Conservatively Speaking

The National Tea Party in Santa Barbara-Ventura Counties Tea Party will be held in Santa Barbara.  Everyone wishing to attend will meet SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2009 at the SANTA BARBARA COUNTY COURTHOUSE at 2:30 P.M.

The San Mateo Community College District, on the San Francisco Peninsula, has itself in something of a pickle for releasing a mass email announcing a scholarship provided by another body for undocumented students., i.e., illegal aliens only.
   
Something called  CORE (Chicano Organizing & Research in Education) has announced first annual “Que Llueva Cafe scholarship for undocumented Chicano/Latino students ONLY. Such Chicano/Latino, high school students entering college this fall. The postmark deadline is April 10, 2009.

Its website at http://www.ca-core.org/services gives details and provides application form and lists the following eligibility criteria:

• 1. Must be of Chicano / Latino descent;
• 2. Must be an undocumented student;
• 3. Must be a graduating twelfth grade student who will enroll in an accredited college or university in the U.S. or Puerto Rico for the 2009-2010 academic year;
• 4. Must demonstrate academic promise whether by grade point average, college acceptance, personal or professional recommendations, or written essay, the candidate must demonstrate their academic potential, and
• 5. Must demonstrate financial need.

C. O. R. E. is headed by Miguel Cordova  who describes himself as : an education programs consultant for the California Department of Education (CDE). I have asked for a description of the sources of funds for the scholarship and will report the answer or lack thereof.

Gramineous (gruh-MIN-ee-uhs) adjective: Of or relating to grass. ETYMOLOGY:From Latin gramineus, from gramen (grass).

At last the International Space station looks like the artist conception. Including a pair of 115-foot-long solar wings to the International Space Station. You can see it with a backyard telescope or powerful binoculars.

 

The station’s solar arrays are the largest deployable space assemblies ever built and the most powerful electricity producing arrays in orbit. Each wing weighs 2,400 pounds, uses 32,800 individual solar cells, and adds about 4000 sq. feet of light-collecting surface area to the ISS.

The space station will have enough usable electricity to light up 42 houses once everything is switched on and working.

Once operating, the station’s power system will generate between 80 and 120 kilowatts of usable electric power.

Some of that electricity is needed to operate basic space station systems, but once that is figured in, the addition of the new arrays will nearly double the amount of power available to perform scientific experiments–from 15 kilowatts to 30 kilowatts. The extra power wills also double the number of full-time crew the station can support from three to six.

The new wings arrived onboard space shuttle Discovery, which left Earth on Sunday, March 15, in a beautiful twilight launch from Kennedy Space Center.

In addition to the solar arrays, Discovery is also bringing a 31,000-lb truss segment to complete the station’s massive backbone and a thermal radiator to shed heat from newly-powered electronics.

The arrays, truss segment, and a radiator were installed during a spacewalk on March 19; the arrays will be unfurled accordian-style on mission Day 8 March 22.

The timing of these events favors sky watchers in the USA and Canada. The ISS (with Discovery docked) is due to fly over many North America towns and cities after sunset in mid- to late-March. Shining brighter than any star, the ISS-Discovery combo takes a leisurely 5 minutes to glide across the sky–plenty of time to point a telescope, take a picture, or just soak up some of the station’s growing luminosity.  

The California Gold Rush attracted fortune seekers from around the world most notably Australians. The Gold fields were the Wild West where justice was often harshly dispensed without due process against these “claim jumpers.” Those courts became known as Kangaroo Courts and the name stuck.

North Korea’s goose-stepping 1.2 million-man army is poorly equipped and trained but still dangerous if only for its kinetics.  

 ”Pyongyang does not view its nuclear weapons ambitions, a large active duty force of about 1.2 million, and improved relations with the United States, as mutually exclusive,” the U. S. Defense Intelligense Agebcy thinks. ” Rather they are the means Pyongyang uses to realize its goals.”

North Korean forces are large and forward positioned but lack training and equipment and are “not well-suited to sustain major military operations against the South.”

“We believe as a result of its comparative limitations, North Korea is emphasizing improvements in its [nuclear] deterrent capability and its ability to defend against technologically superior forces,” Maples said.

“The long-range artillery the North has positioned near the DMZ is complemented by a substantial mobile ballistic missile force with an array of warhead options to include weapons of mass destruction that can range U.S. forces and our allies in the Republic of Korea and Japan.”

Development of the Taepodong-2 is continuing and the missile could be used as a space launch as well as an ICBM to strike Alaska and the U. S. west coast.

North Korea announced that it plans a space launch in April to carry a communications satellite dubbed Kwangmyongsong-2. Pyongyang is also developing intermediate-range missiles.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il suffered a stroke in August 2008 but appears to have recovered, DIA’s Maples said.

Maples said if Kim dies, a leadership succession could be “problematic” as key individuals and factions compete for control.

Obama is expected to continue working through the stalled six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, according to a congressional report.

Obama’s White House is conducting a review of the North Korea policy and “it is expected that the Obama administration will continue the Six Party format, under which bilateral discussions are also possible.”

The Bush administration launched the talks in 2003 after the North Koreans admitted having a covert uranium enrichment program. The strategy was to bring in the five states - United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea - to the talks rather than hold bilateral negotiations.

However, under the Bush administration a stream of concessions were made to the North Koreans in exchange for promises by the communist regime in Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arms.

So far, North Korea has refused to do so, yet the United States removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The CRS report quoted Defense Secretary Robert Gates as saying that “our goal remains denuclearization, but it is still to be seen whether North Korea is willing to give up its nuclear ambitions entirely.”

In recent weeks, North Korea has toughened its posture by breaking agreements with South Korea and announcing that it will never disarm unilaterally.

On October 8, 2008 North Korea detonated a nuclear device yielding what sonfidential sources described as a disappointing one kiloton. That is miniscule in nuclear bomb terms and likely was the result of a squib or failed fission bomb wherein it failed to reach “high order.” It was also certainly an A-bomb or fission dvice using highly enriched uranium 235. At the time North Korea boosted it had indigenously made a 100% North Korea researched and build device.

Other than the sexual context “to be screwed” is to be cheated or harmed and is a phrase widely used today. But it had a different meaning in 19^th century British prisons. There and then prisons were places for hard labor and cruelty to discourage convicts from returning. One labor was turning a crank up to 10,000 times a day. Tension, and therefore efforts, could be increased by a warder turning a simple screw. Therefore a convict could be screwed and thence today’s phrase and meaning.

The U.S. intelligence community is disputing an assessment by its Israeli counterpart and the Pentagon regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons progress..

Its assessment plays down warnings by U.S. military chiefs, saying  Iran has failed to produce highly-enriched uranium, required for nuclear weapons. Two leading U.S. intelligence officials said Iran was not known to have begun refining low-enriched uranium into fuel that could be installed into a missile warhead.

“The Israelis are far more concerned about it and they take a worst-case approach to this issue,” National Intelligence director Dennis Blair said. “The facts are the same. The interpretation of what they mean [is where there is a dispute].”

Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10, U.S. intelligence chiefs dismissed Israel’s assertion that Teheran was capable of producing nuclear weapons.

“Arrival at military nuclear capability is a matter of strategy,” Israel believs, “Iran is accumulating hundreds of kilograms of enriched uranium at a low level and hopes to utilize the dialogue with the West to gain time, required to achieve the capability to manufacture a nuclear bomb.”

But Blair said Iran has been producing only low-enriched uranium suitable to fuel a nuclear reactor rather than produce weapons. He reiterated a widely discredited U.S. intelligence assessmentseen as purely political  that Teheran ended its nuclear weaponization program in 2003 - it did and then almost immediately restarted it.  

“With Iran developing a nuclear weapon capability and Israel determined not to allow it, there is potential for an Iran-Israeli confrontation or crisis on that issue as well,” Blair said.

The U.S. intelligence community and military dispute Iran’s nuclear weapons progress. On March 1, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Teheran has accumulated enough fissile material to produce a nuclear bomb.

Within hours, senior officials in the Obama administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, disagreed with Mullen. Later, the admiral issued a clarification.

“There are differences among the [U.S.] intelligence communities,” Blair said. “Our current estimate is that the minimum time at which Iran could technically produce the amount of highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon is 2010.”

Still, Defense Intelligence Agency director Michael Maples said the 16-member intelligence community has been in agreement on Iran’s current inability to produce nuclear weapons. Maples agreed with Blair that Israel and the United States differ widely in interpreting the data on Iran’s nuclear program. Israel stands byt its estimate and sources arguing Iran is buying time, and if it buys enough and detonates a nuke it will be too late.

Maples minced words to stay in line with Obama’s waffling position saying “We’re [U.S. intelligence community] in fundamental agreement on the assessments. Between the agencies there may be some difference in the level of confidence.”

Clorox is offering a $5,000 reward and a year’s supply of toilet cleaning products for tips leading to the arrest of San Francisco’s notorious portable potty pyromaniac. The Oakland-based chemical company deployed a “potty patrol” team in the city Friday to make residents aware of its offer marrying marketing and community service. Since November, more than two dozen construction site toilets have been set on fire in the city, causing an estimated $50,000 in property damage and leaving a trail of foul-smelling evidence.

President Barack Obama’s budget will saddle Americans with an average deficits of almost $1 trillion a year for the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by Obama just last month.

The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama’s budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That’s $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted.

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama’s policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the total economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

The latest figures, even worse than expected by top Democrats, throw a major monkey wrench into efforts to enact Obama’s budget, which promises universal health care for all and higher spending for domestic programs like education and  renewable energy.

Many Democrats were already uncomfortable with Obama’s budget, which promises to cut the deficit to $533 billion in five years. The CBO says the red ink for that year will total $672 billion.

CBO says that the deficit for the current budget year, which began Oct. 1, will top $1.8 trillion, $93 billion more than foreseen by Obama..

The 2009 deficit, fueled by the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and diving tax revenues stemming from the worsening recession, is four times the previous $459 billion record set just last year.

The CBO’s estimate for 2010 is worse as well, with a deficit of almost $1.4 trillion expected under administration policies, about $200 billion more than predicted by Obama.

By the end of the decade, the deficit under Obama’s blueprint would go back up to $1.2 trillion.

Democrats in Congress are readying Obama’s budget for preliminary votes next week, and they promise to cut the deficit in half within five years. Obama flew to California and appeared on the Tonight Show to campaign for his record breaking budget.

Democrats are likely to curb somewhat Obama’s request for a 9 percent increase in non-defense agency budgets.

Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 contains ambitious programs to overhaul the U.S. health care system and initiate new “cap-and-trade” rules to combat global warming. The latter is predicted to worsen the business climate and hence job production.

Both initiatives involve raising federal revenues sharply higher, but those dollars wouldn’t be used to defray the burgeoning deficit.

Critics say Obama’s budget plan taxes, spends and borrows too much, and they’ve been sharply critical of his $787 billion economic stimulus measure and a just-passed $410 billion omnibus spending bill that awarded big increases to domestic agency budgets.

Obama continues his “Johnny one-note” chant that it inherited deficits totaling $9 trillion over the next decade and that its budget plan cuts $2 trillion from those deficits. But most of those spending reductions come from reducing overseas costs for the war in Iraq and does not include Afghanistan that could spin out of control as it did for Russia nor does it have sufficient room for contingencies including a continuing run up in crude oil costs..

Those who buy America’s debt, including and particularly China, are expressing concerns and even doubt about the plan and continuing to finance Obama’s approach.

 

 

Czech opposition to the installation of a US anti-missile radar system in their country has grown with each step backwards by Obama, as a record 70 percent now reject the project, a poll showed Thursday.

Only 25 percent of those polled back the project, according to the survey conducted by the official polling institute CVVM in February.

In January, 65 percent opposed the plan, which has angered Russia.

“Results since 2006 show that Czechs are constantly opposed to this project,” CVVM said, adding that the opposition has ranged between 61 percent and now 70 percent.

Nearly three in four Czechs, or 72 percent, say that the project should be put to a referendum, but Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has opted to go the parliamentary route.

Prague and Washington last year signed two deals for the installment of a missile radar southwest of Prague that would link to two other facilities in Poland.

Topolanek has backed the project since he came to power in 2006 but several Czech politicians are worried that Washington may abandon the plan and the CZECH Republic under Obama.

The plan has enraged Moscow, master of Poland and the then Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Both countries broke from the crumbling communist bloc in 1989, joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

Washington says the shield - endorsed by NATO in February - is aimed at fending off potential attacks by so-called “rogue states” such as Iran, and is in no way aimed at Russia. Russia is hysterically opposing it, and senses it can cow Obama as it sees fit.

The New Jersey legislature reversed course on its  proposal to ban bikini waxing after angry salon owners complained about losing business ahead of swimsuit season.”It was an unnecessary issue,” said spa owner Linda Orsuto. “In New Jersey especially, where the government has been picking our pockets for so long, it was like, ‘Just stay out of our pants, will you

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 36% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-two percent (32%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +4 where it has been for a week. The number of Americans who believe government spending will rise during the Obama years has increased significantly in recent months.

Sixty-one percent (61%) of voters nationwide support the President’s decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan. More broadly, 54% think that our allies should follow the lead of the United States more often.

 The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Overall, 55% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far. Forty-four percent (44%) disapprove.

 Fifty-five percent (55%) of Americans can now be classified as populists while 7% support the political class. The mainstream, or populist, view typically sees big government and big business as political allies rather than political opponents. Over the next few days, Rasmussen Reports will release data showing how mainstream Americans and the political class differ when it comes to bailouts, AIG, and related topics.

To put the Kibosh on something is to stop it in its tracks. It originates with the Hebrew word ‘Kabash’ meaning to subdue or bring into subjection.

VP Biden’s advisers are telling him last week’s Congressional action to put a confiscatory 90% on AIG employee bonuses goes too far. Obama who ranted against the bonuses on the Tonight Show last week despite his Treasury Secretary being their architect has not said whether he would veto some version of a House-backed plan to heavily tax the $165 million in bonuses.

Biden economist Jared Bernstein said it’s important to look at what version of the proposal comes out of the Senate. The Senate has special problems since Chris Dodd (D) Conn chairs the Banking Committee and has already put the finger on Obama via Geithner for demanding the AIG bonus scheme stay intake.

Action by the House last week ignited debate over its bill’s Constiutionality with many saying it does not and is a post facto act amounting to a bill of attainder. Such actions are expressly forbidden and harken back to the writing of the U. S. Constitution are dark days in England that it sought to proect citizens against.

The frenzy to punish AIG bonus recipients that swept the House of Representatives last week can serve as an example of why such Constitutional provisions were enacted in the first place.

MUFTI DAY is when children are able to shun their uniforms for whatever they wished. It likely began with the Biritish Army in the Middle East when officers and troops could lounge for a day in dressing gown and slippers. It probably referred to the look of Muslim law experts called ‘muftis.’

Drug possession, domestic violence, repeatedly driving drunk, assault with a deadly weapon - any one of these charges or convictions could lead child protective services workers to remove children from a home or force a parent into counseling.

But all of those crimes and many others appear in the backgrounds of employees of Sacramento County’s Child Protective Services, a Sacramento Bee newspaper investigation has found. CPS is much criticized for all sorts of problems ranging from improper conduct to actually endangering the children it is charged with protecting.

Early this year a 4-year old baby was beaten to death while under CPS care, and CPS was shown to have changed the report to cover up details.

A review of the agency’s 969 workers employed as of Oct. 1 found that at least 68 individuals - 7 percent of the work force - have criminal records in Sacramento County alone. The number is likely to be even higher because some names were too common to retrieve all criminal complaints linked to them, and records in other counties were not searched.

Although the county child protection agency has a policy to perform criminal background checks on prospective employees - and says it is alerted by the state if a current employee is arrested - the ranks at CPS include offenders convicted of such crimes as possession of heroin for sale, theft, embezzlement, spousal abuse, obstructing an officer, prostitution and identity theft.

One county worker who was a receptionist at two CPS offices is a registered sex offender. One social worker has a pending court case over claims that she harassed her neighbors with laser beams and obscene tirades. A family service worker was charged in August with stealing gas from a county pump.

CPS Director Laura Coulthard and her boss at the county, Lynn Frank, declined to be interviewed. But The Bee’s examination prompted Coulthard to issue two memos to agency employees in the past month, warning that their names and criminal histories might be published and reminding them they need not speak with media.

Neither she nor other top county officials would discuss their policies for deciding what kind of criminal background would preclude someone from being hired or when and why exceptions are made.

CPS workers are entrusted with Sacramento’s most vulnerable residents: abused and neglected children, living in broken families. These workers are charged with passing judgment on parents’ fitness. They testify under oath, serving as the eyes and ears of the juvenile court system.

“Just because they don’t carry a gun doesn’t mean they don’t exercise extraordinary power over children and families,” said William Grimm, an attorney at the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law. “Forcing them to adhere to the highest level of conduct seems legitimate to me.”

Some Sacramento CPS employees’ arrests date back years, while others are current. Some committed serious crimes while working for the agency but remained on the job for months and even years - sometimes on paid leave.

Among The Bee’s findings published so far are:

• Six CPS family service workers who go into people’s homes to help families have been convicted or face charges of drug possession, theft, embezzlement or possession of heroin for sale.
• Many of the convictions are for driving under the influence and reckless driving, including 15 workers who have close contact with children and families. Some of their jobs require them to transport children to safe locations, often in the middle of the night. Three CPS social workers have multiple DUI convictions, including one arrested three times between 1999 and 2005.
• At least 17 CPS office assistants who handle sensitive case files have faced some of the most serious charges, including spousal abuse, illegal weapons possession, witness tampering, failure to provide for a child, identity theft, grand theft, embezzlement of county resources, welfare fraud, injury to a spouse and obstructing an officer.
• Repeated arrests - even for violence - do not appear to be an automatic impediment to CPS employment. One office worker employed since 2001 faces spousal abuse charges in a pending case and has previous arrests for DUI, gambling, spousal abuse and witness tampering, court documents state. A police report taken in that worker’s 1993 spousal abuse case states that “he admitted association with the Sacramento Blood Brothers, which is a violent gang.”

It seems that everywhere one looks one finds incompetence, corruption and contemptability in Schwarzenegger’s contemporary out-of-control California .