Lots of great things I like about a possible Perry runno doubt. While I fully am endorsing Herman Cain, I think Perry would also be a fine president, and maybe the guy to please both the establishment AND the Conservative base too?
Jobs. Perry has already transformed Texas into the largest job incubator in the nation at a time when President Obama and the Democrats are being blamed for failing to reduce near-record level joblessness. Perry has offered special tax breaks to companies willing to relocate and open production facilities in his state — and they’ve responded in droves. Other GOP candidates — like the recently departed Daniels — can boast a track record tackling the deficit. But none has Perry’s standing on jobs.
Obamacare. Perry has been a steadfast critic of Obamacare and has refused to entertain compromises of the kind that may well doom the candidacies of Gingrich and Mitt Romney. And unlike two other Southern governors, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and Nathan Deal in Georgia, who’ve tried to hedge their bets politically, Perry has discouraged Texas legislators from even introducing legislation to support a state-based Obamacare health benefits exchange. Perry’s tough position will place him squarely in the conservative Tea Party camp, alongside of Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty.
Social issues. Unlike Mitch Daniels, who alienated the GOP base months ago by insisting on a “truce” on social issues, Perry is also a tried and true social conservative who remains an outspoken opponent of abortion. He just signed into law a measure that requires women seeking abortions to agree to a sonogram, as well as a vehicle license plate bill giving Texas motorists the option of promoting a “pro-life” message. These highly symbolic moves will resonate with evangelical voters and could allow Perry to run strongly in the South and in the Iowa caucuses, where the race, post-Huckabee, is wide open.
The border. Perry is a border hawk, but he’s managed to craft a nuanced position that allows him to draw in a wide range of political constituencies. Unlike much of the GOP, he opposes an Arizona-style crackdown law, saying it’s not needed in Texas. He’s also criticized the U.S.-Mexico border fence, which many conservative landowners with affected properties along the border also oppose. Instead, Perry advocates stepped-up use of the National Guard and border patrol agents, as well as the introduction of Predator drones to maintain better surveillance of illegal immigrants and drug gangs. He opposes Obama’s “amnesty” plan, including the more limited DREAM Act.
Lots more at the link, like Perry’s charisma and his popularity among Hispanic voters, and the Palin Factor. Perry would certainly receive Palin’s support, and he is popular with The Tea Party folks, and might just be a guy to unite the party, and I think would dismantle Obama in debates.
We need a terrorist state. Where the politicians are terrorists, the police are terrorists and even the men sitting at the desk when you come in to drop off a form are terrorists. There are states that support terrorists, and give safe harbor to them, but that’s not good enough. We don’t want another Pakistan or Iran. We’re not half-assing it this time. What we want is the genuine article. Terrorists from the top down. Terrorists everywhere. A state where every branch of government and the entire country is nothing but terrorists.
Terroristine has been an ancient dream since 1973 or was it 1967. A generation of keffiyah draped thugs, KGB operatives and human rights activists have looked out into the darkness and called it into being. It is a vision of a country where everyone is a murderer and children are taught from a very young age that their purpose in life is to die killing people who don’t share their religion and way of life.
And now after 20 years of negotiations, treaties, suicide bombings, mutilations, billions of dollars in vanishing into Swiss bank accounts and the death of its Egyptian born leader of AIDS– Terroristine is closer than ever to coming into being. Only one thing stands in its way. The people whose country is in the way. Who have to be thrown out of their homes so that Terroristinians can plant their rockets on the rubble of their houses, the charred remains of their fields, and point them at their cities.
Trying to end terrorism by creating a terrorist state makes is like trying to put out a fire with more fire. It can’t work, but we must try. So that we can say that we tried. Over and over again. We’ll keep trying until we run out of land to try with. And people to try with. Until there’s nothing left but Terroristines everywhere. Until all the world is Terroristine.
The question is can we make it happen? Yes, we can. Oh sweet Allah, yes we can.
I am proud of Obama for finally standing up to the Israelis and telling them that they must ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Jews, from their ancient towns, villages and cities, to make way for Terroristine. Someone had to say it. And it was either going to be Carter or Obama.
By endorsing the 1967 borders, he endorsed the outcome of the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948. Every time his administration condemns a Jewish house in Jerusalem, he endorses the Jordanian conquest of the city. Why are the borders of the 1948 war, so much better than the borders of the Six Day War? Because the Terroristinians came closer to winning that war. Came closer to driving the Yahood into the sea and ululating over mile after mile of their corpses.
But the dream failed. Farmers armed with outdated rifles. Volunteer pilots from America and Canada. Refitted cargo ships filled with half-dead men, women and children straight from the camps. Used Czech artillery. They held off the armies of seven Terroristinian nations. Farm by farm, they stood off tanks and infantry. In Jerusalem, they fought for every house. And so the Zionist entity survived. Allah curse them. They survived.
But now it’s back to 1948 again. Every war undone. Every defeat turned to victory. Cut Jerusalem in two. Drive out the farmers. Burn their land. Dig up their graves. March the borders back to 1948. And fly the Terroristinian flag over dust and rubble.
Had they won in 1948 or 1967 or 1973, there would be no Israel and no Terroristine. The land would have become part of Syria, Egypt and Jordan. And only when the mobs of the faithful would drive out the tyrants to replace them with Islamic states, would there finally be a Terroristine. But now there is hope for a two state solution. A state of civilization on one side and a state of terrorists on the other. Hospitals here, launching pads there. Schools here, bomb factories there. Life here, death here.
Hey, buy a Newt-O-Matic for the ex wives you scrwewed over
It would be a great fit, given that Newt’s campaign strategy has such major league suckage. Picture this, You are up late, and there on your TV is Newt himself, pushing his latest creation the Newt-O-Matic! It will suck the dirt out of your carpet as fast as he sucked the life out of his campaign he tells you. And, as an added bonus, if you call in the next 30 minutes, he will throw in the Dede Scozzafava-approved RINO-knife, stainless steel, it never needs sharpening, and it is perfect for stabbing your political party in the back.
Some folks insist that those of us piling on Newt are going too far, and should stop. I would say that is a bunch of hooey, Clifton, it seems agrees
If you ever wanted to know how to lose a presidential campaign before it has even begun, look no further than Newt Gingrich. The GOP primaries have not even begun and Newt Gingrich has basically imploded before he has even started to seriously campaign.
Taking a shot at President Obama, the second-ranking House Republican said Sunday that Arab culture – not the dispute over 1967 borders – is to blame for the long-standing absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Painting in broad strokes, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) accused the Palestinians – and the Arab world more generally – of harboring a “resentment and hatred” toward Israel that, he says, has made an accord impossible.
Speaking to thousands of pro-Israel activists assembled in Washington for the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Cantor told the tale of an unnamed Palestinian woman who traveled from Gaza to an Israeli hospital for life-saving treatment. Some time later, he said, she returned with intentions of attacking the same hospital in a suicide bombing.
“What kind of culture leads one to do that? Sadly, it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred,” said Cantor, one of just two Jewish Republicans in Congress. “It is this culture that underlies the Palestinians’ and the broader Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
“This is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – it is not about the ’67 lines,” he added to roaring applause and a standing ovation. “And until Israel’s enemies come to terms with this reality, a true peace will be impossible.”
Cantor speaks frankly, placing the blame squarely where it lies. Why is it Obama cannot, or will not see this most simple truth? Is it his radicalism showing through? A hatred for Israel? Is it because he, like so many on the Left, abjectly refuses to pronounce some cultures better than others? Maybe Obama cannot grasp Israeli excpetionalism, just as he cannot accept American exceptionalisn? whatever the cause may be, the president is on the wrong side of history.
It was the most talked about accessory at last month’s royal wedding. And no, NewsFeed isn’t referring to Pippa Middleton’s derriere.
The infamous hat worn by Princess Beatrice at her cousin Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal nuptials has been sold on eBay for $131,648 Sunday night. With 40 bidders pining for the iconic mad hat, all the money raised is to be donated to UNICEF UK and Children In Crisis.
“I’ve been amazed by the amount of attention the hat has attracted. It’s wonderful opportunity to raise as much money as possible for two fantastic charities,” said Princess Beatrice.
The “lucky” eBay bidder who won the auction of Irish designer Philip Treacey’s creation still remains anonymous. Treacy told Reuters he was “delighted, flattered and touched by HRH Princess’ Beatrice’s decision to donate the hat to charity.”
Who knew a hat in the shape of a toilet seat could garner so much money for a good cause?
Spain’s ruling Socialists reeled Monday from an unprecedented mauling in local elections as protesters vented their anger over the highest jobless rate in the developed world.
The drubbing was a grim omen for the party ahead of general elections due next year, when the conservative Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy is expected to romp into office after eight years in opposition.
Support for the government collapsed on Sunday in the face of the beleaguered economy, soaring unemployment and massive week-long street protests.
“The tsunami of May 22 drowns the Socialists,” said the centre-left El Pais, Spain’s leading daily.
“The PP has more regional power than ever,” the paper added. “The triumph of the party of Mariano Rajoy was indisputable, overwhelming, as he was hoping to open the way to the prime minister’s office.”
With all ballots counted, the Socialists had captured just under 28 percent of the total compared to 37 percent for the Popular Party.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero refused to contemplate calling snap elections, vowing to pursue reforms to fix the economy and expand employment until the end of his mandate, due in March 2012.
Three years of economic crisis took their toll, said Zapatero, who has promised not to stand for a third term in 2012.
“It destroyed thousands of jobs. It is a crisis that had profound effects on citizens’ morale. I know that many Spaniards suffer great hardship and fear for their futures.
“Today, without doubt, they expressed their discontent,” he said.
Grinding in the humiliation, Socialists lost historic bastions Seville and Barcelona, a city they had run since the first municipal vote in 1979 four years after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
More than 66 percent of the 34 million elegible voters cast ballots to choose 8,116 mayors, 68,400 town councillors and 824 members of regional parliaments for 13 of the 17 semi-autonomous regions.
Of the 13 regional parliaments up for grabs, the Socialists were outvoted in every one, including former stronghold Castilla-La Mancha, but should cling on in Extramadura as part of a left-wing coalition.
“Today is a beautiful day for our party. We have achieved the best result in our history in municipal and regional elections,” PP leader Rajoy told cheering supporters waving blue party flags outside the Madrid headquarters.
Demonstrators had packed city squares from Barcelona to the holiday island of Majorca, refusing to budge as they accused the major Spanish parties of leading the country to economic ruin.
In a plastic-covered protest camp in central Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square, the epicentre of the nationwide movement, thousands of people rallied late Sunday after activists vowed to stay put until Sunday at least.
Hundreds remained on Monday as the organisers tried to maintain the momentum generated by the elections.
The spontaneous popular protests, slickly organized via Twitter and Facebook since May 15, were the largest since Spain’s property bubble collapsed in 2008 destroying millions of jobs.
Even as the economy grew gingerly this year, the unemployment rate shot to 21.19 percent in the first quarter, the highest in OECD club of industrialised nations. For under-25s, the rate in February was 44.6 percent.
Protesters describe themselves as “the indignant”, and are known variously as “M-15″ in reference to their demonstration’s birth date, “Spanish Revolution” and “Real Democracy Now”.
In the northern semi-autonomous Basque Country, a new alliance of separatist parties unexpectedly beat the Socialists into third place in municipal elections, prompting cries of alarm in the Spanish press Monday.
The Supreme Court ordered California on Monday to release tens of thousands of its prisoners to relieve overcrowding, saying that “needless suffering and death” had resulted from putting too many inmates into facilities that cannot hold them in decent conditions.
It is one of the largest prison release orders in the nation’s history, and it sharply split the high court.
Justices upheld an order from a three-judge panel in California that called for releasing 38,000 to 46,000 prisoners. Since then, the state has transferred about 9,000 state inmates to county jails. As a result, the total prison population is now about 32,000 more than the capacity limit set by the panel.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, speaking for the majority, said California’s prisons had “fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements” because of overcrowding. As many as 200 prisoners may live in gymnasium, he said, and as many as 54 prisoners share a single toilet.
Kennedy insisted that the state had no choice but to release more prisoners. The justices, however, agreed that California officials should be given more time to make the needed reductions.
In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia called the ruling “staggering” and “absurd.”
He said the high court had repeatedly overruled the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for ordering the release of individual prisoners. Now, he said, the majority were ordering the release of “46,000 happy-go-lucky felons.” He added that “terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order.” Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with him.
In a separate dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the ruling conflicted with a federal law intended to limit the power of federal judges to order a release of prisoners.
State officials and lawyers for inmates differ over just how many prisoners will have to be released. In recent figures, the state said it had about 142,000 inmates behind bars, and the judges calculated the prison population would need to be reduced to about 110,000 to comply with constitutional standards.
Kennedy said the judges in California overseeing the prison-release order should “accord the state considerable latitude to find mechanisms and make plans” that are “consistent with the public safety.”
The American Civil Liberties Union said the court had “done the right thing” by addressing the “egregious and extreme overcrowding in California’s prisons.”
David Fathi, director of the ACLU national prison project, said “reducing the number of people in prison not only would save the state taxpayers half a billion annually, it would lead to the implementation of truly rehabilitative programs that lower recidivism rates and create safer communities.”
Meanwhile, the court took no action on another California case in which a conservative group is challenging the state’s policy of granting in-state tuition at its colleges and universities to students who are illegal immigrants and have graduated from its high schools.
The justices said they would consider the appeal in a later private conference.
A massive tornado that tore a 6-mile path across southwestern Missouri killed at least 89 people as it slammed into the city of Joplin, ripping into a hospital, crushing cars like soda cans and leaving a forest of splintered tree trunks behind where entire neighborhoods once stood.
Authorities warned that the death toll could climb as search and rescue workers continued their efforts. Their task was made more miserable as a new thunderstorm with strong winds, heavy rain pelted part of the city with quarter-sized hail.
City manager Mark Rohr announced the number of known dead at a pre-dawn news conference outside the wreckage of a hospital that took a direct hit from Sunday’s storm. Rohr said the twister cut a path nearly 6 miles long and more than a half-mile wide through the center of town. Much of the city’s south side was leveled, with churches, schools, businesses and homes reduced to ruins.
Jasper County emergency management director Keith Stammer said about 2,000 buildings were damaged, while Joplin fire chief Mitch Randles estimated the damage covered a quarter or more of the city of about 50,000 people some 160 miles south of Kansas City. He said his home was among those destroyed.
An unknown number of people were injured, and officials said patients were scattered to any nearby hospitals that could take them.
Authorities began a door-to-door search Monday morning, with rescuers moving gingerly around downed power lines and jagged debris. A series of gas leaks caused fires around the city overnight, and Gov. Jay Nixon said some were still burning early Monday. Nixon said he feared the death toll would rise but also expected survivors to be found in the rubble.
“I don’t think we’re done counting,” Nixon told The Associated Press, adding, “I still believe that because of the size of the debris and the number of people involved that there are lives to be saved.”
Crews found bodies during the night in vehicles the storm had flipped over, torn apart and left looking like crushed cans. Triage centers and shelters set up around the city quickly filled to capacity. At Memorial Hall, a downtown entertainment venue, nurses and other emergency workers from across the region treated critically injured patients.
At another makeshift unit at a Lowe’s home improvement store, wooden planks served as beds. Outside, ambulances and fire trucks waited for calls. During one stretch after midnight Monday, emergency vehicles were scrambling nearly every two minutes.
On Monday morning, survivors picked through the rubble of what were once their homes, salvaging clothes, furniture, family photos and financial records, the air pungent with the smell of gas and smoking embers. Others wandered through the wreckage with nowhere to go, their homes or apartments destroyed.
.
.
Kelley Fritz, 45, of Joplin, rummaged through the remains of a storage building with her husband, Jimmy. They quickly realized they would never find the belongings they stored there, and that they had lost much of what was in their home after the tornado ripped away the roof. Their sons, ages 20 and 17, both Eagle Scouts, went outside after the storm and quickly realized every home was destroyed.
“My sons had deceased children in their arms when they came back,” Fritz said. “My husband and I went out and saw two or three dead bodies on the ground.”
Fritz said she was surprised she survived. “You could just feel the air pull up and it was so painful. I didn’t think we were going to make it, it happened so fast.”
Tornado sirens gave residents about a 20-minute warning before the tornado touched down on the city’s west side, Rohr said. Staff at St. John’s Regional Medical Center hustled patients into hallways before the storm struck the nine-story building, blowing out hundreds of windows and leaving the facility useless.
Med Flight manager Rod Pace watched the tornado form to the southwest like so many before. He said he saw the swirling rain start about a mile off, and the flags outside suddenly stopped blowing to the northeast, only to be pulled back to the west.
Then the glass doors he was holding onto – ones with a 100-pound magnet to keep them locked – were pulled open. Pace held onto the handles as he was sucked outside briefly and then pushed back in like a rag doll. He fled to the hospital’s interior for cover, and then heard a roar. Pace and a co-worker pushed on another door to make sure it stayed shut, but it kept swaying back and forth.
“I’ve heard people talk about being in tornadoes and saying it felt like the building was breathing,” Pace said. “It was just like that.”
The hospital was among the worst-hit locations. Early Monday morning, floodlights from a temporary triage facility lit what remained of the building that once held as many 367 patients. Police officers could be seen combing the surrounding area for bodies.
In the parking lot, a helicopter lay crushed on its side, its rotors torn apart and windows smashed. Nearby, a pile of cars lay crumpled into a single mass of twisted metal. Winds from the storm carried debris up to 60 miles away, with medical records, X-rays, insulation and other items falling to the ground in Greene County, said Larry Woods, assistant director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management.
Matt Sheffer dodged downed power lines, trees and closed streets to make it to his dental office across from the hospital. Rubble littered a flattened lot where a pharmacy, gas station and some doctors’ offices once stood.
“My office is totally gone. Probably for two to three blocks, it’s just leveled,” Sheffer said. “The building that my office was in was not flimsy. It was 30 years old and two layers of brick. It was very sturdy and well built.”
.
.
The Joplin twister was one of 68 reported tornadoes across seven Midwest states over the weekend, stretched from Oklahoma to Wisconsin, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. One person was killed in Minneapolis. But the devastation in Missouri was the worst of the day, eerily reminiscent of the tornadoes that killed more than 300 people across the South last month. Residents said the damage was breathtaking in scope.
“You see pictures of World War II, the devastation and all that with the bombing. That’s really what it looked like,” said Kerry Sachetta, the principal of a flattened Joplin High School. “I couldn’t even make out the side of the building. It was total devastation in my view. I just couldn’t believe what I saw.”
Travel through and around Joplin was difficult, with Interstate 44 shut down and streets clogged with emergency vehicles and the wreckage of buildings.
Emergency management officials rushed heavy equipment to Joplin to help lift debris and clear the way for search and recovery operations. Nixon declared a state of emergency, and President Barack Obama said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was working with state and local agencies.
Jeff Lehr, a reporter for the Joplin Globe, said he was upstairs in his home when the storm hit but was able to make his way to a basement closet. The storm tore the roof off his house, but he was safe. When he emerged, he found people wandering through the streets, covered in mud.
“I’m talking to them, asking if they knew where their family is,” Lehr said. “Some of them didn’t know and weren’t sure where they were. All the street markers were gone.”
An aching helplessness settled over residents, many of whom could only wonder about the fate of loved ones.
Justin Gibson, 30, huddled with three relatives outside the tangled debris of a Home Depot. He pointed to a black pickup that had been tossed into the store’s ruins and said it belonged to his roommate’s brother, who was last seen in the store with his two young daughters.
Gibson, who has three children of his own, said his home was leveled and “everything in that neighborhood is gone. The high school, the churches, the grocery store. I can’t get ahold of my ex-wife to see how my kids are.”
“I don’t know the extent of this yet,” he said, “but I know I’ll have friends and family dead.”
In Minneapolis, where a tornado killed one person and injured 29, authorities imposed an overnight curfew in a 4-square-mile area, including some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, to prevent looting and keep streets clear for emergency crews. Mayor R.T. Rybak said one liquor store was looted right after the tornado hit late Sunday and a few burglaries took place overnight.
In Wisconsin, the mayor of La Crosse declared a state of emergency Sunday after a powerful storm tore roofs from homes and littered streets and lawns with downed trees and debris.
More storms were predicted across the southern Plains through Thursday morning. The warm weather Monday preceded a coming cold front, fueling instability, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. A few tornadoes, some strong, could occur – starting in Oklahoma and southern Kansas in Monday afternoon and in North Texas in the late afternoon.
Andrea Mitchell, notes that Benjamin Netanyahu took President Bambi to school, and of course, she thinks that means Netanyahu was mean and rude
(Mediaite) — President Obama’s recent speech on the Middle East was highlighted by his call for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders before the Six-Day War in which Israel occupied land in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Obama believes that any meaningful negotiation for peace requires an acknowledgment of those old borders, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes those borders are indefensible and many Republicans don’t think Israel should have to give up any more than it already has.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell weighed in on the debate and suggested that of all people it was Netanyahu not showing Obama respect.
Mitchell explain Netanyahu’s reaction to Obama’s policy proposal:
“It was taken as a red flag by Netanyahu and what happened then was that even if this was implicit in things that previous Presidents had said, Netanyahu seized on it even before he got on the plane – he criticized the President. And in such a fashion, he lectured him in the Oval Office. . . . It was a stone-faced Barack Obama and Netanyahu basically treating him like a school-boy.”
Mitchell went on to suggest that even Netanyahu’s associates thought his tone towards Obama was “really rude.”
Just asking, but might it also be “really rude” if a foreign country demanded that we give our land to our sworn enemies so that our new neighbors can then use such land to make their desired goal of our total annihilation possible and much easier?
Simply unbelievable. Our president arrogantly makes demands of another sovereign nation, demands that will endanger that nation and Andrea Mitchell whines when the leader of that country sets Obama straight? How assbackwards can you get Andrea? I have not awarded anyone my Marxist Moron Award lately, but Ms. Mitchell just earned herself one. I wonder how Mitchell would react if I went to her house, and demanded she leave all her doors unlocked, and told her she better make concessions to a crazed stalker that had repeatedly attacked her?
By the way Andrea, THIS is who Obama wants Israel to make major concessions to.
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.
A Brief History of Zombies
We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my personal favorite is Resident Evil), but where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? The word zombie comes from Haitian and New Orleans voodoo origins. Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the undead. Through ancient voodoo and folk-lore traditions, shows like the Walking Dead were born.
In movies, shows, and literature, zombies are often depicted as being created by an infectious virus, which is passed on via bites and contact with bodily fluids. Harvard psychiatrist Steven Schoolman wrote a (fictional) medical paper on the zombies presented in Night of the Living Dead and refers to the condition as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome caused by an infectious agent. The Zombie Survival Guide identifies the cause of zombies as a virus called solanum. Other zombie origins shown in films include radiation from a destroyed NASAVenus probe (as in Night of the Living Dead), as well as mutations of existing conditions such as prions, mad-cow disease, measles and rabies.
The rise of zombies in pop culture has given credence to the idea that a zombie apocalypse could happen. In such a scenario zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder “How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?”
Well, we’re here to answer that question for you, and hopefully share a few tips about preparing for real emergencies too!
Better Safe than Sorry
So what do you need to do before zombies… or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored). Below are a few items you should include in your kit, for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page.
* Water (1 gallon per person per day)
* Food (stock up on non-perishable items that you eat regularly)
* Medications (this includes prescription and non-prescription meds)
* Tools and Supplies (utility knife, duct tape, battery powered radio, etc.)
* Sanitation and Hygiene (household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
* Clothing and Bedding (a change of clothes for each family member and blankets)
* Important documents (copies of your driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate to name a few)
* First Aid supplies (although you’re a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane)
Once you’ve made your emergency kit, you should sit down with your family and come up with an emergency plan. This includes where you would go and who you would call if zombies started appearing outside your door step. You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake, or other emergency.
1. Identify the types of emergencies that are possible in your area. Besides a zombie apocalypse, this may include floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes. If you are unsure contact your local Red Cross chapter for more information.
2. Pick a meeting place for your family to regroup in case zombies invade your home…or your town evacuates because of a hurricane. Pick one place right outside your home for sudden emergencies and one place outside of your neighborhood in case you are unable to return home right away.
3. Identify your emergency contacts. Make a list of local contacts like the police, fire department, and your local zombie response team. Also identify an out-of-state contact that you can call during an emergency to let the rest of your family know you are ok.
4. Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast.
Never Fear – CDC is Ready
If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas (I will be volunteering the young nameless disease detectives for the field work).
And Stacy McCain, and Ed and I could not be happierabout this. As McCain points out, the same old, same old Diminished Expectations of the Republican Party are in panic mode
Mitch Daniels’s overnight decision against a presidential bid will immediately raise the volume on the low-hum grumbling among Republican insiders that they’re gearing up to face President Obama with the weakest primary field in recent memory.
The pressure on a handful of Republicans who’ve insisted they won’t consider running but would be potentially strong alternatives to Mitt Romney will now significantly intensify, but the ultimate beneficiaries of Daniels’s absence may be two candidates already on course to run: Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman.
At the moment, though, the Indiana governor’s exit illustrates the degree to which the GOP race is being shaped by who’s not running.
Ah yes, the same tools that told us we BETTER support Charile Crist over Marco Rubio if we were good Republicans are still stuck on stupid. Why is it I wonder, are they so afraid to look at a rising star who talks straight, answers questions directly, and who has the support of the Conservative base, solid business experience, and charisma to boot? Why are they afraid to Raise Cain?
Herman Cain said that if he were president and negotiating a Middle East peace deal, he would offer the Palestinians “nothing.”
“I’m not convinced the Palestinians are really interested in peace,” Cain, the former CEO of Godfathers Pizza, said on Fox News Sunday.
President Obama last week gave a speech calling for Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 boundaries, with “mutually agreed swaps.”
Cain, who formally announced his Republican candidacy for president Saturday, said that, “if we look at history, it has been clear that the Palestinians have always wanted to push the Israelis and push Israel for more and more and more.” I don’t agree with that, and I respect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or taking a stand and saying they cannot give that up.”
He also said “it’s Israel’s decision, not President Obama’s decision as to where those border lines ought to be.”
So, we are supposed to ignore Cain, or Bachman, in favor of the “Moderate, oh-so-electable” Republican re-tread that the “establishment tells us to get gaga over? Stacy McCain has the right thought about that
The discomfiture of “Republican insiders” is a very good thing. Can we get a show of hands of anybody who thinks “Republican insiders” (you know, the guys who backed Dede Scozzafava and Charlie Crist) have a clue as to how to win elections? Anybody?
I keep saying this election is different, American voters are not looking for an established politician, they are looking for someone who is NOT a life-long politician.
A Tucson, Ariz., SWAT team defends shooting an Iraq War veteran 60 times during a drug raid, although it declines to say whether it found any drugs in the house and has had to retract its claim that the veteran shot first.
And the Pima County sheriff scolded the media for “questioning the legality” of the shooting.
Jose Guerena, 26, died the morning of May 5. He was asleep in his Tucson home after working a night shift at the Asarco copper mine when his wife, Vanessa, saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son’s bedroom window.
“She saw a man pointing at her with a gun,” said Reyna Ortiz, 29, a relative who is caring for Vanessa and her children. Ortiz said Vanessa Guerena yelled, “Don’t shoot! I have a baby!”
Vanessa Guerena thought the gunman might be part of a home invasion — especially because two members of her sister-in-law’s family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, were killed last year in their Tucson home, her lawyer, Chris Scileppi, said. She shouted for her husband in the next room, and he woke up and told his wife to hide in the closet with the child, Joel, 4.
Guerena grabbed his assault rifle and was pointing it at the SWAT team, which was trying to serve a narcotics search warrant as part of a multi-house drug crackdown, when the team broke down the door. At first the Pima County Sheriff’s Office said that Guerena fired first, but on Wednesday officials backtracked and said he had not. “The safety was on and he could not fire,” according to the sheriff’s statement.
Tucson SWAT Team Shot Iraq War Vet 60 Times
SWAT team members fired 71 times and hit Guerena 60 times, police said.
In a frantic 911 call, Vanessa Guerena begged for medical help for her husband. “He’s on the floor!” she said, crying, to the 911 operator. “Can you please hurry up?”
Asked if law enforcement was inside or outside the house, she told the operator, according to a transcript of the call, that they were inside. “They were … going to shoot me. And I put my kid in front of me.”
A report by ABC News affiliate KGUN found that more than an hour had passed before the SWAT team let the paramedics work on Guerena. By then he was dead.
A spokesman for Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said he could not discuss whether any drugs had been found at the home or make any other comment. “We’re waiting for the investigation to be complete,” he said.
In a statement, the sheriff’s office criticized the media, saying that while questions will inevitably be raised, “It is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a coverup, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge.”
Mike Storie, a lawyer for the SWAT team, said at a press conference Thursday that weapons and body armor were found in the home as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Storie called a “patron saint drug runner,” according to KGUN.
Storie defended the long delay in allowing paramedics to enter the home, saying of the SWAT team, “They still don’t know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house.”
But Scileppi, Vanessa Guerena’s lawyer, said officers were “circling their wagons.”
“They found nothing in the house that was illegal,” he said. Framing the delay in providing medical attention as a tactical decision is “nonsense,” Scileppi said. “There was an ambulance there in two minutes and they were never allowed in.”
He pointed out that when Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson, law enforcement let paramedics have access to victims in a far more volatile situation.
“The pieces don’t fit. I think it was poor planning, overreaction and now they’re trying to CYA,” Scileppi said.
Guerena served two tours of duty in Iraq until he left the Marines in 2006.
“Every time he was under my command, he definitely pulled his weight,” said Leo Verdugo, his master sergeant in Iraq, who helped arrange for Guerena to be buried in his Marine dress blue uniform. “I have a hard time grasping how something so tragic could happen.”
He speculated that perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity. “At the wrong place at the wrong time in his own home,” he said.
Vanessa Guerena is “devastated and distraught” and seeking justice for her husband and two sons, said her lawyer. “The main thing she wants is her husband’s name cleared and his honor restored.”
The oldest boy, Jose, turns 6 on Tuesday. “He went to school, came back and never saw his daddy again,” said Ortiz. As for Joel, “He’s asking, ‘Why did the police kill my daddy?’
“We were so worried when he was over there fighting terrorism, but he gets shot in his own home,” Ortiz said. “The government killed one of their own.”
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said early Sunday that he won’t run for president because of family considerations, narrowing the field in the race for the GOP nomination.
“In the end, I was able to resolve every competing consideration but one,” Daniels said, disclosing his decision in an e-mail to supporters. “The interests and wishes of my family, is the most important consideration of all. If I have disappointed you, I will always be sorry.”
The e-mail, sent by the governor through Eric Holcomb, the Indiana Republican Party chairman and one of Daniels’ closest advisers, was confirmed by another aide close to Daniels on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly pre-empting the governor’s announcement.
“The counsel and encouragement I received from important citizens like you caused me to think very deeply about becoming a national candidate,” Daniels said in the middle-of-the-night message.
“If you feel that this was a non-courageous or unpatriotic decision, I understand and will not attempt to persuade you otherwise,” he added. “I only hope that you will accept my sincerity in the judgment I reached.”
Gatordoug
darcprynce
Dave C
