Selected News For Week Jan 19 - Jan 25

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 12:01 am. You can leave a response.

34 Responses to “Selected News For Week Jan 19 - Jan 25”

1. BillK
   January 19th, 2008 at 1:51 am

   From a joyous AP:

   Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge Says Waterboarding is Torture

   The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture.

   “There’s just no doubt in my mind — under any set of rules — waterboarding is torture,” Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.

   “One of America’s greatest strengths is the soft power of our value system and how we treat prisoners of war, and we don’t torture,” Ridge said in the interview. Ridge was secretary of the Homeland Security Department between 2003 and 2005. “And I believe, unlike others in the administration, that waterboarding was, is — and will always be — torture. That’s a simple statement.”

   Waterboarding is a harsh interrogation tactic that was used by CIA officers in 2002 and 2003 on three alleged Al Qaeda terrorists. The tactic gives the subject the sensation of drowning.

   The CIA has not used the technique since 2003, and CIA Director Michael Hayden prohibited it in 2006, according to U.S. officials. The debate was recently revived when the CIA revealed it had destroyed videotapes showing the interrogations of two alleged terrorists, both of whom were waterboarded. …

   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,323968,00.html

   Tom Ridge has proven himself to be a clueless idiot time and time again since leaving DHS, and this just continues his headlong rush off the edge of the cliff:

   “I have no idea how any of the intelligence community extrapolated any information from anybody — where they got it, how they got it, and from whom they got it. But waterboarding is torture.”

2. BillK
   January 19th, 2008 at 5:45 am

   From the Los Angeles Times, Ahnold says he was, well, wrong in his 2003 campaign when he acted like a conservative:

   Governor says he made mistakes

   By Evan Halper

   Reflecting on four years as the state’s chief executive, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that he now regrets a number of the policies he championed in his early days in office and acknowledges his own rhetoric was at times overheated and naive.

   During an unusually self-reflective interview with Times editors and reporters, the governor no longer talked like the outsider he portrayed when he campaigned to recall his predecessor from office in 2003.

   In that campaign, he labeled many state legislators as inept. Now, he spoke of how it would be a “disaster” for term limits to force some of the same politicians from their offices. He scoffed at the notion that ridding the state of the “waste, fraud and abuse” he railed against in his early days would actually do much to help California’s finances. He no longer insists that the state’s troubled schools can be repaired without spending more.

   “I have learned a lot of things where I felt one way before I went into office, and all of a sudden you learn things are not quite this way and you change,” he said. “People call it flip-flopping. I would rather flip-flop when I see something is a wrong idea than get stuck with it and stay with it and [keep making] the same mistake.” …

   http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....0709.story

   Yep, he’s now effectively a full blown liberal; the Kennedy gene from his wife has completely taken over.

   Want more?

   Asked why he no longer was promising to close the shortfall by cutting fat from government, Schwarzenegger took a stance sharply at odds with his first-year statements.

   “If you look at the $14.5 billion we need, you don’t even have to look there,” he said. “You are not even going to find 1% there.”

   The governor suggested that the proposal he made early in his tenure to save money by eliminating dozens of state boards and commissions reflected political inexperience.

   “People just love to hold on to those because it gives them a chance to appoint someone,” he said. “Both parties came to me and said, ‘You are out of your mind.’ Like I was totally insane. . . . I didn’t want to stop all the other things I wanted to get done just because of this.

   “There were a lot of things when you go in as an outsider that you learn you can’t do,” Schwarzenegger said.

   How about:

   This week, Schwarzenegger endorsed an initiative on the February ballot that would increase the number of years lawmakers could spend in one house of the Legislature. The move drew fire from some of his former allies who back term limits. But in the interview, Schwarzenegger said his earlier enthusiasm for short limits was misguided.

   “I originally felt strongly it was the greatest thing ever done,” he said. “I despised the idea of these guys being so locked in and safe and all this in their positions, and staying up in Sacramento doing deals. . . .”

   Now, he said, his view of term limits has changed.

   “I have been there for four years, and I say, ‘Oh my God, this is a disaster.’

   “The special interests and lobbyists up there are so much more sophisticated and so much more advanced than the politicians are,” the governor said. “So who is it really helping? I am seeing this firsthand. The people I finally got used to working with now will be kicked out.”

   More?

   But he also talked about investing more in some of the same government programs he once complained were bloated and inefficient.

   The message has ceased to be that schools can do more with less.

   Now, he said, properly reforming the state’s education system could come with a hefty price tag.

   Because of the need for funds, Schwarzenegger said, he would put off his plans for an ambitious overhaul of the state educational system until more money is available.

   “We have to analyze and bring everyone in the education community together and look at all the reforms and look at if that means we need extra money to do all those things,” the governor said.

   “To say: ‘The funding we leave off the table completely . . . because we don’t have any money, but we want to do those reforms,’ that is not the way it works.”

   It’s truly sad… but think of all the parties he’ll now be invited to because of the way he’s “grown and matured while in office.”

   As far as the California voters he’s betrayed? Just collateral damage, as in one of his movies, naturally.

3. BillK
   January 19th, 2008 at 11:20 am

   From the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

   Man held in ‘06 Cheney incident wants V.P. queried under oath

   By Sara Burnett

   Secret Service agents have given such varied accounts of what led to the 2006 arrest of a Denver-area man accused of assaulting Vice President Dick Cheney, the man’s attorney says there may be only one way to clear things up - depose the vice president.

   David Lane, lawyer for Steven Howards, said he plans to file a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., next week to question Cheney under oath. Attorneys for the vice president have refused repeated requests for a deposition, he said.

   “Given the wide differences of view, he is the only one with certain knowledge,” Lane said, according to a story in Friday’s New York Times.

   According to depositions already taken of the five Secret Service agents involved in the Beaver Creek arrest, only some of the agents saw the encounter, in which Howards criticized the administration’s policies in Iraq.

   The agents give differing accounts of what occurred, with some saying there was no assault.

   Howards was in Beaver Creek with his family in June 2006 when he spotted Cheney on the street. The vice president, in town for a conference sponsored by former President Ford, was surrounded by people, shaking hands and posing for photographs.

   Howards, an environmental consultant, approached the vice president.

   According to a lawsuit Howards later filed in federal court, he was two to three feet away from Cheney when he addressed him.

   “I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible,” he said.

   Howards told the Rocky that he may have lightly touched Cheney’s arm or shoulder, though the lawsuit makes no mention of any contact.

   After the encounter, Howards continued walking down the street with his son. About 10 minutes later he was approached by Secret Service agents who accused him of assaulting Cheney.

   Howards denied the claims, but was taken to the Eagle County jail, where he was held for about three hours and issued a summons for misdemeanor harassment.…

   http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....p-queried/

   I wish Mr. Howards good luck with this one.

   Alas, Mr. Cheney’s (likely) unwillingness to testify (I suspect he’s kind of busy right now) will of course be seen by the left as evidence of his guilt. (I’m also sure Mr. Cheney remembers exactly what happened in a chance meeting on a street two years ago; would you?)

   Finally, I’m not sure Mr. Howards knew what Cheney’s policies regarding Iraq are or may have been, given it’s the President that sets them. Oh well.

4. pagar
   January 19th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

   I have a real strong feeling that this Yahoo News Article
   is not supposed to help homeless vets near as much as it is supposed to highlight American leftist anti-war positions.

   “LEEDS, Mass. - Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.” read the entire story and ask yourself why we are seeing all of these stories that do nothing except make veterans look bad.

5. BillK
   January 20th, 2008 at 5:59 am

   From the Los Angeles Times:

   Tijuana’s new chief knows the cartel’s killers are after him

   By Richard Maros

   TIJUANA — The bullet holes pockmarking the walls of his home were just three days old when Alberto Capella Ibarra took over the police force of this violence-plagued city.

   Twenty gunmen dressed in black had swarmed his yard in the middle of the night, and he’d fought them off, firing an automatic rifle.

   Taking office Dec. 1 as the city’s secretary for public security, Capella, a longtime activist, declared war on organized crime and challenged citizens to join him in the battle.

   Even he had no idea it would get so bloody.

   Seventeen people were killed last week as organized crime struck back. Last Monday night and Tuesday morning, heavily armed men killed three of Capella’s senior police officers, shooting one at his home along with his wife and two daughters. Two days later, schoolchildren ran for their lives as police and soldiers battled with drug cartel members in a normally quiet neighborhood. Police found six executed kidnap victims inside the suspects’ house. A federal agent and a gunman died in the shootout.

   Capella, a chubby, soft-spoken 36-year-old with no police training, is at the center of the storm. He moves around the city in a six-car convoy with 20 bodyguards. He can’t even stop at a taco stand without scaring off customers who fear gunmen will drive up and blast away.

   Originally a corporate lawyer, Capella gained prominence as an outspoken advocate for crime victims. He has long assumed that killers would one day come for him.

   Still, in his role as the head of both the police and fire departments, he keeps the pressure on organized crime and corrupt cops while reassuring citizens during what he calls some of the saddest days ever seen in the city.

   On Thursday he told mourners at an honor guard ceremony for the three slain officers that Tijuana’s criminals had crossed a historic threshold by adding children to their target lists. “If they’ve ever had a traditional code, they’ve broken it,” Capella said. “But we are ready to give our last breath to honor our responsibility to society.”

   After the gunfight at his home in November, Mexican newspapers published cartoon images of Capella as a superhero and dubbed him the Tijuana Rambo.

   He could have sat back, enjoying the adulation.

   But in his first public appearance after the shooting, Capella rejected it, telling hundreds in a hotel ballroom that society was at fault for meekly tolerating the growth of drug cartels in Tijuana.

   He scolded citizens for not holding political leaders accountable and for cynicism. “It’s as if criminals have corrupted us all,” said Capella, his voice cracking. “Nobody lifts a finger.”

   “He’s been the only public figure who has taken the problem so seriously, that we should take these crimes as a grave insult that speaks badly of us as a state and society in Tijuana,” said professor Guillermo Alonso Meneses at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

   Expectations for police chiefs are low here. At least two of Capella’s predecessors have been killed and others indicted.

   Meneses likened Capella to Jimmy Stewart’s character in the classic western “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a lawyer determined against all odds to inspire citizens and impose order in a lawless town.

   What Capella needs, Meneses joked, is a partner like John Wayne to battle the bad guys.

   Capella has 2,300 cops on his force, but finding trusted gunslingers hasn’t been easy. The police are a dispirited, dysfunctional bunch. Many take bribes, deal drugs and carry out kidnappings. Capella said his first day at headquarters was like entering Ali Baba’s cavern. Still, he needs the police.

   Mayor Jorge Ramos appointed him to the post after promising to reduce crime in one of Mexico’s most violent cities.

   To do so, Capella has to take on a deeply entrenched world of drug kingpins and rival armies who roam around the city in convoys of SUVs with tinted windows. Weakened by arrests and killings, the networks are more desperate and violent than ever. …

   http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....8172.story

   I guess given the increasing violence, the Democrats would say Capella’s campaign has failed and he should just give up now.

   Regardless, Capella sounds like a great guy; too bad he’ll probably be dead within months and Calderon will just shrug his shoulders and say he couldn’t do anything about it while complaining about even the non-effective efforts being made to secure the border.

   Can anyone say “The Untouchables” en español?

6. BillK
   January 20th, 2008 at 8:09 am

   From the ever fair AP:

   Russia Could Use Nuclear Weapons as Preventive Measure to Thwart Major Threat, Official Says

   Russia’s military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes in case of a major threat, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

   “We have no plans to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand … that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons,” Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said.

   The comments from the hawkish Baluyevsky did not appear to mark a policy shift for Russia, whose leaders have stressed the need to maintain a powerful nuclear deterrent and reserved the right to carry out preventive strikes to counter existential threats. But in most of their public remarks about preventive strikes, President Vladimir Putin and other officials have not specifically mentioned the use of nuclear weapons.

   Baluyevsky’s remarks came at a time of increasingly strained relations between Moscow and the West, which are at odds over a range of issues and are embroiled in persistent disputes over U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in former Soviet satellite states that have joined NATO as well as alliance members’ refusal to ratify an updated European conventional arms treaty.

   Like most saber-rattling by Putin and other Russian officials, the chief of staff’s remarks appeared aimed at least in part at the United States, which Moscow accuses of endangering global security through aggressive actions such as the invasion of Iraq.

   Putin, who has sought to boost his popularity at home and win support abroad with his vocal criticism of U.S. foreign policy, has said that Russia opposes the use of preventive military attacks but reserves the right to carry them out because other countries do so. …

   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324006,00.html

   Note that line above about Russia doing this because of the United States’ policies in Iraq.

   That did not come from Russia, nor from a cited expert, nor “Washington insiders.”

   Nope, it apparently came from the article’s author.

   Pity it wasn’t marked “commentary.”

7. BillK
   January 20th, 2008 at 8:12 am

   From the AP:

   Border Agent Killed by Fleeing Vehicle in California

   YUMA, Ariz. — A Border Patrol agent trying to stop a vehicle that had illegally entered the U.S. was struck and killed Saturday in southeastern California, agency officials said.

   The agent was killed about 20 miles west of Yuma in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, a spot along the border that is popular with off-road vehicle enthusiasts and frequently used by smugglers.

   The agent attempted to impede the vehicle’s progress before he was hit, but the Border Patrol did not immediately have more information, said agent Eric Anderson, a spokesman for the agency’s Yuma sector.

   The name of the agent killed was not immediately released because his family had not been notified.

   Witnesses told the Yuma Sun newspaper that agents were chasing a Hummer and a Ford pickup on Interstate 8 when the vehicles turned into the dunes and fled toward Mexico. The agent was trying to place spike strips in their path and was struck by the Hummer, they said. …

   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324107,00.html

   What, no comment from the AP that if the agents hadn’t chased the vehicles, there would never have been a problem?

8. pagar
   January 20th, 2008 at 8:26 am

   Meanwhile, border agents who tried to do their job sit in prison. Any one who thinks the criminals are not crossing our borders at will is dreaming. America is self destructing.

9. BillK
   January 21st, 2008 at 8:48 am

   From the Los Angeles Times:

   Shut out by GOP, independents may tilt Democratic

   By Richard C. Paddock

   Medea Bern, once a registered Republican, is one of a growing number of California voters who shun party membership and declare themselves independent. In the upcoming presidential election, that makes her the kind of voter all the candidates would like to reach.

   But when it comes to California’s Feb. 5 primary, there is only one major party where she’s welcome: the Democratic Party. She isn’t allowed to cast her ballot in the Republican primary, and that upsets her.

   She might be inclined to vote for Republican Sen. John McCain, but instead finds herself weighing a choice between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

   “It really makes me mad,” she said. “I haven’t decided which candidate to vote for, but I’m not happy that my voice is eliminated on the Republican side. Don’t they trust the independent vote?”

   Unlike the New Hampshire primary, where huge numbers of independents were embraced by both parties, California’s independents will be limited to the Democratic or American Independent Party primaries.

   Some political analysts — including some Republicans — say the California Republican Party blundered when it decided last year that only registered Republicans could vote in its presidential primary, unlike 2004.

   “It’s pretty hard to build a big tent if you don’t let anybody else in,” said Dan Schnur, a veteran Republican political consultant. “It doesn’t make sense for a party that wants to and needs to broaden its base to throw this kind of obstacle in the path of an independent voter who wants to hang out with us.”

   Not surprisingly, the Democratic Party is delighted at the prospect of attracting hundreds of thousands of independents to vote for one of its candidates next month. Democratic strategists believe that an independent who votes Democratic in February is likely to vote for a Democratic candidate in November too.

   “The Republicans have been caught with their pants down,” said Democratic Party campaign advisor Bob Mulholland. “The Republicans are going to create a lot of anger out there.” …

   http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....7489.story

   We’ll see if Republicans “were caught with their pants down” given California is largely Democratic anyway.

   Part of the issue is are the independents voting for GOP candidates really going to vote Republican in the general election if their guy wins?

   Further, are there more of them than there are GOP faithful?

   Not to pick on McCain, but exit polls show only 31% of McCain’s vote in SC came from self-identified Republicans; 42% was from self-identified indepedents.

   With the number of candidates we have in the field, and Thompson, Huckabee and perhaps Romney splitting the conservative base, it’s pretty obvious that independents can have a big effect in GOP primaries, especially if that results in a candidate that conservatives can’t even hold their noses and vote for.

10. BillK
    January 21st, 2008 at 8:54 am

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Chuck Norris, aging actor, says John McCain is too old

    Now we know who Mike Huckabee is really worried about competing against for the Republican nomination. Sunday the genial winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses sent his kickboxing attack dog Chuck Norris out to go after Sen. John McCain.

    McCain, who’s been given up for dead a couple of times in his life, the latest one politically, is riding high this morning heading into the closing campaign days for the Florida primary after his Saturday victory over Huckabee in South Carolina and his win before that in New Hampshire. It seems McCain and the struggling Fred Thompson siphoned off enough of Pastor Huckabee’s expected evangelical votes to deny him victory in the Palmetto state, despite Huckabee dredging up the old Confederate flag issue.

    Chuck is the noted late-night TV gym equipment salesman and arguably is — well, maybe not arguably — one of the worst actors since the Greeks invented drama. Although he does appear to throw a good grenade and spray a blazing machine-gun.

    But Norris has endorsed the 52-year-old former Arkansas governor for the GOP nod and, since acting jobs are apparently scarce nowadays, seems to spend just about every waking moment about a foot or two behind Huckabee’s shoulder, grinning, for virtually every photograph at virtually every campaign stop. Presumably, the Arkansan believes such celebrity will help attract votes. …

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....he-re.html

    Interesting comments from Chuck Norris, and of course just a bit of personal opinion regarding Republicans from the LA Times blog author - McCain and Thompson stole Huckabee’s voters!

11. BillK
    January 21st, 2008 at 8:59 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    SAN FRANCISCO CITY OF THE FUTURE

    Local architects offer their visions of S.F. 100 years hence in a competition

    By John King

    The jury has spoken - and it wants San Francisco in 2108 to be a place where forests of towers grow algae as well as house people, and where geothermal steam baths sprout atop Twin Peaks.

    Those elements are part of the proposal by IwamotoScott Architecture, selected Sunday as the winner of an eight-team competition to imagine how San Francisco could change during a century likely to be defined by global warming and the search for new forms of energy.

    In addition to a $10,000 prize, architects Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott received the satisfaction of triumphing over rivals who offered such visions as an offshore island housing 250,000 people and 40-story towers used for commercial farming.

    The selection was made by a six-member jury that placed more emphasis on originality than practicality. Nonetheless, the winners said a city that produces its own energy - such as the hydrogen that would be generated by vast vertical fields of algae - and moves most travel underground shouldn’t be all that far-fetched.

    “We were thinking of the city as an evolutionary beast,” said Iwamoto, a design lecturer at UC Berkeley as well as the operator, with Scott, her husband, of a four-person firm based in the couple’s Mission District loft. “You create certain conditions, and that allows other things to happen.”

    Festivities kicked off at 10 a.m. on the second floor of the Ferry Building with each team having three hours to assemble their model of the city to be. Milling among them were design junkies and their families, augmented by Ferry Building visitors drawn upstairs by banners and announcements.

    Often, the different visions overlapped. Most consigned private cars to the dustbin of history. At least four incorporated fog-harvesting machines to pull water from air and put it to use.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....SUIO5C.DTL

    Ah, the socialist planners show their true stripes for once. Personal freedom to travel is far too dangerous for a polite, orderly society.

    Or, all cities should look like Tokyo or New York City.

12. BillK
    January 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Edwards still has a role in nominating process

    By Joe Garofoli

    On a sunny weekend day in front of San Francisco’s Ferry Building, volunteers at the Barack Obama for president table were selling an inch-thick booklet explaining Obama’s policy positions for $5. A few feet away, volunteers supporting John Edwards were handing out campaign flyers - that they made and paid for themselves.

    One flyer read: “It’s not over until everyone votes. Don’t let the pundits take away your voice for 2008.”

    Edwards hasn’t won a primary yet. He admitted Sunday that “I got my butt kicked” in Saturday’s Nevada caucus. And he is routinely overlooked by the national media at near-Kucinichian levels. In CNN’s 10-minute recap of the Democratic White House battle Sunday morning, Edwards’ name was mentioned once - to point out how far back he was in the national polls.

    But Nevada’s debacle aside, if the former North Carolina senator continues to draw at least 15 percent of the vote in forthcoming contests, analysts say he will be a player in the campaign. It is hard to write anyone off yet in this most unpredictable campaign season, especially with so few of the 2,025 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination having been decided.

    According to a tally from the Associated Press, Edwards so far has collected 50 delegates, which means he’s still within shouting distance of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (236) - the winner in Nevada - and Obama (136). Edwards reaffirmed Sunday that he’s in the campaign for the long haul, but analysts say he needs a strong showing Saturday in South Carolina, the state where he was born, to remain relevant. He has spent $2 million in advertising there, more than his rivals.

    “He could go to Denver (site of the Democratic National Convention) with 200 delegates, and that will give him some kind of power,” said Bryan Blum, political director of the California Labor Federation, which represents 2.1 million workers in the state.

    “But you gotta win something soon to show that you can win the nomination, or at least get your name into the conversation,” Blum said. “He’ll continue to get some support because he has a compelling message that resonates with a large part of the Democratic Party.”

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....GUI6BL.DTL

    Funny as these are the same media outlets wondering when Thompson will quit, even though he’s done better than Edwards.

13. BillK
    January 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle, more insight into Eco-Greenie thinking:

    Grand green vision for S.F.’s Parkmerced

    By James Temple

    The owners of San Francisco’s Parkmerced want to add nearly 5,700 homes to the World War II-era rental housing complex, an ambitious renovation that could rank as one of the greenest in the country.

    Over 20 years, the developer says, the minimum $1.2 billion project would take the 115-acre property off the power grid by employing wind turbines and other low-emission energy sources, slash water consumption through improved plumbing and recycling, and halve tenants’ automobile use by, among other things, adding public transportation options.

    “I almost consider it a moral obligation in a project of this size to be responsible and do whatever we can do to help confront the problem of climate change,” said Craig Hartman, lead architect on the project and partner with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP.

    Ultimately, however, the plan will test competing priorities for which San Francisco is famous: its embrace of ecological causes and its aversion to denser development.

    As is typical with any big proposal in the city, the leaders of neighborhood groups are already lining up in opposition. Efforts are under way to establish Parkmerced as a historic landmark, a designation that would severely curtail development.

    “To me, it’s a real disaster of a proposal,” said Aaron Goodman, a tenant, architect and vice president of the Parkmerced Residents’ Organization. “It’s going to drastically affect the feel of that community.”

    Environmentalists and planners say the proposal for the complex south of San Francisco State University is a paragon of 21st century urban development.

    As envisioned today, the renovation would seek to cut energy consumption by 62 percent and water use by 42 percent in each new unit by installing cogeneration systems that take advantage of the heat given off during electricity production plus highly efficient appliances and fixtures, along with irrigation systems that reuse certain wastewater. It would discourage the use of cars by rerouting the Muni M-Line into the complex, adding a low-emission BART shuttle, providing pedestrian and bicycle paths, and opening a grocery store and other retail space. It would create parks, wetlands and an organic farm.

    Another sustainable piece of the Parkmerced proposal is the one likely to draw the greatest opposition: density.

    A tenet of modern urban planning holds that by increasing housing within city boundaries, encroachment into undeveloped areas declines, and the efficiency and attractiveness of public transportation improves - all of which leads to less pollution.

    At the completion of the project, there would be around 8,900 units, nearly triple the 3,221 there today. The new housing would be a mix of for-sale and rental units, both townhomes and mid-rises. None of the buildings would be higher than the 13-story buildings there now.

    “Any environmental planner in the country will tell you that in order to have a city that represents the values that San Francisco wants, namely affordability, the services, the walk-ability and the open space, you’re going to have to have density,” said Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....0UDP63.DTL

    Or, be eco-responsible; learn to live like a sardine:

    Planned for returning veterans and blue-collar workers, each was designed to feel like a suburban community near an urban center, with wide streets and culs-de-sac that allowed automobiles to navigate between the properties without stopping. In many ways, the original design reflects the worst tendencies of a troubled urban planning era, according to Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, a public policy think tank. The streets don’t accommodate pedestrians, housing is a car trip away from retail, and the neighborhood is geared exclusively to lower- and middle-class renters, he said.

    “It’s not very often we get to fix the mistakes of postwar planning,” Metcalf said.

14. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 am

    What’s better than an Oliver Stone movie about Bush?

    Josh Brolin, Mr. Barbra Streisand, has been chosen to play W.

    From Variety:

    Oliver Stone votes for ‘Bush’ project

    Josh Brolin to play embattled president

    By Michael Fleming

    Oliver Stone has set his sights on his next directing project, “Bush,” a film focusing on the life and presidency of George W. Bush, and attached Josh Brolin to play the title role.

    The director has begun quietly shopping a script by his “Wall Street” co-writer Stanley Weiser.

    Pic will be produced by Moritz Borman, who teamed with Stone on “World Trade Center” and “Alexander,” and Jon Kilik, a producer of “Alexander” as well as “Pinkville,” the pre-strike project about the Army’s investigation of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam that Stone expected to direct until United Artists pulled the plug late last year.

    Borman said Weiser’s script was completed before the WGA strike and was ready to shoot and that many of Stone’s “Pinkville” crew jumped right into “Bush.” If financing materializes quickly enough, the film could start production by April and could be in theaters for the election or the inauguration.

    One need only Google the words “Stone” and “Bush” to find plenty of the director’s critical comments about the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. Despite that, the director said he’s not looking to make an anti-Bush polemic. His goal is to use seminal events in Bush’s life to explain how he came to power, using a structure comparable to “The Queen.”

    “It’s a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to ‘Nixon,’ to give a sense of what it’s like to be in his skin,” Stone told Daily Variety. “But if ‘Nixon’ was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone. People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, but that is superficial. I’m a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great.”

    Stone declined to give his personal opinion of the president. …

    http://www.variety.com/VR1117979349.html

    I can hardly wait:

    How did Bush go from an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world? It’s like Frank Capra territory on one hand, but I’ll also cover the demons in his private life, his bouts with his dad and his conversion to Christianity, which explains a lot of where he is coming from. It includes his belief that God personally chose him to be president of the United States, and his coming into his own with the stunning, preemptive attack on Iraq. It will contain surprises for Bush supporters and his detractors.“

15. 1republicanscientist
    January 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 am

    Stone is a sausage puller. I work around a bunch of elitist crap heapers like this guy and let me tell you,
    it’s fun doing battle with them everyday. These are healthcare providers, scientists, etc. and all they
    can talk about EVERY single day is how dumb Bush is and how only people with certain IQ’s (meaning themselves), should be running the show. They also talk about how dumb Repubs are constantly
    and how brilliant Omama is (who, by the way, is getting a total free pass on the religeous issue). The best part comes when I get to mention how bad they must feel inside knowing the dumbest guy in the world beat them not only once, but twice (sarcasm on my behalf, they don’t even get it). Their weird little liberal faces get all contorted. Oddly enough, they can’t engage in any sort of dialogue, it’s just the same ol’ cliche over and over and over…

16. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am

    From an excited AP:

    New armored truck sees first Iraq death

    BAGHDAD (AP) — A soldier killed over the weekend south of Baghdad was the first American casualty in a roadside bomb attack on a newly introduced, heavily armored vehicle, a military spokeswoman said Tuesday.

    The V-shaped hull of the huge MRAP - Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected - truck is designed to deflect blasts from roadside bombs, a weapon that has killed more American soldiers than any other tactic used by Sunni insurgents and militia fighters in Iraq.

    The soldier who died Saturday was the gunner who sits atop the MRAP vehicle. Three crew members tucked inside the cabin were wounded. The vehicle rolled over after the blast and it was not clear how the gunner died - from wounds in the explosion or in the subsequent roll-over.

    Maj. Alayne P. Conway, deputy spokeswoman for the 3rd Infantry Division, said the attack and the death were under investigation.

    There now are more than 1,500 of the costly vehicles in service in Iraq and the Pentagon is working to get at least 12,000 more, using $21 billion provided by Congress. MRAPs cost between $500,000 and $1 million, depending on their size and how they are equipped. …

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam.....2-04-22-21

    Mine-resistant, people. Nothing is mine proof.

    The fact that three were wounded and one is dead sounds like a much better outcome than if they had been traveling in any other kind of vehicle.

17. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 am

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Antiabortion cause stirs new generation

    Born into a time after Roe vs. Wade, many young adults are eager to reverse it. And veteran activists are happy to enlist their help.

    By Stephanie Simon

    WALLINGFORD, PA. — The bell rang and the eighth graders jumped up, eager to compare notes.

    “I named my baby Kyle Patrick,” one shouted.

    “Mine is Antonio!”

    At the urging of an antiabortion activist, they had each pledged to “spiritually adopt” a fetus developing in an unknown woman — to name it, love it from afar and above all, pray daily that the mother-to-be would not choose abortion.

    “Maybe one day you’ll get to heaven and these people will come running to you . . . and say, ‘We’re all the little children you saved,’ ” activist Cristina Barba said. She smiled at the students in their Catholic school uniforms. “Maybe you really can make a difference.”

    Thirty-five years after Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, opponents are pouring resources into building new generations of activists. Young people are responding with passion.

    Today’s students and young adults have grown up in a time when abortion was widely accessible and acceptable, and a striking number are determined to end that era.

    Pew Research Center polls dating back a decade show that 18- to 29-year-olds are consistently more likely than the general adult population to favor strict limits on abortion. A Pew survey over the summer found 22% of young adults support a total ban on abortion, compared with 15% of their parents’ generation.

    Looking specifically at teens, a Gallup survey in 2003 found that 72% called abortion morally wrong, and 32% believed it should be illegal in all circumstances. Among adults surveyed that year, only 17% backed a total ban.

    These statistics should not obscure the fact — made clear in poll after poll over decades — that a substantial majority of Americans want abortion to remain legal in at least some circumstances. And millions of young people continue to choose abortion when faced with unplanned pregnancy; every year, 600,000 women under age 25 abort.

    But among those fighting to criminalize the procedure, the young — trained in antiabortion summer camps and political internships — are increasingly out front.

    “You look at pictures of marches [over the years] and the crowds just keep getting younger and younger and younger,” said Derrick Jones, an advisor to National Teens for Life.

    In Colorado, a teenager last year decided the state constitution should define a fertilized egg as a person. Kristi Burton, now 20, won a court fight about her proposed amendment and leads the campaign to put it on the ballot this fall.

    In California, a 17-year-old girl last week filed a lawsuit in federal court for the right to start a “pro-life club” at her San Jose-area high school. A Virginia teen recently took similar legal action, and her school promptly dropped its objection to the club.

    Here in greater Philadelphia, the antiabortion group Generation Life enlists teens to hand out literature on beaches and guides them through role-playing to hone their powers of persuasion.

    At a recent workshop, Claire Levis, 17, played the part of an abortion-rights supporter. “My friend got raped and you want her to have the baby? How can you ask a 15-year-old to go through a pregnancy? That’s nine months of ridicule and pain,” she shouted.

    Liz Coyle, 16, responded: “It’s not the baby’s fault. He’s never done anything wrong.”

    Liz then added: “There are plenty of teachers willing to home-school your friend if she doesn’t want to go to class when she’s pregnant. Or she could go to school, and stand up for herself.”

    The dozen teens watching burst into applause.

    “I feel like we’re all survivors of abortion,” Claire said. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....2876.story

    Note the author’s desperate move to make sure you know that even though youths are being drawn into the pro-life movement, that “poll over poll over decades” have shown that “a substantial majority of Americans want abortion to remain legal in at least some circumstances.”

    Note also how that quite handily includes those who want partial-birth and third trimester abortions made illegal, those who want abortion to be illegal except in case of rape or incest, etc.

    As usual, the article is not marked “commentary.”

18. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am

    From the AP, one of thousands of articles proclaiming the same thing:

    Stocks Plunge on Recession Fears

    By Madlen Read

    NEW YORK — Wall Street plunged at the opening of trading Tuesday, propelling the Dow Jones industrials down about 300 points after an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to assuage investors fearing a recession in the United States.

    U.S. markets joined stock exchanges around the globe that have fallen precipitously in recent days amid concerns that a downturn might spread around the world. U.S. bonds were mixed, with investors seeking safer investments as stocks plummeted. The price of oil, meanwhile, fell amid expectations that a downturn would depress demand for energy.

    The Fed’s decision to cut its federal funds rate to 3.50 percent and the discount rate, the interest it charges to lend directly to banks, came a week before the central bank’s regularly scheduled meeting, a sign that the Fed recognized the seriousness of the world financial situation. But there were already fears in the markets before the Fed move that an interest rate could wouldn’t be enough to prevent a recession.

    In the first hour of trading, the Dow was down 293.70, or 2.43 percent, at 11,805.60. The Dow was last below 12,000 in March 2007.

    The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index was off 32.49, or 2.45 percent, at 1,292.70, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 66.82, or 2.86 percent, to 2,273.20.

    It was the first time the Fed altered the target federal funds rate between scheduled meetings since the markets reopened after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The cut was the biggest one-day rate move by the Fed since it lowered rates by a full percentage point in December 1991, when the country was trying to emerge from recession.

    The Fed said in a statement that it took the steps to address a “weakening of the economic outlook” and “increasing downside risks to growth.” The bank also said it will act in a timely way to address future risks. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....5698.story

    Gee, printing twenty articles a day about how the American economy is plunging into recession causes stocks to fall, and Americans to become jittery because “I’m doing OK, but look at this article - others out there are hurting.”

    I bet after next year’s inauguration as long as there’s someone with a “(D)” in the White House, the economy will be “picking up pace.”

19. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am

    From the AP:

    NYC Revives Vote for Calories on Menus

    By Amy Westfeldt

    Hoping the fat-filled truth about certain fast-food items will shock New Yorkers into eating healthier, city officials are reviving a plan to force chains to post calorie counts for their foods right on the menu.

    The city Board of Health planned to vote Tuesday for a second time on the requirement for major fast-food chains, which make up about 10 percent of the city’s restaurants. A federal judge struck it down in September, but indicated that the rule would be acceptable if it were expanded to include more restaurants.

    If the measure is approved, any large fast-food chain would have to list calorie counts prominently on their menu boards. Several chains, like McDonald’s and Burger King, have the information available, but don’t list it on the menu boards that customers read before ordering.

    City officials hope the rule would curb obesity by making people aware of the thousands of calories that can be packed into some of the meals. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said Monday he hoped the chains would also respond by offering healthier options.

    “I don’t think we’re going to see the 2,700-calorie appetizers that we see now,” Frieden said.

    New York City - which banned trans-fat-laden cooking oils from all restaurants last year - is believed to be the first U.S. city to enact a regulation requiring calories on menus. Since then, California lawmakers and King County in Washington, which includes Seattle, have considered similar bills.

    The new regulation would take effect March 31.

    The Board of Health first passed a similar rule last year. It only applied to establishments that had already volunteered to post nutritional information about their products.

    But a federal judge struck it down in September, indicating the rule would be acceptable if it were expanded to include the restaurants that had volunteered the calorie data as well as those that had not.

    The new policy would apply to any chain that operates at least 15 separate establishments, including those that don’t currently have any information on calories. Those chains would include International House of Pancakes and Hale & Hearty Soups, city officials said. …

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s.....S_ON_MENUS

    Because of course only chain restaurants and fast food restaurants serve unhealthy food.

    If you’re a gourmet restaurant in New York and happen to have, say, a 3,000 calorie desert, well, that’s just fine.

    Those famous NYC pizzerias are off the hook as well.

20. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Planned Parenthood to recruit for political bloc

    By Stephanie Simon

    The political wing of Planned Parenthood on Tuesday announced a voter-mobilization effort targeting the young, often low-income women who rely on the group’s clinics for gynecological exams, birth control and abortion.

    The nonprofit expects to raise at least $10 million over the next 10 months to recruit patients, as well as their friends and families, to lobby legislators and vote for candidates who support Planned Parenthood’s agenda.

    That agenda includes support for abortion rights, but the campaign will emphasize such issues as affordable contraception, comprehensive sex education in public schools and increased subsidies for the basic health-care services — including pap smears, breast exams and HIV tests — that Planned Parenthood offers. Some of those services have been threatened by budget cuts on the state and federal levels.

    “To do the work we need to do, we simply have to have change” in the political climate, said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

    The campaign, called “One Million Strong,” will be the group’s most ambitious and expensive effort. In the 2004 election, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent about $7.5 million on advocacy.

    Planned Parenthood’s doctors will not directly ask patients to join the movement. But in the past, clinics have had considerable success getting patients to call legislators or send postcards to Congress simply by displaying political material in waiting rooms.

    Other strategies include reaching out to young people at concerts and church services, canvassing door to door and using sites such as MySpace to identify supporters. …

    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....4262.story

    No one should for a moment make any mistake about Planned Parenthood’s real goals as a “nonprofit”:

    Abortion must be available at any time, for any reason, and preferably in our clinics.

    Meanwhile, I pity the Planned Parenthood person who shows up on my doorstep.

21. BillK
    January 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    State’s health care overhaul could cost taxpayers billions, analyst says

    By Tom Chorneau

    The proposed overhaul of California’s health care system could cost taxpayers billions of dollars in unanticipated expenses within five years of being launched, according to a review released tonight by the Legislature’s nonpartisan analyst.

    Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, warning that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other proponents of the legislation may have under-estimated the cost of providing care to millions of uninsured Californians, said that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support is also uncertain as is the number of people who may need state support.

    The report comes on the eve of a critical hearing about the bill before the state Senate’s health committee, set for Wednesday.

    The overhaul legislation, AB 1X was approved by the state Assembly in December, but senators have been skeptical of its cost and workability. The warnings from Hill may provoke even more concerns.

    “If it doesn’t pass my committee, if we don’t approve it - the governor will be out there saying that the state Senate killed health care reform,” said Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, chair of the health committee and a critic of the proposal.

    “But the headline should be that the senate refused to put out a bad health care bill,” she said.

    The $14 billion overhaul proposal would mandate virtually all Californians to have insurance. Employers would be required to cover their workers or pay into a state pool for purchasing insurance at a cost between 1 percent and 6.5 percent of company payroll.

    There would be a fee on hospitals and a $1.75 tax on a pack of cigarettes to help pay for coverage of an estimated 6.8 million Californians who lack insurance.

    The fees and taxes would go before voters in November, if approved in the Legislature. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....SUK46O.DTL

    Of course Governor “I was wrong to act like a conservative” Ahnold will still support it, and the insurance mandate looks an awful lot like that forced upon Mass. residents by Mitt “I’m a conservative, too!” Romney…

22. smdoyle
    January 23rd, 2008 at 12:36 am

    Found this on DrudgeReport. More regulations…from the live, let live crowd, no doubt.

    http://wcbstv.com/health/nyc.c.....35322.html

    I know the country (and NYC, apparently) is overweight, but mandating restaurants slap nutrition information on their menus is another step in the wrong direction, in my humble opinion.

    What’s worse, is the media feels the need to spread the word on this absurd new policy.

    “It will result in about 150,000 fewer people becoming obese in the next five years and would prevent at least 30,000 people from getting diabetes,” NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said.

    Sadly, this many New Yorkers rely on government to make ‘healthy choices’ for them.

    I side with the restaurants on this one. And even though this new law only applies to chains, you know as well as NYSRA what is next.

    Agree? Disagree? Please respond.

23. BillK
    January 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 am

    smdoyle, look up about three posts.

    Meanwhile, uh oh - the left will never let this stand!

    From the AP:

    Muslim Inmate Loses Supreme Court Case Over Koran, Prayer Rug

    The Supreme Court said Tuesday that a Muslim inmate cannot sue the government over the disappearance of the prisoner’s copies of the Koran and a prayer rug.

    In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said the federal law the inmate relied on prohibits lawsuits against federal corrections officers.

    Abdus-Shahid M.S. Ali says the missing books and rug reflect widespread harassment against Muslim inmates in federal, state and local prisons stemming from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    “Reports from all over the country have come in” on Muslims’ religious property that “has been destroyed, confiscated, looted, lost, stolen or taken without cause,” Ali said in the lawsuit he filed in federal court.

    Ali is serving a sentence of 20 years to life in prison for committing first-degree murder in the District of Columbia.

    The issue in the case was whether federal prison guards are immune from suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

    The law blocks lawsuits against the government over goods detained by customs and excise officers or “any other law enforcement officer.” Two lower federal courts said Ali cannot sue because prison officials are law enforcement officers.

    Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a majority that cut across ideological grounds, agreed with the lower courts. The law “forecloses lawsuits against the United States for the unlawful detention of property by ‘any,’ not just ’some,’ law enforcement officers,” Thomas said.

    Tuesday’s ruling was the first 5-4 split of the term, following a term in which the margin in 24 cases was a single vote.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324578,00.html

    I’m sure the Democrats will cite this as yet another failing of the “conservative packed Supreme Court,”

24. BillK
    January 23rd, 2008 at 2:14 am

    From the truth squad at the AP:

    Media Study Claims Bush Administration Lied Hundreds of Times About Iraq

    study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said he could not comment on the study because he had not seen it.

    The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to Al Qaeda or both.

    “It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

    Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

    Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and Al Qaeda. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324753,00.html

    Once again, the AP fails to grasp the difference between a statement believed to be true at the time and later proven false and a lie.

    Where are the counts of “lies” from the Democrats and President Clinton who, provided with the same intelligence, also came to the conclusion that Iraq possessed and were developing WMD.

    Meanwhile:

    “The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

    “Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, ‘independent’ validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq,” it said.

    Funny, those same journalists dismiss any “misstatement” by the left as OK, of course because “they meant well.”

    Will we see a single mention, aside from on page C-47, when Al Gore’s Global Warming is proven to be so much bull#$@!?

25. BillK
    January 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 am

    Click and die, from the AP:

    Afghan Student Sentenced to Death for Downloading Paper Against Islam

    KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam, an official said.

    The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam, said Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the northern province of Balkh, where the trial took place. Wahab did not preside over the trial.

    Kambaksh’s family and the head of a journalists group denounced the verdict and said Kambaksh was not represented by a lawyer at trial. Members of a clerics council had been pushing for Kambaksh to be punished.

    The case now goes to the first of two appeals courts, Wahab said. Kambaksh, who has been jailed since October, will remain in custody during appeal.

    Wahab said he did not immediately have the details of the paper that Kambaksh circulated, other than that it was against Islam. Kambaksh discussed the paper with his teacher and classmates at Balkh University and several students complained to the government, Wahab said. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324666,00.html

    Not at all surprising, yet it still does raise eyebrows when it happens.

26. BillK
    January 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 am

    Finish drinking before you read, lest you end up with a beverage-coated screen.

    From the AP:

    Calif Panel Opposes Bush Sonar Exemption

    LOS ANGELES — The state agency charged with protecting California’s coast argued Tuesday against President Bush’s exemption of the Navy from environmental laws that would restrict use of high-power sonar off the coast.

    The California Coastal Commission said in a brief filed in Los Angeles federal court that the president violated constitutional guarantees of separation of powers by overriding an earlier court decision limiting sonar use.

    “This is an effort by the president to rule by decree instead of observing the rule of law,” said California Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office represents the commission. “It’s hard to find words to express the extent to which this deviates from the American tradition of separation of powers. It’s shocking.”

    Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a Navy spokesman, declined to comment. An after-hours message left with the U.S. Department of Justice’s press office was not immediately returned.

    The commission’s brief was filed in a case in which the Natural Resources Defense Council sued to restrict the Navy’s use of sonar because of possible harm to whales and other marine mammals. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2.....ar,00.html

    Liberals filing a separation of powers case?!?!

27. pagar
    January 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 am

    From the Liberals make everyone crazy file. Criminal

    “LONDON — London’s East End is notorious for its criminals, from serial murderer Jack the Ripper to mobsters the Kray twins.

    The latest candidate for this rogue’s gallery is Janet Devers, a 63-year-old woman who runs a vegetable stall at Ridley Road market. Her alleged crime: selling goods only by the pound and the ounce.”

    “Ms. Devers, who pleaded not guilty in a court appearance on Friday, is being lionized for her stand in Britain’s feisty tabloids. If convicted, she could be fined as much as $130,000.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....lenews_wsj

    H/T to Debbie Schlussel

28. Warmonger Infidel
    January 23rd, 2008 at 7:35 pm

    An example of how sick our society has become

    From the Communist News Network ( But Fox News is just as bad):

    Autopsy fails to find how actor Heath Ledger died

    An autopsy Wednesday morning on actor Heath Ledger was inconclusive, and a cause-of-death determination will take 10 to 14 days, a medical examiner’s spokeswoman said.

    http://tinyurl.com/ysuddu

    Just another drug addicted nobody who is idolized by the pop culture worshiping society of America. Oh the pain of it all. And another Warrior dies for us and nobody notices. How sick.

29. Nimblicity
    January 23rd, 2008 at 10:54 pm

    January 23, 2008
    Bill Clinton gets upset with CNN reporter
    Posted: 09:00 PM ET

    (CNN) – Bill Clinton became visibly upset Wednesday over comments by a prominent South Carolina Democrat that compared the former president’s actions on the trail to those of infamous Republican strategist Lee Atwater.
    Clinton sharply disputed the charge, and lashed out at Yellin for raising the question.
    …
    “You live for this. This hurts the people of South Carolina,” he said. “Because the people of South Carolina come to these meetings and ask questions about what they care about. And what they care about is not what’s going to be in the news coverage tonight, because you don’t care about it.
    …

    These reporters aren’t safe, even if they’re just quoting someone else’s criticism.
    I’m thinking it’s just a matter of time till Big Bill crosses the line and hurts someone, and I mean physically. That long finger is going to wind up in somebody’s nose or eye.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....-reporter/

30. 1sttofight
    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Big Bad Bill needs an attitude adjustment.

31. BillK
    January 24th, 2008 at 2:40 am

    From the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

    Albright: Iraq policy a ‘disaster’

    By Ann Imse

    Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a sympathetic Denver audience Tuesday that “Iraq will go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy.”

    “I actually think you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. And diplomacy is not appeasement,” the Democrat said in a speech rife with blunt statements that would have been heresy to an American audience five years ago.

    Albright, 70, who served as President Clinton’s secretary of state and is now an adviser to candidate Hillary Clinton, was in the city where she grew up to speak about her new book, Memo to the President Elect. Her appearance was sponsored by the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists and was the first in a series of Rocky Talk public “conversations” to be held at the Rocky Mountain News.

    The next president will face a rapid firing of international challenges, Albright said. Among them: leaving Iraq, without leaving it in chaos; dealing with instability in a nuclear-armed, terrorist-ridden Pakistan; and responding to Iran’s refusal to abide by its agreement to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    The next president must restore America’s good name, she said. Today’s young people don’t think of America as the Marshall Plan - they think of it as Guantanamo, she said. And when America advocates democracy, other countries think they don’t want to end up like Iraq.

    She praised U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but then said they are “both the solution and the problem” - protecting Iraqis but “like flypaper, attracting everyone who hates us.” The next president will have to fight terrorists without creating more anti- Americanism, she argued.

    She said she hopes voters consider foreign policy issues in picking the next president.

    “The world is ready for a different American policy.”

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....-disaster/

    I see.

    We spent all that money in the 1940s, when Hitler and Tojo could still be our best buds.

    We need to invite al Qaeda over for coffee. Osama and Obama hangin’ at Camp David for the weekend!

    This loon’s book should be the flashing red warning light for every voter in the country about what will happen should a Democrat win the White House.

    But then we all get free health care if the Dems win, so it’s all OK in the end…

    Albright ended with:

    “I can’t wait for this to be over,” she said, to applause.

    I feel the same about your press tour expousing your failed policies.

    Using liberal logic, al Qaeda surged to prominence on your watch. (Though I’m sure that Cole thing was just a misunderstanding.)

    Meanwhile, what happened with that whole “Black Hawk Down” situation; why didn’t you go over and make friends with the Somali warlords?

    Why if Billy had just sat down and sang “Kumbaya” with Aidid…

32. BillK
    January 25th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    From the AP:

    Mahatma Gandhi Grandson Resigns From Peace Center After Criticizing Jews

    ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A grandson of Mahatma Gandhi has resigned from a peace institute at the University of Rochester after drawing condemnation for asserting in an online forum that “Israel and the Jews are the biggest players” in a global culture of violence and “can overplay” the Holocaust for sympathy.

    Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of the revered pacifist, says the board of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence accepted his offer Thursday to step down as president. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325549,00.html

    Whoopsie.

33. SG
    January 25th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    From the AP:

    Detroit mayor’s steamy texting puts him in Clinton-style scandal PERJURY?

    He swore he wasn’t having affair with aide

    January 25, 2008
    BY COREY WILLIAMS

    DETROIT — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick bristled in the witness chair last year when asked whether he had an affair with a top aide. No, the mayor confidently told jurors, the two were never romantically involved.

    But a trove of 14,000 text messages that emerged this week tell a different story: The mayor and his chief of staff carried on a flirty, sometimes sexually explicit dialogue about where to meet and how to conceal their numerous trysts.

    Now the mayor’s indiscretion has landed him in a Clinton-style scandal that could cost him his job and his law license and even bring perjury charges.

    The Detroit Free Press did not explain how it obtained the messages, which were sent or received in 2002-03 from Chief of Staff Christine Beatty’s city-issued pager.

    The mayor’s denial came last summer during testimony in a lawsuit filed by two police officers who alleged they were fired for investigating claims from two former bodyguards that the mayor used his security unit to cover up extramarital affairs.

    On the witness stand, the mayor also went on the offensive about the allegations, defending his reputation and that of Beatty. ”I think it was pretty demoralizing to her … but it’s demoralizing to me as well,” he testified. ”My mother is a congresswoman. There have always been strong women around me. My aunt is a state legislator. I think it’s absurd to assert that every woman that works with a man is a whore.” …

    Judge Michael Callahan, who presided over the lawsuit, said it is up to prosecutors to decide whether to seek perjury charges against the mayor…

    http://tinyurl.com/2fnds2

    Amazingly, the AP fails to mention Mr. Kilpatrick’s party affiliation.

    Of course he is a Democrat.

    In fact, he is currently the Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and its representative to the Democratic National Committee.

34. Warmonger Infidel
    January 25th, 2008 at 9:49 pm

    And what do you want to bet, if the truth be known, that his mother and aunt are in fact, political whores. That’s a personal opinion, not based on any factual information. Just want to be fair and balanced here….

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