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.
Military thwarted president seeking choice in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603766.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: This stark divide between the nation's civilian and military leaders dominated Obama's Afghanistan strategy review, creating a rift that persists to this day. So profound was the level of distrust that Obama ended up designing his own strategy, a lawyerly compromise among the feuding factions. As the president neared his final decision on how many troops to send, he dictated an unusual six-page document that one aide called a "terms sheet," as though the president were negotiating a business deal. (Listen up, Troops. Today we ship out. We are going to fight and kill and bleed and some of us die for a great lawyerly compromise as defined by our president. This balanced strategy was carefully hammered out between the advice of senior military leaders and the demands of leftwing bloggers. Your families and country will be watching how you carry out the terms of this business deal. Make them proud! Dismissed. ~Bob)
Obama looks to reenergize youth vote, get late Democratic surge for midterms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603356.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: President Obama will swoop into the heartland this week in a high-stakes bid to boost enthusiasm for Democrats by reigniting the coalition of young and minority voters who were critical to his success two years ago. With polls showing independent voters swinging toward Republicans in Wisconsin and the nation's other battlegrounds, Democrats are turning elsewhere to make up ground. So on Tuesday in Madison, Obama will stage the first in a series of rallies on college campuses designed to persuade what some call his "surge" voters - the roughly 15 million Americans who voted for the first time in 2008 - to return to the polls this fall.
Three states may keep us guessing into November
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603288.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Excerpt: Everyone agrees that the House majority will be in play 36 days from now. But what if we don't know who won the House on Nov. 2 - or even Nov. 3 or Nov. 5? It's a very real possibility, given the heavy use of voting via mail in at least three West Coast states: California, Oregon and Washington. (Motor Voter, guaranteeing that the dead can vote everywhere, not just in the Democrat-controlled cities. ~Bob)
John Maynard Keynes, R.I.P.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/john-maynard-keynes-r-i-p/
Excerpt: But if it sounds too good to be true, it is. If such income growth were possible, the country and the world would now be awash in prosperity, given that the federal government increased the national debt by $1.88 trillion in fiscal 2009 and could run deficits of $1.6 trillion and $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2010 and 2011, respectively. Between 2012 and 2015 it will add at least another $3 trillion to the national debt. Why not go for even greater deficit spending, if Keynesian theory worked so magically? Of course, many Keynesian enthusiasts have recommended stimulus packages two and three times what the Bush and Obama administrations sought two and three years ago, with little to no recognition that an escalation in the size of the deficit can, at least beyond some point, curb any multiplier effect (if there were the prospects of a positive one) as the budget deficit rises and crowds out expenditures in private sectors of the economy. In the 1960s Keynesianism was followed as fiscal religion, but by the 1970s economists found it to be a snare and delusion for a simple reason: The political version of Keynesianism is a one-sided theory, with almost total emphasis on what the federal government spends. It pays virtually no attention to the potential private-sector offsets to the greater deficit spending by government or to how current fiscal policies could have negative long-run real income effects that can feed the current generation’s expectations of impaired futures. Keynesianism, in the form practiced in political circles, has no appreciation for how people’s expectations can affect their current spending and investing plans. The late great economist Milton Friedman frequently peppered Keynesian enthusiasts in the 1960s and 1970s with a remarkably simple question that needs to be remembered today: Where does the government get the money it spends on roads (or bridges to nowhere)? Friedman followed with an equally revealing observation: When the government engages in deficit spending, it must borrow the extra funds from someone who could have spent them on private-sector projects. An increase in government spending could be totally offset by a decrease in—or a “crowding out” of—private spending, as lendable funds are diverted from private to government uses. The net effect can be no net increase in aggregate demand—and no multiplier effect. Indeed, with the inevitable waste in government stimulus projects, the multiplier effect could as easily be negative as positive.
Merit pay study: Teacher bonuses don't raise student test scores
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-09-21-merit-pay_N.htm
Excerpt: Offering middle-school math teachers bonuses up to $15,000 did not produce gains in student test scores, Vanderbilt University researchers reported Tuesday in what they said was the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay. The results (pdf) could amount to a cautionary flag about paying teachers for the performance of their students, a reform strategy the Obama administration and many states and school districts have favored despite lukewarm support or outright opposition from teachers' unions.
Gone with the Wind
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19860&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: When President Barack Obama seized the Gulf Coast oil spill to push for a clean energy bill, he spoke of wind power, though wind has little immediate connection with oil: Wind produces electricity, not the kind of fuel that oil provides for cars. The problems with wind and solar power are simple: The math doesn't add up, says the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The president's push for government-funded wind and solar energy -- and away from sources like coal and oil -- isn't new. Obama's February budget proposal for 2011 included a 48 percent increase in government subsidies for wind power -- from $83 million this year to $123 million in 2011. On solar energy, the president asked for a 22 percent hike -- from $247 million to $302 million. Experts point to already-proven energy sources they believe deserve more attention: natural gas and nuclear energy. Natural gas, in particular, is abundant and available now. It is also easier to extract than oil and cleaner than coal. And -- like nuclear power -- natural gas trumps any wide scale potential promised by wind or solar energy. To make wind and solar energy sources consistently reliable on a wide scale would require massive amounts of reliable storage -- technology that doesn't exist on a cost-effective basis. Forcing utility companies to generate more of their power using wind and solar would likely raise energy costs for U.S. consumers, says the Foundation. In addition: The Nature Conservancy, a U.S. environmental group, published a report last year estimating that wind power requires about 30 times as much land as nuclear energy, and four times as much land required for natural gas. The high costs, unreliability and land usage are not just a problem for prosperous nations like the United States -- the dynamic is especially unrealistic for developing countries in desperate need of cheap energy for basic survival. Connecting the developing world to affordable sources of energy -- including sources like coal and oil -- and moving the poorest populations away from using sources like wood and dung, remains a critical way to raise the standard of living in some of the most miserable places in the world.
More Proof We Can’t Stop Poverty by Making it More Comfortable
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/547746/201009171932/More-Proof-We-Canand8217t-Stop-Poverty-By-Making-It-More-Comfortable-.aspx
Excerpt: Between then and now, the federal government spent more than $13 trillion fighting poverty, and state and local governments added another couple of trillion. Yet the poverty rate never fell below 10.5%. (Okay, so they didn’t change the poverty rate. But they got a lot of votes for Democrats and made a lot of “poverty-fighters” fiscally comfortable, so the real goals were met. ~Bob.)
ObamaCare Will Dramatically Reduce Choice in Private Insurance
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19862&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
One of the ways in which ObamaCare will reduce individuals' and businesses' choices of health insurance is through regulating the medical loss ratio (MLR) -- the amount of dollars an insurer spends on medical care divided by the total premiums. For example, if an insurer earns $10 million in premiums and spends $8.5 million on medical claims, its MLR would be 85 percent. Under ObamaCare, policies that cover large businesses will have to achieve an MLR of 85 percent, while those for small businesses and individuals will have to achieve an MLR of 80 percent. That shouldn't be too hard, should it? asks John R. Graham, director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
Note on articles below
These are two related articles about the Green movement and its evolving relationship with government in the USA. The first is a short editorial from Pajamas Media, who contributed to the reporting of the second, the second, a five-part series from the Washington Examiner that starts on Monday, 27 Sep 2010. By clicking on the links at the Examiner, readers can access at least two of the articles and some related stories now. If you wonder why costs at stores keep going up while the government reports inflation to be low or non-existent, these articles may help explain it. Ron P.
How the Environmental Movement Became Just Another Washington Power Bloc
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/how-the-environmental-movement-became-just-another-washington-power-bloc/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Starting today, the Washington Examiner is running a special report on “Big Green”: the alliance of progressive activists, environmental groups like the Sierra Club, and the Democratic Party that has become perhaps the most powerful single lobby in Washington today. It was, to some extent, a “stealth” campaign. “Conservationists” had been around for a hundred years, and the original Environmental Protection Agency was, after all, pushed through by Richard Nixon. Partly because of events like the Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland in 1969, there was a general agreement in the 1960s that pollution of the air and water had become too obnoxious and that something had to be done. The environmental movement quickly got involved with the New Left, becoming a sort of side-show for anti-war demonstrations while pollution became one of the litany of evils of what had been traditional American life. Along with real issues like river and lake pollution, there had been Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb, published in 1968; the Club of Rome’s book The Limits to Growth, in 1972; and a succession of other doomsday scenarios in the popular press. What started as a largely bipartisan issue in the 60s began to transform into a more distinctly partisan issue in the 70s. Looking back, what was happening was a natural agreement of interests: in all of these groups, there was the general assumption that the various evils of humanity could only be remedied by government action, led by the enlightened. This meant that government must become stronger, have more power, and broaden its authority to deal with these new problems.
Examiner Special Report - Big Green: Environmentalists aren’t really about clean air and water
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Examiner-Special-Report---Big-Green-Environmentalists-arent-really-about-clean-air-and-water-103848559.html
Excerpt: Excerpt: Environmentalists talk about America’s land, water and air, but their movement has become mostly about expanding regulatory power over the American way of life. Some environmentalists will admit this reality, as in 2004 when the Sierra Club’s Carl Pope said that “environmentalism is part of a broader progressive movement.” It wasn’t always that way. More than four decades ago, Americans decided it was time to clean up the air and water, and to have a more realistic balance between economic and environmental needs. Great progress followed, thanks to laws like the Clean Air Act of 1970. Along the way, environmentalists acquired power in politics and became entrenched in policy-making positions throughout government. They got comfortable wielding political, regulatory and legislative power. And many found in the movement a very comfortable living. Environmentalism went from cause to business to special interest.
New discovery may lead to a malaria vaccine
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/27/new-discovery-may-lead-to-a-malaria-vaccine/#more-25364
Excerpt: For decades, it has been known that malaria parasites use proteins called glycophorins as a means of entering red blood cells. This new research reveals an alternative pathway used by the parasite to enter red blood cells. The pathway does not involve glycophorins, instead requiring the binding of a parasite molecule named PfRh4 to Complement Receptor 1 (CR1), a common protein found on the surface of red blood cells. “The parasite is like a master burglar – it will try a variety of different methods to get into the house, not just the front door,” Professor Cowman said. “Although the human body has evolved a variety of methods to keep the parasite out, it keeps finding new ways to get in.” Professor Cowman said the PfRh family of surface proteins is involved in the recognition of red blood cell receptors, which allows the parasite to attach to the red blood cell surface and gain entry. “We think that the parasite uses this protein to correctly identify the red blood cell and say ‘Yes, this is the one we want to invade’, it’s like a quality assurance process,” Professor Cowman said. “The PfRh4-CR1 pathway is one of the most important of the pathways we’ve identified for entry of malaria parasites into cells,” Professor Cowman said. “We are now at the stage where we have identified the best combination of proteins for a vaccine, and are ready to start clinical development. When both glycophorin and CR1 pathways are blocked, there is a 90 per cent decrease in infection of the cells with the parasite. These results suggest that if a vaccine were to stimulate the immune system to recognise and generate antibodies to the prevalent invasion pathways, there is a good chance it would lead to a significant decrease in malaria infection.” (This would be good news. Banning DDT to save birds, at the behest of Gore’s hero Rachel Carson, cost millions of third world kids their lives, without a tear of regret from environmentalists. Not to mention the current surge in bedbugs in the US. ~Bob)
The Tax Issue Isn’t about Fiscal Policy
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/247676/tax-issue-isn-t-about-fiscal-policy-john-hood
Excerpt: Broadly speaking, the Right believes that your stuff is yours. The Left believes your stuff doesn’t really become your stuff until the government says it is. So the Right sees taxes as a way to pay for necessary government services. The Left sees taxes as an instrument of social control and redistributive justice.
The Iranian Mess
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/09/26/the-iranian-mess/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: The chimpanzee has returned to Tehran, where he is unlikely to have as much fun as he did in New York. Thanks to the New York Post, we now know that in between blaming America for the 9/11 terrorist attack, Ahmadinejad had an unannounced dinner with Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan. Wouldn’t you love to have a transcript of their conversation? One will get you ten that there were other unannounced meetings as well. One of the supreme leader’s favorite newspapers has announced the arrival in Tehran of a delegation from Oman to facilitate the release of the remaining two American hikers from imprisonment. If that is true, the deal was undoubtedly hammered out during Ahmadinejad’s sojourn in New York. Back home, he is facing a new round of strikes in the bazaars, where the gold sellers have shut down their shops around the country, from Tehran to Torbat Haydariyeh, Nayshabour, Sabzevar, Isfahan, Tabriz and Shiraz, to protest against the rising taxes. And he is still in the midst of a battle over the political system; he claims that he is superior to Parliament, and that he is in charge of foreign policy. The elected representatives reject the first, and the supreme leader will not accept the second. So the chimpanzee is now fighting on three fronts, as well as facing a mounting barrage of criticism from the opposition Green Movement. You may recall that the green leaders feared they would be arrested when Ahmadinejad returns from his boffo performance at the United Nations, and in order to impress the leadership with the strength of their mass following, they called on the people to chant every night from their rooftops. The chants of “Allah o Akbar” and “Death to the Dictator” have been very loud, and Mousavi and Karroubi have hammered away at the illegitimacy of the regime. Will the regime risk an open confrontation with millions of their own people? And if it does, how will the people respond? Nobody really knows, and in all likelihood there is a lot of heated rhetoric in the corridors of power at this very moment, between those who fear that a direct move against Mousavi and Karroubi would result in a very violent civil war, and those who fear that failure to move would produce the implosion of the regime.
Poll: Rocky road seen ahead for Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42737.html
Excerpt: A significant majority of voters are considering voting against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, expressing sour views of his new health care law and deep skepticism about his ability to create jobs and grow the sluggish economy, according to the latest POLITICO / George Washington University Battleground Poll. Only 38 percent of respondents said Obama deserves to be reelected, even though a majority of voters hold a favorable view of him on a personal level. Forty-four percent said they will vote to oust him, and 13 percent said they will consider voting for someone else. It’s Obama’s policies that are hurting him right now. By a 13-point margin, voters are down on the health care law. In an especially troubling sign, more than half of self-identified independents — 54 percent — have an unfavorable opinion of the law, compared with just 38 percent who have a favorable opinion. And by an 11-point margin, voters trust congressional Republicans to create jobs more than Obama. His approval rating stands at 46 percent, according to the poll of 1,000 likely voters, conducted Sept. 19 to Sept. 22. The tea party movement, which has emerged as the biggest threat to Democrats’ dominance of Washington, is viewed favorably by 43 percent of respondents, compared with 35 percent who view it unfavorably.
Bill O'Reilly is popular, but Rachel Maddow is unknown to likely voters
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42738.html
Excerpt: More people are getting their news about the upcoming election from cable television than any other source, and from Fox News more than any other cable channel, according to a POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll released Monday. The poll found that 81 percent of those polled get their news about the midterm elections from cable channels, like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, or their websites, compared with 71 percent from national network news channels, such as ABC, NBC or CBS, and their websites Among cable news channels, Fox was the clear winner, with 42 percent of respondents saying it is their main source, compared with 30 percent who cited CNN and 12 percent who rely on MSNBC.
Report: Fla. adds 2 seats, N.Y. loses
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42741.html
Excerpt: A new estimate of House reapportionment gains and losses resulting from this year’s Census reveals a larger-than-expected impact on Florida and New York. According to Washington-based Election Data Services, which reviewed new Census data from a private-sector demographic firm, Florida would gain two House seats and New York would lose two seats. They would join two other states that already were projected to have multiple-seat changes. Based on the tentative Census data, Texas is expected to gain four House seats and Ohio likely will lose two seats. According to the EDS estimate, six other states each would gain one seat: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. Eight states would each lose one seat: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. In addition to the Florida and New York changes, the other major switch in the projected reapportionment is that Missouri will lose a House seat instead of Minnesota, according to EDS President Kimball Brace. He released the study for a redistricting seminar of the National Conference of State Legislature in Providence, Rhode Island, this weekend.
Defense goes all-in for incumbents
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42733.html
Excerpt: Who would have thought that a Democratic incumbent’s most loyal supporter in a rebellious political climate would be a defense contractor? A review of the industry’s giving, however, shows that to be the case in some of the most hotly contested House and Senate races this year.
GOP lawmaker acts to shield whistleblower
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/26/gop-lawmaker-acts-to-shield-panther-whistleblower/
Excerpt: A Republican lawmaker has sternly warned Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. not to take any action against a high-ranking Justice Department official who told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that the government's dismissal of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party was a "travesty of justice." In a letter, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the testimony Friday of former voting rights section Chief Christopher Coates was protected by federal law and admonished Mr. Holder against any possible punishment. "I trust that Mr. Coates will face no repercussion for his decision and expect you to inform political and career supervisors to respect his decision," Mr. Wolf said, noting that the federal Whistleblower Protection Statute ensured his right to testify in the New Black Panther Party case.
The Re-Hollowing of the Military
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-re-hollowing-of-the-military-15498
Excerpt: On May 3, 2010, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a speech at the Navy League in Washington to an audience of veterans, retired and current defense-industry executives, and supporters of the tradition of American naval power. Gates gave it to them. He told his audience that the time had come “to re-examine and question basic assumptions” about how their beloved Navy works, “in light of evolving technologies, new threats, and budget realities”—specifically, a federal deficit in the neighborhood of $1.5 trillion. “Do we really need 11 Carrier Strike Groups for another 30 years,” Gates asked, “when no other country has more than one?” That seafaring strength is a source of pride for Navy League members, as is the United States’s having a navy second to none. The audience’s surprise at hearing the secretary of defense question the value of America’s overwhelming naval predominance as unnecessary soon turned to dismay. “We simply can’t afford to perpetuate a status quo,” Gates told his listeners. By “status quo,” he meant a navy that maintained 11 carriers, 57 submarines, and a battle fleet larger than the next 13 biggest national navies combined. Five days later, at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, Gates delivered the next salvo in the Obama plan for reducing the size of the U.S. military. Evoking the memory of Ike as the progenitor of -smaller but “bigger bang for the buck” defense budgets in the 1950s, Gates preached the virtue of putting America’s military forces on a strict monetary diet. “The gusher” of defense spending after 9/11 is being “turned off,” he announced, “and will stay off for a good period of time.” Not only will the country be better off not having “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry,” he assured listeners, but the military itself will be. “I say the patriot today is the fellow who can do the job with less money,” Gates concluded.
Who is Behind Powerful Suxnet Computer Worm Infecting Iran’s Nuclear Station?
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/computer-attacks-linked-to-wealthy-group-or-nation/
Excerpt: A powerful computer code attacking industrial facilities around the world, but mainly in Iran, probably was created by experts working for a country or a well-funded private group, according to an analysis by a leading computer security company. The malicious code, called Stuxnet, was designed to go after several “high-value targets,” said Liam O Murchu, manager of security response operations at Symantec Corp. But both O Murchu and U.S. government experts say there’s no proof it was developed to target nuclear plants in Iran, despite recent speculation from some researchers. Creating the malicious code required a team of as many as five to 10 highly educated and well-funded hackers. Government experts and outside analysts say they haven’t been able to determine who developed it or why. (Iran may not be the only one in the region developing new technology. ~Bob.)
Report: US would make Internet wiretaps easier
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100927/ap_on_hi_te/us_internet_wiretaps
Funny, the people who screamed about Bush wanting to tap calls from terrorist countries are pretty quiet nowadays. ~Bob. Excerpt: Broad new regulations being drafted by the Obama administration would make it easier for law enforcement and national security officials to eavesdrop on Internet and e-mail communications like social networking Web sites and BlackBerries, The New York Times reported Monday. The newspaper said the White House plans to submit a bill next year that would require all online services that enable communications to be technically equipped to comply with a wiretap order. That would include providers of encrypted e-mail, such as BlackBerry, networking sites like Facebook and direct communication services like Skype. Federal law enforcement and national security officials say new the regulations are needed because terrorists and criminals are increasingly giving up their phones to communicate online.
Making ObamaCare an Issue this Fall
http://www.redstate.com/dryun/2010/09/26/making-obamacare-an-issue-this-fall/
Excerpt: Now that we are in the midst of the final sprint of election season 2010, the issues that will decide the election are becoming clearer by the day. It’s about the economy and jobs. It’s about taxes. It should also be about healthcare reform. However, a recent Hotline poll showed Republican campaign insiders downplaying ObamaCare as an issue. We understand why the Republican consultants are doing this-they think the issue is too controversial and not a slam dunk winner. These are, however, the same “experts” who crowed that PA-12 was a shoe-in and HI-01 unwinnable.
U.S. military imprisons warriors for battlefield errors
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/3/eating-our-own/
Excerpt: As President Obama took to the airwaves Tuesday evening to announce the end of the combat mission in Iraq, he paid tribute to the men and women who served there, were killed or wounded there, and to their families for the sacrifices they made. But there was one glaring omission: It is believed there are more young American soldiers serving prison time for having done their jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan than at any other time in our nation's history. In fact, there may be more than in all of World War II, Korea and Vietnam combined — 114 cases, according to the website of the United American Patriots, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping U.S. military hire and pay for civilian defense counsel. It is a tragic story largely misunderstood by the mainstream media and, in all likelihood, one of which the Obama administration is completely unaware, given that most sentences were pronounced under the previous administration. Exclusively men and primarily in their early 20s, these are young servicemen who are not guilty of the rape and killing of innocent women and children, as commonly is the public misperception (thanks to the late John Murtha). Instead, they are troops who have been charged with wrongdoing on the battlefield, in the heat of battle against an enemy with no uniform or identifying markers. "It is often unclear who poses a threat and who does not. There is no uniform to identify the enemy. You have layers of [rules of engagement], stress, fatigue, and when something goes wrong, they then face accusations that bring life sentences. I fear we may be eating our own," retired Brig. Gen. David Brahms told me. He's a military defense lawyer in Oceanside, Calif. These are accusations that bring life sentences and plea-bargain deals – two very important aspects of this story. When someone is accused of premeditated murder, if convicted, he faces a military sentence of mandatory life in prison, either with or without parole. That leads to the prosecution offering plea-bargain deals, which typically bring sentences of five to 25 years in exchange for pleading guilty to lesser charges.
Jihad to Subvert the Constitution
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39112
Excerpt: The following are some of the most important—and, particularly for Western non-Muslims, deeply problematic—tenets of shariah, arranged in alphabetical order. The citations (in full in the linked report, edited here for length) for these findings are drawn from the Koran, schools of Islam and other recognized sources are offered as illustrative examples of the basis for such practices under shariah.
North Korean elite secretly jostle for the reins of power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/26/north-korea-kim-jong-un
Excerpt: The last such meeting of the party was the 1980 congress – a shorter event than this week's conference – at which Kim Jong-il, then 38, made his political debut with an appearance that confirmed he was in line to succeed his father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of modern North Korea. Delayed once this month – either because of damage to roads by recent flooding or because of disagreements over who should lead it – the congress will be held at a critical moment. Buffeted by economic and food crises and a pariah once again after its alleged sinking of a South Korean warship, the country is also under intense pressure from its closest ally, China, which is fearful of a complete North Korean collapse, to both introduce market reforms and make itself more accessible to the world. (...) Some South Korean analysts believe any decisions may be kept secret because the party's elite fear that giving too much away about life after Kim Jong-il could turn him into a lame duck and destabilise the country. And while much has been made of the formal confirmation of Kim Jong-un as successor to the family business of dictatorship, close observers of the country are far more intrigued by other manoeuvrings around Kim Jong-un's anticipated promotion. Other senior figures have been reinforcing their positions. The most prominent is Chang Sung-taek, Kim Jong-il's powerful brother-in-law, whose faction appears to have been pushing aggressively to the fore in recent months. And while observers have predicted the danger of collapse in North Korea before – not least during the 1990s – they believe the country may be entering a period of increasing instability. (As is often the case, the Brits have more civilian news boots on the ground than we do in this remote and insular country. This is not good news. North Korea is nuclear-armed, and has sold technology in the past to Libya, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and may have contributed to Pakistan's nuclear research in return for A. Q. Khan's help in building their own bomb. While I'd love to see them turn into a peace-loving democracy tomorrow, I doubt the coming instability will do us any good. Ron P.)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Limiting or Limited Government?
Thomas W. Kendall Sr., M.D.
(Posted with permission)
As a medical professional for 33 years, it is my opinion that if the Health Care Reform bill, which recently passed against the will of the majority of freedom-loving Americans, is not repealed, the American medical dream will have become a night mare. This will signal a demise of liberty.
The United States Constitution is not a document to limit the expression of liberty of a free people, but rather to limit the coercive, oppressive, godless tyranny of those who consider themselves superior to others.
No jurisdictional authority exists or is implied by our supreme law that would allow mandated medical care, much less determine the nature of that care. Decades ago, the term crisis had frequent use in clinical medicine when the critical time of a patient’s prognosis was defined by the evidence of vital recovery or imminent death. American medicine and America itself is at a crisis. Will the honor, courage, and esthetic of those who have made themselves the servants of their patients be mongrelized into servitude of the state?
At the 2009 Annual Medical staff meeting of the Greenville Hospital System two speakers were commissioned to speak on Health Care Reform. Dictums such as “Doctors, you are going to have to change the way you think,” and “Doctors, you are going to have to become team players,” were among some of the most alarming comments. But when Charles Darwin’s name was mentioned, and his evolutionary conclusions were invoked, that “Doctors would adapt or they would not survive,” I was compelled to respond.
“Is it a presupposition that the Federal Government has any responsibility in health care?” I asked the speakers. One responded with laughter and said he would not address that question. The other said, “We don’t know what it’s going to be like when these changes are implemented.”
What will happen as the Health Care Reform Bill becomes the new way? Initially there will not be significant change in the delivery of services, but as the progressive regulatory restrictions limit medical decision-making, doctors and patients will begin recognizing the following substantial changes:
1. Doctors will face fines and imprisonment for failure to adhere to ever-increasing bureaucratic regulations that have little if anything to do with providing the best care for the patient and have everything to do with control of the Doctor and profession.
2. Innovation will shift from cutting-edge technological advances benefitting all of mankind to isolated government selected interests to benefit politically motivated elitist agendas.
3. The patient-physician relationship becomes vulnerable to politically appointed non-medical administrators whose philosophies put the well-being of the state and its ruling class over the well-being of the patient. This is perhaps the most important change.
Most Americans are not aware that only 18% of U.S physicians were members of the AMA (American Medical Association) when “Obamacare” was signed March 23, 2010. This organization received much media attention in its support of the legislation which protects its monopoly of the coding of medical care procedures that is required for physicians to receive payment for services. Physicians are polarized in these ideological debates. Do they do what is best for their patients or what is best for the nationalistic, socialization of our once free and prosperous nation.
Now is the time for those who have never thought it necessary to be involved and take action. Unless the principles of the framers and their ideas which produced the Articles of Confederation, the subsequent U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are embraced and defended, we do not deserve the liberties that our heroes past and present fought and died for. Several physicians were involved in drafting our founding documents. They knew about tyranny . We physicians today must oppose this breach of our founders’ intent. The Hippocratic oath I pledged upon graduating from medical school included the promise “I would allow no harm to be done to my patient.” This attack on American freedom is harmful to all of us. It arises from within our own halls of legislative, judicial, and executive responsibility. WE THE PEOPLE must acknowledge our contribution to this current crisis. We must act immediately with courage and conviction to return our Republic to the rule of law. We must return to constitutional rule and limit government’s oppressive tyranny, not liberty-loving free Americans.
(Posted with permission)
As a medical professional for 33 years, it is my opinion that if the Health Care Reform bill, which recently passed against the will of the majority of freedom-loving Americans, is not repealed, the American medical dream will have become a night mare. This will signal a demise of liberty.
The United States Constitution is not a document to limit the expression of liberty of a free people, but rather to limit the coercive, oppressive, godless tyranny of those who consider themselves superior to others.
No jurisdictional authority exists or is implied by our supreme law that would allow mandated medical care, much less determine the nature of that care. Decades ago, the term crisis had frequent use in clinical medicine when the critical time of a patient’s prognosis was defined by the evidence of vital recovery or imminent death. American medicine and America itself is at a crisis. Will the honor, courage, and esthetic of those who have made themselves the servants of their patients be mongrelized into servitude of the state?
At the 2009 Annual Medical staff meeting of the Greenville Hospital System two speakers were commissioned to speak on Health Care Reform. Dictums such as “Doctors, you are going to have to change the way you think,” and “Doctors, you are going to have to become team players,” were among some of the most alarming comments. But when Charles Darwin’s name was mentioned, and his evolutionary conclusions were invoked, that “Doctors would adapt or they would not survive,” I was compelled to respond.
“Is it a presupposition that the Federal Government has any responsibility in health care?” I asked the speakers. One responded with laughter and said he would not address that question. The other said, “We don’t know what it’s going to be like when these changes are implemented.”
What will happen as the Health Care Reform Bill becomes the new way? Initially there will not be significant change in the delivery of services, but as the progressive regulatory restrictions limit medical decision-making, doctors and patients will begin recognizing the following substantial changes:
1. Doctors will face fines and imprisonment for failure to adhere to ever-increasing bureaucratic regulations that have little if anything to do with providing the best care for the patient and have everything to do with control of the Doctor and profession.
2. Innovation will shift from cutting-edge technological advances benefitting all of mankind to isolated government selected interests to benefit politically motivated elitist agendas.
3. The patient-physician relationship becomes vulnerable to politically appointed non-medical administrators whose philosophies put the well-being of the state and its ruling class over the well-being of the patient. This is perhaps the most important change.
Most Americans are not aware that only 18% of U.S physicians were members of the AMA (American Medical Association) when “Obamacare” was signed March 23, 2010. This organization received much media attention in its support of the legislation which protects its monopoly of the coding of medical care procedures that is required for physicians to receive payment for services. Physicians are polarized in these ideological debates. Do they do what is best for their patients or what is best for the nationalistic, socialization of our once free and prosperous nation.
Now is the time for those who have never thought it necessary to be involved and take action. Unless the principles of the framers and their ideas which produced the Articles of Confederation, the subsequent U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, are embraced and defended, we do not deserve the liberties that our heroes past and present fought and died for. Several physicians were involved in drafting our founding documents. They knew about tyranny . We physicians today must oppose this breach of our founders’ intent. The Hippocratic oath I pledged upon graduating from medical school included the promise “I would allow no harm to be done to my patient.” This attack on American freedom is harmful to all of us. It arises from within our own halls of legislative, judicial, and executive responsibility. WE THE PEOPLE must acknowledge our contribution to this current crisis. We must act immediately with courage and conviction to return our Republic to the rule of law. We must return to constitutional rule and limit government’s oppressive tyranny, not liberty-loving free Americans.
Guess the country
Iran? Iraq? Saudi? Pakistan?
Nope, photo taken near Ft. Worth, Texas. Have you bought one for the women in your family yet?
Political Digest September 27, 2010
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Nor that I disagree with them, of course.
Last, best Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6weDMH-SCOE&feature=player_embedded
Worth watching.
Controversial UIC professor denied emeritus status
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-ayers-denied-emeritus-20100923,0,5045265.story
Excerpt: In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers. The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience. The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment. Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical, had been an education faculty member at UIC since 1987. He retired effective Aug. 31 and then sought the emeritus faculty status, a largely honorific title that includes some benefits such as library privileges. A co-founder of the Weather Underground anti-war group, Ayers was frequently in the media spotlight and, as such, was one of the university's best-known faculty members. While trustees regularly vote on emeritus appointments, they rarely comment about them. But in an emotional statement, Kennedy discussed his reasons for voting against Ayers' request. "I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences, many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way," Kennedy said. He said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father." Kennedy was referring to a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers, "Prairie Fire," which was dedicated to a long list of people including Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S." (In a more rational time long gone, they knew how to reward treason. ~Bob.)
Federal Prosecutor Accuses DOJ of Showing Bias Against Whites
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/09/24/federal-prosecutor-accuses-doj-of-showing-bias-against-whites/?mod=djemlawblog_h#
Excerpt: Down in Washington, Politico reporter Josh Gerstein has pulled the curtains back on an interesting saga arising out of the halls of the Department of Justice. According to Gerstein’s story, a Justice Department prosecutor on Friday testified at a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing that top Justice Department officials pulled the plug on a voter intimidation case because the suspects were black and their alleged victims were white. Gerstiein writes: The prosecutor, Christopher Coates, also said the downgrading of the case against the New Black Panther Party was evidence of a Justice Department culture which discouraged “race neutral” enforcement of civil rights laws, frowned on prosecuting minority perpetrators and folded under pressure from black and Latino rights groups. Coates told the panel that the culture intensified in 2009 – and led to his demotion from leading the voting rights division – after President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder took office. “They have not pursued the goal of equal protection of the law for all people,” he said.
Citizen Assaulted for Filming Governor John Kitzhaber Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkEjCTtWBM&feature=player_embedded
Comment with the e-mail: Dude! This is enraging, and it should be. At a public gathering, a man is filming a speech given by Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber when the moderator announces for people to stop filming. The man continues to film, believing it to be his first amendment right, when two thugs come and sit beside him. When they fail to deter this man from filming, they grab his camera and punch him in the face, right there during the speech. (Gee, I bet AG Holder jumps all over this! Oh, wait, the thugs were black. Intimidation’s okay then, sorry, my bad. ~Bob)
Lucky Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0mJAUGESQ
Good song.
Superlobbyist pleads guilty, made illegal contributions
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/24/superlobbyist-pleads-guilty-made-illegal-contribut/
How’s that swamp-draining thing working out, Nancy? ~Bob. Excerpt: Superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, who specialized in getting defense earmarks for his clients, pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to members of Congress. Magliocchetti admitted using straw donors -- friends, lobbyists and family members, including his aged in-laws -- to funnel $386,250 in illegal contributions to favored members of Congress including key members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee who provided hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for the clients of his now defunct Arlington lobbying firm, The PMA Group. And while watchdog groups had hoped Magliocchetti would use his insider's knowledge to help federal prosecutors investigate Congress and earmarks, his plea agreement makes no mention of him cooperating in other probes….. Magliocchetti was a major fundraiser for three powerful Democratic members of the defense subcommittee -- the late John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, James P. Moran of Virginia and Peter J. Visclosky of Indiana -- who had repeatedly helped him and his clients. The Justice Department said Friday the federal campaigns that received the Magliocchetti funds were unaware of the scheme. But federal prosecutors have been trying to determine whether members of Congress or their staffs engaged in a "pay to play" scheme with Magliocchetti and his firm in which they exchanged earmarks for donations. In May 2009, a federal grand jury subpoenaed records from the congressional and campaign offices of Mr. Visclosky and from his then chief of staff, Charles Brimmer. Mr. Visclosky obtained dozens of earmarks for PMA clients and PMA employees were his largest group of campaign donors. Mr. Visclosky has denied any wrongdoing.
Your Government Taking Care of You (British Version)
http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/2010/09/your-government-taking-care-of-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SeanLinnane+%28Sean+Linnane%29
Excerpt: . . . the treatment of a former soldier who served in Afghanistan could not be more different to that of a refugee and her family fleeing the same place. Lance Corporal Craig Baker, 26, and his family have been refused a council house in his home town as 'he has no local connection'. Now the couple and their two young children are camping at his parents' three-bedroomed home in Bracknell, Berkshire - the house where L/Cpl Baker grew up. His treatment is in stark contrast to that of an Afghan family who fled the Taliban and live on benefits as refugees, 30 miles away in London. Mother-of-seven Toorpakai Saiedi, 37, was revealed to be living in a £1.2million seven-bedroom home in Acton, west London, which cost Ealing council £150,000 a year to rent.
American Hero: Coates Negates a Year of Justice Department Spin on New Black Panther Case
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/american-hero-coates-negates-a-year-of-justice-department-spin-on-new-black-panther-case/
Excerpt: It has been a very bad week for the dwindling number of people defending the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Today might have been the worst day of all. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified to the United States Civil Rights Commission that Obama political appointees dismissed the case because they are opposed to enforcing civil rights laws in a racially neutral fashion. And that was just the beginning. In a dramatic hearing in Washington, D.C., Coates simply destroyed the year-long spin from the Justice Department regarding the dismissal. Coates is the former Voting Section chief, and served as lead attorney on the Black Panther case. He has practiced voting rights law longer than any other lawyer at the Justice Department. His testimony today was the worst possible nightmare for the Obama political officials responsible for the dismissal.
Time for Change: Gov’t Must Address Lawlessness Uncovered by Christopher Coates
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/time-for-change-govt-must-address-lawlessness-uncovered-by-christopher-coates/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Friday’s testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by Christopher Coates — a career Justice Department lawyer and supervisor — knocked down the Potemkin Village that the Obama administration has built to obscure why Justice officials dismissed a voter-intimidation case against two members of New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Coates, former chief of the Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division, testified that Justice officials purposefully dropped the New Black Panthers case because they didn’t want to enforce the Voting Rights Act against minority defendants accused of violating the law. Coates’ sworn testimony to the independent Civil Rights Commission supported accusations made previously in testimony by J. Christian Adams, a former career lawyer in the Voting Section. In a long and detailed opening statement, Coates sought to confirm the truth of Adams’ charges. Most disturbing was Coates’ description of a culture of animus within the Civil Rights Division toward race-neutral enforcement of federal voting rights laws. He described an atmosphere of harassment directed at lawyers and paralegals who worked on the NBPP case, and on an earlier case filed in Noxubee, Mississippi, against Ike Brown, a twice-convicted felon and political activist who runs Noxubee County. Like the defendants in the Philadelphia case, he is black. (Has this gotten more than a passing mention on any TV network other than the evil Fox? Where is the media outrage? If the races had been reversed, you know we'd have burning cities tonight. Ron P.)
Citizens' Group Helps Uncover Alleged Rampant Voter Fraud in Houston
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/23/voter-fraud-houston-tea-party-truethevote-texas/
Excerpt: When Catherine Engelbrecht and her friends sat down and started talking politics several years ago, they soon agreed that talking wasn’t enough. They wanted to do more. So when the 2008 election came around, “about 50” of her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places. “What we saw shocked us,” she said. “There was no one checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.” Their shared experience, she says, created “True the Vote,” a citizen-based grassroots organization that began collecting publicly available voting data to prove that what they saw in their day at the polls was, indeed, happening -- and that it was happening everywhere. (An old story. An honest count in IL & TX in 1960 might have made Nixon president. ~Bob.)
Op-ed: American Jews should not vote for any Democrat in upcoming US elections
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3959769,00.html
Excerpt: Despite recent change in tone, rhetoric and conduct by President Obama toward Israel and its prime minister, most Israelis do not trust this new act and perceive Obama to be the most pro Palestinian, Pro-Arab, and Pro-Muslim American president ever, lacking a basic commitment or even sympathy to the Jewish state. It seems that Obama’s sudden “change of heart” toward Israel is not the result of rediscovered love, but rather, fear of losing the Jewish vote and financial backing in the upcoming elections.
Where Consensus Fails – The Science Cannot Be Called ‘Settled’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/25/where-consensus-fails/#more-25352
Excerpt: Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have just published the findings of a survey conducted with practicing climate scientists. The survey was conducted in 2008 with 379 climate scientists who had published papers or were employed in climate research institutes and dealt with their confidence in models, the IPCC and a variety of other topics. The survey findings are here: Most of the questions were asked using a Likert Scale, which most of you have probably used in filling out one of the numerous online surveys that are on almost any website. “A set of statements was presented to which the respondent was asked to indicate his or her level of agreement or disagreement, for example, 1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree. (...) The total number of respondents is large enough to make statistically significant statements about the population of similarly qualified climate scientists, and the response rate to the invitations is in line with surveys conducted among academics and professionals. What that means is that we can be fairly confident that if we conducted a census of all such scientists the answers would not be very different to what is found in the survey’s findings. Typically in a commercial survey, analysts would group the top two responses and report on the percentages of respondents that ticked box 6 or 7 on this scale. Using that procedure here makes it clear that there are areas where scientists are not completely confident in what is being preached–and that they don’t like some of the preachers. (Once again, with feeling: consensus is not science, it's politics. Also, this survey was completed more than a year before the climategate email revelations. Ron P.)
Cyber War on Iran: the Siemens Connection
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/09/25/cyber-war-on-iran-the-siemens-connection/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: While the boors and bores of the mainstream media continue to focus on the “crucial matters” of our time such as Stephen Colbert’s tedious appearance before Congress and whether a Delaware senatorial candidate spent two days as a witch in high school, news of real importance is breaking all around us. I am not just referring to the cataclysmic testimony by Chris Coates in front of the Civil Rights Commission on Friday, but to a yet bigger story with a potentially huge implications for geo-politics — the recent (and possibly ongoing) cyber attack on Iranian computers that may have temporarily crippled the nuclear capability (and who knows what else) of the totalitarian Islamic state. Yesterday, I wrote some preliminary words about this highly sophisticated attack by the so-called “Stuxnet” worm; today we learn the startling news the Iranians themselves have admitted that something serious has happened. Such admissions are certainly not common from the secretive state. From Asia Bizz: The Iranian Ministry has stated that some 30000 industrial computers have been infected by Stuxnet. One of the main operations done by Stuxnet is that it extracts vital information from these systems and then sends it somewhere abroad. Iran has termed this virus as a spy virus, as it is deploying vital data to other countries. On the other hand it is said, a similar attack has been reported from Iran’s latest nuclear power plant facility, but these reports have not yet been confirmed. Three-thousand industrial computers … what industries and how extensive the damage is Iran isn’t saying. But we can hazard the guess that most of it is militarily related. Besides the ability to send information abroad, “Stuxnet” is reportedly able to commandeer computers and direct them to destroy what they are managing. If true, this changes the face of warfare. (This is the first I've heard of this. If it can be done to them, it can be done to us. Perhaps it's time to take computer security seriously. I doubt Siemens was involved (unless involuntarily), and further doubt any real proof of the country of origin will surface. It'll be from some "former USSR" backwater. Ron P.)
Climategate Fallout: Don't Let Personal Views Cloud Scientific Integrity
http://thegwpf.org/climategate/1582-climategate-fallout-dont-let-personal-views-cloud-scientific-integrity.html
Excerpt: Researchers should make it clear that they are going beyond their professional expertise when they make recommendations about the policy implications of their research, according to a new international agreement on research integrity. The "Singapore Statement" was drawn up before the Second World Conference on Research Integrity, which took place in the island state in July, and was released on 22 September after consultation with the 350 delegates from 50 countries. Its 14 universal research "responsibilities" include an injunction to "clearly distinguish professional comments from opinions based on personal views" when taking part in public discussions. Nick Steneck, the director of the research ethics and integrity programme at the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, who helped draft the guidelines, told Times Higher Education that some scientists "blur the lines between their scientific findings and their own positions on issues". He said many people felt that the "Climategate" scandal at the University of East Anglia had been an instance of such behaviour. "Although (scientists) may have strong feelings about what policies should be adopted based on their research findings, they are generally not policy experts," he said. When I pass Bob an article, I usually try to link it to the original source. In this case, although this was originally published in the Times Higher Education section, I linked it through the Global Warming Policy Foundation's site because they coupled it with a statement also worth reading from the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity and a link to the working (draft) paper they (the conference) are hoping to complete. Should this become "policy," I suspect many large institutions will simply ignore it (as will all activist scientists) because it would endanger both their funding and political power. Mice can vote to bell the cat, but the cat will have its own opinion. Ron P.)
Herman Cain, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, is contemplating 2012 run
http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/24/herman-cain-former-godfathers-pizza-ceo-is-contemplating-2012-run/#ixzz10YySLzRv
Excerpt: Herman Cain is thinking about running for president, even though it’s likely you’ve never heard of him. And that’s OK — at least right now — for the black Republican who has become a sought after speaker on the Tea Party circuit. The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza says he’s going to build a grassroots coalition of supporters from the bottom up, if he decides to run, and if the Tea Party movement in 2010 is any indication, Republicans won’t be looking to nominate a household name for president in 2012. “They’re ready for a non-establishment candidate,” Cain, casually dressed in a blue shirt and slacks, said here in Florida during an interview Thursday after addressing an enthusiastic crowd at a “Spending Revolt” rally. “I will run proudly as a non-establishment candidate. I think the public has an appetite for a non-establishment candidate.” Though he may not be well-known on the national stage, the stage 4 cancer survivor and chairman of the Hermanator PAC is a star among the conservative grassroots. Activists who showed up to the Americans for Prosperity’s “Spending Revolt” bus tour this week didn’t hide their admiration. “He’s a beautiful package,” said Bob Prescott, a Jacksonville man selling campaign buttons, while Cain addressed an audience in Tampa. Prescott said he’s heard the Tea Party star speak multiple times and would support a Cain bid in 2012. (Maybe it's time for a businessman who really is a complete outsider. His name, however, may work against him, it's too much like the last GOP candidate's. Ron P.)
Climate science solar shock and awe
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/24/climate-science-solar-shock-and-awe/#more-25332
Excerpt: The idea that changes in the sun’s activity can influence the climate is making a comeback, after years of scientific vilification, thanks to major advances in our understanding of the atmosphere. … So far, three mechanisms have come to light (see diagram). The best understood is what is known as the top-down effect, described by Mike Lockwood, also at the University of Reading, and Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London. Although the sun’s brightness does not change much during solar maxima and minima, the type of radiation it emits does. During maxima the sun emits more ultraviolet radiation, which is absorbed by the stratosphere. This warms up, generating high-altitude winds. Although the exact mechanism is unclear, this appears to have knock-on effects on regional weather: strong stratospheric winds lead to a strong jet stream. The reverse is true in solar minima, and the effect is particularly evident in Europe, where minima increase the chances of extreme weather. Indeed, this year’s cold winter and the Russian heatwave in July have been linked to the sun’s current lull, which froze weather systems in place for longer than normal. The second effect is bottom-up, in which additional visible radiation during a solar maximum warms the tropical oceans, causing more evaporation and therefore more rain, especially close to the equator. … The third solar influence on climate is extraterrestrial. Earth is bombarded by cosmic rays from exploding stars, which are largely deflected by the solar wind during solar maxima and to a slightly lesser degree in minima. (Think about this: it took advanced degrees and research grants before some bright person figured out the sun has a "real" influence on climate. Duh. A valley girl (of either sex; ignorance is equal opportunity) could have told us this for free. And HAS been telling us for 30+ years. Ron P. But could the Valley Girl” have spent millions in grant money? ~Bob.)
Pensions wiped out by the White House
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/pensions_wiped_out_by_the_white_6SL6MMifLBsQ9sQtRXfvzM
Excerpt: The White House believes it can win back depressed and economically stressed voters by turning President Obama into the storyteller-in-chief again. But consider the real-life horror story of 20,000 white-collar workers at Delphi, a leading auto-parts company spun off from GM a decade ago. As Washington rushed to nationalize the US auto industry with $80 billion in taxpayer "rescue" funds and avoid contested court termination proceedings, the White House auto team schemed to preserve UAW members' costly pension funds by shafting their nonunion counterparts. The nonunion pensioners also lost all of their health and life insurance benefits. The abused workers -- most from hard-hit northeast Ohio, Michigan and neighboring states -- had devoted decades of their lives as secretaries, technicians, engineers and sales employees at Delphi/GM. Some have watched up to 70 percent of their pensions vanish. John Berent of Marblehead, Ohio, lost one-third of his pension: "I worked as a salaried employee for GM (30 years) and Delphi (10 years). After 40 years of dedicated service, I was forced to retire. Then Delphi terminated my health care, life insurance, vision, dental, then terminated the pension plan. Everything I worked 40 years for was wiped out." Kelly Fabrizio of Franksville, Wis., saw her pension cut by 55 percent after 30 years at Delphi/GM: "I am truly scared for my future. Every day I wake up, shake my head and say out loud -- This Is Not How It Was Supposed To Be."
Comment on “I’m Tired”
People have urged me to run for President, but this is a new one: M.C. YATES- MARSHALL has left a new comment on your post "I'm Tired--some updates": Message to Mr. Hall. Please come over here to Britain and be our prime minister.... And another fellow commented on a recent blog post that he was going to boycott CSI and CBS, in hopes they end my contract! Too funny.
Video surfaces of Taliban stoning woman in northwest Pakistan
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/video-surfaces-of-taliban-stoning-woman-in-northwest-pakistan.html
Excerpt: WARNING: The video above is graphic, and beyond disturbing. It is footage of a woman dying under a barrage of stones. But it must be exposed: This is Sharia. This is an act Muhammad approved of and participated in, according to canonical Islamic sources including Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari. This is Islam's "justice," "compassion," and "mercy" which apologists will not repudiate, attempting to dodge the issue by assuring the uninformed (and maybe even trying to make themselves believe) that it is not an issue because it is not prescribed in the Qur'an itself. Click here for why that does not make a difference to the Muslims who have continued the practice over the centuries. And what was this woman's crime? Here is the back story. "Rare Video Shows Taliban Allegedly Stoning Woman to Death in Pakistan," by Megan Chuchmach for ABC News, September 24: A rare video reportedly smuggled out of northwest Pakistan allegedly shows a woman being stoned to death by Taliban militants in the upper region of Orakzai. Al Aan, a Dubai-based pan-Arab television channel that focuses on women's issues, said it had obtained cellphone footage that it says shows a woman being executed because she was seen out with a man. The killing reportedly took place two months ago and was smuggled out by a Taliban member who attended the stoning, according to Al Aan. ABC News could not independently confirm the cellphone video's authenticity.
Mexican Drug Cartels Infiltrating Collages and High School Campuses in America
http://www.narcononvictims.com/mexican-drug-cartels-infiltrating-collages-and-high-school-campuses-in-america/
Excerpt: In a recent drug bust at the San Diego State University Federal agents and SDSU police culminated a yearlong investigation into drug dealing around campus and found it to be more sophisticated, more pervasive and more dangerous and far reaching than they expected or have seen before. These arrests coincided with the first anniversary of a female student freshman’s cocaine-related death. According to local newspaper reports ninety-six suspects, including 75 SDSU students, have been arrested on drug-related charges as a result of the undercover operation, launched after Jenny Poliakoff, 19, was found dead in her off-campus apartment after a night of celebration. One of the main suspects in this international drug investigation is Omar Castaneda, a gang member from Pomona with ties to the Mexican Tijuana drug cartels, officials said. Castaneda, 36, after his arrest he was arraigned in San Diego Superior Court on charges of possession of cocaine for sale. He is suspected of being a major link between drugs flowing into California from Tijuana and sales at SDSU and other California campuses.
Rep. Peter Roskam: Why not stop Medicare fraud before it happens?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Rep-Peter-Roskam-Why-not-stop-Medicare-fraud-before-it-happens-103640284.html
Excerpt: A few years ago, my wife and I were sightseeing through Hungary when my wallet was stolen. Before I even realized it, my bank had already notified me that a scammer attempted to purchase $10,000 worth of stereos and speakers in Budapest with my credit card—which was very uncharacteristic of my consumer behavior. The claim was analyzed and halted before the reimbursement crossed the Atlantic Ocean. By prospectively verifying the extreme likelihood that the purchase was fraudulent, financial services companies are able to deny payments to obvious criminals. By contrast, but in typically maddening government logic, Medicare fails to verify legitimacy prospectively, instead paying out $60 billion in fraudulent claims annually with its “pay then chase” pursuit of fraud. The New York Times reported last month that a suburban Chicago physician with billing privileges at three hospitals confessed to $13 million in improper payments. “He sent 14,800 billings over five years to Medicare alone, billing for 24 hours or more of work every day of the year.” Predictive modeling technology like the system used to catch the thief who stole my wallet in Budapest could have detected that the doctor’s 168 hour work week was fishy, not to mention impossible.
Last, best Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6weDMH-SCOE&feature=player_embedded
Worth watching.
Controversial UIC professor denied emeritus status
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-ayers-denied-emeritus-20100923,0,5045265.story
Excerpt: In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers. The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience. The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment. Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical, had been an education faculty member at UIC since 1987. He retired effective Aug. 31 and then sought the emeritus faculty status, a largely honorific title that includes some benefits such as library privileges. A co-founder of the Weather Underground anti-war group, Ayers was frequently in the media spotlight and, as such, was one of the university's best-known faculty members. While trustees regularly vote on emeritus appointments, they rarely comment about them. But in an emotional statement, Kennedy discussed his reasons for voting against Ayers' request. "I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences, many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way," Kennedy said. He said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father." Kennedy was referring to a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers, "Prairie Fire," which was dedicated to a long list of people including Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S." (In a more rational time long gone, they knew how to reward treason. ~Bob.)
Federal Prosecutor Accuses DOJ of Showing Bias Against Whites
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/09/24/federal-prosecutor-accuses-doj-of-showing-bias-against-whites/?mod=djemlawblog_h#
Excerpt: Down in Washington, Politico reporter Josh Gerstein has pulled the curtains back on an interesting saga arising out of the halls of the Department of Justice. According to Gerstein’s story, a Justice Department prosecutor on Friday testified at a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing that top Justice Department officials pulled the plug on a voter intimidation case because the suspects were black and their alleged victims were white. Gerstiein writes: The prosecutor, Christopher Coates, also said the downgrading of the case against the New Black Panther Party was evidence of a Justice Department culture which discouraged “race neutral” enforcement of civil rights laws, frowned on prosecuting minority perpetrators and folded under pressure from black and Latino rights groups. Coates told the panel that the culture intensified in 2009 – and led to his demotion from leading the voting rights division – after President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder took office. “They have not pursued the goal of equal protection of the law for all people,” he said.
Citizen Assaulted for Filming Governor John Kitzhaber Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkEjCTtWBM&feature=player_embedded
Comment with the e-mail: Dude! This is enraging, and it should be. At a public gathering, a man is filming a speech given by Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber when the moderator announces for people to stop filming. The man continues to film, believing it to be his first amendment right, when two thugs come and sit beside him. When they fail to deter this man from filming, they grab his camera and punch him in the face, right there during the speech. (Gee, I bet AG Holder jumps all over this! Oh, wait, the thugs were black. Intimidation’s okay then, sorry, my bad. ~Bob)
Lucky Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t0mJAUGESQ
Good song.
Superlobbyist pleads guilty, made illegal contributions
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/24/superlobbyist-pleads-guilty-made-illegal-contribut/
How’s that swamp-draining thing working out, Nancy? ~Bob. Excerpt: Superlobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, who specialized in getting defense earmarks for his clients, pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to members of Congress. Magliocchetti admitted using straw donors -- friends, lobbyists and family members, including his aged in-laws -- to funnel $386,250 in illegal contributions to favored members of Congress including key members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee who provided hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for the clients of his now defunct Arlington lobbying firm, The PMA Group. And while watchdog groups had hoped Magliocchetti would use his insider's knowledge to help federal prosecutors investigate Congress and earmarks, his plea agreement makes no mention of him cooperating in other probes….. Magliocchetti was a major fundraiser for three powerful Democratic members of the defense subcommittee -- the late John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, James P. Moran of Virginia and Peter J. Visclosky of Indiana -- who had repeatedly helped him and his clients. The Justice Department said Friday the federal campaigns that received the Magliocchetti funds were unaware of the scheme. But federal prosecutors have been trying to determine whether members of Congress or their staffs engaged in a "pay to play" scheme with Magliocchetti and his firm in which they exchanged earmarks for donations. In May 2009, a federal grand jury subpoenaed records from the congressional and campaign offices of Mr. Visclosky and from his then chief of staff, Charles Brimmer. Mr. Visclosky obtained dozens of earmarks for PMA clients and PMA employees were his largest group of campaign donors. Mr. Visclosky has denied any wrongdoing.
Your Government Taking Care of You (British Version)
http://seanlinnane.blogspot.com/2010/09/your-government-taking-care-of-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SeanLinnane+%28Sean+Linnane%29
Excerpt: . . . the treatment of a former soldier who served in Afghanistan could not be more different to that of a refugee and her family fleeing the same place. Lance Corporal Craig Baker, 26, and his family have been refused a council house in his home town as 'he has no local connection'. Now the couple and their two young children are camping at his parents' three-bedroomed home in Bracknell, Berkshire - the house where L/Cpl Baker grew up. His treatment is in stark contrast to that of an Afghan family who fled the Taliban and live on benefits as refugees, 30 miles away in London. Mother-of-seven Toorpakai Saiedi, 37, was revealed to be living in a £1.2million seven-bedroom home in Acton, west London, which cost Ealing council £150,000 a year to rent.
American Hero: Coates Negates a Year of Justice Department Spin on New Black Panther Case
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/american-hero-coates-negates-a-year-of-justice-department-spin-on-new-black-panther-case/
Excerpt: It has been a very bad week for the dwindling number of people defending the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Today might have been the worst day of all. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified to the United States Civil Rights Commission that Obama political appointees dismissed the case because they are opposed to enforcing civil rights laws in a racially neutral fashion. And that was just the beginning. In a dramatic hearing in Washington, D.C., Coates simply destroyed the year-long spin from the Justice Department regarding the dismissal. Coates is the former Voting Section chief, and served as lead attorney on the Black Panther case. He has practiced voting rights law longer than any other lawyer at the Justice Department. His testimony today was the worst possible nightmare for the Obama political officials responsible for the dismissal.
Time for Change: Gov’t Must Address Lawlessness Uncovered by Christopher Coates
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/time-for-change-govt-must-address-lawlessness-uncovered-by-christopher-coates/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Friday’s testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights by Christopher Coates — a career Justice Department lawyer and supervisor — knocked down the Potemkin Village that the Obama administration has built to obscure why Justice officials dismissed a voter-intimidation case against two members of New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. Coates, former chief of the Voting Section in the Civil Rights Division, testified that Justice officials purposefully dropped the New Black Panthers case because they didn’t want to enforce the Voting Rights Act against minority defendants accused of violating the law. Coates’ sworn testimony to the independent Civil Rights Commission supported accusations made previously in testimony by J. Christian Adams, a former career lawyer in the Voting Section. In a long and detailed opening statement, Coates sought to confirm the truth of Adams’ charges. Most disturbing was Coates’ description of a culture of animus within the Civil Rights Division toward race-neutral enforcement of federal voting rights laws. He described an atmosphere of harassment directed at lawyers and paralegals who worked on the NBPP case, and on an earlier case filed in Noxubee, Mississippi, against Ike Brown, a twice-convicted felon and political activist who runs Noxubee County. Like the defendants in the Philadelphia case, he is black. (Has this gotten more than a passing mention on any TV network other than the evil Fox? Where is the media outrage? If the races had been reversed, you know we'd have burning cities tonight. Ron P.)
Citizens' Group Helps Uncover Alleged Rampant Voter Fraud in Houston
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/23/voter-fraud-houston-tea-party-truethevote-texas/
Excerpt: When Catherine Engelbrecht and her friends sat down and started talking politics several years ago, they soon agreed that talking wasn’t enough. They wanted to do more. So when the 2008 election came around, “about 50” of her friends volunteered to work at Houston’s polling places. “What we saw shocked us,” she said. “There was no one checking IDs, judges would vote for people that asked for help. It was fraud, and we watched like deer in the headlights.” Their shared experience, she says, created “True the Vote,” a citizen-based grassroots organization that began collecting publicly available voting data to prove that what they saw in their day at the polls was, indeed, happening -- and that it was happening everywhere. (An old story. An honest count in IL & TX in 1960 might have made Nixon president. ~Bob.)
Op-ed: American Jews should not vote for any Democrat in upcoming US elections
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3959769,00.html
Excerpt: Despite recent change in tone, rhetoric and conduct by President Obama toward Israel and its prime minister, most Israelis do not trust this new act and perceive Obama to be the most pro Palestinian, Pro-Arab, and Pro-Muslim American president ever, lacking a basic commitment or even sympathy to the Jewish state. It seems that Obama’s sudden “change of heart” toward Israel is not the result of rediscovered love, but rather, fear of losing the Jewish vote and financial backing in the upcoming elections.
Where Consensus Fails – The Science Cannot Be Called ‘Settled’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/25/where-consensus-fails/#more-25352
Excerpt: Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have just published the findings of a survey conducted with practicing climate scientists. The survey was conducted in 2008 with 379 climate scientists who had published papers or were employed in climate research institutes and dealt with their confidence in models, the IPCC and a variety of other topics. The survey findings are here: Most of the questions were asked using a Likert Scale, which most of you have probably used in filling out one of the numerous online surveys that are on almost any website. “A set of statements was presented to which the respondent was asked to indicate his or her level of agreement or disagreement, for example, 1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree. (...) The total number of respondents is large enough to make statistically significant statements about the population of similarly qualified climate scientists, and the response rate to the invitations is in line with surveys conducted among academics and professionals. What that means is that we can be fairly confident that if we conducted a census of all such scientists the answers would not be very different to what is found in the survey’s findings. Typically in a commercial survey, analysts would group the top two responses and report on the percentages of respondents that ticked box 6 or 7 on this scale. Using that procedure here makes it clear that there are areas where scientists are not completely confident in what is being preached–and that they don’t like some of the preachers. (Once again, with feeling: consensus is not science, it's politics. Also, this survey was completed more than a year before the climategate email revelations. Ron P.)
Cyber War on Iran: the Siemens Connection
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/09/25/cyber-war-on-iran-the-siemens-connection/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: While the boors and bores of the mainstream media continue to focus on the “crucial matters” of our time such as Stephen Colbert’s tedious appearance before Congress and whether a Delaware senatorial candidate spent two days as a witch in high school, news of real importance is breaking all around us. I am not just referring to the cataclysmic testimony by Chris Coates in front of the Civil Rights Commission on Friday, but to a yet bigger story with a potentially huge implications for geo-politics — the recent (and possibly ongoing) cyber attack on Iranian computers that may have temporarily crippled the nuclear capability (and who knows what else) of the totalitarian Islamic state. Yesterday, I wrote some preliminary words about this highly sophisticated attack by the so-called “Stuxnet” worm; today we learn the startling news the Iranians themselves have admitted that something serious has happened. Such admissions are certainly not common from the secretive state. From Asia Bizz: The Iranian Ministry has stated that some 30000 industrial computers have been infected by Stuxnet. One of the main operations done by Stuxnet is that it extracts vital information from these systems and then sends it somewhere abroad. Iran has termed this virus as a spy virus, as it is deploying vital data to other countries. On the other hand it is said, a similar attack has been reported from Iran’s latest nuclear power plant facility, but these reports have not yet been confirmed. Three-thousand industrial computers … what industries and how extensive the damage is Iran isn’t saying. But we can hazard the guess that most of it is militarily related. Besides the ability to send information abroad, “Stuxnet” is reportedly able to commandeer computers and direct them to destroy what they are managing. If true, this changes the face of warfare. (This is the first I've heard of this. If it can be done to them, it can be done to us. Perhaps it's time to take computer security seriously. I doubt Siemens was involved (unless involuntarily), and further doubt any real proof of the country of origin will surface. It'll be from some "former USSR" backwater. Ron P.)
Climategate Fallout: Don't Let Personal Views Cloud Scientific Integrity
http://thegwpf.org/climategate/1582-climategate-fallout-dont-let-personal-views-cloud-scientific-integrity.html
Excerpt: Researchers should make it clear that they are going beyond their professional expertise when they make recommendations about the policy implications of their research, according to a new international agreement on research integrity. The "Singapore Statement" was drawn up before the Second World Conference on Research Integrity, which took place in the island state in July, and was released on 22 September after consultation with the 350 delegates from 50 countries. Its 14 universal research "responsibilities" include an injunction to "clearly distinguish professional comments from opinions based on personal views" when taking part in public discussions. Nick Steneck, the director of the research ethics and integrity programme at the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, who helped draft the guidelines, told Times Higher Education that some scientists "blur the lines between their scientific findings and their own positions on issues". He said many people felt that the "Climategate" scandal at the University of East Anglia had been an instance of such behaviour. "Although (scientists) may have strong feelings about what policies should be adopted based on their research findings, they are generally not policy experts," he said. When I pass Bob an article, I usually try to link it to the original source. In this case, although this was originally published in the Times Higher Education section, I linked it through the Global Warming Policy Foundation's site because they coupled it with a statement also worth reading from the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity and a link to the working (draft) paper they (the conference) are hoping to complete. Should this become "policy," I suspect many large institutions will simply ignore it (as will all activist scientists) because it would endanger both their funding and political power. Mice can vote to bell the cat, but the cat will have its own opinion. Ron P.)
Herman Cain, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, is contemplating 2012 run
http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/24/herman-cain-former-godfathers-pizza-ceo-is-contemplating-2012-run/#ixzz10YySLzRv
Excerpt: Herman Cain is thinking about running for president, even though it’s likely you’ve never heard of him. And that’s OK — at least right now — for the black Republican who has become a sought after speaker on the Tea Party circuit. The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza says he’s going to build a grassroots coalition of supporters from the bottom up, if he decides to run, and if the Tea Party movement in 2010 is any indication, Republicans won’t be looking to nominate a household name for president in 2012. “They’re ready for a non-establishment candidate,” Cain, casually dressed in a blue shirt and slacks, said here in Florida during an interview Thursday after addressing an enthusiastic crowd at a “Spending Revolt” rally. “I will run proudly as a non-establishment candidate. I think the public has an appetite for a non-establishment candidate.” Though he may not be well-known on the national stage, the stage 4 cancer survivor and chairman of the Hermanator PAC is a star among the conservative grassroots. Activists who showed up to the Americans for Prosperity’s “Spending Revolt” bus tour this week didn’t hide their admiration. “He’s a beautiful package,” said Bob Prescott, a Jacksonville man selling campaign buttons, while Cain addressed an audience in Tampa. Prescott said he’s heard the Tea Party star speak multiple times and would support a Cain bid in 2012. (Maybe it's time for a businessman who really is a complete outsider. His name, however, may work against him, it's too much like the last GOP candidate's. Ron P.)
Climate science solar shock and awe
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/24/climate-science-solar-shock-and-awe/#more-25332
Excerpt: The idea that changes in the sun’s activity can influence the climate is making a comeback, after years of scientific vilification, thanks to major advances in our understanding of the atmosphere. … So far, three mechanisms have come to light (see diagram). The best understood is what is known as the top-down effect, described by Mike Lockwood, also at the University of Reading, and Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London. Although the sun’s brightness does not change much during solar maxima and minima, the type of radiation it emits does. During maxima the sun emits more ultraviolet radiation, which is absorbed by the stratosphere. This warms up, generating high-altitude winds. Although the exact mechanism is unclear, this appears to have knock-on effects on regional weather: strong stratospheric winds lead to a strong jet stream. The reverse is true in solar minima, and the effect is particularly evident in Europe, where minima increase the chances of extreme weather. Indeed, this year’s cold winter and the Russian heatwave in July have been linked to the sun’s current lull, which froze weather systems in place for longer than normal. The second effect is bottom-up, in which additional visible radiation during a solar maximum warms the tropical oceans, causing more evaporation and therefore more rain, especially close to the equator. … The third solar influence on climate is extraterrestrial. Earth is bombarded by cosmic rays from exploding stars, which are largely deflected by the solar wind during solar maxima and to a slightly lesser degree in minima. (Think about this: it took advanced degrees and research grants before some bright person figured out the sun has a "real" influence on climate. Duh. A valley girl (of either sex; ignorance is equal opportunity) could have told us this for free. And HAS been telling us for 30+ years. Ron P. But could the Valley Girl” have spent millions in grant money? ~Bob.)
Pensions wiped out by the White House
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/pensions_wiped_out_by_the_white_6SL6MMifLBsQ9sQtRXfvzM
Excerpt: The White House believes it can win back depressed and economically stressed voters by turning President Obama into the storyteller-in-chief again. But consider the real-life horror story of 20,000 white-collar workers at Delphi, a leading auto-parts company spun off from GM a decade ago. As Washington rushed to nationalize the US auto industry with $80 billion in taxpayer "rescue" funds and avoid contested court termination proceedings, the White House auto team schemed to preserve UAW members' costly pension funds by shafting their nonunion counterparts. The nonunion pensioners also lost all of their health and life insurance benefits. The abused workers -- most from hard-hit northeast Ohio, Michigan and neighboring states -- had devoted decades of their lives as secretaries, technicians, engineers and sales employees at Delphi/GM. Some have watched up to 70 percent of their pensions vanish. John Berent of Marblehead, Ohio, lost one-third of his pension: "I worked as a salaried employee for GM (30 years) and Delphi (10 years). After 40 years of dedicated service, I was forced to retire. Then Delphi terminated my health care, life insurance, vision, dental, then terminated the pension plan. Everything I worked 40 years for was wiped out." Kelly Fabrizio of Franksville, Wis., saw her pension cut by 55 percent after 30 years at Delphi/GM: "I am truly scared for my future. Every day I wake up, shake my head and say out loud -- This Is Not How It Was Supposed To Be."
Comment on “I’m Tired”
People have urged me to run for President, but this is a new one: M.C. YATES- MARSHALL has left a new comment on your post "I'm Tired--some updates": Message to Mr. Hall. Please come over here to Britain and be our prime minister.... And another fellow commented on a recent blog post that he was going to boycott CSI and CBS, in hopes they end my contract! Too funny.
Video surfaces of Taliban stoning woman in northwest Pakistan
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/video-surfaces-of-taliban-stoning-woman-in-northwest-pakistan.html
Excerpt: WARNING: The video above is graphic, and beyond disturbing. It is footage of a woman dying under a barrage of stones. But it must be exposed: This is Sharia. This is an act Muhammad approved of and participated in, according to canonical Islamic sources including Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari. This is Islam's "justice," "compassion," and "mercy" which apologists will not repudiate, attempting to dodge the issue by assuring the uninformed (and maybe even trying to make themselves believe) that it is not an issue because it is not prescribed in the Qur'an itself. Click here for why that does not make a difference to the Muslims who have continued the practice over the centuries. And what was this woman's crime? Here is the back story. "Rare Video Shows Taliban Allegedly Stoning Woman to Death in Pakistan," by Megan Chuchmach for ABC News, September 24: A rare video reportedly smuggled out of northwest Pakistan allegedly shows a woman being stoned to death by Taliban militants in the upper region of Orakzai. Al Aan, a Dubai-based pan-Arab television channel that focuses on women's issues, said it had obtained cellphone footage that it says shows a woman being executed because she was seen out with a man. The killing reportedly took place two months ago and was smuggled out by a Taliban member who attended the stoning, according to Al Aan. ABC News could not independently confirm the cellphone video's authenticity.
Mexican Drug Cartels Infiltrating Collages and High School Campuses in America
http://www.narcononvictims.com/mexican-drug-cartels-infiltrating-collages-and-high-school-campuses-in-america/
Excerpt: In a recent drug bust at the San Diego State University Federal agents and SDSU police culminated a yearlong investigation into drug dealing around campus and found it to be more sophisticated, more pervasive and more dangerous and far reaching than they expected or have seen before. These arrests coincided with the first anniversary of a female student freshman’s cocaine-related death. According to local newspaper reports ninety-six suspects, including 75 SDSU students, have been arrested on drug-related charges as a result of the undercover operation, launched after Jenny Poliakoff, 19, was found dead in her off-campus apartment after a night of celebration. One of the main suspects in this international drug investigation is Omar Castaneda, a gang member from Pomona with ties to the Mexican Tijuana drug cartels, officials said. Castaneda, 36, after his arrest he was arraigned in San Diego Superior Court on charges of possession of cocaine for sale. He is suspected of being a major link between drugs flowing into California from Tijuana and sales at SDSU and other California campuses.
Rep. Peter Roskam: Why not stop Medicare fraud before it happens?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/Rep-Peter-Roskam-Why-not-stop-Medicare-fraud-before-it-happens-103640284.html
Excerpt: A few years ago, my wife and I were sightseeing through Hungary when my wallet was stolen. Before I even realized it, my bank had already notified me that a scammer attempted to purchase $10,000 worth of stereos and speakers in Budapest with my credit card—which was very uncharacteristic of my consumer behavior. The claim was analyzed and halted before the reimbursement crossed the Atlantic Ocean. By prospectively verifying the extreme likelihood that the purchase was fraudulent, financial services companies are able to deny payments to obvious criminals. By contrast, but in typically maddening government logic, Medicare fails to verify legitimacy prospectively, instead paying out $60 billion in fraudulent claims annually with its “pay then chase” pursuit of fraud. The New York Times reported last month that a suburban Chicago physician with billing privileges at three hospitals confessed to $13 million in improper payments. “He sent 14,800 billings over five years to Medicare alone, billing for 24 hours or more of work every day of the year.” Predictive modeling technology like the system used to catch the thief who stole my wallet in Budapest could have detected that the doctor’s 168 hour work week was fishy, not to mention impossible.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Political Digest September 25, 2010
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.
The Choice
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/09/essay-choice.html
If you missed my handy Voting Guide, or want to forward the link to someone.
Mourning in American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YXqf_6ug54
Powerful ad.
Liberal blogger directly confronts David Axelrod, accuses White House of "hippie punching"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/09/liberal_blogger_directly_confr.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Damn it—hippy punching is OUR job! I hope when they take that crowd under the bleachers, they use protection. ~Bob. Excerpt: Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere's anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of "hippie punching." "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day," the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Axelrod on the call, which was organzied for liberal bloggers and progressive media. The call seemed to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the White House and the online and organized left: Though White House advisers in the past have dumped on the left, anonymously and even on the record, Axelrod repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems. "You play a great role in informing people about the stakes of elections," Axelrod told the bloggers. "One of the reasons I was eager to expend time was to enlist you." But hovering over the call was the obvious disconnect between this plea for help and statements like those of Robert Gibbs, who recently pilloried the "professional left" for being overly critical of the White House. That tension burst out into the open when Madrak directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod. "You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."
GOP Blocks Bill to DISCLOSE Campaign Ad Donors
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/23/politics/main6894710.shtml
Excerpt: Senate Republicans on Thursday stood fast in blocking legislation requiring special interest groups running campaign ads to identify their donors. Mirroring a Senate vote on the bill last July, all 39 Republicans who voted stopped Democrats from bringing the campaign disclosure bill to the Senate floor. The 59-39 vote fell one short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation. Two Republicans didn't vote. Republicans dismissed Democratic efforts to revive the bill as an attempt to win political points before the midterm elections. The White House-backed measure is a response to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision last January overturning a decades-old law that barred corporations, unions and other organizations from spending on advertising, mass mailings and other forms of political activity.
Senate Democrats postpone tax cut vote until after elections
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092205406.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert
Every candidate in the country should be put on the record about this. There was a time—before it became the propaganda arm of the Democrat party, when the media would have done this. ~Bob. Excerpt: Senate Democrats said Thursday that they had abandoned plans for a pre-election showdown with Republicans over taxes, postponing any vote on extending Bush administration tax cuts until after the November midterms. Democrats discussed the issue during a caucus luncheon but left the final decision to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Late Thursday, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, "We will come back in November and stay in session as long as it takes to get this done."
Chrysler Auto Workers Busted
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/chrysler-auto-workers-busted_20100923_dk
Your bailout dollars at work. ~Bob. Excerpt: Rob Wolchek got a tip about what some guys are doing at Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. This is the same plant that President Barack Obama visited back in July and talked about the significance of manufacturing in America.
Senate Republicans launch $1 million ad buy in West Virginia
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/senate-republican-launch-ad-in.html?wprss=thefix
Is WV in play? Or just a better shot than DE, where the Tea Party upset candidate is trailing by 15 points? Excerpt: The National Republican Senatorial Committee will launch ads in the West Virginia Senate race today, a seven-figure expenditure that strongly suggests the party thinks they can pull off an upset in the Mountain State. The commercial goes directly at Gov. Joe Manchin (D) -- arguing that the governor "supports Barack Obama's big government agenda" on big ticket items like the economic stimulus package and the health care law. "Big spending, more government and less freedom...we don't want a rubber stamp for Obama," says the ad's narrator. "We can't afford Joe Manchin in Washington." The ad will cost the NRSC roughly $1.2 million and will run statewide -- including in the pricey Washington, D.C. media market -- for two weeks, according to sources familiar with the buy. Republicans have been hinting for the last several weeks that the race between Manchin, a popular second term governor, and wealthy businessman John Raese was surprisingly competitive.
Ethics panel struggling to set trial dates
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/120595-ethics-committee-struggling-to-set-trial-dates
Excerpt: The ethics committee is struggling to come up with a schedule for the public trials of Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). After separate investigations, the panel charged Rangel and Waters with violating House rules. Both rebuffed attempts to negotiate punishments, choosing to opt for public trials of the charges against them. Watchdogs are expecting those trials to take place after the elections so the ethics committee can avoid any accusations of politicizing the ethics process. (the cover-up goes on. How about Christmas or new Years day? ~Bob.)
A Stimulus Project Gets All Caulked Up
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704488404575441410775239560.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Excerpt: The Motor City has lots of drafty houses and tens of thousands of unemployed people. So when Congress proposed spending $5 billion to insulate homes as part of the stimulus bill, Detroit got excited. The director of the city agency managing the program advertised for construction companies before the legislation even passed. But on the same day in March 2009 that Shenetta Coleman picked up applications from 46 companies, she received an email from the Michigan Department of Human Services telling her she couldn't award work to anyone. The problem: Ms. Coleman hadn't met requirements for her advertisement. Those included specifying the precise wages that contractors would have to pay, and posting the advertisement on a specific website. There were other rules—federal, state and local—for grant and contract-award processes, historic preservation and labor standards. The bureaucratic obstacles Ms. Coleman hit took more than a year to clear. Some were mandated by the stimulus bill, the same legislation that was supposed to rapidly create jobs. For example, there is a union-backed provision that requires that weatherization workers receive the prevailing wages in the area. Eighteen months after the bill was signed into law, Michigan has weatherized 10,194 homes with stimulus dollars. It has 23,216 more to go before it meets its target. Michigan says it is on track to finish the homes on its list by March 2012, the deadline set by the U.S. Department of Energy. Many states are at a similar stage. But when Obama administration officials were selling the idea of a huge federal stimulus program to buoy the U.S. economy, they talked about a plan that would get money into the economy quickly. Instead, spending stimulus dollars fast has turned out to be surprisingly hard.
Democrats Run From Their Record
How bad is it for Democrats? They're running against their own programs. ObamaCare, cap-n-tax, you name it, they're against it now. This situation reached absurdity when five Democrat members of Congress ran ads claiming to have voted "no" on TARP. The five are Frank Kratovil (MD), Dina Titus (NV), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA) and Glenn Nye (VA). The inconvenient truth is, according to FactCheck.org, "None of the five lawmakers who are running these ads is listed in the roll call vote. That's because none of them had taken office yet." But if they had been in Congress, they would have been against it. Yeah, that's the ticket. From The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/
Visigoths at the Gate?
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/charles-krauthammer/2010/09/24/visigoths-at-the-gate/
Excerpt: In fact, the big political story of the year is the contrary: that a spontaneous and quite anarchic movement with no recognized leadership or discernible organization has been merged with such relative ease into the Republican Party. The tea party could have become Perot '92, an anti-government movement that spurned the Republicans, went third-party and cost George H.W. Bush re-election, ending 12 years of Republican rule. Had the tea party gone that route, it would have drained the Republican Party of its most mobilized supporters and deprived Republicans of the sweeping victory that awaits them on Nov. 2. Instead, it planted its flag within the party and, with its remarkable energy, created the enthusiasm gap. Such gaps are measurable. This one is a chasm. This year's turnout for the Democratic primaries (as a percentage of eligible voters) was the lowest ever recorded. Republican turnout was the highest since 1970. True, Christine O'Donnell's nomination in Delaware may cost the Republicans an otherwise safe seat (and possibly control of the Senate) and Sharron Angle in Nevada is running only neck-and-neck with an unpopular Harry Reid. On balance, however, the tea party contribution is a large net plus, with its support for such strong candidates as Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Joe Miller of Alaska, Mike Lee of Utah. Even Rand Paul, he of the shaky start in Kentucky, sports an eight-point lead.
No More Racial Gerrymandering
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/linda-chavez/2010/09/24/no-more-racial-gerrymandering/
Excerpt: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., seems to believe that her ethnicity entitles her to keep her congressional seat this election. In a Spanish language interview on Univision, the seven-term representative from California's 47th Congressional District accused "los Vietnamese y los Republicanos" of trying to take away a seat she says belongs to the Hispanic community, and therefore her. Sanchez's Republican opponent this year is a state assemblyman, Van Tran, who came to the United States at the age of 10 from his native Vietnam just days before the fall of Saigon. Sanchez's comments were highly offensive. But they reflect a reality that is little discussed these days, namely racial gerrymandering, which has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans for decades. The 47th District spans across a populous area in California's Orange County, including the cities of Garden Grove and Santa Ana as well as parts of Fullerton and Anaheim. Orange County was once synonymous with wealth and conservatism. But the county has changed in recent years largely because of the influx of working- and middle-class Hispanics and Asians, many of them immigrants and small-businessmen and women. The changing demographics have also made this district less easy to pigeonhole. Congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years in order to reflect population changes in the latest decennial census. In most states, the legislature redraws the lines, and the party that controls the legislature often draws those lines to try to ensure its members stay in power. But amendments to the Voting Rights Act have played a large role in how the lines have been drawn since 1982. Unfortunately, the act has been interpreted by the courts to favor drawing legislative districts so that minority candidates have a good chance of being elected, creating so-called "safe" minority seats.
How Privileged Democrats Pay for Their Houses
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/michelle-malkin/2010/09/24/how-privileged-democrats-pay-for-their-houses/
Excerpt: Like millions of Americans, Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell has had trouble covering her mortgage and other bills over the years. Her opponents consider this a scandal of disqualifying proportions. But there's a bigger disgrace: It's all the sanctimonious Democrats who have exploited their entrenched political incumbency to pay for multiple manses and vacation homes -- while posing as vox populi. Former senior senator from Delaware and current Vice President Joe Biden has a custom-built house in Delaware's ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood. It is now worth at least $2.5 million and is the Bidens' most valuable asset. Biden tapped campaign funds to pay for his compound's lawn needs. He secured the new estate with the help of a corporate executive who worked for Biden's top campaign donor, credit card giant MBNA. In 1996, Biden sold his previous mansion to MBNA Vice Chairman John Cochran. The asking price was $1.2 million. Cochran forked over the full sum. Biden then paid $350,000 in cash to real estate developer Keith Stoltz for a 4.2-acre lakefront lot. Stoltz had paid that same amount five years earlier for the undeveloped property….Then there's President Barack Obama's own $1.7 million Chicago manse -- which was financed with a discounted mortgage from Northern Trust and infamously included a shady land swap with convicted felon donor/developer Tony Rezko. A report released by the Federal Election Commission in February 2009 underscored that the Obamas received reduced loan rates (saving $300 a month, or $108,000 over the life of a 30-year loan) because of their high-profile positions. Northern Trust offered the super jumbo loan to the Obamas in anticipation of entering "long-term financial relationships" with the successful couple. The FEC refused to call the Obamas' mortgage deal an illegal corporate contribution, but it was an obvious act of favor-trading. Northern Trust employees had contributed $71,000 to Obama since 1990.
The Other Delaware Candidate
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/r-emmett-tyrrell/2010/09/23/the-other-delaware-candidate/
Excerpt: Yet Lord went back further. He found that before Coons became the Democratic opponent of O'Donnell, he was profiled in early May in Politico. In that profile, Politico reports that as a 21-year-old about to graduate from Amherst, he wrote a piece in the college newspaper that was titled "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist." Apparently, there was more to that trip to Africa than he would like voters to recall or than the Post chronicled. Coons reported in the student newspaper that his trip to Africa was what we now call a transformative experience. "It is only too easy to return from Africa glad to be American and smugly thankful for our wealth and freedom," Politico quotes the returning student as saying. "Instead, Amherst had taught me to question, so in turn I questioned Amherst, and America." The groundwork for this questioning began before he left for Africa, during a course in cultural anthropology that "undermined the accepted value of progress and the cultural superiority of the West." A course on the Vietnam War also caused him to "suspect ... that the ideal of America as a 'beacon of freedom and justice, providing hope for the world' was not exactly based in reality." Then came his trip to Kenya. "I became friends with a very wealthy businessman and his family and heard them reiterate the same beliefs held by many Americans: the poor are poor because they are lazy, slovenly, uneducated," young Coons wrote. "I realize that Kenya and America are very different, but experiences like this warned me that my own favorite beliefs in the miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunities to be had in America were largely untrue." He found a moral equivalence between Kenya and the United States and became a "bearded Marxist." My guess is that he is still a Marxist. Certainly, he shows no scruples about keeping his hands off other people's property. As county executive of New Castle County, Coons promised voters he would keep taxes down. Once elected, he raised property taxes by 5 percent in 2006, by 17.5 percent in 2007 and by 25 percent in 2009. He loves taxes. Lord tells us he has proposed to raise hotel taxes, paramedic taxes and something heretofore unheard of. Lord tells us that Coons has a proposal to raise taxes on 911 calls. Lord discovered that by reading Byron York's report in The Washington Examiner.
U.S. Has Spent $1.39 Million on Study Surveying Married Tajik Migrant Workers in Moscow, and Interviewing Some of Them, Their Wives, Girlfriends and Prostitutes
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75736
Your tax dollars at work…and play. ~Bob. Excerpt: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent $1.39 million over the last 3 years on a study that involves surveying a group of married Tajik migrant workers in Moscow, and interviewing some of them, their wives, girlfriends and prostitutes. According to the description of the study on the NIH Web site, the research was developed in order to address “the major global health problem of HIV prevention amongst married male labor migrants in Central Asia and the public health risk for an AIDS epidemic in Tajikistan.” “The study focuses on married men from Tajikistan working in Moscow and their risks for acquiring HIV through having sex with female sex workers and then transmitting the infection to their wives or female sexual partners,” the description said.
National Security Experts: Shariah Law Is 'Preeminent Totalitarian Threat of Our Time'
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75520
Excerpt: A team of national security experts assembled by the conservative Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C., think tank, issued a report last week warning that Shariah law--which they described as a "legal-political-military doctrine"--is the "preeminent totalitarian threat of our time." (...) The group drew a distinction between Muslims who embrace Shariah law as the comprehensive model for governing all human society and those who view it as a reference point for personal behavior but not for the conduct of government and the state. "Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam’s internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates--figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world’s largest libertarian Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama--whose members embrace the Enlightenment’s veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms," the authors write. "On this side of the divide, shariah is a reference point for a Muslim’s personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society," they say. "By contrast, the other side of the divide is dominated by Muslim supremacists, often called Islamists. Like erstwhile proponents of Communism and Nazism, these supremacists--some terrorists, others employing stealthier means--seek to impose a totalitarian regime: a global totalitarian system cloaked as an Islamic state and called a caliphate.
In Politics, Only the Dull Need Apply
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/in-politics-only-the-dull-need-apply/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Dealing with youthful indiscretions is hardly a new issue in politics. President George W. Bush made no effort to hide his rough youth, declaring, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.” He chose not to go into grueling details, and this was fine with the American people even though, for eight years, leftist scandalmongers speculated about Bush’s drug and alcohol use. Unfortunately, twenty-first century technology could make this method obsolete. Thanks to the rise of the Internet and social media, permanent records are creating of all kinds of things a sensible person would not want to exist anywhere, such as drunk pictures on Facebook, a blog post flirting with anarchism or the occult, a tweet celebrating a sexual conquest, or an online diary written during a dark period. This information can be hidden from the casual searcher, but not highly paid opposition researchers. Potential candidates who care about their families and reputations may forgo running for office to avoid the disclosure of embarrassing details from their past, particularly if Christine O’Donnell’s high school years are lethal. What we will be left with in politics are a few boy scouts and girl scouts, but mostly power-hungry career politicos who live a clean and boring life out of a desire to fulfill themselves by ruling others. Get ready for the era of the sociopathic narcissist. In the era of personal destruction, conservatives are at greatest risk of finding themselves victims of a digital lynching. The media permits liberals to excuse their bad behavior as the result of institutional racism, the Bush administration, or poverty. The media, however, knows conservatives believe individuals remain morally responsible for their own actions. The media has taken this conservative belief and made it a license to go after conservatives for all their sins, both real and imagined. The left has likewise decided that if a conservative adheres to any standard of morality he or she must be held liable in all points of moral behavior. Any breach of this perfection is the only sin the media recognizes — hypocrisy. On the other hand, leftist breaches of morality are treated with kid gloves (see the John Edwards story, or how the media made Bill Clinton a martyr during the Lewinsky affair). (Perhaps being a king isn't too bad, but only a madman would run for national elective office these days. Financial records, psychological/psychiatric records, school transcripts and papers, chat room flirting and posts, blog posts and comments, all are or will soon be considered fair game. If a candidate ever wrote a letter to the editor supporting a position no longer popular, or vice versa.... Ron P. Yes. I was a state senator from 1973-82. I was single, and that was before AIDS, and before Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and the media made a candidates sex life fair game. It was a golden age that will never come again. I was called many things, but “dull” wasn’t one of them. ~Bob.)
Trial lawyers heavily supporting White for governor
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-trials_19tex.ART.State.Edition1.365b289.html
Excerpt: For the first time in more than a decade, trial lawyers – a key source of campaign cash for Democrats – are betting big on the party's candidate for governor. Plaintiffs attorneys gave more than $1.9 million through June, the most recent figures available, to Democrat Bill White's campaign. And a Houston lawyer is bankrolling a political committee with $3 million to help beat incumbent Republican Rick Perry. The last time the industry showed such sizable support for a Democratic nominee was Ann Richards in the 1990s. Political consultant Jason Stanford says trial lawyers view White as a Democrat who can win.
Suits by disabled raise questions on litigation law
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/18/local/la-me-lawsuits-20100918
Find someone to sue. Beats playing the lottery. ~Bob. Excerpt: A Senate bill was supposed to reduce inappropriate claims under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but some small businesses faced with litigation say reforms are needed. It didn't take long to figure out why a man in a wheelchair had been snapping photographs of the aisles, counters, shelves and bathrooms inside eateries and watering holes in a fashionable eastern Long Beach enclave. On June 30, Powell's Sweet Shoppe; Open Sesame, a Lebanese restaurant; and Panama Joe's Grill & Cantina were served with lawsuits on behalf of Eric Moran alleging that they were in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The violations, each of which could cost a minimum $4,000 in damages, ranged from lacking a restroom grab bar to a restaurant chair out in an aisle.
Vietnam Sneaks Up On Obama
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/24/vietnam_sneaks_up_on_obama_107291.html
Excerpt: At the CNBC town hall meeting, President Obama responded appropriately to a supporter who mentioned, in passing, that his son had just been commissioned as a U.S. army officer. Before turning to the questioner's principal query, the president made it a point to thank the man's son for "his service to our country." So he should. So should we all. But if the account in Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," is correct, the president is asking all of our soldiers to fight for a war he is frantic to "exit." Throughout the protracted 2009 "strategy review," the Woodward book reports, Obama "repeatedly press(ed) his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him." At last, the president crafted his own withdrawal plan. "This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan ... Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room." No wonder the president returned the bust of Winston Churchill to the British when he assumed office. No "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" for this leader. No talk of fighting "on the beaches ... on the landing grounds ... in the fields and in the streets." No, we're all about exit strategies. There is no shame in declining to fight a war you believe to be misguided or futile. Obama preens about having opposed the war in Iraq ab initio. He may have been right or wrong about that. But it was a perfectly honorable position to take. What is not honorable is sending men and women into battle when you neither seek nor expect victory.
Obama Made Us Do It!
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/obama-made-us-do-it/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Even the bogeyman George Bush has a finite shelf life. It is as if he is now somehow last fall’s Halloween goblin that we are still supposed to worry about months later during the Fourth of July. Yes, Bush’s utility for blame is now like that of the demonized Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party, Fox News, Glen Beck, Wall Street, the insurers, the surgeons, the Republicans, and John Boehner, and so has pretty much expired. Even MoveOn.org cannot believe that all the above kept the country at nearly 10% unemployment. Instead, the new mantra for Democratic candidates is a sort of “Obama made us do it!” And I cannot recall ever quite seeing that in American politics. Even the slaughtered House Republicans of 2006 did not plead in their campaigns that they were coerced or duped by George Bush. After passing ObamaCare, providing more bailouts and stimuli, castigating greedy CEOs and their corporations for selfishness, and embracing Keynesian $1.5 trillion deficits, suddenly no one wishes to support that record.
Important: Our political establishment wears blinders and ignores the threat
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/14/needed-a-second-opinion-on-shariah/
Excerpt: It is time for a "Team B" approach to Islamist ideology. The strategy has worked before, against a similarly determined threat to freedom. In 1976, George H.W. Bush, then director of central intelligence, invited a group of known skeptics about the strategy of detente to review the classified intelligence regarding Soviet intentions and capabilities. The point was to provide an informed second opinion on U.S. policy toward the Kremlin. The conclusions of this experimental Team B study differed sharply from the government's regnant theory. The skeptics found that, pursuant to its communist ideology, the Soviet Union was determined to secure the defeat of the United States and the West and to tyrannize the globe. Thus, not only was detente unlikely to succeed, but national-security policies undertaken in its pursuit exposed the nation to grave danger. The study was particularly persuasive to former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who would use it not only to challenge the detentist policies of the Ford and Carter administrations but to build the strategy that ultimately brought down the "Evil Empire." Today, the United States faces a similarly insidious ideological threat: Shariah, the authoritarian doctrine that animates the Islamists and their jihadism. Translated as "the path," Shariah is a comprehensive framework designed to govern all aspects of life. Though it certainly has spiritual elements, it would be a mistake to think of it as a "religious" code in the Western sense because it seeks to regulate all manner of behavior in the secular sphere - economic, social, military, legal and political. That regulation is oppressive, discriminatory, utterly inimical to our core constitutional liberties and destructive of equal protection under the law, especially for women. We consequently have joined a group of security-policy practitioners and analysts in subjecting this ideology and its adherents to a new Team B study. Our assessment challenges bedrock assumptions of current American policy on combating (and minimizing) what the government calls "extremism" and on engaging (and appeasing) Shariah proponents who claim to reject terrorism. These proponents are described, wrongly, as "moderates" because they appear content to achieve their patently immoderate designs through political-influence operations, "lawfare" and subversion. Participants in the study constitute a rich reservoir of national security experience drawn from military, intelligence, homeland security, law enforcement and academic backgrounds. Our study does not perfectly replicate the Team B work of a generation ago. We have not been encouraged by our government, which, under administrations of both parties, has been immovably content to wear its blinders. Nor have we been invited to review classified information. These, however, have hardly been insuperable obstacles. What Americans need to know is ready to hand in the public record. The problem isn't access to information, it is coming to grips with what available information portends for our security. Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam's internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates - figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world's largest liberal Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama - who embrace the Enlightenment's veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms. On that side of the divide, Shariah is defined as but a reference point for a Muslim's personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society. The other side of the divide is dominated by "Islamists," who are Muslim supremacists. Like erstwhile proponents of communism and Nazism, these supremacists - some terrorists, others employing stealthier means - seek to impose a global theocratic and authoritarian regime, called a caliphate. On this side of the divide, Shariah is a compulsory system that Muslims are obliged to wage jihad to install and to which the rest of the world is required to submit. For these ideologues, Shariah is not a private matter. They see the West as an infidel enemy to be conquered, not a culture and civilization to be embraced or at least tolerated. It is impossible, they maintain, for alternative legal systems and forms of government like ours to coexist peacefully with the end-state they seek.
K.O.! Union Throws in Towel on Arizona Boycott
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2010/09/23/ko-union-throws-in-towel-on-arizona-boycott/
Excerpt: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has knocked the United Food & Commercial Workers union out of union boycott of Arizona over SB1070.
Philly man admits going to Egypt to impregnate young girls
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20100916_Philly_man_admits_going_to_Egypt_to_impregnatedyoung_girls.html
Excerpt: A Philadelphia man admitted in federal district court yesterday that he had sex with three underage females in Egypt from January 2004 to May 2007. Authorities said Omar Rashaad Bey, 33, of South Philadelphia, impregnated two of the victims when they were 15 and both bore Bey's sons at the same age. The births occurred in Egypt in February 2006 and March 2007. Federal law makes it a crime for a U.S. citizen to travel abroad to engage in illicit sex with persons under the age of 18. Bey allegedly entered into "purported Islamic marriages" with the two women he impregnated, according to prosecutors. (Simply following the perfect example of the Prophet: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/062.sbt.html#007.062.088)
Britons arrested for Qur'an burning
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/09/23/15447621.html
Political speech, of course. Would they have been arrested if they burned a bible or torah? And it’s for “racial hatred.” But Islam is the only race you can join by making a declaration of faith. ~Bob. Excerpt: Six men in England have been arrested after two Qur'ans were burned and video of the Sept. 11 act was posted online. Four men were arrested Wednesday and two men had been arrested Sept. 15 on "suspicion of stirring racial hatred," a Northumbria police press release said.
India: Muslims attack Hindu procession, injuring 50
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/india-muslims-attack-hindu-procession-injuring-50.html
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: "Plenty of stones were pelted continuously on the procession, acid bulb and burning objects were also thrown."
Egyptian Coptic Church Accused of Stockpiling Weapons
http://www.aina.org/news/20100921210800.htm
Excerpt: A new wave of defamation by Islamists against Coptic Pope Shenouda III and the Coptic Church is seen by many observers as a serious provocation to sectarian violence against the Copts, and the possibility of Egypt being dragged into civil war. On September 15, Qatar-owned Al-Jezirah TV broadcast a program called Without Limits, presented by moderator Ahmad Mansour, who hosted the Islamist Dr. Selim el-Awah, former Secretary-General of the World Council of Muslim Scholars, which has stunned and enraged Copts inside and outside of Egypt. "El-Awah is simply threatening Copts that the forthcoming chaos after Mubarak dies will see mass violence against the Copts," says Magdy Khalil, Coptic activist and head of Middle East Freedom Forum. The program alleged the Church has its own militia and hides weapons and ammunition in monasteries and churches, preparing for a war "against the Muslims." el-Awah said that "Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause," and the Church gets weapons from Israel. He cited as evidence an incident in mid-August, in which the son of a priest in Port Said, Mr. Joseph El-Gabalawy, was falsely accused of importing weapons from Israel. Although he was cleared of charges and released, as the imported goods were children's fireworks from China and did not belong to him, he is still detained by State Security.
The Choice
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/09/essay-choice.html
If you missed my handy Voting Guide, or want to forward the link to someone.
Mourning in American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YXqf_6ug54
Powerful ad.
Liberal blogger directly confronts David Axelrod, accuses White House of "hippie punching"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/09/liberal_blogger_directly_confr.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Damn it—hippy punching is OUR job! I hope when they take that crowd under the bleachers, they use protection. ~Bob. Excerpt: Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere's anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of "hippie punching." "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day," the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Axelrod on the call, which was organzied for liberal bloggers and progressive media. The call seemed to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the White House and the online and organized left: Though White House advisers in the past have dumped on the left, anonymously and even on the record, Axelrod repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems. "You play a great role in informing people about the stakes of elections," Axelrod told the bloggers. "One of the reasons I was eager to expend time was to enlist you." But hovering over the call was the obvious disconnect between this plea for help and statements like those of Robert Gibbs, who recently pilloried the "professional left" for being overly critical of the White House. That tension burst out into the open when Madrak directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod. "You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."
GOP Blocks Bill to DISCLOSE Campaign Ad Donors
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/23/politics/main6894710.shtml
Excerpt: Senate Republicans on Thursday stood fast in blocking legislation requiring special interest groups running campaign ads to identify their donors. Mirroring a Senate vote on the bill last July, all 39 Republicans who voted stopped Democrats from bringing the campaign disclosure bill to the Senate floor. The 59-39 vote fell one short of the 60 needed to advance the legislation. Two Republicans didn't vote. Republicans dismissed Democratic efforts to revive the bill as an attempt to win political points before the midterm elections. The White House-backed measure is a response to a 5-4 Supreme Court decision last January overturning a decades-old law that barred corporations, unions and other organizations from spending on advertising, mass mailings and other forms of political activity.
Senate Democrats postpone tax cut vote until after elections
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092205406.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert
Every candidate in the country should be put on the record about this. There was a time—before it became the propaganda arm of the Democrat party, when the media would have done this. ~Bob. Excerpt: Senate Democrats said Thursday that they had abandoned plans for a pre-election showdown with Republicans over taxes, postponing any vote on extending Bush administration tax cuts until after the November midterms. Democrats discussed the issue during a caucus luncheon but left the final decision to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Late Thursday, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, "We will come back in November and stay in session as long as it takes to get this done."
Chrysler Auto Workers Busted
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/chrysler-auto-workers-busted_20100923_dk
Your bailout dollars at work. ~Bob. Excerpt: Rob Wolchek got a tip about what some guys are doing at Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. This is the same plant that President Barack Obama visited back in July and talked about the significance of manufacturing in America.
Senate Republicans launch $1 million ad buy in West Virginia
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/senate-republican-launch-ad-in.html?wprss=thefix
Is WV in play? Or just a better shot than DE, where the Tea Party upset candidate is trailing by 15 points? Excerpt: The National Republican Senatorial Committee will launch ads in the West Virginia Senate race today, a seven-figure expenditure that strongly suggests the party thinks they can pull off an upset in the Mountain State. The commercial goes directly at Gov. Joe Manchin (D) -- arguing that the governor "supports Barack Obama's big government agenda" on big ticket items like the economic stimulus package and the health care law. "Big spending, more government and less freedom...we don't want a rubber stamp for Obama," says the ad's narrator. "We can't afford Joe Manchin in Washington." The ad will cost the NRSC roughly $1.2 million and will run statewide -- including in the pricey Washington, D.C. media market -- for two weeks, according to sources familiar with the buy. Republicans have been hinting for the last several weeks that the race between Manchin, a popular second term governor, and wealthy businessman John Raese was surprisingly competitive.
Ethics panel struggling to set trial dates
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/120595-ethics-committee-struggling-to-set-trial-dates
Excerpt: The ethics committee is struggling to come up with a schedule for the public trials of Reps. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). After separate investigations, the panel charged Rangel and Waters with violating House rules. Both rebuffed attempts to negotiate punishments, choosing to opt for public trials of the charges against them. Watchdogs are expecting those trials to take place after the elections so the ethics committee can avoid any accusations of politicizing the ethics process. (the cover-up goes on. How about Christmas or new Years day? ~Bob.)
A Stimulus Project Gets All Caulked Up
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704488404575441410775239560.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
Excerpt: The Motor City has lots of drafty houses and tens of thousands of unemployed people. So when Congress proposed spending $5 billion to insulate homes as part of the stimulus bill, Detroit got excited. The director of the city agency managing the program advertised for construction companies before the legislation even passed. But on the same day in March 2009 that Shenetta Coleman picked up applications from 46 companies, she received an email from the Michigan Department of Human Services telling her she couldn't award work to anyone. The problem: Ms. Coleman hadn't met requirements for her advertisement. Those included specifying the precise wages that contractors would have to pay, and posting the advertisement on a specific website. There were other rules—federal, state and local—for grant and contract-award processes, historic preservation and labor standards. The bureaucratic obstacles Ms. Coleman hit took more than a year to clear. Some were mandated by the stimulus bill, the same legislation that was supposed to rapidly create jobs. For example, there is a union-backed provision that requires that weatherization workers receive the prevailing wages in the area. Eighteen months after the bill was signed into law, Michigan has weatherized 10,194 homes with stimulus dollars. It has 23,216 more to go before it meets its target. Michigan says it is on track to finish the homes on its list by March 2012, the deadline set by the U.S. Department of Energy. Many states are at a similar stage. But when Obama administration officials were selling the idea of a huge federal stimulus program to buoy the U.S. economy, they talked about a plan that would get money into the economy quickly. Instead, spending stimulus dollars fast has turned out to be surprisingly hard.
Democrats Run From Their Record
How bad is it for Democrats? They're running against their own programs. ObamaCare, cap-n-tax, you name it, they're against it now. This situation reached absurdity when five Democrat members of Congress ran ads claiming to have voted "no" on TARP. The five are Frank Kratovil (MD), Dina Titus (NV), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA) and Glenn Nye (VA). The inconvenient truth is, according to FactCheck.org, "None of the five lawmakers who are running these ads is listed in the roll call vote. That's because none of them had taken office yet." But if they had been in Congress, they would have been against it. Yeah, that's the ticket. From The Patriot Post www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/
Visigoths at the Gate?
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/charles-krauthammer/2010/09/24/visigoths-at-the-gate/
Excerpt: In fact, the big political story of the year is the contrary: that a spontaneous and quite anarchic movement with no recognized leadership or discernible organization has been merged with such relative ease into the Republican Party. The tea party could have become Perot '92, an anti-government movement that spurned the Republicans, went third-party and cost George H.W. Bush re-election, ending 12 years of Republican rule. Had the tea party gone that route, it would have drained the Republican Party of its most mobilized supporters and deprived Republicans of the sweeping victory that awaits them on Nov. 2. Instead, it planted its flag within the party and, with its remarkable energy, created the enthusiasm gap. Such gaps are measurable. This one is a chasm. This year's turnout for the Democratic primaries (as a percentage of eligible voters) was the lowest ever recorded. Republican turnout was the highest since 1970. True, Christine O'Donnell's nomination in Delaware may cost the Republicans an otherwise safe seat (and possibly control of the Senate) and Sharron Angle in Nevada is running only neck-and-neck with an unpopular Harry Reid. On balance, however, the tea party contribution is a large net plus, with its support for such strong candidates as Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Joe Miller of Alaska, Mike Lee of Utah. Even Rand Paul, he of the shaky start in Kentucky, sports an eight-point lead.
No More Racial Gerrymandering
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/linda-chavez/2010/09/24/no-more-racial-gerrymandering/
Excerpt: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., seems to believe that her ethnicity entitles her to keep her congressional seat this election. In a Spanish language interview on Univision, the seven-term representative from California's 47th Congressional District accused "los Vietnamese y los Republicanos" of trying to take away a seat she says belongs to the Hispanic community, and therefore her. Sanchez's Republican opponent this year is a state assemblyman, Van Tran, who came to the United States at the age of 10 from his native Vietnam just days before the fall of Saigon. Sanchez's comments were highly offensive. But they reflect a reality that is little discussed these days, namely racial gerrymandering, which has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans for decades. The 47th District spans across a populous area in California's Orange County, including the cities of Garden Grove and Santa Ana as well as parts of Fullerton and Anaheim. Orange County was once synonymous with wealth and conservatism. But the county has changed in recent years largely because of the influx of working- and middle-class Hispanics and Asians, many of them immigrants and small-businessmen and women. The changing demographics have also made this district less easy to pigeonhole. Congressional districts are redrawn every 10 years in order to reflect population changes in the latest decennial census. In most states, the legislature redraws the lines, and the party that controls the legislature often draws those lines to try to ensure its members stay in power. But amendments to the Voting Rights Act have played a large role in how the lines have been drawn since 1982. Unfortunately, the act has been interpreted by the courts to favor drawing legislative districts so that minority candidates have a good chance of being elected, creating so-called "safe" minority seats.
How Privileged Democrats Pay for Their Houses
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/michelle-malkin/2010/09/24/how-privileged-democrats-pay-for-their-houses/
Excerpt: Like millions of Americans, Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell has had trouble covering her mortgage and other bills over the years. Her opponents consider this a scandal of disqualifying proportions. But there's a bigger disgrace: It's all the sanctimonious Democrats who have exploited their entrenched political incumbency to pay for multiple manses and vacation homes -- while posing as vox populi. Former senior senator from Delaware and current Vice President Joe Biden has a custom-built house in Delaware's ritziest Chateau Country neighborhood. It is now worth at least $2.5 million and is the Bidens' most valuable asset. Biden tapped campaign funds to pay for his compound's lawn needs. He secured the new estate with the help of a corporate executive who worked for Biden's top campaign donor, credit card giant MBNA. In 1996, Biden sold his previous mansion to MBNA Vice Chairman John Cochran. The asking price was $1.2 million. Cochran forked over the full sum. Biden then paid $350,000 in cash to real estate developer Keith Stoltz for a 4.2-acre lakefront lot. Stoltz had paid that same amount five years earlier for the undeveloped property….Then there's President Barack Obama's own $1.7 million Chicago manse -- which was financed with a discounted mortgage from Northern Trust and infamously included a shady land swap with convicted felon donor/developer Tony Rezko. A report released by the Federal Election Commission in February 2009 underscored that the Obamas received reduced loan rates (saving $300 a month, or $108,000 over the life of a 30-year loan) because of their high-profile positions. Northern Trust offered the super jumbo loan to the Obamas in anticipation of entering "long-term financial relationships" with the successful couple. The FEC refused to call the Obamas' mortgage deal an illegal corporate contribution, but it was an obvious act of favor-trading. Northern Trust employees had contributed $71,000 to Obama since 1990.
The Other Delaware Candidate
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/r-emmett-tyrrell/2010/09/23/the-other-delaware-candidate/
Excerpt: Yet Lord went back further. He found that before Coons became the Democratic opponent of O'Donnell, he was profiled in early May in Politico. In that profile, Politico reports that as a 21-year-old about to graduate from Amherst, he wrote a piece in the college newspaper that was titled "Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist." Apparently, there was more to that trip to Africa than he would like voters to recall or than the Post chronicled. Coons reported in the student newspaper that his trip to Africa was what we now call a transformative experience. "It is only too easy to return from Africa glad to be American and smugly thankful for our wealth and freedom," Politico quotes the returning student as saying. "Instead, Amherst had taught me to question, so in turn I questioned Amherst, and America." The groundwork for this questioning began before he left for Africa, during a course in cultural anthropology that "undermined the accepted value of progress and the cultural superiority of the West." A course on the Vietnam War also caused him to "suspect ... that the ideal of America as a 'beacon of freedom and justice, providing hope for the world' was not exactly based in reality." Then came his trip to Kenya. "I became friends with a very wealthy businessman and his family and heard them reiterate the same beliefs held by many Americans: the poor are poor because they are lazy, slovenly, uneducated," young Coons wrote. "I realize that Kenya and America are very different, but experiences like this warned me that my own favorite beliefs in the miracles of free enterprise and the boundless opportunities to be had in America were largely untrue." He found a moral equivalence between Kenya and the United States and became a "bearded Marxist." My guess is that he is still a Marxist. Certainly, he shows no scruples about keeping his hands off other people's property. As county executive of New Castle County, Coons promised voters he would keep taxes down. Once elected, he raised property taxes by 5 percent in 2006, by 17.5 percent in 2007 and by 25 percent in 2009. He loves taxes. Lord tells us he has proposed to raise hotel taxes, paramedic taxes and something heretofore unheard of. Lord tells us that Coons has a proposal to raise taxes on 911 calls. Lord discovered that by reading Byron York's report in The Washington Examiner.
U.S. Has Spent $1.39 Million on Study Surveying Married Tajik Migrant Workers in Moscow, and Interviewing Some of Them, Their Wives, Girlfriends and Prostitutes
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75736
Your tax dollars at work…and play. ~Bob. Excerpt: The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent $1.39 million over the last 3 years on a study that involves surveying a group of married Tajik migrant workers in Moscow, and interviewing some of them, their wives, girlfriends and prostitutes. According to the description of the study on the NIH Web site, the research was developed in order to address “the major global health problem of HIV prevention amongst married male labor migrants in Central Asia and the public health risk for an AIDS epidemic in Tajikistan.” “The study focuses on married men from Tajikistan working in Moscow and their risks for acquiring HIV through having sex with female sex workers and then transmitting the infection to their wives or female sexual partners,” the description said.
National Security Experts: Shariah Law Is 'Preeminent Totalitarian Threat of Our Time'
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75520
Excerpt: A team of national security experts assembled by the conservative Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C., think tank, issued a report last week warning that Shariah law--which they described as a "legal-political-military doctrine"--is the "preeminent totalitarian threat of our time." (...) The group drew a distinction between Muslims who embrace Shariah law as the comprehensive model for governing all human society and those who view it as a reference point for personal behavior but not for the conduct of government and the state. "Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam’s internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates--figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world’s largest libertarian Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama--whose members embrace the Enlightenment’s veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms," the authors write. "On this side of the divide, shariah is a reference point for a Muslim’s personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society," they say. "By contrast, the other side of the divide is dominated by Muslim supremacists, often called Islamists. Like erstwhile proponents of Communism and Nazism, these supremacists--some terrorists, others employing stealthier means--seek to impose a totalitarian regime: a global totalitarian system cloaked as an Islamic state and called a caliphate.
In Politics, Only the Dull Need Apply
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/in-politics-only-the-dull-need-apply/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Dealing with youthful indiscretions is hardly a new issue in politics. President George W. Bush made no effort to hide his rough youth, declaring, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.” He chose not to go into grueling details, and this was fine with the American people even though, for eight years, leftist scandalmongers speculated about Bush’s drug and alcohol use. Unfortunately, twenty-first century technology could make this method obsolete. Thanks to the rise of the Internet and social media, permanent records are creating of all kinds of things a sensible person would not want to exist anywhere, such as drunk pictures on Facebook, a blog post flirting with anarchism or the occult, a tweet celebrating a sexual conquest, or an online diary written during a dark period. This information can be hidden from the casual searcher, but not highly paid opposition researchers. Potential candidates who care about their families and reputations may forgo running for office to avoid the disclosure of embarrassing details from their past, particularly if Christine O’Donnell’s high school years are lethal. What we will be left with in politics are a few boy scouts and girl scouts, but mostly power-hungry career politicos who live a clean and boring life out of a desire to fulfill themselves by ruling others. Get ready for the era of the sociopathic narcissist. In the era of personal destruction, conservatives are at greatest risk of finding themselves victims of a digital lynching. The media permits liberals to excuse their bad behavior as the result of institutional racism, the Bush administration, or poverty. The media, however, knows conservatives believe individuals remain morally responsible for their own actions. The media has taken this conservative belief and made it a license to go after conservatives for all their sins, both real and imagined. The left has likewise decided that if a conservative adheres to any standard of morality he or she must be held liable in all points of moral behavior. Any breach of this perfection is the only sin the media recognizes — hypocrisy. On the other hand, leftist breaches of morality are treated with kid gloves (see the John Edwards story, or how the media made Bill Clinton a martyr during the Lewinsky affair). (Perhaps being a king isn't too bad, but only a madman would run for national elective office these days. Financial records, psychological/psychiatric records, school transcripts and papers, chat room flirting and posts, blog posts and comments, all are or will soon be considered fair game. If a candidate ever wrote a letter to the editor supporting a position no longer popular, or vice versa.... Ron P. Yes. I was a state senator from 1973-82. I was single, and that was before AIDS, and before Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and the media made a candidates sex life fair game. It was a golden age that will never come again. I was called many things, but “dull” wasn’t one of them. ~Bob.)
Trial lawyers heavily supporting White for governor
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-trials_19tex.ART.State.Edition1.365b289.html
Excerpt: For the first time in more than a decade, trial lawyers – a key source of campaign cash for Democrats – are betting big on the party's candidate for governor. Plaintiffs attorneys gave more than $1.9 million through June, the most recent figures available, to Democrat Bill White's campaign. And a Houston lawyer is bankrolling a political committee with $3 million to help beat incumbent Republican Rick Perry. The last time the industry showed such sizable support for a Democratic nominee was Ann Richards in the 1990s. Political consultant Jason Stanford says trial lawyers view White as a Democrat who can win.
Suits by disabled raise questions on litigation law
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/18/local/la-me-lawsuits-20100918
Find someone to sue. Beats playing the lottery. ~Bob. Excerpt: A Senate bill was supposed to reduce inappropriate claims under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but some small businesses faced with litigation say reforms are needed. It didn't take long to figure out why a man in a wheelchair had been snapping photographs of the aisles, counters, shelves and bathrooms inside eateries and watering holes in a fashionable eastern Long Beach enclave. On June 30, Powell's Sweet Shoppe; Open Sesame, a Lebanese restaurant; and Panama Joe's Grill & Cantina were served with lawsuits on behalf of Eric Moran alleging that they were in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The violations, each of which could cost a minimum $4,000 in damages, ranged from lacking a restroom grab bar to a restaurant chair out in an aisle.
Vietnam Sneaks Up On Obama
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/24/vietnam_sneaks_up_on_obama_107291.html
Excerpt: At the CNBC town hall meeting, President Obama responded appropriately to a supporter who mentioned, in passing, that his son had just been commissioned as a U.S. army officer. Before turning to the questioner's principal query, the president made it a point to thank the man's son for "his service to our country." So he should. So should we all. But if the account in Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," is correct, the president is asking all of our soldiers to fight for a war he is frantic to "exit." Throughout the protracted 2009 "strategy review," the Woodward book reports, Obama "repeatedly press(ed) his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him." At last, the president crafted his own withdrawal plan. "This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan ... Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room." No wonder the president returned the bust of Winston Churchill to the British when he assumed office. No "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" for this leader. No talk of fighting "on the beaches ... on the landing grounds ... in the fields and in the streets." No, we're all about exit strategies. There is no shame in declining to fight a war you believe to be misguided or futile. Obama preens about having opposed the war in Iraq ab initio. He may have been right or wrong about that. But it was a perfectly honorable position to take. What is not honorable is sending men and women into battle when you neither seek nor expect victory.
Obama Made Us Do It!
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/obama-made-us-do-it/?singlepage=true
Excerpt: Even the bogeyman George Bush has a finite shelf life. It is as if he is now somehow last fall’s Halloween goblin that we are still supposed to worry about months later during the Fourth of July. Yes, Bush’s utility for blame is now like that of the demonized Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party, Fox News, Glen Beck, Wall Street, the insurers, the surgeons, the Republicans, and John Boehner, and so has pretty much expired. Even MoveOn.org cannot believe that all the above kept the country at nearly 10% unemployment. Instead, the new mantra for Democratic candidates is a sort of “Obama made us do it!” And I cannot recall ever quite seeing that in American politics. Even the slaughtered House Republicans of 2006 did not plead in their campaigns that they were coerced or duped by George Bush. After passing ObamaCare, providing more bailouts and stimuli, castigating greedy CEOs and their corporations for selfishness, and embracing Keynesian $1.5 trillion deficits, suddenly no one wishes to support that record.
Important: Our political establishment wears blinders and ignores the threat
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/14/needed-a-second-opinion-on-shariah/
Excerpt: It is time for a "Team B" approach to Islamist ideology. The strategy has worked before, against a similarly determined threat to freedom. In 1976, George H.W. Bush, then director of central intelligence, invited a group of known skeptics about the strategy of detente to review the classified intelligence regarding Soviet intentions and capabilities. The point was to provide an informed second opinion on U.S. policy toward the Kremlin. The conclusions of this experimental Team B study differed sharply from the government's regnant theory. The skeptics found that, pursuant to its communist ideology, the Soviet Union was determined to secure the defeat of the United States and the West and to tyrannize the globe. Thus, not only was detente unlikely to succeed, but national-security policies undertaken in its pursuit exposed the nation to grave danger. The study was particularly persuasive to former California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who would use it not only to challenge the detentist policies of the Ford and Carter administrations but to build the strategy that ultimately brought down the "Evil Empire." Today, the United States faces a similarly insidious ideological threat: Shariah, the authoritarian doctrine that animates the Islamists and their jihadism. Translated as "the path," Shariah is a comprehensive framework designed to govern all aspects of life. Though it certainly has spiritual elements, it would be a mistake to think of it as a "religious" code in the Western sense because it seeks to regulate all manner of behavior in the secular sphere - economic, social, military, legal and political. That regulation is oppressive, discriminatory, utterly inimical to our core constitutional liberties and destructive of equal protection under the law, especially for women. We consequently have joined a group of security-policy practitioners and analysts in subjecting this ideology and its adherents to a new Team B study. Our assessment challenges bedrock assumptions of current American policy on combating (and minimizing) what the government calls "extremism" and on engaging (and appeasing) Shariah proponents who claim to reject terrorism. These proponents are described, wrongly, as "moderates" because they appear content to achieve their patently immoderate designs through political-influence operations, "lawfare" and subversion. Participants in the study constitute a rich reservoir of national security experience drawn from military, intelligence, homeland security, law enforcement and academic backgrounds. Our study does not perfectly replicate the Team B work of a generation ago. We have not been encouraged by our government, which, under administrations of both parties, has been immovably content to wear its blinders. Nor have we been invited to review classified information. These, however, have hardly been insuperable obstacles. What Americans need to know is ready to hand in the public record. The problem isn't access to information, it is coming to grips with what available information portends for our security. Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam's internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates - figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world's largest liberal Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama - who embrace the Enlightenment's veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms. On that side of the divide, Shariah is defined as but a reference point for a Muslim's personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society. The other side of the divide is dominated by "Islamists," who are Muslim supremacists. Like erstwhile proponents of communism and Nazism, these supremacists - some terrorists, others employing stealthier means - seek to impose a global theocratic and authoritarian regime, called a caliphate. On this side of the divide, Shariah is a compulsory system that Muslims are obliged to wage jihad to install and to which the rest of the world is required to submit. For these ideologues, Shariah is not a private matter. They see the West as an infidel enemy to be conquered, not a culture and civilization to be embraced or at least tolerated. It is impossible, they maintain, for alternative legal systems and forms of government like ours to coexist peacefully with the end-state they seek.
K.O.! Union Throws in Towel on Arizona Boycott
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2010/09/23/ko-union-throws-in-towel-on-arizona-boycott/
Excerpt: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has knocked the United Food & Commercial Workers union out of union boycott of Arizona over SB1070.
Philly man admits going to Egypt to impregnate young girls
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20100916_Philly_man_admits_going_to_Egypt_to_impregnatedyoung_girls.html
Excerpt: A Philadelphia man admitted in federal district court yesterday that he had sex with three underage females in Egypt from January 2004 to May 2007. Authorities said Omar Rashaad Bey, 33, of South Philadelphia, impregnated two of the victims when they were 15 and both bore Bey's sons at the same age. The births occurred in Egypt in February 2006 and March 2007. Federal law makes it a crime for a U.S. citizen to travel abroad to engage in illicit sex with persons under the age of 18. Bey allegedly entered into "purported Islamic marriages" with the two women he impregnated, according to prosecutors. (Simply following the perfect example of the Prophet: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/062.sbt.html#007.062.088)
Britons arrested for Qur'an burning
http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2010/09/23/15447621.html
Political speech, of course. Would they have been arrested if they burned a bible or torah? And it’s for “racial hatred.” But Islam is the only race you can join by making a declaration of faith. ~Bob. Excerpt: Six men in England have been arrested after two Qur'ans were burned and video of the Sept. 11 act was posted online. Four men were arrested Wednesday and two men had been arrested Sept. 15 on "suspicion of stirring racial hatred," a Northumbria police press release said.
India: Muslims attack Hindu procession, injuring 50
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/india-muslims-attack-hindu-procession-injuring-50.html
Didn’t get the memo. ~Bob. Excerpt: "Plenty of stones were pelted continuously on the procession, acid bulb and burning objects were also thrown."
Egyptian Coptic Church Accused of Stockpiling Weapons
http://www.aina.org/news/20100921210800.htm
Excerpt: A new wave of defamation by Islamists against Coptic Pope Shenouda III and the Coptic Church is seen by many observers as a serious provocation to sectarian violence against the Copts, and the possibility of Egypt being dragged into civil war. On September 15, Qatar-owned Al-Jezirah TV broadcast a program called Without Limits, presented by moderator Ahmad Mansour, who hosted the Islamist Dr. Selim el-Awah, former Secretary-General of the World Council of Muslim Scholars, which has stunned and enraged Copts inside and outside of Egypt. "El-Awah is simply threatening Copts that the forthcoming chaos after Mubarak dies will see mass violence against the Copts," says Magdy Khalil, Coptic activist and head of Middle East Freedom Forum. The program alleged the Church has its own militia and hides weapons and ammunition in monasteries and churches, preparing for a war "against the Muslims." el-Awah said that "Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause," and the Church gets weapons from Israel. He cited as evidence an incident in mid-August, in which the son of a priest in Port Said, Mr. Joseph El-Gabalawy, was falsely accused of importing weapons from Israel. Although he was cleared of charges and released, as the imported goods were children's fireworks from China and did not belong to him, he is still detained by State Security.
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