Sixty Five Years Later, We Honor and Remember

From the hell on the beaches at Normandy and beyond on June 6, 1944, the beginning of the end of the Third Reich commenced. Had the invasion not succeeded, the fate and future of Europe and the world beyond would have been in great jeopardy.



Watching the ceremony from Normandy today, listening to the spoken words and viewing the row upon row of heroes in their eternal resting places, imagining the horror faced by the soldiers that the picture above can't even begin to describe, seeing the beach and the waves today that were churning in heavy seas that day and the cliffs that hid German artillery and snipers, I can only thank these men who faced what I will most likely never face, and who acted with a level of bravery and courage that I can only hope that I would be able to match under the same circumstances.

As the years go by and fewer and fewer men and women remain who took part in D-Day, the liberation of France, of Europe and in the defeat of the Japanese, those who saved the world from madmen and regimes bent on world control and destruction, Thank You and God bless.

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Keeping A Campaign Promise Is Great

President Obama made quite a few promises during his campaign including taking his wife to a Broadway show. Good for him. He kept that one last night and in the process has sparked debate (at least for me) regarding the appropriateness of the trip.

Now President Bush spent many a day at his Crawford, Texas ranch and at Camp David, and there is no doubt that the stresses of the presidency requires some down time.

However, at a time when the economy in cities such as New York are in the crapper, GM is about to file for bankruptcy, many people don't have the money for a movie let alone a fancy dinner and a Broadway show and a presidential visit turns the City into a tangled mess, is this an appropriate thing to do at this time?

What do you think?

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But First An Update On The North Korea Crisis From Hillary Clinton

As I had surmised, the Obama administration's answer to the crisis of a madman firing missiles and setting off nuclear tests is as expected: reliance on trying to get the madman to a negotiating table so that he can agree to terms he has no intention of abiding by and some more of those tough U.N. resolutions and sanctions. Read:



(Fox)"North Korea will have to pay a price for its aggressive actions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday, and she urged Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks that it abandoned in favor of nuclear weapons.

"North Korea has made a choice, chosen to violate the specific language of the U.N. Security Council (Resolution) 1718. It has ignored the international community, abrogated the six-party talks and continues to act in a provocative and belligerent manner," Clinton said during remarks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit.

"In the United Nations, as we speak, discussions are going on as to the consequences that North Korea will face coming out of the latest behavior, trying to rein in the North Koreans and get them back into a framework they have chosen where they fulfill their obligations," she said..."

Pyongyang must be quaking with fear. As I have said many times before these are hopefully Obama's words for public consumption with covert action behind the scenes. This leader is a grave danger to the entire world, and mere table talk will unfortunately be an utter failure.

What Does A Steep Yield Curve Mean...If Anything In This Case

When I was a bond analyst for a sell side firm out of business school, a steep yield curve was a way to get retail investors into long bonds which in turn translated into more revenue for the firm. That is because the "spread", or the amount that a firm can make, is typically greater the further out on the maturity spectrum that you go. Back then for the purposes of Wall Street the steep yield curve proved to be a great marketing ploy.



What Is This Steepness I Speak Of?

The steepness of a yield curve is the difference in yield between short-term bonds like the two year, and longer-term bonds like the 10 year. The yield of the 10 year treasury is currently 3.66%, and the yield of the treasury 2 year is .92% for a difference of 274 basis points which is close to record steepness.

Typically, a yield curve will steepen when the Fed lowers short term interest rates (it has no control over long rates other than open market operations)to stimulate the economy, and investors in fixed rate securities such as treasury bonds sell to move into the stock market, pushing yields up.

Is This Time Different?

In this case, could the rise in long term rates signify something other than economic expansion? Could it be inflation fears fueled by the amount of stimulus that has been injected into the economy? Could it be a normal adjustment in the level of rates due to that age old concept of supply and demand?

The federal government will be borrowing in the neighborhood of $2 trillion (with a t)in 2009, and the foreign governments that are providing this liquidity definitely have something to say about where rates will go from here.

China is the single largest foreign owner of treasuries, and without it's participation in new auctions, or worse yet if they decided to be sellers, yields will rise significantly.

What if the "green shoots" as the pundits on T.V. love to call them are really stink weeds, and the economy is not beginning to come out of recession? What will the trillions of dollars of stimulus money injected by the government chasing too few goods do to the level of interest rates due to spiking inflation?

We can only hope that President Obama and his band of merry men led by Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke have some semblance of a clue as to what it is that they are doing. God help us if they do not! Sphere: Related Content

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Outrage Over The First 100 Days Of The Obama Administration

The Obama apologists love to invoke the first 100 days argument. That is, how can you expect miracles in 100 days when the president "inherited" the huge problems left by the Bush administration. Now I have my problems with the Obama administration, some of which I detail below, but nothing like those expressed in the letter following the picture of the one room schoolhouse.

Number one, as my expectations from a president go, I don't give a timeline of when I expect accomplishments to be seen. I just want to see steady progress being made.

Number two I also don't like to hear constant excuses as to why things are as they are and how the problems are so difficult. When a man or a woman chooses to run for office, they know what they are signing on for. Just do it.

Finally, as an observer of the President of the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, I don't like to see them going around the world apologizing for what it is we do, bowing to foreign leaders (although not all foreign leaders if you know what I mean) and cozying up to leaders such as Hugo Chavez.

This is all separate from his foreign policy charade of appeasement and serious "negotiations" with rogue countries that does nothing except buy these rogue nations time to accomplish whatever it is that rogue nations want to accomplish.

The Anger Of A Fourth Grade School Teacher

What does it take to stir the ire of a schoolteacher? How do you manufacture outrage that erupts into an open letter to President Obama. I guess I will step aside and let you read it for yourself:



Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead?

What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia. You don't show Great Britain, our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia. How dare you, sir! How dare you!

You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey. You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you. You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members - on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million - not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities.

I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

Ms Kathleen Lyday

Fourth Grade Teacher

Grandview Elementary School

11470 Hwy. C

Hillsboro, MO63050 Sphere: Related Content

An Old Political Joke

This is a joke that has been around for some time, and through the years the names have been changed, not to protect the innocent, but to reflect the political environment of the time. It's almost like that old game of Ad-libs, but much more serious.



In this version, we are using the name Obama.

"While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, who's hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his bid to be our president.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a 'Post Turtle''.
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.
The old rancher said, 'When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle'.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. 'You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, and he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb a_s put him up there to begin with."

As time goes on and we see more and more of the moves that President Obama makes or does not make, are there beginning to be second thoughts on the part of some of his supporters? Sphere: Related Content

The King Of Torture Had Trouble Sleeping At Night

You know the typical bully. All bluster and then when someone stands up and pops him, it's all running away with the tail between the legs. Apparently that was the exact story behind Saddam Hussein, known for his hideous torture of people whose "crimes" could consist of an offense that in the United States would not even get you a ticket.



The man who would portray himself as a man's man, who happened to have been found cowering in a small hole, without the honor to take his own life and spare himself, and the rest of the world a trial.

He did not take his secrets to the grave, withstanding fierce interrogation, but instead gave it all up: "...A brilliant FBI man, George Piro, was Saddam's sole interrogator. But the Arabic-speaking Lebanese-American agent didn't have to resort to CIA waterboarding techniques to elicit Saddam's confessions of massacring fellow Iraqis. Instead, Piro's now-legendary interrogations relied on another ancient method - conversation..."

Pity him and his treatment:

"...The tyrant and his family, who maintained their 24-year reign over Iraq by torturing and executing thousands, complained that his lockup - believed to be at Baghdad International Airport - was an American-made chamber of horrors.

"My opportunity to sleep in this place is limited and almost scarce," Saddam wrote. "I don't think there is anyone with a sensitive and humanitarian heart who can sleep amidst the screams of the tortured and the many blows of the doors and the squeaking sounds of the chairs."

Saddam whined that his "total hours of sleep did not exceed four to five hours." (NY Daily News)

When they read of the fact that Saddam Hussein gave it all up by simply being asked, the left will seize on this as a reason why torture is not necessary to obtain information. The problem is that few prisoners are as soft as this "strong dictator" Sphere: Related Content

Beating a Dead Horse

If I am getting tired of talking about the same thing, then people must be getting tired about reading about the same thing. This situation was once a dangerous thought, then a dangerous development, and now it is seemingly an extremely dangerous reality.

Slowly but surely, as discussed in this blog ad infinitum, the Taliban is moving towards Islamabad and a de facto takeover of the government of Pakistan. Much like Hitler was appeased by France, the UK and the Soviet Union in the 1930's when he was allowed to take Czechoslovakia, the Taliban has been appeased but does not seem satisfied by what they were given either.

What will be the result if there is a full takeover of Pakistan by the Taliban, and more importantly the weapons that Pakistan controls. The world, as the saying goes, will be up a very brown creek without a paddle. There have been questions all along regarding the current government of Pakistan in terms of it's allegiances, and that is who we are counting on to put down this dangerous, dangerous situation.

What are the world leaders saying:

- After Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday that the Pakistani government was "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," Islamabad has seen a flurry of diplomatic activity.

Huh? Any thoughts on how to diffuse the situation Madame Secretary, or do we just go with the flow on this one?

- German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Prime Minister Gillani to express her concern. And Western diplomats met with Pakistani lawmakers throughout the day to assess the government's likely response to the threat.

Really? Is that making anyone feel better?

- This is what the Taliban had to say:

"Taliban fighters from the nearby Swat Valley have infiltrated the area in recent days, emboldened by a government-sanctioned peace deal allowing them to enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the valley, a onetime tourist paradise.

Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday that the government would see to it that the peace agreement isn't violated. "The government will not allow anyone to challenge the government," he said in a statement.

But in Buner, the Taliban remained largely in control despite the stepped-up paramilitary presence.

"We will not leave the area," a Taliban commander, Mufti Bashir, told local journalists.



Since entering Buner from Swat, the Taliban has reportedly set up checkpoints, begun patrolling roads and ordered barbershops to stop shaving beards, which are favored by Islamic militants. The moves have prompted some residents to flee..." (LA Times)

President Obama, I don't want to be an alarmist here, but what are the plans besides calling the Prime Minister and voicing our concern, or going to United Nations demanding this to stop.

This is the Taliban that does not answer to any international voice, and if this development that could turn disastrous for us all is not stopped and stopped now, your health care plan and the rest of your socialist agenda could be rendered moot. Sphere: Related Content