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Selected News For Jul 18 – Jul 24

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

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

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

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

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

Related Articles:

 

This article was posted by Steve Gilbert on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

81 Responses to “Selected News For Jul 18 – Jul 24”

  1. BillK
    July 18, 2009 at 12:17 am

    There’s no track, no right of way, but Wisconsin is buying high speed trains and will hire state employees to assemble and maintain them.

    From the WIsconsin State Journal:

    High-speed train purchase first step in Madison-to-Milwaukee line

    By Mark Pitsch

    In a first step toward building a Midwestern high-speed rail line connecting Madison with Chicago and the Twin Cities, Wisconsin is buying two passenger trains from a Spanish company that will hire state workers to assemble and maintain them.

    The $47.5 million purchase is expected to create 80 jobs initially, and company officials said Friday they are considering assembling the trains at Janesville’s General Motors production plant, which closed in April idling 1,200 workers. Sites in Milwaukee are also under consideration.

    Gov. Jim Doyle, local officials and transportation experts said the rail line would spur leisure travel to and from Madison and link the city, home to UW-Madison and its technology-related research, to the economies of Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago.

    “It’s very exciting for our state, for the economic growth of our region,” said Teresa Adams, a UW-Madison engineering professor who runs the Midwest Regional University Transportation Center. “It’s certainly good for our economy. There are a lot of intellectual hubs to be connected.”

    But critics said the price tag for just the train purchase was too high at a time when the state recently closed a $6.6 billion shortfall by raising some taxes and fees, cutting programs and furloughing and laying off workers for the coming two years. They also said the number of jobs created — even as company officials said the number could grow in time — paled in comparison to the tens of thousands of jobs lost in the state in recent months.

    “This is not the time to start saying we want to play with trains,” said Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, top Republican on the Legislature’s budget committee. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/458709

    So once again, the first step is to buy the trains?!?!?

    • bronzeprofessor
      July 18, 2009 at 12:27 am

      I guess it’s like that Field of Dreams movie. “If you buy the cars, the passengers will come.” Ommmm. Then the passengers will sit in trains that don’t go anywhere, because there are no tracks, but the whole experience will make them reflect upon the deeper questions of life and they’ll be better people in the end. Just like that other article about the recession being good for us tells us will happen.

  2. bronzeprofessor
    July 18, 2009 at 12:24 am

    Latest Zogby Poll shows Obama at 51% approve, 42% disapprove.

    http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1716

    I don’t know which of these polls are right, but for the record, last November, Zogby was less accurate than Rasmussen and Pew, but more accurate than ABC, NBC, the NY Times, Nesweek, and CBS. I think Zogby was slightly farther off than Gallup in predicting the election.

    One reason for the gap here is that Zogby polls likely voters specifically. He polled about 3,500 people and does a lot through the Internet so he tends to favor people who are more educated…. Which is interesting.

    At any rate, I think Rasmussen and Zogby are both in the same range. It’s Gallup that keeps showing Obama with a high approval and low disapproval.

    • catie
      July 18, 2009 at 2:34 pm

      Bobby, I get those Zogby polls through the internet quite frequently. Next time I get one, would you like me to “sign you up”. It says at the end all of the time that you can add a friend who would like to participate. I’ve deleted the last two so I probably won’t get any for a few more weeks.
      However, I always question those polls. It’s quite funny that when Bush was president and it would ask who you voted for, Kerry would be in the top slot and Bush second. Now, the messiah is in the top spot and McCain is int he second slot. It may be nothing but it just seemed rather odd to me at least that Bush was always in the second slot. It’s been a long time since I took statistics so maybe I just forgot something. I also have to wonder if they actually use my answers. I do believe you’re right about Gallup. I think they poll the people who work at msnbc.

    • bronzeprofessor
      July 19, 2009 at 1:04 am

      Hi, Catie. Thanks, I actually already get all the Zogby polls. I didn’t notice the part about the order in which Zogby poses the candidates. Good point! Mostly I find the Zogby poll good, except for the bizarre questions like, “do you consider yourself first and foremost a resident of your city, America, or the planet Earth… or are you not sure?”

      I’ve gotten called by Gallup a few times but they always tell me I don’t fit the sampling requirements they’re looking for.

  3. bronzeprofessor
    July 18, 2009 at 2:36 am

    Peggy Noonan is a jealous bourgeois cow, and that’s why she hates Sarah Palin.

    This American Thinker piece is fantabulous:

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

    Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin Jealous

    You’re Peggy Noonan and you’re jealous. You started a new venture, “The Women on the Web” website, a very conservative, free-enterprise thing to do and still you are not appreciated. They talk about the Palin family fishing business-big deal. Anyone can get a couple of fish — just call Leonards’ on Third Avenue and they will deliver. But Palin is not the only savvy executive type. You got together with your closest friends, all the kind of women who, unlike Sarah Palin, live in the real world where women wear “Channel jackets” and “long, flowing pants with heels,” and understand life, as Reuters noted, “on a level that goes beyond the mundane.” You’re Peggy Noonan and you’re jealous. Your “beyond the mundane” co-founders — “buds” as the Sarah Palin types so crassly put it-for your new venture are the essence of your kind of middle America: they include “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; actresses Candice Bergen (actress, Democratic and Planned Parenthood spokesperson), Whoopi Goldberg (dropped by advertisers after a nasty Bush joke at a Democratic fundraiser and then hired by The View, a Barbara Walters talk show on ABC ), and Marlo Thomas (a major Democratic donor who is married to Bush-hater Phil Donahue), your type of conservatives, which puts them a bit to the right of Hugo Chavez. But after a year the audience is less than 20 percent of what you defined as success, your investors are worried, and the same women who pack Sarah Palin rallies are ignoring your venture, which features such pieces as “Michelle Obama’s Scintillating Style” and “French Fashion Designers Churn Out Stylish Burqhas.”What is wrong with this country? Isn’t anyone a real conservative anymore? Don’t they listen to you? Can’t they read without moving their lips?

    • bronzeprofessor
      July 18, 2009 at 2:54 am

      I found the Reuters press release announcing the launch of Peggy Noonan’s “Women on the Web.” Wow, it really is pathetic.

      Just read this excerpt below and you’ll be able to put Noonan’s rabid hatred for Sarah Palin in clear context:

      Whoopi Goldberg, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan Launch WOW…

      March 2008

      Consulting editor Joan Juliet Buck, former editor-in-chief of French
      Vogue, says that, “There is a point in every woman’s life when she doesn’t
      have to lie any more. The WOW Women have reached that point, and that’s what
      they’re going to teach the world. It’s the biggest gift a woman can give –
      and exactly what she has been taught NOT to give. That’s what makes this site
      revolutionary.”
      All of the features will be fully interactive, and readers are encouraged
      to post alongside the WOW Women. The WOW Women will post a daily conversation
      on topics ranging from Obama and Clinton including “flirting on the campaign
      trail” to poverty in Kenya to fashion designer Halston in addition to posting
      short articles on a frequent basis. The WOW Women will be candid, and share
      what defines them individually.
      In the “Question of the Day” section alone, the WOW Women answer tough
      questions like “What would you divorce your husband for?” to fun questions
      like “What was your first kiss?” What’s Liz Smith’s greatest lie? “Pretending
      I am good-hearted, generous, gregarious, outgoing and lovable when inside I am
      paralyzed with shyness and insecurity and doubts about my abilities. And,
      sometimes, doubts about yours.”

      Okay, this is the type of serious politics Peggy Noonan made herself an expert on. Is it any wonder she saw Sarah Palin[s seriousness and got hot green with envy?

    • Rusty Shackleford
      July 18, 2009 at 9:31 am

      When a conservative gets upset, they get introspective, examine the situation from as many angles, perhaps even over analyzes it…then ultimately, with the maturity to allow time to pass, sleep on things a couple of nights….comes to a viable conclusion and puts the situation in a slot either to be dealt with later, or in a place they can be comfortable with it.

      A liberal, when upset, has to broadcast, act out, assemble and create “support groups” and like-thinking people who, with their collective insecurity, realize there is strength in numbers and then sets about accusing the rest of the world for their own problems.

      It’s a phenomenal mechanism. I’ve been laughing at it for years.

    • Jason Gillman
      July 18, 2009 at 10:54 am

      An interactive VIEW show? hahaha.. pathetic. It only survives on TV because of the college drinking games derived from it.. An internet version would be like a re-run every day.. heh

    • catie
      July 18, 2009 at 2:40 pm

      Wow, I have never heard of this little venture. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Does she have her gal pal Kathleen Parker in there too? They’re both two “conservative peas in a pod”. I don’t know what kind of “real world” these birds live in but it sounds more like limousine liberal land to me. The only Chanel I wear is the cologne. But if this is what old Pegs considers “very conservative, free-enterprising” group, then that explains a lot.
      Geeze

    • Rusty Shackleford
      July 18, 2009 at 10:53 pm

      “There is a point in every woman’s life when she doesn’t
      have to lie any more.”

      This one statement says so very, very much.

    • bronzeprofessor
      July 19, 2009 at 1:07 am

      Rusty, Catie, Jason, I actually find the part about covering “everything from Obama to Clinton to flirting on the campaign trail to hunger in Africa to the top designers” the most revealing. It’s like the Vanity-Fair-ification of the entire world’s news.

      And you know how we feel about Vanity Fair.

    • bronzeprofessor
      July 19, 2009 at 1:35 am

      Catie,speaking of gal-pal Kathleen “Am I not too clever for you” Parker, here’s the latest trash-tastic screed to crawl out of one of her nostrils. From Townhall: http://townhall.com/columnists....._high_road

      Sinkhole on the High Road

      It’s hard to figure what Republicans could have been thinking. It’s nearly a foregone conclusion that Sotomayor will be confirmed. Essentially attacking her personality is, at minimum, bad political strategy. The first Latina to rise to the highest bench with a record of accomplishment few can match isn’t the best person for target practice when Hispanic voters are the golden means to a political future.

      Senators also hammered Sotomayor about her ethnic identification and whether she could rule fairly without undue influence from her gender or political preferences. Wait, let me guess, you’re White Guys! Are we to infer that males of European descent are never unduly influenced by their own ethnicity, gender or political preferences? Can anyone affirm this assertion with a straight face?

      When your party looks like a Wonder Bread convention during flu season, picking on ethnic identity and sex seems an un-brilliant way to proceed. Yet, these same gentlemen don’t understand how Sotomayor could have expressed the thought that she, as a Latina, might be able to reach a wiser decision than a white male?

      I don’t know who’s worse, Noonan or Parker, at this point. My first reaction is to say, “screw you for your lame condescending racial politics.” After that I’m just left speechless. Not because I don’t have anything to counter her with, just because she’s so awful, she indicts herself with her own stupid words.

  4. Howard Roark
    July 18, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    Here’s a short video of the most cogent reason for denying Sotomayor’s appointment to SCOTUS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzJh9cQEeCg

  5. Rusty Shackleford
    July 18, 2009 at 10:51 pm

    From the “really not sure what to make of this” file:

    Time reports:

    Nicaragua: Where Every Day is Christmas
    By Tim Rogers / Managua Saturday, Jul. 18, 2009

    In most parts of the world, including the North Pole, Christmas comes but once a year. But in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, the Christmas trees along the downtown streets are lit festively every night of the year — even in July. The nightly ritual of lighting the trees (in this case, metal poles decorated with strings of lights and various other ornaments) serves as an eternal celebration of the Sandinista government’s victory over the energy deficit inherited from the previous administration, at least according to Omar Cabezas, the ombudsman for the administration of President Daniel Ortega.

    Rest of article:

    http://www.time.com/time/world.....orld-yahoo

    So…you’re telling me that Ortega is the best worst thing to happen to Nicaragua?

    Or is it that…when the government wastes electricity, that’s ok…but it’s not ok for me to do it?

    As the article wears on, I simply shake my head and say, “So this is what happens when the inmates run the asylum”

    And, it also crossed my mind, a perfect model for our boy-king to follow.

  6. canary
    July 19, 2009 at 3:56 am

    Was the pilot of stolen Canadian plane actually a terrorist on a dry-run?
    April 8, 8:13 PM · Dave Gibson – Norfolk Crime Examiner link for entirety below

    The pilot of that plane was initially reported as being a Canadian man named Adam Leon, his real name is Yavuz Berke. He is in fact, a Muslim immigrant from Turkey.

    Berke stole Cessna 172 from Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ontario, around 2:55 p.m. EST. At 4:23 p.m. he entered U.S. airspace as he flew over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, at which time two F-16s from the Wisconsin Air National Guard intercepted began following the plane. For the next five hours, Berke flew over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and eventually landing in Missouri.

    Apparently, someone believed the flight to be a terrorist attack. As the plane approached Madison, the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison was evacuated.

    The F-16 pilots made repeated attempts to establish communications with Berke, issuing him warnings to respond to calls from air traffic controllers. Despite the warnings and obvious perceived consequences, Berke never answered their calls.

    At 9:50 p.m., Berke landed the plane on 172 on U.S. Highway 60 in Ellsinore, Mo. State police officers arrested him in a convenience store after the clerk called 911 and reported his presence.

    An FAA spokesman told ABC News “It had opportunities to go into heavily populated areas,” adding that the pilot appeared to veer around, “not going to urban air space.”

    However, Berke flew directly over Madison, WI which has a population of 223,000. Did the FAA forget about this fact, or simply choose to ignore it?

    The press and federal authorities also point to the fact that Berke landed the plane without incident. However, he landed the plane because he was running out of gas, not exactly the act of a someone who is supposedly suicidal…If he was really prepared to die so much so that he wanted to be shot down, then why not simply let the plane run out of gas and crash?

    This would not be the first dry-run by Muslim terrorists performed in this country. In 2004, passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight became upset as a group of 13 Syrian men began acting suspiciously as they stood up in unison and walked around the plane speaking in Arabic, even though many members of the group pretended not to know one another.

    … However, an inspector general report released in 2006, confirmed the frightened passengers’ stories.

    As it turned out, eight of the Syrians had criminal backgrounds, and the entire group had come under the scrutiny of Air Marshals before they boarded the plane.

    The report read: “Prior to boarding, one of the air marshals noticed what he later characterized as ‘unusual behavior’ by about six Middle Eastern males, who arrived at the gate together, then separated, and acted as if they did not know each other.”

    “According to the air marshals, these men were sweaty, appeared nervous and arrived after the boarding announcement. The air marshals made eye contact with one another to ensure they were aware of this behavior.”

    In 2007, an Air Marshal based in Las Vegas told the Washington Times that he has personally witnessed many so-called ‘dry-runs’ and they were almost always ignored by Homeland security.

    Marshal P. Jeffrey Black told the Times: “Agency management was not only covering up numerous probes and dry-run encounters from Congress and other federal law-enforcement agencies, it was also hiding these incidents from their own flying air marshals.”

    It was a pending dry-run in 2006, which resulted in the capture of 24 Muslim terrorists in London, and foiled a major plot to blow up several passenger jets bound for the U.S. The terrorists planned to use liquid explosives disguised as bottled drinks, designed to be ignited by a camera flash.

    If Yavuz Berke was testing us for a future terrorist attack, we failed miserably. Have we all forgotten the horrors witnessed on September 11, 2001?

    http://www.examiner.com/x-5919.....n-a-dryrun

  7. canary
    July 19, 2009 at 5:51 am

    AP: Video: Captive soldier fears he won’t get home
    By Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess And Lolita Baldor, July 19 2009

    WASHINGTON – The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, said in a video posted by the Taliban that he’s “scared I won’t be able to go home.”

    The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier’s dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible.
    He said the date was July 14 and that he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
    “Well I’m scared, scared I won’t be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner.”
    He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.
    He is also prompted by his interrogators to give a message to the American people.
    “To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it’s like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home,” he said. “Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power.”

    A U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, said the Taliban was using their captive for propaganda.

    But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.

    Afghans in contact with the Taliban told The Associated Press that the soldier was held by a Taliban group led by a commander called Maulvi Sangin, who operates in the area where the American went missing.

    Associated Press writers Robert H. Reid, Kathy Gannon and Jason Straziuso in Kabul and Christine Simmons in Washington contributed to this report.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....NhcHRpdmU-

    This foot soldier idea Obama keeps insisting on is suicidal for our soldiers in Afganistan. And the Democrats are back to pushing getting rid of F22 bombers because we don’t use them. Use them. More soldiers are dying in Afganistan after Obama started this foot b.s Obama needs a soldiers boot kicked up his a** hole. Obama is a disgraceful master. Our American men, should not have to slave for a monster that cares about every other country more than our own.

  8. BillK
    July 19, 2009 at 9:39 am

    Don’t you love hard-working clergy with nothing better to do?

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    16 members of clergy protest Hispanic firings at Taco Bell

    By Steven Verburg

    The firing of more than two dozen Hispanic employees from Taco Bell outlets in Madison and Sun Prairie has sparked a protest by 16 local members of the clergy.

    “It troubles us on a moral level if hard-working people are being treated with such a lack of respect and dignity,” states a letter to Greg Creed, president of Taco Bell Corp. of Irvine, Calif.

    A company spokesman denied wrongdoing. “The federal government notified us that the Social Security numbers of some of our employees did not match up with their records,” corporation spokesman Rob Poetsch said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday. “We accordingly asked these employees to clear up the discrepancy and provided them several months to do so. At all times, Taco Bell has taken into account both our legal obligations and the well-being of our employees.”

    The Social Security Administration sends employers “no-match” letters to help ensure that money withheld from paychecks is credited to the correct worker. Employers are required only to tell workers about the letters and to correct records as needed, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration Verification Service Web site.

    “A mismatch is not a basis, in and of itself, for you to take any adverse action against an employee, such as laying off, suspending, firing or discriminating,” the federal Web site advises employers.

    About 19 of the former Taco Bell workers, with an average of seven years seniority, have filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in Milwaukee, said Patrick Hickey, director of the nonprofit Workers’ Rights Center in Madison, which helped the workers file the complaints. The complaints are pending.

    “All these workers provided the necessary documentation when they were hired and there is no obligation for either Taco Bell or the workers to repeat that process,” Hickey said. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/mad/latest/457736

    You’ve got to love Obama’s work here.

    The Social Security department notifies Taco Bell that these workers’ SSNs are bogus.

    Taco Bell gives them time to clear up the discrepancy because they’ll get fined if they don’t.

    The workers fail to do so, so Taco Bell has no recourse but to terminate them.

    The employees sue for discrimination because they provided “proof” of their bogus SSNs at hiring time.

    Thus Taco Bell will likely have to hire them back and pay even bigger fines.

    Racket? What racket?

    • canary
      July 19, 2009 at 3:35 pm

      I noticed our taco bell is not all Mexicans anymore. This means jobs for Americans. I hope McDonalds has followed through, as they all are run by Mexicans. And the stealing has gotten really bad, you just have to watch in stores their little games, and often things they don’t need. It seems to be for fun. And they drive up and down streets looking for things to steal. It’s scary.
      Aside the vicious growing gangs.

    • pdsand
      July 20, 2009 at 6:43 pm

      I showed you a card with a SSN on it. That’s all it says in the law right? The utterly ridiculous thing is that our betters will probably side with the illegals. They’re probably just mad Taco Bell didn’t do what so many others have done; get the mismatch notice, duely note it, and then go about their busy day. And to add insult to injury, it’s supposed to be a Mexican place.

  9. BillK
    July 19, 2009 at 9:49 am

    The ultra far-left (Madison, WI) Capital Times inadvertently publishes the truth about health care and its future:

    UW medical students rave about exchange program

    By Todd Finkelmeyer

    Jason Chiang became sold on the importance of research exchange programs during his undergraduate years at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

    Although Chiang has traveled overseas several times to study over the past couple years, it was an experience a bit closer to home, an internship at Toronto Western Hospital in the summer of 2005, that first opened his eyes to the value of such an experience.

    “I was only a sophomore and I was surrounded by these neurosurgeons who seemed to know everything,” said Chiang, who recently completed his first year as a student at the University of Wisconsin’s medical school. “Sometimes I didn’t understand what they were saying, but they really made me fit in as part of their group — part of their gang, almost. So every day I left the hospital I felt really refreshed. They just really inspired me to reach out to people and it totally changed the way I looked at cross-culture exchanges.”

    Today, Chiang is not only continuing his studies abroad — he recently returned from a monthlong trip to Cairo, Egypt, during which he studied a novel tumor detection program in a clinical setting — but he is also helping bring international students to UW-Madison as part of an exchange program that operates through the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations.

    Through the federation — which is run by students, for students — more than 500 medical students from more than 50 countries travel the globe to take part in basic science or clinical research projects under the leadership of a university faculty member.

    For the first time under the federation program, three students from overseas are spending time this summer at UW-Madison. Chiang and UW-Madison undergraduate Kyle Swinsky are the federation’s local officers in charge of the exchange, and do everything from securing inexpensive housing for the international students to finding a lab for them to work in to arranging social activities. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/mad/topstories/458841

    Fair enough, but as usual, it is people from other countries with vaunted “health care for all” who speak the truth:

    When asked for an opinion on the differences between these health care systems, Alvarez said: “I went to the UW Hospital with my teacher and I saw how it works here. And it’s much different. Here the hospital is like a hotel — so you have to pay for it. The doctors have one patient per hour, which is kind of a joke. He just chatted for one hour about, ‘OK, how are you? Is the family OK?’ And they talked about movies.”

    Conversely, Alvarez said: “In Spain, everything is free, so people just go there because they don’t have anything to lose. So there is a saturation of the health system because everything is free, and lots of British and German people come to have surgery because it is free. So maybe it’s best to have a balance between that and the U.S.”

    The health care system in Spain is saturated, because it’s free. Huh.

    Funny how that happens.

    And even then people in the glorious British and German health care systems go to Spain for surgery.

    How can that be?

    Note how the notion of spending a whole hour with a patient is also a joke as is a semi-private hospital room – considered a “hotel.”

    Spain does so much better apparently getting doctors in and out and packing ‘em into hospitals.

    Who needs that personalized, high quality care?

  10. BillK
    July 19, 2009 at 9:56 am

    Watch teachers shoot themselves in the foot while whining to a friendly news source.

    From the ultra far-left (Madison, WI) Capital Times:

    Teachers say coveted summers off aren’t a breeze

    By Samara Kalk Derby

    It’s the height of summer, and Madison teachers know what you’re thinking: You envision them at the pool, sunscreen in one hand, cool drink in the other, without a care in the world.

    They understand your envy, even your bitterness.

    But they really want you to banish that image from your mind.

    The truth, teachers say, is that the 11 weeks away from work in the summer go quickly, particularly if they
    are taking continuing education classes and spending time preparing for the upcoming school year. Plus, they consider summer a necessary break from all the intensity and stress the job entails nine-and-a-half months of the year.

    Even though it feels like summer just started, most teachers are aware that it’s only five short weeks until they are back in the classroom.

    School ended June 12, and the 2009-10 school year begins Aug. 28 with preparation and an in-service day for teaching staff.

    A sampling of teachers found at home this month — and finding them at home wasn’t easy — revealed many of them involved in mundane home improvement projects, particularly interior painting. Most were doing nothing more exotic than taking a weeklong trip to relax on a northern Wisconsin lake.

    Mary Brand, who teaches fourth and fifth grade at Elvehjem Elementary, is doing her share of golfing and biking, but she is also taking a continuing education class and spending some time at school planning for the next school year. She’s not taking any trips this summer, but instead “mostly doing the Madison things: Concerts on the Square, the Art Fair and hanging out.”

    Brand calls her time away from work rejuvenating and says most professionals would benefit from a little more time away, but she realizes that’s not the reality of other jobs.

    As someone who has been teaching for 18 years, Brand is familiar with the resentment and jealousy that her summer break elicits from those outside the profession. “It’s definitely a perk of the job,” she says, noting that people who covet her summers off could be teachers if they so choose. “I just say, ‘Well, you could go back to school and be a teacher yourself. It’s got its trade-offs.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/458840

    Because people with jobs that require them to be there all year never need “rejuvenation,” aren’t expected to keep up their skills with continuing education and of course must all take extravagant vacations rather than try and finish off a year’s worth of home improvement projects in the week or two off they can manage.

    Brand of course delivers the coup de grace of “Well, you could go back to school and be a teacher yourself.”

    Wow – that’s the best a teacher could come up with?

    I also live this at the end of the article:

    Right now, with so many workers in the public and private sectors forced to take furloughs, they could look at it as unpaid vacation time, similar to teachers, Worel suggests. “You could say that every year, we get laid off for the summer months,” he notes.

    Cavicchio, of Emerson Elementary, acknowledges that some people are envious of her summer break, but counters that she is “going, going, going at this frenetic pace,” especially toward the end of the school year, when she’s putting in 10-hour days to finish report cards and clean up her classroom.

    Can someone name me a salaried position in the workforce today where one isn’t all but expected to put in ten hour days as a result of cutbacks?

    • neocon mom
      July 19, 2009 at 11:31 am

      Name one other “profession” that isn’t twice as stressful?

      Name one other “profession” where the expectations are so low? Most “professions”, for better or worse, seek to bar unqualified people from entry.

      Name one other profession where you get 11 weeks off!!!

      This takes the cake:
      “Even though it feels like summer just started, most teachers are aware that it’s only five short weeks until they are back in the classroom.”

      The lazy Europeans only get 4 weeks!

    • proreason
      July 19, 2009 at 3:43 pm

      But the good news for the overworked teachers is that they don’t need to know much nowadays.

    • catie
      July 19, 2009 at 4:12 pm

      Well as a former teacher myself I did like my summers off but for some unknown reason that was the career I wanted to do and can’t say the summers off though were the reason. I wanted to try to help disabled kids and teach them as well as my regular ed kids how fortunate we were to live in this country and how our government actually worked. But I put in 10 sometimes 12 hours a day frequently and who doesn’t in their work? I didn’t consider it a hassle since I often did 14-18 when in the Army. I certainly didn’t whine but I worked with plenty of people who did. I even had a guy I work with say on the last day of school, “I have 12 more years to go on a sentence for a crime I didn’t commit!”. I told him why didn’t he try to do something else and he looked at me like I was from the moon.
      However, her statement about going back to school to be a teacher is disingenuous at best, even harmful perhaps. Many years ago when I went into the profession, the teachers were still pretty normal, middle of the road people (at least the ones I worked with). In fact when I was doing my internship there was a girl who had been in the Navy with a tattoo of a dolphin on her ankle, she had to cover it up with make-up everyday she taught, even was told that when she got hired. However, the quality of teachers I believe has slipped in the past 15 or so years. They are not professionally dressed, they have piercings and tats all over, they try to be the student’s friend and they’re just pretty useless. Now that is a generalization but it’s what I’ve experienced as someone who also grades student teachers too. The teachers in Richmond are complaining about a dress code. To me it’s pretty sad when the teacher’s have to be given a dress code. But alas, that’s they way it has been going these past years. We also tend to get these “90 day wonders” who have a degree in tiddly winks and take courses to become a teacher during the summer. They don’t have a clue nor do those who “want to give back” and come in and laud their wisdom over their “charges” after making a fortune doing something else. Hell, my cousin a retired Navy Pilot thought it would be a breeze to be a teacher and went to that Troops to Teachers program, flunks out of his internship but still winds up with a Masters degree from Old Dominion University in VA. He flunked the most important part but still got a degree. Believe it or not he’s now a “consultant” for education. As to the 90 day wonders I mentioned let me give you an example of their prowess. Where I worked in GA, they had an exodus of teachers who didn’t like our harda$$ Principal. About 15 of these people were hired out of the program at Armstrong State (Savannah, GA) for our school. At the end of the third week, no one was left with 8 of them leaving after the first day. They’re ideas that a trained monkey could do this job were obviously wrong. This chick is just as wrong and probably is one of these fools herself.
      It’s not an easy job but who has an easy job ever? I hate whiners and teachers are unfortunately some of the worst.

  11. wirenut
    July 19, 2009 at 10:30 am

    BillK, replace the word teacher with the words community organizer and I get just as repulsed. They don’t call it mad-city for nothing. What other job can you pass off your failures as a success and still get paid for it? Jeeesh!

  12. BillK
    July 19, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    How can the AP actually admit to this? Because she’s leaving?

    From the Associated Press:

    Palin: Alaska Tour a Thank You, Not Goodbye

    UNALAKLEET, Alaska — She was greeted like a rock star in Unalakleet, a fishing village on the Bering Sea. She danced with Eskimos in Kotzebue. And she watched grizzlies at a wildlife sanctuary on the Kenai Peninsula.

    In all, Sarah Palin has been on eight trips outside her Anchorage base since announcing her resignation two weeks ago. Is this a farewell tour, the start of a possible presidential campaign for 2012?

    Palin insists it isn’t, although she still won’t say what plans she has after she steps down as Alaska governor on July 26, with 18 months left to her first term.

    “I am Alaskan. I’ve grown up here and I’m going to remain in Alaska,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “It’s not farewell, it’s more like thanks for letting me be here and I’ll see you soon.”

    Palin has largely avoided the media limelight in the past two weeks and dodged questions about her future plans. But she hints she has a bigger role in mind, and she plans to launch her new platform by speaking her mind on the social networking site Twitter.

    In a message Sunday on her Twitter page, Palin said she and her husband Todd are packing their family’s possessions at the governor’s mansion in Juneau, the state capital.

    “Todd & I r packing JNU house today; looking thru Piper’s kindergarten schoolwork here reminds how quickly X flies; she enters 3rd grd in fall.”

    Piper is the youngest of Palins’ three daughters. The Palins also have two sons.

    Palin said she is eager to begin life as a private citizen.

    “Once I am ‘Sarah Palin, Alaskan,’ I can really call it like I see it,” she said.

    Palin waves off any talk of running for president.

    “I look forward to continuing to work for Alaska and for energy independence and for the contribution that Alaska could and should be making to allow our nation to be more secure and more prosperous,” she said. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....k-goodbye/

    It must tick off the left and Peggy Noonan no end that she seems to be as popular as ever despite their best efforts.

    I for one am truly waiting with baited breath to see what her post-Governor comments look like.

  13. canary
    July 20, 2009 at 1:30 am

    chicagotribune.com From LA Times: U.S. increasing counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan
    By Josh Meyer July 20, 2009 Reporting from Washington

    The U.S. government is deploying dozens of Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Afghanistan in a new kind of “surge,” targeting trafficking networks that officials say are increasingly fueling the Taliban insurgency and corrupting the Afghan government.

    For much of its eight-year tenure, the Bush administration’s counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan were focused on destroying the vast fields of poppy that have long been the source of the world’s heroin.

    But the Obama administration believes that the effort drove many farmers and influential tribesmen into supporting the Islamist insurgency. The Afghan government and some NATO allies in the country agree.

    The United States is now shifting to a counterinsurgency campaign that in addition to sending more troops is funding nation-building efforts and promoting alternative crops to farmers who have long profited from poppy production.

    In interviews, more than a dozen current and former U.S. counter-narcotics officials said they were alarmed by the growing ties between drug traffickers and insurgents and the Afghan government’s inability or lack of interest to go after them.
    More agents will also be deployed in Pakistan. It is “the most prolific expansion in DEA history,” Harrigan said.

    The DEA also has been designated as the lead in a multi-agency “Afghan Threat Finance Cell” that will go after not only the suspected drug kingpins, but also corrupt politicians and other sources of funding for the insurgency, including cash from wealthy Persian Gulf donors, extortion and kidnappings, according to DEA documents and interviews.

    It will also expand a U.S. program to train Afghan counter-narcotics police.

    “A surge not only of military but law enforcement is exactly what we need. It is something we have always demanded of the U.S. government,” said M. Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Washington

    At the same time, some current and former officials question whether Afghan government corruption is too rampant to turn the tide. Recently, President Hamid Karzai pardoned five convicted major drug traffickers, prompting a rare rebuke from the U.S. State Department.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....?track=rss

    Surely, this is sinful to allah.

    • canary
      July 20, 2009 at 5:46 am

      Sorry is wrong with Obama’s plan on his halt to destroy poppy fields in the Middle-East. The article in entirety, claims an increase of the Middle-East in distributing heroin. This recent Dept of Justice report says it’s declined in the Middle-East, Mexico now being the leader. This recent DOJ report contradicts the attacks on Bush in the full article, that the middle-east heroin reaching the U.S. has increased, though Bush burned their poppy fields.

      Also, why would the middle-easterns want to grow a green bean for less than a penny per oz, compared to dollars per oz of heroin. That’s insane to
      think the farmers will be any happier and quit helping the taliban if we help them build food crops. . If the farmers wanted to grow cheap veggies, instead of high dollar heroin, they already would. The world is going insane. Obama hung with heroin users in Hawaii, and his muslim room mate while he attended Columbia was a drug addict. Who would want to live with a drug addict, if you had quit drugs. Prehaps, Obama wants the poppy fields to grow, to make pain medication cheaper, but buying opium from middle-east would contradict his belief, of not being dependent on terrorists for our oil. Anyways, all the blaiming of Bush in the rest of this article, that heroin increased by burning poppy fields make no sense. For latest gov report contradicting Obama

      http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs31/31379/heroin.htm

  14. canary
    July 20, 2009 at 1:57 am

    AP: Israel: Lebanon blast shows ‘flagrant’ violations
    By MATTI FRIEDMAN July 16, 2009 (The Washington Post)

    JERUSALEM — Israel accused Iran and Syria on Thursday of sending weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah in violation of U.N. resolutions, after one of the militant group’s weapons depots blew up near the Israeli border.

    – adding to growing regional alarm over the power of its major patron, Iran.

    A senior Israeli officer told reporters the warehouse that blew up on Tuesday in southern Lebanon contained active, short-range rockets that were smuggled from Syria.

    “We believe that this is one of dozens of ammunition storage (depots) in southern Lebanon that were built by Hezbollah.”

    Hezbollah has not commented on the explosion in the village of Khirbet Silim, 10 miles (15 kilometers) north of Israel’s border.

    Lebanese officials said Tuesday’s explosions in a supposedly abandoned building were caused by a fire in a Hezbollah weapons storage facility within the buffer zone. The U.N. peacekeeping force called the incident a “serious violation” of the cease-fire

    Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said his group has replenished its stock since the war and possesses more than 30,000 rockets. Hezbollah is also suspected of possessing anti-aircraft missiles – a suspicion cemented

    Israel …has expressed alarm at Hezbollah’s public admission that it provided arms to the militant Palestinian Hamas group that controls the Gaza Strip.

    There is also growing evidence of Hezbollah’s fingerprints across the Mideast. In April, Egypt accused Hezbollah of organizing a cell to carry out terror attacks inside Egypt.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00595.html

  15. bronzeprofessor
    July 20, 2009 at 1:58 am

    Washington Post reports troubling poll, still tries to protect the Democrats

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....r=facebook

    Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues
    Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent

    The president’s overall approval rating remains higher than his marks on particular domestic issues, with 59 percent giving him positive reviews and 37 percent disapproving. But this is the first time in his presidency that Obama has fallen under 60 percent in Post-ABC polling, and the rating is six percentage points lower than it was a month ago.

    Now, mind you, major polling companies like Rasmussen, Zogby, et al, keep showing Obama’s approvals hovering closer to 50%, and show disapproval rates in the 40s. All the WaPo-ABC polls in 2008 overstated Obama’s lead over McCain by a great deal, so it’s funny that now these “approval” numbers keep showing the same pattern. But see how WaPo tries to cover for Obama below:

    Nearly a quarter of moderate and conservative Democrats (22 percent) now see Obama as an “old-style tax-and-spend Democrat,” up from 4 percent in March. Among all Americans, 52 percent consider Obama a “new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public’s money.” That is down from 58 percent a month ago and 62 percent in March, to about where President Bill Clinton was on that question in the summer of 1993.

    Concerns about the federal account balance are also reflected in views about another round of stimulus spending. In the new poll, more than six in 10 oppose spending beyond the $787 billion already allocated to boost the economy. Most Democrats support more spending; big majorities of Republicans and independents are against the idea. …

    Obama’s leadership attributes remain highly rated, despite some slippage. Seven in 10 call him a strong leader, two in three say he cares about the problems of people like themselves, and just over six in 10 say he fulfilled a central campaign pledge and has brought needed change to Washington. However, he has dropped 10 points on the empathy question since April.

    Obama still holds wide advantages over Republicans in Congress on the economy and the deficit, although the GOP has rebounded marginally from earlier in the year. The overall approval rating for congressional Republicans has increased six points since April, to 36 percent (compared with 47 percent approval for Democrats), and they have picked up five points vis-à-vis Obama on the deficit. They have gained seven on health care.

    I’m not sure how much personal qualities like “strength” matter when majorities are disagreeing with Obama on policy. Also, it is worth noting that Rasmussen shows Republicans leading Democrats for 3 straight weeks on the question of economics. But it’s never worth the bother deconstructing WaPo polls too closely.

  16. BillK
    July 20, 2009 at 4:18 am

    It’s good to be a city retiree in San Francisco.

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    More S.F. retirees join $100,000 pension club

    By Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross

    The number of San Francisco retirees or their survivors knocking back $100,000 or more a year in city pensions has grown to 709.

    That’s 229 more than last year. It’s also 124 more than for all of Los Angeles – a city with more than four times San Francisco’s population – according to figures freshly provided to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a pension reform group.

    Those in San Francisco who have earned a ride on the golden highway include six former police chiefs, four former fire chiefs or their widows and a slew of former department heads.

    The highest pension – $242,000 – goes to former Police Chief Earl Sanders. He got a $20,000 bump this year, thanks to a cost-of-living increase.

    As with last year’s list, the bulk of those making more than $100,000 appear to be either retired police or firefighters.

    San Francisco Retirement Board head Clare Murphy gave two reasons for the jump: a surge in employees who became eligible for retirement this year, and cost-of-living increases that bumped earlier pensioners over the $100,000 mark.

    “Are we going to keep growing at this rate? Probably not,” Murphy said.

    A new civil grand jury report on pension costs said there was a widespread practice of “spiking” in the police and fire departments – the practice of members getting temporarily promoted in their final year on the job to bump up their retirement benefits.

    The report also said that more than half of the police and firefighters who have retired since 1998 are getting paid more in retirement than when they worked. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....18R5IO.DTL

    I really hate to criticize firemen and policemen, but making more in retirement than they did while working?!?!?

  17. BillK
    July 20, 2009 at 4:49 am

    The Madison, Wisconsin police chief has effectively told residents they must “learn to accept the new normal.”

    From the WIsconsin State Journal:

    Police chief: ‘Crime has gotten personal’ in Madison

    By Steven Verburg

    Many categories of crime in Madison are continuing to decrease, according to statistics due to come out in the next week.

    Many people will feel no reassurance whatsoever, and Police Chief Noble Wray says he can’t blame them.

    “What has happened is that crime has gotten personal,” Wray said. “The reason it’s gotten personal is because more people are experiencing quality of life issues and seeing crime taking place where they would not have seen it before.”

    In some cases, long-time residents of some neighborhoods are afraid of young blacks and Hispanics who are not breaking the law. In those cases, the newcomers to a neighborhood may need to adjust their behavior, and long-time residents will have to accept behaviors that feel strange and scary, Wray said.

    “The things that make people apprehensive are not in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports,” said Michael Scott, who directs the UW-Madison-based Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. “The things that scare people are kids hanging out, small things stolen from the front yard, loud noise … things that affect our sense of safety and security.”

    Race, poverty, immigration, and a clash of cultures play into Madison’s perception of its crime problem.

    It will take a multi-pronged effort by police, neighbors, parents, public health nurses, building inspectors and social workers to find a solution.

    “Just arresting more people is not going to be the answer,” Wray said. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/458897

    You’ll love this:

    Sometimes residents call about things that scare them that are not illegal, Wray said.

    “As I’m driving home, there’s this group of kids that walk across the street and they don’t walk fast, they walk slow, and they stare me down and they look at me. And then they eventually get across the street,” Wray said.

    That behavior isn’t illegal, but it should not become the new normal in Madison neighborhoods, he said.

    Eradicating intimidation tactics will take communication between neighbors and action by parents.

    What are the odds?

  18. Rusty Shackleford
    July 20, 2009 at 3:05 pm

    AP source: On 40th anniversary of moon landing, Apollo 11 astronauts to be at White House

    http://blog.taragana.com/n/ap-.....se-113040/

    And sadly, Michael Collins seems to have become a Utopian idealist. I hope that what he meant is that people need to peacefully settle differences and that rogue nations need to behave and that the right to succeed is not encumbered. But by his choice of words, it looks like he’s now a card-carrying socialist.

    Bloody shame.

    [quote]
    Collins, who didn’t get to land on the moon but circled it, said in a NASA press release this week that the view from space is something presidents and others should see for themselves.

    “I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of 100,000 miles their outlook could be fundamentally changed,” Collins said. “That all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified facade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The Earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied.”

    One of the key words Collins uses to describe Earth is “fragile” and he said that 40 years later it is still fragile “and growing more so.”

    “When we flew to the moon, our population was 3 billion; today it has more than doubled and is headed for 8 billion, the experts say,” Collins said. “I do not think this growth is sustainable or healthy. The loss of habitat, the trashing of oceans, the accumulation of waste products – this is no way to treat a planet.” [end quote]

  19. Rusty Shackleford
    July 20, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    Obama condemns Indonesia bomb attacks:

    Remember folks….put on your “opposite” hats and then the following will make sense:

    [quote]
    “The American people stand by the Indonesian people in this difficult time and the US government stands ready to help the Indonesian government respond to and recover from these outrageous attacks,” Obama said in a statement. [end quote]

    Full article:

    http://blog.taragana.com/n/oba.....ks-113039/

    This guy is such a trip. I think if you could get sound bites, you could make a drinking game out of whatever he says.

    • proreason
      July 20, 2009 at 3:23 pm

      Looks like ole PR is ahead of the curve again.

      I’m been drinkin steady since Nov 4, 2008.

  20. caligirl9
    July 20, 2009 at 7:26 pm

    Ah, the “N” word rears its ugly head yet again, but all ir likely forgiven … from CNN.

    Maloney apologizes for using N word

    New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat, apologized Monday for using the N word in a recent interview while recounting a phone call she had received.

    “I apologize for having repeated a word I find disgusting,” Maloney said in a statement. “It’s no excuse but I was so caught up in relaying the story exactly as it was told to me that, in doing so, I repeated a word that should never be repeated.”

    Maloney, who is challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for the 2010 Democratic Senate nomination in New York, used the full racial slur in an interview with the Web site City Hall while taking aim at Gillibrand’s record.

    “I got a call from someone from Puerto Rico, said [Gillibrand] went to Puerto Rico and came out for English-only [education]. And he said, ‘It was like saying n—r to a Puerto Rican,’” Maloney said. “I don’t know-I don’t know if that’s true or not. I just called. I’m just throwing that out. All of her-well, what does she stand for?”

    Earlier Monday, the Rev. Al Sharpton — a supporter of Gillibrand’s bid — sharply criticized Maloney for using the word.

    “The quote by Congresswoman Maloney if accurate is alarming and disturbing at best,” he said in a statement. “No public official even in quoting someone else should loosely use such an offensive term and should certainly challenge someone using the term to him or her…”

    http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....nt-2858656

    Had this been a Republican, the good reverend would have been demanding his or her resignation.
    I hate that word as much as the next guy, I really do. I hate it when I hear black people use it on each other. I hate the double-standard of its use most of all. The word is either okay or it’s not, and if it’s deemed obscene, it’s obscene no matter the skin color of the person using it.

    • canary
      July 21, 2009 at 2:58 am

      I guess Al Sharpton didn’t read Obama’s QUOTED and made fun of Blacks in his book. And the “boy” word. worse uses the “gd” word, makes fun of they way blacks talk, and preacher Dr. Lonnie King.

      Also Reverand Wright was a former Muslim! if that doesn’t figure on his Jew hating. And one of Obama’s muslim preacher friends also did not like Dr MLK.

      And Obama’s set the bar, it’s official. Saying African American is no longer hip and political correct. It’s now black, blacks, So relax.

  21. canary
    July 20, 2009 at 9:52 pm

    Afghan blast kills 4 GIs in deadliest month for US
    By Associated Press Writer Robert H. Reid July 20 2009

    KABUL – A roadside bomb killed four American troops in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, driving the July death toll for U.S. forces to the highest monthly level of the war.

    U.S. commanders had predicted a bloody summer after President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan

    NATO’s outgoing Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Monday that terrorism would spread through the world if NATO forces fail in Afghanistan.

    “Al-Qaida would have a free run again, and their terrorist ambitions are global,” he said in a speech at London’s Chatham House think tank. “Those who argue otherwise — who say we can defend against terrorism from home — are simply burying their heads in the sand.”

    Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that U.S.-led forces must demonstrate progress in Afghanistan by next summer or face a public perception that the conflict cannot be won.

    It was unclear whether the blast occurred near the area of eastern Afghanistan where Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, was taken captive June 30. Bergdahl appeared on a Taliban video posted on the Internet over the weekend — a move denounced by the U.S. command as a violation of international law.

    The increased tempo of the conflict has strained air assets and may have been behind a series of aircraft accidents in recent weeks.

    In the latest mishap, a British Tornado GR4 fighter jet crashed Monday on takeoff inside the Kandahar Airfield, but the two crewmen managed to eject safely,… the cause was still under investigation.

    Taliban militants shot down a Moldovan-owned Mi-6 transport helicopter last week in southern Afghanistan, killing six Ukrainian civilians on board and an Afghan child on the ground.

    Associated Press Writers Jason Straziuso and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....fghanistan

  22. canary
    July 20, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    AP: Gates announces Army being increased by 22,000
    By Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek Mon Jul 20, 2009

    WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Monday that the size of the Army will be increased temporarily by 22,000 soldiers to help meet the needs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and OTHER MISSIONS AROUND THE WORLD.

    Gates noted that while progress in Iraq will lead to a reduction in the number of troops there, more troops are needed in Afghanistan because of the worsening violence in that conflict.

    Also causing a shortage is the decision earlier this year to stop the unpopular practice of keeping troops beyond their enlistment dates, a practice known as “stop-loss.”

    “The cumulative effect of these factors is that the army faces a period where its ability to continue to deploy combat units (with enough troops) is at risk,” Gates said.

    “This is a temporary challenge that will peak in the coming year and abate over the course of the next three years,” Gates told a Pentagon press conference.

    Gates also said it was “not inevitable” that more U.S. troops would be needed in Afghanistan beyond the 68,000 American force expected to be there by the end of the year.

    Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took over as commander for all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, is nearing the end of a 60-day review of the campaign what is needed there. The former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, had said he needed an additional 10,000 troops, beyond the 68,000. The White House put off that decision until the end of this year.

    The other 10,000 have been tapped for other duties, or have just returned from the battlefront and are guaranteed one year at home before they redeploy.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....uYw–

    This is a very long article saying we have a shortage of troops. Possible draft? Kill the men for the new muslim world of bigamy?

    World countries like Indonesia?

  23. canary
    July 20, 2009 at 10:47 pm

    Good find Rusty. Obama’s favorite country in the world is Indonesia. His chapter
    on foriegn affairs is named and dedicated to Indonesia, The World Beyond Our Borders. Chapter 8 starts, first word Indonesia.

    pg 271 Indonesia is a nation of islands….240 million people, …90 percent of
    Indonesia’s population practice Islam,
    making it the world’s largest Muslim nation.
    pg 272 Most Americans can’t locate Indonesia on a map.
    This fact is puzzling to Indonesians, since for the past sixty years the fate of their nation has been directly tied to U.S. foriegn policy.

    (”the trip” starts in the 1600’s, and just constradicts with such as crediting Japan’s surrender in Indonesia, followed by great prosperity, but at same time, democracy back fired, because his mom couldn’t sell baskets, cause Nike’s took over ) and America should have helped way before when Indonesians were purging communists, like America owed it to save the world, while he we should also have not meddled) He does not mention that for centuries the moderate and conservative muslims have murdered each other.

    Part 2, also starts dedicated to Indonesia, The World Beyond our Borders

    pg 279 In the field of international affairs, it’s dangerous to extrapolate from the experiences of a single country. In its history, geography, culture, and conflicts, each nation is unique. And yet in many ways INDONESIA SERVES AS A USEFUL METAPHOR FOR THE WORLD BEYOND OUR BORDERS – .”

    Then end of chapter The World Beyond Our Borders dedicated to Indonesia.
    pg 322-323
    ..perhaps it depends just as much on the work we do in those quiet places that require a helping hand. I remember seeing the reports of the tusunami ..2004 – the towns of Indonesia’s western coast flattened,…Americans sent more than
    a billion dollars in ‘private’ relief and as U.S. warships delivered THOUSANDS OF TROOPS to assist in relief and reconstruction. …..I am not ‘naive enough to believe that ‘one episode’ in the wake of catsrophe can erase decades of mistrust. But it’s a start. (the end of chapter).

    Yet, most Americans never heard of Indonesia? Is he a trip.
    Amazing, during 2003 trip Iraq, (when he left played hookie, going to Israel and Palenstine) talking to reporters in Iraq, he endangered by begging them to talk during a dangerous time, told him, if we left Iraq, a civil war would lead to the deaths of 100,000 to 200,000. But, Obama did not change his mind to get our soldiers home. And all of a sudden he cares about humanity in Indonesia, when they’ve slaughtered each other in the name of God since the beginning of Islam? And Hillary’s secret first trip and stop to Indonesia telling them their great leader and savior would be there soon? Where they are going to fight their Holy War til the death. Risk more soldiers lives? There were protestors that hate Obama when Hillary went. Let Obama go alone and save his people. Yes, the most quote “JOYOUS” years of his life. A great conflict of interest if our troops give their lives to a country Obama claims hate us. Obama can’t have it both ways. Say their problems are all our fault, and doubtful they will ever like us, and going over there in a civil war. Blood will be on his manicured nails.

    279. In the field of international affairs, it’s dangerous

  24. BillK
    July 21, 2009 at 2:38 am

    Today’s propaganda from the Associated Press:

    Obama challenges GOP critics on health care

    By Darlene Superville

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama pushed back hard against Republican critics of his health care overhaul plan Monday, dismissing the “politics of the moment” marked by GOP comparisons of his efforts to socialism.

    Struggling to revamp the nation’s $2.4 trillion health care system, the president gave ground on his tight timetable for passage of sweeping legislation.

    Obama’s strong words came just hours after Republicans ratcheted up their criticism of the president and congressional Democrats. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, likened Obama’s plans to socialism and argued that the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and key congressional committee chairmen are part of a “cabal” that wants to implement government-run health care.

    The White House also faced troubling news in the latest polling, with approval of Obama’s handling of health care slipping.

    “We can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat when it comes to health care,” Obama said after meeting with doctors, nurses and other health care workers at Children’s National Medical Center. “Not this time. Not now. There are too many lives and livelihoods at stake.” …

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

    More like your plans for a Government takeover of a huge part of the economy might actually have a remote chance of failing.

    “This isn’t about me,” Obama responded. “This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses and breaking America’s economy.”

    Striking a more populist tone than in past remarks, the president complained that “health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system.”

    “Let’s fight our way through the politics of the moment,” Obama said. “Let’s pass reform by the end of this year.“

    The narcissist always says “this isn’t about me.”

    I thought he was demanding a bill on his desk by the August recess?

  25. canary
    July 21, 2009 at 4:01 am

    Convert from Islam Shot Dead in Somalia
    Simba Tian
    Compass Direct News July 21, 2009

    NAIROBI, Kenya (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists early yesterday morning killed a Christian convert in Mahadday Weyne, Somalia, 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Mogadishu.

    Al Shabaab Islamist rebels shot Mohammed Sheikh Abdiraman to death at 7 a.m., eyewitnesses told Compass. They said the Islamic extremists appeared to have been hunting the convert from Islam,

    Intent on “cleansing” Somalia of all Christians, al Shabaab militia are monitoring converts from Islam especially where Christian workers had provided medical aid, such as Johar, Jamame, Kismayo and Beledweyne, sources said. Mahadday Weyne, 22 kilometers (14 miles) north of Johar, is the site of a former Christian-run hospital.

    Linked with Islamic extremist al Qaeda terrorists, al Shabaab rebels have mounted an armed effort to topple President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s Western-backed Transitional Federal Government with the intention of imposing sharia (Islamic law). The group is already enforcing sharia in large parts of southern Somalia that they control.

    The militants reportedly BEHEADED SEVEN CHRISTIANS on July 10, and refugees from Somalia tell of other attacks. One refugee last year recounted an attack in Lower Juba, Somalia.

    For some time the local community had suspected that she and her family were Christians, Bilal told Compass. The group asked the women if they were Christians, and when they said they were, the group began beating her and her daughter, who was six months pregnant, Bilal said.

    After raping them and holding them captive for five days, the Muslim extremists left them for dead, she said, and her husband found them.

    Reuters reported on July 10 that al Shabaab militants beheaded seven people in Baidoa that day for being Christians and “spies.”

    Copyright 2009 Compass Direct News. Used by permission.

    http://www.crosswalk.com/news/...../11606259/

  26. canary
    July 21, 2009 at 4:12 am

    Islamists in Somalia Behead Two Sons of Christian Leader
    Simba Tian
    Compass Direct News July 6, 2009

    NAIROBI, Kenya (Compass Direct News) – Islamic extremists have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to divulge information about a church leader, and the killers are searching Kenya’s refugee camps to do the same to the boys’ father.

    Before taking his Somali family to a Kenyan refugee camp in April, 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf himself was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia. He had received instruction in the Christian faith from Salat Mberwa.

    Militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab entered Yonday village on Feb. 20, went to Yusuf’s house and interrogated him on his relationship with Mberwa, leader of a fellowship of 66 Somali Christians who meet at his home at an undisclosed city.

    At noon the next day, as his wife was making lunch for their children in Yonday, the al Shabaab militants showed up. Batula Ali Arbow,

    The Islamic extremists ordered her to stop what she was doing and took hold of three of her sons – 11-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 12-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7. Some neighbors came and pleaded with the militants not to harm the three boys. Their pleas landed on deaf ears.

    “I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” Arbow said. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered. Just after some few minutes I heard a wailing cry from Abdulahi running towards the house. I could not hold my breath. I only woke up with all my clothes wet. I knew I had fainted due to the shock.”

    In Kismayo, Yusuf received the news that two of his sons had been killed and that the Islamic militants were looking for him, and he left on foot for Mberwa’s home. It took him a month and three days to reach him, and the Christian fellowship there raised travel funds for him to reach a refugee camp in Kenya.

    I do not want to go back to Somalia – I don’t want to see the graves of my children,” she said amid sobs.

    Western security services see the al Shabaab ranks, reportedly filled with foreign jihadists, as a proxy for the Islamic extremist al-Qaeda group in Somalia. If the plight of Christians in Somalia is horrific – some are slaughtered,

    http://www.crosswalk.com/11605523/

  27. canary
    July 21, 2009 at 4:23 am

    Christians in Indonesia being persecuted by islam extremists threatening to cut off their heads. Sharia law
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....p;index=11

    David Horowitz persecution of Christans by Indonesia and middle-east. graphic
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....A&NR=1

    I had no difficulty on finding alot of Christians being persecuted and killed in Indonesia and Africa, prior to the 2006 to present Obama’s propanganda we are to treat them as poor people, and it’s our fault. Obama is scary.

  28. BillK
    July 21, 2009 at 4:35 am

    From a shocked Associated Press:

    Minnesota Neighborhoods Struggle With Rise of Somali Gangs

    MINNEAPOLIS — Ahmednur Ali’s family fled the chaos and violence of their East African homeland Somalia in the 1990s, eventually making their way to Minnesota like thousands of their compatriots.

    While many of the estimated 32,000 Somalis who settled in the state have struggled to adapt, Ali flourished. By age 20, he had blazed a path to Minneapolis’ Augsburg College, where he played soccer, studied political science and aspired to a political career modeled on President Barack Obama’s.

    He was shot and killed last September outside a busy community center where he worked part-time as a youth counselor, and prosecutors said the 16-year-old accused of killing him was part of a gang.

    Ali was one of seven Minneapolis-area Somali men killed over a 10-month period, and authorities believe all were killed by fellow Somalis. Police say it’s too simple to tie all the killings to Somali gangs, which have lured hundreds of young community members to their ranks in recent years.

    Those in the insular community willing to speak out, however, disagree.

    “It was all gang activity, totally, 100 percent,” said Shukri Adan, a former Somali community organizer who estimated in a 2007 report for the city that between 400 and 500 young Somalis were active in gangs. “The police don’t want to say that but everybody else knows that.”

    Despite anger and despair over the killings in Minnesota’s Somali community — the nation’s largest — police and prosecutors have struggled to catch and try the killers. Few witnesses have stepped forward because of a fear of reprisal and deep-rooted distrust of authority. More than half of Minnesota’s Somalis are living in poverty, according to state statistics, and many complain that authorities are biased against Somalis because of their Islamic faith.

    Last month, prosecutors dropped the murder charge against the teenage boy in Ali’s case after one witness backed out and another apparently fled the state. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534048,00.html

    Ah, political correctness means not catching criminals.

    So what else is new.

    The article concludes:

    Police in Columbus, Ohio, which has the second largest U.S. population of Somalis, have also seen growing evidence of Somali gangs, said Sgt. Chantay Boxill.

    Ahmednur Ali’s sister, Hindia Ali, said she hopes her fellow Somalis will stand up against the violence.

    “I don’t think any Somali person wants killing to continue,” she said. “We all want this violence to stop.”

    I somehow don’t think the gang members do…

    • canary
      July 21, 2009 at 4:53 am

      Bilk, I guess with so many of their gang members who went to Somali showing up dead on the internet, it’s possible one has come to the U.S. and recruiting and running things, or the gangs aren’t happy without killing Americans.

  29. BillK
    July 21, 2009 at 6:55 am

    The Denver Post reports extremely wealthy ($100m+) extremely liberal Jared Polis “daringly” went against his policy and actually realized the health plan surtax would cost jobs.

    Of course now liberals are ticked at him:

    Polis gets top Dems rethinking

    Attack on health care surtax for wealthy is dividing party

    By Michael Riley

    WASHINGTON — It was a risky move for a first-term Democratic congressman to take on a central tenet of his party’s health care reform plan, but U.S. Rep. Jared Polis’ offensive against a surtax on wealthy Americans has apparently paid off.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi back- pedaled on the proposal over the weekend, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, given the chance on the Sunday talk shows to back the surtax, twice demurred.

    But Polis — a liberal congressman from one of Colorado’s most liberal districts — has suddenly found himself under attack from, well, liberals.

    “If you dig into the substantive concerns, you find that Polis’ argument is full of holes,” said Faiz Shakir, editor of an influential blog at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

    At the heart of the skirmish is the question of how to pay the trillion-dollar cost of health reform, one of the trickiest questions of the debate and one that is already dividing Democratic lawmakers. The House version of the bill raises about half that money from a new tax of as much of 5.4 percent on families earning more than $350,000 or individuals earning $280,000.

    Polis led a mini-revolt of House freshmen last week against the surtax, circulating a letter that gained 21 Democratic signatures and claiming that it would take a heavy toll on small-business owners, many of whom don’t file as corporations.

    Taken together with similar complaints by conservative Democrats, the revolt shook House leaders and produced a quick pivot by Pelosi, who said in a weekend interview that she would be open to a higher threshold — a tax on families making at least $1 million. …

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_12879944

    Note that this is perhaps the only time you’ll ever see the Denver Post actually refer to liberals as such; to them Obama is a conservative.

    Lest you think Polis might actually have a brain:

    Polis spokeswoman Lara Cottingham said her office tells callers that her boss supports the overall reform effort — Polis in fact supports a single-payer, government-run health care system, often a cause of the party’s left — but would rather see the costs spread out more evenly, including a possible surtax on big corporations.

    So taxing private employers is bad; taxing corporate employers is A-OK.

    Got it.

  30. BillK
    July 21, 2009 at 8:42 am

    His ignorance grows larger.

    From an adoring Associated Press:

    Obama Defends August Deadline for Health Bill

    WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is defending his relentless campaign for a health care bill before Congress’s August recess, saying “the default in Washington is inaction and inertia.” The Republican Party chairman assailed it as an “excessive push.”

    The fault lines in the debate emerging as Topic A in the capital remained intact Tuesday as Obama defended the deadline, saying the American people want the overhaul done quickly, and GOP Chairman Michael Steele demanded: “Take your time!”

    At the same time, Obama remained noncommital on a surtax to pay for the overhaul, which some experts have said could cost over $1 trillion in the next several years to reconstitute and incorporate some 46 million uninsured into the system.

    The president noted in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show that “the House has put forward a surtax.” And he repeated his feeling that wealthier Americans, “such as myself,” should pitch in and help reinvent the system to spread coverage to those now without it.

    Obama has said that people making over $250,000 a year should have to pay more, and he defended his insistence on getting a bill from lawmakers before they leave next month on their summer recess. Asked why he felt so strongly about the timeline, he replied, “because if you don’t set a deadline in this town, nothing happens.”

    “And the deadline isn’t being set by me,” he said. “It’s being set by the American people.”

    Whatever the pressure points in the argument, Steele said it’s all happening too fast.

    “It took a year and a half for us to create the Medicare system. Now we’re going to do the entire health care system in two weeks or six weeks,” he said Tuesday on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

    “It is urgent and it is indisputable,” Steele said. “The problem that I have with it is the rush that is under way here.”

    Obama acknowledged in the interview that lawmakers right now are “not where they need to be.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....alth-care/

    Of course Obama is sitting back and doing nothing, while those he’s targeting with his surtax are among other things, trying to keep their heads above water and keep people off the unemployment rolls.

    He, of course, knows nothing about any of this, not ever having run even a lemonade stand before. He probably believes those who will be asked to “contribute” are sitting back on their porches drinking cocktails each evening like all of his Democratic fat cat friends do.

    How many more restaurants, hotels and other businesses will close, I wonder, when that money is confiscated by the Government as opposed to being spent by those who earned it?

    But that doesn’t matter – it’s all been about the unashamed “redistribution of wealth” since the campaign, and most Americans simply don’t care.

    I’ll quote a recently retired acquaintance who came right out and said “I paid into the system for years, and now I want as much free stuff as I can get in my time left, and I don’t care who pays for it.”

    The new America.

  31. canary
    July 21, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    AP: In South America, Israeli FM seeks to block Iran
    By MATTI FRIEDMAN (AP) July 20 2009

    JERUSALEM — Israel’s foreign minister is heading to South America on a mission partly aimed at stemming Iranian “infiltration” on the continent

    Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s 10-day visit to Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia comes at a time of rising Iranian influence in Latin America.

    Venezuela and Bolivia have close ties to Iran, and Israeli and U.S. officials have expressed concern about Islamic militant activities, some of them connected to Iran

    Iran underscored its interest in the region on Monday when the country’s ambassador to Brazil, Moshen Shaterzadeh, announced President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Brazil on his first foreign trip since winning election.

    During his trip, Lieberman will tackle the Iranian issue with South American leaders, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said, and chiefly the activities of the Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah.

    “Israel, along with many others, is concerned about Iran’s infiltration into Latin America, primarily through Hezbollah

    In Argentina, Lieberman is slated to attend a memorial ..1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires .. two years after a bomb flattened the Israeli Embassy

    Argentine officials claim Iran orchestrated the attack and that Hezbollah agents carried it out. The United States and Israel also say Iran is behind the bombing. Iran has denied involvement.

    In May, a secret Israeli Foreign Ministry report obtained by The Associated Press said Iran’s nuclear program was being aided by Venezuela and Bolivia. The report accused the nations of supplying Iran with uranium.

    Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales are strong supporters of Ahmadinejad and have solidified links with Tehran through trade deals and political support. Both Venezuela and Bolivia broke off ties with Israel in January to protest a military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

    In 2006, . U.S… blocked the assets of nine men and two businesses ..alleging they provided “financial and logistical support” to Hezbollah.

    Associated Press Writer Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to
    http://www.google.com/hostedne.....AD99IBAT80

  32. canary
    July 21, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    Bernanke says Fed can take on supercop role
    By Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer July 21, 2009

    WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ran into skepticism Tuesday from lawmakers wary of expanding the Fed’s duties to police big financial companies. They argued that the Fed failed to spot problems that led to the financial crisis in the first place.

    “The Fed has made some big mistakes,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.

    An Obama administration proposal to make the Fed the supercop of globally interconnected financial companies would be “just inviting a false sense of security that inevitably will be shattered at the expense of the taxpayer,” Bachus warned.

    Bernanke also argued against congressional proposals to let the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, audit the central bank.

    “Just the fact that (the Fed) can issue a lot of loans and special privileges to banks and corporations,” Paul said. “That’s political.”

    Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., who wants the Fed to be more open, argued that some people rightly say “you can find out more about the operations of the CIA, than the Fed. The public has the right to know.”

    Nigel Gault, economist at IHS Global Insight, said Bernanke wanted to send Congress a clear message: “Our monetary exit strategy is ready. Don’t try to interfere with it.”

    To revive the economy, the Fed has plowed trillions into the financial system in an effort to drive down rates on mortgages and other consumer debt.

    Eventually, the Fed will need to soak up that money.

    The Fed also can drain money from the financial system by selling securities from its portfolio with an agreement to buy them back at a later date. Or it can sell securities outright.

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

  33. proreason
    July 21, 2009 at 8:41 pm

    Bush and The Moron had identical approval rating in RCP’s poll-average after 6 months…..but The Moron is 6.8% LOWER in the disapproval ratings.

    And that was before 9/11

    http://thevimh.blogspot.com/20.....roved.html

    Funny, I don’t remember Bush trying to cram rampant capitalism and freedom on steroids down the country’s throat. But maybe he had plans for a little teenage army in 3-piece suits that he wasn’t telling us about. Maybe he was planning confiscatory taxes on welfare queens. Who knows?

  34. Celina
    July 22, 2009 at 3:25 am

    Bono Dissed Bush, Apologizes
    by Mike Krumboltz
    10 hours ago

    >>Bono is famous for his generosity and charity work. But even U2’s frontman isn’t above acting like a “mean girl” every once in a while.

    In a recent BBC interview, Bono admitted to dissing President George W. Bush back in 2006 when Dubya tried to give his favorite rock star a hug. Bono, eager to avoid the embrace, moved behind a podium. A foiled Mr. Bush had to settle for a handshake.

    The moment went unnoticed for years. However, one person at the event did spot the “hug snub.” When Bono sat back down, he sat next to then-Senator Obama, who whispered in Bono’s ear: “Nice work with the hug dodge.” Sheesh, nothing gets by this guy.<<

    http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92835

    I know this is pretty small in comparison to the other issues discussed here but can we really believe that our president is that petty and childish?

    Yes I can.

    I am going to go ahead and assume that the author wasn't being sarcastic in his remark about the hug dodge comment.

  35. canary
    July 22, 2009 at 5:52 am

    NewsMax.com Obama Admits He’s Foggy on Healthcare Bill
    By: David A. Patten Tuesday July 21, 2009

    Members of Congress haven’t read the 1,018-page proposed healthcare-reform legislation, but then, apparently neither has President Obama.

    The president recently confessed he is “not familiar” with key provisions of the legislation.

    According to a Heritage Foundation post, Obama’s embarrassing admission came during a conference call with left-leaning bloggers.

    Obama urged the bloggers to continue pressuring Congress to pass health-care reform immediately. During that call, Heritage reports, a blogger referenced an article in Investor’s Business Daily indicating Section 102 of the House bill would “outlaw” private insurance.

    “Is this true?” the blogger asked Obama. “Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?”

    The president’s response on behalf of the legislation he is pushing through Congress: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.”

    “This is a truly disturbing admission by the president, especially considering that later in the call, Obama promises yet again: ‘If you have health insurance, and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.’”

    “How can Obama keep making this promise if he is not familiar with the health legislation that is being written in Congress?”

    No version of the legislation now under consideration “outlaws” private insurance coverage. However, it increases its cost relative to publicly subsidized plans in a way that leads some experts to believe private insurance would no longer be a viable option.

    A Heritage-Lewin Group report released Monday found that close to 100 million policy holders may be forced to change insurance plans if Congress passes the bill supported by Obama.
    http://www.newsmax.com/insidec.....ode=83DB-1

  36. canary
    July 22, 2009 at 6:22 am

    Amnesty says Saudi terror fight plagued with abuse
    By Associated Press Writer Sebastian Abbot, Wed Jul 22, 2009
    CAIRO – Saudi Arabia is holding more than 3,000 people in secret detention and has used torture to extract confessions in its anti-terrorism crackdown since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks,

    The report criticized the international community for turning a blind eye to the kingdom’s methods in its crackdown. Saudi Arabia has carried out a heavy wave of arrests against al-Qaida members in past years after the militant group carried out a string of attacks against expatriate residential compounds, oil facilities and government buildings.

    “Our policies on human rights are very clear and the orders given are for prisoners to be treated with respect and according to international human rights principles,” Alhadlaq said.

    The report came two weeks after the Saudi government said it had convicted 330 al-Qaida militants in the kingdom’s first known terrorism trials for suspected members of the terror network.

    One militant was sentenced to death, and the others were given jail terms, fines and travel bans in trials that were held in the utmost secrecy. Authorities said the defendants were accused of belonging to the “deviant group,” a euphemism for al-Qaida, as well as a range of other terrorism-related charges.

    Amnesty said more than 3,100 people are being held “in virtual secrecy” and others have been killed in uncertain circumstances.

    Amnesty criticized the Saudis for carrying out “secret and summary trials” and for reportedly torturing detainees to extract confessions. They said torture methods include “severe beatings with sticks, punching, and suspension from the ceiling, use of electric shocks and sleep deprivation.”

    The U.S. and other countries strongly pushed Saudi Arabia to crack down on terrorism after it was discovered that 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States came from the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is also the homeland of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but Saudi authorities revoked his passport in the mid-1990s.

    Rather than hold the Saudi Arabian government accountable for its dire human rights record, all too often other governments have preferred to look the other way and not question what goes on in the secrecy of Saudi Arabia’s interrogation centers and prisons,” said the report.

    Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....R5c2F5c3M-

    • canary
      July 22, 2009 at 6:26 am

      P.S, Hillary taking another surprise trip Obama’s home crib Indonesia. She’s all smiles, trying to keep her head on.

  37. canary
    July 22, 2009 at 7:12 am

    Update on captured U.S. Soldier. Please keep praying for Bowe’s escape.
    Exclusive: Missing U.S. Soldier May Be in Pakistan
    Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl Kidnapped by Taliban in Afghanistan
    ABC NEWA By MATTHEW COLE July 20 2009

    The U.S. soldier kidnapped by Taliban forces in Afghanistan may have been taken across the border to Pakistan, complicating efforts to obtain his release, according to two people involved in U.S. and Afghan military efforts to locate him, and three Afghan soldiers captured with him.

    The soldier, Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, 23, of Idaho, is the first serviceman captured since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. According to a person actively involved in the search, a top Afghan insurgent commander has taken credit for capturing the soldier and has now moved the soldier to South Waziristan, Pakistan. U.S. armed forces are not permitted to operate inside Pakistan except under extreme circumstances.

    Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said that “the efforts continue to locate the soldier, but we’re not going to provide any details.” The Pentagon yesterday announced that it took two days to determine that Bergdahl had been captured by enemy forces.

    Officials at the Pentagon said they still believe Bergdahl is in Afghanistan.

    Bergdahl was taken by Mullah Sangeen’s men from village near the U.S. military post in Paktika, where he was stationed, according to a senior Afghan Army official in the province. The captors “punched and hit the soldier after some resistance. But than they were able to take the soldier and left all of his things: weapon, body armored and radios.” The Afghan official says Bergdahl and the three Afghan National Army soldiers were moved from the near-by village and quickly vanished.

    “We have an entire Afghan National Army platoon searching the area,” says the Afghan official, who is searching for his soldiers as well. “But I suspect they might have moved him in to Pakistan already.”

    Yesterday, Bergdahl’s captors released a video showing the soldier eating and sitting on a carpet. After Bergdahl is prompted by one of his captors, he is heard saying that the date is July 14th, nearly two weeks after he was captured, and that he is scared.

    Bergdahl’s family released a statement yesterday asking for privacy and that Americans “please continue to keep Bowe in your thoughts and prayers.” lear.

    The U.S. military began distributing a leaflet in eastern Afghanistan last week that warns, “If you do not release the U.S. soldier, then You will be hunted.” A picture of an American soldier kicking in the door of an Afghan home covers the leaflet.

    Any effort to stage a rescue attempt would be fraught with risk, Pentagon officials say, but if Bergdahl has been moved to Pakistan, the challenge is even harder. The U.S. military is not allowed to operate inside Pakistan, unless its forces are in “hot pursuit” of Taliban fighters fleeing Afghanistan. In addition to U.S. military rules of engagement, operating inside Pakistan covertly has proven to be difficult for U.S. forces.

    In private meetings, U.S. military officials based in Afghanistan have insisted that their soldier is still inside Afghanistan. “They want to think he’s in Afghanistan,” said an American involved in the search efforts.

    But Bergdahl’s location was identified in field reports from people operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Bergdahl was recently seen at a Sangeen training camp, just inside Pakistan, according to one of those involved in his search.

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz that she is not allowed to talk about where Bergdahl might be.

    The U.S. military has had a succession of efforts to locate the missing soldier and free him. Initially, a reward of $25,000 for location tips was offered to Afghans in the eastern portions of the region from which he disappeared. According to a source involved in the effort, a large number of calls flooded, and overwhelmed U.S. military efforts. Complicating the search is determining who, if anyone, Mullah Sangeen works for. In the past, he has associated with the Haqqani network, the largest and most powerful insurgent group in eastern Afghanistan. The Haqqani network is lead by Siraj Haqqani, who has $5M bounty on his head for terrorist and insurgent activities against foreign forces in Afghanistan. But Haqqani however, is not technically part of the Taliban, who aligned with fugitive leader Mullah Omar.

    “I am not sure if Mullah Sangeen is a hardcore Siraj Haqqani group member,” says an Afghan intelligence officer in the province where Pfc. Bergdahl was captured. “However, Siraj is the boss. Let’s hope the solider is still with Sangeen’s people because you can [negotiate] with him.”

    Paktika province is largely under Haqqani control. Two Taliban spokesman have denied holding or capturing the soldier, suggesting that Sangeen acted alone or in concert with Haqqani. Siraj Haqqani is believed to be responsible for the kidnap of New York Times reporter David Rhode, who escaped last month from Pakistan after seven months of captivity.
    Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/.....amp;page=1

  38. BillK
    July 22, 2009 at 9:07 am

    Yet more proof that soon all jobs will be Government jobs.

    From a fawning Associated Press:

    Ritter To Senate: Climate Policy Could Create Jobs

    By Dina Cappiello

    WASHINGTON (AP) ― Three Democratic governors told a Senate panel Tuesday that efforts to curb global warming and spur the development of cleaner sources of energy have created jobs and new businesses in their states, a trend that could expand nationwide if Congress passes federal legislation.

    All three states — New Jersey, Colorado, and Washington — have adopted measures to achieve reductions in the gases blamed for global warming and standards requiring a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources.

    But this view was not shared by all state leaders testifying Tuesday before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including North Dakota’s Republican governor and a Democratic state legislator from Arkansas, highlighting regional differences in addressing climate change.

    A bill passed earlier this summer by the House that is now under consideration by the Senate would impose the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gases and require electric utilities to produce at least 12 percent of their power from pollution-free sources such wind and solar energy by 2020.

    “If there is a lesson…for other states and the nation as a whole, it is that good energy policy and climate policy can energize the economy and help create good-paying private sector jobs,” said Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Jr., although he did not specifically endorse the House-passed bill.

    To illustrate his point, Ritter described the transformation of Pueblo, Colo., from an old steel town to a center of wind turbine production.

    Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said her state has already created in two years nearly twice the 25,000 new “green” jobs it set as a goal to reach by 2020. Those workers include architects who design energy-efficient buildings, venture capitalists investing in new technology, and farmers growing the next generation of biofuels, she said.

    New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said the state has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent and is looking to construct wind farms offshore. He told the panel national leadership was needed to create the energy future the country needs.

    But Republican Gov. John Hoeven of North Dakota said the legislation under consideration would cause job losses in his oil-producing state. The prospect of a climate change bill already has halted new technologies to harvest oil and natural gas, Hoeven said.

    He was joined by Arkansas state Rep. John Lowery, a Democrat and the owner of Lowery Oil Co., who said that while the bill may create green jobs for the West Coast and Northeast, it would harm middle America.

    “It might be popular for some in Washington to demonize oil and gas, fertilizer and chemical companies, and farmers,” Lowery said, “but where I come from, they are an integral part of our communities.” …

    http://cbs4denver.com/green/Th.....95319.html

    That’s OK, those middle Americans are in flyover country – anyone important lives on the coasts and votes Democrat.

    I’d like to know where those “private sector” green jobs are – that’s right, in companies being either directly or indirectly financed by Government grants (via grants to the companies or grants to their customers.) That’s what you have to do when you produce a product that would otherwise have no demand and makes no economic sense.

    But that’s OK, as long as the Federal Government is paying for those jobs, they’ve been “created,” right?

    The number of actual private sector jobs destroyed by their policies?

    Oh well, those don’t count – you know, bad economy and all that.

  39. BillK
    July 22, 2009 at 9:13 am

    Let’s take more land that Coloradans and others vacation on and make it off limits by federal dictat.

    From a slobbering Associated Press:

    Rep. Salazar Proposes Expansion Of Wilderness

    DENVER (AP) ― Rep. John Salazar has released a draft proposal to set aside an additional 63,475 acres of federal wilderness in San Miguel, Ouray and San Juan counties.

    The Colorado Democrat’s proposal includes land in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre (un-kum-PAW’-gray), Gunnison and San Juan national forests and Bureau of Land Management areas. Commissioners in the three counties have requested the land be declared federal wilderness.

    The proposal would add 3,374 acres to the Lizard Head Wilderness and about 22,000 acres to the Mt Sneffels Wilderness.

    Salazar’s office is taking public comments on the proposal.

    Motorized vehicles, logging, mining and roads aren’t allowed in wilderness areas.

    http://cbs4denver.com/green/Sa.....93765.html

    Those Jeep tours and campers are environmentally unfriendly anyway.

  40. BillK
    July 22, 2009 at 10:44 am

    Today’s lesson in judicial activism, from the Associated Press:

    NYC judge restores Rather’s fraud claim vs. CBS

    NEW YORK – A New York City judge has restored a fraud claim he previously dismissed from Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS Corp. over a story about former President George W. Bush.

    Rather’s lawyer Martin Gold said Tuesday the fraud stems from CBS’ failure to keep promises it made to Rather before firing him over problems with the story about Bush’s Vietnam-era military service.

    Judicial Hearing Officer Ira Gammerman dismissed the claim last year because of technical legal errors but ruled Rather could refile it. …

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

    Anything to get a (completely false) allegation against Bush back into the press.

  41. canary
    July 22, 2009 at 4:26 pm

    The Jerusalem Post: Lebanese civilians hurt 14 UNIFIL troops

    JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST July 18 2009
    Villagers in southern Lebanon on Saturday prevented UN peacekeepers from searching an abandoned building near a suspected Hizbullah weapons depot that exploded last week, a Lebanese security official said.

    Fourteen UNIFIL men were wounded when some 100 locals attacked them, Israel Radio reported. When the troops called for backup, the villagers fired at the reinforcements.

    On Friday, UNIFIL boosted its forces along the Israeli border, hours after 15 Lebanese civilians carrying Lebanese and Hizbullah flags crossed into Israel.
    The group, which included several children, entered Israel in an area where there is no border fence, and returned to Lebanon after several minutes.

    IDF soldiers spotted the group, and seeing it was unarmed, decided not to take action.
    Nonetheless, the army stressed that the incident was a violation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War.

    “Any individual who crosses the border must consider the possibility of getting hurt,” the IDF said in a statement.

    Earlier Friday, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel of being “a racist state.”

    In a televised speech, he said Israel had been “placed at the heart” of the Middle East, and decried its “respect from the whole world.”

    “The whole world expresses its understanding of [Israel's] brutality, and its killing of thousands,” he went on. “The G-8, the UN Security Council and the entire world express their understanding” for what he called Israeli abuses.

    Meanwhile, Kuwaiti’s A-Siyassa newspaper reported on Saturday that last week’s explosion killed a number of Hizbullah gunmen at a secret military outpost, and did not destroy a hidden weapons cache as was initially believed.

    “The geographical layout of the area where the outpost was situated, as well as its relative proximity to the border proves that it could not be an arms depot, but rather an outpost on the front lines,” a military source defined as “credible”
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S.....e/ShowFull

  42. canary
    July 22, 2009 at 5:38 pm

    Obama says pullout from Iraq on schedule
    By Associated Press Writer Steven R. Hurst July 22 2009

    WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama said Wednesday the United States will stick to its schedule and remove all its troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 even though there will be “tough days ahead.”

    He brushed off some American military complaints that Iraq was placing too many limits on what U.S. troops could do after their recent withdrawal from Iraqi cities.

    He said that doesn’t mean there aren’t persistent dangers inside Iraq and militants who “still resort to killing innocents and senseless bombings.”

    He said both he and the Iraqi prime minister “have no doubt that there will be some tough days ahead. There will be attacks on Iraqi security forces and the American troops supporting them…”

    For his part, al-Maliki said the two presidents talked about “every possible area” where the U.S. could play a role in working with the Iraqi government.

    With insurgent bombings and attacks still a major danger, U.S. officials have voiced concerns about continuing violence unless al-Maliki and his Shiite Muslim political allies do more to share power with minority Sunnis and to ease government control over Sunni regions and those dominated by ethnic Kurds.

    Al-Maliki is in the United States partly in an effort to encourage foreign investors to return to doing business in his country.

    Obama said the United States does not seek any military bases in Iraq and makes no claim on Iraqi oil resources or territory.

    Both al-Maliki and Obama said they supported moves toward lifting a U.N. sanction — known as Chapter Seven — that requires Iraq to pay 5 percent of its oil revenues as reparations for the 1991 Gulf War.

    Obama said he was committed to working with Iraq to get the U.N. to lift the sanctions. He said it would be “a mistake for Iraq to continue to be burdened by the sins of a deposed dictator.”

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

    Obama and Maliki: U.S. Troops are less than slaves, for their dirty OIL

  43. canary
    July 23, 2009 at 1:40 am

    Iran president defies supreme leader over deputy
    By Associated Press Writers Ali Akbar Dareini And Lee Keath Jul 22 2009

    TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed rare defiance of his strongest backer, Iran’s supreme leader, by insisting on his choice for vice president Wednesday despite vehement opposition from hard-liners

    Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top concern appears to be keeping the strong support of clerical hard-liners so he can withstand attempts by the more moderate, pro-reform opposition to erode his authority.

    Conservative clerics and politicians have denounced Ahmadinejad’s choice for the post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, because Mashai said last year that Iranians are friends with Israelis. There are also concerns because Mashai is a relative of Ahmadinejad — his daughter is married to the president’s son.

    Arguing for a further chance to make his case, Ahmadinejad said, “there is a need for time and another opportunity to fully explain my real feelings and assessment about Mr. Mashai.”

    Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said whether Mashai is immediately dismissed “will test Ahmadinejad’s loyalty to the supreme leader.”

    Mashai also angered many top clerics in 2007 when he attended a ceremony in Turkey where women performed a traditional dance and in 2008 when he hosted a ceremony in which women played tambourines. Conservative interpretations of Islam oppose women dancing.

    “One of virtues and glories God has bestowed to me in life was to get acquainted with this great, honest and pious man,” Ahmadinejad said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

    Dareini reported from Tehran; Keath from Cairo, Egypt.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ByZXNpZGVu

  44. canary
    July 23, 2009 at 1:56 am

    AP: Taco Bell ad star Gidget the Chihuahua dies at 15
    By Robert Jablon, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 22, 2009

    LOS ANGELES – Gidget the Chihuahua, the bug-eyed, big-eared star of 1990s Taco Bell commercials who was a diva on and off the screen, has died. She was 15.

    In a 1997 Taco Bell television commercial, Gidget was seen as a male dog who.. proclaims in a richly accented voice: “Yo quiero Taco Bell” — Spanish for “I want Taco Bell.” The ads made the Taco Bell mascot wildly popular,

    although they provoked criticism from activists who accused them of promoting Hispanic stereotypes. (Carlos Alazraqui was the voice).

    http//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_taco_bell_dog;_ylt=Ao5ZQibtXzfLtq0JLHy60iOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM3ZXA3bTIwBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNzIzL3VzX29iaXRfdGFjb19iZWxsX2RvZwRjcG9zAzgEcG9zAzUEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawN0YWNvYmVsbGFkc3Q-

    How can a cute Mexican doggie be stereo-typed as Hispanic

  45. canary
    July 23, 2009 at 3:05 am

    AP: Feds: US man gave al-Qaida NYC subway information
    By Tom Hays And Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Writers July 23 2009

    NEW YORK – An American man charged with giving al-Qaida information on the New York transit system and attacking a U.S. military base in Afghanistan has been a secret witness in the fight against terror here and overseas

    His revelations have given counterterrorism investigators a rare look at the day-to-day operations of al-Qaida — from meetings of top terror officials to training

    Court papers unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn identified the defendant as Bryant Neal Vinas, nicknamed “Ibrahim” or “Bashir al-Ameriki,” who grew up on Long Island.

    Authorities issued an alert around Thanksgiving last year saying the FBI had received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system

    Prosecutors charged Vinas in a rocket attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in September 2008. Court papers allege he also gave “expert advice and assistance … on the New York transit system and Long Island Railroad.”

    People familiar with the case say Vinas told counterterrorism investigators that he met senior al-Qaida members while staying at a network of hideouts on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border

    The president of the Islamic Association of Long Island, a mosque in nearby Selden, said he recalled a “very quiet, polite, smiley” young Hispanic man called Ibrahim, who was a frequent but unassuming presence at the mosque

    He turned up four to five times a week for services but never participated in any social activities at the mosque, said president Nayyar Imam.

    “He’s the last person in the mosque you would think about” getting involved in terrorism, Imam said.

    Barrett reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press writers Adam Goldman, Frank Eltman, Jennifer Peltz and AP researcher Judith Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

    • canary
      July 23, 2009 at 3:09 am

      http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....VzbWFuZ2F2

    • canary
      July 23, 2009 at 3:15 am

      AP: Trustee says Palin not involved with defense fund
      By Associated Press Writer Matthew Daly Wed Jul 22, 2009

      WASILLA, Alaska – The trustee for a legal defense fund set up to help Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said the former vice presidential candidate has never been involved with the trust or accepted money from it to pay her legal bills.

      “The governor is not, was not and has not been involved in this trust,” Kristan Cole of Wasilla said Wednesday.

      Cole, a local real estate agent and Palin friend, said she had never talked about the trust fund with Palin until Tuesday, when a report by an independent investigator was obtained by The Associated Press.

      The account, called the Alaska Fund Trust, was created and vetted by a team of lawyers from around the country who are experts in state and federal law, Cole said. The only lawyer who has ever questioned the fund’s legality is Thomas Daniel, the investigator hired by the state personnel board, she said.

      Daniel, an Anchorage lawyer, said in the July 14 report that he found probable cause Palin had violated ethics laws by trading on her position as she sought money for legal fees.

      Cole lashed out at the news media for disclosing the contents of the confidential report, which she said was leaked illegally.

      “We have witnessed time and again the blatant abuse of a process when it comes to people filing these complaints and illegally discussing them and leaking them to the press,” Cole said at a news conference at her real estate office in Palin’s hometown.

      The latest leak “crosses the line,” Cole said, adding that the trust is reviewing its legal options for “reputational harm” caused by Kim Chatman, the Eagle River resident who filed the ethics complaint that led to Daniel’s finding.

      Jon Givens, an Anchorage attorney who represents the trust, said it is based on similar accounts created for prominent politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Ted Stevens and John Kerry. “If those trusts don’t violate the ethics rules of society, why should this one” be considered improper? he said.

      Those funds are all based on federal law. Palin is accused of violating state ethics law.

      Palin’s friends and supporters created the trust fund, limiting donations to $150 per person. Cole declined to say how much the fund has raised, but said about 90 percent of the contributions so far are from out of state.

      “How can there be intent to influence a governor in Alaska with a $5 voluntary donation from Kansas?” she asked.

      At least 19 ethics complaints have been filed against Palin, most of them after she was named the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain. Most of those have been dismissed, although one was resolved when Palin agreed to reimburse the state more than $8,000 for the costs associated with nine trips taken with her children.

      Palin supporters say the legal fund is needed because of a quirk in Alaska law that prevents state officials from defending the governor against ethics allegations.

      “Legitimate public expenses should be borne by the public, not by the governor personally,” Givens said.

      Palin says she owes more than $500,000 in legal fees, and she cited the toll of the ethics probes as one of the reasons she is leaving office on Sunday.

      Chatman said she was not sympathetic to the governor’s plight.

      “I honestly believe her legal bills are the result of her actions,” she said.

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

  46. artboyusa
    July 23, 2009 at 8:31 am

    What, no Koran? From http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....723980.ece

    Gallery’s invitation to deface the Bible brings obscene response
    A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity.

    The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth.

    The open Bible is a central part of Made in God’s Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.”

    The exhibit, Untitled 2009, was proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church, which said that the idea was to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text. But to the horror of many Christians, including the community church, visitors have daubed its pages with comments such as “This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all.” A contributor wrote on the first page of Genesis: “I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this.”

    The Church of Scotland expressed concern, the Roman Catholic Church called the exhibit infantile, and a Christian lawyers’ group said that the exhibition was symptomatic of a broken and lawless society.

    The exhibition has been created by the artists Anthony Schrag and David Malone, in association with organisations representing gay Christians and Muslims. Mr Schrag, the gallery’s artist in residence, said that he did not believe in God, but that his research for the £7,000 show had underlined his respect for people of faith.

    The community church, which celebrates “racial, cultural, linguistic, sexual, gender and theological diversity”, had suggested the “interactive” Bible and pens and Mr Schrag, 34, said he had been intrigued.

    “Any offensive things that have been written are not the point of the work,” he said. “It was an open gesture. Are those who say they are upset offended by the things that people write, or just by the very notion that someone should write on a Bible?”

    The artist, a Canadian who took a master’s degree at Glasgow School of Art, said that human rights were at the centre of the show. “If we are to open up the Bible for discussion, surely we have to invite people to speak out,” he said. “Art allows us to discuss difficult things, and Goma allows difficult discussions to take place — that is why Glasgow is at the cutting edge of contemporary art.”

    Jane Clarke, a minister of the community church, said she regretted the insults that had appeared. “The Bible should never be used like that. It was our intention to reclaim it as a sacred text,” she said. While the exhibition’s supporters insist that the exhibit promotes “inclusivity” and should break down barriers between orthodox religion and gay and transgendered people, most contributors have paid scant regard to matters of sexuality.

    One writer has altered the first line of the Old Testament from “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth” to “In the beginning, God (me) I created religion.” Another has written “The Gospel According to Luke Skywalker”. The main sentiment, however, is rage at Christianity. “F*** the Bible”, one message says.

    Last night the producers of the exhibition indicated that the most offensive pages would be removed, but Christians expressed outrage and disbelief that the show had been staged at all. “This is symbolic of the state of our broken and lawless society,” said Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre. “We have got to a point where we call the desecration of the Bible modern art. The Bible stands for everything this art does not: for creation, beauty, hope and regeneration.”

    The Church of Scotland said it condemned any sacrilegious act. “We would discourage anyone from defacing the Bible,” a Kirk spokesman said.

    A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: “One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced.”

    A video by Roxanne Claxton forms a second element in the exhibition. It shows a young woman ripping pages out of the Bible and stuffing them in her knickers and bra, and in her mouth. The film showed “the word as power”, Mr Schrag said. “Roxanne gave a performance where she ate a Bible and it became part of her.”

    Made in God’s Image is part of a series of exhibitions focusing on human rights organised by Culture and Sport Glasgow, part of the city council. The division’s chief executive is Dr Bridget McConnell, wife of the former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell.

  47. NotStuckOnStupid
    July 23, 2009 at 10:48 am

    N.J. officials, N.Y. rabbis caught in federal money laundering, corruption sweep

    Several Democrats arrested, but the only prominent mention of a party affiliation is the lone R sting victim…

    NEWARK — A New Jersey assemblyman and the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among public officials arrested this morning by FBI agents in an international money laundering and corruption probe that includes rabbis in the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal and Brooklyn.

    Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell and Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega are among those already brought to the FBI building in Newark. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini has also been arrested…

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.s......html#post

  48. Rusty Shackleford
    July 23, 2009 at 10:52 am

    From the UK Telegraph:

    Barack Obama ratings fall as polls show honeymoon may be over

    Amid rising unemployment and falling confidence in his economic plans, Mr Obama’s job approval rating has dropped by nine points since January to 55 per cent, a point below his predecessor in mid-2001.

    [Seems the glow of his halo is starting to wane.]

    Whit Ayres, a pollster, said: “His ratings have certainly come back down to Earth in a very short time period.”

    [The words, "plummet", "crashed to Earth" and "nosedive" seem to come to mind]

    Eager to avoid the mistake made by the Clintons in 1993, who handed a vast health care bill to congress with little consultation, Mr Obama has been accused of straying too far in the other direction.

    ['scuze me? Looks like he's following the same path...in fact deepening the ruts the Clintons made]

    “This autumn will tell if his honeymoon is well and truly over. He has been more popular personally than many of his proposals were, but there is only so long you can continue that.”

    [Yes, and let's hope 'open mike night' for Barry is over.]

    • Liberals Demise
      July 23, 2009 at 11:14 am

      Barry certainly blew it last night. Even the reporters are catching the double speak and cronyism. Then the last question about his buddies problem and race baiting. Barry stepped in the deep dodo on this one.

      I think you can pull the plug on the “canned” press conferences and put one of the teleprompters’ on ice!

  49. canary
    July 24, 2009 at 2:24 am

    AP sources: Bin Laden son may have been killed
    By Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess And Pauline Jelinek July 24 2009

    WASHINGTON – Saad bin Laden, a son of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, may have been killed in a U.S. airstrike, U.S. officials said Thursday. The son was likely killed in Pakistan in the last several months, approximately in late spring, said a counterterrorism official, one of three Obama administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

    Though many in the intelligence community believe he is dead, they can’t be 100 percent certain because no body or DNA evidence was recovered to prove it, one official said.

    The U.S. has carried out more than 45 missile attacks with drones in Pakistan’s border region since last August, most targeting foreign al-Qaida militants and those accused of violence in neighboring Afghanistan. Saad was not considered a heavy hitter in his father’s organization and was not the target of the strike, but rather was killed during a strike intended for someone else, National Public Radio said, quoting unidentified officials.

    Saad was born in 1982 and is one of 19 children Osama bin Laden is thought to have, officials have said.

    The younger bin Laden was believed to have fled Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 that routed his father from safe haven there and overthrew the Taliban regime.

    Officials have said he went to Iran and was held under a form of house arrest from 2003 to 2008, before turning up in Pakistan, where his father has reportedly been in hiding somewhere in the ungoverned border region near Afghanistan.

    In January, the Treasury slapped financial sanctions on the younger bin Laden and three other al-Qaida figures. In announcing a freeze on their assets held under U.S. jurisdiction, Treasury also said that people from the United States would be barred from engaging in financial transactions with them.

    Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence at the time, told a news conference that the move to Pakistan made Saad more vulnerable to being captured or killed by the U.S. or its allies.

    “It is better in my world if they are in places that we have access,” McConnell said. Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the struggle against Islamic extremists, while the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....JjZXNiaW4-
    yawn

  50. Flession
    July 24, 2009 at 5:17 am

    From the soon-to-be-unemployed minds of USA Today:

    Obama’s ‘rock star’ persona boosts U.S.

    WASHINGTON — President Obama’s soaring popularity has significantly boosted attitudes toward the United States in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, surveys in 24 countries by the Pew Research Center finds. But animosity toward the U.S. in some predominantly Muslim nations remains deep and strong.

    Across much of the world, the first five months of Obama’s presidency essentially erased the battering the USA’s image took during eight years of the Bush administration, according to the study by Pew’s Global Attitudes Project released Thursday.

    “People were just really happy to see Bush gone,” former secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a Democrat who co-chairs the project, said at a breakfast for reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

    Obama “is really a rock star as a politician,” said John Danforth, the project’s Republican co-chair who served as U.N. ambassador in Bush’s administration. “But I guess my response is: So what? … How do you get from that to doing something?” He questioned whether nations would be any more willing to follow the U.S. lead on issues such as the war in Afghanistan or genocide in Darfur.

    Whatever the impact on policy, there has been a transformation in views of the American president abroad. Confidence that Obama will “do the right thing in world affairs” was double that for Bush in China, triple in Japan and Mexico, quadruple in Jordan and Egypt. The contrast was even wider across Western Europe and in Turkey and Argentina. In France, 13% viewed Bush positively last year; now 91% express confidence in Obama.

    Bush fared better than Obama in just one country surveyed. In Israel, 57% expressed confidence in Bush in 2007; 56 express confidence in Obama now. Obama’s speech in Cairo last month aimed at the Muslim world increased the percentage of those in the Palestinian territories who said Obama “will consider our interests,” but it eroded the number of Israelis who felt that way.

    Attitudes toward the United States continued to be dismal in some predominantly Muslim countries. Just 14% of those surveyed in Turkey and 16% in Pakistan had a favorable opinion of the U.S.

    Attitudes in the Middle East aren’t likely to improve significantly until progress is made in resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, Albright said. “People are going to be looking for solutions — there’s no question about that.”

    For the first time in the Pew study, there was more confidence in the American president that in al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in such predominantly Muslim countries as Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria and Indonesia. Last year, most Muslim countries rated bin Laden as high or higher than Bush.

    Andrew Kohut, who heads the project, said views of the United States were driven more by confidence in Obama than approval of his policies. The president’s promise to close the prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — opposed by most Americans — and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq drew broad international support.

    However, most people in most countries, including Pakistan, oppose his decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan.

    The project surveyed about 27,000 people in 24 countries and the Palestinian territories from May 18 to June 16. The margins of error range from +/— 2 to 4 percentage points.

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

    That’s just a trip. A study run by two people with similar viewpoints on things about Lord Barry’s viewpoint from other countries.

    Also, the list of the countries with favorable approval ratings towards him shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

    Confidence that Obama will “do the right thing in world affairs” was double that for Bush in China, triple in Japan and Mexico, quadruple in Jordan and Egypt.

    One has to wonder then what it is that these countries view as “the right thing” in world affairs.

  51. Rusty Shackleford
    July 24, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    From the UK Telegraph.
    24 Jul 2009

    Jewish group sues Amazon over ‘Nazi’ books

    According to AJC research, around 50 works including “Der Auschwitz-Mythos – Legende oder Wirklichkeit (”The Auschwitz Myth – Legend or Reality”) by Wilhelm Staglich were on sale on Amazon.de this month.

    Some of these books, the AJC said, were classified by the German authorities as being unsuitable for under-18s.

    Full story:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5902652/Jewish-group-sues-Amazon-over-Nazi-books.html

    Yes, let’s ban books. Especially the ones we disagree with. Then, the ones that are considered politically incorrect. While we’re at it, get rid of all religious publications too. And how about books that portray history in a way I disagree with…..let’s keep it moving people.

    Back in the glory days of the Nazis, didn’t they ban (and burn) books? Isn’t irony ironic?

  52. canary
    July 24, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Boston Herald: Obama offers amends, a beer at White House

    By Jessica Heslam and Hillary Chabot Friday, July 24, 2009

    President Obama said he spoke today with the Cambridge cop at the center of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest – admitting he should have chosen his words more carefully – and said they talked about the three possibly meeting over a beer at the White House.

    The president said he also continues to believe that both Sgt. James Crowley and Gates overreacted.

    “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well,” Obama said.

    “My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved,” he said.

    Obama’s comments came today after Cambridge police unions called on him to apologize for saying that they “acted stupidly.”

    The president said he could have “calibrated those words differently” to help quell the furor.

    “Because this has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently,” Obama said. “And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.”

    In addition, the White House press office said Obama talked to Gates this afternoon and told him about his called with Sgt. Crowley. “They had a positive discussion during which the President told Gates about his call with Sgt. Crowley and statement to the media,” the statement said. “The President also invited Gates to join him with Sgt. Crowley at the White House in the near future.”

    Obama said his five minute conversation with Sgt. Crowley confirmed his impression that the sergeant is a good man and “outstanding” police officer – and he told Crowley that.

    At the end of their conversation, Obama said “there was a discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House.”

    The president said the two also talked about their lawns.

    “He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way to get the press off his lawn,” Obama said. “I informed him that I can’t get the press off my lawn. He pointed out that my lawn is bigger than his lawn.”

    The president said Crowley had a message for the media.

    “If anybody has any connections to the Boston press, as well as national press, Sgt. Crowley would be happy for you to stop trampling his grass,” Obama said.

    Sen. Anthony Galluccio (D-Cambridge), who first asked for a one-on-one between Gates and Crowley, said he was, “really pleased,” with Obama’s decision.

    “This is exactly what the president should do. This is what I would have expected from him from the begining and it’s exactly what we need,” said Galluccio. “I hope that Jimmy and professor Gates take him up on his offer immediately.”

    Galluccio took the invite a step further, suggesting Obama conduct the meeting in Cambridge, where the president spent time when he attended Harvard Law School – but added he’s just happy they will meet.

    “To me the image of these two getting together is critical and where and how it happens is less important,” Galluccio said.

    Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/ne.....id=1186901
    http://www.bostonherald.com/ne.....position=0

    So, I guess Obama has added beer to his daily margarita’s. Great example for our youth. An insincere apology, and another couple of million bucks and fumes for the taxpayers.

    • Howard Roark
      July 24, 2009 at 10:56 pm

      Here’s the video of Barry’s (non) apology to the Cambridge Police Dept: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqOMeAqOj_Y

      Here’s a video of the great Larry Elder explaining to a black Democrat strategist and the CNN audience why the unfortunate instance of profiling blacks occurs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZOKZEeb064

    • caligirl9
      July 24, 2009 at 11:07 pm

      Larry Elder makes sense.
      He’s now blacklisted from mainstream media for telling the truth.
      How to stop “racial profiling”: Stop doing the behaviors that justify the cops’ ability to predict your bad behavior. It’s that simple, works for college-aged white men (”drunken frat boys”) and men and women of all colors (wannabe gangstas). Just don’t so the “stereotypical behavior.” Stop dressing and acting like street thugs … it’s all so simple.

    • Howard Roark
      July 24, 2009 at 11:15 pm

      Right on, Caligirl9.

      Isn’t it ironic that after white America leads the world’s best nations in electing a black man as president that we are seeing that same president set our race relations back 50 years?

  53. Rusty Shackleford
    July 24, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    What he said: “Because this has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently,”

    What I hear: Blabiddty blah blah blah…..blah blah blabbity, blabiddity….blah blah blah pphhhhhtttttttt

    :-p

    • Gila Monster
      July 24, 2009 at 11:22 pm

      Call me ignorant but is “calibrated” the new favorite buzz word of the liberal elite?
      I’ve never heard of “calibrating” words, …. machinery, gauges, intruments perhaps but never words.

    • Rusty Shackleford
      July 24, 2009 at 11:54 pm

      Perhaps rhetorical, Gila, but it’s all part of the euphemistic speech patterns of the idiot in charge. As long as it’s colorful and flamboyant, with varying intonation here and there, the rest of the happy idiots are mesmerized by it and where he places key words in his speech, the brains of the idiots pick up only on those. The rest is material that many cannot filter out.

      A little 8th grade exercise could be in order for many….not you of course but if you simply take the IMPORTANT words that exist and remove the descriptors, you will read, instead:

      I helped it. I was maligning the Cambirdge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley.

      See how easy that is?

      Instead, he dives into the pool of descriptive narrative, and if you’ll note it is very UNLIKE the style of writing that is in his books. But with a simple quick editing you can find the true meaning of what he’s saying.

      A typical high school or junior high school English teacher would have given him a “C” at best and if the objective was “getting the point across efficiently” he would have failed.

      But failure and Obama are quickly becoming words of close association, aren’t they?

      Nice catch, Gila. His novel use of the word “calibrated” is something you probably won’t find in many speech patterns. Most people prefer a simpler, more direct approach and would have said it more concisely.

      Chosen, picked, preferred, indicated, used, stated, adopted, elected,or selected come to mind….but not “calibrated”.

      And finally, if he’s so damned good at apologizing for the “sins” of this great nation and making it so sincere, why then is he so poor at making a real, personal apology on this level?

      Ans: Because he doesn’t mean it.

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