The left-wing Talking Radio blog claims that an Air America hostess has been a victim of crime in New York:
Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon.
According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. . . .
Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home."
Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."
"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us." "That KKKarl Rove and his Jew-loving neoKKKon Zionazi RethugliKKKan goon squad, nothing is beneath them. Nothing!"
Not only was there no evidence the mugging was politically motivated, but New York's Daily News says it was all a hoax: "Claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today." Over at DU and Kos, they're probably asking themselves, "How did he do it? How did KKKarl Rove get to Randi Rhodes?"
Oh well, just remember, there was a time, 15 or 20 or 30 years ago, when getting mugged in New York was not even unusual. Thank you, Rudy Giuliani.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/16/2007 16:41 ||
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#1
"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us."
Sure. If that makes you feel good, go on believing it. I think the ratings books state otherwise, though. Just saying.
#5
Since they are now denying that she was mugged, and just fell down on her head, the immediate response was not to worry, she does that at frequent intervals. Which explains much.
A cheap system to recycle human waste into biogas and fertiliser may allow 2.6 billion people in the world access to toilets and reduce global warming, an Indian environmental expert said Tuesday.
Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, said his group plans to push the system at the seventh annual World Toilet Summit [bet the first 6 summits weren't as interesting], to be held in New Delhi at the end of October.
The organisation is dedicated to providing toilets to nearly 730 million people in India who lack them.
#1
Any kind of toilet system would significantly reduce waste-borne diseases in India and the third/fourth world. Even without recycling, merely sequestering the waste and keeping it from drying to contaminated dust that settles everywhere would make a difference.
#2
To bad s**t doesn't flow uphill, or the most cost-effective system of disposing of India's human waste would be to pipeline it directly to Pakistan. You get rid of the waste in the most necessary part of the world for it.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:02 Comments ||
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#3
Any kind of toilet system would significantly reduce waste-borne diseases in India and the third/fourth world. Even without recycling, merely sequestering the waste and keeping it from drying to contaminated dust that settles everywhere would make a difference.
40+ years ago my father had a hell of a time convincing one Indian village's locals that concentrating the poop in one place (with proper leaching, etc. of course) was healthier than going randomly in the fields. No amount of evidence seemed enough to refute their "logic". They all passively resisted digging the first latrines until my dad picked up pick and shovel and started digging it himself. They quickly began falling all over themselves to prevent sahib from doing work that was beneath him. Eventually the idea caught on and people began using it when that saw that the damn thing really worked.
HOLLYWOOD superstar Lindsay Lohan is BROKE after blowing her fortune on a massive orgy of booze and drugs. In recent months the wayward actress has squandered a staggering SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS on her wild partying. And now the 21-year-old is so skint she can't afford her own place—and has become a lodger at a rich pal's mansion.
Her extravagant spending spree includes:
A MILLION dollars on just one hotel bill
$137,000 in rehab costs as she battles her hopeless addiction to drink and drugs
THOUSANDS more in legal fees after multiple drink driving convictions.
We can reveal that after jetting back to Los Angeles this week following her two-month stay at the Utah's Cirque Lodge rehab clinic, Lohan is staying in the guest house of billionaire Tom Gores, executive producer on her recent film I Know Who Killed Me. A source close to the star revealed: "Lindsay doesn't have much choice as she is totally broke. The only reason she's coming back to LA, is to earn some money fast. She still thinks nothing of blowing thousands of dollars on a single night of partying. And the amount she has wasted putting cocaine up her nose is disgusting. Even she has lost count."
Lohan quickly earned millions from films like Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen—but she has spent it even quicker. She lived for most of last year in Hollywood's opulent Chateau Marmont hotel, spending $450,000 on her $1,200-a-night suite, as well as another £500,000 having chauffeurs on 24-hour standby. Added to that were endless bottles of Cristal champagne at $550 a pop—until the unpaid bills got too much and she was evicted.
Hard-up Lindsay has had to sell both her plush properties—a $2.85MILLION apartment in LA, plus her $1MILLION New York flat—because she could not manage to keep up with the huge mortgage payments. Another $350,000 has gone on luxury Mercedes and BMWs, followed by huge bills for expensive lawyers to defend her on drink-driving and drugs charges. She spent $1MILLION on clothes, $70,000 on tanning and hair-styling and well over $500,000 on partying.
This article starring:
Lindsay Lohan
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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#8
A potential bin Laden recruit? Self-hating, attempting slow-motion 'accidental' suicide, no direction or 'meaning' to her life. Typical cult fodder. The pattern is way too common in Hollywood, as well as among others who are too rich too soon.
#11
What do ya doooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
After you ruin your life?
Where do you go?
Who do you know?
What do ya doooooooo
After you've blown the game?
/Mose Allison, from his album, "You're Mind is on Vacation but your Mouth is working Overtime."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/16/2007 10:45 Comments ||
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#12
yep, Lindsay was first on the Pooter Patrol™
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2007 11:05 Comments ||
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#13
The irony is the crazier she getes the less marketable she is. She may not be able to afford the wild life and it may save her life. Assuming her friends/fans/freaks don't enable her when she's got nothing but her name.
John Holmes did so much coke he couldn't get it up but he had to get it up to afford the cocaine. Catch-22.
#14
She needs a little violence in her life to balance out the easy money / party-all-the-time lifestyle. Beat her and kick her for an hour or two every day till she gets it.
My bill is in the mail.
#15
So...what the hell did this broad do to get all this dough to lose in the first place? Does notorious drug addicted drunken teenage slut pay that well?
#16
She was the teen queen for a number of years. Most adults didn't notice her so much but the teens were buying movie tickets. Freaky Friday and Mean Girls were tremendous successes at the box office. Soon after that she lost it.
1. How can you make $7 mil by staring in a Herbie car movie?
2. How can you blow $7 mil like that?
Think about the kids in Iraq and Afghanistan and how un-complicated their lives are while someone is trying to kill them every day compared to this retard. I have no sympathy for such a retrobate. She needs a missionary more than the Congo.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:06 Comments ||
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#19
I think she may be my ultimate woman.
A wee bit high maintenance for a grad student's budget though.
#21
Looks like its time for Lilo to adopt a kid from Africa and say something important about global warming. She will be back in like Flynn in 30 seconds.
#22
Don't sell yourself short bigjim. I think you're right in her league --- you got enough cash for a dime bag or even have a can of pledge lying around she can huff in your closet?
Menzies Campbell, leader of the kookyhard left centrist Liberal Democrats who have consistently opposed the Iraq war, resigned on Monday as head of Britain's third biggest party after his support slumped in opinion polls. The former Olympic sprinter quit amid rising party fears that he would have been an ineffective leader if Prime Minister Gordon Brown had decided to call an election two and a half years early.
Campbell's abrupt demise capped a tumultuous two weeks in British politics. Brown, enjoying a hefty opinion poll lead, contemplated calling a snap general election but changed his mind in the face of a surge of support for the Conservatives, Britain's main opposition party.
In his resignation letter, Campbell said: "It has become clear following the prime minister's decision not to hold an election, questions about leadership are getting in the way of further progress by the party. Accordingly, I now submit my resignation as leader with immediate effect."
The 66-year-old Campbell, known as "Ming", had been criticized for his lackluster performance in parliament and mercilessly mocked in the press and by cartoonists for his age.
Making him "Ming the Mercilessly Mocked"...
The party's support in opinion polls had halved since the 2005 general election to just 11 percent with its popularity steadily sliding against the ruling Labour Party and the Conservatives.
This article starring:
Gordon Brown
Menzies Campbell
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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Ming. I used to love his quaint, snarky questions on Wednesdays, followed by Blair totally ignoring him by giving the standard "I refer my learned friend to the answer I gave before" then shutting the briefing book so hard it sent a shiver up Ming's back. I think he was a 100 yard man (no meters in those days) at the 1924 Olympics in Antwerp, wasn't he? Heh, heh.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:09 Comments ||
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LUXEMBOURG - Serbia’s cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal has improved but ‘is still too slow’, the court’s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Monday. ‘I confirm that the situation today is better than it was a year ago,’ Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg.
‘However, cooperation is still too slow and not yet sufficient,’ she said. ‘I cannot give a positive assessment of full cooperation until Ratko Mladic is arrested and transferred’ to the Hague-based tribunal.
"I can, however, promise all court members employment and fine dining over the next ten years," she added.
Former Bosnian Serb military chief Mladic, believed to be in hiding in Serbia, has been indicted by the UN court for warcrimes including genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Last week, Serbia offered a one million-euro (1.4 million-dollar) reward for information leading to his capture, which Del Ponte described as: ‘an encouraging sign of the Serbian authorities’ commitment to cooperate.’
The European Commission could soon initiate a key agreement on closer EU ties with Serbia if Belgrade boosts cooperation with the UN tribunal. The Commission and Serbia concluded on September 10 the technical aspects of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) -- a first step for Balkans states to join the EU. But Brussels refuses to sign it until Serbia achieves ‘full cooperation which should lead to the arrest’ of remaining war crimes indictees.
Initialling, the SAA would mean nothing in legal terms but it would be a political gesture toward Serbia amid an international dispute over the future of its southern province of Kosovo.
Del Ponte said she would return to Belgrade October 25-26 to assess progress, and visit again before she briefs the UN Security Council in December.
Platinum Amex all the way.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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Please tell me that's not an actual pic of Carla Del Ponte...
#6
Sally Jesse Raphael still looks like she could gonads off an alligator while he was sleeping. But I don't understand the shot of Navartilova, she's Czech but I am pretty sure that Jerry Springer is a Serb war criminal, at least his show is.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:12 Comments ||
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#8
Worse. Mr. Springer is a Cincinnati criminal. While mayor of the city (and a very popular one, too) he went across the river into Kentucky, and paid a prostitute by check on a personal account containing insufficient funds. He had been, until that inspired moment, gearing up for what was predicted to be a successful run for the governor's office.
The left-leaning political advocacy group, MoveOn.org, is backing down in a flap over the use of its name in online advertisements, permitting an influential Republican senator to criticize the organization in a reelection ad on Google's search engine. "We don't want to support a policy that denies people freedom of expression," says Jennifer Lindenauer, MoveOn.org's communications director. "Actually, we do want to suppress freedom of expression, but only if we can get away with it."
Yup. They got caught. Heh.
Both MoveOn.org and Google late last week faced a barrage of criticism after an internet strategist for Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine complained that Google had blocked several re-election ads from the search engine's advertising network because the ads contained the trademarked term "MoveOn.org" in the text.
"Stop Moveon.org. More MoveOn money in Maine than anywhere else. Learn how to help," read one of the banned ads, which linked to Collins' reelection campaign site.
Under Google's trademark policy, owners can request that third parties' not be allowed to use their trademarked term in the text of ads -- a policy that far exceeds the requirements of trademark law. Lindenauer says that MoveOn.org withdrew from that policy on Friday after it heard about the brewing controversy over Google's termination of Collins' text ads using the group's name.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/16/2007 11:37 ||
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Typical filthy moral cowardice from the rat-pigs at that org.
Posted by: E. Brown ||
10/16/2007 15:58 Comments ||
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E. Brown!!! How can you possibly think so badly of rat-pigs???
Hillary Clinton today moved to secure her position as the most hawkish Democrat in the 2008 presidential race, saying she would consider the use of force to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.
In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine intended as a blueprint for the foreign policy of a future Clinton White House, the Democratic frontrunner argues that Iran poses a long term strategic challenge to American and its allies, and that it must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. "If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table," Ms Clinton said.
She doesn't want to be the most hawkish Democrat. She wants to seem to be the most hawkish Dhimmicrat. For now. If needs change, so will her position. This is all about posturing and triangulating, not conviction.
Elsewhere, Ms Clinton took the edge off her steely posture by saying she would abandon the Bush administration's policy of isolating its enemies, and would deploy diplomacy. "True statesmanship requires that we engage with our adversaries, not for the sake of talking but because robust diplomacy is a prerequisite to achieving our aims."
And what exactly do you talk to a genocidal regime about? Ronnie Reagan understood; he talked more to the Russian people than to their Soviet masters. If Hildebeast is going to talk to the people of Iran, fine, but that's not what she's saying here.
She says she would even consider offering incentives to Iran in return for a pledge to disarm. However, she sets out a series of stringent conditions that are virtually identical to current White House policy. "If Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons programme, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilising Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives," Ms Clinton wrote.
So she agrees with Bush in that particular way. If I were Obama I'd be repeating that long and loud ...
The article, the latest in a series of position papers from the leading Democratic and Republican contenders for the White House, offers a glimpse at Ms Clinton's efforts to appeal to Democrats seeking a repudiation of the current regime's world view when they begin voting in primaries next January, as well as to the broader electorate that will vote in November 2008.
It arrives only days after Ms Clinton was severely criticised by her Democratic rivals for backing a Senate resolution calling on the US government to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the elite division of Tehran's military, a terrorist entity.
The measure has been argued strenuously by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and other neocons, but such a sweeping designation does not appear to have the support of the state department.
Natch.
Ms Clinton was the only Democratic candidate to support the resolution, and her rivals said her vote could help the Bush administration make a future case for war against Iran.
And war is icky.
Unlike the five other candidates to sketch out their vision of foreign policy to date, Ms Clinton gave little indication of her comprehensive world view. However, she pledged to avoid the "ideologically blinkered" policies of the current presidency. "Avoid false choices driven by ideology," she wrote.
It's much better to want power for its own sake and to have no conviction, right Hilde?
On Iraq, Ms Clinton offered a small variation on her promises on the campaign trail, saying she would instruct her Pentagon chief and other military leaders to draw up a withdrawal plan within 60 days of her inauguration. However, she would consider leaving behind a residual force in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq.
Cut and run, version XXIII.
Posted by: anonymous5089 ||
10/16/2007 10:22 ||
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#1
Clinton would use violence against Tehran
Paging Janet Reno, HildaBeast needs YOU!!
/I will be in the vomitorium for the duration...
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
10/16/2007 10:37 Comments ||
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#2
deploy diplomacy
I'm so sick of the childish statements liberals make in regard to global politics that my head is about to explode.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
10/16/2007 12:50 Comments ||
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#3
HildaB is not ready for prime time--never will be. She has no principles on which to stand.
#4
Couldn't resist another comment. This violence won't play out to the far left liberal wing of the dhimmi party that she has been trying to play to. This is the same woman whose husband said he loathed the military. I can't see our military having any confidence in her as a commander in chief. Maybe Communist in Chief would be more appropriate.
#9
she would consider the use of force to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.
Good thing.
Elsewhere, Ms Clinton took the edge off her steely posture by saying she would abandon the Bush administration's policy of isolating its enemies, and would deploy diplomacy
Ooooh, bad thing. BZZZZT! Please try again. Diplomacy with Muslim majority nations never works and never has. They have this hudna thingy.
She says she would even consider offering incentives to Iran in return for a pledge to disarm.
Just plain stuck on stupid, are we? Iran has been offered the ultimate incentive of its own continued existence and not even that has proven sufficient to entice them away from terrorism or the pursuit of atomic weapons. Short of handing them their own primed and fused nuclear arsenal methinks not much is going to work save blowing them clean out of the water.
However, she pledged to avoid the "ideologically blinkered" policies of the current presidency.
This from a past master of ideological blinkering.
"Avoid false choices driven by ideology," she wrote.
Another one of those, "I didn't know my bullshit meter hadda siren" moments. She speaks of engaging in diplomatic negotiations or offering incentives to the most blinkered and dangerous ideology to strut this earth in centuries. All the while contending that she is uniquely qualified to lead our nation out of battle with it and constructively engage with those who want nothing less than our untimely deaths.
Memo to Hillary: STFU with your puling drivel you appeasing whore.
#10
Unfortuna for HILLARY, at this time she still does NOT possess Maggie Thatcher's natural aura of [Male-appealable] leadership, nor to many victory/security-minded Amer women either. HER POL MARKETING TEAM-ADVISERS NEED THEIR BUTTS KICKED BIG TIME IFF SHE IS TO DE FACTO WIN IN 2008. Right now [10/2007] she's coming across as a Milk-and-Cookies, "US Americans" saying, blonde glamazon = blonde moment, "Politix as Usual" mega-PC Pol Wafflecrat.
The link is the text of W's town hall meeting in Rogers, Arkansas yesterday. This is the second time recently that he has communicated anything like a broad outline of what he has in mind. Lots of good questions, and lots of good tidbits in his answers that help explain how he sees things.
Perhaps you agree or disagree with him, but given the coherence of his answers I don't think you can say he is there for anything other than what he thinks is in the best interests of the US. And the world if at all possible.
Some call him overbearing. I'm guessing that comes from his confidence in his convictions which are the type that can be difficult to dislodge because they are hard to disprove and come from his generally optimistic outlook on humanity. He seems humble enough to admit he makes mistakes and is willing to acknowledge them unlike many other unnamed world leaders who work against him for personal gain. He works patiently to correct those mistakes in the blast-furnace of ignorant public opinion that demands perfection and instant gratification from their armchairs.
#1
What would he want for his epitaph?
"Here rests a good man who tried his best"?
I often don't agree with him (e.g. border control) but I am constantly struck by the contrast between his private behavior (as occassionally revealed by families of wounded or deceased soldiers, for instance) and his predecessor's public posing (tears on cue, etc.) He seems an unusually 'honest' politician (oxymoron alert).
I'm with you on this. I think that Bush is a good man who has tried his best.
Whether or not you agree with his positions, he started his presidency trying to build bipartisanship (see Kennedy, education, drug bill, etc.)
I think he very much believes in the compassionate in "compassionate conservatism" and has been horribly slandered by the Slime-o-crats and their fellow travellers.
There are many things I disagree with him on (immigration being #1) but...
"A good man who tried his best" sums it up nicely.
#3
I remind my friends, Lefties and Reasonable People, that gauge of W's success is the standard that he himself established in 2000. Changing the tone in American politics.
It has been a long slog, marred by scandals generated in the Clinton administration--Enron, Worldcom--and punctuated by an attack on America.
And, I believe, the President has held constant to that one principle. Which goes a long way toward explaining why we have had trouble with W's reactions to the Left. Pelosi, Reid, the list of slights and wrongs, rudeness and misrepresentation is numbingly long. And yet the President treats those who work against him with politeness and gentility.
Will he succeed in his pledge? From what I've seen, Harry Reid is having problems back home. Speaker Pelosi is safe in her district, but what impact are the Blue Dogs having in moderating her and the Lefty Cadre?
I don't believe you should underestimate the Jacksonian impluse. People see and hear General Peter Pace and come away with their own conclusions. People see and hear General Petraeus and come away with their own conclusions.
Where is Lefty Schumer's contempt for W's AG nomination? Why is Congress' approval rating so low, and what will those ratings do in the next election cycle?
I still have hope that the President is successful. I'm a dreamer. I still remember what the Democrats did to Sherman Adams. The only way to remove lying and calumny from the political process is to remove Democrats from it. (Oops...I see my tone hasn't changed at all.)
#4
I have recognized the impact Islamic terrorism has had on our need to protect fervently our value system and so Bush in his efforts are applauded. He is a good man.
The greatest compliment comes from a friend who is in the Secret Service and knows the Prez well. He was also there for Clinton's 2 terms. His feeling is this - if Hillary gets elected and the Clinton's come back to the WH, he is retiring. He says the nicest, down to earth people to ever occupy the WH has been W and his wife and daughters. He has time for everyone. Has a nickname for everyone including each of the personal detail. He is sure of himself and his beliefs and has no hangups, BS quotient or ego needs. I also know someone in the Rangers organization who says he was the same way there. Probably too nice a guy (compared to Steinbrenner) to run a major league franchise. He has my vote both times and I haven't regretted it. I don't agree with him on immigration but 1 out of 10 or 20 isn't bad.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:32 Comments ||
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Russia should be barred from the G8 group of powerful nations for trying to "bully" its neighbors and cutting political freedoms, Republican White House hopeful John McCain said in an essay released Monday. I can think of a couple of other reasons, too. One of them is that they have no significant economy besides exporting the tools and technology required to wage war and terror.
Writing for an upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs journal, the Arizona senator also warned America could not afford a "historic loss" to Islamic extremists in Iraq and added the war could not be "wished away."
"We see in Russia diminishing political freedoms, a leadership dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, efforts to bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas," McCain wrote. "We need a new Western approach to this revanchist Russia.
"We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia."
McCain said that the West should tell Moscow that NATO's doors remained open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom.
Once the presumed front-runner of the Republican establishment, McCain, a Vietnam war hero, downsized his operation early this year after a fundraising crunch and now lags behind other top Republicans like former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and ex-governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney in the polls. He was also hurt politically by his support for President George W. Bush's Iraq war "surge" strategy and doomed bid to overhaul US immigration laws. Hopefully supporing W's surge won't be such a burden after all.
In his article, he condemned "years of mismanagement and failure" in Iraq, but argued there was no alternative to pressing on with the conflict. "The consequences of failure would be horrific: a historic loss at the hands of Islamic extremists, who after having defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United States in Iraq will believe the world is going their way."
And McCain also took aim at Democrats, who are pledging to quickly start bringing US troops from Iraq if they are elected in November 2008. "The war in Iraq cannot be wished away and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party," McCain wrote. They won't. They just want to harvest the ignorant vote is all.
#2
The fact is I think the US Policy towards the Russians has been lacking. I base this on overly high expectations I suppose since Condi was the expert on the Russians.
It didn't take a genious to figure out that pretty much winning in Afghanistan in months when the Soviets lost after a decade would cause them to lose face. Then keeping bases in a few of their neighbors would make them paranoid. And of course supporting democracy in Ukraine and others sent them screaming into the night.
Dictators need external bad guys and we've sort of stumbled into that position which makes it easier for them to justify selling nasty stuff to Iran.
It would not have been hard to pretend Russia was a big help in Afghanistan, to publicly stand by them after the Moscow Opera and Beslan terrorist attacks. To avoid expanding NATO even as we supported democracy in a non-confrontational way.
By mismanaging the Russians I believe we made the War on Terror more difficult.
#3
I'm afraid I don't think either of them would be a good vice president, Delphi. Senator McCain is entirely too concerned that he be given the deference he feels is his due regardless of the situation, and Secretary Rice has been counterproductive with regards to Israel and her enemies for some time. The reports/rumours that she advocated against allowing Israel to bomb Syria's nuclear facility was the last straw for me.
#4
By mismanaging the Russians I believe we made the War on Terror more difficult.
Agreed. The next president should be able to change this under cover of the new administration in the Kremlin, even though we know nothing will have changed. Just like teaming up with Uncle Joe; hold your nose.
#5
Russia will play the oil & gas card with Europe pretty soon. Bet on it. They will find a way to build an "economic" wall of inclusion that may be tougher to bring down than the steel one.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:35 Comments ||
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#6
Duncan Hunter is the best VP or SecDef
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2007 21:36 Comments ||
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ROGERS, Ark. (AP) - President Bush admonished Congress on Monday for failing to send him a single spending bill yet, and warned lawmakers to trim their plans or face rejection.
``You're fixin' to see what they call a fiscal showdown in Washington,'' Bush told a friendly audience in this northwest Arkansas community. ``The Congress gets to propose, and if it doesn't meet needs as far as I'm concerned, I get to veto,'' Bush said. ``That's precisely what I intend to do.''
Finally. If you'd done this consistently a couple years ago your party might still hold the Congress. Tough love, George, tough love.
The budget year began Oct. 1, and federal agencies are operating on a stopgap bill for now. Congress has not yet agreed on the 12 spending bills that keep the government running. ``Congress needs to be responsible with your money and they need to pass these appropriations bills - one at a time,'' Bush said, roaming the stage. ``And then we can work together to see whether or not they make fiscal sense for the United States.''
Bush never vetoed a spending bill when his party ran Congress, but he's dug in for a challenge now. He said the Democrats' plans would raise taxes and prevent the nation from balancing the budget.
Conservative House Republicans appear to have the votes to sustain his promised vetoes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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Senator Larry Craig said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney ``threw me under his campaign bus'' after it was revealed that the Idaho lawmaker pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a sex sting in a men's restroom.
``He not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again,'' Craig told NBC's Matt Lauer in an interview to be broadcast tomorrow. Craig said before his arrest he was acting as a Senate liaison for Romney's campaign and ``worked hard'' for him in Idaho. After the arrest became public, Romney called the incident ``disgusting'' and said he couldn't account for the behavior of all of his supporters.
This article starring:
Larry Craig
Matt Lauer
Mitt Romney
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Romney better learn how to drive that bus better if he missed both times.
NEW DELHI (AP) - India's prime minister has raised fresh doubts about a landmark nuclear energy accord with the U.S., telling President Bush that his government was having "certain difficulties" finalizing the deal, which has faced mounting domestic opposition. The pact would reverse three decades of American anti-proliferation policy by allowing the U.S. to send nuclear fuel and technology to India, which has been cut off from the global atomic trade by its refusal to sign nonproliferation treaties and its testing of nuclear weapons.
It has been billed as the cornerstone of a new partnership between India and the U.S. after decades of icy relations, and Washington is widely perceived to have made major concessions to make the pact acceptable to New Delhi.
But communist opposition in India has mounted in the months since the two sides finalized the deal's technical aspects, with communist parties key to the survival of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government arguing against closer ties to the United States.
The deal faces opposition in the U.S. too, where critics, including some in Congress, say by providing fuel to India, the U.S. would free up India's limited domestic supplies of nuclear material for use in atomic weapons. That, they argue, could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia.
In India, the feud had grown increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks, and there was widespread speculation about early elections until Friday, when Singh stepped back from the confrontation by saying it was "not the end of life" if the deal didn't go through.
The doubts raised by that statement were further magnified Monday, when Singh told Bush that "certain difficulties have arisen with respect to the operationalisation" of the deal, according to a statement from the prime minister's office. Singh, who is on a trip to Africa, spoke to Bush by telephone from Abuja, Nigeria.
Bush and Singh have sold the deal, first conceived in 2005, as a way to bring India—a nuclear weapons state—into the international atomic mainstream. They've also touted its benefits for India's booming but energy-hungry economy, which would gain access to much- needed atomic fuel and technologies.
Despite the challenges to the deal in India, U.S. officials have remained publicly upbeat about its prospects, not wanting to further roil India's already turbulent political scene. "I think we're going to continue to work on our part, and we assume they're going to continue to work on theirs, and it'll be done in a time that is appropriate for both sides," Tom Casey, the deputy spokesman for the State Department, told reporters in Washington on Monday after Bush and Singh spoke.
But U.S. officials have also privately said that frustration is growing, and that with America heading into an election year, India needs to press ahead with the next steps in enacting the deal, which must get a final nod from U.S. lawmakers.
It appears increasingly unlikely that Singh is willing—or even capable—of doing that.
The communists insist that Singh's government not take the next steps in finalizing the deal—negotiating separate agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Suppliers Group, a group of nations that export nuclear material—until Parliament debates the pact later this year. Assuming Singh then gets to go-ahead to proceed—far from a sure thing—that would probably put off a final vote on the accord by American lawmakers until well into next year, if not longer.
#2
They aren't where you think they are. I've been seeing big growers in the Delta and Texas, which have been heavy into cotton and rice for as long as I've been pushing yield, reporting corn instead. Tens of thousands of acres were shifted out of cotton this last season into corn.
They follow the subsidies, and the subsidies are shifting to ethanol, even in the cotton kingdoms. Don't be surprised if everybody just folds like wet cardboard. They've already shifted into the ethanol scam instead.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/16/2007 9:48 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The ethanol scam is alive and well in Kansas. Productive wheat acreage being taken out of production as marginal corn acreage goes for the subsidies. Ethanol factories being built while eastern environmentalists block coal fired electrical plants out here in the west. Is Al Gore behind this crap?
#4
Ethanol subsidies go to the distillers. Farmers are planting more corn because prices have almost doubled due to ethanol production, not because of corn subsidies which have been decreasing as prices rise.
Cotton should not be subsidized or protected since it is not a critical commodity.
Posted by: ed ||
10/16/2007 13:12 Comments ||
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#5
If it's being driven directly by prices, then why is wheat through the roof & corn overplanted, Ed? The agricultural markets are futures-driven, and thus highly vulnerable to herd behavior. There's going to be a rebound into wheat due to the sky-high wheat prices, but for now, for this season, it's corn from the Gulf to Cairo, and from the Rockies to the Three Rivers.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/16/2007 16:47 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Mitch, want to drive down corn prices? Eliminate the ethanol subsidy. 1/3 of the US corn crop will be used to produce ethanol. Even with the additional acreage planted, there is net less corn for food (some of it is made up by distiller's grain byproduct). By eliminating the $0.51/gal ethanol subsidy, the economic value of a bushel of corn drops by $1.25 (2.5 gals ethanol/bushel), so value of corn for ethanol producers drops by that amount. As long as gas prices stay high and ethanol subsidies flow, more corn will be made into ethanol. In a steady state market, the entire corn crop could be converted to ethanol and therefore food corn prices will follow ethanol prices, not the other way around. It's about using resources (corn, wheat) to make the largest total profit and gov subsidies are part of the equation.
Wheat prices have risen because of drought (esp Australia), substitution by corn acreage and European wheat conversion to ethanol (Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds. Gov policies supplanting market prices.).
Want cheaper food and ethanol? Get rid of subsidies and import tariffs/quotas on Brazilian ethanol/sugar. But that would spill the rice bowl of entrenched interests *cough* farmers, distillers, Florida sugar producers *cough*.
Posted by: ed ||
10/16/2007 18:10 Comments ||
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#7
I read an article that Heinz is breeding a supersweet tomato because they foresee a sharp increase in the price/availability of corn syrup for ketchup. There will be some interesting trickle down effects of the ethanol craze, even if it only lasts a year or two. Americans may even lose significant girth, if all the complaints about the hidden corn syrup calories in processed foods are true. ;-) The rest of us may not have to become as disciplined as Rob Crawford!
#8
Reduce or eliminate the corn subsidies. Do the same for suger. Let the market find the most efficient mix between food and biofuel production. Sugar-based ethanol is substantially more efficient than corn-based ethanol, but the money is chasing the corn, because of the subsidies.
More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.
Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The report shows just how far one form of the staph germ has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.
The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.
Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections - those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.
Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system - people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.
In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.
The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the bug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.
An invasive form of the disease is being blamed for the death Monday of a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior. Doctors said the germ had spread to his kidneys, liver, lungs and muscles around his heart.
The researchers' estimates are extrapolated from 2005 surveillance data from nine mostly urban regions considered representative of the country. There were 5,287 invasive infections reported that year in people living in those regions, which would translate to an estimated 94,360 cases nationally, the researchers said.
Most cases were life-threatening bloodstream infections. However, about 10 percent involved so-called flesh-eating disease, according to the study led by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There were 988 reported deaths among infected people in the study, for a rate of 6.3 per 100,000. That would translate to 18,650 deaths annually, although the researchers don't know if MRSA was the cause in all cases.
If these deaths all were related to staph infections, the total would exceed other better-known causes of death including AIDS - which killed an estimated 17,011 Americans in 2005 - said Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft of the Los Angeles County Health Department, the editorial author.
The results underscore the need for better prevention measures. That includes curbing the overuse of antibiotics and improving hand-washing and other hygiene procedures among hospital workers, said the CDC's Dr. Scott Fridkin, a study co-author.
Some hospitals have drastically cut infections by first isolating new patients until they are screened for MRSA.
The bacteria don't respond to penicillin-related antibiotics once commonly used to treat them, partly because of overuse. They can be treated with other drugs but health officials worry that their overuse could cause the germ to become resistant to those, too.
A survey earlier this year suggested that MRSA infections, including noninvasive mild forms, affect 46 out of every 1,000 U.S. hospital and nursing home patients - or as many as 5 percent. These patients are vulnerable because of open wounds and invasive medical equipment that can help the germ spread.
Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said the JAMA study emphasizes the broad scope of the drug-resistant staph "epidemic," and highlights the need for a vaccine, which he called "the holy grail of staphylococcal research."
The regions studied were: the Atlanta metropolitan area; Baltimore, Connecticut; Davidson County, Tenn.; the Denver metropolitan area; Monroe County, NY; the Portland, Ore. metropolitan area; Ramsey County, Minn.; and the San Francisco metropolitan area.
October 16, 2007: The most powerful Internet weapon on the planet is hiding in plain sight, and no one can do anything about it. At least not yet, or not that anyone is talking about. The weapon in question is the Storm botnet. This is the largest botnet ever seen, and it is acting like something out of a science fiction story. The Storm network is now believed capable to shutting down any military or commercial site on the planet. Or, Storm could cripple hundreds of related sites temporarily. Or, Storm could do some major damage in ways that have not yet been experienced. There's never been anything quite like Storm.
The Storm computer virus had been spreading since early in the year, grabbing control of PCs around the world. By now, Storm had infected nearly 5-10 million computers with a secret program that turned those PCs into unwilling slaves (or "zombies") of those controlling this network (or botnet) of computers. Many of you may have noticed a lot of recent spam directing you to look at an online greeting card, or accompanied by pdf files. That was Storm, the largest single spam campaign ever. When you try to look at the PDF file, Storm secretly takes over your computer. But Storm tries very hard to hide itself. All it wants to do is use your Internet connection to send spam, or other types of malicious data.
What makes Storm the perfect Internet weapon is how it has been designed to survive. The Storm zombie does no damage to the PCs it infects, and simply sits there, waiting for an order. Those orders come via a peer-to-peer system (similar to things like Kazaa or Bittorrent). A small percent age of the zombies spend short periods of time trying to spread themselves, then turn off. This makes it more difficult to locate infected PCs. Commands from the Storm operators are sent through several layers of zombie PCs, again making it very difficult to identify where those commands come from. Moreover, Storm operates as a horde of clusters, each of two or three dozen zombie PCs. No existing methods can shut down Storm. In fact, all that will work to kill Storm is to find the people running it, arrest them, and seize their access data. The programmers who put Storm together know their stuff, and police in dozens of country would like to get their hands on them.
To avoid the police (especially the U.S. FBI), many botherders (those who operate botnets) are usually in countries without an extradition treaty with the United States (where nearly half the zombie PCs are). Criminal gangs are increasingly active in producing things like Storm, and, in the case of China, so are government Cyber War operations. It's unclear who is controlling the millions of Storm zombies, but it's becoming clear what Storm is up to. It has been launching attacks at web sites involved in stopping or investigating Storm. This involves transmitting huge quantities of bogus messages ,that shut down targeted web sites (this is a DDOS, or distributed denial or service attack). The Storm botherders are also advertising their botnet as available for the usual illegal activities (various types of spam). It's believed that Storm is owned by a Russian criminal syndicate, but that's only a guess based on what is known about Storm so far.
But the most alarming aspect of all this is the sheer size of the Storm botnet. It's quite possible that it's not all one, huge, multimillion PC botnet. There may be several owners, who simply used variations of the basic Storm virus (which showed up last February, using as a lure the promise of news about the huge Winter storms then lashing Europe, and thus got its name.)
Police and Cyber War organizations are certainly trying to track down who controls Storm, mainly in self-defense. A botnet that large could shut down major sites, or large chunks of the Internet itself. The Storm is the Internet equivalent of a nuclear weapon, and no one is sure who controls it, or for what purposes.
#9
"Storm ...lashing across Europe" > D *** NG IT, I thought I told the Army + DARPA it was officially SYSTEMS TECHNIX TACTICAL OPERATING RECALL MEMORY. *Keep loading them shotguns, woman, I think I found out why my hoagie sandwiches were never delivered.
#3
Looks like the upgrade and calibration check of the Halliburton Tsunami/Earthshaker gravity cannon went sucessfully. Next up:
Test firings. (remember kids, right then up, and please respect the danger close limits.)
Posted by: N guard ||
10/16/2007 15:24 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Now, Stuart, if you look at the soil around any large US city,
there's a big undeground homosexual population. Des Moines, Iowa,
for an example. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it; you can't grow anything in it. The government
says it's due to poor farming. But I know what's really going on,
Stuart. I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens.
They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to
God.
#8
*Locked*
At The End Of The Video.. Watch, Banded Clouds Drop Huge Secrete Drops. Not of this World Here
*Locked*
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
10/16/2007 18:44 Comments ||
Top||
#9
What I saw on Guam back in the 1960's and early 70's was no cloud. Among other thingys, GWOT > test of the reliability/validity or any and all known or prevailing Universal, Enviro, and Solar, etal. Models-Theories. * B-52 ROCK GROUP > "Ohhhhhhhh, MERCURY, you've been through every degree....". As the Sun expands and releases more energy and gravity, the inner planets of our solar system including Mercury will have their normal orbits disrupted andor placed at risk of being crushed to pieces.
#10
Folks, gravity waves aren't the same as gravitational waves. One is fluid mechanics and meteorology, and the other is astrophysics and general relativity. Read the article.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/16/2007 23:08 Comments ||
Top||
(AKI) - European Union foreign ministers agreed on Monday to adopt a package of measures against Burma's military junta, which include an embargo on the export of wood and metals and gemstones.
The sanctions also target the key teck and jade exports sectors but do not cover the energy sector. "There is no doubt that these decisions affect several quite major areas, such as Burma's international trade and the significant assets belonging to the families and chiefs of the Burmese junta," Italy's foreign minister Massimo D'Alema told reporters after the foreign ministers summit in Luxembourg. "The EU strongly condemns the brutal crackdown on demonstrations in Burma/Myanmar," read a summit statement.
The 27-member bloc regretted that its calls to the Burmese authorities to exercise restraint towards pro-democracy protestors have gone unheeded and the arrests have continued over the recent days, the statement said
"The bloc demands that the authorities immediately cease all violent repression and intimidation and that they release all those arrested since mid-August, as well as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all the other political prisoners," the statement continued. Aung is the Burmese opposition leader (photo).
The EU will continue its "substantial humanitarian aid programmes aimed at the most vulnerable populations of burma/Myanmar and Burmese refugees in neighbouring countries" and is ready to increase this assistance, the statement added. The EU already has sanctions in place against the Burmese leadership and their families, with 375 people on a visa-ban and asset-freeze list.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Myanmar on Monday to stop arresting dissidents and Thailand proposed a regional forum including China and India to nudge the reclusive military junta towards democratic reform.
However, as the region began a new diplomatic approach beyond the failed strategies of sanctions or "constructive engagement", the former Burma's ruling generals remained defiant, vowing to plough on with their own much-criticized "roadmap to democracy". "We will go ahead. We will not deviate from our path," the official New Light of Myanmar said in a commentary on the seven-point masterplan, unveiled in 2003, to chart a course beyond the military rule of the last 45 years. "Those who sincerely want to hold hands with us are welcome," the newspaper continued in uncompromising tone. "We will get rid of the barriers and obstacles on the way."
Gambari, in Bangkok at the start of a regional tour to drum up support for a coordinated diplomatic front, said actions spoke louder than words -- and that the continued arrests and intimidation of activists were "extremely disturbing".
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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Not yet War on Terror, but I suspect connections will shortly be found. In the meantime, as they look more closely for terrorists, they find all sorts of other bad people. Via Drudge.
41 Arrested In Massive Identity-Theft Sting
Tens of thousands of fake documents were sold along Roosevelt Avenue for years by two criminal organizations, authorities said Tuesday. Two major identity theft mills were shut down as a result of the raids. Federal Secret Service agents joined the NYPD and State Police in helping take down the operation. Among the alleged ringleaders, a husband and wife team from Los Angeles who provided the raw materials to help make the fake documents.
Authorities said the overall investigation continues and they expect to make additional arrests.
Police said some gang members in Jackson Heights helped produce and sell the fake cards at $50 each. Police said money raised was used to support other gang activities. Among those charged, Edgar Cardenas of 95th Street in Queens, who headed one of the major rings. Other named high-ranking suspects include Lauro Benitez, Geraldo Lima and Miguel Ramirez Rivera.
Investigators said as they pour through seized documents, they would notify the Federal Trade Commission if they find victims whose identities and personal information had been stolen. Officials have also notified the Joint Terrorism Task Force to try to make sure none of the fake documents were being used for terror-related matters.
Officials stressed there is no link to terrorism at this time.
10 JFK Airport Workers Charged In Drug Ring
A drug ring comprised of airport and airline workers who were smuggling large quantities of narcotics into passengers' luggage bound for John F. Kennedy Airport in New York has been broken up by federal authorities, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Federal agents seized more than 46 kilograms of cocaine, 25 kilograms of heroin, and three kilograms of ecstasy in the bust, and arrested seven Delta Airlines employees, one American Airlines employee, two airport workers, and eight others in connection to the ring.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials, who conducted the operation, say the ring was led by Henry Polanco, who operated from the Washington Heights section of Manhattan and dealt with drug suppliers in the Dominican Republic and distributors in New York City.
To smuggle the drugs into the U.S., Dominican airport workers concealed the drugs inside luggage on flights destined to JFK, prosecutors say. When the luggage arrived there, it would be diverted to a "safe" area by two corrupt Delta baggage handlers before undergoing inspection by law enforcement.
Man Tied To Tamil Tigers Busted In ATM Ring How did a man with a fake passport and ties to terrorist organizations get a security job at Newark Liberty International Airport?
He worked at the airport for a company called Gateway Security, pushing wheelchairs in secure areas. But authorities say Siva-Palasri Velay-u-Thampillai -- a Sri Lankan who was given political asylum -- was busted along with a half-dozen other men for looting ATM machines in Manhattan. Authorities say the suspects are part of a global identity theft ring linked to the Tamil Tigers terrorist group.
Port Authority officials say the suspect passed an FBI background check. The Authority also said the feds do random checks of all employees. The company the Port Authority uses for criminal background checks -- the American Association of Airport Executives -- sends fingerprints to an FBI database. Velay-u-Thampillai passed every check.
Sen. Chuck Schumer says the system of checking employees at airports is flawed. "They are letting all of these security companies do these very, very cursory background checks, and they're not thorough and they don't do the job," Schumer said. Schumer blames the Department of Homeland Security. "What a bad department they are and how they're falling down on the job."
Perhaps I'm being silly, but it seems to me we couldn't possibly have every member of every terrorist group in our data base yet.
#2
Hey, wait a minute! Why are the NYPD and the New York State Police working with the Feds? I thought that Bloomberg had declared NYC as a sanctuary city, and that the local police would not help enforce federal laws. Or is it only certain federal laws that NYPD won't help to enforce?
NEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices surged as high as $86 a barrel Monday for the first time after OPEC said crude production by non-member countries is likely falling even as global demand for oil is rising. Prices were also supported by concerns that Turkish forces will pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq, disrupting oil supplies, and by technical buying by investment funds.
Despite the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' decision last month to boost its production by 500,000 barrels per day beginning next month, the rest of the world will likely produce 110,000 fewer barrels of oil per day than expected in the fourth quarter, OPEC said in a report. At the same time, fourth quarter demand for crude oil will grow by 100,000 barrels a day over last year, OPEC said.
The estimates add to sentiment that crude supplies are tight. Last week, the Energy Department reported that domestic crude inventories fell during the week ended Oct. 5 when they had been expected to rise. And the International Energy Agency concluded that oil inventories held by the world's largest industrialized countries have fallen below a five-year average.
"The fact that U.S. crude inventories fell yet again ... reinforced the market's underlying concern that demand has yet to slow down sufficiently to allow stocks to build, while supply is also perceived to be struggling to catch up," wrote Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global UK Ltd., in a research note.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery jumped $2.44 to settle at a record $86.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising as high as $86.22, a record trading price. Despite the gains, oil is still below inflation-adjusted highs hit in early 1980. Depending on the adjustment, a $38 barrel of oil in 1980 would be worth $96 to $101 or more today.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline futures rose 7.24 cents to settle at $2.1575 a gallon, while heating oil futures rose 6.08 cents to $2.3072 a gallon. Nymex natural gas futures rose 47.1 cents to settle at $7.445 per 1,000 cubic feet on forecasts for cooler weather next week in the Northeast and Midwest, and on worries a storm in the Caribbean Sea will move north and gain strength, threatening key oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.
In London, Brent crude futures rose $2.20 to settle at $82.75 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
At the pump, gas prices fell 0.4 cent overnight to a national average of $2.757 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Heavy Demand + OPEC + Geopolitical Tension = $100 per barrel oil
The only good thing about this is it will make gas-electric hybrids more popular.
#3
The guys in D.C. don't sound overly concerned about this anymore. Never mind that it seems to be affecting every other sector in the market. But what the hell, if we can't all tighten our belts so that a few thousand pigs in the futures market can get stinky rich, what the hell good are we. Why even keep us around if you don't bend over and grab our ankles without an argument.
#4
It might surprise the burg that we are only getting a small portion of the total imports of crude from Arab/Muslim countries. Our number one importer is Canada followed by Mexico then the Soddy's and then back to Venezuela, then Nigeria. We get small quantities from Algeria, Kuwait, Iraq and Libya. We are weaning ourselves more and more from the Saudi/Kuwait/Iraq cartel. But we need to do more on hydro-cracking technology and get the costs down on extracting crude from Oil Sands (Canadian Oil Sands represent the largest reserves of crude oil in the world). Also, refracting technology for Shale Oil extraction - Lets make Grand Junction a boom town, one more time. That place is where men are men and the sheep run scared.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/16/2007 16:22 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Only a few years ago Venezuela was #3, and Saudi Arabia #4, as I recall. But the Presidente Chavez started replacing the oil men with his own friends and family...
#7
People are not making much noise about the price of oil hitting $86 because the price of gasoline has not gone up yet - it is still reflecting $65-70/barrel oil prices. Gasoline stocks are still relatively plentiful as the driving season winds down and refineries switch over to heating oil production. Where these prices are going to really hurt is heating oil in a month or two. If crude stays high, next spring's gasoline production run-up will easily hit $3.50 and in places $5. At $86 crude, only the producers (companies or governments) are making money selling $2.75 gas - you have $2+ tied up in the feedstock alone, and another 60+ cents in taxes. Add refining, transportation and marketing, and general overhead (my salary) of something like another 60 cents a gallon and it is clear there isn't any profit right now in the 'downstream' (refineries, gas stations etc.) end of the oil business. Integrated oil companies like Exxon & Chevron will make money on the oil production side, but independent refiners and marketers are going to be hurting, big time. Expect government intervention - extra taxes, even nationalization - in response to peoples' screaming to punish the evil oil companies in the (near?) future, but don't expect that to bring down prices. It will just bring down supply and make lines or rationing.
#8
The car we bought at the beginning of the year gets 50% better mileage than our old minivan (28 mpg vs 17 mpg). When we finally replace Mr. Wife's 1999 Saab, the new vehicle, another inexpensive little SUV which will someday take the second trailing daughter to college, will also get 50% improved gas mileage. So while our cost per fill-up is significantly increased, our total spending on gasoline hasn't gone up nearly as much.
I've been seeing an awful lot of new little cars on the roads around here, where not long ago everyone seemed to have a minivan or a big SUV, so I imagine our experience is fairly common.
The Ottawa branch of the Anglican Church of Canada has thrown a challenge to the worldwide Anglican movement by asking the Ottawa bishop to authorize the blessing of homosexual marriages.
They just never get enough of this crap, do they?
Perhaps if they read the Bible ...
In a weekend vote, the Ottawa diocese voted 177 to 97 to ask Bishop John Chapman to allow clergy "to bless duly solemnized and registered civil marriages between same-sex couples, where at least one party is baptized."
If Chapman, an advocate of such blessings, approves the request, it will be a red flag to the conservative branches of the church in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and could hasten a split in the global Anglican church.
Chapman told a news conference it could take anywhere between a day to 10 years to make his decision and that he would consult Canada's bishops later this month. A group of conservative Canadian Anglicans, the Anglican Network in Canada, said they were deeply saddened by the vote of the Ottawa synod.
"We're saddened."
"Yes, deeply saddened."
"This is our sad face."
"Unfortunately, the synod has chosen to reject the pleas of the global Anglican Communion and 'walk apart' from the vast majority of Anglicans worldwide," the network said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
It is a good thing, because it means that a new, parallel Anglican-African missionary communion will appear in Ottawa, as a place for conservative Canadians to attend church. Alternatively, many of them have just left the church altogether over many years, and finally they will have a church they can be comfortable attending.
#9
Jack is Back -
I was at some natural park a while ago and a display showed that alligator eggs hatch preferentially male or female according to the ambient temperature. I don't remember whether heat made more females or males, but it had a major effect.
If global warming can do that, it would not surprise me if it really did make more homosexuals.
Thanks, USN, Ret. I never think of such things. Mr. Wife has been translating since 1979, which fortunately he seems to find amusing. Nimble Spemble forgot to ask him about that at the last Rantapalooza.
#12
They are notorious man-eaters, Nimble Spemble. Mata Hari doesn't come close to those two. You'll remember, I'm sure, that Mrs. Pruit and Mrs. Bobby were awfully protective of their husbands, too. ;-)
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HOLLYWOOD superstar 
LUXEMBOURG - Serbia’s cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal has improved but ‘is still too slow’, the court’s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Monday. ‘I confirm that the situation today is better than it was a year ago,’ Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), told EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg.
‘However, cooperation is still too slow and not yet sufficient,’ she said. ‘I cannot give a positive assessment of full cooperation until Ratko Mladic is arrested and transferred’ to the Hague-based tribunal.
Last week, Serbia offered a one million-euro (1.4 million-dollar) reward for information leading to his capture, which Del Ponte described as: ‘an encouraging sign of the Serbian authorities’ commitment to cooperate.’
Hillary Clinton today moved to secure her position as the most hawkish Democrat in the 2008 presidential race, saying she would consider the use of force to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.
ROGERS, Ark. (AP) - President Bush admonished Congress on Monday for failing to send him a single spending bill yet, and warned lawmakers to trim their plans or face rejection.
Senator 
October 16, 2007: The most powerful Internet weapon on the planet is hiding in plain sight, and no one can do anything about it. At least not yet, or not that anyone is talking about. The weapon in question is the Storm botnet. This is the largest botnet ever seen, and it is acting like something out of a science fiction story. The Storm network is now believed capable to shutting down any military or commercial site on the planet. Or, Storm could cripple hundreds of related sites temporarily. Or, Storm could do some major damage in ways that have not yet been experienced. There's never been anything quite like Storm.
U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Myanmar on Monday to stop arresting dissidents and Thailand proposed a regional forum including China and India to nudge the reclusive military junta towards democratic reform.
NEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices surged as high as $86 a barrel Monday for the first time after OPEC said crude production by non-member countries is likely falling even as global demand for oil is rising. Prices were also supported by concerns that Turkish forces will pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq, disrupting oil supplies, and by technical buying by investment funds.
The Ottawa branch of the Anglican Church of Canada has thrown a challenge to the worldwide Anglican movement by asking the Ottawa bishop to authorize the blessing of homosexual marriages.
