fearless1stmarines’ Neighborhood

President Obama needs to spend more time working on the economy and less time on recreational activities. His campaign promises of making the America and world a better place is yet to be realized.  Blaming Bush will not work much longer.  He has to get working at stimulating business. Without a vibrant business community, real recovery will not happen.   

16 Million Americans are now suffering without hope in a jobless recovery. [21] Earlier, the president promised unemployment would never rise above 7.8%, [22] as an additional 4 million jobs were destroyed after the Obama stimulus passed, as experts predicted. [23]

Some doubt Ronald Reagan's importance in bringing down the Berlin Wall.  In addition, some doubt that he even had a strategy for hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Regardless, one could argue that evidence suggests otherwise.  One could also argue that President Ronald Reagan was the most dynamic anti Communist president in the history of America. 

Paul Kengor’s The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, contends that Reagan’s goal of defeating communism and winning the Cold War can be traced to his early struggles against communists in Hollywood as head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1940s. In this fight against an attempted communist takeover of the union, Reagan was, in the words of fellow actor Sterling Hayden, a “one man battalion.”

Peter Schweizer, based at the Hoover Institution, was the first scholar to significantly make the case that Ronald Reagan deliberately set out to win the Cold War. In two books—Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1994) and Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism (2002)—

Schweizer used interviews with some of Reagan’s national security and foreign policy staffers, national security directives, Reagan’s speeches and private correspondence, and documents from several foreign countries, to argue that Reagan intentionally abandoned détente, moved beyond a passive containment policy, and pursued a strategy of victory.

Schweizer noted that at the heart of Reagan’s strategy was a sophisticated effort to exploit Soviet vulnerabilities, especially its economic vulnerabilities, which included:

(1) covert financial and intelligence support to the Solidarity union in Poland and other opposition groups within the Soviet empire;

(2) financial and military support to the Afghan resistance;

(3) cooperative efforts with Saudi Arabia to drive down the price of oil, and limiting Soviet natural gas exports to the West, thereby reducing Soviet hard currency earnings;

(4) a campaign to limit Soviet access to Western high technology;

(5) a technological disinformation effort to help disrupt the Soviet economy;

(6) a massive U.S. defense buildup, including the SDI program, to put more pressure on Soviet economic resources;

and (7) financial, military and logistical support for anti-communist forces in several Third World countries. “Reagan,” concluded Schweizer, “did have a well-developed plan seeking the demise of the Soviet Union.”

My DSL is repaired but will only work if I'm hooked up to the modem via an ethernet cable.

I've tried, for an hour this morning and another hour tonight, to configure the Linksys wireless router (which I installed and have previously reconfigured a couple times). It comes up as configured and connected but won't let me go anywhere - everything times out.

I think the problem is internet security settings... that I have them configured, somewhere, for the wireless router too. I've checked, disabled, and/or reset everything I can think of but still can't get internet access via my wireless router.

Yes, it is making me insane.

• 02:58 @chicrunner - what happened? #
• 05:35 You could be so overly concerned now about doing the right thi... More for Sagittarius bit.ly/79sZN #
• 11:27 #Dethklok tonight at the @HOBDallas! Stoked! #
• 13:43 @ashleystar - makes me think of Cartman singing that. #southpark #
• 19:32 At the House of Blues fragpic.com/32pj #
• 19:33 Metal! \m/ #
• 19:53 Still waiting for Dethklok fragpic.com/32pk #
• 20:19 Mastodon! #
• 20:21 Sitting next to a couple Mastodon fans that drove 9 hours (memphis) for this concert. That's metal! #
• 20:25 Fu*k, here's where I'm torn on my next purchase. I want another SG, but then there's the Explorer. What do I do? #
• 20:51 Srsly? WTF mate? fragpic.com/32po #
• 21:07 @adrenalynntoao - how goes the eve? #
• 21:34 Dethklok!!!!!!! #
• 21:39 Dethklok is about to take the stage fragpic.com/32pq #
• 22:04 Deth.......fucking.......klok!!!!!!! fragpic.com/32pv #
• 23:16 One hell of a show!!!! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

The Herald Sun published an article by Andrew Bolt in which he stated critical  facts which had been ignored by some journalists and propounded certain rhetorical of a most critical nature.  The article included a link to his blog, where  I discovered a link to Dr. Hasan's slide show at the Washington Post.  

    It has been reported that Dr. Hasan's assignment was to deliver a lecture on a medical topic. Instead, he lectured about Islam and its potential effect on servicemen and the Army.  In retrospect, the advice given in the last slide should have been applied in his case.

    The slide show  presents a basic outline of  Islam, hitting the most essential highlights. Most of the slides display Qur'an verses or hadith.  I have no doubt that the lecture elaborated upon the military application of those slides.  

    The information presented in the slide show is basically accurate, with the exception of two areas where error has crept in. Slide #36, pertaining to peace & forgiveness,  overlooks the fact that those verses have been abrogated by Surah At-Taubah.  #38 & 39 misrepresent 9:38 & 9:39 as relating to defense though they are contained in a Surah dedicated to excoriating Muslims who refused to join the ghazwat against Tabuk.  Ibn Kathir's Tafsir confirms the obvious.

    I hope that you will click the link to the slide show, view it and consider its contents carefully.  Its implications for military recruitment & retention policy are clear.  Neither the Muslim who shrinks from conflict with fellow Muslims nor one who  anticipates an opportunity to turn against friendly forces should be recruited or retained.  I doubt the possibility of accurately identifying all members of those two classes of Muslims.

    The critical questions propounded by Mr. Bolt are listed below, followed by my answers.

• How much of a threat is Islam to a secular, multi-ethnic society like America's - and ours?
• How sure can we be of the loyalty of Muslim troops in a war against a Muslim country?
• Have we become so fearful of asking such questions that even a Hasan, with his record for hate-preaching, is not just allowed to serve in the US military, but is promoted to the rank of major by people apparently too scared to seem racist to object?
• And can you trust journalists to even tell you the facts you need to reach the right answers?

    We can be sure of the past loyalty of Muslim troops after the war is ended without treacherous behavior on their part. We can never be sure of their future loyalty. We now know that Dr. Hasan is extremely disloyal.

    The question about fearing accusations of hate/racism  answered itself,  it does not require amplification.

    Journalists can only report what they know. In the early hours of any incident, that knowledge base will be small, growing over time as new information comes to light . But many journalists have agendas, as do the publications that employ them. We can not trust all of them all of the time; we must not become dependent on a single source of information about current events.

• 13:23 Waiting to hear if my offer on the car gets accepted... #
• 13:41 And...denied. The search goes on. #
• 15:04 Car's mine if I like it tomorrow! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter