February 20, 2012

Santorum isn't a favorite with all conservatives:

This is from Fits News, a SC conservative blog. Here is the 411 on this blog:
We are hard core fiscal conservatives. We pledge allegiance to the Laffer Curve, activity-based budgeting, spending limits and market forces.  On social issues, we are primarily libertarians but readily admit that Aaron Sorkin and Annie Savoy have corrupted our good girl, Calvinist upbringings.  Our foreign policy views tend to lean toward blowing people off the face of the earth.

Blog entry:
We’ve never put much stock in the “birther movement,” nor do we pay particular attention when people try to convince us that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Where Obama was born and what he believes is irrelevant to us …
<snip>
Not only did Santorum walk back his “faith” criticism (or attempt to), he also acknowledged that he supported free prenatal testing as long as insurance companies weren’t “forced” to provide it.
“There are all sorts of prenatal testing which should be provided free,” Santorum said. “I have no problem with that if the insurance companies want to. I’m not for any of these things to be forced.”
Hmmmm …
<snip>
Why can’t Santorum just make those points? Why is he trying to use this issue as some sort of indictment of Obama’s personal faith?
That’s not only politically inadvisable, it’s wrong – at least if you subscribe to the “judge not lest ye be judged” school of thought (which we were under the impression Santorum did).

http://www.fitsnews.com/2012/02/20/rick-santorums-jesus-war-against-obama/

Fits is written by a real piece of work. He does have a lot of political connections, and I read him for unsubstantiated gossip that turns out to be true a lot of time. His views are more widespread than thought.

February 20, 2012

10 Things You Didn't Know About The President's Army

The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC, pronounced: JAY-sock) is best known for the Osama bin Laden raid. But it has long served as the president’s secret army, planning and executing the most dangerous, highly classified missions of the United States military. In 2009, its snipers rescued an American ship captain held captive by Somali pirates. In 2003, JSOC hunted down and captured Saddam Hussein near Tikrit, Iraq. In 1993, two Delta snipers earned posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor for actions during the Battle of Mogadishu (a JSOC operation portrayed in Black Hawk Down). And before that, members of the Command were tracking Scud missiles during the Gulf War and slithering down ropes in Panama. Here are a few things about the president’s secret army that you might not know.
<snip>

3. JSOC can reconstruct documents that have been burned.
When JSOC teams collect intelligence on the battlefield, they benefit from a quiet revolution in document exploitation (DOCEX) techniques. Algorithms assign values to data based on the probability that a faint “I” is indeed an “I.” The upshot is that DOCEX specialists can even reconstruct documents that have been burned beyond recognition.

4. The aircraft used in the Bin Laden raid were from Area 51.
Specially modified helicopters carried Red Squadron of SEAL Team Six to Abbottabad, Pakistan, for the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. The Black Hawks were fitted with top secret radar-spoofing technology allowing U.S. forces to slip across the border unnoticed. These stealth aircraft were developed and tested at the infamous Area 51, near Groom Lake, Nevada. They are of earthly origin.

5. The president’s secret army is everywhere.
Alongside the Central Intelligence Agency, operators from Delta Force and SEAL Team Six infiltrated China to map the locations of Chinese satellite transmission facilities. It has operated in Peru, tracking members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. And a JSOC team usually shadows the president of the United States when he is overseas, in the event of a catastrophic breakdown by U.S. Secret Service.
<snip>
Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/117735#ixzz1mvISwptR
--brought to you by mental_floss!

Well, I wonder what else they can do? And on American soil?

February 19, 2012

The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever

<snip>
Mitchell couldn’t get the dead woman out of his mind; the tableau was stuck before his eyes. He tried to tough it out, but after months of suffering, he couldn’t take it anymore. He finally told his brother, a fellow firefighter, about it.

Miraculously, that worked. No more trauma; Mitchell felt free. This dramatic recovery, along with the experiences of fellow first responders, led Mitchell to do some research into recovery from trauma. He eventually concluded that he had stumbled upon a powerful treatment. In 1983, nearly a decade after the car accident, Mitchell wrote an influential paper in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services that transformed his experience into a seven-step practice, which he called critical incident stress debriefing, or CISD. The central idea: People who survive a painful event should express their feelings soon after so the memory isn’t “sealed over” and repressed, which could lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.
<snip>
The problem is, CISD rarely helps—and recent studies show it often makes things worse. In one, burn victims were randomly assigned to receive either CISD or no treatment at all. A year later, those who went through a debriefing were more anxious and depressed and nearly three times as likely to suffer from PTSD. Another trial showed CISD was ineffective at preventing post-traumatic stress in victims of violent crime, and a US Army study of 952 Kosovo peacekeepers found that debriefing did not hasten recovery and led to more alcohol abuse. Psychologists have begun to recommend that the practice be discontinued for disaster survivors. (Mitchell now says that he doesn’t think CISD necessarily helps post-traumatic stress at all, but his early papers on the subject seem clear on the link.)
<snip>
This new model of memory isn’t just a theory—neuroscientists actually have a molecular explanation of how and why memories change. In fact, their definition of memory has broadened to encompass not only the cliché cinematic scenes from childhood but also the persisting mental loops of illnesses like PTSD and addiction—and even pain disorders like neuropathy. Unlike most brain research, the field of memory has actually developed simpler explanations. Whenever the brain wants to retain something, it relies on just a handful of chemicals. Even more startling, an equally small family of compounds could turn out to be a universal eraser of history, a pill that we could take whenever we wanted to forget anything.

And researchers have found one of these compounds.

In the very near future, the act of remembering will become a choice.

Much more: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_forgettingpill/all/1

Would you take ths pill?

February 19, 2012

Yoo Hoo John McCain! How do you like him now?

"Senator, you're one of us."

Ha!

February 18, 2012

Drones Set Sights On U.S. Skies

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. - Daniel Gárate's career came crashing to earth a few weeks ago. That's when the Los Angeles Police Department warned local real estate agents not to hire photographers like Mr. Gárate, who was helping sell luxury property by using a drone to shoot sumptuous aerial movies. Flying drones for commercial purposes, the police said, violated federal aviation rules.

"I was paying the bills with this," said Mr. Gárate, who recently gave an unpaid demonstration of his drone in this Southern California suburb.

His career will soon get back on track. A new federal law, signed by the president on Tuesday, compels the Federal Aviation Administration to allow drones to be used for all sorts of commercial endeavors - from selling real estate and dusting crops, to monitoring oil spills and wildlife, even shooting Hollywood films. Local police and emergency services will also be freer to send up their own drones.

But while businesses, and drone manufacturers especially, are celebrating the opening of the skies to these unmanned aerial vehicles, the law raises new worries about how much detail the drones will capture about lives down below - and what will be done with that information. Safety concerns like midair collisions and property damage on the ground are also an issue.
<snip>
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=914218&f=23

This gives me warm and fuzzy feelings. NOT!!!

"Drone Wars"
I can't wait until they arm them and there are puppy fights - one realtor shoots down another realtor's drones.
Then there will be ground fire. Hunters have already shot down a drone used by animal rights activists. I don't think a lot of people will be happy with this. I can see it now: homemade anti-aircraft guns.

February 16, 2012

Chris Brown Using 'I Promise Not to Beat You' as a Pickup Line

Chris Brown has reportedly begun using "Can I get your number? I promise I won't beat you!" as a pickup line. A source has told Us Weekly that the singer used the line on a woman at a Grammy gift lounge on Friday. "He and his friends laughed, then one yelled, 'That's his new line!' Ugh! I wanted to throw up!" says the source.

"I'd be surprised if Chris said something that stupid," a representative for Brown told Us.

Brown, 22, pleaded guilty in 2009 for felony assault for beating his then-girlfriend Rihanna before the Grammys. He is currently finishing his sentence for the crime, which included mandatory anger management courses, community service and supervised probation. Last year, the singer had a violent outburst backstage at Good Morning America after host Robin Roberts asked him questions about the domestic violence incident. He also was embroiled in a homophobic Twitter feud with former B2K member Raz-B.

Brown's most recent album, F.A.M.E. (Forgiving All My Enemies), has been a major commercial success, winning the Grammy for Best R&B Album, but the singer's reputation has been damaged considerably by his domestic violence conviction. Regardless, many members of the star's young female audience have expressed a troubling indifference to his rage issues on Twitter.
http://tinyurl.com/77de6tg

Here are some of the tweets by his fans:
25 Extremely Upsetting Reactions To Chris Brown At The Grammys
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/horrible-reactions-to-chris-brown-at-the-grammys

Chris Brown is an immature dolt who is apparently being enabled by gawd and everybody. He is going to badly hurt or even kill somebody if he doesn't change course. His entourage is denying he said this, but I bet he uses this line and thinks he's cute.

If the courts can, they need to review his sentence and have him go through a much longer lesson about anger and abuse. His probation officer needs to have a word or two with him.

February 16, 2012

Obama's War On Pot

In a shocking about-face, the administration has launched a government-wide crackdown on medical marijuana.

Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration's high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush's record for medical-marijuana busts. "There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. "He's gone from first to worst."

The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients nationwide – many of them seriously ill or dying – who rely on state-sanctioned marijuana recommended by their doctors. In addition, drug experts warn, the White House's war on law-abiding providers of medical marijuana will only drum up business for real criminals. "The administration is going after legal dispensaries and state and local authorities in ways that are going to push this stuff back underground again," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a former Republican senator who has urged the DEA to legalize medical marijuana, pulls no punches in describing the state of affairs produced by Obama's efforts to circumvent state law: "Utter chaos."

In its first two years, the Obama administration took a refreshingly sane approach to medical marijuana. Shortly after Obama took office, a senior drug-enforcement official pledged to Rolling Stone that the question of whether marijuana is medicine would now be determined by science, "not ideology." In March 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder emphasized that the Justice Department would only target medical-marijuana providers "who violate both federal and state law." The next morning, a headline in The New York Times read OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO STOP RAIDS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSERS. While all forms of marijuana would remain strictly illegal under federal law – the DEA ranks cannabis as a Schedule I drug, on par with heroin – the feds would respect state protections for providers of medical pot. Framing the Obama administration's new approach, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske famously declared, "We're not at war with people in this country."
<snip>
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamas-war-on-pot-20120216?link=

This policy is impossible to defend. People who are truly helped are being left without one of the few substances that can aid them in fighting certain conditions.

If you read the article, you will see that the Feds are using every possible method to stop the growth of marijuana. They strong arm banks, landlords and other people who may help dispensaries in some way. They threaten to impose overly harsh penalties in order to scare people. They also use the IRS to warn others of punitive measures that will be imposed.

While they are busy wasting time and resources on this misguided 'war', the administration will insist that they are not doing what is easy for all to see. They seem to live in an alternate universe, and they want everybody to join them there. Frankly, you need to smoke weed to help wrap your mind around the reality they want you to see. LSD would help even more in that regard.

This is one of the most indefensible positions that the President has taken.

February 16, 2012

The Mutt Romney Blues

(from email)

Heh!

February 16, 2012

President Eisenhower had 3 secret meetings with aliens, former Pentagon consultant claims

Former American President Dwight D. Eisenhower had three secret meetings with aliens, a former US government consultant has claimed.

The 34th President of the United States met the extra terrestrials at a remote air base in New Mexico in 1954, according to lecturer and author Timothy Good.

Eisenhower and other FBI officials are said to have organised the showdown with the space creatures by sending out 'telepathic messages'.

The two parties finally met up on three separate occasions at the Holloman Air Force base and there were 'many witnesses'.
<snip>
Churchill is said to have discussed how to deal with UFO sightings with Eisenhower.
More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100947/Eisenhower-secret-meetings-aliens-pentagon-consultant-claims.html

If this was a current headline, I'd assume he was meeting Teabaggers.

Is this a great country or what? From WWII to consulting with ET. His legacy grows!

February 13, 2012

Whitney is going home.

John Cádiz Klemack (@johnNBCLA)
2/13/12 12:01 PM
@NBCNews confirming Newark, NJ is prepping for Whitney Houston's funeral later this week. She's headed home. @NBCLA