Obama's Further Confusion

Bush had a policy.  Many people did not agree.  Still others hated it, but he did have a policy.  Obama is all over the page, which does not say he takes action based upon logic and reason - nor what is US interest, rather whatever he conjures up at the moment.

No one is driving the ship of state.  Obama is thinking about his next vacation or golf game, his Secretary of State has already decided she is leaving (and has agreed to wait a short time before it is announced.  I would question this strategy if I were either party - if the other goes first, the later will look like they are being fired and Hillary, you do not want to look like you were fired).  So who to put into that office?   How about someone who loathes Hillary and Bill.  What a statement that would make.  A woman I have referenced in the past as an inspiration of sorts, for me (and yet one I now recognize as seriously under-equipped to deal with international events).






Samantha Power to be the next Secretary of State?


Irish-born adviser now key to Obama foreign policy



CATHY HAYES
IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
Saturday, April 2, 2011, 7:21 AM


A flattering New York Times profile has increased speculation that Samantha Power, the Dublin-born aide to President Obama, could be his next Secretary of State or National Security Adviser.

She has been the main architect, along with Hillary Clinton, of the Libya policy and has an increasing influence in the White House inner circle.

No Irish-born person in recent history has had such influence on a president. Power, now 40, moved to the US from Ireland at age 10.

With Hillary Clinton due to step down after Obama’s first term, she would be a live candidate to succeed her if Obama wins re-election.

The Times reported that on Monday night last, Samantha Power took to the podium at Columbia University in New York two hours before President Obama was due to address the nation on Libya and received a rock star reception.



Power, who is one of Obama’s key advisers on foreign policy, insisted that Libya was not going to be the main topic of conversation.

“I’m not going to talk much about Libya,” she said, as quoted in The Times.

However, when later questioned she defended the administration’s decision in establishing a no-fly zone, adding failure to do so would have been “extremely chilling, deadly and indeed a stain on our collective conscience.”

Since she began her career working as a war correspondant in Bosnia at the tender age of 22, Power has believed that nations have a moral obligation to prevent genocide. She can bring life to these ideals from her position of the National Security Council.

“She is clearly the foremost voice for human rights within the White House,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times “and she has Obama’s ear.”

Power won a Pulitzer Prize for her 2002 book on genocide, entitled “A Problem from Hell,” which examined the U.S. foreign policy response to genocide.

The book argues that the Armenia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia and Rwanda genocides occurred because of government authorities averted their eyes and individuals made the choice not to intervene.

“The most common response,” Ms. Power wrote, “is, ‘We didn’t know.’ This is not true.”

Some of her critics say that she could be pushing the U.S. into another Iraq. The conservative blog American Thinker says that Obama has “outsourced foreign policy” to the Dublin woman. She has also drawn the ire of the Israeli lobby for her pro-Palestinian positions.

Power attempts to keep a low profile after she described Hillary Rodham Clinton as "a monster" during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Her remarks saw her step down from her position as an advisor on Obama’s campaign. Since then, the women have reconciled.

Obama initially headhunted Power in 2005, after reading her book. After a long meeting, Power decided to take leave from her Harvard professorship to work for the then senator.

Despite her efforts to remain low key, the Dublin woman has an impressive artillery with two Ivy League degrees (Yale undergraduate, Harvard Law).

She once posed in an evening gown for Men’s Vogue and played a game of basketball with George Clooney. She has been described by the Daily Beast as “the femme fatale of the humanitarian assistance world.”





 

















obama is an idiot 

Obama and his Incoherent Foreign Policy

Again, an over educated twit does not a good president make.  For all his education, he is still incoherent in defining a policy and deciding upon a policy.  Talk about how grandiose Bush was ... Obama makes Bush look downright bi-partisan.

This magazine is not known for being conservative nor even centrist.  It is far more often labeled as left or far left ...



Togetherness in Libya




Barack Obama’s awfully big change in America’s use of force



Mar 31st 2011
The Economist


IT IS Pavlovian. As soon as a president does something new in foreign policy, the world wants to know whether he has invented a new “doctrine”. The short answer in the case of Libya is that Barack Obama has not invented a new doctrine so much as repudiated an old one. What he is also doing, however, is challenging an American habit of mind.

The doctrine Mr Obama has repudiated is the one attributed to Colin Powell, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and George W. Bush’s transparently miserable secretary of state when America invaded Iraq in 2003. That held, among other things, that America ought to go to war only when its vital interests are threatened, when the exit strategy is clear, and when it can apply overwhelming force to ensure that its aims are achieved. Nothing could be more different from the account Mr Obama gave Americans on March 28th of his reasons for using military force in Libya. He does not believe that America’s vital interests are at stake (though some “important” ones are); the exit strategy is not entirely clear (Colonel Qaddafi must go, but who knows when, and not as a direct result of American military action); and the force America is willing to apply (no boots on the ground) is strictly limited.

None of this should be a surprise. In “The Audacity of Hope”, the bestseller Mr Obama wrote as a senator in 2006, he set out a theory of military intervention. Like all sovereign nations, he argued, America has the unilateral right to defend itself from attack, and to take unilateral military action to eliminate an imminent threat. But beyond matters of clear self-defence, it would “almost always” be in its interest to use force multilaterally. This would not mean giving the UN Security Council a veto over its actions, or rounding up Britain and Togo and doing as it pleased. It would mean following the example of the first President Bush in the first Gulf war—“engaging in the hard diplomatic work of obtaining most of the world’s support for our actions”.

The virtue of such an approach was that America had much to gain in a world that lived by rules. By upholding such rules itself, it could encourage others to do so too. A multilateral approach would also lighten America’s burden at times of war. This might be “a bit of an illusion”, given the modest power of most American allies. But in many future conflicts the military operation was likely to cost less than the aftermath: training police, switching the lights back on, building democracy and so forth.

The president, it now emerges, remembers exactly what he wrote. He hesitated about whether to act in Libya (just ask the French and British, who egged him on but came close to losing hope), but he was always clear about how. All the conditions he wished for in that book five years ago have come to pass. In this week’s speech he ticked them methodically off: “an international mandate for action, a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab countries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves. We also had the ability to stop Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground.” Under such circumstances, he said, for America to turn a blind eye to the fate of Benghazi would have been “a betrayal of who we are”.

Why does this theory of intervention, and the noble sentiment attached to it, fail to qualify as a “doctrine”? Because it is too elastic to provide a guide to future action. Would America “betray” itself by turning a blind eye to atrocities under different, less favourable, circumstances? So it seems. It has, after all, done so before, in Rwanda and Darfur—and Mr Obama appears to accept that it might have to do so again when, say, an alliance would be damaged, as in Bahrain, or the job is too hot to handle, as in Syria or Iran. Also unclear is whether an American interest must also be at stake before Mr Obama invokes the moral case for action. Conveniently (for the purpose of selling this particular war), the president detects a “strategic interest” in preventing Colonel Qaddafi from chilling the wider Arab spring, so nobody knows.

In fairness, elasticity is not a sin; and Mr Obama does not claim to have invented anything he calls a “doctrine”. The worst you can say about his approach is that it is merely commonsensical: decide the issues case-by-case while holding some idea of values and interests in mind. Many who say they want more consistency than this (typically by asking some variant of “What about Zimbabwe?”) do so not because they really believe that foreign policy can be run by an algorithm but in order to embarrass Mr Obama in any way they can. Prize chump in the case of Libya this past fortnight has been Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential hopeful who demanded consistency, called for intervention and turned on a dime the instant Mr Obama answered.

After you, Sarko

More significant, however, is that habit of mind. In Libya Mr Obama is challenging the assumption of global leadership America has taken for granted ever since the second world war. America has joined coalitions before, but never under a president quite so adamant that America is not in charge—even if the military burden-sharing is indeed a bit of an illusion.

Most Republicans and quite a few Democrats hate this. Mr Obama’s hope is that America’s low profile will make the war more palatable not only to the Muslim world but also to the economy-fixated voters at home who question whether America can still afford to play its traditional leadership role. What he may soon discover is that modesty extracts a price of its own. By sharing the leadership with others, he has made his policy hostage to the limited mandate (no use of force for regime change) imposed by the United Nations and the limited means of his allies in Europe and the Middle East. It may not be a doctrine, it should not be a surprise, but nobody can deny that it is a gamble.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
obama

Book Burning in Florida

More than ten dead, eighty wounded, tens of thousands of dollars destroyed, burned and used up shooting the cretins and or whatever otherwise needed to be done.

All because an idiot in Florida burns the koran to make a point.

Yet in Saudi Arabia, if you bring a Bible into that country, they will shred it - and do shred them regularly and NO ONE BURNS OR KILLS OR PROTESTS.

Al qaida have burned the Bible, desecrated it, stomped upon it - and NO ONE BURNED OR KILLED to protest.   Hamas took over a Christian church in Jerusalem, pretty much desecrated it with their holy relics, trash, feces and urine ... and NO ONE BURNED OR KILLED IN PROTEST.

We regularly hear from these angry people with signs and threats about our end and the rise of Islam - and we DO NOT BURN OR PROTEST OR KILL.

Yet they do.




Afghan riots over Quran-burning: 2 days, 20 dead




By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press
Apr 2, 7:41 pm ET



KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans rioted for a second day Saturday to protest the burning of a Quran in Florida, killing nine people in Kandahar and injuring more than 80 in a wave of violence that underscored rising anti-foreign sentiment after nearly a decade of war.

The desecration at a small U.S. church has outraged Muslims worldwide, and in Afghanistan it further strained ties with the West. On Friday, 11 people were killed, including seven foreign U.N. employees, in a protest in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The protests come at a critical juncture as the U.S.-led coalition gears up for an insurgent spring offensive and a summer withdrawal of some troops, and with Afghanistan's mercurial president increasingly questioning international motives and NATO's military strategy.

Two suicide attackers disguised as women blew themselves up and a third was gunned down Saturday when they used force to try to enter a NATO base on the outskirts of Kabul, NATO and Afghan police said. Earlier in the week, six U.S. soldiers died during an operation against insurgents in eastern Afghanistan near Pakistan, where the Taliban retain safe havens.

President Hamid Karzai expressed regret for the 20 protest deaths, but he also further stoked possible anti-foreign sentiment by again demanding that the United States and United Nations bring to justice the pastor of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, where the Quran was burned March 20. Many Afghans did not know about the Quran-burning until Karzai condemned it four days after it happened.

The pastor, the Rev. Terry Jones, had threatened to destroy a copy of Islam's holy book last year but initially backed down. On Friday he said Islam and its followers were responsible for the killings.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended his condolences to the families of those killed by the protesters and said desecration of the Quran "is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry." But he said that does not justify attacking and killing innocent people, calling it "outrageous and an affront to human decency and dignity."

In the southern city of Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban, hundreds of Afghans holding copies of the Quran over their heads marched in protest of the burning. Security forces shot in the air to disperse the crowd, but it was unclear how the protesters were slain, said Zalmai Ayubi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The Kandahar governor's office said nine protesters were killed and 81 others were injured in the demonstration that turned into a riot. Seventeen people, including seven armed men, have been arrested, the statement said.

The protests began Friday in Kabul, Herat in western Afghanistan and Mazar-i-Sharif, where thousands flooded the streets.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghan demonstrators stormed a U.N. compound, shooting and killing four Nepalese guards, a Norwegian, a Romanian and a Swede. Afghan authorities suspect insurgents melded into the mob; they announced the arrest of more than 20 people, including a militant they suspect was the ringleader of the assault.

The top U.N. envoy in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, said the organization was temporarily redeploying 11 staff members from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul.

"This is not an evacuation, it is a temporary redeployment because the office is not functioning. We will be ready to go back as soon as we can establish an office that is secure enough," he told reporters.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, has some 1,500 staff — about 80 percent Afghans — operating in 18 regional and provincial offices across the country and in liaison offices in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

In late 2009, the U.N. sent about 600 foreign staff out of the country or into secure compounds after three gunmen stormed a Kabul guest house used by U.N. staff and killed 11 people, including five U.N. workers.

Karzai has in recent months increasingly criticized both the international community and U.S.-led foreign forces — the first for being ineffectual and unaccountable, the second for causing unnecessary civilian casualties in its campaign against insurgents.

Some Western diplomats privately say Karzai stoked some of the tension in recent days by making speeches about issues that had not gained much attention in the country, including the Quran burning.

De Mistura, however, said he drew no connection between the riots and Karzai's earlier condemnation of the Quran-burning. He said it takes "two to three weeks for information to percolate. It's not like in the West. Then it goes through the mosque and then through the Friday prayers."

"I don't think we should be blaming any Afghan. We should be blaming the person who produced the news — the one who burned the Quran," he said.

Although the Taliban are responsible for the vast majority of killings in Afghanistan, civilian casualties from coalition operations are a major source of strain in the country's relationship with the United States. The deaths tend to generate widespread outrage and Karzai has said they will no longer be tolerated.

The politicking could be part of an effort to reach out to the Taliban as Karzai tries to build bridges with the insurgents as part of a peace and reconciliation process. He and his advisers no longer refer to the Taliban as insurgents. They are often referred to as armed opposition groups.

The Taliban themselves have no such qualms and openly call for the overthrow of Karzai's government. Last week about 300 Taliban fighters overran the tiny capital of a remote mountainous district in northeast Nuristan province and raised their flag over city hall.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
afghan

Of Aliens and Reptiles - Government Secrets

Oh My God - they found out.  Thankfully they did not find out how we came to possess these peripheral nervous system instrument gauges.  At least for the moment that secret is still secret. 

I told them it was too risky trying it out on five public figures.  I told them and told them, but they refused to listen.  They just told me to not worry about it, that one of the subjects was old and no one would pay attention to her, one of them was a blonde and no one was listening to her anyway, the male television personality - he was different, and they directed a whole particle beam for 10 deliseconds more than is permissible under all guidelines.  The fifth subject - well, he is still out there, wailing away, but is such a loon no one has even considered he was subjected to an intense beam of alpha nomial particles, resulting in his insanity - after all, he goes around uttering the most inane and insane things - winning or losing he is truly a sad sack.  They took care of him, planting a suitcase of cocaine on him.  He thought it was his toiletries bag - not a bag full of cocaine.  Now no one pays attention to him.

Regardless of the selection of candidates - I am very happy no one has discovered the source of the code we have in use with our particle beam accelerators.  I mean, what would everyone think if they knew that Area 51 was real an d our technology came from an alien force living under Area 51 in Nevada.   What the general public doesn't know won't hurt them and if they did find out, we'd have to explain that we keep the aliens among us to protect us from the reptilian species living in the earth, who have for decades been taking humans and exchanging them with their reptilian brethren.  I am glad no one has put 2 and 2 together - after all, how else do you explain a dramatic increase in allergies.  The reptilian species are not used to our air and they are constantly sneezing and taking allergy pills.  The reptiles are taking human beings below for a food supply while exchanging the human with an exact replica that is a reptile.  Their goal - take over earth.  Our alien friends are assisting us in fighting off the reptiles.

Thank Xenu for small favors!





Are U.S. government microwave mind-control tests causing TV presenters' brains to melt down?



By Tom Leonard
2nd April 2011
Daily Mail



A bizarre spate of television presenters dissolving into on-air gibberish has sparked claims that the U.S. military could be to blame.

In four high-profile cases, the latest involving fast-talking Judge Judy, the presenters have started off speaking properly but have then descended into undecipherable nonsense - looking confused and unstable.

The frequency of the 'attacks' - and the fact that recorded examples of the mental meltdowns have been popular on websites - has led to conspiracy theorists pointing the finger at shadowy government experiments.

Latest victim: Judge Judy Sheindlin had to stop her courtroom TV show on Wednesday after descending into nonsensical language

A popular theory being circulated online blames the U.S. Military’s supposed research into using microwaves as a mind control weapon.

America has never admitted conducting such research but proponents say the effects - produced by microwave signals stimulating the brain with fake images and voices - exactly mimic those displayed in the recent on-air breakdowns.

As to why the Pentagon might be targeting U.S. television presenters, the microwave theorists are less clear.

The phenomenon, which has provided internet video sites with some of the oddest footage for months, has now claimed one of America’s most highly paid broadcasters.

Targeted? Serene Branson's garbled Grammys report became an internet sensation, while WISCTV's Sarah Carlson suffered a similar meltdown in January

Judith Sheindlin, the fast-talking judge on Judge Judy, was taken to hospital on Wednesday after she began speaking a nonsensical string of words during a live recording of her courtroom TV show.

Studio insiders said Sheindlin, who earns £28 million a year for a show that is the most watched programme on American daytime TV, was sitting on camera and 'started saying things that didn’t make any sense'.

Sheindlin then announced she needed to stop as she didn’t feel well and asked a crew member to call an ambulance.

The 68-year-old lawyer was released from hospital the following day but a spokesman said medical tests had not revealed what caused her garbled speech and double vision.

Over the border: Mark McAllister, of Canadian Global Toronto News, soldiered on with his report on Libya, despite his words being unintelligible

Her verbal breakdown is the fourth such recent case and the odd coincidence has prompted feverish speculation over the cause.

No video has been released of the Judge Judy incident but footage of the other three has rapidly gone viral on the internet.

The first victim was Serene Branson, a Los Angeles reporter for CBS, who delivered a completely incoherent piece to camera on the Grammy music awards last month.

The presenter was unable to get out her words and continued to struggle to speak for around 10 seconds outside the Staples Centre before producers cut to a video.

She said later: 'My head was definitely pounding and I was very uncomfortable, and I knew something wasn’t right. I was terrified and confused.'

'My head was definitely pounding and I was very uncomfortable, and I knew something wasn’t right. I was terrified and confused'

Her doctor later said she had suffered a complex migraine whose symptoms mimic a stroke.

Her case was followed by a Canadian news reporter whose report on his country’s contribution to the military campaign in Libya suddenly collapsed into gibberish.

Mark McAllister of Global Toronto News told viewers that the Canadian defence minister had confirmed that 'more than sifty four 18 fighter jets are spending about as much as 20 and ready to assist 600 hundred, hundred deployed over the an-amount needed'.

His piece-to-camera went on to become even more odd before he signed off.

His employers later confirmed there had been no problem with the autocue but McAllister had also suffered from a migraine.

In January, Sarah Carlson of WISC-TV in Wisconsin was also struck. She started out fine in her report on Wisconsin’s challenge to Barack Obama’s health care reforms, but it soon became apparent that she was having trouble forming words and the camera switched to a startled-looking co-presenter.

Unlike the others, Carlson, 35, has a history of seizures, but America’s army of conspiracy theorists are unconvinced by the medical explanations.









 
 
 
 
 
 
insane and stuopid people

The Sun - Making us Warmer or colder

Amazing isn't it - that the sun actually makes us hotter.  I know, blows your mind. 





SOLAR ACTIVITY:



A DOMINANT FACTOR IN CLIMATE DYNAMICS



Dr Theodor Landscheidt
Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity
Nova Scotia, Canada




1. “Solar Constant” Variations in the 11-Year Sunspot Cycle and Climatic Effects



Atmospheric circulation, the cause of weather, is driven by the sun’s energy. Climate is the integral of weather over periods of more than a year. This integral also depends on the flux of solar energy. The same applies to variations in the energy flux caused by the sun’s varying activity. Satellite data show that the “solar constant” S is variable. The solar irradiance decreased from the sunspot maximum 1979 to the minimum 1986, increased again on the way to the next maximum in the 11-year sunspot cycle, and decreased anew in the descending phase. This came as a surprise as it is plausible that the dark sunspots with their strong magnetic fields impede the free flux of energy from the sun’s interior to the outside. Yet P. V. Foukal and J. Lean [22] have shown that bright faculae in the vicinity of sunspots increase even more than sunspots when the activity grows stronger, so that an irradiance surplus is established.

IPCC scientists hold that the corresponding variation in the solar constant (Delta S) is smaller than 0.1% and has no impact on climate that could count in comparison with the greenhouse effect [94]. Yet they fail to appreciate that quotes of 0.1% in the literature refer to the absolute amplitude of the sinusoidal variation in the solar constant, not the whole change from minimum to maximum, or from maximum to minimum [25, 32, 39]. Figure 1 after C. Fröhlich [25] shows this distinctly. The data at the top of the figure, designated by `HF', represent NIMBUS-7 measurements. The smoothed curve shows the 81-day running average related to the interval of three solar rotations of 27days. The horizontal axis indicates the investigated period, above in years, below in days since the first day of 1980. The vertical axis measures the solar constant S in W/m2. The scale in the middle of Figure 1 indicates the range of 0.1%. When this scale is taken to measure the variation in the smoothed curve from the sunspot maximum 1979 to the minimum in 1986, the result is Delta S approximately equal to - 0.22%. IPCC scientists cannot object to this higher value on the grounds that it is not a common practice to assess the total variation in such a way. They proceed equally by relating the rise in global temperature to the minimum at the end of the 19th century and not to the long-term temperature mean.

According to satellite measurements, the mean value of the solar constant is S = 1367 W/m2. 0.22% of this amount of energy equals 3 W/m2 . This result may also be read from Figure 1. The maximum of the smoothed curve is at 1374.2 W/m2 and the minimum at 1371.2 W/m2 . The variation of 0.22% does not affect climate in its entirety. The solar constant defines the amount of energy which just reaches the outside of the earth’s atmosphere. 30% of this energy is not absorbed by the atmosphere, but reflected. Furthermore, it has to be taken into account that the irradiated sectional area of the earth constitutes only a quarter of the surface to which this thermal energy has to be distributed. So there is only 239 W/m2 available to heat the atmosphere. Consequently, the variation of 3 W/m2 has only a climate effect of 0.53 W/m2 . How this affects global temperature depends on the general circulation model used to assess the climate sensitivity. C. Fröhlich [25] proceeds from a value between 0.3° and 1.4° C / W/m2 . When we choose the mean value 0.85° C / W/m2 to avoid an overestimation, the climate effect of 0.53 W/m2 yields a temperature effect of 0.45° C. The chosen mean value lies within the range given in the literature [19, 31, 33, 82, 87, 89, 115]. Even if a four times longer smoothing interval is chosen as in Figure 1, the variation of the solar constant reaches 2.2 W/m2 [74] with a temperature effect of 0.33° C.

Variations in global temperature of 0.45° or 0.33° C in the course of seven years cannot be considered negligible. This all the more so as the observed rise of temperature during the last hundred years amounts to merely 0.4° C. From the value 0.5° C, quoted in the literature, 0.1°C has to be subtracted because it is due to urban warming that causes a spurious rise in global temperature [39]. Observed climate data, which follow the rhythm of the 11-year sunspot cycle, indicate that the effect of irradiance variations on the atmosphere is enhanced by positive feed-back processes or stochastic resonance. This form of resonance involves the cooperative interplay of random and periodic stimuli. Noise can improve the response to small periodic or quasiperiodic signals so that the small input is able to entrain large scale fluctuations [80, 116]. This effect is strongest in nonlinear systems with a high level of noise.

The atmosphere meets these conditions. K. Labitzke and H. van Loon [51] have discovered a statistically significant connection between temperature-dependent 30-hP heights in the stratosphere and extrema in the 11-year sunspot cycle, which involves the troposphere and is strongest in special geographical regions. It is an indication of feed-back or resonance amplification that the temperature difference in the stratosphere between minimum and maximum of the 11-year cycle reaches 1.8° C and in the troposphere still 0.9° C [50]. In the Subtropic troposphere this difference even amounts to 2° C [70]. Northern and Southern Hemisphere show such sunspot related temperature patterns in a mirror-symmetric way. The geographic distribution of the temperature effect corroborates the hypothesis that a modulation of Hadley cell circulation is involved [95]. Experiments with models have shown that winds in the lower stratosphere can have an impact on circulation in the troposphere [84]. Strong temperature variations following the course of the 11-year sunspot cycle were not only observed in recent decades. According to M. Stuiver, P. M. Grootes, and T. F. Braziunas [109] the GISP delta 18O climate record shows a close correlation with the 11-year sunspot cycle for hundreds of years. This data point to a regional temperature variation of 2.6° C following the sunspot rhythm.

(to read more click on the link at the top)




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
global warming

Greenhouse: A habitat covered in green

Ice cystals or water vapor ... say, like all the water vapor from the volcano in Iceland - if this scientist is even remotely close, the volcanic eruption did more to cause global warming then all the cars on earth (or almost).



Greenhouse theory smashed by biggest stone


Mar 14, 2006
Space & Earth



A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal "Science First Hand". The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

According to Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the apparent rise in average global temperature recorded by scientists over the last hundred years or so could be due to atmospheric changes that are not connected to human emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of natural gas and oil. Shaidurov explained how changes in the amount of ice crystals at high altitude could damage the layer of thin, high altitude clouds found in the mesosphere that reduce the amount of warming solar radiation reaching the earth's surface.

Shaidurov has used a detailed analysis of the mean temperature change by year for the last 140 years and explains that there was a slight decrease in temperature until the early twentieth century. This flies in the face of current global warming theories that blame a rise in temperature on rising carbon dioxide emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. Shaidurov, however, suggests that the rise, which began between 1906 and 1909, could have had a very different cause, which he believes was the massive Tunguska Event, which rocked a remote part of Siberia, northwest of Lake Baikal on the 30th June 1908.

The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth's atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused "considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure." Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.

Global warming is thought to be caused by the "greenhouse effect". Energy from the sun reaches the earth's surface and warms it, without the greenhouse effect most of this energy is then lost as the heat radiates back into space. However, the presence of so-called greenhouse gases at high altitude absorb much of this energy and then radiate a proportion back towards the earth's surface. Causing temperatures to rise.

Many natural gases and some of those released by conventional power stations, vehicle and aircraft exhausts act as greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, natural gas, or methane, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all potent greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide and methane are found naturally in the atmosphere, but it is the gradual rise in levels of these gases since the industrial revolution, and in particular the beginning of the twentieth century, that scientists have blamed for the gradual rise in recorded global temperature. Attempts to reverse global warming, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have centred on controlling and even reducing CO2 emissions.

However, the most potent greenhouse gas is water, explains Shaidurov and it is this compound on which his study focuses. According to Shaidurov, only small changes in the atmospheric levels of water, in the form of vapour and ice crystals can contribute to significant changes to the temperature of the earth's surface, which far outweighs the effects of carbon dioxide and other gases released by human activities. Just a rise of 1% of water vapour could raise the global average temperature of Earth's surface more then 4 degrees Celsius.

The role of water vapour in controlling our planet's temperature was hinted at almost 150 years ago by Irish scientist John Tyndall. Tyndall, who also provided an explanation as to why the sky is blue, explained the problem: "The strongest radiant heat absorber, is the most important gas controlling Earth's temperature. Without water vapour, he wrote, the Earth's surface would be 'held fast in the iron grip of frost'." Thin clouds at high altitude allow sunlight to reach the earth's surface, but reflect back radiated heat, acting as an insulating greenhouse layer.

Water vapour levels are even less within our control than CO2 levels. According to Andrew E. Dessler of the Texas A & M University writing in 'The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change', "Human activities do not control all greenhouse gases, however. The most powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour, he says, "Human activities have little direct control over its atmospheric abundance, which is controlled instead by the worldwide balance between evaporation from the oceans and precipitation."

As such, Shaidurov has concluded that only an enormous natural phenomenon, such as an asteroid or comet impact or airburst, could seriously disturb atmospheric water levels, destroying persistent so-called 'silver', or noctilucent, clouds composed of ice crystals in the high altitude mesosphere (50 to 85km). The Tunguska Event was just such an event, and coincides with the period of time during which global temperatures appear to have been rising the most steadily - the twentieth century. There are many hypothetical mechanisms of how this mesosphere catastrophe might have occurred, and future research is needed to provide a definitive answer.

Source: University of Leicester























global warming

Obama 2012 - so ominous a ring. Maybe the Mayans were right.

He may be trying to jump ahead of potential opponents within his own party, given one of them has every reason in the world to quit this week after looking quite 'foolish'.




Obama '12 launch likely next week


Glenn Thrush and Mike Allen
POLITICO
April 2, 2011 09:52 AM EDT




President Barack Obama plans to announce his reelection campaign early next week in an electronic message to grassroots supporters, Democratic sources tell POLITICO.

Obama launches with a recovering economy and a weak, fractured Republican field, but with chaos in the Middle East that adds unpredictability to an environment that points to likely reelection. Obama’s campaign, which could raise $1 billion or more, will be based in Chicago, just a few blocks from the headquarters of his historic 2008 race.

The most likely day for the campaign to file registration papers with the Federal Election Commission is Monday, but officials are not committing to a specific date in case some transcendent event in the world would overshadow the kickoff. Obama aides want to tell their supporters first, and so are not encouraging preview stories by the press.

The president’s announcement will be transmitted directly to supporters through text messages, email and social media, not with an appearance by Obama, the sources said.

The launch could come any time, according to the sources. The website is ready, the donation button has been tested, and call sheets to key political supporters are set.

David Axelrod, who returned to Chicago after serving as a White House senior adviser for the first two years, will once again be Obama’s strategic guru.

Obama campaign organizers have long planned to launch at the beginning of the second quarter so they can show a fundraising juggernaut in their first report to FEC. But they couldn’t pull the trigger on the first day of the quarter, April Fools’ Day, and then the next two days were weekend days. Obama is scheduled to raise money for the campaign in Chicago on April 14, and the campaign had to formally organize before that date.

Former West Wing staffer Jim Messina, Obama’s likely campaign manager, has been holding donor meetings around the country, and the president is scheduled to hold a series of fundraisers in New York and California over the next few weeks. The campaign expected to raise $750 million to $1 billion.

On Friday, White House press secretary Jay Carney teased reporters about the FEC filing, one of the worst kept secrets in Washington, inserting a breathless, dramatic pause into a typically monotone readout of Obama’s schedule for the next week.

“On Monday, the president will …” Carney said.

“File?” suggested Chip Reid, a CBS reporter.

“Wait for it, Chip,” added Carney, with a chuckle. “On Monday, the president will attend meetings at the White House.”

Last month, POLITICO reported that Obama aides were planning to announce creation of Obama’s reelection campaign in early April. On Friday, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Obama’s staff planned to file the reelection paperwork Monday.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
campaign

Obama and Immigration

Someone says the President said water was bad for you.  The someone was a bartender who has a serious drug problem and sold the story to a newspaper owned by Coca-Cola ... make sense.  Follow the interests / money.  However, if the source claims something that is not far off from what is standard officialese ... one should consider the possibility of accuracy.


EXCLUSIVE: Federal Agents Told to Reduce Border Arrests, Arizona Sheriff Says



By Jana Winter
AP
Published April 01, 2011
FoxNews.com

Nov. 1, 2010: Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, left, speaks about illegal immigration at an event in Arizona also attended by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce -- at times even stop -- arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever told FoxNews.com that a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol told him as recently as this month that the federal agency’s office on Arizona's southern border was under orders to keep apprehension numbers down during specific reporting time periods.

“The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back,” Dever said in an interview with FoxNews.com. “He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.”

Dever said his recent conversation with the Border Patrol supervisor was the latest in a series of communications on the subject that he has had with various federal agents over the last two years. Dever said he plans to relay the substance of these conversations when he testifies under oath next month before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“I will raise my hand to tell the truth and swear to God, and nothing is more serious or important than that,” he said. “I’m going to tell them that, here’s what I hear and see every day: I had conversation with agent A, B, C, D and this is what they told me.”

Dever’s charges were vigorously denied by a commander with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“The claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false,” Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command in Arizona, said in a written statement.

“I took an oath that I take very seriously, and I find it insulting that anyone, especially a fellow law enforcement officer, would imply that we would put the protection of the American public and security of our nation’s borders in danger just for a numbers game," he said. "Our mission does not waiver based on political climate, and it never will. To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.”

In recent days, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the U.S.-Mexican border is more secure than ever, and Homeland Security officials have used recent statistics to support those claims.

"There is a perception that the border is worse now than it ever has been," Napolitano said at the El Paso border crossing last week. "That is wrong. The border is better now than it ever has been."

Dever doesn’t agree.

“Janet Napolitano says the border is more secure than it’s ever been. I’ve been here for 60 years, and I’m telling you that’s not true,” he said.

The sheriff of Santa Cruz County, which borders Dever’s Cochise County to the west, said, “This is news to me,” when asked about reports that border agents were being told to turn illegal immigrants back to Mexico rather than arrest them.

“It comes as a complete surprise that that would be something that’s going around,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said. “I meet with Dever all the time and I have great respect for him, so I expect he’d come forward and say what he knows and give the source.

“Not knowing who the source is, how reliable that source is, I really don’t have much of a position,” Estrada said. “I’ve been around a real long time and haven’t heard anything like this. By the same token, you learn new things every day.”

Both sheriffs are elected officials. Dever is a Republican, Estrada, a Democrat.

Others have questioned the methodology and conclusions of the Homeland Security numbers showing the border is more secure.

Mark Hanna, CEO of Real Life Enterprises, a Phoenix-based technology integration and security company, has testified before the Arizona Senate about what he called Homeland Security’s flawed methodology used to compile border security statistics. Hanna maintains the numbers are dangerously misleading.

Hanna, who is currently working on a private/public partnership pilot program along the Arizona border, said he attended a February conference at which Michael Fisher, chief of the United States Border Patrol, and Mark S. Borkowski, assistant commissioner for technology and innovation acquisition, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, showed off charts indicating arrests were decreasing and argued the border was more secure. The charts also showed an increase in marijuana seizures along the border and an increase in Border Patrol agents.

But those charts left out crucial data, Hanna said.

“Since we don't know how many illegal crossings are occurring, then a decrease in apprehensions might mean that there are fewer illegal crossings, and the border is more secure. But it could also just as easily mean that more illegal border crossings are occurring, and we're just not catching as many. In order to know how secure the border is, you need to know how many are crossing and the threat level of those who are crossing illegally," he said.

“It is a very dangerous condition for the secretary of Homeland Security to be using incomplete data to form such a conclusion, and then repeatedly announce these conclusions as fact,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not return repeated requests for comment on Hanna’s specific challenges to the agency’s methodology.

Whatever the methodology, Dever said the numbers don’t accurately describe what’s happening on the ground.

“We do not know who’s crossing that border, but that anyone who wants to can. That’s the message our nation needs to hear, that anyone who wants to can, and is. And our own Department of Homeland Security does not have clear definition of what securing the border even means," Dever said.

“People are disgusted, the smiles are gone off their face, their general sense of welfare been taken away from them and until that’s returned you can throw all the numbers on the board. … I’ll tell Napolitano, in spite of all of your declarations and efforts to the contrary, things are not safe. No, they are not secure.

“You can use your numbers to say it’s more secure, but it does not define a sense of safety or well-being. You can say it’s more secure, but it’s more dangerous than ever.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
immigration

A Nation of Takers, Not Makers

No nation can survive when then have more citizens on one side of the ledger than the other - note all of Europe, now quickly dissolving economically.

A joke - that they would become a power economically.  NOT when the bulk of our stimulus money goes to prop them up!




We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers


 
More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined.
 
 
Wall Street Journal
April 1, 2011
By STEPHEN MOORE


If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.

Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things. The leaders in government hiring are Wyoming and New Mexico, which have hired more than six government workers for every manufacturing worker.

Now it is certainly true that many states have not typically been home to traditional manufacturing operations. Iowa and Nebraska are farm states, for example. But in those states, there are at least five times more government workers than farmers. West Virginia is the mining capital of the world, yet it has at least three times more government workers than miners. New York is the financial capital of the world—at least for now. That sector employs roughly 670,000 New Yorkers. That's less than half of the state's 1.48 million government employees.

Don't expect a reversal of this trend anytime soon. Surveys of college graduates are finding that more and more of our top minds want to work for the government. Why? Because in recent years only government agencies have been hiring, and because the offer of near lifetime security is highly valued in these times of economic turbulence. When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks, we have a real problem on our hands. Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The employment trends described here are explained in part by hugely beneficial productivity improvements in such traditional industries as farming, manufacturing, financial services and telecommunications. These produce far more output per worker than in the past. The typical farmer, for example, is today at least three times more productive than in 1950.

Where are the productivity gains in government? Consider a core function of state and local governments: schools. Over the period 1970-2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington. That is what economists call negative productivity.

But education is an industry where we measure performance backwards: We gauge school performance not by outputs, but by inputs. If quality falls, we say we didn't pay teachers enough or we need smaller class sizes or newer schools. If education had undergone the same productivity revolution that manufacturing has, we would have half as many educators, smaller school budgets, and higher graduation rates and test scores.

The same is true of almost all other government services. Mass transit spends more and more every year and yet a much smaller share of Americans use trains and buses today than in past decades. One way that private companies spur productivity is by firing underperforming employees and rewarding excellence. In government employment, tenure for teachers and near lifetime employment for other civil servants shields workers from this basic system of reward and punishment. It is a system that breeds mediocrity, which is what we've gotten.

Most reasonable steps to restrain public-sector employment costs are smothered by the unions. Study after study has shown that states and cities could shave 20% to 40% off the cost of many services—fire fighting, public transportation, garbage collection, administrative functions, even prison operations—through competitive contracting to private providers. But unions have blocked many of those efforts. Public employees maintain that they are underpaid relative to equally qualified private-sector workers, yet they are deathly afraid of competitive bidding for government services.

President Obama says we have to retool our economy to "win the future." The only way to do that is to grow the economy that makes things, not the sector that takes things.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
economy

Mexico's Continuing Political, Military, and Drug Problems

If Mexico cannot handle the problems created by the corruption and failure of its political system, then perhaps an American president will place US forces on the border, and perhaps secret into Mexico several teams, with one intention - removal of these cretins and their minions.  I am quite sure we can do it.



Cartels threaten to kill Texas Rangers, ICE agents



March 31, 2011 2:18 PM
Laura B. Martinez
The Brownsville Herald

BROWNSVILLE — A new law enforcement bulletin warns that members of drug cartels have been overheard plotting to kill federal agents and Texas Rangers who guard the border, officials in Washington reported Thursday.

The bulletin, which was issued in March, said cartel members planned to use AK-47 assault rifles to shoot agents and Rangers from across the border. It did not name the cartels.

The information was released at a hearing before a panel of the House Committee on Homeland Security. The Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management addressed “The U.S. Homeland Security Role in the Mexican War Against the Drug Cartels.”

U.S. Rep. Michael T. McCaul, R-Texas, talked briefly about the bulletin at the hearing. He said this and other findings he cited “are acts of terrorism as defined by law. The shooting of Special Agent Zapata and Avila is a game changer, which alters the landscape of United State’s involvement in Mexico’s war against drug cartels.”

He was referring to Jaime Jorge Zapata, 32, a Brownsville native and special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who was killed on Feb. 15 while on duty in Mexico. Injured in the same attack was Special Agent Victor Avila. Members of the Zetas criminal organization are suspected in the attack.

Tom Vinger, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Thursday in a statement: “DPS constantly keeps our officers and our law enforcement partners informed of any intelligence that suggests possible threats to their safety. However, we cannot comment on specific law enforcement bulletins.”

In a response to the threats, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said, “Out of an abundance of caution, we routinely share information that could impact our frontline personnel in order to ensure that they are aware of any and all threats.”

The news comes at time when ICE reportedly is having a difficult time recruiting agents willing to work in Mexico, said Luis Alvarez, assistant director for ICE International Affairs, who testified at the hearing.

Although cooperation with the Mexican government has been “excellent,” Alvarez said, “it is getting more and more difficult (to recruit) because of the increase in violence.”

“It is a difficult work environment. They are constantly looking out for their safety, their surroundings. ... They are concerned about their families from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep,” Alvarez said.

At the hearing, a picture of the vehicle in which Zapata and Avila were riding was displayed. McCaul described it as a “highly secure vehicle.” More than 80 rounds from AK-47 rifles were fired at the SUV.

“This demonstrates how violent the situation has become down there. … It looks like something out of a ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ movie. This is real, and that is what is happening in Mexico,” McCaul said.

In response to the attack, ICE has brought back its agents from Mexico for additional training, Alvarez said.

“We have provided them with some defensive driving tactics so they can carry out their mission and be prepared for whatever they are going to withstand down in Mexico,” he said.

McCaul said Zapata and Avila pleaded for their lives in Spanish and identified themselves as U.S. federal agents. The attackers responded by firing a barrage of bullets.

“I know agent Avila said that (there were) 10 guys with AK-47s,” McCaul said. “What can you do in that situation? Totally out-gunned and out-manned.”

The U.S. government has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of those responsible for the attack on Zapata and Avila. The Mexican government has offered a reward of up to 10 million pesos — equal to roughly $837,000.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
mexico

Illegal Votes: Let's count them again and again. Every election we should demand a recount, regardless of who wins, and we should have to vote twice and bring passport or birth certificate / citizenship papers when we do vote!

5,000 in Colorado they caught.  How man y they didn't ... maybe another 200 or 300.  How about California?



GOP says 5,000 non-citizens voting in Colorado a 'wake-up call' for states



By Debbie Siegelbaum - 03/31/11 01:23 PM ET
The Hill


Republicans on the House Administration Committee want to shore up voter registration rules in the wake of a Colorado study that found as many as 5,000 non-citizens in the state took part in last year’s election.

Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), the panel’s chairman, called the study “a disturbing wake-up call” that should cause every state to review its safeguards to prevent illegal voting.

“We simply cannot have an electoral system that allows thousands of non-citizens to violate the law and vote in our elections. We must do more to protect the integrity of our electoral processes,” Harper added.

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, told the panel that his department’s study identified nearly 12,000 people who were not citizens but were still registered to vote in Colorado.

Of those non-citizen registered voters, nearly 5,000 took part in the 2010 general election in which Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet narrowly defeated Republican John Buck.

Colorado conducted the study by comparing the state’s voter registration database with driver’s license records.

“We know we have a problem here. We don’t know the size of it,” Gessler said in testimony to Administration’s Elections subcommittee.

He told Harper that Colorado would look to create a registration system that would allow his department to ask that some people provide proof of their citizenship in writing.

If individuals did not respond to the request, their registration as voters would be suspended.

Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas) raised doubts about the reporting, noting that the study itself said it was based on inconclusive data and that it was “impossible to provide precise numbers” on how many people who were registered to vote in the state were not citizens.

Gonzalez asked Gessler, a former prosecutor, if he would have pursued a court case on such evidence.

Gessler responded that the goal of the study was to expose voter registration issues and pursue administrative avenues to resolve them.

“We don’t have a screen for citizenship on the front end when people register to vote,” he said.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
im migration

APPLE INC = Portuguese GDP

You know you are in trouble when APPLE is worth more than the combined GDP of your country.  But, Portugal would not be alone.

Greece, Greece, where are you.  Ireland, Ireland, I'm looking for you also.  Spain, Spain, you're next!





Portugal: A Bailout Is Just the Start



Portugal's slow growth over a long period presents a sticky set of problems



By Matthew Lynn and Joao Lima
Businessweek
March 31, 2011


Another day, another downgrade. On Tuesday, Mar. 29, Standard & Poor's (MHP) lowered Portugal's debt rating for the second time in less than a week to BBB-, the lowest investment grade. Portuguese bonds were hammered, with the yield on its 10-year debt at one point climbing to 8 percent, its highest level since at least 1997, when Bloomberg began collecting data. The small, struggling nation seemed to take a step closer to seeking an emergency bailout, as Greece and Ireland did last year.

The latest crisis was triggered by the Mar. 23 resignation of Prime Minister José Sócrates, after Parliament rejected his proposed austerity measures. The political uncertainty in Lisbon makes its economic future much more certain. "I regard the Portuguese bailout as a given," says Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "There's no way they're going to avoid it."

Portugal has about €9 billion ($12.7 billion) in debt coming due in the next three months, and analysts at Barclays Capital (BCS) estimate the government has no more than €5 billion in cash available. That's only enough to get the government past April, says Antonio Garcia Pascual, chief southern European economist at Barclays. Treasury and Finance Secretary Carlos Costa Pina says Portugal can meet its debt commitments for the year. Yet with hobbled leadership—Sócrates' government now has limited powers, and new elections aren't expected until May or June—the country will likely be unable to borrow money and is in a "suspended animation status," says Kirkegaard.

Euro zone members and the International Monetary Fund would have no problem footing the bill for a bailout. Portugal's gross domestic product of €162 billion is about 30 percent less than the market capitalization of Apple (AAPL). Even at the high-end estimate of €70 billion, a bailout would be manageable for France, Germany, and the others in the currency union, who have already pledged €177.5 billion to Greece and Ireland.

The road to health for Portugal, however, is less clear than the solutions for other troubled European countries. Greece's problems were massive but obvious: It misled the world about the state of its public finances, and many experts now say the country never should have been admitted into the euro zone in the first place. In Ireland, the bursting of a massive property bubble plunged the country into recession and its government into indebtedness.

The causes are less clear in the case of Portugal's crisis. It didn't fiddle with the figures as Greece did, and it didn't experience a financial runup along the lines of Ireland's. What it has experienced is grindingly slow growth. Portugal is the poorest of the original euro zone countries. Economists had expected it to grow fast and catch up with richer economies when the euro debuted in 1999. Yet unlike other European countries, Portugal did not experience a boom during the last decade. In fact, since 2000, Portugal's GDP has grown, on average, less than 1 percent a year, among the slowest rates in Europe. Unemployment is stuck at 11.1 percent, and the economy is expected to shrink 1.4 percent this year.

Portugal has "fundamental problems," according to a research note by Emilie Gay, Roger Bootle, and Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics. They cite the country's uncompetitive export sector, poor education standards, and high unemployment benefits as factors that "have held back the economy for the last 10 years." As part of the euro zone, the government could mask those problems by borrowing cheaply, throwing money at its massive public sector, and piling up debt. Those loans are coming due, and Gay, Bootle, and Loynes see the possibility of another "lost decade" unless the country makes deep reforms. It's also a warning as the euro zone considers extending membership to poorer countries along Europe's perimeter, such as Bulgaria and Romania.

As Portugal struggles to stay upright, many wonder whether it is the last in a line of dominoes, or about to tip over the next one. In a note to investors, Stephen Lewis, chief economist at London-based Monument Securities, says prolonged political uncertainty in Portugal has a silver living since "a quick bailout might have shifted [attention] on to the state of the euro zone's peripheral banks, including those in Spain." Kirkegaard says Spain could withstand the spotlight: It has already implemented deep austerity measures, aiming to slash last year's deficit of 9.2 percent to 6 percent this year, and on Mar. 17 sold bonds at a 5.16 percent interest rate, lower than it paid in December. This is "a Portuguese and Portuguese-only situation," says Kirkegaard. "Essentially, Spain has bailed itself out."

The bottom line: For more than a decade Portugal's economy has grown 1 percent a year. That cycle of slow growth may be hard to break.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
portugal

Golf: Not Necessarily Any More Sane than Soccer

Imagine soliciting for this tournament. 




Afghanistan's only golf course: Bring your clubs and AK-47




By Timothy Kenny, Contributor / June 24, 2010
Christian Science Monitor
Qargha, Afghanistan



After war, a time for golf.

There is nary a blade of grass at the Kabul Golf Club, just outside Afghanistan’s capital. The greens are not green; they are hard-packed brown sand, laced with oil and swept clean to keep the putting surface smooth. The fairways are rock-strewn and scrub-filled.

Ball finders – required, according to course rules – accompany golfers and their caddies, who carry a swatch of artificial turf and tee up each new shot. Without the ball finders to search in all the brush and undergrowth, a round of golf would likely be much shorter here at Afghanistan’s only course. Why? Because most golfers would give up before finishing.

Michael Alexander, a Londoner who has played his way across some of Britain’s best courses, notes that golf at the nine-hole Kabul Golf Club provides moments that playing at St. Andrews can’t.

“The Army checkpoint,” for example, he says. “The free [ball] drop at the Army checkpoint – that was the real difference with St. Andrews,” says Mr. Alexander, tongue in cheek.

A recent charity tournament here brought out 44 golfers, paying $100 each, for the privilege of playing the hard-scrabble course west of Kabul.

The tournament netted $4,000 last year for two local charities, said tournament director Richard Day, a Canadian working in Afghanistan since November 2006. This year’s outing, the third in three years, is expected to donate a like amount to two local nongovernmental groups, the Women of Project Hope and PARSA, which work to assist disadvantaged members of Afghan’s society such as the disabled, widowed, or orphaned.

Course founder and club pro, Mohammad Afzal Abdul, opened the course in 2004, after the Taliban first fled Afghanistan and a generation-long era of war had begun to fade. Security remains tight however during the tournament. Police toting AK-47s keep a watchful eye from nearby hilltops as two dozen or so armed men walk the course.

The future of golf in Afghanistan may appear uncertain over the near term, but not to Mr. Abdul. “I teach [every week] 100 to 110 boys, after-school students,” he said. “I want to teach everyone golf.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
golf

Soccer: Fans and the Sport. Strange.

A Severed Pig's Head, a Friend's Dead Body and Other Things Not to Bring to a Soccer Game


Mar 31, 2011 – 7:32 AM
Matthew Hall




You can add the dead guy at a pro game in Colombia last weekend to a list of crazy behavior by soccer fans at games.

In the now infamous story, fans in Colombia stole the body of a murdered friend from a funeral home and took his corpse to the stadium to cheer on their favorite team -- a whole new twist on Pro Zombie Soccer.

Christopher Jacome, 17, was shot and killed on Saturday while playing soccer in his local park. The following day, friends took his coffin and carried it into the 42,000-capacity General Santander Stadium in Cucuta for a match between Cucuta Deportivo and Envigado.

It is not known whether the corpse required a ticket to gain entry.

Jacome was a member of Cucuta Deportivo's hardcore group of supporters known as Barra Del Indio. The same group is believed to be responsible for stealing the coffin from the funeral parlor.

Spanish-language media reported that a funeral procession of 200 fans followed the coffin into the stadium, but local police have been unable to identify who stole the body from the funeral home.

The incident is believed to be the first time a dead body has made an appearance at a sports event, but a human corpse is not the only bizarre item brought into a soccer stadium.

Fans of FC Barcelona from Spain threw the head of a dead pig onto the field during a game against rivals Real Madrid in 2002. The Barcelona fans were protesting star player Luis Figo's earlier controversial trade to Madrid. He was bombarded with objects during the game: whiskey bottles, billiard balls and the pig's head.

In 2001, fans of Italian team Inter Milan somehow managed to smuggle an entire Vespa motor scooter into the 80,000-capacity Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan during an Italian league match.

The fans attempted to set the scooter on fire before throwing it from an upper tier of the stadium onto a section of seating below.

Barra Brava fan groups (roughly translated as "tough gang"), similar to the one Jacome was a member of, are widespread in South America. Argentina probably has the greatest number and best-organized Barra Brava in the world.

Some groups fight deadly "wars," not unlike rivalries in U.S. gang culture, and gang members have been revealed to be on the payroll of the teams they follow, paid in exchange for supporting the incumbent club president or board of directors.


















soccer

Obama and Libya: Now he is sending in US forces

Yesterday it was the revelation that the US was arming the opposition to Kaddafi.  Today, US forces are on the ground in Libya.  Whether it is 3 or 30 - US forces are on the ground in Libya, involved in an internal issue unrelated to our national interests or security.  And the authorization for this is?   The dictator of this sandbox has wmd nor does he want them.  He did not pay a hit team to try to assassinate a former president, he did not use biological weapons on his people ... he was a dictator - a common variety, of which most of the Middle East has an oversupply. 

The Libyans did not attack us, did not send killers in planes, did not fund terrorism, did not provide aid and comfort to terrorists who had attacked the US ... Kaddafi did NOTHING.    He wasn't even the worst member of OPEC.  Now we are pulled into something we must either push through and ensure Kaddafi is gone or it blowsback on us, and Europe, in a very unflattering manner.






Libya rebels glad and wary of U.S. support, defection


By Alexander Dziadosz and Angus MacSwan
Reuters
March 31, 2011

NEAR BREGA/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Rebels massed for a counter-attack against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in eastern Libya on Thursday, both encouraged by and wary of news of covert U.S. support and his foreign minister's defection.

"We are beginning to see the Gaddafi regime crumble," rebel spokesman Mustafa Gheriani said in the eastern town of Benghazi, while stopping short of welcoming fugitive foreign minister Moussa Koussa, a former spy chief, into the rebel fold.

Analysts agreed the defection of Koussa, who flew to London on Wednesday, was a blow to Gaddafi whose forces have gained ground in recent days. It did not, however, reduce the risk of greater government violence.

Despite almost two weeks of Western air strikes, Gaddafi's troops have used superior arms and tactics to push back rebels trying to edge westward along the coast from their eastern stronghold of Benghazi toward the capital Tripoli.

News that U.S. officials told Reuters that President Barack Obama had authorized covert operations in Libya raised the prospect of wider support for the rebels.

Experts assume special forces are on the ground "spotting" targets for air strikes. Public confirmation from Washington may indicate a willingness for greater involvement.

The rebels, whose main call is for weapons -- not authorized yet by Washington because of a U.N. arms embargo which NATO says it is enforcing -- said they knew nothing about Western troops in Libya and that too big a foreign role could be damaging.

"It would undermine our credibility," Gheriani said.

U.N. RESOLUTION

Obama's order is likely to further alarm countries already concerned that air strikes on infrastructure and ground troops by the United States, Britain and France go beyond a U.N. resolution with the expressed aim only of protecting civilians.

"I can't speak to any CIA activities but I will tell you that the president has been quite clear that in terms of the United States military there will be no boots on the ground," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.

The top Vatican official in the Libyan capital cited witnesses on Thursday saying at least 40 civilians had been killed in Western air strikes on Tripoli.

NATO said it was investigating but had no confirmation of the report. Libya's state news agency, citing military sources, said Western air strikes had hit a civilian area in the capital overnight, but did not mention casualties.

Rebels said Gaddafi loyalists had killed 38 civilians over the past two days alone in Misrata, the only town in western Libya still under rebel control. "Massacres are taking place in Misrata," a rebel spokesman called Sami said by telephone.

Britain said it was focusing air strikes around Misrata, which has been under siege from government forces for weeks. Rebels say snipers and tank fire have killed dozens of people.

About 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of Gaddafi since the uprising against his 41-year-old rule began on February 17, the British government said.

The rag-tag forces fighting Gaddafi say they desperately need more arms and ammunition to supplement supplies grabbed from government depots. The United States, France and Britain have raised the possibility, but say no decision has been taken.

NATO, which took over formal command of the air campaign on Thursday, said it would enforce a U.N. arms embargo on all sides: "We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm the people," NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Stockholm.

More Western military help may strengthen the rebels on the battlefield but at the price of a propaganda boost for Gaddafi, quick to portray his foes as lackeys of the West.

Rebels driven back by a hail of rocket fire to a spot outside the eastern oil town of Brega, where there were clashes at dawn, were keen to stress they would fight on with or without Western help, despite their military setback this week.

"God willing there will be more air strikes today, but we will advance no matter what," said Muneim Mustafa, a fighter with an AK-47 rifle slung over his shoulder.

DEFECTION

They were also wary of any attempt by Koussa to negotiate immunity, saying Gaddafi and his entourage must be held accountable: "We want to see them brought to justice," senior rebel national council official Abdel Hameed Ghoga told Reuters.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Koussa was not being offered immunity but encouraged others around Gaddafi to follow suit. "Gaddafi must be asking himself who will be the next to abandon him," he told a news conference.

That question was answered soon afterwards when former Libyan foreign minister Ali Abdussalam Treki -- appointed by Gaddafi to replace his U.N. ambassador, who defected in February -- refused to take up the job.

Treki condemned the "spilling of blood," his nephew said in a statement send to Reuters.

While British officials hope Koussa will provide military and diplomatic intelligence, Scottish officials and campaigners want him to shed light on the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie in Scotland, which killed 259 people, mostly Americans, on the plane and 11 on the ground.

Pamela Dix, whose brother was among those killed said if Libya was responsible for Lockerbie then Koussa was too, adding: "he should not be a free man in this country.

Analysts agree Koussa's defection is significant but note Gaddafi's inner circle consists of family members who may resort to more violence to stay in power.

A government spokesman said Gaddafi and all his sons would stay "until the end."

Libya's top oil official said on Thursday he remained in Tripoli and the country was continuing to produce some oil, although output was much reduced. Shipping industry sources say oil shipments from Libya are at a standstill.

Gates said Gaddafi's removal was "not part of the military mission" by coalition forces and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Western military action would not oust him.

"It is not through actions of war that we can make Gaddafi leave, but rather through strong international pressure to encourage defections by people close to him," Frattini said.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
libya

Obama - We will not arm the rebels. Hillary - We will not arm the rebels. Obama - arms the rebels

Regime change?  For over five years we heard this idiotic chant from the fringe left and fringe right - that we couldn't and that Bush did not have the authority for war, let alone regime change. 

Libya is not and was not a national concern for the US - not in our security interests nor even on our horizon as a threat.  After Bush invaded Iraq, Kaddafi called Bush up and told him he was renouncing the use and possession of all bad things and to come and get them.  We did.  Yet Obama is pretending he can manage something bigger than his family dinner - and it is failing due to the messages coming from our government.

Messages like - we will not arm the rebels (who are, in part, al qaida and when they finish with Kaddafi, will turn on us).

Hillary just got through saying NO! we will not arm the rebels.  And Obama had all along been planning on it - even while he told the American people otherwise.



Clinton says "no decision" on arming Libyan rebels



Reuters – March 30, 2011




WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that no decision had been made by the Obama administration on whether to arm rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi's forces in Libya.


"No decision," Clinton said to reporters at the Capitol after one of them asked her whether any decision had been made to arm Libyan rebels. She spoke as she was leaving a briefing on Libya that she and other senior U.S. officials provided to members of the House of Representatives.






Talk about conflicting statements.  I would not be surprised if Hillary quits.




Obama authorizes secret support for Libya rebels





By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON
Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:08pm EDT



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

Obama signed the order, known as a presidential "finding", within the last two or three weeks, according to four U.S. government sources familiar with the matter.

Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA and the White House declined immediate comment.

News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi's opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces.

The United States is part of a coalition, with NATO members and some Arab states, which is conducting air strikes on Libyan government forces under a U.N. mandate aimed at protecting civilians opposing Gaddafi.

In interviews with American TV networks on Tuesday, Obama said the objective was for Gaddafi to "ultimately step down" from power. He spoke of applying "steady pressure, not only militarily but also through these other means" to force Gaddafi out.

Obama said the U.S. had not ruled out providing military hardware to rebels. "It's fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons into Libya, we probably could. We're looking at all our options at this point," the President told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.

U.S. officials monitoring events in Libya say that at present, neither Gaddafi's forces nor the rebels, who have asked the West for heavy weapons, appear able to make decisive gains.

While U.S. and allied airstrikes have seriously damaged Gaddafi's military forces and disrupted his chain of command, officials say, rebel forces remain disorganized and unable to take full advantage of western military support.

SPECIFIC OPERATIONS

People familiar with U.S. intelligence procedures said that Presidential covert action "findings" are normally crafted to provide broad authorization for a range of potential U.S. government actions to support a particular covert objective.

In order for specific operations to be carried out under the provisions of such a broad authorization -- for example the delivery of cash or weapons to anti-Gaddafi forces -- the White House also would have to give additional "permission" allowing such activities to proceed.

Former officials say these follow-up authorizations are known in the intelligence world as "'Mother may I' findings."

In 2009 Obama gave a similar authorization for the expansion of covert U.S. counter-terrorism actions by the CIA in Yemen. The White House does not normally confirm such orders have been issued.

Because U.S. and allied intelligence agencies still have many questions about the identities and leadership of anti-Gaddafi forces, any covert U.S. activities are likely to proceed cautiously until more information about the rebels can be collected and analyzed, officials said.
 
"The whole issue on (providing rebels with) training and equipment requires knowing who the rebels are," said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA Middle East expert who has advised the Obama White House.


Riedel said that helping the rebels to organize themselves and training them how use weapons effectively would be more urgent then shipping them arms.

According to an article speculating on possible U.S. covert actions in Libya published early in March on the website of the Voice of America, the U.S. government's broadcasting service, a covert action is "any U.S. government effort to change the economic, military, or political situation overseas in a hidden way."

ARMS SUPPLIES

The article, by VOA intelligence correspondent Gary Thomas, said covert action "can encompass many things, including propaganda, covert funding, electoral manipulation, arming and training insurgents, and even encouraging a coup."

U.S. officials also have said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose leaders despise Gaddafi, have indicated a willingness to supply Libyan rebels with weapons.

Members of Congress have expressed anxiety about U.S. government activities in Libya. Some have recalled that weapons provided by the U.S. and Saudis to mujahedeen fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s later ended up in the hands of anti-American militants.

There are fears that the same thing could happen in Libya unless the U.S. is sure who it is dealing with. The chairman of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, said on Wednesday he opposed supplying arms to the Libyan rebels fighting Gaddafi "at this time."

"We need to understand more about the opposition before I would support passing out guns and advanced weapons to them," Rogers said in a statement.






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
idiots