By Lou Dobbs
CNN

Editor’s Note: Lou Dobbs’ commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.

NEW YORK (CNN) — There are times when reason carries the mind no further, when the mind is carried from the rational across the penumbra of the absurd. That is where the leadership of the U.S. Senate now resides.

What many once regarded as the world’s great deliberative body looks more like a clamorous bazaar in which senators feverishly hawk duplicity and deceit as bright jewels of public policy. Comprehensive immigration reform is just such a bauble, and buyer beware. Continue reading »

 

I am still amazed and shocked at the lengths We, as Black Americans are willing to go to assign someone else the blame and responsibility of fixing our own problems. Now that the Imus controversy has started to fade away, let’s take another look at what transpired. Don Imus made a poor judgement call and chose to insult a group of women by calling them Nappy Headed Hoe’s. and Yep, those weren’t nice words, hell they were almost as bad as what plays in nearly every track on a Lil’ Jon album!. which can get pretty bad. So what was our reaction? Fire Imus!. Blame Imus for the poor self image that we constantly feed into. pretend that he’s the only one making disparaging comments, or the regular cop-out, that it’s OK when we talk amongst ourselves that way. and of course, the ultimate in Hipocrisy, when Sheila Johnson had the “Gumption” to get on Tom Joyner’s morning show and complain about the negative images that Don Imus was presenting. The same Sheila Johnson who was a co-owner of BET (Black Entertainment Television) and during her stint did absolutely NOTHING to curtail the negative stereotypes being aired on BET non-stop night and day. Let’s focus on either issues that matter at the end of the day, or if we have to fall into this victimization, then at least lay the blame at the real perpetrator’s feet, our own.

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Militants opened fire Monday on a convoy, killing a U.S. and a Pakistani soldier and wounding several others near the Afghan frontier, the Pakistan army spokesman said.

Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said unidentified “miscreants” — a word normally used by Pakistani officials to describe Islamic militants — fired at the convoy carrying military officials who attended a meeting in the northwestern town of Teri Mangal. Continue reading »

 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — As U.S. troops searched for three soldiers reportedly captured after an attack on their convoy, new attacks killed more troops and Iraqi civilians on Sunday.

Two U.S. soldiers died in separate blasts, the U.S. military reported. The first explosion was in the Salah Ad Din province, and the second in Haditha.

Insurgents also struck a crowded Baghdad square and political offices in northern Iraq in two bombings that killed 65 Iraqis and wounded 150 others, local officials told CNN.

Earlier Sunday, a terror group with links to al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the weekend attack that sparked the manhunt for the missing U.S. soldiers, according to a statement on the Internet. Continue reading »

 
Soldiers serving overseas will lose some of their online links to friends and loved ones back home under a Department of Defense policy that a high-ranking Army official said would take effect Monday.

The Defense Department will begin blocking access “worldwide” to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

The policy is being implemented to protect information and reduce drag on the department’s networks, according to Bell.

“This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge,” the memo said.

The armed services have long barred members of the military from sharing information that could jeopardize their missions or safety, whether electronically or by other means.

The new policy is different because it creates a blanket ban on several sites used by military personnel to exchange messages, pictures, video and audio with family and friends.

Members of the military can still access the sites on their own computers and networks, but Defense Department computers and networks are the only ones available to many soldiers and sailors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraqi insurgents or their supporters have been posting videos on YouTube at least since last fall. The Army recently began posting videos on YouTube showing soldiers defeating insurgents and befriending Iraqis.

But the new rules mean many military personnel won’t be able to watch those achievements — at least not on military computers.

If the restrictions are intended to prevent soldiers from giving or receiving bad news, they could also prevent them from providing positive reports from the field, said Noah Shachtman, who runs a national security blog for Wired magazine.

“This is as much an information war as it is bombs and bullets,” he said. “And they are muzzling their best voices.”

The sites covered by the ban are the video-sharing sites YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, and FileCabi, the social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5, music sites Pandora, MTV, and 1.fm, and live365, and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.

Several companies have instituted similar bans, saying recreational sites drain productivity.

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