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Tuesday, January 6
PRUDEN: The dirty joke from Minnesota
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 05:50 PM EST
A lot of the venal sins of Congress could be judged pornographic, both politically and otherwise, but we've never had an Official Senate Pornographer before. Sen. Chuck Schumer says Al Franken will fit right in.
"With the Minnesota recount complete," he says, gleefully, "it is now clear that Al Franken won the election." Actually, it isn't clear at all, as Mr. Schumer well knows, even though the Democrats managing the recount declared Mr. Franken the winner yesterday. The Democrats in the Senate are eager to get Al seated quickly because once he's seated among equals a bum is difficult to throw out. There's honor among senators, similar to the honor among thieves. (The difference is that thieves often hold to higher standards.)
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'Trillion-Dollar Deficits for Years to Come'
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 05:35 PM EST
President-elect Barack Obama predicted Tuesday that the nation could see ''trillion-dollar deficits for years to come,'' but said the country needs to continue spending taxpayer dollars to get the economy back on track. Obama, speaking to reporters at his Washington transition office, said he didn't want to get into specific budget numbers because his proposal is still being worked out with lawmakers
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Bank Of England Policymaker Predicts Unprecedented Dollar Collapse
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 05:29 PM EST
Willem Buiter, who served the BOE from June 1997 to May 2000, has stated that he expects to see the plug pulled from under the dollar as foreign investors turn away from the dollar and other US backed assets including government bonds.
Writing for the Financial Times, Buiter, now a Professor with the London School of Economics European Institute, comments: “There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place.”
Buiter, who has previously advised the World Bank, the IMF and the European Commission, points out that the dollar has managed to stay afloat due to the misguided notion that the US can make more capital on overseas investments and interests than foreign investors can make on US assets - a hypothesis that economists have referred to as “American alpha”.
However, he believes the global financial crisis has exposed the fatal flaws in that assumption....Prof Buiter writes. “Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed.”
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NewsBusted, Episode 2-27, January 6
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 05:14 PM EST
Obama’s Revolutionary “Vision”
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 05:09 PM EST
On the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes” in December, analyst Dick Morris made the absolutely critical point that President Bush has taken the country so far to the left, in terms of his socialist-style Wall Street bailout program and his integration of the U.S. economy into a new emerging international financial order, that anything Barack Obama does in this area seems almost mainstream. This is because what we were expecting from Obama we are now getting from Bush. So Obama doesn’t look so radical anymore.
This point must be understood in order to have an appreciation of the “moderation” of the new Obama Administration.
Interestingly, some of Obama’s strongest “progressive” supporters are being brutally honest about what is happening. On the Rag Blog website, former Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd defended the “conservative appointments” of the President-elect and said that they are part of a deliberate strategy to “feint to the right” and “move left.” He explained, “Any other strategy invites sure defeat.”
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Trans-Texas Corridor, in name anyway, is dead in the water
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 03:16 PM EST
The TTC, a four thousand mile, 1200 feet wide behemoth of rail and roadway, is apparently dead in name only. A somewhat less ambitious 600 feet wide corridor, built in chunks seemingly making it a more elusive political target, is still planned.
FTA: A spokesman for his likely opponent in the 2010 gubernatorial election, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that in fact the name isn’t the problem but rather the cross-state tollways associated with it and the rural land that would be needed to build them.
“When citizens pointed out the flaws in his original corridor idea, specifically trampling private property rights, the Perry administration responded with condescension and arrogance,” said Todd Olson, an Austin-based spokesman for Hutchison’s gubernatorial exploratory committee. “It wasn’t about a name.”
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What Disappearing Sea Ice?
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 04:24 AM EST
Despite the mountains of contrary evidence, concerns over disappearing sea ice and the unfounded position that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008, pushed U.S. government bureaucrats to officially list the polar bear as an endangered species in May of 2008. And then guess what happened....
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New blast at British Columbia pipeline
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 12:24 AM EST
Vancouver - Another explosion has targeted an EnCana natural gas facility in northeastern British Columbia. RCMP say EnCana gas line workers discovered a partially destroyed metering shed on Sunday at a wellhead near the community of Tomslake. Police say this appears to be a deliberate attack, similar to three other blasts in October...The explosions were preceded by a letter that called oil and gas companies, and EnCana in particular, ''terrorists'' and demanded an immediate halt to operations
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NYT's Cohen: Dangers of the Penn
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 06 Jan 2009 12:09 AM EST
Penn is a poor writer, as rambling as a journalist as he is disciplined as an actor. A gift for detachment is as important to the journalist as a gift for empathy is to the actor. Penn has only the latter...When I read the piece, I’d just returned from Cuba, where among the more prominent of Raúl’s reforms has been allowing Cubans into hotels for the first time (seriously!) and granting them access to cellphones costing six times their monthly salary.
Penn, by the way, traveled to Cuba from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela on a plane loaned by the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy and Petroleum. But, says Penn, that’s like a “journalist flying on Air Force One.” He’s apparently unaware that journalists on the U.S. presidential plane pay commercial rates.
But I don’t want to quibble. Penn’s not the first leftist star seduced by revolution despite dictatorship: Simone Signoret and Yves Montand touring Eastern Europe after the Soviet bludgeoning of Hungary in 1956 comes to mind. The French left had a very hard time getting Stalin in focus, just as part of the Euro-American left cannot free itself of Castro worship. Lenin’s “useful idiots” still abound.
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Monday, January 5
Pelosi Erases Gingrich's Long-Standing Fairness Rules
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 11:15 PM EST
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.
Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”
(I guess this is what the Democrats mean by "bipartisanship." -Roland)
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The Pelosi Doctrine: What’s good for her is good for the U.S.
President-elect Barack Obama meets today with Democratic congressional leaders to discuss their forthcoming economic stimulus package. On Wednesday a Democrats-only committee hearing will convene to push for congressional action before Obama’s January 20 inauguration. Thus advances a sham economic stimulus bill via a sham legislative process. Regardless whether the final version spends $750 billion or some figure north of $1 trillion, the measure will be an economic sham.
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Freedom of Choice Act: Losing Hyde Amendment Could Drastically Increase Abortions
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 12:56 PM EST
The Hyde Amendment, originally enacted in 1976, is a pro-life limitation amendment in the annual appropriations bill that restricts the direct federal funding of abortion through Medicaid.
Without the Hyde Amendment, women eligible for Medicaid would have their abortions paid for by the Federal Government – in other words, OUR tax dollars. If abortions are free to the individual, you can bet on abortion rates increasing.
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Funny Business in Minnesota (In Which Every Dubious Ruling Seems to Benefit Al Franken)
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 11:00 AM EST
Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome. Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor.
Mr. Franken started the recount 215 votes behind Senator Coleman, but he now claims a 225-vote lead and suddenly the man who was insisting on "counting every vote" wants to shut the process down. He's getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.
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Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 10:41 AM EST
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
H/t to our pal, Steve!
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Prez-elect to establish 600,000 new Democrat voters...err...new government employees
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 09:13 AM EST
States want in on the looting of America, too, as governors push $1 trillion "stimulus package"
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 09:08 AM EST
As the nation braces for Democrats to take unbridled control of the federal government, some lessons about how big a mistake that really is are already coming to light. Just as no non-union manufacturer is asking for a government bailout, only Democrat run states are begging for federal funds to avoid the inevitable bankruptcy of the states they have run into the ground.
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NRO: Life in the Clown-Car Fast Lane
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 08:56 AM EST
Can you believe it? Barack Hussein Obama II hasn’t even been inaugurated yet and he’s already been interviewed by federal prosecutors in the ongoing Blago mess; he’s seen Bill Richardson immolate himself rather than stand the federal grand-jury scrutiny that would have come with his appointment as Commerce Secretary; his boy Rahm Emanuel is both en pointe, having resigned the House seat that was previously warmed by Hot Rod and Dan Rostenkowski, and, apparently, on Patrick Fitzgerald’s tapes too; and he’s facing the prospect of the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, standing like a homunculus George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, ready to deny entrance to a black man when Roland “We Are the Senator” Burris tries to take Bambi’s hardly-even-used seat tomorrow.
And here we Democrats thought the Clinton administration could never be topped!
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Asteroid or comet strike? Child's play. Try space dust.
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 08:46 AM EST
If this were some 1950s sci-fi thriller, the Doomsday Cloud would loom dark and ominous in the evening sky. Each night more stars would wink out along its edges. The cloud would sweep past Jupiter, swallowing it whole, and race on toward Earth. There would be an inky darkness at noon. And so on.
No, nothing is going to blot out the sun. But recent observations and numerical simulations suggest that eventually—in a few millennia, maybe—the solar system may plow into a cloud of gas and dust a thousand times denser than the space we travel through now. This interstellar fog could reduce the sun’s sphere of influence until most of the outer planets are sitting naked in space. Dust and gas will penetrate as far as Earth’s orbit and may begin eating away at the oxygen in our upper atmosphere. The solar wind, now greatly compressed, will no longer provide adequate protection from the high-speed electrons and ions ripping through space. These cosmic rays will tear into the atmosphere, to the detriment of the delicate molecules of life.
This will be one bad cloud.
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Rick Warren Is No Billy Graham
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 05 Jan 2009 08:32 AM EST
Last August I wrote a column critical of Rick Warren's decision to host a presidential candidate forum at his Saddleback Church. My reasoning then was that America's crisis is moral ambiguity.
I argued that Pastor Warren would only contribute to this ambiguity by hosting candidates with opposing views on issues such as abortion and homosexuality and presenting himself as a neutral moderator.
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Sunday, January 4
Quake swarms continue to plague Yellowstone
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Sun 04 Jan 2009 03:46 AM EST
More earthquakes are rattling Yellowstone National Park. The small earthquakes that began in the park a week ago continue. They include three more earthquakes Friday that measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. A quake of magnitude 3.5 happened at 11:30 a.m., followed by quakes measuring 3.2 and 3.1 at 12:40 p.m. and 1:15 p.m., according to the University of Utah Seismic Stations
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GOP Vows to Block Franken From U.S. Senate
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Sun 04 Jan 2009 03:21 AM EST
Republicans will filibuster any attempt to seat Minnesota Democrat Al Franken when Congress convenes next week, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn warned his Democratic colleagues Friday.
It was the latest salvo in the war of words touched off this week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., suggested Franken was drawing near to clinching a victory — despite the fact that as many as 2,000 votes are uncounted and numerous legal challenges loom.
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Will Media Report Reid Pressuring Blago Not To Pick Black Senators?
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Sun 04 Jan 2009 01:13 AM EST
  
Imagine for a moment the Senate was currently controlled by Republicans, and the white male majority leader advised Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich not to pick a black candidate to fill president-elect Barack Obama's vacated seat instead pressuring the governor to choose between two white candidates, do you think this would get some media attention?Probably every hour on the hour until the white majority leader was forced to apology and conceivably resign, right?
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Thursday, January 1
Russia, Ukraine say gas dispute won't hurt Europe
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Thu 01 Jan 2009 07:42 PM EST
In 2006, much of the blame for the supply disruption fell on Russia, which was accused of using its energy resources as a political weapon to punish Ukraine's Western-leaning government. European countries then began to question Russia's reliability as an energy partner and look for ways to diversify their supplies...The deadlock over gas supplies reflects the deep political split between Moscow and Kiev. Yushchenko has angered the Kremlin through his efforts to build ties to Western Europe and his support of Georgia in its August war with Russia.
(H/T: Our pal, Semra)
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Sarkozy tackles France's car burners
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Thu 01 Jan 2009 07:22 PM EST
President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to crack down on France's car burning after more than 1,100 vehicles went up in flames overnight on New Year's Eve. Sarkozy said he had asked authorities to be "uncompromising" with vehicle arsonists and said those caught burning other people's cars should lose their own licences until the damage had been paid for. "There is no reason why honest people should have to pay the consequences of the behaviour of delinquents,"
(This is "getting tough" with criminals in France? Taking away their drivers license? Not jail? -Roland)
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Americans Closely Divided Over Israel’s Gaza Attacks
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Thu 01 Jan 2009 06:45 PM EST
Americans, while far more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians, are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip...Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first
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Don't Tell Media Attacks On Israel Increased Since Hamas Elected
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Cuban Dictator Sez Fifty Years of Socialist Rule Awesome...No Comment Permitted From the Ruled
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Thu 01 Jan 2009 06:23 PM EST
Havana - As Cuba prepared to officially commemorate 50 years of socialism later Thursday, President Raul Castro declared that socialism had "not failed in any way."In a radio address, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, the father of the Cuban revolution who is too ill to appear in public at any celebrations, disputed remarks by the "enemy ... that socialism has been a failure."
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Greenhouse gases could have caused an ice age, claim scientists
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Thu 01 Jan 2009 05:45 PM EST
Filling the atmosphere with Greenhouse gases associated with global warming could push the planet into a new ice age, scientists have warned. Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that 630 million years ago the earth had a warm atmosphere full of carbon dioxide but was completely covered with ice. The scientists studied limestone rocks and found evidence that large amounts of greenhouse gas coincided with a prolonged period of freezing temperatures
Hot? Anthropogenic carbon dioxide-induced global warming. Freezing? Oh, that's anthropogenic carbon dioxide-induced global warming, too.
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Wednesday, December 31
GOP Congressman Gives His Pay Raise to Charity
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 11:43 PM EST
U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett says he is donating his new congressional raise to an Anderson charity...Barrett says lawmakers should not be earning more during these poor economic times. He says he voted against the automatic pay raise and all increases should have to be voted on individually.
Barrett is beginning his fourth term in Congress.
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The Warm Turns: The Earth has been warming ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. But guess what: Researchers say mankind is to blame for that, too
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 09:21 PM EST
When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop near zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins. But this year, the start of a new cycle, the sun has been eerily quiet.
The first seven months averaged a sunspot count of only three and in August there were no sunspots at all — zero — something that has not occurred since 1913.
According to the publication Daily Tech, in the past 1,000 years, three previous such events — what are called the Dalton, Maunder and Sporer Minimums — have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called the Little Ice Age (1500-1750).
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Video: IDF takes out Hamas vehicle being loaded to transport missiles
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 09:11 PM EST
What First Amendment: Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 08:57 PM EST
Relying on government help (to financially support newspapers) raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route.
Providing government support can muddy that mission, said Paul Janensch, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and a former reporter and editor.
"You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it," he said.
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Environment minister: Man-made global warming 'a con'
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 08:44 PM EST
Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases, Sammy Wilson said...
“I think in 20 years’ time we will look back at this whole climate change debate and ask ourselves how on earth were we ever conned into spending the billions of pounds which are going into this without any kind of rigorous examination of the background, the science, the implications of it all. Because there is now a degree of hysteria about it, fairly unformed hysteria I’ve got to say as well.
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Obama's Energy Honcho Wants to Saddle Americans (You and Me) With Higher Gasoline Prices Through Greater Taxation...Because High Fuel Prices Were So Much Fun Earlier This Year...
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 03:03 PM EST
Despite growing scientific dissent to the anthropogenic global warming meme and, indeed, greater evidence to the contrary that AGW exists, Obama's Energy honcho wants to ramp those gasoline prices right back up to, ya know, force us American saps to buy more-efficient cars and to live in neighborhoods closer to work. Uh huh. So, those of us who farm and/or who live in rural areas are supposed to sell our homes and move into the cities or else...?
Echoes of Obama's pre-election threat to "bankrupt" companies who build new coal power plants...
WSJ's Neil King, Jr. and Stephen Power report
(Hat tip: Pedro!)
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Uncle Jay Explains: Year-end! 12-22-08
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 12:49 AM EST
The race card is played: Don't "hang or lynch" the black man chosen by Rod Blagojevich
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 12:40 AM EST
Taking to the podium at the end of a bizarre, shambolic press conference in which Governor Rod Blagojevich sought to appoint Roland Burris to the US Senate, Congressman Bobby Rush dared white Democratic senators to block a black man from joining their ranks.
He urged people "not to hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer" and, after saying repeatedly that Burris would be the only African-American in the Senate, said that he believed no senator would want "to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the US Senate".
Rush is a former Black Panther who trounced Barack Obama in the 2000 Democratic primary when the then state senator challenged him for his House of Representatives seat
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Tuesday, December 30
Burris Donated Thousands to Blagojevich
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 30 Dec 2008 11:28 PM EST
Roland Burris, the former Illinois Attorney General named by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill the vacant Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama, has a documented history of making substantial donations to Friends of Blagojevich, the very campaign organization that federal prosecutors charge Blagojevich used to put Obama's seat up for sale to the highest bidder.
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