Here's a few talking points for Wayne LePierre.

- "Look it could have been worse, 168 died in Oklahoma. Guns reduce citizen deaths."

- "Guns don't kill, people do."

- "There is no comprehensive mental illness database."

- "It is good for a country to know there are limits to their power."

- "Hey, there are no kids involved." True. Just the kids of their late parents.

- "Background checks would not have prevented this." More than likely.

- "The guns came from Mexico after the USA sold them to the Mexican government." Those straw purchasers are something, aren't they?

- "A gun ban would not have prevented this." Hmmmmmmmm? Lie. But, it sounds like Wayne.

- "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." But, not this time.

By all rights according to Wayne LaPierre all police and guards should be alive.

Our law enforcement officers are armed. What's the problem? They die anyway? Oh.

Uploaded on Jan 14, 2011 
First-time firing of pre-production KSG by officers at Lakewood Police Department. They are not used to the manual of arms, but you can see how the gun works and note the negligible muzzle rise on recoil. Ammunition is a mix of 00 buckshot and slugs. See KelTecWeapons.com and KTOG.org for more information about this firearm.

The NRA promotes anarchy and danger in the lives of Americans.

The reasons these conversations occur is to enforce the idea the American people have to have military weapons to protect from their government.

That argument is a PLACE HOLDER. The NRA and gun lobby are scared that if decent laws are on the books they will lose their millions. What's a few lives once in a while?

I suppose all the THREE involved in the slaughter today were crazy. All three. Amazing. 

...He (Alexis) worked his way to the third and fourth floors of a building, which then looked down on an open atrium.

Sources say with that assault rifle, which is believed to be an AR-15, Alexis essentially was a sniper, able to easily target his victims from a very high vantage point. He fired a large number of shots in a relatively confined area....
 

Every means of government insight and policy is not a lie.

The USA has too many guns on the street. Trained officers could stop them.

This was an attack on the government and when is Congress going to do something about these weapons?

The USA attempts to carry out diplomacy and there are nothing but Right Wing Nuts with military equipment ready to try to access either leadership and/or weapons console. Maybe pilot a few drones or start WWIII because they have the idea enemies must die at all costs. This is ridiculous. Twelve people dead at a very important military instillation and the government is scratching their heads about gun control. Good, real good.

By Carol Morello, Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams'

Updated: Monday, September 16, 2:22 PM

...“The big concern for us right now (click here) is that we have potentially two other shooters that we have not located at this point,” Lanier said.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray said no motive is known. He said they have no reason to believe it was an act of terrorism, though he said he could not rule it out.

Lanier described one of the possible suspects as a white male in his 40s, wearing what appeared to be tan military clothing, “consistent with a Navy uniform,” and a beret. She said police also are looking for a black man in his 40s with gray sideburns, wearing an olive-drab military-style uniform.

“We have multiple pieces of information that would suggest” that the two suspects are armed. “We have reason to believe that they are involved in some way.”

Police are asking anyone with information on these two people to call 202-727-9099....

Someone had plans.

SSP (Strategic Systems Program) Headquarters, Washington DC (click here)

The majority of jobs are located at the SSP Headquarters at Washington Navy Yard, Washington DC. 

The Vice President's residence is about 7 miles from there.

The US Army Corp is needed in Colorado

Damaged roads and bridges (click here) have left hundreds of people stranded in small towns in Colorado. The Colorado National Guard is using helicopters to rescue people, but more bad weather has made flying difficult.

 The state needs pontoon bridges and Humvees. The Humvees need to be equipped with First Responders with radio link to a hospital.There is no sense in wasting anymore time, if people are alive they are dehydrating already.

Photo nr. 960227b1 (19Kb)
1st Armored Division soldiers work towards completion of a pontoon bridge over the Sava River as a tug boat moves a piece of pontoon bridge into place. The bridges are needed to replace the destroyed bridges so the Implementation Force (IFOR) troops may enter into Bosnia.
Photo by 2Lt. Stacey Wyzykowski 1st Combat Camera Charleston AFB SC

Some pontoon bridges can be very rudimentary in order to achieve rescues. 

 







Some can even be walkways as long as they can be secured from rapids and white water.

Oddly enough the more rudimentary the bridge, the quicker it can be fashioned. The US Army Corp can speak to the current technology and the expediency of the deployment in order to gain access to save lives.

Rescue rafts and life rafts can provide a bridge between civilization and stranded people.

Why would rebalancing the economy not include putting labor first?

Skewed vision of the economy (click here)

Monday 16 September 2013

 

I suspect Danny Alexander ("Thank LibDems 'for pulling UK out of slump'", The Herald, September 14) is being a trifle arrogant and premature in suggesting his party is responsible for economic recovery in the UK.

Some might even argue his views are delusional.

Perhaps any recovery is despite, rather than because of, the LibDems and their colleagues in Coalition.

An alternative view might be that the Government is failing in its stated quest to "rebalance the economy". The history of government going back to the Thatcher years is of dysfunctional deregulation of capital and rabid regulation of labour.

The richest individuals and corporations are awash with cash but neither spend it, due to "lack of confidence" and lack of need, nor pay their moral share of tax. Those with most need to spend - the poorest citizens and local government - cannot afford their modest needs. A rebalancing in favour of labour would achieve a fairer society and an economy which works.

Peter Moore,
3 Bellevue Road,
Ayr.

The fish finally have their reef back.

 September 16, 2013, 7:04 AM

GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy 

A complex system of pulleys (click here) and counterweights on Monday began pulling the Costa Concordia cruise ship upright from its side on a Tuscan reef at Giglio Island, where it capsized 20 months ago -- an anxiously awaited operation of a kind that has never been attempted on such a huge liner.
Engineers told reporters they'd succeeded in detaching the 952-foot-long vessel from the reef on which it was resting, and the operation was continuing. No bodies had been spotted, they said.
Engineer Sergio Girotto said it began at about 9 a.m., three hours late.
The delay was due to an early morning storm that pushed back a floating command room center from its position close to the wreckage.
The goal is to raise it from its side by 65 degrees to vertical, as a ship would normally be, for eventual towing....

I'd rather discuss trees, but, perhaps another evening. 

Good night.

The Evangelical Christian influence within the USA miltary has proven a folly.

Years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq (click here) have brought post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD ) among military personnel to the attention of the American people as never before. But PTSD is also found among survivors of natural disasters, victims of crime, and many others who have experienced traumatic events....

This only begins to define the harsh environment the USA military personnel has sustained. The complete picture includes drone pilots with recidivism problems and soldiers that kill innocent civilians with drones and otherwise.

By Eric M. Johnson

TACOMA, Washington 
Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:49pm EDT
 

...Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, (click here) a veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has admitted to slaughtering the villagers in attacks on their family compounds in Kandahar province in March 2012.
He pleaded guilty to the killings in June in a deal that spared him the death penalty, and a sentencing jury of six military personnel deliberated less than two hours on Friday before deciding he should spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bales, who appeared in a military court in Washington state in blue military dress, showed no emotion as the verdict was handed down, but his mother cried and rocked back and forth....

I suppose a steely military man is one profile for any military, but, not if they are to be emotional and a thinking man on the battlefield. Killing can go on forever unless a weakened enemy can be detected to direct the end of killing. 

This is going to sound really silly, but, my favorite war movie is not about a human being. It is a War Horse and my favorite scene is where his life is saved by two men who thought about their plight and saved each other from insane destruction of an animal vulnerable as they. 

The last thing a military general wants to hear is how his military personal will break down as if actually human beings. The American military personnel model is wrong. There are many reasons the USA military sees an advantage to automated warrior preference.

I would expect a memorial to remember those taken to early in their lives and the lives they lived. I would expect a memorial to end hatred and not propagate it. The photo is iconic and we have those moments in our collective memories, but, there is a difference between protecting the country through war and waging war out of hate or faux aspirations. War is not about aspirations, but, of sovereignty.

There is nothing in the USA Constitution that places religion at the center of our sovereignty. Religion is allowed to exist, but, it is not the reason for our existence.

Where Bush was inappropriate was bringing that personal account between two leaders to the nation. It was one thing to find an icebreaker between those in the room, but, it was quite another thing to bring that forward as a focus to their meeting. It was irrelevant to the business between the two nations.

What concerns me are the global Christian organizations attaching themselves to power nations and their leaders. How convenient it must be for these organizations to feel the pain of losing the scapegoating dialogue in the USA while unleashing it in Russia. 

These folks like war because it provides in roads for their Evangelical purposes. That is problem. 

Be cautious in the true meaning of problem. While Evangelical Christians are a problem for the LGBT community in any country, it also brings with it a very structured person with a cause that has a global reach. In other words, if these christian organizations can be tapped for self-righteous soldiers that create a war fervor, what could be better for any military? Why not allow the character strength of a Christian Evangelical dominate any military culture? It may actually be viewed by some leaders as a 'preferred culture' within it's military providing status among officers and otherwise. 

I could go on and on about how that translates globally, but, it is best examined on a country by country basis in a way that is benevolent to it's people. All I can say is that I have known personally Catholic missionaries. They are incredibly intelligent people based in benevolence and love of those they care for which is more than their congregation. The Catholics go where they believe they are needed, without fear of retribution. They go dedicated to helping. They love the idea of god and bringing people to god, but, they don't seek war to do it. That is not the case of the Evangelical global community. War  is an option for them. They don't reject it and in that is the realization of their true humanity.

It is a problem and the LGBT community is one of their most frequent scapegoats. But, it is a problem some countries tolerate for their own purposes. This in many instances is not just a social cultural problem, it is a larger problem. It is why I worry about the LGBT communities in other nations believing they can make equality happen through demonstrations. That is not necessarily the case and I believe may be the basis of the concern of the Russian government.

"W" mitigated his Evangelical problems by promoting HIV awareness, testing and treatment in Africa and he mitigated the hate of Muslims by scapegoating the idea of Fascism among 'particular' Islamists, but, he also mitigated the hatred of the evil empire of Russia through seeing the soul in President Putin's eyes. It is a problem, a very big problem and Secretary Clinton was very wise to make statements about the LGBT community a common practice.

Be careful how one thinks and how one seeks to leverage power with that thinking. It is not as simple as it seems.

Like I said, what are we remembering exactly.

Document (click here)

Bush focused on the religious side of his life to conduct the nation's business. I don't think so.

Regarding September 11th, he stated, "My role became clarified." Really? He needed clarification of about his role as President. War was the best possible outcome for Bush. Why do anything else? And 12 years later we are still killing the enemy. A half a generation later, we are still killing the enemy. Will the USA ever learn?

I hear people speak about babies being born after 911 and what they need to remember. The babies born after 911 in the homes of those that oppose us are now old enough to be child soldiers. What exactly are we remembering?

Hug a tree, your life depends on it.

The natural life of a tree is not to go up in flames or be managed. The natural life of a tree is to grow in sunlight, be fed by rain and soil nutrients, grow to provide habitat and then to die with dignity and be consumed in the natural food web of life and return to the ground it was once a seedling. The natural life of a tree is to end it's life as SOIL, life giving soil and not return to the troposphere as accelerated CO2 emissions.

The American media always blames it on forest management. That is completly wrong.

When a media service in the USA blames fire on forest management they are stating the forests have to be logged for commercial interests. That won't help anything, it will make it worse, look at the Colorado floods. It is not the overabundance of trees and vegetation that caused this, it is the lack of it.

When is the American media going to finally state people don't belong living in wilderness areas AND take responsibility for Human Induced Global Warming? The forest fires at Yosemite and the Colorado floods are related, they are caused by a Climate Crisis induced by human activity, primarily the activity of American consumerism.

In order to reverse the trend of high greenhouse gas emissions and current greenhouse gas atmospheric content, the forests are desperately needed. There is no commercial operation that will respect the integrity and the beauty of them. They are more important to the 'livable economy' of the planet than any consumerism, including housing and impingement upon natural wilderness. 

The American media needs to look for a different scapegoat this time. This time try looking at the man in the mirror. If the Sacramento Bee wants to promote clean water and air they need to start with reforming their view of the world, promote self-awareness, the damage of human consumerism on the climate and realize their citizens and those of the nation are destroying their own environment.

September 15, 2013
Yosemite is one of our nation’s most treasured gems, (click here) and it sits in our very own backyard. However, when it comes to defending our rural neighbor from catastrophic wildfire, California’s ability to protect this international tourist destination has proven to be limited.

The Rim fire – now the largest fire in recorded Sierra Nevada history – has shown that there are multifaceted impacts associated with rural wildfire, and that those impacts are felt in rural and urban areas alike. Federally managed land covers more than 40 percent of the state, and three out of four acres burned in California are federally owned. To make a real impact in protecting not only natural resources such as a clean water supply, good air quality and healthy wildlife habitat, but also protecting our local economies and public health, we must look at changes to policies and programs at the federal level....

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/15/5733563/viewpoints-rim-fire-shows-we-need.html#storylink=cpy

The missing are being reported as somewhere between 250 and 500.

Further rain expected as rescue workers use boats and helicopters to reach residents (click here)

September 14, 2013

Relentless rains pounded flood-ravaged eastern Colorado for another day, triggering more evacuations and warnings as rescuers tried to reach thousands of people displaced or stranded by the deluge that has been blamed for at least four deaths.

Flooding from days of unprecedented rainfall in the semi-arid region has destroyed homes and closed or washed out bridges and roads from mountain canyons from metropolitan Denver to the eastern plains.

A surge from swollen rivers and creeks has flooded downstream farming counties in northeastern Colorado, prompting the evacuation yesterday of several towns along the South Platte River...

Separation of Church and State

When it was known Russia was passing a discriminatory law regarding the LGBT community, it sounded too much like the spread of Christian Evangelical dogma through political systems. Rachel Maddow found a link between the Russian movement and a religious organization called, "World Congress of Families." (click here) It all started to come together. But, I took further.

The Evangelicals aren't conspirators, they are a movement, albeit, a movement of hate, but a movement just the same.

"The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine" (click here)

In the USA there is suppose to be separation of church and state. It has been watered down by the Robert's Court. But, when one looks at the way Americans were indoctrinated into a Culture of Fear, I had to ask myself why. There was the obvious Wall Street reasons of greed as with Vietnam; but; was it the only reason if I am to believe there is a religious political movement to tie government to the promotion of religious dogma.

In the USA there was an organization known only as "The Family" that provided special treatment to Republicans in Congress. 

"The Family Foundation" (click here) is located in Virginia and provides substantial fellowships to those that seek it. Abraham Vereide founded the organization in 1935 as well as "The National Prayer Breakfast." He was well known to people such as Billy Graham and rubbed elbows with political leaders on a regular basis. He founded Goodwill Industries. He died in 1969 and would not consent to the "The Family" as it exists today.

In 2008, the year it was fairly obvious the Republicans were going to lose their grip on the USA, there was a book published. It was written by Jeff Sharlet. 

Jeff Sharlet told NBC News that when he was an intern with the Fellowship "we were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao" and that Hitler's genocide "wasn't an issue for them, it was the strength that he emulated."

"The Family; The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" (click here)

The troubling realization of the growing discrimination in Russia and the link to extremists Christians is too spooky. Let me propose a 'dynamic' that could be instilled in a culture strong enough to drive the politics of a nation. It was not long ago NGOs were being regarded as trouble by the Russian government.

Iraq was a war of choice. What if an NGO went into a First World Communist nation with the idea that fear of the USA, as demonstrated in reality, by parking missiles at Russian borders, causing nuclear escalation with North Korea and Iran, ignoring the tragedies and deaths by the Polish government and the new nations backed by the Russian government, could actually bring about war; would the naive believe that was possible unless they converted to a Christian god that pleased the USA?

Now, to be fair to the then President Bush, he stated openly that Muslims were not the problems, but, the Islamic Fascists were. So, in a back handed way that only Bush could state, he was attempting to mitigate hatred. But, for a nation, the only Superpower to be angry all the time and seek war and conflict all the time is a strange posture for the USA.

What allows NGOs into a sovereign nation? I am not talking United Nations. Either an invitation or war.

...The NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq, (click here) or NCCI, is an independent initiative that was launched by a group of NGOs present in Baghdad in April 2003. At the time of inception, the 14 original members focused on establishing a base for objective aid coordination, highlighting intervention priorities and optimizing aid responses in Iraq. NCCI’s activities eventually evolved in accordance with the changing situation in Iraq, and in turn the organization developed into a comprehensive forum where NGOs can exchange information regarding humanitarian activities and policy decisions in Iraq....

For an organization of NGOs to thrive immediately after the March invasion by the USA is astounding and is not a mistake or coincidence.

Senator Reid and Minority Leader Pelosi need to do something abourt the poor leadership in the House.

...Who is the tea party? (click here) Well, understand, when I was in school I studied government, among other things. And prior to World War I and after World War I we had the anarchists. Now, they were violent. Some say that's what started World War One, the anarchy movement. But they were violent. They did damage to property and they did physical damage to people. The modern anarchists, don't do that. That's the tea party. But they have the same philosophy as the early anarchists. They do not believe in government. Any time anything bad happens to government, that's a victory for them....

Senator Reid needs to pass a bill in the Senate stating no paychecks for anyone for the same length of time the government is unfunded after the funding is passed. In other words, if the government is not funded for a week, then the Congress receives no pay for the week of deadlock and an additional week as a tax to make up for the damage that occurred during that week of disruption.

Call it "The Tardy Tax." For everyday the Congress is tardy at doing the work assigned them they are doubly taxed as a penalty.