Give the Bush a break! He's a President, not a mathematician!

Dumb Donald, Are you being sarcastic? We know he's not good at math. But he can read,"My Pet Goat."

It's like Bush has given up and is throwing as much shit as he can to his successor, whoever it is, and hopes a (pun not intended) shitload will stick.

You know, the Bible he worships says "Cursed will you be when your kings are infants and your princes are children." Truer words have never been spoken of 21st Century Soviet America.

General, You are right. SOMEONE always picked up after Georgie, his whole life someone bailed him out of one jam or another. That is why MSM can't be trusted. Why didn't they scrutinze George at every turn? Because they are a bunch of corporate owned elitists who don't want to pay their fair share taxes if a Democrat gets in.

........oh i forgot to say i'm a police officer in a large california city who knows full well how dangerous our own country is. i meet victims who've been victims of unspeakable crimes. more often than not i'm asked, after the fact, about firearm ownership for self protection. and yes our parks can be dangerous too. the crime rate at parks has risen dramatically of late. not to mention the cougars that eat people right here in california, often outside the sanctity of a park.

ccf @ 8:

prohibiting lawfully permitted persons from carrying guns in parks, when they're already lawfully permitted to do the same in that very state, is just a knee jerk feel good emotion. why a person should have to stop wearing the firearm in the park is beyond rational thought. if you don't think you should lawfully possess a firearm then don't. make that your personal choice.
regardless, i'm voting for OBAMA. And did i mention Bush is an idiot??

You're kidding, right? Allowing guns in national parks is idiocy.

The whole point of a national park is to preserve unique lands which serve as habitat for animal species which have mostly been rendered extinct outside park boundaries. If you allow guns in the parks, a hell of a lot more elk, deer, bear, foxes and wolves are going to be poached, or 'justifiably' shot because they got a little too close to Billy Bob's RV.

I've spent a lot of time in the mountain parks of the Rockies on both sides of the border. I can't count the number of times I've seen people behave with the most incredible ignorance around wild animals. Feeding junk food to bears, deer and elk, getting too close to elk, mountain sheep and deer in rutting season, letting kids wander between mother bears and their cubs, stopping their vehicles in the middle of busy highways to take pictures of critters, then trying to feed the animals from the car - so many park visitors have no clue. Adding guns into the mix is bad, bad idea.

Never mind that many parks are violent places to begin with. Rangers have had to take on the role of city cops, breaking up parties and busting drunks in campsites. It's not a pretty picture, especially as parks get more crowded every year.

The right to bear arms is not absolute. This a cave-in to the NRA, plain and simple.

ccf @ 9:

........oh i forgot to say i'm a police officer in a large california city who knows full well how dangerous our own country is. i meet victims who've been victims of unspeakable crimes. more often than not i'm asked, after the fact, about firearm ownership for self protection. and yes our parks can be dangerous too. the crime rate at parks has risen dramatically of late. not to mention the cougars that eat people right here in california, often outside the sanctity of a park.

Cougar attacks are very very rare; they happen about as often as shark attacks, a handful a year. Accidental shootings and firearm mishaps are very common. What's more dangerous, a big kitty cat or a bunch of gun toting morons.

for my "annoyed canuck", i've lived in canada too. i saw how the gun laws there have eviscerated a perfectly decent gun culture of law abiding persons. like i said, if you don't want to carry guns then don't. because stupid people feed breath mints to bears doesn't mean we shouldn't have firearms. drunk driving doesn't mean cars are bad.. lighten up my canadian buddy and buy a chain saw. i own two my self.

Otay @ 10:

Next is an update on the Orwellian No Child Left Behind program, which has resulted in graduation ratios going down and schools hurting for funding country-wide. Turns out that the cornerstone of the program, Reading First, a program emphasizing literacy administered by the president’s brother, Neil Bush, has not proven to be effective whatsoever. So the reality is that NCLB is actually leaving children behind in favor of lining the pocket of the Bush family.

Figures. Put a Bush in charge of a reading program and what do you get...

Richer Bushes?

I'm sooooooo tired of these people. I have Bush-lag. If that's a.......thing.

And just think, the Repugs are winning the special elections in Lousianna. Whata a bunch of dumb-asses.

'Adding guns into the mix is bad, bad idea. '

When is adding guns into the mix a good idea?

P.D. @ 7:

General, You are right. SOMEONE always picked up after Georgie, his whole life someone bailed him out of one jam or another. That is why MSM can't be trusted. Why didn't they scrutinze George at every turn? Because they are a bunch of corporate owned elitists who don't want to pay their fair share taxes if a Democrat gets in.

Bingo! Tonight's winner! That is their reason for everything; a tax free aristocracy. Everything they do leads to the same dead end, no taxes on the uber rich!

I feel the desire to arm bears. Let's even up them odds.

ccf @ 9:

........oh i forgot to say i'm a police officer in a large california city who knows full well how dangerous our own country is. i meet victims who've been victims of unspeakable crimes. more often than not i'm asked, after the fact, about firearm ownership for self protection. and yes our parks can be dangerous too. the crime rate at parks has risen dramatically of late. not to mention the cougars that eat people right here in california, often outside the sanctity of a park.

Sorry, ccf, you're dead wrong on this one. National Parks are some of the safest places on Earth, and if one is that paranoid about being in them without a gun, then go somewhere else. I know, I'm an NPS ranger, and have been for 25 years. Allowing guns for "protection" just allows people the excuse to get ignorantly close to potentially dangerous wildlife, because they know if they're "attacked" (i.e. if they disturb or harass the wildlife) they can just shoot 'em. It takes the respect aspect out of viewing spectacular wildlife.

Guns in National Parks is a preposterous idea. It endangers the public, endangers the rangers (who are already woefully overworked, thanks to BOTH Republicans and Democrats in power the past 28 years), makes for higher anxiety (Is that loud jerk in the campsite next to me packing? If I ask him nicely to be more quiet, will he shoot me?) and puts wildlife in a potentially tragic situation.

Guns have no place in National Parks. Period.

I agree with #28. We need to arm ourselves to the teeth so that we can protect ourselves from the neocons. That said, I'm not in favor of concealed weopons.

If we're all so frightened that we have to carry guns everywhere, then why hide them? Seriously, I'd feel safer if everyone just wore them in holsters or slung over their shoulders as they did in the wild west. That way we'll know who we have to keep an eye (or a laser sight) on.

Then we can all get those neat o quick draw holsters so can have shootouts in the street! Wild west redux!!! Oh boy, I can't wait! I've read a few websites that show how to convert a semi auto pistol to full auto. It is pretty easy. Also, you can get clips for your Ruger that hold up to, if I remember correctly and depending upon the model, seventeen rounds!

Lets see,

we here in Norway require all wannabe gun owners to petition the police for a permit to go buy one, and you need a suitable reason for getting it too, and the main ones are:

1: Being a registered hunter, having completed your 30 hours course in animal recognition, laws, safe handling of guns and other related subjects, and pass the written exam, (50 question, multiple choice, I am an instructor, we have between 5-25% fail, mostly people who don't read up.)
(I recall one case with a hyperactive kid, that the instructor did not dare bring to the shooting range, he was given his money back, and told, sorry, I am not risking the others pupils lives and health by putting a gun in your hands)

2: Being a member of a gun club for at least 6 months.

3: Being a collector (mostly guns made defective, but we had a celebrity from my town razing his bathroom with an MP5 in what was most likely a paranoid pill trip a saturday night a few months back, he delivered them in after that).

About 10% of the male population are registered hunters, and half that of the women, with rising amounts of women. We have 4,5 million inhabitants, and about 1,6 million registered privately owned guns(mostly rifles and shotguns), and maybe 0,5 million unregistered (approximately, mostly shotguns from before they were mandatory to register)

If I recall correctly, we are about the safest country on the planet, probably topped by Iceland. But then again, we do school new hunters to be aware of their responsibility as ambassadors of hunting, and be considerate of the rest of the population who are not. Probably why we have roughly 80% approval rating for what we do, even though only 70% think it is done in the best possible way. (Though, we do have our idiots as well)

Hey give Bush a break !

No child is being left behind because the ownership society is evicting the the rest.

Rufus @ 26:

Would I be impolite if I mentioned that bombing a hospital is a war crime?

Destroying or attacking civilian infrastructure is a 'war crime' or 'crime against humanity', and theres a long history of western armies and everybody else doing this in spite of the Geneva Convention prohibiting it period.
GW2 GW1 Panama pick any modern or not so modern conflict and it goes on, traceable back as far as the Spanish Civil War on a modern city or maybe back to the Russian civil war, and I am sure it happened in WW1 to a degree.
Prob a significant turning point would be the Spanish Civil War, thats when blitzkrieg and 'total warfare' seemed to become the norm.

It's always about "the right" to own/carry a firearm, never the responsibility such a right requires... Be careful what you wish for.

y'know, if someone is allowed to carry a concealed weapon into a National Park, it will give that person an opportunity to decimate the oversized population of poachers who would love to have the ability to carry a concealed weapon into National Parks..I'd love to see someone hunt poachers! They could simply say "he was coming straight for me after I caught him poaching,Bear/Bison/etc.!".

Yes...let it be so...hehehe....

Steve E @ 34:

Ruthless People @ 18:

Bush's war takes the lives of more innocent people. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/35735.html

I'm sure we can expect candy and flowers from the friends and family of the dead and wounded.

Right on. Basically the rules of engagement since last summer for the American ground troops have been "if something moves, shoot it or call in an air strike". Air strikes are messy but those fly boys get the job done. Unlike your everyday grunt on the ground, jet jockeys don`t have to look at the carnage they inflict. Real fucking heroes.

Judging by the winter soldier testimonies the rules of engagement very quickly became "a technicality" not to be taken seriously because most senior officers could always be counted on to cover up anyway.

I wonder how many of all the thousands of alleged insurgents or terrorists the MNF claim to have killed in flawless textbook engagements, were really innocent civilians.

I'm a 2nd grade teacher who taught in a Reading First school. I loved my time as a Reading First teacher. I never wanted for books or materials, I received quality professional development, and I saw a ton of growth in my kids. Reading First is totally crooked, but it worked for me. But, like any program in education, it requires a strong and organized school to run it effectively. My school served an at risk population (minority, high poverty, etc...) but wasan incredibly structured and safe learning environment. I'm at a different school this year that is not reading first but still title I. Our kids can't read. We use a whole language approach and it doesn't work. This is just anecdotal evidence, but I truly believe that until we really look at Title I schools in America and try to really serve the communties around them, big money programs will continue to be implemented and continue to fail. It would probably happen to a Democrat, too.

For more on the guns in the parks issue and what you can do to keep our parks safe, visit NPCA's website at: http://www.npca.org/keep_parks_safe/