Musings

Gender

2012-02-01T15:49:00.000-08:00

British couple reveals sex of child they raised as ‘genderless’ for 5 years

January 20, 2012

NewsCore

SAWSTON, England -- A British couple who raised their child as "gender neutral" in a bid to break free from stereotyping revealed Friday that their five-year-old is a boy.
Beck Laxton and her partner Kieran, from Sawston in central England, referred to their son, Sasha, as "the infant" and dressed the youngster in ambiguous outfits to keep his sex a secret from friends and strangers.

They decided to tell people the child's gender after it became more difficult to conceal when he started pre-school.

Laxton, a 46-year-old web editor, told the Cambridge News of her reasons for raising a "genderless" child.

"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," she said. "Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?"

Even the couple themselves chose not to discover whether Sasha was a boy or a girl until half an hour after his birth -- and in an email announcing the birth they simply told family and friends they "had a baby called Sasha."

"I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way," she said. "All I want to do is make people think a bit."

The couple is happy to allow Sasha to wear flowery clothes -- and sent family and friends a Christmas card with a photo of the boy dressed in a pink fairy outfit.

Sasha is encouraged to play with gender-neutral toys in the family's television-free home, Laxton said.

A couple from Toronto hit the headlines in May last year when they refused to reveal the sex of their baby, Storm, as they wanted to raise the child "to be free of societal norms regarding gender."

gender

2012-02-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

Egyptian official: 73 dead, hundreds hurt in riots after soccer game

By the CNN Wire Staff

2/1/12

Flares are thrown in the stadium during clashes that erupted after a football match between Egypt's Al-Ahly and Al-Masry teams in Port Said.

Cairo (CNN) -- At least 73 people were killed when riots broke out after a soccer game Wednesday in Egypt, the country's deputy health minister said.

At least 180 others were injured in the riots, the deputy minister said.

The fighting occurred in a stadium in the northeastern city of Port Said after a match between the Al-Ahly team and Port Said's Al-Masry team.

"It's kind of a security vacuum in the football stadium. ... It's not unheard of to have organized violence between football clubs, but something on this scale has never been seen before," said James Montague, a CNN contributor who researched soccer in the Middle East for his book "When Friday Comes: Football in the War Zone."

egypt

POLLS and Obama

2012-02-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers yesterday, and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried. If President Obama carries only those states where he had a net positive approval rating in 2011 (e.g. Michigan where he is up 48 percent to 44 percent), Obama would lose the 2012 election to the Republican nominee 323 electoral votes to 215.
Gallup adds:

Overall, Obama averaged 44% job approval in his third year in office, down from 47% in his second year. His approval rating declined from 2010 to 2011 in most states, with Wyoming, Connecticut, and Maine showing a marginal increase, and Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, Arizona, West Virginia, Michigan, and Georgia showing declines of less than a full percentage point. The greatest declines were in Hawaii, South Dakota, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

gallup polls

Biden: Better not take credit for this in the future

2012-01-30T21:34:00.000-08:00

Jan 30, 2012 12:03pm

Joe Biden Advised Against the Osama bin Laden Raid

Vice President Joe Biden confessed this weekend that he advised President Obama not to launch the mission that ultimately killed Osama bin Laden last spring.

During remarks at a Democratic congressional retreat this weekend, Biden explained that when it came time to make the final decision, he had some lingering uncertainties about whether the 9/11 mastermind was in the suspected compound in Pakistan.

When the president asked his top advisers for their final opinion on the mission, all of them were hesitant, except for the former CIA director, now Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Biden said.

“Every single person in that room hedged their bet except Leon Panetta. Leon said go. Everyone else said, 49, 51,” Biden said, as he offered the unsolicited details of the decision-making process.

“He got to me. He said, ‘Joe, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘You know, I didn’t know we had so many economists around the table.’ I said, ‘We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is, don’t go. We have to do two more things to see if he’s there,’” Biden recalled.

While the vice president did not explain what those two more things were, the next morning the president gave National Security Adviser Tom Donilon the “go” to launch the SEAL raid of the compound.

“He knew what was at stake, not just the lives of those brave warriors, but literally the presidency,” Biden said.

obama

War with Iran ?

2012-01-30T21:32:00.000-08:00

January 18, 2012 9:50 AM

Sliding toward a war with Iran

By Kenneth M. Pollack

CBS News

With so much alarming going on in the Middle East, it's hard to keep track of everything that seems to be going wrong. No sooner had the Libyan civil war ended than another erupted in Syria. Iraq appears determined to follow, and perhaps overtake their Syrian neighbors. Egypt remains locked in a multi-sided struggle among the military, the Islamists and the secular liberals. And disturbing reports of low-level, but growing unrest in Saudi Arabia have begun to emerge.

Amid all of this, the one place that the United States has resolutely marched forward—or perhaps been dragged by the Congress and our European allies—has been in applying ever greater pressure on Iran. But if the Obama administration’s forward progress is clear enough when it comes to its Iran policy, its ultimate destination is not. The sanctions against Iran may well succeed on their own terms while producing regrettable, if unintended, consequences.

The latest salvo against Iran came a few short weeks ago, when President Obama signed into law the new Defense Appropriations bill, in which Congressional conservatives had tucked new, draconian sanctions prohibiting transactions with Central Bank of Iran (CBI), or anyone else doing business with the CBI. The importance of these sanctions is that prohibiting transactions with Iran’s Central Bank would preclude long-term oil sales contracts. If no country were willing to deal with the CBI, Iran would be forced to sell its oil either only to countries and companies willing to buck such U.S. sanctions, or rely on spot market sales for cash—an extremely inefficient method that would cut heavily into Iranian oil revenues. Some analysts, in fact, estimate that this could lead to a reduction of Iranian oil revenues by as much as one-third—and since Iran is heavily dependent on oil revenues, this could have a major impact on the Iranian economy.

Now that would seem to be a good thing, right? Maybe, but maybe not. Certainly the Iranian regime has shown absolutely no inclination to halt (let alone give up) its nuclear program in the face of previous sanctions, which are already having a serious impact on the Iranian economy. The hope is that going after Iranian oil revenues in this fashion would apply so much pressure on Iran’s economy, causing rampant inflation and even economic collapse, that the regime will have no choice but to compromise and accept international demands related to its nuclear program.

The problem is that these sanctions are potentially so damaging that they could backfire, creating at least three sets of consequences that would leave the United States in a worse position, whatever the impact on Iran.

Backfire I: The Impact on the U.S. Economy

One of the interesting things about going after Iranian oil exports in this fashion is that it is likely to simultaneously hurt Iran’s economy and our own. The bet is that it will hit the Iranian economy much harder and faster than our own. The sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran have already caused a sudden increase in inflation and a drop in the value of the Iranian rial as Iranians race to dump their rials in favor of dollars, pounds and euros—hard currency that they expect to both hold their value over time and be more easily traded internationally.

But limiting Iranian oil exports is likely to drive up the international price of oil. There is little slack oil production capacity left in the world. The Saudis have said that they would offset any drop in Iranian oil by increasing their own, but many analysts question Riyadh’s capacity to do so completely or for a sustained period of time. In addition, given Saudi Arabia’s own domestic concerns, Riyadh might be willing to tolerate price increases that bolster their own revenues as well.

To the extent that Iranian oil is truly off the market for the U.S. and Europe, it will increase the price for what remains. Even to the extent that Iranian oil finds its way back on to the market in various ways—legal ways, like the spot market, illegal ways, like the black market—the inefficiencies and increased transportation costs will also create a price increase. Estimates of the amount of this jump in price vary, but at least one source has projected a $20 increase in the price per barrel, which is roughly a 15 to 20 percent increase.

Opinion: Why Iran sanctions are doomed to fail
Iran: Oil embargo is economic suicide for EU
Saudis dismissive of Iran's oil blockade threats

In case you missed the past 40 years of American economic history, there is no commodity on earth that affects the American economy faster or more profoundly than oil. A 20 percent increase in the price of oil would result in a very significant increase in American gasoline prices, with a concomitant impact on prices (i.e., inflation) across the board. It’s worth noting that virtually every U.S. recession since the Second World War was preceded by an increase in oil prices. Indeed, our current economic problems were preceded by a tripling of oil prices between 2005 and 2007.

Backfire II: Eroding Sanctions

Another potentially fatal flaw in these sanctions is that they turn up the heat on Iran so much that they may well be unsustainable diplomatically, and that is very problematic because sanctions rarely work quickly. Historically, sanctions work very slowly, and when they do work—against South Africa in the 1980s or Libya in the 1990s, for example—they work because of the perception that they will simply keep getting worse and worse over time. Sanctions have a poor track record of suddenly shocking the targeted government into reversing course, and if the targeted government believes that the sanctions will erode over time, it usually resists, and this often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our experience with Iraq in the 1990s ought to be an important warning about what may well happen with Iran. In the case of Iraq, the United States—and the entire international community, acting under the auspices of the UN Security Council—imposed draconian sanctions on Iraq in 1991 at the end of the Gulf War. Sanctions so severe that it was universally expected that Saddam would be forced to accede to all of the U.N. demands in a matter of a few months because no one, not even Saddam, would allow his people to starve to death. But that is precisely what he did. He refused to comply in full (he did not give up the last of his WMD programs until some time after 1995, and of course even then he refused to come clean about this in his self-defeating determination to convince his own people and the Iranians that he retained a covert WMD capability.) In Iraq, exactly as predicted, inflation soared, the dinar collapsed, the economy came to a near standstill. No one knows how many Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions and Saddam’s manipulation of them, but 200,000 is a fair estimate.

The death of so many innocents was not only a humanitarian catastrophe—it also directly undermined the sanctions regime, precisely because it appalled people across the world. Over time, international opinion turned decidedly against the Iraq sanctions because of what was happening to the Iraqi people. It became harder and harder for the United States to enforce the sanctions, to the point where by 2000, the sanctions were hemorrhaging and Iraq was taking in over a billion dollars (and growing) in illicit payments.

Similarly draconian sanctions on Iran could follow a similar trajectory. In the near term, they would doubtless do tremendous damage to the Iranian economy, and with it, the Iranian people—as they already are. However, this regime has shown absolutely no inclination to allow economic hardship to sway their nuclear intentions. Indeed, it is important to keep in mind that those who rule in Tehran are very different from the more divided groups that ran the country in the past. Amid the 2009 Green revolution, Iran’s hardliners purged the government of its more moderate elements, such that today those running the Iranian regime are more homogeneous and more hardline than at any time since the early days of the Iranian revolution. They appear determined to resist all international pressure, they are famously indifferent to the plight of the Iranian economy, and they have shown tremendous attachment to their nuclear program. All of which suggests they will continue to stand firm, as Saddam did, amid economic ruin. And over time, there is a high likelihood that other countries will come to see the misery of the Iranian people as being the fault of the United States, not of the Iranian leadership, exactly as happened with Saddam. At that point, we may find that with Iran, as was the case with Iraq, overly harsh sanctions will become self-defeating and will crumble where more gradual and moderate sanctions might have been sustained and more likely to achieve their goal.

Backfire III: Inadvertent War

It is hard to miss the signals from the Obama Administration that it is not looking for a fight with Iran. Administration officials have kept dutifully intoning that “all options are on the table” with Iran, but then immediately enumerating why the military option is a terrible one. The President himself has made clear that he wants to reduce the number of wars that the U.S. is waging in the Middle East, not increase them. Unfortunately, its moves toward Iran may push us into the war that the Administration is seeking to avoid.

It’s important to try to see the world from Tehran’s perspective. What the Iranians see is a concerted, undeclared war being waged against them by a coalition of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and some European states. The fact that all of these countries are not necessarily always coordinating their actions is doubtless lost on the Iranian leadership. They are under cyber attack like the Stuxnet virus. Someone is killing their nuclear scientists in the streets of Tehran and blowing up their missile facilities. The United States and Europeans have ratcheted up their contacts with the Iranian opposition. The Iranians believe that foreign elements are also making contact with dissident groups like the Kurds, the Baluch, and the Arabs in Khuzestan. The United States has ratcheted up its efforts to broadcast into Iran to undermine the regime’s control over information. Washington is building up the military capabilities of states in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Saudis are funding proxies to fight against Iran’s proxies from Bahrain to Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen. And the Americans and Europeans are waging economic warfare in the form of increasingly crippling sanctions.

From the vantage of Iran’s leadership, it would be easy to see an all-out, undeclared, covert (but multi-pronged) offensive being mounted against them. And the Iranians seem to be fighting back however they can. While I have no independent confirmation that the Iranians really did try to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States last fall, U.S. government officials at all levels appear remarkably certain that they did, and claim that it was one of only several operations the Iranians were developing. It would certainly make a lot of sense that given the campaign they see being waged against them, the Iranians would strike back in exactly that fashion—going after a symbol of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and doing it in the American capital in retaliation for the assassinations taking place in their own.

What’s more, it seems unlikely that that will be their last such effort. Their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz are not serious—they know full well that doing so would be horribly counterproductive to their own cause—but they were undoubtedly an effort to panic the oil market, driving up prices which help them and hurt us. It was a bid at economic warfare of their own. We should expect more.

The great problem is that at some point, the Iranians might succeed in one of their retaliatory gambits. Imagine how the American people would have reacted had they succeeded in blowing up a restaurant in the heart of Washington, D.C., killing dozens and injuring scores more? Of course, Americans would have seen it as an unprovoked attack and there likely would have been a public cry for blood. In short, the more we turn up the heat on Iran, the more Iran will fight back, and the way they like to fight back could easily lead to unintended escalation.

Doubtless such a war would leave Iran far, far worse off than it would leave us. But it would be painful for us too, and it might last far longer than anyone wants because that is the nature of wars, especially wars involving this Iranian regime. Thus, if we continue down this path, we had best be ready to walk it to its very end. And if we don’t have the stomach to realistically prepare for war, we should seriously reconsider our current embrace of sanctions.

bin laden

Islam doesn't justify honor murders

2012-01-30T19:44:00.000-08:00

It is true, as is argued, that Islam does not justify honor killings. It is also true that it is cultural. It is also true that all honor killings occur in countries where Islam dominates and sharia is law.

Honor killings occur in Pakistan and Syria, Egypt, and Indonesia - far away lands, not connected. They are Arab and non Arab. Honor killings also occur in Iran - non-Arab. Therefore, culture alone does not answer the question and is far to simple of an answer to be accurate. What is present in every country where honor killings occur is Islam, and sharia.

There is no other single connection - outside of the fact that all inhabitants of those countries are born, eat, die, and may or may not have children. When all else is equal, the simplest answer tends to be more correct.

Islam doesn't justify 'honor murders,' experts insist

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN

(CNN) - Zainab Shafia's crime was to run off to marry a man her parents hated. Middle sister Sahar's crime was to wear revealing clothes and have secret boyfriends. Youngest sister Geeti's crime was to do badly in school and call social workers for help dealing with a family home in turmoil.

The punishment for all three teenage Canadian sisters was the same: death.

Their executioner: their brother, acting on instructions from the father to run their car off the road.

Another family member, their father's first wife in a polygamous marriage, was also killed.

Hamed Shafia, his father, Mohammed, and his mother, Tooba Mohammed Yahya, were sentenced to life in prison for murder, with Judge Robert Maranger excoriating their "twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

Leading Muslim thinkers wholeheartedly endorsed the Canadian judge's verdict, insisting that "honor murders" had no place and no support in Islam.

"There is nothing in the Quran that justifies honor killings. There is nothing that says you should kill for the honor of the family," said Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in England.

"This idea that 'somehow a girl has besmirched our honor and therefore the thing to do is kill her' is bizarre, and Muslims should stop using this defense," he said, arguing that the practice is cultural, not religious in origin.

"You cannot say this is what Islam approves of. You can say this is what their culture approves of," he said.

The Shafia family is originally from Afghanistan.

Experts say honor murders take place in many parts of the world.

"It's definitely a problem that happens in many different places: the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh and among immigrant communities in North America," said Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women's rights in the Arab world for Human Rights Watch.

Several Arab countries and territories, including Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, have laws providing lesser sentences for honor murders than for other murders, Human Rights Watch says.

Egypt and Jordan also have laws that have been interpreted to allow reduced sentences for honor crimes, the group says.

Reliable figures of the number of honor murders are hard to come by, Khalife said, but she pointed to a United Nations Population Fund estimate of 5,000 per year.

Khalife agreed that the practice should not be blamed on Islam.

"It's not linked to religion; it's more cultural," she said. "There have been several Islamic scholars who have issued fatwas against honor killing."

Mohammed Shafia, who denied murder, said himself in court that Islam did not justify honor murders.

"In our religion, a person who kills his wife or daughter, there is nothing more dishonorable," he testified.

But Shafia was heard condemning his dead children in wiretapped conversations played in court.

"May the devil defecate on their graves! This is what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?" he said.

Hargey, the director of the Muslim Educational Centre, said violence was sometimes the result of painful transition.

"Muslims are in a state of flux," he said.

"They are between two worlds: the ancient world and the new technological age," he said. "Women are getting rights and the ability to choose their own spouses. The family in Canada didn't know how to respond to this: the conflict between the discipline of children and the new reality."

Irshad Manji, the author of "Allah, Liberty and Love: Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom," said there was another conflict at work in honor murders, a term CNN uses in preference to "honor killings" because the latter phrase does not properly describe the crime.

It is "a tribal tradition that emphasizes the family or the tribe or the community over the individual," she said.

Although the practice may not be Islamic, she said, not all Muslims understand the distinction.

"It is a problem within Islam because of how Muslims often confuse culture and religion," she said. "It's Muslims who have to learn to separate culture and religion. If we don't, Islam will continue to get the bad name that it gets."

But one vocal British campaigner against honor violence points out that all the crimes are not perpetrated by Muslims.

Jasvinder Sanghera, who was the victim of a forced marriage, is not Muslim; she is Sikh.

"Significant cases are happening within South Asian communities, be it Pakistani, Indian, Sikh, Muslim, Kurdish, Iranian, Middle Eastern communities," she said.

"And we have to recognize that because the statistics don't lie. I am not standing here trying to embarrass those communities. But equally, those communities should be ashamed because this is happening in their community and they are not taking a stand," she said.

On the other hand, honor murders are not a problem in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

"No such a practice can be found among Indonesian Muslims," said Azyumardi Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.

" 'Honor killing' is, I believe, a cultural problem among Arab and South Asian Muslims. I don't think that kind of practice has an Islamic basis," he said.

Although women and girls make up the overwhelming number of victims, there have been at least some male victims, including Ahmet Yildiz, a gay Turkish man whose fugitive father is the main suspect in his 2008 shooting death.

Britain has had about a dozen honor murders per year for the past several years, said Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain.

He, too, said the crimes were not justified by Islam.

"This comes from tribal customs where the father - not both parents - see children as their property. A girl decides to marry somebody of whom their parents do not approve, and they conspire and find some way to kill and dispose of this body," he said. "This is a kind of misplaced shame that parents feel that their daughter has decided to marry somebody of her choosing, not theirs."

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service has an expert devoted to prosecuting honor-based violence, Nazir Afzal.

Convicting perpetrators can be difficult, he said.

"There is a wall of silence around this, and people are not prepared to talk," he said.

But Afzal insisted that it was "absolutely important that you bring every single person to justice because you want to deter other people from doing it."

And along with the Islamic scholars and human rights advocates, he rejected out of hand the idea that religion justified it.

"At the end of the day, murder is murder. There is no faith on Earth, no community on Earth that justifies this," he said.

"Abrahamic faiths say 'Thou shalt not kill,' " he pointed out. "At the end of the day, nobody should die for this."

Islam

Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.

2012-01-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Obama: The mostpolarizing president. Ever.

By Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake

January 30, 2012
Washington Post

President Obama ran — and won — in 2008 on the idea of uniting the country. But each of his first three years in office has marked historic highs in political polarization, with Democrats largely approving of him and Republicans deeply disapproving.

For 2011, Obama’s third year in office, an average of 80 percent of Democrats approved of the job he was doing in Gallup tracking polls, as compared to 12 percent of Republicans who felt the same way. That’s a 68-point partisan gap, the highest for any president’s third year in office — ever. (The previous high was George W. Bush in 2007, when he had a 59 percent difference in job approval ratings.)

In 2010, the partisan gap between how Obama was viewed by Democrats versus Republicans stood at 68 percent; in 2009, it was 65 percent. Both were the highest marks ever for a president’s second and first years in office, respectively.

What do those numbers tell us? Put simply: that the country is hardening along more and more strict partisan lines.

While it’s easy to look at the numbers cited above and conclude that Obama has failed at his mission of bringing the country together, a deeper dig into the numbers in the Gallup poll suggests that the idea of erasing the partisan gap is simply impossible, as political polarization is rising rapidly.

Out of the ten most partisan years in terms of presidential job approval in Gallup data, seven — yes, seven — have come since 2004. Bush had a run between 2004 and 2007 in which the partisan disparity of his job approval was at 70 points or higher.

“Obama’s ratings have been consistently among the most polarized for a president in the last 60 years,” concludes Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones in a memo summing up the results. “That may not be a reflection on Obama himself as much as on the current political environment in the United States, because Obama’s immediate predecessor, Bush, had similarly polarized ratings, particularly in the latter stages of his presidency after the rally in support from the 9/11 terror attacks faded.”

Our guess is that Jones’ latter hypothesis is the right one — that we are simply living in an era in which Democrats dislike a Republican president (and Republicans dislike a Democratic one) even before the commander in chief has taken a single official action.

The realization of that hyper-partisan reality has been slow in coming for Obama. But in recent months, he seems to have turned a rhetorical corner — taking the fight to Republicans (and Republicans in Congress, particularly) and all but daring them to call his bluff.

Democrats will point out that Republicans in Congress have played a significant part in the polarization; the congressional GOP has stood resolutely against almost all of Obama’s top priorities. And Obama’s still-high popularity among the Democratic base also exacerbates the gap.

For believers in bipartisanship, the next nine months are going to be tough sledding, as the already-gaping partisan divide between the two parties will only grow as the 2012 election draws nearer. And, if the last decade of Gallup numbers are any indication, there’s little turnaround in sight.

obama

Global Hysteria: No Need to Panic About Warming

2012-01-28T21:24:00.000-08:00

No Need to Panic About Global Warming

Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2012

There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.

Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

global

BHO on BHO: Praising Himself.

2012-01-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

State of the Union 2012: Barack Obama's tribute to Barack Obama

WASHINGTON TIMES

Eric Golub
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 –

LOS ANGELES, January 25, 2011 – Once a year, Barack Obama likes to take time away from vacations and smaller speeches praising himself to offer a larger and longer speech where he praises himself.

This traditional annual event is the State of the Union, and it's purpose is for the President to address Congress, and via broadcast networks, the people of the United States with his "plans" for the upcoming year.

President Obama gave his 2012 State of the Union speech and it is not so much a blueprint for tomorrow as yet one more in a litany of speeches about what he can do and his momentous victories. During the SOTU, President Obama praised Iraq War veterans and then took his first victory lap about sixty-seconds into the speech, reminding the people that the Osama bin Laden capture was under his watch.

This was followed by meaningless words about how we should all work together when he is the one ripping us all apart. He is the Occupy Wall Street President who hurls invective at conservatives: Togetherness is "BO-code" for all of us shutting up and agreeing with him.

The President then launched into the class warfare nonsense, mentioning the word "fair" to indict successful people. He spent what seemed like forever discussing the problem despite not having a single solution, other than raising taxes.

There were words about people buying homes they could not afford without blaming Fannie, Freddie, Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, or the homeowners believing they could purchase a $600,000 house on a $60,000, or less, income. Then he blamed George W. Bush for everything, which is simply a dishonest repurposing of an old, and tired, theme.

President Obama then bragged about his cutting the deficit, which is a myth. It is rising.

"The state of our union is getting stronger."

No, it is not.

"I will fight obstruction with action."

The translation meaning that the Constitution should be subverted when it becomes inconvenient.

"Renewal of American values"

Blah, blah, blah.

"We got workers and automakers to settle their differences."

The unions cheated the shareholders.

"General Motors is back on top as the world's #1 auto maker."

No, the Chevy Volt is a colossal failure. General 'Government' Motors is dead.

"Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to this country."

Get rid of every Obama administration regulation. Barack Obama is killing business because he is anti-business.

Once again, President Obama advocated for raising taxes.

President Obama repeats that he wants to reward companies who do business here, but the best reward is to stop punishing them and for government to get out of the way so they can do business here.

There were self-congratulations for the signing of three free trade deals as one of this administration's achievements. However, he fails to mention that those free-trade deals were the result of work done by the Bush administration and that they were on his desk in 2009.

Yes, George W. Bush did all of the work. Barack Obama just wasted three years delaying implementation before taking credit.

Then came the announcement of a "trade enforcement unit.” Only Barack Obama could think announcing a new bureaucracy to do the job he already should be doing is progress.

President Obama wants people to be trained for new jobs. Who is doing the training and for what jobs?

Under President Obama's Solyndra initiative, people were trained to make solar panels that nobody wants or can afford. The panels and the workers are still unemployed.

Lest us not forget, while we review the achievements of the Obama Administration, that Solyndra received a $535 million dollar loan, issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury's Federal Financing bank, a loan at 1.025 percent. Or that Solyndra then went bankrupt, a bankruptcy that will make sure two of Solyndra’s largest investors, Argonaut Ventures I, L.L.C. and the GKFF Investment Company, LLC. both firms being investment vehicles of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Or that investor George Kaiser, Kaiser Argonaut Ventures, et al., the single largest shareholder of Solyndra, stands before you and I in getting "paid" back for their failed investment.

President Obama spoke about higher standards for teachers and learning, as if that will ever happen, announcing that school should be mandatory until graduation or age 18. This is a nightmarish idea that will destroy society.

Forcing students to show up does not mean they will actually learn, but it does mean those who want to will be shuttled to the side for those that have no interest.

Useless phrases like states should "do their part," meaning he will terrorize them if they do not play ball, peppered the SOTU.

President Obama then made the case why illegal immigrants should be given amnesty. He did not use the word amnesty because that would make people think he meant amnesty, although he really does mean amnesty.

Most people would favorably consider citizenship for military service, but not free tuition when our own children are saddled with debt. Most people would consider many a reasonable solution to the problem of illegal immigration, stopping short of blanket amnesty and benefits programs that do not take care of the American people first.

Barack Obama refuses to split those items. He is inflexible and blames others for his being an ideologue.

Popular talking points like "Women should earn equal pay for equal work," are useless because who could disagree with this? It is also wrong to kill baby seals with baseball clubs. So what? Stating what we all know, the obvious is what makes the State of the Union the State of the Useless.

Then he blathered about "innovation in American made energy."

The President spoke about making it easier on the oil industry and making us less dependent on foreign oil saying he wants a country powered by 'green' energy. So he talks about green energy while neglecting to mention Solyndra and the billions of dollars wasted on the failed green movement. He claims to support natural gas initiatives while he is actually against them. He also did not mention the Keystone Pipeline, the jobs lost, or Canada's opening doors to China after President Obama slammed them shut.

"We do not have to choose between our environment and our economy."

The Obama administration already has chosen his position on creating energy jobs, allowing further economic collapse because he cares more about radical environmentalism than creating jobs. There is no green energy; it does not exist. All energy creates a carbon footprint.

"Some companies fail."

By some he means all of them.

"I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy."

This means we will continue to throw money down into a sewer. Oil actually works. He wants to spend money on what has never and will never work.

He mentions that Congress should set a market for innovation. The problem is that Congress does not set markets. Markets set themselves. He does not understand this because he has never been a part of the free market.

"Give businesses incentives to upgrade their buildings."

Have Barack Obama get out of the way and there will be plenty to invest.

"No bailouts, no handouts, no copouts."

Thus said the king of bailouts, handouts, and copouts. President Obama is the Government Motors, food stamp loving, blame everyone else leader that wants more rules to prevent financial fraud. This is because the ones he implemented have failed. Please note, that Jon Corzine or MF Global was not a part of what the Administration "did."

He said for the billionth time he would eliminate rules that "don't make sense." Yet he is the person who decides what makes sense and what does not and who is making most of the rules. In his world Obamacare and Dodd-Frank make sense.

For everyone else, they don't.

He claimed we need regulations to help oil companies contain oil spills. Accidents happen. He has absolutely no way to prevent accidents. Nor do regulations.

He criticizes people who pressure people into purchases they cannot afford while not mentioning people like Barney Frank who pressure companies into offering the products to begin with.

He wants a new unit led by Eric Holder to investigate the crooks behind the housing crisis. Eric Holder? Mr. Fast and Furious? Again, Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd were the problem. Somebody should investigate why Eric Holder still has a job.

President Obama speaks about two trillion in "cuts." There are no cuts. There is only slowing the rate of growth.

The tale of Warren Buffett and his secretary with regards to tax rates got a rousing response, however dividends and capital gains are not the same as ordinary income. Dividends and capital gains were already taxed when earned, hence the lower tax rate that folks like Buffett, or Romney, pay.

Barack Obama could lower the tax rate on ordinary income rather than raise capital gains tax rates. Yet then he would not have other people's wealth to redistribute.

Raising taxes on job creators is not the way to help the economy. "We don't begrudge financial success in this country."

Herein lies the problem, because yes, President Obama does begrudge the financial success of anyone making over $250,000.00 per year. He laments about tax cuts raising the deficit while his "program" spending is what actually increases the deficit and the debt.

President Obama then spoke about the "corrosive influence of money in politics," without revealing that reports are that he will be raising in excess of one billion dollars for his reelection.

He wants to reduce the influence peddling in Congress. After all, it should stay contained in the White House.

He complained about sixty votes in the Senate needed to get things done. He wants to stop this. George Washington wanted the system we have now. This is not gridlock. It is the system working. Barack Obama wants dictatorial power similar to governments in Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Then he piously talked about "lowering the temperature."

Barack Obama is a race-baiter, class-baiter, gender-baiter, and ideological leftist who has referred to conservative Republicans as hostage takers merely for disagreeing with him on issues such as taxes.

On issue after issue, he discusses how everyone else can work toward a solution where he is often the core of the problem.

"With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions to help this economy grow."

This is called dictatorship. This is not coming together. This is him saying that unless everyone bends to his iron will, he will do as he d@mn well pleases.

President Obama spoke about Iraq and Afghanistan, but barely mentioned Iran, not liking to discuss his many foreign policy failures.

President Obama praised himself for capturing Khadafi despite the fact that his "leading from behind" protracted the "kinetic conflict" that he insisted was not a war.

President Obama insisted Assad would be gone in Syria, which is a platitude and not a policy.

President Obama actually stated that his diplomacy has united the world against Iran. This is delusional. He claimed that America will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and that all options were on the table. Sorry, but Barack Obama is not John Bolton.

"If Iran changes course..."

For the love of all things holy, Iran is not going to change course. This is the same 2009 nonsense about them unclenching their fist.

He threw in an obligatory line about Israel's security so that liberal Jews like Charles Schumer and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz can continue kissing his feet and carrying his water.

"America is back."

No, America is in deep trouble. This is why Barack Obama must be fired.

"Opinions of America are higher than they have been in years."

This is simply not true. The world laughs at us and has zero regard for what they see as a weak American leader.

At no time during his hour plus speech did he actually say what he planned to do if given a second term. Nor did President Obama talk about Obamacare or other failures of his first term, or what he would do to change those failures. Failures we can accept, but what do we do to fix them next time around?

So the basic message of his speech is that even though he does virtually nothing, and what little he does he gets wrong, he should be reelected because he loves himself and his power?

President Obama offered zero rationale for electing him to another term. His supporters worship him and make excuses for him.

Barack Obama wants a divided nation. He does not want teamwork or neighbors loving each other. He wants to find scapegoats so that he can confiscate their earned gains and give it those he favors.

The speech was the State of the Useless because he is useless. America will be better when he stops talking and retires to Illinois, as there is no reason for him to stay in Washington, DC. In terms of actual real work, this lazy man who lets everyone else work hard does virtually nothing. What little he does, he does badly.

That is why the state of our union could be much stronger. He is the weak link in the America chain, and no amount of pep rally nonsense will change the facts on the ground.

When Barack Obama is replaced with an individual who actually knows how to do things, the state of the American union will be much stronger.

ego

2012-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

Shipwreck hunters stumble across mysterious find

By Brooke Bowman, CNN

Sat January 28, 2012

(CNN) -- Deep down on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, Swedish treasure hunters think they have made the find of a lifetime.

The problem is, they're not exactly sure what it is they've uncovered.

Out searching for shipwrecks at a secret location between Sweden and Finland, the deep-sea salvage company Ocean Explorer captured an incredible image more than 80 meters below the water's surface.

At first glance, team leader and commercial diver Peter Lindberg joked that his crew had just discovered an unidentified flying object, or UFO.

"I have been doing this for nearly 20 years so I have a seen a few objects on the bottom, but nothing like this," said Lindberg.

"We had been out for nine days and we were quite tired and we were on our way home, but we made a final run with a sonar fish and suddenly this thing turned up," he continued.

Using side-scan sonar, the team found a 60-meter diameter cylinder-shaped object, with a rigid tail 400 meters long.

The imaging technique involves pulling a sonar "towfish" -- that essentially looks sideways underwater - behind a boat, where it creates sound echoes to map the sea floor below.

On another pass over the object, the sonar showed a second disc-like shape 200 meters away.

Lindberg's team believe they are too big to have fallen off a ship or be part of a wreck, but it's anyone's guess what could be down there.

"We've heard lots of different kinds of explanations, from George Lucas's spaceship -- the Millennium Falcon -- to 'it's some kind of plug to the inner world,' like it should be hell down there or something.

"But we won't know until we have been down there," said Lindberg.

The Head of Archaeology at Sweden's Maritime Museums, Andreas Olsson, admits he's intrigued by the picture, but remains sceptical about what it could be.

The reliability of one-side scan sonar images is one of his main concerns, making it difficult to determine if the object is a natural geological formation or something different altogether.

"It all depends on the circumstances when you actually tow the [sonar] fish after the boat," he said.

"What are the temperature conditions, the wave conditions, how deep is your fish in relation to the sea bed etcetera and all those parameters also affects what kind of image you have in the end," he explained.

Even Lindberg agrees the image "isn't the best it could be." But his crew are still planning to return to the site in the calmer waters of spring to investigate their find.

It's a risky and expensive business, and not one that always pays off.

British maritime historian, Professor Andrew Lambert, says the costs of recovery are now too high for most.

"If you want to stand in a cold shower tearing up £50 notes, go shipwreck hunting," he said. "Most shipwrecks are rotting away, or carrying dull things -- all the romance has been taken out of it."

It's a problem Lindberg and his team are aware of.

"It's a very difficult industry to be in -- it's money all the time," he confessed. "The best thing it could be, would be 60 meters of gold -- then I would be very happy."

"This thing is very far out, it's really off-shore, so first of all we need a bigger ship... more equipment.. and we have to do bottom sampling, water sampling, to see if it is something poisonous."

But even if the mystery object doesn't contain retrievable treasure the site could still prove to be a gold mine for the Ocean Explorer team, with tourists and private investors paying to see it up-close, in a submarine.

"The object itself is maybe not valuable in the sense of money it can be very interesting whatever it is, historical or a natural anomaly," said Lindberg.

In the North Atlantic, one American salvage company is also hoping to beat the odds.

Odyssey Marine Exploration -- a company made up of researchers, scientists, technicians and archaeologists -- have at least 6,300 shipwrecks in their database that they are looking to find.

Their latest discoveries include two British war-time shipwrecks off the coast of Ireland that could be laden with hundreds of tonnes of silver.

Mark Gordon, president of Odyssey, says at least 100 ships on their watch-list are known to have values in excess of $50 million dollars.

"When you think about the fact until the mid 20th century, the only way to transport wealth was on the oceans and a lot of ships were lost, it adds up to a formula where we have billions of dollars worth of interesting and valuable things on the sea floor," he said.

The lure of treasure has lead to an increasing number of discoveries in recent years. But one which doesn't come without its dangers, warns Olsson.

"I think recently we're entering a time of a lot of discoveries," he said of the technological advancements in finding shipwrecks.

"The professional shipwreck discoverers are doing a great effort for cultural heritage management in the long run... what we don't support is the action of actually taking up items and selling them," he said.

things

47th ? Really? Do you think THEY honestly believe that?

2012-01-28T13:39:00.000-08:00

Amazing.

US Falls to 47th in press freedom rankings after Occupy crackdown

By Ellen Connolly

26th January 2012

Sweeping protests around the world made it an extremely difficult year for the media, and tested journalists as never before, the annual report into press freedom reveals.

The annual report by Reporters Without Borders has been released, showing the United States fell 27 points on the list due to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.

The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania.

Reporters Without Borders said the heightened unrest around the world resulted in a significant shake-up of the group's annual Press Freedom Index, which assesses governments' commitment to protecting media freedoms.

The Paris-based non-governmental Reporters Without Borders has named “crackdown” the word of 2011 in an assessment of global media freedom during a year in which journalists covering sweeping protests were tested as never before.

The non-governmental organisation seeks to defend journalists’ freedom to work and combat censorship internationally.

Despite the big changes, some constants remained. The country with the freest media in the world was Finland, followed by Norway, Estonia, the Netherlands and Austria. Eritrea was last, with North Korea just above.

The United States was not alone in the falling grades: Bahrain fell 29 points because of the crackdown in that country.

Egypt and Syria also fell a few points to languish near the bottom of the pack (166) and (176) respectively.

The group judged that Syria, along with Iran and China, 'seem to have lost contact with reality as they have been sucked into an insane spiral of terror.'

Pakistan was the world’s deadliest country for journalists, and Eritrea came in last in the list of overall press freedom.Syria, where an uprising against the government has been met with a brutal crackdown that has left more than 5,000 people dead, received its worst rating ever at 176.

In Afghanistan (150th) and Pakistan (151st), reporters remained under constant threat from the Taliban, religious extremists, separatist movements and political groups. With 10 deaths last year, Pakistan was the world’s most dangerous country for journalists for the second year in a row.

'Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.

The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them,' it said.

Elsewhere within the European Union, countries such as Bulgaria (80th), Greece (70th) and Italy (61st) failed to address the issue of media freedom violations, largely because of a lack of political will.

Libya came in 154th in the list, while Yemen was in 171th place.'
'The future of both of these countries remains uncertain, and the place they will allow the media is undecided.

The same goes for Egypt, which fell 39 places to 166th place.'

Syria was 176th, because journalists were unable to work because of total censorship, widespread surveillance, indiscriminate violence and government manipulation.

The report also highlights how pro-democracy movements that tried to emulate the example of the Arab revolutions were brutally suppressed. Vietnam (172nd) saw many arrests, while China (174th) stepped up its system of controlling news and information in response to public dissatisfaction with corruption and other injustices.

The biggest falls in the index were in Africa – Djibouti fell 49 places to 159th, Malawi (146th) fell 67 places and Uganda fell 43 places to 139th.

The Paris-based press freedom watchdog said Wednesday that the wave of uprisings in the Middle East, the Occupy movement in the West and continued protests in China gave journalists an unprecedented role in advancing democracy. But they also were often targeted by governments trying to quash dissent.

'Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much,' the group said in a statement accompanying its report.

But the important role journalists played put them in the cross hairs of repressive regimes, the report said, adding: 'Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.'

foolish

Fat Brazil

2012-01-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Thin may be in but fat's where it's at!

Too often countries around the world play with their figures (pun intended) to present a more svelte-like appearance to their fat facts. The US is most often the first criticized.

Perhaps if we accumulate enough evidence ....

Brazilian bikinis burgeon to fit the fat

Jan 28, 2012

3:10 PM (ET)
By JENNY BARCHFIELD

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Tall and tan and young and ... chunky?

The Girl From Ipanema has put on a few pounds, and for many sunbathers on Brazil's beaches the country's iconic itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikini just doesn't suffice anymore.

A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines.

That's nothing short of a revolution in this most body-conscious of nations, where overweight ladies long had little choice but to hit the beach in comely ensembles of oversized T-shirts and biker shorts.

"It used to be bikinis were only in tiny sizes that only skinny girls could fit into. But not everyone is built like a model," said Elisangela Inez Soares as she sunbathed on Copacabana beach, her oiled-up curves packed into a black size 12 bikini.

"Finally, it seems like people are beginning to realize that we're not all Gisele," said the 38-year-old mother of four, referring to willowy Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Clothing designer Clarice Rebelatto said her own swimwear-hunting travails prompted her to found Lehona, an exclusively plus-size beachwear line.

"Honestly, the problem went way beyond just bikinis. In Brazil, it used to be that if you were even a little chunky, finding any kind of clothes in the right size was a real problem," said Rebelatto, herself a size 10. "And I thought, 'I'm actually not even that big compared to a lot of women out there, so if I have problems, what are they doing?'"

Since its launch in 2010, the line has become a hit.

In brash leopard spots and flower prints not meant for wallflowers, the label's 14 bikini styles aren't what you'd normally associate with plus-size swimsuits. The necklines plunge dramatically. Straps are mere strings. And while the bottoms provide too much coverage to qualify for the famed "fio dental" or "dental floss" category of Brazilian string bikinis, they're significantly more audacious than the standard U.S. cut.

"We're working from the principle that bigger women are just like everyone else: They don't want to look like old ladies, wearing these very modest, very covering swimsuits in just black," said Luiz Rebelatto, Clarice's son and director of Lehona.

He said that recent publicity of the brand and several other new swimwear lines catering to plus sizes has triggered an overwhelming number of calls and e-mails from would-be customers.

"They're all excited and they say, 'I've been looking everywhere for a bikini like that. Where can I get one?'" said Rebelatto.

Lehona is currently sold exclusively at big and tall specialty stores throughout Brazil. Its bikinis retail for about 130 reais or $75 - a relatively high price-point here, but Rebelatto said sales have grown at a galloping pace, though he did not provide any figures.

It's the same story at Acqua Rosa, a conventional swimwear label that added a plus-size line in 2008. Now, plus-size purchases account for more than 70 percent of the brand's total sales, said director Joao Macedo.

It makes sense.

For centuries, large swaths of Brazil were beset by malnutrition, and in 1970, nearly 10 percent of the population in the country's poor, rural northeast region was considered underweight, according to Brazil's national statistics institute.

But the phenomenal economic boom that has lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the burgeoning middle class over the past decade has also changed the nation's once-svelte physique: A 2010 study by the statistics institute showed that 48 percent of adult women and 50 percent of men are now overweight. In 1985 those figures were 29 percent for women and 18 percent for men.

(Still, there's been no rash of plus-size male swimwear lines, as men here wear Speedo-style suits that don't impinge on big guts.)

Analysts attribute Brazil's rapidly widening girth to changes in nutrition, with chips, processed meats and sugary soft drinks replacing staples like rice, beans and vegetables.

And while the country's elite are widely known to be fitness freaks - and also among the world's top consumers of cosmetic surgery - those recently lifted out of poverty and manual labor are becoming increasingly sedentary. A 2008 study showed that barely 10 percent of Brazilian teens and adults exercise regularly.

Still, despite their growing numbers, not everyone is eager to embrace "gordinhas" - or "little fatties," as chunky women are affectionately known here.

Many high-end bikini-makers have turned a seemingly deliberately blind eye to the burgeoning plus-size market. Rio-based upmarket brand Salinas, for example, offers five sizes, from extra-small through extra-large. But their sizing runs notoriously small and it's hard to imagine anyone over a size 6 actually managing to fit into any of the brand's minuscule two-pieces.

Luis Rebelatto of Lehona chalked it partially up to snobbery.

"Some brands, they don't want their image to be associated with chunky women," he said. "Only the thin, the rich and the chic."

While Brazilians' increasing heft is a public policy preoccupation for the government, growth in the ranks of the overweight population has given them increased visibility in Brazilian society. Extra-wide bucket seats for the obese have been installed in Sao Paulo's metro system, and on Sunday the city will host Brazil's first ever Miss Plus Size beauty contest.

"It used to be that people would stare at me," said Soares, the voluptuous sun-worshiper on Copacabana beach. "Now when I come to the beach I see women who are much bigger than me - and lots of them are wearing bikinis - so I'm not self conscious any more.

"God makes some people thin but he made me like this," she said, rubbing down the well-oiled bulge of her stomach and thighs. "So who am I to think that he was wrong?"

fat

The Cost of Living under Obama

2012-01-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Under Obama, Price of Gas Has Jumped 83 Percent, Ground Beef 24 Percent,Bacon 22 Percent

By Christopher Goins

January 20, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent.

When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon, an increase of 26 percent. By December 2011, the price of regular unleaded gas per gallon was $3.28, an 83 percent increase from January 2009.

The price of unleaded gasoline never reached the 10-year high of $4.09 back in July 2008 under George W. Bush’s administration, but it did get close.

By May 2011, gas prices hit a high under the Obama administration at $3.93, about four percentage points away from the July 2008 high.

The U.S. city average retail price for one pound of 100 percent ground beef was $2.36 in January 2009. As of December 2011, that price had risen to $2.92—a 23.7 percent increase and a new peak. (Ground beef prices have risen every month since November 2009 – 26 months of price increases.)

Whole wheat bread prices from January 2009 to December 2011 increased about five percent (5.02 percent) from $1.97 to $2.07. (The inflation rate in December 2011 was 3.0 percent.)

Among the first 36 months of Obama’s presidency, the last four (September, October, November, December) showed the average price of one pound of whole wheat bread hovering slightly above two dollars.

Other refrigerated items like ice cream and bacon have increased by substantial amounts.

Ice cream prices, for a half-gallon, were $4.44 in January 2009 and $5.25 in December 2011, an increase of 19.1 percent.

One pound of sliced bacon in January 2009 was $3.73 and in December 2011 had climbed $4.55, an increase of 22 percent. The price hit a high in September 2011 at $4.82 per pound.

Whole milk prices averaged above three dollars 33 out of the 36 months since Obama took office. In January 2009, the price for one gallon of whole milk was $3.58; but by December 2011, milk prices had slightly declined less than one percent (0.28 percent) to $3.57 per gallon.

The average retail price of Grade A eggs per dozen from January 2009 to December 2011 increased by less than two percent (1.30 percent) from $1.85 to $1.87.

cost of living

Arab Spring is American Fall

2012-01-24T12:39:00.000-08:00

What do you get when you elect a man with less foreign policy experience than my mailman, and he brings in his cabal who have equally no experience or a decidely leftist / marxist leaning to their ideological outlook.

What do you get?

Well - Glick makes it pretty obvious in her column -

America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent

By Caroline B. Glick

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's feet. One year later, Mubarak and his sons are in prison, and standing trial. This week, the final vote tally from Egypt's parliamentary elections was published. The Islamist parties have won 72 percent of the seats in the lower house.

The photogenic, Western-looking youth from Tahrir Square the Western media were thrilled to dub the Facebook revolutionaries were disgraced at the polls and exposed as an insignificant social and political force.

As for the military junta, it has made its peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. The generals and the jihadists are negotiating a power-sharing agreement. According to details of the agreement that have made their way to the media, the generals will remain the West's go-to guys for foreign affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood (and its fellow jihadists in the Salafist al-Nour party) will control Egypt's internal affairs.

This is bad news for women and for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic Christians have been under continuous attack by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters since Mubarak was deposed. Their churches, homes and businesses have been burned, looted and destroyed. Their wives and daughters have been raped. The military massacred them when they dared to protest their persecution.

As for women, their main claim to fame since Mubarak's overthrow has been their sexual victimization at the hands of soldiers who stripped female protesters and performed "virginity tests" on them. Out of nearly five hundred seats in parliament, only 10 will be filled by women.

The Western media are centering their attention on what the next Egyptian constitution will look like and whether it will guarantee rights for women and minorities. What they fail to recognize is that the Islamic fundamentalists now in charge of Egypt don't need a constitution to implement their tyranny. All they require is what they already have - a public awareness of their political power and their partnership with the military.

The same literalist approach that has prevented Western observers from reading the writing on the walls in terms of the Islamists' domestic empowerment has blinded them to the impact of Egypt's political transformation on the country's foreign policy posture. US officials forcefully proclaim that they will not abide by an Egyptian move to formally abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. What they fail to recognize is that whether or not the treaty is formally abrogated is irrelevant. The situation on the ground in which the new regime allows Sinai to be used as a launching ground for attacks against Israel, and as a highway for weapons and terror personnel to flow freely into Gaza, are clear signs that the peace with Israel is already dead - treaty or no treaty.

EGYPT'S TRANSFORMATION is not an isolated event. The disgraced former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the US this week. Yemen is supposed to elect his successor next month. The deteriorating security situation in that strategically vital land which borders the Arabian and Red Seas has decreased the likelihood that the election will take place as planned.

Yemen is falling apart at the seams. Al-Qaida forces have been advancing in the south. Last spring they took over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province. In recent weeks they captured Radda, a city 160 km. south of the capital of Sana.

Radda's capture underscored American fears that the political upheaval in Yemen will provide al- Qaida with a foothold near shipping routes through the Red Sea and so enable the group to spread its influence to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida forces were also prominent in the NATO-backed Libyan opposition forces that with NATO's help overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in October. Although the situation on the ground is far from clear, it appears that radical Islamic political forces are intimidating their way into power in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Take for instance last weekend's riots in Benghazi. On Saturday protesters laid siege to the National Transitional Council offices in the city while Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the NTC, hid inside. In an attempt to quell the protesters' anger, Jalil fired six secular members of the NTC. He then appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gaddafi regime.

In Bahrain, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite majority continues to mount political protests against the Sunni monarchy. Security forces killed two young Shi'ite protesters over the past week and a half, and opened fired at Shi'ites who sought to hold a protest march after attending the funeral of one of them.

As supporters of Bahrain's Shi'ites have maintained since the unrest spread to the kingdom last year, Bahrain's Shi'ites are not Iranian proxies. But then, until the US pulled its troops out of Iraq last month, neither were Iraq's Shi'ites. What happened immediately after the US pullout is another story completely.

Extolling Iraq's swift deterioration into an Iranian satrapy, last Wednesday, Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Jerusalem Brigade, bragged, "In reality, in south Lebanon and Iraq, the people are under the effect of the Islamic Republic's way of practice and thinking."

While Suleimani probably exaggerated the situation, there is no doubt that Iran's increased influence in Iraq is being felt around the region. Iraq has come to the aid of Iran's Syrian client Bashar Assad who is now embroiled in a civil war. The rise of Iran in Iraq holds dire implications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan which is currently hanging on by a thread, challenged from within and without by the rising force of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much has been written since the fall of Mubarak about the impact on Israel of the misnamed Arab Spring. Events like September's mob assault on Israel's embassy in Cairo and the murderous cross-border attack on motorists traveling on the road to Eilat by terrorists operating out of Sinai give force to the assessment that Israel is more imperiled than ever by the revolutionary events engulfing the region.

But the truth is that while on balance Israel's regional posture has taken a hit, particularly from the overthrow of Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Israel is not the primary loser in the so-called Arab Spring.

Israel never had many assets in the Arab world to begin with. The Western-aligned autocracies were not Israel's allies. To the extent the likes of Mubarak and others have cooperated with Israel on various issues over the years, their cooperation was due not to any sense of comity with Jewish state. They worked with Israel because they believed it served their interests to do so. And at the same time Mubarak reined in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because they threatened him, he waged political war against Israel on every international stage and allowed anti-Semitic poison to be broadcast daily on his regime-controlled television stations.

Since Israel's stake in the Arab power game has always been limited, its losses as a consequence of the fall of anti-Israel secular dictatorships and their replacement by anti-Israel Islamist regimes have been marginal. The US, on the other hand, has seen its interests massively harmed. Indeed, the US is the greatest loser of the pan-Arab revolutions.

TO UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country.

Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And just as the Islamists won the Egyptian election, shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.

obama

Pat Down, Take Down

2012-01-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

Rand Paul on TSA detainment: ‘I was barked at: ‘Do not leavethe cubicle!”

By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller Published: 3:24 PM 01/23/2012

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told The Daily Caller that being “detained” by the Transportation Security Administration at the Nashville airport Monday was a major ordeal that underscores flaws in TSA’s procedures that affect tens of millions of passengers every year.

“It was a big headache,” Paul said in a phone interview. “I missed my speech here. I was supposed to speak to the Right to Life March, probably the biggest audience I’ll get to speak to, and I missed it.”

The White House, through spokesman Jay Carney, defended the TSA’s actions during Monday’s press briefing by arguing that Paul wasn’t technically “detained.”

“Let’s be clear,” Carney said. “The passenger was not detained. He was escorted out of the area by local law-enforcement.”

[No, Mr. Carney, if law enforcement stop you and you are not able to leave - you are being detained. You are wrong as is the White House.]

But Sen. Paul told TheDC that he certainly felt like he was detained. “If you’re told you can’t leave, does that count as detention?” Paul asked.

“I tried to leave the cubicle to speak to one of the TSA people and I was barked at: ‘Do not leave the cubicle!’ So, that, to me sounds like I’m being asked not to leave the cubicle. It sounds a little bit like I’m being detained.”

The incident started after the scanner Paul walked through sounded its alarm. Current TSA rules would require Paul to undergo a mandatory pat-down before proceeding to his plane. But Paul told TheDC that the TSA agents caved in after a two-hour battle and allowed him to go through the scanner again without additional physical screening.

“For an hour and a half, they said ‘absolutely, I would have to [accept a pat-down],’” Paul said. “And, because I used my cell phone, they told me I would have to do a full body pat down because you’re not allowed to use your cell phone when you’re being detained.”

“It’s like, well, I can’t call my attorney? I can’t call my office to tell them I’m going to miss a speech to 200,000 people?”

“In the end, after two hours of this quarreling,” Sen. Paul explained, “they did let me walk through the screener [machine] and it didn’t go off. So what the TSA is not telling you is the screeners are being used as random devices as well. The [mechanical] screeners will go off randomly, and the [agent] screeners don’t know that it’s a random call but it has nothing to do with what you’ve done.”

Paul doesn’t think the Nashville TSA agents were singling him out because he has been critical of the agency.

“I don’t think so,” Paul said. “They’ve usually treated me pretty well in Nashville. But the problem is the rules that are coming out of Washington. We’ve been 10 years and we have no frequent flier program, we have no ability for people to go back through the screener, [and] one-size-fits-all, everybody-is-a-potential-terrorist rules waste a lot of time on people who are not terrorists.

“So, resources, I think, could be better devoted to looking at who’s flying and where they’ve been flying and knowing more about the passenger list rather than spending all this time doing these random screenings of elderly people, young people and frequent fliers.”

Paul has dueled with TSA administrator John Pistole during Senate hearings about why travelers are required to consent to mandatory full body pat downs if scanners beep when they walk through. Paul argues that passengers should be allowed to choose to go through the scanners again rather than being forced to undergo a physical pat-down.

“The TSA has got a lot of problems,” Paul told TheDC. “There are a lot of people who are insulted and their dignity is compromised by what the TSA does to them. Really all I’m asking for is when you go through the screener [machine], you ought to be allowed to choose to get a body pat-down or choose to go back through the screener.”

TSA procedures, he said, ultimately waste time and resources. “So, if you try to comply, if you take your shoes off, you take your glasses off, you take your wallet out, you take everything out of your pockets and try to comply, it still goes off randomly.”

“But then you’re made to think that, ‘Oh, there’s a problem. We have to look at this,’” Paul said. “But, they’re wasting time, I think, by doing this. Instead of targeting people who meet a risk profile for terrorism, what they’re doing is they’re just doing these random things. But, I think it’s a waste of time and it’s insulting to put people through a body pat down when they have not shown any risk.”

“I think every American should be allowed to go back through the screener if they don’t choose to have a pat-down,” Paul insisted.

tsa

2012-01-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

CURL: The truly dismal state of the union

By Joseph Curl

The Washington Times
Sunday, January 22, 2012

There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.

This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt. House Speaker John A. Boehner — evil, too — is, of course, to blame. But guess what? So is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and every Democrat in the House and Senate.

Now, President Truman made it very clear: The buck stops with him. No passing the buck for that guy. But Mr. Obama blames everyone but himself. Mr. Bush, he says, left the nation in a ditch, a deep ditch, and he’s been digging out since he took office. And Congress? Those guys are just plain awful, he says. So mean. Wah, they won’t do anything I want done! Mr. Obama feels so sure about it that he’s basing his re-election campaign on bashing Capitol Hill.

But with the president delivering his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, let’s pause here to take as hard look at the real state of America, by the numbers, using only cold, hard facts.

The unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”

In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.

Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.

Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).

On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.

So, America, that is the State of Your Union. But remember, Mr. Obama had not one thing to do with it. So don’t blame him when you go to the polls. Blame everyone else, especially yourself.

obama

2012-01-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

One Mexican State Bordering The US Was Deadlier Than All of Afghanistan Last Year

By Edwin Mora
January 18, 2012

(CNSNews.com) – Organized crime-related deaths in one Mexican border state during the first nine months of 2011 exceed the number of Afghan civilians killed in roughly the same period in all of war-torn Afghanistan.

According to the Mexican government, from January through September 2011 2,276 deaths were recorded in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which borders Texas and New Mexico.

A Nov. 2011 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report states that over nearly the same period – January through October 2011 – 2,177 civilians were killed in Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led war against the Taliban is underway. It did not provide a breakdown of responsibility for that period, but said that in 2010, 75 percent of civilian deaths were attributed to the Taliban and other “anti-government elements.”

Per capita, a person was at least nine times more likely to be murdered in Chihuahua last year than in Afghanistan. (Chihuahua has 3,406,465 inhabitants, according to Mexico’s 2010 census; the CIA World Factbook reports that in July 2011 the estimated population of Afghanistan was 29,835,392.)

According to the reported numbers, the drug-related murder rate was about 67 for every 100,000 inhabitants in Chihuahua last year, while in Afghanistan the civilian killing rate was an estimated seven for every 100,000 people living there.

There were more drug-related killings in Chihuahua than in any other Mexican state, according to the government figures. Chihuahua, the largest state in Mexico, includes Ciudad Juarez, a border city located across from El Paso, Texas. It is the deadliest city in Mexico and is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world.

According to the government tally, Juarez accounted for 1,206 (about 53 percent) of the 2,276 drug cartel-related murders in Chihuahua during the fist nine months of 2011.

The state capital, the city of Chihuahua, was also among the five deadliest cities in Mexico over that period, with 402 homicides reported.

The organized crime-related deaths in Mexico – officially referred to as homicides due to rivalry between delinquent organizations – include executions, deaths from encounters with authorities, direct aggression attacks, and killings stemming from violence between organized trafficking groups, according to the country’s government.

Its figures show that a total of 12,903 drug-related homicides took place across the country during the first nine months of 2011, taking Mexico’s drug-war death toll to 47,515 since President Felipe Calderon began a militarized crackdown on organized crime in December 2006.

Again comparing the Mexican and Afghanistan figures, the CRS report shows that 11,007 Afghan civilians were killed from 2007 through October 2011. That is about 80 percent fewer deaths than the 47,515 drug-related murders in Mexico over roughly the same period (December 2006 through September 2011).

Even if Afghan National Army (1,933) and police (3,834) fatalities are added to the civilian death toll the total number of deaths in Afghanistan over that period – 16,774 – is still almost three times smaller than the Mexican figure.

A total of 1,757 U.S. soldiers have died in and around Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces invaded in Oct. 2001 to topple the Taliban after its al-Qaeda allies attacked the U.S. homeland the previous month.

According to CNSNews.com’s detailed tally, which is derived primarily from Department of Defense reports, there were 399 U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan during 2011, the second deadliest year of the war. (There were 497 deaths in 2010.)

mexico

Let's Compare Shall We

2012-01-20T15:43:00.000-08:00

Abu Ghraib or the newest issue, Marines standing over dead Taliban. Inquests, hearings, jail time versus ... we're sorry, they tried to escape and we shot them dead.

Barbarism.

A mentality they would like to spread around the globe.

Body of Iraq hostage Alan McMenemy handed over to Baghdad embassy

Conal Urquhart and agencies

Friday 20 January 2012 18.00 EST

Alan McMenemy, whose body has been handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad. The security guard was kindapped and taken hostage in Iraq in 2007

The body of a Briton, who was taken hostage in Iraq and later killed, has been handed over to the British embassy in Baghdad, it was announced on Friday.

Alan McMenemy, a security guard from Glasgow, was abducted in 2007 as he and three colleagues were guarding a computer consultant working in the Iraqi ministry of finance. Scores of militia men disguised as police officers took over the ministry and abducted the five Britons.

The bodies of Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alan MacLachlan were transferred to the British embassy in 2009. Peter Moore, the consultant, was released alive the same year.

David Cameron said: "It is with great sadness that I can confirm that the British embassy in Baghdad received a body today that has been identified as Alan McMenemy, who was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2007, along with four other men."

"My thoughts are with Alan's family and friends at this time. They have waited so long for his return and I hope that this will allow them to find some peace after an ordeal that no family should ever have to suffer."

An inquest in 2011 heard that Creswell, Swindlehurst and MacLachlan, were subjected to mock executions, regularly beaten and kept chained and blindfolded for long periods before they were shot dead by their captors.

Moore told Channel 4 News this month that when he was released he was told McMenemy's body would be handed over at the same time. "We've been waiting for the body for a long time. When I was released I was told by Qais al-Khazali [the leader of the militia that abducted the men] that the body would be released with me, and obviously that never happened," he said.

Clearly the leader of the pack doesn't feel enough for these men to keep his word and release the body for a Christian burial. Although I am certain he would demand the release of a dead pack member to bury according to Islamic custom.

"So I've been waiting for the body to be released. It's so long, it's never going to go away from any of our lives. But it is important to move on. We don't have to forget but we have to keep living, and this is the end of the chapter, sort of thing. It's the end of the book."

Rosaleen McMenemy, Alan's widow, said: "Our families have suffered terrible uncertainty and distress over the past four years and eight months. We have worried about Alan every single minute of each waking day. We now know that we will shortly have Alan home again. This will allow us to properly grieve for him and we will draw some comfort from the fact that we have him home at last."

Earlier this year, Qais al-Khazali, the militia leader, apologised for the deaths. He said the four guards were killed when they tried to escape from their captors. "The brothers told me that those four bodyguards tried to escape … they took advantage of a negligent moment and took the weapon of one of their guards and the clash ensued and led to this result. We honestly are sorry for that incident," he said.

"Peter Moore was in another place. They [the kidnappers] knew how important he was and they were expecting a raid or something else. In addition to that, Peter was a civilian and they knew that it was unexpected that he would be any kind of risk. But the confrontation happened with the four guards and led to all of them being killed."

It is not clear why the militia waited more than two years to hand over the body of McMenemy.

In his statement, Cameron noted that the families of Margaret Hassan and Ken Bigley, who were also killed in Iraq, were still waiting for the return of their bodies.

iraq

Obama and our Oil Dependence

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Why not make us more dependent upon 'foreign oil' ...
We have until recently, been purchasing almost 50% of our oil from Canada (which, technically is foreign, but is not a Middle Eastern tyranny nor a hotbed for terrorism aimed at the US). Mr. Obama has basically told the Canadians we are not interested in any oil beyond what we already have shipped to us (such as oil in a pipeline that would decrease our dependence on foreign oil, funding governments who support terrorism).

And now Canada will turn to China - a country that is swallowing up the earth's oil.

Canada Pledges to Sell Oil to Asia After Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline

By Theophilos Argitis and Jeremy Van Loon –

Jan 19, 2012

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Chris Huntington, partner at New Energy Advisors, and Sabrina Willmer and Jeff Green of Bloomberg News talk about President Barack Obama's decision to deny a permit for TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL Pipeline. They also talk about the prospects for a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. private-equity fund dedicated to energy. They speak with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television's "Taking Stock." (Source: Bloomberg)

President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”

The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa.

Currently, 99 percent of Canada’s crude exports go to the U.S., a figure that Harper wants to reduce in his bid to make Canada a “superpower” in global energy markets.

Canada accounts for more than 90 percent of all proven reserves outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, according to data compiled in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Most of Canada’s crude is produced fromoil-sands deposits in the landlocked province of Alberta, where output is expected to double over the next eight years, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“I am sure that if the oil sands production is not used in the United States, they will be used in other countries,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said in an interview before a speech at Imperial College in Londontoday.

‘Profound Disappointment’

Harper “expressed his profound disappointment with the news,” according to the statement, which added that Obama told Harper the rejection was not based on the project’s merit and that the company is free to re-apply.

Canada this month began hearings on a proposed pipeline by Enbridge Inc. to move crude from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia’s coast, where it could be shipped to Asian markets.

Environmentalists and Canadian opposition lawmakers welcomed the Obama administration’s decision. Megan Leslie, a lawmaker for the opposition New Democratic Party, said the Keystone pipeline project was harmful to Canada’s energy security.

“What I’m opposed to is continuing the unchecked expansion of the oil sands,” Leslie said by telephone.

New Flashpoint

Enbridge’s pipeline may now become the new flashpoint between Harper and the opposition. Harper has said building the capacity to sell the country’s oil to Asian markets is in the national interest, and the government will review regulatory-approval rules for new energy projects so they can be done more quickly. Harper has also said he will look more closely into complaints that “foreign money” is being used to overload the regulatory process.

“We have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time, and processes that cannot be hijacked,” Harper said at a press conference Jan. 6 in Edmonton.

The Keystone decision is the latest of several U.S. moves that have irked Canadian policy makers. Canada objected to “Buy American” provisions in the Obama administration’s $447 billion jobs bill that was blocked by Republicans in Congress, as well as the restoration of a $5.50 fee on Canadian travelers arriving in the U.S. by plane or ship.

Approval of Keystone is a “no-brainer,” Harper said in a Sept. 21 interview with Bloomberg.

Cornerstone of Development

Yesterday’s rejection “certainly introduces new uncertainties into the economic relationship,” said David Pumphrey, deputy director of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies inWashington. “This is a cornerstone of economic development for the country.”

The denial came before a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress after Obama postponed a decision in November. TransCanada said the 1,661-mile (2,673-kilometer) project would carry 700,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf coast, crossing six U.S. states and creating 20,000 jobs.

“I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my administration’s commitment to American-made energy,” Obama said today in a statement. “We will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security.”

Canadian policy makers said they remain optimistic TransCanada will eventually be able to proceed.

Still Supporting

Alberta Premier Alison Redford said in a press conference in Edmonton that it is still “entirely possible” the pipeline will be built and said it was good news that TransCanada planned to apply again.

Canada will continue to support TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian Foreign MinisterJohn Baird said, adding that it is in the best interests of both Canada and the United States.

“We strongly believe that Keystone’s in the best interests of both countries,” he said. “We’ll continue to be an active supporter of the project.”

canada

Al Qaida Leader Sent to Hell, courtesy of the US

2012-01-19T16:33:00.000-08:00

Remove them, one by one. The only way to end their menace is to kill them.

And we are doing just that.

Exclusive - Senior alQaeda figure killed in U.S. drone strike

By Mark Hosenball and Chris Allbritton

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD | Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:44pm GMT

(Reuters) - A militant who acted as a senior operations organizer for al Qaeda was targeted and killed in one of two U.S. drone strikes launched against targets inside Pakistan last week, a U.S. official said.

U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the same town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone on January 10 directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal areas and are a key weapon in U.S. President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, who also was known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

Pakistani officials could not confirm that Awan was killed in the drone attack, but the U.S. official said he was.

One of the sources described Awan as an associate of al Qaeda's current chief of external operations, whose identity is known to intelligence officials but not to the general public.

"Aslam Awan was a senior al-Qaeda external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaeda's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians," a U.S. official said.

Several previous alleged chiefs of external operations for al Qaeda have been caught or killed in drone attacks or counter-terrorism operations, the most notorious being Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. Mohammed was captured and is being held by U.S. authorities in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility.

Because their role in arranging operations involves interacting with militants in the field, external operations chiefs of al Qaeda have found themselves more vulnerable to exposure and counter-attacks by security forces than the movement's most senior leaders, who until bin Laden's demise last year appeared to be able to move about the region and issue provocative audio and video messages with near-impunity.

A Pakistani security source based in the country's border region said that Awan was the remaining member of an al Qaeda cell Pakistani authorities have been trying to roll up since 2008.

"We thought he was very close to Ayman al-Zawahiri," the source said, referring to al Qaeda's current leader and bin Laden's long-time deputy, a former Egyptian doctor.

However, a U.S. source said that American experts did not believe that Awan was particularly close to al-Zawahiri.

The drone strike that targeted Awan was one of two such attacks last week, in what U.S. sources indicated was a resumption of the U.S. drone campaign following the eight-week pause. In the other drone strike, also in North Waziristan, a group of "foreign fighters" sympathetic to the Taliban and al Qaeda, some of Uzbek ethnicity, were targeted on January 12.

MILITANTS HIT NEAR BORDER

The targeted militants were believed to be travelling, possibly in preparation for an operation near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, and some were injured or killed in the attack, the U.S. source said.

U.S. officials said they could not confirm news reports, based on claims from Pakistani sources, that Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the TTP, Pakistan's most potent domestic affiliate of the Taliban movement, was also killed in the June 12 attack. Pakistani and U.S. sources said that Mehsud was not targeted in the drone strike, and one Pakistani source said: "He is alive. Hakimullah is alive."

U.S. officials insisted that the drone strike lull did not represent an official moratorium on such operations by the Obama administration. The officials maintained that any fall-off in the pace of such operations was related to the availability of intelligence and operating conditions, such as weather.

However, some officials did privately acknowledge that the drone lull was at least in part calculated to try to improve strained relations between Washington and Islamabad, which had been on a downswing for much of last year in the wake of Pakistan's detention of a CIA operative and the secret U.S. commando raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout.

Relations plummeted to a new low following a late November incident in which 24 Pakistani troops were killed accidentally in a NATO aerial attack on border outposts.

Some U.S. and Pakistani officials say that both governments are making efforts to improve relations. As part of this process, a U.S. official said, it is possible that some permanent tweaks could be made in the U.S. drone program which could slow the pace of attacks.

terror

2012-01-14T22:08:00.000-08:00

Processed meat 'linked to pancreatic cancer'

By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News

12 January 2012

A link between eating processed meat, such as bacon or sausages, and pancreatic cancer has been suggested by researchers in Sweden.

They said eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person's risk by 19%.

But the chance of developing the rare cancer remains low.

The World Cancer Research Fund suggested the link may be down to obesity.

Eating red and processed meat has already been linked to bowel cancer. As a result the UK government recommended in 2011 that people eat no more than 70g a day.

Prof Susanna Larsson, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute, told the BBC that links to other cancers were "quite controversial".

She added: "It is known that eating meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, it's not so much known about other cancers."

The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed data from 11 trials and 6,643 patients with pancreatic cancer.

Increased risk

It found that eating processed meat increased the risk of pancreatic cancer. The risk increased by 19% for every 50g someone added to their daily diet. Having an extra 100g would increase the risk by 38%.

Prof Larsson said: "Pancreatic cancer has poor survival rates. So as well as diagnosing it early, it's important to understand what can increase the risk of this disease."

She recommended that people eat less red meat.

Cancer Research UK said the risk of developing pancreatic cancer in a lifetime was "comparatively small" - one in 77 for men and one in 79 for women.

Sara Hiom, the charity's information director, said: "The jury is still out as to whether meat is a definite risk factor for pancreatic cancer and more large studies are needed to confirm this, but this new analysis suggests processed meat may be playing a role."

However, she pointed out that smoking was a much greater risk factor.

The World Cancer Research Fund has advised people to completely avoid processed meat.

Dr Rachel Thompson, the fund's deputy head of science, said: "We will be re-examining the factors behind pancreatic cancer later this year as part of our Continuous Update Project, which should tell us more about the relationship between cancer of the pancreas and processed meat.

"There is strong evidence that being overweight or obese increases the risk of pancreatic cancer and this study may be an early indication of another factor behind the disease.

"Regardless of this latest research, we have already established a strong link between eating red and processed meat and your chances of developing bowel cancer, which is why WCRF recommends limiting intake of red meat to 500g cooked weight a week and avoid processed meat altogether."

cancer

Marriage is Best ?

2012-01-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

She offers a unique perspective.

Why marriage is an 'absolute yes'

By Carey Goldberg , Special to CNN

2011-12-21

Editor's note: Carey Goldberg is the co-host of WBUR's CommonHealth blog. With Beth Jones and Pamela Ferdinand, she is the co-author of "Three Wishes: A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak and Astonishing Luck on our Way to Love and Motherhood," which comes out in paperback next month from Little, Brown.

(CNN) -- A couple of years ago, my daughter and I were playing the classic board game "Life," and her little car reached the roadblock at which everybody -- absolutely everybody -- gets married.

Needless to say, given a new set of striking statistics last week that showed a record low of 51% of American adults are married, "Life" was designed many decades ago. The study by the Pew Research Center further found that 40% of births these days are to unmarried mothers, and a similar percentage of Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete.

My daughter Liliana, who was 8 when we were playing the board game, tossed off this remark as she stuck the tiny blue husband pin into her car: "When I grow up, I don't think I'll get married. I think I'll just get some sperm."

How we reap what we sow! Liliana was old enough to know the story of her own origins, and it goes like this: When I turned 39, still single, I resolved to become a mother on my own and bought eight vials of donor sperm. But then I met her father, Sprax, and he agreed to help me have a baby the old-fashioned way. We went through many ups and downs, even splitting up for a couple of years, but finally realized that we loved each other, got back together and went on to have her baby brother. When Liliana was almost 4, we got married.

So there I was -- the former single mother by choice, the typical Massachusetts type who deeply believes that there are a hundred great ways to make a family and that life can also be wonderful without one -- and I found myself responding to my daughter: "That would be fine if you just get some sperm, sweetheart, but you know, being married is actually really nice, too."

What happened to me? What happened to the independent woman who, by the time she married for the first time at age 44, felt no particular need for a piece of paper from City Hall?

It is this. Day in and out, through lunch-packing and play date-making and bath-running, I am struck by a surprising truth: Though the raising of our children constitutes the central activity of our family, it is the love between Sprax and me that constitutes its ineffable core.

That sounds like a traditional religious point of view, but we are not religious. I've come to this understanding simply as an observer of my own heart and the family dance. It is, apparently, just an emotional fact of life -- at least, of our life.

What baffles me is that I was perfectly able to have Liliana without being in a committed, loving relationship with Sprax, and our semi-family life was really quite happy in that formation. We all got along; Sprax would visit two or three times a week; Liliana got plenty of love and structure.

But since he and I reunited, our bond has become the family's invisible center, the axis of its spokes. I did not need a husband. But I need him.

LZ Granderson: Love and marriage are not the same thing

So fine, but what difference do the formal "bonds of matrimony" make? Usually you hear people talk about commitment, but I can't imagine any greater commitment than sharing children who are still going to need raising for quite a few years.

No, what marriage means to me is acceptance, an "absolute yes" that makes it bearable to be seen at your worst -- exhausted or flu-ridden or carried away by an ugly bout of selfishness. That "yes" launches the creation of an entity, a union, that exists apart from the daily ebb and flow of difficulties and joys. It is nothing but an abstraction, but, to my amazement, it is the most beautiful thing in our lives.

So this is my marital equivalent of "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus":

"Yes, Liliana, you can definitely stay single and you'll have loads of company. You by no means have to get married. You can definitely have a fabulous life without marriage, and it would certainly be a huge mistake to rush into anything.

"But I cannot lie: I wish you all that is best in life, and marriage, when it's good, can be one of those things. And if you do get married, at your wedding I'll cry tears of joy -- because I'll know that you're about to enter the gates of one of the most magical places in the world."

marriage

Cruise Ships: For some it is not easy to keeping them afloat.

2012-01-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

Officials: 3 killed,scores missing after cruise ship runs aground off Italy

By the CNN Wire Staff

Sat January 14, 2012

Cruise ship runs aground off Italy

Rome (CNN) -- Italian authorities were questioning Saturday the captain of a cruise ship that ran aground, knocking the vessel on its side and killing at least three people, with dozens more missing, officials said.

The Italian captain, Francesco Schettino, was being interviewed by investigators Porto Santo Stefano on what happened when the 4,200-passenger Costa Concordia, owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises, slammed into shallow water off Italy's western coast, said officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.

Authorities are looking at why the ship didn't hail a mayday during the accident near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night, officials said.

"At the moment we can't exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem, and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn't send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing," Del Santo said.

"Fear and panic are comprehensible in a ship long over 300 meters with over 4000 passengers," Del Santo said. "We can confirm that the ship has a breach on the hull of about 90 meters, and that the right side of it is completely under water."

Giuseppe Orsina, a spokesman with the local civil protection agency, said 43 to 51 persons were missing, though authorities are reviewing passenger lists to confirm the exact figure.

"These people could be still on the island of Giglio, in private houses or in hospitals," Orsina said.

The coast guard said 50 to 70 people could be missing.

Rescue teams worked through the night to evacuate more than 4,000 people from the Costa Concordia, owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises, after it ran aground off of Italy's western coast.

See high-res images of the rescue

Authorities said earlier Saturday they believed everyone was accounted for, but that they did not have a definitive list of names.

The huge ship, which which is now lying on its side in shallow water, was carrying about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members when it ran aground at about dinner time.

Initial reports suggested as many as six people had been killed, but it was unclear why the number dropped. An additional 14 people were injured, Adm. Ilarione Dell'Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno, told CNN.

Passengers described how the lights went out and it then became clear the ship had hit something, prompting scenes of chaos.

Laurie Willits from Ontario, who was watching a magic show with her husband at that moment, told CNN: "We heard a scraping noise to the left of the ship and then my husband said 'we're sliding off our seats.'"

The couple ran to their cabin to get coats and life jackets before making their way to a lifeboat. Emergency instructions in English were hard to hear, Willits said.

Panic spread as people scrambled to find lifeboats in the dark as the ship quickly leaned to one side. Access to some lifeboats was hampered by the ship's tilt into the water, adding to the confusion.

Willits and her husband, who managed to get into a lifeboat about an hour to 90 minutes after the alarm was raised, watched from a pier on the island as the ship slowly sank until it was at an almost 90 degree angle in the water.

"I'm exhausted, I haven't had any sleep, I'm hungry," Willits said, but added that she was relieved to have been able to call her family thanks to the help of people on the island.

The civil protection agency in the town of Grosseto, the provincial capital, said Saturday morning that the emergency operation was still ongoing and parts of the ship remained underwater.

The coast guard said three helicopters were used to rescue some passengers from the ship.

Evacuation efforts started promptly but were made "extremely difficult" by the position of the ship, according to a statement on Costa's website. Some passengers fell into the chilly waters during the rescue, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

Dell'Anna said an investigation is under way.

"There has probably been a technical blackout," he said. "The ship was dangerously near the coast. We worked all night in a state of maximum emergency.

"Fortunately the sea conditions have helped us, otherwise -- given the high number of people to rescue, 4,231 -- we could have had a completely different scenario: a real tragedy."

Many of those rescued in the early hours were taken to small churches and other buildings around the island for shelter.

Some were still wearing the pajamas and slippers they had on as the ship went down, as they waited for help Saturday morning at reception centers set up on the island.

One of the victims was a 65-year-old woman who died of a heart attack, according to authorities.

Costa said it was focusing on the final stages of the emergency operation and helping passengers and crew return home.

"It is a tragedy that deeply affects our company. Our first thoughts go to the victims and we would like to express our condolences and our closeness to their families and friends," Costa said on its website.

The Concordia, built in 2006, was on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo, according to the cruise line. It was unclear how far into the cruise the grounding occurred.

Most of the passengers on board were Italian, as well as some French and German citizens. CNN affiliate America Noticias, in Peru, said a group of 32 Peruvians were also onboard.

Another Costa ship was involved in a deadly 2010 accident when the Costa Europa crashed into a pier in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh during stormy weather, killing three crew members.

cruise

Euro: Down the rabbit hole

2012-01-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

The Europeans are incapable of saving their economies without the help from Germany and Germany has shown an increasing resistance to provide the rest of Europe with further funding.

The rabbit hole is very deep and there is no escape.

S&P Cuts CreditRatings for Nine Euro Zone Nations

Friday, 13 Jan 2012

Reuters with CNBC.com

Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday 13th for the troubled single currency area.

"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policy makers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the euro zone," S&P said in a press release announcing the downgrade.

In a potentially more ominous setback, talks broke down between Greece and its creditors over a debt swap seen as crucial to avert a Greek default, although officials said more talks are likely next week.

If Greece cannot persuade banks and insurers to accept voluntary losses on their bond holdings, a second international rescue package for the euro zone's most heavily indebted state will unravel, raising the prospect of bankruptcy in late March, when it has to redeem 14.4 billion euros in maturing debt.

S&P lowered its long-term rating on Cyprus, Italy, Portugal and Spain by two notches, and cut its rating on Austria, France, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch.

The move puts highly indebted Italy on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status.

The credit-rating agency affirmed the current long-term ratings for Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

U.S. stocks slumped earlier amid buzz about the possible downgrades, though finished well off their lows. The euro fell by more than a cent to $1.2650 on the news. European shares closed lower. Safe-haven German 10-year bond futures rose to a new record high while the risk premium investors charge on French, Spanish, Italian and Belgian debt widened.

The credit-rating agency put all 14 euro-zone nations — Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain — on "negative" outlook for a possible further downgrade.

Germany was the only country to emerge totally unscathed with its triple-A rating and a stable outlook.

A negative outlook indicates that S&P believes there is at least a one-in-three chance that a country's rating will be lowered in 2012 or 2013.

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, speaking after an emergency meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, played down the impact of Europe's second biggest economy being downgraded to AA+ for the first time since 1975.

"This is not a catastrophe. It's an excellent rating. But it's not good news," Baroin told France 2 television, saying the government would not respond with further austerity measures.

In December, S&P placed the ratings of 15 euro zone countries on credit watch negative — including those of top-rated Germany and France, the region's two biggest economies — and said "systemic stresses" were building up as credit conditions tighten in the 17-nation bloc.

Since then, the European Central Bank has flooded the banking system with cheap three-year money to avert a credit crunch. At the time, the U.S.-based ratings agency said it could also downgrade the euro zone's current bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility

Euro zone finance ministers responded jointly by saying in a statement they had taken "far-reaching measures" in response to the sovereign debt crisis and were accelerating reforms towards stronger economic union.

Greek negotiators who have repeatedly voiced confidence in a deal in which private creditors would accept writedowns of 50 percent of the face value of their bond holdings said they were now less hopeful, warning of "catastrophic consequences" for Greece and Europe if they failed.

"Yesterday we were cautious and confident. Today we are less optimistic," a source close to the Greek task force in charge of the negotiations said.

The Institute for International Finance, negotiating on behalf of banks, said: "Under the circumstances, discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach."

The two sides are divided principally over the interest rate Greece will end up paying, which determines how much of a hit banks take. While both appear to be engaged in brinkmanship, there are also doubts about the take-up rate of any voluntary deal, since some hedge funds have bought up Greek debt and want to be paid out in full or trigger default insurance.

The double blow of the S&P news and the stalling of the Greek debt talks came after a brighter start to the year with Spain and Italy beginning their marathon debt rollover at lower borrowing costs this week.

The European Central Bank's move last month to flood banks with cheap three-year liquidity helped ease a worsening credit crunch and provided funds which governments hope some will use to buy sovereign bonds.

Rescue Fund Weakened

S&P said the euro zone faced stresses including tightening credit conditions, rising risk premiums for a growing number of sovereigns, simultaneous deleveraging by governments and households and weakening economic growth prospects.

It also cited political obstacles to a solution to the crisis due to "an open and prolonged dispute among European policy makers over the proper approach to address challenges."

Austerity and budget discipline alone were not sufficient to fight the debt crisis and risked becoming self-defeating, the ratings agency said.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble played down the news, saying: "In the past months, we've come to agree that the ratings agencies' judgments should not be overvalued."

France and Austria were at risk because of their banks' exposure to the debt of peripheral euro zone countries and Hungary respectively, as well as the weakening economic outlook for Europe. Italy and Spain face historically high borrowing costs.

The cut in France's rating is a serious setback for the center-right Sarkozy's chances of re-election in May and could weaken the euro zone's rescue fund, reducing its ability to help countries in difficulty.

France is the second largest guarantor of the EFSF, which has a triple-A rating. Preserving that status would require members to increase their guarantees, which could prove politically unpopular.

In their statement, the euro zone finance ministers said they would do all they could to ensure the rescue fund keeps its top rating.

After vowing for months to do everything to preserve Paris' top-notch standing, Sarkozy appeared to prepare voters last month for the loss of the prized status before the election.

His political opponents pounced on the S&P decision as a verdict on the failure of his policies.

"This is in reality a double downgrade. It is a downgrade of our sovereign rating that will affect the country's reputation, with heavy consequences, and it is also a downgrade compared to our main neighbor, Germany, with which we had equal status up to now," centrist candidate Francois Bayrou said.

Socialist party leader Martine Aubry said: "Mr. Sarkozy will be remembered as the president who downgraded France."

It is not clear how far the downgrade will increase France's borrowing costs, since markets have already anticipated the prospect by raising the French risk premium over German Bunds.

"One notch is priced in but not more. The Franco-German spread can widen. It is about 130 basis points for the 10-year bond. The maximum level reached was 180 to 190 basis points and it can go back to this level," said Alessandro Giansanti, senior rates strategist at ING in Amsterdam.

'Triple-A Is a Dying Species'

The consequence of the downgrade is that the EFSF can't keep its triple-A rating, said Commerzbank chief economist Joerg Kraemer.

"That may irritate markets in the short term but wouldn't be a big problem in a world where the U.S. and Japan also don't have a triple-A rating anymore. Triple-A is a dying species," he said.

John Wraith, Fixed Income Strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch told CNBC the mass downgrade is another serious step in the crisis and would lead to a serious worsening of sentiment.

"To a large degree, it’s widely anticipated," Wraith said. "However, we think the reality of it is going to have a knock-on, ongoing impact on these markets."

“It clearly deteriorates still further the credit worthiness of a lot of the European banks and just keeps that negative feedback loop between struggling banks and the sovereigns that may have to support them if things go from bad to worse in full force,” Wraith added.

The downgrade could automatically require some investment funds to sell bonds of affected states, making those countries' borrowing costs rise still further.

"It's been priced in for several weeks, but the market had been lulled into complacency over the holidays, and the new year began with a bounce in risk appetite, thanks partly to a good Spanish auction," said Samarjit Shankar, Director Of Global Fx Strategy at BNY Mellon in Boston.

"But the Italian auction brought us back to earth," he said.

Italy's three-year debt costs fell below 5 percent on Friday, but its first bond sale of the year failed to match the success of a Spanish auction the previous day, reflecting the heavy refinancing load Rome faces over the next three months.

2012-01-13T15:42:00.000-08:00

Allen West on the Marines Incident: 'Shut Your Mouth, War Is Hell'

1:37 PM, Jan 13, 2012

By DANIEL HALPER

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

war

Greece and the Contiunued Spiral Downward

2012-01-12T09:24:00.000-08:00

The effects of the collapse are still being negotiated. When the slavers come, they will start taking Greek children who will be available for the taking.

Children 'dumped in streets by Greek parents who can't afford to look afterthem any more'

By Lee Moran

11th January 2012

Children are being abandoned on Greece's streets by their poverty-stricken families who cannot afford to look after them any more.

Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

It comes as pharmacists revealed the country had almost run out of aspirin, as multi-billion euro austerity measures filter their way through society.

Athens' Ark of the World youth centre said four children, including a newborn baby, had been left on its doorstep in recent months.

One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.

Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: 'I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.'

And another desperate mother, Maria, was forced to give up her eight-year-old daughter Anastasia after losing her job.

She looked for work for more than a year, having to leave her child at home for hours at a time, and lived off food handouts from the local church.

She said: 'Every night I cry alone at home, but what can I do? It hurt my heart, but I didn’t have a choice.' She now works in a cafe but only make £16 per day and so cannot afford to take her daughter back.

Centre founder Fr Antonios Papanikolaou told the Mirror: 'Over the last year we've had hundreds of parents who want to leave their children with us. They know us and trust us.

'They say they do not have any money or shelter or food for their kids, so they hope we might be able to provide them with what they need.'

Further evidence of Greeks feeling the pinch of austerity measures is the lack of aspirin and other medicines now available in the country.
Pharmacists are struggling to stock their shelves as the Greek government, which sets the prices for drugs, keeps them artificially low.

This means that firms are turning to sell the drugs outside of the country for a higher price - leading to stock depletion for Greeks.

Mina Mavrou, who runs one of the country's 12,000 pharmacies, said she spent hours each day pleading with drug makers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients.

And she said that even when drugs were available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

Meanwhile, talks about private sector creditors paying for part of a second Greek bailout are going badly, senior European bankers said tonight.

That raises the prospect that euro zone governments will have to increase their contribution to the aid package.

'Governments are mulling an increase of their share of the burden,' said one banker, while another said 'Nothing is decided yet, but the bigger the imposed haircut the less appetite there is for voluntary conversion.'

A third senior banker told Associated Press: 'Private sector involvement is going badly.'

There are suggestions in euro zone government circles that ministers are coming to the realisation they may need to bolster Greece's planned second bailout worth 130 billion euros if the voluntary bond swap scheme, which is a key part of the overall package, falls short of expectations.

Stumping up yet more money would be politically difficult in Germany and other countries in the northern part of the currency bloc.

greece

Just a Typical Day for Jihad

2012-01-11T20:07:00.000-08:00

Arid Uka,Suspected Frankfurt Airport Shooter, Could Get Life Sentence

1/9/12 09:30 AM ET

Associated Press

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Prosecutors are asking for a sentence of life in prison for an alleged Islamic extremist who has admitted killing two U.S. airmen at the Frankfurt airport last year.

The dapd news agency reported that Prosecutor Jochen Weingarten told the Frankfurt state court in closing arguments Monday that Arid Uka deserved the maximum possible sentence due to the brutal nature of the crime.

The 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo confessed as the trial opened to killing two men at point-blank range before wounding two more airmen and taking aim at a third before his gun misfired.

Under German law the court still has to review all the evidence despite the confession.

A verdict is expected on Jan. 19.

islam

Obama's: Let them eat cake.

2012-01-11T18:02:00.000-08:00

Top 5 ‘letthem eat cake’ moments of the Obama White House

From a sojourn to Spain to island vacations

By Patrick Hruby

The Washington Times
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Michelle Obama may be missing the point.

Responding to a new book by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor that characterizes the first lady as an occasionally unhappy and strident White House resident, Mrs. Obama said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on CBS that people have inaccurately tried to portray her as “some kind of angry black woman” and that “I love this job. It has been a privilege from day one.”

Missing in Mrs. Obama’s self-defense, which primarily pushed back against reports of tension between her and President Obama’s top aides?

A rebuttal to ongoing criticism that the Obamas have seemed out of economic touch with a nation struggling with high unemployment and the ongoing fallout of the Great Recession.

Case in point: Ms. Kantor’s book depicts a lavish, unpublicized 2009 “Alice in Wonderland” White House Halloween party featuring director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp, a soiree that has drawn negative scrutiny for taking place during the deepest dip of the economic downturn.

As Nancy Reagan once learned after being blasted for buying pricey White House china during a recession, both political opponents and the general public can quickly turn against presidential glamour — at least when it comes off as less Jackie Kennedy than Marie Antoinette.

Herein, a guide to Mr. and Mrs. Obama’s top “Let Them Eat Cake” controversies:

1. The Pain in Spain

Incident: The first lady and daughter Sasha took a five-day trip to southern Spain, shopping, visiting coastal towns and lunching with the nation’s king and queen.

Criticism: Mrs. Obama and her daughter stayed at a five-star coastal resort where rooms run from $400 to almost $7,000 per night and the first lady was photographed wearing an off-the-shoulder top from pricey designer Jean Paul Gaultier, causing critics to blast the seeming show of extravagance during a period of 9.5 percent unemployment.

Infuriating fact: While the Obamas paid their own way for the trip, American taxpayers picked up the estimated $250,000 security tab.

Infuriating fact II: The White House had dubbed it “Recovery Summer.” D’oh!

Mitigating fact: Mrs. Obama reportedly went to Spain to comfort a friend whose father had recently died and whose daughter, a friend of Sasha‘s, always had wanted to celebrate her birthday in the country.

Quotable: New York Daily News writer Andrea Tantaros labeled Mrs. Obama “more like a modern-day Marie Antoinette than an average mother of two” and noted that “the trip and glitzy destination contrasted with President Obama’s demonization of the rich that smacks of hypocrisy.”

Cake rating: Three slices out of five. Nothing wrong with a sun-splashed getaway, let alone consoling a friend, but Mrs. Obama’s advisers should have known better than to take a posh trip to coastal Spain — hello, envy alert! — in August, which traditionally is the slow, silly season for national news.

2. Date Fright

Incident: Mr. and Mrs. Obama jetted up to New York City for a “date night” — dinner and a Broadway play — in May, 2009.

Criticism: Conservative commentators and Republican officials slagged the president for having a flashy night on the town during a recession.

Infuriating fact: A few months earlier, executives from the struggling, bailed-out American auto industry were widely criticized for traveling to Washington hearings in expensive private jets. Why should Mr. Obama get a free pass?

Mitigating fact: Mr. and Mrs. Obama seem to have a, you know, loving marriage.

Quotable: Said Rick Santorum: “I think [Mr. Obama] has to realize that flying to New York is self-indulgent. Go down to the corner bar and have a drink, a shot and a beer. It does not matter where you go with your wife, it’s with your wife. That’s really the point.”

Cake rating: Zero slices. In a harried, fast-paced world where romance is more or less dead - sorry, did you just propose to me? I was checking my iPhone - bashing the president for being a good husband is just tacky.

[The author misses the point - no one has anything against a loving marriage like George and Laura Bush, but you didn't see them having a date that cost the taxpayers tens of thousands opf dollars at a time when 10% of Americans were unemployed and facing eviction, without medical care.]

3. Concerted Efforts

Incident: In May of last year, the Obamas held a “celebration of poetry and prose” party in the East Room of the White House, with Chicago rapper Common among the invited guests.

Criticism: Common — real name: Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. — wrote a song honoring Assata Shakur, a convicted-cop killer and fugitive former Black Panther now living in Cuba; the rapper also expressed public support for convicted murderer and controversial cause celebre Mumia Abu-Jamal. A spokesman for the New Jersey State Police union blasted the White House.

Mitigating fact: Among hip-hop fans, Common is known for thoughtful, positive and literate music; he also does charitable work with poor children in Chicago.

Quotable: “The young people who read this stuff, hear this stuff, are getting a very dangerous and deadly message,” said president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association union David Jones, referring to Common’s lyrics.

Cake rating: One cupcake. A little tone deaf when it comes to law enforcement, sure, but hardly a textbook Let Them Eat Cake moment - in fact, it was a lot less annoying from a have-and-have-not standpoint than the time the Dow plummeted on the same day that Stevie Wonder, Charles Barkley, Jay-Z, Tom Hanks, Emmitt Smith and others partied at the White House.

4. Hawaii Five-Oh No

Incident: The Obamas took a 17-day trip Hawaii at the end of last year, the family’s annual Christmas vacation.

Criticism: Actually, Mr. Obama didn’t receive much flak — well, except for a report in the National Enquirer that claimed the president wanted to take a cheaper, less extravagant trip to Camp David in Maryland, but was overruled by Mrs. Obama, whose spending “has spiraled completely out of control.”

Infuriating fact: According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the cost of a private beachfront vacation home in Kailua, Oahu is $75,000 a month; the Hawaii Reporter reported that a similar Obama vacation in 2010 cost nearly $1.5 million.

Mitigating fact: Well, the president is from Hawaii. Or is he? (Just kidding, Birtherism is so 2011).

Cake rating: One slice. Not that they’re always wrong, but seriously, it’s the National Enquirer. Besides, nobody seems to begrudge Mr. Obama visiting his childhood home - is it his fault said home is a tropical island paradise?

5. Island of Misadventure

Incident: With the White House still working on an unfinished jobs plan, Mr. Obama took a vacation to the resort island of Martha’s Vineyard last August.

Criticism: Mr. Obama arrived on the island just as the stock market tanked and opinion polls showed a large majority of Americans being unhappy with the state of the country.

Infuriating fact: Mr. Obama used two helicopters and Air Force One to get to the island; Mrs. Obama and her daughters took a separate military jet and motorcade to arrive on the island four hours before her husband.

Quotable: Sarah Palin called the president “tone deaf,” adding that she wouldn’t go on vacation if she was Mr. Obama, “especially to Martha’s Vineyard.”

Cake rating: Two and a half slices. On one hand, the two-jets thing is pretty galling for anyone who has to take the bus or carpool; on the other, Martha’s Vineyard may have a reputation as a wealthy liberal enclave, but it’s not exactly Palace of Versailles ostentatious.

obama

Body Parts

2012-01-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

Dead Teen Sued for Losing Control of Flying Body Parts

Posted by Lindsay Mannering

on December 30, 2011 at 3:00 PM

You think you've heard it all until I tell you that an appeals court in Illinois recently ruled that a woman is allowed to sue a dead teen's estate for injuries caused by his flying body parts. The 18-year-old boy was running across the Amtrak tracks to catch another train but didn't make it -- he was hit by an oncoming train going 70 mph and his body was torn apart by the force and flung onto a nearby passengers' waiting platform.

The woman, 58, was struck by a sizable chunk of the boy's body and was knocked to the ground, breaking her leg and wrist. The court ruled that the boy's death was "reasonably foreseeable" and that his estate can be held responsible for his negligence.

I'm sorry, but who goes around suing a dead teen whose body was ripped to shreds in one of the most gruesome ways imaginable?

I can't say that my first or even fiftieth instinct after being pummeled to the ground by half of a bloody torso would be to raise my fist in the air and declare that whoever had the nerve to let their body explode and land on me will most certainly pay in court.

Even if my leg was shattered, I still can't imagine going after the dead teen's estate.
The family of the deceased has suffered enough -- their son was blasted by a train. It doesn't get much worse than that. And to think that they have to endure a woman nitpicking her way into their bank accounts is disgusting. It's not like this kid had millions -- what is she hoping to gain from this lawsuit?

It won't make her leg any better. I can't imagine it'd help her heal in any way, shape, or form. I don't think a normal person would feel good about suing for injuries caused by a dead teen's flying body parts. Yeah, he did something incredibly stupid, but I think he paid the price. He's dead. His body was blown to bits. No need to drive the point home with what seems like a frivolous, greedy, and hurtful lawsuit.

odd

Election 2012

2012-01-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

What is at stake is the very meaning of being an American. What is at stake is the heart of America, the purpose of America. What is at risk is losing the soul of America is we ....

Apparently if Pat Buchanan references Christianity in the above, he gets fired. But when Obama says it, he is justaposing it against Republicans ... that unless he wins, the country and the future loses if Republicans win ....

Isn't he inclusive. Making his re-election an issue of what is the essence of being an American or America.

At a campaign event this evening at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., President Obama indicated that he had successfully brought about "change"--an ambiguous 2008 campaign promise--by killing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. From the official White House transcript:

And change is keeping one of the first promises I made in 2008 -- ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home. (Applause.) The war is over and our troops are home. And instead, we refocused our efforts on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. And thanks to our brave men and women in uniform, al Qaeda is weaker than it’s ever been, and Osama bin Laden will never again walk the face of this Earth. That’s what change is. (Applause.)

The president also listed Obamacare as a change he was responsible for, though he failed to mention the unpopularity of his signature legislation.
And the president warned that Republicans threaten the "very core of what this country stands for."

The very core of what this country stands for is on the line -- the basic promise that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, this is a place where you could make it if you try. The notion that we're all in this together, that we look out for one another -- that's at stake in this election. Don't take my word for it. Watch some of these debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.

obama

Let them Eat Cake (more) or at least Have their Own Christmas Party

2012-01-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

With nearly 30 million people without .... no, not medical insurance, 30 million without a job .... the Obama's did what they needed to do ... keep their Christmas party as quiet as possible for all the flash and pomp the party would bring to the White House. After all, 30 million without job might not appreciate all your hard work on setting up a Christmas party.

And they are your constituency.

White House threw secret 'Alice inWonderland' bash during recession

By MICHAEL GARTLAND and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN

January 8, 2012
New York Post

It was the tea party the Obamas just couldn’t resist.

A White House “Alice in Wonderland” costume ball — put on by Johnny Depp and Hollywood director Tim Burton — proved to be a Mad-as-a-Hatter idea that was never made public for fear of a political backlash during hard economic times, according to a new tell-all.

“The Obamas,” by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, tells of the first Halloween party the first couple feted at the White House in 2009. It was so over the top that “Star Wars” creator George Lucas sent the original Chewbacca to mingle with invited guests.

The book reveals how any official announcement of the glittering affair — coming at a time when Tea Party activists and voters furious over the lagging economy, 10-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and Obama’s health-care plan were staging protests — quickly vanished down the rabbit hole.

“White House officials were so nervous about how a splashy, Hollywood-esque party would look to jobless Americans — or their representatives in Congress, who would soon vote on health care — that the event was not discussed publicly and Burton’s and Depp’s contributions went unacknowledged,” the book says.

However, the White House made certain that more humble Halloween festivities earlier that day — for thousands of Washington-area schoolkids — were well reported by the press corps.

Then the Obamas went inside, where an invitation-only affair for children of military personnel and White House administrators unfolded in the East Room.

Unbeknownst to reporters, the State Dining Room had also been transformed into a secretive White House Wonderland.

Tim Burton decorated it “in his signature creepy-comic style. His film version was about to be released, and he had turned the room into the Mad Hatter’s tea party, with a long table set with antique-looking linens, enormous stuffed animals in chairs, and tiered serving plates with treats like bone-shaped meringue cookies,” reports the book, which The Post purchased at a Manhattan bookstore.

“Fruit punch was served in blood vials at the bar. Burton’s own Mad Hatter, the actor Johnny Depp, presided over the scene in full costume, standing up on a table to welcome everyone in character.”

The Obamas’ daughters, Malia and Sasha, then 11 and 8 respectively, “sat at the table, surrounded by a gaggle of their friends, and then proceeded to the next delight, a magic show in the East Room.”

Kantor’s book details more personal aspects of the Obama White House, serving up glimpses of the first couple’s marriage, parenting, sometimes tense handling of staff issues and even the president’s sly sense of humor when it comes to race.

One morning during his Senate campaign, Obama didn’t show up to a meeting with donors. “After a frantic search, a white staffer named Peter Coffey called Obama’s barbershop to find that, yes, he was there.”

The president confronted Coffey about the call later that day.

“ ‘The relationship between a black man and his barber is sacred,’ Obama bellowed . . . ‘For failing to understand this truth, your punishment is to watch the movie “Barbershop.” And for further punishment, you will then watch the sequel, “Barbershop 2.” ’ ”

Often White House staffers found themselves in the middle of husband-and-wife quarrels.

“The advisors could feel hopelessly caught between husband and wife,” Kantor writes. “The Obama marriage was awkward for everyone: for the aides, for the president . . . and for the first lady.”

obama

2012-01-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

Chronicling coming Obamacare crash

By Phil Kent

The Washington Times
Thursday, January 5, 2012

In 2011, instead of being heralded for its popularity, President Obama's expensive and tyrannical health care law faced its unraveling, month by month.

Last January, Kansas became the 26th state suing the federal government to block implementation of the health care overhaul. By the end of t hat month, a second federal judge had declared the law unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court now decides whether part or all of Obamacare is unconstitutional, and it should rule sometime around early June.

It was also last February when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the embarrassing announcement that the CLASS Act, a key portion of the law that was supposed to "save" $70 billion, was "totally unsustainable." And the bad news kept on coming.

The law turned a year old March 23, the same day the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported that the temporary Early Retirement Reinsurance Program would spend its allotted $5 billion far earlier than its January 2014 expiration date. By the end of March, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated Obamacare will ultimately cost more than $1.1 trillion an increase of $90 billion from its February estimate.

Last May, the media reported that 20 percent of Obama administration waivers from the law were going to gourmet restaurants, nightclubs and swanky hotels in Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's district. The AARP, which betrayed members with its shameless cheerleading for Obamacare, was also granted a waiver from the law along with various Obama-supporting labor unions.

When June rolled around, a McKinsey & Co. survey of more than 1,300 private-sector employers found that 30 percent of employers would definitely or probably stop offering insurance to their employees if the law is fully implemented by 2014. At the end of June, another embarrassment in the law emerged: A glitch allowed middle-class Americans to get subsidized health care intended for poor people and Medicare's chief actuary flatly declared the section in question "doesn't make sense."

By mid-September, Republican lawmakers said, "We told you so," accusing congressional Democrats who voted for the law of recklessness for promoting the CLASS Act stipulation despite knowing it would eventually blow up the budget. By October, officials from Obama's Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged they "do not have a path to move forward" and announced they were giving up on pursuing CLASS (although that law section remains on the books).

Last November, dozens of congressmen wrote to the Internal Revenue Service commissioner objecting to a new IRS rule authorizing subsidies for participation in the yet-to-be-created federal health care exchange program. They argued that the agency was seeking to rewrite Obamacare, and experts noted the IRS was attempting to cover up a glitch in the original law that provides subsidies for people enrolled in state exchanges but not federal exchanges. That problem is still unresolved.

On Nov. 10, Belmont Abbey College, a Roman Catholic school, filed a lawsuit claiming violation of its religious freedom if forced to buy contraceptives for its students. It specifically objects to a Department of Health and Human Services ruling outlawing all insurance plans that don't fully cover the cost of all contraception, including pills that cause abortions.

Then came another shocker that month. On the heels of a Gallup poll showing almost half of the American people favor repeal of Obamacare, even ultraliberal Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, joined the effort to repeal the unaccountable Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key portion of the law that would recommend levels at which Medicare recipients, including seniors, can be reimbursed for health care expenses.

As Christmas arrived, The Washington Post reported that health care exerts doubted the law's federal insurance exchange program would be fully operational by the Jan. 1, 2014, deadline. That's because many states have refused to implement the state exchange program, hoping the Supreme Court will rule Obamacare unconstitutional.

As 2012 dawned, sticker shock was becoming evident. Seniors looking at Medicare Part B costs found that the per person Medicare insurance premium will increase from the present monthly fee of $96.40, rising to $104.20 in 2012, $120.20 in 2013, and $247 in 2014. That's an increase of 156 percent in just three years. Those provisions are embedded in Obamacare but were delayed by the Democratic bill writers until after the 2012 election in order to hide them from voters.

In light of this oncoming train wreck, it will indeed be a happy new year if the Supreme Court declares the whole law unconstitutional. It would save Congress the time and trouble of defunding or repealing it.

obama

2012-01-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

Obama’s inoperable Constitution

By Robert Knight

The Washington Times
Friday, January 6, 2012

ASSOCIATED PRESS Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray has been nominated to head the new Consumer Protection Bureau. But Senate Republicans say he would have too much power. Democrats, for their part, complain of political games being played in the process.

Back in 1973, when the Nixon administration was under fire for Watergate, Press Secretary Ron Ziegler uttered an unforgettable response when caught in a lie during a news conference: "This is the operative statement. The other statements are now inoperable."

Well, the Obama administration just topped that by essentially declaring the U.S. Constitution "inoperable." President Obama did not use that term when making an illegal recess appointment of Richard Cordray to the new post of consumer czar on Wednesday, but he might as well have.

Mr. Cordray now heads the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will do its best to strangle any thought that business owners might have of getting out from under oppressive bureaucracy long enough to create any new jobs that aren't in the government.

Remember, these are the same folks who thought it was a great idea to let Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, bring the magic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the financial sector with the awful Dodd-Frank law. But merit aside, the Cordray appointment was made outside constitutional bounds.

Here's what the official White House blog says about why the administration staged the Cordray coup:

"The Constitution gives the president the authority to make temporary recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is in recess. ... In an overt attempt to prevent the president from exercising his authority during this period, Republican senators insisted on using a gimmick called 'pro forma' sessions, which are sessions during which no Senate business is conducted and instead one or two senators simply gavel in and out of session in a matter of seconds."

What the White House regards as "gimmicks" are the letter of the law of the Constitution. Article I, Section 5, says "Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting."

Under Speaker John A. Boehner, the House has not granted the Senate adjournment. So, like it or not, Majority Leader Harry Reid's do-nothing Senate, which has not passed a budget in three years, is still in session. In 2007, Mr. Reid refused to adjourn the Senate in order to block President George W. Bush's recess appointments. Unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush abided by the Constitution and backed off.

Mr. Obama also loaded up the National Labor Relations Board with three recess appointees who won't threaten the conviviality of the current labor-union-packed board, whose hobby appears to be sticking needles into a voodoo doll shaped like South Carolina.

The NLRB not only issued orders halting South Carolina's voter-approved measure to preserve secret ballots in union elections, but tried to close a brand-new Boeing factory and move it to union-shackled Washington state. Just the other day, the Justice Department ordered South Carolina to halt enforcement of its photo-ID law, which discourages voter fraud.

You can almost see officials sitting around in the White House, exclaiming, "What will it take to provoke South Carolina into bombarding Fort Sumter again? Should we outlaw barbecue, golf, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and mint juleps?"

The Obama administration's lawlessness is becoming so obvious that nearly everyone outside the liberal mainstream media has caught on. Many Americans are appalled, but hard-core leftists are delighted. They regard the Constitution as a sham document that enables an oppressive, racist, sexist, homophobic society of the rich to oppress college students.

They give a pass to Hollywood moguls, of course, and they think it's great fun to misquote the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom while going about scrubbing the public square clean of America's Christian heritage.

You almost have to admire Mr. Obama's audacity, which he warned us about in his autobiographies. He openly trashed the U.S. Supreme Court last January during his State of the Union address, knowing the justices who were present could not respond to his bald-faced mischaracterization of their ruling striking down the odious McCain-Feingold muzzling of political speech.

He told us he wanted the United States to get along better with other nations and then sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton abroad to lecture them on their stubborn resistance to abortion, homosexuality and global-warming extremism.

He said he wanted to be a healer, bringing the races together. But he appointed an attorney general whose hobby, when not sharpening needles for South Carolina, seems to be stirring up racial animosity and trying to frame Texas gun dealers.

Mr. Obama's piece de resistance, though, was ramming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, down America's throat while assuring us that we could keep our current health insurance. The lies, evasions, backroom deals and front-room bribes could fill a dozen books.

When Obamacare was being debated, the administration insisted that the individual mandate was not a tax. After more than half the states sued to halt this unconstitutional mess, Mr. Obama's lawyers told courts it was a tax after all. Apparently, the previous claim became "inoperable."

If the constitutional order is not restored and Obamacare is not struck down or repealed, enemies of the state, such as older people who refuse to go gently into the night, might routinely start hearing scarier things than lies, such as: "That patient is now inoperable."

obama

2012-01-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

MSNBC’s Maddow Finds When She Leans Left, She Can't Be Right

By Dan Gainor

Published January 06, 2012

FoxNews.com

There’s a Latin phrase “In vino veritas,” meaning in wine there is truth. Someone should buy the folks at MSNBC a drink – or several.

The latest example of MSNBC failing at what the left once called “truthiness” came on Iowa Caucus night, Jan. 3. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, covering the caucus with a gang of fellow lefties, incorrectly told viewers that libertarian Gary Johnson was throwing his support to Ron Paul.

“The former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who never got much traction in his effort to run for the Republican nomination, recently dropped out of a run for the Republican nomination to seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president. We are hearing tonight that Gay Johnson has dropped his bid for the Libertarian nomination and instead will be endorsing Ron Paul,” she explained.

Wrong. According to Erik Wemple writing in The Washington Post, “Joe Hunter, the communications director for Gary Johnson 2012, notes, ‘Some enterprising individual concocted an e-mail, using a fake ‘Joseph Hunter’ gmail address, and issued a news release.’”

To her credit, Maddow quickly corrected the error.

Both CNN and Fox News never aired the false report.

Fellow MSNBC crank Lawrence O'Donnell did his best to minimize it, saying “that’ll happen.” He added smugly, “live television, ladies and gentlemen.”

Yes, live TV, only you don’t see liberals ranting and raving about on air inaccuracies when it’s their network. MSNBC leaches off the news operation of NBC and then piles far lefty commentators on top of it. These are not newsmen and women. These are Democratic political operatives disguised as TV hosts.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik was equally unkind in his assessment: “I'm sorry, but that doesn't happen to journalists. No one at CNN reported the hoax, because they actually verify information before they put it on the air.

I can't wait for the next batch of ‘Lean Forward’ ads from MSNBC with Maddow talking about journalism -- a discipline she appears to have spent not one day formally studying or practicing prior to becoming a show host and election-night anchor on MSNBC.”

Zurawik was right. That’s exactly to be expected when you fill your network with people who aren’t journalists and don’t even turn to them to cover the news.

MSNBC’s “Lean Forward” strategy is lame code for “Lean Left” and the network always seems to make its errors that direction, too.

In August, Maddow had to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for incorrectly calling him a birther, citing a year-old radio comment. But Maddow didn’t like to appear wrong, so she responded to her own error by claiming Limbaugh is a racist. (Yes, you read that correctly.) “And if you are worried about overall thesis that Rush Limbaugh is not giving up on trying to use the president’s race against him, this day and age, don’t worry about that thesis. Our error in misdating that tape does not undermine our thesis, as well proven by Mr. Limbaugh on his radio show just this week alone.”

And the otherwise affable Maddow is far from the worst problem on the network.

Host Chris Matthews could pile his crazy personal attacks against the right (He called Gingrich “Mephistopheles.”) on top of his leg-thrilling adoration of Obama and the stack would loom over 30 Rock.

In fact, the quality of the network seems to have actually gone down since the departure of Keith Olbermann and that’s hard to imagine.

But all of that’s OK when it’s the liberal network. Few journalists will target MSNBC because they are in sync with what goes on there. These same journalists claim to hail accuracy or subscribe to what the Society of Professional Journalists calls for, telling them to “test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”

In fact, journalists complain loud and long when such errors are done by the right kind of people. When it’s left and wrong, it’s still all right.

leftist

Obama Mission Continues

2012-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, maybe less, I indicated in my ramblings that at some point, not too far off, Obama would slash the military budget to virtually nothing. To be fair, 'virtually nothing' is subjective and for Obama $100 dollars is a lot for the military, but given the threats on this planet today, it would weaken and destroy our strength at home and around the world. It would turn us into another Britain or worse, into a France - those two nations who whine a great deal yet can accomplish nothing without the United States support.

This idea is not new. It is an idea situated in Marxist ideology. It is an idea leftist Democrats not only support but drool at the prospect of finally achieving. It is an idea situated on the left, nurtured by Marxism, and supported by those who hate America and or are simply too simple and feeble-minded to know the difference.

Today Obama plans on gutting the military -

Obama plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops

Wed, Jan 4 2012

By Laura MacInnis and David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will unveil a "more realistic" vision for the military on Thursday, with plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops and invest more in air and sea power at a time of fiscal restraint, officials familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.

The strategic review of U.S. security interests will also emphasize an American presence in Asia, with less attention overall to Europe, Africa and Latin America alongside slower growth in the Pentagon's budget, the officials said.

Though specific budget cut and troop reduction figures are not set to be announced on Thursday, officials confirmed to Reuters they would amount to a 10-15 percent decline in Army and Marine Corps numbers over the next decade, translating to tens of thousands of troops.

The most profound shift in the strategic review is an acceptance that the United States, even with the world's largest military budget, cannot afford to maintain the ground troops to fight more than one major war at once. That is a move away from the "win-win" strategy that has dominated Pentagon funding decisions for decades.

The move to a "win-spoil" plan, allowing U.S. forces to fight one campaign and stop or block another conflict, includes a recognition that the White House would need to ramp up public support for further engagement and draw more heavily on reserve and national guard troops when required.

"As Libya showed, you don't necessarily have to have boots on the ground all the time," an official said, explaining the White House view.

"We are refining our strategy to something that is more realistic," the official added.

President Barack Obama will help launch the U.S. review at the Pentagon on Thursday, and is expected to emphasize that the size of the U.S. military budget has been growing and will continue to grow, but at a slower pace.

Obama has moved to curtail U.S. ground commitments overseas, ending the war in Iraq, drawing down troops in Afghanistan and ruling out anything but air power and intelligence support for rebels who overthrew Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

The number of U.S. military personnel formally assigned to bases in Europe - including many now deployed in Afghanistan - is also set to decline sharply, administration sources said, while stressing that the final numbers have not been set.

'BASICALLY DISAPPEAR'

"When some army brigades start coming out of Afghanistan, they will basically disappear," one official said.

Many of the key U.S. military partners in the NATO alliance are also facing tough defense budget cuts as a result of fiscal strains gripping the European Union.

The president may face criticism from defense hawks in Congress, many of them opposition Republicans, who question his commitment to U.S. military strength.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, are set to hold a news conference to flesh out the contents of the review after Obama's remarks, which are also expected to stress the need to rein in spending at a time when U.S. budgets are tight.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the defense cuts stemming from an August debt ceiling deal - worth about $489 billion over 10 years - need to be enacted carefully.

"The president made clear to his team that we need to take a hard look at all of our defense spending to ensure that spending cuts are surgical and that our top priorities are met," Carney told reporters this week.

The military could be forced to cut another $600 billion in defense spending over 10 years unless Congress takes action to stop a second round of cuts mandated in the August accord.

Panetta spent much of Wednesday afternoon briefing key congressional leaders about the strategic review. Representative Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said after speaking to Panetta that the review was an attempt to evaluate U.S. strategic priorities for the future rather than identify specific budget reductions.

Maintaining a significant presence in the Middle East and Asia, especially to counter Iran and North Korea, was a leading priority in the review, Smith said. So was making sure that military personnel are sufficiently cared for to guarantee the effectiveness of the all-volunteer force. Reductions in the size of U.S. forces in Europe and elsewhere are a real possibility, he said.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain John Kirby said with the military winding down a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is appropriate to re-evaluate the role of U.S. forces abroad.

"From an operational perspective it's ... an opportune time to take a look at what the U.S. military is doing and what it should be doing or should be preparing itself to do over the next 10 to 15 years," he said on Wednesday.

"So, yes, the budget cuts are certainly a driver here, but so quite frankly are current events," Kirby said.

obama

Unprecedented Power Grab

2012-01-04T19:08:00.000-08:00

While Bush was president, how many such appointments did he make?

Did the Democrats say anything about recess appointments during that time? Yes.

What did they say? He was abusing his power. He was ruling by fiat. He was acting like a dictator.

So .... why are they so quiet when Obama is the one abusing the power?

Unprecedented “Recess” Appointment Contradicts Obama Justice Department

Posted by Brendan Buck on January 04, 2012

President Obama today made an unprecedented “recess” appointment even though the Senate is not in recess – “a sharp departure from a long-standing precedent that has limited the President to recess appointments only when the Senate is in a recess of 10 days or longer,” according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).It turns out that the action not only contradicts long-standing practice, but also the view of the administration itself. In 2010, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained to the Supreme Court the Obama administration’s view that recess appointments are only permissible when Congress is in recess for more than three days. Here’s the exchange with Chief Justice John Roberts:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And the recess appointment power doesn't work why?
MR. KATYAL: The -- the recess appointment power can work in -- in a recess. I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than 3 days. And -- and so, it is potentially available to avert the future crisis that -- that could -- that could take place with respect to the board. If there are no other questions –
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Thank you, counsel.

obama

2012-01-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

Prosecutors to begin their case in Hosni Mubarak's trial

From Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, For CNN

January 3, 2012 -- Updated 0518 GMT (1318 HKT)

Cairo (CNN) -- Prosecutors begin presenting their case Tuesday in the trial of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is accused of ordering protesters killed during the country's uprising last year.

"I expect a verdict before January 25, the anniversary of the revolution," said Khaled Abu Bakr, a lawyer involved in the trial.

He was referring to the beginning of the uprising that ended Mubarak's 30-year rule in February 2011.

Adel Saeed, an official spokesman for the general prosecutor's office, confirmed that there is "a possibility" of a verdict by January 25, depending on how long prosecutors and lawyers for the victims and the defense take to present their cases, plus the time the judge needs "to review all the documents and evidence presented."

The former president also faces corruption charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

Abu Bakr said prosecutors will take three days to make their case.

Mubarak was wheeled into court in a gurney Monday for a brief hearing to allow a judge to decide on specific requests presented by the lawyers during last weeks' session, Abu Bakr said.

Many Egyptians are critical of the court proceedings and some worry that Mubarak may be acquitted of the murder charges. Five police officers accused of killing protesters were acquitted last week.

The killings in question took place in front of a police station near downtown Cairo during January 28 and 29.

"Most people panicking after the verdict do not know that two families of the victims involved in this case have withdrawn the charges against the officers, " Abu Bakr said. "Their case was considered self-defense because the officers were defending their police station, which is different than the cases of those protesters killed by snipers from a distance in Tahrir (Square)" -- the center of protests against Mubarak.

Mubarak's health has been in question since his detention began in April after reports of his cancer and heart problems surfaced in the media.

Hauled away from the courthouse on his hospital gurney, Mubarak hid his face and covered his eyes from TV cameras.

Former Egyptian Interior Minister Habib El Adly, six of his aides and two of Mubarak's sons are also on trial on a variety of charges.

Sons Gamal and Alaa, who also were present in the courtroom's cage, have also pleaded not guilty.

The trial is expected to resume "almost daily" starting this week, as announced by the judge handling the case during its previous session.

About 840 people died and more than 6,000 were wounded in the 18 days of uprising that toppled Mubarak, according to Amnesty International.

egypt

2011-12-30T19:12:00.000-08:00

French Citizenship: Learn French, Learn French History, Adopt French Values, or Don't Bother.

2011-12-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

It may be too late.

30/12/2011

France makes it harder to become French

By FRANCE 24

Foreigners seeking French nationality face tougher requirements as of January 1, when new rules drawn up by Interior Minister Claude Guéant come into force.

Candidates will be tested on French culture and history, and will have to prove their French language skills are equivalent to those of a 15-year-old mother tongue speaker. They will also be required to sign a new charter establishing their rights and responsibilities.

“Becoming French is not a mere administrative step. It is a decision that requires a lot of thought”, reads the charter, drafted by France’s High Council for Integration (HCI).

In a more obscure passage, the charter suggests that by taking on French citizenship, “applicants will no longer be able to claim allegiance to another country while on French soil”, although dual nationality will still be allowed.

Guéant, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party, described the process as “a solemn occasion between the host nation and the applicant”, adding that migrants should be integrated through language and “an adherence to the principals, values and symbols of our democracy”. He stressed the importance of the secular state and equality between women and men: rhetoric perceived largely as a snipe at Muslim applicants, who make up the majority of the 100,000 new French citizens admitted each year.

France’s interior minister has made it clear that immigrants who refuse to “assimilate” into French society should be denied French citizenship.

Earlier this year, Guéant intervened personally to ensure an Algerian-born man living in France was denied French nationality because of his “degrading attitude” to his French wife.

That followed an earlier push by France’s former Immigration Minister Eric Besson to revise existing laws in order to strip polygamists of their acquired citizenship.

Pandering to the far right?

Guéant has come under criticism numerous times over the past year for allegedly pandering to the whims of far-right voters in his efforts to secure a second term for Sarkozy in 2012. The UMP has edged progressively further right over the course of Sarkozy’s term, even as the far-right National Front party continued to bite into its pool of voters.

Marine Le Pen, the popular leader of the anti-immigration National Front, has been campaigning in favour of a ban on dual citizenship in France, which she blames for encouraging immigration and weakening French values. While several UMP members have endorsed her stance, Guéant has stopped short of calling for a ban on dual nationality, largely because of the legal difficulties such a move would entail.

But the interior minister has taken a hard line on immigration, announcing plans to reduce the number of legal immigrants coming to France annually from 200,000 to 180,000 and calling for those convicted of felony to be expelled from the country.

François Hollande, the Socialist Party’s candidate in forthcoming presidential elections, described Guéant’s stance as “the election strategy of a right wing ready to do anything in order to hold on to power”, adding that his own party would tackle all criminals “irrespective of their nationality”.

Under further proposals put forward by the ruling UMP party, non-French children who would normally be naturalised at the age of 18 (those who are born in the country and have spent most of their childhood there) would instead have to formally apply to the state.

Should Sarkozy and his party secure a second term in 2012, analysts predict a return to an immigration stance that hasn’t been seen in France for almost two decades. They point to a case of déjà vu: in 1993 Charles Pasqua, then France’s interior minister, coined the slogan “zero immigration” and introduced a bill that made it virtually impossible for children born in France to non-French parents to be naturalised.

france

Priests Brawling at Church of the Nativity (again)

2011-12-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

Why? Why do they do this every year (or it seems like every year)? If religious priests cannot demonstrate the values taught by Christ, how ... how can they be allowed to remain in those positions. Their actions bring disrespect upon Christianity.

Police storm Church of the Nativity to break up brawling priests

From Enas Muthaffar and Kevin Flower, CNN

December 28, 2011

Bethlehem, West Bank (CNN) - Clergy from two Christian sects came to blows in the Church of the Nativity on Wednesday morning, prompting police to storm the Bethlehem holy site.

Several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests were cleaning the interior of the church Wednesday morning when, according to witnesses, two of them began fighting.

The fight quickly escalated, and soon, 50 to 60 priests were exchanging blows with broomsticks.

Bethlehem police were sent in to quell the fighting, Palestinian police Maj. Ahed Hasayen said.

"This is an internal problem related to the Nativity church only. The Palestinian police had to interfere to stop the clashes as soon as possible to avoid devastating consequences," he said.

According to tour guide Ghassen Tos, the fight, while intense, was short in duration.

“This did not last for long as soon as the Palestinian police interfered and succeeded to halt the clashes immediately,” he said.

There were no reports of any serious injuries.

The Church of the Nativity is built in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on the site where Christian tradition holds Jesus Christ was born, and it is a major attraction for tourists coming to the Holy Land.

The interior of the church is traditionally cleaned by priests in between celebrations of Christmas on December 25 and the Orthodox celebration in the first week of January.

The church is administered jointly by the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian religious authorities, and tension between the sects is not uncommon.

In 2007, clergy from the same sects came to blows in a similar incident.

christianity

Iran: Amadinejad and Bush - throw the shoes and see where they land.

2011-12-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

I can't remember. What happened to the guy who threw shoes at Bush? You know, Muntadar al-Zeidi. The guy who threw his shoes at Bush in December 2008.

Defiant Iranian Likely to Face Execution for Tossing Shoes at MahmoudAhmadinejad

By Perry Chiaramonte

Published December 29, 2011

FoxNews.com

The man who was arrested for tossing his shoes at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a speech earlier this month could face execution for his act of defiance.

Rashid Shahbandi, who has been in custody since his arrest at the time of the incident, has been tortured and is facing heavy punishment with a strong possibility of a death sentence, opposition groups told the Iran Khabar Agency, an independent news service.

The former textile worker, who had recently lost his job at the factory in the city of Sari, was in attendance there when Ahmadinejad was speaking to workers about the great achievements of his government.

Sources say Shahbandi, who is under financial distress due to the high medical cost of his son’s burn injuries, grew angry while listening to the speech and hurled his shoes — considered an ultimate insult across the Middle East — at Ahmadinejad.

Shahbandi has a history of defiance; he has previously insulted Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and thrown eggs at former President Sayyid Mohammad Khatami when he was in office.

It was not immediately clear when and if Shahbandi will have a trial.
At the time of his arrest, Western observers speculated that Shahbandi might have started a movement to ignite public discourse in Iran.

“Iran is an autocratic society. If people start to lose fear of that autocratic regime, then it collapses,” Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank, told FoxNews.com at the time of the incident.

“He might unfortunately be a little bit of a martyr. But Iranians rally around a martyr, which could make him a hero. The fact that someone doing this in public shows that there is cracks in the regime. Perhaps the Supreme Leader has no clothes.”

iran

2011-12-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

Obama's new tax on the poor: Internet gambling by states

The Obama Justice Department quietly issued a legal opinion – just before a long Christmas weekend – that allows states to set up nonsports Internet gambling. The opinion upends decades of contrary decisions, but its real effect will be on the poor (and young) who suffer the most from gambling.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board / December 27, 2011

A campaign by powerful gaming interests to legalize online gambling in America has won a crucial victory from the Obama administration. On Friday, the Justice Department issued a legal opinion that allows states to authorize Web-based, nonsports gambling within their borders.

For one, big doubts remain over whether states can indeed restrain such digital games of chance to residents while also keeping children from playing them. State lotteries, for examples, have a poor record of preventing retailers from selling tickets to minors.

And even if states can outsmart tech-savvy teens or out-of-state gamblers, once enough states jump into Internet gambling they will likely be able to work together and create a national scheme for such activity. That would violate the spirit if not the letter of a 2006 federal law banning such interstate activity.

Most of all, bringing Internet gambling to America would hurt the poor, who are most affected when people lose money in government-approved games of chance such as state lotteries or casinos – not to mention the way it would reinforce a belief that one’s future depends on “luck” instead of individual merit.

In effect, President Obama and his appointed Justice officials have bowed to political pressure from states that seek a new source of revenue in Internet gambling rather than taking the difficult decisions to raise taxes or cut spending.

The timing of the memo’s release is telling about its politics. It was dated last September but was quietly made public just before the long Christmas weekend, perhaps to prevent political waves. And it came a day after Nevada officials approved in-state online gaming.

Critics also point to another possible political connection. The memo was written by Virginia Seitz, head of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and a possible Obama nominee to the Supreme Court. To win Senate approval to serve on the court, she would need the support of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada. Last year, most of Nevada’s big casinos became big backers of an effort to overturn the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Still, Ms. Seitz’s professional opinion tries to make a case that the 1961 Wire Act – which deals with communication of bets – was passed only to prevent interstate betting on sports, thus allowing states to approve nonsports Internet gambling.

While the law’s language is not totally clear, her opinion overturns decades of contrary interpretations under previous presidents, as recently as 2007. She contends that she is correcting a “syntax error” following a request from New York and Illinois for a department ruling.

The Obama Justice Department can hardly be that indifferent, however, to the research about effects of Internet gambling, whether on the poor, children, or the 1 to 2 percent of people prone to gambling addiction. Regulatory safeguards to contain Internet gambling would require a vast and intrusive scheme to keep Web-based gambling from slipping over borders or being used by underage users.

And states seeking revenue from Internet gambling have yet to add up the millions of dollars in additional costs to prevent abuse or deal with the effects of such gambling on individuals, families, and communities.

The annual social costs of gambling-related addiction, bankruptcy, and crimes is nearly $7 billion, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. Nearly half a million teens are gambling addicts, or about the same number as those who abuse prescription drugs.

When will states, and now this administration, drop the political and economic reasons for Internet gambling, and wake up to its harm on the poor and the young?

gambling

Jobs and Unicorns

2011-12-26T09:40:00.000-08:00

Paul Roderick Gregory
Forbes.com
12/25/2011

Sen. Harry Reid's Unicorns: Fact Checking A Whopper

Tax policy should be serious business carried out by serious politicians using real facts and figures. This is why we have the Library of Congress and the Congressional Budget Office, among other expert institutions.

How can we take Congress seriously when the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, makes patently inaccurate, outrageous and bizarre claims on an important tax-policy issue without any heads being turned? I guess this is what we have come to expect of Congress. No wonder citizens with favorable opinions of Congress are as rare as unicorns, to borrow a phrase.

Harry Reid’s statement on December 6 on his proposed 1.9 percent surtax on million-dollar incomes has kicked up some dust. Here is his statement:

“Millionaire job creators are like unicorns. They’re impossible to find, and they don’t exist… Only a tiny fraction of people making more than a million dollars, probably less than 1 percent, are small business owners. And only a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction are traditional job creators…Most of these businesses are hedge fund managers or wealthy lawyers. They don’t do much hiring and they don’t need tax breaks.”

Taking their cue, National Public Radio launched a search for one millionaire job creator. They triumphantly announced:

“NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.”

Were it not for Google, I would have accepted Harry Reid’s unicorn story and NPR’s confirmation. Unlike Harry Reid’s office, I went to the IRS’s Table 1.4 “Sources of income, adjustments, and tax size of adjusted gross income, 2009” to check things out. (I summarize my sources in a separate blog posting). Here is what I found:

There are 236,883 tax filers with incomes of a million dollars or more. By Harry Reid’s count, only one percent, or 2,361 of them, are business owners, and a tiny fraction of them create jobs. I do not know what Harry means when he says “a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction.” If we let 5 percent represent Harry’s “tiny fraction,” we are left with 118 businesses owners who earn a million or more and create jobs. Yes, they are only slightly less rare than unicorns, if Harry is to be believed.

This leaves 236,765 million-dollar-plus tax payers, most of whom are “hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers” who “don’t create jobs and don’t need tax breaks.”

My Google search for Harry Reid’s quarter million hedge fund managers and wealthy lawyers came up empty handed. I could identify at most sixteen thousand “wealthy lawyers and hedge fund managers,” not Harry Reid’s quarter million.

Well, Harry Reid’s numbers leave much to be desired, but maybe he is right that millionaire business owners do not create jobs.

What does the IRS have to say about this? Millionaire tax filers earn a total taxable income of $623 billion, on which they pay the highest average rate (30 percent) of any tax bracket. (Either Warren Buffet’s secretary has an incompetent tax accountant or Buffet has some pretty juicy tax breaks. I think the latter is more likely). A 1.9 percent tax surcharge on million-dollar-earners would yield $11 billion, assuming those shifty millionaires take no evasive action to avoid the tax.

Millionaire tax filers earn $221 billion – almost a quarter of a trillion — from business and professions, partnerships, and S-corporations. This is puzzling: If Harry Reid’s figure is correct (2,361 millionaire businesses), then the average millionaire-owned business earns almost a hundred million dollars, and all, except 118 of them, do this without hiring anyone. These super heroes do their own typing, selling, drafting. public relations, building, and manufacturing. They do not need employees. Remarkable!

To summarize:

Millionaire tax filers earn almost a quarter trillion dollars from their businesses. They must hire hundreds of thousands of employees to do so.

There are a trivial number of millionaire hedge-fund managers and wealthy lawyers (who, according to Harry, do not hire anyone and don’t need tax breaks). The millionaire tax surcharge is not aimed at them, but at the tens of thousands of millionaire business owners.

A 1.9 percent surcharge on millionaires would raise at most eleven billion dollars. By today’s standards, this is chump change, within the federal budget’s rounding error.

The millionaire’s tax is not about balancing the budget. It is about gaining political advantage through the use of envy and greed (two of the seven deadly sins).

Why would Harry Reid tell such whoppers, which are so easily disproved?

Ryan Streeter has hit the nail on the head. He writes that even bearded Occupy Wall Street misfits understand the difference between “earned” and “unearned” success. Those who earn success by creating value honestly are the true heroes in our economy. They should be lauded rather than targeted. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are heroes. Bernie Madoff and, now it seems, John Corzine are not, and everyone, irrespective of their political leanings, understands this.

Reid, in his clumsy way, is trying to portray Republicans as the party of dishonest millionaires, who have not earned their wealth, have not created jobs, detract rather than create value, and refuse to pay their fair share. Such class warfare will be the anchor of the Democrat election playbook.

democrats

Eurozone - Collapse Inevitable

2011-12-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

The engine that keeps Europe from falling into the abyss, is about to expereince the effects of a recession minus the hundreds of billions it had two years ago.

Analysis: Germany faces recession risk as crisis hits confidence

Wed, Dec 21 2011

By Sarah Marsh

BERLIN (Reuters) - After breezing through the euro zone debt crisis for the past two years, Germany's economy could fall into recession as anxious businesses hold off on investment and exports wither.

Economists who once predicted a mere slowdown in growth for Europe's largest economy are now slashing their forecasts and predicting contraction, possibly for two consecutive quarters, depriving the region of its most powerful motor.

In a sign the government is worried about the darkening economic outlook, Berlin last week resurrected its bank rescue fund and said it could reinstate "Kurzarbeit" subsidies that helped firms pare back working hours without firing staff.

Both measures were first introduced at the height of the global financial crisis, when the German economy suffered its worst annual contraction since World War Two.

"It's not a classical recession, here we are dealing with a large amount of uncertainty due to the euro zone crisis which will weigh on investment and trade," said Felix Huefner, an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, who follows Germany.

"The fundamentals actually look better than in other countries, with little need for fiscal consolidation, solid household debt levels, unemployment at a 20-year low."

Huefner said Germany had nonetheless entered a "mild recession," with the economy likely to contract in the fourth quarter, and stagnate in the first three months of 2012.

Some are much more gloomy: the Duesseldorf-based IMK on Tuesday became the first major German economic institute to predict the economy would shrink over the full year, forecasting contraction of 0.1 percent.

Firms look set to hold back on investment because they are uncertain they will be able to sell their wares with key export markets reducing spending and implementing austerity measures.

This will deprive the economy of what was one of the main drivers of growth. Capital equipment spending contributed 0.2 percentage points to third quarter expansion.

The ZEW index of German analyst and investor sentiment has declined nine times over the past ten months.

"The key factor is the euro crisis which has been getting worse over the last month," said Christian Schulz of Berenberg Bank, which sees the economy contracting 0.1 percent in Q4 and 0.9 in the first quarter of 2012.

"There was hope the EU summit might resolve it, but those hopes were disappointed," he said, referring to a meeting of European leaders on December 9th at which they agreed to move towards a form of "fiscal union" but failed to map out a clear path for shielding big economies like Spain and Italy.

Recent data showed German exports falling in October at their sharpest rate in half a year. A breakdown of unadjusted month-on-month data showed exports to the crisis-hit euro zone dropping 8.5 percent, versus a 6.1 percent overall slide.

Economists say emerging markets, where growth is strong but easing, are unlikely to lend enough support to compensate.

The head of Germany's exporters' association (BDA), Anton Boerner, has likened the euro zone debt crisis to a "sword of Damocles" hanging over the real economy.

The export-dependent manufacturing sector contracted for a third straight month in December on a steep fall in new orders, Markit's purchasing managers' index showed last week.

Several German firms have already fallen victim to the tougher climate. Solar module maker Solon and the world's No.3 printing machine maker Manroland have both filed for insolvency.

Not everyone is so downbeat, however. After reporting a slight rise in its business climate index this week, the Ifo think tank played down the prospects of a recession.

"Europe will end up getting a mild recession while Germany will be able to disconnect from that somewhat. We don't see any signs of a recession for Germany at the moment," Ifo economist Klaus Abberger told Reuters.

WEAK DOMESTIC DEMAND

Private consumption, which grew at its strongest pace in more than a year in the third quarter on a robust labor market, offers a glimmer of hope for the economy.

Unemployment fell more than expected in November and the jobless rate is at a 20-year low. Trade unions have been negotiating higher wages and consumer morale held steady into January on better income expectations and views of the economy.

However, private consumption is taking off from a very low level in Germany where savings levels are traditionally high and consumers wary, and it will not be able to offset the decline in investments and exports.

Economists also see downside risks for consumption because of the euro zone crisis. Metro, the world's No.4 retailer, issued a profit warning this month, saying the crisis was undermining sentiment and Christmas trade had started slowly.

Employment trends lag changes in growth and cautious German unions may be more focused on job security than seeking large wage hikes amid so much economic uncertainty.

Any small wage rises will be offset by inflation, which is stronger in Germany than the euro zone at large, market researchers GfK said, predicting consumers' purchasing power would stagnate next year in real terms.

Thus, this downturn will expose again the imbalances in Germany's economy - its dependency on external demand and the weakness of its domestic sector.

"Germany won't be able to rely on exports to drive growth and business investment will only hold up if there is a recovery in domestic demand," said Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London.

"So everything hinges on getting domestic demand growing sustainably and there are some formidable obstacles to that."

Tilford said Germany should for example hike wages and ease back on fiscal consolidation - unlikely given Berlin is Europe's fiscal hawk.

"Germans' outlook is better than much of Europe but the idea Germany is on the cusp of a decade of rapid growth is fanciful," he said. "The outlook for German growth is pretty poor."

MEANWHILE, yet another European nation has lost its economic engine -

Hungary is having to pay more to borrow money after the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit score to junk.

Hungary’s rating went down from BB+ to BBB minus. The agency said it had doubts about the central bank there.

S&P said changes in the constitution had undermined the independence of the bank, and Hungary’s policy framework had become more unpredictable.

AND if Hungary wasn't enough - Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain following suit, followed closely by Italy ... the worst possible for the poor French -

'Miracle' if France keeps triple-A rating

Dec 20 11:41 AM US/Eastern

It would be a miracle for France to retain its triple-A credit rating, threatened by the eurozone debt crisis, the head of its main market regulator said on Tuesday.
"Keeping it would amount to a miracle, but I'd still like to believe it," said Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the outspoken head of the AMF regulation agency.

Ratings agencies have warned that France is exposed to the sovereign debt crisis gripping southern Europe and have threatened to downgrade its hitherto perfect rating.

The government has protested that it has embarked on an austerity programme backed by a pact with fellow eurozone members to guarantee deficit reduction.

"I find it wholly regrettable that we are accepting the loss of our triple-A with a kind of fatalism. This loss is not banal, because it will have an effect on the interest rates the state pays," he said.

He also warned that if France was downgraded it would weaken the status of the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism, two instruments set up by eurozone leaders to confront the crisis.

Any suggestion that France's debt of 1.7 trillion euros ($2.2 trillion) is becoming unmanageable could send the interest rate it pays on bonds soaring.

Earlier, the French treasury announced that it would need to raise 178 billion euros ($232 billion) in medium and long-term bonds next year.

The Fitch credit rating agency also warned on Tuesday that the eurozone's new bail-out fund could lose its triple-A debt status.

"Fitch Ratings says the 'AAA' rating on debt issues of the European Financial Stability Facility largely depends on France and Germany retaining their 'AAA' status," the company said in a statement.

"The revision of the rating outlook on France to 'negative' last Friday implies that the risk of a downgrade of EFSF debt has increased," it said.

Last week, Fitch "affirmed France's 'AAA' status but warned that there is a slightly greater than 50 percent chance of a downgrade within the next year or two.

"France is the most exposed of the 'AAA' euro member states to a further intensification of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis," it added.

Another agency, Standard and Poor's, has warned that it is re-examining France's rating and it is expected to announce a downgrade soon.

germany

Stupid People: Fall Out of the Trees Every Day

2011-12-22T00:15:00.000-08:00

We all know who the children are, out in the tents and cardboard boxes. Children who enjoy whining. Whining about the 1% who have everything. Whining about not having jobs. Whining about the rich taking advantage of the 99%, jobs lost due to the 1% wanting profits over compassion ... we know they are children and that they whine a lot.

Now we know they will cost someone or many people their jobs, and additional services and funds will be cut. Funds that might help the 99%. Funds that will never be received now, due to the children requiring parental supervision, and refusing to clean up their messes and go home.

Children who whine. Let them tell the employees laid off or the family without services why. Let them explain that their whining did anything but cost human beings their jobs and their assistance.

Let them eat cake. Would make as much sense.

Mayor Calls For Budget Cuts To Offset Millions In Occupy LA Costs

December 21, 2011 1:10 AM

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.

City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.

Repairs to City Hall’s lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.

Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.

Mayor Villaraigosa says more budget cuts will be necessary to offset the costs.

children

Musings

Gender

British couple reveals sex of child they raised as ‘genderless’ for 5 years

POLLS and Obama

Biden: Better not take credit for this in the future

War with Iran ?

Islam doesn't justify honor murders

Islam doesn't justify 'honor murders,' experts insist

Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.

Global Hysteria: No Need to Panic About Warming

BHO on BHO: Praising Himself.

47th ? Really? Do you think THEY honestly believe that?

Fat Brazil

The Cost of Living under Obama

Arab Spring is American Fall

Pat Down, Take Down

Let's Compare Shall We

Obama and our Oil Dependence

Al Qaida Leader Sent to Hell, courtesy of the US

Marriage is Best ?

Cruise Ships: For some it is not easy to keeping them afloat.

Euro: Down the rabbit hole

Greece and the Contiunued Spiral Downward

Just a Typical Day for Jihad

Obama's: Let them eat cake.

Body Parts

Dead Teen Sued for Losing Control of Flying Body Parts

Election 2012

Obama 2012: 'Osama Bin Laden Will Never Again Walk the Face of This Earth. That’s What Change Is.'

Alerts

Let them Eat Cake (more) or at least Have their Own Christmas Party

Chronicling coming Obamacare crash

MSNBC’s Maddow Finds When She Leans Left, She Can't Be Right

Obama Mission Continues

Obama plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops

Unprecedented Power Grab

French Citizenship: Learn French, Learn French History, Adopt French Values, or Don't Bother.

France makes it harder to become French

Priests Brawling at Church of the Nativity (again)

Iran: Amadinejad and Bush - throw the shoes and see where they land.

Jobs and Unicorns

Eurozone - Collapse Inevitable

Analysis: Germany faces recession risk as crisis hits confidence

Stupid People: Fall Out of the Trees Every Day