Getting them in quick: A GI smokes two cigarettes in Vietnam

By Barry Wigmore

It’s an iconic image of war movies – a battle-weary GI sits down during a lull in the fighting and steals a few drags on a cigarette.

But the real-life perk of cut-price smokes for servicemen could soon be a thing of the past – because of health concerns.

Pentagon health experts are urging U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates to ban troops from smoking and end the sale of tobacco in PXs, the military base shops where cheap tobacco has always been popular.

The recommendations came in a study which revealed the hidden cost of smoking to America’s Army, Navy, and Air Force.

The investigation by the Institute of Medicine, commissioned by the Pentagon, found that a third of the country’s three million servicemen and women uses tobacco, compared with a fifth in the general population.

The heaviest smokers – perhaps not surprisingly – were soldiers and Marines on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

About 37 per cent of soldiers and 36 per cent of Marines used tobacco. Combat veterans were 50 per cent more likely to smoke than troops who hadn’t seen any fighting, the report said.

It also discovered that smoking and chewing tobacco costs the Pentagon more than $874million (£540million) a year in medical care and lost productivity.

The Department of Veterans Affairs spent up to £4billion a year on treatment for tobacco – related illnesses.

And tobacco sales in PXs contribute less than $100million (£60million) a year – which is spent on base recreation schemes and family support programmes, the report added.

The Pentagon estimates 30 per cent of all cancer deaths suffered by military personnel are down to smoking.

Iconic: Robert Mitchum enjoys a smoke in film The Longest Day

Defence chiefs said they were determined to make their fighting forces smoke-free – no matter how unpopular it could prove among frontline troops.

The report said a first-step would be to demand that all new recruits must be non-smokers.

Smoking should be banned on all U.S. military bases, ships and aircraft, and ‘any tobacco use while in uniform should be prohibited’.

It also recommended that treatment programmes to wean smokers off their addiction should be expanded.

A Pentagon spokesman said: ‘The department supports a smoke-free military and believes it is achievable.’

Kenneth Kizer, a Veterans Affairs committee member, said leadership from the White House would help the anti-smoking cause – and called on President Obama to quit his own habit.

Last month, Mr Obama said he was 95 per cent cured of smoking but there were times when he ‘messed up.’

He told a press conference: ‘I’ve said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it.

‘Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.’

—————————————————–

He told a press conference: ‘I’ve said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it.

You’re not a “former” anything if you’re still doing it, even if only occasionally. Talk about denial. Moving along…

This photo provided by Susan Willems taken July 5, 2009 shows an American flag being flown upside down, a day after it was removed by local police, in Crivitz, Wis. The flag being flown upside down as a protest in a small northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade. The businessman flying the flag claims police trespassed and stole his property. (AP Photo/Susan Willems)

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it – an Iraq war veteran – claims the officers trespassed and stole his property. A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man’s protest – over a liquor license – continued.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.’s’ First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

"It is not often that you see something this blatant," Ahmuty said.

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down – an accepted way to signal distress – outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.

He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Congine’s upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine’s property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.

Neighbor Steven Klein watched in disbelief.

"I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Klein said. "They said, ‘It is none of your business.’"

The next day, police returned the flag.

Brey declined comment Friday.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

"It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said.

The parade went on without any problems, Kanikula said.

Village President John Deschane, 60, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said many people in town believe it’s disrespectful to fly the flag upside down.

"If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it," Deschane said.

Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down.

"It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

Talk about racism…that statement alone screams volumes. Our "sisters" or a "white female"? Never mind that this is the president of the Houston Black Firefighters Association. Racism indeed.

 Houston Chronicle 

The president of the Houston Black Firefighters Association today said a racially offensive message was broadcast shortly after 7 a.m. on a radio frequency used by city firefighters. The incident occurred little more than 24 hours after racist and sexist graffiti was discovered in the women’s quarters at the Intercontinental Airport fire station.

Houston Fire Department spokeswoman Alicia White said today’s radio message, which was heard by firefighters on the department’s Trac 2, has been referred to the city’s office of the inspector general for investigation. She did not provide details of the message’s contents.

Fire Capt. Otis Jordan, president of the black firefighter’s group, however, said the broadcast contained a vulgar message directed to African-Americans. An offensive term for blacks was used, he said.

The graffiti and the message came just weeks after City Council authorized sensitivity training to restore harmony in the wake the discovery of a noose-like knot in a fire official’s locker. The graffiti was discovered about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday at Fire Station 54 in a secured area of the airport.

Jordan said the women’s quarters of that firehouse previously had been the target of vandals.

“This is a very painful day,” said Executive Assistant Fire Chief Rick Flanagan. “This is without a doubt an act of hate. … It is so distasteful, so painful, so despicable. We have the full support of the police department, and we have asked them to expedite this investigation.”

Flanagan did not reveal the content of the graffiti, nor identify the female firefighters, one of whom is white, the other black.

Fire Chief Phil Boriskie said the case has been referred to the city’s office of the inspector general.

“This is a terminating offense and, frankly, a criminal offense,” he said. “We will prosecute this to the fullest.”

Mayor Bill White said the city will not tolerate any form of racial or gender discrimination.

“Before we judge and generalize,” he added, “we need to get the facts. … We will get to the bottom of it.”

Boriskie cautioned that the perpetrator may not have been a firefighter. Flanagan, however, noted that only those with FAA clearance have access to the fire station, where 10-12 firefighters are assigned to handle aircraft emergencies.

Activist wants chief fired

Tuesday’s episode came just weeks after City Council approved $60,000 for firefighter sensitivity training. That measure was aimed at calming racial tension in the department that grew out of the discovery of a noose-like knot in the locker of veteran fire Capt. Keith Smith.

Smith told city officials the rope was a fisherman’s knot he had kept in honor of the firefighter who showed him how to tie it.

But black activists decried it as an emblem of overt racism, and one, Deric Muhammad, called for Boriskie’s resignation.

Muhammad renewed that call Tuesday, saying, “Only strong leadership can root out the cancer of racism in the Houston Fire Department.”

Flanagan on Tuesday said the Smith case was resolved by “putting a note in his permanent file.”

City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones, who advocated for sensitivity training and suggested it be extended to other departments, Tuesday said the U.S. Justice Department might be better equipped to investigate the graffiti incident.

“I think there is more than graffiti. I absolutely have reason to believe there may be retaliation for something,” she said.

Jordan said women’s quarters at Station 54 previously had been targeted by vandals. Recently, he said, one of the women targeted in Tuesday’s incident had filed a complaint after someone disconnected the cold water in the women’s shower.

Jordan also said someone had urinated in the sinks and on the walls of the women’s restroom.

“We are not going to stand for our sisters — or a white female — being treated that way,” Jordan said.

Jordan said he received a tearful telephone call from one of the firefighters shortly after she discovered the offensive graffiti.

Flanagan on Tuesday said he has assigned a team to check Jordan’s allegations and to find out what, if anything, was done to address them.

Pastor calls for calm

Speaking at a morning news conference alongside fire department leaders, the Rev. James Nash, pastor of the predominantly black St. Paul Baptist Church, called for calm as the investigation continues and criticized “factions in the community who want conflict.”

Jeffrey Caynon, president of the nearly 4,000-member Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, denounced “reckless stereotyping of the men and women of all races of the HFD by opportunist activists and self-appointed ‘labor’ organizations that inflame emotions but rarely offer solutions.”

In an afternoon news conference, Muhammad said he interpreted the graffiti as a death threat.

Fire department officials Tuesday said the graffiti incident left them badly shaken.

Boriskie described himself as “angry, embarrassed and bothered.”

Flanagan, who is black, said he has experienced few days of bitterness in the 30-plus years he’s spent with the department.

“This,” he said, “is one of those days.”

Former secretary of state says the Supreme Court nominee shouldn’t be condemned for ruling against white firefighters who contended they suffered reverse discrimination.

WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, one of the nation’s most prominent African-Americans, is going after people who attacked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor because of her stand in favor of affirmative action.

Powell, who’s from the same Bronx neighborhood in New York as Sotomayor, said she should face "a spirited set of hearings" in the Senate. But he said the federal appeals court judge, who would be the first Hispanic justice, shouldn’t be condemned for ruling against white firefighters who contended they suffered reverse discrimination.

"What we can’t continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor … called a racist, a reverse racist and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we’re mad at her," Powell said in an interview broadcast Sunday on "State of the Union" on CNN.

Powell made it clear that he was referring to critics outside the Senate.

"Fortunately, the senators who will sit on this hearing in the Judiciary Committee, after a few days of this kind of nonsense, said, `Let’s slow down, let’s examine her qualifications in the way we’re supposed to at a confirmation hearing."’ The committee begins hearings July 13.

Powell said Sotomayor has "an open and liberal bent of mind, but that’s not disqualifying. But she seems to have a judicial record that seems to be balanced and tries to follow the law."

Powell, a Republican who supported Obama, said his party still is not sensitive enough toward minorities.

He noted that Obama had a significant advantage with Hispanics and African-Americans in the November elections. He criticized Republicans who are not elected to office and "immediately shout racism" against Sotomayor, while accusing Powell of supporting Obama because both men are black.

"We still have a problem," he said.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has called Powell "just another liberal," said he should become a Democrat and charged that Powell endorsed Obama based on race. Powell said Sunday that Limbaugh "doesn’t decide who I am or what I am no more than I decide who he is or what he is."

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last Monday that white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotion because of their race. The justices threw out a decision that Sotomayor had endorsed as an appeals court judge.

Source

By KATU.com Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. – It is now illegal in Oregon to ask a gas station attendant to top off your tank.

The state approved the ban last year because topping off can spill excess fuel and release Benzene and other toxins into the air.

When it comes to enforcement, the state will first send warnings to gas stations that are repeat offenders and then will start issuing penalties.

Source

Never mind that Sarkozy is married to a woman who can not keep her face and ta-ta’s covered.

Carla Bruni: Normally we would black out the ta-ta’s, but…we can’t find them in this photo.

PARIS (AP) – President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won’t be welcome in France.

The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France’s two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved—braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles southwest of Paris.

"The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement—I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

In France, the terms "burqa" and "niqab" often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

Later Monday, Sarkozy was expected to host a state dinner with Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani of Qatar. Many women in the Persian Gulf state wear Islamic head coverings in public—whether while shopping or driving cars.

France enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad. France has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people.

A government spokesman said Friday that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing the head-to-toe gowns outside the home.

The issue is highly divisive even within the government. France’s junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she was open to a ban if it is aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burqa.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said a ban would only "create tensions."

A leading French Muslim group warned against studying the burqa.

 By Steve Milloy

PETA has embraced the puppy-killing revolutionary Che Guevara in a new ad campaign that features Che’s granddaughter, Lydia Guevara.

PETA’s ad quotes Che as saying

“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”

PETA goes on to note that,

Well, it looks like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Che Guevara’s granddaughter, Lydia Guevara, is following in her revolutionary granddad’s footsteps by calling for a “vegetarian revolution.”

Here’s a campaign photo of Lydia trying to imitate Che’s iconic image

But is Che Guevara really someone that PETA wants to snuggle up to? Che is, after all, a puppy murderer.

Here’s the story of Che’s horrific act that occurred while he and his men were on a combat patrol in November 1957, as recounted in Jon Lee Anderson’s 1997 book, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (Grove Press).

[Caution: The following text is not for the squeamish]

As the soldiers advanced up the Mar Verde Valley, Che and his men stuck to the flanking forested hills, trying to catch up to them without being seen. They tried to speed up their pace, but discovered that their new mascot, a puppy, had stubbornly trailed them. Che ordered the fighter who was looking after the puppy, a man named Felix, to make it go back, but the little dog continued trotting loyally behind. They reached an arroyo where they rested, and the puppy inexplicably began howling; the men tried to hush it with comforting words, but the little dog didn’t stop. Che ordered it killed. “Felix looked at me with eyes that said nothing,” Che wrote later. “Very slowly he took out a rope, wrapped it around the animal’s neck, and began to tighten it. The cute little movements of the dog’s tail suddenly became convulsive, before gradually dying out, accompanied by a steady moan that escaped from its throat despite the firm grasp. I don’t know how long it took for the end to come, but to all of us it seemed like forever. With one nervous twitch the puppy stopped moving. There it lay, sprawled out, its little head spread over the twigs.”

PETA recently let President Obama off the hook for killing a fly during an interview in the White House because,

As we all know, human beings often don’t think before they act.

Will this rationalization will be applied to the people-as-well-as-puppy-murdering Che as well?

Viva la revolución de hipocresía!

—————————————

 Murderous terrorist thug CHE GUEVARA