Selected News For Week Nov 15 - Nov 21

49 Responses to “Selected News For Week Nov 15 - Nov 21”

1. Icarus

   November 15, 2008 at 9:57 am

   What Happend at Mrs Dunham’ Funeral?

   Obama’s Grandmother dies on the eve of the election (U.S continental-time), hours before Barack is elected POTUS, and I have yet to hear about the touching funeral that took place a few days later, We have no poignant pictures, and no transcript of the moving eulogy provided by pastor Wright?

   Wasn’t Mrs Dunham the strength and Rock of the family; like B.O said? Did I miss the reporting & pictures of this event?
   Did Barack attend her funeral?
   Did they have a funeral for her?
   What Happened?
   Is our Press asleep?

   Character… you’ll know him by his fruits?

   Reply
2. Paulajay

   November 15, 2008 at 10:07 am

   I think they put poor Grannie on ice until after the inauguration. The Messiah has his priorities, you know.

   Reply
3. SG

   November 15, 2008 at 10:14 am

   Obama’s plans to visit Hawaii in December for some kind of tribute to his grandmother was discussed in last weeks “Selected News”:

   http://tinyurl.com/5bk9tp

   Reply
4. Icarus

   November 15, 2008 at 10:19 am

   Must have missed it.

   Thanks S.G

   Reply
5. locomotivebreath1901

   November 15, 2008 at 11:06 am

   Hopeful Iraqi Children Attend New Schools in a Changed Iraq.

   I blame Geo. Bush.

   And The Army Corp. of Engineers.

   “BAGHDAD — Themes of hope dominate school openings and ribbon cutting events throughout Iraq. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Gulf Region Division has overseen the renovation or new construction of nearly 1,100 schools, with another 38 projects ongoing.

   “This ancient civilization of Mesopotamia between the two rivers taught the world how to read and how to write,” said Ahmed Rubayee, director general of Baghdad’s Rusafa secondary education department at Al Neel School, which opened in July. “That is what we are doing here today; establishing a school - and to once again be civilized and concentrate on teaching our children to read and write.”

   With the same theme of hope in a stable civilization for education, a new wing of six classrooms for Al Abrar primary school, south of Baghdad, opened for students Oct. 15. Located in the Mahmoudiyah Qada district, this $496,000 project adds much needed classroom space and facilities for this rural area.

   “The ribbon cutting for this school not only signals the completion of a building, it signals one small addition of hope for the Iraqi people,” said Col. Ron Light, Gulf Region Central district commander. “While we are here to celebrate the completion of a school, more importantly, you can see the faces of hope on the children. You see the joy of being at a decent school, and that is exciting.”

   Typical of Iraqi school construction for both elementary and secondary, the two-story masonry buildings at Al Neel contain 12 classrooms, an administration section, a workshop, and bathroom facilities in a 3,500 square meter walled compound. A mirror image is near completion in Husseiniyah, as Imam Al Sadiq Elementary will open later in November. Clearly the newest building in a rubble-strewn area north of Baghdad, Al Sadiq is remarkable for the contrast to its surroundings.

   According to Director General Rubayee, there are 100 more schools being built in the Rusafa area alone. He says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has announced plans for 4,000 more schools in the very near future.

   “Thank you for your patriotism and the support to Iraq in this critical time,” Rubayee said to the USACE staff at the July opening. “We are all doing this for the children, for the future of Iraq.”

   (By Kendal Smith, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)”

   Do you think BHO was opposed to this from the beginning?

   Reply
6. jcheney

   November 15, 2008 at 2:01 pm

   Speaking of Iraq, you all need to see this video. It is remarkable:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0ryvVvA7U

   Reply
7. Liberals Make Great Speedbumps

   November 16, 2008 at 1:44 am

   jcheney,

   That is the truth that the defeatocrats would rather stick a fork in their eyes than have to admit. Screw them all!

   Reply
8. BillK

   November 17, 2008 at 3:31 am

   A columnist in the San Franciso Chronicle asks the question we all have been:

   Are you an idiot to keep paying your mortgage?

   By Kathleen Pender

   Should you keep paying your mortgage?

   If you have significant equity in your home, absolutely.

   If you don’t, it’s getting harder to answer that question, especially when our government keeps giving people who owe more than their homes are worth so many reasons not to pay.

   Last week, the government announced a program that will substantially lower payments for many homeowners who have little or no equity, but only if they are at least 90 days delinquent.

   Critics say the plan, which applies to loans owned or guaranteed by government wards Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac among others, could encourage people to suspend payments.

   But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?

   Elected officials have been chipping away at that by blaming the foreclosure crisis largely on predatory lenders. In a campaign fact sheet, President-elect Barack Obama says he “recognizes that the real victims in the subprime mortgage crisis are not the lenders, but the millions of borrowers who followed the rules and whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford.”

   Last year, Congress started removing some financial hazards of default when it passed a bill that temporarily waives the income tax on mortgage debt that is canceled when a homeowner is foreclosed upon, sells a home for less than the remaining debt (a short sale) or gets a loan modification that reduces the principal balance.

   The tax waiver originally applied only to debt on a primary residence canceled in 2007, 2008 or 2009. Last month, in the bailout bill, Congress extended the waiver until 2013.

   There are exceptions: The waiver applies only to debt that was used to buy or improve a primary residence. If you took out a home-equity loan or did a cash-out refinance to buy a car, you’ll still owe tax on that debt if it is canceled. For state income taxes, California has partially conformed to the federal law, but only for debt canceled in 2007 or 2008. (For more details, see my April 24 column at http://www.sfgate.com/ZFJS.)

   The Federal Housing Administration is offering two programs to help homeowners get more-affordable mortgages, FHA Secure and Help for Homeowners. Neither requires borrowers to be current on their payments.

   The program announced Monday goes a step further by requiring homeowners to be late.

   The Streamlined Modification Program, sponsored by the government agency that oversees Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and 27 loan servicers, promises to swiftly reduce payments for certain homeowners who appear to be on the verge of foreclosure.

   To qualify, you must be at least 90 days delinquent and live in the home as your primary residence. You must owe at least 90 percent of the home’s value. It’s fine if you owe more than it’s worth.

   Your mortgage must be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or held by one of the participating loan companies.

   If you meet these requirements and can document your income, your servicer will reduce your monthly mortgage payment - including property taxes, insurance and association dues - to 38 percent of your gross income. …

   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1442LQ.DTL

   No, my only mistake was not buying an incredibly expensive house a few years ago and defaulting on the payments today.

   If you have a current mortgage owned by Fannie or Freddie you’d be an idiot not to just stop paying it at this point so you fall into the default category and have your mortgage drastically reduced.

   Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, predicts that many homeowners who have little or no equity will stop paying their mortgage and then reduce their income to get the biggest payment cut possible. They could stop working overtime or, if two spouses work, one could quit. After the modification, they could try to boost their income again.

   “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Schiff says. “People are going to feel like complete morons if they don’t participate. The people getting punished are the ones who never made an irresponsible decision to buy a house they couldn’t afford.”

   The government is offering loan servicers $800 for every homeowner they get into the plan.

   Schiff predicts that loan agents “will be cold-calling people trying to get them into it. Just like they encouraged people to overstate their income to get a bigger loan in the first place, now they will encourage them to understate their income to qualify for a smaller loan.”

   Free Government Money - Act Now!

   If you’re one of those idiots who bought a home you could afford and/or made your payments on time? #$@! you!!

   Gotta love America today.

   Reply
9. BillK

   November 17, 2008 at 3:39 am

   From the San Francisco Chronicle:

   Prop. 8 protests could become national movement

   By Wyatt Buchanan

   Outrage and anguish over the passage of Proposition 8 has spurred massive street protests throughout California, and leaders of the gay and lesbian community believe the backlash could spark an unprecedented nationwide push for gay rights.

   Today, same-sex marriage supporters have planned simultaneous protests throughout California and in all 50 states, as well as cities in Canada, England and Australia.

   It’s a never-before-seen response, surpassing in size and scope even the 1969 Stonewall riots, which started the modern gay rights movement after New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar.

   “This is unprecedented and very significant, and we must not allow it to be a fleeting moment of screaming and yelling,” said longtime activist Cleve Jones. He is calling for seven weeks of sustained protest and civil disobedience to force federal action on a host of gay-rights issues, calling the state-by-state pursuit of rights a “failed strategy.”

   “This has got to be made real,” he said.

   So far, the protests are being organized not by the large and established gay-rights organizations, but largely by individuals spreading the word via the Internet and cell phones.

   The backlash after Tuesday’s vote has been enormous and wide-reaching. People and businesses have become targets of blacklists and boycotts. Two temples of the Mormon church, which advocated for the marriage ban, received letters containing a white powder, though the FBI determined the substance was not toxic and do not know who sent them.

   The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-rights organization, on Friday published a list of donors to the pro-Prop. 8 campaign. …

   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....144O0P.DTL

   Somewhere there’s got to be a prosecutor with the fortitude to check whether RICO rules are coming into play here against the protestors:

   If RICO can be applied against intimidation of witnesses, how can it not apply to intimidation against those exercising their political rights?

   The boycotts and blacklists are affecting not only the political faces behind the Prop. 8 campaign, but also individual supporters.

   Phillip Fletcher, a Palo Alto dentist who donated $1,000 to the campaign, is featured prominently on a Web site listing donors targeted for boycott. He said two of his patients already have left over the donation. On Sunday, protesters were outside the Mormon church he attends, and he said they were cursing at adults and children who came for the service.

   “I’m not sure if it’s so much equal rights or if they are trying to silence, threaten and intimidate a group of people,” Fletcher said.

   Indeed.

   One wonders if, in fact, they may succeed in doing just the opposite and making more Americans realize the thuggery the left uses to get their way.

   Depends if there are any Americans left willing to stand up to their tactics; I’m not hopeful.

   Reply
10. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 3:45 am

    A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle actually asks a worthwhile question:

    Trends beyond black vote in play on Prop. 8

    By Matthai Kuruvila

    Since the election, there’s been a tremendous focus on the fact that 70 percent of African Americans voted to ban same-sex marriages in California.

    The vote coincided with the overwhelming support among African Americans for a black presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama. In the aftermath, some Proposition 8 supporters are viewing the black vote as proof that same-sex marriage is a moral rather than a civil rights issue, while some Prop. 8 opponents tout it as evidence of one community’s particular homophobia.

    But demographers say the focus on one race not only disregards the complexity of African American identity but also overlooks the most powerful predictors affecting views on same-sex marriage: religion, age and ideology, such as party affiliation. Prop. 8’s racial fallout raises the question of how the groundbreaking multiracial support of a presidential candidate could coincide with the racial scapegoating now following a failed state ballot campaign.

    “It’s just a shame to see the sort of coalition that came out behind Obama, and then you come back to California and you see white gays say ‘black people cost us the election,’ “ said David Binder, a white gay San Franciscan and a polling expert who spent the past two years working for the Obama campaign. “It bothers me that people look at the race of the people involved rather than factors that are more explanatory.”

    For many black gays and lesbians, the result has been a reminder that even with the stereotype-shattering election of a black president, caricatures of black people continue to flourish.

    “African Americans get demonized when it comes to topics of sexuality,” said the Rev. D. Mark Wilson, a black, gay, American Baptist minister who grew up in Oakland and worked on the No on 8 campaign. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1435T4.DTL

    Note that you’ve not heard a single one of the normal crowd denounce these statements - not Jesse, not Sharpton, not Bernice King, not a single Black celebrity, not the NAACP, no one.

    Because unlike watching the McCain folks go after Palin post-election, liberals have learned that one never, ever, attacks one’s own.

    Not when Mormons and Catholics can be blamed instead.

    Reply
11. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 4:20 am

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Calls grow to overhaul 401(k) retirement plans

    The financial crisis, which has caused a dramatic decline in the value of the average worker’s account, has undermined confidence in the system.

    By Jim Puzzanghera

    Reporting from Washington — For nearly three decades, working Americans have been part of a huge experiment with their future well-being: Old-fashioned pensions that guaranteed specific retirement benefits have given way to old-age benefits that depend on personal investing in the financial markets.

    But now, with those markets in crisis and the value of workers’ investments plunging, a bundle of ideas for modifying the system or replacing it entirely — ideas shunted aside when the stock market was soaring — are about to get a careful new look.

    For one thing, Democrats have campaigned on the promise of a better deal for middle-class Americans. Also, many workers are aghast at the sudden discovery that their retirement years may be a lot less golden than they expected.

    Even for people who have faithfully participated in the new retirement plans, which depend on annual savings and investment in 401(k) and similar accounts, much if not all of what they gained in the stock market over the last 10 years has been wiped out.

    So far this year, the average worker’s 401(k) account balance has dropped between 21% and 27%, depending on the worker’s age and time with his or her employer, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

    That’s a potentially disastrous turn of events, because the key to making the savings plans work is the hoped-for gains from long-term investing, not just the amount workers set aside.

    The present system is further called into question by the fact that millions of Americans have not had such plans available to them or have not participated for other reasons, including stagnant incomes that made saving difficult or impossible.

    “The current 401(k) system has not turned out to be as secure as we want it to be,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “It has not provided the returns that we want it to. And it’s not provided the level of savings that we want it to. It’s kind of failing on a number of fronts.

    “Should there be a serious reassessment? Absolutely,” he said.

    Miller’s committee already has held two hearings on the effects of the financial crisis on retirement savings plans. At one, a professor from New York’s New School for Social Research called for creating government-backed retirement savings accounts that would offer a guaranteed, inflation-adjusted 3% return. The government would contribute to the accounts using money gained by eliminating the annual tax breaks for 401(k) savings — about $80 billion.

    The idea has not been embraced by key lawmakers, perhaps in part because abolishing the tax break on 401(k) savings could reduce participation.

    But the fact that the idea received a serious hearing before Congress is a measure of how much the crisis has shaken confidence in the 401(k) approach.

    “In July, my plan was looked on at best as a noble idea . . . but completely unrealistic,” said the plan’s author, Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economic policy analysis at the New School and a longtime critic of 401(k) plans. “I was viewed as thinking out of the box, and now I’m in the box.” …

    http://www.latimes.com/busines.....7536.story

    Wow - an admission that eliminating a tax break would reduce participation in a program?!?!

    Reply
12. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 4:24 am

    From a press release by the Illinois State Rifle Association, via the Biloxi-Gulfport, MS Sun-Herald:

    Gun Owners not Welcome on Obama’s White House Team

    In yet another example of hostility towards lawful firearm owners, the Obama transition team is weeding out applicants for White House positions who own firearms themselves, or who come from firearm-owning families.

    Evidence of the Obama team’s distaste for firearm owners may be found as Question 59 of a 63 item questionnaire administered by Obama staffers to all potential applicants for positions in the Obama White House. The question asks for sensitive information about firearms owned by the applicant and his/her family.

    “Question 59 provides clear insight into how Obama and his people perceive firearm owners,” said ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson. The questionnaire poses a number of questions asking the applicant to reveal any unethical activities, or embarrassing Internet chats, then wraps up by asking if anyone in the applicant’s family owns a firearm. Obviously, Obama feels that owning a firearm is akin to talking dirty in Internet chat rooms. But that should come as no surprise as, while an Illinois State Senator, Obama voted for SB1195 - a provision of which called for gun owners to be registered in the same manner as sex offenders.”

    “Once again, we have to ask ourselves just what candidate Obama was talking about when he said he has ‘respect’ for the 2nd Amendment,” commented Pearson. “If this latest assault on gun owners is considered a gesture of respect, then either Obama or myself is very confused.”

    A copy of the questionnaire may be found at http://www.isra-pvf.com/obamaquestionnaire.pdf

    http://www.sunherald.com/prnew.....54052.html

    No surprise at all:

    (59) Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.

    There are also other fun questions:

    (58) Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g. Facebook, My Space, etc.)

    (62) Do you know anyone or any organization, either in the private sector or government service, that might take steps, overtly or covertly, fairly or unfairly, to criticize your nomination, including any news organization? If so, please identfy and explain the potential basis for criticism.

    (63) Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect.

    No, couldn’t have that.

    Can you imagine how hard the civil liberties folks would come down on a Republican administration for this form?

    Funny the administration wants this information, yet we don’t know how The Man himself would answer these same questions.

    Reply
13. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 5:06 am

    In case you needed a reminder that the left wing of the party continues to feel their oats and blames McCain’s loss on those #$@! conservatives:

    GOP can’t afford to remain hostage to social fundamentalists

    By Christine Todd Whitman and Robert M. Bostock

    Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, “It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America.”

    Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by “social fundamentalists,” the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.

    At the time, this idea was roundly attacked by many who were convinced that holding on to the “base” at all costs was the way to go. A former speech writer for President Bush, Matthew Scully, who went on to work for the McCain campaign this year, called the book “airy blather” and said its argument fell somewhere between “insufferable snobbery” and “complete cluelessness.” Gary Bauer suggested that the book sounded as if it came from a “Michael Moore radical.” National Review said its warnings were, “at best, counterintuitive,” and Ann Coulter said the book was “based on conventional wisdom that is now known to be false.”

    What a difference four years makes — and the data show it.

    While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a 9 percentage point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.

    In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Obama’s vote total exceeded the total won by President Bush four years ago. So even if McCain had equaled the president’s numbers from 2004 (and he did not), he still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes) — and lost the election. McCain didn’t lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Obama broadened his base.

    Nor did the Republican ticket lose because “values voters” stayed home. On the contrary, according to exit polls, such voters made up a larger proportion of the electorate this year than in 2004 — 26 percent, up from 23 percent. Extrapolating from those data, McCain actually won more votes from self-identified white evangelical/born-again voters than Bush did four years ago — 1.8 million more. But that was not enough to offset the loss of so many moderates.

    Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party’s social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

    Palin has many attractive qualities as a candidate. Being prepared to become president at a moment’s notice was not obviously among them this year. Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party’s consent. …

    http://www.madison.com/tct/opi.....est/314495

    The more I read article like this, the less likely I am to ever send a dime to the RNC ever again.

    In short, their argument seems to be that values voters aren’t worth bringing in - who else are they going to vote for, Democrats? - and the GOP must move wholesale to the left. Pro-choice, pro-gay, GOP all the way!

    Note also she conveniently forgets that the election was a largely anti-Bush and anti-Republican vote based on, among other thngs, the fact that current Republicans have never met a Government spending program they didn’t like.

    I often wonder if a Democrat President could have expanded the Federal Government faster than Bush has - and we’re about to find out.

    Reply
14. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 6:28 am

    From the Times of London:

    Russian spy in NATO could have passed on missile defence and cyber-war secrets

    By Roger Boyes

    A spy at the heart of NATO may have passed secrets on the US missile shield and cyber-defence to Russian Intelligence, it has emerged.

    Herman Simm, 61, an Estonian defence ministry official who was arrested in September, was responsible for handling all of his country’s classified information at NATO, giving him access to every top-secret graded document from other alliance countries.

    He was recruited by the Russians in the late 1980s and has been charged in Estonia with supplying information to a foreign power.

    Several investigation teams from both the EU and NATO, under the supervision of a US officer, have flown to the Estonian capital Tallinn to assess the scope of what is being seen as the most serious case of espionage against NATO since the end of the Cold War.

    “The longer they work on the case, the more obvious it becomes how big the impact of the suspected treachery really is,” according to Der Spiegel magazine. A German official described the Russian penetration of NATO as a “catastrophe”.

    Comparisons are being drawn with the case of Aldrich Ames, the former head of the CIA counter-intelligence department who was in effect Russia’s top agent in the US.

    “Simm became a proper agent for the Russian government in the mid-1990s,” says the Estonian deputy Jaanus Rahumaegi who heads the country’s parliamentary control commission for the security services.

    On the face of it, the Simm case resembles the old-fashioned Cold War spy story. He used a converted radio transmitter to set up meetings with his contact, apparently someone posing as a Spanish businessman.

    As in the 1950s and 1960s, it seems that the operation was a husband-and-wife team. His wife Heete – who previously worked as a lawyer at the national police headquarters – has also been detained on charges of being an accessory to treason.

    Mr Simm was ensnared because of blunders that have dogged modern espionage ever since the KGB first pitted itself against the West. First, he bought up several pieces of valuable land and houses including a farmhouse on the Baltic Sea and a grand white-painted villa outside Tallinn.

    Second, his contact officer got careless and tried to recruit a second agent – who reported the incident to the security authorities. That is when the Estonian mole-hunters began to reconstruct the movements of the supposed Spaniard and followed the thread back to the agent inside NATO.

    But Mr Simm was not some relic from the days of Kim Philby or other notorious deep-cover agents. He was at the cutting edge of one of NATO’s most important new strategic missions: to defend the alliance against cyber-attack.

    Mr Simm headed government delegations in bilateral talks on protecting secret data flow. And he was an important player in devising EU and NATO information protection systems.

    Estonia – described by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as “NATO’s most IT-savvy nation” – conducts much of its government and commercial business online. People vote and pay their taxes online, government meetings involve almost no paperwork.

    As a result, when it angered Russia in 2007, by removing a Soviet war memorial, it became the target of hostile attacks on the internet. Estonia has been lobbying hard to put cyber-defence on the NATO agenda, and has set up a Cyber Defence centre in Tallinn which is supposed to help the Alliance as a whole. Now that project could be compromised.

    The other important question in the Simm case is whether he was operating alone. A senior Estonian police officer claimed asylum in Britain in the 1990s reportedly telling the authorities that he was trying to escape pressure from the Russian secret service to sell secrets.

    The Russians, it seems, were keen to buy as many place-men as they could: the prospect of NATO forces hard up against the northern Russian border was too alarming for the Kremlin. Moreover, Mr Simm was for many years in charge of issuing security clearance: he could have nodded through other Russian agents. …

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t.....166227.ece

    But remember, the Russians are our friends now…

    Reply
15. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 6:35 am

    A war over windmills… in France?

    From the Times of London:

    Wind power blights la belle France

    By Charles Bremner

    When you think of the care that France lavishes on its landscape, it’s surprising that so little has been done to control the proliferation of ugly wind farms.

    Rather belatedly, a small revolt is now brewing against what the opponents see as a state-subsidised racket in the name of sustainable development.

    Over the past couple of years there has been a rush to install the great white turbines that go in French by the pretty name of éoliennes — from the Greek god of wind. Every time I drive south via the plain between Paris and Orleans there seem to be a dozen new windmills at the roadside, some towering over hamlets and others just disrupting the vista. The windmill blight is even more stiking when you fly low over the countryside in a small plane. From above, it looks sometimes as if a rash of white spikes has erupted across the fields and hill-sides of France. When they are near airfields, as they are at Dreux, for example, you have to avoid bumping into them as you circle to land.

    With its unwavering devotion to the atomic energy that provides three quarters of its electricity, France came late to wind. It ranks in about 10th place in Europe, far behind the leaders, Germany and Spain. But wind power figures big in President Sarkozy’s scheme for greening France. His government’s grand “Grenelle” environment plan, calls for 10 percent of electricity to come from wind by 2020. That means up to 10,000 more turbines, say the experts.

    France’s traditional attraction to new technology has blinded people to the drawbacks of les éoliennes. A BVA poll recently found that 79 percent of people favour wind farms in their region and 62 percent say that they would accept a giant turbine in their back yard — or at least within a radius of a kilometre of their homes.

    The opposition is coming from villages in the northern Picardy region and from the east and the west, where wind farms have been growing fastest. A dozen local mayors led a demonstration of about 800 people in Paris last month. They carried banners with slogans such “Wind farm lobby are murderers” and “No to the swindle of industrial wind farms.”

    The figurehead of the resistance is Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who was President of France in the 1970s. The aristocratic, 82-year-old “VGE” is hardly a symbol of modernity. But he has roots in the very rural Auvergne and his views are touching a nerve. “France’s landscapes have inspired a good number of painters and poets. It’s important to protect this heritage,” he says in today’s Parisien. “These pylons are not only polluting the landscape. They are interfering with bird migration and disturbing the lives of those who live near them.“

    Giscard makes the following arguments: As an electricity exporter with plenty of carbon-free nuclear power, France does not need to clutter the landscape with clunky hardware. The green lobby is being fooled by windfarm companies who are pocketing subsidies from the taxpayer. Impoverished villages are being tempted by the leasing income to sign up for wind farms. The machines are inefficient, consume a lot of raw materials and energy to produce and sit idle for 80 percent of the time.

    The anti wind farm case has also just been put by Sylvie Brunel, a geographer, in a book called “Who benefits from sustainable development?” In the name of the doctrine, some of France’s most beautiful landscape “have been transformed into fields of gigantic mechanical monsters,” she says.

    In turn, the anti-éolienne people are being pilloried by some of the green movement as reactionary, selfish and stooges of the nuclear power lobby. A militant association called “Sortir du nucléaire” (Get out of nuclear) said opposition to wind power was a fiction invented to help the nuclear industry.…

    http://timescorrespondents.typ.....-blig.html

    There’s little more entertaining than watching liberals battle liberals.

    Let’s also note why Sarkozy is doing this - not because France needs them, but simply because it’s the “green” thing to do with “feel good” targets of “10% of energy from wind” - not unlike the “feel good” targets being enshrined into law many places in this country.

    Of course the Government programs that will be needed when people can no longer afford to power their homes isn’t a concern.

    Then wait until people also need to pay exorbitant electric power rates to recharge their golf carts electric cars…

    Reply
16. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 8:22 am

    Continuing the long history of judges continually extending rights beyond what was, of course, intended, this from the UK Register:

    Judge: No cryptographic hash analysis without warrant

    By Dan Goodin

    In a case that could have important implications for law enforcement investigations throughout the US, a federal judge has ruled that the cryptographic fingerprinting of suspects’ hard drives constitutes a search for purposes of the Constitution.

    The decision by US District Judge Yvette Kane in the Middle District of Pennsylvania rejected prosecutors’ arguments that running a hash value on the contents of a hard drive didn’t qualify as a search because agents didn’t actually open any of the suspect’s files. Instead, she said agents overstepped their authority when they used a forensic tool called EnCase to take the cryptographic signature of each file on the hard drive of Robert Ellsworth Crist III, a man who was later found possessing a large cache of child pornography.

    “To derive the hash values of Crist’s computer, the government physically removed the hard drive from the computer, created a duplicate image of the hard drive without physically invading it, and applied the EnCase program to each compartment, disk, file, folder and bit,” Kane wrote. “By subjecting the entire computer to a hash value analysis - every file, internet history, picture, and ‘buddy list’ became available for government review. Such examination constitutes a search.”

    Because Pennsylvania investigators examined the hard drive without first getting a search warrant, Kane ordered the evidence to be suppressed. Under the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, searches are only authorized when law enforcement officials have a valid warrant.

    The EnCase program allowed investigators to examine Crist’s hard drive cluster by cluster and bypass user passwords to create an index of each file, even if it had already been deleted. Agents then compared the hash values of the files with a database of known child pornography. The analysis uncovered five videos containing known child pornography, according to the decision. A subsequent examination using a different method revealed 1,600 images of child porn.

    Crist became a suspect while he was being evicted by his landlord. Someone who took possession of his computer stumbled upon some of the forbidden files and reported them to police. …

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....ch_ruling/

    Sigh.

    This is akin to stating if the Police have a geiger counter outside your home picking up radiation and arrest you for illegal possession of radioactive materials, it’s due to an illegal search.

    Reply
17. 1sttofight

    November 17, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    This one is for my friend in the GWN, DW.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj_g-kYAZxw

    Reply
18. DW

    November 17, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    Thanks, 1st. LOL

    Reply
19. DEZ

    November 17, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    That just made my day 1st.

    Reply
20. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 10:56 pm

    Ah, to have a government job.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Milwaukee County retiree drawing big payout

    By Daniel Bice

    Watching your 401(k) dwindle to nothing?

    Afraid your retirement might not be there when you reach 65?

    Too bad you didn’t take a job with Milwaukee County years ago.

    Then you might be sitting pretty - just like George Brotz.

    Brotz retired in August after 38 years with the county, leaving office as a $75,000-per-year accounting manager in the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department.

    Last week, the county Pension Board approved Brotz’s retirement request for a lump-sum payment of $847,861 under the “backdrop” provision in the lucrative 2001 pension deal.

    In addition, Brotz will be receiving a monthly retirement check of $2,887, or nearly $35,000 per year.

    Just think about it.

    The career government bureaucrat will receive more than $1 million within five years of quitting his job.

    With his lump-sum payment, Brotz will become the county’s all-time backdrop champ, pulling down $160,000 more than that paid out to the next-luckiest county retiree.

    Under the backdrop, employees who stay on after they are eligible to retire can receive both a lump-sum payout and a monthly retirement benefit. The lump sums can be rolled over into a tax-deferred IRA or taken as cash.

    Brotz, 66, could have left the public trough as early as 1993.

    The public eruption over the remarkably generous retirement changes led to the ouster of then-County Executive F. Thomas Ament and many supervisors.

    Ament’s team promised this provision wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything extra. In truth, more than $137 million had been paid out in backdrops to former county workers through the middle of this year.

    Called Friday, Brotz hung up when asked about his pension package.

    His wife, Ann, was just as testy.

    “I’m waiting for a call from the Social Security Administration,” she said before hanging up. Later in the afternoon, she said she was still awaiting that call.

    In addition, nobody answered the door at the couple’s Shorewood residence. They live in a three-story, stucco and stone house - assessed at some $570,000 - with immaculately maintained hedges.

    Clearly, the pair wants to keep to themselves any discussion of their record-setting retirement income, compliments of the taxpayers. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/watchd.....63709.html

    Yes, there is an admitted element of class warfare here, but given the generous retirement payout comes from Milwaukee County taxpayers, it should raise some eyebrows.

    Reply
21. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 11:01 pm

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    MMAC to sue over sick pay ordinance

    By Georgia Pabst

    The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce’s board of directors voted unanimously today to proceed with a lawsuit to challenge the paid sick days ordinance that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in the city of Milwaukee on Nov. 4.

    At the same time, 9to5, National Association of Working Women said it is confident that the ordinance will withstand a legal challenge.

    “But we decry the waste of time and money that it will take,” said Amy Stear, state director of 9to5, who led the coalition that brought the measure to the ballot.

    MMAC President Tim Sheehy, in a statement after the board meeting, said that if the ordinance “is allowed to stand, we face the prospect of dire economic consequences in our community.

    “The MMAC board believes this new ordinance is more than just bad economics’ it is bad law and deserves to be overturned,” he said. MMAC vigorously opposed the passage of the referendum that created the ordinance.

    Under the ordinance, employers in the city of Milwaukee would be required to provide all employees would with nine days of paid sick days a year that would be earned at the rate of one hour for every 30 hours worked. Businesses with fewer than 10 employees will be required to provide 40 hours of paid sick leave a year, or five days.

    The day after the Nov. 4 vote, MMAC filed a notice with the city that it intended to challenge the ordinance.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/m.....08744.html

    Isn’t it great when you can just vote yourself benefits?

    Economics is one of those fields only “the rich” study…

    Reply
22. BillK

    November 17, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    A reminder to counteract the doom and gloom from the MSM.

    From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

    Civilian Conservation Corps alumni mark program’s 75th anniversary

    By Joel Dresang

    Ed Mondroski knows hard times.

    “I came from a family of 15 people. Sometimes we had to fight for a place at the table because there was no food, there was no money to buy food,” Mondroski recalled.

    When he was 10, Mondroski walked four miles from his family’s farm for a dime-a-day maintenance job at his grade school in Mosinee. When he was 17, he enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Depression-era job program that enlisted needy young men in public conservation projects, paying them $30 a month - $25 of which went to their families.

    This week, Mondroski and a couple dozen other Wisconsin CCC alumni are meeting at Boerner Botanical Gardens at Whitnall Park to mark the 75th anniversary of the program’s creation. That occasion and their testimonies are reminders that as harsh as the economy is now, it once was much worse.

    “When I went into the CCCs, I felt like I would feel today if I was a millionaire,” said Mondroski, 88, a decorated veteran and retired paper mill worker. “They gave me a set of clean sheets. They gave me two blankets. They gave me all the clothes to wear. They gave me everything and three square meals a day, right on time, which I didn’t get at home.”

    With the stock market losing 27% of its value last month and the unemployment rate hitting a 14-year high, analysts and economists are warning of financial turmoil and joblessness to the extent that Americans haven’t seen in at least a generation.

    In his first postelection news conference, President-elect Barack Obama nodded to the struggles of 10 million unemployed Americans and their families in declaring “we are facing the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime.”

    But those with longer lifetimes faced even greater challenges.

    That 27% plunge in the Standard & Poor’s 500 in October doesn’t match the 34% market decline in two weeks in October 1929, according to a recent report by Milwaukee’s Robert W. Baird & Co. Just two years later, in October 1931, the market dropped another 30%.

    The national unemployment rate reached 6.5% last month, and could range up to 8% before drifting down again, by some forecasts. But even at 8%, that’s only a third of the estimated rate during the 1929-’33 Depression, when one in four people looking for a job couldn’t find one.

    “What we’re entering into now is certainly significant but not as bad as the Great Depression. Hopefully it will not ever be as bad as the Great Depression,” said Daryl Webb, a historian at Cardinal Stritch University.

    “We’re certainly in for a period of slowdown and economic decline but not to that magnitude,” agreed Karen Holden, an economist at the University of Wisconsin- Madison.

    Foreclosures and bankruptcies are on the rise, but as a result of the Depression, Holden said, Americans have more protections now, including unemployment insurance, bank deposit insurance and Social Security.

    “Even though the elderly are panicked about the large declines in their personal savings accounts, we’re not going to have that deep economic distress that was the motivation for the Social Security system to begin with,” said Holden, an authority on retirement security. …

    http://www.jsonline.com/business/34563724.html

    Seriously - it’s incredible to watch today’s MSM reporters try to equivocate having to cut back on lattes to pain and suffering.

    I seriously don’t believe the United States population today could have ever survived World War II, let alone the Great Depression.

    As Americans brace for what experts warn may be the toughest economy in decades, financial values born from even harder times could regain popularity. Among them:

    • Work hard. “You had to work for everything you got. I mean, it was no slouching,” said Herman Heller, 88, of Gordon. “You didn’t get nothing for anything. That’s the most important thing.”

    • Live frugally. “These people were thrifty,” said Tom Gaertner, a financial planner in Brookfield. “They saved money.”

    • Prepare for the worst. “You never know when the rug’s going to be pulled out from under you,” said Daryl Webb, a historian at Cardinal Stritch University. “You don’t know when other poor economic times are going to return. And then there goes the food on your table. There goes the money you had to buy the things that you would need. So that idea is certainly imprinted on the minds of those people who endured the Great Depression.”

    Indeed.

    There’s absolutely nothing wrong with buying that Armani suit as long as you don’t have to pay 21% interest for the next three years to afford it…

    Reply
23. BillK

    November 18, 2008 at 4:02 am

    Sanity at the San Francisco Chronicle?

    Ailing businesses fear plan to boost taxes

    By Matthew Yi

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tax package, the largest in California in nearly two decades, would affect everyone who buys goods, drives automobiles, plays golf, attends commercial sporting events or has a drink at the local watering hole.

    The governor has called his plan - billions of dollars in spending cuts along with $4.7 billion in new taxes during the current fiscal year and an additional $9.5 billion in taxes next year - a drastic measure that’s desperately needed to address an estimated $24 billion revenue shortfall over the next two years.

    While most experts agree that raising taxes in a struggling economy is a difficult proposition, many lawmakers and legislative aides who will continue meetings this week in a special budget session at the state Capitol say the state’s fiscal crisis is so dire that California needs to figure out new revenue sources quickly, even if that means new taxes.

    But those who would feel the impact of Schwarzenegger’s tax proposals, including operators of golf courses, bar owners and auto mechanics, say the proposed levies would devastate their already struggling businesses.

    “It’s a rape of small businesses,” said Beverly Swanson, 58, owner of One Double Oh Seven Club & Smoking Parlour in Santa Cruz. “This is going to cost jobs. The first thing that people cut in tough economic times is eating out and things like that; to force a new tax will just make it even more difficult.”

    One Southern California golf course owner said the governor’s plan to impose a sales tax on such things as green fees would exacerbate problems in the struggling golfing industry.

    “What will basically happen is that it will kill us,” said Jay Miller, 49, owner of Hidden Valley Golf Club in Riverside County. In September, his revenues fell 25 to 30 percent compared with a year ago, and during the summer months he simply didn’t pay himself in order to avoid laying off his workers. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1442DK.DTL

    So basically, Ahnold is going with the “The beatings will continue until morale improves” strategy - sales are down, so sales tax revenue is down, so let’s raise taxes to compensate!

    Yeah, that always works.

    Reply
24. BillK

    November 18, 2008 at 4:08 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Jerry Brown seeks legality of Prop. 8

    By Bob Egelko

    The likelihood of a final California Supreme Court showdown over same-sex marriage increased dramatically Monday when Attorney General Jerry Brown and the pro-Proposition 8 campaign urged the justices to decide whether the voter-approved ballot measure is constitutional.

    Both Brown, the state government’s top lawyer, and the Protect Marriage campaign organization plan to defend Prop. 8, which would write a ban on same-sex marriage into the state Constitution. In separate filings Monday, the liberal attorney general and the conservative sponsors of the initiative gave similar reasons for asking the court to review lawsuits filed by the measure’s opponents.

    “There is significant public interest in prompt resolution of the legality of Proposition 8. This court can provide certainty and finality in this matter,” Deputy Attorney General Mark Benington said in court papers.

    Andrew Pugno, lawyer for Protect Marriage, said, “The people have a right to know as quickly as possible the status of marriage under the California Constitution.” He said he was confident that the court will uphold Prop. 8.

    However, the Campaign for California Families, another conservative religious organization that supported the measure, asked the court to dismiss the suits without a hearing. The group’s lawyer said overturning Prop. 8 “would wreak havoc on the democratic process.”

    The court could decide at its weekly conference Wednesday whether to accept the suits for review and whether to issue a stay that would block enforcement of Prop. 8 until a ruling is made. A stay would restore authority for gay and lesbian couples to marry, although those marriages - like an estimated 18,000 same-sex weddings performed before the Nov. 4 election - would have an uncertain status until the court cleared up Prop. 8’s legality and scope.

    Benington argued against a stay, saying any marriages performed in the interim period would be questioned if the court upheld Prop. 8. Brown has promised to defend the validity of the pre-Nov. 4 marriages.

    The number of suits challenging Prop. 8 grew to six Monday with filings by women’s-rights groups and religious organizations led by the California Council of Churches. Two groups of same-sex couples and local governments led by the city of San Francisco sued Nov. 5 and were joined Friday by civil rights organizations, which said the initiative would set a precedent for eliminating the rights of any minority by popular vote.

    All the lawsuits argue that Prop. 8, a state constitutional amendment, violates other provisions of California’s Constitution by taking rights away from a historically persecuted minority group and stripping judges of their power to protect that group.

    Prop. 8, approved by a 52 percent majority, would overturn the court’s May 15 ruling that gave gays and lesbians a constitutional right to marry in California. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1467MF.DTL

    That’s the new game of course; the courts decide to impose something on society, the people decide it’s not something they want, and the courts decide the people have no right to decide what they want or not.

    Not surprising at all.

    Reply
25. BillK

    November 18, 2008 at 4:27 am

    From the Los Angeles Times:

    Democrats propose $25 billion in loans for carmakers

    The package would be in addition to a $100-billion stimulus proposal, but Republicans — and time — are not on their side.

    By Jim Puzzanghera and Richard Simon

    Leading Democrats in Congress unveiled plans Monday to help financially troubled U.S. automakers with $25 billion in emergency loans as lawmakers prepared for a showdown over expanding the government’s role in shoring up the economy.

    But with President Bush and many Republicans expressing skepticism, the prospects are uncertain at best for action before the lame-duck session of Congress ends — probably this week.

    The bailout, in the form of emergency loans, is in addition to a $100-billion stimulus plan from Senate Democrats that includes aid to revenue-strapped states, extension of jobless benefits, funding for infrastructure projects, energy assistance to low-income families and help for families at risk of foreclosure.

    But prospects are even dimmer for those additional stimulus proposals, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would try to pass the automaker aid separately if the broader package failed. A vote could come Wednesday.

    House Democrats on Monday night released their own $25-billion loan package proposal for the automakers, which included some tougher restrictions and conditions.

    Both Democratic plans call for tapping the existing $700-billion Wall Street rescue package to help automakers.

    Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke met behind closed doors with leading House Democrats late Monday to discuss government rescue efforts, including funds for the auto industry. Administration officials are resisting calls to use a portion of the $700-billion fund created to rescue the financial sector. The fund has already been tapped to assist banks and insurance giant American International Group Inc.

    “There’s not an appetite in Congress, or in the administration, to open up the . . . funding for individual industries, because once you start down that road, it’s a slippery slope to other industries that might say that they need help,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

    To make the argument that Detroit’s crisis is moving too fast for delay, chief executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler, along with the president of the United Auto Workers union, are scheduled to appear before a Senate committee today.

    President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democratic leaders are pushing for the aid.

    “We’re seeing a potential meltdown in the auto industry with consequences that could impact directly upon millions of American workers and cause further devastation to our economy,” Reid told colleagues. …

    http://www.latimes.com/busines.....1321.story

    Of course the Democrats will completely ignore the issue of Union contracts and instead look forward to forcing the big three to make vehicles that, by and large, Americans don’t want and further - the big three will lose money selling:

    Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Monday that the automakers should be required to increase the average fuel efficiency of their vehicles to 40 miles per gallon in 10 years or 50 miles per gallon by 2020, as well as increase production of electric, hybrid and alternative-fuel models.

    “We’ve got to stop this kind of foot-dragging that has got them into the place that they’re in,” he said.

    Funny thing - if you eliminate sales of the “look how green I am” Prius, sales of hybrids are largely… in the noise.

    The end result of these restrictions on the big three is that Toyota and other imports will be even more popular among Americans.

    Reply
26. BillK

    November 19, 2008 at 5:07 am

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Prop. 8 hinges on who decides: judges or voters

    By Bob Egelko

    The central issue in the legal battle over Proposition 8 is whether the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage is a state constitutional amendment, which can be passed by initiative, or a constitutional revision, which can’t.

    From another perspective, the question is whether the scope of a minority group’s rights in California should be decided by the voters or the courts.

    The state Supreme Court may decide today whether to dismiss or grant review of six lawsuits challenging Prop. 8, approved with a 52 percent majority on Nov. 4.

    It’s the same court that ruled 4-3 on May 15 that the California law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violated fundamental rights of gays and lesbians under the state Constitution: the right of equal treatment and the right to marry the partner of one’s choice.

    The legal controversy now is much different. Rather than considering the constitutionality of prohibiting same-sex marriage, the court would decide whether inserting that prohibition into the Constitution was such a basic change that it amounted to more than an amendment.

    Since California voters adopted the initiative process in 1911, they have been allowed to amend their Constitution by submitting a certain number of signatures and approving the change by a majority vote. A constitutional revision, on the other hand, can be placed on the ballot only by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature or a new constitutional convention, both unlikely routes for a future Prop. 8.

    Historically, the odds are against the challengers of Prop. 8’s constitutionality. The court has allowed some ground-breaking constitutional changes to become law by initiative - the Proposition 13 tax limitations, restoration of the death penalty, legislative term limits and a pro-prosecution overhaul of evidence rules - and declared only two measures to be constitutional revisions.

    The last such ruling was in 1991, when the justices invalidated provisions of an initiative that would have required California courts to follow federal standards on criminal defendants’ rights rather than relying on the state Constitution to grant broader rights.

    Such a change “unduly restricts judicial power … in a way which severely limits the independent force and effect of the California Constitution,” then-Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas said in a unanimous ruling. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....147103.DTL

    Never bet against the courts, no matter what the people have to say.

    Reply
27. BillK

    November 19, 2008 at 5:13 am

    Ah, liberals and their, uh, creative naming.

    From the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Labor working for Employee Free Choice Act

    By George Raine

    The 250,000 volunteers from AFL-CIO unions around the country may still be hoarse and weary from the dogged stretch effort to get out the vote for Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but they’re taking a victory lap. Labor feels much more confident that their top legislative priority - a bill that would make organizing workers substantially easier - will be passed and signed.

    The Champagne will have to stay on ice, however, because the debate will be fiery over the Employee Free Choice Act, which effectively would do away with employers’ rights to insist that employees cast pro or con votes in a secret ballot election for whether they want union representation.

    Many employers say that election, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, is sacrosanct. Unions say the process, through which management in many cases tries to make a case to workers that a union is not in their best interests, is fraught with coercion and intimidation.

    Under the proposed law, if a majority of employees at a workplace approve by signing authorization cards, a union will represent the group.

    The Employee Free Choice Act - opponents call it the forced choice act, arguing the legislation would give labor a disproportionately heavy hand in organizing - would bring sweeping change to the 73-year-old National Labor Relations Act. It would spell hope for labor and anathema to many business interests.

    An Obama win meant everything to labor, because Sen. John McCain is an ardent opponent of the legislation, and labor’s ground game was impressive: Unions spent about $450 million in the election, and the effort was particularly helpful in battleground states. In all, union members connected with 13 million voters in 24 states, in the process selling the Employee Free Choice Act along with the Democratic ticket.

    Still, the fight will be fierce.

    “Right now, the NLRB process is working against workers,” said Terence M. O’Sullivan, general president of the 508,000-member Laborers’ International Union of North America. “We need a system where workers do not have concerns with fear and intimidation by employers.” …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1436S5.DTL

    Yes, somehow a secret vote is “coercion,” yet being forced to publicly state your pro- or anti-union vote in front of Union activists, your manager and who knows who else is “Employee Freedom.”

    It would almost be funny if so many weren’t so blind to the #$@! labor unions are trying to pull here.

    Next I suppose we’ll do away of the “coercion” of secret ballots in elections for pubic office - why shouldn’t you just voice your choice in front of your local elected officials and senior party members?

    Reply
28. BillK

    November 19, 2008 at 5:17 am

    One down, two to steal go.

    From the AP:

    Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens loses re-election bid

    By Michael R. Blood

    Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in Senate history, narrowly lost his re-election bid Tuesday, marking the downfall of a Washington political power and Alaska icon who couldn’t survive a conviction on federal corruption charges. His defeat by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich moves Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

    Stevens’ ouster on his 85th birthday marks an abrupt realignment in Alaska politics and will alter the power structure in the Senate, where he has served since the days of the Johnson administration while holding seats on some of the most influential committees in Congress.

    The crotchety octogenarian built like a birch sapling likes to encourage comparisons with the Incredible Hulk, but he occupies an outsized place in Alaska history. His involvement in politics dates to the days before Alaska statehood, and he is esteemed for his ability to secure billions of dollars in federal aid for transportation and military projects. The Anchorage airport bears his name; in Alaska, it’s simply “Uncle Ted.”

    Tuesday’s tally of just over 24,000 absentee and other ballots gave Begich 146,286, or 47.56 percent, to 143,912, or 46.76 percent, for Stevens.

    A recount is possible.

    Begich said the defining issue in the race was the desire for a new direction in Washington, not Stevens’ legal problems.

    Alaska voters “wanted to see change,” he told reporters in Anchorage. “Alaska has been in the midst of a generational shift — you could see it.”

    Stevens’ campaign didn’t immediately respond to phone calls seeking comment.

    Stevens’ loss was another slap for Republicans in a year that has seen the party lose control of the White House, as well as seats in the House and Senate. It also moves Democrats one step closer to the 60 votes needed to overcome filibusters in the Senate. Democrats now hold 58 seats, when two independents who align with Democrats are included, with undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia where two Republicans are trying to hang onto their seats.

    Democrats have now picked up seven Senate seats in the Nov. 4 election.

    “With seven seats and counting now added to the Democratic ranks in the Senate, we have an even stronger majority that will bring real change to America,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement. …

    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....327S55.DTL

    Real change all right.

    Destruction for those who work hard to get ahead, and freebies for all the rest.

    Woo hoo!

    Amazing how those absentee ballots always lean so heavily Democratic, isn’t it?

    Just coincidence, I’m sure.

    Reply
29. BannedbytheTaliban

    November 19, 2008 at 12:46 pm

    Get your chum bucket ready,

    From CNN:

    Can Lincoln’s playbook help Obama in the years ahead?

    By Ed Hornick
    CNN

    WASHINGTON (CNN) — The similarities are eerily similar.

    Both Abraham Lincoln and President-elect Barack Obama were not from Illinois but became two of the state’s top politicians.

    They were both criticized for being too inexperienced to become president of the United States.

    Both were raised by women other than their mothers (Lincoln by his stepmother and Obama by his grandmother) and later visited the women before their respective inaugurations. Both women died before the respective inauguration days.

    Lincoln, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, will be noted as relatively young presidents: Lincoln was 51 when he took office. Obama will be 47.

    The two tall and lanky politicians also wrote best-selling books before becoming president.

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI.....index.html

    Thats right, they are compairing Obama to Lincoln. And I just ate lunch.

    Reply
30. sheehanjihad

    November 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    Comparing Obmammy to Lincoln? Hey, great! Now Hussey can free us all from the slavery of his socialist agenda! Works for me. It better too, cuz I ain workin for him!

    Reply
31. spiffyw

    November 19, 2008 at 9:55 pm

    Arraignment set for Cheney, Gonzales in Texas

    RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) - A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center.

    Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person at the arraignment, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said.
    n the latest bizarre development in the case, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court Wednesday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra’s house, check on his well-being and order him to court on Friday.

    Half of the eight high-profile indictments returned Monday by a Willacy County grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra.

    One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity. It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assault