In a recent CNN interview after the failed terrorist bomb attempt to bring down a Northwest jet, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano stated:
“One thing I want to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.”
Knowing what we now know, if Napolitano really believes that the system worked then she needs to be replaced immediately. The system failed and it failed big time. The only thing that saved that jet was the inability of the terrorist to bring about an explosion. His efforts resulted in a fire; but not the explosion he had hoped to achieve.
It seems that the entire process of air travel needs to be re-examined. Working the lines of travelers the TSA security personnel are diligently finding and confiscating sharp objects, checking our shoes and laptops and seizing over sized tubes of toothpaste, while the highly paid experts at CIA and Homeland Security cannot recognize a possible terrorist even when that individual is called to their attention by a relative. To the average American with no more than a high school education a Nigerian flying on a one way ticket paid for with cash and having no checked baggage would probably raise suspicion. Those having this info and even more did not see this individual as suspicious. Janet Napolitano should immediately resign (or be fired) and all those in every agency who dropped the ball in this case should be reassigned to less intellectually demanding positions.
The current practice of allowing passengers to carry on all their baggage and then jamming it in the overhead compartments must stop. TSA personnel are spending too much time screening this stuff and too little time on screening passengers and the smaller items they carry on board. Airlines created this baggage problem when they began charging for checked baggage and it must stop.
Like many Americans I am losing confidence in the ability of our protective agencies to do their job. The Secret Service could not identify and stop a couple from crashing a formal White House state dinner. At the risk of being politically incorrect and viewed as profiling the U.S Army could not protect its own soldiers from an Islamic extremist on the grounds of Ft. Hood Texas and now we have the debacle of Northwest flight.
Today former vice-president Dick Cheney accused the President of "trying to pretend we are not at war". I am no fan of the former VP; but his accusatory comment speaks for the millions of Americans who dutifully go through the TSA airport security lines shedding their shoes and coats, having bags checked over and scrutinized and on occasion being subjected to a pat down body search while a wanabe Islamic terrorist with numerous indicators of suspicious behavior is allowed to board a U.S bound jet with bomb making chemicals in his boxers.
President Obama may say that we are at war with terrorists; but the carelessness of the CIA and the absurd comment that "the system worked" by Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano along with the failings of other agencies seems to support Cheney's comment that the administration's efforts are not as serious as President Obama states and the American public expect.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The RACE to the TOP
After enduring years of frenzy and frustration over the Bush inspired educational reform plan, No Child Left Behind, President Obama, a more athletic President, has given us yet another reform plan called The RACE to the TOP. Now students, whether they were left behind or not, must don their educational running shoes and join the educational version of the Great Race. Of course, as any American with a pulse knows the playing field for this race is not level. One only has to look at the states were money is spent on education and see that students in these states are equipped not only to participate in the race; but to win. On the other hand, states where education has been and remains a financial burden rather than a priority, their students will be out-distanced. Sometimes this disparity even occurs among schools in the same school district because of factors like: parental support, foundations, ethnicity, attendance, student behavior and an array of other socio-economic factors. Is it any surprise that the barefoot runners will face a much more difficult challenge than the well trained and well equipped runners?
No doubt there are many students who know how to "play school" in that they attend school on a regular basis, do their class and homework, have supportive parents, are not behavior problems and understand their duties and responsibilities. On the other hand there are far too many students who, when they do come to school, come to school to play. They are chronically late and/or absent. They do not do their class work nor their homework. Their parents have no control over their behavior in or out of school. Many of these students actively try and usually succeed in disrupting the educational process. By their negative and disruptive behavior they make it difficult for even veteran teachers and almost impossible for new teachers to teach and for the other students to learn. School administrators, instead of removing these disruptive students from the classrooms, expect and demand that teachers accommodate these malcontents in addition to teaching those who really want to learn. Yes, everyone has the right to an education and the rights of the majority should not be compromised by the disruptive behavior of a few.
Finally, there continues to be an absolutely misguided effort to set up school curricula that caters exclusively to the college bound and intentionally ignores the fact that a significant number of our students are not going to college and may not even graduate from high school. There is a significant work force in this country made up of the trades. True, there numbers have declined over the years as a result of out-sourcing; but the fact remains that this country still needs a work force skilled in the trades or the industrial arts. Students who have an interest in these trades have seen their educational opportunities diminish. In a sense, they are being discriminated against in that curricula is now being offered in a one size fits all manner. Unfortunately that size fits only the college bound. Maybe, just maybe the disruptive behavior that is escalating in our schools would begin to subside if programs, classes and curricula were offered for all students, not just the college bound. Do plumbers, mechanics, bakers, carpenters and electricians really need a four year college program to succeed ? On your mark ... get set ... Run !!!
No doubt there are many students who know how to "play school" in that they attend school on a regular basis, do their class and homework, have supportive parents, are not behavior problems and understand their duties and responsibilities. On the other hand there are far too many students who, when they do come to school, come to school to play. They are chronically late and/or absent. They do not do their class work nor their homework. Their parents have no control over their behavior in or out of school. Many of these students actively try and usually succeed in disrupting the educational process. By their negative and disruptive behavior they make it difficult for even veteran teachers and almost impossible for new teachers to teach and for the other students to learn. School administrators, instead of removing these disruptive students from the classrooms, expect and demand that teachers accommodate these malcontents in addition to teaching those who really want to learn. Yes, everyone has the right to an education and the rights of the majority should not be compromised by the disruptive behavior of a few.
Finally, there continues to be an absolutely misguided effort to set up school curricula that caters exclusively to the college bound and intentionally ignores the fact that a significant number of our students are not going to college and may not even graduate from high school. There is a significant work force in this country made up of the trades. True, there numbers have declined over the years as a result of out-sourcing; but the fact remains that this country still needs a work force skilled in the trades or the industrial arts. Students who have an interest in these trades have seen their educational opportunities diminish. In a sense, they are being discriminated against in that curricula is now being offered in a one size fits all manner. Unfortunately that size fits only the college bound. Maybe, just maybe the disruptive behavior that is escalating in our schools would begin to subside if programs, classes and curricula were offered for all students, not just the college bound. Do plumbers, mechanics, bakers, carpenters and electricians really need a four year college program to succeed ? On your mark ... get set ... Run !!!
Obama The New War President
President Obama addressed the American people this evening from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Obviously this was the appropriate audience before whom to speak as many of the cadets will wind up in Iraq, Afghanistan or possibly Pakistan, where some believe Osama Bin Laden is hiding out. Thankfully there were few civilians around so the Secret Service did not have to fear gate crashers.
The President began with a Cliff Notes like summary of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since the attack of September 11th. He reminded us that not only did our own House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly approve and support military action but the even the UN gave its blessing. Of course he omitted the fact that our response was based on the misinformation and lies of the Bush administration.
President Obama worked hard to convince us that we had moral, ethical, economic, military and security reasons to not only continue our presence in Afghanistan; but to increase the number of ground forces by 30,000. It was an excellent speech almost in the style of a pep rally talk before a big game. He told the American people that NATO is with us in this expanding ground war. One would think that there is a multi-national ground force in Afghanistan; but this is far from the truth. This is a United States War with only token NATO and UN support. The continuation of this big game is going to be very costly for this country. The former Soviet Union had its years in Afghanistan and got its ass kicked.
It is unfortunate to see President Obama become another U.S. President mired in a hopeless foreign war when his attention should be focused on the multitude of problems facing this country within our own borders. Consider the following article by columnist Bob Woodward from December 28, 2006:
"Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.
In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.
"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.
"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."
The President began with a Cliff Notes like summary of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since the attack of September 11th. He reminded us that not only did our own House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly approve and support military action but the even the UN gave its blessing. Of course he omitted the fact that our response was based on the misinformation and lies of the Bush administration.
President Obama worked hard to convince us that we had moral, ethical, economic, military and security reasons to not only continue our presence in Afghanistan; but to increase the number of ground forces by 30,000. It was an excellent speech almost in the style of a pep rally talk before a big game. He told the American people that NATO is with us in this expanding ground war. One would think that there is a multi-national ground force in Afghanistan; but this is far from the truth. This is a United States War with only token NATO and UN support. The continuation of this big game is going to be very costly for this country. The former Soviet Union had its years in Afghanistan and got its ass kicked.
It is unfortunate to see President Obama become another U.S. President mired in a hopeless foreign war when his attention should be focused on the multitude of problems facing this country within our own borders. Consider the following article by columnist Bob Woodward from December 28, 2006:
"Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.
In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.
"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.
"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."
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