StumbleUpon | SKURS's blog posts

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/36870639/

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:03:52 -0700

Letter from Procter & Gamble Exec to Obama

Please read, even if you are an Obama fan. It is legitimate, written by respected, Lou Prichett, formerly of Proctor and Gamble. Lou Pritchett is one of corporate Americas true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

TRUE - CHECK:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/35577101/

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:26:03 -0700

From a Romanian Newspaper

We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA

Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title 'C'ntarea Americii, meaning 'Ode To America ') in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei 'The Daily Event' or 'News of the Day'.

~ An Ode to America ~

Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs.

On 9/11, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart. Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the Army, or the Secret Service that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about.

Instead the Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.

After the first moments of panic , they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing. On every occasion, they started singing: 'God Bless America !'

I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.

How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put into collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy. What on earth can unites the Americans in such way? Their land? Their history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace, I thought things over, I reached but only one conclusion... Only freedom can work such miracles.

Cornel Nistorescu
FREEDOM!

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/34534726/

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:51:00 -0700

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/34380569/

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:53:13 -0700

DEAR GOD:
I want to thank You for what you have already done. I am not going to wait until I see results or receive rewards; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until I feel better or things look better; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until people say they are sorry or until they stop talking about me; I am thanking you right now.. I am not going to wait until the pain in my body disappears ; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until my financial situation improves; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until the children are asleep and the house is quiet; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until I get promoted at work or until I get the job; I am going to thank you right now. I am not going to wait until I understand every experience in my life that has caused me pain or grief; I am thanking you right now. I am not going to wait until the journey gets easier or the challenges are removed;

I am thanking you right now. I am thanking you because I am alive. I am thanking you because I made it through the day's difficulties. I am thanking you because I have walked around the obstacles.

I am thanking you because I have the ability and the opportunity to do more and do better.

I'm thanking you because FATHER, YOU haven't given up on me.

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/33895447/

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:34:50 -0700

Do the best you can with your life situation, including those times when you do not consciously understand or have clear direction.

You are learning to trust yourself and trust God.

Remember to relax and be patient.

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/33082504/

Mon, 25 May 2009 09:29:17 -0700

Fallen Warrior: A Memorial Day Tribute

There are men and women who have chosen to stand between the rest of us and those who would do us harm, who know in advance and with the wisdom of adult commitment that they are prepared to give their lives for something greater than themselves, when the rest of us know that it is precisely those selves we must treasure most. Some of these dedicated citizens have fallen and are lost and it is those we remember on Memorial Day.

I participated in an awards banquet last night for the men and women at my university who will earn their commissions as Army officers shortly after graduation. I watched them mill about with their families and the officers and NCOs who train and guide them and I know that despite the winds of political idiocy they stand prepared, exuding confidence, integrity, honor, commitment, and devotion to the best of who we are in America. When I see this devotion, their selfless commitment, I appreciate more, so much more, the sacrifice that some have made, the price we often do not reflect on, the gift we do not know what to make of.

So let us please set aside today our differences regarding the wisdom of war in general or in the current or past particulars, or better, reflect on how our views are affected and influenced by the sacrifices of men and women who knew what mattered and stood for us, whether we appreciated it or not.

I am an outsider to that world, and I will not pretend to know what I have not experienced, but that does not prevent me from an expression of respect for those who have fallen, dare I say an expression of love for those for whom the rest of us were important enough to die for.

In memorium and in gratitude on this Memorial Day.

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/29919837/

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:29:59 -0800

Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo

The president will soon realize that governing involves hard choices.

By JOHN YOO

During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special authority to interrogate terrorists.

While these actions will certainly please his base -- gone are the cries of an "imperial presidency" -- they will also seriously handicap our intelligence agencies from preventing future terrorist attacks. In issuing these executive orders, Mr. Obama is returning America to the failed law enforcement approach to fighting terrorism that prevailed before Sept. 11, 2001. He's also drying up the most valuable sources of intelligence on al Qaeda, which, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, has come largely out of the tough interrogation of high-level operatives during the early years of the war.

The question Mr. Obama should have asked right after the inaugural parade was: What will happen after we capture the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah? Instead, he took action without a meeting of his full national security staff, and without a legal review of all the policy options available to meet the threats facing our country.

What such a review would have made clear is that the civilian law-enforcement system cannot prevent terrorist attacks. What is needed are the tools to gain vital intelligence, which is why, under President George W. Bush, the CIA could hold and interrogate high-value al Qaeda leaders. On the advice of his intelligence advisers, the president could have authorized coercive interrogation methods like those used by Israel and Great Britain in their antiterrorism campaigns. (He could even authorize waterboarding, which he did three times in the years after 9/11.)

Mr. Obama has also ordered that all military commission trials be stayed and that the case of Ali Saleh al-Marri, the only al Qaeda operative now held on U.S. soil, be reviewed. This seems a prelude to closing the military commissions down entirely and transferring the detainees' cases to U.S. civilian courts for prosecution under ordinary criminal law. Military commission trials have been used in most American wars, and their rules and procedures are designed around the need to protect intelligence sources and methods from revelation in open court.

It's also likely Mr. Obama will declare terrorists to be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration classified terrorists -- well supported by legal and historical precedent -- like pirates, illegal combatants who do not fight on behalf of a nation and refuse to obey the laws of war.

The CIA must now conduct interrogations according to the rules of the Army Field Manual, which prohibits coercive techniques, threats and promises, and the good-cop bad-cop routines used in police stations throughout America. Mr. Obama has also ordered that al Qaeda leaders are to be protected from "outrages on personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" in accord with the Geneva Conventions. His new order amounts to requiring -- on penalty of prosecution -- that CIA interrogators be polite. Coercive measures are unwisely banned with no exceptions, regardless of the danger confronting the country.

Eliminating the Bush system will mean that we will get no more information from captured al Qaeda terrorists. Every prisoner will have the right to a lawyer (which they will surely demand), the right to remain silent, and the right to a speedy trial.

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/29919871/

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:29:13 -0800

The first thing any lawyer will do is tell his clients to shut up. The KSMs or Abu Zubaydahs of the future will respond to no verbal questioning or trickery -- which is precisely why the Bush administration felt compelled to use more coercive measures in the first place. Our soldiers and agents in the field will have to run more risks as they must secure physical evidence at the point of capture and maintain a chain of custody that will stand up to the standards of a civilian court.

Relying on the civilian justice system not only robs us of the most effective intelligence tool to avert future attacks, it provides an opportunity for our enemies to obtain intelligence on us. If terrorists are now to be treated as ordinary criminals, their defense lawyers will insist that the government produce in open court all U.S. intelligence on their client along with the methods used by the CIA and NSA to get it. A defendant's constitutional right to demand the government's files often forces prosecutors to offer plea bargains to spies rather than risk disclosure of intelligence secrets.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the only member of the 9/11 cell arrested before the attack, turned his trial into a circus by making such demands. He was convicted after four years of pretrial wrangling only because he chose to plead guilty. Expect more of this, but with far more valuable intelligence at stake.

It is na�ve to say, as Mr. Obama did in his inaugural speech, that we can "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." That high-flying rhetoric means that we must give al Qaeda -- a hardened enemy committed to our destruction -- the same rights as garden-variety criminals at the cost of losing critical intelligence about real, future threats.

Government policy choices are all about trade-offs, which cannot simply be wished away by rhetoric. Mr. Obama seems to have respected these realities in his hesitation to end the NSA's electronic surveillance programs, or to stop the use of predator drones to target individual al Qaeda leaders.

But in his decisions taken so precipitously just two days after the inauguration, Mr. Obama may have opened the door to further terrorist acts on U.S. soil by shattering some of the nation's most critical defenses.

Mr. Yoo is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a visiting professor at Chapman Law School. He was an official in the Justice Department from 2001-03 and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/29497802/

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:24:46 -0800

Ann Coulter - MORE BOOS THAN BALLS
January 21, 2009
It will not be easy for President B. Hussein Obama. More than half the country voted for him, and yet our newspapers are brimming with snippy remarks at every little aspect of his inauguration.
Here's a small sampling of the churlishness in just The New York Times:
-- The American public is bemused by the tasteless show-biz extravaganza surrounding Barack Obama's inauguration today.
-- There is something to be said for some showiness in an inauguration. But one felt discomfited all the same.
-- This is an inauguration, not a coronation.
-- Is there a parallel between Mrs. Obama's jewel-toned outfit and somebody else's glass slippers? Why limousines and not shank's mare?
It is still unclear whether we are supposed to shout "Whoopee!" or "Shame!" about the new elegance the Obamas are bringing to Washington.
Boy, talk about raining on somebody's parade! These were not, of course, comments about the inauguration of the angel Obama; they are (slightly edited) comments about the inauguration of nother historic president, Ronald Reagan, in January 1981.
Obama's inaugural address tracked much of Reagan's first inaugural address -- minus the substance -- the main difference being that Obama did not invoke God as stoutly or frequently, restricting his heavenly references to a few liberal focus-grouped phrases, such as "God-given" and "God's grace."
Obama was also not as fulsome in his praise of his predecessor as Reagan was. To appreciate how remarkable this is, recall that Reagan's predecessor was Jimmy Carter.
Under Carter, more than 50 Americans were held hostage by a two-bit terrorist Iranian regime for 444 days -- released the day of Reagan's inauguration. Under Bush, there has not been another terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.
But I gather that if Obama had uttered anything more than the briefest allusion to Bush, that would have provoked yet more booing from the Hope-and-Change crowd, which moments earlier had showered Bush with boos when he walked onto the stage. That must be the new tone we've been hearing so much about.
So maybe liberals can stop acting as if the entire nation could at last come together in a "unity of purpose" if only conservatives would stop fomenting "conflict and discord" -- as Obama suggested in his inaugural address. We're not the ones who booed a departing president.
It is a liberal trope to insult conservatives by asking them meaningless questions, such as the one repeatedly asked of Bush throughout his presidency about whether he had made any mistakes. All humans make mistakes -- what is the point of that question other than to give insult?
When will the first reporter ask President Obama to admit that he has made mistakes? Try: Never.
No, that question will disappear for the next four years. It will be replaced by the new question for conservatives on every liberal's lips these days: Do you want Obama to succeed as president?
Answer: Of course we do. We live here, too.
But merely to ask the question is to imply that the 60 million Americans who did not vote for Obama are being unpatriotic if they do not wholeheartedly endorse his liberal agenda.
I guess it depends on the meaning of "succeed." If Obama "succeeds" in pushing through big-government, terrorist-appeasing policies, he will not have "succeeded" at being a good president. If we didn't think conservative principles of small government and strong national defense weren't better for the country, we wouldn't be conservatives.
And why was that question never asked of liberals producing assassination books and movies about President Bush for the last eight years?
Say, did liberals want Pastor Rick Warren to succeed delivering a meaningful invocation at the inaugural?
The way I remember it, the Hope-and-Change crowd viciously denounced the Christian pastor, stamped their feet and demanded that Obama withdraw the invitation -- all because Rick Warren agrees with Obama's stated position on gay marriage, which also happens to be the position of a vast majority of Americans every time they have been allowed to vote on the matter.
Liberals always have to play the victim, acting as if they merely want to bring the nation together in hope and unity in the face of petulant, stick-in-the-mud conservatives. Meanwhile, they are the ones booing, heckling and publicly fantasizing about the assassination of those who disagree with them on policy matters.
Hope and unity, apparently, can only be achieved if conservatives would just go away -- and perhaps have the decency to kill themselves.
Republicans are not the ones who need to be told that "the time has come to set aside childish things" -- as Obama said of his own assumption of the presidency. Remember? We're the ones who managed to gaze upon Carter at the conclusion of his abomination of a presidency without booing.
COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICAT

http://SKURS.stumbleupon.com/review/29507441/

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:09:19 -0800

Thanks to all of you, who have made sure I feel loved today!!
=)