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POPSA cloud still hangs over Bhopal
More: What’s missing in the whole sad story is any sense of a human connection between the faceless people who run the corporation and the victims. In 1995, a Bhopali woman named Sajida Bano sent a handwritten letter to Union Carbide. The factory had killed her husband in 1981 in an accident, and then, on the night of the disaster, her 4-year-old son. “You put your hand on your heart and think,” she wrote, “if you are a human being: if this happened to you, how would your wife and children feel?” She never received a response. The survivors of Bhopal want only to be treated as human beings — not victims, not greedy money-grabbers, just human beings who’ve gone through hell and are entitled to a measure of dignity. That includes concrete things like cleaning up the mess and providing health care for the sick, and also something more abstract but equally important — an acknowledgment that a wrong was done to them, and an apology, which Bhopalis have yet to receive.
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POPSWhy Socialists Pursue Socialism to the Ends of the Earth
. . . and offers the only internally consistent explanation for their historic obsession with divisive policy. From their early support of Hitler to their central role in the current financial crisis, the Left’s contribution to domestic and foreign policy at federal, state and local levels can only be described as wantonly destructive. Their takeover of schools and popular culture has been equally toxic. Their environmental radicalism has spawned the energy crisis, while offering no viable alternatives. It defies logic. But there is logic, a deadly logic, and in the '60’s, two radicals gave it a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. As explained in the prior article in this series, the goal was to create a groundswell of demands for public services to overwhelm government, create crisis and usher in a widespread call for fundamental economic reform at the federal level, with socialism the ultimate goal. Cloward and Piven focused on welfare, voting,
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POPSundignified tone “I hope the President will learn that true bipartisanship begins with mutual respect,” Graham said in response to Obama’s fervent criticism of those who oppose him. “Not all criticism is demagoguery,” he added. Graham said when it comes to the public option, “the President is either being disingenuous or misinformed. The public option, contrary to the president’s claims, will eventually lead to a government takeover of our health care system.” Graham believes Obama’s address to Congress is the beginning of a “go it alone” strategy in the push for the government takeover of the health care system. “If the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency.” © 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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POPSGovernors Oppose Federal Martial Law Powers, Invoke States' Rights This could apply to any potential Swine Flu emergency declarations or any other federal responses during acts of terrorism, disasters, or crises whereby the Pentagon has pleaded a domestic role for power. See Clipmark U.S. Military Plans for H1N1 Flu Outbreak Good for the governors and states' rights! As a side, people should note that because Governor's have authority over each states "National Guard" that they could invoke their authority to NOT DEPLOY these troops (never intended for foreign wars) to unjust wars, or war undeclared by Congress (the only lawful wars) for foreign operations, i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. They have full legal power to resist if only they have political courage to stand upon principle against mistaken notions of zeal or "patriotism" invoked to push such wars. More on that here.
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POPSMcCain, Graham: Dead Wrong About Obama Approach On Iran McCain and Graham seem to desire the cowboy diplomacy of the George W. Bush years, asserting that Obama is being too cautious on Iran. However, a return to the diplomatic belligerence of the previous administration would be a disaster. It would play directly into the hands of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei whose harsh response to the persistent protests is presently serving to loosen his grip on Iran's political reigns
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POPSAnyone Else Have FEMA Exercises in Their Town Today? The exercise will simulate criminal activity and is designed to test and evaluate the response to a crisis situation. These incidents will not be real; however, the responses to them are intended be as realistic as possible. In all cases, every effort has been made to balance realism with safety, while still allowing the creation of an effective learning and evaluation environment. Likewise, all participating agencies have balanced their participation in this exercise with their requirements for real-world emergency response and protection. The areas where the full-scale exercise will be undertaken will be clearly marked and will have an appropriate off-limits perimeter established. Law enforcement personnel will be assigned to direct and provide safe passage for motorists while the exercise is being conducted.
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POPSFEMA's 9/11 Coloring Book This is nothing more than FEMA's lame attempt to bolster their image. Perhaps an attempt to counter the bad image these children’s parents have for FEMA’s missteps in Katrina’s aftermath? They are hoping today’s children will, in the future, remember how FEMA ‘was there to help’ in times of disasters. Why they feel they need to do this? I don’t know. What do you think?
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POPSNation’s Food System Nearly Broke This is a pretty dire picture being painted here. It seems Americans have been getting off cheap with low food prices, but that’s about to change. None of us want to see family farms go out of business, they simply cannot survive on subsistence earnings any longer. If you have a space to grow your own food, I suggest you start learning how to make it very productive and learn to can the excess. "Any time a country neglects its family farm base and allows it to become financially bankrupt, the entire economy of that country will soon collapse. It may take generations to rebuild the farm economy and that of the country." Concerned citizens can call the White House, 202-456-1111, or your members of Congress, 202-224-3121, to urge them to support policies that enable farmers to earn a fair market price
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POPSPresident Obama Declares Major Disaster In Ky. There are -- there are one or two counties in the far west of Kentucky. I know there was unhappiness by one person who spoke out there, he's -- one or two fairly unique, fairly tough situation for them. We want to make sure that services are being made available to them through the state; in other words, you know, the -- you know -- but we kind of -- kind of go where the state tells us they need the help. So that's what we're trying to do. MEDIA AVAILABILITY WITH HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY JANET NAPOLITANO DURING A VISIT TO FEMA LOCATION: FEMA HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C. DATE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2009
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POPSGermans destroy the myth of Superman Brown When Gordon Brown told the Commons that he led the world into recovery, he was not telling the truth. Germany believes, as I do and many others, that one of the perpetrators of the oncoming disaster cannot also be the saviour. When I listened to Esther Rancid eulogising over hero Brown, all my misogyny kicked back in.
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POPSMajor Quake Watch Has Internet Buzzing A geologist predicted a major earthquake on the West Coast in December on Coast-to-Coast radio this week. First hour guest, geologist Jim Berkland spoke about earthquakes. There's an 85% probability of seismic activity during the window of Dec. 12 -13th, 2008, due to a full moon and very high tides InstaPundit has been making similar posts about a midwest earthquake possibility. The Reuters article clipped here shows that the New Madrid fault (which has been silent since the 1800s) they fear is due. Another 6.3 quake rocked Sumatra (remember the Tsunami two Decembers ago) today, Nov. 22nd. Others may want to add other news or prediction reports to comments as they appear.
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POPS$85 bil. for Wall St., No Ice for Hurricane Survivors Hey, the feds have their priorities. They've been busy making sure that profit stays private, while loss is socialized -- just not all loss. If some Bushie had money invested in your health, that'd be a different story. It's the ownership society, people. If you've got trouble, you're on your own. We are most definitely not all in this together. Unless you're one of the guys in the corner offices in huge glass towers, you ain't squat.
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POPS McCain To Katrina Victims In 2005: You're On Your Own
It must be nice to have staffers writing that stuff for you. Too bad he spent the months to follow leading the Republican charge against every Senate bill that would have actually helped Katrina victims or mandated investigations on how the Bush administration could have blown disaster response so thoroughly. Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden jumped immediately to the aid of hurricane victims in the week after the 2005 disaster, authoring S.Amdt. 1661 "…to provide emergency funding for victims of Hurricane Katrina." But with John McCain's help, the Republican-led Senate shot down the funding on a 41-56 vote with McCain voting against, while Biden and Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the funding. the Republicans wanted no part of it and despite his post-Katrina pledge to "do all that is necessary to fund essential relief and recovery efforts and help those in need," John McCain was right there to shoot down every initiative that would have
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POPSEnvironmentalists Hold On Congress What's the political response to our energy problems? It's more congressional and White House kowtowing to environmentalists, farmers and multi-billion dollar corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland. Their “solution," rather than to solve our oil supply problem by permitting drilling for the billions upon billions of barrels of oil beneath the surface of our country, is to enact the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that mandates that oil companies increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. Anyone with an ounce of brains would have realized that diverting crops from food to fuel use would raise the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as pork, beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. Ethanol production has led to increases in other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat. Since the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter, higher grain prices have had a huge impact on food prices worldwide.
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POPSWhen can empathy move us to action? And so cognitive empathy alone is not enough. We also need what Ekman calls "emotional empathy"—when you physically feel what other people feel, as though their emotions were contagious. This emotional contagion depends in large part on cells in the brain called mirror neurons, which fire when we sense another's emotional state, creating an echo of that state inside our own minds. Emotional empathy attunes us to another person's inner emotional world, a plus for a wide range of professions, from sales to nursing—not to mention for any parent or lover.
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POPSDirector of Meteorology: Americans Should Go After Gore And Hansen "It's back to the drawing board for Hansen and company as the alleged ‘consensus' over man-made climate fears continues to wane and more and more scientists declare their dissent," said Sen. Inhofe. Hear, hear! Readers are strongly advised to review all of the articles NewsBusters has published concerning the junk science being advanced by Hansen the last two decades. *****Update: Please don't miss fabulous posts concerning this matter by CEI's Chris Horner published at NRO's Planet Gore such as this, this, and this. In particular, don't miss Horner exposing Hansen for staging his June 1988 Congressional appearance by timing it for the hottest day of the year, and having the air conditioning turned off in the hearing room to make it especially toasty. Also, D'Aleo has more here.
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POPSWell, duh!
The question was specifically focused on a military response, but Obama didn’t talk about the military, or any use of force at all. “Well, first thing we’d have to do is make sure that we’ve got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans,” Obama said. “And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.” “The second thing,” Obama continued, “is to make sure that we’ve got good intelligence, A, to find out that we don’t have other threats and attacks potentially out there; and B, to find out do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network.” The reference to “some action” might be interpreted as an endorsement of the use of force, but in the rest of his response, Obama softened even that notion. “But what we can’t do is then alienate the world community
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POPSFlood victims say FEMA is doing a heckuva job Since FEMA received mega-press for it's perceived failures during the Hurricane, it seemed fair to post a clip that gives the organization some praise for doing a good job. However, I believe the magnitude and circumstances are entirely different. I am still amazed by a government/Country who will so willingly hand out millions of dollars to its citizens who have lost homes and property in these *natural* disasters.
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POPSWhy do displays of compassion differ between East and West?
I am trying to understand A bit more: "In many Asian countries, favors invariably create obligations, which is perhaps why people are sometimes disinclined to interfere in the problems of others. You are obliged to take care of your family, your friends, or even your fellow countrymen. But the idea of universal charity is too abstract, and smacks of the kind of unwelcome interference that Western imperialists — and the Christian missionaries who followed them — practiced in the East for too long. The notion of "Asian values," promoted mostly by Singaporean official scribes, was partly a critique of universalist Western claims. Asians, according to this theory, have their own values, which include thrift, deference to authority, the sacrifice of individual to collective interests, and the belief that countries should not stick their noses into others' affairs. Hence, the hesitant response of Southeast Asian governments — and public opinion — to the Burmese disaster." see source
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POPSMcCain is lying already... John McCain claims "I've supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy." This is a lie. As we reported on 14 September 2005 in this thread above. Got that? In a straight party-line vote, John "Straightalk" McCain backed up his buddy George W. Bush in an attempt to avoid investigating the mess. Today, with New Orleans still a mess, Ol' Straightalk lies about it. Oh, yeah, to prove it wasn't a fluke the first time he also voted against an independent investigation in February, 2006.
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