Some Items of Interest

The CIA released documents from the Korean War era; they indicate that the agency did not forsee the North Korean attack in June of 1950 nor the entry of the Chinese when UN forces pushed up near the border with China and North Korea. Some spy agency.

In more recent news in South Carolina it seems that a republican legislator wants to know where the winner of the democratic primary-Alvin Greene (the unknown)-got the $ 10,000 filing fee to enter the primary. Greene came out of no-where to win in the open primary; a primary that allows anyone-regardless of party-to vote. Greene will run against Jim DeMint in November.

In the BP oil spill the following statement came from the BP Chairman Svanberg. Svanberg, commenting on Obama said, "he's frustrated because he cares about the small people, and we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case at BP. We care about the small people"

In the congressional hearings on the oil spill, the heads of 5 major oil companies-including BP-were questioned by congressmen. A Louisanna republican of Vietnamese descent- Joseph Cao-said; "During the Samurai days, we'd just give you the knife and ask you to commit harikari".

(Source: The Record on 6/17/10 and 6/16/10).

New "red" Scare

With all the incidents of "homegrown terrorism" I wonder if we are about to enter another era of looking for "enemies" in all kinds of places. The most recent incident is that with the two who wanted to fly to Egypt and then on to Somalia to join al-Qaeda type groups and kill Americans. The two are Carlos Eduardo Almonte and Mohommed Mahmood Alessa, both of north Jersey. A month ago was the "Times Square Bomber" who was a US citizen of Pakistani origin. Before that incident there was the Fort Hood Army major who killed soldiers there. Before that-a number of years ago-there were the "group of young men, also US citizens raised in NJ, (who) were convicted of plotting to murder soldiers at Fort Dix". If this pattern continues, what will we call it?

(Source: "Web videos offer inspiration to jihadists" by Mike Kelly of The Record on 6/8/10).