Ten Reasons to Get Rid of the European Union

The proponents of the European Union claim that it is a “peace project.” But the EU is not about peace, it is about war: A demographic and cultural war waged against an entire continent, from the Black Sea to the North Sea, in order to destroy European nation states and build an empire run by self-appointed and unaccountable bureaucrats. Anthony Coughlan, a senior lecturer at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, notes:

"At a national level when a minister wants to get something done, he or she must have the backing of the prime minister, must have the agreement of the minister for finance if it means spending money, and above all must have majority support in the national parliament, and implicitly amongst voters in the country. Shift the policy area in question to the supranational level of Brussels however, where laws are made primarily by the 27-member Council of Ministers, and the minister in question becomes a member of an oligarchy, a committee of lawmakers, the most powerful in history, making laws for 500 million Europeans, and irremovable as a group regardless of what it does. National parliaments and citizens lose power with every EU treaty, for they no longer have the final say in the policy areas concerned."

The European Union is basically an attempt by the elites in European nation states to cooperate on usurping power, bypassing and abolishing the democratic system, a slow-motion coup d’état. Ideas such as “promoting peace” or “promoting free trade” are used as a pretext for this, a bone thrown to fool the gullible masses and veil what is essentially a naked power grab...

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French deputies approve amendment permitting adoption of EU treaty

[meanwhile...]

French MPs have voted in favour of amending their country's constitution to allow adoption of the EU Lisbon Treaty. Prime Minister Francois Fillon called the decision: "a vote that distinguishes the actors of history from the spectators."

The Versailles assembly, bringing together both the French Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, voted 560 to 181. Of the 893 voters present, 741 votes were cast

The opposition Socialists abstained in protest at the decision to "take the parliamentary road" to pass the treaty rather than hold a referendum.

[i.e., the French people voted against it last year - so the government took away their ability to have a say in it and passed it 'for' them... evidently EU citizens are expected to just be 'spectators']

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Chavez hardens tone in dispute with Colombia

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hardened his tone on Saturday in a diplomatic dispute with Colombia, which he accuses of plotting an invasion, and warned any attack would be met with force. Chavez, a former soldier, repeated a claim that Colombia was planning to invade neighbouring Venezuela and said he would soon test the firepower of Russian-built fighter jets.

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[meanwhile...]

RAF forced to borrow planes
The RAF is being forced to borrow American spy planes and paint roundels on them to replace its fleet of Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft. The crews of the US Rivet Joint spy planes masquerading as RAF aircraft will not even be totally British with US personnel expected to take control on some missions. The move was forced by a Ministry of Defense (MoD) cash crisis that rules out the money for a replacement aircraft for the Nimrod R1.

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Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'

Muslim medical students are refusing to obey hygiene rules brought in to stop the spread of deadly superbugs, because they say it is against their religion. Women training in several hospitals in England have raised objections to removing their arm coverings in theatre and to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands, because it is regarded as immodest in Islam.

[government run health'care']

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Saying No to CoerciveCare

Whether it's Mitt, Hillary, or Arnold doing the sales job

...Yet many California unions argued that a mandate would force uninsured, middle-income working families to divert money from more pressing needs toward coverage whose price and quality they cannot control.

The unions are correct: This is exactly what is happening in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney enacted a similar plan two years ago as governor. (And Mr. Romney's plan is the inspiration for both the Schwarzenegger and Clinton plans.) The experience in the Bay State deserves a lot more scrutiny than it has been getting.

...All this has inflated demand, which, combined with onerous regulations on insurance suppliers, has triggered premium increases of 12 percent for this year—double last year's national average. No one is escaping the financial sting. The state health-care bill for fiscal 2008-2009 [alone] is expected to be $400 million more than originally projected—an 85 percent increase.

...The government response to rising premiums is, unsurprisingly, price controls...

...Forcing people to buy substandard care they cannot afford is not universal care, she says. "It is a hoax." And so Massachusetts is marching toward a system of two-tiered medicine—the alleged market inequity that universal care is supposed to cure.

[and on and on. fool us 100 times, shame on you - 101...?]

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Study: UN Global Warming Forecast Violates Accepted Principles

"These dire predictions are not the result of scientific forecasting," said J. Scott Armstrong, an internationally known expert in forecasting methods from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who co-authored the NCPA study. "Rather, they are opinions derived from a political process."

The most accepted forecasting methods were determined by internationally-known experts and expert reviewers and are available in the Principles of Forecasting handbook. These principles were designed to be applicable to making forecasts about diverse physical, social and economic phenomena. The NCPA study applied these forecasting principles to audit 2007's Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which predicted big increases in average world temperature by 2100. The audit found that:

> Out of 140 forecasting principles, 127 are relevant to the procedures used to arrive at the climate projections in the IPCC report;
> Of these, the IPCC report clearly violated almost half (60);
> An additional 12 forecasting principles appear to be violated, and there is insufficient information in the report to assess the use of 38 others; therefore
> Only 17 out of 127 applicable forecasting principles can be shown to have been followed by the IPCC.

The authors also note that the IPCC forecasters themselves are part of the unreliability problem, as political considerations influenced all stages of the IPCC process, including writing the final version expressly to reflect the language negotiated by the political appointees to the IPCC.

"As a result of these violations of forecasting principles, the forecasts in the IPCC report are invalid," says Armstrong. "There is no scientific forecast supporting the widespread belief in dangerous human-caused ‘global warming.' In fact, it has yet to be demonstrated that long-term forecasting of climate is possible at all."

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Mexican City Provides Illegals Sanctuary

A Mexican mayor has declared his city a “sanctuary” for the many illegal immigrants from Central American who pass through each day.

Jose Luis Gutierrez, mayor of Ecatepec — a suburb of Mexico City with as many as 3 million people — has not only ordered his police officers and city officials not to arrest or harass the migrants, he’s also told them not to cooperate with Mexican immigration agents...

Each year thousands of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and other countries south of the border arrive in Ecatepec to catch a train that will take them across Mexico to the U.S. border.

“For us, the bravest people of Ecatepec are the ones who take the risk of going to the north, with all the abuse and the hatred that goes on there,” Mayor Gutierrez said. “Those people are heroes for us.”

[our neighbors. what's that saying about fences and neighbors again?]

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Media Fail to Report Cost of Campaign Promises

How much does universal health care cost? What about bailing out troubled homeowners? There are hundreds of programs presidential candidates are promising that you haven’t even heard about, thanks to the media. Working with the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, we reveal what your favorite candidate could cost you.

[Recommended > ] http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080130134343.aspx

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CONGRESS' PORK OVERLOAD

Last month, Congress passed a 3,500-page omnibus spending bill after less than 24 hours for review. The bill, which mostly renewed funding for existing programs, contained more than 9000 "earmarks" -- worth at least $7.4 billion -- for legislators' pet projects, including:

[many]

The real problem with earmarks, says Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), is that "they circumvent the normal process," since they typically are placed in bills without discussion. Thus, lawmakers never get to debate them and find out if they're genuinely necessary -- or just more pork.

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California Voters Asked to Curb Eminent Domain

California

Dozens of states have reformed their eminent domain laws since a 2005 Supreme Court decision made land grabs easier, but California is not among them -- not yet. That may change, however, now that California secretary of state has certified the "California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act" for the June 2008 ballot.

"Government should not be able to profit by seizing private property from unwilling sellers for retail or commercial projects,"

said former State Rep. Doug Ose, a supporter of the proposed constitutional amendment.

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........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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HEROES

Face of Defense: Deputy Follows in Coworkers’ Footsteps

New Marine Pfc. Brett Lockhart Lockhart was a deputy sheriff at the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, in Titusville, Fla., where 15 of them are former Marines.

"I wanted to be able to fight both battles," Lockhart said. "I've already fought the local battle, but after 9-11, if anything else happens, I want to be there."

During his graduation from recruit training, Lockhart received a special visit from eight of his former coworkers, welcoming him to the brotherhood. Sgt. Frank T. Hickman, a deputy sheriff with the department said:

"Being a Marine is something that's always inside of you. It's good to see him join the family. We are all very proud of Brett down at the station, we want him to know he'll have a job waiting for him whenever he gets back."

[part of this country is at war. with the enemy, I mean.]

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48825

Gates: Taliban’s Terrorism Reflects NATO’s Success in Afghanistan

Jan. 31, 2008 – NATO experienced military success in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Taliban is resorting to terrorist tactics because its conventional efforts have failed, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters today.

“My view is that militarily, NATO has had a very successful year in 2007,” Gates replied. “The Taliban is occupying no territory in Afghanistan on a continuing basis.”
--
“...we are seeing more suicide bombings, more use of (improvised explosive devices), and so on, because their conventional military efforts have failed,” he said. “The rise in violence and attacks like we saw in Kabul are manifestations of a group that has lost in regular military terms in 2007 and is turning to terrorism as a substitute for that.”

He said he decided after consulting with President Bush to send an additional 3,200 Marines into Afghanistan “because it did not appear that that requirement would be satisfied by anyone else, and I wanted to take advantage of the gains that we had achieved over the past year in the security situation.”

The secretary repeatedly has pressed NATO to commit more troops to the International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan.

[guess we'll call that a 'mixed' report]

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Egypt turns back 3 000 Gazans

Cairo - Egyptian authorities have turned back around 3 000 Palestinians trying to reach Cairo and other cities after crossing into Sinai from Gaza following a border breach, a security source said on Monday. (Snip) Egyptian media reported on Monday that authorities had raided hotels and rented apartments in Cairo and other large cities in search of Palestinians who may have slipped past security.

[and the world outcry condemning Egypt for its mistreatment of Palestinians?]

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UN 'Peacekeepers' Vandalizing Ancient Art -- Where is MSM Reporting?

It is often claimed that without the UN things would be so much worse in troubled spots around the world. But, when we look at the pernicious effect the UN has where ever it goes, it's awfully hard to reconcile the claims with the hard truth.

We've seen the UN responsible for turning indigenous teens into prostitutes for UN workers in Cambodia, Africa, and Bosnia. [three: that's not an instance, it's a pattern]

Well, now we can add vandalism of sacred, ancient wall-art to the list. Today the Times online give us the story of UN peacekeepers defacing 6,000 year-old art in the Western Saharan rocks of Africa. UN vandals spray graffiti on Sahara’s prehistoric art

But, where is the media to report this outrage against human history and sacred religious relics and sites? About the same place they were when underplaying the reports of UN peacekeepers and employees forcing young women into prostitution the world over... absent from the scene.

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The Conservative Tide in Major Democracies

When things are going poorly for the Left, count on it to change the subject. After the surge refused to fail, the surge ceased to be news. Recall four years ago, when "all" the leaders of our major democratic friends were hostile to America, to our liberation of Iraq, and in particular to President Bush? Remember how Senator Kerry said that leaders of Europe privately wanted him to win the presidency? That news has ceased to become newsworthy.

Why? Because, like the surge, the sentiment in major democracies has turned as well.

In each of four major nations important to us, France, Germany, Canada, and Britain, the nations historically most important to America in both political and cultural connections, the alignment with America has improved - in some cases, dramatically improved - since the last elections in each nation...

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Cost of health initiative up $400m

Spending on the state's landmark health insurance initiative would rise by more than $400 million next year, representing one of the largest increases in the $28.2 billion state budget the governor proposed yesterday. State and federal taxpayers are expected to bear nearly all of the additional cost.

[now who could have seen that coming - and the years after?]

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FDA has major overseas backlog

[partly personal - but an example of government at work]

US FDA’s current staffing is at levels that would take “at least 27 years to inspect every foreign medical device plant that exports to the United States, 13 years to check every foreign drug plant and 1,900 years to examine every foreign food plant, according to government investigators,” the New York Times reports. “The situation is particularly dire in China, which has more drug and device plants than any other foreign nation but where FDA inspections are few.”

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New Peer-Reviewed Study Finds ‘Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence’

Climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia report that observed patterns of temperature changes (‘fingerprints’) over the last thirty years are not in accord with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.

Therefore, climate change is ‘unstoppable’ and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.

The report is published in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society [DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651]. The authors are Prof. David H. Douglass (Univ. of Rochester), Prof. John R. Christy (Univ. of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and Prof. S. Fred Singer (Univ. of Virginia).

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Blowin' in the Wind

.
If you thought the 2008 presidential race was shattering all records for windy rhetoric, it's nothing compared to the political eco-rhetoric being spun to US taxpayers -- to get them to cough up billions of dollars to fuel a renewable wind power industry boom sensible investors won't touch with a turbine's rotor...
--
In a recent US report about Silicon Valley clean energy investments, Vinod Khosia, founder of Khosia Ventures (representing dozens of US clean energy companies) says, "I worry about over-investing from firms that don't understand the energy markets." He's not alone. In an astute article in Energy Pulse (June 2007) Consulting Engineer Brian Leyland warned that the entire alternative energy renewables investments boom may turn into just another "dotcom bubble".

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Hypochondriasis Economicus

... Likewise, an economic hypochondriac is someone who obsesses about the "health of the economy" and who is prone to viewing the natural and inevitable fluctuations of the marketplace as a sign of impending recession, or worse. Today millions of Americans -- including the President, the Federal Reserve Board, and most members of the mainstream media -- appear to be in the grip of a full-blown hypochondriac attack over the economy. Why? Because for the past few weeks Wall Street traders have been selling stocks in anticipation of what they believe is a looming recession.

Are we in a recession now? No. A "recession" means two or more consecutive quarters of declining real gross domestic product. Far from being in a recession, through the third quarter of 2007, the United States has enjoyed 24 consecutive quarters of GDP growth. Furthermore, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January 2008 that unemployment was at 5.0 percent, which is low by any measure, and that real average weekly earnings were higher in December 2007 than in December 2006.

The economy, overall, is doing quite well. Despite what the media tells us about gasoline prices or the housing market or job layoffs among Fortune 500 companies, the economy is not in ‘crisis." There certainly is no rational, objective reason for Americans to be as concerned about the economy as they have become over the past few weeks.

[We've challenges; an expensive war on terror, a housing sector problem, and above all else an energy policy crisis whereby an absolute refusal to develop additional energy sources has increased the cost of everything else in our economy. I.e., Economy? It's energy, stupid. {You think it a coincident that the ~150B$ 'stimulus' package just happens to match the calculated 'energy shock' impact of oil price increases?} So let's stop burning our food and start developing our own, vast, oil reserves.]

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CNN Gives Unemployed Woman Pass for Buying a Flat-Screen Television

CNN’s January 30 “American Morning” mentioned retailers were cutting prices to get customers to purchase more, but no one during the broadcast had a problem with one unemployed woman buying one of those fancy televisions.

“Veronica McNeil has two kids,” said Cho. “She recently lost her job. Her husband’s an ironworker and the family is feeling the pinch.”

Cho pointed toward “rising gas and home heating oil prices and Americans losing their homes” for money being “tight.” Personal responsibility and wise financial decisions evidently don't factor into 'tightness'.

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CNN.com Highlights Negatives of GOP Candidates

It's quite interesting how CNN.com words the bios of the various presidential candidates. Interesting in that the Republican candidates have negative comments included, whereas the Democrats do not. Case in point: Here are the GOP candidate bios (my emphasis):

Hillary Clinton: The former first lady is now in her second term as the junior senator from New York.

Barack Obama: The former lawyer and state senator won a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois in 2004.

Mike Gravel: The former U.S. senator from Alaska now heads up a non-profit firm promoting civics and education.

vs.:

John McCain: The U.S. senator from Arizona ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, but lost to George W. Bush.

Mitt Romney: The former Massachusetts governor made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 1994.

Rudy Giuliani: The two-term mayor of New York City once ran for the U.S. Senate, but dropped out in 2000.

[no biase here, move along...]

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Unraveling the Unemployment Rate...

California
One of the excuses we hear for California’s budget problems is that they are caused by the national economic slowdown. It’s true that the national economy has a big impact on the state, but we’re seeing data that suggests that something went seriously wrong with California’s economy last year quite apart from our national difficulties.

Last year, California imposed a series of devastating new economic burdens, including the governor’s mandate to radically reduce carbon dioxide emissions (with profound impacts on sectors such as construction, manufacturing, agriculture and cargo transportation) and major increases in the minimum wage. Ironically, proponents claimed that these changes would greatly improve California’s job opportunities.

What we have seen over the past year is that California’s unemployment rate – that had been tracking very consistently with the national rate – broke radically upward from the national figures shortly after these laws took effect.

The Employment Development Department has just released California's December unemployment rate. While the national numbers ticked up by 3/10 of a point, California’s jumped another half point and is now running 1.1 points ahead of the national rate. A picture is worth a thousand words:


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Sleeper awakes with freight train on top

A man had a miraculous escape yesterday, sustaining only minor injuries when a freight train rolled over the top of him while he slept between the tracks. The Bendigo man, 20, whose name has not been released, was sleeping at a level crossing in Port Augusta, 300km northwest of Adelaide, when the train approached about 3.40am. (Snip) The train rolled over the man, still lying between the tracks, and stopped just ahead of him. It is believed the man hit his head on the train while trying to sit up. It is understood he may have been intoxicated.

[may?]

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HEROES

Face of Defense: Engineer Sees Hospital as ‘Once in Lifetime’ Project

BASRA, Iraq, Jan. 30, 2008 – The Basra Children’s Hospital project can get its hooks into people. Take Army Lt. Col. Kenneth McDonald, for example.

McDonald extended his tour in Iraq to two years from one to help bring the project to a successful conclusion.“Where else, as an engineer, would you want to be?” asked McDonald, who taught in the civil and mechanical engineering department at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., before coming to Iraq in 2006.
--
“My first day after arriving in Tallil and then driving to Basra, we were hit,” he recalled, adding that he wondered what he’d gotten himself into. The city has more than its share of indirect fire attacks, with more than 1,000 mortar rounds landing on Contingency Operating Base Basra over the summer.
--
The motto at Camp Blackadder, “Living the Dream,” captures the spirit of a team proud of its mission and aware of its circumstances. The slogan can be uttered on occasion with that particular wryness to be found in a combat zone. Some British soldiers in Basra have adopted the slogan, which adorned their shirts at a recent five-kilometer race.

Before extending his tour, McDonald said, he did a lot of soul searching. He concluded with respect to the hospital job that “something as significant as this comes only once a lifetime.”

[ in·dom·i·ta·ble ]

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48811

Iraqi Citizens, Security Forces Spark Phantom Phoenix Success

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2008 – Operation Phantom Phoenix is succeeding in cracking down on Iraq's enemies, largely because of the Iraqi security forces’ professionalism and the cooperation of the Iraqi people, a senior U.S. military officer said in Baghdad today.

“One of the reasons progress has been made and continues to be made in Iraq is the increasing courage of the Iraqi people as they place themselves in harm’s way to disrupt the terrorist networks and improve security conditions,”

During 2003 and 2004, Iraqis fought behind the multinational forces. In 2006, they worked side by side with the coalition. “Now,” he said, “we are fighting in front of them, and we are taking the leadership in conducting operations.”

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48814

As we land punches in Iraq, Dems just hit the canvas

'War is just like boxing," said Gen. George Patton. "When you get your opponent on the ropes, you must keep punching the hell out of him and not let him recover."

Today in Iraq, the enemy is on the ropes. Soldiers and Marines have reduced northern Al Qaeda safe havens to rubble. Contractors are delivering tons of supplies and securing our diplomats. One-time insurgent strongholds are returning to peace.

One would expect aspiring political leaders not only to laud our troops for their great work - but also to admit that a total pullout on a predetermined schedule might be just a tad premature.

Instead, the 2008 candidates for President on the Democratic side stubbornly deny the possible troop victory that's finally in our sights in a grotesque swap for political victory.

They're basically rooting for our defeat over there - which has me rooting, harder than ever, for their defeat here.

Consider...

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/01/28/2008-01-28_as_we_land_punches_in_iraq_dems_just_hit.html

Sharia wealth tax in Nigerian state

Muslims are supposed to give some of their wealth to charity in order to purify it, according to Islamic custom. But now the Bauchi State government has passed a law that forces the rich to give this tax, called Zakat, to the government.
--
Now the Sharia Commission has started drawing up a list of individuals they believe should be paying Zakat. They have sent out letters to more than 3,000 people warning if they don't pay the tax to the government this year they could be arrested and jailed for three months, fined, or given 20 lashes.

"We have a good number of rich people in the state but right now we can say they are not responding," says Bala Ahmed, spokesman for the state Sharia Commission. "Now we have the law we can ask them to give it by force."

['ask them to give by force' - don't we have a political party that subscribes to that idea too?]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7213386.stm

Drilling a Hole in the Lifeboat

What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities:

1. Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis.
2. Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
3. Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons.
4. Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies.
5. Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. And yet, nobody is saying: 'We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.'

On the contrary,...

http://www.globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3829&cid=1&sid=27

EU: Net Identities Protected from Civil Suits, For Now

[courtesy LH]
-- Promusicae wanted names of Telefonica Internet clients who shared copyright material on the Web using the Kazaa file exchange software, so it could start civil proceedings against them. Civil proceedings are cheaper than criminal proceedings, and typically require a lower burden of proof.

"Such protection cannot, however, affect the requirements of the protection of personal data. The directives on the protection of personal data also allow the member states to provide for exceptions to the obligation to guarantee the confidentiality of traffic data,"

EU rules do not preclude the possibility of EU countries laying down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings, it said. "However, it does not compel the member states to lay down such an obligation," the court said.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6228185.html?tag=nl.e550

Journalist: 'I Am an Intellectual Blasphemer' for Questioning Global Warming

Not everyone on the media left is marching in lockstep on the issue, however. One such dissident is Alexander Cockburn, a former columnist for the Nation who has experienced nothing but hatred from the "tolerant" left for thinking for himself:

"Since I started writing essays challenging the global warming consensus, and seeking to put forward critical alternative arguments, I have felt almost witch-hunted. There has been an hysterical reaction. One individual, who was once on the board of the Sierra Club, has suggested I should be criminally prosecuted."

He also hits on another important point that many in the business-hating media always overlook when it comes to the temperature debate: This movement is being bought and paid for by the world's largest corporations: [>]
--
Across the globe, this pattern of deception continues as rich, large companies have figured out that environmental regulation is a great way for not only getting great publicity but also to shut out the competition.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_printable/4357/

[Meanwhile...]

Obama back drivers licenses for illegals

Washington -- Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/28/MNH1UL57Q.DTL

Truth outs at the NYT - the economy great under Bush

This is what Sheryl Stolberg writes today in the New York Times on page A1 in White House Memo:

Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisors, he has had trouble getting credit for it...

The great economic performance under Bush [is] all the more remarkable for the fact that this president faced an extraordinarily difficult set of circumstances: an inherited recession, terrorists attacks and record high oil prices. And yet with solid growth, low unemployment and low non-oil inflation, the American economy is not in recession, despite what some would have you believe.

It is just too bad that ‘the newspaper of record' has been working for all these years so hard to conceal this fact.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/01/truth_outs_at_the_nyt_the_econ.html

NYT's Tale of Two Withdrawals: Respecting Edwards, But Giuliani 'Living an Illusion'

The presidential field has winnowed down further, with Democrat John Edwards and Republican Rudy Giuliani announcing their withdrawal from the presidential race on the same day. But while the Democrat was serenaded as a trailblazer, the moderate Republican was mocked for "living an illusion."

"Indeed, Mr. Edwards was poised to collect enough delegates in early nominating contests to potentially influence the outcome at the Democratic nominating convention in August, if neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama won enough delegates to clinch the nomination."

Wednesday's lead "news analysis," "Dizzying Fall For Ex-Mayor," by the tag team of Michael Powell and Michael Cooper, dispensed with anything positive about Giulani's efforts;

"As Mr. Giuliani ponders his political mortality, many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign. -- the more that Republican voters saw of him, the less they wanted to vote for him. Perhaps he was living an illusion all along."

[no bias here, move along...]

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080130134248.aspx

California's Exodus...

California
Once again, California registered the biggest net loss of domestic population in the country – 263,035 more people moved OUT of California last year than moved IN. That comes on the heels of 2005-2006, when 287,000 more people moved out of California than moved in – a bigger total loss of domestic population than Louisiana suffered after Hurricane Katrina. According to the Census Bureau, California has suffered a net loss of more than a half-million people to other states in the last two years.
--
The Laffer Competitiveness Index annually ranks states for tax and regulatory competitiveness. The higher the number, the heavier the burdens. California ranks 44th among the 50 states in the Laffer Competitiveness Index. Of the six states losing population the fastest, New York ranks 49th, Rhode Island 48th, New Jersey 43rd, and Hawaii, 45th. The only anomaly was Michigan (16th) whose economy is reeling from the slowdown in automobile sales.
--
Does anyone see a pattern here? Once again, the states with high tax and regulatory burdens are losing population to the states with low tax and regulatory burdens...

[who's leaving demographically? well, those who pay high taxes and consume the least in government services...]

http://www.carepublic.com/blog.html?blog_id=212&frompage=latestblog&domain=tom_mcclintock

Sacked for sheep sex prank

Two British oil workers have been sacked after simulating sex with sheep due to be slaughtered for a Muslim festival. The animals were being killed for 30 foreign workers to celebrate Eid Al Adhha in the Algerian oil town Hassi Messaoud. The men, who have not been named, were reported by stunned restaurant workers and guards — then sacked by their employer, US industrial giant Schlumberger. They were accused of ''sheep violation''.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article639408.ece

Al Qaeda Can Run, But Can’t Hide in Northern Iraq, General Says

The tables have turned for al Qaeda in northern Iraq, as a surge of operations there in the new year has put terrorists on the run looking for new places to hide, a commander in the region said today.

“A year ago, we were often reacting to al Qaeda and what they were going to do,” Hertling said. “Now, I think the tables have turned, and they are attempting to react to where we’re going to go next. And that’s a critical difference.”

About 15,000 local people have signed up as concerned local citizens under a program that allows them to assist with the security effort.

“As things begin to develop and we get more and more into the ‘hold’ and the eventual ‘build’ stage, coalition forces will begin to leave,” the general said. “As the Iraqi police stand up more and more capability, the Iraqi army will begin to leave and the police will be left, along with local citizens, in securing the inside of town.”

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=48730

Iraqi adviser cannot understand why we discuss leaving Iraq

[snip] -- whom I'll call by his tribal name, al-Dulaimi -- helped me navigate the thickets of local culture and politics when I served in Iraq during the first year of the war. -- Dulaimi told me that he'd watched the Democratic presidential debates while waiting for his flight out west.

"They all talked about leaving Iraq," he said of the candidates. "They're just saying that to get votes, aren't they? They would never do that, would they?"

His plaintive question gave me pause. Of course, Dulaimi wouldn't understand American politics, or the way some Americans would view this war. After all, he had known American soldiers who were selfless and dedicated. The Americans he knew, the ones he had risked his life (and the lives of his family members) to support, would never "cut and run."
--
When I turned to answer Dulaimi's question about the heart of America, I didn't duck the obvious. Yes, we could pull out of Iraq. As bizarre as it sounds to anyone who has given a piece of themselves to this effort, retreat is possible. However, it is unnecessary.
--
I wait to hear a presidential candidate address what is really needed to succeed in Iraq. As Dulaimi has so quickly learned, we are all waiting for our leaders to address the obstacles to the road ahead.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Nate+Slate%3a+My+Iraqi+adviser+cannot+understand+why+we+discuss+leaving+Iraq&articleId=20745474-7322-4072-92e3-683b2062fb7b

The Terror Scare?

Influential voices are peddling a dangerous fallacy: that the threat of terror is overblown, another example of scare tactics, like the supposedly nonexistent Communist threat in the 1940s and 1950s. Surprisingly level-headed people are hearing this siren call, at once so attractive and so dangerous.
--
Among many obvious fallacies here one is paramount: the number of victims is only one metric for judging terrorist activity, and possibly the least telling. The number of victims is the factor most open to reduction. A country can't control the number of terrorists, it can't control the number of attacks, it can't control the number of attempts. But it can keep the terrorists, attacks, and attempts from being successful, which is precisely what U.S. antiterrorist policy has concentrated on since 9/11, and to all indications, quite successfully.
--
Our campaign against Al-Queda and its offshoots has been extraordinarily successful. There have been no further attacks despite repeated attempts (another element ignored) But the next successful strike may well come from a completely different direction, from groups now considered harmless, or irrelevant, or that perhaps don't even yet exist...

[and above all else: the convergence of suicidal (non-deterable) martyrs and portable WMD. Long-ish, important, recommended > http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/the_terror_scare.html ]

Sweden, Norway drop out of UN's Darfur mission

Sweden and Norway have dropped plans to send about 400 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur because of opposition from Sudan's government, a Swedish Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday. The two Scandinavian countries had planned to send a joint engineering unit to the peacekeeping force in the troubled region, but the Swedish and Norwegian foreign ministers said in a joint statement that ''Sudan's opposition makes it impossible to maintain the offer of a Norwegian-Swedish contribution."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/01/09/darfur-peacekeeping.html

Will Venezuela Be Judenrein

On December 1, 2007, two dozen heavily armed police staged a raid on a Jewish community center in Caracas where hundreds were celebrating a wedding. The police, the Venezuelan equivalent of the FBI, claimed to be seeking weapons and evidence of "subversive activity." They found no weapons

This bit of harassment theater was only the latest in a series of worrying moves by the Chavez government against its Jewish citizens. The same community center had been raided in 2004, in the morning hours when children were being bussed to school. The regime -- which boasts of cozy friendships with Ahmadinejad's Iran -- has also engaged in steady anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda. A little more than a year ago, Chavez declared in a Christmas Eve speech that "the world has wealth for all, but some minorities, the descendants of the same people that crucified Christ, have taken over all the wealth of the world."

[our neighbor]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2008/01/25/will_venezuela_be_judenrein

US Was 'Set Up' to 'Take the Flak' for China, India at Bali Conference

The media loved the melodramatic moment at the Bali global warming conference where a delegate gained YouTube and environmental infamy as the man who pushed America to break the deadlock in Bali when he told the US to “lead” or “get out of the way”on the issue of curbing greenhouse gases.
But what happened was not that simple, Mr. Conrad said recently, in his first in-depth interview since the close of the talks. The American delegation, in a way, was “set up” by other countries to take the blame, he said.

“There was a certain feeling that maybe the U.S. could be the fall guy for this whole thing, that if G-77 couldn’t resolve its own issues, if it just held the line on a position they already knew the U.S. rejected, that the U.S. would be the one that stepped up and had to take the flak for collapsing the whole thing,”

It's easier to blame the United States for all of the world's problems. That way no one else has to take responsibility, and it perpetuates the Evil America storyline.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lynn-davidson/2008/01/22/us-was-set-take-flak-china-india-bali-conference

'Patients to lose weight before NHS treatment'

Patients could be required to lose weight before they can be treated on the National Health Service, Gordon Brown has suggested. In a New Year message to NHS staff, the Prime Minister indicates people may have to fulfil new "responsibilities" in order to establish their entitlement to care. The new conditions could be set out in a formal NHS "constitution", Mr Brown says. (Snip) Despite the NHS commitment to provide free universal care, it is already common for doctors to set conditions on patients seeking treatment.

[the inevitable evolution of government run health'care']

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=EL3VVI3Y3LYOFQFIQMFSFFOAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2008/01/01/nhealth201.xml

Obama supports driver's licenses for illegals

Washington -- Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/28/MNH1UL57Q.DTL

Recession Skeptics – The Side Unheard in the Media

Recession stories have a lot in common with global warming stories - there are a lot of them and you hear only one side. And like global warming, recession is the subject of a Newsweek cover story, appearing on the front of the magazine's February 4 issue. The story, "The U.S. Economy Faces the Guillotine," written by Daniel Gross, takes a one-sided gloomy approach to reporting on the U.S. economy. It worked on the assumption a recession is inevitable and may have even already started.

"The Great Global Market Freak-Out of 2008 has everyone asking whether the United States - already on the road to recession - is entering into a protracted period of economic trouble where jobs will be slashed, prices will continue to rise and the dollar will keep falling; and if so, whether the declining U.S. economy will pull the rest of the world down with it,"

What Gross completely ignored it the possibility the economy will be fine and stave off a recession. There are prominent economists* who don't believe that the United States is "on the road to recession," - but good luck reading their opinions in Newsweek.

[*Brian Wesbury, an economist for First Trust Advisors, L.P., in the January 28 Wall Street Journal. , for one]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2008/01/29/recession-skeptics-side-unheard-media

Grading Teachers: Kids' Test Scores Must Count

If you want good teachers in the schools, the first step is obvious: Figure out who they are. And not by relying solely on water-cooler chat and subjective judgments but by also looking at rock-hard data on teacher performance. Such common-sense thinking has led Chancellor Joel Klein & Co. to undertake a pilot project to measure and track teachers' results - based on their students' test scores. (Snip) Imagine teachers treated like other professionals - having their performance monitored and quantified, as is routinely done in other fields...

[a 'pilot' program. better late then never I guess]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01282008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/grading_teachers_560403.htm

Bush to push for trade deals

The White House is planning a major campaign to persuade a reluctant Congress to approve free trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama this year, a senior Commerce Department official said on Wednesday. But the Bush administration is unlikely to accept legislation hiking duties on Chinese imports as a tradeoff for those pacts, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Chris Padilla said in an interview.

[Q: when they 'hike duties' on imported goods, who pays for that?]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/International__Business/Bush_plans_relentless_push_for_trade_deals/articleshow/2688393.cms

AFP: Same Story, Two Different Towns

Two Ohio towns. Identical story. That's what the AFP presented to us on Sunday and then again yesterday. On Sunday,
we read this:

The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.

This is Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland and a town ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.

Faded "for sale" signs sit in front of deserted houses. The residents are gone, either in search of new jobs after the factories shut down, or in shame after being evicted for missing their mortgage payments.

A red, white and blue American flag flies over windows and doors which have been boarded up to keep the drug dealers away.

Monday,
we read this:

The streets are empty. Trash rustles down the road past rusted barbecues, abandoned furniture, sagging homes and gardens turned to weed.

This is Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in southeastern Cleveland ravaged by the subprime mortgage crisis roiling the United States.

Faded "for sale" signs sit in front of deserted houses. The residents are gone, most after being evicted for missing their mortgage payments.

A red, white and blue American flag flies over windows and doors which have been boarded up to keep the drug dealers away.

Keep comparing the two. The wording is verbatim in both yarns.

http://colossus.mu.nu/

Ad Watch: Term limits change tied to effective disaster response

California
--
A new campaign advertisement cites emergency response to last year's devastating Southern California wildfires as a reason to alter lawmakers' terms by approving Proposition 93.
--
ANALYSIS: The ad implies that legislators played a key role in responding to the fatal infernos, but the Assembly and Senate were not in regular session at the time. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued numerous emergency orders to assist victims while firefighters struggled to extinguish the flames, but the governor's actions did not require, or receive, a vote by the Legislature.

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/657810.html