This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Tuesday December 8 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
33 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Obama's buggery czar (Washington Times)
The media is trying to keep this story in the closet, but it's important not to wink at all the serious problems surrounding President Obama's controversial "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings.
Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, "I hope you knew to use a condom."
He knew the boy had met the adult in a bus-station restroom. Mr. Jennings also expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association.
"One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay," he said. Despite numerous requests to the Obama administration and Mr. Jennings, we have not received any answers to inquiries about these troubling issues.
Now revelations have surfaced that Mr. Jennings not only thought there was nothing wrong with boys having sex with older men (or girls having sex with older women), but he also played a role in promoting such relationships.
Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery (Fox News) It was Reid’s DEMOCRAT party that clung to the institution of slavery. Ask your buddy, Byrd, he knows all about this stuff.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"
He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.
"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
The history lesson appeared to have some of its partisan wires crossed, however. It was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who famously and unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957. And in the 19th Century, it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Dems Cut $43 Billion From Home Health Care (GatewayPundit)
For all of you baby boomers out there who are soon to be seniors– let’s hope you have a wad of cash stashed somewhere because you’re going to need it.
Democrats just slashed home health care by $43 billion this past weekend.
The New York Times reported on this latest move by democrats: By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.
Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.
The Democrats’ health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.
Let Freedom Ring has much more on the dem’s Medicare cuts.
Cost-benefit analysis of jobs stimulus: ($246,436 per job) (Rueters)
The Obama Administration is touting that their stimulus program has saved or created 640,329 jobs since it was enacted back in February through the end of October.
This number is updated and posted on the Administration’s recovery.gov web site.
That amounts to $246,436 per job based on the $157.8bn that has been awarded so far!
Uncle Sam's Collections Crunch and Record Deficits Continue; Press Coverage Virtually Non-Existent (NewsBusters)
Blogger Doug Ross got to the news of the Congressional Budget Office's Monthly Budget Report (PDF) over the weekend, quite accurately observing that the establishment news coverage of its content barely existed.
The results of searches at the Associated Press's raw feed page on "Congressional Budget Office" (not in quotes) and "CBO" confirm Doug's observation, as no result returned relates to the CBO's report.
The virtual non-coverage of the report may be due to the dire, dour news contained therein, as noted by Reuters, which at least had a story:
U.S. already $292 bln in the red this year - CBO The U.S. government racked up a gaping shortfall in the first two months of this fiscal year after posting a record budget deficit last year, congressional analysts said on Friday.
Media complicity in Climategate (The Washington Times)
A tale of destroyed documents, fraud, conspiracy and the misuse of millions of government dollars would seem to have all the juicy ingredients of a scandal that journalists would kill to cover.
However, the mainstream media apparently doesn't think that Climategate is news.
ABC News hasn't deemed the story newsworthy. Neither has CBS nor NBC. If Americans only got their news from the networks, they would not know about the global-warming fraud or would merely think there was a simple misunderstanding about what scientists meant in some vague e-mails
Never mind that two major universities have at least temporarily removed prominent academics from heading major climate research facilities.
Never mind that there are real questions raised about the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) controversial assessment report that the Obama administration and global-warming advocates have continually hyped in order to advance their case for new global regulations to curtail purported global warming.
Massa (D-NY) Pays Himself and Wife From Campaign Funds (Finger Lakes News Radio)
Congressman Eric Massa paid himself and his wife a total of $33,000 from his campaign funds during last year race for the 28th Congressional District
...federal records show Massa took a salary of $15,000 while his wife was paid $18,000 working as the campaign's treasurer. Massa raised $2.1-Million dollars for the 2008 campaign against former Congressman John Randy Kuhl.
Mouthpiece of communist Poland falls prey to market (Reuters)
WARSAW - The once-powerful mouthpiece of Poland's communist party fell silent on Monday, bowing to the demands of the free market 20 years after the advent of democracy in eastern Europe.
Trybuna, direct successor to the influential communist-era 'Trybuna Ludu' paper, carried the torch for Poles nostalgic for socialism after 1990, but steadily lost readers.
"Dear readers, from the weekend Trybuna is no longer available at newsstands. The publisher of our newspaper took the decision to suspend publication due to the difficult material situation," Trybuna said in a short note on its website.
The publisher, Ad Novum, hopes to resume publication of the daily in February after talks with investors, it said, but industry analysts were doubtful, noting that the paper has been trying unsuccessfully to raise funds for some time.
Trybuna had a circulation of about 50,000, many of them elderly, before it folded.
Loyal readers expressed dismay about its demise. "I am shattered... I read it every day since it first began. I am sorry the editorial board did not bother warning readers beforehand," said pensioner Waldemara Gora, 80.
"I was very attached to the People's Republic (communist Poland). It is a tragedy that in a country of nearly 40 million people there is no left-wing newspaper," she told Reuters. "Trybuna was an independent Polish newspaper."
Waldemara Gora should come over here and subscribe to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She’d fit perfectly.
Saudi Arabia calls for 'climategate' investigation (Politico)
COPENHAGEN — Saudi Arabia called for an independent investigation into “climategate” Monday, warning that the scandal over stolen e-mails threatened to undermine the global-warming negotiations beginning here.
“We believe this scandal — or what has been referred to as the ‘climategate’ scandal — we think this is definitely going to affect the nature of what could be trusted in our deliberations,” the Saudi Arabian negotiator said.
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has promised to investigate the scandals, although its chairman said Monday that it provided no basis for questioning the science behind global warming.
But the Saudi negotiator told delegates that “the level of confidence is certainty shaken.”
'Climategate' at centre stage as Copenhagen opens (Times Online (U.K.)
The "Climategate" row took centre stage on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate summit today as the world's leading oil exporter intervened to question the scientific consensus on man-made global warming.
As 15,000 delegates from 192 nations began what was billed as the "last, best chance" to avert a catastrophic rise in sea and air temperatures, Saudi Arabia's chief climate negotiator, Mohammed al-Sabban, spoke from the floor to say that e-mails hacked from a UK research centre had shaken trust in the work of scientists.
He was not the first to mention the Climategate scandal. In his opening address to the conference, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the hackers had been trying to undermine the work of his organisation.
But he said that the science as presented in the IPCC's last assessment report two years ago was clear and incontrovertible and covered water shortages and rising sea levels.
"Given the wide-ranging nature of change that is likely to be taken in hand, some naturally find it inconvenient to accept its inevitability," Dr Pachauri said.
"The recent incident of stealing the e-mails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC.
"But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessment stretching over 21 years performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe."
Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting (Yahoo - Time) Hepatitis A, B & C, Typhus, Cholera anyone?
For a well over a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead.
When each bucket in his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania.
Eventually he takes the resulting soil and spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.
"It's an alternative sanitation system," says Jenkins, "where there is no waste."
His 255-page Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, is in its third edition and has been translated into five languages, but it has only recently begun to catch on.
His message? Human manure, when properly managed, is odorless. His audience? Ecologically committed city dwellers who are looking to do more for the earth than just sort their trash or ride a bike to work.
(The most disturbing aspect of this story is that Time magazine and the writer think this is a brilliant concept, rather than a recipe for epidemics and a return to pre-industrial revolution hygiene standards.
Must not have ever heard about cholera and how it spreads. Gives a whole new meaning to the idea that Time magazine is circling the drain.)
NASA-Gate (Space Agency's Own Climategate) (National Center For Policy Analysis)
What's become known as "Climategate" may be about to explode on this side of the pond as well. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA if by year-end the agency doesn't honor his Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors.
"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," says Horner, who suspects, based on the public record, the same type of data fudging, manipulation and suppression that has occurred at Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).
"These guys (NASA) are quite clearly determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."
Economy: The 16,000 delegates to the two-week-long orgy of self-flagellation known as the Copenhagen Climate Conference want to shrink global output of CO2 not because of hard science, but out of envy.
Even as Climate-gate suggests that sham science lies behind global warming, delegates are swarming into the Scandinavian city to push for steep cuts in carbon dioxide output by industrialized nations.
We'll let others comment on the hypocrisy of those who, while trying to force the rest of us into an ever-smaller carbon footprint, will employ more than 1,200 limousines and 140 private jets while producing 880 pounds of CO2 per attendee at their conference.
Or the even-worse hypocrisy of Rajendra Pachauri, the U.N.'s global warming guru, who in one 19-month period flew 443,243 miles — including trips to have dinner at Washington's Brookings Institution and one memorable overnighter to attend a cricket match — but now wants the rest of us to be forced into a "carbon allowance."
What goes little commented on, however, is the reason for the vehemence of these calls for CO2 sacrifice on the part of the U.S.: a desire to take our economy down.
Having decisively lost the great debate between capitalism and socialism, the only way the global warming socialists can do this is by imposing restrictions on U.S. output in response to the ginned-up "emergency" of global warming.
Global warming may require higher dams, stilts (Lame Steam Media doubles down on scare tactics) AP
With the world losing the battle against global warming so far, experts are warning that humans need to follow nature's example: Adapt or die.
That means elevating buildings, making taller and stronger dams and seawalls, rerouting water systems, restricting certain developments, changing farming practices and ultimately moving people, plants and animals out of harm's way.
Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big topic at the U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen next week, along with the projected cost — hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it going to countries that cannot afford it.
That adaptation will be a major focus is remarkable in itself. Until the past couple of years, experts avoided talking about adjusting to global warming for fear of sounding fatalistic or causing countries to back off efforts to reduce emissions.
EPA Set to Declare Carbon Dioxide a Public Danger (WSJ)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.
Pittsburgh Pushes Tax on College Students (Welcome to the real work kiddies! How is that hope and change working out for ya? ;-) The Wall Street Journal
PITTSBURGH -- Facing big unfunded pension liabilities for city workers, Pittsburgh is proposing what appears to be a one-of-a-kind 1% tuition tax on local university and college students, who claim the tax is illegal and unfair.
More than 100 students filled Pittsburgh City Council chambers Monday morning, many bearing signs like "No Taxation Without Representation" to protest the tax, which, if passed this week, could become effective next year.
"This is going to be a double taxation of students in the city," said Daniel Jimenez, 27 years old, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, who pays property taxes on a home he bought in 2004.
The tuition tax, which would raise an estimated $16 million, threatens to drive a wedge between the city and its universities, which have been credited with fueling much of Pittsburgh's economic transformation from an industrial city to an education and medical-services center.
The cash-strapped city, which has 85,000 students at its 10 universities and colleges, including top-ranked engineering school Carnegie Mellon University, says it needs the tax to help cover a $600 million pension-fund shortfall and keep several branches of the Carnegie Library system open.
women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
Justice thwarts Black Panther subpoenas (Washington Times)
Could it be that President Obama's legal team is imploding due to a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party?
So many new developments regarding the Black Panther case occurred in the latter half of last week that it is hard keeping up with them all.
But none of them look good for the Obama administration or for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department.
The case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape (which was backed by copious testimony) engaged in what observers say were intimidating and racially charged activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth on presidential Election Day in 2008.
Even though a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career attorneys at the Justice Department, the Obama administration suddenly decided last spring to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with an incredibly weak injunction.
Obama's 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point (Fox News)
President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.
President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.
The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation's health care system, and escalates America's involvement in the Afghanistan war.
Below are comparable ratings for other presidents since Gallup began taking presidential approval polls in 1938:
George W. Bush, 86 percent Bill Clinton, 52 percent George H.W. Bush, 71 percent Ronald Reagan, 49 percent Jimmy Carter, 57 percent Gerald Ford, 52 percent Richard Nixon, 59 percent Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent John Kennedy, 77 percent Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent Harry Truman, 49 percent
AGAIN - day late - dollar short. I'm sure newspapers will take on Amazon on web stuff and win. NOT!
LOS ANGELES – Five of the nation's largest publishers of newspapers and magazines are announcing a joint venture to develop a digital newsstand for portable devices that would rival the system Amazon.com Inc. has made for its Kindle reader. Time Inc., News Corp., Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., and Meredith Corp. are teaming up to create a digital format in color, rather than Kindle's gray "electronic ink." The format would work on a variety of devices, not just one. The digital versions of magazines such as Time, Cosmopolitan and Better Homes and Gardens will be designed for tablet computers, portable electronic readers and smart phones that render color images. Some manufacturers are developing devices suited to the task that are expected to come to market next year.
There's much more on Obama's great approval rating fall to 47 percent. The LA Times has this headline: Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point.
Palin is now at 46 percent approval and Barry is edging her out for the moment at 47 percent!!! What a turnaround.
Journalism and Freedom Government assistance is a greater threat to the press than any new technology. By RUPERT MURDOCH
We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame.
My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever—limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us...
Manufactured personas, two half-white/half-black idols falling out of favor at the same time. Odd that. ---- Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity A chilling comparison of two manufactured idols. American Thinker, by Lisa Schiffren
Obama disses the Nativity scene for the WH, who would that surprise? == Obama wanted “non-religious Christmas”? FOX News Radio, by Todd Starnes
President Obama and the First Family were planning a “non-religious Christmas,” according to Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. Ms. Rogers reportedly told a gathering of former social secretaries that [the Obamas did not intend on putting the Nativity scene on display – a longtime East Room tradition.] The account was reported in the Fashion and Style section of The New York Times.
ON THE ATTACK: Gibbs slammed Gallup's daily tracking poll that showed Obama's approval at the lowest point at this stage of any presidency since Truman's.
"I'm sure a six-year old with a crayon" could do the same thing, he said of Gallup, labeling it "the EKG that is the Gallup trend" and calling it "meaningless." And that's the news. (10:04 a.m.) (Excerpt) Read more at politico.com Via: Free Republic.com
-Kevin Jennings Did Know Content of F*stgate F*sting Workshop in Advance- Kevin Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the "sexuality educators" would discuss with children at the "****ing" workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself, and was disappointed when she later became their scapegoat.
Jennings, after all, worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee, which set up the statewide program, "Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students" in the DOE. That is the program the ****ing workshop instructors worked for.
(Excerpt) Read more at massresistance.blogspot.com
Can Oprah save Tiger? As Tiger Woods' alleged-mistress count rises by the day, a public confession on "Oprah" could be his best shot for redemption Can Oprah help Tiger rehab his image? Things just keep getting worse for Tiger Woods. As his number of alleged mistresses rises to six (or higher), his wife Elin Nordegren has reportedly moved out of their Florida home, his favorability rating has dropped 24 points, and gossip sites say his post-crash hospital records may indicate a drug overdose. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey's producers have invited Woods to address the scandal on her TV show....
33 comments:
Obama's buggery czar (Washington Times)
The media is trying to keep this story in the closet, but it's important not to wink at all the serious problems surrounding President Obama's controversial "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings.
Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, "I hope you knew to use a condom."
He knew the boy had met the adult in a bus-station restroom. Mr. Jennings also expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association.
"One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay," he said. Despite numerous requests to the Obama administration and Mr. Jennings, we have not received any answers to inquiries about these troubling issues.
Now revelations have surfaced that Mr. Jennings not only thought there was nothing wrong with boys having sex with older men (or girls having sex with older women), but he also played a role in promoting such relationships.
Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery (Fox News) It was Reid’s DEMOCRAT party that clung to the institution of slavery. Ask your buddy, Byrd, he knows all about this stuff.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'"
He continued: "When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn't quite right.
"When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
The history lesson appeared to have some of its partisan wires crossed, however. It was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who famously and unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957. And in the 19th Century, it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Dems Cut $43 Billion From Home Health Care (GatewayPundit)
For all of you baby boomers out there who are soon to be seniors– let’s hope you have a wad of cash stashed somewhere because you’re going to need it.
Democrats just slashed home health care by $43 billion this past weekend.
The New York Times reported on this latest move by democrats:
By a vote of 53 to 41, the Senate on Saturday rejected a Republican effort to block cutbacks in payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.
Republicans voted against the cuts, saying they would hurt some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Most Democrats supported the cutbacks, saying they would eliminate waste and inefficiency in home care.
The Democrats’ health care bill would reduce projected Medicare spending on home care by $43 billion, or 13 percent, over the next 10 years. The savings would help offset the cost of subsidizing coverage for the uninsured.
Let Freedom Ring has much more on the dem’s Medicare cuts.
Cost-benefit analysis of jobs stimulus: ($246,436 per job) (Rueters)
The Obama Administration is touting that their stimulus program has saved or created 640,329 jobs since it was enacted back in February through the end of October.
This number is updated and posted on the Administration’s recovery.gov web site.
That amounts to $246,436 per job based on the $157.8bn that has been awarded so far!
Uncle Sam's Collections Crunch and Record Deficits Continue; Press Coverage Virtually Non-Existent
(NewsBusters)
Blogger Doug Ross got to the news of the Congressional Budget Office's Monthly Budget Report (PDF) over the weekend, quite accurately observing that the establishment news coverage of its content barely existed.
The results of searches at the Associated Press's raw feed page on "Congressional Budget Office" (not in quotes) and "CBO" confirm Doug's observation, as no result returned relates to the CBO's report.
The virtual non-coverage of the report may be due to the dire, dour news contained therein, as noted by Reuters, which at least had a story:
U.S. already $292 bln in the red this year - CBO The U.S. government racked up a gaping shortfall in the first two months of this fiscal year after posting a record budget deficit last year, congressional analysts said on Friday.
Media complicity in Climategate (The Washington Times)
A tale of destroyed documents, fraud, conspiracy and the misuse of millions of government dollars would seem to have all the juicy ingredients of a scandal that journalists would kill to cover.
However, the mainstream media apparently doesn't think that Climategate is news.
ABC News hasn't deemed the story newsworthy. Neither has CBS nor NBC. If Americans only got their news from the networks, they would not know about the global-warming fraud or would merely think there was a simple misunderstanding about what scientists meant in some vague e-mails
Never mind that two major universities have at least temporarily removed prominent academics from heading major climate research facilities.
Never mind that there are real questions raised about the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) controversial assessment report that the Obama administration and global-warming advocates have continually hyped in order to advance their case for new global regulations to curtail purported global warming.
Massa (D-NY) Pays Himself and Wife From Campaign Funds (Finger Lakes News Radio)
Congressman Eric Massa paid himself and his wife a total of $33,000 from his campaign funds during last year race for the 28th Congressional District
...federal records show Massa took a salary of $15,000 while his wife was paid $18,000 working as the campaign's treasurer. Massa raised $2.1-Million dollars for the 2008 campaign against former Congressman John Randy Kuhl.
Mouthpiece of communist Poland falls prey to market (Reuters)
WARSAW - The once-powerful mouthpiece of Poland's communist party fell silent on Monday, bowing to the demands of the free market 20 years after the advent of democracy in eastern Europe.
Trybuna, direct successor to the influential communist-era 'Trybuna Ludu' paper, carried the torch for Poles nostalgic for socialism after 1990, but steadily lost readers.
"Dear readers, from the weekend Trybuna is no longer available at newsstands. The publisher of our newspaper took the decision to suspend publication due to the difficult material situation," Trybuna said in a short note on its website.
The publisher, Ad Novum, hopes to resume publication of the daily in February after talks with investors, it said, but industry analysts were doubtful, noting that the paper has been trying unsuccessfully to raise funds for some time.
Trybuna had a circulation of about 50,000, many of them elderly, before it folded.
Loyal readers expressed dismay about its demise. "I am shattered... I read it every day since it first began. I am sorry the editorial board did not bother warning readers beforehand," said pensioner Waldemara Gora, 80.
"I was very attached to the People's Republic (communist Poland). It is a tragedy that in a country of nearly 40 million people there is no left-wing newspaper," she told Reuters. "Trybuna was an independent Polish newspaper."
Waldemara Gora should come over here and subscribe to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She’d fit perfectly.
Saudi Arabia calls for 'climategate' investigation (Politico)
COPENHAGEN — Saudi Arabia called for an independent investigation into “climategate” Monday, warning that the scandal over stolen e-mails threatened to undermine the global-warming negotiations beginning here.
“We believe this scandal — or what has been referred to as the ‘climategate’ scandal — we think this is definitely going to affect the nature of what could be trusted in our deliberations,” the Saudi Arabian negotiator said.
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has promised to investigate the scandals, although its chairman said Monday that it provided no basis for questioning the science behind global warming.
But the Saudi negotiator told delegates that “the level of confidence is certainty shaken.”
'Climategate' at centre stage as Copenhagen opens (Times Online (U.K.)
The "Climategate" row took centre stage on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate summit today as the world's leading oil exporter intervened to question the scientific consensus on man-made global warming.
As 15,000 delegates from 192 nations began what was billed as the "last, best chance" to avert a catastrophic rise in sea and air temperatures, Saudi Arabia's chief climate negotiator, Mohammed al-Sabban, spoke from the floor to say that e-mails hacked from a UK research centre had shaken trust in the work of scientists.
He was not the first to mention the Climategate scandal. In his opening address to the conference, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the hackers had been trying to undermine the work of his organisation.
But he said that the science as presented in the IPCC's last assessment report two years ago was clear and incontrovertible and covered water shortages and rising sea levels.
"Given the wide-ranging nature of change that is likely to be taken in hand, some naturally find it inconvenient to accept its inevitability," Dr Pachauri said.
"The recent incident of stealing the e-mails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts, perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC.
"But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessment stretching over 21 years performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe."
Humanure: Goodbye, Toilets. Hello, Extreme Composting (Yahoo - Time) Hepatitis A, B & C, Typhus, Cholera anyone?
For a well over a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead.
When each bucket in his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania.
Eventually he takes the resulting soil and spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.
"It's an alternative sanitation system," says Jenkins, "where there is no waste."
His 255-page Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure, is in its third edition and has been translated into five languages, but it has only recently begun to catch on.
His message? Human manure, when properly managed, is odorless. His audience? Ecologically committed city dwellers who are looking to do more for the earth than just sort their trash or ride a bike to work.
(The most disturbing aspect of this story is that Time magazine and the writer think this is a brilliant concept, rather than a recipe for epidemics and a return to pre-industrial revolution hygiene standards.
Must not have ever heard about cholera and how it spreads. Gives a whole new meaning to the idea that Time magazine is circling the drain.)
NASA-Gate (Space Agency's Own Climategate) (National Center For Policy Analysis)
What's become known as "Climategate" may be about to explode on this side of the pond as well. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has threatened a lawsuit against NASA if by year-end the agency doesn't honor his Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for information on how and why its climate numbers have been consistently adjusted for errors.
"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," says Horner, who suspects, based on the public record, the same type of data fudging, manipulation and suppression that has occurred at Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU).
"These guys (NASA) are quite clearly determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."
Greens' Real Target: U.S. Economy (Investors.com)
Economy: The 16,000 delegates to the two-week-long orgy of self-flagellation known as the Copenhagen Climate Conference want to shrink global output of CO2 not because of hard science, but out of envy.
Even as Climate-gate suggests that sham science lies behind global warming, delegates are swarming into the Scandinavian city to push for steep cuts in carbon dioxide output by industrialized nations.
We'll let others comment on the hypocrisy of those who, while trying to force the rest of us into an ever-smaller carbon footprint, will employ more than 1,200 limousines and 140 private jets while producing 880 pounds of CO2 per attendee at their conference.
Or the even-worse hypocrisy of Rajendra Pachauri, the U.N.'s global warming guru, who in one 19-month period flew 443,243 miles — including trips to have dinner at Washington's Brookings Institution and one memorable overnighter to attend a cricket match — but now wants the rest of us to be forced into a "carbon allowance."
What goes little commented on, however, is the reason for the vehemence of these calls for CO2 sacrifice on the part of the U.S.: a desire to take our economy down.
Having decisively lost the great debate between capitalism and socialism, the only way the global warming socialists can do this is by imposing restrictions on U.S. output in response to the ginned-up "emergency" of global warming.
Global warming may require higher dams, stilts (Lame Steam Media doubles down on scare tactics) AP
With the world losing the battle against global warming so far, experts are warning that humans need to follow nature's example: Adapt or die.
That means elevating buildings, making taller and stronger dams and seawalls, rerouting water systems, restricting certain developments, changing farming practices and ultimately moving people, plants and animals out of harm's way.
Adapting to rising seas and higher temperatures is expected to be a big topic at the U.N. climate-change talks in Copenhagen next week, along with the projected cost — hundreds of billions of dollars, much of it going to countries that cannot afford it.
That adaptation will be a major focus is remarkable in itself. Until the past couple of years, experts avoided talking about adjusting to global warming for fear of sounding fatalistic or causing countries to back off efforts to reduce emissions.
EPA Set to Declare Carbon Dioxide a Public Danger (WSJ)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.
Pittsburgh Pushes Tax on College Students (Welcome to the real work kiddies! How is that hope and change working out for ya? ;-)
The Wall Street Journal
PITTSBURGH -- Facing big unfunded pension liabilities for city workers, Pittsburgh is proposing what appears to be a one-of-a-kind 1% tuition tax on local university and college students, who claim the tax is illegal and unfair.
More than 100 students filled Pittsburgh City Council chambers Monday morning, many bearing signs like "No Taxation Without Representation" to protest the tax, which, if passed this week, could become effective next year.
"This is going to be a double taxation of students in the city," said Daniel Jimenez, 27 years old, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, who pays property taxes on a home he bought in 2004.
The tuition tax, which would raise an estimated $16 million, threatens to drive a wedge between the city and its universities, which have been credited with fueling much of Pittsburgh's economic transformation from an industrial city to an education and medical-services center.
The cash-strapped city, which has 85,000 students at its 10 universities and colleges, including top-ranked engineering school Carnegie Mellon University, says it needs the tax to help cover a $600 million pension-fund shortfall and keep several branches of the Carnegie Library system open.
women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says.
If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
Justice thwarts Black Panther subpoenas (Washington Times)
Could it be that President Obama's legal team is imploding due to a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party?
So many new developments regarding the Black Panther case occurred in the latter half of last week that it is hard keeping up with them all.
But none of them look good for the Obama administration or for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department.
The case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape (which was backed by copious testimony) engaged in what observers say were intimidating and racially charged activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth on presidential Election Day in 2008.
Even though a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career attorneys at the Justice Department, the Obama administration suddenly decided last spring to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with an incredibly weak injunction.
Obama's 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point (Fox News)
President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.
President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 47 percent in the latest Gallup poll, the lowest ever recorded for any president at this point in his term.
The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation's health care system, and escalates America's involvement in the Afghanistan war.
Below are comparable ratings for other presidents since Gallup began taking presidential approval polls in 1938:
George W. Bush, 86 percent
Bill Clinton, 52 percent
George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
Gerald Ford, 52 percent
Richard Nixon, 59 percent
Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
John Kennedy, 77 percent
Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
Harry Truman, 49 percent
AGAIN - day late - dollar short. I'm sure newspapers will take on Amazon on web stuff and win. NOT!
LOS ANGELES – Five of the nation's largest publishers of newspapers and magazines are announcing a joint venture to develop a digital newsstand for portable devices that would rival the system Amazon.com Inc. has made for its Kindle reader.
Time Inc., News Corp., Conde Nast, Hearst Corp., and Meredith Corp. are teaming up to create a digital format in color, rather than Kindle's gray "electronic ink." The format would work on a variety of devices, not just one.
The digital versions of magazines such as Time, Cosmopolitan and Better Homes and Gardens will be designed for tablet computers, portable electronic readers and smart phones that render color images. Some manufacturers are developing devices suited to the task that are expected to come to market next year.
There's much more on Obama's great approval rating fall to 47 percent. The LA Times has this headline:
Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point.
Palin is now at 46 percent approval and Barry is edging her out for the moment at 47 percent!!! What a turnaround.
"Obama, Commander in Speech"
Was that supposed to be a joke?
I don't think so!
Journalism and Freedom
Government assistance is a greater threat to the press than any new technology.
By RUPERT MURDOCH
We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame.
My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever—limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us...
Manufactured personas, two half-white/half-black idols falling out of favor at the same time.
Odd that.
----
Tiger, Barack, and the Law of Transitivity
A chilling comparison of two manufactured idols.
American Thinker, by Lisa Schiffren
Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-
Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point
Los Angeles Times, by Andrew Malcolm
---
This poll will really send the fringe media into a tizzy.
Obama disses the Nativity scene for the WH, who would that surprise?
==
Obama wanted “non-religious Christmas”?
FOX News Radio, by Todd Starnes
President Obama and the First Family were planning a “non-religious Christmas,” according to Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. Ms. Rogers reportedly told a gathering of former social secretaries that [the Obamas did not intend on putting the Nativity scene on display – a longtime East Room tradition.] The account was reported in the Fashion and Style section of The New York Times.
Only 26% Of U.S. Voters Say Obama Deserves Nobel Prize (Quinnipiac)
ON THE ATTACK: Gibbs slammed Gallup's daily tracking poll that showed Obama's approval at the lowest point at this stage of any presidency since Truman's.
"I'm sure a six-year old with a crayon" could do the same thing, he said of Gallup, labeling it "the EKG that is the Gallup trend" and calling it "meaningless." And that's the news. (10:04 a.m.)
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com
Via: Free Republic.com
Why is Tiger Woods in real trouble? Black women are mad as hell at the phony idol. Do they want their sons adoring a white (only) womanizer?
The inevitable “Tiger’s mistresses weren’t diverse enough” column (Tiger is "Racist")
Hotair ^ | December 8, 2009 | Ed Morrissey
-Kevin Jennings Did Know Content of F*stgate F*sting Workshop in Advance-
Kevin Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the "sexuality educators" would discuss with children at the "****ing" workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself, and was disappointed when she later became their scapegoat.
Jennings, after all, worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee, which set up the statewide program, "Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students" in the DOE. That is the program the ****ing workshop instructors worked for.
(Excerpt) Read more at massresistance.blogspot.com
Can Oprah Save Tiger?
The Week Magazine
Can Oprah save Tiger? As Tiger Woods' alleged-mistress count rises by the day, a public confession on "Oprah" could be his best shot for redemption Can Oprah help Tiger rehab his image? Things just keep getting worse for Tiger Woods. As his number of alleged mistresses rises to six (or higher), his wife Elin Nordegren has reportedly moved out of their Florida home, his favorability rating has dropped 24 points, and gossip sites say his post-crash hospital records may indicate a drug overdose. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey's producers have invited Woods to address the scandal on her TV show....
Should Reid Apologize for Slavery Remark?
Fox Poll: 95% say YES
AARP-Walgreens Alliance??
I think Walgreens better rethink this hook-up.
Post a Comment