"And The Buck Stops With Hillary -- Over"

Hey "Obie", some of us been wondering...

How’s that Nobel Peace Prize thing going now? Sure picked one heck-of-ah way to post-facto meet that outstanding Nobel Award requirement. Agreed, you should have put it on the current honey-do list. But this 120+ missile strike on Libyan Air Force assets is sure an extreme way to finally meet that peace award requirement described in Alfred Nobel's will. You know, the part where the recipient needs to abolish or reduce standing armies. All that tough-talk in the law school faculty lounge is sure paying off now. OOH-RAH! Take it away Hillary! Obie -- Out.

Ma Nature Plays A Trick

Yesterday Spring 2011 began in the late afternoon. A nice day here in North Central Upstate New York, much of the winter snow had melted, except for piles of white in those property shady spots. Did some necessary outside work in preparation for summer, raked the lawn where winter had deposited some natural debris, and removed the protective burlap from some of our favorite trees… trees that our hungry deer residents find great candidates for browsing.

So good old Ma Nature must be smiling today. On the first full day of Spring 2011, she sent a steady heavy wet snow falling at perhaps 1+ inch per hour this morning. “Sugar Snow” … the old-timers here in New York sometime call it. Perhaps little known by many, New York State typically ranks second behind Vermont in annual Maple Syrup production. Production in 2010 totaled 312,000 gallons, down 29 percent from 2009. Reduced production was due in no small part to an abnormally dry early 2010 Spring. Sugar snow, coupled with cold nights and above freezing days really causes that maple sap to flow. And I suppose those many Northern New York State maple syrup producers are also smiling today… right along with that tricky old Ma Nature.

Fair and Balanced…Give Us A Break

Less than 350 miles North-Northeast from Tripoli, Libya, lays the home of the United States Naval Air Station Sigonella, Catania, Sicily, Italy. This U.S. Navy installation bills itself "The Hub of the Med." The activity occupies space with NATO Base Sigonella, an Italian Air Force Base in Sicily, Italy. A tenant of the Italian Air Force, U.S. Naval Air Station Sigonella acts as landlord to many U.S. commands and activities. The base is located about ten miles west and seven miles south of the Sicilian east coast city of Catania, and about twenty-five miles south of Mount Etna. Much of this data was taken direct from the official Naval Air Station web site and all this information and more are available by simple Google search.

Present incomplete news reports are at best... half-truth. A significant number of the current news media are hand-wringing about a possible necessity of declaring a no-fly zone over Tripoli, Libya. A real probability for action may become necessary to protect those important Libyan oil fields. Developed countries worldwide cannot at any time tolerate oil field destruction by Libya’s somewhat unbalanced "strongman" Colonel Qaddafi. For goodness sake, take a look at what Iraq’s Saddam Hussein did to those Southwest Asia oil fields just twenty years ago. And just look at what is now happening to the price of gasoline, a meteoric rise caused in no small part by oil uncertainty and unethical oil market speculation. Historically, the American economy entered a recession following the First Gulf War, a recession significantly rooted in worldwide oil market production uncertainty.

So here is today’s question and suggestion to all U.S. News Media. Why doesn’t the “Fourth Estate” get off their collective butts, do some actual research, and report the truth? Please don’t give us the vague comments of a long retired U.S. General or rollout some retired Army Lt Colonel. Find yourself an informed and recently retired U.S. Navy Admiral or Vice Admiral to verify and report on this truth. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is simply unnecessay in central Mediterranean Waters to implement and/or support a Lybian no-fly zone. The United States of America, coupled with very significant contributions by friendly NATO countries have more than enough land-based military air assets already deployed to implement a near immediate no-fly zone over Libya. And please don’t conclude there is no way to refuel military aircraft. With trivial effort a novice researcher will discover a significant aircraft refueling facility just 500 miles east of Sicily at U.S. Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Crete, Greece---click HERE to check this out. This too is all available without much effort via Internet search.