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Now that is a very good question but in light of the surge in the voter registration for Independents one must re-phrase the question to How do I know if I am a Republican, Democrat or Independent? You see, just this past spring the number of Independents surpassed the number of either Democrats or Republicans in America for the first time in the last 100 years.
Roughly speaking there are now about 40% Independents, and 30% Democrats and Republicans. If you are an Independent you are not responsible for the political nonsense in Washington because your party has not been in charge the last century. Free of blame you are also free to condemn all the crooks in Washington.
Of course it is also true that Independents gave the margin of victory to Obama in the last election so you really aren't completely off the hook for blame. Another problem for Independents is that every party or group from conservative to progressive, radical to just plain nuts, has no other place to go so they are part of your group. Just look on the ballot at all the splinter groups listed as Independent of the two main parties.
That means there is no common platform other than most Independents think the best government is no government, they want a balanced budget, no more national deficit, and get government out of their lives. Things like regulations and laws, taxes and fees drive them nuts.
Democrats seem to like fees, higher taxes, more deficit spending and a big fat federal government. They would rather reduce individual liberty than let maniacs have guns, or free speech if it is opposed to the Democrat party line. They love unions though many have no idea what happens to all the union dues paid. Most lawyers seem to be Democrats though they may work for Republicans.
Socialists are Democrats though Democrats may not be socialists. Liberal advocates are Democrats like the Civil Liberties Union who have sued to get God out of America though most Catholics are also Democrats who kind of like having God around. The means both pro-abortion and pro-life advocates are Democrats as well who seem to cancel each other out in elections.
Of course a lot of Conservative Republicans are also pro-life so one wonders why so many Catholics are Democrats. Just about all Blacks are Democrat though it was the Republicans who freed them from slavery under Republican President Abraham Lincoln. As for Hispanics, illegal immigrants would be Democrats if they could vote but most Cuban Hispanics are Republican because the Democrats gave away Cuba to Castro and Communism.
Anyone oppose to big government, deficit spending or increasing the national debt is a Republican because there is no way the Democrats can please all the radical factions that demand more money for their pet (special) interest. If you believe in cradle to grave care (socialism in other countries) you are Democrat but if you believe in making and keeping your own money you are Republican.
Republicans most likely are strict civil libertarians while Democrats often want to coddle criminals in the interest of criminal rehabilitation which causes the Republicans to make sure we can all own guns to protect us from the people who should be in jail or institutions.
Corporate fats cats used to be mostly Republican until Democratic President Clinton started acting like a Republican and passed the NAFTA act and other big business friendly bills and a bunch of Democrats became fat cats themselves. President Obama claimed to be the innocent outsider though he was the first Democrat to get more money from fat cats than the Republicans. Two years later his legislative agenda seems to have driven the corporate world back to the Republicans, ever since he and sidekick Joe Biden declared war on corporations and small business.
Independents are those mostly silent Americans who have watched the two parties and their schizophrenia and decided there just wasn't any difference between the Democrats and Republicans and wanted nothing to do with either political group.
Perhaps after reviewing the differences or similarities between the Democrats and Republicans, we should not be talking about a third party Independent movement but just get rid of the first two parties.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Or many we all need a ballot choice of "None of the Above!"
Besides, Democrats and Republicans are not specified in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence so why do we treat them as some type of privileged class?
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As the stories of the astounding rescue come to light it is clear the strong faith in God guided the miners through the 17 days they were thought to be dead and the entire 70 day ordeal of being buried alive. As one said upon reaching the surface, "I saw the Devil and I saw God when we first got trapped, and I reached out to God."
Why did the miners break their pattern of eating that fateful day of the collapse and all eat together by the rescue shelter rather than be spread out throughout the tunnels that collapsed where they would have been killed? Where did the white butterfly come from 2,000 feet underground that caught the attention of two miners fleeing during the mine collapse? They stopped to watch it in fascination and seconds later the tunnel just ahead of them collapsed. Was it an angel from God? The distraction saved them from being buried live.
In Chile, 33 miners are still trapped underground. Their families are still waiting patiently. Huddled around a fire on a chilly night, they are now telling the incredible story of how a butterfly was their tiny guardian angel.
In a letter to his brother, miner Jorge Galeguillos says he believes a white butterfly saved his life the day the mine caved.
Mining consultant Miguel Fortt is not given to flights of fancy. He says white butterflies flutter around purple flowers that blossom in the desert early in the morning, but they rarely fly deep into a mineshaft. He says the two miners slowed down to observe the butterfly and that saved them from driving into rockfalls triggered by the first cave-in.
"People who are religious would call this a miracle. From a scientific perspective the butterfly may have flown into the mine on air currents. You can draw your own conclusions but that butterfly saved lives," Fortt says.
Galeguillos' brother, who is also a miner, can't explain how a butterfly flew more than 500 meters deep into the mine. But like most of the miners there, he believes the butterfly was protecting his older brother's life.
Whether or not the white butterfly was an angel or a misguided butterfly who flew 500 feet into the tunnel; its a sign of hope for many people who are praying their loved ones will make it out safely from the collapsed mine. As the miners and the families wait for their rescue, at least they can hold onto this superstition to keep their faith going. This was truly an uplifting story to an otherwise tragic event.
“Here is where we meet every day, here is where we plan, where we pray,” he says. “Here is the meeting room where all of the decisions are made with the involvement of the 33 that are here.”
By Guy Adams at the San José Mine
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
They may not take kindly to being called fortunate, given the fear and discomfort they endured an incarceration that would last almost 70 days, but from the very moment at which they were first trapped underground, the 33 men who have now started to emerge from the San José mine benefited from some crucial strokes of good luck.
The rock fall that first trapped them in struck at around noon on August 5, when the men having lunch in a reinforced rescue shelter roughly 700 metres from the surface. At any other time, during a normal working day, they would have been spread throughout four miles of tunnels, meaning that many of them would have been instantly killed.
When the dust settled, it emerged that the miners had access to roughly a kilometre of what seemed to be stable areas of the San José mine. Crucially, that section contained several vehicles, whose batteries they used to power torches. One of those trucks, which had been driven a former Chilean national footballer called Franklin Lobos, also contained a small supply of bottled drinking water.
Their next piece of good luck involved the type of mine they worked in. Copper mines (in which gold is produced as a by-product) are inherently safer than coal ones, which produce potentially-deadly methane. So although ventilation shafts had been blocked during the accident, the men knew that the only way the remaining oxygen was going to be used up was by them breathing it. In other words, time was on their side.
Thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, the 33 miners had a small quantity of emergency food in the corner of their rescue shelter. They also had leftovers from the lunches they had brought down at the start of their 12 hour shift at the small, privately-owned facility in the Atacama Desert, roughly an hour’s drive from the northern city of Copiapo, where most of them lived.
Realising straightaway that the sheer depth at which they were trapped meant it could be days or even weeks until they were located by rescuers, the men embarked on a rigorous rationing system. They would eat just two teaspoons of canned tuna and a biscuit, every 48 hours. Each of these “meals” was to be washed down with two sips of milk.
It was hot in their underground prison – roughly thirty degrees, according to thermometers – but they were able to avoid serious dehydration by supplementing their bottled water by digging a makeshift canal in the floor. By way of a potential last resort, they also drained the radiators of their machinery.
No-one yet fully understands the mood in the mine, during the ensuing 17 days. A second rock-fall, on August 7, closed off a further hundred yards, presumably adding to the sense of foreboding. There is believed to have been bickering over the rationing system, which some deemed too rigorous. But in subsequent letters, “Los 33” say they’ve since vowed never to publicly discuss any of the tensions that arose.
It seems likely, however, that in the stressful conditions, leaders emerged. One such man was Luis Urzua, a 54-year-old topographer. The eldest son from a large Catholic family, who in childhood had helped bring up his younger siblings when his father died prematurely, he was a natural authority figure, and began taking it upon himself to organise the group.
Playing to the machismo of his colleagues – tough men in a hard-scrabble profession – Urzua is believed to have decided that they had a straightforward choice: perish separately, or work together to defy the odds and give themselves the best possible chance of survival. The key to getting themselves out alive, he believed would be “la solidaridad,” meaning: “solidarity.”
Urzua, whose colleagues called him “Don Lucho,” therefore instigated a system by which none of the 33 men could begin eating their tiny meals until all of them had received food. He organised them into three groups, who would venture out, in shifts, to search for signs of any approaching rescue. If nothing else, adding structure to their existence would help pass the time.
At the surface, meanwhile, a frantic rescue operation was underway. At the behest of Laurence Golborne, Chile’s mining minister, and a President who had pledged to spend anything it took to get the miners out alive, experts from the State firm Codelco had assumed responsibility for the search. Using maps of the sprawling mine, they drilled several exploratory boreholes, sending listening devices into areas where they believed survivors might be alive.
For two weeks, nothing. Then, on August 22nd, came yet another break, this time a crucial one. A probe found its way through a wall just yards from the rescue shelter where the men were based. It returned to the surface with a note attached to the end. “Estamos bien en el refugio los 33,” it read [literally: “all 33 of us are well inside the shelter”]. Those first words had been scrawled in capitals on a scrap of paper by Mario Gomez, the eldest of the miners.
In the first hours after they were discovered, a camera was sent down the borehole. It showed the group peering eagerly out of the darkness, shirtless, unshaven and sweltering, but their eyes blazing with euphoria. Their first request, aside from the obvious supplies of food and water, was for toothbrushes.
The rescue teams, meanwhile, swiftly realised that they had two major problems ahead. The first was practical: how to keep the men supplied with sufficient with medication, clothing, meals and drinks to keep them alive during a painstaking operation they initially believed might not be over until Christmas. The second was harder to fathom: how to ensure the men remained psychologically sound and co-operative during an ordeal that would push any human being’s mental endurance to the limit.
A communication system was swiftly designed by Miguel Fortt, a Chilean national and expert in mining rescue operations. He called it “la Paloma” (“the dove”). It consisted of a three meter-long PVC tube, which measured roughly three inches in diameter and would be lowered via cable to the men, delivering them packages containing whatever could be made to fit inside.
At first, each “dove” took four hours to arrive from the surface, and would contain bare essentials: glucose drinks, together with vitamin and mineral supplements. Later, the system was improved. The PVC was swapped with metal tubes, a further two boreholes were drilled, and journey time improved to twenty minutes. That allowed camp beds, communication equipment and clothing supplies to be sent to make the men’s lives more comfortable.
To maintain morale, the rescue team received advice from NASA, which is used to helping grown men live together in confined spaces for extended periods of time. They encouraged the miners to adopt as many of the trappings of normality as possible, sending down dominoes, books and letters and tape recordings from their families, and widening their diet to include tea, sandwiches, fruit, and later hot meals.
Some aspects of their menus were more rigidly controlled. Beans, a staple of many Latin dishes, were excluded from all dishes for exactly the reason you might think, when grown men share a small confined area. A latrine was established a short walk from the areas where they were largely based, which used running water to wash away urine and faeces.
Organised by Urzua, the men were divided into three groups, Grupo Refugio, Grupo Rampa and Grupo 105 - named after the “shelter,” the “ramp” and “Level 105” which are sections of the mine where they slept. They then established shift patterns, carrying out duties such as unloading new “doves,” cleaning their living area, and clearing debris from three rescue tunnels that were being bored into the mine.
When off duty, they slept, exercised (by running or using rubber exercise bans) and sent video, audio, and written messages to their families, who had been living at the surface since early August. Lights shone from 7.30am until 10pm, mimicking daylight. To keep all the trappings of a normal workplace, Urzua used the bonnet of a mine vehicle as his desk, and sent up maps of the area where they were being held.
Urzua wrote each of the men an official job description. Some became “Paloimistas,” unloading the regular supply of “doves.” Others would patrol the mine to check on the structural integrity of its walls. Jimmy Sanchez, the youngest of the group, was the “environmental assistant,” who monitored conditions underground with a handheld computer that measured oxygen, CO2 levels and air temperature,
Other aspects of daily life soon began to fall in place They would shower each morning under a natural waterfall 300 metres up the tunnel, using supplies of shampoo to clean off the orange-coloured mud that found its way almost everywhere. The more religious men – at least two of them “found God” during their ordeal – would take part in a daily prayer organised by Jose Henriquez. Others would listen to uplifting poems written by Victor Zamora, the group’s in-house poet.
It was, of course, very far from plain sailing. Many developed fungal skin infections, and almost all will now require extensive dental treatment. Medical teams at the surface also repeatedly found themselves clashing with some of the miners, whose natural machismo led them to consider the mandatory daily conversations with psychologists to be un-necessary, and perhaps undignified.
They also took exception to the rescue team’s refusal to send supplies of wine and cigarettes down to them, to prevent depression and keep the atmosphere as unpolluted as possible. They also objected to the decision to censor letters from relatives to the men that were thought to be insufficiently optimistic in tone.
At one point, in mid-September, some of the miners effectively went on strike, refusing to speak to their medical handlers. As a result, the psychologists withdrew TV and music that was being provided via the communication system. When the men agreed to speak with them again, a delivery of cigarettes arrived in a “dove.” This carrot-and-stick approach was described by one medic as: “like an arm-wrestle.”
But by that stage, three drills – Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C – were cutting through the roughly 700 metres of rock to reach the cavern where the men were trapped. By early October, they knew breakthrough was imminent. And on Saturday 9th, the Plan B drill broke through. After two months underground, the final stage of their journey to freedom could at last begin.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera was euphoric in the early hours of Wednesday, minutes after the first of 33 miners reached the surface.
“In this rescue operation we Chileans have shown the best of us,” Mr. Pinera told a press conference at the San Jose copper mine. The miners were trapped August 5 by a shaft collapse in this barren northern Chile desert landscape.
He described the experience as “a wonderful night that Chileans and the whole world will never forget.” “Let the miners’ example stay with us forever,” Mr. Pinera said.
Pinera thanked God and the rescue teams for the success of the operation, stressing it was unprecedented in the history of the world for its magnitude and complexity.
Mr. Pinera noted the “magic number 33,” with reference to the number of miners trapped since August 5 at the San Jose copper mine under the Atacama Desert and to the date of the final rescue, October 13, 2010, which when written in numbers and added up also gives 33.
Chilean president Sebastian Pinera has described the operation to free 33 trapped miners as "without comparison in the history of humanity".
President Pinera and the First Lady have been in the Atacama Desert since the evacuation began to personally greet each man as he emerges from the underground chamber.
Florencio Avalos, the first miner to be rescued from the San Jose mine, received a giant bear-hug from Chile's leader.
Speaking after Mr Avalos was freed from the specially made capsule, Mr Pinera said: "The lesson of the miners remains with us forever."
He added that the group had shown "that when Chile unites in the face of adversity, it can achieve great things".
Mr Pinera has become the champion of the miners during this crisis and the right-wing politician has seen his popularity soar.
In a speech at the San Jose mine ahead of the rescue operation, Mr Pinera praised the "strength and bravery" of the men who have been stuck more than 2,000ft below ground.
"I hope the long journey will end very happily," he said.
Mining minister Laurence Golborne's constant presence at the mine has turned him into a national hero and media star.
He has been on hand to hold press conferences, comfort families and even play the guitar around the campfire in Camp Hope.
His dedication has obviously impressed the public - he has 54,000 followers on Twitter and there is even a Facebook group calling for him to run for president in 2014.
Dios bendiga a Chile!
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With one of the largest nuclear arsenals in Asia and at odds with the Obama Administration over a number of issues it is important we understand the nation of North Korea and the future leader of that powerful nemesis. This compilation of information using Korean and UK sources will help us know the people and leaders certain to be at the center of any foreign policy debates in the near future.
The new heir apparent as leader of North Korea is Kim Jong-un, a son of current leader Kim Jong Il. North Korea went to extremes to allow media access to the celebrations introducing Kim Jong-un including opening the Internet to their mysterious country and inviting western media for the first time.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a series of grand celebration activities in Pyongyang Sunday evening, celebrating the 65th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
Kim Ki Nam, member of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, delivered a speech. "The grand evening gala is a festival of victory and glory in high praises of the immortal feats performed by the WPK," he said.
On the Kim Il Sung Square, there were nearly 100,000 Pyongyang citizens dressed in traditional costumes with flowers in their hands and forming various phalanxes. Fireworks of various shapes and colors burst against the sky.
The evening gala, named "Do Prosper, Era of Workers' Party" was made up of five parts, including "Glory to Mother Party," "Party of Comrade Kim Il Sung," "Country where Leader's Desire Has Come into Full Bloom," "Party is Guide of Victory" and the epilogue "Long Journey following General."
It represented the exploits of the WPK, which has made endeavors in economic construction and improving people's living standards in recent years and is a unique Korean-style gala which reflects the desire and sentiment of the Korean people, the KCNA, the DPRK's official news agency, said.
After the evening gala, a banquet was given by the Central Committee of the WPK at the People's Palace of Culture.
There were also splendid firework galas in Hamhung City, South Hamgyong Province and Kaesong City, North Hwanghae Province.
On Sunday morning, a grand military parade was held on the Kim Il Sung Square. The Korean People's Internal Security Forces, the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards took part in the parade. Kim Jong Il, accompanied by Kim Jong Un and other leaders of the DPRK's party and government, watched the parade.
After the parade, there was a military might show which showcased the DPRK's achievements in socialist construction and the DPRK people's love of the motherland, aspiration for reunification and hope for peace.
Until now, Kim Jong-un has been such a secretive figure that the world was not even sure of his existence until he was 20 years-old. The only mention of the younger Kim came in a biography by a Japanese sushi chef who had worked for the Kim household in Pyongyang.
The only other glimpse of the 28-year-old, who was promoted this week to a variety of key positions in the North Korean hierarchy, is a grainy video shot while he was a teenager at boarding school in Switzerland.
Although Kim Jong-il, 68, remains North Korea's leader, he has promoted his third son to be vice-chairman of the Central Military Committee and to be a four-star general. The move places the younger Kim squarely in position to succeed his father.
Leader Kim Jong-il likely to use Workers' party assembly to signal he is choosing youngest son Kim Jong-un as successor.
Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 21 September 2010 18.34 BST
His grandfather is known as the Great Leader, his father as the Dear Leader. It seems only fair to confer a similar accolade on North Korea's dictator-in-waiting: the Phantom Leader, perhaps.
As the party that has ruled the secretive state for more than six decades prepares to anoint Kim Jong-un as its next leader at a rare gathering of cadres in the capital, Pyongyang, the world is still some way off establishing the facts about communism's crown prince.
So little is known about Kim Jong-un, the third and youngest son of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, that even the characters used to write his name and his date of birth are disputed. Aged 27 or 28, he was born to his father's "favourite consort," Ko Young-hee, a Japanese-born dancer who emigrated with her father in the 1960s. Shortly before her reported death from breast cancer in 2004, the state media began referring to her as the Respected Mother, confirming the theory that she is the closest the country has ever come to a first lady.
Like his elder brother, Kim Jong-chol, he received an expensive education under an assumed name in Switzerland. While his brother attended the International School of Berne, Kim Jong-un is thought to have gone to a school in nearby Liebefeld from 1996 to 2000. After rumours of the younger Kim's anointment began circulating last year, Ueli Studer, the town's director of education, would only confirm that a "North Korean youth" had been on the school's rolls. The pupil had been a speaker of English, German and French, Studer said, as well as "integrated, industrious and ambitious".
Kim Jong-un's expected appearance at the Korean Workers' party assembly next week, reportedly delayed because of concerns over Kim Jong-il's health, will offer the world the first verifiable images of the younger man. The main photograph in the public domain shows a cherubic, smiling 11-year-old with a predisposition for his father's chubbiness.
Now, he is the subject of a propaganda offensive aimed at securing him a place in the affections of the country's citizens amid signs that last year's disastrous currency revaluation and tough international sanctions are fuelling popular discontent with the regime.
The Daily NK, an anti-Kim online newspaper in Seoul, published an internal propaganda document praising Jong-un for his skill at organising a fireworks display and his expert handling of military vehicles. "He is a genius of geniuses," the document said. "He has been endowed by nature with special abilities. There is nobody on the planet who can defeat him in terms of faith, will and courage."
His induction into the personality cult surrounding North Korean's ruling dynasty has also been marked by the composition of poems and a song, Footsteps, extolling his virtues as a leader. His name is routinely prefixed by the titles Young General or Our Commander.
The authorities will distribute 10m portraits to be hung next to those of his father and grandfather in every home, factory and office once his succession is official. Every one of North Korea's 24 million people will be expected to wear a lapel badge bearing his likeness.
But what of his personality? The more generous accounts tell of a charismatic figure who honed his natural leadership skills during his five years at Kim Il-sung Military University in Pyongyang. Others say Kim Jong-un, who holds a mid-level position in the National Defence Commission, has inherited his father's mercilessness. "He is more engaging with other people, but then others say he can be cruel," says Ha Tae-keung, president of Open Radio for North Korea in Seoul. "He has already purged people in the defence commission he regards as opponents."
Kenji Fujimoto, Kim Jong-il's former Japanese sushi chef, confirms the image of the younger Kim as a chip off the old block, describing him as the "spitting image of his father in terms of face, body shape and personality".
In his bestselling 2003 account of his 11 years chez Kim, Fujimoto – the name is a nom de plume – recalled meeting a seven-year-old Kim Jong-un, who was dressed in a military uniform: "He glared at me with a menacing look when we shook hands. I can never forget the look in his eyes, which seemed to be saying, 'This is one despicable Japanese guy.'"
The older Kim Jong-un reportedly shares his father's interest in movies – the martial arts expert Jean-Claude van Damme is a favourite actor – can hold his drink and drives around the family's estate in a converted Mercedes.
The son is a keen basketball fan, says Fujimoto, who allowed his ideological mask to slip with his admiration for Michael Jordan, the US player.
Kim Jong-il thought Kim Jong-chul "too girlish" to become leader, while the eldest brother, Kim Jong-nam, ruled himself out when, much to his father's embarrassment, he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, claiming he wanted to visit Disneyland in Tokyo.
The gap between Kim Jong-un's anointing and enthronement could be much shorter than the 14 years Kim Jong-il spent preparing for power, a wait that ended abruptly with the death of his father, North Korea's founder and "eternal president", Kim Il-sung, from a heart attack in 1994.
Given the state of Kim Jong-il's health, some observers believe the transition may be completed as early as 2012, the centenary of Jong-il's father's birth, and a year the official media are referring to as a defining moment in the country's history. "Kim Jong-il doesn't look like he'll be around 10 years from now," says Bradley Martin, author of a seminal book on the Kim dynasty, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader. "Some reports say that he feels pretty low and has a reason to name his successor."The two-day party congress has twice been postponed this month, adding to speculation that Kim Jong-il, who suffered a stroke two years ago, is too weak to attend.
Next week, Kim Jong-un's rise to the upper echelons of the Workers' party is unlikely to be met with universal approval. "It is hard to know what the other party elites have in mind," says Ha, who says he has sources inside the North Korean military and ruling party. Recent reports speculated that disquiet among political and military elites over Kim's choice of successor was the real reason behind the meeting's delay.
"Officially they have to support Jong-un, or they risk being executed," says Ha. "But some are worried, particularly older members who have been loyal to Kim Jong-il, and wonder how his son will treat them."
Confirmation that North Korea has begun the transition to a third member of the Kim dynasty will come with Kim Jong-un's expected elevation to senior posts in the Workers' party, including that of secretary of the feared organisation and guidance department, which monitors senior officials. "If he gets that position he will be at the party's centre and able to pick and choose his minions," says Martin.
Under Kim Jong-un, many analysts expect a continuation of the current military-first policy and, despite the country's frequent dalliances with economic meltdown and pressure for reform from China, absolute adherence to central planning.
As he confronts his own mortality and surveys the impoverished, isolated state he has ruled for 16 years, Kim Jong-il's apparent choice of heir sits easily with the gross egotism of a man who is desperate to ensure it lives on in his image, whatever the economic, social and diplomatic costs.
"Kim Jong-il chose Jong-un because he reminds him most of himself," says Martin. "Some people have high hopes for change because he was educated abroad, but so were Arab oil sheikhs, and it didn't turn them into liberal democrats. He was chosen because to be a good dictator, you have to be a mean son of a bitch."
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Like many Americans I lived through the Watergate era and it was a sad time in our nation's political history when a paranoid president and his team was so obsessed with foreign money being given to the Democratic party to oppose the incumbent president that evil possessed the president and they went on to violate law after law before the straw dog collapsed as do most straw dogs and the president and his palace guard were disgraced and thrown from the highest office in the land.
It was 38 years ago when the political paranoia overwhelmed the White House and the Watergate was the outcome. There was the paranoid Republican president, Nixon, his top defender Haldeman, and his political operative Erlichman. The target was the foreign money pouring into the Democratic party to beat Nixon through Democratic operative Lawrence O'Brien.
Today we have a complete role reversal as Obama (Nixon) is raising the charges of foreign money pouring into the Republican coffers to defeat him, while Biden (Haldeman) is running around the country screaming foul about the foreign money for his boss, Axelrod (Erlichman) goes on national TV to denounce the foreign money and all three targeted GOP operative Carl Rove (O'Brien) as the villain.
Just like Watergate 38 years ago, the charges of foreign money influencing the election in 2010, this time by the Republicans unlike Watergate when the Democrats got the money, are baseless, senseless political drama and those feeding lies into the national debate deserve the same fate as the perpetrators of the Watergate.
Democrats should be just as disgusted as the Republicans and Independents by the insane charges and mudslinging by the highest office holders in the land and Obama, Biden and Axelrod should be shamed that they have resorted to Watergate tactics in a selfish and arrogant attempt to con the American voter and public opinion.
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For several years we have warned of the lure of money in Hollywood on our young teen stars and the seduction of sexuality that can entrap them. Previously we have written about the dangers to young stars like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.
Taylor Swift has seemed to manage to control the seduction of Hollywood money to her credit but Miley Cyrus, now just 17, seems to have embraced the seduction in an effort to shock her young fan base and try to compete with the older bad girls who trade off sexuality more than talent.
Here is what Chris Willman wrote about the new Miley packaging for her current album.
Miley's New Video: Parents' Council Would Like To Tame It
Posted Mon Oct 11, 2010 9:11am PDT by Chris Willman in Stop The Presses!
Has Miley Cyrus finally gone so far with her increasingly sensual image that she's been condemned by her own father?
Well, no, not exactly. But her racy new music video, "Who Owns My Heart?," has been slammed by the Parents Television Council. Funnily enough, when you check the list of folks sitting on the advisory board for this conservative watchdog group, the biggest-name celebrity listed there is—you guessed it—none other than Billy Ray Cyrus!
Apparently, Papa Cyrus was not advising the Parents Television Council when they released a statement saying: "It is unfortunate that she would participate in such a sexualized video like this one. It sends messages to her fan base that are diametrically opposed to everything she has done up to this point. Miley built her fame and fortune entirely on the backs of young girls, and it saddens us that she seems so eager to distance herself from that fan base so rapidly."
But by "us," the Parents Council apparently doesn't mean that board member Billy Ray is saddened, too. Or is he, secretly? Even if you don't have any problem with Miley getting so sexy at 17, there's evidence that it's hurting her just on a career level.
Rarely has a song gotten so much media attention and yet been as commercially unsuccessful as Cyrus' "Can't Be Tamed," the title track of her latest album. Even after a series of controversial performances of the song on various TV shows and awards programs, the single quickly flamed out, debuting at No. 8 but disappearing from the Billboard Hot 100 chart altogether after a mere 10 weeks. (By comparison, her 2009 smash "Party in the USA" spent 28 weeks in the top 10.) The Can't Be Tamed album is also absent from Billboard's list of the current 200 bestselling albums, just four months after it came out. It's sold 260,000 copies to date, anemic by the standards of the previous three Cyrus releases.
Given the performance at radio and retail of the current album and previous single, you might have expected the 17-year-old singer to retreat to safer territory for the new video. But maybe you didn't get the message last time around: Miley can't be tamed... not even by failure!
And so "Who Owns My Heart?" pushes the same buttons as the last video. She writhes around on a bed without pants on (though there are only quick flashes of what appears to be black underwear). She gyrates freely and suggestively with both men and women on the dance floor at what no one would mistake for a high school sockhop.
Whether this is envelope-pushing or not depends on your frame of reference. Compared to most other dance-pop videos, it's standard fare, if not downright tame. Compared to the videos being put out by other underage girls and/or stars who still have sitcoms running on the Disney Channel, it's provocative.
The fact that Hannah Montana's fourth and last season is still on the air complicates things—or should, to some people's minds. Although taping for the show wrapped up in May, the season is being stretched out long enough by the Disney Channel that its status as a first-run show won't end till next March's two-part season finale.
With her 18th birthday approaching next month and her status as a tween TV idol months away from officially ending, Cyrus seems to feel that there's no time to waste in attracting a demo of fans that are her age or older. Bit throwing one solidified fan base over for a less certain new one is always a calculated risk at best. And Cyrus may have jettisoned her young-girl support before she had a substitute audience of older teens and adults locked in.
It's easy to see how Cyrus and her team may have thought she'd already graduated to the next level of demographics. Initially, she had a hard time crossing over from Radio Disney to Top 40 because programmers saw her appeal as skewing too young. But "See You Again" was just too undeniable a song not to play, as was "Party in the USA." Then came "Can't Be Tamed," and as a single, it was...deniable. Radio Disney couldn't touch it, and Top 40 didn't care. Her move away from guilty-pleasure rock & roll bubblegum to dance-pop suddenly made her a competitor to Lady Gaga and a hundred other hitmakers, and though it worked with Dr. Luke helping her out on "USA," it didn't with the duller songs on the new album.
And it may have been the very raciness of her new image that sunk her with Top 40 radio. All the outcry about her alleged sexualization at 17 just reminded radio programmers of what a chance they'd taken with their older listeners by throwing her in with more mature artists in the first place.
Of course, her history of controversy for supposed suggestiveness goes back two and a half years now. Hard to believe, isn't it, that it was April 2008 when news broke about Cyrus, then 15, posing in bedsheets for Vanity Fair? In 2009, she danced around a pole at the Teen Choice Awards in a fashion that made her not every parent's choice. Also that summer, she broke up with model Justin Gaston, when she was 16 and he was 20, to take up with her somewhat more age-suitable Last Song costar, Liam Hemsworth, who is only two and a half years her senior. Hackles were further raised when a secretly recorded video of the 16-year-old performing a risque dance for a 44-year-old producer at the Last Song wrap party was leaked. "It's what people her age do," explained Billy Ray Cyrus.
This year brought her wearing a corset in the "Can't Be Tamed" video in May, followed by Cyrus simulating kissing a female dancer while performing the single on Britain's Got Talent in June. In July, the New York Times published a story headlined "Fans of Miley Cyrus Question Her New Path," which theorized that it was not prude moms who were rejecting the saucy new image but Miley's own tween fans.
There are still some scolds among the older set, to be sure. Hollywood Life, the site run by former tabloid queen Bonnie Fuller, recently ran a story allegedly quoting a "Cyrus family insider" as saying, "We're concerned for her. She's 17 years old, but is the one who makes the money and calls all the shots in the family. No one tells Miley no." Fuller wrote a separate editorial noting how Cyrus has been seen partying into the wee hours in clubs she can't legally enter, and addressed Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus directly: "Your daughter may be a big star but she's still your little girl and that means you need to be her parents."
So far, Cyrus' image change has been a bust, at least when it comes to affecting her music career. Of course, she's only one smash single away from having a chart comeback and having her accelerated maturation perceived as a brilliant career move. The problem is, the smash single that will turn it back around for her probably isn't "Who Owns My Heart," and probably isn't anywhere else on the Can't Be Tamed album.
So her next chance to prove that this sexy-mama thing is working out for her in terms of numbers and not just blogging controversy is the movie LOL: Laughing Out Loud, in which Cyrus' character engages in some very un-Disney-like behavior. That recently wrapped film won't come out till after Hannah Montana has finally concluded its run. But we have a feeling the Parents Television Council will have something to say about it.
Meanwhile, any bets on how many days or hours it'll take until Billy Ray's photo disappears from the advisory board page on the PTC website? Surely, having an organization that he supposedly helps lead condemn his little girl—and, by implication, his parenting skills—is breaking his achy breaky heart.
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SAVIORS OF THE 20TH CENTURY - HITLER & STALIN
The war of annihilation between the Nazis and Communists
ISBN 0964599317
LCCN 2004095812
Available worldwide through Amazon Kindle books
http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-20th-Century-Hitler-ebook/dp/B0040ZNU76/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1285077808&sr=1-1
Poland - Armageddon of WW II
Poland, the Armageddon of World War II, the proverbial scene of the decisive battle between good and evil. In the history of civilization it is doubtful any country faced the dire conditions and the deadly consequences faced by Poland from 1939-1945.
Sandwiched between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, it was the only nation to be partitioned without a vote between the Nazi and Communist Empires as a result of the 1939 non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin. Poland was a geographic buffer between these two menacing monsters, a buffer that vanished off the face of the earth during the month of September 1939.
Both Hitler and Stalin had reasons to hate the Poles. Fact is both felt justified in ravaging the nation for their own purposes. After World War I Poland humiliated the Germans as a result of the severe conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Over one and one half million Germans were forced to abandon their homes to Poles because of the treaty.
In 1939 Poland was the fastest growing industrial nation in Europe and was much needed to support the German war machine. Both Hitler and Himmler had rejected their Catholic upbringing and there were more Catholics in Poland than any other country, making it a convenient target for religious persecution. It was also the gateway for the inevitable invasion of the Soviet Union and of vital strategic importance.
More ominously, it was the home to nearly three million Jews before the war. Ever since Catherine II established the Pale for Jews they had moved into Poland and had recently represented nearly eight percent of the population, the most of any nation in Europe.
Earlier in the 20th century, before World War I, there were over thirty million Poles, but four million were killed in World War I, thirty-four times the American loss in the war. Almost all the fighting of that World War took place on Polish soil. Yet deaths were not the only suffering by the Poles. Devastation was astounding as over 1.7 million buildings were destroyed, 6,969 churches, and 40% of all railway bridges and stations during the First World War.
The Soviets also had reason to dislike Poland. When the Communists swept to power in Russia and successfully won the Russian Civil War, the Soviet leaders decided to continue rolling right over Europe with their revolution. The mighty Red Army attacked the Poles in August of 1920 driving to the very gates of Warsaw.
A miracle of sorts happened when the embattled Poles fought back valiantly August 15 in the Battle of Warsaw outmaneuvering the stunned and vastly superior Red Army and routing them on August 18, thus saving Europe from Soviet conquest. It was a setback that reverberated throughout the Kremlin and caused the Communists to slow down the worldwide revolution they advocated. In time it came to be known as the day of the Polish Miracle.
Yet there was more, for though the Soviets were a new nation dominated by Jewish-Bolshevik leaders and committed to stopping anti-Semitic actions, they were also committed to driving the opposition Jewish groups from influence, adversaries such as the Jewish Zionist and Bund nationalist parties.
Because of its proximity Poland had become a haven for Jewish outcasts from the Soviet Union after the revolution and civil war - those on the wrong side of Judaism who became enemies of the Bolshevik State. It also was a safe haven for all those fleeing Communist persecution throughout the Soviet Empire. To the Soviets, Poland was a nation harboring many dangerous fugitives and traitors.
Poland also was a hotbed of another faction of Jewish revolutionaries who were committed to the Communist Marxist revolution and the Soviet Bolshevik leadership. Thus some Polish Jews were enemies of the Soviets and many more were allies. Ironically Jewish participation in the Marxist revolution in Poland earlier caused the Poles and Ukrainians to distrust them as well. Active Jewish involvement in the revolutions that swept Europe after World War I would come back to haunt them.
Beyond the desire of the Soviets to save some Jews from Nazis and punish some for opposing the Bolsheviks, the Soviets were also in desperate need of access to the Baltic Sea north of Poland. A treaty with Hitler gave Stalin freedom to overrun the Baltic States and gain that ocean access.
By 1921 the Polish population dropped to twenty-seven million, then grew to thirty-two million by 1931, the last official census before World War II. It was a diverse population as Ukrainians and Belorussians were the majority, Poles made up one third of the population, and Jews were about eight percent.
Germany and the Soviets announced to a stunned world the signing of the non-aggression pact at the end of August 1939 and on September 1 the Nazi invasion of Poland from the west was launched. It was to be a coordinated attack with the Red Army attacking from the east.
Over 1,800,000 German soldiers poured across the border with 2,600 tanks and over 2,000 aircraft supporting the invasion. Typical of the new German strategy designed by Hitler personally, it was to be a rapid and deadly strike. The Poles, like the rest of the world, were caught unprepared and less than a third of the Polish military was able to mobilize against the Nazi invasion.
Stalin, to the chagrin of Hitler, did not attack immediately as promised but waited to see what kind of resistance the Germans would encounter. He was also wary of the reaction of England and America to the invasion, as he needed Churchill and Roosevelt to be allies if he were to have any hope of defeating Hitler and Germany.
By waiting until the Germans destroyed the Polish army, he could proclaim the Soviets were invading Poland to protect the Ukrainian and Belorussian populations living in Poland from the Nazis, a tactic that infuriated Hitler when he learned of it.
The Soviet war machine finally did roll across the eastern border of Poland September 17 as Hitler's forces had secured the German half of the country and were rapidly moving into the Soviet territory. For a time it appeared as if the former bitter enemies and now allies might start fighting each other as they laid claim to the Polish nation.
One of the most intriguing comments of the dilemma faced by the Poles came from their decorated General Wladyslaw Anders, Polish Commander, speaking to General George Patton later in the war. Anders said:
"With the Nazis, we lose our lives; with the Soviets, we lose our souls… If I found my army between the Nazis and the Soviets, I would attack in both directions."
By October 5 Poland could hold out no longer against the onslaught from the Nazis and Red Army, and finally surrendered. Poland ceased to exist. Still in just a few weeks of fighting the Poles inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armored cars, while thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were able to escape to France and Britain.
The defeat in battle was just the beginning of the Polish suffering. In the 20 years following World War I Poland had rebuilt her industry and railroads. She now had over 5,500 railroad locomotives, 11,350 passenger cars, and 164,000 freight cars. Over 1,250 miles of new railroad track had been laid and Polish highways had been expanded by over 30%.
All of these resources were needed by the Nazis in their ambitious plans to reunite the German Empire. A vast network of nearly 200 concentration camps were soon developed throughout Poland and the surrounding area first for the purpose of providing labor, and later as the sites of the Nazi death camps. The need for industrial output was the priority and over two million Poles were among five million prisoners sent into forced labor.
When the occupation was completed Germany controlled about 13 million Poles including 2.1 million Jews, and the Soviets controlled about 13 million Poles including about 1.2 million Jews. Over 600,000 people fled from the German to Soviet sector including over 350,000 Jews during the next year. Of the total population in Soviet occupied areas about one tenth were Jewish, one third were Poles, and the majority were Ukraine and Belorussian.
Germany immediately threw 1.2 million Poles from their ancestral homes for resettlement in ghettos to make room for Germans who lost their homes after World War I. The Soviets and Polish were bitter enemies and the Soviets captured 230,000 Polish soldiers including 25,000 Jewish soldiers. Millions of Poles died in the hands of the Germans and Soviets.
Before the Nazis were driven out of Poland nearly 2.5 million Poles were murdered in camps and another 500,000 were starved to death. Millions more died during forced labor, resettlement and deportation.
As for Poles living in the Soviet lands, 1.6 million Poles were deported to the gulags and prisons of Russia including over 130,000 Jews sent from the Soviet occupied area of Poland to Siberia as "enemies of the state." Ironically this deportation probably saved them from the Nazi holocaust. In addition to the Polish citizens imprisoned or forced into labor camps the Soviets murdered many thousands of Polish military.
Soviet treatment of the Poles changed only when Hitler violated the non-aggression treaty and attacked the Soviet Union using Poland as the launch point in June of 1941. This action caused some positive events to take place in the midst of the carnage.
On August 12, 1941, with the German army advancing on Moscow, the Supreme Soviet granted amnesty to all Polish citizens and released all Polish prisoners from gulags and prisons in order to help in the fight against Nazi Germany. The millions of Poles sent to Soviet prisons were now free, unlike the fate of most Russian citizens sent to the deadly Soviet gulag prison system.
A total of nearly six million Poles died (civilian and military) during the war, ranking Poland third behind the Soviet Union and Germany for the most deaths in the European sector of World War II. This represented nearly 22% of the entire Polish population before the war.
When the dust finally settled on the deadliest conflict in history over fifteen million people had died in Polish concentration camps. Most were Soviet and Communist prisoners captured when the Germans overran the Soviet occupied Poland, the Ukraine and western Soviet territory extending all the way to Moscow. Tens of millions of Soviet military and civilians, Communists and Communist sympathizers were exterminated. Poland once again lay in ruins and it was to remain a Soviet state for the next half century.
As destiny would have it, Poland made history in quite another way. On the very same day as the Polish Miracle, May 18, 1920, when the Poles stopped the mighty Soviet Red Army and captured Kiev, in Poland a baby boy named Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born.
This young boy grew up and helped organize a secret theater group during the Nazi occupation. By 1944 he became a Catholic priest in a secret order in Poland. Soon the equally murderous Communists under Stalin drove out the murderous Nazi regime.
The priest became a Cardinal, and then the Cardinal became the first Polish Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II. In time he would use his influence as Pope to help the Solidarity movement in Poland oppose the Communist rule, and would help lead the Polish people out from under the shackles of Communism into a new life of freedom.
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Never thought I would write such a headline and especially when I was one of the millions of Americans who hoped our first African American president would be successful. Like most Americans, I knew our political system was broken two years ago.
When Obama got elected I waited patiently while he learned firsthand the difficulty of being president and commander in chief. More than anything else I wanted him to start the healing process of the nation like he promised, and focus on the immediate national problems we faced like jobs, the economy, the deficit and unemployment.
I'm still waiting. Obama has proven to be more like an old style politician than any shining light for the future. Along the way he has not only forsaken healing the country but has actually increased the political polarization and class warfare undermining our political system.
On the campaign trail this fall he acts like an embittered candidate for office rather than the incumbent. His strategy of blaming Bush and Republicans for all his woes defies logic and reflects ignorance of the facts. At times he acts like a spoiled Ivy League kid whose integrity has been questioned.
In response he attacks with less logic and more bitterness making idiotic claims with no substantiation designed to divert attention from his dismal performance and lack of leadership. At what point, I wonder, did Obama lose sight of the fact he is the president of all the people. Since when were our presidents above criticism, especially when there are so many things to criticize.
The lies and attacks he and his gang spout on the campaign trail are unbecoming the leader of the western world and are making a mockery of the prestige of the office of president. Even he liberal media are tiring of his whining as the New York Times said there is no proof or evidence that foreign money is being funneled into the midterm campaigns of the dastardly Republicans as Obama and Axelrod, his resident hit man, have claimed.
You would think after all the finishing schools he completed he would have learned how to take criticism, how to take responsibility for his actions, and how to act like a man and president rather than a spoiled brat. Mr. President, stop campaigning. It is becoming an embarrassment to you and the nation. Our leaders have always risen above partisan politics, isn't it about time you start acting like a leader and lead instead of tearing us apart. Give us a president we can be proud to call our own.
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