Sunday, December 8, 2013
South Korea announces expanded air defense zone
The new South Korean zone includes a submerged rock embroiled in territorial disputes with China.
After requesting that China redraw its expanded air defense zone, South Korea announced Sunday that it was extending its own zone.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea on Sunday announced expansion of its air defense zone following China's move to establish a similar zone that has been criticized by Beijing's neighbors.
South Korea earlier requested China to redraw its air defense zone because it partly overlaps with South Korea's but Beijing rejected it. The U.S., Japan and other countries have also protested the Chinese zone.
Beijing said last month that all aircraft entering the vast area must identify themselves and follow Chinese instructions. U.S. and Japan have flown military reconnaissance flights in the area without notifying China in defiance of Beijing's announcement.
The new South Korean zone includes a submerged rock embroiled in territorial disputes with China and enlarged parts of airspace that is also covered by the Chinese zone. The new South Korean zone also overlaps with parts of the Japanese air defense zone.
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By Associated Press
Pearl Harbor ceremony marks bombing anniversary
Pearl Harbor survivors watch a vintage WWII airplane fly over Pearl Harbor at the ceremony commemorating the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 2013, in Honolulu.
Thousands gathered on the 72nd anniversary of the attack that pulled the US into World War II.
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — About 2,500 gathered at Pearl Harbor on Saturday to remember those killed in the 1941 Japanese attack that launched the U.S. into World War II.
The crowd observed a moment of silence at 7:55 a.m., the minute the bombing began 72 years ago.
A vintage World War II-era airplane — a 1944 North American SNJ-5B — flew overhead to break the silence. The Hawaii Air National Guard has used its fighter jets and helicopters to perform the flyover for many years, but federal budget cuts prevented it from participating this year.
About 50 survivors returned to Pearl Harbor for the ceremony.
"I come back to be with my comrades — meet the ones who are still alive, and we're going fast," said Delton Walling, who was assigned to the USS Pennsylvania at the time of the attack.
Pearl Harbor ceremony marks bombing anniversaryAP Photo: File The destroyer USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.
The Navy and National Park Service co-hosted the ceremony, which was open to the public. Their theme for the event, "Sound the Alarm," explores how Americans answered a call to duty in the wake of the attack.
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By Audrey McAvoy of Associated Press
Sarah Palin weighs in on the minimum wage debate. As ignorantly as possible.
Of course the comparison is somewhat misleading because though base pay for an E1 Recruit can be as low as $16,168 a year, there are other monetary compensations such as a housing allowance, hardship duty pay, assignment incentive pay, hazardous duty incentive pay, and hostile fire/imminent danger pay.
Not to mention that a recruit essentially enters the military as an unskilled worker whose room and board is provided for him as he learns the skills necessary to achieve competency in his job.
I have never heard of McDonald's letting their fry cooks sleep in the restaurant at night and eat for free.
However let me simply say that I think that those in the military deserve a pay raise as well. (They also deserve to not have their paychecks interfered with, a fact that did not seem to bother Palin and her fellow Teabaggers when they shut the government down for two weeks earlier this year.) Yet the fact that they do not yet have one does nothing to change the fact that people are underpaid in this country, in a variety of occupations, and that our country's economy would be dramatically improved if they were paid a more reasonable wage.
So this graphic may make conservatives, and Sarah Palin, feel justified in arguing against paying low wage earners more money, but all it really does is demonstrate that there are many lines of work where the compensation is inadequate.
But hey at least Palin did not slap a SarahPAC logo on the graphic so that she could benefit momentarily from the soldiers who she claims to support. Small favors and all that.
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With the Affordable Care website up and running the pro-Obamacare forces go on the offense.
Next week, a number of celebrities will join in an effort organized by an independent group to boost enrollment on the online exchanges, said a person familiar with the plan, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. An advertising blitz will begin in January after the holiday season has ended, said the person.
Scarlett Johansson, Aisha Tyler, and Gabrielle Union have recorded phone messages that Planned Parenthood is using to promote enrollment. Actresses Lena Dunham of “Girls” and Elizabeth Banks of “Hunger Games” posted Twitter messages to promote a Planned Parenthood Internet town hall this week on Obamacare.
In addition, Planned Parenthood, which provides health services to women, will “ramp up significantly” its efforts to promote enrollment in January, deploying hundreds of staff members with a goal of contacting a half-million people in Texas, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, said Rachel Fleischer, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Enroll America, an advocacy group with close ties to the White House, plans more than a thousand events across the country to promote coverage during the first three weeks of December, a 40 percent increase from the same period in November, said Justin Nisly, a spokesman.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, sent statements to the hometown news media of 60 Republican lawmakers who have previously voted to repeal Obamacare, criticizing them for benefits that would be eliminated.
The Republicans response to this, now that the website no longer affords offers them an example to use for their attack, is to cherry pick news of people having to pay higher premiums for coverage that is now more comprehensive than their old coverage, or which reflects the fact that the governors of their state did not work with the administration to expand Medicaid or put state sponsored health care exchanges in place.
That sort of makes the tactic of sending statements to the local press in those states reminding them that their conservative politicians may be responsible for why the program is not working in their community, and that they also voted to strip their constituents of the benefits that ARE working, kind of brilliant.
And let me just say, as a red blooded male, that NOTHING the Republicans can come up with is going to stand a chance against a message on my phone from Scarlett Johansson telling me that enrolling IS a good idea.
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Colin Powell calls for universal health care in America.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said universal health care should be available to all Americans. He was speaking at a charity event for prostate survivors in Seattle.
Powell told the audience that countries in Europe, Canada and South Korea offer universal, single-payer health care and said he often asks why the United States has not implemented the same system.
"Whether it's Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don't care," Powell said. "As long as we get it done."
Powell, a retired four-star general, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and credits his survival to the universal health care provided by the United States military.
Sharing health stories with the audience about his wife, Alma, and a neighbor, Powell said he and his wife have never worried about whether their health care would bankrupt them. He contrasted his experience with his neighbor, Anne, who cannot afford the MRIs to identify tumors in her brain before doctors will operate on her. Powell said she has health insurance, but it does not cover MRI imaging. He said she was out of work and he gave her the funds three weeks ago to receive treatment.
"We are a wealthy enough country," Powell said, "with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care."
Son of Obamacare. Sounds like a good deal to me.
I have the hardest time forgiving Colin Powell for allowing himself to be used by the Bush administration to sell the Iraq war, but if he keeps on talking sense like this I may have to start trying.
Of course single payer universal health care is the best option for our country, and if Americans would stop allowing themselves to be frightened by the Right Wing scare tactics we could be enjoying its benefits today.
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Sarah Palin walks among the faithful at the Billy Graham Library.
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| Photo courtesy of Facebook |
Meeting old friends! Charlie and his family met the Palins during the ’08 campaign and during the 2009 “Going Rogue” book signing event in The Villages, FL. They met again during a book signing event for Governor Palin’s new book, “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” on Friday, December 6, 2013, at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Look Palin found the one Down Syndrome boy in the crowd to get her picture taken with.
Of course it is the same Down Syndrome boy she had her picture taken with in 2009.
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| Photo also courtesy of Facebook |
Palin visited the Billy Graham Library for a tour and a signing of her recent book release, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.
“I certainly recognize there is a war on Christmas that’s being waged—it seems—in our culture right now,” she said. “The true meaning of Christmas, of course, is Christ’s birth. I wanted to write this so that people realize that they can proudly and boldly proclaim the true meaning of Christmas.”
In 2010, Palin and some of her family members travel to Haiti, where they visited a Samaritan’s Purse cholera clinic and help distribute Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. In 2009, Palin visited Billy and Franklin Graham at Mr. Graham’s Montreat home in the North Carolina mountains.
Today, she finally had the chance to visit the place the bears the name of one of her spiritual heroes.
“Billy Graham changed the world because he has allowed Christ to shine right through him. People would listen to him and could receive his message,” said Palin, who attended Mr. Graham’s 95th birthday party last month in Asheville, N.C. “He so capitalized—in a good way—on the favor that God gave him to do the Lord’s will and to do the Lord’s work.”
“I am happy to be here at the Billy Graham Library today. I had no idea it was this amazing. It reflects the fact that it was not about Billy Graham. His ministry is truly about the Gospel, and this facility reflects that.”
You know I used to joke that someday Palin would walk away from politics altogether and start her own church, and follow in the tradition of the Jerry Falwells, Billy Grahams, and Jimmy Swaggerts that came before her. And more and more it looks like that may not have been such a joke after all.
At least if she did that she could afford better wigs.
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| Palin mingling with Samaritan's Purse volunteers |
She is a talentless has been, whose looks are rapidly deteriorating, and whose family has come to rely on her to pay their bills. So what options does somebody like her have left?
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