Political Digest for April 9, 2012

The Old Jarhead Blog: Bringing you news and information the MSM is too busy covering American Idol, celebrity affairs and sensational missing person cases to cover. Please forward to friends who need to be informed.

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. In some cases I post things sent to me by readers I might not have posted on my own, to get ideas circulating.

Important: U.S.-backed battery company's sale to Russian tycoon sparks anxiety: Department of Energy invested millions to develop cutting-edge technology to power electric vehicles, but that know-how is now in foreign hands

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0408-battery-transfer--20120407,0,3261819.story?page=1&track=rss

Obama administration investing your tax dollars to build up...Russia. ~Bob. Excerpt: "One of the nations of the world is going to lead the world in green energy and technology," Vice President Joe Biden said in January 2011 in a speech praising federal support for Ener1 at its facility in Indiana. That nation, it turns out, is Russia. A little more than a year after Biden's visit to Ener1's Indiana manufacturing plant, the company's technology is owned outright by Boris Zingarevich, a Russian businessman with ties to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a fact that concerns some technology experts in the U.S.

Yikes: Egan Jones Downgrades US Credit Rating

http://nation.foxnews.com/us-credit-rating-downgrade/2012/04/06/egan-jones-downgrades-us-credit-rating

Excerpt: Credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded the United States Thursday on concern over the sustainability of public debt. Egan Jones is one of the most important ratings firms in the world; they lowered our credit level from AA+ to AA. The firm reduced America from AAA to AA+ in July 2011, just before Standard & Poor's did the same.

Bunkers, Food, Armor: Disaster Prep Hits Mainstream: A necessary way of life for past generations is now booming business. By Bob Owens

http://pjmedia.com/blog/bunkers-food-armor-disaster-prep-hits-mainstream/

Excerpt: Preppers are folks who detect the possibility of calamity and decide to increase their odds of surviving it by putting aside supplies. “Putting things by”— essential throughout most of humanity’s existence — was common in the United States up until advances in transportation logistics brought about the “just in time” shipping model. Suddenly, we could get almost any supplies delivered fresh and year-round to massive community stores. What our grandparents called “lean times” became a thing of the past for even the poorest Americans.

Mark Steyn: Liberals ‘conformity enforcers,’ ‘stupefyingly intolerant’

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/08/mark-steyn-liberals-conformity-enforcers-stupefyingly-intolerant-video/#ixzz1rUoDYAGk

Excerpt: As you know, if you go to the average American newsroom you can have diversity of race, diversity of gender, diversity of orientation — everything except the only diversity that matters, which is diversity of thought,” he said. “And the left does not want to celebrate diversity of thought. They rage against so-called intolerance, yet they themselves are stupefyingly intolerant… (Same is true of diversity at most universities. ~Bob.)

Chaffetz: White House blocking access to ‘Fast and Furious’ witness who wants to testify

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/06/chaffetz-white-house-blocking-access-to-fast-and-furious-witness-who-wants-to-testify/#ixzz1rUnWetog

Excerpt: Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz told the Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly on Friday that although a key White House witness in the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking program is willing to testify about what he knows, the Obama administration won’t let him appear before Congress.

China To Drop Solar Energy To Focus On Nuclear Power

http://www.elp.com/index/from-the-wires/wire_news_display/1621584677.html

Excerpt: China will accelerate the use of new-energy sources such as nuclear energy and put an end to blind expansion in industries such as solar energy and wind power in 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says in a government report published on March 5. China will instead develop nuclear power in 2012, actively develop hydroelectric power, tackle key problems more quickly in the exploration and development of shale gas, and increase the share of new energy and renewable energy in total energy consumption. (On the positive side, we’ll now be able to tell which environmentalists favor Chinese socialism over Russian socialism by how they react to this news. How did we ever reach a point where communists are reading and reacting better to the actual science than we are? Ron P.)

Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-Take-our-quiz/

Excerpt: You may have an opinion on climate change, evolution education, stem-cell research, and science funding. But do you have the facts to back up your opinion? This quiz will test your basic scientific literacy. (I saw mention of this test at Watts Up With That blog and tried it. Much tougher questions than I expected were the norm, and I didn’t do as well as I hoped. [Quiz results: You answered 39of 50 questions correctly for a total score of 78%.] I was reduced to “educated guessing” on some and “pure guessing” on a few others. There are no “climate” questions, but if you accept Bishop Usher’s date of creation as about 4015 BC, you will get two questions wrong. Bob Hall will definitely get question #19 correct. --Ron P. If Bob Hall finds the time to take the test. ~Bob.)

Boko Haram kills 20 Christians in Easter Day bombings

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/04/boko_haram_kills_20_christians.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LongWarJournalSiteWide+%28The+Long+War+Journal+%28Site-Wide%29%29

Didn't get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: The radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram killed more than 20 Christians and wounded dozens more in a series of bombings outside a church in Kaduna. One of the attacks appears to have been carried out by a suicide bomber.

The Week That Was: 2012-04-07 (April 7, 2012)

http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2012/TWTW%20-%204-7-12.pdf

Excerpt: If mercury from coal fired power plants is a major public health concern, one would expect to see atmospheric mercury concentrations and mercury deposition downwind of the major coal fired power plants. This is not the case as one can easily see from the maps. For example, one would expect to see heavy concentrations in Pennsylvania which is downwind from the heavy concentration of coal fired power plants in the Ohio Valley. It appears that, as with carbon dioxide, mercury from power plants is not a public health issue but an excuse for EPA and its allies to close down an industry it does not like. (Wow. Many good articles this week, in addition to the three numbered articles at the end of the post. Be sure to look at the three under the heading “US Administration’s Control of Oil and Gas,” the ones under “Return of King Coal,” and the article “Mercury the Trickster God” by Willis Eschenbach. The excerpt is from Ken Haapala’s summary description of Eschenbach’s article. Ron P.)

Our Contemptuous President By Mark Steyn

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295488/our-contemptuous-president-mark-steyn

I’ve no idea where President Obama gets his shirts and smokes, but he certainly talks like a highbrow, sufficiently so to persuade presidential historian Michael Beschloss to pronounce him the day after the 2008 election “the smartest president ever.” Yet, in the end, he plays Chicago style. You can take the community organizer out of Chicago, but you can’t take the Chicago out of the community organizer.

Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack Burned by His School’s Racist Teaching?

http://www.conservativecrusader.com/articles/was-boy-in-k-c-fire-attack-burned-by-his-school-s-racist-teaching

Excerpt: The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question. “What would you know about it?” exclaimed the teacher dismissively. “You’re not our race.” This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie. According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month. Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.

How (and Why) Obama has Impeded Recovery By Alan Caruba

http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blogs/how-and-why-obama-has-impeded-recovery

Excerpt: During and after his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama was hailed as the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt. History records that Roosevelt presided over the Great Depression, begun in the previous administration of Herbert Hoover who got most of the blame. Roosevelt’s policies extended it well beyond the normal recovery from a recession.

Obama gaffes, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSJxHjIDQng&feature=player_embedded

Did ABC Photoshop Zimmer to make him look white?

http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples_resource/image/12644-abcnews-zimmerman.gif

Maybe this registered Democrat and anti-racism community activist was a not-so white Hispanic? ~Bob.

New Black Panthers Call For Race War During Planning Session For Trayvon Martin Protest: We Have To Spill The Blood of White Devils…

http://weaselzippers.us/2012/04/08/new-black-panthers-call-for-race-war-during-planning-session-for-trayvon-martin-protest-we-have-to-spill-the-blood-of-white-devils/

Excerpt: Time to get booted up and suited up for this race war we’re in, the things that are about to happen to these crackers, these honkeys.

Probe reveals New Black Panther ties to Hezbollah
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/probe-reveals-new-black-panther-ties-to-hezbollah

Excerpt: Two separate investigations into the New Black Panthers have been conducted this month, one in response to charges of homegrown terrorism and the other in response to the group's placing a bounty on the head of George Zimmerman, the alleged shooter of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The results of the twofold probe, one of which was released yesterday, reveals New Black Panther ties to the Middle East terrorist group Hezbollah. (Holders "people." ~Bob.)

Leona Salazar: The Smartest Man in the World Should Go Back to School

http://www.bernardgoldberg.com/the-smartest-man-in-the-world-should-go-back-to-school/?utm_source=BernardGoldberg.com+Newsletter&utm_campaign=593de863f2-NEWSLETTER&utm_medium=email

Excerpt: Somewhere along the line, President Obama, touted as the smartest President we’ve ever known, must have been absent when government was taught in school. He just hasn’t grasp the notion that we have three equal branches of government in this country – executive, legislative and judicial.

Chart of the Week: Obamacare’s Bundle of Budget Gimmicks

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/08/chart-of-the-week-obamacares-bundle-of-budget-gimmicks/

Excerpt: President Obama has touted reports from the Congressional Budget Office claiming his health care law would actually decrease the deficit. But due to a bundle of budget gimmicks and other legislation, calculations show that Obamacare actually adds $698 billion to the deficit. This week’s chart outlines each of those budget gimmicks. (He says whatever fits his goals, the media covers for him, the uninvolved middle believe what the media says, and his base doesn't care. A brutal day of reckoning is coming, and I don't mean the election. ~Bob.)