U.S. sees Russia, China, OPEC financial threat

Seriously? You are just now seeing this?

Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries have a worrisome potential to use their growing financial clout to exert political pressure, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday.

U.S. National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell voiced the concern to Congress in his annual assessment of potential security threats to the United States.

McConnell also told the Senate Intelligence Committee in prepared testimony that the global threat of terrorism remained, but that al Qaeda had suffered setbacks and its international reputation was diminishing.

He voiced continued concern over Iran's potential to develop nuclear weapons despite its halt to nuclear warhead design, and said political uncertainty in Pakistan had not threatened the military's control of that country's nuclear arsenal.

In listing top threats, McConnell cited "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends."

Russia was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network spanning from Europe to East Asia, and China's global engagement was driven by a need to access markets and resources, McConnell said.

He voiced concerns about the impact of a weaker U.S. dollar on global oil suppliers, some of whom have asked to be paid in currencies other than dollars, or delinked their currency pegs to the dollar.

"Continued concerns about dollar depreciation could tempt other producers to follow suit," McConnell said.

The dollar devaluation has its pros and its cons.
The pro being more exports from the US.
One of the cons are the supposed removing of the dollar from Oil purchases, but that is probably not going to happen. The world economy is way to invested in it to take that kind of hit.

Clinton's Grand Health Care Plan Enforcement Revealed

UGH!

Bravo to George Stephonopolous this weekend for hammering Clinton on this issue. Here's the gist of it:

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always pecified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Please don't be an idiot and vote for this woman.
Need I say more.

New York Giants Defeat Mighty Mighty Patriots in Superbowl XLII

Last night I couldn't believe my eyes.
They did it.
The NY Giants won the Super Bowl.
I am a Giant fan and even I didn't think they would even make the playoffs nor win the Superbowl!
Nethier did many many many many other people.
Niether did the Patriots.
They came in undefeated.
They were heavily favored.
They were supposed to easily annihialate the G-men into obilivion for even daring to try and take their Superbowl win.
HA!
HA HA HA!
How do you like them apples Bostonians!

llegal Alien Costs to the County of San Diego

This month, I received the results of a called-for study detailing the costs of services delivered to illegal aliens. The estimated drain on County services and community medical providers is more than $250 million a year.

The numbers only confirm my suspicions, but the findings are worse than I could have imagined because the estimates are likely on the low-side. While more than $100 million in taxpayer’s dollars is drained from our budget every year to provide services to people who are in this country illegally, there is another $154 million in costs for un-reimbursed emergency medical care. This is not a direct County cost; however, it is a huge hit on the community.

I asked for action to determine the financial impact of illegal aliens to County services in my State of the County Address as Chairman of the Board in 2006. Now we have the numbers that show how much money is being diverted that could be used to do such things as fix roads and provide better public safety. This is a hidden redistribution of taxpayer’s dollars amounting to $100 for every citizen in our County.

I am preparing a response to the study and will present findings to the entire Board of Supervisors at our meeting on September 25, 2007. I would welcome your comment any time and at that public meeting. If you would like to have a copy of the Undocumented Immigrant Study, please go to our website at http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/cnty/bos/sup5/.

Holy CRAP!

250 MILLION in just 1 County!
Full Study

Conservatism dead?

I have been trying my best at not blogging about the current primary elections.
Mostly because I believe that every one of them suck.

Rudy has bowed out and even though Rudy was one of the reasons I realized I am a conservative I am glad he did. He ran a horrible campaign and really had no vision that resounded well with the rest of America.

McCain is the "new front runner" after Huckabee went from BOOM to BUST in 1 state.
I guess people really started looking at Hucakabee's actual record instead of the fact that he goes to church every week. Go figure.

With McCain as the new front runner I am really concerned about the fact that conservatism in America as we know it may be dead. The days of Regan Conservatism is passing and is being replaced with this new liberal-conservatism. McCain along with the likes of Mel Martinez and Crist who both endorsed McCain in the final hours of the Primaries in Florida made me realize its dead. Floridas primaries this year seem to be the defining moment on when I realized that its all but dead folks.

The Primaries were open only to registered Republicans so I could not vote as I have no part affiliation. And McCain won! I was in total shock to be honest. How the hell did Floridians decide that McCain can now be called a Conservative is beyond me. There isn't anything that he believes in that would even come close to being called Conservative, yet here they are choosing him as the nominee.

For Christs sake he backed McCain/Feingold and McCain/Kennedy and you wonder WTF is so Conservative about that?

People talk about how McCain can reach across party lines and negotiate. But that is BULLSHIT. He doesn't negotiate, he flat out gives liberals what they want. How the hell was the Immigration bill this last summer even remotely a negotiation. It was a damn Amnesty plan.

Romney is the other front runner. I have stated before "I do not trust this guy". Romney makes John Kerry look consistent!

What is wrong with the conservative part of the Republican party?
Mits Romneywho switches opinions like he is changing underwear and John I concede everything to liberals McCain? Really?

At LEAST Romney understands economics. Even though he is a complete corporate welfare type of guy.

McCain on the other hand can't even answer a question about economics without saying he will have "OTHERS" with him in his administration that will know about it. WTF IS THAT? Leadership is one thing, sure its a good thing to have, but what good is leadership if you don't have a CLUE on WTF you are leading on. Its like a bring great leader and in a war on the front lines, but not having a clue about military operations.



He didn't even answer the question!
Just that he'll have OTHER GUYS making those decisions pretty much!

Sigh....
I digress.

I fear I will have no one that I can put my real support behind.

If McCain in fact if ANYONE of the front runners for the Republican Party win the nomination I will vote for Obama or Hillary. As I have stated countless times on forums. I will NOT vote for the Devil I know over the Devil I don't any longer. I figure if we are going to go down the toilet, lets flush this shit down quickly. Obama and Clinton being so close together on actual issues are just the people to take us there quick!

Let liberals and Americans see what it is like when you have Congress and the White house under Democratic/Liberal rule.

You need a Carter to get a Reagan!
Bring it on then!

Antarctic volcanoes identified as a possible culprit in glacier melting

This is what kills me about these damn Global Warming freaks, they totally brush off these findings and continue down this path that somehow humans are so powerful that we effect global temperatures. When in reality just 1 volcano makes a century of our activity seem like a grain of sand on the beach.

So no Gore, the debate is not over:

Another factor might be contributing to the thinning of some of the Antarctica's glaciers: volcanoes.

In an article published Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature Geoscience, Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey report the identification of a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica.

"This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet" in Antarctica, Vaughan said.

Volcanic heat could still be melting ice to water and contributing to thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island glacier, which passes nearby, but Vaughan said he doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in western Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause of thinning.

Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it. Ash and shards from the volcano carried through the air and settled onto the surrounding landscape. That layer is now out of sight, hidden beneath the snows that fell during the next 2,300 years.

Still, the layer showed up clearly in airborne radar surveys conducted over the region in 2004 and 2005 by American and British scientists. The reflected radio waves over an elliptical area about 110 miles, or 176 kilometers, wide were so strong that earlier radar surveys had mistakenly identified it as bedrock. Better radar techniques now can detect a second echo from the actual bedrock farther down.

The thickness of ice above the ash layer provided an estimate of the date of the eruption: 207 B.C., give or take 240 years. "It's probably within Alexander the Great's lifetime, but not more precise than that," Vaughan said.

Bundle up folks.....

What not Global Warming?
Get outa town! Really?

MOSCOW. (Oleg Sorokhtin for RIA Novosti) – Stock up on fur coats and felt boots! This is my paradoxical advice to the warm world.

Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.

The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

This is my point, which environmentalists hotly dispute as they cling to the hothouse theory. As we know, hothouse gases, in particular, nitrogen peroxide, warm up the atmosphere by keeping heat close to the ground. Advanced in the late 19th century by Svante A. Arrhenius, a Swedish physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner, this theory is taken for granted to this day and has not undergone any serious check.

It determines decisions and instruments of major international organizations—in particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Signed by 150 countries, it exemplifies the impact of scientific delusion on big politics and economics. The authors and enthusiasts of the Kyoto Protocol based their assumptions on an erroneous idea. As a result, developed countries waste huge amounts of money to fight industrial pollution of the atmosphere. What if it is a Don Quixote’s duel with the windmill?

Hothouse gases may not be to blame for global warming. At any rate, there is no scientific evidence to their guilt. The classic hothouse effect scenario is too simple to be true. As things really are, much more sophisticated processes are on in the atmosphere, especially in its dense layer. For instance, heat is not so much radiated in space as carried by air currents—an entirely different mechanism, which cannot cause global warming.

The temperature of the troposphere, the lowest and densest portion of the atmosphere, does not depend on the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions—a point proved theoretically and empirically. True, probes of Antarctic ice shield, taken with bore specimens in the vicinity of the Russian research station Vostok, show that there are close links between atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and temperature changes. Here, however, we cannot be quite sure which is the cause and which the effect.

Temperature fluctuations always run somewhat ahead of carbon dioxide concentration changes. This means that warming is primary. The ocean is the greatest carbon dioxide depository, with concentrations 60-90 times larger than in the atmosphere. When the ocean’s surface warms up, it produces the “champagne effect.” Compare a foamy spurt out of a warm bottle with wine pouring smoothly when served properly cold.

Likewise, warm ocean water exudes greater amounts of carbonic acid, which evaporates to add to industrial pollution—a factor we cannot deny. However, man-caused pollution is negligible here. If industrial pollution with carbon dioxide keeps at its present-day 5-7 billion metric tons a year, it will not change global temperatures up to the year 2100. The change will be too small for humans to feel even if the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions doubles.

Carbon dioxide cannot be bad for the climate. On the contrary, it is food for plants, and so is beneficial to life on Earth. Bearing out this point was the Green Revolution—the phenomenal global increase in farm yields in the mid-20th century. Numerous experiments also prove a direct proportion between harvest and carbon dioxide concentration in the air.

Carbon dioxide has quite a different pernicious influence—not on the climate but on synoptic activity. It absorbs infrared radiation. When tropospheric air is warm enough for complete absorption, radiation energy passes into gas fluctuations. Gas expands and dissolves to send warm air up to the stratosphere, where it clashes with cold currents coming down. With no noticeable temperature changes, synoptic activity skyrockets to whip up cyclones and anticyclones. Hence we get hurricanes, storms, tornados and other natural disasters, whose intensity largely depends on carbon dioxide concentration. In this sense, reducing its concentration in the air will have a positive effect.

Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean.


Earth is unlikely to ever face a temperature disaster. Of all the planets in the solar system, only Earth has an atmosphere beneficial to life. There are many factors that account for development of life on Earth: Sun is a calm star, Earth is located an optimum distance from it, it has the Moon as a massive satellite, and many others. Earth owes its friendly climate also to dynamic feedback between biotic and atmospheric evolution.

The principal among those diverse links is Earth’s reflective power, which regulates its temperature. A warm period, as the present, increases oceanic evaporation to produce a great amount of clouds, which filter solar radiation and so bring heat down. Things take the contrary turn in a cold period.

What can’t be cured must be endured. It is wise to accept the natural course of things. We have no reason to panic about allegations that ice in the Arctic Ocean is thawing rapidly and will soon vanish altogether. As it really is, scientists say the Arctic and Antarctic ice shields are growing. Physical and mathematical calculations predict a new Ice Age. It will come in 100,000 years, at the earliest, and will be much worse than the previous. Europe will be ice-bound, with glaciers reaching south of Moscow.

Meanwhile, Europeans can rest assured. The Gulf Stream will change its course only if some evil magic robs it of power to reach the north—but Mother Nature is unlikely to do that.

Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute.

Bhutto Interview with David Frost

As usual with most things on the internet, the far left will get 1 sound byte and RUN WITH IT. Without even looking at anything else and completely ignoring the rest of the conversation that she was having with David Frost, the fringe left took the words "the man Sheik Omar who murdered Bin Laden" and took it to every corner of the internet to start their usual conspiracy theory riddled crap.

The fringe left or hell in some cases just the left:



believe that Osama Bin Laden was killed in the bombings along the Pakistan border after 9/11. Despite him releasing tapes afterwards.

Well of course, it takes some research to see that CLEARLY she was taken completely out of context and misspoke. In her conversation she was talking about the western journalists that were murdered by orders of Bin Laden to Sheik Omar, that journalist was Daniel Pearle who was killed in 2002.

Also to note is the fact that Omar Sheik was taken into captivity in July of 2002, Bin Laden released video after that date and audio. His right hand Ayman al-Zawahiri man has never once made any mention of OBL being dead or dying.

However for some this is not enough so to further squash this conspiracy theory right out of existence there are two interviews with Bhutto that should end this nonsense.

First this is part of the transcript of her interview on CNN 1 day after the Frost interview on November 3rd 2007 in which she says:

WHITFIELD: So, Ms. Bhutto, am I hearing you correctly in saying that you almost directly blame General Pervez Musharraf for helping to produce these safe havens in Pakistan, where there is terrorist activity, where, perhaps, in these safe havens someone like the Osama bin Laden, the most-wanted terrorist in the world, just might be taking refuge?

BHUTTO: I wouldn't like to go so far as to blame General Musharraf directly, but I would certainly say that many people in his administration and his security apparatus responsible for internal security make me feel very uneasy. And I believe that tribal areas of Pakistan could not have become safe havens without collusion of some of the elements in the present administration. And this is why I believe that regime change is very important.

I had hoped --

WHITFIELD: Do you Musharraf -- I'm sorry. Do you think General Musharraf knows where Osama bin Laden is?

BHUTTO: I don't think General Musharraf personally knows where Osama bin Laden is, but I do feel that people around him are many who are associated with the earlier military dictatorship of the '80s. That military dictatorship formed the Iran Mujahideen.

If she did not misspeak LITERALLY the day before with Mr. Frost, then why would she not even MENTION that Omar Sheik murdered OBL so "knowing where he is", is irrelevant?



But to solidify it some more. Since there are those on the left that believe that CNN is part of the conspiracy. I turn now to NPR, and Mrs Bhutto's interview on NPR with Steve Insky, which can hardly be part of any conspiracy. This interview was on November 13th 2007. Its audio so you lefties reading this now don't think that its been altered in anyway.

STEVE: What is your Freedom of movement like if any?

BHUTTO: I have freedom of movement within the house. I don't have freedom of movement outside the house. We've got a heavy police force inside the house, and we've got a very heavy police force -- 4,000 policemen around the four walls of my house, 1,000 on each. We've even entered the neighbor's house and I was just telling one of the policemen, I said, should you be here after us? Shouldn't you be looking for Osama bin Laden? And he said I'm sorry, ma'am, this is our job. We're just doing what we're told.

Again why would she tell NPR that she told a soldier to go look for Osama when she knows that OBL is dead? Probably folks because she misspoke in the Frost interview.

I am sure even this is not enough to convince the lefty morons/moonbats (as Michelle Malkin likes to call them) that still believe the the US government is covering up OBL's supposed death. As though Bush would not announce it and SILENCE his critics and be part of the history books as the one that took out Osama.

So I'll give it another shot with this, almost a full month later on October 1, 2007 where she then says the following: Bhutto says she might allow U.S. strike on bin Laden

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said on Monday that she might allow a U.S. military strike inside Pakistan to eliminate al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden if she were the country's leader.

"I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans. But if I couldn't do it, of course we are fighting this war together and (I) would seek their cooperation in eliminating him," Bhutto said in an interview on BBC World News America.

Again if she believed he was dead, and did not misspeak why would she say this to Reuters?

So once again the left has failed, and in her death began to circulate things about her that she cannot refute, pretty convenient no? The Left doesn't care what image it tarnishes, it just cares about its ridiculous conspiracy theories and its fascination with Bush and supposed cover ups.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.