Saturday, March 29, 2014

Very sad to hear about Noel Sheppard's death


Just learned that Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters passed away from cancer.  He was 53.

 Brent Bozell broke the news hours ago:

 "Our Noel Sheppard passed away yesterday (Friday) morning at about 5:00 AM. Say a prayer for the soul of a man we'll all miss professionally, and many, many of us will miss personally as well. Noel was not just a force of nature, he was a very good man.

 How quickly this all happened. 

 Just two months ago, Noel wrote about suddenly getting cancer at 53 called "Cancer's Ray of Hope." 

 Nine days ago, he wrote us and said he was interested in writing about his "progress" -- and he put "progress" in quotes. We were all wishing for better news, and really couldn't imagine this was a battle that would end this way.
Noel joined us and was introduced to us by Matt Sheffield at the founding of NewsBusters in 2005, and he became our Associate Editor. It must be said that no blogger here was more prolific and more popular. We'll have more to say in the coming days."
RIP Noel.   We loved your work!
P.S.  Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos. If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column of the blog page.
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Why didn't President Obama tell the Europeans to get serious about NATO?

(My new American Thinker post)
President Obama said all of the right things about NATO in his speech on Thursday - that we will act under Article 5 to protect members of the alliance.   

 However, he forgot to tell the Europeans that they are not spending enough money or carrying their weight in the alliance.

 According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, there are too many NATO members not living up to their commitment:
"The combined GDP of NATO's 28 member states tops $30 trillion.
Yet with few exceptions, most notably Poland, NATO defense expenditures have declined since the end of the Cold War. The nearby table shows the relative defense spending in 2013 for some key NATO countries as a share of GDP.
Only four members—the U.S., U.K., Greece and Estonia—spent at least 2% of GDP on defense.  
At 1.9%, France last year fell short of the 2% that is supposed to be the technical requirement for membership. Mr. Rasmussen's Denmark spent 1.4% of its GDP on defense, Angela Merkel's Germany 1.3%, Italy 1.2%, and Spain 0.9%.
This is what a country spends if it thinks its main security threat is Belgium.  
And the trend is down, as a majority of NATO members reduced defense spending in 2013.
Among the more drastic defense cutters last year were Canada (7.6%), Slovenia (8.7%), Italy (10.3%), Hungary (11.9%) and Spain (11.9%)."
In other words, NATO is not much an alliance. 

 I don't expect President Obama to tell the Europeans that the welfare state is draining their economies and creating chronic unemployment.   I do expect our commander in chief to remind the Europeans that they are not paying their full membership dues.

 Here is the bottom line: It's tough to tell a mother in Kansas that her son should defend countries that won't even live up to their agreements.

 P. S. You can hear our special Europe show with Michael Prade and Rosine Ghawji Plus follow me on Twitter @ scantojr.
Popular Politics Internet Radio with Silvio Canto Jr on BlogTalkRadio


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Congratulations to João Cerqueira


Let's congratulate Joao for winning another award:

 "Award-Winner in the Fiction: Multicultural category of The 2013 USA Best Book Awards, sponsored by USA Book News"

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