Skeptical Dems told 30,000 more troops can win war
WASHINGTON – Confronted by a wary Congress, the president's chief military and diplomatic advisers insisted Wednesday the quick infusion of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan was the nation's last, best shot at winning the war and staving off "severe consequences for the United States and the world."
Lawmakers from President Barack Obama's own Democratic Party expressed deep skepticism about the plan's chances for success but conceded they had little likelihood of blocking it. Republican supporters of the troop increase had their own objections, chiefly Obama's announcement Tuesday night of a July 2011 timeline for beginning to bring American forces home.
The stakes are great — al-Qaida's ability to regroup and plan the next terrorist attack on Americans — Obama's top advisers warned during a day of hearings before House and Senate panels.
"We cannot defeat al-Qaida and its toxic ideology without improving and stabilizing the security situation in Afghanistan," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
With voter support of the war on the decline, Democrats questioned the escalation and sought assurances that Obama's target date to begin withdrawing troops was firm.
"It seems to me that the large influx of U.S. combat troops will put more U.S. Marines on street corners in Afghan villages, with too few Afghan partners alongside them," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The hearings were aimed at building support among war-weary lawmakers for Obama's dramatic rewrite of the battle plan in Afghanistan. By the end of next summer, the president plans to increase to 100,000 the number of U.S. troops there, marking the largest expansion of the war since it began eight years ago. The new strategy also relies on a pledge by NATO to commit an additional 5,000 to 7,000 troops.
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a vocal war critic who is a senior House Democrat overseeing military spending, predicted that Congress would pass a $40 billion war financing bill early next year to pay for the added deployments.
Murtha said he remains unconvinced the troop increase is a good idea but believes he and other anti-war Democrats will not be able to stop it. "It's not likely that there would be any circumstances where the president would lose this battle this year," he said.
At the same time, Murtha said he didn't think more troops would make the U.S. more secure.
"Al-Qaida can go any place. They don't have to be in Afghanistan," he told reporters.
Despite the war's waning popularity among voters, there were few protesters on hand at Wednesday's hearings.
Republicans objected to the setting of a hard deadline for withdrawing troops and said Obama must be willing to delay the start of a pullout if security deteriorates.
"We don't want to sound an uncertain trumpet to our friends in the region," said John McCain, the Senate panel's top Republican and Obama's opponent in last year's presidential race.
As part of a full-court press by the White House to make the case for Obama's new strategy, Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued for the troop increase. But they also were careful with their words so as not to aggravate divisions on the issue.
They cast the war as serious but not hopeless. Mullen said the Taliban had regained ground in Afghanistan — gaining "dominant influence" in 11 of 34 provinces — but could be defeated with enough resources and time.
"While there are no guarantees in war, I expect that we will make significant headway in the next 18-24 months," he said.
Gates told lawmakers that the situation is far less dire than the violent chaos that gripped Iraq in 2006. Still, he said, "This will take more patience, perseverance and sacrifice by the United States and our allies."
He called the region the "epicenter of extremist jihadism," reminding lawmakers that local and foreign Muslims had joined forces there before — in defeating the former Soviet Union. "For them to be seen to defeat the sole remaining superpower in the same place would have severe consequences for the United States and the world," Gates said.
He suggested the July 2011 withdrawal date was both firm and flexible, frustrating lawmakers who said that wasn't possible.
"Which is it? It's got to be one or the other," said McCain.
When pressed, Gates said the beginning of drawing down troops would not necessarily be based on conditions in Afghanistan and that the president was committed to begin pulling at least some troops out by the target date
At the same time, the president will have the authority to change gears after the Defense Department conducts a formal assessment in December 2010. Gates said the July 2011 date was chosen because it would give the Marines two years to complete a security push in Helmand province that began last July.
"I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving," added Clinton. "But what we have done ... is to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan."
She added that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's pledge to fight corruption "must now be met with action."
The buildup also will put more strain on troops by giving them less time than hoped for at home.
Mullen said supplying the extra forces for Afghanistan while there are still so many troops in Iraq will mean putting off for a couple of years the goal of lengthening the time they rest and retrain at home between tours of duty — a period the military calls "dwell time." The Army had been moving toward giving two years of dwell time between each one-year tour.
After meeting Wednesday with Karzai, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal called Karzai's reaction to the new U.S. strategy "really positive. The president was very upbeat, very resolute this morning."
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he expected the allies to bolster the American buildup with more than 5,000 additional troops. Gates said the allies would remain focused on the less volatile north and west of Afghanistan to "prevent the insurgency from establishing new footholds," while Americans focus on the south and east.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Obama's speech as "courageous, determined and lucid" but stopped short of pledging additional French troops.
___
Associated Press writers Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Heidi Vogt in Kabul and Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington contributed to this report.
20 Free Backlink Checker Tools
Here are 20 Free Backlinks Checker Tools also called as Link Popularity Tools:
For Live Links, Check Free Link Popularity Tools
* Webmaster Toolkit: The Link Popularity Checker tells you how many websites are linking to yours. You should try different methods of inputting your URL, as some search engines treat them differently. Different methods will probably produce slightly different results.
* Submit Express: How popular is your website? This tool will show you how many other sites are linking to you. Most search engines use this data to calculate how popular your website is.
* Link Popularity.com: Knowing who links to your site and increasing the number of quality links is an important part of any web site promotion effort. This free service allows you to query Google, Yahoo, and MSN and reports on link popularity.
* SEO Centro: The Link Popularity analysis program will search Google, Yahoo, AllTheWeb, AltaVista, and MSN to determine how many pages are linking to your web page.
* Add pro: Use this free tool to check the number of web pages linking to your site. You can also use it to find out how many links your competitors have and who’s linking to them. Some of the websites that are linking to your competitors could also be linking to you, if you let them know you exists.
* SEO Chat: This tool will query all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) when you enter the “link:” operator with your chosen URL. It will return the total link count for each URL.
* Add me: To find out how popular your site is, just enter your URL in the box below and press the “Check Popularity” button. If your site represents a business, don’t forget to also check your competitors backlinks as well! You might be surprised by the results.
* SEO Guy: Just type in www.domain.com in the “Your URL” Field and hit “GO” also if you want to see how you stack up against your competition feel free to place up to 3 competitors URL’s in there to compare.
* Free Web Submission: Their Link Popularity script checks links to your website on 3 major search engines.
* SELF Seo: With this tool you can check the link popularity for any given page – just enter the URL in the box below. You will see how many links has been already “noticed” by the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and Alltheweb & Hotbot.
* Go Rank Tool: This link popularity tool will detect up to the first 30 links currently present in Google as backlinks for the URL you enter. This tool then analyzes the contents of each of these pages for the specific link text to the URL you selected. The text of each link is displayed in the final report as well as the title of each linking page.
* Google Backlink Checker tool: Google Back link Checker tool enables you to know the number of websites who have given a link to your website or web page.Back links are inward links to a website or a webpage; it acts as one of the key factors in determining the ranking of your website. It helps you to have a track of the other websites on the web that link to your URL.
* Yahoo Backlink Checker Tool: A back link is an inward link to your site that may or may not be reciprocated with an outward link back. If page A links to page B then a back link would be a link which goes from page B back to page A.
* MSN Backlink Checker Tool: Our tool for checking your back links tells you how many websites are linking to yours. Website popularity is an important factor in your search engine ranking. The more popular your site is, the better it will be ranked on the search engines.
* Link Popularity Checking Tool: Tells you the number of backlinks for AltaVista & All the web.
* Link Popularity Comparison Tool: This Link Popularity Comparison Tool allows you to quickly and easily compare your link popularity scores to competitor’s websites. Enter the URL of the sites to be compared on the blank fields. Click COMPARE to know the results of comparison. The results show up the comparison of the link popularity of the website with the other one. The comparison can be done with more than one website i.e. up to three websites can be compared.
* Web Confs Backlink Summary Tool: This tool will give you a summary of your competitor’s backlinks.
* Multiple Datacenter Backlink Checker Tool: Their Multiple Datacenter Backlink Checker Tool helps you determine the backlinks of your site with various Google Datacenters.
* Link Popularity Romov: Measure the link popularity by checking its Google Page Rank, search engine backlinks, Alexa traffic rank, as well as its popularity on major social networking web sites.
* Free Link Popularity Checker Tool: Link Popularity Check offers free, instant, online reports of a webpage’s link popularity rating in 3 top search engines; Google, Yahoo! Search and Bing (MSN).
List of quick approving RSS directories
This is small list of free RSS directories which approves your feed listing very quickly.Hope this help you. 
Quick approving RSS directories list
1.http://www.feedage.com/
2.http://www.rssmountain.com/
3.http://www.feedest.com/
4.http://www.rssmotron.com
5.http://feed.feedcat.net
6.http://feedfury.com/
7.http://www.1000sites.net
8.http://www.rssfeedcentral.net
9.http://www.rss-one.com
10.http://www.5z5.com
11.http://rssws.com
12.http://feedvault.com/ 
Infolinks vs Kontera - a small experiment
I have registered a website to both Infolinks and Kontera.
I have now seven days of data.
Although Kontera says that results may not reflect the real performance of their ads before 2 weeks and the fact that I used Infolinks parameters to help it target ads (via categories).
But Kontera doesn't offer the ability to help them target ads, and infolinks doesn't say that they need 2 weeks before showing their full potential.
So.. from tuesday 24th november to monday 30th november:
Infolinks: 19,443 impressions, 246 clicks (1.29% CTR) makes $35.34 ($1.82 eCPM) so it is a CPC of $0.14
Kontera: 7,699 impressions, 132 clicks (1.71% CTR) makes $7.14 ($0.93 eCPM) so it is a CPC of $0.05
I don't know why there are so few impressions with Kontera since I made an exact 50/50 between both services. From my log data, Infolinks reflects the true traffic, Kontera underestimates it.
25 DoFollow Links, Free 85 link, Free backlink
http://www.themallblog.com/ - PR6
http://www.midasoracle.org/ - PR6
http://randaclay.com/ - PR6
http://www.seotops.com/ - PR5
http://www.knrn.org/ - PR5
http://larholm.com/ - PR5
http://djallyn.org/ - PR5
http://www.barrywise.com/ - PR5
http://www.oilman.ca/ - PR5
http://successcreeations.com/ - PR4
http://psdvibe.com/ - PR4
http://kikolani.com/ - PR4
http://www.memwg.com/ - PR4
http://www.marketing-results.com.au/blog/ - PR4
http://nthambazale.com/ - PR4
http://raven-seo-tools.com/blog/ - PR4
http://www.seopittfall.com/ - PR4
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog - PR4
http://blog.shoplet.com/ - PR4
http://middlezonemusings.com/ - PR4
http://heiseidemocracy.com/ - PR4
http://www.wordpressmax.com/ - PR4
http://www.techjaws.com/ - PR4
http://www.scrapscene.com/ - PR4
I used them for comments.. and it really works..
85 DoFollow Links, Free 85 link, Free backlink
PR 6
http://blog.greens.org.nz
http://www.themallblog.com/
http://www.currybet.net/
PR 5
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/
http://www.blog.epicedits.com/
http://www.newsletter.blizzardinternet.com/
http://www.effortlesshr.com/blog
http://justaddwater.dk/
http://www.cfra.org/
http://psdvibe.com/
http://www.oilman.ca
http://www.outofmygord.com/
http://www.deardrmoz.com/
http://www.prep.org/
http://www.nvtg.org
PR 4
http://www.memwg.com/
http://www.lifeintherough.com/
http://www.layercake.net/
http://www.heiseidemocracy.com/
http://www.abstract2collective.blogspot.com/
http://www.pureblogging.com/
http://www.alistseo.com/
http://www.blueverse.com/
http://www.bookmarkbliss.com/
http://www.sueblimely.com/
http://www.lillieammann.com/
http://www.engadgeteer.com/
http://www.atxgraffiti.com/
http://www.adamloving.com/
http://www.fueleconomyhelp.com/
http://www.clicknewz.com/
http://www.handanalysisonline.com/
http://www.jackhumphrey.com/
http://www.wordcat.co.uk
http://www.retirerichroadmap.com/blog/
http://www.hospitalera.com
http://www.costpernews.com
http://www.blumenthals.com/blog/
http://nthambazale.com/
http://www.universalhub.com/
http://www.stomperblog.com/
http://www.esoterically.net/weblog
http://www.scrapscene.com
http://kikolani.com
http://www.barrywise.com/
http://www.jhsiess.com/
http://www.howtowakeupearly.com/
http://daverigotti.com/
http://spiffles.com/
http://www.abundancehighway.com/
http://designadaptations.com/
http://ttt.com
PR3
http://mrdefinite.com/
http://www.suzannesaysblog.com/
http://www.almerimarlife.com/
http://www.blackwaterblog.com/
http://www.chrishoyt.com/
http://www.brilliantcheers.co.uk/
http://www.bestrealincome.com/
http://www.lastblogger.com/
http://www.greenstoreandmore.com/
http://www.dailydollarreport.com/
http://www.kiwibloke.org
http://www.nerdydork.com/
http://www.technewsline.net/
http://www.xatal.com/
http://www.growmap.com/
http://www.tycoonblogger.com/
http://www.dailyscrewups.com/
http://www.execgiftsblog.com/
http://timbrydges.com/
http://potpolitics.com/
http://thejimgaudet.com/
http://www.blogjer.com
http://www.smartblogtips.com/
http://rfwebstudio.com/
http://www.directsaleswebmarketing.com
http://mikepaetzold.com/
http://cureyourconstipation.com/
http://www.freshyields.com
http://www.freyer.com
http://dietaryfiberguide.com
http://fuery.com/
http://funscrapbooking.net
http://alohateam.com/
Nokia E72 Out Now. Master Reset
E71 is a huge success for Nokia as proven by its presence everywhere. The slim, slick design and metal casing with qwerty keypad produce stunning looks phone appeal to the mass market.
Nokia E71 successor, Nokia E72 which making it’s official presence in Malaysia recently is out to continue the E71 fame.
No surprise here that physically, E72 has almost identical appearance with E71 in term of dimension ,weight as well as the screen size. The keypad is taking cue from E63. Good news that the camera is now boosted with 5 megapixel resolution. Being an email fan, I’m quite interested with the fact that E72 support various push email technology Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.
- Supported protocols: IMAP4 (with idle), Nokia Messaging, Microsoft ActiveSync, POP3, SMTP
- Support for Nokia Messaging service
- Support for Mail for Exchange
- Support for Lotus Notes Traveller
- HTML email support
- Multiple simultaneous email accounts (e.g. business email + private email)
- Support for e-mail attachments
- Support for e-mail with filtering
- OMA e-mail notification support
- Integrated Nokia Mobile VPN
It priced at RM1670 at the local market, but you can expect the price goes down in a month or two. Here is the key features taken from GSM Arena review. Full spec can be viewed from Nokia website.
- Quad-band GSM support
- 3G with HSDPA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2Mbps
- Landscape 2.36″ 16M-color display of QVGA resolution
- Comfortable full QWERTY keypad
- Optical trackpad on the D-pad
- Symbian 9.3 OS, S60 UI with FP2
- 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB of SDRAM
- 5 megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology, DLNA support
- Built-in GPS receiver, A-GPS support, digital compass
- Accelerometer for turn-to-mute
- 250 MB of internal memory, microSD expansion, ships with a 4GB card
- Standard 3.5mm audio jack
- Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP support and microUSB v2.0
- FM radio with RDS
- Remote Wipe
- Great battery life
- Office document editor (including MS Office 2007)
- User-friendly Mode Switch for swapping two homescreen setups
- Smart dialing
- Full Flash support
- Great audio output quality
- Lifetime Nokia Messaging subscription
Video highlight E72 key features
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAbgKV92E_U&feature=player_embedded
Lexus, Toyota Recall; Floor Mat Causes Crash
Toyota Motor said Tuesday it will soon issue a recall for at least 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix a potential safety problem caused by a car’s floor mat jamming the accelerator.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, meanwhile, urged motorists not to wait for a fix. “This is an urgent matter,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “For everyone’s sake, we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to remove mats or other obstacles that could lead to unintended acceleration.”
The impending U.S. recall, the largest in Toyota history, followed a horrific crash last month in San Diego in which a mat was suspected of snagging a gas pedal on a runaway Lexus, ending with a fiery crash that killed four family members.
A minute before the crash, the driver called police to say the car had no brakes and the accelerator was stuck. The runaway car was doing more than 120 mph when it hit a sport-utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames. The car, equipped with all-weather floor mats, was on loan from a dealership while the driver’s own vehicle was being repaired.
“The tragic accident in San Diego was certainly an eye opener for all of us,” said Senior Vice President Irving Miller, prompting the company to review previous allegations of unintended acceleration caused by floor mat interference.
Miller said the company could not quantify the number of complaints, nor could it estimate the cost of the safety campaign.
