Due to some technical issues with this blog and its host Blogger, I am moving ALL of my communication and blog over to Facebook.
You can visit me there at http://www.facebook.com/xavierholdenusa
See you all there!
This blog site to be used to discuss everything that is wrong in America, and what we can do to help save our country. Patriots Unite! What is important is that this country is falling apart right before our eyes and nobody seems to care enough to do something about it. America is rotting. Period. And it is beginning to smell like it... For more of my rant, visit http://www.xavierholden.com
Every American changed that day, one way or another.
So I took some time tonight to just browse around the net, avoiding all
911 related info, and found this as rather funny. It is a posted review
of a recent Hollywood movie sequel "Marley and Me: The Puppy Years". Now
mind you that I have never personally seen the movie....but the author of
this post in the IMDB told it like it is, and I appreciated the chuckle it
gave me after a grueling day of 911 fatigue.
Here is the post:
Let me begin with an apology to the people reading this. I am only giving
this 1 star because you can not give it any lower. I also wish to
apologize from the American people to the Author of Marley and Me, we are
sorry that Hollywood has done this to your story.
Now with that said, why why why why why why..... why would you take a
wonderful heartfelt movie like Marley & Me and try to milk it like a cash
cow. This movie, which I sat through because my wife rented it for our
children, was the worst thing I have seen in my life, and to date I have
viewed about 7,000 movies, 5,240 of which we own. (okay we have no life)
Marley is not a talking dog movie, you want a talking dog, go watch Scooby
Doo, Marmaduke or the 1 million Air Bud movies and puppy sequels.
I sincerely wish Hollywood would stop doing this to movies, making useless
sequels after sequel trying to get a buck. Yes, this was a direct to video
movie, but it should have been freebie for walking into Wal-Mart. I can
see the greeter, "Hi welcome to Wal-Mart, here's your free crappy movie,
and a fork to gouge your eyes out after viewing it." I know they will
never make any money to cover the coast of this movie, I am sure it is
headed straight to the dollar store in a few weeks. I admit I watched it,
we rented it from Family video (no way was I buying it, or even
considering buying it at 15.99 at Wal-Mart, we had a free rental and the
only thing it cost me was my time. Of which I am considering suing the
studio for reparations for that. When even my 5yr old says 'dad this movie
sucks can I go play" you know it is bad, this kid made me sit through
Rango... twice which for all of the ways it annoyed me, she loved it.
Regardless, if you are considering seeing this, please do not... you will
beg for a mercy killing before it is over... This movie is definitely one
of the ten signs of the Apocalypse. If this is any sign of the rest of the
crap to come out of Hollywood in the near future, I am praying that the
world will end like the crazy preacher guy was saying earlier this year in
November... at least that way, we can not be tortured anymore with this
kind of garbage. Really who gave this movie the okay... who said let's
waste money and time, and all the respect our studio may still have...
let's make a nonsensical kiddie version of Marley and me and call it the
puppy years... That person was on some serious drugs... as were the people
who said okay let's do it... here's your money...
BRAVE F-16 PILOT CONSIDERED ‘RAMMING’ FLIGHT 93 ON 9/11
As the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Lieutenant Heather “Lucky” Penney remembers what was asked of her, and the decision she faced.
To take down Flight 93 — the fourth and final hijacked airborne craft that day — it was possible she would have to ram it.
Lt. Penney was a rookie Air National Guard combat pilot, and she was in a position where she may have had to give her life and take down a civilian airliner to save others on the ground.
Lt. Penney’s F-16 was the second to take off in pursuit of Flight 93 from Andrews Air Force base. Having just returned from training in Nevada, her fighter plane was outfitted mostly with dummy munitions. It had 511 rounds of non-explosive training ammo, but that only provided roughly a 5-sec. burst of the 20-mm gun.
In the end, the heroism of the passengers aboard Flight 93 kept Lt. Penney from having to shoot or ram the jetliner. But she clearly recalls her decision. She was going to do whatever it took to make sure the fourth hijacked plane didn’t become a guided missile with the potential to kill hundreds more innocent people. To this day, it is believed the terrorists aboard Flight 93 were targeting the White House.
Penney told New York Magazine about her ordeal:
“We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft, I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.”
She remembers that day with the grace and humility exemplified by our brave men and women in uniform: ”I was just an accidental witness to history,” she says.
Even a decade later, she rarely speaks of her experience. When Lt. Penney does, she insists the first-responders are the true heroes from that fateful day.
At this time of reflection on the loss and sacrifice of 9/11, we also honor the bravery of those in uniform who gave their lives to protect others, and those who continue to safeguard our lives and liberty.
Watch this video of Lt. Penney’s story, courtesy of the Washington Post:
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Wait a second. Something here sounds very fishy. We have heard that locals in Shanksville had seen flight 93 shot down by trailing US fighters. Now comes a story from the Government, who we all trust, saying, “oh, dont worry, the plane chasing 93 didnt have any ammo aboard.”
Really???
I do NOT want to discount the reported heroism of what may or may not have taken place aboard 93 that day. But, besides a phone call from one of the passengers, and chatter from the cockpit, how do we really know if the passengers and crew really died heroes and did what they 911 commission says they did?
Why on earth would the Government scramble an unarmed fighter jet? They couldn’t find one combat ready?
So in an attempt to further bolster the hero story, and “shoot down” the missile theory, they have to ad an afterthought asterix that “oh, the plane didnt have any weapons anyway?”
I just find this incredibly odd….does anyone else?
Didn’t the 111th Air Wing in Pittsburgh have a jet available? One that was combat ready? Or Langly? Someone? Anyone?
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The United States Postal Service (USPS) is going to have to find a way to make up for hemorrhaging financial losses (which has already rendered them incapable of making a $5.5 billion payment to its employee healthcare plan by the Sept. 30 due date) or face the possibility of closing shop for the winter.
Their unique situation raises two questions: first, how did it come to this? Second, how should it be addressed?
Concerning the first question, the USPS has been thrust into this desperate situation in part because of the emergence of new technologies (i.e. cell phone, email, etc.). Modern-era tools have enabled literally millions of Americans to throw off their dependency on traditional courier-style communication. But this cannot the real reason that the USPS is waist-deep in financial ruin. (Bear in mind, they were able to weather the advent of the telegraph and the telephone; could email and texting alone really force the USPS out of business?)
Source: GAO/Becket Adams
Surely, there are other elements that have helped to inflict heavy financial losses on the government agency.
First of all, a 2006 law requiring the postal service to pay an average of $5.5 billion annually for 10 years to finance retiree health costs for the next 75 years has cost the USPS dearly and, as mentioned before, it has put them into a position where they will most likely default on their bills.
But what has really contributed to the decline of one of America’s oldest institutions is not just its failure to appropriately respond to marketplace competition but its paralyzing contractual agreements with—you guessed it—labor unions.
Currently, labor costs represent 80 percent of the agency’s expenses (as opposed to UPS’ 53 percent and Fedex’s 32 percent) and costs continue to rise and grow with the help of such incredibly, unthinkably harmful provisions as the “no-layoff” clause in union contracts.
Moreover, it has been discovered recently that the USPS has overpaid an estimated $60 billioninto its employee pension plans.
You read that correctly. $60 billion. Extremely generous benefits, employees that cannot be fired, and $60 billion overpaid in pensions. That would explain the 80 percent labor costs.
“The situation is dire,” said Thomas R. Carper, the Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the postal service.
“If we do nothing, if we don’t react in a smart, appropriate way, the postal service could literally close later this year. That’s not the kind of development we need to inject into a weak, uneven economic recovery,” he said in a recent New York Times article.
Therefore, after reviewing the situation, one could say with complete accuracy that the United States Postal Services has been, in effect, dismantled by a mixture of robust competition, debilitating policies endemic in their administrative offices and overly-munificent employee benefits.
Which brings us to the second question: how does one address these issues?
According to Business Insider, to avoid insolvency, postmaster general Patrick Donahoe is going to ask Congress to approve the elimination of Saturday delivery, close as many 3,700 locations, slash the number of sorting facilities to 200 from 500, and trim the agency’s work force by 220,000 people, from its current 653,000. (A decade ago, the agency employed nearly 900,000.)
Of course, the unions are protesting all of the above.
The post office’s powerful unions are angry and alarmed about the planned layoffs. “We’re going to fight this and we’re going to fight it hard,” said Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents 207,000 mail sorters and post office clerks. “It’s illegal for them to abrogate our contract.”
From many angles, cutting back on existing costs seems to be the only thing that the USPS can do in order to alleviate its financial burdens. It cannot simply increase its rates as the law prevents them from raising postage fees faster than inflation. But there are a few other things the postal service can try.
In a move that proves the entrepreneurial drive is not completely dead in America, the agency has vigorously proposed some methods which may help them raise additional capital, including gaining the right to deliver wine and beer, allowing commercial advertisements on postal trucks and in post offices, doing more “last-mile” deliveries for FedEx and U.P.S. and offering special hand-delivery services for correspondence and transactions for which e-mail is not considered secure enough.
Not bad ideas. Not bad at all.
As long as the USPS can deal with its union problems, while simultaneously implementing cost-cutting measures and new advertising ventures, they may actually be able to steer themselves back on the road to recovery.
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Does it come as a surprise to anyone that the bloated USPS is in trouble, and that the main cause of the trouble is the Labor Union?
Time and time again, especially of late, we see where Unions are the demise of companies.
The Unions continue to take, take, take. And what do we expect? How can you continue to take pennies from the jar when the jar was emptied a long, long time ago?
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Gibson Guitar Corp. is claiming the Obama administration wants more of its woodwork done overseas, as a bizarre battle heats up between the government and one of the country's most renowned guitar makers.
The dispute started in 2009, when federal agents raided the company over suspect wood shipments from Madagascar. Gibson took that case to court but has denounced the administration with a vengeance after agents returned late last month to raid several Gibson factories -- this time out of concern that Indian export laws had been violated.
Though some reports on the dispute have cited environmental concerns, court documents suggest the latest battle boils down to a simple, non-environmental question -- which country is working on the wood?
Gibson's CEO has said repeatedly that the only reason his company is in trouble is because U.S. workers are completing work on guitar fingerboards in the United States. In an interview earlier this week, CEO Henry Juszkiewicz claimed that the U.S. government even suggested Gibson's troubles would disappear if the company used foreign labor.
The Justice Department is hamstrung from talking about the case because it's an ongoing investigation. Justice spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle told FoxNews.com only that agents were looking for evidence of "possible violations" of a law governing imports of plants and wildlife.
Hornbuckle also confirmed that no charges have yet been filed in either of the two cases.
Court documents help explain the root of the tree dispute. According to search warrants associated with the latest raid, federal agents in June intercepted a shipment of Indian ebony apparently bound for Gibson in Tennessee. The documents noted that Indian law "prohibits the export of sawn wood," which can be used for fingerboards -- but does not prohibit the export of "veneers," which are sheets of woods that have already been worked on.
The search warrants alleged that the intercepted shipment was "falsely declared" as veneer, something that would have been legal. However, the documents said the ebony was in fact unfinished "sawn wood," supposedly illegal.
This led to the raid on Gibson facilities late last month.
Juszkiewicz said in a statement that the U.S. government has effectively suggested "that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department's interpretation of a law in India."
A representative at the Indian Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment.
But Juszkiewicz has since claimed that his company's wood exports do in fact comply with Indian law, even if American workers are doing some of the work.
In an interview on the company website, Juszkiewicz said Gibson "for decades" has purchased fingerboard wood that is two-thirds finished.
"The fact that American workers are completing the work in the United States makes it illegal," he said, citing the government's position.
Juszkiewicz maintains Gibson is still complying with the law.
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So, let me get this straight. The “wood” in question is illegal, unless, it is transformed outside of the United States. Then, using foreign labor to transform the wood makes it all ok?
So again, the Obama administration would rather cut American jobs, for no reason what so ever, putting 1200 people OUT OF WORK, because of why?
I don’t seem to get it. It’s the same wood….
And to boot, this is all over a CLERICAL ERROR!
Agents with guns raided the factories. Why the guns? Did they think the guitar makers were armed and dangerous? I guess so.
Unfreakingreal
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