Theodore's World

Kerry: U.N. ‘Food for Oil’ Plan Could End Terrorism

Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, in a landmark speech Sunday on the global dynamics of terrorism, said a ’strong United Nations’, working with ‘moderate Muslim leaders’ could save the world from terrorism if the West stops propping up Arab kingdoms by purchasing oil.
The senator proposed putting the French in charge of U.N. military operations, appointing a member of the Hamas Palestinian government to head the U.N. Human Rights Council, and “transitioning the Arab Middle East from an oil economy to an agricultural one, where lush, green acres replace the sand stretching out so far and wide.”
“Some say that terms like a ’strong U.N.’ and ‘moderate Muslim leaders’ are oxymorons,” said Sen. Kerry. “But that’s what they said about Democrat principles, liberal values and progressive think-tanks.”
Mr. Kerry, the presumptive runner-up for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination, proposed that the United States take the lead in funding his Arab agriculture initiative, dubbed “Food for Oil,” which promises to “beat drill bits into plowshares.”

Wild Thing’s comment….
Hanoi Kerry can keep his stupid opinion to himself! I love the “presumptive runner up”……haha.
A “strong United Nations“……oh man oh man
” Moderate Muslim leaders”……….they DO NOT EXIST!
“Democrat principles, liberal values and progressive think-tanks”……….a-hem Hanoi Kerry, Democrats do not have any principles and values either. As far as think tanks, they have no had any ideas, they only know how to mess things up, complain, whine, moan, lie, and complain some more.
Don’t you just know John Kerry has scientists working day and night to try to get cars to run on catsup?
Then we could have Food for Catsup ,
or Catsup for Oil,
or Money for Catsup,
or Money for Kerry.

Swords Into Plowshares



The United Nations garden contains several sculptures and statues that have been donated by different countries. This one is called “Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares” and was a gift from the then Soviet Union presented in 1959. Made by Evgeniy Vuchetich, the bronze statue represents the figure of a man holding a hammer in one hand and, in the other, a sword which he is making into a plowshare, symbolizing man’s desire to put an end to war and convert the means of destruction into creative tools for the benefit of all mankind.

I apologize for this long post, but I want to make sure to get all the information in as well as the photos for you to see.
OK I have a question. ( ??????) Last year this story came out on August 5th, 2005. I did not have a blog then and I saved it. I am posting it now, because of another article that came out today about this.
My quedtion is this……are these the same IED’s …only written about at different times? The stories are very similar in information.
Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says
August 5,2005
Iran Focus
New York Times

WASHINGTON – Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.
Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq’s vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say. The bombs feature shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. The design is crude but effective if the vehicle’s armor plating is struck at the correct angle, the experts said.
Since they first began appearing about two months ago, some of these devices have been seized, including one large shipment that was captured last week in northeast Iraq coming from Iran. But one senior military officer said “tens” of the devices had been smuggled in and used against allied forces, killing or wounding several Americans throughout Iraq in the past several weeks.
“These are among the most sophisticated and most lethal devices we’ve seen,” said the senior officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate intelligence reports describing the bombs. “It’s very serious.”
Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say
“The devices we’re seeing now have been machined,” said a military official who has access to classified reporting on the insurgents’ bomb-making abilities. “There is evidence of some sophistication.”
American officials say they have no evidence that the Iranian government is involved. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the new United States ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, complained publicly this week about the Tehran government’s harmful meddling in Iraqi affairs.

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And now here is the recent story dated March 6th,2006
EXCLUSIVE: Iraq Weapons — Made in Iran?
Intelligence Officials Say Weapons Responsible for Increasing U.S. Deaths in Iraq
ABC News

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.
They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops’ strongest armor.
What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures — certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.
“The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production,” says explosives expert Kevin Barry. “So it’s the same make and model.”
U.S. officials say roadside bomb attacks against American forces in Iraq have become much more deadly as more and more of the Iran-designed and Iran-produced bombs have been smuggled in from the country since last October.
“I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there,” says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. “I think it’s very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops.”
Very Lethal’
U.S. intelligence officials say Iran is using the bombs as a way to drive up U.S. casualties in Iraq but without provoking a direct confrontation.
John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Februrary 2, saying, ”
The U.S. Army has embarked on a crash effort to find ways to stop the bombs, according to an unclassified report issued last month. The devices are easily hidden and detonated by motion detectors — like those used in garden security lights — that cannot be jammed.
When exploded, the copper disc becomes a molten liquid bullet that can penetrate the thickest armor the United States has.
“They penetrate the armor of an M1 Abrams tank,” Clarke says. “They’re shape charges. They go through anything, and they are very lethal.”
There is currently no real defense against the weapons, he says.
“The Pentagon has a major crash study underway to figure out how to stop them,” Clarke says, “but they haven’t figured it out yet.”

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And now here are the photos….. there were no photos with last years story but there are this year.

Arrows show the impact of new, deadlier IEDs being used against the U.S. military’s armored vehicles in Iraq.

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The explosively formed projectile IEDs are designed to penetrate armored vehicles and are the most lethal insurgent weapon in Iraq.

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The bombs entail a casing, a high explosive and a liner and are generally a length of steel pipe. (ABC News)

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The explosives also can be made from plastic and tin cans, and the rear is sealed with a back plate or concrete.
(ABC News)

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This civilian vehicle was attacked by an explosively formed projectile IED on Jan. 18, 2006.

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Wild Thing’s comment….
Please pray every day for our troops, and every time you think of them during the day as well. Pray for their safety! When you are driving down the road and you feel safe in your vehicle with no bombs going off over your head pray for our troops. When you go in and out of a building and do not have to worry about bombs like they do in Israel, pray for our troops. When you take your children to school and do not have to make sure they know where the exits are to run for cover like they do in Israel, please pray for our troops safety. They have our six, they are fighting the most vile enemy in the world and they make sacrifices every day for all of us.

Iran Wants to Inspect Auschwitz
The government of Iran is seeking permission from the Polish government to conduct on-site inspections of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau as part of its so-called investigation into whether the Holocaust actually took place.
The Jewish Forward reports this week:
“With an international showdown fast approaching, Iran once again upset Jewish organizations and raised Western ire by questioning the Holocaust. This time, Iran proposed sending a team of investigators to conduct on-site inspections of Nazi concentration camps, in advance of a Tehran-sponsored conference to debate the ‘real scale of the Holocaust.'”
The plan was quickly rejected by Polish Foreign Minister Stefan Miller.
“Under no circumstances should we permit this,” Miller told the Polish press agency PAP. “This is beyond all imaginable norms that such a thing is discussed.”
The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum said in a statement that it would not allow Iranian experts to conduct their Holocaust investigation at the camp.
In recent months, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the accuracy of historical reports on the Holocaust, while at the same time calling for Israel to be “wiped of the map.”
Wild Thing’s comment…….
The very fact of their “investigation” is a desecration.

Thirty Six Years Ago Today on March 6th, 1970…….
Three members of the radical activist group known as the Weather Underground, Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins, blew themselves straight to hell.
The bomb they were making was intended to blow up a dance, a dance held at Fort Dix. Had they been better bomb-makers, instead of killing themselves, they would have killed an untold number of American soldiers. All in the name of peace.
The Weathermen’s hatred of the United States manifested itself in the bombings of the U.S. Capitol building, New York City Police Headquarters, the Pentagon, and the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C. The Weathermen’s leader, Bill Ayers summed up the Weathermen’s ideology as follows: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents.”

The Weathermen were radicals. They wanted their people to get involved, demonstrate, get arrested and force change down the throat of the “establishment.” They fought at the Democratic Presidential Convention in 1968 and converged in Chicago in 1969 for an event that came to be known as “Days of Rage.”
The more violent extremists during that era were responsible for a score of bombings in places like Harvard University, various corporate headquarters and a number of government institutions. They praised Charles Manson and freed Dr. Timothy Leary from prison. Wherever there was violence and chaos in the name of dissent, the Weathermen were there.

At a “War Council” in Flint, Michigan in 1969, their leader Bernardine Dohrn praised the serial murderer Charles Manson: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach. Wild.” She then proclaimed that the time had come to launch the war against “Amerikkka” (the Weathermen always spelled America this way) and to form a Weather Underground to carry out terrorist activities.
The Weathermen claimed credit for 25 bombings over the next several years. They set bombs at the rebuilt Haymarket statue; a bathroom at the Pentagon; the Capitol barber shop; the New York City police headquarters; and a variety of other targets.
Dohrn’s husband, Bill Ayers confessed that the bomb that killed the aforementioned Weather Underground members in New York was an anti-personnel weapon filled with nails and screws that would have killed or injured many at the Fort Dix dance. Ayers has recently, publicly acknowledged his feeling that his group should, in his opinion, have set off even more bombs.
Wonder where the Weathermen are today???
You only need only look to our Universities, Bar Associations, and, the ACLU. That’s right. The ACLU. The unrepentant Dohrn is currently a law professor at Northwestern University. She also serves on the Board of the American Civil Liberties Union and committees of the American Bar Association. Her husband, and co-leader of the Weathermen Bill Ayers, is now Professor of Education at the University of Illinois.
Dohrn, Ayers and other members of the Weather Underground are currently under investigation in connection with a police officer killed by a bomb in 1970.
If they are indicted, they will likely have some trouble finding a lawyer, Ramsey Clark is busy in Iraq, and Lynne Stewart, who has represented other members of the Weather Underground, was convicted of helping terrorists by smuggling messages of violence from one of her imprisoned clients — the radical Egyptian sheik behind the 1993 WTC Bombing– to his terrorist disciples on the outside.
Too bad for them because Lynne has been a strong supporter of terrorists since she began her career as a lawyer, Lynne loves representing terrorists of the home grown variety only slightly less than she likes representing the imported islamic variety.
On March 10, 2006, Lynne Stewart will be sentenced. You can help Lynne receive the maximum sentence allowed for her crimes against America but you gotta do it now, time is running out. You can make a difference. Click here.
Get this, unfreaking beliveable!!!!!!!!

Weather Underground member Susan Rosenberg, implicated in the Nyack robbery, and Linda Evans, at different times wanted on a number of criminal charges, were apprehended carrying 740 pounds of explosives in 1985. Both acknowledged that the explosives were to be used to carry out additional bombings. Rosenberg was given 58 years in prison, Evans 40.

President Bill Clinton, in two of a number of highly suspicious late-term pardons, pardoned both women.

* Something….and Half of Something

Department of Defense
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld poses with wounded troops participating in the Vail Veterans Program just before they begin their third and final day of skiing in the program at Vail, Colo. (Photo by Donna Miles)
Twenty-four servicemembers who lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan are here reaping the hospitality of a community first established by returning World War II veterans and to schuss down the slopes of this world-class ski resort.
The guests, all patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., along with their spouses or guests, are participating in the third annual Vail Veterans Program that kicked off March 1 and continues through March 5.
The all-expenses-paid program is hosted by Vail Mountain and the Vail community and gives wounded war veterans an opportunity to learn how to ski and snowboard, event organizer Cheryl Jensen said.

“For many of these veterans, the trip to Vail is their first adventure outside the hospital,” Jensen said. “This program is all about providing an inspirational experience that focuses on the abilities versus disabilities.”

Jensen said the experience is a huge confidence builder for young, athletic troops who are now learning to live with disabilities.
The event includes three all-day private ski and snowboard lessons through Vail’s Adaptive Ski Program. The program specializes in providing ski and snowboard classes for people with disabilities. Using specially modified ski equipment, including “outriggers” — poles with miniature skis attached to them for balance — the skiers are learning to maneuver through Vail’s slopes and trails.

“These servicemembers have been through a lot of trials and tribulations together, but this gives them the opportunity to experience something positive together as well,” Jensen said. “They’re a really wonderful group and have been tremendously supportive of each other.”

Countless volunteers and 25 local businesses and organizations are donating lodging, meals, lift tickets, ski equipment and personal time to make the grassroots effort a success. “Without the community, it just couldn’t happen,” Jensen said.
Participants arrived in Vail to a hero’s welcome from local elementary school children and are getting the red-carpet treatment during their stay. Tonight, guests will ride the gondola to the top of Vail Mountain for dinner at the Eagle’s Nest Restaurant, and tomorrow night, the Vail Fire Department will treat them to a homemade lasagna meal at the fire station.

“There is an unsaid promise to protect their families while they protect our freedom serving abroad,” said Craig Davis, president of the Vail Professional Firefighters Association. “Inviting the veterans to dinner at our home is the least we can do to pay tribute.”

Jensen introduced the Vail Veterans Program because she recognized the value it could bring to wounded veterans. “I knew what adaptive skiing can do for people with disabilities, especially people like these who are healthy and athletic,” she said. “Skiing can change their lives.”

One former participant told Jensen it had done just that for him. “That’s the inspiration for this program, to see that it can make a difference,” Jensen said.

Jensen called the program just one small way to show support for the troops. “They’ve all made tremendous sacrifices for us, and this is an opportunity to thank them,” she said.

Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce appeared unannounced last night, joining 24 servicemembers who lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan at the top of Vail Mountain for dinner at the Eagle’s Nest Restaurant. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived to cheer them on and congratulate them for their accomplishments.
He chatted one-on-one with the troops, posed for photos around the room and offered up encouragement and thanks to all.

“I’m having a blast!” said Army 1st Lt. Frank Washburn, a New York National Guardsman who lost the front half of his foot to an improvised explosive device near Samarra, Iraq, last May.

“This is the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been injured,” agreed Army Staff Sgt. Joe Kapacziewski. “It was awesome!” Kapacziewski received extensive leg and arm injuries in Northern Iraq while serving with the 3rd Ranger Battalion. While doctors were able to save his leg, 18 pins are holding it together as it heals.

“Completely exhilarating” was how Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Joseph Worley, a corpsman who lost most of his left leg in Fallujah, Iraq in September 2004 and has a fused right ankle, summed up his skiing experience through the program.

Army 1st Lt. Ryan Hollin, a below-the-knee amputee who was wounded in Balad, Iraq, agreed. “His coming here to support us physically shows that he appreciates our sacrifices,” he said. “It’s one thing to say you support the troops. But his actions show that he really means it.”

Wild Thing’s comment…….
I love it so much when things like this happen for your troops. They deserve to be thanked and appreciated so much.

Iran is asking for it big time



Iran Issues Warning Ahead of IAEA Meeting
VIENNA, Austria

Iran threatened on Sunday to embark on full-scale uranium enrichment if the U.N. nuclear agency presses for action over its atomic program, and a top U.S. diplomat warned the Islamic republic of possible “painful consequences.”
The comments came as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board prepared to meet Monday to discuss referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council, but delegates said whatever step the council might take would stop far short of sanctions.
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday there was an urgent need to confront Iran’s “clear and unrelenting drive” for nuclear weapons.
Iran “must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences,” Bolton told the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
But Iran’s government cautioned that putting the issue before the Security Council would hurt efforts to resolve the dispute diplomatically.
“If Iran’s nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed,” Iran’s top negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran. “If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path.”
He said Iran had exhausted “all peaceful ways” and that if demands were made contrary to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the nation “will resist.”
Larijani said Iran will not abandon nuclear research, or back down from pursuing an atomic program that Tehran insists has the sole purpose of generating electricity with nuclear reactors.
IAEA delegates suggested the U.N. agency’s board will not push for confrontation with Iran and said any initial decisions by the Security Council based on the outcome of the meeting will be mild.
They said the most likely action from the council would be a statement urging Iran to resume its freeze on uranium enrichment — an activity that can make both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads — and to increase cooperation with the IAEA’s probe of the Iranian program.
Even such a mild step could be weeks down the road.
Still, it would formally begin council involvement with Iran’s nuclear file, starting a process that could escalate and culminate with political and economic sanctions — although such action for now is opposed by Russia and China, which can veto Security Council actions.
Bolton said a failure by the Security Council to address Iran would “do lasting damage to the credibility of the council.”
“The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses,” Bolton said, “the harder and more intractable it will become to solve.”
Russia and China share the concerns of the United States, France and Britain — the three other permanent council members with veto power — that Iran could misuse enrichment for an arms program.
But both have economic and strategic ties with Tehran. While they voted with the majority of IAEA board members at a Feb. 4 meeting to alert the council to suspicions about Iran’s nuclear aims, they insisted the council do nothing until after this week’s IAEA meeting in Vienna.
Russia is unlikely to agree to strong action while it negotiates with Iran on a plan that would move Tehran’s enrichment program to Russian territory as a way of increasing international monitoring and reducing the chances for misuse in arms work.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due in Washington and New York this week to discuss the status of those talks with Bush administration officials and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Both Tehran and Moscow have said new talks are planned; diplomats in Vienna, who demanded anonymity in return for discussing the situation, said no dates had been set.

Algeria Frees Militants in Mass Pardon

ALGIERS, Algeria – Algeria freed a first group of Islamic militants Saturday after deciding to pardon or reduce sentences for more than 2,000 people detained during an insurgency in the 1990s.
Cries of joy rose up among families outside the two prisons on the outskirts of the capital, Algiers, when the prisoners were released.
As part of reconciliation efforts, the Justice Ministry announced this week that it would pardon or end legal proceedings for 2,100 convicted or suspected Islamic militants. Some 100 militants, convicted of more serious crimes, will have their sentences reduced.
The national reconciliation plan was overwhelmingly approved in a September referendum, an effort to turn the page on an insurgency that left 150,000 dead.
Critics say that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation seeks to whitewash years of agony and that releasing extremists and allowing them home from exile could plant the seeds for future violence.

Wild Thing’s comment……
Good grief! I just don’t get it, why on earth do something like this.

This is very dear to my heart. A wonderful friend of mine, Delftsman is not well at all. He is very sick and needs our prayers. From day one of my having a Blog he is one of the Bloggers that has been a true friend.
Read here of Delfts’ Situation

Please get well soon my very dear friend.

I am 5 months old as a blogger, and on the day of being 5 months old I received an email invitation from Beth at MVRWC. It was about the Cotillion (a group of women bloggers just loaded with smarts and fun)
Nothing against you wonderful hunkie male bloggers. You guys are the ones we love and adore, well most of you. A girl does have to be particular. Lots of applause there for sure!
She asked me if I would like to join their group. I was thrilled to say yes. Making friends online is always great and each person brings there own uniqueness. Thank you Beth.
I have been shopping and hope I am dressed for any non cut off jeans and T-shirt functions. (giggle)
Just say NO to the Oscars and everyone let’s meet at the Cotillion.

* MVRWC
* Cotillion

Air assault spearheads push to hurt insurgency in area south of Baghdad

MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq — Hundreds of soldiers poured out of helicopters before dawn Thursday morning and a large convoy kicked off Friday morning, spreading out troops into a patch of canal-laced farmland south of Baghdad that remains one of the last insurgent strongholds outside the capital city.
The air assault launched one of the largest operations in months and aims to secure a rural area where insurgents have operated for months, officials said. A steady string of roadside bombs and mortar attacks have inflicted casualties on U.S. troops in the restive region known as the “Triangle of Death.”
“This could be the final crushing blow for the anti-Iraqi forces in the Baghdad area,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, commander of the 101st Airborne’s 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment.
After a safe and secure landing, soldiers from the 1st Battalion came under repeated mortar fire Thursday in the blocking positions they set up around a large power plant on the Euphrates River, which insurgents have used as a base of operations.
Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion moved in early Friday and swept south toward the village of Sadr Yusufiyah, a cluster of ramshackle homes that U.S. troops also believe insurgents use to stage attacks on U.S troops and civilians in Baghdad, just 25 miles north.
Commanders opted for an air assault rather than sending vehicles through bomb-seeded roads avoided by U.S. forces in recent months.
One soldier from the 2nd Battalion was evacuated Friday after he was shot in the leg during a gunbattle. No other casualties were reported as of Friday afternoon.
Soldiers from 1st Battalion detained one man and also found a cache of a single mortar tube and several automatic rifles, U.S. troops said.
As U.S. soldiers came under fire, they responded with mortars and counter-battery artillery from nearby U.S. bases, said Maj. Fred Wintrich, the executive officer with 1st Battalion.
The operation in the rural areas marked a significant shift for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which spent much of the past week focusing on security operations in the urban centers to stem potential sectarian violence in the wake of last week’s bombing of a large Shiite shrine in Samarra.
The 101st Airborne’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team has faced one of the toughest fights in Iraq. The Fort Campbell, Ky.-based unit has seen 31 soldiers killed since arriving here in November.
The targeted area is thick with a mix of Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters. A Saudi Arabian man and several Iraqis were arrested last week after an Iraqi army unit found them carrying an anti-aircraft gun in their pick-up truck, officials said.
In keeping with the clear-and- hold strategy employed by U.S. troops in recent months, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion plan to set up a permanent patrol base in the village of Sadr Yusufiyah, officials said.
The insurgents’ attacks have fallen particularly heavy on the 1st-502nd’s Company B, which has lost six men and sent several others home with serious injuries since its arrival. Capt. John Goodwin, Company B commander, hopes this week’s assault will ease the daily attacks on the patrol bases and traffic checkpoints.
“We’ve kicked the hornets nest a few times already, now we are going to take a baseball bat and give it a good whack,” Goodwin said.