Theodore's World

Now is the time we can send Christmas/Hannukah/holiday greeting cards to the troops .
When you are making out your Christmas card list this year……this is an important announcement.
There is an email going around and so many of us thought it was correct. It is not. I just heard from Walter Reed and they want to let us all know about sending Christmas and holiday cards and what to do. There are changes that were not in the email.
VERY Important!!
Walter Reed Army Medical Center officials want to remind those individuals who want to show their appreciation through holiday cards addressed to ‘Any Wounded Soldier’ or ‘A Recovering American Soldier’ that Walter Reed cannot accept these !!!!!
This decision was made to ensure the safety and well being of patients and staff at medical centers throughout the Department of Defense. In addition, the U.S. Postal Service is no longer accepting “Any Service Member” or “A Recovering American Soldier” cards/mail.
As Walter Reed continues to enhance the medical care and processes for our returning service members, it must also must keep our patients and staff members safe while following Department of Defense policy. The outpouring of encouragement from the general public, corporate America and civic groups throughout the past year has been incredible. Our Warriors in Transition are amazed at the thanks and support they receive from their countrymen.
For the 2008 holiday season, the Red Cross is sponsoring a “Holiday Mail for Heroes” program to distribute holiday cards to service members, a program that encompasses not just troops who are recovering in military hospitals but also service members stationed throughout the U.S. and abroad, as well as veterans and their families:
The American Red Cross will sponsor a national “Holiday Mail for Heroes” campaign to receive and distribute holiday cards to service members and veterans both in the US and aboard. Holiday Mail for Heroes, which begins on Nov. 11, Veteran’s Day, is a follow-up to the successful 2007 effort that resulted in the collection and distribution of over 600,000 cards to hospitalized service members. This year’s program will expand its reach to not only wounded servicemembers but also veterans and their families. The goal is to collect and distribute 1 million pieces of holiday mail.

“As we enter this holiday season — a time to celebrate with family and friends — it’s important to remember the thousands of men and women who serve our nation in harm’s way and those who are recovering in military and veterans hospitals,” said Army Col. Norvell V. Coots, commander, Walter Reed Health Care System. “The Holiday Mail for Heroes program is a wonderful outreach effort and a great way to acknowledge the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.”

Please send cards to this address, following the guidelines listed below:
Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456
Please note that the referenced guidelines are important — many contributors have been disappointed in the past to find that they missed the mailing deadline or sent gifts and other types of materials that could not be delivered:
* All cards must be postmarked no later than Wednesday, December 10, 2008. Cards sent after this date will be returned to sender.
* Please ensure that all cards are signed.
* Please send cards as opposed to long letters which delay a quick review process.
* Please do not include email or home addresses on the cards, as the program is not meant to foster pen pal relationships.
* Please do not include inserts of any kind, including photos, as these items will be removed during the reviewing process.
* Participants should limit the number of cards they submit to 25 from any one person or 50 from any one class or group.
Also please note that the “Holiday Mail for Heroes” program is for the delivery of holiday cards only.

Obama Wants Applicants’ Web-Posting Past
CBS
Questionnaire Asks Job Applicants To Document Blog Posts, Comments, Facebook Profiles And More
If you want a job in an Obama administration, be prepared to disclose every blog post or comment you’ve ever written.
A …nine-page questionnaire ……(pdf file) requires applicants to list — and if possible, provide copies of — all “posts or comments on blogs or other Web sites” they have ever made. Also required are “aliases” or nicknames used on those sites.
Translated into English, this means that President-elect Obama wants to know far more about you than his predecessors did. That requirement would force applicants to disclose information about Facebook and MySpace pages, profiles posted on dating Web sites, and even what was posted on Web sites like CNET and YouTube that allow readers to append comments.
Note that question doesn’t only ask for potentially embarrassing or incendiary posts. It wants a list of “each” one.
It also asks for the URLs of “any Web sites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity,” and suggests MySpace and Facebook by name as examples. Dating sites like Match.com would be included, too.
Perhaps this won’t be a problem for older Democrats vying for senior positions like treasury secretary or attorney general. But for today’s Facebook-and-YouTube generation, requesting a list (and, “if readily available,” a copy) of all Web site posts and comments the applicant ever made is not a trivial task to complete — and means that the Obama administration may not be quite as tech-savvy as its reputation would indicate.
These and other questions seem to represent Obama’s plan to avoid the the Lani Guinier Effect. President Clinton appointed Guinier as assistant attorney general, and then was forced to withdraw her nomination in the face of severe criticism. Clinton claimed at the time that he had not read her writings favoring racial quotas.
Clinton also was forced to withdraw the nominations of Zoe Baird and Judge Kimba Wood for attorney general because of questions about whether they paid employment taxes for their nannies. President George W. Bush had the same problem with former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, appointed to be Homeland Security secretary.
Obama’s questionnaire seeks to remedy that problem. It asks four questions about domestic help, including housekeepers, babysitters, nannies, and gardeners. It asks about child support payments, information about enemies that may “criticize” your nomination, tax returns, loans, jobs held abroad, and so on.
One question asks: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information.”
That’s raised eyebrows among gun owners — and drawn fire from the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action–because there is no general federal requirement that guns be registered. Under federal law, it’s possible to be given a firearm by a family member or purchase one from a private party without your name being included in a federal database. (Laws in a handful of states, including California, are more restrictive.)
In a 1996 survey sent to state politicians, Obama said he supports a law banning the “possession” of handguns. He also indicated he supported Washington, D.C.’s gun ban, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. His campaign Web site said the Second Amendment protects an individual right and noted that “millions of hunters and shooters own and use guns every year,” but did not mention firearms used for self-defense.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
Well shoot, there goes my future job. LMAO Hey Barack, you show me yours and I’lll show you mine. hahaahaha Oh my gawd!
1984 has nothing on Barack Hussein Obama’s 2008/2009.
Did anyone else here that????? Free speech flying out the window.
Applicants being vetted more thoroughly than Obama was. LOL What a fraud he is, what a liar, racist, terrorist lover,power hungry, limp wristed jerk.

Here is one for HO-bama
[ ] YES [ ] NO
Were you born in Kenya?

To this day we know basically nothing about Obama. Yet the SOB wants the most intimate details of others’ lives.
Funny what he demands of others yet refuses to provide himself.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama on the Confirmation of Judge John Roberts
http://obama.senate.gov/press/050922-remarks_of_sena/

“Let me also say that I remain distressed that the White House during this confirmation process, which overall went smoothly, failed to provide critical documents as part of the record that could have provided us with a better basis to make our judgment with respect to the nomination. This White House continues to stymie efforts on the part of the Senate to do its job. I hope with the next nominee who comes up for the Supreme Court that the White House recognizes that in fact it is its duty not just to the Senate but to the American people to make sure we can thoroughly and adequately evaluate the record of every single nominee who comes before us.”

‘Constitutional crisis’ looming over Obama’s birth location
Alan Keyes lawsuit warns America may see ‘usurper’ in Oval Office
wnd
The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state’s 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.
The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama’s status as a “natural-born citizen,” a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.
WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama’s birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.
The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn’t ordered it made available to settle the rumors.
The governor’s office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?
Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama’s Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama’s birth in Kenya.
The California action was filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of Alan Keyes, the presidential candidate of the American Independent Party, along with Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

“Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal,” the action challenges.

The petition is a request for the Superior Court of California in Sacramento County to issue a peremptory writ barring Secretary of State Debra Bowen “from both certifying to the governor the names of the California Electors, and from transmitting to each presidential Elector a Certificate of Election, until such documentary proof is produced and verified showing that Senator Obama is a ‘natural born’ citizen of the United States and does not hold citizenship of Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain.”

It continues with a request for a writ barring California’s electors from signing the Certificate of Vote until documentary proof is produced.

The popular vote Nov. 4 favored Obama over Sen. John McCain by several percentage points. But because of the distribution of the votes, Obama is projected to take the Electoral College vote, when it is held in December, by a 2-to-1 margin.
Named as defendants in the action are Bowen, Obama, vice president elect Joe Biden and the long list of California party electors.

Citing the constitutional requirement that a president be a “natural born” citizen, the case discusses other state and federal court cases regarding “aspects of lost or dual citizenship concerning Senator Obama. Those challenges, in and of themselves, demonstrate Petitioners’ argument that reasonable doubt exists as to the eligibility of the Democratic Party’s nominee for President,” the case said.

“There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process,” the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.
“Since [the Secretary of State] has, as its core, the mission of certifying and establishing the validity of the election process, this writ seeks a Court Order barring SOS from certifying the California Electors until documentary proof that Senator Obama is a ‘natural born’ citizen of the United States of America is received by her,” the document said.
“This proof could include items such as his original birth certificate, showing the name of the hospital and the name and the signature of the doctor, all of his passports with immigration stamps, and verification from the governments where the candidate has resided, verifying that he did not, and does not, hold citizenship of these countries, and any other documents that certify an individual’s citizenship and/or qualification for office.
“To this date, in this regard, SOS has not carried out that fundamental duty.”
The case said a simple attestation from the candidate or his party isn’t sufficient.
“Historically, California Secretaries of State have exercised their due diligence by reviewing necessary background documents, verifying that the candidates that were submitted by the respective political parties as eligible for the ballot were indeed eligible. In 1968, the Peace and Freedom Party submitted the name of Eldridge Cleaver as a qualified candidate for President of the United States. The then SOS, Mr. Frank Jordan, found that, according to Mr. Cleaver’s birth certificate, he was only 34 years old, one year shy of the 35 years of age needed to be on the ballot as a candidate for President. Using his administrative powers, Mr. Jordan removed Mr. Cleaver from the ballot. Mr. Cleaver unsuccessfully challenged this decision to the Supreme Court of the State of California, and, later, to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Similarly, in 1984, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate Larry Holmes was removed from the ballot.
The “certificate of live birth” posted by the Obama campaign cannot be viewed as authoritative, the case alleges.

“Hawaii Revised Statute 338-178 allows registration of birth in Hawaii for a child that was born outside of Hawaii to parents who, for a year preceding the child’s birth, claimed Hawaii as their place of residence,” the document said. “The only way to know where Senator Obama was actually born is to view Senator Obama’s original birth certificate from 1961 that shows the name of the hospital and the name and signature of the doctor that delivered him.”

The case also raises the circumstances of Obama’s time during his youth in Indonesia, where he was listed as having Indonesian citizenship. Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, raising the possibility of Obama’s mother having given up his U.S. citizenship.

Any subsequent U.S. citizenship then, the case claims, would be “naturalized,” not “natural-born.”

“Based on all of the above, it is the duty of the SOS to obtain proper documentation of Senator Obama’s citizenship to confirm his eligibility for the office or the President of the United States,” the case said.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Alan Keyes fights like a crazed Tasmanian Devil, which is why he’s a really lousy campaigner, and other things of course as well, but the guy knows the law and constitution very very well.
Disregarding the Constitution will cause the collapse of rule by law. If the president doesn’t follow the Constitution none of us do either.
This is very serious and might well trigger a revolution or massive civil unrest.
From what I have heard on the radio, if Barack Hussein Obama is found ineligible to be President he is also ineligible to appoint a VP Candidate. The whole Presidential ticket on the Democrat side would be null and void. McCain would be President and Palin would be VP.
The nomination was pretty much a done deal by the time this issue got any legs even in conservative circles. Let’s face it: At first glance, this whole issue looks like something from a movie script, way far-fetched. But I have come to believe that he is definitely not a natural-born citizen, and quite possibly not a citizen at all. I think we citizens just assume that there’s someone somewhere in our great big government verifying the pesky little details like this, but if that’s the case, who is it? And what did Obama present? Why on Earth would he refuse and fight and obfuscate if he could merely produce valid documentation of his birth and be done with it? Answer: He would.
I believe this has exposed a gaping hole in our election system, a system that assumes no one would be so audacious as to try to pull off such a thing. But look at what he’s already pulled off. This man was just elected to president, and there’s no way he’d qualify for a low-level security clearance. I personally think that’s another gaping hole in the system. It should not be possible to rise to president when you’ve spent your adult life hanging out with terrorists, plain and simple.
Obama made it clear he wanted to take power immediately after the election. He has now created “The Office of the President-Elect”. While previous candidates who won the popular vote were incumbent Presidents, Obama has a different take on the matter.
If he gets away with this it will mean that Article II, Section I of The United States Constitution means nothing, that is scary!!!!!
Article II, Section I of the United States Constitution, states, in pertinent part, as follows:

“No Person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;”

Particularly telling is the fact that not one single person has come forward, not a doctor, not a nurse, not a hospital administrator, nor anyone else, to state that he or she was present during this birth, except for Obama’s paternal grandmother, who affirmed that she “was in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born Aug. 4, 1961.”
Additionally, when Mr. Berg served subpoenas on the hospitals mentioned above, Senator Obama refused to sign a consent form that would allow the hospitals to release any of his information. Instead, Senator Obama has hired three law firms to defend himself, and has challenged the action by Mr. Berg on a technicality, claiming that an ordinary citizen does not have standing to bring the suit.
If he was born in Hawaii, there are four (4) other obstacles to Senator Obama’s eligibility. In and about 1967, Senator Obama moved to Indonesia, took the last name of his stepfather, Soetoro, and went by the name Barry Soetoro. In original legal action filed by Mr. Berg, he presented Senator Obama’s school registration, showing him registered as Barry Soetoro, Citizenship-Indonesian, Religion Islam, signed by L. Soetoro. From 1945, Indonesia has not allowed dual citizenship and, therefore, Ms. Dunham-Obama-Soetoro, Senator Obama’s mother, had to relinquish her son’s U.S. citizenship in order to obtain Indonesian citizenship for him, which would make him ineligible to become a United States President.
Additionally, the United States could not allow dual citizenship with Indonesia at that time, as Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship, and it was prohibited by the Hague Convention of 1930, as interfering with the internal affairs of another sovereign Country. 81. In addition, upon return to the United States in and around 1971-1972, Senator Obama would have been required to go to the then current immigration procedures to regain his U.S. citizenship.
There is no record of him ever doing that. Even if he had done so, he would be considered a naturalized citizen and not a “natural born” citizen.
Additionally, assuming Senator Obama was born in what is now Kenya, at the time of Senator Obama’s birth in 1961, (now) Kenya was the British Protectorate of Zanzibar and Senator Obama was automatically accorded a form of British citizenship under Section 32(1) of the British Nationality Act of 1948, effective date January 28, 1949, based on his father’s citizenship.
Finally, in 1981, Senator Obama traveled to Pakistan, when there was a ban for U.S. citizens to travel to Pakistan. The only logical possibility for him to do so was by using one of his other passports: Indonesian, Kenyan, or British.
Based on all of the above, it is the duty of the SOS to obtain proper documentation of Senator Obama’s citizenship to confirm his eligibility for the office of the President of the United States.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.

.

American troops in Afghanistan through the eyes of a French OMLT infantryman
The US often hears echoes of worldwide hostility against the application of its foreign policy, but seldom are they reached by the voices of those who experience first hand how close we are to the USA. In spite of contextual political differences and conflicting interests that generate friction, we do share the same fundamental values – and when push comes to shove that is what really counts.
Through the eyes of that French OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams) infantryman you can see how strong the bond is on the ground. In contrast with the Americans, the French soldiers don’t seem to write much online – or maybe the proportion is the same but we just have less people deployed. Whatever the reason, this is a rare and moving testimony which is why I decided to translate it into English, so that American people can catch a glimpse of the way European soldiers see them. Not much high philosophy here, just the first hand impressions of a soldier in contact – but that only makes it more authentic.
Here is the original French article, and here is the translation : Translation done by to Jean-Marc Liotier.

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while – they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army – one that the movies brought to the public as series showing “ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”. Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent – from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine – they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them – we are wimps, even the strongest of us – and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland – everything here reminds of that : the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark – only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered – everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.

And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all – always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the ennemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later – which cuts any pussyfooting short.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is – from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Oh my gosh I love this write up, what a GREAT write up, awesome. I am so proud of our troops.
A big thank you to the French troops too!!
The photo at the top of the post can be found HERE if you would like to see more photos. They have put a lot of photos there.

….Thank you Tom for sending this to me.

.

Press Conference.

I know what it feels like to have our home surrounded with fomaes 100 plus feet high, choppers overhead and having to leave our home with only our animlas and a few items. It is like being in hell on earth.
Special prayers for all our friends in California that are a part of Theodore’s World. Fires are located in several areas in the State. And prayers for the firefighters they are heroes.
To all those in SCal, especially those either in the path of these fires or with family & friends in harm’s way, may God Bless you, Protect you & Comfort you!
Sylmar, Granada Hills, Porter Ranch, San Fernando Valley, Yorba Linda and Anaheim hills , Corona, and other areas.
The wind is 70 miles an hour at times.
The Santa Ana winds these past few days made it extremely dry hazardous conditions. The fire is creating tornado like conditions.
125 strike teams are there.
6 fixed wings
6 heavy helicopters
6 medium helicopters
According to Ken Vecchiarelli the Director Yorba Linda Water District, the Hidden Hills area of Yorba Linda has lost its water. The water pump station burned and is no longer functional. Trying to bring a replacement pump up from Laguna Hills canyon. Absolutely unbelievable and uncontrollable.

Obama Wants Israel Back to 1967 Borders
newmax
President-elect Barack Obama intends to pursue a Mideast peace policy that calls on Israel to revert to its pre-1967 borders in return for official diplomatic recognition by the Arab world.
A senior Obama adviser told the London Times that Obama will throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative that also has been endorsed by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the Arab League, and Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Under the plan:
* Israel would be able to veto the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948.
* Israel would restore the Golan Heights to Syria.
* Palestinians would be allowed to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.
According to the senior adviser, Obama has said privately that Israel would be “crazy” to reject such a plan, since it would “give them peace with the Muslim world.”

And this…….
“Obama’s Fictitious Pro-Isreal Team”

“…Let’s revisit Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emmanuel for a minute. In the early 90’s he was on of the people who helped financially put together Bill Clinton’s campaign. He gained tremendous influence in the White House from a group in Israel known as “Peace Now”. In other words, far leftists. They were the ones who engineered the Oslo process, and he (Emmanuel) personally was the one who orchestrated the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn in 1993.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
Israel National News suggests that if you like the Oslo process (which instead of granting Israel land for peace has left Israel in pieces), then Rahm Emmanuel is your man…”
Obama sure plans to throw Israel under the bus. The whole thing is a bad deal. Giving back the Golan heights is suicide.

….Thank you Mark for sending this article to me.

Barack Obama’s late grandmother remembered
By HERBERT A. SAMPLE
November 14th, 2008
11:59 p.m.
HONOLULU
AP
Madelyn Dunham, the late grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama, has been remembered as a strong, vibrant and dedicated woman.
About 150 friends, former co-workers and others paid their respects Friday at a 45-minute ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
Obama and his family did not attend.
Dunham was one of the first female vice presidents at the Bank of Hawaii. Former bank chairman Howard Stephenson says she trained most of the real estate professionals in Hawaii during her two-plus decades at the bank.
Dunham died Nov. 2, two days before Obama won the presidency. She and her late husband, Stanley, raised him from 1971 until he left Hawaii in 1979.

The Honolulu Advertiser
President-elect Barack Obama will visit Hawai’i in December to honor his grandmother “Toot,” who died two nights before the election, and to relax with his family before he takes the reins of the federal government in January.
It is not uncommon for funerals to be held more than a week after the death of a Hawai’i resident because of the time it takes for loved ones to fly to the Islands, said Jerry Andrade, funeral home manager of Borthwick Mortuary, which is handling Dunham’s arrangements.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
OK this is how cold Obama is. Ice in his veins cold. The women that made him what he is today … and he didn’t have the courtesy to attend her funeral. I guess he only went to Hawaiii to do some things about his birth certificate and then just said hi to make it look like he went there to see his grandmother under the bus. Remember how Michelle and the little girls never went to see her either, not on any of the two trips he made there during the campaign. They went off to shop or whatever instead, even though the whole family had gone to Hawaii.
Well this leaves one grandmother left for Obama. The Kenyan grandma says she witnessed his birth… in Kenya.

From an interview on Meet the Press on November 9, 2008.
Valerie Jarrett, Co-Chair of the Obama transition team states:
“Important for President-elect Obama to ‘begin to rule’ on day one.”

Obama Names Valerie Jarrett White House Senior Adviser
FOX news
President-elect Barack Obama is naming his longtime friend and supporter Valerie Jarrett to be his White House senior adviser.
Jarrett, who hired Michelle Obama for a job in the Chicago mayor’s office years ago, is one of the president-elect’s closest friends and advisers. Her name has been floated for several top administration jobs. But Obama settled on the senior adviser role, said a person close to the president-elect and willing to speak only on background because the decision has not been officially announced.
A White House senior adviser can handle a range of duties. President George W. Bush’s top political aide Karl Rove held the title in the current administration.
Jarrett has a background in real estate and politics in Chicago.

And this from my post on October 28th, 2008

“The ties between Dohrn and Barack and Michelle Obama may run deep. From 1984-1988, Dohrn worked at Sidley & Austin, a law firm, which is also where Obama and his wife Michelle worked and met. “For three years after law school, Michelle worked as an associate in the area of marketing and intellectual property at Chicago law firm Sidley and Austin, where she met Barack Obama,” the official Obama campaign website reports. But it says nothing about meeting or knowing Dohrn.”

Valerie Jarrett, was Michele Obama’s boss. She is now Obama’s chief advisor and he does not make any major decisions without talking to her first. Where was Jarrett born? Ready for this? Shiraz, Iran!
Valerie Bowman Jarrett (born 1956) is a Chicago lawyer, businesswoman, and civic leader. She is a senior advisor to 2008 Democratic U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Valerie Bowman was born in 1956 in Shiraz, Iran, about 570 miles south of Tehran. Her parents moved to Shiraz, known for its poets, wine and flowers, as part of a program that sent American doctors and agricultural experts to developing countries to help jump-start their health and farming efforts. Her father was on the staff of the brand new Nemazee Hospital, where Jarrett was born. “Every memory from Iran is a very happy memory,”
And there is also this………………
Obama Advisor Valerie Jarrett Linked to Real Estate Scandals
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents linking Valerie Jarrett, an advisor to Barack Obama and the co-chairman of the President-Elect’s transition team, to a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Illinois Secretary of State, Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama’s former boss.) Jarrett was a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation along with several Davis and Rezko associates, as well as the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis.
(According to press reports, housing projects operated by Davis and Rezko have been substandard and beset with code violations. The Chicago Sun Times reported that one Rezko-managed housing project was “riddled with problems — including squalid living conditions…lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.”)
As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama’s former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered “uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage…In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale — a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.” Ms. Jarrett refused to comment to the Globe on the conditions of the complex.

“Like Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett is a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine. And it is no stretch to say that she was a slumlord,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We have real concerns about Jarrett’s ethics. Washington already has plenty of corruption. We don’t need to import more of it from Chicago.”

Characterized as “the other side of Barack Obama’s brain” by CBS News, Jarrett first met the Obamas seventeen years ago when she offered Michelle Obama a job. While speculation has arisen that Jarrett could take Obama’s place in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times reported that it is more likely she will become a senior White House adviser, thus continuing her long record of being an important influence and mentor to Barack and Michelle Obama.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
Good grief, does Obama know anyone that is normal????
So from some of the other names I am hearing he is picking for different jobs, what Obama means by change is to hire most of Bill and Hillary’s past Clinton cabinet.

The Taliban Kidnap One of Their Own
The Weekly Standard
by Bill Roggio
As the security situation in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province continues to deteriorate, the Taliban are threatening to take control of Peshawar, the provincial capital. As the Taliban grow bolder, they have begun to target foreigners of all stripes. Even one of their own.
Today, two reporters, one from Newsweek, were shot in western Peshawar after they dodged a kidnapping attempt. Yesterday, the Taliban successfully kidnapped an Iranian consular official, in the same region. Two days prior, a U.S. aid worker and his driver were killed in another kidnapping attempt.
But the most curious kidnapping that occurred in Pakistan’s northwest has gone largely unreported. The Taliban kidnapped a Canadian journalist named Beverly Giesbrecht. CTV described Giesbrecht as “a Web magazine publisher in British Columbia who adopted the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar after converting to Islam after 9/11.”
What magazine does Giesbrecht/Qahaar write for? None other than Jihad Unspun, a pro-al Qaeda, pro-Taliban, pro-jihadi rag that describes terrorists as “Mujahideen” and Western forces as “Occupiers.” Jihad Unspun routinely posts translations of terrorist leaders.
Here’s how Giesbrecht/Qahaar “reflects” on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks (read the whole thing, it is much worse than this):

“This year, the seventh anniversary of the attacks on America fall within this blessed month of Ramadan providing us with a special opportunity to give thought to our current condition. Since America unleashed its hellfire on Afghanistan following the 2001 attacks, Muslims around the world have been killed, injured, detained, humiliated and demonized in a ceaseless war that America has loosely termed a “war on terror” but that has no specific definition or end.”

Giesbrecht/Qahaar recently joined the Taliban in the Mohmand so she could “eat breath and sleep with the Taliban in order to show the true face of those America’s calls ‘terrorists.'” She describes bombings in the region as follows:

“Over the next nine days, there were many other bomb blasts including attacks at the main bus terminal that killed dozens. For the record, while the Taliban were quickly blamed, neither the attacks on the power grids nor the bus terminal were Taliban operations. The power grid blasts were part of an ongoing royalty dispute with local villagers and the bus attack appears to be the work of foreign forces as the Taliban do not attack civilian targets.”

Of course, the Taliban never kill civilians.
So how does CTV describe Jihad Unspun to its readers? CTV clearly never went to the website. Instead they relied on a “friend” of Giesbrecht/Qahaar, who called it “an alternative source of news on the Islamic world.”
If alternative means pro-al Qaeda, then yes, that is correct. Shame on CTV for not telling its readers what kind of “publication” the kidnapped “journalist” runs.

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Wild Thing’s comment……….
This woman is obviously insane, crazy to the max. I do soooo hope she enjoys her membership to the Taliban. In fact she can stay there for the rest of her life however short that will be. I would rather have her belong to them then to be in our country.
Bye Bye

Prop. 8 protests could become national movement
SFGate
Outrage and anguish over the passage of Proposition 8 has spurred massive street protests throughout California, and leaders of the gay and lesbian community believe the backlash could spark an unprecedented nationwide push for gay rights.
Today, same-sex marriage supporters have planned simultaneous protests throughout California and in all 50 states, as well as cities in Canada, England and Australia.
The backlash after Tuesday’s vote has been enormous and wide-reaching. People and businesses have become targets of blacklists and boycotts.
People around the country were watching this very closely,” said Kellan Baker, a Washington, D.C., resident who is organizing today’s protest there. “For Californians to go to the ballot box to strip people of civil rights they had been enjoying is, I guess, the last straw.”
The boycotts and blacklists are affecting not only the political faces behind the Prop. 8 campaign, but also individual supporters.
Phillip Fletcher, a Palo Alto dentist who donated $1,000 to the campaign, is featured prominently on a Web site listing donors targeted for boycott. He said two of his patients already have left over the donation.

Wild Thing’s comment………..
LOL sorry about the photo, I just could not resist. hahahahaha
We had this on our ballot too and Florida big time does not want gay marriage. I was so glad. At least one thing good happened from this last election.