asoline prices are tumbling except in California where they jumped up about 8 cents per gallon during Christmas week to $1.82 after bottoming out at $1.74 – the lowest in 5-years — just last week. Don’t blame OPEC  Unlike this spring and summer - California’s average set a record of $4.61 on June 19 - the problem isn’t a spike in the price of oil. In fact crude oil is still falling, Crude oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed Wednesday at $35.35 per barrel, 75 percent below last summer’s peak.

Instead, California’s prices appear to be rising in response to traders – speculators – who seized on problems at two of Californian’s 21 refineries, both real and potential.

1.      A key piece of equipment at BP’s major refinery in Carson (Los Angeles County) broke on Dec. 14, triggering a sudden jump in wholesale gasoline prices. BP is one of top two refineries of the meager list of 21 throughout the state.

2.      Then on Monday, the owner of a Bakersfield gasoline refinery filed for bankruptcy. But, the refinery is still running, but its owner - Flying J of Ogden, Utah - reportedly didn’t pay one of its suppliers last month.

“That spooked gasoline traders,” said Brian Milne, editor of DTN MarketWire, a news service for the wholesale fuel market. Horse hockey — it gave traders (speculators) an excuse to gouge Californians at Christmas. “With the Christmas holiday looming, wholesale gasoline buyers probably wanted to lock in supplies in advance,” Milne said. That, too, will raise prices – he thinks.

Excuse me but they whole things doesn’t add up. Let’s see:

·        Refineries are making 15% gasoline all across America;

·        stocks are at record highs,

·        one refiner filed for bankruptcy but is still operating and

·        another burped.

This is something from the southern end of a northbound horse.

Bend over California here it comes again and just in time for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Wildly popular former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, son of H. W. and brother of W., ays he will run for U. S. Senate from that state.

 

ALIFORNIA’s troubles are only partially to blame on the economy; for years, the state’s dysfunctional Legislature and two successive ineffective Governors failed to address a persistent structural deficit. The gimmick-laden budget passed this year by the Legislature after months of delay was out of balance before the ink was dry on the document. Still, half a dozen states have larger budget gaps than CALIFORNIA if measured as percentages of the general fund. Six states — ARIZONA, GEORGIA, NEVADA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, RHODE ISLAND and SOUTH CAROLINA — have deficits of more than 10 percent of their general funds, and NCSL projects this number to grow to at least 15 states in 2010.

 

California is projecting a $40 billion two year deficit and a proposed solution involving trivial cuts and increased taxes including a new 13 cents per gallon tax on gasoline (total to be 39 cents per gallon); a 2.5% surcharge on income taxes, and increases in already high sales taxes. The Legislature is playing “cute” with an underhanded try at circumventing the two-thirds. Governor Schwarznegger says he will veto it the bill knowingthat it would just be show.

 

California’s BIG – 3 (Governor. Assembly and Senate Leaders) are meeting and there is talk of some sort of a deal. Schwarzenegger has ordered state employees to tak two days a month off without pay. The SEIU is suing to stop that even though the State is going to run out of cash by Febnuary. The labor union is acting like a well – labor union apparently willing to play a fatal parasite role killing its host.

 

The country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not because of it. – Will Rogers 1932.

he following is a December 22, 2008 article from the Canadian Free Press entitled “Completely inadequate IPCC models produce the ultimate deception about man made global warming”  written by renowned Canadian Climatologist Tim Ball, Ph. D. the antithesis of D- science student Al Gore. Ball’s article is printed verbatim below without editorial comments, additions or deletions as follows:

“E. R. Beadle said, “Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.”  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does this with purpose and great effect. They built the difference between appearance and reality into their process. Unlike procedure used elsewhere, they produce and release a summary report independently and before the actual technical report is completed. This way the summary gets maximum media attention and becomes the public understanding of what the scientists said. Climate science is made to appear what it is not. Indeed, it is not even what is in their Scientific Report. 

The pattern of falsifying appearances began early. Although he works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Stephen Schneider was heavily employed in the work of the IPCC as this biography notes.

Much of Schneider’s time is taken up by what he calls his “pro bono day job” for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the IPCC from 1997 to 2001 and a lead author in Working Group I from 1994 to 1996. Currently, he is a Coordinating Lead Author for the controversial chapter on “Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risks from Climate Change,” in short, defining “dangerous” climate change.” - Pubmedcentral.nih.gov

He continued this work by helping prepare the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released in April 2007.

Schneider, among others, created the appearance that the Summary was representative of the Science Report. However, he provides an early insight into the thinking when speaking about global warming to Discovery magazine (October 1989) he said scientists need, “to get some broader based support, to capture the public’s imagination…that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have…each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.” The last sentence is deeply disturbing–there is no decision required.

The Summary for Policymakers is designed to convince everyone that global warming is due to human production of CO2. In SPM AR4 issued in April 2007 they say, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” The term “very likely” is from a table reportedly produced by Schneider and means greater than 90%. Professor Roy Spencer says about probabilities in this context. “Any statements of probability are meaningless and misleading. I think the IPCC made a big mistake. They’re pandering to the public not understanding probabilities. When they say 90 percent, they make it sound like they’ve come up with some kind of objective, independent, quantitative way of estimating probabilities related to this stuff. It isn’t. All it is is a statement of faith.”

So they create an appearance of certainty about a human cause of warming. But what is the reality? The only place where CO2 is causing temperature increase is in the IPCC computer models. In every record of any duration for any time period in the history of the Earth, temperature increase precedes CO2 increase. So an incorrect assumption that a CO2 increase will cause temperature increase is built into the computer models. That is damaging enough, but the computer models themselves are completely inadequate to represent global climate or make any predictions about future climate. But don’t believe me. The IPCC Technical Report (“The Physical Science Basis”) produced by Working Group I and released in November 2007, says so.

Problems begin with the definition of climate change used because it requires they only consider human causes. From the United Nations Environment Program (article 1) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.” But you cannot determine the human portion unless you understand natural climate change. As Professor Roy Spencer said in his testimony before the US Senate EPW Committee, “And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research.”

Media and public are allowed to believe the IPCC make climate predictions, but they don’t. The First Assessment Report (Climate Change 1992) said, “Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such.” While the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios says; “Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. Climate Change 2001 continues the warnings; “The possibility that any single in emissions path will occur as described in this scenario is highly uncertain.” In the same Report they say, “No judgment is offered in this report as to the preference for any of the scenarios and they are not assigned probabilities of recurrence, neither must they be interpreted as policy recommendations.” This is a reference to the range of scenarios they produce using different future possible economic conditions. Of course, they didn’t build in the recent financial collapse.

Climate Change 2001 substitutes the word projection for prediction. Projection is defined as follows, “A projection is a potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the help of a model. Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty”.

This and similar statements are based on the unproven hypothesis that human produced CO2 is causing warming and or climate change. The evidence is based solely on the output of 18 computer climate models selected by the IPCC. There are a multitude of problems including the fact that every time they run them they produce different results. They use an average of all the runs. The IPCC then take the average results of the 18 models and average them for the results in their Reports. 

Tim Palmer, a leading climate modeler at the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts said, “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.” This comment is partly explained by the scale of the General Circulation Models (GCM). The models are mathematical constructs that divide the world into rectangles. Size of the rectangles is critical to the abilities of the models as the IPCC AR4 acknowledges. “Computational constraints restrict the resolution that is possible in the discretized equations, and some representation of the large-scale impacts of unresolved processes is required (the parametrization problem). “ (AR4 Chapter 8. p.596.)

The IPCC uses surface weather data, which means there is inadequate data in space and time for most of the world to create an accurate model. Limitations of the surface data are surpassed by an almost complete lack of information above the surface. An illustration of the surface problem is identified by the IPCC comment of the problems of modeling Arctic climates.

“Despite advances since the TAR, substantial uncertainty remains in the magnitude of cryospheric feedbacks within AOGCMs. This contributes to a spread of modelled climate response, particularly at high latitudes. At the global scale, the surface albedo feedback is positive in all the models, and varies between models much less than cloud feedbacks. Understanding and evaluating sea ice feedbacks is complicated by the strong coupling to polar cloud processes and ocean heat and freshwater transport. Scarcity of observations in polar regions also hampers evaluation.” (AR4.,Chapter 8, p593.) Most of the information for the Arctic came from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and a diagram from that report illustrates the problem.  

The very large area labeled “No Data” covers most of the Arctic Basin, an area of approximately 14,250,000 km2 (5,500,000) square miles). Remember, certainties of arctic ice conditions are core to Gore’s alarmism.

In the Southern Hemisphere the IPCC identifies this problem over a vast area of the Earth’s surface. “Systematic biases have been found in most models’ simulation of the Southern Ocean. Since the Southern Ocean is important for ocean heat uptake, this results in some uncertainty in transient climate response.” (AR4. Chapter 8. p. 591.)

Atmosphere and oceans are fluids governed by non-linear rather than linear equations. These equations have unpredictability or randomness - also known as chaos – it explains why the models get different results every time they are run. These problems well known outside of climate science were specifically acknowledged in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” (TAR, p.774.)

Validation is essential for any model before using it for predictions. A normal procedure is to require proven evidence that they can make future predictions to a satisfactory level of accuracy. The IPCC use the term evaluation instead of validation, but they don’t evaluate the entire model. To do so they say shows problems but the source is not determined. Instead they evaluate at the component level. This means they don’t evaluate the important interactions between the components at any level.

IPCC Report AR4 makes a remarkable statement not repeated in the Summary for Policymakers. It speaks to the lack of valuation, which explains the failure of their projections. “What does the accuracy of a climate model’s simulation of past or contemporary climate say about the accuracy of its projections of climate change? This question is just beginning to be addressed, exploiting the newly available ensembles of models.” (AR4, Chapter 8. p.594.)

A simple single word definition of science is the ability to predict. It is not used by the IPCC, yet they present their work as scientific predictions. Media and the public generally believe the IPCC is making predictions and that is clearly the assumption for government policies. Sadly, members of the IPCC do nothing to dissuade the public from that view. All previous “projections” were wrong. The most recent example is the period from 2000 to 2008. IPCC predicted warming but temperatures went down while CO2 increased. Finally, the IPCC AR4 itself explains why IPCC model projections fail.

“Models continue to have significant limitations, such as in their representation of clouds, which lead to uncertainties in the magnitude and timing, as well as regional details, of predicted climate change.” (AR4, Chapter 8. p.600)

It is hard to imagine a better example of Beadle’s axiom paraphrased as follows, “Half the work done by the IPCC is to make things appear what they are not.”

A retired New York police officer got his “GETOSAMA” license plates in time for Christmas.. He ordered and received it in 2007 and then the DMV ordered it returned fearing someone might find it objectionable. The man sued and the DMV relented overnighting his registration so he can put  the plates on his car for Christmas.

ensing an opportunity and new anti-America alliances Iran has recently turned its attention to South America. Officials said Iran has been lobbying to sell its weapons and platforms to a range of countries in South America based on success in Venezuela, its primary client on the continent.

 

“We are meeting with representatives of several nations based on our experience in Venezuela,” an Iranian official said in a report published in World Tribune.

Officials said Iran has targeted Ecuador as a client. In December 2008, Teheran hosted Ecuadorian Defense Minister Javier Ponce for talks on cooperation, including weapons sales.

On Dec. 6, Ponce met his Iranian counterpart, Mustafa Najar, for a review of prospects for “defense” cooperation. Officials said Ecuador was briefed on Iran’s weapons capabilities, including newly-developed missiles, rockets, naval vessels and unmanned aerial vehicles.

“Common intention of the two countries can pave the way for establishment and expansion of bilateral relations between Iran and Ecuador,” Najar said on Dec. 6.

Iran has reported defense exports to about 55 countries throughout the world, most of them in Africa and Asia. But officials said Iran has sought to expand its clientele by offering strategic and tactical platforms.

“We are closely acquainted with Iran’s defense abilities and we will discuss ways to expand and develop ties in this concern,” Ponce said.

At the same time Russia has flown nuclear capable bombers and sortied warships to South America including missions to Panama and Cuba.

For 3-years in a row a giant 25’ snowman has mysteriously appeared in an Anchorage, Alaska man’s front yard despite a cease and desist order by the city. The homeowner says he has no idea who built “Snowzilla” nor do his seven children or neighbors all who say they are equally flummoxed. Anchorage bureaucrats are not amused.

“This property owner has repeatedly ignored city attempts to find ways to accommodate his desire to build a giant snowman without affecting the quiet, residential quality of the neighborhood,” said the statement from Mayor Mark Begich’s office. “This is a neighborhood of small homes on small lots connected by small streets. It can’t support the volume of traffic and revelers that are interested in Snowzilla.”

The mayor’s office says Powers appears to run a large junk and salvage operation from his home. He has violated land use codes for 13 years, the city said. He owes the city more than $100,000 in fines and other assessments.

Homeowner Billy Powers said it is the city that has been difficult, not him.

“I have tried to jump through every goofy hoop they have sent to me. I have never been confrontational and it goes on and on and on and it is so goofy,” he said. “Some of it is unfounded, some is just outrageous.”

The city said it did not expect to take any further action until after Christmas. Generally people agree with Billy that local bureaucrats are indeed “goofy.”

2008 is the 60^th anniversary of the founding of Israel.

arm flatulence and belching is “one of the main issues” on the dictator dominated U. N. agenda in Poland where 187 nations gathered this month, reported the New York Times. The Times went on to explain that “the trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations estimates, more than from cars, buses and airplanes.” “We haven’t come to grips with agricultural emissions,” morose warned Dr. Rajendra Pachaur i, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a front page article in the New York Times on December 4, “From Hoof to Plate, a New Bid to Cut Emissions.”

 

A week later the Associated Press reported that “2008 is on a pace to be colder than last year” On December 11, the palm trees were snow-covered in New Orleans in the earliest snowfall ever recorded in the city’s history. Enjoying a rare blizzard on the Outer Banks, kids were building snowmen on the beach a week before Thanksgiving. “Alaskan glaciers grew this year instead of retreating,” reported Investor’s Business Daily on December 15, while “Fairbanks had its fourth coldest October in 104 years of records,” and “the temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to 18-below-zero on December 14, breaking the previous record of 14-below set in 1901.”

 

As report on Hypocrisy.com last week (included above) is an indictment by Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball of the IPCC for outright manipulation of its statistics to prove its point. Its favored tactic is to prematurely publish preliminary study results to create the false impression about global warming so scientifically challenged but politically inspired reporters sensationize those studies to spew pablum to largely ignorant publics. 

 

The IPCC is not dissuaded by facts continuing to flog its agenda and adding cow flatulence and hog burps to its doomsday scenario all the while collecting nearly a billion dollars – mostly from the U. S. – to flit around the world on what has become little more than a taxpayer paid global junketeering program. Not unlike Al Gore’s mamouth carbon footprint this collection of hypocrites disgorge more carbon than all the world’s cows on bad diet collectively.

 

To control our carbon footprint, says Dr. Pachauri, we should “reduce meat consumption.” A good world-saving lunch would be an internationally sanctioned broccoli burger, minus the cheese, unless we can find some zero-emitting heifers, hogs or develop some kind of methane-capturing cow diapers.

 

In a “Raise a Stink” campaign earlier this year, farmers in New Zealand mailed reeking parcels of sheep and cow poop to members of Parliament to protest a proposed flatulence tax. The new levy is designed to filch tens of millions of dollars from the pockets of farmers, raise meat prices, meet the government’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and pay for research into methane gas emissions from agricultural animals. The New Zealand postal service had something of a “poop protest” of its own arguing the campaign threatened the physical and mental health of postal workers.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. “According to government figures, New Zealand’s 45 million sheep and cattle burped and farted about 90 percent of the country’s methane emissions,” reports London’s Telegraph.

Next year, Sweden is launching a green labeling program for food, so consumers can readily see that a turkey is allegedly better than a pig for keeping the ocean levels down, and that carrots are even better. “Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much greenhouse gas emissions as a pound of chicken and 100 times more than a pound of carrots, according to Lantmannen,” a Swedish environmental group, reports the Times.

DNA in a trail of tobacco spit led investigators to 33-year old Randy Shoopman in Merced, Ca. who was arrested and charged with at least five burglaries across eastern Oklahoma. Shoopman was arrested in Merced on stolen property charges setting off alarm bells and landing him in the calaboose.  Damned  Mailpouch anyway.

alestinians fired five dozen rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel by midafternoon Wednesday. On Saturday and Sunday 60 Israel Airforce (IAF) warplanes blasted 100 Hamas targets and artillery demolished 60 smuggling tunnels killing nearly 300 and wounding about 500.

Most Israelis living within a dozen miles of the border have built bomb shelters to protect themselves from such barrages. No Israeli’s were injured in the Christmas eve attack. But two attackers were killed when an explosive they were planting along the border fence prematurely detonated. Three others were injured. Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, said the bombardment came in retaliation for the deaths of three fighters in a clash with Israeli troops late Tuesday. Israel said the militants were planting explosives along the Gaza border fence.

Amid the violence, both sides have expressed willingness to consider reviving the truce that lapsed on Friday. Egypt, which mediated the original cease-fire, is leading the diplomatic push to renew it, and on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Before the violence escalated, Israel had agreed to open cargo crossings with Gaza on Wednesday to allow in a limited amount of food, medicines and fuel, including supplies from Egypt. But military spokesman Peter Lerner said the passages would remain closed in light of the militant barrages.

Israel has maintained a strict blockade of Gaza since the June 19 cease-fire began unraveling six weeks ago, allowing in only small quantities of essential goods. Egypt has also sealed its border crossing with the territory, which is Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world.

The sanctions have deepened the destitution in Gaza, home to 1.4 million Palestinians who are confined to their tiny coastal strip. Gazans have worked around the blockade by bringing in goods through tunnels dug under the Gaza-Egypt border.

There is increased dismay, fear and anger and some anticipate an Israeli ground force attack into Gaza particularly is Hamas continues its attacks. Recent revelations that U. S. president-elect Obama had accepted money from Hama supporters has raised concerns.

2008 is on course to be one of the coldest years on record.

erman politicians are so upset over crowded Christmas Eve church services they are threatening to limit attendance to churchtax payers only. Germany’s Catholic and Protestant churches get over 70% of their funding from revenues collected by the tax office from community members. Germans who officially leave their church are exempt from the church tax. Worried that regular churchgoers cannot find a seat due to the popularity of the traditional Christmas service, Thomas Volk, a top member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in Baden-Wuerttemberg, said the church should be selective. Martin Lindner, a member of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) in Berlin, also expressed alarm at the lack of places in church and told Bild that parish members should get tickets entitling them to the best seats.

The Weimar Constitution of 1919 and Grundgesetz (Constiution) of 1949 are the legal basis for this practice. In Germany, on the basis of tax regulations passed by the communities and within the limits set by state laws, communities may either

• require the taxation authorities of the state to collect the fees from the members on the basis of income tax assessment (then, the authorities withhold a collection fee), or
• choose to collect the church tax themselves.

The church tax is only paid by members of the respective church. People who are not member of a church tax-collecting denomination do not have to pay it. Members of a religious community under public law may formally declare their wish to leave the community to state (not religious) authorities. With such a declaration, the obligation to pay church taxes ends. Some communities refuse to administer marriages and burials of (former) members who had declared to leave it.

The money flow of state and churches is distinct at all levels of the procedures. The church tax is not meant to be a way for the state to directly support churches, but since expenses for church tax are fully deductible in fact such support occurs on a somewhat large scale.

The church tax is historically rooted in the pre-Christian Germanic custom where the chief of the tribe was directly responsible for the maintenance of priests and religious cults. During the Christianization of Western Europe, this custom was adopted by the Christian churches (Arian and Catholic) in the concept of “Eigenkirchen” (churches owned by the landlord) which stood in strong contrast to the central church organization of the Roman Catholic church. Despite the resulting medieval conflict between emperor and pope, the concept of church maintenance by the ruler remained the accepted custom in most Western European countries. In Reformation times, the local princes in Germany became officially heads of the church in Protestant areas and were legally responsible for the maintenance of churches. Not until the 19th century were the finances of churches and state regulated to a point where the churches became financially independent. At this point the church tax was introduced to replace the state benefits the churches had obtained previously.

Taxpayers, whether Roman Catholic, Protestant or members of other tax-collecting communities, pay between 8% (in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) and 9% (in the rest of the country) of their income tax to the church or other community to which they live. The tax payments are full deductible from other taxes.

It was, to some extend, such federal support of religion through taxes that entrenched early American federalist who objected to both income tax and state supported religion. Such freedom from religion morphed into the current debate mostly by the ignorant, meaning uninformed, about freedom of religion.

40% more blacks between ages 14-17 years old were murdered, mostly by another black youth, in 2008 than in 2000. Researchers blame President George W. Bush for cutting crime prevention grants.

artin Luther King, Jr. once commented that the Sunday morning church hour was the most segregated hour in America. Forty years later, as the nation prepares to inaugurate its first African-American president, there are still plenty of predominantly white and black churches, but the bigger divide may be between those who attend religious services and those who don’t.

 

Among regular churchgoers, those who attend church at least twice a month, 45% say they have close friends who avoid church and church-related activities. Among churchgoers over 65, just 33% have such friends. Seventy-five percent (75%) of churchgoers say most of their close friends attend services regularly.

As for those who attend church once a month, 52% have close friends who avoid church, but 85% have close friends who attend church on a regular basis.

 

Looked at from the other perspective, 61% of those who rarely or never attend Church have close friends who regularly worship. Younger adults who don’t attend church are somewhat less likely than their elders to have friends who are regular churchgoers.

 

In fact, just 22% of non-churchgoers say that most of their close friends avoid church and church-related activities. Only five percent (5%) of Americans don’t know anyone who attends church services on a regular basis. One reason for this may be that 70% of non-churchgoers attended religious services as children.

A plurality of churchgoers are Republicans, while 43% of those who rarely or never enter a church are Democrats. Thirty-five percent (35%) of non-churchgoers are unaffiliated with either major party, with 23% of those who do not attend church regularly saying they are Republicans.

 

Ideologically, those who rarely or never attend church are evenly divided: Thirty-four percent (34%) are politically conservative, 34% moderate and 30% liberal. Fifty-five percent (55%) of non-churchgoers are men.

 

An earlier release noted that 61% of American adults say life would be better if more Americans lived like Christians. However, among those who rarely or never attend Church, just 35% agree while 25% say more living like Christians would make life worse. There are clearly different perceptions of what that means, so Rasmussen Reports recently released a profile of Christian practices and demographics.

Every New Year’s in Times Square, they drop the ball. Not this year. Angry investors are dropping Bernie Madoff off a building. — Letterman

ussians and Americans don’t agree on much but they are both angry over the acquittal of a Virginia man was acquitted to killing his 21-month old son by leaving him for 9-hours in a boiling hot car. Russia will toughen adoption requirements for U.S. nationals following the acquittal of Miles Harrison 49 who adopted Russian-born son and then left the baby unattended in front of his workplace for 9-hours.

“We are outraged by the court ruling and believe it to be totally unjust and unacceptable,” Alina Levitskaya was quoted by the Education and Science Ministry as saying. “It questions the reliability of the U.S. system of protection of adopted children’s rights, and will lead to tougher requirements for U.S. nationals in Russia.”

Levitskaya said the ministry would demand that authorities in the United States step up monitoring of children adopted from Russia. She said the education ministry and the Russian Embassy in the United States would seek a guilty verdict for Harrison.

“When a tragedy occurs, even if through an involuntary action, a severe punishment should be inevitable,” Levitskaya said.

Explaining the ruling, Fairfax County Judge R. Terence Ney said Harrison’s conduct did not meet the legal standard for manslaughter, which requires “negligence so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a callous disregard for human life.”

“No prison term is going to cause more pain than that which he has already suffered. The only true atonement here can only take place within his heart and soul,” the judge said. Most Americans are equally fed up with such judicial stupidity and wonder what gorss negligence, wanton, culpable and callous could mean if not baking a baby to death in a sweltering car for 9 hours.

Both Russians and Americans agree a horse whipping would be a good start.

Over the last 10 years in the United States there have been approximately 230 fatal cases of parents locking their children in cars on a hot day.

Three adoption agencies, including that which organized Dmitry Yakolev’s adoption but failed to inform Russian authorities of the baby’s death, were banned from operating in Russia  in July.

Several calls for tighter controls on adoptions have been made in Russia in recent years over a series of scandals, notably the killing of a two-year-old girl from Siberia by her adoptive mother in the U.S.

Around 120,000 Russian children were adopted both in Russia and abroad in 2007, a 6.4 percent increase on 2006, according to the Science and Education Ministry. 

 

Despite murdering 20,000,000 of his fellow citizens Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was voted Russia’s third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll that ended on Sunday, despite the famine and purges that marked his rule. At the top of the list was 13th century prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated German invaders, followed by Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister in the early 20th century known for agrarian reforms and a clampdown on leftist revolutionaries.

he “little blue pill” is proving to be a novel “weapon” to gain cooperation and support in Taliban-plagued Afghanistan - handing out libido-enhancing Viagra pills to targeted village patriarchs is proving effective, according to a report in the Washington Post.

That little blue pill, popularized by former Senator and Presidential candidate Bob Dole is proving better than standard incentives - money, jewelry and cars - are too ostentatious, noted another operative in a report to the Washington Post.

“If you give him $1,000, he’ll go out and buy the shiniest junk he can find, and it will be apparent that he has suddenly come into a lot of money from someone,” said Jamie Smith, a veteran of CIA covert operations in Afghanistan. “Even if he doesn’t get killed, he becomes ineffective as an informant because everyone knows where he got it.”

The key, Smith said, is to find a way to meet the informant’s personal needs in a way that keeps him firmly on your side but leaves little or no visible trace.

“You’re trying to bridge a gap between people living in the 18th century and people coming in from the 21st century,” Smith said, “so you look for those common things in the form of material aid that motivate people everywhere.”

Enter Viagra.

Sexual performance drugs are generally unavailable in the remote areas where the agency’s teams operate. Viagra, however, has been available in Kabul markets for a number of years and enjoys a relatively wide reputation.

“You didn’t hand it out to younger guys, but it could be a silver bullet to make connections to the older ones,” said one retired operative familiar with the drug’s use in Afghanistan.

Not everyone in the deep Afghanistan outback, however, is intimate with the little blue pill. According to the report, this has led to some inspired educational talks with the target - taking pains not to offend their hosts’ religious sensitivities.

But once the ground is broken, the results have been surprising.

One operative told the Post of a very satisfied customer who subsequently “allowed us to do whatever we wanted in his area.”

 

he Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and American Shale Oil have announced that they have entered into a technical cooperation agreement to develop carbon sequestration technologies for in-ground shale-oil production processes.

Specifically, LLNL will partner with AMSO to study how to use depleted underground oil shale retorts to permanently store carbon dioxide generated during the oil shale extraction process. AMSO will provide technical expertise and oil shale core samples from its federal lease site.

Oil shale can be converted to oil by heating it and applying high pressures. That speeds up the geologic clock so to speak. In early demonstration projects, LLNL researchers used explosives to fracture the vast oil-shale reserves in the western U.S. so that the oil could be processed in place, thus providing an important alternative to imported oil.

That effort evolved in the early 1980s into a surface oil-shale retorting process that used hot oil-shale particles as the heat carrier. The research also produced a model of how oil is formed in nature. Today, this model aids the exploration efforts of nearly every major oil company in the world.

The shale that remains in the ground after the oil is extracted could be used as a storage place for the carbon dioxide that is created during the extraction process.

Once solved the key environmental and technical challenges facing domestic oil shale production will have been resolved.

AMSO holds a Research Development and Demonstration (RD and D) lease for a 160-acre parcel of federal land in northwest Colorado’s oil-shale rich Piceance Basin. Upon demonstration of an economically viable, environmentally acceptable extraction process, AMSO has a preference right to acquire a 5,120-acre commercial lease.

After the oil is extracted from shale, the depleted retort of heated, rubberized underground shale may be particularly suitable for capturing carbon dioxide, according to AMSO’s Chief Technology Officer. “Together with the LLNL, we will explore several interesting approaches to protect the environment by sequestering CO2 through mineralization in retorted oil shale.”

The fine-grained sedimentary rock known as oil shale contains significant amounts of kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds), from which technology can extract liquid hydrocarbons. There is 3 trillion barrels of oil recoverable worldwide. And half that is locked in deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. If successful this LLNL-AMSO project could result in U. S. energy independnce and end the need to import any oil.

This is different from the recently reported Algerian joint partnership that chemical scrubs carbon dioxide from natural gas and sequesters the CO2 more than a mile underground beneath an impermiable layer of slate.

55% of Americans – religious or not – say they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel.

hina’s miserable record on human rights has always included strict censorship and little regard for free speech. That includes blocking access to the internet and shutting down websites it says violates Chinese law. “The Chinese government conducts necessary management over the Internet. It is the same with other nations,” foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told journalists.

Tuesday Liu cited websites that maintain that Taiwan is an independent nation separate from China, as an example of a view that violates China’s anti-secession law, he said.

Liu was responding to questions on why websites belonging to the BBC, the Voice of America and Reporters Without Borders appeared to be blocked in China after they were made accessible during the Beijing Olympics.

Liu did not answer those questions, nor would he comment on the legal process leading up to the blocking of any particular website.

China exercises strict control over the Internet, blocking sites linked to Chinese dissidents, the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement, the Tibetan government-in-exile and those with any information on the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. During the 1989 insurrection dissidents who reoutinely communicated via telefax machines often found their fax machines confiscated, telephone service terminations and their freedom truncated.

Its system of Internet censorship has become known as the “Great Firewall of China“ due to the large number of websites that are inaccessible from inside the country.

Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of when only a tiny amount of oil burned for eight days — maybe that’s why the oil sheikh’s don’t like Jews..

he Supreme Court on Monday opened up another avenue for smokers to sue tobacco companies, but 71% of U.S. voters say the companies should not be held liable for health problems that current smokers develop at the same time 72% say smoking tobacco should be illegal. Apparently because PROHABITION worked so well.

Twenty-two percent (22%) say the companies should be held liable, and eight percent (8%) are undecided in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken Monday and Tuesday nights.

Among smokers themselves, 34% say the companies should be held liable, while 62% say they should not be. Seventy-one percent (71%) of former smokers say the cigarette companies are not to blame, but 21% disagree.

These numbers are nearly the same as those in a survey in February 2007.

Thirty-four percent (34%) of African-Americans believe the tobacco companies should be held liable, compared to 19% of whites.

Thirty percent (30%) of Democrats say the companies are to blame versus 13% of Republicans and 21% of unaffiliated voters.

Voters are more evenly divided over the new high court ruling itself. Forty-five percent (45%) disagree with the Supreme Court decision that smokers could sue tobacco makers for advertising claims over so-called “light” cigarettes that they claim are fraudulent. But 42% agree with the ruling, with 12% undecided.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of smokers agree with the court’s decision versus 39% of former smokers and 40% of those who have never smoked. Sixty percent (60%) of liberals favor the court decision, a view shared by just 39% of moderates and 33% of conservatives.

In a survey earlier this month, 38% of voters gave the Supreme Court good or excellent ratings for its job performance. Only 17% said the court was doing a poor job.

The more liberal members of the Supreme Court were on top in the narrow 5-4 ruling in the light cigarette case. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters say Barack Obama’s choices for the Supreme Court will be too liberal, but 44% say his picks for the court as president will be about right. Only four percent (4%) expect them to be too conservative.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters say people who smoke cigarettes today are generally aware of the health dangers involved. Just nine percent (9%) disagree, with three percent (3%) not sure.

In the February 2007 survey, 91% said smokers were aware of the health dangers involved.

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of smokers and former smokers say they are aware of the health dangers involved, compared to 86% of those who have never smoked.

Just 15% of voters say they are smokers, down from 18% in February of last year. Thirty-two percent (32%) don’t smoke now but used to. Fifty-two percent (52%) say they have never smoked.

Smokers include 17% of men, 13% of women, 10% of those who are married and 24% of unmarrieds. Thirty-two percent (32%) of African-Americans are smokers, compared to 13% of whites. Fifty percent (50%) of whites and 45% of blacks say they have never smoked.

The more one attends church, the less likely they are to have ever smoked.

PAW PAW, Mich. Pathologists who examined a heart found this week at a southwestern Michigan car wash still haven’t determined whether it came from a human or an animal. It’s about the size of a human heart but they can’t tell without a DNA test.

esearchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has used the 100 meter Effelsberg radio telescope to detect water at the greatest distance from Earth so far. The water vapour was discovered in the quasar MG J0414+0534 at redshift 2.64, which corresponds to a light travel time of 11.1 billion years, a time when the Universe was only a fifth of the age it is today. The water vapour is thought to exist in clouds of dust and gas that feed the supermassive black hole at the centre of the distant quasar.

Water is believed to be a necessary ingredient for crbon based life to exists. “This suggests that water may be much more abundant in the early Universe than first thought, and can be used for further research into supermassive black holes and galaxy evolution at high redshift,” said a statement by the Institute.

The discovery may be challenged given the vast distances, and observation variables even though it seems to have been confirmed by the high-resolution interferometric observations with the Expanded Very Large Array.

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) proponents like most at the Carlo Segan Institute propound that it is a statistically certainty that not only life but intelligent life exists elsewhere. Logic dictates intelligent life may have come and gone numerous time in the vast history of the universe.

These are areas where science and religion intersect triggering robust debate and discussion.

It’s really cold here! Everybody is shivering. It’s like the whole city is in rehab. — Leno

. Mark Felt, Sr. aka ‘Deep Throat’ has died he was 95. As number 2 at the FBI turned Watergate whistleblower 1972-74 as revenge for President Nixon passing him over for the top job when J. Edgar Hoover died in May, 1972. Felt provided critical information to reporters Woodward and Bernstein that exposed Nixon’s involvement in the break-in of the Democrat National Committee offices at Watergate towers in Washington DC that led to Nixon resigning the Presidency.

In 1980, Felt was convicted of the felony of violating the civil rights of people thought to be associated with members of the domestic terror group, Weather Underground, ordering FBI agents to search their homes as part of an attempt to prevent bombings. He was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan during his appeal.

Felt’s 2006 memoir humorously describes his dissatisfaction with his first job after law school  in 1938 with the Federal Trade Commission where he was assigned to investigate whether a toilet paper brand called “Red Cross” was misleading consumers into thinking it was endorsed by the American Red Cross. Felt wrote in his book::

My research, which required days of travel and hundreds of interviews, produced two definite conclusions:

1. Most people did use toilet tissue.

2. Most people did not appreciate being asked about it.

Felt applied to and was accepted by the FBI in 1941. His career included an episdoe during World War II when Felt deceived the Nazis having used German spy Helmut Goldschmidt as a double agent feeding false information to Hitler’s regime.

After Hoover’s death there was, and is, controversy about the  content and custody of his secret personal files that involved Felt and his replacement Gray. In any case Woodward claims a book Felt was his informant a month after Hoover’s death in June 1972. Felt retired in 1973.

Top Nixon aide H. R. “Bob” Haldeman told me he had informed Nixon that Felt was ‘Deep Throat’ whose identity became one of the Belt Ways worst kept secrets for three decades.

Felt’s ‘Deep Throat’ nickname was adapted from the 1972 pornographic movie of the same name starring fellatrix Linda Lovelace.

A 60-year-old man who was thrown into the air in celebration at his Tokyo retirement party died after his colleagues failed to catch him and he fell to the floor, a Japanese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

ith the election of Barrack Obama, who was found in a basket floating down the Chicago River by Mrs. Richard Daley Sr., the United States is about to move its foreign policy dramatically to the left just as Israel is moving the other way returning Bibi Netanyahu to office in early February. A collision is inevitable.

Dick Morris reports that the “international community” believes Obama “will move quickly to place massive pressure on the next Israeli government to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the interests of advancing a ‘peace process’ with the Palestinians and the Syrians” citing the Jerusalem Post’s Glick. She notes that “people who have been in close contact with Obama’s foreign policy transition team have privately acknowledged that the widespread belief that Obama will move swiftly to put the screws on Israel is fully justified. According to one source who has spent a great deal of time with the transition team since last month’s U.S. elections, Obama’s people are ’scope-locked’ on Israel.”

Meanwhile, in Israel, there is a growing consensus, reflected in public opinion surveys, that trading land for peace is a chimera.

Netanyahu points out that “we do not have a viable partner with whom to negotiate peace.” The Palestinian Authority does not speak for the people of either Gaza or the West Bank, and Hamas, which probably does (it won the election), does not want to be a party to any peace agreement. Recent experience suggests that Hamas will quickly install rocket launchers on any territory Israel concedes, using it not as a basis for peace, but as a platform from which to kill more Jews.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the candidates of the left, Labor’s Ehud Barak and Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, are deeply committed to land for peace. Their rejection by the Israeli electorate — the anticipated outcome of the Feb. 10 election — will signal a bold departure in the political consensus of the Jewish state, a consensus that flies directly in the face of Obama’s likely policy.

The difference between the U.S. and Israel also extends to the realm of how strongly they oppose Iranian development of nuclear weapons. Bubblig just below the surface if Vice President-elect Biden’s statement that Israel must accept a nucler armed Iran.

While Iran moves closer and closer to a bomb that could and will be used against Israel, Obama speaks of extending the American “nuclear umbrella” to cover Israel. Most doubt the U. S. would use nuclear weapons and risk certain retaliation by nuclear armed terrorists.

Reading between the lines, this means that he doesn’t think he can stop Iranian nuclear ambitions and will retreat to a policy of deterrence, accepting a nuclear Iran in the bargain. Such a decision will almost certainly be disasterous. But, Obama & Company seem determined to pursue their Rodney King foreign policy before they too a figuratively pulled from their truck and beaten senseless.

If Netanyahu wins the election, he will bring with him a determination to stop Iranian nuclear weapons, no matter what, and a refusal to concede more territory in the name of the peace process. But Obama’s foreign policy team will be focusing on pushing Israel in just the opposite direction. Israeli’s  will remember how they were bamboozled during the Carter and Clinton administrations everytime Hillary waddles into town.

The result is likely to be the most significant divergence between Israeli and American policies since 1956, when President Eisenhower sided with the Arabs to halt the British-French-Israeli invasion of Suez.

The United States has tremendous leverage over Israel — military, financial and political. And Obama’s ability to carry the Jewish vote by a wide margin despite his likely Middle East policy makes him largely immune to the kind of political pressure that has disciplined American presidents in the past and forced them to incline toward accommodating Israeli views on the Middle East. Surveys show that American Jews are increasingly detached from Israel and even disconcerned about its fate.

But Israel probably has the military capacity to bomb Iran and to win the Middle East war against Syria, Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah that is likely to result. Unlike Olmert, Netanyahu will use ground troops right off the bat and will fight such a war to win and to win big. But they may have to do it without their strongest ally: the United States.

Ticking someone off could get you a ticket in one Michigan city. The nincompoops on Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public “by word of mouth, sign or motions.”

he sponsors of Proposition 8 California’s ban on homosexual marriage have petitioned its Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed homosexual unions after the same court tossed out the prior voter approved prohibition.

Since voters approved a Constitutional ban last month homosexual activist, sympathizers and thugs have torched churches, damaged proponent’s property, made threats, and assorted other mischief. Proponents of the ban are likewise accused of similar stupidity in retribution for such violence.

The Yes on 8 campaigns filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions. The document reveals for the first time that opponents of same-sex marriage will fight in court to undo those unions that already exist.

“Proposition 8’s brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions,” reads the brief co-written by Kenneth Starr, dean of Pepperdine University’s law school and the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton.

The campaign submitted the document in response to three lawsuits seeking to invalidate Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment adopted last month that overruled the court’s decision in May that had legalized gay marriage in the nation’s most populous state.

Both Attorney General Jerry Brown, whose office is scheduled to submit its own brief to the court Friday, and gay rights groups maintain that the gay marriage ban may not be applied retroactively.

The Supreme Court could hear arguments in the litigation as soon as March. The measure’s backers announced Friday that Starr, a former federal judge and U.S. solicitor general, had signed on as their lead counsel and would argue the cases.

Proposition 8’s supporters assert that the Supreme Court lacks the authority or historical precedent to throw out the amendment.

“For this court to rule otherwise would be to tear asunder a lavish body of jurisprudence,” the court papers state. “That body of decisional law commands judges - as servants of the people - to bow to the will of those whom they serve - even if the substantive result of what people have wrought in constitution-amending is deemed unenlightened.”

Proponents of homosexual marriage have pledged to put the matter before California voters as soon as possible which would be the third time. Voter approved the ban twice before. 30 states ban or are working on homosexual marriage now.

The issue caught the national spotlight last week when president-elect Obama picked Pastor Rick Warren of the massive Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. The selection of the anti-abortion anti-homosexual marriage pastor provoked the ire of homosexual activist nationwide some of whom are having conniption fits.

It was so cold in Beverly Hills, even people who didn’t have Botox couldn’t move their faces.– Leno

pproval of Congress‘ job performance is down to single digits again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters found that only nine percent (9%) give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% give the legislature poor marks. Just one-out-of-50 voters (2%) think Congress is doing an excellent job. This is now the fifth time congressional ratings have fallen below 10% since June 1.

Since the election when Democrats grew their majorities in both the House and Senate, Congress has been in the news struggling unsuccessfully to pass an unpopular bailout plan for the Big Three automakers.

Even only 14% of Democratic voters rate the performance of the Congress led by their own party as good or excellent, compared to five percent (5%) of Republicans and six percent (6%) of unaffiliated voters. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats say the legislators are doing a poor job, and 69% of Republicans and 63% of unaffiliateds agree.

Men are much more critical than women. While 66% of men give Congress poor ratings, only 43% of women do the same. Eight percent (8%) of men give Congress positive ratings, along with 10% of women.

One-in-three voters (34%) believes most members of Congress are corrupt, while 39% disagree. In last month’s survey, 36% saw most members as corrupt.

Forty percent (40%) of Republicans view most Congress members as corrupt, along with 36% of unaffiliated voters and 28% of Democrats. Forty-four percent (44%) of Democrats do not see most members that way, and 38% of Republicans and 34% of unaffiliated voters agree.

A separate Rasmussen survey released last week found that voters view politicians as being more corrupt than CEO’s of major corporations by a 48% to 25% margin. The majority (59%) also believe President-elect Barack Obama should make government ethics reform a top agenda item when he assumes office next year.

With the Blagoveich scandal breaking in Illinois, a plurality of voters (39%) does not know which political party to trust more when it comes to government ethics and corruption.

The latest survey found that just 14% of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping people than their own careers, down from 23% in November. Most voters (71%) say the opposite.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans, 54% of Democrats and 79% of unaffiliated voters say most members of Congress are more interested in helping their own political careers. Six percent (6%) of GOP voters and nine percent (9%) of unaffiliateds think members of Congress are most interested in helping people, compared to 24% of Democrats.

Thirteen percent (13%) of voters say Congress has passed legislation to significantly improve life in America, but 60% say the opposite. Still, 57% say it is at least somewhat likely that Congress will address serious issues facing our nation in the near future, although 39% say it is unlikely.

The post office says it will deliver 9 billion fewer pieces of mail this month than last December. Most of the decline is in so-called advertising mail – junk mail. So there is a bright side to the recession.

orty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. voters are worried that America is developing an unofficial group of “royal families” with too much influence over government and politics. This is nothing new since the furball John Adams and his son Quincy stirred up 200 years ago. Americans have a genetic dislike for “royals” since the nutty King George in Revolutionary War times.

Twenty-two percent (22%) say they are Very Worried about this trend, although 13% say they are not at all worried in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Three percent (3%) are undecided.

Over half of male voters (51%) are worried about several generations of a family’s members in very senior government roles, with 26% Very Worried. Forty-three percent (43%) of female voters also are concerned, although just 18% are Very Worried.

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the assassinated president and the niece of Ted Kennedy, is lobbying for the appointment to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat in the U.S. Senate when Clinton becomes secretary of State.

While most voters like her, just 37% believe she is qualified to be a senator, and only 16% say she would be considered for the position if her last name wasn’t Kennedy.

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Florida voters say popular former Governor Jeb Bush, the son of President George H.W. Bush and brother of the current president, is likely to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez in 2010. He is viewed favorably by 60% of Florida voters, including 39% with a Very Favorable opinion.

Vice President-elect Joseph Biden’s son Beau, Delaware’s attorney general, is considered a front-runner in the 2010 special election to complete his father’s Senate term. Ted Kaufman, recently named by the governor to fill the seat until then, has said he will not run in that contest.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., whose father admittedly was only the “shadow” senator from the District of Columbia, is hoping to fill Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. But the Blagojevich scandal is putting that move in jeopardy.

Maybe because prominent families in both parties are involved, Republicans and Democrats seem about equally concerned about the rise of political dynasties. But 26% of Republicans are Very Worried, compared to just 17% of Democrats. Still, 17% of GOP voters are not at all worried versus 11% of Democrats.

Among unaffiliated voters, 46% are worried, including 23% who are Very Worried, while 13% are not at all worried.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of white voters are Very Worried about these “royal families” compared to 15% of African-Americans. Among religious voters, Evangelical Christians are the most concerned, while other Protestants are the least worried.

Following in the family footsteps in Congress may be lucrative, but it may not be great for one’s reputation. Congress’ job approval ratings are back in single digits again. Only nine percent (9%) of voters now give Congress good or excellent ratings for its performance, while 54% give the legislature poor marks.

Minnow (MIN-o) noun: 1. Any of the small freshwater fish of the Cyprinidae family. 2. Someone or something considered insignificant. ETYMOLOGY: Ultimately from Old High German munewa, a kind of fish, via Old English and Middle English.

audi Arabia, Brunei, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, even a KGB collaborator and similarly questionable others put a cloud over the well intended by gaving hundreds of millions of dollars “out of the goodness of their hearts.” At least we now know why former president Bill Clinton’s refused to disclose who he was accepting money from while Hillary was still busy blowing every chance of becoming president. The disclosures, made Friday, raise big problems for Hillary as Secretary of State specifically whether she can separate America’s best interest from her’s and her husband’s and the foreign governments who paid dearly for access and influence.

Friday’s disclosures show that foreign governments and state-sponsored entities have donated between $75 million and $165 million highlighting a series of potential conflicts that Hillary Rodham Clinton could face should she become secretary of state.

For instance: Saudi Arabia while bleeding billions from Americans for its oil made one of the largest contributions, between $10 million and $25 million, as did the Australian government’s overseas aid program and a Dominican Republic agency plus $1 million each from the governments of Brunei, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar each of whom gleefully bagged tens of billions in oil revenues while Americans paid through the nose for gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil.

The list — containing more than 200,000 donor names — shows the extent to which Bill Clinton relied on foreign governments, especially those of Middle Eastern oil states. In many cases, those governments have national interests that have routinely come before the State Department and other U.S. government agencies.

Even before they could possibly have studied oreven read the list the Obama bunch quickly said that “Past donations have no connection to Senator Clinton’s prospective tenure as secretary of state. Going forward, all donors will be disclosed on an annual basis, and new donations from foreign governments will be scrutinized by government ethics officers.” Hypocrites.

Norway and the national charitable lottery of the Netherlands gave more than $5 million, for example, and the Swedish lottery also donated along with The Jamaican and Italian governments each anted more than $50,000.

“It is going to be complex to disassociate the specialized interests of the foundation of Bill Clinton from certain foreign interests that are represented by the U.S. government,” said James Thurber of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies … but you never know, when it comes to Bill Clinton, what might come out.”

The list released includes many controversial figures and companies. Affiliates of the Korean conglomerate Hanwha — Hanwha L&C, Hanwha Engineering and Construction, and Hanwha Stores — donated about $1 million after Clinton traveled to Seoul in 2003 and appeared with Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn. Kim has been jailed in Korea for public corruption.

Another donation followed Clinton’s trip to Kazakhstan in 2005 on the private jet of Frank Giustra, a financier of mining ventures. On the trip, Clinton praised Kazakhstan’s authoritarian president, and Giustra later entered into agreements to invest in uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s government. Giustra donated $10 million to $25 million, and the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative gave between $1 million and $5 million.

A donation of more than $25,000 came from Andre Agapov, a Russian mining company owner who allegedly worked with the Russian secret police for President Boris Yeltsin.

Other contributors include Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation, as well as Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid, each giving more than $1 million. Haim Saban, the Egyptian-born media tycoon who funds many Israeli initiatives, gave more than $5 million.

Among the top donors were foundations created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates, and Scottish retail-clothing executive Tom Hunter. Also on the list of the biggest contributors, giving between $10 million and $25 million each, are real estate and Hollywood mogul Stephen L. Bing, New York billionaire B. Thomas Golisano, Gateway computer co-founder Theodore W. Waitt and Chicago media executive Fred Eychaner. Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson gave more than $1 million.

Billionaire financier and left wing political supporter George Soros and his Open Society Institute each gave major donations, while the Arkansas-based foundations linked to retail giant Wal-Mart each gave at least $1 million.

The list also includes gifts from companies damaged in the current economic meltdown some who pocketed piles of taxpayer cash, such as Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Freddie Mac and General Motors.

Entertainment figures on the list include producer Steven Spielberg, actors Cameron Diaz and the late Paul Newman, and singers Barbra Streisand and Carly Simon. New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Formula One driver Michael Schumacher also donated.

Former Presidents H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter also got contributions from a few or these foreign sources but the amounts are incomparable.

2008 will be the coldest year since 1997. The cold rrend is expected to continue for ten years. That’s why yu don’t hear Al Gore say global warming but only climate change.

dmittedly Vice President-elect Biden loves the sounds of his own voice, and seldom misses a chance to talk. His prediction that Barrack Osama will be sorely tested within six months of taking office looks more, and more prescient.

Consider that wheels are coming of the Israel – U. S. alliance. All the while that Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran are heartened and encouraged. Iran is openly contemptuous. China shows every sign of not really giving a damn, and North Korea continues to be run by a crazy man. Pakistan and India are on tenderhookis after the Mumbai attackers staged from the former. Talk of the U. S. “extending its nuclear shield” to cow enemies is fantasy because hardly anyone believes the U. S. would counter attack with nukes.

Russia after sending warplanes and a fleet to Venezuela, Panama and now Cuba has hardened its stance toward US plans for a missile shield in an apparent bid to “test the mettle” of incoming President Barack Obama, to borrow my phrase, said US arms negotiator John Rood Wednesday.

Rood is acting under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

“And the future will show how the new administration chooses to answer that challenge,” Rood told reporters after returning from talks last weekend in Moscow on missile defense and other arms control issues. The Russia called the talks inconclusive and even unproductive. Russia figures it will win this issue; win other concessions and generally push Obama around while he talks a good game while waffling more than any IHOP.

Obama has made no commitment to pursue the administration of President George W. Bush’s plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe as it questions whether the technology is “workable.” That the Russians and for that matter hitherto allies in the Czech Republic and Poland figure is looking for an excuse to cut and run.

The plans by the Bush administration envisage establishing rocket interceptors in Poland and a linked radar in the Czech Republic to compliment installation in the UK, Greenland and U. S.

The United States insists the facilities are needed to protect against “rogue states” like Iran, but Moscow has portrayed them as a threat to its security.

Rood told reporters in November that Washington had sent new proposals to Russia that built on previous ones that would allow Russian liaison officers access to the missile shield sites.

Rood said the Russians showed “some interest” during talks Monday between teams headed by Rood and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

However, he said the Russians “have paused I think with the election of a new administration in the United States and they are looking carefully at the position of the new time.”

They still want to talk, but “in some ways their position is less flexible than it was before and, I think that therefore leads to me the conclusion that they would like to determine the posture of the new administration.

He referred to the “transparency and confidence-building regime” that includes allowing Russian officers to visit the missile sites.

He said the Russians also wanted to test the reaction of the Obama administration on subjects other than missile defense but did not identify them.

During his talks in Moscow, Rood said there no breakthrough in talks for a follow-on agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires at the end of 2009.

Rood said a new US proposal on START focuses on limiting nuclear warheads, but Russia wants to open up the negotiations to limits on conventional forces and missile defense.

Russia’s puffing up is encouraging U. S. adversaries and discouraging allies worldwide. Their bet is Obama could emasculate the U. S. military and intelligence communities to a greater extent than the fatal Clinton era policies, and this time it could be terminal.

he United States and Russia talked in Moscow this week on a planned US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, the Russian Tass news agency reported Thursday quoting a junior Russian foreign minister. “It is too early to forecast the results of this meeting… Everything depends on the new US administration’s assessment of the subject,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. The talks were inconclusive.

“The latest round of talks on political and military questions including the missile defense shield and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will take place on December 15 behind closed doors,” said the source. There was a cloud over the talks ad news of Russian warships arriving in Cuba threw cold water on them.

John Rood, US under secretary of state for arms control and international security met Ryabkov in the Moscow talks.

Moscow has sharply criticized the US plans to put an anti-missile radar in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland, despite US assurances that the system is not directed against Russia.

Last week the U. S. announced it has successfully tested key components of such a system.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged US president-elect Barrack Obama last month to drop the planned missile shield.

Obama, who takes office on January 20, has yet to say whether he intends to continue the European based missile defense shield plan. In what is becoming typical Obama waffle speaks he said he’d await a demonstration that it is technically feasible. Most see that as a precursor to abandoning it. Sensing betrayal by the new U. S. administration The Czech Republic has adopted a “wait-and-see” stance even deferring a final vote on its part of the defense shield system until they see what Obama intends.

The parallel with the pre-World War II view of a self-absorbed, internally focused America – due to its financial exigencies – and gave Hitler confidence to invade invade neighbors and adventure otherwise can not be ignored.

President Bush was attacked by a shoe-side bomber while in Iraq. President C linton was also good at dodge ball but in his case it was lamps. President-elect Obama is bobbing and weaving around what is “inappropriate” contact over his Senate replacement.

resident Bush returned from Iraq and Afghanistan to the nettlesome problem of bailing out the Detroit 3 automakers and according to the Washington Post most Americans continue to oppose a government-backed rescue plan as majorities blame the industry for its own problems and are unconvinced failure would hurt the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. That poll reflects similar dislike for the bailout found by Rasmussen polls over the past weeks.

Overall, 55 percent of those polled oppose the latest plan that Chrysler, Ford and General Motors executives pitched to Congress last week, on par with public opposition to earlier, pricier efforts. Ford has sinmce said it doesn’t need taxpayer money right now. But with 42 percent support, the new request for up to $14 billion in emergency loans has more backers than previous proposals to secure up to $34 billion in loan guarantees.

But as with the earlier bids, those who strongly oppose the measure greatly outnumber those who are strongly supportive.

Opposition to the automaker bailout is fueled by the widespread perception that the companies themselves are responsible for their predicament, not the faltering economy. In the new poll, three-quarters of Americans said Detroit’s woes are mainly the fault of its own management decisions, and a sizable majority of those who blame the front office object to government help.

Nor have Detroit’s Big Three made significant progress persuading the public that bankruptcy proceedings would deepen the broader economic slowdown. Sixty percent said it would make no difference or would be good for the economy if one or more of the companies were forced to restructure under the protection of bankruptcy laws.

52 percent support it, up from 42 percent support for previous versions of the rescue bill. But they, too, are deeply critical of company managers — 72 percent fault Detroit’s strategies, not the overall economy.

Republican opposition has grown stronger, with 69 percent now against the bailout, an increase of 12 points since chief executives from General Motors, Chrysler and Ford last appeared on Capitol Hill to plead their case. Half of all Republicans polled now strongly oppose the plan.

Overall, independents continue to lean against the plan, with 57 percent opposing it and 41 percent supporting it.

The Washington Post-ABC poll either did not test or did not disclose how many blame the United Auto Workers for the situation. Other polls have shown a portion who put some of the blame on unfavorable labor contracts and inefficient work rules. The Washington Post did report that union household strongly support the bailout, and sharp regional difference with support higher the closer respondents are to Detroit. 56% in the Midwest and 61% in the northeast support a bailout. 51% in the south and 49% in the west oppose a bailout.

The Washington Post-ABC poll was conducted by landline and cellphone from Dec. 11 to 14 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults. The Rasmussen was only among voters showing slightly more opposition.

A 4-year old Texas boy somehow unlocked the door to a local toy store setting off the burglar alarm and summoning police who found the less than hardened criminal inside playing with the toys. The child was given a ride in a police car and is back with his parents.

ran’s parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani on Thursday branded US president-elect Barack Obama’s comments on Tehran’s nuclear activities as “cowboy” talk, the ISNA (Iran’s State News Agency) reported. Iran fancies it is in the catbird’s seat with the new U. S. administration. It does not believe Obama has the chutzpah to act and risk and Persian Gulf War that would likely include disruption of global oil supplies.

“These comments resemble those of old American cowboys. If you have something to say about (Iran’s) nuclear issue, just say so. Why wave a stick,” asked Larijani, in a speech in Qazvin province.

“The new US president has said he wants to pressure Iran since it seeks to produce atomic weapons and because it supports the terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah,” Larijani said. A complication for president-elect Obram is that he accepted significant contributions from Palestinians and other radical mideast actors.

“We are proud of supporting Hezbollah since they are defending their homeland and you are wrong in calling them terrorists,” Larijani added.

Iran is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

In an interview broadcast last Sunday, Obama vowed “tough but direct diplomacy” with Iran, offering incentives along with the threat of tougher sanctions over its atomic program.

As president from January 20, Obama said he would make clear to Tehran that the nuclear program was “unacceptable,” along with its support of Hamas and Hezbollah and its “threats against Israel.”

But, Obama, whose offer of direct talks with Iran represents a break with three decades of US foreign policy, promised a “set of carrots and sticks in changing their calculus about how they want to operate.”

Three days ago, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said “the carrot and stick approach has proven to be useless.”

Two days ago, influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused Obama of mimicking predecessor George W. Bush’s tough stance on Tehran’s nuclear drive.

Washington severed ties with Iran in 1980 after Islamist extremists stormed its embassy in Tehran and took 50 diplomats hostage, whom they held for 444 days A President Carter inspired rescue plan failed miserably. Since then .Iran has increasingly felt it can stall and buy time until it has a nuclear weapon rendering it invulverable to attack lest it incinerate Israel and important middle eastern capital cities. Its swagger has increased since Obama’s election citing his pledges to reduce U. S. military spending; unilaterally withdraw U. S. force from Iraq. Soon after such a withdrawal Iran sees a distinct opportunity to fill that vacuum becoming the dominate force in the region.

Recent equivocations by Gulf States including Saudi Arabia has emboldened the mullahs who run Iran’s theocracy.

A Florida probationer has been arrested for stealing a small refrigerator from a probation office used to store urine samples, including his own. Apparently the 26-year old man was concerned what the court ordered drug test would show but, he’ll likely have his probation revoked anyway now.

study and report on teen drug abuse paid for by the National Institute on Drug Abuse finds nearly 10% use Vicodin and 4.7% use Ovycontin. Both are strong opioid pai killers. Seven of the top ten drugs abused are either prescription of over-the-counter medications. The Monitoring the Future study surveyed 8, 10 and 12^th graders nationwide was conducted by the University of Michigan found that cigarette smoking is at its lowest level in the 33-year history of the research with one in ten teens smoking daily and 5.4% saying the smoke a half pack or more a day. The use of marijuana has leveled off after a decade of decline the study found.

“While the long term general decline (in drug abuse) is encouraging , especially for cigarettes and alcohol, some of the other findings this year amplify our concerns for potential problems in the future – especially the nonmeical use of prescription drugs,”said Dr. Nora Volkow the director of the Institute.

Two Oregon law enforcement officers were killed in a bank bombing last week believed the device was a hoax and were trying to open it when it exploded,

ebate ran high within Barack Obama’s transition team over whether the next secretary of Education should be a traditionalist in sync with the national teachers’ unions or a reformer who will help break the hold those unions have on Democratic Party policy.

So, Obama chose Chicago School Superintendent Arne Duncan is seen as a move to bridge those competing camps. Chicago boast of some of the poorest performing school in Ameerica.

But two-thirds of U.S. voters (66%) say the teachers’ unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – are more interested in protecting their members’ jobs and benefits than in the quality of education.

Only 23% of voters say educational quality comes first for the unions, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided.

Men and women are equally critical of the teacher’s unions. Married voters are more critical than unmarrieds by 12 points. Seventy percent (70%) of voters with children at home think the unions are more interested in jobs, compared to 63% of those without children in the house.

While 78% of Republicans and 66% of unaffiliated voters say teachers’ jobs are the chief focus of the unions, only 55% of Democrats agree.

In a Labor Day survey posted on September 1, 55% of Americans had at least a somewhat favorable opinion of labor unions. Thirty-five percent (35%) viewed them negatively.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of voters also believe the secretary of Education should be an advocate for students rather than teachers, but 19% say teachers should be the secretary’s priority. Fifteen percent (15%) aren’t sure.

Younger voters are more likely to think the Cabinet secretary should be an advocate for teachers than older voters do. Across all other categories including race and political affiliation, two-thirds of voters say the secretary is intended to be a champion of students.

Over half of voters (55%) believe teachers are paid too little, while eight percent (8%) think they receive too much. Thirty-three percent (33%) say teachers are paid about the right amount for the jobs they do. Five percent (5%) are undecided. These numbers are consistent with earlier surveys.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of female voters say teachers are paid too little, compared to 49% of male voters. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Democrats agree versus 41% of Republicans and 49% of unaffiliated voters.

Interestingly, unmarried voters by 10 points over married voters believe teachers are underpaid. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters with children in the home share that view, along with 53% of those without children in the house.

With Obama’s nominee for Education secretary stil unannounced, the New York Times noted on Saturday, “There is mystery not only about the person he will choose, but also about the approach to overhauling the nation’s schools that his selection will reflect. … Will he side with those who want to abolish teacher tenure and otherwise curb the power of teachers’ unions? Or with those who want to rewrite the main federal law on elementary and secondary education, the No Child Left Behind Act, and who say the best strategy is to help teachers become more qualified?”

Well now we know -  he “punted.” What we do not know is will America’s students continue to under perform almost every other developed nation and some third world countries while American taxpayers pay through the nose for that nonsense.

An errant emu is home after roaming free across northern Rhode Island for a month and that’s good news for an egg that needs incubated by the male bird. Apparently.Emer got out of his enclosure, wandered away and got lost. But, now he’s back and sitting on the egg.

ixty-nine percent (69%) of Americans generally say “Merry Christmas” to greet people at this time of year. 71% are not offended by others who say “Happy Holidays.” The Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 19% typically use the “Happy Holidays” greeting and 23% are offended by its use.

While few are offended by casual greeting, retailers must negotiate a trickier path during the holiday season. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of Americans would avoid stores where employees are told not to say “Merry Christmas” and the signs say “Happy Holidays.” Fifty-two percent (52%) would not avoid those stores while 12% are not sure. Americans over 50 are evenly divided as to whether they would avoid such a store while younger adults are less likely to do so.

There are no substantive differences between men and women on the Christmas questions. Overall, these figures suggest a nation where Christmas matters but so does an acceptance of others. Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say Merry Christmas and less likely to shop at stores that don’t.

Doolally (DU-lah-lee) adjective: Irrational, deranged, or insane.

ver three decades ago Roman Polanski, then 43-years old and a famous film director was arrested for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. According to grand jury testimony, Polanski forced the junior high school aged Samantha Geimer to have sexual relations with him after supplying her with alcohol and prescription drugs.

The tragic incident occurred after Polanski had the young girl pose twice for topless photos that he falsely claimed were for the French Vogue magazine.

Polanski carried out the despicable acts in the Mulholland Canyon, Los Angeles area  home of Jack Nicholson, who was not home at the time.

After being indicted, Polanski agreed to a plea bargain with no prison time. He then fled the country because of fear that the judge wouldn’t honor the deal.

Now the 74 year-old Polanski has filed in a Los Angeles Court to have his own plea deal overturned.

Hollywood has forgiven him, so much so the town awarded him with an Oscar.

The victim purportedly now wants the charges dropped, and a documentary that pleads Polanski’s case has been created. However, none of these things changes the contemptible nature of his March 1977 crime.

Polanski pleaded guilty for that 1977 crime in open court, and he intentionally became a fugitive from the criminal justice system. It is had to distinguish from Polanski’s hypocrisy and that of the French government that has sheltered a succored him for 30-years refusing to extradite the convicted felon.

Americans spend $13.3 billion on pornography a quarter by women.

t might seem reasonable to presume — given the fact that three of its recent governors have been sentenced to jail, with one more possibly to join them — that ILLINOIS possesses the most corrupt state overnment in the country. But according to the USA Today, that presumption would be very wrong. Based on analysis of Department of Justice statistics, the Prairie State’s rate of 3.9 corruption convictions-per-100,000 residents from 1998 through 2007 ranks it as only the 18th most corrupt. The top slot instead goes to NORTH DAKOTA, which has suffered through an 8.3/100,000 conviction rate during that time, followed by stalwarts LOUISIANA (7.7), ALASKA (7.5) and MISSISSIPPI (7.3). On the flip side, NEBRASKA and its unicameral Legislature saw only a .7/100,000 ratio.

If the price of a gallon of gasoline had increased since 1961 at the same rate as heatlh care it would cost $15 per gallon.

ateline Princeton, N.J. Dec 15, 2008– It’s only a theory but, Greta Keller a Princeton University professor is now saying dinosaurs died gradually from climate change caused by colossal volcanic eruptions in India and not because of a meteor or asteroid strike. The prevailing theory has been that dinosaurs flickered out when a huge space rock smashed into the Yucatan are of Mexico causing a worldwide conflagration and the smoke and debris tossed into the atmosphere that blocked the Sun’s heat causing temperatures to plummet and plants to die.

Fossil records show the Age of Dinosaurs ended roughly 65 million years ago with the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Keller’s theory has been discussed for over a year. A 1993 “Science” journal article discusses that the so-called Deccan Traps eruption occurred 68.5 million years ago but does not make the scientific connection Keller and colleagues now have made. .

The Deccan Traps are a large igneous province located on the Deccan Plateau of west-central India east of modern day Mumbai It is one of the largest volcanic features on Earth The “traps” consist of multiple layers of solidified flood basalt that together are more than 2,000 meters thick and coverinmg an area of 500,000 square kilometers. The term ‘trap’, used in geology for such rock formations, is derived from the Swedish word for stairs (trappa, or sometimes trapp), referring to the step-like hills forming the landscape of the region. The enormous eruptions propelled millions of tons of debris and gases into the atmosphere blocking the Sun’s radiation and profoundly changing the global climate

Keller reaches her conclusion based on new evidence from National Science Foundation-funded field work in India and Mexico that the dinosaur went extinct extinction and the meteor impact occurred at different times. She says the asteroid crashed into Earth hundreds of thousands of years before dinosaurs disappeared. Their mass extinction appears to have occurred at the end of India’s Deccan eruptions.

Keller and her colleagues will present their findings during the December 2009 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. The new and still controversial theory is the stuff television is made and in fact it will be included in an upcoming History Channel feature “What Really Killed the Dinosaurs.” Both theories are unified in one way that something plunged Earth into sudden cold killing dinosaur’s food source starving or freezing them.

Heather Mills ex-beatle Paul McCartney’s ex-wife pledged a majority of the $48,000,000 she got in their divorce settlement to the Clear-A-Minefield” charity – so far it has received $0; Nada, Zilch, nothing. Hyporcite.

eijing (AFP) Dec 15, 2008 — China’s first mass-produced hybrid electric car hit the market on Monday, its manufacturer BYD Auto said, in a move aimed at driving the nation to the cutting edge of the world’s green auto industry. BYD Auto is a Chinese company backed by American Warren Buffett owns 9.9 percent of the firm.

The F3DM is also the world’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid car, meaning owners can charge it from powerpoints at home for the first time, as well as in specialised electric car charging stations, BYD says. Its president says BYD and China are “on their way to being world leaders in the fuel-efficient auto industry.”

BYD, which also specialises in making rechargeable batteries, only started making cars in 2003 when it bought a bankrupt state-owned auto company.

Its hybrid car is planned to first go on the market in 14 Chinese cities, and the firm is initially focusing on striking deals for company fleets rather than individuals, mycar168.com, another auto website, quoted BYD’s president as saying.

The United States, meanwhile, is currently examining the F3DM to see if it meets the necessary standards for its domestic market, a spokesperson for the firm was quoted as saying by pcauto.com.cn, another car-focused web portal.

Exports to the United States could begin from 2010, according to the report.

The Prius hybrid electric car, made by Japan’s Toyota, is currently sold in China, but the F3DM is the first locally made hybrid vehicle to hit the market.

BYD’s hybrid car, which can run 100 kilometres (62 miles) on a full battery, will cost just under 150,000

China lags behind Western companies in conventional car technologies, but were at a similar level when it comes to hybrids and can leap frog them into a lead.

Chevrolet continues to be best seller in China and GM is profitable there.

BurgerKing is selling its own cologne called Flame for $3.99 a can – it has a hint of flame broiling beef.

ateline Krechba, Algeria (AFP) Dec 15, 2008 - If you want to sell natural gas in Europoe its CO2 content can not exceed 0.3 percent. Algerian natural gas has a carbon-dioxide content of 9.1 percent. So Sonatrach of Algeria in cooperation with, BP of Britain and Statoil of Norway are “scrubbing” the carbon-dioxide out and burying it under a remote stretch of the Sahara desert.

The joint venture is the the world’s first and largest onshore carbon capture and sequestration scheme – a real tongue twister. Usuakky the carbon-dioxide is vented into the atmosphere but the consortium decided to bury it instead.

“There’s no reason for the CO2 to migrate anywhere, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t stay there,” a spokesman says. It’s ironic that the carbon-dioxide was extracted from deep under the desert and is bing put back some 6,100 feet under a layer of slate that is impermeable to gas. .

Salah project managers say an estimated 800,000 tons of CO2 is being re-injected each year, equivalent to what 200,000 cars produce annually. Over the anticipated 30-year life of project, about 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be captured and sequestered deep in the earth about 750 miles south of Algiers.

The gas is purged of nearly all its CO2 by being pumped through a liquid amine solution. Amine is a chemical capable of detecting — and separating — CO2 from natural gas. The CO2 separation part of the $4 billion project is about $100 million.

But despite its cost effectiveness and technical feasibility, the In Salah model may not be universally applicable. What is needed is a verifiably secure reservoir to contain the CO2, which may not be available elsewhere. At the Krechba field, there are no worries on that score.

Russian warships are visiting Cuba for the first time since the Cold War in another obvious attempt to twist president-elect Obama’s tail and test his mettle.

orty-seven percent (47%) of U.S. voters say they are willing to pay more for goods and services if it means a cleaner environment, even as President-elect Obama promises to move ahead aggressively on both the economic and ecological fronts.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) are not willing to pay more, and 15% are undecided, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. The survey was taken on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Women by eight percentage points more than men are willing to pay more for “green” goods and services. A plurality of men (45%) are not.

Sixty percent (60%) of African-American voters also are willing to pay more if it means a cleaner environment, compared to 46% of whites.

Among Democratic voters, 61% are willing to pay more, 27% are not, and 12% are undecided. A majority of Republicans (51%) are unwilling to pay more for “green” goods and services, while 32% are and 18% aren’t sure. Unaffiliated voters by a seven-point margin favor paying more to go “green,” with 15% undecided.

But in a survey in mid-October, Americans reacted unenthusiastically to paying more for an energy-efficient hybrid car. Even faced with soaring gas prices, only 37% said they were more likely to buy a hybrid than they were 12 months ago.

While slightly more (42%) said they were at least somewhat likely to buy one in the next five years, just 33% said they would do it because it’s good for the environment.

In July, only 33% of voters thought former Vice President Al Gore’s proposal to switch all of the nation’s electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources in 10 years was realistic.

Forty-five percent (45%) of voters in the latest survey say there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, but 38% disagree. Seventeen percent (17%) aren’t sure.

In a survey in early October, 54% of Americans said it is possible to drill offshore for oil without harming the environment, but nearly as many (48%) also agreed there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.

Fifty percent (50%) of men now say there is a conflict between growth and protecting the environment, with only 40% of women in agreement. Forty-five percent (45%) of whites and just 29% of blacks agree.

While 56% of conservatives and a plurality of moderates (43%) see a conflict between the two, 51% of liberals say there is no such conflict.

With all the focus on the troubled U.S. economy, 67% of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that environmental issues will be moved down the Obama administration’s priority list, including 25% who say it is Very Likely. Just four percent (4%) say it is not likely at all that Obama’s priorities will be changed.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of Republicans and 29% of unaffiliated voters rate it Very Likely that environmental issues will get pushed down, as do 14% of Democrats.

On introducing his energy and environmental team on Monday, however, Obama said he would move ahead in these areas in spite of the economy. “This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time,” he said.

This week Obama continues to register near-record highs in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index.

Forty-one percent (41%) of voters say global warming is a Very Serious problem, with another 24% describing it as somewhat serious. Sixteen percent (16%) say it is not at all serious.

These numbers continue to decline in surveys since early April when 47% of American adults said Global Warming was a Very Serious problem and another 26% said it was Somewhat Serious.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats view global warming as Very Serious, compared to 38% of unaffiliateds and 16% of GOP voters. Twenty-six percent (26%) of Republicans and 21% of unaffiliated voters say it is not at all serious, but only four percent (4%) of Democrats agree.

Voters are evenly divided over the cause of global warming: 43% say it’s caused primarily by human activity, while the same number (43%) say it is due to long-term planetary trends. Six percent (6%) blame some other unspecified reason, and eight percent (8%) aren’t sure.

While 53% of men attribute it to long-term trends, a plurality of women (49%) blame it on human activity. Sixty-five percent (65%) of Democrats link it to humans, while 68% of Republicans say long-term trends are at fault. Unaffiliateds by eight points agree with the majority of Republicans.

il prices are likely to keep falling until well into next year and could temporarily reach $25 a barrel before climbing again in the second half of 2009 U.S. Bank Merrill Lynch predicted Thursday. If that does happen gasoline in the USA could fall below $1 a gallon.

According to an article in Newsmax.com and in its invetors newsletter Merrill Lynch recently cut its forecast for the average price of U.S. crude oil futures and North Sea Brent crude oil to $50 a barrel from a previous estimate for both crudes of $90.

Oil prices hit a peak above $147 a barrel last July but have fallen more than $100 since then as the severity of the global economic downturn has become clear.

Merrill Lynch said a combination of high oil prices and high leverage had proven dangerous for the global economy. Speculators also drove the price of oil to stratospheric levels but they have been mostly driven from the market and there is serious talk of restrictions to curtail their dangerous, detrimental impact on the world economy. Gasoline’s fall from over $4 per gallon to about $2 per gallon is estimated to be providing a $300 billion savings for U. S. consumer already in 2008.

Merril Lynch. now owned by Bank of America, is pessimistic about 2009 saying, “In the short-run, global oil demand growth will likely take a further beating as banks continue to cut credit to consumers and corporations,” it said. “We now expect an outright contraction in global oil demand in 2009.”

The wildcard is how far and fast China’s economy will cool in 2009.

Flummadiddle or flumadiddle (flum-uh-DID-l) noun: 1. Nonsense. 2. Something worthless. ETYMOLOGY:Of uncertain origin, apparently from flummery (a dessert; nonsense).

ecent terror attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) India has focused attention on India and Pakistan, neighboring nuclear powers and increased tensions.  Intelligence services are reporting the neighbors have not changed their nuclear posture or made overt military moves since terror attacks in Mumbai despite heightened political tensions.

“Militarily, the temperature is pretty low right now,” say analysts.

Pakistan did move some aircraft and air defense units to the border after the Indians pointed a finger at Pakistan as the source of the attack. But the Pakistanis have not moved ground forces, and “on the nuclear side nothing at all,” officials say.

“The Indians have showed great restraint, militarily. As a matter of fact, no change (in posture), There is diplomatic activity and political activity. That is where it is happening right now.”

The military restraint displayed by both sides is in sharp contrast with the charged political atmosphere in the wake of attacks by heavily armed gunmen on luxury hotels and other sites around Mumbai.

India has charged that the attacks, which left 188 people dead, were carried out by a Pakistani-based militant group, Lashkar e-Taiba, and is demanding that Pakistan turn over 20 suspected terrorists. Pakistan has said it will not turn over the suspects. There appears to be credible evidence that the terror attacks originated in Karachi, and may have trained there.

Pakistan has built 24-48 (Highly Enriched Uranium) HEU-based nuclear warheads, and it ha produced 585-800 kg of HEU, enough for 30-55 weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear warheads are based on an implosion design that uses a solid core of highly enriched uranium and requires an estimated 15-20 kg of material per warhead. Pakistan is believed to also have produced a small but unknown quantity of weapons grade plutonium, which is sufficient for an estimated 3-5 nuclear weapons.

India has a stockpile of approximately 30-35 nuclear warheads. It has produced enough weapons-grade plutonium for 50-90 nuclear weapons and a smaller but unknown quantity of weapons-grade uranium. India has also tested a thermo-nuclear device (hydrogen bomb) many times more powerful than anything in the Pakistan weapons inventory.

China has 400 nuclear warheads; France 350; Israel probably 200 or so; UK 185; Russia 8,400 and the USA 10,500.

U. S. Secretary of State Rice immediately scampered to the region and held meetings both in India and Pakistan to help keep a lid on the volatile situation.

A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight in Wisconsin, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat,

razil is selling 100 MAR-1 medium-range air-to-surface missiles designed to takeout air detection and defense installations to Pakistan. Brazil based Mectron makes the tactical anti-radiation weapons whose existence was kept under wraps for many years, according to Jane’s Information Group. Anti-radiation missiles fly along a radar beam and destroy its source. Most radars pulse to try to throw off such weapons but with GPS and internal radar technology once detected the missile locks-on and can hit with pinpoint accuracy whether the radar is on or off.

The timing of the announcement sparked controversy because one of Pakistan’s nearest adversaries is India although the weapons could be used to defeat Iranian systems and others too. Nevertheless Brazil and Pakistan have been scrambling and both denying it has anything to do with current tension between Pakistan and India over the Mumbai terror attacks. Brazil is pointing out that the $108 million deal was quietly made in April.

“Brazil negotiates with Pakistan, not with Pakistani terrorists,” he said. “To cancel this deal would be to attribute terrorist activities to the Pakistani government.”

It should not go unnoticed that the announcement comes coincident with the conclusions of the joint Russo-Venezuelan naval exercises and that the MAR-1 can be effective against naval targets too. Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez also announced this week he will make another try next Spring to change the Constitution to make him ruler for life of what he sees as a new Bolivarian empire. Sooner or later Chavez’s ambitions will pit Brazil and others against him. Columbia borders Venezuela and is closely aligned with the USA to the chagrin of Chavez and some see that as the most likely flash point and worry the new U. S. administration will be diverted from Latin America creating a vacuum Chavez and his new Russian ally will try to fill.

A 22-year old Vero Beach, Florida man faces a domestic violence charge after authorities said he assaulted his girlfriend with a cheeseburger by smearing it on her face.

srael is reportedly making detailed plans to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities without help from the U. S. says a report in the Jerusalem Post. Israel has become convinced Iran will have a nuclear device by the end of 2009, and fears the radical Muslim state that has pledged to destroy it will attack or ensure a terror group does. Israel has consistently said it will not allow a nuclear armed Iran.

In a statement of the obvious U. N. nuclear weapons watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei says the international community has failed in its effort to halt Iran’s drive to gain nuclear weapons. “We haven’t really moved one inch toward addressing the issues,” ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told The Los Angeles Times. “I think so far the policy has been a failure.”

President Bush is known to be discouraging to Israel attacking Iran. Previously the U. S. has denied Israel codes and encryptions necessary to coordinate an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. While it is not impossible for Israel to make a unilateral attack on Iran it would be geometrically more difficult without U. S. cooperation. If the U. S. does cooperate that would invite Iranian attacks on American warships on the Gulf and forces based in the region. Regardless of the justification for such an attack it would bring down the ire of Middle East and other U. S. allies against it and Israel.

It is assumed the U. S. position rest on the hope that a new U. S. administration might be able to win concessions from Iran, and more support from the U. N. and abroad. There is general pessimism that Iran can be dissuaded. About a year ago vice president-elect Joe Biden alarmed Israel by warning it to “get used” to the idea of a nuclear armed Iran. President-elect Obama has repeatedly pledged support for Israel’s self-defense saying a nuclear armed Iran is not acceptable.

Israel has been adopted more and more independent self-defense strategies as the Bush administration winds down. Recent revelations that Obama had accepted major contributions to his presidential campaign from Palestinians as well as confusing reports of entreaties to the radical Hamas group has increased angst and raised the temperature particular among more rabid Zionist elements in Israel. Perhaps the most concerning development has been surveys showing declining interest in and support for Israel particularly among younger American Jews.

How much the current Israel war preparations are political to ensure the new U. S. administration takes the situation with the utmost seriousness is unknown. Regardless it seems unwise not to assume Israel is not deadly serious that it will not allow a nuclear armed Iran.

The betting is that Israel will give Washington DC until about mid-2009 to show it can change Iran’s direction before attacking.

An attack on Iran would invite its counter strike on neighbors and U. S. forces and it would be very difficult to control escalation in the immediate region and keep hostilities from spreading wider. It should be assumed Iran would be vengeful at least temporarily blocking oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz skyrocketing crude oil prices rocking the already shaky world economy.

Hornswoggle (HORN-swog-uhl) verb tr.: To cheat, hoax, or deceive someone.:Of unknown origin.

all Street sources say Robert Rubin, the Clinton-era Treasury chief who as a director at Citigroup is credited with the bank’s move into higher-risk investments, will step down. A Rubin spokesman denied it. The New York Post reports that a federal lawsuit against Rubin and former Citi CEO Chuck Prince accuses the two of orchestrating nothing less than a Ponzi-style scheme to defraud shareholders. The lawsuit says the pair took on trillions in collateralized toxic debt and then, failing to sell them to outside investors, forced them on Citi itself. Then, shareholders argue they cashed out tens of millions in stock in advance of the Citibank stock collapse which wiped out tens of billions in shareholder value.

Citi stock has lost 75 percent of its value since the beginning of 2008. Citi trades now at $7.40. It began the year at almost $30 and in recent years traded as high as $55 a share.

The complaint also names Vice Chairman Lewis Kaden, ex-CFO Sallie Krawcheck (who has since departed the firm), and her successor CFO Gary Crittenden, reported the Post.

Citi denied the allegations.

In a Friday. December 5, 2008 Rasmussen Report poll 76% says bank big wigs. Like Rubin and Prince who knowingly manipulated their bank’s conidition should go to jail. Twenty-two banks have failed so-far in 2008. So far the allegations against Citi’s executives are only civil in nature.

A couple of heels stole a trailer in suburban Detroit and hot-footed away with 1,400 pairs of shoes worth $40,000. The empty trailer was found a couple of blocks away in Detroit.

he widely reported but little analyzed; until now – including my own story — National Intelligence Council report Global Trends 2025, makes frequent references to China and India as rising powers apparently to make it appear the nuclear armed communist dictatorship in Beijing is little different than India — the world’s largest democracy. Some think this is an intentional semantic trick indicative of the work of Thomas Fingar, Ph. D. outgoing National Intelligence Council chairman who Is known to hold skewed views on China according to the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz.

Fingar is most notorious to me for his central role in the now infamous conclusion in the 2007 NIE, that has now been widely discredited, claiming Iran had stopped its uranium enrichment program but failed to mention is almost immediately restarted it. We now know Iran is operating 5,000 centrifuges enough to make numerous nuclear weapons and aspires to operating 54,000.

Critics note that the new NIE report’s melding of China with other states is part of a deliberate effort by liberal intelligence analysts to play down China’s communist system and seek to portray the dictatorship in Beijing as a “normal” nation.

The Global Trends report, supposedly a reflection of the views of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies on the shape of the world in the next 16 years, is the latest in a series of intelligence products that critics say is biased on improperly seeking to portray China as a benign power.

A congressionally mandated intelligence review commission headed by retired Army general John Tilelli, a former commander of U.S. forces in Korea, reported in 2001 that U.S. intelligence suffered from an “institutional predisposition” or bias in its reporting on China. The report was kept secret to avoid upsetting analysts and to protect intelligence bureaucrats from being held accountable for the bias.

Then in 2005, when the intelligence bias on China could no longer be ignored, a group of U.S. intelligence analysts produced a stunning, highly classified report that stated that U.S. intelligence analysts missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments over a period of nearly a decade. The analysts, however, sought to blame intelligence collectors for the failures, angering many in the CIA’s espionage branch.

Gertz’s December 4, 2008 Times article warns president-elect Obama about a former CIA deep-cover spy who says Obama needs to radically reshape what he terms the “dysfunctional” CIA — or face more strategic intelligence failures.

Ishmael Jones, the pseudonym for a former Marine and recently retired CIA case officer, said in an interview that despite intelligence reform efforts in the post-Sept. 11 era, “the CIA bureaucracy has mutated into a living creature that serves its own aims.”

The retired CIA officer, an Arabic speaker and 20-year veteran, stated in his recently published book, “The Human Factor,” that the CIA’s clandestine service should be streamlined and given clear marching orders and more focus on its mission: recruiting and handling human spies while avoiding trivial sources.

In comparison Fingar’s analytic faux pas or maybe F.U.B.A.R. is little more than a sneeze in the pneumonia ward. A friend claims the most dangerous oxymoron in modern time is “intelligence community.”

In these hard times Americans are flocking to the movies, the chief executive of the largest U.S. theater chain said on Wednesday. At the same time SCREEN ACTORS GUILD is organizing a strike against major movie studios and TV networks that critics say is not only tone-deaf but will likely raise ticket prices.

ore years ago than I care to remember I attended a meeting at the Grange Hall near Mt. Pleasant, Ohio, it’s the one across the road from the ancient Quaker Meeting House, there a man in a Sunday suite described to assembled farmers that the “government” was proposing they install methane gas collectors of their dairy cow’s posteriors to reduce air pollution. The man held up a collector and proceeded to try to explain its installation on a cow. The assembled farmers burst into laughter some tipping backwards in their folding chairs literally laughing the bureaucrat from the room.

Nothing happened then but now his descendants at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are proposing an annual $175 fee per flatulent and belching dairy cow; $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20 per hog to compensate for the livestock’s indelicate behavior.

No, this is not a joke but could soon be the law of the land. The Farm Bureau Federation certainly doesn’t think it’s funny and warns assessing dairy farmers with modest sized herds of milk cows or beef cattle $30,000 to $40,000 will drive milk and beef prices through the roof and bankrupt many small farmers. In-as-much as no other nation has any such idea the Bureau points out this will only mean more imported milk, Beef and pork on a level like we import crude oil.

Now nobody who has spent any time around cows, cattle or hogs will argue that they do not produce and expel copious amounts of gas from both ends. But, exactly what taxing their collective indelicate behavior will accomplish remains an inexplicable mystery not unlike the nincompoop at that long ago Grange Hall meeting. Plus the Farm Bureau wonders how long it will be before EPA bureaucrats will indict chickens, duck and geese for similar gaseous offenses to destroy the earth.

The EPA argues that a 2007 U. S. Supreme Court ruling the motor vehicles produce “green house” gases and by extension so do cows, cattle, and hogs.

James Williamson earned his master’s degree in business administration at Philadelphia’s La Salle University. Then he spent four months on interviews while looking for work troubleshooting electronics, doing technical sales or writing advertising copy. So far – no luck. To make ends meet he’s driving a New York cab and he’s posted his reume’ in its backseat. So far – no luck.

s the new United States administration appears set to withdraw from the region the Persian Gulf states are considering a security agreement with Iran. What and how such an agreement will mean is a vigorous debate but it clearly represents a major strategic shift with big long term impacts.

Gulf Cooperation Council members, including Saudi Arabia; have dropped their objection to a strategic accord with Teheran. That itself is seen as a significant victory for the mullahs in Iran and has set off alarms in Israel and elsewhere.

GCC states have become concerned over the withdrawal of the United States from the region as well as the steady decline in crude oil prices, the source of major weapons programs.

“In the current scenario, we call for working out a mechanism for a security pact that would help the region avert a conflict or arms race that has the potential to spill over into the entire region, thus endangering the ongoing development march of the GCC states,” Saudi Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, a senior member of the royal family, said.

In a statement, Talal, president of the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations, said the GCC agreement would focus on non-aggression as well as cooperation in all fields. Perhaps most significant is that the Saudi prince said the GCC must pledge that members would prevent any attack against Iran.

“First, a provision that makes it binding on all GCC states never to allow their land or water territories, and air spaces to be used for any aggression against Iran,” Talal said.

The statement said Iran’s nuclear program has alarmed GCC states. But Talal did not go beyond the call that Teheran must submit to United Nations Security Council resolutions to end uranium enrichment.

“The Gulf region should be free from a catastrophic conflict and arms race at the expense of huge prospects for development and progress,” Talal said. “Second, regional and international guarantees must be in place to restrict use of nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes. There should also be a criterion for enrichment of uranium and guaranteeing observance of it under all circumstances.”

GCC sources said Talal’s call reflected that of Saudi Arabia and most member states. The sources said oil-rich Gulf Arab states were bracing for huge deficits in 2009 amid the sharp decline in prices.

“Nobody in the GCC wants an arms race that we cannot possibly win,” a GCC diplomatic source said. “Iran gains a lot more from [regional] instability than we do.”

Talal said Iran and the GCC states should be prepared to submit to international arms inspections. He said the two sides should also establish hotlines to defuse tension and emergencies.

“There should be guarantees and confidence-building measures between both sides under which they can agree to reliable international monitoring of their military arsenals,” Talal said. “A mechanism for immediate joint consultancy in case of any security incident should also be in place.”

There is a consensus that except by direct military action it is too late to stop Iran from adding nuclear weapons to its arsenal.

GCC members include: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates comprising the regions Arab, oil and Muslim powers.