"WELCOME TO JSM'S BEGGING FOR BANNING THREAD #3

[no rose colored glasses]

She was a very homely woman 

[joesamas mama]

Aug 13th, 2009 | WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.

RIP 

[trimmonthelake]

I just don' know what to think, I'm sure there are some people going to the town hall meetings to cause problems, but I think most of the people are there to get questions answered.

I think most just want their questions answered.Now that people are really turning out,I'm sure there are trouble makers entering the picture.
Yesterday it was reported 2/3/ of senators won't go to these meetings.soemof the meetings have been canceled or done by teleconference.
I'm with JSM,after the vacation break,it will be necessary to keep coming after the government.
We need some changes but this isn't what the majority of the people want.The government is supposed to work for us.

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539274,00.html

U.S. Marines Fight House-to-House in Afghan Taliban Stronghold

Thursday, August 13, 2009
 EXCLUSIVE: FOX News' Greg Palkot is the only reporter traveling with a combined force of 500 Marines and Afghan soldiers as they carry out day two of air and ground assault Operation Eastern Resolve. The operation is aimed at liberating a key town in Northern Helmand province of Taliban and to secure a strategic pass used by Taliban fighters. What follows is Palkot's latest report.

[trimmonthelake]

Les Paul passed away today.   
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090813/ts_alt_afp/usmusicpeoplepaul_20090813165136
Les Paul, guitar revolutionary, dies at 94

 6 mins ago

NEW YORK (AFP) – Les Paul, a virtuoso guitarist whose innovations in recording techniques changed the course of rock music, died Thursday in New York state, Gibson Guitar company said. He was 94.

Paul "passed away today from complications of severe pneumonia at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York, surrounded by family and loved ones," said Gibson, which makes the renowned Les Paul guitar.

Gibson called Paul "one of the foremost influences on 20th century sound and responsible for the world's most famous guitar, the Les Paul model."

"Today, countless musical legends still consider Paul's iconic guitar unmatched in sound and prowess," the company's statement said.

"Among Paul's most enduring contributions are those in the technological realm, including ingenious developments in multi-track recording, guitar effects, and the mechanics of sound in general."

[trimmonthelake]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346512956227346.html
Obama and the Permanent Campaign
Turning critics into enemies isn't presidential.

By KARL ROVE

Team Obama is suffering from Extended Campaign Syndrome. In an election, campaign staffers are often just trying to survive until the next week or the next primary. They cut corners because they are fatigued or under pressure. They can be purposely combative and even portray critics as enemies.

Carrying this mindset into the White House can get you into trouble, a lesson the Obama administration is now learning the hard way.

For example, there's a video being circulated online of Barack Obama telling the Illinois AFL-CIO in 2003, "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health-care program . . . we may not get there immediately" and then telling an SEIU Health Care Forum in 2007, "I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where we've got a much more portable system."
The White House now insists that the president doesn't want to enact a single-payer health-care system or eliminate private insurance. What's more, a White House spokeswoman attacked the video, saying its compilers "Take a phrase here and there—they simply cherry-pick and put it together—and make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say."

That's laughable. Mr. Obama's remarks are straightforward and indisputable. Rather than saying his views have changed as he has worked to create a national consensus, the administration denies what is obviously true.
Last week, the White House asked Americans to report "fishy" information about health-insurance reform and its purveyors. Setting the record straight is one thing. Collecting information on critics in this vaguely threatening manner is quite another.
Much of the Democratic response to critics has been inappropriate or unpresidential. Take the reaction to the town-hall meetings taking place across the country. Many people are worried about their health care and a few are responding in unacceptable ways. But Democrats are portraying the opposition as an "angry mob" using, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote in a USA Today op-ed, "un-American" tactics. Mr. Obama's "Organizing for America," a political group founded by the president to mobilize supporters, dismisses critics as tools of "insurance companies . . . stirring up fear with false rumors," without presenting a shred of evidence to back up the charge.

The White House may actually welcome this process fight if it is more interested in the state of mind of 60 Democratic senators and 256 Democratic House members than in what the public at large is thinking. It seems to believe attacking critics will reassure nervous members of Congress. The sideshow also distracts attention from the substance of Mr. Obama's plans, which is what is really hurting him.

For example, many small businesspeople are starting to figure out that under ObamaCare it will be cheaper to pay a penalty equal to 8% of payroll than to continue covering their employees' health insurance. How will people feel about Mr. Obama's claim that everyone can keep their existing coverage when their employer tells them it makes better economic sense to dump them into the government-run option than to keep paying for private insurance?

The administration's rhetorical tricks extend to issues beyond health care. The economy continues shedding jobs, yet the administration keeps saying the president's policies save jobs. Last Thursday, Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, proclaimed at the Economic Club of Washington that the stimulus package has saved "about 485,000 jobs" since February.
The following day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 247,000 Americans lost their jobs in July. What Team Obama says not only runs counter to the experience of ordinary Americans, it's causing many to conclude that their White House is misleading them.

The administration could strain its credibility further when it updates the government's fiscal projections in the soon-to-be-released report called the "Mid-Session Review." It's likely that the president will blame his predecessor for a larger than previously projected deficit.
It's true that the deficit was $455 billion when Mr. Obama took office, with $325.3 billion of that from the bank rescue bill Sen. Obama supported.

But since Jan. 20, Mr. Obama has only added to the red ink. He has signed into law a $787 billion stimulus package and a $33 billion expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program. He's greenlighted spending another $330.4 billion in bank rescue money. And he signed a $410 billion bill to fund discretionary spending for the second half of the current fiscal year, an increase of 8% on an annual basis. By supporting each spending initiative, he robbed himself of the ability to credibly blame others for the size of the deficit.

Life inside the White House is far different from life inside a presidential campaign. The spotlight is brighter and scrutiny greater. While the posse in the White House pressroom is still slow to challenge Mr. Obama, ordinary people are forming their own judgments and they are increasingly negative.

Mr. Obama's exaggerations, misdirection and efforts to divide Americans are becoming more obvious. What worked in the Obama campaign will often backfire on the Obama presidency. But old habits are hard to leave on the trail.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

[trimmonthelake]

JSM
http://www.wesh.com/news/20384622/detail.html
Father Of Runaway Says Daughter Kidnapped By Cult
Fathima Bary Says Father Threatened Her After Christian Conversion

POSTED: 11:45 am EDT August 13, 2009
UPDATED: 12:45 pm EDT August 13, 2009
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The father of a teenager who ran away to Florida to escape what she said was religious persecution said his daughter is the victim of a cult.

Fathima Bary, 17, left her home in Ohio and went to Central Florida to join a Christian group she met on Facebook. Bary, who is not a U.S. citizen, said she fears her family would hurt her, kill her or send her back to her native Sri Lanka because she converted to Christianity several years ago. A pastor took in the teenager and a judge granted the Department of Children and Families custody to keep her in temporary foster care.
Fathima's father, however, said her story is not true.

"My opinion is this, this is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away, and I expect that this should not happen to any other child," he said. "That's all I can tell you."

An Ohio police detective is also questioning the girl's story. Sgt. Jerry Cupp, head of the Columbus Police Department's missing persons' bureau, said the girl's father seems genuinely concerned and worried about his daughter.

[mytime]

Hi Trimm - I hope you had a special birthday!   


   Just dropping KCjackie's birthday party link too.

http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=5921.0

[trimmonthelake]

Hi Trimm - I hope you had a special birthday!   


   Just dropping KCjackie's birthday party link too.

http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=5921.0

Hey Mytime.    I wished KCJackie a Happy Birthday.
I don't think she liked the raccoon photo I posted in musings,so I sent her some Crown Royal.      

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.military.com/
'This War is Just Getting Started'
August 13, 2009
Military.com|by Bryant Jordan


"This war is just getting started. Everything up to now has just been a warm-up."
 
That's how Michael Yon, new media war correspondent and author, sums up the current state of the war in Afghanistan.  "There's going to be an increase in the fighting through the rest of this fighting season," Yon said in an August 12 podcast interview with Military.com Editor Ward Carroll. "And then next fighting season, in 2010, we'll see the most intense fighting we've ever seen since the war began."

According to Yon, a former Army Green Beret, if the U.S. is serious about winning and stabilizing Afghanistan it will not be a 10-year commitment but a 100-year mission.
 
Since he was first invited to embed with American forces early in the Iraq War, the first "blogger" to do so, Yon has spent most of his time reporting from the war zones.  This trip he has been in Afghanistan for about six weeks, spending time with Lithuanian troops before settling in with 2 Rifles, a British infantry unit. He plans on staying "in country" until Christmas, he said, and will embed with U.S. Marine units after he leaves the Brits.
 
Michael Yon stops by the Editor's Desk.

The 2 Rifles is currently operating out of the village of Sangin along a river valley in northern Helmand province. The area is called the Green Zone, he said, but it has nothing in common with Baghdad's area that shares the name.  This zone is "green" because it's lush from the river water, and it's anything but secure.
"This is a very contested area," he said with small arms fire and at least one rocket launch audible in the background as he spoke over a satellite phone late at night in Afghanistan. "A helicopter was shot down about 500 meters from where I am now last month."

The Brit unit has taken about 15 KIAs and quite a few wounded in the past four months, he said, but morale among the fighters remains high. "That's one reason I asked I've asked to stay with them. It's difficult to stay with a unit that has low morale, but this one is a joy to be with."

These days the mission in Helmand is primarily to create security for the civilian populace, as both allied and Taliban forces try to set conditions on the ground for national elections just one week away.

In some parts of the country there has been progress made against the Taliban insurgency and some residents clearly do not want to see the U.S. and NATO forces leave, he said. But the opposite is true for the area he is now reporting from.  And he fears that given the lack of troops, the situation won't improve anytime soon.

While the U.S. continues to debate how many additional forces it will send - another 21,000 have been committed, and one key adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal has floated the idea of adding another 45,000 beyond that - the British are dealing with their own problems -- a lack of troops and helicopter transport.
Beyond that both countries are frustrated by the fact there are too-few Afghan troops and police.  In one nearby province there isn't a single Afghan National Army soldier assigned.

Where 2 Rifles operates, the British unit is supposed to have 100 ANA troops at its side, but in fact they have just 36, Yon said.

"The Taliban ultimately are more powerful than we are at that moment [here], but progress is being made," he said. "In reality we don't' have enough troops to undertake what needs to be undertaken here."

"In this area … if you're not in the area 24/7 you don't own it, the enemy does."
See more coverage from Military.com contributor Michael Yon.

[mytime]

Hi Trimm - I hope you had a special birthday!   


   Just dropping KCjackie's birthday party link too.

http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=5921.0

Hey Mytime.    I wished KCJackie a Happy Birthday.
I don't think she liked the raccoon photo I posted in musings,so I sent her some Crown Royal.      

    I saw that!!  I invited her raccoon "friends" to the party!   


Gotta run!!   

[no rose colored glasses]

I just don' know what to think, I'm sure there are some people going to the town hall meetings to cause problems, but I think most of the people are there to get questions answered.

I think most just want their questions answered.Now that people are really turning out,I'm sure there are trouble makers entering the picture.
Yesterday it was reported 2/3/ of senators won't go to these meetings.soemof the meetings have been canceled or done by teleconference.
I'm with JSM,after the vacation break,it will be necessary to keep coming after the government.
We need some changes but this isn't what the majority of the people want.The government is supposed to work for us.

The government is supposed to work for us, but it doesn't. I think most of the elected officals only care about themselves.

[Green Eyes]

Happy Birthday Trimm

I loved your pics of the racoons.

[trimmonthelake]

Happy Birthday Trimm

I loved your pics of the racoons.

 

[CasuallyCool]

Anyne one care to sneak into their husband's golf bag and snag me a couple dozen or so Titleist Prov V1 golf balls?

[trimmonthelake]

Anyne one care to sneak into their husband's golf bag and snag me a couple dozen or so Titleist Prov V1 golf balls?

   Have fun.

[trimmonthelake]

Speicher now back in Florida.   

[Babybear]

In my opinion, the first thing that needs to be done to improve, not reform, health care  involves malpractice lawsuits.  My late husband was a surgeon.  He was never sued for malpractice, yet when he retired he was paying $170,000 per year for malpractice insurance.  I know that there are mistakes made by doctors and the person who suffers should be compensated.  But juries awarding many millions is outrageous and is the result of not having tort reform.  Now, why won't Congress or the Senate do anything about it?  They are mostly lawyers, that's why. Lawyers get one/third of malpractice awards and that's off the top, not after expenses which the plaintiff pays.  So if a jury awards $30 million which isn't unheard of, the lawyer will get ten million. Doctors can't absorb these malpractice insurance premiums and must pass them on to patients.

I also think that there should be a government fund (Yes, I said that bad word) to help pay medical costs which are catastrophic and above what a person's insurance pays. Every single day the Federal Government wastes more that this would cost in a year.  Although Congress has decided not to buy those expensive jets for their own use due to public outcry, they will definitely sneak it in somewhere, probably in the middle of the night. The money set aside for those jets and other perks which are just more burden on the taxpayer would help pay for this too.

Anyone who presents himself at an emergency room is treated.  Usually these ERs are
crowded on Sunday afternoons by people without insurance.  Draw your own conclusions. But I do know that hospitals which receive Hill-Burton funds which is most hospitals, are required by law to treat uninsured people.

I also think that insurance companys need to be stopped from certain practices such as dropping people when they have big medical bills.  Maybe after a certain amount, the Feds should pick it up.  In my state there is state  insurance which will insure people who otherwise do not qualify due to pre-existing conditions. Some sort of change needs to be made in that case.

Obama actually had the stupidity (Yes, he acted stupidly) to compare his plan which he can't explain,  with the PO, saying that private companies FedEx and UPS thrive just as private insurance companies will thrive under his socialist program.  Well, the Post Office is broke. And that's what will happen to the US of A if they continue with this cockamamie insurance "reform" legislation.  As that young woman said to Arlen Specter (the genius who invented the one-bullet theory) This will change the entire country as we know it. 

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539257,00.html
Navy Pilot's Remains Return to Fla. 18 Years After Gulf War Death

Thursday, August 13, 2009



JACKSONVILLE, Fla. —  The remains of Navy pilot Michael Scott Speicher are being returned to his Florida home, 18 years after his FA-18 Hornet was shot down on the first night of the Gulf War in 1991.

Speicher's remains are being returned to Jacksonville Naval Air Station around 3 p.m. Thursday. Speicher was a native of the Kansas City area and moved to Florida when he was a teenager.

Speicher's casket will be taken to All Saints Chapel on base, where it will remain overnight.

On Friday, Speicher's casket will first be taken to the Memorial Wall outside Jacksonville Memorial High School. The hearse will drive by locations associated with Speicher's life. He will be buried at Jacksonville Memory Gardens in a private ceremony.


Spokesperson for the family says that he did eject and was alive at one time.....      

[CasuallyCool]

Anyne one care to sneak into their husband's golf bag and snag me a couple dozen or so Titleist Prov V1 golf balls?

   Have fun.

Gee, thanks a bunch Trimm.  Some Cougar you turned out to be.