Month: November 2012

The Appearance Of Concern

By now we all have heard the ever continuing story of Gen. Patraeus and his paramour….about the FBI agent without a shirt….the gal in Tampa that was all about helping the troops…..now the General in Afghanistan…..yada yada………to me it is more like a reality show than something that the FBI should have been involved in…..and now all those people that condemned people for questioning Patraeus integrity a couple years ago are the very same people that are throwing him under the bus today…..to me this is a story that would have been better left alone until the whole story was known…..but with that said….there is a story in this business……

Well Professor….we are waiting…….

The real story is the woman Jill Kelley and her husband…….

(Newser) – The Tampa socialite at the heart of the Petraeus “love Pentagon” sex scandal was the co-founder of a cancer charity that does not appear to have been involved in any charity work, the Huffington Post finds. Jill Kelley and her surgeon husband founded the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation in 2007, stating that it “shall be operated exclusively to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients.” But records reveal that the charity went bust later that year, having spent every penny of the $157,284 it started with on expenses like parties, entertainment, and travel.

The charity also listed $12,807 for office expenses and supplies, and $7,854 on utilities and telephones, which is a little on the steep side for a charity that operated out of the couple’s mansion, the HuffPo notes. But the charity isn’t all that’s surfaced on Kelley:

  • The mansion where Kelley and her husband threw lavish parties for military top brass has been in foreclosure since 2010, reports the New York Daily News. The couple owes vast sums to banks and credit card companies and has been hit by at least nine lawsuits.
  • Kelley isn’t just an unpaid social liaison to nearby MacDill Air Force Base, she’s an honorary consul of South Korea, an embassy official tells Foreign Policy. “She assumed this position last August thanks to her good connections and network,” the Korean official says, adding that the position is symbolic and has no official responsibilities.
  • Kelley tried to invoke “diplomatic protection” in one of several 911 calls made over the last few days, Fox reports. Complaining about trespassers on her property, Kelley told the dispatcher, “I’m an honorary consul general … I don’t know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well, because that’s against the law to cross my property because, you know, it’s inviolable.”
  • The Wall Street Journal adds that over the summer, Kelley became worried about personal information getting aired and tried to get the FBI to drop its investigation into threatening emails Paula Broadwell sent her. Broadwell, it notes, also sent anonymous emails to military brass bashing Kelley.

This is the story to watch in all this……..this woman and her hubby are the types of people that I despise……those that pretend the vets are important but they are only a stepping stone to social climbing, for whatever reason……not of any genuine concern…there are too many that fall in this category……..and that is a sad situation all around.

If At First You Don’t Suceed, Secede

Back in 2008 and the ensuing campaign we learned that Palin’s hubby, Todd, was a member of an Alaskan secessionist movement……we all laughed.  Then in 2009, I believe, our boy Rick Perry of Texas stated that Texas could secede from the Union when they became unhappy with the government….we all hook our heads and giggled under our breath….but what about secession?

Personally, I live within the borders of what use to be called the Republic of West Florida and have said that we need to leave the state of Mississippi and become the 51st state……I want to leave the state, NOT the nation……but since the recent re-election of Obama there seems to be more and more talk about secession……..

Newser) – Will we soon be a nation of 49 states? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. But the Houston Chronicle reports that residents of Texas who petitionedfor the right to secede from the Union will indeed have their plea considered by the White House. That’s not because the administration is taking the request seriously; rather, the petition met the threshold of 25,000 signatures needed to trigger a review, as per the White House website where it was filed.

A rep for Gov. Rick Perry released a statement to the Dallas Morning News pooh-poohing the secession drive while taking a dig at Washington: “Gov. Perry believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it. But he also shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government.” Unhappy voters in 19 more states have similar petitions in the works.

So, are they kidding….19 other states feel like it would be a good idea to start breaking up the Union?

(Newser) – Forget moving to Canada: Some disappointed American voters would like to stay in the USA … so long as their state secedes from the Union. The blog Red Alert Politics takes a look at petitions posted to the White House’s petitions page by residents demanding just that. Newser’s count puts the number of states with such a petition attached to their name at 20. They range from Colorado to Florida to New York, and a few thousand residents in each would, pretty please, like the Obama administration to “Peacefully grant the State of X to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government.”

Many of them reference the Declaration of Independence, and the fact that it holds that it is “the Right of the People to … institute new Government … whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends.” While, news flash, these petitions won’t actually result in secession, the “We the People” section of the White House website does promise that staffers will review a petition that gets enough backing (25,000 votes by residents of that state), “ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.” So far, Texas looks to be closest to that threshold.

Read the articles carefully…….the states that consider this secessionist movement maybe not be the ones that you would suspect……

This is scary to me………..for a country that prides itself on patriotism….this does not seem that patriotic to me…….I would like to hear what others think of this situation……..

UpDate:  After writing this draft there appear a bit more info……

(Newser) – An online Texas petition to secede from the union is nearing 100,000 votes now, giving the group leading the charge its 15 minutes. Politico interviews Texas Nationalist Movement leader Daniel Miller:

  • On Obama: Election Day “was a catalyzing moment,” but this isn’t just about the president. “This cake has been baking for a long time—it’s the Obama administration that put the candles on the cake and lit it for us.”
  • On Gandhi: Luckily, there won’t be a civil war, or even violent protests. “We walk in the same vein as Gandhi and those guys.”
  • On heading mainstream: “For the longest time, this was what people would classify as a fringe issue. It was relegated to the back rooms in the cafés. But in 2008, 2009—the tail end of the Bush administration and start of Obama’s—what you saw was kind of interesting. This issue went to being part of the political discourse.”

The Daily Caller, meanwhile, reports that similar petitions from 50 states are now up on the White House website, and six others besides Texas have reached the 25,000-signature threshold to warrant an automatic review by the administration. (They are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee, for the record.)

Sorry, but this is all so much crap!  People do not want the government wasting money but they do this stunt…..and it is a waste of money…..NONE of these dipsticks are going anywhere…….I know it….they know it…..and now YOU know it!

Advice?  STOP taking these morons seriously!  Period!

Poem #1–1969

The 2012 election is history…..in more ways than one……and since there is not much news I will return to posting the poems from my youth…..and since a couple of my regular readers and commenters are weary of the whole political thingy…..I will try some more poetry…..

The year is 1969 and I am on my second tour in Vietnam….only thing new is the unit to which I was assigned…..Studies & Observation Group….at this time I am working in the Parrot’s Beak area of South Vietnam…..on the border with Cambodia…..not much time for lying around doing little….but I do find time from now and then to write a poem or two……..

The Happy Few

Why must we fight

A war of fright?

People fear,

neighbors far and near.

People don’t understand

That to be a man

We don’t have to kill.

It is better still

To give all you can.

If things are getting better

And this is true

Why are the happy

Only a few?

If things keep going this way

It won’t be long to judement day.

I don’t have the answers

Do you?

If not, maybe we should

Ask the happy few.

CHUQ

21Apr69

And so it goes!

How About Those Independents?

Election is over and for a year, maybe longer, we heard from the MSM all about the independents……daily we were told all about the need for the independent vote to win the election….remember those days?

Just in case you are not at all sure what an independent voter is all about…….

More recently, scholars focused on self-identification as a good measure of a person’s political independence. The value of self-identification as a measure of a person’s political independence or partisanship is that it is seen as a proxy for the behavior which should be exhibited by the independent voter. Additionally, self-identification could be easily captured either with a nominal question “Do you self-identify with an existing political party?”, a question which is answered with a “yes” or a “no”, or by a structured ordinal question “Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, an Independent, or what?”. The first analyses of this measure of political independence found that there were significant differences between those individuals who self-identified as “independent” and those who listed “no preference” as to party identification. Individuals who expressed “no preference” usually exhibited low levels of interest in politics, low levels of knowledge about the candidates and issues, low frequency of voting, and less confidence in their ability to influence politics.

Although some scholars continue to conclude that self-description is the best measure of partisanship or independence, Even the nature of a survey instrument as a measure of partisanship and independence has been called into question.

Yes, I have never thought the independent vote was gonna be all that…..of course the partisans made it all about these voters, especially in Ohio and Florida…..these voters were going to be the make or break sector………

Hate to tell you guys this…IT IS ALL SO MUCH CRAP!

in 2004, the so called independents broke for John Kerry and he lost the election…….now in 2012 the independents broke for Mitt 50% to 45%…..and he lost (in case you missed it)…..

This is just another illustration of how the media wants to drive the news….they are the ones that made this group a whole lot more important than they were….they were NOT the deciders of the 20122 election……..

Keep this in mind for we will hear about these voters again and again…..and they will be painted as the sole decider of a future election….at least the media will want them to be…….

Who Can Explain Mitt’s Loss?

I know….I know…….enough already!

This will be my last (hopefully) post on the 2012 election…….there have been so many reasons given for the GOP loss in the past election…..some say “fact checkers” cost them the election, some say it was the MSM….other blame pollsters……I have even heard the it was Newt’s fault for his stinging attacks during the primaries……..But I am sure you have heard some that I have not…..but what can explain the loss?

The best analysis that I have seen was that of Gov. Barbour.

Gov. Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, former lobbyist, former chairman of the RNC, former head of the Repub governors assn……former….well you get the idea….this guy is Mr. GOP.  I live in his state and have never been a supporter of his……but I will say that there is not a more astute politician than Barbour.  No matter what you man think of the man…he is smarter than the average GOP strategist…….and his analysis of why the GOP lost so badly is summed up in a few words…..

This is a direct quote from Gov. Barbour……..

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) had a simple explanation for why Republicans didn’t do better in U.S. Senate races, Ben Smith reports.

And it wasn’t about the party being too conservative.

Said Barbour: “We had some shitty candidates. We pissed away two seats.”

Let us emphasize his analysis for effect…….

“We (GOP) had some shitty candidates.  We pissed away two seats.”

Enough said!

Are We Safe?

We have been told time and time again about the hole in the Ozone that could be fatal if we continue to lose it……..and the Maya told us that we would need a new calendar in 2012……and then there are the Nostradamus freaks that find a prediction of everything in some coded writings of a dude about 500 years ago……and then we have all those that deny anything is happening to our climate….whether you would like to call it global warming or climate change or……well here is something else to consider……

Our planet’s protective magnetic bubble may not be as protective as scientists had thought. Small breaks in Earth’s magnetic field almost continuously let in the solar wind — the stream of magnetic, energized plasma launched by the sun toward the planets — new research has found.

“The solar wind can enter the magnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn’t known about before,” Melvyn Goldstein, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement.

Charged particles in the solar wind can interrupt GPS signals and power systems, as well as create dazzling auroras.

The magnetosphere is the planet’s first line of defense against the solar wind.Read More…

No matter what you care to believe….the fact is something is happening and the question should be……can we do anything about it?

Facebook Better Than Sex?

It is Saturday and the weekend begins.  Time to take a much needed break from the dullness of the after election dialog…….and now for something completely different…….

A great question…it seems to answer itself….but……..

(Newser) – It might not be better than sex, but Facebook—along with checking email and surfing the web—is apparently more irresistible, a new study has found. The smartphone-based survey of mostly college-aged respondents tracked their most irresistible desires several times a day. While most reported that sex was a stronger desire, subjects were more likely to give in to their desire to check out media, including things like email and Facebook, the survey found. “Media desires, such as social networking, checking emails, surfing the web, or watching television might be hard to resist in light of the constant availability, huge appeal, and apparent low costs of these activities,” says the study author from the University of Chicago.

One explanation could be that it’s easier and more convenient to check Facebook than it is to have sex, reports ABC News. “The sex drive is much stronger but it’s also much more situational,” says an online expert from the University of Southern California. “We’re training ourselves to check our messages every couple minutes. People are constantly looking down to check their phones. They can’t stop.”

I am an old fuddy duddy…..I do not nave a Facebook account and have desire to ever have one…..so for me it is NOT better than sex….actually I cannot think of anything that is better than SEX!