airport...the origional

The real star of the show, the Boeing 707 (a 707-348C, serial no. 19351 [503rd 707 off the production line], originally registered N324F), was leased to MCA/Universal Pictures from Flying Tiger Line (now merged with Fedex) for the filming of the exterior shots. After filming was completed, the aircraft returned to Flying Tigers and was later sold, going through various owners before meeting a tragic end while on an approach to landing accident on 21 March 1989 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
   
The 707-320 Intercontinental is a stretched version of the turbojet-powered 707-120, initially powered by JT4A-3 or JT4A-5 turbojets producing 15,800 lbf (70,000 N) each. The interior allowed for up to 189 passengers due to an 80-inch (2,000 mm) fuselage stretch (from 138 ft 10 in (42.32 m) to 145 ft 6 in), with extensions to both the tail and horizontal stabilizer extending the aircraft's length further.^[23] while a longer wing carried more fuel, increasing range by 1,600 miles (2,600 km) and allowing the aircraft to operate as true transoceanic aircraft. The wing modifications included outboard and inboard inserts, as well as a kink in the trailing edge to add area inboard.^[10] Takeoff weight was increased to 302,000 lb (137,000 kg) initially, and to 311,000 lb (141,000 kg) and perhaps further as higher-rated JT4A's became available. First flight was on January 11, 1958, and 69 turbojet 707-320s were produced. No -320 Intercontinental models were re-engined with fan engines in civil use, but around year 2000 the Israeli Air Force re-engined two ex-Sabena -320 based military tankers.
The 707-320B is a re-engined version undertaken in parallel with the -120B, using the same JT3D-3 turbofans and incorporating many of the same airframe upgrades as well. The wing was modified from the -320 by adding a second inboard kink, a dog-toothed leading edge, and triangular wingtips instead of the earlier blunt ones.^[10] These new wingtips increased overall wingspan by three feet. Takeoff gross weight was increased to 335,000 lb (152,000 kg). The 175 707-320B aircraft produced were all new-build, no original -320 models were converted to fan engines in civilian use.
The 707-320B Advanced is a slightly improved version of the -320B aircraft, adding three-section leading-edge flaps. These reduced takeoff and landing speeds, and also altered the lift distribution of the wing, allowing the ventral fin found on earlier 707s to be removed. The same wing was also used on the 707-320C.
The 707-320C has a convertible passenger–freight configuration which became the most widely produced variant of the 707. The 707-320C added a strengthened floor and a new cargo door to the -320B model. 335 of these variants were built, including a small number with uprated JT3D-7 engines and a takeoff gross weight of 336,000 lb (152,000 kg). Despite the convertible option, a number of these were delivered as pure freighters. One of the final orders was by the Iranian Government for 14 707-3J9C aircraft capable of VIP transportation, communication, and in-flight refuelling tasks.
The 707-420 is a version of the 707-320 originally produced at specific request for BOAC and powered by Rolls-Royce Conway 508 turbofans, producing 17,500 lbf (77.8 kN) each. Although BOAC were first to order the 707-320 delays in getting British certification meant that Lufthansa were the first to receive and operate the 707-320 in February 1960. A total of 37 were built to this configuration.
The 707-700 was a test aircraft used to study the feasibility of using CFM International's CFM56 powerplants on a 707 airframe and possibly retrofitting them to existing aircraft. After a testing in 1979, N707QT, the last commercial 707 airframe, was refitted to 707-320C configuration and delivered to the Moroccan Air Force as a tanker aircraft. (This purchase was considered a "civilian" order and not a military one.) Boeing abandoned the program, since they felt it would be a threat to the Boeing 757 program. The information gathered in the test led to the eventual retrofitting program of CFM56 engines to the USAF C-135/KC-135R models, and some military versions of the 707 also used the CFM56. Ironically the Douglas DC-8 "Super 70" series by Cammacorp did develop commercially, extending the life of DC-8 airframes in a stricter noise regulatory environment, so there are today more DC-8s in commercial service than there are 707s.

     

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Flying Tiger Line

IATA FT* ICAO FTL* Callsign TIGER*
Founded	1945
Commenced operations	1945
Ceased operations	1989 (taken over)
Destinations
Headquarters	Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles, California, United States

Flying Tiger Line, also known as Flying Tigers, was the first scheduled cargo airline in the United States and a major military charter operator during the Cold War era for both cargo and personnel (the latter with leased aircraft). The company was started by Robert William Prescott. It was headquartered on the grounds of Los Angeles International Airport in Westchester, Los Angeles, California.^[1]
The airline was named after the Flying Tigers fighter unit of World War II, officially the 1st American Volunteer Group. Ten former AVG pilots formed the Flying Tiger Line (originally called National Skyway Freight) after returning to the United States in 1945, using a small fleet of Budd Company C-93 Conestoga freighters purchased as war surplus from the United States Navy.^[2] For the next four years, Flying Tiger Line carried air freight on contract.
Over the years, Flying Tigers carried a number of unique cargoes, including SeaWorld killer whales and the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Fleet 3 Accidents and incidents 4 References 5 External links

[edit] History

Old Logo

In 1949, the Civil Aeronautics Board awarded Flying Tiger Line the first commercial air cargo route in the U.S., a transcontinental route from Los Angeles and San Francisco, California to Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly afterward, the company began chartering passenger aircraft for group travel as well; its Lockheed Super Constellation, Douglas DC-4 and DC-6 fleet comprised the largest trans-Atlantic charter operation through the 1950s.
During the Korean War, Flying Tiger aircraft were chartered to transport troops and supplies from the United States to Asia; Flying Tigers later received a cargo route award to Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. The airline also played a major role in the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line, flying equipment to remote outposts in northern Canada and Alaska.

Flying Tiger Line Douglas C-54A Skymaster at Manchester Airport, England in May 1955

Flying Tiger Line adopted the Canadair CL-44 swing-tail aircraft in 1961, becoming one of the first carriers in the world to offer aerial pallet shipping service. In 1965, Flying Tiger Line began operating jet aircraft (the Boeing 707); in 1974, the airline took delivery of its first Boeing 747.
The Flying Tiger Line then put in orders for brand new B-747-200F freighters designated the B747-249F, which at the time were among the heaviest commercial airplanes flying, weighing in at 823,000 pounds. These aircraft had the powerful "Q" P&W JT9D engines and heavy landing gear and could simultaneously carry both 250,000 pounds of fuel and 250,000 pounds of cargo loaded through both the nose door and the side door at the same time. Aircraft loaders had earlier refused to work at the extreme 30 foot height necessary for putting freight on the upper deck, so the "supernumerary area" or "hump" was configured with 19 first class seats instead which were used to transport livestock handlers, charter agents and mechanics as well as dead-heading pilots and flight attendants. Tiger's Ad Hock Charter livestock flights provided airlift for exotic animals. Two examples were thoroughbred racehorses and show animals from Stansted, England to the Melbourne Cup, as well as breeding stock cattle (milk supply) to nations such as Japan and Thailand. Covert flights for DOD were not uncommon throughout the airline's history, since its roots were from Civil Air Transport (CAT), just as was its sister airline Air America (airline) which was owned by General Claire Lee Chennault commander of the Flying Tigers fighter squadron in Southeast Asia.
By the mid-1980s, Flying Tigers operated scheduled cargo service to six continents and served 58 countries. It surpassed Pan American World Airways in 1980 as the world's largest air cargo carrier after acquiring its rival cargo airline Seaboard World Airlines on 1 October 1980.
It also operated military contract services, most notably Douglas DC-8 routes between Travis Air Force Base, California and Japan in the 1970s, followed by weekly Boeing 747 passenger service between Clark Air Base, Philippines, and St. Louis, Missouri via Japan, Alaska, and Los Angeles during the 1980s. Tigers employed approximately 251 flight attendants and carried up to a record 594 passengers and crew on its MAC all coach passenger flights. Approximately 998 pilots worked for the airline based throughout the country. Large crew bases were primarily Los Angeles, New York and Lockborn, Ohio. Headquartered at LAX, Tigers was a large employer at the airport with its own engine shop and jet maintenance business.
Federal Express purchased Flying Tigers in December 1988. On August 7, 1989 Federal Express merged Flying Tigers into its operations.
Flying Tigers operated a recording company subsidiary, Happy Tiger Records, from 1969 to 1971.^[3][4] Flying Tigers also made livestock carriers for airplanes. They often made animal carriers that were comparable in external size and shape to the standard AMJ container used in the FedEx flight operations.

[edit] Fleet

Boeing 747-200F of Flying Tigers

At the time of its sale Flying Tigers was operating the following aircraft:

• 8 Boeing 747-100
• 13 Boeing 747-200
• 19 Boeing 727-100
• 6 Douglas DC-8-73

[edit] Accidents and incidents

• Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 - Disappeared over the Pacific in 1962
• Flying Tiger Line Flight 282 - Crashed near San Francisco International Airport in 1964
• Dec.24, 1966 -Crashed on landing at Da Nang, 111 fatalities
• Flying Tiger Line Flight 66 - Crashed near Kuala Lumpur in 1989

[edit] References

Airport 77

I watched the 3rd installment of the "airport" movies and decided to do a bit of research on the airplane used for the footage.

08/10/1970	American Airlines	N9667		Correct
29/10/1978	Braniff Airways	N9667		Correct
30/05/1984	Citicorp	N9667		Correct
23/07/1984	National Airlines	N9667		Correct
01/09/1985	Air Afrique	N9667		Correct
01/04/1986	Citicorp	N14937		Correct
01/07/1986	Air Inter	LX-MCV		Correct
02/07/1986	Cargolux	LX-MCV		Correct
01/08/1987	Iran Air	LX-MCV		Correct
08/10/1987	United Airlines	N157UA	Scrapped at GWO in 2001

American Airlines Boeing 747 N9667

American Airlines Boeing 747-123 N9667 (20106) at Los Angeles-International in October 1980.
This aircraft went on to several leases before ending up with United as N157UA in 1987. It was eventually broken up at Greenwood. Mississippi

     This is the pic I pulled off clipboard showing the plane in the movie

     What can I say, I am a sucker for airplane movies

What is a liberal....

What Is A "Liberal" ?


A left wing nut job.


But, he's much more than that.


He's the guy on the street with the nose rings and the dreadlocks and the lice.


He's the guy in Starbucks making coffee because it's the only job he can get with his degree in Art History.


He doesn't always have money for rent and food but he always has money for weed.


He rents a dingy studio apartment with a window on the sidewalk level. Bums sleep on his steps and pee on his sidewalk window. He doesn't care. He doesn't even notice the smell.


He's the guy that rides a bicycle everywhere he goes because he can't afford a car.


He has to keep replacing the bicycle because people like him keep stealing it.


He has no mechanical skills. He has no administrative skills. He has no trade.


He is a vegan and is too weak from malnutrition to work at any kind of physical labor job; not that he would take one anyway as that kind of work is beneath him.


He despises the military and law enforcement. He has an upside down American flag taped to his sidewalk window ... right next to his marijuana flag.


He hangs out with other left wing losers who blame their innumerable
failures in life on people they've never met and know nothing about.


He's always borrowing money from someone but never pays them back. He
gives them some weed instead.


He's never contributed time or money to any civic project yet he constantly criticizes his community.


He fully immerses himself in anything left wing. The more these left wing organizations bash America, the more rabid he becomes.


Despite his leftist fervor, he is always on the outside looking in. He's a loser and even the left wing losers that tolerate him think he's a loser. He's never been able to become part of their leftist clique, no matter how much he bashes America.


He is a Liberal. When he gets old and is unable to support himself he will turn to welfare, if he hasn't already.


He is a parasite. When his life is over he will have contributed nothing but hatred and bigotry to the world.


He is a Liberal.

A "Racist" is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.

more thought on the protest in Wisconsin

The Criminalization of Politics 

 I had posted earlierhttp://mydailykona.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-still-dont-know-what-youre-dealing.html  about the federal judge finding obummercare illegal.  This is a continuation from that earlier posting.  OBama doesn't care what the rule of law and people that are in the government will not do anything about it.  they are afraid in my opinion that the blacks will riot when they try to impeach Obama.  there is precidence for this fear, look at the Rodney King riots and other upheavals.  The average black will view this as" the man trying to stick it to a fellow brother" and go smash things.  Despite the fact that Obama is of both white and black parents.

 

The union thugs in Wisconsin are not there just on their own, they are the extension of the Obama Administration. This is the open declaration of hostility by the President of the United States against a duly elected government of a state. The President is already disobeying the courts on the drilling ban and the implementation of Obamacare. He is engaged in a legal war with Arizona, with Florida, with Louisiana and now Wisconsin. Before long he will have a chance to go to war with Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

How long will the American people tolerate this criminal behavior from the president? When does it go too far, even for Democrats? Are there no nation-loving Democrats left with the ethical obligation to call it for what it is, treason?

Look, terms like treason and war are not easy to speak in this nation, but are we all blind? Is it not obvious that after this president has taken the support of unions in his election as well as the opposition to the Tea Parties, who stood in the way of Obamacare, that he then funneled billions of taxpayer dollars into their accounts, paid off teacher's unions with stimulus dollars and then sided with the unions against the State of Wisconsin and against all of the citizens of that state who voted to install Republicans? If this isn't gang behavior, what is? This makes Nixon look like a doofus.

This is more important than just Wisconsin, this is the criminalization of politics. Is that what we want? Why not just get a bigger gang and overthrow the city, or state government? Tell me how this is different? Is this the sanctioned approach to politics now? Gangs? Thugs? We don't like a law we threaten to kill the governor? We pretend that there is a connection to Hitler and just do what? What are they proposing? Is the president complicit in these threats by backing those groups making the threats? Should we break some legs to get our political will done?

It is the responsibility of every able-bodied citizen to protest this in the greatest possible way. When the teachers unions stand in solidarity in your state, where will you be? I will be right across the line from those thugs. I will be prepared. I will be capable of self-defense and I will be there. I will not succumb to threats of violence, of the criminalization of my state. Will you?

Graciously linked and quoted at Free North Carolina.
Graciously linked and quoted at III Percent Patriots.
Graciously linked and quoted at Arctic Patriot.
Graciously linked and quoted by Billy Bob at Hell On Earth.
Graciously linked at Western Rifle Shooters Association.
Graciously linked at Middle of the Right.
Graciously linked at Newbius.

Revolution and the Muslim World

The Muslim world, from North Africa to Iran, has experienced a wave of instability in the last few weeks. No regimes have been overthrown yet, although as of this writing, Libya was teetering on the brink.
There have been moments in history where revolution spread in a region or around the world as if it were a wildfire. These moments do not come often. Those that come to mind include 1848, where a rising in France engulfed Europe. There was also 1968, where the demonstrations of what we might call the New Left swept the world: Mexico City, Paris, New York and hundreds of other towns saw anti-war revolutions staged by Marxists and other radicals. Prague saw the Soviets smash a New Leftist government. Even China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution could, by a stretch, be included. In 1989, a wave of unrest, triggered by East Germans wanting to get to the West, generated an uprising in Eastern Europe that overthrew Soviet rule.
Each had a basic theme. The 1848 uprisings attempted to establish liberal democracies in nations that had been submerged in the reaction to Napoleon. 1968 was about radical reform in capitalist society. 1989 was about the overthrow of communism. They were all more complex than that, varying from country to country. But in the end, the reasons behind them could reasonably be condensed into a sentence or two.
Some of these revolutions had great impact. 1989 changed the global balance of power. 1848 ended in failure at the time — France reverted to a monarchy within four years — but set the stage for later political changes. 1968 produced little that was lasting. The key is that in each country where they took place, there were significant differences in the details — but they shared core principles at a time when other countries were open to those principles, at least to some extent.

The Current Rising in Context

In looking at the current rising, the geographic area is clear: The Muslim countries of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have been the prime focus of these risings, and in particular North Africa where Egypt, Tunisia and now Libya have had profound crises. Of course, many other Muslim countries also had revolutionary events that have not, at least until now, escalated into events that threaten regimes or even ruling personalities. There have been hints of such events elsewhere. There were small demonstrations in China, and of course Wisconsin is in turmoil over budget cuts. But these don’t really connect to what is happening in the Middle East. The first was small and the second is not taking inspiration from Cairo. So what we have is a rising in the Arab world that has not spread beyond there for the time being.
The key principle that appears to be driving the risings is a feeling that the regimes, or a group of individuals within the regimes, has deprived the public of political and, more important, economic rights — in short, that they enriched themselves beyond what good taste permitted. This has expressed itself in different ways. In Bahrain, for example, the rising was of the primarily Shiite population against a predominantly Sunni royal family. In Egypt, it was against the person of Hosni Mubarak. In Libya, it is against the regime and person of Moammar Gadhafi and his family, and is driven by tribal hostility.
Why has it come together now? One reason is that there was a tremendous amount of regime change in the region from the 1950s through the early 1970s, as the Muslim countries created regimes to replace foreign imperial powers and were buffeted by the Cold War. Since the early 1970s, the region has, with the exception of Iran in 1979, been fairly stable in the sense that the regimes — and even the personalities who rose up in the unstable phase — stabilized their countries and imposed regimes that could not easily be moved. Gadhafi, for example, overthrew the Libyan monarchy in 1969 and has governed continually for 42 years since then.
Any regime dominated by a small group of people over time will see that group use their position to enrich themselves. There are few who can resist for 40 years. It is important to recognize that Gadhafi, for example, was once a genuine, pro-Soviet revolutionary. But over time, revolutionary zeal declines and avarice emerges along with the arrogance of extended power. And in the areas of the region where there had not been regime changes since after World War I, this principle stays true as well, although interestingly, over time, the regimes seem to learn to spread the wealth a bit.
Thus, what emerged throughout the region were regimes and individuals who were classic kleptocrats. More than anything, if we want to define this wave of unrest, particularly in North Africa, it is a rising against regimes — and particularly individuals — who have been in place for extraordinarily long periods of time. And we can add to this that they are people who were planning to maintain family power and money by installing sons as their political heirs. The same process, with variations, is under way in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a rising against the revolutionaries of previous generations.
The revolutions have been coming for a long time. The rising in Tunisia, particularly when it proved successful, caused it to spread. As in 1848, 1968 and 1989, similar social and cultural conditions generate similar events and are triggered by the example of one country and then spread more broadly. That has happened in 2011 and is continuing.

A Uniquely Sensitive Region

It is, however, happening in a region that is uniquely sensitive at the moment. The U.S.-jihadist war means that, as with previous revolutionary waves, there are broader potential geopolitical implications. 1989 meant the end of the Soviet empire, for example. In this case, the question of greatest importance is not why these revolutions are taking place, but who will take advantage of them. We do not see these revolutions as a vast conspiracy by radical Islamists to take control of the region. A conspiracy that vast is easily detected, and the security forces of the individual countries would have destroyed the conspiracies quickly. No one organized the previous waves, although there have been conspiracy theories about them as well. They arose from certain conditions, following the example of one incident. But particular groups certainly tried, with greater and lesser success, to take advantage of them.
In this case, whatever the cause of the risings, there is no question that radical Islamists will attempt to take advantage and control of them. Why wouldn’t they? It is a rational and logical course for them. Whether they will be able to do so is a more complex and important question, but that they would want to and are trying to do so is obvious. They are a broad, transnational and disparate group brought up in conspiratorial methods. This is their opportunity to create a broad international coalition. Thus, as with traditional communists and the New Left in the 1960s, they did not create the rising but they would be fools not to try to take advantage of it. I would add that there is little question but that the United States and other Western countries are trying to influence the direction of the uprisings. For both sides, this is a difficult game to play, but it is particularly difficult for the United States as outsiders to play this game compared to native Islamists who know their country.
But while there is no question that Islamists would like to take control of the revolution, that does not mean that they will, nor does it mean that these revolutions will be successful. Recall that 1848 and 1968 were failures and those who tried to take advantage of them had no vehicle to ride. Also recall that taking control of a revolution is no easy thing. But as we saw in Russia in 1917, it is not necessarily the more popular group that wins, but the best organized. And you frequently don’t find out who is best organized until afterwards.
Democratic revolutions have two phases. The first is the establishment of democracy. The second is the election of governments. The example of Hitler is useful as a caution on what kind of governments a young democracy can produce, since he came to power through democratic and constitutional means — and then abolished democracy to cheering crowds. So there are three crosscurrents here. The first is the reaction against corrupt regimes. The second is the election itself. And the third? The United States needs to remember, as it applauds the rise of democracy, that the elected government may not be what one expected.
In any event, the real issue is whether these revolutions will succeed in replacing existing regimes. Let’s consider the process of revolution for the moment, beginning by distinguishing a demonstration from an uprising. A demonstration is merely the massing of people making speeches. This can unsettle the regime and set the stage for more serious events, but by itself, it is not significant. Unless the demonstrations are large enough to paralyze a city, they are symbolic events. There have been many demonstrations in the Muslim world that have led nowhere; consider Iran.
It is interesting here to note that the young frequently dominate revolutions like 1848, 1969 and 1989 at first. This is normal. Adults with families and maturity rarely go out on the streets to face guns and tanks. It takes young people to have the courage or lack of judgment to risk their lives in what might be a hopeless cause. However, to succeed, it is vital that at some point other classes of society join them. In Iran, one of the key moments of the 1979 revolution was when the shopkeepers joined young people in the street. A revolution only of the young, as we saw in 1968 for example, rarely succeeds. A revolution requires a broader base than that, and it must go beyond demonstrations. The moment it goes beyond the demonstration is when it confronts troops and police. If the demonstrators disperse, there is no revolution. If they confront the troops and police, and if they carry on even after they are fired on, then you are in a revolutionary phase. Thus, pictures of peaceful demonstrators are not nearly as significant as the media will have you believe, but pictures of demonstrators continuing to hold their ground after being fired on is very significant.

A Revolution’s Key Event

This leads to the key event in the revolution. The revolutionaries cannot defeat armed men. But if those armed men, in whole or part, come over to the revolutionary side, victory is possible. And this is the key event. In Bahrain, the troops fired on demonstrators and killed some. The demonstrators dispersed and then were allowed to demonstrate — with memories of the gunfire fresh. This was a revolution contained. In Egypt, the military and police opposed each other and the military sided with the demonstrators, for complex reasons obviously. Personnel change, if not regime change, was inevitable. In Libya, the military has split wide open.
When that happens, you have reached a branch in the road. If the split in the military is roughly equal and deep, this could lead to civil war. Indeed, one way for a revolution to succeed is to proceed to civil war, turning the demonstrators into an army, so to speak. That’s what Mao did in China. Far more common is for the military to split. If the split creates an overwhelming anti-regime force, this leads to the revolution’s success. Always, the point to look for is thus the police joining with the demonstrators. This happened widely in 1989 but hardly at all in 1968. It happened occasionally in 1848, but the balance was always on the side of the state. Hence, that revolution failed.
It is this act, the military and police coming over to the side of the demonstrators, that makes or breaks a revolution. Therefore, to return to the earlier theme, the most important question on the role of radical Islamists is not their presence in the crowd, but their penetration of the military and police. If there were a conspiracy, it would focus on joining the military, waiting for demonstrations and then striking.
Those who argue that these risings have nothing to do with radical Islam may be correct in the sense that the demonstrators in the streets may well be students enamored with democracy. But they miss the point that the students, by themselves, can’t win. They can only win if the regime wants them to, as in Egypt, or if other classes and at least some of the police or military — people armed with guns who know how to use them — join them. Therefore, looking at the students on TV tells you little. Watching the soldiers tells you much more.
The problem with revolutions is that the people who start them rarely finish them. The idealist democrats around Alexander Kerensky in Russia were not the ones who finished the revolution. The thuggish Bolsheviks did. In these Muslim countries, the focus on the young demonstrators misses the point just as it did in Tiananmen Square. It wasn’t the demonstrators that mattered, but the soldiers. If they carried out orders, there would be no revolution.
I don’t know the degree of Islamist penetration of the military in Libya, to pick one example of the unrest. I suspect that tribalism is far more important than theology. In Egypt, I suspect the regime has saved itself by buying time. Bahrain was more about Iranian influence on the Shiite population than Sunni jihadists at work. But just as the Iranians are trying to latch on to the process, so will the Sunni jihadists.

The Danger of Chaos

I suspect some regimes will fall, mostly reducing the country in question to chaos. The problem, as we are seeing in Tunisia, is that frequently there is no one on the revolutionaries’ side equipped to take power. The Bolsheviks had an organized party. In these revolutions, the parties are trying to organize themselves during the revolution, which is another way to say that the revolutionaries are in no position to govern. The danger is not radical Islam, but chaos, followed either by civil war, the military taking control simply to stabilize the situation or the emergence of a radical Islamic party to take control — simply because they are the only ones in the crowd with a plan and an organization. That’s how minorities take control of revolutions.
All of this is speculation. What we do know is that this is not the first wave of revolution in the world, and most waves fail, with their effects seen decades later in new regimes and political cultures. Only in the case of Eastern Europe do we see broad revolutionary success, but that was against an empire in collapse, so few lessons can be drawn from that for the Muslim world.
In the meantime, as you watch the region, remember not to watch the demonstrators. Watch the men with the guns. If they stand their ground for the state, the demonstrators have failed. If some come over, there is some chance of victory. And if victory comes, and democracy is declared, do not assume that what follows will in any way please the West — democracy and pro-Western political culture do not mean the same thing.
The situation remains fluid, and there are no broad certainties. It is a country-by-country matter now, with most regimes managing to stay in power to this point. There are three possibilities. One is that this is like 1848, a broad rising that will fail for lack of organization and coherence, but that will resonate for decades. The second is 1968, a revolution that overthrew no regime even temporarily and left some cultural remnants of minimal historical importance. The third is 1989, a revolution that overthrew the political order in an entire region, and created a new order in its place.
If I were to guess at this point, I would guess that we are facing 1848. The Muslim world will not experience massive regime change as in 1989, but neither will the effects be as ephemeral as 1968. Like 1848, this revolution will fail to transform the Muslim world or even just the Arab world. But it will plant seeds that will germinate in the coming decades. I think those seeds will be democratic, but not necessarily liberal. In other words, the democracies that eventually arise will produce regimes that will take their bearings from their own culture, which means Islam.
The West celebrates democracy. It should be careful what it hopes for: It might get it.

Read more: Revolution and the Muslim World | STRATFOR

Presidents day posting.....

more gun control crap again

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Rand Paul Takes on Proposed UN Small Arms Treaty

The article below is from The New American.
I can say this is one of a few things I agree with Rand Paul on.
As firearms owners we need to keep a eye on this U.N.gun grab attempt.
This administration would sell us out in a minute.

Kentucky’s newly elected Senator Rand Paul has pleased conservatives with his calls for fiscal and constitutional conservatism, ranging from abolishing the Department of Education and all foreign aid to proposing substantial cuts to the federal budget. Now Paul has joined the crusade to end Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s efforts to work with the United Nations to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.”

In an email to his supporters, Paul explains, “Disguised as an ‘International Arms Control Treaty’ to fight against ‘terrorism,’ ‘insurgency’ and ‘international crime syndicates,’ theUN’s Small Arms Treaty is in fact a massive, global gun control scheme.”

According to Paul, if ratified, the UN “Small Arms Treaty” would force the United States to enact stricter licensing requirements, confiscate and destroy “unauthorized” firearms, ban the trade, sale, and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons, and create an international gun registry.

Critics of the treaty contend it is but one in a number of steps taken by the United Nations to bring the United States “to its knees.” As long as America continues to secure the liberties of its citizens, it stands in the way of the movement toward a one-world government.

The National Association for Gun Rights has been leading the fight against the global gun ban treaty. According to the NAGR, the best way to defeat the treaty is through the Senate ratification process, as President Obama would likely support the treaty. As 67 Senate votes are required to ratify the treaty, Americans are relying on a pro-gun majority in the Senate to defeat ratification, something that is not present at the moment.

Those opposed to the treaty are encouraged to sign an Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey, wherein Americans can indicate their support for the Constitution and the Second Amendment, as well their opposition to United Nations involvement in America’s gun laws

The Royal Family on vacation...again

(Daily Mail) — President Obama has been accused of having double standards after appealing for Americans to sacrifice their holidays just days before his wife and children went on a costly skiing trip.
First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha are on a ‘private family trip’ to Colorado for Presidents’ Day Weekend.
Mrs Obama and Sasha, nine, were pictured waiting in line at the Eagle Bahn gondola to the top of the mountain today.
The First Lady’s cream ski jacket was open, perhaps indicating that temperatures are not as bitter as they are in other parts of the country.
A light snow appeared to be falling on Mrs Obama and her daughter, who herself was clad in fluorescent pink snowboarding pants and a sky blue puff jacket.
Both wore gloves and hats. They were not carrying skis.
The family appear to have flown there on Air Force Two.
They are staying at the upscale Sebastian Hotel on Vail Mountain, where rooms start at $650 a night and range up to more than $2,400 for multi-bedroom suites.
The trip came just days after the President tried to sell his cost-cutting budget to the American people by asking them to stay at home.
‘If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, or you might put off a vacation,’ he said.
While Mr Obama is staying put at the White House, the rest of his family headed to Colorado — rather than visiting slopes closer to Washington in Virginia or Pennsylvania.
Their trip came despite previous criticisms over the family’s extravagant vacations, including a trip last summer to Spain.

Obama is clueless....again

Something momentous is happening in the United States right now and Barack Obama doesn’t get it. In Madison, Wisconsin last week, up to 40,000 public employees, organised by their unions, the Democratic party and the grassroots Organizing for America group that elected the president in 2008, gathered at the state capitol. Teachers left their classrooms, forcing schools to close.
Their objective? To rail against an attempt to balance the budget and curtail union power by newly-elected Governor Scott Walker, a Republican. The Democratic party’s response? Its state senators have fled Wisconsin to Illinois, dodging state troopers as they went, in order to prevent the budget being voted on. Obama branded Walker’s actions as an “assault on unions”.
It was Obama who crowed just after he entered the White House that “elections have consequences”. In Wisconsin last November, the consequences included the governorship, a Senate seat and the state senate and assembly all being lost by the Democrats.
Although you may have read about the Tea Party being a collection of fringe racists and lunatics, their activists in places like Wisconsin were mainly ordinary Americans sick to the back teeth with out-of-control spending.
Walker’s proposals are relatively modest ones for someone facing a $3.6 billion shortfall. He was elected on a platform of balancing the budget and he’s got to find the money to do that from somewhere.
Budget crises are brewing in Ohio, New Jersey and a slew of other states.
The protests in Wisconsin coincided with Obama presenting his new budget in Washington. Despite all his talk of moving to the centre and cutting the national debt, Obama showed he was utterly unserious about dealing with the US government’s catastrophic addiction to spending.
He cast aside the tough measures recommended by the bipartisan Deficit Commission he appointed and failed to tackle what everyone knows is the main financial drain – the big “entitlement” programmes of Social Security, Medicare (for the elderly) and Medicaid (for the poor).
What Obama proposed would do nothing more than slow down the rate of increase in the national debt. No responsible citizen would run their own household finances this way.
Depressingly, Obama’s calculation seems to be that he can talk a good game on the deficit and spout vacuous slogans like “winning the future”. He’ll leave it to Republicans to propose swingeing cuts in entitlement programmes and then suffer a backlash from frightened voters at the polls in 2012. At least, that’s what happened in 1996. But Obama does not seem to have noticed that 2012 is not 1996.
The fact that a president would use his own campaign foot soldiers to back public employees against their elected state government shows how distorted his priorities have become. Instead of confronting unions, as President Ronald Reagan did with the air traffic controllers in 1981 when he fired more than 11,000 of them, Obama is facilitating them.
In the freshman class of House of Representatives, there is a mood of revolution not dissimilar to that inside Governor Walker’s administration (to be clear: the crowds surrounding the state capitol are the forces of reaction).
Saturday’s package of $60 billion budget cuts, passed in the early hours, did not tackle entitlements. It did, however, set the stage for a confrontation with Obama that could well lead to a government shutdown, which last happened in 1995. Scenes like those in Wisconsin could soon be repeated in Washington.
Two figures in American politics right now are talking seriously about dealing with the federal spending crisis. One is Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana who declared recently that the federal government was “morbidly obese” and needed “not just behaviour modification but bariatric surgery”.
It’s possible that this was also a gentle dig at Christie, a self-described “pretty fat” guy, who is the other. Christie spoke in Washington last week about how he was advised not to slash state programmes. “I had everybody telling me, Governor you can’t do it. Your approval ratings will go in the toilet. People love these programmes.” He ignored them and his ratings went up.
Both Daniels and Christie are being urged by conservatives to run for president. Both like plain talk on fiscal matters and favour action over words.
Obama, in the meantime, prefers fine words, careful positioning, fidelity to powerful Democratic interest groups. His failure to grasp what is happening in Wisconsin, underlines that the cult figure of 2008 is being left behind by the new zeitgeist.

Governer Walker in Wisconsin

Reminder: These are the key points in Gov. Walker’s proposal:

• Public sector employees would still be allowed to collectively bargain on wages, but not on health-care or pension plans.
• Raises would be tied to the inflation rate, unless the state’s voters deemed the employees worthy of larger raises.
• Public sector employees would have to pay slightly higher rates for their health care and other benefits, but those rates would remain lower than those of the average private sector employee.
• Public sector employees would be required to pay 12.6 percent of their health-care premiums; they currently pay about 6 percent.
• Public sector employees would have to contribute 5.8 percent of their salaries to their pensions under Walker’s plans; currently some pay nothing. From 2000 to 2009, public sector employees paid $55.4 million into a pension system that cost $12.6 billion.
• Police, firefighters and other public safety workers would be exempt from the new collective bargaining restrictions.

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

Public sector unions insist on laws that serve their interests -- at the expense of the common good.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”
Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a fact that unions once recognized.
George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests – at the expense of the common good.
Union contracts make it next to impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire failing ones. Union contracts give government employees gold-plated benefits – at the cost of higher taxes and less spending on other priorities. The alternative to Walker's budget was kicking 200,000 children off Medicaid.
Governor Walker’s plan reasserts voter control over government policy. Voters’ elected representatives should decide how the government spends their taxes. More states should heed the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s 1959 advice: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”

How America and Americans are viewed in the world.

My friends know me as a student of history, one of my favorite quotes are:" Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat history".  I was at work and my mind is always working and I got to thinking how Americans are perceived in the world.  From everything that I read before Vietnam if you went anywhere and people knew that you are an American, you wern't trifled with.  They may not like you, but they respected and feared you.  The word "American" meant a lot, From Teddy Roosevelt's "The great White Fleet" where before the turn of the last century to showcase the growing might of the United States, President Roosevelt had the capital ships of the newly modernized American Navy. 

The Great White Fleet

America became a global power in the latter days of the 19th century by defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War, taking possession of Puerto Rico, the Phillipines and Guam. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt (credited with preparing the Navy for the war, before resigning his appointment to serve as a Colonel in the U.S. Army) understood the importance of naval power to a nation's economic and military strength.

A decade later, as Roosevelt's presidency was drawing to a close, he dispatched four squadrons of four battleships each (and their escorts) from the Hampton Roads, Virginia on a 43,000-mile, 14-month journey that would circumnavigate the globe. This fleet, "The Great White Fleet", began its journey exactly 100 years ago -- and would demonstrate to the world America's global reach and blue-water navy capability.

Tensions with Japan were rising due to Japan's incredibly lopsided victory over Russia's Baltic Fleet in the Battle of Tsushima two years prior -- and their growing sphere of influence in the western Pacific. This led many (including Harpers magazine) to believe that the outgoing president was launching a war against Japan.

       The Great White fleet and the subsequent actions that we did leading up to World War I.  We as Americans didn't have colonial holdings in China or in Africa.  We were in the Philippines and Hawaii and some of the other Islands like Wake and Guam.
     In World War I we as a nation basically saved the Allies who was drained from  3 years of killing a generation of their people in Europe on the trench warfare in France.  We got there the same time the other half of the Imperial German Army arrived from the eastern front after Russia sued for peace when the bolsheviks with Lenin and Trostky basically swept into power after the Czar abdicated in 1917( he and the entire royal family were executed later on)  Following WWI and the runup to WWII we were respected in the world.  WWII cemented that.  We were known for being individuals, rugged with faith in our country and our way of life.  We were the beacon for the world, " this is what you could do if you had a system for the rule of law in place, and it applies equally to all.  Also we as Americans believed that we could do anything, because we are Americans and we believed in ourselves, we were special in the world and we knew it.  
       This changed during Vietnam and the subsequent years during the carter malaise and for a time the poison in our soul receded during the Ronald Reagen years, he believed in the exceptionalism of the American spirit, he made us proud to be Americans again.  Then the Gulf war happened, we were saviors of a country that was brutally invaded by Iraq.  I was part of that, it felt like a crusade to save Kuwait.  Then we elected Bill Clinton( remember the elections have consequences thingie I like to quote)  He weaken us on foreign policy because that wasn't his interest.  Then we had W, he did a lot of things wrong, but the invasion of Iraq and removal of the taliban from Afganistan was proper.  Now we have a president that believe that we are no different than everybody else, that and the several generations of entitlement spending and policies have sapped the American spirit, when you have people that are willing to go on the dole with no shame because they look for the government to take care of them.   50 years ago, the idea of welfare would have been considered shameful.   Now it is used as an opportunity to get free stuff from the government.  Free stuff??  That free stuff is paid for by other Americans who still believe in work and taking care of themselves.
     I went on a tangent when I started this posting.  the point that I am trying to make is that We as Americans are no longer feared, local thugs take us prisoners and we do nothing.  We have illegals crossing the border and we do nothing.  We have pirates capture Americans, because they have no fear.  The United States Navy was built to fight the barbary pirates, the shore of tripoli mentioned in the marine corp song.  We went over there and kicked their butts.  Now what we do, apologize and try to bribe them.   What happened to the chutspah that made us Americans?   Have we been neutered?    I commented that the 19th century was PAX Britainia, the 20th century was PAX Americana.  What does the 21st century going to be?  PAX China?     I hate to think that the greatness of America is behind me, and my son will inherit a country that is weaker and viewed with contempt by the world for our weakness.

  An educated citizenry is the best defence against government tyranny

How the world views democrats

This is the perception that the world has of the left side of American discourse.

An educated populace is the best defence against government tyranny

Airport 75

This movie got the Razzie awards, I don't know...I actually liked the movie.  Since I work in the aviation industry..I do space out my various musings about politics with airplane pics.   The fictional airline actually used an American Airline 747 for the movie.

The Real Aircraft:  N9675

The Boeing 747 used in the film was originally delivered to American Airlines in 1971. It was a 747-123, registration number N9675, serial number 20390; the 136th 747 off the production line. Its basic American Airlines color scheme was modified to the notional Columbia Airlines colors for filming of exterior sequences. The aircraft was flown by United Parcel Services as a freighter, re-registered N675UP until 2005.The aircraft, N9675, is now stored in Roswell aircraft storage facility, and has been withdrawn from active service with UPS. 

The 747 used in the film cost $30,000 per day to rent from American Airlines. All exterior shots of the aircraft (and one interior shot of Charlton Heston at the controls) were completed in two days (landing shots in Salt Lake City, aerial shots over the Wasatch mountain range in Utah, evening and early morning flight shots, and a stunt shot involving engine #1 ramming into an outbuilding). The evening taxi and takeoff shots were filmed as the plane, with the re-badged "Columbia Airlines" logo on the fuselage, was being delivered to Salt Lake City for the two days of filming.

     

A real American Airlines 747-123 (N9675) was used in the movie, painted in the fictional Columbia Airlines colors. No wonder the colors of American and Columbia look so much alike (except for the red stripe that dissapears in the latter).The plane is a "combi" aircraft with a cargo section at the back, as the loading door and the small20390/136), delivered on May 7, 1971, was operated at the time by American Airlines and later became an all-freight plane (flying as "American Freighter"). It temporarily had the registry OD-AGM for a lease. When American Airlines disposed of its 747 fleet, it was sold to UPS which now flies it as N675UP.  

A real American Airlines 747-123 (N9675) was used in the movie, painted in the fictional Columbia Airlines colors. No wonder the colors of American and Columbia look so much alike (except for the red stripe that dissapears in the latter).The plane is a "combi" aircraft with a cargo section at the back, as the loading door and the small passenger cabin demonstrate.
 N9675, a Boeing 747-123 (msn/ln 20390/136), delivered on May 7, 1971, was operated at the time by American Airlines and later became an all-freight plane (flying as "American Freighter"). It temporarily had the registry OD-AGM for a lease. When American Airlines disposed of its 747 fleet, it was sold to UPS which now flies it as N675UP.

 Now here you'll see the photos(courtesy of Airliners.net) or movie sections featuring this special plane, well, may be I should have called this page a tribute one, I don't know(maybe I'll do this later)but meanwhile, hope you'll enjoy it and please do contact me if you've got more photos or info of this famous actress,woops, sorry...Jumbo Jet!!(isn't she beautiful?!)

More Airplane stuff

More Airplane stuff

Delta 747 getting its new livery

He really hates us....and he is punishing us....for being Americans..

 Shamelessly borrowed from www.barnhardt.biz   An awesome site

 

 

I have read with keen interest all of the attempts by various pundits and thinkers to rationalize and discern the motivations of Barack Obama. I have yet to hear anyone properly articulate the motivation behind Obama’s destructive actions. Most reasonable, clear-thinking people now fully understand that this country is being destroyed before our very eyes. The most solid proof of this came earlier this week with the release of the Obama regime’s 2012 budget which, if adopted, would incur $26.3 trillion in new debt over the next decade. There is only one possible way to spin this fact with any degree of positivity: the United States will not incur $26.3 trillion in new debt over the next decade because the economy will collapse, the government will default and the Republic will cease to exist long before we burn through another $26.3 trillion. So, we’ve got that going for us, which is nice - to paraphrase the great Carl Spackler.

Many theories have been put forth regarding Obama’s stunningly destructive policies. Some say that Obama’s actions are due to stupidity and a lack of understanding of basic economics. The more optimistic (and naïve) say that Obama’s intentions are good, and that Obama truly thinks that he is doing all the right things, and Obama honestly believes that if given enough time his policies will indeed bear fruit. Some say that Obama is a true believer in Marxist theory and is motivated by an altruistic desire to empower the poor by confiscating and redistributing the wealth of the middle and upper classes. All of these contentions are incorrect and merely serve to shield us from the terrifying reality. Barack Obama hates the United States of America and its people, and is on a single-minded quest to exact punishment upon us.

 

One of the most difficult things for a human mind to comprehend is being hated. Hatred is, at its core, the desire that someone or something not exist. Every human soul, even the most damaged and depraved, still revolves around a core that regards its own existence as a positive. Nearly all human actions have a root motivation, misguided though they may be, of either perpetuating or improving the individual’s existence. Thus, even a person who commits suicide does so with the misguided motivation of ending suffering, and thus improving their existence by “making the pain stop”. Because we are created to exist (as redundant as that might sound), we find it almost impossible to comprehend that anyone wishes that we didn’t exist. We find it almost impossible to comprehend that we are truly hated, and will thus jump through psychological hoops with the dexterity of a circus acrobat to deny that reality when we are confronted by it.

 

Barack Obama has spent his entire life, literally from the day he was born, surrounded by people who actively, viscerally hate the United States of America. The Dunham family were Communists. Lolo Soetoro was a Marxist and a nominal Muslim. Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist. Obama’s professors and social circle at Occidental College were Marxists by Obama’s own tacit admission in Bill Ayers’ book Dreams From My Father. Obama’s Chicago mentor and aforementioned ghostwriter, Bill Ayers, is an avowed Communist. Obama’s so-called “pastor”, Jeremiah Wright, is a Marxist and rabid anti-Semite. Since America is the diametrical opposite of the tyranny of Marxism and the tyranny of islam, hatred of America is the inevitable derivitive of Obama's Marxist-muslim life and upbringing. Naturally, all of these people share the common trait of a visceral, seething, and in the case of Ayers, a demonstrably violent hatred of the United States, her economy, her culture and her people. Obama has been indoctrinated since early childhood to believe that the United States is the enemy, the ultimate criminal enterprise, the source and foundation of every imaginable grievance – and not merely on an aggregate scale, but on a personal level. Barack Obama views the United States of America as his sworn personal enemy, and thus his entire life has had as its focus and goal ascending to positions of power that would allow him to do one thing: mete out punishment. And that is exactly what Obama is doing.

 

Obama is, in all likelihood, a sociopath. He does not empathize, or even possess the capacity to fake the appearance of empathy toward other human beings. Obama doesn’t care about the poor or the oppressed, and the horrific collateral damage already being caused by ObamaCare is but one example of this cold indifference. These groups are merely pawns that Obama uses to capture and increase his own power, and to falsely justify the punishments that he is meting out upon the entire country. The more power Obama acquires, the more severe the punishment he can inflict upon the country. The more punishment he inflicts, the more power he craves so that he may inflict even greater punishment. The more horrific the punishments become, the more power Obama can amass by offering waivers, exemptions and protection from his punishments in exchange for loyalty. This feedback cycle, if left unchecked will grow exponentially, and as we are now seeing in the Middle East, could grow beyond the United States and eventually encompass the entire world.

 

Eighty years ago a Marxist and rabidly anti-Semitic madman ascended to power in Europe, motivated by a drive to exact punishment upon Jews and upon his fellow Europeans who drafted and enjoined the Treaty of Versailles. This madman’s hatred and his desire to punish his enemies was intense and personal. He was permitted to amass unspeakable power and inflict some of the worst punishments ever seen in human history. His craving for more power and more punishment was never satisfied. By the time he committed suicide in a bunker in Berlin, he had destroyed his entire country, started a World War that claimed the lives of over 60 million human beings, and nearly exterminated an entire race of people. Unless and until we come to grips with the terrifying reality of Obama’s psychology and motivation, this scenario could unfold again. With a nuclear weaponized Muslim world, the potential death, destruction and dislocation that could result today would be many times larger than what was suffered during the Second World War. Congruently, that same race of people, the Jews, would once again face an attempted genocide. We cannot allow Barack Hussein Obama to continue to punish the United States and the world for crimes against him that were never committed.

Damage Obama has done

The mainstream media does not cover the full extent of the damage the Obama Administration has inflicted on this country. Even FoxNews often doesn’t have the time to go into sufficient depth to explain what is happening.
From our friend Ruth S. King comes a chart which all of us should read and absorb, sobering though it may be:

	January 2009	Today	% chg	Source
Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S.	$1.83	$3.104	69.6%	1
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel)	$43.48	$99.02	127.7%	2
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel)	$38.74	$91.38	135.9%	2
Gold: London (per troy oz.)	$853.25	$1,369.50	60.5%	2
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL	$3.56	$6.33	78.1%	2
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL	$9.66	$13.75	42.3%	2
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob	$13.37	$35.39	164.7%	2
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall	7.6%	9.4%	23.7%	3
Unemployment rate, blacks	12.6%	15.8%	25.4%	3
Number of unemployed	11,616,000	14,485,000	24.7%	3
Number of fed. employees, ex. military (curr = 12/10 prelim)	2,779,000	2,840,000	2.2%	3
Real median household income (2008 v 2009)	$50,112	$49,777	-0.7%	4
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10)	31,983,716	43,200,878	35.1%	5
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10)	7,526,598	9,193,838	22.2%	6
Number of long-term unemployed	2,600,000	6,400,000	146.2%	3
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 v 2009)	13.2%	14.3%	8.3%	4
People in poverty in U.S. (2008 v 2009)	39,800,000	43,600,000	9.5%	4
U.S. rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings	5	9	n/a	10
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10)	29.9	23.5	-21.4%	11
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date)	140	164	17.1%	12
U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate	89.76	82.03	-8.6%	2
U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	1,575.1	1,865.7	18.4%	13
U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	8,310.9	8,852.3	6.5%	13
National debt, in trillions	$10.627	$14.052	32.2%	14

Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation’s history. Over 27 times as fast! Metaphorically, speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane 27 times faster . . . it would be doing 1,755 MPH!
(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury
In our new book, Revolt! (Due out March 1 – you can pre-order autographed copies now at DickMorris.com) we explain how Obama has wrecked our economy and chart a path to reverse the damage and defeat him in 2012.
These numbers make it crystal clear how crucial these two tasks really are!