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Selected News For Jul 25 – Jul 31

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 25th, 2009 at 12:00 am. You can leave a response.

95 Responses to “Selected News For Jul 25 – Jul 31”

  1. Rusty Shackleford
    July 25, 2009 at 12:14 am

    House healthcare talks break down in anger
    By Jared Allen, Mike Soraghan and Lauren Burke

    House healthcare negotiations dissolved in acrimony on Friday, with Blue Dog Democrats saying they were “lied” to by their Democratic leaders.

    Full Article: http://thehill.com/leading-the.....07-24.html

    [I especially like the use of the term, "blue dogs"]

  2. BillK
    July 25, 2009 at 1:17 am

    We went a day without a Palin attack piece, so the Washington Post gladly obliges:

    Palin’s dip in popularity a warning sign for 2012

    As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares for the next stage of her political career, a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of her, and there is broad public doubt about her leadership skills and understanding of complex issues, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    The Republican former vice presidential nominee remains a deeply polarizing figure, and there are warning signs for her as she emerges as a possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

    While she is still widely popular among those in her party, she has lost ground among Republicans generally and among white evangelicals.

    Overall, the new poll found that 53 percent of Americans view Palin negatively and 40 percent see her in positive terms, her lowest level in Post-ABC polling since she first appeared on the national stage last summer as Sen. John McCain’s running mate. …

    http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_12902984

    We cannot let this woman have a future, sayeth the MSM.

    What, aside from the lies propagated by the press, do most Americans know about her “understanding of complex issues?”

    Or do you think what they know about Palin is gleaned from sources like illegal press disclosures and Vanity Fair?

    I’d ask the Washington Post how Obama’s ratings have fared during the same period.

  3. BillK
    July 25, 2009 at 1:23 am

    A surprisingly honest disclosure from the Washington Post:

    Mice studies may ease need for stem cells from embryos

    By Rob Stein

    WASHINGTON — Chinese scientists have bred mice from cells that may offer an alternative to embryonic stem cells, producing the most definitive evidence yet that the technique could help sidestep many of the explosive ethical issues engulfing the controversial field but raising alarm that the advance could lead to human cloning and designer babies.

    In papers published online Thursday by two scientific journals, separate teams of researchers from Beijing and Shanghai reported that they had for the first time created virtual genetic duplicates of mice using skin cells from adult animals that had been coaxed in the laboratory into the equivalent of embryonic stem cells.

    The findings were welcomed by supporters and opponents of human embryonic stem-cell research as a long-sought vital step in proving that the cells could be as useful as embryonic cells for studying and curing many illnesses.

    The results come just as the Obama administration has eased federal restrictions on government funding for embryonic stem-cell research and could influence how to prioritize millions of dollars in new spending in the field.

    But because of concerns the techniques might make cloning and genetic engineering of embryos easier, the work could reignite calls for a ban on attempts to clone people and for restrictions on genetic manipulation of embryos.

    Many scientists believe human embryonic stem-cell research could revolutionize medicine by enabling doctors to use genetically matched tissues to treat many diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and paralysis. But the field has been mired in controversy because embryos are destroyed to obtain the cells.

    In 2006, scientists discovered they could induce adult cells to regress to a stage that appeared identical to embryonic stem cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, raising hopes for a less controversial alternative. Although scientists have become increasingly adept at creating and manipulating such cells, questions have lingered about whether they are truly equivalent. The new experiments were designed to put the cells to what has long been considered the most rigorous test. …

    http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_12903829

    It’s hard to believe the WaPo bothered to report anything that doesn’t promote increased numbers of abortions and the “reuse” of the resulting fetuses.

  4. BillK
    July 25, 2009 at 1:28 am

    Today’s fear mongering from the CDC via the AP:

    Swine flu could hit up to 40 percent in US

    By Mike Stobbe

    ATLANTA – In a disturbing new projection, health officials say up to 40 percent of Americans could get swine flu this year and next and several hundred thousand could die without a successful vaccine campaign and other measures. The estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are roughly twice the number of those who catch flu in a normal season and add greater weight to hurried efforts to get a new vaccine ready for the fall flu season.

    Swine flu has already hit the United States harder than any other nation, but it has struck something of a glancing blow that’s more surprising than devastating. The virus has killed about 300 Americans and experts believe it has sickened more than 1 million, comparable to a seasonal flu with the weird ability to keep spreading in the summer.

    Health officials say flu cases may explode in the fall, when schools open and become germ factories, and the new estimates dramatize the need to have vaccines and other measures in place.

    A world health official said the first vaccines are expected in September and October. The United States expects to begin testing on some volunteers in August, with 160 million doses ready in October.

    The CDC came up with the new projections for the virus’ spread last month, but it was first disclosed in an interview this week with The Associated Press.

    The estimates are based on a flu pandemic from 1957, which killed nearly 70,000 in the United States but was not as severe as the infamous Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19. The number of deaths and illnesses from the new swine flu virus would drop if the pandemic peters out or if efforts to slow its spread are successful, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. …

    http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12906383

    Don’t get me wrong, it is important to prepare for this more severe than usual strain of flu, but as with global warming so much of the CDC’s statement is based on models or projections that have never actually been tested.

    But at least the piece doesn’t shy from one underreported fact:

    In a normal flu season, about 36,000 people die from flu and its complications, according to the American Medical Association.

    Why doesn’t Obama spend Government resources on this rather than on the Socialized medicine folly if “health care” is so important?

    Because to Obama, it naturally isn’t, it’s just a means to a very controlling end.

  5. BillK
    July 25, 2009 at 1:46 am

    The latest “Cheney is evil” report from the Associated Press:

    Report: Bush mulled sending troops into Buffalo

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times reported.

    Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend men who were suspected of plotting with al Qaida, who later became known as the Lackawanna Six, the Times reported on its Web site Friday night. It cited former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The proposal advanced to at least one-high level administration meeting, before President George W. Bush decided against it.

    Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

    According to the Times, Cheney and other Bush aides said an Oct. 23, 2001, Justice Department memo gave broad presidential authority that allowed Bush to use the domestic use of the military against al-Qaida if it was justified on the grounds of national security, rather than law enforcement.

    Among those arguing for the military use besides Cheney were his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials, the Times reported.

    Opposing the idea were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division. …

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

    Ah, “internal sources” combine with the Times’ willingess to publish Government documents to provide another non-story.

    Don’t you love the way every idea thrown against the wall inside the White House is now fodder for the Times?

    I can’t wait until they start publishing the same information from this administration.

    Oh, wait…

  6. Rusty Shackleford
    July 25, 2009 at 1:52 am

    Flight 1549 First Officer gets ride with USAF Thunderbirds

    http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123160404

    7/24/2009 – MILWAUKEE (AFNS) — First Officer Jeff Skiles, co-pilot of the U.S. Airways flight that crash-landed in the Hudson River in January, took to the sky July 23 with the U.S. Air Force’s Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds.

    “Of all the things I have been involved with since the accident, this has got to be the top,” said Mr. Skiles, who has been inundated with fan mail, media attention and has even spoken in front of the Federal Aviation Administration twice. “It was an honor for me to fly with the Thunderbirds. I salute every one of you for what you do for our country.”

  7. canary
    July 25, 2009 at 7:14 am

    US News: Obama’s Secret Dinner With Presidential Historians
    By Kenneth T. Walsh July 15, 2009

    It was a private interlude in Barack Obama’s prime-time presidency.

    For more than two hours on June 30, over lamb chops, salad, coffee, and dessert, the new president quizzed his guests on a wide range of topics in what was described as a sort of “history book club, with the president as the inquisitor.” Those attending were Michael Beschloss, H. W. Brands, Douglas Brinkley, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack, and Garry Wills. Collectively, they represent one of the most stellar collections of presidential expertise ever assembled at the White House. Others at the gathering included White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

    The get-together with the historians was the latest effort by Obama to break out of what he calls the White House “bubble”—the rigidly controlled, isolated existence that presidents often endure inside the White House gates.

    the spokesman said, adding: “He certainly continues to reach out to people of all walks of life.”

    However, other presidents were less impressed with academe. Johnson, for example, didn’t trust the scholarly community, partly because so many professors and their students had turned against the Vietnam War and LBJ’s leadership. Ronald Reagan, whose philosophy was fully formed when he reached the White House, didn’t feel the need for Obama-style “salons.”

    The dinner began with drinks with the historians, and then they all adjourned to a dining room where they sat at an oblong table, with the president at the center.

    Obama asked each of his guests to talk about the presidents he or she had studied,

    There were moments where Obama was told some things he might not have liked to hear, such as the difficulty of waging war while at the same trying to implement an ambitious domestic agenda.

    But Obama made it clear that overhauling healthcare remains one of his top priorities.

    He later told aides that he would like to host the historians again, along with others from outside government. It’s the kind of break from the bubble, aides say, that he wants to make into a habit.

    http://www.usnews.com/articles.....rians.html

    who will be his best ghost writer

    • pdsand
      July 27, 2009 at 7:54 pm

      Didn’t all those luminaries declare Obama the best President ever back in November?

    • U NO HOO
      July 31, 2009 at 6:48 pm

      “Those attending were Michael Beschloss”

      He is the guy that told Imus that Obama had a huge IQ but Beschloss didn’t know how huge it was. Imus wasn’t impressed.

      Maybe Michael Beschloss learned what Obama’s IQ is on June 30.

      Did any of the exalted guests tell Obama that FDR’s policies failed? I’m sure FDR’s god child, Doris Kearns Goodwin, didn’t.

  8. canary
    July 25, 2009 at 7:28 am

    US News: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Valerie Jarrett
    Jarrett is a senior adviser to President Obama
    By Henry J. Reske April 3, 2009

    1. Valerie Jarrett was born Nov. 14, 1956, in Shiraz, Iran, where her parents, James and Barbara Bowman, lived for six years. Her father, a doctor, was working in Iran as part of a program that sent American physicians to developing countries.

    2. The family also lived for a year in London before settling in the Hyde Park area of Chicago.

    3. Jarrett’s great-grandfather, Robert Robinson Taylor, was the first African-American to graduate from MIT.

    4. Jarrett did her undergraduate work at Stanford and received her law degree from the University of Michigan.

    5. In 1983, she married a friend from childhood, William Robert Jarrett, who was a doctor and the son of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Vernon Jarrett.

    6. The couple divorced in 1988, and Jarrett’s ex-husband died in 1993 from a heart attack. Their only child, Laura, is studying law at Harvard.

    7. Jarrett worked with two private law firms. She eventually specialized in commercial real estate.

    8. She went to work in the city of Chicago’s Law Department under Mayor Harold Washington and held a series of positions under Mayor Richard M. Daley.

    9. Most recently, she was CEO of the Habitat Co., a real estate management and development firm in Chicago.

    10. She met Barack Obama in 1991 when he accompanied his fiancée, Michelle Robinson, to a dinner with Jarrett as part of Michelle’s job interview for a position in the mayor’s office. Michelle got the job, and the three have been friends ever since.

    http://www.usnews.com/articles.....rrett.html

    Pardon if the last two are old news, but just noticed that Jarret at the meeting and such strong ties and neighbors.

    I would call this a Jackson Presidency. Forgot the nickname for it.

  9. Petronius
    July 25, 2009 at 10:32 am

    From Dow Jones Newswires

    Medical-Device Sector May Be Tapped For US Health Savings

    By Jon Kamp 23 July 2009

    The medical-devices industry, like its health-care peers, may be called on to contribute to the government’s health reform efforts by making financial sacrifices.

    An agreement between the government and devices industry, which includes heavyweights such as Medtronic Inc. (MDT) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), was considered questionable because there isn’t a strong connection between the two. But deal speculation is building among industry observers, with one analyst saying a pact could carry a price tag between $15 billion and $25 billion over 10 years.

    While that would be less than bigger agreements sealed with the hospital and pharmaceutical industries, Wells Fargo analyst Larry Biegelsen estimated any deal above $15 billion would hurt by more than offsetting the financial benefits of insuring more patients.

    And, in the end, investors may not like a pact of any size.

    “We believe any deal the industry agrees to will be viewed as a net negative for investors, as few expected health-care reform to have a direct impact on medical devices,” Biegelsen wrote in a note to investors. He said the White House and devices industry are in talks over a deal that could come in September.

    Officials in the White House press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter. . . .

    . . . The fact the government doesn’t really pay directly for devices – which are generally sold to hospitals – raises questions over what sort of mechanism would be used to garner device-industry savings. Bernstein Research analysts said the opening gambit may be a request for $50 billion to $60 billion in savings over 10 years, perhaps through a rebate mechanism.

    . . . The device industry has been highlighting the fact it’s already likely to get squeezed in the quest for cost savings. That is because when the government tightens spending to hospitals, hospitals are likely to clamp down on their own costs.

    The hospital industry has agreed to a $155 billion cost-savings deal over 10 years.

    According to Dominic Caruso, J&J’s chief financial officer, “it would be safe to assume that some contribution from the medical device industry would be required in order to make those numbers from the hospital industry come to life.” . . .

    Michael Mussallem, chief executive of heart-valve maker Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (EW) and current AdvaMed chairman, said Monday that “when hospitals have to save the kind of money that is being projected, it’s the kind of thing that’s somewhat worrisome for our industry.”

    In addition to hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry agreed to contribute $80 billion over 10 years as part of a proposed health-care overhaul.

    http://www.djnewsplus.com:80/a.....h+Savings+

    Redistribute-the-wealth is the name of Nerobama’s game. In behind-closed-doors negotiations with the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the White House is seeking to rip-off stockholders of the medical devices industry for $50B to $60B. AdvaMed represents companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, St Jude, GE Healthcare, Boston Scientific, C. R. Bard, Baxter Internat’l, Bausch & Lomb, Abbott Labs, and Zimmer.

    Welcome to the new Red America. Where the US Government operates as a criminal enterprise. Where it expropriates wealth from hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and manufacturers of medical devices, supplies, and equipment, and from their stockholders. And where it steals the future health of Americans.

    When wealth is expropriated from the medical industry, patient care will be sacrificed, and investment in growth and new technology and R&D will grind to a halt.

    And note that this is happening by unilateral Presidential action, without any legislation by Congress, without any authority in the Constitution. And so mute have we become that this, which would have served as the basis for endless literature in the past, has attracted not one smidgen of art. It has passed almost without notice and comment by the US media, outside of this note in the business press.

    • proreason
      July 25, 2009 at 10:40 am

      Other than pharmaceuticals, medical devices have probably contributed the most to the extension of life-spans around the world.

      ObamyScare will put a stop to that.

    • neocon mom
      July 25, 2009 at 11:17 am

      Not only have they contributed to the extension of life-spans but to the retirement accounts of a large percentage of American workers.

      The other question that must be asked: where will countries with socialized medicine find technological advancement in medicine without the large U.S. free market fueling those advances? (Just like we provide all of our soft-socialist allies in Europe with all the military protection and technology they could ever ask for so they can (kind of) afford to blow their wads on health care and pensions.

  10. curvyred
    July 25, 2009 at 11:10 am

    Union storms Mayor’s office in Pittsburgh demanding a piece of the stimulus pie:

    Protesters storm Ravenstahl’s office demanding jobs on city projects

    Workers who protested at Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s office this morning for union jobs on city-subsidized projects said they will return this afternoon.

    “We want the city to change its economic development policy,” said Gabe Morgan, Western Pennsylvania director of the Service Employees International Union, who led about 150 people in chants and songs in the City-County Building, Downtown. “We’ll come back at 2 and see if they mayor is there. If we can’t talk to the mayor, then we’ll go to city council.”

    Building security kept the doors to the mayor’s offices locked before chaining them shut about 8:40 a.m. while a dozen police officers stood guard. The doors are open again.

    http://www.pittsburghlive.com/.....35143.html

  11. canary
    July 26, 2009 at 1:13 am

    Obama tells world imperfect elections okay, names election 8 years ago.

    US envoy warns of imperfect Afghan poll
    By Associated Press Writer Fisnik Abrashi Fri Jul 24, 2009

    GHAZNI, Afghanistan – President Barack Obama’s special envoy said Friday that Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential contest will be imperfect, but the country cannot be held to a democratic standard that even the U.S. struggles to achieve.

    Richard Holbrooke’s trip to this central Afghan province coincided with President Hamid Karzai’s first election rally in Kabul ahead of the Aug. 20 ballot. Karzai praised the role of foreign troops but promised that rules governing their presence will change if he wins re-election.

    “Elections here will be imperfect,” Holbrooke said between briefings at a military base run by Polish and U.S. troops. “But I am an American who lived through an imperfect election eight years ago. I am not going to hold Afghanistan to standards which even the United States does not achieve.”

    At the rally, Karzai shook hands and promised supporters he would hold NATO and U.S. troops accountable for actions that harm or ignore the rights of Afghan citizens, including killing civilians, raiding private homes and detaining people without charge.

    Karzai has done little campaigning in the run up to the elections but is leading a crowded field of 41 candidates.

    Too often, he said, international troops make decisions without consulting the Afghan government.

    “It should be clear who is the owner of the house and who is the guest,” he said. The appeal prompted shouts and clapping throughout the crowd.

    That theme was hammered home Thursday by Karzai’s two leading competitors during the television debate.

    Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani both cited civilian casualties, searching private homes without permission and arresting people without cause as major reasons for opposition to the presence of American and other international forces.

    Associated Press reporters Amir Shah and Heidi Vogt in Kabul contributed to this report.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ucw–

    Think Obama should of brought of this years election that ACORN corrupted, and soldiers that didn’t get to vote. Obama is in denial as to what a disgrace he is to himself. Has to many yes people around him.

  12. curvyred
    July 26, 2009 at 10:16 am

    Democratic Recorder of Deeds Owes $71,000 in back taxes and almost lost his own home to a sheriff sale:

    Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds Tom Murphy owes $71,000 in back taxes

    Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds Tom Murphy owes the federal government nearly $71,000 for unpaid income taxes dating back to 2007.

    The Internal Revenue Service last month filed a lien against Murphy, seeking to recoup delinquent payments. Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue filed court liens against Murphy for $3,100 in unpaid income taxes. The state liens are still pending

    Last year, Murphy nearly lost his Arnold home to a tax sale for unpaid county real estate taxes. He settled his county tax bill last summer and, according to records on file at the courthouse, is up to date on county, city and school taxes.

    According to his financial disclosure form filed with the county commissioners’ office, Murphy has two other sources of employment. He works for Burrell Group, an insurance company based in New Kensington, and Document Technology Systems, a company based in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

    That company was paid $30,000 in 2008 and the same amount in 2009 to maintain computers in the recorder of deeds office.

    Murphy said the state Ethics Commission last year signed off on his job as a consultant for the computer company. Since 2005, officials with that company, which earlier this decade equipped Murphy’s office, have donated to his re-election campaigns.

    Murphy said his tax problems and personal finances have been unfairly portrayed to the public.

    “I feel the press has taken a biased look at me. Anything positive about my office is not reported, but anything about my personal life has been attacked,” Murphy said. “I’m a row officer, not a state legislator.”

    http://www.pittsburghlive.com/.....33902.html

  13. caligirl9
    July 26, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    If TOTUS wants “healthcare reform,” perhaps doing something about insurance rescission, which is the canceling of individual insurance policies, usually after a person is found to need expensive treatment. From an e-mail newsletter, Nurse.com.

    Nurse Wages Battle with Insurer Over Policy Cancellation

    Robin Beaton, RN, worked as a nurse for 30 years in labor and delivery, the MICU-CCU, ED, and NICU at Parkland County Hospital and Methodist Central Hospital in Texas…

    But after all those years of caring for patients who were injured, ill, or dying, Beaton, 59, almost didn’t get the double mastectomy she needed when she was diagnosed in June 2008 with HER2 positive breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease.

    Beaton, who lives in Waxahachie, Texas, was not among the approximately 45 million Americans who do not have health insurance. In fact, Beaton, a retired nurse, purchased an individual health insurance policy in December of 2007 through Blue Cross and Blue Shield and paid the $400 premium every month.

    Yet she was denied treatment for her breast cancer — the very first claim she had made on the policy — because her insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, canceled her entire policy after she made the claim.

    Insurance officials told her they canceled her coverage because she had failed to inform them about a visit to a dermatologist for acne. The company interpreted a word in the dermatologist’s notes to mean she had a precancerous condition. The dermatologist himself called the insurance company and told officials they were wrong, and that Beaton did not have a precancerous condition.

    Blue Cross pulled her records anyway and started an investigation into her medical history for the previous five years. After the investigation, which found she had not done anything beyond incorrectly stating her age, the insurer still refused to resinstate her policy.

    At least that was until Beaton’s congressman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, stepped in and told Blue Cross and Blue Shield that he and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation would hold a press conference to tell the media about Beaton’s circumstances.

    “I’m not out to get insurance companies,” Barton told Nurse.com in a phone interview from his Washington, D.C., office. “But when you portray youself like a paternal uncle and say you are going to do everything you can to take care of your policyholders and yet you have a business practice to break that policy, then that is wrong.”

    The business practice Barton is referring to is called insurance rescission, the canceling of individual insurance policies, usually after a person is found to need expensive treatment. Insurers argue they only do so if the individual has committed fraud by purposefully lying about or misrepresenting his or her medical history when originally applying for the insurance policy.

    Barton, the senior ranking member of the U.S. House of Representative’s House Energy and Commerce Committee, says many insurance companies review a policyholder’s medical history after receiving a claim for expensive medical care, looking for a technicality to rescind coverage. In June, Beaton told her story of rescission before Barton’s committee, which has been investigating insurance fraud and abuse. Beaton said she was frightened to speak before the congressional committee and that she broke down when she entered the hearing room. But the tears helped washed away her fears. Dressed in an elegant black suit with a white collar and hair just beginning to regrow since her chemotherapy, Beaton told her story.

    She said Blue Cross and Blue Shield had originally approved her double mastectomy, but rescinded approval the Friday before the Monday she was scheduled for surgery…

    Beaton had her double mastectomy on Oct. 2 at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. By then the tumor had grown from 2 to 3 centimeters to 7, making treatment less promising. In addition to both breasts, she also had all the lymph nodes in the left arm removed.

    … Barton says she finally went for a physical after an aunt died of breast cancer from a late diagnosis and her father begged her to go.

    “When the nurse practitioner was examining me, she found [the lump] and her eyes got as big as saucers,” she says. “I could tell something was wrong.”

    Now she will tell others to be sure to do a breast self-examiniation, to get a breast exam from a healthcare provider, and to have a mammogram.

    “I tell a true story,” she says. The other truth, she says, is that “I owe my life to Joe Barton and his staff. They worked hours and days for me. They never gave up hope.”

    http://news.nurse.com/article/.....107200001/

    Perhaps if the “government” butted their heads into an area they should be butting into (if they are going to regulate anything, regulate insurance companies’ questionable practices) and fix that aspect of health care delivery first.

    Of course that won’t happen, because it’s just not spectacular enough for the dems. And kudos to Representative Joe Barton, a Republican, for going to bat for this RN.

  14. crosspatch
    July 26, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    Secret plan by the Labour Party in the UK to drastically raise taxes after the next election. Lucky for the people there, it looks like the Labour Party is going to be ridden out of power on a rail and replaced next election by the Conservative Party who promises to quash this plan. The plan would tax the very view from one’s window.

    Please lets hope the Democrats don’t find out.

    In other news, 27yo Conservative Party candidate Chloe Smith took a traditionally Labour seat in Norwich North by over 20 points on Friday in a by-election seen as a bellwether of the coming national elections. It looks like the Labour Party, after losing nearly all their European Parliament seats and most of the council seats stand experience their worst loss in history in the coming national parliamentary elections if the current polling is accurate.

  15. canary
    July 26, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    FOXnews.com: Islamic Supremacist Group Holds First U.S. Conference
    Diane Macedo Friday July 19 2009

    Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq’s onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

    Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam,” at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

    Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire — or “khilafah” — that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad.

    Hizb ut-Tahrir often says that its indoctrination “prepares the infantry” that groups like Al Qaeda take into battle, Phares said.

    “It’s like a middle school that prepares them to be recruited by the high school, which is Al Qaeda,” he said. “One would compare them to Hitler youth. … It’s an extremely dangerous organization.”

    Phares said Hizb ut-Tahrir has strongholds in Western countries, including Britain, France and Spain, and clearly is looking to strengthen its base in the U.S.

    Oren Segal, director of Islamic Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, said the conference is cause for concern.

    Segal told FOXNews.com. “That’s why they’re banned in several Arab and Central Asian countries, as well as Germany and Russia.”

    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of the group’s most famous alumni, New Statesman journalist Shiv Malik reported, citing intelligence sources. In addition to plotting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he also is implicated in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the Bali nightclub bombings and the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

    Malik’s report, the public policy institute the Nixon Center and the counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation agree that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq until he was killed in June 2006, also was once a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

    They say other former members include Asif Muhammad Hanif, a British man who blew himself up outside a bar in Tel Aviv, killing four people (including himself) and wounding more than 50; and Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric currently banned from Britain who praised the 9/11 attacks, raised funds for Hezbollah and Hamas and called for attacks on the Dublin airport because U.S. troops transfered there on their way to Iraq.

    Hilton Oak Lawn General Manager Rick Harmon said Hizb ut-Tahrir used its own name when it reserved the room for the conference, but the hotel was not aware of the content of the event, which includes lectures entitled “Capitalism is Doomed to Fail,” “The Global Rise of Islam,” and the “Role of Muslims in America,” until after the contract was signed.

    But former member Ishtiaq Hussain said Hizb ut-Tahrir is repackaging itself as a moderate organization as a tactic, while in reality it is “extremist.”

    “They don’t recognize countries like Israel, for example; they don’t believe Israel should exist,” Hussain, now a trainer for the Quilliam Foundation, told FOXNews.com. “Some of their leaders have denied the Holocaust, and they believe homosexuals should be thrown off the highest building. … It’s actually a very dangerous group.”

    In his book, “How the Khilafah Was Destroyed,” Sheikh Abdul Qadeem Zalloom, the former global leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, says anyone who rules by a non-Islamic system should “either retract or be killed … even if this led to several years of fighting and even if it led to the killing of millions of Muslims and to the martyrdom of millions of believers.”

    And one of the organization’s more recent leaflets, published in March, calls for the declaration of “a state of war against America.”

    But, despite these threats and calls to action, Hizb ut-Tahrir remains off the State Department’s terror watch list, and it is free to host the Khilafah Conference and any other event like it.
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533525,00.html
    Go to link for full version, clips, etc.
    I can see their first convention being held in “Chicago”, and not even mentioned on Dept of Homeland Security list. I recently saw a clip, where the leader is holding an American flag, except a Jihad flag replaces the square where stars are.

  16. canary
    July 26, 2009 at 9:10 pm

    FOXnews.com July 26 2009

    A New York nurse claims she was forced to choose between her religious convictions and her job when Mount Sinai Hospital ordered her to assist in a late-term abortion against her will.

    The hospital even exaggerated the patient’s condition and claimed the woman could die if the nurse, a devout Catholic, did not follow orders, the nurse alleges in a lawsuit.

    “It felt like a horror film unfolding,” said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35, who claims she has had gruesome nightmares and hasn’t been able to sleep since the May 24 incident.

    The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.

    Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

    The supervisor “claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion.”

    But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient’s life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.

    Click here to read more on this story from the New York Post.
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0.....0.html?mrp

    • JohnMG
      July 26, 2009 at 9:15 pm

      I’ve a question. What about THIS wise Latino woman? I guess her standing as a US citizen and caring health-care profesional doesn’t measure up to the standards set by Sotomayor.

    • caligirl9
      July 26, 2009 at 10:14 pm

      That was not cool. There are so many ways to treat preeclampsia, magnesium being one of the older treatments. Blood pressure is somewhat controllable, and while it’s true that delivery of the baby is the best treatment, abortion of the baby at 22 weeks is way out of proper medical procedure.

      The patient could have been maintained a few more weeks just to give the baby extra time. This was a plain old mid-term abortion that some doctor thought he could ram through the hospital.

      I hope Ms. Cenzon-DeCarlo sues the socks off of the hospital, her supervisors and the doctor who did this. A pox on them all. No reason that procedure needed to be done at that time.

    • canary
      July 28, 2009 at 2:45 am

      Cali, this is a common condition during pregnancy. And the woman’s blood pressure would have to have been lowered with medications prior to surgery anyways. Saddest is the baby left to die.

    • caligirl9
      July 28, 2009 at 4:16 am

      I had it with my one pregnancy … got sick at about 26 weeks, delivered at 37 weeks. I never got so ill that I had to do the MgSO4 drip, but I’ve monitored preeclamptic women who were on IV drips for uncontrollable BP. I honestly can’t remember a doctor ever suggesting abortion as a treatment right from the hop.

      The ONLY thing (with the limited info we have) that would have made this truly life-threatening to the woman is full-blown eclampsia … meaning seizures., or something called DIC. And still, the prudent thing to do is to try to give that poor baby extra time, and to at least try to treat the little soul once it’s born. This whole thing sounds just … repulsive.

      I couldn’t have participated in that procedure; I wouldn’t have done it. That would have been enough to get me bitching to the union (that never did anything for me, but it has to be good for something, right?).

      And the other funky thing (again with the limited info): the article says this was an early-morning shift, and I take that to mean night shift, like 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. WHY would a procedure like that be done in the middle of the night/early morning hours, with the potential for disaster?

      Something stinks.

    • canary
      July 28, 2009 at 5:02 am

      Cali, had some GI wifes with it, and all made it through their pregancies. I am wondering if the hospital just didn’t want to let the patient spend a few days in the hospital. I had high risk pregnancy, ended up in hospital confined bed, and they gave me medicine to strenghten baby’s lungs, as they knew I wouldn’t carry full term. Sent me home, but, that was too strenious, so had to turn around go back and have emergency C. I was 6 and half monthes along. The staff were all calling him a miracle, he did not have to go on oxygen because of the meds they had me on for that week.

      Cali, Congradulations on your baby too. They are blessings.

    • neocon mom
      July 30, 2009 at 4:23 pm

      I feel for her, but I would have refused. I would have made them call security to escort me out of the building if they fired me for refusing. No one can compel you to do this.

  17. BillK
    July 27, 2009 at 7:05 am

    From the TV site Media Bistro:

    Man Bites Dog: U.S. Navy Commander Files Sex Complaint Against Female Miami Herald Journo

    US Navy Commander Jeffrey D. Gordon has filed a sexual harassment complaint against the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg.

    FishbowlDC obtained a copy of the July 22, 2009 letter addressed to Miami Herald Senior VP and Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal. In the complaint, Gordon calls for a “thorough investigation” to put an end to Rosenberg’s “appalling behavior” that includes comments about the Commander’s sexual orientation.

    The complaint outlines examples of Rosenberg’s alleged “abusive and degrading, comments of an explicitly sexual nature.”

    Gordon writes:

    To me, in front of another journalist with reference to why 9/11 co-defendant Mustafa Al Hawsawi was seated on a pillow in court:

    “Have you ever had a red hot poker shoved up your a**? Have you ever had a broomstick shoved up your a**? Have you ever had anything in your a**? How would you know how it feels if it never happened to you? Admit it, you liked it? No wonder why you like to stay in South Beach on your Miami visits.”

    Rosenberg, to CNN’s Jamie McIntyre in front of roughly 15 journalists in the Guantanamo Commission’s press center:

    To Jamie – “Aren’t you in the BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters)? I didn’t think you were in tent city because these people (military public affairs escorts) are so far up your ass that I figured you must be in the BOQ.”

    To Me [Gordon] – “Why isn’t he in the BOQ? You’re kissing his ass so much that I can’t believe that you’re letting him stay with the rest of us. Do you love him?”

    The Commander claims that Rosenberg said to members of the press and enlisted military men and women: “Seeing him [Gordon] topless in tent city was the most repulsive sight I’ve ever seen in my life.” …

    http://www.mediabistro.com/fis.....122619.asp

    Oh, it gets better:

    Gordon, who also serves as the Pentagon Spokesman for Western Hemisphere and Guantanamo issues also accuses Rosenberg of “bullying” reporters from various outlets including New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, CBC, Der Siegel and Al Jazeera. He claims that over the years, Rosenberg has labeled her peers in the press and Gordon’s colleagues “bitches,” “stupid,” “lazy,” “incompetent,” “Nazis,” and “Saddam Hussein-like.”

    Needless to say the Miami Herald has “no comment” and is in no way investigating Ms. Rosenberg’s behavior.

    • pdsand
      July 27, 2009 at 7:43 pm

      We’ve never heard thing one about this going on for years, but let the commander step out of line one time…

  18. Howard Roark
    July 27, 2009 at 1:44 pm

    HENRY LOUIS GATES 911 CALL on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfxJbFbbqw

  19. canary
    July 27, 2009 at 7:15 pm

    AP IMPACT: Dodd, Conrad told deals were sweetened
    By Associated Press Writer Larry Margasak July 27 2009

    WASHINGTON – Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation’s largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony.

    Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn’t know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers.

    Dodd got two Countrywide mortgages in 2003, refinancing his home in Connecticut and another residence in Washington. Conrad’s two Countrywide mortgages in 2004 were for a beach house in Delaware and an eight-unit apartment building in Bismarck in his home state of North Dakota.

    • Dodd heads the Banking Committee and is a major player in two big areas: solving the housing foreclosure and financial crises and putting together an overhaul of the U.S. health care system. A five-term senator, he is in a tough fight for re-election in 2010, partly because of the controversy over his mortgages.

    _Conrad chairs the Budget Committee. He, too, shares an important role in the health care debate, as well as on legislation to curb global warming.

    Both senators were VIP borrowers in the program known as “friends” of Angelo. Angelo Mozilo was chief executive of Countrywide, which played a big part in the foreclosure crisis triggered by defaults on subprime loans. The Calabasas, Calif.-based company was bought last July by Bank of America Corp. for about $2.5 billion.

    Countrywide VIPs, Feinberg told the committees, received discounts on rates, fees and points. Dodd received a break when Countrywide counted both his Connecticut and Washington homes as primary owner-occupied residences — a fiction, according to Feinberg. Conrad received a type of commercial loan that he was told Countrywide didn’t offer.

    “The simple fact that Angelo Mozilo and other high-ranking executives at Countrywide were personally making sure Mr. Feinberg handled their loans right, is proof in itself that the senators knew they were getting sweetheart deals,”

    At his Feb. 2 news conference, Dodd insisted he didn’t receive special treatment. The assertion was at odds with two Countrywide documents entitled “Loan Policy Analysis” that Dodd allowed reporters to review the same day.

    In Conrad’s case, an e-mail from Feinberg to Mozilo indicates Feinberg informed Conrad that Countrywide had a residential loan limit of a four-unit building. Conrad sought to finance an eight-unit apartment building in Bismarck that he had bought from his brothers.

    Mozilo responded the same day that Feinberg should speak to another Countrywide executive and “see if he can make an exception due to the fact that the borrower is a senator.”

    He was allowed to do both of those as owner-occupied, which is not allowed. You can only have one owner-occupied property. You can’t live in two properties at the same time,” he said.

    Other names that have surfaced as “friends” of Mozilo include James Johnson, a former head of Fannie Mae who later stepped down as an adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Franklin Raines, who also headed Fannie Mae. Still other “friends” included retired athletes, a judge, a congressional aide and a newspaper executive.

    The next day, Conrad changed course after reviewing documents showing he got special treatment, and said he was donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing the loan on the apartment building with another lender.

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

  20. Rusty Shackleford
    July 27, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    From the UK Telegraph:
    27 Jul 2009

    Barack Obama: US and China will shape 21st century

    As I read this, I just got this sick feeling in my stomach.

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

    A few bits and pieces:

    [The Chinese are still sensitive about their inferior status and pushed hard for Mr Obama to open the meeting, according to sources close to the administration, because "they are still looking for validation".]

    I’m not so sure, but when I took a class on China while in high school, I was told by the teacher that China possessed an ego “at least as large” as the US and would never take a back seat in anything. That they do not consider themselves inferior in any way. The way they see it, their nation is over 2,000 years older than anyone else’s and thus, they have no reason to feel inferior about anything.

    And besides, if I was a Chinese national and read this, I would probably be pretty torqued off.

    [Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, made only brief reference to China's poor human rights record, which used to loom much larger in discussions.]

    Yes…lest your recent racist remarks come to the fore….again.

    [But he(Obama) bracketed his criticism with acknowledgement of China's great "ancient culture" and the vibrant contribution of Chinese Americans to the US.]

    Ah…there he goes again. Condescending tones from the “I Won”. Not to mention that every Chinese-American I have ever known is as American as apple pie…in fact more-so than our first ever arab president. And to acknowledge their “contributions” to the United States is to say that they are somehow still morally connected to China and its system. And, also by saying it, he once again marginalizes yet another group. It’s kind of like referring to blacks as “you people”.

    [For the Chinese, Dai Bingguo, the state councillor, acknowledged the two states "could never be the same", and echoed his hosts by saying neither country could solve the world's problems alone.

    "We are actually all in the same big boat that has been hit by fierce wind and huge waves," Mr Dai said of the economic and other crises.]

    Sounds like “New World Order” talk to me. So hey….let’s get together like that time the Penguin, teh Joker and Mr Freeze all got together to destroy Batman.

    [The Chinese, holding $801.5 billion (£485 billion) of US treasury debt, meanwhile sought further explanations of what the Obama administration plans to do about the soaring deficits.]

    First time I’ve ever seen the actual number…and that’s when I got the really sick feeling in my gut.

    • canary
      July 28, 2009 at 1:09 am

      Obama’s racism, muslim roots, and tyrant sympathy, may lead to China being his very biggest gigantic friend in the whole wide world.

  21. proreason
    July 27, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    Here’s a shocker. The Boston Globe is starting to plagarize proreason’s loudmouth rants:

    “….Barney Frank’s talking points notwithstanding, mortgage lenders didn’t wake up one fine day deciding to junk long-held standards of creditworthiness in order to make ill-advised loans to unqualified borrowers. It would be closer to the truth to say they woke up to find the government twisting their arms and demanding that they do so – or else….”

    http://www.boston.com/bostongl.....al_fiasco/

    My formulation, which I have stated dozens of time on S&L is “bankers didn’t wake up one day, take stupid pills in unison, and decide to throw away decade’s old lending standards and start making 2% loans to deadbeats who couldn’t pay them back”.

    It’s good to know even a bastion of libwitism is beginning to pay attention…..

    Now that 12 trillion in lost wealth is swirling out of Drooling Barneys colon, and 30 million people are out of work (20% of people who would work if they could get a job).

  22. canary
    July 27, 2009 at 11:01 pm

    AP: 7 NC men charged with plotting ‘violent jihad’
    By Associated Press Writer Mike Baker July 27 2009

    RALEIGH, N.C. – A father, his two sons and four other North Carolina men are accused of military-style training at home and plotting “violent jihad” through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday.

    Officials said the group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business. But two decades ago, Boyd, who is a U.S. citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before returning to the United States.

    An indictment released Monday … claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging “violent jihad” and returned home without success.

    “These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.

    The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism… Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as ‘Saifullah,’ encouraged others to engage in jihad.

    In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan — accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.

    Their wives told The Associated Press in an interview at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of “kafirs” — Arabic for heathens.

    Jim Stephenson, a neighbor of Daniel Boyd in Willow Spring, said he saw the family walking their dog in the neighborhood and that the indictment shocked the residents.

    Two of the suspects are Boyd’s sons: Zakariya Boyd, 20 and Dylan Boyd, 22. The others are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21. Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.

    After the unsuccessful attempt at jihad in Israel, the men returned home, officials said. Court papers also say Yaghi went to Jordan to engage in jihad in 2006.

    Boyd was also accused of trying to raise money last year to fund others’ travel overseas to fight. One of the men, Sherifi, went to Kosovo to engage in violent jihad

    Associated Press Writers Devlin Barrett contributed to this report from Washington; Meg Kinnard contributed from Columbia, S.C.; Alysia Patterson and Tom Foreman Jr. contributed from Raleigh.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....bi_arrests

  23. Colonel1961
    July 28, 2009 at 12:10 am

    You can mark me down as shocked, too. I can’t even manage sarcasm…

  24. BillK
    July 28, 2009 at 1:30 am

    From an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal:

    Morality and Charlie Rangel’s Taxes

    Ever notice that those who endorse high taxes and those who actually pay them aren’t the same people? Consider the curious case of Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, who is leading the charge for a new 5.4-percentage point income tax surcharge and recently called it “the moral thing to do.” About his own tax liability he seems less, well, fervent.

    Exhibit A concerns a rental property Mr. Rangel purchased in 1987 at the Punta Cana Yacht Club in the Dominican Republic. The rental income from that property ought to be substantial since it is a luxury beach-front villa and is more often than not rented out. But when the National Legal and Policy Center looked at Mr. Rangel’s House financial disclosure forms in August, it noted that his reported income looked suspiciously low. In 2004 and 2005, he reported no more than $5,000, and in 2006 and 2007 no income at all from the property.

    The Congressman initially denied there was any unreported income. But reporters quickly showed that the villa is among the most desirable at Punta Cana and that it rents for $500 a night in the low season, and as much as $1,100 a night in peak season. Last year it was fully booked between December 15 and April 15.

    Mr. Rangel soon admitted having failed to report rental income of $75,000 over the years. First he blamed his wife for the oversight because he said she was supposed to be managing the property. Then he blamed the language barrier. “Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,” Mr. Rangel explained.

    Mr. Rangel promised last fall to amend his tax returns, pay what is due and correct the information on his annual financial disclosure form. But the deadline for the 2008 filing was May 15 and as of last week he still had not filed. His press spokesman declined to answer questions about anything related to his ethics problems.

    Besides not paying those pesky taxes, Mr. Rangel had other reasons for wanting to hide income. As the tenant of four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, the Congressman needed to keep his annual reported income below $175,000, lest he be ineligible as a hardship case for rent control. (He also used one of the apartments as an office in violation of rent-control rules, but that’s another story.)

    Mr. Rangel said last fall that “I never had any idea that I got any income’’ from the villa. Try using that one the next time the IRS comes after you. Equally interesting is his claim that he didn’t know that the developer of the Dominican Republic villa had converted his $52,000 mortgage to an interest-free loan in 1990. That would seem to violate House rules on gifts, which say Members may only accept loans on “terms that are generally available to the public.” Try getting an interest-free loan from your banker. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....01036.html

    No surprise, and of course almost completely unreported in the MSM.

  25. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 2:23 am

    TIME: How Does Kidney-Trafficking Work?
    By Claire Suddath and Alex Altman July 27 2009

    On July 23, a lengthy FBI probe into corruption in New Jersey ended in the arrests of 44 people, including two mayors, a prominent real-estate developer and several rabbis. But amid the bribery and money-laundering allegations, the element of the sweeping sting that grabbed the most attention was the accusation that Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a New York City resident, had tried to orchestrate the sale of a human kidney for $160,000.

    In Iran — the only country in the world where organ sales are legal — a healthy kidney retails for about $6,000. The going rate is less than half that amount
    ….in India, which has an abundance of doctors capable of performing the procedure
    In January 2008, police busted an organ racket
    outside New Delhi that allegedly conned or forced poor laborers to relinquish their kidneys to wealthy clients.

    Another kidney ring flourished
    in South Africa from 2001 to 2003, and black markets thrive in nations like China, Pakistan and the Philippines.

    Buying or selling a kidney in the U.S. is much more difficult, not least because there are easier ways to make a buck.

    — each year, some 6% of patients die while waiting to be matched with a donor. Given those grim statistics, some argue kidney sales should be legalized. Paying in the ballpark of $100,000, Matas argues, is a better economic bet than our current system, in which Medicare pays for indefinite dialysis treatment — which is both costly and debilitating — for nearly all Americans.

    But for many people, the concept of a legalized market for human organs is repugnant. “Payments eventually result in the exploitation of the individual,” Francis Delmonico, a Harvard University professor, told the Wall Street Journal in 2007. “It’s the poor person who sells.”

    But Matas disagrees, noting that compensating kidney donors is no different from sanctioning sales of other body parts. “People get paid to be surrogate mothers. People get paid for sperm and hair,” he says. “People say, ‘Oh, those are safe and replenishable, but egg donation and surrogacy are risky, and yet they’re legal.’” A legal market for kidneys may still be a long way from being socially and politically palatable, but at least it would cut down on cases like Rosenbaum’s.

    Read about China’s alleged policy of harvesting organs from dead patients.

    http://www.time.com/time/healt.....80,00.html

    Rosenbaum must have seen Obama as a threat towards lowered pricing with Obama’s new legalization of selling tiny body parts that grow.

  26. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 3:08 am

    YahooNews/Politico: GOP headache: The birther issue
    Daniel Libit, Lisa Lerer July 27 2009

    When lawmakers return home for recess in August, they can expect to hear tough questions from constituents on the economy, health care and government spending.

    But Republicans are preparing for something else: the birthers.

    As GOP Rep. Mike Castle learned the hard way back home in Delaware this month…

    At a town hall meeting in Georgetown, a woman demanded to know why Castle and his colleagues were “ignoring” questions about Obama’s birth certificate

    And birthers say members should expect more of the same in the coming weeks.

    “Absolutely,” says California resident Orly Taitz, the Russian-born attorney/dentist who has become a kind of ringleader for the movement. “It is a very important issue, one that politicians should have taken up a long time ago.”

    Having seen his colleague Castle come under attack, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) is taking no chances.

    “Before I got back to Michigan before the break, we’ll go through it, so that we’re versed in it,” Hoekstra said recently. “Just like anything else, if you see a hot issue … it’s sort of like, ‘Let me go take a look at this and see what the status is.’”

    Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), co-sponsor of legislation that would force candidates to show their birth certificates, was widely mocked after he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that Obama is a U.S. citizen — “as far as I know.”

    At a Wyoming town hall in April, birthers jumped on freshman Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis.

    At a walk-in meeting in Sen. Tom Coburn’s Washington office, birthers gave the Oklahoma Republican’s chief of staff nine pages of documentation in support of their claims. The group later billed the meeting a success on one of Taitz’s blogs.

    But when asked about the meeting, Coburn spokesman Don Tatro said that the office was simply trying to be “polite” and that “it is possible to mistake politeness for agreement.”

    According to his office, Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn has received 33 inquiries about Obama’s origins, with 10 coming in over the past week.

    So far, Hoekstra hasn’t faced any such questions.
    But as if to illustrate the touchiness of the subject, Hoekstra quickly added: “Not that this isn’t important.”

    Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) has also tried to find the elusive middle ground.
    “They have a point,” he said of the birthers last week. “I don’t discourage it. … But I’m going to pursue defeating [Obama] on things that I think are very destructive to America.”
    Inhofe put out a statement Monday clarifying his comment:

    “The point that they make is the Constitutional mandate that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen, and the White House has not done a very good job of dispelling the concerns of these citizens,” he said. “My focus is on issues where I can make a difference to stop the liberal agenda being pushed by President Obama.”

    Republican pollster Whit Ayers says that a member confronted with birther questions should immediately pivot the conversation back to big issues.
    “You simply indicate that in a country where our fiscal policy is driving us toward bankruptcy, where we are wrestling with major issues of health care reform and fighting two wars for our safety, you don’t have time to deal with wild conspiracy theories,” he says.

    The fact that a few members of Congress have taken up her cause, with 10 Republicans signing onto Floria Republican Rep. Bill Posey’s legislation to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, has only encouraged her to buckle down in the fight.

    As Taitz sees it, Campbell, who represents her congressional district in Southern California, was moved to co-sponsor the “Birthers’ bill” for fear of people like her.

    “It really wasn’t as much about constituents as it was his own principles,” said Lewis. “He thought it was a common-sense bill. Castle had a major issue [in his district], but it hasn’t been much of an issue in ours.”

    Asked whether Republican lawmakers should be “afraid” of the birthers, Taitz said: “I wouldn’t say the word ‘afraid.’ I think they should be willing to resign or be removed. That is what they should do. … Resign if you do not have the guts to stand for the Constitution of this country.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/politi.....tico/25444

  27. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 3:34 am

    US man sentenced to life for Bush assassination plot
    AP 28 July 2009, 05:00am IST
    ALEXANDRIA(US): A US man who became an al-Qaida terrorist while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotted to assassinate then-President George W Bush was defiant on Monday as he was sentenced to life in prison.

    An appeals court had overturned the original 30-year sentence for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 28, who was born in Houston and grew up in the Washington suburb of Falls Church. He was convicted in 2005 of joining al-Qaida while studying in Saudi Arabia in 2002. Abu Ali met with top al-Qaida leaders in Saudi Arabia and discussed establishing a sleeper cell in the US.

    “I would like to remind you that you too will appear before the divine tribunal with me and everyone else,” he said in a brief statement to US District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. “That day there will be no lawyers … If you are comfortable with that, you can decree what you will.”

    Last year, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ordered a new sentencing hearing, saying Lee’s original sentence was too lenient.

    The appeals court ruled Lee was off the mark in comparing Abu Ali’s case to that of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, who made a plea deal and was sentenced to 20 years. The appeals court said Abu Ali’s conduct was far worse — he joined al-Qaida after the September 11, 2001 attacks, while Lindh joined prior to them, and Abu Ali specifically sought to attack the US, while Lindh only sought to fight in Afghanistan.

    Lee said the new sentence takes into account that Abu Ali has never renounced al-Qaida or terrorist activities, and that he could be a threat to the American public if released. Abu Ali has been in solitary confinement at a feder

    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.....827953.cms

  28. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 4:17 am

    Relocated Army outpost draws fire from angry Taliban insurgency
    By Dianna Cahn, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition July 28 2009

    LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The attackers waited until dusk, then came at the yet-to-be fortified American outpost from three sides, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

    As soldiers…., struggle with the growing pains of setting up a post in the population hub in Charkh, they are contending with extremely primitive conditions

    “The enemy’s pissed off,” Gukeisen said, noting that the attack and a roadside bomb ambush earlier in the day occurred just hours after 150 feet of perimeter security barriers known as Hescos were delivered

    Company B of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, which is attached to the 3-71 Cav, set up.. Baraki Barak,..
    But Baugess was removed from both enemy forces and the civilians they operate within. It quickly became apparent that for the troops to do their jobs of separating the enemy from the people,….the wrong place.

    “Militarily, the outpost was great, but for the counterinsurgency, we had to commute to work,” Gukeisen said. “It’s hard on soldiers to tell them to pack up their stuff and move to a new location. But it’s the right thing to do because you have to be with and among the people. You have to have a persistent presence.”

    The building the troops are squatting in is filthy. Once again, they are living without running water or electricity. ..Conditions were so bad..

    “When I made the decision to do [the move], I knew I was asking a lot of these guys,” said Wingert, of Evans Mills, N.Y. “To start over again for this company, the third time this deployment, is a lot…. we are not here to make ourselves comfortable. We are here to support the government and the security forces and to protect the people.”

    But a scarcity of water and the terrorizing reign of the Taliban have left the villagers poor, scared and often unwilling to side .

    Until recently, Charkh’s district sub-governor refused to come to the district center, a U.S.-funded building that was blown up three times

    Only after Company B soldiers began launching regular patrols did a newly appointed sub-governor start showing up for work, though the Americans quietly question his family ties to a known top insurgent.

    “Nine months ago, the enemy could walk around the DC,” said sub-governor Ghallam Farouq Hamayoon.

    They take their police trainees with them, hoping to show people that this is not just an American mission but one that will ultimately give them the responsive government they’ve never known. And the troops try to develop local projects such as mosque repairs or rebuilding girls schools that are frequent targets of Taliban attacks.

    When they first arrived, the soldiers were met with steady firefights.

    Outgunned, the insurgents changed tactics, deploying more than 30 makeshift bombs since April, … Though many struck their targets, soldiers in Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles have all survived.

    “When we first got to the bazaar, they’d shoot at us from the rooftops.

    When they do get into firefights, the troops seek out residents to explain what happened and make reparations for property damage.

    “I really don’t want to shoot anyone in Sheshquela,” Davis told a homeowner after a firefight last week in that northern village. “I want to arrest these guys. If I give you a phone number, will you call so we can come and arrest them without a firefight?”

    Davis and others liken the insurgency to street gangs. The Taliban use fear tactics and lure younger teenagers with flashy promises.

    A 15-year-old recently arrested for burying roadside bombs said that a man, Mullah Bashir, promised him sneakers and a cell phone, Davis said.

    “It’s a lot of punk kids looking for identity and a couple of charismatic leaders,” he said. “They get to be the cool kids around school with the new outfit and cell phone.

    “Going around killing kids who plant IEDs for cell phones isn’t going to help anything.”

    Gukeisen breaks it down this way: Divided by a river running south to north down through the district, Charkh’s west side is controlled by Los Angeles-like gangs, while east bank insurgents are more mafia-like.

    On Saturday, insurgents attacked workers widening the main road, nearly capturing three of them in an apparent attempt to shake down the U.S.-paid contractor, Gukeisen said.

    They’ve been burning schools for four years. … The Taliban burned the [Malakay High School for Girls] three times.”

    Then gunfire erupted. Twice in the next hour, the troops exchanged fire with insurgents who they said then broke contact and fled

    As they stood guard outside the last site of exchange, two men walked gingerly up to the troops. Davis told the men he needs their help to stop such attacks. But Haji Amir Mahmad, 45, wasn’t so sure. Mahmad said. “We are caught in the middle.”

    http://www.stripes.com/article.....icle=63909

    • canary
      July 28, 2009 at 4:36 am

      This is a very long article, but worth reading to see ‘the new polite war” our soldiers must adhere too. Dangerous and filthy conditions, risking their lives to rebuild and reconstruct schools and mosques for people that won’t help them or themselves. Dealing with a new Afgan sub-governor they do not trust in charge. Trying to aid the growth of Afganistan girls being slaughtered, do to the last few monthes the insurgents and Taliban reinforced, inspite of soldiers complaining.
      The enemy getting children to take bombs in exchange for cell-phones.
      The irony in Davis’s politeness.

  29. Flession
    July 28, 2009 at 5:10 am

    Just when you thought it was safe to pick up another Newsweek…:

    (feel free to listen to this listen to this in the background as you read.)

    Why Climate Change is Even Worse Than We Feared

    Among the phrases you really, really do not want to hear from climate scientists are: “that really shocked us,” “we had no idea how bad it was,” and “reality is well ahead of the climate models.” Yet in speaking to researchers who focus on the Arctic, you hear comments like these so regularly they begin to sound like the thumping refrain from Jaws: annoying harbingers of something that you really, really wish would go away.

    Let me deconstruct the phrases above. The “shock” came when the International Polar Year, a global consortium studying the Arctic, froze a small vessel into the sea ice off eastern Siberia in September 2006. Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen had done the same thing a century before, and his Fram, carried by the drifting ice, emerged off eastern Greenland 34 months later. IPY scientists thought their Tara would take 24 to 36 months. But it reached Greenland in just 14 months, stark evidence that the sea ice found a more open, ice-free, and thus faster path westward thanks to Arctic melting.

    The loss of Arctic sea ice “is well ahead of” what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast, largely because emissions of carbon dioxide have topped what the panel—which foolishly expected nations to care enough about global warming to do something about it—projected. “The models just aren’t keeping up” with the reality of CO2 emissions, says the IPY’s David Carlson. Although policymakers hoped climate models would prove to be alarmist, the opposite is true, particularly in the Arctic.

    The IPCC may also have been too cautious on Greenland, assuming that the melting of its glaciers would contribute little to sea-level rise. Some studies found that Greenland’s glacial streams were surging and surface ice was morphing into liquid lakes, but others made a strong case that those surges and melts were aberrations, not long-term trends. It seemed to be a standoff. More reliable data, however, such as satellite measurements of Greenland’s mass, show that it is losing about 52 cubic miles per year and that the melting is accelerating. So while the IPCC projected that sea level would rise 16 inches this century, “now a more likely figure is one meter [39 inches] at the least,” says Carlson. “Chest high instead of knee high, with half to two thirds of that due to Greenland.” Hence the “no idea how bad it was.”

    The frozen north had another surprise in store. Scientists have long known that permafrost, if it melted, would release carbon, exacerbating global warming, which would melt more permafrost, which would add more to global warming, on and on in a feedback loop. But estimates of how much carbon is locked into Arctic permafrost were, it turns out, woefully off. “It’s about three times as much as was thought, about 1.6 trillion metric tons, which has surprised a lot of people,” says Edward Schuur of the University of Florida. “It means the potential for positive feedback is greatly increased.” That 1.6 trillion tons is about twice the amount now in the atmosphere. And Schuur’s measurements of how quickly CO2 can come out of permafrost, reported in May, were also a surprise: 1 billion to 2 billion tons per year. Cars and light trucks in the U.S. emit about 300 million tons per year.

    In an insightful observation in The Guardian this month, Jim Watson of the University of Sussex wrote that “a new breed of climate sceptic is becoming more common”: someone who doubts not the science but the policy response. Given the pathetic (non)action on global warming at the G8 summit, and the fact that the energy/climate bill passed by the House of Representatives is so full of holes and escape hatches that it has barely a prayer of averting dangerous climate change, skepticism that the world will get its act together seems appropriate. For instance, the G8, led by Europe, has vowed to take steps to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing CO2 emissions. We’re now at 0.8 degree. But the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is already enough to raise the mercury 2 degrees. The only reason it hasn’t is that the atmosphere is full of crap (dust and aerosols that contribute to asthma, emphysema, and other diseases) that acts as a global coolant. As that pollution is reduced for health reasons, we’re going to blast right through 2 degrees, which is enough to ex-acerbate droughts and storms, wreak havoc on agriculture, and produce a planet warmer than it’s been in millions of years. The 2-degree promise is a mirage.

    The test of whether the nations of the world care enough to act will come in December, when 192 countries meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a climate treaty. Carlson vows that IPY will finish its Arctic assessment in time for the meeting, and one conclusion is already clear. “A consensus has developed during IPY that the Greenland ice sheet will disappear,” he says. Cue the Jaws music.

    Begley Is Newsweek’s Science Editor.

    © 2009

    http://www.newsweek.com/id/208164

    Wow…now we’ve resorted to using scary movie theme music for our weekly global warming alarmist rantings. Besides, Jaws 3 was scarier than this. “Oh no. We maybe sorta kinda might see Greenland maybe sorta kinda melt down probably within SOON! And OH MY GOD! THE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE HAS RISEN 2 DEGREES!!! AND IT COULD RISE EVEN MORE MAYBE SORTA KINDA POSSIBLY WITH THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GREENLAND!

    Screw the Jaws theme. Let’s just kick it up a notch with Mozart’s Requiem.

    Also, did I read right that she says that the “crap” in our air is protecting us from a extra crispy death? That’s very counter-productive to convincing me that I want to clean the planet.

    I’m very sure the IPY will give whatever kind of results they can in order to ensure additional funding come December, Miss Begley. Don’t worry your pretty little head off.

  30. Howard Roark
    July 28, 2009 at 5:31 am

    HENRY LOUIS GATES–police tapes audio on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aprzDnLQgzo

  31. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 5:42 am

    UK Telegraph: David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has said “moderate” members of the Taliban insurgency killing British forces in Afghanistan could be given seats in the Afghan government.

    James Kirkup, Political Correspondent, and Caroline Gammell 27 Jul 2009

    He said that some members of the broad coalition of Islamic militants, tribal groups and hired fighters could be drawn into the Afghan political process.

    Speaking in a month that has seen 20 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, he also warned that “recent sacrifices will not be the last” and admitted that military force alone will not be enough to solve Afghan problems.

    Mr Miliband told a Nato seminar in Brussels that some parts of the insurgency could be brought into the political process.

    “The problems that exist in Afghanistan are not susceptible to a military solution,” Mr Miliband said.

    Douglas Alexander, the development secretary, admitted that some people might be unhappy about political engagement with insurgents, but insisted that most would back the strategy.

    He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: “I think people recognise from the experience of places like Northern Ireland that it is necessary to put military pressure on the Taliban while at the same time holding out the prospect that there can be a political process that can follow, whereby those that are willing to renunciate violence can follow a different path.”

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

    How can someone compare the Taliban terrorists to Northern Irelanders

  32. artboyusa
    July 28, 2009 at 6:49 am

    The IRA are and were every bit as cruel, bloodthirsty and savage as the Taliban. Murdering, lying, terrorist scum, I hate them.

  33. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 6:52 am

    boys trained as sucide bombers

    Pakistan rescues boys trained as suicide bombers
    By Augustine Anthony July 28 2009

    ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces fighting Taliban militants in and around the Swat Valley have rescued nearly a dozen boys brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers, according to officials.

    A senior security officer in North West Frontier Province said nine boys were found during raids, while two more had voluntarily surrendered, and a army commander in Swat spoke of more being handed over by their families.

    “They have been brainwashed in such a way that they even call their parents infidels,” Bashir Bilour, senior minister in the provincial government, told Reuters.

    Bilour said the boys were shown films about oppression of Muslims in the Palestinian Territories and Indian-held Kashmir, and were given purported religious instructions to convince them that they would go to heaven if they killed enemies of Islam.

    Brigadier Tahir Hameed, an officer leading military operations in Mingora, Swat’s main town, said the Taliban had forced many families to let them take their boys.

    He said some had since returned to their parents, who in turn handed them over to the authorities because of their brainwashed state. The government was working out how to rehabilitate the boys, aged between nine and 18.

    The Taliban has regularly claimed responsibility for suicide attacks carried out by boys both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    (Additional reporting by Junaid Khan; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Editing by Dean Yates)
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200.....violence_2

  34. BillK
    July 28, 2009 at 7:07 am

    From a dismissive Associated Press:

    Hawaii again declares Obama birth certificate real

    By Jaymes Song

    State officials in Hawaii on Monday said they have once again checked and confirmed that President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen, and therefore meets a key constitutional requirement for being president.

    They hoped to stem a recent surge in the number of inquiries about Obama’s birthplace.

    “I … have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawaii State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen,” Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said in a brief statement. “I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago.”

    So-called “birthers” — who claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States — have grown more vocal recently on blogs and television news shows.

    Fukino issued a similar press release Oct. 31, but was prompted to speak out again because of the renewed attention on Obama’s beginnings. Hawaii’s Health Department has been flooded in recent weeks with questions from individuals and several national TV news networks asking for proof that Obama was indeed born in Hawaii.

    “They just keep asking over and over and over again,” Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....120D55.DTL

    I have no doubt it’s genuine, but had this been a Republican an image of the birth certificate would be provided with each story.

    Yet we have… nothing.

    So I guess we just take their word for it, right?

    I’m not trying to be a “birther” here, just point out the inconsistency.

    • Liberals Demise
      July 28, 2009 at 9:55 am

      Maybe …. just maybe …. Barry was hatched. Hence, no certificate! (LOL)

    • canary
      July 29, 2009 at 3:45 am

      or product of Bin Laden’s attempt to clone himself. Remember the rumors during Desert Storm, soldiers were warned Saddam a few with plastic surgery to look like him. :)

    • neocon mom
      July 30, 2009 at 4:12 pm

      Right you are, it’s the same thing Dobbs brought up and was ridiculed for.

    • U NO HOO
      July 31, 2009 at 7:03 pm

      Ask Dan Rather…

    • JohnMG
      July 31, 2009 at 7:54 pm

      So why should I believe Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino? How do I know HIS word on the matter is good for anything? This is the biggest pack of liars since the Clinton crowd occupied the White House.

      If you ask me, (nobody did) Obama is acting “really stupid”. But then, he’s not a white Irish cop, so that must be OK.

  35. BillK
    July 28, 2009 at 8:00 am

    There’s still time to destroy the heath care industry before August.

    From an excited Associated Press:

    AP sources: Senators near bipartisan health deal

    By David Espo and Erica Werner

    AP sources: Senators near bipartisan health deal

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of senators is closing in on a health care compromise that omits key Democratic priorities but seeks to hold down costs, as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol labor to deliver sweeping health legislation to President Barack Obama.

    After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama’s support for such a plan, officials said.

    The Finance senators were considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs. Also likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare.

    “We’re going to get agreement here,” Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the Finance Committee chairman, said Monday. “The group of six really wants to get to ‘yes.’”

    Obama has outlined two broad goals for legislation he is struggling to win from Congress: expansion of health insurance coverage to millions who lack it, and reining in increases in costs. The president is participating in an AARP town-hall meeting on health care Tuesday.

    The president’s top domestic priority has suffered numerous setbacks in recent weeks and a Senate vote has been postponed until September. Administration and Democratic leaders hope to show significant progress before lawmakers begin their monthlong August recess.

    In the House, the Democratic leadership sought to allay concerns among the rank and file, holding a five-hour briefing on the House version of the legislation, which was written without Republican support. Democratic leaders are still holding out hope of floor passage before the summer break, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is looking at keeping the House in session some days past its scheduled Friday adjournment date.

    A group of seven fiscally conservative House Democrats who have held up action in the Energy and Commerce Committee by demanding more cost savings and other changes negotiated late into the night Monday with the committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman’s is the only one of three House panels with jurisdiction on the health bill that has yet to act.

    Waxman made the so-called Blue Dog Democrats an offer intended to address their concerns, and they planned to meet Tuesday to decide how to answer, they said. Neither Waxman nor the leader of the rebel Democrats, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., would give details on the offer. They said it touched on the 10 items in a list of demands the Blue Dogs have given Waxman, including increasing an exemption for small businesses from a requirement to provide insurance coverage, and decreasing the size of subsidies offered to poor people to help them buy care.

    “We’re going to review it and decide whether we feel it’s something that we can accept, or whether we want to counter, or whether we believe that we should simply keep talking,” Ross said.

    The Blue Dogs have enough votes in the Energy and Commerce Committee to potentially block passage there, but time is running out for their negotiations with Waxman. The talks nearly broke down Friday after Waxman threatened to bypass his own committee and move the health bill straight to the floor, circumventing the Blue Dogs.

    A voting session in Waxman’s committee that has been on hold for a week must resume quickly, probably by Wednesday at latest, if there’s any chance for the committee to pass a bill and send it to the full House for action before the summer recess. Bypassing the committee remains a last-ditch option if agreement can’t be reached.

    “If we’re going to do the bill out of committee, this is the week,” Waxman said. …

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

    So, let’s see:

    a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies

    I can’t imagine a higher cost policy than the one Congress gets.

    Can we add a 35% surtax to their incomes too?

    It’s a shame that Americans don’t feel that doing so would be a perfectly fair compromise.

    Of course Congress would likely go along with it as the surtax is to be paid by employers.

    Since they’re employed by the US Government, they would appear like they’re “compromising” and the surtax would just get added to the taxpayer’s tab.

  36. badcrow
    July 28, 2009 at 11:15 am

    Here is a very interesting piece about how Obama associates were investigating the “natural citizenship” issues and how to get around them as early as 2006. As this administration dodges and hides the real birth record–and ridicules and marginalizes all critics, more evidence is creeping out. Could this be Obama’s Watergate?

    http://mitchell-langbert.blogs.....plant.html

  37. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    Obama’s empathizes and relates with Al-Qaeda 9/11 terrorists. Obama compares the anger of Al-Qaeda terrorists to the anger of black people living in America. Obama uses the word “nihilism” somewhat improperly as the attack was do to religious belief’s of half the muslim population.
    Also, after Obama’s study at muslim school in Indonesia, he continues his interest during his years at Hawaii, continuing throughout his entire education. Obama’s anger towards white blood was so fierce, he wished he could expunge it from his blood. Obama speaks of his desire for a muslim world someday.

    Preface to the 2004 Edition for the 1994 edition of Dreams from my Father
    Barack Obama
    pg x-x1 And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured.
    It’s beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow – the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate of blank stares of those would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

    What I do know is that history returned that day with a vengeance; that in fact, as Faulkner reminds us, the past is never dead and buried – it isn’t even past. This collective history, this past, directly touches my own.
    Not merely because the bombs of Al Qaeda have marked, with an eerie precision, some of the landscapes of my life -the buildings and roads and faces of Nairobi, Bali, Manhattan; not merely because, as a consequence of 9/11, my name is an irresistible target of mocking websites from overzealous Republican operatives. But also because the underlying struggle – between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us – is the struggle set forth, on a miniature scale, in this book.
    I know, I have seen the desperation and disorder of the powerless; how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair.

    I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder – alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware – is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.
    And so what was a more intererior, intimage effort on my part, to understand this struggle and to find my place in it, has converged with a broader public debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged, one that will shape our lives and the lives of our children for many years to come.
    The policy implications of all this are a topic for another book. Let me end instead on a more personal note. —

    Origins
    pg 86-87) Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided, religious baggage that Malcolm imself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life.

    And yet, even as I imagined myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstration. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when my I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.

    And, too: If Malcolm’s discovery toward the end of his life, that some whites might live beside him as brothers in Islam, seemed to offer some hope of eventual reconciliation, that hope appeared in a distant future, in a far-off land. In the meantime, I looked to see where the people would come from who were willing to work toward this future and populate this new world.

    After a basketball game at the university gym one day, Ray and I happened to strike up a converstion with a tall, gaunt man named Malik who played wih us now and again. Malik mentioned that he was a follower of the Nation of Islam but that since Malcolm had died and he had moved to Hawaii he no longer went to mosque or political meetings, although he still sought comfort in solitary prayer. One of the guys sitting nearby must have overheard us, for he leaned over with a sagacious expression on his face.
    “You all talking about Malcolm, huh?” Malcolm tells it like it is, no doubt about it.”
    “Yeah,” another guy said. “But I tell you what — yo won’t see me moving to no African jungle anytime soon. Or some g**damned desert somewhere, sitting on a carpet with a bunch of Arabs. No sir. And you won’t see me stop eating no ribs.”
    “Gotta have them ribs.”
    “And pussy, too. Don’t Malcolm talk about no pussy? Now you know that ain’t gonna work.”
    I noticed Ray laughing and looked at him sternly. What are you laughing at?” I said to him. “You’ve never read Malcolm. You don’t even know what he says.”
    Ray grabbed the basketball out of my hand and headed for the opposite rim. “I don’t need no books to tell me how to be black,” he shouted over his head. I started to answer, then truned to Malik, expecting some words of support. But, the Muslim said nothing, his bony face set in a faraway smile.

    I decided to keep my own counsel after that, learning to disguise my feverish mood. —– Barack Obama

    pg) xu preface: When people who don’t know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites),

    pg 154) I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces druing Koranic studies. My mother wasn’t overly concerned. —
    Barack Obama

  38. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 11:43 pm

    AP: Fox’s Glenn Beck says he believes Obama is racist
    By Writer David Bauder, Ap Television Writer July 28 2009

    NEW YORK – Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck said he believes President Barack Obama is a racist. Beck made the statement during a guest appearance Tuesday on the “Fox & Friends” morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

    His remarks came during a discussion of Obama’s reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white policeman over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates’ home.

    An Obama spokesman, William Burton, said the White House had no comment on Beck.

    Beck’s statement was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation’s first black president are white.

    “I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people,” Beck said. “He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

    Beck wondered, during the discussion, what other president would immediately jump on the police for their actions in the case.

    Bill Shine, Fox News senior vice president of programming, told the TVNewswer Web site that Beck had “expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”

    Racial controversies are hardly new to presidents. In 2005, entertainer Kanye West said during a telethon after Hurricane Katrina that President George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”

    Beck didn’t speak about the racial comments on his own Tuesday Fox show.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....dsZW5uYmVj

    “.. that most of the people who work for the nation’s first black president are white…” ? what about all the foreignors working his staff. make-up artists, drivers, AF-1 staff, cooks, maids, ACORN, move.on. etc. Obama’s stupid racist statement to the public, is nothing compared to a lifetime of anger and racism.

  39. canary
    July 28, 2009 at 11:55 pm

    AP: Powell: Harvard scholar might have reacted quickly
    By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid July 28 2009

    WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was mildly critical Tuesday of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose angry response to a Cambridge, Mass., police officer touched off a national debate involving President Barack Obama.

    Powell, interviewed by CNN’s Larry King, criticized the way Gates dealt with Sgt. James Crowley, a white officer who responded to reports of a possible break-in by arresting the black professor at his home on a charge of disorderly conduct. The charge was soon dropped.

    Gates “might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it,” said Powell, one of the nation’s most prominent African Americans.

    “I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal,” he said.

    But, Powell said, Gates was just home from China and New York and “all he wanted to do was get to bed.”

    When asked about the incident at a news conference, Obama said the police acted stupidly. The president subsequently toned down his criticism but not his denunciation of racial profiling generally.

    Powell said he was the target of racial profiling many times and he sometimes got mad.

    On one such occasion, he said, he tried to meet someone at Reagan National Airport “and nobody thought I could be the national security adviser to the president. I was just a black guy.”

    Asked how he dealt with the situation, Powell said “You just suck it up. What are you going to do?”

    “There is no African American in this country who has not been exposed to this kind of situation,” Powell said.

    But, he said, “when you are faced with an officer trying to do his job and get to the bottom of something, this is not the time to get in an argument with him. I was taught that as a child.

    “You don’t argue with a police officer,” Powell said.

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

    This is bit lame. Would like to know what Powell, thought of the President’s bizarre interference, and suggesting beer at the White House..

  40. BillK
    July 29, 2009 at 3:28 am

    From our friends at the Associated Press:

    Somali-American Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charge

    MINNEAPOLIS — A man accused of traveling from the United States to Somalia to fight with Islamic militants has entered a guilty plea on Tuesday to one terror-related charge.

    Salah Osman Ahmed pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. As part of a plea deal, other charges will be dropped when Ahmed is sentenced. He could face up to 15 years in prison.

    Ahmed said he started attending secret meetings in Minneapolis in October 2007. He said he knew the group was connected to al-Shabab, which the U.S. designated a terrorist group in 2008.

    He went to Somalia in December 2007. While there, he said, he helped cut trees for an al-Shabab training camp.

    His attorney, Jim Ostgard, had said earlier that Ahmed will tell the court he went to Somalia intending to fight against Ethiopian soldiers — not to fight alongside terrorists.

    Ahmed, 26, was the second Somali man to plead guilty in connection with a string of young men who traveled from the Minneapolis area to Somalia in waves to possibly fight with terrorist groups. The federal investigation into the men’s departures is ongoing.

    Ahmed and Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, 25, were among as many as 20 young men who traveled to Somalia to possibly fight. Family members say at least three others have been killed, including Shirwa Ahmed, who the FBI has said was the first known U.S. citizen to carry out a suicide bombing when he died Oct. 29. Isse pleaded guilty in April to one count of providing material support to terrorists.

    As part of Ahmed’s plea agreement, one count of conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure and two counts of lying to the FBI will be dropped when he is sentenced. He has been in custody since his arrest in mid-July.

    A spokesman for the U.S. attorney declined comment. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,535180,00.html

    So to recap, he pled guilty to going to a terrorist training camp and for his honesty:

    one count of conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure and two counts of lying to the FBI will be dropped

    He gets to go to jail for “up to 15 years” and recruit others to his cause.

    Makes you look forward to those Gitmo prisoner trials, doesn’t it?

    I know I feel safe…

  41. BillK
    July 29, 2009 at 3:33 am

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    Napolitano to Outline New Anti-Terror Plans

    By Cam Simpson

    WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to outline Wednesday the Obama administration’s domestic approach to preventing terrorist attacks — a strategy that will rely in large measure on refining and expanding initiatives launched under President George W. Bush.

    How to keep the U.S. safe and foil terrorists are charged issues that took a central role in last year’s presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration’s tactics. But Ms. Napolitano, in an interview this week, signaled that the Obama administration isn’t contemplating a wholesale revision of the agencies or programs created under Mr. Bush to further antiterrorism efforts.

    One element of Ms. Napolitano’s approach, for example, will be the expansion of a pilot program started during the Bush administration to train police to report such suspicious behavior as the theft of keys from a facility that keeps radiological waste.

    It is part of a much broader effort to significantly increase cooperation between her agency and state and local governments across the nation. Her aides say this is one area where her efforts will significantly exceed those of her predecessors in the Bush administration.

    Ms. Napolitano also will call for deeper civic involvement and awareness to prevent attacks. She is also expected to discuss efforts to work more closely with foreign governments, from sharing airline-passenger data to intelligence about potential plots.

    “We live in a world now where no one department of government can be held to be the sole repository of protecting security,” Ms. Napolitano said in an interview Monday night. “There is a role to be played at every level.” …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....88397.html

    Funny how that works, huh?

    But it’s OK – don’t forget he works for him and in addition to playing to his core he shows he continues to just not give a #$@!:

    But Ms. Napolitano, in a scheduled speech Wednesday to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, is expected to emphasize the Obama administration’s concern for civil liberties, a nod to voters and rights groups who supported Mr. Obama in part because they objected to elements of the Bush administration antiterror policy.

    Following the speech, Ms. Napolitano will head to Ground Zero, her first visit to the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers, killing more than 2,600 people.

    Yay.

  42. canary
    July 29, 2009 at 3:53 am

    YahooNews UK & Ireland news Breaking NewsDozens Hurt In Spanish Car Bomb Blast/ British soldiers killed in Afghanistan are named
    Tuesday, July 28 09:57 pm

    Print Story The latest British soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan have been named by the Ministry of Defence. Skip related content
    Related photos / videos British soldiers killed in Afghanistan are named Warrant Officer Class 2 Sean Upton, 35, from Nottinghamshire, died in an explosion while on foot patrol in Sangin district, Helmand province, on Monday.

    Trooper Phillip Lawrence, 22, from Birkenhead, was killed while driving an armoured vehicle.

    Their names were released on the same day the bodies of four other soldiers were flown home from the country.

    In July, 22 British soldiers have died fighting in Afghanistan – the worst month so far for British fatalities.

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/200.....a1618.html

  43. canary
    July 29, 2009 at 4:06 am

    Well, it appears mainstream news just wants to show our soldiers getting killed. Here’s a link, I think that can give the up and up

    http://icasualties.org/oef/

  44. canary
    July 29, 2009 at 7:04 pm

    Michelle Obama now wearing wig to gala events. The eyelash weave may not have bothered Obama, but in his dream book, based on anger towards white people, his anger at black women trying to look white, major ticked him off. At 12 and 13 he even denied having white blood in him. Was angry about black women wearing contacts to change their eye color. He speaks of never being able to marry a white girl. It is obvious from the prior photo’s with family, posted along with this latest, this is not her natural hair

    http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Poli.....id=5322917

    My point is not that she is a fashion queen, her choice, nothing wrong with trying to look nice, it’s just that the wig is totally against Obama’s values.
    Michelle may be subtly standing up for women’s rights, as she goes gala and fashion eventing, setting fashion trends, or – she may be angry at her husband’s fever for the muslim world rule. Bare armed dresses, and now her uncovered head (or covered head) still, showing her independence as a woman in the U.S., taking a stand against the overbearing muslim man. A symbol for all women across the globe. Stand up to the muslim man. Feel like a natural woman. Be your own woman. You will survive. Find yourself a real man.

  45. canary
    July 29, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    Michelle Obama’s new hairstyle
    Examiner: July 23, 2:35 PM · Kristen Willingham – First Lady Style Examiner

    (Getty Images/Pool)The White House East Room was opened on Tuesday night by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama to welcome a celebration of country music. Brad Paisley, Allison Krauss and Union Station, as well as Charley Pride, entertained the audience with their musical talents. According to the president, this genre of music has helped in the process of bringing hope to Americans. “It’s captured our restless and resilience, and told so much of our story in the process,” he stated.

    At this event, Michelle Obama sported her new hairdo. For this new, summer look, she kept her sideswept bangs, but pinned her longer locks back, to create the shape of a bob. Her hairstylist for two years, Johnny Wright, is known for keeping Michelle’s hair flat ironed and hairsprayed, however, many critics have already stated that this new up-do makes her look much more modern. Alhough much ado has been made about this new style, that is simply all it is, not a cut, a creative style. “It’s an up-do, not haircut,” confirmed Mrs. Obama’s press secretary, Semonti Mustaphi. To complement her hairstyle, Michelle kept her fashion fresh as usual, wearing an embroidered white batiste dress, designed by Michael Kors.

    Kristen Willingham is an Examiner from the National Edition. You can see Kristen’s articles at: “http://www.Examiner.com/x-13571-First-Lady-Style-Examiner”
    http://www.examiner.com/x-1357.....ew-haircut

    oohh. It’s called an “up-do”. Check with your local salon’s and see if they can do and “up-do” for you. Or, bring photo with you, and point.

  46. BillK
    July 29, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    Just unbelievable.

    NBC had William Shatner come in to read Sarah Palin’s Farewell Speech on the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien with of course much self-important laughter at what an idiot she is.

    http://www.hulu.com/watch/8583.....does-palin

    Can you imagine what would happen if a conservative comedian were to start reading Obama speeches in such a manner?

    • Rusty Shackleford
      July 29, 2009 at 9:14 pm

      Bill, they simply mock those who they fear the most…eventually, they’ll be laughing out of the other side of their face.

      But, to be fair…I remember a Sat Night Live with Jesse Jackson reading “Green Eggs And Ham” and it was pretty funny.

      Bill Shatner, the idiot canuck that he is, often displays poor career choices and just simply loves the attention. All of his co-stars he ever worked with up until Boston Legal have hated him.

      So, consider the source. Leno was (and is) a guy who worked hard to get someplace, and usually just went for the laugh. Letterman is the snot-nosed sophomore bully who likes to sit on your face and fart. Problem is, he’s in his 60’s and still doing it. O’Brien is just the maladjusted middle child who craves attention and will do almost anything to do it. His funniness has dwindled considerably since his early years on late night TV. Now he’s really just pathetic.

      I cannot see him harboring or maintaining the level of Leno’s audiences. At least Leno had a conscience. He’d make fun but most of the time it was “all IN fun” and often took jabs at himself.

      More human.

      The O’Brien tool is just warmed over bread left out in the rain.

  47. canary
    July 30, 2009 at 6:01 am

    AP: Nigerian troops attack Islamist mosque, kill 100
    By Associated Press Writer Njadvara Musa July 30 2009

    MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Troops shelled the compound of an Islamist sect blamed for days of violence in northern Nigeria then attacked its mosque, killing at least 100 militants in a fierce battle.

    The militants were armed with homemade hunting rifles, bows and arrows and scimitars.

    Militants seeking to impose Islamic Sharia law throughout this multi-religious country attacked police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings in a wave of violence that began Sunday

    The epicenter of the violence has been the Boko Haram’s headquarters in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, which was bombarded Wednesday.

    Shariah was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of oppressive military regimes.

    The militants oppose western education and seek a harsh interpretation of Islamic Shariah law in northern Nigeria.

    security agents have been watching the sect for months and were ordered to attack when the movement began gathering fighters from nearby states.

    He said they were preparing to unleash “the holy war.”

    The radical sect is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or “Followers of Mohammed’s Teachings”

    and “Boko Haram,” which means “Western education is sin.”

    But Boko Haram is reported to include many members of the elite, including university lecturers and others who have abandoned their posts and sold their homes to join.

    Associated Press reporters Muhammad Wahab in Bauchi state and Michelle Faul and Anita Powell in Johannesburg contributed to this report.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090730/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence;_ylt=AsNOsrEtk4pKjOqnFILeZuh34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTM1MDRtMWpsBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNzMwL2FmX25pZ2VyaWFfdmlvbGVuY2UEY3BvcwMzBHBvcwM5BHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDbmlnZXJpYW50cm9v

    The militants oppose western education
    seek a harsh interpretation of Islamic Shariah law in northern Nigeria
    preparing to unleash “the holy war.”
    Followers of Mohammed’s Teachings”
    “Boko Haram,” which means “Western education is sin.”

    With Obama’s muslim experience and expertise, he never calls this spread of terrorism a religious war. No where does allah tell these terrorists to aim for peace in the world. Does Obama just use the ‘Peace” to confuse Americans as to what the reality of the situation is. Doesn’t want people staying alert, prepared? It just makes me feel he wants America in the dark, and off guard to the severity of the threat. Sorry, difficulty finding the words I’m trying to say.

  48. canary
    July 30, 2009 at 6:32 am

    AP: Pakistan case gives glimpse into US terror suspect
    By Associated Press Writers Riaz Khan And Nahal Toosi July 30 2009

    PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Nearly two decades ago, an Islamic court sentenced Daniel Patrick Boyd to lose a hand and foot as punishment for robbing a bank in Pakistan’s rough-and-tumble northwest.

    Those who attended the trial in this dusty, chaotic city remember a well-behaved, composed young man who nonetheless was unwilling to submit to the harsh ruling.

    His mother, Pat Saddler, told reporters at the time that Boyd came to Pakistan in October 1989 and worked as a mechanic helping Afghan refugees. His brother Charles joined him in Pakistan later, working as an engineer, she said.

    In June 1991, the manager of the United Bank in a Peshawar suburb reported to police that two men, one with “a golden beard” and the other with “a beak-like nose,” robbed his establishment of $3,200, opening fire with pistols as they fled, according to a police report. Soon, Boyd and his brother, both Muslim converts, were arrested.

    Allegations also surfaced that the two carried identification cards indicating membership in the Afghan militant group Hezb-e-Islami, which maintained offices in northwestern Pakistan.

    According to court records, the case against the brothers hinged on witness accounts as well as money, a pistol and bullets discovered during a search of Daniel Boyd’s home — and his disputed confession. Boyd, however, claimed that he was set up by a bank employee who had made inappropriate advances toward his wife and tried to pilfer money from his family.

    Nearly 20 years on, a federal indictment unsealed this week named Daniel Boyd as the ringleader of a group that was preparing for “violent jihad” with military-style training and accused him of plotting to execute terror attacks abroad.

    Holder, the U.S. attorney general, said Americans receiving terrorist training abroad and coming home to do harm is a growing concern.

    “The whole notion of radicalization is something that didn’t loom as large a few months ago … as it does now,” he told ABC News in an interview Wednesday.

    Accounts from his time in Pakistani court indicate that Daniel Boyd — who went by the Muslim name Saifullah, or “Sword of God” — was usually composed, but at one point reacted angrily when photographers tried to take his picture, according to an Associated Press reporter who covered the case.

    The two brothers wore the traditional local dress — long shirts and baggy pants — while in court.

    During their time in custody, the men prayed five times a day and received frequent visits from their wives, who dressed in all-encompassing veils in line with strict interpretations of the religion, said former jail superintendent Inshah Mohammad Durrani.

    In September 1991, the court sentenced the two men to have their right hands and left feet amputated, serve prison terms and pay fines.

    As the sentence was handed down, Daniel Boyd shouted, “This isn’t an Islamic court. It’s a court of infidels!”
    After their convictions, the two brothers worked in the jail factory, making carpets and chairs, Durrani said.

    In October 1991, an appeals panel overturned the convictions, apparently siding with defense contentions that raised questions about the police report, the evidence and contradictory witness testimony. As the brothers left the jail, they shouted “God Is Great!” and Daniel Boyd later said, “The truth has finally come out.”

    Throughout the ordeal, “they never complained and never gave us a chance to be rude to them,” Durrani, the retired jail official said. “When their appeal was granted, they were happy. I remember they warmly embraced me and met other jail staff. Daniel sought an apology if they had done anything wrong. They were good people.”

    Khan reported from Peshawar, Toosi from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Zarar Khan in Islamabad also contributed.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....zZQ–

  49. BillK
    July 30, 2009 at 10:36 am

    This would be funny if he weren’t serious.

    From the Aspen Daily News via Television Week:

    Dan Rather Asks President Obama to Save Democracy by Helping Rescue the News Business

    Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, in a speech at the Aspen (Colo.) Institute Tuesday night, called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press, the Aspen Daily News reports.

    “I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the HDNet newsman was quoted as saying, adding that such a commission on media reform ought to make recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to keep news organizations alive the paper said.

    Rather argued that the survival of American democracy depends on it, the newspaper added.

    http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tv.....t-obam.php

    What’s the frequency now, Kenneth?

    • Rusty Shackleford
      July 30, 2009 at 11:04 am

      Well, I hope Blammo hears him and does try to help. For that will certainly hasten its destruction and that, my friends, would be a dream come true.

    • BillK
      July 30, 2009 at 11:39 pm

      My wife had perhaps the best comment – “Democracy has already died – didn’t he get the memo?”

  50. proreason
    July 30, 2009 at 1:32 pm

    From the UK Telegraph which, unlike it’s U.S. counterparts, continues to view its role to be reporting the news, rather than forcing its views on the citizenry:

    Hospital blunders ‘kill 90,000 patients’

    More than 90,000 patients die and almost one million are harmed each year because of hospital blunders, research suggests…

    Prof Sheldon said: “This is not specific to the NHS, one finds this in many health-care systems around the world…

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

    I’m commenting from a hospital room, where Mrs. proreason is recuperating from back surgery in a private facility, largely, but hardly completely paid for by private insurance. I rate the care the missus is receiving at 10 on a scale of 10. So if Prof Sheldon is correct about the “many health-care systems” around the world, I can assure him personally that I’m aware of one in the U.S. that isn’t on his list.

    I would kiss the feet of the many nurses and doctors who are helping the missus. By the way, talk about a rainbow of colors for the providers, I count Hispanic, Indian, Chinese, Blacks, Peurto Rican and white people, all in multiple numbers. Every single one of them, acting in the missus’ best interest. No talk of payments or approved vs disapproved treatments, no arguments about adjusting medications. No government beaurocrat who knows nothing about the situation ruling over the treatment plan. Nobody counting the wife’s “useful remaining years” and counseling about more cost-effective treatments. I’m going to pay a lot for this, but it’s worth it.

    And I’m deathly afraid that the criminals in the white house are going to snatch it away to get even with people like us and buy votes so they can increase their own personal power and wealth.

  51. proreason
    July 30, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    Highly respected Andy McCarthy, who usually writes for NRO, cites Steve and S&L as a source for questioning Obama’s mythical first job story.

    http://article.nationalreview......amp;w=MQ==

    Here is Steve’s story on the matter.

    http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....eet-career

    • canary
      July 31, 2009 at 1:04 am

      The fantasy goes on after turning in his resignation at the consulting firm in Manhatten

      Dreams from My Father Barak Obama
      parts between pgs 138-140″
      … and began looking in earnest for an organizing job. Once again, most of my letters were unanswered, but after a month or so I was called in for an interview by the director of a prominent civil rights organization in the city. He was a tall, handsome black man, dressed in a crisp white shirt, a paisley tie, and red suspenders…”.

      “”I like it,” the director said after looking over my resume.
      “Particularly the corporate experience.
      That’s the real business of a civil rights organization these days. Protest and pickets won’t cut it anymore. To get the job done, we’ve got to forge links between business, government, and the inner city….
      On the spot he offered me the job, which involved organizing conferences on drugs, unemployment, housing. Facilitaing dialogue, he called it. I declined his generous offer, deciding I needed a job closer to the streets.

      “I spent three months working for a Ralph Nader offshoot up in Harlem, trying to convince the minority students at City College about the importance of recycling. Then a week passing out flyers for an assemblyman’s race in Brooklyn – candidate lost and I never did get paid.
      In six months I was broke, unemployed, eating soup from a can. In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure’, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Power fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the aditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature and arguing with each other about Trotsky’s place in history. Inside, Toure’ was proposing a program to establish economic ties between Africa and Harlem that would circumvent white capitalist imperialism. At the end of his remarks, a thin young woman with glasses asked if such a program was practical given the state of African economies and the immediate needs facing black Americans. Toure’ cut her off in midsentence. “It’s only the brainwashing that you’ve received that makes it impractical, sister,” he said. His eyes glowed inward as he spoke, the eyes of a madman or a saint. The woman remained standing for several minutes while she was upbraided for her bourgeois attitudes. People began to file out. Outside the auditorium, the two Marxists were now shouting at the top of their lungs. “Stalinist pig!” “Reformist bitch!”
      It was like a bad dream. I wandered down Broadway, imagining myself standing at the edge of Lincoln Memorial and looking out over an empty pavilion, debris scattering in the wind. The movement had died years ago, shattered into a thousand framents. Every path to change was well trodden, every strategy exhausted. And with each defeat, even those with the best of intentions could end up further and further removed from the struggles of those that purported to serve.
      Or just plain crazy. I suddenly realized that I was talking to myself in the middle of the street. People on their way home from work were cutting a small arc around me, and I thought I recognized a couple of Columbia classmates in the crowd, their suit jackets thrown over their shoulders, carefully avoiding my glance.”

      > “Kwame Toure’, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Power fame,”?

      Obama is confusing. the name change to Kwame Toure’ was when he left the SNCC and became Prime Minister of the Black Panthers.
      I can see at the time declining the good job, as Obama’s lifestyle would not be suitable with helping cure the drug problem. Seem’s so many close to Obama change their names. It all seem so stupid and crazy.

  52. canary
    July 30, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    FOXBusiness: White House Charges CEOs for Cost of Lunch With Obama
    Joanna Ossinger July 30 2009

    The White House charged a group of CEOs for the cost of their lunches when they visited with President Obama last month.

    A White House spokesperson confirmed to FOX Business the details of a story earlier reported by Politico that said the CEOs of Xerox (XRX: 8.3, 0.19, 2.34%), Coca-Cola (KO: 49.61, 0.31, 0.63%), AT&T (T: 26.34, 0.39, 1.5%) and Honeywell (HON: 34.47, 0.68, 2.01%) were asked for their credit-card numbers, separately from the event.

    The spokesperson said the move was a way to avoid conflicts of interest.

    >Something tells me there is a budget as far as feeding guests. Saving on food can pay for 5 hour hair stylists for the Obama’s. Hotdogs, Tony Hawk had dry cereal when he skated boarded the halls. And this explains the children slaves growing food. They probably get tap water working out in the summer heat. If Gates has to pay for his beer, he can yo mama o bamo and scream all racism he wants. I’m just glad Gates isn’t an elementary teacher.

    http://www.foxbusiness.com/sto.....nch-obama/

  53. canary
    July 30, 2009 at 11:09 pm

    Obama, Gates, policeman pledge to try and move on
    By Associated Press Writer Ben Feller July 30 2009
    50 mins ago

    WASHINGTON – With mugs of beer and calming words, President Barack Obama and the professor and policeman engulfed in a national uproar over race pledged Thursday to move on and try to pull the country with them.

    There was no acrimony — nor apology — from any of the three:

    Said Obama…”I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart.”

    “I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode,”….

    “We agreed to move forward,” Crowley said Thursday night when asked if anything was solved in the meeting. “I think what you had today was two gentlemen agreeing to disagree on a particular issue. I don’t think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future.”

    For his part, Gates said he and Crowley had been caught up as characters in a larger narrative about race over which they had no control.

    “It is incumbent upon Sgt. Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us,” Gates said in a statement. He said their task must be to foster sympathy among Americans about “the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.”

    Although Obama had invited Crowley and Gates as part of what he called a “teachable moment,” it wasn’t quite reachable for the masses.

    There’s been a political cost for Obama. The two-week episode has stolen attention from his agenda and has drawn negative public reviews on how he handled the matter.

    In Massachusetts, meanwhile, a black sergeant who was with Crowley at Gates’ home said Thursday he’s been maligned as an “Uncle Tom” for supporting the actions of his white colleague, according to an e-mail that CNN said it received from the sergeant. The officer, Leon Lashley, said he “spoke the truth” about the arrest, and he said Gates should consider whether he “may have caused grave and potentially irreparable harm to the struggle for racial harmony.”

    The president nibbled on snacks and was seen laughing at one point.

    That had happened, Crowley explained later, when he and Gates crossed paths as they toured the White House separately with relatives who accompanied them. They continued their tour as one large group.

    “I noticed this has been called the ‘Beer Summit.’ It’s a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys,” Obama told reporters. “This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day, and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other. And that’s really all it is. This is not a university seminar.”

    Before the photo-op moment of diplomacy, Obama said he was “fascinated by the fascination about this evening.”

    “Hopefully, instead of ginning up anger and hyperbole everybody can just spend a little bit of time with some self-reflection and recognizing that other people have different points of view.”

    In practice, that boiled down to a good, productive conversation. The hope, in turn, was that people in communities across the nation would see the meeting as a model for how to solve differences — more listening, less shooting from the lip.

    The White House said it did not pay for any transportation or other accommodation costs for Gates or Crowley.

    At the time of the incident, Gates had demanded an apology from Crowley and called him a “rogue policeman.” After Obama’s “acted stupidly” comment, Crowley said that, while he supported the president, Obama was “way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts.”

    Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Philip Elliott and Jennifer Loven in Washington and Karen Testa in Boston contributed to this story.
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....rd_scholar

    Those “drama queens” and the policemen who have to put up with them.

  54. BillK
    July 31, 2009 at 2:17 am

    Teachers being teachers, from Phoenix’s KPNX-TV:

    Arizona teachers at 4-star resort, and you’re paying for it

    By Josh Bernstein

    PHOENIX — For six days in July, hundreds of teachers from all across Arizona enjoyed an all-expense-paid visit to a four-star mountainside resort in Tucson.

    There was a laundry list of classes offered at the conference, and teachers had the opportunity to learn critical skills to pass on to their students.

    But while training was underway, we found many of the teachers lounging poolside. Is this your tax dollars hard at work?

    When asked what kind of message this sends, one state senator expressed outrage.

    “Well, it sends a horrible message,” said John Huppenthal, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee. “How in the world could they think this was appropriate to go to a four-star resort?”

    Senator Huppenthal went on to state, “Obviously, it just reeks of a taxpayer funded vacation.”

    The alcohol was flowing and our cameras were rolling as dozens of teachers worked on their tans.

    We found one teacher by the pool who told us her district spent more than $900 to send her.

    “I felt guilty because the one (class) I paid for yesterday was $40,” she said.

    She then told us she didn’t even go.

    We met another teacher who spent about five hours by the pool. His superintendent was at the conference and seemed to have no problem with one of his employees cooling off at your expense.

    Your tax dollars also paid for friends and family to enjoy the resort.

    Another teacher we met brought along her kids. She told us her school district paid for her trip.

    One of the wives staying at the resort told us how much they enjoyed their stay.

    “Not too rough at all, especially, for us,” she said, “We don’t have to attend the meetings; we just get to hangout at the pool.”

    Even their ride to Tucson was provided by you, the taxpayer. The parking lot was filled with school district vehicles.

    “Those cars are provided for local use,” said Senator Huppenthal, “They should be limited to that.”

    We met a teacher at the pool with her family, as well.

    She told the ABC15 Investigators her superintendent allowed her to take along her family, as long as they all stayed in one room and fit into the school vehicle.

    Our hidden cameras also found several teachers at the bar drinking beers and watching the British Open while classes were underway.

    We attended two workshops that cost almost a $1,000 combined.

    We found teachers who were not paying attention; they were playing chess, surfing the internet, checking sports scores and posting pictures on Facebook.

    That didn’t sit well with hotel guest Greg Crampton. We asked him what he felt about his tax dollars at play. Crampton joked that it would only be acceptable if he was invited.

    “Other than that, I don’t think so,” he said. …

    http://www.abc15.com/content/n.....qGwOA.cspx

    Nice.

    • caligirl9
      July 31, 2009 at 3:02 am

      The community college district I used to do work for sends a contingent to something called the “Salzburg Global Seminar” every summer.

      http://www.salzburgglobal.org/.....amp;look=1

      I couldn’t find out the cost this year, but I know it’s several thousand dollars a person.

      California community colleges are broke. The district I worked for had about 50 percent of its students getting “fee waivers.”

      This same community college district also sends contingents of board of trustee members to “fact finding” trips to El Salvador and Vietnam to “look for” international students.

      And people wonder why the school system in California (and most places) sucks. It’s because the people working in that industry forget their are there to educate students and not globetrot or take little “educational seminars” in cushy places.

      I do not feel bad for the cuts Ah-nold made to the education system, not one bit. Cut up the district credit cards and put wvery damn dime toward educating students, not vacationing trustees or teachers.

  55. canary
    July 31, 2009 at 2:37 am

    AP: Islamist sect leader in Nigeria killed in custody
    By Associated Press Writer Njadvara Musa, July 31 2009

    MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – The leader of the Islamist sect blamed for days of violence in northern Nigeria has been shot and killed while in police custody, officials said Thursday.

    … the state governor’s spokesman Usman Ciroma told The Associated Press: “I saw his body at police headquarters. I believe he was shot while he was trying to escape.”

    Soldiers then launched a manhunt, and Yusuf was reportedly found in a goat’s pen at the home of his in-laws.

    Seeking to impose Islamic Shariah law throughout this multi-religious country, the militants attacked police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings in a wave of violence

    The government warned people to evacuate the area before the attack on the compound Wednesday, then shelled the compound and stormed the group’s mosque inside, setting off a raging firefight with retreating militants armed with homemade hunting rifles and firebombs, bows and arrows, machetes and scimitars.

    Analyst Nnamdi K. Obasi of the International Crisis Group said a few have fought with that radical movement in Afghanistan.

    “All the civilians that were living in that place were evacuated, to our knowledge,” he said. “And those that remained in that enclave are loyalists and members of the group. So the issue of whether we have killed innocent civilians is not true.”

    He added, “The issue of identifying who is the Taliban or not, the human rights groups are not fair to security agencies because they don’t have any marks on their faces.

    The men “were dressed in white robes,” she said, indicating they were sect members. “They were held by policemen. Then they shot their feet. After they fell on the ground, they (police) shot their heads.”

    National police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu denied such allegations of executions.

    In recent months, police have been raiding Boko Haram hideouts and finding explosives and arms. The house at the compound in Maiduguri included a laboratory the military said was used to make bombs.

    Associated Press writers Muhammad Wahab in Bauchi, Bashir Adigun in Abuja and Michelle Faul and Anita Powell in Johannesburg contributed to this report.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....a_violence
    Ten thousand Nigerians killed at the hands of Sharia, and the human rights activists and Obomies defending the terrorists.

  56. caligirl9
    July 31, 2009 at 2:55 am

    And now for some lighter fare …from the NY Observer.

    Even the fashion industry is in pain, and there are concerns about those poor designers who launch costly shows for their collections, and a few short months later, those fashions are being sold at a high discount. Some fashionistas want price fixing … I really wanted to share this quote that I have bolded!

    At CFDA Town Meeting, Wintour Proposes Discount by Committee; DVF: ‘That’s Illegal!’

    The CFDA’s president, Diane von Furstenberg, who wore a black-and-white-striped dress, walked up to the podium … Then she explained why they were all there: to discuss whether Fashion Week, once a trade event that has become a mess of hype, has essentially become irrelevant.

    The Web changed everything, Ms. von Furstenberg stated. Consumers want looks straight off the runway immediately; designers dress celebrities in clothes not yet available to the public; clothes arrive in stores too soon only to be discounted by the time they are actually in season; there is too much supply and not enough demand; everyone loses money; and the average consumer, well, she’s just so confused!

    The city wants to help, but we really all have to vote for Michael Bloomberg, she added…

    “There seems to be a disconnect,” said … designer Jack McCollough. “For us, the shows have become a press thing. It’s on blogs; magazines pull straight from the runways; and by the time it’s in stores, it feels sort of old.

    “Yes, we live in a digital world,” Ms. von Furstenberg said. “We have to form committees. We’re all friends, we’re not enemies. This is America, we’re resilient.”

    … Designer Donna Karan said: “The consumer is completely confused and she’s saying, ‘I’ve had enough.’ We’re spending all this money on shows and by the time the consumer gets to it, it’s on sale!“

    “They’re buying coats right now!” Ms. von Furstenberg said.

    Ms. Karan: “But they’re buying them on sale!”

    DVF: “No, no!”

    Ms. Karan: “O.K., but they are come September or October.”

    After plugging Fashion’s Night Out (her idea), an evening when stores are planning to stay open late and throw parties to drive shopping, Vogue editor Anna Wintour said, “There’s a deep psychological block with the American consumer of just not wanting to shop, and we want them to shop again.”

    Her deputy, Sally Singer, suggested: “There’s been an overproduction which has led to the 40 and 60 and 80 percent off. If we produce less, the consumer will have more confidence in the product.”

    …Ms. Karan steered the discussion back to a palette of sensible neutrals. “We are in a crisis,” she said. “We spend so much money on shows, but what is it getting us?”

    … “Could someone lead a committee that would make ground rules for retailers of when the discounting starts, and then all the retailers can agree to it?” Ms. Wintour suggested.

    “That’s illegal!” Ms. von Furstenberg said with some horror.

    “Is that something we can change?” Ms. Wintour said. “We have friends in the White House now!”

    http://www.observer.com/2009/d.....s-illegal

    So TOTUS and his band of merry tax evaders will next tackle the discount fashion crisis! Those poor millionaire designers, the horror of their designs ending up at Ross so quickly! Gasp!

    Yeah I know this isn’t “serious” news, but the whole idea of “fashion” having friends in the White House is damn hysterical, and it’s good for us to laugh sometimes.

  57. canary
    July 31, 2009 at 3:19 am

    Obama does a little soccer diplomacy
    USA Today July 27 2009

    President Obama and a special guest conducted a little soccer diplomacy today.

    Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, the president of world soccer’s governing body, said he formally invited Obama to next year’s World Cup tournament in South Africa, and that Obama directed his aides to look into the prospect.

    “I have to be neutral in all these matters,” Blatter said when asked his reaction to Obama’s lobbying.

    They also discussed the prospect of education programs in connection with the game that every other country in the world calls football.

    As for Blatter’s invitation, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs joked that he personally is eager to go to South Africa for the World Cup, .”

    Landing the World Cup isn’t Obama’s only shot at sports diplomacy;

    his administration is also pushing Chicago as host of the 2016 Summer Olympics,
    an effort also discussed by Obama and Blatter. The International Olympic Committee will make that decision later this year.

    (Posted by David Jackson; photo by Alex Brandon, AP)

    Tags:Barack Obama Olympics Chicago Brazil World Cup South Africa Robert Gibbs Sepp Blatter FIFA
    http://content.usatoday.com/co.....68495473/1

  58. BannedbytheTaliban
    July 31, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    From his cheerleaders at the BBC:

    Venezuela mulls tough media law

    By Will Grant

    A tough new media law, under which journalists could be imprisoned for publishing “harmful” material, has been proposed in Venezuela.

    Journalists could face up to four years in prison for publishing material deemed to harm state stability.

    Public prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz, who proposed the changes, said it was necessary to “regulate the freedom of expression” without “harming it”.

    …Under the draft law on media offences, information deemed to be “false” and aimed at “creating a public panic” will also be punishable by prison sentences.

    …A case which has often been quoted in the bitter arguments over this law is a recent advert in national newspapers by a right-wing think tank, Cedice, which shows a naked woman next to the slogan “The Social Property law will take all you’ve got, Say No to communist laws”.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8177862.stm

    Given how fond Obama is of Hugo, I bet he is just dripping with envy.

  59. BannedbytheTaliban
    July 31, 2009 at 2:42 pm

    More socialism creeping in, from the AP:

    House votes to restrict Wall Street pay

    By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer – 12 mins ago
    WASHINGTON – The House voted Friday to slap restrictions on how Wall Street executives are paid after nine banks that took government aid rewarded thousands of their employees with bonuses topping $1 million each.

    Bowing to populist anger and defying President Barack Obama’s suggestion that government rely on incentives instead of intervention to curb excessive salaries and bonuses, the House passed the bill on a 237-185 vote.

    “This is not the government taking over the corporate sector. . . . It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship,” said Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C.

    …But Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who sponsored the bill, said the extra regulation is necessary to ensure bankers and traders aren’t rewarded only if they take big risks. Under the provision banning risky incentive-based pay, regulators would be given nine months to dictate precise guidelines.

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

    In typical socialist fashion, the dems want to reward those who do the least, level the playing field. This is just another blaring example of wealth redistribution and “social justice.” I wonder why they weren’t talking about regulation when “risky” banking was generating billions in tax revenues? And Mr. Watt, what would be an example of “government taking over the corporate sector”? A hostile government take over of GM?

  60. NotStuckOnStupid
    July 31, 2009 at 3:53 pm

    Check out this picture and the accompanying Lifson piece…

    Obama’s revealing body language

    • canary
      July 31, 2009 at 5:13 pm

      Heartbreaking, but this photo paints billions of dollars of b.s. I don’t understand why this has not been in the mainstream media. Actions speak louder than words. Obama goes into such description of his mother’s pain and fear of dying “alone”, but wasn’t there. Makes a quick trip to see Grandmother he spit on in front of entire world., not to make the same mistake and not look bad, he visits her before she dies. And his anger and evil in mocking and describing people in his writings, “especially” old people, fat people, white people, in his book, and the Special Olympic joke. His demeaning discription of marines who’d just lost 5, pimple faced and skinny.
      And the babies he’s slicing up without a second thought.
      He is a cruel. Also, having attacked Crowly to the world, he sat far away from laid back, with sleeves rolled up. Letting the tax payers pay for his Aunt. He wrote on his sisters visit they went to a museum, and he couldn’t get her to look at the shrunken heads he wanted to see. Describing the “enchantment” in the blood squirting out of the chicken when it’s head was chopped off.
      His students say he didn’t follow the class, instead teaching what he wanted like the catalog of disfigured and mutilated bodys. I think Obama has the heart of a beast that wants to be King over the world.

  61. DW
    July 31, 2009 at 6:02 pm

    From the Associated Press:

    Boston cop apologizes for ‘racist’ slur

    By JEANNIE NUSS – THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    BOSTON (AP) — A Boston police officer who was suspended for using a racial slur to describe black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. apologized for his comments and declared he is not a racist.

    Boston police put two-year officer Justin Barrett on administrative leave Tuesday, pending a termination hearing. Barrett is a captain in the Massachusetts National Guard, which also suspended him pending an investigation…

    Boston police said Barrett used a racial slur in an e-mail sent to The Boston Globe and later forwarded to guardsmen and police officers. Authorities are investigating Barrett’s actions as an officer and talking to all the e-mail’s recipients.

    Barrett wrote in the e-mail, a copy of which was released by the Boston police department, that if he were the officer sent to Gates’ home, he “would have sprayed him in the face with OC (pepper spray) deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.”

    Full story:
    http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Wo.....96-ap.html

    Apparently the e-mail referred to Gates as acting like a “jungle monkey”.
    Even if the descriptor wasn’t meant to be racist (the terms are, after all, “jungle bunny” or “porch monkey”) I could see him being fired for being so appallingly stupid as to e-mail something like that -to a news outlet no less!

    What gets me is how -even before the investigation has been concluded- he is effectively finished. The mayor of Boston is on record saying that “he is gone”. The Boston PD, as the article notes, have decided to fire him and the National Guard is leaning in the same direction (Barrett is also an Iraq vet, by the way).

    • JohnMG
      July 31, 2009 at 7:18 pm

      Guilty until proven innocent when it comes to white folk. I guess us ‘crackers’ has got some learnin’ to do.

    • Gila Monster
      July 31, 2009 at 11:23 pm

      According to the article, Barrett sent the private e-mail via a private computer while he was off duty. I take it that freedom of speech does not apply to members of the BPD.

      A stupid thing to say, yes, but on the other hand, is Barrett not allowed to speak his mind while off duty?

  62. DW
    July 31, 2009 at 6:58 pm

    Here’s a pretty interesting and diverting site:

    Mole and Thomas: living pictures formed by thousands of US soldiers
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cul.....diers.html

    Steve – I realize this has nothing at all to do with news, so feel free to delete if you see fit to do so. I wonder if a separate weekly thread (along the lines of “the hive”) for such things might not be appropriate – subject to the demands on your workload of course!

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