“In the anguished days immediately following the first great leak from Union Oil Company’s well in Santa Barbara Channel, scientists warned that animal and plant life in and around the affected waters might be permanently damaged. In retrospect, their dire predictions seem to have been overstated.

A study conducted by a team of University of California researchers discloses that the initial fears were exaggerated,” TIME magazine June 13, 1969.

Yesterday was the 40^th anniversary of .the infamous Santa Barbara Oil Spill. Union Oil’s Platform A leaked some 100,000 barrels of crude oil blanketing local beaches and triggering the modern environmental movement.

Locally GOO (Get Oil Out) was formed and remains a robust mantra against the dreaded offshore oil industry. Over a thousand actvists swarmed to Santa Barbara to stop oil.

Oil spill scenes were broadcast and published worldwide.

TIME and others predicted decades of destruction. But, as its June 13, 1969 issue reported “Dr. Carl Hubbs, professor emeritus of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, stated flatly at the time that the channel “will never be quite nat ural again.” Now, four months later, the channel’s ecology seems to have been restored to virtually its natural state — although oil seepage continues to smear city beaches.”

Santa Barbara sits over one of the largest natural oil seeps on the Earth and every day tar balls wash up on beaches sticking to feet and paws and engendering continuing ire.

When I moved to Santa Barbara nearly 30-years ago oil rigs were pointed out as the source of the tar with hateful venom. Actually they have nothing to do with it and may even reduce the pressure of the natural seepages.

The 1969 spill was, as noted, rapidly cleared up, and there does not appear to be long term damage that some predicted.

Nevertheless the residue is a widely held conviction that oil is bad and offshore oil production I evil and vile.

In recanting its most dire prediction TIME said, “No one knows what the long-range effects on marine life may be as a result of the continuing oil seepage. In any case, it appears that the offensive derricks will be around for decades to come. Last week a presidential panel recommended that drilling on the Union lease site, which has been halted for four months, be resumed. The panel contended that the best way to stop the leak is to exhaust the oil reservoir un der Union’s platform A — an undertaking that could last 20 years or more.”

Like so any other things hysteria is easy to whip-up but, no amount of logic or facts can offset.

The Postmaster General says multi-billion deficits may mean the end of daily home mail delivery. His announcement avoided discussing that union contracts will mean $100,000 letter carrier costs by 2010.

 

 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 53% say that it’s always better to cut taxes rather than spend more. Republicans overwhelmingly say it’s always better to cut taxes, and so do 50% of those not affiliated with either major party. Twenty-three percent (23%) of unaffiliateds take the opposite view and agree with Krugman.

Democrats are evenly divided—38% say tax cuts are always better while 34% disagree.

Paul Krugman, last year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and a regular columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote that you should “write off anyone who asserts that it’s always better to cut taxes than to increase government spending because taxpayers, not bureaucrats, are the best judges of how to spend their money.” But, the nation disagrees with Krugman.

Krugman was recently named the most influential liberal in the media. In making that selection, Forbes.com noted that Krugman’s “prose is as pungent as his academic credentials are impeccable. Last year’s Nobel in economics was widely seen as a vindication of his politics.”

Clearly, his New York Times column was based on his convictions rather than his sense of public opinion, and his purpose in writing is to persuade, not report. The survey data simply highlights how much persuading he has ahead of him.

It also should be noted that Krugman’s assertions are no more out of synch with public opinion than the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s assertion last fall that the economy was “fundamentally sound.”

Krugman’s views are a bit more aligned with public opinion when he asserts that “public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan.” On this point, the public is evenly divided–34% agree, 34% disagree, and 32% are not sure.

By a 47% to 21% margin, Democrats agree with Krugman on that point. However, Republicans and unaffiliated voters take the opposite view.

While overall public opinion is divided on that question, there is less public support for another Krugman claim. The columnist wrote that “it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed that view on ABC’s This Week on Sunday when she said, “There is more bang for the buck by investing in food stamps and in unemployment insurance than in any tax cut.”

Thirty-one percent (31%) agree with Krugman and Pelosi that “public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts.” Forty-two percent (42%) disagree.

On this point, Democrats once again strongly agree with the columnist—44% share his view and 17% do not. However, unaffiliateds disagree with Krugman by a 45% to 24% margin, and Republicans are even more likely to disagree.

On all the questions surveyed, voters under 30 are more likely than their elders to agree with Krugman.

A separate survey released recently found that 57% of voters nationwide believe tax cuts are good for the economy Only 17% disagree.

Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery. Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Reflected in New Rasmussen Poll.

Forty-four percent (44%) of Democratic voters say President Bush and senior members of his administration are guilty of war crimes. Only 28% of the nation’s Democrats disagree.  Overall 54% disagree with the liberals and only 25% says war crimes were committed.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that Republicans and unaffiliated voters have a different view. Just 21% of unaffiliateds say that Bush and his team are guilty of war crimes, a view shared by four percent (4%) of Republicans.

Seventy percent (70%) of the nation’s voters say it would be bad for the United States if the former president and senior administration officials were brought to trial for war crimes. A majority of Democrats (53%) agree with that assessment.

Nineteen percent (19%) of all voters hold the opposite view and believe that bringing Bush Administration officials to trial for war crimes would be good for the nation.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of U.S. voters say Congress should hold hearing to investigate possible government wrongdoing during the Bush years. Democrats, by a 57% to 27% margin, believe such hearings should be held. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of unaffiliated voters agree as do nine percent (9%) of Republicans.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) believe Congress should hold hearings to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush Administration . Sixty-percent (60%) disagree.

MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann recently urged President Obama to investigate potential war crimes and other Democratic pundits have expressed a similar view.

Several top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have said there is need to investigate certain aspects of the Bush presidency, including the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and the alleged “politicization” of the Justice Department. But President Obama has thus far resisted those calls.

On all questions, there are significant differences along ideological lines. By a 50% to 22% margin, liberals believe Bush and his team are guilty of war crimes. By a 42% to 26% margin, political moderates disagree. Conservatives, by an 8-to-1 margin, reject the claim that war crimes were committed.

Ex libris (eks LEE-bris, LI-) MEANING:1. From the library of (a phrase inscribed in a book followed by the name of the book owner). 2. A bookplate. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin ex libris (from the books), from ex- (from) + liber (book).

Hugo CHAVEZ, president of Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) since 1999, seeks to implement his “21st Century Socialism,” which purports to alleviate social ills while at the same time attacking globalization and undermining regional stability.

Current concerns include: a weakening of democratic institutions, political polarization, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on its nationalized petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples.

CHAVEZ fancies himself the new SIMON BOLIVAR as he tries to strong together the likeminded in his vision of a Southern Empire.

Venezuela remains highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for roughly 90% of export earnings, about 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP. A nationwide strike between December 2002 and February 2003 had far-reaching economic consequences - real GDP declined by around 9% in 2002 and 8% in 2003 - but economic output since then has recovered strongly.

Fueled by high oil prices, record government spending helped to boost GDP by about 9% in 2006, 8% in 2007, and nearly 6% in 2008. This spending, combined with recent minimum wage hikes and improved access to domestic credit, has created a consumption boom but has come at the cost of higher inflation-roughly 20% in 2007 and more than 30% in 2008.

Imports also have jumped significantly. Declining oil prices in the latter part of 2008 are expected to undermine the govenment’s ability to continue the high rate of spending. President Hugo CHAVEZ in 2008 continued efforts to increase the government’s contol of the economy by nationalizing firms in the cement and steel sectors. In 2007 he nationalized firms in the petroleum, communications, and electricity sectors. In July 2008, CHAVEZ implemented by decree a number of laws that further consolidate and centralize authority over the economy through his plan for “21st Century Socialism.”

Venezuela is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor (slavery); Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked within the country for sexual exploitation, lured from the nation’s interior to urban and tourist areas; child prostitution in urban areas and child sex tourism in resort destinations appear to be growing; Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation to Western Europe, Mexico, and Caribbean destinations

Toilet paper sales are the most recent victim of the economy. Roll sales are reportedly down by more than 8%. It is difficult to explain but still a fact.

According to the January 26, 2009 Jerusalem Post newly installed US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice says the new Obama administration will engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets Susan Rice, the new UN Ambassador to theUnited Nations in New York, Monday. She warned, however, of further action unless Teheran meets UN Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment as a prelude to talks on its nuclear program.

Rice spoke to reporters shortly after meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on her first day on the job Monday.

She said the US plan for “vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy” with Iran “must go hand in hand” with a firm message from the US and international community that Iran must meet it UN Security Council obligations.

Iran’s “continuing refusal to do so will only cause pressure to increase,” she added.

According to a January 25, 2009 article in the Iranian based Persian Journal Iran’s annual inflation rate is expected to fall to 22-23 percent by the end of March compared with a peak of nearly 30 percent in 2008, Iranian media quoted Central Bank officials as saying on Saturday. That rate is still crippling.

Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi separately told producers and importers of goods they would be fined and could also lose their licenses if they did not lower their prices in proportion to international declines, official media reported. Such prices controls are unlikely to have any positive impact on Iran’s domestic economy.

Falling inflation would be welcome news for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is widely expected to run for a second four-year term in a June election, even though it remains well above the rate of around 12 percent when he took office in 2005.

“The inflation rate at the end of the year will definitely be lower than the current inflation rate,” Central Bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani told Mehr News Agency, referring to the Iranian year which ends on March 20.

The central bank said in mid-January that year-on-year inflation declined to 26.4 percent in December from 28.3 percent the previous month and 29.5 percent in October.

Bahmani made clear he expected the downward trend to continue. “In regards to plans aimed at increasing production and supply of products in proportion to demand, the central bank thinks that we would bring the inflation rate back to 22 or 23 percent by the end of the year,” he told Mehr.

But he also stressed the need to control liquidity.

Iran’s economy is marked by an inefficient state sector, reliance on the oil sector (which provides 85% of government revenues), and statist policies that create major distortions throughout. Most economic activity is controlled by the state. Private sector activity is typically small-scale workshops, farming, and services.

President Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD has proposed reforms to Iran’s system of of price controls and subsidies, particularly on food and energy, but the government’s attempt to impose a Value-Added Tax (VAT) was abandoned after widespread protests.

Administrative controls, widespread corruption, and other rigidities undermine the potential for private-sector-led growth. As a result of these inefficiencies, significant informal market activity flourishes and shortages are common. The recent drop in oil prices will be the most significant impact of the global financial crisis on Iran, but high oil prices in recent years have enabled Iran to amass nearly $70 billion in foreign exchange reserves. Iranians continue to suffer from double-digit unemployment and inflation - inflation climbed to 26% as of June 2008. The economy has seen only moderate growth.

Iran’s educated population, economic inefficiency and insufficient investment - both foreign and domestic - have prompted an increasing number of Iranians to seek employment overseas, resulting in significant “brain drain.”

Iran is a source, transit, and destination country for women trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude; Iranian women are trafficked internally for the purpose of forced prostitution and for forced marriages to settle debts; Iranian children are trafficked internally and Afghan children are trafficked into Iran for the purpose of forced marriages, commercial sexual exploitation, and involuntary servitude as beggars or laborers tier rating:

Iran did not provide evidence of law enforcement activities against trafficking, and credible reports indicate that Iranian authorities punish victims of trafficking with beatings, imprisonment, and execution; Iran has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol (2008)

The national unemployment rate is officially over 12% with underemployment said to hover in the mid-to-high 20 percentiles. Per capita income is about $12,000 annually in the nation of about 66 million.

Local hotel occupancy is at a 20-year low with a 40% vacancy rate. Room taxes are correspondingly lower as are sales taxes.

Observers of the beleaguered American auto industry say that taxpayers will pay through the nose due to President Barack Obama issuing new regulations Monday, allowing several states to set tougher car emissions and fuel efficiency standards, US media and congressional officials said. There are worries that more regulation will drive up costs and prices, drive down sales and result in job loses and demand for even more taxpayer bailout money.

The dramatic federal action granting California and 13 other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is a sharp departure from former George W. Bush’s environmental policy, and has been sharply opposed by auto companies.

According to The New York Times, Obama is to issue a directive to the US Environmental Protection Agency to immediately begin work on granting the so-called California waiver, which allows the state — long in the vanguard on environmental matters — to set its own standards for automobile emissions.

In his White House announcement, Obama is expected to issue a directive requiring federal agencies to immediately begin work on making all government buildings more energy efficient.

The new US administration hopes to achieve energy savings of up to two billion dollars per year, as well as a reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

The presidential orders will require car manufacturers begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule, the media reports said.

Obama also is expected to announce that he is moving forward with nationwide regulations requiring improved fuel efficiency standards.

“If we don’t put a price on carbon,” said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “we’ll never get these clean energy sources online.”

Obama also will direct the Department of Transportation to immediately begin drafting automobile fuel-economy regulations to comply with a law enacted in December 2007.

Former president George W. Bush delayed implementing the law and left office saying there was not sufficient time to write the rules.

The anticipated greenhouse gas restrictions will be part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to stimulate renewable energy supply.

Obama’s stimulus plan calls for investing heavily in wind and solar power as well as biofuels. The administration also plans to help that power compete with cheaper fossil fuels by raising the coast of fossil fuels to reflect the potential economic damage from a warmed Earth.

However, critics argue those moves will increase energy prices and further weaken the economy.

Peter Orszag, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office who now heads the White House Office of Management and Budget, warned Congress last year that emissions limits would reduce long-term economic risks but “also impose costs on the economy … in the form of higher prices for energy and energy-intensive goods.”

Buried in Obama’s stimulus package is billions for ACORN the outfit under multiple investigation for voter fraud.

Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich says bank bailouts won’t revive the U.S. economy, but more union membership might, and he says controversial “card-check” legislation should be passed by the Congress now in order to stimulate job growth.

If passed, union organizers would no longer have to conduct a secret ballot election to get employees of a small business represented by a national union.

Rather, unions would be approved through a much faster open petition-signing process.

“The American middle class isn’t looking for a bailout or a handout. Most people just want a chance to share in the success of the companies they help to prosper,” Reich wrote in The Los Angeles Times.

“Making it easier for all Americans to form unions would give the middle class the bargaining power it needs for better wages and benefits. And a strong and prosperous middle class is necessary if our economy is to succeed.”

Go back about 50 years, Reich contends, when America’s middle class was expanding and the economy was soaring. Paychecks were big enough to allow us to buy all the goods and services we produced, he argues.

“It was a virtuous circle. Good pay meant more purchases, and more purchases meant more jobs,” Reich maintains. “At the center of this virtuous circle were unions.”

Statistics from the Department of Labor show that workers in some unions earn 30 percent higher wages — taking home $863 a week compared with $663 for the typical nonunion worker — and are 59 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance than their nonunion counterparts.

A recent Hart poll, too, indicates that 57 million workers would be in a union if they could have one.

According to Reich, though, it has become nearly impossible for employees to create a union. Only 8 percent of private U.S. labor is now unionized, down from one in three in the 1950s.

“Those who try to form a union, according to researchers at MIT, have only about a 1 in 5 chance of successfully doing so,” Reich says. “Most of the time, employees who want to form a union are threatened and intimidated by their employers. And all too often, if they don’t heed the warnings, they’re fired, even though that’s illegal.”

“I saw this when I was secretary of Labor over a decade ago. We tried to penalize employers that broke the law, but the fines are minuscule. Too many employers consider them a cost of doing business.”

The plan is quite controversial in public-policy circles and in the business community.

According to the Heritage Foundation, unions spent an estimated $16.5 million of members’ dues to elect Barack Obama and another $85 million for the Democratic Congress and have made it clear that they want the Obama Administration to enact their priorities.

“Organized labor’s highest legislative priority is the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which effectively replaces traditional secret ballot organizing elections with publicly signed cards,” writes economist James Sherk on the foundation’s Web site.

“Workers would have to voice their choice in public, in front of union organizers, exposing workers who do not want a union to pressure, threats, and harassment from union organizers.”

“This legislation is popular with union bosses but opposed by large majorities of workers.”

The New York Times Co. says it has retained investment firm Goldman Sachs to help explore a sale of its stake in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox.A week ago the NYT borrowed $250 million from a Mexican billionaire who is charging it 4% interest.

Actor Tom Hanks has apologized for his over-the-top remarks about Mormons in California.

He had criticized members of the Latter-Day Saints Church who had supported the campaign to pass Proposition 8, which outlawed same sex unions in the Golden State.

“The truth is that a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop. 8 happen. There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them,” the actor had said.

As pointed out many times before in this column, freedom of expression is the essence of American citizenship.

Evidently, Hanks was moved to write the following statement and provide it to People magazine: “Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California’s Proposition 8 as ‘un-American.’ I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination. But everyone has a right to vote their conscience — nothing could be more American.

“To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are ‘un-American’ creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use ‘un-American’ lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have,” he stated.

It should be noted that Hanks is an executive producer for the controversial series, “Big Love,” which features a polygamist Mormon splinter group.

Proponents of homosexual marriage have promised to put the issue back on a statewide ballot for a third time. It passed twice but was overturned by the state’s supreme court before being reinstated by voters. Some supporters have figuratively and literally attacked Mormons for supporting and contributing to pass the constitutional ban, and critics of Hanks comments say he fomented such intimidation.

Two New Zealand prisoners who were handcuffed together as they fled a courthouse foiled their own getaway when they ran to opposite sides of a light pole, slammed into each other, fell to the ground and were apprehended by wildy laughing police pursuers.

Congressman. Jose Serrano (D) New York has introduced a bill to abolish the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits the occupant of the White House to a maximum number of two presidential terms. The 66-year old Puerto Rican born Serrano’s idea is that Barack Obama should have the opportunity to be “president-for-life”  apparently based on watching Obama’s performance for the 32 hours between his Inauguration and when Jose introduced the bill to change the Constitution.

The 22nd Amendment has been the law since 1951 when it was ratified. Franklin Roosevelt is the only U.S. president who served more than two terms dying in the first April of his fourth term..

The mainstream media and Democratic Party members complained incessantly about the increase in presidential power initiated by the Bush administration.

Proposing to remove presidential term limits during week one of Obama’s tenure so the fledgling president can Barack-on and on is another example of the growing delusion and illusion.

Serrano’s district is one of the smallest in the country geographically consisting of a few miles of the heavily urbanized and populated South Bronx in New York City. His district is also one of the most densely populated and one of the few majority Hispanic districts in the country. Yankee Stadium is in his district. His son José Marco is a New York State Senator.

Several other members of Congress, including Rep. Barney Frank (D) Mass. and Sen. Harry Reid, (D) Nevada have introduced legislation to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, but each resolution died before making it out of its respective committee. The reason then was to allow Bill Clinton to run for another term.

Contrary to popular belief it is possible for a person to serve more than 8-years and in fact up to 10-years under a specific circumstance. The amendment says:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

A corpulant Ohio firefighter has been given a six-month suspension from his role as drum major in a pipe and drum band because he winked and nodded to President Barack Obama during last week’s inaugural parade in Washington

The Belgiums and Icelanders both dumped their governments in recent days because of sagging economies.. Now analyst are wondering if Russia’s Putin’s number is about to come up. Unemployment and others ills have sparked social unrest there as the global economy unravels.

Recent citizen demonstrations point to a growing discontent in Russia that some say could lead to the unthinkable: a waning of influence from the country’s most powerful and popular leader. The startlingly violent backlash against demonstrators in the Northeastern city of Vladivostok last December involved Russian police clubbing and arresting dozens of people protesting against higher taxes on foreign-made cars, taxes which have hurt a local economy that hinges on servicing and selling those vehicles. Since then, there have been a number of smaller protests around Russia’s disparate regions, and geopolitical think-tank Oxford Analytica has said more are likely.

It’s been hard not to look at Vladimir Putin and see a man who is powerful, and knows it. Yet, things could be about to change for Russia’s commanding prime minister. As it stands though, Putin’s stellar approval ratings have yet to budge, and no one within the country’s political elite has yet to break ranks.

But Dr. Lilia Shevtsova of Chatham House, a think tank, believes that could change over the next two to three months as Russians start to experience the impact of rising unemployment, and stop seeing Russia’s economic troubles as entirely the fault of America’s subprime mortage crisis. “Part of Putin’s popularity has always been the economic situation and high oil prices. The moment that starts to decline, his popularity is doomed.”  

Bush Derangement Syndrome Reflected in New Rasmussen Poll.

Forty-four percent (44%) of Democratic voters say President Bush and senior members of his administration are guilty of war crimes. Only 28% of the nation’s Democrats disagree.  Overall 54% disagree with the liberals and only 25% says war crimes were committed.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that Republicans and unaffiliated voters have a different view. Just 21% of unaffiliateds say that Bush and his team are guilty of war crimes, a view shared by four percent (4%) of Republicans.

Seventy percent (70%) of the nation’s voters say it would be bad for the United States if the former president and senior administration officials were brought to trial for war crimes. A majority of Democrats (53%) agree with that assessment.

Nineteen percent (19%) of all voters hold the opposite view and believe that bringing Bush Administration officials to trial for war crimes would be good for the nation.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of U.S. voters say Congress should hold hearing to investigate possible government wrongdoing during the Bush years. Democrats, by a 57% to 27% margin, believe such hearings should be held. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of unaffiliated voters agree as do nine percent (9%) of Republicans.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) believe Congress should hold hearings to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush Administration . Sixty-percent (60%) disagree.

MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann recently urged President Obama to investigate potential war crimes and other Democratic pundits have expressed a similar view.

Several top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have said there is need to investigate certain aspects of the Bush presidency, including the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba and the alleged “politicization” of the Justice Department. But President Obama has thus far resisted those calls.

On all questions, there are significant differences along ideological lines. By a 50% to 22% margin, liberals believe Bush and his team are guilty of war crimes. By a 42% to 26% margin, political moderates disagree. Conservatives, by an 8-to-1 margin, reject the claim that war crimes were committed.

Ex libris (eks LEE-bris, LI-) MEANING:1. From the library of (a phrase inscribed in a book followed by the name of the book owner). 2. A bookplate. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin ex libris (from the books), from ex- (from) + liber (book).

Hugo CHAVEZ, president of Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) since 1999, seeks to implement his “21st Century Socialism,” which purports to alleviate social ills while at the same time attacking globalization and undermining regional stability.

Current concerns include: a weakening of democratic institutions, political polarization, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on its nationalized petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples.

CHAVEZ fancies himself the new SIMON BOLIVAR as he tries to strong together the likeminded in his vision of a Southern Empire.

Venezuela remains highly dependent on oil revenues, which account for roughly 90% of export earnings, about 50% of the federal budget revenues, and around 30% of GDP. A nationwide strike between December 2002 and February 2003 had far-reaching economic consequences - real GDP declined by around 9% in 2002 and 8% in 2003 - but economic output since then has recovered strongly.

Fueled by high oil prices, record government spending helped to boost GDP by about 9% in 2006, 8% in 2007, and nearly 6% in 2008. This spending, combined with recent minimum wage hikes and improved access to domestic credit, has created a consumption boom but has come at the cost of higher inflation-roughly 20% in 2007 and more than 30% in 2008.

Imports also have jumped significantly. Declining oil prices in the latter part of 2008 are expected to undermine the govenment’s ability to continue the high rate of spending. President Hugo CHAVEZ in 2008 continued efforts to increase the government’s contol of the economy by nationalizing firms in the cement and steel sectors. In 2007 he nationalized firms in the petroleum, communications, and electricity sectors. In July 2008, CHAVEZ implemented by decree a number of laws that further consolidate and centralize authority over the economy through his plan for “21st Century Socialism.”

Venezuela is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor (slavery); Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked within the country for sexual exploitation, lured from the nation’s interior to urban and tourist areas; child prostitution in urban areas and child sex tourism in resort destinations appear to be growing; Venezuelan women and girls are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation to Western Europe, Mexico, and Caribbean destinations

Toilet paper sales are the most recent victim of the economy. Roll sales are reportedly down by more than 8%. It is difficult to explain but still a fact.

According to the January 26, 2009 Jerusalem Post newly installed US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice says the new Obama administration will engage in “direct diplomacy” with Iran.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets Susan Rice, the new UN Ambassador to theUnited Nations in New York, Monday. She warned, however, of further action unless Teheran meets UN Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment as a prelude to talks on its nuclear program.

Rice spoke to reporters shortly after meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on her first day on the job Monday.

She said the US plan for “vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy” with Iran “must go hand in hand” with a firm message from the US and international community that Iran must meet it UN Security Council obligations.

Iran’s “continuing refusal to do so will only cause pressure to increase,” she added.

According to a January 25, 2009 article in the Iranian based Persian Journal Iran’s annual inflation rate is expected to fall to 22-23 percent by the end of March compared with a peak of nearly 30 percent in 2008, Iranian media quoted Central Bank officials as saying on Saturday. That rate is still crippling.

Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi separately told producers and importers of goods they would be fined and could also lose their licenses if they did not lower their prices in proportion to international declines, official media reported. Such prices controls are unlikely to have any positive impact on Iran’s domestic economy.

Falling inflation would be welcome news for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is widely expected to run for a second four-year term in a June election, even though it remains well above the rate of around 12 percent when he took office in 2005.

“The inflation rate at the end of the year will definitely be lower than the current inflation rate,” Central Bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani told Mehr News Agency, referring to the Iranian year which ends on March 20.

The central bank said in mid-January that year-on-year inflation declined to 26.4 percent in December from 28.3 percent the previous month and 29.5 percent in October.

Bahmani made clear he expected the downward trend to continue. “In regards to plans aimed at increasing production and supply of products in proportion to demand, the central bank thinks that we would bring the inflation rate back to 22 or 23 percent by the end of the year,” he told Mehr.

But he also stressed the need to control liquidity.

Iran’s economy is marked by an inefficient state sector, reliance on the oil sector (which provides 85% of government revenues), and statist policies that create major distortions throughout. Most economic activity is controlled by the state. Private sector activity is typically small-scale workshops, farming, and services.

President Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD has proposed reforms to Iran’s system of of price controls and subsidies, particularly on food and energy, but the government’s attempt to impose a Value-Added Tax (VAT) was abandoned after widespread protests.

Administrative controls, widespread corruption, and other rigidities undermine the potential for private-sector-led growth. As a result of these inefficiencies, significant informal market activity flourishes and shortages are common. The recent drop in oil prices will be the most significant impact of the global financial crisis on Iran, but high oil prices in recent years have enabled Iran to amass nearly $70 billion in foreign exchange reserves. Iranians continue to suffer from double-digit unemployment and inflation - inflation climbed to 26% as of June 2008. The economy has seen only moderate growth.

Iran’s educated population, economic inefficiency and insufficient investment - both foreign and domestic - have prompted an increasing number of Iranians to seek employment overseas, resulting in significant “brain drain.”

Iran is a source, transit, and destination country for women trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude; Iranian women are trafficked internally for the purpose of forced prostitution and for forced marriages to settle debts; Iranian children are trafficked internally and Afghan children are trafficked into Iran for the purpose of forced marriages, commercial sexual exploitation, and involuntary servitude as beggars or laborers tier rating:

Iran did not provide evidence of law enforcement activities against trafficking, and credible reports indicate that Iranian authorities punish victims of trafficking with beatings, imprisonment, and execution; Iran has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol (2008)

The national unemployment rate is officially over 12% with underemployment said to hover in the mid-to-high 20 percentiles. Per capita income is about $12,000 annually in the nation of about 66 million.

Local hotel occupancy is at a 20-year low with a 40% vacancy rate. Room taxes are correspondingly lower as are sales taxes.

Observers of the beleaguered American auto industry say that taxpayers will pay through the nose due to President Barack Obama issuing new regulations Monday, allowing several states to set tougher car emissions and fuel efficiency standards, US media and congressional officials said. There are worries that more regulation will drive up costs and prices, drive down sales and result in job loses and demand for even more taxpayer bailout money.

The dramatic federal action granting California and 13 other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is a sharp departure from former George W. Bush’s environmental policy, and has been sharply opposed by auto companies.

According to The New York Times, Obama is to issue a directive to the US Environmental Protection Agency to immediately begin work on granting the so-called California waiver, which allows the state — long in the vanguard on environmental matters — to set its own standards for automobile emissions.

In his White House announcement, Obama is expected to issue a directive requiring federal agencies to immediately begin work on making all government buildings more energy efficient.

The new US administration hopes to achieve energy savings of up to two billion dollars per year, as well as a reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

The presidential orders will require car manufacturers begin producing and selling cars and trucks that get higher mileage than the national standard, and on a faster phase-in schedule, the media reports said.

Obama also is expected to announce that he is moving forward with nationwide regulations requiring improved fuel efficiency standards.

“If we don’t put a price on carbon,” said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “we’ll never get these clean energy sources online.”

Obama also will direct the Department of Transportation to immediately begin drafting automobile fuel-economy regulations to comply with a law enacted in December 2007.

Former president George W. Bush delayed implementing the law and left office saying there was not sufficient time to write the rules.

The anticipated greenhouse gas restrictions will be part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to stimulate renewable energy supply.

Obama’s stimulus plan calls for investing heavily in wind and solar power as well as biofuels. The administration also plans to help that power compete with cheaper fossil fuels by raising the coast of fossil fuels to reflect the potential economic damage from a warmed Earth.

However, critics argue those moves will increase energy prices and further weaken the economy.

Peter Orszag, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office who now heads the White House Office of Management and Budget, warned Congress last year that emissions limits would reduce long-term economic risks but “also impose costs on the economy … in the form of higher prices for energy and energy-intensive goods.”

 

Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich says bank bailouts won’t revive the U.S. economy, but more union membership might, and he says controversial “card-check” legislation should be passed by the Congress now in order to stimulate job growth.

If passed, union organizers would no longer have to conduct a secret ballot election to get employees of a small business represented by a national union.

Rather, unions would be approved through a much faster open petition-signing process.

“The American middle class isn’t looking for a bailout or a handout. Most people just want a chance to share in the success of the companies they help to prosper,” Reich wrote in The Los Angeles Times.

“Making it easier for all Americans to form unions would give the middle class the bargaining power it needs for better wages and benefits. And a strong and prosperous middle class is necessary if our economy is to succeed.”

Go back about 50 years, Reich contends, when America’s middle class was expanding and the economy was soaring. Paychecks were big enough to allow us to buy all the goods and services we produced, he argues.

“It was a virtuous circle. Good pay meant more purchases, and more purchases meant more jobs,” Reich maintains. “At the center of this virtuous circle were unions.”

Statistics from the Department of Labor show that workers in some unions earn 30 percent higher wages — taking home $863 a week compared with $663 for the typical nonunion worker — and are 59 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance than their nonunion counterparts.

A recent Hart poll, too, indicates that 57 million workers would be in a union if they could have one.

According to Reich, though, it has become nearly impossible for employees to create a union. Only 8 percent of private U.S. labor is now unionized, down from one in three in the 1950s.

“Those who try to form a union, according to researchers at MIT, have only about a 1 in 5 chance of successfully doing so,” Reich says. “Most of the time, employees who want to form a union are threatened and intimidated by their employers. And all too often, if they don’t heed the warnings, they’re fired, even though that’s illegal.”

“I saw this when I was secretary of Labor over a decade ago. We tried to penalize employers that broke the law, but the fines are minuscule. Too many employers consider them a cost of doing business.”

The plan is quite controversial in public-policy circles and in the business community.

According to the Heritage Foundation, unions spent an estimated $16.5 million of members’ dues to elect Barack Obama and another $85 million for the Democratic Congress and have made it clear that they want the Obama Administration to enact their priorities.

“Organized labor’s highest legislative priority is the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which effectively replaces traditional secret ballot organizing elections with publicly signed cards,” writes economist James Sherk on the foundation’s Web site.

“Workers would have to voice their choice in public, in front of union organizers, exposing workers who do not want a union to pressure, threats, and harassment from union organizers.”

“This legislation is popular with union bosses but opposed by large majorities of workers.”

The New York Times Co. says it has retained investment firm Goldman Sachs to help explore a sale of its stake in the company that owns the Boston Red Sox.A week ago the NYT borrowed $250 million from a Mexican billionaire who is charging it 4% interest.

Actor Tom Hanks has apologized for his over-the-top remarks about Mormons in California.

He had criticized members of the Latter-Day Saints Church who had supported the campaign to pass Proposition 8, which outlawed same sex unions in the Golden State.

“The truth is that a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop. 8 happen. There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them,” the actor had said.

As pointed out many times before in this column, freedom of expression is the essence of American citizenship.

Evidently, Hanks was moved to write the following statement and provide it to People magazine: “Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California’s Proposition 8 as ‘un-American.’ I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination. But everyone has a right to vote their conscience — nothing could be more American.

“To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are ‘un-American’ creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use ‘un-American’ lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have,” he stated.

It should be noted that Hanks is an executive producer for the controversial series, “Big Love,” which features a polygamist Mormon splinter group.

Proponents of homosexual marriage have promised to put the issue back on a statewide ballot for a third time. It passed twice but was overturned by the state’s supreme court before being reinstated by voters. Some supporters have figuratively and literally attacked Mormons for supporting and contributing to pass the constitutional ban, and critics of Hanks comments say he fomented such intimidation.

 

 

Congressman. Jose Serrano (D) New York has introduced a bill to abolish the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits the occupant of the White House to a maximum number of two presidential terms. The 66-year old Puerto Rican born Serrano’s idea is that Barack Obama should have the opportunity to be “president-for-life”  apparently based on watching Obama’s performance for the 32 hours between his Inauguration and when Jose introduced the bill to change the Constitution.

The 22nd Amendment has been the law since 1951 when it was ratified. Franklin Roosevelt is the only U.S. president who served more than two terms dying in the first April of his fourth term..

The mainstream media and Democratic Party members complained incessantly about the increase in presidential power initiated by the Bush administration.

Proposing to remove presidential term limits during week one of Obama’s tenure so the fledgling president can Barack-on and on is another example of the growing delusion and illusion.

Serrano’s district is one of the smallest in the country geographically consisting of a few miles of the heavily urbanized and populated South Bronx in New York City. His district is also one of the most densely populated and one of the few majority Hispanic districts in the country. Yankee Stadium is in his district. His son José Marco is a New York State Senator.

Several other members of Congress, including Rep. Barney Frank (D) Mass. and Sen. Harry Reid, (D) Nevada have introduced legislation to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, but each resolution died before making it out of its respective committee. The reason then was to allow Bill Clinton to run for another term.

Contrary to popular belief it is possible for a person to serve more than 8-years and in fact up to 10-years under a specific circumstance. The amendment says:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

 

 

An Ohio firefighter has been given a six-month suspension from his role as drum major in a pipe and drum band because he winked and nodded to President Barack Obama during last week’s inaugural parade in Washington

 

The Belgiums and Icelanders both dumped their governments in recent days because of sagging economies.. Now analyst are wondering if Russia’s Putin’s number is about to come up. Unemployment and others ills have sparked social unrest there as the global economy unravels.

Recent citizen demonstrations point to a growing discontent in Russia that some say could lead to the unthinkable: a waning of influence from the country’s most powerful and popular leader. The startlingly violent backlash against demonstrators in the Northeastern city of Vladivostok last December involved Russian police clubbing and arresting dozens of people protesting against higher taxes on foreign-made cars, taxes which have hurt a local economy that hinges on servicing and selling those vehicles. Since then, there have been a number of smaller protests around Russia’s disparate regions, and geopolitical think-tank Oxford Analytica has said more are likely.

It’s been hard not to look at Vladimir Putin and see a man who is powerful, and knows it. Yet, things could be about to change for Russia’s commanding prime minister. As it stands though, Putin’s stellar approval ratings have yet to budge, and no one within the country’s political elite has yet to break ranks.

But Dr. Lilia Shevtsova of Chatham House, a think tank, believes that could change over the next two to three months as Russians start to experience the impact of rising unemployment, and stop seeing Russia’s economic troubles as entirely the fault of America’s subprime mortage crisis. “Part of Putin’s popularity has always been the economic situation and high oil prices. The moment that starts to decline, his popularity is doomed.”  

Kennedy Interuptus. Caroline Kennedy, 51, daughter of JFK officially removed herself from consideration for Hillary Clinton’sm US Senate seat in a midnight announcement today.

The Washington based Center for Science in the Public Interest has sued Coca-Cola because of its Vitamin Water that the Center says is basically sugar water by claiming it has vitamins that boost immunity and reduce the risk of disease. “ Any nonsensical claim you like, you can find in their line of Vitamin Water,” a Center “nutiricianist” says. The advocacy group filed a class action lawsuit in the U. S. District Court in Northern California northern division on behalf of a San Francisco man.

Coca-Cola called the lawsuit ridiculous and ludicrous abd a “cheap opportunistic publicity stunt.” The label on the bottle list the ingredients and claims drinking one 20 ounce bottle contains 250% of the daily vitamin C requirement; 25% of vitamin A, E, B3, B6, B5, B12 and Folic Acid as well as 10% of the calcium one needs.

The Center has also sued Nestle, Coca Cola, Nestle and MillerCoors over various energy drinks like green tea.

Cohere :(ko-HEER) verb intr.: To be united; to work or hold together. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin cohaerere, from co- (together) + haerere (to stick).

Ford Motor Company started producing its fuel-efficient low-cost Fiesta car at a plant in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing on Thursday, the company said.

The Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Company will produce the Fiesta for the Chinese market, with the first vehicles expected to go on sale later in the first quarter, the company said in a statement.

The latest version of the Fiesta debuted last year in Europe, with 61,000 cars sold so far, Ford said.

Ford is one of the US auto giants striving to accommodate car buyers who are abandoning gasoline-guzzling sport-utility vehicles in favor of more fuel-efficient sedans after oil prices hit record highs last year.

The auto maker has been touting Fiesta, its second-best selling vehicle behind the Ford Focus, as the first in “a series of global cars.”

“We are leveraging our global assets and expertise to design and build vehicles that meet the demands and expectations of customers around the world,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s group vice president for global manufacturing and labour affairs, said in the statement.

The Nanjing plant will be the first facility to build the four-door sedan version of the Fiesta and is the second assembly facility in the world to build the car, the company said.

Production began at Ford’s Cologne, Germany, assembly plant last year and will begin later this month at Ford’s plant in Valencia, Spain.

The Fiesta will go on sale in North America in early 2010 and will be produced – you can guess — at Ford’s Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico.

In 2010, Ford and Mazda’s joint-venture facility, Auto Alliance Thailand, in Rayong will begin producing the new Fiesta for other major Asian markets.

Car sales at Changan Ford Mazda, a joint venture between Ford, its affiliate Mazda Motor and China’s Changan Automobile Co, fell 5.9 percent to 204,344 in 2008 as the economic slowdown hit Chinese demand for vehicles.

Barack Obama plans on issuing an executive order right away. He is going to close Guantanamo Bay. He says he needs the money for new prisons to hold Democratic mayors and governors — Leno

Al Gore’s side may be coming to power in Washington, but they appear to be losing the battle on the idea that humans are to blame for global warming.

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democrats blame global warming on human activity, compared to 21% percent of Republicans. Two-thirds of GOP voters (67%) see long-term planetary trends as the cause versus 23% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party by eight points put the blame on planetary trends.

In July 2006, 46% of voters said global warming is caused primarily by human activities, while 35% said it is due to long-term planetary trends.

In April of last year, 47% of Americans blamed human activity versus 34% who viewed long-term planetary trends as the culprit. But the numbers have been moving in the direction of planetary trends since then.

Gore and many scientists argue that the use of fossil fuels and aerosols, along with other human activity, is causing global warming. Other scientists disagree, saying the warming is a natural cyclical change that will reverse itself over time.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters now regard global warming as at least a somewhat serious problem, with 41% saying it is Very Serious. Fifteen percent (15%) say it is not at all a serious problem. These numbers are down slightly from last April.

While 64% of Democrats say global warming is a Very Serious problem, just 18% of Republicans and 33% of unaffiliated voters agree. Twenty-seven percent (27%) of GOP voters say it’s no problem at all, a view shared by 19% of unaffiliateds and only four percent (4%) of Democrats.

Forty-three percent (43%) of female voters also rate global warming a Very Serious problem, compared to 38% of men. Twenty-three percent (23%) of male voters say it is not at all a problem, but only nine percent (9%) of women agree.

Florida police arrested a 77-year old woman after she crashed into a man on a scooter and then kept driving to make her hair appointment.

State governments are lining up hat-in-hand for an OBAMA ERA bailout to save their political if not economic derrieres but at least three states got a potential multi-trillion dollar gift by outgoing President George W. Bush. Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are looking at massive new revenues, and 100,000 new jobs producing, refining and transporting what geologists say is the equivalent of 800 billion barrels of oil locked up in il shale under their feet — more than contained in all of the reserves in Saudi Arabia.

 

Developers have been trying to produce oil from shale — sedimentary rock located hundreds of feet below the Earth’s surface — for decades, but they’ve only recently come up with a process that doesn’t involve strip-mining. And although the technologies involved are experimental and their environmental impact unknown, the Bush administration finalized rules in November that will open up 2 million acres of federal land in COLORADO, UTAH and WYOMING to shale exploration on Jan. 17. The rules have placed the three states in the difficult position of having to weigh the potential boon that taxes and royalties on the so-called “black gold” could be to their tight budgets against the unknown impacts of the new methods of production, particularly on the West’s most precious resource: water. Whatever extraction methods

developers eventually settle on, they will likely involve the use of vast amounts of water.

 

Some state officials, including COLORADO Gov. Bill Ritter (D) and WYOMING Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), openly criticized the administration’s action. But they do so at their political risk as people lose jobs.

 

“We obviously don’t agree with this decision,” Freudenthal said. “Perhaps the most telling is, by [the industry’s] own admission, oil shale won’t be able to be developed for another five to 10 years. So really, this was nothing but a gift to industry.”  By the way industry spokesman say Freudenthal is citing a worst case scenario.

 

But U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-COLORADO) welcomed the new rules. “They [state officials] should not be able to dictate what happens on federal lands,” he said. “I’d sure hate to see that. We are living in a day and age where Americans need access to affordable energy to keep the economy going.”

 

At current prices oil shale could yield $3.2 trillion and provide a bridge spanning all foreign oil imports for the 2-3 decdes scientist estimate as the minimum needed to morf into non-petroleum energy.  Taxes on the production of shale oil – at current levels – would generate budget surpluses in all three states for an estimated 45 years.

A 52-year-old Ketchum Idaho woman is facing misdemeanor battery charges for whacking an opposing player with a hockey stick during a no-contact hockey game. She hit her opponent so hard her hockey stick broke.

America’s largest online retailer, Amazon.com Inc., has taken legal exception to a rule adopted by NEW YORK back in

April requiring the company to collect taxes on its sales to state residents. A 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars states from forcing businesses that have no “physical presence” within their borders to collect sales taxes. Because Amazon has no operations in NEW YORK, the company contends the state’s new rule is unconstitutional.

 

The Empire State’s rule, however, takes a broader view of “physical presence.” It basically asserts that if a retailer solicits business in NEW YORK by paying someone in the state to direct customers to it, the retailer has a physical presence in the state. And since Amazon and other online retailers compensate some NEW YORK-based Web site operators for posting ads that link to the retailers, the state reasons, the retailers should have to pay sales taxes. Matt Anderson, spokesman for NEW YORK’s Division of the Budget, said the state expects to take in $23 million this fiscal year as a result of the new rule. That’s just a fraction of the state’s $1.7 billion budget gap, but Anderson said the state wants “to level the playing field” and eliminate the “unfair competitive advantage” Web-only retailers have over brick-and-mortar stores that have to collect sales taxes. The issue could become moot if the growing number of states and brick-andmorter

retailers behind a move to create a uniform sales tax get their way. The Streamlined Sales Tax Project, which now has the backing of 22 states and more than 1,100 retailers, even has the support of some national Web-only companies, because

it would greatly simplify their tax collection procedures. In the meantime, however, Amazon is complying with NEW YORK’s new rule and hoping for a favorable ruling by the state’s Supreme Court. But a 2005 court ruling in CALIFORNIA may not be too encouraging. The Golden State’s 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that MICHIGAN-based Borders Group Inc. had to pay sales taxes on books, music and other goods it sold to CALIFORNIA residents online because of its affiliation with retailers located there.

Wild camels living in China’s arrid its former nuclear test zone have doubled and the tough, durable and often nasty critters now comprise half the world’s wild camel population.

It is well known that moderate drinking can have positive health benefits — for instance, a couple of glasses of red wine a day can be good for the heart. But if you’re a senior in good health, light to moderate consumption of alcohol may also help prevent the development of physical disability.

That’s the conclusion of a new UCLA study, available in the January, 2009 online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, which found that light to moderate drinking among these seniors reduced their odds of developing physical problems that would prevent them from performing common tasks such as walking, dressing and grooming.

“If you start out in good health, alcohol consumption at light to moderate levels can be beneficial,” said lead study author Dr. Arun Karlamangla, an associate professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “But if you don’t start out healthy, alcohol will not give you a benefit.”

The researchers based their study on data from three waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey’s Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (1982–84, 1987 and 1992). The sample, which included 4,276 people split evenly between male and female, was about 92 percent white, with a mean age of 60.4 years.

Drinkers were classified as light to moderate if they consumed less than 15 drinks per week and less than five drinks per drinking day (less than four per day for women). Heavy drinkers were those who consumed 15 or more drinks per week or five or more per drinking day (four or more for women). Abstainers were those who drank fewer than 12 alcoholic beverages the previous year.

Having a physical disability means having trouble performing, or being unable to perform, routine tasks such as dressing and grooming, personal hygiene, arising, eating, walking, gripping, reaching, and doing daily errands and chores. Participants were asked if they experienced no difficulty, some difficulty, much difficulty or were unable to do these activities at all when alone and without the use of aids.

At the start of the survey, 32 percent of men and 51 percent of women abstained from drinking, 51 percent of men and 45 percent of women were light to moderate drinkers, and 17 percent of men and 4 percent women were heavy drinkers.

No one had any disabilities at the outset, but 7 percent died and 15 percent became disabled over five years.

The researchers found that light to moderate drinkers in good health had a lower risk for developing new disabilities, compared with both abstainers and heavy drinkers.

In unadjusted analyses, light to moderate drinkers had a 17.7 percent chance of becoming disabled or dying in five years, compared with 26.7 percent for abstainers and 21.4 percent for heavy drinkers. Among survivors, the risk for new disability was 12.5 percent for light to moderate drinkers, compared with 20 percent for abstainers and 15.6 percent for heavy drinkers.

However, after controlling for confounding variables such as age, smoking, exercise, heart attacks and strokes, the benefits of alcohol consumption were seen only in seniors who rated their health as good or better: There was a 3 to 8 percent reduction in the odds of developing disability with each additional drink per week in older men and women in good or better health who were not heavy drinkers, but there was no such benefit seen in those who rated their health as fair or poor.

“Light to moderate alcohol consumption appears to have disability prevention benefits only in men and women in relatively good health,” the researchers wrote. “It is possible that those who report poor health have progressed too far on the pathway to disability to accrue benefits from alcohol consumption and that alcohol consumption may even be deleterious for them.”

For $10-a-month software by Dallas-based WQN Inc., can disable a cell phone while its owner is driving. Problem is the GPS technology, which can tell how fast a person is traveling., can’t know whether the person is driving and therefore it can needlessly lock the phone of a passenger.

Hollywood’s Oliver Stone is making a documentary on another dictator, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. After two weeks of filming Chavez, Stone sang the petrodictator’s praises to The Associated Press. “There is something going on here, and it’s outside the IMF, it’s outside American control — that’s what interests me,” he said.

Stone conducted interviews with Chavez’s left-leaning allies in Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia; countries that are, according to Stone, participating in the region’s “liberation from the United States.”

The documentary, which will be released in a few months, has not yet been given a title. “This is what I like about Chavez,” Stone explained.

“He’s a big man; he thinks big,” Stone said, claiming that Chavez is a “world-changer.” He also had a recommendation for newly inaugurated President Barack Obama, saying that he “should meet with Chavez.”

Chavez fancies himself a latter-day Simon Bolivar who can united South America into a ideological, economic and political power is vehemently anti-American, and anti-capitalist. Chavez nationalized foreign companies; invited and made alliances with China, Russia and Cuba and supports and finances anti-USA and anti-western ideas.

Plummeting crude oil prices has forcd Chavez to end his oil giveaway program, and forced him to pull away from plans to arm Venezuela, and make it the military power in the region.

Tom Hanks has called Prop. 8’s Mormon Supporters ‘Un-American.’ Proposition 8 banned homosexual marriage in California and set off a wave of retribution and threats against supporters.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of U.S. voters say an opening prayer should be part of the presidential inauguration ceremony, despite an atheist’s legal effort to halt the historic practice.

Just 14% say the ceremony should not include an opening prayer, and eight percent (8%) are not sure, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of GOP voters believe a prayer should begin the swearing-in ceremony, compared to 71% of Democrats and 72% of unaffiliated voters. But African-Americans who vote overwhelmingly Democratic are far more supportive of the prayer than white voters.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters say nationally prominent evangelical minister Rick Warren was the right choice to deliver that prayer at President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony today. Twenty-three percent (23%) disagree, while 38% are not sure.

Fifty-two percent (52%) of black voters say Warren was the right choice, a view shared by 39% of whites.

Obama’s choice of Warren to deliver the opening prayer was an effort to reach out to the Democratic Party’s traditional opponents, but it angered gay groups, primarily became of the religious conservative’s support of the recently passed referendum in California that bans gay marriage in the state. Additionally, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s openly gay bishop, was chosen to open official pre-inauguration activities on Sunday.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index for Tuesday shows that 41% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way Obama handled the role of president-elect while 16% Strongly Disapprove.

A U.S. District judge in Washington, D.C., last week rejected a California atheist’s request to eliminate all references to God in Obama’s inaugural ceremony. The same atheist has attempted unsuccessfully to have the courts force “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance, even though 82% of voters believe the phrase should remain.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of voters say Obama’s inauguration is Very Likely to set records for attendance. Only one percent (1%) believe that is not at all likely.

Ninety percent (90%) of Democrats, 74% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters expect record attendance.

In a survey earlier this month, 75% of voters said they planned to watch at least some of Obama’s inauguration live, including 28% who plan to watch it all.

Just 28%, however, think Inauguration Day should be a national holiday. Sixty-five percent (65%) disagree, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Perhaps reflecting their euphoric mood, Obama’s strongest supporters like the holiday idea best. Thirty-four percent (34%) of women voters, the majority of whom backed Obama on Election Day, think a holiday is a good idea versus 21% of men. Democrats are closely divided on the question, while 80% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters are opposed to a holiday. Forty-eight percent (48%) of black voters support a holiday, but 68% of whites don’t.

Amid news reports that Obama’s inauguration will cost a record $170 million, 52% of voters say the money spent on the swearing-in and the attendant ceremonies is a waste of money. Thirty-one percent (31%) disagree, and 17% are not sure.

As a likely indication of their mood as well, 74% of Republicans say the money spent on the inauguration is a waste, as do 54% of unaffiliateds and just 33% of Democrats. Nearly half of Democrats (47%) say the inauguration is not a waste of money, but only 25% of unaffiliated voters and 18% of Republicans agree.

Syncretic (sin-KREH-tik) adjective: Combining different forms of belief or practice. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin syncretismus, Greek synkretismos (union), from synkretizein (to unite in the manner of the Cretan cities), from syn (together) + Kret-, Kres (Cretan).

Nearly half of California voters (48%) blame state legislators for California’s current budget problems. Twenty-nine percent (29%) say the overall economic meltdown is responsible for the state’s budget woes, while 13% blame Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger . Ten percent (10%) are not sure who to blame.

But voters are evenly divided on whether taxes should be raised (45%) or spending should be cut (45%) to reduce the state budget deficit, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of California voters. California faces a $41.6 billion deficit over the next 18 months.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) currently approve of Schwarzenegger’s job performance, while 60% disapprove. Democrats control both chambers of the legislature, while the governor is a Republican.

Schwarzenegger is not eligible for reelection, and early match-ups for the 2010 gubernatorial election in California show that it’s likely to be a close one.

Forty-three percent (43%) of California voters say it is possible to balance the state budget without raising taxes, but the identical number (43%) say it is not possible.

State Controller John Chiang announced on Friday that beginning February 1 he is delaying for 30 days $3.7 billion in tax refunds and payments for student aid, social services and mental health programs. He said the state is running out of funds.

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Despite the economic squeeze on state spending, 65% of California voters say they still support Proposition 13, the referendum passed in 1978 that requires two-thirds majorities in both chambers of the state legislature to raise taxes. Twenty-six percent (26%) oppose it, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.

But 59% say they would vote to raise taxes rather than make further cuts in the public education system, while 35% say a cut in education spending is a better alternative.

Sixty-five percent (65%), however, oppose Schwarzenegger’s proposal to triple the state car tax. Nineteen percent (19%) favor the tax hike, with 17% undecided.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of male voters blame state legislators for the current economic problems, compared to 43% of female voters.

Sixty percent (60%) of Republicans and 61% of unaffiliated voters agree the legislature is to blame. Democrats are more evenly divided between blaming legislators and the overall economic meltdown.

While California voters send mixed signals on raising taxes, 86% of Republicans, 72% of unaffiliated voters and 47% of Democrats back the tax-limiting Proposition 13. Support runs high through virtually all age and income groups.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats prefer raising taxes to reduce the state budget deficit, while 65% of Republicans and 54% of unaffiliated voters say cutting state services is the better way to go.

Similarly, while 61% of Republicans and 50% of unaffiliated voters think the state budget can be balanced without raising taxes, 58% of Democrats disagree.

But a majority of Democrats (50%) are against the proposed raising of the state car tax, as are 82% of GOP voters and 69% of unaffiliateds.

Thirty-five percent (35%) of California voters say they are at least somewhat likely to leave the state because of the current economic climate, including 14% who say it is Very Likely. But 32% say they have no intention of moving.

Voters ages 18-29 are the most likely to say they might move.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of state voters believe the United States will still be in recession at the end of this year, and just 12% disagree.

Seventy percent (70%) approve of President-elect Obama’s performance to date, while 29% disapprove.

When you come to Guanajuato, pucker up. Mayor Eduardo Romero is declaring the colonial city in central Mexico “the kissing capital” of the world to disprove, once and for all, claims that he has banned smooching in public.

The flap arose over an anti-obscenity law that many people believed would fine anyone caught kissing in public. The government denied it intended to ban kissing, but agreed to suspend the legislation so its wording could be reviewed.

Israel withdrew all its troops from Gaza as a gesture to U. S. President Obama. Stories in the Jerusalem Post say “despite new US President Barack Obama’s pledge to delve into the Israeli-Arab conflict “from day one,” it is likely the new administration will step gingerly in its public comments until after the Israeli elections here on February 10.”

In another disturbing announcement Middle East sources said Hama is already smuggling arms back into Gaza through tunnels that had been hit harm by IDF.operations.

For all the anticipation that the Obama Administration would want to delve into the Middle East from the outset, “The new administration will unlikely want to say anything that could be seen as interfering in the Israeli elections, or which could influence the elections,” an official said.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert congratulated Obama Tuesday in a statement issued by his office.

“Barack Obama has impressed the whole world with his trek to the White House, his ability to inspire his nation and the entire world,” Olmert said.

“I am sure that close ties between the US and Israel will get stronger. The values of democracy, fraternity and freedom that are the cornerstones of American society are also common to Israeli society, as well as the faith in the strength and ability of man to change his surroundings.”

The official said that Israel was still in the dark regarding who Obama and secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton, expected to be confirmed by Wednesday, would pick as

Middle East envoy.

The official said Israel has not received any confirmation that former senator George Mitchell has been tabbed for the job, as was widely reported in the US media over the last two days.

Mitchell headed a committee in 2001 that looked at the causes of the Palestinian violence of September 2000, and recommended ways - which were not implemented - to end it.

Mitchell also served as the US special envoy to Northern Ireland whose work led to the Belfast Peace Agreement in 1998.

Mitchell was succeeded in that job by Richard Haass, a State Department official under the first President George Bush, whose name has also been mentioned in recent days as a possible Middle East envoy. Haass is currently the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Other names mentioned for this post are former ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, and former US Mideast envoy Dennis Ross.

Israeli officials also do not know whether there will be one envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian issue and another for Iran, or whether there will be just one envoy for all Middle East affairs. The speculation is expected to end in the next few days with announcements of who will fill what key Middle East positions.

According to a Saturday Associated Press story a Muslim scholar chosen to speak at President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural prayer service Wednesday is the leader of a group that federal prosecutors say has ties to terrorists.

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), is one of many religious leaders scheduled to speak at the prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral.

In 2007 and as recently as last July, federal prosecutors in Dallas filed court documents linking the Plainfield, Ind.-based Islamic society to the terror group Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization; has been fighting Israel the past 3-weeks in Gaza, and has close ties to Iran’s radical anti-Israel and anti-US government.

Neither Mattson nor her organization have been charged. But prosecutors wrote in July that they had “a wide array of testimonial and documentary evidence expressly linking” the group to Hamas and other radical groups.

Front Page magazine says ISNA was established by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)-associated Muslim Students Association (MSA) in 1981, helped into existence by a group of MSA alumni and a teaching assistant at North Carolina State University (NCSU) named Sami Al-Arian, who only two years prior co-founded Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Egypt. ISNA was incorporated using the same physical address as the MSA, which was also the address used to incorporate the American Hamas financing wing, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).

In December of 2003, ISNA was the subject of a terrorism investigation launched by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee “into possible links between nongovernmental organizations and terrorist financing networks.”

In June of 2007, ISNA was named an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a legal case brought by the U. S. Justice Department against HLF officials that dealt with the funding of millions of dollars to Hamas. During the trial, a  document bearing ISNA’s name was presented as evidence, stating:

“The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

ISNA’s official website says:

“May Allah fight the jews (sic) and the christians (sic). They took the graves of their Prophets as places of prostration  Two deens [religions] shall not co-exist in the land of the Arabs.” And “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.’”

The statements have been on ISNA’s site since March of 2006.

Few are now directly critical of Mattson but her overt involvement with ISNA is troubling. Some expressed concerns when Mattson spoke at the Democrat National Convention in Denver where Barack Obama was nominated as they are now when she is scheduled to speak at Obama’s Inauguration – regardless she will participate in the prayer service.

nubilous  NOO-buh-luhs, NYOO-) adjective: 1. Cloudy, misty, or foggy. 2. Vague or obscure. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin nubilosus (cloudy), from nubes (cloud).

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the “single most important issue” facing incoming President Barack Obama Newsmax.com reports Sunday.

And he insisted Israel would not compromise on Iran’s nuclear program. Last week Newsmax.com reported an Israeli attack on Iran’s nucler facilities was imminent.

Appearing on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on Thursday, Netanyahu — who many observers believe is the leading candidate to become prime minister in the upcoming Israeli elections — discussed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and said: “In the case of Hamas and its patron Iran, they openly declare, both of them, their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

“Iran is racing to produce a nuclear weapon to that end. And so, with people who want to destroy you . . . there is no compromise. What compromise could we make with them? The method of our destruction? Of course not.

“In the case of this forward base of Iran’s next to our cities, ultimately that regime will have to go.”

Netanyahu went on to say: “I think there is [an] issue that will be perhaps the single most important issue facing incoming President-elect Obama. And that is the decision to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, for two reasons.

“One is that they intend to use those weapons directly against us. And the second is — you can imagine what would happen to these Iranian bases on the Mediterranean, one in Gaza and one in Lebanon, with Hezbollah, if its proxy terrorists also enjoy a nuclear umbrella.

“The prospect of having a militant Islamic regime committed to Israel’s destruction, a sworn enemy of the United States, having nuclear weapons, which it can give to its proxies, is something very, very frightening indeed.

“And even if it doesn’t give it to its proxies, the fact that it will wield a nuclear sword over the heads of the United States, of Israel, and many other countries, is something that should give halt to anyone concerned with the peace of the world. I think this is the biggest and most fundamental challenge facing the United States and the world.”

Cavuto referred to incoming Vice President Joe Biden’s remark that Barack Obama could be tested in his first few weeks in office and asked Netanyahu if he agreed.

“I have no doubt that the terrorists and their patrons — or the terrorist states and their proxies — will continuously challenge the leadership of the United States,” the former prime minister answered.

“But from my two conversations with President-elect Obama, I could see that he understood this threat.

“He said that he was absolutely committed to making sure that Iran would not acquire nuclear weapons. And I think this was very important.”

As Newsmax reported, Netanyahu said in late 2006, “It’s 1938, and Iran is Germany, and Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.”

Hearst Corp. has announced that if it can’t find a buyer for its Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 60 days, it will stop printing the paper and either offer it only online or shut it down entirely. The Post-Intelligencer, founded in 1863, has the second largest circulation in the state of Washington. The paper reported losing $14 million last year amid dwindling circulation and advertising revenue.

The first U.S. president, George Washington, was sworn in on April 30, 1789, in New York City. Inauguration Day was then set for March 4, giving electors from each state nearly four months after Election Day to cast their ballots for president.

The day of inauguration was changed by the 20th Amendment from March 4 to noon on January 20, to speed up a change. That began with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term in 1937. The exception is if January 20^th falls on a Sunday then the oath if administered privately at noon and a public ceremony held the following day as was the case with Ronald Wilson Reagan’s 2^nd oath.

Thereafter the Oath has always been administered on January 20th except after FDR’s, JFK’s deaths when Vice Presidents Harry S. Truman and Lyndon Baines Johnson who took their oaths on April 12, 1945 and November 22, 1963 respectively. Truman’s second ceremony was the first one televised

There have been two other exceptions to the January 20^th date when Gerald R. Ford was sworn in on August 9, 1974 following the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In accord with the 20^th Amendment Ronald Reagan took the oath in private ceremony (televised) on Sunday, January 20, 1985 and again the next day in a public ceremony that had to be moved into the Capitol Rotunda due to the miserable weather.

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, ” is the exact oath. George Washington added “so help me God” but such a religious codicil is not technically part of the oath of office. The oath is specified in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.

The Vice President swears a slightly different oath before the President is sworn into office.

Every President has sworn the oath on a Bible and most have used their middle name which is their personal decision. Osama will also use a Bible – the one Abraham Lincoln used.

Immediately following the Presidential oath four ruffles and flourishes and “Hail to the Chief”, are played followed by a 21-gun salute from howitzers of the Presidential Salute Battery, 3d United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard). The President delivers an inaugural address, and attends a luncheon hosted by Congress with the Vice President as “guests of honor.”

Franklin Pierce was the first and only one who chose to affirm rather swear because of his Quaker faith. Herbert Hoover, also a Quaker, swore his oath although it is often incorrectly asserted otherwise.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson became the first to be sworn in as president in Washington, D.C., which did not officially become the federal capital until that year. Barack Hussein Obama will be the first black to take the oath and will use his middle name.

The U.S. military have participated in Inauguration Day ceremonies since George Washington, because the president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Since the first inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, that participation has been coordinated by the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee (now called the Joint Task Force-Armed Forces Inaugural Committee).

While violence often accompanies a change in power in many nations as Ronald Reagan commented, “Few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every four year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Americans say Bernard L. Madoff, who has confessed to engineering what may be the biggest financial fraud in history, should spend the rest of his life in jail.

The domestic price of a gallon of gasoline has been creeping up even though demand for crude oil feed stocks are not rising. It is generally conceded now that speculators artificially drove up crude oil prices last year significantly contributing to global economic contraction Even OPEC’s slashing production targets hasn’t had much effect of crude oil prices. Widespread cheating is expected because petrodictators are desperate for cash. On Saturday crude oil had declined 76% from its 2008 high to $35 per 40 gallon barrel abd at the same time gasoline prices increased.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday world oil demand will contract sharply in 2009 as the global economic slowdown further erodes consumption. Iran predicted $40 perbarrel oil through 2009.

The Paris-based IEA joined the ranks of forecasters predicting a fall in global oil demand this year, revising its previous 2009 estimate by 940,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 85.3 million bpd — a 500,000 bpd year-on-year fall.

“Forecast for global oil demand has been sharply revised down for 2009, following a reassessment of global economic prospects,” the adviser to industrialized nations said in its monthly report.

“Global GDP growth has been roughly halved to 1.2 percent, given the worsening outlook in OECD and non-OECD countries alike. The expected two-year contraction in oil demand will be the first since the early 1980s.”

In its previous report, the IEA forecast global oil demand would fall in 2008, but recover in 2009, based on the resilience of emerging economies.

However, the agency now sees Chinese oil demand growth at just 90,000 bpd in 2009, as its GDP growth is seen slowing to 6.5 percent — the slowest rate in eight years.

Reflecting the speed of the world slowdown, the IEA has taken the step of pre-empting further revisions to global economic growth projections from the International Monetary Fund and other agencies, on which it bases its assumptions.

As demand drops amid the current economic slowdown, oil inventories in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have remained at high levels.

Stocks at the end of November equaled 56.4 days of cover, compared with 56.8 days at the end of October.

In the closing days of his administration Bush is introducing proposals to allow more oil production off U. S, coast. Should even part of that be allowed demand for petrodictators crude oil would fall even farther. Liberal Democrats are already promising to block any such efforts choosing to rely on the panacea of alternative energy, and risk further economic damage to the domestic economy while awaiting what most scientist say is two to five decades distant.

All this begs the question – Why are domestic gasoline prices rising?

Peru’s top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent. Two of those fired worked as drivers.

Remember all the bitter brouhaha about the U. S. Navy using a tiny Puerto Rican island - Vieques - as a bombing range? Hollywood left wingers, Al Sharpton, and his fellow demagogues went down and raised hell to get the Navy out.

So, in 2002, the bombing exercises were transferred to an Air Jacksonville and Pensacola Naval Air Stations. That January, many of those protesters were back celebrating the final bombing exercise on Vieques and waved Puerto Rican flags and placards that read ‘U. S. Navy, get out of Puerto Rico.’

The defecation hit the impeller the next February when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced that the U. S. Navy didn’t need the Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico and would close it in 2004, eliminating 1,200 civilian jobs as well as 700 military positions and taking nearly $300 million a year out of the local economy.

The next day Puerto Rico’s Governor Sila Calderon threw a conniption fit protesting the base closure as a serious blow to the Commonwealth’s fragile economy. He said stated that ‘the people of Puerto Rico don’t now or never did have an interest in closing the Vieques bombing range or the Roosevelt Roads naval base. We are interested in both staying in Puerto Rico .’ He hadn’t said a word before.

He was wasting his breath because those damned Yankees went home biding “Hasta la vista, baby!”

Starting this year, the U.S. European Command has decided to begin moving most, if not all, of its active combat and support units from bases in Germany into Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Turkey to ‘better position them for rapid deployment to likely hot spots in those parts of the world.’

The Russians and Iranians are displeased. Plus, some of the same Germans that have routinely vilified America, her troops, foreign policy – especially the Iraq War are having a collective Depends moment over the loss of nearly $6 billion in U. S. greenbacks each year from the bases and manpower to be displaced. Notwithstanding German Prime Minister Merkels pro-America stance this appears to be a genuine malee and fracus.

This redeployment as well as the deployment of the controversial missile shield is a hubbub that Obama will undoubtedly send Hillary waddling into soon.

In the meantime what’s the German equivalent of ‘Hasta la vista, baby?” ‘Aufwiedersehen’.’

The incoming press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says that President-elect Barack Obama will allow gays to serve openly in the military. So the days of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” are over. Actually, that’s not quite true; Congress will continue to use the phrase when referring to the bailout money: “Don’t ask us what we did with it; we are not going to tell you.” - Leno

The U.S. Senate on Thursday, at the urging of President Bush and President-elect Obama released the second half of the $700 billion financial sector rescue plan, approved last October and known officially as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The 52-42 Senate vote to release the $350 billion for Obama to use to help the still-ailing financial industry signaled how far voters have come in the past three-and-a-half months. (Both chambers of Congress have to reject the release of the money for it to be stopped, so now a House vote is moot.)

Rasmussen Reports polling has shown that although many voters were initially opposed to federal bailouts and greater government intervention in the economy, they have since warmed to the idea.

Now, 54% of voters believe a major government economic recovery plan is necessary to the restore the U.S. economy, while just a third (33%) think the economy can recover on its own. But 55% also say the plan must include tax cuts, which Obama has promised but Democratic congressional leaders are trying to downsize.

Back in October, just before Congress voted on the bailout plan, 45% of voters opposed it, while 30% were in favor. Another 25% were undecided at that point. At the same time, the plurality of voters (47%) said they were more worried the government would do too much to fix the economic crisis, while only 36% were more worried it would not do enough.

At that time, 59% of voters agreed with the idea that the government was the problem, not the solution. Only 28% disagreed.

However, as time passed and no positive economic news surfaced, voters grew more evenly divided on the question of whether a big government solution is needed.

In November, 46% of voters said they were worried the government would do too much, while 40% were worried it would not do enough. Those numbers remained relatively steady through December. Now, 45% of American voters worry the government will do too much to try to fix the problem and 44% say the opposite.

The bailout plan for the financial sector, prompted by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent worsening of conditions on Wall Street, was initially defeated in the House last September. A second attempt and a great deal of bipartisan arm-twisting was required to get the bailout package passed.

Since then Bush administration and congressional leaders have shifted the intended uses of the money on several occasions. These shifts, including using some of the money for loans to two of the beleaguered Big Three automakers, prompted Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and John McCanin, the party’s presidential nominee last year, to vote Thursday against release of the final $350 billion. McCain had initially supported the bailout plan.

That also helps to explain why just 37% of Americans are even somewhat confident that their political leaders know what they’re doing as they try to address the nation’s economic problems. This number is up onlyslightly from mid-November when only 26% felt that way.

Now, 63% of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that major legislation to improve the country will be passed during Obama’s first 100 days in the White House, a strong indicator of how much voters are counting on the new administration and Congress to fix the current economic crisis. Obama has proposed a $775 billion stimulus plan, and the congressional Democratic leadership have an $825 billion version of their own.

Obama’s plan is supported by 44% of Americans, while 28% are opposed and 27% are not sure. A plurality of Americans (38%), however, still believe members of Congress will not know the key details of the stimulus plan before voting on it, while 28% disagree. Another 34% are not sure.

Playboy magazine claims 22% of women say they would, if they could turn back the clock, have picked a different husband– 12% of men say they picked the wrong wife.

According to an Associated Press report filed at about 10:30 AM EST Sunday U. S. time Gaza Strip militants offered Israel an immediate weeklong truce Sunday shorly after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire with its troops to remain in place. Hamas conditioned longer-term quiet on a complete Israeli troop withdrawal from the territory, militant leaders said after their men peppered southern Israel with rockets despite a unilateral Israeli cease-fire.

The rocket fire had threatened to re-ignite three weeks of violence that killed more than 1,200 Palestinians and turned the streets of Hamas-ruled Gaza into battlegrounds.

Israel, which mounted the offensive three weeks ago to halt years of rocket attacks, agreed to silence its guns and ground its aircraft early Sunday. It said it only acted in Gaza after militants attacked.

‘We will honor our cease-fire’
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel’s cease-fire offer stood.

“Israel last night announced that from 2 a.m. (Sunday), we would cease all offensives against the Hamas military machine, and that would be of course on the premise that Hamas would cease attacks on Israel,” Regev said in response to the Hamas cease-fire announcement.

“Our policy still stands,” Regev said. “We will honor our cease-fire as we said last night and will only act to defend ourselves if we see Hamas provocation.”

Thirteen Israelis died during the offensive, including four killed by rocket fire. More than 1,250 Palestinains were killed, more than half of them civilians.

Israel said it would not pull out troops it sent into Gaza two weeks ago until rocket fire halted.

The Palestinian cease-fire offer was announced by military leaders in Gaza and in Damascus, Syria, the base of Gaza’s exiled Hamas leaders. They did not set a time, but appeared to mean immediately.

In Damascus, Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ deputy leader, told Syrian TV that the cease-fire would last a week to give Israel time to withdraw and open all Gaza border crossings to let humanitarian aid into the embattled seaside territory.

“We the Palestinian resistance factions declare a cease-fire from our side in Gaza and we confirm our stance that the enemy’s troops must withdraw from Gaza within a week,” Abu Marzouk said.

Demand that crossings be opened
Hamas, which rejects Israel’s existence, violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007, provoking a harsh Israeli blockade that has deepened the destitution in the territory and confined 1.4 million Palestinians to the tiny coastal strip.

In southern Israel, residents who have endured rocket attacks for eight years accused the government of stopping the offensive too soon. Israel declared the cease-fire before reaching a long-term solution to the problem of arms smuggling into Gaza, one of the war’s declared aims.

Outrage in the Muslim world

The Israeli operation outraged the Muslim world, sparking dozens of demonstrations. On Sunday, Qatar announced that it had closed Israel’s trade office in the small Gulf Arab state and ordered its staff to leave within seven days.

Qatar is the only Gulf Arab state that has ties with Israel.

Leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic — which holds the rotating European Union presidency — headed for Egypt to lend international backing to the cease-fire. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon are also expected to attend.

The University of Chicago Medical Center, which is seeking to trim $100 million in expenses, announced that it is eliminating 15 senior executive jobs, including vice president for community and external affairs, MichelleObama’s $300,000 plus job. Another executive will take over her duties, the Chicago Tribune reported. Michelle Obama has seldom been at the Center for more than a year.

Russia’s decision to cut the flow of natural gas to Europe could be linked to reports that the planet is entering a new ice age, a leading weather expert says.

AccuWeather’s chief hurricane and long-range forecaster Joe Bastardi said on Glenn Beck’s radio program, “My theory . .  is that [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin knows what’s going to happen, or he believes the same way I do about the overall climate pattern.

“So if you control the pipeline into Europe, you literally can control Europe without firing a shot — if you control the energy.”

Russia supplies about one-quarter of the European Union’s gas, 80 percent of that is shipped through Ukraine’s vast pipeline network. Russia is building a new link from Belarus through Poland adding more supply. Russia cut off gas supplies to Europe on Jan. 7 just as the continent was gripped by freezing temperatures, possibly instigating a new Cold War.

One report published by the Russian news source Pravda Online stated, “The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science.

“Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, 12,000-year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.”

The report dismisses assertions that manmade emissions of carbon dioxide are causing global warming, noting: “Global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse.

In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperatures to rise; instead the natural cycle increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.”

Bastardi said in an interview with the Business and Media Institute cited by NewsBusters.com, “If you look at those Russian scientists, where a lot of these studies on it getting cold come from . . . what makes you think that Putin doesn’t have some knowledge of that?”

It’s so cold, Bernie Madoff was wearing bulletproof earmuffs.—Letterman.

Time may soon be resolved to 100 trillionths of one second, according to the world’s authority in time-keeping and celestial observation. Some will recall that New Year 2009 was delayed one second because last year was a leap second year. I happened to have a wrist watch costing less than $30 and a wall clock that is reset each day and claim an accuracy of one second per one million year. Now those are going the way of the hour glass.

“To know when an event occurred, you need a clock. We are that clock,” said Geoff Chester, public affairs officer at the U.S. Naval Observatory the majority contributor to the international determination of time. He explained the development of this new timing technology during the Jan. 15 premier of the Defense Department’s “Armed with Science: Research and Applications for the Modern Military” radio program on BlogTalkRadio.com.

For centuries, clocks have measured seconds through regular, rhythmic oscillations of a pendulum, a swinging weight susceptible to influence by factors such as gravity, temperature and air viscosity. In the 1950s, scientists began investigating the oscillations of particular atoms as a more precise way to define the second.

“Atomic time is independent of what Earth does,” Mr. Chester said.

“Atomic clocks define time scales in terms of a certain number of oscillations of a certain type of atom that take place in the course of one second. The master clock at the Naval Observatory is an ensemble of dozens of these devices, and we take a weighted average of all of them to determine our base-reference time scale.”

Standard atomic clocks measure microwave signals emitted from atoms as they change energy levels. Since 1967, the one-second time interval has been defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between two energy levels of the cesium-133 atom.

“We guarantee that no two seconds that come out of here over the course of a year will differ by more than one billionth of a second,” Mr. Chester said. “Our clock is so precise that it will not gain or lose one second on the order of 3 million years.”

To meet the demands of technology and the needs of society, researchers at the U.S. Naval Observatory continue to develop more precise time-keeping systems. By 2010, they hope to release an operational version of their newest clock, known as a “fountain clock,” which uses laser beams to induce oscillations of the rubidium atom. This rubidium fountain clock will provide a measure of time accurate to 100 trillionths of a second, about 10 to 100 times more precise than the current master clock.

“Rubidium atoms are smaller and easier to manipulate,” Mr. Chester explained. “They allow us to keep a much better timescale than what we keep today.”

The U.S. Naval Observatory, one of about 50 scientific laboratories concerned with time-keeping, maintains one-third of the operational atomic clocks currently deployed around the world.

In addition to its role in defining and maintaining universal time, the Naval Observatory also acts as a reference point for navigation and communications technologies that affect people’s everyday lives. For instance, its ultra-precise time-keeping systems enable computer networks

to rapidly and accurately transmit information, and the constellation of satellites used in GPS relies on the master clock to calculate locations on the Earth’s surface.

As folks are want to sat “It is close enough for government work – and one trillionth of one second should do it.

Tom Cruise, who fails to assassinate Adolf Hitler in his new movie “Valkyrie,” said he grew up really wanting to kill the Nazi leader. Odd since Cruise was born in 1962 some 17-years after Hitler’s suicide.

In Star Trek lore the cloaking device was of Romulan origin, first described in 2266. The Klingon Empiresoon had a similar gadget and many en espidoe turned on its use. Generally such a gadget was considered simple fantasy. This week a device that can inteed bestow invisibility to an object by “cloaking” it from visual light is closer to reality. After being the first to demonstrate the feasibility of such a device by constructing a prototype in 2006, a team of Duke University engineers has produced a new type of cloaking device, which is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking in a broad range of frequencies.

The latest advance was made possible by the development of a new series of complex mathematical commands, known as algorithms, to guide the design and fabrication of exotic composite materials known as metamaterials.

These materials can be engineered to have properties not easily found in natural materials, and can be used to form a variety of “cloaking” structures. These structures can guide electromagnetic waves around an object, only to have them emerge on the other side as if they had passed through an empty volume of space.

The results of the latest Duke experiments were published Jan. 16 in the journal Science. First authors of the paper were Duke’s Ruopeng Liu, who developed the algorithm, and Chunlin Li. David R. Smith, William Bevan Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke, is the senior member of the research team.

Once the algorithm was developed, the latest cloaking device was completed from conception to fabrication in nine days, compared to the four months required to create the original, and more rudimentary, device. This powerful new algorithm will make it possible to custom-design unique metamaterials with specific cloaking characteristics, the researchers said.

“The difference between the original device and the latest model is like night and day,” Smith said. “The new device can cloak a much wider spectrum of waves - nearly limitless - and will scale far more easily to infrared and visible light. The approach we used should help us expand and improve our abilities to cloak different types of waves.”

Cloaking devices bend electromagnetic waves, such as light, in such a way that it appears as if the cloaked object is not there.

In the latest laboratory experiments, a beam of microwaves aimed through the cloaking device at a “bump” on a flat mirror surface bounced off the surface at the same angle as if the bump were not present.

Additionally, the device prevented the formation of scattered beams that would normally be expected from such a perturbation.

The underlying cloaking phenomenon is similar to the mirages seen ahead at a distance on a road on a hot day.

“You see what looks like water hovering over the road, but it is in reality a reflection from the sky,” Smith explained. “In that example, the mirage you see is cloaking the road below. In effect, we are creating an engineered mirage with this latest cloak design.”

Smith believes that cloaks should find numerous applications as the technology is perfected. By eliminating the effects of obstructions, cloaking devices could improve wireless communications, or acoustic cloaks could serve as protective shields, preventing the penetration of vibrations, sound or seismic waves.

“The ability of the cloak to hide the bump is compelling, and offers a path towards the realization of forms of cloaking abilities approaching the optical,” Liu said. “Though the designs of such metamaterials are extremely complex, especially when traditional approaches are used, we believe that we now have a way to rapidly and efficiently produce such materials.”

With appropriately fine-tuned metamaterials, electromagnetic radiation at frequencies ranging from visible light to radio could be redirected at will for virtually any application, Smith said. This approach could also lead to the development of metamaterials that focus light to provide more powerful lenses.

The newest cloak, which measures 20 inches by 4 inches and less than an inch high, is actually made up of more than 10,000 individual pieces arranged in parallel rows. Of those pieces, more than 6,000 are unique. Each piece is made of the same fiberglass material used in circuit boards and etched with copper.

The algorithm determined the shape and placement of each piece. Without the algorithm, properly designing and aligning the pieces would have been extremely difficult, Smith said.

56% of voters nationwide say that the Palestinians are to blame for the current situation in Gaza while 13% say the Israelis are at fault. Two weeks ago, a nationwide survey of adults found that 55% placed the blame on the Palestinians and 13% pointed the finger at Israel.

Forty-five percent (45%) say Israel should have taken military action against the Palestinians, little changed from 44% two weeks ago. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say that the Jewish nation should have tried harder to find a diplomatic solution, down slightly from 41% in the earlier survey.

As in the earlier survey, Republicans strongly agree with Israel while Democrats wish there had been more efforts at diplomacy. Forty-seven percent (47%) of unaffiliated voters support Israel’s military action while 36% would like to have seen more diplomatic efforts.

Looking ahead, 50% say Israel should agree to a truce now while 26% disagree. The Israelis have stepped up their offensive against the radical Palestinian group Hamas with more troops pushing further into Gaza. Both Israel and Hamas have ignored a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, but European diplomats continue to work for a halt to the fighting. Israel is demanding an end to Hamas rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, while the Palestinians want open and internationally monitored borders for the area.

Fifty-three percent (53%) are at least somewhat confident in Barack Obama’s ability to deal with the situation in Gaza, including 25% who are Very Confident in the President-elect.

In the earlier survey, 52% of Americans said it is possible for Israel and the Palestinians to live in peace, but just 35% thought Obama is likely to help end the conflict during his presidency.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of voters say they have followed news stories about the fighting in Gaza at least somewhat closely, with 41% following Very Closely. Only four percent (4%) say they are not following news about it at all.

 

This week, the chief of staff of embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich spoke to Illinois state workers on the issue of ethics in the workplace. How ironic is that? What, was Bernie Madoff unavailable? - Leno

A Sunday, January 11, 2009 article in the Soviet era surviving newspaper PRAVDA (meaning “The Truth”) was headlined “Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age.” Gregory F. Fegel writes the long and complex article justifying the headline. If you want to read the entire article click the link http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0 but I’ll summarize it as follows:

There is “a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science… indicating that the warm, 12,000 year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

Fegel includes evidence from ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Historically this cycling has been notices since the mid-19^th century. Since the late 1970s, that “Milankovich Theory” has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has with the help of D- science student Al Gore has become accepted fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold.

Fegel says the AGW theory is flawed and presents a mind numbing array of science to justify his conclusion.

 

Key to his argument is “that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages lose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from losing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content.”

AGW proponents now routinely argue that it is the long term trend that counts, and while that trend will fluctuate the long term record belies AGW theorist reliance “on
data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change.”

AGW proponents can be hysterical that that was then and this is now. Others effectively argue that carbon dioxide is not the cause at all but a convenient scape goat to be used as excuse for a global reorganization and redistribution.  He concludes “While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.”

Skeptics of Russia’s – via its official printing press PRAVDA — purposes in opposing AGW has more to do with peddling its copious natural gas reserves to the highest bidders in Europe, and using those proceeds to fund its renaissance to super power status. As cynical as that may be or not it is becoming increasingly evident AGW has far too much of a political agenda subscribed by a legion of academics with their collective heads buried in the public grant trough to be trusted. It is helped to notice that most feed on from its left side too.

Nugatory (NOO-guh-tor-ee, NYOO-) :adjective: 1. Of little value; trifling. 2. Having no force; ineffective. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin nugatorius (trifling), from nugari (to trifle). USAGE:”A profound shift in the balance of power between labour and capital over the past three decades has resulted in nugatory increases in real earnings for most but massive rewards for those at the top.”

Hamas bandits on Monday raided some 100 aid trucks that Israel had allowed into Gaza, stole their contents and sold them to the highest bidders.

The IDF said that since terminal activity is coordinated with UNRWA and the Red Cross, Israel could do nothing to prevent such raids. Between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the army had ceased all military activity in Gaza and once again established a “humanitarian corridor” to help facilitate the transfer of the supplies.

The Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings had been opened to allow in the aid trucks.

Security officials at Kerem Shalom thwarted an attempt to smuggle electrical goods, disguised as humanitarian supplies, into Gaza. The electrical goods included computers, infra-red cameras, ovens, microwaves and other electronic equipment.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has forbidden the entry of electronics to Gaza since the goods do not fall under the category of humanitarian aid. Some electronic equipment has been let in as per an official Palestinian request, such as equipment used to repair the damaged electrical grid in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel is considering establishing a field hospital in the Gaza Strip to treat Palestinian civilians wounded in fighting between the IDF and Hamas.

The plan would be to establish the field hospital outside the Gaza Strip, but the IDF is also considering the possibility of erecting the hospital inside the Palestinian territory so it will be more accessible to the Palestinian population. It would be run by the IDF Medical Corps.

Also Monday, in an effort to promote Israeli humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip, the Defense Ministry launched a new Web site that provides a live video feed of the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing, through which international organizations have been transferring basic foods and medical supplies to Gaza.

Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has facilitated the transfer of close to 900 trucks into the Gaza Strip with over 20,000 tons of basic foods and medical supplies.

According to an army estimate on Monday, slightly over 900 Palestinians have been killed since Operation Cast Lead began in December 2008. Based on intelligence and information obtained by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, the IDF has determined that at least 400 of those killed are known Hamas operatives. The IDF further believes that among the remaining 500, a significant number are also Hamas operatives.

Israel appears to be giding for a swerve away from it in U. S. policy after Obama takes office next Tuesday, and is determined to consolidate gains by then to be in the strongest place possible to force Hamas into a cease fire that will prevent future attacks on its people.

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. -John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)

Iran has reported an expansion of the insurgency by the Al Qaida-aligned Jundallah. Iranian sources accuse Saudi Arabia and the United States of reviving the Sunni group in 2008 as a means to pressure the regime in Teheran. Jundallah, based in neighboring Pakistan, was said to have targeted Iranian police and security installations in western Iran.

On Dec. 29, Iran said Jundallah used a suicide bomber in an attack on a security headquarters in Saravan, near the Pakistan border. At least four people were killed and 12 were injured.

“This group has killed many innocent and defenseless civilians in the past, and the security forces have killed their members,” the official Iranian news agency, Irna, claims

This was said to have been the first suicide bombing by Jundallah, which also claimed responsibility.

Jundallah has been led by Abdul Malek Rigi, said to be linked to Al Qaida. In December 2008, Rigi was said to have ordered the execution of 16 Iranian border guards, abducted five months previously.

“Britain and America supported Rigi’s terrorist group with arms and information,” Ibraim Raisi, a senior Iranian judicial official, said.

On Dec. 29, Iran reported the death of eight people in an explosion in a weapons factory in the Isfahan province. Officials said the blast took place on Dec. 27 in an unidentified facility in Zarin Shaher.

Jundallah (Soldiers of Allah) (Arabic: جندالله‎) (also known as Iranian People’s Resistance Movement) is an insurgent Sunni Islamic organization based in Balochistan (the largest geographic area of Pakistan) that claims to be fighting for the rights of Sunni muslims in Iran. It is reported to have perhaps 1,000 fighters.

Osama bin Laden has emerged to urge a jihad, Holy War, against Israel.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of American adults are opposed to an Obama economic recovery plan that does not cut taxes, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Adults are evenly divided over whether they would support an economic recovery package that includes tax cuts only - with no government spending. Thirty-seven percent (37%) favor the idea, 38% are opposed, and 25% are not sure.

Just 21% would support the opposite approach - a stimulus package with more government spending but no tax cuts.

Forty-seven percent (47%) say tax cuts will do more to stimulate the economy than new government programs while 32% take the opposite view. A plurality of Democrats say that new government spending will provide more stimulus, but most Republicans and a plurality of those unaffiliated with either political party disagree.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of investors believe tax cuts are a better economic stimulus than government spending, compared to 42% of non-investors.

The findings come amid reports that President-elect Obama is going to Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic congressional leaders in part to answer criticism of the $300-billion middle class tax cut that he is proposing as part of his overall economic recovery plan. Many Democrats are concerned that there is not enough spending in Obama’s plan which now has a price tag of $775 billion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the tab could go as high as $1.2 trillion, but Republicans are strongly opposed to that level of spending.

Overall, 44% of the nation’s adults favor the “economic recovery plan proposed by President-elect Barack Obama .” Twenty-eight percent (28%) are opposed, and 27% are not sure.

Democrats favor the plan by a 73% to nine percent (9%) margin, Republicans oppose it 55% to 18%, and a plurality of unaffiliateds are undecided. An earlier survey found that 21% of all voters expect a tax cut from the Obama Administration while 29% think their own taxes will go up.

As his inauguration approaches, Obama continues to draw high ratings for the way he’s handled the role of president-elect. At the same time, consumer and investor confidence in the economy continues to hover around record lows.

Americans, however, are optimistic about the economy’s recovery, but most expect it to take up to five years to come back.

Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Americans say they’re closely following coverage of the recovery package, including 38% who are following the news coverage Very Closely.

Fifty-two percent (52%) say a big federal government recovery plan is Very Important for the economy. Another 23% say it is Somewhat Important. A survey released earlier found that 33% believe the economy can recover on its own, but most believe an economic recovery plan is needed.

A flier headlined “Why I hate Black History Month” that was sent home with St. Louis-area schoolchildren has been tweaked after a handful of complaints it now reads “Why I love Black History Month.”

A California State University Northridge student that has been detained once again in Iran and again been banned from leaving the country. The woman, Esha Momeni was detained in October during a visit to the Islamic Republic to see family and carry out research on the women’s movement. She was freed on November 10th after almost four weeks in a Tehran prison. Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said Momeni has again been banned from leaving because of a new, unspecified charge against her that is being investigated. He did not give any more details, other than to say he thought the latest ban would last for about a month or so before it is withdrawn. The Iranian judiciary previously accused Momeni of acting against national security and of making propaganda against Iran’s system of government.

On October 20, 2008 Payvand’s Iran News called Esha Momeni “a woman’s rights activist and a photographer. It also described her arrest by “undercover traffic police” when she illegally passed another car. Subsequently her house and car were searched, a computer, film, and other property seized. Apparently Momeni had been doing video interviews with members of the One Million Signatures Campaign in Tehran.

The “One Million Signatures Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws” was officially launched in Iran in August 2006.  The initiators said of this campaign then they “recognize that social change and the elimination of injustice are not easily achieved.  The campaign is a follow-up effort to the peaceful protest of the same aim, which took place on June 12, 2006 in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran. Beatings, arrest and mistreatment of signature gatherers have been reported.

The One Million Signature effort is part of the Campiagn for Equality. Its goal listed on its website include: asking that all discriminatory laws against women be reformed. The kinds of changes we are requesting in the laws have been outlined and explained in the educational booklet of the Campaign, the “Effect of Laws on Women’s Lives.” The booklet discusses some of the legal changes that the Campaign seeks, such as equal rights for women in marriage, equal rights to divorce for women, end to polygamy and temporary marriage, increase of age of criminal responsibility to 18 for both girls and boys, right for women to pass on nationality to their children, equal dieh (compensation for bodily injury or death) between women and men, equal inheritance rights, reform of laws that reduce punishment for offenders in cases of honor killings, equal testimony rights for men and women in court, and other laws which discriminate against women. The booklet reads like a medieval text. http://www.change4equality.com/english/spip.php?article41

Women’s rights activists object to the unusual manner in which Esha was arrested, as well as the irresponsible treatment of her family members by security forces. Further they strongly object to the unjustified and unwarranted arrest of this women’s rights defender.

A prehistoric mamouth tusk has been found on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. 10,000 years ago the four northern most islands were linked, as one island called Santarosae and apparently there was a connection to the shore during that Ice Age when seas levels fell.

A Reuters survey among the 5,000 plus farmers attending the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting found 72 percent of the respondents did not believe the Obama administration would be responsive to their needs.  A majority of U.S. farmers are in favor of a farm subsidy cap of $250,000 a year and strict rules on payment eligibility, but they are not strong supporters of who could be responsible for making these changes: Barack Obama. Most farmers polled expressed doubt that Obama would have their interests in mind as president, 59 percent supported him in implementing a “hard” cap on farm subsidies of $250,000 a year and stricter rules on who is eligible for subsidies. About 40 percent of U.S. farms collect subsidy payments, which were estimated at $6 billion in 2008.

Until a decade or so ago, few questioned the ability of American farmers to compete with farmers anywhere in the world. We were the global leaders in agriculture. We had the most highly educated and efficient farmers in the world using the latest production technologies to cultivate the best agricultural land in the world. However, in recent years, the US share of global agricultural exports has plummeted, dropping farm profits, and shaking confidence in the American farmer’s ability to compete.

The USDA has has been forecasting economic recovery for the agricultural sector over the next few years, based on the assumption of recovering global and U.S. economies and strengthening markets for U.S. agricultural exports. However, such optimistic forecasts would appear to be founded at least as much in “wishful thinking” as in objective economic analysis. There are legitimate reasons to question whether or not the global and U.S. economies will return to their previous levels of strength, and whether U.S. farmers could compete, even if global and national economic conditions improve.

Rural America continues to shrink with only 20% living outsideurban centers, and relatively few living in rural areas are farmers and ranchers. Sky high fuel costs have hurt agriculture recently a driven food rices up. Even as that threat has moderated for now there are ample reasons to worry about the future of America’s agriculture. A mistake now could damage agriculture, and send food prices spiraling upward. Farmers do not believe they have  friend in the White House.

Amid tumbling viewership “American Idol” has sued an Austin strip club in federal court to stop the weekly “Stripper Idol” contest at Palazio Men’s Club. FremantleMedia North America also wants to seize Palazio’s profits from the amateur stripping contest.

 

Just 37% of Americans are even somewhat confident that their political leaders know what they’re doing as they try to address the nation’s economic problems.

Of this group, only four percent (4%) are Very Confident they know what they’re doing, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) lack confidence in their leaders, including 20% who say they are not at all confident that policymakers know what they are doing with regards to the troubled U.S. economy.

Adding to the concern, American voters believe that lobbyists will have a far bigger influence on the congressional debate than either taxpayers or Barack Obama. Just 17% think Congress will listen most to taxpayers in determining the details of the recovery plan. Nearly half (47%) say they will listen most to lobbyists, and 21% believe the new president will be the most important voice they hear.

Just 28% believe that most members of Congress will know the key details of the recovery plan before they vote on it. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree and say the legislators will vote without knowing the details of the costly program. A plurality of Republicans and those not affiliated with either major party believe most members of Congress will not know the details of the economic recovery plan before they vote on it. Democrats are more evenly divided on that question.

Democrats are more confident in policymakers than Republicans and those not affiliated with either major party. Fifty-two percent (52%) of Democrats are at least somewhat confident that political leaders know what they are doing regarding the economy, compared to 29% of Republicans and 27% of unaffiliateds. However, hardly anybody is Very Confident. Even among Democrats, that figure is in the single digits.

Congress is currently wrangling over the details of an economic recovery plan it hopes to pass soon after Barack Obama becomes president. Its potential price tag ranges from $775 billion to $1.2 trillion. Several top Democrats are concerned about Obama’s insistence on $300 billion in tax cuts in the plan and want more spending instead.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Americans opposed to a recovery plan that does not cut taxes.

Meanwhile, debate continues over the effectiveness and use of the highly unpopular $700 billion bailout plan Congress passed last October just after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and Wall Street’s woes became highly visible.

Nearly half (47%) of U.S. voters also say Congress has more control over the direction of the economy than the president and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

A survey last year found that 57% of voters believe it is not possible to run a campaign without the help of lobbyists and special interest groups.

The Iran based Persian Journal says nearly 70 percent of Germans reject Chancellor Angela Merkel’s stance on blaming Hamas for sparking the Israeli military onslaught on Gaza, according to a survey released by the private sat 1 television network on Thursday.

Asked whether Merkel was right in holding Hamas responsible for the Gaza conflict, some 68.4 percent responded with ‘no’, while 30.7 percent replied with ‘yes’ and 0.9 percent said they were unsure about it.

The Persian Journal calls Merkel “A die-hard supporter of the murderous Zionist regime, Merkel has faced harsh criticism by several leading lawmakers for blaming Hamas in the Israeli genocide in Gaza.” Its photograph depicts her emerging from Uncle Sam’s rectum.

In other related news, a German-based human rights organization, The International League for Human Rights (ILHR), slammed Merkel for “encouraging Israel to continue war crimes in the Gaza Strip” and demanded she pressure Israel into a ceasefire, according to dpa.

The ILHR has its origins in the Ligue Française pour la Défense de Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, founded in France in the late nineteenth century. The group was reconstituted in New York in 1942 by European refugees and Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, and was known until 1976 as the International League for the Rights of Man. Baldwin was an enthusiastic communist and the ILHR is considered to be a leftist group.

“If she does not, she will be guilty of increasing the spiral of violence,” the group charged.

“Critics of Merkel’s staunch pro-Israel stance in the Gaza fighting and the Lebanon war argue that she has essentially given a “blank check” to the Jewish state to commit war crimes and other atrocities.”

“Germany’s hardline refusal to criticize the Zionist regime is in stark contrast to other traditional allies of Israel like France and Britain as both countries joined the international condemnation of the Israeli air strikes in Gaza.”

 

The state of California is broke. The Golden State is so far in debt there are suggestions state employees could be paid with IOU’s as soon as February 1st, vendors may not be paid at all and anyone expecting a tax refund may have to wait a long time to see it. The “Los Angeles Times” reports the state only has about a month’s worth of cash left in its coffers. The governor and lawmakers are standing toe to toe, at odds over how to deal with a budget deficit that could hit more than $41-billion.  Tuesday the Democratically-controlled legislature announced two weeks of discussions had ended in impasse. They sent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger an $18-billion  spending package anyway and as he’d promised, he vetoed it.

 

 

“Global warming is over, and global warming theory has failed, there is no evidence that carbon dioxide drives world temperatures of any consequence climate change,” says Imperial College of London astrophysicist and long range forecaster Piers Corbyn wrote members of the British Parliament on October 28, 2008.

Winter arrived with the December 21 solstice as the world ending the coldest year in more than a decade. A half inch of snow brightened Malibu, California hills, and the northeast disappeared under a record ice storm that snapped power lines plunging millions into the cold and dark. Eight inches of snow fell on New Orleans and South Louisiana and three inches of snow blanketed Las Vegas, Nevada. Snow fell on London in October for the first time since 1922. In the southern hemisphere Brazil, for instance endured an exceptionally cold October.

In each of the last ten years global temperatures have dived while carbon dioxide levels have climbed. The National Snow and Ice Center found that aortic ice increased 13.2% this year.

Professor Noel Keenlyside, Leibnitz Institute of Marine Science says global temperatures have NOT increased over the last decade.

Dr. Martin Hertzberg a physical chemist and retired Navy Meteorologist says,” As a scientists and lifelong liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human caused global warming to be a disservice to science.”

 

Lou the mule brayed his way into his owner’s heart with a New Year’s warning that her rural Tennessee home was on fire. Jolene Solomon says the mule saved her life by alerting her to the attic blaze so that she could get out of the house before it burned down.

 

ABU DHABI — an Iranian defector and former ambassador said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has formed sleeper and operational cells in Gulf Cooperation Council states. The former ambassador, Adil Assadi, said some of the cells, consisting of Iranian laborers and foreign Shi’ite nationals, were formed soon after the Islamic revolution in Teheran in 1979.

“Iran has an undercover presence in the six GCC countries,” Assadi, who defected in 2001 and now lives in Sweden, said. “They used to send them through a third country with a recommendation to the immigration authorities not to stamp their passports on entering and leaving the country.”

In a recent interview with the Abu Dhabi-based Gulf News, Assadi confirmed assertions by officials in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of a growing Iranian presence in GCC states. Kuwait has assessed that IRGC maintains 30,000 operatives in the sheikdom.

“The [Iranian] Foreign Affairs Ministry and its institutions exist just to provide cover for their work and offer them diplomatic immunity,” Assadi said. “I stood at a crossroads: Either I had to agree to what the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence agencies used to do under the name of diplomacy, or leave office, which is what I opted for.”

Assadi said IRGC recruits operatives to collect intelligence in Iraq and GCC countries. Another group was said to have been trained by IRGC to conduct attacks in neighboring states.

“I think Teheran has enough manpower to destabilize the GCC countries, which is bad news,” Assadi said. “The good news is that Arab governments and people have become more alert about Iranian plots against the region after they were exposed in Iraq. Their role in Iraq was very successful from an Iranian point of view, but it severely damaged their prospective activities in other GCC countries.”

GCC officials have confirmed Assadi’s assertions. They said Iran increased its intelligence presence in such countries as Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE in 2007.

“Iran has often had an ambivalent attitude towards the Gulf states, claiming to offer support and friendship, but at the same time, adopting antagonistic attitudes and seeking to interfere in domestic security issues,” Adel Al Mouawad, a member of the Bahrain parliament’s Defense Committee said. “Our countries urgently need to work together to address increasingly ominous menaces to destabilize them.”

Officials said Iran stationed an IRGC colonel in Kuwait to oversee surveillance operations in the GCC state, which contains at least 15,000 U.S. troops. They said the IRGC officer relayed an $8,000 bribe to a senior Kuwaiti security official to ensure that the Iranian could remain in the country.

“We have no reason to doubt that such networks will be used to destabilize the country as part of the Iranian plan to burn the Gulf in case of war,” Nasser Al Duweila, chairman of the Kuwaiti parliament’s Legislative Committee, said. “The GCC should have a strong and unified stance to clarify their position regarding a looming war in the region and convey it clearly to Teheran.”

The United Arab Emirates has acknowledged an Iranian intelligence network. Officials said the UAE was monitoring its huge Iranian community in Dubai.

“My advice to them is to keep their agents sleepy because it is not in the interests of Iranians in the region to destabilize their host countries,” UAE Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, commander of Dubai police, said.

 

Turns out our Milky Way galaxy is not as puny, in cosmic terms, as believed but 15% larger than estimated. Previously scientist though the nearest galaxy- Andromeda- dwarfed our home galaxy. Turns out they are twins.  Just in case you were worried.

 

A report ordered by the U.S. Congress warns that the nuclear arsenals of Iran and North Korea could lead to “a cascade of proliferation.” The report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States asserted that this would facilitate efforts by Al Qaida and other insurgency groups to acquire an atomic bomb.

“It appears that we are at a ‘tipping point’ in proliferation,” the report, released on Dec. 15, said. “If Iran and North Korea proceed unchecked to build nuclear arsenals, there is a serious possibility of a cascade of proliferation following. And as each new nuclear power is added the probability of a terror group getting a nuclear bomb increases.”

The interim report was drafted by a panel that included former U.S. defense secretaries William Perry and James Schlesinger. The commission, which planned a final report by April 2009, said Iran’s nuclear program could lead to the proliferation of technology and fissile material required by an insurgency group.

“Even if a terror group is not able to acquire a weapon from a nuclear state, it could build a crude nuclear device if it were able to acquire the necessary fissile material,” the report said. “The International Atomic Energy Agency, the flaccid U. N. agency, has proposed strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards to provide far better protection of fissile material, but to date is not getting the needed support for its proposals.”

The bipartisan commission urged the United States to draft a global nonproliferation strategy to prevent the acquisition of nuclear material by insurgency groups. The panel, whose report was submitted to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, called on Washington to bolster support to IAEA and NPT.

“It is not clear that actions we take on our nuclear program affect the nuclear calculus of North Korea or Iran, or necessarily others, but they do affect the actions of nations whose cooperation we need to deal with North Korea and Iran, as well as other proliferation problems,” the report said.

“In short, if the U.S. by its actions indicates to other nations that we are moving seriously to decrease the importance and role of nuclear weapons, we increase our chance of getting the kind of cooperation we need to deal effectively with the dangers of proliferation.”

At this point, the commission said, the United States would require a nuclear weapons stockpile for deterrence as well as to assuage allies. The reference appeared to be Israel and Gulf Cooperation Council states, concerned over Iran’s race toward nuclear weapons capability.

“The U.S. deterrent must be both visible and credible, not only to our possible adversaries, but to our allies as well,” the report said. “Unless the Iranian program is halted short of a weapons capability and the North Korean program reversed and its arsenal dismantled, there is likely to be a proliferation cascade that would greatly increase the risks of nuclear use and terrorism.”

The commission did not recommend the development of U.S. missile defense. The report said a missile defense system was only as effective as its perception by Washington’s adversaries “Missile defenses appropriate to defend against a rogue nuclear nation could serve a damage-limiting and stabilizing role in the U.S. strategic posture, assuming such defenses are perceived as being effective enough to at least sow doubts in the minds of potential attackers that such an attack would succeed,” the report said.

Critics of the report point to what they say is a stance of appeasement symbolized the a concluding statement as follows: “On the other hand, levels of defenses sizable enough to sow such doubts in the minds of Russia or China could lead them to take actions that increase the threat to the U.S. and its allies and friends.” . It is likely this report will be used by president-elect Obama to justify stopping the missile defense system leaving the Polish and Czechs hanging and opening a wider door for China and Russia to advance through.

 

Pakistan’s information minister says an investigation has revealed that the lone surviving Mumbai gunman is a Pakistani citizen, as India has alleged. The admissions seen as likely to reduce tensions between it and India.

 

Russia’s is officially rearming under a program approved in 2006 for a period until 2015, it provides for supplying modern weapons to its armed forces. One of them is the Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber, which will replace the Su-24 Fencers.

The new fighter-bomber is said to be very good. An improvement on the Su-27 Flanker, it has cutting-edge equipment, including a modern crew and equipment protection system. The Su-34 is effective against personnel and military hardware on the battlefield and also against targets behind enemy lines. It can also be used for surveillance missions and against naval targets.

The Su-34 will replace the Su-24M aircraft (about 400 planes), the Su-24MR surveillance aircraft (over 100 planes), and the MiG-25RB aircraft (about 70). Russia will produce between 550 and 600 Su-34s to replace these obsolete aircraft within 10-15 years.

However, the Defense Ministry plans to buy only about 58 such planes by 2015, and a total of 300 by 2022.

Many experts say that if the Su-24 and MiG-25RB aircraft are scrapped by 2020, Russia will be left without fighter-bombers and surveillance aircraft. Others argue that this number will be enough for the Air Force’s new concept.

The concept is focused not so much on the combat characteristics of the Su-34, as on its long range, the ability to refuel in the air (including by other Su-34 aircraft with additional fuel tanks under their wings), and its comfortable cabin allowing the crew to make long-distance flights without becoming overtired.

Units armed with such aircraft can be used in the so-called pendulum operations, when an Air Force unit bombs a terrorist base in Central Asia today, delivers a strike at a missile base in Europe the next day, and three days later flies to the Indian Ocean to support a combined group of the Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets, with flights from a base in Russia.

The Su-34 aircraft has long-range precision weapons, can fly hugging the earth, and has a high level of protection, which should cut losses during lightning operations, while the use of a relatively small number of such aircraft allows training crews to perfection.

This is not a new concept. Elite units of top-class aircraft manned by superbly trained crews formed the core of the German air force during World War II, and Japan’s Imperial Navy had a similar concept.

However, such elite units can be quickly weeded out by swarms of ordinary aircraft in a global war of attrition, such as World War II. From this viewpoint, Russia’s new concept looks vulnerable, but then this country has the nuclear triad for a global war.

In a war of attrition, it will not matter how many such smart aircraft Russia will have - 200, 600 or 1,500. What will really matter is the yield of a nuclear bomb they will be able to drop on the enemy.

But in the event of a small war involving one or two adversaries, or a chain of local conflicts, the existence of such high-speed, highly protected and well-armed aircraft can be the decisive factor. Even 58 Su-34 fighter-bombers, used at the right time in the right place, would be a powerful force. A group of 200-300 such aircraft, divided into several units for use in key areas of the battlefield, will be able to fulfill the most complicated tasks.

Apart from the Su-34, the Russian Air Force will also receive other new planes, whose technical characteristics will maintain the force’s combat potential at the requisite level. New units, set up for the fulfillment of specific tasks, will consist of fighters, bombers, early warning and command planes, flying tankers, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

These will be highly mobile units, which means that its aircraft can be quickly dispatched to the area in question. In fact, Russia’s new concept is not unlike the United States’ Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF), a flexible and powerful instrument of air warfare capable of quickly delivering strikes in any part of the world.

As for surveillance aircraft, industrialized countries intend to replace them with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The world is changing, and the new world will wage new kind of wars.

Edited from an January 5, 2009 article by Ilya Kramnik, Russian Information Agency Novosti

The country that gave the world chewing gum is getting gummed up: The average square yard (meter) of Mexico City sidewalk has 70 blobs of discarded chewing gum. Now Mexico is responding with innovations ranging from expensive sidewalk steam-cleaners to natural chewing gum that breaks down quickly. It’s even telling its citizens (gulp!) to swallow their

As president-elect Obama irons the wrinkles out of his stimulus package a majority of voters (54%) believe a major government economic recovery plan is necessary to restore the U.S. economy to good health. A third (33%) says the economy can recover on its own, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

But 55% of voters also say that any economic recovery plan approved by Congress could include tax cuts. Only 21% disagree, with 24% undecided.

Voters’ unwavering support for tax cuts shows why President-elect Obama’s felt it essential this week to announce that they were definitely a key part of the economic recovery plan now being put together. The announcement also was intended to counter criticism that Democrats were taking an “open checkbook” approach to the recovery plan which could range in size from $800 billion to $1.2 trillion.

Support for a mega-infrastructure plan is down from 60% in early December.

The plan being fashioned by Democrats reportedly aims to create three million new jobs, including 600,000 new government positions. But 48% of voters say more government jobs are bad for the economy amid concerns those will become permanent drags and produce little more than debt. Thirty-seven percent (37%) think the government jobs will be good for the economy, and six percent (6%) say they will have no impact. Nine percent (9%) are not sure.

Higher income voters tend to be more confident than those who earn less that the economy can recover on its own. Fifty-one percent (51%) of investors say a major government economic recovery plan is needed, compared to 61% of non-investors.

Democrats are clearly much more enthusiastic about a big government plan than Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party.

While 77% of Democrats say a major government recovery plan is needed to restore the economy, just 34% of Republicans and 46% of unaffiliated voters agree. Fifty-four percent (54%) of GOP voters and 37% of unaffiliated say the economy can recover on its own, a view shared by just 12% of Democrats.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliated voters say the plan should include major tax cuts, compared to 47% of Democrats.

Democrats are far more enthusiastic about the infrastructure spending, with 58% in favor of it, compared to 51% of unaffiliated voters and only 32% of Republicans. Nearly half of Republicans (49%) oppose that spending, along with 33% of unaffiliated voters and just 25% of Democrats.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats also believe more government jobs are good for the economy, although only 34% of unaffiliated and 15% of GOP voters agree. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Republicans and 50% of unaffiliated voters say the additional government jobs are bad for the economy, as do just 28% of Democrats.

Interestingly, government workers themselves are more ambivalent about the benefits of additional jobs. While 46% say more government jobs are good for the economy, 37% disagree. Four percent (4%) say they would have no impact, and 13% are not sure.

Because of the bad U.S. economy, many Broadway producers have started taking their musicals to China. In a related story, the entire cast of “Cats” has been eaten. – Conan O’Brian

Agence France Presse reports Assistant FBI Director Shawn Henry of the FBI’s cyber division, told a conference in New York that computer attacks pose the biggest risk “from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities.”

“Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive weapon, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence, the threat to our computer network is the most critical threat we face,” he added.

US experts talk of “cybergeddon,” in which an advanced economy — where almost everything of importance is linked to or even controlled by computers — is sabotaged by hackers. China, and likely others are believed to have official programs underway to fin and exploit cyber technologies.

Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety in New York state, described “a huge threat out there” against everything from banking institutions to municipal water systems and dams.

The FBI’s Henry said that terrorist groups are working to create a virtual 9/11, “inflicting the same kind of damage on our country, on all our countries, on all our networks, as they did in 2001 by flying planes into buildings.”

Computer hacking — once something of a sport for brilliant delinquents — is rapidly evolving around the world as a tool of war.

Russian hackers allegedly mounted huge assaults on Internet networks in Estonia and Georgia last year, while Palestinian sympathizers have orchestrated attacks against hundreds of Israeli websites in the last few days.

Following years of fighting online criminal groups, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other countries’ security services know hackers as the most elusive and innovative of foes.

Codling, like other cyber crime fighters, expressed grudging admiration for the skills of his adversaries, who he said are highly motivated and often a step ahead.

“What the Internet has allowed you to do is make all the human fragilities like greed, avarice and all those lovely things much more efficient,” he said.

“We’re seeing that the folks on the cutting edge of this tend to be the bad guys. There’s a financial reason for them to be good at this.”

Christopher Painter, an FBI specialist focused on building international cooperation, described another basic weakness in the fight for cyber security: the threat is largely invisible and therefore not always taken seriously.

“It’s not like a fire,” he said. “It’s hard to get your head around the threat. We often discover a company has been attacked and we tell them that and they don’t know.”

 notoriously unreliable man told me Sunday that Israeli civilians had been firing rockets into Gaza trying to provoke a counter attack as an excuse for the current air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza. His source, he said was “news clips” but he lacked any evidence. His analysis included a prediction of increased attacks on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an example of mis and disinformation.

 

His ideas are even more extreme than the news being reported by foreign media (CNN, Fox, Sky etc) that omits much of what is really happening.  

 
Israeli news has reported the following which you probably won’t be privy including::  

 

·        After several months of planning, and careful intelligense gathering Israel had 40 initial targets of Hamas.  Among those was a ceremony for the first “graduating  class” from a sophisticated Hamas terrorist training school. About 100 terrorist were killed there.

·        Egypt tightened security at their border with Gaza to prevent the  Palestinians from flowing across to Egypt .  Egypt has agreed to  accept some of the injured into their hospitals.  

·        Israel allowed 40  truck loads of humanitarian aide into Gaza just a couple of days ago, even  though on Wednesday 80 rockets were sent into Israel from Gaza  .  

·        All Israeli Embassies around the world are on high alert, as  is several areas in Israel including the North were we  live.

·        Thursday night 8 loaded  and timer-set rocket launchers were discovered 5km from Israel’s Northern  border with Lebanon.  These rockets were intended to hit Nahariya and  Maalot.  These were disarmed.  Lebananese sappers  found another 13.  

·        Israeli intelligence reports  that somewhere between 800-1,000 tunnels are being used to smuggle arms  and terrorists into Gaza . Israel had continued to  restrain from attacking thjose for many years while continually living  under attacks from Gaza .

·        Regardless of what you may  hear, Israel sent humanitarian trucks and money into Gaza during these  difficult years.  We have tried talks and truces which were never  fully honored by the  Palestinians.

 It is being reported on  foreign media that many of the dead were school children on their way home  from school. at 11 AM? Exactly why they were attending school on Saturday and had been dismissed at 11AM has not been explained.

 

I am grateful to Dr. Joel Strom for forwarding this first hand report to me.

Seriatim (seer-i-AY-tim) adverb: One after another; in a series. ETYMOLOGY: From Latin seriatim, from Latin series, from serere (to join). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ser- (to line up) that is also the source of words such as insert, assert, desert (to abandon), desert (a dry sandy region), sort, consort, and sorcerer.

mericans, while far more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians, are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip. Forty-four percent (44%) say Israel should have taken military action against the Palestinians, but 41% say it should have tried to find a diplomatic solution to the problems there, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

 

Fifty-five percent (55%) of adults, however, believe the Palestinians are to blame for the current situation in Gaza, while 13% point the finger at the Israelis. Nearly one-third (32%) aren’t sure.

 

Men are far more sympathetic to the Israelis than women. Fifty-six percent (56%) of men support Israel’s military action, compared to 34% of women. Whites narrowly give the edge to military action, but African-Americans by three-to-one say diplomacy was the better way to go.

 

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those who say they are following news out of Gaza Very Closely support Israel’s military action, while 30% favor diplomacy.

While the Bush administration is viewed as a solid ally of Israel, the new findings signal a possible shift in Washington’s support for Tel Aviv under President Obama.

 

Just after the election, 47% of voters said Obama will do a good or excellent job handling national security issues. Thirty-four percent (34%) expected him to handle those issues poorly.

 

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans back Israel’s decision to take military action against the Palestinians, but only half as many Democrats (31%) agree. A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

 

While 75% of Republicans say Israel is an ally of the United States, just 55% of Democrats agree. Seven percent (7%) of Democrats say Israel is an enemy of America, but only one percent (1%) of Republicans say the same. For 21% of Republicans, Israel is somewhere in between, and 28% of Democrats agree.

 

Just over half of adults (51%) fear Israel’s actions will cause more terrorism against the United States, with 17% saying that is Very Likely to be the case. Nine percent (9%) believe that future terrorist attacks on America are not at all likely because of Israel’s attacks on Gaza this week.

 

Those who say they have followed the news out of the Gaza Strip Very Closely are slightly more concerned about increased terrorism at home, with 20% saying it is Very Likely as a result of Israel’s actions.

Nearly three-out-of-five voters (59%) say a terrorist attack in the United States like the one Thanksgiving week in India is at least somewhat likely in the next year. Most voters expect terrorists or Iran to provide Obama with his first international test.

 

Sixty-two percent (62%) of men say the Palestinians are to blame versus 48% of women. But women by five points also are less likely to blame the Israelis and are undecided on the question by nearly two-to-one.

 

While 57% of whites blame the Palestinians, 53% of blacks are not sure who is at fault.

 

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republicans blame the Palestinians, as opposed to 47% of Democrats.

 

Sixty-six percent (66%) of adults say it is likely that the latest violence in the Gaza Strip will escalate into a more widespread war between Israel and the Arabs in the Middle East, including 30% who say it is Very Likely. Only three percent (3%) say it is not at all likely to have that effect.

 

For 63% of adults overall, Israel is as an ally of the United States. Only three percent (3%) characterize it as an enemy, with 27% placing it somewhere in between. Seven percent (7%) are undecided.

 

Seventy-two percent (72%) of men describe Israel as a U.S. ally versus 54% of women.

 

In a survey nearly two years ago, 67% described Israel as an ally of the United States.

 

Thirty-five percent (35%) of Americans say they are following news stories about Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip Very Closely, with another 41% saying they are following somewhat closely. Only four percent (4%) say they are not following the news at all.

Call it creative drug-dealing Athens, Alabama police have a 38-year-old man in custody for allegedly accepting gift cards for payment for crack cocaine and prescription drugs. When police searches the man’s house they seized crack cocaine, Xanax pills, $899 cash and $175 in gift cards he’d accepted as payment for drugs.

he Boy Scouts of America was founded by a Chicago area publisher William Boyce who while lost in a dense London fog was rescued by an unknown boy in a Khaki uniform who offered to take him to his destination. Boyce was impressed by the lad’s self-confidence, selflessness and helpfulness-When Boyce offered the boy a coin – he refused – says “No, Sir, ‘the boy said, “it’s my duty, I’m a Boy Scout.” Boyce decided America’s young men could benefit from such virtues of: honor, duty, God and country bringing the idea to America in 1910.

 

One hundred years later Scouting is half it’s 1972 size zenith and facing a survival crisis on the eve of its 100^th year. It will not simply disappear but has suffered from various scandals and its decision to exclude homosexuals and atheist from its leadership ranks.

  

Scouting in 2009 will launch a nationwide campaign to inform Latino families of its virtues focusing on cities from Fresno, California to Orlando, Florida and resurrect declining membership and presence. The Boy Scouts of America remains the nation’s largest youth organization, and has been adopted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) as its youth movement.

  

At its zenith Scouting had formed a solid bond with churches nationwide. But, as organized religion in America flagged and what some feel to be its quaint ideals self-styled secularist and progressives denigrate its core ideals as out-of-step and out-of-touch.

  

Efforts to enlist black American youth and families have largely failed, and included numerous membership schemes and scams that gave it a black eye.

 

In 1974 Scouting launched its most ambitious effort ever – BOYPOWER 76 – a campaign to enroll one in three American boys available by age (then 11-18) by the 200^th anniversary of the nation. It did not reach its goal and an adherence to the then popular “management by objectives” ethos and success at attracting and disappointing corporate sponsors proved crippling.

  

Now Scouting is restructuring cutting local Boy Scouts Councils, combining regional organizations, and betting its future, and maybe very existence on Latino and immigrant families.

  

Scouting is replacing the outdoor experience with soccer and baseball. The issue is whether it can preserve its ideals of building boys into adult men of character

 

Clearly there is opportunity as national crime reports show a 40% increase in the murder rate among black youth since 2000 according to a report by Northeastern University just last week.

  

Church “sponsorship” of Scout troops little more than opening a meeting room has plummeted as churches themselves struggle with things like sexual abuse and declining congregations.

  

Ironically the current economic downturn that imperils many families could prove a boon to Scouting as it did in the 1930s when Scouting flourished as affordable and desirable.

 

Perhaps Scouting’s devotion to self-reliance, morality and duty, honor, God and country will one day be viewed as the litmus test that this nation subscribes or rejects – in favor of what?

The first photos of the son born to Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol have reportedly been sold to People magazine for around $300,000.

halesRaytheonSystems is upgrading its “Firefinder” AN/TPQ-37 is the world’s premier long-range weapon locating radar, deployed worldwide by the U.S. Army and 11 international customers. It locates the position of hostile artillery, rockets and mortars so friendly forces can quickly and accurately return fire.

 

The gadget is designed to protect Marine and Army units at the brigade level towed by a Humvee and can track incoming round/rocket from a range of about 15 miles. The system a detects a projectile during its initial upward/launch trajectory (i.e., the linear portion of its flight path) prior to reaching apogee and before it starts its descent..

 

A computer program analyzes the track data and then extrapolates the round’s point of origin. This calculated point of origin is then reported to the operator with map coordinates, thus allowing friendly artillery to direct counterbattery fire towards the enemy artillery.

 

The upgrade will extent the systems battlefield life; improve reliability, and save the military billions of dollars long tem.

 

Observers say if you opene fire on a Firefinder equipped unit you better be runninf like hell as soon as you shoot. Pinpoint counterfire can be on the way within seconds. Firefinder is a deterent because as soon as the enemy know it is deployed they carefully reconsider their attack tactics.

 

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D) Nevada plans to seat unfunny man Al Franken in the U. S. Senate even if Minnesota has not yet certified who won the November election.

ntense White House pressures starting in the 1990s to increase home ownership included threats of sanctions and punishment of banks and mortgage lenders if they did not lend to less and less qualified buyers. That continued and increased into this decade with predictable results.

A new report from the U.S. Treasury shows that delinquencies and foreclosures of home mortgages continue to climb, but, most alarmingly, even modified loans are increasingly delinquent.

Mortgage modifications grew more quickly than other loss-mitigation strategies, as financial institutions worked with borrowers to keep them in their homes while minimizing financial losses.

The number of new loan modifications increased 16 percent in the third quarter to more than 133,000, according to the Treasury.

“One very troubling point is that, whether measured using 30-day or 60-day delinquencies, re-default rates increased each month and showed no signs of leveling off after six months and even eight months,” said Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan.

“This trend of increasing delinquencies underscores the need to understand why these modifications have not been more sustainable.”

The ratio of loans modified in the first quarter that were delinquent a month or longer was 37 percent after three months and 55 percent after six months. The ratio of loans modified in the first quarter that were 60 or more days delinquent was 19 percent at three months and nearly 37 percent after six months.

The federal report provides loan-by-loan data in a standardized format for 35 million first-lien mortgages — worth more than $6.1 trillion — held or serviced by national banks and thrifts.

The generally gloomy economic news is dramatically raising the stakes for President-elect Barack Obama, and for the future of capitalism.

“Whatever Obama may have thought when he began this journey, at a time when the war in Iraq was foremost in many voters’ minds, whatever his campaign promises, his presidency will be judged on how he handles the economic crisis that now envelops the United States and the world,” writes Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International.

“For Obama to be remembered as a great president, he has to do nothing less than rescue capitalism,” Zakaria thinks. That means that a new White House  will somehow have to close the loop on an economic disaster started by a prior liberal White House – cute trick.

A Carlisle, Pennsylvania judge has sentenced a 53-year old retired Army colonel to a 23-month prison term for arranging for a classmate at the Army War College to take a paternity test in his place. He was trying to avoid paying child support for his 10-yearold daughter. His co-conspirator was not charged.

udge me by the content of my character not the color of my skin except when it’s to my advantage to do otherwise. . 

The popular slogan has to be modified because of the bizarre appointment of Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U. S. Senate. Roland Burris, 71, who has had a long career in the muck and murk of Illinois and Chicago politics Is again propelled into the front row of its already full Hall of Political  Infamy by accepted a nomination of one of its newest nincompoops – Governor Rod Blagojevich. 

 

But, for Burris and others to insist his appointment is justified, at least in part, because there are now no other blacks in the U. S. Senate. In fact Burris would be replacing its only black member to move into 1600 Pennsylvanioa Avenue.

 

To his credit Mr. Burris is the first black to have been elected to office on a statewide basis in Illinois. He has also run and lost five other offices and that even adds to his resume in my opinion.

 

As far as his contributing $1,000 and $1,500 to Governor Blagojevich that’s chump change. And anybody who thinks that buys you anything but a cancelled check is a fool or simply trying to make something of nothing. Burris is a tougn old bird, and if that’s the best his opponents can dredge up he’s a saint in one of the most fetid political garbage bins in America’s rotten political history.

 

Inviting Congressman Bobby Rush, a black Illinois Democrat to speak at Blagojevich’s Tuesday news conference, to urge Senate leaders not to block Burris was patently an effort to force Burris’ confirmation because he is black. Rush, 62, told reporters that Senate Democrats should not “hang and lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer.”

In an interview Wednesday, Burris didn’t back away from Rush’s assertion. “It is a fact, there are no African-Americans in the United States Senate,” he said on NBC’s “Today.” “Is it racism that is taking place? That’s a question that someone may raise.”

For Burris and Rush to figuratively dress 99 U. S. Senators in Ku Klux Klan robes is, with the exception of Robert Bird (D) WVa – who was a KKK member, doesn’t seem like the best way to win friends and influence that bunch of towering egotist.

Governor Blagojevich is continuing the well established tradition of Illinois – Chicago political hog wallowing. For his part Burris obviously wants to be a U. S. Senator in the worst way and he just may do it – in the worst way.

An 89-year-old Cincinnati-area woman arrested for petty theft for confiscating a neighbor kid’s football after it repeatedly landed in her yard is now suing the boy’s parents. The prosecutor later dropped the case. The lawsuit against parents seeks unspecified monetary damages. More stupidity in an age heaped with it.

he unguided Grad-model Katyusha rockets that were fired into Beersheba on Wednesday were manufactured in China and smuggled into Gaza after the Sinai border wall was blown up by Hamas in January, Israeli defense officials said. The Chinese rockets have a range of 40 kilometers (about 25 miles). They are very similar to the 122 mm (almost 5 inches) Soviet-made Katyusha that was used extensively by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War and are slightly more sophisticated than an Iranian-made Grad-model Katyusha that is also in Hamas’ arsenal.

The four rockets that hit Beersheba this week had warheads filled with metal balls that can scatter up to 100 meters from the impact site, officials said. These rockets have also been fired into other cities. Over 350 rockets have been fired into Israel since hostilities broke out a week ago and during the days leading up to the fighting.

The three countries that manufacture Grad-model Katyushas are China, Russia and Bulgaria.

Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post the rockets were smuggled into Gaza in the 12 days after Hamas blew a hole in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt on January 23.

“Huge quantities of weaponry were smuggled into Gaza then from above ground, including the Grad rockets,” an official said, adding that even after the border wall was sealed, Hamas continued to smuggle the long-range rockets into Gaza via tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.

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From China, the rockets make several stops before reaching Gaza. In many cases, officials said, they are bought by Iran or Hizbullah and then transferred to Sinai.

In some instances, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has learned of weapons that came from Yemen and Eritrea, were moved to Sudan, then north to Egypt, and finally smuggled into Gaza.

“This is a complicated smuggling system that involves many different people around the world,” one official said.

The Grad-model Katyushas, officials said, were packed with large quantities of ammonia and less-than-maximum explosives to increase their durability and lethality.

Last Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that Cairo was not responsible for Hamas’ military buildup and that the long-range rockets in the group’s arsenal were not smuggled through the tunnels from Sinai.

Defense officials said Wednesday that Aboul Gheit was partially correct, in that some of the rockets did not come into Gaza through tunnels, but that they did enter the Strip from Sinai.which is Egyptian controlled.

Egypt is complaining that Hamas leaders are abandoning Palestinians to their own devices as they hide in shelters. Egypt is concerned about a flood of refugees from Gaza as food and even water become scarcer. Israel is sending convoys of relief supplies into Gaza, and a Red Crescent (Islamic Red Cross) ship is enroute to Gaza from Iran.

As the rockets continue to shower down into Israel its warplanes are pounding Hamas targets in Gaza.

Pro Hamas and anti-Israel demonstrations have occurred in scattered locales around the USA and elsewhere. Spotty anti-Semitic acts have also occurred. Hate signs were found at an Orange County synagogue and swastika etched at a Jewish Pre-school in Ventura County among others incidents..

Shilly-shally (SHIL-ee-shal-ee) adverb: Hesitantly; irresolutely. adjective: Hesitant; vacillating. noun: Hesitation; vacillation. verb intr.: To vacillate; to dawdle. ETYMOLOGY:From reduplication of the question Shall I?

s fuel efficiency rises Oregon is among a growing number of states trying to find ways to tax drivers based on the number of miles you drive instead of how much gas you use, even going so far as to install GPS monitoring devices in 300 vehicles. The idea first emerged nearly 10 years ago as Oregon lawmakers worried that fuel-efficient cars such as gas-electric hybrids could pose a threat to road upkeep, which is paid for largely with gasoline taxes.

The proposal is not without critics, including drivers who are concerned about privacy and others who fear the tax could eliminate the financial incentive for buying efficient vehicles. But Oregon is ahead of the nation in exploring the concept, even though it will probably be years before any mileage tax is adopted.

Congress is talking about it, too. A congressional commission has envisioned a system similar to the prototype Oregon tested in 2006-2007. The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing is considering calling for higher gas taxes to keep highways, bridges and transit programs in good shape.

But over the long term, commission members say, the nation should consider taxing mileage rather than gasoline as drivers use more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles. Commercial vehicles already face a version of this sort of use taxes – you often see plaquards on commercial vehicles whining about how much they pay.

As cars burn less fuel, “the gas tax isn’t going to fill the bill,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The next Congress “could begin to set the stage, perhaps looking at some much more robust pilot programs, to begin the research, to work with manufacturers.”

Let’s get this straight Americans are buying more fuel efficient vehicles so Congress and an assortment of nincompoops in various state capitols want to punish them for doing so. So forget your scooter that get 80 MPG or even your bicycle these nitwits want to tax you for it. Next if you walk your ankle pedometer will report your steps and some nitwit will send you a bill.  Cute.

A 23-year oild New York state woman flunked her driving exam when she lost control of her car pinning a bystander against his care as he watched her careening exam unfold. The 33-year bystander was admitted to a nearby hospital will shoulder and leg pain. He wants to be notified when the woman takes a retest so he can get out of her way.

t this time of year there is no dirth of opinions and predictions. Among the more erudite is World Tribune writer and  U.N. correspondent for diplomatic and defense issues John J. Metzler whose perspectives are particularly worthwhile..

I have edited for brevity and summarized his view below:

 

He says “Given the financial meltdown and the global economic doldrums, optimism remains in predictably short supply. So let’s face the facts and let realism be our guide in viewing some key issues” including:

 

Global Economy: The Autumn 2008 Financial meltdown has done irreparable damage to the USA and the world in general. The individual Wall Street crooks who in many cases created this crisis should be unceremoniously indicted, prosecuted, and punished if guilty. The economy has drifted into rocky shoals not seen since the late 1970’s. This was not a failure of free market capitalism as is so glibly stated, but the long-looming outcome of casino capitalism, fueled by play money, and marinated in a cozy relationship of gazillionaries with politicians.

Now we are stuck with the results—and the bill. The new Democrat answer will be a repackaged “New Deal” which will probably, as in FDR’s case in the 1930’s, make matters worse. Massive profligate big government spending is certain to stoke inflationary embers and deepen the public debt. The good news is that petroleum prices have significantly fallen over last summer’s highs. Equally the American unemployment numbers are far below Europe’s.

East Asia: The story is China and China. The tough hurdles ahead are economic. Slowdown in the West (read where Chinese exports flood) means factory closings and massive unemployment on the Mainland.

There’s no great social net to help workers either, so there’s a large mass of unemployed and rootless labor shifting around China. Citizens who were duly impressed, and politically bought-off by the People’s Republic’s economic (or at least statistical) achievements, may now look to the political sorcerers. China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) will have to confront this dilemma and find scapegoats.

Which brings us to the other China; shall Beijing use the economic downturn to stoke nationalism and bully tactics? The Republic of China on Taiwan is being maneuvered into a situation which threatens its freedom and sovereignty in not daring to displease the dragon.

South Asia: Afghanistan and Pakistan are fertile grounds for destabilization. The recent terror attacks in India, growing violence in Afghanistan, and tensions in divided Kashmir, fought over by both nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, remains a political tinderbox and cause for Islamic jihadis with regional implications.

Middle East: Iraq, now far better off after the U.S. military surge, has room to build and improve. Yet Hamas violent incitements in Gaza will keep the pot boiling with Israel. In Lebanon Hizbullah, via Iran’s hidden hand, is poised for serious mischief. The Islamic Republic of Iran will “celebrate” the 30th anniversary of the shroud of political gloom which the mullahs pulled over once proud Persia. They will revel in their nuclear gains, and spitefully show the West that they got away with it.

Vice Preisdent-elect Biden’s warning that its time to “get used” to a nuclear armed Iran is sad and fatally dangerous.

Russia: Despite the neo-imperial impulses by Vladimir Putin, the good news is that the petrodollars flowing into Kremlin coffers are dwindling and cutting Russia’s global clout. But watch Ukraine; it can certainly be bullied by the Bear over natural gas supplies, and moreover through political subversion from Russia. While Georgia’s Summer war was a tragic surprise, the chess piece on the board Putin covets remains Ukraine.

Latin America: Despite the danger of Hugo Chavez, the good news is oil prices are down which diminishes Venezuela’s role. Cuba celebrates the 50th anniversary of Castro’s takeover; ushering in 50 years of dictatorship. Despite this, major democratic gains have been consolidated throughout most of Latin America, including Columbia.

Humanitarian: The United Nations is simply overwhelmed with disasters ranging from famines, both natural and self-inflicted as in Zimbabwe, as well as civil wars which haunt the African continent. Sudan’s ongoing Darfur tragedy, the horrors of the Congo, and the lawlessness of Somalia are but a few cases.

American Administration: All eyes are on Washington. Domestic political optimism and global giddiness remains high on the verge of the Age of Obama. While many media pundits assume the new president can walk on water; possible for Canadian politicians in winter but decidedly more difficult on the Potomac in Washington, a brewing crisis of expectations will bedevil Barack Obama. Internecine battles inside his own Democrat dominated Congress and administration will hamper him as much as gathering political gales internationally.

The Congressional election in November 2010 will be a bellwether for Obama and his political executioners will be logged in by Christmas.

In the midst of all this, Happy New Year 2009!  

A former Fort Lauderdale city commissioner who helped create a program to combat bicycle theft stopped to help at a traffic accident, and had his own bike stolen. No good deed goes unpunished.

ith Friday’s death of 115 year-old Maria de Jesus in Portugual, researchers say the oldest person in the world is now a 114 year-old Los Angeles resident. The “Los Angeles Times” reports Gertrude Baines lives in the Western Convalescent Hospital, south of downtown L.A. Mrs. Baines was born to former slaves in Atlanta in 1894, when Grover Cleveland was president and the U.S. flag had 44 stars. She made news two months ago as the oldest African American to cast a ballot in the presidential election. Baines voted for Barack Obama.

A mixed-race British couple has repeatedly defied the odds -  by producing two sets of twins in which one is black and the other white