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POPSA letter to the Mail
It is just over thirty years since Sgt Ray Beamish 1st Fld Reg RhA, and others were murdered by terrorists they were 'converting', much against what the mass of voices were screaming silently from within Army itself. It was in 1964 that the police in Aden city turned their guns on the Brits soldiers and were 'put down' by 45 Commando and the Gordons. Yesterday 5 more young men, and probably more, were gunned down by a rogue policeman and Brown still waffles out his venal apologies to the Nation, and his supporters swallow it hook line and sinker. In N. Ireland the situation is as desperate as when I stood the barricades exactly 40 years ago, and everyone tells how much improved it all is. Get real. The only thing that has happened is that far too many Brits have died, the taxpayer has forked out billions to immoral politicians, both here and abroad, bankers have got richer and politicians haven't the slightest notion of why they have got us into so much doodoo. The question I want an
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POPSControl Arms Campaign Pipedream. Until you change the attitude of all those people who want to rule other people, or to kill other people for whatever reason, not one treaty will ever work. I would love to live in a world where guns would never be used against another person. But, as I said, it’s a pipedream.
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POPSMassachusetts Resident Charged With Plotting Jihad in U.S.
. . booked at the Sudbury police station before being turned over to federal authorities. Federal agents have searched Mehanna’s home and say he is a U.S. citizen. A bail hearing has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in federal court. Abousamra left the United States for Syria on Dec. 26, 2006, officials said. He said he would be back within a month after visiting his wife, but has never returned, officials said. The plot included plans to fire at emergency responders, but was abandoned because the men could not obtain the weapons, authorities said. They declined to name the mall or mallsthe men were targeting. Automatic weapons may be more of a challenge, but if you can’t get your hands on guns, even in Massachusetts, you aren’t trying hard enough. It looks like the kind of bust that, during the Bush years, some people would have considered a joke. You don’t hear the sneering anymore. Instead, people behave and talk as though the threat is dated, passe, no longer a concern.
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POPSWeapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight
A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war. Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. "It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn't work correctly," he said. Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4, aren't new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than 3,000 rounds before any failures occur. The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.
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POPSRemebering the roots of a REAL Civil War
More: After decades of mistrust and recrimination over the conflict between slavery and free labor, many in the North and South now found themselves even more fundamentally at odds. As Northerners increasingly hailed Brown as a hero, panicky Southerners execrated him as the devil himself. The tempest over John Brown appeared to shatter any hope of regional reconciliation. As one South Carolina editor put it, "The day of compromise is passed there is no peace for the South in the Union." It would be too much to claim that John Brown's raid made the Civil War inevitable. But it is fair to say that it helped to create an unbridgeable gap between the free states and the slave power that could only be, as Brown himself put it, "purged away with blood." There are many lessons that can be drawn from John Brown's raid, but the experience of the Civil War ought to stand as a permanent rebuke to the irresponsible incitement of contemporary political figures who trade so easily
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POPSBrother, Can You Spare A Dime? Written by: Edgar "Yip" Harburg(1) Published by: , © 1932 Man I know the feeling of this song so well...right now I'm behind in my Electric bill and Internet-TV-phone (those Comcast fuckers who overcharge and get ya by the balls) and have been begging relatives for $$....SSI ($674/mo.) just doesn't cut it for basic bills.
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POPSU.S.Troop Funds $2.6 Billion Taken From Guns and Ammunition For "Pet Projects"
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, called the transfer of funds from Pentagon operations and maintenance "a disgrace." "The Senate is putting favorable headlines back home above our men and women fighting on the front lines," he said in a statement. RELATED STORIES: • Michigan town lobbies for Gitmo transfers • Top Treasury posts stay empty in financial crisis • VA Dept. hospitals botched treatments Mr. Wheeler, who conducted the study, compared the Obama administration's requests for funds with the $636 billion spending bill that the Senate passed. He discovered that senators added $2.6 billion in pet projects while spending $4 billion less than the administration requested for fiscal 2010, which began Oct. 1. Mr. Wheeler said that senators took most of the cash for the projects from the "operations and maintenance" or O&M accounts. "These are the accounts that pay for troop training, repairs, spares and supplies for vehicles, weapons, ships and planes,