Selected News For Mar 7 – Mar 13

108 Responses to “Selected News For Mar 7 – Mar 13”

1. curvyred

   March 7, 2009 at 9:55 am

   I know this isn’t relevant to politics, but I found the story to be slightly
   amusing.

   From the UK’s Daily Mail:

   To my special friend Gordon, 25 DVDs: Obama gives Brown a set of classic movies. Let’s hope he likes the Wizard of Oz

   By Ian Drury
   6th March 2009

   ‘During his historic trip to Washington, Gordon Brown gave Barack Obama an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet – once called HMS President”

   “So it would be perfectly understandable if Mr Brown felt a little underwhelmed at the official gift he received in return, for despite being leader of the world’s most bountiful nation, President Obama handed over nothing more thought-provoking than 25 classic American films on DVD.”

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....rd-Oz.html

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   • CaliforniaBear

     March 7, 2009 at 10:43 am

     That sounds like the same thing he is doing with the economy right now: Spend a whole bunch of money on crap and tell people it is helping the economy. So, he’s just following what he has been doing all along.
   • polemos

     March 7, 2009 at 11:57 am

     BO receives a one-off thoughtful gift from our biggest ally.
     BO gives a common cheap gift to our biggest ally.
     Class from the Harvard man! I loved the pictures of Mrs. Obama sitting with Gordon Brown’s wife. Mrs. Brown looks the class act in every way and Mrs. BO looks like a Tranny in drag.
     We have had some pretty ugly first ladies in the past but Mrs. O takes the cake.
   • MinnesotaRush

     March 7, 2009 at 2:34 pm

     To the o-blah-blah’s .. it’s ALWAYS about the o-blah-blah’s. Gratitude and Graciousness are as foreign to them as Ghengis Kahnand Mayberry. Unless of course, it’s politically expedient …. low class frauds and phony’s ….
   • VMAN

     March 8, 2009 at 9:59 am

     This guy is pure ghetto. No state dinner!! A cheap gift you could buy at Walmart!! Is he trying to piss off our most trusted allies? What’s next a MacDonald’s gift certificate for the president of France? I’m sure he would enjoy the French fries.
   • BillK

     March 9, 2009 at 5:29 am

     I reported this last week.
   • Barbie

     March 9, 2009 at 11:44 am

     25 DVDs? What, did Robert Gibbs go out on his lunch break to the local Blockbuster for some markdown bargains? Obama and his tacky wife are such an embarrassment.
   • shalomsweetie

     March 9, 2009 at 12:24 pm

     I firmly believe that this just wasn’t an intentional slight on the PM but also just whitey. English is the epitome and embodiment of all that is caucasian and I think it was a slight on the entire culture. Barack and Michelle…the trash is really starting to smell…would someone PLEASE take it out!
   • 12 Gauge Rage

     March 13, 2009 at 11:16 am

     Did Obama choose the DVD’s from the Wal-Mart $5.00 dump bin? If it weren’t for low class he’d have no class at all.
   • 12 Gauge Rage

     March 13, 2009 at 11:18 am

     My mistake. I meant to say if it weren’t for low class he’d have no class at all.
2. OneMoreRound07

   March 7, 2009 at 12:27 pm

   Nickelodeon Broadcasts Cartoon Homage to ‘Dear Leader’ Obama
   Does anyone here recall Nickelodeon presenting a cartoon homage to President George W. Bush? No? Of course not. “Wrong” politics. However, if you think your very young children are safe from being exposed to subtle political brainwashing while watching Nick Jr., which presents Nickelodeon cartoons for children 5 and under, you would be wrong. Check out this poetic cartoon homage to Barack Obama currently running on Nick Jr.. Here is what your young ones will hear:
   “Nickelodeon celebrates President Barack Obama and some of his favorite things.
   Barack Obama is the first African-American to be President. That is what’s called a historic event.
   Leading a country is no easy task. So what does he do to relax you may ask?
   He loves shrimp linguini and the chili he cooks. He also plays Scrabble; collects comic books.
   He likes classical and hip-hop and jazz music too. He always goes shopping for the same type of shoe.
   He reads lots of books and writes wonderful speeches. He goes on vacation and takes walks on beaches…”
   http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p.....ader-obama

   The rest of the propaganda, oops, I mean cartoon homage is over at the original source…if you can stand to read the rest.

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   • dulcimergrl

     March 7, 2009 at 12:54 pm

     Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!! I couldn’t stand to look at the original source. The snippet you posted above is enough to make me puke. I’m just thankful my kids are too old to watch Nickelodeon.
   • caligirl9

     March 7, 2009 at 1:22 pm

     I would hope that had my now-conservative kid been exposed to that crap that she’d have turned it off.
     Of course it probably would not have been on television in my household, and my kid would have started fights in preschool arguing over how it was all a crock of crap.

     (I got in trouble when she was in kindergarden because she knew about HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, and lectured the other kids about it. I didn’t hide much from her, ever.)
   • MinnesotaRush

     March 7, 2009 at 2:49 pm

     This is just disgusting! My oh my .. they forgot that nasty, kid endangering smoking thing. Didn’t see the drug admissions either. Forget the fact that the clown simply doesn’t have a clue on what he’s s’posed to be doing versus what he’s doing.

     And maybe they could put together a cute clip on “Living in Financial Ruin Because of the First HALF Black President and His Minions”.
   • wardmama4

     March 13, 2009 at 10:55 am

     Ever notice how The One’s ™ admission of using cocaine was/is put down to ‘youthful’ indisgression and to be put into the ‘past’ but oh say – former President Bush and his daughters to this day are alcoholics and of course Rush Limbaugh is an addict?

     The hypocrisy is destroying our country.
3. sheehanjihad

   March 7, 2009 at 1:04 pm

   D-Girl…save your barf bag….I have a load of used breakfast soon to follow. My kids are all grown up, and conservatives too! No thanks to their obamalized mother….

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4. caligirl9

   March 7, 2009 at 1:55 pm

   From that liberal rag, the San Jose Mercury News—funds for a Japanese-American museum will boost tourism. Riiiiiiiight …

   Twitter alert: McCain criticizes federal cash for San Jose museum
   WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain, all atwitter over alleged “pork” in a budget bill, zapped a San Jose target Friday: the Japanese-American Museum in Japantown.
   McCain, formerly famous for his inability to use a computer, is now using Twitter to single out projects he deems unworthy of funding in a $410 billion bill in the Senate — including $237,500 for expansion of the Japantown museum.
   Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Mike Honda, D-Campbell, secured that money to help the museum, which has raised $50,000 privately but lost a $600,000 state grant to budget woes. Construction has been halted for lack of funds, said museum board member Roy Matsuzaki.
   “I understand (McCain’s) point of view, but this is important for the community,” he said.
   Honda, who is Japanese-American, tweeted right back to McCain in typical Twitter shorthand: “Jap. Museum boost tourism (thus jobs) in SJ Japantown, last of 3 authentic US Japantowns. Zoe & I proudly supported its funding.”
   Added Lofgren: “John McCain is going to regret attacking this museum as much as he regrets voting against the Martin Luther King holiday.”

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

   A museum is going to increase tourism in San Jose? Please! We have plenty of special-interest “museums” in this area. I seriously doubt anyone, even a person of Japanese descent, is going to come to this city just to see that museum.

   I think that there was an article in this same “newspaper” last year talking about the decline of the Japanese-American population in San Jose. No doubt next up some sort of Vietnamese museum. We already have the Hispanic Heritage Plaza that is a drain on city finances.

   I wish McCain (and others) would have talked about this kind of abuse before the messiah and his minions created their save-few-of-us “stimulus package.”

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5. U NO HOO

   March 7, 2009 at 5:39 pm

   Obama is going to fund embryonic stem cell research.

   Two comments,

   1. More government spending.

   2. My information indicates embryonic stem cell research has not and most likely will not produce results.

   The science is in and the debate is over?

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   • Barbie

     March 8, 2009 at 12:05 am

     What’s a little embryonic stem cell research and destruction to a man who advocates partial birth abortion and infanticide? It’s all so way above Obama’s paygrade; he doesn’t want to bother his pretty little head with such details.
   • caligirl9

     March 8, 2009 at 1:59 am

     Partial birth abortion is disgusting and there is absolutely no need for it. Ever.
6. U NO HOO

   March 7, 2009 at 5:41 pm

   Aside from the fact that some of us consider embryoes to be humans.

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7. caligirl9

   March 7, 2009 at 5:55 pm

   Parenting 101 the Obama Way.
   Puke. From the totally objective New York Times via the equally as ridiculously liberal SJ Mercury News.

   Parenting in the White House: Obamas keep old rules in place

   Consider the perils of parenting in the White House.

   There is a movie theater, a bowling alley, a horseshoe pit, a swimming pool, five full-time chefs and dozens of household staff members ready to dish up ice cream at all hours. There are trips to foreign lands, dinners with kings and celebrities, swarming paparazzi and blaring motorcades, all with the potential to transform sweet little children into bossy, self-important ones. (Or lonely, dysfunctional ones.)

   What are presidential parents to do?

   Lay down the law, according to the newest parental unit in the executive mansion. President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, might not be in Chicago anymore, but they say the old rules still apply when it comes to their daughters…

   “That was the first thing I said to some of the staff when I did my visit,” Michelle Obama said in an interview with ABC News, describing her talks with White House employees. “‘Don’t make their beds. Make mine. Skip the kids‘. They have to learn these things.’”

   … Barack Obama is a modern-day dad who leaves the Oval Office for dinner with his girls, rarely misses a parent-teacher conference or piano recital and prides himself on having read all seven books in the Harry Potter series aloud with Malia.

   Michelle Obama juggles play dates and homework with speeches to federal agencies and students. Both are committed to keeping their daughters grounded, their friends and aides say…

   The Obamas have long believed that rules and routine help children thrive, particularly during unsettling times. During the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama stuck so firmly to the 8 p.m. bedtime rule that Barack Obama sometimes had to scramble to catch his daughters awake…

   But as every parent knows, there are rules, and then there is reality. So while the Obamas place a high premium on healthy, organic foods, the girls eat cake at birthday parties and often indulged in ice cream and other snacks on the campaign trail.

   They limit television, but do not restrict viewing to the Discovery Channel. (The girls have been big fans of “American Idol,” “Hannah Montana” and the Cheetah Girls.)

   They take turns saying grace at dinner, but have not gone to church every Sunday in recent years. There is no spanking but lots of discussion about actions and consequences…

   http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_.....ost_viewed

   Truly this is newsworthy. Gotta love ‘da belle’s “do as I say not as I do” when it comes to the girls’ making their own beds, but the staff must do hers.

   Funny that they place a “high premium on healthy, organic foods” (that taxpayers are buying for them); I wonder if TCO buys organic cigarettes too, because no doubt they are better for you.

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   • proreason

     March 7, 2009 at 6:36 pm

     “But as every parent knows, there are rules, and then there is reality”

     Isn’t this article supposed to be about the Obamy’s??
   • VMAN

     March 8, 2009 at 10:10 am

     I’m sure Barry’s mom was just as strict with him. Make your bed Barry or no Karl Marx tonight. Eat all your organic veggies or I will not take you to the lecture on the evils of capitalism.
8. Rusty Shackleford

   March 7, 2009 at 6:16 pm

   “Barack Obama is a modern-day dad who…

   …….prides himself on having read all seven books in the Harry Potter series”

   Suddenly, it all becomes clear.

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9. proreason

   March 7, 2009 at 8:42 pm

   Stock Market doing worse than the Great Depression:

   Even Worse Than the Great Depression

   Over the last couple years I loved to ridicule all the scaremongers who always said this, that or the other thing is “the worst since the Great Depression.” I stand by my ridicule, for the most part — those prophets of doom were mostly broken clocks who look right now just by sheer luck. But there’s no question now that things have gotten quite bad in the economy and the markets.

   So let me do the preachers of Armageddon one better. Today’s stock market isn’t just the “worst since the Great Depression,” like they’re so fond of saying. No, it’s even worse than the Great Depression.

   Take a look at the chart, below. It shows the daily progress of the S&P 500 in terms of percentage change from the very top. The brown line is the change from the recent all-time highs on October 9, 2007. The blue line is the change from the all-time highs just before the Great Depression, September 6, 1929.

   As of yesterday’s close (Thursday, March 5), the S&P 500 has lost 56.4% from its all-time highs 513 days ago. At the same point in the bear market associated with the Great Depression, that is at the 513 day mark, the S&P 500 had only lost — only! — 49%.

   In other words, to be no worse than the catastrophe that happened to stocks in the Great Depression, the S&P 500 today would have to rally 17%…

   http://www.smartmoney.com/Inve.....pression/#

   Must see chart in the article.

   Note that the major plunges are:

   1. The first death spiral after Obama’s nomination
   2. the 2 month double-death spiral after McCain took the lead in the polls when Soros and company were sabotaging the market
   3. the death spiral after a brief rally after Obama won the election and before he revealed his true colors / competance

   But for those, the market had a 9% decline…..normal correction.

   But thanks to the Moron…..a 56% drop…..bye bye retirement, bye bye good life for your kids, hello government teat…..forever.

   At least you don’t have much left for them to steal from you.

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   • proreason

     March 7, 2009 at 9:43 pm

     Here’s a view comparing today’s market to the 4 worst of all-time. We STILL win!!!!

     Thank you BHO, thank you Drooling Barney, thank you Stretch…..you have made us a winner again!!!

     http://dshort.com/charts/bears.....-large.gif

     and for those of you thinking about following The Moron’s advice from last week that now may be a good time to invest because of the “profit and loss” ratios (he probaly meant PE ratio, but he is, after all, the stupidest person to ever hold high public office in this country), take a look at these charts of 4 long and brutish market declines. The key point here is that for the other 3 that started like this one…..8 years later, 2 of the other 3 were evern worse, and the 3rd was up only marginally.

     http://dshort.com/charts/mega-.....ar-quartet

     But hey, be audacious, be hopeful…..go for it!! it may work out for you.

     PR’s view is that the bottom could be zero, since this is the first time in Western Civilization that I’m aware of where the goal of the elected government is to dismantle the free market completely.
   • Rusty Shackleford

     March 7, 2009 at 9:44 pm

     From the article:

     “I have to say I’m a little surprised. I didn’t support Obama in the campaign, but I had expected that the wave of good feelings from the election of such a charismatic man would help lift the economy and the markets out of their doldrums. And while I don’t agree at all with his liberal orientation in economic policy, at least I thought he was generally a centrist who wouldn’t muck things up too much or too quickly. I even hoped his so-called “stimulus” bill would at least have a placebo effect.”

     Gotta say, this is the sort of lack of cynicism mentality that I see in the US that causes us a LOT of trouble. I had a baby-boomer commander in the USAF….and it was part of my job to make sure he didn’t get flamed for making a bad decision. Now, you might say that someone (anyone?) in the military is conservative by nature, but that’s not always true. This guy had a similar attitude as O-blow-me. However, the notable difference is that he would strap on a jet and go fight for this nation if told to do so, and that’s a huge difference.

     But what I’m referring to is the “It will work because I SAY it will work” and when I, having had experience with that particular idea and warning him that it’s a BAD idea because…would be met with, “You have a very negative attitude” and when he went about it his way and it blew up in his face, well…then it was my fault, see.

     This extreme optimism that people get…it annoys me. A real pragmatist will strive for the best results, every time…but knows that disaster could be lurking around every corner. The eternal optimist goes out sailing without a life-jacket, water other survival gear because to do so would be “negative thinking” when to me, it’s just being prepared for what might happen.

     Obama and his eternally optimistic campers have gone over the pass and are about to find themselves snowed in without their long underwear and coleman stoves. All under the gyst of “Say gang….I have a hekkuva idee! Let’s do all these things, see and everything will be peachy keen!”

     Liberal democrats have not the basic tools to prepare for disaster. I have tried to teach some of them how to sail…but all were too in love with the romance of it to listen to me about safety, safety etc. One of their wives came to me recently and apologized because her husband had accidentally hanged himself in a halyard. I had told him about not draping it around his neck when setting the jib but he thought it looked cool. I shook my head and told her I was sorry to hear it and hung up.

     But therein lies a fundamental difference between a conservative and a liberal. That throwing caution to the wind and moving headlong into the tarpits. All about “adventure” and “excitement” while ignoring the DANGER. But the funny thing is…..in politics..which is real life, by the way….danger will find them.

     Yet, there is another fundamental difference. When the danger comes…a TRUE conservative says, “I see danger”. A liberal? “Look, somebody made danger happen”. Or…”Danger just happened”.

     America, like ProReason said, is not going to put up with congress and O-Blow-me playing fast and loose with the checkbook. Not to mention that the money “infusion” by printing a bajillion worhtless dollars won’t cause us to teeter further on the brink of collapse….and that may truly be what this ass-for-a-hat wants. He has demonstrated that he knows bupkiss about economics, yet “said for years that the government and the banks (the BANKS) used ‘accounting tricks’ to hide money.”

     Oh boy.

     Spin spin spin. “The mean banks are foreclosing on homes, bought by people the MEAN banks wrote loans for” It boggles the mind. Even after several beers…it makes no sense ‘tal.

     I truly do not know whether to laugh or cry. My 401K looks like a hooker’s rap sheet. Yet I’d feel silly crying “rape” now, wouldn’t I?

     As Leslie Nielson might say, “Just want to wish you good luck, America; We’re all counting on you”.

     But that optimism? That hollow, “Yes we can”, “We can do it” bullshit? It’s just that. Words…that hang in the air and dissipate when the light of reality hits them. I feel like the guy who told me he paints faster when he notices he’s near the bottom of the paint can…so he won’t run out before he’s done.

     Yeah…THAT kind of logic and “eternal optimism” got us into a financial crack that, well….won’t end til well after I’m dead. Oh …..joy. All my life I was really hoping the baby-boomers ahead of me wouldn’t do this. Now they have. And along with people who are cruel to animals, I despise people who are kind and generous with MY money.

     So….in closing….to the hopey changey administration….Bite me.
10. Melly

    March 7, 2009 at 8:27 pm

    Obama “gently” departs from Holder’s race comment.

    And when did Holder pass that nation of cowards statement? About a month ago? Where has Barry been?

    Reading those internal polls again I see.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....a_holder_1

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11. proreason

    March 8, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    The msm seems to have overlooked the tent city that has sprung up in Sacramento. Quelle shocke!! From dailymail.co.uk

    The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America

    A century and a half ago it was at the centre of the Californian gold rush, with hopeful prospectors pitching their tents along the banks of the American River.Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.With America’s economy in freefall and its housing market in crisis, California’s state capital has become home to a tented city for the dispossessed.

    Those who have lost their jobs and homes and have nowhere else to go are constructing makeshift shelters on the site, which covers several acres.As many as 50 people a week are turning up and the authorities estimate that the tent city is now home to more than 1,200 people.

    …

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....erica.html

    The Brit papers haven’t signed up for the Obamy news management service yet.

    So now we have Obamytowns.

    As usual, California is ahead of the curve.

    Coming soon to a town near you.

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    • MinnesotaRush

      March 8, 2009 at 11:43 pm

      o-blah-blah-apolis.
12. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 6:31 am

    What to do when the economy is spiraling in like an airplane that’s lost power?

    Why, let’s spend more government money on choo-choos that will never turn a profit.

    From the WaPo:

    High-speed rail drives Obama’s transportation agenda

    The Northern Lights Express is little more than an idea — a proposal for a 110-mph passenger train between Minneapolis and Duluth, Minn., that has crept along in fits and starts for years.

    But the slow ride may soon be over. The project is one of dozens nationwide that are likely to benefit from President Obama’s initiative to fund high-speed and intercity passenger rail programs, including $8 billion in stimulus money and $5 billion more over the next five years in the administration’s proposed transportation budget.

    The money represents the first major step toward establishing a genuine high-speed train network in the United States and has sparked a stampede among states, advocacy groups and lobbyists who are not accustomed to this level of funding.

    “We’re going to turn over every stone we can,” said Steve Raukar, a commissioner in St. Louis County, Minn., who chairs the Northern Lights Passenger Rail Alliance, which is spearheading the drive for the $500 million project. “We’re trying to get everything moving as fast as possible with the understanding that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for funding.”

    High-speed rail has emerged as the cornerstone of Obama’s ambitious attempt to remake the nation’s transportation agenda, which for half a century has focused primarily on building highways and roads. Nearly half of the $48 billion in stimulus money for transportation projects will go toward rail, buses and other non-highway projects, including $1.3 billion for Amtrak and its successful rapid rail service, Acela. The Transportation Department also would receive $2 billion more under Obama’s proposed 2010 budget, most of it for rail and aviation improvements.

    The dream of rail backers is a nation connected by high-speed lines that would be faster and more convenient than driving or flying. For instance, a trip on a proposed 432-mile line between Los Angeles and San Francisco would take 2 1/2 hours.

    But experts and government officials caution that despite the billions, the amounts are still not nearly enough to pay for the kind of sleek “bullet train” systems that crisscross Europe and Japan at speeds of 200 mph or higher. The California project, for example, would cost an estimated $45 billion, including $9 billion in state bonds that voters approved last year.

    “It sounds like a lot of money to Americans, but it’s really just a start,” said James P. RePass, president of the National Corridors Initiative, a nonprofit rail advocacy group. “We’re not going to wake up in a year and see a bullet train. But we are going to see much faster service for relatively little money.”

    Amid praise from rail and transit advocates, however, many Republicans have zeroed in on Obama’s high-speed train initiative as a prime example of government excess. In his response to the president’s address to a joint session of Congress last week, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said that the program represents “wasteful spending” and suggested that the bill included money for a proposed magnetic levitation, or maglev, line from Las Vegas to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. The project could be eligible for such funding, but it is not named in the bill.

    Administration officials say the rail initiative is particularly important to Obama, who routinely talked about the benefits of high-speed passenger service during the presidential campaign and who initially requested $10 billion in stimulus money for such projects. In a speech to U.S. mayors last summer, Obama noted that China is home to the world’s first commercial maglev train, capable of speeds faster than 300 mph.

    “I don’t want to see the fastest train in the world built halfway around the world in Shanghai,” Obama said. “I want to see it built right here in the United States of America.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/top5/442090

    Of course none of the rail lines mentioned is likely to turn a profit, and let’s not forget there’s no mention of how say, snow might affect the Minnesota line or that fact that it crosses several earthquake faults might affect the LA/Vegas run. (Which of course has nothing to do with Harry Reid representing Nevada, of course not.)

    If they want to concentrate on one run, why not start on the only corridor where rail is actually successful in the US, the Boston-DC run covered by the Acela and get the speed up beyond the pitiful average of 86 MPH?

    But no, let’s start with grandiose plans elsewhere first, where there will never be the ridership to test such systems…

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13. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 6:51 am

    No, anything but that!

    From the (Madison, WI) Capital Times:

    University of Wisconsin System leaders sound alarm on state budget cuts

    By Todd Finkelmeyer

    Leaders from across the University of Wisconsin System sounded a collective alarm Thursday during a Board of Regents meeting on the UW-Madison campus, stressing that state budget cuts would deeply impact students.

    “Let us take our share of the pain,” UW-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin told the regents. “But let us not undermine the extraordinary quality of a UW-Madison or UW System degree.”

    Due to a projected $5.7 billion state budget shortfall and a deepening recession, UW-Madison would need to absorb $63.4 million in cuts over the next two years if Gov. Jim Doyle’s recommended 2009-11 biennium budget passes in its current form. That figure represents more than a third of the UW System’s potential $174 million in lost funding.

    “The cuts are real, and they are very challenging,” UW System President Kevin Reilly said. “Cuts of this magnitude will certainly impact our plans to grow enrollments and may well hurt the education our current students receive.”

    Although UW leaders plan to lobby lawmakers and the governor to restore some of their funding, if the current budget passes system officials say campuses across the state might have to cut their budgets by about 5 percent to make ends meet.

    Although Martin stressed it’s too early to know how, exactly, UW-Madison will be impacted by the state’s financial crisis, she did acknowledge asking deans across campus to come up with plans to cut 5 percent from their budgets.

    “This may be an overstatement, I hope, of what the conditions will be in the end,” Martin said of the 5 percent figure. “But it could be an understatement.”

    If, indeed, UW-Madison’s deans must find ways to cut their budgets by 5 percent, Martin said a range of people across campus would be impacted — some moreso than others.

    “I would not want to allocate the cuts across the board, because there are certain things that would need to be protected,” said Martin. “Student services — such as the Dean of Students’ office, academic advising and counseling services — even if we couldn’t protect them 100 percent, those are some of the things that need to be protected as much as possible.” …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/top5/441817

    Not a 5% budget cut!

    Why, education will never recover!

    Note the campus budget must be cut, but not a single UW administrator has announced they will take a cut in pay instead…

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14. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 6:56 am

    Let the fun begin; from the AP:

    Churchill lawsuit trial begins this week

    DENVER (AP) – Ward Churchill is heading to court in the hopes of getting back his professor’s job at the University of Colorado.

    Churchill says CU fired him in 2007 because of an essay he wrote about the Sept. 11 attacks. His essay said the attacks were triggered by an unjust U.S. foreign policy and likened those killed in the World Trade Center to “little Eichmans,” a reference to Nazi Adolf Eichman.

    Churchill was a tenured professor of ethnic studies.

    The university fired Churchill on plagiarism allegations after an investigation that began amid the furor over the Eichmann comment.

    Three committees of faculty members from Colorado and other universities accused Churchill of plagiarism, fabrication and other research misconduct.

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

    Remember, this idiot just held a “free speech” rally last week with FoO Bill Ayers.

    No matter how his lawsuit turns out, I’m sure he’s got offers of positions already lined up from a number of Ivy League schools.

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    • sheehanjihad

      March 9, 2009 at 7:57 am

      In keeping with the administration’s policy of transparency and honesty, seems that Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright have mysteriously been “disappeared” from the Wikipedia reference to Obama! And if you try to correct it, you are banned. Yeah, that’s honesty, isnt it?

      http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PA.....geId=91114
15. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 7:58 am

    Your Congress at work on “important” issues.

    From Nation’s Restaurant News:

    More menu labeling on tap as Congress set to revisit LEAN Act

    By Elissa Elan

    WASHINGTON (March 6, 2009) Even as federal lawmakers plan in the next few weeks to revisit the Labeling Education and Nutrition Act, which would create a national standard for menu-labeling mandates, more municipalities are looking to jump on the nutrition disclosure bandwagon.

    The most recent states to join the growing list looking to require that calorie counts and other nutrition information appear on menus are Maryland and Tennessee. More than 30 states, cities or counties have either enacted or are proposing menu labeling regulations.

    In Nashville, the local health board said Thursday it would begin requiring chain restaurants with 15 or more locations to post the caloric content of food items on menus, menu boards and promotional materials starting March 31, 2010. State lawmakers are also pondering menu-labeling legislation.

    The news out of Nashville followed the March 3 announcement by Maryland’s general assembly of sweeping legislation that calls for fast-food chains with 15 restaurants or more to post caloric content on their menu boards. In addition, full-service, sit-down chains with 15 or more outlets would be required to post on their printed menus not only caloric information, but also the amounts of saturated and trans fat, carbohydrates and sodium in each item.

    According to Melvin Thompson, vice president of government relations for the Maryland Restaurant Association, his group has secured enough support to hold off a vote on the menu-labeling measure until the LEAN Act has had time to make its way through Congress.

    “We have already had hearings on this legislation and through our testimony and early grassroots action from our membership, we have convinced a majority of lawmakers to allow us the opportunity to move the LEAN Act through congress before we pass statewide menu-labeling legislation in Maryland,” Thompson said.

    He added that the general assembly’s session ends April 13 and that “anything can happen between now and then, but right now it does not appear [they] have the votes to pass.”

    In Nashville, restaurant industry representatives have appealed to the board of health to wait for Congress to consider the LEAN Act before enacting its calorie-posting legislation, according to published reports.

    A spokesman for the National Restaurant Association said the LEAN Act, which was introduced last September but died when Congress ended its session, would be reintroduced “into one or the other of the chambers next week.”

    If passed, the bill, which is sponsored by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would require chains with more than 20 units to post calorie contents for all menu items. …

    http://www.nrn.com/breakingNews.aspx?id=364038

    (Note: link may go paid at any time.)

    Of course the rationale behind these laws is a complete farce, because it unfairly targets chains where if health were the real concern, it would apply to all restaurants, not just chains.

    Yes, it would be a potentially deadly economic drain on small restaurants, but obviously one can eat just at small restaurants and become obese.

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16. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 8:34 am

    The next step in taking socialism world-wide, from the Wall Street Journal:

    U.S. to Push for Global Stimulus

    The U.S. will press world leaders to boost emergency spending to lift the global economy, risking a rift with Europeans.

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. will press world leaders to boost emergency government spending to lift the global economy, risking a rift with European nations more concerned with revamping financial regulation.

    In President Barack Obama’s first foray into economic diplomacy, Washington will urge the shift at a summit next month in London, U.S. officials say, as markets look for a unified plan of action from the world’s most economically powerful nations.

    Washington’s focus is at odds with France, Germany and other European nations that want the Group of 20 summit on April 2 to focus on rewriting rules governing financial markets. These nations say lax regulation was a major cause of the financial crisis and want to tighten their grip on hedge funds and private-equity firms.

    All sides are looking to avoid a breakdown at the summit that would roil markets, which are already wary about whether government leaders know how to stem the economic decline, say U.S. officials and international economists. Expectations of the summit are high: A coordinated response is seen as critical so each government’s efforts reinforce, rather than impede, the efforts of others.

    The differences could be hashed out this coming weekend in London at a meeting of finance ministers from the G-20, and in Washington, in the steady stream of global leaders and finance ministers visiting Mr. Obama.

    U.S. officials, who could receive support from China and other countries with big stimulus programs, contend additional government spending is needed to reduce the depth and length of the downturn. …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....66001.html

    Because we must destroy all the world’s economies for Socialism to be seen as The Answer.

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17. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 8:37 am

    From a loving AP:

    N. Korea Threatens War if ‘Satellite’ Is Shot Down

    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea put its armed forces on standby for war Monday and threatened retaliation against anyone seeking to stop the regime from launching a satellite into space in the latest barrage of threats from the communist regime.

    The warning came as U.S. and South Korean troops kicked off their annual war games across the South, exercises the North has condemned as preparation for an invasion. Pyongyang last week threatened danger to South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace during the drills.

    Analysts say the regime is trying to grab President Barack Obama’s attention as his administration formulates its North Korea policy.

    The North also indicated it was pushing ahead with plans to fire a communications satellite into space, a provocative launch neighboring governments believe could be a cover for a missile test.

    U.S. and Japanese officials have suggested they could shoot down a North Korean missile if necessary, further incensing Pyongyang.

    “Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war,” the general staff of the North’s military said in a statement carried Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

    Any interception will draw “a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against the strongholds” of the U.S., Japan and South Korea, it said.

    The North ordered military personnel “fully combat ready” for war, KCNA said in a separate dispatch.

    South Korea’s Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae downplayed the threats as “rhetoric” but said the country’s military was ready to deal with any contingencies.

    Analysts say a satellite or missile launch could occur late this month or in early April when the North’s new legislature, elected Sunday, is expected to convene its first session to confirm Kim Jong Il as leader. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506843,00.html

    Of course no one has threatened to shoot their “satellite” down, but hey, truth never stopped propaganda before.

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18. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 8:45 am

    Watch them tap dance… and of course people will still believe them.

    From Fox News:

    Administration Backers Plead for Patience on Economic Recovery Efforts

    Concern is growing that the Obama administration’s prescriptions for the ailing economy aren’t working because the stock market still continues to collapse, unemployment rates are up and no signs of a turnaround can be seen yet, but the president’s supporters say patience will pay off.

    “I wouldn’t measure the stock market over the day to day as to how well we’re doing. I think that you’re going to have to give the president’s plans, which are just taking effect this week, some time to work,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday.

    “It does take some time before things — before people realize that the substance is actually getting better. My guess is that’ll start later this year or the first part of next year, and we’re moving aggressively to make sure that it does,” said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.

    Peter Orszag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the economy is in a shambles and even the White House’s estimates may need to be revised, but it’s too soon to consider a sequel to the $787 billion tax and spending plan that passed a month ago.

    “I don’t think we should be chasing our tail, constantly revising assumptions,” Orszag said. “Let’s see what happens, let it work. We’ll have a mid-session review later in the year. We’ll have an opportunity to revise the assumptions at that point.”

    As the stimulus plan starts to get pumped into the economy, a number of criticisms have been made about the spending bill being offered up by President Obama for fiscal year 2010.

    “We had a plan to stimulate the economy that cost half as much as the president’s proposal and would have created twice as many jobs,” Republican Minority Leader John Boehner said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.

    “And as we look at their budget, it’s pretty clear that their budget spends too much. It taxes too much. And it borrows too much from our kids and grandkids. It’s time for government to go on this diet. It’s time for government to tighten their belt and show the American people that we get it,” Boehner said.

    On top of the proposed $3.7 trillion budget, several are questioning the existing budget bill for that has yet to be passed for the remainder of fiscal year 2009, which is halfway finished.

    “The budget is a radical, reckless exercise that is scaring the hell out of everybody who is watching this country’s financial situation,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

    “We’re talking about $480 billion of taxpayers’ money loaded down with $8 billion worth of earmark pork barrel projects,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told “FOX News Sunday.” “And it is not last year’s business. It’s money that’s going to be spent as soon as the president signs the bill. And he shouldn’t sign it. He should veto it and send it right back.”

    But Orszag said what is reckless are Republican efforts led by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to privatize Social Security and Medicare.

    “The senior Republican on the House Budget Committee has put forward a plan that includes $3 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, a Medicare program, when you turn 65, you’d be handed a check for 80 percent of the cost of health care and then you’re on your own; and a Social Security plan in which your Social Security fund would be invested in the stock market. I’m not making this stuff up,” he said.

    No, not the free market! Aaaaah.

    Why would we offer tax cuts to people who might create jobs?

    As far as investing in the stock market being bad?

    I thought Chuckie Schumer had just said:

    “I wouldn’t measure the stock market over the day to day as to how well we’re doing.”

    So it must be O,K.

    All the while Obama’s approval ratings keep going up, because people want Government control.

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19. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Did you know GM is failing because Obama hasn’t had time to nationalize health care yet?

    Really, so says the DNC.

    From Fox News:

    Top Republicans Call for GM to Declare Bankruptcy

    General Motors should hand over the factory keys to a bankruptcy court, two top Republicans said Sunday.

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the best thing for the ailing automaker to do would be to go into Chapter 11 to reorganize some of its business agreements and come out stronger than before.

    “I think the best thing that could probably happen to General Motors, in my view, is they go into Chapter 11, they reorganize, they renegotiate … the union-management contracts and come out of it a stronger, better, leaner, more competitive automotive industry,” McCain told “FOX News Sunday.”

    House Republican leader John Boehner said the nation’s largest auto company must demonstrate a viable and long-term business plan if it wants more federal money.

    But Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., told FOX News on Sunday that he disagrees with sending the auto companies into bankruptcy, calling it a “shallow approach” to dealing with a failure that would affect hundreds of thousands of workers.

    “If GM and Chrysler are allowed to go in bankruptcy they will not come out,” McCotter said. “This will exacerbate the foreclosure crisis, it will continue to hurt the credit crisis.”

    President Obama’s task force on the auto industry is headed to Detroit on Monday for meetings with auto industry executives from both General Motors and Chrysler, which have received $13 billion and $4 billion, respectively, from the federal government.

    McCotter said he was “glad to see they are engaging in the process with the auto industry,” though he expressed concern that the presidential panel has a “dearth” of professionals from the auto industry. …

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

    But the fun stuff comes at the end of the piece:

    Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said GM’s failing can be attributed to the overwhelming cost of health care. He said that’s why Obama is addressing health care at the same time he is shoring up the banks, working on a budget for next year and trying to help the auto manufacturers.

    “What is probably the most cited reason for GM’s difficulties — or one of the most cited is the legacy costs on health care and retiree health care that GM has to carry that other automobile companies, particularly those in foreign companies, don’t,” Kaine, Virginia’s governor, said.

    “So the president was elected to try to deal with this health care challenge, which is — can be a choker on the economy. … If we can start to get that right, that can be part of growing out of these economic doldrums,” he said.

    McCotter said that if the automakers aren’t saved that will mean the government will have to spend “$200 billion to have auto families go into the social safety net,” a direct cost to taxpayers and not merely a loan, he noted.

    McCotter added that the two companies are “actually restructuring” — as compared to Wall Street’s banks — and they shouldn’t be allowed to fail as they are trying to correct their problems.

    “It would seem to me a very bad message to send … that those who are restructuring will be punished,” he said.

    Let’s not forget to throw McCotter on the pile with Specter, Collins and Snow in the “clueless Republican” department.

    Why even fight it any longer?

    We can’t stop it, and the lies just go completely unchallenged.

    It’s as if we were fighting World War II and FDR and the American Public were sitting back saying “Hey, perhaps the National Socialists have the right idea after all.”

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    • CaliforniaBear

      March 9, 2009 at 11:28 am

      I remember when I first heard from one of my liberal friends that all of the problems during this recession were caused by health care and that if there was universal health care, all our problems would be gone. Luckily I wasn’t drinking anything or I would have lost it all over my computer screen. It truly shows the ignorance of the left if they want to blame the problems of the auto industries on health care.
    • pdsand

      March 9, 2009 at 1:20 pm

      “McCotter said that if the automakers aren’t saved that will mean the government will have to spend “$200 billion to have auto families go into the social safety net,” a direct cost to taxpayers and not merely a loan, he noted.”

      No thought given whatsoever to the idea that these people could go get another job. Disgusting.
    • pdsand

      March 9, 2009 at 1:28 pm

      If any modicum of reason is applied to the question, a person would deduce that GM is failing because it has agreed to pay too much of the cost of its employees and retirees healthcare. The reasonable response being that perhaps GM should be allowed to go bankrupt so that it could re-negotiate that little nugget out of its contracts and perhaps remain solvent.
      The second reasonable response is that if a venerable institution like GM is on the edge of bankruptcy because of agreeing to pay too much of its constituents’ healthcare costs, why would the U.S. want to follow their lead and agree to pay too much of its citizens’ healthcare costs? So we can go bankrupt as well?
    • proreason

      March 9, 2009 at 1:56 pm

      “if a venerable institution like GM is on the edge of bankruptcy because of agreeing to pay too much of its constituents’ healthcare costs, why would the U.S. want to follow their lead and agree to pay too much of its citizens’ healthcare costs? So we can go bankrupt as well?”

      pdsand, you make perfect sense. So much sense that I would call it an insight.

      That is the problem.

      The country no longer makes sense. We are ruled by children.

      They want free health care, and that’s that. So the Moron has pledged to create it.

      And then he will arrange it so we will all go to heaven, and enjoy ice cream 24 hours for eternity.
    • pdsand

      March 9, 2009 at 2:31 pm

      I have a poster I bought at the Yuengling Brewery at my house that is an editorial from I think the New York Daily News back from when prohibition was passed that says that it’s a great idea, and soon we will have no need of churches, schools, hospitals, or courts because if this works we’ll know we can all be made healthy, wealthy and wise by amendment to the consitution.
20. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 8:58 am

    The biggest lie of the administration so far.

    From the WaPo:

    Obama aims to shield science from politics

    Memo to accompany stem cell action

    By Rob Stein

    When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday.

    “The president believes that it’s particularly important to sign this memorandum so that we can put science and technology back at the heart of pursuing a broad range of national goals,” Melody C. Barnes, director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing yesterday.

    Although officials would not go into details, the memorandum will order the Office of Science and Technology Policy to “assure a number of effective standards and practices that will help our society feel that we have the highest-quality individuals carrying out scientific jobs and that information is shared with the public,” said Harold Varmus, who co-chairs Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

    The decision by President George W. Bush to restrict funding for stem cell research has been seen by critics as part of a pattern of allowing political ideology to influence scientific decisions across an array of issues, including climate change and whether to approve the morning-after pill Plan B for over-the-counter sales.

    “We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration as one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs,” Varmus said. “This is consistent with the president’s determination to use sound scientific practice, responsible practice of science and evidence, instead of dogma in developing federal policy.”

    The memorandum will ensure that “people who are appointed to federal positions in science have strong credentials and that the vetting process for evaluating scientific information doesn’t lead to any undermining of the scientific opinion,” he said. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/442149

    In all seriousness, I can’t think of a time I’ve been more frustrated… or hopeless.

    Obama doesn’t give a damn about real science, just “science” that is politicized in his favor.

    The science that shows adult stem cells are more promising than embryonic stem cells, and the former are being used to successfully treat patients today while the latter have, well, caused cancers? Nah, bury that.

    Climate change isn’t anthropogenic? Oh, that data is just “bad sensors” you silly religious nutjobs.

    Science that shows wind and solar will never make up but a trivial amount of our power grid? Oh, your figures must be wrong.

    No, see, we care about science. As long as we agree with it.

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    • pagar

      March 9, 2009 at 2:08 pm

      The man Obama has nominated for his science adviser is apparently on of the the most radical in this administration.
      

      Holdren believed a world government might play a moderate role in the future: setting and enforcing appopriate population levels, taxing and redistributing the world’s wealth, controlling the world’s resources, and operating a standing World Army.

      Holdren addressed the economic costs of his massive restructuring of the economy some 32 years ago, acknowledging it “will entail considerable retraining and temporary unemployment in the workforce” (p. 853). Yet he continues to support economy-crushing energy taxation

      IMO, this person should not be advising any American.
21. wardmama4

    March 9, 2009 at 9:01 am

    As if we did not have enough to worry about, what with 91.9% of us employed and 92.2% current on our mortgages. We have this buried in the Generational Theft Act of 2009:

    Nationalizing Life and Death
    by John Griffing
    American Thinker
    March 8, 2009

    “Crisis! Crisis! Crisis!” So is it always with petty politicians seeking to enhance their power. Swallow it whole, swallow it now is the word. But just what are we swallowing so fast that we don’t even have time to think? Are we really to believe that all we must do is touch the hem of President Obama’s garment, and the pains of capitalist dislocation will wash away?

    Hidden deep in the stimulus bill is a Trojan horse like no other. I am not speaking of pork. A scheme more dastardly would have been hard to concoct. With the passage of this bill, the US government is now empowered to “ration” healthcare. That means, to treat or not to treat is now a government question.

    Within the bill is a line that would sentence millions of people to death:

    http://tinyurl.com/ao5ugt

    I am not for ‘nationalized’ healthcare and I am not so damn stupid as to believe (ever) that it will be ‘free’ and I do not ever want my medical records to be ‘mandated electronic’ (I already have dealt with it – you can not even begin to realize the problems – such as wrong lab results being posted to your record – how many John Smiths and Jane Browns are there in America?!?).

    America already has seen what Insurance companies have done to the healthcare system with decision makers more concerned with their companies bottom line than the people that they are determining health care have wrought upon the system. Imagine the likes of Barney Franks, Nancy Pelosi or (God forbid) The One ™ determining who lives or dies!

    Holland isn’t the only country doing it (overdosing to euthanize) – good ole Germany is now among those ‘passing out pills’ – all to save a few dollars.

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    • proreason

      March 9, 2009 at 5:18 pm

      “Imagine the likes of Barney Franks, Nancy Pelosi or (God forbid) The One ™ determining who lives or dies!”

      Here here.

      I’ll rather take my chances with the clerks at the insurance company, even though that isn’t a pretty alternative either.
22. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 10:38 am

    More from the land of unintended consequences, from a disbelieving Reuters:

    US meetings industry fights back against critics

    By John Buchanan

    ORLANDO, Fla., March 8 (Reuters) – The $175 billion U.S. corporate meetings industry is fighting back against a torrent of negative publicity and cancellations that has cost it billions of dollars, industry leaders said on Sunday.

    The U.S. Travel Association has launched a campaign to reverse setbacks to the industry caused in part by a perception that expensive meetings are decadent given the worst U.S. recession in decades.

    The campaign will focus on explaining the impact on employment in the hotel and leisure sector of decline in the industry and resisting any attempt by government to regulate where and when companies can hold meetings.

    Criticism by government officials and journalists of lavish meetings for top executives at top-dollar destinations has triggered a drastic overall reduction in demand for meetings.

    Insurance giant AIG ran into a storm of negative publicity in October when it flew top independent brokers and some of its executives to California for a lavish week-long retreat shortly after it received an $85 billion government bailout.

    Brokers had earned the trip based on their sales before the bailout.

    Since then, thousands of companies have canceled conferences doing particular damage to leading destinations such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Florida.

    Business in Orlando would be 25 percent down this year, said the Orange County/Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau.

    “Corrosive rhetoric … coming from some of our elected officials in Washington will continue to lead the … meetings market to a point where we as hospitality CEOs will be forced to lay off hundreds of thousands of … workers,” said Jonathan Tisch, chairman and chief executive of New York-based Loews Hotels.

    Those jobs “are integral to the communities they live in,” said Tisch, whose company operates 18 hotels in the United States and two in Canada.

    In one example, Tisch said, meeting business was down 40 percent so far in 2009 from the similar period in 2008 at his Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort, one of the premier meeting hotels in the country.

    Meetings represent 60 percent of the hotel’s revenues and the hotel is expecting to conduct a second round of layoffs.

    U.S. President Barack Obama piled pressure on the sector when he said last month companies getting government bailout money “shouldn’t be going off to Las Vegas or the Super Bowl” on taxpayer dollars, Tisch said.

    “After he made that comment, you saw a cascading effect with the cancellations of meetings,” Tisch said. …

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....4620090308

    Our President and Congress excel and nothing quite as much as job destruction.

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    • pdsand

      March 9, 2009 at 11:30 am

      Never fear, they will always be able to find jobs in highway construction!
    • proreason

      March 9, 2009 at 11:55 am

      BillK: “Our President and Congress excel and nothing quite as much as job destruction”

      It’s a systematic attack on all the elements of our free economy.
      - small businesses
      - high earners
      - power generation
      - energy exploration and delivery
      - alternatives to the knee-jerk media
      - dismantlement of the military
      - private education
      - non-union workforces
      - travel and liesure industry
      - automobile industry
      - private health services
      - charities
      - astonomical taxes
      - cap and trade and other onerous punitative fees for normal activities
      - and on and on

      Who can look at what is happening and conclude anything other than that the cabal that has siezed power is bent on destroying the free economy.
23. proreason

    March 9, 2009 at 11:42 am

    Too good to not post. I know we aren’t supposed to post opinion pieces but this one is filled with uncanny wisdom. From Star Parker (who has been there)…

    Inner cities a snapshot of America’s future
    

    Blacks are not given enough credit for being trendsetters in America.

    Blacks started playing the blues, jazz, and R&B, then the rest of America started playing them. Blacks discovered the politics of victimhood, then the rest of America started catching on.

    Black women got into having babies without marriage. Then white women started getting into it and the incidence of white out-of-wedlock births today — almost 30 percent — is higher than the black rate in the 1960’s.

    Blacks bought into dependency and the welfare state. Now the rest of America has bought in.

    Blacks for years elected politicians championing public policy that destroyed their own communities. Now the rest of America has installed a new political leadership with the perfect formula — run roughshod over private ownership, disdain traditional values, substitute political power for personal responsibility — for destroying our country.

    We can expect the rest of America to reap the same benefits that blacks have enjoyed from this lunacy. In the late 1960’s, when President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his war on poverty and seeded welfare-state culture in our inner cities, the majority of black families had married parents living at home. By 1995 only 1 in 3 black homes had married parents.

    As the black family collapsed, predictable social pathologies escalated: Crime, drugs, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, fatherless children, abortion, and disdain for education.

    Not surprisingly, the black poverty rate, almost a quarter of the black population, has remained frozen at twice the national average since the late 1960’s.

    While the press was having a field day criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal’s television remarks following President Obama’s address to Congress, too little attention was paid to his personal story. After all, the father of the 37-year-old Louisiana governor was a poor immigrant from India.

    Not every child of poor immigrants becomes a governor before their 40th birthday. But there is a reason more people from all over the world want to immigrate to the United States than we’re willing to let in. They come here for opportunity. Children of poor immigrants getting educated and moving in one generation into the middle class is the story of America.

    Why, then, when poor immigrant families readily move in one generation into the middle class, does one fourth of black America remain poor, generation after generation?

    Racism? I don’t think so. Black poverty is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of single mother homes. The incidence of poverty in black homes with married parents is around 10 percent, well below the national average.

    It’s what happens when lives get politicized and people are instructed to be helpless. In the case of blacks, it’s being taught that America is inherently racist and that their only hope is political protection from white exploitation.

    Our politicians tell us now that we need to turn the whole country over to them because capitalism has supposedly failed and we need protection from exploitation by the wealthy.

    Has anyone noticed that the only markets that have failed in America are the ones distorted with major government controls, regulations, subsidies, or taxpayer guarantees?

    University of Michigan economist Mark Perry recently listed on his blog 16 typical household items — furniture, kitchen appliances, electronics — showing how many hours of work, at the average wage, it would take to purchase these items today, compared to 1950. The whole basket of goods takes one fifth the amount of hours of work today to purchase compared to 59 years ago. This is markets and innovation at work.

    Anyone who is curious where the current left-wing takeover of our economy will lead, with government soon taking 40 cents out of every dollar we produce, should tour through any of America’s inner cities.

    If we have any luck, some of the better instincts of blacks today will also set trends. Blacks attend church more than any other group in the country. And most blacks reject the debasement of the definition of marriage.

    http://townhall.com/columnists.....ments=true

    or in other words…..Since it takes work to lift myself to your level, I am just as happy to bring you down to mine.

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    • caligirl9

      March 9, 2009 at 5:56 pm

      proreason, it’s funny that you posted that. My daughter and I were having the same conversation, except about Latinos, specifically from Mexico and of Mexican heritage.

      She recently returned from a vacation in Mexico and saw firsthand how hard the Mexican people work. She saw beautiful women with prematurely-aged skin from working in the sun at the daily flea markets. She felt guilty bartering with them for their handmade goods after a concierge at the hotel she stayed at pointed out just how different the Mexican people are from their Americanized version. Mexicans in Mexico are a proud people who work hard and do not beg. We all know how wages suck in Mexico, and that for a construction worker to make $200 a week is a good job. She was surprised to learn that Mexicans in Mexico do not have more than 2 or 3 children. She was surprised to learn that single motherhood is not the norm (other than due to a husband’s death or desertion).

      She also learned that college in Mexico is for the select few—“select few” meaning those who are meant to excel in school and college. None of this warehousing for 6–8 years while taking majoring in Mexican-American History or whatever useless sociological or art history degree you can “earn” in a college and university. A successful society does need people who can do manual labor or craftsmen/women and service workers. A society of nothing but college graduates is an unrealistic expectation.

      She came home from a grocery run and said, “you know, now that I know how their country is, I feel for those men waiting outside of Home Depot. They are desperate. Still doesn’t excuse coming to the U.S. illegally,” but she now believes these men degrade themselves by sneaking into the U.S. and begging for work because they have no options in Mexico.

      For some reason, good Mexican people come to the U.S and we (the welfare state) treat them like pets, and like a pet, they get spoiled and lazy. That is how crap like La Raza starts: why keep your culture’s values of hard work when you can wait for the check to come in the mail? The second-generation Mexicans (anchor babies) are among the worst. Why go “back” to your parent’s homeland when you can stay in the U.S. and leech off the system? Besides, places like California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas used to be part of Mexico? No big deal that the U.S. bought that land fair and square; La Raza’s mentality is it’s ours, and it’s time you made up for what you all did to Mexico, but you better make sure to maintain that welfare state.

      It’s kind of strange; some of the illegal aliens I know are grateful for any opportunity they are able to get here, and so many of them say things like “I want to become a (fill in the blanks) to help America like America helped me.” Of course there are also those who say “I want to help people like me (illegal) get all they can for free out of this place.”

      I don’t know what the answer is for Mexico. I do know that this drug wars crap is scary and for the life of me I can’t understand why the National Guard isn’t at least patrolling our borders. If TCO says we are going to get out of Iraq, maybe we need to help stop the Mexican drug wars that are increasingly spilling onto U.S. soil. This is, after all, the same continent we live on.

      Throwing money at Mexico is not the answer. Its problems start at the top and work their way through all levels of government and police/military.

      I know that doesn’t sound very conservative. Sorry.
    • proreason

      March 9, 2009 at 6:06 pm

      Cali, one of the reasons you don’t hear me say much about the illegal immigrant problems is that I know how hard most of those people work when they come here.

      It doesn’t excuse the illegality of it, and there are tons of other issues with government benefits, citizenship, crime, assimilation and more, but seeing so many of them work so hard gets some sympathy from me, at least.
24. pagar

    March 9, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    No thought given whatsoever to the idea that these people could go get another job

    My guess is that if a government employee or a union worker put forth such a radical idea, they would be fired on the spot. Can one imagine the cultural shock of going from tightening a nut on a bolt on a Chevy to tightening a nut on a bolt on a Toyota.

    Sarcasm Tag applied for.

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25. canary

    March 9, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    For full article-

    http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_11863088

    Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Stop the flow of guns south of the border
    By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

    Posted: 03/08/2009 12:00:00 AM PST

    The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that 90 percent of the firearms confiscated in drug crimes in Mexico come from the United States, and some of the shipments can be enormous.

    Immigrants are going back to Mexico because of a bad U.S. economy. Meanwhile, the gun violence that Americans subsidize south of the border is boiling over onto U.S. soil.

    Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano didn’t get the memo. She recently told a Senate committee that Mexico’s drug violence had not spread to the United States. But only a few days earlier, Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw told the Texas Legislature that violence from the drug cartels had — “no question about it” — spilled into Texas. Then there is Napolitano’s own state of Arizona, where its largest city — Phoenix — is now considered the nation’s kidnap capital because of spillover violence from Mexico.

    According to the Justice Department, Mexican drug traffickers have a presence in at least 230 U.S. cities.

    And, on that topic, Attorney General Eric Holder caused a stir when he turned the drug war into a debate on gun control.

    “As President Obama indicated during the campaign,” Holder said, “there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons (which expired in 2004). I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.”

    That was all it took. Those who love their guns more than their neighbor to the south were eager to believe CNN’s Lou Dobbs when the fear-monger and Mexico-basher declared: “Attorney General Eric Holder is willing to sacrifice our gun ownership rights under the Constitution for the benefit of a foreign government, in this case Mexico.”

    This is a serious issue worthy of serious discussion. Congress certainly thinks so, which is why it approved $10 million for Operation Gunrunner in the economic stimulus bill.

    Sarukhan, in a recent interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, cited one bust last year in the city of Reynosa, across the border from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

    “In a single seizure,” the ambassador said, “we detained half a million rounds of ammo, 270 semi-automatic assault weapons, fragmentation grenades and . . . sniper rifles. And they were all coming from the U.S. side…..

    Canary’s opinion is that Mexico will go in cahoots with Obomo to take our 2nd amendment away. Why are things much worse since Obomo won office. Because as a member of the Socialist Party, he wanted free borders. Obomo wants to rule the world. I’ll bet all those confiscated weapons go to the new Obama’s Obamica’s Army of Obama.

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    • pagar

      March 9, 2009 at 7:32 pm

      I’m all for stopping guns going to Mexico, but the fact that something is in the Stimulus bill gives me no confidence at all. The stimulus bill was written under the cover of darkness and I suspect that most of the money will end up in Democrat pockets. Who determined that already established agencies couldn’t handle the problem? Who determined that 10 million dollars was going to solve the problem, etc. etc.? My guess is that simple orders for the officers involved to be allowed to do their job would solve 99% of the problem. Instead, we have crazy foolishness like the case of the drug runner from Mexico being rewarded while Border Patrol officers doing their job are sent to jail for years. That stimulus money is going to get spent like drunken sailors in Tijuana. The absolute reason I believe most of it will be misspent is because the Administration is making such a big show of having Vice President Biden looking after it.
26. proreason

    March 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Where are the screaming headlines…from Rasmussen

    Obama Approval Index History

    Date
    Presidential Approval Index Strongly Approve Strongly Disapprove Total Approve Total Disapprove

    03/09/2009 +6 38% 32% 56% 43%
    …
    01/22/2009 +30 44% 14% 64% 29%

    http://www.rasmussenreports.co.....ex_history

    24% drop in gap between approval / disapproval.

    Might as well be a feather falling in a primevil forest.

    If it were Bushhitler, the gallows would be under construction

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27. BigOil

    March 9, 2009 at 8:37 pm

    Notice how Barry’s strongly disapprove trendline is rising as fast as the stock market is sinking. Maybe people with “skin in the game” are finally realizing they are being skinned.

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28. proreason

    March 9, 2009 at 9:26 pm

    Sweet sweet justice. From the DCexaminer:

    Limbaugh: My Ratings are Way, Way Up
    

    One side effect of the Democratic campaign against Rush Limbaugh has been to increase — dramatically increase — the talk show host’s ratings. This morning I asked Rush if he had any numbers he could share on just what effect the increased visibility has had on his business. This is his response:

    The latest numbers I have are for January, well before this kerfuffle began, and they are through the roof — six shares in NY, for example. There are daily ratings taken now in about the top 15 markets but I have not seen them yet. All I can tell you is that as of January, we booked 80 percent of all our 2008 revenue and we’ll be over 2008 by the end of this month.

    Given those numbers, it’s clear that the most decisive economic stimulus produced by the Obama administration so far has been at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

    http://www.dcexaminer.com/opin.....46352.html

    uuummmmm, how are The Moron’s rating going? the “tracking poll was down another 1.21% today.

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29. Kev

    March 9, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    Grade the President

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093

    Give President Obama a grade
    Live Vote
    If you were grading Barack Obama on his performance as president, what would he get? * 32879 responses

    He gets an A
    24%

    He gets a B
    5.8%

    He gets a C
    4.4%

    He gets a D
    11%

    He gets an F
    56%
    Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

    Funny the only link I can find to the MSNBC is the one emailed to me by a friend. Hit it while it is there because the will take it down soon by the look of the numbers.

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30. BillK

    March 9, 2009 at 11:32 pm

    Proving once again that He is more interested in political theater than say, actually doing anything useful, this report from a thrilled AP:

    Obama orders Bush signing statements review

    WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Monday ordered a review of George W. Bush’s guidelines for implementing legislation passed by Congress, at the same time saying that he would employ his own version of how he wants the government to follow the law.

    In a memo to senior government officials, Obama said they must check with Attorney General Eric Holder before relying on any of Bush’s signing statements for guidance. Bush often issued a statement when signing a bill into law, and critics said the statements at times showed government officials how to circumvent the law if Bush disagreed with it on constitutional grounds.

    “There is no doubt that the practice of issuing such statements can be abused,” Obama wrote. “Constitutional signing statements should not be used to suggest that the president will disregard statutory requirements on the basis of policy disagreements.”

    Obama ordered his administration to work with Congress to let lawmakers know about concerns over legality before legislation gets to the White House for the president’s signature. He also pledged that he would use caution and restraint in writing his own signing statements.

    “With these considerations in mind and based upon advice of the Department of Justice, I will issue signing statements to address constitutional concerns only when it is appropriate to do so as a means of discharging my constitutional responsibilities,” Obama pledged.

    Bush attached the signing statements to legislation that his administration saw as unreasonable or unconstitutional limits on executive power. However, Obama’s White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, likened the move to Bush asking “that laws be disallowed simply by executive fiat.”

    Obama as a candidate criticized Bush’s use of signing statements, but Obama as a candidate never said he would completely eschew the centuries’ old tradition. …

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29600234/

    Obama’s White House is looking more and more like a group of people who, were their house on fire, would grandstand about the use of flammable building materials in construction rather than try and put the fire out.

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31. U NO HOO

    March 10, 2009 at 12:01 am

    did Robert Gibbs go out on his lunch break to the local Blockbuster for some markdown bargains?

    No, Circuit City just before it closed.

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32. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 1:36 am

    From a jubilant AP:

    1 in 50 American Kids Experiences Homelessness, a Number Likely to Rise

    NEW YORK — One of every 50 American children experiences homelessness, according to a new report that says most states have inadequate plans to address the worsening and often-overlooked problem.

    The report being released Tuesday by the National Center on Family Homelessness gives Connecticut the best ranking. Texas is at the bottom.

    “These kids are the innocent victims, yet it seems somehow or other they get left out,” said the center’s president, Dr. Ellen Bassuk. “Why are they America’s outcasts?”

    The report analyzes data from 2005-2006. It estimates that 1.5 million children experienced homelessness at least once that year, and says the problem is surely worse now because of the foreclosures and job losses of the deepening recession.

    “If we could freeze-frame it now, it would be bad enough,” said Democratic Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, who wrote a foreward to the report. “By end of this year, it will be that much worse.”

    The report’s overall state rankings reflect performance in four areas: child homelessness per capita, child well-being, risk for child homelessness, and state policy and planning.

    The top five states were Connecticut, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island and North Dakota. At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana.

    Reflecting the disarray caused by Hurricane Katrina, the report said Louisiana had the most homeless children per capita in 2006, followed by Texas and California.

    However, Bassuk — a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School — said many states fell short in regard to policy and planning. Only six were praised for “extensive” planning to curb child homelessness. Twenty-four states received an “inadequate” grade.

    Ken Martin, executive director of the Texas Homeless Network, said the large number of homeless children in Texas was predictable.

    “It’s not surprising when you don’t put money into human services that you have issues come up,” said Martin, who expressed hope that improvements are forthcoming. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507589,00.html

    You’ll forgive me if I call “Bull$#@!” to this report.

    Of course, like Global Warming it’s all based on “estimates” and “projections.”

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33. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 1:40 am

    Something I’m sure our friends on the left are cheering.

    From Fox News:

    Nuclear-Warhead Upgrade Delayed; Government Labs Forgot How to Make Parts

    The Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration had to wait more than a year to refurbish aging nuclear warheads — partly because they had forgotten how to make a crucial component, a government report states.

    Regarding a classified material codenamed “Fogbank,” a Government Accountability Office report released this month states that “NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency.”

    So the effort to refurbish and upgrade W76 warheads, which top the U.S. Navy’s (and the British Royal Navy’s) submarine-launched Trident missiles, had to be put on hold while experts scoured old records and finally figured out how to manufacture the stuff once again.

    According to the Sunday Herald of Glasgow, Scotland, Fogbank is “thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of a thermonuclear [hydrogen] bomb.”

    The National Nuclear Security Administration is a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy. It is responsible for the manufacture and upkeep of the nation’s nuclear weapons. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507305,00.html

    There’s also no explanation as to why this is being broken by a Glasgow newspaper.

    Unless the U.S. press just didn’t care.

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34. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 1:46 am

    From the AP:

    Help Wanted: Two Million Jobs Open Across Range of Industries

    Help wanted: pharmacists, engineers and nurses. Believe it or not, even some banks are hiring, at least for their technology teams.

    While the recession has claimed 4.4 million jobs, the economy has created others, many of them for highly trained and specialized professionals. More than 2 million jobs openings now exist across a range of industries, according to government data.

    Job seekers beware, though. An average of nearly five people are competing for each opening. That’s up sharply from a ratio of less than 2-to-1 in December 2007, when the recession was just starting and nearly 4 million openings existed.

    Human resources executives say companies that are hiring are benefiting from a top-notch talent pool as applications pour in from a larger base of job seekers. The number of unemployed Americans has soared, to 12.5 million last month, from 7 million when the recession began.

    Broadly, jobs are being added in education, health care and the federal government, the Labor Department said, with the government adding 9,000 new jobs last month alone.

    But beyond those areas, jobs can be found in a variety of sectors. Some places that are hiring, such as companies that make nuclear power equipment, haven’t been hit that hard by the recession. Others, such as discount retailers, are actually benefiting from the downturn as shoppers turn thriftier.

    Even some businesses at the center of the economic meltdown are managing to add a few employees. Banks involved in recent mergers, for example, are hiring information technology specialists to help integrate companies, said Tig Gilliam, chief executive of the Adecco Group North America, a human resources firm.

    Some mortgage lending companies, notably those never involved in subprime or other exotic loans, are actually growing and hiring as larger competitors have folded.

    “We’ve been busy,” said Terry Schmidt, chief financial officer of Guild Mortgage Co. in California, whose company has doubled in size, from around 450 to close to 900 employees, in the past year and a half.

    The new hires originate home loans and process them, among other duties.

    “We’re finding that the talent pool — the level of talent and experience — is much better than we’ve ever had,” Schmidt said. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,507587,00.html

    But Barney Frank said this type of thing was nonsense – there’s no competition for bank customers and people seeking loans just go with whomever is willing to loan them money?

    What purpose would mortgage lenders serve in such a market?

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35. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 1:50 am

    Why continue to focus on health care for the uninsured?

    From the (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal:

    Plan would improve health care for children who are not documented citizens

    By David Wahlberg

    Madison’s main health systems say they will try to improve health care for children who aren’t documented citizens and better coordinate mental health services for adults.

    The projects, announced Monday, are part of a collaborative effort that previously focused on giving free care to the uninsured.

    The hospitals and doctor groups will look at giving free or discounted care to about 1,500 students in Madison schools who don’t qualify for BadgerCare Plus because they are undocumented, organizers said. They’ll also consider beefing up outpatient mental health services to prevent crises in emergency rooms.

    The organizations, which have worked together as the Health Council since 2000, had planned to expand a program that gave free care to about 400 uninsured residents of Dane County from 2005 to 2007. But BadgerCare Plus, the state’s newly broadened Medicaid plan, is providing insurance to many people who used to be uninsured, said Leslie Ann Howard, chairwoman of the Health Council.

    “We’re shifting our resources to something where there’s more need,” said Howard, president of the United Way of Dane County, which is coordinating the council’s efforts.

    The council evaluated several potential new projects and decided last week to focus on care for undocumented children and mental health services, said Dr. Frank Byrne, president of St. Mary’s Hospital.

    “We wanted to do things that were at the intersection of need and ability to make a difference,” Byrne said.

    In addition to St. Mary’s, the council includes Meriter Hospital, UW Hospital, Dean Health System, Group Health Cooperative and UW Medical Foundation, the university’s doctor group.

    Details still need to be worked out, but the project targeting undocumented children could deliver some care, such as immunizations, at schools, Howard said. …

    http://www.madison.com/wsj/mad/latest/442237

    Better yet, turn the kids and their parents over to ICE.

    Nah, just a fantasy there…

    Funny how they are doing this because there aren’t enough uninsured Madisonians?

    Why do we need Obamacare again?

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36. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 9:34 am

    Don’t worry, be happy!

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    It’s not the Depression, top Obama adviser says

    By Carolyn Lochhead

    (03-10) 04:00 PDT Washington – — Former UC Berkeley economist and chairwoman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer acknowledged on Monday the parallels between today’s economic contraction and the Great Depression but said that as bad as this one is, it “pales in comparison to what our parents and grandparents experienced in the 1930s.”

    A foremost scholar of the Depression, Romer, 50, said the administration’s actions to counter the steep economic slide should be viewed in their entirety – not only the $787 billion stimulus passed by Congress last month but also efforts to stem home foreclosures, “stress tests” to determine the soundness of banks and the flooding of credit markets by the Federal Reserve.

    And if all that turns out not to be enough, Romer promised, “We’ll do whatever it takes.”

    Today’s eerie parallels with the Great Depression include a crash in real estate and stock prices similar to the 1929 stock market crash, bank failures and the global spread of the economy’s contraction.

    But as bad as the 8.1 U.S. unemployment rate is, Romer said it comes nowhere near the 25 percent rate of the 1930s. Many safety nets such as unemployment insurance and deposit insurance did not exist then, and the Federal Reserve allowed the money supply to contract sharply. Balanced budgets, not stimulus spending, were the norm.

    The Obama administration is increasingly turning to Romer, whose sunny visage and always-polite persona never wilts even under a Fox News interrogation, to respond to rising criticism of its policies.

    Critics on the left say the administration’s stimulus is too small and its interventions with banks too slow and ad hoc. Critics on the right accuse the administration of sowing uncertainty and leading the country toward European-style socialism.

    Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Romer expressed faith that the political system would be able to “power through” another expensive bank rescue if that is what is needed.

    One of the biggest headaches facing the administration is the widespread belief among independent economists that U.S. banks might need as much as $2 trillion on top of the $700 billion Congress allocated last fall. The four largest U.S. banks, Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, are weighed down in varying degrees by bad mortgage loans and other “toxic waste.”

    The Treasury is conducting “stress tests” of banks to determine their health – a process Romer compared to the “bank holiday” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared during the Depression, ordering banks closed so their books could be checked and then closing 10 percent of them.

    Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has come under criticism for not announcing a concrete plan for the banks. There is wide agreement that the economy will not recover until the banks are fixed, much as Japan languished through the 1990s under similar circumstances.

    Congress has no appetite to spend more jaw-dropping sums on banks.

    Romer acknowledged the hostility but said the situation would be much worse had the initial rescue not staved off a financial collapse. “No congressman likes to have to go back to his or her constituents and say, ‘I know you don’t see much, but it would have been much worse,’” Romer said. “But that’s the truth.” If more money is needed, she said, “We’ll have to power though. These are difficulties, but I have great faith.”

    She downplayed calls for a second economic stimulus, saying this one is big and needs to be given time to work. Although her estimate that it will save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs is less than the 4.4 million jobs already lost, she said the stimulus “is only one of the things we’re doing. … We think the totality of the program is exactly what the economy needs.” …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....16C108.DTL

    But will even the Obama administration be able to counteract the incessant “Depression” chants from the media?

    I also wonder whether Romer’s “whatever it takes” includes realizing they’re repeating all FDR’s mistakes and the eventual realization that they need to lower taxes and drive private businesses in order to turn the economy around.

    Nah, didn’t think so.

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37. BillK

    March 10, 2009 at 9:54 am

    The ultra-wacko left is at it again.

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    FBI investigates firebombing of UCLA researcher’s car

    No one was injured in last week’s incident at home of faculty member using animals to study schizophrenia and drug addiction.

    By Julie Cart

    The FBI is looking into the firebombing of a vehicle owned by a UCLA neuroscientist who was targeted by an anti-animal research group for using primates in his study of psychiatric disorders.

    The March 7 incident involving a homemade incendiary device took place outside the faculty member’s home and caused no injuries, according to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. The UCLA professor, who researches treatments for schizophrenia, drug addiction and other disorders, was not identified.

    The firebombing is one in a series of aggressive acts aimed at university researchers who use animals in medical studies, UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said. In other cases, firebombs have been left on doorsteps and in homes, vehicles have been vandalized and researchers have received threatening phone calls and e-mails.

    The harassment led to a court order last year that has since been converted into a preliminary injunction banning the distribution of researchers’ personal information on websites and fliers.

    Eimiller said the investigation of Saturday’s incident will be conducted by a Joint Terrorism Task Force that includes the FBI, the LAPD, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the UCLA Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

    The Animal Liberation Front posted a message on its website Monday from a group that claimed responsibility for the firebombing.

    UCLA is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in the incident.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/lo.....0231.story

    Save the animals!

    But unborn humans?

    Just tissue to be used however “science” sees fit, of course.

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38. BannedbytheTaliban

    March 10, 2009 at 10:21 am

    You see, we are all wrong. Spending and more government is the answer to the impending depression. The USAtoday told me so:

    Depression lessons: Keep on spending

    By David J. Lynch, USA TODAY

    First, critics said the government’s massive $800 billion economic jump-start was too much. Now, with unemployment spiking, some say maybe it’s not enough. And yet, as Christina Romer, head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Monday, the measure has barely taken effect.

    In a speech to the left-of-center Brookings Institution, Romer brushed aside talk that the ailing economy will require a second shot of fiscal adrenaline next year. “We need to let the medicine work for a while,” she said.

    But citing lessons from the Great Depression, she said the government must keep spending to sustain the economy until a recovery is well established.

    …Then, though the unemployment rate remained stuck in double digits, President Franklin Roosevelt tightened spending and levied the first Social Security payroll taxes, which drained more purchasing power from private hands. The Federal Reserve, at the same time, doubled reserve requirements for banks. That one-two punch dealt the economy a blow that added two years to the Depression, Romer said.

    http://www.usatoday.com/money/.....sons_N.htm

    The prolonging of the depression associated with FDR and the New Deal was due entirely to the fact that the New Deal wasn’t big enough. This ultra-liberal economist Romer told me so. Although she did admit raising taxes was bad for the economy, an amazing omission in itself.

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39. imnewatthis

    March 11, 2009 at 4:34 am

    I was thinking the exact same as dulcimergrl.

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40. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 10:21 am

    If you haven’t read about “Air Pelosi” yet, from Judicial Watch:

    Judicial Watch Uncovers Documents Detailing Pelosi’s Repeated Requests for Military Travel

    House Speaker Issued Unprecedented Demands for Military Aircraft and Wasted Taxpayer Resources with Last Minute Cancellations

    Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s multiple requests for military air travel. The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), include internal DOD email correspondence detailing attempts by DOD staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s last minute cancellations and changes. The following are a few highlights from the documents, which are linked in full below:

    In response to a series of requests for military aircraft, one Defense Department official wrote, “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi's team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend?…[T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case’…” The email also notes that Pelosi’s office had, “a history of canceling many of their past requests.”

    One DOD official complained about the “hidden costs” associated with the speaker’s last minute changes and cancellations. “We have…folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets etc.”

    The documents include a discussion of House Ethics rules and Defense Department policies as they apply to the speaker’s requests for staff, spouses and extended family to accompany her on military aircraft. In May 2008, for example, Pelosi requested that her husband join her on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) into Iraq. The DOD explained to Pelosi that the agency has a written policy prohibiting spouses from joining CODEL’s into combat zones.

    Documents obtained from the U.S. Army include correspondence from Speaker Pelosi’s office requesting an Army escort and three military planes to transport Pelosi and other members of Congress to Cleveland, Ohio, for the funeral services of the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Pelosi noted in her letter of August 22, 2008, that such a request, labeled “Operation Tribute” was an “exception to standard policy.”

    The documents also detail correspondence from intermediaries for Speaker Pelosi issuing demands for certain aircraft and expressing outrage when requested military planes were not available. “It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable…The speaker will want to know where the planes are…” wrote Kay King, Director of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs. In a separate email, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King writes, “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset [s]peaker.”

    During another email exchange DOD staff advised Kay King that one Pelosi military aircraft request could not be met because of “crew rest requirements” and offered to help secure commercial travel. Kay King responded: “We appreciate the efforts to help the codel [sic] fly commercially but you know the problem that creates with spouses. If we can find another way to assist with military assets, we would like to do that.”

    Speaker Pelosi came under fire in 2007 for requesting a 42-seat Air Force carrier to ferry the Speaker and her staff back and forth between San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was allowed access to a 12-seat commuter jet for security reasons after the events of 9/11.

    “Taken together, these documents show that Speaker Pelosi treats the Air Force like her personal airline,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Not only does Speaker Pelosi issue unreasonable requests for military travel, but her office seems unconcerned about wasting taxpayer money with last minute cancellations and other demands.” …

    http://www.judicialwatch.org/n.....ary-travel

    Not at all surprising, but rarely has the hypocrisy been so bare-faced.

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41. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 10:26 am

    What a shock, the ACLU found a liberal judge that agrees with them again, and law enforcement takes it in the shorts.

    From the Denver Post:

    Weld ID-theft case put on hold

    By Monte Whaley

    GREELEY — An identity-theft investigation involving more than 1,000 alleged undocumented workers in Weld County was essentially suspended Tuesday by a visiting judge concerned about the probe’s legality.

    Larimer County District Judge James H. Hiatt ordered all documents — paper and electronic — that were seized by sheriff’s investigators during a search of Amalia’s Translation and Tax Service in Greeley last fall be handed over to court officials by Friday.

    Hiatt also signed off on a decision by Weld District Attorney Ken Buck to hold off on seeking any more indictments in the case until April 13, when Hiatt rules on whether the search of Amalia’s was constitutional.

    Hiatt’s decision came a day after Weld District Judge James Hartmann threw out evidence investigators had seized during their search of Amalia’s as part of a separate criminal case.

    Hiatt is presiding over a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against Buck and Sheriff John Cooke on behalf of Amalia Cerrillo, the owner of the tax service, and four other people.

    The ACLU claims Buck and Cooke illegally seized the tax records of 1,338 alleged illegal immigrants and began arresting and charging some of them with identity theft or criminal impersonation.

    Hiatt’s ruling Tuesday was a victory for privacy rights, said Reid Neureiter, an attorney representing the ACLU. “This basically stops the investigation because the judge saw this was a violation of basic constitutional rights.”

    At least 100 suspects have already been indicted or arrested as part of the investigation into Amalia’s. Those cases will go forward and the constitutionality of each will have to be decided individually, Neureiter said.

    Hiatt ruled Tuesday after a day-and-a-half-long hearing.

    ACLU lawyer Elizabeth Harris told the judge that the warrant issued for the search of Amalia’s was part of a “broad fishing expedition.” …

    http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11882903

    Aren’t judges great?

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42. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 4:12 pm

    Hmmm, do you think the Obama administration will “stick with the science” on this or let feel-good ethanol worship get in the way?

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Motor makers wary of ethanol increase

    15% in gasoline could do damage, some say

    By Rick Barrett

    An effort to raise the 10% limit on ethanol in motor fuel has misfired with engine-makers.

    Last week, the nation’s ethanol producers asked the Environmental Protection Agency to allow a 15% blend of the fuel additive with gasoline, which could increase its use by billions of gallons a year.

    Ethanol is a fuel additive made from corn. A U.S. Department of Energy study has shown that a 15% blend has no adverse effects on an automobile’s performance, maintenance or emissions controls, according to Growth Energy, a coalition of ethanol producers.

    Increasing the ethanol blend also is a common-sense solution to economic, energy and environmental challenges, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, Growth Energy’s co-chairman, said in a statement. Increasing its use could create thousands of jobs in the biofuels industry, which has been hammered by overbuilding of ethanol refineries.

    “If the EPA acts swiftly, a higher blend of ethanol will help us jump-start the economy while further reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” Clark said.

    But automakers and the makers of outdoor power equipment say that science has not yet shown whether higher levels of ethanol in gasoline are acceptable for engines.

    Boat engines, chain saws, lawn mowers, snowmobiles, motorcycles, generators and other small-engine equipment could be permanently damaged from using a 15% ethanol blend, said Kris Kiser, executive director of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, which represents Wisconsin engine manufacturers Briggs & Stratton Co. and Kohler Co.

    “We have very real concerns,” Kiser said, including poor engine performance and overheating.

    Of 28 engines tested by the Department of Energy using 15% ethanol, all had significant problems, he said.

    Ford Motor Co. has said it would endorse a 15% ethanol blend, although others in the automotive industry aren’t convinced that it wouldn’t damage vehicle engine parts.

    “We don’t know what the cumulative effects are over thousands of miles,” said John Cabaniss, energy and environment director for the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/41064002.html

    Perhaps that’s the President’s real plan – destroy all existing car engines, requiring everyone to buy the little greenie vehicles they’ll make GM make and force Americans to buy.

    There’s your stimulus…

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43. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 4:19 pm

    That sound you hear is the heads of the NEA exploding; the chosen one will have to backpedal quickly, I assume.

    From the AP:

    Teacher merit pay essential, Obama says

    He praises charter schools as he outlines education plan

    Washington – President Barack Obama called Tuesday for tying teachers’ pay to student performance and expanding innovative charter schools Tuesday, embracing ideas that have provoked hostility from members of teachers unions.

    He also suggested longer school days – and years – to help American children compete in the world.

    In his first major speech on education, Obama said the United States must drastically improve student achievement to regain lost international standing.

    “The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens,” he said. “We have everything we need to be that nation . . . and yet, despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us.”

    Charter school advocates in Milwaukee reacted enthusiastically. Representatives from Wisconsin and Milwaukee’s teachers unions offered more cautious endorsements, saying the details needed to be known.

    “It’s hard because it’s so philosophical; you have to look at specifics and how they’re tied to the bargaining process,” said Dennis Oulahan, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association. “But he’s talking about programs that are developed with teachers and not imposed on teachers, and we’re in favor of that.”

    Obama’s solutions include teacher pay and charter school proposals that have met resistance among members of teachers unions, which constitute an important segment of the Democratic Party.

    Obama acknowledged that conflict, saying, “Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom.”

    Despite their history on the issues, some union leaders publicly welcomed Obama’s words, saying it seems clear he wants to include them in his decisions in a way President George W. Bush did not.

    “We finally have an education president,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers. “We really embrace the fact that he’s talked about both shared responsibility and making sure there is a voice for teachers, something that was totally lacking in the last eight years.”

    The president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel said, “President Obama always says he will do it with educators, not to them.”

    “That is a wonderful feeling, for the president of the United States to acknowledge and respect the professional knowledge and skills that those educators bring to every job in the school.”

    Van Roekel said Obama’s call for teacher performance pay does not necessarily mean that raises or bonuses would be tied to student test scores. It could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools, he said.

    However, administration officials said later they do mean higher pay based on student achievement, among other things.

    “What you want to do is really identify the best and brightest by a range of metrics, including student achievement,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview.

    White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said certification is part of the mix. “But the president believes that school systems can work with teachers and parents to come up with a system that rewards our best teachers with more pay for their excellence in the classroom.”

    The union leaders also liked that Obama took on Republicans in his speech, saying the GOP has refused to spend more money on early childhood programs despite evidence they make a difference.

    There also has been considerable friction over charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate independently, free from some of the rules that constrain regular schools. Many teachers are concerned that such schools drain money and talent from regular schools.

    However, Obama said state limits on numbers of charter schools aren’t “good for our children, our economy or our country.” He said many of the innovations in education today are happening in charter schools. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/u.....68832.html

    Lots of tap dancing going on by the NEA; it should be entertaining to see how they and the administration “kiss and make up” here.

    Of course many of the “early programs” are things like expansion of paid breakfasts and such.

    Still it’s surprising to see His highness and the NEA talking past each other on this.

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    • pdsand

      March 11, 2009 at 4:49 pm

      It all depends on the specifics of the program I guess. I know when the NSPS came out for DoD civilians, everybody got upset because the specifics were that they took the pool of money usually devoted to annual pay increases, and under the NSPS everybody competed for a portion of the increase based on their ratings. There was no additional money committed to pay, and we were basically competing for a piece of what would have been each other’s annual pay raise. Nice.
      I bet if they come up with a system like this for teachers, you can almost guarantee it will involve nothing of this sort. There won’t be any teachers’ pay that stays the same or goes down, and a lot of teachers’ pay going up.
44. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    He repeats the big lie, again.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Obama says critics can’t just ’say no’

    By Craig Gilbert

    Washington – Addressing his handling of the financial crisis, President Barack Obama said Wednesday that “the buck stops with me, and we’re responsible” but challenged Republican critics to do more than “say no.”

    “Opposition is always easy. Saying no to something is easy. Saying yes to something and figuring out how to solve problems and govern, that’s hard,” Obama said in interview with a group of reporters from the Journal Sentinel and more than a dozen other newspapers Wednesday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

    “I’m not impressed by just being able to say no,” said Obama. “I think what will be interesting is the degree to which my Republican colleagues start putting forward an affirmative agenda that’s not based on ideology but on the very real struggles and pain that people are feeling right now around the country and how do we get this economy back on its feet.”

    Asked whether he thought he had done a good enough job communicating his approach to fixing the financial mess, Obama said, “I think that we can always do a better job.”

    He added:

    “Keep in mind it’s only been two weeks since I gave a joint session speech to Congress, the day after which everybody said, ‘Boy that was really clear’ … the reviews were pretty good. I recognize, I think, the degree of concern that people have. We’ve been in office all of seven weeks so far. This is a crisis that was eight years in the making, maybe longer in certain aspects of it,” Obama said.

    “And the buck stops with me and we’re responsible, but it’s going to take some time, and the truth of the matter is the American people I think understand that it’s going to take some time,” he said.

    Obama said the main message he would be delivering in the coming days and weeks is “that it’s going to take some time to get out of this deep hole we’re in, but we’re going to get out.”

    The president conceded that “the one area where there’s still significant uncertainty has to do with the bank issue, and that’s obviously a particular concern to Wall Street.”

    But he said the government had to go through the process first of conducting “stress tests” on banks.

    “What we don’t want to do is to prejudge those tests or make a lot of statements that cause a lot of nervousness around banks that are already having difficulty right now,” he said. “So on that particular issue we’ve got to, I think, explain to the American people, and as I said we can always do better, why it is so important to get lending going again, get credit flowing to businesses and consumers.” …

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/u.....08502.html

    So He both blames the banking crisis on Bush again, ignoring that it was actually the fault of ACORN, Barney Frank and other Democrats who saw no issues with the way Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being run and rejected Bush’s calls for increased regulation, and completely ignores the complete plans Republicans have offered more than once that Pelosi and Reid have summarily dismissed and have of course failed on party-line votes.

    Of course the reporter involved likely agrees with Obama and has probably never even read the Congressional Record nor has he performed a Thomas search to see what the Republicans have, in fact done rather than “just say no.”

    Heck, the man he claims is “in charge of” the Republican party even wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial outlining his plan:

    My Bipartisan Stimulus

    Let’s cut taxes, as I want, and spend more, as Obama would like.

    By Rush Limbaugh …

    http://online.wsj.com/article/.....26749.html

    Funny how if these comments were coming out of a Republican’s mouth, each statement would be checked and vetted, but coming out of the Messiah’s mouth, it of course is taken as Holy Scripture.

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45. Consilience

    March 11, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    BillK, as you know TAO is not driven by reality, he is driven by ideology, and his ideology is Marxist. I’m not the least bit surprised that he continues to defend Freddie/Fannie/Banking Queen Frank/Countrywide Dodd/ACORN criminals and blame Bush. Bush deserves credit for efforts in 2003, but started this bailout spending which is compounding the original problem—obfuscating the real culprits while giving the “prescriptions” from DC legitimacy and cover. Bush and the GOP senators who fell for TARP I should not be celebrated, but lumped in with the elitist-statist “new world” order crowd. They are not our friends, nor friends of Liberty. (BTW, neither is TAO & Co.)

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46. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 5:08 pm

    Uh oh – the Democrats can never let this stand.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Menard wins big bucks tax case

    By Don Walker

    John Menard, one of the state’s wealthiest residents, has won a big federal appeals court case that turned on whether his salary was too excessive as the owner of Menards Inc., the nationally known home-improvement chain.

    The three-member 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously decided Tuesday to reverse a U.S. Tax Court decision last year that said the Eau Claire multi-millionaire owes the Internal Revenue Service approximately $5.5 million in back taxes. That was down from an earlier ruling that said Menard owed $5.7 million.

    In its original decision, the U.S. Tax Court said that, of the $20.6 million Menard received in 1998 – the tax year in dispute – only $7 million should count as salary with the rest a dividend.

    The breakdown is important and was the crux of the case because salaries can be deducted as a business expense but dividends cannot. It was for that reason that the U.S. Tax Court said Menard Inc., owed $5.7 million.

    Robert E. Dallman, the Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren lawyer representing Menard, declined to comment on Tuesday’s court decision. Menard could not be reached for comment.

    The federal appeals court ruling concerns the 1998 tax year, but the decision is expected to affect subsequent tax years. The federal government can appeal Tuesday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Even though the federal appeals court ruling turned on one tax year, court records indicate that the case may affect at least five other subsequent tax years.

    Writing for the three-member court, Federal Judge Richard A. Posner said, “We conclude that in ruling that Menard’s compensation was excessive in 1998, the Tax Court committed clear error, and its decision is therefore reversed.”

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/41087022.html

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    • pdsand

      March 11, 2009 at 6:11 pm

      Since it’s constitution be damned anyway, why don’t they just pass a bill of attainder to fix this situation?
47. proreason

    March 11, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    If it wasn’t so routine, it would be worth calling The Moron a f**g liar:

    Obama defends pet projects and signs spending bill

    WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, sounding weary of criticism over federal earmarks, defended Congress’ pet projects Wednesday as he signed an “imperfect” $410 billion measure with thousands of examples. But he said the spending does need tighter restraint and listed guidelines to do it. Obama, accused of hypocrisy by Republicans for embracing billions of dollars of earmarks in the legislation, said they can be useful and noted that he has promised to curb, not eliminate them.

    On another potentially controversial matter, the president also issued a “signing statement” with the bill, saying several of its provisions raised constitutional concerns and would be taken merely as suggestions. He has criticized President George W. Bush for often using such statements to claim the right to ignore portions of new laws, and on Monday he said his administration wouldn’t follow those issued by Bush unless authorized by the new attorney general.

    …

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obama_spending

    Not only did he sign the bill with 8,000+ earmarks, he defended them.

    But not so strongly that he was willing to sign it in front of cameras. Well, why not a trip on Air Force One to San Fran to celebrate the good work!!

    And of course, he also gets the hypocrit of the day award (against interstellar competition), by adding a “signing statement”, the same thing libwits and he routinely raked bushhitler over the coals for.

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48. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 11:48 pm

    Poor Barry, all these pesky problems.

    From the AP:

    China Demands U.S. Navy End Surveillance Missions

    BEIJING — China’s Defense Ministry is demanding that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off China’s southern coast following a weekend confrontation between an American vessel and Chinese ships.

    In its first public comment on the issue, the ministry has repeated earlier Chinese statements that the unarmed U.S. ship was operating illegally inside China’s exclusive economic zone.

    Ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said in a statement faxed Thursday to reporters that, “The Chinese side’s carrying out of routine enforcement and safeguarding measures within its exclusive economic zone was entirely appropriate and legal.”

    Huang said: “We demand the United States respect our legal interests and security concerns, and take effective measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508952,00.html

    Who cares about “international waters” – the US was in China’s “exclusive economic zone.”

    Yeah.

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49. BillK

    March 11, 2009 at 11:52 pm

    We can’t have effective law enforcement. Not with the left in control.

    From a thrilled AP:

    High-Profile Arizona Sheriff’s Department Target of Federal Probe

    PHOENIX — Federal authorities have told a high-profile Arizona sheriff that they will investigate his department over allegations of discriminatory practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

    The U.S. Justice Department said in a letter delivered Tuesday to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that the investigation will focus on alleged patterns of discrimination based on a person’s national origin.

    Arpaio told The Associated Press that he will cooperate with the Justice Department.

    Arpaio, who describes himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and is best known for feeding jail inmates green bologna sandwiches, clothing them in pink underwear, and making them work on chain gangs, received praise for his anti-immigration efforts from many who believe the federal government isn’t doing enough to remove people in the U.S. illegally.

    But his raids and sweeps of illegal immigrants in Phoenix and nearby Guadalupe have drawn protests from community leaders and civil liberties advocates. Arpaio, a Republican, has also been criticized for letting thousands of felony warrants go unserved while he chased illegal immigrants. …

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,508586,00.html

    You know, community leaders like el Presidente.

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50. canary

    March 12, 2009 at 12:50 am

    Feds spending millions on Kennedy legacy in Mass.
    Associated Press Writer Steve Leblanc, Associated Press Writer – Wed Mar 11, 9:12 pm ET AP – Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., reacts to the crowd after he arrived with President Barack Obama at the White …
    Slideshow:Sen. Edward Kennedy Play Video Video:Kennedy: Now is the time for health care reform AP Play Video Video:Sen. Kennedy’s Birthday Salute ABC News BOSTON – More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.

    The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.

    The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy’s mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project.

    The $22 million JFK library earmark was sponsored by fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John Kerry, who is also a top sponsor for the money for the Kennedy Senate Institute. Kerry defended the library project, which he said is needed to upgrade the facility.

    “This National Archives project will eliminate the worst archival storage space problem in the presidential library system and it will facilitate six years of work to expand the library,” Kerry said in a statement. “This shovel-ready project will also bring much-needed jobs to the area.”

    A proposal to build a national institute on the U.S. Senate and to name it after Kennedy has been under discussion since 2003, but accelerated after Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer.

    Local officials last year announced they were seeking up to $100 million to build the institute, which they said would focus on the Senate in general and Kennedy’s more than four decades of service to the body. The facility will be located in Boston on a four-acre plot near the JFK library.

    About $20 million has already been raised for the institute, including contributions from drug companies, insurance companies and hospitals. Tentative plans called for a replica of the Senate chamber itself, as well as programs to train new senators.

    The billions in earmarks in the federal spending bill have been a source of contention.

    President Barack Obama signed the bill which he described as imperfect. He said it must signal an “end to the old way of doing business.”

    Critics led by Republican Sen. John McCain have denounced the 8,000 pet project contained in the bill as pork.

    So, Obama who should have stuck with poetry and writing books or stuck to anthropology, is claiming a crisis, but building entertainment for a politican that does not represent this country.

    If Obama wants building jobs, then how about building cheaper housing for people losing their homes.
    The books could be useful to burn in fires for the homeless.

    How many in this country will ever get to this library? Talk about taking from the poor and giving it to a politican. Shame shame.
    If some politicans want to show their respect then pitch their money in and buy Kennedy a plaque to hang on his wall. Or a special grave mark, or statue on top of his grave. A car sliding off a bridge, would be cool.

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    • caligirl9

      March 12, 2009 at 12:59 am

      Ya know, if you were from another planet and came across all of these Kennedy memorials, etc., you might think they were all really something and grandly important in the grand scheme of the history of the world.

      *crickets chirping*
    • canary

      March 12, 2009 at 1:59 am

      well, I think they should have gotten an iron clad will, that Ted was leaving all his money for lower-income housing for those losing their homes. There was no rush to give the Kennedy’s all this money. They are loaded, and I thought they were suppose to give to the poor. The poor will never see or use this money. Just more federal workers. More nepotism.
51. canary

    March 12, 2009 at 2:24 am

    Why don’t we let the gitmo prisoners stay in the library while it’s being expanded.

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52. BillK

    March 12, 2009 at 3:21 am

    The AP is overjoyed at this one.

    Alaska Gov. Palin’s daughter, fiance break up

    By Rachel D’Oro

    Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby.

    Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided “a while ago” to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family’s home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.

    He also said some details of the breakup, rumors of which had been swirling on the Internet, were inaccurate.

    Bristol Palin said in a statement that she was devastated about a report on Star magazine’s Web site that quoted Levi’s sister, Mercede, as saying Bristol “makes it nearly impossible” to visit the teenagers’ infant son, Tripp. The baby was born Dec. 27.

    “Unfortunately, my family has seen many people say and do many things to `cash in’ on the Palin name,” said the statement, which was issued through the governor’s political action committee. “Sometimes that greed clouds good judgment and the truth.”

    SarahPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton did not immediately respond to calls seeking further information. The governor’s spokesman, Bill McAllister, declined comment. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....134D24.DTL

    Of course the left-wing sites are already awash with comments calling Palin a teenaged single mother and asking whether Ann Coulter will apologize for her comments now…

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53. BillK

    March 12, 2009 at 3:26 am

    I can foresee a new ad campaign – “See San Francisco – before it’s too late.”

    From an all-believing San Franciso Chronicle:

    Ocean expected to rise 5 feet along coastlines

    By Jane Kay

    03-11) 18:04 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Driven by global warming, the ocean is expected to rise nearly 5 feet along California’s coastline by the end of the century, hitting San Francisco Bay the hardest of all, according to a state study released Wednesday.

    Nearly half a million people and $100 billion in property, two-thirds of it concentrated around the bay, are at risk of major flooding, researchers found in the most comprehensive study to date of how climate change will alter the state’s coastal areas.

    Rising seas, storms and extreme high tides are expected to send saltwater into low-lying areas, flooding freeways, the Oakland and San Francisco airports, hospitals, power plants, schools and sewage plants. Thousands of structures at risk are the homes of low- and middle-income people, the study said.

    Vast wetlands that nourish fish and birds and act as a buffer against flooding will be inundated and could turn into dead pools. Constructing seawalls and levees, if needed, could cost $14 billion plus an annual maintenance cost of $1.4 billion, the study said.

    The study shows a greater sea-level rise for California than previous studies because it takes into account recent changes in glaciers and ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....16DEBF.DTL

    The key of course is to always predict things out far enough that no one alive today will readily be able to point out the fact that the predictions did not, in fact, come true.

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54. BillK

    March 12, 2009 at 4:26 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    S.F. police union accuses Ayers in 1970 bombing

    By Demian Bulwa

    (03-11) 17:50 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Leaders of San Francisco’s police officers union have accused Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, of taking part in the 1970 bombing of a city police station that killed a sergeant.

    The union leveled the charge in a letter to a conservative organization lobbying for arrests in the case, but said it had not been in contact with investigators and had no new evidence related to the bombing, which killed Sgt. Brian McDonnell.

    Instead, the union cited information from a former Bay Area resident, Larry Grathwohl, who is working with the conservative group, America’s Survival Inc. of Maryland. Grathwohl asserts that he infiltrated the Weather Underground as an FBI informant and heard Ayers confess to a role in the bombing.

    Ayers has denied any involvement in the bombing and, in January, called Grathwohl a “paid dishonest person” in an interview with The Chronicle.

    The union’s accusation surprised some authorities. According to a source familiar with the probe, who spoke on condition of anonymity, investigators have found no evidence that links the Weather Underground to the bombing.

    America’s Survival is planning to hold a press conference today at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the case and the union’s letter.

    “There are irrefutable and compelling reasons to believe that Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn … are largely responsible for the bombing of Park Police Station,” the letter says.

    The letter, dated Feb. 24, is signed by union President Gary Delagnes, Vice President Kevin Martin, Secretary Tony Montoya, Treasurer Martin Halloran and Sergeant at Arms Christopher Breen.

    Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, did not return a call Wednesday. Dohrn, a law professor at Northwestern University, was out of the country.

    Martin said he wrote the letter after he was contacted a few weeks ago by Cliff Kincaid, the nonprofit group’s president. Martin said he trusted Grathwohl, a Cincinnati resident who once lived in Castro Valley.

    “It’s coming directly from a person who had close, confidential conversations with Ayers and members of the Weather Underground,” Martin said. “We have no reason to doubt his assertions.”

    Martin said the union wanted to “bring this case to attention, especially because Bill Ayers has been on a speaking tour. His actions have elicited this type of response.”

    The attack happened Feb. 16, 1970, when a bomb placed on a window ledge of Park Station at Waller Street and Kezar Drive killed McDonnell and injured eight other officers. The case got attention two years ago when prosecutors charged a group of alleged former Black Liberation Army members in the 1971 shooting at the Ingleside Station that killed Sgt. John Young.

    A grand jury that investigated the Ingleside case in 2005 also looked at the Park Station bombing, but the results of the probe were not released. No one has ever been charged with McDonnell’s death. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....16DHA4.DTL

    It will be fun to see how this one plays out.

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    • caligirl9

      March 12, 2009 at 9:55 pm

      I have been reading the comments on this article. Remember, the SF Bay Area is chock full ‘o kool-aid drinkers, and many are saying “so what, this isn’t TCO’s fault? This has no bearing on today …”

      I think it is a thing called character … lacking in so many people who still believe that good will come from the messiah’s admin.
55. proreason

    March 12, 2009 at 9:39 pm

    Oops.

    45 percent of world’s wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO

    NEW YORK (Reuters) – Private equity company Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis.

    “Between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half,” Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. “This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime.” …

    http://www.reuters.com/article.....6Z20090310

    Goldarn it. Drooling Barney only meant to destroy 35% of the world’s wealth. Now he’s gonna have to make up about $160 trillion dollars…..thank god he’s a Hahvad graduate.

    I don’t really believe this report. If it’s true, it would mean that the U.S. has lost about $45 Trillion in wealth since we at about $100 Trillion in late 2007. (We have about 25% of the world’s assets, btw).

    But hey 45 trillion, morty five gazillion……when you are pissed off at the world because you are a slobbering deviant who can’t even get another slobbering deviant to look at you, there is no limit to the revenge you are owed, right?

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    • proreason

      March 13, 2009 at 1:00 pm

      WSJ says American’s family wealth dropped 18% or 11 trillion in 2008.

      But note that wealth also dropped significantly from Oct to Dec 2007, and from Jan to now 2009, so the overall drop is probably 20-25%.

      http://online.wsj.com/article/.....08675.html

      These number are close to what I’ve been saying for months. Who needs “journalists” anyway?

      One other point, an 18% drop of 11 trillion says that total American family wealth at the end of 2007 was 61 trillion. At peak, counting late 2007 the peak was probably 63 trillion. (The remainder of the 100 trillion I talk about regularly is business wealth).
56. BillK

    March 13, 2009 at 4:55 am

    An update, from PC Magazine:

    Palin Hacker Facing Three Additional Charges

    By Chloe Albanesius

    David Kernell is not having a good week.

    The college student who is accused of hacking into the private Yahoo e-mail account of Alaska governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is now facing three additional charges.

    Kernell, a 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee and the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell, has already been charged with gaining unlawful access to stored communications and obtaining information from a protected computer via interstate communication – charges that could carry up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

    A grand jury has now added wire fraud, identity theft, and obstruction of justice to the list, according to a March 6 filing. In addition, the count alleging unlawful access to a computer “has been significantly changed,” though the filing did not go into detail.

    Kernell’s legal team intends to file a motion to dismiss the additional charges. As a result, the trial date has been pushed from May 19 until late September or early October.

    Kernell turned himself into authorities on Oct. 8. He is accused of hacking into Palin’s “gov.palin@yahoo.com” e-mail account on Sept. 16 by successfully navigating Yahoo’s password recovery system.

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/.....774,00.asp

    Kernell’s Dad, is, if you don’t recall, a Democratic representative.

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57. BillK

    March 13, 2009 at 5:04 am

    Sure, there couldn’t possibly be terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S.

    Not when this is happening.

    From CNN:

    Police: U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel

    By Ed Lavandera

    LAREDO, Texas (CNN) — Rosalio Reta sits at a table inside a Laredo Police Department interrogation room. A detective, sitting across the table, asks him how it all started.

    Reta, in Spanish street slang, describes his initiation as an assassin, at the age of 13, for the Mexican Gulf Cartel, one of the country’s two major drug gangs.

    “I thought I was Superman. I loved doing it, killing that first person,” Reta says on the videotape obtained by CNN. “They tried to take the gun away, but it was like taking candy from kid.”

    Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a thee-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors. The third was arrested by Mexican authorities and stabbed to death in prison there three days later.

    In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border.

    CNN has also obtained detailed court records as well as several hours of police interrogation videos. The detective sitting across the table from Reta and Cardona in those sessions is Robert Garcia. He’s a veteran of the Laredo Police Department and one of the few officers who has questioned the young men.

    “One thing you wonder all the time: what made them this way?” Garcia told CNN. “They were just kids themselves, waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox, waiting around for the order to be given.”

    Over a nearly one-year period starting in June 2005, the border town of Laredo, Texas, saw a string of seven murders. At first glance, the violence looked like isolated, gangland-style killings. But investigators started suspecting something more sinister.

    Then Noe Flores was gunned down in a clear case of mistaken identity. Investigators found a fingerprint on a cigarette box inside the suspected shooter’s get-away car. That clue unraveled the chilling reality and led police to arrest Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta.

    Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.

    “There are sleeper cells in the U.S.,” said Detective Garcia. “They’re here, they’re here in the United States.”

    The cases against Cardona and Reta — both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder — shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

    Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called “Los Zetas,” a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They’re considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. “Los Zetas” liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

    Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

    The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

    As the teens became more immersed in the cartel lifestyle, their appearance changed. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Reta’s face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of “Santa Muerte,” the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.

    “These organizations, these cartels, they function like a Fortune 500 company,” Webb County, Texas, prosecutor Uriel Druker said. “We have to remember that the United States is the market they are trying to get to.” …

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/.....index.html

    See, this is all Bush’s fault because they couldn’t find $8/hour jobs in the U.S.…

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58. BillK

    March 13, 2009 at 5:09 am

    Jim Cramer is now persona non grata for daring to criticize The One.

    From CNN:

    Stewart slings barbs face-to-face with Cramer

    NEW YORK (CNN) — After a week of pointed verbal barbs, host Jon Stewart sat face-to-face with financial analyst Jim Cramer on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and continued the assault Thursday. Stewart blamed Cramer and cable network CNBC for being irresponsible cheerleaders in the lead-up to the stock market meltdown.

    Stewart, whose acerbic brand of satire centers largely on the political news of the day, has held Cramer’s frenetic, nearly cartoonish, stock-advice show, “Mad Money,” and other CNBC programming up as examples of an anything-goes attitude that contributed to the financial collapse.

    “I understand you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a [expletive] game,” Stewart said during the recorded interview, segments of which aired on Thursday night. “When I watch that, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me.”

    Stewart’s blistering criticism of Cramer this week has included a censored, two-word phrase he spoke into the camera after airing video of Cramer enthusiastically urging viewers to buy stock in Bear Stearns.

    The global investment bank and brokerage firm collapsed soon after the comments aired and was eventually sold with stock prices less than one-fifth what they were when Cramer pushed them.

    Cramer has fired back. In a string of interviews with NBC news outlets affiliated with CNBC, Cramer disputed some of Stewart’s claims and noted times he’s made more cautious comments about the economy.

    In one interview, he sarcastically feigned distress at being attacked by a comedian and, on an appearance on Thursday’s “The Martha Stewart Show,” pounded a wad of dough with a rolling pin, pretending it was Stewart’s face.

    “Mr. Cramer, don’t you destroy enough dough on your own show … ?” Stewart said early in the program.

    After declaring he’s a “big fan of the show,” Cramer appeared contrite during the interview.

    “I think that everyone could come in under criticism because we all should have seen it more,” Cramer said. “I don’t think anyone should be spared in this environment.”

    Cramer pushed back very little in an interview far more serious than most that Stewart conducts.

    He complained when Stewart suggested CNBC’s reporters are “in bed” with Wall Street financiers and said he’s worked with government officials to try to crack down on abuses in the industry.

    “Absolutely, there’s shenanigans, and we should call them out,” Cramer said. “Everyone should. I should do a better job at it.” …

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBI.....index.html

    See, Obama’s not destroying the market, people never should have invested in the market in the first place, then we wouldn’t have these problems.

    Remember, there’s always someone else you can blame…

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59. canary

    March 13, 2009 at 5:26 am

    http://newsok.com/oklahoma-leg.....le/3352889

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    • canary

      March 13, 2009 at 5:30 am

      slipped. The above article is where Oklahoma is taking the funds from studying quitting cigerette smoking and voting instead to use the funds to study “ADULT STEM CELL” research, instead of tiny little stem cells from babys. cool huh?
60. BillK

    March 13, 2009 at 7:08 am

    From a recession from which “we may never recover” to things “not being so bad” now that he’s rammed through his stimulus program?!?!

    From an unquestioning AP:

    Obama Takes on Role of Confidence-Builder in Chief

    WASHINGTON — President Obama is embracing a mantle of confidence-builder in chief. Whether he is meeting with his own economic advisers or worried business leaders, his message is meant to be calm and reassuring — even in the wake of more bad economic news.

    Obama will have another opportunity to assert his optimism after he meets Friday with Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who now guides the president’s economic recovery advisory board. Volcker was preparing to brief Obama and his economic team on how the $787 billion stimulus package is working.

    Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s CEOs on Thursday, Obama defended his plans for pulling the economy out of a downward spiral, saying that his long-term view gives him reason to maintain optimism despite an uptick in unemployment and falling economic indicators.

    “I’ve never bought into these Malthusian, woe, Chicken Little, the earth is falling. I tend to be pretty optimistic,” said Obama, once a long-shot candidate for the White House. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t pretty optimistic.”

    The president boldly declared that the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and that he has seen public opinion seesaw without logic.

    “A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ‘Ooohh, we’re down on the dumps,”‘ he said. “And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment.”

    Obama disagreed with the choices.

    “I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” he added. “Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now.” …

    http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....bad-think/

    Ah, our waffler-in-chief.

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61. BillK

    March 13, 2009 at 7:18 am

    Funny when the left accuses the GOP of using the tactics of fear, no?

    From the AP:

    Scientists warn of ‘irreversible’ climate shifts

    By Jan M. Olsen

    Hundreds of leading scientists warned Thursday that global warming is accelerating beyond the worst predictions and threatening to trigger “irreversible” climate shifts on the planet.

    Saying there’s no excuse for inaction, the nearly 2,000 climate researchers meeting in Copenhagen urged policy-makers to “vigorously” implement the economic and technological tools available to cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

    Their stark message came at the end of a three-day conference aimed at updating the findings of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change before U.N. talks in December on a new global climate treaty.

    “The worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized,” the scientists said in a statement. “There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.”

    The climate change panel predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by the end of the century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee. But more recent research presented at the conference suggested that melting glaciers and ice sheets could help push the sea level up at least 20 inches (50 centimeters), and possibly as much as 39 inches (1 meter).

    “Recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change with poor nations and communities particularly at risk,” the statement said.

    It noted that policy-makers already have a range of tools to mitigate global warming. “But they must be vigorously and widely implemented to achieve the societal transformation required to de-carbonize economies,” it said. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....600D34.DTL

    Of course if they get the carbon caps they want, these scientists won’t be flying en masse to Copenhagen any more, will they?

    Why don’t they show us all how it’s to be done and teleconference?

    No, even enviro-whackos aren’t willing to live under the terms they want to impose on “the people.”

    But the most interesting thing here is the sea level rise.

    This group states:

    The climate change panel predicted a sea level rise of 7 to 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by the end of the century

    yet just yesterday California researchers said:

    Driven by global warming, the ocean is expected to rise nearly 5 feet along California’s coastline by the end of the century, hitting San Francisco Bay the hardest of all, according to a state study released Wednesday.

    23″ to “nearly” 60″?

    Wouldn’t you love to see the error bars on those graphs?

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    • sheehanjihad

      March 13, 2009 at 8:39 am

      Since this entire hoo hah is “irreversible”, yeah, sure…uh huh…..these dorks act like technology and demographics will remain static for 92 years, and somehow we will all remain helplessly stuck where we are and simply drown.

      Look, if our coastal areas are going to be inundated by five feet of water, simple math will tell you where the “new” coastline will be. Trot your butt out to where you predicted it will be in 90 years, buy up every last acre of property you can, and at the end of this century, you will be hailed as a visionary, and of course, be fabulously wealthy because you now own all the new prime real estate along both of the coasts.

      Oh, you can use the same fable to make anyone who lives there now move out…just scare them by fudging your numbers like they are doing now, and you will pick up fantastic tracts of land for a song. Even Altoad’s grandchildren will be fumingly jealous….and try to get by on what’s left of their inheritance that was made at the beginning of the century by the scam of the century….yeah!

      The main thing here is…..climate change cannot be “reversed”, “adjusted”, or anything. Period. However, human beings can and will adapt as the changes occur. The current chicken little’s mantra is for financial gain only, and they are depending on ignorance to foist their scam on the public.

      The nice part is, people are hurting in very real ways now due to the dismantling of our capitalist system by the socialist government, and they really could give a damn where the sea levels will be in 90 years. They are up to their necks in the real flood of economic destruction wrought by our clueless administration, and the chirping twits of global warming are nothing more than a nuisance.

      Just look at what is happening….they are losing credibility, so they up the ante on predictions of doom. That is the hallmark of snake oil sales….and people really dont give a damn anymore. The scam is wearing thin…
    • Gila Monster

      March 13, 2009 at 4:42 pm

      You’re right BillK, the GW zealots really should collectively stick to the same numbers if they desire even a remote resemblance of credibility in their rantings.

      Their claimed impending “catastrophic” sea level rises are so easily refuted, it’s almost laughable. A 23″ to nearly 60″ rise in sea level in San Francisco? Well, here is the actual data for SFO from the NOAA division that monitors mean sea levels around the US;

      http://tinyurl.com/cz7bmc

      Oops! The hundred year max trend for SFO only shows a rise of 0.66 feet, that would be 8 inches for the unwashed masses out there. In addition, look closely at the graph. Since the late 1990’s the data reflects a current downward trend.
      Surely, that can’t be right! Those damn GW deniers are selectively cherry-picking data to support their “man-made global warming doesn’t exist” position, they must be in cahoots with Rove, Cheney and Limbaugh.

      Well OK, how about the station graph for Alameda CA, directly across the bay from SFO;

      http://tinyurl.com/aku7b4

      Damn! That only shows a 0.27 foot rise (3.24 inches) in a hundred years and again, a recent downward trend. Rats!

      The other 14 CA sea level monitoring stations pretty much show the same trends with a maximum rise of 1.56 feet in North Spit CA to an actual decline in sea level of 0.21 feet in Crescent City CA. By the way, that NOAA site has info on stations all around the US and from other parts of the globe as well.

      As many here have stated before, the followers’ of the Goracle have never let those pesky “facts” stand in the way of a good alarm-ism story about “catastrophic” global warming.
    • Gila Monster

      March 14, 2009 at 2:25 am

      BTW, great posts BillK and SJ.
62. wardmama4

    March 13, 2009 at 11:12 am

    I don’t know if it is just me or is this another of the creepy ‘faux’ science going on now and more importantly, sort of like the plot to Minority Report?!? Either way, it seems to be just up The One’s ™ idological ally.

    Scientists a step closer to ‘reading minds’
    Financial Times.com
    By Clive Cookson, Science Editor

    Published: March 12 2009

    A machine to read the mind came a step closer on Thursday, when scientists at University College London released the results of an experiment in which brain scans revealed the location of people moving around a virtual reality environment.

    Demis Hassabis, co-author of the study, said it was “a small step towards the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity we were able to say what someone was thinking”.

    http://tinyurl.com/d8b7bw

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63. BannedbytheTaliban

    March 13, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    Meanwhile in Raleigh NC an activist judge is denying a parent the right to educate her childern as she sees fit.

    From WRAL:

    Wake judge orders home schoolers into public classrooms

    Raleigh, N.C. — A judge in Wake County said three Raleigh children need switch from home school to public school. Judge Ned Mangum is presiding over divorce proceeding of the children’s parents, Thomas and Venessa Mills.

    Venessa Mills was in the fourth year of home schooling her children who are 10, 11 and 12 years old. They have tested two years above their grade levels, she said.

    “We have math, reading; we have grammar, science, music,” Venessa Mills said.

    Her lessons also have a religious slant, which the judge said was the root of the problem.

    “My teaching is strictly out of the Bible, and it’s very clear. It is very evident so I just choose to follow the Bible,” Venessa Mills said.

    http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4727161/

    So to sum things up, this judge is denying these students a better education in favor of a sub-standard public education because the parent has the aduacity to include religion. Amazing, I mean, how else are these little kids going to grow up and vote democrat if we don’t endoctrinate them at a young age. And they need to learn to test at their grade level, how dare they excel! Don’t they know that makes the other kids look bad, racists white devils.

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64. canary

    March 13, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    TV Bridges founder that decapitated his wife, plead not guilty to the measly 2nd degree murder charges against him. NOW calls it an honor killing, victims rights advocates call it domestic. Authorities say the horrific scene, in the ritual manner the husband took care in placing her body parts and head, showed honor killing.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494785,00.html
    http://www.popeater.com/articl.....ads/346934
    http://www.danielpipes.org/blo.....urder.html

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    • sheehanjihad

      March 14, 2009 at 9:08 am

      All of the women in NOW, and the women victim’s rights advocates need to look at the crime scene photos, picture themselves in that situation, and hopefully get it through their thick skulls that trying to label a psychopathic beheading first degree murder of another human being simply because she didnt like being a slave as nothing more than an “honor killing”….is giving muslims a tacit approval of the killing of females for not following the tenants of Islam.

      This lunatic killed her because she wanted to be free from the oppressive ignorance called Islam. He planned it, he thought about it, he showed more pre meditation than anyone on the planet….and the idiot jerk DA’s office calls it second degree murder?? Oh, yeah, he’s an effing muslim….we cant be pissing those people off now, can we?

      I wish that the crime scene photos could be put up on huge billboards across the country, with huge letters saying “THIS IS ISLAM” so everyone could see what appeasing these factually intolerant cult followers do because “they can”.

      NOW is as false a woman’s organization as Islam is a religion. It is astounding that they can look at the headless corpse of a woman who only wanted a divorce from an overbearing fanatic, and call it anything but the most heinous of crimes….they are appalling in their tacit approval of honor killings…as is the DA’s office.

      This should serve as a warning to anyone who deludes themselves into thinking England is the only country being consumed by the cancer of a religion that requires it’s adherents to kill.
      Once the camel’s head is in the tent, well, just watch and see. Effing PC fools.