News aggregator

by Gene Johnson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published 10:48 p.m., September 3, 2008, updated 10:26 p.m., September 3, 2008

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."
In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."
Palin asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there.
"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."
A video of the speech was posted at the Wasilla Assembly of God's Web site before finding its way on to other sites on the Internet.
Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.
"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said...

by Judson BergerTuesday, September 2, 2008

 

Ron Paul supporters wave signs outside the former presidential candidate's rally Tuesday in Minneapolis, near the site of the GOP National Convention. (FOXNews.com)

ST. PAUL — Texas Rep. Ron Paul played up his role as Republican Party outcast Tuesday, rallying thousands of supporters of his libertarian-leaning presidential bid at his own counter-convention in Minneapolis — just across the river from the official GOP convention.

The congressman said he wasn’t trying to launch a splinter party, or commandeer the Republican National Convention, or overhaul the party platform.

But he said he felt slighted by St. Paul convention planners, who he said gave him “second-class” access and restricted him from bringing his staff to their event. Paul was also denied a speaking slot.

So while the St. Paul convention kicked back into high gear, after a day of strictly business out of respect for the victims of Hurricane Gustav, Paul and more than 10,000 supporters gathered for his daylong “Rally for the Republic” — the capstone of three days of Paul-oriented festivities in the Twin Cities...

By Sean Cockerham | McClatchy Newspapers
September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The announcement Monday by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband that their 17-year-old daughter is pregnant out of wedlock raised new questions about how thoroughly John McCain investigated the background of his vice-presidential pick.

Whether the 72-year-old McCain's selection of 44-year-old Palin as his running mate was carefully considered or impulsive is a matter of growing interest.
Although the Palins made their announcement in response to Internet rumors, McCain advisers said that he knew about the pregnancy before he settled on Palin, and said that Palin had been thoroughly vetted. In Alaska, however, there's little evidence of a thorough vetting process.

While it's possible that some people in Alaska were called during the process, there was no sign of it. The former U.S. attorney for Alaska, Wev Shea, who enthusiastically recommended Palin back in March, said he was never contacted with any follow-up questions.

Chris Coleman, one of Palin's next-door neighbors, said that no one representing McCain spoke to him about Palin. Another neighbor also was never contacted, he said Monday...

By E. J. Dionne
September 01, 2008


ST. PAUL, Minn. -- By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week's Republican convention against John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate -- for the very same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Palin is, if anything, less qualified for the vice presidency (and the presidency) than Miers was for the court. But there is one big difference: Palin passes all the right-wing litmus tests, which means she is unlikely to suffer Miers' fate.

 It's amusing to watch Republicans play gender politics. At the time Bush chose Miers, he was under pressure to pick a woman to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But most of the plausible women jurists were either too moderate to satisfy conservatives or so right wing that they faced serious confirmation problems.
So Bush picked his close White House aide, hoping that his own standing with the right would push her through. Conservatives would have none of it. They assailed Miers' lack of judicial grounding. And they certainly had a case. But what really bothered them was that they had no idea how she would vote on the court. Fearing she was a closet moderate, they blocked her.
McCain, it appears, also wanted a woman, and so he went with Alaska's young governor with strongly conservative views. How do Palin and Miers compare?...

by Diane Sweet
Saturday August 30, 2008

Raw Story obtains full audio podcast

On January 15, 2008, McCain VP nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called into a radio talk show and laughed as the host questioned Alaska Senate President Lyda Green's parenting, and then further attacked the cancer survivor calling her a "bitch" and a "cancer."

At 7:11 in the audio of the program, the host says "Governor, you can't say this, but we can. She is a cancer and she is nothing but a very jealous woman."

Then again at 10:12 in the audio obtained by Raw Story from the Bob and Mark Show, the host says to Palin, "Well, I'm going to say what I wish you could say...Lyda Green is a bitch, and she needs to go away because she is a cancer on the progress of the state of Alaska."

Disc jockey Dan Fagan chastized the governor for what he called "conduct unbecoming a human being, never mind a governor," in an editorial for theAnchorage Daily News. Other editorial writers also demanded that Palin apologize for her behavior.

Gov. Palin's office then released a public statement that said "Governor Palin was caught off guard by Bob Lester's reference to Senate President Lyda Green." But Fagan wrote that he didn't 'buy' Palin's explanation and goes on to relay the continued on-air attack of Green, and Palin's reactions...

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=5DD_Ds_mWjQ&eurl=http://www.americablog.com/

By MICHAEL SCHERER / DENVERTIME MAGAZINE
Thursday, AUGUST 28, 2008

When he first ran for Congress in Arizona nearly three decades ago,John McCain had one clear liability: he wasn't from the state, and he could count the number of years he had lived there on a couple of fingers.

So his primary opponent, state senator Jim Mack, attacked him as a Johnny-come-lately. To counter the charge, at a candidate forum, McCain offered a decidedly pointed response. "I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things," he said. "As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

McCain's heroic biography, as a Navy veteran and former prisoner of war, gave him a clear out for the carpetbagger critique. It was widely seen as a devastating response — and a key turning point in McCain's early political career.

Twenty-six years later, McCain has returned to the same tactic, but some critics say he is overplaying his trump card. At several points over the past two weeks, the McCain campaign has raised his military service in efforts to defuse political attacks, even when it seemed to have little if any bearing on the issue at hand. When the Obama campaign laid into McCain for not knowing the number of houses owned by his family, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers told the WashingtonPost that "this is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison," a refrain McCain himself repeated more recently during an appearance on The Tonight Show. When an Obama staffer suggested, without evidence, that McCain might have left the "cone of silence" before a forum at Rick Warren's Saddle Creek Church, McCain spokeswoman Nicole Wallace said, "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous." And in a speech this week questioning Obama's foreign policy judgment and interpretation of the end of the Cold War, McCain himself mentioned, "Now I missed a few years of the Cold War, as the guest of one of our adversaries."...

Food for thought for the Hillary Clinton Wing of the GOP 

1982/00/00 McCain enters Congress, with his family accepts first of nine trips some aboard Keating's leer jet, three of which include stayovers at Keating's Caribbean resort (goes unreported for up to 7 years) 
1983/09/28 McCain joins 26 other Republicans to vote with the Majority Party Congressional Democrats to demand U.S. Troops exit Lebanon, winds up on the losing 
1983/09/28 Cindy McCain and her father invest $359,100 in a Charles Keating strip mall 
1987/00/00 McCain has received $112,000 by this time for Congressional and Senate campaigns, from Charles Keating, his relatives, and his employees, the largest amount to any Keating 5 member 
1987/04/02 McCain joins four Democrats to intercede on behalf of his S&L Owner friend Keating with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and also banking regulators (2 meetings) 
1988/02/11 McCain votes to affirm Anthony Kennedy as a justice for the SCOTUS 
1989/00/00 McCain discloses Keating trips as his involvement in the S&L scandal breaks, reimbursing $13,433.00 with no repercussions as late as seven years after the fact 
1993/10/10 McCain co-sponsors an unsuccessful bill to cut off funding of United States troops in Somalia 
1993/08/10 McCain joins the Democrats and most Republicans voting to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the worst justice on the court today. Three Republicans vote Nay. 
1993/01/13 McCain and Kerry release the Select Committee report urging the MIA issue be put to rest so that Vietnam could be granted normalized relations with the U.S., over objections by MIA family and veterans groups. Video1 Video2 ( I do not endorse all of the information presented in video1 here. The video does touch on a number of topics, and I think most are germane ) If I could have found video that contained most of this information without touching on McCain's POW experience I would have posted it instead. Still, there are parts of McCain's POW experience that are troubling. I'd just rather not go there. Video2 shows how one MIA family rep is treated, confirming some of the reports in Video1. 
1994/07/24 McCain joins with the Democrats to confirm nominee Stephen Breyer to be an Associate Justice on the SCOTUS. Nine Senators voted Nay... 
1997/00/00 McCain leads the opposition to the Coats Amendment, preventing government funded fetal tissue research ( derived from "a legal act" [abortion] ) Amendment defeated! 
1999/08/19 McCain stated, ""Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade," 
John McCain: George Soros' Useful Idiot? McCain joins Democrat Russ Feingold to introduce Campaign Finance Reform, an effort funded by George Soros Article
2000/00/00 McCain was the keynote speaker at the ultra-liberal Philadelphia convention sponsored by George Soros while John F. Kerry keynoted at another Soros event on the same day... 
2000/11/20 McCain participates in the production of a gun control spot for Oregon's Proposition Five. (Circa this date, prior to the November election.) Article
2001/00/00 McCain founded the Reform Institute funded by George Soros 
2001/05/15 McCain introduces the Gun Show Loophole bill S890, with Carper, Lieberman, DeWine, Clinton, and Schumer co/sponsoring Analysis
2003/03/19 McCain joins Democrats to vote against drilling in ANWR 
2003/10/30 McCain joins Lieberman again, this time to introduce the Climate Stewardship Act (Gorebal worming et al) Thomas Bill S139
2004/06/04 McCain signs letter with 58 Senators, "We write to urge you to expand the current federal policy concerning embryonic stem cell research." 
2004/08/05 McCain announces he deplores the Swift Boat adds against Senator John Kerry, and asks the White House to refute them 
2005/00/00 McCain resigns from the Reform Institute he founded with Communist billionaire George Soros 
2005/01/28 McCain declares, "I want us in the ICC (International Criminal Court)", but I would like to see more safeguards first 
2005/05/12 McCain joins Ted Kennedy to introduce McCain/Kennedy immigration legislation that would wind up making illegal immigrants citizens 
2006/04/28 McCain states, "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected that has become corrupt." 
2006/09/06 McCain joins Dole to write op-ed for the Washington Post, states in part, "We should publicly remind Khartoum that the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes..." 
2007/02/17 McCain states he will close Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainment center on his first day in office video (same as date link on the left) 
2007/03/22 McCain gets the pledged support of Chuck and Sue Cobb, Jeb Bush's Florida Director of the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement effort 
2007/06/00 McCain joins Baldwin, Shays and Meehan to file an amicus brief against the Wisconsin Right to Life organization brief The wrong side of a pro-life issue, helping pro-abort Feingold 
2007/06/18 McCains Gitmo problem, close the base, grant Geneva Convention status, stop water boarding... 
2007/10/25 McCain still wants us to sign the L.O.S.T. treaty in time, but does have concerns over sovereignty issues. 
2008/03/00 McCain makes his first attempt to tell a state (North Carolina) Republican Party what to do. The RNC joins him. 
2008/03/24 McCain hires Meg Whiteman to cochair his Presidential campaign. Whiteman is another wishy washy at best Independent, who has donated to leftist candidates and still doesn't have a clue what side to come down on with regard to illegal immigration. She is leaning toward running for Governor in California and being courted by it's Republican leadership. Links to CalCowGirl's comments regarding Whiteman's donations. Article above. 
2008/03/26 McCains speech to the World Affairs Council, Europe may get veto power over some of our foreign policy... 
2008/04/08 McCain casts last Senate vote during his Presidential Campaign. By the EOBD 06/24/08, he has missed 367 votes or 61.4% of the Senate votes in the 110th Congress. His last vote before the one he cast on April 8 was cast on 03/14/08. Link
2008/05/09 McCains interview with O'Reilly... I won't drill in ANWR... it's pretty... I'm an environmentalist. 
2008/05/12 McCain Joins the Goreball Worming Cult, sounding more like Al Gore every day... McCain's Oregon add Video
2008/05/13 2008/05/13 McCain takes an Environmental walk, with the leader of the Cascade Land Conservancy 
2008/05/15 2008/05/15 McCain states he will appoint Democrats to his administration, during a Republican teleconference and during a Columbus stump speech
2008/05/27 McCain announces support for severe cutbacks on our nuclear weapons, withdrawing battlefield nukes from Europe and giving our nuclear waste to an international body 
2008/06/04 McCain states, "I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq." 
2008/06/14 McCain tells Clinton supporters they should back him because he voted for Ginsberg and Breyer Said this to Conservatives on 2008/05/07
2008/06/21 It is announced McCain and Obama will address open borders group in Los Angeles on July 18th, 2008, Communists and worst of U.S. Illegal Alien apologist groups... 
2008/06/21 McCain and team realize he has so little credibility on judicial appointments, that they announce he will let Fred Thompson vet his judges. That's 06/21/08's version of truth... 
2008/06/28 McCain declares, "I will make comprehensive immigration reform my “top priority,” during my first 100 days in office. He assures Latino leaders that they will have an ally in the White House.

A really interesting video from youtube.

A Florida psychic says he's channelled a book from the ghost of the infamous D.C. Madam. He says she answers the question of whether her suicide was faked by government agents and and that she's seen technology from the year 2089 that can amplify and transmit love "exactly as if it were radio waves sent across the planet... "By the year 2089 such an instrument will be nearly as common as are cell phones today." Questions for the interview traveled via email to the psychic and then to the afterlife -- and then back via email to a humble page on the web.

No one knows exactly what happened. The facts are these:the operator of the AN/SPS 10 radar reported that he had a surface contact that was intermittent. The range was 10 miles and course and speed indicated that it was headed for the Truxtun. Moments later, the operator of the AN/SPS 48 radar also confirmed the contact but he said that the contact was airborne. Some confusion was generated by these conflicting reports. The speed reported by the 10 radar operator was 20 knots, consistent with a torpedo boat, which the North Vietnamese were known to have.

Over the past couple of years mainly due to cable networks we have seen an upsurge of television shows in the genre of the paranormal field: ranging from reality type to live audience and stage acts. I say yes to para-shows (paranormal shows) because as with anything on television today, it will capture our attention one way or the other.

Suddenly, I was thrust back into myself, bursting into physical sensation. The last of the stuff poured out in a torrent as a hacking cough burned through my chest and throat. I felt like the wind had been knocked from me in a powerful rugby tackle, and I squeezed the person's hand I was holding as I fought to catch my breath. The taste in my mouth was disgusting.

Have you ever wanted to visit Roswell? . . . to peer into Hanger 84 where crash debris and alien bodies were stored? . . . to follow Walter Haut's route as he delivered his press releases announcing recovery of the crashed saucer? . . .to study intriguing exhibits in the International UFO Museum and Research Center?. . . or just to soak up the ambiance of this small southwestern town in the middle of nowhere where it all began? Now, with Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World! you can 'Tour Roswell like a Native . . . or maybe like an Alien.'

Extraterrestrial contact does not require a human to be perfect. If perfect sentient intelligent beings were the only ones chosen on earth, I would be left out. To err is to be human. We must forgive ourselves and others for mistakes while here on earth.

Marian apparitions are not a strictly and literal religious event, but a Fortean/UFO occurrence; a theory I share with those UFO and paranormal thinkers who think the along the same lines. Appearances of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) are not to be interpreted literally within the confines of religious dogma, but are manifestations of something paranormal, and very possibly extraterrestrial.

This is a dangerous, seductive time. From now to the time of the Earth changes humanity faces its most important decision: stride or slide. Both individually and collectively we need to decide whether to take the bold step forward into the next age, or slide back and wallow in the material gratification of a physical life without learning.