U.S. occupation leaves cultural legacy in Iraq

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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Across the street from the tidy rows of tombstones in the British cemetery, mute testimony to the soldiers of an earlier occupation, Mustafa Muwaffaq bears witness to the quieter side of the United States' six-year-old presence in Iraq.

In wraparound sunglasses, shorts and shoes without socks, the burly 20-year-old student waxes eloquent about his love for heavy metal of all kinds: death, thrash, black. But none of it compares, he says, to the honky-tonk of Alan Jackson, whose tunes he strums on his acoustic guitar at night, pining for a life as far away as a passport will take him.

"You know, I wanna go to Texas and be a country boy," ... "I wanna be a cowboy, and I wanna sing like one."

[game, set, match]

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image toon - bbro legal vals = Sotomayor's dream = not character but race + empathy

Media Ignores Obama's SCOTUS Nominee's Membership In Radical La Raza Organization

Back in the 2006 nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court , Barack Obama criticized the philosphy on confirming Supreme Court Justices stating "Meaningful advice and consent includes an examination of a judge's philosophy, ideology, and record."

I agree with his objection, and find it very curious as to why Obama now has focused on his nominee's empathy and "personal story" . As Obama advises, we need get beyond personal character and examine the judge's "philosphies, ideologies, and record." [snip]

One statement made by Sotomayor is very disturbing in the realm of judicial philosophy. This month…a video surfaced of Judge Sotomayor asserting in 2005 [during a panel discussion for law students] that a ‘court of appeals is where policy is made.’

This statement has been largely ignored by the main stream media yet the need for clarification is extremely important if the Senate is to approve this woman to one of the most powerful positions in America. If we are to look at judge Sotomayor's personal ideologies it would be reckless to ignore her feelings on race and sex... [snip]

However, the most disturbing reflection of Sotomayor's character is the company she keeps. According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, otherwise known as "La Raza".

La Raza is a known radical pro-illegal immigration group that should be bringing up many, many questions. However, the media hasn't reported a peep on Sotomayor's association with the group. Don't expect much either.

In summary, I advise the Senate to take the Presiden't advice. Look past the personal stories and look at the nominee's beliefs, philosophies, and record.

We know the media won't.

[La Raza: "The Race", and we're to have a supreme court justice as a member. Think about it. Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon 1st bbro legal = Sotomayor taking blindfold off

Washington Times Cites Media’s Promotion of Sotomayor

(Friday’s) Washington Times picks up on a recent report from the Media Research Center (you can read it here) documenting the outpouring of positive coverage for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The piece, by reporter Jennifer Harper, included a quote from Democratic operative Dan Gerstein claiming,

“If President Bush had appointed someone with the same background — working class, an up-by-the-bootstraps story — the coverage would have been exactly the same.”

As TimesWatch editor Clay Waters pointed out yesterday, the press had a far more cynical reaction to the “up-by-the-bootstraps” story of Clarence Thomas, elevated to the Supreme Court by the first President Bush back in 1991...

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image toon - 1st bbro legal vals = Sotomayor to Oby = how president w/o quota?

The Axis of Evil

As the US and Asian neighbors of North Korea mull a united response to block the communist nation's nuclear program following a recent test, Israel is bracing for the fallout.

The chief concern is that Pyongyang's defiance of the international community will serve as a case-study for how Iran also might side-step diplomacy, acquire nuclear weapons, and fuel a regional arms race. If North Korea can get away with becoming a nuclear nation with little punishment and despite US diplomatic efforts, Israeli analysts say that may embolden Iran to flout international pressure, too.

"If the Americans can't show credibility on North Korea, then they won't be able to go far. It's a thermometer,"

says Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University.

"The US has been threatening to take action against North Korea since the 1990s and the North Korea has been able to buy time. The Israeli concern is that's exactly what will happen with Iran."

N. KOREAN TIES TO IRAN
North Korea's history of supplying missile equipment to Iran, Syria, and Egypt stretches back at least a decade.

According to a technical report published earlier this month by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol, Iran's ballistic missile program "relies very heavily" on North Korean components, which it began importing as early as the 1980s. Three of its four known missile systems have flight characteristics "essentially identical" to those of North Korean missiles, the report says.

US intelligence officials believe North Korea and Syria, which have a longstanding military relationship, began cooperating on nuclear issues as early as 1997...

[So that UN resolutions plan - working out well?]

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image toon - nsec intl owg - UN to NKorea = bad little bomb badder big bomb

National Security Is More Important to Voters This Month

The economy remains the top issue for most Americans, but national security and the War on Terror are considered very important by 70% of voters nationwide, the highest level found since September 2007.

That’s up from 64% in April and 60% in February, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Separate Rasmussen polling shows that voter confidence in the U.S. involvement in the War on Terror is at its lowest level since last summer.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters also are now at least somewhat concerned about the security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan as the radical Islamic Taliban continues to make gains there.

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image toon - gwot nsec intl = NKorea missle at WH = reconsider BMD?

UK Journalists Strike Back at WH Press Secretary's 'Sneering and Condescending Remarks'

There is little argument that the British press is doing a better job than its U.S. counterparts covering the Obama administration's less than perfect performance.

If the reactions of Nile Gardiner and James Delingpole at the UK Telegraph to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's blanket criticism of British journalism is any indication, UK reporters are also more willing to stand up for themselves instead of letting veiled threats go by without blowback.

Gibbs's response to Loven, also at Kurtz's report, as "Nice business you got here, little lady. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it."

["Chicago politics": a euphemism for strong-arm thugs - in our White House]

Gardiner passed on the traditional British stiff upper lip and ripped into Gibbs and his boss:

I cannot recall an instance like this where the President's official spokesman has blasted the press of a key ally - in this case America's closest friend, Great Britain.

This kind of attack would normally be made against the likes of the North Korean or Iranian state media, but in the current climate of "engagement" with America's enemies the White House is far more likely to attack its own allies. Gibbs' remarks have echoes of a senior State Department official's anti-British statements to The Sunday Telegraph after the appalling handling of the Prime Minister's visit in March.

..... The British press, especially the Telegraph, has been singled out because they frequently publish articles critical of the Obama administration and are not afraid to take on the status quo in Washington. Increasingly, millions of Americans are turning to online UK news websites for cutting edge reports on American politics and U.S. foreign policy that [their] mainstream media refuses to cover in the States, especially if it is unflattering to the Obama White House.

Oh, to have a U.S. press corps with more Gardiners and Delingpoles...

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image toon - 1st fnn msm - Press yells Oby enchanged...

Anti-Putin protesters detained

Moscow - Russian police have detained a prominent Kremlin critic and several other people who tried to hold a protest against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

National-Bolshevik Party leader Eduard Limonov was among at least 10 people seen being detained as they tried to protest in central Moscow's Triumph Square on Sunday. Police grabbed protesters and dragged them roughly into buses...

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Obama, Incorporated

The interlocking directorate is anathema to trustbusters and corporate watchdogs. It occurs when a board member or top executive of one company sits on the board of another company, accumulating undue power over a given industry. When it reduces competition, the arrangement is forbidden by the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914.

If Henry De Lamar Clayton, the Alabama congressman who introduced the aforementioned act, were still with us, he'd presumably be shocked at the creation of the most far-reaching interlocking directorate in U.S. history. Obama Inc. has effectively won a seat on the board of companies at the heart of the nation's industrial production and its financial system. The robber barons of old would marvel at the tentacles of influence of Barack Obama, a CEO whose power would overawe J. P. Morgan.

In difficult negotiations with business, Obama now has the advantage of sitting at both sides of the table. This makes the art of the deal considerably simpler than when Donald Trump wrote about it years ago. Consider the matter of CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy), the mileage standards that have been resisted by automakers for decades in a multifaceted regulatory and legal battle featuring enviros, the state of California, and industrial-state lawmakers:

The other day, Obama snipped the Gordian knot in an offhand swipe with his fingernail clippers - he gathered Detroit's CEOs in the Rose Garden and decreed that they had to meet a drastic increase in the standards, to 39 mpg for cars in 2016.

He needn't bother with the traditional "jawboning" of an industry, the tiresome work of a Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson - not when both General Motors and Chrysler continue to exist on the basis of Obama's good will. After their ['structured', by the White House] bankruptcies, the companies will give a 72 percent and 8 percent ownership stake, respectively, to the federal government...

[This is how tyrannies are established, one step at a time. It can happen here. It may be happening now.]

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image toon - auto sclm bbro engry = Oby at CAFE telling customers what they'll be ordering

When Pravda Calls Us Communists

There was an embarrassing editorial (embarrassing for Americans, at least) on a recent online edition of Pravda – the Russian newspaper. When the leading publication of the former Soviet Union starts to editorialize the downfall of the United States, maybe someone, somewhere, should pay attention.

Here are some excerpts from the opinion piece:

American capitalism gone with a whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

You can read the full editorial (and weep) here.

[What will it take for most Americans to realize what's happening to their country?
A: Those Americans that do talking to them about it. As always, silence will be interpreted as consent.

Sadly, Recommended > ]

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image toon c-art - bddbdd 1st lbrty bbro sclm - Constitution Under New Management

Ford’s The Favorite Among Big Three

With Chrysler in a government-supervised bankruptcy and General Motors expected to follow suit any day now, Ford is stretching its lead as the most highly regarded of the Big Three automakers.

Among investors, 69% have a favorable regard for Ford, nearly 30 points higher than their view of GM and Chrysler. But then most voters say GM or Chrysler is likely to go out of business over the next few years anyway.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of Americans say Ford is the Big Three auto company which has the best chance of surviving and becoming profitable again.

[A real/honest bankruptcy could be half way to real solvency by now had the government not interfered. Instead we'll now have a government-run state car companies to the benefit of their labor unions.

Does anyone really think they'll be permitted to fail? Think Amtrak: we'll be subsidizing them forever.]

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image toon - sclm auto mny - Kids pay for Government Motors

Arctic may hold twice the oil previously found there

(CNN) -- Continental shelves beneath the retreating polar ice caps of the Arctic may hold almost double the amount of oil previously found in the region, scientists

A team of scientists at the USGS collaborated with international researchers to conduct the first-ever comprehensive assessment of undiscovered oil and gas reserves within the Arctic Circle.

"We tried to put some boundaries on the range of possibilities and resources available in the Arctic," said geologist Donald Gautier, lead author of the survey, which is published this week in the journal Science.

Using geological analysis and probability modeling, researchers mapped out sedimentary rock deposits to estimate the amount of undiscovered oil and gas beneath undersea continental shelves.

This survey, the first of its kind*, could help oil and gas companies locate new troves of fossil fuels.

[I guarantee there's more than double the amount 'previously found': a) evidently this is the only comprehensive survey that's ever done, and b) They're only talking about 'conventional' reserves, our technology is way past that now, and c) We always find more.

Again: the history of oil use has been one of constantly expanding excess reserves discovered above and beyond consumption. The claim of 'peak oil' is a canard completely contrary to all empirical facts. Despite our every increasing appetite for oil & gas are discovery of new reserves - when we bother to look - has consistently outstripped demand and resulted in an ever expanding surplus of reserves.

FLASHBACK > Abundant energy will power future growth

Bottom line for the world: an incredible 36% increase in oil reserves [excess] during the two decades that saw the greatest globalization-spurred oil consumption in the history of mankind. And that doesn't include the 152 billion barrels in proven oil reserves obtainable from Canada's tar sands. Is there any reason to doubt that the next two decades won't build on the steady growth of the last two?

But this is still not the end of it. Unconventional oil reserves are now in play. In 2005, the Rand Corporation estimated that the oil shale in America's Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, contains as much as 1.1 trillion barrels of oil recoverable, an amount comparable to the reserves of four Saudi Arabias.

Then there's Canada's tar sands, with its even greater potential--estimates of the total reserves that may be available top two trillion barrels, or eight Saudi Arabias.

This is still not the end to it. Most of the oil we know about lies in the well traveled portions of the globe. But most of the world remains unexplored...

Highly Recommended > ]

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The Next Oil Shock

Energy Policy: A top expert tells Congress that oil will be around for a long time and high inventories and low prices are no excuse not to find more.

Energy prices have fallen — but only as part of the global decline in economic activity.

The current recession has wiped out demand growth for the last four years. Oil prices have tumbled $100 a barrel or more from their high point. Spare production capacity is expected to be 6.5 million barrels per day through 2009.

This has been used as an excuse to further discourage exploration for and development of domestic oil resources.

Anticipating a robust future, other countries such as China and Brazil have continued to look for oil while we continue to research . . . switch grass.

When the economy does recover, our energy 'policy' alone will provoke a follow on recession where we drive to the unemployment office in our government-designed clown cars...

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image toon - engry - PLMA of 09 = Keep Out of Oil drills

c-art oil petition

Patients forced to wait hours in ambulances parked outside A&E departments

Ambulance chiefs have warned that lives are being put at risk ''on a daily basis'' by long delays allowing patients into Accident and Emergency units.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found that thousands of 999 patients are being left to wait in ambulances in car parks and holding bays, or in hospital corridors – in some cases for more than five hours – before they can even join the queue for 'urgent' treatment...

[The unavoidable evolution of government run health care. Don't believe, ask someone from Britain or Canada....]

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Obama Lifts Ban on Lobbyists! Back to Business as Usual

Roll Call is reporting that during the typical Friday afternoon document dump -- a practice used to hide actions that might prove somewhat embarrassing to the White House -- the administration quietly announced that some of the former restrictions on lobbying ballyhooed about during the late campaign have been lifted.

And now, we have to wonder: will the media notice this sudden change? I mean, a whole day has gone by and so far only Roll Call has even mentioned it.

In any case, let special interests ring, baby!

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County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies

[HT:DT]
SAN DIEGO -- A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

"For churches and religious assemblies there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this Bible study is certainly misplaced,"

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars... [snip]

"If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?"

[Again, the new green religion is a path toward the government(s) controlling all activity...]

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ACORN, Soros and the Census

Just as ACORN happily accepted millions of dollars from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in its campaign to attain general acceptability and political power as well as to use all that money, ACORN hopes to participate in the upcoming census to promote interests beyond helping to conduct the next census:

obtaining general acceptability, power AND confidential information...

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image toon - othr fnn - Dept of Commerce taken leave of Census

ABC Offers Skeptical Take on Obama's Stimulus Claims; CBS, NBC Uncritical

ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper provided a skeptical, challenging analysis of the Obama administration's claims about the economic stimulus bill. After playing a clip of Obama claiming 150,000 jobs have been created by the stimulus bill, Tapper called that

"a number based on theory, not fact."

University of Maryland economist Peter Morici appeared briefly to point out,

"It's simply an implausible statement to say that some 150,000 jobs were created by direct spending, indirect spending and so forth."

NBC's "Today" and CBS's "Early Show" on Thursday simply regurgitated White House statements that the "economy is looking much healthier these days" and that the President is "taking credit for writing the prescription." [Audio available here]

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Name That Party: Dem Cincy Councilwoman In Controversial Traffic Stop Not Id'd; GOP Critic Is

The station did not mention Cole's Democratic Party affiliation in its report, or in its follow-up when Cole called to defend herself. The Cincinnati Democratic Committee endorsed Cole's reelection bid this November on April 8. The Cincinnati Enquirer's report on the incident also doesn't name Cole's party.

That's bad enough, but when Hamilton County Republican Party chairman Alex Triantafilou issued a press release denouncing Cole's apparent attempts at obtaining favoritism, the Enquirer only identified Triantafilou's party, and not Cole's...

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Lost in the Labyrinth of Race

One of the unexpected results of the Sotomayor nomination is a refocusing on the politics of racial identity and the fossilized institutions of affirmative action-or the belief that the U.S. government should use its vast power to ensure an equality of result rather than a fairness of opportunity....

[We certainly need that to counter the nation's systemic racism - as evidenced by its black president.

The victim industry: too big to fail regardless of the facts to the contrary.

As always, VDH is Highly Recommended > ]

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The dream of limitless energy suppllies


This is unlikely to pay off quickly, but perhaps in a decade or two we will have ramped up a significant energy source from this new technology.

From TG Daily:

Livermore, CA - A fusion ignition facility which uses the power of lasers to turn tiny hydrogen pellets into thermonuclear energy is to open in California today.

The device is expected to be the first to create more energy than it uses, releasing ten to 100 times more energy than the amount of laser energy required to initiate the fusion reaction.

It is hoped that the $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility (NIF) will pave the way for commercial laser fusion power stations - potentially providing clean, almost limitless energy.

Could this be the beginning of the end of the power of the oil despots?

What is Putin without oil? What is Chavez without oil? What is Iran without oil? What is Saudi Arabia without oil?

[But if they're so bad, why not develop our own vast reserves in the interim?]

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Highlights from New Show that Mocks Left-Wing, PC, Environmental Family

'The Goode Family,' a new half-hour animated comedy show which spoofs the politically-correct and environmental do-good thinking of a liberal family which considers its lifestyle superior to “abstinence people” who “wear flag pins,” debuted this past Wednesday night on ABC. The opening scene showed a “Support Our Troops ... And Their Opponents” bumper sticker on the family's hybrid.

When the 16-year-old son who the parents adopted from Africa and presumed he'd be black, but to their surprise was a white South African, wants to start driving, the father cautions: “With greater emissions, comes greater responsibility.” In another scene, the mother declares “nothing brings a mother and daughter closer together than shopping at a high-end, organic grocery store.” And inside the store an intercom announcement alerts shoppers: “Check out the big board to see how you can limit the impact of your existence.”

I won't give away all that's in the accompanying video in which I cobbled together a little under three minutes of what I thought were the funnier and most-damning parodies of liberal thinking...

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image toon - 1st cali mny fnn - Arnie re back in time