Yep, sure am old enough to remember. My husband is a veteran, and he met Col. North...

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Hackett has his work cut out for him, but I hope the vets keep running. It is a good sign of potential changes in the WH soon.

Ohio War Veteran Running for Senate

CINCINNATI -- Paul Hackett, the Democratic veteran of the Iraq war who narrowly lost a special election in a heavily Republican congressional district in August, made his official entry into a U.S. Senate race Monday.

He faces a tough Democratic primary with Rep. Sherrod Brown in the race for the nomination to challenge second-term Republican incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine next year.

Paul Hackett, the Democratic veteran of the Iraq war who narrowly lost in a special election in a heavily Republican congressional district in August, announces his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, Monday, Oct. 24, 2005, at his home in Cincinnati, Ohio. (AP Photo/Al Behrman) (Al Behrman - AP)

Hackett's only political experience is a stint as a small-city councilman.

I'm asking all the people of this great state, regardless of political affiliation, to consider my message and to consider joining me in the fight to take back our government from the career politicians and their special interest support groups who have hijacked our government, he said as he announced his campaign at his home in suburban Indian Hill.

Hackett decided to run for Congress earlier this year after completing a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq as a Marine reservist. That special election in southern Ohio's seven-county 2nd District was to replace Rep. Rob Portman, who left his seat to become the U.S. trade representative.

Hackett won the Democratic nomination, then battled Republican Jean Schmidt, a former state legislator, in a campaign in which he linked her to embattled Republican Gov. Bob Taft while sharply criticizing President Bush's handling of the war.

Schmidt won on Aug. 2 with 52 percent of the vote, though Portman had consistently won re-election in the district with more than 70 percent and Bush had carried it in 2004 with 64 percent.

Hackett's strong showing in a state that was a pivotal presidential battleground solidified the attorney as a likely 2006 candidate for Congress or statewide office.

After Hackett decided to oppose DeWine, Hackett was irked when Brown, with three decades of elective politics behind him, decided he also would run.

Brown, a former state legislator and Ohio secretary of state, is in his seventh congressional term, representing northeastern Ohio's 13th District. He's expected to officially launch his Senate race in early November.

Brown said Monday he initially didn't plan to run because of family reasons, but changed his mind with his family's encouragement. He said he wasn't expecting the race for the May 2 primary to damage his chances of defeating DeWine in the general election.

I've had primaries before, Brown said. It makes me a stronger candidate.

I didn't say I was pro N. Korea. You obviously need to hone your psychic skills. What I am saying is that yes, I am anti nukes. I am also anti "let's jes kill 'em all" mentality that we've had to put up with for the previous 8 years.

Another thing you might want to consider is that N. Korea is not completely without allies. Unless we're willing to catch one of those nukes, I would think it best if we didn't start playing hot pototoe with them.

I was surfing a bit this morning and found this news article from N. Korea. I doubt things will cool off for a long time, if ever. The article headlines state: "Lee Myung-Bak's Group Military Provocations Blasted. From there, it calls him a puppet war monger and states how Myung-Bak outbursts "over the non-existant provocation (my emphasis) by the North."

U.S. and Russia to Enter Civilian Nuclear Pact
Bush Reverses Long-Standing Policy, Allows Agreement That May Provide Leverage on Iran

President Bush has decided to permit extensive U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia for the first time, administration officials said yesterday, reversing decades of bipartisan policy in a move that would be worth billions of dollars to Moscow but could provoke an uproar in Congress.

Bush resisted such a move for years, insisting that Russia first stop building a nuclear power station for Iran near the Persian Gulf. But U.S. officials have shifted their view of Russia's collaboration with Iran and concluded that President Vladimir Putin has become a more constructive partner in trying to pressure Tehran to give up any aspirations for nuclear weapons.

The president plans to announce his decision at a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg next Saturday before the annual summit of leaders from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, officials said. The statement to be released by the two presidents would agree to start negotiations for the formal agreement required under U.S. law before the United States can engage in civilian nuclear cooperation.

In the administration's view, both sides would benefit. A nuclear cooperation agreement would clear the way for Russia to import and store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors around the world, a lucrative business so far blocked by Washington. It could be used as an incentive to win more Russian cooperation on Iran. And it would be critical to Bush's plan to spread civilian nuclear energy to power-hungry countries because Russia would provide a place to send the used radioactive material.

At the same time, it could draw significant opposition from across the ideological spectrum, according to analysts who follow the issue. Critics wary of Putin's authoritarian course view it as rewarding Russia even though Moscow refuses to support sanctions against Iran. Others fearful of Russia's record of handling nuclear material see it as a reckless move that endangers the environment.

You will have all the anti-Russian right against it, you will have all the anti-nuclear left against it, and you will have the Russian democracy center concerned about it too, said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear specialist at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Since Russia is already a nuclear state, such an agreement, once drafted, presumably would conform to the Atomic Energy Act and therefore would not require congressional approval. Congress could reject it only with majority votes by both houses within 90 legislative days.

Administration officials confirmed the president's decision yesterday only after it was first learned from outside nuclear experts privy to the situation. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the agreement before the summit.

The prospect, however, has been hinted at during public speeches in recent days. We certainly will be talking about nuclear energy, Assistant Energy Secretary Karen A. Harbert told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event Thursday. We need alternatives to hydrocarbons.

Some specialists said Bush's decision marks a milestone in U.S.-Russian relations, despite tension over Moscow's retreat from democracy and pressure on neighbors. It signals that there's a sea change in the attitude toward Russia, that they're someone we can try to work with on Iran, said Rose Gottemoeller, a former Energy Department official in the Clinton administration who now directs the Carnegie Moscow Center. It bespeaks a certain level of confidence in the Russians by this administration that hasn't been there before.

But others said the deal seems one-sided. Just what exactly are we getting? That's the real mystery, said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Until now, he noted, the United States has insisted on specific actions by Russia to prevent Iran from developing bombs. We're not getting any of that. We're getting an opportunity to give them money.

Environmentalists have denounced Russia's plans to transform itself into the world's nuclear dump. The country has a history of nuclear accidents and contamination. Its transportation network is antiquated and inadequate for moving vast quantities of radioactive material, critics say. And the country, they add, has not fully secured the nuclear facilities it already has against theft or accidents.

The United States has civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with the European atomic energy agency, along with China, Japan, Taiwan and 20 other countries. Bush recently sealed an agreement with India, which does require congressional approval because of that nation's unsanctioned weapons program.

Russia has sought such an agreement with the United States since the 1990s, when it began thinking about using its vast land mass to store much of the world's spent nuclear fuel. Estimating that it could make as much as $20 billion, Russia enacted a law in 2001 permitting the import, temporary storage and reprocessing of foreign nuclear fuel, despite 90 percent opposition in public opinion polls.

But the plan went nowhere. The United States controls spent fuel from nuclear material it provides, even in foreign countries, and Bunn estimates that as much as 95 percent of the potential world market for Russia was under U.S. jurisdiction. Without a cooperation agreement, none of the material could be sent to Russia, even though allies such as South Korea and Taiwan are eager to ship spent fuel there.

Like President Bill Clinton before him, Bush refused to consider it as long as Russia was helping Iran with its nuclear program. In the summer of 2002, according to Bunn, Bush sent Putin a letter saying an agreement could be reached only if the central problem of assistance to Iran's missile, nuclear and advanced conventional weapons programs was solved.

The concern over the nuclear reactor under construction at Bushehr, however, has faded. Russia agreed to provide all fuel to the facility and take it back once used, meaning it could not be turned into material for nuclear bombs. U.S. officials who once suspected that Russian scientists were secretly behind Iran's weapons program learned that critical assistance to Tehran came from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.

The 2002 disclosure that Iran had secret nuclear sites separate from Bushehr shocked both the U.S. and Russian governments and seemed to harden Putin's stance toward Iran. He eventually agreed to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council and signed on to a package of incentives and penalties recently sent to Tehran. At the same time, he has consistently opposed economic sanctions, military action or even tougher diplomatic language by the council, much to the frustration of U.S. officials.

Opening negotiations for a formal nuclear cooperation agreement could be used as a lever to move Putin further. Talks will inevitably take months, and the review in Congress will extend the process. If during that time Putin resists stronger measures against Iran, analysts said, the deal could unravel or critics on Capitol Hill could try to muster enough opposition to block it. If Putin proves cooperative on Iran, they said, it could ease the way toward final approval.

This was one of the few areas where there was big money involved that you could hold over the Russians, said George Perkovich, an arms-control specialist and vice president of the Carnegie Endowment. It's a handy stick, a handy thing to hold over the Russians.

Bush has an interest in taking the agreement all the way as well. His new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership envisions promoting civilian nuclear power around the world and eventually finding a way to reprocess spent fuel without the danger of leaving behind material that could be used for bombs. Until such technology is developed, Bush needs someplace to store the spent fuel from overseas, and Russia is the only volunteer.

The Russians could make a lot of money importing foreign spent fuel, some of our allies would desperately like to be able to send their fuel to Russia, and maybe we could use the leverage to get other things done, such as getting the Russians to be more forward-leaning on Iran, Bunn said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701588.html?sub=new

A little bit of history on North Korea and the dilemma. Read the rest of the article from the link below.

In defiance of a Security Council resolution (1718) passed after its first nuclear test in 2006, it has now announced a second. It has also implied that it has solved some at least of the problems it encountered in the first.

The actual technical achievement remains to be examined. But the test itself represents a continued belligerency whose destination is unknown. "

Veteran Removes The American Flag This is a video clip showing the veteran who went down to a Mexican restaurant in Reno , NV to take down the American flag that was being flown under their Mexican flag. This guy silenced the folks on the sidewalk and makes me proud to be an American. I think it's going to take a lot more of this kind of revolting to change things....watch and be proud.

employees would have said what was said to you, he would have fired them.....period.

Especially with times right now, these salesmen need to wise up. It isn't like it used to be. Salesmen used to be able to sit at their desk and wait for the customers to come to them. Now they actually have to work hard to get people in, get them interested in a vehicle, etc. This economy is definitely going to weed out the bad salesmen because they won't be able to survive.

Yep, sure am old enough to remember. My husband is a veteran, and he met Col. North...

Hackett has his work cut out for him, but I hope the vets keep running. It is a good sign of potential changes in the WH soon.

Ohio War Veteran Running for Senate

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