Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Blame America First - The default assumption
This is one of those "must read" articles (in my humble opinion)...
At TownHall.com, Michael Barone writes:
"On campuses, students are bombarded with denunciations of dead white males and urged to engage in the deconstruction of all past learning and scholarship.
Not all of this takes, of course. Most students have enough good sense to see that the campus radicals' description of the world is wildly at odds with reality. But this battering away at ideas of truth and goodness does have some effect. Very many of our university graduates emerge with the default assumption thoroughly wired into their mental software. And, it seems, they carry it with them for most of their adult lives.
The default assumption predisposes them to believe that if there is slaughter in Darfur, it is our fault; if there are IEDs in Iraq, it is our fault; if peasants in Latin America are living in squalor, it is our fault; if there are climate changes that have any bad effect on anybody, it is our fault.
What they have been denied in their higher education is an accurate view of history and America's place in it. Many adults actively seek what they have been missing: witness the robust sales of books on the Founding Fathers. Witness, also, the robust sales of British historian Andrew Roberts's splendid 'History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900.'"
Taxes Paid and Tax Benefits
Hmmm!
Some would have us think differently...
Some would have us think differently...
I found this tidbit at TaxFoundation.org:
"Overall, we find that America's lowest-earning one-fifth of households received roughly $8.21 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid in 2004. Households with middle-incomes received $1.30 per tax dollar, and America's highest-earning households received $0.41. Government spending targeted at the lowest-earning 60 percent of U.S. households is larger than what they paid in federal, state and local taxes."
Politicians - Magicians?
Well, this implicates the State of Arizona; however, we can be sure that this trick permeates all of our governments...
Noah Clarke provides this info at the Goldwater Institute:
"Government’s favorite trick is debt financing. From interest rates to payment schedules, debt financing is complex, making it easier to mislead voters. When campaigning for debt financing, policymakers tell voters they will be the beneficiaries of millions in new spending without having their taxes raised."
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Global Warming - Let the skeptics have at it
This author makes the most excellent point.
Unfortunately, most of those carrying the global warming banner are NOT scientists, and their claims are being trumpeted by those who are NOT scientists...
Unfortunately, most of those carrying the global warming banner are NOT scientists, and their claims are being trumpeted by those who are NOT scientists...
John Dale Dunn's comments will be in the April "Environment News", which is published by the Heartland Institute. Here's one of them:
"Scientific Method Ignored"
"Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, noted the irony of scientists calling for draconian reprisals against skeptics of global warming alarmism."
"The entire scientific method is built upon the enormous value of skepticism,' Burnett said. 'Good science depends on skeptical voices challenging the dominant belief until theory is proven to be fact. Until and unless all reasonable doubt has been removed from a scientific theory, scientific challenge and debate is essential to the scientific process and, ultimately, human well-being. History has certainly proven that over and over again."
"With this in mind, what they should be doing is stripping away the credentials of those who seek to stifle scientific debate. Those who seek to stifle scientific debate are the true enemies of science," Burnett added."
The Clintons - the latest book about them
When it comes to the Clinton's, there are many opinions...
I personally don't have much faith in the accuracy or the completeness of the media's coverage.
And I'm not sure about all of the "hit" books about them.
But then, perhaps "where there's smoke, there's fire", holds true...
I personally don't have much faith in the accuracy or the completeness of the media's coverage.
And I'm not sure about all of the "hit" books about them.
But then, perhaps "where there's smoke, there's fire", holds true...
Anyway, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.'s book is titled "Clinton Crack Up". The NewsMax.com website discusses it:
"Press clippings might suggest Bill Clinton has led a charmed existence since vacating the White House — globe-trotting and giving $100,000 speeches, basking in the spotlight, and joyfully waiting for his significant other to return the power couple to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But now a newly released book rips the mask off the Clinton charade, and R. Emmett Tyrrell's blockbuster will be an unwelcome addition to the barrage of criticism the Clintons have received along the way to the expected anointing of President Hillary."
Foreign Aid to Africa - Bad?
I wouldn't want to say charity is bad; however, there are often unintended consequences.
Aid to Africa seems to highlight everything that can go wrong...
Aid to Africa seems to highlight everything that can go wrong...
This interview (it's not new) in Germany's Der Spiegel explains why. Here's the beginning:
"SPIEGEL:
Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...
Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid."
Medical News - Something different
I'm sure this practice would be difficult for most of us to sign up for...
In San Antonio's Express News, Dane Schiller reports:
"In the United States, more than 300 practitioners, clinics and medical centers, including two in Texas, are putting maggots to work, according to the University of California at Irvine Health Sciences Web site."
Balloonacy - Interesting word
Of course, we live in an interesting world...
You can see what I mean in this article at New Hampshire's UnionLeader.com website. It begins:
"Imagine you are at the county fair this fall. You buy your kid a balloon, and -- oops! -- there it goes into the sky. Drying the kid's tears will be the least of your worries. A nearby police officer steps over, whips out his ticket pad, and suddenly you're stuck with a $250 fine."
Saturday, March 24, 2007
"Lights, Camera, Action"
This blogger seems to be seeing what I'm seeing.
I wonder how many others see the same thing...
I wonder how many others see the same thing...
This is one of several good paragraphs in a post at the eeevilconservative blog:
"Does it give anyone pause to see how these folks actually live their lives? Hollywood pumps out movies and sit-coms designed to lecture us about our bigotry, and DC passes bill after bill to spend YOUR money to line their coffers with enough cash to keep them living the cocktail party, jet-set lives as they not only look at us with disdain; but let’s face it folks, they are laughing at us all the way to the bank. Just as an example, how does anyone argue with any amount of honesty or sincerity that we cannot afford to protect our borders and then turn around and vote for a bill with over 6,000 EARMARKS? Not ONE of these “public servants” could possibly have ANY idea what they actually voted for and passed into law. And where was President Bush’s VETO PEN on such a ridiculous and scandalous injustice to the American people?"
Pat Boone - wants the truth
Well, so do I.
Now, how do we get politicians, the news media, and the fine print artists to cooperate?...
Now, how do we get politicians, the news media, and the fine print artists to cooperate?...
Here's Pat Boone writing at WorldNetDaily.com:
"Certain huge whoppers keep circulating, and they've been repeated so often, so insistently – and increasingly by people who should know better and probably do – that they are being accepted as fact. It's become so irritating to me that I feel I've got to shout: 'Quit saying that! It's not so.'
Someone else said famously, 'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free'; and since I'm a fan of both freedom and truth, I want to set the record straight on certain things. Some now, and some next week."
Iran - Chess Masters
I am of the opinion that the fast-paced, sound-bite oriented, instant gratification culture of America, is no match for cultures that see change in biblical proportions and have the patience and fortitude to wait generations in order to accomplish their goals.
Like water dripping on a stone, they will wear us down over the long term, if we don't change our ways of thinking...
Like water dripping on a stone, they will wear us down over the long term, if we don't change our ways of thinking...
Here's what Walid Phares thinks:
"The capture of British Navy servicemen by Iranian forces is not simply an incident over sea sovereignty in the Persian Gulf. It is a calculated move on behalf of Teheran’s Jihadi chess players to provoke a “projected” counter move by London and its American allies. It is all happening in a regional context, carefully engineered by the Mullahs strategic planners. Here is how:"
War on Terror - Lawyers & Armchair Generals
I can't help thinking that trying to avoid the collateral damage described "over there" will have the consequence of catastrophic collateral damage "over here", sometime in the future.
But, why worry, there'll be ambulance chasers to help us then, too...
But, why worry, there'll be ambulance chasers to help us then, too...
Michael Franc writes at TownHall.com:
"Get ready for the invasion of the armchair generals. With 535 Capitol Hill generals struggling to define every aspect of when and how our troops in Iraq may be deployed, timetables for their withdrawal and specific requirements for how, when and against whom they may strike, the challenge of winning the war in Iraq is about to get a whole lot tougher.
Historically, micromanaging wars from afar squanders opportunities to defeat the enemy. Consider the well-reported episode late in 2001 when U.S. military leaders had top Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists in the crosshairs of an armed airborne drone, only to allow them to escape thanks to what the Washington Post described as 'a cumbersome approval process.' This process gave military leaders in Tampa, Fla., rather than on-site field commanders, authority to approve strikes against terrorist targets. Not surprisingly, this 'bottleneck' benefited terrorists at least 10 times in one six-week period. 'Imagine', one officer told the Post, 'you have a target in sight [and] you have to wake up people in the middle of the night, and they say, 'Uhhhhhh.'"
Especially when those groggy-eyed decision makers are lawyers. 'The Central Command's top lawyer,' one Air Force official acknowledged, 'repeatedly refused to permit strikes even when the targets were unambiguously military in nature.' These lawyers nixed the attacks out of excessive caution, reasoning that noncombatants might suffer 'collateral damage.'"
Immigration - 5 strikes?
I guess this issue is not very important to the powers that be.
That would be those who want the voting support of certain people...
That would be those who want the voting support of certain people...
I found this in an article at WorldNetDaily.com:
"It generally takes six arrests before U.S. prosecutors are willing to bring criminal charges against illegal immigrants caught crossing the border, according to documents released in the controversy about eight fired U.S. attorneys.
The prosecution guidelines were disclosed in a heavily redacted Department of Justice memo from late 2005, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The paper said DOJ officials declined to say yesterday whether the department had made any changes since the memo was written, citing 'law enforcement reasons.'
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told the Chronicle border agents are frustrated with the prosecution guidelines, noting smugglers have figured out the criteria by trial and error.
'It's devastating on morale,' Bonner said. 'Our agents are risking their lives out there, and then they're told, 'Sorry, that doesn't meet the criteria.'"
Iraq WMD's - Still around?
Or maybe, he's just pumping his book in the American way.
I wonder if history will reveal the truth...
I wonder if history will reveal the truth...
This is from an Ira Stoll interview in the New York Sun back in January:
"The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, 'Saddam's Secrets,' released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.
'There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,' Mr. Sada said. 'I am confident they were taken over.'
Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam 'transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.'
Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in 2003. And President Bush himself has conceded much of the point; in a televised prime-time address to Americans last month, he said, 'It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.'
Said Mr. Bush, 'We did not find those weapons.'
The discovery of the weapons in Syria could alter the American political debate on the Iraq war. And even the accusations that they are there could step up international pressure on the government in Damascus. That government, led by Bashar Assad, is already facing a U.N. investigation over its alleged role in the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon. The Bush administration has criticized Syria for its support of terrorism and its failure to cooperate with the U.N. investigation."
Friday, March 23, 2007
Politicians - Bait and Switch?
Obviously, a lot of people fell for the "bait".
When are we ever going to learn?...
When are we ever going to learn?...
The San Diego Union-Tribune's editorial begins thusly:
"Democrats wasted no time after their takeover of Congress in November in declaring a new era of responsible government. Party leaders said earmarks and massive, blithe pork-barrel spending would be a thing of the past. 'We promise the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history,' declared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Initially, Democrats seemed to live up to their grand talk. To the amazement of many, incoming Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd – the West Virginia Democrat who may be the biggest pork abuser of all – joined with incoming House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey to vow there would be no new earmarks until the next fiscal year began on Oct. 1.
This was all wonderful, welcome and overdue. Federal spending has been out of control since the final years of the Clinton administration. While earmarks and pork are only a relatively small part of the reason why, controlling them would be a welcome sign of a newly sober, adult attitude on Congress' part.
Too bad it was all a charade. "
Oil - About those prices
"Supply and demand". A basic of economics.
More demand or less supply equals higher prices.
So, we have to decrease demand, OR increase supply, to get lower prices.
Duh!...
More demand or less supply equals higher prices.
So, we have to decrease demand, OR increase supply, to get lower prices.
Duh!...
In today's editorial, at Investors.com:
"Before greedy oil companies are blamed, we need to remind our state and national legislators that the law of supply and demand can't be repealed. No new refineries have been built in decades, and no new domestic supplies of oil have been developed. Our economy and our transport needs continue to grow. Do the math."
Politicians - Al Gore - Final Answer?
"Put up or shut up" might be the appropriate paraphrase.
Could it be that "the emperor has no clothes"?...
Could it be that "the emperor has no clothes"?...
This is from Terry Keenan's column at FoxNews.com:
"While the newly anointed Oscar winner has made what Katie Couric called a 'triumphant return' to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Gore was tripped up by a simple question from Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. Late into the hearing, Inhofe showed Gore a clip from his film, 'An Inconvenient Truth.' The clip challenged the audience with this question: 'Are you ready to change the way you live?'
Simple enough. But Inhofe took this question a step further, by placing it right at the foot of the former vice president. Correctly noting that Gore is adored by hundreds of thousands for his green message, Inhofe asked the Tennessee Democrat if he'd be willing to pledge to 'consume no more energy for use in your residence than the average American household by one year from today?'
It was a 'gotcha' moment, and one that was not widely reported in the mainstream media. Gore refused to take the pledge, adding that, 'we live a carbon-neutral life.'"
Politicians - Al Gore disobeys the rules
I've seen the comment about violating the rules in a few places; but I don't think it's likely to show up in the major media...
Here's the opening paragraph from a article in Canada's National Post:
"The last month has not been kind to Al Gore. Instead of basking in the warm afterglow of winning an Oscar for his blockbuster documentary An Inconvenient Truth and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the former U.S. vice-president turned global warming evangelist has had to spend much of his time fending off questions about his own personal impact on the environment. He has also had to ward off allegations from scientists -- many of whom nonetheless support his views on climate change -- that his movie (and his worldwide pitch tour that has accompanied it) contain substantial factual errors and exaggerations. Perhaps all this is why Mr. Gore violated U.S. Congressional rules Wednesday by refusing to provide members of the U.S. Congress with advanced copies of his testimony at two environmental hearings on Capitol Hill, and why he refused to take a 'personal energy ethics pledge' to reduce his 'carbon footprint.'
Politicians - at work
Nothing is as it appears to be.
No wonder their approval ratings are even worse than the President's...
No wonder their approval ratings are even worse than the President's...
This is from today's editorial in the Washington Post:
"As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of MoveOn.org but excludes the judgment of the U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat the bill mandates. It would heap money on unneedy dairy farmers while provoking a constitutional fight with the White House that could block the funding to equip troops in the field. Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations. They should not seek to use pork to buy a majority for an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support."
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Kudos to Nancy Morgan
If you don't read anything else, please read this.
But not if you are overly sensitive to political incorrectness...
But not if you are overly sensitive to political incorrectness...
RightBias.com or whatever, Nancy Morgan is not afraid to say what she is thinking. She begins:
"While I was on vacation last week, someone passed a law against saying the word 'faggot.' Unless you're actually a f.g..t and then I guess it's OK. This law must have been passed by the same people who declared that the words 'nigger' and 'towel-heads' are also illegal. Unless you're black, Muslim or democrat or.. It's all getting very confusing.
I know I didn't vote for any of these new laws and I can't find a record of them anywhere. I don't know how they managed to become the new rules. And yet they keep popping up all over the place. For example, did you know it has been decreed that men and women are now the same? That's right, there are now no differences between the sexes."
Politicians - and their games
I expect more from a former Vice President.
Can you agree that this seems really childish...
Can you agree that this seems really childish...
From NewsMax.com:
"Gore decided to arrive late, so he wouldn't have to suffer through the Republicans' opening statement.
He was seen waiting in a hall outside the committee room, Fox News reported. Republicans also objected to the fact that they received Gore's written testimony at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning - hours after Democrats received it."
Here comes the government again!
In America, it would seem that the "free market" might be able to take care of this. If it gets legislated, there will most likely be a "black market" for light bulbs manufactured elsewhere and smuggled in the country.
[Sarcasm] I wonder if light bulbs will be hidden in cocaine bundles or if cocaine will be hidden in light bulbs. [sarcasm off]...
[Sarcasm] I wonder if light bulbs will be hidden in cocaine bundles or if cocaine will be hidden in light bulbs. [sarcasm off]...
On the Cybercast News Service website, Nathan Burchfiel reports:
..."Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) introduced legislation that would set target dates for certain types of light bulbs to be prohibited for sale in the United States.
Harman calls the bill 'an important first step toward making every household, business and public building in America more energy-efficient.'
'This legislation, while a small step, could have an enormous impact,' she said in a posting on the liberal Huffington Post blog. 'And hopefully, it can help transform America into an energy-efficient and energy-independent nation.'"
Gambling - "Lottery Losers"
Government working for us with a tax on those who can least afford it?
Just great...
Just great...
William Willimon discusses them at Religion-Online.org:
"Lotteries spend a higher percentage of their sales on advertising than the average corporation. Last year. California spent $35 million advertising its lottery, followed by New York with an advertising budget of $15.7 million. Clotfelter and Cook found that in seven major lottery markets, three-quarters of the advertising time purchased by state government was for selling the state’s lotteries. The government is pushing the consumption of a specific product which is monopolized by the state and whose only public virtue is that it generates some revenue for state government."
Gambling - You can't win?
"But, even if there is not middle-man establishment, you still cannot win at gambling."...
Here's what they say at PathLights.com:
"Legalized gambling exists in forty-seven states and the District of Columbia. There are thirty state lotteries. It is estimated that there are now over 15 million compulsive gamblers in America.
People will buy ticket after ticket in order to win a state lottery, yet you are more likely to die in an airline crash than win a state lottery (about .5 million to 1). You are more likely to die in a car crash (about 6,000 to 1), and you are more likely to be hit by a falling object (15 to 1).
More money is spent each year on gambling in America than is spent on medical care, and this is half of what is spent on food. That is a lot of money. Yet the illusion is that gambling brings winnings, not losings.
In state lotteries, only about half the money taken in is paid out to the winners. A sizeable amount of the rest goes to finance the operation.
Gamblers meet with just as poor odds when they wager in other ways. Whether it be a racetrack or a casino, a lot of the money goes to the establishment, and far less is paid out in gambling winnings."
Gambling
You can read all about it here...
Wikipedia - Gambling:
"Gambling has had many different meanings depending on the cultural and historical context in which it is used. Currently, in western society, it has an economic definition, referring to 'wagering money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money or material goods'. Typically the outcome of the wager is evident within a short period of time."
Global Warming - Call the Bluff?
I'm with George Will.
Let's make Senators put their true feelings in a vote.
The sooner, the better.
And I can't help wondering if "Bush bashing" is somehow a significant part of all this?...
In NewsWeek, George Will writes:
"President Clinton and his earnest vice president knew better than to seek ratification of Kyoto by a Senate that had passed its resolution of disapproval 95-0. Fifty-six of those 95 senators are still serving. Two of them are John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. That is an inconvenient truth."
Global Warming - Adding 26.8 gigatons of ice per year
Well that sure doesn't fit the global warming mold at all.
And apparently, we've been led down this type of road before...
And apparently, we've been led down this type of road before...
It's in this Washington Times article by John Linder:
"We see pictures of huge blocks of ice crashing into the sea from the Antarctic Peninsula, which comprises about 2 percent of the continent. The fact that the remaining 98 percent of Antarctica is growing by 26.8 gigatons of ice per year is ignored."
Global Warming - Comments from India
With all the hype, the debate continues on all levels...
This article from the India Times says what needs to be said. Here's part of it:
"In the media, disaster is news, and its absence is not. This principle has been exploited so skillfully by ecological scare-mongers that it is now regarded as politically incorrect, even unscientific, to denounce global warming hysteria as unproven speculation.
Meteorologists are a standing joke for getting predictions wrong even a few days ahead. The same jokers are being taken seriously when they use computer models to predict the weather 100 years hence.
The models have not been tested for reliability over 100 years, or even 20 years. Different models yield variations in warming of 400%, which means they are statistically meaningless.
Wassily Leontief, Nobel prize winner for modeling, said this about the limits of models. 'We move from more or less plausible but really arbitrary assumptions, to elegantly demonstrated but irrelevant conclusions.' Exactly. Assume continued warming as in the last three decades, and you get a warming disaster. Assume more episodes of global cooling, and you get a cooling disaster."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
NASA Scientist - Stifled?
And in spite of that, there were 1,400 interviews that were NOT "stifled" or "muzzled"...
For the Washington Times, Eric Pfeiffer covered the global warming hearing in Congress:
"A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he'd done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years.
James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn't want his message to get out.
But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced.
'We have over 1,400 opportunities that you've availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled,' said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican."
Politicians - Sen. Pat Leahy
These stories makes shivers go up and down my spine, too...
Jim Kouri writes at a website called CommonVoice.com:
"Former special forces officer and columnist Geoff Metcalf provided a brief overview of Senator Leaky Leahy's record of divulging secrets:
* Senator Pat Leahy was annoyed with the Reagan administration's war on terrorism in the 1980s. At the time he was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Therefore, "Leaky Leahy," threatened to sabotage classified strategies he didn't like.
* Leahy 'inadvertently' disclosed a top-secret communications intercept during a 1985 television interview. The intercept had made possible the capture of the Arab terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered American citizen. But Leahy's leak cost the life of at least one Egyptian "asset" involved in the operation.
* In July 1987, it was reported that Leahy leaked secret information about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan administration to topple Libya's Moammar Gaddhafi. US intelligence officials stated that Leahy sent a written threat to expose the operation directly to then-CIA Director William Casey. Weeks later, news of the secret plan turned up in the Washington Post, causing it to be aborted.
* A year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal, Leahy had to resign his Intelligence Committee post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter. The Vermont Democrat's Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most serious breaches of secrecy in the committee's 28-year history. After Leahy's resignation, the Senate Intelligence Committee decided to restrict access to committee documents to a security-enhanced meeting room."
Politicians - "Flexible" on Immigration
In other words, whatever position I have to take to get your votes...
In the New York Times, Adam Nagourney observes the behavior of political animals:
"As he left Iowa, Mr. McCain said he was reconsidering his views on how the immigration law might be changed. He said he was open to legislation that would require people who came to the United States illegally to return home before applying for citizenship, a measure proposed by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana. Mr. McCain has previously favored legislation that would allow most illegal immigrants to become citizens without leaving the country"
Politicians - John Edwards
Isn't this a bit hypocritical?
And why does our media let him slip away from it?...
And why does our media let him slip away from it?...
Dan Gainor writes at BusinessandMedia.org:
"Call it 'Dancing with the Stars': Global Warming Edition. Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards showed his best dance moves trying to avoid questions about how energy efficient his 28,000-square-foot mansion really is and how much the power bill costs each month."
"When O’Brien asked specifically about his house, Edwards turned into a dancing king. Asked about the cost of energy for the home, Edwards tried several answers:
'It’s actually not bad.' And followed that up with talk of how energy efficient the home was.
'I’m not telling you. It’s actually, it’s actually not bad. It’s about three or four hundred dollars, the last one I saw.'
Following that claim, Edwards backed off a bit and said 'the power bill is several hundred dollars a month.'"
CNBC's Jim Cramer - Oops!
Nice guy!
That's people's retirement money he's messing with...
That's people's retirement money he's messing with...
In the New York Post, Roddy Boyd figures Cramer said too much:
"In the video from TheStreet.com's 'Wall Street Confidential' Webcast, Cramer boasts about manipulating the price of a high-flying stock down, and even acknowledges that doing so might have been illegal. The video is making the rounds on YouTube.
'A lot of times when I was short, I would create a level of activity beforehand that would drive the futures. . . . It's a fun game,' Cramer said in the Webcast, which was moderated by TheStreet.com Executive Editor Aaron Task."
Global Warming - The Great Debate?
Who woulda thunk it?
Is this cool, or what?...
Is this cool, or what?...
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley "flings down the gauntlet":
"The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question 'That our effect on climate is not dangerous', to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.
Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet.
Given at Carie, Rannoch, in the County of Perth, in the Kingdom of Scotland, this 14th Day of March in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand And Seven."
Global Warming - and the "Global Temperature"
After I deleted all of my possible posts on Global Warming, I found this.
It seems to reveal a somewhat simple logic that temperatures may be difficult to measure and compare, let alone come to any responsible and actionablre conclusion...
It seems to reveal a somewhat simple logic that temperatures may be difficult to measure and compare, let alone come to any responsible and actionablre conclusion...
At Science Daily is an article discussing "global temperature":
"'It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth', Bjarne Andresen says, an an expert of thermodynamics."
Drivers License Administration
I'm sure this is more than just a North Carolina problem. How much more, is probably pretty scary.
Your state hires competent employees, doesn't it?...
Your state hires competent employees, doesn't it?...
At Charlotte.com, Mark Johnson reports:
"'A driver's license is like a master key that can grant broad access by unlocking multiple doors,' Merritt said in a prepared statement. 'It is absolutely imperative to spend the resources to get a reliable database going forward and clean-up all licenses that have been improperly issued.'"
Judges - Not necessarily role models
I'm only posting this because it fits so well into the Anna Nicole circus...
In South Florida, Marlene Naanes reports for the Sun-Sentinel:
"HOLLYWOOD -- Police cited Broward Circuit Judge Lawrence Korda -- one of two who made decisions recently in the Anna Nicole Smith case -- for smoking marijuana in a park Sunday afternoon, a police spokesman said on Monday.
Three on-duty officers who were doing physical training in Stanley Goldman Park caught the judge about 2 p.m., said Capt. Tony Rode. The judge was smoking a joint near a tree in the park, which is near Interstate 95 and Hollywood Boulevard."
Monday, March 19, 2007
AdelaideNow - Taxi sex alert on migrants
It appears that Australia has some immigrant issues, too...
From AdelaideNow.com comes this story:
"IMMIGRANTS may have to wait a year to get a taxi licence after police revealed that almost all of the suspects in 24 reported driver sex assaults since June were newcomers to Australia."
More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says
Statistics often put things in perspective.
This one may get you thinking...
This one may get you thinking...
Jim Brown (AgapePress) has this interesting statistic:
"Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a new report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population.
Mike Cutler, a former senior special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (the former INS), is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to Family Security Matters (FSM). He says the high number of Americans being killed by illegal aliens is just part of the collateral damage that comes with tolerating illegal immigration.
'The military actually called for the BORTAC team, ... the elite unit of the Border Patrol, to be detailed to Iraq to help to secure the Iraqi border,' Cutler notes. 'Now, if our military can understand that Iraq's security depends in measure on the ability to protect its border against insurgents and terrorists, then why isn't our country similarly protecting our own borders?' he asks."
The Raptor
The Air Force's F-22 Raptor is now on the job...
John A. Tirpak tells about it in the Air Force Magazine Online:
"In little more than a year, the Air Force has transformed its newly operational F-22 into something remarkable—a weapon of true intimidation. The Raptor has proved itself time and time again in USAF’s toughest wargames. In live exercises, it has trounced the best “opponents” USAF can muster. It hits them at unprecedented speeds and altitudes—and with impunity.
The F-22 does this while in the hands of operators—not test pilots, but rank and file fighter pilots. They consider it to be nearly as reliable as mature F-15 and F-16 fighters. Moreover, the Raptor has shown capabilities that may vastly amplify the power of the rest of the force.
In short, the F-22 is delivering on even the most ambitious claims made for it."
World's tallest tower rising in Dubai
I wonder who will top this...
Breitbart.com has the story:
"Launched in early 2004, the construction of the tower by South Korea's Samsung should be completed at the end of 2008 and cost one billion dollars, according to Greg Sang, the Emaar official in charge of Burj Dubai.
Burj Dubai already has 79 stories, taking its height to more than 200 meters (656 feet). But even after having gone that far, Emaar is still not revealing the tower's final height.
'At the moment, we are not answering. We'll say it (will be) more than 700 meters (2,296 feet) and more than 160 stories ... The people who need to know, know,' Sang, a 40-year-old New Zealander, told AFP.
The world's tallest inhabited building is 'Taipei 101' in Taiwan, which is 508 meters (1,666 feet) tall."
Politicians - and Ethics - an oxymoron
Honestly, I don't know how they can sleep at night...
At RealClearPolitics.com, Robert Novack writes:
"WASHINGTON -- As part of 'Sunshine Week' to promote transparent government, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last Monday was supposed to release a comprehensive database revealing the number and cost of earmarks since 2005. It did not. The word on Capitol Hill was that the OMB was muzzled by the White House for fear of offending powerful congressional appropriators.
Meanwhile, the new majority staffs of Senate appropriations subcommittees under Democratic control are privately soliciting individual senators for their requested earmarks, without much transparency. That would seem to make a sham of the pledge by Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd to 'place a moratorium on all earmarks until a reformed process is put in place.'
Thanks partly to the outcome of the 2006 elections, members of Congress can no longer blithely earmark funds for unauthorized pet projects as they have done with increasing frequency. But in the dark recesses of Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties are continuing the pernicious practice as best they can. The question is whether they will be curbed by the Republican administration, the Democratic Congress, or both."
Al Gore - More Publicity
Publicity is good, right?
Well, what goes around, comes around.
I think the saying is: "live by the sword, die by the sword"...
Well, what goes around, comes around.
I think the saying is: "live by the sword, die by the sword"...
You can read about Mr. Gore's environmental contributions in this article by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal:
"The media are finally catching up with Al Gore. Criticism of his anti-global-warming franchise and his personal environmental record has gone beyond ankle-biting bloggers. It's now coming from the New York Times and the Nashville Tennessean, his hometown paper that put his birth, as a senator's son, on its front page back in 1948, and where a young Al Gore Jr. worked for five years as a journalist.
Last Tuesday, the Times reported that several eminent scientists 'argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points [on global warming] are exaggerated and erroneous.' The Tennessean reported yesterday that Mr. Gore received $570,000 in royalties from the owners of zinc mines who held mineral leases on his farm. The mines, which closed in 2003 but are scheduled to reopen under a new operator later this year, 'emitted thousands of pounds of toxic substances and several times, the water discharged from the mines into nearby rivers had levels of toxins above what was legal.'"
Politicians - in Memphis, Tennessee
It's just the electric bill.
They were probably just too busy looking out for their constituents.
Yeah, right!..
They were probably just too busy looking out for their constituents.
Yeah, right!..
Adam Nossiter reports in the NY Times:
"Month after month, Memphis Light, Gas and Water allowed City Councilman Edmund Ford to forgo paying thousands of dollars in overdue bills without having his power cut. Meanwhile, other prominent politicians — council members, a judge, a state representative — were on a protected list, supervised by a senior utility official, intended to prevent them from having their power cut off in case of nonpayment.
Even the mayor, Willie W. Herenton, was on the list, though Mr. Herenton says he did not know about it and never got any favors. It is not clear that anyone but Mr. Ford was allowed to pile up unpaid bills. Still, the whiff and practice of favoritism — detailed for the last several weeks in the local news media — is upsetting many in a city where nearly a quarter of the people are poor, and the local utility is publicly owned.
Voters here indulge peccadilloes among their politicians, like the occasional indictment or child born out of wedlock. But shielding the powerful from utility bills when many are struggling after a cold winter seems to have pushed public opinion over the edge."
Debt Bondage - by Chuck Norris
First Pat Boone and now Chuck Norris.
I'm surprised that I allowed myself to assume that celebrities were just talented people with no other attributes.
I apologize...
I'm surprised that I allowed myself to assume that celebrities were just talented people with no other attributes.
I apologize...
At WorldNetDaily.com, Chuck Norris warns about debt and it's consequences:
"The U.S. Department of State reports that debt bondage has one primary goal: 'to keep a person in subjugation.'
Maintaining people's suppression is the unfortunate goal of too many debtors, even those domestically, but one in particular has mastered the pathetic art: your credit card companies. I was shocked recently to read the extent to which they are going to trap their cardholders. Like never before they are working overtime to ensure your service … I mean, servitude!
Last year, the credit card industry 'reaped a staggering $17.1 billion in controversial penalty fees alone – a ten-fold rise in such fees in the last decade.' And the latest generation of consumers has used credit cards 'to charge up $1.8 trillion a year, up from a $69 billion a year in 1980.'"
Iraqis: life is getting better
I wonder if this made it to any of our U.S. newspapers...
In the U.K.'s Sunday Times, Marie Colvin reports:
"MOST Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today.
The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week."
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Is Political Correctness destroying us?
MY COMMENT...
In the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Salena Zito warns us to wake up:
"The political correctness of not saying or doing anything when slandered, or while watching extremists organize violent reactions, has enveloped London's culture. Even London police allowed two men at last year's cartoon protest, dressed in lifelike suicide-bomber gear, to go unchallenged, for fear of offending the Muslim community.
If this attitude is happening in London, will it head soon to America's shores?
'It is already here,' said Beck. 'We won't say evil is evil anymore. We condone and tolerate and stomach and in many ways celebrate what, a generation ago, we would have said was evil.'
'Things are not good in the cities,' said Joe Mulvaney, a Welshman visiting in London with his wife. 'Our culture has been hijacked, imams are preaching hate and death in the streets, and what do we do? Nothing.'
Yet it is no different now from how it was on the eve of World War II, Mulvaney added. 'I should know -- I was right here.'"
About those compact fluorescent light bulbs
Life's choices can certainly be difficult.
Not to mention the terrorist aspect...
Not to mention the terrorist aspect...
Just wait 'til you this article by Kevin Miller in the Bangor Daily News:
"Brandy Bridges was among the untold thousands of Mainers who liked the idea of saving both money and the environment. She installed more than two dozen compact fluorescent bulbs in her Prospect home.
But Bridges’ trust in the new technology literally shattered this week when a minor incident with a loose bulb turned into a major headache. A bulb she was trying to rethread tumbled from her hands and broke on the carpeted floor of her daughter’s bedroom.
Remembering lessons from shop class about fluorescent bulbs, Bridges began calling around for advice on the proper cleanup procedure.
'I was nervous. Something about this gave me a bad feeling,' Bridges said in an interview.
She called The Home Depot, where she bought the bulb, and was referred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which eventually referred her to the DEP’s environmental response team. A specialist who responded found mercury readings more than six times the state’s acceptable level at the spot of the broken bulb.
Readings a few feet from the spot where the bulb broke were within safe levels.
The specialist referred Bridges to an environmental cleanup company. The estimated cost, according to Bridges, was about $2,000."
Protesting War
This demonstration was different in that significant opposition was present...
Brigid Schulte in the Washington Post covers it pretty well:
"As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, 'If you don't like America, get out!'
Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as 'War There Or War Here.' Their lines snaked around the corner and down several blocks of Constitution Avenue in what organizers called the largest gathering of pro-administration counter-demonstrators since the war began four years ago."
Newt Gingrich - and Mario Cuomo
Well, I actually listened to this event.
I'm not shy to report that Newt was more altruistic; while Governor Cuomo didn't miss any of the Democratic "talking points"...
I'm not shy to report that Newt was more altruistic; while Governor Cuomo didn't miss any of the Democratic "talking points"...
At the NationalReview.com, Stephen Spruiell shares his observations:
"The two leaders criticized the shallowness of the current campaign and issued a challenge to the candidates: Hold some serious talks about our country’s problems, or you don’t deserve to be president."
Valerie Plame - Joe Wilson - A timeline
If this is accurate, something really bad has been going on here...
I found this at a blog named Sweetness & Light:
"February 28, 2003: Joe Wilson was interviewed by Bill Moyers. Wilson agreed with Bush’s SOTU remarks, and reiterated his belief that Saddam had WMD and that he would use them on US troops.
MOYERS: President Bush’s recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. 'The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away.' You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure.
MOYERS: 'The danger must be confronted.' You agree with that? 'We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat.' You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure."
Joe Lieberman - An editorial
The words seem right.
Whether it's politics; or from the heart, I can't tell...
Whether it's politics; or from the heart, I can't tell...
On February 26th, Joe Lieberman began his editorial in the Wall Street Journal:
"Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare--trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world."
About Health Care - IBD Editorial
Should we know about this?
"...increasing at their lowest rate in nearly a decade."
"Slowed for the third straight year"...
"...increasing at their lowest rate in nearly a decade."
"Slowed for the third straight year"...
An Investor's Business Daily editorial says:
"Yet when you read the report, there's actually good news in it. For example:
'Health care spending growth in the United States slowed for the third straight year in 2005, increasing 6.9%. This marks the slowest growth rate in health spending since 1999, when enrollment in more tightly managed care plans peaked.' And further slowing is expected when 2006 data are available.
Normally, such a trend would be treated as good news. But if the mainstream media mentioned this news at all, which mostly they didn't, it was quickly followed with a 'yes, but' comment. The Post, for instance, took pains to note that 'the projected decelerations didn't impress outside experts.'"
Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media: Columns Archives
Things have certainly changed since my days in the schoolyard...
Jeff Gannon points out:
"That 'faggot' has become the new 'N-word' is evidence of how far our culture has drifted. For decades, the 'F-word' was the four-letter one you couldn’t say on television, but now it's part of mainstream liberal vernacular. However, rallying behind a slur of their own, gays can take to the streets in their assless chaps and nipple piercings and skip the two centuries of slavery and a hundred years of separate lunch counters and drinking fountains to demand whatever they can extort from pandering politicians."
The Internet - Please don't mess with success
Ugh Oh! Just what we need.
Here's comes the government to "fix" the Internet...
Here's comes the government to "fix" the Internet...
Scott Cleland reports for the Washington Times:
"Advocates of new net regulation or 'net neutrality'. have made up a 'parade of horribles' to scare people into the arms of big government regulators. They breathlessly claim government price regulation is necessary to "save the Internet" from a hypothetical discrimination problem, which they can't define, prove or document. To advance their big-government agenda, these critics falsely claim there isn't enough broadband competition to protect consumers; America is falling behind the rest of the world on broadband; and broadband deployment is too slow in reaching all Americans. They are wrong on all counts."
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Pat Boone - discusses brave men
And don't miss Pat's quote of Proverbs 11:11...
Pat Boone writes at WorldNetDaily.com:
"Then PM Howard 'dropped the big one.' Asked whether he was prepared to 'get inside' mosques and schools to ensure there was no support for terrorism, via a governmental monitoring program, he was blunt. 'Yes, to the extent necessary,' he told Southern Cross Radio. 'I have no desire, nor is it the government's intention, to interfere in any way with the freedom or practice of religion. But we have a right to know whether there is, within any section of the Islamic community, a preaching of the virtue of terrorism, whether any comfort or harbor is given to terrorism within that community.'
WOW! Do you Aussies mean that you won't allow a deadly cancer to keep growing in your bowels, even if it means the temporary interruption of your normal routines? You're actually willing to suspend some of your own 'civil rights' to get this death-dealing virus out of your system, before it cripples and destroys you? What a concept!
Wonder if we Americans should look at that option."
About those "risky" loans
The Jesse Jackson reference caught my eye; however, this article makes some interesting points...
And then on the more serious side...
From the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Page of Feb. 7, 2007:
"The noted banking expert Jesse Jackson is scheduled to be a featured witness at today's hearing, along with a couple of unfortunate consumers who were sold mortgages they couldn't afford to repay."
And then on the more serious side...
"They may want to think twice before stringing up the bankers, though. Whether their borrowing history is good, bad or indifferent, Americans enjoy some of the best access to credit of anyone in the world. Those no-money-down loans are risky for both sides. But for many people, the alternative is no chance to buy that house at all. The politicians arguing for tighter credit standards are some of the same folks who deplore banks for "red-lining" by refusing to lend in poor urban neighborhoods. And the result may be less credit, or no credit at all, for the working poor or newly employed."
The Media - Who is William Arkin?
William Arkin is a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant.
He recently wrote an article that was highly criticized by those who support our military...
He recently wrote an article that was highly criticized by those who support our military...
This article by Max Friedman, calls attention to Mr. Arkin's credentials and apparent agenda. He asks us to:
"Go to this site to see how Arkin has undermined American defense system for decades. His actions border on treason, but he skirts the law by hiding behind the work of unidentified people who steal and leak classified information to him, and then he often gives it to The New York Times, especially to liberal-pacifist writer Leslie Gelb or uses it in how own columns."
Iraq - from a different source
"The Official Website of Multi-National Force - Iraq"
There's information here that balances out our "main stream media" reporting...
There's information here that balances out our "main stream media" reporting...
This reporting is by Staff Sgt. Antonieta Rico of the 5th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment:
"SHARQOT — In a moment reminiscent of the first triumphant days of the Iraq war, American Soldiers walked through a crowd of cheering Iraqi children. On a dirt road in the village of Sharqot, the children whistled loudly for the Soldiers, then, remarkably, broke into applause.
Surprised, 1st Lt. Michael E. Havey Jr. beamed at the cheering crowd.
'That was pretty monumental,' said Havey, platoon leader of 3rd platoon, Battery A, 5th Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment. '(Before) they wouldn’t even give us a wave.'"
The Clintons - Remember Whitewater? - circa 1998
"Hillary Rodham Crook?"
Say what?...
Say what?...
This is from Thomas Sowell's 1998 article in the Jewish World Review:
"The Clintons were partners with Jim and Susan McDougal in the Whitewater Development Corporation, whose accounts were kept in the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, run by Jim McDougal, with Hillary Clinton as an attorney. Federal bank examiners testified that Madison Guaranty was a 'politically corrupt institution that routed millions of dollars to politically connected Arkansans.'
In the more reserved language of an official report, Madison Guaranty was the scene of 'embezzlement', 'money laundering', 'falsification of loan records and board minutes', 'wire fraud' and 'illegal campaign contributions' -- among other crimes."
A House Full of Money
It's scary that this kind of business generates so much money...
From Reuters at MSNBC.com:
"MEXICO CITY - Police found $206 million in cash belonging to drug smugglers who imported chemicals used to make methamphetamines piled inside a mansion in a wealthy Mexico City neighborhood, officials said Friday.
Police arrested seven people at the house. They found wads of hundreds of dollars stuffed in drawers, suitcases and closets around the house.
They also seized six Mercedes Benz vehicles and two other cars along with seven firearms, 200,000 euros and machinery used to make tablets."
Politicians - are Pretty Sneaky
Apparently, this did not succeed (this time)...
I found this news item by John-Henry Westen at LifeSite.net:
"Into this emergency bill Democrats have buried a provision in the bill on page 155 which specifically mentions Planned Parenthood. The bill includes technical corrections to the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) regarding Medicaid. 'These corrections: … clarify current law that planned parenthood clinics and certain university clinics can continue to receive nominal drug prices.'
The provision, while not giving Planned Parenthood federal funds, would have allowed drug companies to give Planned Parenthood cheaper rates on drugs, without changing drug company profits, thus allowing greater profit to Planned Parenthood.
Congressional sources have informed LifeSiteNews.com that the language has just been pulled from the bill. However, pro-life congressional observers are noting that they must 'remain vigilant' since such measures will likely resurface, and perhaps without the 'obvious giveaway of Planned Parenthood's name.'"
San Francisco - According to Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly always has a lot to say.
Currently, he's having some fun about San Francisco...
Currently, he's having some fun about San Francisco...
Here's the closing thought from Bill O'Reilly's article in the Jewish World Review:
"San Francisco is one of America's great urban showplaces, but the city has been hijacked by radical politicians who are destroying it. Mayor Newsom is in alcohol rehab after having an affair with his best friend's wife, the homeless situation is out of control because the city gives everybody cash, and now these loons are honoring pornographers.
What's next? Barry Bonds Steroids Day?"
Lawyers Being Lawyers
The word "murder" may well be next.
I guess it's a case of "Nothing ventured, nothing gained"...
I guess it's a case of "Nothing ventured, nothing gained"...
Jane Sutton reports for Reuters:
"Defense lawyers want the word 'terrorist' banned as too inflammatory in the U.S. trial of Jose Padilla and two other men charged with conspiring to aid Islamist extremists overseas.
The word conjures up visions of someone with a bomb belt blowing up himself and others in a crowded cafe, Jeanne Baker, an attorney representing co-defendant Adham Amin Hassoun, said during a hearing in the high-profile case on Friday.
'The word terrorist has nothing to do with this case,' Baker said. 'The word terrorist is used to label an enemy.'
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who has set trial for April 16, did not immediately rule on the request."
Friday, March 16, 2007
Media biased? - Survey Says !!!
And I thought I was the only one who knew.
PS - This may not be widely reported for the obvious reason...
PS - This may not be widely reported for the obvious reason...
At the Washington Times is the story:
"Sentiment is strong: 83 percent of likely voters think bias is 'alive and well.' Of that number, 64 percent said the press leans left, while slightly more than a quarter -- 28 percent -- said there was a conservative bias."
Politicians - Ron Paul for President
We have a new candidate for President and he sounds pretty good...
Here's the story at WorldNetDaily.com:
"U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican known for his libertarian views, today announced he will vie for the GOP presidential nomination next year.
'We have lost our way and strayed from the free society our Founders secured for us in the Constitution, but there's no reason the principles that made us the greatest nation ever can't be restored,' he said.
'We merely need to respect and follow the rule of law – the U.S. Constitution – and elect leaders determined to stand firm in its defense,' he said."
The Media - Time Magazine's covers
I have to admit that this is quite clever; but I don't agree with it, and I don't like it...
At NewsBusters.com, Lynn Davidson reports on Time Magazine's latest cover and their response:
"Time regularly runs conceptual covers, as we did last week with the "Verdict on Cheney" cover, depicting the vice president standing under storm clouds." (That image was far less subtle in its artificiality, but fair point.) "This week's cover image is clearly credited on the table of contents page, naming both the photographer of the Reagan photo and the illustrator of the tear."
War on Terror - KSM's World War
The Wall Street Jounal's featured editorial for Friday, March 16, 2007...
Here's The Journal's conclusion:
"When the 9/11 Commission concluded that the failure to avert that awful day was above all 'a failure of imagination,' the Pillar world view is Exhibit A. And we mention it here because now, after five years without a terror attack on U.S. soil, that view is making a comeback in the growing opposition to holding enemy combatants in Guantanamo or to warrantless wiretaps of al Qaeda.
As KSM makes clear, bin Laden and his acolytes declared 'war' on the U.S. in his fatwa of 1998, a fact the U.S. only figured out on September 11. He professes to regret the death of women and children, but calls such indiscriminate killing 'the language of any war' and justified by his religious motivation.
'For sure, I'm American enemies,' said KSM in his broken English. For sure, too, he is a reminder of the evil that still confronts us in this conflict with radical Islam, and one that we underestimate at our existential peril."
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Jim Cramer's "Mad Money"
It's just my question for today:
Have the CNBC disclaimers about Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" become larger and more pronounced?...
Have the CNBC disclaimers about Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" become larger and more pronounced?...
"All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this show are solely Cramer’s opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC UNIVERSAL or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by Cramer on radio, internet or another medium. Cramer’s opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and/or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. Cramer’s statements and opinions are subject to change without notice. No part of Cramer’s compensation from CNBC is related to the specific opinions he expresses. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither Cramer nor CNBC guarantees any specific outcome or profit. You should be aware of the real risk of loss in following any strategy or investment discussed on the show. Strategies or investments discussed may fluctuate in price or value. Investors may get back less than invested. Investments or strategies mentioned in this show may not be suitable for you. This material does not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for you. You must make an independent decision regarding investments or strategies mentioned on the show. Before acting on information in the show, you should consider whether it is suitable for your particular circumstances and strongly consider seeking advice from your own financial or investment adviser."
C-SPAN: Q&A with Robert Kagan
Here's an interview with the author of "Dangerous Nation".
The historical intertwining of Washington insiders and elected officials is just fascinating...
The historical intertwining of Washington insiders and elected officials is just fascinating...
In the interview of Robert Kagan by Brian Lamb, is this quoted paragraph, which may conflict with your current media promoted perceptions:
"By the way, I think that if - people may find this hard to believe - I think if Al Gore had been given the presidency after the 2000 election, it’s entirely possible that he also might have gone to war in Iraq, because he was one of the leading hawks. I mean, people forget this now. He was one of the leading Iraq hawks in the Clinton administration. And after September 11th, I mean, I think it was possible."
That promise NOT to raise taxes
This is just one of several factoids in the linked article...
The National Center for Policy Analysis reports:
"Despite false accusations that tax relief has benefited only the top wage-earners, it is worth noting that high-income taxpayers bear a greater burden of the total tax payments now compared to the Clinton years. Meanwhile low-income taxpayers' burden has decreased to 10 percent from 15 percent."
"Source: Judd Gregg and Charles Grassley, "Don't Mess With Success," Wall Street Journal, March 15, 2007."
Investor's Business Daily - "No News is Good"
I guess they are not thrilled with the media's agenda either...
Here's the opening paragraph of an Investor's Business Daily recent editorial:
"Winning The War: The early indications are that a new strategy and leadership are turning things around in Iraq. But the establishment media are too busy reporting on non-scandals to tell you."
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Taliban
The things we take for granted...
By Massoud Ansari and Gethin Chamberlain in the Sunday Telegraph:
"The notice pinned to the board outside the Mohammed Hussain Maila girls' school in Dara Adamkhel was uncompromising: 'We have decided to bomb the school building. If any of the students shows up and dies as a result, she will be responsible for her own death.'
It was a warning the young pupils at the school in Pakistan's North-West Frontier knew should be taken seriously. Four other schools in the lawless tribal region area had already been bombed. Within a matter of days, half of the 506 pupils at the school had been withdrawn.
Parents of young girls are fearful to send them to class
Across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban's antipathy towards the education of girls is well-documented, and has led to the murders of at least 61 teachers in the past 18 months and the razing of 183 schools. But now hard-line Islamists in Pakistan - known as local Taliban - have launched their own campaign against girls' schools, claiming the pupils are being 'westernised'.
Parents have been warned to keep their daughters home and drivers who transport pupils to schools have been threatened with dire consequences unless they desist."
Statistics are funny things
I know it doesn't change anything; however, it IS an interesting statistic...
From an article by Alicia Colon in the New York Sun:
"The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?"
Border-agent investigator had tie to smuggler
I've been following this case for some time now.
It just keeps getting more unbelievable.
If half of what is coming out is true, a lot of people should be fired...
It just keeps getting more unbelievable.
If half of what is coming out is true, a lot of people should be fired...
At WorldNetDaily.com, Jerome Corsi has been following this case very closely. And it's not pretty:
"Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, yesterday called for the resignation of four DHS investigators, including Assistant Inspector General Elizabeth Redman, after DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner testified under oath his deputies had lied to Congress about non-existent reports that were supposed to have established Ramos and Compean as rogue cops who wanted to 'shoot some Mexicans.'
WND has obtained a copy of the government-issued border pass given to Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler granted immunity to testify against Ramos and Compean. The border pass allowed multiple entries to the U.S. and carried the signature and badge number of Sanchez.
The border pass appears to have been issued March 16, 2005, the day Sanchez brought Aldrete-Davila to William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, to have a bullet removed from his right thigh.
'Aldrete-Davila was issued what amounts to a 'Gold Elite' border pass,' Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Friends of the Border Patrol, told WND. 'With the stamp for multiple entries into the United States, Aldrete-Davila didn't have to run the back roads as a drug smuggler any more. He could tell his drug bosses in Mexico that he could drive their loads right through border crossing points without much worry.'"
NY Times Iraq Reporter Corrects Russert
This refreshing comment might just say it all.
I hope he has a NY Times vested pension and unemployment insurance...
I hope he has a NY Times vested pension and unemployment insurance...
On the NewsBusters.com website, Brent Baker captured this:
"Reminded by Tim Russert on Russert's Saturday night CNBC show, about how Vice President Cheney predicted U.S. troops would be welcomed as 'liberators' by the Iraqi people, New York Times Iraq reporter John Burns corrected Russert's presumption that Cheney was misguided: 'The American troops were greeted as liberators. We saw it. It lasted very briefly, it was exhausted quickly by the looting.' Burns added: 'I think that the instincts that led to much that went wrong were good American instincts: the desire not to have too heavy of a footprint, the desire to empower Iraqis.'"
George W. Bush - a Closet Green?
This seems to match up well with my previous post...
Lloyd Alter wrote this at TreeHugger.com:
"...is it possible that George Bush is a secret Green?"
Al Gore - 20 times average
Apparently, Mr. Gore has another face...
I found this at WorldNetDaily.com:
"Al Gore deserves an Oscar for hypocrisy to go along with the two Academy Awards his movie won last night, contends a think tank from his home state Tennessee.
The former vice president's mansion in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, says the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, citing data from the Nashville Electric Service."
The Media - All The 'News'? by Thomas Sowell
"Creative definitions" equals created news...
At GOPUSA.com, Thomas Sowell warns us about the "news" we read:
"The latest in a long line of New York Times editorials disguised as 'news' stories was a recent article suggesting that most American women today do not have husbands. Partly this was based on census data -- but much more so on creative definitions.
The Times defined 'women' to include females as young as 16 and counted widows, who of course could not be widows unless they had once had a husband. Wives whose husbands were away in the military, or in prison, were also counted among women not living with a husband.
With such creative definitions, it turned out that 51 percent of 'women' were not living with a husband. That made it 'most' women and created a 'news' story suggesting that these women were not married. In reality, only one fourth of women have never married, even when you count girls as young as 16."
Telling It Like It Is - John F. Burns - NY Times
Some insights of the New York Times are shared here...
Here's some verbatim from an interview Hugh Hewitt had with John F. Burns, the foreign correspondent of the New York Times:
"JB: Let me talk about the New York Times. It’s a very difficult concept for people who are critical of the East Coast, supposedly liberal media to understand, that you don’t judge the New York Times by our editorial page, and its opposition to the war, because there is a firewall, and it’s real, it’s real, between the editorial page and the news pages. And I can tell you that not only is there a lot of attention paid, and this is real, I know this. I run our operation in Baghdad, I talk to our editors, including our top editors all the time, to try and find a way in covering this war that is not partisan, that is neither liberal nor conservative, but simply tells the reader how we find it. And you’d be surprised how little criticism we get, judging by the e-mail traffic that flows on that score. But there is a confusion, that people read the editorial page, they read the strongly critical views that are expressed on the editorial page, and they assume that we all share that view, and I can tell you that amongst American reporters who cover this war, and including American reporters for the New York Times, there are a range of views from what we’d broadly be speaking, described as liberals and conservatives, but we try to keep those out of the paper, and our editors work hard to see that those views do stay out of the paper."
Telling It Like It Is - the Governator
Arnold being Arnold?...
In February, Tom Bevan reports this at RealClearPolitics.com:
"GOVERNOR: But the most important thing here is -- you see, that's the interesting thing about it. That, for instance you call the 'nitty-gritty detail', but that actually is the biggest issue. Because why? Because our government in 1986 --
Q: The amnesty.
GOVERNOR: Has f***** the American people.
Q: Yeah, we've got twice as many illegals --
GOVERNOR: You see, because what happened, they said, "Look, we came up with a solution."
Q: Right. M-hmm.
GOVERNOR: And now 20 years later the government comes up again and says, "We are going to work on a solution."
Q: It's worse now.
GOVERNOR: And what happened was with the solution is that they said that if we give them amnesty and if we solve this, and we are going to go and track them down if anyone comes in here illegally, and we'll send them back, and the people that are providing jobs will be punished and all. No one enforced the law."
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Hillary Clinton - Endorses Gay Adoption, Quietly
Your initials can get you in trouble...
For the NationalLedger.com, Mike Bates, covers Hillary Clinton:
"Struggling with Senator Barack Obama for black votes, Hillary Clinton acquitted herself well in Selma the other day. That Southern drawl she’s suddenly developed assures her a job with any future revival of 'Hee Haw' if her presidential ambitions are quashed. Not so widely covered by the mainstream media was a speech Senator Clinton delivered two days earlier. She spoke before 400 members of the Human Rights Campaign, which boasts it’s the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Hillary was gushing with enthusiasm for the HRC: 'I love the fact it’s my initials, have you ever noticed that?'
She’s proud to stand with the Human Rights Campaign, she told them. Apparently not, however, proud enough to publicize her address to the group. The Associated Press reported that when she was asked Monday why she didn’t advertise the speech, as is usually done, Mrs. Clinton responded, 'You’ll have to ask my campaign.'
The liberal double standard is wondrous to behold."
What if?
Thank you, Quin Hillyer...
I know this article is a month old, but I think Quin Hillyer deserves a hat tip for his American Spectator article, where he discusses today's many "what if's", and then reminds us of a previous president:
"And Ronald Reagan (on whose birthday I write these words) looked at all this and said, in effect: "What if we Americans remember our better selves and our highest principles and actually fix all these things?"
Politicians - Pandering - Say it isn't so
Like the man says, "It's a race to the bottom"...
At TownHall.com, Cal Thomas tells us:
"Democrats have been trying to get back in the religion game since Republicans cornered most of the Evangelical Christian vote in the last several election cycles, but choosing Husham Al-Husainy as their instrument to put them in closer touch -- if not with God, then with Muslim voters -- is more outrageous and shameful than Sen. Joseph Biden's remarks about Barack Obama, and far more dangerous.
Has politics come to this, that some politicians would sell out their own and other free countries for a voting bloc that contains elements committed to our destruction (Democrats), or pander to illegal immigrants who break our laws and then get Social Security checks (Republicans)? Have politicians no shame?"
Human behavior - disabled?
I'm thinking crisis as time goes on...
In the Toronto Star, David Bruser writes about what most of us already know:
"Nimble drivers exploit disabled parking"
"Martha Teodosiu, a midtown travel agent, parks her Jaguar sedan in a no-parking zone in Yorkville, gets out and struts atop three-inch heels to a salon appointment.
A disabled parking permit, featuring the blue-and-white decal depicting a person in a wheelchair, sits on her dashboard.
Upon her return about an hour later, after gracefully, and without apparent strain, sitting down in the driver's seat, Teodosiu explains that her disability was of the temporary variety."
In Our World - Mother's Day cards
So what happened to "majority rules"?...
This was reported in the U.K.'s Daily Mail:
"A school has banned the making of Mother’s Day cards because the headteacher does not want to upset children without a mother.
Helen Starkey has ended the tradition in the interests of 'sensitivity'.
'More than five per cent of children here are separated from their birth mother and have either no contact or no regular contact with their mother,' she said."
Newt Gingrich - English First
So, what's so hard about this?...
At HumanEvents.com, Newt Gingrich writes:
"Of course, don't expect to hear a lot of discussion of this topic in Washington. When was the last time you heard a politician talking about the fact that the Rasmussen poll reported that support for English as the official language was 85 percent? Or that the Zogby poll had it at 84 percent? With overwhelming public support like this, you would expect that promotion of English to be on the agenda of every elected official. But it's not. Instead, talking about English as a unifying bond -- and about learning English as the essential precondition for success in America -- is taboo. Why? Because the left labels anyone who talks about the importance of learning English as bigoted against immigrants."
The Media - Documentary Film Making
This Michael Moore guy is apparently not completely honest.
Perhaps, what goes around, comes around.
It's really sad that some recent widely publicized "documentaries" are quite shy of being accurate...
Perhaps, what goes around, comes around.
It's really sad that some recent widely publicized "documentaries" are quite shy of being accurate...
In the Jackson, Tennessee Sun, Christy Lemire, the AP's Movie Writer has the story:
"But after four months of unsuccessfully trying to sit down with Moore for an on-camera interview, they realized they needed to approach the subject from a different angle. They began looking at the process Moore employs in his films, and the deeper they dug, the more they began to question him.
The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in 'Manufacturing Dissent.' Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
Since then, in the years since 'Roger & Me' put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten."
Pat Boone - Are we ignorant, uncaring – or gutless?
He calls it "the campaign to corrupt America's soul"...
At WorldNetDaily.com, Pat Boone discusses media programming:
"The PTC's seventh study of religion on broadcast television looked at one year of programming, over 2,000 hours from September 2005 to August 2006. The following are just part of their alarming findings:
In 2005-2006, there were more negative depictions of religion than positive ones.
At no time during prime time, and on no network, did the positive portrayal of religion even hit the 50 percent mark!
A majority (57.8 percent) of the positive portrayals of religion were to be found on reality programs. By contrast, an overwhelming percentage (95.5 percent) of the negative portrayals of religion came from Hollywood-scripted drama and comedy programs; only 4.5 percent of negative portrayals of religion were found on reality shows. This is a graphic demonstration of how far TV producers and networks are removed from the real attitudes of their audiences. And how avidly they seem committed to changing those attitudes.
And get this! The number of negative portrayals increased steadily with each hour of prime time. They constituted 31.9 percent of all treatments in the 8 p.m. hour, 33.9 percent in the 9 p.m. hour, and 44.4 percent in the 10 o'clock hour.
Devout laity – non-clerical individuals who profess religious faith (like you and me, most likely) – were treated most negatively by entertainment programs. Over half (50.8 percent) of all entertainment television's depictions of laity were negative. Only 26 percent were positive.
Now, add to that shocking data what we all know is happening in rap, hip hop and pop music, and the rampant rush by movie producers to assault all our senses and strip us of any vestige of moral concern – and you get the picture.
I'm not exaggerating; these are the cold facts."
John Edwards - Hired Who?
As I recall some recent news stories, the media's reporting of "outrage" seems very selective...
Kristen Fyfe discusses the John Edwards campaign for FrontPageMagazine.com:
"Had anyone on his [Edwards] staff used the ‘N-word,’ he or she would have been fired immediately. But his goal is to loot the pockets of the Soros/Hollywood gang, and they—like him—aren’t offended by anti-Catholicism. Indeed, they thrive on it.
When Mel Gibson got drunk and made anti-Semitic remarks, he paid a price for doing so. When Michael Richards got angry and made racist remarks, he paid a price for doing so. When Isaiah Washington got ticked off and made anti-gay remarks, he paid a price for doing so.
Each of the celebrity rants cited above received substantial coverage by the media. But there is a double standard for bigotry and hatred aimed at Christians. Reporting such comparisons would mean giving voice to the conservative viewpoint and balance to the story.
Had Marcotte substituted Mohammed, Allah or Islam where she bashes the Pope, God, or the Catholic Church, she would have been vilified in the mainstream media. But because the object of her attacks is Christianity, the liberal media don’t feel the need to report the full story."
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Media - Slow or No Reporting?
Apparently the Republic of Georgia is a friend.
I wonder if we'll see this in any American media reports...
I wonder if we'll see this in any American media reports...
This is from the China's People's Daily Online, the English version:
"The planned increase of the Georgian peacekeeping contingent in Iraq is 'a form of political support for the United States,' Nika Rurua, deputy head of the parliamentary committee for defense and security, told journalists in Tbilisi on Friday.
'The decision to increase the Georgian peacekeeping contingent in Iraq was made at the time, when it is especially needed by our strategic partner (the United States),' Rurua was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying."
Global Warming - "Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'"
This sounds really ugly.
There must be a lot of money involved for a lot of people...
There must be a lot of money involved for a lot of people...
Tom Harper reported this in the U.K. Sunday Telegraph:"Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been 'hijacked' by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
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One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.
'Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened,' said the professor.
'I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal.'
Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a 'religion', forcing alternative explanations to be ignored.
Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: 'Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.'
Oprah's school - 'too strict'
Looks like South African parents are not in awe of Oprah.
And not afraid to tell it like it is...
And not afraid to tell it like it is...
Gavin Prins reports South Africa news:
"Johannesburg - The rules at Oprah Winfrey's ultra-posh school at Henley-on-Klip near Johannesburg are apparently so strict they make a reformatory look like a holiday resort.
That's the word from upset parents, who say the school rules make it difficult for them to keep contact with their children.
They would have aired their concerns during a satellite link-up with the chat show queen a week ago, but that was cancelled at short notice by the school's management body.
Meanwhile the school seems to have made the rules even stricter. Until now, the girls could receive visitors every fortnight, but parents can now only visit them once a month."
Do We Remember? - the Janet Reno era
This was written in 1988.
I believe Robert Bork was the Supreme Court nominee who was not confirmed...
I believe Robert Bork was the Supreme Court nominee who was not confirmed...
In the National Review, Robert H. Bork wrote:
"She was not in charge from the beginning. Upon taking office, in an unexplained departure from the practice of recent Administrations, Miss Reno suddenly fired all 93 U.S. attorneys. She said the decision had been made in conjunction with the White House. Translation: The President ordered it. Just as the best place to hide a body is on a battlefield, the best way to be rid of one potentially troublesome attorney is to fire all of them. The U.S. attorney in Little Rock was replaced by a Clinton protege. The long-running Waco emergency that culminated in the deaths of eighty Branch Davidian men, women, and children again proved that Janet Reno was not in charge in the Justice Department. Webster Hubbell, Hillary's former law partner in Little Rock and Bill's man at Justice, coordinated tactics with the White House. The President did not even talk to his attorney general throughout the crisis.
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Scandal followed scandal. Clinton had hardly been sworn in when he fired the entire staff of the White House travel office. The object, it seems clear, was to divert business to friends of the Clintons. The firings were so obviously unsupportable that the FBI was told to issue a press release suggesting criminality in the travel office. The head of the office was indicted and tried, but acquitted almost instantly. An inquiry suggested that Hillary Clinton ordered the coup. Then it was discovered that the White House had asked for and received nine hundred raw FBI files on Republicans. Nobody knew who had issued the request or hired the unqualified security officer who carried it out. The evidence pointed to Hillary, but she denied responsibility. If her denials were false, she probably committed indictable offenses. Janet Reno sat on her hands until she got all these matters out of her bailiwick by handing them off to the independent counsel."
Genetically Modified Crops - ET says NO!
It's a joke, isn't it?...
The Weekly World Inquisitor claims,"We waste no time seeking the truth".
Dick Kennedy reveals:
"Alien visitors to planet Earth are boycotting genetically modified (GM) crops, claims a leading scientist.
Buck Uranus, chief astronomer for the William H Carpenter Foundation in Nevada, believes the extraterrestrials are refusing to create crop circles in GM maize, wheat and other cereals because of fears of possible side-effects."
Remember those tire reefs?
I guess we should be careful about "fixing" environmental things...
From the Environmental News Network, Brian Skoloff reports:
"A mile offshore from this city's high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor — a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.
The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.
Little sea life has formed on the tires. Some of the tires that were bundled together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor across a swath the size of 31 football fields. Tires are washing up on beaches. Thousands have wedged up against a nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.
'The really good idea was to provide habitat for marine critters so we could double or triple marine life in the area. It just didn't work that way,' said Ray McAllister, a professor of ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University who was instrumental in organizing the project. 'I look back now and see it was a bad idea.'"
In Our World - Hot Monkey Love
Meanwhile, in Tampa, FL...
From the NCTimes.com website, is this story:
"Valentine's Day is the time of year when zoos around the nation seek to woo a new adult audience with risque tours that couple champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries and candlelight dining with impressive facts about how animals do the wild thing.
Credit for the concept goes to Jane Tollini, a former penguin keeper at the San Francisco Zoo. Tollini conceived the idea two decades ago while watching her penguins' courtship ritual, which culminates in what she describes as 'bowling pins making love.'"
In Our World - Not Acceptable?
Just keeping you up-to-date...
Gudrun Schultz reports for LifeSite News:
"The booklet calls for a 'zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language' among Scotland’s health care system. Included in discriminatory language is the use of terms that assume a traditional family structure of mother, father and children, according to the NHS directive.
'LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered] people can and do have children, sexual orientation or gender identity has nothing to do with good parenting or good child care,' the booklet states.
'Individual circumstances lead to varied family structures and parenting arrangements. It is important to be aware of this. When talking to children, consider using 'parents', 'carers' or 'guardians' rather than 'mother' or 'father'.
Along the same lines, the directive points out, use of the terms 'husband', 'wife' and 'marriage' is not acceptable since such terms exclude lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Instead, health care workers should use the terms 'partners' and 'next of kin'. Since 'next of kin' is often understood to mean nearest blood relative, however, the booklet recommends that it may be preferable to use 'partner, close friend or close relative' to avoid confusion."
Owner vows a hassle in escort-service probe
I'm not an advocate of blackmail; however, it would be interesting to see who is NOT "holier than thou"...
In the Washington Times, Jim McElhatton reports:
"A California woman who is the target in an ongoing criminal probe into the operation of her District-based escort agency has told federal authorities she will "make life miserable" for former customers and employees unless her case is dropped, government attorneys say."
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Global Warming - Mars Melt
Let's see.
The sun's temperature fluctuates.
Could it be that the temperature of the things it heats also fluctuate?
Duh!...
The sun's temperature fluctuates.
Could it be that the temperature of the things it heats also fluctuate?
Duh!...
At National Geographic News, Kate Ravilious reports:
"Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural—and not a human- induced—cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory.
Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures.
In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.
Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.
'The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars,' he said."
Al Gore - and carbon offsets?
This may well be one of the biggest cons ever...
In the Chicago Sun-Times, Mark Steyn tells us, "How Gore's massive energy consumption saves the world":
"And, in fact, in the Reverend Al's case it's even better than that. Al buys his carbon offsets from Generation Investment Management LLP, which is 'an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 and with offices in London and Washington, D.C.,' that, for a fee, will invest your money in 'high-quality companies at attractive prices that will deliver superior long-term investment returns.' Generation is a tax-exempt U.S. 501(c)3. And who's the chairman and founding partner? Al Gore."
In Our Schools - Calling for Jihad
And funded by the taxpayers of Ohio...
At TownHall.com, Mike S. Adams tells us:
"Yesterday afternoon, I logged on to the 'Global War' blog (global-war.bloghi.com) of Associate Professor Julio Pino – a Muslim convert who teaches at Kent State University. The heading for the site used to read 'The Worldwide Web of Jihad: Daily News from the Most Dangerous Muslim in America.' Now it reads 'Are You Prepared for Jihad?' IN THE NAME OF OBL. 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!"
Hardly able to believe what I was reading, I called Pino at his office in Ohio around 4 p.m. According to his secretary, he had not been at work that day (he only has office hours two days of the week). He was drawing a paycheck from the people of the State of Ohio while trying to launch a Jihad against people like me. In fact, just five minutes before I called he posted an entry under the title 'Crusaders Can’t Take Anymore in Afghanistan!'
An Israeli soldier stands in front of Palestinian graffiti that reads 'Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine' and 'Hamas' in the West Bank City of Nablus February 25, 2007. Israeli forces raided the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday, putting 30,000 Palestinians under curfew as soldiers searched for wanted militants. An Israeli army spokesman said troops used rubber bullets and tear gas against Palestinians throwing rocks and cement blocks and that two soldiers were slightly wounded by an explosive charge.
Pino began his morning of not going into his office at Kent State by penning a post under the title 'Frightened British Crusaders Rush More Troops to Occupied Afghanistan.' Using terms like 'occupation' and 'Crusaders' it isn’t really necessary to read these posts in order to ascertain who this employee of the State of Ohio is rooting for in the War on Terror."
The Economy - European vs. the U.S.A.
This is for anyone who might prefer the European way of doing things...
Finfacts Ireland claims to be Ireland's top business website. They have some interesting points about world economies:
"A report published on Monday says that despite the current economic upswing, the EU is still losing ground vis-à-vis its global competitors – in particular with its current level of investment in R&D already achieved by the US almost 30 years ago. Also, the EU is on the wrong path to reach the Lisbon goals, being 3.4 years too late with regard to the target 70% employment rate by 2010. In addition, the level of productivity (expressed in GDP per employed) was reached by the US in 1989, the report said."
The Spy Business is alive and well
This is pretty interesting...
For the U.K.'s TimesOnLine, Uzi Mahnaimi reports from Tel Aviv:
"According to the Iranian sources, the escape took several months to arrange. At least 10 close members of his family had to flee the country. Asgari has two sons, a daughter and several grandchildren and it is believed that all, including his daughters-in-law, are now out of Iran. Their final destination is unknown.
Asgari is said to have carried with him documents disclosing Iran’s links to terrorists in the Middle East. It is not thought that he had details of the country’s nuclear programme.
An Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonot, claimed this weekend that Mossad, Israel’s external security service, had orchestrated his defection. There is some evidence that the Mossad station in Istanbul was involved in shadowing Asgari after he arrived in Turkey via Damascus last month.
It is unclear which intelligence organisation he was spying for. 'He probably was working for Mossad but believed he was working for a European intelligence agency,' said an Israeli defence source."
Could this be?
Politics is absolutely nuts!
Talk about tangled webs...
Talk about tangled webs...
Jack Cashill discusses many things at the Accuracy In Media website:
"Prelude To 9/11
Unfortunately for America, by suppressing talk of TWA Flight 800, the Clinton administration had to suppress talk of a very real terror plot against the United States that culminated in the events of September 11.
In the way of background, in January 1995, the Philippine police shared with the FBI detailed plans for an aerial terrorist assault on the United States. Those plans called for the use of hijacked airliners and/or explosives-filled private aircraft as flying bombs to attack the United States.
The architect of those plans was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing and a cohort of 9/11 chief strategist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his alleged uncle.
Richard Clarke obviously took Yousef's planes-as-bombs plots seriously. In planning security for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Clarke warned of the possibility of terrorists hijacking a 747 and flying it into a packed Olympic stadium.
The U.S. Navy apparently took Yousef's plans seriously as well. On July 17, 1996, National Liberation Day in Saddam's Iraq and two days before the start of the Atlanta Olympics, a small fleet of ships and subs, some perhaps NATO, cruised off the coast of Long Island, locked and loaded.
One of two things happened next: Either Navy missiles intercepted a terrorist plane and inadvertently took out TWA Flight 800 in the process; or, more likely, while practicing to intercept a terrorist plane in the kind of crowded air corridor where such an attack would likely occur, Navy missiles accidentally destroyed the 747."
The New York Sun - "The Defeatist Democrats"
There is a lot more than this paragraph in this editorial...
I found this in the New York Sun's editorial page:
"Morris Amitay, a Scoop Jackson Democrat who is vice chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Affairs, did everyone a service yesterday when he asked Senator Clinton, the Democratic Party's frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race and one of its most hawkish voters on foreign policy issues, whether America 'should win' this war that we are in. Mrs. Clinton would not say yes. Mr. Amitay told The New York Sun's Russell Berman afterward, 'I was very disappointed that in the war we are now in against a ruthless enemy she could quote President Roosevelt to the effect that we are all in this struggle, but she would not say whether we should win it.'"
Sandy Berger - Apparently, a very lucky man
I think Sandy Berger really got away with something.
And I mean that in more ways than one...
And I mean that in more ways than one...
R. Jeffrey Smith reports in the Washington Post:
"A report last month by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said for the first time that Berger's visits were so badly mishandled that Archives officials had acknowledged not knowing if he removed anything else and destroyed it. The committee further argued that the 9/11 Commission should have been told more about Berger and about Brachfeld's concerns, a suggestion that resonated with Philip Zelikow, the commission's former executive director.
Zelikow said in an interview last week that 'I think all of my colleagues would have wanted to have all the information at the time that we learned from the congressional report, because that would have triggered some additional questions, including questions we could have posed to Berger under oath.'"
Politicians - Barack Obama
17 years late!
Gee, I wonder why they suddenly became important?...
Gee, I wonder why they suddenly became important?...
Senior Editor George P. Hassett writes in the Somerville News:
"BOSTON - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) got more than an education when he attended Harvard Law School in the late 1980s. He also got a healthy stack of parking tickets, most of which he never paid.
The Illinois Senator shelled out $375 in January — two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign — to finally pay for 15 outstanding parking tickets and their associated late fees."
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Politicians - and their loopholes
Ethical politicians?
Apparently not in Austin, Texas...
Apparently not in Austin, Texas...
Jay Root reports for The Star-Telegram's Austin Bureau:
"AUSTIN -- It's illegal for Texas lawmakers to use campaign funds to buy real estate or enrich themselves, but several legislators have used a loophole to maintain second homes in Austin while continuing to receive $139 a day for living expenses when called to duty in the state capital.
One of them, state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, has paid rent of more than $140,000 since 2000 for a condo registered in her husband's name.
Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, rents a condo inside 1704 West Ave. in Austin. She has paid $92,247 in rent to her husband, James Truitt, since 2001, records show."
Politicians - Governor Patrick Deval
Cadillac Deval. Has a nice ring to it.
I bet the taxpayers just love it...
I bet the taxpayers just love it...
Casey Ross and Dave Wedge report in the Boston Herald:
"Already facing heat for flying to events in a state police helicopter, Gov. Deval Patrick is now cruising in a pricey, tricked-out Cadillac DeVille at taxpayer expense.
The governor’s new luxury Cadillac DTS sedan is a lease that puts a $1,166-a-month strain on the state budget and replaces the much more modest Crown Victoria that former Gov. Mitt Romney was driven around in.
'Maybe it would be cheaper if he kept using the helicopter,' state Republican Party chairman Peter Torkildsen said last night of Patrick.
Patrick came under fire this week after the Herald reported that he has already taken two taxpayer-funded chopper rides to public events and plans to continue to use the helicopter as he sees fit. Republicans have said he is getting a pass on his helicopter use while former Acting Gov. Jane Swift was lambasted for her infamous 2000 chopper commute.
Patrick’s new car is one of Cadillac’s finest vehicles with a price tag that starts at $42,000. By comparison, Crown Victorias, which are the vehicle of choice for police and government agencies, start at $26,000. The DTS is the 2007 version of the DeVille and is the largest luxury sedan made by Cadillac.
Sources said the governor’s coach was outfitted with tinted windows, blue lights, sirens and other security features by a Marlboro company that specializes in supplying public agencies."
Politicians - Former Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman
There seems to be an endless supply of politicians like this...
In the New York Daily News, Scott Shifrel reports, "Norman's guilty, guilty, guilty":
"Former Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman has now been convicted three times in four trials:
"Sept. 27, 2005: Convicted of soliciting a campaign contribution in excess of the legal limit. Gives up his Assembly seat, his party post and his law license."
"Dec. 15, 2005: Convicted of pocketing a $5,000 check made out to his campaign committee."
"March 24, 2006: Acquitted of submitting false travel vouchers when he was an Assemblyman."
"Feb. 23, 2007: Convicted of grand larceny in a scheme to illegally solicit and pocket campaign contributions."
Politicians - Barack Obama - "present"???
Handling hard choices?
Presidential material? Not!...
Presidential material? Not!...
Nathan Gonzales writes at RealClearPolitics.com:
"Finally and officially, Barack Obama is running for president. His symbolic announcement, in the Land of Lincoln, called for a new era in politics. Obama downplayed his thin federal experience while championing his record on the state and local level, and he talked about the need to change Washington, set priorities, and 'make hard choices.'
'What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions,' Obama said in his announcement speech. But a closer look at the presidential candidate's record in the Illinois Legislature reveals something seemingly contradictory: a number of occasions when Obama avoided making hard choices."
Politicians - Rudy Giuliani
Well, Rudy seems to have Mike Gallagher's vote for sure.
I'm not thrilled with McCain, but maybe I could like him as VP.
And, of course, there's Gingrich and his many good ideas for America...
I'm not thrilled with McCain, but maybe I could like him as VP.
And, of course, there's Gingrich and his many good ideas for America...
At TownHall.com, Mike Gallagher calls a Giuliani-McCain ticket: the Democratic Party's worst nightmare:
"I would have loved to have seen Mayor Giuliani to have become a senatorial candidate when Hillary made her decision to run in New York. I happen to believe that had he not faced health and marital problems at the time, he would have run against her, and cleaned her clock. People think Hillary Clinton is tough? You really don't know tough until you've taken on Rudy.
So a tough, crime-fighting straight shooter paired with a centrist Republican war hero on the Republican ticket?
I'll bet it's a prospect that keeps Mrs. Clinton up at night."
Politicians - the NY State Legislature
Election rhetoric is over. It's back to business as usual...
In the New York Post Online, Kenneth Lovett and Tom Topousis report on New York State politics:
"Without mentioning names, Spitzer blasted Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno for reneging on an agreement to select a comptroller from a list advanced by an independent panel of former comptrollers.
'We have just witnessed an insider's game of self-dealing that unfortunately confirms every New Yorker's worst fears and image of all that goes on in the Legislature of this state,' Spitzer said.
He threatened to campaign against incumbent Democrats and Republicans, and accused them and their leaders of focusing on 'politics and cronyism' instead of on who was the best qualified for the job and what is best for the millions of retirees whose $145 billion in pension funds are overseen by the comptroller.
Spitzer fumed that despite the November elections, which were widely seen as a mandate for reform, 'Legislators and their leaders had an opportunity to rise above, to show they listened, learned and absorbed - but they did just the opposite.'"
