Archive for February 4th, 2008
Fark Headline – Hillary promises that unlike her rivals, HER health plan will be universal. Even if she has to automatically enroll the reluctant and garnish their wages to pay for it
Straight from the Associated Press: “WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC’s “This Week,” she said: “I think there are a number of mechanisms” that are possible, including “going after people’s wages, automatic enrollment.”"
Report: 1 in 4 Britons Think Winston Churchill Never Existed
Straight from Fox News: “One in four Britons don’t believe wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill existed, according to a recent survey.
Churchill is compared to Florence Nightingale and Sir Walter Raleigh, seen by many survey respondents as a mythical person, the London Daily Mail reported Monday.
The survey, conducted with 3,000 respondents to test their general knowledge, reported other historical figures such as Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, Cleopatra and the Duke of Wellington were made up for books and films, the Mail reported.
The survey, by UKTV Gold, also found that Sherlock Holmes was a real person.
Young Britons under 20 lack a basic historical education according to the survey results, historian Correlli Barnett told the Daily Mail.
“This suggests a complete lack of common sense and respect for our greatest heroes of the past,” Barnett said.”
Winston Churchill – June 4th 1940
“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.
The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
19-0… or not?
Iran launches first space research rocket Safir 1
Straight from the Debka File: “The Safir (Emissary) was launched into space Monday, Feb. 4, on top of the improved Shahab-3 which has a 4,000 km range. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Iranian launch was Tehran’s rejoinder to Israel’s test of a new long-range missile propulsion engine on Jan. 17. Western experts reported at the time that Israel’s newly-powered missiles could reach “any point on earth.”
The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was present for the test Monday. He also inaugurated Iran’s first space research center and announced that the Ormid (“Hope”) satellite would be placed in orbit “in the near future.”
Our military sources disclose that while Tehran’s space program is in its infancy, the Iranians are capable of a crash program for cutting down the gestation period for producing a military space satellite, as they proved in their nuclear effort.”
Shin Bet chief reports: Masses of high-quality weaponry, such as long-range rockets, roll into Gaza through the breached Sinai border
Straight from the Debka File: “The domestic security agency’s director, Yuval Diskin, warned the Israeli cabinet Sunday, Feb. 3, that the Palestinians exploited the chaos on the Gaza-Sinai border to smuggle in quantities of long-range rockets, anti-tank and anti-air rockets and high explosives for missiles. Hundreds of Palestinian terrorists have headed south into Sinai. According to Western intelligence sources, they are spread out along the 220-km Israeli border.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources disclose the figure omitted from the cabinet’s official communiqué to avoid alarming the public: The number of armed terrorists at large in Sinai is estimated in the region of a thousand. Hamas prepared at least 30 tracks for them to use when it bulldozed the Gaza-Sinai border ten days ago.
Defense minister Ehud Barak therefore told the cabinet that a border barrier must be constructed urgently at two sections of the unfenced Israel-Egyptian border – Nitzana and Eilat.
However, he is too late. Insistent demands by senior IDF officers to fence the border were neglected for too long by the Olmert government. Now, the Egyptian-Israel border is wide open to terrorists and they have been presented with a safe haven in Sinai for hit-and-run attacks.
Diskin also reported that many Palestinian terrorists returning from Iran, Syria or Egypt used the border mayhem to gain entry to Gaza. Among them were members of various terrorist organizations who trained in Iran and other places and who arrived with fresh combat skills.
When Egyptian border police failed to stem the Palestinian surge out of Gaza last week, senior Israeli officers applied for permission to send up three combat helicopters, which they said would have been enough to stem the mass exit and the smuggling in of long-range rockets and returning terrorists. But permission was withheld. It was denied in the same was as the high command was held back from embarking on an effective military operation to cut Hamas and its war machine down to size, when it was still readily feasible.
The Olmert government’s blunders over Gaza, military experts estimate, are potentially more ruinous to Israel security than even the mismanagement of the Lebanon War.”
