·       Decade and Year Will End With Blue Moon

·       Half Century of Cooling Ahead

·       79% Expect Another Terror Attack in 2010

·       Iran Can Build Nuke in 2011: Israel

·       Obama Insults Veterans

The  lowest temperature every recorded was -129 degrees at the Soviet station Vostok in Antarctica in July 1983. The coldest inhabited place is Norilsk, Russia with an average annual temperature is 12.4 degrees (20 degrees below freezing). It is the northern most city in Siberia and was the center for the infamous soviet communist era forced labor camps - Gulag.

The decade and this year will end with a “Blue Moon.” The idiomatic expression “once in a blue moon” it metaphorically refers to a rare event. By modern definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. Blue moons are not entirely rare and occur about once every two years.

Most years have twelve full moons, but since a lunar cycle is 29.5 days, we wind up with almost 11 leftover days. Eventually the days add up, and we have two full moons in a single month — like we do this month.

The next blue moons will occur August 2012, followed by July 2015 and October 2020.

The expression has been in use for about 400 years.

The whole thing may have started in the dark ages which followed the fall of the Roman empire, one of the few lifelines for science and mathematics in Europe was the desire to calculate the correct date of Easter, following clues in the bible. This must fall on the Sunday immediately following the 14^th day of the Paschal Moon, which in turn falls on or after the day of the ecclesiastical vernal equinox which is fixed as 21^st March. It can never occur before 22^nd March or after 25^th April. Lent, which begins 46 days before Easter, contains the Lenten Moon.

By tradition all twelve full moons of a year have names, some religious like those above and the Moon Before Yule and the Moon After Yule, and some relating to seasonal activities and events such as Flower Moon, Hay Moon, Harvest Moon and Hunter’s Moon. The main function of a Blue Moon is to preserve the relationships between these religious and lunar events in those years when there is a thirteenth full moon.

By this rule, a Blue Moon is the third full moon of four in a fixed season usually containing three, and will always fall on the 20^th - 23^rd of May, February, August or November. Here, again using Universal Time, are the months in which blue moons will occur over a full 19 year cycle using this more traditional rule –

Sometimes dust or smoke from forest fires or a volcanic eruption somewhere can change the moon’s color. But the origin of the phrase referring to the moon’s hue is lost in time. NASA inks the “blue moon” term to the 1883 explosion of the Indonesian volcano Krakatau, when ash rose to the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, making the moon appear blue. But the phrase was in use before that.

Triskaidekaphobiacs, those who fear the num,ber 13. says that because the Blue Moon is the 13^th full moon of the year it will be unlucky. I guess that makes as much sense as any other part of it all.

 

In any case HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Authorities say they confiscated a teddy bear at a Southern California toy store that was stuffed with marijuana. The owner of Toy Town, in Mission Viejo said Monday that he got the package last week, opened it up and found a 2-foot-tall blue teddy bear that felt “hard and crinkly.” The bear turned out to be stuffed with three large, vacuum-sealed packages of marijuana.

It’s not surprising since in California it is increasingly common to see pot smokers puffing their “medicinal weed” on streets or even while driving cars. On Christmas Eve one such straggley-haired example toppled over into the gutter on  Santa Barbara’s main street amid last minute shoppers who simply stepped over him as he smoldered.

A university professor challenges the widely held notion that carbon dioxide is responsible for climate change — and says the Earth will continue to cool for the next half-century. In anticipation and out of caution they may simply be wrong, or as current revelation seem to signal, simply manipulators the global warming hysterics have relabeled their crusade “climate change.”

Rather than carbon dioxide, cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — already implicated in depleting the Earth’s ozone layer — are to blame for changes in the global climate, according to a paper by Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

CFCs are compounds once widely used as refrigerants, and cosmic rays are energy particles originating in outer space.

Lu’s peer-reviewed paper, published in the prestigious journal Physics Reports, states:

The total amount of CFCs decreased around 2000, Lu said, and “correspondingly, the global surface temptrature has also dropped. In striking contrast, the CO2 level has kept rising since 1850 and now is at its largest growth rate.”

Lu found that while there was global warming from 1950 to 2000, there has been global cooling since 2002, and his research indicates that the cooling trend will continue for the next 50 years.

Lu based his research on data from laboratory and satellite observations, according to the Insciences Web site. He previously published work on the ozone layer along with researchers from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The paper, published Dec. 3 in Physics Reports, is available online at: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2009.12.002.

So far Lu has not been attacked by the climate change mafia.

Arsonists set fire early on Wednesday to a giant straw statue of the Swedish Yule goat, a forerunner to Santa Claus in Sweden, defying security measures for a third year in a row.

The botched attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit by the Nigerian nincompoop has refocused attention on the dangers of terrorism.

 

Immediately after the Christmas Day botched terror bombing of a Detroit bound airliner a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 79% of U.S. voters now think it is likely there will be another terrorist attack in the United States in the next year. That’s a 30-point jump from the end of August when just 49% of Americans felt that way. The current level of concern is even higher than it was in the summer of 2007 when 70% considered an attack likely. In December 2008, 58% said an attack was likely.

 

The new number includes 42% who say another terrorist attack in America is very likely within the next year.

 

Just 12% of voters now say another terrorist attack on the United States in the next year is not very or not at all likely.

 

The current survey was conducted among likely voters and the August survey was conducted among all adults. While there is often a modest difference in results for these two segments of the population, the difference is typically in the 3-5 percentage point range. So while the current numbers are not precisely comparable to the August results, the 30 percentage point jump in concern reflects a significant change.

 

Men feel more strongly than women that another terrorist attack is likely in the next year. Older voters are more concerned than those who are younger.

 

Republicans are more worried about another terrorist attack in the near future than are Democrats and voters not affiliated with either party. The Political Class is much less fearful than Mainstream voters.

 

A lot of voters, however, are definitely following news reports about the terrorist attempt to blow up an airliner at it was landing in Detroit. Eighty-three percent (83%) say they are following those news reports at least somewhat closely, including 44% who are following very closely. Just 15% are not following news about the terrorist incident very closely or at all.

 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been criticized for her response since the Christmas Day terrorist attempt. Forty-five percent (45%) of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Napolitano in April, while 30% viewed her favorably. Napolitano, who appears dull and even vacuous, is now under fire for sleeping at the Homeland Security switch.

 

Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans in September believed that most of their fellow countrymen have already forgotten the impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in which 3,000 died. Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagreed.

 

Since then, in addition to the airline incident on Christmas Day, a Muslim U.S. Army officer massacred 13 at Fort Hood, Texas and wounded many others. Sixty percent (60%) of voters nationwide said the November 5 shooting should beinvestigated by military authorities as a terrorist act rather than by civilian authorities as a criminal act.

 

Forty-eight percent (48%) of Americans nationwide believe that it is the responsibility of American Muslims to speak out against terrorist attacks on the United States.

 

In early December, 44% of voters said the United States is safer today than it was before the 9/11 attacks, a number that had remained relatively stable since the end of the summer. Another 38% said America is not safer today, and 18% more were undecided.

 

Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters oppose the Obama administration’s decision to try the confessed chief planner of the 9/11 attacks and other suspected terrorists in a civilian court in New York City as part of its effort to shut down the Guantanamo terrorist prison camp in Cuba. But most voters at the time were at least somewhat confident that New York City will be safe and secure while the trials are going on.

 

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Illinois voters oppose relocating some suspected terrorists from Guantanamo to a prison 150 miles west of Chicago.

 

Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans believe a cyberattack by terrorist hackers poses a greater economic threat to the United States than another 9/11 attack on New York City and Washington, D.C.

 

The U.S. economy was severely disrupted by the 2001 attacks, but consumer confidence is currently lower than it was in the aftermath of those attacks.

A suburban Philadelphia teenager was suspended for a day for wearing a Santa Claus suit to school. The 18-year old says he told the principal of his plan and was told not to because it would be a “distraction.” The boy was suspended for a day for “defiance of authority.”

Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Iran will have the technology to build a nuclear bomb early in 2010 and will be able to produce one in 2011.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak delivered this assessment before the Israeli parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committee.

The Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report, and a Barak spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Israel and most others rejects Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs. It has lobbied for tough sanctions against Iran and has not ruled out a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

A recent analysis made public finds that Iran can not defend its nuclear plants against an Israeli attack even without U,. S. help. Recent Iranian supported attacks on Saudi Arabia via Yemen would appear to make such success more likely. 

Barak said in the December 28, 2009 issue of the Jerusalem Post that Iran’s Qom plant is immune to a “regular strike” because is is buried in reinforced bunkers. The Defense Minister did not describewhat other sort of strike could be successful or exactly what that would involve.

Israel has recently purchased and received bunker buster bombs that can be precision quided and have the capability to penetrate hundreds of feet of earth and reinforced concrete before exploding.

There is no indication that Barak was suggesting ot threatening the use of nuclear weapons or other WMDs. Some speculate Israeli commandos or unconventionmal ground forces could be deployed but that is speculation too.

What is clear is that Iran lacks the air defense capability, either missiles, fighter planes, or even detection gear, to repeal a determined Israeli using warplanes, cruise or other missiles.

Israel is believed to have deployed cruise missile firing submarines into the Persian Gulf within range of some Iran nuclear facilities. It is unlikely Israel would fire missiles from the Black Sea. Iran is under pressure from its domestic opposition and the West to suspend key parts of its nuclear program.

A living nativity scene at a Presbyterian Church near the Colorado ski resort of Vail almost had to go without two crucial actors when two donkeys escaped.A church member who stopped by the church Wednesday morning noticed the donkeys were gone. He and a sheriff’s deputy followed footprints in the snow and eventually caught up with them. The donkeys had wandered near some railroad tracks but were OK.

“Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice?” Obama commenting about his proposal to make injured military veterans buy insurance to pay for medical treatment.

Bad press, including major mockery of the plan by comedian Jon Stewart, led to Obama abandoning his proposal to require veterans carry private health  insurance to cover the estimated $540 million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries to military personnel received during their tours on active duty.

Obama said he was puzzled by the magnitude of the opposition to his proposal. 

Veterans and veterans groups are expressing outrage at Obama’s arrogance, and insulting America’s injured military veterans demeaning their voluntary military service.

This checks out through http://www.snopes.com/ and also http://www.ask.com/, the story appeared in the Washington Times.  Chew on this for a while. So far America’s mainstream media has ignored both Obama’s proposal, arrogance, and insulting  comment.

In the aftermath of the luckily botched bombing of a Detroit bound airliner on Christmas Day Obama is expressing confidence in the bumbling Janet Napolitano his appointee for her leadership of the Federal branch of the Keystone Cops.

·      Only Dumb Luck Saved Airliner

·       MAO, Transsexual On White House Christmas Tree

·       Time for More Nuclear Power

·       Tax FIDO And Fluffy Global Warming “Polluters”

In a laughable admission Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a Nigerian terrorist on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab tried to use Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) to blow up the airliner over Detroit Christmas Day. PETN is one of the most powerful high explosives known and could have caused great damage on the Christmas Day airliner. Umar was seated directly above the fuel tank. Reportedly about 80 grams nearly 3 ounces of PETN was taped around the leg of the terrorist.

Eight ounces of the stuff in a World War II era 2.36” bazooka rocket could blast a hole in 5 inches of armour plate so 3 ounces would have make short work of the thin skinned aircraft.

 

“Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid had also used 8-10 ounces of PETN along with  triacetone triperoxide (TATP), in 2001 to try to blast that Boeing 767. Neither man successfully detonated their bombs

 

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s father a wealthy Nigerian banker informed authorities weeks ago that his son was dangerous having fallen under the influence of radical Muslims.

The UK denied Umar a new visa to return to his engineering studies there.

Despite both Umar was allowed to fly on KLM to Amsterdam and then on a NWA flight to Detroit. His name appears among 575,000 suspects on an FBI watch list but nothing was done to alert security of give him extra attention..

A passenger subdued Umar. There was no Air Marshal  aboard the flight because Dutch law forbids it.

Congressman Peter King (R) New York the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee has called for a full investigation of the near disastrous security boondoggle. The Obama White House is in the early stages of finger pointing and deflection.

PETN is a white crystalline substance that feels powdery to the touch.

 

PETN is used in detonation cord, blasting caps  and other applications. It is relatively simple to make but, like nitroglycerine is can be unstable turning an erstwhile manufacturer into a red paste spread around the walls, ceiling and floor of the would be bomber’s makeshift lab.

 

But, you need not make it there is a lot of the stuff around. For instance, the IAEA reported it lost track of 12,000 pounds of PETN in Iraq a couple years ago, and it is otherwise easily obtainable from various sources but you cannot buy it at the local Farm Bureau..

Obtaining PETN explosive from the Nigerian terrorist indicates that he has involvement with some big terror groups. The terrorist, who was alleged to have some association with Al Qaeda, has declared to have received training at the Al Qaeda base in Yemen. Apparently the detonator was faulty just as was Reid’s when he failed to detonate his shoe bomb at Christmastime 2001. Iran’s heavily involved in Yemen as a munitions supplier.

 Had either bomb detonated it is likely both aircraft, passengers and crews would have been destroyed.

 

Fewer than 5% of airport screening post have the equipment yo detect PETN and related explosives.

The White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room has been the center of Presidential Christmases since the Harrison administration.  This year though, the tree reflects Obama’s leanings and Anti-Christian philosophy.  The tree does not celebrate a season but includes propaganda and politics.

According to World Net Daily, several ornaments on the tree, depict the extremist views of the administration.  One ornament contains the face of Mao Zedong, who killed many of his country men.  Another a transvestite with rainbows around the ornament.  Another pictures Obama added to Mounty Rushmore.  A Communist, a transvestite, and our most pompous president to date deck this anti-American, anti-Christian tree.

Not only does our President promulgate his Anti-Christian views in America’s home, he also does overseas.  He made one statement in Turkey last April that, ”We [America] do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”   Other statements are, ”Whatever we were, we are no longer a Christian nation,” and “The Sermon on the Mount [is] a passage that is so radical that our own defense department wouldn’t survive its application.”  These statements are all according to Chuck Norris’s column in World Net Daily.

When Obama first started his presidency last January, he was not even attending a church, something many American Presidents have done as soon as they moved to DC.  He went to the gym instead.

Many Americans are hoping that Santa brings us a new president.  In 2012 those Americans will probably get there wish.  One that is filled with the Christmas spirit.  One who is filled with the American Spirit.  God Bless America!

Missouri troopers seized about 20 pounds of marijuana from a car this week — some of it in luggage, and some in boxes wrapped as Christmas gifts. The Highway Patrol says troopers found the marijuana in the car they stopped for speeding on Interstate 44 near Joplin.Two California women in the car gave troopers permission to search the vehicle. Both were charged Tuesday with one marijuana-related count and released on $1,000 bond.

The Luddite-like opposition to nuclear power in the United States has waned with 60% supporting nuclear power (70% or men and 50% of women). The American public has been led to believe that nuclear power is extremely dangerous and that nuclear waste disposal is an unsolved problem. Those beliefs are based on preposterous distortions by media and environmental extremists.

The USA gets less than 20% of its electricity from nuclear plants compared to world leaders France 76%; and Belgium 54%. But, the USA produces more megawattage than any other country or course it proportionately uses more power too.

One of the biggest distortions concerns the disposal of spent fuel rods. While any waste has to be disposed of properly ash from coal fired power plants is far more hazardous that such rods primarily because there is so much of it. Scientific ignorance and self-serving hysteria has kept the USA dependent on hydrocarbon power for decades.

There has not been a new nuclear power plant built in the USA or Canada for 30 years. New applications are moving with glacial serenity though the NRC permitting process.

It would be relatively easy to triple US nuclear power production while all alternative fuels (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal) does not now appear to offer anywhere near such potential at least in the forseeable future.

Uranium is very prevelant in the Earth’s crust. Of course it also provides the heat making the planet’s core molten and contributing to the habitability of the Earth. Because the innocuous dull gray metal (see photo inset) is the feeder fuel for nuclear weapons it also fuels the profits of professional naysayers costing the nation its dependence on foreign oil and the dictators many of whom  who rob us and hate us.

 

Sooner or later it had to happen. Man’s best friend is being tagged as one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

Farm animals have already been flagged for their flatulence and corrective proposals vary from affixing filters or collectors to their posteriors.

But the revelation in the book “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand analyzed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a “medium” sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) — around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4×4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

“Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat,” Barrett said.

Other animals aren’t much better, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France’s 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

“Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly,” Huttin told AFP.

“Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don’t eat meat, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?”

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs — the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars — says defiantly, “Our animals give us so much that I don’t feel like a polluter at all.

“I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

“I don’t want a life without animals,” she told AFP.

And pets’ environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faces cause high bacteria levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo — owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals’ environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets’ protein-rich meat intake.

“If pussy is scoffing ‘Fancy Feast’ — or some other food made from choice cuts of meat — then the relative impact is likely to be high,” said Robert Vale.

“If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower.”

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals’ blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

“Rabbits are good, provided you eat them,” said Robert Vale.

 

·         Police Order Naked Bicyclists to Put on Helmets.

·         Israel Could Crush Iran and Its Nuke Plants

·         Persian Gulf States Worried About Iran: Obama Dithering

·         Obama Job Approval Falls to New Lows.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand —  Police picked up two naked men on a late night bike ride in a New Zealand town but let them off with a warning: put on helmets.

“They were wanting to experience total freedom,” said Senior Constable Cathy Duder, who stopped the pair about 10 p.m. on a recent night in the beach resort town of Whangamata. She told them: “You may experience total confinement. You should head home and get helmets.”

The duo turned tail and headed directly back to their house, Duder told The Associated Press on Wednesday. She said she did not see them again during her shift, and it was not known if they donned helmets and resumed their ride.

Public nudity can attract a charge of offensive behavior in New Zealand, but Duder said she cut the two men a break.

“It was dark and there was no one else around. They were jovial young men who had not intended to cause offense,” she said.

She described the two as “happy young men in their mid-20s … they appeared to be as sober as two judges.”

The Dec. 7 encounter, which has only just come to light, probably signaled the start of what Duder described as summer hijinks in Whangamata, a popular surfing and holiday getaway where partying is common during Christmas and New Year season.

The left wing website Daily Kos predicts Democrats will “get killed” in the 2010 elections saying, “86 percent of Republicans plan on turning out or are likely to turn out. Only 56 percent of Democrats are–similarly believe they’re going to turn out or likely to turn out. Only 32 percent of African-Americans, only 41 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds. We have numbers like that, we’re going to get killed…”

Obama reportedly told representatives of the Chinese government recently that the US may not be able to restrain the Israelis from launching a massive military strike on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities for much longer.

According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha’aretz on December 17: Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Ha’aretz. They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American’s visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the US attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.

The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama’s meetings in Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat.

However, Iran appears to be in denial of the danger and continues to be its own worst enemy with a constant campaign of bluster, hyperbole and threats.

As with a number of well-known Middle Eastern leaders, including the late and largely unlamented Saddam Hussein, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continues to put what purports to be national pride before common sense or a rational approach to international relations.

The Iranian government, its military and intelligence services go out of their way to needle the West in a manner that suggests that they still harbor the illusion of surviving such a military confrontation.

Iran incapable of defending its strategic targets

The truth is that Iran is quite incapable of defending its air space and strategic targets against a determined Israeli attack, let alone one that involved US air assets.

Iran’s air force and air defense forces are a generation or more behind its potential foes. According to the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington in May 2009, “Without Russian air defense systems, Iran is a sitting duck.”

CSIS said, “Iran’s current air defense umbrella is antiquated and could not stop an Israeli or US strike. Iran’s air defense network could be easily penetrated by the air forces of Israel and the United States.”

The CSIS report continued, “Iran’s aging US and Russian-origin assets could not intercept Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters … Iran lacks the modern weapon systems, integration and C4I battle management to reduce the potential destructive effectiveness of any offensive interdiction missions by Israel.”

The report, titled “Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities”, said: “One can predict a very low attrition rate to an Israeli strike.”

Indeed, there are so far unconfirmed reports that the five-day Iranian air defense exercise held in late November to test the defense of its strategic nuclear sites was an abject failure. Middle East sources have reported, “From the word go on Sunday, November 22, Iran’s five-day drill demonstrated that its air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft.”

The Iranian navy is limited to counter-attacking allied naval forces in the Gulf in the event of a major conflict, while the Iranian army has no one to attack directly, with Iraq, Syria and Jordan between its armored forces and the borders of Israel.

It goes almost without saying that any serious attempt by Iran to launch a military strike on US or allied forces based in Iraq, the Gulf, Pakistan or Afghanistan, or indeed the strategically vital oilfields of Kuwait, northern Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, could be expected to bring an immediate Western military response with catastrophic consequences for Tehran.

A growing missile threat
This leaves just Iran’s growing missile capability for Israel and the West to ponder.

It is fair to say that Iran has made considerable strides in such technology with the overt help of North Korea and covert assistance by Pakistan, China and very probably a number of renegade Western commercial companies.

Iran does now have a limited ability to strike at Israel and Western targets throughout a wide area of the Middle East.

It was widely reported on December 16 that Iran test-fired an upgraded version of an advanced missile system believed to be capable of hitting Israel and even parts of Europe in an apparent show of strength aimed at discouraging attacks on its nuclear facilities. The test of the medium-range Sajjil-2 was reportedly a success and encouraged Iran to claim that it could retaliate effectively against a future US or Israeli military strike.

The Foreign Office in London said Iran has the “clear intention to extend the range of its missiles”, calling the launch “the wrong signal to send when the international community is trying to find a diplomatic solution” to its growing nuclear program.

James Lewis, a senior defense expert at CSIS, said that Iran probably has up to 300 shorter-range Shahab missiles, while the Sajjil remains in the test phase and currently “it’s not a sophisticated program”. But, Lewis added, “they’ve been putting a lot of money and effort into this program for more than a decade, and we have to take their claims seriously.”

Wednesday’s test was the third for the Sajjil-2 since it was unveiled in May. The missile has the longest range of any in Iran’s arsenal, about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) - putting Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, and US bases in the Gulf region well within reach. It could also reach parts of southeastern and eastern Europe.

Nuclear capability still years away

However, while Iran may have recently tested a “nuclear trigger” under laboratory conditions - if unconfirmed reports coming out of London are to be believed - and have enough enriched uranium for a single crude nuclear bomb, it still remains likely that Iran is at least five years away from having a genuine nuclear first-strike capability against Israel, even assuming that this is the path it is taking - something Tehran consistently denies. Abridged from a copyrighted article  by Richard M Bennett who is an intelligence analyst.

Before that stage is reached, a considerable amount of weapons-grade material would have to be produced; the bomb and its trigger tested, probably more than once and then the advanced technology developed to build a significant number of miniaturized nuclear weapons to fit the nose cones of its missile force.

Iran is highly unlikely to be able to develop or procure in the foreseeable future the type of advanced strike aircraft capable of delivering an air-dropped nuclear weapon over the required distance and which would have undoubtedly provided a quicker option for developing a nuclear strike force.

Therefore, the Iranian threat in the immediate future will rest on a relatively small number of missiles with conventional warheads, for if Tehran was to use any of its known stocks of chemical or biological weapons in missile attacks on Israel, the response would quite certainly be that which would have followed a nuclear attack; the total devastation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

If Iran continues to be at odds with the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, then it must be a distinct possibility that Israel will indeed launch a massive air assault, feasibly backed up by cruise missiles launched from submarines in the Arabian Sea sometime next year.

Even a successful Israeli attack will still hold grave dangers for Washington, however.

A very significant proportion of the munitions that the Israeli Defense Forces would drop on Iran would be “Made in the USA”. It remains a valid point that Iran may reasonably not be too concerned with who actually drops the bombs and be far more vengeful against those who made the weapons, trained the pilots, built the aircraft and who Tehran ultimately blames for sponsoring and protecting its attacker.

Nor could the Iranian military be 100% certain that any such attack would not include covert US involvement and particularly satellite targeting intelligence and electronic warfare assets. Iran’s response may therefore be to blindly strike back at any and all available targets, whether Israeli or Western, and by any means left to it, including missile strikes and attacks by its worldwide network of supporters, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

As far as Iran closing the Straits of Hormuz and cutting off oil flow. It is possible but unlikely, and in any case the US Navy would destroy Iran’s naval forces in 24-36 hours if they tried..

Freshman Democratic Representative Parker Griffith of Alabama is switching to the Republican Party. He’ll be the first Republican to hold the seat since 1866. Griffith was narrowly elected last year from a region of northern Alabama that includes Huntsville and Decatur. President Barack Obama lost the district badly to Republican John McCain. Griffith is a radiation oncologist. His switch comes as Congress is trying to pass a much-contested healthcare bill. Democrats will still control the House by a substantial margin but this is a step closer.

Persian Gulf state representatives at an annual strategy conference, the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, warned that Iran’s confrontation with the West over Teheran’s nuclear program could plunge the Gulf into war.   

 The Kuwaiti foreign minister was one of several speakers who identified Iran as a leading threat to the Gulf. Other speakers asserted that Iran was helping the Shi’ite rebellion in Yemen, which has spread into neighboring Saudi Arabia.

But the U.S. representatives at the Manama Dialogue refused to confirm the accusations that Iran was supporting the Shi’ite rebellion in Yemen even though Saudi Arabia, and other sources – including this column in Hypocrisy.com – have confirmed it.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman said Washington had not received “independent information” to confirm Iranian involvement.

Mamoun Fandy, a senior fellow at the London

based International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organized the Manama Dialogue, said Iran was fomenting tension throughout the Gulf. Fandy said Iran was also involved in stirring unrest in Egypt and Iraq.

 

“Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, Iran’s confrontation with the international community, Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people, the Horn of Africa, and the crisis in Yemen [threaten Gulf security],” Kuwait Foreign Minister Mohammed Sabah Al Sabah said.

Addressing the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Dec. 11, Al Sabah cited growing instability in Iran. He said this could further increase regional tension.

“People call for rebellion against the regime, challenging the government and calling for the overthrow of the government in place,” Al Sabah said.

Iran was also said to have topped the agenda of the Gulf Cooperation Council summit, scheduled to end on Dec. 15 in Kuwait.

“The military training [of the Shi'ite rebels] proves there has been foreign intervention,” Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said.

A senior Yemeni official agreed. National Security Agency chairman Maj. Gen. Ali Al Anisi, citing the recent capture of a suspected Iranian weapons ship, said Teheran has been directing the Shi’ite rebellion in 2009.

“There is intelligence information [to support this],” Al Anisi said. “There are indeed signs, proof of Iranian interference, but we can’t elaborate on what these indications and their details are to the media.”

Al Anisi said the Iranian-backed Believing Youth movement intends to become another Hizbullah. He said the Believing Youth has been expanding the Shi’ite rebellion beyond Yemen.

“They [Believing Youth] have a clear agenda, much like that in southern Lebanon with Hizbullah,” Al Anisi said. “The Houthi [Shi'ite] rebels are seeking to create a belt around our border with Saudi Arabia and establish themselves as an organization with genuine influence.”

Obama has set and lifted a series of deadlines to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities the most recent the end of this year. Many believe the U. S. reticence rest on the repeatedly failed strategy of talking Iran out of nukes and its war making and support for terrorists and call it foolish and only encouraged Iranian aggression. Last week Iran sent troops into Iraq and took over an oil field.

Do you believe that huge snowstorm in D.C.? Pretty  amazing. President Obama spent one day in Copenhagen and global warming is solved.– Leno

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that just 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President .

 

Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.

 

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.

 

For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.

 

A Kansas mother is praising a neighbor as “Superman” after her 6-year-old daughter told her he somehow found the strength to lift a full sized Mercury sedan off her. The girl escaped with minor injuries after she and neighbor Nick Harris said she was pinned under the vehicle that accidentally rolled backward over the child. Nick says he doesn’t know how he did it. A Christmas miracle?

·         Two-legged dog story inspires.

·         “Bat-out-of-Hell” tested

·         Paul Harvey “Rest of the story”

·         Merry Christmas: Now Get Out

·         CIA Knew About Mumbai Plot: Chicagoan Double Agent.

Anomie or anomy (AN-uh-mee) noun: Social instability and alienation caused by the erosion of norms and values. ETYMOLOGY:From French anomie, from Greek anomia (lawlessness), from anomos (lawless), from a- (without) + nomos (law). Ultimately from the Indo-European root nem- (to assign or take) that’s also the source for words such as number, numb, nomad, metronome, astronomy, and nemesis.

A two-legged dog has given hope to hundreds of amputee soldiers after learning to walk upright like a human.

Faith, a Golden Labrador-Chow Chow cross, was born with no front legs but was taught to walk by her determined owner using peanut butter as a bribe.   

Now soldier Reuben Stringfellow rescued the disabled dog in 2000 as a puppy after she was rejected by her scrap-yard dog mother. He named the puppy Faith. Originally born with three legs one had to be amputated when Faith was 8-months old.

Reuben, 17 at the time, asked his mom if he could fix her. His mom, English professor Jude Stringfellow, took Faith into the family home determined to help.

At first the family had to carry Faith to stop her falling onto her chest and chin  but after years of training – with a lot of encouragement and treats — Faith is now able to walk without assistance and can even hop and a skip if she needs to run.  

Faith who lives with Jude Stringfellow in Ardmore, Oklahoma is taken all over the States to boost the morale of US troops who have come back from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The biology-defying pooch has gone on tour with Ozzy Osbourne and was even named an honorary Army sergeant.

Faith’s story shows how  amazing animals can be if given the chance. Many thought Stringfellow should have put Faith down early on, but her owner stuck with her.

Eliot Spitzer’s former hooker now has a sex advice column in the New York Post. Why do people get rewarded for this? Her number one piece of advice: Get the money up front.—Leno

This week the Boeing X-51 a scramjet designed for hypersonic flight (Mach 7, around 8,050 km/h or 5,000 MPH) went for a test ride slung under a B-52 flying above the Mojave Desert at Edwards AFB, in Central California. Next year an unmanned X-51 will go on free flight over the Pacific Ocean.

Theoretically a scramjet vehicle can achieve Mach 15 (about 11,500 Mph depending on air temperature and pressure the speed of sound is 770 Mph)

During the flight demonstrations, a B-52 will carry the vehicle to an altitude of about 50,000 feet and then release it. Initially propelled by an ATACMS solid rocket booster, the scramjet will take over at approximately Mach 4.5, and the vehicle will accelerate to a flight speed near Mach 6.

The scramjet like all “thrusters” applies Newton’s third law of motion. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In any propulsion system, a working fluid is accelerated by the system and the reaction to this acceleration produces a force on the system. A general derivation of the thrust equation shows that the amount of thrust generated depends on the mass flow through the engine and the exit velocity of the gas.

In the hypersonic combustion scramjet, the losses associated with slowing the air flow would be minimized and the engine could produce net thrust for a hypersonic vehicle. The scramjet uses external air for combustion, it is a more efficient propulsion system for flight within the atmosphere than a rocket, which must carry all of its oxygen. Scramjets are ideally suited for hypersonic flight within the atmosphere.

China is known to be working hard on scramjet powered hypersonic flight but is believed to be behind the U. S. effort.

Whoever “wins” this race into hypersonic flight will have a clear military advantage for an array of applications including hypersonic cruise missiles.

An example of a need for speed can be seen in what happened on Aug. 20, 1998, when the USS Abraham Lincoln Battle Group, stationed in the Arabian Sea, launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at an Al Qaeda training camp in eastern Afghanistan, hoping to take out Osama Bin Laden. With a top speed of 550 mph, the Tomahawks made the 1100-mile trip in 2 hours. By then, Bin Laden was gone — missed by less than an hour. That’s where scramjet comes in.

The U. S. military has developed “Global Strike” a non nuclear capability to obliterate a target anywhere on earth and the scramjet cruise missile plays a critical role in it.

The need is based on hitting a treat as quickly as possible to destroy nuclear, or bio-toxin threat before it can be deployed against the U. S. or allies.

One idea is for warheads deployed by ICBM or SLBM which take time to reach their target or via an air launched scramjet cruise missile filled with scored tungsten rods with twice the strength of steel. Just above the target, the warheads detonate, showering the area with thousands of rods-each one up to 12 times as destructive as a .50-caliber bullet. Everything within 3000 sq. ft. of this whirling, metallic storm is obliterated and be delivered 20 times faster that today’s cruise missile.

ABCs diminutive George Stephanopolis looks like he is standing in a hole beside normal sized adults on GMA,

Were it not for a security guard who was remiss in his duty, the nation might never have heard, or heard of, legendary radio personality Paul Harvey — because he would have been dead at age 32.

Harvey, who died in February at age 90, was known for his trademark delivery of “The Rest of the Story,” and had been heard nationally since 1951 when he began his “News and Comment” for ABC Radio Networks.

At the peak of his career, Harvey reached more than 24 million listeners on over 1,200 radio stations, and his syndicated column was carried by 300 newspapers.

But early in his career, Harvey narrowly escaped with his life when a publicity stunt backfired, according to an FBI file obtained by Newsmax through the Freedom of Information Act.

In February 1951, Harvey — then a reporter at an Illinois radio station — sought to publicize what he felt was lax security at federal installations by climbing a 10-foot fence and gaining access to a restricted area of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

His overcoat got caught in the barbed wire at the top of the fence, and he was apprehended almost immediately by a security guard.

He was held at gunpoint and FBI agents were sent to question him. An FBI document said Harvey was “questioned not detained.”

But Illinois presented the case to a Federal grand jury, seeking to charge him with “making public, information regarding national defense,” punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. However, the jury did not indict him.

The story doesn’t end there. The most intriguing piece of information in Harvey’s FOIA file is a report that the guard who seized Harvey was suspended “because he failed to open fire immediately.”

Leslie Groves, wartime head of the atomic bomb project, said the guard who seized Harvey “had every right to shoot him.”

Harold Urey, winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in chemistry, said he was disappointed that guards did not shoot Harvey. Urey conducted research that aided the Manhattan Project to develop atomic weapons. Related work was carried out at the facility that later became Argonne.

And Harvey acknowledged in a radio broadcast that “I risked getting shot.”

Now you know “the rest of the story.”

According to MSNBC, Tiger Woods paid some of his mistresses between $5,000 and $20,000 a month to keep quiet about his affairs. That’s the second bailout plan this year that didn’t work.– Leno

A Massachusetts father is outraged after his 8-year-old special needs son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross on December 2^nd. The boy was assigned to draw something that reminded him of Christmas.

Maxham Elementary School decided the second-grader had created a “violent drawing.” A spokesman for the school linked its the action to “safety protocols.”

The image in question depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross. The boy wrote his name above the cross. Admittedly the child confused the Christmas with an Easter image.

The student drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro, Mass.

The child is a special need student and was made to leave school with the recommendation that a psychiatrist do an evaluation. In fact the school forbade the boy’s return without the psychiatrist OK.

The father was flabbergasted when he learned his son had to undergo an evaluation.

The child gets specialized reading and speech instruction at school, has never shown any tendency toward violence; has never been suspended.  

The 8-year old went for the psychological evaluation at his parents expense the next day and was cleared to return to school the following Monday after the psychological evaluation found nothing to indicate that he posed a threat to himself or others. 

The boy, however, was traumatized by the incident, which made going back to school very difficult, the father said. School administrators have approved the fathers request to have the boy transferred to another elementary school in the district. 

This is not the first time that a Taunton student has been sent home over a drawing. In June 2008, a fifth-grade student was suspended after creating a stick figure drawing that appeared to depict him shooting his teacher and a classmate. 

That teacher contacted the police to take out charges in the 2008 incident. Common sense prevailed and no charges were filed.

A health care bill passed the U. S. Senate with 58 Democratic and  1 Independent and 1 avowed Socialist votes, and now goes to conference with the House of Representatives. The Senate bill contains over a thousand earmarks for Democrat pet projects.

Courts documents in the criminal case against the David Headley, who was arrested in Chicago in October for suspected involvement in the Mumbai, India terrorist siege, suggest the Chicagoan US citizen may have been a double agent for the al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Lashkar e-Taibe and US intelligence. This suspicion, also the subject of leaked media reports from US, Indian and Pakistani intelligence sources, is severely straining relations between New Delhi and Washington.

 

Counter-terror sources report that New Delhi suspects the CIA knew in advance about the Mumbai attack, in which 177 people died and 500 were injured, and were aware of Headley’s links with its LeT perpetrators, al Qaeda’s operational arm in Pakistan, but omitted to forewarn Indian authorities for fear of touching off a military showdown between India and Pakistan.

 

Israel was not tipped off either although the Chabad Center of Mumbai, where six people were killed, was a special target

 

Rancor against Washington was registered in New Delhi where an official at the Indian Ministry of the Interior confirmed Wednesday, Dec. 16, said that his government “is looking into whether Headley worked as a double agent.” A former counter-terrorism officer in the Indian foreign intelligence service said: “The feeling in India is that the US has not been transparent.”

 

The atmosphere between the two countries is not helped by the FBI’s refusal to let Indian anti-terror officers question Headley, who is believed to have led a Chicago-based cell which set up Islamist terrorist operations world-wide.

 

Sources add: The court records show that the Chicago-based Headley was pressed into service by the US Drug Enforcement Agency in 1977 after he was caught smuggling heroin from Pakistan to America. They also show that he became an FBI informant after al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. After that the FBI and CIA were directed to coordinate their counter-terror work. The Indians assume that the CIA must have been aware of the Chicagoan’s existence, and certainly picked up on his frequent trips to India with side trips to Pakistan to meet his Lashkar e-Taibe associates.

 

Whether he worked directly for the CIA will probably never be proven.

 

Indian security authorities are also asking who paid for Headley’s frequent trips to Europe and India on missions to locate targets for terrorist attack, gather intelligence and chart Lashkar e-Taibe routes to target. He would then carry the information and guidelines to the Pakistani LeT operations headquarters.

The Chicagoan was clearly a staff member of the group and participated in its planning conferences. Some Western intelligence sources believe he may have been pulling the strings from Pakistan during the three-day terrorist siege of Mumbai in November 2008.

 

Indian counter-terror sources believe that data which Headley may have leaked from his Pakistan conferences to his American controllers may have prompted a US warning to New Delhi in July 2008 that a large-scale terrorist operation was in store for Mumbai. When two months went by and nothing happened, the Indians relaxed and lowered their security alert level.

 

Headley stands accused of making five reconnaissance trips to India to set up the Mumbai attack in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and July 2008.

 

On one or more of those trips he traveled disguised as a religious Jew, scouting the Chabad Center and other Jewish locations. Israel was never informed that Lashkar e-Taibe had set its sights on Jewish and Israel centers in India.

 

President Obama has signed a new $1.1 trillion spending bill. See, the reason it’s called a spending bill is they get to spend it and we get the bill.== Leno

·       Legend of Santa Claus 1,663 Years in Making.

·       Another Boxer Blunder

·       Much Ado About Nothing: House

·       Russian Navy Sinking

·       Republicans Clobbering Democrats In Favorability Polls.

Huge protests and hundreds of arrests at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Denmark. At one point it got so bad, police had to put an Al Gore speech on loudspeakers to try and sedate the crowd.– LENO

The legend of -Santa Claus began with a monk named St. Nicholas, who was born around 280 A.D. in Patara, which sits in modern-day Turkey. Nicholas of Myra was known for his piety and kindness and, according to legend, he gave away all of his wealth, traveling throughout the country to help the poor and sick. His feast day is celebrated on Dec. 6, the anniversary of his death in 346 A. D.

St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe by the Renaissance. He continued to have a positive reputation after the Protestant Reformation, when the veneration of saints were discouraged. The American Santa Claus first appeared on the scene in the United States as “Sinter Klaas.”

Sinter Klaas was first reported in a New York newspaper in December of 1773 and 1774 that groups of Dutch families were gathering to honor the anniversary of St. Nicholas’ death. Of course the remaining puritans had a conniption fit.

Sinter Klaas was the Dutch nickname for St. Nicholas, or as they spelled it, Sint Nikolaas. Sint Nikolaas’ visits to the Dutch families were meant to judge good and evil. “Far from being a fun-loving gift-giver, this seasonal visitor was a stern, dour, judgmental bishop who visited homes in full Episcopal attire and demeanor.”

He gained popularity after the publishing of Washington Irving’s 1809 book “The History of New York,” where he refers to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York.

As he grew more popular, he was described as wearing a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat and yellow stockings or wearing a broad-brimmed hat and Flemish pants.

In Europe, St. Nicholas continues to be portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes that resembles the actual St. Nicholas. However, in the United States, the modern image of Santa as a portly fellow in a red suit was created with a cartoon that was inspired by Clement Clarke Moore’s 1822 poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” now known as “’Twas The Night Before Christmas.” Moore wrote the poem for his three daughters and originally wasn’t going to publish it due to its frivolous subject. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast drew on Moore’s account of St. Nicholas to draw a cheerful man with a red suit trimmed with white fur, along with his North Pole workshop, elves and Mrs. Claus. The cartoon was published in Harper’s Weekly in 1881.

Visiting Santa at a store was popularized in the mid-19th century. Advertising for Christmas shopping began in the 1820s and by the 1840s, newspapers were printing separate holiday shopping sections featuring images of Santa Claus. In 1841, a Philadelphia store had a life-size Santa Claus model that attracted thousands of children. From there, more stores began attracting children and their parents with a “live” Santa Claus.

Scandinavian folklore describes a troll in a sleigh pulled by goats visiting children at Christmastime.

In Swedish, the troll is called a tomte; in Finnish, he is tonttu; and in Norwegian, Danish and southern Swedish dialects, he is called nisse. He is typically drawn as a small, bearded, elderly man dressed like a farmer.

During Christianization, the troll became unpopular and was connected to heathenism. However, in the 1840s he became the bearer of Christmas presents in Denmark. Later in Sweden and Norway, and influenced by the Dutch tradition, he began to bring presents to children instead of a traditional Julbock (Yule goat). He typically goes through the front door at night and delivers the presents directly to the children. Some Scandinavians also put out porridge for him to eat and many American children leave treats for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve.

In Finland, children are visited by Joulupukki, or Christmas Goat, who lives in the mountains of Korvatunturi in Lapland Finland. He goes through the front door during Christmas Eve celebrations and asks if there are any well-behaved children there, instead of waiting for the children to be asleep. He typically wears red clothes and uses a walking stick and travels on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

Prior to the Christianization of the Germanic people, Odin was one of their major gods. Odin, riding on an eight-legged horse, would lead a hunting party through the sky during the Germanic holiday of Yule. Children would fill their shoes with carrots, straw or sugar and place them near the chimney for Odin’s flying horse to eat. Odin would then fill the empty boots with gifts and candy. The practice evolved into hanging freshly washing stockings (likely to dry by the fire) the custom  was brought to the United States by the Dutch and hanging Christmas stocking on Christmas Eve is a custom in many western households..

In central Europe, the tradition continues with children placing a boot or shoe outside the front door on the night of Dec. 5. During the night, the boots and shoes of the children who were good are filled with gifts and candy by St. Nicholas. The children who were bad receive a tree branch from St. Nicholas. In America the custom became coal..

A second figure also travels with St. Nicholas on Dec. 6 in some European countries. In Germany and Switzerland, Christkind (meaning Christ child) delivered presents to well-behaved children. The Christkind is believed to be an angel-like figure. However, in some countries, the second figure elicits fear in the children by threatening them with beatings for misbehavior.

In Russia and Italy, a woman delivers presents to children instead of Father Christmas.

The Russian folklore tells of a elderly woman named Babouschka who purposely gives the wise men the wrong directions to Bethlehem so they can’t find Jesus. However, she later begins to feel remorseful. But she can’t find the wise men to undo what she’s done.

A different version of the story tells that Babouschka declined to go with the wise men due to cold weather. She then regrets her decision and sets off to catch up with them, filling her basket with presents along the way. She never catches up and finds Jesus, and instead leaves presents for children.

Babouschka now gives presents to children on Jan. 5, the Russian Orthodox Christmas, every year in the hopes that one of them is the baby Jesus and she will be forgiven.

Italian children are also visited by a woman, this one is a kindly witch called La Befana who rides her broomstick down the chimney..

Santa wouldn’t be able to travel through the foggy night without the nose of his lead reindeer, Rudolph.

Rudolph was created in 1939 by a copywriter at the Montgomery Ward department store. Using a similar rhyme pattern as “’Twas The Night Before Christmas,” the writer wrote a story about a young reindeer who was teased by the others because of his glowing red nose to entice holiday shoppers into the store.

The message of Rudolph turning his red nose into a positive was popular and the department store sold 2.5 million copies of it that year. The book sold more than 3.5 million copies when it was reissued in 1946.

The song was written by Johnny Marks in 1949 and recorded by Gene Autry.

After criticizing opponent MEG WHITMAN for spending $19 million of her personal fortune on a gubernatorial campaign STEVE POISNER has matched her. Both Republican wannabes are virtually self-funding their campaigns for California Governor. Meanwhile across the aisle 72-year old A. G. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has used the Democrat party to clear the way for his nomination for another term as a retread – he elbowed both LA’s and SF’s Mayors out of the way.

The U.S. Senate defeated an amendment last week to restrict taxpayer funding of abortions under Obamacare. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voted against the measure, arguing that it would require women to buy special riders to purchase abortion coverage.

 

In defending her no vote, Boxer argued that male senators were doing to women something they would never do to men. Quoth Boxer: “The men who have brought us this don’t single out a procedure that’s used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man that involves his reproductive health care, and say they have to get a special rider.

 

There is nothing in this amendment that says if a man someday wants to buy Viagra, for example, that his pharmaceutical coverage cannot cover it, that he has to buy a rider. I wouldn’t support that.”

 

That quote illustrates why Washington cannot be trusted to overhaul health care.

For starters, Viagra does not involve reproductive health care, as Boxer suggested. A man who uses Viagra probably shouldn’t be thinking about reproducing, unless he wants company for his grandkids.

 

What is more, abortion is not health care. It’s a reproductive choice — a legal choice that Congress, since 1977, has chosen not to subsidize.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid argues that in defeating the amendment by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the Senate did not authorize the use of taxpayer funds for abortions, but Nelson doesn’t see it that way. Nelson thinks the Senate opened the door for government-subsidized abortion. That means Nelson’s much-needed Democratic vote might not be there for the final bill for Obamacare.

 

Now, it’s true that Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs are designed to remedy the symptoms of specific physiological disorders. But if you watch TV, you know that the pharmaceutical industry none too subtly has been peddling enhanced sexual performance for healthy men.

 

That is a choice, too — and men can pay for it.

 

In fact, while Boxer may say she objects to making men find a plan that covers ED drugs, the folks at Medicare tell me that Medicare does not pay for Viagra or other drugs for erectile dysfunction. (Yes, Medicare used to pay for ED drugs, but no more.) If men want Viagra, they either have to pay for the prescription themselves or find a private plan that covers their ED drug of choice.

 

Which makes Boxer’s Viagra/abortion analogy all that much more, well, limp.

Avoirdupois (av-ur-duh-POIZ, -PWA)  noun: Heaviness or weight of a person. ETYMOLOGY:From Middle English avoir de pois (goods sold by weight), from Old French aveir de peis (goods of weight), originally referred to things sold in bulk.

Tuesday the U. S. House almost unanimously passed more sanctions against Iran. Even advocates say this move to cut off gasoline imports to the rogue nation will be virtually worthless unless Russia, China and others join in. It is unlikely Russia or China will join any such boycott.

But, even if others do Venezuela has pledged to break any such boycott by shipping 20,000 barrels of gasoline a day to Iran. That could setup a flashpoint as Venezuelan merchantmen stream into Iran with gasoline and out with God knows what.

On his way back from the Copenhagen Climate Conference California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Sarah Palin is living in the “stone age” because she called on Obama to reject climate change impositions on US business. While Arnold was abroad popping off California is ringing up a half trillion dollar deficit. He should stay home and shut up.

The Russian Navy is in serious trouble and struggling to remain an effective blue water force, The Russian Navy is building and modernizing warships. In the next few months, the big anti-submarine ship Vitse Admiral Kulakov will resume combat duty with the Northern Fleet.

A second warship, Project 1155, the Admiral Kulakov was commissioned in 1982 and was on combat duty with the Northern Fleet until March 1991, when it retired for repairs that lasted more than 18 years.

In fact, the ship’s fate closely resembles that of Russia. Its repairs were suspended in 1993 for lack of funds, and it was plundered in the late 1990s. The authorities even considered scrapping it, but instead resumed repairs in the mid-2000s.

In late November 2009, Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, former commander of the Northern Fleet, said that in the next ten years Russia might lose the bulk of Soviet-made surface ships.

“The funds allocated [to the Navy] are insufficient to build new long-range sea- and ocean-going warships and maintain our current warships in combat order,” he said.

Warships built in the 1970s and 1980s currently make up the bulk of the Russian Navy. Their service life can be prolonged through repair, but not indefinitely.

The ocean-going warships, which form the core of the surface fleet’s combat group, are the biggest problem. There are approximately 30 such warships of different types, from cruisers to frigates, including those in mothballs, but all of them should be replaced within 10-15 years. Otherwise the Russian Navy will degenerate into a third-rate coastal fleet unable to protect the country’s interests outside its territorial waters or even on its coasts.

However, Russia is so far building only sea and coastal ships (corvettes and boats), and not very quickly at that. Project 20380 corvettes have a sufficient combat capability but cannot replace larger ships. Russia’s largest warships being built now are two Project 22350 frigates, one of them to be commissioned in 2011 and the other one only laid down in 2009.

Given the sluggish pace of fleet renewal, Russia will have only 15-20 corvettes and seven or eight frigates of the new generation by 2025. This is not enough to reliably defend any theater of war in Russia, which has very long sea borders.

To change the situation, Russia should build more warships of the corvette and frigate classes faster and should also start building larger-class warships such as destroyers, in order to replace the large ships that are quickly becoming obsolete.

It should also continue the fleet repair and modernization program to prolong the service life of its best warships, such as the Admiral Kuznetsov air carrier and Projects 1144 and 1164 missile cruisers, until 2025-2030.

However, Russia’s efforts are hampered by lack of funds and also by the disintegration of its shipbuilding industry and related sectors, which has dramatically undermined its ability to build warships.

To resolve the problem that developed over two decades, it is not enough to increase allocations to defense. The authorities must take emergency measures to rehabilitate all sectors of the shipbuilding industry, including the process for training personnel.

Cooperation with foreign shipbuilders could have a beneficial effect at this point. The government may not be sure of the need to buy foreign-made warships such as a Mistral-class helicopter carrier, but it certainly needs to promote cooperation with foreign companies to train workers and engineers, gain access to modern design and the practical skills necessary for building warships of different classes, and to buy cutting-edge equipment.

France’s Mistral-class ship is capable of transporting and deploying 16 helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles, including 13 battle tanks, as well as 450 military personnel. The vessel is equipped with a 69-bed hospital and can be used as an amphibious command ship.

In the 1990s Russia adopted a strategy of making friends with the world, wholeheartedly supported by its foreign partners, which gradually turned into a deliberate destruction of the country’s defense industry. The negative effects of that strategy have reached a high point now. To mitigate them, Russia should adopt a strict and consistent policy embracing all related spheres, from education to law-enforcement.

There is very little time left to think about such a policy because the days could be numbered for the Russian Navy.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Source: MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) with special thanks to Colonel Reside USA.

Democrat National Committee Chair Howard “The Scream” Dean, a physician, says the Senate should scrap the entire Obamacare bill because it is inadequate. Public opinion is now against Obamacare in every major poll.

Republican candidates have bounced back to a seven-point lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

 

Republicans have held the lead on the ballot for over four months now. Democrats currently have majority control of both the House and Senate with 2010 shaping up as a watershed like 1994 was and 2008 was for Democrats.

 

If a Tea Party candidate is in the race, the picture changes dramatically like Ross Perot’s Reform Party propelled Clinton to the White House with a Democrat Congress.. A separate, three-way Generic Ballot test finds that Democrats attract 36% of the vote, while the Tea Party candidate picks up 23% and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

 

Since late June, support for Republican candidates on the regular two-way Generic Ballot has ranged from 41% to 44%, while support for Democrats has run from 36% to 40%. Looking back a year ago, the two parties were in a much different place. Throughout the fall and winter of 2008, support for Democratic congressional candidates ranged from 42% to 47%. Republican support ranged from 37% to 41%.

In November, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell to a four-year low but is still more than the number who call themselves Republicans.

 

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republican voters believe their party’s congressional leaders are out of touch with the party base. By contrast, a plurality (47%) of Democratic voters says their congressmen agree with them ideologically.

 

While other polling firms appear to show different results on the generic ballot, like ABC, CBS. NBC. NY Times. Real Clear Politics explains the differences in survey samples and question ordering, stating, “If you are asking which pollsters have it right, I’d probably put my money on Gallup-Rasmussen.” Rasmussenhas gotten the last two Presidential contest absolutely right while the others missed both.

 

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to lag behind all potential Republican challengers in next year’s U.S. Senate race. For now at least, his championing of the president’s health care plan appears to be hurting the Democratic incumbent.

 

Former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton appears to be the Republican with the best shot of beating either of the potential Democratic candidates in Colorado’s race for the U.S. Senate.

 

Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has crept past Republican Congressman Mark Kirk in Illinois’ 2010 Senate race, and other Democratic hopefuls are closing the gap.

 

In Ohio’s 2010 Senate contest, Republican Rob Portman has pulled away somewhat from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner but still finds himself in a highly competitive race with Democratic Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher.

 

Likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey is now ahead of both Democrats who are vying to run against him next year in Pennsylvania’s 2010 U.S. Senate election.

 

Senator Charles E. Schumer (D) New York verbally attacked a flight attendant calling her a “bitch” when- as the rules require—after she asked him to turn off his cell phone because hes preventing the plane from taking off.. Schummer claimed she was rude but, witnesses say it was he was acting the ass. ‘The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,’ Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon has said.

·       TSA post secret manual online

·       Obama Job Approval Hits New Low: 44% Want Bush Back

·       Iran and Syria Signed a Mutual Defense Pact Friday

·       Obama Ambassador In Weapons Business With Iran

·       Obama Should Take Heed of FDR’s Secretary of Treasury.

NAVY BEAT ARMY 17-3 for the eighth year in a row. Go NAVY!

Remember when Obama demanded Georgetown University cover up Christ’s name or he would not speak?  Now comes news that the Obama White House considered a Christ less White House Christmas including disallowing a traditional  nativity scene. They relented apparently when someone pointed out it was in fact tradition. Obama asserted in his infamous Cairo speech to Muslims that America is “no longer a Christian nation” although 80% of Americans do subscribe to Judeo-Christianity.

In yet another chapter of the amateur hour increasingly known as the Obama administration – Department of Homesland Security Director Janet Napolitano’s who runs the Transportation Security Administration too (TSA – otherwise known as Thousands Standing Around) is trying to explain why TSA posted its entire security manual online redacting it in a way that could immediately be removed allowing anyone to read every word and procedure such as:

·         The size wire that cannot be detected;

·         What items will and will not be screened or searched;

·         Details of all secret security procedures.

·         Examples of DHS, TSA, CIA and other credentials are also included.

The incident, which will costs millions of dollars to correct, does nothing to increase the already withered reputation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). TSA says the manual was outdated anyway- but, doesn’t explain why it is still used.

Critics of DHS, born during the Bush Administration, says DHS was created as a monument to the contractor state, a shell of an agency that has armies of hacks and cronies designate private (and usually Republican) companies) to do the actual work. It was never designed to be efficient, nimble, clean, or competent they say. bSo once again it is all Bush’s fault..

“This is an appalling and astounding breach of security that terrorists could easily exploit,” said Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. “The TSA should immediately convene an internal investigation and discipline those responsible.”

This shocking breach undercuts the public’s confidence in the security procedures at our airports,” said Senator Susan Collins, R-Me., ranking Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “On the day before the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on terrorist travel, it is alarming to learn that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted its own security manual on the Internet.”

“This manual provides a road map to those who would do us harm,” said Collins. “The detailed information could help terrorists evade airport security measures.” Collins said she intended to ask the Department of Homeland Security how the breach happened, and “how it will remedy the damage that has already been done.”

President Obama’s approval rating hit a new low of 47 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll. But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that a 6-year-old with a crayon could come up with the same poll results. I bet it’s the same 6-year-old with a crayon that came up with the last budget. –Leno

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country’s difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore, which is good news generally for Republicans and especially ones like Rob Portman who are running for office and have close ties to the former President.

Atlantic seemingly could not resist sugaring the issue writing, “Beating someone 55 percent (sic – it’s actually 50%) to 44 percent is a pretty good margin in politics, but it’s surprising given that the two contestants in this numbers game are Obama and the wildly unpopular Bush.”

The left leaning magazine must have been biting its lip hard enough to draw blood as Gallup’s findings put Obama’s job approval at a miserable 47% the lowest of any President at this point in their first term..

Then there is a poll showing Sarah Palin tied in popularity with Obama that has the left sucking on oxygen.

This was unfolding as Obama was making rapid schedule changes on a roundtrip to Oslo to pick up a cartoon copy of the Nobel Peace prize having narrowly avoided yet another gaff by agreeing to meet with Norway’s King and Queen only at the last minute..

Sunday is the second straight day that Obama’s Approval Index rating has fallen to a new low. Prior to the past two days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama’s time in office now the index stands at -19%

 

The 23% who Strongly Approve of what he’s doing matches the lowest level of support yet recorded. Just 41% of Democrats Strongly Approve while 69% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 21% Strongly Approve and 49% Strongly Disapprove—a stunning 28% gap..

 

Among those who consider the economy to be the most important issue, just 26% Strongly Approve of the President’s performance while 39% Strongly Disapprove.

Among those who consider fiscal policy issues the most important, just 1% Strongly Approve and 81% Strongly Disapprove.

 

The President’s Approval Index rating is -2 among voters under 30 and -29 among senior citizens. From an income perspective, the President’s ratings are weakest among those who earn $40,000 to $100,000 annually. Seniors are beside themselves over Obama’s attacks on Medicare.

 

Overall, only 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

A UPS driver’s unscheduled delivery in New Jersey has made one retailer very grateful. John Piontkowski spotted a bank bag in the middle of the road while he was making deliveries in Randolph. Inside, he found $5,200 and a Bank of America deposit slip showing the money came from Stuyvesant Liquors in Jersey City – Merry Christmas

Iran and Syria signed a defense agreement last Friday, according to an Iranian Press TV report, just as Iran is coming under strong international pressure to clarify aspects of its nuclear program.  Early reports said Syria was tentative toward the idea.

The document, signed by Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and his Syrian counterpart Ali Mohammad Habib Mahmoud, aimed to face “common enemies and challenges,” the report said.

Vahidi praised Syria’s great potential in defense and military fields and said that “it is natural for a country like Syria - which has an inhumane and menace predator like Israel in its neighborhood - to be always prepared [against possible foreign aggression].”

His visit to Syria comes a week after Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, also visited Damascus.

Iran’s treaty with Syria comes just as Western countries are warning Teheran that if it fails to respond to overtures intended to make its nuclear program transparent, it will face sanctions.

But as Iran was cementing its ties with Syria, the United States emphasized that its patience in waiting for a diplomatic response from Iran to its overtures is running thin.

In a Wall Street Journal interview published on Friday, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said that “Iran still controls its destiny on [the nuclear] issue.” The door to the diplomatic process would “stay open as long as we could leave it open … but it’s not going to stay open much longer.”

According to Jones, the parties involved in negotiations with Teheran wish most of all that Iran’s leaders would “give a clear statement of policy with regard to their future ambitions concerning the development of nuclear weapons and the delivery means to go with them.”

“As long as there’s an open question on both of those issues, then Iran is just asking the world to trust them,” he stated. “They think they can withstand anything the UN or the coalition of like-minded nations can put together. They might be right. They might be wrong.”

“If Iran pivots and does the right thing, whether it’s December 30 or January 20, that’s what everybody wants,” he concluded.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton questioned whether Iran had indeed any intention of coming clean on its nuclear program.

Speaking with Al Jazeera TV of the West’s offer of dialogue with Iran, Clinton said “[the Iranians] had first agreed in principle, and then I think because of internal disputes, they backed off from that, raising a lot of questions about what their true intentions are. Obviously, the secret facility at Qom was revealed. They now say they want 10 or 20 new nuclear power plants.”

“It’s not confidence building, let us say. And I think the international community really still wants to engage with Iran, but people are going to now turn to other routes like more pressure, like sanctions to try to change their mind and their behavior,” Clinton said.

Few believe any measure of sanctions will work because they will leak like a sieve, and will be unenforceable.

Iran publicly said last week it expects Israel to attack after Christmas when it expects Obama to admit his failures in the Middle East.

An Oregon man says a 3-month-old kitten apparently hitched a cold, 120-mile ride in the wheel well of his SUV. After finishing a day of work Wednesday. The driver heard meowing when he stopped at a rest stop along the way home but couldn’t see a cat.

When he reached his home in Tualatin, Ore., he heard the meowing again and grabbed a flashlight. Sure enough, he says, “the cat was up underneath in the spare tire spot. His daughter coaxed the kitten out with some salmon, and except for being cold after the 70MPH ride seems fine. The family will keep the kitten unless it is claimed.

While Obama is hypocritcally ranting and raving against Iran and demanding sanctions from others a British company founded by an American who is currently Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to China, has been urged to sever ties with Iran and explain his company’s sales to Iran- a declared arch enemy of the US.

The ambassador, appeared in a grinning photograph with Obama and the Chinese ambassador on China’s Great Wall during Obama’s recent visit to the communist country.

“We urge Huntsman to immediately cease all business dealings in Iran, sign the Iran Business Declaration, and join the international community in condemning Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program,” Mark Wallace, president of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), said on Nov. 24. Obama, nor the White House have said a thing.

Huntsman’s British company, with a representative in Teheran, has been selling polyurethanes in Iran.

In a letter to Huntsman founder, Jon Huntsman, Wallace warned that polyurethanes marked a dual-use product that could be exploited by Iran’s military.

Huntsman, listed on UANI’s Iran Business Registry, has been asked to explain its sale of polyurethanes in Iran.

Polyurethanes have been widely used in weapons platforms, including solid-fuel technology.

Jon Huntsman serves as U.S. ambassador to China and has called on Beijing to restrict exports to Iran.

Huntsman Corporation has maintained business in Iran and other Middle East countries.

“UANI calls on Huntsman to clarify whether the polyurethanes that it sells in Iran could be used to produce solid-fuel technology, as even the smallest chance of this potential dual-use is cause for great concern by the international community,” Wallace said.

“What steps does Huntsman take within this closed society to reach 100 percent assurance that Huntsman polyurethanes can, in no way, be used to produce solid-fuel technology or support Iran’s military capabilities?”

Meanwhile, the United States has prosecuted a man who confessed to have been a leading arms smuggler for Iran.

Amir Hossein Ardebili, arrested in and extradited by Georgia, has pleaded guilty to smuggling, conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. Ardebili, known as Alex Dave, was secretly brought from Tbilisi to the United States in early 2008, and charges against him were released on Dec. 2.

“For years, the defendant was in the business of acquiring components, many with military applications, for the government of Iran,” U.S. Attorney David Weiss said.

Officials said Ardebili established several fronts to sell weapons and aircraft parts to Iran. They said Ardebili was captured in a three-year sting operation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Iran was said to have ordered through Ardebili electronic chips, phase shifters and other aerospace component. Officials said Ardebili was in communications with the Teheran regime through e-mail to facilitate a black market trade that reached $1 million a year.

“They [Iran] think the war is coming,” Ardebili was quoted by court papers as telling a U.S. undercover agent.

Ardebili was said to have operated out of the United Arab Emirates, which has long served as a waystation for weapons and dual-use equipment to Iran. Ardebili was quoted as having told U.S. agents that Teheran was his only client.

Officials said Ardebili negotiated the purchase and illegal export of a number of military components. They included QRS-11 gyro chip sensors, used in aircraft, missiles and space systems. The phase shifters and digital air data computer have been used in phased array radar and the central computer on the F-4 fighter-jet, a key platform in the Iranian Air Force.

In October 2007, Ardebili’s negotiations with undercover agents culminated in a face-to-face meeting in Tbilisi. He was arrested and extradited to the United States in January 2008.

Officials said Ardebili, believed to have cooperated with federal prosecutors, would be sentenced on Dec. 14. They said the U.S. intelligence community learned of Iran’s military procurement plans through a search of Ardebili’s laptop computer.

“The government’s investigation and prosecution has put the defendant out of business and removed this threat to our national security,” Weiss said.

Cold in New York. So cold, bin Laden was seen hiding in the border region between Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.– Letterman

Obama’s top economic aide, the more than ample, Christina Romer said on NBC Sunday the U.S. jobless rate could rise farther and that the improving U.S. economy is not yet out of recession.

Her best idea was that the U. S. Census Bureau will hire over 700,000 temporary enumerators lowering unemployment by a couple tenths of a percent that’s quite a claim.

Maybe the most revealing thing is that Obama’s newest focus on jobs still misses the point that private, small business is the jobs engine in the nation. There is an ingrained aversion to cutting payroll and other taxes and allowing a faster write-down for new equipment.

You’d think someone in this bunch would pay attention to Henry Morgenthau, Jr. FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury from 1934-1945. When he admits that the big New Deal stimulus spending programs had failed.

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just none interest, and if I am wrong . . . somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job, I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. . . . I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”

 

Sunday Allen Greenspan offer no hope for a quick job rebound pointing out the U. S. has to produce 100,000 new jobs every month to stay even.

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION … avoid making anything difficult to understand.

·       Obama West Point Speechifying Flops

·       Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

·       Voters Put Bullseye on Members of Congress.

·       Climategate Hypocrites

·       Job Summit Absent Main Employer Reps.

 

MSNBC’s Chris Mathews posted a new low calling Obama’s trip to the United States Military Academy at West Point going into the “enemy camp.”

There is not much to say about Obama’s speech at West Point Tuesday evening – it just wasn’t much of a speech and was at best anti-climatic but the teleprompter worked flawlessly. After 3-months of mulling Obama announced an 18-month surge of 30,000 more troops (a larger percentage increase than Bush’s Iraq surge)  in what can be described as surge interruptus. He sprinkled in three broad goals and struggled to define them as criteria for “victory” but he sure didn’t sell many people in the U. S. or abroad.

·         The avid anti-war group Code Pink called Obama’s planned escalation “a devastating announcement.” On its Web site, Code Pink urged members to organize protests.

·         Democratic members of a key House budget subcommittee submitted legislation to create a “war tax.”

·         Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat, Chair of the caucus’ Afghanistan task force, said Monday. “What is needed now is not about ‘more troops’ but ‘better strategies’ to build the country’s capacity. What is needed now is a timeline for troop withdrawal, sending a message that U.S. supports Afghan sovereignty and independence.”

·         Rep. Jim McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat, has led the charge for a troop withdrawal and has been one of the staunchest opponents of Gen. McChrystal’s request. He said Monday that he would “strongly urge the president to reconsider.”

Others called for a war bond drive like the ones in World War 1 and 2, and a spending freeze.

The most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 52% of respondents said the war there was worth fighting, with Republicans agreeing by two to one, Democrats disagreeing by more than two to one and independents split down the middle.

Mainstream media by Wednesday morning was uncharacteristically restrained in its review of Obama’s Hudson River speech, and even CBS, suspended its survey of whether Obama’s face should be added to Mount Rushmore.

Obama dispatched Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates to sell his scheme to a skeptical Congress that already is quaking in its reelection boots.

Obama who stridently campaigned as an anti-war activist has disappointed the far-left but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid summed it all up saying he’d “wait and see.” In the finally analysis it is a done deal and we will all wait and see.

Amidst all the holiday shopping craziness, most Americans at this time of year want to see holiday signs that wish them a “Merry Christmas.”

 

Tiger Woods is in a lot of trouble. Not only are rumors flying about an alleged affair, he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a tree. Now the environmentalists are mad. A gas guzzler into a tree! Now Al Gore will get into it. - Leno

 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 72% of adults prefer “Merry Christmas,” while 22% like “Happy Holidays” instead.

 

Older Americans favor “Merry Christmas” more than younger adults. Married adults fancy the traditional greeting a lot more than unmarrieds, although there is virtually no difference in the views of those with children in the home and those who don’t have children living with them.

 

Perhaps inevitably as with much of what is polled by Rasmussen Reports, there is a partisan difference on the question. 

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans and 70% of adults not affiliated with either major political party like store signs that wish them a “Merry Christmas,” compared to just 58% of Democrats. 

Last year, 68% of all adults wanted holiday signs to read “Merry Christmas,” while 25% preferred “Happy Holidays.” 

When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.Thomas Jefferson

Congress, beware. Voters are now evenly divided over whether their own congressman deserves another term in office.

 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 42% say their local representative deserves to be reelected regardless of how Congress is doing overall.

Forty-two percent (42%) disagree and say their local congressman does not deserve reelection. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.

 

But then only 33% of voters nationwide believe that their representative in Congress is the best person for the job. Public anger toward their leaders is also growing. Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government. Forty-six percent (46%) are very angry.

 

A plurality (46%) of female voters says their local representative deserves reelection to Congress, but most male voters (53%) don’t share that view and oppose reelecting the incumbent.

 

Interestingly, roughly half of both Republicans and Democrats favor reelecting their local representative. But 56% of voters not affiliated with either party think that’s a bad idea.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of liberals support their current representative. Forty-eight percent (48%) of moderates don’t, and conservatives are close to evenly divided on the question.

 

Among all income groups, those earning less than $20,000 per year are the strongest proponents of reelecting their current member of Congress.

 

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Republican voters believe their party’s congressional leaders are out of touch with the party base. But a plurality (47%) of Democratic voters says their congressmen are on the same page with them ideologically.

 

Earlier polling showed that just 23% of voters believe members of Congress get reelected because they do a good job representing their constituents. Fifty percent (50%) believe the high reelection rates result from election rules that are “rigged to benefit members of Congress.”

 

Republican candidates have extended their lead over Democrats to seven points, their biggest lead since early September, in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. Forty-four percent (44%) would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

Esprit de corps (eh-SPREE duh COR) noun: A spirit of solidarity; a sense of pride, devotion, and honor among the members of a group. ETYMOLOGY: From French esprit (spirit), de (of), corps (body, group).

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate change conference comes Bret Stephens’ GLOBAL VIEW in Tuesday Wall Street Journal labeling the “climate change consensus” bunk. He brands it “Cliimategate” , and describes the shameful effort to blackball contrary scientists, expunge dissenting data  and organize proponents to block freedom of information request to cover up their hypocrisy. His article erases the argument that those involved, including a leading proponent who was co-recipients of $19 billion in research grants, are not disgraced.. Worse, if anything can be, is that $94 billion has been frittered globally on “green stimulus” allowing Al Gore and his partner Keiner Perkins to “look forward to handsome profits. “

Stephens catalogues an alphabet soup of universities, eco-organizations, research institutions, researchers, associates and affiliates who have received billions more to believe with religious-like zeal like priest must believe in the existence of God.

Mr. Stephens accurately point out none of these actors are per se corrupt but “they depend on and benefit from an inherently corrupting premise.” This, he says is what’s known as vested interests,” and I believe an automatic disqualification for those in ethical academic circles.

Going back to the nincompoops that perpetrated this fraud closes the loop on those who keep the keys to the climate change cathedral. Last week while poking around in what is become climate change’s fetid corpse came more alarming news from a computer programmer. “I am very sorry to report that the data base is nearly in as bad shape as Australia…” That’s stinker information because the conclusions on global warming is based on a computer model using the now known corrupt data shoveled up by the chief climate nabob at East Anglia University’s CRU (Climate Research Unit) cooked the data and now another enormously important date source is worthless. It may also be why Australia’s Senate rejected climate change legislation this week.

The good news is that the CRU’s head has stepped down pending a complete investigation—and hopefully his head will roll along with other such nabobs. But, the damage is done

With luck and some tough cops the world’s people will be saved from paying the $145 trillion (not billion) but, trillion dollar price tag for this global warming scientific heresy. Compared to Bernie Madoff and his scam these people make that look like chump change.

The numbers of Americans who say they are Democrats has fallen from 41.4% in November 2008 to 35% now while Republicans have held about steady at 33% while Unaffiliated voters have jumped up to 31%.

Today is Obama’s one day “Job Summit” a talkathon supposedly to figure out ways to create more jobs as unemployment that he guaranteed would never exceed 8% if Congress OK’d his $800 billion stimular package, is headed toward 11% and when those who have stopped looking for work or are underemployed are included toips 17% and continues to climb.

Curiously absent from today’s White House photoop are the two biggest business organizations. The U. S. Chamber of Commerce was disinvited because it officially opposes Obamacare. What offense the National Small Business Association committed to be banned is unclear. Combined the two organizations represent more employers than all others combined.

Obama’s JOB CZAR admits that so far he has earned a “D” (unsatisfactory) grade.