Fight terrorism

by disneyexclusiveonline

Obama speech, August 31: pays tribute to troops, refocuses on economy
President Obama Tuesday night told an American public weary of war that it is time to “turn the page” on the war in Iraq. And although he said the formal end of US combat operations in Iraq would allow the military to turn fuller attention to the war in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama also repeated his pledge to begin a drawdown of troops in Afghanistan next summer.
Read more on The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News

by disneyexclusiveonline

American Software Reports Preliminary First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2011 Results
ATLANTA—-American Software, Inc. today reported financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2011, delivering a 39% increase in first quarter operating earnings when compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2010, achieving 38 consecutive quarters of profitability and completing 28 consecutive quarters of dividend distributions to shareholders.
Read more on Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance

President Obama’s Address on Iraq
The text, as prepared for delivery, of President Obama’s address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, provided by the White House.
Read more on New York Times

You can view the full speech here: millercenter.org At American University in Washington, DC, Kennedy announces upcoming talks with the Soviets in Moscow, as well as his decision not to test nuclear weapons in the atmosphere as long as other nations also refrain from nuclear tests as a show of goodwill. June 10th, 1963
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We like to think of Europeans as poor overtaxed serfs but the benefits they receive show the shortcomings of the US system

Most Americans seem to regard 15 April – the day income tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service – as a recurring tragedy on the order of a biblical plague. Particularly this year, with US government deficits soaring, everyone from the Teabaggers to Senate Republicans are reviving a scary Friday the 13th scenario from the 1990s about a return to Big Government. Recently Rudy Giuliani even stated that President Obama was moving us towards – heaven forbid – European social democracy.

Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs. But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.

A few years ago, an American acquaintance of mine who lives in Sweden told me that, quite by chance, he and his Swedish wife were in New York City and ended up sharing a limousine to the theatre district with a southern US senator and his wife. This senator, a conservative, anti-tax Democrat, asked my acquaintance about Sweden and swaggeringly commented about “all those taxes the Swedes pay”. To which this American replied, “The problem with Americans and their taxes is that we get nothing for them.” He then went on to tell the senator about the comprehensive level of services and benefits that Swedes receive.

“If Americans knew what Swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot,” he told the senator. The rest of the ride to the theatre district was unsurprisingly quiet.

The fact is, in return for their taxes, Europeans are receiving a generous support system for families and individuals for which Americans must pay exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, if we are to receive it at all. That includes quality healthcare for every single person, the average cost of which is about half of what Americans pay, even as various studies show that Europeans achieve healthier results.

But that’s not all. In return for their taxes, Europeans also are receiving affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, efficient mass transportation and more. In order to receive the same level of benefits as Europeans, most Americans fork out a ton of money in out-of-pocket payments, in addition to our taxes.

For example, while 47 million Americans don’t have any health insurance at all, many who do are paying escalating premiums and deductibles. Indeed, Anthem Blue Cross announced that its premiums will increase by up to 40%.

But Europeans receive healthcare in return for a modest amount deducted from their paychecks.
Friends have told me they are saving nearly a hundred thousand dollars for their children’s college education, and most young Americans graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. But many European children attend for free or nearly so (depending on the country).

Childcare in the US costs over $12,000 annually for a family with two children, but in Europe it cost about one-sixth that amount, and the quality is far superior. Millions of Americans are stuffing as much as possible into their IRAs and 401(k)s because social security provides only about half the retirement income needed. But the more generous European retirement system provides about 75-85% (depending on the country) of retirement income. Either way, you pay.

Americans’ private spending on old-age care is nearly three times higher per capita than in Europe because Americans must self-finance a significant share of their own senior care. Sixty million American workers have no paid sick leave, millions more have no paid parental leave following a birth, and so must self-finance their own time off. But Europeans receive all this in exchange for their taxes.

Americans also tend to pay more in local and state taxes, as well as in property taxes. Americans also pay hidden taxes, such as $300bn annually in federal tax breaks to businesses that provide health benefits to their employees. When you sum up the total balance sheet, it turns out that Americans pay out just as much as Europeans – but we receive a lot less for our money.

Unfortunately these sorts of complexities are not calculated into simplistic analyses like Forbes’ annual Tax Misery Index, a “study” which shows European nations as the most miserable and the low-tax United States as happy as a clam – right next to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But Forbes only adds up income tax, social security, sales tax or VAT and a few other minor fees. A thorough analysis would need to create a ledger in which all the supports and services Europeans receive are listed on one side and the amount of taxes and any additional fees they pay are listed on the other; and then do a similar analysis for Americans, listing what Americans pay in taxes as well as out-of-pocket expenses for those same services.

In this economically competitive age, increasingly these kinds of services are necessary to ensure healthy, happy and productive families and workers.

Europeans have these supports, but most Americans do not unless you pay a ton out of pocket. Or unless you are a member of Congress, which of course provide European-level support for its members and their families.

That’s something to keep in mind on 15 April. Happy Tax Day.

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Some cool American president images:

Tom Schick, Executive Vice President, American Express, USA, at the 2010 Horasis Global India Business Meeting – on the next big driver for India’s growth story


Image by Horasis

Red Presidents Wall Study for Habitat for Humanity


Image by Cain and Todd Benson

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by jaycoxfilm

Rep. Paul Calls for Gold Audit, Questions Whether Fort Knox Is Empty
Texas Rep. Ron Paul, suggesting America’s reserves may not be as robust as officials claim, is calling for an independent audit of the U.S. gold held at Fort Knox and other facilities. 
Read more on Fox News

by jaycoxfilm

Chronic insomnia with objectively measured short sleep duration associated with increased mortality in men
A study in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP found an elevated risk of death in men with a complaint of chronic insomnia and an objectively measured short sleep duration. The results suggest that public health policy should emphasize the diagnosis and appropriate treatment of chronic insomnia.
Read more on News-Medical-Net

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by conservativeparty

Wither Conservative Reform?

In the past few months, Newt Gingrich and William Kristol have weighed in publicly with advice for John McCain. It’s all about what sort of presidential campaign he should run or what sort of candidate he should be.

Gingrich and Kristol are foursquare behind the idea that the Arizonan should run as a reformer, a conservative reformer.

The advice has plenty of merit. Voters want change and the nation needs it. And it would most certainly be advantageous for the country if Senator McCain were to grab the conservative reform banner and run with it.

But the Arizonan, famous for his independent streak, and with more than a quarter of a century of political experience under his belt, isn’t likely to campaign as a banner-waving reformer. He’s likely to be just what he is: a seasoned politician who will take the most practical routes to winning the presidency.

That doesn’t make him a crass opportunist. Nor does it mean that his candidacy is a principle-free zone. It simply means that as a practitioner of the fine art of electoral politics, Senator McCain is going to find ways of successfully negotiating the nation’s broad and tangled political landscape to gain victory.

His recipe will probably call for a little reform, a little populism and some stand-patism. In fact, that’s already the case. He’s calling for an optional simpler tax system while bashing Wall Street. His trade proposals are conventionally Republican. As the campaign unfolds, he may well change the mix of ingredients or the portions to better reflect swings in the electorate. That’s part of the fine art as well: flexibility.

Where does that leave conservative reform?

Without a strong standard-bearer, yes, indeed. But as conservatives have come to appreciate, Ronald Reagans don’t grow on trees. A movement leader who can be a political leader as well is, perhaps, a once in a generation occurrence.

But that shouldn’t be a cause for despair among conservatives. It helps to keep in mind that when it comes to movements, in the chain of events, electing likeminded politicians is the last link. Generally, reform doesn’t start at the center and work out to the perimeters. Reform starts on the perimeters and works its way to the center. In a very real sense, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were the end results of a much longer, less visible, process.

Thanks to the William Buckleys and Russell Kirks, thanks to countless Main Street Americans, conservatism was translated into a movement that became a political force that has been powerfully shaping the nation for a quarter of a century.

Despite what the establishment media and liberals say about conservatism being played out, such is not the case. There’s no shortage of conservative ideas for transforming the country. Start at the Heritage Foundation website and then visit the many other national and state conservative think-tank websites. Go online to conservative journals, like National Review. And visit pages like the American Thinker, where tangible contributions are being made to conservative thought and the national dialogue. Conservative reform ideas are everywhere.

Consider the period from Ronald Reagan’s inauguration through, at least, the completion of George W. Bush’s first term as the end of Phase I in the conservative advance. Much of that phase dealt with cleaning up the mess made by liberals in the 1960s and 1970s. The military was rebuilt. The Russians were defeated. Some significant reforms were passed, including the landmark 1996 welfare reform act pushed by Congressional Republicans. The Reagan tax cuts became the George W. Bush tax cuts. Voters were introduced to conservative thought, and, thanks to Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, that thought was made practical to the everyday lives of Americans.

But that phase is now over, and gratitude for past achievements goes only so far with voters. They want answers and direction in dealing with the problems and challenges they now face.

Enter conservative reform. Government is still the problem, as Ronald Reagan would undoubtedly say if he were around. In fact, all the more so.

Today, much of the federal government is rusting out and dry-rotting. It was built by liberals in the last century to respond to the challenges of industrial America. The America of Big Business and Big Labor; of sprawling factories and belching smokestacks. That old big government is protected by liberals due to their narrow self-interest and by loyalty to a hoary ideology that, with the passing years, has become more Europeanized and statist.

The liberal response to contemporary challenges and problems is no different than that of liberals a generation ago. Healthcare: let government run it. Energy: punish producers and let government control it. Taxes: hike them. Public education: throw more money at it. Social welfare: spend more. Government: grow it. And on and on.

Liberalism is purely a reactionary creed. That point can’t be underscored enough. It offers no new departures. None. Everything in the Obama and Clinton playbooks comes from the McGovern-Carter playbooks of the 1970s. From taxes to spending to foreign policy and national defense, the Democratic contenders are Ford Pintos with fresh coats of paint.

Reactionary liberalism has gained traction this year because it found a moment to exploit. Voter disillusionment and fatigue with the Iraqi war, a slowing economy and a recent Republican Congress that turned from conservative governance to big government, profligate spending and earmarking have given liberals an opening.

But originality of thought and innovation and new ideas with an eye to the future are occurring among conservatives. Voters are anxious for change, not the empty change offered by Barack Obama, but meat and potatoes change. Change that dramatically reshapes government; that makes it more effective in performing its essential duties; that divests or decentralizes other functions to states and localities; that seeks solutions in the private sector first; and that returns to citizens greater responsibility for their lives. And with that responsibility comes greater choices and rewards.

Yet absent a compelling conservative reform message and messenger, to date, voters have been enticed by the Democrats, whose repackaged liberalism looks brand spanking new, especially to younger voters with no firsthand knowledge of the liberal debacle a generation ago.

Senator McCain may well win the presidency, but that will be due to many factors. No small part will be voters realizing that Barack Obama isn’t an agent of change, but an agent of the status quo ante.

Whoever wins the presidency, it’s a good bet that voters won’t get what they truly want. The likelihood is that this year’s restless, volatile electorate will be that way in 2010 and 2012. Getting more of the same from the Democrats, or not enough that’s new from John McCain, could make this so.

No historical parallel is exact, of course, but the early years of the 21st Century presents conservatives with opportunities similar to what the Progressives had in the opening years of the last century. It offers the chance to advance a broad reform agenda. This time, not aimed at the ills and excesses of capitalism, but at the ills and excesses of government.

Progressive reformers didn’t wait for political leaders to come along to spark their movement. It was started by countless people in countless communities throughout the nation. Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were results.

The same thing holds true for conservative reform today: start the movement and the politicians will follow.

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William Hague at Conservative Party Conference


Image by conservativeparty

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by The U.S. Army

White House sued for ‘targeted killings’
The United States government faces legal action for ordering the assassination of American citizens, whom it accuses of terrorist links.
Read more on Press TV

by The U.S. Army

Eagle County kids invited to White House
EAGLE COUNTY, Colorado – Luisa Taal has never met the first lady, but she has a good feeling about her. “She looks really nice,” the 11-year-old said. Taal will get to see Michelle Obama in person Tuesday. She and fellow valley resident Colby Lange, also 11, have received an exclusive invitation to the White House to participate in a dance workshop. The first lady is putting on the event to …
Read more on The Vail Trail

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