At least he won't select the Arab emirates to protect our ports

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I am sending it to everyone in my address book and I am voting against everyone who is in office. Add #3 to that: I am going to keep the phone line and the email hot to those already in Washington letting them know what I think of their idiotic actions with no regard to what the majority of people want. Until we get over feeling like we have to support either a Democrat or Republican and have a wholesale housecleaning in our government at all levels, it will be business as usual and absolutely nothing will change.

By the way......just for the record here's one thing I disagree with Lou Dobbs on, he is in favor of the government buying up stock in the major banks, I am NOT. So if Lou lets me down, I guess I'll just have to resolve myself to watching this country continue to go to hades in a handbasket.

Now we find out it is 21 ports, not just 6. The other 15 I guess they just,, Scooter-style, forgot about. Also, W forgot that he knew about it a week earlier than he said he did and also forgot who told him, it was Andrew Card, not the media.

I have lived in the UAE. It was not lovely there. They were teeny little islands, all sand and rock. You could buy liquor on one of them at the time. Women were not treated as equals. Granted it was a long time ago but look at the 1950s until now. White people would say the civil rights movement was a roaring success; I doubt many Blacks would feel that way. One cannot legislate emotion, belief systems, prejudice...those all exist still in the US and in the Arab countries. The UAE is 17 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia, home of the bin Ladens, major oil refineries, home of the extremist Islamic schools or terrorist training schools would be more like it. On the other side of the Persian/Arabian Gulf we have Iraq and Iran. It is difficult to believe that the UAE which is made up of several separate entities would not have some terrorist sympathizers which could all by itself be dangerous. Corporations are in business for 1 reason - money. Soverign state/corporations are also in business for money but they have other agendas as well as do all soverign nations. By the way, if any from the other board are reading this, some Republicans are more angry about this than the Democrats. I say we should storm the Bastille. Enough is enough. It is time for this most inept of presidents to go.

7/27/2006 11:02:00 AM

To: National and State Desks

Contact: Rebecca Sawyer of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 202-328-3244 ext. 102 or rasawyer@sldn.org

WASHINGTON, July 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. Army recently discharged a highly regarded Arabic linguist who was the target of an anonymous email outing campaign. Former Sergeant Bleu Copas was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., and was a member of the prestigious 82nd Airborne Division. A decorated Sergeant who received impressive performance reviews, Copas also performed in the 82nd Airborne Chorus. His dismissal, under the federal Don't Ask, Don't Tell ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel, brings the total number of Arabic language specialists dismissed under the ban to at least 55. Neither Copas nor his command know who was the source of the email campaign.

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' has become a far too effective, and convenient, weapon of vengeance in our armed forces, said Sharra E. Greer, director for law and policy for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), which provided legal counsel to Copas. Anyone with an axe to grind -- a former partner or roommate, or an angry relative, for example -- can end an otherwise promising career simply by employing rumor and hearsay. Service members like Sergeant Copas, who are making important contributions to our national defense, are finding themselves increasingly vulnerable under the law. The only way to protect our men and women in uniform from such insidious outing campaigns is to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' once and for all.

In August 2005, an anonymous individual emailed Copas's unit, alleging there was an online profile of a unit member identifying them as gay. Despite clear instructions that investigations into sexual orientation are only to be commenced when a service member's command has credible evidence indicating the service member is gay, Copas's command nonetheless asked him about his sexual orientation and went on to launch a full investigation into allegations about him. The command-appointed investigating officer interviewing Copas asked such questions as, Do you work off duty with the local community theater? and Do you know or are you aware of anyone who believes you are a homosexual? He also recommended conducting an inquiry ... into the possibility of further homosexual conduct by member(s) of the (unit). Despite never learning who made the original allegations against him, Sergeant Copas was dismissed from the Army in January.

The ban on gay service members serves no purpose except to further discrimination at the expense of our military readiness, said Copas. Most troops care about their colleagues' job performance, not their sexual orientation, and this law is past due for repeal. Those of us who want to serve our country should not be barred from doing so simply because of outdated prejudice. The gay ban punishes every service member, even those who never tell and the straight troops who lose trusted, and trained, fellow soldiers.

Since 1993, more than 11,000 service members have been dismissed under the gay ban, according to the Department of Defense. A February 2005 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Pentagon has fired 322 language specialists who had ... skills in a foreign language that DoD had considered to be especially important. The report also found that nearly 800 specialists, including intelligence analysts, divers and combat controllers, were fired despite having some training in an occupation identified ... as 'critical.' The House of Representatives is currently considering legislation to repeal the law, with 118 bi-partisan members supporting the measure.

For more information on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, visit http://www.sldn.org.

---

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is a national, non-profit legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by Don't Ask, Don't Tell and related forms of intolerance. For more information, visit http://www.sldn.org.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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/� 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

We were younger and had went out to a party. A guy was drinking and mixing it with pills. He was totally out of it. He tried to pick a fight with my husband, saying he was big and bad enough to whip the biggest guy there. My husband was 6 foot 6 inches and about 225. Anyway, my husband wasn't going to fight with him, and we left and came home. We live in a rural area. About 1/2 hour later the guy is standing out in front of our house, near the road, screaming for my husband to come out and fight or he's going to start shooting! The next sound we hear is a shotgun racking and then he fires a shotgun blast off into the air. OMG!! I was terrified. My husband shoved me off the couch and into the floor. Then he crawled across the floor and pulled the cord on the lamp and turned off the TV, so it was dark in the house. I had no idea what else he was doing. I was lying on the living room flooor and had dialed 911 and was screaming for help. Next thing I know, the guy out front fires another shot and it hits the picture window and the window shatters!

What I didn't know was my husband had went through the house, grabbed his gun out of the closet, and went out the back door. He shot back, shooting into the air at a pear tree that guy was standing under. It was late August and when he hit that pear tree, it rained down pears on the guy outside! He fired one more over the guy's head as a warning and then lowered the barrel of the gun towards the guy. The guy decided my husband was serious and ran to his truck and took off. Luckily the police caught him about 2 miles down the road. I had given them a description of his pickup and he passed them as they were on their way to our house.

They came to the house and talked to us. They saw the shattered window and the shots were heard on the 911 tape along with my frantic call for help. They told my husband they didn't blame him, they would have done the same thing, he was defending his home and family. The guy was convicted and went to jail. What the guy at the party didn't know was my husband was an ex-Marine trained for combat and had marksmanship medals from Marine competition. He picked the wrong guy to try to scare with a gun! But it was scarey. I was scared to death. It was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I couldn't sleep for weeks afterwards and was a nervous wreck. I don't wish anything like that on anybody!

WASHINGTON (March 16) - Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused mass sickness or death, an internal company report concluded.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.

The problems discovered last year at that site - poor training, miscommunication and lax record keeping - occurred at Halliburton's other operations throughout Iraq, the report said.

Countrywide, all camps suffer to some extent from all or some of the deficiencies noted, Wil Granger, Theatre Water Quality Manager in the war zone for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, wrote in his May 2005 report.

AP reported earlier this year allegations from whistleblowers about the Camp Ar Ramadi incident, but Halliburton never made public Granger's internal report alleging wider problems.

The water quality expert warned Halliburton the problems will have to be dealt with at a very elevated level of management to protect health and safety of U.S. personnel.

Halliburton said Wednesday it conducted a second review last year that found no evidence of any illnesses in Iraq from water and it believes some of its earlier conclusions were incomplete and inaccurate. The company declined to release the second report.

The company said it has worked closely with the Army to develop standards and take action to ensure that the water provided in Iraq is safe and of the highest quality possible.

Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney for several years before he ran for vice president. Its KBR subsidiary, also known as Kellogg Brown & Root, works under contract to provide a number of services to the U.S. military in Iraq, including providing water and purifying it.

The contaminated, non-chlorinated water at Ar Ramadi was discovered in March 2005 in a commode by Ben Carter, a KBR water expert at the base. In an interview, Carter said he resigned after KBR barred him from notifying the military and senior company officials about the untreated water.

A supervisor at Ar Ramadi told me to stop e-mailing company officials outside the base and warned that informing the military was none of my concern, Carter said. He said he threatened to sue if company officials didn't let him be examined to determine whether he suffered medical problems from exposure to the contaminated water.

Granger's report cited several countrywide problems:

A lack of training for key personnel. Theatre wide there is no formalized training for anyone at any level in concerns to water operations.

Confusion between KBR and military officials over their respective roles. For instance, each assumed the other would chlorinate the water at Ar Ramadi for any uses that would require the treatment.

Inadequate or nonexistent records that could have caught problems in advance. Little or no documentation was kept on water inventories, safety stand-downs, audits of water quality, deliveries, inspections and logs showing alterations or modifications to water systems.

Relying on employees the company identified as semiskilled labor, and paid as unskilled workers in the pay structure.

The report said the event at Ar Ramadi could have been prevented if KBR's Reverse Osmosis Units on the site had been assembled, instead of relying on the military's water production facilities.

This event should be considered a 'near miss' as the consequences of these actions could have been very severe resulting in mass sickness or death, Granger wrote.

The report said that KBR officials at Ar Ramadi tried to keep the contamination from senior company officials.

The event that was submitted in a report to local camp management should have been classified as a recordable occurrence and communicated to senior management in a timely manner, Granger wrote. The primary awareness to this event came through threat of domestic litigation.

Beginning last May, Halliburton said it began using its equipment to remove contaminants, bacteria, and viruses in Ar Ramadi, and disinfect the water with chlorine. The company said KBR has worked closely with the Army to develop safe water standards.

It said its subsequent review in August-September 2005 found nonpotable water used for washing was effectively filtered to remove at least 99 percent of the parasite giardia and 90 percent of viruses. The Ar Ramadi water also tested negative for bacteria, Halliburton added.

Whatever the U.S. does or doesn't do where Israel and the middle east is involved is irrelevant. The land of Israel is THE promised land. It belongs to the Jews. They have had to fight for it against odds stacked against them and have won.