Bankruptcy's Better

... Filing for Chapter 11 protection under bankruptcy law is the normal way a company stays in business when facing an unmanageable financial situation. It keeps creditors at bay while the company reorganizes under court supervision and settles its debts, and frees companies from union contracts. But this could be why Democrats have taken the option off the table? [snip]

• During the last round of contract talks in 2007, the average hourly costs were over $70 at all three of the domestic automakers, compared to about $48 for Toyota.
• Detroit's unionized plants put them at a disadvantage to foreign rivals which run lower-cost, nonunion operations.

But even if some federal loans or loan guarantees can't be avoided, Washington needs to make Detroit's experience as close to Chapter 11 as possible. Some suggestions: zero out the equity investors, replace management, shut down surplus dealerships and force the UAW to face the fact that its extortion days are gone forever...

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Staying Power: Marine Returns to Help Others on Road to Recovery

Those who haven’t been seriously wounded “can’t relate to getting flown away from your buddies, bleeding and in pain, mad at yourself because you want to go back regardless of the injury.” Kachmar said. “You can’t relate to lying in that bed at Bethesda [National Naval Medical Center] for months at a time.”

Kachmer is now part of the “Tiger Team” that helps those evacuated to U.S. military hospitals work their way through the recovery process. He also is one of the 2,700-plus Marines who have opted to stay on active-duty since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom despite injuries that could have released them from their obligation to the Corps.

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'Sons of Iraq' move hailed a success

Thousands of members of local militias set up by the Americans to provide neighbourhood security and fight against al-Qaeda's Iraq franchise are now being paid by the Iraqi government - a key test of what is a cornerstone in US efforts to restore stability.

The US military is highlighting the transition of what it calls the Sons of Iraq programme, saying it is proof the Iraqi authorities are "keeping their word".

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Iranian commando arrested at Baghdad airport

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces have arrested an alleged "senior" Iranian commando from the elite Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force at Baghdad International Airport, the US military said Wednesday.

The military said they suspected the man of "involvement in facilitating Iranian weapons shipments into Iraq" under the cover of working for an organisation involved in the restoration of Iraqi religious sites.

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Gates Notes Ukraine’s Progress, Hopes for Change in Russia

The secretary emphasized that one of the main reasons he made the trip to Tallinn was to support the countries of the region who wish to more fully integrate with the West. “These nations are, quite understandably, on edge due to Russia’s incursion into Georgia last summer,” Gates said.

The secretary called Russia’s more recent behavior troubling as well. Within hours of the conclusion of the recent U.S. presidential election, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev threatened in a speech to put weapons in Kaliningrad – a small sliver of Russia on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. The speech was “hardly the welcome that a new American administration deserves,” Gates said. “Such provocative remarks are unnecessary and misguided.”

“After all, the only real emerging threat on Russia’s periphery is in Iran. I don’t think the Iskander missile has the range to get there from Kaliningrad. Why they would threaten to point missiles at European nations seems quite puzzling to me.”

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Russia Sells Sudan Fighter Planes

[HT:MR]
Moscow has sold Sudan 12 Mig-29 fighter planes, Sudanese Defense Minister ‘Abd A-Rahim Muhammad Hussein said. The minister confirmed the purchase during a press conference in Moscow on Friday.

According to a United Nations security resolution passed in 2005, an embargo is in place prohibiting sales of weapons to all parties involved in the Darfur conflict.

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ENERGY ECONOMICS NONSENSE

Democrats have promised to tax the windfall profits of oil companies; however, oil companies only make about 8.3 cents in gross profit per dollar of sales. Why don't they slap a windfall profits tax on sectors of the economy that have fatter margins? For example:

• Electronics make 14.5 cents per dollar.
• Computer equipment makers take in 13.7 cents per dollar.
• Microsoft's margin is 27.5 cents per dollar of sales.

If it's not the profit margin, but the total number of dollars earned, then why isn't he targeting other industries?

• Oil and gas companies made $86.5 billion in profits last year.
• The financial services industry took in $498.5 billion in profits.
• The retail industry walked away with $137.5 billion.
• Information technology companies made off with $103.4 billion.

Out of the $46 billion spent researching alternative energy in North America from 2000 to 2005, $12 billion came from oil and gas companies, making the industry one of the nation's largest backers of wind and solar power, biofuels, lithium-ion batteries and fuel-cell technology.

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Green herring

The Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmentalists and labor unions, wants the federal government to spend $500 billion over 10 years to "build America's 21st-century clean energy economy" and thereby "create more than 5 million high quality green-collar jobs." Barack Obama says he can accomplish the same goal for only $150 billion, which gives you a sense of how reliable these projections are. [snip]

A recent RAND Corporation study concludes that, without "dramatic progress in renewable energy technology," reaching this "25X'25" goal will mean "significantly increasing consumer costs." And the study did not consider "the transition and adjustment costs associated with initiating such a significant shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies."

More fundamentally, both the Apollo Alliance and Mr. Obama, who has liberally borrowed from its ideas, mistakenly treat the manpower required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a measure of success, when it should be viewed as a cost to be minimized.

Mr. Obama's "green jobs" rhetoric is part of his strategy to conceal the enormous expense associated with his plan to "transform our entire economy" and "build a new economy that is powered by clean and secure energy."

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[select banner, & pass it on...]

oil petition

TELEMEDICINE HOLDS PROMISE FOR HEALTH CARE

Telemedicine can remedy several of the problems currently plaguing the health care industry, according to a new report by Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). For example:

• For many ailments, the patient doesn't need to be in front of the doctor, but his or her information does.
• A tech-savvy doctor can respond to a phone call or e-mail with a diagnosis, thereby saving some patients any visit at all.
• With more complete information accessible in electronic medical records, doctors could make faster and more accurate diagnoses.
• That would expedite the diagnosing process for both doctor and patient, by avoiding costly trips to doctors' offices and wasted time in waiting rooms.

"The only thing stopping us from using telemedicine to our advantage is a reluctance to control our own health care dollars," ..."If we control the dollars, as I do with my Health Savings Account, the consumer can decide the value."

[applying available technology as private industry would - that would be 'change']

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Cancer Patients Lose Shot at Longer Life in U.K. Cuts

[HT:VI]
London - Jack Rosser's doctor says taking Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent cancer drug may keep him alive long enough to see his 1-year-old daughter, Emma, enter primary school. The U.K.'s National Health Service says that's not worth the expense.

Rosser, 57, was told the cost of Sutent, 3,140 pounds ($4,650) per treatment for his advanced kidney cancer, was too high for the NHS -- the government agency that funds the nation's health care.

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Ignorant View: France, Denmark, and England 'Solved' Healthcare

If only the United States were more like Europe, Joy Behar laments. Recapping the previous night’s debate on the October 9 edition of ''The View,'' the panel discussed John McCain’s healthcare plan. In the midst of the conversation Joy Behar wondered why the United States can not ''solve'' health care like quasi-socialist governments in Europe. (Snip) '' France has solved it, Denmark has solved it, England has solved it. Why can’t we solve it?''

[do you know what your stay-at-home spouse {this includes Ted} is watching?]

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Last Chance For A Colombia Pact

Transition: Rahm Emanuel didn't waste time outlining the Obama agenda. On Sunday, he warned President Bush not to attach Colombia's free-trade pact to bailouts in Congress. But that's what Bush can and must do.

The last days of Bush's administration might just be decisive for that treaty. Emanuel, Barack Obama's chief of staff, was big news on a Sunday talk show demanding that Bush sign off on every check Congress puts in front of him

But there is one little thing Emanuel didn't want in his gift bag for every special interest group that ever supported Obama — a free-trade agreement with Colombia, the only proposal that would actually provide real stimulus to the economy. Ironically, the pact is opposed by the same unions that would stand to benefit from it.

But no matter to Emanuel, whose insistence that the Colombia pact not be attached to the automobile industry bailout is the opposite of a bipartisan compromise. Emanuel's blatant unwillingness to even allow a treaty to be attached is a bid to give unions a double-dip reward for their millions in campaign contributions to re-establish Smoot-Hawley protectionism...

[and in the process abandon a true friend in Latin America we sorely need]

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Pass the Colombian Trade Pact

We don’t say it all that often, but President Bush is right: Congress should pass the Colombian free-trade agreement now. Mr. Bush signed the deal two years ago. The Democratic majority in Congress has refused to approve it out of a desires to pander to organized labor or deny Mr. Bush a foreign policy win....

[this from the NYT]

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La Raza: Losing Jobs to Illegals is 'Not a Concern' of Americans

[HT:LN]
Washington - Americans are ''not concerned'' that they may lose jobs to illegal aliens in a tight job market, according to speakers at a panel discussion conducted Thursday in Washington, D.C., by the National Council of La Raza. (Snip) said that Republicans are now “paying a steep price for demonizing Hispanics” in their “anti-[illegal] immigration rhetoric”...
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US immigrant groups to march a day after Obama takes over

Immigrant rights organizations have called for a major march on Washington on January 21, the day after Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th US president.

Defenders and advocates of tens of millions of immigrants will take to the streets to press their case for immigration 'reform' and remind Obama of one of the policy planks he plugged on the campaign stump as he wooed the Hispanic vote...

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No open-borders mandate

President-elect Barack Obama never offered a salient plan to address illegal immigration, despite clear public sentiment favoring reform.

A recent Zogby poll showed that a majority of Americans would like to see a crackdown on illegal immigrants - 60 percent of voters would like to reduce illegal immigration and crack down on employers who hire illegal workers. Only 21 percent of voters would support creating a legalized pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Furthermore, 57 percent of voters said amnesty would hurt American workers and create more of a burden for the taxpayer... [snip]

As politicians do, Mr. Obama took his cue and shied away from immigration. The presidential transition Web site, change.gov, says nothing about illegal immigration. There is nothing about beefing up the borders or work visas.

Without any stated policy on illegal immigration, the incoming Obama administration has a blank check. Will Mr. Obama use it to pass amnesty? If the new administration is paying any attention to what the majority of Americans actually want, we hope not.

[what have you told him? {Obama transition contact}> http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact ]


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Beware Sociologists Seeking to Smear Gun Owners As Racists

In the wake of the election of the Historic Obama, as reporters are pressed by their editors to perhaps consider that large 47.3 percent of the electorate that didn’t vote for History, out comes the idea of conservatives gripped by white-man panic, with stories soaked in sociologists tagging gun owners with a "deep-seated fear of the armed black man," exacting "retribution for the very deep-seated legacy of slavery."

Can't someone disagree with Obama in the political arena without bearing signs of bigotry or mental illness? One senses in these articles a deep-seated loathing of gun owners, an overbroad psychological profiling.

This matches one template of the Clinton years, when Clinton opponents were painted into the fever swamps of hatred and delusion by the "mainstream media." But these reporters didn't find anything like this in the rants of the anti-Bush blogosphere or the hot talk on the left-wing radio circuit over the last eight years.

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You can thank the GOP for racial progress

The two most important pieces of domestic legislation in my lifetime (I’m 60) were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Question: Members of which party voted for them in higher proportions, Republicans or Democrats?

I suspect only a small slice of Americans knows it was Republicans, and by significant margins.

[Q2: how do you think this issue is portrayed in our public schools?]

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Headline: 'Are You an Idiot to Keep Paying Your Mortgage?'

In today's "You've Got to be Kidding Me" moment, the San Francisco Chronicle advocated that folks who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth should stop making payments so they can qualify for a government bailout.

I'm not kidding.

Disgustingly titled "Are You an Idiot to Keep Paying Your Mortgage," the article actually instructed readers upside-down in their real estate the ins and outs of how they can transfer responsibility for their own investment mistakes to others (emphasis added throughout, picture courtesy The Economist):

[what moral crisis?]

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Sears

Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees. [snip]

This is their answer to my e-mail:

Dear Customer:

Thank you for contacting Sears.The information is factual. We appreciate your positive feedback.

Sears regards service to our country as one of greatest sacrifices our young men and women can make. We are happy to do our part to lessen the burden they bear at this time.

Bill Thorn
Sears Customer Care
webcenter@sears.com
1-800-349-4358

I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.

Pass it on.

Stripper, 44, charges age discrimination

Exotic dancer Kimberlee Ouwroulis has filed a complaint against a Mississauga strip club, New Locomotion, saying she was fired because of her age. The 44-year-old, who has taken an age discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario...

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[HT:GC]