In God We Trust

Jesse Says:

17 June 2008 at 1:08 am.

Feds: 26 levees could overflow if sandbags fail

By EILEEN SULLIVAN

(AP) Members of the Illinois National Guard load sandbags to help reinforce the levy along the…
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WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government predicts that 27 levees could potentially overflow along the Mississippi River if the weather forecast is on the mark and a massive sandbagging effort fails to raise the level of the levees, according to a map obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

Officials are placing millions of sandbags on top of the levees along the river in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri to prevent overflowing. There is no way to predict whether these levees will break, said Ron Fournier, a spokesman with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iowa. “That’s a crystal ball that nobody has,” he told the AP.

The levees in New Orleans broke during Hurricane Katrina, causing catastrophic flooding.

Record-breaking storms and flooding across six states this month continue to force thousands of people to evacuate and seek shelter. Since June 6, there have been 22 deaths, 85 injuries and more than 26,000 power outages because of the storms and flooding, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080617/D91BH6P00.html

E.E. Says:

17 June 2008 at 10:42 am.

This is huge news. Even though the article shows all the opposition to drilling, at least it is finally seeing the light of day in the MSM. Good for McCain. I hope he makes this a major campaign issue because the vast majority of Americans can now see how important it is. Obama is way out of touch on this one.

McCain Seeks to End Offshore Drilling Ban

By Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 17, 2008; A01

Sen. John McCain called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, offering an aggressive response to high gasoline prices and immediately drawing the ire of environmental groups that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has courted for months.

The move is aimed at easing voter anger over rising energy prices by freeing states to open vast stretches of the country’s coastline to oil exploration. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 80 percent said soaring prices at the pump are causing them financial hardship, the highest in surveys this decade.

“We must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil,” McCain told reporters yesterday. In a speech today, he plans to add that “we have untapped oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States. But a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production. . . . It is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions.”

McCain’s announcement is a reversal of the position he took in his 2000 presidential campaign and a break with environmental activists, even as he attempts to win the support of independents and moderate Democrats. Since becoming the presumptive GOP nominee in March, McCain has presented himself as a friend of the environment by touting his plans to combat global warming and his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the Everglades.

Representatives of several environmental groups criticized him for backing an idea they said would endanger the nation’s most environmentally sensitive waters.

“It’s disappointing that Senator McCain is clinging to the failed energy policies of the past,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, legislative director for the League of Conservation Voters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602731_pf.html

Jesse Says:

17 June 2008 at 11:33 am.

I was certain that guards at Abu Graib were being used as scape goats for policies that were coming from higher up. Some of the guards tried to explain that but weren’t believed. I feel bad that our military would let those guards go to prison and take the fall when they were following orders. Sure they shouldn’t have obeyed orders like that but the more serious crime came from the people who issued those orders. I believe this report.

Torture’s Bad Seeds

The Bush Administration has long maintained that the overtly cruel and abusive treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was the conduct of a few “bad apples.”

But a Senate investigation is tracking the rot to its source. And its findings add to the mounting evidence that the sometimes systematic torture of detainees at American hands was the result of decisions made at the highest levels of government — and particularly within the office of the vice president.

Warren P. Strobel writes for McClatchy Newspapers: “A senior Pentagon official in July 2002 sought the advice of military psychologists to help design aggressive detainee interrogation techniques that would later be linked with prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, a Senate investigation has found.

“The revelation, part of a probe by the Senate Armed Services Committee that is to be unveiled during hearings Tuesday, provides dramatic new evidence that the use of the aggressive techniques was planned at the top levels of the Bush administration and were not the work of out-of-control, lower-ranking troops.”
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Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, released new documentary evidence on the origins of the techniques at a hearing this morning.

In his opening statement, Levin asked: “[H]ow did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep, and blasted music at them. Were these actions the result of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that’s not the case. The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. In the process, they damaged our ability to collect intelligence that could save lives.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html

Libertarian Says:

17 June 2008 at 1:11 pm.

http://www.safehaven.com/article-10534.htm
Iraq or the Economy?
by Ron Paul

What is the importance of the war in Iraq relative to other current issues? This is a question I am often asked, especially as Americans continue to become increasingly aware that something is very wrong with the economy. The difficulty with the way the question is often asked relates to the perception that we are somehow able to divide such issues, or to isolate the cost of war into arbitrarily defined areas such as national security or international relations. War is an all-encompassing governmental activity. The impact of war on our ability to defend ourselves from future attack, and upon America’s standing in the world, is only a mere fraction of the total overall effect that war has on our nation and the policies of its government.

The cost of this particular war is enormous, and therefore its of great importance. There is no single issue that is more important at this particular time. The war has, of course, made us less safe as a nation and damaged our credibility with allies and hostile nations alike. Moreover, years of growing deficits have been spurred on by the high price tag of war, and the decision to pay that price primarily by supplemental spending rather than traditional “on-budget” accounting.

War takes what would otherwise be productive economic capacity and transfers both that capacity, and the wealth it would generate in normal, peaceful, times into far less economically viable activities. It also impacts budget priorities in ways that are detrimental to our nation. I have often pointed to the fact that we are building bridges in Iraq while they are collapsing in the United States .

All war, but most particularly war funded by monetary inflation, bleeds a country in multiple ways. Obviously, many of the young people who are in the military literally give their blood, and sometimes their lives, fighting in wars of this type. Meanwhile, those who do not fight the war, but fund it, are forced to pay both the immediate costs, as well as seeing their long term purchasing power erode, as the twin pillars of debt and inflation are foisted upon the backs of current taxpayers and future generations. Neither conspiracy nor coincidence explains steep increases in the price of gas as the war drags on. No, this is simply a reality of the inflationary policies that, among other things, make this war possible.

As people are continually asked to choose whether our nation’s teetering economy or the failed foreign policy of the past several decades is most important as we look forward, it is well for those of us who understand that these two issues are closely linked, to continue to explain this fact to our fellow citizens. To fix the problem requires a proper diagnosis.

Stumpy Says:

17 June 2008 at 1:42 pm.

Sorry to offend but it seems like we are getting a lot more idiots on this board. We need to recruit some more folks who are stronger in the brains department.

The Realist Says:

17 June 2008 at 1:48 pm.

E.E. and Concerned American, nice heads up on an important issue. I’ll sign.

Stumpy, I didn’t realize you were a Ron Paul fan. I thought you were just a jackass, I mean had a jackass for a best friend.

Jesse Says:

17 June 2008 at 1:54 pm.

hehe

Cavetrollhead Says:

17 June 2008 at 2:26 pm.

Sorry- Stupid OR Evil.

Cavetrollhead Says:

17 June 2008 at 2:55 pm.

http://multimedia.hsus.org/slideshows/iowaflood08/index.html

Animal rescues.

Matt Says:

17 June 2008 at 3:14 pm.

I’m with Stumpy on the Ron Paul thing. He isn’t a Paul supporter and neither am I but we are supporters of being inclusive and not exclusive. I don’t see the Ron Paul supporters on this site trying to force people to believe the way they do. I see them doing it other places and it bugs me. Don’t forget what this place is about. People respecting each other even with different points of view as long as we are sincere.

In Russia, sometimes it rains cement

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian air force planes dropped a 25-kg (55-lb) sack of cement on a suburban Moscow home last week while seeding clouds to prevent rain from spoiling a holiday, Russian media said on Tuesday.

“A pack of cement used in creating … good weather in the capital region … failed to pulverize completely at high altitude and fell on the roof of a house, making a hole about 80-100 cm (2.5-3 ft),” police in Naro-Fominsk told agency RIA-Novosti.

Ahead of major public holidays the Russian Air Force often dispatches up to 12 cargo planes carrying loads of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and cement powder to seed clouds above Moscow and empty the skies of moisture.

A spokesman for the Russian Air Force refused to comment.

June 12 was Russia Day, a patriotic holiday celebrating the country’s independence after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Weather specialists said the cement’s failure to turn to powder was the first hiccup in 20 years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1760049120080617?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Cavetrollhead Says:

17 June 2008 at 3:51 pm.

I don’t know how reliable this source is but here is an article that claims Barak Obama’s half brother, Malik, says that Barak was raised a Muslim. What is more, Malik apparently still thinks Barak is Muslim.

I wonder why Barak denies being raised a Muslim. His denial is more disturbing that his upbringing.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12918.htm

Benjamin Says:

17 June 2008 at 4:02 pm.

Rising Mississippi disrupts bridge travel
GULFPORT, Ill. - The rising Mississippi River interrupted travel on two bridges between Iowa and Illinois and threatened thousands of acres of farmland Tuesday. People stacked millions of sandbags near 27 levees the federal government said were in danger of overflowing.

The river blew a massive hole in a levee near the farming community of Gulfport at about 5 a.m., covering at least 5,000 acres of farmland by late Tuesday morning, Henderson County Chief Deputy Donald Seitz said.

“The whole town will be under water,” Seitz said, calling the levee break “very devastating” for the small agricultural community near the Illinois-Iowa line. More than 10,000 acres could eventually flood, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080617/ap_on_re_us/midwest_flooding

Benjamin Says:

17 June 2008 at 4:05 pm.

Cave, good find with the article about Obama being Muslim.

E.E. Says:

17 June 2008 at 4:19 pm.

This is very bad news. I found it in the British Times. I can’t believe our papers aren’t reporting this???

Villagers flee valley as Taleban dig in to face Nato onslaught

Nato helicopters dropped leaflets on villages in southern Afghanistan today, warning civilians to leave their homes ahead of an operation to recapture part of a valley seized by hundreds of Taleban fighters.

Refugees fleeing the area also reported that the insurgents were blowing bridges and planting mines in Arghandab district, ten miles north-west of the city of Kandahar, as Afghan and Nato troops rushed to seal off the area.

Escaped Taleban prisoners, freed from Kandahar’s Sarposa prison during an audacious jailbreak on friday, are believed to be among the insurgents now setting up position in Arghandab’s orchards.

“They told us, ‘we want to fight until the death’,” a Taleban commander, Mullah Ahmedullah, told the Associated Press news agency, of the inmates who had joined his men’s ranks.

We’ve occupied most of the area and it’s a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the Nato and Afghan forces.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4157579.ece