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Selected News Items For Feb 21 – Feb 27

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

If you do post an article, please follow these guidelines as much as possible:

  • In order to make the articles as readable as possible, please try to stick to the format described in the first of these weekly editions here.
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  • Remember to link to the original source for each item you post.
  • Avoid articles from blogs or hugely popular sites like the Drudge Report, since most people will presumably see such material elsewhere.
  • Any articles that fit under the topic of a recent thread should be posted there.
  • Remember to excerpt heavily. Posting less than a third of the article, is a good rule of thumb.

Thank you!

Related Articles:

 

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

154 Responses to “Selected News Items For Feb 21 – Feb 27”

  1. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 2:05 am

    It’s good to know the President knows what’s really important.

    From WENN:

    Clooney Granted Audience With Obama

    George Clooney has been granted a private meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama next week to discuss the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

    Clooney, a United Nations messenger of peace, will ask Obama to help end a long and bloody conflict which is thought to have killed millions of innocent refugees.

    The actor, currently touring the neighbouring African nation of Chad, says “We want him (Obama) to appoint a high-level, full-time diplomat to negotiate and work hard every day for a peace treaty.”

    Clooney notes that the situation in Darfur has not improved since he first visited the region in 2006.

    He adds, “I was here three years ago and in some ways there’s not a whole lot of difference. It’s sort of status quo. The problem is that the status quo is unacceptable.”

    http://us.imdb.com/news/ni0686518/

    Because it’s OK to get involved in other countries’ civil wars if Hollywood says so…

    • cjokry
      February 21, 2009 at 11:12 am

      He won’t do anything and neither will the UN. It’s a Christian population being oppressed, killed and raped under Muslim rule, so nobody’s gonna step in anytime soon.

    • jobeth
      February 21, 2009 at 1:58 pm

      “I was here three years ago and in some ways there’s not a whole lot of difference”.

      Has he ever gone ANYWHERE where Islam is in control?

      Three years of status quo?….hummmph….try Thousands of years!

      Oh! There goes George now! Now there goes a blond with testicles if I ever saw one!…Oh wait, blonds have more brains and he’s no blond.

    • proreason
      February 21, 2009 at 2:03 pm

      Hey, as long as Hollywood starlets are advising The Moron…..isn’t Julio looking for a job with better benefits?

    • Liberals Demise
      February 21, 2009 at 2:22 pm

      Clooney was granted a private meeting with his Highness. Gee…. I wonder if he’ll get on bended knee and kiss the ring?

    • Reality Bytes
      February 21, 2009 at 6:54 pm

      Submitted for your approval. One George Clooney, actor & lousy tipper, who uses his charm, wit & money to secure influence with the leader of the free world in what used to be called the The Oval Office only to find himself instead inside the “O Zone”.

    • brad
      February 23, 2009 at 6:53 am

      Yawn…..

      No one cares. No one really cared about Katrina (still don’t) or Rwanda, or the weekly crisis in Somalia, and not too many people care about Zimbabwe either. We are all burned out with all the social problems afflicting the world.

      More importantly, Americans won’t bother with another Clinton-era bleeding heart bailout of another screwed African country.

      Send Bono and Clooney, good luck whitey gentlemen!

    • 12 Gauge Rage
      February 26, 2009 at 9:16 am

      My gut instinct tells me that there are private charities at work in Darfur trying to alleviate the suffering and at the same time not seeking any publicity for their efforts.

  2. caligirl9
    February 21, 2009 at 2:08 am

    Especially if it’s George Clooney asking for the involvement. (Pardon me, that’s my ovaries speaking,)

    Wonder if Michelle will take part in the meeting LOL

    I smell another conflict the U.S. has no business getting involved in.

  3. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 2:16 am

    Hmmm… he’s got to have an ulterior motive here.

    From a disappointed AP:

    Obama nixes plan to tax motorists on mileage

    By Joan Lowy

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday rejected his transportation secretary’s suggestion that the administration consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive instead of how much gasoline they buy.

    “It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters, when asked for the president’s thoughts about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s suggestion, raised in an interview with The Associated Press a daily earlier.

    Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation’s transportation system moving, LaHood told the AP.

    “We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,” the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said in the AP interview.

    LaHood spokeswoman Lori Irving said Friday that the secretary was speaking of the idea only in general terms, not as something being implemented as administration policy.

    Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles-traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects.

    The idea also is gaining ground in several states. The governor of Idaho is talking about such a program. A North Carolina panel suggested in December the state start charging motorists a quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax. Rhode Island’s governor, however, has expressed opposition to a panel’s recommendation in December that the state charge motorists a half-cent for every mile driven in addition to the gas tax.

    A tentative plan in Massachusetts to use GPS chips in vehicles to charge motorists by the mile has drawn complaints from drivers who say it’s an Orwellian intrusion by government into the lives of citizens. Other motorists say it eliminates an incentive to drive more fuel-efficient cars since gas guzzlers will be taxed at the same rate as fuel sippers.

    Besides a VMT tax, more tolls for highways and bridges and more government partnerships with business to finance transportation projects are other funding options, LaHood, one of two Republicans in Obama’s Cabinet, said in the interview Thursday.

    “What I see this administration doing is this – thinking outside the box on how we fund our infrastructure in America,” he said.

    LaHood said he firmly opposes raising the federal gasoline tax in the current recession. …

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam.....ILEAGE_TAX

    Of course LaHood has a point, as hybrids and electric cars cause wear and tear on roads as well.

    • JohnMG
      February 21, 2009 at 12:05 pm

      Where goes my ‘freedom of mobility’?

      I’m in the construction business. My fuel costs are part of my overhead and are passed along to my clients. The population is going to be taxed double for every good and service that is produced or manufactured and then moved to point of consumption by truck.

      People who live in sparsely populated states such as Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota and must drive greater distances to and from necessary destinations, will feel the crunch of a mileage tax. Regions of the country that rely on tourism will feel the pinch from reduced recreational travel and spending. Will we then subsidize them, too?

      Years ago there was a tax deduction allowed for miles traveled to and from work or play, since the fuel used to get there and back had already been taxed. That deduction was quietly disallowed and has since become a tax paid on money already taxed. These socialist bastards will own your ass before it’s over with. Once we stop or sharply curtail the use of our roads, why bother to maintain them. Let the infrastructure go to hell. If I can’t drive on them, I refuse to pay for them. All these asswipes know is tax, tax, tax!! If we’re going down this use/tax path then I say make every one of the stuffed-shirt politicians claim their government-provided limos, air travel, meal expense accounts and the like as personal income, and force–YES, FORCE–them to pay a tax on it. I’m for FORCING these sons-o-bitches to pony up in the same fashion they do us.

      A pox on every single one of those heartless pricks–they should all have to live in my world for a while!!!!!

      Grrrrrrrrr!!

  4. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 2:34 am

    Never knew the United States Constitution guaranteed your childrens’ rights to purchase violent video games?

    Then you would never make it in the 9th Circuit.

    From an excited AP:

    Court strikes down California video game law

    By Samantha Young

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday struck down a California law that sought to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2005 law violates minors’ rights under the Constitution’s First and 14th amendments. The three-judge panel’s unanimous ruling upholds an earlier ruling in U.S. District Court.

    The law would have prohibited the sale or rental of violent games to anyone under 18. It also would have created strict labeling requirements for video game manufacturers.

    In a written opinion, Judge Consuelo Callahan said there were less restrictive ways to protect children from “unquestionably violent” video games. For example, the justices said the industry has a voluntary rating system and that parents can block certain games on video consoles.

    The law’s author, state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said he wanted Attorney General Jerry Brown to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    “We need to help empower parents with the ultimate decision over whether or not their children play in a world of violence and murder,” Yee, a child psychologist, said in a statement.

    A spokesman for Brown said the attorney general would review the decision to determine the appropriate steps.
    California lawmakers had approved the law, in part, by relying on studies suggesting violent games can be linked to aggression, anti-social behavior and desensitization to violence. The justices dismissed that research.

    “None of the research establishes or suggests a causal link between minors playing violent video games and actual psychological or neurological harm, and inferences to that effect would not be reasonable,” Callahan said in her ruling. …

    http://customwire.ap.org/dynam.....ME_LAWSUIT

    Hmmm.

    Amendment I

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

    Amendment XIV

    Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    Nothing there about the right to buy Grand Theft Auto 16,

    Funny thing is, these are the same people who somehow think it would be legal to regulate speech on the air and on the Internet.

    • caligirl9
      February 21, 2009 at 1:40 pm

      Hey, it’s just that wacky bunch of legislating judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, doing whatever they can to promote their right to inflict liberalism on millions of innocents.

      Yet another example of the insanity here in California.

    • jobeth
      February 21, 2009 at 2:11 pm

      Maybe they have been taking a page out of the Islamic children’s tv programs where they teach the kids how to become “good” little terrorists! You know the one with the little terrorist bunny etc?

      If we carefully follow this pattern, maybe these cute little American terrorists will grow up and bomb the 9th 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals !

      (This is retorical and sarcastic…for those who might think otherwise…I’m NOT calling for violence! Never can tell who’s reading this ;-D)

    • VMAN
      February 22, 2009 at 9:36 am

      These are the same idiots who want to deny cities, town and schools all over the USA the right to celebrate Christmas in the way that they choose. They also want to deny children the right to pray or eve display Christian symbols in school. What part of “Congress shall make no law” don’t these idiots understand. It doesn’t say this city shall make no law or this school shall make no law or this town shall make no law. A fifth grader can understand it.

    • jobeth
      February 22, 2009 at 9:55 pm

      Ahh, Vman, there’s your mistake! They AREN’T smarter than a 5th grader! Think boy! Think! ;-D

    • brad
      February 26, 2009 at 10:20 am

      I am glad it got struck down. Politicians just need to make more and more things restrictive. Let parents raise their own kids! If kids are screwed up, it’s the parent’s fault. Now we have virtual gun control? They are going to regulate Counter-Strike? Screw them!

      Those rating systems, v-chips, and all the other garbage doesn’t take the place of a mom or dad actually spending time with their kids to see what the heck they are up to.

      Games are fun, if you don’t like them, don’t buy them. We don’t need rental store clerks going to jail b/c they sold a 13 year old kid Bubble-Bobble.

  5. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 3:35 am

    Yet another example of what our country’s come to.

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    BART holdup victim grabs knife, kills robber

    By Henry K. Lee

    A 23-year-old visitor from the East Coast had just gotten money from an ATM when he told his friend on a cell phone that he had a bad feeling about two men approaching him at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland.

    His worst fears were realized when one suspect, Victor Veliz, 18, held a folding knife with a 5-inch blade to his neck and the other, Christopher Gonzalez, 18, threatened to shoot him Thursday night, authorities said.

    In a blind panic, he lashed out at his attackers, grabbing the knife from one of them and punching the other as his friend listened in horror on the phone.

    Without realizing it, authorities say, the man stabbed Gonzalez in the chest. Gonzalez stumbled to his family’s home around the corner, collapsed into his father’s arms and died.

    Veliz, who is affiliated with a gang, was arrested at Gonzalez’s home after police allegedly found him with the East Coast visitor’s cell phone. He will be charged with murder in the death of his accomplice, along with a robbery count, prosecutors said.

    The robbery victim suffered only cuts in fighting off his assailants. He ran from the station, flagged down an Oakland police officer on Fruitvale Avenue and turned over the bloody knife. His name was not released.

    The man was “scared senseless” when he was attacked about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, said Allison Danzig, an Alameda County deputy district attorney. He acted in self-defense and will not be charged, she said.

    When police told him that Gonzalez had died, “he was very saddened and very upset,” Danzig said.

    Gonzalez’s father, Javier Gonzalez, said Friday that his son had cried out for his parents and sister when he burst into his home on San Leandro Street. He died there.

    Javier Gonzalez sobbed at the loss of his son, who worked with him in his roofing business and at Oakland Raiders games.

    “I’m angry at both of them,” he said of the robbery victim and Veliz. “They took my son away from me. He was a hard-working kid.”

    He added, “My son is dead. I want somebody to pay for this.”

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....161N0D.DTL

    Yes, your son tried to rob an innocent man and died as a result.

    Of course you should be angry at the victim and should demand that someone should pay…

    • caligirl9
      February 21, 2009 at 1:52 pm

      **racist alert**

      On the morning on January 1, a BART officer [accidentally?] drew a gun instead of a taser, killing a baby daddy of one while he was resisting arrest (there’s plenty of videos of it; the officer who drew the taser didn’t help himself by not telling his side of the story right away, but I digress. Now it’s up to the court …).

      As a result, there were riots in Oakland, the officer is charged with murder and the dead man’s family is suing every one for $25 million.

      I do not blame the East Coast visitor for doing what he did, though in all fairness, someone should have told him not to stop in Oakland, especially the Fruitvale Station, which is ‘da hood, no matter how pretty the photos you see online are. Especially after dark.

    • oldswimcoach
      February 21, 2009 at 2:15 pm

      How about being angry at yourself for raising an armed robber? How about angry with your son for being a thug and hanging out with a thug?

      You son is dead because you’re a piss poor father, and he’s a thug.

      An apology to the victim and some acknowledgement of your sons actions being reprehensible, and some personal imbarresment would be a more appropriate response than “…I want somebody to pay for this.”, just in case you were wondering how civilized people respond to this sort of criminal behavior in their children.

      For the record: you sir, should pay for this. And some additional monetary compensation is probably due to the victim – you should pay for that too!

    • jobeth
      February 21, 2009 at 2:22 pm

      Looks like a good way to get rich! Raise a thug and then sue his victims!

      And here I’ve been doing it wrong all these years!

    • JohnMG
      February 22, 2009 at 10:20 pm

      Gonzalez should be able to find a replacement-worker who belongs to a gang at any of the many places where day-laborers hang out.

      I have no pity for him or his loss. If this were to happen in just 50% of the muggings, the muggings would cease almost over night.

  6. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 3:48 am

    The left has to be really, really pissed today.

    From a shocked and depressed AP:

    Obama Administration Affirms Bush Policy on Detainee Rights

    Justice Department lawyers filed court papers agreeing that detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detentions

    WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s Justice Department sided with the former Bush administration on Friday, saying detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

    In a two-sentence court filing, department lawyers said the Obama administration agreed that detainees at Bagram Air Base cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detentions. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

    “The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we’d hoped,” said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Air Base. “We all expected better.”

    In midyear last year, the Supreme Court gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released.

    Three months after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Guantanamo Bay, four Afghan citizens being detained at Bagram tried to challenge their detentions in U.S. District Court in Washington. Court filings alleged that the U.S. military had held them without charges, repeatedly interrogating them without any means to contact an attorney. Their petition was filed for them by relatives since they had no way of getting access to the legal system.

    The military has determined that all the detainees at Bagram are “enemy combatants.” The Bush administration said in a response to the petition last year that the enemy combatant status of the Bagram detainees is reviewed every six months, taking into consideration classified intelligence and testimony from those involved in their capture and interrogation.

    After Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush’s legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself.

    They’ve now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law,” said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees.

    The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a continuing military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.

    The government also said that if the Bagram detainees had access to the courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the United States in conflicts worldwide to do the same. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ee-rights/

    But why doesn’t the Obama administration realize that in the world of terrorism, there is no defined “war zone” and thus those working in various lands to aid those planning attacks on U.S. soil have no “war zone?”

    The Obama administration realizes that “releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security” but doesn’t realize releasing terrorists into the world at large has the exact same effect?

  7. imnewatthis
    February 21, 2009 at 5:03 am

    BillK, regarding taxing mileage, which I think is being considered here in Mass, I thought one of the main focuses of the stimulus plan was to spend money on infrastructure? In addition they have to install computer chips in our cars and spy on us? Probably preparation for the NAU, or one-world gov’t. And what the heck is wrong with that judge Callahan?

  8. Anonymoose
    February 21, 2009 at 9:21 am

    It’s something I’ve been expecting since the 80’s for chips to be installed in our cars/motorcycles so that every time we exceed the speed limit there’s a “cha-ching” fine. (Heavy sarcasm mode on) Imagine all the revenue it’ll bring in…………..

  9. BillK
    February 21, 2009 at 10:13 am

    Thanks, Mr. President!

    The latest in the “unintended consequences” War on Americans, from Denver’s KUSA Television:

    DTV delay costs local company jobs

    By Kyle Clark

    DENVER – The delay in the switch to digital television has cost a local company around 3,500 jobs.

    Earlier this month, Congress decided to delay the switch from analog to digital from Feb. 17 to June 12.

    Because of that delay, the FCC didn’t need the help of independent contractors through Colorado-based Cloud 10.

    The company had a contract with an FCC partner organization to staff a DTV help line. However, because of the staggered switch to DTV, the FCC says there are fewer calls for help, which means those workers were not needed. As many as a million calls a day were expected, but daily call volumes never topped 30,000, according to an FCC official.

    The contractors, located around the country, were to work from home to staff the FCC call line at 888-CALL-FCC.

    Cloud 10 declined to discuss the situation, citing a confidentiality clause in its contract.

    An FCC official said additional agents will be added to cover expected increased in call volumes close to the final transition deadline of June 12.

    Cloud 10 employees are not expected to be part of that future ramp-up. …

    http://www.9news.com/money/art.....;catid=344

    Way to destroy American jobs, Barry!

    Is anyone keeping a running tab on how many jobs he’s destroyed already?

    I think someone needs to create one a running ticker for the sidebar of S&L to track the number of jobs The Chosen One has destroyed since taking office…

    • Rusty Shackleford
      February 22, 2009 at 11:45 am

      But he’s helping the poor folk who need their houses.

    • VMAN
      February 22, 2009 at 12:13 pm

      If the FCC can force TV stations to go digital why can’t they just outlaw the AM band? Maybe the O hole has something far more sinister up his sleeve. I have always understood that the first thing you take over in any country is the communications and this digital business seems like a major step to that end.

  10. proreason
    February 21, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    Oopsie. GlobalWarmisists make eentsy tiny mistake about sea ice. From Bloomberg:

    Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor

    Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.

    The error, due to a problem called “sensor drift,” began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That’s when “puzzled readers” alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.

    “Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said. “Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check.’’

    The extent of Arctic sea ice is seen as a key measure of how rising temperatures are affecting the Earth. The cap retreated in 2007 to its lowest extent ever and last year posted its second- lowest annual minimum at the end of the yearly melt season. The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.

    …

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....e9swvOqwIY

    These are the experts Al Toad depends on to instruct us to move to bicycles and tents.

    Every once in while (about monthly) they make a little “California-sized” error in their observations.

    But somehow, the errors never affect the overall direction, which is that humanity needs to revert 5,000 years (except of course for our rulers).

    • Liberals Demise
      February 21, 2009 at 5:58 pm

      Time to get a new rectal thermometer, I guess!

      The size of California!!

    • jobeth
      February 21, 2009 at 6:49 pm

      “Sensor drift, although infrequent, does occasionally occur and it is one of the things that we account for during quality- control measures prior to archiving the data,” the center said.

      Although we believe that data prior to early January are reliable, we will conduct a full quality check“

      Translation: Until now we haven’t been doing FULL quality checks?
      Only enough continue the lie but not enough to expose the lie…

      OK, Got it!

      “The recent error doesn’t change findings that Arctic ice is retreating, the NSIDC said.”

      Translation: “So don’t go believing your lying eyes, believe our, uhhh, quality checks!”

      Gosh, how fortunate we are to have such learned men keeping us safe!

      Where’s my jar of fireflies, it’s getting dark in here.

    • Barbie
      February 21, 2009 at 7:07 pm

      So the Global Warmists are suffering from a case of SD? Sensor dysfunction… isn’t there a drug out now that helps with that condition?

      Hey btw, 500,000 square kilometers is a chunk of space – how does this not affect their claim the artic ice is retreating? There’s 500,000 square km that they overlooked… what am I not understanding?

    • proreason
      February 21, 2009 at 7:12 pm

      Barbie, barbie, barbie….

      “what am I not understanding?”

      You aren’t understanding that Global Warning is a religion. Religions are about faith, not understanding.

      This particular religion (like many we could name) has been formed to spirit money from your pocket into the pockets of Al Toad and his fellow priests.

    • Barbie
      February 21, 2009 at 7:27 pm

      Dear pr, I don’t know what happened – I guess I just forgot I wasn’t suppose to question anything about global warming. Thanks for setting me straight.

    • Rusty Shackleford
      February 22, 2009 at 1:50 am

      Algore’s mechanical heart must have skipped a beat. “My god…the ice isn’t melting as fast as we thought? Quick…get some stimulus money to check on that!”

      I watch NOVA a lot…and…well…these days, their episodes have gotten far too political. Even the one about a past and recent expedition to the south pole. Everything in the show was fine and, apparently factual…until…they just HAD to, in the last 5 minutes…mention that the poles are melting.

      Sadly, my love of science, somehow and oddly collides with actual scientists, who, I find, more and more are not only diagonal political thinkers, they are so pimped to government funding that they would get on their knees and service Bo-Bo personally for an allocation to do more research. And that, ladies and gentlemen…is a very sad truth.

      Much can be said about “don’t poop where you eat” and “biting the hand that feeds you” but when it comes to “think like I do and you get a cookie” then all bets are off. I am hugely pro-space exploration but not at the expense of our system. I know that already for decades, our space program is funded by tax dollars but I also happen to think, as with the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program, significant job creation occurred and it was money well spent.

      But these days, getting money for a space probe, involves a probing of a different kind. And I’m sure there have to be scientists who just bite their lips before they’ll say anything that might jeopardize funds.

      So in one small part, I’m not all that surprised that “scientists” are rolling over on the THEORY of global warming so as to keep funding for climatic research. The equation is simple and ….unfortunately, human nature. I am at odds, therefore as whether or not to blame them. I suppose if I were one of them, I would say things, like…”Well….it APPEARS that the world is warming…but….it’s really really REALLY hard to tell. More study is needed”. And to their credit, some of them have said just that. And, some have also flatly stated that there is no conclusive evidence to prove global warming. I’m sure those scientists have had their funding limited if not curtailed altogether.

      *sigh*….

    • VMAN
      February 22, 2009 at 9:38 am

      Somebody please check the sensors in their brains

    • jobeth
      February 22, 2009 at 9:46 pm

      Sorry, I can’t shake the image of them sitting in their little boats in the middle of hundreds of miles of thick ice, scratching their frozen little heads crying ….

      “But the sensors PROMISED this ice was thawed!!!”

      “Ahhhh crap, now what! Helllllppp!!!”

      heeeheee!

  11. proreason
    February 21, 2009 at 6:29 pm

    Stocks could fall a lot lower. From the notoriously inaccurate propaganda scandal rag commonly known as the Washington Post.

    Bear Market’s Bite Could Go Deeper

    Dow at 6-Year Low, but Analysts Say More Pain Lies Ahead

    NEW YORK, Feb. 20 — With the Dow Jones industrial average plunging past its lowest point since the financial crisis began, panicked investors are asking: How much uglier can it get?

    Searching for the Bottom

    Many market analysts and technicians armed with reams of historical data say that even though the Dow has given back all its gains — and more — from the five-year bull market that ended in 2007, it is unlikely the market has hit bottom.

    Mark Arbeter, chief technical strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, said the current market environment is showing few of the signs that have characterized previous lows — high price volatility, high volumes of trading and even higher levels of fear.

    “Bear market bottoms tend to be violent affairs,” he said. “You sell hard, you rally hard, you go down hard and then you’re off to the races. And that’s not what were seeing right now. Until this week, the market was really drifting sideways.”

    And for all the jitteriness out there, Arbeter added, the options market, where investors trade contracts that bet on the future direction of the stock market, is not showing the fear that signals that true capitulation has arrived. Many market participants think capitulation — when investors take their losses and get out of the market altogether — must precede a major market recovery.

    “We have not reached high enough levels of fear in the options market to suggest that this test of the lows is going to be successful,” Arbeter said.

    The Dow, made up of 30 blue-chips stocks, closed Friday at 7365.67, down 6.2 percent for the week. On Thursday, it fell below the previous bear-market low reached Nov. 20 to hit its lowest level in six years. On Friday, it plunged further as investors worried that banks would be nationalized. The market recovered some of its losses after the Obama administration said it preferred to keep major U.S. financial firms in private hands…

    Friday’s drop in stocks came as the government announced that consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in January when compared with the prior month. Prices remained flat when compared with the same period one year ago — the first instance since 1955 in which U.S. prices have not increased on a yearly basis.

    With more grim economic news expected in the weeks and months ahead, investors are waiting for more clarity on a bank rescue plan from the government. Two weeks ago, markets plunged on a perceived lack of detail in the plan, announced by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner….

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....id=topnews

    The plain truth is that nobody can predict the stock market. It is a reflection of humanity itself and has emotional as well as hard-data components.

    This particular article doesn’t seem to be particularly idealogical.

    What they don’t tell you is that CPI staying flat for an entire year is something that has only happened frequently prior to 1940, and mostly during depressions. Deflation is generally considered to be even more dangerous than inflation to the economy.

    In the long run, the stock market tracks corporate earnings, which means that the market rises when businesses make money. And that means that American business is at serious risk. And not because of the economy…..it’s because we have the most anti-business government EVER in this country.

    The stock market is telling us that we have faced a greater danger only once in our history, and that was during the Great Depression.

    And we should listen because it is a message derived from millions of transactions reflecting all of our lives and aspirations……not the opinions of a handful of arrogant Harvard socialists who have never run so much as a hot-dog stand in their lives.

  12. proreason
    February 21, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    SHOCKER – Dodd’s loose lip triggered Dow plunge Friday Feb 20.

    [From the Washington Post]:

    Dodd Says ‘Nationalization,’ Markets Tank

    2:52 PM ET: Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Banking committee, offhandedly — or maybe not — said around 1 p.m. today that nationalization of some banks may be necessary “at least for a short time,” which accelerated a fall in the markets today.

    Nationalization — or government control — is the worst fear of every business, especially banks, and Wall Street acted accordingly: Although the markets had been down between 1 and 2 percent, in the moments following Dodd’s remark, the S&P 500 briefly fell more than 3 percent.

    Shares of Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo were down more than 25 percent.

    The markets have recovered somewhat, partially because of CNBC’s report that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will release new details of the bank rescue plan next week and partially because the White House downplayed the nationalization rumors. Nonetheless, the downward spike confirms the markets’s jitters.

    White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today at his news briefing that the administration continues to “strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go.”

    http://voices.washingtonpost.c.....id=topnews

    Remember in July 2008 when little chuckie shummer bankrupted IndyBank with a similar comment, and then in September Reaper Reid almost bankrupted AIG (for which you and I paid $50 billion as a bail-out).

    Now the “respected” committee chairman Dodd attempts the same with the ENTIRE BANKING INDUSTRY.

    Some may believe it was a “slip of the tongue”.

    Yet within an hour and 52 minutes, The Moron’s spokesman was up in front of the watchdog press proclaiming the administrations staunch support of private banking.

    Why, it’s almost like they were prepared to quickly rebut the comment if it wasn’t received well, isn’t it?

    • jobeth
      February 21, 2009 at 11:19 pm

      There’s a lot of that coming out of Obalmy’s office. If it “don’t float” he’s out there within a few minutes saying he’s not for it!

      Ahhhh, my mind’s at ease now. NOT!!!

      Not ALL of us are fools.

  13. caligirl9
    February 21, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    Kumbaya, TCO is best buds with SF and Oakland mayors … good vibrations from the [San Francisco Chronicle}:

    Newsom, Dellums get Obama’s recognition

    President Obama singled out two Bay Area mayors – including one who is running for governor – in his White House speech Friday to America’s mayors.
    “I see friends from all over the place,” said Obama, as he looked around the crowd. Obama called Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums an “old friend.”

    The president then noted San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, praising him for the city’s health care reform.

    “Instead of talking about health care, mayors like Gavin Newsom in San Francisco have been ensuring that those in need receive it,” he said.

    “You shouldn’t have to succeed despite Washington; you should be succeeding with a hand from Washington, and that’s what you’re going to get now.”

    Mayors, he said, are “on the front lines” and can do a lot on their own to make cities better.

    Obama talked up broadband, high-speed rail, education and health care, saying “What I will need from you is unprecedented responsibility and accountability.”

    He also promised to “call them out” and use the power of his office if any local government officials attempt to waste stimulus money.

    He said using the money must be free from politics and personal agenda.

    The nod from Obama on health care underscores an issue Newsom has highlighted in his current “town hall” talks around California as he seeks the Democratic nomination for 2010.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....e=politics

    Okay can someone define WTF TCO’s “promise” to “call them out” is going to consist of? What are the consequences of wastefulness in government?

    Well, duh the consequences of wastefulness in government is getting elected POTUS!

    Take a little time to take a close look at Oakland and San Francisco … murder capitals of California, LA not withstanding. A pair of cities in disrepair, owned by gangs. A pair of mayors terrified to do the difficult thing and clean up their cities by tightening up on law and order, so they throw taxpayers’ money at worthless programs.

  14. pagar
    February 21, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    Every single penny in that bill came straight from leftist dream sheets.
    Not a dime of it has any thing to make America better and yet he says:

    ” using the money must be free from politics and personal agenda.”

  15. sheehanjihad
    February 21, 2009 at 11:30 pm

    U.S. Officials Furious with UN Hamas Kerry terror dupe role /

    U.S. officials are furious with the United Nations for its role in Hamas’ attempt to enlist U.S. Sen John Kerry to transfer a letter from the Palestinian militant group to President Obama during Kerry’s trip to the Middle East, an official source told FOX News.

    The incident also has raised security concerns over how much Hamas knew about Kerry’s travel plans.

    Kerry turned the letter over to the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem on Friday, saying he was unaware that it was from Hamas until hearing about the letter in media reports, including on the BBC. He told FOX News on Saturday that he will not be visiting Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal during his trip to Syria on Saturday. He is scheduled to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

    U.S. officials in Jerusalem are outraged at the United Nations Relief and Works agency for apparently handing the letter off to Kerry.

    So lets see now, he lies about his service record, he lies about our involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, he betrays his country, he becomes the poster child for smarmy, hooks up with a wealthy warthog, becomes a senator of sorts, loses his bid for the Presidency due to all of the above, and now, he becomes a shill for the UN sneaking Hamas bids for recognition and denies he knew about it? Is there no depth of depravity this human sphincter wont sink to?

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....ter-obama/

    • Rusty Shackleford
      February 22, 2009 at 1:35 am

      Shades of I ain’t fond a Jane. I wish America would wake up. This isn’t passing notes behind teacher’s back. This is treason. This is blatantly showing support to sworn enemies of the United States. This is “playing the game within the game” only he is largely acting on his own.

      Just think America….this guy just showed us that he thinks he’s above it all. Like O-blah-blah he just thumbed his nose at federal law and if not federal law, then at least due process.

      There cannot be any excuse.

      I say git a rope.

  16. caligirl9
    February 22, 2009 at 1:00 am

    Scary headline … from the LA Times. Methinks Calworks isn’t working so well … people aren’t being trained for the right jobs?

    20% in Los Angeles County receive public aid

    One in five Los Angeles County residents — nearly 2.2 million people — are receiving public assistance payments or benefits, a level county officials say will rise significantly over the coming months as the fallout from the recession continues.

    The percentage of people on county aid already equals the figure at the height of the 2001-03 recession and far exceeds the one in seven who needed help during the economic downturn in the early 1990s and the one in nine assisted in the collapse of the early 1980s.

    The rise in welfare recipients in the county is the first sustained uptick since welfare reform under the Clinton administration imposed strict time limits on benefits in 1996.

    County officials warn that tens of thousands of additional frustrated job seekers — unemployment in the county currently stands at 9.5% — are expected to seek aid to weather the persistent recession once their other benefits run out.

    The total includes those receiving food stamps and general relief as well as other county-administered aid programs, such as in-home healthcare. The cost — shouldered by the county, state and federal governments — was $334 million a month by the end of last year, according to the latest report by the county’s Department of Public Social Services.

    The rising demand has left public assistance offices ill-equipped to deal with the growing multitude of indigent people. In some locations, lines routinely snake hundreds of feet outside entrances.

    “We have the highest human service burden of any county in the country in sheer numbers,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. “Two million people is the size of some countries; that’s how big our problem is.”

    To have reached the point of receiving county aid, recipients usually have little left. Qualifying for help most often means they already have run out of unemployment insurance and drained their bank accounts and other assets. In other cases, low-wage workers or those whose hours have been cut can earn so little that they qualify for Medicaid or food stamps…

    By June 2010, officials estimate, the number of people participating in the county’s general relief program, now at 74,143, will reach 91,000. That would erase 11 years of reductions in the caseload. The program provides $221 monthly to individuals who qualify for no other programs. Roughly 60% of those served are believed to be homeless.

    Also by June of next year, the number of people receiving payments through CalWorks, the welfare program for families, is expected to rise to 400,000 from the current 367,173. That would erase three years of reductions.

    In a sign of how stressed the economy is, county officials report that just as many applicants are denied as are approved; these denials reflect strict qualifications in place for most programs.

    For years, declines in the welfare rolls had been offsetting the costs of steady increases in numbers of people qualifying for healthcare assistance through Medicaid and other programs. The demand for those programs has been driven by a growing number of senior citizens and increasing numbers of people going without employer-based health and disability insurance.

    That welfare and healthcare demands are increasing at the same time is worrisome to officials.

    In an attempt to halt the increases, Miguel Santana, a county deputy chief executive, said he hopes in the coming months to place general relief recipients in jobs or in federally funded programs that provide cash and medical assistance.

    “We need to act more aggressively than ever to stem the tide” in general relief, Santana said.

    Many of those getting help say they have done everything they can think of to find work.

    In the waiting room at the welfare office in Rancho Dominguez, where late last week even the line for a parking space was dozens of cars long, 32-year-old Erlinda Romero held a rolled copy of the Pennysaver, dogeared on pages listing jobs she pursued.

    “I can’t get a callback,” she said, noting that training last year to become a medical clerk has not yet yielded a job. Meanwhile, she receives Medicaid benefits and $500 in monthly welfare for herself and four children.

    Nearby, 50-year-old Ed Baldwin slumped in his chair waiting for his name to be called to renew his food stamps. He has been unemployed for three years, since being laid off from his job as a mechanic for heavy trucks.

    “This is getting scary,” he said. “There are no jobs.”

    County officials say they are worried that just as the need for county aid surges, the treasury is dwindling.

    Sales taxes are projected to diminish for the next 12 months, and property tax revenue is shrinking for the first time in 13 years.

    All of this comes at a time when the county, the region’s largest employer, has ordered a strict hiring freeze that will include the Department of Public Social Services. The department’s director, Philip Browning, has been ordered to draft a budget for the next fiscal year that is at least 5% less than the current year’s.

    Although the federal government is acting to increase food stamp and unemployment insurance benefits, programs that are wholly funded by the county — including general relief — remain static.

    The monthly benefit of $221 has not increased for more than a decade, and no one is proposing that it increase now.

    “We’ve got to be able to do the basics. We are not going to be able to do it in the same way we have in the past,” Yaroslavsky said.

    “If the hiring freeze in effect shuts down an office,’ he said, “we are going to have to look at an exemption. But we do not print money in the basement of the county Hall of Administration.”

    http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....7048.story

    I couldn’t cut a lot out of this one. The people quoted in the article (the ones looking for work) really bugs me. The woman seeking a job as a medical clerk is scary; I thought health care was recession-proof. Then again, perhaps it is for registered nurses and those practitioners with lots of schooling. Still, I feel bad for that woman. Unless she’s here illegally. In which case she should be deported.

    (I wonder if her appearance has anything to do with the lack of call-backs. She is sort of scary. Then again I sure wouldn’t be dressing up to hang out at the Calworks office …)

    The unemployed truck driver is troublesome because of his age. Too many of us on this board know first-hand what it’s like to be not 25 and looking for work.

    I betcha the numbers are so bad because of the benefits given to illegals. Notice this article fails to even bring that up.

    *yes, I sound racist. I’m just tired. I need to find another ethnicity and lie about my age. Fifty-something White Irish-German isn’t cutting it.

  17. pagar
    February 22, 2009 at 7:46 am

    Is there no depth of depravity this human sphincter wont sink to?

    Short answer: No

  18. MinnesotaRush
    February 22, 2009 at 10:38 am

    Hardly a forerunning media source; but an article posted over at AOL ridiculously reads:

    Obama Tops List of Americans’ Heroes

    (Feb. 21)

    “Whom do you admire enough to call a hero?”

    “That was the simple question posed to a cross-section of Americans by The Harris Poll in mid-January. When it was first done in 2001, Jesus was named more than any other person. This year, President Barack Obama topped the list.

    Each respondent’s answer was spontaneous — no list of people to choose from was given to those surveyed.”

    http://tinyurl.com/azfdhj

    They fail to mention, of course, they took the poll at an ACORN office (one of their new affiliates???).

    But just after this piece of propaganda, they show these results:

    Whom do you admire most from this list?

    Jesus Christ 48%
    Ronald Reagan 12%
    Barack Obama 10%
    Abraham Lincoln 8%
    Mother Teresa 6%
    Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger 5%
    George W. Bush 4%
    Martin Luther King Jr. 4%
    John F. Kennedy 3%
    John McCain 1%

    Total Votes: 24,480

    (Hmmm – thought there was no list)

    …. but shortly after, o-blah-blah hits the top of least admired ….

    Whom do you admire least from this list?

    Barack Obama 41%
    George W. Bush 37%
    John McCain 5%
    Martin Luther King Jr. 4%
    John F. Kennedy 3%
    Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger 3%
    Jesus Christ 3%
    Ronald Reagan 2%
    Mother Teresa 1%
    Abraham Lincoln 1%

    Total Votes: 24,148″

    THAT had to hurt their feelings!?!? :-)

  19. Rusty Shackleford
    February 22, 2009 at 12:40 pm

    Forbes 25 Most Influential Liberal Journalists

    http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/.....beral.html

    “In recognition of the role played by the media in our national debate, Forbes.com nominates, here, 25 of America’s most consequential liberal journalists and media personalities.”

    I found this article…”stimulating” and “enlightening” if not completely ludicrous. However, it does update my “who I really don’t like the most” list.

    • proreason
      February 22, 2009 at 1:14 pm

      Even Forbes lies.

      The most liberal “journalists” in the media are the anchors for CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN.

      By omitting their names, the author pretends they are objective, when in fact, they are the generals of the liberal army..

      So what do you suppose might be the political affiliation of the “journalist” who wrote the article?

  20. proreason
    February 22, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Heeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. From a salivating Reuters groupie:

    Soros sees no bottom for world financial “collapse”

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.

    Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

    He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.

    “We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”

    His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.

    Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain.

    “I don’t remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world,” Volcker said.

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....mp;sp=true

    Gee, a month after Lehman’s collapse, a beaming Soros was in attendance at an international bankers’ convention. Strange that he doesn’t claim credit here.

    But he’s probably on the sidelines now.

    He’s never been one to push financial systems over the edge…..except for the Bank of England in 1992, and Malaysia in 1997-8, and the U.S. in Sept/Oct 2008, and others that we haven’t heard about yet.

    • GuppyNblue
      February 22, 2009 at 1:53 pm

      He probably knows what he’s talking about, seeing how he orchestrated so much of it. This is the man who openly despises American dominance and says the world would be better if it ended.

    • Rusty Shackleford
      February 22, 2009 at 5:20 pm

      Sorry, I missed that. Was out getting my “sky is falling” hat and shopping for bomb shelters.

      Also submitted the county to officially change my name to “Duncan Cover”.

      The irony here is that someone who is so familiar with “the bottom”, is discussing it.

    • jobeth
      February 22, 2009 at 9:32 pm

      He’s so evil I’ll wager he goes to bed every night chuckling at his “power” to destroy whole economies….single handedly.

      I do believe he is the anti-christ’s little helper. Jerk.

  21. pagar
    February 22, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    Want to know why it appears every thing that comes out of Congress looks like it is coming straight from the Communist Party Webpage?

    The Congressional Progressive Caucus has just updated its roster. There are now 74 open Far Left Democrats in the US Congress and one Socialist “independent” in the US Senate-Bernie Sanders from Vermont.

    The final figure is expected to top 80, making it by far the largest power bloc in the US Congress

    Many leading CPCers have close ties to Institute for Policy Studies, Democratic Socialists of America, Communist Party USA, or in a few cases all three.

    CPC is one of the most destructive forces in the USA-its members are a fifth column for the far left at the heart of the US government.

    The Congressional Progressive Caucus — Fifth Column at the Heart of the US Government by Trevor Loudon, posted February 21, 2009, on his blog, The New Zeal, is cross-posted at RBO with the author’s permission.

    Note; Nancy Pelosi resigned from the CPC when she became Speaker of the House. That had no effect on her views.

  22. jobeth
    February 22, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    This is making the rounds on the email circuit and a friend sent it to me. Great explaination for your friends who still don’t “get it”.

    The only thing not in it, but should be, is the the ACORN’s and other’s strong arm techniques that were used to help this along.

    Other wise its a pretty good explaination for the people who need it all explained to them

    ____________

    “This was sent by a man who currently is a bank examiner in the state of Florida.

    “THIS IS THE BEST EXPLANATION OF THE CREDIT CRISIS I HAVE EVER SEEN!”

    Part 1
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0zEXdDO5JU

    Part 2
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhDkZjKBEw

  23. Al Morone
    February 23, 2009 at 12:49 am

    Britain’s middle class, ruined because of the economy, will take out their anger on the streets this summer:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2.....-recession

    Britain faces summer of rage – police face middle-class anger

    Police are preparing for a “summer of rage” as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.

    Britain’s most senior police officer with responsibility for public order raised the spectre of a return of the riots of the 1980s, with people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming “footsoldiers” in a wave of potentially violent mass protests.

    Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan police’s public order branch, told the Guardian that middle-class individuals who would never have considered joining demonstrations may now seek to vent their anger through protests this year.

    He said that banks, particularly those that still pay large bonuses despite receiving billions in taxpayer money, had become “viable targets”. So too had the headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions in the City which are being blamed for the financial crisis.

    Hartshorn, who receives regular intelligence briefings on potential causes of civil unrest, said the mood at some demonstrations had changed recently, with activists increasingly “intent on coming on to the streets to create public disorder”.

    The warning comes in the wake of often violent protests against the handling of the economy across Europe. In recent weeks Greek farmers have blocked roads over falling agricultural prices, a million workers in France joined demonstrations to demand greater protection for jobs and wages and Icelandic demonstrators have clashed with police in Reykjavik.

    In the UK hundreds of oil refinery workers mounted wildcat strikes last month over the use of foreign workers.

    Intelligence reports suggest that “known activists” are also returning to the streets, and police claim they will foment unrest. “Those people would be good at motivating people, but they haven’t had the ‘footsoldiers’ to actually carry out [protests],” Hartshorn said. “Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.

    “It means that where we would possibly look at certain events and say, ‘yes there’ll be a lot of people there, there’ll be a lot of banner waving, but generally it will be peaceful’, [now] we have to make sure these elements don’t come out and hijack that event and turn that into disorder.”

    Hartshorn identified April’s G20 meeting of the group of leading and developing nations in London as an event that could kick-start a challenging summer. “We’ve got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the sites as the highlight of what they see as a ’summer of rage’,” he said.

    His comments are likely to be met with disappointment by protest groups, who in recent weeks have complained that police are adopting a more confrontational approach at demonstrations. Officers have been accused of exaggerating the threat posed by activists to justify the use of resources spent on them.

    Police were said to have been heavy-handed at Greek solidarity marches in London in December and, last month, at protests against Israel’s invasion of Gaza. In August 1,000 officers, helicopters and riot horses were drafted to Kent from 26 UK police forces to oversee the climate camp demonstration against the Kingsnorth power station. The massive operation to monitor the protesters cost £5.9m and resulted in 100 arrests. But in December the government was forced to apologise to parliament after the Guardian revealed that its claims that 70 officers had been hurt in violent clashes were wrong.

    However, Hartshorn insisted: “Potentially there will be more industrial actions … History shows that some of those disputes – Wapping, the miners’ strike – have caused great tensions in the community and the police have had difficult times policing and maintaining law and order.”

    Both “extreme rightwing and extreme leftwing” elements are looking to “use the fact that people are out of jobs” to galvanise support, he said.

    A particularly worrying development was the re-emergence of individuals involved in the violent fascist organisation Combat 18, he said. “They are using the fact that there’s been lots of talk about eastern European people coming in and taking jobs on the Olympic sites,” he said. “They’re using those type of arguments to look at getting support.”

    Hartshorn said he also expected large-scale demonstrations this year on environmental issues, with hardcore green activists “joining forces” with middle-class campaigners over issues such as airport expansion at Heathrow and Stansted. With the prospect of angry demonstrations against the economy, that could open the door to powerful coalitions.

    “All you’ve got to do then is link in with the environmentalists, and look at the oil companies. They’re seen to be turning over billions of pounds profit in issues that are seen to be against the environment.”

  24. BillK
    February 23, 2009 at 4:29 am

    From a confused AP:

    Vietnam vets protest Jane Fonda’s Broadway showing

    By Verena Dobnik

    New York (AP) –

    It’s been decades, but Jane Fonda still can’t shake her “Hanoi Jane” image from the Vietnam War.

    About a dozen Vietnam veterans and other protesters on Saturday picketed the theater where the 71-year-old actress is starring in the Broadway play “33 Variations,” telling passers-by that she had once visited their communist enemy in Hanoi.

    “Jane Fonda is a traitor,” said Dan Maloney of the Gathering of Eagles, which bills itself as a national, nonpartisan veterans group. “She got on Hanoi radio and called every U.S. serviceman a war criminal.”

    Fonda was tagged with the sobriquet “Hanoi Jane” after visiting the North Vietnamese capital in 1972, where she made radio broadcasts critical of U.S. policy and sat on an anti-aircraft gun laughing and clapping, as she describes in her autobiography, “My Life So Far.”

    Though she still defends her anti-war activism, Fonda has acknowledged that the incident was “a betrayal” of American forces.

    “That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until the day I die,” she wrote.

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....629S57.DTL

    It may haunt her, but has she done anything about it? Apologize? Donate to a Vietnam War Veterans’ group? Anything but feel “haunted?”

    I suspect not.

    • caligirl9
      February 23, 2009 at 10:54 am

      Words are thin and evaporate into the air. There is plenty that Hanoi Jane could do to make reparations. Do some good deeds that will benefit those men you betrayed. There are plenty of programs out there, or she could start her own.

      I’m glad that there are still Vietnam vets out there who are able to remind us about Fonda’s traitorous words and actions.

      BTW, it was more than two minutes when your “sanity” lapsed, Jane. You made the choice to go to Hanoi. That took more than two minutes. You could have kept your mouth shut once you got there, or turned around at any time.

  25. BillK
    February 23, 2009 at 4:34 am

    Propaganda today.

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Rebuilding Wisconsin, Part 2: Work of New Deal-era programs still around us

    By Ron Seely

    From weathered stone well houses to old pipes beneath the city and carefully drawn maps of streets and utilities, the reminders of another moment in history when times were hard and jobs scarce are scattered throughout Madison, scarcely noticed but still in use.

    Little did the Works Progress Administration workers know that much of what they built would last for so long. Nor would they have believed that some of the infrastructure on which they labored would await replacement until a new millennium, another economic crisis and the recruitment of another crew of jobless workers.

    The task of reinvigorating Wisconsin’s infrastructure may be even more daunting today than the job faced by those workers during the Great Depression. While they built sewers and water lines from scratch, today’s stimulus workers will be digging up and replacing systems that have been long ignored. Consider sewers alone. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of the state’s wastewater infrastructure needs at $3.3 billion.

    “In 2009, all signs point to an infrastructure that is poorly maintained, unable to meet current and future demands, and in some cases, unsafe,” wrote ASCE officials in their latest assessment of the nation’s needs.

    It’s been more than 70 years since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and his creation of the Works Progress Administration and other programs to put millions of jobless back to work. It is a time that seems momentarily to have jumped from the pages of the history books, made more real today by our own economic crisis and the passage by Congress last week of modern-day job creation legislation.

    William Jones, an associate professor of history at UW-Madison who has studied Depression-era government programs, said the WPA probably stands as the best example of what’s possible when a concerted, collective effort is made to put the unemployed to work and, at the same time, build the infrastructure that keeps America running. “We are still relying heavily on the things that were built back then,” said Jones of WPA projects.

    In Madison, for example, we still use WPA-era sewer and water pipes, numerous buildings, and even street and utility maps that were drawn by WPA draftsmen.

    “Public works such as water mains or sewers can last anywhere from 50 to 200 years,” said Larry Nelson, Madison’s chief engineer, who has developed an appreciation for the handiwork of those WPA crews. “What we’re seeing is that those things were built very, very well. It was really good quality work that was done.”

    Today, according to the ASCE, Wisconsin’s water infrastructure needs are staggering — $3.1 billion for drinking water infrastructure alone over the next 20 years.

    Though there remains controversy about whether it was the New Deal back-to-work efforts or World War II that eventually revived the nation’s economy, the impact of the massive Roosevelt job programs on the American landscape remains visible for all to see, partly because there was so much built. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/439998

    Believe it or not, the article actually includes some real numbers:

    All of this work came at a time when Wisconsin, like the rest of the nation, desperately needed jobs. Between 1929 and 1930, Wisconsin factories lost nearly 56 percent of their workers. Milwaukee alone lost 44 percent of its workers. Bread lines and soup kitchens became a part of everyday life.

    Though it doesn’t compare to Depression-era numbers, Wisconsin’s current unemployment rate is hovering around 6 percent, the highest in two decades.

    No, not six percent!

  26. BillK
    February 23, 2009 at 4:43 am

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    State workers feeling pain of budget shortfall

    By Mark Pitsch

    Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal has state traffic forecaster William Gavinski thinking about retirement.

    Augustine Tatus, a children and families policy analyst, wonders how he’ll keep up with rising housing, utility and food costs.

    And revenue agent Wayne Mertens foresees fewer salaried state workers and more private contractors.

    “Tears, harm and fear to sum it up,” Mertens said of state workers’ reaction to Doyle’s budget. “And no faith in the governor or his party that usually promotes workers.”

    Unlike some governors, Doyle’s 2009-11 budget, which he unveiled last week, doesn’t use furloughs or job cuts to close the budget shortfall currently projected at about $5 billion.

    And he’s resurrected a couple of initiatives that some state workers say they like: allowing the domestic partners of state workers to participate in the state health care program and letting state university faculty and staff unionize.

    But at a time when he says everyone is going to have to share the pain of a difficult budget, Doyle has set aside no money in his proposal for state worker pay raises and said state employees should expect to pay more for health insurance and see their state retirement contributions fall.

    Those details are still subject to negotiation with state employee unions, which will commence in April.

    Doyle also wants to kill a law that requires a cost-benefit analysis before hiring the private sector to do some work rather than have state employees do it.

    “State employees are scapegoats, and we can’t bear it anymore,” Tatus said. “The governor should also know that the state workers voted for him. It will be difficult now for people to vote for him again. He needs to take that into consideration.” …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/439951

    This reinforces my theory that every Government worker should be required, by law, to work one year out of every five in the private sector just so they don’t become so insulated they view this as being “scapegoated.”

    I invite state workers across the United States to ask their private sector friends (at least the ones who are still employed) the last time they received a pay raise, if their health care contributions have been going up, and if their employer provides a generous pension when they retire to which they’ve had to contribute nothing.

    Perhaps the looks on their friends’ faces (and queries about how one applies for a state job) might wake them up… though I doubt it.

    • brad
      February 23, 2009 at 6:46 am

      Probably THE WORST place to live not only for a human being, but for a human conservative in America—-Madison, Wisconsin.

      Count on:
      -40 temp
      Liberal campus filled with crazy activists of all kinds
      Bloated government
      High taxes
      No entertainment
      Virtually no social scene you would find in a real big city
      Arrogant 60s hold-overs
      Hardly a woman worth dating to be found anywhere
      Bored, overzealous police officers
      Miles of desolate farmland
      50 miles from the nearest professional sports team
      TONS of fatty food options
      Virtually no job market (need 4 year degree just to mop floors)
      Far too many cold-climate expenditures
      Heating bill, at least $90/mo
      Too many Chicago & Rockford migrant welfare recipients eating up social services
      Too many gay bars being shut down by the health department

      I can hardly think of a worse place (oh wait, Detroit) for anyone to live, work, find a mate, or try to exist. . . .

    • jobeth
      February 23, 2009 at 10:25 am

      Brad,
      “Too many gay bars being shut down by the health department’

      ?I would think that would be a good thing?

      Unless just having too many of them in the first place….

  27. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 23, 2009 at 11:11 am

    When people ask me why I hate Carolina, this is why:

    Some at UNC don’t want ex-Bush official speaking

    CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Some faculty and students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill don’t want former Attorney General Michael Mukasey as the law school graduation speaker this year.

    Mukasey served as attorney general for President Bush from 2007 until earlier this year.

    The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that opponents are circulating a petition, saying Mukasey shouldn’t speak at the school because he refused to condemn waterboarding as torture.

    They say Mukasey doesn’t represent the values of those at the UNC law school.

    http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/4591272/

    Liberalism, that and they are the number one school supported by those appearing on the TV show COPS.

  28. proreason
    February 23, 2009 at 12:45 pm

    oops……Anartic sea ice sets another new record for new ice.

    http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Antarctic.jpg

    Actually, the record only goes back to 1978, but I didn’t want to ruin my headline.

    Surely we will be hearing about this very soon.

    After all, we have all been so worried about Global Warming that I, at least, was about ready to move into a tent. (there is not truth to the rumor that the tents in my yard are because i’ll be losing my house soon).

  29. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    Yet another attempt to entrench the Democrat controlled government:

    After two century wait, DC residents may get vote

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Call the nation’s capital home, and for some 200 years you have paid taxes and gone to war for your country but you didn’t get a vote in Congress.
    Residents of the District of Columbia have chafed over their second-class status, and for nearly a decade many have displayed “Taxation without representation” license plates on their cars to signal their outrage.

    All that could change with key votes this week in the Senate.

    Debate opened Monday on a bill to give the 600,000 people of Washington D.C. a full vote in the House. A new Democratic president, Barack Obama, and heftier Democratic majorities in Congress have improved the prospects for the decades-long effort that would certainly ensure another Democrat lawmaker in Congress.

    Democrats outnumber Republicans by some 4-to-1 in the capital.

    …Opponents argue that the constitutional amendment route is still the only legitimate way to go, pointing to Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, which says members of the House should be chosen “by the people of the several states.” The District of Columbia, of course, is not a state.

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/w.....vote_N.htm

    I’m surprised the AP actually quoted the Constitution. Something they do not do very often, unlike quoting liberal, exaggerated claims of what the Constitution actually says.

  30. caligirl9
    February 23, 2009 at 3:13 pm

    Good start, New York. From the mean old New York Post

    MEDICAID COPS BARE EYE-POPPING ‘SCAMS’
    Investigators are trying to staunch a flood of Medicaid scams bleeding New York dry, including bills for unneeded prosthetic eyeballs, services for patients long dead and prenatal care – for men.
    The Post has learned that, on the Upper West Side, unlicensed eye-care “specialist” Jeanne Prosper allegedly blindsided the Medicaid program by filing $1.2 million in fraudulent bills.
    Prosper, affiliated with supplier Fried & Kohler, claimed she provided hundreds of visually impaired customers with prosthetic eyes, costing $2,000 apiece.
    But Medicaid Inspector General James Sheehan’s office said most of the customers had a good set of eyes – and didn’t need or get an artificial one.
    Investigators decided to take a closer look when Medicaid bills from Prosper skyrocketed from $75,000 to $600,000 over a two-year period.
    “Some of the customers we talked to had both of their eyes and had never heard of Prosper,” said Michael Little, the deputy medical inspector based in New York City.
    Investigators alleged that about three-quarters – or $900,000 – of the total $1.2 million Prosper billed Medicaid was for fake claims. That translates to 450 artificial eyes at $2,000 a pop.
    The Inspector General’s Office removed Prosper from the Medicaid program and demanded he repay the $1.2 million. Because he’d never obtained a state license, the state alleges all the money was improperly billed…
    In Brooklyn, dentist Yuri Krainov was yanked from the Medicaid program after billing the state for patients he hadn’t seen in years, the Inspector General’s Office said….
    Other examples of Medicaid rip-offs being probed include pharmacists and health-care providers billing for services to dead people and even prenatal care to men.
    Owners of nursing homes also have been caught billing the state for use of their Lexuses or Mercedes-Benzes…
    The state has also received bills to cover maternity care for girls under age 10 and women over 50, the Inspector General’s Office reports.
    Sheehan said many of the cases were still under investigation and declined to discuss specifics.
    But of the nursing-home executives allegedly asking for reimbursement for their vehicle use, he said, “It seems to me that you shouldn’t bill for Medicaid for your personal car.”
    New York state spends about $48 billion on Medicaid – by far the highest sum in the nation.
    The state in 2008 recovered $551 million of improperly paid Medicaid funds.
    Last year, 450 Medicaid providers were placed on the “disqualification” list for wrongdoing and 63 cases referred to Cuomo’s office.

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/02.....156496.htm

    It’s a good start and I’d much rather have my tax dollars working to ferret out fraud. Perhaps investigating Medicaid/Medicare/Medical fraud could be a growth industry?

    • proreason
      February 23, 2009 at 3:43 pm

      30% of Medicaire costs are fraudent.

      That doesn’t count inefficiencies and costs resulting from the inflexibility of any government program.

      It’s the reason Russians have the lowest life-expectancy of any country……..15 years after the fall of communism.

      Coming soon to a town near you.

    • wardmama4
      February 24, 2009 at 11:07 am

      You know why WIC isn’t on this list often if at all – the qualifications are strictly enforced, the payment is strictly controlled (very, very specific about the foods that can be purchased) and to continue to collect (limited time – pregnant and nursing moms only, children to age 5) you must attend their ‘classes’. Monthly.

      And having had to apply for all of these things – I don’t see how you can scam the system – unless someone in the office is part of the scam. Either that or they don’t give a damn about someone totally disabled in one moment. Or maybe it is simply our color (or lack thereof).

      Yes I’d prefer my tax dollars to go to making the system fraud proof – cleaning out each and every illegal alien collecting a single penny – and making those who commit fraud to pay back every single penny. Hey my neighbor is still collecting child support for her now 30 year old daughter – it can and should be done.

  31. caligirl9
    February 23, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    A fine example of how to teach your child not to be accountable for his or her actions and always find someone else to blame …from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

    $50,000 claim filed over girl’s time-out in school
    A $50,000 legal claim alleges that Greenfield Middle School teachers falsely imprisoned a student when they put her in a time-out room, and that the experience caused the girl to hyperventilate and feel nauseous.
    The claim also accuses a teacher of allowing students to commit a “battery” against the girl in a classroom.
    Greenfield Superintendent Conrad Farner said he could not respond specifically to the allegations, in order to protect the privacy of the student, who is not identified by name in the claim.
    But Farner defended the actions of employees.
    “I’m confident that the district has acted in an appropriate manner and will continue to do so,” he said.
    Farner said three claims have been filed against the school district in the past 3 1/2 years, none involving allegations of misconduct by staff. Two claims pertained to playground injuries and one to the instruction of a special education student, he said.
    The claim involving the girl was filed Feb. 13. The School Board discussed it during a closed session portion of its meeting Monday, but took no action.
    The claim was filed on behalf of the girl by Brookfield attorney William Rettko
    “The ball, frankly, is in the school district’s court,” Rettko said of negotiations to settle the claim.
    If the claim is not settled or rejected within 120 days, a lawsuit could be filed.
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/e.....36922.html

    Lemme get this straight. We are talking about a middle-school aged kid. That mean 12, 13, or 14 years of age, correct? The kid misbehaved and was sent to a time-out room (not closet, room) and she was ever so upset she hyperventilated and felt sick to her tummy?
    There is/was no injury of any kind except this kid’s pride for being busted by her teacher?
    There is no information in the article about what the girl did or the specific nature of the “battery” was.
    A fine example of why there so many young people who have no sense of right or wrong, no concept of proper behavior in school. Just go home and wah-wah to your equally goofy parents and expect financial restitution.

    • dulcimergrl
      February 24, 2009 at 11:55 am

      I have a middle school child at home. This is the age when they start going through puberty, discover that grownups aren’t omnipotent, and are starting to think they are “all grown up” when they aren’t by a long shot. In short, it is THE MOST challenging period for teachers and parents. There are times I’d like to put my own kid in a “time out” room, but I mean a dark closet where he’s tied up and gagged. I’m sure the little angel in the article was in a well-lit, comfortable place for her “punishment”. If this ridiculous lawsuit has legs and makes it so schools aren’t even allowed to do that anymore, we are really screwed.

  32. sheehanjihad
    February 23, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/29331920 Listen to the Kudlow Report on CNBC with Rick Santelli, and how they react to the visceral hatred of Robert Gibbs reaction to the “tea party”. it is quite a show, and got little play.

  33. Al Morone
    February 24, 2009 at 1:01 am

    OK, Holder, let’s have some straight talk about race.

    Have The Courage To Enforce Immigration Law, Mr. Holder
    By Patrick J. Buchanan

    Lecturing a conscript conclave of Justice Department bureaucrats, Attorney General Eric Holder last week called America a “nation of cowards” for not spending more time talking about race.

    Reading his speech, however, one recalls the sage counsel of Pat Moynihan to President Nixon in 1970: This whole subject might benefit from a long period of “benign neglect.”

    One point Holder did allude to, without specifics, was this:

    “It is not safe for this nation to assume that the unaddressed social problems in the poorest parts of the country can be isolated and will not ultimately affect the larger society.” [Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program February 18, 2009]

    Fair point. And what are some of those social problems?

    A 70 percent illegitimacy rate in black America, an incarceration and crime rate seven times that of white America, a 50 percent dropout rate in many urban high schools, African-American graduates reading and computing on average at eighth-grade levels.

    And about these problems what is the black leadership doing?

    Unlike Bill Cosby, the heroic Holder was virtually mute. Rather, he is upset that “on Saturdays and Sundays” we don’t go to church or hang out together. But why are the free associations of Americans, of whatever creed or color, any of Eric Holder or Big Brother’s business?

    Having insulted us, perhaps Holder will start doing his own sworn duty. For one area where he has a lead role is enforcing the nation’s laws—in particular, the U.S. immigration laws. For the federal failure to enforce these laws is a contributory cause of one of those “unaddressed social problems in the poorest parts of the country.”

    Case in point—rampant unemployment among minority youth.

    According to the Center for Immigration Studies, among African-Americans 18 to 29 with only a high-school degree, unemployment is now 20 percent. Among black adults who do not have a high-school diploma, it is 24 percent. Among teenagers under 18, black unemployment is 30 percent.

    Among native-born Hispanics with only a high-school diploma, the unemployment rate is 13.6 percent. Among high-school dropouts, 16 percent. Among Hispanic 16- and 17-year-olds, the jobless figure is 40 percent.

    As these figures were compiled in December, before the last two months of sweeping layoffs, they surely understate the situation. And with both black and Hispanic dropout rates now reaching 50 percent in major cities, the social dynamite is piling up.

    Last month, USA Today reported that the FBI estimates there are now 1 million gang members in the United States—up 200,000 from 2005—and these gangs are responsible for 80 percent of all U.S. crimes.

    From other studies, young Hispanics are 19 times as likely as white youth to join gangs, while African-Americans are 15 times.

    These millions of teenagers, and unskilled and less-educated young adults with no jobs and little prospect of finding them, are recruiting pools for criminal gangs.

    Who is getting the jobs for which these native-born black and Hispanic young could qualify? Illegal aliens hold literally millions of them.

    Last week, the CIS reported, “An estimated 6 to 7 million illegal immigrants are currently holding jobs. Prior research indicates they are overwhelmingly employed in lower-skilled and lower-paying jobs.” [Unemployment for Immigrants and the US-Born: Picture Bleak for Less-Educated Black & Hispanic Americans By Steven A. Camarota, February 2009]

    Exactly what sort of jobs?

    “Illegals are primarily employed in construction, building cleaning and maintenance, food preparation, service and processing, transportation and moving occupations and agriculture.”

    With the exception of agriculture, a majority of the workers in these occupations are native-born Americans. Thus, illegal aliens are taking jobs Americans are not only willing to do, but are doing, and taking 7 million of these jobs from young Americans now out of work.

    By failing to enforce U.S. immigration laws, the government of the United States is selling America’s working class down the river.

    In addition to the 7 million illegals holding jobs, legal immigrants have another 15 million. In 2008, when Americans lost 3.5 million jobs, 144,000 immigrants were admitted every month.

    Why do we have an open-borders immigration policy that annually allows in millions, legal and illegal, to compete for jobs, when 10 million Americans are out of work and half a million are losing their jobs every month? The political correctness and moral cowardice of our Lords Temporal, who refuse to call a time-out on immigration until our own people go back to work, is killing the American dream for millions.

    According to the census, as reported in The New York Times on Saturday, 97 percent of immigrants from Mexico do not speak English at home. They are less skilled and less educated than the average American.

    Says demographer William Frey, “The new immigrant magnets especially in the Southwest are disproportionately attracting young Mexican men who are willing to accept low wages.” [Government Offers Look at Nation’s Immigrants, February 21, 2009]

    What further proof is needed that mass immigration from the Third World is taking jobs from Americans and driving down their wages when they do find work?

    Here is a problem more serious than whether black and white elites are getting together on weekends to gabble about race.

    But, dealing with it, Mr. Holder, will take courage.

    http://www.vdare.com/buchanan/090223_courage.htm

    • Steve
      February 24, 2009 at 8:29 am

      Thanks for posting AM, but please try to remember to excerpt more. Post only a third of the article at most.

      And please also remember to note the source.

  34. BillK
    February 24, 2009 at 9:45 am

    But I thought this type of thing wasn’t supposed to happen with His Majesty in office.

    From a sympathetic AP:

    Wisconsin soldier says he won’t return to Iraq

    By James A. Carlson

    A Wisconsin Army Reservist refused to leave Friday to return to his unit in Iraq, saying he’s become disillusioned with the U.S. role there.

    Spc. Kristoffer Walker of Green Bay said he sent an e-mail to his squad leader, platoon sergeant and company first sergeant in Iraq, stating he won’t return from his two-week leave.

    The 28-year-old Walker has served with the 353rd Transportation Company out of Buffalo, Minn., which deployed to Iraq in October. He said he was a truck driver for the first two months, and since then he’s worked in the headquarters office.

    Walker said in a telephone interview from Green Bay on Friday night that he originally enlisted in the Army in February 2002, motivated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and served a tour in Iraq as an infantryman. After four years active duty, he later joined the Reserves.

    He said he now views the Iraq war as “an illegitimate, unnecessary campaign,” and he feels that by making him take part, the government broke the contract under which he agreed to defend the U.S.

    “I feel absolutely justified in doing what I’m doing now based on their breach of the initial contract,” he said.
    Walker had been scheduled to fly to Atlanta Friday and then rejoin his unit.

    In the e-mail, he said he would contact a local Reserve unit to see if he can work there until he either gets transferred to finish out the final year of his enlistment or gets arrested.

    He hadn’t heard back from the military by Friday night.

    An Army spokesman said that after 30 days Walker could be arrested as absent without leave, which could lead to trial for desertion.

    Army Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said Walker should return to duty and petition to be reassigned as a conscientious objector, adding that “he’s letting his battle buddies down.”

    “Spc. Walker was very much aware when he raised his right hand and swore to defend the Constitution, to defend us from foreign and domestic threats, he was fully aware he could be deployed,” Banks said Saturday.

    Because leave is granted on a rotational basis, Walker’s refusal to return could mean another soldier’s leave will be denied, Banks said.

    Walker said he doesn’t fit the military’s definition of a conscientious objector, because he sees a legitimate purpose for warfare, as in retaliating when attacked.

    He said he put in a request in December for a transfer out of Iraq, but it was denied. When he pursued it again, he said the effort ended the day before he left on leave, when he got an angry response that left him little hope of getting the request considered. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/news/top5/439938

    Because, you know, it’s just so hard for a soldier in Iraq, working in the headquarters office.

    Why the atrocities he’s seen – two copies of a form intended to be completed in triplicate!

    The paper cuts he’s suffered! Get this man a Purple Heart!

    Naturally, with Dems controlling the White House and Congress, he’ll probably be transferred to a detail at the White House…

    • pdsand
      February 25, 2009 at 2:11 am

      I know R&R leave is granted as a matter of fact to Soldiers, but really, and honestly, why did they ever give this particular Soldier the leave in the first place, considering he had talked to everyone except santa clause about wanting out? And what exact breach of contract is he claiming? His time in the reserves is always subject to recall to active duty, just in case there should be a war on, or something.
      However, this is 100% in line with the Democrat position that it is an individual’s responsibility to take a directive or order from the President of the United States, and decide on his own moral grounds whether to follow or not.
      In which case, I wonder why the judge from Guantanamo Bay hasn’t gotten his own reality show now, for deciding that he would rather not follow Obama’s executive order to suspend the trial of the terrorist he was presiding over.

    • canary
      February 25, 2009 at 6:55 am

      I guess Walker missed the Obama speech last night. “We are not quitters”.

    • 12 Gauge Rage
      February 26, 2009 at 9:39 am

      Going to war and the possibility of getting wounded or dying in a foreign land comes with the territory when you join the military. The purpose of the military is simply this: To kill people and break their stuff. Medical, dental, and educational benefits are just small perks. The military doesn’t have to spell it out word for word what it plans to do with you once you enlist.

    • proreason
      February 26, 2009 at 11:12 am

      “He said he now views the Iraq war as “an illegitimate, unnecessary campaign,”

      Right on bro!!

      As for me, “I now view paying taxes and supporting the current government as an illigitimate and unnecessary activity” and shall henceforce not participate.

      Ain’t it great to live in a country where you can do exactly what you please.

      And oh yeh, where is the gubmint benefits hand-out line today?

  35. wardmama4
    February 24, 2009 at 10:56 am

    Here is another soldier story – with a different twist:

    Soldier doubts eligibility,
    defies president’s orders
    By Bob Unruh
    © 2009 WorldNetDaily

    A U.S. soldier on active duty in Iraq has called President Obama an “impostor” in a statement in which he affirmed plans to join as plaintiff in a challenge to Obama’s eligibility to be commander in chief.

    The statement was publicized by California attorney Orly Taitz who, along with her Defend Our Freedom Foundation, is working on a series of legal cases seeking to uncover Obama’s birth records and other documents that would reveal whether he meets the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.

    http://tinyurl.com/cznj9b

    ***************
    Interesting – imagine The One’s ™ problem when soldiers continue to refuse to serve & follow orders –

    Where is the unity, peace, sunshine and kumbya singing crowds? We have ACORN activists and entitlement crowd breaking into homes, we have soldiers refusing to serve The One ™, we have a Chicago Tea Party brewing inspired by an exchange reporter. Both sides seem to be not all that happy, things are not looking good for The One ™ – and it’s not even the first 100 days. Oh my

    • MinnesotaRush
      February 24, 2009 at 6:08 pm

      Good grab there. wardmama, .. and thx for the heads up.

      a friend of mine sent me an e-mail on this one, too.

      …. from WorldNetDaily .. “Soldier questions eligibility, doubts president’s authority” .. and he (the soldier) is quoted as saying: “As an officer, my sworn oath to support and defend our Constitution requires this” .. (challenging o-blah-blah’s authenticity/eligibility).

      God bless this soldier for his courage and conviction. I’m sure there are a lot of our service folks that are caught in a quagmire of emotions and thought over what they’re seeing going on in and with their country. God Bless and Protect them, all!

  36. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 24, 2009 at 11:39 am

    If ture, America is over as we know it, from a typical USAtoday “polling of America”

    Public to feds: Help regular folk first

    By Susan Page, USA TODAY
    As President Obama outlines his priorities to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Americans overwhelmingly support new spending to help individuals — including creating jobs and rescuing struggling homeowners — but oppose bailouts for automakers and banks.
    A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday finds that the new president, with a reservoir of support and a 62% job approval rating, still has a selling job to do with an anxious public focused on the economy.

    PRIME TIME: Obama takes big agenda to TV

    On Obama’s plan to help some homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages, a 59% majority call the aid “necessary” — but a 51% majority also call the taxpayer-funded rescue “unfair.”

    “Look, the American people are pleased with the direction Barack Obama is taking, but there are still parts of the economic recovery plan that people are not sure about,” says Simon Rosenberg of NDN, a Democratic-leaning think tank. “He has to make it very clear that his focus is on the struggle of everyday people, and not on those with means.”

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/w.....poll_N.htm

    To sum up the “poll:”

    83% Favor funding government programs to create jobs
    67% Favor giving aid to state in finacial trouble
    64% Favor giving aid to homeowners facing foreclosure
    41% Favor giving aid to automakers facing bankruptcy
    39% Favor giving aid to banks in danger of failing

    So 64% of America is in favor of giving money to irresponsible deadbeats who didn’t earn the money, nor deserve it. But just because the big evil bank is taking their home we need to give them money. The day America stopped being a country believing in hard work and responsibility to become a country were a majority of people think they deserve material possession and are entitled to what ever they want is the day the America died. I’m convinced it is no longer worth saving. There aren’t enough people to salvage her anymore. There are too many people so dependant upon the system to take care of them they would die if we pulled the plug. To think people are screaming about job losses and mortgage foreclosures and there are still jobs Americans will not do, the nerve of these people! Those who work hard and pay bills have become out numbered by those who just want to lay around and have the government give them everything they’ve ever wanted. Thanks to 60 years of Democrat welfare programs that encouraged rampant breading to get bigger welfare checks and a larger subsidized home, the dependants of the state have vastly outnumbered the hard working moral American who only had one or two kids because that is all they could afford. If social security is in trouble because there are more people collecting than paying, imagine where welfare is going to be in a few years. When will the people pull the heads out of their butts and realize that you have to EARN the things you want, and not everybody will be able to have all the material possessions they want or as much as their neighbor. There will always be the haves and have not’s, to go from one to the other you just have to work harder. That is the American dream, not entitlement.

  37. caligirl9
    February 24, 2009 at 6:43 pm

    An op-ed piece from that famous birdcage liner,The New York Times

    The I’s Have It
    When President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.
    Grammar junkies.
    Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”
    The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”
    … For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples…
    Why did these 19th-century wordies insist “I” is “I” and “me” is “me”? They were probably influenced by Latin, with its rigid treatment of subject and object pronouns. For whatever reason, their approach stuck — at least in the rule books.
    Then, why do so many scofflaws keep using “I” instead of “me”? Perhaps it’s because they were scolded as children for saying things like “Me want candy” instead of “I want candy,” so they began to think “I” was somehow more socially acceptable. Or maybe it’s because they were admonished against “it’s me.” Anybody who’s had “it is I” drummed into his head is likely to avoid “me” on principle, even when it’s right. The term for this linguistic phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”
    A related crime that Mr. Obama stands accused of is using “myself” to dodge the “I”-versus-“me” issue, as when he spoke last November of “a substantive conversation between myself and the president.” The standard practice here is to use “myself” for emphasis or to refer to the speaker (“I’ll do it myself”), not merely as a substitute for “me.” But some language authorities accept a looser usage, and point out that “myself” has been regularly used in place of “me” since Anglo-Saxon days.
    Our 44th president isn’t the first occupant of the White House to suffer from pronounitis. Nos. 43 and 42 were similarly afflicted. The symptoms: “for Laura and I,” “invited Hillary and I,” and so on. (For the record, Nos. 41 and 40 had no problem with the objective case, regularly using “Barbara and me” or “Nancy and me” when appropriate.)
    But an educated speaker is expected to keep his pronouns in line. Here, then, is a tip, Mr. President. Nobody chooses the wrong pronoun when it’s standing on its own. If you’re tempted to say “for Michelle and I” in tonight’s speech, just mentally omit Michelle (sorry, Mrs. Obama), and you’ll get it right. And no one will get on your case.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....onner.html

    I confess I am a grammar nazi, even though sometimes my writing on this blog doesn’t necessarily reflect that. I’m more of a punctuation perfectionist, although I recognize there are many writing styles and plenty of rules. But I do get ticked off when the wrong word is used (I versus me is one, toward versus towards is another. Yes, I know towards is in the dictionary, but the correct usage is toward [towards is archaic]. Insure versus ensure is yet another common gripe I frequently encounter in my editing adventures.).

    Bush-isms (and Clinton-isms too) were a source of irritation, because when a person doesn’t speak in an intelligent, precise manner, one could argue the listener is less likely to take those words seriously. The “package” that 51 percent of the nation voted on is supposed to be a fine orator, a genius in the ilk of Einstein, the one who will save us all.

    Isn’t almost everything that comes out of TCO’s mouth (or through his earpiece; is that in use yet?) highly scripted? Maybe his script writer needs to go back to English 1A or his or her oral communication (speech) class and brush up on proper grammar and word usage?

    • proreason
      February 24, 2009 at 6:45 pm

      The Moron is redefining grammar.

      He won

    • caligirl9
      February 24, 2009 at 6:57 pm

      proreason, you forgot a period. LOL (I type that with immense love and respect!)

      That is probably exactly what his explanation is!!!

    • Barbie
      February 26, 2009 at 9:21 am

      Obama’s grammatical skills are the least of this country’s worries – Obama needs to work on improving his ‘honesty skills’ – which, as far as I can tell, are indeed lacking. And he needs to improve on his math skills, too – you know, he needs to learn to appreciate the differences between billions and trillions… Excuse me, the correct word is ‘difference’. My bad. :)

  38. jobeth
    February 24, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    There, their
    To, too, two
    Know, no
    Dew, do, due
    “She had went to the store.”

    These and a number of others are my pet gripes. I’m always on my granddaughter, bless her.

    Having said that, I have typed “there” when it should have been “their” and “to” when it should have been “too”.

    So if any of you out there see any of these or other stupid mistakes in my posts, I hope you’ll understand I didn’t proof read it like I should have. =:-O But I do know the differences. LOL

    But I understand your point.

    I truly don’t think many kids today even know they made a mistake. That is the sad part. I guess the gov. schools don’t have time to teach grammer now. Too busy teaching the kids how to have sex with no responsibility.

  39. MinnesotaRush
    February 24, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    “Obama Vows US ‘Will Emerge Stronger’ President Delivers Prime-Time Speech Before Congress
    By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP

    to paraphrase :

    The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Help! Help! The sky is falling!

    King o-blah-blah :
    “Offering words of reassurance to an anxious nation, declared, “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

    The next day King o-blah-blah said :
    The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Help! Help! The sky is falling!

    and that evening King o-blah-blah :
    “Offering words of reassurance to an anxious nation, he declared, “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

    The next day King o-blah-blah said :
    The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Help! Help! The sky is falling!

    and that evening King o-blah-blah :
    “Offering words of reassurance to an anxious nation, he declared, “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

    The next day .. and the next day .. and the next day ….
    0-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah ……..
    (you get the idea – “Ya can’t waste a good crisis, ya know)

    The problem isn’t a shortage of fuel; it’s a surplus of government.” —Ronald Reagan
    .. and it simply hasn’t changed …

    • JohnMG
      February 24, 2009 at 10:48 pm

      Whenever I hear him talk I get the impression he’s trying to convince himself of what he says. Kinda like Dorothy in the Wizzard of Oz–”There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”

  40. sheehanjihad
    February 24, 2009 at 11:02 pm

    Welcome to the Nuremburg Rally of 1936.

  41. pdsand
    February 25, 2009 at 2:30 am

    “But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it; scores of communities depend on it; and I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

    That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Obama doesn’t know that France and Germany invented the automobile before we started.

    “Over — over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector, jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, constructing wind turbines and solar panels, laying broadband and expanding mass transit.

    Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis, [Minnesota] tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.”

    That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Out of the promised 3.5 million, Obama can point to the concrete example of nearly sixty in Minneapolis. That’s pretty close to 3.5 million.

    “In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry”

    That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Obama doesn’t know that the transcontinental railroad was completed against all odds in 1869, 4 years after the civil war. Construction on one end, the Union and Pacific from the east did not begin until after the war because of logistic concerns.

    • sheehanjihad
      February 25, 2009 at 7:04 am

      One of the benefits of making sure that American History is no longer taught, and if it is, it has been revised to fit political agendas instead of remaining accurate.

  42. BillK
    February 25, 2009 at 3:49 am

    From the Madison, Wisconsin site “77 Square”:

    City wants Majestic Theatre’s owners to pay for ‘air space’

    By Katjusa Cisar

    Majestic Theatre owners Matt Gerding and Scott Leslie showed up to the Madison Municipal Court Monday morning in dress shirts, ready to dispute the city over an ordinance violation.

    The courts didn’t receive the required paperwork from the City Attorney’s Office, however, and after 20 minutes of confusion and a couple of phone calls, a city official determined that the city attorney handling the case was out sick. They’d have to reschedule.

    For Gerding and Leslie, it was just one more knot in the bureaucracy of city government.

    “We could have been booking shows right now,” Gerding said with a sigh.

    The city has filed a complaint against Gerding and Leslie for refusing to pay an annual encroachment fee of $1,020 related to the music venue’s marquee, decorative molding and underground vault.

    Although the decorative molding and marquee — which Gerding and Leslie spent about $10,000 refurbishing two years ago — are part of the historic Majestic building at 115 King St., they both technically invade “air space” owned by the city of Madison.

    An unused underground vault, possibly originally intended for coal delivery, extends into the city’s jurisdiction by jutting out underneath the sidewalk behind the Majestic on Doty Street. Property owners with such vaults can either pay the encroachment fee or fill the area with cement. The city is offering to pay half of the $100,000 cost to fill in the Majestic’s vault, but Gerding and Leslie said they still couldn’t afford that.

    Gerding and Leslie are hardly the first property owners to take issue with the city ordinance, according to downtown Ald. Mike Verveer. But they’ve taken it a step further by actually refusing to pay, which has forced the city to file the complaint against them.

    It’s not really about the money, they say. They’re hoping their case will help change the law.

    “We went through considerable expense to refurbish (the marquee),” said Leslie. Preserving a historical building like the Majestic, which was built in 1906, “should be rewarded and not penalized. If the City Council was serious about mixing in old with the new, there would be protection.”

    “It’s more the principal of the matter,” added Gerding. They could afford the yearly fee, but it’s just one of many city taxes and fees that are starting to pile up. The property tax for their building jumped from $13,000 in 2007 to more than $25,000 in 2008. And they recently banded together with their neighbors on King Street to have their block included in the Business Improvement District map of downtown. The Majestic’s portion was $900.

    “The city continually comes to us with its hand out. Suddenly the city is taxing what could be a new employee,” said Leslie. “The point is that, as the law is written, every business downtown should have to pay (encroachment fees).”

    Enforcement of the ordinance appears to be spotty. There are approximately 250 encroachment agreements currently maintained by the Madison Office of Real Estate Services, according to city real estate agent Jerry Lund.

    But the city does not go “around with a clipboard looking for violations. It’s triggered by new development or changes” to buildings, said Verveer. …

    http://77square.com/citylife/features/story_440177

    Not only that, but if they had removed the marquee, I’m sure Madison’s historical committee would have been all over them for that, too.

    You’ve got to love it when the game is rigged against you, but that’s life in a liberal-run world.

    But we’ll all know that all too soon, thanks to him.

    If anyone who cares doesn’t already.

  43. BillK
    February 25, 2009 at 4:12 am

    From the Treason Times’ blog on The Chosen One’s speech:

    Check Point

    9:54 p.m. My colleague Micheline Maynard weighs in from Detroit. Early on in this speech, Mr. Obama renewed his commitment to helping the beleaguered, crippled auto industry and ended on a note about not letting down the nation that invented the automobile.

    Nope, says Micheline:

    President Obama says, “The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.” Mr. Obama would get one wrong on the quiz I give my MBA students at U-Mich. The automobile was NOT invented in the U.S. It was invented in Mannheim, Germany, in 1885, by Karl Benz. Better to say, “The nation that perfected mass production of the automobile” since Henry Ford definitely gets credit for that.

    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....-congress/

    But why should facts bother him now? Not when there are so many just out and out lies to propagate…

    • canary
      February 25, 2009 at 6:48 am

      Yes, and Obama forgot another part of Ford’s history. Ford was extremely greedy, and often he did it for fun. He bankrupted other railroads by giving people free train rides, til othe railroads went under. Or maybe he does know that bit of history about Ford, sincing he’s trying to bankrupt the car manufactures for his universal car, which probably he will pick Ford for.

    • BillK
      February 25, 2009 at 7:22 am

      Whoops, missed pdsand’s comment on this same issue above as I thought it was just a comment on an earlier post…

  44. Bronson
    February 25, 2009 at 4:19 am

    Al Gore invented the automobile, remember? It wasn’t very long ago…

  45. BillK
    February 25, 2009 at 9:33 am

    Be sure to swallow before reading this, though you may just vomit instead.

    From the Obama groupies at USA Today:

    Obama on TV: The camera clearly loves him

    By Robert Blanco

    Considering how often he’s on it of late, it’s a good thing President Obama is so good on TV.

    That mastery of the medium was on display again in last night’s sometimes-stirring address to Congress, the latest in his month-long spate of TV appearances. The speech itself was hardly unprecedented: Every president since Ronald Reagan has addressed Congress in February of his first term. But it does cap an unusually busy streak that included rounds of interviews with network and cable anchors, near-daily speeches, televised town hall meetings and, most notably, two prime-time events: a press conference early in the month and this congressional appearance near the end.

    Of course, even had he wanted to, no president before the age of cable could have made as many appearances as Obama because the outlets were not available. And even Obama will not be able to command prime time at will going forward, because the networks’ economic self-interest will eventually cause them to resist. But we do seem to have hit one of those rare confluences where a president’s desire to be seen and TV’s desire to show him are in perfect accord.

    You could see why last night in a speech mixing a rundown of problems and programs with an often-impassioned call to economic arms. And in a visual medium, there’s the sheer power of that historic image: the first African-American president standing in that iconic spot, symbol and essence of American democracy.

    Like the best political speakers, Obama has two distinct TV personas: the formal version on dominant display last night, and the informal one showcased in the town meetings. What sets him apart is not his ability to switch between them — the “nobody messes with Joe”-type asides that break the pattern — but the way he makes the two styles mesh. Even at his most informal, he maintains his eloquence and command of the language and his talent for a turn of phrase; and at his most formal, he has an ability to project empathy that rivals Reagan’s. At times, his obvious intelligence can read as disdain, but more often he comes across as the coolest man in the room — a rare TV gift. …

    http://www.usatoday.com/life/t.....view_N.htm

    Just wow.

  46. BillK
    February 25, 2009 at 9:38 am

    Not to be outdone, the Washington Post needs to slobber over Obama, too.

    The Assurance of Smooth Talk Along the Country’s Rough Road

    By Tom Shales

    President Obama, who gave his first speech to a joint session of Congress last night, doesn’t seem capable of bad speeches. Although this one began after unfortunate delays and with a slight parliamentary slip-up, he maintained his admirably high standards with a kind of state-of-the-Union speech that wasn’t officially a State of the Union speech.

    It wasn’t so much one big speech, in fact, as a couple of dozen little speeches fastened together, each building to its own climax and, usually, to a promise of better times — a message the networks were buzzing out to millions of anxious folks at home.

    Obama, at one point, referred to America’s deepening and debilitating recession as a “predicament.” But for the record, the state of the Union is going to get better. Like the man in the clothing-store ads, Obama seemed to be saying, “I guarantee it.” At several points in the speech, he even sounded gratifyingly firm and unyielding, as when he said of the blight of outrageously overpaid CEOs, “Those days are over.” Or when he promised, to thunderous applause, an end to “no-bid contracts that have wasted billions of dollars in Iraq.”

    The president pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. He promised that by 2020, America would again lead the world in percentage of college-educated adults. He vowed to reform health care and to find “a cure for cancer in our time.” Whew! It all sounded so nice.

    On more than one occasion, Republicans joined Democrats in applauding or rewarding the president with a standing ovation. Actually, there was too much applause and ovating, as has long been a tradition no matter how good or bad a speaker the president was. Obama, knowing that excessive interruption is counter-effective, sometimes spoke right through the applause and cheers, not always waiting patiently for them to subside.

    For all his oratorical skills, however, it seems very likely that Americans who watched the speech probably are not terribly eager to see another one soon. There has been criticism that after eight years of a president who often seemed to be in hiding, the nation now has a president who won’t seem to relinquish the TV cameras to anybody else — a president who, as George Will said recently on ABC’s “This Week” program, is too “in-your-face” for his own good. …

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....04247.html

    Wow, Obama’s promising a cure for cancer now, too! He really is the Messiah.

    Nice also to see that Obama will apparently be implementing wage controls, as except for banks taking future bailout money, not only does he have no control over what CEOs make, it’s none of his damn business.

  47. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 25, 2009 at 4:36 pm

    From FOXnews:

    Racist Music Just a Download Away on Mainstream Music Sites

    Wednesday, February 25, 2009
    By Joshua Rhett Miller

    unlikely to find CDs by groups like Skrewdriver and Brutal Attack sold alongside the latest hits from Rihanna and the Jonas Brothers at your local retailer.

    But the white-power punk bands’ ballads are just a click away online.

    With song titles like “Skinhead Superstar” and “White Warriors,” white-power bands and other hate-music recording artists have found a home in places like Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com.

    And with nothing more than a credit card, users can purchase — among other offerings — CDs by the proudly racist country singer Johnny Rebel, with songs such as the catchy little ditty “Coon Town.”

    ….Nora Flanagan, a spokeswoman for the activist group Turn It Down, which lobbies against objectionable music, said the companies have every right — and a social obligation — to remove the songs from being sold on their sites.

    Citing a “tag system” on the retail sites that links them to mainstream bands like U2 and Motorhead, she said the purveyors of hate music have benefitted greatly from their online exposure.

    “The racist right is really taking advantage of the room Amazon is giving them,” Flanagan said. “We’re not talking about a First Amendment issue here. They’re a business and they have a right not to sell whatever they want. It’s a business decision they’re making …

    “It’s absolutely their right to sell it,” she said, “but it could be their choice not to — if they wanted to take a stand on it.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,500104,00.html

    While distasteful, these people have a right to express their opinion. If you do not allow objectionable speak, you do not have free speech. Unfortunately there will always be nut jobs on both sides of the isle. I don’t see them objecting to eco-terrorist propaganda or Black supremacy music (which there is a lot more of than white supremacy music), two groups who are filled with hate and seek to do harm to others.

    And of course she couldn’t help taking a shot at the right. We are all racists now.

  48. JohnMG
    February 25, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    Why does it seem that moonbats always have names like Nora…….or Bernadine…….or Jane…….or………?

  49. proreason
    February 25, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    Did you miss “universal accounts” in The Moron’s pack-of-lies last night?:

    Liberals Freak Out Over Obama’s “Universal Accounts

    As we recently discussed, one of the options for the federal government is to “default” on what it owes Social Security. In other words, it could change the deal and save money by paying seniors less than what they feel they were promised. It’s not pretty, but it has advantages. Seniors aren’t going to go to war on us if we default on them. Also, many seniors have gotten a tremendous deal, and if you incorporate Social Security into a holistic view of US finances, this is clearly a gigantic burden.

    With the economy under so much stress, it finally feels like there may be some political will to do something about the entitlements mess. It’ll still be as painful and difficult as pulling Nancy Pelosi’s teeth but it could happen. Obama made a slight nod to it last night with his support of “Universal Savings Accounts”, new tax-free self-controlled retirement accounts.

    The folks at Democratic Underground, the loudest liberal message board on the web, are freaking out over this. They think OBAMA IS THE SECOND COMING OF DUBYA AND THAT HE’S GOING TO KILL SOCIAL SECURITY. So that’s a positive sign right there.

    Tyler Cowen has more on the accounts:

    This is probably Gene Sperling’s idea and the key question is how much is “carve out” from existing benefits and how much is “add on.” In any case doing this reform at Dow = 7,000 makes more sense than doing it at Dow = 11,000. It’s even a way to boost stock prices (and possibly confidence?) though presumably it involves borrowing yet more money.

    When you consider the speech as a whole, Obama is promising the largest and most ambitious attempt at rate of return arbitrage in the history of the human race.

    Obama’s speech was very effective but it is mostly about borrowing more money. It is odd that in a time when capital markets and attempted arbitrage have so failed us the solution is to resort to…capital markets and attempted arbitrage.

    http://www.businessinsider.com.....mas-2009-2

    BTW, I’m opposed to any form of Universal Accounts for Social Security.

    The reason is that anybody that makes a dime less than somebody else on their investments, regardless of the reason, will be raising a hissy fit about it, and of course, will get their way. Drooling Barney, or some other nimrod will make it WWIV. So all Universal Accounts will do is screw YOU, and make it possible for THEM to get more of YOURS.

  50. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 12:10 am

    A great video clip from CNBC’s Kudlow Report that sums up what the Government’s micro-managing of banks and alleged “extravigant spending” is leading to – banks are bailing out of PGA tour sponsorships en masse, which will result in untold number of layoffs in the golf course industry and hospitality industry.

    Once again, if you work in a hotel or resort, your job apparently isn’t important any more, at least as far as Congress is concerned:

    Morgan Stanley announces it will scale back its memorial sponsorship, with CNBC’s Darren Rovell

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1045931012

    Kudlow is right – while Congress enjoys perks, trips to resorts and flights all over the world, they’ve effectively brow-beaten all banks into destroying the entire PGA tour.

  51. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 12:21 am

    From CNBC:

    Barney Frank Says ‘Marketing Should Change’

    By Darren Rovell

    Fresh off his objection of Northern Trust’s spending this past weekend, Rebecca Jarvis and I interviewed House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank to talk about how companies that have taken bailout money should advertise.

    What are the rules here? How do we separate rational advertising from this type of advertising?

    Frank: Well, common sense applies. It’s interesting. Bankers don’t have trouble figuring out some of these things until people are somewhat critical. Let’s be honest. I don’t think you do this primarily for advertising. I think it has a lot to do with ego. I don’t think people decide that they’re going to take a loan because they sponsored a golf tournament. By the way, what we have, the situation now, is where we’re told that loans are tough to get. It’s not as if there are, that the customers have all this choice. Advertising and marketing generally means you’re trying to attract a customer to you rather than to the other bank. But all the evidence we’ve gotten is that people are having trouble getting loans. So a bank willing to make loans doesn’t have to go out and give people a luxury hotel room. Secondly, the bank, I’m told, said we didn’t need the money and didn’t want it. They can pay it back. One of the things we did in the bill that just passed, because I anticipated this kind of argument, was make it clear any bank that believes they didn’t want the money and George Bush made them take it, that’s their argument, they have the option of paying it back without any penalty. So they have the option of paying the money back if they don’t need it or they have an option of living by the rules. And the rules are, of course, you can advertise. But advertising doesn’t mean taking a few favorite people, including some of your employees, and putting them up in a luxury hotel. What’s the marketing advantage of putting your employees up in a luxury hotel? The favored employees. While the other of course get fired.

    It seems like you’re questioning sports marketing or marketing in general with companies that have taken federal money here. So my question to you, then is Wachovia – obviously now owned by Wells Fargo—they took $25 billion in funds. They have a golf tournament in two months. Buick, obviously part of General Motors, they’ve taken $16 billion and are asking for more. What do you want these companies to do? Do you want them to cancel their deals now?

    Frank: Well, in the first place, you underposed the question. It wasn’t simply the sponsorship that was at issue, but the luxury hotels, taking employees, for example, and putting them in luxury hotels. I don’t know what the marketing argument is what that.

    But that happens with all sponsorships.

    Frank: Please, if you ask a question, I’ll try to answer it, but if you ask a question and cut off my answer I don’t know how to respond. This is the distinction I’m trying to make. You cannot bootstrap this. If the justification is marketing, bringing your brand to the attention of the public, presumably you do that by putting your name on a tournament. What’s that got to do with taking some of your employees and putting them up in luxury hotels? Again, the answer is with purely private money, they’re free to do what they wish. But if they’ve got federal taxpayer dollars, remember the dollars were put to them on the grounds, oh well, we don’t have enough money here. If they thought they had enough, then give it back. The other point I would make is this. These are not normal times. Marketing should change. The overwhelming argument we get is that it’s hard to get loans these days. The notion that there are—if you’re a borrower—a whole bunch of banks competing for your business is backwards. As far as Wachovia is concerned and throw in Merrill Lynch too, it does seem expensive sponsorship of a tournament shouldn’t survive the life of the entity that sponsored it… I do believe there is an element in the sponsorship of ego and of the bosses wanted to hobnob, etc. They’re entitled to do that with their own money. I do also want to stress again the luxury catering to people, employees and customers, I don’t think that’s marketing. I think that’s people wanting to have a good time.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/29374295

    See – it’s “hard to get loans,” so banks have no right to do any marketing.

    The notion that there are—if you’re a borrower—a whole bunch of banks competing for your business is backwards.

    The man long ago lost complete touch with reality, and this is just more proof.

    He also is now an expert on marketing:

    They say, “The Northern Trust Open is an integral part of Northern Trust’s global marketing activities, focusing on retaining and growing business with existing clients and attracting new clients. CPP funds are not allocated to operating expenses, including marketing, advertising, corporate sponsorship or charitable activities.” Let’s get your response on that.

    Frank: First of all, we talk about their employees and others who are getting these purposes. The notion (that) this is basic marketing belies common sense. This is kind of a perk a lot of people get. Beyond that, when they say it’s not used with the funds for the federal government, there’s a real inconsistency here. When we ask the banks to show us that they received federal money as capital infusions and then lent it out, they tell us, oh, we can’t do that because money is fungible. How can we possibly tell you that we lent this out or not? But when it comes to this, the accounting is more precise and they can tell us for sure this money wasn’t there, etc. Once again, the answer is simple. If they didn’t need the money and didn’t want it and this wasn’t involved, pay the money back. And if don’t pay the money back I’m going to be very skeptical of all of the money you just gave me.

  52. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 1:54 am

    From the People’s Republic of Boulder’s Daily Camera:

    Boulder Valley still mulling charter challenge

    By Vanessa Miller

    BOULDER, Colo. — Boulder Valley school board members over the next two weeks will consider whether to drop the school district’s twice-rejected lawsuit challenging a state charter program, ask for a new hearing or appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court.

    School board President Helayne Jones said members will publicly discuss and vote at their next board meeting, March 10, on how to proceed with the lawsuit, which has cost the district $198,695 to date.

    “The board will reflect thoughtfully and seriously in exploring our next steps,” Jones said.

    Superintendent Chris King said it’s up to the board to decide how to proceed with the lawsuit, which Boulder Valley and two other districts filed four years ago, after the Colorado Charter School Institute was established by the Legislature.

    “But the decision to pursue the lawsuit was made in more plush times,” King said. “It will be a harder decision to make in these times.”

    Three of the original seven members who supported the lawsuit when it was filed still remain on the school board.

    Growing demand for more charter schools in 2004 prompted the state to create a way to approve and manage charter schools without school district approval. Boulder Valley and some others sued because they believed the state was usurping their local control and pulling students from neighborhood schools. …

    http://www.dailycamera.com/new.....challenge/

    So the same school district that regularly cries poverty has spent almost $200,000 in efforts to sue the state because they don’t like charter schools (because, of course, they make the Boulder Valley School District look bad.)

  53. Flession
    February 26, 2009 at 1:55 am

    From a praising Huffington Post:

    MSNBC Cuts To Jindal With An Audible “Oh God”

    In case you missed it, there was an unfortunate bit of barely-audible editorializing as MSNBC switched from their on-air discussion of the forthcoming rebuttal from Bobby Jindal to the rebuttal itself.

    Listen closely as Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann leave off their discussion as Jindal comes into view of the camera. Someone with a live mike is overheard audibly expressing their disbelief with a sardonic, “Oh, God.”

    And honestly, it would be about fifteen whole seconds before that reaction was really appropriate.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....69697.html

    How fair and balanced of them.

    Oh, and a update! Apparently it was Chris Matthews…didn’t sound like the tingly leg guy.

    Chris Matthews Explains “Oh, God!” Utterance

    During today’s Hardball, Chris Matthews will address the moment last night when a live mic caught him muttering “Oh, God,” as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal came out to deliver the GOP rebuttal to President Obama’s address.

    Here’s a bit of what Matthews will say, according to an NBC spokesperson:

    I was taken aback by that peculiar stagecraft, the walking from somewhere in the back of this narrow hall, this winding staircase looming there, the odd anti-bellum [sic] look of the scene. Was this some mimicking of a president walking along the state floor to the East Room?

    Jindal has reportedly declined an invitation to appear on this evening’s edition of Hardball.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....69876.html

    And that makes it all better..

    • pdsand
      February 26, 2009 at 11:02 am

      You would think that it was a historic moment, an Indian governor standing in that place of power, the governor’s mansion of the state of Louisiana, right?

  54. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 2:21 am

    The biggest “duh” article in days, as we knew it was coming,

    From a cheerleading AP:

    Obama seeks higher taxes on rich to pay for plan

    By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Andrew Taylor

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is asking Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy and cut Medicare costs to provide health care for the uninsured while making the just-enacted $400 tax cut for most workers permanent.

    In a budget blueprint easily exceeding $3 trillion for 2010, Obama proposes setting aside $634 billion over the next decade to expand government subsidized health coverage – a little more than half the money needed to ensure that every American gets medical care.

    Obama is also expected to ask Congress for an additional $75 billion to cover the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

    The disclosures came from three administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the budget won’t be made public until Thursday.

    All told, the deficit for the ongoing 2009 budget year would reach $1.75 trillion, up from a $1.5 trillion estimate revealed just days ago by the White House. The increase seems to reflect concerns that more money may be needed to rescue banks and other companies.

    Obama’s budget proposal would effectively raise income taxes and curb tax deductions on couples making more than $250,000 a year, beginning in 2011. By not extending former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for such wealthier filers, Obama would allow the marginal rate on household incomes above $250,000 to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, said an administration official. Individuals making more than $200,000 would pay the higher rate.

    The plan also contains a contentious proposal to raise hundreds of billions of dollars by auctioning off permits to exceed carbon emissions caps Obama wants to impose on users of fossil fuels to address global warming. Some of the revenues from the pollution permits would be used to extend the “Making Work Pay” tax credit of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples beyond 2010 as provided in the just-passed economic stimulus bill. …

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

    Yeah, that’ll help the economy.

  55. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 2:44 am

    Government at work doing useful things.

    From a supportive AP:

    State bill requires probes of schools’ Indian logos

    Democratic lawmakers are proposing a bill that would require the state to investigate complaints about American Indian mascots in Wisconsin schools.

    If the complaints are justified, the state Department of Public Instruction would need to order the school to drop the mascot or logo within a year or face fines of up to $1,000 a day.

    A fiscal estimate attached to the bill says about 40 state schools use American Indian names, nicknames, logos or mascots. The estimate says costs to replace existing uniforms and other supplies would vary from school district to school district.

    http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/latest/440135

    Hey, it’s just taxpayer money, who cares?

    • Flession
      February 26, 2009 at 2:46 am

      Damn, Bill.

      Don’t you ever sleep? :P

    • canary
      February 26, 2009 at 3:52 am

      They are upset about that. When people were complaining about the redskins ball team, Oklahoma spent millions of an indian with his bow and arrow set on top of the state capitol. Also, the Indians won control over public gunshows in Oklahoma that they are the only ones that can sell collectable’s bumper stickers stuff you used to enjoy going for. And got a regulation passed, that no Anti-Clinton appareal or stickers could be sold at the gun shows. Meanwhile army surplus store’s can still sell, “Life’s a b****, why vote for one. Vote no Hillary Clinton. So, I would certainly use that and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, which is really more about the Indians, because the Indians way of life, they had pride. It was their culture. It’s keeping their culture alive.

  56. artboyusa
    February 26, 2009 at 6:08 am

    Excellent writing alert. Here’s the great Florence King commenting on, you know, Caroline Kennedy’s, like, failed senatorial ambitions in the February 23 issue of National Review: “Never before has it been more painfully obvious that money and celebrity have nothing to do with class. Caroline Kennedy is a pathetic dud; dull, boring, monotonal, tongue-tied, with a stoop-shoulderd, lumbering walk like that of someone pushing a plow”.

    “…like that of someone pushing a plow” -what a great image. Brilliant, just brilliant…

  57. artboyusa
    February 26, 2009 at 6:15 am

    Cathedral City to be Gaza Twin
    Fron the UK Daily Express:

    The genteel cathedral city of Worcester looks set to be twinned with Gaza City.

    A majority of councillors in Worcester decided they wanted to show support for the beleaguered Palestinian city.

    Worcester has fostered successful links with Kleve, Germany, Le Vesinet, France, and Worcester, Massachusetts.

    The latest partnership was supported by 29 of the council’s 35 members, with six abstentions, although the original recommendation was watered down from a proposal to a suggestion.

    But last night, as some residents of the city scratched their heads over the move, one of the councillors who abstained branded it as “gesture politics”.

    Labour councillor Jo Hodges said: “It’s not safe to travel, no delegation could go and meet the Gaza people.”

    Tory councillor David Tibbutt, who amended the resolution, said he wanted to ensure that the link would mean something.

    Labour councillor Alan Amos, who proposed the twinning, said: “It is a humanitarian gesture and not a political move.”

    The council’s Twinning Association will now consider the amended motion”.

    Worcester is the site of one of the oldest and most beautiful cathedrals (or “Grand Mosques”, as we’ll be calling them in fifty years) in the UK.

  58. BannedbytheTaliban
    February 26, 2009 at 10:35 am

    For those not attending the CPAC conference, you can watch it live from this link:

    http://www.ustream.tv/channel/.....-cpac-2009

    Some good stuff.

  59. sheehanjihad
    February 26, 2009 at 11:05 am

    when is the Blog of the Year award being presented? Anyone?

    • sheehanjihad
      February 26, 2009 at 11:19 am

      at 1pm saturday….right before Ann Coulter….got it, thanks!~

    • Steve
      February 26, 2009 at 11:52 am

      “at 1pm saturday….right before Ann Coulter….got it, thanks!”

      It’s a 1pm,. but I’m on right after Ann’s speech. But before her book signing.

    • sheehanjihad
      February 26, 2009 at 11:14 pm

      Ohhh, yeah, I didnt read BEFORE you were on….just needed to know WHEN you were on. It’s a proud day nonetheless, Boss.

  60. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    Calling Sheryl Crow:

    The Treason Times says soft toilet paper is a “moral choice” because it destroys the environment.

    Mr. Whipple Left It Out: Soft Is Rough on Forests

    By Leslie Kaufman

    Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed.

    The national obsession with soft paper has driven the growth of brands like Cottonelle Ultra, Quilted Northern Ultra and Charmin Ultra — which in 2008 alone increased its sales by 40 percent in some markets, according to Information Resources, Inc., a marketing research firm.

    But fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

    Customers “demand soft and comfortable,” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia Pacific, the maker of Quilted Northern. “Recycled fiber cannot do it.”

    The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns. Greenpeace on Monday for the first time issued a national guide for American consumers that rates toilet tissue brands on their environmental soundness. With the recession pushing the price for recycled paper down and Americans showing more willingness to repurpose everything from clothing to tires, environmental groups want more people to switch to recycled toilet tissue.

    “No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

    In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands. Most manufacturers use a combination of trees to make their products. According to RISI, an independent market analysis firm in Bedford, Mass., the pulp from one eucalyptus tree, a commonly used tree, produces as many as 1,000 rolls of toilet tissue. Americans use an average of 23.6 rolls per capita a year.

    Other countries are far less picky about toilet tissue. In many European nations, a rough sheet of paper is deemed sufficient. Other countries are also more willing to use toilet tissue made in part or exclusively from recycled paper.

    In Europe and Latin America, products with recycled content make up about on average 20 percent of the at-home market, according to experts at the Kimberly Clark Corporation.

    Environmental groups say that the percentage is even higher and that they want to nurture similar acceptance here. Through public events and guides to the recycled content of tissue brands, they are hoping that Americans will become as conscious of the environmental effects of their toilet tissue use as they are about light bulbs or other products.

    Dr. Hershkowitz is pushing the high-profile groups he consults with, including Major League Baseball, to use only recycled toilet tissue. At the Academy Awards ceremony last Sunday, the gowns were designer originals but the toilet tissue at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms was 100 percent recycled.

    Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill.

    Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25 percent to 50 percent of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.

    Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old.

    But Dave Dickson, a spokesman for Kimberly Clark, said that only 14 percent of the wood pulp used by the company came from the boreal forest and that the company contracted only with suppliers who used “certified sustainable forestry practices.” …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....armin.html

    In case you’ve forgotten, more trees are planted than are cut down.

    But hey, why not push something else to be “guilty” about.

    I’m sure the Obama administration will soon set minimum recycled content standards for TP.

    We can’t have Americans comfortable – this is just part of the “shared sacrifice” we must all face, right?

    • proreason
      February 26, 2009 at 9:33 pm

      I made the moral choice years ago to switch from the Slimes to kitty litter. Must have saved dozens of trees by doing that already.

      And the cat seems a lot happier to not get her paws all slimey.

    • sheehanjihad
      February 26, 2009 at 11:32 pm

      First of all, this aint Europe, and those slobs use whatever is handy because they DONT use regular toilet paper. I think they could use the reports from these environmental groups, but since they are covered with crap already, it’s an exercise in futility.

      For some reason, them saying that Kimberly Clark is razing old growth forest and removing the carbon absorbing second growth for bung fodder just hints at another “crisis” to keep the earthies in business.

      Sustainable re growth keeps Kimberly Clark in business, and it behooves them to do everything they can to keep pulpwood growing as fast as they can. Just because they plant I believe 8 seedlings for every tree removed, and they are practicing selective forestry harvesting, and trying their damndest to keep the product they need to survive growing like a sumbeetch incurring a sizable investment on their part to do so…….oh hell no!.

      “Moonbeam” and “Potato Vine” get their “Root of the Loom” hemp panties in a knot because they were told the companies were cutting Bristlecone Pines that are over 4000 years old to make one box of toothpicks, and of course, being raised in the past two decades of total crappola education, they take umbrage with it “cuz the Prof said so, maaaaaaaaaaan.”

      People need to look at some of the real problems here, such as the theft of an entire economy, and the rise of socialism that will make toilet paper unecessary, because all of those liberal gooney birds wont have a pot to crap in soon enough anyway. Bitching about fluffy toilet paper? Puffy shit tickets? Are you out of your mind? This is your agenda?

      Look kids, YOU use a cactus to clean your exit door, I will stick with what A: works, and B: doesnt leave a bandagable road rash behind….ok? Go protest the Gaza’s destruction by those other guys like the prof says you have to…save a used tuna can ….yeah, you are told not to like them, remember? Pick up some litter. Bathe. Get a lobotomy… do something, anything useful, just once in your tiny insignificant lives.

    • dulcimergrl
      February 26, 2009 at 11:40 pm

      SJ, you slay me! And every word you said is so true! sheesh, get life, you pencil-necked envirogeeks!

    • JohnMG
      February 26, 2009 at 11:41 pm

      I’m all for switching over to “John Wayne Toilet Paper” anyway. It’s rough. It’s tough. And it won’t take any shit of of anybody!

  61. JohnMG
    February 26, 2009 at 9:22 pm

    Maybe we could tolerate something less comforting if these liberal nut-jobs would quit sticking it to us at every turn in the road.

  62. Weasel
    February 26, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    From “LiveScience.com”

    Obama Gaffe: America Didn’t Invent Automobile
    By LiveScience Staff

    President Obama’s speech to Congress last night might have emphasized urgency over historical accuracy when he stated, “And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

    Many inventors contributed to the rise of the car in modern-day life. But the U.S. Library of Congress credits German inventor Karl Benz with creating the first true automobile that ran on an internal combustion engine.

    http://www.livescience.com/his.....gaffe.html

    Just imagine if W had said something like this? the MSM would have gone wild. But when “the One” does it, hardly a peep…

  63. JohnMG
    February 26, 2009 at 10:51 pm

    …….”Anyone want to make bets on what time on September 1, 2010 the elected Iraqi government is killed en masse?……”

    Anyone want to make bets on what time in September, 2010 the U S is hit with another terorist attack……if not before?

    • proreason
      February 26, 2009 at 11:02 pm

      Slightly different view here.

      re the walking dead Iraqi government, no issue.

      but re the U.S. getting hit again, there is a decent chance that the Islamofacists are saying to themselves…..”with this Moron, why should we bother hitting them again and pissing people off that could cause trouble for us. Around 2010, we can threaten to put a dirty bomb in NYC, and the Moron will grab his ankles.”

    • JohnMG
      February 26, 2009 at 11:13 pm

      When the Moron does, it’ll be the sign all but the clueless can’t ignore. Since I don’t really think he’s in charge anyway, bending over will only confirm the fact and emphasize his ineptitude. Then the real people will take over.

  64. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    Watch the Obama administration destroy the economy, part 4,216:

    From Fox News:

    Conservationist Move to Protect Pint-Sized Animals May Ruin Businesses in the West

    By Anita Vogel

    LOS ANGELES — It’s cute, it’s furry and some conservationists say it may soon be extinct because of global warming. But should the American pika be placed on the endangered species list?

    Yes it should, says Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. The center has sued the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to grant endangered species status to the pika, a runty relative of the rabbit that lives in the rocky areas of the Northwest.

    The rodent-sized creature has thick fur and is unable to survive in temperatures much warmer than 80 degrees.

    “The things that we need to do to protect the pika will also protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, our own quality of life and improve our economy,” Wolf sats.

    But an endangered species distinction carries with it a slew of tough federal environmental restrictions with serious ramifications for businesses across the U.S.

    “If these groups succeed, you’re talking about using the courts to impose a policy agenda essentially making illegal the source of the vast majority of our energy and therefore economic activity,” said Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and author of several books critical of climate change activists.

    Horner worries that restrictions on energy production would mandate a sharp cut in greenhouse gases and a regulation of carbon in the atmosphere, forcing businesses, manufacturers and energy producers to shut down across the country.

    Pika partisans, however, say that measures to protect the hamster-like animal would benefit humans as well. They say a healthy species is an indicator of a healthy planet.

    “The pika is a canary in the coal mine for global warming,” said Wolf, “so declines of the pika are an early warning of what’s to come if we don’t immediately reduce our greenhouse gas pollution.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,501384,00.html

    Remember according to Ted Danson, we’re already several years past the point of no return, so why bother?

    Isn’t it amazing how Global Warming is like the old Rodney Dangerfield joke about how his doctor gave him six months to live, and when he found out he couldn’t pay his bill gave him six more months.

    No matter what the date we must take action by some date in the future, or it will be too late.

    Then when that date passes, it’s still not quite too late…

    • Consilience
      February 26, 2009 at 10:59 pm

      The thug is an enemy of capitalism—and is seeking to destroy the fabric of our economy and replace with gov’t hand-outs/incentives/whatever-the-hell the nitwits who voted for him will accept. He is a menace and must be opposed.

    • Consilience
      February 26, 2009 at 11:04 pm

      This national government will kill Liberty. The folks in NH are on the right track—maybe it’s time to say—”no, thanks” and take our States out of this union.

    • proreason
      February 27, 2009 at 10:57 am

      “So, having inherited a recession, his words are creating a depression. He entered office amid a disaster and he is transforming it into a catastrophe, all to pass every last bit of government spending and move us a bit further to the left before his political capital dwindles.

      But the jig will be up soon. The crash of the stock market in the days since he took power (indeed, from the moment he won the election) can increasingly be attributed to his own failure to lead us in the right direction, his failed policies in addressing the recession and his own spreading of panic and fear. The market collapse makes it evident that it is Obama who is the problem, where he should, instead, be the solution”

      Dick Morris

  65. BillK
    February 26, 2009 at 11:35 pm

    Another one bites the dust.

    From the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

    Rocky Mountain News to close, publish final edition Friday

    The Rocky Mountain News publishes its last paper tomorrow.

    Rich Boehne, chief executive officer of Rocky-owner Scripps, broke the news to the staff at noon today, ending nearly three months of speculation over the paper’s future.

    “People are in grief,” Editor John Temple said a noon news conference.

    But he was intent on making sure the Rocky’s final edition, which would include a 52-page wraparound section, was as special as the paper itself.

    “This is our last shot at this,” Temple said at a second afternoon gathering at the newsroom. “This morning (someone) said it’s like playing music at your own funeral. It’s an opportunity to make really sweet sounds or blow it. I’d like to go out really proud.”

    Boehne told staffers that the Rocky was the victim of a terrible economy and an upheaval in the newspaper industry.

    “Denver can’t support two newspapers any longer” Boehne told staffers, some of whom cried at the news. “It’s certainly not good news for you, and it’s certainly not good news for Denver.”

    Tensions were higher at the second staff meeting, held to update additional employees who couldn¹t attend the hastily called noon press conference.

    Several employees wanted to know about severance packages, or even if they could buy at discount their computers.

    Others were critical of Scripps for not seeking wage concessions first or going online only.

    But Mark Contreras, vice president of newspapers for Scripps, said the math simply didn’t work.

    “If you cut both newsrooms in half, fired half the people in each newsroom, you’d be down to where other market newsrooms are today. And they’re struggling,” he said.

    As for online revenues, he said if they were to grow 40 percent a year for the next five years, they still would be equal to the cost of one newsroom today.

    “We’re sick that we’re here,” Contreras said. “We want you to know it’s not your fault. There’s no paper in Scripps that we hold dearer.” …

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....l-edition/

    Note that because of the reasons mentioned above, it’s unclear if the link will work after Friday.

    Unfortunately, the Rocky is the more conservative of Denver’s newspapers, and naturally the folks over at the hard left Post are already crowing that this further shows the GOP is dead and irrelevant.

    Truly sad, not because I was such a fan of the Rocky, but because it was on a day to day basis far less extreme to deal with than the Post and on many issues the only voice of sanity in the Denver mainstream press.

    • canary
      February 27, 2009 at 6:03 am

      Billk, I was thinking the same. I believe there were politics behind this, because The Rocky tells the truth more. Denver is going to the illegals.

  66. BillK
    February 27, 2009 at 5:28 am

    From Denver’s KUSA Television:

    Chaput calls Catholics servile toward Obama

    By Electa Drape

    DENVER – Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, on a book tour in Canada this week, stirred controversy with remarks about U.S. Catholics, who he says exhibit “a spirit of adulation bordering on servility” toward President Barack Obama, an abortion-rights advocate.

    “In democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs,” Chaput told more than 700 people in St. Basil’s Church on the University of Toronto campus, the Catholic News Agency reported.

    Reaction lit up cyberspace, and it ranged from admiration for his defense of Catholic doctrine on sanctity of life to furious perceptions that Chaput is insulting Catholic Democrats and improperly meddling in politics.

    Chaput’s speech focused on his new book on faithful citizenship, “Render Unto Caesar.”

    He called Obama “a man of intelligence and some remarkable gifts” who has great ability to inspire.

    “But whatever his strengths,” Chaput said, “there’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change.”

    Chaput said that modern society has “a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners but too often turns out to be cowardice.”

    Echoing remarks Chaput made before Obama’s election in November, the archbishop said that Catholics must form a strong and genuinely Catholic conscience and follow that conscience when they vote. He has called opposition to abortion the litmus test for being Catholic.

    “Tolerating grave evil within a society by itself is a form of serious evil,” Chaput said. …

    http://www.9news.com/news/loca.....;catid=346

    This is great stuff; Chaput continues:

    “It’s worth recalling that despite two ugly wars, an unpopular Republican president, a fractured Republican Party, the support of most of the American news media and massively outspending his opponent, our new president actually trailed in the election polls the week before the economic meltdown,” Chaput said.

    “Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That’s the mandate,” Chaput said. “They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion.”

    One of the few people that has the guts to tell it like it is.

    Thanks, Archbishop.Chaput, for proving that at least some Catholics still value truth over political correctness.

    Of course the usual loons are out in the replies:

    All these religions only beleive in brainwashing the weak ones such as those who can’t think for themselves. All religions are only out for your money and if they wish to give back, it usually isn’t back to you. How many “pastors, bishops,cardinals” travel coach? Not a one because they are using your money to buy planes, Mercedes, etc. I even knew one priest had a boat. The Catholic church is still in the dark ages and refuses to come to the light. That is why I am a recovering Catholic.

    You don’t get to pick and choose from the Catechism; if you disagree with Rome, that’s fine, that’s why there was a Protestant Reformation movement.

    But don’t condemn yourself to everlasting torment by continuing to call yourself a Catholic like Pelosi and Kennedy.

    • canary
      February 27, 2009 at 6:17 am

      I was raised Catholic, school and all. Now I’m am I plain Christian, but know that there were many things my Catholic unbringing has benifited and made me who I am. I heard after the election a Catholic Priest told his congregation the following Sunday, that those that voted for Obama could not recieve communion until the repented for voting for Obama, because of his partial-abortion stance. And on Pelosi’s recent trip to Rome, the only thing we heard that came out of that expensive trip was the Pope told her abortion was wrong. She nor her aids would comment on the trip. There is something sooo freaky about her. Only seen her without a smile once. Doesn’t matter if the subject matter is grave and everyone else is stoic or frowning. I think her main concern is her hair, make-up and lipstick. But, the stuff she says is garbage. Bleeping witch.

  67. dulcimergrl
    February 27, 2009 at 5:50 am

    “Recovering Catholic”.. good grief.

    As a Catholic, it saddens me to hear stuff like that. The church is run by imperfect humans, and mistakes get made. But that doesn’t negate its divine mission. Ok, off my soapbox now.

    I am finding I admire Archbishop Chaput more and more for his brave words.

    • JohnMG
      February 27, 2009 at 8:19 am

      Just so you all know, the high profile politicians aren’t the only ones to pull the wool over our eyes. This is the cookie-cutter response I got from one of my State’s senators on an issue of concern. They show nothing but thinly disguised contempt for us. Read below.

      Dear Mr. (JohnMG);

      Thank you for contacting me regarding the Freedom of Choice Act. I appreciate having your comments and welcome the opportunity to respond.

      Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Women, especially those victimized by rape and incest, deserve to have the access to emergency contraception and safe abortions if they so choose. There is a great deal of misinformation about this bill. This legislation would protect women’s reproductive rights whether they are women serving our country in the military overseas or a recipient of Medicaid. There is nothing in the bill that would require health care professionals to perform abortions nor does the bill mandate federal funding of abortions. This bill merely puts the current constitutional protections into law. It does however, prohibit the federal or state government from denying or interfering with a woman’s right to choose to bear a child.

      You should also know that this bill has not even been introduced in this session of Congress.

      I agree with you – our priority must be to prevent abortions. However, I believe that we must do this without criminalizing women and their doctors. That is why I am a strong supporter of S. 21, the Prevention First Act. This legislation would help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions, and improve access to women’s health care by increasing awareness about contraception and expanding Medicaid family planning services. S.21 was introduced on January 6, 2009 and referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions where it awaits further consideration.

      Again, I appreciate your taking the time to share your views. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding other matters of interest or concern to you.

      All best,
      Senator Claire McCaskill

    • Barbie
      February 27, 2009 at 6:53 pm

      All churches interested in the pro-life are to blame for not speaking out strongly and loudly AGAINST Obama for his extreme pro abortion stance. They want to protect their IRS status (gee, ACORN doesn’t have similar worries) so they didn’t want to get political. I say they should have screamed it from every pulpit that a vote for Obama was a vote against life. I’m sorry to offend anyone here, but I am Catholic and I heard over 40% of the C vote went to Obama – many, I guess, think Dems still care about the poor and deliberately ignore the abortion aspect.

      I am glad to hear Archbishop Chaput stand up and say these things, despite public backlash. But IMO, all Churches who support life let down the unborn by staying too quiet prior to the election. Unfortunately, Archbishop Chaput, people elected a ‘gifted’ man to fix the economy and along with that came his socialist agenda and a omplete disregard for the unborn – I’m sorry you didn’t say more BEFORE the election – and I will extend that complaint to every denomination/church who values the life of the unborn.

      p.s. JohnMG, Claire McCaskill is also my senator and you are so right about her attitude of disdain for the non liberal voter

    • dulcimergrl
      February 27, 2009 at 9:27 pm

      Just be grateful youse guys don’t live in California…we have the 2 worst senators in the country. I’ve sent e-mails to both those hags on numerous occasions, knowing it was a waste of time, but needing to feel like I’m doing SOMETHING. I always get a stupid canned answer back, if they bother to respond at all.

  68. BillK
    February 27, 2009 at 5:56 am

    From the (sigh) (Denver) Rocky Mountain News:

    Interior Department withdraws expanded oil shale leases

    By Roger Fillion

    WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has put the brakes on expanded research and development leases for Colorado and Utah oil shale, reversing a decision issued in the final days of President George W. Bush’s term.

    Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that his department will instead offer a second round of research, development and demonstration leases for oil shale in Colorado and Utah. It will withdraw the previous administration’s proposal for expanded RD&D leases.

    Salazar told reporters in a teleconference he wanted to further analyze the impact and feasibility of commercial oil shale development in the West.

    He called the Bush administration’s decision “premature.”

    “Those who have fantasized that oil shale is the panacea for America’s energy needs have been living in a fantasy land. … No one at this point in time can quantify how we’re going to get the carogen out of those rocks and what the associated costs are,” Salazar said. …

    http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....l-shale-l/

    (Note again – the link above may stop working at any time.)

    Well, I’m so glad that Salazar sees oil shale as a fantasy but wind and solar? Why those are real.

    Who needs that silly energy anyway.

    • dulcimergrl
      February 27, 2009 at 1:58 pm

      I worked at Occidental Research (the research arm of Occidental Petroleum) around 1978. The place was full of PhDs researching all kinds of energy modalities: solar, nuclear fusion, oil shale, tar sands, you name it. They were spending a lot of money then (remember Carter was the prez). I don’t even know if the company exists anymore (the building was demolished years ago). I’m also curious how much has been spent on all this. Doesn’t seem like much progress has been made since 1978.

  69. proreason
    February 27, 2009 at 11:02 am

    10% tax hike across the board already. More to come. From the only reporter with a pair in the msm, our newly beloved Jake Tapper:

    Obama’s Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011

    President Obama’s budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

    1) On people making more than $250,000.

    $338 billion – Bush tax cuts expire
    $179 billlion – eliminate itemized deduction
    $118 billion – capital gains tax hike

    Total: $636 billion/10 years

    2) Businesses:

    $17 billion – Reinstate Superfund taxes
    $24 billion – tax carried-interest as income
    $5 billion – codify “economic substance doctrine”
    $61 billion – repeal LIFO
    $210 billion – international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
    $4 billion – information reporting for rental payments
    $5.3 billion – excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
    $3.4 billion – repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
    $62 million – repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
    $49 million – repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
    $13 billion – repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
    $1 billion – increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
    $882 million – eliminate advanced earned income tax credit

    Total: $353 billion/10 years

    – jpt

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit.....get-a.html

    Key point…..starting in 2011. There is time to stop the madness before it destroys the country.

  70. caligirl9
    February 27, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    From our open-minded friends at the Associated Press. A fine example of political correctness run amuck.

    Southern California mayor to resign after e-mailing picture of watermelons on White House lawn

    The mayor of a small Orange County city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title “No Easter egg hunt this year.”
    Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at the City Council meeting on March 2.
    Grose came under fire for sending the picture to what he called “a small group of friends.” One of the recipients, a local businesswoman and city volunteer, publicly scolded the mayor for his actions.
    Grose says he accepts that the e-mail was in poor taste and has affected his ability to lead the city.
    Los Alamitos is a 2 1/4-square-mile city of around 12,000 people.

    I am gobsmacked by the stupidity. Something as inconsequential as this costs a guy politically, yet you have liars like Burris and the Clintons shrugging off any sense of impropriety and going on as if they’d done nothing wrong. At least Blagojevitch got his, but how long did that take?

    Bill Clinton’s legacy for me is, “What is the definition of sex?”

    • proreason
      February 27, 2009 at 3:27 pm

      Could it be a deliberate strategy of the radical left to make life so miserable for elected officials that honorable people will never run for office……thus allowing the dishonorable left to waltz in?

      That occured to me when I saw your post.

      Who is so perfect that he or she cannot be demonized about something, even such a trivial joke as is in the article.

    • caligirl9
      February 27, 2009 at 5:08 pm

      proreason, I would not argue that one bit. Because “inhaling” and other drug use is now acceptable, gotta find something else.

      Pseudo-racism/laughing at derogatory jokes is the new mortal sin. I mean, can anyone here admit to never laughing at and passing on an off-colored joke about blondes, Polish people, Irish people, Mexican people. If the “stereotype” from the joke is so offensive, maybe it’s time to work on the behavior that the joke points out (not all people of Irish extraction can drink like a fish [I can't] not all Mexican people lazy [they are among some of the hardest working people I know, until we messed 'em up and started treating them like pets, as if they could not take care of themselves], and many Germans who lived through WWII are still horrified at what HItler did and how long it took them to really get it. When I was a child, my mom and her parents got very angry at me when I asked if Hitler was a relative. He’s not … nowhere near! )

      I would never run for office, no matter how strong my convictions. I inhaled and have been underemployed for nearly 20 years now. I suck.

  71. sheehanjihad
    February 27, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    Read this, rub your eyes, and read it again. This is our “educators” at Harvard at work.

    I don’t know whether this belongs in the comic-relief category or the future-threats category, but the Harvard Law School is having a conference to analyze the “free market mindset.” The basic premise of the conference seems to be that people who believe in limited government are psychologically troubled.

    The conference schedule features presentations such as “How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community” and “Addicted to Incentives: How the Ideology of Self Interest Can Be Self-Fulfilling.” The most absurd presentation, though, may be the one entitled, “Colossal Failure: The Output Bias of Market Economies.” According to the description, the author argues that the market “delivers excessive levels of consumption.”

    From The Cato.org site….but still….

  72. proreason
    February 27, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    Fannie Mae wants another $15 billion bite of your wallet. From Forbes:

    Fannie Mae Goes Begging

    Spiraling loan defaults force mortgage financier to ask for more government money after a $59 billion loss in 2008. Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of mortgages in the U.S., is asking the government for $15.2 billion to restore it to solvency as more home loans go into default.

    Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM – news – people ) reported Thursday that it lost $25.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, as credit and real estate markets continued to deteriorate. That compared to a loss of $3.6 billion in the same period in 2007. At the end of last year, $119.2 billion worth of Fannie’s loans, or nearly 4%, were considered “non-performing,” meaning borrowers are no longer making payments.

    At one point the purchaser of over 40% of American home mortgages, which it packages into bonds that are sold across the globe, Fannie was seized by the U.S. government in September after spiraling losses threatened to impair the $3 trillion in outstanding “agency” bonds that Fannie guarantees against default. Fannie’s stock now trades for 49 cents a share, down from $27 a year ago and the company’s net worth is negative. Fannie shares moved a penny lower, or 2%, on Thursday. The Federal Housing Finance Agency now operates Fannie and its main rival, Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE – news – people ). The U.S. government has taken over their guarantees to mortgage bondholders.

    Meanwhile the company reported figures that show it is still buying plenty of loans and booking revenue on them. …

    http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/.....gs_35.html

    You can’t make this stuff up.

    And who can forget this classic from Drooling Barney:

    “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” Frank Opined to the Times. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” New York Times Sept. 11, 2003

    America, RIP

  73. BillK
    February 27, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    We knew this was coming, too.

    From a thrilled AP:

    AP Source: Obama to rescind Bush abortion rule

    By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to repeal a Bush administration rule that has become a flash point in the debate over a doctor’s right not to participate in abortions. The regulation, instituted in the last days of the Bush administration, strengthened job protections for doctors and nurses who refuse to provide a medical service because of moral qualms.

    A Health and Human Services official said Friday the administration will publish notice of its intentions early next week, opening a 30-day comment period for advocates on both sides, medical groups and the public.

    The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the notice has not been completed.

    The Bush administration rule was quickly challenged in federal court by several states and medical organizations. As a candidate, President Barack Obama criticized the regulation and campaign aides promised that if elected, he would review it.

    The news that he was doing so drew praise from abortion-rights supporters and condemnation from groups opposed to abortion.

    “It would be a horrible move. These regulations were a long time coming,” said Tom McClusky, a vice president at Family Research Council. “What they seek to do is protect patients, nurses, doctors and other health care professionals from being forced to violate their consciences.”

    McClusky and other abortion opponents said the Bush regulation clarified federal policies and raised awareness about the rights of medical providers to follow their consciences. But abortion rights advocates said it was vague and overly broad, and could reduce access to other services – allowing a drug store clerk to refuse to sell birth control pills, for example.

    “I think it’s a wonderful step,” Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who co-chairs the Congressional Pro-choice Caucus and has introduced legislation to overturn the regulation, said of Obama’s move.

    “That rule was actually a poorly drafted last-minute attempt to, I think, restrict health care access and I think it would have had far-reaching and unintended consequences.”

    Federal law has long forbidden discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or provide referrals for them on religious or moral grounds. The Obama administration supports those laws, said the HHS official.

    The Bush administration’s rule adds a requirement that institutions that get federal money certify their compliance with laws protecting the rights of moral objectors. It was intended to block the flow of federal funds to hospitals and other institutions that ignore those rights.

    But the Obama administration was concerned that the Bush regulation went too far and could also be used to refuse birth control, family planning services and counseling for vaccines and transfusions.

    The White House released a statement saying that Obama supports a “carefully crafted” conscience clause – not Bush’s version.

    “He believes this issue requires a balance between the rights of providers and the health of women and their families, a balance that the last-minute Bush rule appears to upset,” the statement said. …

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

    The amazing comment is simply this:

    But the Obama administration was concerned that the Bush regulation went too far and could also be used to refuse birth control, family planning services and counseling for vaccines and transfusions.

    Vaccines and transfusions?

    No, like the Republican’s simple requirement that union members be notified that they are entitled to a refund of their union dues used for political lobbying purposes that couldn’t be allowed to stand, the real issue here is:

    The Bush administration’s rule adds a requirement that institutions that get federal money certify their compliance with laws protecting the rights of moral objectors. It was intended to block the flow of federal funds to hospitals and other institutions that ignore those rights.

    So basically, if a doctor is fired for refusing to perform an abortion, let them sue and sit in court for years waiting for the case to come to trial.

    That’ll teach them.

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