The Law of Doomsaying

Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told the Los Angeles Times that global warming might melt 90 percent of California's snowpack. This, Chu said, would mean "no more agriculture in California," the nation's leading food producer. Chu added: "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."

No more lettuce or Los Angeles? Chu likes predictions, so here is another:

Nine decades hence, our great-great-grandchildren will add the disappearance of California artichokes to the list of predicted planetary calamities that did not happen, just as global cooling has... [snip]

Speaking of experts, in 1980 Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford scientist and environmental Cassandra who predicted calamitous food shortages by 1990, accepted a bet with economist Julian Simon.

When Ehrlich predicted the imminent exhaustion of many nonrenewable natural resources, Simon challenged him: Pick a "basket" of any five such commodities, and I will wager that in a decade the price of the basket will decline, indicating decreased scarcity.

Ehrlich picked five metals -- chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten -- that he predicted would become more expensive. Not only did the price of the basket decline, the price of all five declined.

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser...

[Recommended > for the multiple specifics re: the chronic wrongness to these folks' records - yet chronically ignored by the MSM]

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UK faces energy blackouts without investment in nuclear and clean coal

Britain faces electricity blackouts unless the Government does more to support nuclear and clean coal as well as renewables, experts have warned. Dieter Helm, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford, said the UK will face shortages and high prices for electricity from 2020 when the current generation of coal-fired power stations and nuclear stations have to close down.

[reminder: the US gets most - ~55% - of its electricity from coal. So, when we all switch to electric cars, where's the juice going to come from?]

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image toon - grn engry - Greeen cars in junk yard because no green coal plants for electricity

Emergency Review

The reality of government-controlled medical treatment.

This is an emergency book review.

Before you do anything else, make a note to read The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care by Sally C. Pipes. It might literally save your life, by checking the political stampede toward a government-controlled medical profession — usually presented politically as “universal health care.”

It is one of the painful signs of our times that millions of people are so easily swayed by rhetoric that they show virtually no interest at all in finding out the hard facts. Any number of other countries already have government-controlled medical professions. Yet few Americans show any interest in what actually happens to medical care in those countries.

--- Cancer survival rates are higher in the United States than in Europe --- annually tens of thousands of Canadians seek medical treatment outside of Canada, even though treatment is 'free' inside Canada --- waiting times for surgery are months longer in Canada, Britain, and Australia — all countries with government-controlled medical care — than in the United States ---

As with so many government programs, “the poor” are used as a political justification for imposing government-controlled medical care on everyone. But The Top Ten Myths of American Medical Care shows what a fraud that is and can literally be a life-saver. What it reveals is unlikely to be told by the mainstream media or by other enthusiasts for the magic phrase “universal health care.”

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Tyson urged to hire Shelbyville residents before immigrants, refugees

As an organizer from Nashville searched for housing and services for about 50 Egyptian men and their families who want to move to Shelbyville to be close to their new jobs at Tyson Foods, the county mayor said that the food giant should hire Bedford County residents first. (Snip) Concerns have once again risen in Shelbyville about immigrants and refugees coming to Bedford County to apply for jobs at the Tyson Foods poultry plant.

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College sued over speech against gay marriage

LOS ANGELES - A college student has filed a lawsuit saying a public speaking professor berated him in class for making a speech opposing same-sex marriage.

In the federal court suit filed last week, student Jonathan Lopez said that midway through his speech, when he quoted a dictionary definition of marriage and recited a pair of Bible verses, professor John Matteson cut him off and would not allow him to finish.

He said the professor also called him a "fascist bastard."

A student evaluation form included with the lawsuit lacks a score for Lopez's speech, and reads "ask God what your grade is." [snip]

In a letter, Dean Allison Jones wrote that she had met with Lopez, considered his complaint "extremely serious in nature," but that two students were "deeply offended" by the speech, and quoted one as saying "this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom." [snip]

"Basically, colleges and universities should give Christian students the same rights to free expression as other students," David J. Hacker, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization that is representing Lopez, told the Los Angeles Times.

Lopez and his attorneys are seeking financial damages and want the court to strike down a code at Los Angeles City College forbidding students from making statements deemed offensive.

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[And what about those who find support of gay marriage offensive? Obviously, their sensibilities don't count. The 'price' this student should pay for an unpopular {although the passage of prop. 8 suggests otherwise} view is unpopularity - anything more is fascism {in this case, of the liberal variety}.

This is particularly troubling to my mind that it's our 'institutions of higher learning', where you'd think the power of arguments - and the right to make them - would hold supreme. But liberal indoctrination has supplanted genuine differing-discourse within US academia at all levels.

Extreme statement? Consider > ]

select
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ACORN Pushes Return of Fairness Doctrine

... The framework for the attempt by Democrats to silence political opposition is already in place in what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) calls localism, a scheme set up in the form of local “community boards” that will decide whether or not your local broadcast station is meeting the standards required to review and renew their broadcast licenses every two to four years.

As you can see from the FCC localism webpage, localism regulations have already been through well over a year’s worth of procedural hearings, and, as of April 2008, “Broadcast Information Specialists are Available for Public Inquires.” The rules and regulations have been set forth in “The Public and Broadcasting,” which is the FCC field manual for the ACORN “activists” and lawyers to intimidate your local community boards into harassing your local radio stations into submission or recommend the revocation of their broadcast license.

Given the reported $4.2 billion allocated for ACORN and like groups by the so-called stimulus bill signed into law by Obama yesterday, all that is left to fulfill this scenario is the confirmation of Obama’s new FCC chairman, nominee Julius Genachowski. After he’s confirmed, the full frontal assault on our First Amendment rights will begin quickly...

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image c-art - POLL GRAPH re Fairness Doctrine - lbrty bbro sclm -

As Goes California. . .

In case you haven’t noticed, California is fast becoming a third world economy. Its government has ceased to provide basic services (its schools now rank 48th; its prisons were ordered to release more than 50,000 inmates because of inadequate healthcare). The Wall Street Journal editors explain:

The Golden State — which a decade ago was the booming technology capital of the world — has been done in by two decades of chronic overspending, overregulating and a hyperprogressive tax code that exaggerates the impact on state revenues of economic boom and bust. Total state expenditures have grown to $145 billion in 2008 from $104 billion in 2003 and California now has the worst credit rating in the nation — worse even than Louisiana’s. It also has the nation’s fourth highest unemployment rate of 9.3% (after Michigan, Rhode Island and South Carolina) and the second highest home foreclosure rate (after Nevada).

Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to bully the legislature into a package which includes $14B more in new taxes. That move, if it gets through, plus the general deterioration in the quality of life is likely to increase the outflow of people, and, with it, high earners and businesses whose revenue the state needs. In short, the state is a basket case.

Those in the other 49 should take note. This is what a high tax, overregulated, union dominated economy looks like. And in the information age it is increasingly easy to relocate businesses — to another state or another country. So as we look to the federal government it might be a good idea to keep the California experience front and center. Do we want to dramatically increase the size of government, pass volumes of new environmental and other regulations, pass card check to give unions an even greater influence in the economy, and ( if the Congressional Democrats have their way) raise taxes?

For decades now, we have seen that as goes California, so goes the nation. Let’s hope that is no longer true.

[He missed one. I've come to believe that the Obama's real goal to is emulate California in establishing a permanent Democrat majority in Washington. California did it by gerrymandering it's districts in 2002 to the extent that the Democrat majority in Sacramento is permanent - and they know it. That's how a majority of California's can be opposed to (per KRON-4 poll) the new state budget and our state legislature moves ahead with it anyway.

Obama and company can accomplish it with three things, the first they've already enacted. 1) With the signing of the spendulus bill most Americans will pay no federal income taxes (when the many tax credits are returned to them). 2) Add the corruption of the upcoming census and 3) the FCC's enforcement of 'localization' regulations (stealth Fairness Doctrine with ACORN as litigant) so not enough people know about it until it's too late, and voila: Democrats forever.

I'd love to be wrong - time will tell.]

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ACTION

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Democrats slipped into the so-called "Economic Stimulus" bill a provision to give millions, if not billions, of dollars to ACORN.

ACU raised awareness about ACORN in the last election campaign. They were raided by FBI agents and investigated for falsifying thousands of voter registration records. We produced short documentary videos on ACORN; their ties to left wing groups, the Obama campaign paying them for voter turnout and other activities. Worse, we showed that ACORN was actually involved in the push for subprime loans and the mortgage meltdown that has driven down our economy. If you have not seen our short videos, you can see them here on our ACORN action page.

Boehner noted that, "The House Democrats' trillion dollar spending bill also includes $1 billion for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program." He then went on to point out that ACORN reports filed with the Office of Management and Budget shows that ACORN spent almost 1.6 million in federal taxpayer Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program funds from 2003 through 2007. Now they are going to come back for more.

Boehner's analysis also shows that ACORN has been awarded more than $53 million in taxpayer dollars over the last several years. This amount does not reflect the millions more ACORN has received in federal block grant funds awarded to state and local agencies which passed them on to ACORN.

We need your help to fight back. We want to flood Capitol Hill and the news media with petitions against these attempts to take our tax dollars and give them to left-wing advocacy groups.

Please go here, now to sign our ACU ACORN Stimulus bill
petition and support ACU on this critical endeavor.

Thank you for your help with this important effort to shine the light on efforts to give billions to ACORN.

Sincerely,

Dennis WhitfieldExecutive Vice President

image photo - fnn - fortune cookie = 'that wasn't chicken

image toon - 1st fnn mny reps - Read before sign = what's worst can happen

Escape From D.C.

It's strange that so few mainstream media outlets have pointed out the obvious: The bill Congress hurried to pass late last week without anyone having read all 1,434 pages will in fact not stimulate much of anything.

It is a spending bill, pure and simple. Every dollar the government spends must either be borrowed, taken through taxation or printed. Any way you look at it, every dollar comes from the pockets of the people...

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Obama’s Stimulus Will Cause 'Lower Wages' for American Workers, Says Congressional Budget Office

[HT:SN]
The huge economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday will result in ''lower wages'' for American workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

(Snip) says the $787-billion plan will increase employment in the short-term, but will run up deficit spending which will ''crowd out'' private investment in the economy in the long-term. The analysis concludes that the stimulus will put downward pressure on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and wages...

TRUTH-O-METER Re: Debt due to Bush tax cuts

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Bush's tax cuts for high earners "have been the biggest contributor to the budget deficit."

Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 in during a news conference

Tax cuts for not biggest deficit factor



The Tax Policy Center calculated what share of the federal tax changes each income bracket gained from the Bush tax cuts. The top 5 percent of earners (those making about $225,000 or more) received 30.5 percent of the tax benefits in 2008, according to their analysis. But conversely, the bottom 95 percent of tax payers got 70 percent. Zoom out from the top 5 percent to the top 20 percent, and their share is 47.8 percent. Critics of the Bush tax cuts can call that disproportionate, but it's still less than half and therefore not "the biggest."

Although the wealthy did get benefits from the Bush tax cuts, their benefits did not outweigh those of everyone else put together.

"Within the tax cuts, the largest numbers went to the middle class, and those are the tax cuts that are most likely to be extended," she said. "I don't see how you could read the numbers to say otherwise."

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"We don't have a [52!] trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." -- Ronald Reagan

image toon - mny sclm - Shovel Ready = over full sandbox

Putin warns US to eschew socialism

What is the world coming to? Pat Dollard reports the Russian leader warned the US against adopting socialism because it doesn't work: Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise

''excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence''

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Could ecoterrorists let slip the bugs of war?

The terrorists' letter arrived at the Mayor of Los Angeles's office on November 30, 1989. A group calling itself “the Breeders” claimed to have released the Mediterranean fruit fly in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and threatened to expand their attack to the San Joaquin Valley, an important centre of Californian agriculture.

With perverse logic, they said that unless the Government stopped using pesticides they would assure a cataclysmic infestation that would lead to the quarantining of California produce, costing 132,000 jobs and $13.4 billion in lost trade.

The infestation was real enough. It was ended by heavy spraying. It is still not known if ecoterrorists were behind it, but the panic it engendered shows that “the Breeders” were flirting with a powerful weapon.

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Court reverses ruling bringing 17 detainees to US

— A U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling Wednesday that would have transferred 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees, none of whom are labeled enemy combatants, to the United States. The ruling casts further uncertainty on the fate of the Turkic-speaking Muslims from western China. [snip]

Only the executive branch, not the courts, can make decisions about immigration, the appeals court said. That fact doesn't change, the court said, simply because the United States has held the men for years without charge.

"Such sentiments, however high-minded, do not represent a legal basis for upsetting settled law and overriding the prerogatives of the political branches,"

Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote.

Earlier this month, Beijing warned other countries not to accept the men, creating a potential diplomatic roadblock to President Barack Obama's plan to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.

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About those innocents . . .

SURPRISE: Closing down that military prison at Guantanamo turns out to be harder than just promising to do so in a presidential campaign. Now that the Obama campaign is the Obama administration, the job is being delayed for up to a year, and all the problems involved are being admitted, referred to study commissions, and-what a surprise again-being blamed on the previous administration.

The usual unidentified sources have told the Washington Post, which can now operate as a branch of the White House press office by printing leaks direct from the top, that the records of the prisoners being held at Guantanamo are in shameful disarray. Instead of a single neat case file a few pages long on each of the prisoners, the records seem to be scattered hither and yon throughout the federal government-from the various military branches to the Justice Department.

Gosh, do you think this mass of scattered records could have anything to do with the U.S. Supreme Court's many, confusing and generally fuzzy decisions granting these prisoners, legal and illegal combatants alike, habeas corpus and various other rights heretofore recognized only in civilian courts?

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Geert Wilders and the Fight for Europe

Does defending Western values constitute “inciting hatred”?

Britain has just witnessed the spectacle of a duly elected parliamentarian from another EU country, Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, being denied entry to the country because he constituted “a threat to public policy.” Wilders, after being detained briefly at Heathrow, was sent back to Holland.

Three weeks earlier, a Dutch appeals court had ordered prosecutors to begin criminal proceedings against Wilders for “insulting Muslim worshippers” through his public statements and his 2008 film, Fitna.

The order to proceed with the criminal prosecution resulted from pressure put on European states and on the UN Human Rights Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

The OIC is a unique organization — one that has no equivalent in the world. It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states. By contrast, the European Union represents half as many states and is a secular body only.

The OIC’s aim is to punish and suppress any alleged Islamophobia, around the world but particularly in Europe, and it has been a leader in creating the conditions that made the U.K.’s Wilders ban possible.

Geert Wilders is the latest victim of this enormous world machinery. His crime is maintaining that Europe’s civilization is rooted in the values of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and the Enlightenment — and not in Mecca, Baghdad, Andalusia, and al-Kods. He fights for Europe’s independence from the Caliphate and for its endangered freedoms.

Wilders’s enemies pretend that he is an insignificant personality who makes “provocative” statements only in search of fame. In fact, if his motivation were self-interest, he could do far better by courting the OIC’s favors — as so many Europeans are doing, consciously or unconsciously — rather than risking his freedom and indeed his life.

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>> VIEW VIDEO HERE

Owner of Muslim Relations TV Network Beheads Wife, Media Mum

The owner of a cable TV network created to promote better understanding of Muslims in America was arrested in Orchard Park, New York, Thursday for beheading his wife.

If you hadn't heard about this that wouldn't be a surprise for the story has been almost completely boycotted here in the states.

As WIVB-TV reported Friday (video embedded below the fold, h/t Marc Sheppard, photo courtesy WIVB): ....

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Headless Body in Legless Story

Kathryn, that self-pitying imam is part of a now familiar pattern: Pay no attention to that dead body; the real victim here is Islam.

Beheaded woman in Buffalo?

"Shocked friend says murder damages Islam's image."

Hindus, Jews and Christians massacred in Bombay?

"The recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India highlight the dangerously vulnerable situation of India’s Muslims."

Jonah writes today about the reluctance of journalists (a profession that congratulates itself on its "bravery" and "courage" far more than, say, firemen do) to speak truth to politically correct power — or, as I put it in my testimony in Toronto last week, their willingness to serve as eunuchs to the PC sultans. [snip]

Oddly enough, the one story that did decline to take spokesimams at face value came from, of all people, The Toronto Star's reporter:

Aasiya Hassan recently filed for divorce, authorities said. According to Buffalo News reports, she obtained an order of protection on Feb. 6, barring her husband from their home in Orchard Park.

Under sharia law followed by Muslims, a woman can ask for a divorce, but only a man can grant the request, and he can refuse, according to a book on sharia published last month, Cruel and Usual Punishment, by Egyptian-born American author Nonie Darwish.

Spousal murder is not unusual. Beheading your wife is. If Muzzammil Hassan decapitated his as an Islamic ritual, then his entire professional life — Mister Moderate Muslim — was a lie. As I noted at the weekend, when Mr. Hassan launched his Bridges TV station to counter "negative stereotypes" of Muslims, he got the traditional tongue baths from NBC's Brian Williams, NPR's "All Things Considered" et al -

Don't they have a responsibility to revisit the story now that it's got a little more complicated - or, as old-school editors would say, "newsworthy" - than the press releases they read out a couple of years back?

If you're not intrigued by the apparent fraud at the heart of this man's life and work — a fraud in which the U.S. media cheerfully colluded — you lack the elementary curiosity necessary to be a journalist.

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No fans allowed for Israel tennis match

[HT:BN]
Sweden's upcoming Davis Cup tennis match against Israel will be held behind closed doors, Malmö city council ruled on Wednesday. The decision follows a vocal campaign against the match in protest at the situation in the Middle East. The match was scheduled to be played from March 6th to 8th at the Baltiska Hallen venue, which can hold 4,000 spectators.

[It's called cowardice.]

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Obama Naïveté at the U.N.

In a major foreign-policy decision taken over the weekend, President Obama has decided to legitimize the United Nations’s “anti-racism” forum known as Durban II. State Department officials announced in a press release buried on Saturday, that starting today the United States will attend for the first time the preparatory meetings of this controversial U.N. conference. The “Durban Review Conference,” scheduled for April in Geneva, is the progenitor of the anti-semitic hatefest that took place in South Africa in early September 2001.

The searing images of the demonization of America and Jews on the U.N.’s global stage, and the terrorism in New York 72 hours later, should have made joining this revived forum for U.N.-driven hate inconceivable. But President Obama seems intent on learning the lessons of history — and the relationship between hatemongering and violence — the hard way.

The speed at which President Obama is selling off American assets is breathtaking. The speed at which he is selling them out is even faster.

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STUDY WARNS OF HIGH U.S. CORPORATE TAXES

The U.S. corporate income tax rate is higher than all other global regions -- 14 percentage points higher than the global average and nearly 17 percentage points higher than the average among European Union nations, says a new study by KPMG, a U.S. accounting firm.

Of the 106 countries surveyed, only the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Japan impose a higher corporate tax rate than the combined rate of 40 percent in the United States. This is not good for America's competitiveness. According to researchers:

• The global average corporate tax rate is 23.2 percent in the E.U., 26.6 percent in Latin America and 28.4 percent in the Asia Pacific region.
• Nearly 23 countries cut their corporate tax rates in 2008 alone, including Canada, Columbia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
• In contrast, the U.S. corporate tax rate has remained unchanged since 1994.
• Recent OECD studies show U.S. corporate income taxes are 50 percent higher than the average among its counterparts in the industrialized world, and that corporate taxes are the single most harmful tax to GDP growth - even more harmful than personal income taxes or consumption taxes.

Furthermore, in 2008, the Tax Foundation released an analysis showing that the U.S. federal corporate income tax quietly taps family pocketbooks for nearly $370 billion per year in the form of higher prices, lower wages and poorer return on investment.

If even notoriously high-tax Sweden recognizes that taxes matter to a country's business climate and work incentives, when will the political class in Washington tack action?

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Bankruptcy remains an option for GM, analysts say

DETROIT - A government-backed bankruptcy reorganization remains an option for saving General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, analysts said on Wednesday, even though the automakers have said they would rather not go down that road.(Snip)

Some Wall Street analysts were disappointed that the restructuring plans submitted to the U.S. Treasury did not include key concessions from the United Auto Workers union and the automakers' bondholders...

[And their we have it: either they reorganize under bankruptcy, which is exactly what it's for, or they bilk us forever.]

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64% Oppose Any More Loans for GM and Chrysler
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

General Motors and Chrysler are back this week seeking $22 billion more in federal help, but 64% of U.S. voters are opposed to providing any additional taxpayer-backed loans for the embattled automakers.

Twenty-four percent (24%) support more loans for GM and Chrysler, and 11% are undecided.

Forty-four percent (44%) say it is better for the U.S. economy to let companies like General Motors fail than for the federal government to provide subsidies that will keep them in business.

In December, just 40% thought it was better to let the auto companies fail.

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Facebook Backs Down After Censoring Opposition Ad

In yet another example of flag spamming and poor corporate over sight Facebook decided this week to remove an ad from the conservative group Americans for Prosperity. The group was advertising a petition on their site nostimulus.com which lets people voice their opposition to the near $800 billion stimulus going through congress right now.

After originally screening and approving the ad CNS News, a sister site of NewsBusters and the Media Research Center, reports that Facebook claimed to have received some complaints from users. They then proceeded to put a disapproval notice on it and then yank it from the site all together.

Luckily Americans for Prosperity didn't take the censorship sitting down and CNS News didn't ignore the story. In a move that Phil Kerpen, the national policy director at Americans for Prosperity, credited to pressure resulting from the CNS News report Facebook decided to back down from its original decision to censor the conservative group's ad.

Of course the reasons Facebook gives for their reversal only go to further the idea that this is indeed a case of liberal flag spamming combined with poor moderation and oversight.

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[Sound familiar to (some of) you? It should, it was this one...

Broken: Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 505:

PROMISE: Create a $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs

"During 2009 and 2010, existing businesses will receive a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired."

UPDATE: $3,000 tax credit not in stimulus bill, no future action seen

The credit was never part of the stimulus legislation as far as we saw, and it was not included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which Obama signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009. Likewise, we see no indication that this idea might re-emerge. So for now, we rate it Promise Broken.

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Jindal Signals Louisiana May Not Take Stimulus Money

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate, has suggested his state may not be interested in all of the roughly $4 billion allotted to it in the economic stimulus package to be signed by President Obama.

“The flawed bill the President will sign today is a missed opportunity, one for which our children and grandchildren will pay a hefty price. It’s a raw deal for American families, providing just $1.10 per day in relief for workers while saddling every family with $9,400 in added debt to pay for special-interest programs and pork-barrel projects. It will do little to create jobs, and will do more harm than good to middle-class families and our economy."

[Responsibility, class.]

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said he’ll take any money that Louisiana turns down.

[not so much]

Jindal is scheduled to give the response to the president’s not-exactly-a-state-of-the-union address next Tuesday.

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image toon - mny - DOW graphs due to OB actions - 1st fnn -

'Climate Scientist' Ratchets Up Global Warming Alarmism in Face of Record Cold Weather

You're a global warming alarmist yet we're experiencing the coldest winter in decades. What to do? What to do? Well, if you are "climate scientist" Chris Field, you go even further out on the limb and declare that the climate is warming up even faster than predicted despite evidence to the contrary right outside our doors. Here is the Reuters report about Chris Field sounding the global warming alarm bells:

The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist said on Saturday.

"The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.

One "little" problem with this Reuters report written by Julie Steenhuysen. Chris Field is not a "top climate scientist." In fact, he isn't even a climate scientist at all.

Just a wee bit of googling on the part of Steenhuysen would have revealed that Chris Field is a professor of biological sciences whose shtick is pushing something called "global ecology." Field has no more expertise in predicting future climate patterns than, say, a proctologist performing brain surgery.

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Danger of U.S. 'environmental protectionism'

CALGARY — A University of Alberta business professor says America isn’t likely to stop imports from Canada’s oilsands but there’s a credible threat from what he calls “environmental protectionism.”

Andrew Leach says there’s a danger of oilsands costs rising even further if the United States adopts more aggressive climate change rules than Canada has.

Both Ottawa and Alberta back carbon capture as a climate change strategy — but there is disagreement over who should pay billions of dollars for it. Professor Leach says there’s a danger that Washington may levy a special tax on what environmentalists have dubbed “dirty oil” from Alberta’s oilsands.

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60% Stress Need For New Sources of Energy

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Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters say finding new sources of energy is more important than reducing the amount of energy Americans now consume.

Generic support for developing new energy sources is up four points from a month ago.

Republicans (71%) and unaffiliated voters (63%) more strongly support placing the priority on finding new energy sources than Democrats (50%).

On a related topic, 51% say more nuclear power plants should be built in the United States

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California Needs California's Oil

Both our energy and budgetary answers lie right off our own shores - available to us immediately to the tune of 1 Trillion dollars...

WATCH THIS (2 minutes)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNQFZ4Gud8

.

California lawmakers fail to pass budget

California lawmakers narrowly failed to pass a $40 billion budget on Sunday. [snip]

The bill includes $14.4 billion in new taxes and $15.1 billion in spending cuts in a bid to close a $42 billion budget deficit the state's government faces over the next 17 months.

Residents of the "Golden State" face a 1 cent [I.e., a 12.5% increase] sales tax rise, steeper income and gasoline taxes and higher vehicle licensing fees. Some aspects face voter approval in May.

Republicans seeking re-election have faced pressure from constituents averse to tax increases, while Democrats are under similar pressure from voters to maintain spending... [last I looked, everyone in the private sector was cutting back in this time of hardship - but evidently that's just for the working class. [snip]

This month Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut its rating on California's general obligation debt, which has left California, the biggest issuer of public debt, with the lowest rated GO bonds of any U.S. state.

Nevertheless, The budget, which extends through June 30, 2010, also relies on borrowing [another] $11.4 billion. If California receives at least $9.1 billion in new federal funds, the spending cuts would be trimmed [I.e., they'd keep spending at a higher level [snip]

California's treasurer has started delaying tax refunds and other payments because of the cash crunch.

[It's the same old scam: they continuously spend us into oblivion - even when we haven't given them permission to do so {I.e. 'deficit spending'} - and every few years when the crap hits the fan claim the only 'responsible' thing is a 'balanced' approach of some spending cuts and even more taxes. This is the consequence of our permanent Democratic majority in Sacramento {as aided my unions and the media}. ]

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New GOP Senate leader wants to kill proposed state budget deal

California's budget crisis heightened further this morning when the newly elected leader of the state Senate's Republicans, who replaced his predecessor in an overnight ouster, said he hopes to kill the current spending plan.

Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta said this morning that he would like to scrap that plan and renegotiate a package without raising taxes as the current plan does...

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[Sounds good - let's support it...


"REWRITE THE BUDGET - NO NEW TAXES"


CA Governor: http://gov.ca.gov/interact mailto:governor@governor.ca.gov
YOUR CA Legislators (Sen+Assy): http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...
and as always, pass it on...

.

image toon - mny 1st fnn - Octuplets - supporting v stimulus

The 'forgotten people' are already doing something for economic recovery

As I sat watching President Obama explain the so-called stimulus package, I felt several times that he was speaking directly to me. He kept saying that doing nothing is not an option, which is precisely what I would propose the government do.

Like many of the forgotten people in America, I have strongly recommended that the government do nothing to bring us out of this deep recession. But I know we're going to lose the argument. The debate now is really all about what politicians should do, not what the American public should do.

The sound bite of the moment, that our government must act quickly, carried the day. The media in attendance seemed to forget the fact that it was government programs to address low home ownership rates and stingy credit that caused the downturn in the first place.

Politicians may try to take the credit when we finally climb out of this hole, but in reality it will be the forgotten people who will have solved this crisis. They do not need to be stimulated by a wheelbarrow full of Washington pork.

They just need to be remembered as the ultimate source of wealth and left alone to do what they can do to create it. Forgetting that wealth ultimately comes from everywhere but Washington is what got us into this recession in the first place and continuing to forget it is not the path to recovery.

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image toon - 1st fnn - Dr Obama tries mind jolt to stimulate economy mny -

Clinton offers peace treaty to N.Korea

New York - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday offered North Korea a peace treaty, normal ties and aid if it eliminates its nuclear arms program and stressed her desire to work more cooperatively with China..

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[Great news. Might I suggest our 'cooperation' with China start with...]
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Chinese Hackers Attack U.S. Computers

Chinese government and freelance hackers are the primary culprits behind as many as several hundred daily attacks against U.S. government, electric-utility and financial computer networks, a senior congressman said.

“Sophisticated hackers could really wreak havoc on our financial systems if they were successful,”

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in an interview. The threat is

“primarily from China.”

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Airborne Laser offers new era for ballistic missile defense

Unlike other missile defense systems, which require one or more interceptors to destroy a single ballistic missile, an ABL can destroy up to 20 missiles before its chemical supply is depleted and must be refilled. Thus, a handful of ABL planes potentially could provide around-the-clock protection against fairly sizable missile attacks emanating from a country such as North Korea.

Since ABL is an airborne system, it can be deployed anywhere in the world on short notice. In addition to its primary mission of intercepting ballistic missiles, it is intrinsically capable of performing other missions such as early warning of missile launches, estimation of launch and impact points, target cueing of other defensive systems and defense against airborne targets such as cruise missiles.

The Airborne Laser is the most revolutionary system in current missile defense plans, combining speed-of-light interception with low costs per kill and global mobility. Its scheduled shootdown of a ballistic target in 2009 will be the first time such a feat has ever been achieved at great distance by a high-power laser.

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Obama administration takes softer stance on missile defense

PRAGUE — The Obama administration has begun to indicate that it's willing to reconsider the Bush administration's push to deploy a ballistic missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland — if Russia helps curb Iran's push to develop nuclear weapons.

Echoing Vice President Joe Biden , who said the new administration wants to push a "reset button" on U.S.- Russia relations, Undersecretary of State William Burns told the Interfax news agency in Moscow last week that, " The United States is quite open to the possibility of new forms of cooperation" with Moscow on missile defense, Iran and "the whole range of security issues with Russia ." His remarks are posted on the Interfax Web site. [snip]

While it's a secondary issue for the U.S., missile defense is one of the most important political issues for the Czech Republic , which two decades ago helped lead Eastern Europe's march from communism to democracy.

Cancelling the project just as Moscow has taken a more aggressive stance toward the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine would strain U.S. relations with the two East European countries that risked Moscow's wrath to accept it, and with others that also worry about a revanchist Russia .

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The Coming Storm

Victor Davis Hanson

First, President Obama in his al-Arabiya interview castigated past American foreign policy, suggested the onus of poor Islamic-Western relations was on the United States. Then Joe Biden went to Munich and blathered on about hitting the reset button of foreign-policy, using more of the platitudes of “Bush did it”. Secretary of State Clinton completed the trifecta on her first tour when she cleared her throat with the now customary “too often in the recent past . . . (fill in the blanks with being too ideological, unilateral, insensitive, etc.).”

So the world can now expect a break with the awful past, and the start of some brilliant new multilateral approach?

Will Obama and company, through inspired diplomacy, solve any lingering tension from the Bush administration over missile defense in Europe, the soon-to-be Iranian bomb and missiles, or the European so-so role in Afghanistan? Will they find a novel, kinder, and gentler way to thwart possible al-Qaeda Mumbai-copycat killers here at home, to defang North Korea, to talk sense to the Russians to stay in their confining borders, and to persuade Hamas to act more like Fatah?

I seriously doubt it.

Instead, this serial apologizing, promising a new age of listening and togetherness, and trashing the Bush administration will have two consequences:

Enemies will begin to think there is a tad less likelihood now that the U.S. will respond forcefully to a terrorist attack (since “Bush did it” in the past) without first consulting allies, trying to find a diplomatic solution, or going to the U.N.;

and, second, friends will slacken a bit, knowing that our prime interest is in the means of multilateralism rather than any objective ends: one now “dialogues” over troops in Afghanistan, and “discusses” whether to follow through on missile defense, and “listens” to “all the parties” like Syria and Iran for “constructive” suggestions about Middle East peace.

We are setting ourselves up for a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s “Our kindness and intellect will save the world,” but this second time as farce. In short, a bad idea to trash the past when much of it was good, and point happily to the future when it may well be far worse.

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image toon gwot iran nsec - OB = hard talking to Imanidiot w-rocket in room

Israel worried about U.S. delay in forging stance on Iran nukes

Israeli officials are putting together a position paper on talks between the United States and Iran for the new administration in Washington, Israeli officials say. The paper will include a list of reservations about the state of international efforts against Iran's nuclear program. One worry is that negotiations will go on for too long. The paper states that talks between the United States and Iran should be limited to a short period of time.

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Iran Is Helping Taliban in Afghanistan, Petraeus Says

Iran is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and Iraq.

“There is a willingness to provide some degree of assistance to make the life of those who are trying to help the Afghan people difficult,”

Petraeus told a conference today in the Qatari capital, Doha. Petraeus gave no details of the Iranian assistance, saying that the U.S. and its allies are watching Iran’s actions in Afghanistan “very, very closely,” adding that the Persian Gulf state continues to train and equip Shiite Muslim militias in neighboring Iraq.

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A peace sign: Iraq's Sunnis joining Shiite pilgrims

BAGHDAD - Sheikh Mohammad al-Ethawi, resplendent in his gold-trimmed robe and white headdress, hands out oranges to Shiite pilgrims walking by a striped tent on the main route to the holy city of Karbala.

Sheikh Ethawi is Sunni.

The Doura highway, where more than a million pilgrims – largely Shiite – are walking for the first time in three years, passes through what had been one of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods. Their numbers and Ethawi's presence are a sign of the easing of sectarian tensions that almost ripped this country apart. [snip]

"If we decided to separate the Sunni from Shiite we would have to divide the bedrooms," says Abbas, referring to the countless intermarriages. "It's people from outside Iraq"

Although the attacks appeared intended to reignite sectarian violence, the Shiite pilgrims were unwilling to blame their Sunni countrymen for the suicide bombers.

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Officials says Italy will not take Gitmo inmates

Italy will not accept any Guantanamo Bay detainees when the U.S. prison shuts down, a close ally of Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday after meeting with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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image toon - gwot islm - Ob false tunnel re change in gwot

Jihadists celebrating Victoria fires; taking joy in the scenes

JIHADISTS are celebrating the worst tragedy in Victoria's history. Terror watchdogs said fundamentalists had blogged on websites across the globe, applauding the lives lost and destruction in the Victoria fires. Senior analyst at SITE Intelligence Group Adam Raisman said they were posting pictures of burnt homes and devastated victims and "taking joy in the scenes", the Sunday Herald Sun reports.

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Obama Administration may participate in Durban II

Well, file this info in the "this was predictable" column. Israeli officials are receiving reports from their emissaries that a movement is afoot within the Obama Administration that will lead to American participation in the UN’s World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

Sounds proper on the surface. Of course, the Conference is better known as Durban II, the sequel to the first such conference held in South Africa in September, 2001. That conference was transformed into an infamous anti-Semitic hate fest reminiscent of Nazi Germany. At the time, the prospects of such a farce occurring was evident. America honorably refused to participate, as did Canada. Not this time around. ... [snip]

The Bush administration agreed with Israel last year that the U.S. would not participate unless it received guarantees that the conference would not become a stage for anti-Semitism and one-sided criticism of Israel, as occured during the first Durban meeting in 2001.

Barack Obama has always advocated a more “cooperative” approach towards the United Nations. In her maiden speech to the United Nations, Susan Rice called upon Israel to investigate itself for war crimes for its actions in Gaza (a radical request of an ally); she also expressed support for the International Criminal Court-a forum that critics of Israel have often attempted to use to indict Israel and Israeli officials (a movement to do so is currently underway).

There is no surprise that Samantha Power , newly ensconced at the National Security Council as the official in charge of multilateral organizations (and she has never met a multilateral organization that she has not admired), has pushed for America to participate in Durban II. She knows from first-hand experience that it was used to attack America, Israel and Jews. Nevertheless, she apparently has no compunction in signing up again for a sequel. She has made comments that are certainly not just anti-Israel but verge on anti-Semitism (during the campaign she complained that scrutiny of Barack Obama all came down to “what was good for the Jews” )

This time she will give an American imprimatur to a conference that may very well become a forum not just for Israel-bashing for but expressions of anti-Semitism , as well.

Our taxpayer dollars at work.

Will the mainstream media even bother to report that the UN has again been used to promote anti-Semitism (which it has a history of so doing . Indeed, Professor Anna Bayefsky has called the United Nations the Leading Global Purveyor of Anti-Semitism.

Now the US seems to be on the verge of joining the party.

UPDATE (Sunday):

Obama’s Policy Shift on Durban Racism Conference Draws Concern, Criticism

When diplomats meet at the United Nations in Geneva on Monday to continue hammering out plans for an international conference on racism in the spring, representatives of the United States will take part for the first time in years. The major policy shift, announced by the State Department over the weekend, is the strongest indication yet that the Obama administration could end up participating in the Durban Review Conference, also known as “Durban II.”

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Obama warned over ‘welfare spendathon’

RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.

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The Law Liberals Always Break

There's a law that liberals always shatter. (And no, I'm not talking about tax law.) It's the law of unintended consequences. Actually it's not so much liberals per se that break it so much as it seems liberal thinking by definition always runs afoul of this law. Leftist policy always hangs itself if given enough rope. [but the lessons have great cost]

The liberals now have the entire stage with a very liberal President, extreme leftists in control of Congress, and the main stream media. Liberal failure has nowhere to hide and no one to hide behind.* So as the Obama administration attempts to attack the country's economic woes, they find themselves stepping in one pile of liberal policy do-do after another. You might say that the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The world will have to watch as liberal policy for problem A destroys Obama goals for problem B and so on.

Consider: with Obama, Reid and Pelosi screaming for the country to accept a ridiculous stimulus package to create jobs, jobs, jobs -- liberals in Chicago are standing in the way of a Wal-Mart Super Center that would bring in construction and retail jobs to the messiah's hometown. By the way, liberals will also keep the lowest cost provider of food and clothes and home goods from being accessed by hurting Chicagoans.

The reason? The liberal principle of protecting union jobs at all costs. Remember, behind every economic disaster is a powerful union. And sometimes a community organizer.

[*I disagree: the Media is the thing to hide behind - hence the impending push of the 'Fairness' Doctrine to silence the largest opposition outlet, after which the people will believe what the MSM tells them to {worked for the election, didn't it?}.

Recommended for its many specific examples of liberalism's oxymoronitus > ]

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The Fairness Doctrine choo-choo has left the station

After assuring Republicans all last year that there would be no return to the Fairness Doctrine, it appears that Democrats lied through their teeth. The issue is beginning to pick up steam among Democrats and it will only be a matter of time before the left tries to make it a reality and muzzle all dissent:

More and more Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.

"I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," Hinchey told CNNRadio.

Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.

Democratic Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa added their voices recently to those calling for a return of the regulation.

I would urge everybody to join an anti-Fairness Doctrine group either on Facebook, Myspace, or Yahoo and become active in what promises to be a real Pier Six brawl over the future of freedom in America.

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Time Magazine's list of 25 culprits in the financial meltdown

Time Magazine has come up with a list of players who they believe are responsible for the economic mess we're in. Who's responsible? Maybe more to the point is who they left out.

Democratic politicians Christopher Dodd (who protected the finance and hedge fund industry from regulation from his perch as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) and Barney Frank (chairman of the Financial Services Committee who pressured financial committees and promoted legislation to expand homeownership to people who were incapable of meeting their debt obligations) aren't on the list.

Who's on the list? A boat load of Republicans and the founder of HGTV - after all, he "stoked desire" for home ownership...

[that's Time]

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Former astronaut speaks out on global warming

Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon and once served New Mexico in the U.S. Senate, doesn’t believe that humans are causing global warming.

"I don’t think the human effect is significant compared to the natural effect," said Schmitt, who is among 70 skeptics scheduled to speak next month at the International Conference on Climate Change in New York.

Schmitt contends that scientists "are being intimidated" if they disagree with the idea that burning fossil fuels has increased carbon dioxide levels, temperatures and sea levels.

"They’ve seen too many of their colleagues lose grant funding when they haven’t gone along with the so-called political consensus that we’re in a human-caused global warming,"

Dan Williams, publisher with the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which is hosting the climate change conference, said he invited Schmitt after reading about his resignation from The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space exploration.

Schmitt resigned after the group blamed global warming on human activity. In his resignation letter, the 74-year-old geologist argued that the

"global warming scare is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes and decision making."

Schmitt said he’s heartened that the upcoming conference is made up of scientists who haven’t been manipulated by politics.

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Obama package focuses on alternative power sources

Since oil gushed from Spindletop in 1901, the Houston area has been the energy capital of the United States and a major destination for federal dollars devoted to oil and gas production.

But the mammoth economic stimulus bill that is winding its way through Congress largely bypasses Houston-based energy giants and fossil-fuel development in favor of funding new technologies to glean power from crops, the sun and heat trapped beneath the earth.

“There’s not a lot of oil and gas” money in the stimulus bill, said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.

Instead, President Barack Obama’s package focuses most of its attention, and an expected $54 billion or more in energy spending, on renewable and alternative power sources, not on the fossil fuel production on which the country is dependent...

[economic and geo-political suicide]

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'We ran out of shavers': Doctors'extraordinary excuses for axing 1,000 NHS operations a week

More than 1,000 NHS operations are being cancelled at the last minute each week because of avoidable mistakes at hospitals. Lost medical records, broken equipment and a lack of beds were among the excuses given to patients whose surgery was called off.

(Snip) a Freedom of Information request, revealed that the number of operations cancelled for non-clinical reasons in 2007/08 was 57,382 ...

[This is government run health care.]

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BURGEONING GANGS BEHIND 80 PERCENT OF U.S. CRIME

Criminal gangs in the United States have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80 percent of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center.

Researchers conclude that gangs are the "primary retail-level distributor of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.

Over the last 10 years, the number of gang members has steadily increased, and a rising number of U.S. gangs are intent on developing working relationships with U.S. and foreign drug-trafficking organizations and other criminal groups to gain direct access to foreign source of illicit drugs. Moreover, most regions in the United States will experience increased gang membership and increased gang-related criminal activity, say researchers.

Other findings:

A task force launched in 2004 amid concerns about the gang's rapid spread has seen some success, but a "revolving door" on the border has kept the gang's numbers steady -- about 10,000 in the United States -- even as many illegal immigrant members are deported.

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AP: Advertising Kids 'E-Book' Obama Indoctrination Effort

The Associated Press is taken with the new e-book full of letters to President Obama published by the National Education Association (NEA) a liberal teachers union. Naturally, all the kids in this book are filled to overflowing with leftist talking points like pushing the anti-military angle -- one kid even said he was "very luckey because I am not part of a military family."

The kids were all indoctrinated with concern over global warming, infused with unthinking anti-war sentiment, disdain for our soldiers, and enthusiastic for Father Obama and his big government machine.

Sadly, it appears that not one of these kids have been taught by their teachers about liberty, freedom, personal responsibility and American principles. [snip]

Lawrence Hitchcock, chief executive officer of the Web site kidthing.org where the e-book appears, told the AP of all the god-like powers Obama seems to have that teachers impressed upon kids across the country.

"We had, `My dad's out of work, fix the company, please get more jobs,' Hitchcock said. "There were Latino kids saying, `Please change the immigration laws so my dad can come back from Mexico.' This is a profound snapshot of a social narrative of young kids during an important moment in history. It really kind of stunned us what came in through the front door."

So, teachers are telling kids that it's Obama's job to "fix companies" and tear down our sovereignty so that there is no border between the U.S. and Mexico. I am a bit surprised that these "educators" are pretending to be "stunned" by what they've found that kids think. After all, these teachers are telling kids that they should be feeling in the first place.

[Parents, you need know what's being foisted upon your children under the guise of public 'education' > Recommended > ]

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Israel after the election

The final tabulated results do not provide a simple right/left split as described by the mainstream media. The fractionalization of Israeli politics is more complex than left/right. The "right-wing" bloc of 65 seats , includes Likud, a center -right party, at 27, Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular, largely Russian, nationalist Party with 15, religious parties with about 19 seats (Sephardic 11, Ashkenazi 8), and National Union, a right wing party with 4.

Will an ardently secular party led by a now more assertive Avigdor Lieberman, be part of a stable coalition on the right with ultra religious parties? It is hard to see how.

[he can say that again]

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"Put three Zionists in a room and they will form four political parties."

Levi Eshkol.
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