Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Today's Exciting News

Update: My friend and brother Marine John Payne got the call for a new lung at about 8:30 am this morning (Tuesday, December 17, 2013). He is now scheduled for surgery tonight about 11:00 pm. We are both O blood type, but I'm not surprised. I told the transplant coordinator that I thought John was weaker than me, and should go first. Personally, I think John arranged this to skate out on PT this morning. (I had to work extra hard to make up for it!) If you are the praying type, say one for that good man. ~Bob

Police: Gunman wounds 4, kills self at Reno hospital

6 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan chopper crash
Excerpt: Fox News confirmed the troops were part of the NATO force but were Americans. (Met a nice young couple at breakfast today with a sweet 3-month-old girl. Said they have 3 boys as well. He is in the Army, just back from Afghanistan, an EOD specialist. A Merry Christmas for this family. ~Bob)

Good Column: A Few Random Thoughts - Some Grinchy *</;-{)}>. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: For today, a little humor; less humor; opinion; sarcasm; cynicism; witty repartee; art; recommendations; and seasonal spirit but all truth to entertain while keeping in mind the worst of it could always be worse (maybe).

The Senate margin. By Jennifer Rubin
Excerpt: For all the fretting about getting past a GOP filibuster on the budget deal, itwasn’t all that close. The Senate easily invoked cloture 67 to 33, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats. Republicans needed to contribute only five votes, so 12 was impressive considering the grief they’ll get from the shutdown-squad types and the prospect of primary challenges many senators face in 2014.

Interesting: Obamacare alone didn’t sink Obama. By Jennifer Rubin
Excerpt: The easy explanation for Obama’s fall is the horrendous rollout of Obamacare, the “lie of the year” (also a top Pinocchio of the year) about keeping your insurance and general dislike of the healthcare law beyond the healthcare.gov. But let’s be clear how rotten a year it has been even aside from the Obamacare fiasco. 

Excerpt: An article in the current edition of London Review of Books by Seymour Hersh makes a strong case that US President Obama misled the world over the infamous chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21 this year. Hersh is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who exposed the My Lai atrocity committed by American troops in Vietnam and the subsequent cover-up. He also helped bring to public attention the systematic brutality of US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. (Drip by drip, even the LIVs are figuring out this guy cannot be trusted. ~Bob)

Debt Crisis For Generations, Global Financial Crisis – Video
Excerpt: Can any adult American really understand the depth of their debt selfishness forced onto future generations?

Federal Judge Calls Obamacare "Totally Ineffective" While Striking Down Contraception Mandate. By Conn Carroll
Excerpt: Yesterday, Judge Brian Cogan of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, not only struck down Obamacare's contraception mandate as applied to religious non-profit organizations, but also sent a strong signal that federal courts were losing patience with President Obama's many stitches of executive power.

EPA's Leading Climate Change Expert Pleads Guilty to Elaborate Fraud. By Guy Benson
Excerpt: ...And the fraud didn't even have anything to do with global warming! (Rimshot). Seriously, though, NBC News' Monday report on the misconduct of former EPA official John Beale is must be read to be believed. Honestly, if the following details didn't involve a lazy, greedy congenital liar swindling taxpayers out of nearly a million dollars over more than a decade of abuse, they'd be laugh-out-loud funny. Alas, it's all true, so indignation is the only proper response:

Nelson Mandela sign language interpreter ‘helped burn two men to death’
Gruesome allegations have emerged in South Africa that the “fake” sign language interpreter at the Nelson Mandela memorial service was involved in a mob which killed two men by burning them to death. Thamsanqa Jantjie is currently the subject of an inquiry into how he was allowed to appear at the service a week ago alongside world leaders, including US President Barack Obama….A cousin and three friends of Mr Jantjie have now said he was part of a group which caught two men with a stolen television, beat them and then set fire to tyres placed around their necks. (Can't hold this against him. Necklaceing was SOP in Mandela's South Africa. ~Bob)

Excerpt: But it turns out that some of the biggest ObamaCare losers in the country are liberal elites living in the media capital of the world. And, though they thought the whole concept of bringing government into the health-care business was great, they are none too pleased about personally being victimized by the president’s big idea. As the New York Times reported over the weekend, some prominent New York City liberals have recently found out just how unaffordable the so-called Affordable Care Act turned out to be. (Gee, they are discovering how the little people feel. They will figure out a way to get around it because they are liberals. --Don M.)

Have You Heard About The $36 Million Money Pit In Afghanistan That The Army Isn’t Explaining And That Could Fall Into Enemy Hands? By Sara Carter
Excerpt: After more than six months and several letters of inquiry, the U.S. chief watchdog for reconstruction in Afghanistan is still waiting for the U.S. Army to explain why it invested $36 million in taxpayer money to construct a building that’s been abandoned, left unfinished and could possibly end up in enemy hands when troops withdraw from the region next year. (The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. it isn't their money, so no one cares --Don M.)

When No One is Watching. By Mona Charen
Excerpt: The Black Guerilla Family prison gang controlled the Baltimore City jail. According to a federal indictment, 27 correctional officers, along with 17 others, "were in bed with BGF inmates." That would be literally and figuratively. Gang leader Tavon White impregnated no fewer than four female guards. One had "Tavon" tattooed on her wrist.

Raise the minimum wage? Nifty, but . . . By George Will
Excerpt: Nevertheless, raising the minimum hourly wage for the 23rd time since 1938, fromtoday’s $7.25 to $10.10, is a nifty idea, if: If government is good at setting prices. Government — subsidizer of Solyndra, operator of theethanol program, creator of HealthCare.gov — uses minimum-wage laws to set the price for the labor of workers who are apt to add only small value to the economy.

Excerpt: A senior al Qaeda operative known as Abu Khalid al Suri is a leading figure in Ahrar al Sham, a Syrian extremist group that is part of the recently formed Islamic Front. Al Suri's real name is Mohamed Bahaiah.

Libs Hate Humanity: Bear Mauls Deerhunter, PETA Sides with Bear
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/12/libs-hate-humanity-bear-mauls-deerhunter-peta-sides-bear/
Excerpt: Camille Bomboy was hunting for deer on her farm property when she was mauled by a bear who was concerned for the 18-year-old hunter’s proximity to her cub. Miss Bomboy was lucky, though, as she only received gashes to her arms and is still in possession of her head. Naturally, the leftists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have reprimanded the young woman in a letter.

Our President Is A Fool: How the West was Lost by the Selfie President
Excerpt: It’s official — the government of the United States of Obama consists of boobs and bores and is led by a narcissist. It is no consolation that Great Britain joins us in racing to the bottom. President Obama’s flirting with Denmark’s prime minister would be shameful on any occasion. That it happened at the memorial for Nelson Mandela only adds to the embarrassment (As does his photo with his "Mussolini" pose. --JB)

Resisting Immigration Reform: Identity politics rejects ending illegal immigration and reforming legal immigration. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: We are fast approaching what promises to be the year of “comprehensive immigration reform.” In the manner of the “Affordable Care Act,” it will not be comprehensive nor will it reform immigration. All sorts of new trends have emerged in the American Southwest to address the fact that federal immigration law does not really apply to those who arrived here illegally from Mexico or Latin America. (Am I for "immigration reform?" Yes I am--if by "reform" you mean a bigger fence and more armed border guards. ~Bob)

British doctor dies in detention in Syria
Excerpt: A British surgeon, imprisoned in Syria for over a year, has died in detention, his family has told the BBC. Dr Abbas Khan, a 32-year-old orthopaedic surgeon from Streatham, south London, travelled to the city of Aleppo last year to help civilians.

Dozens of Iraqis Killed in Attacks
Didn't get the "Islam is a Religion of Peace" memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: More than 70 people were killed in a string of attacks across Iraq on Monday, including 37 Shiites preparing for an annual pilgrimage, among them a group who were pulled out of a bus and shot dead on the roadside, the police said.

The End of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Syrian Scam. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The Free Syrian Army had one purpose. To fool America. Now the con is over. In the deserts of the Middle East, political mirages appear easily and disappear just as easily. 

Big Dem Cities, Big Dem Poverty. By Arnold Ahlert 
Excerpt: “Every major city which is a center of poverty is run by Democrats. Every major city. Their policies have failed, they’re not willing to admit and the fact is it’s the poor who suffer from bad government.” 

The Pope and Capitalism. By Walter Williams 
Excerpt: First, I acknowledge that capitalism fails miserably when compared with heaven or a utopia. Any earthly system is going to come up short in such a comparison. However, mankind must make choices among alternative economic systems that actually exist on earth. For the common man, capitalism is superior to any system yet devised to deal with his everyday needs and desires.

This Court Case Could Kneecap the NSA: Why a judge's assault on 'Orwellian' surveillance could cripple the spy agency's legal and political support. By Shane Harris
Excerpt: On Monday, a Federal District Court judge ruled that the National Security Agency's collection and storage of all Americans' phone records probably violates the Constitution and is an "almost Orwellian" system that "surely...infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.

China says clash in western area by ‘terrorists’
Excerpt: China claimed Tuesday that a clash between police and locals in a restive far western region was an organized and premeditated attack by a small terrorist group. The official Xinhua News Agency said that 16 people were killed in the Sunday night incident — 14 assailants and two police officers — in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule among parts of the Muslim Uighur population who want more autonomy from Beijing. (Jihadists and Communist killing each other. Please pass the popcorn, I want to watch. ~Bob)

A Little Known Reality. By Michael Snyder
Excerpt: In future China will employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of small communities all over the United States. Chinese acquisition of U.S. businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace to shatter that record this year. (See if I understand. John Kerry offered $17M to Vietnam to deal with Global Warming. The idea is to build tighter ties to the countries around China, like Vietnam, to buffer China's new expansionism. We will now borrow that $17M from China....~Bob)

Extremist Syrian faction touts training camp for boys
Excerpt: At first glance, the training camp appears no different from the many others shown in propaganda videos posted by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Hooded recruits in camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. But look closer and the “fighters” appear quite small. 

Brown’s Move to New Hampshire Fuels Talk of Senate Race. By Annie Linskey 
Excerpt: Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown plans to move to New Hampshire, the latest sign that he’s considering a U.S. Senate bid there, which would complicate Democrats' effort to hold their majority in the chamber. Brown, 54, has found a buyer for his Wrentham home and is set to close on that deal this week, Andrew I. Glincher, managing partner and chief executive officer at Brown’s employer Nixon Peabody LLP, said in an interview. Brown will continue to work out of the law firm’s Boston office because he isn’t licensed to practice law in New Hampshire, Glincher said. (Dems like carpetbagger. See Hillary and Bobby Kennedy in NY. GOP not so much. ~Bob)

OBAMASCARE: Huge premium hikes rock employer-insured workers
Excerpt: While most of the early Obamacare rollout problems have focused on the uninsured and those who get their policies through the individual market exchanges, more than 150 million Americans who get coverage through their employers are likely to feel the fallout as well.

The News in Zingers. By Argus Hamilton
Excerpt: The White House asked insurance companies to extend the deadline for Obamacare policyholder payments to assure coverage. The chaos is frightening. A year ago they said you can keep your health care plan, and today they're saying don't get sick in January.

Next Obamacare crisis: Small-business costs?
Excerpt: Think the canceled health policies hurt the Obamacare cause? There’s another political time bomb lurking that could explode not too long before next year’s elections: rate hikes for small businesses. Like the canceled individual health plans, it’s another example of a tradeoff that health care experts have long known about, as the new rules for health insurance prices create winners and losers. But most Americans won’t become aware of it until some small business employees learn that their premiums are going up because of a law called — oops — the Affordable Care Act.

Quote
Mankind which began in a cave and behind a windbreak will end in the disease-soaked ruins of a slum. --H. G. Wells (Envisioning Detroit, Chicago, LA, etc...~Bob)

Historic snow fall turns Holy Land into the scenes we see in Christmas cards with first flakes for 100 years
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523259/Historic-snow-fall-turns-Holy-Land-scenes-Christmas-cards.html#ixzz2nhGKRqCO 

Excerpt: The ancient city of Jerusalem, which normally basks in fierce heat, was dusted with a light covering of snow during a freak blizzard. And snow fell on the streets of Egypt for the first time in 112 years as one of the worst winter storms to hit the Middle East in living memory set in.The rare sight of pristine white precipitation greeted stunned residents of Cairo this morning who took to social media to express their shock at the unsettling weather in the usually sweltering capital. (Al Gore blames...~Bob)

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