Sunday, September 30, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinion/30friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
This article is about how America need to move on past the horrors and tragedy of September 11, 2001. The author is being very respectful of the deceased, but is telling politician to quit using 9/11 as a ploy to keep fear and terrorism on the front burner just to get elected. The writer is saying that the gloom and doom atmosphere has ran its course and the USA need to move on pass that awful day. I feel the author is making a very good point. Politicians should not score points over this hostile act. We need to learn from the mistakes we made that let 9/11 happen and for those that lived beyond that day need to make America a vibrant society again. I feel that our borders should be crossed at checkpoints and that if we erect walls around our borders that we would become a closet society. And we fought against such acts against our enemies in the past. Where as we were once a thriving open society respecting human rights, we are using 9/11 to crush those same principles. We (American) used to be able to take a punch and get up and continue fighting, but on 9/11 we took a punch, fell down and got up staggering and weak. What we need to do is get back in shape and recapture our glory and respect.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/fashion/23whopays.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us
This article is about women that make more money than men. And how they both react because she earns more. The writer was stating that through research women would prefer a man who is sure about himself and treat her with respect over someone like a doctor that made eight times her salary, had a killer work schedule and unable to spend time with her. I felt this article was humorous and that I would not mind dating a woman that made more money than me. I am secure in myself and I could offer her support and conversation. What a person makes should not come into play as far as I am concerned. If she could accept me for me, I surely could accept her for her.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Need for Regulation: For All of the Nation's Imports
Editorial New York Times Article
The Need for Regulation: For All of the Nation’s Imports
Published: September 16, 2007
To allay rising fears over imported products, the Bush administration has issued a “strategic framework” for improving import safety. The 22-page document contains some sensible ideas that could, if vigorously carried out, help provide better control over the flood of goods and foods that enter this country from abroad.
Editorial: The Need for Regulation: And Especially Our Children’s Toys (September 16, 2007)
Whether this is a genuine reform effort or mostly public relations will become clear in November when more detailed plans are released. The administration’s record provides grounds for skepticism.
The new plan, the product of an interagency working group, leaves little doubt that reforms are needed in the current haphazard, underfinanced and understaffed system for protecting the public. Officials are powerless to order retailers to stop selling a product that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Incompatible information systems prevent government agencies from readily sharing information.
The group’s most important proposal would shift the first line of defense from inspections at the border to broader surveillance along the supply chain: from the original grower or manufacturer to distributors abroad to American importers, manufacturers and retailers.
There is little doubt that it would be better to build safety into products before they reach our shores than to try to pick out unsafe products here. That will require a concerted effort to persuade foreign governments and companies to police themselves and provide access to American inspectors, buttressed by a willingness to reject goods from countries or companies that will not cooperate or cannot meet American standards. Under American pressure, China has belatedly signed an agreement to prohibit the use of lead paint on toys exported to this country and to inspect more of its exports.
The strategic plan is right to urge that the system be organized to identify products that pose the greatest risk, like those from a country with a record of exporting unsafe goods. It makes sound proposals for upgrading computers and devising new screening technologies.
What is worrisome is the administration’s reluctance to make any commitment to provide the additional money and staff that is needed. It has been cutting food inspection budgets and staff for many years, and it is fair to wonder how it will manage a far broader regime.
The new plan stresses the importance of cooperation with industry but leaves room to worry about officials’ willingness to get tough if voluntarism fails. Indeed, the document says the federal government lacks the resources to pursue legal action against all wrongdoers and will use targeted enforcement as a deterrent.
Congress will have to ensure that this needed reform gets enough money and clear authority. The strategic plan asserts that “it is impossible to inspect our way to safety,” which is right in the sense that inspections are not enough. That mantra must not be used as an excuse for doing less rather than more.
The Need for Regulation: For All of the Nation’s Imports
Published: September 16, 2007
To allay rising fears over imported products, the Bush administration has issued a “strategic framework” for improving import safety. The 22-page document contains some sensible ideas that could, if vigorously carried out, help provide better control over the flood of goods and foods that enter this country from abroad.
Editorial: The Need for Regulation: And Especially Our Children’s Toys (September 16, 2007)
Whether this is a genuine reform effort or mostly public relations will become clear in November when more detailed plans are released. The administration’s record provides grounds for skepticism.
The new plan, the product of an interagency working group, leaves little doubt that reforms are needed in the current haphazard, underfinanced and understaffed system for protecting the public. Officials are powerless to order retailers to stop selling a product that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Incompatible information systems prevent government agencies from readily sharing information.
The group’s most important proposal would shift the first line of defense from inspections at the border to broader surveillance along the supply chain: from the original grower or manufacturer to distributors abroad to American importers, manufacturers and retailers.
There is little doubt that it would be better to build safety into products before they reach our shores than to try to pick out unsafe products here. That will require a concerted effort to persuade foreign governments and companies to police themselves and provide access to American inspectors, buttressed by a willingness to reject goods from countries or companies that will not cooperate or cannot meet American standards. Under American pressure, China has belatedly signed an agreement to prohibit the use of lead paint on toys exported to this country and to inspect more of its exports.
The strategic plan is right to urge that the system be organized to identify products that pose the greatest risk, like those from a country with a record of exporting unsafe goods. It makes sound proposals for upgrading computers and devising new screening technologies.
What is worrisome is the administration’s reluctance to make any commitment to provide the additional money and staff that is needed. It has been cutting food inspection budgets and staff for many years, and it is fair to wonder how it will manage a far broader regime.
The new plan stresses the importance of cooperation with industry but leaves room to worry about officials’ willingness to get tough if voluntarism fails. Indeed, the document says the federal government lacks the resources to pursue legal action against all wrongdoers and will use targeted enforcement as a deterrent.
Congress will have to ensure that this needed reform gets enough money and clear authority. The strategic plan asserts that “it is impossible to inspect our way to safety,” which is right in the sense that inspections are not enough. That mantra must not be used as an excuse for doing less rather than more.
Dare to Give Washington A Vote
Editorial
Dare to Give Washington a Vote
Published: September 18, 2007
It’s time to end the embarrassing servitude of Washington, D.C., which is denied true democratic representation. The city of 550,000 taxpaying Americans currently elects a member to the House of Representatives who is allowed to debate each and every issue, yet is denied the right to vote on the fate of any of them. The House has approved a bill that would give the D.C. shadow delegate voting power, and it now faces a make-or-break decision in the Senate.
The bill — the product of classic political horse trading — would enlarge the House by two seats: one for D.C., a likely Democratic representative, the other for Utah, whose population growth justifies a seat that probably would go to the Republicans. Opponents continue to raise constitutional issues about the district’s not being a full-fledged state; proponents offer counterarguments about Congress’s long history of dominating, even dictating, the city’s precise political freedoms. This will likely end up in the courts, but what could be closer to the ideals of America’s democracy than giving D.C. taxpayers their long-denied representation?
The Senate will vote today on whether to clear the measure for debate by invoking cloture to block a filibuster by opponents. A minimum of 60 votes is required, and it would be a grim echo of segregationist history if the Senate denied this opportunity to advance the district’s voting rights. No less relevant is the current history of the Iraq war waged in the name of promoting democracy overseas. President Bush has threatened a veto of the measure, so a 60-plus vote would be a potent signal that Congress is determined to promote American ideals in America’s own front yard.
Dare to Give Washington a Vote
Published: September 18, 2007
It’s time to end the embarrassing servitude of Washington, D.C., which is denied true democratic representation. The city of 550,000 taxpaying Americans currently elects a member to the House of Representatives who is allowed to debate each and every issue, yet is denied the right to vote on the fate of any of them. The House has approved a bill that would give the D.C. shadow delegate voting power, and it now faces a make-or-break decision in the Senate.
The bill — the product of classic political horse trading — would enlarge the House by two seats: one for D.C., a likely Democratic representative, the other for Utah, whose population growth justifies a seat that probably would go to the Republicans. Opponents continue to raise constitutional issues about the district’s not being a full-fledged state; proponents offer counterarguments about Congress’s long history of dominating, even dictating, the city’s precise political freedoms. This will likely end up in the courts, but what could be closer to the ideals of America’s democracy than giving D.C. taxpayers their long-denied representation?
The Senate will vote today on whether to clear the measure for debate by invoking cloture to block a filibuster by opponents. A minimum of 60 votes is required, and it would be a grim echo of segregationist history if the Senate denied this opportunity to advance the district’s voting rights. No less relevant is the current history of the Iraq war waged in the name of promoting democracy overseas. President Bush has threatened a veto of the measure, so a 60-plus vote would be a potent signal that Congress is determined to promote American ideals in America’s own front yard.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
New York Times Hiding Behind The General
Hiding behind the General
Dated September 9, 2007
Derek Polk
English 1020-023
This article is about the military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus delivering a progress report to Congress about the United States military troop surge. The writer is saying that President Bush is calling on General Petraeus to restore some credibility to the American public about the unpopular war in Iraq. The writer also states that the president is calling the troop surge in Iraq General Petraeus’s strategy as if the General was elected president. I feel that President Bush should be delivering this message to Congress because he is the Commander in Chief. The General should be on the battlefield with his troop in the time of war and not be in front of Congress. The lines should not be blurred with a military tactician doing an elected politician’s job. President Bush feels as if he does not carry any credibility at this time with Unites States Congress and the American public. Even so, he was elected to the highest office possible in the United States to be upfront, honest and provide the bold leadership required for the office of the United States President.
Published: September 9, 2007 Published by The New York Times
The military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to deliver a report to Congress on Monday that could be the most consequential testimony by a wartime commander in more than a generation. What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq.
President Bush, however, seems to be aiming for maximum political advantage — not maximum clarity on Iraq’s military and political crises, which cannot be separated from each other. Mr. Bush, we fear, isn’t looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public, scare Democrats into dropping their demands for a sound exit strategy, and prolong the war until he leaves office. At times, General Petraeus gives the disturbing impression that he, too, is more focused on the political game in Washington than the unfolding disaster in Iraq. That serves neither American nor Iraqi interests.
Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.
General Petraeus has his own credibility problems. He overstepped in 2004 when he published an op-ed article in The Washington Post six weeks before the election. The general — then in charge of training and equipping Iraq’s security forces — rhapsodized about “tangible progress” and how the Iraqi forces were “developing steadily,” an assessment that may have swayed some voters but has long since proved to be untrue.
And just last week, senior military commanders in Baghdad who work for General Petraeus entered the political fray by taking issue — anonymously — with the grim assessment of Iraq’s politics and security by non-partisan Congressional investigators.
As Congress waited anxiously for General Petraeus’s testimony, a flurry of well-timed news reports said that he told the White House he could go along with the withdrawal of about 4,000 American troops beginning in January but wanted to maintain increased force levels well into next year — just like Mr. Bush. Democrats who once demanded a firm date for the start of a troop pullout immediately started backpedaling.
Withdrawing 4,000 troops and dangling the prospect of additional withdrawals is a token political gesture, not a new strategy. If it proves enough to cow Congress into halting its push for a more robust and concrete exit strategy, that would be political cowardice at its worst.
We hope that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an important source of information, of course, but he is only one source — and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that things in Iraq are substantially better.
The Government Accountability Office found that the Iraqi government has not met 11 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and that violence remains high, despite the White House’s disingenuous claims of success. And a commission of retired senior military officers determined that Iraq’s army will be unable to take over responsibility for internal security in the next 12 to 18 months. That is four years beyond what the Pentagon predicted in 2004. It is too long.
Nothing has changed about Mr. Bush’s intentions. Waving off the independent reports, he plans to stay the course and make his successor fix his Iraq fiasco. Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and Mr. Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war. The United States needs a prudent exit strategy that will withdraw American forces and try to stop Iraq’s chaos from spreading.
More Articles in Opinion »
Dated September 9, 2007
Derek Polk
English 1020-023
This article is about the military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus delivering a progress report to Congress about the United States military troop surge. The writer is saying that President Bush is calling on General Petraeus to restore some credibility to the American public about the unpopular war in Iraq. The writer also states that the president is calling the troop surge in Iraq General Petraeus’s strategy as if the General was elected president. I feel that President Bush should be delivering this message to Congress because he is the Commander in Chief. The General should be on the battlefield with his troop in the time of war and not be in front of Congress. The lines should not be blurred with a military tactician doing an elected politician’s job. President Bush feels as if he does not carry any credibility at this time with Unites States Congress and the American public. Even so, he was elected to the highest office possible in the United States to be upfront, honest and provide the bold leadership required for the office of the United States President.
Published: September 9, 2007 Published by The New York Times
The military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to deliver a report to Congress on Monday that could be the most consequential testimony by a wartime commander in more than a generation. What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq.
President Bush, however, seems to be aiming for maximum political advantage — not maximum clarity on Iraq’s military and political crises, which cannot be separated from each other. Mr. Bush, we fear, isn’t looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public, scare Democrats into dropping their demands for a sound exit strategy, and prolong the war until he leaves office. At times, General Petraeus gives the disturbing impression that he, too, is more focused on the political game in Washington than the unfolding disaster in Iraq. That serves neither American nor Iraqi interests.
Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.
General Petraeus has his own credibility problems. He overstepped in 2004 when he published an op-ed article in The Washington Post six weeks before the election. The general — then in charge of training and equipping Iraq’s security forces — rhapsodized about “tangible progress” and how the Iraqi forces were “developing steadily,” an assessment that may have swayed some voters but has long since proved to be untrue.
And just last week, senior military commanders in Baghdad who work for General Petraeus entered the political fray by taking issue — anonymously — with the grim assessment of Iraq’s politics and security by non-partisan Congressional investigators.
As Congress waited anxiously for General Petraeus’s testimony, a flurry of well-timed news reports said that he told the White House he could go along with the withdrawal of about 4,000 American troops beginning in January but wanted to maintain increased force levels well into next year — just like Mr. Bush. Democrats who once demanded a firm date for the start of a troop pullout immediately started backpedaling.
Withdrawing 4,000 troops and dangling the prospect of additional withdrawals is a token political gesture, not a new strategy. If it proves enough to cow Congress into halting its push for a more robust and concrete exit strategy, that would be political cowardice at its worst.
We hope that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an important source of information, of course, but he is only one source — and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that things in Iraq are substantially better.
The Government Accountability Office found that the Iraqi government has not met 11 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and that violence remains high, despite the White House’s disingenuous claims of success. And a commission of retired senior military officers determined that Iraq’s army will be unable to take over responsibility for internal security in the next 12 to 18 months. That is four years beyond what the Pentagon predicted in 2004. It is too long.
Nothing has changed about Mr. Bush’s intentions. Waving off the independent reports, he plans to stay the course and make his successor fix his Iraq fiasco. Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and Mr. Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war. The United States needs a prudent exit strategy that will withdraw American forces and try to stop Iraq’s chaos from spreading.
More Articles in Opinion »
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
New York Times Article Hiding Behind The General
Great Article in The New Times newspaper about Current Events that's happening now.
Opinion
Editorial
Hiding Behind the General
('Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and President Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war.');
Published: September 9, 2007
The military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to deliver a report to Congress on Monday that could be the most consequential testimony by a wartime commander in more than a generation. What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq.
President Bush, however, seems to be aiming for maximum political advantage — not maximum clarity on Iraq’s military and political crises, which cannot be separated from each other. Mr. Bush, we fear, isn’t looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public, scare Democrats into dropping their demands for a sound exit strategy, and prolong the war until he leaves office. At times, General Petraeus gives the disturbing impression that he, too, is more focused on the political game in Washington than the unfolding disaster in Iraq. That serves neither American nor Iraqi interests.
Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.
General Petraeus has his own credibility problems. He overstepped in 2004 when he published an op-ed article in The Washington Post six weeks before the election. The general — then in charge of training and equipping Iraq’s security forces — rhapsodized about “tangible progress” and how the Iraqi forces were “developing steadily,” an assessment that may have swayed some voters but has long since proved to be untrue.
And just last week, senior military commanders in Baghdad who work for General Petraeus entered the political fray by taking issue — anonymously — with the grim assessment of Iraq’s politics and security by non-partisan Congressional investigators.
As Congress waited anxiously for General Petraeus’s testimony, a flurry of well-timed news reports said that he told the White House he could go along with the withdrawal of about 4,000 American troops beginning in January but wanted to maintain increased force levels well into next year — just like Mr. Bush. Democrats who once demanded a firm date for the start of a troop pullout immediately started backpedaling.
Withdrawing 4,000 troops and dangling the prospect of additional withdrawals is a token political gesture, not a new strategy. If it proves enough to cow Congress into halting its push for a more robust and concrete exit strategy, that would be political cowardice at its worst.
We hope that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an important source of information, of course, but he is only one source — and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that things in Iraq are substantially better.
The Government Accountability Office found that the Iraqi government has not met 11 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and that violence remains high, despite the White House’s disingenuous claims of success. And a commission of retired senior military officers determined that Iraq’s army will be unable to take over responsibility for internal security in the next 12 to 18 months. That is four years beyond what the Pentagon predicted in 2004. It is too long.
Nothing has changed about Mr. Bush’s intentions. Waving off the independent reports, he plans to stay the course and make his successor fix his Iraq fiasco. Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and Mr. Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war. The United States needs a prudent exit strategy that will withdraw American forces and try to stop Iraq’s chaos from spreading.
More Articles in Opinion »
Opinion
Editorial
Hiding Behind the General
('Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and President Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war.');
Published: September 9, 2007
The military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to deliver a report to Congress on Monday that could be the most consequential testimony by a wartime commander in more than a generation. What the country desperately needs is an honest assessment of the war and a clear strategy for extricating American forces from the hopeless spiral of violence in Iraq.
President Bush, however, seems to be aiming for maximum political advantage — not maximum clarity on Iraq’s military and political crises, which cannot be separated from each other. Mr. Bush, we fear, isn’t looking for the truth, only for ways to confound the public, scare Democrats into dropping their demands for a sound exit strategy, and prolong the war until he leaves office. At times, General Petraeus gives the disturbing impression that he, too, is more focused on the political game in Washington than the unfolding disaster in Iraq. That serves neither American nor Iraqi interests.
Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy. He frequently refers to the escalation of American forces last January as General Petraeus’s strategy — as if it were not his own creation. The situation echoes the way Mr. Bush made Colin Powell — another military man with an overly honed sense of a soldier’s duty — play frontman at the United Nations in 2003 to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush cannot once again subcontract his responsibility. This is his war.
General Petraeus has his own credibility problems. He overstepped in 2004 when he published an op-ed article in The Washington Post six weeks before the election. The general — then in charge of training and equipping Iraq’s security forces — rhapsodized about “tangible progress” and how the Iraqi forces were “developing steadily,” an assessment that may have swayed some voters but has long since proved to be untrue.
And just last week, senior military commanders in Baghdad who work for General Petraeus entered the political fray by taking issue — anonymously — with the grim assessment of Iraq’s politics and security by non-partisan Congressional investigators.
As Congress waited anxiously for General Petraeus’s testimony, a flurry of well-timed news reports said that he told the White House he could go along with the withdrawal of about 4,000 American troops beginning in January but wanted to maintain increased force levels well into next year — just like Mr. Bush. Democrats who once demanded a firm date for the start of a troop pullout immediately started backpedaling.
Withdrawing 4,000 troops and dangling the prospect of additional withdrawals is a token political gesture, not a new strategy. If it proves enough to cow Congress into halting its push for a more robust and concrete exit strategy, that would be political cowardice at its worst.
We hope that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an important source of information, of course, but he is only one source — and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that things in Iraq are substantially better.
The Government Accountability Office found that the Iraqi government has not met 11 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and that violence remains high, despite the White House’s disingenuous claims of success. And a commission of retired senior military officers determined that Iraq’s army will be unable to take over responsibility for internal security in the next 12 to 18 months. That is four years beyond what the Pentagon predicted in 2004. It is too long.
Nothing has changed about Mr. Bush’s intentions. Waving off the independent reports, he plans to stay the course and make his successor fix his Iraq fiasco. Military progress without political progress is meaningless, and Mr. Bush no more has a plan for unifying Iraq now than when he started the war. The United States needs a prudent exit strategy that will withdraw American forces and try to stop Iraq’s chaos from spreading.
More Articles in Opinion »
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