Powered by Max Banner Ads
Army Says New Recruits at Record Low
The Army began its recruiting year Oct. 1 with fewer signed up for basic training than in any year since it became an all-volunteer service in 1973.
Gen. William S. Wallace, whose duties as commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command include management of recruiting, told reporters at the Pentagon that the historic dip will make it harder to achieve the full-year recruiting goal—after just barely reaching it in the year ended Sept. 30.
Achieving the Army’s recruiting goals is a challenge even in the best of times, but finding new recruits is more important than ever with the Army being so heavily deployed.
The Army has decided that it must grow its active-duty force by several thousand soldiers a year in order to relieve strain on war-weary troops.
With a mixture of financial and other incentives, Gen. Wallace feels confident that he will meet the recruiting goal of 80,000 troops.
The Army is currently offering an incentive they call the “Quick Ship Bonus.” This offers a new recruit an additional $20,000 bonus if he/she agrees to leave for basic training the same month as they sign-up.
British Military Tests New “Invisible Tank”
New technology that can make tanks invisible has been unveiled by the Ministry of Defense.
In secret trials last week, the Army said it had made a vehicle completely disappear and predicted that an invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012.
The new technology uses cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank.
How the technology works in a combat situation is very sensitive, but the MoD is believed to be testing a military jacket that works on the same principles.
Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Racist Rant Caught on Tape
Dog Chapman has been captured spewing racist slurs on a tape originally obtained by The National Enquirer.
The star of the A&E reality show Dog, The Bounty Hunter directed his racist hatred at his son Tucker’s girlfriend Monique Shinnery, who is black. Dog’s tirade is littered with profanity and the N-Word.
Now civil rights leaders are calling for A&E to remove his show from the airwaves. In my opinion this is about 10 million times worse than what Don Imus lost his radio program for.
It’s a real disappointment to hear Dog talking like that. I would never have imagined him to be like that, but it proves once again that TV is just an illusion.
UPDATE: A&E has officially suspended the television program Dog The Bounty Hunter while this incident is under investigation.
Clinton Coins New Phrase: “Politics of Pile-on”
Senator Hillary Clinton is firing back after she was made the punching bag at last night’s debate. I’m no Hillary fan, but I think the moderators of the debate came in with an agenda.
Tim Russert is an Obama fan and he was clearly trying to give him every advantage he could. It was the most biased debate I have ever seen.
In a cleverly edited debate video and in a campaign statement, the Clinton camp is decrying the criticism leveled against her Tuesday night as the “politics of pile-on.”
In the statement, the campaign also pointedly takes on Obama and Edwards.
“With each attack, Senators Obama and Edwards undermined the central premises of their candidacies,” the statement said. “The sunny speeches and rosy rhetoric that once characterized their remarks has now been replaced by the kinds of jabs one typically sees from candidates desperate to gain traction in the polls.”
-Chris Jones
School Forces Teachers and Students to dress like Muslims for a day
A school stands accused of making teachers and students wear Islamic attire for a day – to celebrate a Muslim festival.
Kids at a 257-student primary school in Britain have also been told to don ethnic garb even though most are Christians. The morning assembly was open to all parents – but dads were barred from a women-only party in the afternoon because Muslim husbands object to wives mixing with other men.
Their are 41 staff members of which only 2 are actually Muslim. A relative of one staff member said the faculty is more or less forced to go along with the festival, or risk being branded a racist.
“Who would put their job on the line? They have been told they have to embrace the day to show their diversity. But they are not all happy.”
School officials claim the purpose of the Muslim festival is to belatedly celebrate the end of Ramadan, and to promote multi-culturalism as part of a “diversity project.”
Teen Charged in Craigslist Killing
A 19-year-old man suspected of killing a woman who answered an online ad for a baby sitter has been charged with second-degree murder.
Michael John Anderson is accused of shooting Katherine Ann Olson in the back at his home in suburban Savage, according to the criminal complaint filed in Scott County District Court.
Authorities said her blood was found in Anderson’s home and a gun was found in his bedroom. A neighbor saw Olson’s car sitting in front of Anderson’s house for more than two hours on Thursday.
The 24-year-old Minneapolis woman was found Friday night in the trunk of her car, which was abandoned in a park about five blocks from Anderson’s home. Olson’s purse and a bag containing bloody towels, one of which bore Anderson’s name, were found in trash nearby.
Boy With Matches Started Wildfire
Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.
The boy, whose name and age were not released, admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.
The fire began in an area near Agua Dulce and quickly spread. It was among 15 or so major wildfires that killed 14 people, destroyed some 2,100 homes and blackened 809 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border last week.
Naomi Campbell Meets With Hugo Chavez
British supermodel Naomi Campbell met privately with President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday, becoming the latest in a series of celebrities hosted by the Venezuelan leader.
Last month, Chavez met in Caracas with American actor Kevin Spacey, who praised the Venezuelan government’s efforts to support film-making. The Venezuelan President also has hosted recent visits by Hollywood stars including Sean Penn and Danny Glover.
It’s clear to me now that every good citizen has a responsibility to meet with Hugo Chavez at some point. Muslims go on their Hajj to Mecca, while the rest of us meet with Hugo Chavez.
I suspect this is probably one person that Ms. Campbell will not throw her cell phone at.
-Chris Jones
Quotes From the Democratic Debate
Here are a few quotes from the Democratic Presidential Debate.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
_On Republican attacks: “In a perverse way, I think that the Republicans and their constant obsession with me demonstrate clearly that they obviously think that I am communicating effectively about what I will do as president. I am trying to do that because it matters greatly. We’ve got to turn the page on George Bush and Dick Cheney. In fact, we have to throw the whole book away. This has been a disastrous period in American history, and we hope it will be an aberration.”
_On Iran: “I believe we should be engaged in diplomacy right now with the Iranians. Everything should be on the table, not just their nuclear program. I’ve been advocating this for several years. I believe it strongly. But I also think when you go to the table to negotiate with an adversarial regime, you need both carrots and sticks. The Revolutionary Guard is deeply involved in the commercial activities of Iran. Having those economic sanctions hanging over their heads gives our negotiators one of the set of sticks that we need to try to make progress in dealing with a very complicated situation.”
CHRIS DODD
_On the passage of a resolution designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group: “I believe that this issue is going to come back to haunt us. We all learned … back in 2002, that by voting for an authorization regarding Iraq, that despite the language of that resolution which called for diplomacy at the time, this administration used that resolution, obviously, to pursue a very aggressive action in Iraq. … What you didn’t learn back in ‘02, you should’ve learned by now.”
_On his support for decriminalizing marijuana: “We’re locking up too many people in our system here today. We’ve got mandatory minimum sentences, they are filling our jails with people that don’t belong there. My idea is to decriminalize this, reduce that problem here. We’ve gone from 800,000 to 2 million people in our penal institutions in this country. We’ve got to get a lot smarter about this issue than we are. And as president, I’d try and achieve that.”
JOHN EDWARDS
_On energy independence: “We need to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war. And I want to be the president who says to America, we’re in this together. We’re going to have to be willing to sacrifice. If we love this country enough, we’re going to have to conserve, in our homes, in our workplaces, and alter our behavior to make America what it’s capable of being.”
_On Hillary Rodham Clinton: “I think, that voters have to ask themselves is: Do you believe that the candidate who’s raised the most money from Washington lobbyists, Democrat or Republican, the candidate who’s raised the most money from the health industry, drug companies, health insurance companies, the candidate who’s raised the most money from the defense industry, Republican or Democrat—and the answer to all of those questions is: That’s Senator Clinton. Will she be the person who brings about the change in this country? You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I really don’t.”
DENNIS KUCINICH
_”It is time that the United States government enforced and participated in fully the Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We must lead the way, and we must have a president who understands the danger of these nuclear weapons and have America lead the way among all nations towards nuclear abolition. When we do that, we will have the credibility to go to an Iran and any other nation that may have desires for nuclear power to say, Look, we want to take it in another direction.”
_”If we cut the Pentagon budget 15 percent, $75 billion will go into a universal pre-kindergarten program so our children ages 3, 4 and 5 will have access to full-time day care and more money would go into elementary and secondary education.”
BARACK OBAMA
_”There is no doubt that my background is not typical of a presidential candidate. I think everybody understands that. But that’s part of what is so powerful about America, is that it gives all of us the opportunity—a woman, a Latino, myself—the opportunity to run. … As we travel all across the country, we have received enormous support, in states where, frankly, there aren’t a lot of African- Americans, and there aren’t a lot of Obamas.”
_”Part of the reason that Republicans, I think, are obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that’s a fight they’re very comfortable having. It is the fight that we’ve been through since the ’90s. And part of the job of the next president is to break the gridlock and to get Democrats and independents and Republicans to start working together to solve these big problems like health care or climate change or energy. And what we don’t need is another eight years of bickering.”
Mukasey Refuses To Call Waterboarding Torture, Liberals Cry
In an effort to quell growing doubts in the Senate about his nomination as attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey declared Tuesday that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques “seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me” and promised to review the legality of such methods if confirmed.
But Mr. Mukasey told Senate Democrats he could not say whether waterboarding, which simulates drowning, was illegal torture because he had not been briefed on the details of the classified technique and did not want to suggest that Central Intelligence Agency officers who had used such techniques might be in “personal legal jeopardy.”
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said he was unsatisfied with Mukasey’s response to the waterboarding issue.
“I remain very concerned that Judge Mukasey finds himself unable to state unequivocally that waterboarding is illegal and below the standards and values of the United States,” Leahy said.
Of course the far left blogosphere has been raging about Mukeasey’s refusal to call waterboarding torture. I think it says a lot that the biggest priority for Democrats in the War on Terror is making sure terrorists don’t get scared.
The thought of a terrorist in some CIA prison scared that he could drown unless he tells what he knows is causing Democrats to break into cold sweats in the middle of the night.
They always argue that we have to reclaim our moral authority in the world. We can’t waterboard people, because other countries might think bad things about us. When did the Democrats all of the sudden become the beacon of morality?
This is the party that supports taking god out of everything and federally funded abortion anytime, and now they’re suddenly the morality police?
What this really shows is that the long running perception that Democrats are weak on National Security is in fact valid. Their biggest concern is not getting information out of the terrorist, but making sure we’re not too mean. They don’t want terrorists to be deprived of sleep or get too hot or cold.
-Chris Jones
Ann Coulter: Chris Mathews Example of Media’s “It Girl” Mentality
You can accuse Ann Coulter of many things, but being at a loss for words is not one of them. So when Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters asked her what she thought of Chris Mathews, not surprisingly she had an opinion.
“Chris Matthews is the perfect example of the media’s ‘it girl’ mentality. He’s been on TV forever and been shoved into America’s face for years and what does he have like 26 or 27 viewers?
It gets better…
“The media is always trying to pawn these ‘it girls’ of the moment off on us, I mean look at Ashleigh Banfield who was talked about as if she were the Second Coming. But no one watched. I have no idea where she is today. The same thing applies to Matthews.”
Democrats Debate Tonight Live on MSNBC
Seven Democratic presidential candidates are scheduled to participate in a two-hour debate starting at 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0100 GMT Wednesday) and telecast on MSNBC and streamed live on msnbc.com.
Posts
