Posts Tagged ‘news’
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Featured News
End of Combat Operations in Iraq
 President Barack Obama announced the end of combat operations in Iraq. Today, Wounded Warrior Project stands committed to honor and empower wounded warriors; the service men and women injured while serving our country over the past seven years, as well as those injured in continuing operations in Afghanistan.
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Soldier Loses Leg, Gains New Mission
WWP team member Capt. Johathan Pruden (Retired) spoke with CNN’s Ali Velshi on August 31 about the challenges wounded warriors face as they return home. Pruden was wounded in Iraq by an IED and now serves other wounded warriors through his position as an Area Outreach Coordinator with WWP. He travels throughout the southeastern United States visiting warriors dealing with wounds ranging from burns and the loss of limbs to the unseen, and often untreated, traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Watch the clip!
WWP teams up with Macy’s Shop For A Cause
Wounded Warrior Project has partnered with Macy’s for the fifth annual “Shop For A Cause” charity shopping event which will take place on October 16, 2010. Macy’s provides participating organizations with shopping passes to sell for $5 each. By purchasing a shopping pass, customers support Wounded Warrior Project and will receive a discount on purchases all day. Some exclusions apply, please see pass for details. Purchase your ticket today !
Support WWP August 30 – September 5 with eBay’s Give at Checkout
If you’re purchasing an item on eBay between August 30 and September 5, don’t miss out on an easy opportunity to support WWP. During this seven day period, WWP will be one of the nonprofits featured in eBay’s Give at Checkout, which enables buyers to add a $1 donation or more to any eBay purchase when using PayPal. The option to give at checkout will appear on the right side of the final checkout window. Want to donate to WWP year-round? Visit WWP’s eBay Giving Works page, click Save As Favorite and you will always be prompted to make a contribution at checkout. You can even choose to Sell to Support Our Cause or Donate Now without making a purchase.
Our After Action Report is hot off the press!
In this edition you will meet wounded warriors Thomas Green, Mike Owens and Barry Albert, learn the top-10 things you should know about the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010, and discover how “man’s best friend” is helping wounded warriors. Want to receive After Action Report via mail or electronically? Just sign up! You can even view past editions to hear more incredible warrior stories.
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What’s in the news for wounded warriors?
Trying to keep up with the latest news concerning warriors can be a daunting task. We’ve created a News Room to keep you up-to-date with quick links to relevant articles about topics concerning warriors and Wounded Warrior Project. Hear warrior stories and read articles about the newest prosthetic knee, brain trauma, PTSD and everything WWP. You can even check out pictures from recent WWP events!
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Team of Wounded Warriors Scale Mt. Kilimanjaro
Reed Hoffman/Disabled Sports USA
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, one of the world’s highest peaks, is an accomplishment in itself. We invite you to meet a team of wounded warriors who scaled the peak with a combination of five prosthetic legs. Injuries didn’t slow down this inspiring crew!
Want to hear more? Watch an interview with Dan Nevins, one of the climbers and a WWP team member, and then take a look at our Facebook page to see what others are saying about the climb.
Program Spotlight – Project Odyssey
Project Odyssey is an outdoor rehabilitative retreat that provides warriors recovering from combat stress with adventure challenges and opportunities for peer support and group processing. In conjunction with the National Park Service, Project Odyssey takes place in a variety of geographical locations over the course of five days. Past event sites include Wildcatter Resort & Ranch in Graham, Texas; Marriott Cocoa Beach in Miami, Florida; National Ability Center, Park City, Utah; and Acadia National Park in Maine. Each location offers a unique experience and the program varies based on geographical resources.
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President Obama Signs Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act!
Wounded Warrior Project applauds President Obama for signing into law a measure that, for the first time, will ensure that families of veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan receive comprehensive, coordinated financial and other support that will enable them to provide these warriors with needed home-care. Enactment of the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010 has been the highest legislative priority for the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), which worked with Congress for more than a year to win its passage.
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Wounded Warriors Team Up with New Orleans Saints for "Virtual Rehabilitation"
Twenty-two wounded warriors continued their path to recovery by working out with the New Orleans Saints live via webcam as part of the program "Rehabbing with the Troops." Sponsored by Armed Forces Insurance (AFI, www.afi.org), the 10-week rehabilitation program was developed by Pro vs. G.I. Joe, in partnership with the United Services Organizations (USO) and Wounded Warrior Project (WWP).
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Wounded Warrior Project Executive Director Named One of the "Top 50" Executives for 2010
Wounded Warrior Project Executive Director Steven Nardizzi has been named one of the top 50 most influential executives in the non-profit sector by the latest issue of The Non-Profit Times. Over 250 nominees were reviewed and the group selected represents the industry’s top thinkers, technology leaders and innovative minds.
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Under Armour Launches UA Freedom Initiative
Under Armour, the Baltimore-based leader in performance apparel, footwear and accessories today announced the July 2nd launch of UA Freedom™, a brand initiative developed to honor and support US military and public safety officials. Through the brand’s partnership with the Wounded Warrior Project, Under Armour will create specially designed Wounded Warrior Project apparel that can be purchased through the UA Freedom website. A portion of these proceeds will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project and aid in their mission of honoring and empowering wounded warriors. Consumers will also have the opportunity to purchase an Under Armour Wounded Warrior Project Backpack that will be presented directly to an injured service member recovering in an overseas military hospital.
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Wounded Warrior Project Chooses USAA Bank for Co-Branded Credit Card
To raise awareness and help provide funding for the needs of severely injured service men and women, USAA Savings Bank and the Wounded Warrior Project will join forces to offer a credit card that helps fund WWP programs to support service members with traumatic war injuries.
Wounded warriors and their family members along with WWP supporters and contributors can now proudly carry the USAA Wounded Warrior Project World MasterCard. In addition to the co-branded credit card honoring wounded warriors, USAA announced that recipients of the Traumatic Servicemember’s Group Life Insurance benefit will receive a free consultation with a USAA Certified Financial Planner.
Apply now
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Tags: Barack Obama, Caregivers, combat, eBay, end, HEALTH, news, Omnibus, outreach coordinator, Post Traumatic Stress, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, s ali, support, traumatic brain injuries, Traumatic Stress Disorder, veterans, Wounded, wounded warrior project, wounded warriors, WWP Posted in research | No Comments »
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Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Best of the Web: Sarah Palin the Sound and the Fury: Portrait of a Psycho
Michael Joseph Gross
Vanity Fair
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:14 CDT
© Vanity Fair
PALIN’S PALADINS: Erratic behavior and a pattern of lying matter little: “Such falsehoods never damage Palin’s credibility with her admirers, because information and ideology are incidental to this relationship."
Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The music accompanies a video "Salute to Military Heroes" that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.
When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.
And how. Palin and the crowd might as well be one. She’s glad to be here with the people of Independence, Missouri, "where so many of you proudly cling to your guns and your religion" – the first laughline in a 40-minute stump speech that alludes to many of the perceived insults she and her audience have suffered together, and that transforms their resentments into badges of honor. Palin waves her scribbled-on palm to the crowd, proclaiming that she’s using "the poor man’s teleprompter." Of the Obama administration, she says, "They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ‘em, and I do tell ‘em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah – we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up."
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Best of the Web: Dead Souls: The Pentagon Plan to Create Remorseless ‘Warfighters’
Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:12 CST
© Unknown
The new US army: tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable,… inhumane
Penny Coleman at Alternet.com gives us a look at a new program designed to dull the moral sensibilities of American soldiers in combat on the imperial frontiers: Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War.
But as we’ll see below, this attempt to peddle magic pills to chase away the horrors of war is just one front in a long-term, wide-ranging "warfighter enhancement program" — including the neurological and genetic re-engineering of soldiers’ minds and bodies to create what the Pentagon calls "iron bodied and iron willed personnel": tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable.
I.
Coleman takes specific aim at the "Psychological Kevlar Act," aimed at reducing the alarming spread of soldier suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder spawned by the illegal invasion of Iraq. The program relies heavily on dosing soldiers with Propranalol, which, "if taken immediately following a traumatic event, can subdue a victim’s stress response and so soften his or her perception of the memory," as Coleman notes. "That does not mean the memory has been erased, but proponents claim that the drug can render it emotionally toothless." She continues:
But is it moral to weaken memories of horrendous acts a person has committed? Some would say that there is no difference between offering injured soldiers penicillin to prevent an infection and giving a drug that prevents them from suffering from a posttraumatic stress injury for the rest of their lives. Others, like Leon Kass, former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, object to propranolol’s use on the grounds that it medicates away one’s conscience…Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is even more blunt. "That’s the devil pill," he says. "That’s the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That’s the pill that can make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn’t work, what’s scary is that a young soldier could believe it will."
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Best of the Web: How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book’s Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews
Max Blumenthal
AlterNet
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:15 CDT
A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.
When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha’Melech, or the King’s Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. "Are you sure you want it?" the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. "The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do." As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. "See that?" he told me. "It goes straight to the Shabak!"
As soon as it was published late last year, Torat Ha’Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book’s contents as "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew." According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, "Non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and should be killed in order to "curb their evil inclinations." "If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder," Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults."
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Best of the Web: Innocent Executioners: An Illustration of the Principles of Western Civilization in the Modern World
Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:52 CDT
We hear a lot about barbarism and backwardness and bloodthirstiness among the nations of the Middle East, where violent religious extremists are praised and supported — and often hold state power. A lot of this is hype and misinformation, of course, but sometimes it’s all too true. From the Guardian:
An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday. …
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.
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Best of the Web: Global Youth Unemployment Reaches Record Levels
Jordan Shilton
World Socialist Website
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:52 CDT
© Unknown
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has issued a report documenting the severe impact of the global economic crisis on employment prospects for the world’s youth. The report, "Global Employment Trends for Youth", presents detailed statistics on the growing number of 15-to-24-year-olds who find themselves out of work.
The most striking findings are those showing the rapid rise of youth unemployment from the eruption of the financial crisis in 2008 onwards. At the end of 2009, according to the report’s introduction, global youth unemployment stood at 81 million. This was an increase of 7.8 million, or nearly 10 percent, from the end of 2007.
In percentage terms, global youth unemployment rose from 11.9 percent to 13 percent during this period, an increase described as "sharper than ever before".
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Signs of the Times News for Thu, 02 Sep 2010
Tags: army, battle hymn of the republic, black curtain, Cdt, Employment, Engine, erratic behavior, laughline, mary janes, michael joseph gross, military heroes, news, oil, percent, psycho michael, security, Signs Of The Times, state, unemployment, Vanity Fair Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Friday, August 27th, 2010
Tags: 11p, alwaleed bin talal, Com, daily show with jon stewart, evil, fox news, Full, full episodes, funder, Jon Stewart, Muslim, news, Political, political humor, Signs Of The Times, Talal, Tea, Tea Party, www Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Friday, August 27th, 2010
Best of the Web: Russia Today Dishes The Dirt On Bogus Wikileaks
RT.com
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:14 CDT
Read between the lines on this one folks. There are too many suspicious details about Wikileaks, and it has nothing to do with Pentagon ‘smear tactics’.
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Best of the Web: A Weird Way of Thinking Has Prevailed Worldwide
Anand Giridharadas
New York Times
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:06 CDT
© Unknown
Cortes, Canada – Imagine a country whose inhabitants eat human flesh, wear only pink hats to sleep and banish children into the forest to raise themselves until adulthood.
Now imagine that this country dominates the study of psychology worldwide. Its universities have the best facilities, which draw the best scholars, who write the best papers. Their research subjects are the flesh-eating, pink-hat-wearing, forest-reared locals.
When these psychologists write about their own country, all is well. But things deteriorate when they generalize about human nature.
They view behaviors that are globally commonplace – say, vegetarianism – as deviant. Human nature, as they define it, reflects little of the actual diversity of humankind.
This scenario may sound preposterous. But if a provocative new study is to be believed, the world already lives in such a situation – except that it is American undergraduates, not flesh-eating forest dwellers, who monopolize our knowledge of human nature.
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Best of the Web: Hitler had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests show
Heidi Blake
Irish Independent
Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:10 CDT
© Time Magazine
Adolf Hitler is likely to have had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests have shown.
Saliva samples taken from 39 relatives of the Nazi leader show he may have had biological links to the "subhuman" races that he tried to exterminate during the Holocaust.
Jean-Paul Mulders, a Belgian journalist, and Marc Vermeeren, a historian, tracked down the Fuhrer’s relatives, including an Austrian farmer who was his cousin, earlier this year.
A chromosome called Haplogroup E1b1b1 which showed up in their samples is rare in Western Europe and is most commonly found in the Berbers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.
"One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised," Mr Mulders wrote in the Belgian magazine, Knack.
Haplogroup E1b1b1, which accounts for approximately 18 to 20 per cent of Ashkenazi and 8.6 per cent to 30 per cent of Sephardic Y-chromosomes, appears to be one of the major founding lineages of the Jewish population.
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Best of the Web: After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters
Propublica.com
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:08 CDT
© Alex Brandon/The Times Picayune
New Orleans Police Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann aims his gun on the Claiborne Overpass in New Orleans on Sept. 1, 2005.
This story was reported by Sabrina Shankman and Tom Jennings of Frontline, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica
In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department.
It’s not clear how broadly the order was communicated. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out. Others say they understood it as a fundamental change in the standards on deadly force, which allow police to fire only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat.
The accounts of orders to "shoot looters," "take back the city," or "do what you have to do" are fragmentary. It remains unclear who originated them or whether they were heard by any of the officers involved in shooting 11 civilians in the days after Katrina. Thus far, no officers implicated in shootings have used the order as an explanation for their actions. Only one of the people shot by police – Henry Glover – was allegedly stealing goods at the time he was shot.
Still, current and former officers said the police orders – taken together with tough talk from top public officials broadcast over the airwaves — contributed to an atmosphere of confusion about how much force could be used to combat looting.
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Best of the Web: Evil or Just Plain Stupid? Alwaleed bin Talal is Fox News’ largest shareholder
The Daily Show
Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:00 CDT
Fox News is either evil or stupid for not mentioning that Alwaleed bin Talal is News Corp.’s largest shareholder.
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Signs of the Times News for Fri, 27 Aug 2010
Tags: Adolf Hitler, african roots, body, cdt time, CIA, dna tests, evil, Gulf, human flesh, journalis, news, oil, police, saliva samples, study of psychology, suspicious details, Talal, Time, wikileaks Posted in headlines | No Comments »
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Friday, August 27th, 2010
UN investigators have uncovered mass human rights abuses in Congo in the 1990s including the possible genocide of Hutu refugees by Rwandan forces.
A leaked report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), details massacres, rapes and looting by forces from various countries in two wars that rocked the former Zaire between 1993 and 2003, French newspaper Le Monde said.
The most serious claims target Rwanda, whose forces along with Congolese troops allegedly shot, clubbed and axed to death vast numbers of ethnic Hutu refugees in Congo, including women, children and the elderly from 1996 to 1998.
The UN investigated massacres by these forces as long ago as 1997, according to a report received by Agence France-Presse in 2005, but its efforts were disrupted by the subsequent outbreak of war and that report was never officially published.
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The total number of victims of war crimes by various forces operating in the country, known since 1997 as the Democratic Republic of Congo, is "probably several tens of thousands," the UNHCR report said, according to the newspaper.
After the genocide of minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, about a million Hutus fearing reprisals fled across the western border to Congo.
Rwandan Tutsi forces raided refugee camps there in search of Hutu genocide leaders.
Le Monde quoted the UNHCR report as saying that "the systematic and generalised attacks (against Hutus in Congo) have several damning aspects which, if proved by a competent court, could qualify as crimes of genocide".
"The use of non-firearms, mainly hammers, and the systematic massacres of survivors after camps were captured show that the number of dead is not attributable to the hazards of war," it quoted the UN report as saying.
The acts allegedly involved a coalition of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (APR) of Tutsis and a Congolese force, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), led by Laurent-Desire Kabila.
In the first of the two wars, between 1996 and 1998, the AFDL, supported by the APR, ousted the late dictator of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.
The UN alleged in the unpublished 1997 report seen by AFP that its investigations at that time were obstructed by the administration of Laurent-Desire Kabila – father of the current President Joseph Kabila.
After the elder Kabila toppled Mobutu, a second war raged from 1998 to 2003.
The genocide allegations were among some of "the most serious violations of human rights and international law" according to the report, which accuses forces from several other neighbouring countries of crimes over the 10 years.
Citing unnamed sources, Le Monde said Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who led the APR in its successful campaign to oust the Hutu administration in Kigali after the 1994 genocide, had fought to cover up the report, threatening to withdraw Rwandan troops from UN peacekeeping missions.
The paper cited unnamed Rwandan sources dismissing the allegations as "absurd".
The UN report is due to be published in September, the newspaper said.
The UNHCR spokesman in Geneva, Rupert Colville, said the newspaper had "the wrong version of the report" having obtained an early draft which "has gone through changes".
He would not comment on the details reported by Le Monde.
"It’s only a draft from about two months ago and the proper final version will come up very soon," Mr Colville said.
Le Monde cited unnamed Congolese sources as saying that some of the people involved in the alleged abuses still held positions of power in the country.
UN finds ‘possible genocide’ in Congo | News.com.au
Tags: Agence France Presse, army, Com, congo news, congolese troops, democratic republic of congo, genocide, Human Rights Abuses, hutu refugees, Mobutu, news, rwanda genocide, Rwandan, START, Tutsis, tutsis in rwanda, united nations high commissioner, united nations high commissioner for human rights, Version, war Posted in research | No Comments »
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