War Coverage and the Obama Cult

Why we aren’t getting the real story

by Justin Raimondo, August 24, 2009

There was a time when Cindy Sheehan couldn’t go anywhere without having a microphone and a TV camera stuck in front of her. As she camped out in front of George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch, mourning the death of her son Casey in Iraq and calling attention to an unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable war, the media created in her a symbolic figure whose public agony epitomized a growing backlash against the militarism and unmitigated arrogance of the Bush administration. It was a powerful image: a lone woman standing up to the most powerful man on earth in memory of her fallen son.

Touting “an exclusive interview with Cindy Sheehan” on Good Morning America, four years ago ABC anchorman Charles Gibson intoned: “Standing her ground. She lost her son in Iraq, she opposes the war, now she’s camped out at President Bush’s ranch and says she won’t leave until he meets with her.”

The level of coverage only increased in the coming days and weeks. As Cindy continued her vigil, Gibson enthused:

“All across the country protests against the war in Iraq, inspired by the mother standing her ground at President Bush’s ranch.”

Flashing across their television screens, viewers saw the headline “MOM ON A MISSION: IS ANTIWAR MOVEMENT GROWING?” as Gibson averred:

“This morning a war of words. All across the country protests against the war in Iraq, inspired by the mother standing her ground at President Bush’s ranch. But is anyone in the White House feeling the heat?”

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Graduate school for unemployed college students

by Seth Godin

Fewer college grads have jobs than at any other time in recent memory—a report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers annual student survey said that 20 percent of 2009 college graduates who applied for a job actually have one.  So, what should the unfortunate 80% do?

How about a post-graduate year doing some combination of the following (not just one, how about all):

* Spend twenty hours a week running a project for a non-profit.
* Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery. [Clarification: I know you can't become a master programmer of all these in a year. I used the word mastery to distinguish it from 'familiarity' which is what you get from one of those Dummies type books. I would hope you could write code that solves problems, works and is reasonably clear, not that you can program well enough to work for Joel Spolsky. Sorry if I ruffled feathers.]
* Volunteer to coach or assistant coach a kids sports team.
* Start, run and grow an online community.
* Give a speech a week to local organizations.
* Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.
* Learn a foreign language fluently.
* Write three detailed business plans for projects in the industry you care about.
* Self-publish a book.
* Run a marathon.

Beats law school.

If you wake up every morning at 6, give up TV and treat this list like a job, you’ll have no trouble accomplishing everything on it. Everything! When you do, what happens to your job prospects?

Original Article

Open letter to recent college graduates

by Pamela on June 12, 2009

Congratulations!  Making it through four or five years of college requires concentration, stamina and discipline and you should feel very proud of yourself. I am proud of you.

I imagine you have been getting looks of pity from friends and relatives since you are graduating in one of the bleakest economic climates since the Great Depression.

Here is the good news:  there is no need to worry.

Living with constraints and challenges is one of the best learning opportunities you will ever get. By succeeding in a tough economy, you will be much better prepared for life than peers who graduate with offer letters waived under their noses the moment they cross the stage to collect their diploma.  Constraints breed creativity. Creativity is the single most useful skill you will ever develop.

Here is my advice to you, based on thirteen years working in and studying career development, learning, human behavior and performance inside and outside of corporations:

1. There is no perfect job.
I am so sorry if you agonized over choosing a major.  It must have been really hard to decide the subject matter to specialize in that would prepare you for a fruitful career.  So here is the good and bad news. Bad news:  you may not work in a field that has anything to do with your major.  Good news: just as there is no perfect major, there is no perfect job.  As soon as you settle in to the perfect situation, it will change, your manager will leave, your company will be acquired, or you will be promoted and everything you loved about your job will change. A much better way to view your career is by observing the kind of work that interests you. Which activities energize you? What kind of people bring out the best in you?  If you view your interests and and skills as ingredients searching for a recipe instead of searching for the perfect job, you will be much happier over the course of your life.

2. You are always self-employed, no matter your tax designation.
The job market today is radically different than that of your parent’s generation. No job is guaranteed, and no company can promise stability.  So the best way to create long-term income security is to manage your career at all times as if you were self-employed. If you take a job as an employee, do not ever put your career in the hands of a manager or mentor. Always be looking around for ways to make yourself valuable to the company, and your company’s customers. Always stay connected to the job market at large. If you work for yourself, never close the door on work as an employee, since if you run into a rough patch, you may need to be your own venture capitalist for awhile until things straighten out in your own business. There is no inherent stability in working for a company and no inherent glamor in working for yourself. Both are viable ways to make a living.

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War? What War?

by Justin Raimondo, August 21, 2009

The “Netroots Nation” conference held last weekend  in Pittsburgh attracted some attention, at least in the circles I move in, on account of Bill Clinton putting another uppity gay in his place: challenged by an audience member over the gays-in-the-military issue, Clinton went off on the guy by demanding to know when progressives were going to start backing up their ideology with action. “You didn’t back us up!” he whined, to general approval. And indeed the big question at this year’s annual progressive powwow was, as Slate put it,

“How do we hold Obama to his campaign promises? There was plenty of concern about Obama’s dedication to closing Guantanamo, abolishing indefinite detentions, shoring up gay rights, and implementing immigration reform. (Of course, between health care and climate change and fixing the economy, there are plenty of commitments the administration hasn’t backed away from.) So the fundamental disagreement among attendees was: Should we of the Netroots be fundamentally supportive of Obama or should we oppose him from the left?”

A panel dubbed “Transformation? Or Shock” gives us a clue as to the “progressive” answer: “There,” reports Slate, “an audience member argued that the Netroots has to back the president. She was sick of people on the left yelling at Obama, claiming that he didn’t share their interests. A panelist, Digby, writer of Hullabaloo, said it’s possible to be respectful but firm. She compared it to the story about Franklin Delano Roosevelt telling Democratic Party activists, ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.’”

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Intolerable Stress Placed on Troops

The suicide rate among Army personnel is rising at an alarming pace. According to Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army’s surgeon general, the suicide rate has nearly doubled in the last five or six years, the Express-News reported.

Through the first seven months of 2009, 141 active-duty and reserve soldiers had committed suicide. During all of 2008, there were 140 confirmed suicides.

Why are Army suicides rising? No one yet knows with certainty. The Army and the National Institute of Mental Health have launched a five-year study of the problem.

It doesn’t require a scientific study, however, to know that repeated deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq over nearly eight years are taking a high toll on military personnel and their families.

Most Americans have carried on since 2001 as though the nation were not at war. But the community of active-duty and reserve military personnel that constitutes about 1 percent of the U.S. population has been engaged in two wars.

The stress and horrors of war are always terrible. Many soldiers have served five and six tours in the war zone, some as long as 15 months. The constant interruptions of normal life damage relationships and squeeze finances, adding to the stress.

The Army recognizes the problem and has taken steps to address it — more post-deployment screenings, more counseling and transition programs, more emphasis on reducing strain when soldiers are at their home station. And it has partnered with civilian organizations such as United Way and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to provide services for military personnel and their families.

Those measures address symptoms. The underlying problem is too few men and women being asked to do too much.

The Obama administration requested that Congress reprogram $1 billion from the current military appropriation to recruit and train an additional 15,000 soldiers. That’s part of a two-year plan of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to increase troop strength. That increase is long overdue.

A nation cannot fight wars on the cheap. That means creating defense budgets that buy the equipment and weapons our personnel need instead of wasting it on frivolous military pork-barrel spending.

More fundamentally, it means an obligation to invest in those personnel and ensure that their patriotic commitment to serve doesn’t become an intolerable burden. It shouldn’t require a suicide crisis in the Army to make our nation’s civilian political leaders aware of that obligation.

Full Article

Man exercises 2nd Amendment at Obama Healthcare Rally

Paulson & Goldman Sachs, The Plot Thickens

Ron Paul: Obama ‘Deserves an F’

Pi

We have 3.14 pieces remaining of our pie, after one sitting. With just the two of us. Yum.

Another 45,000 US troops needed in Afghanistan, military adviser says.

by Michael Evans, Defence Editor at www.timesonline.co.uk

The United States should send up to 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, a senior adviser to the American commander in Kabul has told The Times.

Anthony Cordesman, an influential American academic who is a member of a team that has been advising General Stanley McChrystal, now in charge of Nato forces in Afghanistan, also said that to deal with the threat from the Taleban the size of the Afghan National Army might have to increase to 240,000.

If Mr Cordesman’s recommendation reflects the view of General McChrystal, who recently presented the findings of a 60-day review of Afghanistan strategy to Washington, it would mean sending another nine combat brigades, comprising 45,000 American troops, in addition to the 21,000 already approved by President Obama. This would bring the total American military presence in Afghanistan to about 100,000, considerably closer to the force that was deployed for the counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq.

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