Tuesday, May 5, 2009
One civilization clashing
On June 7 Hizbullah will likely take over Lebanon and formally bring the oldest Arab democracy into the Iranian axis. Iran's stalking horse will not become the ruler of the largely pro-Western, non-Shiite majority country through a violent revolution.
Lebanon will become yet another Iranian vassal state through ballots, not bullets. On June 7, Hizbullah and its allied parties are set to win a smashing popular victory in Lebanon's parliamentary elections...
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Iran Can 'Wipe Israel Out of Existence' in 11 Days
[HT:JK]
Iranian Army General Commander Ataollah Salehi spoke on LBC television (video clip here) claiming it would take only 11 days "to wipe Israel out of existence." But don't worry, the announcer proclaims that "according to the shari'a and the law, it is forbidden to obtain a nuclear bomb." MEMRI translates [snip]
Thanks to the voiceover, I gather we can all relax. They will only respond to aggression, like, say, the existence of Israel.
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Emanuel: Thwarting Iran hinges on Israeli-Palestinian talks
Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
[A fabrication meant to blame the coming failure with Iran on Israel. deplorable]
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Iran Has Started a Mideast Arms Race
Make no mistake: The Middle East may be on the verge of a nuclear arms race triggered by the inability of the West to stop Iran's quest for a bomb. Since Tehran's nuclear ambitions hit the headlines five years ago, 25 countries -- 10 of them in the greater Middle East -- have announced plans to build nuclear power plants for the first time.
But with Saddam dead and buried, some Iraqis are calling for a revival of the nation's nuclear program as a means of deterring "bullying and blackmail from the mullahs in Tehran," as parliamentarian Saleh al-Mutlaq has put it
"A single tactical nuclear attack on Basra and Baghdad could wipe out a third of our population," ... "Since almost 90% of Iraqis live within 90 miles of the Iranian border, the "fear is felt in every town and village,"
There is no doubt that the current nuclear race in the Middle East is largely prompted by the fear of a revolutionary Iran using an arsenal as a means of establishing hegemony in the region. Iran's rivals for regional leadership, especially Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are aware of the propaganda appeal of the Islamic Republic's claim of being " the first Muslim superpower" capable of defying the West.
Tehran's development of long-range missiles and the Muslim world's first space satellite are considered political coups...
[And the West keeps talking...]
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Face of Defense: Guardsman Hopes to Make Difference in Africa
For U.S. Africa Command’s new deputy director of operations and logistics, the words “I can’t do it” won’t cut it. Not from his soldiers, not from the people he serves with, and certainly not from himself. And this Army National Guardsman, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt “Rose” Barfield, knows what it means to be able to “do it.”
“You learn more about yourself in the military than any profession out there,” Barfield said. “This is both professional and personal. At the end of the day, you should feel good and believe in what you’re doing, or you should go do something else.”
Barfield is a father of three with a long resume after 31 years of service. His wife, Patricia, is an Army colonel. His eldest son, Galen, is a senior airman in the Air Force Reserve, and his younger son and daughter both are in the middle of high school.
“There are maybe one or two moments in your life where you get an opportunity to make an impact that will be universal and historical,” he said. “And we’re here. It’s hard for me to contain my excitement just thinking about it -- that I’m part of this. … History is being written, and we are the author. From private to the general, every one of us has a piece of that.”
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THE GAZA AID PACKAGE: TIME TO RETHINK U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE TO THE PALESTINIANS
The Obama Administration has announced a huge aid package of $900 million to help ease the humanitarian plight of Palestinians in Gaza and to shore up the bankrupt Palestinian Authority (PA). This surge of soft power is aimed at strengthening Palestinian moderates and helping to clear the way for revived Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But as long as Hamas remains free to rain rockets down on Israel, these ambitions remain little more than wishful thinking.
Since the 1993 Oslo peace accords, the United States has showered $2.2 billion in bilateral aid on the Palestinians, in addition to more than $3.4 billion for humanitarian aid funneled to the Palestinians through dysfunctional U.N. organizations since 1950. This aid has:
- Subsidized the welfare of Palestinian refugees.
- Contributed to a culture of victimization and shrill anti-Israeli and anti-Western radicalism.
- Freed up some Palestinian groups to focus on destroying Israel rather than on providing for and advancing the long-term interests of the Palestinian people.
- Significantly reduce these overly ambitious aid goals.
- Halt the funding of U.N. agencies that do not adequately screen their workers for terrorist connections or permit external audits.
- Tighten restrictions on the disbursement of aid to ensure that the aid will not be diverted for hostile purposes.
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Jihad Chic Comes to London
I still don't know who wanted me dead. I was sitting in my car one day last november, not far from my house in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, when a group of strangers walked up. One of them pointed a pistol through my window. I remember he wore a turban and shalwar kameez—the tunic and baggy pants common in the area—and he had a long beard, dyed red with henna. He shot me in the chest, hand and arm... [snip]
London was a revelation—cold, clean and orderly—but my sense of relief didn't last long. In one of the city's many South Asian neighborhoods, I saw a tall young Afghan who reminded me of my would-be assassin, striding down the street like a bad dream. ... Locals had a nickname for him: Talib Jan. It's a friendly Afghan slang term for a Taliban member, something like GI Joe for Americans... [snip]
Nevertheless, most of Jan's neighbors spoke of him tolerantly or even approvingly. In fact, during my three-month stay in England I met a surprising number of Muslims who shared Jan's fascination with the Taliban. The older generation had little love for the extremists. But among younger men, I discovered a fury that was depressingly familiar. I met many immigrants who were blatant, vocal and unquestioning in their support for what they imagined to be "jihad"...
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EU says euro area unemployment to hit postwar record
BRUSSELS — Europe is suffering “a deep and widespread recession,” the EU said today, estimating that unemployment in the 16 countries that use the euro currency will rise to a postwar record of 11.5 percent by the end of next year.
The EU’s executive said both the 27-nation EU and the 16 countries that use the euro currency will shrink by 4 percent this year, more than double its January estimates...
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Tax Google to help the BBC, say ministers
[HT:BR]
Google could be be hit with an online advertising tax to boost the coffers of the BBC, under proposals being discussed by the Government. Ministers are considering taxing search engines, download websites and broadband providers to fund public service TV...
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Business Leaders Speak Out on Tax Crackdown
Members of the business community today are starting to sound off in opposition to President Obama's new plan to crack down on offshore tax evasion, denouncing the initiative as a ''foolish'' program that would do more harm than good. Critics argue the president's effort to raise taxes on the overseas profits of U.S. companies could damage U.S. multinational corporations.
''t's not fair to treat U.S. businesses worse than their foreign competitors''
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Will Media See Irony in Geithner Introducing Tax Law Reforms?
On Monday, the Obama administration announced a plan to cut down on tax evasion by companies employing overseas workers.
Introducing the President to give specifics on this reform was Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner who infamously had tax evasion problems of his own.
When media outlets report this announcement and the new plan in the next 24 hours, will they see the irony in Obama having Geithner introduce him to speak about this matter?
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REAL CHANGE; REAL TAX CUTS
President Obama has said that he will repeal or sunset many of the Bush tax-rate cuts for upper-income families and small businesses, yet, in the end, the new administration is really looking forward to higher, not lower, marginal tax rates.
The new tax law is just another form of deficit spending in disguise. But this does not mean that tax policy is wholly unable to stimulate the economy. Obama would simply have to adopt a very different approach that is tragically unpalatable to most politicians: He would have to reduce tax rates and simplify the tax system:
- Budget deficits resulting from handouts are an economic painkiller, but without real stimulus they can never pay for themselves.
- In contrast, under clearly defined conditions, reductions in tax rates can.
- The basis for this is not merely supply-side ideology; it resides in a simple empirical relationship called Hauser's Law which says that no matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)*.
Over the same period there has been a steady increase in the standard rate of payroll tax, from 3 percent to 15.3 percent**, if you combine the employer's and the employee's contributions.
[*I.e., raise the marginal rates above 20% and GDP activity retards until again equalized at that level.
**A five fold increase in payroll taxes, and folks don't know why pay raises are slow in coming?
An Answer: Tax everyone at 20% - including businesses: 10% at time of sale/income, and 10% national sales tax on all purchases. Receipts would soar, savings would soar. the economy would soar - the only thing 'lost' would be government control by losing the ability to sell tax-code games to special interests.
What's not to like?]
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Chrysler Non-TARP Lenders Object to Auction Plan
U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York - A group of Chrysler LLC’s secured lenders is seeking to block the bankrupt company’s plan to sell its business at auction this month, arguing that the U.S. government is violating federal law in order to preserve the automaker.
The process is ''tainted'' because it was dominated by the government, the lenders argued in papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan...
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Chrysler Cut-up's Contract Killers
'I'm saying that when the president does it that means it's not illegal,"
shouts Frank Langella's Richard Nixon at Michael Sheen's David Frost in "Frost/ Nixon."
He was wrong, and so was President Obama when he said last week that he'd override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler's senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers...
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GM Bankruptcy Probable as Obama Shields UAW Benefits
General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.With GM and its biggest bondholders at odds over resolving $27 billion in unsecured claims by a June 1 deadline, the Chrysler model indicates that President Barack Obama may resort to bankruptcy to end any impasse over that debt, said Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of New York-based credit investment firm Fridson Investment Advisors.
Chrysler filed for protection April 30 after the U.S. was unable to persuade secured lenders to swap $6.9 billion in claims for $2.25 billion in cash. A union retiree health-care trust was offered a 55 percent stake in Chrysler.
“This confirms the fear, which right along has been that the Obama administration is more sensitive or beholden to the unions than the bondholders,” ... “It makes it clear that GM bondholders aren’t likely to be able to work out anything outside of bankruptcy.”
[Which is exactly what it's for and should have been used from the get-go.]
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No longer a laughing matter
When the new administration took over Washington and our smiling, community activist, leader took the oath of office, the chuckles began as we witnessed the most expensive inauguration in US history and the start of the transformation of America. I giggled -- initially. This idol-worshipped man with absolutely no background or experience became our new President. I laughed at how America had been taken for a ride.
When the President embarrassed America with his lame gift to the British Prime Minister ... When the One could not convey any coherent text without the aid of his teleprompter ... When he then went on the apology tour of Europe ... bowed to the Saudi king and shook hands with Hugo Chavez ...
When the new administration put out the plan for veterans to pay for their own health care it started to get ugly.
When Janet Napalitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security deemed returning war veterans and conservatives possible terrorists, it was no longer funny and it started to tee me off. We can no longer call the real bad guys terrorists. They get the moniker of Man Caused Disasters. But returning war veterans being labeled as Home Grown Terrorists?
When the administration chose to publish the CIA interrogation memos jeopardizing the security of our soldiers and the willingness of all national security operatives to continue to do what they do -- all for political motivation, it became clear that they will stop at nothing to accomplish their ideological goals. Enough is enough! I can't even manufacture a whimper of humor anymore.
Now our leader has the audacity to take the bond holders and private investors in Chrysler to the woodshed and publicly threaten them into giving up their investment? "How dare they be so un-American as to want more of their investment dollars back?"
It's no longer funny. This is serious. What was initially a comedy of errors and gaffes is now becoming a serious threat to our security, our economy and our way of life...
[Recommended > ]
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Social Security - Trouble at Hand?
Mr. Steven Gross, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Trust fund wrote a letter* on 9/15/2008. In that letter he included this graph:
On 2/12/2009 Mr. Gross wrote a letter* to Senator Robert Bennet. That letter contained this graph.
The two graphs describe a financial gearing ratio. Note that the data used in the 2008 graph shows a 'surplus' in this ratio through 2025. The updated 2009 graph shows that surplus is gone as of today. This represents a significant change in assumptions over the five month period. Mr. Gross is telling us something is coming. That 'something' is likely to be on the front pages and impacting the markets sooner than was thought.
The following is a link to a report produced by the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Funds (“SSTF”). http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR08/index.html"
This is a status report on the health of America’s Social Security and Medicare system. The conclusions contained in this report should come as no surprise. The system is bankrupt. It is just a matter of time. The magnitude of the problem is enormous. The Trustees estimate that the present value of the unfunded portion is $13.6 trillion.
It is virtually certain that unless the imbalances are addressed in the near future the U.S. Legacy Costs will destroy our economy...
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NBC Affiliate Meteorologist Rips MSNBC for Apocalyptic Global Warming Special
NBC Universal and its networks have been criticized for the global warming alarmism it parades on a regular basis. However, now the criticism is coming from its own affiliates.
Prior to its April 26 airing on MSNBC, shows on NBC had been promoting the first part of the climate special "Future Earth" - an MSNBC program that used computer animation to show the possibilities of a polar icecap melting. That prompted Bill Steffen, a meteorologist for NBC's Grand Rapids, Mich. affiliate, to call out MSNBC for that special.
Steffen challenged several premises of "Future Earth: Journey to the End of the World," on his WoodTV.com blog... [snip]
The MSNBC special saying that ice in the Antarctic has actually been expanding and that polar ice melting alone would not cause sea level to rise as depicted in the "Future Earth."
"Keep in mind that if the Polar icecap (without Greenland) melted...it would hardly cause sea level to rise, because the icecap is currently displacing water in the Arctic Ocean," Steffen wrote.
Steffen also pointed out, as many others have, the financial stake NBC Universal's parent company General Electric (NYSE:GE) has invested in cap-and-trade becoming law.
"One last point, MSNBC is owned by General Electric," Steffen wrote. "GE is already making money off the issue with their Carbon Credit Master Card (link from ‘Treehugger,' no less). Here's CNN's story on the new credit card."
Steffen even showed how much GE has spent lobbying for environmental causes, originally reported by the Washington Examiner on March 3.
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Lobbyists help Dems draft climate change bill
Democratic lawmakers who spent much of the Bush administration blasting officials for letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to a coalition of business and environmental groups to help draft their own sweeping climate bill.
And one little-noticed provision of the draft bill would give one of the coalition's co-founders a lucrative exemption on a coal-fired project it is building.
But the sweeping climate bill Mr. Waxman and Rep. Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the panel's key environmental subcommittee, introduced at the end of March includes a provision that benefits Duke Energy Corp., a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), whose climate plan released in January the lawmakers have frequently called a "blueprint" for their climate legislation... [snip]
A spokeswoman for Mr. Waxman rejected any parallel with the previous administration...
[The more things 'change'...]
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House of Representatives switchboard:
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
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CBS’s Pelley Blames Coal Industry for Global Warming
On Sunday’s CBS ‘60 Minutes,’ anchor Scott Pelley, who once remarked that global warming critics were the equivalent of Holocaust deniers, identified the American coal industry as one of the main culprits of climate change: "The future of our climate might be summed up in one question, what do we do about coal? Coal generates nearly half the electricity in the United States and in the world. But it is the dirtiest fuel of all when it comes to carbon dioxide, or CO-2, the leading greenhouse gas."
[Close: water vapor is the leading CO2 gas (>95%) - CO2 is a weak green house gas - but it's something the industry of man produces, so it needs to be public enemy No. 1 in order to sell the AGW scam.]
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Government-Run Health Insurance Made $19 Billion in Errors
Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program for low income people that is administered by state governments and funded by federal taxpayers, made almost $19 billion in improper payments in 2008, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office last week.
These improper payments equaled the largest share--26 percent--of all improper government payments in 2008...
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When Doctors Opt Out
We already know what government-run health care looks like.
Here's something that has gotten lost in the drive to institute universal health insurance: Health insurance doesn't automatically lead to health care. And with more and more doctors dropping out of one insurance plan or another, especially government plans, there is no guarantee that you will be able to see a physician no matter what coverage you have.
Consider that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission reported in 2008 that 28% of Medicare beneficiaries looking for a primary care physician had trouble finding one, up from 24% the year before. The reasons are clear: A 2008 survey by the Texas Medical Association, for example, found that only 38% of primary-care doctors in Texas took new Medicare patients. The statistics are similar in New York state, where I practice medicine.
More and more of my fellow doctors are turning away Medicare patients because of the diminished reimbursements and the growing delay in payments. The problem is even worse with Medicaid. A 2005 Community Tracking Physician survey showed that only 50% of physicians accept this insurance. I am now one of the ones who doesn't take it. I realized a few years ago that it wasn't worth the money to file the paperwork for the $25 or less that I received for an office visit. [snip]
Bottom line: None of the current plans, government or private, provide my patients with the care they need. And the care that is provided is increasingly expensive and requires a big battle for approvals. Of course, we're promised by the Obama administration that universal health insurance will avoid all these problems. But how is that possible when you consider that the medical turnstiles will be the same as they are now, only they will be clogged with more and more patients? The doctors that remain in this expanded system will be even more overwhelmed than we are now.
I wouldn't want to be a patient when that happens.
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Flu pandemic today, health care rationing tomorrow
“Reconciliation” is Beltway-speak for the imposition of the rationing of medical services and goods on a largely unsuspecting American population by means of simple majorities in both houses of Congress.
The reality of President Obama’s vision for medicine in America is a “single-payer” system, and the reality of “single-payer” is rationing. Because the government is the ultimate provider of medical services, it provides only what it can afford, and when its money runs out, your care ends.
Almost anyone familiar with the push for what is euphemistically called “health care reform” knows that many experts on the left believe that far too many dollars are spent on providing health care to people in the final weeks or months of their earthly lives. If controls can be placed on these expenditures, then more of the government’s resources will be available for younger and much healthier people.
Thus, rationing’s first target is going to be the expensive demands made by the elderly. The new system will simply scoff at the idea of a liver transplant for anyone over the age of 65. Or 60.
Or maybe even 55. Liver transplants are expensive...
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Hollywood's Default Villain: Your Employer
Watching “24″ this week, I realized that our number one threat is multi-national corporations with battalions of hired killers on the payroll. Similarly, “Michael Clayton,” “The International,” the new “State of Play” and many others have taught me that big companies assassinate their rivals, whistleblowers, policemen and random passersby with astonishing regularity.
The real world is much more esoteric than the portrait Hollywood paints, and the real threat is not quite so picturesque. Instead of corporate death squads composed of hardboiled mercenaries with high tech assault rifles, the real killers are boring jihadi doofuses with dusty AKs, booby-trapped Fiats and the occasional boxcutter.
Let’s stop and check the numbers. Real terrorists, counting the victims of 9/11 and American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan: Over 7900 murdered. Victims of corporate murder: Zero. Nada. Zip. I would add in the number of Iraqis and Afghanis murdered by these folks, except that toll is beyond counting.
And to many liberals, their lives don’t seem to count anyway.
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How to shut down conversation
Parties were more fun when George W. Bush was president. You could debate, argue even, praise and condemn, throw darts and laurels and solve the world's problems over a bottle of wine. No more. At least not in my circles.
If you want to stop a conversation in its tracks, just question something President Barack Obama has said or done.
It's not open to debate
-- and I don't think that's healthy...
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Obama Jokes Still Off Limits To America's Comedians
Did you hear the one about Barack Obama?
You didn't?
Well, that's because jokes about him are still forbidden to America's comedians.
As the Los Angeles Times' Greg Braxton wrote Monday, this breaks a long-standing tradition of comics jabbing at the White House resident as often as possible:
As late-night talk show hosts and other television comics who trade in political humor know, cracking wise about the new president, who marked his 100th day in office last week, is apparently not very funny for most of the people, most of the time. Not surprisingly, to guard against a frosty or uncertain reception, TV's leading political humorists have largely backed away from their ritual comic hazing of the president, a colorful tradition in the medium, especially in its late-night time slots, since at least the Nixon administration.
I'm sure this tradition goes back further than Nixon, as George M. Cohan's fabulous musical comedy "I'd Rather Be Right" took numerous shots at then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But I digress:
"If you're a comedian and you die and go to heaven, Bill Clinton is your president," said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "If you're a comedian and you die and go to hell, Barack Obama is your president." [...]
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ACORN charged with voter registration fraud
Monday, Nevada's Attorney General's Office and Secretary of State's Office filed charges against ACORN for voter registration violations and forging voter registration forms. ACORN officials both locally and nationally say the charges are a complete surprise; national representatives say they were also unaware of any investigation...
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Europeans: U.S. Should Give Up Control of Internet
Strasbourg, France — The United States has too much control over the Internet and needs to give it up, a European Union bureaucrat declared Monday. EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, a Luxembourgian, called for ''full privatization'' of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), demanding that it be removed from the supervision of the U.S. Department of Commerce when its operating agreement expires on Sept. 30.
[Since when is any EUNuch in favor or 'privatization' of anything? What he really means if having it managed by Brussels or worse (yes it's possible - wait for it...), the U.N.]
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N.Y. Times to File Notice It Will Close Boston Globe
The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England's most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks. :^D After down-to-the-wire negotiations did not produce millions of dollars in union concessions, the Times Co. said that it will file today a required 60-day notice...
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Sarah Palin honored by NRA with special Alaska-themed assault rifle
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was bashed for her pricey wardrobe, but now she's getting a lethal accessory.
The National Rifle Association Foundation will present Sen. John McCain's ill-fated running mate with a military-style assault weapon next week.
The all-white "Alaskan Hunter" - fashionable until Labor Day - is the civilian version of a modified M-4 rifle carried by U.S. troops overseas.
[As if the woman wasn't hot enough already.
What. I'm just saying...]
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Swedish men 'not as masculine as they used to be': study
Swedish men have become more metrosexual and less masculine in recent times, according to a new survey polling both sexes on their opinion of the Swedish male. 51 percent of respondents said Swedish men were more masculine in previous times, with men in particular (58 percent) agreeing with the statement.
Only 13 percent of men and women felt today's men were more masculine than their predecessors.
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