Bones: Richard III found under parking lot in Leicester

MoonHowler

richard iii skull

The remains of English Monarch Richard III have been found under a parking lot in Leicester (pronounced Lester), England.

According to Yahoonews.com:

Archaeologists announced today (Feb. 4) that bones excavated from underneath a parking lot in Leicester “beyond reasonable doubt,” belong to the medieval king. Archaeologists announced the discovery of the skeleton in September. They suspected then they might have Richard III on their hands because the skeleton showed signs of the spinal disorder scoliosis, which Richard III likely had, and because battle wounds on the bones matched accounts of Richard III’s death in the War of the Roses.

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Candidate Romney plans to escalate defense spending to record highs

MoonHowler

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Apparently Mitt Romney’s lack of understanding of  foreign policy  is making him look more and more foolish.

According to that chart, even with a pull out from Afghanistan planned,  Romney would escalate defense spending to levels greater than during the Korean War.  Is there a reason for this?  Perhaps this is the time for folks to start demanding WHY?  Haven’t we accumulated enough war debt?

He needs to sit down with his coaches and get a full course on foreign policy and the defense goals of the United States.  I repeat, he is just woefully unprepared.  He called the President a disgrace in the middle of a crisis where American lives were in jeopardy, he lied repeatedly to the students at VMI, and he disregards discussion of terrorism.   He made a fool of himself in front of a bunch of retired generals.  What next?

They hate us because they hate us?

MoonHowler

Every since 9-11 people have asked the question why?  All sorts of platitudes  have been give:  “They” are jealous of our freedoms, our material wealth, our material possessions.  None of these answers made the least bit of sense to me.  Why would any of those things make 11 grown men get in an aircraft and drive it into a building as a soaring speed, killing themselves and others? It doesn’t make sense.  Who is “they?”

Morning Joe, aka Joe Scarborugh seems to think he has the answer.  He say regardless of who he speaks with in the intelligence community, he gets told the same thing when he asks the question, why do they hate us:

1.  their religion

2.  their culture

3.  peer pressure

They hate us because they hate us.  No other reason.  Everything else is just an excuse.

 

I am not sure I agree with that and I am not sure I want to go to war over it if it is true.  Who is “they?”  Are we talking Middle Easterners?  Muslims?

Is Morning Joe right or is he full of it?

 

Where were the troops? Where was Afghanistan?

MoonHowler
Romney, Don’t forget our troops!

The Democrats are definitely the tough guys in the room now.  They were the ones chanting USA USA USA.  The Democrats were the ones stressing Made In America. The Democrats recognized our troops who are in harm’s way.

Notably missing from Republican speeches was the mention of bringing home our troops and ending the longest war in American history.  Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech totally omitted any mention of our troops or  the war in Afghanistan despite the fact that American troops are still in harm’s way.  What was he thinking?

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New National Parks proposed

MoonHowler

Three new national parks are being proposed and might just inch their way through Congress in the near future.  The three projected parks would be sites of former nuclear testing:  Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, according to the Washington Post.

The Hanford site produced plutonium. The Oak Ridge site enriched uranium. And workers in Los Alamos used those materials to assemble the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs dropped on Japan, forcing the Japanese surrender and ending the war. About 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki perished.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation called the creation and use of the atomic bomb “the single most significant event of the 20th century’’ in advocating the preservation of buildings once scheduled for demolition.

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Duckworth vs Walsh: Who do you believe?

MoonHowler


There’s a lot more to this story.  Laura Ingalls is in for Bill O’Reilly and also interviewed Walsh.  He claimed to have said she was a hero hundreds of times.  I am not sure that Laura Ingalls fell for his bull.

I fall in on the side of Duckworth.  Walsh is on the defensive.  Plus, I heard the smug, dismissive snickering in his audience.   I also argued with some local Republicans both in person and on blogs about McCain.  Pretty stupid when I am defending their Republican nominee.  I don’t care.  Right is right.  He was a hero.  It doesn’t require us to vote for him but never diminish what John McCain did for his nation.  He could have gone home.  He didn’t.  He stayed with his men and suffered greatly for it.

What has Walsh done for his country?  He was dishonorable to Ms. Duckworth.  Attack her ideas, not her persona.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Joe Walsh brings a new dimension to the term Dog D***

MoonHowler

Just when you thought there was no lower place to be, along comes Joe Walsh.

Huffington Post:  (and lots of other places)

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Sunday accused his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth — a double-amputee veteran of the Iraq War — of not being a “true hero” because she made her military service central to her campaign.

After calling Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) a “noble hero” for downplaying his military experience during a 2008 presidential bid, Walsh shifted gears to Duckworth at an Elk Grove, Ill., town hall.

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No good deed goes unpunished…..

MoonHowler

From the Huffington Post:

 The White House said President Barack Obama misspoke on Tuesday when he referred to a “Polish death camp” while honoring a Polish war hero.

The president’s remark had drawn immediate complaints from Poles who said Obama should have called it a “German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland,” to distinguish the perpetrators from the location. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called it a matter of “ignorance and incompetence.”

Obama made the comment while awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II. Karski died in 2000.

During an East Room ceremony honoring 13 Medal of Freedom recipients, Obama said that Karski “served as a courier for the Polish resistance during the darkest days of World War II. Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action.”

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Tim McGraw gives back

MoonHowler

Tim McGraw plans on giving back…to our veterans who are returning home from war.  He just announced that he will  give away 25 mortgage fromm homes to vets at each of his concerts this summer.  Wow!  That is really putting your money where your mouth is!

Tasteofcountry.com stated:

Tim McGraw is giving back to wounded warriors and service members by launching the nationwide HomeFront initiative, a goodwill effort that will award 25 deserving families with a mortgage-free home at each of his summer concert stops.

“My sister’s a veteran of the first Gulf War. My uncle was a Vietnam veteran and my grandfather was a World War II veteran. I’ve always felt a deep sense of respect and obligation to our troops,” says McGraw, speaking on his incentive to give houses to those in need (quote via Green Room PR). “Being able to reward them for their dedicated work with a new home will be even more rewarding for us. It feels so good to give back to them, and to have the opportunity to entertain them on Memorial Day is something I’m honored to do.”

McGraw has partnered was Chase Bank and Operations HomeFront to launch the new program. ACM Lifting Lives — the charitable arm of the Academy of Country Music — and the Premier Group (on behalf of the North Carolina Furniture Manufacturers) have also made substantial contributions to support the program throughout McGraw’s string of summer concert dates.

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Rolling Thunder

MoonHowler

Rolling Thunder was born out of the Vietnam War, more like a vengeful, loud phoenix arising from the ashes of what was never going to be shame. They would not allow it.

A lone marine pays respect to those earlier fallen buddies and to those who ride in memory and honor.

This year is the 25th anniversary of Rolling Thunder.  One does not have to be a veteran to be a member of Rolling thunder.  All members are united in the cause to bring full accountability for Prisoners Of War (POW) and Missing In Action (MIA) of all wars, reminding the government, the media and the public by our watchwords: “We Will Not Forget.”  (from RT website)

Some Rolling thunder History

Rolling Thunder participants  will assemble at the Pentagon and ride their motorcycles across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, down Constitution Avenue towards the Capitol Building, turn at 3rd Street and again at Independence Avenue proceeding around the National Mall and ending near the Lincoln Memorial.   Best view sites are on Memorial Bridge and along Constitution Avenue.  Rolling thunder leaves the Pentagon at noon.

 

 

Walt’s “Buddies”

MoonHowler

 

Happy Memorial Day weekend. I usually overdo it with my rememberances so please just bear with me.  I love Memorial Day.  I love the sound of Rolling Thunder and I love to grab hold of that American feeling and hold it as tightly as I can.  I love a weekend that forces us to say thank you to those who are dead and gone and were it not for this national day of thanksgiving, might be forgotten.  I love the PBS Memorial Day tribute on Sunday nights each Memorial Day weekend.  I like that Memorial Day forces me to think and yes, shed a few tears.  I owe it to my country.

 People sometimes confuse Veterans Day with Memorial Day. I think that is a forgivable sin, actually. Memorial Day grew out of Decoration Day, which started during the Civil War to honor those who had fallen. Many boys were buried in far off states and the good people of the towns where they lay cleaned up the graves and decorated with flowers on Decoration Day.

In Virginia, perhaps they weren’t as charitable at northern grave sites except they thought of their own sons, husbands brothers, fathers and uncles lying in some distant land and suddenly, it didn’t matter whose side the soldier had been fighting for.

I would like to thank my dad, a vet who made it home from WWII, for teaching me to remember those who have fallen, not just on Memorial Day, but every day. It’s hard to go through Virginia without passing one of the many cemeteries lined with Civil War dead. There is a particular one, on route 250 as you head into Staunton where I first learned about recognition- Staunton National Cemetery.

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Jon Stewart: Victory Lapse

MoonHowler

Part 2

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Victory Lapse
www.thedailyshow.com
Where is our Greek Chorus of nay sayers?  Where are our Obama Bashers?  Jon Stewart has the last word on those who admonish the President for daring to speak about killing Bin Laden.  You would think Bin Laden was Voldemort.

How does Mission Accomplished fit into this plan of silence?  Are you all smoking crack or what?  War time over here.  Celebrate the death of a killer terrorist dirtbag and then move on.  Are you in mouring over Hitler?  Stalin?  Remember the 3000 dead on that bright, crisp September morning.  Remember our war dead.

 
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Victory Lapse – The Anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s Death
www.thedailyshow.com

President Obama: Bin Laden raid is ‘most important single day of my presidency’

MoonHowler

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brian Williams hosts tonight. He described this event as being the most important of his journalistic career. Rock Center with Brian Williams ‘Inside the Situation Room’ airs Wednesday 9pm/8c on NBC.

MSNBC:

“I did choose the risk,” the president said in an exclusive interview with Rock Center Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams. “The reason I was willing to make that decision of sending in our SEALs to try to capture or kill bin Laden rather than to take some other options was ultimately because I had 100 percent faith in the Navy SEALs themselves.”

A year after the May 1, 2011, raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama and several of the advisers who helped plan the operation, known as “Operation Neptune’s Spear,” spoke exclusively to NBC News, reflecting on the tense months spent planning and debating the feasibility of this daring raid. The interviews occurred before the president made an unannounced visit to Kabul on Tuesday, where he and President Hamid Karzai signed an agreement on the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

“This had to be such a close-held operation,” the president said in the interview airing tonight at 9pm/8c on NBC. “There were only a handful of staff in the White House who knew about this.”

The president did not share news of the mission’s launch with his staff, or with the first lady.

“Even a breath of this in the press could have chased bin Laden away,” Obama said. “We didn’t know at that point whether there might be underground tunnels coming out of that compound that would allow him to escape.”

U.S. soldier goes on shooting rampage in Afghanistan

MoonHowler

A U.S. soldier walked off base in the Kandahar Province  of Afghanistan and went on a shooting rampage, killing 16 people.  It is unknown what pushed this soldier over the edge.  U.S. officials vow to get to the bottom of the incident.

Is an act like this terrorism, even though it is in a war zone?  Perhaps.  I don’t know what else to call the killing of unarmed civilians.  

According to the Washington Post:

President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called Karzai on Sunday to discuss the incident. Obama expressed “shock and sadness” and vowed to “hold fully accountable anyone responsible” for the killings, the White House said in a statement.

“This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Obama said.

U.S. officials shed no light on the motive or state of mind of the alleged shooter. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the suspect was from Fort Lewis, in Washington state. He was taken into custody shortly after the shooting rampage.

“It appears he walked off post and later returned and turned himself in,” said Lt. Cmdr. James Williams, a military spokesman.

What causes this kind of fugue from reality?  American troops will be on high alert across the region following the incident.  Things were just calming down from the Koran burning incidents where locals rioted and fired on US troops for days.  This rogue soldier’s behavior has endangered all of our troops.

Guantanamo’s deepening failure

MoonHowler

Guest contributor, Colonel Morris Davis.

Disclaimer: The content of the guest contribution is the opinion of the guest and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the management of Moonhowlings.com.

 

Tuesday, Feb 7, 2012 11:00 AM 12:21:25 EST

Published in Salon.com

The secretive military system for prosecuting accused terrorists is a travesty says the man once ran it

 

The U.S. Defense Department specializes in euphemism. “Limited kinetic action” is a polite way of saying “war” and “collateral damage” does not sound as blunt as “dead children.” When I was chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration, I was told not to say publicly that a detainee had “attempted suicide.” The government-approved term for the act was “self-injurious behavior.” I could not say “torture,” or as some called it, the “T-word.” Instead, I had to say “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

The euphemism tradition remains alive and well in the Obama administration. The slogan “fairness, transparency, justice” is featured prominently throughout the military commissions’ new half-million dollar web site. The slogan even shows up when case document links lead to a notice saying the “document you are trying to access is currently undergoing a security review” and might be posted later if the government decides it is “publicly releasable.”

Say you are interested in the case against Abd Rashim Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in October 2000 that killed 17 U.S. sailors. You are not allowed to see the judge’s docketing order setting April 11-13 for the next session to consider motions.

You are not allowed to see a key motion seeking authorization for Nashiri’s lawyers to depose former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh while he is in the United States. The Obama administration is permitting Saleh to visit New York City for medical care; many believe he should be at the International Criminal Court facing charges for turning his forces on Yemeni protestors resulting in 270 civilian deaths.

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