The next two decades will see a world living with the daily threat of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe and the decline of America as the dominant global power, according to a frighteningly bleak assessment by the U.S. intelligence community.

"The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons," said the report by the National Intelligence Council.

The analysts said that the report had been prepared in time for Barack Obama's entry into the Oval office on January 20, where he will be faced with some of the greatest challenges of any newly-elected president.

"The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used will increase with expanded access to technology and a widening range of options for limited strikes," the 121-page assessment said.

The analysts draw attention to an already escalating nuclear arms race in the Middle East and anticipate that a growing number of rogue states will be prepared to share their destructive technology with terror groups.

"Over the next 15-20 years reactions to the decisions Iran makes about its nuclear program could cause a number of regional states to intensify these efforts and consider actively pursuing nuclear weapons," the report Global Trends 2025 said. "This will add a new and more dangerous dimension to what is likely to be increasing competition for influence within the region," it said.

The spread of nuclear capabilities will raise questions about the ability of weak states to safeguard them, it added. "If the number of nuclear-capable states increases, so will the number of countries potentially willing to provide nuclear assistance to other countries or to terrorists."

The report, a year in the making, said that global warming will aggravate the scarcity of water, food and energy resources. Citing a British study, it said that climate change could force up to 200 million people to migrate to more temperate zones. "Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions," it said.

The report says the warming earth will extend Russia and Canada's growing season and ease their access to northern oil fields, strengthening their economies. But Russia's potential emergence as a world power may be clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector, persistent crime and government corruption, the report says.

"The international system will be almost unrecognizable by 2025, owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, a transfer of wealth from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors. Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor, the United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm -- will decline and US leverage will become more strained."

Global power will be multipolar with the rise of India and China, and the Korean peninsula will be unified in some form. Turning to the current financial situation, the analysts say that the financial crisis on Wall Street is the beginning of a global economic rebalancing.

The U.S. dollar's role as the major world currency will weaken to the point where it becomes a "first among equals."

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation, but we cannot rule out a 19th-century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries." The report, based on a global survey of experts and trends, was more pessimistic about America's global status than previous outlooks prepared every four years. It said that outcomes will depend in part on the actions of political leaders. "The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks," it said.

The analysts also give warning that the kind of organized crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country, and that countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves ungoverned, as states wither away under pressure from security threats and diminishing resources.

The intelligence community expects that terrorism would survive until 2025, but in slightly different form, suggesting that Al Qaeda's "terrorist wave" might be breaking up. "Al Qaeda's inability to attract broad-based support might cause it to decay sooner than people think," it said.

On a positive note it added that an alternative to oil might be in place by 2025.

Check out the article at Fox News.

This is not the best of news. So much for "Change We Need..."

Check out Another Version of the Truth and use your mouse to wipe away the lies.

Labels: History, Images, Military, Politics

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WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.

Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.

Check out the article at Fox News.

What a scary thought! One can only hope that our system wouldn't allow such a thing to happen... I don't think it will.

Labels: History, Military, Politics

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Barack Obama owes his election in part to President Bush's vast unpopularity, but that favor comes at a cost: the president-elect will be assuming responsibility for a credit crisis, a banking collapse, an unstable stock market and what is likely to be a lasting recession.

Now that he has won the White House following a two-year campaign that relied on soaring rhetoric about America's future, reality is setting in -- how can Obama deliver on his lengthy list of promises?

"He's made comments on the campaign trail that will have to be reconciled with his policies," said Republican political analyst Dylan Glenn.

Obama has offered tax cuts for working families, affordable and expanded health care and a speedy withdrawal from Iraq intended to save billions of dollars each month.

"His notion about what he will do in Iraq, his notion about what he will do in terms of fiscal policy for this country will have to be translated into real live policy, and that will be a challenge," Glenn said.

Obama will inherit a budget deficit that many analysts say could hit $1 trillion for the first time in history, potentially crimping any promises of tax cuts or spending on new programs.

He faces a diving economy that has traumatized Americans trying to buy a home, pay for college or plan for retirement. And he'll confront the complexities of trying to extricate U.S. forces from Iraq while facing a resurgent conflict in Afghanistan.

"He's taking office during a recession, in all likelihood, which is about what happened to George Bush," said Kevin Hassett, a senior fellow and director of economic policies at the American Enterprise Institute. "The odds are that we'll have a recession that's pretty lengthy, maybe stretching into the spring."

Just last month, Obama said he would delay rescinding Bush's tax cuts on wealthy Americans if there is a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

"I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is," he told ABC News. "I mean, the economy is weak right now."

He added that he still plans to push for his promised tax cuts for the middle class. But during the last weeks of the campaign, confusion swirled over how Obama defines the middle class. Joe Biden pegged the middle class as people making under $150,000 a year, and Bill Richardson cited those making under $120,000. Both figures are lower than the $250,000 Obama had set as the threshold for a tax increase.

Robert Litan, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said he believes economic realities will force Obama to adjust only the timing of his promises.

"I think he's been very clear about what he wants to do," Litan said, citing Obama's pledge to fix healthcare, reduce dependence on foreign oil and lift middle-class families.

"I don't think his priorities are going to change. It's just the pace is going to be slower," he said.

Litan said he's not sure if Obama can do everything he wants in one term. But as far as what is Obama's top priority, Litan said it will be clear only if Obama tackle these issues sequentially.

Political analyst and FOX News contributor Juan Williams said Obama's biggest critics will come from the party's left wing, because he won't be able to fulfill all of his promises.

"Barack Obama realizes if he does anything precipitous with regard to American military forces in a place like Iraq and puts anybody in danger or in some way allows terrorists to make some gains, he will suffer a tremendous backlash that could be political damaging to him to the point that he never recovers," Williams said.

Glenn agreed, noting that will be "working with a liberal Congress that has been strengthened in numbers both on the Senate and House side."

Regarding what not to do as president, Obama need look no further than to Bush himself.

The outgoing president mainly embraced deregulation during his two terms in office, but some economists fault him for lacking a clear economic vision, leaving the next administration to pick up the pieces in his wake.

"In the end he was a president who failed to have any coherent economic policy," Hassett told FOXNews.com. "He pursued an enormous number of policies that were designed to attract Democratic support, and they all failed miserably to do that."

Obama's economic influence may well begin before he takes office, as he appoints a transition team to shape his administration's economic policies.

But the decisions that define his first few months in office could already be established in deals hammered out by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who announced Wednesday that she wants to revisit a stimulus package that includes additional benefits for the unemployed.

"I think that most of the policies, especially if there's [an additional] stimulus package... might well be baked into the cake by the time he takes office," Hassett said.

Check out the article at Fox News.

I'm not sure he'll be able to deliver on all of the rhetoric he relied upon to get into office... thank God!

In his speech, Obama invoked the words of Abraham Lincoln and echoed John F. Kennedy. "So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder," he said. If he truly believes these words, then what need would there be to spread the wealth in the first place? I mean, if everyone is working hard, they don't need any hand-outs... right???

I guess we'll just have to see how it all works out. I wish him the best and hope the next four years goes better than I think they will. I am a patriot and will back him and pray he is smarter than I think he is. Congratulations, President Obama!

I would also like to congratulate Senator John McCain on a hard-fought campaign and to thank him for a lifetime of service to this great country. The Democrats can bash him all they want, but none of them have half the balls that this man has. You are a great American, Senator McCain!!!

God Bless America!

Labels: History, Politics

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Obama a Uniter? Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Is Barack Obama a uniter? Since the beginning of the Democratic primaries, unity has been one of his major themes. It proved a strong lure compared to the polarizing Hillary Clinton. That theme has also helped Obama blunt the undeniably bipartisan record of John McCain.

But being a uniter takes some effort. It isn’t just about words. Republicans have pointed to Obama’s lack of bipartisan accomplishments in either state or federal government. And even Obama’s presidential campaign indicates that he has a tin ear when it comes to dealing with those he disagrees with. One of the surest ways to anger others is not giving them a chance to air their views.

Obama’s list of heavy-handed actions is growing:

• Last week the Obama campaign kicked reporters from the Dallas Morning News, the New York Post and the Washington Times off the campaign plane — making it difficult for their papers to cover Obama’s final campaign appearances. The reporters were replaced with writers from magazines such as Glamour. The editorial pages of all three papers had endorsed McCain.

The Obama campaign explained the decision as simply occurring from an excess demand for seats. But Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon told radio show host Mark Levin on Friday evening that they had been covering the Obama campaign from the beginning of his run for the presidency, and that those endorsements were “the only one common thread among [the three newspapers].”

Kirsten Powers notes how times have changed — not even Richard Nixon kicked disagreeable reporters off campaign planes, not even his archenemies at the Washington Post.

• Democrats seemed determined to cut back on the few conservative voices in the mainstream media. Obama supports media-ownership caps, which will primarily affect News Corp, the company that owns Fox News and conservative newspapers such as the New York Post. His proposals to increase minority ownership of broadcasting are also designed to change content, no longer leaving it up to customers to decide what it is they want to listen to.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promise more direct regulations on content. They want to re-impose the “Fairness Doctrine,” mandating that private radio stations provide what the government determines to be “balanced” coverage and guaranteeing that conservative talk radio will be over. There is a reason why talk radio only really began after the “Fairness Doctrine” ended in the 1980s.

Congressman Mike Pence couldn’t get even one single Democratic member of Congress to oppose these regulations last year, and Obama hasn’t yet said whether he would veto a bill regulating radio show content.

• There has been what can only be described as thuggish activity. In late August, Milt Rosenberg — a Chicago institution, broadcasting on WGN radio since 1973 — interviewed Stanley Kurtz about the extremely extensive relationship between Obama and William Ayers. Milt, a mild mannered, middle-of-the-road person, tried to have both sides represented and had invited a representative of the Obama campaign. No one from the campaign agreed to appear. Instead, the campaign organized an immediate, massive call-in campaign to force WGN to cancel Kurtz’s appearance. When that failed, the campaign organized supporters to call in to the station and simply tie up the telephone lines so that other listeners couldn’t ask questions. Others threatened Federal Communication Commission action to revoke WGN’s license.

Rosenberg said that he had never seen anything similar to silence discussion during his years on radio.

• Obama has also gone to the extreme of threatening opponents and television stations with legal action for running ads. For example, when ads were run discussing Obama’s relationship to Ayers, Obama’s campaign demanded that the Department of Justice criminally investigate the group behind the ads. (What criminal charges that were justified by running an ad were never explained.) It is bad enough that a senator demands criminal charges against a political opponent, but Justice Department officials might take this seriously if the president of the United States asks them to press charges.

When the National Rifle Association started running ads warning that Obama had previously supported bans on handguns and massive taxes on bullets, the Obama campaign likewise used intimidation and sent cease-and-desist letters to television stations threatening legal action.

The list is long, but the media isn’t the only place that Obama promises to eliminate dissent. Campaign finance laws will surely be rewritten in ways that make it particularly difficult for Republicans to win races. Limits on total expenditures and public financing entrench incumbents, which in this case would be Democrats. For example, when an incumbent president doesn't face a serious challenge during the primaries, he can sit on the public funds obtained during the primaries until the nominee from the other party has been determined, and then use those primary funds to attack his general election opponent. The non-incumbent party's nominee must usually battle for the nomination and typically has reached the spending limit imposed by the taxpayer funding system by March. These challengers are then severely limited in their ability to campaign until their nominating conventions in August. Challengers Walter Mondale in 1984 and Bob Dole in 1996 were pummeled for months with little financial means to respond.

Or take unions, where secret ballots will be eliminated for union certification elections. What is next? Eliminating secret ballots for other elections? Presumably not, but if we care about preventing voter intimidation generally, why don’t we also care about that for workers? Don’t Democrats trust workers enough to make judgments on their own?

Stronger unions do mean one thing: more money for Democrats’ campaigns in future elections.

It is hard to put up with those who disagree. But will Democrats put up with criticism when they have the presidency and Congress and enough votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster? This will be more power than any party has had for a long time, because even when the Democrats had over 60 votes in the Senate, many of those were conservative Southern Democrats, who no longer exist.

Some Republicans think that this election doesn’t matter. That in two years they will come back stronger than ever. Indeed, Republicans might be quite angry and inspired to take things back. But 2012 won’t be like 1980. The Democrats plan to tilt the playing field in their favor to ensure a long-term domination in politics.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Well, it's finally out of the media's hands and left for us to decide. About freakin' time!!! Everyone be sure to go vote!

Be sure that you take the issues into account and educate yourself before you pull a lever. I'm so tired of un-educated people voting for someone just because of how they look or because of their performance on-stage during a debate or speech.

I'm also tired of the liberal media propaganda and think that it's time for them to get back to honest journalism!

Be sure to check out The History of US Presidential Elections

Labels: History, Images, Politics

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Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

Check out the editorial by Orson Scott Card.

This is one extremely well-written and spot-on editorial by Orson Scott Card... who is also the author of Ender's Game, which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

On to the subject at hand... Regardless of your political leanings, I have respect for your beliefs... as you should have respect for mine. I don't believe for a moment that the media should be feeding the masses lies, propaganda, or biased coverage for any candidate for public office. It is the media's responsibility to call these people down and hold them to account for their past actions and associations and their plans for the future. No individual seeking the highest power in the world should be excused from this most important of litmus tests. Unfortunately, Barack Obama has been given a free pass. If you don't watch Fox News, then you are a victim of the left's media propaganda machine... which Senator Obama has purchased with his vast campaign funds. It is a crying shame when an election can be bought so publicly right under our noses - WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

	Check out NObama.com to learn the truth about Barack Obama's agenda!
	Be sure to check out John McCain.com to learn the truth about what he stands for and what he will do for this great nation.

Labels: History, Military, Politics

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The country honored the nearly 3,000 victims of the worst terrorist attack on American soil Thursday with ceremonies in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania to mark seven years since Sept. 11, 2001.

At the White House, President Bush led a moment of silence on the South Lawn at 8:46 a.m., the time that terrorists flew the first commercial jetliner into one of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. The second plane crashed into the other tower at 9:03 a.m.

In New York, victims' families and dignitaries paused for four moments of silence Thursday morning to commemorate the precise times that two hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center, along with the times that each tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. and 10:29 a.m.

"Today marks the seventh anniversary of the day our world was broken," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "It lives forever in our hearts and our history, a tragedy that unites us in a common memory and a common story ... the day that began like any other and ended as none ever has."

Family members and students representing more than 90 countries that lost citizens on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in Lower Manhattan for remarks and a recitation of the names of the more than 2,700 people killed in New York.

Shortly before 9 a.m., families of Sept. 11 victims went down seven stories into the cavern where the towers stood — called Ground Zero ever since this day in 2001 — using the construction ramp on the south side of the 16-acre site to touch the place where their loved ones died before returning to street level.

Bush said Thursday that history will look back at America's response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks and conclude that "we did not tire, we did not falter and we did not fail."

After the White House remembrance, Bush headed to the Pentagon in Washington to dedicate a memorial to each life lost when American Airlines Flight 77 hit that building — a symbol of American military prowess — in the third strike that morning.

The Pentagon monument consists of 184 benches, one for each victim, that overlook small reflecting pools. The Defense Department's headquarters were struck about an hour after the attacks in New York.

A fourth plane that was apparently headed for the White House or the Capitol building in Washington crashed prematurely in a field in Shanksville, Pa. A ceremony was also held there.

Barack Obama and John McCain, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, will appear together at Ground Zero in New York on Thursday afternoon once the ceremony is over to honor those who died.

The campaigns agreed to halt television advertising critical of each other for the day.

McCain also attended the service in Shanksville for the 40 people killed there aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

Obama called on Americans Thursday to renew "that spirit of service and that sense of common purpose" that followed the attacks. McCain asked every person "to be as good an American" as the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 after they rose up against the hijackers.

In Pennsylvania, at least 200 people gathered Thursday morning at an observance in a reclaimed minefield in Shanksville where Flight 93 came down after passengers reportedly stormed the cockpit to thwart terrorists' plans to use that plane as a weapon like the others. Bells tolled and victims' names were read as part of the service.

Some mourners in New York wondered if the remembrance would, or should, continue as it has indefinitely. About 3,500 people attended last year's ceremony, a roughly 25 percent decrease from 2006.

Other victims' relatives worry that Sept. 11 will revert to being just another date on the calendar.

The New York ceremony included the reading of 2,751 victims' names, one more than last year. The city restored Sneha Philip, a woman who vanished on Sept. 10, to its official death toll this year after a court ruled that she was likely killed at the trade center.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke at the commemoration, as he has every year, along with officials including Bloomberg and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Joining the president at the White House and the Pentagon were first lady Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne, members of Congress, Cabinet members, military officials and about 3,000 White House employees and guests.

The Pentagon ceremony included a wreath laying, music and a reading of the names of those who died on the plane and inside the building. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke.

"This memorial tells the story to future generations," Gates said. "They won't directly feel the heat, smell the smoke or know the horror of that day, but they will know, as the inscription says, that we claim this ground."

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mourned those who "one morning kissed their loved ones goodbye, went off to work and never came home" and the airline passengers "who in the last moments made phone calls to loved ones and prayed to the Almighty before their journey ended not far from where it began."

The Pentagon Memorial was built at a cost of $22 million on a 1.9-acre parcel of land adjacent to the Defense Department building and within view of the crash site.

Memorials are years away from being built in Pennsylvania and New York. As in past years, two bright blue beams of light will shine at night on the New York City skyline, in memory of the fallen towers.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Never Forget 911!!!

For some excellent images, check out:

• Freedom Tower Rendering
• National 911 Memorial
• Tribute in Light photos

Be sure to check out a very interesting article: Foiled Terror Plots since 9-11

Labels: History, Images, Military, Politics

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URUMQI, China — Once-reclusive China commandeered the world stage Friday, celebrating its first-time role as Olympic host with a stunning display of pageantry and pyrotechnics to open a Summer Games unrivaled for its mix of problems and promise.

At the end of the ceremony, retired Chinese gymnast Li Ning lit the Beijing Olympic flame, which will remain lit throughout the Olympic games.

Now ascendent as a global power, China welcomed scores of world leaders to an opening ceremony watched by 91,000 people at the eye-catching National Stadium and a potential audience of 4 billion worldwide. It was depicted as the largest, costliest extravaganza in Olympic history, bookended by barrages of some 30,000 fireworks.

To the beat of sparkling explosions, the crowd counted down the final seconds before the show began. A sea of drummers — 2,008 in all — pounded out rhythms with their hands, then acrobats on wires gently wafted down into the stadium as rockets shot up into the night sky from its rim.

President Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were among the glittering roster of notables who watched China make this bold declaration that it had arrived. Bush, rebuked by China after he raised human-rights concerns this week, is the first U.S. president to attend an Olympics on foreign soil.

Already an economic juggernaut, China is given a good chance of overtaking the U.S. atop the gold-medal standings with its legions of athletes trained intensely since childhood. One dramatic showdown will be in women's gymnastics, where the U.S. and Chinese teams are co-favorites; in the pool, Chinese divers and U.S. swimmers are expected to dominate.

The run-up to the games had epic story lines — China investing $40 billion to build the needed infrastructure, reeling from a catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan province in May, struggling right up to Friday to diminish Beijing's stubborn smog. China's detentions of political activists, its crackdown on uprisings in Tibet and its economic ties to Sudan — home of the war-torn Darfur region — fueled relentless criticisms from human rights groups and calls for an Olympic boycott.

Second-guessed for awarding the games to Beijing, the International Olympic Committee stood firmly by its decision. It was time, the committee said, to bring the games to the homeland of 1.3 billion people, a fifth of humanity.

The games, said IOC President Jacques Rogge, "are a chance for the rest of the world to discover what China really is."

The story presented in Friday's ceremony sought to distill 5,000 years of Chinese history — featuring everything from the Great Wall to opera puppets to astronauts, and highlighting achievements in art, music and science. Roughly 15,000 people were in the cast, all under the direction of Zhang Yimou, whose early films often often ran afoul of government censors for their blunt portrayals of China's problems.

The show's script steered clear of modern politics — there were no references to Chairman Mao and the class struggle, nor to the more recent conflicts and controversies. The ceremony was taped for broadcast 12 hours later in the United States.

A record 204 delegations were set to parade their athletes through the stadium — superstars such as basketball idols Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming, as well as plucky underdogs from Iraq, Afghanistan and other embattled lands. The nations were marching not in the traditional alphabetical order but in a sequence based on the number of strokes it takes to write their names in Chinese. The exceptions were Greece, birthplace of the Olympics, which was given its traditional place at the start, and the 639-member Chinese team, which lined up last.

The American flag-bearer was 1500-meter runner Lopez Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, who spent a decade of his youth in a refugee camp in Kenya. He's a member of the Team Darfur coalition, representing athletes opposed to China's support for Sudan. On Friday he avoided any criticism and said the Chinese "have been great putting all these things together."

Abroad, human rights activists were less generous.

"The Chinese government and the International Olympic Committee have wasted a historic opportunity to use the Beijing Games to make real progress on human rights in China," said Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch.

For Chinese dissidents who have dared to challenge the Communist Party's monopoly on power, the start of the Olympics meant tighter surveillance and restrictions.

"It's not my Olympic Games," said Jiang Tianyong, a human rights lawyer. "It's not the games for the ordinary people."

By all indications, however, most Chinese have embraced the games, buying up tickets at a record pace, volunteering by the thousands for Olympic duties, nursing expectations of triumphs by their home team.

To their eyes, the omens were good. The ceremony began at 8 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 — auspicious in a country where eight is the luckiest number.

"It not easy to meet with such a date," said Wang Wei, secretary general of Beijing Organizing Committee. "Hopefully this lucky day will bring luck."

Check out the article at Fox News.

I'm excited about the Olympics and will definitely be checking out the games, but I'm not too excited about red China hosting them. I feel that the International Olympic Committee could have done more to persuade China to earn the right to host the games in the future, instead of just handing it to them now and allowing their inhuman policies to go unpunished.

Oh well, not much I can do at this point, but to hope that the Chinese lose every single event! Not likely, since their athletes are raised from birth specifically to compete!

GO USA!!!

Be sure to check out 08-08-08: You're Lucky Day???

Labels: Entertainment, History, Images, Politics, Sports

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I’m white.

I’m American.

I’m Christian.

I’m not a racist.

And I’m offended by Jeremiah Wright. The Trinity United Church’s former pastor put on nearly an hour of smug mugging for the cameras at the National Press Club in Washington. Among other things, he repeated with a kind of glee that the attacks on 9/11 were retribution for America’s sins. He tried to distinguish African-influenced Christian churches in the United States from those that are not. He said, in part, that his recent plunge into the limelight “just might mean that the reality of the African-American church will no longer be invisible.”

What reality is that, reverend? How is reality visible or invisible? Is it a different reality from my church? Who says so? God? Or just you? What the heck, to be polite, are you talking about?

Let’s be clear: Reverend Wright has the right to say what he wants; that is the beauty of this country that he believes has so wronged him. His remarks are protected, even if they offend me, which they do. I, too, have rights, including the right to offend the Reverend, which I expect this will do.

I attend a Roman Catholic church where the pastor and most of the congregation are white. Yet my pastor would no more speak of white America, or the white church, or the hardships imposed on white people by the U.S. government because of affirmative action, than he would say “Goddamn America”. This does not mean that there is uniformity of opinion in my church. I know that my pastor and I disagree on issues of politics. I know that because we have talked outside the church, not because he preaches his politics from the pulpit. I would find it impossible to attend if he did this, because that would be an abuse of his position. His job is to help me in my quest for eternal salvation, not to tell me the kind of world he wants to live in until he and I achieve that goal.

He does not preach in order to divide. He preaches to bring comfort and hope to those in the Lord’s House.

Wright speaks about white racism while espousing the kind of hateful, bitter (yes, I know that word’s been used before) division between white and black that is the essence of racism. Do I know what goes on inside his head? No. But neither does he know what thoughts I secretly harbor.

“Be not deceived, God is not mocked,” Wright said, quoting Galatians 6:7. Reverend Wright, who dislikes being judged by sound bites, omitted the first passages of that biblical book. “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. 5 For every man shall bear his own burden.”

Whose burden were you bearing when you spoke, Reverend? If Americans have sinned, are you ministering to them in the spirit of meekness? You speak of the black church, yes. But what of the white church? Do churches have colors? Do souls? Are you and your church superior to mine? Allow me to tell you: you and it are not.

Your words, reverend, were an affront to me, but of far more importance, to the Almighty. You can still atone, but remember, God is not mocked.

Check out the article at Fox News.

'Nuff said!!!

Labels: Images, Politics

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Each year, the April 22 Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. Among other things, 1970 in the United States brought with it the Kent State shootings, the advent of fiber optics, "Bridge over Troubled Water," Apollo 13, the Beatles' last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, and the meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, South Carolina -- an incident not acknowledged for 18 years. At the time, most Americans were consuming leaded gas in massive V8 sedans. Heavy industry released smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity[citation needed]. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. The 1970 Earth Day helped to change many peoples' minds.

On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day on April 22 in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. The April 22 Earth Day in 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Events varied: A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., USA.

Earth Day 2000 sent the message loud and clear that citizens the world 'round wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy. Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the activities in thousands of places like Kiev, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; Tuvalu; Manila, Philippines; Togo; Madrid, Spain; London; and New York.

Founded by the organizers of the first April 22 Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide. Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect change in local, national, and global policies. Earth Day Network’s international network reaches over 17,000 organizations in 174 countries, while the domestic program engages 5,000 groups and over 25,000 educators coordinating millions of community development and environmental protection activities throughout the year. Earth Day is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in Earth Day Network campaigns every year.

Check out the article at Wikipedia.

Happy Earth Day - a day late! Our Blue Marble holds so many breathtaking views! Photos don't do them justice... you have to see for yourself! If every day were Earth Day we could all breathe a bit easier!

Labels: History, Images, Politics

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NEW YORK — Mourners across the country bowed their heads in silence Tuesday to mark the moments exactly six years earlier when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. The dreary skies created a grim backdrop, and a sharp contrast to the clear blue of that morning in 2001.

"That day we felt isolated, but not for long and not from each other," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said as the first ceremony began. "Six years have passed, and our place is still by your side."

Construction equipment now fills the vast city block where the World Trade Center once stood. The work under way for four new towers forced the ceremony's move away from the twin towers' footprints and into a nearby park for the first time.

As people clutched framed photos of their lost loved ones, Kathleen Mullen, whose niece Kathleen Casey died in the attacks, said the park was close enough.

On this sixth anniversary, presidential politics and the health of ground zero workers loomed, perhaps more than any other.

The firefighters and first responders who helped rescue thousands that day in 2001 and later recovered the dead were to read the victims' names for the first time. Many of those rescuers are now ill with respiratory problems and cancers themselves, and they blame the illnesses on exposure to the fallen towers' toxic dust.

For the first time, the name of a victim who survived that towers' collapse but died five months later of lung disease blamed on the dust she inhaled was added to the official roll.

Felicia Dunn-Jones, an attorney, was working a block from the World Trade Center. She became the 2,974th victim linked to the four crashes of the hijacked airliners in New York, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa., where federal investigators say the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 fought the hijackers on the rallying cry "Let's roll!"

A memorial honoring Flight 93's 40 passengers and crew began at 9:45 a.m., shortly before the time the airliner nosedived into the empty field.

"As American citizens, we're all looking at our heroes," said Kay Roy, whose sister Colleen Fraser, of Elizabeth, N.J., died when the plane went down.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also spoke to the mourners, telling them: "You have my promise that we will continue to work every single day to protect the people of this country, all in the name of those who perished heroically on Flight 93."

In New York, drums and bagpipes played as an American flag saved from the collapse was carried toward a stage.

Firefighters shared the platform with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who many victims' families and firefighters had said shouldn't speak at the service to keep from politicizing it.

Giuliani has made his performance after the 2001 terrorist attacks the cornerstone of his presidential campaign, but the Republican has said his desire to be there Tuesday was entirely personal.

"It was a day with no answers, but with an unending line of people who came forward to help one another," he told those gathered.

In Washington, President Bush paused for a moment of silence outside the White House, while Gen. Peter Pace spoke beside the Pentagon wall where one of the hijacked planes broke through.

Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the victims' families that their loved ones will always be remembered.

"I do not know the proper words to tell you what's in my heart, what is in our hearts, what your fellow citizens are thinking today. We certainly hope that somehow these observances will help lessen your pain," he said.

Pace also spoke of the military, calling the anniversary "a day of recommitment." At the main U.S. base at Afghanistan, service members bowed their heads in memory of the victims.

National intelligence director Mike McConnell said U.S. authorities remain vigilant and concerned about "sleeper cells" of would-be terrorists inside the United States. "We're safer but we're not safe," McConnell said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Even though the World Trade Center ceremony gathering was moved out of ground zero, an estimate 3,500 family members descended briefly into the site to lay flowers near the twin towers' footprints.

Among the first family members down the ramp was Marjorie Miller, whose late husband Joel worked at Marsh & McLennan. She said the rain was almost welcome after five consecutive years of Sept. 11 sunshine.

"A lot of tears coming down from up there," she said, gesturing toward the sky, "and a lot of tears down here."

In all, 2,974 victims were killed by the Sept. 11 attacks: 2,750 connected to the World Trade Center, 40 in Pennsylvania and 184 at the Pentagon. Those numbers do not include the 19 hijackers.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Never forget what they did to us on that terrible day in 2001. If it weren't for our troops fighting overseas right now, we would probably have already been reminded of their hatred for us. But, I guess that is something that the anti-war crowd will never realize until it is far too late.

For more 911 images, check out my Never Forget 911 blog post from last year.

Labels: History, Military, Politics

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NEW ORLEANS — On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, anger over the stalled rebuilding was palpable throughout a city where the mourning for the dead and feeling of loss for flooded homes, schools, snow cone stands, old-time hairstylists and hardware stores doesn't seem to subside.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans at 6:10 a.m. Aug. 29, 2005, as a strong Category 3 hurricane that flooded 80 percent of the city and killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

On Wednesday, protesters planned to march from the obliterated Lower 9th Ward to Congo Square, a venerable spot where slaves were able to celebrate their culture. Accompanied by brass bands and wielding megaphones, they will again try to spread their message that the government has failed to help people return.

"People are angry and they want to send a message to politicians that they want them to do more and do it faster," said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, a Baptist pastor and community activist. "Nobody's going to be partying."

"It's an emotional time. You re-live what happened and you remember how scattered everyone is now. There are relationships now that are completely over," said Robert Smallwood, a New Orleans writer. "The city has been dying this slow death. In New Orleans, you can't escape it. It's bad news everyday."

Churches will hold memorial services, including one at the historic St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, and ring bells in honor of the victims. People throughout the city will hold their own private ceremonies to remember where they were when Katrina hit, and what they lost.

"Everyone who gives it any thought, and I can't imagine who hasn't, has to reflect on his or her own personal experience during that time, and also look at how far we've come," said Larry Lorenz, a journalism professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

A candlelight vigil is scheduled in Jackson Square at dusk, right around the time the French Quarter may start getting tipsy with street parties and anniversary revelers, as happened last year.

The anniversary is an opportunity for the city to recapture media attention to tell the nation what's happened to New Orleans since Katrina. Reporters, television crews and photographers have, once again, flocked to the city.

The day has also attracted a passel of politicians — President Bush chief among them. He and Laura Bush arrived Tuesday night and dined with Leah Chase, the Queen of Creole cooking, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and musician Irvin Mayfield.

As on other visits, the president and his team arrived here armed with facts and figures to show how much the Bush administration has done to fulfill the promises the president made two-and-a-half weeks after the hurricane.

"We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," Bush said then from historic Jackson Square in New Orleans' French Quarter. "This great city will rise again."

In fact, there is some good news here. The city's population is rebounding, and a few neighborhoods thrive. New Orleans has recovered much of its economic base and sales tax revenues are approaching normal. The French Quarter survived Katrina, and the music and restaurant scenes are recovering.

But much of New Orleans still looks like a wasteland, with businesses shuttered and houses abandoned. Basic services like schools, libraries, public transportation and childcare are at half their original levels and only two-thirds of the region's licensed hospitals are open. Rental properties are in severely short supply, driving rents for those that are available way up. Crime is rampant and police operate out of trailers.

Many projects are hamstrung by the soaring costs of construction and insurance, while federal funding has been slow to flow to cities. Other economic indicators are down — such as population, employment and housing supplies.

Bush's Gulf Coast rebuilding chief, Don Powell, noted the federal government has committed a total of $114 billion to the region, $96 billion of which is already disbursed or available to local governments. Most of it has been for disaster relief, not long-term recovery. He implied it is local officials' fault, particularly in Louisiana where the pace has been slower, if money has not reached citizens.

Powell also said the president intends to ask for the approximately $5 billion federal share of the $7.6 billion more needed to strengthen New Orleans' levee system to withstand a 100-year storm and improve the area's drainage system. Though the levees are not yet ready for the next massive storm, they are slated to be strengthened by 2015.

But Powell said other areas — such as infrastructure repair and home rebuilding — are shared responsibilities with local officials or entirely the purview of state and local governments, suggesting that the federal government is absolved when those things don't happen.

Check out the article at Fox News.

I'm tired of these people protesting about the lack of progress... what's stopping them from rebuilding their own homes with their own money or insurance money? Oh, that's right... they don't have any money and they didn't BUY insurance, so now they have their hands out to the government. Well, beggars can't be choosers.

Maybe the real underlying reason behind delays in certain aspects of rebuilding is the realization that some portions of the New Orleans area just aren't worth rebuilding. Our politicians are dragging their feet, because the truth would be politically incorrect... especially right before the elections.

So much infrastructure has to be replaced and most of the structures have to be torn down in those low-lying areas, such as the Lower 9th Ward... areas that were originally swampland. The high ground close to the river - which includes downtown, the French Quarter, and the Garden District - never really got that much water during Katrina and is worth the investment. Of course, the highest priority is to develop a better storm protections system - it's worth it.

We should be spending the money on things that will provide an economic return for the city and state. This does not include brand-new low-income housing for the leeches. We build that for them and the area will become a run-down crap-hole again in no time... it's just not worth it!

Labels: History, Politics

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Richard Clarke remembers standing in the Oval Office and handing President George W. Bush a letter regarding what the nation should do to secure cyberspace.

"I think he signed it. I don't think he read it. I don't think he knows what it was," Clarke said during his keynote here in Las Vegas at the Black Hat security conference on Aug. 1.

Clarke is somebody whose advice Bush should have heeded.

Until his retirement in 2003, Clarke was a member of the Senior Executive Service, having served as an advisor to four presidents between 1973 and 2003.

He was the chief counter-terrorism advisor on the U.S. National Security Council for both the latter part of the Clinton administration through the early part of Bush's administration and the 9/11 attacks.

Serving with the Clinton administration, he toured the country for two years, collecting industry and academic intelligence on one crushingly important question: How do we secure cyberspace?

This is important. Within the coming 20 years, Clarke said, our soldiers will enter the battlefield with multiple IP addresses.

The Pentagon is already working toward what Clarke called net-centric warfare, part of which will be exoskeleton armor covered with interior and exterior sensors.

These exoskeletons will allow soldiers to literally have eyes in the back of their heads, to see around corners as robots fly ahead and beam back images to their visors, to lift weights at 5 to 10 times their normal capability due to exoskeletal servo-motors, and have their health monitored and their illness or fatigue medicated — again, automatically through the exoskeletal suit.

The Pentagon's vision of net-centric warfare relies on IP addresses, lots of them.

It's why the Pentagon is the only part of government now pushing for the next-generation Internet, IPv6, with its vast capacity for IP addresses, Clarke said.

But this all assumes that cyberspace is secure.

"It's not," Clarke said. "The chaos that goes on in cyberspace very day, I don't have to tell you about," he said to the audience of black, white and gray hackers.

"We are building more and more of our economy, our global economy, on the foundation of cyberspace 1.0," Clarke said. "The fundamental architecture hasn't changed since creation. And we still have secured very little" of that architecture, he said, including the very foundations of today's Internet's, DNS and PHP — themselves still not very secure.

We're also still running code from major vendors across the world that's "replete with errors, replete with errors people can use to hack into systems," Clarke said.

We still have no industry or academically generated standards to secure code, he added.

We still don't write secure code, either, he said, with high rates of errors commonplace.

We still don't authenticate much of cyberspace, either, he said.

We could also be using encryption far more than we do today, Clarke said — an omission evidenced by the loss of a laptop bearing the Social Security numbers of U.S. veterans.

"When some government laptop with the Social Security numbers of every veteran in the United States is stolen in Washington, we shouldn't have to worry about it; it should be encrypted. Databases should be encrypted," he said.

And, yet, they're not.

VoIP (Voice over IP) can be encrypted. With headlines about national security letters being abused by the FBI and other uses of surveillance, perhaps we should encrypt phone calls, Clarke suggested.

The United States also needs to adopt IPv6 "much more rapidly," Clarke said — not only because the Defense Department's plans rest on having IP address-loaded soldiers, but "because it also offers opportunity for security and for prioritization, which we don't have today. Think of how prioritization could improve disaster response in situations like 9/11 or Katrina, where communications channels get swamped immediately, barring emergency first responders from the prioritization they should have.

"And yet we're now planning disaster relief and other response based on cyberspace. On the Internet," Clarke said. "There's no way today to differentiate e-mail from someone to their grandmother or a packet with their vacation photos with that of [communications from a first responder in a disaster situation]."

The work needed to create an Internet infrastructure that could support a more secure, more rationalized cyberspace has unfortunately been starved of funding by a Congress, an administration and a society that just "doesn't get it," Clarke said.

"The Bush administration has systematically reduced the work necessary to secure cyberspace," he said.

"It's not because the answers aren't there," he said. "Or because it's a really hard problem. Sure it's a hard problem, but a lot can be done quickly. Two years we went around holding meetings, asking experts, asking industry, What should we do to secure cyberspace?"

Perhaps, instead of debating stem cell research, instead of debating whether evolution should be taught in schools, instead of surveilling citizens rather than terrorists, we should be having this crucial debate, Clarke said.

"The enemy is terrorists. The enemy is not citizens," he said.

The takeway from his talk: The enemy is an insecure cyberspace.

Check out the article at Fox News.

Scary stuff! One can only hope that the government and society recognize the threat and begin to act before it's too late!

For more information, check out the Cyber Security Wiki page.

Labels: Military, Politics, Technology

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Nine Inch Nails - Survivalism

I should have listened to her,
so hard to keep control.
We kept on eating but our
bloated bellies still not full.
She gave us all she had but
we went and took some more.
Can't seem to shut her legs our
mother nature is a whore.

I got my propaganda I got revisionism.
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism.
All a part of this great nation.
I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism.

Hypnotic sound of sirens
echoing through the street.
The cocking of the rifles,
the marching of the feet.
You see your world on fire,
don't try to act surprised.
We did just what you told us.
Lost our faith along the way and found ourselves believing your lies.

I got my propaganda I got revisionism.
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism.
All a part of this great nation.
I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism.

All bruised and broken bleeding,
she asks to take my hand.
I turn just keep on walking.
But you'd do the same thing in the circumstance I'm sure you understand.

I got my propaganda I got revisionism.
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism.
All a part of this great nation.
I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism.

Check out the:

• Official Nine Inch Nails website
• Nine Inch Nails Myspace Page
• Nine Inch Nails Wikipedia Article
• Nine Inch Nails Wiki

Survivalism is a kick-ass song from a unique concept album... Year Zero

The Concept: Year Zero takes place about fifteen years in the future. Things are not good. If you imagine a world where greed and power continue to run their likely course, you'll have an idea of the backdrop. The world has reached the breaking point - politically, spiritually and ecologically. Written from various perspectives of people in this world, Year Zero examines various viewpoints set against an impending moment of truth.

It seems that Trent Reznor has done more than create a concept album, he's created his own fictional reality! There are even plans for a Year Zero alternate reality game and film project! Many Year Zero Hints have been found hidden in the album artwork, concert t-shirts, and even USB keys placed in the bathrooms of concert venues, that lead fans to concept-related websites and phone numbers... including Another Version of the Truth.

Wikipedia defines a survivalist as a person who anticipates and prepares for a future disruption in local, regional or worldwide social or political order.

Survivalism is a commonly used term for the subculture or movement of people who make such preparations. Survivalists often prepare for this anticipated disruption by learning skills (e.g., emergency medical training, marksmanship), stockpiling food and water, or building structures that will help them to survive (e.g., underground shelter, rural compound). The specific preparations made by survivalists depend on the nature of the anticipated disruption, some of the most commonly anticipated being:

• Natural disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, and severe thunderstorms.
• A disaster brought about by the activities of mankind such as chemical spills, release of radioactive materials, war.
• General collapse of society, resulting from the unavailability of electricity, fuel, food, and water.
• Widespread chaos, or some other apocalyptic event.

Survivalism ranges from the paranoid extremist to the well-prepared average citizen. It is my opinion that if you're not a survivalist to some degree, you are a fool... everyone should at least have a store of food and water on-hand. I recommend more: camping supplies, first aid supplies, survival skills, weapons and ammo, a prepared place to hold out, and on-hand survival reference and training materials are all necessities. Of course, the list never really ends... the number one thing is: BE PREPARED!

Check out

Labels: Entertainment, Images, Politics

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.

The carrier strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz were joined by the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard and its own strike group, which includes landing ships carrying members of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The Navy said nine U.S. warships passed through the narrow Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday. Merchant ships passing through the busy strait carry two-fifths of the world's oil exports.

Aircraft aboard the three carriers and the Bonhomme Richard were to conduct air training while the ships ran submarine, mine and other exercises.

The maneuvers came just two months after a previous exercise in March when two U.S. carrier groups carried out two days of air and sea maneuvers off the Iranian coast.

Before the arrival of the Bonhomme Richard strike group, the Navy maintained around 20,000 U.S personnel at sea in the Gulf and neighboring waters.

Check out the article at Fox News.

I wonder what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to say about this? Nothing so far... he's probably getting a little nervous right about now! We'll see how many British sailors Iran kidnaps now!

Check out the Islamist Terrorism article at Wikipedia.

Labels: Military, Politics

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The police might arrive in time to call for the clean-up crew.
A quicker response is required to ensure the corpse isn't you!

"We have created a shopping list for madmen! If guns are the problem, why don't we see things occurring at skeet and trap shoots, at rifle and pistol ranges, at gun shows, at NRA conventions? We only see it where guns aren't allowed. The sign of a gun with a slash through it is like a neon sign for gunmen, 'We're unarmed. Come kill us.' "

-Suzanna Hupp, Texas State Representative