Hi there, !
Today Sun 05/03/2009 Sat 05/02/2009 Fri 05/01/2009 Thu 04/30/2009 Wed 04/29/2009 Tue 04/28/2009 Mon 04/27/2009 Archives
Rantburg
533772 articles and 1862130 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 91 articles and 229 comments as of 7:48.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion       
U.S. missile strikes kill 10 in South Waziristan
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
10 00:00 kcs [2] 
6 00:00 TOTUS [1] 
5 00:00 Procopius2k [4] 
10 00:00 kcs [3] 
2 00:00 Seafarious [] 
1 00:00 Free Radical [] 
6 00:00 Gluting Fillmore6653 [3] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
2 00:00 JosephMendiola [5]
10 00:00 tipover [7]
3 00:00 Pappy [4]
5 00:00 GirlThursday [4]
1 00:00 Crump Untervehr1851 [3]
0 [1]
9 00:00 Cornsilk Blondie [2]
12 00:00 DanNY []
3 00:00 Barbara Skolaut [1]
2 00:00 Anonymoose [2]
0 []
1 00:00 trailing wife [1]
0 [1]
3 00:00 Old Patriot [1]
2 00:00 Angese Bluetooth1649 [1]
4 00:00 Healthy Diet Lets Woman Lose Thirty Pounds in Thirty Days [1]
1 00:00 trailing wife [6]
0 [8]
0 [8]
0 [15]
0 [2]
1 00:00 tu3031 [2]
0 [2]
0 [2]
5 00:00 Thonter Tojo4149 [2]
0 [5]
0 [3]
0 [3]
0 [5]
0 [7]
0 [10]
1 00:00 g(r)omgoru []
3 00:00 ed [1]
6 00:00 ed [3]
1 00:00 Redneck Jim [5]
Page 2: WoT Background
0 [2]
1 00:00 DarthVader []
1 00:00 Butch Omamp7794 [5]
1 00:00 Cynicism Inc [5]
1 00:00 Redneck Jim []
3 00:00 Glenmore []
6 00:00 Mike N. []
0 [1]
2 00:00 Redneck Jim []
4 00:00 trailing wife [5]
3 00:00 Mike Kozlowski [2]
0 [1]
0 [4]
0 [4]
2 00:00 Besoeker [2]
2 00:00 Glenmore []
2 00:00 GirlThursday [1]
1 00:00 tu3031 [1]
1 00:00 JosephMendiola []
0 []
1 00:00 Redneck Jim [8]
1 00:00 Hiyawatha Bernstein [5]
8 00:00 Mike Kozlowski []
Page 3: Non-WoT
3 00:00 tipover [3]
1 00:00 trailing wife [5]
18 00:00 Clomoling Black6393 [5]
0 [1]
3 00:00 Glenmore [1]
7 00:00 Redneck Jim [5]
2 00:00 Steve White [6]
1 00:00 Redneck Jim [1]
2 00:00 bgrebel []
0 [1]
0 [1]
4 00:00 Redneck Jim [2]
4 00:00 tu3031 []
6 00:00 Glenmore [5]
1 00:00 The Boston Globe []
2 00:00 Redneck Jim [1]
0 [1]
0 [5]
3 00:00 Cheaderhead []
0 [1]
2 00:00 Thealing Borgia 122 [2]
3 00:00 Besoeker [1]
Page 4: Opinion
0 []
5 00:00 Besoeker []
6 00:00 tu3031 []
1 00:00 Ptah [1]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Michelle Obama Volunteers at Food Bank ... Wearing $500 Sneakers
Good idea? Poll at the link:

http://www.stylelist.com/blog/2009/04/30/michelle-obama-wears-lanvin-sneakers/

Posted by: Zorba Craising6734 || 04/30/2009 17:01 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They're not Lanvins their Bruno Maglis. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would wear a pair of those ugly a**ed shoes.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/30/2009 19:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Do NOT like those sneakers. Some 60 dollar Pumas or Adidas, or even Chuck Taylors are cuter. Who is this idiot impersonating a style icon?
Posted by: GirlThursday || 04/30/2009 20:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Personally I don't care if she goes barefoot. But she can't do that because she's got a silent little footsie statement to make. Be sure to Google the entire Spring line GT. You'll REALLY be impressed. It's Kwanzaa shopping come early.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/30/2009 20:17 Comments || Top||

#4  this is a distraction from the real issues of the day: her sculpted arms
Posted by: Frank G || 04/30/2009 20:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Get some rest Frank. Gets some rest.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/30/2009 20:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Thanks, I looked, at the Spring "Resort" Line. It reads like someone threw up a Parrot and a Frida Kahlo painting simultaneously onto some brides maid taffeta and made it into an expensive garment!

I actually care what Michelle wears, because from the get go there is always something "off" in the ensembles she wears. I think it says A LOT about her. Its saying unsure, doesn't have her own sense of aesthetics, relies on style gurus for advice, shoddy, dodgy judgement and fashion victim. Thats what her style says to me. She will never be Jackie O. Ever. Even in cashmere she looks unkempt.
Posted by: GirlThursday || 04/30/2009 20:36 Comments || Top||

#7  A step up from wearing heels to garden.

My wife said concerning some of her recent outfits, "If they move her belt any further up it'll be a headband."

I could really care, except she keeps coming across as a tyra banks contestant so its hard to ignore.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/30/2009 20:47 Comments || Top||

#8  they can dress her up badly but they can't seem to teach her to walk gracefully.
Posted by: Frank G || 04/30/2009 20:55 Comments || Top||

#9  You're right, I'm startled by the belt-wear. Its all I can do to stop myself from going on diatribe. I'll stop now.
Posted by: GirlThursday || 04/30/2009 20:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Did any of the impoverished food bank patrons get pictures of the First Lady's Footwear on their mobile phones?
Posted by: kcs || 04/30/2009 22:34 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Elizabeth Edwards writes about husband's affair in book, 'Resilience'
Campaign cad John Edwards' cheating ways made his wife, Elizabeth, sick to her stomach - literally. After the former presidential hopeful confessed his betrayal, Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book, "I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up."

Elizabeth, 59, who is terminally ill with cancer, speaks in far more detail than before about her husband's infidelity in her new memoir, "Resilience," due to be published May 12 by Broadway Books. A copy was obtained by the Daily News.

Despite feeling deeply deceived, Elizabeth Edwards nonetheless publicly stood by her husband's side, lending his candidacy the aura of a warm, loving family life. But she had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family.

Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 - almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it. She was afraid of the destructive questions Edwards' affair with videographer Rielle Hunter would raise. Later events proved her right. "He should not have run," she says.

Edwards did not publicly admit the affair until last August - seven months after he quit the race, and the National Enquirer had reported he was the father of Hunter's infant daughter. Edwards denied paternity, and his wife's book doesn't address that issue.

But it does highlight Elizabeth Edwards' anger and sorrow at being duped by a man whose four children she'd borne and whose political ambitions she'd passionately supported for so many years.

Hunter initially seduced Edwards using a worn come-on line, Elizabeth writes: "You are so hot," Hunter told him outside a swank New York hotel.
Subtle. Right up there with "Hey, baby! Wanna screw?"
The campaign ultimately paid Hunter $114,000 to produce a batch of short films on his candidacy.
Posted by: Fred || 04/30/2009 07:53 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "You are so hot,"

Elizabeth could have put Nair in Breck Boy's shampoo. Just thinking out loud.
Posted by: ed || 04/30/2009 9:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Elizabeth Edwards admitted the hanky-panky to her days after declaring his candidacy in 2006 - almost a year before the National Enquirer reported it....Despite feeling deeply deceived, Edwards nonetheless publicly stood by her husband's side, lending his candidacy the aura of a warm, loving family life.

So Saint Elizabeth did her own fair share of deceivin'.
Posted by: Frank G || 04/30/2009 10:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Shes been "terminally ill" for 4 years now... what gives?
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 04/30/2009 14:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, honey, ya won't have to worry about him running for anything any more. Unless it's a good divorce lawyer...
Posted by: tu3031 || 04/30/2009 15:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Yosemite, I've been wondering the same thing. I didn't want to sound callous but I'm past the point where I give her a pass to say or write whatever she wants without being challenged. Sometimes during the campaign I had to wonder if it was just a strategy she used to get away with taking cheap shots at other candidates.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 04/30/2009 16:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Resilience? Gag. Excuse me while I go to the bathroom and throw up. He humiliated her as he hid behind her mastectomy bandages. Yeah right, it is a story of courage and resilience that we all hope our daughters can emulate. More like terminally self-absorbed.
Posted by: Gluting Fillmore6653 || 04/30/2009 20:57 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Chronic Foot in Mouth disease continues to afflict Biden
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden said Thursday he advised his family to stay off airplanes and subways because of the new swine flu, a remark that forced the vice president's office to backtrack and prompted one airline official to complain about "fear-mongering."

"I would tell members of my family — and I have — that I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC's "Today" show.

Biden, who has a reputation for off-the-cuff remarks, went beyond any precautions recommended by the federal government. In discussing his personal advice to his family, he said simply, "That's me."
...and, as everyone knows, I'm an idiot.
Within two hours, Biden's office issued a statement backing off the remarks and suggesting he was talking about travel to Mexico.
Yep. We're booking the trip right now. Yesirree...
"On the Today Show this morning, the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week," said spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander. "The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways."

Biden, who has three grown children and five grandchildren, was asked whether he would advise his own family against flying to Mexico on a commercial flight. "It's not just going to Mexico, if you're in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft," Biden said on NBC. "That's me. I would not be at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway."
To Mexico?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends avoiding nonessential travel to Mexico. But it isn't recommending that people avoid other travel because of the swine flu.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith declined to comment directly on the vice president's remarks, but said, "To suggest that people not fly at this stage of things is a broad brush stroke bordering on fear mongering."
I thought Bush and Cheney were the only one's allowed to fear monger?
"The facts of the situation at this stage anyway certainly don't support that," Smith told The Associated Press.

During his decades as Delaware senator, Biden was a regular on Amtrak, riding the train from Wilmington to Washington.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with this story, but...
Asked on NBC's "Today" show whether the U.S. government should close the border with Mexico, Biden said health authorities advise that would be impractical and noted the new flu is already in the U.S. and several other nations.

Instead, Biden said, the focus should be on slowing the spread of the virus through groups of people in close quarters, such as airplanes, malls, stadiums and classrooms. "Closing the classroom and closing the border are two fundamentally different things," he said.

The CDC recommends basic precautions such as hand-washing, use of alcohol hand gels and monitoring local health advisories when traveling. The government also advises that children with the flu be kept home from school and day care. Biden said he hoped employers would be generous with workers who stayed home to care for a sick child
Posted by: tu3031 || 04/30/2009 10:33 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is a classic Biden quote from another article:

Speaking on NBC's "Today," Biden, a longtime Amtrak rider who has commuted for decades daily from Delaware to Washington, D.C., said he wouldn't advise family against going to Mexico, the source of the H1N1 outbreak, but he wouldn't tell them to get into any small area like a subway car, automobile, classroom or airplane.

Guess everyone is expected to walk to work.
Posted by: Thealing Borgia 122 || 04/30/2009 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  But isn't there a subway between Juarez and El Paso?

Manbirdpig flu indeed ($1 to OS). Be smart, but don't believe the hype; good crises and all that. Me, I'm having panang pork for lunch from Dodge City de federal.

Biden is a Farking Idiot. His only point in life seems to be to say things so non sequiter it makes a person requestion whether something does rhyme with orange. He is the clown car which comes out while the circus rings are set up for the next show; Bojoe the clown and the grand prize game.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/30/2009 11:34 Comments || Top||

#3  "Closing the classroom and closing the border are two fundamentally different things," he said.

That's why I advocate moving 'zero tolerance' principals out of the schools and into DHS.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/30/2009 11:56 Comments || Top||

#4  a half dozen bridges (depending whether you count a twin bridge as one or two) join El Paso and Juarez

several accommodate pedestrians and there are probably 10,000 people a day who cross the bridges (most cross at less twice - once each way)
Posted by: lord garth || 04/30/2009 12:40 Comments || Top||

#5  If I was a sick Mexican I would get to the nearest U.S. emergency room to take advantage of the best health care system in the world and at the incredible cost of free.
Posted by: bman || 04/30/2009 12:51 Comments || Top||

#6  Whaddya mean I've been reassigned?
Posted by: TOTUS || 04/30/2009 19:02 Comments || Top||


Economy
Governor backs 10% salary cuts for legislators
Reporting from Sacramento -- Legislators and other elected state officials appeared to be headed for a pay cut after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday endorsed a reduction and appointed new members, who he said were like-minded, to a panel that sets the salaries.

The California Citizens Compensation Commission, which determines the pay for legislators, the governor and other officers, moved Wednesday to slice 10% from the salaries, noting that they are higher than in many other states and that the Golden State is in poor financial shape. "Given the economy, the budget . . . to vote for a decrease across the board is the only way we should go," said commission Chairman Charles Murray, who owns an insurance business in Los Angeles.

A decrease would apply to officials elected next year. Current officeholders would have their pay frozen through December 2010.

The commission on Wednesday voted 3 to 1 for the pay cut, then learned from its attorney that four "yes" votes would be required. There were three vacancies on the board when it met. But Schwarzenegger quickly named people to fill them who "share my belief that state government needs to cut back just like every California family and business is doing," he said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger appointed Glendale business executive Scott Somers, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. John Stites and AT&T Vice President Denita Willoughby of Los Angeles.

The three new commissioners, who do not require confirmation, did not return calls seeking comment. Meanwhile, Murray said he would schedule another vote by June 1.

The 10% pay cut was proposed by Commissioner Kathy Sands, who noted that most state employees had their pay reduced by 9.2% starting in February, when Schwarzenegger ordered them on twice-monthly unpaid furloughs. "So many people have already had salary decreases. . . . I think we are in a terrible fiscal challenge," Sands said.
Posted by: Fred || 04/30/2009 08:06 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How about a 'salary cap' wherein every dollar above revenue income of the government is subtracted from the projected pay of the legislators. If they run a deficit and print bonds obligations that consume their pay and allowances, tough luck. Well, luck wouldn't have anything to do with it since it would be a self inflicted wound. I'm sure many are already making up the difference with pay-for-play schemes. At least that way we know who really does own the legislature.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/30/2009 11:50 Comments || Top||

#2  I think the U.S. congress should follow suit and take a 20% pay cut & never show up to work again.
Posted by: Andy Ulusoque aka Broadhead6 || 04/30/2009 12:53 Comments || Top||

#3  How a bout a part-time Legislature? 3 months a year ought to be plenty of time to take care of legitimate State business, without all the claptrap and folderol.

One month on, three months off. Go get a real job.
Posted by: mojo || 04/30/2009 15:09 Comments || Top||

#4  I think he should pay 'em with IOU's. If it's good enough for the citizens' tax refunds, it's good enough for them.
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie || 04/30/2009 15:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Makes a living off people's taxes.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/30/2009 15:24 Comments || Top||

#6  If Deval pulled this in Massachusetts, all they'd do to make up for it is steal everything that wasn't nailed down.
Posted by: tu3031 || 04/30/2009 15:25 Comments || Top||

#7  I'd recall the whole lot of them, seriously, especially if they can't pass a balanced budget. Just plain can their asses. They are worse than worthless.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 04/30/2009 16:47 Comments || Top||

#8  "How about a part-time Legislature?"

Mojo, Virginia has one - and it works just fine. 60 days in even-numbered years, 30 days in odd-numbered years.

I can heartily recommend it.

There's only so much mischief you can do in that time.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 04/30/2009 18:44 Comments || Top||

#9  Hey, or like here in Tejas, our legislature meets for 188 days every 2 yrs. And that is still too often!
Posted by: texhooey || 04/30/2009 21:01 Comments || Top||

#10  Forget legislators, Arnie.

Is there any reason that government workers are seemingly exempt from layoffs?

How about a permanently smaller civil service, Gov. Terminator?
Posted by: kcs || 04/30/2009 22:30 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Democrats' message to GOP in budget plan: We don't need you
There's a powerful weapon buried in the $3.6 trillion 2010 budget agreement that Congress passed Wednesday without any Republican support.

It's a fast-track rule called reconciliation, and it means that the president can move two of his top priorities -- healthcare and education reform -- with only a simple majority of votes in the Senate, instead of the 60-vote threshold that has derailed countless reforms in the past.

President Obama, marking his 100th day in office Wednesday, won't need to sign the agreement. It's not legally binding. But it does lay a path for moving an ambitious agenda, including a plan to jump-start a conversion to cleaner energy. With budget reconciliation, it also gives the majority an edge in moving those priorities through the Senate.

Democrats had considered including the president's third priority, clean energy reform, on a possible fast-track as well. But opposition from senators in coal-producing states proved too powerful an obstacle. On March 12, eight Democrats and 25 Republicans sent a letter to the Senate Budget Committee urging that reconciliation not be used to enact a cap-and-trade regime for controlling global warming. They warned that it was likely to impact "nearly every feature of the US economy."

"Legislation so far-reaching should be fully vetted and given appropriate time for debate, something the budget reconciliation process does not allow," they wrote.

In a booming voice during Wednesday evening's vote, Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia registered his opposition to the resolution over the possible use of reconciliation to pass health care and education reforms. It violates the intent and spirit of the budget process, he says.

Sens. Ben Nelson (D) of Nebraska, Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana, and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who yesterday pulled out of the Republican Party, also voted against the budget resolution. The resolution passed the House earlier Wednesday on a 233-to-193 vote, also with no GOP votes in support.

Now comes the hard part -- moving those priorities into law.

Democrats say they doubt that the Senate will have to rely on reconciliation to pass healthcare reform.

"Most of the participants in healthcare negotiations have come to the conclusion that that is not the way to reform," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, after the vote.

Senator Conrad, on record opposing the use of reconciliation, nonetheless endorsed the package as a conferee. Challenged on the floor by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee to explain that inconsistency, he said: "If I hadn't agreed, I wouldn't have been a conferee. There are higher powers around here."

Posted by: Fred || 04/30/2009 08:10 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's all crap.
Posted by: newc || 04/30/2009 12:00 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't care who is who, this is bullshit.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/30/2009 14:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't worry dhims, you can own this one. Please take full credit and responsibility for it when the US is broke and taxes are going up in '10 to pay for all the shit in this bill.

Really, please take full credit.
Posted by: DarthVader || 04/30/2009 19:29 Comments || Top||

#4  They've given Republicans a way out, by blocking repub's they take all the cedit, AND ALL THE BLAME. this will be good for repubs in the long rin, think the first time a repub pres and a repub Govt tells the dems STFU,(Beautiful mental image and they did it to themselvs, it also shiws the Dems plan to NEVER lose power. a pure pipe dream.
gawd I'm waiting for 2010-2012.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 04/30/2009 19:34 Comments || Top||

#5  by blocking repub's they take all the cedit, AND ALL THE BLAME

Oh, come on. By 2010 and 2012 the MSM will convince the yahoos [as in Gulliver's Travels] that the Trunks have run Congress for the last 10 or 12 years. The Donks have run it since 2006, but ask the average zombie citizen on the street who has been in charge. Why expect it to change? I haven't caught any advertising by the various Trunk committees [you know like the Trunk Senate outfit that keep sending requests for donations for the like of the Alan Spector re-election campaign] that point out that single basic fact to the American electorate. The inbred beltway Trunk crowd just 'assumes' people know these facts when a little check up would reveal something different.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/30/2009 22:21 Comments || Top||


Cap-And-Trade: Al Gore's Cash Cow
Global Warming: At the cap-and-trade hearings, it was revealed that not everyone will suffer from this growth-killing energy tax. A congresswoman wanted to know why sea levels aren't rising but Gore's bank account is.

When Gore left office in January 2001, he was said to have a net worth in the neighborhood of $2 million. A mere eight years later, estimates are that he is now worth about $100 million. It seems it's easy being green, at least for some.

Gore has his lectures and speeches, his books, a hit movie and Oscar, and a Nobel Prize. But Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., was curious about how a man dedicated to saving the planet could get so wealthy so quickly. She sought out investment advice we all could use in a shaky economy.

Last May, we noted that Big Al had joined the venture capital group Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers the previous September. On May 1, 2008, the firm announced a $500 million investment in maturing green technology firms called the Green Growth Fund.

Last Friday, Gore was the star witness at the hearings on cap-and- trade legislation before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Blackburn asked Gore about Kleiner-Perkins, noting that at last count they "have invested about a billion dollars invested in 40 companies that are going to benefit from cap-and-trade legislation that we are discussing here today."

Blackburn then asked the $100 million question: "Is that something that you are going to personally benefit from?" Gore gave the stock answer that "the transition to a green economy is good for our economy and good for all of us, and I have invested in it but every penny that I have made I have put right into a nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection, to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge."

Last May, we also noted that on March 1, Gore, while speaking at a conference in Monterey, Calif., admitted to having "a stake" in a number of green investments that he recommended attendees put money in rather than "subprime carbon assets" such as tar sands and shale oil.

He also is co-founder of Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets that allow rich polluters to continue with a clear conscience. It's a scheme that will make traders of this new commodity rich and Bernie Madoff look like a pickpocket. The other founder is former Goldman Sachs partner David Blood.

As Stephen Milloy, author of "Green Hell," points out, Goldman Sachs is lobbying for climate change legislation and is part owner of the Chicago Climate Exchange, where carbon credits from cap and trade would be traded.

Others hope to cash in along with Gore. On Earth Day 2007, the various NBC networks gave 75 hours of free air time to Gore to hype climate change. NBC is owned by General Electric, perhaps the largest maker of wind turbines and other green technology in the world. It, too, stands to benefit financially from cap and trade, as Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly has noted, connecting dots others won't.

Posted by: Fred || 04/30/2009 07:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks for... following the money, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs, etc.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/30/2009 8:42 Comments || Top||

#2  All you really need to know about the "carbon credit marketplace" is that one of its biggest supporters was "Enron Kenny" Lay. Maybe all the faux outrage and two-minute hate directed at him was orchestrated by Soros, in order to move the ill-gotten gains into his own income stream.
Posted by: Seafarious || 04/30/2009 10:48 Comments || Top||


Madame Potted Plant
Nancy Pelosi is truly in a defensive crouch these days on the interrogation memos. She pleads her case in a CNN interview, insisting that she was told waterboarding wasn't being used (which is dubious and illogical, as she was told of the legal opinion obtained to support that practice). She then suggests she was powerless to do more:

"You're really a hostage if you're notified that something has happened. They're not asking for your thoughts. They are notifying you that this is their opinion. They later may have notified, I don't know, because I wasn't part of any of those briefings, of what they were doing, but they notify you that they have an opinion.

If you want to take it to another place, who do you call, the chief justice of the Supreme Court? The president of the United States whose policies these are? You have no recourse or else you are breaking the law."

Crowley then asked why she didn't raise objections to the briefers, which riled up the Speaker.

PELOSI: To what end? To what end? No, we're not -- they didn't say they were doing it. But you know what, I'm not getting into that. The fact is, is that I know what they told us and I know that they did not share our values.

Huh? They didn't share her values because they were waterboarding? But didn't she say that. . . Listen, a third rate prosecutor would have no problem taking apart that testimony.

But it is the feigned passivity that is breathtaking. No power of the purse, has she? No follow-up with the CIA or with members of the administration was possible? It's rather cringe-inducing to hear the Speaker of the House admit she couldn't figure out any procedural or rhetorical response to something she found so objectionable. Really, it's hard to imagine a seasoned pol so lacking in guile and imagination. But, of course, she in all likelihood didn't find anything horribly objectionable. There wasn't any outrage at the time. She is now forced to pretend there was, to avoid the ire of her base and the accusations of rank hypocrisy. But to pull that off she must plead guilty to her own extreme incompetence.

It's quite a display, one which the public will no doubt find enlightening if we get around to the Truth Commission. And with the aid of contemporaneous notes and additional witnesses it will make for quite a show.
Posted by: Fred || 04/30/2009 07:55 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm throwing the bullshit flag. Pelosi was replaced on the House Intel committee by Jane Harman in January 2003. In Feb 2003 Harman "filed a classified letter to the CIA in February of that year as an official protest about the interrogation program. Harman said she had been prevented from publicly discussing the letter or the CIA's program because of strict rules of secrecy." -Washington Post
I personally disagree with Harman's position, but she managed to get herself on record, using proper channels no less.
Pelosi is a 'hostage' of her own approval ratings, nothing more.
Posted by: Free Radical || 04/30/2009 9:16 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
70[untagged]
3TTP
3Govt of Pakistan
2al-Qaeda in North Africa
2al-Qaeda in Pakistan
2al-Qaeda
2Govt of Syria
2Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
1al-Qaeda in Britain
1Mahdi Army
1Tablighi Jamaat
1Taliban
1Hezbollah

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2009-04-30
  U.S. missile strikes kill 10 in South Waziristan
Wed 2009-04-29
  70 militants killed in Pak operation
Tue 2009-04-28
  TNSM suspends talks with govt
Mon 2009-04-27
  Suspect in Bat Ayin attack in custody
Sun 2009-04-26
  North Korea reactivates its nuclear program
Sat 2009-04-25
  US may use daisy-cutters 'if Pakistan shows reluctance'
Fri 2009-04-24
  73 killed in twin suicide blasts in Baghdad
Thu 2009-04-23
  Abu Omar al-Baghdadi nabbed
Wed 2009-04-22
  Turkish police detain 37 in anti-Qaeda raids
Tue 2009-04-21
  Lanka gives Tigers 24 hours to hang it up
Mon 2009-04-20
  Iraq arrests children recruited by Al-Qaeda
Sun 2009-04-19
  Parliament approves Islamic law in Somalia
Sat 2009-04-18
  Pakaboom kills 27
Fri 2009-04-17
  Mufti Hannan, 13 other Huji men indicted
Thu 2009-04-16
  Lal Masjid holy man makes bail


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.
18.224.44.108
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (35)    WoT Background (23)    Non-WoT (22)    Opinion (4)    (0)