Cave News

Report: Do tyrants fear America anymore?

The short answer to the question in the title above is - no.

A more complete answer is outlined in the report at the link below: President Obama’s timid foreign policy is an embarrassment for a global superpower.

The debacle of Washington's handling of the Libya issue is symbolic of a wider problem at the heart of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

The fact that it took ten days and at least a thousand dead on the streets of Libya’s cities before President Obama finally mustered the courage to call for Muammar “mad dog” Gaddafi (pictured above) to step down is highly embarrassing for the world’s only superpower, and emblematic of a deer-in-the-headlights approach to world leadership.

Much more here.

UK's Cameron asserts leadership over Libya filling Obama void

British Prime Minister David Cameron is filling the void left by Barack Obama's Libya non-action

David Cameron has announced he is working on plans for a no-fly zone over Libya.

Addressing the House of Commons, Cameron said, “We will not rule out military assets. We will not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people.

This is an illegitimate regime which has lost the support of its people. To that end, I have asked the Ministry of Defense to look into the no-fly zone. Our message to Colonel Qaddafi is simple: go now.”

Thus does the burden of leadership pass from an inert American White House.

Link

Madoff says government is a Ponzi scheme

Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff said in a magazine interview that new regulatory reform enacted after the recent national financial crisis is laughable and that the federal government is a Ponzi scheme.

"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.

A Ponzi, or pyramid, scheme is a scam in which people are persuaded to invest through promises of unusually high returns, where early investors are paid out of money paid in by later investors.

Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in Butner, N.C., after pleading guilty in 2009 to fraud charges.

Link

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Meet the new slimmer Mr. Potato Head

A new slimmer version of Mr. Potato Head was unveiled at New York’s International Toy Convention last week.

The new version is shown on the left. For the first time he is wearing pants.

Link

Pinocchio: The Italian Musical cast member

A creepy cast member from Pinocchio: The Italian Musical marches during a parade in New York City.

Tiger costumed wacky Congressman defends himself

The source of a series of strange e-mails sent from the federally issued Blackberry of Oregon Congressman David Wu had remained unclear, because the emails were signed as if they were from Wu's 13-year-old son and younger daughter.

The Oregon Democrat now admits that he sent the bizarre emails in the early morning hours last October.

David Wu is shown at left dressed as a tiger as he appeared in some of the bizarre e-mails sent from his Blackberry last October.

Congressman Wu is shown below trying to explain his bizarre behavior.

Wu declined to answer questions from both television stations about what medical condition he may have, saying even a congressman deserves some privacy.

The seven-term congressman's staffers had urged him to seek psychiatric help in the days before the Nov. 2 election.

Following that report, Wu said publicly he had sought appropriate medical help, including counseling and medication. He said today that his ex-staffers were "not physicians."

Wu also said today he was unsure what painkiller he took from a campaign donor on October 26 when he says he suffered from severe neck spasms.

Was it Oxycodone? The way he has been acting it may have been a Quaalude.

Link

Our non-action in Libya put U.S. citizens in danger

Non-action by the Obama administration in Libya is dangerous for US citizens wanting to leave the country.

A few in the media have hinted the non-action by Obama is because of fear for the safety U.S. citizens in Libya.

Leaders in the UK aren't using that as an excuse - they are boldly going in to rescue Britons in Libya.

From a report at the link below titled, Ferry Diplomacy:

In a bold and daring move that suggested Churchillian backbone, the British military on Saturday flew military aircraft into Libya to rescue oil workers and others stranded in desert locations amid the escalating violence of Moammar Gaddafi's reign of terror.

Despite the obvious warning signs of turmoil across North Africa and the Middle East, the State Department was caught completely unprepared for unrest in Libya.
How it could not have dawned on the Obama Administration that American citizens and embassy officials would be in grave danger is beyond comprehension.

Why wasn't there a Marine guard at the embassy?
As the report states, in Tripoli -- of all places -- it turns out the only security for the small embassy staff was provided by Libyan nationals!

The embassy officials and staff were sitting ducks for a delusional dictator who had vowed to fight to the death to stay in power.

Where was the U.S. Navy? Couldn't they be sent in to stage a heroic rescue of Americans in harms way?

Instead, the Obama Administration's response was to hire a commercial ferry from Malta.

Once it reached Tripoli harbor, it sat there for three days because the seas were too rough for it to sail.

So once our embattled Americans escaped from our unsafe embassy, they had to endure three days on a ferryboat unsuited to the venture -- all the while wondering if or when Gaddafi's planes or tanks might blow it and them out of the water.

The story ended happily when the ferry finally docked in Malta on Saturday, but that was thanks to pure luck rather than to our government's ability to manage crisis.

It was left to the British to give us a lesson in bold action.

Under Obama's leadership, America has become expert at apologizing, temporizing and speaking in mealy-mouthed, multicultural ambivalence, while remaining unwilling to act boldly or speak clearly as if it were still a leader of the free world.

One commenter said, "In 2008 Americans did not elect a commander-in-chief. They elected a coward-in chief."

Link

Dodger Hall of Fame center fielder Duke Snider dies at 84

Duke Snider, Hall of Fame center fielder for the Dodgers, died Sunday. He was 84.

Snider died at the Valle Vista Convalescent Hospital in Escondido, Calif., according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which announced the death on behalf of the family.

Snider played in Brooklyn's Ebbets Field along with other Dodger greats - Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, and Gill Hodges.

Known as "The Duke of Flatbush," Snider moved with the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958.

The first major league baseball game I ever attended was in Los Angeles in 1958. We would go to the LA Coliseum, the first year home of the Dodgers in LA to see Snider and the rest of the Dodger team.

The team moved into Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine in 1959.

Link

Is Deadliest Catch TV show cursed?

Justin Tennison's death is the latest tragedy to hit a crew member on board one of the fishing boats featured in the Deadliest Catch series on the Discovery Channel.

Tennison, a member of the Time Bandit crew, was found dead Tuesday at age 33 in an Alaska hotel room approximately one year after Capt. Phil Harris suffered a stroke while off-loading his fishing boat Cornelia Marie in Alaska, which eventually lead to his death in February 2010.

The photo above shows Capt. Phil Harris on left and Justin Tennison on right.

Book-ended by these two tragedies, the Discovery set has been plagued by so many problems that fans may be asking whether the show is cursed.

At the link below there is a timeline showing these and other problems encountered by those connected with the Deadliest Catch TV series on the Discovery Channel.

Link

Did labor unions got a bloody nose last week?

The writer of the Boston Herald report at the link below says if he were in organized labor, he’d seriously think about starting a public relations union.

The only person who had worse press coverage this week than organized labor was Moammar Gadhafi -- and he had to bomb his own people to get it.

As of this writing, union-owned Democrat state senators are still hiding out in hotels across state lines in Illinois.

These Wisconsin “flee-baggers” can’t find the courage to show up for work, but they’re on cable news every hour whining about Gov. Scott Walker.

Meanwhile, Democrat U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano of Massachusetts was forced to apologize for his comment that “every once in awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody.”

Do the teachers and their allies have any idea how their threats and tantrums look to the overworked taxpayers who pay their salaries? Taxpayers who can’t retire at 58 and who don’t have guaranteed pensions?

More here.