Duh ... No!

Obama's Legacy

2010-04-20T07:47:00.001-04:00

From Financial Times:

America’s disastrous debt is Obama’s biggest test
By Roger Altman
Published: April 19 2010 23:05 | Last updated: April 19 2010 23:05
The global financial system is again transfixed by sovereign debt risks. This evokes bad memories of defaults and near-defaults among emerging nations such as Argentina, Russia and Mexico. But the real issue is not whether Greece or another small country might fail. Instead, it is whether the credit standing and currency stability of the world’s biggest borrower, the US, will be jeopardised by its disastrous outlook on deficits and debt.
America’s fiscal picture is even worse than it looks. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just projected that over 10 years, cumulative deficits will reach $9,700bn and federal debt 90 per cent of gross domestic product – nearly equal to Italy’s. Global capital markets are unlikely to accept that credit erosion. If they revolt, as in 1979, ugly changes in fiscal and monetary policy will be imposed on Washington. More than Afghanistan or unemployment, this is President Barack Obama’s greatest vulnerability.
Read more....

Air Travel Is A Dirty Business

2010-04-19T09:15:00.002-04:00

The body that represents the world's airlines, IATA, has criticised Europe's governments for the way they closed air space because of volcanic ash.
The head of the airline industry body, Giovanni Bisignani, told the BBC: "This is a European embarrassment and it's a European mess."
Millions of passengers have been affected by the crisis, which is now into its fifth day.
Britain ordered three Royal Navy ships to help bring home stranded nationals.
[Full story]

Sure, but all it would take is one airplane that crashes from the volcanic ash and the yelling would be about what the governments did not do.

Take a boat.

Bernanke Warns About Deficits

2010-04-07T23:08:00.002-04:00

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sounds a warning on growing deficit

Neil Irwin and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 8, 2010

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Wednesday that Americans may have to accept higher taxes or changes in cherished entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security [and Comprehensive Health Care Coverage] if the nation is to avoid staggering budget deficits that threaten to choke off economic growth.

So, now tell us something we didn't know.

Turning The Other Cheeks

2010-04-06T09:51:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times:

For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

[Full story]

Yes, indeed. Bend over and turn the other cheeks.

The Religion Of Peace

2010-04-03T08:51:00.002-04:00

If they treat believers this way, what will they do to non-believers?

The attackers used army uniforms

Iraqi gunmen have killed 25 people believed to be linked to Sunni militias opposing al-Qaeda, police say.
Five women were among those killed, as the gunmen in army uniforms pulled the victims out of their houses in a village south of Baghdad on Saturday.
The victims were reported to have been tied up before being shot in the head.
Sunni militias turned against al-Qaeda and its militant allies two years ago in what was a key turning point in the campaign to quell the Iraqi insurgency.
[full story]

The veneer of religion is very thin. This is all about power as it has been for more than a millennium.

Texas Here We Come

2010-04-01T16:37:00.005-04:00

The politics of George Bush and his Texas lifestyle are roundly hated by the left. But many Americans seem to feel otherwise... especially since the Texas lifestyle seems to come with a job....

From Forbes:

New Geographer

Don't Mess With Texas
Joel Kotkin, 03.30.10, 12:00 PM EDT
Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin are shaping the 21st-century American city.

One of the most ironic aspects of our putative "Age of Obama" is how little impact it has had on the nation's urban geography. Although the administration remains dominated by boosters from traditional blue state cities--particularly the president's political base of Chicago--the nation's metropolitan growth continues to shift mostly toward a handful of Sunbelt red state metropolitan areas.
Read full story....

U.S. and Russia To Reduce Nuclear Weapons By One-Third

2010-03-27T10:05:00.003-04:00

Does this mean that the U.S. will reduce it's stock by 2/3? That would be fair given that Russia is a poorer nation and social justice would demand that.

U.S., Russia to slash nukes by one-third

Tom Raum and Robert Burns / Associated Press

Washington -- The United States and Russia sealed the first major nuclear weapons treaty in nearly two decades Friday.
The former Cold War rivals agreed to slash warhead arsenals by nearly one-third and talked hopefully of eventually ridding a fearful world of nuclear arms altogether.
President Barack Obama said the pact was part of an effort to "reset" relations with Russia that have been badly frayed. And at home the agreement gave him the biggest foreign policy achievement of his presidency, just days after he signed the landmark health care overhaul that has been his domestic priority.
[Full story]

Being Responsible Is Irresponsible

2010-03-26T10:50:00.002-04:00

Under Doublethink, if you pay your bills on time, pay your taxes fully, and live within your means, you are simply impeding the government's efforts to nationalize the economy.

Gov't Unveils Plan to Shrink Some Home Loans

But don't worry, your taxes will be used to implement the government's plan.

Obama Has Signed the Bill. Now What?

2010-03-24T00:04:00.000-04:00

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Most of the major provisions in the health care legislation do not take effect for months, if not years.

Even some popular changes that Democrats are promoting as “immediate benefits,” like allowing adult dependent children to remain on their parents’ insurance policies, do not actually take effect for six months.

But when President Obama signed the Senate bill into law at the White House on Tuesday morning, some provisions took effect immediately.
Read more....
COMMENTS:

10.

Liz

Seattle

March 23rd, 2010

12:15 pm

Seems like nobody can really figure out what this bill will actually do and when. The reports are so confusing. I support the president wholeheartedly in his efforts and I guess I'm glad about this because he's glad, but in the end I will admit I am very uncertain what we just passed and whether it resembles the original intent at all. I am taking Obama at his word that this is a good thing, but the inability to get solid details on the bill is troubling.

That's all right, Liz. As long as Obama is glad, we can all be glad, can't we?

Purely A Coincidence

2010-03-23T14:39:00.001-04:00

... as long as you believe in political coincidences...

Stupak Sold Vote For $1 Million Dollars, Not Abortion Letter

March 23rd, 2010 Posted By Pat Dollard.

The Spero Forum:

Democrat Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan, who held up passage of healthcare reform legislation that was finally approved in the House of Representatives on March 21, had been heralded as one of the rare members of his party to oppose abortion. However, Stupak finally acceded to demands from within his party, and scathing reviews by celebrities such as fellow Michigander and film-maker Michael Moore and The New York Times columnist Maureen Down, and agreed to support the final version of the bill that has become the center-piece of President Barack Obama’s administration. It was revealed that two days before Stupak agreed to support the bill, his district was awarded nearly $1 million in local airport improvements.

Abortion opponents are vowing to not let ostensible pro-life Democrats, including such pro-life stalwarts as Congressman Dale Kildee - who has been in Congress since 1976 - off the hook before the coming re-election in November 2010. Both Stupak and Kildee are Catholic, and both came under fire especially from pro-abortion and progressive opponents from within their party. Michael Moore, for example, wrote at his website that he would support a primary opponent to Stupak in case he did not come through with a vote for healthcare reform.

Stupaks’s Republican opponent in Michigan’s 1st District is Dr. Daniel Benishek. The surgeon saw traffic to his Facebook page grow quickly after the so-called Stupak Cave. He had about 3,000 “friends” earlier in the month. As of now, they number over 18,000.

Pyrrhic Victory

2010-03-22T12:48:00.002-04:00

Victory, proclaims Barack Obama! Victory for those who will pay more for their insurance. Victory for those who will pay higher taxes. Victory for doctors who will receive less for Medicare patients.

Obama Hails Vote on Health Care as Answering ‘the Call of History’

Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

President Obama, with the vice president at the White House, hailed the passage of the health bill.
WASHINGTON — House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years.
Read more... and more.

Detroit to graduate 98% of students

2010-03-17T00:04:00.000-04:00

Despite legal and political hurdles, Bobb pledged to execute his academic initiatives until someone stops him and vowed not to renew contracts of principals who don't embrace reforms. (Detroit News file)

Last Updated: March 15. 2010 3:27PM

Bobb's goal for DPS: 98% will graduate

Boosting attendance also part of his academic plan

Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News

The $540 million academic plan Robert Bobb will unveil tonight for Detroit Public Schools calls for rigorous achievement standards, offering college-level courses within all high schools and boosting graduation and attendance rates beyond the state average.
Bobb's blueprint sets standards so high that the district would climb from the bottom of the list to among the best in the country for student achievement measures. According to Bobb's plan, Detroit schools' graduation rate would increase from 58 percent to 98 percent graduation rate and all students would pass standardized tests and be accepted into college by 2015.
Read more....

The actual graduation rate is considerably lower than 58%. But even if it was that level, a 40 pp. increase might be more than a stretch goal... maybe a pipe dream. Realistically, there are nowhere near 98% of the students who are capable of "graduating." The only solution is to change the requirements for graduation to "showing up is good enough." Even then, it is unlikely that Mr. Bobb can get 98% of the students to actually show up for four years.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright

2010-03-16T15:22:00.002-04:00

Tiger Woods to return to golf at the Masters

Woods will be keen to get the focus back on his professional life

Tiger Woods will make his much-anticipated return to competitive golf at the Masters, starting on 8 April.
The world number one's last tournament appearance was on 15 November - when he won the Australian Masters.
Less than a fortnight later he crashed his car outside his Florida home, an incident that led to revelations about his private life and a break from golf.
"As a professional, I think Augusta's where I need to be, even though it's a while since I last played," he said.
Read more....

Since he last played golf, that is.

Slaughtering The U.S. Constitution

2010-03-15T22:02:00.005-04:00

From The Wall Street Journal

We're not sure American schools teach civics any more, but once upon a time they taught that under the U.S. Constitution a bill had to pass both the House and Senate to become law. Until this week, that is, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving to merely "deem" that the House has passed the Senate health-care bill and then send it to President Obama to sign anyway.

Under the "reconciliation" process that began yesterday afternoon, the House is supposed to approve the Senate's Christmas Eve bill and then use "sidecar" amendments to fix the things it doesn't like. Those amendments would then go to the Senate under rules that would let Democrats pass them while avoiding the ordinary 60-vote threshold for passing major legislation. This alone is an abuse of traditional Senate process.

But Mrs. Pelosi & Co. fear they lack the votes in the House to pass an identical Senate bill, even with the promise of these reconciliation fixes. House Members hate the thought of going on record voting for the Cornhusker kickback and other special-interest bribes that were added to get this mess through the Senate, as well as the new tax on high-cost insurance plans that Big Labor hates.

Associated Press
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y
So at the Speaker's command, New York Democrat Louise Slaughter, who chairs the House Rules Committee, may insert what's known as a "self-executing rule," also known as a "hereby rule." Under this amazing procedural ruse, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.

Democrats would thus send the Senate bill to President Obama for his signature even as they claimed to oppose the same Senate bill. They would be declaring themselves to be for and against the Senate bill in the same vote. Even John Kerry never went that far with his Iraq war machinations. As we went to press, the precise mechanics that Democrats will use remained unclear, though yesterday Mrs. Pelosi endorsed this "deem and pass" strategy in a meeting with left-wing bloggers.

This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a "Bill" to "become a Law," it "shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate." This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body's bill.

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, "The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form." If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison's core checks and balances.

Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, "Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills." They've also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that "would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program"—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.

We have entered a political wonderland, where the rules are whatever Democrats say they are. Mrs. Pelosi and the White House are resorting to these abuses because their bill is so unpopular that a majority even of their own party doesn't want to vote for it. Fence-sitting Members are being threatened with primary challengers, a withdrawal of union support and of course ostracism. Michigan's Bart Stupak is being pounded nightly by MSNBC for the high crime of refusing to vote for a bill that he believes will subsidize insurance for abortions.

Democrats are, literally, consuming their own majority for the sake of imposing new taxes, regulations and entitlements that the public has roundly rejected but that they believe will be the crowning achievement of the welfare state. They are also leaving behind a procedural bloody trail that will fuel public fury and make such a vast change of law seem illegitimate to millions of Americans.

The concoction has become so toxic that even Mrs. Pelosi isn't bothering to defend the merits anymore, saying instead last week that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Or rather, "deeming" to have passed it.

You have to hope this is the tactic that is used because it will be soooooooooo easy to get the Supreme Court to throw the whole mess out.

One term under Obama may be too long for the U.S.

Peak Oil Peaked?

2010-03-11T11:34:00.004-05:00

That's peak-ed as opposed to peaked....

BP in $7bn deal to explore for oil in Brazil

BP PLC

Last updated: 11 Mar 2010, 16:05 UK

price change %

6.89

+0.02

+0.22

More data on this share price

Oil giant BP has announced a deal that will allow it to begin exploring off the coast of Brazil.
It will pay US firm Devon Energy $7bn (£4.7bn) in cash for its Brazilian assets, as well as US deepwater sites in the Gulf of Mexico.
The deal includes 10 exploration "blocks" in Brazil, which has some of the world's largest deepwater oil fields.
BP is also selling Devon half its stake in some Canadian oil fields for $500m.
"Through our entry into Brazil, BP will add a major position in another attractive deepwater basin," said Andy Inglis, BP's head of exploration and production.
Read more....

One must realize that supply is more than just the amount of oil extracted each year. It is necessary to look at supply in relationship to demand. If extraction cannot keep up with demand, supply... regardless of amount... is insufficient. Just as efficiency in manufacturing has increased the relative amount of labor resources available [and unemployment has increased], oil supply may actually increase relative to demand [making oil just another low-priced commodity in the future].

ADDENDUM: It looks as if Peak Oil still has a chance...

Obama completely reverses course: Absolutely no offshore Oil Drilling under his Administration

LifeLock Not A Lock On Identity Theft

2010-03-09T20:00:00.003-05:00

But I thought I could give out my personal information to everyone... even giving out cards with all of it printed.

LifeLock settles with FTC for $12 million
By Ben Rooney, staff reporter
March 9, 2010: 5:01 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal regulators said Tuesday that LifeLock has agreed to pay $12 million to settle charges the company made deceptive claims about its ability to protect customers from identity theft.
LifeLock will pay $11 million to the Federal Trade Commission and $1 million to a group of 35 state attorneys general in one of the largest joint FTC-state settlements on record, the agency said.
While LifeLock promised consumers complete protection against all types of identity theft, in truth, the protection it actually provided left enough holes that you could drive a truck through it," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in a statement.
Read more....

Sure, but could you float a freighter through it?

Debt Higher Than Income Is Bad - Duh!

2010-03-05T20:27:00.002-05:00

If only we could run our personal finances this way....

CBO: $10 trillion jump in debt under Obama budget

By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerMarch 5, 2010: 6:13 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- If President Obama's 2011 budget were put into effect as proposed, the U.S. federal government would add an estimated $9.8 trillion to the country's accrued debt over the next decade, according to a preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.
Of that amount, an estimated $5.6 trillion will be in interest alone.
By 2020, the agency estimates debt held by the public would reach $20.3 trillion, or 90% of GDP. That's up from 53% of GDP in 2009.
Research done by economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart has shown that such high levels of debt can cause a drag on economic growth.
Read more....

It Could Not Be Genocide Because There Are Still Survivors

2010-03-04T23:35:00.003-05:00

Maybe we decimated them, but 90% are still alive....

Turkish anger at US Armenian 'genocide' vote

Armenian-Americans have lobbied for official use of the word "genocide"

Turkey has reacted angrily to a US congressional panel's resolution describing as genocide killings of Armenians in World War I.
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had been accused of a crime it did not commit, adding the resolution would harm Turkish-US relations.
Ankara has recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations and says it is considering other responses.
Correspondents say it is still an extremely sensitive issue in Turkey.
The government of Turkey, a key American ally and fellow Nato member, had lobbied hard for the American Congress not to vote on the issue.
The White House had also warned that the vote would harm reconciliation talks between Turkey and Armenia.
Read more....

They must be taking "spin" lessons from Charlie Rangel.

Up Down Sideways Gone

2010-03-03T21:08:00.003-05:00

Maybe Congress owes the nation a well-conceived and useful piece of legislation... or nothing.

In Final Push, Obama Urges ‘Up-or-Down’ Vote on Health

Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

President Obama called for an up-or-down vote on the health care bill on Wednesday.

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR

Published: March 3, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama, beginning his final push for a health care overhaul, called Wednesday for Congress to allow an “up or down vote” on the measure, and sketched out an ambitious — and, some Democrats said, unrealistic — timetable for his party to pass a bill on its own within weeks.
Read more....

Too Lazy To Push

2010-02-25T18:21:00.001-05:00

Too lazy to inhale.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Consumers Not Confident

2010-02-23T15:23:00.003-05:00

From FT.com:

US consumer confidence falls sharply
By Alan Rappeport in Washington
Published: February 23 2010 15:43 | Last updated: February 23 2010 16:00
Figures on Tuesday showed that consumer confidence in the US fell to the lowest level in 10 months on fears about a slow labour market recovery.
The Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment fell to 46 in February from a revised 56.5 the prior month. Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s consumer research centre, said that fewer consumers were expecting improvements in business conditions or the jobs market in the next six months.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
US home loan foreclosures reach record high - Feb-19
Homebuilding begins year on bright note - Feb-17 [uh, see link above ???]
In depth: US downturn - Nov-17
The weaker than expected report likely reflects the grim political climate and volatility in the financial markets, argues Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley. More worrying, Mr Wieseman said, is that the weak jobs outlook could bode poorly for next week’s employment report.
Read more....

Perhaps because actions to ameliorate the jobs and housing situation have simply exacerbated them?

Ignore The Man Behind The Curtain

2010-02-19T09:30:00.001-05:00

From the BBC...

Iran's supreme leader denies nuclear report claims

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said international concerns were 'baseless'

Iran's supreme leader has denied it is developing nuclear weapons, after a new report from the UN atomic watchdog, the IAEA, sparked an international outcry.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the outcry was "baseless" as Iranians' beliefs "bar us from using such weapons".
The blunt report raised concerns Iran was working on nuclear weapons.
Germany said the report "confirms our great concerns", while the US warned Iran it faced consequences if it failed to meet international responsibilities.
Moscow said Iran must co-operate more actively with the International Atomic Energy Agency to convince the world its programme was peaceful.
But Ayatollah Khamenei countered: "We do not believe in atomic weapons and are not seeking that."
Read more....

Just what are the basis of their beliefs?

Christian Violence In The News

2010-02-16T00:04:00.001-05:00

Okay, so maybe one little word was changed. All religions are basically the same, right?

Global Warming Quiz

2010-02-15T18:49:00.001-05:00

What is the highest temperature ever recorded?

In 1922 the temperature reached 136° Fahrenheit (58° C) in Libya.
Death Valley in California holds the record for the highest temperature in the U.S. at 134° in 1913.

Shouldn't that be 2009? How can almost 100 years of global warming go by without new extremes? Must be a typo.

Jimmy Carter Returns

2010-02-15T12:54:00.002-05:00

From CNNMoney.com

Obama's disco-era jobs bill
By Jia Lynn Yang, writer
February 15, 2010: 11:37 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Fortune) -- The ghost of Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency is hovering over President Obama as the Democrats try to pass a jobs bill in time for this year's elections. So why is the centerpiece of the measure -- a tax break for companies that make new hires -- a play straight from Carter's economic policy circa 1977?
Then, as now, the economy looked anemic and unemployment was high: 7.8% when Carter entered office, compared with 9.7% now. So just eleven days after his inauguration, the president proposed giving companies a temporary tax break if they hired new employees, calling it the New Jobs Tax Credit. The law went into effect for 1977 and 1978, over which time the unemployment rate fell 2%.
A success, right? Economists today are divided, and their reasons get at the heart of the current jobs bill debate. The goal of any jobs tax credit is to spur a company to hire when it otherwise wouldn't. The trouble is, it's impossible to distinguish exactly which companies have plans to hire anyway. Lawmakers can only do their best to design a bill with the right incentives.
Critics of Carter's plan -- and Congress' now -- say that the problem with any jobs credit is the potential for waste. It's estimated that of the companies that claimed the tax credit under Carter's plan, two-thirds would have hired those employees regardless of the tax break.
Read more....

Also...

James Earl Carter, III

Google Analytics

2010-02-13T12:07:00.003-05:00

Google Analytics is a tool that allows website owners to get some general information about what brings people to their sites [not the personal information about the people themselves].

This just seemed a bit odd for what brought people to a particular post:Why were those searches in Japanese?

The United Snow States of America

2010-02-12T11:24:00.002-05:00

From USA Today:

Storm could mean snow on ground in all 50 states

An Oklahoma forecaster is predicting an unusual weather phenomenon snow on the ground in all 50 states at the same time. Read more....

See, it's all of that warm air from global warming that has invaded the Arctic and is pushing out the cold air causing snow in semi-tropical areas. Polar bears are dying from the heat and alligators are dying from the cold.

It's global warming! We're all gonna die!

Michigan - Just Say "What's The Difference?"

2010-02-11T16:13:00.002-05:00

After 8 long, dreadful years as Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm is stepping down and new bodies are trying to step up. Rasmussen Reports did a polling of 500 likely voters [which is small and early] but they came up with some interesting results... there was no clear winner in either the Democratic Party [incumbent] or Republican Party [challenger].

The numbers from Michigan at this early stage of the campaign appear to be largely about voter unhappiness over the continuing bad economy and the governing Democrats’ seeming inability to do much about it so far. No matter who the Democratic candidate is and which Republican he or she is matched against, the findings are virtually the same.

In almost all instances, the Democratic Party hypothetical candidate fared poorly against the Republican/Some Other/I Don't Know or Give a Rat's Ass hypothetical candidate.

What do you expect from a state where the Democratic Party can't even figure out how to make winners out of its cronies, much less the whole state.

You Can Insult Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews... But Not Them

2010-02-10T00:04:00.000-05:00

Well, yes, but they were insulting....

From The Jawa Report:

Pakistan, India, Netherlands Against Free Speech and Religion

The common theme speaks for itself.

Pakistan:
A court in Faisalabad, Pakistan, sentenced to life imprisonment Imran Masih, a young Christian, for having insulted and desecrated the Koran, according to the Minorities Concern newsletter.
India:
Islam or any other religion can be criticised, but a malicious criticism aimed at promoting communal hatred and painting the whole community as villainous is not permissible, Bombay High Court held today.
Netherlands:
Wilders, in the bizarre inquisition that has replaced justice in the Dutch courts, is accused of offending Muslims by pointing out that Muslims invoke the Qur'an and Muhammad's example to justify violence.

Dubai selling off the Queen Elizabeth 2?

2010-02-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

A stunning headline: Dubai selling off the Queen Elizabeth 2?

Her Majesty The Queen

I knew the British were in trouble, but this...?

Black Special Interests Want More Interest In Blacks

2010-02-08T19:01:00.001-05:00

It's apparent that President Obama's program is not "black enough."

WASHINGTON — There was no big speech or fancy ceremony when President Obama observed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday last month. Instead, for his first King holiday as president, Mr. Obama quietly installed a rare signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in the Oval Office and invited a small group of African-American elders and young people to come see it.
The private gathering — “an intimate discussion,” in the words of Dorothy Height, a 97-year-old grande dame of the civil rights movement — was typical of Mr. Obama, who has steered clear of putting race front and center in his administration. But that low-key approach is frustrating some black leaders and scholars, who are starting to challenge Mr. Obama’s language and policies.

On Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are expressing irritation that Mr. Obama has failed to create programs tailored specifically to African-Americans, who are suffering disproportionately in the recession. In December, some of them threatened to oppose new financial rules for banks until the White House promised to address the needs of minority groups.

Read more....

The SEC Knows Hot Air

2010-02-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

From Weasel Zippers:

(WaPo)- A politically divided Securities and Exchange Commission voted on Wednesday to make clear when companies must provide information to investors about the business risks associated with climate change.

The commission, in a 3 to 2 vote, decided to require that companies disclose in their public filings the impact of climate change on their businesses — from new regulations or legislation they may face domestically or abroad to potential changes in economic trends or physical risks to a company.

..."I can only conclude that the purpose of this release is to place the imprimatur of the commission on the agenda of the social and environmental policy lobby, an agenda that falls outside of our expertise and beyond our fundamental mission of investor protection," Republican commissioner Kathleen L. Casey said.

9.7% Jobless Rate

2010-02-05T13:59:00.002-05:00

I guess it depends on your perspective:

The Wall Street Journal - Jobless Rate Hits 9.7%; U.S. Sheds 20,000 Jobs
The New York Times - Labor Market Shows Signs of Reawakening in New Data
CNNMoney.com - Dow dips on debt and job woes
The Washington Post - Unemployment rate falls to 9.7 percent in Jan.

And you thought you were confused about the economy....

Wasted Recycling In San Francisco

2010-02-04T16:12:00.002-05:00

San Francisco prides itself in its waste management system. There are three containers collected on trash pickup days: black for trash, blue for recycling, and green for compost. Having just moved into the city, my son dutifully separated the trash from the recyclables he had accumulated during the move.

I happened to be looking out the window when the garbage truck pulled up. The black container was hooked on the left lift and, immediately next to it, the blue container was hooked to the right lift. Both lifts were engaged simultaneously and dumped into the hopper. I thought that was odd, but perhaps there was a separating panel.

The truck moved down the street and repeated the process, this time with the blue container on the left and the black container on the right. Same simultaneous lift and dump. It was obvious that the carefully separated materials were combined inside the truck.

Will the EPA restrict water vapor?

2010-02-03T19:54:00.001-05:00

From Icecap:

Water vapour worse climate change villain than thought
By Shanta Barley, New Scientist

A rise in water vapour in the atmosphere fuelled 30 per cent of the global warming that took place during the 1990s. This discovery suggests that the potent greenhouse gas plays a bigger role in climate change that we previously imagined.

Susan Solomon and colleagues at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration combined satellite measurements and weather balloon data to track changes in the concentration of water vapour 16 kilometres up in the stratosphere, between the 1980s and today.

Water vapour levels in the stratosphere increased in the 1990s but dropped by 10 per cent in 2001. After feeding their measurements into a climate model, the team suggests that vapour was to blame for almost a third of the warming that happened in the 1990s.

The model also suggests that the decline in water vapour concentrations that occurred in 2001 slowed down the rate of global warming in the last decade by 25 per cent.

“This research does not change the consensus view that human emissions drive climate change,” says Fortunat Joos, a climate modeller at the University of Bern, Germany.

Journal reference: Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1182488

-------------------------

U.S. Deficits Spell Future Problems

2010-02-02T00:04:00.000-05:00

When the New York Times has a problem with the Obama administration, there is a problem....

Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: February 1, 2010

WASHINGTON — In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.
The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country’s entire economic output. That is not unprecedented: During the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the United States ran soaring deficits, but usually with the expectation that they would come back down once peace was restored and war spending abated.
But the second number, buried deeper in the budget’s projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.
Read more....

Economy Bad? Raise Taxes

2010-02-01T14:03:00.002-05:00

Spotted in a California newspaper.

Any thought to realistic budgeting? Just asking.

Debt Control ... Not Really

2010-01-26T13:33:00.001-05:00

When we said we wanted to control debt, we didn't mean the government's....

Senate nixes debt commission

By Jeanne Sahadi, senior writerJanuary 26, 2010: 1:26 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Senate on Tuesday rejected a proposal to create a bipartisan commission charged with reining in the country's debt.
The goal was to create a framework to force Congress to make some tough choices -- specifically tax increases and spending cuts.
Had it passed, Congress would have been required to take speedy votes on the commission's recommendations. The recommendations would have gone up for a vote by the end of this year.
The proposal fell by a vote of 53 to 46. Sixty votes were required for passage. The measure was attached as an amendment to a bill that would increase the legal limit U.S. debt by $1.9 trillion.
"While the statutory fiscal task force proposal ... did not secure the necessary 60 votes for adoption, I am heartened by the 53 votes we did receive," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who co-sponsored the amendment with Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the committee's top-ranking Republican.
Read more....

Trust Us; We're From The Government

2010-01-25T09:59:00.001-05:00

Transparent: not visible.

Axelrod: "People Will Never Know What's in the Healthcare Bill Until the President Signs It!"

Intelligence Chief Slams Handling of Christmas-Bomb Case

2010-01-22T10:56:00.001-05:00

Someone in the government with common sense???

Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday that officials botched the handling of terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of working with a Yemen-based offshoot of al Qaeda to try to bring down the Detroit-bound jet carrying 290 passengers and crew.

A new panel charged with designating so-called high-value terrorism suspects for special interrogations should have been used in the case and the suspect should have been questioned by an elite group of interrogators, said Mr. Blair, who used the expression "duh" to emphasize his point.
Read more....

Democrats start to question strategy

2010-01-20T13:38:00.002-05:00

It's amazing that they slept through all of the alarms going off for the past 6 months....

By Anna Fifield in Washington
Published: January 20 2010 15:21 | Last updated: January 20 2010 18:11
Democrats were on Wednesday morning conducting an autopsy into their humiliating Massachusetts Senate defeat, which puts President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda at risk and underlines the challenges the party faces in this year’s mid-term congressional elections.
The loss of one of the safest liberal seats in the country will cause many Democrats to question their entire strategy. It has also rattled those in more marginal seats and prompted warnings that the party needs to focus on the middle political ground.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
‘Forces of populism’ set to rise - Jan-20
Pelosi weighs options to save bill - Jan-20
In depth: Obama’s first year - Jan-20
Gideon Rachman: Unhappy anniversary - Jan-20
Dotcomment: Does Massachusetts matter? - Jan-20
Clive Crook: What’s the message? - Jan-20
“There’s going to be a tendency on the part of our people to be in denial about all this,” said Evan Bayh, a centrist Democratic senator from Indiana, whose own seat could be in jeopardy in November.
“If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up ... The only way we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates,” Mr Bayh told ABC News.
Read the rest here....

You Call It Bribery

2010-01-19T09:18:00.001-05:00

We call it "TIPS...."

UN Afghanistan survey points to huge scale of bribery

The UN says corruption is holding back Afghanistan's development

Afghans paid $2.5bn (£1.5bn) in bribes over the past 12 months, or the equivalent of almost one quarter of legitimate GDP, a UN report suggests.
Surveying 7,600 people, it found nearly 60% more concerned about corruption than insecurity or unemployment.
More than half the population had to pay at least one bribe to a public official last year, the report adds.
Read more...

Washington Screws Samoa

2010-01-18T12:08:00.012-05:00

CBS 60 Minutes aired two segments about two tropical islands half a world apart: Haiti and Samoa. Most Americans don't even know that Samoa exists and that it is an American territory.

Last year an earthquake of 8.0 magnitude hit along with a 20-ft. tidal wave [tsunami]. This is the official report:

Samoa

Disaster Assistance at a Glance

Recent Disaster Declarations:
Tsunami

OFDA Response:
Emergency relief

OFDA Preparedness:
Disaster preparedness, capacity building

Latest OFDA Report:
East Asia and Pacific Tsunami and Storms Fact Sheet #5 (79KB PDF)

Asia and Pacific - Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Programs (67kb PDF) and (map)

Most Recent Disaster Declaration:
Tsunami, 10-01-2009

On September 29, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of Samoa, 120 miles south of the capital of Apia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake generated a tsunami surge that resulted in waves reportedly reaching as high as 20 feet, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The tsunami surge particularly affected the south and southeastern coast of Upolu Island, while also affecting villages on Savai’i, Manono, and Apolima islands. The earthquake and associated tsunami killed 110 people, injured 180 others, and displaced approximately 32,000 individuals according to the Government of Samoa (GoS) Disaster Action Council (DAC). On September 29, the GoS issued a declaration of disaster. On October 1, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., Arnold H. Campbell issued a disaster declaration due to the effects of the tsunami. In response, USAID/OFDA provided $100,000 through the U.S. Embassy in Apia for the purchase and distribution of relief commodities in coordination with the GoS DAC and the Samoa Red Cross Society.

The American Samoans total less than 100,000 people and are as poor as the Haitians. But there is no political/ethnic pressure group in Washington D.C. pushing for a similar response that the Haitians are receiving. To be fair, the devastation in Haiti is much worse and the Haitian society does not have the cultural cohesiveness and strength of the Samoan society. Still, the response from Washington was anemic, at best.

The Samoans primary industry is canning tuna which accounts for 80% of the islands' income. Last year, one cannery closed. In response, Congress decided that the other cannery must pay U.S. minimum wages. As a result, the other cannery may be closing.

Washington once again showed that it can screw up any screwed up situation even further.

White House nears deal on health care

2010-01-15T12:01:00.002-05:00

2018... isn't that about the end of Obama's 2nd term? Perhaps it would be less stupid if he were not given a 2nd term.

By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 15, 2010

Gripped by a building sense that its window of opportunity could be closing, the White House on Thursday broke the last major logjam blocking enactment of far-reaching health-care legislation, cutting a deal with organized labor on how to tax high-cost insurance policies.

The agreement, forged in a marathon negotiating session that included White House officials and seven prominent labor leaders, would exempt union members from a proposed surtax on expensive insurance plans until 2018, five years after the legislation would take effect. The tax is a key source of financing for Democrats' plan to extend coverage to as many as 36 million additional Americans over the next decade.
Read more....

That fits right in with Nebraska's Medicaid exemption.

More thoughts about this.

The Terrible Twos

2010-01-15T11:47:00.002-05:00

Life's progression in 2s. When you are:

2... toys are important
12... music is important
22... sex is important
32... children are important
42... career is important
52... finance is important
62... grandchildren are important
72... estate planning is important
82... medicine is important
92... waking up is important

CNN: She Is "A Horrible Woman"

2010-01-14T00:03:00.001-05:00

Via Instapundit:

Where was CNN in 2008?

Police Protect Florida From Road Terrorist

2010-01-13T00:01:00.002-05:00

I guess the Politically Correct police are busy protecting the rights of would-be jihadists...

Grandma Wrongfully Jailed for Driving Too Slow

Woman jailed for two weeks, but her license wasn't suspended
By TODD WRIGHT

Updated 9:23 AM EST, Tue, Jan 12, 2010

Broward's justice system is apparently doing their part to keep old people off of the roads in South Florida. Only next time, they might want to get their facts straight.

Police arrested 78-year-old Gabrielle Shaink Trudeau in November for driving with a suspended license and the grandmother was jailed for more than two weeks before someone figured out her license wasn’t suspended after all, according to the BrowardBulldog.org.

Trudeau was released at the behest of a Broward County judge who didn’t mince words about who really deserved to be shackled.

“I want her released. I think she's suffered enough at our system's mistakes," Circuit Judge Lee Seidman wrote in his court order.

The problem for poor Trudeau was, well, she’s poor. She had no one to represent her in court and the Public Defender’s Office failed to appear at her arraignment, which may have solved the problem immediately.

“We fell down and we fell down badly," Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein told BrowardBulldog.

Trudeau’s problems with the law started after she was pulled over a few months earlier by police for driving her car too slowly. That caused the DMV to question her ability to drive. The grandma’s license was revoked pending a review of her skills.

Then, after receiving a notice in the mail saying that her driving privileges had been restored, Broward Sheriff’s Office showed up at her door with a warrant for Trudeau’s arrest. Apparently they didn’t get the memo.

“They came on real strong, like I had killed somebody or something," Trudeau said. "There were neighbors all around. They put handcuffs on me. It was very embarrassing."

Trudeau had to spend Thanksgiving in jail instead of with her family.

Prosecutors have dropped the charges against her and offered an apology.

Ouch

2010-01-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

Health care and the economy all rolled into one:

An Israeli doctor says, "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we
can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him
looking for work in six weeks."

A German doctor says, "That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one
person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks."

A Russian doctor says, "In my country, medicine is so advanced that we
can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have
them both looking for work in two weeks."

An ILLINOIS doctor, not to be outdone, says. "You guys are way behind.
We recently took a man with no brains out of ILLINOIS, put him in the
White House for SIX MONTHS, and now half the COUNTRY is looking for
work."

H/T Wilbert

Chilean presidential candidate vows to deepen ties with China

2010-01-11T00:04:00.000-05:00

Now where do you suppose this is going?

Chilean presidential candidate of the ruling coalition Eduardo Frei Friday promised to further boost ties with China if he wins the Jan. 17 run-off election.

The former president told Xinhua that he is "proud" of being the first Chilean president engaging in direct contact with China when he was in office in 1994-2000.

"Now we have closer ties with China and in the future we have to march ahead much further," Frei said.

"We have had excellent ties with China," Frei said, adding that official statistics to be released soon will prove that "China is the main commercial partner of Chile."

He called for more efforts to enhance mutual investment and academic exchanges between both countries. There also exists a huge potential for the two developing nations to collaborate on environmental protection, he said.

The second round presidential election will be held on Jan. 17,pitting Frei against opposition candidate Sebastian Pinera, after the first round on Dec. 13 failed to produce an outright winner.

Pinera garnered 44 percent of the vote in the December poll, while Frei got 29.6 percent.

The new president is expected to take office on March 11 to replace President Michelle Bachelet.

Source

Perhaps nowhere.

Reid Apologizes for Remarks on Obama’s Color and ‘Dialect’

2010-01-10T12:16:00.002-05:00

From The New York Times:

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: January 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, apologized on Saturday for once predicting that Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
Read more...

What more can one say? How about "idiot"?

The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York offered his support for Mr. Reid after receiving a telephone call from him. He said that while Mr. Reid “did not select the best word choice in this instance,” the comments should not distract Congress or the White House.

Now about any Republican who might say something like that....

Strong Belief In Islam An Insanity Defense

2010-01-08T14:42:00.002-05:00

From The Wall Street Journal

By BEN CASSELMAN
Defense attorneys for accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan are racing to collect evidence that could show their client is insane before a psychiatric evaluation is completed.

View Full Image
Associated Press
The Army on Wednesday evening told Maj. Hasan's defense lawyers that it had convened a so-called sanity board to evaluate whether Maj. Hasan is fit to stand trial. The three-person panel is expected to make a recommendation by the end of February, a timeline that has defense attorneys frustrated.

Maj. Hasan is accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian in a Nov. 5 rampage at the Texas Army base. Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty.

Maj. Hasan's mental status is shaping up to be a central issue in the case. John P. Galligan, the retired Army colonel leading the defense team, has said he was considering pursuing an insanity defense, and the Army has appointed a prosecutor with experience in such cases.
Read more....

New GM Battery Only Cost 5 Times Too Much

2010-01-08T10:37:00.003-05:00

It's a start, but still requires massive subsidies and massive restrictions on existing technologies by our government.

GM battery may get Mich. moving on new path

Technology touted, but experts skeptical over electric cars’ cost

BY ROBERT SNELL AND ALISA PRIDDLE

The Detroit News [online edition]

Brownstown Township — The first lithium-ion battery pack rolled off the line Thursday at General Motors Co.’s new assembly plant here, a symbolic display that could be a step toward transforming Michigan’s battered manufacturing industry.

The battery pack is bound for a Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle, which debuts later this year. But the battery pack’s arrival coincided with a study released Thursday showing the cost targets behind the automakers’ electric vehicle plans are unlikely to be achieved, making it hard for consumers to recoup the extra cost of buying advanced vehicles. The cost is unlikely to drop to the $250 per kilowatt/hour threshold cited by many carmakers for the vehicles to be competitive in price, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group. That price target is not possible without a major breakthrough in battery technology, the study concluded, and no such breakthrough is on the horizon, said Xavier Mosquet, the Detroitbased leader of BCG’s automotive group.

As a result, the payback time for an all-electric vehicle in the United States is about 15 years, or 19 years for an extended-range electric vehicle such as the Volt, the study found.

“Consumers want a three years or less payback period for the extra cost of the batteries,” said Massimo Russo, a partner in the Boston office.

But, a broader acceptance of electric vehicles will drive down costs, and GM wants to expand the number of vehicles that will rely on the same battery technology.

“There’s more to come,” GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre said.

The event Thursday drew U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and a host of politicians.

“We will recapture the lead we have lost and become the world leader in clean vehicles,” Chu said. “This is where the real work begins.

I know we will succeed.”

The plant employs about 25 people now, but about 100 people will work here once production ramps up. Whitacre said that figure could grow.

GM is receiving about $241 million in federal grants, including $106 million for the battery pack assembly factory, which will be the first such facility in the United States operated by a major automaker.Initially, batteries will be sent to GM’s battery lab in Warren for testing. This spring, GM will ship the batteries to the Detroit- Hamtramck assembly plant, where the Volt will be built.

“We’ve had tough times, but this battery represents we’re bouncing back better than ever,” said U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D Royal Oak.

E.P.A. Asks for Stricter Rules for Pollutants Causing Smog

2010-01-07T16:19:00.001-05:00

When will the Obama administration start taxing Chinese products because they are produced by industries that foul the atmosphere in China and eventually impact the atmosphere in Los Angeles?

E.P.A. Asks for Stricter Rules for Pollutants Causing Smog

By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: January 7, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a stricter new standard for smog-causing pollutants on Thursday that, if adopted, will impose large costs on industry and local governments but will also bring substantial health benefits to millions of Americans.

The proposed standard would replace one set by the Bush administration in March 2008, which has been challenged in court by environmental advocates as too weak to adequately protect human health and the environment.
The Obama administration’s proposal sets a primary standard for ground-level ozone of no more than 0.06 to 0.07 parts per million, to be phased in over two decades. The new rule would replace the standard of 0.075 parts per million imposed by the Bush administration. The agency is also proposing a secondary standard that will vary with the seasons to protect plants and trees from repeated exposure.
May as well tax the real culprits.

Formula For Trouble

2010-01-07T00:30:00.004-05:00

This...
Plus this...
Plus this...
could be trouble. So, make sure only middle-aged guys with lots of insurance drive this car.

Democratic Party Senators Calling It Quits

2010-01-06T12:44:00.003-05:00

The ship is leaking and the rats are getting nervous.

By PETER WALLSTEN and NAFTALI BENDAVID

AFP/Getty Images
Sen. Christopher Dodd (center) at a news conference with Sen. Tom Harkin (left) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in December.

WASHINGTON—The retirements of two top Democratic senators underscore what many in the party had already conceded: The prognosis for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections is looking bad.

In brief remarks Wednesday outside his home in East Haddon, Conn., Sen. Christopher Dodd confirmed he wouldn't seek re-election for a sixth term, bowing to political realities which see him trailing potential Republican opponents in a fall campaign.

Mr. Dodd said his decision wasn't based on any predictions about the November elections, although the senator also acknowledged he is in "the toughest political shape" of his career.
Read more....

President Says U.S. Missed Key Bomb Clues

2010-01-06T00:04:00.000-05:00

Dots? What dots? Those aren't dots? Those are just some poor, abused Middle Easterners wanting to go home to their falafel. They just happen to have bad friends.

By JONATHAN WEISMAN, SIOBHAN GORMAN and EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, in his harshest remarks yet on the terrorism threat facing the nation, said U.S. intelligence agencies knew that al Qaeda in Yemen was targeting the United States, but "failed to connect those dots" to thwart a Christmas Day bombing attempt.

The White House suspends transfers of Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to their home country.
The remarks capped a day in which the president, facing heat from Republicans over what they paint as a lackluster initial response, summoned his full cabinet to meetings on counterterrorism in an effort to show his administration's engagement on the issue.
Read more....

It is good of the President to take time to be "engaged."

Ford Vs. Government Motors

2010-01-05T16:03:00.002-05:00

In order to level the playing field which was biased in GM's favor with a rich infusion of government cash, the government will probably find ways to penalize Ford for not allowing the government to call the shots.

Intelligent Investing Panel

Ford Vs. Government Motors

Alexandra Zendrian, 01.05.10, 06:00 AM EST

GM has come out swinging from its government-induced bankruptcy, but Ford's strength in 2009 makes it a contender in 2010.

Things are looking up for the American automakers this year. General Motors is restructuring itself and is winding down its Saab brand. But though there seems to be more confidence in GM now than there was last year, Ford is giving GM a run for its money. These two companies could both be victorious, or one could leave the other badly bruised in the battle for top car company in 2010.
General Motors probably wants to forget 2009--the year that it was forced into bankruptcy. It ended the year on a higher note; GM's 2009 third quarter revenue was $28 billion, up $4.9 billion from its second quarter revenue.
Read more....

Those Munitions Were Here A Minute Ago

2010-01-04T10:59:00.001-05:00

They were small trucks....

Embassies shut after 'Yemen lost track of arms trucks'

It is not clear when the embassies in Sanaa will reopen

The closure of three embassies in Yemen followed local security forces losing track of six trucks full of arms and explosives, say reports from Yemen.
France announced its mission in the capital Sanaa was shut on Monday, a day after the US and UK closed theirs.
Read more....

Natural Gas A Renewable Resource

2010-01-03T11:49:00.003-05:00

Many believe that natural gas is a limited resource and we will run out of it soon in the United States.

As to the latter belief, that is obviously in error as reported here:

U.S. Natural Gas Resource Estimates

Below are three estimates of natural gas reserves in the United States. The first, compiled by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), estimates that there are 1,747.47 Tcf of technically recoverable natural gas in the United States. This includes undiscovered, unproved, and unconventional natural gas. As seen from the table, proved reserves make up a very small proportion of the total recoverable natural gas resources in the U.S.

Natural Gas Technically Recoverable Resources

Natural Gas Resource Category
(Trillion Cubic Feet) As of January 1, 2007

Nonassociated Gas

Undiscovered 373.20

Onshore 113.61

Offshore 259.59

Inferred Reserves 220.14

Onshore 171.05

Offshore 49.09

Unconventional Gas Recovery 644.92

Tight Gas 309.58

Shale Gas 267.26

Coalbed Methane 68.09

Associated-Dissolved Gas 128.69

Total Lower 48 Unproved 1366.96

Alaska 169.43

Total U.S. Unproved 1536.38

Proved Reserves 211.09

Total Natural Gas 1747.47

Source: Energy Information Administration - Annual Energy Outlook 2009

As to the second belief that it is not renewable, recent studies have shown that a nearly inexhaustible supply comes from here...

Of course, this gas will be restricted by the EPA because it releases CO2 into the atmosphere when burned. That would make all of that hot air hotter.

President Obama Finally States The Obvious

2010-01-02T10:55:00.003-05:00

It only took one week and a complete PR mess by Janet Napolitano, but our esteemed President Obama declared the obvious:

Obama Ties Failed Plane Attack to Al Qaeda

By PETER BAKER

Published: January 2, 2010

HONOLULU, Hawaii — President Obama declared for the first time on Saturday that a branch of Al Qaeda based in Yemen sponsored the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American passenger jet, and he vowed that those behind the failed attack “will be held to account.”

In his first radio and Internet address of the new year, Mr. Obama also rebutted attacks by former Vice President Dick Cheney and other Republicans who since the incident have accused him of not recognizing that the struggle against terrorists is a war. Mr. Obama said he was well aware that “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.”
Read more....

Let's see who else President Obama can blame for his abysmal "leadership." First guess, Janet Napolitano will be asked to "step down."

Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

While 2009 was a good year for stupidity. one can only look forward to this year!

Happy New Year!

The Golf Trap

2009-12-31T00:04:00.001-05:00

Stody? Old? I play at golf and I am not old... er, stogy... er, I play at golf [working on "playing golf"]. This is just a cheap shot.

Bunker Mentality

Barack Obama's dangerous obsession with golf.

Michelle Cottle
Michelle Cottle
Senior Editor
view bio

Bunker Mentality

December 30, 2009 | 12:00 am
It’s been a tough first year for President Obama, as critics throughout the body politic bemoan that Mr. Change-We-Can-Believe-In is looking more and more like Mr. Politics-As-Usual. With the coming new year, however, POTUS has a prime opportunity to regroup, reload, and revamp his image. He could start by ditching golf.

Seriously. Its venerable White House history notwithstanding, golf is a dubious pastime for any decent, sane person, much less for this particular president. Why would a leader vowing to shake up Washington--to alter the very nature of politics--sell his soul to a leisure activity that screams stodgy, hyperconventional Old Guard?
Read more....

The one thing this President does that he has in common with Republicans and The New Republic has a hissy-fit. Go burn some bras or come up with a new tax, Michelle Cottle.

California Liberalism At Work

2009-12-30T00:04:00.001-05:00

Don't fix the problem; fix the blame... another example of why California is doomed.

Berkeley High May Cut Out Science Labs

The proposal would trade labs seen as benefiting white students for resources to help struggling students.

By Eric Klein

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.
The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.
Read more....

Science is anti-black???

The Court of Public Opinion

2009-12-29T00:04:00.000-05:00

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation's suit against the DHS [Department of Human Services] continues to draw national attention. The case, the first filed by the newly created public-interest law firm, seeks to prevent the state and two unions from siphoning off nearly $4 million in "dues" from subsidy checks that home-based day care operators receive when they care for the children of low-income parents.

The Wall Street Journal published an Op-Ed by the Mackinac Center's Michael Jahr and Patrick Wright. The piece highlights that the unionization scheme is not unique to Michigan:

Ms. Berry owns her own business — yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy — and it's happening elsewhere in the country.

Read more....

The Case For Mandatory Sterilization

2009-12-28T09:59:00.000-05:00

Detroit woman, boyfriend face charges in 2-year-old's death

A 21-year-old Detroit mother and her boyfriend are expected to be arraigned today on charges they beat the woman’s 2-month-old baby to death on Christmas Eve.

Doublespeak

2009-12-28T09:29:00.002-05:00

Exactly whose actions were undermining the new security arrangement? More doublespeak.

In an incident in northern Gaza, an IDF force killed three Palestinians who were suspected of trying to cross the security fence after midnight. The soldiers spotted suspicious movement of men who were trying to crawl to the fence and opened fire at them with the assistance of a helicopter. Weapons were found near the bodies of the three Palestinians.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced the operation in Nablus as a deliberate attempt to undermine recent security gains.

Read more....

As Long As It Comes From China It Is Acceptable

2009-12-27T00:04:00.000-05:00

After an exhaustive cost analysis by the CBO and a California impact study by the EPA, it has been determined that what happens in China stays in China.

Earth-Friendly Elements, Mined Destructively

Thomas Lee for The New York Times

Zeng Guohui, 41, visiting an abandoned mine where he used to shovel ore from which rare-earth elements were extracted.
By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: December 25, 2009

GUYUN VILLAGE, China — Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.

In Rare Earth Metals, Chinese Dominance

Thomas Lee for The New York Times

This abandoned mine in Guyun Village in China exhausted the local deposit of heavy rare-earth elements in three years.

Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.
Read more....

Aren't you just dying to see those Chinese wind turbines dotting the landscape and your lakefronts?

How Many Tubes Of Caulk Can You Buy For $2 Million?

2009-12-26T13:32:00.001-05:00

All you can do is laugh... sardonically. From Gateway Pundit:

Cash for Caulkers… Government Spent $2 Million of Stimulus Money to Caulk 7 Homes (Video)

Saturday, December 26, 2009, 11:48 AM

Jim Hoft

Cash for Caulkers–
The US government spent two million dollars of Stimulus money to caulk 7 homes.

From the Cashing In program on FOX News Saturday.

Mission Accomplished?

2009-12-26T00:04:00.000-05:00

It may be just a bit early to declare victory and say that the recession is over... at least in Michigan.

Michigan
Data Series	June 2009	July 2009	Aug 2009	Sept 2009	Oct 2009	Nov 2009
Labor Force Data
Civilian Labor Force (1)	4,869.2	4,857.1	4,844.7	4,833.0	4,850.0	(P) 4,845.7
Employment (1)	4,129.2	4,126.9	4,108.7	4,093.9	4,116.9	(P) 4,133.1
Unemployment (1)	740.0	730.2	736.0	739.1	733.1	(P) 712.6
Unemployment Rate (2)	15.2	15.0	15.2	15.3	15.1	(P) 14.7

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Still, this does represent something of an improvement. The real questions are:

is the improvement partially due to Michigan continuing to lose population?
what happens in January when the Christmas retail season is over?

This might be the start of a Happy New Year... or just another statistical bump in the Michigan economic roller coaster.

Home Sales Up... No Down

2009-12-24T00:04:00.000-05:00

Another government pull-ahead program ala "Cash For Clunkers" that is "full of sound and fury; signifying nothing."

From The Detroit News:

Last Updated: December 23. 2009 1:00AM

Midwest home sales up 58%

Rush to claim tax credit fuels surge from a year ago

Josh Funk / Associated Press

Omaha, Neb. -- Home sales in the Midwest jumped 58 percent last month over year-ago levels, the strongest showing of any region, as first-time buyers rushed to claim a temporary federal tax credit.
There were 1.2 million total sales in the 11-state region, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. The median home price was flat at $140,800.
For Michigan, total sales in the third quarter amounted to 169,000 units, a 7 percent increase from the previous quarter and an 11 percent increase from the same period a year ago.

Advertisement

Nationally, existing home sales jumped almost 47 percent from November of last year, without adjusting for seasonal factors. The median sales price fell 4 percent to $172,600.
About half of all buyers in November were first-time home buyers, NAR said. Many hurried to get under a deadline to qualify for an $8,000 tax credit that was set to expire at the end of the month, though Congress then extended and expanded the program through April.
Read more....

From The Wall Street Journal:

DECEMBER 23, 2009, 10:15 A.M. ET

New-Home Sales Slide 11.3%
BY JEFF BATER
WASHINGTON -- New-home sales plunged to their lowest in seven months during November, a bigger-than-expected drop and a sign the housing-market recovery will be rocky.

Separately, the income of Americans made the largest gain in six months during November and their spending rose strongly, according to data hinting the economy might have picked up speed near the end of the year.

Sales of single-family homes decreased 11.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 355,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Businesses Brace for Health Bill's Costs

2009-12-23T10:25:00.002-05:00

But... but... wasn't the health care bill supposed to cover 30 million more people and save money? How could saving money be so costly?

If you are truly wondering that, you are an idiot.

The Wall Street Journal

By NEIL KING JR.

Companies are alarmed at potentially costly provisions in the Senate health-care bill, many of which they hope will be scrapped during a final round of negotiations early next year.

A scramble to massage the hefty measure, instead of pushing to kill it, reflects the view of many in the business community that a sweeping remake of the U.S. health-care system now appears inevitable.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is among a few big business groups calling for Congress to scrap the overhaul effort.

Business is worried that President Barack Obama's push to extend coverage to millions more Americans will raise the burden on employers. Business groups have widely criticized the 2,074-page Senate bill, which looks set for passage on Christmas Eve. They also have offered a variety of fixes.
UPI
From left, Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd, Harry Reid and Max Baucus participate in a rally Tuesday after a series of votes on the health-care bill.
Businesses are bracing for possible rising health care costs, with some businesses holding out hope for new amendments, Neil King reports.
The legislation's scale and complexity, plus uncertainty over how the Senate bill will be meshed with the version that passed the House in November, make it difficult for most companies to gauge the effect it will have on the bottom line.

"We're still committed to the notion that health reform can be done right, but I know of no company that is warmly embracing what is in either the House or Senate bills," said Paul Dennett, top health-care adviser to the American Benefits Council, an advocacy group for large employers.

With all eyes now turning to House-Senate negotiations over a final bill expected next month, corporate lobbyists are jockeying for modifications that will buffer the impact.

Retailers want a longer delay before new employees qualify for company-subsidized benefits. Big employers such as Caterpillar Inc., Boeing Co. and Xerox Corp. want to modify Medicare tax provisions in the Senate bill that would cut their earnings. Small construction companies want an exemption from employee coverage that the Senate bill already applies to other businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

Across the spectrum, businesses worry that a series of new taxes and fees to pay for expanding health-care coverage will push up premiums, particularly for smaller employers.

The Senate bill calls for a nearly $70 billion tax over 10 years on insurance companies, plus a $2 billion-a-year tax on medical devices. Billions of dollars are also meant to be raised from added taxes and fees on wealthier seniors, higher-end insurance plans and tanning salons.

Companies of all sizes have been increasingly burdened by health-care costs, which topped $400 billion in 2007, according to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Unrestrained, that figure is expected to double by 2017. About 70% of workers receive health insurance through their employers.

Groups representing smaller businesses say the threat of increased taxes and premiums could outweigh provisions intended to limit the impact on small employers. The Senate bill "will not only fail to reduce and control the constantly climbing health-care costs small-business owners face, but it will result in new and greater costs on their business," said Dan Danner, head of the National Federation of Independent Business.

On Time Departures Grounded

2009-12-22T00:04:00.000-05:00

The airlines industry is scored on "on time departures" so it is common practice to hustle everyone on the plane whether the plane can actually fly away or not. My own son experienced this about a week ago in Ft. Lauderdale when a Spirit Airlines flight was pushed back from the gate as a huge thunderstorm cell hit from Miami northward. An hour and a half of sitting on the tarmac and the weather abated enough for takeoff.

Still, his flight "departed" on time. Now there is some hope for travelers, but not nearly as much as they might want.

U.S. imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings

By Sholnn Freeman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 21, 2009; 4:29 PM

Under new federal rules, airlines with loaded jets on the tarmac will now have to get them in the air within three hours, or allow the passengers off.

New U.S. Department of Transportation regulations issued Monday also say that airlines must provide adequate food and potable water for passengers within two hours of an aircraft being delayed on the tarmac. Additionally, airlines must maintain "operable lavatories" and provide passengers on delayed aircraft with necessary medical attention.

The new rules apply to U.S. airlines and domestic flights. They allow exceptions for safety, security and other reasons linked to specific instructions from air traffic control officials.

Passenger advocates and lawmakers have demanded federal action in recent years to combat excessive tarmac delays. The new regulations authorize fines of as much as $27,500 per passenger for violations. The new rules go into effect in about three months, officials said.
Read more....

The Democratic Porkers Are Stuffed In The Health Bill

2009-12-21T01:15:00.002-05:00

If you happen to be in Washington D.C., be very careful. You could get trampled by these Democratic Porkers trying to get into the Health Care Bill.

Deep in Health Bill, Very Specific Beneficiaries

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: December 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — Buried in the deal-clinching health care package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of “environmental health hazards.”
Read more....

Hacking Systems

2009-12-19T11:27:00.002-05:00

With all of the recent angst about how al Qaeda hacked U.S. military drones with $26 software, it shouldn't be surprising that "hackers" are now finding gainful employment with the government, among other employers.

Certified Ethical Hacker: Not Your Everyday Job
By Ryan Corey
TechNewsWorld
10/07/09 8:39 AM PT

The term "hacker" doesn't just apply to crooks, thieves and anyone else looking to subvert computer security systems for malevolent purposes. Some hackers are in the business of improving security. Certified Ethical Hackers are paid by companies and government agencies to test their computer systems against the sort of attacks the bad guys often attempt to pull off.
Read more....

This would seem to be a perfect short-term job for a high-school senior who is trying to get some money together to go to his favorite party college.

Copenhagen Accord Not Worth One Honda Accord

2009-12-18T20:12:00.002-05:00

It all boils down to a lot of over-paid politicians flying around the world using a lot of expensive jet fuel to meet in costly locations to say "look at me; look at me..." and then agreeing to do it again sometime.

Leaders Strike Climate Deal

By JEFFREY BALL, STEPHEN POWER and ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON

Getty Images
President Barack Obama in Copenhagen on the final day of the U.N. summit on climate change.

COPENHAGEN -- Leaders of the U.S., China and several other major economies said late Friday they had tentatively reached a new climate accord, though they said the pact wasn't aggressive enough to meaningfully curb greenhouse-gas emissions and merely set up a future round of negotiations to hash out the details.

The announcement followed a hectic day of diplomacy that included an approximately four-hour meeting that featured clashes between U.S. and Chinese officials. But the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" leaves key questions unanswered, and will likely have little immediate impact on companies in the U.S. and elsewhere that had hoped for more certainty about the future direction of regulation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement was still subject late Friday to final ratification by nations at the conference.

The Copenhagen agreement contained no specific targets for greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. A proposed 50% cut that was in earlier drafts was removed.
Read more....

The Golden Bubble

2009-12-17T16:46:00.004-05:00

Bubbles... we love bubbles. We have songs about bubbles... tiny bubbles, in the wine, makes me happy, makes me feel fine.... Kids love to blow soap bubbles. But the thing about bubbles is... they pop!

dot-coms ... pop
oil ... pop
housing ... pop
gold ...

Gold plummets as the dollar firms
By Ben Rooney, staff reporter

December 17, 2009: 3:22 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gold prices plunged Thursday as the dollar surged against the euro amid concerns about the economic health of certain European nations.
February gold fell $28, or 2.5%, to settle at $1,107.40 an ounce after falling to a low of $1,098 an ounce earlier in the session. The retreat came two weeks after gold settled at an all-time high of $1,218.30 an ounce
...
In a research report out Thursday, analysts at Morgan Stanley raised their forecast for gold prices next year by 20% to $1,200 an ounce. The investment bank also raised the outlook for 2011, but reduced forecasts from 2013 onwards.

Is this beating a dead horse? Wait, that's another metaphor. But it may be beating the bushes for the last of the bubble customers.

Censure Or Action

2009-12-16T12:07:00.004-05:00

And now will President Obama define just what this means?

Iran draws censure after missile test

By Aresu Eqbali (AFP) – 2 hours ago

TEHRAN — Iran on Wednesday test-fired what it said was a faster version of a medium-range missile which could allow it to strike Israel, drawing international censure and warnings of "serious" fallout.
The defiant test of the Sejil 2 (Lethal Stone) missile comes as world powers mull fresh sanctions against the Islamic republic for its controversial nuclear enrichment programme.
"It hit the defined target," state television reported, without giving further details.
The two-stage Sejil, powered by solid fuel, is capable according to Iran of travelling 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles), which would put arch-foe Israel, most Arab states and parts of Europe, including much of Turkey, within range.
Read more....

Let's hope that he responds with as much vigor as the U.S. military did against the Navy SEALs who will be brought to court martial for allegedly hitting a most-wanted terrorist.

Will They Sue For More Protection?

2009-12-15T14:10:00.002-05:00

The Muslim terrorists will be protected from Chicago street thugs and politicians who are deemed to be far more dangerous....

U.S. announces transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Ill. prison

By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 15, 2009; 1:41 PM

CHICAGO -- Dozens of terrorism suspects being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be moved to a little-used Illinois state prison that will be acquired and upgraded by the federal government, the Obama administration said Tuesday.

In a letter addressed to Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, administration officials confirmed that the government would acquire the eight-year-old Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles west of Chicago, to house detainees from Guantanamo. The Justice Department will use part of the facility to house federal inmates, while the Defense Department will use part to house a "limited number" of Guantanamo detainees.

"The two parts of the facility will be managed separately, and Federal inmates will have no opportunity to interact with Guantanamo detainees," according to the letter, which was released by the White House and signed by officials including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Read more....

The EPA's Carbon Bomb Fizzles

2009-12-14T10:58:00.002-05:00

The Democratic Party is careening toward suicide with all of its CO2-related efforts. The Wall Street Journal reports on how the recent EPA actions may delay that eventuality... briefly.

In the high-stakes game of chicken the Obama White House has been playing with Congress over who will regulate the earth's climate, the president's team just motored into a ditch. So much for threats. The threat the White House has been leveling at Congress is the Environmental Protection Agency's "endangerment finding," which EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson finally issued this week. The finding lays the groundwork for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions across the entire economy, on the grounds that global warming is hazardous to human health.

From the start, the Obama team has wielded the EPA action as a club, warning Congress that if it did not come up with cap-and-trade legislation the EPA would act on its own—and in a far more blunt fashion than Congress preferred. As one anonymous administration official menaced again this week: "If [Congress doesn't] pass this legislation," the EPA is going to have to "regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

Read more....

Obama Knows How To Pick His Czars

2009-12-11T00:04:00.000-05:00

President Obama has selected one classless radical after another to "advise" him on matters of the nation. You all remember "green jobs" Van Jones? How about "safe schools" Kevin "I'm Queerer Than You" Jennings? Jennings has been involved in the "education" of young people for some time.

Now you can read for yourself how he intends to educate our children in his version of "safe" schools.

[click image for downloadable .pdf document - not recommended for children]

That should make your day. h/t Gateway Pundit

Oh, by the way, Van Jones did not go away.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Van Jones, President Obama's controversial former "green jobs" czar, serves on the advisory board of an independent environmental organization actively working with the White House, reports Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily.com.

Jones resigned in September after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Jones is one of 20 advisers to the University of Colorado-based Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, which draws up climate-policy recommendations for the White House and has been working with members of the Obama administration.
Read more....

Michigan State Players Kicked Off Team

2009-12-11T00:03:00.005-05:00

They were smart enough to get into college. They were athletic enough to play Division 1 football. They were stupid enough to throw it all away for some sort of macho code to deal with being "disrespected." How much respect have they earned for this stupidity?

Full story....

The Fiction Of Climate Science

2009-12-10T00:03:00.000-05:00

Repeat this: politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good... politically-correct is good...

The Fiction Of Climate Science

Gary Sutton, 12.04.09, 10:00 AM EST
In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.

Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.
Read more....

$10 Trillion - Zero Return On Investment

2009-12-09T10:27:00.002-05:00

Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years. Now we are going to prevent that with government programs. Sure.

Climate Deal Likely to Bear Big Price Tag

By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: December 8, 2009

WASHINGTON — If negotiators reach an accord at the climate talks in Copenhagen it will entail profound shifts in energy production, dislocations in how and where people live, sweeping changes in agriculture and forestry and the creation of complex new markets in global warming pollution credits.

So what is all this going to cost?
The short answer is trillions of dollars over the next few decades. It is a significant sum but a relatively small fraction of the world’s total economic output. In energy infrastructure alone, the transformational ambitions that delegates to the United Nations climate change conference are expected to set in the coming days will cost more than $10 trillion in additional investment from 2010 to 2030, according to a new estimate from the International Energy Agency.
Read more....

Anyone who can't see that these programs are nothing more than scams and money-making schemes for government-connected groups and individuals isn't really looking.

New U.S. Plan to Battle AIDS Slows Growth in Treatment

2009-12-09T00:03:00.000-05:00

Portends the new Obamacare? Oh, you have a serious, but costly illness. Too bad.

New U.S. Plan to Battle AIDS Slows Growth in Treatment

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Published: December 8, 2009

As the Obama administration slowly unveils its global AIDS plan, the drive to put more people on drugs is being scaled back as emphasis is shifted to prevention and to diseases that cost less to fight, including pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and fatal birth complications.

AIDS activists complained bitterly that they have been betrayed and that the Bush administration’s best legacy is being gutted — and they blame a doctor and budget advisor who is also the brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
“I’m holding my nose as I say this, but I miss George W. Bush,” said Gregg Gonsalves a long-time AIDS campaigner. “On AIDS, he really stepped up. He did a tremendous thing. Now, to have this happen under Obama is really depressing.”
Read more....

Solar Energy Shares Jump On Upgrades,EPA Greenhouse Gas Ruling

2009-12-08T05:03:00.002-05:00

Makes you kind of wonder when big business jumps on the CO2-is-poison bandwagon... until you realize that they see it as the anti-CO2-is-big-bucks bandwagon.

This is a money grab by the government in the form of higher and higher taxes and a money grab by big business in the form of sweetheart subsidies from the government. The only group not on the money bandwagon is the taxpayer group... they just shell out the money in the form of more taxes and higher energy costs.

And the taxpayers get in return... nada, zilch, zip, zero.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Shares of solar energy stocks climbed Monday as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health and as an analyst turned bullish on several solar names, saying he expects strong demand to continue into the first half of 2010.
The so-called "endangerment finding" announced by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is necessary for the administration to move ahead with new light-duty vehicle emission standards and is the precursor to wide-ranging regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA said Monday that large emitters of greenhouse gases would come under new regulations next spring

Will They Also Call Sharia Law "Freedom Of Religion"

2009-12-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

While I have to agree with the idea that religious symbols should be given freedom of expression regardless of the religion, I wonder if those who are so protective of that right will stand up for Christian and Jewish symbols when those are banned by Muslim majorities?

Just wondering....

Swiss leftists to push to revoke minaret ban

Conservatives marked victory in last week's referendum against construction of minarets, but left-wing intellectuals are formulation new referendum to have ban overturned
Ynet
Published: 12.07.09, 13:20 / Israel News

Left-wing activists in Switzerland are planning a new initiative to overturn the ban on the construction of minarets in the country, the British "Independent" reported on Monday.

According to the report, the initiative is meant to restore Muslim's faith in the country's institutions, as well as Switzerland's standing in the world.

In a referendum carried out last week, 57% of the country's citizens voted in favor of banning the construction of new minarets. Justice Minister Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf said following the approval of the initiative, that the ban would be effective immediately, but is not set in stone and could be overturned.

Culture War

Swiss government 'very concerned' over minaret ban / Associated Press

Foreign minister says limitations on coexistence of different cultures, religions 'endangers our security'; stresses ban only on new minarets, not on new mosques

Full Story

A group of 20 Swiss intellectuals called Club Helvetique has formulated an action plan to tackle the ban. "A new initiative is the most democratic way of achieving this," attorney Joerg Mueller of Club Helvetique said.

Switzerland's conservative SVP party which led the campaign for the ban said in response: "The Club Helvetique is an association of bad losers."

The results of the referendum enraged many in the country and major protests by leftists in Zurich, Bern and Basel were seen over the weekend.

According to the report, those who oppose the ban have already filed two petitions to the federal court claiming it is a violation of freedom of religion.

Carbon Dioxide Emission Rules Due Today

2009-12-07T09:12:00.003-05:00

That insidious pollutant, CO2... carbon dioxide... is everywhere. It causes untold damage to our environment as shown here. Al Gore and Barack Obama have sworn to save us from this danger, even if it bankrupts coal companies... and us.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

By JEFFREY BALL and CHARLES FORELLE
Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.

Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.

An EPA endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery," he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

Advancing Emissions

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Countdown to Copenhagen

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EPA action won't do much to combat climate change, and "is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy," said the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group that stands as a proxy for U.S. industry.

Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a power-industry trade group, said the EPA would be less likely than Congress to come up with an "economywide approach" to regulating emissions. The power industry prefers such an approach because it would spread the burden of emission cuts to other industries as well.

Electricity generation, transportation and industry represent the three largest sources of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday on when the agency might finalize its proposed endangerment finding. Congressional Republicans have called on the EPA to withdraw it, saying recently disclosed emails written by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the U.K.'s University of East Anglia and their peers call into question the scientific rationale for regulation.

The spokeswoman said that the EPA is confident the basis for its decision will be "very strong," and that when it is published, "we invite the public to review the extensive scientific analysis informing" the decision.

EPA action would give President Barack Obama something to show leaders from other nations when he attends the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 and tries to persuade them that the U.S. is serious about cutting its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

The vast majority of increased greenhouse-gas emissions is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India, not from rich countries like the U.S. But developing countries have made it clear that their willingness to reduce growth in emissions will depend on what rich countries do first. That puts a geopolitical spotlight on the U.S.

At the heart of the fight over whether U.S. emission constraints should come from the EPA or Congress is a high-stakes issue: which industries will have to foot the bill for a climate cleanup. A similar theme will play out in Copenhagen as rich countries wrangle over how much they should have to pay to help the developing world shift to cleaner technologies.

"There is no agreement without money," says Rosário Bento Pais, a top climate negotiator for the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm. "That is clear."

An endangerment finding would allow the EPA to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which are produced whenever fossil fuel is burned. Under that law, the EPA could require emitters of as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year to install new technology to curb their emissions starting as soon as 2012.

View Slideshow

Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters
A man climbed on a globe that is part of an installation in downtown Copenhagen.

The EPA has said it will only require permits from big emitters -- facilities that put out 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. But that effort to tailor the regulations to avoid slamming small businesses with new costs is expected to be challenged in court.

Legislators are aware that polls show the public appetite for action that would raise energy prices to protect the environment has fallen precipitously amid the recession.

Congressional legislation also faces plenty of U.S. industry opposition. Under the legislation, which has been passed by the House but is now stuck in the Senate, the federal government would set a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas the economy could emit every year. The government would distribute a set number of emission permits to various industries. Companies that wanted to be able to emit more than their quota could buy extra permits from those that had figured out how to emit less.

Proponents of the cap-and-trade approach say emission-permit trading will encourage industries to find the least-expensive ways to curb greenhouse-gas output. But opponents say it will saddle key industries with high costs not borne by rivals in China or India, and potentially cost the U.S. jobs.

An official prepares the Danish flag in the large Copenhagen meeting hall that will host the United Nation's summit on climate change beginning Monday. The conference ends Dec. 18.
The oil industry has warned that climate legislation could force some U.S. refineries to shut down, because importing gasoline from countries without emission caps could be cheaper than making the gasoline on domestic soil.

Legislators "have decided that coal and electric users don't bear the burden" of emissions constraints for many years, said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group. "Early in the program, oil users are the ones who are hammered."

The Iron and Steel Institute, which represents more than 75% of steel made in the U.S., said that successful climate policy -- whether through the EPA or Congress -- must "reduce emissions without altering the competitiveness of American steelmakers."
The issue of how curbing emissions would affect jobs in developed countries is likely to erupt in Copenhagen in the battle over how much rich countries should pony up for cleaner technologies in developing nations.

Estimates of the cost for reducing emissions in developing countries vary widely, but the European Commission said in September that the bill could reach $150 billion annually by 2020. Leaders of the EU's 27 nations have said only that the EU would pay its "fair share" of the total, without committing to an amount.

Yet EU industry lobbies are weighing in against that proposal. It is "not realistic," said Axel Eggert, spokesman for Eurofer, the trade group for European steelmakers. Steelmakers want to "make sure that the financing is not a subsidy for our competitors," he said.

-- Ian Talley and Stephen Power contributed to this article.

Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com and Charles Forelle at charles.forelle@wsj.com

Ounces Are Getting Smaller

2009-12-05T23:38:00.006-05:00

In 2008, it took only 16.9 ounces to equal 500 ml. In 2009, it takes 17.6 ounces to equal 500 ml.

Click image for larger view.

I guess ounces must be pegged to the dollar and mls pegged to the Euro. What is more likely is that someone who was designing the new package didn't look at the old one, then entered 520 ml. into a conversion formula and came up with the 17.58 [17.6] ounces for the new package.

Makes you glad this isn't medicine.

Climategate - A Republican Myth

2009-12-04T15:30:00.002-05:00

While the world of science is somewhat vibrating due to the disclosure of political hanky-panky with data and analysis, the political world is vibrating to... uh, nothing much more than some bureaucratic inbreeding.

Climategate? What Climategate?
By JOHN FUND
The scandal involving leaked or purloined emails from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia finally reached Capitol Hill this week, but not in the way you'd expect. Democratic committee chairmen ignored the evidence of scientific skullduggery at the influential research unit, even as its head Phil Jones stepped aside this week to make way for an investigation.

Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment Committee, did rouse herself to comment on the emails, saying their release should be treated as a criminal matter. "You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'Email-theft-gate,'" she said. "Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated."

In the House, the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on what Chairman Ed Markey said was "the urgent consensus view . . . that global warming is real, and the science indicates it is getting worse." But the only witnesses were officials from the Obama administration, who support dramatic action on climate change. Republicans asked to have a global-warming skeptic appear but were denied.
Read more....

Not Faster Than A Glacier

2009-12-03T12:31:00.003-05:00

Who would have thought that ice could move so fast? Apparently, not two brothers. So far, no calls to ban CO2.

Men crushed by glacier 'ignored signs'

Friday, December 04, 2009 » 02:54am
Two Melbourne brothers ignored numerous warning signs to reach a New Zealand glacier that collapsed, engulfing them in ice, an inquest has heard.
Ashish Miranda, 24, an aircraft engineer, and Akshay Miranda, a 22-year-old student, were killed at the Fox Glacier on January 8 after stepping over a safety rope and wading through a swollen stream to get to the glacier.
The brothers were travelling with their parents on a summer holiday they had funded as a silver wedding anniversary gift to their mum and dad.
One of the brothers was leaning against the ice wall while the other took his picture, when a groan from the glacier warned of impending disaster.
The brothers tried to flee to safety but had no chance of outrunning the hundreds of tonnes of ice that crushed them.
Read more....

h/t Tom Nelson

Jon Stewart On Global Warming

2009-12-02T10:33:00.005-05:00

Click image to watch.

Minaret ban 'a security risk' - Swiss minister

2009-12-01T10:03:00.003-05:00

And have you noticed all of the new churches and synagogues springing up in Muslim countries? Why do you suppose Muslims are perceived to represent a "security threat?" Could it be because they are?

Minaret ban 'a security risk' - Swiss minister

A decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of minarets poses a risk to Switzerland's security, the country's foreign minister says.
Micheline Calmy-Rey said the Swiss government was "very concerned" about the ban, adopted by voters on Sunday.
"Each limitation on the co-existence of different cultures and religions also endangers our security," she told the European security body, the OSCE.
A top UN official has called the ban "clearly discriminatory".

Tiger Woods Driving

2009-11-30T16:30:00.002-05:00

Let's skip all of the press releases and get straight to the punch line: Tiger Woods should keep his driving limited to the golf course.

That said, we're all waiting to let Tiger's driver do the talking... and we'll all be listening.

Treasury Pushes Mortgage Firms for Loan Relief

2009-11-30T14:31:00.004-05:00

Here is the problem: there are no viable options for salvaging mortgages when the value of the property is 30-40% less than the mortgaged amount. Who eats the loss? The homeowner? The bank? Taxpayers? All of the above?

Furthermore, how many mortgages are in default because buyers simply cannot afford a home regardless of the loan modification terms? What percentage of defaults are a result of unemployment and how do you modify a loan for someone without income?

Broad mandates from the Federal government simply cause further market and economic decisions that are decidedly stupid.

Treasury Pushes Mortgage Firms for Loan Relief

The administration said Monday that it would increase the pressure on banks to help troubled homeowners permanently lower mortgage payments.
The Treasury Department said that mortgage servicers would be required to submit plans on how they would decide whether a loan would be permanent modified. Bank that fall short of the guidelines of their agreement could face fines or sanctions, the Treasury said.
Monday’s push was the latest evidence that a $75 billion taxpayer-financed effort aimed at stemming foreclosures was struggling. Even as lenders have accelerated the pace at which they are reducing mortgage payments for borrowers, most loans modified remain in a trial stage lasting up to five months, and only a tiny fraction have been made permanent.
Read more....

There really is only one solution: let the marketplace work and let the lenders and borrowers take the heat. It's not pleasant, but it will be better in the long run. Those of us with homes that have lost value [roughtly 90+%] have the choices to either stay and pay or leave and pay. Eventually, the home market will recover and so will home prices. It may take quite a few years, but it will be a lesson worth learning and heeding in future.

Politics of Climategate threatens climate change conference in Copenhagen

2009-11-29T11:36:00.005-05:00

Using data without irresponsible manipulation, fraud, and lying is somehow being the stooge of big business and the energy lobby.

But using data with irresponsible manipulation, fraud, and lying is giving our children "a better world." Those politics are a good thing.

November 29, 12:26 AMPortland Progressive ExaminerMichael Stone

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Tree stumps displayed in Trafalgar Square, London, as part of an art piece entitled "Ghost Forest"
(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

The politics of Climategate threatens the climate change conference in Copenhagen. The UN climate change conference in Copenhagen opens next week.

The political fall out from the release of hacked emails from one of the UK's leading climate research centers threatens the climate change consensus.

Climate change sceptics have used the hacked emails to try and prove climate change researchers are playing fast and loose with the figures. More than this, it has emboldened climate change deniers, and spawned a great deal of misinformation.

Read more....

Iran rebuked over nuclear 'cover-up' by UN watchdog

2009-11-27T10:59:00.002-05:00

Just what are the implications of a "rebuke" by the United Nations? Does that mean that Disney will not build a "Disneystan" near Qom? Does the Iranian regime care one bit? Unlikely.

Iran rebuked over nuclear 'cover-up' by UN watchdog

Iran's second uranium enrichment facility came to light in September

The UN nuclear watchdog's governing body has passed a resolution condemning Iran for developing a uranium enrichment site in secret.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also demanded that Iran freeze the project immediately.
The resolution, the first against Iran in nearly four years, was passed by a 25-3 margin with six abstentions.
But Iran's envoy to the watchdog denounced the move, calling it intimidation.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US says it is seeking nuclear weapons.
Read more....

Obama to attend beginning of U.N. climate meeting

2009-11-25T16:46:00.002-05:00

Despite the recent revelations that a significant body of the so-called global warming settled science is fraudulent, President Obama has decided that political truth outweighs scientific truth... that political truth being "you can't change your position without looking like a dupe."

Obama to attend beginning of U.N. climate meeting

Wed Nov 25, 2009 3:05pm EST

FACTBOX: White House lays out Copenhagen emissions proposal
3:05pm EST

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will go to Copenhagen for a U.N. climate change meeting on December 9, hoping to add momentum to an international process despite slow progress on a domestic bill to cut carbon emissions.

Obama planned to make a visit at the beginning of the climate negotiations in Denmark, an administration official told Reuters on Wednesday, before picking up the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in neighboring Oslo.

Obama did not plan to return for the end of the December 7-18 meeting, when roughly 65 other heads of state and government are expected to attend, the official said.

Obama has made climate change a top priority of his administration, but a bill to cut U.S. emissions is bogged down in the U.S. Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed its version of climate change legislation.
Read more....

President Obama Will Handle Navy SEALs Personally

2009-11-24T19:19:00.004-05:00

As Commander-In-Chief, Barack Obama will personally see to it that these despicable people are prosecuted and imprisoned making us all safer. No, not the guy who mutilated the Americans... the Navy SEALs who gave him a fat lip.

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
By Rowan Scarborough

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.
Read more....

How about sitting down over a few beers?

Government Faces Foreclosure

2009-11-23T09:45:00.002-05:00

Who would have guessed that you can't borrow and spend without producing anything and then run into financial trouble?

Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: November 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.” WILLIAM H. GROSS

Multimedia

Graphic
The Debt Buildup

Payback Time
The Debt Bomb
Articles in this series will examine the consequences of, and attempts to deal with, growing public and private debts.

But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.
Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.
Read more....

Now about that $1.5 trillion health care program....

Senator Reid and the Power of Persuasion

2009-11-20T14:27:00.002-05:00

Persuasion or coercion? A fine line that has been crossed many times in this administration and Congress.

November 20, 2009, 10:33 am

Senator Reid and the Power of Persuasion

By THE EDITORS

George Tames/The New York Times Lyndon B. Johnson, as Senate majority leader in 1957, giving Theodore F. Green, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “the treatment.”

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, having unveiled the Senate health care bill now needs 60 votes to stave off a Republican filibuster and begin formal floor debate. That means getting all 58 Senate Democrats and the two independents on board for a vote set for Saturday evening. But even among the Democrats, Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana have been cagey about whether they will support the bill.

How do Senate leaders persuade fence-sitters to vote against their own political instincts (either because they or their constituents oppose some part of the legislation or because political adversaries will use the vote against them in the next election)? What is in the Senate arm-twister’s bag of tricks — carrots as well as sticks — that’s most effective?
Read more....

Natural Gas Technically Recoverable Resources
Natural Gas Resource Category (Trillion Cubic Feet)	As of January 1, 2007

Nonassociated Gas
Undiscovered	373.20
Onshore	113.61
Offshore	259.59
Inferred Reserves	220.14
Onshore	171.05
Offshore	49.09
Unconventional Gas Recovery	644.92
Tight Gas	309.58
Shale Gas	267.26
Coalbed Methane	68.09
Associated-Dissolved Gas	128.69
Total Lower 48 Unproved	1366.96
Alaska	169.43
Total U.S. Unproved	1536.38
Proved Reserves	211.09

Total Natural Gas	1747.47
Source: Energy Information Administration - Annual Energy Outlook 2009