Monday, April 7, 2008
Face of Defense: Woman Soldier Receives Silver Star
Heroes are made, not born. And a hero like Army Spc. Monica Brown, 19, is no different.
Brown, recognized for her gallant actions during combat in Afghanistan in 2007, is the second woman soldier since World War II to receive a Silver Star, the third highest award given for valor in enemy action. She received the medal from Vice President Richard B. Cheney during a ceremony here March 20.
Even though she felt proud when she was informed that she was going to receive a Silver Star, she considers her actions to be the result of effort put into her by everyone she’s worked for.
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Active-Duty Recruiting Marks Eighth Straight Successful Month
All four services met or exceeded their active-duty recruiting goals for January, defense officials announced today. The January recruiting numbers represented the eighth consecutive month of across-the-board active-duty recruiting successes among the services.
The Army recruited 8,693 active-duty soldiers, 101 percent of its goal, in January.
The Army National Guard bested its January recruiting goal by 3 percent, signing on 5,688 soldiers,
The Marine Corps topped its January active-duty recruitment goal by 11 percent,
The Navy met its January goals for both active-duty and Navy Reserve recruits.
The Air Force exceeded its active-duty recruiting goal for January by 3 percent,
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Twofer:
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Lawyers: Extend cuddle ban to non-Muslims
Kuala Lumpur - Islamic lawyers meeting in Malaysia want an existing ban on unwed Muslim couples from cuddling or holding hands to be extended to non-Muslims caught flirting with the faithful, a local newspaper said on Thursday. Experts in sharia law, which currently applies only to Malaysia's majority Muslims, proposed at a seminar that there should be a civil law to deal with non-Muslims found committing the Islamic crime of khalwat, or close proximity, with a Muslim.
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Italy: Polygamous Muslim marriages 'on the rise'
Rome - Polygamous marriages are illegal in Italy yet are reportedly on the rise. While few Muslim immigrants or Italian converts to Islam admit such unions, Muslim scholars put the number nationwide at 15,000-20,000, La Repubblica daily reports. (Snip) The Italian state does not issue family welfare cheques to more than one wife per husband, unlike in Britain, where the government has since February been issuing family welfare cheques to all of a polygamist's wives resident in the country.
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The Right of Return and the Forgotten Refugees
Enter "Right of Return" on any search engine and you will get some variation of the Palestinian claim that Palestinian Arabs who left Israel in 1948 [as requested by the 5 Arab nations massing to attack the new nation, which they did in May of that year] and all of their descendants have the an "inalienable right" to return to Israel.
Today, Palestinians assert the "Right of Return" for around 4.5 million people, most of whom have never set foot in Israel. An influx of over four million Muslims into Israel would, of course, destroy Israel as Jewish state.
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The Anti-Churchill
WHEN BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown visits the United States next month he is unlikely to receive as enthusiastic a welcome as his predecessor, Tony Blair. A recent report in London's Sunday Telegraph cast a bleak spotlight on the current state of Anglo-American relations with the stark headline: "'Special Relationship' dies under Gordon Brown."
The Telegraph article revealed that British diplomats were no longer using the term to describe the decades-long alliance between London and Washington that had, in its heyday, successfully defeated both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The phrase has been quietly dropped by the British Foreign Office in deference to Britain's European Union 'partners'...
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China to build oil refinery in Syria
Syria and China Wednesday signed an agreement to establish a petroleum refinery as part of plans to bolster cooperation in the oil and gas industry, the official SANA news agency reported Thursday. According to the report, the refinery will have a daily refining capacity of 100,000 barrels of crude oil and is due to be completed by 2011...
[someone will supply the oil the world needs - the only question is who will be paying whom]
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Human rights court slams France
A French lesbian was discriminated against when authorities refused to allow her to adopt a child, Europe's [?] human right court ruled on Tuesday. The European Court of Human Rights said the refusal by regional authorities, upheld by two French courts, to authorize the adoption request breached the woman's rights because it appeared motivated by her sexual orientation. It granted her €24 500 in damages and court expenses.
["regional authorities"; French judges in France. And so the consumption of sovereignties continues in Europa ]
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Economic Redistribution Ahead
The ongoing concern that climate change initiatives mask a concerted attempt to initiate global economic redistribution was bolstered by the Bali Conference. The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works quoted Emma Brindal, a “climate justice campaigner” for Friends of the Earth, as stating that “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.”
Groups such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) view such technology-promoting initiatives quite differently. OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría told the United Nations Bali Climate Conference this December that while “cutting emissions and fostering low-carbon activities will require investments in research and development of new technologies,” the best solution to combat global warming is to raise taxes.
The OECD also lobbies for a “harmonized global carbon tax” which the organization argues would decrease the gross domestic product (GDP) of Brazil, Russia, India and China 1.4% of GDP in 2030 and 5.5% in 2050. Gurría asserts that the best solution is for industrialized nations to engage in a “fair” burden-sharing environmental policies.
The suggested global carbon tax would be instituted on an ever-increasing scale, from .5 U.S. cents per liter [multiply by 3.8 for gallons] of gasoline in 2010 to 1.5 cents in 2020 increasing to 12 cents in 2030 and, finally, 37 cents [$1.40 per gallon] in 2050.
[anyone really think this is about the planet?]
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Partly Personal
Folks,
heard from a coworker last week who was concerned how the debate over Global Warming is being 'taught' to his child in school. 'Dr. Dave' isn't certain about the issue himself but as a life-long professional scientist (he's my employer's chief scientist) he's sure of one thing: the single-sided portrayal of this issue at 'his' school is an example of bad scientific method he doesn't want taught his child, so he asked me for a 'summary' of GW skepticism with which to broach the aspect of balance with the teachers (complements to Dave for his involvement in his children's education and its composition).
Unfortunately the volumes of information I'd compiled over the years in my past 'Warming Wednesday' weekly emailings weren't part of my migration to Mac last year, so I instead wrote a Letter to Dr. Dave re: Global Warming sites-URLs explaining that there's no quick shortcut here - but which did provide several URLs I think represent the shortest path to learning the foundation of the skepticism surrounding this issue. I offer them here as well for anyone interested (which I sincerely hope will be all of you, as failure to bring some rationality to this debate will quite literally cost us all):
http://www.sepp.org/ [it's links to the Appeals, Declarations and Petitions I referred to, recommended]
www.friendsofscience.org
www.co2science.org [which is recovering from a cyber-terrorist attack meant to silence the site {typical}, recommended]
www.iceagenow.com = maybe selling a book, but speaks to the cycle aspect as you mentioned so I've included]
www.junkscience.com = despite it's unpolished appearance this is a major site, and it's kept current - recommended]
http://www.envirotruth.org/ = National Center for Public Policy Research's site, more political, select 'Global Warming' tab at top
www.globalwarming.org
www.heartland.org = > environment tab at top
I've posted my Letter to Dr. Dave re: Global Warming sites-URLs, as it also contains a few links to the cyclical nature to climate change, a good Q&A article by the Heritage Foundation and (not surprisingly) some pontification from me re: how the burgeoning religion of climate-combat can most effectively be countered - I (not so) humbly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in like circumstance to Dr. Dave.
Letter-Link
ADDENDUM (much later in the day...):
I've cobbled together a partial listing of the news pieces I've sent myself over the past year (March '07 to March 'o8) which are 'skeptical' of Global Warming and/or the consequences of its hype. It's available at
http://netizennewsbrief.blogspot.com/2008/04/skeptics-primer-on-global-warming.html
It's long, and unfortunately 'mono-chromatic' as its formatting didn't come over - and I've no intention of re-adding it manually (you'll see why).
Nonetheless it's legible and all its links work to verify or elaborate on each piece - I think even a rapid scanning of their headlines alone will teach many a lot about what they're not being told by the MSM - better yet, a random sampling of who is saying these things will raise even greater questions, as they're predominantly professional climatologists, economists and policy analysts.
I know that doesn't compare to celebrities and politicians, but give it a try anyway - and please, feel free to forward it to anyone you think could use some perspective on this - we've all a lot to lose if rational thought isn't brought to bear on this issue, and the MSM has demonstrated it isn't going to do it.
Again: http://netizennewsbrief.blogspot.com/2008/04/skeptics-primer-on-global-warming.html
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PROTECTION RACKET
International trade is good for the U.S. economy. It creates jobs to produce the products America exports, provides workers for foreign companies that produce goods here and broadens the choice of goods and services available to us. The good news is that America's international trade is constantly increasing:
• U.S. exports grew 12 percent in 2007, and the U.S. Department of Commerce reports that since the first General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade, in 1948, U.S. total trade as a percentage of gross domestic products has risen to more than 29 percent in 2007 from less than 10 percent.
• According to a Heritage Foundation study, the United States is the world's largest exporter; U.S. exports amounted to $1.6 trillion in 2007 alone and those exports generated 25 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
And trade creates jobs;
• America's exports of goods sold abroad -- electrical machinery, chemicals, plastics, agricultural products, medical and scientific instrumentation, for example -- support six million American jobs; exports of services account for another five million jobs.
• And foreign-owned companies operating in the United States directly employ five million American workers, including 16,000 in Ohio by Honda, 5,400 in South Carolina by BMW, 6,000 by Nokia and 15,000 by Nestlé.
So free trade is helping, not hurting, the American economy. Limiting free trade would be a harmful and depressing national public policy...
[ we're a consumer based society for good reason: we're all - 100% - consumers, and open markets allow the greatest degree of competition which saves us all money. Things change, and when America becomes uncompetitive in a certain industry its constituents must retool to something else - painful, but absolutely necessary. This issue is always little more than special interests bribing our politicians to give them preferential treatment - at cost to the rest of us.]
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States may free inmates to save millions
Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison, including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals. Officials acknowledge that the idea carries risks, but they say they have no choice because of huge budget gaps brought on by the slumping economy.
[this is 'firehouse' blackmail taken to a new low]
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CA Governor:
http://gov.ca.gov/interact governor@governor.ca.gov
Man Steals Guitar by Placing It in Pants
LEWISTON, Maine - Police are searching for a man accused of shoving an electric guitar in his pants and walking out of a store in Lewiston, Maine. Police say the theft occurred last week and they're looking for three men. One of the men shoved a Fender Stratocaster in his pants and pulled a sweatshirt over the top. The other two acted as lookouts.
[which part to joke about... better not start]
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VQLP901&show_article=1&catnum=0
"Just a little something beautiful"
[HT:MC "that's how it was posted"]
[Recommended >]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCVS57j284
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