Gun used by the Pentagon shooter came from Memphis police department
One of the guns used by the anti-government terrorist and 911 “truther” John Patrick Bedell came from the Memphis police department. They seized the gun in 2005 and then later “traded” it to a licensed gun dealer. Bedell tried to buy a gun in California, but was bared from doing so because he had a record of psychiatric problems. A mere 19 days later, Bedell traveled across the state line into Nevada and purchased the 9mm handgun at a gun show from a private dealer.
If a background check had been done at the gun show, the private dealer would have been able to ascertain that John Patrick Bedell had no business buying a gun.
If only gun dealers had any interest in policing themselves. They shouldn’t have to be forced to do background checks on potential customers. If they cared about what they were doing, they would take steps to ensure that their guns weren’t getting into the wrong hands. They would do background checks, even at gun shows.
Then again, if the Memphis police didn’t put the gun back into circulation so that it could one again fall into the wrong hands, this whole incident might not have happened.
Just like someone from Lancaster to bring buttery popcorn to a meat thermometer fight
From the Los Angeles Times:
A dispute at a Lancaster movie theater during a screening of “Shutter Island” ended with someone plunging a meat thermometer into the neck of the man who complained about someone sitting near him talking on a cellphone during the show.
The incident occurred two weeks ago at the Cinemark 22 theater, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The most interesting aspect of this story is not that a man was stabbed in the neck by a meat thermometer, but that it happened where I grew up, Lancaster.
Cinemark 22 theater is extremely nice. We were there this past September to see Inglourious Basterds. Not only do they sell coffee in the lobby, they actually grind the beans on a cup per cup basis. It makes for a very fresh cup of joe. The seats are big and recline slightly. It’s probably the nicest movie theater that I’ve ever been to.
It isn’t the type of place you think people bring meat thermometers to stab their fellow movie patrons with.
In defense of the attackers, as the photo shows, this meat thermometer says DO NOT PUT IN WATER, but it doesn’t say anything about not putting it in someone’s neck.
One of the Corys is dead
Corey Haim, former 80’s teen actor, was discovered unresponsive in his Los Angeles area apartment early this morning and was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was 38 years old.
Cory Haim has struggled with drug addiction for years.
Corey Haim collaborated with fellow teen actor Corey Feldman back a number of times. The two were often refereed to as the “Two Corys”. Their most successful movie the two appeared in was probably the vampire flick The Lost Boys. And by that I mean it is the only movie the two appeared that I have seen.
Drugs really suck. Just say no to them.
Killer whale kills trainer
Dawn Brancheau, 40, a trainer at SeaWorld Orlando was killed today by a killer whale. Tilikum, the 30-year-old, 12,300-pound bull orca grabbed Brancheau by the waist and began thrashing her about the water. The entire incident happened in front of a horrified audience.
Oops.
I wonder if SeaWorld Orlando tried making it up the the people in the audience by giving them gift certificates to the SeaWorld Orlando gift shop.
Maybe one day people will realize that orcas aren’t here on this planet for our amusement. That they aren’t here to do tricks for tourists. Show me a orca in a tank and I’ll show you a creature that should be in the ocean.
Joseph Stack was a terrorist
I was reading Facebook the other day when I read something one of my Facebook friends wrote concerning a press conference held the day Joseph Stack slammed an airplane into a Austin, Texas building housing IRS employees. My Facebook friend mentioned how the police chief was lecturing reporters for asking questions, something I would have thought everyone would have agreed is the job of a reporter. To ask questions. Someone then replied to this statement with the following:
One of reporters in the news crowd was really trying to manipulate the statement of the public official toward the fact that it could have been a terrorist attack. This tactic by reporters can be extremely irritating and discredits the news media. I do agree about the flow of information as long as it’s factual and not hyperbole.
Huh? The attack in Austin was a terrorist attack. A terrorist by the name of Joseph Stack got into an airplane and committed a terrorist attack by flying it directly into a building full of innocent civilians.
I replied to this comment by pointing out that it was a terrorist attack. Someone else then responded to my reply with the following:
Well, technically you’re correct, but probably not an international terrorist attack like 9-11-01. Technically, any murder could be classified as a terrorist attack; school shootings, truck bombs, etc..
Any murder can be classified as a terrorist attack? That is simply ridiculous. Why is it that after all these years we have been fighting this war on terror, some evidently can’t identify a terrorist attack when they see one?
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that some people would have you believe that we cannot identify someone as a terrorist unless we can first ascertain their religion, as if it somehow makes a difference. It doesn’t. If a white guy purposely plows an airplane into a building so that he can kill as many people as he can, he is just as much a terrorist as the brown skinned, Allah loving Arabs that flew airplanes into buildings on September 11, 2001.
Just because Joseph Stack shared much of the the same ideology and anti-government sentiment as the Teabaggers and the rest of the “Taxed Enough Already” crowd and didn’t own a prayer mat, doesn’t mean he was not a terrorist.
He most certainly was.
Tax cheat Joseph Stack really did not like paying taxes
A disgruntled software engineer, Joseph Stack, 53, flew a small single engine airplane into an Austin, Texas office building that contained offices for the Internal Revenue Service, killing himself in the process. Thirteen people in the building were injured, two seriously. One person remains unaccounted for.
Before leaving on his one-way airplane trip, Joseph Stack set his home on fire with his wife and daughter inside. Firefighters were able to save Stack’s family, but the home was destroyed. Stack also posted a poorly written, 5,000 3,000 word manifesto on his software company’s website. Evidently the FBI asked Stack’s hosting provider to remove the manifesto, but a PDF version of his message can be read here.
I’ve read Joseph Stack’s manifesto. The guy really did not like paying taxes. Perhaps that’s an understatement. He eludes to a time when he and some other like minded individuals set about to circumvent paying taxes by claiming to be a church. Or something. He’s not really clear. He writes that the “little lesson in patriotism” cost him over $40,000 and ten years of his life.
I’m sure we will all know everything there is to know about Joseph Stack very shortly.
Needless to say, Joseph Stack was a real piece of work. Even though he slammed an airplane into a building full of innocent civilians, killing himself in the process, he is somehow not a terrorist. At least that is what the authorities are quickly saying.
If you ask me, he was a terrorist.
Why is Obama meeting someone in the White House who pretends to have magical powers?
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and if he had his way, the dictator of Tibet, is traveling to Washington D.C. to meet President Obama in the White House.
Why is the president meeting him?
It’s bad enough that the Dalai Lama is able to dupe so many naive Tibetans and others such as Richard Gere in to believing that he is a reincarnated deity. He’s not a deity. He’s just an old man that has spent his entire life pretending to be something he’s not.
What’s next, a Jedi Knight? President Obama should not be meeting him.
About those Christian missionaries in Haiti who are now sitting in jail
Christian Missionary and Internet Scammer Laura Silsby
Like a lot of people I’ve heard quite a bit about those Christian missionaries now sitting in a jail cell down in Haiti on charges of kidnapping for trying to take orphans out of Haiti and into the Dominican Republic. I spent about ten minutes on the Internet to find out the details surrounding this case and walked away thinking those missionaries now sitting in jail are exactly where they need to be.
They deserve to be in jail.
First of all, they weren’t trying to take these kids, these supposed orphans, to the United States so that they could be adopted by loving parents. No, their goal was to take them out of Haiti so that they could live in a brand new orphanage they were establishing in the Dominican Republic. Secondly, many of these kids aren’t even orphans. A good many have parents and family members in Haiti. A good many were temporarily in a Haitian orphanage not because they were orphans, but because of the earthquake, they had no where to live. Some of these orphans had parents, parents who were told that if they allowed their children to leave Haiti and go live in the Dominican Republic, they would be educated and live a much better life.
The leader of these Christian missionaries now sitting in jail is a woman named Laura Silsby, a 40-year-old Idaho businesswoman. It’s been her dream to build an orphanage down in the Dominican Republic for Haitian children. She’s a woman with a somewhat checkered past. She was recently sued by employees of her Internet based business Personal Shopper for unpaid wages. According to the New York Times, the reasons she gave her employees for not paying them was “no money for payroll” and “fully investor funded and investors have been hit hard by the economy.”
Laura Silsby lost her $358,000 home in Meridian, Idaho in July 2009 to foreclosure. In November 2009 she registered a new not-for-profit, the New Life Children’s Refuge, at the address of that same foreclosed house. The New Life Children’s Refuge is the name of the organization behind the new orphanage in the Dominican Republic. Currently, it’s a rented beach resort in the Dominican Republic.
I don’t feel sorry for Laura Silsby or the people she got to help her steal children. If they were stupid enough to go down to Haiti and help pluck children for Silsby’s beach resort orphanage, they deserve to face the full brunt of the Haitian justice system. Whatever that is.
$3.83 trillion budget includes $1.56 trillion we don’t have
The Obama administration unveiled it’s massive spending plan for 2011 and it will include a whopping $1.56 trillion deficit. In other words, we will have $2.27 trillion in revenue to spend in 2011, but will spend $3.83 trillion.
Most states in this country have to balance their budgets every year. The federal government does not. This allows the federal government to rack up large budget deficits every year. These deficits go on to add to our national debit.
Is Pam Tebow making something up?
Pam Tebow, mother of Heisman Trophy winning Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, is getting a lot of attention over a story she has been telling anti-choice, anti-abortion groups.
The way the story goes is that when she was in the Philippines working as a missionary with her husband Bob Tebow, she became pregnant. This posed a problem because she says she was taking some rather hard-core medicine to treat amoebic dysentery. She says that her Filipino doctor warned her that because of the medicine she was taking, there was a substantial risk that the baby would have some serious birth defects.
Her Filipino doctor supposedly recommended that she get an abortion.
Pam Tebow goes on to tell the story that she and her husband could not do that. Instead of getting an abortion, they chose to continue the pregnancy. They prayed that they would have a healthy baby and God rewarded them with not only a healthy baby, but a future Heisman Trophy winner.
During the Super Bowl, CBS will be airing a 30-second anti-abortion commercial featuring Pam and Tim Tebow. The $2.5 million ad is being paid for by the anti-choice, anti-gay group Focus on the Family.
What if the story isn’t true?
Having lived in the Philippines from 1985 to 1988, I happen to know that abortions are extremely illegal in the Philippines. Tim Tebow was born in Manila in 1987. I can’t imagine a Filipino doctor ever telling a white, Christian evangelical missionary that she ought to abort her baby.
I find this story very hard to believe.
Money for ballparks for millionaires, but none for bringing terrorists to justice?
Remember when the Obama administration decided accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would face trial in a federal courtroom in New York City, close to where the World Trade Center once stood? It appears billionaire New York City Mayor- for-Life Michael Bloomberg has gotten his way. NBC News is reporting that the administration has decided not to try Mohammed in the city.
Bloomberg has been whining lately about money the added security would cost the city, reportedly an extra $216 million. If I was the billionaire mayor of New York City, I’d pay for the added security out of my own pocket. No price would be too high for the privilege of bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to my city so that he could get some payback for what he did.
What’s $216 million to a billionaire? Keep in mind that New York City paid $370.9 million to build the new Yankee Stadium. They also shelled out $138 million for the new Mets’ Citi Field. It’s good to know that they evidently have money to build ballparks for millionaires, but not for bringing to justice someone that helped kill 2,605 New Yorkers.
Evidently some New Yorkers are frightened of the idea of trying terror suspects in New York City. That somehow it will make New York City a much bigger target to Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. As if the city of New York isn’t already a huge target for terror.
I don’t understand the thinking behind this. If one of my loved ones was killed by a terrorist or any other criminal, I would make it my life’s work in making sure whoever killed them paid for what they did.
I would not care what it cost.
James O’Keefe is the G. Gordon Liddy of the 21st Century
James O’Keefe, the guy that dressed up like a pimp and went into ACORN offices and secretly videotaped ACORN volunteers giving him advice on how to smuggle El Salvadorian sex workers into the country, was arrested yesterday by the FBI for trying to install bugs on phones in the New Orleans office of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA).
O’Keefe was sitting in a public waiting area in Landrieu’s office shooting video with his cell phone while two of his cohorts wearing white hard hats and tool belts pretended to be there to “fix” the telephones. What they were really doing was installing bugs that a fourth man in a car a couple of blocks away was “monitoring” with a listening device.
If you thought there were laws against willfully and maliciously interfering with a telephone system operated and controlled by the United States of America, you were right.
Haitians here illegally granted Temporary Protected Status
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is granting all Haitians here illegally Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The only stipulation is that they have to have been in the United States before the January 12 earthquake. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano issued the following statement:
As part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to assist Haiti following Tuesday’s devastating earthquake, I am announcing the designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of January 12, 2010.
I’m not sure I really understand the requirement of being here before the earthquake. Does it really make a difference? Either way, the Haitian people have no place to go. Forcing people to return to Haiti is like forcing people to go back into a burning building. Things there will only get worse.
When does a country stop being a country?
The horror of the Haiti earthquake has not end in sight. The 7.0 earthquake that struck the Caribbean nation on Tuesday couldn’t have happened to a country less prepared for something as catastrophic as a 7.0 earthquake. Haiti was in bad shape before the gigantic earthquake. Haiti needed help from the rest of the world before Tuesday. This earthquake just makes everything worse when it was almost impossible to believe that things in Haiti could get worse.
When does a country stop being a country and instead become a giant sinkhole of death and despair?
I’m not sure how anyone can really help Haiti at this point. I realize that people from all over the world are donating money and sending food and supplies down to Haiti, but is that really helping? Don’t get me wrong, I understand people down there need to eat and drink, but what about next month? Next year? How about in five years? The infrastructure down in Haiti wasn’t much to speak of before the earthquake. It’s now gone entirely.
Perhaps the only humane thing to do at this point would be to find somewhere else for the Haitian people to live, someplace other than Haiti.
Why is affordable housing a bad thing?
The Huffington Post has an article detailing the economic problems in Stockton, California. The problem, mainly, is that Stocken has one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country.
From the The Huffington Post
At the height of it, about 1 in 10 houses fell to foreclosure. Houses that sold for more than $500,000 before the crash now go for $200,000.
So what exactly is the problem, that homes in Stockton once sold for $500,000 or that they are now going for $200,000?
Are there many jobs in Stockton that allow people to afford half a million dollar homes? I’m guessing not. That means anyone wanting to purchase just such a home had to resort to creative financing, just the type of financing that got people into trouble.
For years now wages in this country have been stagnant, while the cost of housing has skyrocketed.
Something has got to give. Either people need to start making a lot more money or the price of homes has got to get a lot cheaper. With unemployment now over 10 percent, don’t expect wages to go up anytime soon.
Turns out al-Qaeda double-agent was not as double as the CIA originally thought
It turns out the suicide bomber that killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was a double-agent the CIA recruited to find al-Qaeda leaders. From the BBC:
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda double agent, US media reports say.
He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan, arrested there a year ago.
He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA, who wrongly thought they had turned him, and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders.
Whatever the CIA is doing, they need to stop doing it. I don’t understand why this government agency is still in existence. One might think that after the intelligence debacle known as September 11, the CIA would have been deactivated and our nation’s intelligence needs would be performed by some other massive government agency, an agency not called the CIA.
The CIA is the same intelligence agency that didn’t know the Berlin Wall was coming down until they watched it happen on CNN like the rest of us.
Let this be a lesson to the CIA: you can’t “turn” a member of al-Qaeda like you could an East German. During the Cold War, you could simply throw a bunch of money at an eastern European communist and expect him to more or less do what you wanted. Members of al-Qaeda are radical religious extremists that cannot be trusted.
To think some people question why I refuse to wear underwear from Nigeria
Behold the jockey shorts of would be terrorist, Nigerian Muslim Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab. The guy must really hate America (for our freedoms) if he is willing to put on a pair of explosive underpants.
Enhanced security measures only make flying more troublesome
In the wake of the Nigerian Muslim terrorist that tried to blow up a Northwest airliner as it was preparing to land in Detroit, authorities have introduced a whole host of added security procedures that don’t make flying any safer from the threat of terrorism, but they do make flying on a commercial plane even more of a pain in the ass.
This morning, travelers flying from Canada to the United States were subjected to a second layer of security including a pat down of every traveler and a 100% luggage search by hand. The added security measures added an extra three hours to the already lengthy security processing time.
The fun doesn’t stop at the plane’s door. Passengers over the weekend were told to remain in their seats for the final hour of their flight. They were also told they could not use any electronic devices, even iPods, or even their own personal headphones. They were also told that they could not access their carry-on luggage or have anything in their laps. They were also told to keep their hands in plain sight until the plane landed.
Need to use to the restroom within an hour of landing? Too bad.
The TSA is also for some unknown reason requiring JetBlue to suspend showing TV on flights. Not just for the final hour, but for the entire flight. No TV, no movies, no XM radio.
This is a huge personal loss to me. JetBlue is the only airline I use simply because of the ability to watch Law & Order marathons while I travel back and forth to California.
None of these added procedures would have posed so much as a speed-bump to Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab. He had the explosives stuffed in a condom stuffed in his underwear. Would a pat-down search have detected the explosives? Unless whoever was doing the search was willing to stick their hand down his pants, I’m guessing it wouldn’t.
Not allowing Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab to listen to an iPod wouldn’t have done anything to make things safer.
Nigerian Muslim terrorist was placed on a terrorist watch list last month
Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Nigerian Muslim that tried to blow up a Northwest airliner on Christmas day, was added to a terrorist watch list only last month, yet he was still allowed to board an airplane for the United States.
Abdulmutallab was added to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list after his father told U.S. State Department officials that he was worried about his son’s radical beliefs and extremist connections. To think that I have to take off my shoes and have TSA inspectors x-ray them before boarding a commercial airliner, but a guy can be reported to the federal government for being a dangerous Islamic extremist with dubious connections, yet he is allowed to board and aircraft for the United States like a regular person.
Do they want another terrorist attack to happen? I live in a world where if you fail to do your job correctly and something bad happens as a result, you get fired. It would be nice to know that someone is getting fired because Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was allowed to board an airplane for the United States. I know that’s not about to happen. If nobody was fired as a result of the 9-11 terror attacks, nobody will be getting axed because of this.
I just don’t get it. Supposedly the only reason Abdulmutallab’s bomb didn’t go off is because the detonator was faulty. I have to wonder if he was able to blow up the jet, would we even know that someone on a terrorist watch list was on the plane? Would we even be told it was an act of terror?
My guess is that we wouldn’t. It would be explained as some kind of mechanical failure and life would simply go on.
Who knew you could make money by not paying your bills?
The Consumerist has a story about a guy that was going through Chapter 13 bankruptcy that was continuing to receive calls from Sallie Mae about his student loan payments even though evidently when you begin filing for bankruptcy, creditors aren’t allowed to contact you.
“Jeff” wrote:
I have recently gone through Chapter 13 bankruptcy and had an experience that might enlighten others. After the filing, during the mandatory stay period, Sallie Mae continued to contact me about my student loan payment. I documented each call — time, number of origin, and person I talked to if I could get the information. I mentioned this to my bankruptcy attorney, who made effort to stop the calls. He finally filed an order that stopped the calls. He then asked me if I wanted to file a suit against Sallie Mae. I assented.
He filed suit for $14,000 – a grand per call. Within DAYS, the Sallie Mae attorney offered a $4,000 settlement. I had my money in hand several weeks after that. The whole process took about a month.
I don’t know if my case was unique, or if Sallie Mae illegally harasses everyone who files Chapter 13. Just wanted to let you know.
It’s worth pointing out that unlike most debt obligations, bankruptcy protection does not protect you from repaying a student loan. If that was not the case, I imagine every student upon graduating college would run to the nearest mall lawyer and seek bankruptcy protection.
No matter what the bankruptcy judge ordered concerning Jeff’s debts, he was going to pay every penny back to Sallie Mae. That being the case, why wasn’t Jeff paying Sallie Mae? You’d think that since he wasn’t paying any of his other debt obligations, the debts that could be restructured with bankruptcy protection, he should at least have the money to pay his student loans.
Jeff just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know what caused him to seek bankruptcy protection, but it seems kind of scummy to make a profit for being a deadbeat. So someone from Sallie Mae called him about his student loan obligation. Big deal.
Nigerian Muslim tries to blow up Northwest Airlines airliner
Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Muslim flying on board a Northwest airliner from Amsterdam to Detroit tried to ignite some kind of mystery powder and blow up the plane. He was tackled by some of his fellow passengers before the power could do whatever it was intended to do.
He has told investigators that he was acting on the behalf of Al-Qaeda.
Good thing there were some able bodied passengers on hand to give Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab the beating he richly deserved. It’s not like the flight attendants could have done it. If there’s one thing we learned on September 11, 2001, it was that flight attendants that weigh 105 lbs might be pretty to look at, but they are entirely unless when it comes to stopping a Saudi with a box cutter.
If it was up to me, I would have taken the billions of dollars TSA spent staffing pointless checkpoints and shoe inspectors and instead used it to pay former Army Rangers and other military types to be flight attendants. Not coffee. tea, or me type of flight attendants made popular in the 1950’s and 60’s, but flight attendants for the new century. Flight attendants that might not know how to make you a good Bloody Mary, but they would know how to kill you with a pencil.
More information emerges about the border crossing beating of the Canadian science fiction writer
The Times Herald has an article posted that sheds more light on the story concerning Peter Watts, the Canadian science fiction writer that was supposedly pepper-sprayed, beaten, and charged with assaulting a federal agent as he was driving back into Canada from Michigan. The article states that the incident happened when Watts was trying to enter the U.S. from Canada, not when he was going back home to Canada as it was stated on Boing Boing.
From the Times Herald article:
Port Huron police Capt. Jim Jones would not provide the Times Herald with a copy of a police report about the incident Friday. He did read the police report to a reporter.
Jones said Watts was crossing into Michigan from Point Edward when he was selected at random for a secondary Customs inspection. Watts exited his vehicle “angrily” and border officers began checking the black sport utility vehicle he was driving, Jones said.
Border officers ordered Watts back into the vehicle, and when he refused, officers attempted to handcuff him, Jones said. At that point, Watts began to resist and pull away from the officers “and became aggressive toward officers,” Jones said. Jones said a border officer used pepper spray to subdue Watts. Jones said Watts “choked” an officer during the struggle.
This makes a bit more sense I guess. I originally didn’t understand why U.S. border agents would want to search a Canadian’s car as he or she was returning to Canada. That’s usually not the way it works.
I generally don’t care too much for cops. With that said, I’m not stupid enough to not do what they say when I’m pulled over. I don’t mouth off and I don’t ignore what they tell me to do. When they tell me to stay in the vehicle, I stay in the vehicle. When they tell me to get out of the vehicle, I get out of the vehicle. My goal when dealing with a member of law enforcement is to make my time spent in their presence be as short as humanly possible. The longer you spend with a member of law enforcement, the greater the chance something bad will happen to you.
Canadian science fiction writer charged with assaulting a federal officer at the border
Science fiction writer Peter Watts was arrested this past Tuesday for assaulting a federal border agent as he was making his way from the United States to his home country of Canada. Evidently his vehicle was chosen by U.S. border agents for a random inspection as he was leaving the United States and things pretty much went down hill from there.
Peter Watts writes on his blog:
If you buy into the Many Worlds Intepretation of quantum physics, there must be a parallel universe in which I crossed the US/Canada border without incident last Tuesday. In some other dimension, I was not waved over by a cluster of border guards who swarmed my car like army ants for no apparent reason; or perhaps they did, and I simply kept my eyes downcast and refrained from asking questions.
Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.
In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.
But that is not this universe.
Stay tuned.
People online have already started donating money to his PayPal account so that he can mount a vigorous legal defense. If that is something you like to do, then by all means, send him some money.
I have to admit that when I read this story, my BS detector went off. Normally when traveling to and from Canada, it’s the agents of the incoming country that search vehicles. Since he was attempting to drive into Canada, I would think it would be the Canadian border agents that would be interesting is seeing what Watts was bringing into Canada.
I’m not sure U.S. Border agents are interested in hassling Canadians trying to return to Canada.
Additionally, when the police or agents want to search a vehicle, they normally want you to get out of the vehicle. Watts says he was told to get back in the vehicle.
There’s also the point about not being allowed access to a lawyer, even though he says he was arraigned and charged with assaulting a federal officer. How does someone get arraigned without legal representation?
I tried searching the World Wide Internet Web for a news article about this incident, but I came up with nothing.
I’m sure more information about this incident will come out.
Oh that crazy, wacky Pakistan
From the New York Times:
Five young Muslim American men from the Washington suburbs who disappeared late last month were detained in Pakistan on Wednesday in a police raid on a house linked to a militant group, American and Pakistani officials said.
One of the men had left behind an 11-minute video calling for the defense of Muslims in conflicts with the West and suggesting that “young Muslims have to do something,” said one person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts. Another person who viewed it called the video “disturbing,” though he said it was not a martyrdom video of the kind sometimes made by extremists planning suicide attacks.
A story like this makes me wonder how many other groups of young Muslim American men have traveled to Pakistan who weren’t stupid enough to leave a disturbing video behind when they left the United States.
No other place in the world is more dangerous to the United States than Pakistan. It’s the place Muslim terrorists go before they try to start trouble. The 911 terrorists all flew into Pakistan before traveling to Afghanistan. When they traveled to the United States, they all flew in from Pakistan. Pakistan was one of the few countries that recognized that Taliban as official government of Afghanistan.
Not only does Pakistan have nuclear weapons technology, the Pakistani scientist that developed Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, reportedly worked with North Korea and other nations, assisting them in developing nuclear weapon technology.
Me finding a job makes the news in a major newspaper
I was interviewed by two reporters from the Los Angeles Times for an article on unemployment numbers. I get mentioned as one of the success stories when it comes to finding a job in this jobless economic Apocalypse we find ourselves in. I was contacted because of something I posted to Twitter about getting a new job.
I was interviewed over the telephone three separate times. The most difficult part was trying to convey to them exactly what I used to do for a living. What’s so difficult to understand? I was an electronics technician that troubleshot and repaired high voltage, variable speed AC drives used to control and operate 3-phase electrical motors in various automated, industrial environments, including water and wastewater processing, paper mills, tunnel boring, oil drilling platforms and mining. I also provided telephone support to customers, assisting them in programing and operating their AC drives.
What’s so hard to understand?
I think my inclusion in the article demonstrates that if a boob like me can find a job in these difficult, trying times, anyone can. My story should be inspirational to unemployed people everywhere.
Secret Service allows reality TV wannabes to crash White House dinner party
Michaele Salahi, a Northern Virginia socialite who is trying to get on the Bravo upcoming reality TV show The Real Housewives of Washington, and her husband Tareq Salahi were allowed to crash President Obama’s first White House dinner. The dinner was in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Here is a photo of Michaele Salahi posing with Vice-President Joe Biden. Good thing she doesn’t know that “five finger death punch” technique from Kill Bill. Worse, that giant stupid looking ring on her finger could have a needle tipped with ricin or some other toxin.
I wonder who else the Secret Service is allowing to come into close contact with the President, who people tell me, is the nation’s first African-American President. I don’t see skin color so I have to take other people’s word on this.
I don’t want to tell Bravo how to produce reality TV shows, but if they want to create a show staring housewives from Washington, than perhaps they need to cast women who are housewives and who live in Washington.
Northern Virginia ain’t Washington and vice versa.
They are two distinctly different places that are very much not alike. Why call the show something it’s not? Would Bravo create a show entitled The Real Housewives of Manhattan and then cast it with women from Newark?
I think not.
Obama to announce Afghanistan troop buildup in televised speech at West Point
President Obama will be announcing his Afghanistan policy at a prime time televised speech from West Point on Tuesday. He is expected to announce a buildup that will bring U.S. forces to around 100,000, from today’s 68,000.
As if that’s going to change things in Afghanistan.
The first thing you need to do when you realize you are in a hole is to stop digging. Afghanistan is a hole. A really big hole. It’s a hole the British Empire found themselves in. It’s a hole the Soviets found themselves in. It’s a hole we’ve been in now for eight years and adding more shovels isn’t going to fix things.
Not only is sending more troops to Afghanistan not going to fix things, it’s going to cost a lot of money and more importantly, it’s going to cost a lot of lives.
It’s a shame that our flavor of democracy requires such a large and expensive military to sustain it. Other democracies in the world spend a fraction of what we do on their military. It allows them to spend their treasure on more important things. Things such as universal health care and high-speed bullet trains.
Think of what we could do in this country if we didn’t spend so much on our military.
So President Obama is going to announce more troops to Afghanistan. Good for him. I wonder if he is going to wear his Nobel Peace Prize around his neck when he makes the announcement. Probably not.
Roman Polanski to be released on bail
The Swiss appear to be caving to the demands of award wining director and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. While he awaits extradition to the United States for drugging and then raping a 13-year old girl in 1977, he will be allowed to post bail of 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.49 million U.S.) and stay under house arrest in his chalet in the resort of Gstaad.
The Swiss have to know that the chances of him staying in his chalet while he awaits extradition is zero. He ran from justice once before and he will run from justice once again. It’s what he does.
The only thing I hate more than Roman Polanski are the people in the entertainment industry that defend Polanski because, well, he’s a good movie director. As if that fact could negate what he did in 1977. If there was anything we should all agree on, you’d think it would be that a 44-year old man drugging a 13-year old girl so that he could sodomize her, is wrong. That whoever did something like this should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
It seems insane to me that people can disagree on this.
Couple arrested for refusing to tip a bad waitress
Leslie Pope and John Wagner, Pennsylvania college students, were arrested because they refused to tip a waitress they said gave them terrible service the night they went to the Lehigh Pub. From Philly.com (via The Consumerist):
“You can’t give us terrible, terrible service and expect a tip,” said Pope, a 22-year-old Moravian College senior who’s a Pottsville native, according to the Lehigh Valley Express-Times.
They had to find their own napkins and cutlery while their waitress caught a smoke, had to ask the bar for soda refills, and had to wait over an hour for salad and wings, they told NBC10.
The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.
They were busy, but not too busy to call the police and have customers arrested because they refused to “tip” their crappy waitress. Not that I know what goes on in the mind of a nicotine addicted waitress, but if she knows that she is getting a tip from any table that has at least six people no matter what type of service she provides, those are the tables that aren’t getting good service on a busy night. Why would she? She knows that no matter why type service she provides, good or bad, she is getting a 18% tip.
I can’t believe that the cops would even show up for something like this, let alone arrest both Pope and Wagner for theft. Why didn’t they arrest the entire party? They arrested not only the person that paid the bill and refused to pay the tip, but their significant other too. Technically, the other four people in the party refused to pay the tip too. Why weren’t they arrested?
John Shadegg is a fear mongering coward
Arizona Representative Republican John Shadegg stood on the House floor speaking out against trying those that participated in the September 11 terror attacks in a New York civilian courtroom and posed a rhetorical question to New York City mayor for life, billionaire Michael Bloomberg how he’d feel if his daughter was kidnapped by terrorists.
Classy.
Doesn’t Shadegg have a staff that he can run ideas past before he opens his mouth and says something really stupid? What a stupid thing to say. I’m sure Bloomberg would hate to have his daughter kidnapped. Who wouldn’t? That doesn’t mean he should curl up in a ball under his desk.
I don’t understand fear mongers like Shadegg. What does he think, that we shouldn’t try terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? I assume that he’s in favor of military tribunals. I guess then only members of the military and their families would face possible repercussions from the terrorists.
Does Shadegg not care about military families?
When did it become OK for Americans to act like cowards? It’s a trick question because it’s not OK. When you react to terrorism with fear and trepidation, you are responding just the way they want you to respond.
My advice to John Shadegg is that if he cannot get past his fears, maybe he ought to move to Canada. That’s what cowards did during the Vietnam conflict, they went to Canada.
911 terrorists will finally stand trial
After eight long years, some of the terrorists involved in the terror attacks of 911 will face a trial in a civilian courtroom. From the AP (via MSNBC):
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the decision Friday to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.
I don’t understand why it took this long. Granted, I didn’t expect Bush to do something like this, but we elected Obama over a year ago, and he was sworn into office in January.
This should have been done his first week in office.
I’ve long believed that we will never defeat terrorism militarily. Terrorism is a technique, not a nation or a group of people. How do you wage war against a technique? The goal should be to hunt down and bring to justice those that engage in this awful, disgusting technique.
Ideally it should be done a lot sooner then eight years after the fact.
For the past eight years, we have fought terrorism by spending billions of dollars in invading and occupying two Muslim countries. We’ve lost well over 5,000 service members and thousands more have been injured in this futile military pursuit. It’s hard to say exactly if these costly military excursions and occupations have contributed to the fact that the United States has not suffered a terrorist attack since September 11, 2001, but what is quite clear is that there are more Islamic terrorists in the world today then there was on September 12.
I believe the military occupation of two Muslim countries has greatly contributed to this problem. I believe that if you want to create more Islamic terrorists, occupy a Muslim country.
I don’t know if we will ever defeat terrorism. It’s hard to defeat someone who engages in a technique that often results in their own death. I do know this: terrorism will never be defeated in an epic tank battle.
Responding to terrorism with our massive military makes about as much sense as responding to North Korea invading South Korea by sending the FBI to the Korean Peninsula. If terrorism will ever be defeated, it will be in the courtroom, not the battlefield. It will be defeated with our laws and our judicial system, not our smart bombs and our main battle tanks.
Catholic Church threatens to stop helping the poor if gay people are allowed to marry
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to pull out of contracts it has with the District to provide various social service programs for the city’s needy if a proposed gay marriage law goes into effect next month. Churches would not be forced to conduct gay marriages. They, along with every other business or organization in the District, simply would not be allowed to discriminate against gay or lesbian people because they were gay or lesbian people.
I hate to point out the obvious, but Jesus wouldn’t discriminate anyone. Though he never spoke about gay people, Jesus was all about extending love and kindness to the people everyone else looked down upon. Is there a group of people more looked down upon today than gays and lesbians?
Jesus ministered to everyone, but he made a point of especially ministering to those that everyone else despised and rejected. If the Catholic Church is correct and gays and lesbians are sinners for being gay or lesbian, then these are just the people they should be ministering to. Jesus would not discriminate against gay or lesbian people.
Jesus wouldn’t withhold love or kindness from someone because the local government enacted a policy he didn’t agree with. Jesus cured lepers and healed the sick even though I’m sure he didn’t agree with everything the Roman Empire did. To think otherwise is just silly.
When Jesus said to go out and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and to comfort those in distress, he didn’t preface it first by saying to only do these things if the local government passed laws you agree with.
Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum [Washington Post]
Only in America
Thanks to an old Google Alert I had set up at least a year ago, I read today that my former employer, the company that laid me off nearly two months ago because they wanted to “lower the head count,” received $282,000 in job creation tax credits from the state of Pennsylvania this past December.
This company didn’t create any jobs. They did the complete opposite of that. In the name of cutting costs, they eliminated jobs. How on earth do they get a tax credit for something they clearly never did?
Even before I was laid off, the company in an attempt to save money, was forcing all employees to take one week off each quarter without pay. How can they be allowed to do this when they are receiving tax credits because they are supposedly creating jobs?
I find things like this to be extremely disappointing and more than just a little demoralizing.
Black Columbia professor punches white woman in the face
Lionel McIntyre, 59, an architecture professor at Columbia University was in a Harlem bar with other Columbia University employees when the topic of discussion turned to “white privilege,” the theory that people who are white enjoy certain privileges that non-white people do not enjoy. The discussion became heated when McIntyre, who is black, shoved and then punched Camille Davis, who is white, in the face.
Camille Davis is a woman who works at Columbia University as a production manager in the school’s theater department.
I’m not expert in the art of debate, but I have to believe that when you feel the need to punch a woman in the face, you have lost the debate.
This is not how you successfully win an argument on race relations. In fact, an incident such as this only hurts race relations. Something like this only supports the negative stereotype that black men are overly violent and cannot control themselves. If a successful professor from one of the country’s most respected schools cannot control himself from attacking a woman, who can?
Lionel McIntyre is an ass.
The state of Virgina is fixin to kill Muhammad
Tonight at 9 p.m the state of Virgina will be executing John Allen Muhammad, one of the so-called beltway snipers.
Back in 2002, Muhammad and his young ward, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized people in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virgina. People were afraid to cut their grass, pump gas, or go shopping. Before they were done, they had killed 10 people and wounded 3 others.
The three weeks they were driving around and shooting people from the trunk of their car was a colossal bucket of suck for everyone. They were caught sleeping in their car at a rest stop here in Maryland on Interstate 70, about halfway between Frederick and Hagerstown.
The reason Muhammad is now in Virgina and not Maryland is because the Bush administration had him transfered to Virginia so that he could be tried there first. The reason? Because the prosecutor in Virginia was a Republican who had aspirations for higher office.
The prosecutor in Maryland was a Democrat.
I’m generally against the death penalty, not because I care about people like John Allen Muhammad. I don’t. I just don’t see how it solves anything. When Muhammad shuts his eyes for the last time tonight, the people he killed will still be dead. I also have a problem with how the death penalty is given to some, but not others.
It seems far too arbitrary.
With that said, I’m glad Muhammad is getting his ticket punched tonight. If we are going to have the death penalty in this country, why not him? I can think of no better person than John Allen Muhammad to get strapped down on a gurney and a toxic cocktail pumped through his veins.
Obama to send ‘about’ 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan
Look like President Obama is going to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Maybe.
From CBS News:
Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.
The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.
McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says “that’s close to what [McChrystal] asked for.” All the president’s military advisers have recommended sending more troops.
So when does Obama become more of a “war president” than George W. Bush? Bush enjoyed refering to himself as the war president, but Obama already has more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush did, even during the Iraq surge.
I’m not sure what the point in this is. More troops to Afghanistan isn’t going to fix anything. At the end of the day, Afghanistan will always be Afghanistan. It’s an awful place filled with awful people. Invading Afghanistan may have made sense ten years ago, back when al Qaeda used it as a training base and before the terror attacks on 9-11. Now, al Qaeda is in neighboring Pakistan.
I just don’t see the point. Military force should only be used when there is a clear, obtainable military objective to be archived. Is that possible when it comes to Afghanistan?
I think not.
Fort Hood shooter tried to contact al Qaeda
U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan had been attempting to reach the al Qaeda terrorist network.
From ABC News:
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.
According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan’s contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.
I’m guessing the Army did nothing with the information. If Congress can question Major League Baseball about it’s players using performance enhancing drugs, they can certainly question the U.S. Army on whythey allowed a Muslim man who wanted out of the Army, who had been trying to contact al Qaeda, was allowed to stay in the military.
His co-workers reported Hasan to their commanding officers in 2008 for comments he made concerning his religion and his duty as an officer in the U.S. Army. Reportedly he told co-workers that he was a Muslim first and an Army officer second. The Army’s response?
They promoted Hasan to major in May 2009.
The kicker in all this is that if instead of trying to contact al Qaeda, Hasan had instead gone on Craig’s List and attempted to seek out another man for gay sex, he would have been quickly discharged.
Our service members deserve better than this.
Just when I thought the shooting at Fort Hood could not get any worse
It turns out that some of the soldiers gunned down at Fort Hood by U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan may in fact been shot by some of the military security who responded to the incident. They refer to it as “friendly fire,” not that there is anything even remotely friendly about it. I’d hate to be one of the first responders who arrived at the scene and instead of saving people, it turns out actually contributed to the overall casualty count.
That’s a heavy burden to carry around in your head for the next fifty years.
Of course it’s not their fault. The fault rests squarely at the feet of Maj. Hasan.
The part of this whole tragedy that bothers me the most is the Maj. Hasan did what he did while wearing the uniform. The fact that he could murder his fellow soldiers while wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army seems incredibly perverse to me. In the military, you are taught to respect the uniform. It represents more than just clothing, it represents all those who have served.
I’m not big on symbolism, except I guess when it comes to the uniform of the U.S. military.
On a positive note, it seems Maj. Hasan is in really bad shape. He’s in a coma, on a respirator, and the doctors are saying that if he lives, he will probably be paralyzed.
Fort Hood shooter posted messages on the Internet defending suicide bombers
U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Malik Nadal Hasan, the American of Jordanian decent that brandished two handguns and opened fire on a large group of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, is still alive. He was not killed on the scene as reported yesterday. He was shot four times and is in custody at the hospital. Reports now say that he’s expected to live.
What a shame.
On the scale of things, a field grade officer who is also a psychiatrist, turning a weapon on his own fellow soldiers, has got to be one of the most horrendous things you can imagine. At least it’s one of the most horrendous things I can imagine. Whatever happened to doctors doing no harm?
About six months ago, Hasan posted a comment concerning martyrdom and suicide bombing that seems to be defending the practice. Hasan wrote:
There was a grenade thrown amongs [sic] a group of American soldiers. One of the soldiers, feeling that it was to late for everyone to flee jumped on the grave with the intention of saving his comrades. Indeed he saved them. He inentionally [sic] took his life (suicide) for a noble cause i.e. saving the lives of his soldier. To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause. Scholars have paralled [sic] this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory. Their intention is not to die because of some despair. The same can be said for the Kamikazees [sic] in Japan. They died (via crashing their planes into ships) to kill the enemies for the homeland. You can call them crazy i you want but their act was not one of suicide that is despised by Islam. So the scholars main point is that “IT SEEMS AS THOUGH YOUR INTENTION IS THE MAIN ISSUE” and Allah (SWT) knows best.
It’s ironic that a Muslim U.S. Army major can post a comment on the Internet that essentially defends suicide bombings by equating the terrorists who do them as being heroes, but if he had posted that he was gay, he would have been quickly discharged. Federal law enforcement officials learned about Hasan’s Internet postings six months ago. If six months ago he posted that he was gay, he would not have been Fort Hood yesterday.
He would have already been a civilian.
U.S. Army major at Fort Hood kills 12, wounds 31 others
Malik Nadal Hasan, a 39-year old U. S. Army major opened fire with two handguns at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 and wounding another 31. Most of those shot were U.S. soldiers processing their paperwork for an up coming deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan.
Hasan was killed.
Authorities are saying that it’s far too early to say whether or not this attack was an act of terrorism. Just because the gunman has a name that sounds Arabic, doesn’t mean that it’s related to Islamic terrorism. At least that’s what they are saying on TV. For all we know, Major Hasan might have been a Baptist or a Mormon with a bad attitude.
Not that I’ve ever known a Mormon with a bad attitude.
The Army has two other suspects in custody. They, like Hasan, are U.S. soldiers. Their names have not been released.
Maine voters say no to gay marriage
The people of Maine voted yesterday to repeal a state law that allowed two people of the same sex to marry. This leaves Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut as the only states in the country where two people of the same sex are allowed to marry.
Though I’m a big fan of democracy, I’m not too enthused over the idea that someone’s civil rights can be striped from them by people in the ballot box. It doesn’t seem right to me. The majority should defend the rights of the minority, not take away rights. The idea that the minority in our country can be denied their basic civil rights via the voting booth seems overly perverse to me.
For all intended purposes, gay couples in this country already live as married couples. They own property together and they raise children together. They are committed to each other in every way. Why should I be allowed to marry the person I love and chose to share my life with, but gay people can’t?
It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem, I don’t know, American.
Terrorists in Gitmo to get H1N1 swine flu shots before you do
The Pentagon will offer the H1N1 vaccination to detainees at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, officials there said Friday.
The Pentagon made the decision based on U.S. government assessments that people held in detention facilities are at high risk for the pandemic, said Maj. Diana R. Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, which is in charge of holding the suspected terrorists.
“Detainees at JTF Guantanamo are considered to be at higher risk and therefore they will be offered the H1N1 vaccination,” Haynie said.
You have to admit that there would be a certain amount of comedic irony for an American hating, beard wearing Muslim terrorist to die in bed because of the swine flu he got from another American hating, beard wearing Muslim terrorist. These guys go their whole life without knowing how tasty a B-L-T sandwich is because they cannot eat bacon. To die in Cuba from the Mexican pig flu?
That would just be ridiculous.
Evidently some people are upset that these terrorists are getting access to the H1N1 vaccine while the rest of us have to wait. I guess this just goes to show that there are benefits of having that awful, yucky government provided health care.
Like these filthy terrorists do.
Hagerstown Waldenbooks is closing
The Waldenbooks in the Hagerstown Valley Mall is closing. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised in that Hagerstown has a Borders and Borders and Waldenbooks are owned by the same corporate overlords. I guess in this economy, the Hagerstown area cannot support two corporate book stores. Compounding this problem, a massive Books-A-Million store just opened down the road in nearby Martinsburg, West Virginia.
The store is located in the mall near the food court and the multiplex movie theater. When a comic book movie would be playing in the theater, someone from the bookstore would put a display of trade paperbacks pertaining to the movie near the store’s entrance. People walking by would see these trade paperbacks. Maybe some of them stopped and looked at the trade paperbacks. Perhaps some of them even bought a book or two. It always seemed like a smart move.
I’m going to miss Waldenbooks. Before Borders opened, it was the only real bookstore in town. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the mall without visiting Waldenbooks.
The current health care reform bill is a sweetheart deal for insurance companies
The Senate Finance Committee passed the health care bill crafted by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) 14-9, with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), casting the sole Republican vote.
I don’t know why more Republicans didn’t vote for this bill. If you didn’t know that it was written by a Democrat, you would think it was written by a health insurance lobbyist.
There’s no public option. There’s a mandate that everyone must have health insurance. If someone’s employer doesn’t offer health insurance, they must go and purchase health insurance on the open market and pay whatever the health insurance industry says they will have to pay. The only way this so-called “public mandate” makes sense is if people have the option of purchasing not-for-profit health insurance managed by the government.
My guess is that health insurance companies will start offering no-frills, “compliance” policies that will be health insurance in name only. They wont really help you when you or sick or injured and need medical attention, but will instead allow you to be compliant with the new requirement to have health insurance.
The purpose of a health insurance company is not to make people healthy, but to generate profit for it’s investors. Even if people have health insurance, too many times, a catastrophic health crisis will result in having to declare personal bankruptcy because of co-pays and out-of-pocket expenses not covered by their health insurance.
What’s the point of having Democrats in charge if this is the best we can do?
Obama promises to end ‘don’t ask-don’t tell’
President Obama spoke at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay civil rights advocacy group, and restated one of his campaign promises that he will end “don’t ask-don’t tell”, the controversial program in the military that prohibits authorities from asking a service member if he or she is gay, along with prohibiting service members from announcing that they are gay.
Authorities can’t “ask”, and service members can’t “tell”.
The program is often confused with the practice of banning gay people from serving in the military. It is not that. Even under don’t ask-don’t tell (DADT), homosexuality is still banned in the military. Changing that policy would require Congress to change the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). All DADT does is to take much of the investigative power out of the hands of the various military investigative agencies that before DADT, would routinely engage in modern day witch hunts aimed at drumming out gay service members.
It would be like instead of passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress passed some other silly law that said authorities couldn’t just come out and ask someone if they were black. People also couldn’t just come out and tell people they were black. As long as someone didn’t admit that they were black, they could ride at the front of the bus or sit at the lunch counter like anyone else. They wouldn’t be required to drink from a water fountain labeled for Negros. Once they publicly admitted that they were black, they would have to ride in the back of the bus and stop eating at the lunch counter.
I served with all sorts of people in the military, even gay people. I learned that they can be just as adept at performing their military duties as anyone else. People are people. Banning someone from serving in the military because they are gay is just as retarded as banning someone from serving because of the color or their skin.
I think it’s great the President Obama wants to end the ban on gay people serving in the military. I guess he can add it to the list of stuff he promised to do if he was elected. Eventually though, he’s going to have to start crossing things off that list. Hopefully he starts doing it sooner rather than later.
President Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Hardcore teabagging Republicans already believe that President Barack Obama is just like Adolf Hitler because he wants every American to have access to quality health care. How on earth are they going to take the news that President Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize?
They are probably drawing little Hitler mustaches on his face at this very minute.
I’ll admit that I like the man and that I voted for him to be president. In fact, we still have an Obama-Biden bumper sticker on both our cars. I think he’s doing a somewhat good job as president. Granted, he hasn’t started pulling combat troops out of Iraq like he said he would, but I have faith that he will get around to doing what he said he would do about Iraq.
I’m just not seeing what he’s done to warrant winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Read the full article »
Gun totting soccer mom found shot dead
Pennsylvania mother Meleanie Hain drew national attention last year when she showed up at her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer game with a handgun strapped to her hip.
She’s in the news once again and unfortunately for her, it is gun related. Meleanie Hain and her husband Scott Hain were found shot to death last night in their home in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
The police are treating it as a murder-suicide.
The couple’s three children, ages 2, 6 and 10, ran from the house last night and told neighbors that their father shot their mother. Read the full article »
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