Imagine if they studied Conservative versus Liberal?  Another gap like that 'income' one they always whine about (eschewing numbers must make one, less happy, it seems...), albeit would be like comparing the Great Divide to the Governators smile.

Happiness Is ... Being Old, Male and Republican

By Robert Roy Britt,

Americans grow happier as they age, surveys find. And a new Pew Research Center survey shows the tendency is holding up as the economy tanks.
As if!  ...you needed another reason.  Eat, drink and be happy my friends, but when all else fails just do the latter.

My intent is to continue this as a constant thread, occasionally posting interesting items  to clear up confusion on the liberation of Iraq and the War on Terror.  I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to it so I hope it's not disappointing to those who do.  In an attempt to keep short attention spans in check, I've limited it to mostly short video clips where possible and short excerpts from news sources:


1.  War Debate:  Perhaps not the most comprehensive, but very effective debate on the Iraq war by one of the most ardent supporters and authority, Christopher Hitchens.  Interestingly, Prof. Hitchens was influential in lobbying then President Bush to engage Iraq under the larger War on Terror.  Multiple parts, I urge everyone to give it a listen:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBj40CLQ4w


2.  Leaders and the War on Terror, an attempt at truth versus politics: 

Al Gore:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chn1qAn1f3w

Al Gore:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h6gehCPvpk&NR=1

Bill Clinton:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAV_UoIfgc

Hillary Clinton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyC7loMop58

Harry Ried: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYZEGot-xU4

Karl Rove:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBcTG5T-fE0

Pres. George Bush (preparations for a long war in Iraq and reasons for war):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkOCIfNQXP0&feature=related

Nancy Pelosi (claiming "imminent threat" was reason for invading Iraq?):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyB_ldDMmFE

More on leadership:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p-qIq32m8&feature=related


3.  Al Qauda on Obama vs. Bush

a)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AXsqMiDdPE

b)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cITzJQnMhl0&feature=related


4.  Iraq, Russia and France - Food for Oil Scandal


Washington Times

The U.N. Oil for Food scandal

By | Originally published 10:14 p.m., March 21, 2004, updated 12:00 a.m., March 22, 2004

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry complains that President Bush pursued a unilateralist foreign policy that gave short shrift to the concerns of the United Nations and our allies when it came to taking military action against Saddam Hussein. But the mounting evidence of scandal that has been uncovered in the U.N. Oil For Food program suggests that there was never a serious possibility of getting Security Council support for military action because influential people in Russia and France were getting paid off by Saddam. After the fall of Baghdad last spring, France and Russia tried to delay the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and continue the Oil for Food program. That's because France and Russia profited from it: The Times of London calculated that French and Russian companies received $11 billion worth of business from Oil for Food between 1996 and 2003.

Most disturbing are Iraqi records that suggest Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Oil for Food office, received a voucher for 11.5 million barrels of oil from Saddam's manipulation of the program -- enough to yield a profit of between $575,000 and $3.5 million.

It's interesting to compare the oil for food scandal with those opposed to military intervention:

Weapons inspections may be extended

January 25 2003

The Bush administration is weighing the option of extending UN weapons inspections in Iraq in an effort to placate European allies and Russia. A decision will be based on whether the inspections are productive, a senior US official said today.

The inspectors are due to report to the UN Security Council on Monday after two months of searches. So far, they have turned up few of the thousands of weapons the administration insists Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has concealed.

If the inspectors disclose new evidence on Monday, that would influence a decision to keep hunting for illicit weapons of mass destruction, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Vienna, a spokesman for UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency said director Mohamed ElBaradei will give Iraq "quite satisfactory" grades in the report.

France, Germany and Russia have been urging that the inspectors be given more time and have been arguing that any attack on Iraq be deferred.
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German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said today there was "growing support" in Europe for Germany's opposition to war in Iraq. "I will not give up this basic position," Schroeder said after conferring with Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreeing the inspectors should have more time.

After briefings on Capitol Hill yesterday from US secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, senator Richard Lugar, said he thought inspections would be continued.

Two key lawmakers, meantime, continued to urge President George W Bush to resolve the situation diplomatically.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, warned today against a "rush to war in the absence of a strong multilateral coalition". And senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said: "We have yet to see any evidence that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction."

At the White House, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush considers the failure of Iraq to make its scientists fully available to UN inspectors "unacceptable".

Fleischer said Saddam's conduct will make "the end of the line come even closer. His refusal is further evidence that Iraq has something to hide."

The presidential spokesman said Saddam "has an obligation to comply" with every provision of last November's United Nations resolution that sent weapons inspectors back to Iraq. The resolution included a requirement that Saddam make scientists available for unfettered interviews.

"This is not a matter for negotiation. This is not a matter for debate. Saddam Hussein has no choice," Fleischer said, saying Bush wants Saddam to fully comply "without delay and without debate".

"President Bush believes that Iraq's refusal to allow Iraqi scientists to submit to private interviews with UN inspectors is unacceptable," Fleischer said.

The strong words came as European opposition to an attack on Iraq appeared to be growing - opposition that includes Russia, Germany and France - despite Powell's offer for a fresh UN debate on using force.

5.  Reasons for War:


USA TODAY

WMD not only reason

We went to war for several reasons:

• Addressing Congress after 9/11, President Bush declared that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Iraq was a state sponsor of terror and openly supported suicide bombers.

• In 2002, the U.N. Security Council unanimously found Iraq in violation of 16 prior resolutions about disarming. Iraq repeatedly fired on U.S. and coalition planes patrolling the "No Fly Zones" that protected Iraqis from Saddam. The president acted only when it became clear that the U.N. would not pass another resolution or take action to enforce previous resolutions supported by the past three U.S. presidents.

• President Bush often cited Saddam's murder of hundreds of thousands. Saddam used WMD against Iraq's Kurds and invaded Kuwait.

In February 2003, before troops set foot in Iraq, the president stated: "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions."

Moreover, the joint resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq — which 77 senators of both parties voted for — explicitly cited Saddam's support for terrorism, his repeated violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, his brutality against his own people, and the promotion of democracy as justifications for the use of military force.

Coalition forces did not find WMD. That in no way minimizes the threat Saddam posed. Weapons inspector David Kay testified that Iraq "certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their programs." As his successor, Charles Duelfer, later explained, Saddam was purposefully gaming the sanctions system with the intent of restarting his weapons programs when the world looked away.

The WMD intelligence was wrong, and the president has acknowledged that. But it is equally wrong to ignore the threat Saddam posed. The world is safer today because Saddam is no longer in power.

J.D. Crouch is deputy national security adviser to the president.

6.  No WMD's ever found in Iraq:  Debunking the myth:

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

Thursday, June 22, 2006

WASHINGTON--

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

The release of the declassified materials comes as the Senate debates Democratic proposals to create a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. The debate has had the effect of creating disunity among Democrats, a majority of whom shrunk Wednesday from an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to have troops to be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of next year.

At the same time, congressional Republicans have stayed highly united, rallying around a White House that has seen successes in the last couple weeks, first with the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the completion of the formation of Iraq's Cabinet and then the announcement Tuesday that another key Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, "religious emir" Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was also killed in a U.S. airstrike.

Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a claim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.

"This is an incredibly — in my mind — significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.

• Click here to read the declassified portion of the NGIC report.

---
...to be continued.

I was never in the camp that illegals have any more a severe effect on crime than any other demographic, citizens or otherwise.  I preferred to consider it a matter of sovereignty over a cultural divide or criminal one.  However, these numbers are hard to ignore, so much so that a repositioning and serious political response might be in order.  I urge voters to consider this carefully and without condemnation of race or creed, be open to the facts and concern about immigration and crime in America.  (underlined emphasis added below)

America's Most Dangerous Cities

by Zack O'Malley Greenburg
Friday, April 24, 2009

In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe--he was the mayor of Detroit.

Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

"Detroit has, historically, been one of the more violent cities in the U.S.," says Megan Wolfram, an analyst at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems, a Maryland-based risk-assessment firm. "They have a number of local crime syndicates there--a number of small gangs who tend to compete over territory."

Detroit was followed closely on the list by the greater Memphis, Tenn., and Miami, Fla., metropolitan areas. Those three were the only large cities in America with more than 950 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people.

Behind the Numbers

To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

Though nationwide crime was down 3.5% year over year in the first six months of 2008, the cities atop our list illustrate a disturbing trend: All 10 of the most dangerous cities were among those identified by the Department of Justice as transit points for Mexican drug cartels.

Run by crime lords like Joaquin Guzman Lorea, these gangs--and their violent turf wars--are spreading into the American Southwest and beyond. Places like Stockton, Calif., nearly 500 miles from Tijuana, have seen an uptick in related violent crime.

"Stockton is a major transit point along the I-5 corridor on the way to Seattle and Vancouver," says Wolfram. "A lot of it is similar to crime happening in the Southwest. For the most part, it's drug gang on drug gang."

Motown Blues

The situation in Mexico has escalated in recent years, but Detroit has been dealing with the same problems for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, the population of Detroit proper swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

Only half that number still lives within city limits. Starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency. Residents fled to the suburbs and to other regions of the country entirely, leaving behind a landscape littered with abandoned buildings.

"Factories that once provided tens of thousands of jobs now stand as hollow shells, windows broken, mute testimony to a lost industrial past," wrote Thomas J. Sugrue in his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis. "Whole sections of the city are eerily apocalyptic."

Detroit isn't the only city on the list that's suffering from abandonment issues.

In Las Vegas, Nev., for example, the housing boom created loads of excess inventory. When the market tanked, homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with. As a result, Sin City is even emptier than Detroit.

"Detroit has trouble showing improvement in its crime rate because dedicated, desperately needed and appropriate resources are not invested in public safety. Painfully, it is not a priority," says Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney Kym L. Worthy. "I wish that those with the resources would view domestic terrorism like they do terrorism across the water. It used to be that we were keeping our head above water and treading quickly. Now we are drowning, and no one seems to really care. All they tell me to do is cut some more."

Few Signs of Improvement

Making matters more difficult, as municipal budgets shrink during this recession, crime-fighting funds are often among the first casualties.

"There's less public spending during downturns," says Wolfram. "Police departments and incarcerations systems are tough to fund."

The news has been bad for decades, but there may yet be hope for Detroit. The city's new mayor, Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr., assumed office on Sept. 19, 2009--and hasn't committed a single felony.

Top 5 Most Dangerous Cities:

No. 1 Detroit, Mich.

(Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,951,186

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 1,220

No. 2 Memphis, Tenn.

(Memphis, Tenn.-Miss.-Ark. metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,295,670

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 1,218

No. 3. Miami, Fla.

(Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 2,401,971

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 988

No. 4 Las Vegas, Nev.

(Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 1,834,533

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 887

No. 5 Stockton, Calif.

(Stockton, Calif., metropolitan statistical area)

Population: 684,406

Violent Crimes per 100,000: 885

To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--with more than 500,000 residents.

Click here for the full list of America's Most Dangerous Cities.

My hat's off to President Obama for being on the right side of this issue.  Yet another reason for the first lady to be proud of America once again and I share that pride.  Make no mistake my friends, these latest developments are another example of the conservative understanding of United States as a world leader and a force for good.  But, I am no fool, spin is surely to follow and some is included in the article below, a "resistance is futile" French-like approach to surrender first.  As a realist one would expect some of this however, it does not diminish the point, America leads the world in its approach to terrorism in all its forms and this is one of many examples of other nations following as a direct result of our example.  God Bless America and our nations military.   

Cruise ship fends off pirate attack with gunfire

by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI AND NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer Rukmini Callimachi And Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer – Sun Apr 26, 2:44 pm ET (Follow link for the complete story)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy