My Errant Mind

Great song by a great band that I have enjoyed since the ’80s. Billy Duffy is one of the best guitarists/songwriters in the world of rock. Ian Astbury is the nearest thing to Jim Morrison going. I picked this one because I had to rise early this morning.

Enjoy…

Congressional Democrats are looking for ways to kill a bill aimed at increasing educational benefits for veterans and ensuring that enlistees are getting the benefits they are promised. The $2 billion bill, Sen. Jim Webb’s Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, is meant to do the right thing for those serving their country, but Democrats are seeking to turn it into a weapon to use against the Bush administration by getting it vetoed.

President Bush has already said he will veto the bill if there are any attachments or amendments to it. Now, let’s look at why that is important…

The bill was created because educational benefits are one of the biggest enlistment incentives for prospective enlistees, and also because educational benefits are not keeping up with the cost of a college education. Congress is trying to do right by those protecting our nation—or rather, some in Congress are. The Democrats, however, see an opening—a way to wound the war machine they believe the current administration to be.

You see, if Democrats attach something to the bill, and the President vetoes it, it looks like the President is against increasing educational benefits for veterans he is sending off to war. It will also mean enlistment/recruiting efforts will suffer and many potential enlistees will think twice when they see that the military is not going to provide benefits that keep pace with costs of an education in America. You can’t hardly afford even a community college education on the current benefits.

Now, if this bill is to benefit our veterans, why can’t Democrats just leave it alone and allow those men and women to get what they have earned and more than deserve—more importantly, what they were promised? Because this is a chance to hurt enlistment, make the military and the administration look bad, a way to impact troop strength over the long term which will pressure the administration and the Department of Defense to wrap up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan quickly. It could conceivably lead to premature withdrawal of troops as the military leadership begins to view the administration and Congress as non-supportive, leading to recommendations for disengagement from top generals—and which Congress and any administration would find hard to ignore.

Left alone, the bill will pass and provide the resources to ensure our veterans receive the benefits they signed up for and that they have earned. Left alone, it means more veterans are likely to complete a college or vocational education and find a new career after their military service is completed. Left alone, it means soldiers can plan for the next phase of their lives and try to get ahead in life, moving on as citizens with faith in the government, the military they served in, and their countrymen. It means a more brightly lighted path back to normalcy after enduring and surviving the war their countrymen determined they should fight.

So why the hell won’t Democrats leave the bill alone and do what is right?

Because the moonbat Democrats don’t want veterans moving on, or better educated. They might vote more Democrats out of jobs for one. Secondly, if veterans are upset and disenfranchised—and stories about it are making the rounds in the media for years to come—it hurts military recruitment.

It seems Democrats don’t want to honor soldiers. It appears that they just want to live as cheaply as possible behind the wall of safety those soldiers provide, while giving the country those soldiers fought for away—to those foreign invaders called illegal aliens. Come to think of it, at least one Republican running for President wants to do the same thing.

You know, this video just makes you think about the movie American Pie and “This one time, at band camp…” The song is now called Destination Calabria, after having started out as a track named Destination Unknown (not sure why the name change, but hey, strange stuff happens with dance music) in 2003. It features singer Crystal Waters.

If this doesn’t get a man’s blood pumping, he’s probably a corpse.

You can download a high quality version of the actual video (28 megs in size) here: http://steepmedia.net/backstage/adestinationcala.html

I promise you that you won’t regret downloading it. Just imagine the video in full-screen high quality glory. It’s better by, like, a factor of ten.

Here’s a look behind the scenes at the making of the video…

The recent fiasco in Nevada at the Republican state convention shows once again how the forces of the status quo in this country will do anything to keep those who want to see real change in America from being heard or represented.

Ron Paul’s message is still resonating with a lot of Americans. Meanwhile, the Republican party and John McCain supporters are determined to sell-out our nation and our sovereignty, and give the country away to special interests and foreign invaders. The 2008 Presidential election will be the one remembered for the betrayal of America by the Republican party.

They had a true old time conservative in the form of Ron Paul running for President and instead gave the nation away to illegal immigrants. McCain is not the only Viet Nam veteran that ran for the Presidency, but he is the only one selling out our nation and wanting to give it away to foreign invaders.

Shame on the Republican party. Their fear of losing the White House and compromising their values for the sake of an easy win rather than standing for the one candidate who would have restored America’s sovereignty and the sanctity of the United States Constitution puts those Republicans who support John McCain on the same side as the Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton—against the working class American, against veterans and patriots, against the US Constitution, against American sovereignty.

Shame on the Republican party for abandoning the principles it once stood for.

Really, it is getting old, the constant stream of horrible conditions being revealed that our veterans returning from the Middle East are enduring. The latest video to publicize the issue shows the terrible conditions those fighting our wars are forced to live in…while defense contractors and certain politicians get rich off the wars.

Officers live separate from enlisted soldiers, mind you. But, what kind of leader lives in comfort at home while those soldiers that officer is responsible for live in squalor as bad or worse than the conditions his or her soldiers endured during the war? No leader worth a damn by any measure of the definition.

It is time for Majors, Colonels, Generals, the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of Defense to be held accountable and for people to start losing their rank and jobs. People put in positions of trust and authority are showing they have no responsibility to the men and women we send to fight on our behalf. It is time to see the dismissal of field grade officers all the way up the chain of command, including the commanders of the 82nd Airborne Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps, FORSCOM and higher.

I’m a former infantryman myself, and find this beyond insulting to our soldiers. Infantrymen are famous for enduring harsh conditions and making things happen, getting things done, for not whining about such things as living in a hole scooped out of the sand for months, or slogging through jungles, or for patrolling the side of snowy mountains when it is -20 to -30 below. Infantrymen are used to the poorest conditions while those in other units have air conditioning and other creature comforts.

But the things shown in that video are an outrage.

Are those veterans to have survived war (often multiple tours) only to come home and fall ill because the Department of Defense is too damned cheap to provide them decent living conditions? Are they going to have to endure lung infections, lead poisoning, bacterial and fungal infections at home in America after having endured incredible hardships abroad fighting for those same stingy, cheap SOB’s leading this country?

What are Company Commanders and Platoon leaders doing, accepting this? Why aren’t they speaking out? Why aren’t Battalion Commanders raising hell about this? The officer corp is showing an incredible lack of balls and leadership on this. Is this how they think of and treat the soldiers they led in battle?

It is time to see heads roll. This is not an isolated incident, but one example of a long string of incompetent and gross miscarriages of decency in the military. First veterans were enduring terrible conditions at Walter Reed hospital. Next, they are being starved in Iraq. Now, they are living among mold, fungus, rust, peeling lead paint and shit.

OK, it has been more than a year has passed since the Walter Reed debacle, and yet nothing has changed. The Pentagon is doing absolutely nothing about this sort of thing which is endemic in the military.

Write your representative in Congress and voice your outrage at this. Better yet, write the President in the White House and let him know what a pathetic excuse of a human being he is (and a piss-poor Commander in Chief) for sending our soldiers to fight and risk their lives for this country and making them have to come home to these despicable conditions.

The sad thing is that right now, Company Commanders, First Sergeants, and Sergeant Majors are probably chewing soldiers’ asses, making them jump through hoops to slap paint on stuff, making them clean and repair buildings that should have been already in good shape for returning soldiers who have just endured the horrors of war—to cover up and prevent further examples from making their way into the public eye.

It is time to see those in high places lose their jobs and rank. When you vacate your leadership and responsibility you don’t deserve the rank, pay, or trappings of that office or rank.

The Global What the Hell on Terror is showing everything that is ugliest about America, and unfortunately, everything that is embarrassing us around the world is the fault of piss-poor leaders in the military officer corp, among our politicians, and in the greed of the military-industrial complex.

These days, our President, our Congress, our Generals and Admirals, our intelligence agencies, and our corporations are an embarrassment to everything it means to be American.

For absolutely no good reason that I know of, I decided finally that I will keep this blog going despite the horrible new dashboard brought about with WordPress 2.5. I figure, why waste the hard work I’ve put into it? I don’t want to disenfranchise any readers out there either.

What better way to blow off the poor usability that WordPress.com users are now forced to endure, by saying “Whatever” and just continuing on? So, to celebrate continuing the blog, I thought that a song by one of my favorite bands, The Bastard Fairies, would be perfectly appropriate.

Then, I decided, since I love music so much, why not just start sharing some of the cool bands and music I like with readers? Never hurts to expand one’s horizons, after all. So, a new regular feature is born.

Enjoy…

[Note: I decided to continue developing and running one of my websites off WordPress just to stay abreast of the platform since I invested so much time in it over the past year. However, I will also be changing other sites that were in the works over to other, more robust Content Management Systems.]

If you haven’t heard about the group of women from the small Spanish village of Serradilla del Arroyo in the northern province of Salamanca, Spain, who posed semi-nude for a calendar in order to raise money for their tiny rural school and its children, you have now. They ran into financial trouble after not selling many of the calendars and found themselves in debt.

Not knowing much about marketing or publishing, they missed the Christmas rush (extremely important in Calendar marketing it seems) and were left with about 5,000 unsold calendars. The printer has pressed the issue of their being behind on payments and media attention has put the spotlight on their efforts.

Their tiny village of around 400 has one teacher for its one room elementary school spanning four grade levels. The mothers decided to try and do something that would raise money for their children to have a recreation center. I certainly have to give them credit for trying. However, it wasn’t as easy as it was for the British women who did so—and whose story inspired these Spanish ladies. These concerned moms owe $16,000 to the printer.

You can help out by purchasing one of the calendars. Better yet, buy one for yourself and as many of your friends as you can. How often do you get to honestly say you bought a semi-nude calendar to help out children in a remote Spanish village?

Calendars can be purchased here: La Casa de Medico (Calendar is towards the bottom of the home page, Calendarios Madres de Serradilla)

With Service Pack 3 for Windows XP set to be released to the public in less than 48 hours on the 29th of April, I’m mulling over a whole lot of decisions.

You would think a new Service Pack would be a good thing on the face of it, right? Generally speaking, that should be the case. It should make your system safer if nothing else.

However, there are some issues to watch out for if you decide to update to Service Pack 3. One that irritates me (and shows how ridiculous things happen with all sorts of software for all sorts of reasons) is the missing address bar for your taskbar. The Department of Justice required MS to remove the ability to put an address bar on the taskbar, which allows you to launch browser windows (and some apps) without launching a browser first.

DOJ seems to think Internet Explorer is still too tightly integrated with the OS. However, as others have pointed out, it is ridiculous—as using it will launch whatever your default browser is, be it Firefox, Opera or any other. I may not upgrade Windows on my box to SP3 over this issue.

Just kidding. Well, actually, I’m not—but there is a better reason not to.

You won’t be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 after installing SP3.

Read that again.

If you—like many other XP users (many of my clients resemble this)—are still using Internet Explorer 6 because you’ve had unexplainable crashes and bizarre problems visiting certain websites, updating to SP3 will only enrage you—so I suggest don’t do it, or download Firefox or Opera. Besides, the Department of Homeland Security recommended businesses should stop using Internet Explorer quite some time ago due to the security issues with it.

But wait, just like one of those crappy late night commercials, there’s more!

SP3 installs a new .dll file called Wlanapi.dll, and which some wireless networking devices use. That means if you’re using wireless networking, you want to check beforehand for that .dll on your XP system. If it is there, SP3 will overwrite it for you conveniently so that your third party networking device produces errors of the worst kind. Translated, your “network fall down, go boom.”

So, over the course of the next two days, I am going to be reviewing the SP3 particulars and trying to decide what I’m going to suggest to my biggest client with regards to their multiple networks. Which is why I have been up all night and am awake at 5 AM in the morning on a Sunday. Just what I needed, another MS generated headache.

As if I haven’t had enough already.

Still, I shouldn’t complain. Windows systems were just getting smoothed out and operators were settling in and the bugs and quirks all figured out…work was slowing down. Should I be angry that work will probably pick up some thanks to another problematic MS product release?

One of these days, I’m going to be able to say, “Sorry, I don’t work on Windows systems anymore.” If all goes well, it will be within the next year. What a joyous day it will be, too…

In yet another example of the jack-booted thug sort of mentality that is becoming more prevalent across this nation, the police officers who murdered an innocent man in a hail of 50 bullets were acquitted of all charges.

Sean Bell was set to get married in just a few hours, and was wrapping up his bachelor party when undercover officers gunned him down outside a nightclub as he and his friends tried to drive away from armed men who did not identify themselves as police officers according to two witnesses in the car with Bell.

This is not just an issue of justice for minorities, but an issue of justice for every American citizen and accountability of those who are supposed to be protecting We the People—not murdering us out of incompetence or malice. This also is not the first such incident in New York and it is unlikely to be the last.

Law enforcement in this nation has in the course of past decade turned from the ideal of protect and serve to one of probe, punish, and shoot in most medium to large sized cities. Even in smaller communities, however, they are starting to adopt the para-military mindset of their metro counterparts.

If riots or some sort of violent repercussion result of this, I won’t be one bit surprised. Nor would I blame those involved.

There is no more accountability of the police in this nation. We have seen it in New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles and cities across this nation time and time again. If you are a police officer in America, you have a license to kill even innocent law abiding citizens at will, and you will get away with it because the establishment which depends on police to fill for-profit prisons will not punish you as one of their cash collectors.

Maybe that’s why we have such a problem with illegal immigration in this country? Police are too busy killing and harassing innocent people—which would explain why some sanctuary cities do not want police to waste their time questioning illegal alien gang members about their immigration status.

Have more innocent Americans died here in the continental USA from terrorist attacks or police shootings and abuse since September 11, 2001? What do you think the answer is?

Oklahoma National Guardsmen are having to work 10 hour shifts without food in Iraq according to allegations being made by some of those serving in Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Division. They are being forced to skip meals and being starved it seems.

U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole have asked the National Guard and the Army to investigate the matter. If this turns out to be true, this will be one of the most disturbing and disgusting issues to come out of this war.

Here we have defense contractors getting rich, oil companies getting rich, PMC’s getting rich…and yet they are withholding meals from American soldiers? I urge everyone to urge your elected representatives to look into this matter and call for an investigation. Make this an issue that the mainstream media must pay attention to!

Here our President is talking about the SPP in New Orleans and all the benefits we’ll get from partnering with Mexico and yet we’re starving our soldiers fighting our wars? What the hell is wrong with this picture? Some of my great uncles served with the Thunderbird Division in WWII, and as these are fellow Oklahomans suffering this stupidity, I take this personally.

Listen to a Grassfire.org audio interview with Dr. Jerome Corsi who attended the recent ‘leaders summit’ in New Orleans where the leaders of Mexico, Canada and the USA met recently. According to Dr. Corsi, the “multi-national corporate agenda” that seeks to abolish sovereignty in the Americas is at it again, all the while attempting to hide the SPP (Security and Propserity Partnership) from the public in an effort to hide their goals from the citizens of the countries involved.

Interesting things get mentioned, such as Mexicans’ rights in America, and a new Mexican consulate in New Orleans—which is set to become an enlarged port with an increased role in the SPP as a result of larger amounts of shipping traffic set to come through the new and enlarged Panama Canal. You may have heard about the Columbian free trade agreement in the works (or not) which is just another example of how the SPP and globalist corporations and individuals are putting their pieces together to take advantage of Latin America again—much like the Spanish Conquistadors once did.

Preparations For A Pan-American Empire?

The Panama Canal and New Orleans are just one example of how our government used a convenient tragedy in the form of hurricane Katrina to push ahead its vision of a pan-American union.

You think the rain forests are in trouble now? You think the people of Latin America have been taken advantage of before? This time around, it will be even worse, and there will be complicity in the governments of many countries. Perhaps this is why there is an increasing backlash against democracy in South America, you think? How is it that capitalism and democracy have not lured everyone in the world into embracing it whole-heartedly with American fervor?

I’ll tell you how: not everyone likes the idea of getting screwed over by their government, and in those countries in South America, they have not grown accustomed to lives as soccer-moms and cubicle-bound dads and comfortable air conditioned consumerism. They, unlike Americans, are still willing to fight and risk their lives to hold politicians and unjust systems to account because they aren’t fearful of losing a high standard of living. Sure, there are crooked and inept governments in the region, but so what—American government has become as corrupt as any on the face of this planet. Americans only fight when global economic interests are threatened.

Even Canadians Are Upset About It

Canadian police dressed up as demonstrators in order to incite violence and discredit anti-SPP protesters. Take a look for yourself at the ‘fake’ protesters getting arrested. Shouldn’t you worry when government tries to discredit and silence those who don’t like its policies and want to quell debate about the SPP?

American Workers Will Continue Under An Artificially Depressed Economy

The implications of the SPP will benefit huge corporations while hurting American workers. This is part of the reason our government is doing nothing about illegal immigration. Our government, along with the governments of Canada and Mexico, are attempting to blend and blur any lines of distinction between the three countries in an effort to gain trade superiority in the world over the EU, China and the Asian-Pacific rim countries.

None of which will benefit the average American. It will fatten the pockets of the wealthy quite nicely, however. For Americans, it will only mean the continuation of an artificially depressed economy with artificially depressed wages, more inflation, increased taxes as we continue paying the cost of the government condoned influx of illegal aliens.

Why isn’t our border locked down tight 7 years into our global war on terror? Does anyone believe for a minute there aren’t enough Americans or that we don’t have the technology to do it? Our political leaders and the business leaders in this country have sold Americans out and will not address the issue in a way that will stop it. It does not fit with their plan.

But, what about the arguments that our own government makes that the SPP will improve things for Americans?

The Convenient Lies Of The SPP

Just what is the SPP about? Here is some background on it.

Here’s an excerpt from the White House on the recent SPP gathering, but which the three leaders were careful to portray as something else in order to deceive the American people. Note this section about SECURITY and how it does not mention a SINGLE INSTANCE OR EXAMPLE of addressing the issue of illegal immigration:

* To make our borders smarter and more secure, we are coordinating our long-term infrastructure plans and are taking steps to enhance services, and reduce bottlenecks and congestion at major border crossings. In this regard, we are working to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies to enhance capacity at major border crossing points, such as Detroit-Windsor and San Diego-Tijuana. We are deepening cooperation on the development and application of technology to make our border both smarter and more secure, as well as strengthen trusted traveler and shipper programs. We will seek to allocate resources efficiently so as to avoid unnecessary inspections. We are exploring new customs procedures, such as a more uniform filing procedure, with the aim of reducing transactional costs while enhancing the security of our borders. We are cooperating to install advanced screening equipment at ports of entry to deter and detect the smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials. The United States and Canada are working to finalize a framework agreement to govern cross-border maritime enforcement operations in shared waterways. All of these efforts will help us more effectively facilitate the legal flow of people and goods across our shared borders while addressing threats to our safety.

[Source: The White House, April 22, 2008 press release, on website at: www.whitehouse.gov]

Notice in fact, the bold face used for “stronger and secure” in the release is how it was released on The White House website. But notice that not once does our own government acknowledge that illegal immigration or our border with Mexico is a threat to this nation, nor do they address those issues at all in the entire press release!

President Bush meets with his counterpart from Mexico to discuss freedom and security, but it does not apparently concern real security, only expediting the flow of goods through border crossings, by eliminating unnecessary inspections—which will probably be the elimination of those inspections that reduce the ability of those so inclined to carry terrorists and drugs across our borders.

But we will have cheap lettuce available. How delightful.

Further on you see this…

We also share a common purpose to strengthen our hemispheric institutions and consultative processes.

Our hemispheric institutions? I thought according to the US Constitution, we were the United States of America, but I don’t recall We the People applying to those nations and states who do not share our Constitution. When did We the People turn into We the People of the USA, Canada and Mexico? I don’t recall getting to vote on that one, do you?

Further on in the release, we see that in the event of disasters, they want to facilitate the movement of people and goods across the borders. What?

* To improve our response to emergencies, we are updating our bilateral agreements to enable our local, State, Provincial, and Federal authorities to help each other quickly and efficiently during times of crisis and great need, including responding to threats posed by cyber or chemical-biological attacks. We have made significant progress in discussions for new bilateral emergency management agreements to help manage the movement of goods and people across the border during and after an emergency. We will explore ways to expand cooperation in North America to the trilateral level.

Short of an apocalyptic event, such as nuclear winter or Yellowstone erupting and destroying North America in the first place, what possible reason could there be for such a need? If either of those things happens, it is likely that all those unhappy with the current form of government will take the opportunity to finish off what is underway and rebuild a different nation anyway.

Seriously, are they expecting gas attacks in the desert of New Mexico or WMD’s to target the desolate stretch of nothing along the Rio Grande in west Texas?

What we are seeing is the foundation that will allow the governments to allow massive numbers of foreigners into our nation, including foreign troops, being laid. The pretext of the next hurricane or rising sea levels or drought or some other convenient incident will be used to bring large numbers of non-citizens into our nation, who will then be granted more amnesty or citizenship status on the back of sympathy sentiments that accompany such disasters and their aftermath.

Alternately, it might allow us to send troops into Mexico or Canada—and while there, perhaps find new and convenient bases, perhaps under the guise of providing stability operations.

Why All The Effort To Hide The SPP Meeting?

You see, the press release from the White House mentions the SPP and NAFTA both and shows that this meeting was a meeting indeed of the SPP. However, the actual conference where the leaders gathered together on the 22nd of April in New Orleans tried to hide mention of the SPP. They did not want the American public getting stirred up about the issue.

They don’t want Americans standing in the way of the globalist agenda with its “hemispheric institutions” and loss of American sovereignty. That would mean globalists and multi-national corporations would not have as many opportunities to rape other nations and grow wealthy off the backs of the poor just like the good old days of conquest.

The chance for Americans who don’t agree with the direction of our nation to do something about it is rapidly passing us by. Whether or not you want to let that happen, you should at least weigh the matter in your mind and consider the implications not only to yourself, but to future generations. Consider, also, those who have gone before us and risked all to form the USA—not a globalist empire.

It might help you weigh the matter if you order Dr. Corsi’s latest book, The Late Great U.S.A. while you are visiting the Grassfire web site.

SPP Is North American Union Globalists Paint As Conspiracy Theory

A lot of people, including President Bush, have accused those who are speaking out against a North America Union of being conspiracy theorists in order to discredit them in the eyes and ears of the public.

Globalist and those seeking to create a North American Union are using the SPP as policy to circumvent a public discussion about the issue. Listen to President Fox talking about a trade union for all of the Americas. Listen to Bush’s words and his disdain for the very policies he is implementing and yet denies. The April 22nd press release specifically points out the intent to increase traffic and flow of people across the borders in a more open manner.

It is more than Ron Paul talking about it. Other leaders in politics and the media are mentioning this. Take a look for yourself and stop hiding behind the sort of ignorance mainstream media and politicians with this pan-American/globalist agenda seek to use.

Since the SPP is not being debated by Congress, it is skirting the laws of America (and doing the same in Mexico and Canada) and not held accountable to the American people. The people who were against the European Union when talk first began about it were called crazy and conspiracy theorists. Yet, watch the above video and listen to a Mexican President talking about long term plans for all of the things leading to just such a union…currency, labor unions, etc. And go read that White House press release and see how it talks about cross-border maritime operations and all of the myriad other things which have nothing whatsoever to do with the integrity or security of America and which are not being approved by Congress or the individual states.

Open your eyes America. It is almost too late. Even Mexico’s President has family living in America as illegal aliens…

So the incredibly incompetent former President, Jimmy Carter, has once again stuck his nose into foreign affairs when he ought to stick with writing books no one wants to read (except maybe Nancy Pelosi). This time, he went to the Middle East to have talks with Hamas representatives.

You had a nice chat, didn’t you, Mr. Carter?

While you were doing so, Hamas was planning a terrorist attack which they carried out on Saturday, the same day you were meeting with their representatives in Damascus.

Hamas made you look like a complete fool (not that you needed any help), and you have shown yourself to be a disgrace by supporting terrorism and terrorists. Why don’t you do all of us a favor and stay in the Middle East from now on and not bother coming back to America?

I would be laughing if the loss of lives weren’t saddening. Democrats, you are showing Americans that you support terrorists with your continued support of foolish people like Carter and Pelosi. Peace talks…what a cover for planning terrorist attacks, eh Mr. Carter?

If Carter goes to Russia to talk about missile shields, you better find a nuclear blast shelter quick…