Political Digest for March 27, 2011

I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.

Resources

For those who want further information about the topics covered in this blog, I recommend the following sites. I will add to this as I find additional good sources.

http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2011/03/resources-for-opinion-leaders-who.html

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html

But CNN calls them, "brave freedom fighters"! As I've said, we will put them in power and they will thank us with murder. ~Bob. Excerpt: In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya". Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader". His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries". Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

Energized Muslim Brotherhood in Libya eyes a prize

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/03/25/libya.islamists/index.html?hpt=T2

Excerpt: The prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood now lives in London, and anticipates the group could become an important player in a post-Gadhafi environment. As in Egypt and Tunisia, the Brotherhood in Libya has been energized by the sudden upheaval sweeping the Arab world. It says it has no organizational links with the Brotherhood elsewhere, but shares the philosophy of the pan-Arab Islamist movement founded in Egypt in the 1920s.

Worth Reading: Mark Steyn: Do Gooders in a Land with No Good Guys

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/military-293677-gadhafi-way.html

Excerpt: "That's why building this international coalition has been so important," [Obama] said the other day. "It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally." That's great news. Who doesn't enjoy volunteering other people? The Arab League, for reasons best known to itself, decided that Col. Gadhafi had outlived his sell-by date. Granted that the region's squalid polities haven't had a decent military commander since King Hussein fired General Sir John Glubb half-a-century back, how difficult could it be even for Arab armies to knock off a psychotic transvestite guarded by Austin Powers fembots? But no: Instead, the Arab League decided to volunteer the U.S. military. Likewise, the French and the British. Libya's special forces are trained by Britain's SAS. Four years ago, President Sarkozy hosted a state visit for Col. Gadhafi, his personal security detail of 30 virgins, his favorite camel and a 400-strong entourage that helped pitch his tent in the heart of Paris. Given that London and Paris have the third- and fourth-biggest military budgets on the planet and that between them they know everything about Gadhafi's elite troops, sleeping arrangements, guard-babes and dromedaries, why couldn't they take him out? But no: They, too, decided to volunteer the U.S. military.... Now suddenly he's got to go – in favor of "freedom-loving" "democrats" from Benghazi. That would be in eastern Libya – which, according to West Point's Counter Terrorism Center, has sent per capita the highest number of foreign jihadists to Iraq. Perhaps now that so many Libyan jihadists are in Iraq, the Libyans left in Libya are all Swedes in waiting. But perhaps not. If we lack, as we do in Afghanistan, the cultural confidence to wean those we liberate from their less-attractive pathologies, we might at least think twice before actively facilitating them.

Protesters shot as demonstrations expand across Syria

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protesters-shot-as-demonstrations-expand-across-syria/2011/03/25/AFTnewWB_story.html

BO will get off the hook. Yes, they may kill their own people, but China and Russia will surely veto bombing them in the Security Council. ~Bob. Excerpt: Syrian security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas rounds at protesters Friday, killing an undetermined number of people, as unrest that had been mostly contained in a small southwestern city erupted across the country, including the capital, Damascus.

Prosecutors: Somali Smuggled Jihadists into U.S.

http://www.investigativeproject.org/2716/prosecutors-somali-smuggled-jihadists-into-ushttp://www.investigativeproject.org/2716/prosecutors-somali-smuggled-jihadists-into-us

Can't be, Reno says the border's secure. ~Bob. Excerpt: A lucrative and active human smuggling ring brought an undetermined number of potential Somali jihadists into the United States through Brazil, federal prosecutors say in court papers. Those prosecutors are asking a federal judge in San Antonio to give the maximum sentence to a Somali man who pleaded guilty in November to two counts of making false statements on a 2008 asylum application. Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane failed to report his connections to Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (AIAI) and al-Barakat, both specially designated terrorist organizations. When he is sentenced April 28, prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez to factor in a series of related and disturbing actions spelled out in this memorandum, including the human smuggling of potential terrorists. They intend to call several law enforcement witnesses and three people Dhakane smuggled into the country.

The Failure of Multiculturalism and How to Turn the Tide

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-turn-tide.html

Excerpt: In the 5th century, the Roman Empire fell to the Germanic Barbarians. There is no doubt that the Roman civilization was far superior to that of the Barbarians. And yet, Rome fell. Rome fell because it had suffered a loss of belief in its own civilization. It had lost the will to stand up and fight for survival. Rome did not fall overnight. Rome fell gradually. The Romans scarcely noticed what was happening. They did not perceive the immigration of the Barbarians as a threat until it was too late. For decades, Germanic Barbarians, attracted by the prosperity of the Empire, had been crossing the border. At first, the attraction of the Empire on newcomers could be seen as a sign of the cultural, political and economic superiority of Rome. People came to find a better life which their own culture could not provide. But then, on December 31st in the year 406, the Rhine froze and tens of thousands of Germanic Barbarians, crossed the river, flooded the Empire and went on a rampage, destroying every city they passed. In 410, Rome was sacked. The fall of Rome was a traumatic experience.

Police struggle to control hard-core anarchist rioters after 500,000-strong London march against government cuts ends in violence
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370053/Anti-cuts-demo-Protesters-occupy-Fortnum--Mason-half-million-march-London.html#ixzz1Hk4Zz1j1

Entitlement riots are spreading. Buy ammo. ~Bob. Excerpt: These are the scenes in central London tonight as riot police struggle to control anti-capitalist protesters following the TUC's national demonstration against the cuts. Violence broke out in iconic London locations after splinter groups of activists broke away from the main demonstration and spread out across the centre of the city. The Ritz hotel and Fortnum & Mason were among the buildings targeted in the capital as groups of rampaging youths fought running battles with riot police. Clashes look set to continue into the night, as police use containment tactics to try to bring the mob under control.

The Battle of

Trafalgar Square

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370053/The-battle-Trafalgar-Square-Police-struggle-control-rioters-500-000-strong-London-march-cuts-ends-violence.html

Excerpt: Trouble continued to flare late into the night as hundreds of people attempted to hijack yesterday's massive anti government cuts demonstration in central London.

Riot police fought activists in

Trafalgar Square

as violent protesters threatened to overshadow the TUC rally in Hyde Park which had earlier passed off peacefully.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said between 200 and 300 people had gathered at the landmark location late this evening.

Steyn on Britain: The Human Right to Suspend Reality

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/263159/human-right-suspend-reality-mark-steyn

 Excerpt: I chance to be passing through London today. Picked the wrong afternoon for it. Every sleepy side-street in this normally agreeable corner of Mayfair is awash with union heavies and other unlovely types who’ve wandered loose from the supposedly half-million-strong protest march against alleged government “spending cuts” – of which, in fact, there are distressingly few. As I write, I am approximately fifty feet from the scene of this balaclava-ed anarchist’s heroic stand. Looks rather less exciting in close-up, I have to report. The livelier lads have already rampaged through Fortnum & Mason, the upscale Piccadilly emporium, and attacked the Ritz.

VIDEO: Flames of

Anarchy Illuminate Trafalgar Square

http://durotrigan.blogspot.com/2011/03/flames-of-anarchy-illuminate-trafalgar.html

Excerpt: Whereas the BBC is very willing to employ words such as ‘extremist’ and ‘far-right’ when referring to peaceful EDL protests, as well as highlighting the cost of EDL demonstrations (almost entirely engendered by UAF and Muslim counter protests), it is not describing today’s violent demonstrators as extremist or far-left, and neither is it complaining about the cost. I somehow suspect that the BBC will be eagerly seeking out anarchist ‘victims’ in the days ahead. Below is some footage from

Trafalgar Square

taken earlier this evening before things turned really ugly:

Geraldine Ferraro Dies at 75

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Geraldine-Ferraro-Dead-at-75-118706824.html

Excerpt: Geraldine A. Ferraro, who rose from a U.S congressional seat in Queens to a place in history as the first woman to run on a major party national ticket for vice president, has died. She was 75.

Yes, Violence Can be the Answer

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/03/yes_violence_can_be_the_answer.html

Excerpt: Yes, Casey [Heynes] could have done a ‘50s-style duck-and-cover. Hey, kid, don't you know you should just cower and curl up into a ball? And, for sure, violence is never the answer...except with the Nazis, Mussolini, and Napoleon; during the American Revolution, the Barbary Wars, and the Battle of Tours; and when stopping the criminals during the North Hollywood Shootout, University of Texas Tower Shooting, and incidents every single day in which someone, somewhere uses physical force to thwart a crime. It's never the answer -- except, sometimes, when you actually have to deal with reality.

Israeli and Saudi leaders in Moscow as Palestinians ramp up missile strikes

http://www.debka.com/article/20795/

Excerpt: As Russian, Israeli and Saudi leaders discussed the ramifications of the Arab uprising in Moscow and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates talked to Israeli military chiefs in Tel Aviv, the Palestinian Hamas continued to escalate its missile offensive on Israeli cities. Thursday, March 24, heavy Grad missiles hit the towns of Ashdod and Ofakim making it the worst day of a bad week, with schools in the southern half of Israel shutting down one by one and bomb shelters being opened. In Moscow, DEBKAfile's exclusive sources report that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was working to set up a discreet meeting between two visitors - Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, failing which he will try and bring the Saudi Intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, who arrived with the foreign minister, together with the Israeli leader. Muqrin has met Israeli leaders in secret before, including the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. (Well---Barack Obama has succeeded in alienating every king, caliph, Mullah, prince, potentate, premier, and prime minister in the Middle east. Obama has actually accomplished what George Bush was only accused of. Benjamin Netanyahu has seen the hand writing on the wall. Barack Obama and the executive branch of the US government have cut Israel loose and turned their back on Riyadh. Everyone in the Middle east has realized the coming threat of Iran and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Everyone but Barack Obama. It was not by accident that Putin and Medvedev have invited Israel and the Saudi's for a sit down. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". People are now looking around to ascertain who their friends are. They are forming alliances and agreements while Barack Obama is working on his tan in wherever he is vacationing at the moment. Hamas is presently doing everything it can to provoke Israel into a military response in Gaza. Hamas has been shooting scores of rockets and mortars into the civilian areas of Israel for the past week and Barack is on vacation. Gaddafi is arming his thugs for a counter attack or insurgency and Barack is on vacation. Al Qaeda has now been identified in Libya as a significant leader of the rebels and as attempting to destabilize what democracy remains in Egypt-and Barack is golfing. It wouldn't be a very long stretch of the imagination to witness the entire middle east erupt into uncontrollable anarchy. I wonder how the liberals/progressives/ lefties in USA will enjoy freezing in the dark this winter with an empty stomach?  Barack Obama may be the second president in my lifetime relieved of command---and that is a fact that we should all begin to think about. The 25th Amendment to our Constitution was incorporated for a reason. --Tom C. US Marine Corps (Ret))

Federal government ministers play down Coalition win in NSW election

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/election-leads-to-labors-bloodbath/story-fn7x8me2-1226028702873

Excerpt: SENIOR Gillard government ministers are playing down the impact on federal politics of Labor's crushing defeat in the NSW state election. But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is keen to use the Coalition's landslide win as a big message to federal Labor about cost-of-living pressures and its planned carbon tax. NSW premier-elect Barry O'Farrell led the Liberal/Nationals coalition to its first election victory in NSW in 16 years and one of the greatest voting landslides in the history of federation.

SHARIAH WATCH: Report - Jihad in Italy

http://shoebat.com/videos/italyJihad.php

Obama's Trap in Syria

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-25/obamas-trap-in-syria-how-his-multilateralism-in-libya-will-trip-us-up/?om_rid=Mqh-D0&om_mid=_BNje0TB8Z3$qLN

Excerpt: According to reputable Syrian dissident sources and scattered news accounts, sizable protests spread Friday to at least a dozen Syrian cities, from Tartus in the west to Abu Kamal in the east, from Al Qamishli in the north to Daraa in the south. Daraa has been roiling all week, and the killing of several dozen demonstrators has failed to quell them. On Friday, rebels there set alight a statue of Hafez al-Assad, the former ruler who bequeathed his office to his son, Bashar, while some 20 of their comrades were martyred in the neighboring town of Sanamein. Syria is a powder keg because the regime is more repressive than any of the others that have faced upheaval, except for Muammar Gaddafi’s, and it will not go peacefully. The Assad dynasty is based on the country’s Alawite sect, which comprises only an estimated 13 percent of the population and fears terrible retribution from the Sunni majority if it falls from power. The regime’s record of ruthlessness exceeds even Gaddafi’s, including mass execution of helpless prison inmates and suppression of a 1982 uprising in Hamah by leveling most of the city and killing 20,000 citizens, mostly noncombatants. In short, we might be about to witness violence far worse than anything seen since the regional rebellions began in Tunisia in December. (…) We succeeded in mustering a wall-to-wall consensus on Libya because Gaddafi is one of the most isolated rulers in the world. Eccentric and mercurial, he has been all over the map politically, and wherever he has stood at any moment, he has never hesitated to quarrel with those closest to him. He has no allies and no admirers. Although Bashar lacks his father’s deft touch, the Syrian regime has always played diplomatic poker assiduously. It has allies, clients, and political trading partners. It is also the patron of Hamas, Hezbollah, and a handful of lesser terror groups that all the other Arab governments know can be used against them. (Liberal Daily Beast takes issue with the administration’s insistence on multi-lateral response. Ron P.)

The Floating Dollar as a Threat to Property Rights

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2011&month=02

Excerpt: The question I invite you to consider for a moment is what would happen if we just let the kilogram float? This is a question that was posed in an editorial last week in the New York Sun. After all, the editorial said, we let the dollar float. The creation of dollars, and the status of the dollar as legal tender, is a matter of fiat. Its value is adjusted by the mandarins at the Federal Reserve, depending on variables they only sometimes share with the rest of the world. This would have floored the Framers of our Constitution, who granted Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value in the same sentence in which they gave it the power to fix the standard of weights and measures—like, say, the aforementioned kilogram. Now, the record is clear in respect of how America’s founders viewed money. Many of them went into the Second United States Congress, where they established the value of the dollar at 371 ¼ grains of pure silver. The law through which they did that, the Coinage Act of 1792, noted that the amount of silver they were regulating for the dollar was the same as in a coin then in widespread use, known as the Spanish milled dollar. The law said a dollar could also be the free-market equivalent in gold. The Founders did not expect the value of the dollar to be changed any more than the persons who locked away that kilogram of platinum and iridium expected the cylinder to start losing mass. In fact, in this same 1792 law, they established the death penalty for debasing the dollar.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident – 26 March status

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/26/fukushima-26-march-status/

Excerpt: However, NEI now reports the following welcome news: Fresh water is being injected into the reactor pressure vessel at reactor 3 at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said. TEPCO said that radioactive materials discovered at the reactor 3 turbine building possibly came from water from the reactor system, not the spent fuel pool. TEPCO made that statement after collecting samples of contaminated water in the reactor 3 turbine building and conducting a gamma-emitting nuclide analysis of the sample. The reactor pressure and drywell pressure at reactor 3 remained stable on Friday, leading TEPCO to believe that “the reactor pressure vessel is not seriously damaged. (...) TEPCO (w)orkers laying cables in the turbine hall of unit 3 stood in ankle-deep stagnant water and their feet were irradiated with beta rays (~180 mSv dose), with shallow burns, after ignoring their dosiometer warnings. They have since been hospitalised. Details in the reports below. 17 personnel have now received doses of >100 mSv, but none >250 mSv — the dose allowed by authorities in the current situation. (...) On radiation: levels around the plant perimeter are relatively low and steadily decreasing. Levels of I-131 in drinking water supplies in Tokyo are now below regulated limits and restrictions have been lifted. The IAEA radiation monitoring data, at a distance of 34 to 62 km from Fukushima Daiichi, showed very low levels. (There is one particular ABC TV “expert”—whose name I don’t know, but he looks like a manic Seiji Ozawa (former music director/conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra)—who seems to delight in telling the world how horrible it will be when—not if—plutonium “gets loose” from reactor 3. Just a quick reminder: until the Test Ban Treaty took effect in the early 60s, nuclear weapons were tested by detonation in the atmosphere, so, if you were alive then, you’ve undoubtedly already breathed some, FIFTY years ago. Where’s the sense of proportion here? I wonder where he’s getting his news updates from, and if he has an agenda of his own? Ron P.)

'Mistress of Disaster' to head FBI?http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=279145#ixzz1HhtWhUzi

FBI Director Robert Mueller ends his 10-year, nonrenewable term in September 2011.

President Obama may be inclined to choose a female candidate, and if he does, according to National Public Radio, the most likely candidate is Jamie Gorelick. Not surprisingly, the NPR report documents the various controversies swirling around the heads of the likely male candidates, but cites none for Gorelick. This is something of an oversight. In her most recent public outing, Gorelick represented BP in the Gulf oil mess. Nor is the first disaster with which the 60-year-old Gorelick has been involved. Indeed, bloggers have taken to calling Jamie Gorelick "The Mistress of Disaster" and with good reason. As deputy attorney general under President Clinton, Gorelick penned the infamous "wall" memo that prevented intelligence agencies from sharing information in the run-up to Sept. 11.

Two US-Trained Palestinia​n Officers Arrested in Bloody Slaughter of Jewish Family

http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/03/two-us-trained-palestinian-officers-arrested-in-bloody-slaughter-of-jewish-family/

Palestinian terrorists stabbed five family members to death in the settlement of Itamar early Saturday morning; three children, including a baby girl, were among the victims. The killers slashed the baby’s throat. Later that day Palestinians handed out candy to celebrate the mass murder. This past week two Palestinian officers were charged with planning the attack. The Idaho Press reported: Palestinian cousins Ahmed Awad, an officer in Abbas’ Preventative Security Services in the northern West Bank city of Nablis, and Iyad Awad, an officer in Abbas’ General Intelligence services in Ramallah, have been charged with planning the attack. Informed security sources said the two did not personally carry out the murders but assisted in the planning and logistics, including aiding in the escape. The actual killers were sleeper cells from Hamas. These men were armed, trained and funded by the U.S.

Obama chief advisor calls for a military invasion of Israel

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/03/power-and-the-post-american-president.html

Excerpt: Some say, of course, that Barack Hussein Obama should not be held responsible for associations he made years or even decades ago. It’s unclear why that should be if he has never adequately renounced or repudiated these associations. But even if he has in some cases, as a candidate and as president he has surrounded himself with advisers who have distinguished themselves by their anti-Israel positions. One Obama foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, resigned from the Obama campaign team under fire in March 2008 after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster.” Obama never seemed fazed by her calling in a 2002 interview with Harry Kreisler of the Institute for International Studies at Berkeley for military action against Israel to secure the creation of a Palestinian state.

VIDEO: Muslim Militants March in

Oxford Street

http://durotrigan.blogspot.com/2011/03/muslim-militants-march-in-oxford-street.html

Excerpt: Once again, the bearded bigots and female-tented automata of Muslims Against Crusades, or one of their kindred groups, took to the streets of London on Friday 25 March in a ritualistic mass spouting of bile. This time, the ranting myrmidons of Mohammed were directing their ill-tempered outbursts at the UK, France and the US for intervening in Libya. Well, I don’t want our armed forces to be involved there either. I’d like them to be here at home, protecting the British people from hostile colonists such as members of Muslims Against Crusades and their ideological soulmates. Unsurprisingly, the BBC didn’t bother to cover the demonstration, as the sight of this bunch would jar with the official message that Muslims are innately cuddly and peace-loving. That really wouldn’t do. For the BBC, the Mohammedan must be allowed to bellow all manner of violent obscenities in the street and be permitted to trample upon the sensibilities of all others, for it would be ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘racist’ to offer the slightest whiff of criticism. And where were the absurdly named Unite Against Fascism (sic)? Why didn’t they stage a counter protest? Would any member or supporter of the UAF care to explain to us why they find Islamofascism so agreeable?

Pretending to boost drilling

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/pretending_to_boost_drilling_QE0kE2xPLOctXCM3wf3IjP

Excerpt: While President Obama promotes offshore drilling in Brazil, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar now promises to revitalize America's oil and gas industry. It's like Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian promoting himself as a lifesaving CPR specialist. This week, Salazar announced that the administration has just approved the first deepwater-oil- and gas-exploration plan since last spring's BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mind you: This is not a granting of permits, but a green light for Shell Offshore to seek drilling permits for three new exploratory wells off the Louisiana coast. Shell first submitted and received approval for its original exploration plan in 1985. Salazar's make-believe resurrection of US offshore and onshore drilling began a few weeks ago, when the Interior Department Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement issued a deepwater-drilling permit to Noble Energy for a well at the Santiago Project, about 70 miles off the Louisiana coast. But as Louisiana political analyst Scott McKay pointed out, "This isn't a permit for a new project. The permit issued to Noble was for a bypass of an obstruction in a well they'd already drilled before the Deepwater Horizon accident. It took 314 days to get that well back online with this administration."

Gov. Walker's Legislation Has Unions Caving Already

http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleolson/2011/03/26/gov_walkers_legislation_has_unions_caving_already

Excerpt: Apparently Gov. Scott Walker knew exactly what he was doing. Before he signed the bill limiting collective bargaining privileges, teachers unions throughout the state were slow to respond to calls for salary and benefit concessions. They believed their members should be held harmless during a period of necessary cost-cutting. They didn't seem to care that Wisconsin schools were operating with multi-million dollar deficits that were forcing the layoffs of younger teachers and the cancellation of student programs. Their only answer was to raise taxes at a time when few people could afford it. They didn’t want to sacrifice anything, despite the fact that schools spend about 80 percent of their budgets on labor costs. But now, with Walker's legislation set to become law once it clears legal hurdles, the unions are suddenly coming to their senses. They are jumping at the chance to extend their collective bargaining agreements, in exchange for meaningful concessions that will help schools survive the financial crisis. In Madison, the teachers union has suddenly agreed to a wage freeze and increases in health insurance and pension contributions. The concessions will save the district an estimated $15 million next year, which would almost make up for the expected cuts in state aid.

Strong-armed Swedish pensioner slugs two young bandits

http://www.thelocal.se/32250/20110224/

Excerpt: Gray-haired and requiring the use of a rollator to get around, Rolf Klasson certainly didn't give the impression that he would put up a fight when two young men approached him on Tuesday in central Lidköping. Klasson was about to take out money from a cash machine when one of the hoodlums demanded the elderly gentlemen give up his wallet, while the other brandished a knife, the local Nya-Lidköpings Tidning (NLT) reported. What Klasson's attackers didn't know was that their seemingly helpless victim was a retired professional boxer who had once been a sparring partner for Bo 'Bosse' Högberg, who held the European light-middleweight boxing title in 1966. "I said to them, 'this isn't going to go well'," he told the Expressen newspaper. (Actually, it went pretty well. ~Bob.)

Fukushima Daiichi two weeks on

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Fukushima_Daiichi_two_weeks_on_2503111.html

Excerpt: Tokyo Electric Power Company has been criticised over yesterday's exposure to workers operating in ankle-deep water, but continues to make progress towards stabilising the site two weeks after the natural disasters of 11 March. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has told the company to improve its radiation monitoring and the controls protecting workers that are bringing systems back online at Fukushima Daiichi. [And, from a sidebar: Japanese authorities have reported to the IAEA after examining the thyroid glands of 66 children, including 14 infants. The results 'had no big difference from the level of background and was at the level of no problem in the view of the Nuclear Safety Commission.'] (Two weeks in and no disaster yet. If you read/saw only the MSM or TV, would you have expected this to be the current condition? Obviously, they aren’t yet out of the woods, but the trees are beginning to thin out a bit. I’m cautiously optimistic. Ron P.)

Andrew Bolt scores the Quote of the Millennium

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/andrew-bolt-scores-the-quote-of-the-millennium/

Excerpt: Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.

Understanding How Bad the European Financial Crisis Is

http://blogsforvictory.com/2011/03/25/understanding-how-bad-the-european-financial-crisis-is/

Excerpt: California is a State with 37 million people living in it. California has a “gross domestic product” of approximately $1.85 trillion. Right now, California is in acute economic crisis as the government tries to bridge a $26 billion budget deficit – in short, if we were to bail out California, it would cost us $26 billion dollars. Portugal is a nation with 10.6 million people living in it – somewhat less than one third of California’s population. Portugal’s GDP is about $235 billion, a figure equal to around 13% of California’s GDP. Portugal is also involved in an acute economic crisis…but their shortfall is about $99 billion.

Obama says he didn’t inform Mexico of U.S. gun smuggling operation because he didn’t know about it

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2011/03/obama-says-he-didnt-inform-mexico-of-u-s-gun-smuggling-operation-because-he-didnt-know-about-it/?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d8cf79e4dc1d3a8,0

Excerpt: Under fire for an operation that allowed smuggling of U.S. weapons across the nation’s border with Mexico, President Obama said in an interview that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder authorized the controversial “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The Mexican government has complained that it didn’t know about the U.S. operation that allowed guns to illegally cross the southwestern border so they could track the weapons.

The Professor’s War
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/263026/professor-s-war-charles-krauthammer

Excerpt: President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It’s war as designed by an Ivy League professor. True, it took three weeks to put this together, during which time Moammar Qaddafi went from besieged, delusional (remember those youthful protesters on “hallucinogenic pills”) thug losing support by the hour — to resurgent tyrant who marshaled his forces, marched them to the gates of Benghazi, and had the U.S. director of national intelligence predicting that “the regime will prevail.”

About Chile's 'Miracle'

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=566710&p=1

Excerpt: President Obama had nothing but praise for Chile's democracy and economic miracle, declaring it a model "for the region and world." So why is he obstructing the same reforms in the U.S. that gave Chile its success?...In 30 years, Chile has gone from being a Third World country to a developed one, raising per capita income to $17,000, achieving 6% to 7% GDP growth most years, and attracting billions in foreign investment. It didn't happen in a vacuum. The country was the first nation to try free-market reforms as articulated by the great economist Milton Friedman, whose ideas were still new in 1974. When Gen. Augusto Pinochet was asked by Chile's legislature to take over in September 1973, he created a MacArthur-style caretakership and turned the job of cleaning up a ravaged economy over to a group of University of Chicago-trained economists. Known as "Chicago Boys," they found a nation that was a mess after the short Marxist dictatorship of Salvador Allende and four decades of bad policy, including state-owned industries, heavy protectionism and massive bureaucracy. Special interests — unions and corporate monopolies — controlled major parts of the economy. Property rights were battered.