Rudy Guiliani - If this was Bush, he would have been impeached by now.
rudy
Thursday, June 17, 2010
AT&T
AT&T and Dell, Inc.
They have more in common than India and the Philippines.
Neither is very competent.
I have gone without phone service for at least 8 days. Why do I say at least 8 days and not a certain 8 or 7, because I use the phone very infrequently, but when I do, I need to use it (such as calling internationally) which i cannot do on the cell phone (without racking up costs as high as my mortgage).
Yet when I call AT&T, they are quite casual about it, and will send someone out within 4 days, which will be Friday by 8pm.
When I inform them that those options are wholly unacceptable for any country that is not Afghanistan, she said: We're very sorry sir, but all the technicians are very busy.
This is the United States - the most sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization on earth and you (AT&T) have me without phone service for 8 days.
Unacceptable.
phones
They have more in common than India and the Philippines.
Neither is very competent.
I have gone without phone service for at least 8 days. Why do I say at least 8 days and not a certain 8 or 7, because I use the phone very infrequently, but when I do, I need to use it (such as calling internationally) which i cannot do on the cell phone (without racking up costs as high as my mortgage).
Yet when I call AT&T, they are quite casual about it, and will send someone out within 4 days, which will be Friday by 8pm.
When I inform them that those options are wholly unacceptable for any country that is not Afghanistan, she said: We're very sorry sir, but all the technicians are very busy.
This is the United States - the most sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization on earth and you (AT&T) have me without phone service for 8 days.
Unacceptable.
phones
It's the End of the World, and We Just Don't Know it ... yet.
Our own extinction is forecast, but he's going by dead reckoning
Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
June 18, 2010
We humans are about to be wiped out in a few decades. The grandchildren of many of us will not live to old age.
Hear it from Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University and the man who helped eradicate smallpox.
"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he told The Australian this week.
"It's an irreversible situation." Blame global warming.
But here's the odd thing. Just three paragraphs into this report announcing the - Oh My God! - end of the world, the reporter and Fenner were off talking about rabbits, Fenner's writing habits, his bookshelves, his student days, his war service and the weight of the book he wrote on smallpox - 3.5kg, actually.
Oh, and did he ever tell how he used to study skulls with Norman Tindale?
Now, you'd think when a reporter had just been told that thousands of years of human history were about to come to a screaming halt - with their own loved ones among the dead - that rabbits and recollections of Norm would be the last thing they'd want to discuss.
Back up a bit, they'd cry. Run that by me again: you mean, all human life on this planet is going to be exterminated? But, no. So used are we to sandwich-board doom-mongering from global warmists that we hurry them on to cheerier topics, like tales of old Norm and his skulls.
It's not that Fenner is a joke. He may now be 95, but he's a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society. And his views on the end of the world, however boring, were still deemed serious enough to publish in The Australian's prestigious Higher Education supplement.
This curious disconnect between prediction and reception happens relatively often now. Four years ago another warmist, Prof James Lovelock, creator of the influential Gaia theory of an interconnected Earth, was every bit as apocalyptic as Fenner.
We'd passed the point of no return, he groaned. The world was heating catastrophically. "Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."
All that was left to do was to prepare "a guidebook for global warming survivors ... on durable paper with long-lasting print".
That should put a damper on any conversation. Yet when ABC warmist Phillip Adams soon afterwards interviewed Lovelock for Late Night Live, they first talked of walks in the country, horses, the absence of TVs back when they were lads and how people used to believe in ghosts.
Only after half an hour did they finally get on to Lovelock's prediction of the abrupt deaths of billions of people within just eight or nine decades.
It was like they'd left the boring bit until last. The bit where everyone dies.
Strange. It's like we privately agree that when these scientists say the end of the world is nigh, they don't mean it, not literally, but are just scaring us for our own good. Or that they do mean it, but are frankly batty.
After all, it's not as if even Dark Greens have resolved never to breed, to thus spare their child the horror of spending their shortened life in terror at the doom to come.
Yet we're still meant to treat everything else these scientists say as the gospel truth. As in: sure, they're way out there about the end of human life, but on the small stuff they are bang on.
Meanwhile, life goes on. We laugh. We plan. We invent. We build. We adapt.
And we talk of other things than the end of the world, and luckily so, because we'll be around a lot longer yet, if we keep our heads - and our hope.
end of the world
Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
June 18, 2010
We humans are about to be wiped out in a few decades. The grandchildren of many of us will not live to old age.
Hear it from Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University and the man who helped eradicate smallpox.
"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he told The Australian this week.
"It's an irreversible situation." Blame global warming.
But here's the odd thing. Just three paragraphs into this report announcing the - Oh My God! - end of the world, the reporter and Fenner were off talking about rabbits, Fenner's writing habits, his bookshelves, his student days, his war service and the weight of the book he wrote on smallpox - 3.5kg, actually.
Oh, and did he ever tell how he used to study skulls with Norman Tindale?
Now, you'd think when a reporter had just been told that thousands of years of human history were about to come to a screaming halt - with their own loved ones among the dead - that rabbits and recollections of Norm would be the last thing they'd want to discuss.
Back up a bit, they'd cry. Run that by me again: you mean, all human life on this planet is going to be exterminated? But, no. So used are we to sandwich-board doom-mongering from global warmists that we hurry them on to cheerier topics, like tales of old Norm and his skulls.
It's not that Fenner is a joke. He may now be 95, but he's a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society. And his views on the end of the world, however boring, were still deemed serious enough to publish in The Australian's prestigious Higher Education supplement.
This curious disconnect between prediction and reception happens relatively often now. Four years ago another warmist, Prof James Lovelock, creator of the influential Gaia theory of an interconnected Earth, was every bit as apocalyptic as Fenner.
We'd passed the point of no return, he groaned. The world was heating catastrophically. "Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."
All that was left to do was to prepare "a guidebook for global warming survivors ... on durable paper with long-lasting print".
That should put a damper on any conversation. Yet when ABC warmist Phillip Adams soon afterwards interviewed Lovelock for Late Night Live, they first talked of walks in the country, horses, the absence of TVs back when they were lads and how people used to believe in ghosts.
Only after half an hour did they finally get on to Lovelock's prediction of the abrupt deaths of billions of people within just eight or nine decades.
It was like they'd left the boring bit until last. The bit where everyone dies.
Strange. It's like we privately agree that when these scientists say the end of the world is nigh, they don't mean it, not literally, but are just scaring us for our own good. Or that they do mean it, but are frankly batty.
After all, it's not as if even Dark Greens have resolved never to breed, to thus spare their child the horror of spending their shortened life in terror at the doom to come.
Yet we're still meant to treat everything else these scientists say as the gospel truth. As in: sure, they're way out there about the end of human life, but on the small stuff they are bang on.
Meanwhile, life goes on. We laugh. We plan. We invent. We build. We adapt.
And we talk of other things than the end of the world, and luckily so, because we'll be around a lot longer yet, if we keep our heads - and our hope.
end of the world
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The British media take off their rose-colored glasses and don't like what they see
You picked a fine time to abandon Barrack, with more than two potential war fronts, and a gazillion gallons of oil in the ocean, you picked a fine time to abandon Barrack.
British media fall out of love with Obama
By Janet Daley
June 16th, 2010
The Telegraph
The BBC reports of Barack Obama’s speech last night are about as derisive as it would be possible to be about someone you were describing only a few months ago as the incarnation of Hope and Optimism. Yes indeed, the romance is over. The British media have decided that it was all a cruel deception: Obama is just one more ranting populist president who will do anything to divert attention from his own failure to get a grip. And this is not just about BP and the fate of all those pension funds.
Nor is it simply the demonising of Big Oil – which makes the US president sound as if he were recruiting his speech writers direct from the student union – that has evoked the UK media’s collective sneer. What has been much commented upon – especially by those fastidiously liberal BBC correspondents – is Obama’s pointedly bellicose language: the US is apparently engaged in a “battle” to be waged in very personal, anthropomorphic terms “against an oil spill that is assaulting” its coast. Considering how relentlessly the Bush “war on terror” was ridiculed, how long will it take before the Obama “war on an oil slick” is labelled as absurd? Given the tone of this morning’s coverage, perhaps not very long at all.
dumb shits
British media fall out of love with Obama
By Janet Daley
June 16th, 2010
The Telegraph
The BBC reports of Barack Obama’s speech last night are about as derisive as it would be possible to be about someone you were describing only a few months ago as the incarnation of Hope and Optimism. Yes indeed, the romance is over. The British media have decided that it was all a cruel deception: Obama is just one more ranting populist president who will do anything to divert attention from his own failure to get a grip. And this is not just about BP and the fate of all those pension funds.
Nor is it simply the demonising of Big Oil – which makes the US president sound as if he were recruiting his speech writers direct from the student union – that has evoked the UK media’s collective sneer. What has been much commented upon – especially by those fastidiously liberal BBC correspondents – is Obama’s pointedly bellicose language: the US is apparently engaged in a “battle” to be waged in very personal, anthropomorphic terms “against an oil spill that is assaulting” its coast. Considering how relentlessly the Bush “war on terror” was ridiculed, how long will it take before the Obama “war on an oil slick” is labelled as absurd? Given the tone of this morning’s coverage, perhaps not very long at all.
dumb shits
The New Russia: Freedom is Fleeting
There is no room for opposition in Russia, unless they operate within parameters established by those in power. And with a community organizer in the White House who spends more time golfing and vacationing than dealing with local and national problems, he certainly does not have the braintrust to deconstruct the implications of these events. Russia is moving further and further away, into an orbit they previously held, one which is not a friend of the United States, nor of freedom.
Police seize 100,000 anti-Vladimir Putin books
Russian police seized 100,000 copies of a book critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that activists planned to hand out at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.
6:22PM BST
16 Jun 2010
The Telegraph
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin Photo: BLOOMBERG Copies of 'Putin. The Results. 10 Years on', written by opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov were "intended for participants of the forum", starting Thursday, according to Olga Kurnosova, head of the city's branch of the opposition United Civic Front, said.
The reasons for the seizure "are not very clear", she said.
The book, which has a total print-run of one million copies, aims to "tell the truth about the real results of the leadership of Putin and the tandem", Mr Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote in his blog on Monday.
Mr Putin served two terms as president from 2000 onwards before being elected as prime minister. He is still viewed as Russia's strongest political figure in a power tandem with his ally President Dmitry Medvedev.
Earlier this month, Mr Putin said that he supported opposition protests as long as they were within the law.
"Without a normal democratic development this country will have no future," he said at a televised meeting with prominent arts figures.
Mr Nemtsov presented the book about Mr Putin in Moscow on Monday. Last year he published a similar book about Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who won a libel case and forced him to retract a statement about corruption in the city hall.
russia
Police seize 100,000 anti-Vladimir Putin books
Russian police seized 100,000 copies of a book critical of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that activists planned to hand out at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.
6:22PM BST
16 Jun 2010
The Telegraph
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin Photo: BLOOMBERG Copies of 'Putin. The Results. 10 Years on', written by opposition politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Milov were "intended for participants of the forum", starting Thursday, according to Olga Kurnosova, head of the city's branch of the opposition United Civic Front, said.
The reasons for the seizure "are not very clear", she said.
The book, which has a total print-run of one million copies, aims to "tell the truth about the real results of the leadership of Putin and the tandem", Mr Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, wrote in his blog on Monday.
Mr Putin served two terms as president from 2000 onwards before being elected as prime minister. He is still viewed as Russia's strongest political figure in a power tandem with his ally President Dmitry Medvedev.
Earlier this month, Mr Putin said that he supported opposition protests as long as they were within the law.
"Without a normal democratic development this country will have no future," he said at a televised meeting with prominent arts figures.
Mr Nemtsov presented the book about Mr Putin in Moscow on Monday. Last year he published a similar book about Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who won a libel case and forced him to retract a statement about corruption in the city hall.
russia
Vote early and vote often.
Residents get 6 votes each in suburban NY election
By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 15, 4:08 pm ET
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate. Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.
Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday.
Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.
Furano and his wife, Gloria Furano, voted Thursday.
"That was very strange," Arthur Furano, 80, said after voting. "I'm not sure I liked it. All my life, I've heard, `one man, one vote.'"
It's the first time any municipality in New York has used cumulative voting, said Amy Ngai, a director at FairVote, a nonprofit election research and reform group that has been hired to consult. The system is used to elect the school board in Amarillo, Texas, the county commission in Chilton County, Ala., and the City Council in Peoria, Ill.
The judge also ordered Port Chester to implement in-person early voting, allowing residents to show up on any of five days to cast ballots. That, too, is a first in New York, Ngai said.
Village clerk Joan Mancuso said Monday that 604 residents voted early.
Gloria Furano gave one vote each to six candidates. Aaron Conetta gave two votes each to three candidates.
Frances Nurena talked to the inspectors about the new system, grabbed some educational material and went home to study. After all, it was only Thursday. She could vote on Friday, Saturday or Tuesday.
"I understand the voting," she said. "But since I have time, I'm going to learn more about the candidates."
On Tuesday, Candida Sandoval voted at the Don Bosco Center, where a soup kitchen and day-laborer hiring center added to the activity, and where federal observers watched the voting from a table in the corner.
"I hope that if Hispanics get in, they do something for all the Hispanic people," Sandoval said in Spanish. "I don't know, but I hope so."
FairVote said cumulative voting allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes and focuses its voting strength on specific candidates. Two of the 13 Port Chester trustee candidates — one Democrat and one Republican — are Hispanic. A third Hispanic is running a write-in campaign after being taken off the ballot on a technicality.
Campaigning was generally low key, and the election itself was less of an issue than housing density and taxes.
Hispanic candidates Fabiola Montoya and Luis Marino emphasized their volunteer work and said they would represent all residents if elected.
Gregg Gregory gave all his votes to one candidate, then said: "I think this is terrific. It's good for Port Chester. It opens it up to a lot more people, not just Hispanics but independents, too."
Vote coordinator Martha Lopez said that if turnout is higher than in recent years, when it hovered around 25 percent, the election would be a success — regardless of whether a Hispanic was elected.
"I think we'll make it," she said. "I'm happy to report the people seem very interested."
But Randolph McLaughlin, who represented a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the goal was not merely to encourage more Hispanics to vote but "to create a system whereby the Hispanic community would be able to nominate and elect a candidate of their choice."
That could be a non-Hispanic, he acknowledged, and until exit polling is done, "it won't be known for sure whether the winners were Hispanic-preferred."
The village held 12 forums — six each in English and Spanish — to let voters know about the new system and to practice voting. The bilingual ballot lists each candidate across the top row — some of them twice if they have two party lines — and then the same candidates are listed five more times. In all, there are 114 levers; voters can flip any six.
Besides the forums, bright yellow T-shirts, tote bags and lawn signs declared "Your voice, your vote, your village," part of the educational materials also mandated in the government agreement. Announcements were made on cable TV in each language.
All such materials — the ballot, the brochures, the TV spots, the reminders sent home in schoolkids' backpacks — had to be approved in advance, in English and Spanish versions, by the Department of Justice.
Conetta said the voter education effort was so thorough he found voting easier than usual.
"It was very different but actually quite simple," he said. "No problem."
voting
By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 15, 4:08 pm ET
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate. Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.
Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday.
Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.
Furano and his wife, Gloria Furano, voted Thursday.
"That was very strange," Arthur Furano, 80, said after voting. "I'm not sure I liked it. All my life, I've heard, `one man, one vote.'"
It's the first time any municipality in New York has used cumulative voting, said Amy Ngai, a director at FairVote, a nonprofit election research and reform group that has been hired to consult. The system is used to elect the school board in Amarillo, Texas, the county commission in Chilton County, Ala., and the City Council in Peoria, Ill.
The judge also ordered Port Chester to implement in-person early voting, allowing residents to show up on any of five days to cast ballots. That, too, is a first in New York, Ngai said.
Village clerk Joan Mancuso said Monday that 604 residents voted early.
Gloria Furano gave one vote each to six candidates. Aaron Conetta gave two votes each to three candidates.
Frances Nurena talked to the inspectors about the new system, grabbed some educational material and went home to study. After all, it was only Thursday. She could vote on Friday, Saturday or Tuesday.
"I understand the voting," she said. "But since I have time, I'm going to learn more about the candidates."
On Tuesday, Candida Sandoval voted at the Don Bosco Center, where a soup kitchen and day-laborer hiring center added to the activity, and where federal observers watched the voting from a table in the corner.
"I hope that if Hispanics get in, they do something for all the Hispanic people," Sandoval said in Spanish. "I don't know, but I hope so."
FairVote said cumulative voting allows a political minority to gain representation if it organizes and focuses its voting strength on specific candidates. Two of the 13 Port Chester trustee candidates — one Democrat and one Republican — are Hispanic. A third Hispanic is running a write-in campaign after being taken off the ballot on a technicality.
Campaigning was generally low key, and the election itself was less of an issue than housing density and taxes.
Hispanic candidates Fabiola Montoya and Luis Marino emphasized their volunteer work and said they would represent all residents if elected.
Gregg Gregory gave all his votes to one candidate, then said: "I think this is terrific. It's good for Port Chester. It opens it up to a lot more people, not just Hispanics but independents, too."
Vote coordinator Martha Lopez said that if turnout is higher than in recent years, when it hovered around 25 percent, the election would be a success — regardless of whether a Hispanic was elected.
"I think we'll make it," she said. "I'm happy to report the people seem very interested."
But Randolph McLaughlin, who represented a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the goal was not merely to encourage more Hispanics to vote but "to create a system whereby the Hispanic community would be able to nominate and elect a candidate of their choice."
That could be a non-Hispanic, he acknowledged, and until exit polling is done, "it won't be known for sure whether the winners were Hispanic-preferred."
The village held 12 forums — six each in English and Spanish — to let voters know about the new system and to practice voting. The bilingual ballot lists each candidate across the top row — some of them twice if they have two party lines — and then the same candidates are listed five more times. In all, there are 114 levers; voters can flip any six.
Besides the forums, bright yellow T-shirts, tote bags and lawn signs declared "Your voice, your vote, your village," part of the educational materials also mandated in the government agreement. Announcements were made on cable TV in each language.
All such materials — the ballot, the brochures, the TV spots, the reminders sent home in schoolkids' backpacks — had to be approved in advance, in English and Spanish versions, by the Department of Justice.
Conetta said the voter education effort was so thorough he found voting easier than usual.
"It was very different but actually quite simple," he said. "No problem."
voting
Obama has problems: The Media is Abandoning him
Excerpt from the Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2010
But watching the president and hearing him was a little creepy; that early portion of the address was robotic, lacked real energy, enthusiasm. And worst of all specifics. He was virtually detail-less.
After almost two months of waiting through continuously contradictory reports, an anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this?
Even Obama's cheerleaders over at MSNBC were complaining. "Where was the How in this speech?" demanded Keith Olbermann. Seriously.
Everyone's assumed that fixing the leak was a given since Day Four, which was still five days before the Democrat got his big plane and presidential entourage down there.
obama
But watching the president and hearing him was a little creepy; that early portion of the address was robotic, lacked real energy, enthusiasm. And worst of all specifics. He was virtually detail-less.
After almost two months of waiting through continuously contradictory reports, an anxious American public wanted to know, HOW are you going to accomplish all this?
Even Obama's cheerleaders over at MSNBC were complaining. "Where was the How in this speech?" demanded Keith Olbermann. Seriously.
Everyone's assumed that fixing the leak was a given since Day Four, which was still five days before the Democrat got his big plane and presidential entourage down there.
obama
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A Vacation, Computer, Car or a Kid ?
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture finds that a middle-income family with a child born in 2009 can expect to spend about $222,360 ($286,050 if inflation is factored in) for food, shelter, and other necessities to raise that child over the next 17 years.
costs
costs
Sex Tapes and Lies in Indonesia
Indonesia sex tape sparks call to control Internet
Tue Jun 15, 2010 7:47pm IST
By Sunanda Creagh
Reuters
JAKARTA (Reuters) - The release of video clips appearing to show top starlets having sex has sparked renewed calls for tighter Internet controls in majority-Muslim Indonesia and more use of a controversial anti-pornography law.
The anti-porn law, passed in 2008, was seen by many as a sign of the growing influence of conservative Islam in policy-making in traditionally moderate Indonesia, a worry for some investors hoping for pro-market reforms.
Police are now considering invoking it in an investigation into the release on the grainy clips that appear to show pop singer Nazril "Ariel" Irham having sex, in one clip with television star girlfriend Luna Maya, while in another with actress Cut Tari.
The stars have denied it is them. Local media reported Irham as saying his laptop was stolen last year and police have called the stars for questioning.
Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring has expressed disgust at the clips, which have dominated Indonesian news since being leaked earlier this month.
"Why would anyone tape such a private thing?" Sembiring was quoted as saying by local newspaper the Jakarta Post, which also reported him saying new rules were needed to ban "negative" Internet content.
Sembiring's Islam-based party PKS, seen as one of the most conservative parties in parliament, is a key member of President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono's ruling coalition and pushed earlier this year for more Internet censorship controls. The plan was dropped after public outcry.
The party's president, Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, told Reuters the clips showed inappropriate material was too easily accessible.
"To protect a community, there must be control, we cannot have total freedom," said the Saudi Arabia-educated politician. "To create comfort and overcome negative effects on communities who are not ready and not supposed to consume certain material, then controls are a very good idea."
When asked if he would support limiting access to sites like YouTube or Facebook, Ishaaq said he would "if it was in the national interest". He expected the anti-porn law, used to charge nightclub dancers this year, to be used more often in future.
If letters to the editor are any judge, reactions from ordinary Indonesians to the country's first celebrity sex tape scandal have varied from voyeuristic interest to irritation.
"I think corruption is worse for society than a few sex videos," one scribe, "Peter", wrote to the Jakarta Post.
sex tapes Islam
Tue Jun 15, 2010 7:47pm IST
By Sunanda Creagh
Reuters
JAKARTA (Reuters) - The release of video clips appearing to show top starlets having sex has sparked renewed calls for tighter Internet controls in majority-Muslim Indonesia and more use of a controversial anti-pornography law.
The anti-porn law, passed in 2008, was seen by many as a sign of the growing influence of conservative Islam in policy-making in traditionally moderate Indonesia, a worry for some investors hoping for pro-market reforms.
Police are now considering invoking it in an investigation into the release on the grainy clips that appear to show pop singer Nazril "Ariel" Irham having sex, in one clip with television star girlfriend Luna Maya, while in another with actress Cut Tari.
The stars have denied it is them. Local media reported Irham as saying his laptop was stolen last year and police have called the stars for questioning.
Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring has expressed disgust at the clips, which have dominated Indonesian news since being leaked earlier this month.
"Why would anyone tape such a private thing?" Sembiring was quoted as saying by local newspaper the Jakarta Post, which also reported him saying new rules were needed to ban "negative" Internet content.
Sembiring's Islam-based party PKS, seen as one of the most conservative parties in parliament, is a key member of President Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono's ruling coalition and pushed earlier this year for more Internet censorship controls. The plan was dropped after public outcry.
The party's president, Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, told Reuters the clips showed inappropriate material was too easily accessible.
"To protect a community, there must be control, we cannot have total freedom," said the Saudi Arabia-educated politician. "To create comfort and overcome negative effects on communities who are not ready and not supposed to consume certain material, then controls are a very good idea."
When asked if he would support limiting access to sites like YouTube or Facebook, Ishaaq said he would "if it was in the national interest". He expected the anti-porn law, used to charge nightclub dancers this year, to be used more often in future.
If letters to the editor are any judge, reactions from ordinary Indonesians to the country's first celebrity sex tape scandal have varied from voyeuristic interest to irritation.
"I think corruption is worse for society than a few sex videos," one scribe, "Peter", wrote to the Jakarta Post.
sex tapes Islam
Monday, June 14, 2010
What Constitutes Beauty: Naomi and Christian ??
World's most beautiful couple: and the figures to prove it
By Roger Dobson
The Independent
Sunday, 11 March 2007
It is the holy grail of the fashion and beauty industries: a scientific blueprint for the most beautiful women, and men, in the world.
Researchers have thrown away the old vital statistics and, instead, focused on how the dimensions of different parts of the body relate to height and body mass index (BMI) to give the perfect physique. Perhaps surprisingly, two of the most important measurements are the girth of the thigh and the slimness of the calf.
The researchers, from the University of Gdansk in Poland, studied the vital statistics of 24 finalists in a national beauty competition, together with those of 115 other women. They said that while weight, height and hip ratio were normally used to assess female attractiveness, these might not throw up crucial differences between the super-attractive and others.
For men, scientists said height, BMI, waist-to-hip and waist-to-chest ratios were key measures.
Super-attractive women had a thigh-to-height ratio some 12 per cent lower than other women, giving them a more slender look. Skinfold tests on the calf showed 15mm of fat compared with 18mm in other women.
The study also showed that the average super-attractive height was 5ft 9in, with the waist 76 per cent of the size of the chest, and 70 per cent of the size of the hips. Models built like Naomi Campbell came closest to the ideal.
"Attractiveness of a woman's body is one of the most important factors in mate selection, and the question what are the physical cues for the assessment of attractiveness is fundamental to evolutionary psychology," said Leszek Pokrywka, who led the study.
Perfect woman: Naomi Campbell
The vital statistics:
Body mass index 20.85
Bust girth to height 49.3%
Waist-chest ratio 1.4
Leg-to-body ratio 1.4
Calf girth to height 19.5%
Height 175cm
Thigh girth to height 29.7
What it all means:
"Super beautiful" women have waists a third smaller than their hips and three-quarters their bust measurement. They have longer legs, and slimmer thighs and calves than the average woman.
Perfect man: Christian Bale
The vital statistics:
Body mass index 26.5
Waist-chest ratio 0.6
Leg-to-body ratio 1
Height 188cm
What it all means:
The physically ideal man is more than 6ft tall, with legs the same length as his upper body. The leg-to-body ratio of 1 makes him appear more muscular, which is why the ideal BMI for men is higher than for women.
beauty
By Roger Dobson
The Independent
Sunday, 11 March 2007
It is the holy grail of the fashion and beauty industries: a scientific blueprint for the most beautiful women, and men, in the world.
Researchers have thrown away the old vital statistics and, instead, focused on how the dimensions of different parts of the body relate to height and body mass index (BMI) to give the perfect physique. Perhaps surprisingly, two of the most important measurements are the girth of the thigh and the slimness of the calf.
The researchers, from the University of Gdansk in Poland, studied the vital statistics of 24 finalists in a national beauty competition, together with those of 115 other women. They said that while weight, height and hip ratio were normally used to assess female attractiveness, these might not throw up crucial differences between the super-attractive and others.
For men, scientists said height, BMI, waist-to-hip and waist-to-chest ratios were key measures.
Super-attractive women had a thigh-to-height ratio some 12 per cent lower than other women, giving them a more slender look. Skinfold tests on the calf showed 15mm of fat compared with 18mm in other women.
The study also showed that the average super-attractive height was 5ft 9in, with the waist 76 per cent of the size of the chest, and 70 per cent of the size of the hips. Models built like Naomi Campbell came closest to the ideal.
"Attractiveness of a woman's body is one of the most important factors in mate selection, and the question what are the physical cues for the assessment of attractiveness is fundamental to evolutionary psychology," said Leszek Pokrywka, who led the study.
Perfect woman: Naomi Campbell
The vital statistics:
Body mass index 20.85
Bust girth to height 49.3%
Waist-chest ratio 1.4
Leg-to-body ratio 1.4
Calf girth to height 19.5%
Height 175cm
Thigh girth to height 29.7
What it all means:
"Super beautiful" women have waists a third smaller than their hips and three-quarters their bust measurement. They have longer legs, and slimmer thighs and calves than the average woman.
Perfect man: Christian Bale
The vital statistics:
Body mass index 26.5
Waist-chest ratio 0.6
Leg-to-body ratio 1
Height 188cm
What it all means:
The physically ideal man is more than 6ft tall, with legs the same length as his upper body. The leg-to-body ratio of 1 makes him appear more muscular, which is why the ideal BMI for men is higher than for women.
beauty
The End is Coming: Space 2013, The Space Storm is Coming.
Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation
Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.
By Andrew Hough
Published: 1:00PM BST 14 Jun 2010
The Telegraph
Link to this video National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013.
Scientists start work on high-tech mission to Mars instruments In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.
Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” said Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”
A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings.
While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.
Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.
Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.
Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.
He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.
A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.
He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.
“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.
“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”
The National Academy of Sciences warned that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity”.
It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).
Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.
“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.
His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat
The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm
These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.
The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.
space storm
Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.
By Andrew Hough
Published: 1:00PM BST 14 Jun 2010
The Telegraph
Link to this video National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013.
Scientists start work on high-tech mission to Mars instruments In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.
Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” said Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa's Heliophysics division.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”
A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings.
While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.
Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.
Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.
Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.
He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.
A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.
He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.
“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.
“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”
The National Academy of Sciences warned that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity”.
It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).
Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.
“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.
His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat
The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm
These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.
The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.
space storm
Obama" BP Oil Spill = 9/11
Could this at all be political / politicizing 9/11? One word: uncouth.
Obama compares oil spill to 9/11 — then heads to the golf course!
Posted by Kevin Kristy Headlines
Jun 14, 2010
WASHINGTON – President Obama, in a stark and striking comparison, said the devastating impact of the BP disaster on the national psyche “echoes 9/11.”
The endlessly spewing oil rig off the Gulf Coast – like the terror attacks of 2001 – will influence the nation’s future long after the crisis passes, the President said in a provocative Oval Office interview with Politico.
“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come,” Obama added in language that underscored his new sense of urgency about the disaster.
One day later…
President Barack Obama spent four hours on the golf course Sunday in temperatures that peaked in the low 90s.
The White House pool reported that they left Andrews Air Force Base as it started to rain after 4 p.m.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was among the group golfing with Obama.
Also reportedly in the golfing group were White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson and photographer David Katz.
obsms
Obama compares oil spill to 9/11 — then heads to the golf course!
Posted by Kevin Kristy Headlines
Jun 14, 2010
WASHINGTON – President Obama, in a stark and striking comparison, said the devastating impact of the BP disaster on the national psyche “echoes 9/11.”
The endlessly spewing oil rig off the Gulf Coast – like the terror attacks of 2001 – will influence the nation’s future long after the crisis passes, the President said in a provocative Oval Office interview with Politico.
“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come,” Obama added in language that underscored his new sense of urgency about the disaster.
One day later…
President Barack Obama spent four hours on the golf course Sunday in temperatures that peaked in the low 90s.
The White House pool reported that they left Andrews Air Force Base as it started to rain after 4 p.m.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was among the group golfing with Obama.
Also reportedly in the golfing group were White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson and photographer David Katz.
obsms
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Bali Boy Bushwacked By Big Bovine
Just the sort of rational people we want as friends ... Maybe we need a new Obama world tour, send him to Bali to apologize, and mend fences. Fences may have helped Alit.
Teenager Passes Out Marrying Cow He Had Sex With
June 11, 2010
Jakarta Globe
A Balinese teenager caught in the act of intercourse with a cow passed out on Friday when he was forced to marry the animal in a ceremony witnessed by hundreds of curious onlookers.
As the Jakarta Globe reported earlier in the day, Ngurah Alit, 18, an unemployed youth from the seaside village of Yeh Embang in Jembrana, was caught stark naked positioned behind the cow in a rice paddy field.
In his defence, Alit admitted to the act of bestiality but claimed the cow, which he believed was a young and beautiful woman, had wooed him with flattering compliments.
As part of a Pecaruan ritual, a ceremony to cleanse the village of the unholy act of a man mating with a cow, Alit was forced to “marry” the animal.
Alit, however, according to Detik.com, passed out surrounded by locals and police, who were attempting to prevent a number of journalists from covering the spectacle.
It is unclear whether or not he got to say “I do.”
Alit’s collapse prompted his mother to begin screaming hysterically, while other family members shouted at photographers not to take pictures.
“Poor kid. He’s actually a quiet kid,” said one villager.
As part of the ceremony, Alit’s victim and new bride was drowned in ocean.
Alit, on the other hand, was symbolically drowned and bathed on the beach.
“Only his clothes were thrown into the sea,” the villager said.
Village chief Ida Bagus Legawa declared that the village had been “cleansed” from the “defilement from the incident.”
silly people
Teenager Passes Out Marrying Cow He Had Sex With
June 11, 2010
Jakarta Globe
A Balinese teenager caught in the act of intercourse with a cow passed out on Friday when he was forced to marry the animal in a ceremony witnessed by hundreds of curious onlookers.
As the Jakarta Globe reported earlier in the day, Ngurah Alit, 18, an unemployed youth from the seaside village of Yeh Embang in Jembrana, was caught stark naked positioned behind the cow in a rice paddy field.
In his defence, Alit admitted to the act of bestiality but claimed the cow, which he believed was a young and beautiful woman, had wooed him with flattering compliments.
As part of a Pecaruan ritual, a ceremony to cleanse the village of the unholy act of a man mating with a cow, Alit was forced to “marry” the animal.
Alit, however, according to Detik.com, passed out surrounded by locals and police, who were attempting to prevent a number of journalists from covering the spectacle.
It is unclear whether or not he got to say “I do.”
Alit’s collapse prompted his mother to begin screaming hysterically, while other family members shouted at photographers not to take pictures.
“Poor kid. He’s actually a quiet kid,” said one villager.
As part of the ceremony, Alit’s victim and new bride was drowned in ocean.
Alit, on the other hand, was symbolically drowned and bathed on the beach.
“Only his clothes were thrown into the sea,” the villager said.
Village chief Ida Bagus Legawa declared that the village had been “cleansed” from the “defilement from the incident.”
silly people
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama as an Agitator
Mr. Obama, of course you had no intention of devaluing BP and throwing the retirements of hundreds of thousands of people into doubt. You are a community organizer - an agitator, and agitators do not consider the consequences, only the immediate satisfaction - to agitate and stoke the fires ... never the outcome or consequence of your actions. Yet again, you prove why you are unqualified to hold the position you do.
No intent to devalue BP: Obama
By Jeffrey Jones and Keith Weir
June 12, 2010
BURAS, La./ LONDON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday that he had no interest in undermining the value of oil company BP Plc following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But as frustration grew on the 54th day of the leak that continues to gush from a blown-out undersea well, a U.S. Coast Guard official told the London-based energy giant to come up with a better containment plan in 48 hours.
In a 30-minute phone call the two leaders downplayed tensions over the oil spill and reaffirmed close ties. But a U.S. official said Obama will insist that BP pays clean-up costs and meets economic claims from the spill.
Millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf since an April 20 offshore rig blast killed 11 workers. The oil leak is now estimated at 40,000 barrels (1.68 million gallons/6.36 million liters) a day and has been only partly contained.
The impact along the Gulf coast continues to grow, as the oil damages beaches and wildlife habitats, kills birds, sea turtles and dolphins, and slams the region's lucrative tourism and fishing industries.
BP, a staple holding of UK pension funds, has lost tens of billions of dollars from its market value and is under pressure from some U.S. lawmakers to suspend its dividend until the Gulf crisis is resolved and damages are paid out to individuals and businesses in the region.
BP's board, which has met weekly since the crisis started, could take up the issue of the dividend on Monday. But a source said a decision may not be made until after BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg has met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday.
Cameron, who took office last month, is under political pressure in Britain to do more to protect a company that accounts for 12 percent of all dividends paid by British companies.
BP expects the total bill for the clean-up to be $3 billion to $6 billion -- though many stock analysts predict the cost will be much higher.
He and Obama reaffirmed their confidence in the strength of the two countries' ties.
"President Obama said to the Prime Minister that his unequivocal view was that BP was a multinational global company and that frustrations about the oil spill had nothing to do with national identity," Cameron's office said.
Before meeting with Svanberg, Obama -- facing criticism for not responding aggressively enough -- returns to the Gulf Coast on Monday for the fourth time since the crisis erupted. Obama plans to survey the response effect, visit with Gulf residents and meet officials during a two-day visit.
48-HOUR ULTIMATUM
On Saturday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson told BP its plans to contain the spill do not go far enough or contain enough back-up measures.
"BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak-containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited," Watson said in a letter to BP dated June 11.
Watson said BP's current plan did not go far enough to have backup resources in place in the event of equipment failure or other problems. "Every effort must be expended to speed up the process," he said.
U.S. officials have said that the collection of oil and gas leaking into the Gulf of Mexico seems to have leveled off for now at about 15,400 barrels a day -- less than half the estimated daily leak.
States along the Gulf coast are increasingly demanding financial compensation from BP as the spill spreads along their shorelines, slamming tourism and fishing industries, The Wall Street Journal reported.
State officials say they are feeling the effects, both environmentally and financially, and that they need much more than what BP is offering to recover lost wages and taxes.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum sent a letter to BP requesting that the company deposit $2.5 billion into an escrow account to cover potential losses, the Journal reported.
The oil spill will dominate Sunday's television news talk shows in the United States.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, is schedule to appear on CBS's "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union." Gulf Coast governors will discuss the spill, including Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Alabama's Bob Riley, both Republicans, and independent Charlie Crist of Florida.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, in a pre-taped interview on Bloomberg TV's "Political Capital," said Obama should not be blamed for the gusher.
"I would give him fairly low marks in terms of responding to the consequences of the spill, but stopping the leak, nobody could do any better," Graham said. "We're trying everything under the sun to stop the leak, and it's not his fault that we can't find a way to cap it."
HIGH DRAMA
U.S. lawmakers remain busy attempting to craft a response to the oil spill, which could renew interest in renewable fuel energy policies.
High drama is likely on Thursday when Tony Hayward, BP's embattled chief executive, makes his first appearance before Congress at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.
Another hearing on Tuesday will feature top officials from oil companies Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co as well as BP America president Lamar McKay.
Some 24,000 people are in the field supporting functions from oil cleanup operations to seafood safety.
About one-third of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remains closed to fishing, and oil has spread to Florida's Pensacola and Perdido passes, two gateways to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
At Perdido Bay between Florida and Alabama, orange booms were stained with brown oil as workers tied absorbent 'pom poms' to them to keep oil seeping further into the waterways.
"We want to make sure areas where there may be nesting, we want to have extra booms in those areas," said Alexis Brooks, incident information officer at Gulf Islands National Seashore.
oil
No intent to devalue BP: Obama
By Jeffrey Jones and Keith Weir
June 12, 2010
BURAS, La./ LONDON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday that he had no interest in undermining the value of oil company BP Plc following the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But as frustration grew on the 54th day of the leak that continues to gush from a blown-out undersea well, a U.S. Coast Guard official told the London-based energy giant to come up with a better containment plan in 48 hours.
In a 30-minute phone call the two leaders downplayed tensions over the oil spill and reaffirmed close ties. But a U.S. official said Obama will insist that BP pays clean-up costs and meets economic claims from the spill.
Millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf since an April 20 offshore rig blast killed 11 workers. The oil leak is now estimated at 40,000 barrels (1.68 million gallons/6.36 million liters) a day and has been only partly contained.
The impact along the Gulf coast continues to grow, as the oil damages beaches and wildlife habitats, kills birds, sea turtles and dolphins, and slams the region's lucrative tourism and fishing industries.
BP, a staple holding of UK pension funds, has lost tens of billions of dollars from its market value and is under pressure from some U.S. lawmakers to suspend its dividend until the Gulf crisis is resolved and damages are paid out to individuals and businesses in the region.
BP's board, which has met weekly since the crisis started, could take up the issue of the dividend on Monday. But a source said a decision may not be made until after BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg has met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday.
Cameron, who took office last month, is under political pressure in Britain to do more to protect a company that accounts for 12 percent of all dividends paid by British companies.
BP expects the total bill for the clean-up to be $3 billion to $6 billion -- though many stock analysts predict the cost will be much higher.
He and Obama reaffirmed their confidence in the strength of the two countries' ties.
"President Obama said to the Prime Minister that his unequivocal view was that BP was a multinational global company and that frustrations about the oil spill had nothing to do with national identity," Cameron's office said.
Before meeting with Svanberg, Obama -- facing criticism for not responding aggressively enough -- returns to the Gulf Coast on Monday for the fourth time since the crisis erupted. Obama plans to survey the response effect, visit with Gulf residents and meet officials during a two-day visit.
48-HOUR ULTIMATUM
On Saturday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral James Watson told BP its plans to contain the spill do not go far enough or contain enough back-up measures.
"BP must identify in the next 48 hours additional leak-containment capacity that could be operationalized and expedited," Watson said in a letter to BP dated June 11.
Watson said BP's current plan did not go far enough to have backup resources in place in the event of equipment failure or other problems. "Every effort must be expended to speed up the process," he said.
U.S. officials have said that the collection of oil and gas leaking into the Gulf of Mexico seems to have leveled off for now at about 15,400 barrels a day -- less than half the estimated daily leak.
States along the Gulf coast are increasingly demanding financial compensation from BP as the spill spreads along their shorelines, slamming tourism and fishing industries, The Wall Street Journal reported.
State officials say they are feeling the effects, both environmentally and financially, and that they need much more than what BP is offering to recover lost wages and taxes.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum sent a letter to BP requesting that the company deposit $2.5 billion into an escrow account to cover potential losses, the Journal reported.
The oil spill will dominate Sunday's television news talk shows in the United States.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, is schedule to appear on CBS's "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union." Gulf Coast governors will discuss the spill, including Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Alabama's Bob Riley, both Republicans, and independent Charlie Crist of Florida.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, in a pre-taped interview on Bloomberg TV's "Political Capital," said Obama should not be blamed for the gusher.
"I would give him fairly low marks in terms of responding to the consequences of the spill, but stopping the leak, nobody could do any better," Graham said. "We're trying everything under the sun to stop the leak, and it's not his fault that we can't find a way to cap it."
HIGH DRAMA
U.S. lawmakers remain busy attempting to craft a response to the oil spill, which could renew interest in renewable fuel energy policies.
High drama is likely on Thursday when Tony Hayward, BP's embattled chief executive, makes his first appearance before Congress at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.
Another hearing on Tuesday will feature top officials from oil companies Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co as well as BP America president Lamar McKay.
Some 24,000 people are in the field supporting functions from oil cleanup operations to seafood safety.
About one-third of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remains closed to fishing, and oil has spread to Florida's Pensacola and Perdido passes, two gateways to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
At Perdido Bay between Florida and Alabama, orange booms were stained with brown oil as workers tied absorbent 'pom poms' to them to keep oil seeping further into the waterways.
"We want to make sure areas where there may be nesting, we want to have extra booms in those areas," said Alexis Brooks, incident information officer at Gulf Islands National Seashore.
oil
Belgium: On the Precipice of Collapse
Those Belgique ... always causing problems. Belgium is one country to look to and see how well bilingualism has worked. Bilingualism is the idea, in practice, not theory, that by teaching the students and children (and I suppose adults) of a country another langauge, one shared by a percentage of the population of that country, that they would be more united, held together, able to communicate and would amicably sort through issues. Better able to see beyond the language issues and resolve economic questions, political issues, and repair social rifts.
Let's see how that's working out!!
Belgians vote on future, united country in doubt
Jun 12 10:56 AM US/Eastern
By ROBERT WIELAARD
Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS (AP) - Belgium's 6.5 million Dutch and 4 million French-speakers are locked in an unhappy, quarrelsome union, and voters in a general election Sunday might well favor the prospect of a political divorce down the road.
A mainstream Flemish party that is expected to do well is invoking the concept of irreconcilable differences to seek a separation and, in time, take the country's Dutch-speaking Flanders region into the European Union as a separate country.
This is a nightmare scenario for the poorer Wallonia, Belgium's Francophone south, which greatly depends on Flemish funds.
Early elections were called after Premier Yves Leterme's five-party coalition fell apart April 26 in a dispute over a bilingual voting district.
That issue has pushed the New Flemish Alliance—a tiny, centrist party only a few years ago—into pole position: it is forecast to win a quarter of the vote in Flanders.
Its leader—and perhaps Belgium's next premier—Bart de Wever, 39, wants an orderly breakup of Belgium by shifting the national government's last remaining powers, notably justice, health and social security, to Flanders and Wallonia. That would complete 30 years of ever greater self-rule for the two regions.
The New Flemish Alliance wants Flanders to join the EU—but there are no comparable separatist sentiments in Wallonia.
Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a Francophone Liberal, says the question facing Belgians is: "Do we still want to live together?"
Others favor no breakup either.
"We did a study of 10,000 people and found 84 percent want the country reformed, but not broken apart," says Marianne Thyssen, a Dutch-speaking Christian Democrat.
Yet in Belgium just about everything—from political parties to broadcasters to boy scouts and voting ballots—already comes in Dutch- and French-speaking versions. Even charities like the Red Cross and Amnesty International have separate chapters.
Pierre Verjans, a University of Liege political scientist, says he feels "a sense of mourning going on. French-speakers now fear a Belgium without Dutch-speakers."
Breakup talk was long the realm of Flemish extremists.
De Wever's surprise high rating follows three years of utter stalemate. As governments worldwide tried to tame a financial crisis and recession, the four that led Belgium since 2007 have struggled with linguistic spats while the national debt ballooned.
In contrast to other recent European elections, the nation's finances have hardly been an issue in this campaign.
Since the 1970s, the two camps have been given self-rule in urban development, environment, agriculture, employment, energy, culture, sports and research and other areas. Today, Dutch speakers want autonomy in justice, health, taxation and labor matters.
Brussels is its own region and is officially bilingual. Yet over the years, Francophones from Brussels have moved in large numbers to the city's leafy Flemish suburbs, where they are accused of refusing to learn Dutch or integrate.
The divide goes beyond language.
Flanders tends to be conservative and free-trade minded. Wallonia's long-dominant Socialists have a record of corruption and poor governance. Flanders has half the unemployment of Wallonia and a 25 percent higher per-capita income, and Dutch-speakers have long complained that they are subsidizing their Francophone neighbors.
But those in Wallonia don't want to join France and France has never expressed any interest in absorbing the region because of its high unemployment and other costs. France also does not to encourage separatism so regions like the French island of Corsica don't get their own separatist ideas.
belgium
Let's see how that's working out!!
Belgians vote on future, united country in doubt
Jun 12 10:56 AM US/Eastern
By ROBERT WIELAARD
Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS (AP) - Belgium's 6.5 million Dutch and 4 million French-speakers are locked in an unhappy, quarrelsome union, and voters in a general election Sunday might well favor the prospect of a political divorce down the road.
A mainstream Flemish party that is expected to do well is invoking the concept of irreconcilable differences to seek a separation and, in time, take the country's Dutch-speaking Flanders region into the European Union as a separate country.
This is a nightmare scenario for the poorer Wallonia, Belgium's Francophone south, which greatly depends on Flemish funds.
Early elections were called after Premier Yves Leterme's five-party coalition fell apart April 26 in a dispute over a bilingual voting district.
That issue has pushed the New Flemish Alliance—a tiny, centrist party only a few years ago—into pole position: it is forecast to win a quarter of the vote in Flanders.
Its leader—and perhaps Belgium's next premier—Bart de Wever, 39, wants an orderly breakup of Belgium by shifting the national government's last remaining powers, notably justice, health and social security, to Flanders and Wallonia. That would complete 30 years of ever greater self-rule for the two regions.
The New Flemish Alliance wants Flanders to join the EU—but there are no comparable separatist sentiments in Wallonia.
Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a Francophone Liberal, says the question facing Belgians is: "Do we still want to live together?"
Others favor no breakup either.
"We did a study of 10,000 people and found 84 percent want the country reformed, but not broken apart," says Marianne Thyssen, a Dutch-speaking Christian Democrat.
Yet in Belgium just about everything—from political parties to broadcasters to boy scouts and voting ballots—already comes in Dutch- and French-speaking versions. Even charities like the Red Cross and Amnesty International have separate chapters.
Pierre Verjans, a University of Liege political scientist, says he feels "a sense of mourning going on. French-speakers now fear a Belgium without Dutch-speakers."
Breakup talk was long the realm of Flemish extremists.
De Wever's surprise high rating follows three years of utter stalemate. As governments worldwide tried to tame a financial crisis and recession, the four that led Belgium since 2007 have struggled with linguistic spats while the national debt ballooned.
In contrast to other recent European elections, the nation's finances have hardly been an issue in this campaign.
Since the 1970s, the two camps have been given self-rule in urban development, environment, agriculture, employment, energy, culture, sports and research and other areas. Today, Dutch speakers want autonomy in justice, health, taxation and labor matters.
Brussels is its own region and is officially bilingual. Yet over the years, Francophones from Brussels have moved in large numbers to the city's leafy Flemish suburbs, where they are accused of refusing to learn Dutch or integrate.
The divide goes beyond language.
Flanders tends to be conservative and free-trade minded. Wallonia's long-dominant Socialists have a record of corruption and poor governance. Flanders has half the unemployment of Wallonia and a 25 percent higher per-capita income, and Dutch-speakers have long complained that they are subsidizing their Francophone neighbors.
But those in Wallonia don't want to join France and France has never expressed any interest in absorbing the region because of its high unemployment and other costs. France also does not to encourage separatism so regions like the French island of Corsica don't get their own separatist ideas.
belgium
Don't stand out in a lightning storm
Lightning kills Tenn. woman before fiance proposed
June 7, 2010
Associated Press
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Richard Butler wanted his girlfriend to think they were just taking a scenic hike in the North Carolina mountains, but he had a secret plan. When they got to the top, he planned to pull out a ring and ask her to be his bride.
Lightning struck three times as the Knoxville, Tenn., couple were on Max Patch Bald, near Asheville. The third hit Butler, 30, and his girlfriend, Bethany Lott, 25, killing her on Friday, he told the Asheville Citizen Times. He suffered third degree burns.
"She didn't say anything, and I turned around and she was laying a few feet away, and I crawled to her," he told the newspaper on Monday. "I did CPR for probably 15 minutes and the whole time was trying her cell phone, but I couldn't get anything out."
He described the lightning strike.
"I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back," he told the newspaper. "My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire."
His mother, Janet Delaney, said her future daughter-in-law loved the mountains.
"She hiked thousands of miles and spent a couple of years in Utah just hiking," Delaney, also of Knoxville, told The Associated Press.
She and her son are mourning instead of celebrating the joy the engagement would have brought.
"The first couple of times I met her, I felt she was my own daughter," Delaney said. "She made my life complete and my son's life complete."
Heavy rain let up as the two walked toward the bald, but more bad weather returned including the lightning, Butler said.
"Her last words were, 'Look at how beautiful it is,'" Delaney said.
Butler turned around to see his fiancee lying on the hill.
Unable to carry her down the hill, Butler drove to the first home he found. A father and his son, who was home on leave from the Navy, jumped in Butler's truck and raced back to the bald.
"They stood on the top of the hill doing what they could for probably 20 minutes until the rescuers got there," Butler said.
After rescuers arrived, they tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Lott. Services for her will be this week in New Tazewell, Tenn.
Butler suffered third-degree burns, but Delaney said he hasn't been to a doctor despite her urging him to go. She said his emotions seem to be in good shape.
"He's holding up better than I thought he would," Delaney said tearfully, adding, "He's going to try to go on."
strange
June 7, 2010
Associated Press
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Richard Butler wanted his girlfriend to think they were just taking a scenic hike in the North Carolina mountains, but he had a secret plan. When they got to the top, he planned to pull out a ring and ask her to be his bride.
Lightning struck three times as the Knoxville, Tenn., couple were on Max Patch Bald, near Asheville. The third hit Butler, 30, and his girlfriend, Bethany Lott, 25, killing her on Friday, he told the Asheville Citizen Times. He suffered third degree burns.
"She didn't say anything, and I turned around and she was laying a few feet away, and I crawled to her," he told the newspaper on Monday. "I did CPR for probably 15 minutes and the whole time was trying her cell phone, but I couldn't get anything out."
He described the lightning strike.
"I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back," he told the newspaper. "My legs turned to Jello, my shoes were smoking and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire."
His mother, Janet Delaney, said her future daughter-in-law loved the mountains.
"She hiked thousands of miles and spent a couple of years in Utah just hiking," Delaney, also of Knoxville, told The Associated Press.
She and her son are mourning instead of celebrating the joy the engagement would have brought.
"The first couple of times I met her, I felt she was my own daughter," Delaney said. "She made my life complete and my son's life complete."
Heavy rain let up as the two walked toward the bald, but more bad weather returned including the lightning, Butler said.
"Her last words were, 'Look at how beautiful it is,'" Delaney said.
Butler turned around to see his fiancee lying on the hill.
Unable to carry her down the hill, Butler drove to the first home he found. A father and his son, who was home on leave from the Navy, jumped in Butler's truck and raced back to the bald.
"They stood on the top of the hill doing what they could for probably 20 minutes until the rescuers got there," Butler said.
After rescuers arrived, they tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Lott. Services for her will be this week in New Tazewell, Tenn.
Butler suffered third-degree burns, but Delaney said he hasn't been to a doctor despite her urging him to go. She said his emotions seem to be in good shape.
"He's holding up better than I thought he would," Delaney said tearfully, adding, "He's going to try to go on."
strange
Feelings, Nothing more than Feelings ...
To be honest, AYSO has similar rules. This is a story because it is in one of the largest newspapers in Canada (all 30 million of them) and it is another example of foolish people making things worse.
Win a soccer game by more than five points and you lose, Ottawa league says
By Terrine Friday June 1, 2010 – 6:05 am
The National Post
Canada
In yet another nod to the protection of fledgling self-esteem, an Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default.
The Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer league’s newly implemented edict is intended to dissuade a runaway game in favour of sportsmanship. The rule replaces its five-point mercy regulation, whereby any points scored beyond a five-point differential would not be registered.
Kevin Cappon said he first heard about the rule on May 20 — right after he had scored his team’s last allowable goal. His team then tossed the ball around for fear of losing the game.
He said if anything, the league’s new rule will coddle sore losers.
“They should be saying anything is possible. If we can get five goals really fast, well, so can the other team,” said Kevin, 17, who has played in the league for five years. “People grow in adversity, they don’t really get worse…. I think you’ll see more leadership skills being used if a losing team tries to recuperate than if they never got into that situation at all.”
Kevin’s father, Bruce Cappon, called the rule ludicrous.
“I couldn’t find anywhere in the world, even in a communist country, where that rule is enforced,” he said.
Mr. Cappon said the organization is trying to “reinvent the wheel” by fostering a non-competitive environment. The league has 3,000 children enrolled ranging in age from four to 18 years old.
“Everybody wants a close game, nobody wants blowouts, but we don’t want to go by those farcical rules that they come up with,” he said. “Heaven forbid when these kids get into the real world. They won’t be prepared to deal with the competition out there.”
Paul Cholmsky, whose four- and six-year-old boys play in the league, said the intended goal of a default-lose rule might backfire in teaching life skills.
“If there’s one team that’s consistenly dominant and one team that’s not, well, that’s life,” he said.
Mr. Cholmsky said he would be in favour of temporarily handicapping a team, for example reducing the number of players on the field, over ensuring a team loss for a high score differential.
According to the league’s new rules, coaches of stronger teams are encouraged to deter runaway games by rotating players out of their usual positions, ensuring players pass the ball around, asking players to kick with the weaker foot, taking players off the field and encouraging players to score from farther away.
Club director Sean Cale said he is disappointed a few parents are making the new soccer rule overshadow the community involvement and organizing the Gloucester club does.
“The registration fee, rergardless of the sport, does not give a parent the right to insult or belittle the organization,” he said. “It gives you a uniform, it gives you a team.”
Mr. Cale said the league’s 12-person board of directors is not trying to take the fun out of the game, they are simply trying to make it fair. The new rule, suggested by “involved parents,” is a temporary measure that will be replaced by a pre-season skill assessment to make fair teams.
“The board is completely volunteer-run and we do the best that we can to provide a good, clean, fun soccer experience for everyone,” he said.
Although parents are fuming, he said the commotion is coming from “about 1% of the parents.”
stupid people
Win a soccer game by more than five points and you lose, Ottawa league says
By Terrine Friday June 1, 2010 – 6:05 am
The National Post
Canada
In yet another nod to the protection of fledgling self-esteem, an Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default.
The Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer league’s newly implemented edict is intended to dissuade a runaway game in favour of sportsmanship. The rule replaces its five-point mercy regulation, whereby any points scored beyond a five-point differential would not be registered.
Kevin Cappon said he first heard about the rule on May 20 — right after he had scored his team’s last allowable goal. His team then tossed the ball around for fear of losing the game.
He said if anything, the league’s new rule will coddle sore losers.
“They should be saying anything is possible. If we can get five goals really fast, well, so can the other team,” said Kevin, 17, who has played in the league for five years. “People grow in adversity, they don’t really get worse…. I think you’ll see more leadership skills being used if a losing team tries to recuperate than if they never got into that situation at all.”
Kevin’s father, Bruce Cappon, called the rule ludicrous.
“I couldn’t find anywhere in the world, even in a communist country, where that rule is enforced,” he said.
Mr. Cappon said the organization is trying to “reinvent the wheel” by fostering a non-competitive environment. The league has 3,000 children enrolled ranging in age from four to 18 years old.
“Everybody wants a close game, nobody wants blowouts, but we don’t want to go by those farcical rules that they come up with,” he said. “Heaven forbid when these kids get into the real world. They won’t be prepared to deal with the competition out there.”
Paul Cholmsky, whose four- and six-year-old boys play in the league, said the intended goal of a default-lose rule might backfire in teaching life skills.
“If there’s one team that’s consistenly dominant and one team that’s not, well, that’s life,” he said.
Mr. Cholmsky said he would be in favour of temporarily handicapping a team, for example reducing the number of players on the field, over ensuring a team loss for a high score differential.
According to the league’s new rules, coaches of stronger teams are encouraged to deter runaway games by rotating players out of their usual positions, ensuring players pass the ball around, asking players to kick with the weaker foot, taking players off the field and encouraging players to score from farther away.
Club director Sean Cale said he is disappointed a few parents are making the new soccer rule overshadow the community involvement and organizing the Gloucester club does.
“The registration fee, rergardless of the sport, does not give a parent the right to insult or belittle the organization,” he said. “It gives you a uniform, it gives you a team.”
Mr. Cale said the league’s 12-person board of directors is not trying to take the fun out of the game, they are simply trying to make it fair. The new rule, suggested by “involved parents,” is a temporary measure that will be replaced by a pre-season skill assessment to make fair teams.
“The board is completely volunteer-run and we do the best that we can to provide a good, clean, fun soccer experience for everyone,” he said.
Although parents are fuming, he said the commotion is coming from “about 1% of the parents.”
stupid people
Bush had no experience to lead. Obama was a community organizer.
Democrats in 2000 and 2004 - Bush had no experience. he was a part time governor, a drinker, alcoholic, drug user, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and played golf all the time (unlike Obama who, after a short time, has played more golf than Bush ever did in 8 years).
Then they ran Al Gore, who from age 2 wanted to be president and with his father's backing, support, and money he tried very hard to be president - and he failed. Then they ran John F. Kerry (JFK) and he too wanted to be president from the time he was 8, and with his family fortune (exceeding that of every Bushie combined) and then the wealth of his wife (who inherited it from a dead husband) he was the definition of wealth and born with a golden spoon in his mouth - and he failed.
George Bush didn't want to be president. He was not interested in public adoration nor fawning and preening as were Gore and Kerry. This is the odd part about Democrats - as a group they tend to hold in disdain the kiss-ass types, the odd ball who is just not clever enough to catch on to the joke, the guy who doesn't fit in because they are the cool group who smoke and get high - well that guy was Kerry and Gore. Yet, for political purposes they suck up and embrace the two biggest losers their party have put forward.
We are a bit scizophrenic when it comes to selecting a president or a leader of any type. We want someone capable, but not too nerdy. We want someone charismatic and brigfht, but not too bright. George Bush was that guy. Yet they scoffed at his candidacy as he was a light-weight, an interloper, a loser. Yet, he is exactly the type the early leaders of this republic would have chosen - someone disinterested (he never wanted to be president), yet someone who could manage a business (he did that), and had some political experience (Governor of a large state), and was bright enough to know he didn't know everything and would hire people who were qualified (and he did that). He really is their ideal - if not in policy. Obama is busy agitating, not uniting. Obama is out of his ... well, he has been out of his league for nearly two years.
Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
Washington Examiner
June 8, 2010
In mid-February 2008, fresh from winning a bunch of Super Tuesday primaries, Barack Obama granted an interview to "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft. "When you sit down and you look at [your] resume," Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review."
"Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said.
Seven months later, after receiving the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama talked with CNN's Anderson Cooper. At the time, the news was dominated by Hurricane Gustav, which was headed toward New Orleans and threatening to become a Katrina-like disaster. "Some of your Republican critics have said you don't have the experience to handle a situation like this," Cooper said to Obama. "They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience. ..."
"Governor Palin's town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees," Obama answered. "We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years."
Obama ignored Palin's experience as governor of Alaska, which was considerably bigger than the Obama campaign. But his point was clear: If you're worried about my lack of my executive experience, look at my campaign. Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will.
Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. "At least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response," the New York Times reports, "making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes."
For example, it took the Department of Homeland Security more than a week to classify the spill as an event calling for the highest level of federal action. And when state officials in Louisiana tried over and over to win federal permission to build sand barriers to protect fragile coastal wetlands from the oil, they got nowhere. "For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore," the Times reports, "officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach."
The bureaucracy wasn't bending to anyone's will. The direction from the top was not clear. And accountability? So far, the only head that has rolled during the Gulf crisis has been that of Minerals Management Service chief Elizabeth Birnbaum. But during a May 27 news conference, Obama admitted he didn't even know whether she had resigned or been fired. "I found out about it this morning, so I don't yet know the circumstances," the president said. "And [Interior Secretary] Ken Salazar's been in testimony on the Hill." Obama's answer revealed that he hadn't fired Birnbaum, and he couldn't reach a member of his Cabinet who was a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Given all that, perhaps candidates in future presidential races will think twice before arguing that running their campaign counts as executive experience.
A few days before Obama won the White House, Bill Clinton joined him for a late-night rally in Kissimmee, Fla. Clinton, who became president after 12 years as a governor, told the crowd not to worry about Obama's lack of executive background. Given the brilliance of Obama's campaign, Clinton said -- and here the former president uncharacteristically mangled his words a bit -- a President Obama would be "the chief executor of good intentions as president."
Chief executor of good intentions? Perhaps that's what Obama is now. But with oil gushing into the Gulf, that's just not good enough.
obama
Then they ran Al Gore, who from age 2 wanted to be president and with his father's backing, support, and money he tried very hard to be president - and he failed. Then they ran John F. Kerry (JFK) and he too wanted to be president from the time he was 8, and with his family fortune (exceeding that of every Bushie combined) and then the wealth of his wife (who inherited it from a dead husband) he was the definition of wealth and born with a golden spoon in his mouth - and he failed.
George Bush didn't want to be president. He was not interested in public adoration nor fawning and preening as were Gore and Kerry. This is the odd part about Democrats - as a group they tend to hold in disdain the kiss-ass types, the odd ball who is just not clever enough to catch on to the joke, the guy who doesn't fit in because they are the cool group who smoke and get high - well that guy was Kerry and Gore. Yet, for political purposes they suck up and embrace the two biggest losers their party have put forward.
We are a bit scizophrenic when it comes to selecting a president or a leader of any type. We want someone capable, but not too nerdy. We want someone charismatic and brigfht, but not too bright. George Bush was that guy. Yet they scoffed at his candidacy as he was a light-weight, an interloper, a loser. Yet, he is exactly the type the early leaders of this republic would have chosen - someone disinterested (he never wanted to be president), yet someone who could manage a business (he did that), and had some political experience (Governor of a large state), and was bright enough to know he didn't know everything and would hire people who were qualified (and he did that). He really is their ideal - if not in policy. Obama is busy agitating, not uniting. Obama is out of his ... well, he has been out of his league for nearly two years.
Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
Washington Examiner
June 8, 2010
In mid-February 2008, fresh from winning a bunch of Super Tuesday primaries, Barack Obama granted an interview to "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft. "When you sit down and you look at [your] resume," Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review."
"Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said.
Seven months later, after receiving the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama talked with CNN's Anderson Cooper. At the time, the news was dominated by Hurricane Gustav, which was headed toward New Orleans and threatening to become a Katrina-like disaster. "Some of your Republican critics have said you don't have the experience to handle a situation like this," Cooper said to Obama. "They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience. ..."
"Governor Palin's town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees," Obama answered. "We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years."
Obama ignored Palin's experience as governor of Alaska, which was considerably bigger than the Obama campaign. But his point was clear: If you're worried about my lack of my executive experience, look at my campaign. Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will.
Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. "At least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response," the New York Times reports, "making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes."
For example, it took the Department of Homeland Security more than a week to classify the spill as an event calling for the highest level of federal action. And when state officials in Louisiana tried over and over to win federal permission to build sand barriers to protect fragile coastal wetlands from the oil, they got nowhere. "For three weeks, as the giant slick crept closer to shore," the Times reports, "officials from the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency debated the best approach."
The bureaucracy wasn't bending to anyone's will. The direction from the top was not clear. And accountability? So far, the only head that has rolled during the Gulf crisis has been that of Minerals Management Service chief Elizabeth Birnbaum. But during a May 27 news conference, Obama admitted he didn't even know whether she had resigned or been fired. "I found out about it this morning, so I don't yet know the circumstances," the president said. "And [Interior Secretary] Ken Salazar's been in testimony on the Hill." Obama's answer revealed that he hadn't fired Birnbaum, and he couldn't reach a member of his Cabinet who was a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Given all that, perhaps candidates in future presidential races will think twice before arguing that running their campaign counts as executive experience.
A few days before Obama won the White House, Bill Clinton joined him for a late-night rally in Kissimmee, Fla. Clinton, who became president after 12 years as a governor, told the crowd not to worry about Obama's lack of executive background. Given the brilliance of Obama's campaign, Clinton said -- and here the former president uncharacteristically mangled his words a bit -- a President Obama would be "the chief executor of good intentions as president."
Chief executor of good intentions? Perhaps that's what Obama is now. But with oil gushing into the Gulf, that's just not good enough.
obama
Obama: Not your friend BP / Britain?
I just have to remember that European love-fest Mr. Obama went on prior to the election. The crowds, the media, they fawned all over him, drooling like cows chewing their cud. They have lost that glaze and now wonder what the heck happened.
America's ALWAYS tried to do down Britain
By Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Last updated at 10:40 AM on 11th June 2010
The Daily Mail
Has the worm turned at last? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama's lips. His rabid denunciations of BP have damaged the interests not only of that company but of most British people, in a way that must make us wonder whether he leads a friendly country.
Vince Cable, the new Business Secretary, calls Obama's rhetoric 'extreme and unhelpful'; London mayor Boris Johnson says it's 'anti-British', adding that 'BP is paying a very, very heavy price indeed'.
Bemusingly, David Cameron says only that he understands the U.S. administration's 'frustration', although he promises to take up the matter with Obama, after the Prime Minister returns from Afghanistan - where British troops are fighting and dying on behalf of the United States, it may be recalled.
'Extreme and unhelpful' is no exaggeration. Obama has played to the gallery by saying that he would like to sack Tony Hayward, head of BP; the president talks in a cheap way about 'kicking ass'. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.
As BP's share price has plummeted, it has lost £55billion of its market value, and the company's entire outlook is very bleak, which affects most of us. Every British insurance company, building society and pension fund has large holdings of BP shares in its portfolio.
If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It's a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.
His rhetoric is repellently hypocritical as well as demagogic. Quite apart from the fact that Hayward and his colleagues have every interest in plugging the spill, for years past BP has filled Washington's coffers with tax revenue, and fed the American people's unquenchable thirst for cheap petrol.
When Obama continually refers to BP as 'British Petroleum', which is no longer its formal name, he is saying something revealing about himself, and his Anglophobic spite will come as no surprise to those who have followed his career, and read his memoir Dreams From my Father.
He seems to have made up the part about his father being tortured by the British in Kenya, but there's no question that Obama nurses a disdain for and even dislike of this country.
Instead of reciprocating his feelings, we should maybe take the opportunity to look harder at our connection with the United States, and at that ridiculous phrase 'special relationship'. On the whole Englishmen have used the phrase much more than Americans, although one exception was the affable if inept Senator John McCain.
A few years before he was defeated for the presidency by Obama, he visited England, and was interviewed. 'The special relationship between our two countries will endure throughout the 21st century,' McCain said. 'I say that with total confidence because it's lasted for 200 years.'
It has what? The senator's '200 years' would take us back to the beginning of the 19th century, or let's say to 1812. What was special about the relationship that year was that the two countries were at war.
Shortly after he had taken us into the appalling Iraq war, by way of telling a pack of porkies with Alastair Campbell's sordid help, Tony Blair visited Washington to be greeted by President Bush - 'Thank you, friend' - and cheered to the echo by Congress for services rendered. In his smarmy speech, Blair mentioned the burning of Washington by the British in 1814 and obsequiously said: 'I know it's kinda late, but sorry.'
Had he known more history, he might have been aware that this was only one episode in a very fraught story. For most of the 19th century a large part of the British Army had to be stationed in Canada to protect it from its southern neighbour, and at one point Sir Robert Peel warned Parliament about the grave danger of a war with the United States.
In 1895 the two countries nearly went to war again over an incomprehensible border dispute in South America, and bloodshed was avoided only by the forbearance of Lord Salisbury, the prime minister.
A certain kind of fawning Tory likes to talk about the way the Americans have generously rescued us in the past century. This is historical claptrap. When the Great War began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson worried that he might need to intervene - on the German side.
In 1917, the United States did at last enter the war, after the British had suffered hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Even then the Americans sustained very few casualties by European standards, as they did in the next war.
This time they waited from September 1939 until December 1941, and then they went to war only because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the United States (not the other way round). And before that, the supposedly generous Lend-Lease agreement had stripped us of overseas assets and destroyed the British exporting economy for decades to come.
Any idea of a special relationship should have been ended in 1956 when Washington pulled the rug from under the British and French when their troops had gone to Suez. That didn't stop President Johnson from subsequently demanding British troops to serve in Vietnam. Mercifully, Harold Wilson, in his one good deed as prime minister, politely declined.
Since then we have been taken into another terrible war in which we had no reason to fight by Tony Blair, who throughout his career assiduously served the interests of another country. Our rewards from Washington have ranged from a tariff likely to destroy what's left of the British steel industry, to studied American neutrality over the Falklands, to Obama's grandstanding attacks on BP.
A year ago Gordon Brown visited Washington to be publicly humiliated by Obama (remember the exchange of gifts: thoughtful presents for the president and his children, trashy DVDs and toys for the Browns in return).
If a dark cloud of oil can now have a silver lining, then it might at least lead us to reassess our ignoble relationship with Washington. If the American president is going to ignore or even damage British interests, then let him.
But might not our own government stand up for those interests? For a start, some of the money we've all lost through the BP debacle, and presidential venom, could at least be recouped by bringing our troops home from a hopeless American war in Afghanistan.
obama
America's ALWAYS tried to do down Britain
By Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Last updated at 10:40 AM on 11th June 2010
The Daily Mail
Has the worm turned at last? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama's lips. His rabid denunciations of BP have damaged the interests not only of that company but of most British people, in a way that must make us wonder whether he leads a friendly country.
Vince Cable, the new Business Secretary, calls Obama's rhetoric 'extreme and unhelpful'; London mayor Boris Johnson says it's 'anti-British', adding that 'BP is paying a very, very heavy price indeed'.
Bemusingly, David Cameron says only that he understands the U.S. administration's 'frustration', although he promises to take up the matter with Obama, after the Prime Minister returns from Afghanistan - where British troops are fighting and dying on behalf of the United States, it may be recalled.
'Extreme and unhelpful' is no exaggeration. Obama has played to the gallery by saying that he would like to sack Tony Hayward, head of BP; the president talks in a cheap way about 'kicking ass'. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.
As BP's share price has plummeted, it has lost £55billion of its market value, and the company's entire outlook is very bleak, which affects most of us. Every British insurance company, building society and pension fund has large holdings of BP shares in its portfolio.
If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It's a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.
His rhetoric is repellently hypocritical as well as demagogic. Quite apart from the fact that Hayward and his colleagues have every interest in plugging the spill, for years past BP has filled Washington's coffers with tax revenue, and fed the American people's unquenchable thirst for cheap petrol.
When Obama continually refers to BP as 'British Petroleum', which is no longer its formal name, he is saying something revealing about himself, and his Anglophobic spite will come as no surprise to those who have followed his career, and read his memoir Dreams From my Father.
He seems to have made up the part about his father being tortured by the British in Kenya, but there's no question that Obama nurses a disdain for and even dislike of this country.
Instead of reciprocating his feelings, we should maybe take the opportunity to look harder at our connection with the United States, and at that ridiculous phrase 'special relationship'. On the whole Englishmen have used the phrase much more than Americans, although one exception was the affable if inept Senator John McCain.
A few years before he was defeated for the presidency by Obama, he visited England, and was interviewed. 'The special relationship between our two countries will endure throughout the 21st century,' McCain said. 'I say that with total confidence because it's lasted for 200 years.'
It has what? The senator's '200 years' would take us back to the beginning of the 19th century, or let's say to 1812. What was special about the relationship that year was that the two countries were at war.
Shortly after he had taken us into the appalling Iraq war, by way of telling a pack of porkies with Alastair Campbell's sordid help, Tony Blair visited Washington to be greeted by President Bush - 'Thank you, friend' - and cheered to the echo by Congress for services rendered. In his smarmy speech, Blair mentioned the burning of Washington by the British in 1814 and obsequiously said: 'I know it's kinda late, but sorry.'
Had he known more history, he might have been aware that this was only one episode in a very fraught story. For most of the 19th century a large part of the British Army had to be stationed in Canada to protect it from its southern neighbour, and at one point Sir Robert Peel warned Parliament about the grave danger of a war with the United States.
In 1895 the two countries nearly went to war again over an incomprehensible border dispute in South America, and bloodshed was avoided only by the forbearance of Lord Salisbury, the prime minister.
A certain kind of fawning Tory likes to talk about the way the Americans have generously rescued us in the past century. This is historical claptrap. When the Great War began in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson worried that he might need to intervene - on the German side.
In 1917, the United States did at last enter the war, after the British had suffered hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Even then the Americans sustained very few casualties by European standards, as they did in the next war.
This time they waited from September 1939 until December 1941, and then they went to war only because the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the United States (not the other way round). And before that, the supposedly generous Lend-Lease agreement had stripped us of overseas assets and destroyed the British exporting economy for decades to come.
Any idea of a special relationship should have been ended in 1956 when Washington pulled the rug from under the British and French when their troops had gone to Suez. That didn't stop President Johnson from subsequently demanding British troops to serve in Vietnam. Mercifully, Harold Wilson, in his one good deed as prime minister, politely declined.
Since then we have been taken into another terrible war in which we had no reason to fight by Tony Blair, who throughout his career assiduously served the interests of another country. Our rewards from Washington have ranged from a tariff likely to destroy what's left of the British steel industry, to studied American neutrality over the Falklands, to Obama's grandstanding attacks on BP.
A year ago Gordon Brown visited Washington to be publicly humiliated by Obama (remember the exchange of gifts: thoughtful presents for the president and his children, trashy DVDs and toys for the Browns in return).
If a dark cloud of oil can now have a silver lining, then it might at least lead us to reassess our ignoble relationship with Washington. If the American president is going to ignore or even damage British interests, then let him.
But might not our own government stand up for those interests? For a start, some of the money we've all lost through the BP debacle, and presidential venom, could at least be recouped by bringing our troops home from a hopeless American war in Afghanistan.
obama
Monday, June 7, 2010
Focus Test
Interesting Test:
Test your focus.
We all have many things to do, seemingly at the same time. How well we do any may relate to the results this quiz will give you.
The New York Times has a Test Your Focus. <-- click here to take the quiz. There are about 22 'questions'. Does not take long, just concentration!!
test
Test your focus.
We all have many things to do, seemingly at the same time. How well we do any may relate to the results this quiz will give you.
The New York Times has a Test Your Focus. <-- click here to take the quiz. There are about 22 'questions'. Does not take long, just concentration!!
test
Teen Sex - Worries about Pregnancy Waning
U.S. teens less worried about pregnancy: survey
Wed Jun 2, 2010 1:03pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American teenagers are using condoms more when they have sex but some may be losing their fear of pregnancy, according to a government survey released on Wednesday.
The survey on teen sex found that 95 percent of 15- to 19-year-olds who had ever had sex had used a condom at least once. But it also found that just 12 percent of boys who had avoided sex did so because they feared getting a girl pregnant.
"Attitude measures show that most teens are motivated to avoid a pregnancy," the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics reads.
But it showed those fears fading as attitudes change toward having children outside of marriage. Only 47 percent of unmarried teen males said they would be "very upset" if they got a partner pregnant, while 58 percent females would.
The NCHS researchers sat down in the homes of 2,767 teens across the United States to get detailed data on sexual behavior.
They found that 42 percent of 15- to 19-year-old girls had ever had sex and 43 percent of boys, which they said was not a significant change from 2002.
********************************
I have to wonder if perhaps there is another reason, not mentioned in this survey and perhaps intentionally not raised in the questioning.
sex
Wed Jun 2, 2010 1:03pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American teenagers are using condoms more when they have sex but some may be losing their fear of pregnancy, according to a government survey released on Wednesday.
The survey on teen sex found that 95 percent of 15- to 19-year-olds who had ever had sex had used a condom at least once. But it also found that just 12 percent of boys who had avoided sex did so because they feared getting a girl pregnant.
"Attitude measures show that most teens are motivated to avoid a pregnancy," the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics reads.
But it showed those fears fading as attitudes change toward having children outside of marriage. Only 47 percent of unmarried teen males said they would be "very upset" if they got a partner pregnant, while 58 percent females would.
The NCHS researchers sat down in the homes of 2,767 teens across the United States to get detailed data on sexual behavior.
They found that 42 percent of 15- to 19-year-old girls had ever had sex and 43 percent of boys, which they said was not a significant change from 2002.
********************************
I have to wonder if perhaps there is another reason, not mentioned in this survey and perhaps intentionally not raised in the questioning.
sex
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Obama and Our Debt Problem
U.S.'s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day
By Garfield Reynolds and Wes Goodman - Jun 4, 2010
President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.”
The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.
“Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.”
Gross, who runs the world’s largest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in his June outlook report that “the debt super cycle trend” suggests U.S. economic growth won’t be enough to support the borrowings “if real interest rates were ever to go up instead of down.”
Dan Fuss, who manages the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, which beat 94 percent of competitors the past year, said last week that he sold all of his Treasury bonds because of prospects interest rates will rise as the U.S. borrows unprecedented amounts. Obama is borrowing record amounts to fund spending programs to help the economy recover from its longest recession since the 1930s.
“The incremental borrower of funds in the U.S. capital markets is rapidly becoming the U.S. Treasury,” Boston-based Fuss said. “Do you really want to buy the debt of the biggest issuer?”
************************************
I want to cry.
debt
By Garfield Reynolds and Wes Goodman - Jun 4, 2010
President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.”
The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades.
“Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.”
Gross, who runs the world’s largest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in his June outlook report that “the debt super cycle trend” suggests U.S. economic growth won’t be enough to support the borrowings “if real interest rates were ever to go up instead of down.”
Dan Fuss, who manages the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, which beat 94 percent of competitors the past year, said last week that he sold all of his Treasury bonds because of prospects interest rates will rise as the U.S. borrows unprecedented amounts. Obama is borrowing record amounts to fund spending programs to help the economy recover from its longest recession since the 1930s.
“The incremental borrower of funds in the U.S. capital markets is rapidly becoming the U.S. Treasury,” Boston-based Fuss said. “Do you really want to buy the debt of the biggest issuer?”
************************************
I want to cry.
debt
The Sun is Awakening
"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."
- NASA
Interesting. Have to also consider other earth events which may be related, or have however distant a connection, to the awakening.
sun
- NASA
Interesting. Have to also consider other earth events which may be related, or have however distant a connection, to the awakening.
sun
We sit by and watch the Barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverences; his comic inversion of our certitudes and our fixed creed. We laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond; and on those faces there is no smile.
- Hilaire Belloc
we sit by and watch the Barbarian
- Hilaire Belloc
we sit by and watch the Barbarian
NJ Terror Suspects: Christian Fundamentalists? Nope. Islamic jihadists? Yep. Coincidence? I have no clue.
Feds Unseal Terror Charges Against 2 NJ Men
June 6, 2010 - 11:55 AM
by: Mike Levine
Federal authorities on Sunday unsealed charges against two New Jersey men arrested the night before, as they allegedly tried to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in war-torn Somalia and kill Americans there.
The men were inspired at least in part by Omar Hammami, the Alabama-born face of the Somali-based terrorist group, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born cleric now hiding in Yemen who has been linked to the Fort Hood shootings, the Christmas Day bombing attempt and the failed Times Square car bomb plot, according to federal prosecutors.
20-year-old Mohamed Mahmood Alessa of North Bergen, N.J., and 24-year-old Carlos Eduardo Almonte of Elmwood Park, N.J., have been charged with conspiring to kill or injure persons outside the United States.
They were taken into custody late Saturday night at JFK International Airport, as they attempted to board separate flights to Egypt on their way to Somalia, where the group al-Shabaab is battling the nation’s fledgling transitional government.
After the FBI received a tip in October 2006, an undercover officer with the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division recorded numerous meetings and conversations with Alessa and Almonte about their violent plans, according to court documents.
On Saturday night, a team of federal agents and local law enforcement were waiting for them at the airport, arrest warrants in hand. Meanwhile, Other federal agents raided the men’s New Jersey homes.
According to prosecutors, over the years Alessa and Almonte saved thousands of dollars, procured military gear and apparel for use overseas, and “physically conditioned” themselves, which included engaging in paintball and other tactical training. They also watched and shared recordings promoting violent jihad, including lectures by al-Awlaki and online videos featuring Hammami, who is now known as "Abu Mansour al-Amriki," prosecutors allege.
In late November 2009, Alessa was recorded as saying that if he and Almonte can’t kill targets overseas, then they’ll “start doing killing here” in the United States, according to court documents. He later said he would return to the “crap hole” of the United States if “the leader ordered me to come back here and do something,” court documents allege.
Speaking of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., last year, Alessa also discussed doing "twice what he did," according to court documents.
More recently, on April 25, Almonte allegedly said he was happy to hear rumors that Americans would soon be arriving in Somalia to help fight al-Shabaab. Almonte said killing more than Africans would be particularly gratifying, according to prosecutors.
A month earlier, a top State Department official, Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson, tried to quell rumors of further U.S. involvement, insisting that the United States would not offer any “direct support” to the Somali government. Instead, he told reporters at the time, the United States has been contributing "limited military support," without U.S. soldiers on the ground.
While law enforcement officials have recently said there is no intelligence to suggest al-Shabaab is actively plotting attacks inside the United States, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said such a strike was "a possibility in this case."
For more than a year, the FBI has been investigating how dozens of Americans from across the country were recruited to train and fight alongside al-Shabaab, which has pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden.
The New York Police Department has also “long been concerned” about Americans being radicalized inside the country, Kelly said. About a year ago, an NYPD intelligence officer met with experts on the ground in East Africa, trying to learn more about how al-Shabaab operates and recruits foreigners, according to one source.
In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.
Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. The transitional government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded the country.
Alessa and Almonte are expected to appear in court on Monday. If convicted, they each face up to life in prison.
**********************************************
I fully appreciate the fears many people had about Bush and the Patriot Act. Nearly every day or at least once a week, for the 7 or so years Bush was President. The bill was signed into law in October 2001 and Bush left office in January 2009 - I heard an incessant cry about the rights of Americans being taken away by the federal government (I won't mention how many more infringements have occurred against ALL Americans in the last 18 months but) ... the Patriot Act was intended, not for individuals like me or my neighbor - we could be involved in selling illegal birds or trading pogs. It was intended and used, with very few exceptions against people like those in this story. Several BORN in the US yet their parents are from Somalia or Yemen or Pakistan or ... and they preach anti-American hatred. We believe in free speech, and that is fine and great, but the hatred preached by these Imams is not equivalent to the hate spewed by Michael Moore ... this hatred goes to support, aide, and incitement to murder Americans .... This is what the law was intended to address, and quite honestly, taking the Imam to Court where he will argue free speech protections and be out again within a week doing the same thing, ultimately resulting in a 'deranged' male between 18-34 committing some act or murder ... more possible than not.
How do you combat that hatred? Until now, the argument has been - the marketplace of ideas. We let all the ideas and views get tossed out there and we combat bad ideas with good ideas. We show by our actions our willingness to be model citizens or better human beings. Odd then that the left in this country is now about regulating the blogosphere and internet, particularly concerning hate speech. For the left today, hate speech cannot be permitted in the marketplace of ideas, for that somehow doesn't work, rather it needs to be regulated - UNLIKE Islamic hate speech which needs to be protected.
In any event, the regulations, control, laws, privacy concerns have all quadrupled in the last 18 months, but Michael Moore is not to be heard from nor are any other leftist loons.
Islam
June 6, 2010 - 11:55 AM
by: Mike Levine
Federal authorities on Sunday unsealed charges against two New Jersey men arrested the night before, as they allegedly tried to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in war-torn Somalia and kill Americans there.
The men were inspired at least in part by Omar Hammami, the Alabama-born face of the Somali-based terrorist group, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born cleric now hiding in Yemen who has been linked to the Fort Hood shootings, the Christmas Day bombing attempt and the failed Times Square car bomb plot, according to federal prosecutors.
20-year-old Mohamed Mahmood Alessa of North Bergen, N.J., and 24-year-old Carlos Eduardo Almonte of Elmwood Park, N.J., have been charged with conspiring to kill or injure persons outside the United States.
They were taken into custody late Saturday night at JFK International Airport, as they attempted to board separate flights to Egypt on their way to Somalia, where the group al-Shabaab is battling the nation’s fledgling transitional government.
After the FBI received a tip in October 2006, an undercover officer with the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division recorded numerous meetings and conversations with Alessa and Almonte about their violent plans, according to court documents.
On Saturday night, a team of federal agents and local law enforcement were waiting for them at the airport, arrest warrants in hand. Meanwhile, Other federal agents raided the men’s New Jersey homes.
According to prosecutors, over the years Alessa and Almonte saved thousands of dollars, procured military gear and apparel for use overseas, and “physically conditioned” themselves, which included engaging in paintball and other tactical training. They also watched and shared recordings promoting violent jihad, including lectures by al-Awlaki and online videos featuring Hammami, who is now known as "Abu Mansour al-Amriki," prosecutors allege.
In late November 2009, Alessa was recorded as saying that if he and Almonte can’t kill targets overseas, then they’ll “start doing killing here” in the United States, according to court documents. He later said he would return to the “crap hole” of the United States if “the leader ordered me to come back here and do something,” court documents allege.
Speaking of U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., last year, Alessa also discussed doing "twice what he did," according to court documents.
More recently, on April 25, Almonte allegedly said he was happy to hear rumors that Americans would soon be arriving in Somalia to help fight al-Shabaab. Almonte said killing more than Africans would be particularly gratifying, according to prosecutors.
A month earlier, a top State Department official, Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson, tried to quell rumors of further U.S. involvement, insisting that the United States would not offer any “direct support” to the Somali government. Instead, he told reporters at the time, the United States has been contributing "limited military support," without U.S. soldiers on the ground.
While law enforcement officials have recently said there is no intelligence to suggest al-Shabaab is actively plotting attacks inside the United States, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said such a strike was "a possibility in this case."
For more than a year, the FBI has been investigating how dozens of Americans from across the country were recruited to train and fight alongside al-Shabaab, which has pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden.
The New York Police Department has also “long been concerned” about Americans being radicalized inside the country, Kelly said. About a year ago, an NYPD intelligence officer met with experts on the ground in East Africa, trying to learn more about how al-Shabaab operates and recruits foreigners, according to one source.
In October 2008, 27-year-old college student Shirwa Ahmed of Minneapolis became "the first known American suicide bomber" when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens, according to the FBI.
Somalia has had no stable government since 1991, when dictator Siad Barre was ousted from power. The transitional government has had trouble keeping Muslim militants at bay, and in 2006 fighting with al-Shabaab intensified after Western-backed Ethiopian forces invaded the country.
Alessa and Almonte are expected to appear in court on Monday. If convicted, they each face up to life in prison.
**********************************************
I fully appreciate the fears many people had about Bush and the Patriot Act. Nearly every day or at least once a week, for the 7 or so years Bush was President. The bill was signed into law in October 2001 and Bush left office in January 2009 - I heard an incessant cry about the rights of Americans being taken away by the federal government (I won't mention how many more infringements have occurred against ALL Americans in the last 18 months but) ... the Patriot Act was intended, not for individuals like me or my neighbor - we could be involved in selling illegal birds or trading pogs. It was intended and used, with very few exceptions against people like those in this story. Several BORN in the US yet their parents are from Somalia or Yemen or Pakistan or ... and they preach anti-American hatred. We believe in free speech, and that is fine and great, but the hatred preached by these Imams is not equivalent to the hate spewed by Michael Moore ... this hatred goes to support, aide, and incitement to murder Americans .... This is what the law was intended to address, and quite honestly, taking the Imam to Court where he will argue free speech protections and be out again within a week doing the same thing, ultimately resulting in a 'deranged' male between 18-34 committing some act or murder ... more possible than not.
How do you combat that hatred? Until now, the argument has been - the marketplace of ideas. We let all the ideas and views get tossed out there and we combat bad ideas with good ideas. We show by our actions our willingness to be model citizens or better human beings. Odd then that the left in this country is now about regulating the blogosphere and internet, particularly concerning hate speech. For the left today, hate speech cannot be permitted in the marketplace of ideas, for that somehow doesn't work, rather it needs to be regulated - UNLIKE Islamic hate speech which needs to be protected.
In any event, the regulations, control, laws, privacy concerns have all quadrupled in the last 18 months, but Michael Moore is not to be heard from nor are any other leftist loons.
Islam
Turkey: Full of Mentally Unstable Men?
Apparently so.
Pope: No Religious Motive in Bishop’s Death
June 4, 2010 - 12:04 PM
by: Greg Burke
Just hours after a Catholic bishop was killed in Turkey, the Vatican said it was the work of a mentally unstable man, and Pope Benedict also tried to downplay the incident on Friday.
Speaking to reporters on his way to a three-day trip to Cyprus, Benedict said while the circumstances of the killing are still not clear, it was not politically or religiously motivated.
“We should not blame it on Turkey or on the Turks,” the Pope told us as he came to the back of the plane at the start of the trip. “It’s clear that it’s not a political-religious assassination.”
Italian-born Bishop Luigi Padovese was stabbed to death early Thursday afternoon at his home in Iskenderun, Turkey, near the Syrian border. Shortly afterwards, authorities arrested his driver, and said the man had recently been suffering from depression and mental instability.
“We’re still waiting for a full explanation, but we don’t want to mix up this tragedy with Islam,” Benedict said. “It’s a separate case that saddens us but shouldn’t be allowed to cast a shadow over the dialogue.”
Another Italian priest, Father Andrea Santoro, was killed in Turkey in 2006, and the man arrested in that case was also described as mentally unstable.
Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, and while the country hopes to join the European Union, critics point to a lack of religious freedom in the nation.
The timing of Padovese’s killing was significant, as the bishop was scheduled to travel to Cyprus for Pope Benedict’s visit this weekend.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the country in 1974. The Turks currently holds nearly 40 percent of the island. Benedict will not visit the Turkish side of the island but will spend the night at the Vatican embassy, which sits right on the dividing line.
On his first day, Benedict was greeted warmly by both Catholics and Orthodox, but quickly saw how tense the situation on the small island is, as a Cypriot Orthodox bishop told him that Turkey was trying to take over the entire nation.
“It has turned the Orthodox Christians of Cyprus out of their ancestral homes, where they had lived for centuries,” said His Beatitude Chyrsostomos II at an outdoor ceremony in Paphos. “They want to make everything Greek and Christian disappear from occupied Cyprus.”
Let me think about this for a moment. According to the Church, the Pope, il papa himself - the One sanctified by God to carry His word, infallible ... said it was not something we can blame on Islam. So ends the story, if I believe in the infallibility of il papa - which I do, and I don't. Of the office and the man when seeking God's grace in truth and justice, but not when that man seeks a detente with Islam over truth.
Christendom loses when we ignore the tactics used by some who are a bit ... awkwardly and uncomfortably Muslim. What was the name of the man who shot Pope John Paul II? I can't recall. And neither can I recall where he was from. Of course, no connection.
Two Bishops and a Pope - two murdered and one seriously wounded, by three deranged Muslim males. Of course that is possible. So let us check England, France, the US, Germany, Russia - and see if we can find 3 Islamic religious figures murdered or seriously, and all 3 must occur in the same country. ??? A hint: the answer has fewer letters than the hoped for (by some) answer. NO. What about the flotilla brigade - the Turkish contingent onboard, singing death to Jews and a hoped for martyrdom. Are they also deranged? No says their Prime Minister, just the guy who killed the Bishop, and the Pope goes along with the charade.
If we are very quiet and pay attention we can hear the warnings.
Turkey
Pope: No Religious Motive in Bishop’s Death
June 4, 2010 - 12:04 PM
by: Greg Burke
Just hours after a Catholic bishop was killed in Turkey, the Vatican said it was the work of a mentally unstable man, and Pope Benedict also tried to downplay the incident on Friday.
Speaking to reporters on his way to a three-day trip to Cyprus, Benedict said while the circumstances of the killing are still not clear, it was not politically or religiously motivated.
“We should not blame it on Turkey or on the Turks,” the Pope told us as he came to the back of the plane at the start of the trip. “It’s clear that it’s not a political-religious assassination.”
Italian-born Bishop Luigi Padovese was stabbed to death early Thursday afternoon at his home in Iskenderun, Turkey, near the Syrian border. Shortly afterwards, authorities arrested his driver, and said the man had recently been suffering from depression and mental instability.
“We’re still waiting for a full explanation, but we don’t want to mix up this tragedy with Islam,” Benedict said. “It’s a separate case that saddens us but shouldn’t be allowed to cast a shadow over the dialogue.”
Another Italian priest, Father Andrea Santoro, was killed in Turkey in 2006, and the man arrested in that case was also described as mentally unstable.
Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, and while the country hopes to join the European Union, critics point to a lack of religious freedom in the nation.
The timing of Padovese’s killing was significant, as the bishop was scheduled to travel to Cyprus for Pope Benedict’s visit this weekend.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the country in 1974. The Turks currently holds nearly 40 percent of the island. Benedict will not visit the Turkish side of the island but will spend the night at the Vatican embassy, which sits right on the dividing line.
On his first day, Benedict was greeted warmly by both Catholics and Orthodox, but quickly saw how tense the situation on the small island is, as a Cypriot Orthodox bishop told him that Turkey was trying to take over the entire nation.
“It has turned the Orthodox Christians of Cyprus out of their ancestral homes, where they had lived for centuries,” said His Beatitude Chyrsostomos II at an outdoor ceremony in Paphos. “They want to make everything Greek and Christian disappear from occupied Cyprus.”
Let me think about this for a moment. According to the Church, the Pope, il papa himself - the One sanctified by God to carry His word, infallible ... said it was not something we can blame on Islam. So ends the story, if I believe in the infallibility of il papa - which I do, and I don't. Of the office and the man when seeking God's grace in truth and justice, but not when that man seeks a detente with Islam over truth.
Christendom loses when we ignore the tactics used by some who are a bit ... awkwardly and uncomfortably Muslim. What was the name of the man who shot Pope John Paul II? I can't recall. And neither can I recall where he was from. Of course, no connection.
Two Bishops and a Pope - two murdered and one seriously wounded, by three deranged Muslim males. Of course that is possible. So let us check England, France, the US, Germany, Russia - and see if we can find 3 Islamic religious figures murdered or seriously, and all 3 must occur in the same country. ??? A hint: the answer has fewer letters than the hoped for (by some) answer. NO. What about the flotilla brigade - the Turkish contingent onboard, singing death to Jews and a hoped for martyrdom. Are they also deranged? No says their Prime Minister, just the guy who killed the Bishop, and the Pope goes along with the charade.
If we are very quiet and pay attention we can hear the warnings.
Turkey
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