Sunday, June 30, 2013

We are losing our liberties.

Our nation has become perverse in political rhetoric that threatens our very lives. Intolerance is very apparent. 

The USA has some of the most wonderful young minds in the world and yet we don't appreciate their abilities to be sure they are employed.

Taking liberty with the national security of the USA while pumping up the dividends of Wall Street is nothing anyone bargained for. I cannot believe Security Clearance is done by an independent insurance company. Who was the genius that came up with this one? Oh, wait. Let me guess. The privatized government President, Bush. The man that gave us the bloated national security machine.

By Tom Hamburger and Zachary A. Goldfarb 
Published: June 27 

Federal investigators have told lawmakers they have evidence that USIS, (click here) the contractor that screened Edward Snowden for his top-secret clearance, repeatedly misled the government about the thoroughness of its background checks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The alleged transgressions are so serious that a federal watchdog indicated he plans to recommend that the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees most background checks, end ties with USIS unless it can show it is performing responsibly, the people said....

USIS is the leader in providing background investigations to the federal government. (click here) With our highly experienced team of investigators, we mitigate risk with accurate in-depth investigations in a range of areas, including federal security clearance investigations, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), site investigations, and fraud waste and abuse investigations.

USIS, Inc. provides third party administration (click here) and managed care services for workers' compensation and liability claims. It offers administration services, such as workers' compensation claims administration, medical management and certified managed care programs, cost containment/medical bill auditing and review, claim-reporting procedures, third party recoveries, liability claims, information systems, and risk management services. The company also provides claim information combining with online statistical claims data, reports, and file documentation. It offers its services to commercial carriers, self insurance funds, and risk pools and trusts, as well as self insured employers in the private and public sectors. The company was founded in 1982 and is based in Orlando, Florida. USIS, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Brown & Brown Inc.

Oh, you mean this Brown and Brown, Inc.?

Brown & Brown, Inc. Announces the Asset Acquisition of The Rollins Agency, Inc. (click here)


"We sell...to several thousand independent agents throughout the United States." (click here)  "Our renewals are very high..."  I bet.

I am curious where these companies put their political contributions.

There are soon to be more guns in the USA than people. For every person dead from gun violence there are that many less children born. Isn't that the value system on the Right? Babies. Yes?

Why is a dead person in Chicago less valuable to our national shame than those massacred at Sandy Hook?  Because these deaths are often the result of handguns. Handguns have a special status that should not concern us when they fall into the wrong hands? Guns have become such a prevalence in some areas of the USA, young people shoot and ask questions later. "Better them than me."

My father was a Korean Veteran. He once stated to me, "The day fear keeps you locked in your house for your safety, is the day America has lost her liberties to us." He was an appointee to the local zoning board. He wanted his neighborhoods safe for children, including his own. At one point the town formulated a "Special Police Force" of those in town with skills to serve when police were able to or over qualified to act as a security force. In those days there was no ADT or any thought of it.

In the year 2013, women are viewed as objects of control. Behavior, sexuality, work and play, basically oppressed from sincere self-expression and self-determination. There is a huge divide between how women are viewed in their sexuality as opposed to men. "The man cave" as opposed to women living in burden of all responsibility for family. The idea of a 'Man Cave' is separation of powers and places. It carries over to social norm.

I think this legislator has it right. If women are to be treated by government standards to control child bearing, then every standard for men should be to the same end result.

By Jackie Borchardt
Columbus Bureau
March 12, 2013

COLUMBUS – Before getting a prescription for Viagra (click here) or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.
The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week....

An erection is only for making babies. Isn't it? 

The society of the USA has been so manipulated by political paradigms it does not even know what sincere freedom is anymore. 

Wireless devices, invasion of privacy, guns on the street, food that kills with the taste of kindness, impoverishment, illiteracy, educational cuts in spending and extreme militarization in a world where the USA is out ranked in spending than all major militarized countries together. Children that die when they should be practicing for a school recital. Young people identifying with violence rather than a purpose in a community of many unrecognized heroes. People without homes and homes without people. People without citizen status, but with a job and little pay to show for it. Young people educated and invested into by the USA only to be sent out of our borders and never to seen of or heard from again. Justices that ridicule the vital vote without understanding who they are oppressing in their high minded decisions. 

There is a lot wrong with the USA and it is high time we decided to take back the liberties we have lost. 

Power. Not decency. Not conscience, but, power oppresses still today. I've had enough of it.

Is this still liberty?

By Dennis  Hevesi
February 5, 2013

...Reviews were mixed. (click here) “Miss Nyman’s performance is monotonous, and her only redeeming vice is her anger, which seems genuine and illimitable,” Joseph Morgenstern wrote in Newsweek. In The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “Lena Nyman and Borje Ahlstedt are good, in addition to being perfectly presentable, in the central roles.” He added that the sex scenes were “so unaffectedly frank as to be nonpornographic...

I mean I can still sit in a theater to watch stone cold XXX entitled, "The Family Jewels, right?" And I can do that in mixed company, right? An no one expects birth control to fail? That's liberty?

This is liberty? No. This is extremism.

I thought the NRA always stated these folks were seriously disturbed and now that little Delaware wants to remove the danger out of the hands of the 'dangerously mentally ill' and not just 'the criminally insane' there seems to be a problem.

Is there always a problem with everything the government 'OF THE PEOPLE' wants to do? Is there? That is not liberty that is Wall Street and gun sales.

June 30, 2013
Written by Jonathan Starkey

Gun-control opponents (click here) are rallying at Legislative Hall against a measure that aims to require individuals found to be dangerously mentally ill to turn over their guns. The bill failed in the state Senate on Thursday, receiving just six yes votes, but many worry that it will be brought up for another vote today, the last day before the General Assembly session adjourns until January. Attorney General Beau Biden's office authored the bill. A spokesman for Biden did not deny the bill could come back for debate in the final hours of the legislative session.

"We're still working," spokesman Joe Rogalsky said. "The attorney general made clear he is not giving up."

Opponents worry the bill will be applied in inappropriate cases and have directed anger at Biden. One protester carried a sign Sunday that read "Beau Biden. Leader of New Nazi Party of Delaware." Another read "Hands off my guns....

At one time in the USA, Americans practiced their liberties in proportion to their society.

Where has that decency gone? Political sparing has replaced proportionality of liberty? Seems rather extreme, no? Desperate even.

I found this interesting. Christianity was incubated under oppression. It survived in the face of oppression. Even today, depending on the country, it still struggles with oppression. The biggest concern of Pope Francis is poverty. Poverty is oppression.

In the USA there is no oppression, but, today extremist Christians seek to oppress.

By Marty Duren
June 28, 2013
CP Op-ed contributor

Religious Liberty is Idolatry? (click here)

...Of equal concern to me is the elevation of religious liberty to a mythos of which Christians should be wary. While our Founding Fathers enshrined religious freedom into the constitution, our Savior did not. In fact, Jesus was born, lived and died in an era when religious freedom was not absolute. (Religious freedom is not absolute in America being affected by the whims of congress, but that is for another time.)

While religious freedom is appreciated it is not part of what followers of Christ should expect at any particular point in history. It could be argued that religious freedom is a primary contributing factor to the morbid obesity of the church in the U.S. Beware lest our rabid pursuit of it lead to possession of a godliness in which is no power to deny (2 Tim 3:5).

Jesus neither commended us to long for religious freedom or to strive for it. It is pretty much the opposite, in fact.

"If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you." John 15:18...

...I am saying that holding up "religious liberty" as the highest desired end is a biblically untenable position. If we promote such we may create an idol of the very freedom ostensibly designed to focus us on God.

"Analysis of Supreme Court Decisions" on PBS (click here)



Protecting Liberty or equivalent to CIA Black Sites?

The CIA Black Sites were free to carry out drone strikes based on what was being learned in the torture sessions. 
 
The FBI learns about a person of interest and it turns into a killing? 
 
I think this has a lot to do with the potential of suicide bombers. The guy should not be dead. 
 
Whatever came into play to accept a handwritten confession from him anyway? That is acceptable FBI policy? No handcuffs with ride to the headquarters, just, "Sure, here's a pen. No can state this is harassed either." Like. What the hell?
 
Then the guy ends up dead? Multiple wounds and now the FBI believes his father might be linked to something? This is either the biggest Chechen Mafia organization in the world or there is something very wrong here. All of a sudden everyone is a suspect. If that were the case, the FBI needs to investigate racketeering and not just a bombing. 
 
I think the FBI internal investigations need to have a second outside, autonomous and anonymous review of the findings to be sure the agency is conducting their own shootings without bias. And not the CIA. An autonomous independent review board unknown to anyone at the FBI. I don't like the way any of this sounds. I don't want the FBI to cause a war.
  
  
By Charlie Savage and Michael S. Schmidt 
June 18, 2013
 
...“The F.B.I. takes very seriously any shooting incidents involving our agents, and as such we have an effective, time-tested process for addressing them internally,” a bureau spokesman said. 
 
But if such internal investigations are time-tested, their outcomes are also predictable: from 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. 
 
The last two years have followed the same pattern: an F.B.I. spokesman said that since 2011, there had been no findings of improper intentional shootings.... 
 
... Occasionally, the F.B.I. does discipline an agent. Out of 289 deliberate shootings covered by the documents, many of which left no one wounded, five were deemed to be “bad shoots,” in agents’ parlance — encounters that did not comply with the bureau’s policy, which allows deadly force if agents fear that their lives or those of fellow agents are in danger. A typical punishment involved adding letters of censure to agents’ files. But in none of the five cases did a bullet hit anyone....  

Liberty? Threats? Revenge? That's liberty? Illiteracy, is that liberty? Shame? All that is liberty?

June 26, 2013

Just blocks away from the Governor’s Mansion (click here) on Blount Street, thousands of North Carolinians ... yes, North Carolinians ... gathered on government grounds near the Legislative Building and inside that building to make known their outrage at the politics of retreat and revenge practiced by Republican lawmakers....

...Probably not. Republicans in charge at the General Assembly are choosing to keep their blinders on, or, in some cases, just insult the protesters. GOP Sen. Thom Goolsby of Wilmington dubbed the protests led by the state NAACP “Moron Monday."...

... The congressman noted that when tea party elements gained control in Congress, “they didn’t have unchecked power.” Here in Raleigh, that power has been used to cut unemployment money, curb Medicaid rolls for poor people, dismantle environmental laws and roll back the state’s progress on many social services fronts. Even public school teachers haven’t been spared.

A conservative group tied to Art Pope, McCrory’s budget director and a wealthy sponsor of such groups, took to posting pictures and information about those protesters who have been arrested....

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/06/26/2991579/moral-monday-protests-grow.html#storylink=cpy


Is racism dead in the USA? The Supreme Court believes so. I guess everyone is guaranteed their liberty now.

June 28, 2013
By Oscar Williams - Special to the Bee

There is no safe haven from racism. (click here) It can strike at any time or place when it is least expected. This was vividly demonstrated after the 11-year-old Mexican-American boy, Sebastian De La Cruz, sang the National Anthem at the third game of the NBA finals. The Internet and Twitter messages ran rampant with unspeakable racist statements concerning the boy's ethnicity. I was amazed at the response from the child when he was interviewed; it was a very mature philosophical observation of looking to the future and to not let things like this distract you....


Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/28/3365801/racism-can-leave-a-lasting-scar.html#storylink=cpy

Can you breath in an oven? If you don't accept the science, it will find you.

This is liberty? A forgotten people over the political favor of the petroleum and coal industries? 

Survival. That is liberty, huh? Not in my book. This is gross government neglect of a people they are suppose to serve.

There is no liberty here. There is suffering, death, exhaustion, inability to function and failure of an infrastructure to protect the people.

If citizens would kindly pay attention to the helpless and those at risk. Landlords know if there are elderly or disabled in apartments. Just knock on the door and ask how they are doing. Social Services might have a good idea whom might be at risk in their caseload. Please don't leave to die.


Being in a hot car is like being in an oven. Drivers should have plenty to drive and t gallon containers stored in case the radiator starts to get hot. If a car fails in the west with it being this hot, people will bake and die.

Tim Gaynor 
Reuters
June 30, 2013

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A dangerous, record-breaking heat (click here) wave in the western United States contributed to the death of a Nevada resident and sent scores of people to hospitals with heat-related illnesses.

The scorching heat, caused by a dome of hot air trapped by a high pressure ridge, pushed the mercury above 100 F (38 C) in parts of California, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and Utah and Texas.


Paramedics in Las Vegas, where searing temperatures reached an all-time high of 118 F (48 C) on Saturday, found an elderly man dead in his apartment, which had no air-conditioning.

The unidentified man had prior medical issues and "either the heat got to him or the medical condition was aggravated by the heat," Las Vegas Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

Scores of other people were treated for heat-related symptoms, including a man who pulled off a Nevada highway and called 911 to say he felt ill after driving for several hours without air-conditioning. He was hospitalized in serious condition with heat stroke, Szymanski said.

Cities and towns across the sun-scorched western United States opened air-conditioned "cooling centers" in community centers, homeless shelters and libraries, and warned residents to avoid prolonged exposure to the high temperatures....


Any pets and/or livestock are at risk. Dogs don't sweat. All animals will need ample amounts of water and if outdoors shade. 

This is not liberty, it is the absence of it.

Is this liberty? A government in oppression of a woman's right to her own health? Her own life? Her own body and mind? Her own self will?

I don't care if the care provider has his pants in a wad because he just received Wednesday's ashes. If he or she is a care giver their first priority is the woman in need of her life.

We saw it when Plan B came out and pharmacists were told they could act on their conscience. If that is the case then they should not be in the profession, they need to have their own congregation.

This is a democracy and need intersects with other's personal preferences or spiritual demands. The moral DEMAND of anyone is first to save a life. There is on questioning whom's life either, it is the life of a woman that comes first.

By Mikki Kendal
May 26, 2013

I almost died in an emergency room because the doctor on call refused to perform a necessary procedure (click here) 

There’s this lawmaker out of Kansas, Rep. Peter DeGraaf, who has a lot to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion after an assault. And I could spend a lot of time discussing the flaws in his logic, or even hashing out when life begins, but what I’m really concerned about is the idea that anyone besides a pregnant woman should have a say in what she does with her body after finding out she’s pregnant.

I’m a mom, and I love my sons more than anything. And it is because I love them that I had an abortion at 20 weeks. It was my fifth pregnancy (I’d had two earlier miscarriages), and, as it turned out, my last. There was trouble from the beginning; I didn’t experience any of the normal indicators of pregnancy, so I was already ten weeks along when I found out. I hadn’t so much as missed a period; in fact, I was seeing an OB/GYN because of the increased heaviness in my cycle. When we found out, I talked it over with my husband and we debated an abortion before deciding we’d try to make it work. My doctor told me that my pregnancy was very high risk and that she wasn’t sure of a good outcome. Per her instructions, I took it very easy because I wanted to give the baby the best possible chance. But I kept having intermittent bleeding and I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to carry to term....

Maybe liberty is meant for men only in the USA. Right?





The Chinese believes women are important. This is the beginnings of their space ambitions Chinese women are a part of ambitions of the nation. This is the Chinese 1961, the USA Apollo program. The Chinese have big ambitions. They want their own Space Station by 2022. 

You know what this means? It is more than a woman in a space suit. It means she was well qualified to be an astronaut. She was well qualified at the beginning of the Chinese space program.

Is this liberty? A world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime. Is that NOT liberty?

Isn't seeking nuclear non-proliferation  and "Global Zero" not liberty? Isn't it the most profound message by the USA? Peace and prosperity for the entire of the world. That is not the promise of liberty for all peoples? A guarantee that life will not be snuffed out by mutual nuclear annihilation. That is not liberty? 

Why then entertain the 'idea' of a limited nuclear engagement? There really isn't such a thing, for if the USA unleashed a limited strike there is no guarantee the counter strike would be limited.

"Global Zero" (click here)

Liberty. A right or a privilege. Life. A right or a privilege. Pursuit of Happiness. A right or a privilege.

The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life.

An instance of this; a right or privilege, esp. a statutory one.

The quality or state of being free.

The power to do as one pleases.

Freedom from physical restraint.

Freedom from arbitrary or despotic control.

The positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges.

The power of choice.

right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant.

Permission especially to go freely within specified limits.

And then there is the issue of "Taking Liberty."

An action going beyond normal limits.

A breach of etiquette or propriety.

Took foolish liberties with his health.

A violation of rules or a deviation from standard practice.

A distortion of fact
 
It's Sunday Night



"Liberty" by the Grateful Dead (click here for official website)
Saw a bird with a tear in his eyeWalking to New Orleans, my oh myHey, now, bird, wouldn't you rather dieThan walk this world when you're born to fly?
If I was the sun, I'd look for shadeIf I was a bed, I would stay unmadeIf I was a river I'd run uphillIf you call me you know I willIf you call me you know I will
Ooo, freedom, ooo, libertyOoo, leave me aloneTo find my own way homeTo find my own way home
Say what I mean and I don't give a damnI do believe and I am who I amHey now mama come and take my handWhole lotta shakin' all over this land
If I was an eagle, I'd dress like a duckCrawl like a lizard and honk like a truckIf I get a notion I'll climb this treeOr chop it down and you can't stop meChop it down and you can't stop me
Ooo, freedom, ooo, libertyOoo, leave me aloneTo find my own way homeTo find my own way home
Went to the well but the water was dryDipped my bucket in the clear blue skyLooked in the bottom and what did I see?The whole damned world looking back at me
If I was a bottle I'd spill for loveSake of mercy I'd kill for loveIf I was a liar, I'd lie for loveSake of my baby, I'd die for loveSake of my baby, I'd die for love
Ooo, freedom, ooo, libertyOoo, leave me aloneTo find my own way homeTo find my own way homeI'm gonna find my own way home

They learn to hate.


Thermodynamics.

This is a very classical model called "Carnot's Heat Engine." In his day it was of a challenge to cool things and keep them cool than to heat them up so the diagram flows from left to right. 

Imagine now the circle in the middle is a vortex created by a hot troposphere. The cold air over the Arctic and/or Antarctica enters the 'heat engine' and then exists hotter on the other side. Basically, turn the diagram on it's head and move from right to left. That is what is occurring with the troposphere's temperature.

PV = nRT

This is called the "Ideal Gas Law." P is pressure, V is volume and T is temperature. The n represents number of molecules in the air mass. R is a constant.

Pressure and Volume are on the opposite side of the equation from Temperature. That is important. For the purpose of this discussion, let's just state that n and R in this equation is number 1. That will eliminate their effect on the equation. What is left is PV = T.

PV = T

At this point the equation illustrates that volume and pressure are STABLE with the temperature. If the temperature increases it will destabilize the pressure and volume component. The equal sign sincerely means the dynamic is equal, therefore, when one component of this 'balanced' relationship changes it all changes.

In the demonstration below with the child and her mother, the temperature of the air mass in the bottle increased and the air expanded. The balloon demonstrated that expansion. However, the air pressure in the CLOSED system of the balloon and bottle will increase otherwise the air pressure outside the bottle would inhibit the expansion. 

The idea of a closed system is very important here. When the temperature increases and it increases in a closed system the pressure and volume increase in a proportion to achieve that equal sign ( = ).

A CLOSED SYSTEM is different from an open system. If one took the balloon off the bottle it would no longer be a closed system and the demonstration would be mute. The heated air inside the bottle would simply move out of the bottle without detection.

Earth's ATMOSPHERES of which the troposphere is the one in which we live, is not a closed system. The gases in our troposphere will migrate up when the physics change. It is not an easy migration, but, a change in atmospheric temperature, even only 1 or 2 degrees centigrade will cause upward migration. In the meantime that equal sign will demand it's law. The Ideal Gas Law. So, with increased temperature the volume will change and the pressure will change and they will be less because it is not a closed system. 

Our atmosphere is gas and does not act according to manmade laws, it reacts only to Earth's physics and nothing else.

The reason there is such fluctuations in temperature and weather is due to profound changes in the troposphere.

June 30, 2013
0100 GMT/ 8:00 PM EST
The Weather Channel Actual High Temperatures

Highest temperatures again occur at 8:00 PM.

The elevation of temperatures from yesterday was significant.

There is minor turbulence in the eastern Pacific, but, no major hurricane regardless of the incredible heat existing in close proximity to the storms.

June 30, 2013 
0030z (30 minute difference in time/temporal effect from temperature man above)
UNISYS Water Vapor of North and West Hemisphere (click here for 12 hour loop)

The only continuing turbulence is Tropical Storm Dalila with 35 knots per hour. It is more than a Tropical Depression, but, this is due to lack of surface water vapor. With that level of heat in the troposphere there should be significant storms in the Atlantic and Pacific. It just ain't happening.

 
 June 30, 2013
7:00 AM CDT (CDT is the Mexican equivalent to the USA EST. This is 7:00 AM EST)
weather forecast dot com Surface Temperature Map of Mexico (click here)

The lines on the Mexican map are isobars. The maps serves an enhanced purpose measuring the temperature and air pressure. 

Posted: 06/25/2013
...The most recent example (click here) occurred in mid-June when some towns in Alaska hit record highs. McGrath, Alaska, recorded an all-time high of 94 degrees on June 17. A few weeks earlier, the same spot was 15 degrees, the coldest recorded for so late in the year....


Okay, these temperatures and heat distribution has less to do with the Jet Stream and more to do with heat. I been debating myself to actually go into this discussion, but, maybe.

Let me check air pressures first. 

Okay. These are fairly low barometric pressures. One of the characteristics predicted to accompany the Climate Crisis is a drop in air pressure. The reason for that is fairly straight forward; the higher the temperature the bigger the 'bubble/inflated balloon" and the lower the pressure.

There is currently nothing dangerous about these lower pressures, but, it is a symptom of a very ill planet. This is nothing to dismiss. This is a strong indication the troposphere is changing. 

Below is a child's experiment. In this experiment the bottle with the balloon on it experiences an increase in 'air volume' due to the increased heat of the air due to warm water. The child and her mother call it 'heat rising' and that is true, however, the real dynamic at work is an increase in air 'volume' due to heating of the air. If one was to measure the pressure throughout the bottle and balloon it would be identical throughout, so there is no rising so much as expansion.



Imagine now the balloon of air surrounding Earth. Raise the temperature of the entire balloon of air and what happens. The air expands, however, the molecules in that air does not change. There is no way winds of any kind, especially one such as the Jet Stream that travels around the entire planet that is going to remain stable and predictable in an expanded air mass. As a matter of fact I would expect the Jet to meander a lot as Earth heats.

What has been at work for nearly a decade. No. More than a decade actually. October, 4, 2002 there were two massive vortices that manifested; one in the north Atlantic and one in north Pacific. The significance of that is they aided in distributing heat for this long. They are very powerful storms and override the Jet Stream. So, the arrival of the 'hot' Jet into Alaska should not be a surprise to anyone, for several reasons.

But, the vortices bring with them low pressures. It is the nature of the beast. With a chronic vortex, called the Arctic Oscillation by most climatologists, existing over Alaska there has been a tipping point that are creating a more homogenized tropospheric distribution of heat. This is the early signs of it. I would expect when scientists measure the ice loss this year in September it will be significant. 

This is the Climate Crisis. Lower barometric pressures were always predicted. At this point it is interesting there is still a Jet Stream, because, when examining the sluggish nature of the global air mass movement, no one would it.
I thank Tom Donilon for his incredible service to the USA.

I wish him and his family well and enjoyment now that he is pausing for rest and relaxation for the first time since December 2008.

The speech President Obama gave on Africa was magnificent. It is the best I have ever heard by a USA President on Africa.

President Obama looks out the window of the Robben Island prison cell that once held Nelson Mandela. The president and his family visited the prison on Sunday.

The speech was extensive and clearly mapped out the hope for Africa's rise. He is most correct in pointing to the youthfulness of the people within that continent and the values they hold dear. They are future; very much so.

I thought it was most insightful of the depth of understanding of suffering and loyalty to social change to uplift an entire people to equality and even prominence when he stated his own daughters were moved by the visit to the Robben Island prison.

..."On behalf of our family (click here) we're deeply humbled to stand where men of such courage faced down injustice and refused to yield. The world is grateful for the heroes of Robben Island, who remind us that no shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit."...

His speech to the people of Africa was one of grasping the reality of their own promise, self-direction and self-sustainable economy. He somewhat demanded Africa to move forward to be the future they have longed for. He wants Africa to be an economic engine for the growth and stability of the continent without compromising their highest values and allowing corruption. I thought it was a great speech. One of finest. 

I am more than happy President Obama made the visit to Nelson Mandela's family. I am confident he extended every measure to them. 

All the gun safety training in the world didn't help him. Guns do not define masculinity.



Posted on: 7:09 pm, June 27, 2013, 
by Betsey Bruce, 
updated on: 08:25am, June 28, 2013

...Crews and his 13 year old brother (click here) were shooting at tin cans on their backyard fence Tuesday when the brother’s pellet gun discharged as Xander ran in front of him. The projectile fractured a portion of the child’s skull but did not enter his brain. He had to be airlifted to St. Louis Children’s Hospital. 

“He’s in critical condition,” explained his Xander’s father, Bobby Crews as he choked back tears. “They don’t want him to move because if he moves he could paralyze himself.” 

Thursday family members gathered at the hospital waiting to find out of the child would undergo surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by swelling near the gun shot wound. 

Both parents want to urge other families to closely supervise youngsters using guns. The injured child’s mother, Linda Gill was inside her house at the time of the accident. The boy’s father lives three hours away.

“I just want to get this out to tell everybody that a BB gun is not a play toy,” Bobby Crews said. “It’s something serious and you can lose.. I almost lost my boy and I don’t know what I would do if I did. It’s hard.”

Ms Gill said her father tested the pellet gun and found the safety on the gun was not working properly. Both boys had received air guns for Christmas and had been trained by relatives in gun safety....


Friday, Jun 28, 2013 | Updated 9:03 PM EDT 

A New York neighborhood was evacuated after police found grenades, munitions, firearms and a tank at the home of a gun enthusiast found dead at his home this week. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

A New York neighborhood (click here) was evacuated after police found grenades, munitions, firearms and a tank at the home of a gun enthusiast found dead at his home this week.


Jonathan Orser of Mahopac was found dead of a shotgun wound Tuesday night, in an apparent suicide.


Police say he had a stockpile of more than 100 military-style rifles, grenades, low explosive powders and a large amount of ammunition, including armor-piercing bullets. It's unclear how many of the items were active explosives.


There was also a decommissioned tank in the backyard.


The discovery prompted evacuations Thursday evening that continued into Friday. The bomb squad and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded and removed the explosives.
They will be transported to West Point for disposal.
 June 29, 2013 11:43 AM  
...“Whatever they had in there could blow the windows off my house, which, of course, scared me,” the woman said....
...and a large cache of automatic weapons, police said.
“He also had a large container of blasting caps that are very volatile and could have set the whole house off,” Chief Johnson said.  
Among the weapons were a Browning .50-caliber machine gun and a .30-caliber machine CBS 2′s John Slattery reported.  
A decommissioned military tank was also discovered in the backyard, WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell reported.  
Military ordinance found stored in the basement was being removed by the 725-Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit based in Fort Drum and transported to West Point for disposal, police said.