This is really cool, It would be interesting to see the condition of the boosters.
Apollo 11 Booster Found by Amazon's Jeff Bezos
By Ned Potter | ABC News – 11 hrs ago
Apollo 11 Booster Found by Amazon's …
Apollo 11 leaves for the moon, July 16, 1969. AFP/Getty Images
"Eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start. …"
It remains as one of the defining events of the last century: Apollo 11, on a pillar of fire from its five F-1 rocket engines, leaving for the moon in July 1969.
"… Three, two, one - all engines running - and liftoff on Apollo 11…."
The Saturn V booster generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The rocket lumbered into the sky. Two minutes later, as scheduled, its first stage dropped off and went tumbling into the Atlantic.
Among the hundreds of millions of people affected by Apollo 11 was a 5-year-old boy named Jeff Bezos - yes, the Jeff Bezos who grew up to found Amazon.com, one of the Internet's great success stories.
Now, he says, an expedition he funded has found the five booster engines with sonar lying in 14,000 feet of water off the Florida coast. He'd like to bring them back up, he says in a blog post; they belong in a museum.
"We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in - they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years," Bezos writes. "On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see."
Bezos, who went to Wall Street before starting Amazon, remained, all the while, a space enthusiast. With Amazon humming along, he used some of his profits to start a company called Blue Origin. He's said very little about it, but it is one of the many companies competing to bring the efficiencies of private enterprise to space travel, "so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system."
Amazon and Blue Origin may be hard-headed businesses, but Bezos admitted to sentimentality in his effort to recover the booster engines of Apollo 11.
"NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire 5-year-olds," he wrote. "It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.
The World According to Obama
ByLauri B. ReganPresident Obama recently toured the Korean demilitarized zone and, according to reports, stared disbelievingly into North Korea. "It is like you are looking across 50 years into a country that has missed 40 years or 50 years of progress," he stated. Well, yes, it is. It is also what a country looks like when decades of communism, military dictatorship, human rights abuses, and nuclear obsession exist instead of democracy and freedom. What did he think he was going to see? Skyscrapers, green parks with children skipping through the daisies, and obesity due to too much fast food consumption (God forbid)
Alas, Barack Obama is living in an ivory tower in which he has absolutely no conception of what is taking place in so many parts of the world. And that is not surprising based on the way he has governed over the past three years. He has proven ignorant of history and world affairs, disinterested in what the majority of Americans want for the future of the country, and focused on himself and his own worldviews. He is obsessed with diplomacy, the U.N., and leading from behind -- all of which have proven useless in dealing with the world's tyrannies and vitriolic regimes. But so what? If these things work inside the vacuum of an Ivy League classroom, they must lead to the idealism envisioned by Obama's indoctrinators, notwithstanding the lessons of history and present-day reality. But Obama made another comment as he looked head-on into the face of communism. In discussing the North Korean government's failures, he stated,"There are certain things that just don't work, and what they are doing doesn't work." Instead of condemning communism itself, the ideology driving North Koreans into poverty and tyranny, Mr. Obama seemingly criticized the management of North Korea. Communists worldwide have always complained that communism itself is workable, but that problems with the implementation of the ideology have prevented it from being successful. North Korean communism has been working well for the family that has been suppressing freedom and human rights for decades while it pursues nuclear weapons with which it threatens the world. What Obama's statement shows is a complete disconnect from the reality of communism, and an indifference to our values of self-determination and respect. Obama carefully avoided calling a spade a spade and announcing that North Korea is yet one more example of the failures of an ideology that suppresses a society's development. For in his world view, the bigger the government entitlement program, the more regulation controlling the populous, the better off the citizenry. In other words, what is not working is not communism, but the government's improper application of communist principles. This president views the world from his own prism. In his mind, Muslims hate us because of George W. Bush, but a self-proclaimed grandiose speech in Cairo will turn things around. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs wish to build a nuclear weapon because of American aggression, but a sit-down with Barack Hussein Obama will put a quick end to that. The Israelis and Palestinians have been incapable of reaching a peace agreement for the past sixty years, but not only will the mediator-in-chief make the rising oceans recede -- he will force an agreement down the Israelis' throats, notwithstanding Palestinian intransience and violence. Obama frighteningly reminds me of Holocaust deniers who reject the very existence of those atrocities, notwithstanding the vast amount of evidence of the horrifying deeds of the Nazi regime. In a speech before the U.N. General Assembly, Bibi Netanyahu felt compelled to take out a map of Auschwitz as proof of the Holocaust, notwithstanding the fact that more than enough evidence exists across Europe for anyone to view and stare in disbelief as Obama did in Korea this past week. However, most people do not actually have to visit the concentration camps in order to recognize that they did exist, nor do they have to spy into North Korea to understand the dire nature of those poor people's lives. And most people understand that the likes of Hitler, the dictators constituting the North Korean dynasty, and Islamic extremists all view the world quite differently from how individuals brought up in a free society and ingrained with centuries, if not millennia, of Judeo-Christian values do. To date, in fact, outside Jimmy Carter, U.S. presidents have understood that the world's maniacal leaders require a different type of communication -- one that perhaps may involve not only speaking softly, but also carrying a big stick. Further limiting Obama's worldview is his desire to restrict his continuing education -- something presumably required of world leaders on a daily basis. Not only has Obama chosen to surround himself with like-minded individuals of similar backgrounds spent in academic isolation, but he has also opted to limit his sources of news and information. It was reported several years ago that Obama "hardly ever watches news programs, preferring to 'read the news.'" What news does he read? Obama recently shared that he enjoys reading "African American publications" because "those stories of success and hope, that's what sustains us, that's what has driven us, that's what has given people a sense that no matter how tough things get sometimes, there's always a better day ahead." Tell that to the North Koreans. Obama is superficial and naive. So Obama's reaction to the sights in North Korea through his binocular lenses was clearly revealing. For it offers an explanation as to why he has spent the past three years helping to build fundamental Islamic dictatorships across the Middle East and Northern Africa, "reset" relations with Russia while undermining relations with Eastern European countries whom the U.S. had previously promised to protect, refused to threaten Iran with military action if it does not cease its march to nuclear capability, and required Israelis to search their souls and stop settlement expansion while the Palestinians -- well, the Palestinians don't have to do much of anything. In a nutshell, Obama's recent statements explain why he continually reaches out to our enemies while bashing our allies. In Obama's world, every past and present problem in the Mideast and North Africa is Bush's fault. Only Obama was capable of killing Osama bin Laden, and the Bush policies to fight terrorism that led to that success were all problematic and unconstitutional. The Iraq and Afghan Wars are successes because of Obama's policies to prematurely end the U.S. military presence in both countries (while simultaneously and hypocritically telling the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea that they are performing honored service at "freedom's frontier"). When those countries finally and completely fall apart, I wonder whose fault it will be. Through Obama's rose-colored glasses, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate; Tunisia and Morocco, Turkey and Egypt are all headed in the right direction due to U.S. foreign policy, notwithstanding their march to Islamic supremacy; Ahmadinejad can be reasoned with while Netanyahu must suffer the reprisals of protecting the Jewish democratic homeland; Turkey's Islamist prime minister is a terrific source of advice on how to raise your daughters; and getting caught whispering sweet nothings to the Russian president to subtly reassure Vladimir Putin that the administration will pass along U.S. missile defense secrets once unburdened with an upcoming election is simply a step toward resolving "incredibly complicated issues." Were Obama a rational and well-educated individual rather than a narcissistic ideologue, one might suggest duplicating his experience in the DMZ, thinking that perhaps if he witnessed the atrocities committed in other areas of the world, he might alter course and actually invoke effective foreign policy in order to safeguard U.S. interests and human rights abroad. But that has been tried and proven a failure. For while President Obama has not seen fit to visit Israel, candidate Obama did find it politically expedient to tour America's strongest ally in the region. And while in Sderot, where tens of thousands of missiles have landed since 2006, Obama's speechwriters did include all the right rhetoric, as he stated that "Israel has the right to defend itself, and peace should not undermine its security." Sadly, however, Obama's reality revealing binoculars have apparently gone missing. Since entering office, he has continually demonized Israel's prime minister and policies, discouraged Israel from defending itself against a potentially nuclear Iran, and ambushed Netanyahu with the pronouncement that Israel must return to the indefensible pre-'67 borders. I am reminded of Sesame Street's Elmo and his cute little song, "Elmo's World": La la la la, La la la la, Obama's world La la la la, La la la la Obama's world He wrote the music He wrote the song That's Obama's world. In your own words Mr. President: "There are certain things that just don't work." What you are doing does not work.
I had already harped on this on an earlier post. I saw this article and remembered the story of little red hen. This story along with the Ant and the Grasshopper were stories that were told to instill a work ethic for the kids. Basically you didn't get anything unless the you worked and got it. kids would cut grass, wash cars and do what is necessary to get the comic book money or candy that they wanted. This gave the kids a sense of self worth that they CAN do it and succeed. This work value would stay with the kid until adulthood. Now we have kids with an over developed sense of entitlement and that to get along you must " share". if you try to be an individual, you are ostracized by your peers and the teachers because you don't get with the program. Now we have to "share" and help each other...the from each according to his ability to each according to their need. It is liberal utopia where everybody sings kumbaya and holds hands while the unicorns prance around and the world heals and the oceans recede. All this misguided crap does is take away the individuality that America is known for and make us just like every shithole in the world rather than be the beacon of freedom and light that this country was known for.
The industrious Little Red Hen wouldn't share her cake with her lazy friends.
The yoke that is the welfare state has thoroughly infected America. If voters re-elect President Barack Obama, he will brainwash all Americans into thinking they are entitled to government handouts. Most Americans don’t understand that independent people are losing their way as the President crusades to build his Nanny Nation — a country so transformed that even the oral traditions that were taught for generations have been eradicated.
To be fair, it is not all Obama’s fault. In my lifetime, the United States has been moving away from its ideals of hard work, self-sacrifice and personal responsibility. Bedtime Stories Our Children Never Hear
Some of you may remember “The Little Red Hen,” the bedtime story of an industrious chicken that lived with an indolent cat, a lazy dog and a mouse that behaved like a sloth.
I can still remember the story from half a century ago. My dad always had a glimmer in his eye, sitting at the head of the dinner table and telling us kids the fable of the cat that slept, the dog that napped and the mouse that snoozed. They only survived, said my dad, because the Little Red Hen worked so very hard.
One day, while busy in the garden, the Little Red Hen found some seeds of wheat. The hen asked her friends the following:
“Who will plant this wheat?”
“Who will cut this wheat?”
“Who will grind this wheat into flour?”
“Who will make a cake from the fine flour?”
To each question, her friends replied: “Not I.”
Finally, the Little Red Hen asked, “Who will help me eat this cake?” The cat, the dog and the mouse all shouted: “I will.”
“No, you won’t,” replied the Little Red Hen, “for I alone did all the work, so I alone will eat the cake.”
When I was a child, The Little Red Hen was a big hit at our house. But when I told the fable to my own children, they just didn’t seem to get it.
“Why wouldn’t the hen share, Daddy?” asked my little girl.
“Because she did all the work,” I replied.
“But my teacher tells us we are supposed to share,” she said.
“Sharing is good,” I told her, “but you can’t be lazy. You have to share in the work too.”
A puzzled look spread over her face. I remember being a bit exasperated, and I asked: “Don’t you read stories like ‘The Little Red Hen’ at school?”
“Not really,” she said. “Most of the stories we read are about helping each other.”
I realized that the values held sacred by my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were not even contemplated by my children or most of their generation.
Obama is accelerating America’s welfare revolution. He is finishing what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started when he introduced the New Deal 80 years ago. Three generations later, there are fewer Little Red Hens and far too many cats, dogs and mice.
I fear that the welfare creed has become so ingrained in our culture that America will probably never extricate itself from its growing socialist grip. That may have been FDR’s intention from the start. Roosevelt bragged: “… no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
But FDR only engineered the welfare state. Its grand developer was President Lyndon B. Johnson. His “War On Poverty” and his plan for a Great Society have built a welfare system second to none.
An American Thinkerarticle addressed the issue:
As it stands now, Obama appears headed toward an economic legacy that may very well surpass Jimmy Carter in its level of failure.
We have seen under this president an expanding number of citizens who are partially or wholly dependent on the government for their very livelihood, as the data show that the U.S. has become an ever-growing welfare state under Obama.
As the graph below shows, government welfare payments have soared over the past 42 years, from a few billion dollars to $800 billion. If the trend continues, payments will exceed $1 trillion dollars per year. Add in defense and national security spending and immediately the Federal government is spending almost $2 trillion each year. This cannot continue, yet it seems almost impossible to stop until people believe that they need to be industrious, that they should not depend on government to help them make their way.
My dad told me other stories when I was growing up: hard-luck stories about what he and his generation faced during the Great Depression. He graduated from college with a degree in geology in 1930. Yet it took him 12 years to do anything but menial jobs. He worked selling vacuum cleaners and he sold life insurance door to door. He even worked in a slaughter house. The government didn’t help him. Quite frankly, if the help had been offered, I doubt he would have taken it. He didn’t have much time for government, either in getting things from it or paying toward it.
The grandchildren of those who went through the Great Depression don’t think this way. Liberals, from those in the education system to those in the entertainment industry, have convinced most young people that government should do more to make society better. They want to reward the cat, the dog and the mouse while making the Little Red Hen pay for it.
The problem is the Little Red Hens are getting tired of carrying the load for everyone else. Until we wake up to this fact, we will be faced with continued social and economic crises, and the standard of living will fall for all of us.
Yours in good times and bad, –John Myers
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report
I saw this on CBS news here
There are many pictures:)
As an Aviation fan I saw this and liked the article. Even though I rag on Airbus for their design philosophy in trying to take the pilot out of the equation as much as possible. If Capt Sully had been driving a Boeing 737, he wouldn't have had to ditch. The pilot on the Boeing has the ability to overide the computer. Whereas on the Airbus they don't. What happened was that when the birds flew into the engines of the A320 the sensors got clogged with bird guts and no air moving through the sensors the computer on the Airbus assumed that the plane wasn't moving, so as to not damage the engines, it idled them.
I have the utmost respect for Capt Sully, what he did was a phenomenal job of flying, that flight and landing was textbook, it couldn't have been done better than that. Capt Sully deserves all the kudos's and accolades that he got.
I have harped for this for years, when people get "Free stuff from the government" they have an entitlement mentality. They expect more and are totally un appreciative that this is stuff to help them out. Instead they demand more free stuff because they are "owed" for being here. I remember a while back when I had posted a story about some person that worked at the IRS for a bit and had to deal with people checking on their tax refund. he had stated that the people that actually worked were polite and respectful whereas the people that didn't work were rude, obnoxious and DEMANDED their money when they didn't pay anything in but were getting EITC and other "Gimme's" from the government. If we don't get a handle on this, we will be like Greece and it will get worse.
By CHARLES J. SYKES, Wisconsin Policy Institute
March 27, 2012
Milton Friedman may have argued that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but you’d have a hard time convincing millions of Americans of that today. They know better – or at least they think they do.
A record 46.5 million Americans rely on food stamps, and in 2010 the federal government paid out more money in the form of benefits than it collected in federal income taxes. But perhaps the most striking measure of the success of the entitlement state has been the way it’s eroded the stigma of being on the dole, while spreading dependency as a virtue as widely as possible. In other words: Everybody should buy everybody’s free lunch. And free breakfast too. (Did I mention free dinner also would be nice?) RELATED: The ‘Take Care of Me’ Society is Wrecking the USA The cultural shift has become so pronounced today that even some progressives are showing signs of unease. Were it not for her impeccable ideological pedigree, Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, might have irreparably damaged her standing with her mother’s friends when she produced a brief video for HBO about her recent encounters outside a New York welfare office. In the Pelosi video, a man waiting in line is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes as he admits that he’s fathered five children by four different mothers. “I’m here to get a check … whatever they’ve got to offer,” he explains. “It’s not like they’ve got a checklist … I’m just here to get what I can get.”
Of course he was.
In the video, Alexandra Pelosi quizzes one man: “Why should I help you? Why should my tax dollars be going to you?” He replies, “Because my ancestors came here to help build this place – my ancestors, the slaves.” The last time the man worked, he says, was “half a decade” ago.
There was some mild bureaucratic embarrassment in Michigan recently when a 24-year-old woman who won $1 million in the state lottery was found to be collecting food assistance.
Around the country, there is a lot of “taking” going on. There was some mild bureaucratic embarrassment in Michigan recently when a 24-year-old woman who won $1 million in the state lottery was found to be collecting food assistance. “I feel it’s okay because, I mean, I have no income and I have bills to pay,” explained the woman, Amanda Clayton. “I have two houses.” She was utterly without embarrassment of any kind.
Like the upstanding gentleman in Pelosi’s video, Ms. Clayton was echoing the British welfare queen who declared, “I don’t feel bad about being subsidized by people who are working. I’m just working with the system that’s there. If the government wants to give me money, I’m happy to take it. We get what we’re entitled to.”
Clayton, the lottery winner, has now been cut off from government food aid, as of last Wednesday. The Department of Human Services director in Michigan, Maura Corrigan, issued a statement: “Under DHS policy, a recipient of food assistance benefits must notify the state within 10 days of any asset or income change. DHS relies on clients being forthcoming about their actual financial status. If they are not, and continue to accept benefits, they may face criminal investigation and be required to pay back those
But Clayton’s use of taxpayer assistance after buying a new home and car with her winnings was not unusual. Another Michigan resident continued receiving food assistance after he won $2 million in the 2010 state lottery. That’s what prompted congressman Dale Zorn (R-MI) to pass legislation in his state’s House earlier this year that would remove large-sum lottery winners from welfare rolls. (Legislation is pending in the Michigan Senate.)
Yet there’s still plenty of freebies left to dole out. And as those freebies multiply and as politicians up the bidding, notice how often the two sides seem to talk past one another, using words that carry radically different meanings, depending on the speakers.
While GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was campaigning last week in Peoria, Illinois, a young woman was caught on camera declaring: “So you’re all for like, ‘yay, freedom,’ and all this stuff. And ‘yay, like pursuit of happiness.’ You know what would make me happy? Free birth control.”
Wants have been transformed into “rights” in America and ultimately into obligations and entitlements.
Consider this young woman’s thought process. In the alchemy of the new entitlement culture, freedom and the pursuit of happiness are transformed into a demand for free stuff that makes her happy. You could argue with her that freedom means something other than free stuff and that the pursuit of happiness was never intended to imply a guarantee of taxpayer-financed bliss. But she knows what she wants, and she wants it for free. Romney, to his credit, told the woman that if she wanted free stuff, she should “vote for the other guy.”
Romney continued, “Politicians get up and promise you all kinds of free stuff, more and more stuff that you won’t have to pay for, and you know what? We get elected that way, in many cases, politicians do. That’s not something I subscribe to.”
But the Romney heckler illustrated the way in which wants have been transformed into “rights” in America and ultimately into obligations and entitlements. The process can be illustrated this way: “I want you to buy me lunch. Therefore, I need lunch. And if I need something, I have a right to it – and you, therefore, have an obligation to pay for it.”
The equation looks like this: Wants = needs = rights = obligations. The laundry list goes far beyond free lunch to include free health care, free cell phones, free birth control, free mortgage bailouts – and on and on.
We’ve seen how this worked out for the Greeks, of course. But for a growing number of Americans, what happened in Greece is irrelevant: The entitlement state appeals to voters who believe they will bear no consequences for the costs or sustainability of the program. Questions of affordability don’t come into it, because they know they will never have to pay for it. (Recall that 49.5 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax at all.)
They are not thinking of the burden to their children, their grandchildren, their friends, their fellow citizens of the country, or anyone else. As long as it is free to them – it’s free. And good luck telling them otherwise.
I ran across this from Irish and linked to this site
SOME truth about Trayvon...
Since our entire country is about to tear itself apart over a hispanic/black/jew killing a black boy, I decided to sit down tonight and do a little digging.
What I found didn't really surprise me -- I'm about the world's biggest cynic -- but it IS pretty staggering in a sick sort of way...
First the "concensus narrative":
Poor little Trayvon - choir-boy extraordinaire, and candidate for sainthood - was chased down and murdered by a racist white man for the "crime" of walking to the store to buy a bag of skittles for his beloved little brother.
The police TOLD the racist murderer not to follow Trayvon, but he continued, and wasn't satisfied until he'd MURDERED this innocent little child.
Naturally, they also trot out heart-melting pictures of the innocent child, to be sure nobody misses the fact that he was someone SPECIAL whose life was cut tragically short by the twin horrors of racism and guns.
What's worse, the evil, racist redneck cops in the Florida town where this tragedy happened chose to let the murderer walk free - after all, he was white and the dead "child" was black!
At this point, 99% of the black community is screaming for "Zimmerman"'s head on a platter, thanks in large part to media pandering and the usual bevy of race-hustlers and pimps. Even King Hussein The First, has chosen to fan the flames by claiming "If (he) had a son, he'd look like Trayvon".
You'd THINK that black folks ESPECIALLY - given the long history of "their people" being lynched without benefit of due process - would be against the whole meme - but obviously you'd be WRONG.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard all that so many times that it's become TRUE - though it's nearly all a pack of sickening LIES!
Here's what I've learned...
First of all, Trayvon was in this "strange neighborhood" because he'd been sent there by his Momma -- sent to stay with his DADDY for a bit so Daddy could "straighten him out" during a week-long suspension from school.
Though nobody will say what he did to get himself suspended, one thing is sure: It was relatively SERIOUS if it earned him a weeklong suspension... For Mom to call on DAD to "straighten him out" - thus admitting SHE COULDN"T HANDLE THE KID - is also telling!
Then there's Trayvon himself...Here's the kid we've all been told was so brutally murdered:
As it turns out, that picture is about 5 years old!
In reality, THIS is the "Trayvon 'SLIMM' Martin" who was shot on that fateful night:
Gosh! Gold "grille", "saggin' pants", obscene gestures... Not quite the choir-boy we've all been crying over, huh?
Then there's the fact that - in another image from his Facebook page - young Trayvon apparently self-identified as a "MADE NIGGA" - meaning he'd been officially accepted into a "gang."
Which gang? I'm not sure, but clearly it has a "Waters Avenue" "set" - and "Slimm" made a claim to be in it!
Lest you fall for the claims of "That's a DIFFERENT Trayvon Martin" - note that even the pic his family chose for his "funeral handout" had a similar "tough guy" vibe - also delivered in a red font.
Even further, I'd bet a paycheck that the "skull and crossbones" came from the same "graffiti" font-set he used for his "Made..." announcement above! - but I digress...
Do a simple Google Image Search for "Trayvon Martin" and look at what pops up. Scroll on down and look -- you'll find all sorts of *OLD* pictures of him (the bastards even go so far as to break out the photo from his "Kindergarten Graduation") -- but you'll find the only sites showing the pics I found above are places like "StormFront"...
Lastly, note that the Police Report from the night of the shooting - which took its info from his two-year-old ID - listed him as 6-0, but the Trayvon who was shot was was in fact a six-foot-two and 180+ pounds football player - not the innocent little boy being plastered all over!
Zimmerman OTOH is 5-9, and obviously obese. Further, he was - when police arrived at the scene - bleeding from his nose and from the BACK of his head. He also had grass all over the wet-back of his shirt, which corroborates
Ok ....So maybe Trayvon wasn't the choir-boy we've been led to believe - but that doesn't give Zimmerman the right to kill him!After all - Zimmerman continued chasing Trayvon after the police told him to stop!
As it turns out, THAT is a lie too!
If you listen to the whole 911 call, you'll find two things:
(1) The dispatcher didn't tell Zimmerman "Don't do that" (follow Martin) - he said "We don't NEED YOU TO DO THAT"... The former is an order, the latter a simple attempt to limit liability!
(2) Even more importantly - contrary to the ongoing "concensus narrative" - ZIMMERMAN - upon being told he didn't NEED to follow Martin - STOPPED FOLLOWING HIM!!
You can tell this because he stopped wheezing when he was no longer hurrying trying to keep up with a running Martin - but also because he told the dispatcher that Martin had "disappeared", and that he (Zimmerman) was going to return to his truck!!
Listen for yourself:
Now...
I believe we've pretty well established that Trayvon wasn't who we've been told he was.
It's undeniable that they've gone WAAaaay 'round the bend to make poor little Trayvon look like a little boy instead of the LARGE, ATHLETIC *MAN* he really was.
I believe it's undeniable that the "narrative" of the whole thing is also twisted, through selective "editing" of the 911 tape.
What about those racist cops? They STILL should have arrested Zimmerman, right?
Well, as it turns out, that's wrong too!
See, Florida law PROHIBITS police from arresting someone who appears to have been acting in self-defense!
Further, it was *NOT* the cops, but the DISTRICT ATTORNEY who made the decision not to charge Zimmerman -- a decision he made *AFTER* reviewing all the evidence and the testimony of all the witnesses -- which just happens to match what Zimmerman has claimed from the beginning!
Zimmerman says he was returning to his truck when Martin ATTACKED *HIM*!
He says he began screaming for help, and when he was on the ground being beaten to death he finally drew his weapon and fired in self-defense!
This statement matches the story from multiple eyewitnesses, and even a SEPARATE 911 tape where Zimmerman can be heard screaming for help in the background!
But... Wasn't that Trayvon screaming for help?!
NOT ACCORDING TO MARTIN'S OWN FATHER - who told cops (after listening to the tape) "That's not my son." !!
[url=http://www.sanfordfl.gov/investigation/docs/Zimmerman_Martin_shooting.pdf][b][u]Here's a letter from the "City Manager" to the public, trying to calm things down"[/u][/b][/url] - it also has some interesting facts...
In short, EVERYTHING you've been told about this case is a lie.
Every "fact" has been twisted, pictures deliberately altered, and the whole thing deliberately manipulated in order to foment and fan the flames of racial tensions.
The race-pimps and hustlers have done THEIR sickening best to wind up as many as possible, and they've been aided by everyone from the media to the White-House.
The ONE QUESTION WE MOST NEED TO BE ASKING AT THIS POINT IS WHY??!!
The answer to *THAT* question may just tell us what we REALLY need to know!!
posting will be sporatic this week, I have to work on my wood badge requirements and get ready for the 2nd weekend of camping. I also have to write up my tickets for wood badge so I can "return to Gilwell." Wood Badge is a scouting leadership course and if there are any scouters out there, it is worth the experience. I will then "work my tickets"
This is an exerpt from Wiki:
Ticket
The phrase 'working your ticket' comes from a story attributed to Baden-Powell: Upon completion of a British soldier's service in India, he had to pay the cost of his ticket home. The most affordable way for a soldier to return was to engineer a progression of assignments that were successively closer to home.
Part of the transformative power of the Wood Badge experience is the effective use of metaphor and tradition to reach both heart and mind. In most Scout associations, "working your ticket" is the culmination of Wood Badge training. Participants apply themselves and their new knowledge and skills to the completion of items designed to strengthen the individual's leadership and the home unit's organizational resilience in a project or "ticket". The ticket consists of specific goals that must be accomplished within a specified time, often 18 months due to the large amount of work involved. Effective tickets require much planning and are approved by the Wood Badge course staff before the course phase ends. Upon completion of the ticket, a participant is said to have earned his way back to Gilwell.[9]
I want to post a lot of the Trevon Martin shooting and the various race pimps and anti 2nd amendment types wanting to glom onto this tragedy for their own personal agenda once I get my wood badge stuff completed so I can take a breather.
Fifty years' worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons. For instance, we've learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression. The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free-market greed. But there's one participant in Washington's war on poverty who's routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, working chumps are identified not by their intellectual prowess but by their productivity. Their status ranges from the professional to the tradesman, the rich to the poor. Such people are driven to meet their own needs and become agitated when others shun that responsibility. While such productive people represent a declining socioeconomic class, they are indispensable. The entitlement wagon is overloaded with passengers who favor the free ride. Did someone not pull that wagon, it would stall. No one would get what they need, much less what they want. Working chumps are the mules who pull the wagon. Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there's an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life's essentials at another person's expense. Voluntarily contributing to a neighbor's well-being is charitable. Being forced to provide for another's needs is a form of servitude. How else can we describe people who are forced to relinquish their property -- expressed as the return on their labor -- for their neighbors' personal benefit? Just as charity isn't a vice, forced contribution isn't charity, even when the needs of the "entitled" are life's necessities. How much more when entitlement extends from essentials to convenience? Perhaps you've heard of Assurance Wireless? If not, it's a program that provides clients with 250 minutes of free cellular service each month. More talkative Assurance customers can receive 500 minutes for $5 a month, and 1,000 voice minutes plus 1,000 text messages for $20 a month. But there's a flaw: Assurance isn't free. Someone must subsidize the free or reduced rates. That someone is the working chump. Assurance is funded through the federal Universal Service Fund (USF). Basically, the USF is a tax that appears on phone and wireless bills. In theory, this tax is collected from communications companies to ensure affordable telecommunications services in remote or high-cost areas. In reality, customers pay the USF. Therefore, the working chump who pays the USF tax is subsidizing yet another welfare program. Now, labeling Assurance Wireless a welfare program is a stern accusation, one in need of substantiation. Fortunately, confirming evidence is readily available. Qualifying for Assurance is as simple as participating in an approved entitlement program: Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, public housing, free school lunch, or low-income energy assistance programs. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Likewise, when a program's qualifying criterion is participation in a welfare program, and the program's cost is covered or subsidized through government imposed taxes or fees, it's a welfare program. The economy isn't technically in recession, but it's far from robust, causing many productive families to trim their budgets. One way to stretch their dollars is through no-contract, or prepaid, cellular plans. While prepaid cellular options sometimes are limited, they are affordable. However, prepaid cellular customers work not only to maintain their limited services, but also to provide the entitlement class with better cellular plans than they themselves can afford. Productive people are being played for chumps -- working chumps. Count me in their number. Successful cultures aren't built upon the premise that unproductive people have the right to necessity or convenience at others' expense. But more and more Americans perceive themselves entitled. Whether it's necessities like food and shelter or luxuries like cellular phones, working chumps continue to meet the demands of an ungrateful entitlement class. The government, media, and intelligentsia are quick to defend those who ride in the entitlement wagon. Yet no one defends the working chump, whose productivity keeps that wagon rolling. The chumps can't pull the load forever. Someday the weight will become too great, and both the wagon and its riders will be left sitting by the side of the road.
Click on the link, Colonel West is accurate in his protrayal of the enemy and only political correctness prevents us from naming them for fear of "offending" the self same enemy. Sun zsu stated, to defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy. Until we identify the enemy, we cannot win. All we do is waste time and lives to describe a tactic of the enemy, not the enemy itself.
Rep. West offers sweeping vision for keeping America secure in the new century
Freshman Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) on Thursday afternoon offered detailed and aggressive prescription for how the United States can ensure its security in the new century, and warned that the nation faces “dark days ahead” if it does not prepare for several emerging security threats.
“For the sake of our nation, and of all nations who seek freedom for their citizens, we must be prepared to fight on the 21st Century Battlefield, and we can settle for no less than victory upon it,” he said on the House floor (prepared text here).
West said defining the enemy is a key component of this strategy, and that the United States is not at war with terror, because terrorism is just a tactic used by an enemy. Instead, he said a chief U.S. enemy is Hezbollah, even though the United States rarely names it.
“Until we, as a nation, are able to correctly and openly identify our enemy, we will continue to put our men and women on the ground in harm’s way without a clear mission for success,” he said. “On this 21st Century Battlefield we are not fighting against a single organization, a single leader, or a single nation. We are fighting against Islamic fundamentalism, which knows no country, recognizes no borders, and wears no uniform.”
West added that Islamism is a “theocratic-political totalitarian ideology no different from Nazism, Fascism, and Communism which threatens the free world.”
West said the United States needs to deny this enemy any sanctuary and resources, reduce its sphere of influence and “win the information war” by limiting its ability to use the Internet as another medium for its own purposes.
West’s remarks hit countries and regions. He warned that China is looking to use its economic strength and waxing naval strength to advance communism.
“If we cannot protect the sea lanes of commerce, we leave ourselves vulnerable not just militarily, but economically, to a power in China that continues to seek world communism as its ultimate goal, irrefutably so,” he said.
On Iraq, he questioned “the motives of President Barack Obama in announcing a full withdrawal of American forces in October 2011.” West warned that leaving Iraq runs the risk of abandoning U.S. allies there.
He also said he would continue to press the Obama administration to get Pakistan to do more to crack down on terrorists, offer full support for Israel, reject a Palestinian state until it cuts ties to Hamas, keep up pressure for reforms in Iran and impose new sanctions against Syria as a way of pressuring that government to stop its crackdown on pro-democracy forces.
I was checking out other sites on my blogroll and Capt Tightpants had an awesome video. As a veteran I have wanted to say a lot of this stuff. It is definitely NSFW .
I saw this and it did resonate with me, I hate to mention the "V" word, the left trotted that word out a lot in the 70's and 80's until Desert Storm buried that one. I am a student of history and I am seeing a lot of parallels from then and now. When 20% of our casualties come from the people we are trying to train and save their own country. The cultural differences I think are insurmountable. We as western based individuals prize the belief of the individual, the middle east is what tribe you belong to, what family, if you are an infidel or a believer. Until Islam grows up, I think they will fight for the next several hundred years. All we seem to do is waste our treasure. I am not a defeatist by any stretch, but I am a realist. and I think we just need to quarantine the middle east until they kill each other off. Does that sound brutal? I am just to that stage.
Ralph Peters is retired military and author and a very trustworthy person. This letter by him is very discouraging.
It Was Only a Matter of Time Before One of Our Men Broke Down Ralph Peters
On Sunday, just before dawn, an American staff sergeant walked away from his post in the badlands of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, went into a nearby village, and methodically murdered sixteen civilians, including women and children. This didn't happen in the confusion of a firefight amidst the "fog of war." It was the brutal act of a veteran who cracked. The deed cannot be excused. But I believe it can be explained.
For a final analysis we'll have to wait until all of the facts come in, but it appears that a soldier who had served honorably during multiple tours in Iraq broke down and went mad in Afghanistan. We should not be surprised that this happened. We should be surprised that it hasn't happened sooner and more often: The shock of this incident after a decade of hopeless, meandering efforts that have thrown away the lives and limbs of our troops while ambitious generals lie about progress, seek promotion, and engage in military masturbation is actually a tribute to our men and women in uniform out on the front lines (to the extent that "front lines" exist).
That staff sergeant-who turned himself in after the killings-is guilty of murder in a degree yet to be determined, but the amazing thing is how disciplined, patient and tenacious our troops have been. Given the outrageous stresses of serving repeated tours in an environment a brand-new private could recognize as hopeless (while his generals fly back and forth congratulating themselves), it's remarkable that we have not seen more and even uglier incidents. The problem in Afghanistan isn't our troops-although craven generals routinely insist that everything is the fault of "disrespectful" soldiers-it's a leadership in and out of uniform that is bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of ethics, bankrupt of moral courage-and rich only in self-interest and ambition.
If there's a "battle cry" in Afghanistan, it's "Blame the troops!" Generals out of touch with the ugly, brute reality on the ground down in the Taliban-sympathizing villages respond to every seeming crisis in Afghan-American relations by telling our troops to "respect Afghan culture."
But generals don't have a clue about Afghan "culture." They interact with well-educated, privileged, English-speaking Afghans who know exactly which American buttons to press to keep the tens of billions of dollars in annual aid flowing. The troops, on the other hand, daily encounter villagers who will not warn them about Taliban- planted booby traps or roadside bombs, who obviously want them to leave, who relish the abject squalor in which they live and who appear to value the lives of their animals above those of their women When our Soldiers and Marines hear, yet again, that they need to "respect Afghan culture," they must want to puke up their rations.
When I was a young officer in training, we mocked the European "chateaux generals" of the First World War who gave their orders from elegant headquarters without ever experiencing the reality faced by the troops in the trenches. We never thought that we'd have chateaux generals of our own, but now we do. Flying down to visit an outpost and staying just long enough to pin on a medal or two, get a dog-and-pony-show briefing and have a well-scripted tea session with a carefully selected "good" tribal elder, then winging straight back to a well-protected headquarters where the electronics are more real than the troops is not the way to develop a "fingertips feel" for on- the-ground reality.
Add in the human capacity for self-delusion, and you have a surefire prescription for failure.
Right now, our troops are being used as props in a campaign year, as pawns by dull-witted generals who just don't know what else to do, and as cash cows by corrupt Afghan politicians, generals and warlords (all of whom agree that it's virtuous to rob the Americans blind).
What are our goals? What is our strategy? We're told, endlessly, that things are improving in Afghanistan, yet, ten years ago, a U.S. Army general, unarmed, could walk the streets of Kabul without risk. Today, there is no city in Afghanistan where a U.S. general could stroll the streets. We may not have a genius for war, but we sure do have a genius for kidding ourselves.
Karzai regime. Right now, our troops are dying to preserve a filthy Kabul government whose president blatantly stole the last election and which has no hope of gaining the support of its own people. Meanwhile, despite repeated claims that the Taliban is on its last legs, the religious fanatics remain the home team backed by Afghanistan's Pashtun majority. (If the people didn't back them, the Taliban would, indeed, have been long gone-we need to face reality.)
Recently, another friend, who clings to (now-retired) General Petraeus's counterinsurgency notion that, if we just hang on and give the Afghans enough free stuff, they'll come around to the American way of life, told me, yet again, "You should hear the intercepts we get from the low-level Taliban fighters…they're in a panic…"
That's the old Vietnam line: "We win every firefight!" Sure, we whip the Taliban every time we catch them with their weapons (if they're not holding weapons, we can't engage, even if they just killed Americans). But we dare not attack the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, where it's protected by our "allies." And no matter how many Taliban we kill, they still attract volunteers willing to die for their cause. The Afghans we train turn their guns on us.
It appears that the staff sergeant who murdered those Afghan villagers had cracked under the stresses of a war we won't allow our troops to fight. But the real madness is at the top, in the White House, where President Obama can't see past the November election; in Congress, where Republicans cling to whatever war they've got; and in uniform, where our generals have run out of ideas and moral courage.
That staff sergeant murdered sixteen Afghans. Our own leaders have murdered thousands and maimed tens of thousands of our own troops out of vanity, ambition and inertia. Who deserves our sympathy?
In war, soldiers die. But they shouldn't die for bullshit.
I saw this on boston.com Was kinda shocked that the northeastern newspaper published it.
THE COLORADO Supreme Court put some noses out of joint when it ruled unanimously this month that the University of Colorado’s campus gun ban violated a 2003 state law that entitles residents with permits to carry concealed weapons.
One of those noses belonged to Abraham Nowels, a University of Colorado student who wrote to the Denver Post: “We’re in the middle of midterms right now, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather be focusing on than which of my fellow over-stressed, binge-drinking peers is carrying a concealed weapon into class with me.’’ The Post agreed, pleading in an editorial for “legislators with enough gumption’’ to change the state’s concealed-carry law and “give colleges the power they need to keep students safe.’’
To those with an emotional bias against guns, it goes without saying that more guns in private hands invariably mean more crime and violence. If the number of people carrying firearms on campus rises, then of course that campus is less safe. What could be more obvious?
But it isn’t obvious at all.
While the University of Colorado spent much of the past decade resisting the state’s concealed-carry law, Colorado State University complied with it. If the gun controllers are right, Colorado State should have seen a surge in crime, while its gun-banning sister institution should have been an Eden of security and lawfulness. That’s not what happened. As Clayton E. Cramer and David Burnett write in a new monograph for the Cato Institute, “crime at the University of Colorado has risen 35 percent since 2004, while crime at Colorado State University has dropped 60 percent in the same time frame.’’
Something similar happened after the US Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision striking down a gun ban in Washington, DC. The city’s mayor predicted in dismay that “more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence,’’ yet crime in the nation’s capital plunged. Murder nose-dived to its lowest rate in half a century, falling from 186 in 2008 to 144 in 2009 to 132 in 2010 to 108 in 2011.
To be sure, correlation doesn’t prove causation. But the experience of Colorado State and DC should come as no surprise. By now there’s so much evidence that higher rates of gun ownership lead to lower rates of crime that it isn’t hard to fathom why fewer and fewer Americans want to ban handguns. According to Gallup, just 26 percent of the public now thinks the private possession of handguns should be illegal — that’s down from 60 percent half a century ago. Roughly 1 of every 4 Americans reports keeping a gun to protect themselves or their homes. Having a gun makes many people — for good reason — feel safer
A safer society with guns
(Page 2 of 2)
How often firearms are used defensively is a much-debated question in American criminology. Respected studies over the years have come up with estimates that range widely, from nearly 110,000 defensive gun uses annually to as many as 2.5 million. Whatever the precise number is, it clearly isn’t trivial. An enormous amount of death, bloodshed, and suffering is prevented in this country by ordinary citizens with firearms.
That doesn’t mean terrible things can’t happen when a gun is used for protection. Trayvon Martin, an Orlando teen, was shot dead last month by a Florida man who claims he was acting in self-defense. Yet the teen carried nothing more deadly than a bag of candy, and police told the gunman — a neighborhood watch patrol member — not to follow him.
Such tragic tales inevitably draw the spotlight. Far more common, but far less likely to be played up, are cases where guns are used to scare off, resist, or thwart a genuinely dangerous criminal. For their Cato paper, Cramer and Burnett assembled nearly 5,000 news stories reported by the media between 2003 and 2011. Their catalogue includes instances of armed customers preventing a store from being robbed, of victims fighting off would-be rapists, of senior citizens defending against a home invader, of attempted carjackings foiled because the driver had a gun — even of self-defense against deadly animals.
Of course, most defensive gun uses never make the news at all. As Cramer and Burnett observe, “Man Scares Away Burglar, No Shots Fired,’’ is not a very compelling headline.
But with or without headlines, millions of Americans grasp instinctively that guns make us safer. For when honest citizens carry weapons, criminals are less likely to attack — and those who do are more likely to fail.
Democrats' Policies Aren't In Young Voters' Interest
Posted 03/20/2012 06:46 PM ET
Future: Mitt Romney said Monday that he fails to "see how a young American can vote" for a Democrat. He may have something there. Coming generations will be doomed by the progressive policies of today.
Outside of their desire to intern capitalism and replace it with a euro-style welfare statism, Democrats are not a forward-looking group.
Although they fancy themselves as "progressives," their ideas are truly regressive. The future? For the Democrats, it's all about the next election:
• To build and maintain their constituency, Democrats pile up debt that future generations will be liable for.
Consider the federal debt increase during the first three years of the Obama administration.
CBS News reported Monday that it "has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during eight years of the George W. Bush presidency."
The debt has reached a staggering $15.57 trillion, which exceeds our gross domestic product. Who will pay this bill? Coming generations, of course.
• In seeking the votes of retirees and near retirees, Democrats refuse to fix Social Security.
This entitlement is headed toward financial crisis. In 1950, there were 16.5 workers paying into the system for each beneficiary receiving payments. In 2030, that ratio will have fallen to 2.1-to-1. That's an unsustainable situation, yet Democrats continue to block reforms that will benefit the workers of tomorrow.
• To keep the far-left socialist-Democrat/Occupy wing of the party happy, Democrats agitate for policies that promise economic "fairness" but will actually produce a sclerotic, slow-growth future.
Hammering the rich with punitive taxes is an article of faith among Democrats. Obama showed this perfectly when he admitted during the 2008 campaign that even if cutting the capital gains tax increased federal revenues, he would want the tax rate to be higher "for purposes of fairness."
Look at how Obama's economic policies and overheated rhetoric are choking the recovery.
Companies are holding on to more than $2 trillion in cash and are hesitant to use it to hire or invest because the Democrats have created a hostile investment environment, a regulatory morass and real fear of future tax hikes that will hurt business.
Republicans might not excite young Americans very much. But Democrats should alarm them
According to a new report on President Obama’s stimulus package and its effect on the economy, the amount of stimulus money that went to each state was correlated with the number of Democrats in each state’s congressional delegation.
The data is revealed in a new book by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and John R. Lott Jr., a prominent conservative academic.
The book, titled Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future, contains this chart showing the correlation:
The book also examines rates of unemployment, poverty, foreclosures and bankruptcies in the various states in late 2008 and early 2009. In all four cases, more grievous economic conditions were negatively correlated with the allocation of stimulus dollars. States with higher unemployment rates, for instance, tended to receive less stimulus money per capita.
The authors draw a damning conclusion: “It’s not the poor, it’s not foreclosures, it’s not bankruptcies, it’s how many Democrats are in your congressional delegation,” Norquist stated at The Heritage Foundation’s Bloggers Briefing on Tuesday. “That’s what a trillion dollars of spending was all about: crony corruption.”
“And amazingly,” he added, “that doesn’t make the economy grow.”
Scribe has documented the seemingly political use of taxpayer money by the Obama administration, most recently showing spikes in the awarding of federal grant money while Congress was considering major pieces of the president’s agenda.
The reporting in Debacle fits with a longstanding Washington tradition of the political disbursement of federal dollars – a tradition that the current administration has not only continued, but in many cases expanded, campaign promises of transparency and accountability notwithstanding.
COMMENTARY |Bristol Palin believes President Barack Obama should call her to apologize for the comments made about her by Bill Maher just as he called Sandra Fluke about the comments made about the law student by Rush Limbaugh, according to ABC News.
Palin has blogged about how the cases are similar, but the president is not calling her since she is a Republican and Maher made a $1 million contribution to the Democrat-run super PAC. As a political scientist, I have to applaud Palin for setting up a perfect catch-22 for the president.
Palin used her blog to point out how President Obama has not made statements about what was said about her by Maher but condemned Limbaugh for what he said about Fluke. She pointed out how the president made comments condemning the media during the last election for going after her but has stayed silent on this issue. She has taken herself from being mentioned in this controversy to being a player in it.
Due to Palin's blog, the ball is in President Obama's court. If he calls her, it will appear to be due to the pressure by the right to treat her the same way he treated Fluke. The former vice-presidential candidate's daughter made a statement in her blog about the president being the president of all Americans and not just Democrats.
If the president does not call her, it will solidify the thought he let Maher get away with the comments made due to the donation and the comedian's political leanings. It will show a double standard of how it is OK for a public figure to say anything he or she wants as long as he or she is a liberal and makes contributions toward the Democrat reelection funds.
We might see the buddings of a political career in the young Palin. She was able to send a challenge and set a trap at the same time for President Obama. While many politicians try to do this on a daily basis, few can be as successful as the young reality star could be. Bristol wins no matter what happens.
Apollo 11 Booster Found by Amazon's …
