Monday 06-11-12

NAPOLITANO: Big Brother’s all-seeing eye

For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel, where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if - had they existed at the time - King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as someone who is urging the use of violence against the government.
Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. Folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.
Don’t believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the “recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel insidetheUnitedStates and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them “to collect information about U.S. persons.”
It gets worse. If the military personnel see something of interest from a drone, they may apply to a military judge or “military commander” for permission to conduct a physical search of the private property that intrigues them. Any “incidentally acquired information” can be retained or turned over to local law enforcement. What’s next? Prosecutions before military tribunals in the United States?
The quoted phrases above are extracted from a now-public 30-page memorandum issued by President Obama’s secretary of the Air Force on April 23. The purpose of the memorandum is stated as “balancing … obtaining intelligence information … and protecting individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.” Note the primacy of intelligence-gathering over protection of freedom, and note the peculiar use of the word “balancing.”
When liberty and safety clash, do we really expect the government to balance those values? Of course not. The government cannot be trusted to restrain itself in the face of individual choices to pursue happiness. That’s why we have a Constitution and a life-tenured judiciary: to protect the minority from the liberty-stealing impulses of the majority. And that’s why the Air Force memo has its priorities reversed - intelligence-gathering first, protecting freedom second - and the mechanism of reconciling the two - balancing them - constitutionally incorrect.
Everyone who works for the government swears to uphold the Constitution. It was written to define and restrain the government. According to the Declaration of Independence, the government’s powers come from the consent of the governed. The government in America was not created by a powerful king reluctantly granting liberty to his subjects. It was created by free people willingly granting limited power to their government - and retaining that which they did not delegate.
The Declaration also defines our liberties as coming from our Creator, as integral to our humanity and inseparable from us, unless we give them up by violating someone else’s liberties. Hence, the Jeffersonian and constitutional beef with the word “balancing” when it comes to government power versus individual liberty.
The Judeo-Christian and constitutionally mandated relationship between government power and individual liberty is not balance. It is bias - a bias in favor of liberty. All presumptions should favor the natural rights of individuals, not the delegated and seized powers of the government. Individual liberty, not government power, is the default position because persons are immortal and created in God’s image, and governments are temporary and based on force.


Hence my outrage at the coming use of drones - some as small as golf balls - to watch us, listen to us and record us. Did you consent to the government having that power? Did you consent to the American military spying on Americans in America? I don’t know a single person who has, but I know only a few who are complaining.
If we remain silent when our popularly elected government violates the laws it has sworn to uphold and steals the freedoms we elected it to protect, we will have only ourselves to blame when Big Brother is everywhere. Somehow, I doubt my father’s generation fought the Nazis in World War II only to permit a totalitarian government to flourish here.


Is President Obama prepared to defend this? Is Mitt Romney prepared to challenge it? Are you prepared for its consequences?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/7/big-brothers-all-seeing-eye/

Thanks to a contributor at Survival Blog

Some Families Are Choosing A More Old Fashioned Lifestyle



A Medford family chooses a more old fashioned lifestyle, becoming self sustaining.
This is one for it makes me sick, i was not going to post it, but it just speaks out and shows what our politicians are made of so well.

Obama’s Memorial Day Photo-Op Blocks Families, Vets From D.C. Vietnam Memorial Wall For 7 Hours



May 28th, 2012
Author: Rachel


On Memorial Day, the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. is supposed to look like this:






Instead, for seven long hours, it looked like this:




Obama’s secret service shut down the memorial for most of the day, as families and veterans who had come to pay their respects to fallen loved ones were forced to stay hundreds of feet away.

Why? So that the Narcissist-in-Chief could show up for 15-minute speech and photo-op with his carefully selected fans in the audience.

In his campaign speech remarks, Obama made sure to mention that:

“As long as I’m president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you’ve earned and the respect you deserve,” Obama said. “America will be there for you.”

Brian Trubee left this comment on Weasel Zippers:

I just received this e-mail from a brother in arms who I served with as a USAF pararecueman. A link to his e-mail is at the bottom of the message. I deleted the photos because the server rejected them. -Brian Trubee, Redmond, Washington.:

I am currently in Washington DC and witnessed the following. I saw this first hand and I bet you won’t hear about this from the Liberal media…

Vietnam veterans and the families of Vietnam veterans killed in action whose names are etched on the Wall were denied access to their memorial today, of all days, Memorial Day. The Vietnam Memorial was shutdown, cleared and secured for approximately 5 hours prior to Obama, his cronies and hand picked veterans for a 15 minute appearance by Obama. It’s obvious it was all for show. After all, this is an election year.


Hundreds if not thousands of Vietnam veterans and families of Vietnam veterans killed in Vietnam stood in disbelief as Secret Service, Park Police, Washington DC Police, etc., blocked all access to the Vietnam Memorial and kept everyone approximately 100 yards away from their memorial for the first time in the history of the Memorial so Obama could get some photos of him at the Wall. Veterans in uniforms stood in the heat angered as Obama makes them wait. It was a photo op at their expense and families of those killed in Vietnam.

As I stated, I was there and witnessed all of this. Many veterans and others flipped Obama the finger as his motorcade drove past. I didn’t honor him with a finger salute because I was busy holding up my 3′x5′ Don’t Tread on Me Flag as his motorcade drove past.


On another note, I was able to dedicate some port-o potties to Jane Fonda. Pictures attached. Maybe Obama should share this honor with Jane Fonda henceforth.

- Jim Morris

So this is how Obozo honors those who served….I just had this passed on from a friend who was at the wall this morning:


I normally try to avoid political statements, but this one is a bit different. This was received by Colonel Wayne Morris just a few moments ago, who was refused access to the Vietnam War Memorial, where he has visited his fallen comrades for the last 15 years.


Today is Memorial Day and I went to the Vietnam Memorial and something happened there that upset me greatly and I want to pass it on.

For over 15 years I had been going with my dear Marine buddy, Larry Cullen. Since he passed away last year and was interned at Arlington Cemetery, I went this year accompanied by my grandson, Cameron. I had my list of Recon Marines, school classmates, and Larry’s fallen buddies to visit but, as we got close to the area of the National Mall where the Wall is located, we saw huge white tents. We also saw barricades all along Constitution Ave and for a couple blocks in each direction from the Wall. They even closed down all of Constitution Av from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the WW-II Memorial and there was a virtual army of uniformed and plain-clothes security everywhere.

The biggest tent was right at the west end of the Wall entrance and there was a covered walkway leading right up to The Wall. It was so close, you couldn’t get to the Wall on that side so, my grandson and I went all the way around to the eastern entrance to the Wall and walked down along the Wall to the first of my names and I began telling my grandson about my buddies and how each one died. In short order, a guy in a dark suit and earpiece in his ear told us we had to leave as it was 0730 and they were closing Memorial until at least 1400 so the President could drop by. I asked if he was serious and he assured me he was. We and all the other veterans and families were forced to leave and it was locked down.

The Vietnam Memorial is the most visited site on the entire National Mall. Memorial Day has more visitors to the Vietnam Memorial than almost any other day. Even at the rather early hour Cameron and I were there, there were a lot of veterans and family members down there. In the midst of all that, Obama decides to close it for over seven hours just so he can roll by for 30 minutes in the afternoon for a campaign appearance with Democrats, supporters, and campaign donors? This is an incredulously arrogant, egotistical, and inconsiderate thing to do. What in hell was Obama thinking?

Hey President Obama: Since you ran me (and all the other veterans and family members) out of the Memorial before we finished our business there, how about doing me a favor. If you can take a short break from all the grippin’, grinnin’, posin’ and pontificatin’, how about taking a minute or two to stop by and say hello to my fellow Recon Marines and other classmates on the Wall. I suspect you’ll be too busy with photo ops, campaigning, and stroking donors to be troubled with a couple minutes doing what the Memorial was built for but, just in case, here’s a list so you can have your man find them and point them out to you. Hope you have a Meaningful Memorial Day.

Joseph J. JONES; 53-W-02


Sherwood David Kreis, 42-W-40


Dale Kagebein, 34-W-50


Jerry Bock, 25-W-95


Larry Daniels, 09-E- 66


Joe Mack Kemp, 09-E-69


Rhonda L. Raglan, 09-E-70


Robert L. Studards, 09-E-71


Jose D. Flores, 09-E-74


Arthur Willie Greene, 14-E-56


Eric Barnes, 17-E-41


Godfried Blankenship, 17-E-48


Michael Ray Smith, 19-E-113


Ervin Lovell, 19-E-120


William D. Martin, 25-E- 87


Michael L. Laporte, 26-E-1


Ronald Frederick Kitzke, 32-E-76


Charles Harris, 34-E-48


Robert Tracy, 34-E-72


Michael G. Murdock, 36-E-57

Maybe it would have been better for everyone if Obama had just gone golfing like last year. Unfortunately, this is what veterans and their families have to suffer when Obama is in full campaign mode.

No wonder a recent Gallup poll showed veterans prefer Mitt Romney to Obama, 58% to 34%.

H/T Jan Weeks

UPDATE: The National Park Service, Public Affairs, and Vietnam Veterans of America all confirmed the shut-down when contacted by phone. VVA said that all the guests had to be pre-screened for security reasons, and it would have been “very difficult” to give advance notice to all the families and vets who arrived to find it closed.

http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/2012/05/obamas-memorial-day-photo-op-blocks-families-vets-from-d-c-vietnam-memorial-wall-for-7-hours/

 Kristinn at Free Republic confirms the story:Wow. How did our veterans ever get their benefits before the benevolent Obamessiah came to office? Is that his argument for why they should vote for him? Because their benefits are only available “as long as I’m president?” Perhaps he’s hoping they’ll forget that he suspended hazard pay for deployed U.S. troops, terminated 157 Air Force Majors without retirement benefits, and proposed a budget that would cut healthcare benefits for active duty and retired US military while protecting union benefits.

Saturday 10-22-11

Using your tax money to create jobs is the US oh no, but in Finland, way to go mr. president, oh and it is not political at all, yeah right.

Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

Henrik Fisker said the U.S. money so far has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that went to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.

"We're not in the business of failing; we're in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business," Fisker said. "That's why we went to Finland."

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/car-company-us-loan-builds-cars-finland/story?id=14770875

Monday 10-17-11

FBI begins recording call-ins

Next time you call a talk radio station, beware: The FBI may be listening.

According to WMAL.com, "The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet. … The FBI says it is not playing Big Brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence."

The agency's reasons for recording all these radio programs don't get any clearer as the news report goes on. No doubt that is intentional.

Rush Limbaugh

"Don't hold out hope for Palin."

That was Rush Limbaugh's advice to a caller who was clinging to hope that the former Alaska governor would finally enter the 2012 Presidential race.

"You've got practical things like filing deadlines coming up, some are within a week now," Rush explained, "so I think it's time to move on. I think it's time to let go and move on" (FREE audio).

Ken Hoffman at the Houston Chronicle complained that, "Limbaugh is now calling first lady Michelle Obama … 'Moo-Chelle Obama.' Even for El Rushbo, that's stupid and insensitive. Limbaugh reportedly earns $38 million a year and lives in a beachfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla. He can't afford a mirror?"

Michael Savage

This week, Michael Savage labeled Barack Obama a "lifetime Marxist" and renewed concerns about his eligibility to serve as president.

He explained to listeners: Obama is "a man who refuses to show a valid birth certificate, a man who applies for college aid as a foreign student and then denies he's foreign, a man who has a Social Security number from a state he's never even lived in." (FREE audio).

Savage also declared: "The second Bolshevik revolution is beginning in the United States of America, egged on by our first communist president and his cronies. Obama is using the rabble in the gutters to draw attention away from the 'Fast and Furious' Mexican gunrunning scandal, and all the other scandals in this administration":

Sean Hannity

The New York Times shadowed Sean Hannity as part of a story about Fox News' 15th anniversary, and were forced to concede: "Despite the inflammatory rhetoric he instigates, Mr. Hannity is good-natured and humble in person, as interested in his children's tennis matches as in Mitt Romney's foreign policy positions. He rarely agrees to interviews, and when he did last week, he said he did not read negative articles about him, or even the friendly Twitter account all about his abundant head of hair."

Newt Gingrich joined Hannity on the air to analyze the most recent GOP candidate's debate, both his own performance and those of the other potential Republican nominees (FREE audio).

Mark Levin

"These debates are starting to bore me," Mark Levin told listeners this week. He complained that there were too many participants, and none of them will dare take on Mitt Romney (FREE audio).

Speaking of Romney, Levin slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for endorsing him. Levin feels neither of these men are "true" conservatives, and he is tired of hearing that "conservatives can't win" (FREE audio).

Laura Ingraham

Two Republican governors offered Ingraham different takes on who could take the White House in 2012.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told Laura and her listeners that Herman Cain would "sweep the South" if he is the GOP nominee (FREE audio).

However, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told her, "If the election were held today, Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama in Pennsylvania – a state the president won by roughly 10 points in 2008."

Rendell warned the party not to select a "wacky" nominee, and stick with somebody "competent." He added, "Sometimes I think the Republican Party has a death wish."

"I actually agree with you on that," Ingraham replied. "In many ways I think the Republicans can screw things up easily."

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck expanded his business empire this week, announcing the launch of his "1791" clothing line.

Beck explained, "The main thrusts of the 1791 line are to remember where we came from as Americans ... and to restore values and efforts that have made America great."

Beck sided with Hank Williams Jr. this week, after the singer/songwriter got in trouble for making a clumsy analogy that mentioned "Hitler" and "Obama" (but contrary to what's been reported, he didn't compare the two.) Beck played excerpts of Williams' new song "Keep the Change," and condemned ESPN and his former employers at Fox News for throwing Williams under the bus (FREE webcam).

And now, from the left side of the dial ...

Did you ever think you'd live to see a cable news host question the "blackness" of a potential president?

That's what happened when Al Sharpton and Prof. Karen Hunter struggled to make sense of Herman Cain's campaign for the Republican nomination (FREE audio).

Weirder still, the producer of progressive Stephanie Miller's radio show made a bizarre on-air suggestion that Cain was an anti-Semite. It was so outrageous even Miller expressed her embarrassment and tried to change the subject.

While these outbursts are painful to listen to, they reveal the unprincipled desperation of people whose worldview is crumbling before their eyes. That's probably the only redeeming social value these radio programs have.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=355881#ixzz1azkIJu6g

Next layer of air security: Chat-downs on top of pat-downs?

As Ingrid Esser hands a Transportation Security Administration officer her identification and boarding pass for a flight from Logan International Airport to Washington, D.C., she faces a flurry of questions.

By Josh T. Reynolds, for USA TODAY
A TSA agent interviews a traveler in Boston as part of Logan International Airport's pilot program for enhanced behavior detection at airport security.
Where is she going? Why? How long is she staying?

"It was a new experience," says Esser, 31, who works in public relations. "It doesn't bother me at all. I understand their job, and it's keeping America safe."

STORY: 'Chat-downs' latest 'first' in security at Logan since 9/11
In that exchange, Esser became part of an experiment that, if successful, could change how every passenger who seeks to board a commercial flight in the USA is screened: Besides going through a metal detector, and possibly a full-body scanning machine and pat-down, they'd first undergo a "chat-down," or face-to-face questioning by a TSA officer. The tactic is similar to what air travelers in Israel face under a program aimed at averting terrorism in the skies.

Chat-downs, a play on the word "pat-down," describing the physical screening that has angered some passengers as too intrusive, are part of the U.S. government's effort to adopt a broader strategy of sifting out people who might pose a greater security risk among the roughly 1.2 million people who fly each day.

"It means moving further away from what may have seemed like a one-size-fits-all approach to security," TSA Administrator John Pistole says.

Chat-downs already are controversial in their trial stage. Civil-liberties advocates and some critics of the TSA see them as another government invasion of fliers' privacy, a hassle for mostly law-abiding passengers or ineffectual.

"They're asking questions that people have a right not to answer," says Mike German, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. "It's nobody's business — and certainly not the government's business — where you're traveling and why."

So far, only 48 travelers out of about 132,000 who have been questioned here at Logan have refused to answer the questions, and instead their carry-on bags were physically searched.

"If they refuse to answer, we (still) let them catch their flight," says Ed Freni, Logan's aviation director.

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., says he sees chat-downs as another example of the TSA wasting time and money on "largely law-abiding citizens, for the most part."

'New situation for bad guys'

Chat-downs, which began at Logan in August, feature blue-shirted TSA officers for a few hours each day asking every passenger in Terminal A a series of questions.

TSA officers pose the questions when they check travelers' IDs and boarding passes. The choice of location has changed slightly, after first trying the questioning while travelers were in line before the ID check, or after the ID check and before the metal detectors.

Travelers say the questions typically focus on where they are headed, for how long and the purpose of the trip. More probing questions include whether carry-on bags have liquids or why the traveler is holding so much cash.

The answers aren't all officers are after. They're looking for behavioral clues to possible deception, and hostility that warrants further scrutiny or a referral to law-enforcement officials. Authorities won't describe the physical clues, but research has focused on liars averting their eyes, having an inconsistent head gesture or wringing their hands.

"By adding this level of security, we create a new situation for the bad guys that is much more difficult to overcome," says Rafi Ron, a former director of security at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, who was hired to help beef up Logan's security.

Suspicious travelers can be diverted for further questioning, but only 10 people have been referred to authorities for alleged crimes such as drug possession — not as terrorist suspects.

Despite the low numbers, George Naccara, TSA's federal security director for Logan, says the experiment is a good move by the agency to help narrow their search for potential threats. He says people found carrying fraudulent documents or large amounts of cash could represent terrorists testing airport security.

"We're looking at moving away from such heavy reliance on technology, and now we're looking at the human interaction," Naccara says. "That is a very powerful tool."

Some fliers found chat-downs less obtrusive than the prospect of physical searches they had to undergo on the other side of the metal detectors.

"They do it in Europe, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't do it here," David Jones, a 73-year-old retiree from Shapleigh, Maine, who was heading to Spokane, Wash., says of questions about where he was headed and whether he was traveling alone.

Rich Szulewski, 40, says the questions about where he was from and what he had done during his recent trip reminded him of those he faced growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., when he crossed the Peace Bridge from Canada.

"You're a captive audience, no pun intended," says Szulewski, of Germantown, Tenn., who flies more than 100,000 miles a year peddling contracts for an orthopedics manufacturer to hospitals. "It clearly wasn't just small talk."

Others are offended. "It's a waste of everybody's time," says Allen Crockett, 49, of Clayton, N.C., who travels 150,000 miles a year as vice president of sales for a wireless company.

The questions, he says, interrupted calls and texts he sends while waiting in line. Crockett is eager for development of a pre-screening program that would let him whisk around the long lines — and avoid last-minute questions.

"As a frequent flier, I'm going to take that lost privacy on the chin," Crockett says. "I want to get there five minutes before my flight and get on my plane and go."

TSA is experimenting with a pre-screening program akin to what Crockett says he'd like to see. That program, announced Oct. 4, is designed to expedite the security process for travelers who provide extra background information about themselves in advance. It is for frequent fliers on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas and Miami.

Does it stop terrorism?

TSA expects to continue tweaking the chat-downs through November. If deemed successful, they could be expanded to other airports. But the value of the questioning is a matter of dispute.

Chat-downs are an extension of a program called SPOT, for Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It now fields 3,000 officers at 161 airports at an annual cost of $212 million.

From May 2004 to August 2008, 2 billion people boarded aircraft at SPOT airports and 152,000 were referred for secondary questioning, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in May 2010. About 14,000 passengers were referred to law enforcement officers and 1,100 were arrested during that period.

Rather than charging anyone with terrorism, the SPOT detentions included 427 arrests of undocumented immigrants, 209 for outstanding warrants, 166 for fraudulent documents and 125 for drug possession.

Meanwhile, GAO checked 16 people who had been charged in six terrorist plots during that period and found they had passed unhindered at least 23 times through eight airports where SPOT officers worked.

"Although outstanding warrants and the possession of fraudulent or suspect documents could be associated with a terrorist threat, TSA officials did not identify any direct links to terrorism or any threat to the aviation system in any of these cases," the report said.

German of the ACLU says the program seems ripe for abuse because many people are nervous at the airport, many won't look others in the eye, and some seem arrogant.

"They seem to be doubling-down on a program that has proven ineffective," he says.

TSA and its consultants stand behind the program's value in detecting criminal behavior, if not yet terrorists.

"You've got to realize you're looking for needles in a haystack," says Paul Ekman, a psychology professor emeritus at University of California-San Francisco, who helped develop the SPOT program. "They don't appear very often. It's going to take you a long time to know whether a program is being successful."

Ekman says people's noses don't grow if they're lying. However, he says, they give off clues beyond facial expressions when they're lying or have hostile intentions. Physical tics from head to toe can emerge, he says.

"Concealment looks like concealment," says Ekman, a consultant on the Fox TV show Lie to Me.

Is it profiling?

The TSA says it isn't profiling passengers, but simply questioning everyone in line for several hours each day.

That's in contrast to Israel's system of questioning passengers, in which Ron says Israeli security collects much more information before a traveler arrives at the airport to determine how much scrutiny a person should receive at the airport.

Israeli profiling explicitly labels a 25-year-old Palestinian from Gaza as a higher risk aboard a plane than an elderly Holocaust survivor, Ron says. He acknowledges that system wouldn't work in the United States because of laws against racial and religious discrimination.

"They come in all colors, shapes and ethnic backgrounds," Ron says of terrorists. He points to threats from John Walker Lindh, an American convicted of fighting for the Taliban; Jose Padilla, a Hispanic U.S. citizen convicted of aiding terrorists; and attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, a British citizen of Jamaican descent.

"I think personally in the United States it would be a grave mistake to use racial profiling," he says.

Rep. Broun, whose subcommittee monitors the TSA, says that as a doctor he's skeptical the agency can train workers to spot terrorists.

Naccara, TSA's security chief at Logan, says chat-down officers get extra training after being chosen from among the 70 behavior-detection officers who each have several years of experience. "Those are the people getting the additional training, so they are not people off the street," Naccara says.

Passengers haven't been slowed by the extra layer of security so far. Lines backed up 20 minutes one day during initial testing because of a lack of staffing. Freni, Logan's aviation director, says the problem was corrected the next day.

The vast number of exchanges are brief, with questions lasting about 40 seconds. "We're not pushing people through," Freni says, "but we can make an adjustment."

Back in the security line at Logan, banker Russell Chong, 40, shrugs off the added security step as he heads to a flight home to New York City.

"No problem," he says with a wink, "as long as it doesn't slow things down."

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2011-10-13/Next-layer-of-air-security-Chat-downs-on-top-of-pat-downs/50757204/1

Florida hotel fires worker for wearing US flag pin

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- Just before firing Sean May the day after he was sent home for wearing an American flag pin, the Casa Monica Hotel answered some questions in an email Friday.

"The Casa Monica Hotel located in St. Augustine, Florida, is an American-based, homegrown historic hotel," the email reads. "The property reflects its pride in America and great patriotism by flying the Stars and Stripes high over the hotel. The American flag greets every guest and employee with its symbolism of our belief in this great country."

"However, our employee handbook clearly states, 'No other buttons, badges, pins or insignias of any kind are permitted to be worn.' No matter an individual's national preference, political views or religious affiliation, it is a standard regulation which ensures equality for all Grand Performers (employees)."

The Casa Monica Hotel's response has angered many people, some who say the policy is backwards and that American flag pins shouldn't be banned but should be embraced.

"The dress code should include a lapel pin for everybody," said Bruce Whalen, who served in the Air Force and takes this incident personally.

Whalen said he is so offended by the hotel's policy that he's writing to the hotel, along with his entire email list, and he's calling on friends to boycott the hotel and its parent company.

"Anybody who takes a chance on his livelihood to take a stand for patriotism is a hero and should be treated like a hero," Whalen said.

May, the 26-year-old now-former front desk supervisor at Casa Monica Hotel in the heart of downtown St. Augustine, was told to take the pin off Thursday because it violates company policy, but he refused and was sent home.

St. Johns county Commissioner Mark Miner issued this statement on the issue:

"The Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise certainly have the legal right to forbid their employees from wearing an American flag pin. However, their inability to discern between the flag of our nation and other pins and buttons that their policies forbid is of great concern to me. St. Johns County is home to nearly 20,000 military veterans and is made up of an ideologically and culturally diverse population whose collective love for the United States is second to none. I want to make clear that the actions taken by the Casa Monica Hotel and Kessler Enterprise do not represent the patriotism shared by St. Johns County residents and businesses."
"I hope Kessler Enterprise will act quickly to correct the disrespect they have shown the flag of our great nation and end the embarrassment they have brought upon St. Johns County."

Miner is a two-time veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and has been a member of the Florida Army National Guard since 2002.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/29487987/detail.html

Tuesday 08-23-11

Woman’s yard sale to pay medical bills gets shut down
A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down.

Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.

Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way.

“It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a struggle for me because I’m very independent, used to taking care of myself.”

She’s run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.

“It’s a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone,” she says.

In one day she lost her independence, her ability to work and earn an income that could pay for all those medical bills.

So she decided to sell what she owned. The sale was bringing in several hundred dollars each weekend until one neighbor complained and she got a visit from the city.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry. Rules are rules.’”

Cline says she understands the city is trying to prevent nuisances in neighborhoods but she doesn’t think she’s causing any trouble.

“We make such an effort of making it back here (backyard) so that it’s not goobering up the neighborhood, so it’s not like a garage sale all laid out day after day after day,” she says.

Cline says she’s not looking for special treatment but maybe some understanding.

“I just hope that nobody else has to go through this kind of thing. I hope no one else has to give their lives away for nickels and dimes and then be told they can’t even do that. I hope nobody else has to do this ever.”

According to the Community Development Department, there is a reason for the law. In the past some people had set up what ended up being permanent flea-market-type sales on their property.

After hearing more about Cline’s situation, a supervisor said he is going to take another look to see if there’s anything she can do to operate within the law. But if she reopens now, it is a misdemeanor and about a $300 fine.

http://salem.katu.com/news/news/442449-womans-yard-sale-pay-medical-bills-gets-shut-down

President Bush and other economist have been talking about this for years, maybe something will finally get done about it. (yeah get real, lol)

Social Security disability on verge of insolvency

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.

Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.

The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.

Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.

"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"

The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.

Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.

Also, people who qualify for Social Security disability automatically get Medicare after two years, even if they are younger than 65, the age when other retirees qualify for the government-run health insurance program.

Congress tried to rein in the disability program in the late 1970s by making it tougher to qualify. The number of people receiving benefits declined for a few years, even during a recession in the early 1980s. Congress, however, reversed course and loosened the criteria, and the rolls were growing again by 1984.

The disability program "got into trouble first because of liberalization of eligibility standards in the 1980s," said Charles Blahous, one of the public trustees who oversee Social Security. "Then it got another shove into bigger trouble during the recent recession."

Today, about 13.6 million people receive disability benefits through Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Social Security is for people with substantial work histories, and monthly disability payments average $927. Supplemental Security Income does not require a work history but it has strict limits on income and assets. Monthly SSI payments average $500.

As policymakers work to improve the disability system, they are faced with two major issues: Legitimate applicants often have to wait years to get benefits while many others get payments they don't deserve.

Last year, Social Security detected $1.4 billion in overpayments to disability beneficiaries, mostly to people who got jobs and no longer qualified, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Congress is targeting overpayments.

The deficit reduction package enacted this month would allow Congress to boost Social Security's budget by about $4 billion over the next decade to invest in programs that identify people who no longer qualify for disability benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that increased enforcement would save nearly $12 billion over the next decade.

At the same time, the application process can be a nightmare for legitimate applicants. About two-thirds of initial applications are rejected. Most of these people drop their claims, but for those willing go through an appeals process that can take two years or more, chances are good they eventually will get benefits.

Astrue has pledged to reduce processing times for applicants' appeals, and he has had some success, even as the number of claims skyrockets. The number of people waiting for decisions has increased, but their wait times are going down.

"It's ludicrous to say that the backlog problem is getting worse," Astrue said. "The backlog problem has gotten dramatically better."

Patricia L. Foster said she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Columbia, S.C., in 2005 when she was attacked by a patient who was suffering from a mental illness. Foster, 64, said she injured her neck so bad she had a plate inserted. She said she also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Foster was turned down twice for Social Security disability benefits before finally getting them in 2009, after hiring an Illinois-based company, Allsup, to represent her. She said she was awarded retroactive benefits, though the process was demeaning.

"I have to tell you, when you're told you cannot return to nursing because of your disability, you don't know how long I cried about that," Foster said. "And then Social Security says, 'Oh no, you don't qualify.' You don't know what that does to you emotionally. You have no idea."

Online:

Federal disability programs: www.ssa.gov/disability/

Congressional Budget Office projections: www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12375

Government Accountability Office report: www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-724

http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-disability-verge-insolvency-090119318.html

Here is an follow up on blurp the other day about making bullet proof skin from spider webs

Utah researcher helps artist make bulletproof skin

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A bio-art project to create bulletproof skin has given a Utah State researcher even more hope his genetically engineered spider silk can be used to help surgeons heal large wounds and create artificial tendons and ligaments.

Researcher Randy Lewis and his collaborators gained worldwide attention recently when they found a commercially viable way to manufacture silk fibers using goats and silkworms that had spider genes inserted into their makeup.

Spider silk is one of the strongest fibers known and five times stronger than steel. Lewis' fibers are not that strong but much stronger than silk spun by ordinary worms.

With Lewis' help, Dutch artist Jalila Essaidi conducted an experiment weaving a lattice of human skin cells and silk that was capable of stopping bullets fired at reduced speeds.

"Randy and I were moved by the same drive I think, curiosity about the outcome of the project," Essaidi said in an email interview. "Both the artist and scientist are inherently curious beings."

Lewis thought the project was a bit off the wall at first, Essaidi acknowledged.

"But in the end, what curious person can say no to a project like this?" she said.

Essaidi, who used a European genetics-in-art grant to fund her project at the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Awards, initially wanted to use Lewis' spider silk from goats to capitalize on the "grotesque factor" of the mammal-spider combination.

But Lewis didn't yet have enough of the spider goat silk to send hundreds of yards to Essaidi. So he sent her spools of silk from silkworms he had genetically engineered in a fashion similar to the goats.

Essaidi initially intended to fire .22 caliber bullets at the "skin" stretched in a frame. But she decided to place the "skin" on a special gelatin block used at the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

Using a high-speed camera, she showed a bullet fired at a reduced speed piercing the skin woven with an ordinary worm's silk But when tested with Lewis' genetically engineered worm's silk grafted between the epidermis and dermis, the skin didn't break. Neither was able to repel a bullet fired at normal speed from a .22 caliber rifle.

"We were more than a little surprised that the final skin kept the bullet from going in there," Lewis said of the tests at reduced speed. "It still ended up 2 inches into the torso, so it would not have saved your life. But without a doubt the most exciting part for us is the fact that they were able to recreate the skin on top of our fibers. It's something we haven't done. Nobody has worked in that area."

Essaidi was intrigued by the concept of spider silk as armor, and wanted to show that safety in its broadest sense is a relative concept, hence bulletproof.

"If human skin would be able to produce this thread, would we be protected from bullets?" she wondered on her blog. "I want to explore the social, political, ethical and cultural issues surrounding safety in a world with access to new biotechnologies."

She said it is legend that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel.

"Will we in the near future due to biotechnology no longer need to descend from a godly bloodline in order to have traits like invulnerability?" she asked.

Lewis downplayed the potential bulletproof applications of his research.

"I certainly would not discount that, but I don't see that as a tremendous application at the moment," he said.

He said bulletproof vests already exist. But being able to grow cells and use the material to replace large amounts of human skin could be significant for surgeons trying to cover large wounds, or treat people with severe burns.

He said the material's strength and elasticity would enable doctors to cover large areas without worrying about it ripping out _ a big advantage over small skin grafts.

Lewis couldn't give a time frame for such a use because it would require FDA approval. But he hoped to do some animal testing within two years, and noted spider silk already has proven very compatible with the human body.

The next step is to generate more material to test what cells will grow on it _ made easier with the "transgenic" silk worms and milk from goat spiders.

The real stuff is still the holy grail for fibers and textiles but not the easiest to come by as evidenced by an 11-by-4 foot tapestry unveiled two years ago at the New York Museum of Natural History that took millions of spiders to complete.

"We know some skin cells will grow (on our fibers), but can we get cells that make ligaments and tendons grow," Lewis said.

He said it may be easier to use the genetically engineered silk to make materials better than actual ligaments or tendons.

Essaidi, meanwhile, said she has plenty of wild ideas but wants to transplant the bulletproof skin.

She said Geert Verbeke, director of Verbeke Foundation in Belgium, the biggest Eco/BioArt museum, wants to wear the skin "as an ode to BioArt."

Back at Utah State's bio-manufacturing facility in Logan, Utah, Lewis just started breeding for the next round of milking in January. He has about three dozen of the genetically engineered goats. He extracts proteins from the special milk then spins them in a way that replicates the spider's method, resulting in a strong, light-weight fiber.

"Nothing is as strong as the natural fiber, yet," Lewis said of spider silk. "But we are working on solving that problem."

http://wtop.com/?nid=209&sid=2506935


Every pawn shop and surplus story outside of every military base in the US has this happen everyday. Not suppose to use miltary in a law enforsement role. All they are doing is blurring the lines.

Air Force recovers stolen materials from Friday's raid

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV)- We're learning more on why the U.S. Air Force raided a local gun store Friday. They say it wasn't guns they were looking for.

An official from the Air Force is speaking to Action News about that raid. New information clarifies that this may have been an inside job, and the penalties could turn out to be very severe.

It was an afternoon that rocked businesses near Dean Martin and Flamingo. Local and federal law enforcement agencies swarmed in and served search warrants on Citadel Gun and Safe.

New information gives us an insight on the massive raid that up until now, authorities were tight lipped about. Turns out it was the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that led the raid.

"They went in there and did in fact find stolen air force military property that was stolen from Nellis Air Force Base," says Linda Card with the Air Force OSI.

Metro lent a hand as well as the FBI, ATF, and ICE. The recovered material though would not have posed a danger to regular people, says the Air Force.

"It did not include weapons, guns, explosives of any kind, bombs, nothing like that. It was basic stolen military property," says Card.

It's unclear what "basic military property" really is. We went to the Citadel Gun and Safe store Saturday it was open for business, but they promptly told us, not open for comment. After questioning the store owner and raiding his home, authorites have turned their investigation to Nellis Air Force Base.

"But if someone is in fact guilty at Nellis and they did steal military equipment and they tried to sell it outside, yes they will be charged for whatever it is that they did," says Card.

At this point no one has been charged, but as the questioning continues, formal charges could come as early as next week. We're told the gun store's owner did cooperate with authorities, and the investigation is still open.

http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/128140053.html

Tuesday 08-16-11

Column: The Reagan stimulus vs. the Obama one

How ironic that as America debated its debt ceiling all summer and faced a stunning credit downgrade, the nation approached a most timely anniversary: It was Aug. 13, 1981, that President Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Act. Understanding Reagan's thinking 30 years ago is critical to discerning where we are now.

Reagan's initiative was the antithesis of President Obama's $800 billion "stimulus" that didn't stimulate. The 2009 version was the single greatest contributor to our record $1.5 trillion deficit. It was, plain and simple, what Reagan didn't do.

When Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Act at his ranch near Santa Barbara, it was the largest tax cut in American history. He also revealed leadership that Democrats and Republicans alike agree we are not seeing currently from the White House. Even TheWashington Post called Reagan's action "one of the most remarkable demonstrations of presidential leadership in modern history."

Confiscatory tax policy

The enemy that day was America's progressive federal income tax system, birthed in 1913 by Congress and President Woodrow Wilson. It was revolutionary, requiring a constitutional amendment. That tax, which began as a 1% levy on the wealthy, would rocket up to a top rate of 94% by the 1940s.

Ronald Reagan personally felt the toll. In the 1940s, the so-called "B"-movie actor was one of the top box-office draws at Warner Bros. Then a Democrat, Reagan saw no incentive in continuing to work — that is, make more movies — once his income hit the top rate. He also realized who suffered from that choice. It wasn't Reagan; he was wealthy. It was the custodians, cafeteria ladies, camera crew and working folks on the studio lot. They lost work.

Reagan viewed such rates as punitive, confiscatory — "creeping socialism," as he put it. In speeches in the 1950s and 1960s, he blasted the tax as right out of Marx's Communist Manifesto.

By the late 1970s, Reagan concluded that out-of-control taxes, spending and regulation had sapped the economy of its vitality and ability to rebound. And so, on that August day in 1981, Reagan, with a Democratic House and Republican Senate, secured a 25% across-the-board reduction in income tax rates over a three-year period beginning in October 1981. Eventually, the upper rate would drop to 28%.

As biographer Steve Hayward notes, even when Reagan compromised with Democrats on tax increases in exchange for promised spending cuts in 1982, he "never budged an inch on marginal income tax rates." Reagan understood that not all taxes, or tax increases, are equal.

After a slow start through 1982-83, the stimulus effect of the cuts was extraordinary, sparking the longest peacetime expansion in U.S. history. The "Reagan Boom" not only produced widespread prosperity but — along with the attendant Soviet collapse — also helped generate budget surpluses in the 1990s. Carter-Ford era terms such as "malaise" and "misery index" vanished. Only now has America re-approached similar misery-index levels, reaching a 28-year high.

Reaganomics myths

Unfortunately, liberals have so maligned Reaganomics that they are unable to separate facts from myths — to the detriment of their party and president. Among the worst myths is that Reagan's tax cuts created the deficit, even as the deficit increased under Reagan.

In fact, Reagan inherited chronic deficits. Since Franklin Roosevelt, the budget had been balanced a handful of times, mainly under President Eisenhower. From 1981-89, the deficit under Reagan increased from $79 billion to $153 billion. It peaked in 1983-86, hitting $221 billion. Yet, once the economy started booming, the deficit steadily dropped.

Tax cuts were not the problem. Tax revenues under Reagan rose from $599 billion in 1981 to nearly $1 trillion in 1989. The problem was that outlays all along outpaced revenue, soaring from $678 billion in 1981 to $1.14 trillion in 1989.

The cause of the Reagan deficits was the 1982-83 recession and spending — as is always the case. And, yes, the culprit was not just social spending by congressional Democrats but Reagan defense spending designed to take down the Soviet Union. What a bargain that turned out to be: It helped kill an "evil empire" and win the Cold War, paving the way for a peacetime dividend in the 1990s.

Yet it is clear today that we have refused the proper lessons of history. For one, our problem remains excessive spending. Obama must bear this in mind if he's considering tax increases (which hamper growth) as part of his "balanced" approach to deficit reduction. More than that, the best "stimulus" relies on the tried-and-true American way: Let free individuals stimulate the economy through their earnings and activity.

Ignoring such realities explains the mess we face in August 2011 — a millennium removed from the wisdom of August 1981.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-08-14-reagan-obama-economy-recovery-stimulus_n.htm?loc=interstitialskip

The Pentagon's Fake Jihadists
Could the Pentagon Be Responsible for Your Death?
The Military’s Marching Orders to the Jihadist World
By Tom Engelhardt

Put what follows in the category of paragraphs no one noticed that should have made the nation’s hair stand on end. This particular paragraph should also have sent chills through the body politic, launched warning flares, and left the people’s representatives in Congress shouting about something other than the debt crisis.

Last weekend, two reliable New York Times reporters, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, had a piece in that paper’s Sunday Review entitled “After 9/11, an Era of Tinker, Tailor, Jihadist, Spy.” Its focus was the latest counterterrorism thinking at the Pentagon: deterrence theory. (Evidently an amalgam of the old Cold War ideas of “containment” and nuclear deterrence wackily reimagined by the boys in the five-sided building for the age of the jihadi.) Schmitt and Shanker’s article was, a note informed the reader, based on research for their forthcoming book, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda.

And here’s the paragraph, buried in the middle of their piece, that should have stopped readers in their tracks:

“Or consider what American computer specialists are doing on the Internet,
perhaps terrorist leaders’ greatest safe haven, where they recruit, raise money,
and plot future attacks on a global scale. American specialists have become
especially proficient at forging the onscreen cyber-trademarks used by Al Qaeda
to certify its Web statements, and are posting confusing and contradictory
orders, some so virulent that young Muslims dabbling in jihadist philosophy, but
on the fence about it, might be driven away.”

The italics are mine, and as the authors urge us to do, let’s consider for a moment this tiny, remarkably bizarre window into military reality. As a start, just where those military “computer specialists” are remains unknown. Perhaps they are in the Pentagon, perhaps somewhere in the National Counterterrorism Center, but whoever and wherever they are, here’s the question of the week, possibly of the month or the year: Just what kind of “orders” can they be posting “so virulent that young Muslims dabbling in jihadist philosophy, but on the fence about it, might be driven away”?

And even if our computer experts really were capable of turning wavering young Muslims back from the shores of jihadism -- and personally I wouldn’t put my money on the Pentagon’s skills in that realm -- what about young Muslims (or older ones for that matter) who weren’t on that fence and took those “orders” seriously? What exactly are they being “ordered” to do?

Talk about a potential Frankenstein situation -- and all we can do is ask questions. Just what monsters, for example, might the military’s computer specialists be helping to forge? And who exactly is supervising those “specialists” and their vituperative messages? (Especially since they are unlikely to be in English, and we already know that Arabic, Pashto, Dari, and Farsi speakers at the higher levels, or even lower levels, of the Pentagon are, at best, few and far between.)

Keep in mind that we already have an example of a similarly wacky program lacking meaningful oversight that went awry, hit the headlines, and resulted in the perfectly real deaths of at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent and undoubtedly many more Mexicans. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives launched its now infamous gun-tracking program in Arizona in late 2009, under the moniker “Operation Fast and Furious” (a reference to a series of movies about street car racers). It was meant to track cross-border gun sales to Mexico’s drug cartels by actually letting perfectly real weapons cross the border -- more than 2,000 of them, as it turned out. ATF agents, according to a Washington Post report, would be “instructed not to move in and question the [gun runners] but to let the guns go and see where they eventually ended up.” And so they did for more than a year and, not exactly surprisingly, those weapons ended up “on the street” and in the ugliest of hands.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart asked an apt question about the program: “The ATF plan to prevent American guns from being used in Mexican gun violence is to provide Mexican gangs with American guns. If this is the plan that they went with, what plan did we reject?”

Assumedly, the same question could be asked of the military’s online anti-jihadist program, involving as it evidently does messages believed to be too extreme for wavering young Muslims with an interest in the jihadi “philosophy.” Shouldn’t someone start asking whether those Pentagon’s “orders” to jihadis might not turn out to be the online equivalent of so many loose guns?

After all, what are those specialists ordering them to do? And if actual jihadis actually tried to follow those “confusing and contradictory orders,” possibly being confused and contradictory kinds of guys, if they took them seriously and interpreted them in ways not predicted by their putative Pentagon handlers, is there a possibility that anyone could die as a result? And if such messages turn off some prospective jihadis, isn’t it possible that they might turn on others? And could they, for instance, have been ordered to commit confused and contradictory acts that might end up involving Americans?

Really, someone should blow Schmitt and Shanker’s paragraph up to giant size, tack it up somewhere in the Capitol, and call for a congressional investigation. If the ATF could do it, why not the Pentagon? And honestly, is this how Americans want to see their tax dollars spent?

Read the Schmitt and Shanker piece and you’ll get a sense of what Shakespeare might have called the “oerweening pride” rife in the Pentagon when it comes to their skills and their ability to put one (or two, or three) over on the jihadist community. So pleased with themselves were they, that they evidently couldn’t help bragging to the two reporters about their skills. The old phrase “too smart for your own good” comes to mind. It’s enough to make you worry, even based on so little information (which the new book from the two reporters may significantly amplify).

And by the way, if you want another unsettling analogy, when it comes to off-the-wall ideas for “deterring” jihadist networks, check out the major record companies and their efforts to deter communities and individuals from illegally downloading music. The Recording Industry Association of America, representing the four major record labels, decided to make a cautionary example of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a Minnesota mom, by suing her “for illegally downloading and sharing 24 songs on the peer-to-peer file-sharing network Kazaa in 2006.” So far, the organization has dragged her through three trials, getting terrible publicity. Even if they win and leave her in hock for the rest of her life, do you think for one second that they will have made a dent in the world of illegal downloads or deterred anyone? Just ask your kid.

Don't think deterrence here, think blowback.

Honestly, if Schmitt and Shanker’s claim is accurate, you should be shaking in your boots. And someone on Capitol Hill should be starting to ask some relevant questions, including this one: Could “computer specialists” in the employ of the Pentagon be responsible for your death in a future terrorist attack?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175429/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_pentagon%27s_fake_jihadists/#more

Tuesday 08-09-11

This punk is fortunate that it was not any of my kids, and i will gladly fly to Texas (at my own expense) to hold the guy for any of the other parents.

Honey-Soaked Naked Girls Were Filmed By Pastor

AUGUST 8--Using a hidden video camera, a Texas man filmed four naked, honey-drenched teenage girls while they showered at a church where he worked as a youth pastor.

But since the statute of limitations has already expired, prosecutors today were forced to dismiss felony charges lodged against Thomas Fortenberry, who allegedly did the surreptitious filming in November 2007 at the Greater Harvest Community Church in Pasadena.

The 30-year-old Fortenberry, investigators alleged, organized a “Fear Factor” game that included honey being poured over four girls he had picked to participate. After the contest, Fortenberry instructed the minors that they “could take a shower and wash the honey” off their bodies.

It was at this point that he allegedly videotaped the four teenagers with a camera he had hidden in the church bathroom.

Investigators learned about the filming from one of the girls, who eventually went on to date Fortenberry. “When they became closer and it looked like they might be married,” Fortenberry, pictured above, told the victim, now 21, “that he had secretly videotaped her taking a shower” at the church.

The woman, who was 17 at the time of the “Fear Factor” incident, added that Fortenberry confessed to secretly videotaping three other girls (two 15-year-olds and a 17-year-old). When confronted by a police officer, Fortenberry would not deny having filmed the teenagers. “The defendant would only say that he has done things that he should not have done.”

Either way, Texas prosecutors today announced that they could not pursue charges against Fortenberry since the incident occurred more than three years ago, beyond the statute of limitations for the improper photography/visual recording count. The felony complaints, which were filed against Fortenberry on August 4, were dismissed today by the Harris County District Attorney’s office. (2 pages)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/pastor-films-honey-soaked-girls-987654


Got this as an email, interesting to say the least, it should make you thankful.

THIS PUTS OUR WORLD INTO A PERSPECTIVE MORE EASILY UNDERSTOOD.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100
people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look
something like the following:

* 57 Asians
* 21 Europeans
* 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
* 8 Africans

* 52 would be female
* 48 would be male

* 70 would be non-white
* 30 would be white

* 70 would be non-Christian
* 30 would be Christian

* 99 would be heterosexual
* 1 would be homosexual

* 6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and
* all 6 would be from the United States.

* 80 would live in substandard housing
* 70 would be unable to read
* 50 would suffer from malnutrition

* 1 would be near death
* 1 would be near birth

* 1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education

* 1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need
for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

The following is also something to ponder:

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more
blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of
imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation you are ahead
of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest,
torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the
world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead
and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.

If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare,
even in the United States and Canada.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish
someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

Wednesday 7-06-11

Jail inmate: Lack of porn violates US Constitution

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) - A Michigan jail inmate says he's being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because he can't have pornography.

In a handwritten lawsuit, 21-year-old Kyle Richards claims his civil rights are being violated at the Macomb County Jail. Richards says denying his request for erotic material subjects him to a "poor standard of living" and "sexual and sensory deprivation."

The Michigan Department of Corrections tells The Detroit News that prisons allow some pornographic material, though it's banned at the jail. The American Civil Liberties Union says prisons have a lot of leeway.

Richards was charged with bank robbery after police followed a trail of snowy footprints and dropped money to his apartment from a bank robbery scene in January in Fraser, north of Detroit.

Richards pleaded guilty. Sentencing is Aug. 2.

http://wtop.com/?nid=681&sid=2446804

Tuesday 06-28-11

I know it missed, but the sad thing is that they did not know what it was until a week before it was due to "come close"

Small asteroid swings harmlessly past Earth

Whew, that was close. An asteroid the size of a tour bus streaked harmlessly past Earth on Monday, passing within 7,600 miles.

Discovered only last week, the relatively small space rock made a hairpin turn around the planet at about 10 a.m. PDT, sailing high over the southern Atlantic Ocean.

http://wtop.com/?nid=884&sid=2436262

This one makes me want to do more then cuss

TSA denies having required a 95-year-old woman to remove diaper

The Transportation Security Administration has denied that its agents required a 95-year-old woman to remove her adult diaper last week before allowing her to pass a screening checkpoint at Northwest Florida Regional Airport.

"While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the agency said Sunday night in a statement. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally, according to proper procedure and did not require this passenger to remove an adult diaper."

A response released earlier Sunday by the TSA said that the agency had reviewed the circumstances "and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure."

The woman's daughter, Jean Weber, told CNN on Monday that the TSA agents acted professionally and never ordered the removal of her mother's diaper. However, Weber said the agents made it clear that her mother could not board the plane unless they were able to inspect the diaper.

According to Weber, it was her idea to remove the diaper so it could be inspected and they could make their flight.

"They were doing their job according to the instructions of the TSA and their policies," Weber said, later adding that the options offered them were to remove the diaper or "she was not going to get on the plane."

On Sunday, Weber told CNN that the June 18 incident occurred when she and her mother were traveling from northwest Florida to Michigan, where her mother was planning to move in with other relatives prior to moving into an assisted-living facility.

"My mother is very ill, she has a form of leukemia," Weber said Sunday. "She had a blood transfusion the week before, just to bolster up her strength for this travel."

At a security checkpoint, a TSA officer ushered the wheelchair-bound woman into a glassed-in area where a pat-down was performed, Weber said. Weber said an agent told her "they felt something suspicious on (her mother's) leg and they couldn't determine what it was" -- leading them to take her into a private, closed room.

Soon after, Weber said, a TSA agent told her that her mother's Depend undergarment was "wet and it was firm, and they couldn't check it thoroughly." But her mother had no clean diapers in her carry-on luggage and the departure time for the plane was approaching, Weber said.

"They said, 'You can get her luggage back to get more out of her luggage,' but the luggage was checked and I didn't know how long it would take to get her luggage," Weber said. "I asked if I could take the wet Depends off and they said yes but said I had to take her back to the lobby of the airport -- to the restroom out of the screening area."

She said she and her mother then went to a bathroom and removed the wet diaper, then went back through the screening checkpoint.

Weber said her mother, a nurse for 65 years, "was very calm" despite being bothered by the fact that she went on to complete her journey without underwear.

By this weekend, the elder woman -- who was not identified by name -- was doing "fine" in Michigan with her relatives, Weber said Sunday.

This is not the first time that the TSA's pat-downs of passengers have come under fire, nor the first time that the agency has rallied behind its officers and policy.

Last year, the administration announced it was ramping up the use of full-body scanning and pat-downs to stop nonmetallic threats, including explosives, from getting on planes. The goal is to head off attacks such as the one allegedly attempted on Christmas of 2009 by Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from the Netherlands to Michigan.

The TSA estimates that only 3% of passengers are subjected to pat-downs -- and then only after they have set off a metal detector or declined to step into a full-body scanner. Yet the new policy has triggered an uproar online and in airports, from a small but vocal number of travelers who feel their rights and privacy were being violated.

The federal safety agency has made some adjustments to its policy, but no major changes.

"Every traveler is a critical partner in TSA's efforts to keep our skies safe," Administrator John Pistole, who ordered the new approach, said last fall. "And I know and appreciate that the vast majority of Americans recognize and respect the important work we do."

More recently, outrage erupted over a video-recorded pat-down of a 6-year-old passenger last April at New Orleans' airport. The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows the girl protesting the search by a female security officer at first, though she complies quietly while it is under way.

Pistole addressed this controversy at a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee meeting last week, explaining the pat-down was ordered because the child had moved while passing through a body imaging machine. He told committee members that "we have changed the policy (so) that there'll be repeated efforts made to resolve that without a pat-down."

The next day, TSA spokesman Greg Soule said that the new policy -- which will apply to children age 12 and younger -- was in the process of being rolled out.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/27/florida.tsa.incident/index.html

Monday 06-20-11

There has been a lot of talk about we are still in a depression, the olde adage goes (something like) "it is down turn in the economy if you know a friends friends that is out of work, if you know someone out of work it is a recession, if you are out of work it is depression". Well i'm not out of work, but it diffidently Badtimes are going and it not too far off. People are feeling it

How Miserable? Index Says the Worst in 28 Years

The index, first compiled during the soaring inflation days of the 1970s by economist Arthur Okun, is registering a nausea-inducing 12.7—9.1 percent for unemployment and 3.6 percent for annualized inflation—a number not seen since 1983. The index has been above 10 since November 2009 and had been under double-digits from June 1993 through May 2008.

The good news, of course, is that the Fed-led Paul Volcker embarked on a highly successful inflation-slaying campaign that brought the level of misery down sharply through the rest of the ’80s recovery decade.

The bad news, of course, is all the bad news.

Put another way, by Paul Dales at Capital Economics:

“The good news is that other measures suggest conditions aren't quite that bad and over the next 18 months the gloom should lift a little,” the firm’s chief US economist wrote in a Misery analysis. “The bad news is that households won't be in the mood to boost their spending significantly for several more years.”

Dales says all the misery may not be as bad as it appears. An alternative measure, put forth in 1999 by Robert Barro, encompasses a wider swath of misery, measuring employment against the so-called “natural rate” and compares inflation against the previous 10 years. The Barro measure also looks at whether gross domestic product is below its “potential” and compares yields on the 10-year Treasury note against the yields of the previous 10 years.

With all that rolled in, Dales says the Barro index is indicating that while things aren't expected to get dramatically better, the level of misery is probably at a peak and should roll back over the next 18 months.

Slideshow: What Happens if Greece Defaults?
“The upshot is that Americans might not be quite as miserable as the Okun misery index appears to suggest,” Dales said. “And as inflation falls back, some of the gloom will lift.”

Still, the level of misery, whatever the measure, is high, with many unconvinced that inflation is, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke suggests, transitory, or that the economy is in a mere soft patch that will fade.

Investor sentiment continues to fall. The latest Investors Intelligence survey, a weekly poll of newsletter authors, points to bulls outnumbering bears by just a 37 percent to 26 percent margin. Yes, it does indicate more people believing the market is heading higher than lower, but the bullishness is around financial crisis levels.

The survey includes a smattering of comments from participants.

One of the more common that represents the bearish perspective looks at how much optimism there had been in the market prior to the May 2 highs.

“Frankly, we have been stunned by the disconnect that we see between these optimistic calls over the past six to nine months and the reality of what is occurring in the global economy,” wrote Boston-based Hans P. Black in the Interinvest Review & Outlook.

Conversely, misery is not universal, with Elliott F. Gue’s Personal Finance Newsletter making the case for the optimists that one should not “fall prey to the panic fanned by the usual fear-mongering doomsayers,” a group that presumably includes those unemployed or bewildered by inflation and, thus, in misery.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43441924

The judge is ignorant, he should have been better educated, must have gone to public school to get this smart.

Pro 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Pro 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Pro 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

Judge has harsh words for Mom before sentencing her for spanking her kid

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case." They noted she didn't use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.
Posted: 11:28 AM Jun 17, 2011

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CBS) -- A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation.

"You don't spank children today," said Judge Jose Longoria. "In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don't spank children."

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case." They noted she didn't use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.

As part of the plea deal, Gonzales will serve five years probation, during which time she'll have to take parenting classes, follow CPS guidelines, and make a $50 payment to the Children's Advocacy Center.

She was arrested back in December after the child's paternal grandmother noticed red marks on the child's rear end. The grandmother took the girl, who was two years-old at the time, to the hospital to be checked out.

Gonzales who doesn't have custody of the child or her other two children, is trying to get them back, but until CPS feels she is ready the kids are living with their paternal grandmother.

http://www.volunteertv.com/national/headlines/Mom_pleads_guilty_to_spanking_own_child_124072014.html

Tuesday 06-14-11

I dislike stupid people, in general, but why does it seem that so many of them work for the TSA? Maybe is required to be hired there?

Special Needs Son Harassed by TSA at Detroit Metropolitan Airport

ROMULUS, Mich. (WJBK) - The Mandy family says they were on their way to the happiest place on earth (Disney), but had to go through hell to get there.

"I realize they're trying to keep people safe, but come on, does he look like a terrorist?" said Dr. David Mandy.

The family was going through security when two TSA agents singled Drew Mandy out for a special pat down. Drew is severely mentally disabled. He's 29, but his parents said he has the mental capacity of a two-year-old, which made the experience that followed at metro Detroit's McNamera Terminal that much harder to deal with.

"You have got to be kidding me. I honestly felt that those two agents did not know what they were doing," Mandy told us.

Dr. Mandy claimed they asked Drew to place his feet on the yellow shoe line, something he didn't understand. They proceeded to pat his pants down, questioning the padding which was his adult diapers. When the agents asked Drew to take his hand and rub the front and back of his pants so they could swab it for explosives, his dad stepped in and tried to explain that Drew was mentally challenged.

"They said, 'Please, sir, we know what we're doing,'" Mandy said.

The TSA agents saw Drew holding a six-inch plastic hammer.

"My son carries his ball and his hammer for security. He goes everywhere with (them)," said Mandy.

The TSA it seems saw the toy as a weapon.

"He took the hammer and he tapped the wall. 'See, it's hard. It could be used as a weapon,'" Mandy explained. "So, Drew's also holding the ball, and I said, 'Well, how about the ball?' He (said), 'Oh, he can keep that."

Dr. Mandy was told he would need to have the toy shipped if he wanted to keep it, a process which caused them to almost miss their plane, so he pitched it.

"It just killed me to have to throw it away because he's been carrying this like for 20 years," Mandy said.

Disgusted, he wrote TSA a letter. A response wasn't far behind.

"Very polite. Very apologetic. He was embarrassed. He (said) we have to review how we deal with special needs individuals. Obviously, he (said), we're doing a terrible job," Mandy told us. "It made me feel that there is still hope, that there is still justice and that there's still somebody who listens to people's problems (in) the federal government.

That's because federal security told him there are 800 TSA agents at Metro Airport and they are all going to be retrained based on Drew's case.

We also spoke to a federal security director who said this incident is still under investigation, but as far as they can tell right now, better judgment was needed.

The TSA took away one toy hammer, but they were still able to take another toy hammer on board the airplane. How did that happen?

Drew's mother, always prepared, had another one in her backpack and that already passed through security with no problem.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/taryn_asher/dad-special-needs-son-harassed-by-tsa-at-detroit-metropolitan-airport-20110608-wpms