Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to buy GM and Chrysler, China’s 21st Century Business Herald reported on November 18th. — this is one of China’s leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over 3 million.. The paper cites a senior official of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology– the state regulator of China’s auto industry–who dropped the hint that “the auto manufacturing giants in China, such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, have the capability and intention to buy some assets of the two crisis-plagued American automakers.” These hints are very often followed with quick action. 
 
Chevrolet is the top selling marque in China where GM has been very profitable. Plus GM can be bought for– less than toy maker Mattel. Even at $100 billion it wouldn’t even dent China’s more than $2 trillion in currency reserves.

Plus, a take-over of a large  overseas auto maker would fit perfectly into China’s plans. The brand cachet of Chinese cars abroad is, shall we say, challenged. The Chinese could easily export Made-in-China VWs, Toyotas, Buicks. If their joint venture partner would let them. The solution: Buy the joint venture partner. Especially, when he’s in deep trouble.

Says the paper: “It would be much easier now for strong Chinese automakers to go global by acquiring some assets of their U.S. counterparts in times of crisis.”

Deloitte & Touche sees a trend:”The Chinese appear to have bigger plans than an accounting firm can imagine. 21st Century Business Herald acts and writes as if its already a done deal, and the beginning of more to come.
 
Just in case you missed it, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC)  is China’s largest auto manufacturer. In 1984, the company entered a joint venture with Volkswagen. A decade later, SAIC entered a joint venture with General Motors. In 2007, SAIC bought the Nanjing Automobile Corporation, which had acquired  British MG Rover in 2005.

Dongfeng Motor Corporation is a public company, although 70 percent of their shares are reported to be in government hands. They also are one of China’s Big Three. The company has numerous joint venture partners, such as Nissan, Peugeot-Citroen, Honda, and Kia. Dongfeng (which means “East Wind”) was founded at the behest of Mao Zedong himself  in 1968.
 
Nearly half of U.S. voters (48%) told Rasmussen Reports this week that it is better for the economy to let companies like General Motors fail rather than providing government subsidies to keep them in business.
 
My late uncle, Rev. John, used to say “Never use a gold collection plate.” GM, Ford and Chrysler’s CEOs could have benefited from his advice as the hypocrites swooshed into Washington DC aboard private jets to beg for another $25 billion in taxpayer money at least in part to pay for their fleets of jets. Apparently they have all cut costs by laying off their public relations department, or if they haven’t – they should and get someone who is not so completely tone deaf.
 
Only Congressman Barney Frank out did that troika of hypocrites by charging that denying them the bailout was really about hurting blue collar assembly line workers having already shoveled tens of billions to bailout white collar bankers. Frank’s first class hypocrisy was heightened by failing to mention that his homosexual boyfriend lover at Fannie Mae was one of the first beneficiaries; how much money he and his mostly Democrat cohorts rake in from United Auto Workers or that he took a sweetheart mortgage from failed Countrywide.
 
It was Mark Twain who said, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress….But then I repeat myself.”  Makes you wonder how Twain would amend his sarcasm to include the trio of arrogant auto executives having already covered the mush mouthed Congressman.

The Federal Election Commission was prepared to sweep aside formal demands for a full audit of irregularities in the Obama campaign until the idea of Hillary Clinton being Secretary of State surfaced. More specifically are monies flowing from foreigners and foreign governments to former President Bill Clinton and into the Obama’s pockets.

The rub with the FEC is concerns can also include receiving money from foreign donors. The FEC compiled a list last month of more than 16,000 contributions from overseas sources. A Newsmax survey of roughly one-fifth of those names found 118 individuals who appeared to be foreign citizens.
 
Non-U. S. citizens are forbidden from contributing and more specifically campaigns, if knowing, are prohibited from accepting such contributions lest foreigners and foreign governments buy influence.
 
4,000 contributors to the Obama campaign exceeded the $2,300 individual limits and could be prosecuted and if found guilty fined and even imprisoned.
 
So, will the commission act now? Incoming commissioners Don McGahn, a Republican, and Cynthia Bauerly, a Democrat, insisted that they would hear cases at the FEC in terms of their merits, not party affiliation.
 
One egregious example is contribution from two brothers in the Gaza Strip, Hosam and Monir Edwan. Together, they gave over $31,000 to the Obama campaign. The brothers listed their address as Gaza Strip, Rafah,” and used a foreign currency credit card to make their donations.
 
Obama’s campaign also received millions of dollars in cash cards where a person buys the card for cash, contributes without name or address being reported. In one case an individual bought out a retailers supply with a stack of $100 bills.
Partisans are pointing out that this does not reflect the idea of “change” or “reform.”
 
At minimum say critics Obama’s campaign should be thoroughly vetted as former President Clinton financed investigated to remove any doubt of foreign influence or expose it if it exists.
Mythologem (mi-THOL-uh-jem) noun: A basic theme of a myth, for example, revenge, honor, betrayal, etc. From Greek mythologema (mythical narrative), from mythologein (to tell mythical tales), from mythos (myth) + -logos (word or speech).
‘
Oh, great!” Astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper exclaimed watching helplessly as a $100,000 tool bag floated off into the void of space while she was working on the International Sp[ace Station (ISS). Piper forgot to tie it down and the world’s most expensive tool bag is now part of the floating junk orbiting the Earth. Stefanyshyn-Piper borrowed tools from her companion space walker Steve Bowen, who carried the same contents in his bag.

NASA tracks objects lost close to the International Space Station and the space shuttle because they can be harmful if they later collide.There is so much space debris in low orbits around the Earth, we wish Chicken Little were right about the sky falling-at least when it comes to debris that is cluttering up our space environment and starting to truly interfere with use of space.
Man-made debris is clogging up active satellite traffic lanes and the situation is getting worse. As we approach space gridlock, space will eventually become inaccessible to all nations for all applications. There will eventually be no more GPS navigation, no more weather data beamed from space and no more satellite television, etc. — and, unfortunately, no one is doing anything about cleaning up space!
There are good things from Tuesday “whoops” renewed discussions about cleaning up space, and requiring “deorbiting” mechanisms that would ensure stuff leaves orbit and burns up and doesn’t just float around for decades and even centuries.
An email request,  and a letter faxed and mailed to NASA asking they explain what could cost $100,000 in a tool bag and if it answers we will let you know.
There’s going to be an auto show in Washington — $10 to get in, $25 billion to get out.– Leno
Forty-six percent (46%) of Americans say most reporters and media outlets try to make the economy seem worse than it really is, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
 
Sixteen percent (16%) say most reporters and media outlets try to make the economy look better than it really is, while 25% say they present an accurate picture. Thirteen percent (13%) are undecided.
 
Investors are even more skeptical. Fifty-one percent (51%) say the media makes the economy appear worse than it actually is, compared to 40% of non-investors.
 
(See article America Divided Into Literate And Illiterate November 16, 2008 , Hypocrisy.com), i.e., “ News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable.”
A private analysis I am privileged to, found that most print reporters and nearly all television newsreaders have little or no economic or scientific education. Further a small study and analysis showed print reporters to have average IQ and television newsreaders to be somewhat below average in native intelligence as measured on the Stanford-Binet 5th generation scale that is the most up-to-date.
 
I must disclose that in 1960 as a completely hollow-headed boy I was an invited participant in the recalibration that resulted in the 4th revision of the standard Stanford-Binet scalling..
 
 
Dateline Paris (AFP) Nov 19, 2008 The first of a new class of multipurpose Russian nuclear attack submarines currently in construction will be operational by 2010, a Russian news agency reported Wednesday.  The Severodvinsk “will be operational in 2010,” Ria Novosti said. Named after the White Sea port which houses the main Russian nuclear submarine base, the Severodvinsk is 119 metres long (390 feet) and can navigate at a depth of 600 metres about 2,000 feet under water..
It “will be able to perform every mission that could be asked of it by the state: attacking different targets when underwater, on the surface or (by) land,” according to a naval admiral also quoted. According to the Russian news service, Ria Novasti, the submarine can launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (up to 3,100 miles) with nuclear warheads, and effectively engage hostile submarines and surface warships.
 
Work on the Severodvinsk started in 1992, and the vessel had been scheduled to be commissioned before 1998. Work sputtered until this year when financing totaled 4 billion rubles ($146 mln). Under an ambitious 2007-2015 Kremlin Plan, the Navy will receive several dozen surface ships and submarines, including five Borey nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile submarines equipped with new Bulava ballistic missiles, two Yasen nuclear-powered multipurpose submarines, six Lada diesel-electric submarines, three frigates and five corvettes. Collapsing crude oil prices and pressure on natural; gas prices are gnawing holes in the Putin Plan to increase military spending by a mamouth 23%.
 
A Russian sailor has been blamed for deaths aboard another new Russian submarine when he allegedly trigger a fire fighting system and suffocated a score of civilian workers aboard during a shakedown cruise.
Severodvinsk (Russian: Северодви́нск) is a city in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina, 35 kilometers (22 mi) west of Arkhangelsk on Russia’s Atlantic coast. The city now with a population of 200,000 was first discovered around 1,000 AD by Vikings. Today’s city was largely purpose built as a naval base.
 
D.C. police, frustrated that the same teenage robbery suspect implicated in a string of 21 robberies that they have repeatedly arrested  only to have him released time and again, took to cyberspace Friday in an unusual effort to lobby judges and city officials to keep him off the streets.
The subject line says “ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT,” and WDC detective Inspector Edward Delgado described how the teenager allegedly had been sneaking up behind victims, knocking them to the ground and swiping whatever he could: money, cellphones, iPods.
A judge ruled the teen mentally incompetent to stand trial. It was not immediately clear whether there was any alternative to releasing him. The basis for the release him after the finding could not be learned last night by the Washington Post that broke the story this morning. A court official said authorities could not locate a case yesterday matching the description.
“Flood the email system today because time is critical in this matter,” Delgado implored the subscribers to the 3rd District Substation e-mail group. “Let them not release this criminal yet again into the community.”
The unprecedented email barrage appears to have worked and the deranged thug is still in custody.
District Attorney Nickles got more messages than he cared to count and said the orchestrated letter-writing campaign was inappropriate.
In a classic tone deaf manner he said he hasn’t touched the emails, and “I told my secretary to put them in a pile.”

In the District’s complex juvenile e system District those charged as juveniles go to Family Court. Their cases are open only to relatives of those charged and to victims, who are sworn to secrecy.
Those charged with serious crimes and awaiting trial can be held at the Youth Services Center, operated by the Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services. Others participate in a diversion program that sends them to halfway houses or group homes, an effort to keep fewer youths in locked facilities.
Since the US Supreme Court reversed local laws allowing law abiding citizens to own handguns it raises the issue if this thug or any other would have attacked an armed citizen resolving the attack and attacker with finality what would happen.
When Assistant Chief Diane Groomes learned about the arrest, she thought it was an opportunity to tap what she considered pent-up community desire to help police. She contacted Delgado and encouraged him to send out the bulletin. “This is a test case,” Groomes said.
In a community meeting in Brightwood last week, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier encouraged residents to write to judges and prosecutors and air frustrations about criminals who cycle through the revolving doors of criminal justice, with arrests followed by speedy releases.
Frustrated over a drunk driver’s repeated release I once complained to a judge who counseled me, “never confuse the law and justice.” Ironically the drunk driver was killed 6 months later when he drove off a 60 foot cliff – drunk.
 
A few weeks before dropping North Korea from the United States’ list of countries that sponsor terrorism, the Bush administration thwarted a shipment of missile parts, possibly including gyroscopes for guidance systems, from North Korea to Iran Newsweek is reporting in this week’s magazine. 
An aircraft operated by Pyongyang’s state-controlled airline was given permission by India to fly from Burma to Teheran, traversing Indian airspace. In August The Indian Express newspaper reported that the office of India’s prime minister “hurriedly” asked authorities to withdraw the clearance. The US officials said that clearance was annulled following a request from Washington.
The intelligence coup was not reported by U. S. main stream media lest it weaken Barrack Obama’s chances.
After blocking the missile components shipment the US removed North Korea from its state sponsor of terror status in October, after Pyongyang agreed to halt its nuclear program.
However, what seemed a brisk start almost immediately began to stutter as Japanese and South Korean officials publicly proclaimed that North Korea had stopped the process of decommissioning its reactor, and was not standing up to other sides of its agreement with the US.
That Bush “failure” was widely reported in the U. S. only a few days before the November presidential election.

Speculation centers around North Korea deciding it can play hardball and win concessions from an Obama administration it believes will be anxious to avoid anything that appears to be a foreign policy crisis.

Former eBay chief Meg Whitman and Mitts Romney supporter is mulling a run to replace California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he leaves office in two years. If Senator Diane Feinstein runs too as rumors say she might. It could be a real dustup.

One of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. But, don’t expect to read or hear about it in America’s Main Stream Media. London ’s Sunday Times called it “the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.” A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.

The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the l ong history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush’s surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.

We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy. Al-Qaida’s loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province , which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there. Now, in Operation Lion’s Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction
of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.

Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.

Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government has achieved “satisfactory” progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks “a big change for the better from a year ago.”

Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates , which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad, an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq. But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, “the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks “that signaled political progress.”

“Don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy allows unmanned U. S. Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan federally administered tribal areas while both countries look the other way. It has been going on since August.

The Pentagon’s missile defense chief Trey Obering said Wednesday he looked forward to reporting to president-elect Barack Obama that the US anti-missile system is “workable,” and to setting the president-elect’s mind at ease.

Obama raised eyebrows by denying he had assured the Polish President that the missile shield would go forward and then further qualifying that by wondering if it was “workable.” Obama’s foreign policy advisor Dennis McDonough said Obama “made no commitment” on US plans to install a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, under an August 14 agreement.

“His position is, as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable,” McDonough said.

Obering, who will resign his post at the end of November, warned that abandoning the missile shield in central Europe “would severely hurt our ability to protect our forces in that region.” He says timing was a vital issue. “We can’t wait until we see the Iranians fly an ICBM,” or intercontinental ballistic missile.

The shield — endorsed by NATO in February — is aimed at fending off potential attacks by so-called “rogue states” such as Iran, and is in no way aimed at Russia.

Russia sees it as a threat to its own security. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would abandon plans to deploy missiles on the EU’s doorstep in Kaliningrad if the Obama scraps its plans to base part of the missile shield in Europe.

Polish lawmakers have yet to ratify the US missile defense deal while the Czech government has called for a delay in a final vote on its radar agreements until Obama’s inauguration on January 20.

The proposal is to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in neighboring Czech Republic to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain. Russia has seized on it as a way to show Europe it has the power to get the U. S. to back down and that it has become a unreliable ally in any case.

Europe, that depends on Russia for most of its natural gas, is quavering because of its dependency fueled in large measure by questions about the future direction of the U. S.

NEWSWEEK magazine is taking orders for a “commemorative” issue about its candidate Barrack Obama.

A November 6, 2008 analysis by Jonathan Rynhold for The Begin-Sadat Center (BESA) says Obama’s plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and reconcile with Iran and Syria in concluding that the forthcoming Obama administration was likely to clash with the next Israeli government.

Obama’s preferences regarding Iran and Iraq have serious implications for Israel,” the report, titled “President Obama and the Middle East Challenge,” said.

If the U.S. were to leave Iraq unstable, with the perception being one of American weakness and failure, it will strengthen the resolve of all radical forces in the region that threaten Israel and its de facto allies in the Arab world, such as Jordan.”

The report said Republican loser Sen. John McCain marked the “more comfortable option for Israel.” Rynhold envisioned tense relations between Obama and any Likud-led government in Israel. Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu has been leading in most polls in the race for Israel’s next prime minister.

“If Netanyahu does form the next Israeli government, there could be difficult times ahead,” the report said. “This has happened previously, when Shamir and Bush Senior, as well as Clinton and Netanyahu, clashed in the 1990s. But this time Netanyahu’s position would be weaker.”

The report said Israel could no longer count on Republicans in Congress to temper Obama’s policies in the Middle East. Instead, Obama would be supported by a Democratic-controlled Congress and a new Jewish lobby, “J Street,” that would seek to undermine the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Although not included in the BESA Report recent U. S. surveys find a plurality of U. S. Jews unconcerned about Israel.

The report said the Obama administration could retain several leading advisers long regarded as hostile toward Israel including: former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Sen. Chuck Hagel, who could be pitted against the more pro-Israel Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer.

“…(T)his could lead to bureaucratic in-fighting and consequently policy incoherence, as has frequently occurred in the past.”

The report envisioned a Middle East crisis at the onset of the Obama administration. Rynhold said Obama’s foreign policy would be hampered by his lack of experience and dependent on his managerial and decision-making abilities.

“The central challenge for Obama in the Middle East is neither democratization nor securing a comprehensive resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict — though those are worthy long term objectives — but rather the maintenance of a stable pro-American balance of power in the region,” the report said. “First and foremost that means dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue.”

The report was completed before it became known that president-elect Obama had sent envoys to Egypt, Syria, and radical Sunni-Muslim group Hamas or the appointment of as Chief of Staff. Emanuel’s father was born in Jerusalem and was a member of the Irgun, a militant Zionist group which operated from 1931 to 1948 during the British Mandate of Palestine. Whether or not these contemporary events would have changed Rynhold analysis is unknown.

Activists say if the California Supreme Court does not overturn the voter approved ban on homosexual marriage for the second time they will oput he issue back on the ballot in 2010. Scattered acts of violence against individuals and churches who supported the ban continue.

According to a World Tribune article datelined, November 12, 2008 from Abu Dhabi — Iran, Qatar and Russia the top gas producers in the world have reconvened their talks on the formation of a natural gas cartel.

The three countries began an energy summit on Nov. 12 in the Qatari capital of Doha. Officials said the key issue was an examination of the technical details required for the formation of a gas cartel modeled on OPEC.

Last month Qatar, Russia and Teheran agreed to examine the establishment of a gas cartel. Iran and Russia have pressed for the cartel that they say would “monitor” the gas market. It is hard to deny its real purpose is to control natural gas and drive up prices.

The oil ministers of Iran and Qatar are attending the Nov. 12 session. A week ago there was discussion of Lybia joining the troika. It is not known why it is not represented at the meeting.

World natural gas reserves are estimated at 6,315.770 trillion cubic feet (TCF);North America has 286.842 tcf; Europe 175.652 tcf; Eurasia 1,900.265 tcf; Middle east 2,609.319 tcf; Africa 514.328 tcf, Central and South America 260.095 tcf and Asia & Oceana 531.809 tcf.

Of that the cartel members control 57% of those gas reserves including: Qatar 904.064 tcf; Iran 988.820 tcf, and Russia 1,688.755 tcf. Russia is believed to control perhaps another 20%. Russia’s state-owned GASPROM supplies most of Europes natural gas imposrt and recently reduced prices so as not to complicate its economic uncertainties. According to Pravda, Russia’s state run news service it is allowing natural gas prices rise to market levels in Russia proper hurting many average Russians.

Republican Rep. Dan Lungren of Gold River announced today that he will challenge Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner for the position of House minority leader. Lundgren apparently wants to bring his successes with the California Republican Party to the nation.

Thursday the International Energy Agency (IEA) slashed its 2009 crude oil price forecast to $80 from $110 saying imminent recession is strangling demand in rich countries and crimping emerging economies. It said that despite recent heavy price falls to the $60 range, prices on futures contracts still hovered around $85 for a 40 gallon barrel.

The IEA, the oil monitoring and strategy arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that “given the economic contraction, a lower price will only have a very limited effect upon oil demand.”

“Oil demand is in a tailspin,” the IEA said. “But there is scant consensus on the slowdown’s scale and duration.”

The IEA said that “while we lack a crystal ball,” a recently announced Chinese economic stimulus package “could help avert the first global demand contraction since 1983.”

The “current squeeze” had widespread repercussions, the IEA noted, saying: “Slowing oil sector investment in 2009 sows the seeds of a sharp tightening in market fundamentals if major projects are delayed.”

It warned that the impact of such a slowing of investment would be felt in three to five years’ time “after economic recovery regains a foothold.”

Some studies predict crude oil production topping out in 2011-2013 but others doubt it predicting continued growth for some time to come.

Led by California, 41 states are now in financial trouble, and many of their leaders are looking to Congress to bail them out. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater having government watch your money is like have you dog watch your food.

We are very profitable in China,” said Henry Wong, a Shanghai-based spokesman for General Motors the biggest US auto maker, and he confirmed GM wants to continue investment and expansion there. “I will not speculate on where money will come from for future investment of speculative nature. Right now it’s too early to talk about that,” he said.

He told AFP that various investment projects GM had committed itself to in the past were “all on target and on track.”

These included expansion projects for existing plants in the cities of Qingdao and Yantai, both in east China’s Shandong province, he said.

“We are not withdrawing or holding back any investment in China,” he said.

He declined to comment on reports in the local media that it planned to increase its 34-percent stake in SAIC-GM-Wuling, a joint venture that produces commercial vehicles.

On Monday, GM chief executive Rick Wagoner said the US auto maker was in such dire financial straits that it needed to line up a federal aid package before president-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

The expansion and speculative investment comments have skeptics of the proposed government loan or equity purchases concerned that U. S. taxpayer money can wind up helping hire more foreign workers. Others say the taxpayer money is a giant welfare program for the United Auto Workers.

Recent analysis show that the cost of one hour’s manufacturing for GM in the U. S. is about $74 more than twice Toyota’s domestic costs and several times more that other manufacturers.

Regardless it is politically expedient to prop up GM’s domestic operations. The theory is credit will loosen; the economy will improve and fuel costs will average in the $2.50 per gallon range until at least 2010 all helping car and truck sales. A bugaboo are various proposals to pile new sales taxes onto vehicles sales such as one floated in California to increase sales taxes by 1.5% and increase already high vehicle license fees to patch up its $30 billion estimated budget deficit.

The FBI is investigating whether vandalism to Mormon temples and meeting houses, incidents believed to be linked to Proposition 8 activists, are hate crimes.

Sources reporting to World Tribune in an article from Cairo, Egypt says fighting between opposition forces and the regime of Col. Moammar Qaddafi has spread. Libya has imposed a news black out as thousands of government troops are rushing to several cities.

Qaddafi regime sources claims the fighting is a tribal conflict but Libyan opposition sources said tribes and other unemployed young men were battling regime forces in at least two cities in the North African state. Call it a revolution.

Government sources say, “Skirmishes between youths from Al Tabu and Zawia tribes evolved into larger battles in which several cars and houses were burned,” the Libyan daily Al Watan said on Nov. 7 before the blackout was imposed. .

Opposition sources said the fighting between tribal members and the regime began in the southeastern Libyan city of Kufra in early November and has now spread to the streets of Benghazi the second largest city.

30% unemployment, a dysfunctional economy and even the recent courtship by Russia has raised the level of discord that has now boiled over to street fighting.

Libya is governed by a so-called Jamahiriya (a state of the masses) in theory, governed by the populace through local councils; in practice, an authoritarian state with Qaddafi as its dictator. It has a unworkable amalgam of Italian and French civil law and Islamic law. It is without a Constitution,  or political parties so effective opposition is almost impossible and chaotic.

95% of its export income is from crude oil accounting for 60% of private sector wages. Theoretiocally it has one of the highest per capita income in Africa but little of its trickles to the poorest and even its 45 billion barrel oil reserve allows little hope for a better life except for the elite.

Libya has claimed more than 32,000 sq km in southeastern Algeria and about 25,000 sq km in the Tommo region of Niger in a currently dormant dispute; various Chadian rebels from the Aozou region reside in southern Libya.

At this writing it is unknown if foreign fighters or influence are involved in the current conflict.

Chevrolet is the best selling car in the world. Not in the U. S. but in the world. GM is wildly profitable in China and South America. Bureaucrats and unions are strangling it in U. S.

U.S. officials said the Treasury Department would block short-term money transfers in the United States, a method used by the Teheran regime. The so-called U-turn” bank transfers were designed to move money through the United States en route to offshore banks. “Given Iran’s conduct, it is necessary to close even this indirect access,” Treasury Undersecretary Stuard Levey said.

Under the measure, Treasury would outlaw the processing of U-turn transfers by U.S.-licensed banks. Officials said the restriction would prevent most transfers by non-Iranian offshore banks for Iranian entities. “This regulatory action will close the last general entry point for Iran to the U.S. financial system,” Treasury said.

Officials said Iranian banks and the Teheran government were increasingly using U-turn to avoid U.S. sanctions. They said Teheran recruited Asian, African and European banks to handle Iranian foreign transactions.

The Bush administration has determined that Iranian banks were aiding Teheran’s missile and nuclear program. Treasury has already imposed sanctions on such Iranian state-owned banks as Melli, Mellat, Saderat, Sepah, Future Bank and the Export Development Bank of Iran.

The latest measure, announced on Nov. 6, stipulated that no U.S.-licensed bank could conduct a U-turn transaction for Iran. Officials said the exception would be the transfer of Iranian funds to families or humanitarian relief. The United States contains a small but wealthy Iranian community, mainly located in Los Angeles

“Allowable funds transfers under specific or general OFAC [Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control] licenses would include: payments arising from over-flights of Iranian air space; legal services; intellectual property protection; and authorized sales of agricultural products, medicine, and medical devices to Iran,” Treasury said.

A Fairfield, California priest who had asked for a car with several Obama for President stickers to be removed from the church parking lot a week ago apologized today to churchgoers for his outburst.

larm klaxons are clanging at the National Rifle Association (NRA); Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), and among hunters and gun owners over question 59 on the 63-question application to work in the Obama administration. The question in the miscellaneous section asks: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun?” and demands to list details.

It is unclear whether owning a gun would disqualify an applicant or not but the question seems to show a distaste for and a desire to “weed-out” people who own a firearm. After all if it was not important in the vetting and selection process why would it be included?

ISRA issued a statement that “as an Illinois State senator — voted for SB1195, which included a provision calling for gun owners to be registered in the same manner as sex offenders.”

“[A]s this litmus test shows, they have every intention of putting together an administration that is hostile to firearms ownership and to Second Amendment rights,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

President-elect Obama’s disparaging comment about people clinging to their guns and Bibles inflamed many and this disclosure last week fanned the blaze and suspicions.

The day after election gun sales spiked across America as citizens scrambled to buy guns before stiffer regulations and even efforts to ban private ownership. In 1996 during his run for the Illinois State Senate, Obama told non-profit organization Independent Voters of Illinois that he supported a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns, a de facto national annulment of the second amendment. During the campaign he said, Americans have a right to bear arms.

But, he qualified that in April 2008 Obama stating, “As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right.”

Obama cosponsored bills to limit gun purchases , supported the 2008 D.C. gun ban, voted against allowing persons who had obtained domestic violence protective orders to carry handguns for their protection, and has consistently supported measures against concealed carry.

Obama is also a board member of the Joyce Foundation, which funds gun control groups in the U.S.

His appointment of long time anti-gun crusader Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff has also deepened concerns of 2^nd Amendment advocates.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller (June 26, 2008), protected the pre-existing individual right to possess and carry weapons in a case that overturned Washington DC’s ban on gun ownership.

Cultivar   (KUHL-tuh-var) noun: A variety of plant that has been produced by selective breeding. A cultivar is developed for specific attributes and retains those attributes in further propagation. Blend of cultivation + variety.

orld crude oil production will peak between 2011 and 2013, causing rising fuel prices and devastating damage to the global economy that is the warning from a new report issued by the U.K. Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security an alliance of eight British companies drawn from across the economic spectrum.

 

The report, titled “The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK’s Energy Future,” was released in Berlin on November 7, 2008. It claims peak oil is a much greater threat to Britain than terrorism and foresees oil prices much higher than this summer’s $147-a-barrel peak. The report is the first multi-company alarm bell to be sounded on peak oil.

OPEC governments and some oil companies argue that because of existing reserves, new findings and technological advancements, crude oil production will meet growing demand for decades to come. Others, and they have become more numerous and vocal, argue that an oil peak — after which production will steadily and inevitably fall — is imminent. This now includes even big oil officials.

There is consensus that crude oil and natural gas production will almost certainly peak within ten years. The differences are relatively minor but everyone agrees that today’s crude oil prices will rise precipitously and even the $147 per barrel price of last summer will look cheap.

Russia and Saudi Arabia both look on new finds as something to be husbanded and the reports says,. “King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently described his response to new finds: ‘No, leave it in the ground … our children need it.’ In other words, even those who have less expensive oil may wish to exploit it slowly and get the best possible price for it.”

Grimly the report warns, “The world’s governments need to act as quickly as possible—and — “If we wait until an energy supply crisis is upon us before becoming serious about implementing sustainable solutions, in the ensuing dislocation we could no longer be able to muster the resources required.”

A 70 pound dog waiting in a car in a car wash slipped the vehicle into gear and backed out driving in a loop before the car came to a stop. The dog nor its owner were cited but the owner was urged not to leave the dog in the car or get it a license to drive.

uelled in recent years by vast oil wealth, Russia has tried to revive its military from its near-terminal collapse in the post-Soviet 1990s, bolstering their message by such means as missile tests, long-range strategic bomber patrols and stepped-up naval deployments. Critics point to a desire not to return to a post-World War II strategy of quantity versus quality that has a long way to go.

That criticism appears justified by last weekend’s bizarre accident aboard one of its Akula-class submarines — the fastest and most silent in Russia’s navy, capable of carrying nuclear missiles — when a chemical fire suppression system poisoned 20 civilians and sailors and injured 22 others. A Russian expert said Sunday that a lack of gas masks among too many untrained civilians may have elevated the death toll. The submarine was thought to be destined for lease to India raising serious question says analyst Bob Ayers of the London-based research center Chatham House.

Russia sells scads of unsophisticated but lethal1940-1960 era small arms but has fallen on hard times, and doubts from buyers of more sophisticated systems, for instance: several embarrassments in recent years, including problems fulfilling an order by India for a refurbished Soviet-era aircraft carrier, the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov, and complaints by Algeria about fighter jets it bought from Russia which has demanded the right to return them due to faulty systems.

Russian weapons are often described as an awkward mix of Soviet-era design and materials with more recent technology, throttled by corruption and incompetence. Because of repeated fits and starts it took 18-years to build the submarine that was in its sea trials and involved in last weekend’s incident.

The accident is the worse Russian submarine disaster since the Kursk sank in August 2000 with all hands. Russian submariners do not enjoy their nickname of “coffin sailors.”

Myanmar removed a rig from a gas-rich stretch of the Bay of Bengal on Sunday after Bangladesh sent warships to protest against exploration in the disputed waters and a confrontation was avoided.

nvestigators from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) which works under the auspices of the United Nations have found traces of enriched uranium in Syria, a sign the country had been attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported Monday.

The enriched uranium was discovered at the same site of a North Korea built and Iran financed reactor which was destroyed by what many feel was a combined bombing by the Israeli Air Force jets and special operations forces in September 2007. The raid has been criticized as illegitimate but this discovery lessens that… IAEA has not released a formal report and made no comment.

Tons of yellowcake uranium was discovered in Iraq and secretly shipped to Canada for processing. Yellowcakes (also called urania) are uranium concentrates obtained from leach solutions. They represent an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is not knownm if any of the Iraqi stockpile found its way into Syria to be processed. It seems more likely the enriched uranium was refined elsewhere and shipped to Syria for further processing in the reactor into U239 (Plutonium) which is a nuclear bomb grade element.

“The agency clearly thinks it has something significant enough to report to put Syria on the (nuclear safeguards) agenda right after North Korea and Iran,” one senior diplomat told Reuters.

“It isn’t enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation,” another diplomat with ties to the organization said.

“It was a man-made component, not natural (ore). There is no sign there was already nuclear fuel or (production) activity there,” a third diplomat told Reuters.

Israeli, that has not admitted to the reactor’s destruction, has privately asserted Syria was trying to produce bomb grade material and that why it had to act.

Coincident to the Syria announcement Al-Qaida is saying it is planning an attack on the US more devastating than 9-11. There is no apparent link between Syria and al-Qaida’s threat.

Ten days ago rumor was rift of an Iran prepared freighter loaded with radioactive sand or powder intended to be detonated off Israel’s shore to be carried by prevailing wind to contaminating large areas. That ship was hijacked by pirates some of whom mysteriously died apparently from the ship’s contents.

In the country of Sierra Leone, 6 out of 10 male newborns at Freetown’s main hospital were named Barack. Six out of 10. Even more amazing? At least 23 babies born in North Carolina last year were named John Edwards junior.– Leno

inancial newspaper Barron’s has reversed course on General Motors, telling investors to get out while they can. It also told investors to ditch GM bonds. Deutsche Bank joined the fray, moving GM from “hold” to “sell” and putting its target price on the carmaker at zero. GM closed Friday at $4.36 and traded pre-market Monday well under $4.

The German investment bank says that the U.S. auto giant will have to rely on a government intervention to stay alive, but even if that were to happen shareholders would be left holding the bag.

If the government doesn’t step in, Deutsche Bank told investors, collapse is inevitable and would precipitate systemic risk affecting other automakers, suppliers, retailers, and parts of the U.S. economy. If GM does file bankruptcy, a similar, Lehman-like ripple effect would result, GM’s CFO warned Friday.

At the end of World War II 85% of everything on earth that rolled on rubber tires was made in the USA. Now General Motors and Ford are teetering on the edge of collapse and Chrysler is not far behind.

 

GM continues to be profitable offshore but domestically it is imperiled and some says a taxpayer bailout would be unwise calling for it to close and its US market apportioned as the free market sees fit.

 

U. S. auto manufacturers have been hit by union wages almost 50% higher ($43 versus $$64 an hour) than its foreign owned competitors like Toyota who negotiated much lower wages by promising new jobs at new U. S. plants and got them. Some say even that might have been overcome had more fuel efficient vehicles been produced.

 

One out of six homeowners owes more on their mortgage than their house is worth.

 

outh Korean military officer said Wednesday that he believes North Korea is trying to develop a nuclear warhead that is small enough to be carried by its missiles. North Korea is believed to maintain enough plutonium to produce about half a dozen bombs, but it is not believed to have mastered the technology needed fit a nuclear weapon inside a missile warhead.  Separately North Korea said that if attacked it could use nuclear weapons against South Korea.

 

A leading European scientist said Teheran was developing the ability to rapidly manufacture tactical nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles. The scientist, Peter Zimmerman, said Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz could produce 100 such warheads by 2010. Zimmerman, a professor at London’s King’s College and former scientific adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Natanz appeared to be a key facility for Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

He said Natanz was hosting experiments that were unrelated to a civilian atomic energy program, as claimed by Teheran. Instead, Natanz was being used to test the ability of high explosives to implode a hemispherical shell of heavy metal. Such experiments, Zimmerman said, were meant for development of lightweight nuclear weapons.

Iran has reported plans to operate 54,000 gas centrifuges for an industrial uranium enrichment program. So far, 6,000 centrifuges were said to have been installed.

Zimmerman’s assessment differs significantly from the U.S. intelligence community. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran could reach enough enriched uranium by 2010 but still required a breakthrough for the development of a nuclear warhead.

In bizarre brassiere brouhaha Victoria Secret is accused of selling bras containing formaldehyde that has sickened some women. There is a smart aleck comment here but I can’t think of it.

ussia has already won its first challenge to president-elect Obama. Obama has signaled his willingness to abandon the European part of the missile defense shield making back channel deals even before his inauguration. Last week Obama also sent an envoy to promise Egypt continuing aid and sophisticated F-16 fighters and also discussed deals with Syria. to Israel’s dismay. Russia said November 12^th it rejects U. S. proposals on missile defense preferring to negoiate with what it believes will be a more pliable Obama.

It’s the same thing all over again. After the US put missiles into Turkey the USSR put missiles into Cuba, and JFK was extolled and is revered for solving it by removing the Turkish based missiles, and the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis was over. Russia now says it will abandon plans to deploy missiles on the EU’s doorstep in Kaliningrad if the US scraps its plans to base part of a missile defense shield in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday. The Czech Republic already blinked holding off a vote on installing anti-missile radar on its territory lest Obama abandon it..

Polish President Lech Kaczynski said that Obama had told him in a telephone call that “the anti-missile shield project would go ahead” in which 10 missile interceptors are set up in Poland under a deal signed August 14.

But Obama’s foreign policy advisor Dennis McDonough said the president-elect “made no commitment” on the shield during his conversation with the Polish president saying “…supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable”, and that is seen as waffling, and looking for a way out.

This is the classic Russian negotiating approach – take as much as possible; give a little, come out ahead and push elsewhere. The EU is already heavily compromised because of its dependence on Russian natural gas, and except for the UK must be generally considered conciliatory toward Russian demands. Ukraine is reported to be reconsidering whether it will risk joining NATO over Russian objections.

 

 

All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena will continue blessing same sex wedding ceremonies. The Reverend Ed Bacon said the only difference will be the actual signing of marriage certificates. For 16-years, All Saints has blessed same sex marriages and began conducting legal same sex marriages in June after the California Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have the right to wed. Since then, the “Pasadena Star” reports the church has presided over 43-legal same sex marriages. Tuesday’s passage of Proposition 8 banned same sex marriages in California.

omorrow is Verterans Day. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Americans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. military, and 45% regard Veterans Day as one of the nation’s most important holidays. The military’s favorability rating is up eight points from a Rasmussen Reports survey for Veterans Day a year ago. Just nine percent (9%) have an unfavorable view of the military, and 12% are undecided.

Only seven percent (7%) say Veterans Day is one of our least important holidays, with 46% rating it somewhere in between the least important and most important holidays. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Republicans say Veterans Day is one of our most important holidays, but just 40% of Democrats and unaffiliated voters agree.

Only 19% say they have served in the U.S. military, including one-third (33%) of men and six percent (6%) of women. Just 15% of Republicans, 18% of Democrats and 25% of unaffiliated voters say they have had military service.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. World War I hostilities ended at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of 1918 although the formal peace treaty was not signed at Versailles until June 28, 1919. Armistice Day became a legal holiday in 1938 celebrating those who served in World War I. In 1954 to recognize those who served in World War II and Korea and the name was officially changed to Veterans Day is still celebrated on November 11^th.after a brief period when it was celebrated on Monday as an accommodation to public employee unions to give them a three-day holiday.

Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi on Friday asked state leaders to block Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $4.5 billion in spending cuts and called for additional taxes, including raising the state’s vehicle license fee.

sraeli military sources said Hamas was expected to exploit the power vacuum in Israel and the United States. On Nov. 5, Hamas fired about 40 Kassam-class missiles and mortar shells into Israel. On the same day Israel IDF forces uncovered a tunnel meant for the immediate abduction of Israel Defense Forces soldiers a distance of 250 meters from the security fence of the Gaza Strip, Although Hamas observed a cease fire until the US election it has been preparing for offensive actions for weeks.

The Gaza Strip will become a graveyard if the enemy expands its incursion,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said. Referring to helicopter and UAV pinpoint attacks in Gaza. Earlier, according to World Tribune, Hamas issued a statement from military commander Mohammed Deif. Deif, who has spent the last five years underground in fear of an Israeli assassination, warned of attacks on the Jewish state.

Israeli is preparing to repell a Hamas attack from the south and a Hesbollah operation from the north. U. S. President-elect Obama sent an envoy to Egypt and Syria and perhaps elsewhere promising aid and to sell Egypt aadvanced F-16 Fighter bombers.

Some say Obama’s election; his envoy within 24- hours of winning and without benefit of even a security briefing, Hamas’ glee and fear of tepid future U. S. support will likely ensure the election of a more assertive Israeli administration.

An 86-year old man lays terminally ill in a hospital his wife of 65-years at his side. Calling her close he says When I was drafted in World War II – you joined the nurse corps to be by my side. When I was wounded you were by my side until I recovered. I started four businesses. They all failed. You were by my side. Now I am dying and you are by my side. I have come to an important conclusion – you’re bad luck.

ovember 4, 2008, was the 56th consecutive quadrennial United States presidential election to select the President and the Vice President of the United States. It was the first time since 1952 that neither an incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot.

122.7 million voted almost exactly the same as 2004 despite wild predictions about turnout. The much touted “youth vote” (18-30) simply didn’t show up reaching about 11% as it did in 2004 with 64% going to Obama. Blacks did increase their vote from 11% to 13% with 93% going to Obama. White men went to McCain while women of all ethnicities went to Obama.

Obama spent $638 million and McCain $360 million and when other candidates are added more than $1 billion was spent, and that was a record.

During one touching moment during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, Oprah was crying; Jesse Jackson was crying; Hillary was crying . . . in fact, she’s still crying.– Leno

November 6, 2008 UPI article authored by Ariel Cohen and Lajos Szaszdi adds perspective to my previous article describing Russia’s ambitions and action in the Arctic. Only two weeks ago Russia staged the largest military exercise since the Cold War off the coast of Alaska deploying a nuclear submarine, strategic bombers and warships and conducting live fire operations. The supposition then was Russia was about to lay claim to big parts of the arctic and begin to develop its massive oil, natural gas, methane hydrate clusters and large quantities of valuable minerals deposits.

Moscow has submitted a claim to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to an area of 460,000 square miles of the arctic – an enormous area the size of Germany, France and Italy combined

”The arctic is quickly re-emerging as a strategic area where vital U.S. interests are at stake. The geopolitical and geo-economic importance of the arctic region is rising rapidly, and its mineral wealth will likely transform the region into a booming economic frontier in the 21st century. The arctic coasts and continental shelf are estimated to hold large deposits of oil, natural gas,” says the article.

Russia is moving rapidly to assert its national interests by projecting military power into the region and by using diplomatic instruments such as the Law of the Sea Treaty. Russia made a show of planting its flag on the arctic seabed in August 2007.

“While paying lip service to international law, Russia’s ambitious actions hark back to 19th-century statecraft rather than to 21st-century law-based policy and appear to indicate that the Kremlin believes credible displays of power will settle conflicting territorial claims. By comparison, the West’s posture toward the arctic has been irresolute and inadequate. This needs to change,” the Ariel Cohen and Lajos Szaszdi work says.

In August 2007, resumed regular air patrols over the Arctic Ocean. Patrolling Russian bombers penetrated the 12-mile air defense identification zone surrounding Alaska 18 times during 2007. Since August 2007 the Russian air force has flown more than 90 missions over the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The Russian navy has and is expanding its presence in the arctic for the first time since the end of the Cold War. And an official statement says. “We have a number of highly professional military units in the Leningrad, Siberian and Far Eastern military districts, which are specifically trained for combat in arctic regions.”

On July 14, 2008, the Russian navy announced it had “resumed a warship presence in the arctic.” include the area of the Spitsbergen archipelago that belongs to Norway. Russia does not recognize Norway’s right to a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone around Spitsbergen. Russia deployed an anti-submarine warfare destroyer followed by a guided-missile cruiser armed with 16 long-range anti-ship cruise missiles designed to destroy aircraft carriers.

The United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway — the leading arctic NATO members — must take Russian ambitions seriously. While a major military confrontation has a low probability today, the arctic is emerging as a new Cold War flashpoint, reminiscent of the 20th-century tensions in the region. Russia sensed an opportunity to successfully press an inexperienced new U. S. President, and get what it wants taking back what it lost in the Reagan era.

(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies and international energy security, and Lajos F. Szaszdi, Ph.D., is a researcher in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.)

n November 4, 2008 Russia threated to deploy conventional warhead missile on the Polish border to curb Washington’s defense shield. President Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to set up Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania — announced just as Obama was elected — immediately raised “serious worries” at NATO and signals Russia will test the new President. Medvedev said the move would neutralise the security threat posed by the US shield which will link 10 interceptors in Poland to a radar in the Czech Republic by 2013-2014 and is aimed at countering “rogue states” like Iran. As reported here the Czechs had delayed final approval until after the US election so Russia already has something in its favor.

The deployment might raise new tensions between Russia and NATO — whose biggest and most powerful member is the United States — it would not, of itself, significantly change the military balance of power. Without a strong U. S. commitment Europe and NATO are paper tigers.

Analysts differ over how the future US administration will respond to the move.

“If they think that the United States will give up the idea of deploying their anti-missile shield, they’re barking up the wrong tree,” said Francois Heisbourg, special advisor at the Foundation for Research and Security (FRS) in Paris.

Certainly US Democrats have never been as enthusiastic as President George W. Bush’s Republicans toward this vast and costly — roughly eight to nine billion dollars a year — expansion of the defense shield into Europe.

“Obama is extremely sensitive to anything that might portray him as someone who is easy to intimidate”, because of his lack of international experience, Heisbourg noted.

Andrew Cuchins, at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, Moscow’s “public relations” error must not be allowed to drive the wedge deeper between Russia and the United States right now. “A failed diplomacy with Russia is not workable,” he said.

“If we don’t convince the Russians we are taking these concerns into account, (there will be) no way to negotiate on armaments control and proliferation,” he said.

He also said it was vital “to convince the Iranians that Russia and the Americans are serious about cooperating.”.

Contrary to most cooperative arguments is Vice President-elect Joe Biden, notorious for his big mouth and anti-Russian views, lamented in his nomination speech acceptance speech in August a U. S.  “failing to face down Russia.” And at a major foreign policy speech in Cincinnati on Sept. 25, Biden said Russia was as much of a threat as Iran.

European leaders are generally pro-American and anti-Russian and infatuated with Obama left-liberalism, youth, dynamism, change, and ethnic diversity. They see Russia as politically reactionary and as a threat to their most cherished ideals thinks John Laughland is a British historian and political scientist and the director of studies at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation in Paris. Who also said, “The division of the European continent between East and West, so useful for American geopolitical strategy, is likely to continue.”

Western Europe applauded Reagan’s success in collapsing the Soviet Union but almost immediately returned to a Euro-centric posture generally aschewing closer ties or commitments with Washington DC. The Bush defense shield initiative  has received tacit support but little more.

Russia’s sabre-rattling in Europe, the Middle East, Indian Ocean, South America and in the Arctic is fair warning that it will not be backing down.

Amid 230,000 job loses in October government added 23,000 employees

ednesday Obama, before even receiving his first security briefing, sent his senior adviser Robert Malley to Egypt and Syria to outline his policy on the Middle East. Reports in World Tribune say he promised continued civil and military aid to Cairo and to sell them sophisticated F-16 fighters. “The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests,” the aide said, and “Obama’s message is that he strongly supports a Palestinian state.” Israel has previously expressed concern over sophisticated arms sales to Egypt. Last Fall Israel purchased nearly one hundred advanced F-16.

Simultaneously Syria has moved tanks, artillery, and commando units into battle positions on the Israeli-Lebanon border. Analysts said Obama would probably confront a Middle East crisis soon after entering office in January 2009. They said the most imminent crisis would be that of Iraq as well as the confrontation between Hamas and the PA. Both supported his election.

On Wednesday (Nov. 5), Hamas fired more than 35 Kassam-class missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel in retaliation for an Israeli military operation the previous day. At least three people in the Israeli city of Ashkelon were injured.

Israel did not publicly comment on the Obama mission but according to the Jerusalem Post urged him not to meet with Iran as he has promised to do. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday congratulated Barak Obama on his election win - the first time an Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a US president-elect since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Al-Qaeda is reported to be preparing to open a third front on the Horn of Africa to challenge the US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and likely deflect efforts from its efforts to take over the Pakistani government in hope of getting access to its nuclear weapons.

On Thursday Secretary of State Rice was in the region and said there would be no peace accord now.

Protest continue around California by losers of Tuesday vote to Constitutionally ban homosexual marriage in the state. At least three lawsuits have been filed in an effort to have the courts overturn the voters for a second time.

ith the U.S. economy facing the worst outlook in three generations, it isn’t hard to figure out where the next administration will focus most of its attention and about the only thing worse would be a nuclear attack. While that possibility has been with us since the dawn of the nuclear age, it has grown worse as nuclear weapons have spread. Iran and North Korea have nukes and al-Qaida has targeted and takeover of Pakistan to grab its nuclear arsenal, and Russia is increasing its capabilities. America faces more unpredictable nuclear danger than ever before.

There were more nuclear warheads during the Cold War but, we didn’t have to worry about unpredictable characters like Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran. Russia and China were deterred by M. .A. D. Mutual Assured Destruction the threat of overwhelming retaliation, Americans could convince themselves that they were safe. Not now says Loren B. Thompson is chief executive officer of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based think tank that supports democracy and the free market.

He says, “Who really understands the thought processes of Kim Il Sung’s ne’er-do-well son, or the Islamic nationalists who one day might rule Pakistan? Even if they are rational — which is assuming a lot, based on past behavior — they still might be accident prone or given to miscalculation in assessing U.S. behavior. So deterrence the way U.S. governments used to practice it is a declining franchise, at least when it comes to the growing club of nuclear arrivistes popping up around the world.”

He thinks there really is no alternative to missile defense the new administration will inherit programs capable of defeating the kind of arsenals nuclear upstarts such as North Korea possess.

Those include the missile-defense capabilities of Navy Aegis-class destroyers. They are useless against an all-out Russian strategic attack, but they can cope with most of the other threats we face today.

The problem is tomorrow, new kinds of threats, such as maneuvering warheads that will make it increasingly difficult to achieve interception once warheads have separated from rocket boosters and released penetration aids such as decoys. Plus, a potential enemy is not deterrable by MAD – because they may be. A defensive response that means hitting missiles early in their trajectory — either before boosters cut off — boost phase — or between cutoff and warhead release — ascent phase.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has been funding several programs that could intercept hostile missiles in boost or ascent phase including:

· Kinetic Energy Interceptor, an agile, high-acceleration system that can get close to launch sites because of its mobility;

· The Airborne Laser, which will be able to strike lofting missiles above the clouds at the speed of light using a laser from hundreds of miles away, and

· The Network Centric Airborne Defense Element, an inexpensive modification of the main air-to-air missile carried on U.S. fighters that could be ready to intercept enemy missiles by the end of the next president’s first term in office.

Other options exist. The cost of these programs is so modest, and the threat to the United States from emerging nuclear actors is so great, that the new administration needs to quickly figure out how to keep them going, regardless of what happens to the economy in the years ahead.

That could mean deeper cut in other programs since Mr. Obama has pledged severe cuts in defense. A misstep would leave the U. S. population vulnerable over the coming decade, and if wrong a million dead and dying Americans even from a rogue attack.

The Redskins lost their last home game before the Presidential election and accurately predicting a lose for the party in the White Housee.

orty percent of U.S. voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is handling his new role as president-elect. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove. The majority of Americans believe relations with China are important, most do not think the economies of the two countries are very dependent on one another.

64% of Americans disagree with the notion that what is good for China’s economy is good for the U.S. economy. Just 15% think the opposite is true according to a new Rasmussen Report poll..

Some worry about the high level of Chinese investment here as the United States goes through a difficult financial period. Sixty-three percent (63%) of investors do not believe that what is good for the Chinese economy is good for America’s economy.

While adults from all parties agree that Chinese relations are important, Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats and unaffiliated voters to disagree with the idea that what’s good for our economies is closely intertwined.

In the past, Barack Obama, now the president-elect, has referred to China as a “force to be reckoned with” and has demanded that the United States take a harsher stance on China’s currency practices and the current trade imbalance between the two powers.

Most adults (69%) consider China neither an enemy nor an ally but somewhere in between. While 15% of Republicans consider China to be an enemy, only nine percent (9%) of Democrats agree. With memories of the Cold War fading into the past, men and women under age 40 are more than twice as likely to consider China an ally than those older than 40.

As the Christmas season rapidly approaches, most adults (63%) are more concerned with the price and quality of products than where the products are produced. Twenty-eight percent (28%) put more emphasis on where products are produced.

Thirty-six percent (36%) think all toys made in China should be banned after numerous health dangers have arisen due to the county’s poor quality control standards, but 43% oppose such a ban. A plurality of women (43%) of women favor a ban on toys from China compared to 32% who oppose it. Twenty-five percent are undecided. Men by nearly two-to-one oppose a ban.

Forty-seven percent of investors (47%) oppose a ban versus 34% who favor it. Non-investors are closely divided on the issue.

Sixty-four percent of Americans disagree with the notion that what is good for China’s economy is good for the U.S. economy. Just 15% think the opposite is true. Some worry about the high level of Chinese investment here as the United States goes through a difficult financial period. Sixty-three percent (63%) of investors do not believe that what is good for the Chinese economy is good for America’s economy.

Forty percent (40%) of U.S. voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is handling his new role as president-elect. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a net rating of eight on the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index.

Colorado voters reject measure to bar state affirmative action programs.

ussia’s introduction of the RS-24 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in 2009 will be the most important phase in the renewal of the Russian Strategic Missile Force after the adoption of the Topol-M. This is the first time in post-Soviet Russia that a new ground-based multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle — MIRV — equipped missile system will be adopted by Russia’s military.

The new missile should have a range of 6,600 miles or more, and multiple nuclear warheads are most likely to have a yield of between 150 and 300 kilotons each.

Aside from the warheads, the RS-24 carries missile defense penetration systems, hindering enemy detection and interception, which makes the new missile a valuable asset amid the deployment of U.S. global missile defense.

It can be either be silo-based or mobile version, which would increase the Russian Strategic Missile Force’s versatility. With the RS-24 entering service, the structure of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces in the coming decade looks clear. Along with the Topol-M, the new missile will form the backbone of the Strategic Missile Forces, their numbers totaling up to 250 and 60, respectively, by the end of the next decade.

Additionally, by 2020 several dozen Topol and UR-100 NUTTH intercontinental ballistic missiles will remain in service. A new heavy missile is also expected to replace the RS-20 Voevoda ICBM. All in all, the Strategic Missile Forces would include about 300 to 350 missiles of various types with 800 independently targetable warheads.

The backbone of the Russian Naval Strategic Nuclear Force will be liquid-fueled RSM-54 Sineva ICBMs installed on six 667BDRM nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which will have their lifecycle extended into the late 2020s, and cutting-edge solid-fuel RSM-56 Bulava ICBMs on 955/955A submarines.

The Russian navy plans to commission eight missile submarines of the above-mentioned class to replace the 667BDR submarines. By 2020 the Russian navy most likely will have between 12 and 14 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines carrying between 192 and 224 missiles with 800 to 900 warheads.

Russian strategic aviation will go on with the employment of the Tupolev Tu-95MS — NATO designation Bear — and the Tupolev Tu-160 White Swan — NATO designation Blackjack — bombers, as the new advanced strategic bomber will not enter service before 2020. The balance in bomber class numbers is likely to change, however, with Tu-95 Bears down to between 40 and 48 from the current 68, and Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjacks up to between 22 and 24 from the current 16.

Therefore, before the end of the next decade, the total potential of Russia’s nuclear triad is estimated to be between 1,600 and 1,900 warheads. Is it a big figure? On the one hand, with the given deployment of U.S. missile defenses, this number of warheads doesn’t seem so. On the other hand, the rapidly increased defense penetration capability of Russian nuclear weapons will make this inventory sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage to an attacker, whoever it may be.

(This article is adapted from RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

 

s of noon Wednesday, Obama had won 63 million votes — 52 percent of the vote — compared with McCain’s 46 percent and 55.8 million. This amounts to a 6-point difference between the two candidates. Two polls emerged as the most accurate — The Pew Research and Rasmussen Reports. Gallup, Reuters/Zogby, ABC/Washington Post, and CBS missed it by 51% to 83%. In 2000, 2004, and now 2008 mostly media pollsters used poll numbers to surppress conservative turnout. The remaining question is has journalism completely desolved in partisan ideology?

For the next ten days we can expect rather tasteless jokes like: Obama is ripping out the Rose Garden and planting a watermelon patch.

y a 52% to 46% popular vote margin yielding a 349 to 161 Electoral College bulge Barrack Obama resoundingly defeated John McCain. Ralph Nader got less than 1 percent of the vote — actually losing to low fat milk. Massachusetts legalized marijuana use. San Francisco rejected legal prostitution. But, T. Boone Pickens managed to get screwed poured tens of millions into a California proposition to advance his clean fuel ballot proposition but lost both his money and at the ballot box. It appears Californians has voted for the second time to ban homosexual marriage. Democrats now control 253 seats in the House of Representatives to 182 for the GOP. Democrats failed to get a filibuster proof senate controlling 54 Senate seats to 42 for the GOP ensuring it an obstructionist role.

In what can be seen as the first problem to face the new U. S. President IsraelNN.com released a breathtaking story first printed in the Lebanese newspaper al-Ahbar, saying Barrack Obama has secretly told Abbas that he supports a Palestinian state, and Arab “rights to east Jerusalem” as well.  The sources said Abbas and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad “heard the best things they ever heard from an American president.”  Sources quoted in the report, said the U. S. President elect Obama asked them to keep his declaration a secret.  The story included the quote “…The PA hopes that the next American president will fulfill his commitment towards the Palestinians and pressure Israel.”

On Wednesday Voice of Israel government radio reported Arabs living in the Gaza were reportedly celebrating in the streets with impromptu demonstrations, waving flags of the terrorist organization Hamas.

Pace (PAY-see, PAH-chay, PAH-kay) With due respect to. (used to express polite disagreement) From Latin pace (in peace), from pax (peace). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pag-/pak- (to fasten) that is also the source of peace, pacify, pact, travel, compact, pagan, and peasant.

nti-Semitism and xenophobia are on the rise throughout Europe according to a recent Pew Research Center — Global Attitudes Project and polls by the Anti-Defamation League. Negative views of Israel, sympathy with the Palestinian cause, rising anti-Americanism, and a backlash against globalization and immigration all play a role in this trend.

 

This rise in negative attitudes toward Jews has for the most part been modest, and anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe remain much less common than anti-Muslim views. In fact most Europeans continue to hold favorable opinions of Jews and, compared with other regions of the world, Europeans remain relatively tolerant. For instance, anti-Jewish sentiments are almost universal in the three Arab nations surveyed–95% or more in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt say they have an unfavorable opinion of Jews.

 

Spain, Poland and Russia recorded the highest anti-Jewish sentiments with Spain posting the highest unfavorable opinion at 46%. The project report editorialized that even these modest trends, in light of the dark history of anti-Semitism in Europe, any uptick is surely troubling. Moreover, rising anti-Jewish views are part of a broader pattern of increasing xenophobia; European attitudes toward Muslims have also turned more negative over the last few years.

Maugre or mauger (MAW-guhr) In spite of. ETYMOLOGY: From Old French malgre (ill will), from mal- (bad) + gre (pleasure, grace), from Latin gratum (pleasing). USAGE: “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me.” Ralph Waldo Emerson; Nature; Addresses and Lectures; 1849.

t’s been called the High Frontier and as such is a cornerstone of America’s 21^st century defense strategy that asserts the right to deny any hostile nation access to space. A new report entitled, “Space, Security and the Economy” contends that policy — together with other actions such as withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and the ongoing development of weapons intended to attack objects in space — could lead to the deployment of weapons in space.

Furthermore, if the U.S. positions weapons in space, other nations are likely to pursue the same action and spur an arms race in space in the opinion of the Arsenault Family Foundation and Cynda Collins Arsenault, President of the Secure World Foundation and that no one can prevail…and all stand to lose in an arms race in space.

Many analysts believe space has already been “weaponized” with likely participants including the U. S. and Russia who have parked weapons in orbit to rain down in the event of war. Both countries deny it. Defense against such weapons would be virtually impossible and thus an ultimate deterrence.

US dominance in space is under challenge by countries around the globe and advocates worry that loosing the edge in near space would have severe, adverse impacts on US security in the short term and could eventually mean a defacto retreat to an indefensible posture. Advocates for a strong near space policy point to successes and advances since the Reagan SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) or the co-called Star Wars defense was proposed.

Contrarians, like Arsemault, are called Pollyanna’s. Advocates for a strong defense of near space now worry that a new US administration that cuts defense spending would mean an end to the Reagan era initiative and a retreat our of space and onto dangerous ground.

A report by Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) calls for changes in the policy of space dominance, greater transparency in military space spending, and detailed information about government and commercial space activities. Critics call that naïve and dangerous to US security.

The “High Frontier” may be at risk with profound consequences for the US and allies who rely on space based intelligence gathering. Plus, commercial interests worry that their massive investments mostly in communications satellites could be a risk. A mistake now would change the dynamic for decades and could alter he course of the 21^st century.

A 14-yearold Milwaukee boy was running away from a boot-camp style camp by hiding in a dumpster full of cardboard that was picked up and compacted has survived. He wasn’t discovered until the Waste Management truck dumped its load at a recycling center and he tumbled out unconscious.

 report datelined Moscow (AFP) Nov 1, 2008 says the Russian navy will hold war games in the Indian Ocean to boost its global presence in Moscow’s latest move to flex its military muscle. “Ships from the Pacific Ocean Fleet and forces from the Northern Fleet will meet and carry out joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean basin,” navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said in a statement. Dygalo did not specify when the exercises would take place,

He said warships from Russia’s Vladivostok-based Pacific Ocean Fleet would leave “shortly” for the Arabian Sea, docking in various ports on the way.

He called the Indian Ocean maneuvers part of an effort to raise the Russian navy’s worldwide profile before the end of the year.

“In the remaining months of 2008, Russian Navy Central Command will increase the presence of Russian Navy forces in the world ocean in the interests of strengthening stability and security in its various regions,” he said.

This month, a flotilla of Russian warships from the Northern Fleet, based in the Arctic port of Severomorsk, are to hold exercises with the Venezuelan navy in the Caribbean Sea.

The flotilla, led by the massive nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, stopped in Libya last month as part of a global show of Russian might not seen since the Cold War.

Russia has established a permanent base on Syria’s coast and announced it would close its Black Sea base at Sevastopol. The Indian Ocean exercise is the first time Russia has had a large naval force in near proximity to the U. S. base at Diego Garcia and it marks a show of strength for its Iranian ally that has established a naval base near the entrance to the Straits of Hormuz where 30% of the world’s oil passes.

For the second time Californians banned homosexual marriage. On Wednesday protests erupted, mostly peaceful;, and advocates filed lawsuits to once again overturn the voters will again.

oamer Kadhafi, Libyan dictator made his first visit to Moscow since 1985, the Cold War era, which included meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and focused on oil and gas and arms purchases and restoring “geopolitical equilibrium”. Saturday Libya and Russia inked what is being called a civil nuclear cooperation deal.

“A cooperation agreement was signed in the area of the peaceful use of civilian nuclear, particularly in the design and construction of reactors and the supply of nuclear fuel,” said Abdelrahman Chalgham, who accompanied Kadhafi. The deal also extended to nuclear use in medicine and nuclear waste treatment, he said.

Oddly the Kremlin made no comment, and Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no such agreement had been signed during the meeting between Kadhafi and Putin.

Chalgham also said the two countries also signed agreements related to calls for the creation of an OPEC-style body for gas-producing countries, among others. Qatar and Iran are already members with Russia in the natural gas cartel.

The nuclear agreement raises question about exactly why an energy-rich Libya would be building nuclear power reactors and exactly what it means by “nuclear waste treatment.” Nuclear reactor fuel can be reprocessed, under certain circumstances into fissile material for nuclear bombs. Russia’s surge strategy includes exerting its hegemony globally including: into the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas and Indian Ocean.

At his meeting with Putin, Kadhafi said “the development of our bilateral relations is a positive factor for the international situation … It contributes to the reestablishment of geopolitical equilibrium.” Russian warships have visited Libya and it is believed there is interest in a second permanent naval base on the Mediterranean Sea’s African shore.

Other expected topics included a multi-billion-dollar deal to upgrade Libya’s Soviet-era arsenal and lucrative contracts for Russian firms.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Friday about a permanent Russia base In Libya says, “The Russian military presence will be a guarantee of non-aggression against Libya from the United States.”

The Izvestia daily ran the headline: “Kadhafi set up his tent in the Kremlin.” Kadhafi brings a traditional Bedouin tent along with him on state visits, which he uses to host guests. An AFP journalist saw a small fire burning in front of the khaki-colored tent Saturday in the Kremlin’s Tainitsky Garden.

Libya could buy more than two billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) of Russian arms including surface-to-air missiles, tanks and fighter planes, Interfax news agency reported Friday, citing a Russian defense industry source.

Relations have warmed this year between Russia and Libya, which began to shed its pariah status in 2003 when it renounced weapons of mass destruction and took responsibility for a 1988 airliner bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people. Libya paid that multi-billion judgment in October.

In April, during a visit to Tripoli by then-president Putin, Moscow agreed to cancel billions of dollars of Libyan Soviet-era debt in exchange for big contracts for Russian companies. According to Libyan sources in Moscow, Kadhafi is expected to visit Ukraine and Belarus after his visit to Russia.

HAIL MCCAIN pass in the air as Obama leads in Rasmussen Poll 51% to 47%; Zogby 51%to 44%, and Gallup 53% to 42%. .That pattern has been consistent with the exception of Friday’s Zogby poll that put McCain ahead by 2%.

 S. intelligence now believes the central front of the war on terror is Pakistan, not Iraq or Afghanistan, and that al-Qaida is focused on overthrowing its government and gaining access to its nuclear weapon estimated to be between 60 and 200 warheads. Al-Qaida will launch its campaign from the loosely governed federally administered tribal areas in the north. There have been many reports that Pakistan’s military has many and deep tribal loyalties. Success for al-Qaida would be catastrophic.

A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.
Thomas Jefferson  

hilosophers, astrologers, and fortune-tellers have been giving advice through the ages. Yes, people may have different attitudes to prophecies, but regardless of one’s opinions about them, one thing is for sure: they are fascinating. Vanga (Vangelia) Pandeva (1911-1996), the late 20^th century Russian blind mystic and prophet, predicted in 1980 that in August of 1999 or 2000, Kursk will be covered with water and the whole world will be weeping over it. Twenty years later, the nuclear submarine “Kursk” and crew perished in an accident.

On October 30, 2008 Moscow Weekly writer Daria Chernyshova heralded a famous Vanga prophecy under the headline “Russia will dominate the world.” Vanga said, “Everything melts away like ice yet the glory of Vladimir, the glory of Russia are the only things that will remain. Russia will not only survive, it will dominate the world.”

In 1989 Vanga predicted, “Horror, horror! The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds. The wolves will be howling in a bush, and innocent blood will be gushing.” Many ascribe that  to the 9-11 attacks.

Before he death she also prophesied

·        2008 - Assassination attempts on four heads of states. Conflict in Indonesia. That becomes one of the causes for the start of WWIII.

·        2010 - The start of WWIII. The war will begin in November of 2010 and will end in October of 2014. Will start as a normal war, then will include usage of nuclear and chemical weapons.

·        2011 - Due to the radioactive showers in Northern Hemisphere - no animals or plants will be left. Muslims will begin chemical war against Europeans who are still alive.

In a Chekov, of Star Trek fame moment, Russia’s news service (RIA Novosti) peculiarly bragged on October 30^th that Russia started developing tactical laser weapons before the United States and has several prototypes of high-precision combat chemical lasers in its arsenal. Chekov who was added to the cast after Pravda whined Star Trek should include a Russia because, after all, the USSR was first in space playing the role of a braggart that Russia had invented everything.

he main Web sites that normally carry messages from the al-Qaida terror group and its affiliated cells remains largely inoperable nearly two month after they went down just ahead of the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and a month later it was not functioning, and have since been erratic.

Al-Fajr Media Center, the extremist group’s communications wing, issued a terse statement on Sept. 29 blaming the problems on “technical reasons” and denying the sites had come under a cyber attack as has been widely speculated in the media.

“We deny reports published by the media of the tyrants regarding the fall of some of the headquarters of these networks into the hands of the enemy,” the statement said, according to the U.S-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist sites.

Regardless of whom you believe cyber-war is omnipresent on today’s global battlefield, and the al-Qaida websites remain largely broken.

“There is a seismic shift for McCain; it could turn into an earthquake this weekend,” Dick Morris told Newsmax Friday.

arack Obama had another Sgt. Schultz moment saying Saturday he didn’t know his aunt was living in the United States illegally nor apparently that she was impoverished and living in taxpayer paid housing or for that matter he had accepted contributions from her welfare check. The Associated Press found that Obama’s aunt had been ordered to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya. The 56-year old woman, Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), lives in taxpayer subsidized public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama’s late father.

Obama says he first met his father’s side of the family when he traveled to Africa 20 years ago. He referred to Onyango as “Auntie Zeituni” when describing the trip in his memoir, saying she was “a proud woman.”

Obama’s campaign said he had seen her a few times since that meeting, beginning with a return trip to Kenya with his future wife, Michelle, in 1992. Onyango visited the family in Chicago on a tourist visa at Obama’s invitation about nine years ago, the campaign said, stopping to visit friends on the East Coast before returning to Kenya.

Onyango’s refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, noncriminal violation of immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary, but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the U.S.

According to Federal Election Commission documents filed by the Obama campaign, Onyango has contributed $260 to Obama over a period of time. Under federal election law, only U.S. citizens or green-card holders are legally permitted to give money to campaigns. Onyango, who listed her employer as the Boston Housing Authority, gave in small increments to the Obama campaign.

Obama’s half-brother was discovering living in a hovel without sewage or running water in Kenya on pennies a day and critics are pointing out that the multi-millionaire Obama who often preaches Christian charity has not been charitable even to his own family and the discovery of his impoverished aunt — living on public assistance — giving him money has reinvigorated cries of hypocrisy.

ICE issued a peculiar order Friday stopping deportations before Tuesday’s election unless approved at least at the level of the agency’s regional directors.

Obama, Boston’s Mayor and the head of Boston’s Housing Authority are all doing their best imitation of Sgt. Schultz of Hogan’s Heros. Mayor Thomas Menino said Saturday that he had no idea how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order. He said he’s not involved in the operations of the agency, even though he appoints the head, because it runs mainly on federal and state dollars. William McGonagle, deputy director of the Boston Housing Authority, said , “I know nothing about it and I’ve got no comment.”

Barack Obama booted three newspapers off his campaign plane citing lack of space. When it was pointed out all of those newspapers had endorsed McCain and those left aboard had all endorsed him it was shrugged off.

n its early years Americans were predominantly church-going farmers. So law makers took that into account in setting election dates. November was perhaps the most convenient month for farmers and rural workers to be able to travel to the polls.

 

The fall harvest was over, (remember that spring was planting time and summer was taken up with working the fields and tending the crops).  Plus in the majority of the nation the weather was still mild enough to permit travel over unimproved roads.

 

Since most residents of rural America had to travel a significant distance to the county seat in order to vote, Monday was not considered reasonable since many people would need to begin travel on Sunday. This would, of course, have conflicted with Church services and Sunday worship.

 

Why the first Tuesday after the first Monday? Lawmakers wanted to prevent election day from falling on the first of November for two reasons. First, November 1st is All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics. Second, most merchants were in the habit of doing their books from the preceding month on the 1st. Apparently, Congress was worried that the economic success or failure of the previous month might prove an undue influence on the vote!

 

It was poetic justice that last Friday, the New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for President as “the right choice” to follow the “battered, drifting and failed leadership” of George W. Bush and Standard & Poors slashed the New York Times rating on its $1 billion debt to “junk” status.

 

ne day you may be able to swipe a credit card like device and be tested for hundred of diseases if a University of Utah medical scientists get their prototype device in operation. The gadget is similar to a card-swipe machine, scans a card loaded with microscopic blood, saliva or urine samples and spits back a report.

“Think how fast your PC reads data on a hard drive, and imagine using the same technology to monitor your health,” said Professor Marc Porter, senior author of two studies demonstrating the new method for rapid disease testing. “You can envision this as a wellness check in which a patient sample — blood, urine, saliva — is spotted on a sample stick or card, scanned and then the readout indicates your state of well-being,” said research scientist Michael Granger, a co-author of the study. “We have a great sensor able to look for many disease markers.”

The scientists said unlike today’s lab tests that can take hours or weeks to complete, results would be available within minutes. The research will appear in the Nov. 1 issue of the Journal Analytical Chemistry.

Barack Obama’s half hour infomercial was called “American Stories.” I guess it sounds better than “Barack Obama — Running Out the Clock.” I really liked it — especially at the end where Barack rose to the heavens on a cloud.- Leno

ccording to UPI the U.S. Geological Survey is preparing for the largest earthquake drill in the nation’s history — the Great Southern California ShakeOut. At 10 a.m. PST on Nov. 13 the drill will simulate the results of a 7.8 earthquake on the U.S. West Coast. The exercise is based on a USGS scenario created with emergency responders, power, water and transportation departments, social scientists, engineers and others.

In the scenario, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake — about the same magnitude as earthquakes that struck California in 1857 and 1906 — occurs on the San Andreas Fault, affecting much of Southern California.

“A big San Andreas earthquake is inevitable, and it’s something every Southern Californian should be ready for,” said Jones. She said the earthquake in the drill scenario would lead to 1,800 deaths and more than $200 billion in losses. On January 17, 1994 a 6.7 earthquake hit Reseda 20 miles north of LA killing 57 and injuring 9,000 causing $20 billion in damages.

In 1935 Charles Richter introduced his Richter magnitude scale to measure earthquakes with each order of magnitude being ten fold more powerful. There are about 8,000 earthquakes someplace on earth per day about 1,000 are strong enough to be recorded but not felt; about 49,000 are in the 3,0 to 3.9 range and considered minor; 6,200 times a year a 4.0-4.9 occurs with noticabe shaking; so-called moderate 5.0-5.9 quakes occur causing major damage to poorly designed buildings, and 6.0 to 6.9 quakes (like the 1994 quake) are considered strong hppening 120 times a year. 7.0 to 7.9 magnitude quakes, like the one being planned for in LA happen 18 times a year and are devastatingly strong. The Richter “scale” goes up to force ten but none have ever been recorded. The Alaska quake was over 9 on the scale.

The USGS said nearly five million people have already registered to take part in the ShakeOut drill. More information is available at www.shakeout.org.

A 6.4 quake struck rural Pakistan last Wednesday killed at least 160 villagers when their mud huts were flattened.

hanks to a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. eight new courses in history, economics, literature and biomedical engineering taught by leading faculty have been added to “Open Yale Courses,” the University’s free online education initiative. Anyone may download the video or audio files of Open Yale Courses or watch and listen to them streamed on the web at their convenience. There is no registration required and the courses are not for credit. Open Yale Courses is one of the most frequently visited Yale websites, with more than half a million unique visitors from 187 countries having accessed the site since its debut.

The offerings are diverse history courses include The Civil War and Reconstruction 1845-1877; France Since 1871. Others subject include: Astronomy; Biomedical Engineering; Classics; Economics; English; Philosophy, Physics; Political Science; Psychology and Religious Studies.

Yale University comprises three major academic components: Yale College (the undergraduate program), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. In addition, Yale encompasses a wide array of centers and programs, libraries, museums, and administrative support offices. Approximately 11,250 students attend Yale.

Yale is older than the United States itself. Yale’s roots can be traced back to the 1640s, when colonial clergymen led an effort to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the tradition of European liberal education in the New World. This vision was fulfilled in 1701, when the charter was granted for a school http://www.openyalecourses.com/

The Washington Post Co. said Friday its third-quarter profit tumbled 86 percent, hurt by reduced revenue at its namesake newspaper.

ccording to a Shanghai (AFP) Oct 29, 2008 article former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said Wednesday Beijing and Washington should work together on solving energy problems as part of necessary changes brought about by the economic crisis.

It was thirty years ago, in 1978, Kissinger helped broker Beijing’s opening up to the world, said China, the fastest growing economy, and the United States, the world’s largest, “have a special need for each other.”

“Now we have to be creative for the next 30 years to do the same that we did in the last 30,” Kissinger told a financial services forum Wednesday. Previously, the economy was global but politics were national, Kissinger said the economic turmoil has showed that gap can no longer exist.

“We have a common interest on energy to deal with the problem that demand is growing but supply is not,” he said.

“We mustn’t be confused by the fact oil prices go down and then they go up — and then they go down,” he said. “If every time they go down, we relax our efforts and every time they go up, we become nervous, that will not work.”

Better energy policies are part of the restructuring that must be accelerated as a result of the crisis along with shifts in emphasis from speculation to industrialization in the US economy and from exports to consumption in China, he said.

“It is a difficult situation and some of it is the fault of Americans, who have consumed more than they have produced and gone too deeply into debt. That’s undoubtedly true,” he said.

It is important to note that the 85-year-old former diplomat, who fled Nazi-Germany for the United States with his family in the 1930s, played down comparisons to the Great Depression.”I know what what the Great Depression was like,” he said. “It was very hard to find a job and we’re not anywhere near what conditions were like in the 1930s.”

China’s economy continues to rocket ahead as it builds a new coal power plant every week to try to quench it seemingly insatiable appetite for electricity. The US has the world largest coal deposits but is blocked from using it. Hypocritically China has the worst air pollution of any country as the recent Beijing Olympics demonstrated. So far China has shown little interest in cleaning up its problems with almost a weekly consumer product scandal.

An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old pottery shard — a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based on written texts.

audi Arabia has drawn a line in the sand on oil prices – and it has plenty of both – saying it will significantly reduce crude oil production to prevent prices from dropping below $50 per barrel equal to an inflation adjusted 1977 price. Thursday crude oil fell to under $65 per barrel despite OPEC announcing a cut of 1.5 million barrels effective November 1^st. Industry sources said Riyad has budgeted its military procurement and energy infrastructure program on expectation that the price of oil would remain over $50 through 2010. The sources said the Gulf Arab kingdom would encounter a deficit should prices drop below $50.

Riyad has an enormous appetite for cash to feed some 26,000 Saud princes,   pay for more than 15,000 clergy, and a giant welfare system the royal family needs to stay in power.

“If it goes below that level we would start seeing a fiscal account deficit,” International Monetary Fund director Mohsin Khan said.

Since July 2008, the price of crude oil dropped from a high of $147 to Industry sources said the global credit crisis would plunge prices at least another $20 over the next two months raising angst in Saudi Arabia and among other oil producing states. If that happens it would trigger Saudi cuts. It is ironic that when producers cut they loose every penny effectively making the per barrel price zero.

Sixty years ago, in 1948 a barrel of oil sold for $2.77; in 1958 it was $3; 1968 - $3.13. In 1973, before the oil embargo it sold for $3.60 and one year later it had jumped to $9.35 or slightly more than $40 per barrel in inflation adjusted dollars.

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The mortgage problems that have helped shape the current economic downturn have made “subprime” an unwelcome word to investors. For gamblers, however, Subprime drew cheers this week. That was the name of a horse that won the ninth race Thursday at the Aqueduct race track in New York paying $6.30 on a $2 bet.

audi Arabia foiled a potentially deadly terror attack against the United States five years ago according to a story first reported Sunday in Al-Watan newspaper and repeated in the Jerusalem Post. It was one of 160 terror plots the kingdom announced last month that it had foiled. It is unclear why Saudi nor U. S. authorities never publicly revealed the alleged 2003 plot previously and why it first surfaced in Al-Watan, which is government “guided.”

Saudi Arabia has been criticized for vowing to keep crude oil prices above $50 a barrel, and OPEC and to a large extent it is viewed negatively by 78% of Americans so this announcement probably a PR ploy to lower is disapproval ratings in the USA.

The 2003 plot involved terrorists who planned to hijack a plane and blow it up over a densely populated U. S. They planned to transit through the US to another destination to avoid applying for the hard-to-get US visas, a requirement for Saudis.

The issue of al-Qaida operatives in the kingdom has been in the news recently following Interior Minister Prince Nayef’s announcement last month that authorities indicted 991 suspects on charges that they participated in terrorist attacks carried out in Saudi Arabia over the last five years.

Nayef said the militants have been responsible for more than 30 attacks in the kingdom since May 2003 that killed 164 people, including 74 security officials, and wounded hundreds.

Shirley Nagel of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., handed out candy Friday only to those who shared her support for McCain-Palin.. Others were turned away empty-handed. TV station WJBK says a sign outside Nagel’s house warned: “No handouts for Obama supporters, liars, tricksters or kids of supporters.” Nagel called Obama “too scary.”

fficials said the Iranian Navy has constructed a base in the Strait of Hormuz, passage for 30 percent of global oil shipping. They said the base, located near U.S. military facilities in neighboring Oman, is meant to tighten Iran’s hold over the narrow waterway.

“With the opening of this naval base a new line of defense has been created east of the Strait of Hormuz,” Iranian Navy commander Adm. Habibollah Sayari said.

Sayari said the base was located in the Iranian port of Jask on the Sea of Oman. The admiral said the navy was capable of blocking any enemy infiltration in the region.

A US Navy source said on condition of anonymity that “It sounds like a target to me.”

All parking restrictions within one block of every polling place in the city of Los Angeles will be lifted for voters on Tuesday. You won’t have to drop coins into parking meters while you vote and neighborhood parking permit requirements won’t be enforced. Also, time limits and tickets for parking where street sweepers are cleaning will be set aside for the day.