Friday, December 28, 2007

Death and Taxes 2008

This is by far the coolest and most comprehensive visual break down I have ever seen on how the Govt uses your taxes throughout the system.

What Ron Paul is going against is Mt Olympus on top of Mt. Everest on top of Mt, St Helen and through about a continents width of Lava. Good Luck Paul.

Bhutto Assassinated

Real talk from McCarthy on CNN:

A recent CNN poll showed that 46 percent of Pakistanis approve of Osama bin Laden. Aspirants to the American presidency should hope to score so highly in the United States. In Pakistan, though, the al-Qaeda emir easily beat out that country’s current president, Pervez Musharraf, who polled at 38 percent.

President George Bush, the face of a campaign to bring democracy — or, at least, some form of sharia-lite that might pass for democracy — to the Islamic world, registered nine percent. Nine!

If you want to know what to make of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s murder today in Pakistan, ponder that.

There is the Pakistan of our fantasy. The burgeoning democracy in whose vanguard are judges and lawyers and human rights activists using the “rule of law” as a cudgel to bring down a military junta. In the fantasy, Bhutto, an attractive, American-educated socialist whose prominent family made common cause with Soviets and whose tenures were rife with corruption, was somehow the second coming of James Madison.

Then there is the real Pakistan: an enemy of the United States and the West.



Ok some people really don't know WTF they are talking about. Its sad to see people comment that have not a clue about Pakistan or Bhutto. I am seeing this all over the net. What McCarthy is saying is SPOT ON.

First of all in her presidency she was NOT the savior that all of you are claiming she was, she was popular, like royalty because of her father before her, but she was corrupt, very much so. But she was a better alternative to Musharraf which as has been said prior by others was playing both sides for his own gain. A Norega if you will. The US govt knew what Musharraf was/is doing, they didn't like it, so they wanted Bhutto back since she is popular enough to take the lead as PM without much effort.

SECOND, why the hell would the CIA be part of an attack on killing her (as has been suggested by idiots around the net), when it was WASHINGTON that was pushing for her to come back to Pakistan and be the better alternative then Musharraf has been, which by the way, he has to lead a tight rope of sorts. He has to balance his allegiance with the US meanwhile acknowledging that he needs to keep the radical elements at arms length as well, since his military in some cases is loyal to these tribal areas. We saw that a few weeks back with the police stations that were taken over easily to the North.

These accusations that somehow the CIA was involved in Bhutto's assassinations are OUT THERE, to say the least, but who they come from as no surprise to me. Even Bhutto acknowledges in a interview with Parade Magazine that she "is terrorists biggest nightmare" since she promotes moderate positions. Positions that radical elements do not like, they need desperation and strife to keep their movement going.

Third, the reason we are doing this is because unfortunately we HAVE TO. We don't have any choice BUT to support Musharraf because the alternative is to shun him and have the same problems we had in the late 90's where nuclear technology are being spread like candy on Halloween throughout the middle east. Libya proved how wide spread this program was. People were asleep at the wheel in the 90's when Pakistan was developing nukes in response to Indias development. And now moving forward we have to suffer the consequences of those incompetent actions.

If we do NOT support him, he can let the nation plunge further into radicalism and then the obvious target is the US. We are not liked in Pakistan by no means, we never have been, even when we were helping the Mujahadeen we were not liked, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so they accepted the arms and the support.

Our BEST SHOT ant getting things to turn was to have a a very popular person take the hard line that is needed on the radicalism. AQ knew this, they knew Bhutto was a threat and needed to take her out ASAP. NOW we have no choice but to go back to the status quo OR the even worst alternative of going to war with the northern region of Pakistan (which I think may be inevitable) if Musharraf does nothing about the growing radicalism in his nation.

Pakistan again has NEVER been a true ally.

People need to understand something, that IF a nuke hits a US city it CHANGES EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING is changed and if you think that laws were being abused, and civil rights are being taken away (which I don't) then you wait and see what will happen if we let AQ get a nuke and it goes off here.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

EU cross border health care now...

So we need a National Health Care system right?
That is what is being touted by democrats and liberals alike.
I can't tell the difference anymore.

This case was brought forth by a woman that had to wait 1 year or more for hip replacement. Nice right? What an efficient system. Instead she went to France and wanted the bill to be paid by Britain.

The EU court decided that she is correct.

Anyway, hear this in the morning on NPR, thought I would post it.

The European Commission made a new health care proposal allowing people to travel to another E.U. country to get treatment and bring the bill home. Scott Jagow talks to European report Megan Williams about why.


Listen here


So who are we going to cross borders with when National Health Care takes hold here? Canada? Mexico? Seriously? Even Clinton's buddies are coming over here for health care.

The worst implication comes for the UK which already has a crappy system and one that is already becoming under funded and its paying too much as it is. Now they have to pay for those people that opt to go to another country for the procedure. Nice... Should be interesting to see the impact of this moving forward.

Year of global cooling



By David Deming
December 19, 2007

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

Its cause he's black.....

With a hidden FBI camera rolling inside a New York hotel suite in 2003, an unsuspecting Rev. Al Sharpton, Democratic candidate for president, spoke candidly.

Sharpton offered to help Philadelphia fund-raiser Ronald A. White win a multimillion-dollar business deal, if White helped him raise $50,000 for politics.

White offered $25,000. "If you bring my guys up on this hedge fund, and I have the right conversation," White said, "I'll give you what you need."

"Cool," Sharpton said.



YES I was being sarcastic.
I think Al is an opportunist, leaching of the poor black communities in America and lending a hand to be in the spot light. I would even go as far as to say that Al is narcissistic. He has done nothing to change what Black America has become and if anything has been at the forefront of its slow self loathing. As more and more people take the BLAME the white man route instead of solving the problems within themselves and their own communities.

WHY DO I CARE?
Perhaps because I would like to see a world where there is less blame on the man and more people taking responsibility for their own fucking actions. As opposed to not getting anywhere in life and seeking some external factor as the cause, instead of their own incompetence.

I'll take a page from Whitlock and Cosby......

Minorities have failed the Civil Rights activists of the 50's-60's and have many have squandered the opportunities given with a self loathing attitude that won't be corrected by continuing down the same fucking path.


Silly me wanting such a world or rather country.
There will always be self loathers I guess. Just not as many as it is quickly becoming the trend.

But Sharpton has helped so many.
That is great, so Sharpton has helped people that have been victims of a racist bunch. But Sharpton has not helped the black people that are killing themselves. NEVER HAS, NEVER WILL. To Sharpton and his supporters the problem lies in white America, not in the FACT that black Americans kill each other at a far higher rate then white Americans either kill each other or hell kill black folks.

The inherent problem is as I have stated thousands of times before, is that we are killing each other on our city streets, we are slowly turning our areas into battle grounds for gangs and a cesspools of violence bred from the lack of parenting by many parents, the lack of care by the kids, and the hip hop culture that admires and pushes out the thug life as a lifestyle.

Gangs are on the increase in America, and its not from white folks interloping, its from our own self hate, our own lack of moral responsibility and loss of reality.

Look racist fuckers exist, we know this. But they are not the problem, they are not TODAY what is destroying our inner cities. Folks getting all upset over shit like nooses hanging on doors are fucking stupid, those nooses from whites aren't the damned problem, the ones that we tie around out own necks is! Sharpton and Jesse both focus on problems that have no real deep effect on black America or for that matter Latino American issues. The NAACP is a joke as its only purpose has been to help black folks meanwhile completely disregarding the other "colored" people that exist in the US.

Not that we need it. I rather not have their help personally but that is just me.
That being said, its kinda ridiculous that Sharpton and Jesse are the self appointed black leaders of today, as though a leadership is needed for a race of people? Why is that? If so many express that they do not like them (blacks that is), or what they stand for, how do they keep getting into the spot light? I'll tell you why, because they SEEK IT. They relish in this spot light and know that the donations continue to flow with the spot light.

Go ahead blame the "media" for giving them the spot light.
After all its what you folks do, you blame someone ELSE for the problem.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference

Anyone still have any doubt that the whole purpose of this Global Warming thing is to redistribute wealth globally? Anyone?

A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, told Inhofe EPW Press Blog following the panel discussion titled “A Global CO2 Tax.” Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm

Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”

The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”

The UN was presented with a new report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled “Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation.” The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”

The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.

Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”

'Diminish future prosperity'

However, ideas like a global tax and the overall UN climate agenda met strong opposition Thursday from a team of over 100 prominent international scientists who warned the UN that attempting to control the Earth's climate was "ultimately futile."

The scientists wrote, “The IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions." The scientists, many of whom are current or former members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sent the December 13 letter to the UN Secretary-General. (See: Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN Against 'Futile' Climate Control Efforts – LINK)


‘Redistribution of wealth’

The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.

“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth. (LINK)

Calls for global regulations and taxes are not new at the UN. Former Vice President Al Gore, who arrived Thursday at the Bali conference, reiterated this week his call to place a price on carbon dioxide emissions. (LINK)

In 2000, then French President Jacques Chirac said the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance." Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide." Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed Kyoto as a “socialist scheme.” (LINK)



'A bureaucrat's dream'

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year. "Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life," Lindzen said in March 2007. (LINK)

In addition, many critics have often charged that proposed tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made climate fears than the accuracy of their science.

Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." (LINK)



Yeah its all about controlling the CO2 and saving the "Earth". You keep believing that and I'll go bring you some Kool Aide. BRB...

Dumb down education for the poor...

That is the message a HS principal is giving to his teachers in a Memo sent last week.
Its great to see how the staff meetings really go now.


Have teachers at an East Harlem school been ordered to lower their standards because many students there are poor?

That's the impression some got from their principal's memo.

And now City Hall has stepped in.

The weather was gloomy Thursday outside Central Park East High School, but the talk was about a controversial memo from the school's principal.

"I don't think he thinks we're dumb," 12th grader Crystal Scarlett said. "He just thinks we can do much better than we're doing."

But not everyone agreed.

Last month, Principal Bennett Lieberman sent off a stern memo to teachers.

"If you are not passing more than 65 percent of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities, and you are setting your students up for failure, which, in turn, limits your success as a professional."

Was he ordering teachers to dumb down their classes?

The memo continued:

"Most of our students come from the lowest third percentile in academic achievement, have difficult home lives, and struggle with life in general. They DO NOT have a similar upbringing nor a similar school experience to our experiences growing up."

Some students took offense.

"That's not the way to pass," 12th grader Richard Palacios said. "That's not the way to get your education, so you're basically cheating yourself."

CBS 2 HD made several requests to speak with the principal and he refused. But he is standing by his comments.

Lieberman told a newspaper Thursday he "confidently stands by" his words.

But late Thursday, the Department of Education weighed in. It sent him a letter demanding he clarify his views and state that he is not ordering his teachers to lower their standards.

No word back yet from the principal.

Teachers at the school stand to receive $3,000 bonuses if their school improves.


Seems like even money isn't a motivating factor for shitty teachers.
Thank goodness for teachers unions right? Riiiight....

The Ron Paul Craze

Here is an interview with Paul back in June I believe.
It was a Google interview. Below is my synopsis on Paul's positions.




=====================================================
On War
- Doesn't like a war in ANY situation. (To me that would include not getting involved in a war unless we are attacked literally on our shores)
- Would have voted against Going into Afghanistan or declaring a war on Afghanistan even though AQ and OBL are there.
- Would bring the Troops back immediately. Next DAY.
- Unsustainable to continue welfare and warfare.
- Wants to be similar to Switzerland in terms of engagement and in the form of their military.
- Wants Excise taxes to fund the military much like was done before 1913.
- Reverse the trend of defending another nations. ALL nations.

Personal right
- Believes that Habeous Corpus has been slowly gotten rid of (?????)
- Supports prostitution and any or all forms of contracts between any two people or companies. If its an agreement govt should not regulate it.
- Supports Gun laws to the MAX
- Wants people to even be able to carry a gun on a plane, where that is regulated by the airline company not by the govt or its restrictions of doing so.
- Doesn't believe in gay rights or african american rights just PEOPLES rights. In that form you would not need all these additional protectionist forms of regulation.

Taxes
-Getting rid of the Income tax completely

Environment
- Believes that Global Warming is Overblown
- That the problem should be taken care of by corporations NOT by governments.

Immigration
- Like immigration, with a free market more immigration would flow into the nation just legally.
- Get rid of all illegals - No citizenship for them at ALL.

Foreign Trade
- Wants to lift the Cuban Embargo
- Wants to conduct business with Venezuela openly
- Wants low tariffs but was against NAFTA because it created more govt control over trade.

People Protectionism
- No safety net for people.
- No welfare
- No unemployment payments from the federal govt.
- Get rid of Social Security and its govt collecting of that money
- Get rid of Medicare

Licensing and corporations
- Get rid of Govt Licensing practices. (So your neighbor can prescribe to you prozac)
- Believes that you cannot have monopolies without Govt assistance. Basically if you own 99% of the market share its because you are putting out a product the people want.

Education
- Doesn't want to get rid of public education but wants to get rid of federal control of the govt. (Basically no funding for public schools from the federal govt)
- Believes that public schools are better off with local inequalities in schools then federally created measure to stop it.
- Opposed to student loans.
- Believes that in a free market you would not need student loans.
- Said "The best schools came from private institutions and churches not govt."

Wants to get rid of the following agencies
- Dept of Education
- Dept of Homeland Security
- Dept of Commerce
- Dept of Energy
- Dept of Environment
- IRS
- FCC


=====================================================


Seems to me like he wants something where its Corporations that rule everything. Hell it seems like in some cases he may be in agreement with a Corporation starting its own military or militia and have its own standing army.

After listening to him, I can honestly say that SOME (and its only a hand full if that) things I agree with but other things I think he has lost his flippn mind.

I also wonder does he want to get rid of NORAD or the CIA, or the FBI?

If you for a SECOND believe that he can get rid of all those departments.
Can destroy decades of trade deals by simply being president you are very very mistaken. There is not WAY democrats are going to stand for their POWER to be removed from them in education. And no WAY republicans in the senate are going to let go of their Commerce department. NO WAY!

I like Paul, I really do. I think he really means what he says. But his ideals are in no way up with the times. I like his talk of removing the military from all countries. I LOVE that in fact. I like his illegal immigration talk. But on everything else he looses me, by a mile. And I would be that demographic he is looking for being only 27.

I fail to see how ANYONE can logically support Paul with some of these positions. I would like to know from those that do HOW they can.

When in doubt... TAX

Democrats in Debate Urge Taxes on Rich

Democratic presidential hopefuls called for higher taxes on the highest-paid Americans and on big corporations Thursday and agreed in an unusually cordial debate that any thought of balancing the federal budget would have to wait.

"We're not going to be able to dig ourselves out" of Bush-era deficits in the next year or two, said Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, one of six Democratic rivals sharing a stage for the final time before Iowa's leadoff Jan. 3 caucuses.

Asked about the importance of eliminating deficits, Democrats responded by criticizing President Bush's economic policies, including some of his tax cuts.

"I want to keep the middle class tax cuts" that Congress passed during President Bush's tenure, said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. But she said she favors raising taxes for the wealthiest.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina readily agreed. "The truth of the matter is the tax policy has been established by the big corporations and the wealthiest Americans," he said. "What we ought to be doing instead is getting rid of those tax breaks."

Across 90 minutes, the fierce competition between the two Iowa front-runners shone through only once - when Obama was asked how he could offer a new type of foreign policy since several of his advisers once worked for President Clinton.



Talking of raising taxes during an economic slow down as was said this week by the Fed is both irresponsible and stupid. Of course there is a part of this whole talk of raising taxes as part of a way to pander for votes from people that feel like the rich don't pay enough in taxes. Those that think that way are complete blithering idiots, seeing as most taxes in the nation are paid by the top 10% of wage earners with the remainder coming from Corporate Taxes.

Its funny how NO BODY and Republicans included are not talking about the ENORMOUS PINK ELEPHANT in the room, Social Security. Perhaps the largest problem that is facing the future of this country and no one wants to mention it.

The proverbial shit is going to hit the fan really soon as more of these Baby Boomers start to collect. Its coming fast folks. Really fast, and the solution is not to raise more income taxes, the solution lies in privatizing the system.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert

This is what the fringe left has reduced itself to on this supposed Climate Change thing. Notice how I said Climate change, it has changed from Global Warming to Global Climate Change, as though the earth has an average temperature it should stay at forever or something.

Anyway, now we get this claim from a "professor" on how we should halt all child bearing essentially and tax people to even have a child. For this guy even breathing is a problem:

"Every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of
greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years, not simply by breathing but by the profligate consumption of resources typical of our society," he wrote.

"Far from showering financial booty on new mothers and rewarding greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour, a 'baby levy' in the form of a carbon tax should apply, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle."


Now before I start getting comments about well this is just the ramblings of 1 left wing cook, consider the woman that recently sterilized herself in an effort to save on Global Carbon emissions.

This is why I call this Global Climate scare thing a very BIG cult.
These folks truly believe that their BREATHING is bad for the earth, that somehow BILLIONS of years of earth creation is at risk by some humans. LOL.. WOW, talk about being arrogant as hell.

But at the very least we can take comfort in one thing, this moron wont be procreating more morons. NOW THAT is worth its carbon foot print in spades!

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Bill Clinton back to whinning.

Bill Clinton said Tuesday that if reporters covered the candidates' public records better, his wife's presidential bid would be far ahead of her rivals.

During a campaign stop on behalf of his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president said he can't understand why so much of the media coverage of the campaign ignores her experience—and, without naming him, the relative lack of experience of her closest Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"One percent of the press coverage was devoted to their record in public life. No wonder people think experience is irrelevant. A lot of the people covering the race think it is (irrelevant)," Clinton said to students at Keene State College.

Clinton referenced a study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism that indicated much of the coverage of the race is dominated by daily horse race reporting rather than about policy issues.

"Sixty-seven percent of the coverage is pure politics. That stuff has a half life of about 15 seconds. It won't matter tomorrow. It is very vulnerable to being slanted and rude. And it won't affect your life," Clinton said.

Clinton also said his wife's bipartisan work in the Senate proves she can accomplish her campaign's message of change, and that records matter more than rhetoric. He said that when voters look at records and accomplishments, they will see clear choices between the New York senator and her rivals.

"I would pick her and be here if we weren't married," Clinton said.

Clinton recalled that this western New Hampshire town was the place he first thought he stood a chance of winning his Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He did not win the 1992 New Hampshire primary, but his second-place finish helped him position himself as "the Comeback Kid."

Hillary Rodham Clinton began the current campaign as the Democratic front-runner, but now faces a tightening race here and in Iowa. Her husband is one of several marquee surrogates trekking through snowy New Hampshire. Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling planned to join Republican Sen. John McCain on Wednesday. Oprah Winfrey planned to join Obama on Sunday.




You know for years I wondered who was the woman in the relationship?
And for the life of me I simply cannot tell.

The reality is that Hillary has literally done NOTHING while holding the senate seat in NY. NOTHING. She has not put forth any bills, she has not been the head of any committees and in her life prior to this senate run she didn't even have experience in the business world. She has never run anything. I can't find any experience on this lady at all. And even at this talk Bill had he didn't mention any experience she had in any capacity.

This is where the Religious Right looses me

Christian groups slam new Kidman children's movie

Christian groups are up in arms here over a new children's film starring Nicole Kidman and based on an award-winning novel by British author Philip Pullman, accusing it of being anti-religious.

"The Golden Compass" which opens here Friday is the film version of "The Northern Lights," the first book in Pullman's "Dark Materials" fantasy trilogy aimed at teenage readers.

The books by confirmed agnostic Pullman trace the fate of a young girl, Lyra, as she becomes drawn into an apocalyptic battle of good against evil, meeting a host of strange characters along the way including a polar bear, voiced in the film by Ian McKellan.

Evil in Pullman's books is represented by the church, called the Magisterium, whose acolytes kidnap orphans across England to subject them to horrible experiments in the frozen northern wastelands.

"The Northern Lights" won Pullman the 1995 Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in Britain, and the final volume in his trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass" was the first ever children's novel to be awarded the prestigious British Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2002.

With its 180-million-dollar big budget movie, New Line studios is hoping to repeat the box-office success of its "Lord of the Rings" series.

And it aims to tap into the young audiences of cinema-goers who flocked to the five "Harry Potter" films making them big earners for Warner Bros.

But already "The Golden Compass" is whipping up the same controversy which saw the "Harry Potter" series based on the novels by British author J. K Rowling, accused by some on the religious right of promoting witchcraft.

The author's attack on organized religion has been toned down for the film, in a bid to attract as wide as audience as possible, something director Chris Weitz has acknowledged.

"In the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots," Weitz wrote in the British Daily Telegraph.

But "if that's what you want in the film, you'll be disappointed," he warned.

However, the sanitized version of Pullman's book has failed to appease the Catholic League, which gathers some 350,000 members, and which has already been sending out leaflets denouncing the film.

"The Catholic League wants Christians to stay away from this movie precisely because it knows that the film is bait for the books," said president William Donohue.

"Unsuspecting parents who take their children to see the movie may be impelled to buy the three books as a Christmas present. And no parent who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part of these books," he added.

The League already took on the movie world in 2006 to denounce the blockbuster "The Da Vinci Code" and its central tenant that Jesus Christ had a child by Mary Magdalene whose descendants still survive today.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops however has been more nuanced in its approach warning in a review of "The Golden Compass" of its "anti-clerical subtext, standard genre occult elements, character born out of wedlock, a whiskey-guzzling bear."

But it adds that "taken purely on its own cinematic terms, (it) can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism."

"The Golden Compass" will be released in some 3,000 cinemas and only 60 have so far refused to screen it, according to the industry daily Variety.

"It's this undisguised anti-religious theme that has numerous groups in a lather, but perhaps more of an issue for some ... will be the film's lack of exciting uplift and the almost unrelievedly nasty treatment of the young characters by a host of aggressively unpleasant elders," Variety added.



I mean seriously its just a book.
There is no depiction of Jesus in the book. Hell (excuse the pun) for that matter I don't even think it mentions any religious denomination in the book. But religious fundamentalists are up in arms over it.

Same way they were up in arms over the Harry Potter Books.
I mean REALLY! Harry Potter is a problem? Witch craft is the problem afflicting the faith? Seriously?

The Church has lost its way long before this book or Potter came along.
Perhaps instead of dealing with superficial things like the fictitious books that writers with vivid imaginations are writers, they should be dealing with the problems of Priests that are not allowed to marry, Priests abusing kids and the dwindling number of faithful that are going to church.

It has little to do with Books and Movies.

Its not at the level of the Sudan problems over a Teddy Bear. But its still pretty overblown.