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Selected News For Aug 29 – Sep 4

This thread is for the busy bees of S&L to post news items we might otherwise miss.

To make the articles as readable as possible, please stick to the format described here.

  • Only post ‘hard news’ from established media outlets.
  • Avoid editorials and ‘thought pieces,’ unless they are truly newsworthy.
  • Eschew ‘major news’ items that most people will likely have seen elsewhere.
  • Articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted as a comment there.

  • Always post less than a third of the original article.

Posts of articles that do not follow these guidelines are susceptible to being edited or deleted.

Related Articles:

 

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, August 29th, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

78 Responses to “Selected News For Aug 29 – Sep 4”

  1. canary
    August 29, 2009 at 1:20 am

    AP: Yemeni men plead guilty in NY to money laundering Aug 28 2009

    ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Three Yemeni businessmen in western New York have pleaded guilty to money laundering charges, ending their federal court trial.

    The men were charged in March 2007 after authorities said they sent $200,000 overseas knowing it was illegally obtained and could benefit the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has fought Israel since the early 1980s and is considered by Israel and the United States to be a terrorist organization. The men weren’t charged with any terrorism-related crimes.

    On trial were Yehia Ali Ahmed Alomari, Mohamed Al Huraibi and Saleh Mohamed Taher Saeed. They ran mini-marts and a restaurant in Rochester.

    Under Friday’s plea agreements, the men face sentences ranging from 15 to 27 months. They remain free until they’re sentenced in December.

    Defense lawyers say the men thought the money was simply to help fellow Yemenis.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....5pbWVucGxl

  2. canary
    August 29, 2009 at 1:33 am

    Race-baiter Democrat Rep. Diane Watson praises Cuban health system, Castro & Guevara who “kicked out the wealthy”
    By Michelle Malkin • August 28, 2009 04:03 PM

    Longtime readers of this blog will be quite familiar with race-baiting Democrat Rep. Diane Watson of California.
    She attacked Ward Connerly for marrying a white woman.
    She bragged about Washington, D.C. being a “chocolate city.”
    She polluted the Hurricane Katrina aftermath with race card-playing nonsense.

    Thanks to KABC, there’s audio of Watson heaping praise on Castro, Guevara, and the Cuban health system at her town hall meeting last night — as well as injecting her usual racial poison into the health care debate.

    WATSON: ….
    And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails…

    And you know we just got, 48 hours ago, we just go back, we were in Beijing, China, Hong Kong, China, we were in Taiwan, we were in Guam, we were all over the Far East.

    I just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that….

    It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”

    And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

    And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…

    http://michellemalkin.com/2009.....e-wealthy/

    Go to link to read all the proud to be racist Watson comments or watch her YouTube.

    • OneAmericanCitizen
      August 29, 2009 at 7:07 am

      Castro and Raul were fighting against Batista. Che came over from Mexico to join them. Che was actually a trigger happy doctor. After Castro took over he found Che was too popular and a threat to his power. Castro manipulated public opinion against him. Che was killed in the hills by the Bolivian army.

      Che was cool: “Guevara later learned that there were two failed attempts on his life by Cuban exiles during his stop at the U.N. complex. The first from Molly Gonzales who tried to break through barricades upon his arrival with a seven-inch hunting knife, and later during his address by Guillermo Novo with a timer-initiated bazooka that was fired off target from a boat in the East River at the United Nations Headquarters. Afterwards, Guevara commented on both incidents stating that “it is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun”, while adding with a languid wave of his cigar that the explosion had “given the whole thing more flavor.”

      Che also sent a letter of gratitude to JFK for the Bay of Pigs. “Before the invasion, the revolution was shaky. Now it’s stronger than ever.”

  3. canary
    August 29, 2009 at 4:34 am

    AP: US fears Yemen next staging ground for al-Qaida Aug 28 2009
    By LOLITA C. BALDOR

    American authorities are pressuring Yemen to counter a rising internal al-Qaida threat more aggressively and improve intelligence-sharing amid growing worries that the country could become the next significant terrorist staging ground.

    Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, was the site of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors. There have also been a spate of assaults on the U.S. Embassy in San’a, including a 2008 bombing that killed 10 Yemeni guards and four civilians.

    Just a few months ago, an audio message, reportedly from al-Qaida leader Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, urged Yemeni citizens to unite and fight the government. A former close aide to Osama bin Laden, al-Wahishi escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006, and has emerged as a leader of AQAP.

    “Al-Qaida in Yemen is stronger now than it has ever been in the past,” said Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen scholar.

    Johnsen blamed al-Qaida’s re-emergence in part on failures by the U.S. and its allies to support the rickety Yemeni government and maintain a consistent level of effort against the insurgents there.

    In one recent meeting with U.S. authorities, Yemeni officials pressed for a broad range of economic aid and military equipment,

    A complicating issue in the U.S.-Yemeni negotiations is the American effort to return some 100 Yemenis who are currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.

    The U.S. does not want to release the detainees straight back to Yemen for fear they will simply go free.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....cation=rss

  4. Rusty Shackleford
    August 29, 2009 at 8:42 am

    From the AP: Obama vows not to forget lessons of Katrina

    By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer – 27 mins ago

    OAK BLUFFS, Mass. – President Barack Obama promised Saturday that his administration would not forget what he called a tragic response to Hurricane Katrina. He said he would visit the still-recovering New Orleans before the end of the year.

    —–I find it somehow telling (though purely unintentional) that the location of this story has the word “bluffs” in it

    Obama has already dispatched 11 members of the Cabinet to the region to inspect progress and to hear directly local ideas on how to speed up repairs to a region destroyed by flooding four years ago this weekend.

    “None of us can forget how we felt when those winds battered the shore, the floodwaters began to rise and Americans were stranded on rooftops and in stadiums,” Obama said during his weekly radio and Internet address, released while he is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts.

    “Whole neighborhoods of a great American city were left in ruins.

    —–”Great” American city?????? “Chocolate Town, USA” was never a “great” city. More of the largest organized slum in the free world, and proud of it.

    Communities across the Gulf Coast were forever changed. And many Americans questioned whether government could fulfill its responsibility to respond in a crisis.”

    —–THERE IT IS!!!! “fulfill its responsibility” I seem to remember some (now hollow) words from yet another liberal. “Ask not what your country can do for you……” Hint: His bro’ just took a dirt nap.

    Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, killing more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and leaving behind more than $40 billion in property damage. Hurricane Rita followed almost a month later, with billions of dollars in additional damage and at least 11 more deaths.

    Obama acknowledged that recovery has not come at an acceptable pace despite recent moves to speed up the process.

    —–So, where’d 40 BILLION dead presidents go, dude?

    “I have also made it clear that we will not tolerate red tape that stands in the way of progress or the waste that can drive up the bill,” said Obama. “Government must be a partner — not an opponent — in getting things done.”

    —–It is to laugh.

    Rest of lie: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....Zvd3Nub3Q-

    —–Just as he “does not accept” business cycles, he “will not tolerate” red tape imposed by government action.

    —–Somehow, I’m just not the least bit filled with confidence. Could it have something to do with his statements regarding unemployment, taxes, the national debt and the fact that they are 180 degrees out from reality?

    —–Why should I ever believe an established and proven LIAR?

    —–Honestly, I can’t really begin to discuss the astronomical level of things wrong with this article from even just a foundation standpoint.

    • curvyred
      August 29, 2009 at 10:16 am

      Odd that he doesn’t vow to remember the lessons from Kansas and the other midwest states that were devasted by flooding and storms. AFTER Katrina.

      Because they were self-sufficient, they picked themselves up and banded together to clean up without “whining” about the gubment and holding their hands out.

      Does he not see the terrific lessons of the human spirit there?

    • proreason
      August 29, 2009 at 12:49 pm

      There are four lessons from Katrina:

      1. Corrupt liberal politicians are a national disaster waiting to happen.
      2. There is no amount of money or assistance that can save people who are too stupid to get out of town when they live below sea-level and a Cat 5 hurricance is bearing down.
      3. Like every other area of life, government is the most incompetant as well as most expensive organization to fix problems.
      4. Lying politicians don’t stop lying just because a situation is a real crisis instead of the usual made up crisis.

    • canary
      August 29, 2009 at 11:40 pm

      Katrina victims in Oprah homes indicted
      They are accused of taking FEMA money after moving
      By JENNIFER LATSON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Aug 20 2009

      Three Hurricane Katrina evacuees who found homes in Houston thanks to Oprah Winfrey’s charitable foundation are accused of bilking the government of tens of thousands of dollars in housing assistance.

      Federal agents arrested the women Wednesday morning at their homes on Angel Lane, to the surprise of neighbors who have struggled to build a thriving community in their southwest Houston subdivision.

      one of the women was a nurse and another was a probation officer.

      Darlene Poole, 30, and her sister Lashona Victor, 37, who lives in Louisiana, are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud for allegedly filing for rental assistance from FEMA after Poole bought a Habitat for Humanity home on Angel Lane three years ago. According to the federal indictment, Victor registered with FEMA as Poole’s landlord and the two submitted false lease agreements and rent receipts that prompted FEMA to pay them more than $14,000. Poole also told FEMA she was unemployed, although she was actually working for Harris County’s Community Supervision and Corrections Department, the indictment alleges.

      Next door to Poole, 38-year-old Angela Payne was charged with theft of government property and making false statements to FEMA for filing for rental assistance after she bought her Angel Lane home. Down the street, 34-year-old Kiesha Murphy faces the same charges. The indictment alleges Murphy also filed for unemployment assistance despite having a job at Memorial Hermann Hospital, netting more than $12,000 in benefits.

      But word had already spread from house to house down the snug two-block street where residents helped build their own homes in 2005, side-by-side with Habitat volunteers, using tools hand-delivered by Oprah. The 65 families selected to live on Angel Lane were given highly affordable, interest-free mortgages on homes decorated and fully furnished by Oprah’s Angel Network…“They’ve got everything Oprah gave them — a house and everything

      Angel Lane residents have struggled to overcome the challenges of building a new community from scratch after Katrina swept their New Orleans homes away.

      When the quiet street started becoming a backdrop for vandalism and thefts, they fought back. Members of the homeowners association worked to quell discord among neighbors. The street has been calm in recent months, neighbors said.

      Habitat for Humanity officials declined to comment Wednesday on whether the residents charged with fraud would lose their homes;

      Oprah’s Angel Network… disappointed … we remain proud of and committed to the hundreds of families we have been able to help through our hurricane rebuilding efforts.”

      according to a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutors who have already charged 90 other people with abusing hurricane relief efforts in the Southern District of Texas.

      jennifer.latson@chron.com
      http://www.chron.com/disp/stor.....78533.html

      Fargo ND led a good example when they were flooded. No looting, killing, they worked as a community in freezing cold. Not sure what Obama did for them, but prehaps he could learn a way to help NO.

  5. Rusty Shackleford
    August 29, 2009 at 8:58 am

    Congressman Rogers lays it out there about “healthcare”

    You Tube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....r_embedded

    • proreason
      August 29, 2009 at 12:57 pm

      Great find Rusty.

      Congressman Rogers (R) is very effective.

      But he does seem to misunderstand what the Health Scare Bill is about.

      He seems to think it has something to do with improving Health Care in this country.

      Of course, it doesn’t. It’s the key step in reducing life, liberty, and happiness, so that we will forever be dependent on the elite who demand to rule us, all in the name of redistributions “fairness”. Coincidentally, the elite will live like royalty as they ration our rights, and even our ability to live.

    • canary
      August 29, 2009 at 3:27 pm

      He points out the health bill allows government to un-enroll individuals and companies from their private insurance, which further points to destroying private plans, and going total socialist medicine.
      And this is exactly, why the Democrats are pushing so fast for this bill, instead of slower reform policies. It takes just “one little clause”, just a few words to give meaning to 1000 pages. It’s disgusting to hear the silence after he spoke. Where is the voice for Americans.

    • wardmama4
      September 3, 2009 at 8:18 am

      This was a great find – I have been writing down the Section Numbers as I find them to show where – their ‘myths’ exist. And if it exists, is it a myth?!? It is important we use the real facts and Sections against them rather than just going on about the evils of it. Which is why I think Congressman Rogers did not go to the ‘vast government conspiracy to takeover America’ angle – even though we all know it exists. He kept it in terms that even Mom or Dad or an Obamabot could understand.

      It is why they went ballistic and lost the forward momentum when Sarah Palin mentioned the ‘death panels’ on Facebook – if they had just ignored it – they might have even been able to by-pass the damage but their PDS is so great that they made an issue of it and it blew up in their face – big time.

      I’m interested to see exactly what Obama’s address to the School Children in America (Sept 8th) and his All Barack Channel re-do of infomercial on the Kennedy Free (wink, wink) Healthcare for All, Illegals First (Section 1702 – State accept without further determination anyone) Bill
      on Sept. 9th.

      Talk about Indoctrination – It is starting.

      God Help America

  6. catie
    August 29, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    This really isn’t so much news just an interesting article followed by a rant-After Death Silence from the Pope via Drudge
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2.....9191906400

    As a Catholic I am absolutely sickened by this monstrosity of a funeral Mass for this murdering, pro-choice so called Catholic who knows how many years got his marriage to Joan annulled. Hells Bells, I can’t get my husband’s first marriage annulled because it runs into “immigration issues” since he married this chick from Panama who brought her entire family up to the USA & then left. So, now we’re going through the Diocese of Arlington instead of the Diocese of the Military. Yet, this has been going on 9 years and this twit got an annulment.
    BTW did you notice the Bush’s are in the second row? But Laura & George are still the classy folks they are.

    • canary
      August 29, 2009 at 3:36 pm

      Catie it’ sickening Obama met with the Pope in Rome just to deliver a letter, at tax-payers expense. Obama wrote Catholics are a threat to Democrats, and it sickens me that he was even in the Vatican with Michelle, wearing her veil. I am sure Ted Kennedy paid for his piece of paper.

    • Melly
      August 29, 2009 at 8:35 pm

      No flash lights at Teddy’s burial?
      How symbolic indeed…returning to earth in the thick darkness of evening.
      Compare that to Ronnie’s funeral and ultimate burial in California – beautifully timed to the setting California sun.

    • catie
      August 29, 2009 at 10:12 pm

      Melly, did you hear what that Kerrick had to say as they were returning Teddy in the dark of the night? Boy that sure seemed to refute the above article. I about croaked when he was going on about how wonderful he was-mentioned he was for the immigrant, anti-death penalty, for the “downtrodden”-whoever the hell they are now this 2009 & illegal immigrants have a bunch of rights and my maternal grandmother was part of that “Irish need not apply” of Boston, MA.
      It was symbolic that the sun set before he could get in the ground.
      Canary, I was sickened by that as well. Unfortunately, I have plenty of “social justice, pro-death” Catholics in my family. Obambi has at least 48 assured votes from that crowd.

    • canary
      August 30, 2009 at 12:41 am

      hmmm. I was thinking of the secret letter Obama hand delivered for/from Teddy to the Pope in Rome. May have been a large thick envelope full of cash to pay for a Catholic service. Probably not as thick as the one he gave for an annulment of his fancy expensiveCatholic marriage that had to have cost.

    • canary
      August 30, 2009 at 12:58 am

      Here is an AP correction as printed at the end of article at link below, where they mis-spelled paragraph as “paragrahp” Also, the the ” ‘ ” after Kennedys’ should be Kennedy’s parish priest. Have no idea which priest was infamously named as Kennedy’s or Kennedys’ parish priest. Maybe someone has bad vision like me 8 )~

      (This version CORRECTS in paragrahp 21 that Hession is Kennedys’ parish priest from Cape Cod.)

      http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....dy_funeral

    • canary
      August 30, 2009 at 1:13 am

      hmm. Maybe Obama would feel welcome at Teddy’s D.C. church, which ever one it is he attended if at all. I’m so confused. Course, it might not be as radical as he’d like. Obama doesn’t know where people go when they die, so apparently, it wasn’t being saved that pulled him into his former white jew hating condemn America church led by rev.Wright. Glen Beck showed some scenes this week, and I guess I could not imagine anyone who cares about their child’s environment, (Obama wrote of constant screening what his daughter’s watched on tv. Dang. Look at the church they went to. ).

    • canary
      August 30, 2009 at 1:35 am

      Catie have you thought of doing some church hopping on the side. It might spiritually give you a break. I don’t think the Catholic church considers it a sin. And If your church finds out they might sign the papers fast, to keep you.

    • Melly
      August 30, 2009 at 5:24 am

      Hi Catie – no I missed that. Unbelievable. The MSM fought so hard to inflate the importance of Teddy’s passing. Most young ordinary folk were consumed by the passing of DJ AM this weekend, not Teddy – believe me. Outside of Washington, D.C. and liberal Northeast, people don’t hold Teddy in such high regard, really. All those politicians in D.C. who were under Teddy’s thumb for so many years – you are free at last! I think back to Ronnie’s funeral. How I and my family and friends cried non stop for three days. We were all glued to our televisions. I still regret not driving down to D.C. to pay my respects. It’s poetic justice: Teddy’s funeral taking place on a rainy late summer weekend when folks are preoccupied by squeezing out their own remaining summertime pleasures and running out of daylight during the burial – seriously, who gets buried in the dark without the proper lighting? The TV ratings must have been horrible. Too bad Rush will be on vacation next week – oh, how he would have expressed his amusement over the burial by darkness. What a clan those Kennedys are. And what a rotten toxic person from which they came. Sins of the father indeed.

      Oh, btw – Barry looked horrible without TOTUS by his side during the eulogy. No wonder he clings to TOTUS :-)

    • catie
      August 30, 2009 at 4:52 pm

      Thanks Canary. That’s a good idea. Our priest did say something about that joke yesterday at this mornings 7:00 a.m. Mass. He hoped that wouldn’t drive anyone away or dissuade someone from joining.

    • Flession
      September 4, 2009 at 4:35 am

      Catie, I can understand your frustrations with this. Believe me, I have struggled spirtually and morally about Drunkendy’s death. I’d have to say that Drunkendy is the main reason I am not in politics, as he represented everything sick and wrong with our system, and I love politics. My family and friends, even those who disagree with me, think I should go in. However, he remained a avatar of disgust for me and I do not mourn nor miss his sorry ass.

      Millions upon millions of unborn lives are on his soul, weighing him down. But, you must understand, that it is not our judgment whether or not he gets a Catholic burial. We do not know what his final moments were, and, if somehow Drunkendy managed to get somehow good with God, then he deserves that burial.

      We don’t know what happened. We really don’t. I weighed on this for days, but my brother paraphrased a quote from Bishop Sheen. “There will be three things that will shock us when we get into heaven: 1) Those we would never expect to be there are there. 2) Those we would expect to be there are not. 3) We are there.”

      I have nothing but disgust and contempt with this man, but I sincerely hope, with all my heart, he’s there to greet me if I get there.

  7. BillK
    August 29, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    Ah, unions.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Ex-police union leader DeBraska convicted of 2 felonies

    By John Diedrich

    Bradley DeBraska, longtime president of the powerful Milwaukee police union, was convicted of two felonies Friday and now faces up to 12 years in prison for fabricating a memo from a former top city leader.

    A jury found DeBraska guilty on both counts – forgery and identity theft – for making up a document he then used in a high-stakes legal fight between the union and the city.

    The 53-year-old retired Milwaukee police detective will be in court Sept. 4 to learn when he will be sentenced – and whether he will be sitting in jail in the meantime.

    Assistant District Attorney Kurt Benkley indicated he will ask Circuit Judge Richard Sankovitz to lock up DeBraska until sentencing. Benkley declined to say what arguments he will make, but prosecutors typically ask for detention when they will seek significant prison time.

    DeBraska headed the Milwaukee Police Association, which represents about 1,700 rank-and-file police officers and is long recognized as the most powerful city employee union. As its president for 12 years, DeBraska became a heavyweight in city politics.

    The union went to war with the city in the 1990s over the issue of the pension fund. An offshoot was a battle over where the money would come from to pay for new pension computers.

    DeBraska argued that the city had promised to take no more than $3 million of computer costs from the pension fund, with the rest coming from taxpayers. The city said there was no such promise and all costs should come from the fund. With up to $24 million at stake, DeBraska and the police union took the city to court.

    To bolster the union’s case, DeBraska fabricated a memo from former Common Council President John Kalwitz to a city labor negotiator. It said in part, “the taxpayers will be on the hook for all in excess of the 3 million…”

    DeBraska had the union’s secretary write the memo in 2004 and backdated to 1999. DeBraska then put it on Kalwitz’s letterhead and put on Kalwitz’s signature. He told the secretary, “Take this to your grave.”

    DeBraska testified the memo reflects a conversation he had with Kalwitz in 1999 and that Kalwitz gave him permission to create the bogus document. Kalwitz denied that.

    DeBraska sent to Kalwitz the fake memo with three real documents attached to an affidavit, which Kalwitz was to sign. DeBraska also included a $2,000 check – the union’s payment for Kalwitz to be a consultant.

    Kalwitz, who has retired to Nevada, said he looked over the package from DeBraska carefully but “glossed” over the phony memo. Kalwitz testified he can now easily see it is a fake.

    The Kalwitz memo was among several documents used by the union’s attorney to persuade Circuit Judge Jeffrey Kremers to deny the city’s request to have the lawsuit dismissed. The union attorney described Kalwitz’s memo as very important, and may have even called it a “smoking gun.”

    After losing its bid to dismiss the case, the city demanded all documents on the issue from the union, a routine step before a civil trial. The same day that request arrived, DeBraska and the union board abruptly decided to drop the case, even though they had just won a significant victory. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/55796267.html

    Not quite “the Chicago way,” but close enough.

  8. BillK
    August 29, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    More union fun from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Mercury Marine union calls for new talks

    By Rick Barrett

    The union representing Mercury Marine Inc. employees has called for a new round of labor negotiations with the company, rather than a second vote this weekend on a proposed contract.

    Last Sunday, union members turned down a seven-year contract proposal that would have resulted in a wage freeze, a 30% pay cut for new hires and employees called back to work from layoff, and increased health-care costs.

    Union officials said the proposal was rejected by a wide margin. As a result of the vote, company officials have said they’re moving hundreds of manufacturing jobs to a non-union plant in Stillwater, Okla.

    Some employees have circulated petitions calling for a second vote on the deal before it expires Saturday at midnight.

    But that won’t be allowed unless the company makes substantial changes to the proposed contract, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents the 850 Mercury Marine plant workers.

    Furthermore, the union is calling for additional meetings with the company.

    “These workers and this community deserve more than a rushed process with an artificial deadline that failed to deliver a solution that worked for everyone,” Philip Gruber, an IAM Midwest territory vice president, said Friday in a statement.

    “We are prepared to meet anytime, anywhere with this company to create a proposal that fairly addresses the needs of this company and the future of this community,” Gruber said.

    Mercury has repeatedly said its contract proposal was a best and final offer, and the company was not interested in further negotiations after the deadline.

    Friday, company officials said the union had not yet told them it wanted further discussions.

    “We still haven’t heard from the union as to whether they’re going to allow a second vote,” said company spokesman Steve Fleming.

    Union officials say that Mercury probably would move manufacturing to Stillwater even if the union accepted the contract proposal.

    “The presence of a company-imposed deadline and last-minute changes are what doomed their proposal to failure,” Gruber said. “We owe it to everyone involved, this company, its workers and this community to allow such decisions to be made without a gun held to their heads.”

    There is dissent in the union, however. Some members say many people might vote in favor of the proposed seven-year deal now that they understand it better and realize the company isn’t backing down.

    Three union members circulating petitions that call for a second vote say they have more than 270 signatures from IAM members.

    Without the endorsement of the union’s leadership, however, it’s doubtful that a second vote will take place. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/55813467.html

    Once again a union believes unemployment is better for their members than lower pay, refusing to allow a second vote tot take place.

    Of course this is largely the fault of the workers who believed the union’s rhetoric.

    Meanwhile you also see the same mentality that will be used in the Government health plan:

    Union officials say that Mercury probably would move manufacturing to Stillwater even if the union accepted the contract proposal.

    You can easily read this as:

    Government officials say the patient would have died soon even if they had received treatment.

    The typical liberal mantra – if we keep saying it to ourselves, it must be true…

  9. canary
    August 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    GOPweekly address: Senator Mike Enzi-R-WY warns against health care
    bill
    http://www.youtube.com/user/gopweeklyaddress

  10. Rusty Shackleford
    August 30, 2009 at 12:54 am

    From the AP:

    Up to 1,000 rally in NYC for health care bill

    Sat Aug 29, 8:55 pm ET

    NEW YORK – About a thousand people rallied in Manhattan on Saturday in support of federal health care reform legislation.

    The event near Times Square began shortly after the funeral for U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, and took-on the feel of a tribute to the liberal leader.

    One person carried a sign that said, “TeddyCare for all.”

    U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney told the crowd the bill will lower health care costs for almost everyone. The New York Democrat also invoked Kennedy, saying the senator understood the need for change.

    Opponents say the legislation will cost too much and diminish the quality of care.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....care_rally

    —-And so it begins.

  11. proreason
    August 30, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    Here it is. A full explanation of how communist set out to destroy America from within decades ago, with reference to the ex-Soviet Agent who explained it. From AndieBrownlow in American Thinker

    From Russia with No Love

    A misguided ideology has taken root in America and has brought this nation to the brink of collapse. A battle of two ideals has ensued, both of which have a significant impact on our national security and ultimate fate of the nation. Can America return to conservative values and save itself from the jaws of Marxism, or will it spiral down a path of self destruction guided by none other than the former Soviet Union?…

    Yuri Bezmenov, aka Tomas Schuman, was a Soviet journalist and propaganda specialist for the KGB in 1965. …Mr. Schuman explained that although Hollywood glorifies Soviet espionage and James Bond-style activity, in actuality only 10 to15% of the KGB’s time was devoted to covert activity. The remaining 85 to 90% was spent on a four-step process called “Ideological Subversion.”

    The four steps in the process are:
    1. Demoralization.
    2. Destabilization.
    3. Crisis.
    4. Normalization.

    The point of this “Ideological Subversion” was to weaken an enemy country, strip its culture and corrupt their values to a point of complete vulnerability. …

    The first step, Demoralization, has already been completed in America and continues to perpetuate itself. The Obama Administration policies are accelerating the second step of Destabilization and rapidly approaching the third phase of Crisis.

    Mr. Schuman explains Demoralization as a 10 to 30 year process:

    [To] educate a generation to expose them to the ideology of the enemy: Marxism, Leninism…without being challenged by American values.

    The goal is six-fold:

    1) Destroy the religion of the enemy; mock and discredit it. Promote corrupt alternatives and cults.
    2) Insure the disruption of education. Distract from learning constructive and pragmatic subjects and replace them with studies on frivolous topics.
    3) Destroy social ties and impede bargaining and conflict resolution. Bring in bureaucracy and dependence on authority.
    4) Institute power structuring around unelected bureaucrats and the media.
    5) Destroy labor relations by mediating employee /employer interaction. Create friction and oppositional relationships.
    6) Warp law, order and morality. Demonize the police and those upholding the law. Make the bad guy look like a victim of society; justify his actions.

    The second stage, Destabilization, takes place when the lines of morality are blurred and the fundamentals of society are sufficiently demoralized and dysfunctional. The areas of concentration are the same as in Demoralization but in a more targeted, refined attack. The focus is on radicalization and the complete break down …

    The third stage of subversion is Crisis. We’re on the cusp of crisis right now with an impending economic melt down from the monetization of our debt, out of control deficit spending, the possibility of socialized health care and Cap & Trade.

    According to Mr. Schuman, the two possible end routes of crisis are: civil war and invasion….

    Normalization is the final phase of “Ideological Subversion”. It is the forced stabilization of the nation by communist forces in control. ‘Useful idiots’ the true believers of Marxism, according the KGB, would be executed to end the undermining of government. This means all activists, propagandists, Marxist revolutionaries, progressives / liberals…everyone on the “left” whose political ideology hangs on the tenets of socialism (communism) would be removed from influence.

    Why would “Marxists” get rid of their own? Because ‘true believers’ in the ideology would become bitter enemies of the state upon finding out they were deceived in their utopian ideals. According to Mr. Schuman, they would soon find there is no equality in communism but the:

    Equality of living in dirt.”

    http://www.americanthinker.com....._love.html

    This is an amazing article and parallels reality (and what yours truly has been ranting about for a year) perfectly.

    Note particularly the emphasis on education and destroying morality. And note that in the end, the True Believers are destoyed as well because, after all, it isn’t really about Marxism, it’s about power. Marxism is the tool.

    Glenn Beck should latch onto this.

    • proreason
      August 30, 2009 at 12:47 pm

      Here’s a video of the ex-KGB agent explaining it.

      There are dozens of other videos of him in YouTube.

    • canary
      August 30, 2009 at 3:47 pm

      Obama started out his term crying crisis while he apologized to other countries, and called conservatists terrorists. It’s ongoing. Obama has removed “States” from his context.

  12. Melly
    August 30, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    So true…….Ronald Reagan saw this when he was involved with SAG back when he was an actor in Hollywood. In “Where’s the Rest of Me?” (1965) Ronnie writes:

    These days, when the duplicity of the Communists is known at home and abroad – after Korea and Cuba – it is easy to say they can be detected and despised. But in the 1940’s it was quite different. There were Communists in positions of influence, actively working with Hollywood films, with the ultimate objective of propaganda in mind. Even today the Communists have succeeded in convincing many that their bitter beliefs were mere boyish peccadilloes, sort of avant-gard thinking, like abstract art and coffee-house poetry………

    ……………Perhaps Communism may become fashionable in Hollywood intellectual sets again. I don’t know. Perhaps, like the measles, it will always be with us. We can only be wary and informed about tyranny – and remember that measles may be deadly without an antitoxin. It may be that each American generation must be re-educated to the precariousness of liberty.” (page 164)

  13. canary
    August 31, 2009 at 1:26 am

    AP: Fortune helped fuel Kennedy family legacy, agenda
    By Associated Press Writer Steve Leblanc Aug 30, 2009

    BOSTON – Sen. Edward Kennedy’s family fortune not only fueled his brothers’ presidential campaigns and his eight terms in the U.S. Senate, it also helped drive the family’s liberal legacy and forge Kennedy’s lifelong crusade for universal health care.

    Just how wealthy was Kennedy when he died Tuesday at the age of 77

    On the most recent report in 2008, which includes his own assets and those of his wife and any dependents, Kennedy listed a string of publicly and non-publicly traded trusts and assets. Under the filing rules, Kennedy was only required to place the value of those assets within a range, rather than give an exact dollar amount.

    The report placed the net worth of his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $15 million and high of $72.6 million.

    Just a year earlier, Kennedy reported somewhat rosier totals that placed his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $46.9 million and a high of $157 million.

    Kennedy has other sources of income, including $1,995,833 in royalties he received from Grand Central Publishing a division of Hachette Group Book, publishers of his memoir True Compass scheduled for release

    The main source of Kennedy’s wealth was his father and family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy who amassed a fortune in banking, real estate, liquor, films and Wall Street holdings that eventually grew to an estimated $500 million by the 1980s.

    A significant portion of that came from Joseph P. Kennedy’s decision to buy Chicago’s famed Merchandise Mart in 1945 for $12.5 million.

    Spanning two city blocks and rising 25 stories, the sprawling limestone and terra-cotta mart is so large it has its own zip code and only lost its title as the world’s largest building after the Pentagon was built in the 1940s.

    The family retained ownership of the building until 1998 when it was sold — along with other properties including Chicago’s Apparel Center which covers about a million square feet — to Vornado Realty Trust of Saddle Brook, N.J. for $625 million in 1998 to take advantage of the then-booming real estate market.

    “One of my cousins reminded me of a quote from my grandfather: ‘Only a fool waits for top dollar,’” Christopher Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

    The late John F. Kennedy Jr. also joked about his family’s real estate holdings when he visited Chicago in 1996 to mark the launch of George magazine.

    “In the 1940s, my family bought the Merchandise Mart. In the 1970s, we bought the Apparel Center. And in the 1960 election, my family bought 20,000 votes,” he said, referring to his father’s narrow presidential victory.

    For Sen. Kennedy, the family fortune only reinforced his determination to expand access to health care.

    It was a lesson he learned through his own painful experience.

    In a Newsweek column he wrote a month before his death, Kennedy recalled the grueling treatment his son Teddy Jr. had to undergo in 1973 for bone cancer that eventually required the amputation of his right leg.

    The experimental clinical trial, which included massive doses of chemotherapy, was free at first, but was deemed a success before some patients had completed their treatments. That forced some families to rely on insurance or pay out of pocket to cover the rest.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....dy_fortune

    “While Kennedy had the needed resources, not everyone was so lucky”
    soooo… since Kennedy got free medical in the beginning, when he didn’t need it, why didn’t Kennedy pay for those not as lucky as his son. Didn’t church teach him, about the difficulty in finding a needle in a haystack.

    • caligirl9
      August 31, 2009 at 3:20 am

      This is what bugs me about this family: it’s so easy to say that the government should pay for this and that, knowing that taxes pay for all of the wonderful freebies.

      When you have that much money lying around, money that you haven’t had to really work for, or sacrifice to earn, it’s easier to claim you care for the poor and the downtrodden. I honestly don’t think this family understands shite about the everyday struggle to earn a dollar … not a single Kennedy worries about a house payment, health care, putting food on the table, buying clothing, or going on vacations.

      Think if the Kennedys really put their money where their mouths are: donate most of that fortune to some sort of trust. Fully fund that trust yourselves. A couple million dollars, donated to even one hospital, can treat many of those “downtrodden” souls that family claims to care so much about.

      I have lib friends who glued themselves to the television watching Kennedy’s funeral. Come on people, Ted Kennedy isn’t the first senator to have died in office. No reason for the world to stop spinning. (Sorry God, for sounding so callous.)

    • wardmama4
      September 3, 2009 at 8:34 am

      It’s not the money – it’s how it is used.

      Except for the liquor – my grandfather did a mini-version of that here locally. He bought 5 farms locally and two pieces of land in MT. He slowly sold the farms to developers.

      It made him & his two sons wealthy (not stinking rich) and enabled all of us (8 grandchildren) to go to college on their dime. What we all did after that – was on us. Which is why some failed miserably, some are miserable and the rest are doing ok.

      But while doing that he, his brother, his two sons bartered and traded for medical services to the poor, set up clinics and taught sans pay at the local medical college – my father even taught classes during his ‘vacation’ in MT.

      It’s all gone – we are all solid middle class working people – or dead (3 of the grandchildren).

      And as for the Kennedys – how much of that fortune is hidden, protected or was sent back to the ‘homeland’ for other purposes? As I said, it’s not the money, it’s what is done with the money.

      That is why the Bible says – the love of money is the root of all evil – not money itself.

  14. BillK
    August 31, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Another great graft investigation from the Milwakee Journal Sentinel:

    Private fortune, public cash

    Regulators ignored red flags while woman ran lucrative day care business

    By Raquel Rutledge

    A Jaguar convertible sits in the driveway of Latasha Jackson’s million-dollar mansion in Menomonee Falls. Built on a hill with a sprawling back deck overlooking a pond, the 7,600-square-foot home features an indoor swimming pool and indoor basketball court.

    Jackson is not an Olympic swimmer, a professional basketball player or a celebrity of any sort. She is a day care provider in the city of Milwaukee.

    She built her fortune with taxpayer funding from the Wisconsin Shares program.

    And although documents show regulators had many reasons to believe the 32-year-old mother of three was billing the state for kids not in her care, providing false information and otherwise defrauding the system for more than a decade, they continued to pay her.

    That ended Thursday, but only after the state learned the Journal Sentinel was preparing to publish a story on the case. And only when Jackson turned herself in – a day after the newspaper confronted her.

    Despite recent records that indicate Jackson was running what police and regulators refer to as a “child-care ring” – adding mothers with many kids to her payroll for the main purpose of enrolling their children in her center – the state continued to deposit thousands of dollars in her account each month. This month alone Jackson collected more than $90,000 from Wisconsin Shares.

    All told, Jackson has received nearly $3 million in taxpayer-financed child-care funding since she got in the day care business in 1999.

    The Wisconsin Shares program is meant to help hardworking, low-income parents get and keep jobs. An ongoing Journal Sentinel investigation has identified people swindling millions from the system.

    The Jackson case shows how licensers, caseworkers and even fraud investigators haven’t stopped it.

    The newspaper compiled a paper trail on Jackson tallying more than 1,800 pages, including public records as well as those obtained from sources that state and county regulators refused to release. The documents detail how regulators repeatedly failed to take action or cut off payments despite Jackson’s extensive violations, her history of lying and even regulators’ own outright proof of fraud.

    In an hourlong interview at her new center on Milwaukee’s northwest side, Jackson denied she ever cheated the program. She insisted the records must be mistaken, that she had never had any program violations, never had a problem with attendance records.

    “That’s not me. I don’t do nothing dirty. I don’t do nothing fraudulent. I do what I have to do to take care of my stuff,” she said. “Everything I have I have worked for, and I work very hard.”

    As early as 1997, before Jackson even got into the day care business, regulators suspected she was scamming the system. Jackson was a young mother seeking child-care assistance for her 1-year old daughter. Records show she lied about her income to qualify for the program. Milwaukee County caseworkers referred her case to the fraud unit that year and again in 1998. Records don’t indicate what became of those investigations. She was never criminally charged.

    And Jackson continued to collect Wisconsin Shares funds – tapping the pot, at times, as a mother reportedly in need, and on and off as a day care provider. Even as new signs of fraud surfaced.

    In 1999, Jackson was 22 with a 3-year-old daughter in tote when she launched her day care business. Child care offered a perfect way to make a living. She could stay at home on the northwest side near N. 74th St. and W. Hampton Ave., watch a few children and collect a steady check from the state.

    It was a couple years after the inception of the state’s welfare-to-work program, and demand for day care providers was great. So it didn’t take long for Jackson to build her business.

    By 2004, she was receiving more than $350,000 a year from the Wisconsin Shares program, with state approval to care for 67 kids in a new center near N. 24th St. and W. Capitol Drive.

    She moved to a nice home in Waukesha County, a few miles from where she would later build her mansion.

    By 2006, her business had more than doubled to $830,000 a year in public child-care funds and more than 100 children reportedly enrolled.

    There is no way to know how much of that money was earned legitimately. Throughout the years, regulators received complaints from people accusing Jackson of falsifying documents and billing for kids not actually in her care. And, inspectors cited her repeatedly for not keeping accurate attendance records. Inspectors also found workers at the center didn’t know the names of the kids or the number of children under their watch.

    Regulators also investigated allegations that workers were using drugs, watching pornography and that Jackson left the children in the care of a young teenage boy.

    In all, from 2001 to 2007 inspectors cited Jackson for more than 150 violations. On at least five visits, inspectors found Jackson’s attendance records were inaccurate, at times listing children present who were not in her care.

    Yet they continued to pay her. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/watchd.....21342.html

    Hey, why should they try to stop this woman? The state was paying, “nobody got hurt” and regulators didn’t have to actually do any work.

    Win-win all around.

    The article concludes:

    In her interview, Jackson told the Journal Sentinel she’s not worried about any investigations. She said her paperwork is all in order.

    “I don’t see how they could be looking at me for fraud,” she said.

    The next day, however, Jackson told the state about her fraud involving the child-care and food assistance in Waukesha County. On Thursday, state regulators shut her down for that reason and admitted they had botched her case, too. They said Waukesha County had notified them in July 2008 about Jackson’s fraud, months before the Waukesha County worker checked the wrong box. The state overlooked the paperwork.

    Jackson said her child-care business has required so much work she’s rarely been able to enjoy her four bedroom, six-bathroom mansion. She’s only been in the pool maybe five times since she moved in last year.

    She put the house on the market in February.

    Asking price: $1,499,900.

  15. BillK
    August 31, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    Part two of the investigation from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Government blind to child-care fraud

    Officials at all levels pass the blame, share the blame

    By Raquel Rutledge

    Sue Meyers sat at her desk in May and authorized more than $700 a week in state child-care subsidies so a convicted cocaine dealer could go to work in a day care center.

    Perhaps the Racine County caseworker didn’t know that the woman, Katria Wright, was also under criminal investigation for scamming the same taxpayer-financed child-care program out of thousands of dollars.

    Wright’s name was well known to supervisors, investigators and others in the office. Indeed, her subsidy payments stopped in January after the Journal Sentinel exposed how she had defrauded the system by claiming hours she never worked at a lawn care business.

    Yet with Meyers’ approval, she was back in the system, again tapping the publicly funded Wisconsin Shares program.

    Meyers, who retired in July, did not return calls seeking comment. Officials in Racine responsible for the subsidy program wouldn’t say how it happened.

    While unscrupulous parents and providers steal from the system, government officials – from caseworkers and data-entry clerks to lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle – share the blame.

    They haven’t stopped it.

    A Journal Sentinel investigation has found the failures of the $350 million program are fueled by a confluence of factors from bureaucratic malaise to negligence and corruption.

    County and state regulatory offices are set up in such a way that bureaucrats can easily shirk responsibility. County workers who do aggressively weed out fraud say they are not supported by their supervisors or state regulators and are sometimes harassed for their efforts.

    And, the political will to actually clean up the program appears questionable, with Doyle and legislators promising fixes but failing to follow through.

    The names of the scammers in this story might be familiar. Their cases have been detailed by the Journal Sentinel in an ongoing series “Cashing in on Kids,” exposing how parents and child-care providers pilfer the system. The new names belong to the bureaucrats and officials who signed off on the spending or stood by as the state sank millions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of swindlers.

    The newspaper reviewed thousands of pages of public documents and documents supplied by whistleblowers that state and local governments refused to release. Interviews were conducted with dozens of past and current regulators, lawmakers, child-care providers and working parents who rely on public assistance.

    The newspaper found:

    • Single child-care cases are often handled by as many as six or seven different workers, many of whom fail to take ownership when problems emerge. Not only are the workers not accountable, in some cases those who have signed off on bogus child-care applications wind up being promoted. The state protects caseworkers from public scrutiny by not disclosing who makes what decisions.

    • County workers say they don’t get proper training and have to figure out how to pursue fraud on their own. Those who do aggressively chase suspicious cases report being punished and even fired for their efforts.

    • State officials promised a major overhaul of the system earlier this year yet quickly sidelined some of the key components. While Doyle and lawmakers added fraud investigators at the state level, they trimmed the budget for county fraud workers by more than 60%, ignoring reports that show every dollar spent in this area pays for itself several times over.

    • Doyle and lawmakers have given a seat at the reform table to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – a powerful union and top campaign contributor – which now represents child-care providers. In June, the state approved a measure that gave providers and their union even more leverage.

    Critics say the problems are obvious.

    “It’s like you see there’s a big hole in the bottom of a bucket but everyone just stands there and wonders why there is leaking,” said state Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine), a member of the Joint Finance Committee. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/watchd.....76582.html

    Once again, why should regulators take action when they are actively discouraged from doing so?

    Is it surprising the union sees “nothing wrong?”

  16. BillK
    August 31, 2009 at 7:04 pm

    Let’s wish her luck.

    From Los Angeles’ KTLA Television:

    Former Miss California Sues For Libel, Slander and Discrimination

    LOS ANGELES — Former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, is suing pageant officials for libel, slander and religious discrimination three months after she was fired.

    Prejean, 22, is suing California pageant executive director Keith Lewis and actress and former Miss USA Shanna Moakler, who served as a co-director before she resigned in protest of Prejean. She is also suing publicist Roger Neal, who handles press for Miss California USA and Lewis.

    Prejean, who was stripped of her title in June, believes her crown was taken away because she said she opposed gay marriage. Pageant officials say she was fired for not fulfilling her obligations as Miss California USA and had missed several scheduled appearances.

    Prejean’s attorney, Chuck LiMandri, said Prejean filed suit only after he sought detailed information on what events Prejean missed.

    “I wanted to give them every opportunity to provide the basis for those claims,” LiMandri said.

    He said he found no proof that Prejean missed events. “There were no contract violations,” he said.

    The lawsuit also claims Lewis and Moakler both told Prejean not to mention God on her Miss USA application or at public events at least two months before she gave her anti-gay marriage answer.

    The suit also claims Moakler and Lewis improperly revealed that the Miss California USA pageant had paid for Prejean’s breast implants.

    Moakler’s attorney, Mel Avanzando, said in a statement that Prejean’s lawsuit was without merit.

    “More importantly, as everyone who watched or read her public statements is well aware, Ms. Prejean’s unfortunate and bigoted statements are responsible for any public humiliation or damages to her reputation that she has claimed to have suffered,” Avanzando wrote. “Ms. Moakler strenuously denies that she did anything wrong and looks forward to proving that in a court of law.”

    The lawsuit accuses Lewis, Moakler and Neal of using Internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter to post disparaging remarks about Prejean. …

    http://www.ktla.com/news/landi.....3255.story

    Remember, if you say “God” and are against gay marriage, you are a bigot and must be destroyed.

    • BannedbytheTaliban
      September 1, 2009 at 11:41 am

      John 3:19-20

      19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”

      20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed”

      Gee, I wonder why people like Keith Lewis and Miss Moakler think it is wrong to mention God?

  17. BillK
    August 31, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    You just knew it, didn’t you?

    From the UK Telegraph:

    Energy saving light bulbs offer dim future

    Energy saving light bulbs are not as bright as their traditional counterparts and claims about the amount of light they produce are “exaggerated”, the European Union has admitted.

    By Richard Gray and Julia McWatt

    Soon they will be the only kind of light bulb allowed, but now officials in Brussels have admitted that energy-saving bulbs are not as bright as the old-fashioned kind they are replacing.

    From tomorrow a Europe-wide ban on traditional incandescent bulbs will begin to be rolled out, with a ban on 100W bulbs and old-style frosted or pearled bulbs.

    Buyers of the main type of energy-saving bulb, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), are told on the packaging that they shine as brightly as an old-fashioned bulb. For example, an 11W CFL is labelled as being the equivalent of a 60W incandescent bulb.

    However, the European Commission, which was responsible for the ban, has now conceded that this is “not true” and that such claims by manufacturers are “exaggerated”.

    The Sunday Telegraph has conducted its own tests on level of illuminance provided by light bulbs from different manufacturers to see whether their claims stand up to scrutiny.

    We found that under normal household conditions, using a single lamp to light a room, an 11W low-energy CFL produced only 58 per cent of the illumination of an “equivalent” 60W bulb – even after a 10-minute “warm-up”.

    On a website intended to answer consumers’ questions about the switch to energy saving bulbs, the European Commission states: “Currently, exaggerated claims are often made on the packaging about the light output of compact fluorescent lamps.

    “For example, a 11-12 Watt compact fluorescent lamp would be the equivalent of a 60 Watt incandescent, which is not true. The light output of 15W compact fluorescent lamp is slightly more than the light output from a 60W incandescent.”

    Under the regulations which are being implemented in the UK from tomorrow, it will be illegal for retailers to import 100W, frosted or pearled incandescent light bulbs, or to sell them once their current stocks have run out. Instead consumers will have to rely upon CFLs or low-energy halogen bulbs.

    From September 2011, 60W clear incandescent bulbs will be banned, followed by a ban on all remaining incandescent bulbs in September 2012.

    The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs has said it intends to work with retailers to begin phasing out the traditional bulbs sooner.

    Many consumers complain that CFLs take time to “warm up”, are too big for some lampshade fittings and are more expensive than the traditional bulbs. Special CFLs costing up to £15 each are required to work with dimmer switches.

    However, the new-style bulbs use up to 80 per cent less energy than traditional bulbs and can last far longer – up to eight years.

    In our test, we used a simple lamp with a light metre placed half a metre away, in an otherwise-darkened room, to measure the illumination provided by a range of clear and frosted 60W incandescent bulbs, as well as 11W CFLs said on their labels to be equivalent.

    After giving each bulb 10 minutes to warm up, a reading was taken in lux, a measure of illumination.

    Clear 60W bulbs provided around 120 lux of illumination while pearled 60W bulbs produced 101 lux.

    By comparison, the best performing energy efficient light bulb, an 11W CFL made by General Electric and handed out free to Southern Electric customers, rated 79 lux. The worst performing 11W CFL, an Eveready, produced just 60 lux.

    A Philips Softone 12W energy saving bulb also claimed to be equivalent to a 60W incandescent bulb, but it only produced 77 lux of illumination.

    A spokesman for Philips said that its Softone Energy Saver bulbs met international standards and were intended to provide the equivalent light output of a frosted incandescent bulb, but our test shows it still failed to perform as well as a frosted bulb.

    A spokesman for General Electric said all of their light bulbs were tested to meet international standards.

    She added: “Our test results are then verified independently before our products are approved by the Energy Savings Trust.” …

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....uture.html

    So you see the result – they use less energy but you need twice as many.

    If you’re curious:

    Traditional incandescent:

    Osram 60W (700 lumens) – 126 lux

    Philips 60 W (700 lumens) -114 lux

    Tesco 60W (700 lumens) – 122 lux

    Maxim Pearl 60W pearled (no lumen info) – 101 lux

    Energy Saving (all claim to be equivalent to 60W):

    Philips 12W T60 Softone (610 lumens) – 77 lux

    Southern Electric/GE 11W (610 lumens) – 79 lux

    Tesco Greener living stick 11W (640 lumens) – 70 lux

    Eveready Energy Saver 11W (no lumen info) – 60 lux

    Osram Duluxstar 11W (600 lumens) – 67 lux

    No issue there.

    A little Googling found the penalties as well:

    Any individual found importing the bulbs into the EU faces a £5,000 fine, while companies could face an unlimited fine.

    See why we should learn from Europe?

    Drugs are fine, but import a light bulb, pay a $8150 fine.

    Don’t you love big Government?

    Sigh…

  18. BillK
    August 31, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    Time for the light bulb Gestapo.

    From the UK Telegraph:

    Public told to snoop on lightbulb law breakers

    From September 1, it will be illegal to import conventional pearl or frosted bulbs of any shape or wattage. Traditional incandescent bulbs of 100 watts will also be banned under European law aimed at reducing energy bills and carbon dioxide emissions.

    They will be replaced by energy saving lights, which usually use flourescent tubes, but it is thought some consumers will still prefer their ‘traditional’ bulbs, particularly for reading lamps.

    There is evidence of people hoarding the old fashioned bulbs around Europe and enforcement agencies are ready to crack down on unscrupulous businessmen who continue to import the “illegal bulbs” from factories in China.

    In Britain, trading standards officers will be carrying out inspections and members of the public will be able to report any shop continuing to stock the illegal bulbs.

    Any individual found importing the bulbs into the EU will face a £5,000 fine and it could be an unlimited amount for big companies.

    The Department for the Environment insisted it was necessary to use the law to ensure people buy energy efficient bulbs that will save them around £37 per annum on energy bills and save the UK one million tonnes of carbon every year.

    But opposition politicians said people remain concerned about the health effects and quality of light of energy saving bulbs and should not be made to snoop on each other.

    Although most large retailers in the UK began to phase out 100W bulbs at the beginning of this year, independent retailers continue to sell the traditional models.

    A Defra spokesman said: ”The public could tip off trading standards if they know someone to be illegally importing 100W or frosted light bulbs, just as they would if they found dangerous toys or appliances.

    “Trading Standards could then follow the normal procedure to test the bulbs, find proof of date of purchase and could then challenge the importer through the courts. The enforcement of this new legislation is important to maintain fairness to honest retailers and importers and to protect consumers.” …

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear.....akers.html

    Beware the light bulb police.

    One wonders how long before Europeans are encouraged to report fellow citizens still using incandescents as well.

    Don’t forget the US has outlawed regular incandescents as well, starting in 2014…

    • proreason
      August 31, 2009 at 8:04 pm

      We have 2 hazmat lightbulbs in the house. One is in a recessed can light in the ceiling for which I have a special 12 foot tool to remove it. The tool saves me from risking my life on an 8-foot ladder every time one of the bulbs in the 15 fixtures of that type needs to be changed.

      The other day, Ms Reason decided she was tired of not having adequate light from that fixture (don’t believe it when they tell you the amount of light these eyesight-killer bulbs give out). I got the tool out and started to remove the killer bulb. And of course the tool got stuck (which it never does on normal bulbs).

      I struggled with it for a few minutes before realizing that I could very easily break the damn thing. Then I would have to go to defcon 13, call the fire department, bring in hazmat and a private cleanup company, for a 4 figure expense, and possible life-damaging contamination. Fortunately, I came to my senses before destroying my house and the neighborhood. You can’t be too careful with light bulbs, you know.

      Didn’t have time to get the ladder out. Guess I’ll be risking my life a lot more in the future. That, or continuing to ruin our eyeballs.

      But the main lesson is that you can’t relax in lib-world. They have a million ways to kill you, and a million more in the design phase.

      Maybe I can sell the house…..but what if I have to replace the entire HVAC because it isn’t up to Global Warming code? The cost could be more than the house is worth, but it would be worth it anyway for the environment.

      I sure do feel good about doing my part in the War on Energy.

    • Petronius
      August 31, 2009 at 9:09 pm

      Mr. Luther Proreason lingered in the electronics aisle at Burt’s Hardware, absent-mindedly fondling a hazmat bulb, trying to appear inconspicuous, while fifty feet away a clandestine meeting was taking place.

      “Sorry I’m late,” Galluzzo said, but somehow Galluzzo gave the impression of a man who was never sorry about anything. Jo Jo nodded and glanced over at Rubio, wondering if Rubio could read what he was thinking. Jo Jo could never be sure what was going through Rubio’s mind.

      “No problem, Carmine. Been talking with Rubio.” Rubio sat very still, and stared blankly at Galluzzo, eyes cold, his face expressionless. A muscle ticked dangerously in his jaw.

      Galluzzo smiled, but it was a smile without humor, without warmth or affection. “So what you got for me, Jo Jo?” Galluzzo said.

      “Guy I know is looking for more 75 watt recessed ceiling floodlights.”

      Galluzzo was quiet for a moment, his eyes heavy on Jo Jo. “Who is this guy?” he said finally.

      “He’d like to remain anonymous,” Jo Jo said, nodding slightly in the direction of Proreason.

      “Wouldn’t everyone?” Galluzzo said. “Who’s the stuff for –– one of those angry tea party groups?”

      “No, nuthin’ like that.”

      “Zealots are not good people to do business with,” Galluzzo observed, his eyebrow arched.

      Jo Jo wasn’t exactly sure what a zealot was. But he knew Proreason wasn’t negotiating with the tea party mob. At least not this time. “He’s interested in an engineering project that may be undertaken by our company,” Jo Jo began again, regaining his confidence. “The three of us are here at his invitation, in order to discuss the possibilities––the details, if you like. . . . Me and Rubio, we been here two hours already, and the discussions have been excellent.”

      Galluzzo looked unimpressed. He gave a very slight shrug. It was a minimal, elegant gesture of his shoulders. He was far leaner than Jo Jo, and more at ease in his beautifully tailored Italian suit. “What’s in it for me?” he asked.

      “There’s plenty in it for all of us, Carmine.” Jo Jo hunched his shoulders in an effort to stretch and loosen his thick back muscles, muscles restricted by his jacket and by the heavy Glock Model 19 semi-automatic pistol strapped to his ribs, and discretely glanced up and down the aisle.

      Jo Jo picked up his pen, jotted something on the back of a broken piece of tile, and passed the tile, face down, to Galluzzo. Galluzzo curled his hand over the tile, looked at what Jo Jo had written, then slid the tile into his pocket and nodded. “Can you do something for us?” Jo Jo asked. “Fix it with the Chinese? We need to ramp up production. Got a big order for the 60 watt soft-light bulbs coming in from the manager of the Home Depot in Bayonne. Rubio made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. . . .”

  19. Rusty Shackleford
    August 31, 2009 at 9:38 pm

    Read this at American Thinker and I think that linking to it was a good idea:

    The White House Gets Sued for Its Fishy Email Program

    http://www.americanthinker.com.....d_for.html

    However it comes out, I’m glad to see it. Certain “entities” on the hill are getting too big for their britches.

    • Howard Roark
      August 31, 2009 at 9:53 pm

      That was a great article, RS. Especially the last paragraph:

      It seems as if President Obama has made quashing free speech a primary objective. On top of this “fishy” program there is his “diversity” CZAR at the FCC who is threatening to price conservative radio out of business. And there is that bill going through the Senate promising to give the President carte’ blanche to shut off the internet when he decides we are having a cyber-emergency. If all of this does not run shivers down your spine, it would be difficult to figure out what will.

      Here’s a clip of recent news items about this very subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6riHzIGR3vw

    • proreason
      August 31, 2009 at 10:01 pm

      The writer forgot about the campaign against Rush, the boycott against Glenn Beck and the incessant harping about Fox News.

      Am I bent here, or does 7 overt attacks on free speech in 7 months feel a bit…..ominous …..threatening …..un-American …..illegal un-hopeful? I mean, even understanding that it brings us up to maybe 9 attacks on free speech for the history of the nation.

  20. canary
    September 1, 2009 at 2:06 am

    AP: Gates: Report details highs, lows of Afghan fight
    By AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan, Aug 31, 2009

    FORT WORTH, Texas – The United States and NATO need a new strategy to defeat the Taliban, the top commander in Afghanistan said

    Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the nearly 8-year-old war is winnable, but his report is expected to be a blunt appraisal of the Taliban’s increasing tactical prowess

    “The situation in Afghanistan is serious,” McChrystal said, and success “demands a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort.”

    .. McChrystal’s assessment. Gates said the review’s hard look at the U.S. military’s performance contains bright spots amid “gloom and doom.”

    That would force an unpleasant choice on Obama: Add more troops to Afghanistan…or risk losing the war he had argued the United States neglected in favor of Iraq.

    White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president has not seen McChrystal’s review yet.

    “Any resource — specific resource recommendations, I’m told, will be made in the coming weeks, but are not a part of this report,” he said.

    There is little appetite at the White House and in Congress for further expansion of a war that is backsliding despite nearly eight years..

    U.S. and NATO commanders have said they do not have sufficient troops and support to expand the fight against a resilient and well-organized Taliban insurgency.

    McChrystal’s recommendations were being sent up through U.S. Central Command commanders

    the report would not be made public.

    McChrystal’s report recommends focusing the U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency efforts on the Afghan population and less on militants,

    Last week, McChrystal said troops “must change the way that we think, act and operate” in newly released counterinsurgency guidance.

    McChrystal hopes to instill a new approach in troops to make the safety of villagers the TOP priority.

    HE CALLED ON TROOPS TO THINK of how they would expect a foreign army to operate in their home countries, “among your families and your children, and act accordingly,” to try to WIN OVER the Afghan population.

    Gates requested the report as A GUT CHECK following OBAMA’S announcement of a PARED-DOWN counterinsurgency strategy and the RARE wartime FIRING of a top general this spring.

    “While there is a lot of gloom and doom going around, I think that General McChrystal’s assessment will be a realistic one… Gates said.

    The deaths of two U.S. service members Monday in the south — raising the record death toll to 47 in August, the deadliest month of the eight-year war — underscored the escalating violence.

    Associated Press writers Jason Straziuso in Kabul, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels and Lara Jakes in Washington contributed to this report.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....NyZXBvcnRk

    American’s are always last on the list of Obama’s playmates.

    • Rusty Shackleford
      September 1, 2009 at 10:45 pm

      “The deaths of two U.S. service members Monday in the south — raising the record death toll to 47 in August, the deadliest month of the eight-year war — underscored the escalating violence.”

      What they fail to mention is that it also underscores this presidency. Like Vietnam, ( and I hate to say it) a democrat thinks that a troop…a soldier…a person with two arms, two legs, eyes and ears, a life and family back home, is a statistic. A number…one that impacts their polling stats and nothing more.

      Liberals hate the military. Always have, always will. The two people are diametrically opposed. I do wonder how many black soldiers voted for this idiot in the expectation that they actually believed he would bring them home. Makes me sad to think about it.

      But to this administration, just like Johnson, he will have no grasp of the real war waging there. He has no grasp of the climate, the people, the terrain, etc. None. He is playing “Risk” like he used to as a kid. That’s his whole world of tactical engagement: A roll of the dice and a move on a board.

      I’m not saying that he needed to be in the military to get a better grasp (it couldn’t hurt) but I’m fairly certain that with imposing limitations on our troops as to how they can engage the enemy, it gives them the advantage. War is to be fought with the sole intent of vanquishing the enemy. To do it in any other way is to play cards while you have a stick of dynamite and a magnifying glass in your back pocket on a sunny day.

      He is naive, ignorant and callous towards our people in uniform. I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t mind getting them killed. He doesn’t have a moral compass and “they volunteered and knew the dangers” so that’s it for him.

      I have nothing good to say about him or his position on the war in Afghanistan. He has said that he is not after victory…so why more troops? To what end. If he’s not for victory, then what IS the goal? Stalemate? Mutual losses? Standoff? Frustration? Looking like you’re actually doing something when in fact you’re just making a mess?

      What?

      I want answers from this jerk. I want definitive, non-articulate, from the hip answers. I know they won’t be forthcoming but I am sick of his spooling up when asked a direct question and his “mastery” of verbal masturbation. He’s a huge flaming pile of you-know-what and I, for one…am furious. Commander in chief my lilly white ass. He’s a metrosexual, hair-dying, effeminate, pooftah with a penchant for non-committal statements and double-talk.

      I just wish he would go away.

  21. canary
    September 1, 2009 at 3:19 am

    Obama’s FCC Diversity Czar Wants to Destroy Free Speech

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF2C235fD7o
    Obama’s new diversity czar Mark Lloyd. Also, pats Hugo Chavez on back.

    The threat to free speech on radio will not come through the “fairness doctrine.” The threat comes from Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the FCC.Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity “czar” says Venezuela is an example we should follow.

    Loyd has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees up to an amount equal to their total operating costs to fund Public Broadcasting. Lloyd wants to upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.

    “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,” Lloyd wrote in his book.

    When Mark Lloyd was appointed July 29 as the chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission, a nation focused on ObamaCare and a deteriorating economy took little notice. But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president.

    They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer’s bible, “Rules for Radicals.” It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of “getting in their faces” as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.

    Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for “the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”

    Fox News host Glenn Beck has done yeoman work in exposing this threat posed by Mr. Lloyd. He points out that in his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America,” Lloyd wrote: “It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. . . . This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. .

    He proposes using the existing FCC “localism” requirement, which can mean anything from running more public service announcements to …Local community organizers would be encouraged to harass conservative stations by filing complaints with the FCC.

    He essentially proposes extorting money from broadcasters who have the audacity to air the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, all of whom have competed in the marketplace of ideas and won in the ratings, and use it to fund those outfits nobody wants to listen to — like NPR and Air America.

    The FCC could then say they had enough justification to revoke a station’s license if they didn’t comply or pay a fee. In true Alinsky style, shut them up by shutting them down.

    Lloyd praises Hugo Chavez’s “incredible revolution” in Venezuela and the way “Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country” by imposing restraints on cable TV and revoking the licenses of more than 200 radio stations” that insufficiently toed the Chavez party line.

    Lloyd long ago declared war on unbridled talk radio and cable news. He wrote that “our work was not simply convincing policy makers of the logic and morality of our arguments. We understood that we were in a struggle for power against an opponent, the commercial broadcasters.”

    http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/

  22. canary
    September 1, 2009 at 3:29 am

    And Obama’s ‘green CZAR’ former black panther, arrested, radical
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related

  23. canary
    September 1, 2009 at 3:58 am

    Spero News: Rep. Watson wrong on Castro and Cuba
    Those familiar with Cuban healthcare outside of Havana, cite it as a cautionary tale of backwards ineffective medicine
    Sunday, August 30, 2009By Felton Newell

    Congresswoman Diane Watson’s comments, at a August 27, 2009 health care town hall forum, trivialize the brutality of the Castro regime and overlook the failures of the Cuban health care system.

    Cuba’s so called universal healthcare system has been a private embarrassment for the communist country as most of the nation’s patients are denied even the most rudimentary access to safe and modern healthcare, yet, yesterday in a town hall meeting.

    Congresswoman Watson heaped praise on Cuba’s health care. Not stopping at admiring a system where

    access to simple everyday medications is often an epic struggle, Congresswoman Watson went on to extol Cuba’s former dictator Fidel Castro, a man who has murdered, tortured and exiled his own countrymen as “one of the brightest leaders I have ever met”.

    … to the residents of Cuba the reality of their access to healthcare is quite different than what Cuba allowed Mr. Moore to film for his movie. “Universal healthcare” in Cuba is in reality a two-tiered system where, on the one hand, the elite members of the ruling Communist party and wealthy tourists willing to pay have access to relatively high end health care in Havana, and,

    on the other hand, the rest of the country is forced to seek healthcare in dangerously understaffed and archaic hospitals and clinics. Since private hospitals are illegal in the country,

    Those familiar with Cuban healthcare outside of Havana, cite it as a cautionary tale of backwards ineffective medicine. The country is plagued by medical shortages of hundreds of the most common and necessary modern drugs.

    Important daily medications like aspirin not only require prescriptions, but are in such short supply that there are often waiting periods of weeks for the drug, which even when available, is rationed to patients in envelops rather than bottles.

    even worse with one in five health care workers being sent to work in Venezuela in return for oil, an arrangement which has left many state run healthcare facilities without a resident physician. Its no wonder that in a documentary shot for ABC televisionwith undercover cameras, Cuban patients were shown crowded in to rooms with rusty equipment, broken windows and covered in flies.

    Congresswomen Watson’s remarks must also be noted for her high praise for Cuba’s former dictator. Castro has long been noted for his brutal rule of power, even once exclaiming “revolution first, elections later”. It is estimated that during his tenure as dictator his regime murdered tens of thousands of its countrymen and imprisoned many thousands of others for having contrary views, lifestyles and in the case of many journalists, for simply reporting the news. Furthermore, Castro has imprisoned his own people in concentration camps for their politics, beliefs and sexuality.

    The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not of Spero News.
    http://www.speroforum.com/a/20.....o-and-Cuba

  24. canary
    September 1, 2009 at 4:18 am

    Times On Line: Gordon Brown hints at Afghan withdrawal
    Gordon Brown meets British soldiers at Camp Bastion in Lashkar Gah in Afghanistan Jonathan Oliver Camp in Bastion, Aug 30 2009

    GORDON BROWN yesterday prepared the ground for a pre-election announcement of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan next year.

    During a lightning visit to the front line in Helmand province, the prime minister announced plans to double a training programme for the Afghan army to reduce its reliance on British and American troops.

    “Stepping that up means the Afghans themselves take responsibility for their own affairs,” Brown said.

    He also hinted that there could be a temporary increase in UK troops to support and mentor local forces, with government sources suggesting that Taliban fighters could even be granted an “amnesty” in the effort to bring the conflict to a close.

    It follows a bloody summer during which the number of British service personnel killed in Afghanistan has risen to 208, prompting mounting public hostility to the conflict.

    Arriving at Camp Bastion, the British military headquarters in Helmand, Brown posed for photographs with soldiers surrounded by recently arrived armoured vehicles.

    . These include 20 extra Ridgeback armoured trucks, the acceleration of the programme to introduce Warthog armoured vehicles and more flying hours for aerial drones used to spot bombs from the air.

    One UK official said: “A large part of the Taliban are not really committed to their agenda, they are just fighting for tactical reasons and can be brought back into mainstream life.

    “If [someone has] died fighting alongside the Taliban and [his friends] say, ‘Okay, we have had enough’, there is an amnesty element to that. In the end, what’s going to get these guys is they need a job.”

    There was brief embarrassment for the prime minister during the trip when he was put on the spot by a soldier over taxes. Lance Corporal Dean Byfield from Anglesey questioned why soldiers fighting on the front line had to pay income tax.

    As Brown chatted with a group of Welsh Guards at a British military base in Lashkar Gah, Byfield said: “Can I ask you a question? Why do we have to pay tax when we are out here?”

    Brown responded that all soldiers had to pay tax because they were “British employees” and then quickly changed the topic to army pay, saying it was reviewed every year.

    He also unveiled plans for increased support for Afghan farmers who wish to switch away from opium cultivation.

    About 40,000 farmers in Helmand province will be given free wheat seed, tools and advice in the latest attempt to break the cycle of opium production.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....815047.ece

  25. BannedbytheTaliban
    September 1, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    America’s largest goonion and the Socialist party of America, I mean the Democrats, continue their attack on the private sector and private profit.

    From The Hill:

    AFL-CIO, Dems push new Wall Street tax

    By Alexander Bolton – 08/30/09 11:17 AM ET
    The nation’s largest labor union and some allied Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit big investment firms such as Goldman Sachs reaping billions of dollars in profits while the rest of the economy sputters.

    The AFL-CIO, one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful allies, would like to assess a small tax — about a tenth of a percent — on every stock transaction.

    Small and medium-sized investors would hardly notice such a tax, but major trading firms, such as Goldman, which reported $3.44 billion in profits during the second quarter of 2009, may see this as a significant threat to their profits.

    …The big disadvantage of most taxes is that they discourage some really productive activity,” she said. “This would discourage numerous financial transactions. People flip their assets several times in an hour or a day. They make money but does it really add to the productive base of the United States?”

    …Democrats and labor officials would also like to take a bite out of Goldman’s profits. Liberals are angry the company, which immersed itself in the frenzy of speculation leading to last year’s financial collapse, is now making huge profits after accepting (and repaying) $10 billion in government aid. Goldman employees are on track to earn an average of more than $700,000 this year.

    There is also a growing realization among Obama administration officials and lawmakers that tax increases may be necessary to curb the ballooning federal deficit.

    The proposal to tax financial transactions is also known as a “Tobin tax,” after the late American economist and Nobel laureate James Tobin.

    http://www.hillnews.com/homene.....street-tax

    How dare they make a profit! The DNC still has more work to do before this crisis resovles. And if it resolves too soon they can’t cite the stimulus bill as the reason. And then they reveal their true opposition to profit:

    They make money but does it really add to the productive base of the United States?

    i.e. what is in it for me. And don’t they already have to pay taxes on profit. This is will also make them pay taxes if they trade for a loss. It’s a socialist two-fer.

    • Liberals Demise
      September 1, 2009 at 1:57 pm

      See what happens when you lay in a Liberals bed?
      It’s all kisses and hugs at first.
      Now ……. it won’t shave and refuses to bathe!
      (still stink when hosed and left to dry on their own)

  26. proreason
    September 1, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    Fox News just called Gordon Brown “a liar” for saying the release of the Lockerbie bomber was done by the Scots. Just released docs show it was the British government that persuaded/made Scotland to do it.

    Fox also says “for sure” that the US government knew about the release ahead of time, but that the U.S. has blocked publication of memos about the discussions.

    This is a potentially explosive story.

    On the other hand, the 270 dead (mostly American) really deserved what they got. After all, the US has been provoking Libya for decades. So why shouldn’t we approve of the realease of the 2nd most successful enemy combatant of all time? Most of the dead were probably white people anyway. If they had lived, they would just be exploiting minorities today. And even worse, many of them might have voted against the boy king, or might even be stealing health care from the rightful owners.

    • Rusty Shackleford
      September 1, 2009 at 6:54 pm

      I just wonder how they’ll shoehorn the “Bush angle” in on it.

      Clearly, Bush HAD to know about it prior to the election, yet said nothing….or some such…as is indicated in your post.

      So therefore, he’s “somehow involved”.

      I mean, right? Right? I mean….he had to be responsible….we musn’t stain the good name of the(current) president.

  27. Rusty Shackleford
    September 1, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    From the AP:

    White House: Obama may detail health plans soon

    By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 4 mins ago

    WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, faced with falling approval ratings and increasingly impatient with Senate negotiations over health care, is weighing a shift in strategy that would offer more details of his goals for overhauling the nation’s health care system.

    The president is considering a speech in the next week or so in which he would be “more prescriptive” about what he feels Congress must include in a bill, top adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday in an interview. The speech might occur before the Sept. 15 deadline the White House gave to Senate negotiators to seek a bipartisan bill, Axelrod said. He suggested that two key Republicans have not bargained in good faith.

    Congress reconvenes next Tuesday after an August recess in which critics of Obama’s health proposals dominated many public forums.

    Rest of story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ealth_care

    —–To be honest, I didn’t have the desire to read the rest. After he’s called critics liars, belittled them, said that those who were against it were unamerican, unstable, and after he set up a snitch website to report “fishy” information from opponents and is now about to get sued for it, all I can say about his upcoming primetime spiel is “Lies, more and grander lies coming to a television near you.”

    I was sick of him before the election, I’m sicker of him now, I will be sick of him long after he’s out of office and cannot wait to see him disappear into political obscurity. Unfortunately, we will have to live for years with the same crap about the first black presidency over and over and over….and how he was “never really given a chance” and so on and so on.

    His chance is NOW….and fortunately for us, he’s blowing it. So, this upcoming speech is more damage control and more rhetoric to “adjust” the previous rhetoric we’re already sick of hearing. And no matter what he says, the ink on the bill will not change one iota. He’ll simply say that it has, or that it will while pressing on with the original plan. Another flim-flam.

    It’s not that I don’t trust him; It’s that I trust him all too well.

  28. canary
    September 2, 2009 at 1:19 am

    OBAMA TO GIVE UNPRECEDENTED SPEECH TO PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN.
    I am posting this site, as it was first I pulled up. However, I have been hearing different reports, and trying to get other’s imput, and encourage individuals to check with their schools. I heard one version that it will actually be Sept 11th, on the World Trade Center anniversary.

    Questions asking children what “changes” they would like to see. To include asking childrens about their parent’s beliefs.

    I heard that packets have been sent to schools already.

    I also heard there would be teaching children on the muslim religion.

    http://michellemalkin.com/2009.....lchildren/

    So, please with all the things being reported, I would appreciate any imput from others. And I’ve enough experience with the public schools, to know they do not tell parents ahead of time when they teach any “moral” lessons to our children. The schools simply to not abide by these rules, and often, hand out papers, and have them filled out, and turned in, without the parents even knowing. The papers are never returned.

    I consider this an Obama ploy to use his celebrity status, and try to get on a personal basis with our young children, and older children who will be of voting age, next election term. I do know that schools have done such things as writing a letter to Obama, etc. and so please find out what you can. It’s possible the speech will be via internet. Video (most likely
    the speech has been done, edited and recorded).

    • canary
      September 2, 2009 at 1:25 am

      http://www.politicalevidence.com/
      (edited, go to above site for more)
      President Obama plans a national address to all school children k-12 on September 8. The Department of Education has submitted “lesson plans” to school districts across the country that look more like political talking points.

      Obama’s address is being coordinated and developed by former DNC operative Sandra Abrevaya. Ms. Abrevaya is now a spokesperson at the Department of Education but during the presidential campaign she worked as Barack Obama’s New Hampshire Communications Director.

      (http://www.ed.gov/news/events/advisory.html) Here’s the Dept of Education press release concerning Obama’s address to school children:

      Event Date: 1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
      Contact: Sandra Abrevaya
      (202) 401-1576 or sandra.abrevaya@ed.gov

      PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER NATIONALLY BROADCAST ADDRESS TO STUDENTS ON SEPT. 8
      The speech will be broadcast live on http://www.whitehouse.gov at 1 p.m. EDT. The Department of Education has also asked a group of U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows to develop some suggested classroom activities around the speech to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives. The suggested classroom activities will be available on http://www.ed.gov
      What:Presidential Address To Students
      When:1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
      Where:Broadcast live at http://www.whitehouse.gov

      Sandra Abrevaya pictured with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
      Ms Abrevayan even appeared as a headline member of a 2004 documentary about the 2004 Democratic primary entitled “Staffers 04.” She starred with the likes of Janeane Garofalo and Joan Jett. Additionally, she is referred to as a presidential campaign spokesperson on the DNC “Organizing for America” Web site.
      (http://my.barackobama.com/page.....ommentary), (http://my.barackobama.com/page.....arackObama)

      Before working for Barack Obama, she was an aide to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and she was Howard Dean’s press secretary during his 2004 bid for president. (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA.....tm.00.html)

      Obama’s address to school children is nothing more than a direct attempt by the DNC and “Organizing For America” to indoctrinate youngsters.

      Here’s the Dept of Education “lesson plan” for Obama’s address.
      http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10.....ber-8-2009

      It’s suspiciously similar to lesson plans about Barack Obama that are available from the American Federation of Teachers Website.
      http://www.aft.org/tools4teach.....essons.htm

      Pre-K – 6th grade teaching menu on Obama.
      http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10.....ber-8-2009

      7th-12th grade/
      4 Part work activities for Obama Children’s Speech Day
      http://mommylife.net/archives/....._sc_1.html

  29. BillK
    September 2, 2009 at 3:10 am

    Reid’s not afraid to admit it.

    From Fox News:

    Reid: Kennedy’s Death Is ‘Going to Help Us’ in Health Care Debate

    It’s no secret that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been gauging how Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death affects the health care debate.

    But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave an unusually blunt assessment in an interview with a local newspaper.

    “I think it’s going to help us,” the Nevada Democrat told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

    Democrats generally have used Kennedy’s death as a rallying cry for health care reform, urging their colleagues to push through legislation that was Kennedy’s life work. Republicans and Democrats have tried to shape the health care debate by speculating on how Kennedy would have wanted it handled.

    But, aside from Reid, they’ve steered clear of saying outright whether Kennedy’s death puts them up or down.

    Reid made his comments Friday, the day before Kennedy was buried. He offered two reasons for the assessement. One, Kennedy’s death clears the way for a new chairman on the Senate health committee. Two, Kennedy serves as an inspiration.

    “He hasn’t been around for some time. We’re going to have a new chairman of that committee. It’ll be, I don’t know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd,” Reid told the news paper. “He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy) will be a help. He’s an inspiration for us. That was the issue of his life and he didn’t get it done.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....re-debate/

    As always, Rush was right.

  30. BillK
    September 2, 2009 at 3:15 am

    While the GOP has been patting themselves on the back, the left has been regrouping.

    From The Wall Street Journal:

    Democrats Try Tougher Tone on Health Plan

    White House Aide Criticizes GOP Negotiators as New Strategy Emerges in Response to Public Outcry and Senate Wrangling

    By Jonathan Weisman and Janet Adamy

    WASHINGTON — A top White House adviser said Tuesday he doubts two Senate Republicans at the center of health-care talks are negotiating seriously, as Democrats adopted a new, more confrontational tone accusing key Republicans of blocking change.

    Senior adviser David Axelrod, responding to recent broadsides against Democratic health plans by Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said Democrats would reach out to other Republicans to finish a deal this year. He added that President Barack Obama is considering laying out a more detailed vision of what he wants in a health-overhaul plan.

    Democrats are shaping a strategy in response to the public pounding they took over the summer from some voters angry about proposed health-care changes. They are also responding to the troubles of the Senate Finance Committee, the only panel in Congress seeking a bipartisan bill.

    Democrats hope to persuade the public that Republicans are to blame for the stalemate and shift opinion in favor of an overhaul. They want to build enough momentum to win support from a small number of moderate Republicans, in particular the two senators from Maine.

    Mr. Enzi charged in a radio address Saturday that Democrats are “cutting hundreds of billions from the elderly” and planning “to limit or deny care based on age or disability of patients.” In a fund-raising letter, Mr. Grassley exhorted supporters to “help stop ‘Obama-Care.’” The senators are two of the three Senate Finance Committee Republicans on the “Gang of Six” health-care negotiators.

    “If you’re sitting at a table negotiating in good faith, then you probably don’t send out mailers saying, ‘Help me stop Obama-care.’ That’s just common sense,” Mr. Axelrod said. The two senators’ actions, he said, “suggested they don’t want to participate” in bipartisan talks. “They’re satisfied with the status quo. We are not,” Mr. Axelrod said. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....77755.html

    So their strategy? As usual, demonize the GOP, demonize the insurance industry, and paint Government as the savior of all mankind. And lie like never before:

    Liberal allies of the president said they plan to present Americans with a sharper contrast between the flaws of the current system and the improvements Democrats are proposing.

    Democrats are pointing to the greater drug coverage for seniors in their bills and the protections for consumers against having their health coverage dropped if they get sick.

    “Republicans have substituted scare tactics for substance, and lies for the truth,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) on Tuesday.

    Liberals will step up their attacks on the insurance industry, a strategy the White House started this summer, and continue arguing that the high cost of health care isn’t sustainable.

    Karen Ignagni, chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobbying group, said her group will work to debunk those criticisms. “The vilification strategy isn’t going to get health reform passed,” she said.

    Oh yes it will.

    There is no doubt that “reform” will pass; the only question is how far down the socialist road we will be dragged.

  31. BillK
    September 2, 2009 at 3:18 am

    Obama starts an all-new campaign. And we all know how well he campaigns.

    From the Associated Press:

    Obama Weighing Health Care Strategy Shift

    WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, faced with falling approval ratings and increasingly impatient with Senate negotiations over health care, is weighing a shift in strategy that would offer more details of his goals for overhauling the nation’s health care system.

    The president is considering a speech in the next week or so in which he would be “more prescriptive” about what he feels Congress must include in a bill, top adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday in an interview. The speech might occur before the Sept. 15 deadline the White House gave to Senate negotiators to seek a bipartisan bill, Axelrod said. He suggested that two key Republicans have not bargained in good faith.

    Congress reconvenes next Tuesday after an August recess in which critics of Obama’s health proposals dominated many public forums.

    Some Obama allies, watching his approval ratings tumble in polls along with support for a health care overhaul, have urged the president to take a more hands-on approach. They feel he gave too much leeway to Congress, where one bill has passed three House committees, another has passed a Senate committee and a third has been bogged down in protracted negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee.

    Axelrod indicated that Obama would not offer new proposals but would be more specific about his top priorities.

    “The ideas are all there on the table,” Axelrod said. “Now we are in a new phase, and it’s time to pull the strands of these together.”

    He said there is serious discussion in the White House of Obama “giving a speech that lays out in specific ways what he thinks” about the essential elements of a health care bill.

    Axelrod said it was possible that the speech could occur before a planned Sept. 15 Obama address on health care in Pittsburgh. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ift-plans/

    I’m betting on September 11, myself…

  32. sheehanjihad
    September 2, 2009 at 8:24 am

    It isnt any surprise that the administration praises Islam. They want to destroy the United States as badly as the jihadists do. Obaba is going to regret allowing Islam’s head in the tent, and in a big way. There is no praising the religion that rewards murder and stifling oppression of women. Everyone needs to wake up to this attempt at pacifying a virulent rabid dog with praise and positive reinforcement, because that dog will kill anything within it’s reach and look for more victims while the administration blathers on about conservatives being the real threat. It is ominous to see how incredibly naive the public is on this idiot and his muslim congressplops serving Americans up to whet the appetite of that raving screaming infected boil and always deadly disease known as Islam.

    Here’s a list of those who support Islam in America……those who Obaba deems worthy of an audience..

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....house.html

  33. DW
    September 2, 2009 at 1:17 pm

    And now for something a little different…
    From the Canadian Press:

    Canadian refugee decision called racist

    By THE CANADIAN PRESS

    OTTAWA – A decision by a Canadian immigration tribunal to grant refugee status to a white South African who claimed he was persecuted because of his colour has caused a backlash against Canada and made international headlines.

    Canada’s immigration and refugee board granted refugee status last week to Brandon Huntley, his lawyer Russell Kaplan said Tuesday.

    Huntley argued that whites are targeted by black criminals in South Africa and that the government does nothing to protect them. He claimed he was attacked seven times during attempted robberies and muggings.

    Tribunal panel chair William Davis ruled that Huntley would stand out like a “sore thumb” due to his colour in any part of South Africa, Kaplan said.

    In his written decision, Davis said “I find that the claimant was a victim because of his race (white South African) rather than a victim of criminality.”

    It also said that Huntley “has presented clear and convincing proof of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect him.” …

    Full story here

    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Ca.....66-cp.html

    A white guy granted refugee status because he’s the victim of racism by non-whites???
    And -of all places- in Canada, where the Human Rights Commissions hand out leaflets to new immigrants encouraging them to make as many (taxpayer-funded) complaints of discrimination as possible.
    I’ll be curious to see what the real story on this one is…

  34. DW
    September 2, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    And from the “I just can’t resist posting this” category, this tale from the AP:

    Bank denies armless man due to lack of thumbprint

    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    TAMPA, Florida – A Florida man born without arms says a Tampa bank would not let him cash a check because he couldn’t provide a thumbprint.

    Steve Valdez didn’t have an account at a Bank of America location in downtown Tampa, where he tried to cash a check from his wife last week. However, Valdez has prosthetic arms and is unable to provide a thumbprint. He says he presented two forms of identification but was still denied.

    Full story:
    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/We.....76-ap.html

    Imagine the PR nightmare for the Bank of America if this gentleman sues… they’d be in the position of having a battle of writs with an unarmed man…
    (sorry guys…I just had to do it…)

    • proreason
      September 2, 2009 at 2:50 pm

      It’s a good thing the poor man isn’t missing his other limbs.

      His case wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

    • canary
      September 2, 2009 at 3:08 pm

      But, Florida allows women to get drivers licenses with unrecognizable veil covered faces. Muslims can wear head coverings for passports too.

  35. BillK
    September 3, 2009 at 1:27 am

    More from our “Green Czar.”

    From Fox News:

    White House Green Jobs Adviser Apologizes for Calling Republicans ‘Assholes’

    Van Jones, the Obama administration’s “green jobs” adviser, apologized Wednesday for calling Republicans “assholes,” saying the comments were made before he joined the administration and “were clearly inappropriate.”

    Jones had told a group of listeners earlier in the year that the reason Republicans are stonewalling the president is because they’re “assholes,” remarks that were recorded in a video and posted to YouTube.

    “I apologize for the offensive words I chose to use during that speech,” Jones said in a written statement to Politico. “They do not reflect the views of this administration, which has made every effort to work in a bipartisan fashion, and they do not reflect the experience I have had since I joined the administration.”

    He made the remarks in February during an energy lecture in Berkeley, Calif., after a woman in the audience asked him why President Obama and congressional Democrats were having trouble moving legislation — even though Republicans, with a smaller majority, didn’t have as much trouble earlier in the Bush administration.

    “Well, the answer to that is, they’re assholes,” Jones said, to uproarious laughter. “That’s a technical, political science term.”

    The questioner responded, “I was afraid that that was the answer.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....-assholes/

    Per usual, can you imagine if the parties were reversed?

    You can see the video here:

    http://www.realclearpolitics.c.....holes.html

  36. BillK
    September 3, 2009 at 1:37 am

    See? He felt guilty!

    From Fox News:

    Kennedy Memoir Reveals Remorse Over Fatal Chappaquiddick Crash

    NEW YORK — In a posthumous memoir, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy writes of fear and remorse surrounding the fateful events on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, when his car accident left a woman dead, and says he accepted the finding that a lone gunman assassinated his brother President John F. Kennedy.

    The memoir, “True Compass,” is to be published Sept. 14 by Twelve, a division of the Hachette book group. The 532-page book was obtained early by The New York Times.

    In it, Kennedy says his actions on Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969, were “inexcusable.” He says he was afraid and “made terrible decisions” and had to live with the guilt for more than four decades.

    Kennedy drove off a bridge into a pond. He swam to safety, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne in the car.

    Kopechne, a worker with slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign, was found dead in the submerged car’s back seat 10 hours later. Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and got a suspended sentence and probation.

    Kennedy also writes in the memoir that he always accepted the official findings on his brother John’s assassination. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546020,00.html

    Yes, Ted felt so guilty about it that he never mentioned it while he was alive, leaving it for a posthumous memoir.

    Funny how that works.

  37. BillK
    September 3, 2009 at 1:47 am

    Remember this when the Democrats tell you the “public option” would not cover illegal immigrants.

    From the Associated Press:

    Judge Rules Hawaii Cannot Cut Migrants’ Health Care

    By Mark Niesse

    Honolulu (AP) – A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Hawaii’s government must continue providing lifesaving dialysis and chemotherapy treatments to Pacific island migrants suffering from kidney disease and cancer.

    U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright granted a temporary restraining order preventing the state from instituting a new, limited health insurance program intended to save $15 million. The new health program was scheduled to start Tuesday.

    His decision came as a relief to migrants from Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands who argue the United States and the state weren’t living up to a health obligation promised after U.S. nuclear weapons tests in Pacific islands a half-century ago.

    The ruling keeps in place broad health coverage for dialysis, chemotherapy, prescription drugs and doctor visits.

    “I’m very happy,” said Philip Anungar, a Marshall Islands migrant with diabetes who attended the court hearing. “The judge’s decision means we’ll go back to what we had before.”

    Migrants from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau are beneficiaries of the Compact of Free Association, a deal with the U.S. government providing financial assistance in exchange for defense rights.

    “The ruling is a tremendous improvement over what the state was planning to do,” said the migrants’ attorney, Paul Alston. “They’re going to get a lot more benefits.”

    Hawaii government officials declined to comment following the hearing.

    The cash-strapped state, facing a steep budget deficit, wanted to switch about 7,000 legal migrants to the new health insurance program. About 100 of them receive dialysis treatments paid by the state.

    The state announced Monday it had found $1.5 million in annual federal Medicaid funding that would continue dialysis coverage for two more years, but chemotherapy and many name-brand prescription drugs were not included.

    Seabright prevented the new plan, called Basic Health Hawaii, from taking effect because its implementation may have violated due process rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

    Basic Health Hawaii was announced less than a month ago and without public hearings. Because many of the migrants don’t speak English as their first language, they weren’t able to understand how their coverage would change when they received notification letters or called an English-speaking automated phone help line. …

    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53409

  38. Rusty Shackleford
    September 4, 2009 at 1:32 am

    The sky is truly falling (again)

    Arctic reverses trend, is warmest in two millennia
    AP – Thu Sep 3, 3:35 pm ET

    (Oh noooooo Mr Billllllll)

    WASHINGTON – The Arctic is warmer than it’s been in 2,000 years, even though it should be cooling because of changes in the Earth’s orbit that cause the region to get less direct sunlight. Indeed, the Arctic had been cooling for nearly two millennia before reversing course in the last century and starting to warm as human activities added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

    —-Warmer than it’s been in 2000 years. Yes, I remember when it was so cold that winter in the year 9. Had a hell of a heating bill.

    “If it hadn’t been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century,” said Bette Otto-Bliesner, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist and co-author of a study of Arctic temperatures published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

    —–”would’a, could’a should’a”

    And the classic tagline: “And with the melting of land-based ice, such as the massive Greenland ice cap, sea levels could rise across the world, threatening millions who live in coastal cities.”

    THERE IT IS!!!!

    This article was funnier than the comics today.

    Rest of article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....5ic3BzdG9y

  39. canary
    September 4, 2009 at 1:44 am

    The Washington Times: Green jobs czar signed ‘truther’ statement in 2004
    By Amanda Carpenter on Sept. 3, 2009
    President Obama’s “green jobs czar” Van Jones has been targeted again and again by conservatives for his controversial views and now they’ll have another item to use as fodder.

    Mr. Jones signed a statement for 911Truth.org in 2004 demanding an investigation into what the Bush Administration may have done that “deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

    His name is listed with 99 other prominent signatories supporting such an investigation on the 911Truth.org website, including Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans, comedienne Janeane Garofalo, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and others. He’s identified as the executive director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the statement, which he founded before going to the White House. The statement is available here. Mr. Jones is number 46. http://www.911truth.org/articl.....6093059633

    Mike Berger, a spokesman for 911Truth.org, told the Washington Times over the phone that all of the signers had been verified by their group. He said 9/11Truth.org board members “spoke with each person on the list by phone or through email to individually confirm they had added their name to that list.”

    Fox News personalty Glenn Beck has described Mr. Jones as a “radical” on his program and many conservative blogs have questioned his political tactics and strategies. Mr. Jones recently landed in hot water when a video surfaced of him calling Republicans a disparaging name at an energy lecture in Berkeley, California last February.

    The White House has been contacted for comment and this blog will be updated with their statement when provided.

    UPDATE: A response was provided to reporters Thursday evening. In it, Mr. Jones apologized for signing the statement and said he doesn’t feel that way today and never has had such thoughts, although the 911Truth group claims to have personally confirmed support from all of their signers.

    “In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration – some of which were made years ago,” Mr. Jones said. “If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.

    “My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources,” he added.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com.....t-in-2004/

    yeah right.

  40. canary
    September 4, 2009 at 10:13 am

    AP IMPACT: Calm – then sudden death in Afghan war
    By Associated Press Writers Alfred De Montesquiou And Julie Jacobson,
    Sept 4 2009 (see heartbreaking video and rest)

    DAHANEH, Afghanistan – The pomegranate grove looked ominous. The U.S. patrol had a tip that Taliban fighters were lying in ambush…

    Thirty seconds later, a salvo of gunfire and RPGs — rocket-propelled grenades — poured out of the grove. “Casualty! We’ve got a casualty!” someone shouted. A grenade had hit Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard in the legs.

    A Marine and son of a Marine, a devout Christian, Iraq war veteran and avid hiker, home-schooled in rural Maine, Bernard was about to become the next fatality in the deadliest month of the deadliest year since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

    The troops of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines had been fighting for three days to wrest this town in southern Afghanistan from the Taliban who had ruled it for four years.

    ..the patrol pushed past shops still smoldering from U.S. mortar shells, past Taliban posters on the walls exhorting the populace to fight the Americans. Bernard, his face daubed in gray and brown camouflage paint, was the point man.

    “That’s when I realized there was a casualty and saw the injured Marine, about 10 yards from where I’d stood,” Jacobson would write in her journal. “For the second time in my life, I watched a Marine lose his legs…

    Bernard lay on the ground, two Marines standing over him exposed, trying to help. A first tourniquet on Bernard’s leg broke. A medic applied another.

    “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” Bernard said. Troops crawling under the bullets dragged him to the MRAP

    “The other guys kept telling him `Bernard, you’re doing fine, you’re doing fine. You’re gonna make it. Stay with me Bernard!’ He (a Marine) held Bernard’s head in his hands when he seemed to go limp and tried to keep him awake.

    The rocket-propelled grenade exploded ….briefly knocking out de Montesquiou and Staff Sgt. Alexander Ferguson. When Ferguson recovered, he helped haul Bernard inside the vehicle. … His vital signs were stable when he left.

    Adding to the confusion, an Afghan soldier with the troops fired his own grenade at the insurgents, but he hadn’t checked whether anybody was close by. A Marine was knocked out by the back-blast.

    Another grabbed the Afghan by the collar. “Once he stopped shooting, we were able to get control of the situation,” Russell said.

    Some Marines are uneasy patrolling with the Afghan National Army. For one thing, there’s a language barrier. During the shootout at the orchard, the patrol’s Afghan interpreter disappeared and took cover, leaving the Marines unable to coordinate their moves with the Afghan soldiers.

    “They’re not lacking courage, they’re just lacking training right now,” said Russell, 22, from Stafford, Va.

    news: Bernard had died of a blood clot in his heart on the operating table. He was Golf Company’s third fatality since arriving in Afghanistan in May.

    Down a rural dirt road in New Portland, western Maine, John and Sharon Bernard sat on their porch and talked about their son.

    Joshua, they said, loved literature and showed early interest in the Bible and Christianity. “He had a very strong faith right from the beginning,” his mother said.

    His father described him as “humble, shy, unassuming — the very first to offer help.” He didn’t smoke or drink, and always opened the door for others. His main friends were his church group, whom he would visit when on leave, and his sister Katy, 20.

    Bernard’s father is a retired Marine 1st sergeant. Three weeks before the Aug. 14 ambush that killed his son, he had written to his congressman, Rep. Michael Michaud, expressing frustration at what he described as a change in the Afghanistan rules of engagement to one of “spare the civilians at all cost.” He called this “disgraceful, immoral and fatal” to U.S. forces in combat.

    , Cpl. Joshua Jackson, his squad leader, was still referring to him in the present tense.

    “He definitely doesn’t hesitate,” said Jackson, 23, from Copley, Ohio. “He’s very good, he definitely has the nerves to do what he’s needed to do.”

    He called Bernard “a true-heartedly very good guy … probably one of the best guys I’ve known in my entire life.”

    “I think it’s got to do with being a Marine; you just carry on,” said Godby. That night he got two hours of sleep. Before dawn, his platoon took part in a raid on a suspected Taliban stronghold.

    Bernard was determined, his comrades said. That’s why he was chosen as the squad’s point man and navigator, moving at the front of his unit.

    During the firefight, Jacobson had wrestled with a question every war photographer faces: whether to offer to help save a life, or keep out of the way of the professionals and go on shooting pictures. She wondered whether the Marines would be upset that she went on photographing.

    Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard was 21 years old.

    Glenn Adams contributed to this report from New Portland, Maine.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....f_a_marine

    a change in the Afghanistan rules of engagement to one of “spare the civilians at all cost.” He called this “disgraceful, immoral and fatal” to U.S. forces in combat.
    Amen

  41. BillK
    September 4, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    Our daily attack on Sarah Palin from the Associated Press:

    Palin resignation costs Alaska at least $40,000

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Early estimates put the cost of Sarah Palin’s midterm resignation as Alaska governor at a minimum of $40,000, not including a special legislative session partly linked to her departure.

    The preliminary figures obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request show it cost the state almost $14,100 for the July 26 swearing-in ceremony of new Gov. Sean Parnell.

    The price tag for moving Palin – the former GOP vice presidential candidate – and her family from the governor’s mansion in Juneau amounted to more than $3,328. …

    http://www.9news.com/news/worl.....;catid=347

    One wonders how much it cost Illinois to replace Mr. Obama. (Oh wait, that’s right – nothing because Burris paid them!)

    Or how much it cost multiple states to replace the elected officials Mr. Obama named to cabinet positions.

    Or, more importantly, how much state money has been wasted in handling the frivolous ethics complaints.

    Nah, those things aren’t important, because we can’t beat Palin over the head with them.

  42. BillK
    September 4, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    The government attack on those who would protect us steps it up a notch.

    From the Associated Press:

    Appeals court rules against Ashcroft in 9/11 case

    BOISE, Idaho (AP) – A federal appeals court has ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    In a harshly worded ruling handed down Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the government’s use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”

    The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism case can sue Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen and former University of Idaho student, filed the lawsuit in 2005, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was detained as a material witness for two weeks after 9/11.

    Al-Kidd said the investigation and detention not only caused him to lose a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, but cost him employment opportunities.

    He argued that his detention exemplified an illegal government policy, created by Ashcroft, to arrest and detain people — particularly Muslim men and those of Arab decent — as material witnesses if the government suspected them of a crime but had no evidence to charge them.

    Al-Kidd’s attorney, Lee Gelernt with the ACLU, said the ruling by the three-judge panel had implications reaching far beyond the government’s actions in detaining material witnesses post-Sept. 11. The court flatly rejected Ashcroft’s claims that has absolute immunity from such lawsuits because of his job, Gelernt noted.

    “The use of the material witness statute as a post-9/11 detention tool is one of the least understood parts of the post 9/11 landscape, but it has enormous implications because it was done in secret and the government has never renounced the policy,” Gelernt said. “Our hope is that we can now begin the process of uncovering the full contours of this illegal national policy.”

    The 9th Circuit judges said Al-Kidd’s claims plausibly suggest that Ashcroft purposely used the material witness statute to detain suspects whom he wished to investigate and detain preventively. …

    http://www.9news.com/news/worl.....;catid=347

    Yet another anti-American ruling brought to you by your usual friends at the ACLU and the 9th Circuit and reported by the America-is-evil Associated Press.

  43. Rusty Shackleford
    September 4, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    It may come from the AP…but nonetheless I am very glad to see it:

    Critics march against Chavez across Latin America

    By SUSANA LONDONO, Associated Press Writer Susana Londono, Associated Press Writer – 42 mins ago

    BOGOTA – Thousands of opponents of Hugo Chavez marched against the Venezuelan president across Latin America on Friday, accusing him of everything from authoritarianism to international meddling.

    The protests, coordinated through Twitter and Facebook, drew more than 5,000 people in Bogota, and thousands more in the capitals of Venezuela and Honduras. Smaller demonstrations were held in other Latin American capitals, as well as New York and Madrid.

    The Honduras march was led by Roberto Micheletti, who became president when Chavez ally Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a June coup.

    “Any politician who tries to stay in power by hitching up with a dictator like Hugo Chavez, he won’t achieve it,” Micheletti said. “We’ll stop him.”

    Rest of story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....z_protests

    There is a saturation point where the human genome cannot tolerate anymore. It varies from regime to regime but in each person it is the same: It reaches that point of combustion where the risk to self is worth it versus that risk to security.

    I am very impressed by this. I hope that they meet their objective. The Venezuelans are a proud and bright people. They deserve to have freedom, as do all peoples.

    • canary
      September 5, 2009 at 2:13 am

      Rusty, Obama wrote Chavez’s government to be an ideal model for America to follow, and many agree with him. I have not heard him change his opinion on this.

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