The F-16s were taking the pictures of the 747 Presidential shadow as it flew over the old home of the Twin Towers. There was only crew members in the 747. Now the classified part could be that the location of the Presidential shadow is not suppose to be known, considering that it is the decoy. However, it you are going the fly the plane, in broad daylight, over Manhattan, with a fighter escort, wouldn't you think that people would notice--thus the location is no longer classified. I'm sorry but I still think that someone in Washington isn't playing with a full deck. As we old Intelligence analyst say, "Give up man, your crack is up."

Low-flying jet unsettles New Yorkers--great headline. A White House plane, actually the double to Air Force One, was taking part in a government-sanctioned photo shoot over several downtown Manhattan buildings today and workers and residents became frightened and started evacuating. People reported seeing the plane circle over the Upper New York Bay near the Statue of Liberty and then flying up the Hudson River. And, who authorized this photo shoot--why the director of the White House Military Office, Mr. Louis Caldera. Captain Anna Carpenter of Andrews Air Force Base stated that local law enforcement agencies and the Federal Aviation Administration had been given notice of the exercise. Now refresh my memory--I thought it was a photo shoot? New York Police Deputy Commissioner, Paul J. Browne, said that the department had been alerted to the flight by the federal agency "with directives to local authorities not to disclose information about it." So....wouldn't that mean they were not suppose to tell the public? Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed that he was annoyed that he wasn't told. He called the aviation administration's decision to classify details about the flight as sensitive and nonpublic "ridiculous" and "poor judgement." Annoyed? I'd be down right hog-tied. I have to side with Senator Chuck Schumers statement--"It is absolutely outrageous and appalling to think that the FAA would plan such a photo shoot and not warn the public, knowing full well New Yorkers still have the vivid memory of 9/11 sketched in their minds. It borders on being either cruel or very very stupid." What the hell is going on in Washington DC to authorize this stunt? This plane is suppose to be shadowing Air Force 1 and instead it's flying a photo shoot/exercise over Manhattan scaring the crap out of American citizens. Mr. Louis Caldera, if he did indeed authorize this incident should be fired. And, on top of all that, I want to know who was in this aircraft taking the pictures. If it was one or two individuals it's a waste of taxpayer money to fly a 747 and F-16s when they could be in a helicopter. And, if it was a group of people, who were they and what fun did they get out of scaring people into panic attacks? Yes, sir, Mr. Caldera, why don't you authorize a low-flying 747 over the Pentagon and see whose ass gets kicked out of Washington. PS. Captain Sully, who handed the U.S. Airways plane on the Hudson River is now unemployed. The idiots at U.S. Airways laid him off. Good luck getting any decent pilots to fly U.S. Airways planes.

Sometimes America seems like an ugly place to live, and then someone comes along to prove it's okay to be an American. And, that someone is Captain Richard Phillips. A 53-year old husband, father, and career merchant seaman. When heavily armed teenage pirates commandeered his container ship, the Maersk Alabama, off the coast of Somalia and demanded $2 million ransom, Captain Phillips ordered his 19-man crew to lock themselves in their cabins and he volunteered to be the pirates' victim. That is a hero, just like "Sully" who safely landed a plane full of passengers in the Hudson River. Phillips spent 5 days in a cramped, hot boat with nervous teenage pirates who were armed to the hilt and scared of loosing that $2 million ransom. Navy SEAL sharpshooters, trained to shoot from unstable platforms finally brought the hostage situation to a close. And, the first thing that Captain Phillips had to say about his situation was "The real heroes are the Navy, the SEALs, those who have brought me home." In a day when the title "hero" is misapplied to movie stars and big-league athletes, it's humbling to be exposed to the real deal. Yes, friends the military is not the bad guy, they really are heroes. And Captain Phillips is more than the sum of the parts of his captivity and rescue. He personifies the best of who we, Americans, are.

Remember shock-jock Don Imus? The white, radio show host who made a nasty, sexually explicit, decidedly unfunny comment about young black women on the radio in an effort at bad comedy. Everyone including the Rev Al Sharpton called for Imus to be fired for calling the Rutgers' basketball team "nappy-headed hos." And, he was fired!!! So what happens when a black man, Jamie Foxx, makes a nasty, sexually explicit, decidedly unfunny comment about a teenage white girl on the radio? Is anyone calling for Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx to be unplugged from Sirius Satellite Radio for calling Disney star Miley Cyrus a "little white bitch" who should do heroin and crack and "make a sex tape and grow up"? Where is Rev Al Sharpton now? Why isn't Foxx being given the Imus treatment? Now who is exhibiting a double standard? And, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has asked for a truly open discussion about race--who are they kidding?

I grew up in a small city on the Pennsylvania/New York border. A small city where everyone knew each other; where if I stopped at the local soda spot on the way home from school, my mom just called the police station and they had the Main Street patrol officer stop and tell me that my mom was looking for me. Ya can't find that city anywhere, anymore. One of our distant, female relatives was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was in her early twenties. She'd say she heard voices telling her she needed to take her clothes off and run around town naked. The police would grab her and the medical transport would take her to the mental hospital which was about 200 miles away. She stayed there, getting electric shock treatments which were the thing back then, and some medication, until she was what us kids referred to as not crazy. She'd come back to our hometown and she'd be just fine, until---she quit taking her medication. Then she'd be back to running around town naked again. As she got older, she became violent when the police would pick her up to take her to the mental hospital and finally it took 6 officers to hold her down so they medics could give her a shot. And, then finally she quit coming back. The reason I write about this is that yesterday on the way to work there was a talk show on the radio, an interview with Tim McLean's mother. She was being interviewed because it was that time of the year again when her family had to go the parole hearing of Vince Weiguang Li, the man who murdered her son, cut him up, and ate some of him on a Greyhound bus somewhere between Edmonton, Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Tim McLean didn't know Mr. Li, he was just another passenger on the bus when Mr. Li had a schizophrenic incident. In court Mr. Li stated that voices told him that Tim McLean was a demon that had to be killed, his organs taken out, and parts of McLean were to be eaten. So Li stabbed McLean over 60 times, beheaded him, spread McLean's internal organs around the bus in plastic bags, ate some of his heart, and was eating McLean's nose and ears when police arrived. Now, Mr. Li's wife and the pastor of a church who had helped him immigrate to Canada swore in court that Mr. Li never showed any signs of schizophrenia; not even a moment of anger or the smallest emotional problem. When ask in court if he'd like a lawyer, Mr. Li's answer was to shake his head and quietly say, "please kill me." The judge had Mr. Li undergo psychiatric testing and declared him too mentally ill to stand trial. Thus, Mr. Li has been in a mental institution since this incident. And, Mrs. McLean is sentenced to go to the parole hearings and fight to keep Mr. Li off the streets. When, and if, Mr. Li is ever released, there will be no record of this incident on his record; after all, he was too insane to know right from wrong. I find it impossible to believe that Mr. Li never displayed mental illness or emotional problems before the incident on the bus. Schizophrenia is an organic disease, associated with structural anomalies in the brain; a genetic defect which starts at birth and builds in severity over time. It can not be cured, but can be controlled as long as the patient takes their medication. Once they stop taking the medicine, the symptoms reoccur. The thought that Mr. Li could one day walk out of his hospital room a free man, is not an option, in my opinion. When he walks free and stops taking his medication, it's only a matter of time before he commits the same act or one very similar; and who will be his next victim? I understand that he is mentally ill; but, he can never be cured. He will never be normal. And, the McLean family shouldn't be subjected to reliving their son's death every time the parole board meets, for the rest of their lives. Granting Mr. Li's court room request to kill him, in my opinion, would have been more humane.

The U.S. Justice Department has moved to reverse the conviction of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. The Justice Department lawyers asked a judge to dismiss the indictment against Mr. Stevens and to toss out his conviction. The Stevens’ case, the government’s highest-profile attack on congressional corruption in recent years, was plagued by problems that continued to pile up even after a jury found Ted Stevens guilty. The last straw, apparently, was the failure of prosecutors to turn over notes of a crucial interview in which a witness contradicted a statement he made later under oath at the trail. In their court filing today, Justice Department lawyer Paul O’Brien told the judge they recently discovered prosecutors’ notes from an April 2008 interview with Bill Allen, a key witness against Mr. Stevens. The notes indicate that Allen said he did not recall talking to a mutual friend about giving Stevens a bill for work done at the senator’s home in Alaska. Yet when he testified at the trial, Allen claimed he did have such a conversation. Under trial rules, contradictory statements must be given to the defense team, and they were not. Let me comment on this story. When I lived in Alaska in 1980 thru 1984, I met Senator Ted Stevens at several organizational luncheons and dinners. If you had a problem, he was always willing to stop and talk and tell you to send him your documentation and he’d take care of your problems. After all Ted Stevens held the Senate seat since 1968 and, he had raised millions of dollars to help build Alaskan infrastructure and Anchorage’s skyline. Not to mention the complete renovation of the Anchorage International Airport named after him. But, when I went back to Alaska in 1994, there was a different Senator Stevens. When I’d run into him at political dinners, he would make his speech and then he was out of there. If you’d write letters to his office, if you received an answer it was to inform you that he couldn’t help you. When I finally left Alaska in 1999, it was obvious to most Alaskans that when it came to Ted Stevens, total power corrupts totally. Senator Steven’s downfall came as the result of allegations that he had allowed a big oil company to renovate his home and then he didn’t report the the gifts and renovations. He was convicted of seven felony counts of lying on Senate financial disclosure forms to conceal hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and home renovations. To me the key word there is “convicted.” Why isn’t he being re-tried so that a jury can reassess the importance of the notes that were withheld during the trial? Although I have to agree that the Justice Department was definitely in the wrong, why are they asking that the jury’s verdict be dismissed? The answer: Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement. “After careful review, I have concluded that certain information should have been provided to the defense for use at trial. In light of this conclusion, and in consideration of the totality of the circumstances of this particular case, I have determined that it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial.” Thank you Attorney General Holder. The Justice Department was so hell-bent on convicting a U.S. Senator; but, due to this error, you have declared Mr. Stevens innocent and wipped out the charges as if this never happened. So much for changing our corrupt government.