We started the show by talking about a rather extraordinary interview on Fox News Sunday with former CIA director Michael Hayden. Hayden and his three immediate predecessors, along with Obama’s pick for CIA Director Leon Panetta, ALL OPPOSED releasing the Bush files on nterrogation techniques. As Hayden said, the President made a different decision.
The release of these documents is nothing more than a bone to the angry left. It is a political gesture at the expense of national security. That’s not my opinion, but that of the past five CIA Directors, starting with Obama’s own.
Yes, change has come to America.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
Tonight, Bruce told us about an incident from earlier this month in Afghanistan that was reported by the New York Times in a story titled Turning Tables, U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban With Swift and Lethal Results,
Fight by fight, the infantryman’s war in Afghanistan is often waged on the Taliban’s terms. Insurgents ambush convoys and patrols from high ridges or long ranges and slip away as the Americans, weighed down by equipment, return fire and call for air and artillery support. Last week a patrol from the First Infantry Division reversed the routine.
An American platoon surprised an armed Taliban column on a forested ridgeline at night, and killed at least 13 insurgents, and perhaps many more, with rifles, machine guns, Claymore mines, hand grenades and a knife.
The one-sided fight, fought on the slopes of the same mountain where a Navy Seal patrol was surrounded in 2005 and a helicopter with reinforcements was shot down, does not change the war. It was one of hundreds of firefights that have occurred in the Korangal Valley, an isolated region where local insurgents and the Americans have been locked in a bitter stalemate for more than three years.
But as accounts of the fight have spread, the ambush, on Good Friday, has become an emotional rallying point for soldiers in Kunar Province, who have seen it as a both a validation of their equipment and training and a welcome bit of score-settling in an area that in recent years has claimed more American lives than any other.
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
It is always a pleasure to get the opportunity to talk with Patti Patton Bader about her amazing group of Soldiers Angels. Soldiers Angels has become a global organization of volunteers who give backs in all kinds of ways, large and small, to the men and women in uniform.
A great example of their impact came through the story of Kevin Dupont from Chicopee, MA. Kevin is a 52-year old Army National Guard soldier who volunteered to go to Afghanistan. Kevin was severely injured in an IED explosion while riding in a humvee. He has suffered expensive burns and he is fighting for life at US Army Burn Center at Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. Kevin’s friend, a Mass. State Police Sgt., emailed us about his situation. We invited him into the studio to tell us about Kevin. During one of the commericals, the Trooper tells me about all the Soldiers Angels at Brooke Army Hospital in TX and how they have reached out to the Dupont family. I was not surprised at all.
There is a charitable foundation set up to support Kevin’s long road to recovery. Here is the contact information.
Blue Skin Foundation
256 Doyle Road
Holden, MA 01520
As for Soldiers Angels, Patti told us she has more than 700 soldiers waiting to be “adopted”. What does that mean?
When you adopt you are committing to sending a card or letter each week, and a minimum of 1 or 2 care packages a month. This is one of the most important things that can be done to help bring home a healthy hero; it is so very important for each of them to know they are loved and supported, and your letters and care packages prove just that.
Care packages do not have to be expensive: you can put together your own (we have a detailed list of the most-requested items for you–snacks, hygiene products, and games or magazines). We have also have some exciting themed care packages in the Angel Store (they are sold at cost and shipped directly to your soldier, complete with a personal note from you).
To learn more about Soldiers Angels, visit them online at SoldiersAngels.org
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
Great job Frank McCourt and the LA Dodgers! We’ve said before, when you lay down with dogs…this is what you get.
ESPN: Manny ponders Cleveland reunion
Manny Ramirez is already yearning for the old days — of Cleveland.
Ramirez, who early last month signed a two-year, $45 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, says a return to the Cleveland Indians before retirement would be ideal.
“I would like to play for Cleveland one more time, to go back where I started,” Ramirez told USA Today. “I have so many good memories there, why not?
“I think to go back where you started is everyone’s dream.”
Manny Ramirez has played exactly 0.021% of his two-year contract (7 out of 324 games) and he is already talking about the next team he would like to play for? What a stand-up guy. Such respect for his employer. Stay classy Manny. We expect nothing less from you!
It’s not April Fools Day. The following story did not come from The Onion but the AP, so I’ll have to assume this isn’t a joke,
AP: Obama looks at climate engineering
The president’s new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth’s air.
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
“It’s got to be looked at,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”
…But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air—making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested—could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said.
Still, “we might get desperate enough to want to use it,” he added.
Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide—the chief human-caused greenhouse gas—out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said.
We don’ have enough problems? Now Obama wants to play God and control the weather? Is he also President of the Sun?
Scientists in the Land of the Rising Sun have concluded that it is the sun itself that is the major cause of Global Warming, not man.
I know, it is shocking that the Sun may play a role in global temps. If that wacky possibility is true, then we may be in for the opposite of Global Warming,
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
So for, the science seems to back this up. The Sun might actually have something to do with it!
University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Dr. John Christy’s 10-year chart of Global Temps
Does Obama really believe he can control the earth’s temperature? What’s he going to do about the lack of solar activity, give the Sun a hug? Ask what its grievances are and then apologize to it on our behalf?
God help us. On second thought…