Election Problems Hotline—Please share
The Republican Party has set up a Hotline for election day, 1-888-775-8117, which will be staffed by attorneys, to handle polling issues and possible voter fraud or intimidation. If folks even guess that it might be taking place, they should call for free advice.
Vote Fraud—What to Watch For
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/voter-fraud-watch-a-primer-on-what-to-watch-for/
Excerpt: There’s been lots of talk about voter fraud this election season. Already machines have purportedly preselected candidates and in other places, documents demonstrate non-citizens are registered to vote. Anyone who says voter fraud doesn’t exist has no credibility. I’ve covered elections for over 10 years. I’ve seen it over and over again with my own eyes. I’ve proved it in federal court. It is significantly more common than Sasquatch. But what does voter fraud look like? What can citizens be on the lookout for when they participate in their election? Let me share some examples:
Great Article: A Little Lady Predicts a Big Win
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580683815857488.html
Excerpt: Well, I think we know where this one's going. The polls came like waves this week. Independents breaking hard for the GOP, those making under $50,000 going Republican, the party has a 20% lead among college graduates. Gallup says 2010 is looking better than the year of the last great sweep, with 55% of respondents now saying they are Republican or lean Republican. It was 49% in 1994. RealClearPolitics has 222 House seats going to the Republicans, 175 to Democrats, and 38 toss-ups, of which 36 are currently held by the Democrats. The president's approval numbers remain well below 50%, and Congress's disapproval numbers above 70%. Let's say the polls are pretty correct. If they are, two big facts present themselves. One is that the Obama coalition broke under pressure. We'll see if they regroup. America turns on a dime, we're in a time of quick and constant change. But Barack Obama's lines have been broken. On the other side, not only is a big Republican wave coming, but a rough coalition seems to be forming. It is the coalition that did not come together in 2006 to save Congress for the GOP, and did not come together in '08 to elect John McCain. The tea party saved the Republican Party by, among other things, re-energizing it. But it's also becoming clear the tea party did so without turning off the center. This is news. Six months ago the common wisdom was that the tea party was going to scare independent voters and make them run screaming from the tent. "There was an awful man in an Uncle Sam hat and a woman talking about repealing some amendment. I can't take it, Harry!" But the center doesn't appear to be scared. Maybe it doesn't scare easy. Maybe getting scared is what happens next time, not this time. Or, my hunch, maybe the center, some of whose members have expressed a certain antipathy or standoffishness toward the tea party, simply doesn't care that it feels a certain antipathy or standoffishness. Because such feelings are beside the point right now, a self-indulgence suited to less crisis-laden times. And we are in crisis. Our spending is ruinous, the demands of government are too great. It doesn't matter if you like the style of those who want to turn it around, join them and try to turn it around. One of the things Rep. Paul Ryan says has seeped into the electorate: We have only a short time to fix things, we have to move now. What's rising now on the Republican side is big but not fully known and will evolve, will change itself and direct itself and maybe even settle some old issues as it goes forward in the next few years. It promises to be turbulent, and rich in meaning. We'll know in the early hours next Wednesday how it all turned out. But here is one way you'll know it's huge: Anna Little wins in New Jersey. If she wins it means the Republican wave swept all before it. Not that she's expected to. She's running for Congress in the Jersey Shore's Sixth Congressional District, which went for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain 60% to 38%. She's the Republican mayor of Highlands, population 5,000, up against incumbent Frank Pallone, an 11-term Democratic veteran who won in 2008 by 35 points. A Monmouth University poll has her down seven points. On the bright side, numbers guru Nate Silver just increased her chances of winning from 2% to 5%, and Charlie Cook changed the listing of the race from safe Democrat to likely Democrat.
Israel: Obama's Not So Hidden Agenda
http://townhall.com/columnists/FrankGaffney/2010/10/29/obamas_not_so_hidden_agenda
Excerpt: To be sure, ties between the United States and Israel - far and away America's most important and loyal friend in the Middle East - have improved lately from the nadir to which Mr. Obama plunged them since he took office. That has nothing to do, however, with a change of heart or agenda on the part of the President and his administration. Rather, it is a reflection of a cynical calculation forced upon the Obama White House by its panicked congressional allies. Already laboring under the backbreaking burden of their association with a president and his agenda that have become huge liabilities, Democrats on Capitol Hill faced wholesale defections of their Jewish constituents and funders if their party's leader persisted in his assault on Israel. Public letters and private conversations had the desired effect: Barack Obama began treating his Israeli counterpart with a modicum of respect and the optics of a restarted peace process - however shortlived or doomed - helped conjur up an image of a renewed partnership between the two nations. Make no mistake about it, though: Once the 2010 elections are behind him, it is a safe bet that President Obama will revert to form by once again exhibiting an unmistakable and ruthless determination to bend Israel to his will. Worse yet, he will be able to take advantage of a vehicle for effecting the so-called "two state solution," no matter how strenuously Israel and its friends in Washington object: The Palestinians will simply unilaterally declare themselves a state and ask for international recognition - and Mr. Obama will accede to that request.
Terror Plot Thwarted as US-bound Explosives Seized
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/obama-terror-explosives-found-bound-for-us/19695720?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C181076
Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know they were Muslims. Has anyone been watching the Swedish Bikini Team, I ask you? ~Bob. Excerpt: Authorities on three continents thwarted multiple terrorist attacks aimed at the United States from Yemen on Friday, seizing two explosive packages addressed to Chicago-area synagogues and packed aboard cargo jets. The plot triggered worldwide fears that al-Qaida was launching a major new terror campaign. President Barack Obama called the coordinated attacks a "credible terrorist threat," and U.S. officials said they were increasingly confident that al-Qaida's Yemen branch, the group responsible for the failed Detroit airliner bombing last Christmas, was responsible. Parts of the plot might remain undetected, Obama's counterterror chief warned. "The United States is not assuming that the attacks were disrupted and is remaining vigilant," John Brennan said at the White House. One of the packages was found aboard a cargo plane in Dubai, the other in England. Preliminary tests indicated the packages contained the powerful industrial explosive PETN, the same chemical used in the Christmas attack, U.S. officials said. The tests had not been confirmed. In the U.S., cargo planes were searched up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and an Emirates Airlines passenger jet was escorted down the coast to New York by American fighter jets.
The "Religious Institutions that Qaeda Targets
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/29/the-religious-institutions-tha#comment_417431
Excerpt: As you probably know by now, the President made a brief statement this afternoon regarding suspicious packages from Yemen containing explosive devices that were intercepted overseas en route to synagogues in Chicago. But let's not let the day end without taking note of this amazing quote reported earlier today: "Since two of the suspicious packages that were intercepted were addressed to religious institutions in Chicago, all churches, synagogues and mosques in the Chicago area should be vigilant for any unsolicited or unexpected packages, especially those originating from overseas locations," said FBI Special Agent Ross Rice. Does Agent Rice really believe that an attempt by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to send bombs to synagogues is a sign that mosques need to be vigilant? (Actually, not impossible. The majority of the innocent victims murdered by Muslims in the name of Allah are fellow Muslims who believe a little differently, or happened to be in the way or not support that particular group of savage murderers. And, yes, stop telling me about the Crusades, Europe’s answer to Muslim invasions, and about how Christians did this in the middle ages. We got over it. Time they did too. ~Bob.)
Interesting Details Surrounding the Al Qaeda Cargo Plane Plot Out of Yemen
http://blogs.cbn.com/stakelbeckonterror/archive/2010/10/29/interesting-details-surrounding-the-al-qaeda-cargo-plane-plot-out.aspx
Excerpt: By now, you've likely heard the key details surrounding an Al Qaeda plot involving explosives found aboard cargo planes bound for the U.S, originating from Yemen. Here are a few interesting details on Yemen that I became aware of this afternoon after speaking with an intelligence source who actually flew out of Sana'a, Yemen to Dubai yesterday, around the time the explosives were found.
Woman who ‘posted Al Qaeda Printer Bombs’ Arrested in Yemen as Home Secretary Says Device Could Have Blown Jet Out of Sky
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325180/Al-Qaeda-ink-cartridge-bomb-Woman-arrested-Yemen.html
Excerpt: A woman accused of posting two printer bombs found on board cargo planes in the UK and Dubai has been arrested in Yemen. Investigators said the woman was detained as part of a manhunt for a number of suspects believed to have used forged documents and ID cards that played a role in the plot that was thwarted yesterday. Yemeni officials this evening said the suspects are believed to have links to Al Qaeda's faction in Yemen. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates had provided him with information that helped identify the woman as a suspect.
I saw America today
http://downtownjacksonms.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-saw-america-today.html
Excerpt: I was among more that 200 people gathered on the tarmac at the Meridian Air Navel Station to welcome Sgt. Eric C. Newman, 30, of Waynesboro, Miss. home from Afghanistan. He did not exit to cheers and hugs but was greeted by respectful silence. Military men and women, bikers, policemen, firemen, all in formation riveted their attention as Sgt. Newman disembarked from the plane carrying him. He exited in a flag draped coffin, killed in action in Afghanistan. The family stood near the hearse and as Sgt. Newman’s casket approached he was greeted by his new wife and his mother as they draped their arms around the casket where their beloved husband and son lay. There would be no married life for the newly married couple and another mother had given her son in the name of freedom.
Happy Halloween
I was going to go Trick or Treating dressed as the Deficit, but when I got in costume I couldn’t move—too big. And it really scared the little kids. ~Bob.
AZ GOP Finds 1 of 4 Last Minute Voter Registration Requests Are Fraudulent!
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/10/az-gop-finds-1-of-4-last-minute-voter-registration-requests-are-fraudulent/
No surprise. Standard leftist “ends justify the means.” ~Bob. Excerpt: The Arizona GOP has uncovered hundreds, if not thousands, of bogus voter registrations by the far left SEIU group Mi Familia Vota.
Alarming Trends
Excerpt: A recent Chicago Tribune editorial pointed out some unpleasant truths. Nearly one U.S. household in two receives some sort of government benefit every month, a slightly higher percentage than the households which do not pay any income tax. Another 13% pay neither income nor payroll taxes. As the number receiving benefits and the number not paying for benefits increase, there is greater pressure from those two groups to demand more and politicians are unwilling to resist such large groups’ demands. There is no free lunch. We already see state regulators becoming stricter on granting or continuing exemptions from taxes. Will the feds be next?—the Howe & Hutton Report. (This is why dealing with the deficit is almost impossible regardless of party—only the coming fiscal collapse will fix it. With great pain. ~Bob.)
G.O.P. House Projection Steady at Plus-53 Seats
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/g-o-p-house-projection-steady-at-plus-53-seats/#more-2877
Silver is a leftie, but usually has good data and calls it pretty straight. ~Bob. Excerpt: FiveThirtyEight’s House projection is unchanged over the past 48 hours. Over the course of its simulation runs, our model found Republicans gaining an average of 53 seats, which would bring them to 232 total. Democrats are given a 16 percent chance of holding the House, down slightly from 17 percent on Wednesday. Increasingly, there seems to be something of a consensus among various forecasting methods around a projected Republican figure somewhere in the 50-60 seat range. Several of the expert forecasters that FiveThirtyEight’s model uses, like the Cook Political Report, the Rothenberg Political Report, and Larry Sabato, have stated that they expect the Republicans’ overall total to fall roughly in this range. A straw poll of political insiders for Hotline on Call found an average expectation of a 50-seat gain. And some political science models have been forecasting gains somewhere in this range for some time. The forecast also seems consistent with the average of generic ballot polling. Our model projects that Republicans will win the average Congressional district by between 3 and 4 points.
Wikileaks' Pitiful Antiwar Propaganda
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/wikileaks_pitiful_antiwar_prop.html
Excerpt: Wikileaks is leaking again, and the left is ecstatic. In particular, they're simply wild about Wikileaks' revelation that American soldiers turned a blind eye to Iraqi soldiers mistreating captured enemies, marking many reports with "no further investigation" necessary. The UK Guardian gloated, "The systematic viciousness of the old dictatorship when Saddam Hussein's security agencies enforced order without any regard for law continues." These abuses are tragic and problematic. They make our job harder in Iraq and Afghanistan -- or, more specifically, media revelations of these abuses make our job harder in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, this is also a war. In order to stay alive and save the lives of their comrades, soldiers can do dire things while prosecuting a war. Liberals and do-gooders seem utterly ignorant of the fact that war is dirty business, should never be regarded as anything even slightly resembling polite society, and should never be imagined as anything else but a cold-hearted business meant to kill, defeat, destroy, and demoralize the enemy. Orders come from Four Stars, not Emily Post.
Soros and the Collapse of the Left
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/soros_and_the_collapse_of_the.html
Excerpt: Now let me get this straight: George Soros, Media Matters, and the White House, in some unclear capacity, have unveiled their master plan to destroy the right: isolate and nullify Fox News by getting people fired from NPR. NPR pink-slipped Juan Williams for the equivalent of stating that when he sees it's raining out, he gets his umbrella. NPR president Vivian Schiller, evidently divining that disparaging fears of Muslim terrorists wouldn't play well in a country that has suffered three serious terrorist attempts in a little over a year, added that this was merely the latest of a series of Williams outrages, but she produced no examples. (Schiller now says that she "regrets" how the firing was handled.) Obviously, there has to be another reason, and when we look around, we find none other than the Prog Twins, Soros and Obama. (Not to forget David Brock...or is that the stupidest statement I ever typed?) Obama has been having bad dreams about Fox, so Soros contributes a cool $1.8 million to NPR for the purpose of hiring one hundred investigative reporters to learn the truth about Bigfoot. Another $1 mil went to Brock's Media Matters for the purpose, I imagine, of mixing more mud to fling -- they don't do anything else. Then, as soon as the checks cleared, Williams finds himself out on the street.
Democrats Lose Hold on Latinos and Women as Party's Base Drifts
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/28/democrats-lose-hold-on-latinos-and-women-as-partys-base-drifts/
Excerpt: In the final stretch of this volatile and polarizing midterm election, while the beleaguered Democrats duck to ward off an approaching Republican steamroller, rippling cracks are widening in two of the most reliable and loyal Democratic voting blocs, women and Latinos. The past several weeks have exposed troubling frustration, anger and apathy among white Democratic female voters and among Latino Democrats. More alarming for Democrats than the "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans is emerging evidence that women and Latinos are drifting away from their longtime political home and moving across the line toward the GOP. (Democrats are also losing support among independents, Roman Catholics, college graduates, the 30-44 demographic and suburbanites, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published Oct. 28.) As if this trend needed underscoring, the GOP this year put together a stronger lineup of Hispanic candidates for major office than the Democrats did. In fact, in the 74 elections this year for governor or U.S. Senate, there is not a single Democratic Hispanic nominee – not a one. At the same time, the GOP fielded three top-tier Hispanics in predominantly blue states, and all three candidates are leading in Senate and governor races and are expected to win handily on Nov. 2. (Now our problem becomes holding on to them. I doubt their basic philosophy has changed much; they're angry at the continual push to the far left by the Washington Dems and their continual dithering on the economy. If they think we've gone "too far right," or we also fail to improve the economy, we'll just lose them back again. Ron P.)
Chuck Schumer really, really wants Harry Reid’s job
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101029/el_yblog_upshot/chuck-schumer-really-really-wants-harry-reids-job
Excerpt: With Harry Reid in serious danger of losing re-election on Tuesday, Democrats are naturally wondering who might replace him as the party's top leader in the Senate should he not return to Washington. It's no secret that Chuck Schumer desperately wants the job, and today, the New York Times examines the senior New York senator's attempts to quietly position himself as Reid's successor. In perhaps the only time the word "subtly" has ever been used to describe the brash attention-getting Schumer, the Times notes that he has been doing everything he can to help out fellow Dems in need — contributing cash, headlining campaign events — in the hopes that they'll remember him when it comes time to elect party leaders in the next Congress. There's just one problem: Schumer isn't alone in his leadership ambitions. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, Reid's current No. 2 and, perhaps most awkwardly, Schumer's D.C. roommate, also has designs on the job (and, as we noted months ago, the support of the White House). What's more, telegraphing those ambitions too bluntly — Schumer's usual M.O. — could backfire, given that Reid isn't exactly out of a job yet. That means Schumer is proceeding with the lightest of touches these days — making it clear that he's in the leadership race but not to the point where he's seen as measuring new drapes for the leader's office. The Times story doesn't quote Schumer — which bears witness to the senator's newly retiring mien. But Schumer's allies deliver the message that the New York Democrat is pained by Reid's situation and that Schumer would find it "bittersweet" to succeed the man to whom he owes "much of his success." Schumer, the paper notes, regards Reid "like a brother" and recently bought him a Netflix subscription. (Is that why Reid bombed in his debate with Sharron Angle — watching too many DVDs?) (Durbin is a trial lawyer and their interests come first with him. Being from New York, Schumer can’t undercut Israel as much as most lefties like to do. ~Bob.)
The Enemy Next Door
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/10/29/the-enemy-next-door
Excerpt: The Mexican drug wars have become an old story. Media of all types have given extensive coverage to the battles between and among criminal gangs and federal police and military. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration has continued a policy of avoiding recognition of the danger of the open warfare that exists immediately south of the United States border with Mexico. The federal and state governments of Mexico have reacted quickly to deny commentary that challenges their commitment to enforcing law and order in their jurisdictions. From Washington comes an active effort to counter any claims by local law enforcement in the Southwest that suggest any increase in trafficking in narcotics and human smuggling. After organizing Department of Justice lawyers to bring the State of Arizona to court over their law attempting to enforce existing federal statutes on illegal immigration, the Obama White House has done everything it could to play to the politics of the Spanish-heritage population in the United States. This has included downplaying the power wielded by Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) and the other Hispanic gangs in major cities throughout the U.S. and their organization in American prison societies. The Administration's unwillingness to deploy major units of federalized National Guard troops to inhibit illegal border crossing was first thought to be some form of economy measure and/or turf conflict with the Department of Homeland Security. It has turned out, however, to be in response to Mexico's President Felipe Calderon's fear that a heavily armed U.S. border would be deemed by his political opponents as an indication of his government's weakness against American attempts to preempt Mexican sovereignty. Desirous of supporting Calderon, President Obama's domestic strategists found a device to once again create a seemingly logical decision out of a false premise.
Will Boxer Vote for "Empathy for Sexual Sadists" Judge?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/will_boxer_vote_for_empathy_fo.html
Excerpt: Does Senator Boxer (D-California) approve of judges giving a pass to sexual sadists who rape and murder girls? I ask because she has been silent on President Obama's outrageous judicial nominee who has a history of excusing sexual crimes against women. Judge Robert Chatigny called sexual sadism a "mitigating factor" in the case of a serial rapist and murderer. He gave light sentences for child sex predators and possession of child pornography. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected his overturning of Connecticut's law requiring registration of sex offenders. Chatigny's egregious actions in the serial murderer case led to seven state prosecutors filing complaints that he violated judicial ethics. They accused him of exceeding his judicial authority, abandoning neutrality, acting as an advocate to rescue a sadistic murderer from execution, and defying the rulings of higher courts. Yet President Obama nominated this man not once, but twice to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Nary a peep so far from Senator Boxer, even when the chilling details of Chatigny's aggressive - and unethical - interference in a serial murder case revealed his sympathy for sexual violators. Michael Ross was convicted of murdering eight women and girls. In prison, he described his crimes for a documentary titled, "The Serial Killers." Clips of the video are available on the Internet, so Senator Boxer can see if she agrees with Chatigny's conclusion and extreme intervention on behalf of this cold-blooded killer. Ross explains how he tied up 14-year-old Leslie Shelley, put her in the trunk of his car, and "took the other girl, April Bernaise [also 14] out and I raped her, and killed her, and I put her in the front seat." Then he pulled Leslie out of the trunk and brutally killed her. Of his last victim, Wendy Baribeault, 17 years old, he said: "I raped her, and I killed her. It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't a nice rape."
Bibles Burned, Hymnbooks Slashed in Bradford Attack
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/bibles-burned-hymnbooks-slashed-in-bradford-attack/
Spread the word they are going after Qur’ans next. Losing a head or two will slow them down. ~Bob. Excerpt: Yobs in West Yorkshire burned Bibles and slashed hymnbooks in an attack against a Methodist church in a village near Bradford. The distressing attack on Birkenshaw Methodist Church was discovered earlier this week when an art group went to the church to hold their meeting. Upon arriving they found that a large crucifix had been ripped from an interior wall, the chairs had been slashed, and wires leading to the church’s speakers and piano keyboard had been cut.
England: One Law for Muslims, one for the Rest —England’s Slippery Sharia Slope
http://bsimmons.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/england-one-law-for-muslims-one-for-the-rest-englands-slippery-sharia-slope/
Excerpt: England is fast becoming but simple a plot of land floating in the sea instead of a nation of culture guided by a rich legal tradition. It is a tail of warning for the USA, the moral of which is don’t allow minorities to set up a parallel culture or you will cease to be a nation of laws. You will, in fact, cease to be a nation at all. England is on the verge of having a bifurcated legal system, one for their various religious peoples and one for the rest of the native population. Two recent stories show the degradation of the British legal system and the inequities that it creates. In a BBC story by Innes Bowen, The end of one law for all?, the question is asked: “Ethnic and religious courts are gaining ground in the UK. Will this lead to different justice for different people?” How could this be that hard to answer? Naturally, the BBC strives to make it seem as if all is right and good with this destruction of the English legal system because, after all, these people are just doing what “their culture” requires that they do, neatly ignoring the fact that they are in England and NOT back in their own homeland. Aydarus Yusuf has lived in the UK for the past 15 years, but he feels more bound by the traditional law of his country of birth – Somalia – than he does by the law of England and Wales. “Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law. It’s not Islamic, it’s not religious – it’s just a cultural thing.”
Psychiatric Manual DSM-IV-TR Labels free Thinkers, non conformers as Mentally Ill
http://uswgo.com/confirmed-psychiatric-manual-dsm-iv-tr-labels-free-thinkers-non-conformers-as-mentally-ill.htm
This would cover almost all the Founding Fathers. Stepford wives are fine, though. ~Bob. Excerpt: It is now confirmed by USWGO News that the DSM-IV-TR Manual labels free thinkers, non conformers, civil disobedient advocates, those that question authority, and people considered hostile toward the government (aka Oath keepers and local militias) as mentally ill with the illness titled “oppositional defiant disorder” or ODD. It was reported on October 8 2010 from OffTheGrid News that anybody who is disobedient, defiant, a free thinker, or even considered hostile toward authority was to be labeled by psychiatrists as ‘Mentally Ill’.
Good cartoons
http://www.spectator.co.uk/wit-and-wisdom/cartoons/
Not too political.
Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/29/nasa-cover-up-hundred-year-starship/
Excerpt: But what is the Hundred Year Starship? Some experts argue that any program that suggests putting humans into space for their entire life, or for multiple generations, is doomed from the start, since many people react negatively to the idea of leaving the planet and never returning. Others are more supportive, saying it is the only way to settle a space colony. Speculation about colonization takes many forms, and some of the freshest ideas sound a bit peculiar. Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Paul Davies, who wrote in the Journal of Cosmology recently, suggest sending four astronauts on a one-way mission who “establish their presence” and do not come back. (...) The main issue has to do with a basic physics conundrum. In order to travel the great distance to Mars (about 35 million miles), a starship would need a tremendous amount of fuel. Yet fuel adds more weight -- in fact, every pound you add to a ship requires 4 pounds of fuel. The more fuel you add, the more you need simply to move the ship's bulk, making it impossible to go one-way to Mars, much less roundtrip. (Within the past year, a Japanese research experiment proved a light-sail (propulsion by the force of light wavicles impacting on the sail to push it away from the light source) would work. Fusion, on the other hand, requires such a high velocity to gather enough particles of “loose” hydrogen to power an engine as to be impractical for any mission within the solar system (the ship would be largely across the system before it got up enough speed to function, and if we could move it that fast, we wouldn’t have this problem to begin with). “Rockets,” as we currently know them, are probably not the right way to go; they’re just too slow, starting from Earth. Better we should establish a base on the Moon and build craft there, in one sixth of Earth’s gravity from materials harvested from the Moon itself. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but it shouldn’t take 100 years to do, either. Ron P.)
Virginians share lesson learned: GOP in power not so bad
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102907043.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: President Obama and other Democrats are going around the country making the same argument as party leaders made in Virginia last year: If you elect Republicans, they'll drive the car right back into the ditch. Virginians overwhelmingly ignored that advice, and a year later many say they have few regrets and are generally pleased - if not ecstatic - about what Republicans have done. Voters, including some who didn't back him, credited Gov. Robert F. McDonnell with working hard and engineering deep budget cuts from a generally fractious General Assembly with relatively little heartache. The result of those efforts was a narrow surplus by the end of the fiscal year, achieved through bipartisan action and without the tax increase that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed before leaving office. "This state hasn't gone backwards," said Steven Herborn, 55, of Chesapeake. He has supported candidates in both parties over the years but wants Republicans to take over Congress next week.
Hezbollah (Maybe) Finances Campaign Against Sharron Angle
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=20963
I’d rate this as possible, perhaps probable, but unproven. ~Bob. Excerpt: To say that Democrats are in a de facto alliance with Islamic terrorists is hardly hyperbole, as demonstrated by Hezbollah’s campaign to keep Harry “This War Is Lost” Reid in office by funding attacks on Sharron Angle. Via Debbie Schlussel: Muslim activist Tarek Beydoun of Dearbornistan paid for 250,000 robo-calls to Nevada voters against Sharron Angle, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate who will-G-d-willing-beat Harry Reid in November. Beydoun, a recent college grad, in his 20s claims he’s upset with Angle’s comments about Islamic sharia ruling Dearborn. … The scoop is that Beydoun worked for a Hezbollah-funded newspaper and a Hezbollah charity raided by the FBI and that it’s highly unlikely that Beydoun, himself, has the means to personally fund 250,000 robo-calls against Angle. So who is paying for it? My sources say that it may be Hezbollah cash, funneled to Mr. Beydoun, who identifies himself as a “Democratic consultant.” He’s actually a Hezbollah activist and very open about that. And until Beydoun — a proud supporter of Hezbollah, whose Shi’ite Muslim South Lebanese family is prominent in the terrorist organization — shows us an accounting of where the money came from, it’s pretty safe to assume that the money came from sources connected with Hezbollah. … Beydoun, himself, worked for Al-Mabarat Charitable Organization in Dearbornistan, for which he raised money and served as spokesman to the press at the time FBI agents raided it in 2007 for financing Hezbollah. None of this should come as surprise, considering that in 2008 Hamas not only endorsed Obama, but operated phone banks on his behalf — for which it was well compensated with our money.
It CAN Happen Here
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/it-can-happen-here_513320.html
Excerpt: In September I was part of a conference in England on the subject of “The Anglosphere and the Future of Liberty.” Just before I introduced our dinner speaker, the British politician and journalist Daniel Hannan, a friend handed me a finely printed card which read, “Socialism: It’s not just for Europeans any more.” Oh, the shattering simplicity of the perfectly obvious! Hannan’s remarks, as it happens, dilated on this sorrowful theme: how America was becoming more and more like contemporary Europe, and why this was a bad thing. This is also the theme of his short, lively, polemical, and irresistible book. Buy it. Read it. It will probably make you angry. It will certainly make you better informed about what is happening to America. And like the book from which it takes its title, F. A. Hayek’s 1944 masterpiece, The Road to Serfdom, Hannan’s book is essential intellectual equipment for Tea Partiers everywhere. If you cherish freedom and value independence and self-reliance, you will like this book. If you value security above all else, and look to government to take care of you, you will be frightened by it. The New Road to Serfdom is in equal parts a paean to ordered liberty and an admonition against the snares of central planning and rule by cadres of self-perpetuating elites. Europe has gone down that road with baleful results for freedom and prosperity that Hannan outlines but that are still ill-appreciated on this side of the Atlantic. When it comes to the European Union, Hannan knows whereof he speaks. For the last 11 years he has been a member of the European Parliament for Southeast England for the Conservative party. He has watched with dismay as political power and sovereignty have drained away from the 27 member states and have been invested in Brussels. In dismay, but not in silent dismay. In a series of coruscatingly brilliant speeches (many of which are freely available on the Internet: Google is your friend), he has stood up for freedom, local prerogatives, and fiscal prudence and against their statist alternatives. Cato the Elder was in the habit of ending his speeches with the imperative: “Carthago delenda est.” (Carthage must be destroyed.) Hannan has deployed a similarly tonic use of the gerundive at the conclusion of his own speeches: “Pactio Olisipiensis censenda est.” (The Lisbon Treaty must be put to a vote.)
America's Election is a Referendum on Europeanisation http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100061506/americas-election-is-a-referendum-on-europeanisation/
Excerpt: In a three days’ time, American voters will choose between the European model advocated by their present rulers and the constitutional principles adumbrated by their founders – principles, as I never tire of pointing out, inherited from Britain. Before casting their ballots, voters might like to ponder where Europeanisation leads. I explore the question at length in The New Road to Serfdom, A Letter of Warning to America. If you don’t have time to read my book before polling day, at least look at Roger Kimball in The Weekly Standard. They knew a thing or two, the heroes who gathered in Philadelphia’s old courthouse. Their sublime doctrines have served to keep America independent, democratic and free. Think hard before you trade in their model for something else.
Iraq through night-vision goggles
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/28/christopher-hitchens-iraq-through-night-vision-goggles/
Excerpt: This week sees the publication of a truly extraordinary book, written by men who consciously thought of themselves that way. Nightcap at Dawn: Soldiers’ Counterinsurgency in Iraq was collectively written by a group of highly intelligent warriors and appears under the collective byline of J.B. Walker; it is privately published with all its proceeds devoted to military families. You can shop for it at www.lulu.com. (I should mention that I was peripherally involved in advising on its publication.) These recollections, pooled experiences, and shared sacrifices constitute the most authentic account yet produced of the Iraq battle as viewed through night-vision goggles, gun sights, meetings with tribal and clan elders, attempts to succor innocent victims and to guard voters, and much besides. Its vernacular is blunt but not crude. In the most vivid firsthand manner, it confronts the appalling difficulty of fighting an enemy to whom human life is no concern at all and to whom the opportunity to prove this every day is a boasted military advantage.
China's Fast Rise Leads Neighbors to Join Forces
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/world/asia/31china.html?_r=1&hp
Excerpt: China’s military expansion and assertive trade policies have set off jitters across Asia, prompting many of its neighbors to rekindle old alliances and cultivate new ones to better defend their interests against the rising superpower. A whirl of deal-making and diplomacy, from Tokyo to New Delhi, is giving the United States an opportunity to reassert itself in a region where its eclipse by China has been viewed as inevitable. President Obama’s trip to the region this week, his most extensive as president, will take him to the area’s big democracies, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan, skirting authoritarian China. Those countries and other neighbors have taken steps, though with varying degrees of candor, to blunt China’s assertiveness in the region. Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India are expected to sign a landmark deal for American military transport aircraft and are discussing the possible sale of jet fighters, which would escalate the Pentagon’s defense partnership with India to new heights. Japan and India are courting Southeast Asian nations with trade agreements and talk of a “circle of democracy.” Vietnam has a rapidly warming rapport with its old foe, the United States, in large part because its old friend, China, makes broad territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Three Charts that Will Infuriate Taxpayers
http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topics/three-charts-that-will?RID=24078309
Radical in the White House
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/251245/radical-white-house-interview
Excerpt: Stanley Kurtz hit an Organizing for America nerve during Barack Obama’s campaign for president. Stanley, a Harvard-educated social anthropologist, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and has written for National Review and National Review Online for over a decade. When he started not only asking questions but digging into Barack Obama’s academic and activist past, the campaign tried to shut him down — literally, organizing a phone slamdown on Chicago radio. Well, this still is America. And so Stanley has done what he is trained to do — research and present evidence to present a complete picture, in this case of the man who is currently president of the United States. The fruit of that project is a gripping, meticulous new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, which he discusses with me here.
The Odyssey of Islamism in America - Amil Imani
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/the_odyssey_of_islamism_in_america.html
Excerpt: Islamism is a mutation of Islam and is rapidly advancing on two fronts. In every Islamic country, it is cowing the non-radicals while recruiting more and more radicals into its ranks. In non-Muslim lands, flush with petrodollars, Islamism is establishing itself as a formidable force by enlisting the disaffected and attracting the delusional liberals with its promises. For the faithful, there is the added incentive of Allah's heaven and its irresistible attractions. Wherever Islam goes, so goes its ethos. Throwing acid in the face of women who fail to don the hijab (or who just go to school), flogging people for sporting non-Islamic haircuts, and stoning to death violators of sexual norms are only a few examples of a raft of daily barbaric acts of Islamists in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Other forms of Islamic brutalities such as honor killing have already found their way to America, Germany, and other European countries with ever-burgeoning Muslim populations. Reading about these religiously mandated horrific acts and even seeing them on television or the internet may momentarily repulse, but the acts do not terribly concern many Americans on the whole. After all, those things are happening on the other side of the world, and those people deserve each other; we are safe in fortress America. So goes the thinking. But "Fortress America" is a delusion that even the events of 9/11 seem to have failed to dispel. Many prefer to believe that the assault of 9/11 was an aberration, since nothing like it has happened since, and it is unlikely that anything of the sort will ever happen again . So goes the wishful thinking. The reality portrays a vastly different picture. America is far from a fortress, given its vast wide-open borders. It is a nation of laws where all forms of freedom are enshrined in its Constitution; it's where Americans live by a humane ethos diametrically different from Islamist savagery. Sadly, these differences confer a great advantage to the Islamists and place America in imminent danger.
John Kerry and the People in the Cheap Seats
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/john_kerry_and_the_people_in_t.html
Excerpt: Cap and Trade has been called an invitation to massive corruption by Britain's former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Lawson. Now, someone who sits in the House of Lords can hardly be accused of squatting down in one of those cheap seats Kerry despises. Lord Lawson says if you really want to deal with carbon emissions, tax carbon emissions. And give tax credits to the poor so they can cope. That's not my preferred option, but it's not Kerry's, either. What Cap and Trade would do, of course, is nationalize all American enterprise. It would have the federal government control all decisions about what to produce, where to produce it, when to produce, where to market it, and how. This is the reason why Europeans -- those smarter folks Kerry likes more than he likes our "know-nothing" voters -- teasingly call the Greens watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. Are we against science and truth merely because we object to Kerry's Cap and Trade legislation? Bjorn Lomborg, the famed "Skeptical Environmentalist," has said Cap and Trade is the worst way to go about dealing with global warming. Even if we imposed Cap and Trade, with all of its ability to straitjacket the already paralyzed economy, Lomborg says it would result in barely a one-degree difference in global warming by the end of this century.
State releases landmark global warming rules
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_16472143?nclick_check=1
Excerpt: Roughly 600 of California's major polluters -- from oil refineries to power plants and factories -- will face mandatory limits on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit, starting on Jan. 1, 2012, under new rules released today by state air regulators. The facilities will be able to trade pollution credits under a new "cap and trade" market, and will be allowed to use projects that offset global warming, such as tree planting, to cover up to 8 percent of their emissions limits. The new rules are part of AB 32, the landmark law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 and now at the center of a bruising ballot fight in next Tuesday's election. The law requires that California's greenhouse gas emissions be cut to 1990 levels by 2020, a drop of about 15 percent from current levels. "Everything is designed to reward efficiency and clean energy," said Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, which wrote the rules. "This sends a signal that clean energy pays off, and that's where we want to be." The air board -- a nine-member body appointed by the governor -- is scheduled to vote on the rules Dec. 16. If it approves them, as expected, California will become the first state in the nation with mandatory limits on emissions from a wide variety of industries that most climate scientists say are contributing to global warming through the burning of fossil fuels like natural gas, coal and oil. (Notice that all these businesses and utilities are referred to, almost defined, as "polluters," or in other words, evil. Just as gun control is about control, not guns, this is really about control and not pollution. We already have adequate air pollution laws from the federal government, and anyone who has taken a trip outside the USA can tell you how much of a difference it has made. I wonder when--because it will come to this if allowed to do so--individual people will be defined as polluters and required to breathe less, especially those evil conservatives. And anyone else who dares to question, think, or have feelings. Like Juan Williams. Ron P.)
Final Meltdown Begins: "We've lost our minds," says John Kerry of midterms
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/29/final-meltdown-begins-weve-lost-our-minds-says-john-kerry-of-midterms/
Excerpt: In case you need another reason to be annoyed at the Stewart/Colbert rally this weekend, here’s one: It’s going to suck up all the media oxygen at a moment when insanely gratifying pieces about Democrats throwing tantrums could (and should) be getting written instead. I’m counting on a big day from the press on Monday, at least. A big, teary, tantrum-y, schadenfreudean day. It’s a slight variation on the Democrats’ theme this year – that the problem is with messaging. Kerry is astonished that the party in power – his party – is facing a backlash for policies that have turned out to be unpopular with weary taxpayers, as if this is somehow a new and strange phenomenon in American politics. And while Republican obstructionism is to blame for, well, pretty much everything – including the failure of his own energy bill (which was shelved by his own majority leader, Harry Reid) – Democrats have nonetheless managed to lead the most productive Congress since the New Deal. Talk about having it both ways. Nowhere in the speech did Kerry acknowledge the 21,000 jobs lost in Massachusetts just last month, or the widespread discontent that was marked by the election of the Bay State’s own Scott Brown last January. Heck, why talk about practical realities when you can point your finger at (sigh) Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? “It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds,” Kerry said. “We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest common denom denominator, cheap-seat politics.” See, this is what makes Waffles a cut above the usual conservative whipping boy. Most Democrats, when pressed, fall back on either the “messaging” excuse or the “voters are morons” lament. Not Kerry; he covers all his bases. Compare and contrast to Slow Joe’s latest pearl of wisdom in Iowa today: The vice president told Democrats at the rally to take Republicans’ ideas seriously, a variation on what he’s said at over 100 other fundraisers for Democratic candidates and incumbents this fall. “Don’t take these stupid ideas lightly,” Biden said in Dubuque. “They mean it.”… “Next time a Republican tells you anything about fiscal responsibility, laugh at them,” Biden said.
Major Court Victory for Military Voters
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-major-court-victory-for-military-voters/Excerpt: Congratulations to the Military Voter Protection Project — they have broken new legal ground in protecting military voters. A Maryland federal court ruled today that it is a violation of a soldier’s constitutional rights to not receive his complete ballot on time. The court ruled that the John Doe officer stationed in Iraq had standing to sue based on deprivations of their constitutional rights. This is an enormously important decision which will affect the 2012 elections. This means that military members need not wait on the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., at the Justice Department to sue. It may end the monopoly on DOJ’s oversight of military voting, which is a good thing for everyone in uniform. (YES! Perhaps a few hundred lawsuits can make them enforce the law. Or openly repeal it where everyone can see the rascality for what it is. Ron P.)
NPR and the Liberal Subculture that Worships It
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/npr-and-the-liberal-subculture-that-worships-it/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: ...(T)hese are not particularly helpful arguments. One is little more than openly acknowledged snobbery, and the other appears to make the bizarre claim that more coverage by definition equals better coverage, as if a patient were more likely to survive surgery with ten doctors in the operating room instead of one. Given the ready availability online of translated foreign media, moreover, one wonders why those interested would require their news filtered through an American radio network in the first place. Beinart does, however, do us the service of reiterating NPR’s most beloved talking point: “NPR doesn’t get a lot of public money.” This endlessly repeated assertion is apparently so important that it appears on NPR’s own website, where it features prominently in the ombudsman’s frequently asked questions page. “NPR receives no direct funding from the federal government,” the network states. This begs the question, of course, of why — if the public money it receives is so minor — NPR and its defenders fight so ferociously to retain it. The answer appears to be hiding in plain sight, in the networks admission that: "Approximately half of NPR’s funding comes from NPR member stations. In an average year, NPR funds about 45 percent of its operations with membership dues and program fees from member stations." These member stations are, in turn, subsidized by local, state, and federal tax dollars. The manner in which NPR receives public funding appears, therefore, to be akin to that long-practiced method which in other contexts is known as “money laundering.” Indeed, one imagines there are drug cartels that run more honest operations.
They're Not Even Trying to Hide It Any More: Communist Party USA Openly Collaborating With Obama Campaign, DNC and Unions
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/10/theyre-not-even-trying-to-hide-it-any.html
Certainly from their website trying to turn out votes for Democrats and cite groups like Obama’s “Organizing for America” as resources. I Googled “Communist Party USA” and came up with this site: http://www.cpusa.org/ Which said, “12 days to go: The election depends on you! If the grand alliance that elected Barack Obama comes out in full force to vote we can stop the Tea Party/Republican takeover and continue moving forward.” They also have a link to the AFofL/CIO get out the vote page. There was a time not long ago when Democrats stood against Communists too. JFK for one, who was likely killed by a Castro-linked agent. ~Bob.
Nancy's suicide squad
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/nancy_suicide_squad_NcXpIcCzhXkKvvBjcnigLI
Excerpt: After ordering Pickett's charge, Robert E. Lee reputedly mingled on the Gettysburg battlefield with his soldiers fortunate enough to have survived the debacle. "It's all my fault," he said. Will Nancy Pelosi have a similar moment of regret after next Tuesday, when -- whether Republicans take the House or not -- many of her troops won't be coming back? For now, she maintains that "we haven't really gotten credit for what we have done," which is axiomatic as far as it goes. "Credit" is not typically what a party gets for passing signature legislation consistently opposed by the public, as Pelosi did with malice aforethought on health care. She considered a few of her members expendable in the glorious cause, but appears to have gone over-board with the expending. Pelosi needed to flip key moderate Democrats who initially voted "no" on the health bill to "yes." She might as well have asked them to quit on the spot. The Washington Post finds that in the eight districts where a Democrat switched from "no" to "yes," a Democrat is favored to win in only one. In the five districts where a Democrat switched the other way, the Democrats look stronger. If Pelosi had the political interest of her embattled members at heart, she should have brought health care up only as a vehicle for as many as possible to vote "no." Since Labor Day, the Democrats who have included health care in their advertisements have tended to be the "nay" votes touting their opposition. Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota briefly was an exception. Now, he's up with an ad saying, "I know I've disappointed you with a vote here or there." As if to say congressmen occasionally slip up and vote to create a disruptive, $1 trillion new entitlement program sold under brazenly false pretenses. West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, running for Senate, has cut a winding path. He supported the law earlier this year. When it began to drag him down in his Senate race, he talked of repeal. Now, he says he regrets supporting it at all. The logical endpoint of this progression is shooting a hole through the law, as he did with the cap-and-trade bill in a famous TV ad. He might want to bring a howitzer.
US waiving penalties for use of child soldiers
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gQWzTSk6lP24CEckrRWUsPYhu1Mw?docId=68137e575b9942f4bd750cbb33cfa936
Who will those child soldiers be fighting? ~Bob. Excerpt: In a move criticized by human rights organizations, the Obama administration has decided to exempt Yemen and three other countries that use child soldiers from U.S. penalties under the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act. In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama said he had determined that "it is in the national interest of the United States" to waive application of the law to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. He instructed Clinton to submit the decision to the Congress with a written justification for the move. Obama's memo, released by the White House on Monday, did not include the justification. Administration officials have said, however, that cutting off military aid to those four countries as required by the law would do more harm than good. And they have said that continuing close cooperation with them can be a more effective way of changing their practices.
Sovereignty And Territory
http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3554/26/
Excerpt: In the Nineties, the “culture wars” were over “God, guns and gays”. The overreach of the statists has added a fourth G: Government itself is now a front in the culture war, and a battle of the most primal kind. Is the United States a republic of limited government with a presumption in favor of individual liberty? Or is it just like any other western nation in which a permanent political class knows what’s best for its subjects? Pat Cadell, the former Carter adviser and Democratic pollster, surveying popular discontent over the summer distilled it to a single question: Who is sovereign? The people or the political class? To which the political class responds by modifying Barbra Streisand: People? People? Who needs people? In California, the people can pass a ballot proposition, but a single activist judge overrules them. In Arizona, the people’s representatives vote to uphold the people’s laws, but a pliant judge strikes them down at Washington’s behest. It is surely only a matter of time before some federal judge finds the constitution unconstitutional. It is never a good idea to send the message, as the political class now does consistently, that there are no democratic means by which the people can restrain their rulers. As Pat Cadell points out, the logic of that is “pre-revolutionary”.
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