........When the Giants win it helps make up for both our Senators

[congratulations Mr. Fox]

Cartwright: Changes in Iraq Taking ‘Permanent Hold’

Positive permanent changes in the Iraqi people are beginning to show, said Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright [snip]

“What they see is opportunity, with caution that at any time, it could change and go bad. But they really see that if it does, it will be short-lived, that the change in the environment out there is starting to take hold in a permanent way.”

The general said the biggest change in Iraq is attitude.

“You can see it in the streets. They’re cleaner. People are taking stock in themselves and their businesses. They’re taking the opportunity to clean up, get themselves on a business footing for those small businesses, which you see popping up all over the place.”

Source Article

Northern Iraq Operations Expose Enemy’s Grim Nature

[snip]
At the end of those engagements, coalition forces found an execution site and a torture facility where al Qaeda had operated. “At that execution site, there were 26 remains found. Their arms were tied behind their back, and most of them were shot in the back of the head,” Bacon said.

Inside the three-room torture facility, tools for carrying out various forms of torment were found, including blood-caked knives, whips, metal beds wired to electrical outlets and chains hung from the ceiling, he said.

Bacon added that this is the fifth al Qaeda-operated torture house he’s become aware of since arriving in Iraq in May.

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Husbands with multiple wives to get extra benefits after Government go-ahead

Husbands living in a "harem" with multiple wives have been cleared to claim state benefits for all their different partners. A Muslim man with four spouses - which is permitted under Islamic law - could receive £10,000 a year in income support alone. He could also be entitled to more generous housing and council tax benefit, to reflect the fact his household needs a bigger property.

[and British law?]

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Witness: Discounted Apartments Prostitutes Used to Secure U.N. Contracts

New York - Discounted apartments and cash were given to a former United Nations procurement official and two other U.N. workers got nights with prostitutes to help secure $100 million in U.N. contracts, a businessman testified Tuesday at a bribery trial. /snip/ Kohli said he bribed two U.N. procurement officers by spending $6,000 one night to provide them with dinner, drinks, a strip club visit and a hotel room with prostitutes. He said he repeated the night for one of them a few more times

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Gazprom chief: Putin eyes a bigger prize

Vladimir Putin is in line to become the new chairman of Gazprom, Russia's state energy giant, after he steps down as the country's president in May. Mr Putin's name is believed to have been among 42 applications submitted for the post - with few analysts doubting his candidacy would outshine all others. The appointment would cement Mr Putin's huge political influence beyond his presidency. (Snip)

Mr Putin would gain control of a company so vast and politically connected it is regularly referred to as Kremlin Inc.

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1.9m on benefit 'should go back to work'

Up to two thirds of people claiming incapacity benefit are not entitled to the state handout, the Government's new welfare adviser warns today. David Freud, an investment banker hired by James Purnell, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, said the disability tests used to award state aid were "ludicrous" and could be costing billions of pounds...

[but it supports the top goal of all government bureaucracies: grow and expand themselves]

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Rights commissions are stifling our rights

[Canada {for now}]

... But some of them, at least, now appear to have lost their way, and are using their mandate to undermine such basic democratic principles as free speech and a free press. And they seem to be following this dangerous course in the name of nothing more than bland civility.

What possible excuse, for example, other than a desire to make us all "be nice," can there be for the Canadian and British Columbia human rights commissions even to entertain a complaint from the Canadian Islamic Congress about a Mark Steyn column in Maclean's magazine in October of 2006? And there seems to be little, except too much willingness to soothe hurt feelings, to justify the Alberta Human Rights Commission's decision to summon publisher Ezra Levant to answer for reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed...

It's preposterous that anyone should have to waste money and effort to defend such decisions before a government body that's supposed to protect rights. The very fact that they have to do so will surely have a chilling affect on the editors and publishers of other publications. That may be the intention of the complainants, but it should not be the intention of anyone who really cares about freedoms.

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Who is the biggest climate sinner? Not China, says the AP.

The Associated Press reported November 7 an interest group's findings that Saudi Arabia and the United States are the worst "climate sinners" for not taking drastic attempts to cut carbon emissions. But it accepted the group's "relatively positive" assertion that China's emission growth will slow in the future.

The news wire story picked up by USA Today reported that Saudi Arabia was the biggest sinner because its policies block attempts to curb greenhouse gases and the U.S. was second because it refuses to sign the Kyoto Treaty.

On November 19, medical advisors to the Australian Olympic team complained that the Chinese were reluctant to release air pollution test results, and that Beijing's smog has been flagged by many athletes hoping to compete in the 2008 Olympic games as a potential hindrance to their performance.

Where did China rank? 17th.

[forget the net improvements the US is consistently making on its emissions while Europe continues its increases - those don't count: they're not being achieved under the auspices of the world government...]

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Laws aimed at hiring illegal workers drive many to Texas

Illegal immigrants are flowing into Texas across its long borders. But they aren't just swimming across the Rio Grande from Mexico or making dangerous treks through the rugged desert. Instead, a new rush of illegal immigrants are driving down Interstate 35 from Oklahoma or heading east to Texas from Arizona to flee tough new anti-illegal immigrant laws in those and other states.

''It's a wave that's happening across the United States, ... There is a migration, within the United States, to the states and cities more receptive [?] to the reality of the undocumented immigrant."

The effect of the new law can be seen in the many signs advertising rental property vacated by departing immigrants, said David Castillo, the executive director of the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

[What? illegals self-deporting (albeit still within the US) when the incentives are removed, and without the government having to "forcibly round up millions"? Who'd have thunk it.]

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Column: Hillary's plan for economic ruin

Hillary Rodham Clinton sat down with The New York Times to outline her economic plans if elected president, and we now know the sad, sordid facts - how confused the senator is and how intent she is on ruinous policies.

We should thank her for her honesty after first reviewing some of her points, such as the notion that business is now insufficiently regulated and that government should be exercising more power in the marketplace.

This supposed deficiency of governmental intervention gets no support from a glance at the Federal Register, which includes tens of thousands of pages of new, old and proposed rules. Nor does it help the thesis to note the cost of implementation, $1.1 trillion-annually-, according to the Small Business Administration.

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What really derailed the bid by Giuliani? Political press.

Before voting began in Florida, the Giuliani strategy seemed well-founded. There was no clear front-runner for the Republican nomination, and three candidates had notched victories. So what happened?

Rudy Giuliani was treated with enmity by the political press. He was cornered as the "9/11 candidate." And he endured a concerted effort to trash the fiscal and domestic successes he orchestrated in New York before Sept. 11. That treatment proved fatal to his campaign.

A case in point: One hour after Giuliani left Fort Myers, DrudgeLines, the ticker for the Drudge Report, featured a news item emblazoned in red amid otherwise black-and-white type: "LA Times: Rudy Giuliani hints at dropping out." The posting there hardly merited the headline about hints of dropping out. En route to Fort Myers, Giuliani had remarked to the reporters on his plane that "the winner of Florida will win the nomination" and predicted he'd be that winner.

The blog called that (the only quote attributed to Giuliani in the piece) "an unusually categorical statement," suggesting that only a victory in Florida would keep him in the race "despite previous vows to continue." But nowhere was any actual "hint," from Giuliani or his campaign staff, attributed or otherwise, of dropping out.

Before most Floridians even went to the polls, the political whispers had become deafening with "news" of Giuliani's imminent withdrawal....

[Giulliani was generally considered the most nationally-electable Republican (as national polls consistently indicated) in large part due to his non-conservative stance on abortion, which the majority of Americans agree with and so could be expected to get him over the hurtle the Republican party perennially faces with the national electorate . It's a consistent phenomenon: the more viable a conservative candidate the more biased his coverage in the MSM -- while 'maverick' Republicans who's policies defy conservative principles become media darlings...]



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ABC'S Autism Outrage

UNDER pressure from the American Academy of Pediatricians, ABC tonight will include an extraordinary disclaimer on the first episode of its new series "Eli Stone" - reminding viewers that everything in the lawyer drama, which depicts real-life issues, is just fiction. Why the unusual disclaimer? Because the show perpetuates an insidious myth - namely, that childhood vaccines are a cause of autism.

[nice, they'll add the disclaimer to cover their legal asses but go ahead with the perpetuation of an insidious myth]

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Navy breaks record with railgun test-shot

Dahlgren, VA. — The Navy set a new world record for the most powerful electromagnetic railgun when it fired a test shot here Thursday morning. The gun fired an aluminum projectile at 10.68 megajoules. A joule is the work needed to produce one watt of energy for one second. (Snip) After the charge, the gun fired and witnesses saw a quick burst of flame as the projectile, traveling at 2,500 meters per second, or Mach 7, hit its target.

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Streisand furious over son's Bush role

Barbra Streisand is reportedly furious that stepson Josh Brolin is to play the lead role in a forthcoming biopic of US President George W. Bush. The National Enquirer claims that the singer, a staunch Democrat supporter, pleaded with Brolin not to appear in the Oliver Stone-directed film. A source said:

"Barbra thinks this movie will show a side to George W. Bush that draws sympathy from the public and she does not think Bush deserves anything positive."

[that would be the perpetually-vaunted liberal tolerance and compassion in action]

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