Monday, December 25, 2006
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
FYI...
"According to Technorati, a Web site that tracks blogs, there are currently about 63.2 million blogs on the Internet. Of those about 850,000 are tagged 'politics.' Technorati says some 175,000 new blogs are created every day."
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Diabetes breakthrough
This certainly looks promising...
On Canada's National Post website, Tom Blackwell reports:
"So next they injected the neuropeptide "substance P" in the pancreases of diabetic mice, a demanding task given the tiny size of the rodent organs. The results were dramatic.
The islet inflammation cleared up and the diabetes was gone. Some have remained in that state for as long as four months, with just one injection."
Bottoms Up! - Prison Fellowship
Every story has two sides. Here's an example...
Chuck Colson discusses Seattle's new way of dealing with homeless alcoholics:
"But here’s the catch—residents are allowed to drink to their heart’s content! While 1811 does not discourage sobriety, it does not require its residents to enroll in any sort of recovery program. Bill Hobson, the program’s executive director, says that the community needs to face the so-called “fact” that the most chronically intoxicated will likely remain that way. Hobson offers an example of a resident who was drunk ten minutes after spending sixty days in a detox facility. Referring to the worst drunks like this, he says, “Once you’re an alcoholic, you’re always an alcoholic.”
Well, the reasoning goes, if an alcoholic can’t change, instead of racking up taxpayer dollars to pay for jail cells and treatment, why not fund less expensive housing? Just keep them off the streets."
Iraq - the Economy is Booming
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
And this is from Newsweek of all places.
Now, I wonder if we can trust it's accuracy...
It was the worst of times.
And this is from Newsweek of all places.
Now, I wonder if we can trust it's accuracy...
Silvia Spring reports in NewsWeek International:
"Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London."
Immigration - The ripple effect
Illegal immigrants affect everyone; even legal immigrants...
In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Chao Xiong and Richard Meryhew combined on this news article:
"The sweep last week shook immigrants here illegally and legally. As many residents leave, towns and schools feel the effects.
Any other Thursday, the aisles of the Rincon Latino grocery here would be full of customers. But last week, in the aftermath of an immigration raid in nearby Worthington, store owner Maria Amaya could only throw up her hands in despair.
Business was bad. Real bad.
By midafternoon she had made only two sales. One was to a husband and tearful wife so frightened by the raid they had quit their jobs at a beef processing plant and bought bus tickets for Mexico.
The couple told Amaya that their son was one of 230 illegal immigrants arrested in the raid on the Swift & Co. pork processing plant, part of a crackdown on the rampant use of stolen identities by immigrants hoping to land jobs in the United States.
News of the raid, one of six carried out at Swift plants across the country, has rattled immigrant workers in food-processing plants across Minnesota. And nowhere is the impact more intense than along a 75-mile stretch of Hwy. 60.
That's where a half-dozen processing plants between Worthington and Madelia employ hundreds of immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic."
War on Terrorism - At the FBI
I think this is frightening...
On the American Thinker website, Clarice Feldman relates this experience:
"At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the [FBI's] new national security branch; whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. 'Yes, sure, it's right to know the difference,' he said. 'It's important to know who your targets are.'
That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. 'The basic goes back to their beliefs and who they were following,' he said. 'And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.'
O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran - Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. 'Iran and Hezbollah,' I prompted. 'Which are they?'
He took a stab: 'Sunni.'
Wrong."
The Clintons - And their hired help
Think about it. He was Clinton's National Security Advisor...
In the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Larry Margasak reports:
"Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday."
Immigration - Behind the scenes of the Swift raid
Well, from my place in life, this seems quite unusual...
Christine Tatum reports for the DenverPost.com:
"Swift accused ICE on Wednesday of refusing to cooperate with the company to make the raid as unobtrusive as possible. "They made it clear they were just going to show up and conduct a one-day raid," company counsel Don Wiseman said.
For nearly two weeks, Swift & Co. officials fought to block an impending immigration raid they knew was coming.
According to newly unsealed federal-court records filed in Amarillo, Texas, on Dec. 4, the company sought an injunction to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from raiding six of its plants across the nation.
On Dec. 7, the company's request was denied. And on Tuesday, the raid went forward.
While waging the sealed court fight, Swift scrutinized its workers' employment documents. Nearly 400 workers nationally "simply disappeared" because of that review, said Don Wiseman, the company's general counsel."
John Stossel - What will they ban next?
Ever wonder why government is so big?
Maybe it's because they are trying to manage too many of our personal choices...
Maybe it's because they are trying to manage too many of our personal choices...
At TownHall.com, John Stossel has a larger point; however, he uses this as his starting example:
"Trans fats give foods like French fries that texture I like. They are probably bad for me, but Radley Balko of Reason points out that 'despite all of the dire warnings about our increased intake of trans-fats over the last 20 years, heart disease in America has been in swift decline ... So, if they're killing us, they're not doing a very good job.'"
Top 20 Strangest Gadgets and Accessories
I'm pretty confident that not many of us have any of these.
But, heh, Christmas is coming...
But, heh, Christmas is coming...
Techeblog.com has possible gifts for you:
"We bring you the “Top 20 Strangest Gadgets and Accessories” that our editors have come across in recent time. If we happened to miss any, please leave us a comment."
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Politicians - Obamas' 2005 household income
Politics seems to pay pretty well...
The website, ChicagoBusiness.com, reports:
"(AP) — For the Barack Obama household, 2005 was a very good year.
Not only was Obama sworn in as a freshman U.S. senator, but he reaped big bucks from book deals and his wife got her own promotion and hefty pay raise, as their total reported household income surpassed the total from seven previous years combined.
According to joint tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service and released to the Associated Press, the Obamas, with their two girls, had $1.67 million in total income last year — about $70,000 more than the total for all of 1998 through 2004."
Politicians - and their Purple Hearts
Well, at least he's not lying about it...
In FrontPage Magazine Patrick Poole asks:
"Did Jack Murtha Lie for His Purple Hearts?"
"But there are real questions surrounding Murtha’s Vietnam-era military service, particularly the circumstances surrounding the issuance of his two Purple Hearts. And like John Kerry, Murtha has thus far refused to release all his military records."
Politicians - Ugh!
Well, at least he's not lying about it...
In a Sun Gazette article before the elections, Scott McCaffrey wrote:
"'When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I'm going to earmark the shit out of it,' Moran buoyantly told a crowd of 450 attending the event."
Justice served?
If this doesn't have you shaking your head, nothing will...
Art Moore discusses a seeming injustice:
"'This is the greatest miscarriage of justice that I've seen in my career,' he told WND. 'Two brave Border Patrol agents trying to enforce the president's nonsensical border policy ending up being sent to prison, while an illegal alien drug smuggler is given immunity and walks free.'"
Hybrid marijuana plants can't be killed?
Yikes! And this is in only one week...
In a Washington Post article, Mark Stevenson writes:
"In the past week, soldiers and federal police have found 1,795 marijuana fields covering 585 acres in Michoacan, security officials said."
Jimmy Carter - Strange stories
I wonder how much of this is true...
Judi McLeod writes at CanadaFreePress.com:
"'An investigation by the Censure Carter Committee into the financing for The Carter Center of Atlanta, Georgia founded by President Carter and his wife to advance his 'Blame America First' policies reveals that over $1,000,000 has been funneled from Bakr M. Bin Laden for the Saudi Bin Laden Group to the Carter Center,' says Censure Carter.Com in a mainstream media-ignored recent media release.
'In fact, an online report accuses former President Carter of meeting with 10 of Osama Bin Laden’s brothers early in 2000, Carter and his wife, Rosalyn followed up their meeting with a breakfast with Bakr Bin Laden in September 2000 and secured the first $200,000 towards the more than $1 million that has been received by the Carter Center.'"
Jimmy Carter - from Examiner.com
WOW. Here's another smackdown of Jimmy Carter...
From the Washington D.C. Examiner.com:
"WASHINGTON - There appears to be no bottom to the pit of specious vacuity in which former president Jimmy Carter has been falling since his massive repudiation by voters in his 1980 election loss to Ronald Reagan. Carter’s latest book — “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid” — poses a ridiculous argument and commits unforgivable intellectual sins while doing so.
The ridiculosity underlying Carter’s book is his assertion that Israel is imposing apartheid on the Palestinians by such measures as constructing the West Bank fence intended to keep suicide bombers and other terrorists from crossing into Israel to kill and maim."
Jimmy Carter - Says no to debate
Won't visit equals won't debate.
Is the AP headline soft on Jimmy Carter?...
Is the AP headline soft on Jimmy Carter?...
I found this Associated Press story at MassLive.com:
"Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David peace accord between Israel and Egypt and who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, has said the goal of his book is to provoke dialogue and action.
'There is no debate in America about anything that would be critical of Israel,' he said.
But it's Carter who is unwilling to debate his own best-selling book, controversial because the title's inclusion of the word 'apartheid' appears to equate the treatment of Palestinians with the state-sanctioned racial segregation that once divided South Africa.
'President Carter said he wrote the book because he wanted to encourage more debate; then why won't he debate?' Dershowitz said."
Jimmy Carter - A harsh opinion
Whew! There's nothing held back in this article...
At WorldNet Daily, Melanie Morgan writes:
"This week saw new charges of lying, plagiarism and anti-Semitism directed toward Carter for a new book he's authored. These latest missteps reinforced what many of us have long known: Jimmy Carter is a bitter man who has recklessly celebrated tyranny, given cover to our enemies and undermined the forces of liberty.
No other prominent American has so often pursued appeasement and kinder treatment of the agents of evil: the communist Soviet bloc, the crack-pot communist regime in North Korea, the murderous communist regime in Cuba, Islamic radicals in Iran, Palestinian suicide sponsors, Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East and Hugo Chavez's Marxist regime in Venezuela to name a few."
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Politicians - In Italy
This is more serious than satire...
From the UCLA Asia Institute:
"Sixteen Italian politicians have been caught out for cocaine or cannabis use, testing positive in a trick drug test carried out by a television satire show."
Politicians - Alcee Hastings and friends
"Clinton Pardoned Hastings’s Co-Conspirator"
The convicted felon who went to jail rather than testify against Alcee Hastings...
...
The convicted felon who went to jail rather than testify against Alcee Hastings...
...
At the National Review Online, Byron York covers Alcee Hastings:
"William Borders was a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer when, in 1981, he was charged with conspiring with his good friend, federal judge Alcee Hastings, to solicit bribes from defendants seeking lenient treatment in Hastings’s courtroom. Hastings was charged, too, though the men were tried separately. When it was all over, Borders was convicted, disbarred, and sentenced to five years in jail. Hastings was acquitted, but later impeached and removed from office."
Politics - No integrity in this story
Mrs. Pelosi wisely skipped over this guy; but, even so, the shortage of ethics just goes on and on.
One couldn't even make this stuff up...
One couldn't even make this stuff up...
At TCS Daily, J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss write about it:
"Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reported this past June that Hastings is one of a dozen chronic absentees in the current Congress—which raises questions about Ms. Griddine's scheduling acumen. The American Policy Center (APC), a conservative group, has called attention to the fact that, in recent years, Hastings has been under investigation for other ethics violations by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The APC reports that Hastings has also been investigated by the Florida Elections Commission and the Federal Election Commission for various charges of impropriety. Political Money Line, a watchdog group that tracks money in national politics, points out that Hastings ranks second among all American lawmakers in the number of taxpayer-funded trips he has taken since 1994, at a price tag of over $152,000 (not counting expenses incurred by his accompanying "assistants"). Many of those trips were taken on behalf of the OSCE to "monitor elections." The irony of one of Congress's most corrupt members being tasked to monitor electoral fraud should presumably shock even Hastings' original nominator, election supervisor par excellence Jimmy Carter."
Monday, December 18, 2006
Global Warming - An inconvenient fact
Apparently, it HAS been globally warm before...
In the Canadien Free Press, Vasko Kohlmayer picks on politicians, while offering some interesting data:
"Energized by the latest election results, the global warming community is getting ready for a major push to stop what is referred to as climate change. Claiming that it represents a major threat to our survival, they argue for tough laws to contain the ecological calamity that is allegedly unfolding even as we speak. At the center of their legislative efforts will be Barbara Boxer, the incoming chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. A fierce environmental crusader, Ms. Boxer has already promised ‘a very long process of extensive hearings.’ It is to be hoped that among the many dire scenarios that will undoubtedly be painted, someone asks this simple question:
Have you ever wondered how it is possible that coal deposits exist in Alaska?
Given that coal forms from plant matter smoldering in the basins of warm swamps, the Alaskan tundra must have once been overgrown with Amazon-style forests. But for those forests to flourish a hot and humid climate was required, completely unlike the one that prevails there today."
Global Warming - Thatcher economist de-hypes climate debate
A "sheer force of reason in public debate".
I wish we could get more of it...
I wish we could get more of it...
At AmericanThinker.com, Peter C. Glover covers a recent speech:
"Lawson then goes back to basics. First, is global warming occurring? Second, if so, why? And third, what should be done about it? As to the first, he cites the Hadley Centre for Climate Change
Noting that carbon dioxide emissions are an important contributor to the build up of greenhouse gases (gases which keep the earth warmer than it would otherwise be) he points out that carbon emissions are 'a long way back' behind the major contributor - water vapour, including in cloud form - and that 'neither is a pollutant'. He confirms the published view of the British Met Office that attributes around 0.3 degrees C out of the 0.5 degrees increase between 1975 and 2000 to man-made sources of greenhouse gases. 'But this is highly uncertain, and reputable climate scientists differ sharply over the subject. It is simply not true to say that the science is settled.' And he cites the intervention of the Royal Society 'to prevent the funding of climate scientists who do not share its alarmist view' as 'truly shocking'. He goes on to identify from where our uncertainty ought to derive:"
And this later paragraph also caught my attention...
The irrationality and intolerance of Eco-fundamentalism, says Lawson, regards the "questioning of its mantras" as "a form of blasphemy." And he concludes with an apocalyptic vision of his own - and one far more devastating in its consequences than Climate Change: "There is no greater threat to the people of this planet than the retreat from reason we see all around us today."
Global Warming - No debate allowed?
This seems like a bit too much.
I have to wonder what these politicians are thinking.
Or IF they are thinking...
I have to wonder what these politicians are thinking.
Or IF they are thinking...
From the editors of the Wall Street Opinion Journal:
"Washington has no shortage of bullies, but even we can't quite believe an October 27 letter that Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe sent to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Its message: Start toeing the Senators' line on climate change, or else.
We reprint the full text of the letter here, so readers can see for themselves. But its essential point is that the two Senators believe global warming is a fact, and therefore all debate about the issue must stop and ExxonMobil should 'end its dangerous support of the [global warming] 'deniers.' ' Not only that, the company 'should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history.' And in extra penance for being 'one of the world's largest carbon emitters,' Exxon should spend that money on 'global remediation efforts.'"
Global Warming - It's the cattle, stupid!
This looks like trouble.
But remember, cows are revered in India, so political correctness is required...
But remember, cows are revered in India, so political correctness is required...
Geoffrey Lean, the Environment Editor for "The Independent" writes:
"Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs."
Global Warming - Predictions are fallible
OK. Sarcasm is on.
Based on experience, why would we trust what weathermen say?...
Based on experience, why would we trust what weathermen say?...
Here's another Steven Milloy takedown:
"Consider NOAA’s predictions for the 2006 hurricane season in the context of the manmade global warming hypothesis.
Despite the vast collective expertise of NOAA scientists, immense quantities of atmospheric and oceanic data, and unprecedented computing power, NOAA failed miserably in predicting weather events a mere six months into the future – and reiterated those same ill-conceived predictions at mid-season.
Yet global warming alarmists, including those at NOAA, expect us to unthinkingly buy into their dire forecasts of global warming – predictions that extend 100 years or more into the future. Forecasting global climate change decades into the future can only be described as orders of magnitude more complex than forecasting an imminent, six month-long hurricane season.
And let’s not forget that the mathematical climate models used to forecast future global climate gloom-and-doom don’t come close to matching up with historical climate change. How can we reasonably expect them to be predictors of the future climate change? Is it wise to spend trillions of dollars based on such predictions?"
Global Warming - and Al Gore
OOPS!...
Peter Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do). At USAToday.com, he reports:
"Graciously, Gore tells consumers how to change their lives to curb their carbon-gobbling ways: Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, use a clothesline, drive a hybrid, use renewable energy, dramatically cut back on consumption. Better still, responsible global citizens can follow Gore's example, because, as he readily points out in his speeches, he lives a 'carbon-neutral lifestyle.' But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed."
Global Warming - And cloud cover
This article describes a credible study that disputes the "caused by humans" hysteria...
At FoxNews.com, Steven Milloy reports:
"That is, cloud cover changes over a 5-year period can have 85 percent of the temperature effect on the Earth that has been claimed to have been caused by nearly 200 years of manmade carbon dioxide emissions. The temperature effects of cloud cover during the 20th century could be as much as 7 times greater than the alleged temperature effect of 200 years worth of additional carbon dioxide and several times greater than that of all additional greenhouse gases combined.
So although it has been taken for granted by global warming alarmists that human activity has caused the climate to warm, Svensmark’s study strongly challenges this assumption.
Given that the cosmic ray effect described by Svensmark would be more than sufficient to account for the net estimated temperature change since the Industrial Revolution, the key question becomes: Has human activity actually warmed, cooled or had no net impact on the planet?"
Global Warming - More Evidence of Arctic Warmth (a long time ago)
This blog claims to be "The Web’s Longest-Running Climate Change Blog"...
In this posting, they discuss "unprecedented" Artic warming:
"In any case, how close to being 'unprecedentedly' warm are we in our northerly latitudes? (We focus here on the Arctic because the Antarctic has been cooling for the past several decades, so that pretty much eliminates temperatures there from being unprecedented)."
"The answer, not very."
"In fact, today’s temperatures aren’t even close to being 'unprecedented.'"
Global Warming - A Look at 1930
Here's one of those "inconvenient" historical and factual records...
Randy Hall has learned:
"'From June 1 to August 31, 1930, 21 days had high temperatures that were 100 degrees or above' in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service. 'That summer has never been approached, and it's not going to be approached this year.'"
"Between July 19 and Aug. 9 of that year, heat records were set on nine days and they remain unbroken more than three-quarters of a century later. 'That's hot,' added Michaels, who also serves as professor of natural resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va."
Thursday, December 14, 2006
A Nice story
Now this is what I think America is all about.
There's much more to this article than just the words...
There's much more to this article than just the words...
I found this article from May of 2006, at USA Today:
"Soldier gives his Purple Heart to student"
The Clintons - Enron and Clinton
For the record:
It looks like Enron gave equal opportunity to BOTH Republicans AND Democrats; however, the media continues to only (heavy-handedly) report one party's involvement...
It looks like Enron gave equal opportunity to BOTH Republicans AND Democrats; however, the media continues to only (heavy-handedly) report one party's involvement...
I found this article from May of 2003, by Charles R. Smith that evens the playing field:
"Dirty Deals and the DNC Cash Machine"
"Fiction writers documented the fall of Enron as a scandal to be linked to President Bush. Yet the U.S. Commerce Department has just released over 5,000 pages of documents that detail the Enron scandal during the Clinton years."
"The Commerce materials outline a long-standing and very close relationship between the Clinton administration and Enron. For example, in March 1999 U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley's trade delegation to China produced several sweet business deals, including a special little gem for Enron."
The White House web site
For anyone who is interested, following is the link to the White House Official Web Site...
Here's the link: Welcome to the White House
The Media - C.A.M.E.R.A.
There's a website for everything. The acronym for this one is C.A.M.E.R.A.
I guess someone doesn't trust the media's reporting. Duh!...
I guess someone doesn't trust the media's reporting. Duh!...
Here's the link: C.A.M.E.R.A.
"Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America"
John Stossel - "Don't Put Much Stock in TV Experts"
Heard about the latest "can't miss" stock investment?
I'd bet this applies to "experts" in other fields as well...
I'd bet this applies to "experts" in other fields as well...
This is from John Stossel:
"None of the big brokerage firms would talk to me about their failure to outperform dart-throwing monkeys,"
Politicians - And their influence?
I'd be angry too...
Senator's son sentenced to jail | www.azstarnet.com �: "Prosecutors recommended Bennett go tI'd be angry too. In more ways than one...
Senator's son sentenced to jail | www.azstarnet.com �: "Prosecutors recommended Bennett go tI'd be angry too. In more ways than one...
This is from Stephanie Innes in the Arizona Star:
"Prosecutors recommended Bennett go to jail for 90 days and Wheeler for 180. Landis had no comment after the sentencing, referring all calls to Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, who responded to media requests with an e-mail defending her office's response to the case and stressing that Bennett did not get any special treatment.
Lenora Nelson, Clifton Bennett's aunt, echoed that sentiment outside the courthouse after the sentencing, saying she believes her nephew was actually held to a higher standard.
'He's being made an example of because his dad is a political figure,' she said."
Stem Cells - Michael Reagan
More commentary on the two types of stem cells...
This is from Michael Reagan:
"All across the country, Democrats and their lackeys in the media distort the issue by portraying those opposed to embryonic stem cell research as being opposed to all stem cell research, refusing to draw the crucial distinction between the two types."
"In addition to this dishonest tactic, proponents of ESC research inevitably claim that it is the form of research holding out the most promise as an effective means of curing a host of serious physical and mental disorders, while either ignoring or downplaying the incredible results now demonstrated in adult and core-blood stem cell research."
Stem Cells - An explanation from Vision and Values
The differences DO seem to be almost always not stated...
Dr. Durwood B. Ray makes this point:
"The vagueness of the term “stem cell research” is one of the biggest problems in the ongoing stem cell debate. Writers, debaters, scientists, public figures and politicians should differentiate between “embryonic stem cell research” and “non-embryonic stem cell research” in order to keep the meanings clear."
Stem Cells - from CatholicEducation.org
This article is titled, "The truth about embryonic stem cell therapies".
It offers information and background on stem cell research...
It offers information and background on stem cell research...
At CatholicEducation.org, Ryan T. Anderson writes:
"The truth, of course, is that there are no human embryonic stem-cell therapies even in clinical trial, let alone ready for therapy, and there have been no major treatment models in animals, either. Adult stem cells, however, have already been successful in treating more than seventy different diseases in actual human beings."
"Readers of First Things are well aware that the main objection to current methods of embryonic stem-cell research is that they involve the destruction of living human embryos, that is, human beings at the embryonic stage in their lives. This is a principled objection to the direct and intentional killing of human beings."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Threat is Out There
Uh Oh!...
In Popular Mechanics, David Noland reports:
"Scientists calculate that if Apophis passes at a distance of exactly 18,893 miles, it will go through a 'gravitational keyhole.' This small region in space—only about a half mile wide, or twice the diameter of the asteroid itself—is where Earth's gravity would perturb Apophis in just the wrong way, causing it to enter an orbit seven-sixths as long as Earth's. In other words, the planet will be squarely in the crosshairs for a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact precisely seven years later, on April 13, 2036."
"Radar and optical tracking during Apophis's fly-by last summer put the odds of the asteroid passing through the keyhole at about 45,000-to-1."
Government - In Action
Perhaps there is some truth to the theory that people who can't qualify for a job elsewhere, end up working for the government...
From the The Waterbury Connecticut Republican American Newspaper editorial page:
"Since the last audit, the GAO said, FEMA has wasted tens of millions more, including $17 million in rental payments to evacuees already living in free FEMA trailers, $20 million to double-dippers claiming damage to the same property from Katrina and Rita, and $3 million to more than 500 foreign students who were ineligible for aid. On top of that, taxpayers have forked over untold millions to the Justice Department for its Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force, which was assembled days after the disaster as the government braced for a tsunami of bogus aid claims. Though nearly 1 million cases of fraud have been documented, to date, charges have been brought against only a few hundred people."
Politicians - Texas ethics
Something seem wrong here?...
In the Houston Chronicle, Lisa Sandberg reports:
"AUSTIN — A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as 'currency,' without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday."
"The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who unabashedly accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws."
Politicians - Right in broad daylight
Cronyism. It can't be any more conspicuous than this.
Can it?...
Can it?...
Mario F. Cattabiani reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"HARRISBURG - Out of a job for only two weeks, former State Sen. Joe Conti today will be named chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, a newly created $150,000-a-year post with the nation's largest buyer of wine and spirits.
The Rendell administration pushed the appointment of the Bucks County Republican, calling him perfect for the job. Yet the news was immediately met with outrage by the LCB chairman.
'This is not transparency in public government,' said Jonathan Newman, adding that he learned of Conti's hiring when Rendell's office gave him a job description for the new position at 3 p.m. yesterday.
'I'm very disappointed and very concerned that this is what government comes down to.'
Conti, who served for 12 years in the House and Senate before retiring at the end of November, will make more than twice the chairman's $65,572 salary and be in charge of day-to-day operations of the agency, which operates 643 state liquor stores.
If a chief executive officer was needed, Newman said, there should have been a nationwide search."
Politicians - Protecting their own futures?
I found this in the Washington Times.
It rings true to me...
It rings true to me...
At RealClearPolitics.com, Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough close their article with this:
"An Army Green Beret told us:
'The Iraq Study Group has taken a chapter out of our old playbook in Vietnam known as 'Vietnamization.' It predictably failed then, as this will now. The Democrats and Republicans now have a policy which will protect their candidates in future elections. As a bipartisan document, it is a politically marvelous way of abandoning Iraq without paying the political price at home as the party that lost the war.
'Iraq will not be capable of fielding a national army capable of providing security in three years, regardless of how many advisers we provide. The supposedly secret 'three courses of action' to 'go big, go long, or go home' have been discussed for years at all levels. The only politically viable solution to stabilizing Iraq has always been to 'go long' and dig in for a decade of nation building. That course of action is contingent upon the will of the American people, however, and the report represents the belief that we have already lost our will.
'The report proposes a politically palatable method of disengaging and going home without paying the full political price at home. The tragedy is that we chose to destroy that country and are now choosing to leave it in ashes. It is shameful. When the jihadis arise from this debacle and once again bring terror to American soil, as they rose from the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan and delivered us 9/11, we will have only ourselves to blame.'"
Politicians - The election rhetoric has no longevity
After reading this article, I'm guessing it will be "business as usual".
These congress critters are clearly addicted to spending our money on "pork"...
These congress critters are clearly addicted to spending our money on "pork"...
At RealClearPolitics.com, Robert Novak begins:
"The sterile, confused lame-duck session of the Republican-controlled 109th Congress ended with a quiet victory by reformers that staved off an estimated 10,000 earmarks. But it could not be called a farewell to pork. Last Thursday, as the House neared adjournment, Democrats signaled they may countenance a return to free and easy spending ways when they assume the majority Jan. 4."
Politicians - Integrity and Ethics?
So, on a scale of 1 to 100, how would you rate the ethics of our politicians?...
FoxNews.com has this story "William Jefferson's Victory May Complicate Things for Nancy Pelosi":
"Jefferson won a runoff election Saturday despite being dogged by a federal corruption investigation and FBI allegations that he had $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer."
...
"Sloan said it will be especially difficult to deny Jefferson a committee assignment because another Democrat under FBI investigation, Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, is in line to become chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the bureau's budget. Mollohan, whose personal finances have come under scrutiny, is now the top Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee that sets the budget for the Justice Department."
"The lingering Jefferson and Mollohan cases may increase pressure for creation of an independent Office of Public Integrity to investigate lawmakers' behavior."
'The concern is whether that culture of corruption was merely a campaign issue,' Sloan said, 'or whether they will follow through.'"
Politicians - Representative Silvestre Reyes
About the incoming Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee...
And there's a little more...
Jeff Stein writes at CQ.com:
"The dialogue went like this:
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.
That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics."
And there's a little more...
from Reuters at Yahoo.com:
Politicians - In San Diego
"I'm not surprised", says my cynical side...
The San Diego Union-Tribune thinks politicians are "Hitting a new low":
"In an era when political tawdriness is so commonplace that much misbehavior barely elicits shrugs, it takes a truly audacious act to make jaws drop. Congratulations are thus in order for Juan Vargas for doing something that stuns even jaded political junkies."
Monday, December 04, 2006
The Media - More on that AP story (see previous post)
This is what the NY Times says...
Michelle Malkin calls it, "The alleged war atrocity that the NYTimes can't substantiate", and points out:
"Left out of the article, as Allah notes, is Zeller's discovery that the NYTimes reporter in Iraq could not substantiate the story. Zeller published the little-noticed e-mail he received from Times reporter Ed Wong on his blog last week:
Hi Tom,
You ask me about what our own reporting shows about this incident. When we first heard of the event on Nov. 24, through the A.P. story and a man named Imad al-Hashemi talking about it on television, we had our Iraqi reporters make calls to people in the Hurriya neighborhood. Because of the curfew that day, everything had to be done by phone. We reached several people who told us about the mosque attacks, but said they had heard nothing of Sunni worshippers being burned alive. Any big news event travels quickly by word of mouth through Baghdad, aided by the enormous proliferation of cell phones here. Such an incident would have been so abominable that a great many of the residents in Hurriya, as well as in other Sunni Arab districts, would have been in an uproar over it. Hard-line Sunni Arab organizations such as the Muslim Scholars Association or the Iraqi Islamic Party would almost certainly have appeared on television that day or the next to denounce this specific incident. Iraqi clerics and politicians are not shy about doing this. Yet, as far as I know, there was no widespread talk of the incident. So I mentioned it only in passing in my report.
Best,
Ed Wong"
The Media - Did the AP get caught?
It certainly isn't easy to know who or what to believe...
The StrategyPage blog claims, "AP Gets Caught Working For The Enemy":
"November 30, 2006: Two blogs, Gateway Pundit and Flopping Aces, have uncovered what appears to be a serious screw-up by the Associated Press in its coverage of Iraq. It appears that this American media outlet passed on terrorist propaganda, perhaps willingly. The mistake in question involves at least ten stories since April 27 in which a Captain Jemil Hussein was a source. Six of these stories involved alleged massacres of Sunni Arabs. Four others involved unknown victims. A second AP source in the Iraqi police, Lieutenant Maithem Abdul Rizzaq, is also proving to be nonexistent, according to Central Command and the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior."
The Media - Why Is the MSM Ignoring This Priest Scandal?
I guess some stories are more "interesting" than others...
At NewsBusters.org, Dave Pierre asks, "Why Is the MSM Ignoring This Priest Scandal? Could It Be ...?" :
"The story: A priest works at a Miami high school as a history teacher and assistant chaplain. Nude photographs of him interacting physically with other men are discovered on the Internet. The priest resigns from his job. Graphic Internet photos are readily available for the media."
"In light of the recent media frenzy over Rev. Ted Haggard (5,500 results at Google News), it sounds like everything would be ripe for a story that the media would just love to jump all over. But, curiously, the mainstream media has essentially ignored this story. Why?"
