Teevee reportage here.
Relevant, because, given look, names & location of the perps, it would appear those were somali teens having a bit of fun. I guess they did that wilding (targeting white people "who wouldn't fight back") because foreign fishing trawlers have been plunering the somali seas, yeah, that's it, that's the ticket.
Since the first days after Hurricane Katrina, when the streets were still under water, many residents of New Orleans and its surroundings have maintained that the flood that wrecked their lives was the government's fault, and that the government should pay for it.
On Wednesday night came news that many had hoped for but few had believed would ever actually happen: a federal judge agreed.
The morning after Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr.'s decision that the Army Corps of Engineers' negligent maintenance of a major navigation channel led to major flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and the adjacent St. Bernard Parish, a pleasantly startled New Orleans was still trying to decipher what it meant. "Yes!! Free money from Obama. It's about time!"
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/21/2009 7:22 Comments ||
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#4
Free 'Vision' card, free meds, soon to have new housing thanks to good old Standwood and the Army Corpse of Engineers. Remember folks, he's the one who said we could stay in the Hotels for ever after Katrina. Thank you Bill Clinton for bringing us pro-abortion Standwood. I think I see some lawyers coming down the street and knocking on doors right now!
#5
Haven't the suffering American taxpayers already paid these moochers 2-3X of the total damage? Throw in New Orleans to pay off the balance and we'll call it even. Then America can turn New Orleans, hell the entire county, into America's Landfill. We'll let you rebuild when the trash rises to 20 feet above sea level.
Posted by: ed ||
11/21/2009 9:47 Comments ||
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#6
many residents of New Orleans and its surroundings have maintained that the flood that wrecked their lives was the government's fault
You mean the levee commissions? Oh, that's right - they don't have the money. My bad.
#7
have maintained that the flood that wrecked their lives was the government's fault
I maintain these people complaining are the ones at fault. They pick the government and now that their negligent hiring practices may or may not have come back to bite them in the ass, they're looking at making their employees the scapegoats.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/21/2009 10:59 Comments ||
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#8
Are they trying to tell us that GWB didn't dynamite the 9th Ward levee? I don't believe it.
#9
When you live in a permanent dewatering pit, like New Orleans is, and depend upon pumps to keep you dry, you can expect to have a few damp days.
This is a triumph for lack of responsibility and ripping off the federal government and the US taxpayer.
The only good news I see is that people that do this will be floating around in Hurtin' Pond when the money tap dries up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/21/2009 11:33 Comments ||
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#10
My prayer is somewhere, somehow, someone will find and catch a dozen or so live, previously thought extinct prehistoric iniopterygian (albino ratfish) and declare the entire region an endangered habitat.
#13
I know Rantburg can be an especially callous group without regard for "feelings" but all of you should be ashamed for what you're saying here. When California goes under by earthquake are you going to say, "It's your fault for having a bunch of liberals in your govt." or when any number of natural disasters destroys a signigicant part of America, will you never admit the U.S. government has an obligation to it's citizens no matter what their class, race, or political ideology is? The USACOE did not build satisfactory levees and people died. You're damn right the government is responsible and when you're held responsible, you have to pay. And so the better it goes to people who lost everything in New Orleans.
Posted by: Yo Adrian ||
11/21/2009 16:30 Comments ||
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Yo Adrian
Read 'The Storm' by Dr. Ivor van Heerden former Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University (LSU) Hurricane Center. Plenty of advance warning and blame to go around. Responsible citizens knew what to expect and left town. Irresponsible citizens remained at home awaiting the gummit cheese.
#15
You definitely have a point about the advance warning but to suggest that people there hung around in pursuit for financial gain is silly. Many of them had no financial gain to begin with and couldn't go anywhere. Instead they did what we,or (I), would expect them to and "hold down the fort", so to speak. They never imagined Katrina would be so bad. I think alot of opinion about this is influenced by racism and, I'm not calling anyone here racist, these kinds of comments are, in my opinion, extensions of the racial sterotypes of poor blacks looking for free money. Which doesn't accurately explain what this situation is...government negligence that needs to be held into account. But, not for nothing, I will check out "The Storm" Besoeker...
Posted by: Yo Adrian ||
11/21/2009 17:02 Comments ||
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Why would California go under by earthquake, 746? They've got stringent building codes, and for the most part builders and homeowners are willing to pay the extra cost to abide by them.
As for New Orleans, almost half of the city is below sea level, mostly due to subsidence I believe, which means that sooner or later another storm will be powerful enough to breach or wash over the levees no matter how powerful the pumps or well-maintained the levees. Given that, it would be better for all involved to accept that even the infinitely deep pockets of the federal government are incapable of complete protection and rebuild (or not) accordingly. The only other option is to take from Peter to pay Paul: where would you choose to take billions of dollars from the federal budget to pay for this?
#18
Yo Adrian, people are objecting to the sense of entitlement and feeding frenzy off taxpayer funds that occurred after Katrina.
One small personal example. My mother lives next door to a house that was defaulted just before Katrina. After Katrina, a family moved in, on taxpayer support. For three years. Didn't work, even in a town w/ very low unemployment. Were unfriendly. Added nothing to the neighborhood. Finally, after the bank milking the taxpayers for 3 years, they sold the home to a young couple. I assume the Katrina are still mooching off the taxpayer somewhere.
Posted by: ed ||
11/21/2009 18:13 Comments ||
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#19
I assume the Katrina couple are still mooching off the taxpayer somewhere.
Posted by: ed ||
11/21/2009 18:17 Comments ||
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#20
TW, I didnt say nothin
You are absolutely right about your innocence, 746, and I apologize. Yo Adrian is the one that should have been aimed at. Periodically I screw up badly -- I will try to do better in the future. In the meantime, let me buy you a drink at the O Club to make up for it? It's one of the links in yellow box on the right of the front (WoT) page. Non-officers like us are welcome, too.
#22
The Philippines just suffered multiple Katrina style storms. Now they don't have massive federal aid or a welfare state. (however a lot of the flooding was caused by blocked drainage systems but I digress...)
I can't help but wonder which group will recover first - the Katrina 'victims' who have been sitting around for years now waiting for someone to fix it for them. Or the poor Filipino people who know that help isn't forthcoming and they will have to do their own.
People don't seem to realize KATRINA WASN'T THAT BAD. It went east of New Orleans (putting the city on the weak/dry side) and it weakened to a Cat 2 before it did hit (it did pack a Cat 4 surge though.)
Another thing - the levees were not really designed and built by the Corps - they evolved over 120 years. The Corps did manage the 'improvements' over the past few decades but they built on a lot of unknown foundation (which was what failed.) And the local levee districts were responsible for monitoring and maintaining - which they couldn't be bothered with (the positions were political patronage and dinner clubs, for practical purposes.) The Corps is not blameless, but they sure aren't the whole problem either.
#24
Why would California go under by earthquake, 746? They've got stringent building codes, and for the most part builders and homeowners are willing to pay the extra cost to abide by them.
And it's cynicism, not racism. It stems from knowing that New Orleans is the poster child for Corruption. The USCOE may have been at fault, but so are are the numerous levee commissions and the city for not adequately building and, more importantly, maintaining their infrastructure. And both the city and the state played politics before, during and after the disaster.
The irony is that two other states were affected by Katrina. They responded better, got less in funds, and are in overall better shape now than New Orleans. But the news crews never seemed to have reported on that.
Free money. Race has little to do with it. It's culture.
That link currently has a number of interesting items. Like the one smoker who got $300M from Phillip Morris - which is probably more than Madoff actually lost out of the money given to him for investment, including the charities.
#26
I don't have any more sympathy for the people of New Orleans than I do for the people of Florida. You live on the coast, you get hurricanes. Deal with it. Especially if you are below sea level. You can't blame the government for a natural disaster.
Especially when your own local government was such a disaster.
A brouhaha over a Boy Scout and his Eagle Scout project has brought down a local union leader. Nick Balzano has stepped down as head of the local Service Employees International Union. Balzano was roundly criticized for crying foul over a Boy Scout's effort to clear a walking path in a park in Allentown. He said the project was taking work away from union workers. Six other high-ranking members of the union have also resigned.
I'm glad the overly verbal idiot walked away, but why the others?
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2009 00:00 ||
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The president of the Chicago Police Sergeants' Association was charged Friday wth using his fellow sergeants' union dues as his own personal piggybank, stealing more than $600,000 that he spent on a home, gambling trips, steak dinners and an online stock broker.
Sgt. John Pallohusky, 53, was ordered held without bond on felony charges of theft and money laundering.
"Any theft by a member of law enforcement is appalling and something we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law," said Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. "But the fact that this officer was essentially stealing from his fellow police sergeants make this crime even more shocking and deplorable."
Police Supt. Jody Weis labeled Pallohusky the "Bernie Madoff" of the sergeants' association, referring to the New York financier accused of bilking more than $1 billion from investors.
But Pallohusky's attorney, Robert Kuzas, said, "I don't think he's misappropriated one cent of the union's money, based on my conversations with my client."
Prosecutors subpoenaed Sgt. Mary O'Toole, the treasurer of the sergeants' association, to testify before a grand jury Friday. But when prosecutors learned she was Pallohusky's wife, she was allowed to go without testifying, sources said.
Pallohusky, a detective in the Harrison Area, oversees about $765,000 a year in dues paid by the association's 1,275 active sergeants, prosecutors said. He allegedly funneled the association's money to his personal credit cards and bank accounts for at least two years.
He used the money to make frequent gambling trips to Las Vegas, buy a home in Chicago's affluent Sauganash neighborhood, service an Ameritrade account, stay frequently at downtown hotels and have dinner at Loop steakhouses, prosecutors said.
He spent more than $163,000 on Ameritrade and $75,000 at restaurants including Ruth's Chris, Smith & Wollensky, Kinzie Chophouse, Petterino's, Gibson's and Lawry's, the arrest warrant said.
In August, a bank "flagged" the suspicious activity and the Chicago Police Department was alerted, prosecutors said. He was arrested at home Friday morning.
In 1989, Pallohusky was one of 11 people who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor fraud charge in connection with a petition drive to put a 1986 nonpartisan mayoral referendum on the ballot, according to newspaper reports.
Pallohusky was in the headlines last month when the sergeants' association voted not to accept a new five-year contract that could have frozen sergeants' pay through 2012. He said members did not want to work under conditions the city was demanding.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2009 00:00 ||
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Theft of union dues in Cook County. In other news, the sun rose in the East and set in the West.
[Bangla Daily Star] A local ruling party leader was chopped to death in Dhulauri village under Santhia upazila in Pabna Thursday night.
Deceased Rezaul Karim Dipu, son of Abdul Kader of the village, was the secretary of Dhulauri union unit Awami League.
Police said a band of criminals attacked Dipu as he walked onto the road after offering Esha Prayers in a mosque in the village. The gang chopped him to death and left the scene firing blank shots to create panic.
On information police rushed to the spot and recovered the body.
SM Faruk Hossain, officer-in-charge of Santhia Police Station, yesterday said victim's family, accusing outlaws of the area, had filed a case with the police station.
The body was sent to Pabna General Hospital morgue for autopsy Friday morning.
"Following a primary investigation, we became clear that outlawed operatives are involved in the incident," said SM Faruk Hossain.
Meanwhile, the leaders and activists of Santhia unit Awami league condemned the murder. "We demand immediate arrest of the killers, " said Mojammel Haque, president of the AL unit.
Additional police have been deployed in the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2009 00:00 ||
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Why? Was he trying to shove some stupid legislation down their throat?
POPE Benedict XVI was to meet his Anglican counterpart, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, today amid tensions between their two churches.
The strictly private meeting comes just two weeks after a Vatican overture to disgruntled Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, a move that caught Williams off-guard, saying he had been informed of it "at a very late stage".
Perhaps if you weren't so busy decrying global warming and participating in druid ceremonies, your Worshipfulness ...
The British press has painted Archbishop Williams' visit, though scheduled long before the controversy, as a "showdown" between the two churches, but observers expect a show of unity.
"Both leaders were committed to having this ecumenical journey together," said Reverend Doctor R William Franklin, associate director of the American Academy in Rome.
"People are saying they are not being prevented from going forward," he added in an interview.
The two church leaders will "want to demonstrate good will and show that ecumenism is going forward on other issues", agreed veteran Vatican watcher Bruno Bartoloni, referring to theological questions and the issue of papal primacy.
"What has happened in reality is that both sides have recognised that ecumenism has failed," Mr Bartoloni said. "The Catholic Church has made clear that they will never agree on the question of women priests and bishops."
As a result, he said: "The Anglican reactionaries (opposed to the ordination of women as well as openly gay clergy) will go over to the Catholic Church. It actually suits both sides."
You see, you're a 'reactionary' if you don't want an openly gay clergy or don't want women ordained ...
A conference at Rome's Gregorian University on Thursday - at which Archbishop Williams spoke of the "ecumenical glass (being) genuinely half-full" while acknowledging they had "unfinished business" to resolve - "did a lot to help defuse the situation," said Reverend Franklin, who is also an academic fellow at the Anglican Centre in Rome.
While appearing conciliatory, Archbishop Williams also laid down what he called a "challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking" on women priests. The archbishop, noting the "sharpness of division" among Anglicans on the question of the ordination of women, said they had managed to "maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves" by taking a broader view.
So he asked: "Is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals?"
Ironically, the meeting comes during long-planned events to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Johannes Willebrands, a Dutch cardinal who was a pioneer in Catholic ecumenism.
#1
I'd take the Archbishop's concern for women more seriously if he didn't spout off in favor of shariah in the past. But hey, I'm just a silly girl, what do I know?
#2
Not to mention his concern over 'openly gay clergy' and what shariah has to say about that ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/21/2009 13:04 Comments ||
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Actually, I wondered to myself if the whole reconciliation thing would eventually lead to some sort of bending of the rules re: female catholic clergy, the same way the Marionites have married clergy.
Critics said he had sacrificed a powerful economic post in the European Commission in favour of installing Baroness Ashton as the first EU foreign minister.
It opens the way for Michel Barnier, a centre-right French politician, to be named the next internal market commissioner overseeing financial regulation next month.
Mr Barnier, a former commissioner, is well known as defender of French protectionism and is hostile to the "Anglo-Saxon" free market model of capitalism.
Because the French center-right is a very different place than the British or American center-rights.
The prospect has alarmed the City of London, where many banks fear the imposition of new EU regulations on the financial services sector.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Barnier was a "serious concern" and a threat to "the economic issues that affect Britain the most". He previously called for Britain to pursue one of three major economic post and accused the government of pursuing the "wrong priority".
"Our French partners have a different view on market issues that touch on Britain's vital economic interests," he said. "Now that Britain will no longer have an EU Commissioner with a major economic brief it will be vital that the British Government, whichever party is in power, engages closely with the Commission to ensure that it keeps to a pro-growth agenda."
On Friday, French diplomats suggested Mr Brown had agreed to back Michel Barnier for the job in a "quid pro quo" deal for Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, accepting Lady Ashton. Downing Street categorically denied any such deal had been done.
Despite publicly backing Tony Blair for the post of EU President, Mr Brown is understood to have prepared a secret "Plan B" negotiating position in Europe. He privately accepted several weeks ago that Mr Blair had little hope of winning because of a proposed EU deal where centre-right parties picked the president and left-wing parties got to fill the foreign policy job.
Despite pressure from the Treasury to seek an economic portfolio in the new European Commission, Mr Brown decided to accept an offer from the Party of European Socialists bloc for a Briton to take the foreign policy job. Many European socialists wanted a Briton in one of the big jobs to "bind in" the UK to the EU in case the Eurosceptic Conservatives take power next year.
But yesterday critics warned the arrangement left Britain open to attempts to enforce heavy-handed regulation of the economy.
Mats Persson, of the eurosceptic think tank Open Europe, said: "This appointment is part of a very deliberate French strategy to challenge the Anglo-Saxon model in general and the prominence of the City of London in particular."
It came as it emerged that Lady Ashton, Europe's new foreign policy chief, was effectively only the fourth choice for the foreign minister job.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, and Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, were all discussed before Lady Ashton emerged in a last-minute compromise between Mr Brown and other European leaders in Brussels.
Lady Ashton herself only heard of her nomination at 5pm on Thursday and had not prepared a formal acceptance speech. Her appointment was greeted with widespread disbelief across Europe.
French diplomats were particularly hostile, and one described the move as "a joke."
Many of the EU officials who will work for her new European diplomatic service are also unhappy. "We are going to see resignations over this," said one.
In a BBC Radio Four interview on Friday, Lady Ashton defended the way she was appointed, she said: "This is not about a fudge, it's about trying to reach a conclusion."
A Downing Street spokesman added: "Cathy Ashton was chosen for the important post of high representative because she was a strong candidate with widespread support across Europe."
The first choice for the post was Mr Miliband but he ruled himself out saying he wanted to stay in the UK. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph in Afghanistan before the decision was announced, Mr Miliband confirmed he had effectively been offered Lady Ashton's job. He said: "Look, it is very flattering. It's a great honour and a great job, but I came into politics because I was committed to politics in Britain."
When asked if he hoped to be the next leader of the Labour party, he said: "Che sera sera."
#1
Only thing more fun than Euro-Nation state politics is Euro politics. It's like 3-D chess. Perhaps it will keep them happy and entertained while the OttoMans take over. Come to think of it... the Ottomans will surely feel at home in such a bizzantine zone.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/21/2009 7:46 Comments ||
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A UKIP petition demanding a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU has been launched in the biggest-ever call to arms on the right to have a say over Europe.
UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said: "This is a real chance for the people of Great Britain to show whoever forms the next Government that they are sick of being lied to and that they want a say over our continuing membership of the European Union.
"The Labour Party, Tories and Lib Dems have all lied about their intentions to hold a referendum and now UKIP wants to show that they have been listening to these lies and now wants to hold these parties to account.
"I urge everyone to sign the petition online, or by sending back a form delivered through their letterbox using the freepost address. They will even be able to print off more from the website to give to their family and friends who may not have the internet.
"We want to send a message loud and clear to the next Government of Great Britain that the people are not prepared to be ignored and demand that they be given their say." The petition will be ignored by their masters.
From Geostrategy Direct, subscription.
The Cuban government is using the dispatch of Cuban doctors and medical personal around the world as cover for intelligence-gather activities, according to an opposition Cuban web site.
PayoLibre.com reported Nov. 11 that Cuban government doctors are trained by the intelligence agency's counterintelligence corps.
"The goal of some of these doctors who carry out internationalist missions is to monitor the governments in the countries where they are sent," the report said.
The report said it was common practice for Havana to insert intelligence personnel among doctors that are dispatched to various countries to provide medical services. That's generally what dictatorships do ...
The agents conduct intelligence collection on public sentiment in the countries about Cuba's communist regime and to seek to dissuade anti-Cuban sentiment in the states where the doctors are sent.
"The propaganda in favor of the Cuban Government is used at all times, from the moment that the doctors set foot on foreign soil," a source told the website. "The agents gather detailed information that is later sent to Cuba. These secret missions are carried out in all the countries where the Havana regime offers humanitarian aid in the health sector."
The source was a former Cuban agent who was recalled to Cuba for failing to carry out orders after two years in Venezuela. The source stated that Cuba spies on the leftist regime of Hugo Chavez because of doubts about Chavez' loyalty to the Cuban communist cause.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/21/2009 13:31 ||
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That's all we bloody need! More threats to our automotive carberator and mechanical fuel pump technology.
A relative of a Cuban slave doctor, who was sent by the Castro regime to work in Angola, have sent me copy of a recent e-mail he received where the doctor explains how the Castro brothers exploit those who are forced to abandon their families and go work in foreign countries.
The name of the doctor has been omitted for obvious reasons. Here is a translation of what he said:
"Let me explain how the contract works. The Angolan government pays Cuba US$10,000 monthly for each doctor, but from that total, the Cuban government pays Angola's Ministry of Health US$6,000 per month to guarantee our housing and transportation. We have to pay for our own food. Of the US$4,000 left we only receive US$600, but 30% of the $600 is paid to an account in Cuba. I spend about US$150 buying food that I have to cook myself and if you check the phone bill, it cost around US$40 to call Cuba. As you can see, it is not easy."
Note - According to the relatives, the 30% that is paid in Cuba is in CUC Convertible Cuban Pesos that are worthless outside of Cuba.
Based on this breakdown, Cuba is receiving US$4,000 net after expenses for each doctor. The Cuban government pays US$420 ($600 less 30%) to the doctor and 180 CUC, go to an account in Cuba.
And the difference, approximately US$3,400, goes to the pocket of Castro & Castro Slave Traders Unlimited.
Some exiled doctors that I've talked to believe that the figure that the Cuban government pays for the "housing and transportation" seems high and is probably what the government told the doctor.
If that's the case, the difference that goes to the Castro brothers pockets could be even higher.
Multiply that by the thousands of Cuban doctors who are currently working in foreign countries and you can understand why Forbes lists Fidel Castro as one of the world's richest dictators.
Next time you hear one of those foreign ignorants talking about the "generosity" of Cuba's leaders in "sharing" thousands of Cuban doctors to help the poor and the needy around the world, show them this letter.
(...)
A retired US state department official and his wife have admitted spying for Cuba for nearly three decades. The former official, Walter Kendall Myers, 72, had access to top-secret government information.
Under a plea deal, Mr Myers will spend the rest of his life in jail while wife Gwendolyn, 71, will serve a term of no more than seven-and-a-half years. She pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to gather and transmit national defence information to Cuba.
The couple also agreed to forfeit $1.7m (Ā£1m) in assets - including a Washington DC apartment and a 37-ft yacht - an amount equal to the total salary he earned from the state department.
They have been in custody since being arrested in June, following an undercover FBI sting operation.
Myers was known as Agent 202, while his wife was Agent 123, according to court documents.
Prosecutors say the couple were recruited three decades ago while living in South Dakota by a Cuban intelligence agent, who had recruited met Myers during his previous role at the state department.
In 1981, the husband and wife returned to Washington where Myers got a job back at the state department and worked his way up. A mole in the State Department? Say it ain't so! Good thing they caught this pair, surely they are the last ones. US authorities say that from 1983 until this year the couple had a shortwave radio to receive messages from the Cuban government. The famous shortwave "numbers stations".
They also delivered government secrets by swapping shopping trolleys with their Cuban handlers at stores, and spent an evening with then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1995, say officials.
But the couple's lawyer, Bradford Berenson, said they had acted "not out of selfish motive or hope of personal gain, but out of conscience and personal commitment", reports AP news agency. Except for the money they took. And I guess their 'conscience and personal commitment' didn't include the value of patriotism ...
#1
And they shouldn't be electrocuted in an electric chair, but just "placed in a seated position between to substantially different electrical potentials."
You know, you and wifey could have taken one of the Mariel Boatlifts in the opposite direction and saved the country a lot of grief. It probably would have done your conscience a lot of good too.
Posted by: ed ||
11/21/2009 9:15 Comments ||
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#4
Myers was known as Agent 202, while his wife was Agent 123, according to court documents.
If the Cuba Intelligence system tracks agents numerically by the foreign activity to which they are assigned, appears there may be another 79 agents at, or retired from State.
#6
You'd have to execute most of the State Department.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/21/2009 11:08 Comments ||
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#7
If the Cuba Intelligence system tracks agents numerically by the foreign activity to which they are assigned, appears there may be another 79 agents at, or retired from State.
Oh they do. Trust me.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/21/2009 11:47 Comments ||
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#8
Not necessarily just at State. There's lot of other agencies and educational institutions that would be "of interest"
Could be something as innocuous as a school district.
(Bloomberg) -- California, Delaware, South Carolina and Florida registered record rates of unemployment in October as weakness in the labor market stretches from coast to coast and limits the economic recovery.
Joblessness rose in 29 U.S. states last month compared with 22 in September, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Michigan had the highest jobless rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.9 percent.
The national rate last month reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, weighing on consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Nov. 17 that joblessness "likely will decline only slowly," a reason policy makers will keep interest rates near zero to ensure growth is sustained.
"We've had a surprisingly sharp jump in the jobless rate," said Richard DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research in Washington. "Businesses have truly been doing an extraordinary job of wringing out productivity from the labor force."
Stocks fell for a third day, with the Standard & Poor's 500 Index declining 0.3 percent to 1,091.38 at 4:03 p.m. in New York. Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of personal computers, dropped 10 percent after reporting a 54 percent drop in profit.
Declines in 13 States
The unemployment rate fell in 13 states, including Massachusetts, where it declined to 8.9 percent from 9.3 percent; New Hampshire, with a drop to 6.8 percent from 7.2 percent; and West Virginia, which fell to 8.5 percent from 8.9 percent.
The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment held at 14 last month, the Labor Department's report showed. The states reporting a record jobless rate were California at 12.5 percent, South Carolina at 12.1 percent, Florida at 11.2 percent and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate.
"Virtually every sector aside from the health-care sector is losing jobs," said Sean Snaith, University of Central Florida economist in Orlando. "Housing has been central to Florida's economic story throughout the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it has spread well beyond the sectors directly involved in the housing market."
President Barack Obama on Nov. 6 signed into law a plan to extend jobless benefits, expand a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and provide tax refunds to money-losing companies. The measure gives jobless people as many as 20 additional weeks of unemployment assistance.
The president has also announced plans to convene a jobs summit at the White House next month.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2009 00:00 ||
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HopeNChange, kids!
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 11:44 Comments ||
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Health-Care sector is next with the increased taxes on anything Health-Care related. This is a massive takeover. I would like to know where the money and power is moving for those on the inside. Medicare, Solar power, and going green all stink of back door deals. Over fifty, sorry your out of luck. An elderly woman didn't want to spend money on her roof because it was her burial
money so the son said come on mom the state won't leave you lying around to stink up the place.
The historian and researcher at the secret Vatican archive said she has found the words "Jesus Nazarene" on the shroud, proving it was the linen cloth which was wrapped around Christ's body.
She said computer analysis of photographs of the shroud revealed extremely faint words written in Greek, Aramaic and Latin which attested to its authenticity. I guess she missed the writing in English, French and Hangul. Sloppy, sloppy science ...
Her claim was immediately contested by scholars who said that radiocarbon dating tests in 1988 showed the shroud to be a medieval forgery.
Dr Frale asserts in a new book, The Shroud of Jesus the Nazarene, that computer enhancement enabled her to detect the archaic script, which appears on various parts of the material.
She suggested that it was written by low-ranking Roman officials or mortuary clerks on a scroll or piece of papyrus to identify Christ's corpse. Such a document would have enabled the relatives of a dead person to retrieve a body from a communal morgue, she suggested.
It would have been attached to the corpse with a flour-based glue and the ink could have seeped through into the cloth below, leaving a faint imprint.
Scholars first noticed that there was writing on the shroud in 1978 but when the radiocarbon tests a decade later suggested that the shroud was a forgery, historians lost interest in the script, Dr Frale said.
She claimed she had been able to decipher a jumble of phrases written in three languages, including the Greek words (I)esou(s) Nnazarennos, or Jesus the Nazarene, and (T)iber(iou), which she interprets as Tiberius, the Roman emperor at the time of Christ's crucifixion.
The text also mentions that the man who was wrapped in the shroud had been condemned to death, she believes. The hidden text was in effect the "burial certificate" for Jesus Christ, Dr Frale said.
"I tried to be objective and leave religious issues aside," she said. "What I studied was an ancient document that certifies the execution of a man, in a specific time and place."
But other experts were sceptical. "People work on grainy photos and think they see things," said Antonio Lombatti, a church historian who has written books about the shroud. "It's all the result of imagination and computer software."
#3
If you hyperventilate, spin around 3 times and squint, you can faintly see "Party like it's 2012" written in ancient Mayan on the shroud. So I hear.
Hat tip, Instapundit
Hundreds of private e-mail messages and documents hacked from a computer server at a British university are causing a stir among global warming skeptics, who say they show that climate scientists conspired to overstate the case for a human influence on climate change.
In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a ĀtrickĀ employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to Āhide the declineĀ in temperatures.
Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word ĀtrickĀ to refer to a good way to solve a problem, Āand not something secret.Ā
This doorknob tries to make the use of the word trick look like no big deal by saying that the decline in temp is a problem they hid.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/21/2009 11:41 Comments ||
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#6
Slats, don't be naive. Even if the emails are real, it doesn't change the need to control the economy. People who believe in AGW don't let silly things like facts get in their way.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/21/2009 11:41 Comments ||
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#7
scientists often used the word "trick" to refer to a good way to solve a problem, "and not something secret."
Keep digging, fool. At this rate scientists will soon be viewed by the public as no more trustworthy than used car salesmen.
#8
careers should be ended over this - start with that fat f*ck AlGore
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 11:45 Comments ||
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#9
Even if the emails are real, it doesn't change the need to control the economy.
Or the need to suck up to grantmaking authorities in academe, government, the left-lib foundations.
Grant $$$ is any research scientist's lifeblood. So long as those holding the purse-strings insist on fealty to AGW dogma, the grant recipients will toe the line.
#10
careers should be ended over this - start with that fat f*ck AlGore
That horse is out of the barn. $529m loan awarded by DOE to Gore's electric sports car startup. Which is in Finland. Which does not even have a prototype.
Gore = another one of the Obama-era's new Oligarchs.
#11
While this will hopefully expose some of the ideology that drives the AGW debate, it will do little to change the ideology of ideologues like Al Gore and his followers. The sad part in all of this is that an important issue has been completely politicized to the point where the facts and science don't matter anymore. In essence, the issue has been fascistized.
I knew this was the case several years ago when my beloved sister, who is no fool, told me that fighting global warming was the "moral imperative" of our generation. I replied that I thought the debate was ongoing and that while we should continue to study the science and facts, I was not convinced that global warming, if it existed at all (a possibility I was and am entirely open to), was driven primarily by human activity. Given her position on the morality of the global warming issue, I asked her if my position made me a bad or evil person in her mind. Her response, "no comment."
#12
Follow the money, dudes. Our oligarchic overlords are rushing to shovel federal and state $$$$$ into alt energy projects at the same time they have huge personal investments in alt energy private equity and VC funds.
The most notorious of these VCs is Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins, whose lead partner, Vinod Khosla, had the gall to actually try to get a ballot initiative passed in CA that would have shoveled over a billion in state $$$$$ into his own alt-energy investment portfolio.
The corruption is so blatant, it's not even remarked upon.
Oligarchs, arise. You have nothing to lose but your shame (such little as may exist)
#14
What really, really frosts my tomatoes is that Al Goreacle chose to build his electric car company in FINLAND, not the US. Rips any pretense of patriotic intent off his dishonest, manipulative facade. Thank God he didn't win Florida!
1. type the word the link will be attached to, eg "link #1" or "The CRU hack"
2. Go to the webpage you want to link, and do a Copy on the address/URL.
3. Come back to your comment, and click the icon of the circle sitting on the oval that's in the row of icons below the comment box. It's just to the right of the little A to big A icon.
4. Paste your copied web address into the box that pops up. Click on OK.
It took me quite a while to figure this out after the icon appeared. I was still using the HTML code 'a href=URL'link'/a' (with angle brackets replacing the single quotes) until someone else mentioned the icon recently.
Damn, too much perspective and way to scary because it all seems so obvious now.
The third world is poor because of corruption at all levels. The US is heading that way. Currently our corruption is mostly on the top but with them pissing on our laws and beliefs long before that trickles down?
#20
That's the limit of my expertise, g(r)omgoru. The next question always seems to be what browser you are using -- I use Firefox, which doesn't seem to allow embedding pictures using Fred's cute little tool... or I could just be doing it wrong, which is too frequently the case. :-(
#21
I haven't seen the documents or traced the context. To give the devil his due the word "trick" is sometimes used to describe a clever analysis technique. If it works the authors are quite proud of it and get it published as quickly as possible. So it should be straightforward to find out if the "trick" was deceptive or honest: find out what the trick was and do a literature search.
I'm agnostic about AGW, but I'm certain that I know the motives of the politicians pushing it.
Posted by: James ||
11/21/2009 17:03 Comments ||
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#22
If the published letter is real, Phil Jones was lying, and my previous comment does not apply.
Posted by: James ||
11/21/2009 17:26 Comments ||
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#23
James, all well, but in this case the "trick" is related to how to manipulate and massage the data so that the hockey stick would miraculously appear.
I don't consider that clever, but simply dishonest if I close both eyes.
#24
you know what would really suck? Having prepaid reservations to the Copenhagen GWB confab. Place is gonna be like a communist party reviewing the success in meeting the last 5-year plan. Quell fun!
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 18:03 Comments ||
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#25
Since the operative word is "hide", not "trick", who cares what he meant by the latter?
It won't affect Gore, he's a politician. Nobody expects honesty from a politician, especially not one known (fairly or not, depending on your partisan bias) as a compulsive liar.
What it *should* affect is the reputation of these climatologists who have been posing as scientists while practicing politics. The emails show them behaving abominably by professional standards, or par for course for partisan hacks.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/21/2009 18:03 Comments ||
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THE world's biggest atom-smasher, shut down after its inauguration in September 2008 amid technical faults, has been restarted. "The first tests of injecting sub-atomic particles began around 1600 (01:00 AEDT),'' CERN spokesman James Gillies said. I'm happy to announce that if it created a black hole that sucked the entire world into an alternate universe it's a universe sufficiently similar to our old one that we haven't noticed yet...
He said the injections lasted a fraction of a second, enough for "a half or even a complete circuit'' of the Large Hadron Collider built in a 27km long tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
The LHC promises to unlock scientific mysteries about the creation of the universe and the fundamental nature of matter. But the machine was shut down just nine days after its inauguration last September following a series of technical faults.
Since then, the LHC's components had been tested to an energy equivalent of five teraelectronvolts at full power.
The maximum output of what is currently the largest functioning collider in the world, at the Fermilab near Chicago in the United States, is one teraelectronvolt.
CERN had said in August that upon its relaunch, the LHC will run at 3.5 teraelectronvolts in order to allow its operators to gain experience of running the machine.
The first data should be collected a few weeks after the first particle beam was fired.
CERN said the partial power level will be kept until "a significant data sample has been gathered" and ramped up thereafter.
Designed to shed light on the origins of the universe, the LHC at CERN took nearly 20 years to complete and cost $6.3 billion to build.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I've notice my Pica Guage is off by a point.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/21/2009 7:42 Comments ||
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#2
Actually it caused a time warp as well and sucked us into an alternate universe on Jan 20th of this year. Didn't you see the bearded Mr. Spock?
#3
Say... If we are in an alternate timeline or something, how come I'm still a loser? This wasn't like that at the end of "back to the future".
They need to tweak this thing, it's not working well yet.
Or... maybe... I used to be successful and all... rich guy, married to a vulgar-looking-yet-beautiful (and not too bright) blonde tits-goddess, with four, no, five kids who love me, and an huge, sprawling home, several cars, great job, lean & fit with the proverbial six-packs and a manly, rugged physique...
And they turned that thing on... and I woke up like THAT this morning.
#1
I get it. I would have wanted to do the same thing. What a choice to make - I'll pray for this guy, sounds like his heart is in the right place. This doesn't fall neatly into the right or wrong category does it?
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/21/2009 11:50 Comments ||
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#3
It's murder, it's not justice.
Justice would be father turning in son to the law and then ensuring that the son is punished appropriately.
A 15 year old boy who abuses a 3 year old girl is, by definition, seriously, psychologically disturbed. He needs evaluation, treatment, and appropriate punishment.
But you don't execute 15 year olds.
And you don't murder them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/21/2009 13:12 Comments ||
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#4
what if some 15 year old molested your 3 yr old daughter?
Posted by: chris ||
11/21/2009 13:34 Comments ||
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#5
In a simpler time, the guy would be sitting in the sheriff's office, and they'd be drinking Old Crow from a bottle out of the bottom drawer, and the story never would have made the paper. Who says newer is better?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/21/2009 13:41 Comments ||
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#6
I hope the father could tell the confession was real and not just some ill advised lie to hurt dad.
#7
or an ill advised lie to hurt mom. Or mom making stuff up to get shiv dad for some reason. Sounds like the dad stormed in and shot the kid without hearing any additional details. Of course this might not be the first time, or the details might have been left out by the reporter.
#8
actually he made him strip and marched him to a vacant lot where he made him kneel and shot him
that's not "tough love". That's more rightly called murder
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 15:29 Comments ||
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#9
I think child molesters should be put down like dogs (including first-time offenders). That includes child molesters we call sons, fathers, cousins, uncles, or (pick a relative). It only takes one time and the person is psychologically traumatized for a lifetime. I wish this man the best and admire him for making a decision not even Abraham had to follow through with.
Posted by: Yo Adrian ||
11/21/2009 16:45 Comments ||
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#10
really? And what evidence did he act on? The 15 yr old son's word? I actually have no problem with child molestation being a capital offense. I don't think was any way to handle it. What if the kid lied?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 17:02 Comments ||
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#11
It wouldn't be the way I would've handled it either... I would've buried my son and wouldn't have turned myself in. I hear your argument, Frank G. and it's a valid one, but, some 15 year olds are rotten to the core. If you ask me this father saved the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars (not that that's the most important thing here) from years of counseling, possible probation, and not to mention the inevitable next victim he would've assaulted.
Posted by: Yo Adrian ||
11/21/2009 17:08 Comments ||
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#12
I hear you, but isn't that what honor killings are all about (to unarguably stretch the argument)? The father makes the decision? I'm more comfortable if the Dad took the kid by the neck to the local Police station, turned him in, and said "tell him what you told me"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2009 17:42 Comments ||
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#13
Parents don't kill their children. We pay big bucks to have a criminal justice system.
Posted by: ed ||
11/21/2009 18:04 Comments ||
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#14
Frank has it. Fathers don't do this. That's why we have a justice system.
It's a short step from killing your son over the rape of a child to killing your daughter to protect the 'family honor'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/21/2009 18:10 Comments ||
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#15
The moment I saw the heading, I knew the killer wasn't a Muslim. The Muslim tendency is to kill the victim rather than the perp, especially if the perp is his son.
#16
This is a sad story. The reason we have a justice system is to avoid this sort of thing. But this was Detroit. There is no real justice system there, in that few would rely on the system for justice. Given the alienation of the people due to decades of incompetence of their government, the father may have felt that he had very few options to protect his daughter.
#17
Think of it as a reminder of why we have a justice system.
This man probably felt that the justice system he is part of would not work, so he took matters into his own hands. If the justice system does not work, you will see more and more of this kind of two-front tragedy.
The first marijuana coffee shop in the US has opened, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax the policing of medical use of the drug.
#1
At some point, when enough Boomers are in the retirement homes this type of place will set up next to retirement homes and doctors will freely prescribe pot to the elders. They can relive the 60s in their pot den and because the old folks vote the politicians will turn a blind eye.
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.
A brouhaha over a Boy Scout and his Eagle Scout project has brought down a local union leader. Nick Balzano has stepped down as head of the local Service Employees International Union. Balzano was roundly criticized for crying foul over a Boy Scout's effort to clear a walking path in a park in Allentown. He said the project was taking work away from union workers. Six other high-ranking members of the union have also resigned.
