

Secondly, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind seeing moose and other animals roam free instead of being put in cages. Soon, its going to be where the only animals to be found are going to be in zoos because greed has taken all wildlife land.

SEARCH AND SEIZURE

whtfucover said...

uh, the President doesn't make the laws of seach and seizure, its written in the constitution and interpreted by the courts. Its not his fault (except if he appointed the person/to a degree) that judges make up their own laws and circumvent the legislative branch. Its really more the fault of congress for not taking the bull by the horns and initializing their power of judicial review. And as far as the other tin foil hat stuff, your way out there man....wooooooooo

FISA

The FISA court was created in 1978 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. People, organizations and embassies were spied on without their knowledge or the abiliity to challenge the survailence or searches.

Barely more than two months before the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, President Clinton expanded the powers of the FISA courts. Prior to that, all the intelligence gathered by the FISA courts were for national security purposes. After Clinton's expansion of power, the FISA courts could take their information to criminal courts.
Executive Order 12949, signed by Clinton on February 9, 1995 gave the FISA courts permission to conduct physical as well as electronic searches without having to apply for a warrent in open court or listing what evidence they are looking for. And the only probable cause was if the person was associated with a group thought to be a threat to National Security.

It is this court that is now the one responsible for the telephone eavesdropping.

MCCAIN'S BILL

whtfucover said...

exactly, the terrorists are not soldiers, they are enemy combatants, not covered under the Geneva Convention. You can pretty much say the Viet-Cong were the same thing, thats why the US hammered them, but treated the NVA a lot differently. As for McCain, there are laws that existed before he came up with his idea to grandstand, pure political grandstanding. Thats why I believe strongly in term limits.

that's what I never could understand, they were classifying these people as enemy combatants, not prisoners of war, they didn't not belong to any organized state run army, so there for don't follow under the laws of the Geneva Conventions. And its not like the word insurgents didn't exist at the time, they had insurgents during the Russian Revolution. Yet no provisions were made for them in the Geneva Accords.

DATABASES-CONTINUED

whtfucover said

Not all databases are for people that have been arrested. A friend of mine who wrote databases for the ABI did a few for wiretaps to help agent's and other law enforcement agencies from Louisiana to Georgia "connect the dots" for drug busts and other crimes. Sound familiar?? The administration and the CIA along with the FBI were chastised for not "connecting the dots" prior to 9/11. Now that they are trying to, we still have people who think that we are not at war and we should just give up to the terrorists as the previous 4 administrations did. Yes I will Lump Reagan in there to. We had Iran, Lebanon, Libya (well they bombed Libya) KobarTowers,The Cole, the first Twin Towers, nothing was done except in the courts. That was a joke, they don't obey our laws so they need to be. The neville chamberlain approach didn't work the first time did it? So why repeat history.

You're right that law enforcement put together a list of "probable" suspects in a investigation. Probable meaning they have some suspicion about these individuals and so there for they need to be checked out. But what is suspicious about a Bible Group, or a youth group? I mean these aren't Hitler's youth groups like the Nazis had during WW II. They don't keep up on the KKK as much as they are these other benign groups.

ALASKAN WILDLIFE REFUGE

DRILLING

Even putting it under the heading of National Defense, the bill to allow oil drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge was rejected. How does destroying a wildlife refuge contribute to National Defense?

INTELLIGENT DESIGN=CREATIONISM

CREATIONISM

It's an old arguement with a different name, and it got rejected for the same reasons it got rejected in the past. It's too close to teaching religion in schools and the government doesn't want that.

THE NEW YORK TIMES FINALLY CAUGHT ON

EAVESDROPPING

That is what the whole debate has been about, not that the NSA was listening in on calls to and from the US to abroad, but that the NSA was listening in on calls within our own boarders. That's what I've been saying all week. I have no problem with them tracking calls to suspected terrorist groups in the Middle East or Europe, but for the to be listening in on domestic calls I think is wrong. At least not without probable cause.

DATA BASES-CONTINUED

whtfucover said...

1)Well, there's media and there's the National Enquirer

There is no difference. Jason Blair, Dan the Man Rather, CNN protecting Saddam before the war in order to be able to keep their Baghdad office, Arqutette and the fake milk factory story, the cover up of the entire Clinton Era, there is no difference between the two whatso ever.

2)As for the police, its a crime fighting tool and neccessary for public safety, but for the Government to have groups on their list that no more pose a threat to national security than my cat, You said it with crime fighting tool. You miss the point, the President of the US takes an oath to protect the Constitution,

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States

In the Preamble to the Constitution is this:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


Why are you afraid of a database of bad guys in posession of the US Government for the purpose of technically law enforcement, but when the States have the same thing, you are ok with it?

The databases that the police maintain are of peole who have been arrested for a crime. They actually did something to get arrested for so their names are added to that database. But for the government to have, and follow me here, book club membership list, church groups, civic groups, Boy Scout Groups, Girl Scout Groups, what danger to national security does these groups pose and why isn't the Pentagon following the guidelines and purging these groups from the list if they show no threat in 90 days???

We aren't living in the days of Joe McCarthy. Those who have treatened us come from a very identifiable group of people. Yes there are sympathizers to those groups. Heck, we've had radical groups long before 9/11. Remember Ruby Ridge? David Koresh? But those groups expessed their views and were pretty noticable. and if you had heard the lastest on the wire taps, they are no longer just concentrating on calls going in and out of our borders, but also calls within our borders. You could be talking to your brother and they would be listening in.

Our government is out of control.

THE MCCAIN ACT

whtfucover said...

The Mcain Act that was added to the defense appropriations bill last week to in essence gurantee to the terrorists that we wont hurt them, IE, the Alquaida Bill of Rights, or did you miss that one last week.

Yeah I heard it past, and I wasn't all that happy. They want the US to abide by the Geneva accords when countries we have fought against, tossed out the Geneva accords when it came to our prisoners of war. Look at Japen, Korea, Vietman? where were those protesting about abuse of prisoners back then? Look how McCain was treated. So, we treat prisoners of war with kit gloves and when our people are taken prisoner, we just let them be abused???

1984

whtfucover said...

Gestapo, Orwellian??? Did you ever read 1984 or read the history of the Gestapo? Were are the incinerators, were are the cameras watching every move we make, Wiretaps known buy members of congress, the NSA courts, only allowed to tap incoming calls from overseas? Please...Are we rounding up Arabs and incinerating them, interning them? Is the Government taking over States and denying citizens rights? I only see that from the left, free speech only for them, guns only for them, rights only for them...you can do better than this

Yes, Gestapo tactics. Used to be, you have to be presented with a warrant for what ever items the police were looking for, and there has to be a such thing a "probable cause" for the warrant to be issued. Now thanks to the NSA and the secret courts, there no longer has to be probable cause for them to go into a business or home and seize items. And as for the Orwellian? Have you not noticed, you can't go anywhere in public without cameras watching you. And who needs cameras on lamp post when they have satellites in space that can read the serial number on a dollar bill laying in the street. Just like another book by Orwell, Animal Farm where there reached a point where you couldn't tell the two groups of animals apart. We complain to other countries about their human rights problems and yet they are chipping away at ours.

NIXON AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS

SECRET CAMPS AND FEMA

This was a story I heard about in college and never put much credence in it until I started looking it up on the internet recently. One of my professors told us that it wasn't the Watergate scandal that started Nixon's downfall. It was the fact that he wanted to prevent the kind of protest and riots that occured during the Vietnam war. So he created a plan to build this "concentration or detainee" camps to put those Americans who were against the governments actions. Sort of like the retraining camps that the Chinese use for those who protest their government. The Program was called Rex 84.

REAGAN

Another breach of our Constitutional rights was a bill that Ronald Reagan created when he was Governor of CA. during the Vietnam war. Like Nixon, he wanted to prevent the rioting and causing Chaos during a time of war, so he created a bill that in the event of domestic civil unrest durig a time of war, Martial Law would be declared nation wide. Suspending our civil liberties and putting the Military in charge of policing the city streets.

al-QAIDA

The al_Qaida doesn't have a bill of rights.

DOMESTIC SPYING

porchwise said...

The big difference is the Gestapo didn't have the sophisticated electronics we have now...scarey and looking more like Orwellian society everyday.

I agree, I just never thought that Bush would be BIG BROTHER.

DOMESTIC SPYING

SPYING

Unless I've been reading this story wrong for the last two days, I have a major problem with it. I don't mind them intercepting and monitoring calls to or from the US to groups outside the US who may be invovled in terrorist acts. BUT, to be listening in on conversations within our own borders, then I think it should be proved that there is a reason for the wiretape. I wouldn't want anyone to listen in on my phone calls without probable cause. And how is this secret court any different than the Gestapo that ran amok in Germany during WW II?

DATABASES

whtfucover said...

First off, I don't believe anything the main stream media says anymore. Thanks to fuel tanks on fords, forged documents and 10,ooo body bags needed anytime a disaster looms or a war starts. As for this database, the police have db's too, this helps them fight crime, do you not want the police to have a database of say... sex offenders, murders, cold cases, cases solved. Target, Toys R Us, Wal Mart, Food Worls WD all have customer databases to help the track customers buying habits. This too is useful. As far as the P{entagon having a "secret" database to help fight terrorism, more power to em.

Well, there's media and there's the National Enquirer. As for databases, yes lots of organizations have them and you DO have an option on whether to be on their list or not, you can request your name be taken off their list. As for the police, its a crime fighting tool and neccessary for public safety, but for the Government to have groups on their list that no more pose a threat to national security than my cat, then that's going a bit too far. What's next, cameras in our homes, wiretapes on our phones, are we no longer allowed any sense of privacy? And we thought that the U.S.S.R. had gone to far. I guess Orwell was right in his prediction, he only missed it by 20 yrs.

PATRIOT ACT

whtfucover said...

A lot of the Patriot Act dealt with sharing of intellegence. One thing is funny though, The politicians say they want to protect American lives, but they sure make it hard as hell to do.
Also, where are all the people that are being harassed by the government because of the patriot act? Why dont we have scores of people saying their rights were infringed because of theis law?

Well, you have to read the mainstream news papers to see the articles about people whose lives have been ruined and some businesses too. There have been list gathered on youth groups, church groups, social groups, any organization that has a list, especially a long list of members, the Government has used those "Secret Letters" or warrents without a judge, to seize such information without showing cause. And they put that imformation into that database that is supposed to be purged after 90 days of any group not shown to be a threat. Only the Pentagon refuses to purge that database.

NATIONAL SECURITY

whtfucover said...

So what, 2001 and 2002 was a pretty rocky year as far as National Security goes. I don't remember anyone complaining about Roosevelt interning all them Japanese people when he did, National Security concerns you know.

You know, I saw a movie on the History Channel that I thought was a recent movie, but as I just researched and found out, the movie was made in 1998 and was very prophetic. The movie was titled "The Siege". Its about Arabs who blew up a bus in NYC and the response of the Government. Rounding up all the Arabs and putting them in interment camps just like the Government did to the Japanese back in WW II. We will never know if it was wrong to do then or if it would be wrong to do it now. They have shown on the news where Muslims living here in the US sympathize with those Muslims that are suicide bombers over in Iraq. With so many living in the US, are we safe?

The description of the movie THE SIEGE:

A special agent of the FBI, a case officer of the CIA, and a general in the U.S. Army have all taken the same oath--"to support and defend the Constitution." But when a bus blows up in Brooklyn and campaign of terror begins to make its bloody mark on the streets of New York City, the men and women who have sworn to protect the country must now reckon with the many implications of their oath. Anthony "Hub" Hubbard, the head of the Joint FBI/NYPD Terrorism Task Force, is the man charged with keeping the city safe from an array of threats that seem to grow more terrifying with every headline. Elise Kraft is a CIA operative, now undercover, with important sources in the Arab-American community and ambiguous ties to the suspects. Her agenda, like that of her government's foreign policy, is more complex than Hub's. And yet these two are forced to work together, forging an uneasy alliance, as the incidents of terror threaten to paralyze the city under siege.

PENTAGON NOT FOLLOWING GUIDELINES

DATABASE

The Pentagon is in possession of a database of hundreds of groups across the country, maybe even more. In the interest of National Security, these groups were supposed to be checked out and if there wasn't any sign of a threat within 90 days, those groups were to be eliminated from the database. Some of these groups of civic groups, church groups, social groups, possibly some youth groups. Those who posed no threat are supposed to be purged from the Database but the Pentagon has refused to. Who do we need to fear more?

FREEDOM

TURNOUT

Goes to show how just a little freedom can cause a big reaction. They estimate the Iraqi turn out for the election was 70%. Here in the US where we've always had the right to vote, we are lucky if there is a 50% turn out.

Reminds me of college. There was a girl who attended there who wore the most daring outfits to class. In fact, Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama, didn't have a dress code before because they never felt it was needed. But this girl caused them to create one. During the summer she came to class wearing shorts so short they could have been bathing suit bottoms and the top wasn't much more than a bikini top. The interesting this is, she was born and raised in the U.S.S.R.. She said before coming to the US, her and her girlfriends used to go the beach on the Black Sea and sunbathe nude, which was strictly forbiddened, and see how long it took for the police to show up, then they would grab their clothes and run before they got arrested. She said in Russia, she and her friends always pushed the envelope of their limited freedoms, but she said since she's been in the US, she noticed that Americans are passive, they let things happen to them and then complain about them. Maybe we need to take a lesson from the Iraqis.

PATRIOT ACT

DEFEATED

The supporters of the Patriot Act were dealt a blow when the bill didn't receive enough votes to bring it to the floor for a final vote. The Patriot Act is reminiscent of the McCarthy era of the 50's and the "red scare", only now its terrorist. People can turn others in to the authorities on suspicion of being a terrorist without any evidence to back it up. So, if the NSA isn't spying on you, maybe your neighbors are.

IRAQ

porchwise said...

It will be interesting to see how and if their new congress holds up and maybe, just maybe, we can bring our boys home a.s.a.p. (which was yesterday).

Well, like the Iraqis they interviewed on TV, they don't want the Americans to stay any longer than necessary. Maybe with the Sunnis participating in the elections, that will weaken the insurgents and soon the Iraqi Army can take over security. The insurgents can't operate without backers.

ELECTIONS-CONTINUED

whtfucover said...

They have been wrong for 40+ years, why expect them to be right?

True, but all those horror stories that Kerry was telling about a bloodbath during the election process and how the Sunnis would never take part. After the first Assembly elections and they didn't participate, I knew they would this time. No one wants to be left out of the party. Plus, they knew if they wanted a say in how the government is run they needed to be a part of it.

SPYING ON AMERICANS

SPYING

So, it was Bush in 2002 that gave permission for the National Security Agency permission to spy on Americans without warrants. The Presidential Order was intended for the NSA to track international calls in hopes of finding numbers to al-Qaeda operatives, but lately the shift has been to eavesdropping on calls made INSIDE the US, contrary to legal standards.

The concerns over these operations have been expressed by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, (D), from West Virginia, who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a judge presiding over a secret court that oversees intelligence matters.

Concerns had gotten so bad that last year the Administration imposed new restrictions, but hasn't stopped the operation completely. The White House is so concerned about catching terrorist inside the US that they went to the NY Times to try and stop them from publishing the story, but the Times agreed to hold it for one year, so addition reporting could be done. The White House was worried that they story might alert terrorist that they are being spied on.

All those stories about a "Shadow Government" doesn't seem so far fetched anymore.

SUNNIS

ELECTION

The Sunni population clearly participated in this election. They were out in droves. And because they were, there weren't any major attacks by the insurgents. Again the Democrats were clearly wrong about how the elections would turn out. And when asked about when the Americans should pull out of Iraq, one Sunni said he thought they should pull out as soon as Iraq can take care of itself. When he was told what President Bush had said, that "Americans would stand down when the Iraqis could stand up", the man said Bush said it right.

AND YET THEY STILL TALK ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

ICE STORM

Ice from Atlanta, GA to Charlotte, NC has left 300,000 homes without power. There have been huge snow falls out west and still they talk about global warming. We might be going through a cycle. On the History Chanel, there was a show about what they called the mini ice age. It started in the 1300s and ended in the 1800s. The winters because so harsh that Vikings, known for their wonderlust, started building permanent villiages. Rivers froze solid. They said that even the rivers in New York City froze to the point you could cross them from one island to another on foot or sled. We could be heading for another such cycle.

SPLIT BETWEEN RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR GOVERNMENT

ISLAM

Unlike what Iran was hoping for, to have another Islamic power in the Middle East, the voting in Iraq has been a split between Islamic and secular governments, which means the aytollas can't rule like they do in Iran.

MAP OF IRAQ

ELECTIONS

IRAQI ELECTIONS

The day that most Democrats said would never happen has happened and in the way that Bush had predicted. That the Sunnis would turn out in force to vote in this election. And because they turned out like they did, there wasn't the violence that had been seen in the two previous elections. With this kind of support for a parliamentary government in Iraqi, that leaves the insurgents without supporters. At least internal supporters. I think they were being supported by outside forces who don't want to see Iraq as a stabilized country, they would rather see chaos. Maybe soon they can return to being a strong force to deal with.

IRAQI ELECTIONS


Mustafa Ozer/AFP -- Getty Images
In a day remarkable for the absence of large-scale violence, millions of Iraqi voters streamed to the polls today to cast ballots in a nationwide election. Above, a polling station in Suleimaniya.

Mujahed Mohammed/AFP -- Getty Images
People lined up in Mosul to cast their votes.


Matt Dunham/Associated Press
Iraqi women cast their votes in the town of Az Zubayr, in southern Iraq.

Mustafa Ozer/AFP -- Getty Images
An man votes at a polling station in the northern Iraqi city of Suleimaniya.


Mujahed Mohammed/AFP -- Getty Images
A disabled man votes in the northern city of Mosul.

Karim Sahib/AFP — Getty Images
A line outside a polling station in Mosul.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE PARENTS??

PREGNANCY

I think the parents should be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a child. What parent in the right mind would allow a 12 yr old to date a 20 yr old???? And then consent to let her marry the guy after he gets her pregnant? The parents should have a share in the responsibility of what happened. They allowed it to happen.

NEIGHBORS TO THE NORTH

CANADA

I've always thought the Canadians liked us but now it seems that one candidate in Canada running for office is blaming the US for the rise in gang violence in Toronto on gun smuggling from the US, tariffs on Canadian lumber and for Bush not supporting the Kyoto climate control agreements. There have been some problems in the past but this is the strongest the rhetoric has gotten.

IRAN

BALLOTS

The army now has evidence that Iran is trying to influence the elections in Iraq. A truch load of forged ballots were seized as it tried to cross the border. Hopefully no others have tried and or succeeded to cross.

PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS RESIGNS

RED CROSS

It wasn't necessarily hurricane Katrina that lead to Marsha J. Evans stepping down from her post as president of the American Red Cross, but because of a series of mis-steps that have happened before, during and after Katrina. It appears that the board of the American Red Cross has conflicted with each of its presidents since Elizabeth Dole's tenure as president.

It appears that the main complaint with those with in the Red Cross is the lack of updating equipment and infrastructure that would vastly improve its ability to do its job of helping those in times of natural disaster.

FACE TRANSPLANT

SUICIDE

Whether the donor of the facial parts died from committing suicide is one thing but to believe that the recipient had also tried to commit suicide, I've never heard of anyone committing suicide by cutting off parts of your face.

But in the article they bring up a point about the woman who received the facial parts has to live with the fact that those parts came from a woman who had a violent death, most organ donations are a result of someone who died, some under violent means, but that usually doesn't change things, because those details aren't usually released to the recipient. It's only because its so much science fiction that people are worried about it but it hasn't been all that long ago that organ transplants them selves were science fiction.

INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES

DETAINEES

In an effort to side step John McCain bill to stop the torture of detainees, Chaney and Rumsfeld have aleady re-wrote and sent to the field their version of interrogation techniques that just comes short of what McCain calls torture. I guess the hope that by doing so, they will not be bound by McCain's bill should it pass.

FEMA STILL SCREWING UP

FEMA

A Federal court has issued a ruling that FEMA will continue to pay for the hotel rooms for victims of Katrina. FEMA was hoping to stop paying for those rooms by Jan 7, but the courts extended the deadline for another month.

FEMA wouldn't be in this mess had they just distributed those cursed trails that are sitting in a air port parking lot in Little Rock, Ark.

TRAILERS

Last year, four hurricanes hit Florida and there wasn't this kind of peoplem of getting victims trailers to stay in until they could get their houses repaired or found better housing. SO, why was FEMA so unprepared this year? And I thought they said when Thad Allen took over it would be strictly organized and operate like a well oiled machine? Well, it hasn't done so. I try not to believe the rumors going around about how its all because it was the poor black south that got hit this time, so they were in no hurry to help, but the more mistakes that FEMA makes the more the rumors seem true.

DEATH PENALTY

GANG VIOLENCE

I know a lot of people are against the death penalty and this case is probably a good example for why, but there are many others on death row who have said they found religion and are a changed person. Who can you believe has actually changed or how many hope they their story will be bought and they avoid the needle? Look at how many swear to the parole board that they are a different person, only to break parole and end up back in prison.

Yes he wrote books about the dangers of gangs and may have steered many away from gangs, But, by his receieving the dealth penalty has he shown that you can't talk your way out of a death sentence. Had he had his sentence commuted, the those who follow him would have said that yeah you can do the crime, promise you've changed and end up spending your days in a place far better than the streets of LA.

GLOBAL WARMING???

WARMING?

See, this is something I don't understand. They say the earth is warming, but some places in the northwest and upper midwestern states are experience the worst winter in decades. Some have set new record lows. Now if the earth is warming up so much, how is it that they are having record low temperatures??
Yes I agree that pollution is hurting our environment, but if we can stop the emmissions, the earth will heal itself.

On the History Channel a few weeks ago, they had this show, The Mini Ice Age, which started in the 1300s and ended in the 1800 where glaciers grew, once open rivers clogged with ice, winters during that time seemed harsher than they had ever been. And as quickly as it started, by 1850, the winters became less harsh again. Scientist believe it was a cycle that the earth goes through. We could head toward another one.

CHURCHES CLOSE ON CHRISTMAS DAY?

CHURCHES

Churches closing on Christmas Day? But isn't that the reason for Christmas and the Church? To celebrate the birth of Christ???

And why is there this big war about Christmas??? No one is afraid to say "Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Kwanzaa, but you can't say Merry Christmas??? When did this country become Rome pre-vatican? When did Christians become the evil ones again? You can mention Allah, but not Christ? Without Christ, there isn't a Christmas, and no Christmas sales, which all the stores love but don't want to mention Christmas. And its been rumored you could get fired at Walmart for wishing someone a Merry Christmas. I wonder if you can say "Felis Navidad" at Walmart?

LAFAVE'S PLEA DEAL IS BEING OVERTURNED

TEACHER/STUDENT CASE

I guess the Judge's wife wasn't happy with him when he told her that he gave Lafave 3 yrs house arrest and 7 yrs probation because now he wants to throw out the plea aggreement because it lacks jail time. Something everyone pointed out as its major flaw. I guess her looks didn't keep her from prison after all.

MIAMI AIRPORT

SHOOTING

I know this is a few days old but I saw most of it on live tv. I saw there they dragged three suitcases out to the tarmac and explode them, only to later say there were no explosives in those cases.

Now this man had been flying for a while before this all happened without incident. So, why didn't the wife make sure her husband took his meds before the boarded the plane? Most people with mental disorders will only take the meds until they feel better then they stop. Can you imagine what could have happen had this occured at 30,000 feet instead of on the tarmac? I think the sky marshalls did what they are there for, to stop what could turn into a dangerous situation for all those on the plane. After all the man did say he had a bomb.

PLOT UNCOVERED

ROCKETS

A plot was uncovered that a group of Iraqis, angered by the slow pace of Saddam Hussein's trial had plans to launch a rocket attack at the court house as the trial resumes on Monday. The report didn't say whether anyone was arrested or not.

CHENEY

NO FLY ZONE

You know I can see why there is a no fly zone around the Capital, the White House and Camp David, but where is it written that the Vice President rates a no fly zone? I mean who is running this country, Bush or Cheney??? I've never in my 44 yrs have seen a VP with so much power that he ranks above the President. I mean him and Rumsfeld are running the war in Iraq. When Joseph Wilson wrote an article critizing the war in Iraq, Cheney made sure he punished him by exposing Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA agent. In other words, don't get in Cheney's way or you will pay.

What happened to the VP just being a "yes man" to the President's position?

FBI WOES

MISTAKES

What in the world is going on??? The country's primary law enforcement agency is mishandling terror cases and penalizing those who come forward about the mishandling?
I thought we had a "whistle blowers" law, where those who came forward were protected from retaliation.

In this particular case, an agent named Mike German was working on a lead in Tampa Florida about money being laundered to finance terrorism overseas. During the investigation, leads were not followed up on, documents were not filed, some were back dated. Chances to catch the money laundering were missed.

When Mr. German reported the mishandling of the case, he was told that he would never have another undercover assignment and that he would lose a coveted teaching position.

Is this the agency that is supposed to be protecting us from terrorist? We might be better off with the Keystone cops.

PICK AND PAY CABLE

CHANNELS

I like this idea since I don't have kids, I don't need MTV. And I don't watch C-span or C-spann2, there are alot of channels I could do without and some I'd like to have. Invidiual choices, isn't that what this country was founded on?

MISSING KIDS' BODIES FOUND

KIDS

I remember back when this started. It was a custody battle and the father forcably took the kids from their mother and started cross country. By the time the police caught him in CA, he no longer had the kids and at first wouldn't say what happened to them but the police found a gun and a shovel in his car. HE father hung himself before he could go to court. But he did give enough information that after a very long search they have now recoverd the bodies of the two kids. At least now the mother has some closure.

LOST PAGES

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT

The Court's decision, the one that had two reporters locked up for not revealing their sources in the Valerie Plame investigation, in it's public version of the decision, it has pages missing from it. Eight pages to be excact. Reminds me of the 8 minutes missing from one of the Nixon's Watergate tapes.

FACE TRANSPLANT

FACES

When I heard this story, it first reminded me of the John Travolta, Nicholas Cage movie, Face Off. But, as the doctors explained, its the underlying bone structure that gives faces their individual characteristics. So, this isn't any different that taking skin grafts and putting them on burn patients. And its not for people who what to disguise who they are, but for those who have suffered serious burns or scaring. Which reminds me of a case a long time ago and I can't even begin to know how to find information about it, but it was a case where the parents of this one boy was getting a divorce and the father didn't want to let his son go, so he kidnapped him and when the police were about to break down the door, that father set his son on fire, causing severe burns to his face and hands. For months if not years the boy had to were a mask to protect the underlying tissue on his face. His hands now look like crab claws. With this kind of surgery, he might could have a regular looking face instead of all the scar tissue that now covers it.

TURN OVER

NAJAF

Just as President Bush said, as the Iraqis stand up, the Americans will stand down. And this is being shown in the city of Najaf. The Americans have turned the city over to the Iraqi security forces as well as the Iraqi police. According to reports, the Iraqi forces have been able to reduce the number of attacks against the American and Iraqi forces from the insurgents to just one a month in the region.

FAULTY LEVEES

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

So far the investigation into the levee failures in New Orleans shows the they were poorly built in the first place. The sheet piles were not driven into solid material but only into the soil, which washed away during the storm surge. Had they been driven into the bedrock they might not have broke like they did.

BUSH SEES THE REAL WAR

war

It appears that Bush and the Generals are finally on the same page. He now sees the struggle that his field commanders have with trying to train the Iraqis and put them in a position to fight on their own. He knows it will take time and training but he is still hopefully it can be done.

ABORTION

SUPREME COURT

Roberts and the Supreme Court sent the New Hampshire case back to the lower court. There were two issues the Justices agree upon: that laws regulating teenagers' access to abortion must make allowances for medical emergencies; and that the New Hampshire law, requiring notice to one parent and a 48-hour waiting period, failed to do so.

But none of them had a solution to the problem.

IRAQI FORCES

whtfucover said...

we turn out recruits in 2 months yes, but....it can take up to a year and sometimes 2 to train said recruits. For example, my military training for my job was 9 months and it dint ever really stop. What a lot of people fail to see is that they are rebuilding those forces from the ground up, retraining them from Soviet Doctrine, to the US way of fighting. Yes I suppose by using the Soviet Doctrine of warfare and training you could technically put a force together that relied solely on not responding until an officer said do it , or you could build a force that was flexible and capable of thinking for itself.

You're right, it does take time. And in fact there have been many rumors circulating that the Iraqi Government has thought about asking the former Republican Guard officers to come back because there is no officer corps in the Iraqi Army. With officers in charge, the training may be better. Promotions within the ranks would be slow in coming, so there needs to be leadership now.

DOCTORS

porchwise said...

Oh for the days of the house call when Doctors had personal relationships with their patients. Nowdays it's all assembly line medicine: how many people can you get in and out of the door in an hour

Well, I guess I'm lucky. I have a doctor that makes house calls, and he is a good doctor with a great bedside manner. The first one like him in my life. He is a geriatric doctor but he said since I have similar problems, like pressure sores and kidney stones, he wanted to be my primary doctor. He also has a warped sense of humor too. LOL