An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.
His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.
Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday.
The lawsuit is based on a March 7, 2004, incident in a dry wash on the 22,000-acre ranch, when he approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by a large dog.
Attorneys for the immigrants - five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States - have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape.
The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at "gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women."
In the lawsuit, MALDEF said Mr. Barnett approached the group as the immigrants moved through his property, and that he was carrying a pistol and threatening them in English and Spanish. At one point, it said, Mr. Barnett's dog barked at several of the women and he yelled at them in Spanish, "My dog is hungry and he's hungry for buttocks."
The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.
In March, U.S. District Judge John Roll rejected a motion by Mr. Barnett to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. Mr. Barnett's attorney, David Hardy, had argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.
Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.
Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.
Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.
He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck "for protection" against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.
A former Cochise County sheriff´s deputy who later was successful in the towing and propane business, Mr. Barnett spent $30,000 on electronic sensors, which he has hidden along established trails on his ranch. He searches the ranch for illegal immigrants in a pickup truck, dressed in a green shirt and camouflage hat, with his handgun and rifle, high-powered binoculars and a walkie-talkie.
His sprawling ranch became an illegal-immigration highway when the Border Patrol diverted its attention to several border towns in an effort to take control of the established ports of entry. That effort moved the illegal immigrants to the remote areas of the border, including the Cross Rail Ranch.
"This is my land. I´m the victim here," Mr. Barnett said. "When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back.
#3
What is the problem here! Has it become against the law for a US citizen to make a citizens arrest of someone committing a felony on his own property. Illegally entering the United States is a felony. Why is this in court?
Posted by: Dave ||
05/18/2010 11:55 Comments ||
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#4
I suggest counter-suing them using the litter and environmental damage angle to confuse their lib sympathizers.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/18/2010 12:18 Comments ||
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#5
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
Another CAIR by practice. Special Interest Groups interchangeable.
#6
To heck with electronic sensors and attempting to play "nice", bring out the claymores. Of course, warning signs (bilingual of course) would have to be posted.
Or give the Mexicans coming in illegally, the same respect and dignity they bestow upon those who infiltrate their southern border.
#8
I'm starting to think there is that the issue here is not about what the rancher did, it is about intimidating anyone who doesn't line up with the present administration. This is a non news item that the MSM has pushed to the forefront. It seems like there are at least 3 news articles every day about people who really didn't do anything illegal but are not blindly following Obummer's policies on specific issues that are controversial. They are being prosecuted or sued in Federal Court. The courts are always full controversial litigation. This issue as presented should have been dismissed. This rancher has made a lawful citizens arrest. He held the felons until they could be taken into custody by law enforcement. I'm sure the Judge was told not to dismiss this case. The MSM picks up the cases on which they can put their spin for propoganda. The rancher will win but it will cost him a fortune. I believe this is a form of malicious prosecution in the courts designed to be publicised incessantly to intimidate opposition to his federal policies. These cases are insignificant but selected to get top headlines by Obummer's MSM. This article followed all of the hoopla about enforcing the federal illegal immigration law in Arizona that Obummer opposes.
Posted by: Dave ||
05/18/2010 13:37 Comments ||
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#9
1,100 a year? He's a one man police force! I'm surprised he's lasted this long. I wish him good fortune.
#10
Lets see they were tresspassing on his land. In some places (don't know about AZ) that is enough to have them detained - no matter what their immigration status is.
Why is this even in court? Some activist prince of the realm judge perhaps?
#12
This lawsuit is so wrong. Barnett is a citizen making a citizen's arrest. Arizona should now pass a law giving immunity to citizens for upholding the law and making citizen arrests. Got to slap this stuff down.
#14
We have the most inept, traitorous government in history. If the Fed won't control the borders or make any attempt to protect it's legal citizens, it has no justifiable reason to f'ing exist!
Posted by: Jefferson ||
05/18/2010 19:21 Comments ||
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#15
You aren't whistling Dixie about environmental damage and littering. At our reptile society some gave a talk about looking for snakes in the AZ / Mexico border area. The area is strewn with plastic water bottles and cheap back packs.
A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin' night.
Police in Myrtle Beach, S.C., credit the quick actions of a caring brother for saving a young girl from an attempted abduction. Police are looking for the man who tried to abduct a 4-year-old girl vacationing from Pittsburgh.
The girl's mother, Erin Kuhns, of Whitehall, told Channel 4 Action News that on Friday, she was walking near the beach with her three children when her daughter, Josie, ran off.
Kuhns said she then told her son, Nathan, to run after the child. When the 8-year-old boy caught up with his sister, Nathan said he saw a man trying to drag the girl into his car.
"I screamed because of the fact someone was trying to pull her in the car and I went down there and beat the crap out of this guy," Nathan said of the rescue.
According to Erin Kuhns, the boy was able to wrestle his sister away from the would-be abductor.
"[Nathan] said, 'Mommy, I just kicked and I punched and I hit, and I just kept doing it,'" Kuhns told Channel 4 Action News' Shannon Perrine Sunday. "[The man] kept grabbing her, and he kept pulling her and kept trying to put her back in the car."
Nathan Kuhns was able to provide DNA evidence to police, because he scratched the man so severely.
Neither child was injured in the attempted abduction. Myrtle Beach police have not made any arrests. But when some police agency does, they are going to arrest the hell out of him.
#2
There was nobody around who thought it odd that a man was dragging a little girl into a car while another child was trying to stop him? Or at least nobody who was willing to ask what was going on? It's not like this was the streets of Brooklyn.
#3
HAIL to the little hero, he should be honored by the local police in both Myrtle Beach and his hometown. He should be set forth as an example to his peers of how to deal with cowards like his sister's would be kidnapper.
Walker "Bud" Mahurin, a fighter pilot who shot down two dozen planes in two wars and was regarded as one of America's top aces ever, has died, his wife said Sunday. He was 91.
Joan Mahurin said Bud Mahurin died of natural causes at his home in Newport Beach on Tuesday. She said her husband kept flying small planes -- and kept receiving fan mail -- for most of his life.
"He would get letters from teenagers to old war veterans," Joan Mahurin said.
Doug Lantry, a historian at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio, said Mahurin's name is familiar to all in the Air Force.
"Bud Mahurin was the only Air Force pilot to shoot down enemy aircraft in the European theater of operations and the Pacific and in Korea," Lantry told the Los Angeles Times. "He was known as a very courageous, skilled and tenacious fighter pilot."
Mahurin was shot down himself, twice during World War II and once in the Korean War, which led to his capture and 16 traumatic months in a prison camp.
A native of Michigan, Mahurin studied engineering at Purdue University then joined the Army Air Forces in September 1941 -- three months before Pearl Harbor.
He went by the call sign "Honest John," a title he'd later adopt for his memoirs.
During the war he was assigned to a fighter group in England, where the first plane he took down was his own.
Mahurin told the Orange County Register in 2007 that during a training run he flew too close to one of the B-24 bombers he was assigned to protect, hit its propellor and had to bail out.
He would redeem himself a month later, shooting down his first pair of German planes in August 1943 while flying a P-47 Thunderbolt.
By October he had become an ace, meaning he had scored five aerial victories. The number rose to ten later that year, making Mahurin the first "double ace" in the European Theater of Operations. Three of the planes he downed came in a single mission.
In March of 1944 he had to bail out of his heavily damaged plane and needed aid from the French Resistance to get back to England.
His knowledge of the resistance made his potential capture in Europe too dangerous and he was grounded, but would fly again in the Phillipines and finished the war with over 20 aerial victories. His later service in the Korean War brought the number to 24.
"I was brought up in an age when flying was the only thing," Mahurin told the Air Force magazine Airman in 2003, when he was a retired colonel. "We knew the value of being an ace, but you just didn't try to go out and become an ace. Mostly because, in my case, I was scared to death to begin with. I thought if I just get to meet an ace while on active duty, I'd be happy."
Along with Joan, his wife of 40 years, Mahurin is survived by two sons, a daughter and a stepdaughter.
Mahurin will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 11 with full military honors.
#1
I was reminded of a comment made by a peer of his, Medal of Honor recipient Joe Foss, that if he knew as much about combat flying at the beginning of the war, as he did by the end of the war, he would have easily doubled the number of enemy planes he splashed.
A good thing to remember about combat training.
The Japanese never did learn how to overcome the tactic of yet another peer of theirs, John S. Thach. The "Thach Weave" was one of those 'sweet spots' in war, where the enemy is trapped in a lose-lose situation.
Britain is to lose several of its foremost scientists next year following a recruitment drive to attract top brains to Canada.
The four researchers will leave their posts at UK universities for better-funded positions in institutions across the country. The British researchers won four C$20m (£13m) awards created by the Canadian government, the most by any country outside the US, which is to lose nine scientists to the scheme.
Adrian Owen, who helped set up the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre at Cambridge University and has risen to become one of neuroscience's brightest stars, will move to the University of Western Ontario, along with five of his research staff.
It's a big deal when the whole research group moves.
Howard Wheater, director of the Environment Forum at Imperial College London, will take up a chair in water security at Saskatchewan University; Graham Pearson from Durham University will move to the University of Alberta for a chair in Arctic resources; and Patrik Rorsman is leaving Oxford for Alberta University, where he will be professor of diabetes.
The moves come after several senior scientists in Britain warned that a brain drain was imminent as the new government prepares to make swingeing cuts in public spending that are likely to have a heavy impact on research funding.
#1
Supporting Muslim families with nine children ain't cheap, especially when there are three or more wives. Britain has to cut somewhere, and it's not likely they'll need hightech research in the future anyway.
#2
What the heck happened to Britannia? The country is not free anymore. Sharia law has made inroads. Rampant welfare. Years of liberal immigration policies.
#1
Given the speed differentials and the incredible turbulence generated by jet aircraft, the F-16s must have "shadowed" from afar or the ultralight would have immediately augered in.
Dmitri Medvedev lit a candle yesterday in memory of the victims of a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people in Ukraine, as he moved to strengthen Russia's ties with its new pro-Kremlin President.
Visiting a monument to what Ukrainians call the Holodomor, the Russian President placed the candle at the foot of a statue of a young girl clutching a sheaf of wheat.
At least four million people died in what is described by some Viktor Yushchenko, the former President, among them as a genocide perpetrated by the regime of Joseph Stalin in 1932-33.
It was a bloody lot more than 4 million. Some of my family were among them.
That accusation infuriated the Kremlin, with Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's new President who accompanied Mr Medvedev yesterday, being quick to countermand it. He called the famine a common tragedy suffered by people across the Soviet Union.
The gesture marked the start of Mr Medvedev's first formal state visit to Ukraine, sealed with an agreement between the two countries on the their common border, almost 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
#4
This incident will be all over NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, PBS, CNN,.........
Not.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/18/2010 6:08 Comments ||
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#5
this was the famine which was the subject of Walter Duranty's false reports in the NYTimes which subsequently won a Publitzer.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/18/2010 6:39 Comments ||
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#6
Robert Conquest in The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine estimates total deaths at 14.5 million. There is no news here. Not only was it the Ukranians but other minorities and the kulak class who knew about private property and efficient farming. Duranty's shame has been public and ignored for decades. Shameful.
#7
quite a lot has been revealed since Robert Conquest book and also his figures include more than just this. His figure for this is 5 million.
The wikipedia has a fairly detailed discussion on the figures.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The results based on scientific methods obtained prior to the opening of former Soviet archives also varied widely but the range was narrower: for example, 2.5 million (Volodymyr Kubiyovych),[42] 4.8 million (Vasyl Hryshko)[42] and 5 million (Robert Conquest).[44]
One modern calculation that uses demographic data including that available from recently opened Soviet archives narrows the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of precise data, 3 million to 3.5 million.[2][42][45][46][47]
South Korea will formally blame North Korea on Thursday for launching a torpedo at one of its warships in March, causing an explosion that killed 46 sailors and heightened tensions in one of the world's most perilous regions, U.S. and East Asian officials said.
South Korea reached its conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26, following an explosion that rocked the vessel as it sailed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea's west coast.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said that subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that had previously been obtained by South Korea.
South Korea's conclusion underscores the continuing threat posed by North Korea and the intractable nature of the dispute between the two Koreas. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak must respond forcefully to the attack, analysts said, but not in a way that would risk further violence from North Korea, whose artillery could -- within minutes -- devastate greater Seoul, which has a population of 20.5 million.
South Korea's report will also present a challenge to China and other nations. China waited almost a month to express its condolences to South Korea for the loss of life, and, analysts and officials said, has seemed at pains to protect North Korea from criticism.
South Korea will request that the U.N. Security Council take up the issue and is looking to tighten sanctions on North Korea, the officials said. The United States has indicated it would support such an action, U.S. officials said. Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told his South Korean counterpart on Monday that Japan would do the same, the Japanese news media reported Tuesday.
Another consequence of the report, experts predicted, is that Lee will request that the United States delay for several years a plan to pass operational control of all forces in South Korea from the United States to the South Korean military. Approximately 28,500 U.S. forces are stationed in South Korea.
South Korea's conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan also means it is unlikely that talks will resume anytime soon over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. North Korea has twice tested what is believed to be a nuclear weapon. China has pushed for an early resumption of those talks, but South Korean officials said they will return to the table only after there is a full accounting for the attack against the Cheonan and a policy response.
The sinking -- and the reluctance of the South to respond with an in-kind attack -- is the latest example of the raw military intimidation that North Korea has practiced for decades. With 1.19 million troops on active duty, the Korean People's Army has positioned about 70 percent of its fighting forces and firepower within 60 miles of the border with the South.
David Straub, a former director of the State Department's Korea desk who is now at Stanford University, said that while the Cheonan's sinking was horrendous, it marked more of a return to "normal" behavior for North Korea than a new direction.
"We tend to look at this as shocking because things have been relatively quiet for a decade or two," he said. But North Korea killed 30 sailors aboard a South Korean warship in the 1970s; in 1983, its agents are believed to have been behind a fatal bombing in Rangoon that narrowly missed then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan.
What has changed, Straub said, is the Western view of North Korea. In the past, North Korean misbehavior was often rewarded with Western attention and aid from Japan and South Korea. But after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, "opinion changed in a fundamental way," he said.
"Before there was a tendency of government officials to say, 'Well, maybe if we try hard enough to persuade the North Koreans to give up the bomb, they will,' " he said. "Now the conclusion of most people, including in the Obama administration, is that they can't see the North Koreans giving up their nuclear weapons on terms that would be acceptable to anyone."
#1
HMMMM, HMMM, the "CHEONAN" INCIDENT as PDENIABLE COVER for CPLAN's MIYAKO-OKIN NAVAL SOJOURN, versies DPRK's "NUCLEAR FUSION" TECH CLAIMS???
One or both, IMO KIMMIE > realizes that DPRK-ROK specific Bilater Relations + Manifest Destiny, etc. HAS REACHED AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING, ANTI-STATUS QUO DECISIVE POINT IN THEIR COMMON + REGIONAL HISTORY, OF WHICH ONLY "GREAT POWERS" EXTERNAL OR INTERNAT MIL CONFRONTATION + DPRK POSSESSION OF STRATEGIC NUKE-WMDS WEAPONS CAN SAVE NORTH KOREA FOR KOREANS???
Among other, RISING CHINA NEEDS "WARM/DEEP-WATER" ASIA-PACIFIC OCEAN PORTS [Not just Coastal-Littoral], + MUST BREAK THE GEOLOGRAPHICAL BARRIER/CONSTRAINTS THAT IS THE "FIRST ISLAND CHAIN" = "STRING OF PEARLS", + IS WILLING TO PREEMPTIVELY NUKE JAPAN + ATTACK RUSS FAR EAST, CENTRAL ASIAN FORMER SSR'S, + SAKHALIN ISLAND, ETC, TO DO SO.
Wid NUCWEAPS TECHS slowly but steadily spreading throughout ASIA includ ISLAMIST, ETC. MILITANT GROUPS, RISING CHINA'S ABILITY AS A HISTOR OR TRADIT LAND POWER IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY TENUOUS.
The US despite its victories has NOT WON the GLOBAL WOT yet, + despite its defeats or setbacks RADIC ISLAM = MILTERRS is not only NOT DEFEATED BUT ARE FERVENTLY TRYING TO NUCLEARIZE ASAP AMAP.
The joint investigation team has reportedly found screw pieces of torpedo, probably causing the sinking of the Navy patrol ship Cheonan, near the border waters in the West Sea where the incident took place in late March.
The Korea Broadcast System (KBS) reported Tuesday that the team has launched close checking of the findings in a non-destructive testing. "The manufacturers of the screw are shortlisted to two countries Russia and China," KBS reported, quoting government officials who were not identified.
The screw, which is a part that creates power to propel the torpedo in the tail, has been regarded as a decisive clue to the cause of the incident as it does not destruct in general even during an explosion.
The government is ready to make it clear that the corvette was sunk by the torpedo and North Korea will be responsible for torpedo attack as the government has already secured pieces of material evidence, including screw part, when it announces investigation results May 20. Who cares about the report at this point. What's the response?
The response? Stop payments for family visits, therefore stopping family visits... Oh wait -- you thought South Korea would declare war? No, even though the military leadership would like to, the politicians are being reminded by President Obama's people that we don't think that would be wise.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs owns about $2.5 billion worth of Apple stock. But he would own about $13 billion worth of Apple stock if it weren't for a huge mistake he made back in 2003, MarketWatch's Brett Arends reports.
In 2003, Apple (AAPL) stock had declined from a peak $36 per share during the tech boom to about $7.
This put options granted to employees near the peak deeply underwater.
So, to keep these employees motivated, Apple's board gave Steve Jobs and every other Apple employee the opportunity to exchange the underwater options for new, fewer options at a much lower strike price.
Steve took the leap and canceled all his options for a much smaller number of them at a lower price.
With Apple stock now trading above $250 well above the strike price of all those options Steve gave up Steve, with one pen stroke, lost himself about $10.3 billion in future gains.
plenty of people bought Enron at $60 or Lehman at $20, etc.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/18/2010 17:14 Comments ||
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#2
Not so dumb. Plenty of people, myself included, thought Apple pre the Ipod and Itunes was doomed.
Apple succeded because they shifted from a market where price/performance was more important than brand/design to one where brand/design was more important than price/performance.
Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.
Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.
This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,' said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.'
More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.
The largest number of doctors opting out comes from primary care, a field already short of practitioners nationally and especially in Texas. Psychiatrists also make up a large share of the pie, causing one Texas leader to say, God forbid that a senior has dementia.'
The opt-outs follow years of declining Medicare reimbursement that culminated in a looming 21 percent cut in 2010. Congress has voted three times to postpone the cut, which was originally to take effect Jan. 1. It is now set to take effect June 1.
Not cost-effective
The uncertainty proved too much for Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor who says he wrestled with his decision for years before opting out in March. It was, he said, the only way he could stop getting bullied and take control of his practice.'
You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it,' said Culpepper, a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement.'
Ending Medicare participation is just one consequence of the system's funding problems. In a new Texas Medical Association survey, opting out was one of the least common options doctors have taken or are planning as a result of declining Medicare funding behind increasing fees, reducing staff wages and benefits, reducing charity care and not accepting new Medicare patients.
In 2008, 42 percent of Texas doctors participating in the survey said they were no longer accepting all new Medicare patients. Among primary-care doctors, the percentage was 62 percent.
The impact on doctors has not been lost on their patients. Kathy Sweeney, a Houston retiree, twice has been turned away by specialists because they weren't accepting new Medicare patients. She worries her doctors might have to drop her if Medicare cuts go through and they can't afford to continue in the program.
I've talked to them about the possibility,' said Sweeney, who sent her legislators a letter calling on them to fix Medicare. They're hanging in there as long as there's not a severe cut, but just thinking I couldn't continue doctor-patient relationships I built up over years is disturbing. Seniors should be able to see the doctors they want.'
The problem dates back to 1997, when Congress passed a balanced budget law that included a Medicare payment formula aimed at reining in spending. The formula, which assumed low growth rates, called for payment cuts if spending exceeded goals, a scenario that occurred year after year as health care costs grew. The scheduled cuts, expected to be modest, turned out to be large.
Congress would overturn the cuts, but their short-term fixes didn't keep up with inflation. The Texas Medical Association says the cumulative effect since 2001 already amounts to an inflation-adjusted cut of 20.9 percent. In 2001, doctors receiving a $1,000 Medicare payment made roughly $410, after taking out operating expenses. In 2010, they'll net $290. If the scheduled 21.2 percent cut goes through, they'd net $72, effectively an 83 percent cut since 2001.
The issue caused the Texas Medical Association to break ranks with the American Medical Association and oppose health care reform efforts throughout 2009. Then TMA President Dr. William Fleming said reform is doomed to failure' without Medicare reform and called Congress' failure to devise a rational payment plan an insult to seniors, people with disabilities and military families.'
No surprise to senator
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he isn't surprised by the new opt-out numbers, allowing that Congress' inability to reform Medicare is leaving seniors without access and breaking the promise we made to them.'
The problem has been how to eliminate the cuts without running up the deficit,' said Cornyn, responding to blame U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, placed on the Senate for not passing a House bill that would have provided a longer-term Medicare fix. There hasn't been the political will, but we really have no choice but to fix it.'
Cornyn acknowledged the task is daunting. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that eliminating scheduled Medicare payment cuts through 2020 would cost $276 billion.
The growth in Texas Medicare opt-outs began in earnest in 2007, when 70 doctors notified Trailblazer Health Enterprises, the state's Medicare carrier, they would no longer participate, up from seven in 2006. The numbers jumped to 151 in 2008, fell back to 135 in 2009 and are on pace for 200 in 2010. From 1998 to 2002, by contrast, no more than three a year opted out.
Now, according to a Texas Medical Association new poll, more than four in 10 doctors are considering the move.
I've been in practice 24 years, and a lot of my patients got old right along with me,' Culpepper said. It's stressful to tell them you're leaving Medicare and they're responsible for payments if they want to stay with you. You feel like you're abandoning them.'
#1
I hold the AMA's poor negotiating strategy responsible for this. I predict their "support" for Obamacare will more grievously wound the AMA than the Sunbeam debacle.
#2
The issue caused the Texas Medical Association to break ranks with the American Medical Association and oppose health care reform efforts throughout 2009.
Good for Texas. AMA has only about 20% of the countries physicians. AMA represents physicians about like the AARP represents seniors.
#4
Oh, it can be done on a large scale basis, one doctor at a time. Nothing says they have to do business on a money losing basis. And medicare payments are too close to that. Look for more and more doctors to go out of system all together. The good ones have been for 10 years, fed up with the interference of insurance companies in their practice of medicine.
#5
That's true. Many doctors' practices have a high number of elders. Oncology doctors, gerontologists, and many other specialties rely on senior patients.
#8
Merck Pharmaceutical I understand is cutting help at this time. This is sad as they for years have been the backbone of our medical needs. Cuts in Medicare were to show savings under new program. So other medical insurers will do just as Medicare. Reasonable and customary charges and patient 20%.
#9
I'm sure the elderly will be able to get all the care they want from their doctors... but by paying cash out of pocket instead of just Medicare copayments. The thing is -- and I hope someone in the medical field will be able to confirm or refute what I've read -- in enough cases it's actually cheaper for the doctor to provide care if he doesn't have to support the Medicare/Medicaid/insurance system (waiting for months to find out how much the partial payment will be, paying the salaries of support staff to deal with Medicare/Medicaid/insurance companies, etc.). If that's the case, all except the very poorest will find themselves ahead in terms of the care they get, although patients will have less discretionary income because they're paying the full freight for their treatment.
#10
tw: The standard cost savings to doctors is so great, if they refuse Medicare/Medicaid/Insurance, that typically they can charge patients 50% less, and still make more money.
At that point, their biggest expense is their own malpractice insurance. If they could ditch most of that, medical care would be downright cheap.
#11
In Canada Doctors are contracting with individuals directly. I believe this could happen here but government bulling will squash that I believe. Exit plans are being reviewed now. In truth Doctors are a good bit sharper than the average person. The frog in the hot water is cooked but a toe dip first in the water makes his next move clearer.
The critical piece of safety equipment that failed to shut down the oil well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last month was damaged before the accident, it emerged yesterday.
According to a survivor's account that could prove devastating to BP as it struggles to stop millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the safety device known as a blowout preventer was punctured in the weeks before the blast but nothing was done to fix it.
Mike Williams, the rig's chief electronics technician, also said that in the lead-up to the disaster BP officials, concerned that the project was behind schedule and costing the company $1 million (£680,000) a day, ordered a faster pace of drilling.
Since the rig exploded on April 20, BP has been asked repeatedly why the blowout preventer, designed to seal off a well in the event of an explosion, failed to activate. That failure has led to crude oil pouring into the Gulf for a month, a spillage set to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident.
Mr Williams said that shortly before the explosion workers were conducting a test on the blowout preventer. While it was shut a crewman accidentally nudged a joystick, which sent 15ft of the oil pipe through the closed device, whose key component is a rubber gasket that can close tightly around the well head, sealing it off in the event of an explosion.
Mr Williams added that a crewman discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid'. He thought that it was important enough to bring them into the driller shack. I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, Oh, it's no big deal'. I thought, how can it not be a big deal? Chunks of our seal is now missing,' Mr Williams told 60 Minutes on CBS.
He added that one of the two control pods that operate the blowout preventer had lost some of its function weeks before the explosion, and the batteries on the device were weak. With the schedule slipping, Mr Williams said that a BP manager ordered a quicker pace. The faster drilling had caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools. There's always pressure [on the crew], but yes, the pressure was increased,' he said.
A 60-year-old female lawyer ripped a Muslim woman's Islamic veil off during a row in what French police described as the first known case of 'burqa rage'.
The astonishing scene unfolded in a clothes shop in France when the pair came to blows before being arrested.
The 26-year-old Muslim convert was walking through the store in Trignac, near Nantes, in the western Loire-Atlantique region, when she overhead the lawyer making 'snide remarks about her black burqa'.
A police officer added: 'The lawyer said she was not happy seeing a fellow shopper wearing a veil and wanted the ban introduced as soon as possible.'
At one point the lawyer, who was out with her daughter, is said to have likened the Muslim woman to Belphegor - a horror demon character well known to French television viewers.
The lawyer's use of the name 'Belphegor' was particularly inflammatory, said police, because the demon was portrayed by classical writers as 'Hell's ambassador to France'. Belphegor, who hates human beings, is usually portrayed as a monstrous demon with horns and pointed nails, but frequently disguises himself. During a period in Paris, Belphegor was said to live with a group of vampires in the Louvre.
A 'shouting argument' started in the store before the older woman is said to have ripped the other woman's veil off. As they came to blows on Saturday afternoon, the lawyer's daughter joined in, with the three women clashing.
'The shop manager and the husband of the Muslim woman moved to break up the fighting,' the police officer said. 'All three were arrested and taken to the local gendarmerie for questioning.'
A spokesman for Trignac police said that 'two complaints had been received', with the Muslim woman accusing the lawyer of racial and religious assault. The latter, in turn, had accused her opponent of common assault.
Police said the incident was still being investigated, and that charges could follow. Neither woman has yet been named.
#1
This is actually a good sign. All cultures have "social sanctions", which are unwritten laws enforced by the man on the street. In France this likely means that a burqa is starting to be seen in the same light as if someone donned a t-shirt in the US, which said "I molest children and like it", and walked down a busy sidewalk.
The Rhode Island school that attracted nationwide attention in February for its decision to fire its entire staff has reached a tentative agreement to rehire them. Rather than seeing it as a backtracking, both the district and teachers say the compromise benefits students and teachers alike.
The mass firing that had been announced at Central Falls High School allowed teachers to reapply for their jobs, but only a limited number would have been rehired. It was part of an effort to try to turn around a chronically low-performing school, and teachers unions had severely criticized it.
Under the new agreement, which was expected to be ratified by teachers on Monday, nearly 90 teachers, counselors, and other personnel will not have to reapply, but they will need to interview with the new principal and recommit to their jobs. The agreement also calls for a longer school day, targeted professional development for teachers, after-school tutoring, and a new evaluation system, among other changes.
The district got the teachers to agree to all the conditions it had originally outlined and which teachers had rejected prior to the February firing. In fact, the new agreement includes even more concessions, notes Justin Cohen, president of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight Education in Boston
#2
"If You Strike At The King, You Have To Kill Him"
It wasn't just their obstinate airs, it was their entire culture that destroyed real learning in that building. The only way to truly reform such an situation is a complete purge. Instead they slap a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound. Halfhearted and faint measures do nothing. Should given as much damn about the teachers that they've shown their charges over the years.
#3
The teachers are not the king and they were shown that. It also doesn't make sense to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
This may be more of a fig leaf for the teachers than the administration. Note that the teachers need to recommit, i.e. sign up to the new rules, and are subject to a new evaluation system. The real test will be in a year when the half of the teachers who don't get with the program are either gone or remain.
#5
It also doesn't make sense to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
They threw the baby out years ago as adjudged by the abysmal school performance. Do they still have 'collective bargaining'? So, in a year its the same old process of 'due process' that will drag for more years.
#1
Really nice way to screw the gullable and stock a bunker for yourself, then when others show up, shoot them.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/18/2010 4:37 Comments ||
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#2
If you really want spacious in a bunker, the abandoned mine tunnels in the mountains around Bisbee, AZ stretch some 2,500 miles. Literally.
http://www.queenminetour.com/history.php
I'm surprised that nobody has turned large parts of it into super hotels. And Bisbee itself is a pleasant town as well, worth a visit. Fairly near Tombstone.
#3
I have this vision that all these gullibles will buy space, seal themselves up for 5 years or so...finally emerge when they think it is safe only to find nothing happened while they were gone.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/18/2010 11:26 Comments ||
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#7
A friend of mine, a police officer in Ft. Lauderdale, bought a 1950s vintage house. It came with a A-bomb shelter. He and his wife turned it into a wine cellar.
The Centre plans to do both an audit as well as security checks of all Chinese made telecoms gear installed on the existing networks of all service providers before allowing any fresh imports from that country, officials familiar with the development said.
The move is to dispel concerns of the home ministry, which since 2005, has repeatedly warned that foreign telecom equipment vendors, especially Chinese, have the capability of installing spyware and malware that can monitor voice and data traffic and disable networks.
All new mobile operators rolling out telecom networks have chosen to partner with Chinese companies. Besides, large parts of the both the GSM and CDMA networks of both Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communiations consist of Chinese-made telecoms equipment gear. Incumbents such as BSNL, MTNL, Idea amongst others also have installed Chinese made telecoms gear on their networks.
ET has also learnt that in addition to Huawei and ZTE, the Indian government, since February has also not cleared imports from other Chinese equipment makers such as Mobi Antenna Technologies, Sunsea Telecommunication Co Ltd, Leoch Battery Co Ltd. Lenova and Tongyu (HK) Communication Equipment Co Ltd.
The issue of security concerns over telecoms gear from Chinese makers has rocked India's mobile sector over the last two months. India has maintained there is no blanket ban on import of telecom equipment and networks from China, but vendors from that country such as Huawei and ZTE complain that the communications ministry has not approved any contracts that Indian operators have signed with them since February 18.
Documents available with ET show that the Centre has rejected a total of 109 equipment contracts signed by local firms such as Uninor, Tata Communications, Airtel, Idea, Spice, Vodafone and Aircel with Chinese vendors since February.
In a related development, the Chinese government on Monday urged India to remove restrictions on imports of its telecoms equipment. Beijing alos asked New Delhi to provide a "fair" business environment for Chinese firms.
"We hope the policies (India) introduces will treat companies from all countries, including China, India and those in the West, equally," Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian told a press conference, an international news agency report.
"They should not discriminate against Chinese companies. India should create a foreign investment policy environment that is open, fair and transparent," Mr Jian said as per reports by international wire agencies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
"We hope the policies (India) introduces will treat companies from all countries, including China, India and those in the West, equally,"
P*ss off, tool. There's a reason nobody trusts you.
Time to ramp up that India alliance-in-the-making. Oh, wait, guess we'll have to wait until 2012. Please, please hurry...
#2
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > YOUTUBE: THE MUSLIMS OF SRI LANKA; + CHINESE EMBRACE MAY PROVE COSTLY FOR SRI LANKA [Underwriting of Sri Lanka's national econ hence SL Govt by Chinese Companies, Investors whom also prefer to bring in Chin workers instead of hiring, paying Locals.
IOW, SRI LANKA'S NATIONAL-ECON DEV IS "CHINESE DRIVEN" BUT LOCALS SEE LITTLE TO NO DIRECT BENEFIT = LIVELIHOOD SAVE FOR THE DAY CHIN OFFICIALLY TAKES OVER + DECLARES SL AS CHIN TERRITORY = PROTECTORATE???
#3
They should not discriminate against Chinese companies. India should create a foreign investment policy environment that is open, fair and transparent
Consequences.
That's the price for hacking Indian government networks.
Posted by: john frum ||
05/18/2010 10:43 Comments ||
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#7
Try to find a personal computer these days that isn't Made in China. Think about the crap the Chicoms could install on those PCs. You think Dell audits any of it? HP? If India put a PC on the market I'd buy it instead. Might be a business opportunity for them.
A Survivor Recalls His Harrowing Escape; Plus, A Former BP Insider Warns Of Another Potential Disaster From Sunday's 60 Minutes show, as reported by someone who still watches it. The video is 14 minutes, but the text is maybe only ten, some of it gripping. Summary -
BLUF - Blow Off Preventer was damaged weeks ago, signs were apparent, no one cared. BP was pushing hard, because the driller was behind schedule, then BP altered the sealing procedure to save a bit of time - [my guess is maybe a whole day; possibly two]. The combination of the damage and the risky procedure was fatal to eleven.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/18/2010 13:48 ||
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#1
A fair amount of this sounds reasonable. BOP clearly failed: perhaps 'bad luck' - happened to try to close the shear rams when some unusually strong part of the bottom hole assembly (for instance, but probaaly not, heavyweight drill pipe joint) was lined up with the rams; perhaps bad maintenance - maybe hydraulic leaks made the rams not powerful enough to shear the pipe string, maybe the battery pack was dead or damaged; perhaps bad procedure - maybe the pipe was moved during the BHP test and damaged the blind ram seals. If any of that is indeed true, the MMS might have waived normal requirements because the well was past the normal high risk points and almost ready to be temporarily abandoned.
The charge that records were falsified is probably not correct - more likely a test result was recorded on the rig and verbal report made or permission given, and of course those records were incinerated with the rig.
It does sound like the 'sealing procedure' was altered - that would have to be approved (probably verbally) by the MMS.
Trouble signs were seen earlier in the well, but did appear to have been controlled, and once the casing was run and cemented (as it was) would not have been relevant any more. It has been said that the cement tests were initially not conclusive, but follow-ups some hours later did indicate cement was set and sealing. Apparently the seal did not hold.
1) Cement seal tests were not entirely clean.
2) A second cement plug was not set before reducing mud weight - presumably with MMS permission.
3) The cement seal, probably at the 'shoe' - bottom of the casing - seems to have failed when the mud weight was reduced.
4) Gas entered the casing through the shoe from the discovered oil zone. As it rose it rapidly expanded and its rise accelerated until it hit the rig floor like a rocket, setting off critical alarms and responses.
5) The blind rams would have been activated, closing around the pipe string - but they may have been damaged during the tests a day or two earlier.
6) When they didn't stop the flow the shear rams would have been activated - but they may not have had enough hydraulic pressure, if there was a leak, or they may not have been strong enough to shear some heavyweight piece of the drill string.
7) The gas cloud ignited, and all possible control was lost, along with the 9 men on the drill floor and a couple of men working in the mud pits.
The claim of 70,000+ barrels per day of spill strikes me as highly unlikely - that might be the unconstrained potential flow, but it is far from unconstrained; it has to go down the pipe-rock annulus through incomplete cement, then up the casing, then through an incompletly closed BOP, then through leaks in the kinked riser. Under ideal conditions I seldom get anywhere near my theoretical unconstrained flow rate. In fact, if I tried, I would probably cause the formation to collapse at the completion and I would lose almost all flow (but my rocks are a lot shallower, and probably weaker.) Still, if one was desperate or a gambler, one might just blow the whole BOP off the well and let it go as close to unconstrained as possible and see if it would collapse itself (I wouldn't, the MMS wouldn't, and at least so far BP doesn't seem to want to try that.)
Virtually all oil and oil service companies are offering all possible assistance to BP on this - engineering staff, equipment, technical ideas, whatever. There are two relief wells being drilled - only need one, but a second is chasing the first in case something goes wrong with it. They are going to try a top kill shortly, but I'd be surprised if it works (it might reduce flow rates, which would at least help some.) The siphon seems to be helping and I would expect other similar operations to be tried.
Something on the order of 100,000 barrels of oil is probably floating around (a lot evaporated, a fair amount burned, and some sank to the bottom, but we only have vague guesses as to how much of each.) That's a lot, but the environment will recover from it - it's not that much different from what naturally leaks in a year, IIRC. If you've walked California beaches you have no doubt had to clean the tar off your feet - despite your suspicions it was almost certainly from natural seeps, not oil operations. It WILL be a painful time for fishermen and those who depend on seaside recreation for a living - but a bonanza for the lawyers. There will be lots of demands to shut down deepwater operations - look for serious lines at the pumps and $6+ gas of that happens. Deepwater production CANNOT be replaced by onshore and shallow water production - if it could, we would not be drilling wells costing a million dollars a DAY out in the deep water.
Enough. This is a tragic and nasty situation, but not an EVIL one. Lots of people share the blame. Everything anyone can think of is being done to 'fix' things. Nobody (except the lawyers) is going to 'win' in the end.
#2
I would like to read MSM-Net investigative Reports on whether this specific UW Oil field is geologically related to others major in the Area + CONUS-NORAM, MAHICO + SOUTH AMER???
PROLONGED POLITICIAN-ON-POLITICIAN, GOVT-VS-GOVT, ETC. SQUABBLING + LACK OF UNIFIED/COLLEC ACTION > may result in a true ENVIRO CATACLYSM OF WORLDWIDE PROPORTIONS NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN HUMAN + MAHA-RUSHIAN COLD WAR, [pre]OWG-NWO HISTOIRE'???
E.g. AM NEWS > "THERE IS NO MORE MONEY LEFT" to spend in the UK, as added to "THERE IS NO MORE OIL IN THE GULF-MEXICO + NEARBY AMERICAS".
FYI also in the AM NEWS > EARTHQUAKES ALONG CA-MEXICO BORDER + VENEZUELA + PUERTO RICO.
Comparisons to EXXON VALDEZ + DESTROYED OIL RIG may only the NOMINAL "CANDY" PRELUDE TO SOMETHING MUCH BIGGER THAT HASN'T BEEN REALIZED YET BY THE PERTS + POLS.
Lest we fergit, OLIVER STONE'S PLATOON > Young US Soldier characters >[Francis]"BECUZ ITS POLITICS, MAN, POLITICS"...[Malibu] POLITICS, MAN, F *** KIN POLITICS. THAT O'NEIL GOT HIS NOSE SO FAR UP TOP'S ASS HE'S GOTTA BE PINOCCHIO"!
Smartphones that offer the ability to "remote wipe" are great for when your device goes missing and you want to delete your data so that someone else can't look at it, but not so great for the United States Secret Service. The problem is that accomplices can remotely wipe the phones if the agencies don't remember to remove the battery or turn off smartphones before sending them off to the forensics laboratory, said USSS special agent Andy Kearns, speaking yesterday on mobile phone forensics at the AusCERT 2010 security conference.
"So if you've got a suspect and you take the cell phone away from him, and he's got somebody on the outside that can help get on the [remote wipe] website to get his phone wiped, all your evidence is gone before you get a chance to examine," he said. Agents were trained to incapacitate devices, but Kearns cautioned that not all enforcement agencies had the same knowledge.
"Hopefully our officers are putting the cell phones in a Faraday bag that is shielded, pulling the battery [out] and turning them off [before] getting them into the shielded laboratory."
#1
One of the dangers of a 'crackdown' is fracturing the military. It's composed of the same elements of the society. It can break both ways and when it does, it is very much to the edge of civil war. That's why you try to avoid using local troops against a popular rebellion. It's why the Chinese brought in troops from outside the capital region to put down the Tienanmen Square affair. I suspect the delay the government, which came to power by a coup, is experiencing in putting down the Red Shirts is that its trying to figure out who they can rely upon to obey orders.
#2
BHARAT RAKSHAK > THAI ARMY DECLARES "LIVE-FIRE" ZONE AS CLASHES CONTINUE IN BANGKOK,
and
WMF > THAI ARMY ACCUSSES RED SHIRTS OF USING SEVERAL HUNDRED YOUNG CHILDREN AS "HUMAN SHIELDS".
ARTIC shows Photos of a CUTE, CHUBBY, BUT ALSO SCARED, CRYING TYKE atop a street barrier, although its not clear from Photos per se iff nearby Adults were Red Shirt protestors.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has signed legislation affirming that nothing in state law requires businesses to provide "trained and competent" interpreters when a customer comes in speaking a language other than English. Assistant Attorney General Michael Walker said that has probably always been the law.
If it was always the law, why the need for this law? Because of a lawsuit of course. A unilingual Spanish speaking woman in Arizona was treated by a unilingual English speaking optometrist in his Arizona office.
The woman's underage 12 year old daughter offered to be the interpreter; fearing legal, insurance and medical problems if the child misunderstood the optometrist refused, asking the mother and child to return with an English speaker over 18 or alternatively, visit some Spanish speaking optometrists.
Instead, the Spanish speaker, whether legally in this country or not, understood enough of this country to file a discrimination suit against the English speaking optometrist. Refusing to settle, the optometrist finally won after the Arizona Attorney General took a year to decide no laws had been broken.
But the lawsuit and the trouble it caused the optometrist, Dr. Schrolucke, pushed him to reach out to Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, who agreed to sponsor what he called "clarifying language" to the state's civil rights law.
"Nobody should be treated like this," Huppenthal said. "It's a nightmare to go through this. He was drug through the mud by us."
Learning other languages, studying other cultures can be valuable, can be interesting but should not be a legal requirement for a person's business. Learning the language, studying the culture of the country of residence for an immigrant should be legally required for such public activities as voting and obtaining such government documents as a driver's license.
If the immigrant cannot or will not adapt and prefers to live in an ethnic ghetto that is the immigrant's right. But imposing the alien culture onto this country, expecting the host culture--the US's--to adapt to the immigrant's culture by rule of law and suing to bring it about should be illegal.
Step by step Arizona is proving to be the little state that can!
#2
This is starting to get interesting: From Hot Air Arizonia corporate commission replies to L.A.
The Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott the state of Arizona over its new immigration-enforcement law, and now the Arizona Corporation Commission has responded.
Gary Pierce, one of the commissioners chosen in state-wide elections to the utility regulation panel, notes that Los Angeles gets about 25% of its power from Arizona producers. If the City of Angels really wants a boycott, Pierce offers his services to help, as he explains in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and copied to Hot Air:
Dear Mayor Villaraigosa,
I was dismayed to learn that the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based companies a vote you strongly supported to show opposition to SB 1070 (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).
You explained your support of the boycott as follows: While we recognize that as neighbors, we share resources and ties with the State of Arizona that may be difficult to sever, our goal is not to hurt the local economy of Los Angeles, but to impact the economy of Arizona. Our intent is to use our dollars or the withholding of our dollars to send a message. (emphasis added)
I received your message; please receive mine.
As a state-wide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizonas electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the resources and ties we share with the City of Los Angeles.
In fact, approximately twenty-five percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.
If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizonas utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands.
If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizonas economy.
People of goodwill can disagree over the merits of SB 1070. A state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill.
Sincerely,
Commissioner Gary Pierce
A scan of the letter can be downloaded here. I wonder what Commissioner Pierce has to say about Councilman Ed Reyes lack of understanding of Californias own penal code? Maybe the AZCC could buy a copy for Reyes, although it might be difficult to read during the blackout in Los Angeles.
#4
Pity that he didn't include a little math. That is, if Arizona was to cut off the power to those California cities that are boycotting Arizona, how much more would electricity cost per megawatt?
Just to let California consumers know that this summer, in the heat of summer, if say they are paying $300 a month on their electricity bill, that because of their city council, they will have to pay $500.
#5
I think it will soon be hot enough in California that Arizona will unexpectedly find the need to take some of their power plants offline for a little preventive maintenance. Enron did it.
#6
Screw 'em. Accidently (of course)trip a couple of transformers, open a couple of transmission line switches and fail to reclose them in a timely manner, or just place an embargo in place on any day where the temp exceeds 85 deg in LA and see if any of those ingrates figure it out......
#10
FYI - the pols that are grandstanding on this don't amount to shit. The vast majority of Californians (yeah, born and raised here in San Diego) support LEGAL immigration and oppose ILLEGAL immigration. The lying f*cking press and activists try and obscure that distinction, and the lying pols are playing along. I expect that will carry over to their surprise and consternation how it didn't worked out as planned when they get ejected from their offices by "racist knee-jerk" MAJORITIES
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2010 22:30 Comments ||
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#11
I went through that scenario the other day with my brothers. Lakers forfeit 3 in Phoenix, Suns win 1 in LA to take the series. Celtics beat Orlando. Since Phoenix has best record and home court, and Boston is also (surprise surprise) boycotting Arizona, Celtics forfeit the 4 in Phoenix. Los Suns, 2010 NBA Champs!
#12
John Q, your welcome at my house any time, the missus too! I will show you a great time in Arizona.
My plan still stands. We take allthe rounded up illegals and put them on busses to San Diego, LA, San Fran, and Seattle. Let them deal with it. Don't forget the drinking water for LA comes through here as well.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/18/2010 22:58 Comments ||
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#13
Gee, thx Don
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2010 23:12 Comments ||
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#14
Late-breaking news from Tacoma is that a proposed ordinance to boycott AZ is being amended to 'urge' the boycotting. Seems a local tv poll showed a vast majority supported AZ and not the elected moonbats. They are also 'urging' no new contracts w/ AZ, except their red light camera program, of course. quote from the article @ the link: " the red light camera program is an important revenue source for us..."
http://blog.thenewstribune.com/politics/2010/05/18/tacoma-council-members-to-remove-boycott-language-from-tonights-proposal-on-arizona/
#15
Versus NEWS KERALA > seems some are arguing that NOT-A-CAPSIZED-PEARL-HARBOR-BATTLESHIP-OR-GUAM MISS OKLAHOMA USA may had lost the prized National Crown because of her overt = on-stage support for Arizona's new immigration law???
The Bishop of Phoenix has announced that a Catholic nun and administrator of St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix has automatically excommunicated herself by approving an abortion on a woman who was 11-weeks pregnant, and whose life hospital officials allege they were trying to save.
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said the excommunications apply to all involved, and lambasted the hospital's defense of their decision by comparing the ill woman's unborn child to a disease that needed to be removed.
The Arizona Republic reports that in late 2009, Sister Margaret McBride, then vice president of mission integration at St. Joseph's, joined the hospital's ethics committee in determining that doctors and the hospital would be morally justified in performing a direct abortion in the first trimester, because they felt that the mother's life was at risk.
The woman, whose identity is anonymous, was reportedly seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension.
The hospital has two directives relating to abortion, as reported by the Republic. The first says that physicians cannot perform direct abortions under any circumstances, including for such reasons as to save the life of the mother.
A second directive adds, however, that "operations, treatments and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted ... even if they will result in the death of the unborn child." This directive is based on the Catholic philosophical principle of double effect, which says that if the treatment sought addresses the direct causes of the woman's health condition (such as radiation treatment for cancer), but never intends to kill the unborn child (even though that may happen as a secondary, but unintended, effect of the lifesaving treatment), then it is morally licit.
Hospital officials claimed that they were following the second directive by aborting the baby.
But Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said in a statement provided to the Republic that he was gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese,' and furthermore said he was appalled by the hospital's twisted reasoning that justified the direct abortion by reducing the unborn child to a disease.
An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means," the prelate said.
Olmsted made clear that McBride and all Catholics who had formal cooperation' in the woman's abortion of her child, were automatically excommunicated from the Church.
"The Catholic Church will continue to defend life and proclaim the evil of abortion without compromise, and must act to correct even her own members if they fail in this duty," Olmsted declared.
McBride has since been demoted from her position, and transferred by the hospital to another area of administration.
Catholic Healthcare West, which oversees St. Joseph's hospital, sent a letter to Olmsted Monday defending McBride's and the hospital's actions.
"If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it," the letter says. "We are convinced there was not."
However, Dr. Paul A. Byrne, Director of Neonatology and Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, disputes the claim that an abortion is ever a procedure necessary to save the life of the mother, or carries less risk than birth.
In a controversial change to a longstanding policy concerning the practice of female circumcision in some African and Asian cultures, the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or nick' on girls from these cultures if it would keep their families from sending them overseas for the full circumcision.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/18/2010 08:18 ||
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First a nick, then a notch. It's a slippery slope.
A U.S. immigration court has granted asylum to President Obama's African aunt, allowing her to stay in the country six years after she was ordered deported, her attorneys announced Monday.
Kenya native Zeituni Onyango, 57, is the half-sister of Obama's late father. The basis for her asylum request was never made public.
"The asylum process is confidential, and she wants to keep it that way, so we can't get into details on why the judge granted asylum or the exact basis for her claim," said her attorney, Scott Bratton. "She doesn't want people to feel sorry for her."
Another attorney, Margaret Wong of Cleveland, said last year that Onyango first applied for asylum "due to violence in Kenya." The East African nation has been fractured by cycles of electoral violence every five years.
People who seek asylum must show that they face persecution in their homeland on the basis of religion, race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.
Medical issues also could have played a role. In a November interview, Onyango said she was disabled and was learning to walk again after being paralyzed from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves.
When Onyango testified in February at a closed hearing in Boston, she arrived in a wheelchair, and two doctors testified in support of her case.
Onyango moved to the United States in 2000. Her first asylum request was rejected, and she was ordered deported in 2004. But she did not leave the country and continued to live in public housing in Boston.
Onyango's status as an illegal immigrant was revealed just days before Obama was elected in November 2008. Obama said that he did not know his aunt was living here illegally and that he thought the laws covering the situation should be followed.
A judge later agreed to suspend Onyango's deportation order and reopen her asylum case.
Wong has said that Obama was not involved in the Boston hearing. Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro said Monday that the White House had no involvement in the case at any point in the process.
Onyango plans to apply for a work visa and then for a green card, her attorneys said.
#2
Was there anyone...anyone who didn't think this would happen?
By the way, she got very good health care while here. Zeituni, can't guarantee that in the future when the health care reform starts. Health care may just lay out there in limbo going through the courts.
#3
A U.S. immigration court has granted asylum to President Obama's African aunt, allowing her to stay in the country six years after she was ordered deported, her attorneys announced Monday.
BLUF: The "Deportation Order" means absolutely nothing.
University of Arizona professor Sandra Soto used a podium at the Social and Behavioral Sciences commencement to talk about SB1070 and a recent protest at TUSD.
They're leeches and not liked by those following generations who have to pay for their folly and excess. The worst thing is their expectation of deference to their "wisdom".
#2
It's not the Baby Boomers as a group, but those who undertook the the long march through the institutions who don't get it -- they may have the institutions, but they've lost the culture and the society. That the kids are emboldened to openly boo the speaker who tried to hijack their graduation demonstrates how badly the speaker's claque has lost.
My former sister-in-law, a math professor, and her friends openly bewail to one another on Facebook the conservative thoughts they see expressed on their students' Facebook pages, although of course the kids don't express such things in class. It clearly hasn't occurred to these people that they shouldn't be that intimately involved in their students' lives, and vice versa.
#3
Turnabout comes every 40 years as the children reject the priorities of their elders. For those boomers who were not that part of the generation represented by Soto it will be a pleasure to end life watching the young reject the values of the establishment their elders created and adopt values more felicitous to those rejected by that establishment. It's been a long wait.
#6
The 2010 budget for Arizona is somewhere around $11 billion. The deficit is $4 billion. The state is broke. Revenues are far lower than outgoes. It has been estimated that illegals cost AZ $2.7 billion in 2009 for education, health care, law enforcement and court costs, welfare, and general costs (Fox). This is not sustainable. Approximately 25% of the state budget is going for for illegals. Won't be long before University of Arizona professors and students will see fewer and fewer professors, fewer services to students, larger classes and more and more increases in costs to students. Professor Sandra Soto should be booed. She is preaching resentment and division. She is not a particularly useful idiot.
Scapegoating is easier than taking responsibility for your own life. Of course, I'm a white male Boomer Republican bureaucrat, so just ignore me. I'm the tip of the Spear of Doom for civilization!
#10
They should have tarred and feathered this moron.
The Colleges adn Universities of this country are the bedrock of the leftist crap we see in the MSM and in Washington.
Posted by: James Carville ||
05/18/2010 12:02 Comments ||
Top||
#11
In her class she could say this stuff without anyone challenging it for fear of a bad grade. At graduation the students don't have to, or want to, listen to the crap anymore.
Even if they agreed with her, making a political speech at graduation seems stupid to me.
#12
I'm always amused at how the moronic & deeply hypocritical lefty professors tell their students to question authority, excepting their own of course.
Its what some would call the 'moochers' - who expect to have everything handed to them without having to work for it from houses, cars, food, entertainment, luxury items, etc... And of course what some call the 'looters' who are perfectly willing to loot from the producers to give to the moochers.
Ayn Rand, I think, would find our times interesting.
#17
The graduation papers and diploma are signed. The former students don't have to put up with the friggin PC crap one moment longer and they're communicating that with you. They're also going to remember this day in the future as both a form of liberation and a point to fix if and when they do get the power.
#18
As a boomer, it is the boomers. Just not all the boomers. They came of age in the liberal era of Camelot followed by liberals Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Nixon not liberal? EPA, wage and price controls, affirmative action, COLAs, fiat currency, OSHA, CPSC, EEOC, ERA, Title IX, and the Comprehensive Health Care Act, which was ironically defeated by Teddy Kennedy because it wasn't liberal enough. And in his year in office Ford gave us the Earned Income Tax Credit and John Paul Stevens.
So they grew up in a very strong reality distortion field. And some never escaped.
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 Survivor Recalls His Harrowing Escape; Plus, A Former BP Insider Warns Of Another Potential Disaster
