“We are a nation at war,” Cartwright said. “We made a commitment to this conflict, and we’ve put our national treasure -- our youth -- into this fray. Today’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen are prepared to be tomorrow’s leaders -- These citizen-soldiers, as you watch them, are going to be our nation’s future,” Cartwright said. “When you look at them, you can only be proud.”
The vice chairman said part of the reason for being proud is their commitment to serving the nation.
“They’re going to carry this idea of service through the rest of their lives,” -- “The one thing you can see in their eyes every time you meet with them is they are, in fact, going to be this nation’s next ‘greatest generation.’ They are incredible. What they do day in and day out, the pain they bare, the strength they have, should make every mother and father proud.”
The general said the faces he sees when he travels to Iraq and Afghanistan are reflective of the American population, and they’ve learned to be a part of something greater than themselves.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Current Generation Ready to be Next ‘Greatest Generation’
America Supports You: Groups’ Gathering at Pentagon Shows America’s Support
The groups represented at the Pentagon today are just 38 of the nearly 400 that support America Supports You, a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. [snip]
“It’s wonderful to have these organizations here today, to have people get exposure and show the goodness coming out,” said Kelly Meyer, project coordinator for Operation Iraqi Children. “A lot of it isn’t shown on the news. This is one way, one day, that we get that chance to show the goodness.” [snip]
“They need to know that America’s behind them, ... Having been there myself, you don’t realize that until you see the Motomails coming and you see the care packages coming from the support groups.”
The knowledge that someone is helping take care of things on the home front provides deployed servicemembers with peace of mind, said Torres, who served in Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in 2006.
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England Calls on Congress to Pass Funding Quickly
– The deputy secretary of defense called on Congress to act quickly to pass the fiscal 2008 supplemental legislation for the war on terror. In a May 15 letter, Gordon England told Congress the legislation is urgent and needed before the House and Senate recess for Memorial Day.
“Absent additional Congressional action, the Army will run out of military personnel funds by mid-June and operation and maintenance funds by early July,” England said in the letter.
Civilian personnel funding and money for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program also is included in the operations-and-maintenance accounts.
“CERP funding is a critical enabler that our ground force commanders are using on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan to shape the strategic environment,” England wrote.
Without quick action, the program runs dry in mid-June.
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Whitehouse > mailto:president@whitehouse.govYOUR Senator >
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfmYOUR House Representative >
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
THE COGNITIVE AGE
[Recommended > ]
The globalization paradigm has turned out to be very convenient for politicians. It allows them to blame foreigners for economic woes. It allows them to treat economic and social change as a great mercantilist competition, with various teams competing for global supremacy, and with politicians starring as the commanding generals. But there's a problem with the way politicians present the globalization paradigm. It doesn't really explain most of what is happening in the world - for instance:
• Some Americans have seen their jobs shipped overseas, but global competition has accounted for a small share of job creation and destruction over the past few decades.Nor is the globalization paradigm even accurate when applied to manufacturing:
• 90 percent of fixed investment around the world is local, says Pankaj Ghemawat of the Harvard University Business School.
• Companies open plants overseas, but that's mainly so their production facilities can be close to local markets.
• The U.S. share of global manufacturing output has actually increased slightly since 1980, according to Thomas Duesterberg of Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.The chief force reshaping manufacturing is technological change:
• Thanks to innovation, manufacturing productivity has doubled over two decades.The central process driving this is not globalization. It's the skills revolution. We're moving into a more demanding cognitive age. The globalization paradigm emphasizes the fact that information can now travel 15,000 miles in an instant. But the most important part of information's journey is the last few inches -- the space between a person's eyes or ears...
• Employers now require fewer but more highly skilled workers.
• Technological change affects China just as it does the America; between 1994 and 2004 the Chinese shed 25 million manufacturing jobs, 10 times more than the United States, says William Overholt of the RAND Corporation.
[and the US turns away 9 out of 10 H1B (high skilled) visa applicants (85K/yr. max, gone in one day - by lottery {brilliant}]
[Recommended > ]
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31,000 Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Theory to be Named Monday
The names of over 31,000 American scientists that reject the theory of anthropogenic global warming are to be revealed on Monday.
Although this will occur at the National Press Club in Washington, DC., it seems a metaphysical certitude media will completely ignore the event.
As announced Thursday by PR Newswire via StreetInsider.com:
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)
Who: Dr. Arthur Robinson of the OISM
What: release of names in OISM "Petition Project"
When: 10 AM, Monday May 19
Where: Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC
Why: the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming.
The purpose of OISM's Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of "settled science" and an overwhelming "consensus" in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.
It is evident that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science - including 9,021 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,072 American scientists are not "skeptics."
With over 31,000 now on the list, all with degrees in science -- including 9,000 PhDs -- what might this do to the nonsensical premise of there being a consensus concerning this issue?
[stand by for a deluge of national, nay global - media coverage...]
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CAPPING CO2 EMISSIONS BOOSTS ENERGY COSTS
Bills recently introduced in Congress would control greenhouse gas emissions through cap-and-trade schemes. However, the proposals unveiled so far would harm the U.S. economy, disproportionately hurt the poor and fail to produce the environmental benefits promised by proponents:
An analysis from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) concludes Lieberman-Warner would increase gasoline prices up to 144 percent and raise electricity prices up to 129 percent.
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Obama and Clinton Vote Against Oil Independence – Again
Liberal political leaders, including two who happen to be running for President, constantly claim to seek American oil independence. Invariably, however, they turn around and thwart measures to achieve precisely that. This week, a bill introduced by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – Kentucky) once again illustrated liberals’ duplicity on this subject.
Senator McConnell, along with twenty other Republican Senators, had introduced the Domestic Energy Production Act, which sought to allow domestic oil exploration and production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the deepwater Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This would result in production of more barrels of oil here at home, creating well-paying American jobs in the process, as opposed to further increasing dependence upon oft-hostile foreign sources.
Unfortunately, the liberals who now dominate the Senate defeated this prudent measure, and once again said “no” to greater American oil independence...
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Wellness Über Alles
A new battlefront in the war to erase politically incorrect civil liberties is taking place across corporate America under the innocuous-sounding banner of "Wellness." Wellness certainly sounds nice; what kind of person is against wellness?
Obviously we all want to be well, but now it appears you won't have much choice in the matter. Be well or face consequences beyond the state of one's health. But always remember: We're doing this for your own good.
The latest thing that's in our best interest is a renewed focus on quitting smoking, or as they say in more sophisticated circles, smoking cessation... [snip]
Freedom is the right of emancipated adults to make choices for themselves and accept the responsibility for the consequences. Don't think that the good intentions of the elites stop at the point of preventing you from putting smoke in your mouth;
There are all those bad choices people make about what to eat just begging for correction...
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Gay Rights vs. Democracy
Now the high court of California has made gay marriage into a right that is immune from restriction by the majority of citizens in the state. We already know what California citizens think about gay marriage: they oppose it. A referendum outlawing gay marriage was passed with the support of the state's voters. More than 60 percent of voters cast their ballots against gay marriage.
How, then, can a court invalidate the referendum and over-rule the will of the people? Basically through a kind of legal fraud. The court has to pretend that there is a right to gay marriage even though it is nowhere evident in the state constitution. Read the constitution, hold it up to the light, squeeze lemon juice on it--you won't see a right to gay marriage in there. It is simply not an enumerated right, nor is it a right that can be clearly derived from other enumerated rights. [snip]
... states have a legitimate right to define marriage. State legislatures, drawing on tradition and appealing to the values of their constituents, have defined marriage in a very particular way. Marriage requires a) two people who are b) of legal age and c) not closely related to each other who are d) one male and one female. Note that this definition excludes people who want to marry children, or guys who want to marry their sisters, or Muslims who want to take four wives, or that strange guy who wants to marry his dog.. [snip]
It is the essence of democracy that people should be able to decide the moral rules that govern the nature of a community. If people don't have that power, then they are living under an autocracy...
[Recommended > ]
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CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME?
California's state budget has risen from $99.4 billion in 2000-01 to $142 billion in the current fiscal year -- nearly a 50-percent increase in state revenue. Yet California remains plagued by budget problems, and those problems may pale in comparison with those it can expect in the future:
• California has a $50 billion un-funded liability for the future health care of retiring state employees, according to the Pew Center.
• Despite ranking among America's most heavily taxed states, California is facing a budget deficit next year of more than $16 billion.
• Much of the money reaching the state treasury is earmarked for various programs beyond the Legislature's control.
Meanwhile, as a result of California's projected $16-billion budget shortfall, the state is taking desperate but still inadequate steps in an attempt to curtail spending and balance its budget:
• It may close several of its state parks.
• California is even pondering an early release for thousands of the inmates in its pricey prison system, where the guards' union has gotten such astronomical pay and benefits that the prison system receives 130,000 job applications a year for a handful of vacancies.
[but all incumbents will be returned to office]
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Appeals Court Shoots Down New York City Gun Law
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just handed down an equally important gun decision that has additional implications against judicial supremacy.
The court, which convenes in New York City, shot down the longtime liberal dream of achieving gun control by suing gun manufacturers for crimes committed by firearms. In a remarkable decision, this federal appellate court dismissed City of New York v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp. and protected gun corporations against frivolous lawsuits in state and federal courts.
The lawsuit was brought by the City of New York in order to not only make money but also obtain from judicial activists the gun control that the liberals could not get from representative government...
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Lawsuit Really Stinks
A New York mother is suing the City of Norwalk, Connecticut, because her toddler's shoes were ruined by dog poop. Kelly DeBrocky claims in her lawsuit that her 1-year-old stepped in dog feces outside the Maritime Garage. DeBrocky seeks $100 in damages. Fifty-four dollars is to pay for the replacement shoes she had to buy her son and the remainder is to reimburse the family for the wasted $50-plus admission fee they paid to enter the Maritime Aquarium. DeBrocky claims their visit to the aquarium was cut short because of the ruined shoes.
City attorney M. Jeffry Spahr questioned the city's liability and the need to discard the child's shoes and clothes. He further opined on the frivolousness of the claim, adding "Some wacky stuff comes across. I don't know if people are more litigious. My opinion is two things are at play. No. 1, people are resistant to taking responsibility for their own actions and No. 2, they feel there always has to somebody to blame," Spahr said.
According to Spahr, the city will deny the claim. "The official response to her claim is denied and poop happens," he said.
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