Shoot this girl's parents please

Dutch court rules against girl's solo sailing trip - CNN.com

(CNN) -- A Dutch court Friday ruled against letting a 14-year-old girl sail solo around the world, saying she is not experienced enough to make the trip on her own.

Laura Dekker would be allowed to travel from July 1 of next year if she fulfills certain requirements the court established for her to sail.

In August, Dutch authorities placed Dekker under state care for two months, following her parents' refusal to prevent her from undertaking the potentially dangerous voyage.

If my 14 year old daughter wanted to try to sail solo around the world I would like to think that I would have the backbone to say no. This isn't about letting someone make their own mistakes, it is about stopping your child from doing something so fucking stupid that they have a reasonable chance of not surviving.

RIP GOP?

The Last Days of the GOP - Page 1 - The Daily Beast

The most melodramatic turn in the fairy tale of “conservative financial expert” Doug Hoffman rising up on the shoulders of Republican celebrities such as Fred Thompson, Steve Forbes, and Dick Armey to contest the special election in the 23rd New York Congressional district against the regular Republican incumbent is that this is not a simple story about winning on Tuesday. No, this is a story about the sneaky takeover of the shabby GOP remnant by the most arrogant creatures in American politics, the Club for Growth and their fair-weather companions, the hungry Republican zombies.

Sadly, No. But a man can dream.

This really could be messy

The Hajj and H1N1: Pilgrimage During a Pandemic -- Politics Daily

By some estimates, the hajj is the single largest, annual gathering in the world; the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca attracts between 2 and 3 million visitors from all over the globe. But this year, officials are worried about several strains of H1N1.

In a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, researchers warned that measures would need to be taken to prevent outbreaks of H1N1 both during the hajj, which takes place Nov. 25-30 this year, and after, as travelers return to their home countries.

I had forgotten completely about this. Terrible timing and hopefully it will be OK.

I hope not, but I fear this might be the case

America's Next Unwinnable War - Page 1 - The Daily Beast

America’s unwise, unwarranted, and sadly unwinnable war in Afghanistan—hastily initiated and then abandoned for Iraq by President Barack Obama’s ideologically blinded predecessor and dumped into Obama’s lap in the worst possible way—is beginning increasingly to smell like the 1964-68 war in South Vietnam that swallowed up the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

It all sounds familiar. A powerless leader (whether Vietnam’s Diem or Afghanistan’s Karzai) with a corrupt family and little support in the countryside, who refuses to undertake the reforms (land, tax, electoral, and administrative) that the U.S. president tries to press upon him, therefore endangering the regime’s stability against the guerrilla extremists (once communists, now Taliban). Repeatedly changing U.S. commanders and initiating open-ended increases in U.S. forces, without a clearly definable goal, does not help. A military strategy of “clear and hold” usually lasts about a day.

By some ways of counting, we have already been at war in Afghanistan as long as in Vietnam

Things That Will Not End Well: Part 3422

Source: Afghan election talks break down - CNN.com

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his election opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, have broken down, a Western source close to the Afghan leadership told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Friday.

According to the source, Abdullah will likely announce this weekend that he will boycott the runoff presidential election slated for November 7, a runoff that had been scheduled after intense diplomatic arm twisting by the United States.

Oops

Navy ship accidentally fires on Polish port - CNN.com

Washington (CNN) -- A crew member aboard a U.S. Navy ship accidentally fired a machine gun into the Polish port city of Gdynia on Wednesday while cleaning the weapon, Navy officials said Friday

Someone with more experience than myself with automatic weapons can correct me on this but wouldn't the first thing that you would do when cleaning your weapon is make sure there it is empty?

Roadmap for America's Future

Rep Paul Ryan's Website

This website is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer and 800x600 resolution or higher

How to annoy about half of the viewing audience in one easy lesson.

I didn't know that anyone with a braincell still designed pages for one browser anymore.