End the War on Drugs

by Ron Paul

We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration is not likely to waste this opportunity to further expand government. Hopefully, we can take a deep breath and look at history for the optimal way to deal with this dangerous situation, which is not unprecedented.

Alcohol prohibition in the 1920s brought similar violence, gangs, lawlessness, corruption and brutality. The reason for the violence was not that making and selling alcohol was inherently dangerous. The violence came about because of the creation of a brutal black market which also drove profits through the roof. These profits enabled criminals like Al Capone to become incredibly wealthy, and militantly defensive of that wealth. Al Capone saw the repeal of Prohibition as a great threat, and indeed smuggling operations and gangland violence fell apart after repeal. Today, picking up a bottle of wine for dinner is a relatively benign transaction, and beer trucks travel openly and peacefully along their distribution routes.

Similarly today, the best way to fight violent drug cartels would be to pull the rug out from under their profits by bringing these transactions out into the sunlight. People who, unwisely, buy drugs would hardly opt for the back alley criminal dealer as a source, if a coffeehouse-style dispensary was an option. Moreover, a law-abiding dispensary is likely to check IDs and refuse sale to minors, as bars and ABC stores tend to do very diligently. Think of all the time and resources law enforcement could save if they could instead focus on violent crimes, instead of this impossible nanny-state mandate of saving people from themselves!

If these reasons don’t convince the drug warriors, I would urge them to go back to the Constitution and consider where there is any authority to prohibit private personal choices like this. All of our freedoms – the freedom of religion and assembly, the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unnecessary government searches and seizures – stem from the precept that you own yourself and are responsible for your own choices. Prohibition laws negate self-ownership and are an absolute affront to the principles of freedom. I disagree vehemently with the recreational use of drugs, but at the same time, if people are only free to make good decisions, they are not truly free. In any case, states should decide for themselves how to handle these issues and the federal government should respect their choices.

My great concern is that instead of dealing deliberatively with the actual problems, Congress will be pressed again to act quickly without much thought or debate. I can’t think of a single problem we haven’t made worse that way. The panic generated by the looming crisis in Mexico should not be redirected into curtailing more rights, especially our second amendment rights, as seems to be in the works. Certainly, more gun laws in response to this violence will only serve to disarm lawful citizens. This is something to watch out for and stand up against. We have escalated the drug war enough to see it only escalates the violence and profits associated with drugs. It is time to try freedom instead.

Via Cousin John

With Mike V. = What Did Officials Know About Operation Fast and Furious?

Via NCRenegade

ATF Scandal Threatens to Bring Down Top Obama Administration Officials

Via The Market Ticker

"The Night of the Long Knives?"
==============================

Any Swiss Watch Experts?

This watch was a family one given to Dixie on her birthday. It is believed to have appeared in the family between 1832 and 1900. It is worn as a necklace with only a small glimpse of it in the picture. The numbers are in a light purple with pearls surrounding the face and covering the back. The only information is 14K and Swiss which are engraved on the inside of the two separate backs.

Lockert, a former state prosecutor, says it's the worst case of excessive force he's ever seen.

WZTV FOX 17

VIDEO

VERBATIM POST
=========================

Dashboard cameras are supposed to help protect police officers and sheriff's deputies from groundless complaints, but a graphic dash cam video obtained by FOX17 NEWS has some Humphreys County lawmen at the center of a TBI investigation. It was January 23 on the outskirts of Waverly when sheriff's deputies roll up to a house on Bearcat Lane. It started otu peacefully enough, with authorities questioning 35 year old Darrin Ring on the left and 2 other men who say they live next door to the home, but the peace was quickly shattered. 3 Humphreys County sheriff's deputies converge on Ring and take him down. You can hear them telling Ring to settle down before deputies repeatedly hit and kicked him.

"In the course of about 14 minutes they removed his clothing so he was laying naked in the snow," says District Public Defender Jake Lockert. "Cuffed his hands in front of him, pepper sprayed him, tazed him multiple times, beat him with steel asps and kicked him into the ribs until the point they punctured a lung."

The sheriff's deputies were eventually joined by 2 Waverly police officers who were backing them up. The Waverly officers have tazer guns. Lockert, a former state prosecutor, says it's the worst case of excessive force he's ever seen.

"Our client was in a no win situation," says Lockert. "If he obeys the officers' commands and tries to comply, he's kicked and beaten and tazed. If he doesn't move, he's hit and beaten and tazed."

Lockert says Darrin Ring was drunk but committed no crime. He says his client was charged with Assaulting an Officer and Resisting Arrest to cover up what he contends is the real crime. Jake Lockert will be in court July 20 asking for all charges against Darrin Ring to be dropped, and Ring is considering a civil lawsuit. The sheriff's department didn't comment Thursday. The officers involved remain on the job pending the TBI's investigation.

Friday, July 8 2011, 12:28 AM CDT

Via Don

Violent Luddites

OLEG VOLK

VERBATIM POST
=====================

Anti-gun Activists Have much in common with the original Luddites . They blame new technologies and users of those technologies for their own plight, and aren't above using violence to achieve their goals. Luddites DID Their Own killing, whereas "Anti-Gunners" - More "Anti personal guns for Ordinary People" in Truth - try to use the ATF and Other Government Agencies as Their cat's paw .

The rallying cry of the anti-gun bigots is usually "for reasonable gun control!" They claim that old, simple guns are just fine, it's the new and extra deadly weapons and ammunition that are the evil incarnate. Even if we assume they aren't lying about their intentions, let's look at the history of the devices they are trying to eradicate from common use:

Long range rifles - in civilian use by 1515 for hunting and competition, in common military use by the late 1700s

High capacity handguns - 20-shot pinfire revolvers common from 1830s to 1850s.

Semi-auto pistols with capacity over 10 rounds - in 1905 (Savage)

Machine guns - 1882 (Maxim)

Submachine guns - 1915 (Villar Perosa)

Semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles with magazines over ten rounds (1887) - Mondragon

Hollow point ammunition for handguns - 1897 (Webley mk.III)

Automatic revolvers - 1901 (Webley-Fosbery)

Machine pistols - 1932 (Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer, though Steye M1912 also cited as such)

This is only a partial list of the types which the anti-gun people find so objectionable. They have been able to retard the development of small arms and damage the ability of peaceful people to obtain them for self-defense, but to what end? Brigands of all descriptions, from government troops to freelance thugs, are seldom deterred by law from acquiring arms, while the non-violent people are handicapped in defending their lives and families.

We can only hope that Brady creatures and their government enablers would meet the same end as the Luddites, a dismissive entry in history books and a complete political irrelevance.

GOA Alert

Your Tax Dollars were Used to Purchase Guns and Run Them into Mexico

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:48

Well, the other shoe has dropped. We’ve known for several months that the Obama Administration was turning a blind eye to -- and even encouraged -- suspected gun smugglers who were purchasing firearms from gun stores in the southwest.

But now we know the rest of the story: Your tax money was used to buy many of those guns that were later sent to Mexico.

That’s what Fox News has been reporting this week, as it remains the one large news agency that has continued to cover the growing Fast and Furious scandal that was being run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF).

Fast and Furious was a program that was born in 2009, allegedly to help track gun smugglers back to the Mexican drug cartels. But the reality is that few, if any, of these top-level leaders have been busted, while the smuggled guns have been funneled into the hands of drug gangs all along the border, resulting in hundreds of deaths (and the murders of two U.S. law-enforcement agents).

And, not only were your hard-earned dollars being used to purchase these guns, the main person being investigated for gun smuggling “was actually an FBI informant and former drug dealer who had been deported years ago,” Fox News reported.

According to sources inside the Justice Department, the ATF spent millions of dollars tracking a chief gun smuggler -- known as “Mr. Big” -- before discovering that he was in fact on the feds’ payroll (funded, again, by your tax dollars).

But why? That’s the recurring question. Why would the Obama Administration -- that is filled with anti-gun cronies -- knowingly approve the sales of firearms to bad guys? Why would they knowingly put thousands of guns “into the wrong hands,” when they’ve spent years advocating gun control laws to supposedly get guns “out of the wrong hands.”

Given that the ATF refused to work with Mexican authorities (when it came to tracking these guns) and frequently lost track of the firearms after they moved south of the border, it does not seem that bringing down drug kingpins was the real goal of Fast and Furious.

The better explanation is that the Obama Administration was using the influx of guns into Mexico -- and the resulting violence -- to clamor for increased gun controls here at home.

As stated by an Examiner.com article this April, “The Obama Administration, according to ATF agents who blew the whistle on the illegal plot, intended to use statistics concerning U.S. guns in Mexico to call for more stringent gun control.”

That is outrageous, and it means that the top cop at the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, needs to go. Fast and Furious occurred under his watch. And we know that information about departmental corruption went right up to his office suite. Holder was either deeply involved or grossly negligent about this horrendous scandal that has left hundreds of people dead. Holder must resign.

ACTION: Please contact your Senators and urge them to call for Eric Holder’s resignation. And don’t forget to circulate this alert to your family and friends.

Click here to send your Senators a prewritten email.

Gun-Running Timeline: How DOJ’s ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ Unfolded

(CNSNews.com) - Operation Fast and Furious was a program carried out by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a division of the U.S. Justice Department.

In this operation, which began in the fall of 2009 and continued into early 2011, the federal government purposefully allowed known or suspected gun smugglers to purchase guns at federally licensed firearms dealers in Arizona. The government did not seek to abort these gun purchases, intercept the smugglers after the purchases, or recover the guns they had purchased.

In some cases, as the government expected they would, the smugglers delivered the guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

The reported purpose of the operation was to track and uncover the entirety of the smuggling operations so they could be completely shutdown. However, two rifles sold to a smuggler in the course of Operation Fast and Furious in January 2010 ended up at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.), and Sen. Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are currently investigating the operation.

Here is a timeline based on information the congressional investigation has so far uncovered.

Operation Fast and Furious Timeline:

Via bigtimer

Lying under oath? Car Czar: ‘I Did it All for the Unions’?

AP

================

A Congressional oversight committee has asked Ron Bloom, White House advisor and former ‘car czar,’ to clarify his response to a question during a recent hearing. Bloom was asked whether he made the statement “I did it all for the unions” back in 2009 in the middle of the auto bailout controversy. He vehemently denied saying it.

The problem is, Bloom’s denial contradicts two otherwise credible sources, including a book written by his car czar predecessor, Steve Rattner, and a published account in the Detroit News. Both claim that Bloom did in fact make the comment in question, though both accounts also agreed that it was made in jest.

Here is video from the June 22 Oversight hearing showing the exchange. Representative Burton clearly disbelieves Bloom’s fervent denials:

Another video and Issa's letter challenging Bloom below.

MORE.

Via Don

EPA Funds Green Groups That Sue The Agency To Expand

New EPA rules will force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year. Pictured is the Dave Johnston Power Plant in Glenrock, Wyoming. AP

===========================

When the Environmental Protection Agency said in late June that it would force Western coal-fired power plants to install haze-reducing pollution-control equipment at a cost of $1.5 billion a year, it said it had to in order to settle a lawsuit by environmental groups.

One organization involved in the suit, the Environmental Defense Fund, has a long history of taking the EPA to court. In fact, a cursory review finds almost half a dozen cases in the past 10 years.

The odd thing is that the EPA, in turn, has handed EDF $2.76 million in grants over that same period, according to an IBD review of the agency's grant database.

This strange relationship goes well beyond EDF. Indeed, several environmental groups that have received millions in EPA grants regularly file suit against that same agency. A dozen green groups were responsible for more than 3,000 suits against the EPA and other government agencies over the past decade, according to a study by the Wyoming-based Budd-Falen Law Offices.

The EPA even tacitly encourages such suits, going so far as to pay for and promote a "Citizen's Guide" that, among other things, explains how to sue the agency under "citizen suit" provisions in environmental laws. The guide's author — the Environmental Law Institute — has received $9.9 million in EPA grants over the past decade.

And, to top it off, critics say the EPA often ends up paying the groups' legal fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

'Sweetheart Suits'

What's going on?

MORE.

Via Don

Statesmen are Schoolboys First

In very strong contrast to educational institutions today, Dr. Waddel’s Willington School of the early 1800’s produced great American leaders without teacher unions, free lunch programs or Soviet speech codes. His graduates included political giant John C. Calhoun, distinguished Charleston attorney James L. Pettigru, future US Congressman George McDuffie, future governor of Georgia George R. Gilmer, classical scholar Hugh Swinton Legare, and the incomparable Augustus Baldwin Longstreet -- noted preacher, editor and writer, author of ‘Georgia Scenes.”

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
========
Statesmen are Schoolboys First:

“Willington School, so named from a nearby settlement, got its character from its founder, Dr. Moses Waddel…[who] later became an outstanding educator in the South as president of the University of Georgia.

Dr. Waddel was a Presbyterian minister who first entered the educational field as a side line. He was a born educator, a veritable champion of learning in a community still emerging from the pioneer stage. It was in the year 1801 that he started his Willington School and at a time when education was not generally regarded in those parts as an essential. Most of the local farmers’ families had more practical uses for strong youngsters with sturdy arms and legs.

Despite obvious financial handicaps from the poor economy of the region, students came flocking to Dr. Waddel’s school, some at great sacrifice. In time there were two hundred and fifty students…Many were from poor families who somehow made provision for educating their sons. The school consisted of a central hall, or “academy,” built of logs. About it were several other cabins, also built of logs and chinked with clay against the chill winds that blew off the river now and then in the winter season. The food was plain, mostly corn bread and bacon. Plain living, devotion to study, and high thinking formed the credo of Dr. Waddel.

[The] boys were turned loose in good weather along the river for study periods. There, scattered about under the oak and hickory trees, singly or in groups, they conned their Latin and Greek. The classics were the bases of Dr. Waddel’s curriculum, which seems to have been an innovation in educational methods for a secondary school. His formula and methods attracted interest among educators all over the country.

The routine was simple. In the early years of the school Dr. Waddel used a horn to arouse the students in the morning…[for] changing classes, and as a signal for shutting out lights. These were provided by pine knots rather than candles, then a rarity. [Dr. Waddel would often] step out of the central schoolroom and call the boys from their sylvan study periods with a loud “Books, books young men!” He inculcated a certain amount of self-rule and democracy by holding court every Monday morning to try offenders of the previous week. He acted as judge but the jury was made up of a panel of five students.

To this school here in the woods there came from the Long Cane section of Abbeville [South Carolina]…the almost equally austere John Caldwell Calhoun, a humorless sort of fellow, straight out of the rugged, God-fearing Calhoun clan of Scotch Covenanters. At nineteen he was a grown-up young man for those times. To prepare for entrance to Yale it was decided that he should go to Dr. Waddel’s school. Just after John Calhoun had left the school for Connecticut, the same neighborhood sent another promising youngster in James L. Pettigru…[though] His homespun clothes and rusty, rural manners were ridiculed by students from wealthier homes who sported broadcloth and fine linen.

Thus, Dr. Waddel’s school, with its emphasis on mental discipline, on the classics, and on history and philosophy, provided a cultural incubation for the politicians and statecraft to which some of its more promising students turned in after years. Its curriculum was conducive to the development of fine, flowing oratory, to the elaboration of closely-drawn distinctions about the rights of the States versus the federal government. Its graduates went naturally from the law into politics.”

(The Savannah, More Than the Story of a River, Thomas L. Stokes, University of Georgia Press, 1951, pp. 252- 260)
========
Statesmen are Schoolboys First

Obama's White House Staffers Salary Freeze Lie

Via PUMABydesign

West calls for Eric Holder's removal if attorney general given pass, 'it appears President Obama is complicit'

Via Sipsey Street Irregulars

A new member of Congress who rode into office during the 2010 American rejection of Washington's business-as-usual practice today said that a special prosecutor needs to review the actions of Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the "Fast and Furious" gun scandal where weapons were sold to carriers known to supply Mexican drug lords, and the circumstances make it appear that President Obama could have dirty hands in the deal.

During an appearance on the Steve Gill Show, U.S. Rep. Allen West said the roads that appear to lead to those responsible for the botched program that was supposed to trace guns to high-ranking drug lords are alarming.

"This is just another sad chapter in the Eric Holder book of ineptness and incompetence," West said. "Eric Holder needs to be brought before an investigative committee and if those charges are warranted he needs to be held accountable.

"At least the president needs to realize that Eric Holder needs to be removed from the Department of Justice … or else it appears President Obama is complicit and in approval of the actions of his attorney general," he said.

MORE.

Bastiat for the Ages

====================================

The Law By Frederic Bastiat

is read in the 7th grade of the Robinson Self Taught Homeschool Curriculum

====================================================
"This is the way an opinion gains acceptance in France," Bastiat wrote.:

"Fifty ignoramuses repeat in chorus some absurd libel that has been thought up by an even bigger ignoramus; and, if only it happens to coincide to some slight degree with prevailing attitudes and passions, it becomes a self-evident truth."

===========================================================

It was back in 1962, as I recall, when I was 15 years old and a junior in high school, that I first read something by a French writer on free trade whose name, my friends and I thought at first, would probably be pronounced "Frederick BAHS-tee-aht." Since several of us were enrolled in Madame Wall's beginning French class that semester, it didn't take us too long to discover that his name was probably closer to "Frayed-air-EEK Bah-STYAH." But his ideas fascinated us all the same, as did the organization whose free pamphlets included Bastiat's arguments against tariffs and other government-imposed impediments to commerce — an organization called the Foundation for Economic Education.

The Foundation for Economic Education — FEE, usually pronounced like the word "fee" — had been founded just after the end of World War II, by a radicalized former Chamber of Commerce executive named Leonard Read. The late George Roche III, who spent the last three decades of the last century as president of Hillsdale College in Michigan, published a very readable and useful biography of Bastiat back in 1971, in which he writes, "Leonard Read … rescued Bastiat from the historical ash-heap." Read, according to Roche's account, "was among the first to realize the enormous importance of Frédéric Bastiat."

My friends and I, back in 1962, thought Bastiat seemed pretty important. He was certainly a remarkable writer — uncommonly lucid, extraordinarily clever, a real find. But we were unable, in that pre-Internet age, to locate much of anything in the way of biographical information about him. And the problem wasn't just that there was no Internet in 1962. Nothing much had been published on Bastiat in any form in 1962. It would be seven more years until 1969, when Dean Russell would publish his book Frédéric Bastiat: Ideas & Influence, the first book-length treatment of Bastiat ever published in English — and it was published, unsurprisingly, by FEE. Roche's book, Frédéric Bastiat: A Man Alone, came two years later, in 1971.

Bastiat, as it turned out, was born 210 years ago. Some accounts give his birthdate as June 29, 1801, but Russell and Roche, the most authoritative sources on Bastiat for an English-speaking audience, both report that his actual date of birth was the last day of the month, June 30, 1801.

MORE.

National Police Misconduct NewsFeed Daily Recap 07-07-11

Here are the 20 reports of police misconduct tracked in our National Police Misconduct News Feed for this Thursday, July 7, 2011:

MORE.

Russia will replace the "Kalashnikov"

AK "two hundredth series." ====================================== Rambler Media Group VERBATIM POST ======================== Russian concern "Izhmash" began to develop a new machine differs from that of the Kalashnikov assault rifle . This was, according to ITAR-TASS , said Acting Director General of "Izhmash" Maxim Kuzyuk. According to him, the new machine "able to compete with modern analogues of small arms in the world." Under the program, the replacement of "Kalashnikov" will be created from scratch. Specifications promising machine Kuzyuk not specified. Meanwhile, "Izhmash" plans to continue producing and upgrading AK 200 series. According Kuzyuka which transmits RIA Novosti , upgraded machine will be more ergonomic, easy to use and accurate. In addition, a renewed arms will be modular, so that together with it will be possible to use the various options and systems of armaments. "We have an army, ground forces, special forces, and all of their demands. And create a platform that will perform various tasks and goals is our top priority," - said Kuzyuk. Russian forces began to buy Kalashnikovs for the 200 series in the spring of 2010. The volume of purchases of small arms is not specified. Currently, evaluation test machine conducts the Russian Defense Ministry, which plans to include in future programs of weapons of defense contracts.

A Glock 1911?

LINK

When America Went Crazy

America lost its mind 146 years ago and hasn’t been the same since. Or rather, it’s been a different country ever since.

A psychotic, self-referential, duplicitous country – largely ignorant of its own history and convinced of its messianic role in world affairs. A country not merely content to live – and let live. But one determined to to force others – everyone – to live its way.

At bayonet point, if need be,

It all goes back to the events of 1861-1865. The struggle for Southern independence, which the modern histories dishonestly – not merely mistakenly – call the “Civil War.”

Which it was not.

The Southern states had no desire to dominate the Northern states, nor to control the government of the North. (Which is what the “federal” government had become by 1861, as the Northern states and Northern corporatist cartels controlled it; Lincoln was the front man for these corporatist interests – a shyster lawyer and born grifter who would do anything – to anyone – in the service of his paymasters.)

No, the Southern states simply wished to exercise that right which the American colonists themselves had exercised in 1776 (and which some Northern states had themselves threatened to exercise on prior occasions, for similar reasons). The right to withdraw from the voluntary union entered into by each sovereign state at the time of the ratification of the federal Constitution. The motives were no different – and no less honorable or legitimate: The Southern states, like the American colonies, had come to regard the central authority as distant, unrepresentative and increasingly tyrannical. It no longer served their interests. It no longer represented them. And to paraphrase the author of the original Declaration of Independence, when a government no longer operates in the best interests of the people as they see those interests; when it no longer represents them; and when its actions evince a systematic effort to subjugate them, when other remedies have not proved fruitful, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government – and start over.

MORE

Also posted on LRC

Via Bazz

Vets Contest Man’s Claimed ‘Black Hawk Down’ Exploits

A Kinston, N.C., man who told The Free Press for a story published Sunday that he served as an Army Ranger and took part in an infamous battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, was not a participant in that fight and was not a Ranger, according to former Rangers who were there.

Jeff "Rock" Harris, who was featured in a story that ran with the headline "Kinston resident recalls extraordinary experiences that led to 'Black Hawk Down,' " is apparently not listed on the official manifest of Soldiers with the 75th Ranger Regiment in Mogadishu at the time of that October 1993 fight nor is the name Michael J. Harris, the name that appears on documents Harris showed a Free Press reporter last week.

"There is no Michael Jeff Harris, not in the 75th Ranger Regiment," said Mark Bowden, author of the non-fiction book "Black Hawk Down," who checked the manifest for The Free Press on Tuesday.

Raleigh Cash, who served in Mogadishu, and Matt Eversmann, the Ranger who was a central figure in both Bowden's book and the movie that followed, both told The Free Press they had "never heard" of Harris. The pair worked together to author "Battle of Mogadishu," another account of the Somalian conflict.

Harris said he was a member of the 3rd Ranger Battalion, the 75th Ranger Regiment. Cash said Harris was not assigned to the 3rd Ranger Battalion from 1990 to 2002, when Cash was.

In his interview last week with The Free Press, Harris showed a reporter what he claimed was his DD214 Form, which is his record of military service, as well as an Army Ranger Certification and certificates indicating Harris was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

A public affairs officer for the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga., where Harris said he served, said she could not provide information on individuals who may have served there. The Free Press has filed a Freedom of Information request seeking Harris' service record.

"Based on the information we now have, it appears that in attempting to publish a story highlighting the bravery of an American fighting man on the Fourth of July weekend, The Free Press instead became the victim of a pretty elaborate lie," Patrick Holmes, editor and publisher of The Free Press, said. "We owe our readers an apology and the promise that, as a news organization, we will be more vigilant in our fact-checking."

A supervisor at Down East Protection Services said he reviewed Harris' DD214 before he was hired and did not suspect it could have been false.

MORE.

Unbelievable: 3D Printer

From the comments.

• Hmm, Can you make a GUN? Wouldn't be detectable by metal detectors. The TSA will be freaking out and DARPA will find a way to use this in the military and CIA, etc. You'll see x-ray machines in EVERY security checkpoint in the country.

Via Cousin Colby

Raid on Entebbe - 35 years later

It's been thirty-five years since the vaunted and gutsy raid to rescue the Jewish hostages and flight crew of an Air France flight in 1976. For complete details, check out this Wikipedia article. A few quick thoughts of my own:

• The IDF is not just an Israeli Defense Force defending the Israel and the Israeli borders, they are in the business of defending every single Israeli (i.e., Jew) worldwide.
• 
  
• This operation took balls of steel. Now we know where Bibi must have gotten his pair from: emulating his heroic brother Yoni Netanyahu who lost his life saving the lives of others.
• 
  
• Quite literally, failure was not an option. The planes only had enough fuel for a one way trip, so one part of the hostage rescue operation was to take over the refueling trucks and refill the planes which took one hour.

MORE.

Modern war

In Iraq, NATO forces are in 26 countries, but most troops from Britain and the United States.

• At times, the number of NATO military bloc in Iraq reached 46,000 people.

• According to media reports, during combat operations in Iraq, the number of civilian casualties totaled about 900,000.

• 210 journalists were killed, 15 missing since March 2003.

• Interestingly, the survey showed the Iraqis in 2000: 43 percent believe that pre-invasion life was better, 36 percent said they were worse and 22 percent thought that about the same.

• During the 3904 war in Iraq, NATO troops killed and 28,773 seriously injured.

Link

A new Pledge of Allegiance

Any suggestions? Dixie and I thought of *this after reading the comment below.

My view of the pledge of allegiance

Chief Instructor said... For the past few years when I'm at an event where the pledge is recited, I substitute "constitution" for "flag".
===========================
*I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of these United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, a nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
============================

Actually the Salute to the Confederate Flag is right on, as mentioned by Dixie.

I salute the Confederate Flag

with affection, reverence,

and undying devotion to

the Cause for which it stands.