MoonOwl's Blog

I came across this article below, and remembered when I posted this topic here back in March of 07: http://tinyurl.com/6bnykh so I thought I'd update w/a bit of this interesting article:

"Since I posted on April 28 the article “Is There an Army Cover Up of the Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers,” the deaths of two more U.S. Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan have been listed as suicides—the Sept. 28, 2007, death of 30-year-old Spc. Ciara Durkin and the Feb. 22, 2008, death of 25-year-old Spc. Keisha Morgan. Both “suicides” are disputed by the families of the women.

Since April 2008, five more U.S. military women have died in Iraq—three in noncombat-related incidents. Ninety-nine U.S., six British and one Ukrainian military women and 13 U.S. female civilians have been killed in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as probably hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and girls. Of the 99 U.S. military women, 64 were in the Army active component, nine in the Army National Guard, seven in the Army Reserve, seven in the Marine Corps, nine in the Navy and three in the Air Force. According to the Department of Defense, 41 of the 99 U.S. military women who have been killed in Iraq died in “noncombat-related incidents.” Of the 99 U.S. military women killed in the Iraq theater, 41 were women of color (21 African-Americans, 16 Latinas, three of Asian-Pacific descent and one Native American—data compiled from the Web site www.nooniefortin.com).

http://tinyurl.com/6pfak2

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

The White House announced yesterday that William Burns, a senior state department official, is to be sent to Switzerland on Saturday to hear Tehran's response to a European offer aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff.

Burns is to sit at the table with Iranian officials despite Bush repeatedly ruling out direct talks on the nuclear issue until Iran suspends its uranium enrichment programme, which is a possible first step on the way to a nuclear weapon capability."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/17/usa.irana>

Interesting...

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"The title of the House committee report sums up what happened: “Die or Give Up Trying: How Poor Contractor Performance, Government Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.”

The report by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy panel, released Tuesday, concluded that at least 28,283 disabled retirees were denied retroactive pay awards because rushed efforts to clear a huge backlog of claims led program administrators to stop doing quality assurance checks on the claims decisions.

And of the original 133,057 potentially eligible veterans, 8,763 died before their cases could be reviewed for retroactive payments, according to the report."

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/07/military
_concurrent_receipt_071508/

*bangs head*

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The price of retail gasoline could fall by half, to around $2 a gallon, within 30 days of passage of a law to limit speculation in energy-futures markets, four energy analysts told Congress on Monday.
Testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Michael Masters of Masters Capital Management said that the price of oil would quickly drop closer to its marginal cost of around $65 to $75 a barrel, about half the current $135.
Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co., Edward Krapels of Energy Security Analysis and Roger Diwan of PFC Energy Consultants agreed with Masters' assessment at a hearing on proposed legislation to limit speculation in futures markets. Krapels said that it wouldn't even take 30 days to drive prices lower, as fund managers quickly liquidated their positions in futures markets.
"Record oil prices are inflated by speculation and not justified by market fundamentals," according to Gheit. "Based on supply and demand fundamentals, crude-oil prices should not be above $60 per barrel.""

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/gas-could-fall-2
-if/story.aspx?guid={2673C102-68E0-41D9-9C9A-10EE2E7239
48}&dist=msr_13

Congress act for the benefit of WeThePeople?  Pardon me if I don't hold my breath.

MoonOwl

Here's a bit of this article:

"There is water ice on Mars within reach of the Mars Phoenix Lander, NASA scientists announced Thursday.

Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander's digging exposed them.

"It must be ice," said the Phoenix Lander's lead investigator, Peter Smith. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice.""

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/mars-phoeni
x-tw.html


KewlBeans!
MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"A patient whose skin cancer had spread throughout his body has been given the all-clear after being injected with billions of his own immune cells.

Tests revealed that the 52-year-old man's tumours, which spread from his skin to his lung and groin, vanished within two months of having the treatment, and had not returned two years later.

Doctors attempted the experimental therapy as part of a clinical trial after the man's cancer failed to respond to conventional treatments.

The man is the first to benefit from the new technique, which uses cloning to produce billions of copies of a patient's immune cells. When they are injected into the body they attack the cancer and force it into remission."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/19/canc
er.science


Yay!  Good news today!

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"(NaturalNews) A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips implanted in their schoolbags.

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be programmed with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with global positioning system (GPS) devices.

Parents or school officials could log onto a school web site to see whether and when specific children had entered or exited which bus, and to look up the bus's current location as provided by the GPS device."


http://www.naturalnews.com/023445.html


Is this a good thing?
MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

The report shows an administration that "led the nation to war on false premises," said the committee's Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a "partisan exercise."

The committee studied major speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and compared key assertions with intelligence available at the time.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

Such assertions had a strong resonance with a U.S. public, still reeling after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Polls showed that many Americans believed Iraq played a role in the attacks, even long after Bush acknowledged in September 2003 that there was no evidence Saddam was involved."

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0540864220
080605


Interesting read.
MoonOwl

I came across this link to the Give an Hour organization and I thought I'd pass it on.

They provide free mental health services to our troops and their families:


http://www.giveanhour.org/skins/gah/home.aspx


MoonOwl

I really didn't expect 'stang to respond to the quotes I posted regarding starting a long list of people to be ticked at instead of a short list full of fluff. I'd have been surprised if he had.

The quotes are hard to refute.  Here are a few regarding Troop levels  w/the link to the rest on different topics regarding the war:

"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."
- Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, 2/27/03

"I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep [troop] requirements down. ... We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark...wildly off the mark."
- Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, testifying before the House Budget Committee, 2/27/03

"I would be surprised if we need anything like the 200,000 figure that is sometimes discussed in the press. A much smaller force, principally special operations forces, but backed up by some regular units, should be sufficient."
- Richard Perle, Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, 7/11/02

"I don't believe that anything like a long-term commitment of 150,000 Americans would be necessary."
- Richard Perle, speaking at a conference on "Post-Saddam Iraq" sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, 10/3/02

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blog
s/voices.php/2008/04/20/p24878#more24878

Face it, it's easier to be ticked at a celebrity for using a poor choice of words than to be ticked at the 'politicians' that put our military into its present state.  It's easier to be ticked at a celebrity for 'disrespecting' our Troops than be ticked at the actual men who show no real respect for our military by their words & actions to date.

If anything, I expected him to respond that the quotes were bogus because of the site they are compiled on.  A simple search-engine check will show they are real quotes.  Unfortunately...  They show who we really should be mad at.  People that will never be held accountable for the decisions they've made that affect us all?

Tell me, since they got it so wrong, why would anyone listen to them when they contemplate bomb, bomb, bombing Iran?  Hello!

If y'all are picking on him for me, cease please.  We are trying to keep the slams down are we not?  It's a frustrating time to be debating politics and civility is to our benefit.  Otherwise, we are just a sold-out career politicians dream.  Focused on the fluff instead of the real problems we all face.

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:


"Feds, lab say they have no duty under Fla. law to protect public from anthrax"

"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The federal government and a private laboratory say they have no duty under Florida law to protect the public from anthrax or other lethal materials.

Their lawyers made that argument yesterday to the Florida Supreme Court. The justices will rule on that issue as part of a lawsuit over the anthrax death of a photo editor for a supermarket tabloid publisher."

http://www.wwsb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8276062


MoonOwl

I came across this interesting article and thought I'd pass it on:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”

The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadba
sket-world

MoonOwl

Is anyone out there watching John Adams on HBO?


http://www.hbo.com/films/johnadams/index.html


Apap and I thought the first two episodes were quite good and are looking forward to the rest of the series.

Check it out if you get the chance.

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:


"US President George W. Bush has said he would love to fight in Afghanistan if he was younger.

President Bush suggested fighting on the frontline was "romantic" during a video conference with US military and civilian personnel in the war-torn country.

"I must say, I'm a little envious," he said.

"If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks.""


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23373396-2,00.htm
l


Quick!  Give TheDecider a parachute, rifle & a bullet and let him have at some 'romance'  Why did he choose to sit-out Viet Nam?  Not romantic enough?

MoonOwl

Here's a bit:

"The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million)."


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gu
est_contributors/article3419840.ece


No wonder the loud crowing from the rooftops of a "Self-Financing War!" has ceased.

MoonOwl