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POPSPolitical Correctness Deadly Consequences
“We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” Obama said. “What we do know is that there are families, friends and an entire nation grieving right now for the valiant men and women who came under attack ... in one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base.” Obama followed up in his weekly address Saturday, noting that U.S. troops are “Americans of every race, faith and station. “They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers,” he said. “They are descendants of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. But what they share is a patriotism like no other.” Even as Obama treads cautiously, Connecticut Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, called the shooting “a terrorist act” and said he plans to begin an investigation into whether . . .
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POPSWe Need To Do Better For Our Military Much of the study focused on 4th Brigade, home unit to most of the violent crime suspects. 4th Brigade was compared head-to-head with 3rd Brigade, which recently returned from Iraq. The 4th Brigade, now in Afghanistan, has suffered a higher casualty rate than other units its size in two deployments, the Army found, losing lives at a rate more than eight times that of 3rd Brigade. Along with the deaths came intense combat that took a mental toll on troops, the Army found. Soldiers in 4th Brigade were more likely than other soldiers to suffer mental illness. The study also found, though, that soldiers feel their careers can be damaged by seeking mental health help and too often feel that enlisted leaders don't support troops with mental illness. Read the entire article here: http://www.gazette.com/articles/soldiers-58520-report-army.html
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POPSCharles Krauthammer: The Three Envelopes I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan. This compulsion to attack his predecessor is as stale as it is unseemly. Obama was elected a year ago. He became commander in chief two months later. He then solemnly announced his own "comprehensive new strategy" for Afghanistan seven months ago. Obama is obviously unhappy with the path he himself chose in March. Fine. He has every right -- indeed duty -- to reconsider. But what Obama is reacting to is the failure of his own strategy. There is nothing new here. The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy "footprint." In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. This was the considered judgment of our commanders at the time,
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POPSHow Nice Are We? What chimps can teach us about our mess of emotions. By Christine Kenneally Posted Monday, Oct. 5, 2009, at 7:03 AM ET
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POPSWhole Foods: Health Care Reform Casualty? I've learned from the article comments that some people have known for a long time that John Mackey is anti-union. This comment is about those informed liberals. These informed, educated and/or moneyed liberals were content to purchase Chevre and Vouvray stocked by non-union labor. No righteous indignation stirred as their purchases were tallied by a non-union cashier. They glowed with self-satisfaction as they handed their designer grocery bag to a part-time-no-benefits grocery bagger. Halo firmly in place, they floated to the automatic doors assured of their superior position over Safeway shoppers who use plastic bags and eat processed foods. But now comes John Mackey's opinion which shattered their gourmet utopia and laid open their hypocrisy. Oh, they're furious now.
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POPSObama’s First Military Order by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. DON’T SHOOT BACK AT TALIBAN TERRORISTS!!! The first order from America’s new commander is that the Marines must not return enemy fire for fear of killing an Afghan non-combatant. ABC Correspondent Mike Boettcher, who is embedded with Golf Company, reports that the young Marines, when ambushed by Taliban forces with automatic weapons, were ordered to shoulder their rifles. Their command, Boettcher writes, warned them that “one civilian casualty could negate the No. 1 objective of this operation " - winning the trust and respect of the farmers of the Helmand River Valley.” How are the Marines expected to win the trust and respect of the farmers? By not disturbing the opium poppy fields which remain in full bloom. The Marines of Bravo’s Company 1st Platoon sleep beside groves of poppies Troops of the 2nd Platoon walk through the fields on strict orders not to swat the heavy opium bulbs.
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POPSWhite Supremacist Guns Down Guard at Holocaust Museum When the smoke cleared, von Brunn was critically wounded. "Two other . . . armed security officers opened fire with their service revolvers," the company said. "The intruder was hit at once" and wounded. Johns died at George Washington University Hospital. "There are no words to express our grief and shock over these events," the museum said in a statement, describing Johns as "an outstanding colleague who greeted us every day with a smile." Johns, a 1988 graduate of Crosslands High School in Temple Hills, lived in an apartment in the Temple Hills area. Friends said he had a son. "It's a heavy loss," said Assane Faye, the Washington district director of the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. Faye said that during contract negotiations with Wackenhut two years ago, the union pressed for company-issued protective vests. Although Wackenhut seemed open to the idea, vests have not been issued, Faye said.
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POPSA Sad Casualty of Ike in Galveston Compared to their old glory, like here and here, it's sad indeed. Not every tree on the island was drowned, and of those that were hopefully some will still recover. We can rebuild houses and business...100 yr old oak trees are irreplaceable.
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POPS"Rumsfeld's renegade unit blamed for Afghan deaths" continues (full at source): His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban. MarSOC was created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary at the time, despite opposition from within the Marine Corps and the wider Special Forces community. An article in the Marine Corps Times described the MarSOC troops as "cowboys" who brought shame on the corps.
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POPSIf Only Literature Could Be a Cellphone-Free Zone Some writers are just rejecting modernity. M. J. Rose, whose books about reincarnation are the basis for a planned pilot on the Fox Network, intends to set her next book in 1948 in part so she can let missed connections and miscommunications simmer. “You miss a train in 1888 or even 1988, and have no way to contact the person waiting at the station on the other end,” she said. “He thinks you’ve changed your mind, been captured, weren’t able to escape. You miss a train in 2009 and you pull out your cell and text that you’ll be two hours late.”
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POPSWeak Knees at the White House Piercing article revealing the *news medias* new position within Americas society/culture...Presidential lapdog and propaganda machine.
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POPS Pakistan Says 700 Taliban Dead in Swat "The operation will continue until the last Talib," Mr. Malik said in the capital, Islamabad. "We haven't given them a chance. They are on the run. They were not expecting such an offensive." Mr. Malik's casualty number -- which exceeds that given by the military on Sunday by at least 200 -- and his claims of success could not be independently verified. The military is restricting access to the battlefields and many local journalists have also left. The government has not given figures for civilian casualties, but accounts from refugees suggest they are significant. Swat lies near the Afghan border as well as the wild Pakistani tribal areas, where al Qaeda and the Taliban have strongholds and where U.S. officials believe al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden may be hiding. The army says 12,000 to 15,000 troops in Swat face 4,000 to 5,000 militants, including small numbers of foreigners and hardened fighters from the South Waziristan tribal region.
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POPSSeamus HEANEY, Word Smith, Today, 70 years Young On Monday, 13 April RTÉ lyric fm will premiere three pieces specially commissioned by RTÉ Performing Groups from Rachel Holstead, Kevin O'Connell and Ian Wilson for the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet. A new RTÉ Television 'Arts Lives' documentary, 'Seamus Heaney: Out of the Marvellous', will be screened on RTÉ One on Tuesday, 14 April. On RTÉ Radio there will be a non-stop, 12-hour broadcast of Seamus Heaney reading his 11 poetry collections on RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, available on LW, DAB, Online and UPC Channel 940. Full details on these programmes and other events are available on the specially commissioned website: www.rte.ie/heaneyat70.
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