Nine For Nine

It was one of my state's Senators that asked for a resolution on the floor of the Senate yesterday to denounce the MoveOn ad calling General Petraeus a 'betrayer'. Of course, traitor in chief, Harry Reid would have none of it and it didn't come to be. Harry doesn't want to lose any of that donation money. Other than Joe Lieberman, who has come out against the full page ad in the New York Times, given at a 64% discount? No defeatist Dems, that's for sure. And they all intend to continue collecting the donations from the scum.

Hillary Clinton proves again her hatred for the military. I didn't hear her accusations to the General but read of them online. You didn't think the MSM would report them, did you? No bad press for their gal, Hill. She went the farthest to call the General a liar. That he was not reporting with truthful stats and all that. She is one cold hard woman. We knew that. She has some nerve to question anyone's honesty, much less that of General Petraeus.

Monday morning I attended the monthly meeting of my Republican Womens PAC. Our speaker was Joan Neuhaus Schaan, Fellow in Homeland Security and Terrorism at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. She is also on the advisory council for Houston-Harris county for homeland security matters. She was activated during Operation Noble Eagle and received the Joint Chief of Staff insignia - Northern Command, quite a high honor. She was very impressive in her presentation and knowledge.

She was concentrating on foreign threats and how they relate to the Houston area. Locally, we have always been told that we are a target rich city for terrorists. We have a very large Muslim population, some say the largest outside of Michigan. So, I learned of the criteria in rating a city as a target. They are as follow:

1. Telecommunication
2. Health
3. Information Technology
4. Transportation
5. Shipping
6. Nuclear Power
7. Chemical
8. National Icons
9. Banking

Houston is the only city in the country to meet all nine of the criteria. That's a distinction I could have lived without. We've always been skittish about our ship channels and coastal resources but also major is our medical center area of town. It is the world's largest medical center, I knew that and it is huge with many major hospitals there, but I learned that it contains 40% of the hospital beds for the entire state. The chemical industry, sure, that makes sense. We have the refineries and lots of petroleum based chemistry businesses. I learned 40% of all petro based chemicals for the nation originate here. We are the home of a former president and many world leaders are here.

Houston is a part of a recruitment and training pipeline. Extremists are in our midst. For instance, Ramsey Yousef was a former resident and Domino's pizza delivery guy. Jeffrey Leon Battle, one of the Portland 7, was trained by a local radical Imam. Omar Abu Ali was involved with the Riyadh bombing. Local mosques have been implicated in plots and local Internet site hosting companies have been helpful to terrorists.

Houston Taliban connections include Kobie Williams who changed his name and trained to fight troops overseas while attending the University of Houston school of engineering.

There is a new service offered by Google Earth that lets the computer user see the view of a street as if driving down it. Houston is one of the first 4 cities offering this service.

Middle Easterners are assuming Hispanic names and learning Spanish. There is a marked increase in 'Muslim activity' in Mexico. The leader of MS-13 was captured here and put on trial.

She said we must stop this pre-disposition that only a handful of plots worldwide are of concern. Activity is all over the world and the terrorists are constantly testing for weaknesses. There is a frustration that when asked, 85% of Muslims say they wouldn't report a plot if they knew of one. She encourages people to notify Crimestoppers in their communities if someone sees suspicious activity. That is a way to remain completely anonymous.

The Department of Treasury maintains a list of non-profits known for providing monetary funding to terrorist groups. You can check online if you have a question about a non-profit before contributing to it.

Football is huge in the South. Recently, Dallas Stadium was found to be an example used by a group planning an attack. Large sports arenas are being considered as targets. Blonds or Blacks are being recruited to set off several suicide bombs, with the ensuing stampede of the crowd killing a large number of people. Hispanics are also being recruited at the Mexican border. Already Middle Easterners have been taken into custody in the Houston area with false documents after crossing into the country from Mexico.

Women have been recruited as suicide bombers and discovered to be 'shamed' women. They volunteer to detonate rather than be stoned to death for shaming themselves and their families for something deemed offensive to Islam.

Ms. Neuhaus Schaan was a really interesting, informative speaker. It's good to know we have such sharp talent on the scene.

Nine for nine? That's a test I wish we had flunked.