"The difference is that instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are Sweetness and Light." - Jonathan Swift

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Selected News For Feb 28 – Mar 6

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.
  • Do not just post a link without noting the source, giving the headline and a brief excerpt from the article.
  • 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 28th, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

68 Responses to “Selected News For Feb 28 – Mar 6”

  1. Jason Gillman
    February 28, 2009 at 9:57 am

    Well.. To start it off, I should note there were dozens of “tea party” protests across the country.

    My wife and I attended the Michigan event in Lansing, and found a group of wonderfully determined protesters to the outrageous stimulus activity which has been going on. On http://michigantaxes.com/wordpress/ I have several shots and will be adding more over the next day or so. Malkin has links to others as well.

    The Police at the event expected only 50 protesters, but said there were 300 plus when I asked. The Lansing paper reported up to 250. At least 30 kids in attendance learning how we throw off the yoke of an oppressive government peaceably was a good sign.

    Speaking of GOOD SIGNS! Fox news, in a teaser showed my wife holding one of mine up to the camera.. lol.. My sign had its 15th of a second worth of fame.

    Overall Fun event with a serious message.

    • Liberals Demise
      March 1, 2009 at 2:37 pm

      NOT “The Beatles” Taxman

      Tax his land
      Tax his bed
      Tax the table
      At which he’s fed

      Tax his tractor
      Tax his mule
      Teach him taxes
      As a rule

      Tax his work
      Tax his pay
      He works for peanuts
      Anyway!!

      Tax his ties
      Tax his shirts
      Tax his shoes
      and tax his dirt

      Tax his tobacco
      Tax his drink
      Tax him if he
      Tries to think

      Tax his cigars
      Tax his beer
      If he cries
      Tax his tears

      Tax his cars
      Tax his gas
      Find other ways
      To tax his ass

      Tax all he has
      Then let him know
      that you won’t be done
      Till he has no dough

      When he screams and hollers
      Then tax him more
      Tax him till
      He’s good and sore

      Then tax his coffin
      Tax his grave
      Tax the sod
      In which he’s laid

      Put these words upon his tomb
      “TAXES DROVE ME TO MY DOOM…”

      When he’s gone
      Do not relax
      It’s time to apply
      The Inheritance Tax

    • brad
      March 4, 2009 at 9:46 pm

      I feel good about all that, but I think it’s too little too late. Let the socialists completely destroy America, then we can start over.

      Maybe then we can get rid of our oppressive police state (mostly law-n-order conservative’s fault)
      Our pathetic joke of a legal system.
      Our crappy public schools
      And our blood-sucking politicians and lawyers (pol pot had the right idea, to chop off the heads of all the country’s lawyers)

      Maybe under complete collapse, we can restart. But right now, I am cheering on the government to completely run out of money and FAIL, and any conservative trying to stop it, I have to ask…”Why?”

    • BigOil
      March 5, 2009 at 12:11 am

      “I am cheering on the government to completely run out of money and FAIL, and any conservative trying to stop it, I have to ask…”Why?””

      Uh…Because millions have either put their lives on the line or made the ultimate sacrifice defending our liberty. The least we can do to honor their sacrifices is put up a good fight against the enemy within.

  2. curvyred
    February 28, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    “Obama challenges lobbyists to legislative duel”

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

    “Insurance companies will dislike having “to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs,” the president said. “I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy.”

    I laughed and laughed until I cried when I read the above article, too funny and pathetic at the same time.

    Well I did enjoy lower gas prices.

  3. proreason
    February 28, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Now he tells us.

    Warren Buffet: “Home purchases should involve an “honest-to-God down payment of at least 10 percent,” Buffett said. “Putting people into homes, though a desirable goal, shouldn’t be our country’s primary objective.”

    ooops. Every once in a while the government makes an eentsy tiny mistake.

    no wonder we’re haveing problem. Warren goes on to tell us: ““the credit crisis, coupled with tumbling home and stock prices, had produced a paralyzing fear that engulfed the country,”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/.....=worldwide

    Thank god we have a genium who has never held a real job, run a business, or run anything else in his life in charge to see us through a crisis that even Warren Buffet, the most successful investor of all time, now acknowledges.

    And he looks great in jeans too, or so I’m told.

    • VMAN
      February 28, 2009 at 6:29 pm

      Does the Oracle Of Omaha realize that his old buddy the O hole in chief could rain down fire from ACORN and any number of other community organizing idiots at any moment? How dare he say such a thing as “Honest To God down payment”. What was he thinking?

  4. proreason
    February 28, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    New stealth tax in The Moron’s budget:

    Obama proposes to boost public airwaves fees

    WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The Obama administration’s proposed 2010 budget seeks to significantly boost the user fees the U.S. government charges holders of public airwaves held by many telephone and wireless companies.

    Yearly fees for spectrum licenses are proposed to rise to $200 million in 2010, from $50 million in 2009, according to the document posted on the Office of Management and Budget’s Web site.

    After that, the fees eventually increase to $550 million per user per year, totalling $4.8 billion over the next decade.

    In the government’s most recent spectrum auction, AT&T Inc(T.N) and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Vodafone Group and Verizon Communications (VZ.N) spent about $16 billion to get access to the airwaves.

    The Federal Communications Commission runs auctions for public spectrum.

    http://uk.reuters.com/article/.....3420090226

    This new hidden tax isn’t that much compared to the humongous spending in the Depression Stimulus bill, but it is indicative of what you can expect in spades in the next few years.

    Numerous “user fees” and other hocus-pocus that The Moron will deny are taxes, when in fact they just turn a business enterprise into The Moron’s tax collector.

    Carbon fees are the elephant we all know about, but this shows that other fees will be all over the place. There will be many others we haven’t heard of yet, including other varieties.

    Plus these sorts of taxes have the added benefit of looking like inflation, and The Moron will just blame inflation on Bush.

    • MinnesotaRush
      March 1, 2009 at 3:23 am

      This guy just ain’t gonna stop ’till he’s got it all is he???

      So the new tax form will be simplified. “How much did you make?” .. send it in!

  5. canary
    February 28, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Don’t know how to heavy print or do spelling check, but here goes. Go here for full article of the highlights of the article below

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....0228230439

    OBAMA SEE’S ‘TOUGHER TIMES’ FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS
    WASHINGTON (AFP)

    Obama sees ‘tougher times’ for African-Americans
    32 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – Acknowledging that “tough times for America often mean tougher times for African-Americans,” US President Barack Obama on Saturday called for more local and national engagement by fellow blacks.”You know that tough times for America often mean tougher times for African Americans. This recession has been no exception,” Obama told the 10th annual “State of the Black Union” gathering, noting that the unemployment rate among African-Americans is five points higher than the national average.

    “The new administration had done “more in these past 30 days to bring about progressive change than we have in the past many years,” the president said in prepared remarks, pointing to his 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan to revive the battered US economy.Obama also highlighted his audacious 3.55-trillion-dollar budget plan for 2010, which bristles with economic reforms and spending on healthcare, climate change and education in a bid to end America’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s.”You have tapped into a yearning in the community to address our toughest problems instead of leaving them for another day, or year, or generation,” Obama told the gathering.

    … And that is the work my administration has already begun.”Obama took heat for not attending the gathering last year. His former Democratic rival and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the only presidential candidate to accept an invitation.Michael Steele, the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), was also the first RNC leader to attend the forum.
    -end of article.

    My opinion is, these statments goes along the path of Obama covering his left base, or all his bases, for his mania of narcissistice actions,fibs, which many only see as his delusional fairy tales. Obama is not baffling. His mania cunning, calculated, well planned, and deliberate.
    While I might notice Obma’s manic signs of
    Increased energy, activity, Excessively ‘high,’ overly good, euphoric mood,Jumping from one idea to another,Little sleep needed,Spending sprees,Poor judgment,Unrealistic beliefs in one’s abilities and powers, intrusive, or aggressive behavior,Denial that anything is wrong…
    and then the low points in his life, not having a swimming pool as most his classmates at this elite prep school, the emotional scars and downs he still expresses from only owning a half a million dollar 3 bedroom, no attached garage, in an neighborhood elite park, his anxiety he experienced when his dead beat father would speak at this elite school and expose the many lies he told his classmates, his periods where he experimented with drugs and the wrong crowd, being with the wrong crowd an ongoing difficulty he has, Feelings of pessimism as he shared at this gathering, his difficulty in concentrating, remembering what decisions he’s made, or their outcome.
    Left untreated, hypomania can progress to severe mania or depression.
    Psychosis In severe episodes of mania or depression, symptoms of psychosis (hallucination and delusion) can occur. These symptoms of hallucination and delusion often result in manic-depressive disorder being misdiagnosed as Schizophrenia, another severe mental illness.
    For this there is treatment.

    But as far as Obama’s narcissism goes.

    Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder
    (cautionary statement)
    A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

    (1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

    (2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

    (3) believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

    (4) requires excessive admiration

    (5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

    (6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

    (7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

    (8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

    (9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

    Not much in the way of treatment for this condition. All American people need to stage an intervention and rehabilitate this man and his followers..

    So if anyone is confused in the high speed of all that’s happening by this they need to study Hitler, communism, or the quaran which was written by one monster

    • canary
      February 28, 2009 at 8:44 pm

      Health Care? If you were to have Cancer, would you want a doctor to tell you a Fairy tale, or fib; tell you “You only have a little cold. Best thing is drink liquids and get rest, but…don’t be surprised if you keeping feel worse and worse and worse”
      Or do want to know the truth and nothing but the truth, so take the proper treatment, which might get worse before you get better. It will be difficult, but you must start now!!!!!
      American’s don’t wait til things get worse if you want to survive. Don’t wait 4 years. Tell the truth. No articulate sentences full of subjective clauses, and nominiative clauses, and less comas, gerunds, and all that fancy talks that hides the simple meaning of truth. Speak now, or forever lose your freedom of speech. Tough love.

    • MinnesotaRush
      March 1, 2009 at 3:19 am

      To dovetail with your comments .. there’s a great book out there titled, “When Society Becomes an Addict” that well illustrates some of the phenomena that is obama and his flock.

  6. proreason
    February 28, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    “So if anyone is confused in the high speed of all that’s happening by this they need to study Hitler, communism, or the quaran which was written by one monster”

    You hit my major concern, canary. And I mean that all kidding aside.

    The Moron used the word audacity. The audacity of dramatically and abruptly changing the greatest country in history, with a 53% majority is nothing less than criminal.

    I’ve started saying that, regardless of your politics, this sort of radical change in 30 days is simply insane.

  7. 1sttofight
    February 28, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    Paul Harvey die today at age 90.
    And that is the rest of the story…

    RIP Mr. Harvey.

    • caligirl9
      February 28, 2009 at 11:55 pm

      Oh gosh, another voice from my youth is gone.
      I feel so old. My dad listened to Paul Harvey every morning from a radio station in Fresno before he went to work (he was a farmer when I grew up, until my early adulthood).
      Godspeed, Mr. Harvey.

    • Gila Monster
      March 1, 2009 at 12:08 am

      Paul Harvey, ……………. good day….

      As you stated 1st, RIP Paul, and say hello to President Reagan for me. May God bless.

    • jobeth
      March 1, 2009 at 10:13 am

      What I liked about Paul Harvey was he had good old fashion values.
      He was so comfortable to listen to. He usually left you thinking.

      He’ll be missed by many.

  8. caligirl9
    March 1, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    This is what you get for voting for Obama, California!

    Obama’s tax plan will hit Silicon Valley hard

    President Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would boost income taxes on those earning $250,000 or more a year, would affect about twice the share of taxpayers in Santa Clara County as in the state and nation.

    That’s because there are more people here who earn high incomes, and the plan would take more of their income in taxes while cutting back on one of the few deductions available to them — mortgage interest…

    That income class includes about 43,000 taxpayers in Santa Clara County — nearly double the number of any other county in the Bay Area — which amounts to nearly 6 percent of the county’s tax filers, according to data analyzed Friday by the Franchise Tax Board at the request of the Mercury News…

    Meanwhile, the recently passed federal stimulus package will mean tax reductions for the majority of the region’s taxpayers in 2009…

    But Silicon Valley’s big paychecks, coupled with the fact that Bay Area homeowners pay the highest mortgage bills in the state, could represent a double whammy for many in the South Bay. To help underwrite a national health care plan, Obama would begin to phase down itemized deductions on things like home mortgage interest and charitable contributions for single filers earning more than $200,000 and married couples earning more than $250,000…

    Santa Clara County may be more reliant on tax deductions for mortgage interest than other parts of the state: 35 percent of county homeowners with a mortgage spent more than $3,000 a month on mortgage interest and other housing costs, the third-highest percentage in the state after Marin and San Mateo counties, according to U.S. Census Bureau data for the 2005-07 period.

    Another tax change for high earners may not have as much of an impact here, experts said.

    The tax on capital gains — profit from the sale of stock or a piece of investment property, for example, and often a key source of income for those in higher tax brackets — would return to 20 percent in 2011 for couples making more than $250,000, up from the current 15 percent. But local accountants and personal finance advisers observed that the capital gains of a year or two ago have evaporated…

    “That is not happening any more. Most of those who had capital gains now have capital losses. We are not going to be paying as much in taxes whatever what the rates are.”

    And what is likely to be the impact of higher taxes on the valley’s economy?

    “You can look at how the Silicon Valley economy did when we had higher taxes on the wealthy back in the 1990s, and how has it done since, and you can’t really make a case that raising the rates will hurt the economy,” said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/loc.....source=rss

    Does anyone else see the way out of paying higher taxes if you are one of these “rich” couples? File single status … double the income. (Assuming this article is correct.)

    I especially liked the last quote and left it in for a laugh. Am I reading it correctly: higher taxes were good for the economy? (Note: in this area in the early 1990s, during the “tech boom,” people were washing their cars with money.)

    So which came first—higher taxes or the tech boom? Looks like a case of trickle-down economy actually worked correctly, but I defer to the economists here.

    • proreason
      March 1, 2009 at 5:25 pm

      “Does anyone else see the way out of paying higher taxes if you are one of these “rich” couples?”

      yep.

      Lots of Californians are leaving. They do the math and move to the Cal border states or Texas or other low cost states. Unless you believe real estate will snap back in a year or two (if you do, I have a bridge you might like), it isn’t too hard to justify leaving mexifornia for people that have some money.

  9. curvyred
    March 2, 2009 at 8:50 am

    I will never for the life of me, understand the lefts protectionism of Islamic extremism – it doesn’t make one ounce of sense considering the way in which they denigrate Christianity in general.

    • proreason
      March 2, 2009 at 7:41 pm

      Sadly, the reason is probably “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

      Conservatives oppose the islamofacists. Therefore liberals love them.

  10. sheehanjihad
    March 2, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Just another offering from our adherents to diversity and tolerance and the U.N.

    http://www.slate.com/id/2212662/ Read this, and marvel at ignorance in progress.

  11. BillK
    March 2, 2009 at 11:14 pm

    Damn it, if people don’t want broadband, let’s force it on them.

    From Fox News:

    Obama’s High-Speed Internet Plan: Broadband or Boondoggle?

    Critics say President Obama’s plan to bring “21st century” economies to remote parts of the country via high-speed Internet will be fruitless — because many Americans don’t want broadband service.

    By Joshua Rhett Miller

    President Obama has taken a major step in closing America’s “digital divide” by allotting $7.2 billion in stimulus funds to bring broadband lines to rural areas — and to put thousands of people to work making it possible.

    But some critics say the effort will prove fruitless, because many Americans don’t want high-speed Internet — including people who already have access to it.

    Just 57 percent of Americans use broadband services, although 91 percent of American homes have access to them, according to a report released last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And one-third of Americans who don’t use broadband said cost would prohibit them from buying it.

    “In the end, you have to ask yourself the question: What is the cost compared to the benefits?” said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center, a Washington-based think tank.

    “There’s a number that that value has, and the question is whether that cost is too high. If you’re going to throw money around, I suppose it’s good as anything. But we are spending money on the last frontier of broadband here, so the incremental value is going to be small.”

    But Blair Levin, a member of the president’s Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Team, said a “world-class broadband platform” will prove vital in a number of areas, including modernizing health care records and reforming education.

    “The president has set out a very ambitious broadband agenda for the country,” Levin told FOXNews. “He understands correctly … that a world-class broadband platform is essential.”

    Levin noted a recent report that ranked the United States 16th in the world in access to high-speed Internet. He said Obama has called on the Federal Communications Commission to create a comprehensive strategy for broadband Internet within one year.

    “It doesn’t take a futurist to understand that not having a device tied to the broadband network in 10 years or so is going to be like not having electricity or indoor plumbing,” he said.

    John Horrigan, the author of the Pew report, said the relatively high cost of broadband is just part of the reason more Americans aren’t already using a high-speed Internet connection. Access to computers and their relevance overall also play a role, he said.

    “Half of non-broadband users said they simply don’t want to use the Internet or don’t find it relevant to their daily life,” Horrigan said. “People’s perception that the technology isn’t relevant to them is a bigger barrier than cost.”

    Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of Media Access Project, said it will take time, money and effort to bring those people around. “Once it becomes available,” he said, “people will discover the value of [broadband]…. But it’s going to require a lot of education and hand-holding.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....oondoggle/

    So after Obama spends billions of dollars to make broadband available, he will of course spend billions more to subsidize it, then billions more in advertising to make sure people want the product he’s just spend billions of taxpayer dollars to provide.

    Sounds like every other Government program, doesn’t it?

  12. BillK
    March 2, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    From Fox News, your Government Employees at work:

    NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist Stirs Controversy With Call for Civil Disobedience

    By Joshua Rhett Miller

    NASA’s chief climate scientist is in hot water with colleagues and at least one lawmaker after calling on citizens to engage in civil disobedience at what is being billed as the largest public protest of global warming ever in the United States.

    In a video on capitolclimateaction.org, Dr. James Hansen is seen urging Americans to “take a stand on global warming” during the March 2 protest at the Capitol Power Plant in Southeast Washington, D.C.

    “We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet,” says Hansen, who has likened coal-fired power plants to “factories of death” and claims he was muzzled by the Bush administration when he warned of drastic climate changes.

    “What has become clear from the science is that we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels without creating a very different planet. The only practical way to solve the problem is to phase out the biggest source of carbon — and that’s coal.”

    But critics say Hansen’s latest call to action blurs the line between astronomer and activist and may violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity.

    “Oh my goodness,” one of Hansen’s former supervisors, Dr. John Theon, told FOXNews.com when informed of the video. “I’m not surprised … The fact that Jim Hansen has gone off the deep end here is sad because he’s a good fellow.”

    Theon, a former senior NASA atmospheric scientist, rebuked Hansen last month in a letter to the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, saying Hansen had violated NASA’s official position on climate forecasting without sufficient evidence and embarrassed the agency by airing his claims before Congress in 1988.

    “Why he has not been fired I do not understand,” Theon said. “As a civil servant, you can’t participate in calling for a public demonstration. You may be able to participate as a private citizen, but when you go on the Internet and call for people to break the law, that’s a problem.”

    Officials at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which investigates possible Hatch Act violations, disagreed, saying Hansen is in the clear since it’s an “issue-oriented activity,” according to Hatch Unit attorney Erica Stern Hamrick. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,501064,00.html

    When the IRS refuses to investigate 501(c)(3)s that explicitly violate federal law, why would a federal employee explicitly telling people to break the law be any different?

    The article continues:

    Horner claimed that Hansen doctored temperature data on two occasions in 2001 and once in 2007 in attempts to show an impending climate catastrophe.

    “He’s creating an upward slope that really wasn’t there,” Horner said. “At some point you have to say these aren’t mistakes.”

    Hansen, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment on this story, was most recently honored for his work last month with the 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society.

    “Jim Hansen is performing a tremendous job at communicating our science to the public and, more importantly, to policymakers and decision-makers,” Franco Einaudi, director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a press release.

    “The debate about global change is often emotional and controversial, and Jim has had the courage to stand up and say what others did not want to hear. He has acquired a credibility that very few scientists have. His success is due in part to his personality, in part to his scientific achievements, and in part to his refusing to sit on the sidelines of the debate.“

    Remember science and the scientific method?

    Dead now, as advocacy “science” is now much more important.

    You know, the attitude the left accuses promoters of Intelligent Design of.

  13. BillK
    March 2, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Now the humorous follow-up to the story above, from Fox News:

    Out With A Shiver: Global Warming Protest Frozen Out by Massive Snowfall

    It was snowing irony in Washington on Monday when global warming activists descended on the District like a storm — but got beaten to the punch by a blast of wintry weather that incapacitated the city.

    By Joseph Abrams

    Global warming activists stormed Washington Monday for what was billed as the nation’s largest act of civil disobedience to fight climate change — only to see the nation’s capital virtually shut down by a major winter storm.

    Schools and businesses were shuttered, lawmakers cancelled numerous appearances and the city came to a virtual standstill as Washington was blasted with its heaviest snowfall of the winter.

    It spelled about six inches of trouble for global warming activists who had hoped to swarm the Capitol by the thousands in an effort to force the government to close the Capitol Power Plant, which heats and cools a number of government buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Capitol.

    The snowy scene, with temperatures in the mid-20s, was reminiscent of a day in January 2004, when Al Gore made a major address on global warming in New York — on one of the coldest days in the city’s history.

    Protest organizers said about 2,500 people braved the blizzard to oppose greenhouse gas emissions, but the shroud of snow wasn’t the only wet blanket in the nation’s capital Monday.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called on the architect of the Capitol to stop burning coal at the power plant last week, cancelled her appearance at the rally because her flight to Washington was cancelled. …

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

    Of course the snowfall will somehow be blamed on “climate change” instead.

    The article continues:

    One protester named Kat had planned to get arrested and be bailed out Monday but decided to stay put and donate her money to a good cause instead.

    “I don’t want to travel in the snow today. However, I am donating my bail money to fight mountaintop removal,” she wrote to the Climate Action Web site.

    Even marchers in gloves and parkas were wringing their hands to stay warm, and some protest leaders were having trouble providing updates on blog sites like Twitter.

    “I admit, it’s hard to tweet with cold hands!” wrote the author of the Capitol Climate Action Web site, who said the activists were “staying warm with a chant: ‘Clean coal is a dirty lie.’”

    The plant has been seized as a symbol of the government’s energy excess, and the 99-year-old facility accounts for a third of the legislative branch’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    Protesters gathered earlier Monday in the Spirit of Justice Park near the Capitol and marched a few blocks to the power plant, where D.C. police set up a careful cordon.

    In a press release supporting the protest, Greenpeace wrote that “coal is the country’s biggest source of global warming pollution” and that “burning coal cuts short at least 24,000 lives in the U.S. annually.”

    On a blustery, frigid day, it might be worth noting the government’s own stark numbers: pneumonia kills twice as many each year.

    You can’t make up things like the last two lines above.

    Of course, no one else in the media other than Fox News would have bothered with the last sentence.

    • 12 Gauge Rage
      March 6, 2009 at 9:11 am

      Protesting Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever the hell you want to call it while freezing your ass off in the snow,…stupid tree hugging idiots. And who cares what Greenpeace says? It was the coal burning plant that gave me warmth and incredibly great hot showers when I used to live in Alaska.

  14. BillK
    March 2, 2009 at 11:37 pm

    I’m amazed the AP even published this.

    Obama beats early retreat on promise to fight pork

    By Andrew Taylor

    WASHINGTON — Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers’ pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall’s election.

    Arizona Sen. John McCain said it is “insulting to the American people” for Obama’s budget director to indicate over the weekend that the president will sign a $410 billion spending bill with what Republicans critics say is nearly $5.5 billion in pet projects known as earmarks.

    “So much for the promise of change,” McCain said in the first of many assaults he is likely to make against pork-barrel spending this year.

    Democrats contend that earmarks in the bill total only $3.8 billion, less than 1 percent of the amount Congress is approving to finance government programs through September. Taxpayers for Common Sense, an anti-earmark watchdog group, counts them differently and found $7.7 billion worth.

    And Democrats are not alone in funding pet projects. As the minority party in Congress, Republicans claim roughly 40 percent of earmarks, though McCain and House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio, among others, refuse them. The largess is likely to help ease the measure’s way through the Senate.

    White House Budget Director Peter Orsazg said Sunday that the new administration wants to “move on … get this bill done, get it into law and move forward.” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, called the bill and its 8 percent spending increase over 2008 “last year’s business.”

    Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won’t be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.

    “I just went through a campaign … where both candidates promised change in Washington, promised change from the wasteful, disgraceful, corrupting practice of earmarked, pork-barrel spending,” McCain said. “So what we doing here? Not only business as usual, (but) an outrageous insult to the American people.”

    Only a week ago, Obama was pressing Democratic leaders in Congress to pare back the earmarks at a private White House meeting.

    The president, however, hit a brick wall with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democrats who treasure their right to send taxpayer money to their states and districts for park improvements, university research grants, equipment for police departments and redevelopment projects.

    “I’m here to tell everyone that we have an obligation as members of Congress to help direct spending to our states,” Reid told reporters last week. …

    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....nding.html

    Some truth actually makes it out.

    But it’s OK, it’s “only” $3.1 billion.

  15. BillK
    March 3, 2009 at 1:16 am

    A little disenchantment in paradise?

    From a disturbed AP:

    Raul Castro ousts top Cubans loyal to Fidel Castro

    By Will Weissert

    HAVANA (AP) — President Raul Castro abruptly ousted some of Cuba’s most powerful officials Monday, remaking the government in the biggest shakeup since he took over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro a year ago. The changes replaced some key Fidel loyalists, including the longtime foreign minister, with men closer to Raul. They also reduced the enormous powers of a vice president credited with saving Cuba’s economy after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    But analysts saw no immediate indication that the changes are related to hopes for closer U.S.-Cuban ties now that both countries have new presidents.

    Several ministries were consolidated in response to President Raul Castro’s calls for a “more compact and functional structure” for the often unwieldy communist bureaucracy that oversees nearly all public activity on the island.

    The most sweeping leadership shakeup in years was dropped on Cubans almost as an afterthought – at the end of the midday news, following the weather and sports.

    The most prominent of those ousted, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, was the youngest of Cuba’s top leaders and had been widely mentioned as a possible future president.

    Perez Roque, 43, had been Fidel Castro’s personal secretary before becoming foreign minister almost a decade ago, and he delighted in blustery, Fidel-like denunciations of U.S. policy.

    “He was someone who was very close to Fidel Castro and built his career working directly for Fidel Castro,” said Phil Peters, a Cuba specialist at the Lexington Institute near Washington.

    Perez Roque was replaced by his own deputy, Bruno Rodriguez, who once served as Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations. Officials announced no new post for Perez Roque.

    Peters said it was too early to say whether the changes could affect relations with the new administration of President Barack Obama, whose proposals for easing U.S. restrictions on Cuba have created hopes for the resumption of negotiations between the two countries on ending decades of hostilities. …

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

    Wow – when Communists complain the government is too unwieldy…

    Still, it’s a standard Janet Reno-style installation of your own people into positions of power.

  16. BillK
    March 3, 2009 at 1:23 am

    Newspapers as 501(c)(3)s?

    From the unbiased folks at the AP:

    Decline in newspapers renews idea of nonprofits

    By John Christoffersen

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — As sharp revenue reductions put the future of many U.S. newspapers in doubt, one idea gaining attention is the conversion of newspapers into tax-exempt nonprofits supported by large endowments.

    Although viewed by many as a long shot at best, such a radical change could be a savior for the industry and its vital role in a democracy.

    That’s why the endowment model is drawing renewed attention as newspapers impose massive layoffs, scale back home delivery and make other drastic cuts to counter plunging advertising revenue amid a recession that has compounded struggles from the migration of readers to the Internet.

    David Swensen, who managed one of the world’s largest endowments as chief investment officer at Yale University, said endowments “would enhance newspapers’ autonomy while shielding them from the economic forces that are now tearing them down.”

    “By endowing our most valued sources of news we would free them from the strictures of an obsolete business model and offer them a permanent place in society, like that of America’s colleges and universities,” he wrote in a recent opinion piece in The New York Times.

    But first, the idea must overcome skepticism from the very newspapers that stand to benefit. Critics say endowments also could beholden newspapers to their large donors, and giving newspapers tax-exempt status could restrict them from endorsing candidates and running editorials on pending legislation.

    On a more practical level, skeptics question whether the millions and millions of dollars needed to create such endowments could be raised during the worst recession in decades. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/business/stories/441108

    See, left-wing newspapers need to be endowed non-profit institutions as vital to our country as say, the left-wing educational institutions across the nation.

    The article ends:

    Swensen, who declined to comment beyond his column in the Times, estimates a large newspaper such as the Times would need a $5 billion endowment, assuming a 5 percent annual payout from the fund, to support annual costs of $200 million. Smaller papers would need less.

    He acknowledges that only a handful of foundations and wealthy individuals have the money required for such endowments.

    “Enlightened philanthropists must act now or watch a vital component of American democracy fade into irrelevance,” Swensen wrote.

    Coll appealed to billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for help.

    “If you’ll just put up the first billion,” he wrote in an article in The New Yorker, “the rest of us promise to get busy helping to raise the rest.”

    Buffett gave part of his fortune in 2006 to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has no plans to consider endowing major newspapers, a foundation spokeswoman said.

    In a statement, the Council on Foundations said that although there is “some appetite from foundations to help … the vehicle still needs to be determined.”

    Charles Lewis, who started the nonprofit investigative journalism organization Center for Public Integrity two decades ago, said the future of good journalism could ride on whether “the philanthropic community step up and embrace this civic moment and crisis and try to solve it. This is a failure of the market. The market can no longer support news substantially.”

    Or, yet more proof for the left that capitalism has “failed.”

    Of course, what investment anywhere today would yield a “5 percent annual payout?”

  17. BillK
    March 3, 2009 at 8:43 am

    Think the California state Government would have actual useful things to do?

    Nah, let’s continue to make life tougher for businesses. After all, who needs them?

    From Nation’s Restaurant News:

    Statewide polystyrene ban proposed in Calif.

    By Lisa Jennings

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Legislation introduced in California on Friday would ban the use of polystyrene foam and non-recyclable disposable foodservice containers by restaurant operators and retail food vendors statewide.

    Assembly Bill 1358, introduced by Reps. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Petro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, would authorize the use of compostable containers in cities where organic waste is collected, as well as recyclable plastic or paper products made from post-consumer recycled material.

    More than 30 cities and counties in California have passed some form of a ban on the use of polystyrene foam takeout containers. Environmental groups argue that polystyrene foam is one of the leading sources of marine pollution and debris along California’s beaches.

    As introduced, the state legislation would leave local ordinances intact.

    Restaurant operators across the state oppose a statewide mandate, saying that alternative environmentally friendly options for foodservice ware are significantly more expensive. Many argue that passing the cost on to consumers is not an option at a time when guests are particularly price-sensitive.

    http://www.nrn.com/breakingNew.....nu_id=1368

    Who needs jobs and tax revenue?

    Certainly not California, right?

  18. BillK
    March 3, 2009 at 8:48 am

    More on the anti-job crusade against restaurant owners and operators, from Nation’s Restaurant News:

    Pro-labor groups ramp up unionization efforts as card-check support grows

    Activists rally restaurant staffers in New Orleans, demonstrate against Burger King

    By Ron Ruggless

    Union-organizing activities at restaurants are on the rise, as labor groups prepare to benefit from possible changes to federal labor law.

    In anticipation that Congress this year will support the Employee Free Choice Act, pro-labor groups already have been surveying workers and collecting information at New Orleans eateries. Meanwhile, select Burger King units were picketed in mid-February because of the Miami-based parent’s perceived opposition to so-called “card check” legislation.

    As proposed, the bill would eliminate the current private-ballot elections over-seen by the National Labor Relations Board and allow a workplace to organize if a majority of employees sign a card in favor of union representation.

    This is the second time the act has come before federal lawmakers. It was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008 by a vote of 241-185, but was narrowly defeated in the Senate.

    Organized labor and other supporters said the act would prevent employers from intimidating workers prior to a union election. Businesses said it would allow union organizers to intimidate employees into signing the cards by denying them the right to private elections.

    “If this were to pass, it would have a drastic impact on restaurants and small businesses as a whole,” said Jim Funk, president and chief executive of the Louisiana Restaurant Association, whose members have seen recent union organizing in their restaurants.

    “It’s an extremely important issue to us,” said Beth Johnson, executive vice president of public affairs for the National Restaurant Association. “Timing is up in the air. The intelligence we are getting is that the House does not want to go first. They are concerned the Senate may change the bill.”

    Brendan Flanagan, the NRA’s vice president of federal relations, is hopeful that the restaurant industry’s lobbying efforts against the measure are paying off.

    “They are having trouble in both houses generating the number of co-sponsors they had last time, which is a direct reflection of the industry’s sustained grassroots engagement for several months,” he said.

    Labor groups also are lobbying aggressively. Dozens of picketers from the Service Employees International Union and allied organizations protested at Burger King units Feb. 19, citing the parent company’s lobbying efforts against the Employee Free Choice Act.

    Burger King, however, said it neither opposes nor supports the bill.

    “Burger King Corp. believes unions serve a purpose in some workplaces, and a number of its guests, vendors and franchisees have positive union membership experiences,” the company said in a statement. “BKC is not anti-union. BKC and its franchisees serve a diverse consumer base and, therefore, aim to remain neutral on political issues.”

    Other restaurateurs also have felt targeted in the recent past. Operators in New Orleans say unions have stepped up their intelligence-gathering efforts.

    “They are laying the groundwork for an organizing effort should this bill get passed,” said Ralph Brennan, owner of Ralph’s on the Park in New Orleans and former chairman of the NRA. “They were collecting names and e-mail addresses and things like that.”

    Funk of the LRA said a group affiliated with the Tulane University business school last November was going into restaurants to conduct surveys on wages, work conditions and benefits.

    “The restaurants gave them the go-ahead, thinking they were helping college students out,” he said.

    Instead, the survey group turned out to be affiliated with the Restaurant Opportunities Center, or ROC, of New Orleans, a branch of ROC-New York, Funk said. ROC-New York’s goal is to bring justice to the city’s restaurant workplaces. ROC also has a presence in Miami, Chicago, Detroit, and Portland, Maine, and Washington, D.C. …

    http://www.nrn.com/landingPage.....MenuTab=-1

    Once again, who needs private businesses?

    I’m sure the Government will help these folks out when their employers close…

  19. Grassy Knoll
    March 3, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Global warming taking a break

    http://dsc.discovery.com/news/.....pause.html

    Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is confounded by the recent cooling trends, but not to worry. Although the 30 years of warming since the 70s was man-made, this recent cooling trend – this may last up to 30 years, by the way – is only a “hiccup” in the overall warming. Let’s see … 30 years of warming is a man-made catastrophe and 30 years of cooling would be a natural hiccup. In fact, he says that the “warming” will be sooo upset by the “cooling” after 30 years that the aftermath of eventual warming will be “very aggressive.” This is similar to when we were kids and we did something wrong (global warming caused by our selfishness) and our moms (the global warming crowd) would tell us to “just wait until your father (the really bad warming in 30 years) gets home.”

  20. proreason
    March 3, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    American Thinker rates Obamy’s progress toward the Communist Party’s agenda:

    “So what’s the score? Of 44 items on the CPUSA’s list,

    22 are already enacted.
    21 are in work.
    1 is being violated.

    Halfway there gets me my Bingo. Pretty good for being in office just one month. Heck, at this pace, the CPUSA will have to come up with another list by summer.

    Only one item out of 44 is being violated: Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan. He’s adding 17,000 on top of the 30,000 already there .

    Funny, that’s the only thing Bill Ayers, Mr. “Small ‘c’ communist” and terrorist bomber, could find fault with in President Obama term of office so far.”

    http://www.americanthinker.com.....ism_1.html

  21. BillK
    March 4, 2009 at 12:30 am

    Do what I say, not what I do.

    From Fox News:

    Geithner Touts Tackling Tax Evaders After Failing to Pay Own Taxes

    The pot has issued the kettle an ultimatum: tax dodgers beware.

    Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who was forced to fork up $34,000 in unpaid back taxes, told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday that the Obama administration will be going after people who avoid and evade taxes.

    In prepared remarks before Congress, he said the president is intent on “tackling tax shelters and other efforts to abuse our tax laws, including international tax evasion efforts.”

    Geithner himself never used a tax haven to avoid payment, but did neglect to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes while he was a self-employed staffer for the International Monetary Fund. He even hired an accountant for two of the years he forgot to file.

    “Over the next several months,” he said Tuesday, “the President will propose a series of legislative and enforcement measures to reduce such U.S. tax evasion and avoidance.”

    But the Treasury secretary might want to heed something of a caveat legislator: such a dragnet could quickly catch a handful of Obama’s top appointees.

    Tom Daschle, Obama’s pick to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, had to bow out when it was disclosed that he had failed to pay $128,000 in back taxes. Nancy Killefer, who was appointed by Obama to scrutinize government spending for the OMB, also had to withdraw her nomination because of tax issues.

    And just a day before Geithner’s appearance in the House, Obama’s designated Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, told the Senate Finance Committee that he owed some $10,000 in back taxes that he had agreed to pay.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....pay-taxes/

    Of course no one in the MSM or, apparently the public at large, really cares.

  22. BillK
    March 4, 2009 at 12:36 am

    So, will he do it?

    From Fox News:

    Activist Groups Urge Obama to Reject Boy Scout Honor

    Critics, outraged that the Boy Scouts of America are allowed to exclude gays and atheists while receiving federal funding, want the president to reject the title of honorary president of the Scouts.

    By Stephen Clark

    President Obama says he wants to be president of all the people. But some groups are urging him to make an exception for the Boy Scouts of America.

    Critics of the Scouts who are outraged that the group is allowed to exclude gays and atheists while receiving federal funding are urging Obama to reject the group’s honorary presidency, a designation bestowed on every U.S. president since William Howard Taft in 1910.

    “I’m hoping and praying he turns down the honorary presidency,” said Howard Menzer, president of Scouting for All, which advocates for inclusion of gays into the Boy Scouts.

    “No way should he be involved with a discriminatory group. That would be the best thing that could happen if he said, ‘You discriminate too much for me. I can’t be your honorary president.’ I think that might begin to change a few things.”

    Obama was meeting with a delegation of the Boy Scouts in the Oval Office on Tuesday afternoon, at which time he was to accept the group’s 2008 Report to the Nation.

    A Boy Scouts spokesman said Obama has indicated he will accept the title of honorary president.

    “We believe one of our greatest strengths as a nation is that we can disagree on a number of issues while agreeing to support the common good,” Deron Smith, a spokesman for BSA, told FOXNews.com.

    “We’re a voluntary, private organization for families that share our values,” he added. “While many may disagree with our policies, there’s no question that we’re part of the common good and have been for 100 years.”

    The White House did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

    As a presidential candidate, Obama provoked fears from conservative groups that his policies would undermine the Scouts. Focus on the Family Action wrote a hypothetical letter last year imagining the consequences of an Obama presidency. In the “Letter from 2012″ in Obama’s America, the Boy Scouts disbanded rather than obey a decision forcing them to allow homosexual scoutmasters.

    The group, which is a cultural action organization separate from Focus on the Family, backed away from that rhetoric during an interview with FOXNews.com

    “The Boy Scouts are a venerable faith-based institution in our country. And the president could celebrate diversity by accepting that honorary status,” said Tom Minnery, senior vice president of public policy for the group.

    “We hope the White House will keep its hands off the Boy Scouts,” he said. “The courts have settled the question.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....nce-group/

    Somehow I think Minnery’s “letter from the future” will prove entirely accurate.

    • pdsand
      March 4, 2009 at 11:12 am

      The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton made similar history being the first President to not attend the National Jamboree.
      I wonder if Ann Coulter’s joke about a generation who believes the greatest struggle of our time is against Wal-Mart might not have been incorrect, in that the greatest struggle of our time is truly against the Boy Scouts.

  23. BillK
    March 4, 2009 at 12:39 am

    More news the Obama administration will ignore, from Fox News:

    U.S. Says Threat of Mexican Drug Cartels Approaching ‘Crisis Proportions’

    Two of Mexico’s deadliest drug cartels have reached a combined force of 100,000 foot soldiers, wreaking havoc across the country and threatening U.S. border states, the U.S. Defense Department told The Washington Times.

    The cartels rival the Mexican army in size and have both Mexico and the U.S. in crisis mode as they deal with what they fear is a coming insurgency along the border.

    “It’s moving to crisis proportions,” an unidentified defense official told The Times. The official also said the cartels have reached a size where they are on par with Mexico’s army of 130,000.

    About 7,000 people have died in the last year — more than 1,000 in January alone — at the hands of Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels. Murders often involve beheadings or bodies dissolved in vats of acid.

    The two most dangerous cartels are the Sinaloa cartel, nicknamed the “Federation” or “Golden Triangle” by law enforcement agencies, and “Los Zetas” (the Gulf Cartel). They have been growing and are reportedly discussing a truce or merger to better withstand government forces, The Times reported.

    Mexico is now only behind Pakistan and Iran as a U.S. national security concern, coming in ahead of Afghanistan and Iraq, the defense official told The Times.

    The country’s attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, called last week for more U.S. prosecutions of people who sell weapons illegally to the cartels, as well as more efforts to stop drug profits from flowing south.

    Mexico has spent $6.5 billion over the last two years, on top of its normal public security budget, on the fight against drugs, but that falls short of the $10 billion Mexican drug gangs bring in annually, he said …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504139,00.html

    But border security? Stepped up enforcement of drug laws?

    Nah, who needs that?

  24. proreason
    March 4, 2009 at 11:55 am

    Stars and Stripes? It’s so so yesterday. Now we have a new symbol for our country.

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit.....-stam.html

    Coming soon…………..pictures of Dear Leader on every street corner.

  25. BannedbytheTaliban
    March 4, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    From FoxNews:

    Professor Takes Heat for Calling Cops on Student Who Discussed Guns in Class

    A professor in Connecticut reported one of her students to the police after he gave a class presentation on why students and teachers should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Now, free speech activists say the professor’s actions are what really need to be investigated.

    Last October, John Wahlberg and two classmates at Central Connecticut State University gave an oral presentation for a communications class taught by Professor Paula Anderson. The assignment was to discuss a “relevant issue in the media,” and the students presented their view that the death toll in the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting massacre would have been lower if professors and students had been carrying guns.

    That night, police called Wahlberg, a 23-year-old senior, and asked him to come to the station. When he arrived, they they read off a list of firearms that were registered in his name and asked where he kept them. Guns are strictly prohibited on the CCSU campus and residence halls, but Wahlberg says he lives 20 miles off-campus and keeps his gun collection locked up in a safe. No further action was taken by police or administrators.

    …In 2007, Shibley noted, a student at Hamline University in Minnesota was suspended after writing a letter to an administrator arguing that carrying concealed weapons on campus may help prevent tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech. The student was allowed to return only after undergoing a psychological evaluation, he said.

    Shibley also cited an incident at Colorado College last year in which campus administrators denounced a flyer as “threatening and demeaning content” because it mentioned guns. He said the students who produced the flyer were found guilty of violating the school’s violence policy, which was added to their school records.

    “It is, of course, important that administrators identify real threats to students,” Shibley said. “But they need to use logic to discern whether a threat is real.”

    But Jerold Duquette, an associate professor of political science at CCSU who sits on the Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom, say the Wahlberg case is not so clear-cut.

    “This is a situation where both sides can come up with a reasonable explanation,” Duquette said.

    …”Critics of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus argue that colleges and universities are dedicated to the free flow of ideas,” she said. “Yet when a student gives a class presentation on a relevant issue in the media, it is acceptable to label the student as a threat? The only threat posed was a threat to the professor’s personal beliefs.”

    Duquette said there was no evidence to support that.

    “I think a lot of people see this as a liberal professor going after a student because he likes guns. I don’t know if that’s the case,” Duquette said, adding that more would need to be known about the incident.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504524,00.html

    Where is the ACLU? There is at least two Constitutional rights being violated here. If I were this kid I would of had my laywer report to the police station for me, then stop by the professor’s house with notice of civial action against her.

    A clear case of the bias conservatives face in our academic institutions.

  26. proreason
    March 4, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    Slimes emulates stopped clock. Tells truth for second time in same month:

    Propping Up a House of Cards

    Next week, perhaps as early as Monday, the American International Group is going to report the largest quarterly loss in history. Rumors suggest it will be around $60 billion, which will affirm, yet again, A.I.G.’s sorry status as the most crippled of all the nation’s wounded financial institutions. The recent quarterly losses suffered by Merrill Lynch and Citigroup — “only” $15.4 billion and $8.3 billion, respectively — pale by comparison.

    At the same time A.I.G. reveals its loss, the federal government is also likely to announce — yet again! — a new plan to save A.I.G., the third since September. So far the government has thrown $150 billion at the company, in loans, investments and equity injections, to keep it afloat. It has softened the terms it set for the original $85 billion loan it made back in September. To ease the pressure even more, the Federal Reserve actually runs a facility that buys toxic assets that A.I.G. had insured. A.I.G. effectively has been nationalized, with the government owning a hair under 80 percent of the stock. Not that it’s worth very much; A.I.G. shares closed Friday at 42 cents.
    …
    A huge part of the company’s credit-default swap business was devised, quite simply, to allow banks to make their balance sheets look safer than they really were. Under a misguided set of international rules that took hold toward the end of the 1990s, banks were allowed use their own internal risk measurements to set their capital requirements. …

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02.....2&_r=1

    The article appears to be real reporting. Basically it says the AIG employed highly questionable business practices that essentially allowed the entire financial industry to meet regulatory requirements and still increase leverage enormously. Since the leverage in the industry was so high, when things started to unravel, institutions became insolvent very quickly.

    There are 2 reasons I’m referencing it.

    1. Since this has a ring of truth, it seems to fill in a missing piece of the puzzle in why the financial crisis took hold virtually instantly, although there were few indicators in the normal metrics to indicate the economy was weak. In fact, one could say that if this article is correct, then it WASN’T the economy, it was a major flaw in the world-wide financial system that caused a crisis that is now impacting everyone. Kind of like a huge spring that was tightly coiled and just released one day (or was released by the contemptable George Soros).

    The article paints AIG as extremely shady, but also points out that regulators knew what they were doing and didn’t try to stop it. So the AIG actions sound like they were legal, and not an unethical as the Slimes implies.

    2. I included an exert that I found very interesting. It seems that the house of cards was based on an “international set of rules” that “took hold toward the end of the 1990s” that allowed banks to effectively set their own risk ratings. Sweet huh.

    Now, my question is…….HOW DID BUSH FORCE THIS RULE DOWN THE THROATS OF THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNITY FROM AUSTIN IN THE LATE 90′S???? Because, after all, the financial crisis, the trillions of unnecessary spending, your ruined 401Ks, your lost jobs, the future of your children ruined……that’s all Bush’s fault. And he did it even before he was elected.

    That’s how evil the man was!!!!!

  27. MinnesotaRush
    March 4, 2009 at 9:38 pm

    “Clinton accuses Iran of seeking to intimidate”
    By ROBERT BURNS, AP

    “It is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all of these people and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism, whether it’s Hezbollah or Hamas or other proxies,” she said.

    …. but the HUGE amounts of money we throw at the “Gaza project” will certainly go into just the right hands …. uh huh.

  28. BillK
    March 4, 2009 at 11:37 pm

    A little dissent in the ranks.

    From the AP:

    Key Democrats oppose Obama’s tax deduction plan

    By Stephen Ohlemacher

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s proposal to limit itemized tax deductions for high earners is running into opposition from key Democrats in Congress who worry that charities and the housing market would be hurt. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus questioned Wednesday whether the proposal was viable, a day after his House counterpart also expressed reservations.

    Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said tax increases on families making more than $250,000 a year are necessary to make a down payment on health care reform and to limit future budget deficits. But, he said, he was willing to work with lawmakers on proposals they objected to.

    “We recognize there are other ways to do this,” Geithner told the Finance Committee.

    Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he thought the administration would be flexible on the proposal. “They want health care reform as much as I do,” he told reporters.

    Geithner and White House budget director Peter Orszag returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a second day of hearings on Obama’s $3.6 trillion tax and spending proposal. Both faced tough questions about the tax package.

    Obama’s budget calls for setting aside $634 billion over the next 10 years as a down payment on health care reform. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

    Obama’s budget calls for two tax increases on couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. He wants to increase the top tax rates from 35 percent to 39.6 percent by allowing a tax cut enacted under President George W. Bush to expire in 2011.

    He also wants to limit the deductions those families can claim for charitable donations, mortgage interest and state and local taxes.

    Without the new limits, a taxpayer in the proposed 39.6 percent tax bracket could save $396 in taxes from a $1,000 reduction in taxable income. Obama wants to limit deductions to the 28 percent bracket, starting in 2011, meaning the same taxpayer would save only $280.

    The higher tax rates are a good bet to become law because Obama campaigned on the change and Congress would not have to do anything to enact them. Once the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, the higher rates would take effect.

    But some key Democrats are wary of limiting deductions.

    “I don’t want to prejudge anything, but it is certainly one that I am having difficulties with,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

    On Tuesday, Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he, too, had reservations about the proposal.

    “I would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good,” the New York Democrat said. …

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

    Per usual the fantasy in this situation is that high-income earners are going to take the tax increases in the shorts and simply pay them rather than work around them.

    I quite frankly would be surprised if the tax hikes raise even half of the revenue projected.

    Meanwhile Geithner pulls out the Reagan card:

    Geithner said the change would merely restore the same deduction limits that were in place when President Ronald Reagan left office.

    Because of course we must never allow tax rates to fall below those in place when Reagan left office.

    You know, when the economy was doing well.

  29. brad
    March 4, 2009 at 11:38 pm

    From CNN:

    Sudan orders aid agency expulsions

    Sudan ordered a number of international aid agencies to leave the country Wednesday after an arrest warrant was issued for the country’s president

    The Dutch section………..leaves more than 200,000 of its patients without essential medical care.

    If Oxfam’s registration is revoked, it will affect more than 600,000 Sudanese people whom we provide with vital humanitarian and development aid, including clean water and sanitation on a daily basis,”

    http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WO.....ef=topnews

    When are people going to learn! When are aid agencies going to figure out that many of these people didn’t have running water, or food, or medicine, or security BEFORE they arrived to wipe their dirty arse, and change their diapers!

    How long are you going to stay there to babysit these people? And are you going to stay and babysit their new children? And how about their children?

    It is the same old thing, when you subsidize it, you get more of the same problem. Look at our welfare system, do people ever leave it voluntarily? Not likely, you get them having more children who also live off of it.

    I am surprised that white people actually exist. They are so stupid and do things that are detrimental to themselves and others, it is a miracle they ever got out of the dark ages. Where Vlad the Impaler put invading Muslim head’s on a stick to keep them away, the Europeans are welcoming them back with open arms! No wonder there are 54 million Muslims in Europe these days. –stupid people!

  30. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 1:39 am

    From Fox News:

    EXCLUSIVE: Rove Warns of ‘Show Trial,’ Says Dems ‘Would Love to Have Me Barbecued’

    Although he says it could turn into a “show trial,” Karl Rove tells FOX News he is looking forward to telling the House Judiciary Committee about his alleged role in the firing of federal prosecutors and the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

    Until now, Rove had been shielded from testifying by his former boss, President George W. Bush, who had asserted executive privilege on Rove’s behalf. But on Monday, lawyers for Bush and President Obama reached a deal that will allow Rove to be deposed by the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. John Conyers, Michigan Democrat

    “We’re closing in on Rove,” Conyers was overheard saying by two people just off the House floor last year. “Someone’s got to kick his ass.”

    Rove acknowledges that Conyers probably has more interest in him than in two other former Bush aides entangled in the case, White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.

    “I understand they may be the hors d’oeuvres, but I’m the main course,” said Rove, who was Bush’s top political adviser in the White House. “Some Democrats would love to have me barbecued.”

    Rove said that during his White House tenure, he fielded complaints about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico and Kevin Ryan of San Francisco and passed those complaints along to Miers and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The two were among nine prosecutors who were eventually fired by Gonzales.

    Rove defended his role in the episode by pointing out that Gregory Craig, who actively campaigned for Obama, is now White House General Counsel.

    “If White House contact with the Justice Department is inappropriate, then what are we doing by allowing anybody who has anything remotely to do with the political campaign — like the general counsel of the Obama White House — to have any contact with the Justice Department?” Rove said. “I mean, we named the Justice Department building after the campaign manager of the 1960 presidential campaign – Robert F. Kennedy.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....barbecued/

    Except for the fact that he may have been behind many of Bush’s policies, I sometimes wonder if Rove wouldn’t have been a better RNC head than Steele; at least Rove isn’t afraid to speak his un-PC mind.

    As an aside, I think that given the current state of the Republican Party, no one should be named to head the RNC that actually wants the job.

  31. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 1:55 am

    Big shock.

    From Fox News:

    Lawmakers Defend Earmarks in Spending Bill

    Critics of earmarks have put lawmakers, Republican and Democratic alike, on serious defense.

    By Trish Turner

    Just saying the word “earmark” causes cringing in the halls of Congress.

    The practice is legendary, and duty zealously guarded by members, Republican and Democratic alike. But opponents, and there are a few, have vilified the task to such a degree that sponsors are now on serious defense.

    The $410 billion omnibus spending bill is filled with earmarks, special projects requested by specific members very often for their home states.

    On Wednesday, the Senate approved 13 spending projects sought by a lobbying firm accused of funneling illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers.

    Senators voted 52-43 to preserve the so-called earmarks in a 1,000-page-plus catchall spending bill even though they were sought by the PMA Group, a lobbying firm that closed up shop after being raided by the FBI last year. They included money for high-tech firms and colleges in Pennsylvania.

    The press has been having a field day with many of the earmarks, so much so that the sponsoring lawmakers felt the need to spend much of Wednesday defending their projects on the Senate floor.

    It doesn’t help that many of the pet projects sound ridiculous on their face: swine odor research, tattoo removal, the “Mormon cricket,” the Polynesian Voyaging Society of Honolulu, the American Lighthouse Foundation.

    But sponsors implored their colleagues to look deeper to see that the projects are critically needed.

    The $1.8 million dollar earmark for pig odor and manure management research at the University of Iowa was vehemently defended by sponsor Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, saying it addresses a “profoundly serious challenge” in his home state’s farm communities. ”

    “I suppose we’ll hear a lot of jokes on David Letterman and Jay Leno and a lot of other people will be making jokes about this money for manure, but keep in mind this is not wasteful or unnecessary or frivolous, this is very important to the daily lives of people in my state and North Carolina and anyplace else that we raise swine,” Harkin exclaimed.

    Sen Susan Collins, R-Maine, says the American Lighthouse Foundation needs money to keep Maine lighthouses, federal properties, operating.

    “These lighthouses perform a vital function for Maine’s lobster and fishing industries, as well as for commercial shipping and recreational boaters,” Collins said.

    “They are critical, active navigation aids,” she continued. “I would also note that the American Lighthouse appropriation is a direct investment in federal property, a responsibility that dates to 1789 when the first Congress extended federal funding to lighthouses. This isn’t new. This isn’t something that the senators from Maine dreamt up when…we were trying to come up with worthy projects. This goes back to the beginning days of our republic.”

    The $200,000 earmark for a “tattoo-removal violence-outreach program” in Los Angeles is for a removal machine to rid gang members of biased markings that could affect their future lives. “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s an important project,” said one senior Senate Democratic leadership aide.

    A spokeswoman for Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, sponsor of the “Mormon cricket” earmark, e-mailed the following statement to FOX News: “This is a very important project and no joking matter to those in the West that have been affected by the infestation of these crickets.

    “By any standard, this project is a tremendous success by saving millions of acres of public and private land and potentially saving the $343 million forage crops industry in Utah from devastation.

    “These crickets have infested and ravaged many western states damaging crops, critical habitats and grazing lands resulting in serious problems and millions of dollars in damages for farmers and ranchers. This critical funding has helped to reduce the infestation in Utah, Nevada and Idaho to a few hundred thousand acres, where treatment will continue because of these federal dollars.” …

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

    Sure, we’ll take your word for it Susan “God the (R) after my name embarasses me” Collins.

    What elected official can’t come up with a plan to grab some federal cash for something important to their local consituents?

    The idea, in theory, is to resist the urge to do so.

    But why should politicians in either party do so when everyone else is?

    No one wants to look like they’re doing nothing while their fellow Congresscritter is bringing home millions of dollars for manure research.

  32. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 2:06 am

    Just another day at the U.N.

    From Fox News:

    Top U.N. Official Accuses U.S. of Inhuman ‘Atrocities’ in Iraq, Afghanistan

    A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman “atrocities” in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

    “The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations,” said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann.

    D’Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the U.N.’s own estimates.

    The U.N.’s health and medical agency, the World Health Organization, says 151,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion. IraqBodyCount.org puts the death toll between 90,000- 99,245.

    D’Escoto’s fiery speech came on the day the Obama administration decided to take up observer status on the Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had boycotted because it was unable to crack down on despots and human rights abuses.

    D’Escoto urged the Council to put the human rights situation in Iraq on its agenda, accusing the U.S. of war crimes and a series of human rights violations. “These must be addressed to bring an end to the scandalous present impunity,” he said.

    He also called on the U.S. to free five Cuban nationals being held in U.S. prisons. The group was convicted in a Miami court in 2001 on a range of charges including lying about their identities, trying to obtain U.S. military secrets and spying on Cuban exile groups.

    D’Escoto, once the foreign minister for the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, called the five “heroes” being held in “preposterous conditions.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504965,00.html

    Gee, a Communist says America is guilty of “atrocities.” How shocking.

    You know, that same U.N. that adopted measure after measure “condemning” Iraq but was unwilling to actually, say, do anything about it.

    Of course:

    D’Escoto said he was hopeful that the Obama administration would address his concerns and bring change to American policies concerning the imprisoned Cubans.

    Somehow, I think he may get his wish as Obama and the rest of our Government trips over themselves to see what they can possibly to do gain the U.N.’s favor.

  33. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 3:30 am

    I wonder how many newsdroids will humorously suggest this guy’s a Republican?

    From Fox News:

    Barbie May Want to Steer Clear of West Virginia on Her 50th Birthday

    She’s 50 years old and still causing controversy.

    No, not Madonna. We’re talking about Barbie.

    West Virginia state lawmaker Jeff Eldridge proposed a bill Tuesday that would ban sales of the busty Mattel doll, and others like her, in the state, just days before the doll officially logs a half century on March 9.

    “I just hate the image that we give to our kids that if you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful and you don’t have to be smart,” Eldridge told West Virginia Media. “I’d like to send a message to not only our children but parents and educators that let’s push education over the importance of beauty.”

    Fellow lawmaker Nancy Peoples Guthrie appreciated Eldredge’s sentiment, but doubted the measure had a chance in the West Virginia State House.

    “I think that it’s nice to have a male member of the House of Delegates worried about women’s image and what they’re supposed to do or what they think they’re supposed to do to succeed,” Peoples Guthrie told West Virginia Media. “My sense is that this is probably not a bill that’s going to pass.”

    A Mattel spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

    West Virginia would join a list of communities that includes Montpelier, Vt. and the country of Iran that have called for Barbie bans (Montpelier actually went through with it)

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504456,00.html

    Make up your own pithy comment, it’s just too easy.

  34. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 3:39 am

    I’m surprised this expert is willing to go on the record.

    From Fox News:

    Critic Says Islamic Extremism Gets Whitewashed in American Textbooks

    NEW YORK — An education expert is warning that some American textbooks present a biased view of Islam and offer a sugarcoated picture of Islamic extremism, a trend that has parents worried about what’s being taught in public schools.

    In numerous history textbooks, “key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, the status of women are whitewashed,” said Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, an independent group that reviews history books and other education materials.

    Cindy Ross, the mother of a junior high school student in Marin County, Calif., said she couldn’t believe her eyes when she read her son’s textbook last school year.

    “I was very shocked by what I saw, looking through the book,” she said — shocked at how Islam was portrayed in her son’s seventh grade history text.

    “What did strike me was that all the other religions seemed to be lumped together, where there is an inordinate emphasis on Islam specifically,” Ross said.

    Sewall claims that publishers have been pressured by Islamic activists to portray the religion in the most favorable light, while Islamic terrorism is downplayed or glossed over.

    “The picture is incomplete … and the reason for this is that publishers are afraid of the Islamist activists. They don’t want trouble,” he told FOX News.

    Sewall, who authored a report on how textbooks teach and present Islam, singled out one book that he said failed to explain what the story of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

    In a section discussing Islamic fundamentalism, the textbook “World History: The Modern World,” published by Prentice Hall, omits direct mention of the 9/11 hijackers’ religion, referring to the 19 Islamic fundamentalists as “teams of terrorists.”

    “On the morning of September 11, 2001,” the book reads, “teams of terrorists hijacked four airplanes on the East Coast. Passengers challenged the hijackers on one flight, which they crashed on the way to its target. But one plane plunged in to the Pentagon in Virginia, and two others slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. More than 2,500 people were killed in the attacks.”

    In his report on the text, Sewall called the passage “dismaying” in its flatness and brevity. “In terms of content, so much is left unanswered. Who were the teams of terrorists and what did they want do to? What were their political ends? Since ‘The Modern World’ avoids any hint of the connection between this unnamed terrorism and jihad,” he wrote, “why September 11 happened is hard to understand.”

    But Muslim advocacy groups say students need to learn more about Islam to correct misconceptions and help turn away a wrongheaded focus on extremism.

    “It’s wrong to show an entire faith community from the lens of a small extremist community, which is really a fringe. It’s a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the Muslim community, and that’s not how Muslims want to be framed,” said Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,504944,00.html

    Personally I’m more shocked the text above isn’t preceded by pages describing how America’s imperialist policies so infuriated the Muslim world that things reached a breaking point, and these honorable men felt they needed to make their voice heard.

    • sheehanjihad
      March 5, 2009 at 9:19 am

      And then everyone wonders how Obama got elected, and the leftist liberals known as democrats now rule the country. Education is nothing more than indoctrination, and this is the fruit of thirty years of that quiet effort to subjugate the youth to become automatons for the left and it’s inexorable effort to socialize this once great nation.

      This is what happens when people do nothing…..now, we have a problem on our hands, and everyone must decide if this is ok with them, or if they kind of want things to “change” for real.

  35. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 9:41 am

    It’s a mere formality before the California Supreme Court tosses it out, but nevertheless…

    From Los Angeles’ KTLA Television:

    Calif. High Court Hears Prop. 8 Challenges Today

    LOS ANGELES — Same-sex marriage supporters are gearing up for today’s California State Supreme Court hearing on challenges to the state’s voter-approved same-sex marriage ban.

    The hearing stems from a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn Proposition 8.

    Several viewing parties are scheduled throughout the Southland.

    The City of West Hollywood will host a major viewing party at the West Hollywood Park Auditorium, 647 N. San Vincente Blvd., starting at 9 a.m.

    Known for its support of gay rights, West Hollywood filed an amicus brief in the case in support of same-sex marriage in January.

    Another public viewing will be held at Los Angeles City Hall.

    Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and City Councilman Bill Rosendahl are
    scheduled to speak at 8:30 a.m. Attorneys from Lamda Legal, which filed one of the cases before the Supreme Court, will also be at L.A. City Hall to answer the public’s questions on the case.

    Wednesday night, about 200 opponents of Prop 8 marched from a downtown Los Angeles park to City Hall to urge justices to end the gay marriage ban.

    Demonstrators gathered for a vigil, which included “recommitment ceremonies” of half a dozen gay couples who married during the five-month period that same-sex weddings were legal in California.

    One rally in Long Beach was expected to last through the night until the court began hearing arguments at 9 a.m.

    Thousands attended similar events Wednesday night from San Francisco to San Diego, and in Arizona and Florida.

    Gay couples, several local governments and Attorney General Jerry Brown maintain the ballot initiative, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, is unconstitutional. …

    http://www.ktla.com/landing_to.....kID=156296

    Great to see folks in Arizona and Florida protesting a decision by California’s electorate, isn’t it?

    Of course the California court will throw this out, and SCOTUS likely won’t touch it anyway.

    Can you imagine how thrilling a Supreme Court “viewing party” must be?

    • GuppyNblue
      March 5, 2009 at 10:24 pm

      “Gay couples, several local governments and Attorney General Jerry Brown maintain the ballot initiative, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, is unconstitutional.”

      Jerry Brown only started questioning the constitutionality after the vote was taken on prop 8. All those that voted against it recognized the process when they voted. None of them had a problem with the proposition until they lost.

  36. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 9:47 am

    From the AP:

    GM Has Doubts of Survival After $82 Billion in Losses

    DETROIT — General Motors Corp.’s auditors have raised “substantial doubt” about the troubled automaker’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if it can’t execute a huge restructuring plan.

    The automaker revealed the concerns Thursday in an annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

    “The corporation’s recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit, and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet its obligations and sustain its operations raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern,” auditors for the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP wrote in the report.

    In pre-market trading, GM shares fell 14 percent from Wednesday’s close, to $1.90.

    GM has received $13.4 billion in federal loans as it tries to survive the worst auto sales climate in 27 years. It is seeking a total of $30 billion from the government. During the past three years it has piled up $82 billion in losses, including $30.9 billion in 2008.

    The company faces a March 31 deadline to have signed agreements of concessions from debtholders and the United Auto Workers union to show the government it can become viable again. On Feb. 17 it submitted the restructuring plan to the Treasury Department that includes laying off 47,000 workers worldwide by the end of the year and closing five more U.S. factories.

    GM said in its filing that its future depends on successfully executing the plan.

    “If we fail to do so for any reason, we would not be able to continue as a going concern and could potentially be forced to seek relief through a filing under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code,” the Detroit-based automaker said in the annual report.

    GM, the report said, is highly dependent on auto sales volume, which dropped rapidly last year. “There is no assurance that the global automobile market will recover or that it will not suffer a significant further downturn,” the company wrote.

    GM has said it wants to avoid bankruptcy protection because it would scare off customers. Car buyers, the company has said, would be reluctant to buy from an automaker in Chapter 11 due to fears that it wouldn’t be around long enough to honor warranties or make replacement parts. …

    http://www.ktla.com/landing_to.....kID=128957

    Because even if the Government promised them infinite bailouts, why would anyone not be scared off from a company that lost $82 billion over the past three years?

    As promised, all the bailouts have done is delay the inevitable Chapter 11 filing GM must perform to be able to make any headway.

    That’s ignoring the issue of whether they are making anything anyone actually wants to buy.

  37. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 9:53 am

    Doesn’t this soundl like a great time?

    From Denver’s KUSA Television:

    Ayers, Churchill to appear at CU student event

    By Kyle Clark

    DENVER – Former Colorado professor Ward Churchill was vilified for comparing Sept. 11 victims to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Former Weather Underground member William Ayers was vilified as a radical.

    On Thursday, they’ll appear together at a student rally for academic freedom at the University of Colorado-Boulder, days before Churchill, who was fired on plagiarism charges, goes to court in an attempt to get his job back.

    Churchill, Ayers and writer-activist Derrick Jensen are to speak at an event titled, “Forbidden Education and the Rise of Neo-McCarthyism.” Sponsors are Students for True Academic Freedom, the 180 Degree Shift at the 11th Hour, and the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

    Churchill was a tenured professor of ethnic studies at CU until he was fired in July 2007. He denies misconduct.

    In his lawsuit, he claims the university was looking for reasons to fire him because of his comments about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

    “I’m feeling very good about the case I’m going to present” in the lawsuit, Churchill said Wednesday. He said he couldn’t discuss specifics.

    In an essay and a follow-up book, Churchill argued that the attacks were a response to a history of U.S. abuses. He said the victims of the World Trade Center collapse were “little Eichmanns,” referring to Holocaust organizer Eichmann.

    Churchill said Eichmann was a bureaucrat who carried out policies that were planned by others but was still responsible for his actions. The essay triggered a national firestorm and calls for his dismissal.

    Jury selection in Churchill’s lawsuit starts Thursday and testimony starts next week.

    Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said his schedule didn’t allow him to be interviewed Wednesday.

    Ayers was a co-founder of the Weather Underground, a radical anti-war group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol that didn’t kill anyone. …

    http://www.9news.com/news/arti.....;catid=339

    An absolutely incredible amount of liberal spin here, including of course the complete omission of the rampant plagiarism that was the cause of Churchill losing a supposed teaching position.

  38. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 10:09 am

    The Obama administration continues their attack on free speech and grows their “enemies list” even further.

    From the AP:

    Obama administration goes after cable chatter

    By David Bauder

    NEW YORK – Besides Rush Limbaugh and CNBC’s Rick Santelli, the Obama administration has a more generic media target: “cable chatter.”

    President Barack Obama used the phrase last week, when he said that some of the issues debated in his economic stimulus plan represented a very small part of the plan and “this sometimes gets lost in the cable chatter.” It came up again Wednesday at a White House event, when Obama spoke about efforts to reduce government spending.

    “I want to make sure everyone catches this, because I think sometimes the chatter on the cable stations hasn’t been clear about this,” Obama said, before repeating one of his arguments.

    White House spokesman Robert Gibbs noted that cable television doesn’t always give a true picture of what the public wants to hear, in explaining why Obama had left Washington to help sell his economic plan in Indiana. Americans, he said, “are eager to know what’s being done in Washington besides the same, old Washington arguments. They want to know what’s being done to help them.”

    Limbaugh, who has said he hopes Obama fails, and Santelli have provided specific targets. Gibbs has been eager to take on Santelli, whose CNBC criticism that the stimulus plan was rewarding people who bought houses they couldn’t afford has been seen by millions of people on the Web.

    But in targeting “cable chatter,” they’re attacking a mind-set as much as specific outlets. Networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC have 24 hours to fill, thrive on conflict and are paying close attention to a new administration’s first 100 days. Particularly in prime-time, many of these hours are dominated by people with strong points of view either way, and the administration may be sensing a backlash from a public tired of arguments.

    “These type of criticisms rally the loyalists, puts the media on notice and makes the White House feel good because it appears to be going on the offensive and does in fact point out the media mouths out there who sometimes attack first and think later,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief.

    “Sometimes the criticism being aimed at the White House is quite right and justified,” said Sesno, a George Washington University professor. “Other times it really is just a bunch of noise to fill space.” …

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....nezriuGL8C

    But somehow “cable chatter” wasn’t an issue when it was almost exclusively anti-Bush.

    Funny how that works.

    “These type of criticisms rally the loyalists, puts the media on notice and makes the White House feel good because it appears to be going on the offensive and does in fact point out the media mouths out there who sometimes attack first and think later,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief.

    Can’t we all just get along?

    You know, because it’s not like Sesno’s former employer wasn’t the original “cable chatter” outlet…

  39. BillK
    March 5, 2009 at 10:12 am

    The AP is depressed – or is the Stimulus working already?

    New jobless claims unexpectedly drop to 639K

    By Christopher S. Rugaber

    WASHINGTON – The number of new jobless claims and the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits both dropped more than expected last week, though they remain at elevated levels and are unlikely to fall substantially in the coming months.

    Few economists expect a turnaround in the battered labor market anytime soon with companies laying off thousands of workers weekly.

    Still, the tally of initial requests for unemployment benefits fell to 639,000 from the previous week’s figure of 670,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts expected a smaller drop to 650,000.

    The 670,000 total was a new high for the current recession and the most since October 1982, when the economy was emerging from a severe downturn, though the labor force has grown by half since then.

    The number of people claiming benefits for more than a week fell slightly to 5.1 million from 5.12 million, after rising to record-highs for five straight weeks. Analysts expected 5.15 million continuing claims.

    But an additional 1.4 million people were receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program approved by Congress last year. That tally was as of Feb. 14, the latest data available, and brings the total jobless benefit rolls to about 6.5 million.

    That’s up sharply from a year ago, when 2.8 million people were receiving benefits.

    The four-week average of new claims, which smooths out fluctuations, increased 2,000 to 641,750, the highest since October 1982.

    More job losses were announced this week. General Dynamics Corp. said Thursday it will lay off 1,200 workers due partly to plummeting sales of business and personal jets that forced it to cut production and reduce its profit guidance for the year. Los Angeles-based aerospace company Northrop Grumman Corp. said Wednesday it will lay off 750 workers, mostly in southern California. …

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....9ibGVzc2Ns

    Wow, plummeting sales of business and personal jets.

    I wonder why that could be, Mr. Obama and media outlets.

    • proreason
      March 5, 2009 at 11:54 am

      Recessions are normal and self-correcting.

      When this one self-correct, The Moron will take full credit.

  40. dulcimergrl
    March 5, 2009 at 10:16 am

    Here’s some swell news on the techie front from the onlne magazine “DailyTech:

    Defense Contractor Leaks Presidential Helicopter Plans to Iran

    March 03, 2009

    ‘Blueprints found on Iranian P2P networks, authorities are investigating this serious breach.’ -

    When it comes to national security, one of the keys to keeping the American President safe is the fleet of executive aircraft – from presidential helicopters, to the ultra-high-tech jet fortress, Air Force One. Thus it came as quite a shock to the security community when security firm Tiversa discovered blueprints of the Barack Obama’s presidential helicopter, Marine One, being hosted by an Iranian IP address.

    http://www.insidetech.com/news.....0305_users

  41. MinnesotaRush
    March 5, 2009 at 11:41 am

    “Will GM Be Forced Into Bankruptcy?”
    By TOM KRISHER, AP
    (March 5) – “General Motors Corp.’s auditors have raised “substantial doubt” about the troubled automaker’s ability to continue operations, and the company said it may have to seek bankruptcy protection if it can’t execute a huge restructuring plan.”

    Now .. help me with somethin’. Didn’t we talk about this just last year? Ya know .. right after their jet rides. I thought “government was the answer”.

    Hmmmmm .. I’m smellin’ a bail out. Ooooops, no .. we did that?!?!? Goodness .. what now?!?!?

    • Steve
      March 6, 2009 at 8:53 am

      Thanks for posting, MR.

      But do try to remember to fully note the source (the Associated Press) and to post a link to the article.

  42. BannedbytheTaliban
    March 5, 2009 at 11:41 am

    From the BBC:

    EU judges back UK retirement age

    The UK’s compulsory retirement age of 65 is not in breach of EU legislation, according to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

    The case was brought by Age Concern, which wanted to know whether it was legal for UK employers to force workers to retire at the age of 65.

    But the ECJ said the practice was legal if it had a legitimate aim related to employment and social policy.

    ….Age Concern maintained that this was in breach of the EU’s Equal Treatment at Work Directive and said one in eight MPs would be out of a job immediately if the rule applied to them.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7925203.stm

    America and Europe are looking more alike everyday; the laws of the land don’t apply to politicians there either. I Wonder how long until ‘compulsory retirement’ becomes a euphemism for something a little more sinister.

  43. BillK
    March 6, 2009 at 1:37 am

    From the AP, Rev. Wright says He isn’t the Messiah after all.

    Rev. Wright Cautions: Obama ‘Ain’t Jesus’

    President’s longtime minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says his former congregant is just like any other president and that he “ain’t gonna improve your child’s reading score.”

    SELMA, Ala. — President Barack Obama’s longtime minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, gave an assessment Thursday of his former congregant’s short time in the White House: Obama is just like any other president.

    Speaking in a brief interview with The Associated Press before giving a speech at a civil rights landmark, Wright smiled at the mention of the name of the nation’s first black president.

    “He’s like any other president,” Wright said. “He’s a politician and he’s got to do what politicians do.”

    Wright’s remarks were similar to those he made after his fiery preaching became a campaign issue last year, forcing Obama to distance himself from his longtime pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

    Obama resigned from Trinity United and, ultimately, cut ties with Wright because of the uproar caused by videotaped snippets of some of Wright’s sermons, in which he shouted “God damn America” and accused the government of creating AIDS.

    On Thursday, Wright was addressing more than 700 people at a mass meeting that kicked off the 44th anniversary celebration of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

    The event was held at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church, site of the first mass meeting that led to the watershed voting rights movement in Selma.

    During his address, Wright cautioned against putting too much faith in Obama.

    “Barack’s name ain’t Jesus. Barack ain’t gonna improve your child’s reading score. There are things we’ve got to do on our own,” he said.

    Obama may no longer associate with Wright, but the program for the event featured a picture of the two, smiling together, on the front. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....int-jesus/

    No, say it’s not so!

    Does this mean that Gibbs is going to attack Wright next?

  44. BillK
    March 6, 2009 at 1:55 am

    A great editorial from the Wall Street Journal:

    Beware of Doing Deals With Putin

    By Garry Kasparov

    Vladimir Putin’s regime is fighting for its political life. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that the Obama administration is sending out mixed messages that may help the Russian autocratic regime survive.

    On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva, Switzerland. The agenda will include talks on arms control and NATO. But in the forefront of everyone’s mind should be the secret letter that President Barack Obama recently sent to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The New York Times broke the story this week, reporting that Mr. Obama’s letter proffered a deal for the U.S. to “back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe” in exchange for Moscow’s help in stopping Iran from “developing long-range weapons.”

    The thinking here is not sound. Russia’s overwrought protest against antimissile systems never sprung from any genuine strategic fear. It was always a ploy and a distraction from its real agenda.

    Mr. Putin — who is now prime minister of Russia — relies heavily on oil revenues to maintain his grip on power. It is in his interests to increase tensions in the Middle East as a way of driving up global oil prices. There is no deal the U.S. can cut to stop Mr. Putin’s Russia from arming Mideast terrorists and helping Iran’s nuclear program.

    Secret letters aside, there are other troubling signals coming out of the Obama administration. One such sign came last week in Japan, where Mrs. Clinton talked about the “three Ds” of U.S. national security. She listed defense, diplomacy and development. But she left off the vital fourth “D” — democracy. The omission was no doubt welcomed by Mr. Putin.

    Another troubling sign came in Munich, Germany, last month, where Vice President Joe Biden talked about the need for “pushing the reset button” on America’s relationship with Russia. But pushing reset won’t pressure Mr. Putin into acting responsibly on the world stage. It will only obscure, for a time, Russia’s malignant and contagious virus of authoritarianism.

    While all these deals and olive branches are being extended to the Kremlin, there is ample evidence suggesting that the Putin regime is teetering toward collapse. One sign: Russia is beefing up its federal security forces in order to violently repress public protests. Last month, for example, the regime created the “National Center of Crisis Management,” which will deploy uniformed troops against “disturbances.”

    It probably won’t be enough to quell public anger. Protests are increasing in Russia because many voters didn’t care that their elections were rigged until inflation started squeezing them. Time has run out on the illusion of economic prosperity for the average Russian.

    Meanwhile, the Russian National Welfare Fund — created to back up the state pension system — is being raided to prop up the monopolistic industries belonging to Mr. Putin’s closest allies. Billions are being handed out to the likes of oligarchs Oleg Deripaska, Sergey Chemezov and Roman Abramovich — money that is going to service debt, not to develop industry.

    When even billionaires are feeling the pinch, this may not be enough to arrest the slide. In the past year, according to the magazine Finans, the number of Russian billionaires was cut in half to 49 from 101. Many of those who remain may be billionaires only on paper; it appears that many of them have debts that exceed assets. This may be why Mr. Putin attended the World Economic Forum in Davos recently to push debt forgiveness.

    Consider also that the Kremlin just struck a deal with China to send Russian oil to China at rock-bottom prices (under $20/barrel) for 20 years in exchange for $25 billion in loans. Powerful countries don’t cut such deals unless they are desperate for cash. What’s happening in Russia is that we are witnessing the survival gambit of a corrupt regime. The question is whether the West will bail out the Russian dictatorship or let it fall.

    Some may doubt the fragility of the Putin government. But there are plenty of examples in history of supposedly entrenched regimes falling quickly. In late 1989, many in the West were surprised to see the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. Others didn’t foresee the sweeping away of totalitarian regimes in Poland and Hungary.

    Mr. Putin and his allies live in fear of a popular uprising because it would likely force them into bankruptcy, exile and even prison. They cannot be expected to operate Russia as a rational state actor. Indeed, they may relish a violent clash with a contrived enemy in hopes of building nationalistic support — the war with Georgia this past summer may just be a prelude. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....34833.html

    In addition to agreeing with Kasparov’s comments, it makes one wonder just how long it will be before we must bribe China to get them to keep buying our debt?

  45. BillK
    March 6, 2009 at 6:34 am

    God help us all.

    From the AP:

    Power of Pitt’ Drains Congressional Offices of Female Employees

    WASHINGTON — First of all, no, Brad Pitt is not short. Yes, he’s handsome enough to stand out in any crowd. And, sorry, Angie wasn’t with him.

    From the moment he stepped into the Capitol on Thursday, sunglassed and goateed, Pitt’s star power transformed congressional business-as-usual in a way any lawmaker or new president might envy.

    Pitt’s superpowers are such that he and President Obama pulled off an improbably secret meeting on the same topic earlier in the day, White House spokesman Thomas F. Vietor confirmed.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not immune to his charms. Praising Pitt for his work to rebuild New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged 9th Ward, she even allowed that meeting him affords her “bragging rights to my children and my grandchildren — a real treat for me as well.”

    And during a closed meeting earlier, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confided to Pitt that he was envious that his lieutenant, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, got to meet soccer star Mia Hamm a day earlier, according to one person who was present and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Well, Pitt replied, he’ll bring along co-parent Angelina Jolie next time to help Reid make Durbin jealous, this person said.

    Later, a Durbin aide sniffed: “Durbin’s already met Angelina Jolie.”

    These officials demanded anonymity because the meeting was private and they did not want to be caught gossiping about a movie star.

    The Power of Pitt drained entire congressional offices of their female employees and quite a few male aides as well, all of whom could be picked out by the way they suddenly appeared in the Senate’s doorways and halls, nonchalantly cupping cell phones and cameras at their sides and hanging around waiting news crews.

    Finally, around 1:30 p.m., Pitt, four aides and assorted security guards climbed out of a darkened SUV at the Capitol’s north gate and strolled across the sun-dappled plaza.

    As he approached the building, all nonchalance inside disappeared. Was he coming in the carriage entrance? No! He was coming through the North Door.

    And so he did, entering through the famous Brumidi corridor, whose ornate and historic paintings he probably couldn’t see through his sunglasses. Reporters, photographers and giggling staffers shuffled after him, up a flight of stairs and around a corner toward Reid’s office. As Pitt entered the parlor, he took off his shades. An aide closed the door behind him.

    Inside with Reid, Pitt made an earnest case for nationalizing his “Make It Right” campaign, in partnership with Congress, according to a second knowledgeable aide who spoke on condition that he not be named because the meeting was private. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,505806,00.html

    I hope I didn’t just ruin your day with this.

  46. BillK
    March 6, 2009 at 6:38 am

    What a great guy!

    From Fox News:

    Obama’s Blockbuster Gift for Brown: 25 DVDs

    Let’s hope he’s a Star Wars fan.

    President Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of 25 classic American films to mark his historic visit to the White House, British media reported on Friday.

    Brown, the first European leader to visit Obama since his Jan. 20 inauguration, was presented with a “special collector’s box” of DVDs during his two-day visit to Washington.

    Downing Street, which reportedly tried to keep the present a secret, declined to say what movies were included in the set.

    “One reason for the secrecy might be that the gift seems markedly less generous and thoughtful than the presents taken to Washington by the Prime Minister,” London’s Evening Standard newspaper reported.

    The Daily Mail, however, reported the movie set included ET, Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz and was produced by the American Film Institute on “special request” from the White House.

    Brown, who is not known to be a movie buff, gave the president and his children several uniquely historical gifts.

    The first of which is a pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, a Navy vessel that served on anti-slavery missions off Africa.

    Another treasure given to Obama is a framed commissioning paper for HMS Resolute, a Royal Navy ship that came to symbolize British-American goodwill when it was rescued by the U.S. from icebergs and given to Queen Victoria. It is the sister ship of the HMS Gannet.

    Finally, Brown gave Obama a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill, whose World War II partnership with President Franklin Roosevelt symbolized the U.S.-Anglo alliance.

    For Sasha and Malia, Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister’s wife, gave each an outfit from Topshop, a British chain of clothing stores, and selected six children’s books by British authors which have yet to be published in the U.S.

    In return, First Lady Michelle Obama presented the prime minister’s two boys with toy helicopters modeled after Marine One.

    Obama was so touched by the gifts, he called Brown on board his private jet on Thursday to thank him. The call was placed after Brown addressed a joint meeting of Congress, the White House said. The two reportedly spoke for 10 minutes.

    The White House later issued a press briefing to put on record how much Obama appreciated the gifts. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....rown-dvds/

    One wonders, in fact, if the DVDs are even Region 2 DVDs; I can see Obama’s team screwing that one up.

  47. proreason
    March 6, 2009 at 1:47 pm

    More on AIG from Bloomberg. This supplements the Slimes article posted a few days ago.

    AIG ‘Was Going to Bring Down Europe’: Lawmaker

    The U.S. government rescued giant insurer American International Group in part because its collapse would dramatically hurt European banks, a senior Democratic lawmaker said on Thursday.

    RELATED LINKS

    Current DateTime: 01:05:28 06 Mar 2009
    LinksList Documentid: 29543354
    Let AIG Fail, Not America: Rogers
    AIG Is Dead: Hugh Hendry
    Slideshow: World’s Safest Banks

    The U.S. government has bailed out AIG [AIG 0.3402 -0.0098 (-2.8%) ] three times since Sept. 16 and committed about $180 billion to keep the insurer alive and doing business.

    “One of the reasons we had to rescue AIG was the fact that it was going to bring down Europe,” Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski told reporters after his subcommittee held a hearing on systemic risk.
    …
    The fact that a “multitude of regulators” missed the warning signs at AIG highlighted the need to establish a systemic risk regulator to monitor firms that are large and complex enough to destabilize the financial system, said Scott Polakoff, acting director of the Office of Thrift Supervision.

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/29542948

    Looks like Kanjorski is either the mouthpiece or the only guy willing to talk about what is really happening.

    Note that a “multitude of regulators” hardly makes it seem like lack of regulation was the problem.

    Perhaps it was something else……….government ineptitude and government tinkering with the markets come quickly to mind………..but the government’s incompetance is so vast, that it could be many other things.

    Maybe they need to put that postmaster whose 1.2M mansion was bought in charge. He has about the same experience as Drooling Barney and Planet of the Apes Dodd.

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